If we talk about the african village in the zoo of Augsburg, it would be wise to include also the african village of the Zoo Seattle into the discussion, as well as the Ethnic Festival in the zoo of Detroit ("One ethnic group each month").

For special interest for us anthropologists from munich should be the Oktoberfest in the Zoo of Detroit, where they celebrate in traditional Bavarian fashion with a Beer Garden for adults, authentic German food, live music, Oktoberfest memorabilia and much more. In the zoo! Himmelherrgotkreizdeifi, sans narrisch oderwos?

So, "Break out the lederhosen and dirndl!"

(Well, seems that the joke from the fellows of Savageminds finally is true).

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To put things straight first: I have no intention to raise doubts about the arguments and concerns mentioned here in the course of discussion. From my point of view the debate is of crucial importance and has to take place. I benefited a lot, but for me an even more worthwhile (though bewildering) gain was that I saw institutionalised ethnologie in Germany unveil itself as as good as incapable of action. As far as I could cover the press I could not find any traces of something like a german ethnologists' voice in public discourse - no experts or professionals, no statements, no interviews, no quotings, nothing from an ethnological point of view. And that having more then 20 (?) departments of ethnology at german universities and numerous other public ethnological institutions like museums. As a student I wonder, what all ethnological effords, insights and perceptions are good for if nobody cares, except some elite ivory tower advocates of hypersensitized political correctness they can not mediate?

And it gets even more paraodx. I am utterly confused when I read that today media business is one of the major job perspectives for ethnology graduates (that's me). But as far as I can see neither do ethnologists noticably participate in public formation of oppinion, nor do they even try to. How come german ethnology is traumatised to talk with everybody but not with the world?

Those conclusions are not new and answers to my questions are no riddles. What I am puzzled about is to notice there is no ambition to change things or to reflect what could be done better. I witnessed a debate about the "african village" at our institute. I thought it was a well lead debate with strong arguments and depth. But in the end people began to accuse "the media" to have failed to provide the real important messag about subtle and positive forms of racism and the potantial of dangerous associations. It's obvious that we have the content so why not share?

Here is my short brainstorm. First there is something like an unlucky relationship between ethnology and german media. For some reasons ethnology has lost its "street credibility". People consider it as useless, since it has the wrong but fatal reputation to lead inevitably to joblessness (it earns no money so it must be of no value). Presence in media is non existent or if so then in the context of topics of "doubtful honor" like esotericism or "the ethnology of sponging" (in german) [oh my god I still can't believe it!]. The second thought is that there might be something like a selective perception - the pink spectacles of ethnology, that filters everything lacking an "africa-mischief-label". For example I kept wondering why there was so much discussion about the "african village" but nobody cared about the stereotype of a featherbrained chinese guy with a pronunciation problem concerning "l" and "r" in a commercial for musicload? The everyday media is full of occasions for ethnologist to comment on critically, but it doesn't happen. Why? Is german zeitgeist not excotic enough for us to deal with?

what do you think?

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