Cultural choices in the aftermath of the Tsunami

I listened to a broadcast on Ö1 today, it was about the Nicobar Islands. The presenter (Andreas Obrecht) spoke to Simron Jit Singh and Oliver Lehman who published a book called: Die Nikobaren. Das kulturelle Erbe nach dem Tsunami. [The Nicobar Islands. Cultural choices in the aftermath of the Tsunami.] Singh is research fellow at the IFF Social Ecology, Lehman chief editor of "Universum Magazin".
The book is published in both english and german and aimed at helping the survivors of the catastrophe to revive their traditions and customs. 50 of these books were sent to the Nicobar Islanders to "give these people a manual for their own, lost culture".

"The publishing house Czernin will donate all profits from the book’s
sale to the Sustainable Indigenous Futures (SIF) Fund, which supports
medium and long-term development projects for indigenous peoples from
Tsunami-affected areas on the Nicobar and Andaman Islands." 

Magic orange peel

I was waiting on the airport, having a coffee and chatting to some tunisians when we started talking about the cold weather and heating systems here (in Tunisia) and there (Europe). Quite commonly used here for heating a room are kanun (what I’d describe as coal in a clay pot). The danger connected to them is CO2 development. So what I was told by my newly met tunisian friends was, that one puts orange peel on top of the kanun, which stops CO2 development. I later checked if I had understood correctly, but even Nasr insisted: out of experience this is what works best against the dangers of CO2. I’d really like to know how that works.

Where’s home?

I’m back in Tunisia with my husband. It’s a weird feeling to go shopping to study, to cook, to just have my daily life here again. For some reason I feel more at home here now than back in Vienna. Well, my husband is here, true. But all my friends are in Vienna – sure I know quite a lot of Nasr’s friends, but there’s still some language barriere between us and chatting with them remains in quite general topics due to lack of fluency. However, studying works much better here – there’s less distraction through meeting or calling someone quickly, but getting online requires more effort than at home: I have to go to the internet café (“PUBLINET”).

Joerges, Winner, STS

I spent the last few days studying for an exam I had yesterday. And although I'm a bit exhausted today, I'm already preparing for my nextone on Wednesday (which will be my last exam ever - if I don't decide to do a doctorate!)

Here are just a few links I came accross while studying (or maybe rather procrastinating) for the exam yesterday which was in STS (Einführung in die Wissenschaftsforschung - Wissenschaft, Technik, Gesellschaft):

Langdon Winner: Do Artifacts have Politics?

Bernward Joerges: Do Politics have Artifacts?

Bernward Joerges: Die Brücken des Robert Moses
This one is very similar to the english one above, but very inspiring to read as it's written beautifully. By the way - the article that I enjoyed reading most, was one by Bruno Latour:

Latour, Bruno. 1995. Ein Türschließer streikt. In Latour, Bruno: Der Berliner Schlüssel - Erkundungen eines Liebhabers der Wissenschaft. Berlin: Akadmie Verlag, 63-83.

Bernward Joerges has got lots of his publications available online
too and I also found interesting course material for "Kultur und Technik"
by Richard Rottenburg at the University of Halle.

Technorati : STS