J Kurzwelly
Biographic Data
| ID | 38039 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Kurzwelly |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Kurzwelly |
| SIGNATURE | KURZWELLY J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the Free State |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0993-573X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 36 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Reified identities and politics of ‘authenticity’
Anthropology and the social sciences have largely neglected the illusive and narrative nature of social identities, frequently relying on realist metaphysical assumptions. Such assumptions, often implicit, underpin reification and essentialist political uses of identities. This paper challenges these prevailing approaches by critically examining the foundations of Verbuyst's defence of ‘subversive authenticity’ as a strategy for indigenous empowe…
Bones and injustices
The last decade has witnessed increasing numbers of “provenance research” projects investigating the histories of human remains in academic collections and leading to their restitution. Such projects explicitly and implicitly address the historical injustices and their continuities of amassing people’s mortal remains and their subsequent use by those who have appropriated them. This article considers which historical wrongdoings provenance resear…
Identity politics and social justice
Identity politics has become a widely used term, commonly to describe the activities of socio-political movements the purpose of which is to achieve social justice. Such widespread use has often been at the expense of a more thorough analysis of its efficacy as a conceptual tool, and of whether the political actions to which it refers are adequate for that purpose. This article, an introduction to a collection of essays focused on that question, …
Calcified identities
Essentialist assumptions about human beings persist in scientific practice, despite their erroneous logic. This article examines essentialism related to research on, and handling of, academic collections of human remains. Historically human remains, and skulls in particular, have served to produce various forms of scientific racialization and racism, confining people to fixed notions of identities and legitimizing violent systems of exploitation …
Wert und Verwendung menschlicher Überreste
Human remains are endowed with a diversity of meanings and values in various contexts. Their metaphysical status can change, from that of a subject to an ‚object‘ and vice versa. They can be seen as valuable scientific specimen, as objects of exchange or as ‚negative capital‘ and the embodiment of the horrors of a violent colonial past. Such value ascriptions are often in conflict epistemically and ideologically, relating to contrasting socio-pol…
Custody and custodianship
The vast number of human remains in scientific research, museum and teaching collections bring the multifaceted terms 'custody' and 'custodianship' into view. The question of 'custodianship' and 'curation' is part and parcel of the language of collection, yet human remains push the question of ownership to a more elementary level. The authors look at the meanings of custodianship as used (and not yet used) within the framework of an interdiscipli…
Encountering, explaining and refuting essentialism
Essentialism manifests itself in a diversity of forms and is used in multiple ways. Yet it is always potentially dangerous - even when it is mobilised strategically and in apparently worthy forms for purposes of overcoming oppressive structures. As the first in a collection of articles focused on various manifestations of essentialism, this article offers a brief historical outline of how social anthropology deployed essentialist thinking, even a…
The allure of essentialism and extremist ideologies
This paper examines different reasons that make essentialist thinking, and by extension extremist ideologies based on such logic, attractive to individuals. Drawing from theories of personal and social identities, we examine the benefits derived from adopting an essentialist and reductionist ideology: an increased sense of clarity and agency, ease of moral judgements and a simple interpretative framework and prescriptions for social life. We also…
Being German, Paraguayan and Germanino
Despite people’s claims, their national, ethnic and other identities are not ubiquitously relevant, they are rather situationally evoked and performed. Such is the case with the German, Paraguayan and Germanino identity in the municipality of Nueva Germania, in Paraguay. Recognising such contextual epistemic permissibility allows us to form a de-essentialised understanding of groups and individuals. One of the challenges that emerge from this app…
Photographic Complementarity, and the Story of Abel Pavon
This article argues for photographic complementarity in anthropological research as a means to avoid singular representations—in other words, to incorporate images into diverse and juxtaposing interpretative, explanatory, methodological and representational practices. Through the story of Abel Pavon, a Paraguayan campesino who suffered a horrible accident which changed his life, this article shows how photographs contribute to different intertext…
Photographs as Sources in African History
Much has changed since photographs were used simply as apt illustrations and depictions of reality. The field of visual history has now become an important and legitimate area of rigorous enquiry. Photography and photographs as source material for research is now a widespread practice in history, anthropology, sociology and other social sciences and humanities. Both the historical trajectory of this medium in Africa, as well as some important the…
Photography as a participatory method in visual anthropology
En este artículo mi objetivo es discutir la teoría y los posibles usos de la fotografía participativa en antropología social y cultural. Previamente, pongo a consideración y describo la subjetividad de la vista y presento el concepto de múltiples realidades/perspectivas. En la primera parte, expongo algunas afirmaciones sobre la fotografía y sus conexiones con la realidad y el valor informativo. A continuación, propongo una posibilidad de combina…
Encountering, explaining and refuting essentialism
Essentialism manifests itself in a diversity of forms and is used in multiple ways. Yet it is always potentially dangerous - even when it is mobilised strategically and in apparently worthy forms for purposes of overcoming oppressive structures. As the first in a collection of articles focused on various manifestations of essentialism, this article offers a brief historical outline of how social anthropology deployed essentialist thinking, even a…
Calcified identities
Essentialist assumptions about human beings persist in scientific practice, despite their erroneous logic. This article examines essentialism related to research on, and handling of, academic collections of human remains. Historically human remains, and skulls in particular, have served to produce various forms of scientific racialization and racism, confining people to fixed notions of identities and legitimizing violent systems of exploitation …
The allure of essentialism and extremist ideologies
This paper examines different reasons that make essentialist thinking, and by extension extremist ideologies based on such logic, attractive to individuals. Drawing from theories of personal and social identities, we examine the benefits derived from adopting an essentialist and reductionist ideology: an increased sense of clarity and agency, ease of moral judgements and a simple interpretative framework and prescriptions for social life. We also…
Photographs as Sources in African History
Much has changed since photographs were used simply as apt illustrations and depictions of reality. The field of visual history has now become an important and legitimate area of rigorous enquiry. Photography and photographs as source material for research is now a widespread practice in history, anthropology, sociology and other social sciences and humanities. Both the historical trajectory of this medium in Africa, as well as some important the…
Custody and custodianship
The vast number of human remains in scientific research, museum and teaching collections bring the multifaceted terms 'custody' and 'custodianship' into view. The question of 'custodianship' and 'curation' is part and parcel of the language of collection, yet human remains push the question of ownership to a more elementary level. The authors look at the meanings of custodianship as used (and not yet used) within the framework of an interdiscipli…
Reified identities and politics of ‘authenticity’
Anthropology and the social sciences have largely neglected the illusive and narrative nature of social identities, frequently relying on realist metaphysical assumptions. Such assumptions, often implicit, underpin reification and essentialist political uses of identities. This paper challenges these prevailing approaches by critically examining the foundations of Verbuyst's defence of ‘subversive authenticity’ as a strategy for indigenous empowe…
Photography as a participatory method in visual anthropology
En este artículo mi objetivo es discutir la teoría y los posibles usos de la fotografía participativa en antropología social y cultural. Previamente, pongo a consideración y describo la subjetividad de la vista y presento el concepto de múltiples realidades/perspectivas. En la primera parte, expongo algunas afirmaciones sobre la fotografía y sus conexiones con la realidad y el valor informativo. A continuación, propongo una posibilidad de combina…
Photography as a participatory method in visual anthropology
En este artículo mi objetivo es discutir la teoría y los posibles usos de la fotografía participativa en antropología social y cultural. Previamente, pongo a consideración y describo la subjetividad de la vista y presento el concepto de múltiples realidades/perspectivas. En la primera parte, expongo algunas afirmaciones sobre la fotografía y sus conexiones con la realidad y el valor informativo. A continuación, propongo una posibilidad de combina…
Photographs as Sources in African History
Much has changed since photographs were used simply as apt illustrations and depictions of reality. The field of visual history has now become an important and legitimate area of rigorous enquiry. Photography and photographs as source material for research is now a widespread practice in history, anthropology, sociology and other social sciences and humanities. Both the historical trajectory of this medium in Africa, as well as some important the…
Being German, Paraguayan and Germanino
Despite people’s claims, their national, ethnic and other identities are not ubiquitously relevant, they are rather situationally evoked and performed. Such is the case with the German, Paraguayan and Germanino identity in the municipality of Nueva Germania, in Paraguay. Recognising such contextual epistemic permissibility allows us to form a de-essentialised understanding of groups and individuals. One of the challenges that emerge from this app…
Photographic Complementarity, and the Story of Abel Pavon
This article argues for photographic complementarity in anthropological research as a means to avoid singular representations—in other words, to incorporate images into diverse and juxtaposing interpretative, explanatory, methodological and representational practices. Through the story of Abel Pavon, a Paraguayan campesino who suffered a horrible accident which changed his life, this article shows how photographs contribute to different intertext…
Encountering, explaining and refuting essentialism
Essentialism manifests itself in a diversity of forms and is used in multiple ways. Yet it is always potentially dangerous - even when it is mobilised strategically and in apparently worthy forms for purposes of overcoming oppressive structures. As the first in a collection of articles focused on various manifestations of essentialism, this article offers a brief historical outline of how social anthropology deployed essentialist thinking, even a…
The allure of essentialism and extremist ideologies
This paper examines different reasons that make essentialist thinking, and by extension extremist ideologies based on such logic, attractive to individuals. Drawing from theories of personal and social identities, we examine the benefits derived from adopting an essentialist and reductionist ideology: an increased sense of clarity and agency, ease of moral judgements and a simple interpretative framework and prescriptions for social life. We also…
Custody and custodianship
The vast number of human remains in scientific research, museum and teaching collections bring the multifaceted terms 'custody' and 'custodianship' into view. The question of 'custodianship' and 'curation' is part and parcel of the language of collection, yet human remains push the question of ownership to a more elementary level. The authors look at the meanings of custodianship as used (and not yet used) within the framework of an interdiscipli…
Wert und Verwendung menschlicher Überreste
Human remains are endowed with a diversity of meanings and values in various contexts. Their metaphysical status can change, from that of a subject to an ‚object‘ and vice versa. They can be seen as valuable scientific specimen, as objects of exchange or as ‚negative capital‘ and the embodiment of the horrors of a violent colonial past. Such value ascriptions are often in conflict epistemically and ideologically, relating to contrasting socio-pol…
Bones and injustices
The last decade has witnessed increasing numbers of “provenance research” projects investigating the histories of human remains in academic collections and leading to their restitution. Such projects explicitly and implicitly address the historical injustices and their continuities of amassing people’s mortal remains and their subsequent use by those who have appropriated them. This article considers which historical wrongdoings provenance resear…
Identity politics and social justice
Identity politics has become a widely used term, commonly to describe the activities of socio-political movements the purpose of which is to achieve social justice. Such widespread use has often been at the expense of a more thorough analysis of its efficacy as a conceptual tool, and of whether the political actions to which it refers are adequate for that purpose. This article, an introduction to a collection of essays focused on that question, …
Calcified identities
Essentialist assumptions about human beings persist in scientific practice, despite their erroneous logic. This article examines essentialism related to research on, and handling of, academic collections of human remains. Historically human remains, and skulls in particular, have served to produce various forms of scientific racialization and racism, confining people to fixed notions of identities and legitimizing violent systems of exploitation …
Reified identities and politics of ‘authenticity’
Anthropology and the social sciences have largely neglected the illusive and narrative nature of social identities, frequently relying on realist metaphysical assumptions. Such assumptions, often implicit, underpin reification and essentialist political uses of identities. This paper challenges these prevailing approaches by critically examining the foundations of Verbuyst's defence of ‘subversive authenticity’ as a strategy for indigenous empowe…
Sociology (11 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Essentialism (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works)