Let's face it. For all of the intense moralizing and half-baked political commentary that now passes for anthropological "theory," when it comes to political action anthropologists suck.
Why aren't we outraged? Why aren't we....? We see these questions online every bloody day. Have they made any difference? The evidence is thin, likely non-existent, and that's not surprising.
Outrage is an industry. There is so much of it online that another ranting voice is unlikely to be heard above all the other noise in the chorus of pain and anger that floods our email boxes, blogs and 24-hour news sources.
Outrage is not a solution. It may call attention to a problem, even a life or death problem. But so what? Day after day we are bombarded with calls to take action, which comes down at the end of the day to sign an online petition and expose yourself to another plea for a financial donation. When you're drowning in appeals to guilt and anger, the natural defense is to hit the delete key.
And let's take a look at ourselves. We anthropologists are a few thousand souls on a planet with a population of more than seven billion, and we can't even make up our minds, just talking to each other, what our priorities should be. Look at that through the lenses of Paul Wellstone's priorities (mobilize, energize, organize) or the models provided by Ghandi, Mao, Mandela or Martin Luther King. The idea that our outrage alone is going to change anything is ludicrous.
I speak as someone who has been here before with one big difference. Back in the sixties I was active in the anti-Vietnam War movement and I heard a lot of voices with the same outraged tone I hear so much of today.Did we drive LBJ out of office? Yes. Did we stop the war? Eventually. Did we overthrow "the system" and usher in paradise on earth? Just look around you. How did we achieve what we did? That big difference I mentioned: There were millions of young men and the parents, sisters and girlfriends who loved them afraid that we would be drafted and sent to Vietnam. Our outrage was a mask for fear, and the fear was shared by the millions who became a mass movement.
As Marx so pointedly put it, the serious question is "What must be done?" Outrage and "critique" alone are not serious answers.
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Open Anthropology Cooperative Blog Posts: Get used to it. Anthropology will never be politically effective.
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Visual Anthropology of Japan: Turning the Tide: The Fight to Reduce Suicide in Japan
Announcement from SSJ-Forum:
"Saving 10,000 - Winning a War on Suicide in Japan" is a 52-minute documentary directed by TUJ ICAS Adjunct Fellow Dr. Rene Duignan. At this event, Rene will discuss the movie's key findings while showing some excerpts. Unusually for a small documentary, "Saving 10,000" has attracted a lot of media interest with Rene giving over 20 interviews to date. The movie has also sparked interest from politicians with DVD requests from a Minister and Vice-Minister. A special screening/Q&A will be held at the Japanese Parliament in March. Rene has had the privilege of sharing his ideas in a meeting with the head of the Suicide Prevention Unit of the Cabinet Office. After the Japanese media coverage, screening/speaking requests have been coming from all over Japan.
Date: Thursday, March 14, 2013Time: Door open 7:00 p.m / Talk start 7:30 p.m.Venue:Temple University, Japan Campus, Azabu Hall 2F(access: [www.tuj.ac.jp] Rene Duignan, ICAS Adjunct Fellow and Economist for the Delegation of the European Union to JapanModerator: Robert Dujarric, ICAS DirectorAdmission: Free (Open to general public)Language: EnglishRSVP:icas@tuj.temple.edu
More info: [www.saving10000.com]
See also Killing Yourself To Make A Living: In Japan Financial Incentives Reward “Suicide” [www.japansubculture.com]
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hawgblawg: mahragan (electro cha3bi) mixtape
Courtesy Cairo Liberation Front, who call the genre Electro Cha3bi. If I could read Dutch I could figure out more about who these folks are. Generation Bass says they are "two dudes from Tillburg." Names: Joost Heijthuisen and Yannnick Verhoeven.They like to wear kufiyas, it seems, when they DJ.Check them out on Facebook. If you read Dutch, tell me more.I also wish I knew more, or anything, really, about the artists on the mixtape. Maybe someone will do that work too. (Except #26, Oka and Ortega, of the famous Eight Percent crew, straight outta Matariya.)You can access it 3 ways.1: on Soundcloud.2. on youtube: 3. and best of all, as a download. Here.Enjoy.
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hawgblawg: Ded Prez: new vid, same kufiyas
New one from the verrry political rap group Ded Prez. It's very "positive." A bit too much on the positive tip for me, really. But it does have the requisite kufiyas, worn by M-1. Who has been spotted before in kufiya. Here. And spotted here, not in kufiya, but with DAM at Sundance.
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Dori's Moblog: Catching up part 2
Okay, I am using my 12 hour layover to post the late blogs from India. So here it goes.
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Dori's Moblog: Ahmedabad: Day 03 (Heritage Walk)
Sudhir, Ira, and I met early
at the business lounge as Ira had to get to school and we had to be at the
Heritage Walk site by 7:30-8:00am. It was lovely to watch the sun rise over the
river as well left for the old town by electronic rickshaw. Ahmedabad is less noticeably
smoggy than Pune and definitely Mumbai.
The markets of the old city do
not open up until 10:30am, so the streets were just waking up with some small
vegetable sellers, early shopping housewives, packs of dogs, and morning
worshippers as some of the many temples.
Sudhir and I arrived arrived
at the starting part of the 1.5 Km tour through the Old City. The Old City is
of course much larger than that. It was first established in the 10th Century by Ahmed Shah. Sudhir paid our entrance fees.
As a foreigner, my fee was 50 rupees while his was 10 rupees. Unlike others, I
never consider this foreign tax unjust considering the global economic
structure that makes $1 AUD equal to 50 rupees.
At 8:00am, there was a small
group today of about eight people plus our guide: Sudhir and I, a trio of
overseas Indians from Chicago and their local sister, an Indian/Turkish couple
(the Turkish female was an architectural student based on her sketches),
another Indian couple, and the guide. I looked at the log and the day before
they had 17 visitors, the day before 20. The guide told us that a couple of
weeks back she had a group of 150. They showed us a slide show of the history
of Old Ahmedabad and its changes through the centuries. Then we went to the
first site of the tour, the temple across the street from the office.
We had 10 minutes to look
around the temple, which was crowded because prayers had just started. Women
and men entered into different compartments, with men in the front closest to
the Gods, and women behind them. Men rang the bell to alert the Gods to their
presence. Most women could not reach the bell to ring it
I do not have pictures of the
women performing sutras as I thought it is disrespectful. But the temple was
filled with young and old. Groups of middle-aged women in colorful saris
gossiped in the back patio of the temple. Young women in jeans and tunics moved
towards the front. Old women in white sat on the ground with their prayer
books.
We were quickly corralled to
move into next site of the tour. The memorial dedicated to Kavishwar Dalpatram Dahyabhai, a famous Gujurati poet of the
old city. They just had the façade of his home and a statue honoring him. Our
guide who was a volunteer recited some of his poetry which every student learns
in school.
We then moved to our first of
many pols. Pols are the main subdivisions of the old city. Basically they are
urban villages. Each pol had its own locked gate, guardhouse, water well,
temple or small mosque, gathering square, which was lined with three to four
story town houses.
Ahmedabad is famous for its
birdhouses, which are called chabutara. Carved intricately in wood, the guide told us
that the residents of the city built them to show compassion for the birds
whose trees they had displaced in when building the city. The residents are
responsible for providing water and food to the birds each day and evening.
Some of them are over 200 years old.
The guide told us that they
are built high so that the cats cannot reach the birds and that women who
carried water could rest the jugs on the ledge.
What strikes me about India is
the extent to which there is so much diversity and religious intermixture. The
guide took us to one pol in which one house was of the British style
(determined by the brickwork and shape of the arches, one of Mugal style
(determined by the portraiture on the door entrances and arches), and one
Persian style (determined by the grapevine motifs).
We continued the tour through
the narrow passageways, some of which were secret passageways.
On the main streets were shops
of everything one could imagine. There were streets devoted to books and paper.
Streets devoted to clothing for the Gods, which are changed everyday. Streets
devoted to jewelry, etc.
Of course, one must have the
ubiquitous photo of the colorful spices organized in the market staff. So to
not disappoint here it is.
Quickly we arrived at the end
of the tour, Juma Mosque. The Mosque is the other place where you see Indian
diversity and religious intermixture. According to the guides, there were Jain,
Hindu as well as Moslem motifs. There are the tree of life and lotus patterns
of Hindu temples.
The Mosque is beautiful. Women
are not allowed in during prayer, so we (women) were lucky to get to see it.
After visiting the Mosque,
Sudhir and I got back into another rickshaw to go to Subrata Bhowmick’s studio.
Sudhir had a business meeting about Pool Magazine with Kamal Khokhani, the publisher of InSite Magazine, the official B2B magazine of the Indian Interior Designers Association. Subrata wanted me to visit
with some of the textile artisans not far from his office. Subrata introduced
me to Payal Nanavati the main graphic designer in his design company. They specialize
in advertising for the textile industry, in particular wedding saris. I
received from Subrata the most amazing gift: one of his limited edition prints
based on 17th century Rajanstani paintings. He asked me if I
preferred Krishna or Ganesh. I think in the past I was more into the playboy
Krishna types, but as I get older I appreciate the seriousness of Ganesh types.
He gave me a Krishna print beautifully wrapped in handmade paper and dyed
ribbon.
After masala tea, we went to
the office of Kamal Khokhani. On the way we ran
into a wedding party. A uniformed band, giant mobile music system, and dancing
party of relatives lead the groom, on his white horse, to the home of his
bride, whom he will take back to the wedding site. The music and dancing is
infectious, although I did not dance as Subrata would have liked me to do.
During the rest of the day and night, I saw a lot more wedding parties as it is
the height of the wedding season.
While Sudhir had his meeting, Payal, Khokhani's daughter and I went to visit print artisans. I got to see a
demonstration of the block printing technique done to make bedsheets. The
uniform precision of the manual technique is really amazing. They used to use
more vegetable dies, but now they use chemical dies.
Traditionally, they specialised in
block and hand printing of religions stories for temples. They continue to do
that work, but suppliment it now with making beddings and curtains.
We next visited a master printer, but
he could not show us any of his work because all his stock was taken to the big
textile fair that was held at the end of January.
We then returned to the office to go
to lunch at Swati, a resturant that serves traditional Gujurati food, but also
a variety of other Indian regional foods. Subrata pointed out how the owners
had used copies of his yellow plate design. The food was wonderful, of course.
After lunch, we left to
prepare for my lecture and tour of the National Institute of Design.
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Dori's Moblog: Ahmedabad: Day 03 (National Institute of Design)
In planning for the trip to
India, one of my main objectives was to go to the National Institute of Design.
Every Indian designer I know and respect has a direct connection to NID as an alumni, faculty,
or student. Sudhir is a graduate of NID. MP Ranjan was both a student and
long-term faculty member of NID. My admiration for NID important because I had my first snag in the trip.
I had
been double booked for at talk at NID at 5:30pm and CEPT at 6:00pm. No matter
what, neither institution was willing or able to change the time. So I had to
decide to cancel the talk at CEPT. It was probably the best
decision. I got the opportunity to tour the studios of NID, with Praveen who
leads Industrial and Systems design as my guide, whom I had met in Melbourne.
The campus is stunning in
terms of modernist architecture, probably reflected from the Ulm Bauhaus
connection with NID.
There is a wide variety of
studio spaces. Taking only 100 students out of 50,000 applications per year,
NID has ample space for each student who works both individually and on teams
to solve complex design challenges
The talk was probably the best
I had given because of the ambiance and my general excitement of presenting at
NID. They had arranged to record my talk
to make it open to a wider audience. The auditorium was full of students and
staff. (I was told that most talks are not so well attended as this one.) It
was explained that the students and the staff at NID know me or know of me.
They have followed my blog for years, or seen video lectures I have given
elsewhere, and we have met in other cities at conferences and visits. I loved
the brief dialogue with the audience after the talk. The students are bright,
engaged, and needing to develop the confidence to led India (and the rest of
the world) in the 21st Century.
Everyone has talked about how
NID has changed and with the forced retirement of a lot of the best professors,
it has gone down in quality. But if there is one place in India, where I would
like to spend some time teaching, it is NID.
The next day Sudhir, Ira, and
I parted ways. I felt so sad to leave them. Ira had to go to school. Sudhir had
a meeting in Mumbai and I was off to do some Swinburne recruiting work. I met
with Pankaj Arora of Swinburne International to meet with some of the agents who help us
recruit students for Swinburne. It was interesting to see (1) how we pitch
Swinburne to international students, (2) the process that these potential
students go through with the agents, and (3) what are the current trends in
overseas applications. Swinburne is promoted mostly through word of mouth of
former graduates and their families. The agents work mostly with undergraduate
applications as the PhD process is more self-directed. The trends are IT and
biotechnology, especially at the postgraduate levels. PhDs are on the rise.
After visiting two agents, I
went to the hotel to get my things and head to the airport for Jaipur.
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Dori's Moblog: Jaipur 01.5 (Rani Mahal, Hawa Mahal, Rajasthani food, and the Indian Institute of Craft and Design)
It was dark when I arrived in
Jaipur. Like Pune and Ahmedabad, it had a new airport as well. The prepaid taxi
drove me to the Rani Mahal hotel, the heritage hotel that I had booked online.
The concept of the prepaid taxi is such a relief in terms of reducing the anxiety of traveling and not getting ripped off by taxi drivers. It is a concept that they should establish elsewhere (Australia and the US) when coming from the airport. The hotel itself was extraordinarily beautiful. Words cannot describe it, so
here are some photos.
When I arrived, the
owner/manager offered me masala tea and provided me with a menu to order
dinner. He put me in the suite room,
which was this beautiful room with original painting of the same beautiful
Queen in the other paintings in the hotel.
After eating, I was exhausted,
watched some TV (kung fu of all things), and soon went to bed. Two things are very interesting about Indian TV. First is that there are probably over 100 channels in several languages. Some are devoted to playing the music scenes from Bollywood movies. The second was the number of commercials about making the skin of both men and women fairer. There is one ad for men to remove the tan from your face with a face wash. Another ad was for a deodarant that whitens your underarms. I knew about Indian colorism, but wow to see such blatant advertisment for men and women.
The next morning I got in
contact with Shriya Nagi, the women who researchers, writes, and designs Pool
Magazine in Jaipur. Thus she is the Jaipur branch of Sudhir’s company, Indi
Design. We coordinated to do a little touring in the morning before my
afternoon talk at the Indian Institute of Craft and Design. The day’s tour of
Jaipur was planned because my original intention was to go to see the Taj Mahal
in Agra the next day. But after talking to the hotel manager, I decided against
going by myself.
Shriya arrived around 11:30am
and we got a taxi to take us to the old city. Jaipur is beautiful with its
salmon colored buildings. It does look pink in the evening sun.
We arrived a Hawa Mahal, the
Wind Palace near the center of town. Stunning cannot begin to describe, the
intricate beauty of the palace and its Mughal architecture. It was built in 1799 C.E. It is five stories
high and is called the Wind Palace because of the intricate lattice work,
arches, and courtyards that allows the wind to circulate throughout the palace.
We spent about 45 minutes at the Hawa
Mahal, then went to lunch at the L.M.B. Hotel, a resturant famous for its Rajasthani food. Shriya
was last at the resturant eight years ago and the quality of food had not gone
down since then. The food was very rich, but very good.
Following lunch, we had to
hurry to get to the Indian Institute for Craft and Design for my talk.
The Ranjasthani Government
established the Indian Institute of Craft and Design in 1995. Its original
intention was to provide educational opportunities for the children of
craftspeople so that they can go into design. While providing lots of
opportunities for craft peoples from all over India to work with IICD staff and
students, it has not met the goal of enrolling lots of crafts people’s
children. Partly, they say this is because the children do not wish to leave
home and in some cases the parents refusing to let especially the girls leave
home.
They were currently working on
a project for the Mumbai airport in which they had invited Tamil Nadu
terracotta artisans to design and build large-scale terracotta elephants,
horses, and figures.
They do lots of projects for
the Federal Government. When meeting the director, I learned that there is a
tangible origin to the concept “government red tape.” In India, documents that
are transferred between the government are wrapped in a red ribbon with a
folder for the documents and a pocket for the cover sheet. Who knew that red
tape was a real thing?
The talk went really well with
lots of interesting questions from students and staff. Their work is the closest to the essence of Cultures-Based Innovation. Swati, one of the students, showed me her final project for her diploma. All aspects of CBI were present in terms of extensive documentation of the process and meaning of embroidery and beading for the craft community of her focus. She had to produce a tangible prototype of "new" designs based on inspiration from cultural heritage and five digital design concepts. She had to work with crafts people to implement the designs learning about how their process impacts on what is possible. The areas of gap were figuring out the business models to make it a sustainable enterprise and a clear articulation of how the benefits go back to the craft communities. They did indicate that they plan to start an incubation center to support the manufacturing of student designs and the establishing of craft-based design enterprises. The IICD has the potential to be the best institute for research partnerships in CBI in India.
I will write more about
what Cultures-Based Innovation means in an India context once the tour is over,
but there are some consistent themes that arise from the questions that I am
receiving.
After my talk, the director
dropped Shriya off at home, which was on the way, and me back at the hotel.
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Dori's Moblog: Jaipur 02.5 Sick Day
Today, I took a sick and tired day. This was half-way through the trip and I was feeling on the verge of catching a cold. When I plan intense trips like this, I always require a down time day in which I need to recover form the exhaustion of constant motion, presenting, but mostly talking to people. I am really an introvert, which means that people do suck the energy out of me. If I don’t get enough alone time, I start to get physically sick, mostly manifested as a cold or flu.Thus, I stayed all day in the hotel to catch up on blog postings; one of which was lost when the wifi went down after I had been working on it for three hours. I slept a lot and then in the evening watched TV.
I said before that I decided not to go to the Taj Mahal. Although Jaipur is a lovely city and the people I have met have been lovely, there is something about the place that does not resonate with me. It is not that I dislike it; it is just that I would never feel comfortable there. As Gary said, perhaps there is some really bad juju in the history there.
In total sweetness though, the hotel manager sent up one of the staff to check up on me when I did not come down for breakfast or lunch. My stomach was a bit upset. They were happy when I did decide to come down for dinner. The service at the Rani Mahal was really excellent.
In my brief travels, I have noticed the number of Nepali or Indo-Asiatic young men working in the food service sector. Rajesh often conversed with me in his limited English and my non-existent Hindi or Nepali during breakfast in the dining hall or when he brought and picked up the room service trays for me. It seems that he travelled to India to work and that all his family is back in Nepal. I was told that Nepali’s are treated as if they were Indian citizens in terms of travel, employment, and educational opportunities.
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the Anthropologist in the Stacks: New Learning Spaces and the role of Ongoing Research
This is going to be one in a series of posts, because I've got fun maps to share, and if I share them all at once, the post will be entirely tl;dr (if it isn't already...)Atkins Library recently renovated our "basement," that is, we took space that had been inhabited by staff doing the work of the library, gutted it (having found new places for our staff to work in), and turned it into an array of spaces in which students can do collaborative work. Here is what it looked like before there were people in it (photos by Cheryl Lansford, Interior Designer for UNC Charlotte): We have created configurable furniture arrangements in some areas, and more fixed arrangements in others. This picture shows the T1 touch screen tables (which also have screens at the head of the table, so students can plug in and share from their laptops. This is a view into one of our new group study rooms, with tables that are wheeled as well as wheeled task chairs. Surfaces near the digital screens allow students to share from their laptops, and there is also a dedicated computer for them to work from if they do not have their own device with them. Whiteboards and the glass walls are meant to be written on (and are). The space just outside of the library cafe has been set up to be more cafe-type seating, but with larger low tables, to accommodate the need to spread out with laptops, books, notebooks, and even more than one person's "stuff" that they are working with. There are outlets in the wood-paneled pillars, to allow for student to plug in wherever they want to work. The most configurable part of the open space (that is, the space not contained in the study rooms), has more of the wheeled tables and task chairs, as well as some soft seating (relatively lightweight, so it can be moved around), rolling whiteboards, and movable privacy screens. I think it's all pretty cool. Our students seem pretty happy with it so far. We had a fancy grand opening for the space, and are grateful to all of the work that went into the design and building of it. Some of the work was done by me, and students under my supervision, in the form of studying the kinds of behaviors that go into collaborative work, and thinking experimentally about how to reveal the best configuration of space and technology to facilitate effective student learning.In many learning space design scenarios, the opening is the ending. Universities continue to build new spaces, open them, and then walk away without thinking about what comes next. What did they get right about the new spaces? What did we get wrong? How can we improve it? When can we make changes?I wonder sometimes if there is a fear of looking bad, somehow, if one goes in and makes changes to brand new spaces. As if the planning wasn't good enough, and that's why we need to change things so soon after the opening. I hope that is not the case, because we are already looking at the new spaces and thinking about things we need to change, to better respond to how people are actually using the space, rather than assuming that they are using the space as we imagined they would.Sometimes, people just do their own thing. To that end, I am enlisting the help of my graduate assistants this semester, Allison Schaefer (an MA student in Architecture), and Carrie Vass (an MA student in Communications), to systematically observe what is going on in our new spaces, and report back. At this early point in the semester (the spaces have only been officially open since January 23rd), we already have several days' worth of observations, and some nice visualizations of that observation data. We are interested not just in how people are using the spaces and the furnitureAllison created maps of our ground floor using Revit, and then added color for movement or activity using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. She mapped the kinds of activities people were doing, and also where people walked when they moved through the space, over the course of her observations. First up: the activity maps.This shows where people were eating in the course of her observations (about 8 hours altogether). The heavily blue areas are adjacent to the library cafe. But eating is clearly happening near the nice windows overlooking the Student Activity center (on the right, in this diagram), and in the central parts of the spaces.This is where studying is happening in the new space. All over.This is where talking in happening in the space. Also, all over.When we overlap the maps for eating and studying, we see that they are not mutually exclusive areas. These maps were created from afternoon observations--if they included evening hours, we know that there would be even more overlap. Atkins library has allowed food and drink in its spaces (except in Special Collections) for several years, now, and this shows that we are right to not treat these activities (eating and studying) as mutually exclusive.Can you study and talk at the same time? Our students can and do. While some areas clearly show one thing or the other happening, the overlap is significant.Just because students have a laptop open does not mean they are studying. Likewise, just because they don't have a laptop, doesn't mean they are not studying.These maps are beautiful and informative, and of course are only part of the picture. Next post, I will talk about the maps Allison created that show how the density of occupation varies, as well as length of stay, and the maps that show circulation patterns through the space. I will also have pictures of what the spaces look like when they are occupied!
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Erkan in the Army now...: Vildan Orancı’dan Brugge fotoğrafları: “Brugge: Masal Kenti
Diğer fotolar burada.
Related posts:
Vildan Orancı’dan İtalya fotoları…
Vildan Orancı’dan İstanbul Tarihi Yarımada foto galerisi
Vildan Orancı’dan film kritiği: Margin Call, 2011 by J.C. Chandor
Malta photos from Vildan Orancı
Vildan Orancı: Rashomon filmi üzerine bir deneme
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anthropologyworks: The Value of Cultural Anthropology
Guest post by Nick Bluhm
I was recently asked during an interview what value my anthropology degree added to my candidacy for a corporate attorney position.
Without hesitating, I answered that it taught me the importance of talking to people. As commonsensical as it may sound, this is rarely done in a methodical, deliberate way to understand another’s perspective, whether that of a negotiating counter-party, a potential consumer, or an existing client. Anthropology requires the practitioner to hone his or her people skills: it’s the primary means by which the anthropologist engages with the informant and uncovers insights often not revealed by a thorough study of the hard numbers.
For instance, consider the issue of school reform. How are we, as social scientists (whether sociologists, economists, or anthropologists) supposed to understand the potential solutions?
The answer: By reference to the weaknesses, deficits, or demonstrated needs highlighted by the data set. But different academics will most likely disagree as to the most reliable source of data for identifying the pressing issues. Is it the median test score of a particular class? Is the average truancy of a particular student demographic? What if, perhaps, we as scientists decided against simply intuiting the issues from hard numbers; what if, instead of starting with the data, we interview the relevant stakeholders? Interview the teachers, the parents, the administrators, and the students.
This is the default approach for anthropologists, which I believe places the profession in the same vein as a non-profit consultant or a sophisticated consumer-products conglomerate; each believes in the primacy of the individual — the importance of understanding the perspective of the client, or the consumer, or the key anthropological informant.
For instance, Proctor & Gamble will market Tide soap to Vietnamese women depending on how customers describe their view of the Tide product and its utility in their lives.
Alternatively, the non-profit consultant may suggest school reforms that focus on the particular socio-economic factors affecting a particular under-performing student demographic. However different the end objectives are for each of these professions, it is the primacy of the “other” — the focus on understanding the world from the perspective of the “other” — that defines the core strength of these pursuits.
But economists approach the “other” from quite a different standpoint. Economists believe in deriving insights from the way and extent to which individuals deviate from the “logical” or “rational” ideal models intuited by the arm-chair economists. Instead of starting with carte blanche, as anthropologists ideally begin their fieldwork (with no pre-conceptions about the society, culture, or way of life), economists rigorously define a model that describes how a “rational” individual would make decisions (or how a market of similarly rational individuals would operate). It is therefore a roundabout way (and with significant pre-conceptions of the “right” choices to make) that economists attempt to individualize or humanize the homo economicus. Occasionally, there are economists who are notable for suggesting “behavioral” impacts on particular markets; or “economists” that re-define the notion of rational decision-making. Generally the profession of economics is defined by its adherence to models.
Ronald Coase. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Recently, however, Ronald Coase, Nobel Laureate and long-time faculty member of the famed University of Chicago Department of Economics, has suggested that a new branch of economics be pursued. He has broached the idea of a journal titled Man and the Economy, focusing on case studies, historic data, and research that appears to combine the quantitative rigor of economics with the value-add of anthropology.
Coase has thrown down the gauntlet: Fellow economists, step out of your offices and speak to the people about whom you have long theorized. Critics lambast the venture: “it’s difficult to make this a hard science.”
True, and the venture might defeat attempts to aggregate data or research. But the point of this venture is to gut-check the insights and conclusions; to understand whether the data set is as thorough and reflective of the American economy as some economists assume it is.
I do not fault economists for this approach. There is value in aggregating data for unemployment numbers, or Gross Domestic Product. Economists, unlike most anthropologists, focus on large or macro-economic issues; and a simple way to aggregate data sets and reach broad conclusions is to “simplify” data and assumptions. By contrast, as the number of variables or nuances of the “data” multiplies, the objective of aggregating the research devolves into comparing “apples to oranges.” This problem often plagues anthropology and is certain to limit the comparability of research, per recent discussion about “man and the economy.”
But this approach, which values the primacy of hard numbers, abstract models, science, and business is less helpful for identifying business opportunities, or consumer trends, or the viewpoints of people. The economists need to recognize that people, not numbers, are the true source of insights.
Acknowledgements
Nick Bluhm is a student at the University of Virginia School of Law. He holds an M.A. in anthropology from the George Washington University.
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Erkan in the Army now...: Cyberculture roundup: The Guardian piece on Hackers, Germany on Amazon probe, Bitcoin, Google Glass…
How Hackers Changed the World and Meet the Izzards – TV review
The Guardian
Anonymous famously deployed its collective muscle in the cause of WikiLeaks and the Arab spring, but since then affiliated groups such as Lulzsec have strayed into actions that some Anonymous members find either merely malicious or ethically dubious
Germany probes Amazon’s pricing policy
from Hurriyet Daily News
The German competition watchdog launched an investigation into the policy of online.
Amazon in hot water again in Germany as watchdog probes its pricing policies
from The Next Web by Matt Brian
Bitcoin’s New Bubble: Digital Currency Now Trading at $30
from Mashable! by The Daily Dot
Pirate Party Will Fight Anti-Piracy Group, Inside or Outside Court
from TorrentFreak by enigmax
This week Swedish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance stepped up their battle against The Pirate Bay by attacking parts of the site’s infrastructure operated by third parties.
Google reportedly in talks with Warby Parker to make its Google Glass specs look cool
from The Next Web by Jon Russell
In Battle With Amazon, Google Hardens Its Cloud Services
from Wired Top Stories by Klint Finley
As part of its ongoing effort to compete with Amazon in the cloud computing game, Google has beefed up the technical support options for businesses who use its sweeping collections of cloud services.
White House Says It’s Cracking Down on Corporate IP Theft
from Mashable! by Alex Fitzpatrick
Indie booksellers sue Amazon and big publishers over DRM (but have no idea what “DRM” and “open source” mean)
from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
A group of independent booksellers have filed a suit against Amazon and the major publishers for their use of DRM, which, the booksellers say, freezes them out of the ebook market:
The Apple and Facebook hacks exemplify why security is becoming a worry for everyone, even the tech-savvy
from The Next Web by Emil Protalinski
New Google Glass Patent Shows Future Designs
from Mashable! by Pete Pachal
Google Glass, Alternate Design 1
After employees opt to be paid in Bitcoin, the Internet Archive asks for donations in the digital currency
from The Next Web by Emil Protalinski
Related posts:
Julian Assange answers questions at the Guardian, Amazon vs. Wikileaks. Global roundup continues
Google show yesterday…and a cyberculture roundup..
Cyberculture roundup: Google explains its approach to government requests..
Wikileaks vs. the Guardian. A cyberculture roundup
A LulzSec interview, Anonymous attacks on NATO, Google & Facebook in lobbying spree and more… A Cyberculture roundup…
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anthropologyworks: Getting more women into political office: What works?
An upcoming event…
When: Thursday, February 28, 2013,
Where: 10:00 AM-1:00 PM Lindner Family Commons, Room 602
1957 E Street NW
The Elliott School of International Affairs
Washington, DC 20052
Open to the public; please RSVP here.
Light lunch will be served following the program.
Keynote address:
•Mona Lena Krook, Associate Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University “Electoral Quotas & Women’s Representation in Rwanda: Is More Women Enough?”
Panelists include:
•Jennie Burnet, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Louisville “Gender Quotas & Women’s Representation in Rwanda: Is More Women Enough?”
•Megan Doherty, Program Manager for Middle East and North Africa, National Democratic Institute “Women’s Political Participation in Libya: Quotas as a Key Strategy for States in Transition”
•Sara Mia Noguera, Chief of Studies and Projects Section, Department for Electoral Cooperation and Observation, Secretariat for Political Affairs, Organization of American States “Can Election Observation be a Tool to Promote Women’s Political Participation?: the OAS experience in the Americas”
•Susannah Wellford Shakow, Chair and Founder, Running Start “The Importance of Starting Early”
This event is sponsored by the George Washington University’s Global Gender Program which is a part of the Elliott School’s Institute for Global and International Studies Co-sponsored by the National Democratic Institute
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Anthropology Now: Part Three of Three: New York City
New York has long been a city of immigrants, and as a result of waves of immigration, language experts describe it as the most linguistically dense city on earth. Mark Turin travels to the Big Apple to track the many languages of New York. He travels the 7 train, designated a US Heritage Trail, as it rattles its way from Flushing to the heart of Manhattan, passing through areas where Korean, Bengali and Spanish are the languages spoken on the street. He meets the linguists who are tracking New York's many languages and hears from those who believe that the US needs to promote the English language ahead of all others.
His journey ends with a story of linguistic rebirth as he discovers how the Yiddish language, once in decline, has attracted a new generation of speakers.
This post originally appeared here, Monday, December 17th, 2012.
Mark Turin has also written about New York's linguistic diversity for BBC news here.
Audio originally produced by Mark Rickards.
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Erkan in the Army now...: Eurosphere roundup: EU Google Probe, Italy Elections…
Everything You Need to Know About the EU Google Probe
from Mashable! by Todd Wasserman
MAIN FOCUS: Berlusconi unsettles Europe | 19/02/2013
from euro|topics
Leading German politicians have voiced concern that Italy’s ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi could return to power. In the run-up to the country’s parliamentary elections on February 24 and 25, Berlusconi’s right-wing coalition has been rapidly gaining ground against the leading left-wing alliance. In view of Italy’s economic entwinement in the EU, commentators see such intervention in Italy’s election campaign as entirely legitimate, charged as it is with populist overtones.
Italy risks voting for more instability
Outcome is unpredictable, with public anger against establishment likely to lead to a fragmented parliament, and snowstorms adding to uncertainty, writes Guy Dinmore
Keeping the lights on: The UK’s looming energy gap and the EU
by Open Europe blog team
The UK’s energy regulator Ofgem’s chief executive Alistair Buchanan made headlines this week by highlighting a looming UK energy generation crisis saying that it:
“will face a tougher challenge over the next few years because of the possibility of a prolonged lack of spare power station capacity.”
Freeing the transatlantic economy – prospects, benefits and pitfalls
by Centre for European Reform
In mid-February, the EU and the US agreed to launch negotiations aimed at sealing a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Like Yogi Berra, cynics might be tempted to dismiss the project as déjà-vu all over again. After all, this is hardly the first such initiative the two sides have launched. In 1990, they signed a Transatlantic Declaration; in 1995, a New Transatlantic Agenda; in 1998, a Transatlantic Economic Partnership; and in 2007, they established a Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC), a body that was supposed to give political impetus to freeing up commercial relations across the Atlantic. Past attempts to lower the barriers that impede trade and investment across the Atlantic are a story of rising ambition, but frustratingly elusive results. So why bother?
MAIN FOCUS: More adoption rights for homosexuals | 20/02/2013
from euro|topics
The European Court of Human Rights and the German Constitutional Court strengthened the adoption rights of same-sex couples in Austria and Germany in two separate judgements delivered on Tuesday. Some commentators welcome these steps towards equal rights for same-sex partnerships. Others fear that children could suffer from the effects of this progressive course.
MAIN FOCUS: Italy faces landmark election | 22/02/2013
from euro|topics
The uncertainty over the outcome of the parliamentary election in Italy contributed to losses on the European financial markets on Thursday. Record unemployment, huge debts and lacking competitiveness are taking their toll on the country. The markets have lost their patience, commentators conclude, and call on the new government to push through unpopular reforms to get Europe’s patient back on its feet.
Six characters in search of a country – the Italian vote elsewhere in Europe
from open Democracy News Analysis – by Francesca E.S. Montemaggi
As Italy is heading to the polls on Sunday for ‘the most important election in 30 years’, the vote of Italians living abroad will partly determine the formation of the next government. How do these expats feel about Italian politics, and how are they going to vote?
Will German anti-Berlusconi rethoric actually boost Silvio’s chances?
by Open Europe blog team
Mario Monti has never claimed to be a professional politician. His lack of political experience became evident when he said,
[German Chancellor Angela] Merkel fears the success of left-wing parties [in Italy], especially in an election year for her. I don’t think she has any desire to see [Pier Luigi Bersani's] Democratic Party arrive in government.
Italy election: Why voters back Berlusconi, no matter what
from BBC News | Europe | World Edition
Berlusconi’s loyal fans on why scandals haven’t shaken their faith
Italian Elections: Rounding the Last Pole
A Fistful Of Euros by Brent Whelan
Launched in an act of treachery that brought down Mario Monti’s technocratic government, the Italian national election campaign will end one way or another, to the relief of many, Saturday evening. What might have been a sustained debate on the merits of austerity measures in a prolonged recession, on the future of Italian employment and its welfare state or a host of other pressing issues, has instead taken on the quality of an unsavory burlesque revue. Its stars: authentic if acerbic comic Beppe Grillo, whose 5 Stars protest movement may yet shape the outcome, and sick joker Silvio Berlusconi, whose foolish headline grabs have used up much of the electoral space. But it has been a lavish, large-cast production, with indictments flying, old allies back-stabbing, off-color jokes and evanescent affiliations, a Fellini-esque procession of oddities and crudities unworthy of the noble republic Italy could nonetheless become.
MAIN FOCUS: Bulgarian government resigns | 21/02/2013
from euro|topics
Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boiko Borisov announced the resignation of his centre-right government on Wednesday, citing the nationwide protests against rising electricity prices and rioting as the reason. Some commentators believe Borisov has fallen victim to his own lust for power. Others predict that as a cold strategist Borisov will make a triumphant comeback in the upcoming elections.
It only took 37 years but the “Multi-speed” patent is good news for Europe
by Open Europe Blog Team
They’re still those who talk about a “multi-speed” Europe as something of the future. Well, first, as ever, multi-speed is an inappropriate expression – the point is that the end destination for different EU countries no longer is the same (i.e. the Eurozone and the UK). Secondly, different levels of participation are already a fact of life in the EU.
Related posts:
Eurosphere roundup: Italian elections… EU pressure on Google privacy rules… Horsemeat scandal…
Eurosphere roundup: Berlusconi gone [for the moment...], Eurocrats appointed in Greece, Italy?
Eurosphere roundup: Financial markets now trust Italy and Spain; Euro fiscal pact; Danish Presidency news…
Eurosphere roundup: Eurobonds and more…
Eurosphere roundup: EU Budget, France’s National Assembly approves gay marriage, the Pope resigns, Another German politician accused of plagiarism…
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The Global Sociology Blog: The Visual Du Jour – Where The Catholics Are
Not exactly where they were a century ago:
The European decline is striking. It is based on these data that calls for a non-Italian, non-European Pope are based. There were about 1.1 billion Catholics in 2010 (16% or the world population then) as opposed to 300 million in 1910 (17% of the world population then).
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decasia: critique of academic culture: Traditional Marxism and intellectual production, Part 2
(A continuation of part 1.)
If we look only at recent Marxist research on intellectuals, we essentially find two bodies of theory, neither of which is entirely satisfactory. On one hand, we have studies that consider the class position of intellectual workers (Ehrenreich and Ehrenreich 1976, Meisenhelder 1986) or that look at labor relations within academic institutions (Bousquet 2008). Such studies are often quite informative, as far as they go, but generally fail to investigate the form or content of intellectual knowledge. A second much more ambitious project, that of Italian “workerist” Marxism, tries to retheorize knowledge at the very center of capitalist production, arguing that we are in a new era of “cognitive capitalism” in which the main objects of production are “knowledge, information, communication and affect” (Hardt 1999:91), rather than industrial commodities as such. This project draws attention to shifts towards a service economy, to an increasing emphasis on commodified knowledge, to an “informatization” of the production process, and to an emphasis on producing subjectivity and “affect” (or “feelings”) for consumers. Unfortunately, it is a body of thought characterized by hyperbole, by claims to have diagnosed a new epoch of capitalism, and by insistent allegations that most past categories are obsolete. Maurizio Lazzarato, for instance, dismisses Marx’s classical distinction between mental and manual labor (1996:133), arguing that “the fact that immaterial labor produces subjectivity and economic value at the same time demonstrates how capitalist production has invaded our lives and has broken down all the oppositions among economy, power, and knowledge” (142). This entails the view that intellectual labor has been almost completely generalized around the globe. Indeed, Lazzarato argues that as capitalism has figured out new ways to reappropriate and refunctionalize mass struggles against work, as capitalism has taken advantage of the masses’ desires to be cultural producers, “a new ‘mass intellectuality’ has come into being” (133).
Certainly there is some reality to the trends diagnosed by the immaterial labor theorists; a shift to services is important, as is the capitalist project of selling and packaging knowledge and experience, as is the digitalization of work and leisure. But when these arguments are overemphasized, I would argue, we are inhibited from analyzing what continues to be particular to traditional intellectual institutions by framing them overhastily as a relic of an earlier era’s “modernist” disciplinary knowledge. When they analyze universities, they often characterize them as the new epoch’s factories, as the emblematic institutions of today’s capitalism. This makes it particularly hard to account for the fact that “immaterial labor” theory is, especially in the United States, a product of the university left. A more sober theory of intellectual production, I would argue, should make it easier to analyze not only the moments of outright corporate colonization of university systems, but also the local determinations and blindnesses of left intellectual projects that have become subject to the university’s specific imperatives. Without knowing it, in my view, the immaterial labor theorists (and notably the edu-factory project) succumb to an almost Lukacsian excess of dialectical conviction: like Lukacs, they have an unexamined faith that radical theory can and must be articulated with radical praxis. I would argue that it is, in fact, helpful to de-dramatize our theory of intellectual production, admitting that intellectual labor is just one kind of labor among others, with its own specific politics and subcultures. And contemporary intellectual labor, I would argue, is not always immediately functional within capitalism; the university is not yet an entirely marketized or commodified institution. But academic subcultures have their own problems; part of what we gain from a more specific study of intellectual production is the realization that the university system has quasi-autonomous left subcultures, like the ones that avidly read Italian Marxist theory. These subcultures at once enable fantasies of radicality and prevent them from being realized.
All this said, I do agree with the immaterial labor theorists that there is something historically specific, at a large scale, about contemporary intellectual production. Not every society, as far as I can tell, has a mass institutional apparatus dedicated to the production of knowledge as an end in itself. Such a fetish of knowledge for its own sake, in my view, is structurally implicit in the globalization of technoscience and of the university, both of which have dramatically expanded since the Second World War. Such an expansion can be documented quantitatively (Schofer and Meyer 2005), and has received a governing ideological framework in the form of a discourse on the “knowledge society.” It is a discourse that is patently politically convenient for neoliberal economic interests, but one which has also taken root in civil society organizations: UNESCO’s director general wrote in 2005 that
“The upheavals stemming from the Third Industrial Revolution – that of the new technologies – have produced a new dynamic as the training of individuals and groups, scientific and technical advances and modes of cultural expression have been constantly evolving since the mid-twentieth century, notably in the direction of growing interdependence… Can we today imagine any use of biotechnologies that disregards the cultural conditions of how they are applied? Or a science heedless of scientific education or local knowledge? Or a culture neglectful of educational transmission and the new forms of knowledge? The notion of knowledge is central to these changes. Knowledge is today recognized as the object of huge economic, political and cultural stakes, to the point of justifiably qualifying the societies currently emerging.” [UNESCO 2005:4, my emphasis]
There are at least three main things that characterize the contemporary global fetish for intellectual production. (1) Knowledge has become “the object of huge economic, political and cultural stakes.” (This does not mean, however, that it has become the primary factor in production.) (2) “Knowledge” is thus mythicized as a fantasy object, as an end in itself, and given privileged ideological elaboration by policymakers and social scientists. (3) Intellectual production also becomes a structural compulsion, which people in intellectual institutions can enact without needing to explicitly endorse or believe in. Intellectual production, in other words, is not only a massive empirical phenomenon, but also a native obsession, an inhabitable mythology, in short a culturally particular end in itself, by turns conscious and unconscious.
All these claims would need further elaboration.
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hawgblawg: Port Said: general strike & dancing to simsimiyya music
As of today, Friday February 22, Port Said is in its 5th day of a general strike. As James Dorsey tells us, the leading forces in the strike are organized labor and soccer fans, in an unprecedented collaboration. And as this Youtube footage shot today, residents of Port Said are not just striking, but they are dancing as well, to the distinctive strains of their local music, in which the simsimiyya (lyre) is the lead and the most significant instrument.I've posted in past about Port Said's leading simsimiyya group, here and here. (Although in the latter post, I've misidentified the song I saw performed, and at some point in future, need to make some corrections on the post.)And I've written about Port Said and El Tanbura and the Egyptian uprising, in the latest issue of Middle East Report, here. Much respect to Port Said. I hope they manage to shut down the Canal.
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ICCI Home: Did human language first emerge as songs?
A thought-provoking new paper on the evolutionary emergence of language by Shigeru Miyagawa, Robert C. Berwick, and Kazuo Okanoya: "The emergence of hierarchical structure in human language." Freely available in Frontiers in Language Sciences 20 Feb 2013.
Abstract: We propose a novel account for the emergence of human language syntax. Like many evolutionary innovations, language arose from the adventitious combination of two pre-existing, simpler systems that had been evolved for other functional tasks. The first system, Type E(xpression), is found in birdsong, where the same song marks territory, mating availability, and similar “expressive” functions. The second system, Type L(exical), has been suggestively found in non-human primate calls and in honeybee waggle dances, where it demarcates predicates with one or more “arguments,” such as combinations of calls in monkeys or compass headings set to sun position in honeybees. We show that human language syntax is composed of two layers that parallel these two independently evolved systems: an “E” layer resembling the Type E system of birdsong and an “L” layer providing words. The existence of the “E” and “L” layers can be confirmed using standard linguistic methodology. Each layer, E and L, when considered separately, is characterizable as a finite state system, as observed in several non-human species. When the two systems are put together they interact, yielding the unbounded, non-finite state, hierarchical structure that serves as the hallmark of full-fledged human language syntax. In this way, we account for the appearance of a novel function, language, within a conventional Darwinian framework, along with its apparently unique emergence in a single species.
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