Anthropology roundup: Open access is organic

Open access is organic: on the Journal of Material Culture

Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology

Back in December Haidy Geismar, the incoming editor of The Journal of Material Culture (published by Sage), published an editorial mooting the future of JMC as an open access journal and asking readers to weigh in by taking an online survey about the future of the journal.  To date, sixteen people have responded. Sixteen. That?s pretty embarrassing ? for Geismar and for the JMC, but also for the open access movement more generally. So after you read this, go take the survey.

Digital disruption is changing business, but technology isn?t the only answer

The Next Web by Brian Solis  /

Brian Solis is principal analyst at Altimeter Group, a research firm focused on disruptive technology. He?s also a digital anthropologist and futurist who studies and the effects of emerging technology on business and society. It?s pretty easy to get caught up in tech these days.

Linguistics, Anthropological Linguistics, and Linguistic Anthropology

Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology ? A Group Blog by Matthew Timothy Bradley

Defining that increasingly rara avis, the anthropological linguist.

The anthropological linguist possess proficiency in linguistic analysis of the sort falling under the umbrella of Basic Linguistic Theory. To put it crudely, s/he can solve problems in phonology, morphology, and syntax.

Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry: SMOPS 11

Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology ? A Group Blog
?Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry? is perhaps the best summary of Sapir?s approach to what would become known as the ?culture and personality? movement in anthropology. But this brief, rich, and intelligent essay is more then that. It is also a statement about the nature of culture, the role of human agency in culture, and the complex, differentiated nature of culture. It is a remarkable piece that demonstrates the incredible clarity and sophistication of Sapir?s thought.

Debut Issue of Economic Anthropology ? Greed and Excess

American Anthropological AssociationThe Society for Economic Anthropology?s newest journalEconomic Anthropology is now available!

The inaugural issue of Economic Anthropology, formerly published as the SEA Monograph Series, is now available onAnthroSource. This collection of articles from the proceedings of the Society for Economic Anthropology?s 2011 Annual Meeting Conference engages with and explores the concepts of ?greed? and ?excess? as accusations, ideas and behaviors that are shaped by social processes across time and place. Volume editors, Rahul Oka and Ian Kuijit note in their introduction that,

Afghanistan?s next president may be an anthropologist

Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology

Afghanistan?s upcoming elections have received a lot of coverage here in the United States, and all over the world. But did you know that one of the leading candidates, Ashraf Ghani, is an anthropologist?

Ashraf Ghani. Photo by Christof Sonderegger under a creative commons license.

If you put Ghani?s name into Amazon you?ll most likely get his 2008 book Fixing Failed States, and Google results focus on the TED talk summary of his book or his campaign website. Ghani?s book is blurbed by Francis Fukuyama and Hernando de Soto, thinkers anthropologists usually consider The Enemy. But anyone who looks back to his scholarly writing and intellectual influences will recognize him as a powerful anthropological thinker whose work exemplifies the best our discipline has to offer

Indiana Jones? FBI finds thousands of artifacts in 91-year-old’s home

Los Angeles Times

?I have never seen a collection like this in my life except at some of the largest museums,? said Larry Zimmerman, an anthropology and museum studies professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, who is helping the FBI figure out what …

Interview with man at center of Rush Co. FBI raid