Complexity and ChangeNazgul MingishevaClass of the Introduction to Social and Cultural AnthropologyKaraganda State University, History facultyApril 18, 2014

• Urban Anthropology and Change• Complexity and Encounters•Medical Anthropology• Orientalism, Decentralization and

Modernization• Globalization and Construction of Kazakh

Hybridity (Mimicry)

Urban Anthropology and Change

Causes of urbanization and changing:•Labour migration to cities;•Industrialization;•Changes in value orientation

Anthropological focus on change:•Godfrey Wilson (1941-1942) – de-tribalization in Africa•J. Clyde Mitchell (1956) – “The Kalela Dance” (change and continuity, ethnic symbolism, and group identity)•Abner Cohen (1969) and David Lan (1985) – moving from traditional to modern context of change; change of research methodology

Complexity and Encounters: Differentiation and Growing of Modern Societies

Postcoloniality and translocality of Siaya (Western Kenya)

Research of D.W. Cohen and E.S. Atieno Odhiambo, 1989:•Labour migration called social and cultural changes locally;•Creation of the middle class and new form of social differentiation by the national educational system, the growing of society and the new working opportunities;•Development of political organizations;•Social integration and nation-state;•Border migration, political changes, illegal border trade with Uganda and growing prosperity in Kenya

Conceptualizing encounters

Economic and cultural postcolonialism/neocolonialism and processes of globalization:•Frantz Fanon (1956)•Edward Said (1978)•Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1988)•Homi K. Bhabha (1990)

Encounters between systems of knowledge and cultural practices

Social encounters between knowledge systemsOlivia Harris on cultural complexity in Latin America, the Andean area, 1995:•Model of mixing (creolization, syncretism, hybridity, mestizaje);•Model of colonization (enforced introduction of Christianity and Spanish language);•Model of borrowing;•Model of juxtaposition (parallel knowledge systems of Indians and Europeans);•Model of “imitation, assimilation or direct identification”•Model of “innovation and creativity” (it is completely new, does not tie with origins)

Medical AnthropologyMedical Anthropology, or Anthropology of body, is a growing sub-discipline dealing with cultural knowledge and practices about the body, health and illness

•Creation of “cultural body”•“Western medicine” and “indigenous medical systems”

Research of Robert Welsh (1983) – Ningerum of the New Guinea highlands: interrelationship of traditional and Western medicine

•Medical Anthropology and development represent cultural dynamics in poliethnic societies

Orientalism, Decentralization and Modernization

Edward Said, his book “Orientalism” (1978) and an image of “the Other” as mystical and irrational:

•Orientalism is the classic European vision of the East in literature and history•Western scholars have produces stereotypes of “the Oriental” in their production of myth about themselves, about the “Western World” as the cradle of progress, rationality and science

Decolonization and modernization• Eric Wolf (1982)• Marshall Sahlins (1985)• Tzvetan Todorov (1989)• Jean-Claude Galey (1992)• Ronald Inden (1990)• Veena Das (1994)

• “modernity” and “tradition”• the paradoxical result of modernization is the emergence of

traditionalist movements and reinterpretation of the ancestral culture (New Age movements in the West and Tengri in Eurasia); creation of new mythology

Globalization and Construction of Kazakh Hybridity (Mimicry)Nazgul Mingisheva. Globalization and Youth Culture in Kazakhstan: Postcolonial and Gender Aspects, 2013 (available at: http://icglobalidea.com). Global and local through media, television and popular culture in Kazakhstan:•Internet, television, and popular culture influence on gender identity of the surveyed young people •Regional (Russian) content has leading positions in the Internet, media and television among students’ preferences •Globalization is prevailed in popular culture although Russian content is significant too in music preferences of the students•Regional and local diversity in television and popular culture is not very high; there is some Asian content (Turkish and Indian) in television and popular culture•The local (Kazakhstan) content presents in all three parts of the research but it is minimal presently

Construction of Kazakh Hybridity and Mimicry in Music

Galymzhan Moldanazar (Aka Hipsterzhan)

Who Is Hipster?

Hipster is a term popularly used to denote a contemporary subculture in North America, South America, Australia, and Europe primarily consisting of Millennials (Generation Y, 1980-2000s) living in urban areas (Grief, 2010).

The subculture has been described as a “mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, testes and behaviors” (Haddow, 2008) and is broadly associated with indie and alternative music, a varied non-mainstream fashion sensibility (including vintage and thrift store-bought clothes), progressive, independent, or far-left political views, organic or artisanal foods, and alternative lifestyles (Wallace, 2012) (Wikipedia)

Images of Hipster

Female hipster

Male hipster

Aka Hipsterzhan and Kazakh “Michael Jackson” Ethnic music in modern Kazakhstan: Ulytau, Assylbek Yensepov, Saz Otau

Interview for Hush.kz: “Galymzhan Moldanazar: ‘Aqpen birge’ is the song about condition after drug overdose” at http://hush.kz/blog/post/hipsterzhan_moldanazar•Discourses of Synthpop, Funk, Britpop, cinema, language, city, creativity, popularity, development, drug, religion

Galymzhan is also a producer of Aibek Bainazarov who is Kazakh “Michael Jackson” (mimicry)

Conclusion:

• Cultural change has been becoming one of the most important point to study modern development and can do possible to re-interpret human history

• Cultural and Social Anthropology is also changed and developed alongside its various studies to find new research objects and try to give answers to present challenges