Community

A Man for Peace: Reverend Dr Wati Aier

"I think we were too fast with it all. Perhaps it was World War II that shaped the Naga soul. People come of age or in the process of coming of age, I think, in many ways we have been too idealistic. Instead of trying to work towards national construction, we were caught up in idealistic nationalism and I think traces of that idealistic mission still linger on today especially among the older generations... but the younger minds are beginning to be very critical and analytical at the same time, so I wish that the Naga movement began today.

Place-based pedagogies, University of Mandalay (4)

In order to link the classroom with the real world for the course of Urban Anthropology, our department decided to interact with the community elders to find out about the Taunghtaman Village Tract. 

Our group met the village head and community elders of Taunghtaman Village in the village administrator’s office. The elders shared that nowadays most school children who grow up in Taungthaman do not know much about their home village and don't cherish it; and because of this, they are forgetting their cultural heritage.

Indigo: The Center of ‘Locality’

Similar in many other places in the world, natural dyeing in Taiwan disappeared when the synthetic dye was widely distributed. Taiwan underwent fast modernization during the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945) that was also when Taiwanese indigo dye production and dyeing went down the lane. As a massive amount of Japanese machine-printed textiles entered the Taiwanese market, local dyeing workshops quickly shut down or turned into dealer shops of ready-made textiles. Since then, Taiwan indigo industry, once prevailing, now only existed in the memory of the elders.

 

Indigo as Pedagogy

Starting 2012, the TNUA Centre for Traditional Arts (CTA) initiated a series of field courses, including indigenous boat making, bark cloth making, banana fiber crafts, ritual parades etc.; the course of ‘Natural Dyeing’ was one of them. These courses aimed to bring students out of the classroom to learn from the soil and different people who give life to traditional arts, and to learn how traditional arts are related to the society and their generation. The 2013 course of ‘Natural Dyeing’, conducted with many partners, was divided into three main stages.

The Keys of Heaven

The keys are a symbol of Leiden and are found everywhere. As a first time visitor I found them odd. As we talked to different people we were told that these are the keys of Saint Peter. Like the coats of arms in Ghana that talks about the belief of the people and acts as a cultural symbol, the keys of Saint Peter have become a symbol that people identify themselves with.

Streets of Leiden

The 1890 photograph of ‘laundry day’ shows people washing, bleaching and drying their clothes on the side of the canals of Leiden. According to our sources, the people in Leiden used the water that was centrally heated by the factories, once a week, to wash their clothes once a week. They needed the entire streets for the laundry process and used it as a community.

What Is the Original Color of Rembrandt Bridge in Leiden?

Rembrandt Bridge (Rembrandtbrug) was built in 1983 as a replica of a 17th-century bridge that was in the same place. The bridge was rebuilt in color white. However, according to archive research from Heritage and Environment of Leiden (Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken), the original bridge design in 1768 was in English red with black. The research did not please some of the local residents. Friends of Rembrandt Bridge (Vrienden van de Rembrandtbrug) made petitions against the change of color and stuck the "Liever wit dan dit (Better white that this)" over the trial color. 

Libraries of a Town

Bhagat Singh Library and Cultural Centre (1983-1990) was an initiative of a grassroot organisation called Kishore Bharti in Pipariya, Madhya Pradesh. The Library/Centre focused on creating social awareness through reading, writing and community based activities. While the library started as a space for all the sections, a need was soon felt to add a separate slot to encourage women readers. In the following excerpt, Rekha Vyohaar, a resident of Pipariya, shed light on how the setup was significant to the women at the local level:

Bakhri (2)

Bakhri II
 
The community Bakhri (Granary) at Thuribari, Kokrajhar, is one of the few such Bakhris seen nowadays in Assam. Community Bakhri is representative of a communal living and sharing. Located in an open village space just opposite the Brahma temple, these three small raised mud houses look ordinary but the significance and relevance of them in Thuribari community life is clearly visible from the well-maintained condition of it. 

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