Anthropology contributing to the World...

Here is a link to my latest post and part report on my sister blog from the RAI conference Anthropology in the World Conference in London: http://researchingsecurity.wordpress.com/our-publications/conference-papers/what-can-anthropologists-offer-to-security-studies/ 

I attended a great panel on anthropology's potential in the environment of security studies, this timed perfectly with the paper I've been writing (see previous June post) about the long term effect on conflict in Chiapas and reproductive health services. It also reaffirmed by belief in what ethnographic methods and anthropological theory can contribute to revealing the lived experience of people. Especially when all we get from projected media images are scenes of violence and fear to keep us away. It is often so easy to forget that individuals and families continue to live daily in these environments and continue to have the same food, shelter,water, employment, relationship issues that exist in places of relative peace. Collecting, representing and reflecting upon the stories of others reminds us to look beyond the situation to the people involved in it.