OAC Repository: Group List

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Everything touched by the American imperial stupor turns to dust. This mindless, bloody and brutal machine has reduced to rubble the state of Afghanistan. In violation of every international standard it destroyed the secular state of Iraq and installed in its place a fragmented theocracy. This rogue Zionist-infested fascist state and its rulers are guilty of crimes against humanity. From the onset, the American imperial presence in Afghanistan has been engaged in a massive culture cleansing proj…

Resistance or Insurgency in Afghanistan?

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Resistance is what Euro-American armed forces and culture face in Afghanistan not “insurgency” which is political opposition to a specific governmental or civil authority, structure, and operations. Insurgency has specific and identifiable objectives and borders and can be isolated and engaged with political tactics such as incorporation in the government, co-optation, or the appropriation of government by insurgents. Realistically there is no insurgency in the country and surrounding region. Th…

Anthropology of Afghanistan

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Afghanistan has received considerable attention from Euro-American anthropologists during the colonial and postcolonial eras resulting in a substantial amount of ethnographic writings. Yet the country remains an ethnographic black-hole encouraging speculation, disinformation, and misinformation about its socio-cultural and political make-up and dynamics by state and non-state actors presently engaged in its colonial occupation. Forms of Afghanophilia and Pashtunophobia color much of the academic…

Engineering Division, Instability, and Regime Change with Naheed, Neda, and Allah

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American imperialism (capitalism winged by militarism) is using feminist, liberal, and paradoxically, Islamist fuel, to change regimes headed by "Officially Designated Enemies" (ODE) of the United States in Afghanistan and Iran. Western feminist ideology and secular liberal thought have been widely used in constructing pretenses and disguises for the American colonial interventionist policies and practices in Afghanistan and Iran. Feminism and liberalism are the two book-ends of the American gov…

American Soldiers as "Guests" in Afghanistan!

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On July 16, 2009 the American visual media circulated moving pictures in which an expression-less and heavily armored giant-size American soldier with dark goggles is seated on the ground with smiling local Afghan men and children ostensibly discussing the fate of a captured American soldier in eastern Afghanistan. A large poster on the background wall in Paxtu script reads: "one of our American guests (is) lost"!

Slippery grip-less power is historically marked by confusion and aimlessness acco…

is there any need for antroplologest in afghanistan

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i need to know that what are tha main things that antopologest can do for afghanistan

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Should anthropology merge with sociology, history, political science, and other social studies?

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Now that the separate disciplines have had the opportunity to develop and mature, is it time to consider a merging into a unified social science or social studies, which would provide multiple perspectives and a more fully rounded understanding?

Anthropology has increasingly split internally, with cultural anthropologists, biological anthropologists, linguistic anthropologists, and archaeologists tending to go their own ways, and pursuing their specialties on their own. At the same time, cultur…

The ethnography of anthropologists

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As an undergrad enthralled by these eccentrics who did this thing called ethnographic fieldwork, which usually sounded like one helluva an adventure, I thought that somebody should conduct an ethnography of anthropologists. Nothing original in that, I'm sure. Now that I have realized that dream to become one of those peculiar people, I am no less fascinated by what it means to be an anthropologist, and of how crucial the academy, rather than the field, is to being one.

So perhaps the academy ca…

Women anthropologists

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Women are playing a growing role in anthropology, as both students and professors. How is this affecting the field in terms of topics and analytic approaches? [JMcC]

Why has anthropology shifted from discovery and explanation to moralism and advocacy?

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From its inception, from the 19th century efforts, from the modern founding works of Boas, Radcliffe-Brown, and Malinowski, anthropology strove to discover the human variety in the world, and to explain the manifold differences discovered. Starting in the 1970s, there has been a shift away from the goals of discovery and explanation and toward moralism and advocacy, which currently dominate our field. What has caused this shift in anthropology away from a scientific and humanistic vision and tow…

Is anthropology a "discipline"?

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What does it mean to say that "anthropology is a discipline"? Is there something mandatory about becoming an anthropologist? Are there some restrictions for how we go about being anthropologists?

Where is the "discipline" in anthropology? Or is anthropology a kind of anti-discipline, the anarchist of academia? Is anthropology no more than a venue in which we express our personal and political impulses?

Do our graduate programs reflect our--how shall I put it--extremely relaxed attitude toward…

Does anthropology have a unified perspective?

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BDwyer said, "anthropology is such a broad church with no really unified perspective - some see it as inherently political emanating out of cosmopolitan centres - like myself, whilst others see it as simply ethnography."

Is anthropology cumulative? If so, how? If not, why not? Should it be cumulative?

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John McCreery said, "My biggest disappointment [in anthropology] is the lack of cumulative knowledge-building. Our history is littered with projects, from mapping the global distributions of cultural traits, to deeper understanding of how local and larger communities work, to how different forms of child-rearing affect personality development, to......[add as many as you like]...where work barely begun has been abandoned as a new generation hares off after its own latest fads.

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Nationalism and Archaeology

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I am interested in the role of archaeology in nation-building process. I’d also like to discuss if this practice is abandoned when status quo completes its project on identity. (Does it ever finish?)
I am currently focusing on examples from Turkey and Israel. Any other examples are surely welcomed.

Archaeologists unearth 5,000-year-old cathedral in Britian

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I got this from a friend of the The Historical Preservation Society (http://www.historical-society.org/index.html)

http://www.littleabout.com/news/31012,archaeologists-unearth-5000-year-cathedral-britian.html

Published on : Wednesday 26 Aug 2009 14:57 - by ANI

London, August 26 - ANI: A team of archaeologists has…

Egypt finds 5,000-year-old tomb near Lahun pyramid

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Egypt finds 5,000-year-old tomb near Lahun pyramid

http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSTRE54445920090505?rpc=60

By Cynthia Johnston
Tue May 5, 2009 11:26am EDT

LAHUN, Egypt (Reuters) - Archaeologists have found a nearly 5,000-year-old tomb near Egypt's mud brick Lahun pyramid, in a sign that the site held religious significance a millennium before previously thought, the site head…

archaeologists working on cooking?

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I am wondering if there are any archaeologists out there who are examining cooking and food preparation in their work? I am not talking about feasting or food in general but everything associated with making something edible and what that study tells us about other aspects of society such as economy, politics, identity, religion, social change etc...

Should archaeology systematically develop a soft prehistory?

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ARCHAEOLOGY - THE HORROR OF BASKET-MAKING

"Somehow it gave me a feeling of being prehistoric". This paradoxical sentence stems from a mysterious short story entitled "The horror of basket-making" by Patricia Highsmith (1981), a successful American writer. Diane, a completely normal New York woman, one day finds a basket washed up on the seashore and is immediately overcome by a sense of anxiety and a feeling of being threatened in her identity. Only after she has bravely burned the baske…

What's your region?

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Let's use this discussion thread to introduce ourselves and the area of the world in which we practice archaeology (or hope to).

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Call for Papers - Informal Settlements: Constructing Everyday Life

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Call for Abstracts - Informal Settlements: Constructing Everyday Life
part of the Society of Latin American Studies 46th Annual Confernce, 9-10 April 2010 in Bristol, UK

Low-income urban dwellers are responsible for the majority of all new housing construction in the cities of Latin America. Much of this takes place in informal settlements which range widely in terms of density, typology, infrastructure and levels of legality. Through time many such settlements develop and consolidate as househ…

State Budget Issues Conference

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This Conference comes in the wake of ongoing turmoil in credit systems and apparent global economy collapse, and is part of a continuing series of EITD Research interventions to promote dialogue on substantive financial, economic and political issues facing people in Cameroon and around the world.

A disturbing feeling of pressure as being off appears to be setting in, following the G20 summit that held in Pittsburgh, USA, that might easily revert to 'business as usual' attitudes that have not s…

State Budget Issues Conference

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This Conference comes in the wake of ongoing turmoil in credit systems and apparent global economy collapse, and is part of a continuing series of EITD Research interventions to promote dialogue on substantive financial, economic and political issues facing people in Cameroon and around the world.

A disturbing feeling of pressure as being off appears to be setting in, following the G20 summit that held in Pittsburgh, USA, that might easily revert to 'business as usual' attitudes that have not s…

Call for Papers: OAC Press

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The OAC Press solicits a wide range of writings, from work in progress to finished pieces, that in some way seek to advance anthropology by engaging with radical ideas in innovative ways. This includes any subfield of the academic discipline and interdisciplinary writing that anthropologists might find engaging.

We hope to bring what anthropologists have to say to the attention of the general public and invite everyone to take part in our debates. Ea…

Call for Papers: Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America's Sixth Sesquiannual Meeting

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SALSA 2010
January 14-17, 2010
San Antonio, Texas

Call for Papers

The Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America (SALSA) is pleased to announce its Sixth Sesquiannual Meeting to be held at the Hotel Contessa, San Antonio, Texas (US), January 14-17, 2010. The Program Director is Steven Rubenstein; meeting hosts are Richard Reed, Michael Cepek, and Javier Ruedas. Trinity University of San Antonio is providing institutional support. We have a full program and a lively conference…

CFP: Edited Volume-The Enigma of the Homeland

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Previously posted in H-ASIA mailing list (http://www.h-net.org/~asia/)
September 24, 2009

CFP: Edited Volume-The Enigma of the Homeland
******************
From: Catherine Gomes

The Enigma of the Homeland
Editors Catherine Gomes & Olivia Guntarik, RMIT University, Australia

We invite contributions for an edited collection of reflective essays,
creative writings and poems that reflect on the meaning of home.

The notion of ‘the homeland’ connotes so…

Call for Papers: Popular Anthropology Magazine

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Call for Papers: Popular Anthropology Magazine
Popular Anthropology is a quarterly, interdisciplinary magazine. Published online and free to the general public, Popular Anthropology magazine is interested in providing knowledgeable articl…

Call For Papers: Antrocom, Online Journal of Anthropology

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Antrocom is an on-line review concerning Anthropology, open both to cultural and to physical anthropology, and to the correlated disciplines. The review was first issued in March 2005 from within the Community of Anthropos and is edited by the Antrocom Association.

Its name recalls the association itself, but it emphasizes what these virtual pages are aimed to be: Antrocom is a word composed of anthropology and community, but also of anthropology and communication.

Antrocom is aimed to be an i…

Call for Papers: Audiovisual Media and Identity in Southeastern Europe

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Audiovisual Media and Identity in Southeastern Europe
Audiovisuelle Medien und Identität in Südosteuropa

Wittenberg, Germany
8.-10. April 2010

Issues of identity in Southeastern Europe have received a great deal of attention from different
perspectives since the collapse of the totalitarian regimes in 1991. What the greatest part of this
research has in common is a concept of identity that is not primordialist or essentialist in its
approach but sees the phenomenon of identity as a product of…

Call for Papers - Antropologia Portuguesa (Português; Español/Castellano; English; Français)

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CALL FOR PAPERS

Antropologia Portuguesa

«151 anos de Darwinismo»

31 de Dezembro de 2009

A revista Antropologia Portuguesa encontra-se a receber artigos para o seu próximo número, a sair em 2010, dedicado ao tema «151 anos de Darwinismo».

Aceitam-se trabalhos dos diversos territórios antropológicos, que comuniquem com o legado de Charles Darwin, nomeadamente reflectindo sobre o seu impacto e influência na produção de conhecimento biológico e cultural, na Antropologia e na sociedade.

Inter…

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Bruce Grant: The Captive and the Gift - Reviews

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There are currently several reviews of Bruce Grant's book on the Caucasus, but most of them haven't been published yet. Here's a review from Tsypylma Darieva, published in "Anthropological Quarterly". Should be the starter. There are other ones from Kevin Tuite (in English), Nadia Proulx (in French) and myself (in German), which I will post once they are published, or we got the green light from the publisher. If you know of any other review, I would appreciate if you could share it with us post…

funding question

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Hi everybody,

I am new to your group. My name is Eleni Sideri. I am a Social Anthropologist and I did my fieldwork among the Greek -speaking communities in Georgia . I am interested in following my research in Sukhumi regarding post-conflict -although this post sounds a liitle fragile- reconstruction, 'diasporic' memory etc Is there anybody in the group working either in Abkhazia or in this kind of questions in the region? Moreover, do you have any suggestiong about funding opportunities? It se…

Pentacostalism in the Caucasus

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Dear All,

some colleagues of mine here in Brazil just got a huge grant for the comperative study of pentacostalism in verious regions of the world, including the former USSR. I just wondered about the impact of Pentacostalism in the Caucasus. Does anybody know anything? Any hint welcome!

Best,
Florian

Residual clan social dynamics and Georgian political development ...

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Hi All,

I'm new to OAC but I'm really liking it so far. At the risk of getting kicked out, I'm not actually a doctoral student in anthro, but I am considering more graduate work in anthro as a part of my interest in the Caucasus region.

Either way, I am in the process of trying to understand a little more about Georgian/Caucasus clan dynamics because I want to see if and how Georgian politics has evolved as a result. My own first read tells me it's there, but I would appreciate any insight fro…

Sound like the Caucasus?

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In digging into the literature on my subject, I came across this well known scholar's work and am struck by the similarities to the conditions in the Caucasus. Guess which work it is and which community it refers to:

In ..(country)..., the ..(people).... rose in revolt against the rule of ..(enemy).. and declared themselves an independent nation. Their goal was far more ambitious than freedom alone, for they proclaimed the resurrection of an ancient vision in which liberty was but a single comp…

Call for papers-Feminism

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I think it would be very interesting to those interested in feminism and women condition in the Caucasus to send texts to that young but mind-provoking peer-reviewed journal, based in Montreal.

The on-line journal Altérités (http://www.alterites.ca) aims to generate debates related to the interests and current issues facing anthropological research. Altérités accepts original articles, research notes, and book reviews in English and French, from researchers…

Caucasus Paradigms

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Did anybody read Caucasus Paradigms: Anthropologies, Histories and the Making of a World Area. Bruce Grant & Lale Yalçın-Heckmann (eds). 2007. Münster: Lit Verlag ?

I would like to hear what people think about various essays there. It is not easy to talk about the book as a whole just in few sentences since it has 13 chapters, an introduction and and afterword. Some of us were at MPI (Halle/Saale) during the conferenc…

Cooperation in the Caucasus

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Dear friends,
I am very greateful to Florian for setting this blog, and with a small hope, that this question may match the interests of others, I suggest it: what we know about cooperation and cooperatives in the Caucasus, is it more or less than in other areas, is it wise or stupid. Can we speak here about a special culture of sympathy and help, to what extend the reciprocity is present. And all these are interesting to me not only in "interethnic" context, but inside the social groups as smal…

Anthropologists' Picnic?

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This group is a great idea! Thanks for setting it up, Florian!

I'd like to propose that those of us in Tbilisi think about getting together and meeting face to face sometime soon. I was thinking of a picnic somewhere, with the rule that everyone who comes has to bring another anthropologist so we can get to know more people. Any suggestions for date, time, and place?

Elizabeth

Another Russian-Georgian war in July?

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In the last couple of days, more and more of my friends and acquaintances in Georgia started discussing the probability of another war between Russia and Georgia in this year. Indicators for this scenario are said to be the following: the presence of armed Russian forces directly at the border with Georgia in Abkhazia; the recent Russian veto against the UN mission in Abkhazia and South Ossetia (following the Russian undermining of the OSCE mission in Georgia); and the Russian military exercise…

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Collaboration / exchange of ideas

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Hi everyone.

From the look of things, I'd say it's about time to get started doing something in this group if it is to survive at all. I hope that most of you (like me) have just taken a well-deserved summer holiday, and are now ready to get started with some interesting discussions and collaborations!

In the spirit of the recent discussions in the OAC forum, regarding the usefulness of this cooperative and the (true) mening of 'open', I suggest that those who are interested come together to c…

Favorite Recent Ethnographies of Urban China?

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Hi Everyone,

Do you have any favorite recent ethnographies of mainland Chinese cities? I'm revising a class syllabus and looking for very on-the-ground ethnographies, preferably of cities other than Beijing and Shanghai...

Thanks!

Diploma + China + environment = ?

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Im looking for an interesting topic for my diploma. Unfortunately theres no staff who's able cover china nor environmental issues :-(

At first I had same discussions with china experts they told me about a long tradition in recycling but they couldn't remember the sources. I thought about doing something with the evolution of thinking about recycling & praxis. But it seems like theres a lack of resources about that and without enough anthropological resources I'll get spanked my butt^^

I a…

Post-Colonial Overseas Chinese notions of Identity

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Hi

I just signed up to this site because it looked interesting and saw that nobody had posted in this group yet so thought I'd get things started.

Disclaimer
I should first of all point out: I've had no formal education in anthropology whatsoever. I'm going to graduate from a History BA next month but I've found myself increasingly interested in recent cultural and social history and anthropological dimensions to the subject. So my formal knowledge of anthropology as a discipline is pie…

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Anthropology and Colonialism in North America

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Through my studies of the the history and historiography of North American anthropology, I have been struck by the lack of works on North American colonialism, Indigenous People and Anthropology/science. There is a great deal of work on, say, anthropology and colonial Africa or other places, but the silence on North American colonialism and Indigenous societies is striking. I have come to wonder about the reasons for this. Is is intentional or is just that the profession is uncomfortable with it…

Colonial Representation of Colonised People

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I have a presentation titled "Colonial Representation of Colonised People: A Case Study of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh" which is scheduled to be held in the University of Hull, September 11, 2009, organised by the Department of Politics and International Studies at Hull. I am going to discuss that colonialism is conventionally defined as occupation of weakers’ territory by stronger nation or state for political domination, economic exploitation, and ‘civilising’ mission. Some radica…

Conrad and colonialism

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I should like to put the subject of how colonialism is seen under the eyes of fiction writers and the best example coming to my mind is the case of Joshef Conrad a Polish story teller and novelist who served as sailor in the british navy and later was naturalised british citizen.Some critics consider him as porter of western ideas and colonialism and some see the opposite. In any case he was never making the apology of western colonialism as did Kipling. The important with the fiction writersi s…

The burqa in colonial Algeria and contemporary France

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I've recently been reading Fanon's A Dying Colonialism for the first time, and the first chapter is largely dedicated to discussing the role of women in colonial Algeria and in the then on-going war against French colonialism. Fanon places great emphasis on the importance of the symbolism of 'the veil' both in Algerian women's assertion of traditional Algerian identity, and in demonstrating their revolutionary credentials by resisting the French authorities efforts to 'unveil Algeria'. He…

Orientalism for Undergrads

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I posted this mistakenly as a comment. I re-post here, sorry. I'm teaching a course I call Global Tibet here at Reed College and I want to assign some Said on Orientalism in the beginning weeks of the course. What excerpts would members recommend? At Reed, we can pitch the readings pretty high for undergrads. Thanks much for any advice!

Introductions

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I've just joined the Group and would like to introduce myself. I live and work in Kolkata, India and was trained like Carole at University of Michigan where my interest in colonialism/empire was deepened. My interests are shifting from how colonialism shaped the formation of anthropology in the peripheries to governing the directions of anthropology by indirect means. What interests me is the disjunct between the way the relation between colonialism and anthropology is debated in the metropole a…

The residue of empire?

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Is there anybody else out there who works on the residue of empire? By which I mean, is there anybody else here who studies the remaining territorial possessions of colonial powers, whether they are referred to as "colonies", "overseas territories", etc.? One of the areas I research is the self-governing British overseas territory of Gibraltar, and I would be interested to know if anybody else works on the remaining "pink bits", or on the last bits of any other empire.

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Digital Anthropology Report for Company Talk Talk

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I am reading the this report see http://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2009/digital-anthropology-report and it is so typical of these types of reports. First criticism is the tribes of Homo Digitalis users - ughh - - are they serious? I hope Talk Talk didn't pay too much for this guys?

The six tribes - I think the terminology is a bit offensive, are digital extroverts - arch type is a 37 year ad…

Digital Anthropology Report 2009: The Six Tribes of Homo Digitalis

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Antropologi.info has a good link to the above report. Lane DeNicola referred to it in the Teaching Digital Anthropology thread, but maybe it would be good to run them separately. Here is what he had to say there about the report issued by British Telecom TalkTalk.

The objective of the research underlying the report (which focused on Internet use in the UK) was ostensibly "to find out mor…

Teaching Digital Anthropology

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The University College of London (UCL) Department of Anthropology has this year launched an MA in Digital Anthropology -- Practice, Theory and Ethnography. It lists as the "three key components in the study of digital culture":

1. Skills training in digital technologies, including our own Digital Lab, from internet and digital film editing to e-curation and digital ethnography.

2. Anthropological the…

What is digital anthropology?

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I'm just getting involved in the field and so I am really curious what others (perhaps other with more experience) think what digital anthropology is?

How would you define digital anthropology?
Is it merely applying new technologies to old techniques or does it represent a paradigm shift?
What are some recent ethnographic examples of digital anthropology in action?
Who are some of the leading theorists?

Cheers,
Dan

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A human economy for the 21st century?

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This is an expanded outline of a talk I will be giving in New York on 30th November. It is a sort of personal synthesis of my work in economic anthropology and a final note indicates how many people have contributed to it. This will eventually become a book chapter, so any feedback welcome.

Teaching Anthropology in an Educational Market (CSAP)

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This might be of interest to some of you as it concerns anthropologists looking at the economics of delivering "value for money" education.

C-SAP have funded a project that investigates how we negotiate and manage the impact of economic demands on pedagogical strategies.

Through understanding the ways that financial constraints affect the teaching of anthropology we can consider how to improve departmental and teaching performance.

A website has been set up to facilitate this investigation wh…

Economic Anthropology: ethnography, history, critique

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Chris Hann and I are writing a short book with the above title. We hope to submit a manuscript of around 55,000 words by the end of this month. What we have right now is pretty rough. It doesn't seem right to run a discussion group on the topic while keeping quiet about it. So I am inviting readers of partial drafts with feedback in mind (but not compulsory). Here is the table of contents. At least it may give you an idea of the shape of the thing and we could maybe talk about that.

Preface
1.…

Undergrad readings on the financial crisis

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Does anyone have any suggestions for readings for an second year undergraduate module topic on anthropological approaches to understanding, interpreting, etc. the recent financial crisis? Aside from Keith's splendid article in AT, of course!

Consumer Confidence and the Economic Media-- Economic Cycles Graphics from OECD/NYT

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The graphic shows contracting and expanding business cycles from the 1970s to the present; the first page shows what appears to be a two-year old's drawing, which then in later pages resolves into a picture of smaller and greater economic fluctuations over the last thirty years.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/02/business/economy/20090705-cycles-graphic.html

The OECD's link offer…

design, learning and whatnext?

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If I look at an approximate evolution/designs of societies, I might find one or more of these in the history of humanity...

1. Social communities - a village settlement where everyone works for food gathering etc... very initial human gathering setups - all savings like food, clothes etc mostly belong to everyone
2. Barter system - am assuming that communities bartered over a period of time for various things.. the initial trade systems...
3. Economy run by metals with gold, silver etc... as cu…

Inflation

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Keynes argued that the rate of inflation was the outcome of a class struggle between creditors and debtors, the former wanting to keep the value of their money, the latter to reduce what they owed. Alan Greenspan turned up again today (has the man no shame?) with the claim that inflation is still the big threat and private markets the answer. Well, he would, wouldn't he?

I wanted to share with you a beautiful poem from my friend, Geoff Chesshire:

Inflation is any exaggeration of meaning. Infla…

Money and banking

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What have anthropologists got to say about the financial crisis, its antidotes and alternatives? Gillian Tett, an FT journalist with a Cambridge PhD in social anthropology, has written perhaps the best popular account yet of how we got into this mess, Fool's Gold, on the invention, perversion and disaster of credit derivatives. It is not widely known that Marcel Mauss was for a time a financial journalist. In a recent paper I have e…

What is economic anthropology for?

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Economic anthropology was a prominent focus of the discipline in general during the period of what we might call the Rooseveltian or Keynesian consensus, 1950s to 70s. In the last three decades of neoliberal globalization, when sub-disciplines proliferated, this one became more marginal. Perhaps the economic crisis of 2008-9 brings in another epoch for our topic. Look at the number of related panels at this coming AAA meeting.

In any case, it would be useful for us to say why we signed up for t…

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feminist blogosphere

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I wonder how many other anthropologists read the feminist blogosphere -- I'm thinking of North America, though I'd be thrilled to find out what other sites I should be checking out around the world. Anyway, the sites I read regularly are Pandagon, Feministe, Jezebel, I Blame the Patriarchy, Historiann, Bitch PhD. What I love about them is the fact that although most of them are maintained by people younger than I am, they are sort of "old-fashioned" feminists in an bracing way. At least during t…

Association for Feminist Anthropology

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A plug for the AFA; there is a fee for membership, but membership is not required to join the listserv. I've been on the listserve about 6 months now; it isn't high-traffic, but the posts are good.

The website: http://www.aaanet.org/sections/afa/
Page with email list info: http://www.aaanet.org/sections/afa/listserv.html

--Megan.

Call for papers-Feminism

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I think it would be very interesting to those interested in feminism and women condition to send texts to that young but mind-provoking peer-reviewed journal, based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The on-line journal Altérités (http://www.alterites.ca) aims to generate debates related to the interests and current issues facing anthropological research. Altérités accepts original articles, research notes, and book reviews in English and French, from researchers…

okay, I'll bite

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I don't know if anyone else is interested in this, but something I've wondered about is what happened to feminist anthropology as kind of a grand project. I'm thinking of stuff like Sherry Ortner's "Is female to male as nature is to culture?"; Stathern's take-down destroyed the n/c distinction on which Ortner built her argument but has nothing to say (in that essay) about why Hagen women also end up on the "rubbish" side of Hagen distinctions. Which is the real question Ortner was after.
Anyway,…

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Early maps and the construction of knowledge about the Americas.

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This map published in 1630, shows a version of the state of knowledge of the Americas at that time. From the 1500s onwards maps become one kind of mnemonic for knowledge about this new world. Early maps 1500-1515, show the American continent as an unbounded mass with the Caribbean islands much more clearly marked. Over the next century places and peoples - for instance the 'Cannibals' of 'Caribana' - become known and located. Social groups and places are colonised, subdued and named. What part d…

Understanding the Haitian Revolution.

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Many people are aware of the phrase that opens the 1776 declaration of independence by the American colonists against British rule:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…

As is obvious, this declaration of ‘equality’ did not extend to black slaves who remained enslaved until 1865.

Fewer, however, are probably aware that, aft…

Hidden Histories

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In a forum discussion on "Small Studies and Large Conversations," John McCreery quotes Mary Douglas, "A gap in historical knowledge, even a large one, may sometimes be preferred; knowledge lost may be knowledge well lost."

When anthropologists run across "hidden histories," is it our job to "out" the true history, to be "whistle-blowers, to "expose the lies"? I remember the words of an "informant" from an Irish study, who said to the author, "Well, you'd better not be coming back to visit." Why…

Favorite Works

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Any favorite works? I will start with two of mine

Eric Wolf, Europe and the People without History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).

William Roseberry, Anthropologies and Histories (New Brunswick: Rutgers: 1989).

anthropology and history of past and present

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In anthropology we have no archives but only information given by living people.
In history we have archives written by some scholars of the past and the pesent ( sometimes falsified for political reasons) based on ancient information.

How these two disciplines can join ?

And also, what of the two disciplones has been proved so far to be the most credible ?

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You are invited to Language, Culture & History Conference, U Wyoming, July 1 & 2, 2010

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Proud to announce:

Language, Culture & History Conference, University of Wyoming, July 1-2, 2010. Co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and the journal Ethnohistory

See the call for papers and please fill out our short survey at:
http://sites.google.com/site/leilamonaghan/language-culture-history-conference
Language, Culture & History Conference (Leila Monaghan)
Source: sites.google.co…

The Cambridge Torres Strait expedition and British social anthropology

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Some time ago I organized a conference, 'Anthropology and psychology: the legacy of the Torres Strait expedition, 1898-1998′. My partner in this enterprise died last week which prompted me to recycle an essay I wrote for the conference on my website. It is about how anthropology, in Britain at least, made the move from Victorian evolution to modern ethnograp…

People Whose Work We Like

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We now have a list of great names in the history of anthropology. But what about those who do work that we admire but haven't achieved that level of global prominence? My premise is that there is a lot of good stuff out there that is known only to people who work on similar topics or in similar parts of the world. Who would you recommend as not yet world renowned but you think ought to be?

MAIN FIGURES OF THE HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY

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This discussion turns aroung those authors who are acknowledged by most anthropologists as key figures of the history of our discipline. For the time being, we are trying to make a shared list of "indispensable" authors, not only of the classical Malinowskian times, but until the end of the 20th century. Who should be known worldwide and why? Who should be read as a must? Who is still important for nowadays anthropological practice and identity?

Mavericks

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I collect mavericks, in anthropology and beyond, men (usually men) who were unwilling or unable to conform to the academic institutions of the day. Some, like Gregory Bateson and Reo Fortune (who had Margaret Mead in common of course), are well-known both for their work and their idiosyncrasies. Others are known for their work, but not for their idiosyncratic lives. In the latter category, two of my favourites are Arnold Van Gennep (who had only one proper job for a short time in Switzerland) an…

Edward H. Spicer

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Edward H. Spicer was one of the founders of SfAA who paved the way for the growth and recognition of applied anthropology. Here's a link to his most recent bio, followed by a portion of this publication.

http://www.nap.edu/reading…

GENERAL DISCUSSION

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This is an open space for all kinds of comments related to the History of Anthropology. People who do not wish to start a new discussion but have something to say to our group are most welcome to use this opportunity. People who are developing research projects on any subject of the History of Anthropology can share them here too.

NOVELTIES AND CRITICS

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More than a discussion, this an open space for sharing useful information related to the History of Anthropology, like congresses, calls for papers, recent books or articles, etc. It is also a place for criticism of recent books or articles related to the History of Anthropology.

ARCHIVE Nº 1 OF THE MAIN FIGURES DISCUSSION

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Comments and replies of the discussion «Main Figures of the History of Anthropology» until 2009/09/01

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retail chains - impact on farming community in India..

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The proliferation of retail chains in India will have varied implications to the farming community...

Things to keep in mind before getting on to the article...
US is a vast place... Most agricultural produce happens with a lot of automation... Cultivation areas are large... Credit Markets are decently friendly... Distribution was a major headache...
India is 1/3rd of US... Agricultural produce is still heavily labor oriented... Cultivation areas at some places can be as low as few acres of lan…

Buddhism - Origins - Benoy Behl

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IT was the beginning of the first millennium B.C. There were many principalities in the northern plains of India. Some of them were Jana-Samghas, ruled by elected councils. In others, the concept of hereditary leaders was evolving. It was a time when great philosophic concepts, which were to last forever, were being crystallised. By the 8th century B.C., the early Upanishads were composed, out of the continuing traditions of the land.

These verses speak of the oneness of the whole of creation.…

Architectural Commonsense - Laurie Baker

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Mostly worked in Kerela since 1945

A short snippet abt the authors profile... (from the last link)
I AM 80 years old, and in my childhood India was a fairytale land of rajas, silks and spices, tigers, monkeys and peacocks. As a schoolboy my fairytale picture of India was mildly spoiled by my history book with its stories of the Black Hole of Calcutta and the Mutiny!

During the Second World War, I was doing paramedical work in China and on the way back to England I had to wait for three months…

Avadhana - THE UNIQUE ART OF INDIA

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Avadhana is a unique classical Indian art of spontaneous creation. It is a feat of the mind. Avadhana literally means concentration. Its origin is said to date back to 1st B.C. The oldest available details of Astavadhana are recorded in Kannada language, dating back to 1200 A.D. Though we have the tradition of Sahityavadhana in Prakrit, Tamil, Gujarathi, Hindi and other languages, it is in Telugu and Kannada languages that we see this heritage maintained.

In Telugu this art has taken titanic di…

Indian Art - Benoy K Behl

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A series on Indian Art (in 25 parts) by Benoy K. Behl - Part 21 http://www.frontline.in/fl2511/stories/20080606251106600.htm talks about Hoysala (southern Karnataka), belur, halebid .. I think belur, halebid are also listed as one of the world heritage sites by one of the UN bodies...

The series can be explored on the frontlines twitter account: http://twitter.com/frontline_in…

request - describe india group...

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Pls. help me in updating the description for this group..

India evokes a much broader interest in a lot of people due to the uniqueness/richness of history/culture.

The initial idea was to get all the Indians on OAC together. Its good that it has become irrelevant now. I can expect and contribute more widely :) I would urge you to define your own version of what the group India on OAC means to you. It will help in attracting other interested people as well as help the group get some direction…

The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India

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The author, Sheldon Pollock has a very interesting profile
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/mealac/faculty/pollock/ He has a paper on Indian intellectual history too on his faculty page which is a very interesting read if you are interested in pre colonial, sanskrit based Indian intellectual movement.. Though, I have a feeling that there might be some better works available right here...

Has anyone here read this book? Any opinions/thou…

Ji Xianlin

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Ji Xianlin, Chinese Indologist passed away.. it went unnoticed in India.. http://www.hindu.com/2009/07/31/stories/2009073155721100.htm

he was awarded a padma bhushan.. considering the 1962 war, tibet issue, border issue, I think this was an awesome initiative to promote intellectual interaction...

anthropology perspective:
"In the following seven decades, he made discoveries not only about the spread of Buddhism from In…

The focus of Indian anthropology

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What are the main intellectual and research issues for Indian anthropologists? That is, what do anthropologists from India regard as the main focus of their research?

new india fellowship for writing books abt indian history/anth/sociology

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http://www.newindiafoundation.org/thefellowships.htm

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Popular resistence in Iran

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How is popular resistence to the Islamic Republic regime developing?

Causes of problems in Iran

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What are the factors and influences that are seen as behind difficulties in contemporary Iran? Let us see what various voices have identified as underlying problems that arise.

The cultural conflict between the Islamic Republic and the West

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Ayatollah Khamenei met with Iranian university professors on 31 August, warning them that the Humanities and Liberal Arts are contrary to Islam. The professors' job, according to the Ayatollah, Iran's Supreme Leader, is to articulate an alternative Islamic culture in higher education. See "Another Cultural Revolution?" by Rasool Nafisi (http://tehranbureau.com/cultural-revolution/).

Iranians at home and in the diaspora

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"My Revolutionary Friends" by SETAREH SABETY (http://tehranbureau.com/khoda-khorma/) reflects on the tensions between residents of Iran and members of diaspora, as well as upon the extent to which well-off Iranians participating in the post-election demonstrations, and how reliable their testimony is about what they had purportedly done. There are also a set of readers' comments to this commentary.

Foreign policies of, and directed toward the Islamic Republic of Iran

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What are Iran's international policies? What are its goals, strategies, tactics? What have been the results so far, and what are anticipated results?

What policies are other countries pursuing in relation to the Islamic Republic regime in Iran? What are the intended results, what are the anticipated results, and what are the observed results?

Islamic Republic State Terrorism

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Is the Islamic Republic now more oppressive than the Shah ever was?

Who owns what in Iran? Who controls the wealth? How does the economy work?

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Does Iran have a feudal economy, a socialist economy, a capitalist economy, a transparent or corrupt economy? What is the standard of living, and how is it distributed? What are the prospects of economic development?

Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia: Shiites and Sunnis

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One aspect of social and political relations in the Middle East, both internally and externally, is the split between Sunnis and Shiites. This religious split has been a major impediment to peaceful relations and cooperation.

Youth and Young Adults in Iran

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Iran is a young country demographically: youth and young adults are a large percentage of the population: one figure given is 50% of the population under 30 years of age. This is a post-revolutionary population that did not experience Iran under the Shah or the Islamic Revolution, that did not fight in the Iran-Iraq war.

Where do they fit into Iran today? How do they view themselves and their lives? What do they want for Iran?

Ethnic Minorities in Iran

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While there are small, non-Muslim religious minorities–Zoroastrians, Baha’is, Jews, Christians, etc.–the numerically and politically important minorities in Iran are ethnic groups and regions, and Muslim minorities, especially Sunnis. Those of the four corners of Iran–the Arabs of the southwest, the Kurds of the northwest, the Turkmen of the northeast, and the Baluch of the southeast–are highly discontent with the Islamic Republic regime for what they regard as discrimination and oppression.

Co…

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Jihad

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"U.S.-Born Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki on the State of Jihad Eight Years After 9/11: The U.S. Cannot Win – There is No Rolling Back the Worldwide Jihad"

http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD261009

United Nations Development Program ARAB HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2009

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This is the latest in a series of ground-breaking reports on the Arab world by a group of Arab researchers and experts. They are all well worth reading in their entireties. However, for a brief summary of the 2009 report, see http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=IA55509.

Non-Muslim minorities in the Middle East

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What place do non-Muslim minorities have in the Middle East? How do they fare today?

Favorite books on the Anthropology of the Middle East

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What anthropology books on the Middle East have you found informative, convincing, and inspiring?

What books would you recommend for assignment in a course on the Anthropology of the Middle East?

Good sources of Middle Eastern voices

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Students of the Middle East today can benefit from the confluence of the great Middle East tradition of public pronouncements, on the one hand, and the miracle of electronic recording and communication, on the other. The result is public information available to anyone interested.

For those of us without full fluency in Middle Eastern languages, various communication sources, including some television stations, provide translations. One source of translations is the Middle East Media Research C…

An apology and a question

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I must apologize for being away from the discussion for some time. First, I was traveling in North and East Africa; then I was ill. When I looked at the site today, I see 12 members and I am most excited about that!

I'm wondering if we might all introduce ourselves to one another? It would be great to provide some insight on where your interest in the region lies and/or areas of interest; work you've done or would like to do in the region; other areas of interest that are linked to the Middle E…

From Obscure to Front Page: Middle East

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When I first studied anthropology related to the Middle East (and this dates me), it was hard to find anthropologists who had actually been there. Once you did find one, you hung on, trying to soak uo as much information as you could. Most anthropological work at that time were kinship studies and the rare ethnography. I was in love with it all. I went to Cairo to study when it was still almost impossible to find a travel guide on Egypt. Since the US invaded Iraq, the Middle East (which was stil…

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Blog Platform Capabilities

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Hell All,

Can anyone tell me how I might be able to use LaTeX in my blog? Also, can blog posts be exported for archiving or transfer to another blogging site?

Thanks!

Best Regards,

Jacob

[FAQ] What can I do about the ads on this site?

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Displaying relatively unobtrusive ads enables Ning to remain a free service. If you'd like to stop seeing ads on the web, there are various browser-related tools and third-party software options to make them disappear. Most provide options to hide ads all the time, some of the time, or on specific sites. Remember that sites which display ads to remain free or to cover their operating costs benefit from pay-per-click advertising. Remaining free, in turn, benefits site members and the web as a who…

[FAQ] How do I view an alphabetical list of all OAC groups?

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There is a comprehensive A-Z index of all OAC groups available on the OAC Archive wiki: http://anthcoop.wikidot.com/grouplist. (Don't forget to gain access to the archive.)

The index contains links to all existing groups to date as well as easy access to the most recent discussions for each group so that you can keep up with the latest content.

Under the…

[FAQ] Group Image Not Displaying on Profile

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Q: I have recently created a group page, but the group icon/link is not displaying on my profile with the other groups that I have created/joined. How can I fix it?

A: A group icon will not be created on your profile page if you have created a "private" group by selecting "Moderated Membership" in the privacy settings (see image below).

We like to encourage that all new groups on the OAC be set as "public" in the established spirit of openness here and so that anyone can join and…

Moving Forum up

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Dear all

I was wondering if we could move the forum up on the main page and place it where now find the Groups page. At the moment when people enter the site they face the Groups page, and then beneath it a static announcement about the Wiki page, the first of which is quite inactive and the latter completely so.

I think it'd be better to make the forum more visible and prominent as (a) it is the site's logical meeting point, (b) its content is renewed more frequently, so that you've got some…

Accessing and using the WIki

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Please post any questions/problems regarding the OAC Archive (Wiki) here.

film upload

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I would like to upload a 18 min documentary that I produced in cooperation with a Georgian film team. How can I change the format to do that? To be honest, i don't really know which format it is now. It starts palying immediately, once the CDV is inserted ... Any hints?

2nd RSS feed / 2nd text box?

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Hey, does anybody know if I can add a 2nd RSS feed to my group /my page? Or a second text box?

Ning Server Downtime

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Yesterday, I remarked on Twitter: "I'm a little concerned about Ning's reliability. We've been using it in earnest for less than a week, and there have been outages most days."

I unexpectedly received a response from @lauragatning, Director of Support at Ning, who said, "This is rare for us - last night was a planned maintenance" and provided me with the following…

Technical help also available in portuguese - apoio também disponível em português

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Hello. Many portuguese friends are not fully comfortable with asking and answering questions in english, mainly the technical ones. So we have created in Antropolis group in OAC a thread for technical assistance in portuguese. You can follow this link to access the online help.

Olá! No grupo…

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Active Participation

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I know it's the "dog days" of summer, but is anybody awake out there? We have 1,480 members, but 90% of our contributions seem to come from the same 12 people.

During the academic year, many of us will be very busy. If we cannot find time to contribute in summer, when will we have time?

What inhibitions are there to contributing? Do many of our many non-anglophone members feel inhibited about writing in English? Do many of our many junior anthropologists feel inhibited about pitching in with m…

What the OAC network is NOT for

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Here are some don’ts that the team of administrators propose for discussion by members.

No flaming, insults or hate speech
Discussion of fundamental issues is likely to get heated at times. But personal attacks, insults, malicious behavior, bullying or taunting are incompatible with our shared life as a community. Personal disputes may be carried out in private; and, if these cannot be resolved, you are free to block any member. Incitement to hatred is banned, but not discussion o…

Member name

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The Administrators of the Open Anthropology Cooperative have, in the light of recent discussion, decided upon a policy of asking members to use a personal name, ideally a full one. If your name does not conform to this guideline, please could you create a new member name. We welcome your participation and suggest this in the hope of keeping the group open. At least the first and third words in our collective name would suggest that hiding behind an abbreviated, fictitious or artificial name is h…

Your Profile

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We have given some thought to whether we ought to try to influence how you fill in your Profile. Some think that 'Open' means "anything goes", others that it involves a common commitment to transparency. We debated whether to remove the gender question from the Profile and decided that the option of ignoring the standard pair was enough for now.
We want to encourage the use of your real name. It is then much easier to control spamming and the entry of undesirables into our network (there have be…

Intellectual property

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The sharpest and most wide-ranging struggle in global capitalism today is over intellectual property. As a new social form committed to the open principle, the OAC is bound to be drawn into this struggle. Already I have received the following message from László Fosztó:

"I took the initiative of creating a Group 'Anthropology in/of Central Eastern Europe'. As soon as it started to work, I had a question regarding the use of copyrighted material: is there a site policy on that issue? Many of us…

About the OAC

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What the OAC is about and what members can do here have now been posted under the tab "About". This thread will continue to be a place to discuss its contents and implications. The tab also provides contact information for the administrators, but any discussion of their role may as well continue uner the "Admins" thread.

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Rattlebag, miscellany.

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The anthropological imagination is fed by an range of artistic and intellectual sources; most of which are probably never acknowledged. This thread is an opportunity for anyone simply to add elements and fragments without an attempt at imposing an ordering principle or even a dialogical form.

POLARITY AND ANALYTICS - THE TWO LEVELS OF COGNITION HYPOTHESIS (s. Illustration)

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Working with this hypothesis of basically two levels of cognition, namely "categorical polarity" and "analytics" could explain difficulties in anthropology to understand traditional cultures.

'Polarity' creates a world in which all is perceived in a general framework of harmonious or disharmonious (balanced/ disbalanced) objects or environments irrespective of their functional meanings, a world in which all things have the tendency to be harmonious and thus in a basically aesthetical framework…

The anthropology of subjectivity

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The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

(Louis Macneice)

Here are three of my favourite readings in the hope that others will want to add their own and discuss their significance:

Jackson, M. 1989.…

Comparative ontologies and cosmologies

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HORATIO
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

HAMLET
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Much ink has been spilt in anthropology recently about 'ontology' and the ontological turn. There is a shift in attention from seemingly 'old' framing concepts like society and culture to issues concerning the language/philosophy of 'being'. A great deal of of this discussion can be traced to three…

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Political confrontation in Iran

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Perhaps the most compelling political drama of this summer has been the presidential "election" in Iran and its aftermath, which continues today in expressions of dissent and in government show trials.

What is your take on this political "process"? (Some material is readily available on OAC group "Anthropology of Iran.") Would you dare prognosticate developments in the near or middle future?

persecutions of anthropologists

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here is a shocing article from Germany :

Germany arrested urban sociologist Andrej Holm because of his academic activities. He was accused of being member of a “terrorist association” called “militante gruppe” (militant group) who is suspected to be behind arson attacks against police and army vehicles.

Holm was arrested because his publications contain keywords and phrases, which are also used in the texts written by the Militante Gruppe (especially the term “gentrification"). The warrant als…

stamps and political ideology

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Should be interesting to discuss what is the role of dominant state ideologies as reflected on the subjects and the forms of the commemorative stamps series edited every year. I have in mind the long tradition policy of the Greek post to pass the idea of the glorious greek Antiquity + Byzantium through multiple stamps' series on mythology and archaeology. Also a Geotgian friend commented tome that he one third of the recent Georgian stamps represent war and military. Is that a coincidence ? I su…

Are prosperity, order, equality, peace, and freedom compatible?

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Nothing is more normal than “wanting it all.” But is it possible to “have it all"? Let us consult, on this 100th anniversary of his birth, Isaiah Berlin, who argued that various of our important values or goals–honour, sanctity, prosperity, order, domination, happiness, freedom, peace, excitement, equality, tranquillity–are not compatible with one another, and that the hard lesson that we must learn is that we cannot have it all, but must choose some ends to the exclusion or reduction of others.…

How should we view law?

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Is law–either customary or formalized–necessary for all social life, or is it a tool for the advancement of the elite?

Are tribes politically important today?

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For decades some anthropologists have claimed that tribes do not exist, or are colonial inventions. However, people who are organized into tribes do not believe this. There are many people in the world–in Africa, in the Middle East and North Arica–who see their tribe as the ultimate referent of their political loyalty.
Tribes are independent polities, or groups that strive to be independent polities, that are based primarily on segmentary organization. As such, they are opposed to states, do not…

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"Secular" Schools for Little Afghan Girls!

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Everything touched by the American imperial stupor turns to dust. This mindless, bloody and brutal machine has reduced to rubble the state of Afghanistan. In violation of every international standard it destroyed the secular state of Iraq and installed in its place a fragmented theocracy. This rogue Zionist-infested fascist state and its rulers are guilty of crimes against humanity. From the onset, the American imperial presence in Afghanistan has been engaged in a massive culture cleansing proj…

The Armored Monster

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Surrounding the recent capture of the American soldier in Afghanistan are reports in the media about pamphlets dropped by the US military in eastern Afghanistan on which are printed pictures and scripts in Paxtu. The pictures consist of a dramatic drawing in which a de-armored head-bent soldier is standing in a giant ghoulish human-like palm, a fully armored American soldier kicking open the door of a local mud house, and a picture in which a fully armored, goggled, and expression-less monster-l…

Resistance or Insurgency in Afghanistan?

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Resistance is what Euro-American armed forces and culture face in Afghanistan not “insurgency” which is political opposition to a specific governmental or civil authority structure and operations. Insurgency has specific and identifiable objectives and borders and can be isolated and engaged with political tactics such as incorporation in the government, co-optation, or the appropriation of government by insurgents. Realistically there is no insurgency in the country and surrounding region. Ther…

New Developments & Resources

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Here's a piece up on CounterPunch this morning on new developments regarding PRISP (the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program): http://www.counterpunch.com/price06232009.html

(for more background on PRISP, here's the original series I did when it first came out: http://www.counterpunch.org/price03122005.html ; http…

The Department of Defense Minerva Research Initiative

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Have there been any new developments regarding Minerva. I was anxiously waiting to see how the Obama administration would address this issue. Am I correct in thinking they have not? My Minerva searches return nothing current. Is this a dead issue?

Clifford Geertz

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Hi,
A fellow anthropologist told me that Clifford Geertz changed some of his fieldwork-data when he was in Indonesia to support US-American interpretations of the coup on 30 September 1965. Geertz was supposed to have recieved money from the CIA to back anti-communist interpretations about the population's role in the coup. Does anyone know more about this (if its true) and can tell me where to find some more data?

HTTs and the HTS outside of Aghanistan and Iraq?

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There is a lot of talk about anthropologists doing military service in Iraq and Afghanistan and I know the roots of the program are to be found in the Vietnam war (¿Am I right?). But is there any sign the methods are also used in, say for example, the Philippines?

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CSAP Teaching Anthropology in an Educational Market

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Apologies for sending out a message to some of you - I only intended to post to this forum!!

C-SAP have funded a project that investigates how we negotiate and manage the impact of economic demands on pedagogical strategies.

Through understanding the ways that teaching anthropology is affected by financial constraint we can consider how best to respond to the educational market and how we can improve departmental and teaching performance in this environment.

I have set up a website to facilit…

Teaching Anthropology to ages 16-19 - please give me your advice on texts etc

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Hello everyone,

Since last year I've been teaching Anthropology on the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme for students aged 16-19 in the UK. There is also talk of introducing A level Anthropology at my college. Is anyone teaching at this level? Or are you all teaching undergraduates?

I am really looking for some advice on Anthropology in the last 15 years or so. (no tall order there then)

I haven't studied Anthropology since my degree (late 1990s) and we have VERY limited book reso…

Knee-jerk functionalism?

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Hi all, I wonder if anyone has suggestions for a good, accessible and recent anthropological critique of popular functionalisms? I continue to be amazed at the compulsive nature of functionalist explanations for undergrads, so that even after weeks of immersion in the Boasians, they resort to knee-jerk explanations based on universal biological and/or social "needs". I would love a recent piece that really addresses functionalisms' profound hold on popular imaginations with reference to specific…

Best way to ensure completion and comprehension of readings?

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I have been pondering on a pedagogical question for a 2010 Winter Term class, and I was hoping to draw on the OAC's collective experience:

I have been very lucky and taught 3rd year / junior honours classes that have been small enough to split the class time into both lecturing and round-table seminar formats, where both I and students (as part of their assessment/assignments) bring specific questions / summaries for the class to discuss. I have found that these seminar sessions are a good way…

Forward Looking Assessments

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In his work on class design, L. Dee Fink suggests that as much as possible we try to use forward looking rather than backward looking assessments. By this he means that our assessments shouldn't all be exams or papers that demonstrate what the students learned. Rather, he would have us come up with questions or projects which require the students to imagine a situation that they might realistically face in the future (which is germane to their study) and figure out what to do about it. Fink seem…

C-SAP Teaching Religion in the Social Sciences

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Hello All

I am currently working with the Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics (C-SAP) (http://www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/) providing admin support to the 'Teaching Religion in the Social Sciences' Special Interest Group.

It has been agreed that in order to help move the group forward we will develop a section of the C-SAP website. I want to gain your input and advice to find out what you feel is the best way to use this space and to gather your…

Creative Assignments

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By “creative assignments,” I mean assignments that are a bit unusual in orientation, and which appear to meet the specific goals set.

Some creative assignments have already been discussed in this group on the topic “An idea for connecting students with other cultures.” But there are many other possibilities that might be worth exploring.

I’ll give an example of an assignment that I use regularly, in a variety of courses. The problem that I was trying to solve was that ethnographies tend to be…

How are textbooks useful? How useful are textbooks?

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Textbooks are written for students, so they should be appropriate, useful, instructive, and, may we hope, inspiring. But are they?

The first college level social science textbook I read was in introductory sociology. I pretty much had no idea what it was talking about. The articles that we read had a bit more of an impact. Four years later (Antioch College had a five year program), after having majored in sociology-anthropology, I reread the textbook, and it was a fine survey and synthesis of t…

Particularities and peculiarities

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So, in these days of changing course structures and degree demands (especially in Europe a la Bolognese), we all who are involved with teaching are challenged to adapt.
The form of adaptation I am interested here (there are many more) is the laboratory situation where anthropology (social, cultural) is not a main degree course, but just something students might take one or two classes in on their way to a different degree, say, sociology. That is, if one wants to adapt to a reduction of availabl…

An idea for connecting students with other cultures

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I was recently reading L. Dee Fink's _Creating Significant Learning Experiences_, an excellent text on course design. In this book, he strongly recommends designing courses after first deciding what you really want the students to get out of them. I decided that some of my primary learning goals for my Intro to Cultural Anthro course would include: an awareness of the differences and similarities between cultures -- with understanding that they are not just different and weird, an increased abil…

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theory of 'joining the tribe'??

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hello fellow interesteds in theory..

can anyone point me in the right direction for finding some theory/discussion of the practice of joining groups/tribes/companies? I am looking in to the practicalities of starting work in a new place, and want to marry it with some theory.

thanks for any pointers you might have!

Sinead.

On Nostalgia

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Why nostalgia is the same negative as exoticism for the anthropological studies ? What a constant reference and recalling to the past or to the remote reveals ? What illusions, anachronisms and utopias ? As a personal trait it can promote great fictional stories and successful books but as a collective- cultural trait it can promote only miseries and disasters. It seems that collective imagination is not a creative factor for human cultural progress and evolution. But humans in collectivity tend…

Iconography, Abstraction and Cultural Relativism

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Splitting off from the discussion of cultural relativism and human rights and earlier discussions of whether anthropologists recognize differences between peoples, I would like to focus here on a technical problem in interpretation or explanation of "cultural differences." I am working with the idea of envisioning differences as located in a two-dimensional space. One dimension ranges from iconography to abstraction, the other from local to universal.

The specific case I have in mind involves C…

Cultural relativism and human rights

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Cultural relativism is one of the great pillars of anthropology. Human rights have become a major focus of attention in many parts of the world, and increasingly in anthropology.

Prima facie, it would appear that there is something of a contradiction between cultural relativism and human rights advocacy. Cultural relativism urges that each culture be judged in its own terms, while human rights tend to be defined as some kind of universal standard to be applied to all.

Can cultural relativism a…

Enculturation and Acculturation

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Thanks for the invitation for new discussions in this group Philip. Here comes what I think was never discussed so far in OAC :

I should like to invite colleagues to comment on the distiction between these two terms of the discussion's title of which the first seems to me rather sociological ( as a sort of socialization ) and the second purely anthropological based on rich ethnographic materials collected during and after the colonialism.
( even if recently sociology seems to be..partly absorbe…

Structure and agency

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I have been thinking about doing some ethnographic research (multi-sited, of course) on freedom and order, and their relationship(s) as ideals and in practice. But to stay in our anthropological comfort zone, and to avoid accusations that I am imposing political philosophy, let's call them "structure" and "agency." Would it be fair to say that all of us recognise that in all human life there is some mix of structure and agency? (If anyone objects to this, please tell us why.)

The question I wou…

From Marxist anthropology to .......???

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From the 1970s, Marxist anthropology became a major force in English speaking academia, whether under its own name, or as "critical anthropology," "political economy," or "cultural materialism." The citation of Marxist authors and literature in anthropological articles and books became common, and debates and concepts originating in Marxist political circles were widely rehersed and invoked.

Except for a small cadre of aged diehards and dead enders, this ceased abruptly with the fall of the Sov…

Case Based Methods: A New Paradigm for Social Science? For Anthropology?

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Today I received my copy of The SAGE Handbook of Case-Based Methods from Amazon.com. I began to scan the introduction "Case-Based Methods: Why We Need Them; What They Are; How to Do Them" by David Byrne. As I expected the editors and authors of this collection see themselves as social scientists. They explicitly reject, however, the conventional "search for universals, a.k.a. nomothetic laws" view of what social science involves, while at the same time also rejecting a "nothing here but particul…

Do anthropologists now doubt that peoples and cultures are different from one another?

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Increasingly, it appears to be incorrect to suggest that peoples and cultures are not all the same, that peoples and cultures are to a greater or lesser degree different from one another. To argue that peoples and cultures have different lines of thought is skating close to condemnation.

Partly, this appears to be a resistence to any kind of generalization about a population or culture. Now anthropologists seem to believe that it is only possible to speak only of individuals. Any generalization…

Colonial Representation of Colonised People

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I have a presentation titled "Colonial Representation of Colonised People: A Case Study of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh" which is scheduled to be held in the University of Hull, September 11, 2009, organised by the Department of Politics and International Studies at Hull. I am going to discuss that colonialism is conventionally defined as occupation of weakers’ territory by stronger nation or state for political domination, economic exploitation, and ‘civilising’ mission. Some radica…

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Unlocking the Digital City

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The 11 November issue of Wired Magazine (UK) features "Unlocking the Digital City", a series of articles exploring how new technologies have transformed - and are continually reinventing - urban life and urban landscapes. The entire issue is worth reading. Below are excerpts from three perspectives on the promises and realities of the digital age in urban environments.

'Sense-able' urban design

Scholars back in 199…

The metropolis and mental life

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I thought this deserved its own thread, although I introduced it to another one. Georg Simmel's wonderful essay is one of the most exciting in urban studies. His main concern there is to explore how individualism changed as a result of the urban explosion of the 19th century. The liberal revolution, he argues, gave priority to individuals winning freedom from the constraints of traditional rural society through migration to the city. But, by the beginning of the 20th century, the experience of l…

Member Introductions

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I started this group within the first few days of the formation of the OAC Ning network(!) and we've now acquired 144 members. I must admit that I have been neglecting my duties as group moderator while I've been "away from my desk" over recent months, and the group hasn't had much activity despite its growing membership. Even this forum post has been sitting in draft form for almost two months. (Of course, all members should feel free to start new threads, post links and resources and update ou…

Architecture and anthropology

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Could be another Group, but let's see if we can rustle up some interest here. Came out of the thread on cities as a western phenomenon.

Group page now available on the OAC Archive wiki

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Hi everyone,

I've set up a page on the OAC Archive wiki for the Urban Anthropology group. We've already started a thread in this forum on resources and reading materials, but all OAC members can edit the wiki, which should help us to collect external materials in a condensed, site-wide archive. Please don't hesitate to add and elaborate.

Don't forget to…

Was the city a western phenomenon before nation-states took over?

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Max Weber argued in The City that the idea of the city as an autonomous social unit was peculiar to the West and had already been superseded by national societies which removed that autonomy. Was he right on both counts?
This is a way of raising a personal question which is why I never became an urban anthropologist. My second appointment was in that Manchester school which pioneered urban anthropology in Africa. They hired me to teach a course on urban anthropology: the rest had moved on…

Resources, Materials and Getting Started

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Greetings all,

In the spirit of openness, I thought it would be useful to start a thread to share some introductory reading materials, links, articles of interest, theoretical and methodological concerns, even popular news, etc, related to urban anthropology and urban life. While many of us are students or academic anthropologists, I'd like for this group, like the OAC, to be open to everyone with a dedicated interest in cities and urbanism.

Please use this thread to share links to reading mat…

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