Doctoral Dissertation Research: Differences to Blame: Agency and Ethnogenesis in Contemporary Suriname

密歇根大学的博士候选人斯图尔特·斯特兰奇在韦伯·基恩博士的监督下，将研究责任、代理和不幸的概念如何影响当代苏里南正在进行的种族差异建设。本研究侧重于责任的文化归属的更广泛影响，调查了用于承认和分配机构的不同文化和宗教逻辑，以确定这些差异如何影响人们对族裔的看法和表现。该研究采用社会科学方法来分析仪式，叙述和对话，并调查来自不同种族和宗教背景的成员如何沟通和解释不幸。该项目旨在把握如何不同的方式归因于不幸的责任和描述的机构的人，精神，和仪式对象的影响，似乎客观的种族社区之间的差异的建设。研究人员将记录和分析人们如何谈论不幸，并在不同的社会环境中描述责任：（1）在印度教寺庙和寺庙，（2）在非洲裔寺庙和教堂，（3）在两个社区的日常谈话。本研究也比较记录与分析了缅甸内战的叙事，以了解文化与宗教的解释逻辑对这场民族危机的解释所产生的影响。这项研究将有助于更清楚地了解当代多族裔社会中的人们如何创造和理解族裔和宗教差异，同时观察这些概念对从政治到市场的社会生活所有领域的做法的影响。通过解释责任和不幸是如何在一个同时存在文化混合和社会隔离的社会中被归因和转化的，本研究将对人类的社会和文化差异进行深刻的分析。 该项目还将有助于培训一名社会科学家。

Doctoral candidate Stuart Strange of the University of Michigan, under the supervision of Dr. Webb Keane, will conduct research on how conceptions of responsibility, agency, and misfortune influence the ongoing construction of ethnic difference in contemporary Suriname. Focusing on the wider implications of cultural attributions of responsibility, the research investigates the different cultural and religious logics used to recognize and assign agency in order to ascertain how these differences impact peoples' perceptions and performances of ethnicity. The research employs social science methods to analyze rituals, narratives, and conversations and to investigate how members from distinct ethnic and religious backgrounds variably communicate and explain misfortune. The project seeks to grasp how diverse ways of attributing responsibility for misfortune and describing the agency of humans, spirits, and ritual objects impact the construction of seemingly objective differences between ethnic communities. The researcher will record and analyze how people talk about misfortune and describe responsibility in different social settings: (1) at a Hindu Surinamese oracle and temple, (2) at an Afro-Surinamese Shrine and church, and (3) in everyday talk in both communities. The research also comparatively records and analyzes narratives of the Surinamese civil war to discern the impact of cultural and religious logics of explanation on the interpretation of this national crisis. The research will contribute to a clearer understanding of how people in contemporary multi-ethnic societies create and understand ethnic and religious differences, while observing the implication of such concepts for the practices of all areas of social life, from politics to the market. By explaining how responsibility and misfortune are attributed and transformed in a society simultaneously culturally hybrid and socially segregated, the research will provide an incisive analysis of human social and cultural difference. The project will also contribute to the training of a social scientist.