AnthroArt – Action for People and Planet is an initiative of three applied anthropology organisations – Antropedia, Namla and Ambigrama – that aims to create an international platform for connecting anthropology and art , with the purpose of deepening awareness about inequality and our relation with the environment and driving change across three geographies: Romania, The Netherlands and Portugal, as well as beyond. AnthroArt – Action for People and Planet is a two-year project (2023-2024) co-funded by the European Commision, under the Creative Europe Programme (CREA). *** Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
Corporations have always had the power to demand their rights: their freedom often clashes with the freedom of others to protect their needs and their lives. The article analyzes the arbitration over Roșia Montană brought by Gabriel Resources against Romania in 2015. Beyond Romania’s unexpected victory, we want to highlight that this controversial legal mechanism is a form of perpetuation of structural injustices. Between January and July 2024, our research aimed to analyze how this topic is being discussed by key actors in Romania: we examined public statements by government officials and mainstream media, as well as carried out interviews with residents of Roșia Montana. Article by Irina Velicu and Ionuț Codreanu, illustrated by Mina Mimosa https://theanthro.art/do-no-harm-to-investors-rosia-montana-arbitration-and-structural-injustice/
This article explores how migration from urban to rural areas influences dietary habits and promotes the adoption of more sustainable food practices. The research is set against the backdrop of increasing counterurbanization, where individuals are leaving cities in pursuit of healthier, more balanced lifestyles in rural settings. The connection between food and nature is examined in this context, highlighting shifts towards local, seasonal produce, self-sufficiency, and sustainability. The aim of the study is to understand how the dietary habits of people who have relocated from urban to rural areas have evolved in terms of sustainability. Based on semi-structured interviews with seven families who moved from cities like Bucharest, Cluj, and Craiova to nearby villages, the research investigates topics such as changes in food preferences, challenges in adapting to rural life, food sourcing strategies, and levels of awareness and commitment to sustainable practices. The findings show that the transition to rural living led participants to rethink their relationship with food, with many adopting sustainable practices such as composting and growing fresh vegetables in their own gardens. This shift reflects a deeper connection with nature and an enhanced commitment to sustainability, something that participants had not necessarily prioritized before moving. Article by Alexandra Leca, illustrated by Amandine Bănescu https://theanthro.art/from-block-to-garden-how-are-food-practices-changing-alexandra-leca/
It is necessary to reflect on the role of the anthropologist in denouncing realities that are often subalternised, with the role of changing them through initiatives and solutions proposed by the anthropologist, allowing us to reflect on the porosity between the spheres of activism and anthropology. To realize the implications and interconnections between different contexts, it is necessary to take a multi-scalar and multi-sited approach. One of the fields most concerned with the interconnections between local, national, and international scales is environmental studies, and it is on this theme that the article focus, mobilising former research to reach this goal. Article by Rosalina Pisco Costa, illustrated by Juliana Penkova https://theanthro.art/room-242-and-the-portraits-that-do-not-speak-unveiling-gender-and-leadership-in-higher-education-contexts/
This study investigates the challenges and strategies for incorporating sustainability into the social control of municipal School Feeding Councils (CAEs) in Minas Gerais within the National School Feeding Program (PNAE). The research aims to understand the performance of CAEs in promoting sustainability and evaluates the impact of an educational intervention on counselors’ intentions to act. The methodology involves action research with qualitative and quantitative analyses, including workshops and discussion groups. Key findings highlight the importance of family farming, school gardens, and reducing food waste as strategies for sustainability. The study also identifies obstacles such as lack of support and negative interference from teachers. The educational intervention appears to have raised awareness and fostered partnerships among CAEs, suggesting the need for intensified training initiatives to enhance counselors’ skills and competencies in sustainability. Article by Lucas Daniel Sanches, Ana Carolina Ratti Nogueira, Monique de Oliveira Sant'Anna, Jaciara Reis Nogueira Garcia, Bruno Martins Dala Paula, illustrated by Guilia Cavallo https://theanthro.art/challenges-and-strategies-for-including-sustainability-in-the-social-control-of-the-municipal-school-feeding-councils-in-minas-gerais-in-the-national-school-feeding-program/
The Creating Life Champions project is a collaboration between the ERASMUS+ program and the UEFA Foundation for Children, to strengthen positive social values and principles by using sports fields as a vehicle. This project gathered 16 partners from 8 European countries. The following text presents the results of the ethnographic research done in Portugal regarding this project, aimed to conduct an in-depth analysis of how trainers perceive the educational and pedagogical role of sport and what may be the path for a sustainable strengthening of this role. From April to May 2023, a total of 20 in-depth interviews with youth coaches from 3 cities and 14 football clubs various football clubs in Portugal, to understand, the main factors, values and necessities of working with children in sports, creating a blueprint of the profile of a youth coach in Portugal for the Creating Life Champions Project to create a module and Moodle course for trainers. Article by Daniel Alves, illustrated by Patricia Palma https://theanthro.art/creating-life-champions-youth-coaching-values-ethics-careers-and-a-sustainable-development-of-trainers-and-athletes/
This article explores the pivotal role of videos and thematic routes in promoting sustainable tourism through the lens of intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Anchored in anthropological and ethnographic methodologies, it highlights how these tools preserve and celebrate traditions, crafts, music, and oral histories. Using the Mouraria neighborhood in Lisbon as a case study, the project documents local narratives and practices to create immersive and authentic tourist experiences. This model demonstrates how tourism can safeguard cultural identity, enhance socio-economic development, and promote sustainability without compromising authenticity. Article by Augusto Ferreira, illustrated by Patricia Palma https://theanthro.art/aroundtheneighborhood-a-storytelling-of-mourarias-memories-traditions-and-history/
Speculative Design is a methodological approach that can be a huge tool for anthropologists. By working in collaboration with designers and using speculative design techniques, anthropologists and designers together could engage with communities and specific social groups for understanding social problems and imagining alternative futures. With this text is on the one side to present Speculative Design, while at the same time speculating how it could work for anthropologists as a tool for social innovation. Article by Andrea Gaspar, illustrated by Michaela Jones https://theanthro.art/what-if-anthropology-speculative-design-social-innovation-2/
Ridesharing practices such as hitchhiking and carpooling form specific ways of mobility, rich in composition and narratives. Both social practices are present at the margins of all urban areas in Romania having their own specific modus operandi. Although they are not associated with the concept of sustainability by their public, they are embedded in a sustainable kind of mobility, as alternatives to personal road vehicles. The sustainable dimension of ridesharing is also supported by the debate around the occupancy of the car seats. Comparative and historical material demonstrates that states may encourage, discourage, criminalise, or neglect hitchhiking through different policies or even propaganda in order to fill as many car seats as possible. Through such policies, ridesharing is promoted as an act of individual responsibility towards the environment and society as a whole. In other cases it is perceived as a limitation for mobility, and the social results are easy to detect. As Graham and Marvin (2001) noted when they were discussing electronically tolled highways or superhighways, these practices are clearly exclusionary, accentuating the splintering of urbanism. My article proposes a timeline in the history of ridesharing and explores the way unorganised travelling like hitchhiking and organised commuting like digital carpooling (especially through the Blablacar platform) might be part of a more sustainable behaviour. In contrast, other so-called ridesharing platforms such as Uber or Bolt are falsely considered part of the broad concept of sharing economy. Borrowing the concept from Belk (2014), I consider them “pseudo-sharing”. Article by Iulian Gabor and Ben Eyre, illustrated by Daniela Olaru https://theanthro.art/on-shared-automobility-practices-from-horse-carriages-to-digitally-prearranged-rides/
For several years now the financial industry has been enrolled, more or less voluntarily, in the global quest for sustainability. Sustainable finance is currently a complex, variegated field of practices and discourses which claims to invest in projects that have, in the best case scenario, a positive impact on society and the planet, or, worst case scenario at least avoid having a negative one, while also making returns. This article focuses on investors practicing a sustainable investment strategy called impact investing, reflecting on a question we were asked at one of the field’s main annual conferences in late 2023: “how can you leverage anthropology to make an impact?” We reflect on what this question actually means, draw parallels between impact investing and development programs, and explore different answers given by both academic and applied anthropologists to show how anthropologists think about finance and sustainability, and how are their ideas informed by and transformed into actions. Article by Stefan Voicu and Ben Eyre, illustrated by Cristina Labo https://theanthro.art/can-you-make-an-impact-anthropologists-and-sustainable-finance/
This article focuses on fieldwork conducted in Odivelas, Portugal, where the Municipal Council of Odivelas (MCO) implemented a program to introduce halal meals in the municipality’s public school system. The initiative aimed to accommodate the dietary needs of Muslim students while promoting sociocultural and religious inclusion, as well as school integration. In its first edition, the program covered 50 schools and approximately 116 Muslim students, with participation increasing by 33% the following year. This initiative has helped lay essential foundations for reversing the trend of early school dropouts among Muslim students and fostering a dual sense of identity, allowing them to embrace both their Portuguese citizenship and their Muslim faith. Article by Pedro Alves, illustrated by Animal Waves https://theanthro.art/halal-in-the-muslim-community-of-odivelense-a-project-for-social-inclusion-and-educational-integration/
This article examines the connection between the Hunedoara Steel Plant, the Corvinul football team, and the collective identities of the residents of Hunedoara. Following the decline of the local industry, the team and the stadium have become symbols of a glorious past and community unity. Nostalgia for the golden era of the Steel Plant is reflected in the fervent support for the team and the project to construct their new stadium. This project represents not only an investment in sports infrastructure but also a grassroots effort to rebuild the city’s identity and provide its residents with a sense of pride and belonging. Article by Vlad Roman-Cocoară, illustrated by Alexandra Hochreiter https://theanthro.art/the-steel-mill-corvinul-and-the-stadium-an-overlooked-chapter-of-post-socialist-transition-in-hunedoara-romania/
When looking for information on the famous 3 Rs of sustainability, I came across a video on YouTube by a French woman living in California called Bea Johnson, that proposed a waste hierarchy of 5 Rs (refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle and rot). The practices shared were not new to the environmental movement, nor to the lives of people who were born before the consumer society. But, for the first time, someone turned it into a set of practices applicable to everyday life, turning it into a global movement with all the characteristics of the social media era. In the format proposed, and subsequently by other prominent voices in the movement, I found a practical way of replicating what I was already doing in a diffuse way within other movements. This article will show that work and principles. Article by Lívia Humaire Kampff, illustrated by Joana Cruz https://theanthro.art/zero-waste-the-genealogy-of-a-movement/
Food systems can be a valuable tool to think about biodiversity as inherently interconnected with our human worlds, in practices that look towards the sustainability of ecosystems, rather than based in the logic of extracting resources without caring for the degradation of landscapes. Through an ethnographic looking glass, we can understand the ways in which certain food production systems can in fact help us think and act on the current socio- ecological crisis. This article draws from fieldwork among agro-pastoralists in the northeastern region of Portugal, done during September 2023, and January 2024. Based on a mix methods approach, the fieldwork’s main method was walking with shepherds of indigenous sheep and goat’s species along their daily grazing paths, allowing informal conversations to happen based in an ethnographic inquiry into the human-environmental relations. The perspectives brought form this experience are of enormous value as they point to possible avenues for change in face of land degradation, biodiversity loss and the impacts of climate change. Article by Silvia Raposo, illustrated by Joana Cruz https://theanthro.art/rethinking-landscapes-ecological-relations-in-more-than-human-collectives-as-a-way-to-think-about-the-anthropocene/
The use of holographic technology in art and its relationship with social inclusion and the democratization of access to art have been increasingly prominent topics in the contemporary art scene. Through an innovative and accessible approach, holographic art has the potential to transform the way artworks are presented and appreciated by diverse audiences, including communities in remote areas. This article examines how holographic technology can address issues of art accessibility, promote social and cultural inclusion, and truly democratize the artistic experience, referencing sociological theory, such as that of Zygmunt Bauman. Article by Silvia Raposo, illustrated by Joana Cruz https://theanthro.art/holo-wow-how-holographic-art-is-shaping-the-future-of-inclusive-art/
It is necessary to reflect on the role of the anthropologist in denouncing realities that are often subalternised, with the role of changing them through initiatives and solutions proposed by the anthropologist, allowing us to reflect on the porosity between the spheres of activism and anthropology. To realize the implications and interconnections between different contexts, it is necessary to take a multi-scalar and multi-sited approach. One of the fields most concerned with the interconnections between local, national, and international scales is environmental studies, and it is on this theme that the article focus, mobilising former research to reach this goal. Article by Fátima Santos, illustrated by Juliana Penkova https://theanthro.art/the-role-of-the-anthropologist-in-ecological-activism-the-importance-of-a-multiscalar-and-multisituated-approach-and-collaborative-ethnographic-production/
Funerary practices have been around since the dawn of humanity serving two main purposes: the need for body disposal and to help the grieving community process the loss. We will focus on mainland Portugal during the Medieval Period up to present day to provide a brief overview of how people have dealt with death, from evolving perceptions from the Past to Present, to the emergence of a “new type of dead” – human remains of archaeological provenance and the obstacles towards sustainability. Article by Ana Lema Seabra, illustrated by Juliana Penkova https://theanthro.art/life-after-death-the-role-of-human-remains-in-a-somewhat-sustainable-afterlife/
This position paper claims that local governments, within a regional inter-related scope, should envision a new territorial social policy for the effectiveness of sustainability and wellbeing of communities. The proposal of this work stems from a long period of research on sustainability matter; the framing of ecumene studies; and from applied science as consultants with local governments. Our recommendation is that this territorial social policy should be presented as a Regional Conviviality Formula, which is the synergetic result of Compact Cities + Intermodal Cities + New Public Places. We highlight that this formula has potential to create a new socio-spatial configuration: a new conviviality model. This work is a reflexive attempt on two schisms (socio-cultural and nature-human) that should be overcome in the 21st century, within that new conviviality model. Article by Paulo Castro Seixas, Nadine Lobner, illustrated by Juliana Penkova https://theanthro.art/a-new-territorial-social-policy-as-a-bioregional-conviviality-formula-compact-cities-intermodal-cities-new-public-places/
Inclusion is a topic that is increasingly being debated and transformed. Performing arts are not out of this equation and tend more and more to look at the issue and create new opportunities for those who are often left behind by physical, intellectual or social issues. In this article I propose a critical analysis of a programme of inclusion of people with disabilities in a professional contemporary circus production with the aim of understanding its impact on the participants and the surrounding community, as well as the difficulties in implementing it. Article by Rui Leitão, illustrated by Patrícia Palma https://theanthro.art/social-inclusion-of-people-with-disabilities-in-professional-circus-rui-leitao/
Taking inspiration from the approach of heterosexuality as a political regime, as proposed by lesbian feminism and queer theories, this study starts from the premise that mononormativity (Porto, 2018) permeates the legal apparatus of the state and, simultaneously, transcends it, imbuing social relations and cultural practices in ways not always evident. Building on this intuition, I begin this reflection with an analysis of the gaps in the legal sphere of monogamy in Brazil. Next, I present an analysis of the interactions between the state and monogamy in the context of educational and public health policies. From this discussion, I address the tendency toward the monogamization (Rothmüller, 2021) of relationships during the Covid-19 pandemic and the representation of relational dissidences as threats to the moral order of society. Finally, I propose an analysis of the criminalization of youth culture in the suburbs of Salvador, Bahia, as an example of the consolidation of monogamy as an implicit component of public order policy. Article by Pablo Pérez Navarro, illustrated by Patrícia Palma https://theanthro.art/sexuality-and-public-order-navigating-mononormativity-in-contemporary-brazil-pablo-perez-navarro/
Words, in addition to their declarative or descriptive formats, also have a performative character – they do not exclusively serve the purpose of reporting what is done, but also serve to do so. What is the importance of language in the daily life on the outskirts of Lisbon? I intended to understand how language, on the one hand, is articulated with the contexts of exclusion and inequality that structure the urban condition and, on the other, functions as a mechanism for the construction of a collective identity, social inclusion, and resistance. Using semi-structured interviews with young people from precarious and racialized neighborhoods of the Sintra Train Line and combining them with my own familiarity on the ground, I will try to show that local communities are not reduced to passive receptacles of the contexts of oppression imposed on them, and it is imperative to recognize the residents themselves as protagonists of the urban struggle. Article by Madalena Galrinho, illustrated by Lídia Belchior https://theanthro.art/the-importance-of-words-in-the-everyday-life-of-the-suburbs-of-lisbon-madalena-galrinho/
