Social Anthropology

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This article ethnographically explores the politics of chastity and experiences with contraceptive methods of sexually active unmarried young women living in Istanbul, Turkey. Introducing the notions of ‘home’ and ‘away from home’, the article suggests that the politics of chastity, which locates reproduction within marriage, renders the visibility of pregnancy into an exclusive right of the married woman. Gripped by the politics of chastity, women's access to effective contraceptive methods and feminist initiatives to advocate and implement reproductive rights are troubled by the powerful meanings attached to marriage and constrained by a commitment to protect marriageability.

The study of security within a prison environment implies the observation of a complex phenomenon: on the one hand, inmates are defined as agents of insecurity, insofar as they are the authors of criminal acts, which to the outside world represent everything that is perceived as a threat – in terms of the law, order and general well‐being. On the other hand, the prison is often characterised as a space riddled with fear, uncertainty and insecurity, manifest in the everyday life of prisons. In this article, based on a two‐year fieldwork in three Portuguese male prisons, I explore the meaning attributed to security from inmates’ perspectives and discourses. This analysis, which includes inmates with different ages, origins, types of crime and sentence length, as well as specificities inherent to the chosen field sites, allows us to expand and deepen our understanding of the significance of security within a population that is often excluded from this discussion, albeit invariably related with it.

This article provides critical engagement with cultural heritage‐making processes conducted by stakeholders and interest groups within the UNESCO's intangible heritage paradigm. By tracking the road of Peru's cuisine to the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage (the ICH List) and focusing on the turning points during food's shift from culinary to heritage status, the aim is to shed light on the political and economic forces that shape the meanings of food heritage. This article draws on recent research conducted at the intersection of globalisation with cultural and food politics in Peru. The empirical evidence, collected between 2011 and 2014 from individuals directly implicated in Peru's food heritage‐making, allows for a discussion of how, despite a discursive emphasis on cultural continuity and intercultural dialogue, food incursions into the UNESCO intangible cultural paradigm operate more as an elite‐driven competitive global concept than as a tool for cultural safeguarding and inclusive development. To do so, a description of the backgrounds that led to the rise of food heritage awareness in Peru and an account of the evolution of the candidature of Peruvian cuisine to the UNESCO's ICH List are provided.

The paper is based on anthropological research on socio‐political opposition in West African municipalities. We analyse how land schemes for urban development are at the centre of social contest and political mobilisation in municipalities, by developing examples from peri‐urban areas of Bamako, Mali and Niamey, Niger. We point to several contradictions that lie at the heart of zoning, one of the most dominant forms of urban land management and urban development in many cities in West Africa. They concern, first, who actually benefits from zoning projects and the promises of development and modernisation; second, the dual role of zoning projects as sources of both public resources and private enrichment; third, the gradual replacement of village populations and the rekindling of a politics of belonging; and, finally, the emergence of new political moralities in the face of corruption and mismanagement. We conclude that urban land contests are simultaneously sources and resources of authority and protest. While the skilful and creative combination of these sources and resources is an asset in municipal politics, political mobilisation is also fuelled by protest movements of those marginalised in urban land management schemes, carving out new spaces for socio‐political opposition in West African municipalities.

Looking at the commemoration of slavery in the Netherlands, this article makes a twofold argument. First, my aim is to complicate the notions of historical silence, ‘erasure’ and ‘secrecy’ that have informed many post‐ and decolonial projects. I show that the violence and brutality of slavery are in some cases even showcased. The result is an often self‐congratulatory image of a humanism that is often seen as ‘typically’ Dutch. At the same time, the national slavery memorial has shown that engaging in a politics of compassion can offer ground to refashion post‐colonial futures. Here, humanism is neither accepted at face value nor discarded as damaged goods, but salvaged and held to its promise. Second, I analyse the politics of multiculturalism, and the related search for cultural essences in which ‘culture’ and ‘nation’ have turned into objects of love and anxiety. While analyses have rightly understood emotions such as compassion as neoliberal models of governance, I argue that such structures of feeling also have colonial roots. The highly affective politics of belonging and exclusion today can be more fully understood if their colonial roots are included in the analysis.