The cashless society

I spent most of the last week in Stockholm at an anthropology conference. It was the first time I have ever been to a foreign country and not bothered to take out any of the local currency in cash. A few days before leaving for Sweden I had read that paying digitally was becoming such a part of life that people in Sweden have even begun paying with their digits themselves, though implants in their hands https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/sj-rail-train-tickets-hand-implant-microchip-biometric-sweden-a7793641.html.

I bought a ticket on the bus from the airport with my credit card, the same with good in the supermarket, and drinks at a restaurant. Not that different from the UK perhaps, though I doubt that I could have paid directly on the bus with a credit card in the UK. It was on the bus that I found the lack of acceptance of cash became slightly problematic, myself and two friends had to take a ten to fifteen minute walk to the nearest metro station from the university to be buy a bus ticket to be able to board a bus, since tickets could not be bought on or anywhere near the bus in any form (cash or otherwise). 

When I spoke to Swedes about the cashless economy they expressed a mixture of irritation at the difficulty of disposing of cash and suspicion of the reasons for why cash was being phased out. A Swedish friend told me that after friends of hers visiting Sweden had left Swedish Krona with her she had had great difficulty finding anywhere to spend them because even bars and restaurants that she went to now accepted only electronic payment. After buying some sweets from a stall on the street, and paying with my credit card (which would be slightly unusual in the UK) I asked the stall owner how long it had been that Sweden had been almost cashless. She said that this had come in in the last couple of years, and was suspicious of the reasons why. "It's the state. The government wants to control everybody, to know what everybody is doing and where they are going", she told me. "They know where you park your car, if you go to the cinema, if I go to visit my boyfriend, they know everything about you."

After this I had a brief walk of the Old Town, during which I stood for ten minutes listening to an excellent jazz trio busking. Though they received a few coins from passers by (not nearly as much as their performance warranted), I wondered whether they ought to invest in a card reader for the convenience of modern Swedes. (They could take a leaf out of the book of this London beggar http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2911249/Beggar-rakes-cash-outside-swanky-Mayfair-restaurant-using-chip-pin-machine-spends-holidays-iPad-whinges-Cowell-gave-20.html.)

On the way back to my hostel to pick up my suitcase before taking my flight back to the UK in one of the main streets in the centre of Stockholm I passed a middle-aged man listening to something on earphones and stood holding a sign which read "The state is torturing me for 5 1/2 years with remote controlled equipment in my body".  I asked the man what his story was. He told me that he had been in a dispute with some businessmen, who had then paid doctors to insert microchips into his wrists and ears and that these doctors were screaming at him, directly into his ears.
This reminded me of the story a friend had told me about how he had once got an ant stuck in his head after it had crawled in while he had been asleep on the grass. He could hear footsteps inside his head and he was sure that this was how people went mad. He eventually got it out by tipping his head to one side and banging the other ear until the ant had had enough and walked out the other side.
Back to the man in the street with the sign, he had a paper cup by his feet, presumably in the hope that passers-by would give him money (it wasn't clear to me from my conversation with him how this would have helped him cope with the problem of the screaming in his ears), but Sweden being a cashless society I didn't have any to give him. I wished him well, and was on my way.

A tremendous presence of evil

The other day, feeling like going for a walk, I walked up the hill
behind my house. On the edge of the small wood I got talking to an
old gentleman who was coming down quickly through the wood.
We got talking for about 15 minutes, during which he I said that I
liked to come up here every now and then, and he asked me if I had
ever come up here at dusk in the summer. I told him that I may have
done, but I wasn’t sure.
He told me that he had been up there once at dusk in the summer
and felt a tremendous presence of evil, and had to run out of there
quickly. He later remarked on this to a man who lives in a cottage
down the hill, who said it was funny that he should say that because
he himself had been up the hill at night with his dog, and though he
hadn’t actually felt anything himself, all of the hairs on the dog’s head
had stood on end.  We talked some more, during which the man told
me that he had lived in various places in St Andrews over his lifetime
always on the edge of town, because the edge of St Andrews kept
getting further away. He told me that when he was a boy anyone on
the wrong side of the Kinnesburn was not considered to live in
St Andrews. He also told me that in 1959 his grandmother paid a rent
of 50p and found even that a difficult amount to manage. He said
people should be grateful with the welfare system that exists today.

As he was about to leave I asked what had happened in the past up
here. He said he didn’t know, he had just felt a tremendous presence
of evil. I had had my back to the wood all the time we were talking.
When he went down the hill, I turned around and walked into the
wood. I hadn’t taken more than 10 steps in when I turned around and
ran straight out again! I then had to slow down and stop running to
make sure he didn't see my about turn.

Bless you and a problematic eternity

I'm in Warsaw for a conference.

Walking down one of the main streets in the city I was accosted by a blond woman carrying a book. I had tried to walk around her but there hadn't been enough space and once she said hello to me I knew I was done for, she had reeled me in. Being the friendly sort, I just had to say hello back, and get into the inevitable conversation. She hadn't actually said hello in English, but in Polish. This was within my limited Polish so I replied within the same. When I told her (in Polish) that I didn't understand (this was one of the few phrases I have learned), she asked me if I spoke English. After asking me where I am from, and telling me that she was from the US (which I had already guessed), she asked me what I knew about the Mormons. I was about to reply not much, but thought for a second and replied with what I did know.

"What I know about the Mormons is that they believe that when someone dies they are reunited with all their family members throughout their life..." I paused, and looked at her. She gave me a look that seemed to indicate that she was happy that I had understood a fundamental Mormon belief already.

"...but then I wonder, what happens when a man has had more than one wife and the wives wouldn't get on, say he has divorced one wife, or the first one died... or he just had a bad relationship with his wife and was forced to spend the rest of eternity with her... it seems a bit problematic to me."

She was smiling broadly as she had done since our conversation began. I had stumped her. "Well, I don't have a specific answer to that question," she told me, disappointingly. 

After I had asked her how long she had been in Poland for and why she was here (she's a missionary and they just sent her here... and she seemed pretty happy with the whole situation), I suddenly realised that she hadn't actually told me what Mormonism is about. So I thought I had better ask her.

However, as soon as she started telling me about this guy Joseph Smith, who had had a conversation with God in New York, I sneezed. I sneezed just the once, but found something odd in her reaction. Or lack of it. She just kept on talking. While she was telling me about this Joseph Smith chap, all I could think about what why she hadn't stopped to say "bless you". Is this something that the Mormons don't do, I wondered? Why do they believe that one person should not bless another person? Is it because only God can bless? 

However, to avoid getting myself into a theological quagmire I simply asked her why J.Smith had built the temple out in Salt Lake City, Utah if the vision had occurred on the East Coast. I forget the reply, I was still thinking about why she hadn't blessed me. 

Foreign researchers as fat-stealers

Well, tonight felt awkward. Having arrived in La Paz two days ago I heard through Facebook about the presentation of a book about Kallawaya culture by a woman who works for one of the government ministries and who is from one of the Kallawaya communities.
It felt awkward, because of the references the author made in speech to the foreign authors who came to Kallawaya communities, putting their voice recorders in people's faces, asking questions, and expecting the locals to answer. When she referred to researchers coming from Germany and the United States and writing books and not leaving copies of their research with the Kallawayas I half expected her to point to me sitting halfway up the auditorium - and that Englishman over there. When I entered the auditorium I sat behind a friend of mine from the same community who I had got to know during my year doing fieldwork research. At one point during the speech, he turned around to me and asked me "and when are you going to present your book?". "A good question," was all I could think to reply. The author went on to say that when she, in conjunction with others who had the idea of writing the book, had sat down to look for works they could reference, they didn't have access to the work that had been written on the Kallawayas by foreign researchers. They had had to find those works in libraries in La Paz. She went on to refer to foreign researchers, who she said came to steal their knowledge, as kharisiris. Kharisiris are a type of vampire who is believed in the Andes to steal people's fat, viewed in the Andes as the vital life source.
"Why can't we write for ourselves?", she asked, "this book isn't for others, it is for ourselves, the Kallawayas". I couldn't help but reflect momentarily on the academic work, which is written about people who might never read it, for journals and read only by other academics. She went on to decry the way that Kallawaya communities were written about in terms of governing themselves through "usos y costumbres" (traditional customs). They are not "usos y costumbres", she explained, they are saberes (knowledge).
She related how she had been invited to an event in Germany to represent Bolivia, and while there had been to visit a museum exhibit of Kallawaya culture. Apparently she had asked to be able to take a photo, but had been told that she would have to pay if she wanted to take photos. "But this is my culture, these are my acsu, my clothing", she replied. She also recounted how she had been to Copacabana and had seen a photo of herself on a postcard, taken when she was younger, on sale. She asked the salesperson to give her the postcard, because that was her in the photo. There was a caption describing her as a "poor woman". Naturally, the salewoman wouldn't give her the postcard, telling her that she had had to pay for the postcards herself from the "author" of the photo. "But I am the author", she said, "I am in the photo!" reflecting on the authorial rights of the subject.
After the speech was over, I followed several others to ask the author to sign my copy of the book, and told her it was great that she had written it. She thanks me warmly for coming, and me when I would be visiting her community. Later I asked her if I had sent her a copy of my thesis, and told her I would send her a copy. "No, you still haven't", she replied (though I had given badly translated copies of my thesis to the people who had appeared in or help me the most with the research for my thesis when I visited Bolivia last year).

It was a great speech. I sat there wishing that I had brought my voice recorder with me so that I could have recorded it. It would have made great material for a journal article.    

Seating arrangements #2

As a follow up to the post I wrote in March last year http://jonicito-theowlofminerva.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/seating-arrangements.html, today in the Social Anthropology department seminar I was amused and surprised to notice the gender segregated nature of the seating arrangements in the room. Almost everyone on one side of the room was male (11 our of the 14 people sitting on that side of the room). While almost everyone sitting on the other side of the room was female (12 out of the 13 people on that side of the room). There were two people sitting in the middle at the other end of the table from the speaker, who sat contrary to this pattern, but I am discounting them because they were in the middle.

I tried to analyse why and how this seating arrangement came to be, and couldn't find a good answer. It seemed ironic that the topic of the seminar itself concerned a kind of gender segregation itself as it dealt with female Roman Catholics whose chosen role within the Catholic church had been rejected by the church itself.  

I wondered if it was anything to do with the (male) head of department sitting on what I am now thinking of as the male side of the room, and the rest of the men in the department following. I am assuming that the first men and women to sit on either sides of the room were then followed unconsciously by those that sat down afterwards according to their gender.

A nice day out

Last weekend I made another attempt at market selling. This time with even less success than the previous occasions. I didn't seem to be the only one though. There was a lady from a village the other side of Dundee who was selling wreaths of flowers who didn't seem to have much business all day, though she didn't seem too perturbed by this, and seemed to be having fun knitting despite the lack of custom.
When I went for a wander across the hall to find the bee-cushion lady who I had been placed next to on previous occasions it seemed she was also finding it heavy going. The bee-cushions themselves didn't sell as well as the prints. She told me that this was because people are less willing to pay as much for something which actually has a use.
Some people told me that they often found it difficult getting sales, and I began to wonder why they did it. When a woman from another stall selling wool products came over with her grandson in her arms and told me that she hadn't sold anything either, I asked her whether it was worth coming. Her outlook was quite sunny, much like the weather, which we both bemoaned for our lack of sales: "it's a day out" she told me. She was quite sure that if she took her family (she was with her daughter as well as grandson) on a family day out for the day they would have spent a lot more than the £25 fee for the table. In addition to the weather, she also blamed the venue, telling me that a higher class of clientèle would attend when the market was held in the local theatre.
Another lady selling £2 cards and £3 bags had made about £10 by the end of the day. She told me that when she had first started out a couple of years ago she often made even less! When I asked me why she carried out, her reply was that it was out of "stupidity".
Most of the stall-holders seemed to be in their late 40s and over, and I supposed doing this as a hobby. However, when I asked one woman who by the end of the day had literally only sold a couple of buttons if this was the case, she told me glumly that this was in fact her full time job. We commiserated, and told one another to keep going.
By the end of the day I went having sold nothing (selling wool products in April is perhaps a little optimistic), but having had a few nice chats.