Reports from EASA

As I become a robot like person and concentrated on writing in the remaining days, I had decided not to attend anthropology conferences this year. EASA conference was relatively close to Istanbul but i could not make it. Similarly, I won’t be attending AAA. I just did not want to deal with a trip, last minute paper preparations etc. Hopefully Erkan will be next year but in the mean time, Lorenz reported from EASA: 

First reports from Europe’s largest anthropology conference (EASA)

By Lorenz

Today was the fifth and last day of the 10th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) in Ljubljana, Slovenia. There are no news stories yet, but anthropology students at the University of Ljubljana have already written an impressive number of reports on workshops, plenaries and poster sessions.

The students have done a real great job and I hope they will inspire other conference organizers. There are exciting things being told and discussed at conferences. But until now, these stories have stayed inside a small community of scholars. Things are changing: The Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) has started podcasting from their annual meetings.

Media anthropology, 15 years on (4)

By John Postill

One pending task in the anthropology of media is cross-cultural comparison. I think it’s time we start comparing our findings. Despite some commendable efforts at bringing comparison back on the anthropological agenda (e.g. Gingrich and Fox 2002), we generally don’t do much comparing in anthropology – indeed, we tend to look suspiciously at this very idea with its supposedly ’positivist’ connotations. The fact that the notion of territorially-based cultures – particularly national cultures -has also been under fire for decades doesn’t help either.

Les Fondations Françaises de la Neuroanthropologie

By Paul Mason

Mes recherches primaires se compose de l’intégration des neurosciences avec l’anthropologie et l’ethnologie, intégration qui offre un relativement nouveau champ de recherche, la neuroanthropologie.

Mon interêt a été particulièrement captivé par l’étude sur la complexité anthropo-sociale et la contribution du biologique et de l’imaginaire (La Méthode d’Edgar Morin) ainsi que le processus par lequel le monde social et culturel s’imbibe dans l’esprit dès l’enfance. Ainsi nous avons des créations culturelles qui peuvent se développer par l’histoire. Cependant nous devons considerer, non seulement l’évolution biologique de l’espèce mais, également, l’évolution culturelle de l’humanité (Jean-Pierre Changeux, 6th Kenneth Myer Lecture).

Guest post: Current Indigenous Debates, CDEP and the culture of Cultura Nullius

I am happy to present this guest post by ANU PhD Student Bree Blakeman and environmental economist, Dr Nanni Concu.  This article deals with a number of themes that we have focused on at CM: the concept of culture and how it is applied in real life contexts, engaged anthropological commentary on current events, and the specific issue of the government Intervention into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.  The article provides some considered observations grounded in ethnographic research which, I think, serve to challenge the usual terms of the debate about the Intervention.  Hopefully this will provoke new discussion on what remains an important, and unresolved, issue.

Jovan