03.08.05: The blog has moved to www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/, and several broken links have been corrected
Here are the most recent posts on the new blog location:
Monday, September 20, 2004, 08:05
Universal children's sign language gives new insights into how languages evolve
BBC
A new sign language created over the last 30 years by deaf children in Nicaragua has given experts a unique insight into how languages evolve. The language follows many basic rules common to all tongues, even though the children were not taught them.
It indicates some language traits are not passed on by culture, but instead arise due to the innate way human beings process language, experts claim.
The development of language has long been the focus of debate. Some people in the extreme "nature" camp believe that grammar is essentially hard-wired in the brain, while those in the extreme "nurture" camp think language has no innate basis and is just culturally transmitted. >> continue
(found via Sybille Ambers Blog)
Saturday, September 18, 2004, 10:06
Mexico: Pride in Indigenous Heritage - Literally a Thing of the Past
IPS News Service
Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology and History (MNAH), one of the ten most important institutions of its kind in the world, is celebrating its 40th anniversary with cocktail receptions and new exhibitions. Sadly, however, there is little to celebrate for the impoverished descendants of the peoples whose cultures are proudly preserved in the museum's halls.
The director of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), Sergio Raúl Arroyo, said that the MNAH has succeeded "in crafting an extraordinary bridge between the past and present, allowing us to reshape our idea of what cultural diversity means." But in Mexico today, cultural diversity is not marked by respect, but rather by the discrimination of some groups against others, according to historian Lorenzo Meyer.
"It's really paradoxical," U.S. anthropologist Teo Martens told IPS. "The museum showcases the greatness of Mexican indigenous cultures, and on the street outside you see the miserable conditions they live in." >> continue
Friday, September 17, 2004, 09:19
Nepalnews.com
Professor Dr. RISHIKESHAB RAJ REGMI – who teaches anthropology at the Tribhuwan University - is a well known anthropologist of Nepal:
"The event of September 1 was very mysterious. The people who attacked mosque and Muslims are not Nepalese. I cannot believe that any Nepali who has grown up in the social harmony can do such works against their own brothers and sisters. The process of integration is very strong in Nepal. People of different religions live together respecting sentiments and sensitivities of each other.
"Two main mosques standing in front of the Palace of Hindu monarch is one of the great examples of religious tolerance existing between Muslim, Hindu and other communities. One of the main Mosques is standing side by side with Sanskrit Hostel, where Brahmin live and study, in Durbar Marg. Without supply of bangles and beads (Chura, Pote) and other ornaments by Muslims who make them, marriage of Hindu people cannot be complete. Through the marriage between Muslims and non-Muslims, the society has been further integrated and united." >> continue
SEE ALSO:
September 1 Riots: Once they were dead, then the internation press reported. Depending on where you might live in the world, accounts of the riots varied greatly.
Friday, September 17, 2004, 08:33
Food and social change: Anthropology students take food tours of Boston
Boston University
To observe the city’s changing cuisines, Anthropology Professor Merry White White and her students travel to some of the best-known and least-known ethnic neighborhoods in the city, where they have a chance to study food as it relates to migration and community-building. They visit the North End, of course, where Italian food has become enmeshed in the promotion of Italian culture, and Chinatown, less of a tourist destination, but a neighborhood with a strong “food identity,” White says.
For White, it is a sign that her studies of cooking and culture have finally been deemed a legitimate and important part of academia. “It’s a matter of how food has come into acceptance in the curriculum in general,” she says. “In the late 1980s, I think the world wasn’t ready for it yet.” changing food trends reveal a lot about changing cultures >> continue
Thursday, September 16, 2004, 14:44
UN Decade of Indigenous People Ending to Mixed Reviews
National Geographic News
2004 is the last year of the United Nations International Decade of the World's Indigenous People. The program's accomplishments may be best described as mixed. While indigenous issues are receiving more political attention worldwide, observers say that most indigenous people remain mired in poverty. Hunter-gatherer groups, in particular, are facing persecution and attacks on their way of life.
John Scott, the UN Permanent Forum officer, says it would be a step forward if governments stopped treating indigenous people as being separate from the rest of the population and instead as being part of their countries. >> continue
READ ALSO:
50,000 Indigenous Colombians March for Basic Rights (OneWorld.net, 16.9.04)
Thursday, September 16, 2004, 08:33
From Popcorn to Parkas: 16 American Indian Innovations
National Geographic News
Imagine our world without chocolate or chewing gum, syringes, rubber balls, or copper tubing. Native peoples invented precursors to all these and made huge strides in medicine and agriculture.
They developed pain medicines, birth-control drugs, and treatment for scurvy. Their strains of domesticated corn, potatoes, and other foods helped reduce hunger and disease in Europe—though Indians also introduced the cultivation and use of tobacco.
As the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., readies for its grand opening Tuesday, bone up on Indian innovations in food and candy, outdoor gear, and health and exercise. >> continue
Wednesday, September 15, 2004, 09:09
"It will take a long time for people to grasp the illusory nature of race"
Washington Post
A hundred social scientists and geneticists gathered this week in Alexandria to sort out the meaning of race, and didn't, quite. When Leith Mullings, an anthropologist from the City University of New York, sardonically said that "only people of color have race, and only women have gender," everyone knew what she meant.
A professor who argues that race is a biological myth sat next to a professor who wants the U.S. government to pay reparations to African Americans. Their positions are not inconsistent, but they require a bit of explaining. Race is complicated.
"It doesn't exist biologically, but it does exist socially," said Alan Goodman, incoming president of the American Anthropological Association, which sponsored the meeting at the Holiday Inn in Old Town. It will take a long time for people to grasp the illusory nature of race at the biological level, Goodman said. It's like understanding that the Earth isn't flat >> continue
Wednesday, September 15, 2004, 09:06
Anthropologists to study Kiwi cookbooks
Stuff, New Zealand
Anthropologists at Otago University say they hope a close study of cookbooks and the origins of New Zealand's culinary traditions will provide insight into the nation's domestic life. The research will look at how cookbooks reflect health messages, changing technology, globalisation after World War 2, transmission of knowledge and the interplay between Maori and Pakeha.
Prof Helen Leach said a new wave of interest in the history and anthropology of cuisine had seen it become an academic subject around the world. >> continue
Wednesday, September 15, 2004, 08:25
"Netnography," - faster and cheaper ethnography on the Internet
Karen Lee, University of Texas at Austin
"Netnography," coined from 'ethnography on the Internet,' is an emerging qualitative research methodology adapting ethnographic research techniques to the study of cultures and communities constructed through the Internet. It uses information that is publicly available in online forums to identify and understand the needs and decision influences of relevant online consumer groups. Compared with traditional and market-oriented ethnography, netnography is far less time consuming and elaborate >> continue
Tuesday, September 14, 2004, 10:40
Links to antropologi.info
After two months on the net, antropologi.info has been mentioned / linked to from several websites:
Ideas Bazaar, England
Coversations with Dina, India
University of Tromsø, Norway
University of Oslo, Norway
Splitvision Business Anthropology, Sweden
Louise Ferguson City of Bits, England
Rice University, USA
Peek into my mind, India
Partilha de favoritos
Ethno::log, University of Munich, Germany
Gumsagumlao, Denmark
East of the Sun, West to the Moon, Guam
Homemade Jam, England
Sybille Amber, Austria
Monday, September 13, 2004, 23:24
"I think that anthropology has never been as strong as it is now..."
Anthropolis (Hungary)
An interview, about the current perspective of Central-European and Polish anthropology, with Dr. Marcin Brocki (PhD adjunct professor - Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology - University of Wroclaw, Poland).
- We are surprised how popular ethnology is now. There are almost 200 candidates each year for the study in Wroclaw. It is definitely fashionable discipline. I suppose that it is because of interdisciplinarity of the course, emerging "anthropologization" of humanities and social sciences (especially sociology and philosophy), and also general trend toward searching for more stable structures in our culture.
- People are seeking for something to rely on against globalization, "McDonaldization", "hypermarket" culture, and they usually think of ethnology as a kind of remedy or a good source of alternative knowledge (alternative views). Due to those processes we are observing a growing interest in ethnical issues, ethnic music, roots searching, so that is the reason why students come to us in such a "giant" number.
>> continue
Monday, September 13, 2004, 09:18
History's New Look - an Unusual Approach to the Story of Native Americans
Washington Post
No other museum in the world has, on such a scale, devoted itself to this fresh and unusual approach to the story of Native Americans. Its planners have created what they call a "museum different" that might make it very hard for museums on the drawing board ever again to tell a story about people from a detached, third-person point of view. The new National Museum of the American Indian is built around native communities expressing their own authentic voices and their own interpretations of events -- part of its mission to change myths and stereotypes. >> continue
Sunday, September 12, 2004, 11:18
News from the Arctic
The End of the Inuit Hunting culture? - Climate change will soon make the Arctic regions of the world nearly unrecognisable, dramatically disrupting traditional Inuit and other northern native peoples' way of life, according to a new report that has yet to be publicly released. >> continue (OneWorld.net/ Yahoo)
Greenland wants to gain full independence from Denmark Greenland’s minister for self-government plans to achieve this through a radical package of economic, educational and social reforms. Small, traditional communities may be closed >> continue (Nunatsiaq News)
Kunuk’s new film documents the arrival of Knud Rasmussen, Christianity Rasmussen was a Dane, born in Greenland, who led an expedition through Canada’s eastern Arctic from 1921 to 1924, collecting songs, stories and artifacts from the people he met. >> continue (Nunatsiaq News)
Thursday, September 09, 2004, 08:35
The Growing Field of Workplace Anthropology
Practical Gatherings is a organisation that was created to provide services and support for the growing profession of workplace anthropology. It was founded by anthropologist Patricia Sachs.
On their website (that is partly still "under construction") they have collected interesting stuff, incl. and a history of workplace anthropology and lots of articles >> continue
Thursday, September 09, 2004, 08:30
Careers in Business Anthropology
Wayne State University
The economy is becoming increasingly international; workforces and markets, increasingly diverse; participatory management and decision making, increasingly important; communication skills, increasingly in demand. Anthropology is the only contemporary discipline that approaches human questions from historical, biological, linguistic, and cultural perspectives.
Demand for business anthropologists is increasing stimulated by a growing need for analysts and researchers with sharp thinking skills who can manage, evaluate, and interpret the large volume of data on human behavior. Many corporations look explicitly for anthropologists, recognizing the utility of their perspective on a corporate team. >> continue
CHECK ALSO their (older) collected articles on business anthropologists in action and antropologi.info's collection (Norwegian/English)
Wednesday, September 08, 2004, 09:40
African Voices - a Multimedia Online-Exhibition
Smithsonian Institution
African Voices is a permanent exhibition that examines the diversity, dynamism, and global influence of Africa’s peoples and cultures over time in the realms of family, work, community, and the natural environment. Video interactives and sound stations provide selections from contemporary interviews, literature, proverbs, prayers, folk tales, songs, and oral epics. >> visit the exhibition
Tuesday, September 07, 2004, 08:36
Poverty and health policies: Listening to the poor in Bangladesh
Medical anthropologist Sabina Faiz Rashid, The Daily Star Bangladesh
The assumption often among policymakers is that mere provision of health services and better choices will improve health of the poor. Universal education in public health and biology and the availability of Western medical care are seen as preferred forms of intervention to improve the health situation of the country. However, throughout my fieldwork, I was confronted by overwhelming structural and social inequalities which have led to high unemployment, crime, widespread substance abuse and the breakdown of family networks and marital relations in slums.
For the poor, health cannot be separated from social and political -- economic conditions of everyday life. If we truly want to see improvements in the health of poor women and men in Bangladesh, we need a more radical and broader based approach to health, where social and economic justice need to be an integral part of medicine and public health interventions. >> continue
Tuesday, September 07, 2004, 08:30
Did the First Americans Come From, Er, Australia?
Reuters AlertNet
Anthropologists stepped into a hornets' nest on Monday, revealing research that suggests the original inhabitants of America may in fact have come from what is now known as Australia. The claim will be extremely unwelcome to today's native Americans who came overland from Siberia and say they were there first.
Silvia Gonzalez from John Moores University in Liverpool said skeletal evidence pointed strongly to this unpalatable truth and hinted that recovered DNA would corroborate it. She said there was very strong evidence that the first migration came from Australia via Japan and Polynesia and down the Pacific Coast of America. >>continue
Monday, September 06, 2004, 08:37
Festivals and Cultural Change in Kathmandu, Nepal
Nepal News
With the increase in the population, Kathmandu valley's dynamics and structures of population have changed. New migrant families are coming up and the structures of old families are transforming from extended ones to nucleus. The family relation is no more confined to a particular locality and caste as it has become heterogeneous in nature. Many families even have married relations to international families.
Since valley has turned into a metropolitan, one can witness the transformation taking place in our age-old rituals, festivals and cultures. From celebrating rituals to marriage, the valley has seen drastic and dramatic transformation. Traditional systems are fading away and new system is gradually replacing the older one. As usual, Kathmandu valley is embracing change keeping intact its tradition of harmony and accommodation >> continue
READ ALSO
Interview with Professor Dr. RAMESH RAJ KUNWAR, an anthropologist at Tribhuwan University Kirtipur on various issues on changing mode of festivals
Monday, September 06, 2004, 08:34
Stolen remains coming home to Aborigines
Herald Sun
THE skeletal remains of up to 18 Aborigines, stolen by a Swedish anthropologist 90 years ago, will be returned to Australia this month in a landmark repatriation agreement. Aboriginal elders from Western Australia, Queensland, NSW and Victoria will travel to Stockholm in late September to receive the ancestral remains and begin the process of spiritual healing.
Most of the remains - which are held in Sweden's Museum of Ethnography - were removed from the Kimberley by Swedish anthropologist Eric Mjoberg between 1910 and 1911.
Mjoberg's methods were said to include bribing Aborigines to lead him to remains and then smuggling the skeletons out of Australia by telling authorities the bones were from kangaroos. >> continue
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