We are frequently exposed to views portraying us living in an increasingly dumb, homogenized world, dominated by McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, where all thoughts of distinctive cultures are blown away by the all-engulfing consumerism of Nike. A world, some might say, where American culture clouds everything, death-sentencing indigenous people all over the world. No one can escape. In the end all 6.5 billion of us will chew on cheeseburgers and gossip with our friends with the help of a bluetooth ear-piece, while driving our gargantuan SUVs for just 500 metres to Sunday’s sermon.

Rubbish. To anyone believing the junk briefly exposed above, mind you: it’s nonsense. Today’s view on globalisation’s effects is exaggerated and rather shaky relative to a modicum of reasonable reasoning. In the hope of ever overcoming such biased views, it is only natural to understand the premises of globalisation. An increased global connectedness, cumulated with the intensified movement of people, objects and ideas made us ponder on its consequences - hence the birth of the world ‘globalisation’. The word has ever since been used in many different ways, in totally differing contexts to describe radically different ideas. The end result, so far? A corrupt and malignant view towards globalisation.

In common parlance, globalisation, with all these corporate giants and almighty products taking over the reigns and with all these tight economic bonds, will erase all our piquant cultural elements and obliterate diversity. Somewhere along this rationale, logic is lost, matters are taken for granted. Coke, hamburgers, jeans and Nike shoes DO NOT radically change underlying social and cultural beliefs, rites and behaviour. Each of these products is assimilated in a specific way, depending on the culture at hand. One such example is the adoption of Christianity in Mexico. Unlike any other Christians, Mexican Catholics place the Virgin of Guadalupe in a position of greater importance than Jesus or even God, creating a layout that resonates with previous social codes: in a Mexican familiy it is the mother that plays the dominant role in holding things together, she is the nucleus.

As for the economics related argument, yes, such economic globalisation exists. Not only does it exist, but it also manifests on a large scale, usually with appalling consequences, as we all are witnessing in the current economic maelstrom. But there is no motive whatsoever for economy to dictate the social and cultural leadership of a people. The fact that capitalism now pervades is only due to the fact that it’s the best option available. For all its flaws, it is the best economic system man has invented yet.

Moreover, exactly the opposite of what was predicted is happening. We are experiencing a surge in nationalism and ‘tribalization’, as more and more people from almost everywhere in the world crave for national freedom and are willing to defend their country or their culture with anything from arguments, to coups and even to wars. Kosovo, Abkhazia, South Ossetia all aim to be regarded as autonomous countries. Congo is torn apart by rebel groups fighting for power, fueled by a simmering Hutu-Tutsi fire. Tibet longs for freedom, as Glasgow and Edinburgh look disdainfully at each other, each brandishing its special individuality. It is becoming clearer that globalisation - here defined as an escalating inter-connectedness - is indeed a catalyst for change, but a change of a different sort than initially foreseen.

If we were to pay attention only to the Greek base of the word ‘anthropology’, its translation - the study of human beings - wouldn’t explain much. On the contrary, it would further mistify the subject. A similar effect is caused when we try to define it, as both students and teachers of anthropology, even though fascinated by it, have a slight reluctance and an eye-rolling reaction when posed the question: ‘what on earth is anthropology?’. Nothing seems to be fixed firmly in place here, as we are dealing with a social science that straddles the border of the humanities and the scientific world.  Nevertheless, it is crystal-clear to the open-minded.

The classification of anthropology’s branches is rather flexible but it looks pretty much like the following. A first branch, called biological anthropology, deals with human physiology and anatomy and is used to draw up theories concerning human evolution (consequent to this branch’s similarity with archaeology, the latter is at times considered to be part of anthropology). Grosso modo, the other part of anthropology can simply be dubbed as social anthropology, engulfing both linguistics and cultural anthropology. 

What depicts an anthropologist first and foremost is an underlying urge to know and understand different ways people have of looking at the world they live in, as they develop in their respective societies or groups. Through living amongst certain societies for extended periods of time (a method called participant observation), learning their languages and then presenting the etnographies is how anthropologists usually collect data, in the hope of understanding the differences and diversity of the studied groups of people. But it is vital to correctly interpret the momentum of such research: no matter how much interest is seemingly placed on differences between people, the core goal always was and always will be to reveal fundamental principles in the way that human beings organize and stage their social, political and sacramental life. Alas, until now, the world somehow lost touch with this all-too-important subject.

Anthropology should have changed the world, yet the subject is almost invisible in the public sphere outside the academy. [...] Anthropologists should have been at the forefront of public debate about multiculturalism and nationalism, the human aspects of information technology, poverty and economic globalization, human rights issues [...] but somehow [they] fail to get their message across. ( Eriksen, 2006 )

Now, ponder these images for a while. On Sundays, the HSBC building in Hong Kong, a renowned landmark, shades thousands of Filipina women, who swarm into the city’s business district to chatter, laugh, gossip, dance and rejoice. But this is in utter contrast with the other days of the week, in which the view is a lot grimmer: spiky and permanently stressed Chinese businessmen shouldering their way through the crowd. On these days of the week, the Filipina women work as amahs (Cantonese for “domestic helper”), a job that can easily be translated as slavery, having in mind that they sleep on bathroom floors and in kitchen cupboards, while obeying all of their Chinese masters requirements. Halfway around the globe, an immigrant family from Albania living in Belgium turns on its computer screen and has breakfast with their grandmother back home, via a webcam, just like in every other morning. Somewhat differently, a French entrepreneur, owner of a large mobile-phone producing company, is reflecting on a puzzling fact from the Far East and on how will it influence its business: in some parts of China it is customary to take your mobile-phone to a local Buddhist monk for a blessing.

Although all of the above cases constitute by their very nature anthropological themes, they primarily illustrate something of much more meaning: as the world witnesses more and more diasporas, as transnationalism reigns and rotten theories about globalisation seem to be taken for granted albeit the appalling consequences, anthropology is slowly moving into the spotlight, due to an ubiquitous compelling need for it. In today’s syncopated modernity, creativity and ‘infinite innovation’ are paramount, with right-brainers leading and reshaping everything around them. It is without doubt that the mere intention of being successful in this increasingly fast-paced world, where space and time seem to shrink, has us all stampeding for an intangibile success-acquiring secret. With all this rush, people seem to forget this ’secret’ lies in the person next to them, it’s in the human nature itself. The human brain is emotionally wired, the limbic system will always overpower the neocortex, feelings will always throne over logic and reason. Thus, our underlying characteristic is not reason, it’s being human. 

The technological advances that have been made are astounding and as a result people interact more than they have ever done, comparatively speaking. This, cumulated with the above-mentioned conditions of the modern day leads to only one natural conclusion: the key is in subtleties, in understanding others, in knowing what drives human beings, in answering major questions about the origins, reasons and potential of society, cultural innovation and human nature. Can anthropology provide these vital answers? Most surely. The trick is - yet again - in creatively reinventing bits of it, for general appliance. We’ll all stay tuned, won’t we?

Morning. The 16th of July. The families of Sgt. First Class Ehud Goldwasser and Staff Sgt. Eldad Regev are waiting, frozen with terror, for their sons’ return from a two-year imprisonment. The two soldiers were captured by the Lebanese Shia militia, Hezbollah, in a cross-border raid on July 12th, 2006, an assault that provoked the month-long Israeli-Lebanese war. Now, the Israeli government has finally yielded to the augmenting pressure: it would trade five Lebanese prisoners along with the bodies of many more for its two missing soldiers. Finally the two-year-long nightmare for the beleaguered families can end. Finally they can resume a worry-free life. At least that’s how they thought back when Israel announced the exchange. Now, alas, they are torn between so many different possible scenarios. They’re minds are racing.

For the last two years, Hezbollah had adamantly avoided shedding light on the state of the prisoners, no one really knows if they are alive or not. A couple of days before, Hizbullah officials had apparently changed their minds and decided to let Israel know that one of the kidnapped soldiers is dead. The border had been reinforced, the entry point well prepared. Nearly all televisions are broadcasting the moment, while Israel’s citizens sit down to watch the exchange, falling prey to that increasingly spreading sinister silence. All cameras focus on Wafiq Safa, a Hezbollah representative. “The fate of the soldiers will now be revealed”, he declares, as he opens a jeep’s back doors.

I end the use of present-tense, further words cannot fully grasp the ending. One can only imagine the shock and horror felt by thousands as two coffins were unveiled.

Emotions aside, it is easily noticeable the script of the story shares a remarkable resemblance to others from the same region. The Middle-East is full of oxymorons. Bittersweet, both permissive and hard-lined, both peaceful and bellicose, of a cruel tenderness. Be that as it may, but it is also brilliantly characterized by a thick omnipresent layer of fog. A murk that is clearly not healthy. A murk that is almost sure to bring about tragedies like the above mentioned.

Accountable for this mess is no other than the world’s twisted political stage. Take Pakistan, for example. The army-backed dictator Pervez Musharaf has been Pakistan’s president for little less than a decade. Facing imminent impeachment, on August the 18th he resigned (continuously declaring that everything he stood for was democracy). In translation, he was thrashed by the first fairly-elected government in Pakistan. Thumbs up for that. Too bad the good news ends there. Musharaf’s sacking occurs in a time of great instability in Pakistan. The north is begging for peaceful leadership, inflation is a mile high and politicians lack a great deal of confidence.

Miles away, Israel’s prime-minister, Ehud Olmert, fought with a corruption scandal for months, just to be defeated in the end: he promised to leave post after his party decides on a new leader. Mr Olmert’s party is likely to have lost credibility, leaving the opposition Likud party and its hawkish leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, a lot of space for maneuvers. It is worth underlying that Mr Netanyahu is prone to make even fewer peace efforts.

A little to the north, Syria hosted Lebanon’s president, Michel Suleiman and brags about a new diplomatic relationship with Lebanon, a normal, friendly one. In the same time, Syria continues to charge a couple of its own citizens on the grounds of ‘publicly calling for normal relations with Lebanon’. Figure that out.

These are truly perilous waters, sailed by the shrewd and cunning. What’s saddening is that the importance of keeping the lights on is dismissed and so wreckages befall, affecting the masses, the bystanders. Nevertheless, the silver lining is present, although currently vague and hardly noticeable. No one really knows what it looks like, but, who knows, it may look a bit like this:

If LMT doesn’t ring any bells for you, here’s the short story. At its core, LMT (Leaders for the Third Millennium) is an educational programme focused on leadership and soft-skills, programme in which I work myself, as a trainer. Just a few years ago, as the programme engulfed high-school after high-school all over the country, gathering thousands and thousands to its courses, an initially small group of student trainers and alumni formed Club LMT, an NGO firstly destined to put the theory learned in the programme into practice. That initial raw and nebulous goal for the new-born NGO now concretized in its vision - we encourage youth to participate (pro)-actively in building their own future - and its mission - our mission is to transform Romania’s youth through their involvement in educational, cultural and civic projects, to build together the country in which we can evolve harmoniously professionally and personally.

From the collective work of the Club’s members, Branding Romania was born - a national seminar/boot-camp (13th-19th of August) designed to amass and inspire 65 of Romania’s most valuable youngsters. The participants were scattered to the workshops ( Communication & Advertising, Tourism & Environment, Traditional vs. Urban Culture, Entrepreneurship, Education ) where they were introduced to key-concepts of the respective domains of interest and project management. The end result was a combination of self-improvement and well thought out projects that could be implemented back in their communities.

So far so good. But why does this seemingly serious and business-like post has for a title ‘an enlarging microcosm’? Why do I relentlessly associate LMT with the concept of ‘microcosm’? By definition, a microcosm is a world in miniature, in which the elements share one specific characteristic, like the elements in a mathematical set. To those who have felt it, the question will seem rather silly and out-of-place. Try and follow me and you’ll see why.

[...], but in later years he recalled that there had been one moment which had given him intimations of another mode of being. His father had taken him to watch the ceremonial ploughing of the fields before the planting of the next year’s crop. All the men of the villages and townships took part in this annual event, so Suddhodana had left his small son in the care of his nurses under the shade of a rose-apple tree while he went to work. But the nurses decided to go and watch the ploughing, and, finding himself alone, Gotama sat up. In one version of this story, we are told that when he looked at the field that was being ploughed, he noticed that the young grass had been torn up and that insects and the eggs they had laid in these new shoots had been destroyed . The little boy gazed at the carnage and felt a strange sorrow, as though it were his own relatives that had been killed. But it was a beautiful day, and a feeling of pure joy rose up unbidden in his heart.

You’re probably wondering, what on earth do LMT and Gotama’s episode have in common? Well…Extasis. That’s right. Extasis. But don’t be tempted to interpert the word through the prevalent pejorative filter that associates extasis with drug usage. Extasis literally means ‘to stand outside the self’. And that’s the widespread phenomenon that’s gripped LMT. If it should be explained furthermore, I’d say it’s a stance in which one experiences unpremeditated joy, while fully empathizing with those around him. I daresay this stance, fundamentally based on spontaneous compassion and selfless empathy, triggers a rapture so strong that it brings for those who feel it a moment of spiritual release.

Given the fact that I had been through somewhat similar stories, I figured beforehand that it would mean just work to me. But, ‘expect the unexpected’ eh? As the event unfolded, whatever role I played - organizer, trainer, participant, etc - it was innevitable not to feel the vast surge of energy that now has all of us pointing confidently at whichever goal, dream or vision we hold dear. One big collective thank you. :)

Note: What do you think, fellas? Feel free to add some more thoughts, voi, cei mai iubiti dintre pamanteni.

Social entrepreneurship. A word that’s been on my lips more than ever before in the past 5 days. In essence, this very different kind of entrepreneurship is about harnessing an entrepreneurial mindset towards much-needed transformational change. It involves finding innovative, creative solutions to create sustainable systems that trigger social change. But this post isn’t about social entrepreneurship. Future articles will surely shed further light on the matter.

For the last 5 days, I participated in a summer school dedicated to the before-mentioned concept, destined to explain it to more than 20 young men and women, from different parts of Romania and different ethnic backgrounds. That was the official somewhat-cold version of the story.

The rest of the story is far more thrilling. Everything had its part in creating something much more rewarding. The debates about what communities are made of, the story of a 14th century city, the brain-teasing mafia games that lasted well into the night, creativity, new friendships, writing projects, envisioning, and the list goes on and on. It was more than just a briefing, it was more than just a conference or a summer school. It was about functioning with some blurred, hard-to-describe factor that seems to tie a group so tightly. It was about breathing loads of energy, it was about understanding a creative dimension with which you can move mountains. It was about that vibrant, serene, all-surrounding silence.

Note: Thanks for the pics guys. Cheers