Changes in Rice Anthro
Hannah Landecker and Christopher Kelty are leaving the department and heading to the Center for Society and Genetics in UCLA. They were lovable people and i only feel regret that i did not take enough number of courses from them. They offered great courses and because i could not make up my mind to get STS courses, i missed an opportunity. However, even their existence was a contribution. As you might already know, Cris gave me the idea of blogging and here I am! Isn't that a big contribution?
And guess who are coming to the department? Dominic Boyer and Cymene Howe. Prof. Boyer specializes in media studies and I assume he will get involved with my research.
In the mean time,
E-Seminar on Erkan Saka's working paper
“Blogging as a Research Tool for Ethnographic
Fieldwork”
is now in the Media Network..
and more anthro news follow:
Media anthropology, 15 years on (1)
By John PostillIt has been exactly 15 years since Debra Spitulnik opened her 1993 landmark review of media anthropology with the sentence: ‘There is as yet “no anthropology of mass media”’. I have blogged briefly about what media anthropology is, and mentioned a number of recent key publications and developments in this area of research. In this new series of posts I shall discuss not the recent media anthropological past – an issue I hope to address at a later date – but rather the futures of this burgeoning subfield.
Online: New book on the cultural significance of Free Software
How has Free Software transformed not only software, but also music, film, science, and education? Anthropologist and Savage Minds blogger Christopher M. Kelty explores this question in his new book “Two bits” that now is “available for purchase, for download and for derivation and remixing” as he writes.
A really web 2.0 book in other words. It is both available on paper (published by Duke University Press) and online - freely accessible. Both book, blog and wiki!
Anthropologist: Al-Qaeda uses dreams to justify violence
Militant jihadists are inspired by their night dreams according to a study by a social anthropologist Iain Edgar, according to Malaysia Sun.
The researcher interviewed individuals in the UK, Pakistan, Northern Cyprus and Turkey to identify the key features of the inspirational night dream. He also reviewed transcripts including that of Osama Bin Laden, who has spoken of the night dream in the context of his concern that “the secret [of the 9/11 attacks] would be revealed if everyone starts seeing it in their dreams.”
Critical Fetishism and Coke®
Robert Foster, University of Rochester
In November 2007, the journal Cultural Anthropology published "The Coke Complex," a cluster of articles that examine the political economy and political ecology of globalization through the lens of The Coca-Cola Company and its products. I have written a brief essay on critical fetishism for Anthropology Newsletter that suggests how to use "The Coke Complex" to prompt classroom discussion and to guide research projects that ground an iconic global commodity in the local conditions of its production and consumption. Both "The Coke Complex" and my teaching advice are available online through AnthroSource and, for non-subscribers, at the following sites: http://www.culanth.org/cokecomplex/ and http://hdl.handle.net/1802/5458.
When does reciprocity not matter? When you’re a journalist and not an anthropologist
Continuing from my last two posts, I have been thinking about instances where reciprocity, collaboration, control over representation, advocacy, and even informed consent simply did not matter at all to the indigenous community in question and to its friends in the wider community. I thought of the occasions where I had to share space with members of the mass media in Trinidad — filming space, photography space, interview space — in my years spent with the Carib Community, a formal organization that formally calls itself the Santa Rosa Carib Community. The last occasion that I did any kind of filming was in 2006, at a packed public event held under the auspices of the Caribbean Festival of the Arts.
The New York Neuroanthropology Times Today
A series of articles today in the New York Times nicely captures several of the themes of Neuroanthropology—(1) the importance of evolution, with an emphasis on comparative work, variation, and mechanism in addition to adaptive function; (2) examining the interaction between the environment and behavioral biology, where the environment can significantly shape and even alter basic behavioral biology; (3) that brains are there not just to process information or create accurate representations, but are designed for doing things; and (4) social context matters, shaping what people do and what they experience (again, brain-environment interaction), so a focus on the brain alone will not explain significant social patterns or problems.
`Meanwhile at the borders…..`
A few thoughts on the immigration industry and the politics of scholarship
Dr Imogen Tyler, Sociology Department, Lancaster University, UK.
British Borders
“My name is Fatmata and I come from Sierra Leone. I left my country because of the problems I had with my family. I claimed asylum when I arrived at the airport […] I was taken to Tinsley [Immigration removal centre] and then to Yarl’s Wood [immigration removal centre]. The Home Office said they would provide me a solicitor but he only came once. My case was still pending when I was taken to the airport for removal, so I was brought back to Yarl’s Wood. But then it was refused at the High Court, so they scheduled my removal […].Making an Exhibition with Images and Objects from Fieldwork in Anthropological Research
Arnd Schneider and Cecilie Øien, University of Oslo
“The kind of public anthropology that gets us some attention…”
The alternative heading for this post was “Futuring anthropology into its after-life.” I do not want to labour either of these lines, even while knowing that some stuffy and defensive types out there will want to see some agonizing apology on my part for daring to post something (else) that questions the future of the discipline. I just want to lead by saying that “getting us some attention” might not be what we need right now, if the aim is to preserve and uphold the current situation, and thus to defer criticism and restructuring.What is becoming clearer to me is that as enrollments drop, and available full-time academic positions for anthropology PhDs evaporate, thus creating an army of adjuncts, visitors, and part-timers who are certainly not getting the just reward for the many long years of hardship, sacrifice and devotion (longer years than most very highly paid lawyers, doctors…and dentists), that we are going to need to be very careful about continuing to graduate more anthropologists at the graduate level, if we care about their futures.
The Ethnographic Adventure of a “Rogue Sociologist”: Gang Leader for a Day goes Hollywood
Thanks to “Anthroman” (also known as Dr. John L. Jackson, Jr., an anthropology professor and filmmaker, not to mention blogger) for his article in The Root, “Hustle and Show.” The article is about a book by Sudhir Venkatesh, co-author of Freakonomics, titled Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets, which is being adapted for a Hollywood film. The book is reported by Jackson to be an “ethnographic treatment of gang culture on Chicago’s South Side.”
Jackson explains that Venkatesh was,
a relatively naïve graduate student at the University of Chicago when he first started studying crack-dealing gangs in one of the country’s most notorious housing projects. Venkatesh embarked on a sociological journey that would educate him about the counter-intuitive inner workings of gangland economies and the brutal realities of what happens when material inequality gets racially and geographically entrenched.
Anthroman, sorry, I mean Jackson, wonders whether the film might inspire young people to venture into ethnography the way some were inspired by Indiana Jones to go into archaeology (really, that actually happened? how disturbing). He hopes the filmmaker, Craig Brewer,
Indiana Jones and the Colonial World
So far the best treatment I have read online of the colonialist themes in the Indiana Jones films is Gary Dauphin’s “Does Indy Diss the Developing World?” published in The Root. Dauphin criticizes the ways the Indiana Jones films have commonly been discussed, in terms of box office sales, action, and so forth, and even some anthropologists seem to want to comment more on whether it was fun, a romp, whether the plot made sense, and look for obscure hints about the history of archaeology in the film.
As Dauphin would say, “that is mighty white of someone”:
Wired for Belief?
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life brought together the neuroscientist Andrew Newberg and the journalist David Brooks (yes, of neural buddhists fame) for joint presentations back in May, followed by a round-table Q&A discussion with a prominent group of journalists. The transcript of the entire event is now up, and that includes the audio as well as plenty more of the pretty brain graphics that you see here and some good event photos.
Kelty on the Culture of Publishing
Speaking of the culture of publishing in anthropology, Christopher Kelty discusses his new book “Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software” over at Savage Minds. He published it under the creative commons, created a web version, a printed version, and he discusses how it might contribute to “re-mixing” academic work. I am looking forward to reading it and including it in my upcoming research! In his post on Savage Minds he brings up some valuable discussion about the culture of publishing:
Intel anthropologist maps techno-enthusiasm
Wired magazine has a recent story about Dawn Nafus, a Cambridge PhD in anthropology working for Intel: Intel Anthropologists Find Keys to Tech Adoption. The map of which countries are rapid adopters is great; there’s some interesting surprises. For example, Nafus found that Estonia and South Korea were early adopters of technology in relation to income:
Canada’s Apology to Aboriginals (3.0)
By Maximilian ForteMonkeys can learn symbols
Ah, crap, now I have to change another lecture slide… No, this is cool. From Science Daily, The Symbolic Monkey? Animals Can Comprehend And Use Symbols, Study Of Tufted Capuchins Suggests discusses research that appeared in PLoS ONE. Some theorists refer to humans as ‘the symbolic species,’ but like so many distinctions that used to seem so clearly differentiating of ‘human nature,’ we find that the distinction is more of degree than kind. For example, studies of chimpanzees and gorillas taught manual or token languages have shown that great apes are capable of using symbols to communicate; whether or not monkeys could was less clear.
more on blogging as a research tool
The Media Anthropology Network’s recent e-seminar discussing Erkan Saka’s paper on blogging as a research tool, came to an end and I’ve been trying to work some of the ideas into my research proposal.
Here is what I’m working with:
Comments
erkanim, as if i did not have anything to do (such as writing my thesis), i have read most of the comments, and your replies on your e-seminar paper. it seems like a very productive way of sharing your study with others. takipteyiz! kisses, e.
Posted by: ebru | June 13, 2008 04:50 PM