"Web Ethnography

From The Savage Minds:

Web Ethnography

Cyborg Anthropologist Amber Case, tweeted the following great resource on digital ethnography: The Webnographer?s wiki has a ?mega list of books on digital ethnography.?

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CEAUSSIC: Origin Story and Grand Finale

from American Anthropological Association by Brian

Prof. George Marcus

?The AAA?s Ad Hoc Commission on Anthropology?s Engagement with the Security and Intelligence Communities (CEAUSSIC) continues its work. Our main activities at present include: 1. the writing of a report to the AAA on the widely and hotly debated Human Terrain System of the U.S. Army, 2. The editing of a casebook illustrating the diversity of kinds of practicing anthropology, including associated ethical questions, with a primary emphasis upon the security sector broadly conceived, 3. And providing support for the AAA?s ongoing ethics process. In an effort to keep our work transparent and part of the public and disciplinary discussion of all of the above, CEAUSSIC is also going to be contributing a monthly entry to the AAA?s blog. Each entry, by different CEAUSSIC members, will address topics that have arisen or that we have been thinking about, which we will continue to discuss via the blog, a discussion in which we hope you will also participate.?

Best archaeological finds of 2009

from Boing Boing by Cory DoctorowNational Geographic rounds up its favorite archaeological finds of 2009, from vampire corpses to pirate booty:

AAA Commission Releases Final Report on Army Human Terrain System

from American Anthropological Association by Brian

The AAA?s Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities (CEAUSSIC) released its Final Report on the Army?s Human Terrain System Proof of Concept Program [pdf]. CEAUSSIC held a press conference on the report during the 2009 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. Media links and the executive summary are copied below:

Overheard at the AAA

from Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology ? A Group Blog by Kerim

This Chronicle post has been making the rounds on Twitter:

The following comments were overheard in the hallways at the annual American Anthropological Association meeting, happening right now in a confusingly designed Marriott in downtown Philadelphia:

Possible Caves of Shangri-La Found

from Anthropologist Community

Climber Renan Ozturk watches a local Tibetan look at an illuminated manuscript found during an August 2008 expedition to remote Himalayan caves in the ancient kingdom of Mustang, today part of Nepal. The folio is part of a treasure trove of 15th-century Tibetan art and manuscripts that could be linked to the real-world inspiration for Shangri-La, a fictional paradise described by British writer James Hilton in his popular 1930s novel Lost Horizon.

The study of cognition and culture today

A special series of lectures supported by the LSE Annual Fund.
All lectures to be held at the London School of Economics, Seligman Library, room A607, Old Building, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE.

And the winner is… (the 2009 SMA awards)

from Somatosphere by Eugene RaikhelFor those who missed the conference in Philadelphia this year, or just the session at which these were announced, we have a complete list of the Society for Medical Anthropology‘s awards for 2009. (Thanks to the SMA’s webmaster, Ben McMahan, for sending these along).

Should anthropologists help US military in Iraq, Afghanistan wars?
Christian Science Monitor
Embedding anthropologists with US military in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is both praised and derided by academics as violating a social scientist’s basic

Social Science vs. The Pentagon: Should Anthropologists Go to War?
TIME
13, 2009 David Guttenfelder / AP Anthropologists have traditionally had a pretty wonkish reputation, earnestly taking field notes while interviewing a

Matter in Place

from Material World by Patrick Laviolette

Special Issue: SITES – A Journal of Social Anthropology & Cultural Studies
Edited by Patrick Laviolette & Bronwyn Labrum (Massey Univ)

It will perhaps be obvious to most readers here that the title for this special material culture issue of the NZ journal SITES, which was also used for an afternoon symposium in November 2007, was inspired by a now classic line from Professor Dame Mary Douglas? celebrated book Purity & Danger. In her insightful analysis of the conceptual workings of pollution and taboo, with the intention of outlining the ways in which such issues as hygiene and defilement are culturally constructed and socially structured, Douglas penned the well cited phrase ?Dirt is matter out of place? (1966: 44).