The American Anthropological Association’s annual meeting is over - here a quick round-up of the conference coverage on the web.

Anthropology and the military was a hot topic this year as well as Inside Higher Ed informs in three articles:

According to the article Anthropological Engagement, for Good and for Bad?, the debates were “generally civil but at times pointed". During a “consistently unorthodox question and answer session cut the moderator, Rob Borofsky of Hawaii Pacific University follow-up questions and at one point barked at an audience member “That’s, it! Down!” as if addressing a dog. Many questioners grew unsettled with the panelists’ answers.

The Network of Concerned Anthropologists submitted a letter to AAA’s president, Setha Low, accompanied by 1,056 signatures of anthropologists who signed a “Pledge of Non-participation in Counterinsurgency.”Ethics and Militarization Dominate Anthropology Meeting, see Ethics and Militarization Dominate Anthropology Meeting (Inside Higher Ed 21.11.08)

Montgomery McFate cancelled her presentation. She was invited to give a keynote lecture at a conference of the Southwestern Anthropological Association, see Raised Eyebrows over Keynote Choice (Inside Higher Ed, 20.11.08)

Other topics:

On an inter-generational panel on mothering, anthropology and fieldwork the question “How do we mix our passion for anthropology, which is rooted in fieldwork, and our passion for parenting, which is often rooted in schedules and routines and a sense of normalcy?” was discussed, see Fieldwork with Three Children (Inside Higher Ed, 25.11.08)

“Religion in Evolutionary Perspective” was the topic of the session by Barbara King. See Dispatch From the AAA Annual Meeting (Science and Religion Today, 24.11.08)

“The Encultured Brain session went very well yesterday", we read on the blog Neuroanthropology. They have previously presented their topic in several posts, among others Daniel Lende, Ethnography and Addiction (which includes links to several papers) - update Greg Downey put his paper ‘Balancing Between Cultures: A Comparative Neuroanthropology of Equilibrium in Sports and Dance.’ online

Dave Gottwald writes about a multi-disciplinary panel about architecture and anthropology. The panel’s purpose was to expand on the dialogue between architecture and anthropology, and included case studies on place branding, contemporary lifestyle and retail stores, shopping malls and theme parks, and casinos around the world.

The Damito has written an interesting round up of six different panels and even another one

Iceland Review reports about an Icelandic student at the Lawrence University in Wisconsin, Sveinn Sigurdsson. Together with his research partner Ashlan Falletta-Cowden,he received an award for their project on Icelandic food habits from the AAA.

The AAA Public Affairs Blog has collected links to press coverage.

Finally, there is a brief wrap up at Savage Minds and readers are asked to leave comments on the highlights/low points of the AAA-meeting

Many adults worry that children are wasting time online, texting, or playing video games. In the first in-depth ethnographic study of its kind, researchers of the Digital Youth Project found that the digital world is creating new opportunities for youth to grapple with social norms, explore interests, develop technical skills, and experiment with new forms of self-expression.

According to the report, youth could benefit from educators being more open to forms of experimentation and social exploration. Rather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, the researchers question what it would mean to think of it as a process guiding youths’ participation in public life more generally.

The report was presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in San Francisco and is availbable online, as anthropologist Mizuko Ito, who lead the research, announced on her blog.

The major findings:

Youth use online media to extend friendships and interests.
They can be always “on,” in constant contact with their friends through private communications like instant messaging or mobile phones, as well as in public ways through social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook. With these “friendship-driven” practices, youth are almost always associating with people they already know in their offline lives. The majority of youth use new media to “hang out” and extend existing friendships in these ways.

Youth engage in peer-based, self-directed learning online.
In both friendship-driven and interest-driven online activity, youth create and navigate new forms of expression and rules for social behavior. By exploring new interests, tinkering, and “messing around” with new forms of media, they acquire various forms of technical and media literacy. By its immediacy and breadth of information, the digital world lowers barriers to self-directed learning.

New media allow for a degree of freedom and autonomy for youth that is less apparent in a classroom setting. Youth are often more motivated to learn from peers than from adults. Their efforts are also largely self-directed, and the outcome emerges through exploration, in contrast to classroom learning that is oriented by set, predefined goals.

“This was a large ethnographic project by far the most challenging and rewarding research project I’ve undertaken so far", Mizuko Ito writes. She is particularly proud of the shared report, which was “a genuinely collaborative effort, co-authored by 15 of us on the team, and including contributions from many others":

We took a step that is unusual with ethnographic work, of trying to engage in joint analysis rather than simply putting together an edited collection of case studies. We spent the past year reading each others interviews and fieldnotes, and developing categories that cut across the different case studies. Each chapter of the book incorporates material from multiple case studies, and is an effort to describe the diversity in youth practice at it emerged from a range of different youth populations and practices.

>> read more on Mizuko Ito’s blog

>> download the report

The report received a lot of media attention, see among others the San Francisco Chronicle and the Boston Herald

SEE ALSO:

Ethnographic study: Social network sites are “virtual campfires”

Ethnographic Study on “Digital Kids”

Technologies of the Childhood Imagination- new text by anthropologist Mizuko Ito

Cyberanthropology: “Second Life is their only chance to participate in religious rituals”

From housewife to mousewive - Anthropological study on women and Internet

Ethnographic Study About Life Without Internet: Feelings of Loss and Frustration

Interview with Michael Wesch: How collaborative technologies change scholarship

The Internet Gift Culture

What are the best anthropology websites? Last night, at the annual meeting of the American Anthropology Association in San Francisco, the Savage Minds Awards were handed out. In the category “Most excellent blog", antropologi.info was voted second best, behind my favorite, Culture Matters.

Thanks a lot for voting for antropologi.info ! Unfortunaltely, I could not be there.

Here are the results:

Most Excellent Blog
Runner up: Antropologi.info
Most Win: Culture Matters

Most Excellent Open Access Journal
Runner Up: Cultural Analysis
Most Win: Anthopology Matters

Most Excellent Blog or Journal that does not end in “Matters” (The Category formerly known as Most Excellent Unclassifiable Digital Thingamajob)
Runner Up: Digital Anthropology
Most Win: Neuroanthropology

Congratulations! As the above list and the list of the nominated sites show, there are a lot of great anthropology websites! There has been a huge development during the recent years. This is great news!

See also the announcement of the Savage Minds Awards and coverage by Culture Matters and Neuroanthropology

The voting has begun - the winners will be announced at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association. antropologi.info is one of seven blogs that were nominated for the Most Excellent Anthropology Blog category (currently number two behind Culture Matters).

There are two more categories: “Most Excellent Open Access Journal in Anthropology” and “Most Excellent Uncategorizable Digital Thing-a-ma-job for Anthropology”

Read more about the Teh Savage Minds Awards Ceremony over at Savage Minds: http://savageminds.org/2008/11/14/teh-savage-minds-awards-ceremony/

“This is a break from the norm of writing about Bali", writes Laura Noszlopy enthusiastically about a new book by anthropologist Emma Baulch called “Making scenes: reggae, punk, and death metal in 1990s Bali”.

In 1996, Emma Baulch went to live in Bali to do research on youth culture. She hang out in the death metal scene among unemployed university graduates clad in black T-shirts and ragged jeans; in the punk scene among young men sporting mohawks, leather jackets, and hefty jackboots; and among the remnants of the local reggae scene in Kuta Beach, the island’s most renowned tourist area.

The scene that Baulch has accessed is a deliberately closed and marginalized one, though it is situated largely in Bali’s most ‘open’ places: Kuta and Denpasar. And it is a scene that anthropologists had overlooked or not have not been interested before according to Baulch.

Laura Noszlopy quotes the author who writes that sidewalks of Kuta she entered in 1996 were

… a gaping frontier land of which anthropology rarely spoke … they raged with charged encounters between tourists and street-side watch sellers, drug dealers, drivers, pimps, and whores … punk jams chafed against the pop soundscape emanating from the Hard Rock Café across the road. Mohawks, feigned brawls, Bad Religion, metal spikes, hefty jackboots, and leather jackets thrived (p. 1).

Noszlopy comments:

This is an image that may possibly be familiar to travellers who have stayed in Kuta, Bali’s largest resort. But is not one that is found in brochures or highlighted by Balinese cultural commentators, and neither is it one that anthropologists tend to write about

The book also explains the machinations of the various contesting groups within the scene(s):

This is fascinating stuff; I doubt that many observers of Balinese society, or Balinese themselves, will have any idea of the detailed differences and ‘othering’ that took place not from the perspective of counterculture juxtaposed against mainstream, but between the multiple shifting identities created amongst the various groups. And these, of course, ‘othered’ themselves against the reggae groups that played in tourist bars.

All, Baulch argues, are somehow part of a peripheral Balinese Other in a love-hate relationship with Jakarta’s Indonesian centre, rather than the predictable West. This rather radical and, to some traditionalists, surprising point that Balinese punk is somehow principally about Balineseness and regionalism recurs throughout the book.

“This is the kind of work about Bali that I would like to see more of", Laura Noszlopy writes:

It is truly contemporary. It deals with the complexities of a set of subcultural groups juxtaposed against and yet parallel to the local and national hegemonies. It recognizes the particularities of these groups and many of the individuals who people them, rather than lumping them together as ‘youth culture’.

Baulch does not simplify the issues, avoid people’s chaotic agency, or seek neat conclusions. Her work seems to embrace the complexity of the process of making scenes in Bali. And it does all this while recognizing the global music scene and late capitalist cultural economy – what Appadurai called the ‘global modern’– of which it is also a small, but noisy, part. This is a refreshing change.

But the reviewer writes less enthusiastically about the language of the book (a well known problem in many ethnographies):

The main difficulty I found with the text, however, was the marrying of the sometimes opaque style of theoretical analysis with the much looser conversational mode of the ethnography. While consistently vibrant and entertaining, it was not always complementary. The mixed tone was also apparent across chapters.

The review appeared in the recent issue of Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (subscription required)

But I found this text by Emma Baulch: Punks, rastas and headbangers: Bali’s Generation X (Inside Indonesia 48: Oct-Dec 1996)

Together with several other researchers, she has written Poverty and Digital Inclusion: Preliminary Findings of Finding a Voice Project

SEE ALSO:

Ainu musicians in Japan: Cool to be indigenous

Anthropologist explores heavy metal in Asia, South America and the Middle East

Socially conscious hip-hop is worldwide phenomenon

(via somatosphere) “Other disciplines have a magazine for the general public. Why can’t we?” Now, we have it. The first issue of Anthronow is out. The editors Katherine McCaffrey, Emily Martin, Ida Susser, and Susan Harding (they’re all from American universities) write:

Other disciplines have a magazine for the general public. Why can’t we? Why can’t we have a “popular anthropology” magazine that would fill the gap between conventional news coverage of current events and topics and the more specialized analysis of similar events and topics in professional journals? If our scholarship were written in clear and accessible language and embellished with photographs and other visual materials, wouldn’t there be public interest in the ways that anthropological theory and research can inform and affect contemporary public discourse and public policy debates?

Anthropology Now’s mission is to make anthropological knowledge accessible to lay readers, and to enrich knowledge and debate in the public sphere. The magazine aims to reclaim a voice for anthropology in public debate, not by simplifying complex problems, but by conveying anthropological knowledge in clear and compelling prose. Anthropology Now will build on a growing commitment among anthropolo- gists to make our research findings open and accessible to the world outside of the confines of the academy.

It seems that there is both a paper and a webversion of Anthronow. All articles of the first issue are online. I hope they will continue to provide open access to future issues as well.

I havent’ had time to look at the articles yet. Have they succeeded in making anthropology accessible for the world outside of the universities?

>> visit Anthronow

PS: There is another “popular anthropology” magazine, not in the U.S, but in Germany. It’s called Journal Ethnologie. Are there more? Oh yes, maybe American Ethnography?

UPDATE: Debate about Anthronow and its future over at Savage Minds

What possiblities have Afghan youth to rebuild their country and to work for a better future? Which constraints do they meet? Anthropologist Elisabet Eikås has been on fieldwork among young people in Kabul from October 2003 to June 2004. The result is the thesis ‘It is open, but not so open’ - gaining access to participation among Kabuli youths.

Young people are often seen as agents of change. But they don’t act independently of the wider society. Eikås’ study provides an ambivalent picture of the young peoples’ possiblities.

There are lots of young people in different organisations who work for a better future. Many of them want to replace the political model of the elder and ethnicity & affiliation with a model based on equality: “All generations or sects should be involved in politics, everybody, every group should be represented in politics", informant Amin said.

But the young peoples’ activism is a continuous struggle with the structures of the society.

A big problem for many young people is the strong position of the family. As the government is not able to provide satisfactory social services and security, the extended family is still regarded as the safety-net. The strong reciprocity of obligations and rights within the family is limiting the time young people can spend on political activism.

Eikås regards personal autonomy from the family as the main entrance to change.

Being in their 20s, the young activits are expected to marry - something that would mean further responsibilities and less time for political activities. Many informants try therefore to delay the time of marriage. One of her informants decided to move away from his family.

The tradition of respect of the elders was often mentioned as one of the major obstacles for the youths to contribute to society, this being in the family, at university, at work or in other social arenas, she writes. Patriarchy is not only concerned with male domination over females, but also dominance by seniors ("elders") over juniors.

She describes a meeting with some board members in a youth organisation, when suddenly the leader of the organisation enters the room.

All stand up to greet him. (…) He sits down behind his 3X2 meter teak desk where there is a picture of himself, a framed table sign with his name and an Afghan flag. One of the others pours him a cup of tea and serves him. (…)

The feedback of the members to the leader, their behaviour towards him, shows similarities with how the youths describe the elders, or how the teachers at university expect to be treated. In the interaction with the regular members, the behaviour by the members are characterised by loyalty and respect towards the leader. They are hesitant to state critical comments, they usually wait for him to invite them to speak, and some of them to a certain degree expect the leader to have more knowledge and provide the answers.
(…)
The hierarchy within the youth organisations suggests that these organisations are not able to change the model of the elder for that of equality within their own organisations, and as such they alternate but still reproduce the patriarchy, however through a young leader

The most promising place for an alternative form of politics to evolve is the university. Despite the prohibition of political activities on campus enforced by the Ministry of Higher Education, student groups are established, and seminars, also concerning participation by students, are held, she writes.

At the university, students with diverse backgrounds, both ethnically, regionally and regarding gender, meet:

The proximity of these students, the diverse forums they meet in, in class, in the canteen (although that is segregated according to gender) and outside the classroom, builds the foundation for diverse networks to mingle and also the possibility of bridging networks to evolve, where their common status as students can be the main source of their solidarity.

The fact that they were able to arrange a seminar, where representatives from different student groups were gathered, further substantiates the potential, through co-operation, of a change in the political culture towards a more universalistic culture where equality between the different students can be the guiding principle.
(…)
On the other hand, there is also evidence that bonded loyalties prevail, also among the students. (S)ome students see their possibility of participation best secured through a bonding network adhering to particularistic values, whether this be family, kin, an external patron, political group or ethnicity.

Many problems are related to the long periods of war in Afghanistan. War leads to the breakdown of trust, and networks are usually narrowed:

My data seem to support Putnam’s understanding of trust to be developed through face-to- face contact, in lack of institutional trust, exemplified through how relations to political activities or aspirations only were discussed with ‘people one knows’. As such, Kabul University can be a promising place for increased trust to develop.

As I interpret much of the data in this thesis, I believe the lack of trust in the Afghan society, is one of the main reasons why both bonding networks and also patron- client relations prevail. It takes time to build trust in a population which has been at war. The people in Afghanistan have just started this process.

>> download the thesis

SEE ALSO:

Researched the sexual revolution in Iran

Online: Thesis about Up-Country Tamil Students

Conflict Resolution and Anthropology: Why more scholarship on violence than on peace?

She spent a year in Tajikistan during her PhD, looking after goats. Two years ago, she predicted the current financial crisis. “I happen to think anthropology is a brilliant background for looking at finance,” anthropologist Gillian Tett, assistant editor at the Financial Times, says in an interview with The Guardian:

Firstly, you’re trained to look at how societies or cultures operate holistically, so you look at how all the bits move together. And most people in the City (financial district of London) don’t do that. They are so specialised, so busy, that they just look at their own little silos. And one of the reasons we got into the mess we are in is because they were all so busy looking at their own little bit that they totally failed to understand how it interacted with the rest of society.

But the other thing is, if you come from an anthropology background, you also try and put finance in a cultural context. Bankers like to imagine that money and the profit motive is as universal as gravity. They think it’s basically a given and they think it’s completely apersonal. And it’s not. What they do in finance is all about culture and interaction.
(…)
“(Anthropology is) a weird background to have. But it’s helped me in covering the financial crisis. Having seen the Japanese financial crisis, I’ve always known that banks can fall apart. We never imagined that the Soviet Union would break up. And then in Tajikistan there was a horrific civil war. So that whole experience taught me that extraordinarily unexpected things can happen.

Tett was Japan correspondent for the Financial Times during the country’s financial collapse, and wrote a book about it, “Saving the Sun”:

The behaviour and the psychological mood of the markets in late July was almost identical to what happened in the autumn of 1997 in Japan. I was busy cancelling holidays and things. But it came out of the blue for many people - investors, policymakers, bankers, our readers were suddenly completely at sea, at a loss to make sense of it. The financial system is so dysfunctional, so tribal, that people just don’t communicate with each other.

More non-economics should be interested in finance, she says:

People who come from a background of arts and humanities and social studies tend to think that money and the City is boring and somehow dirty. But if you don’t look at how money goes round the world you don’t actually understand the world at all. When you try and join up the dots about how money can be linked to politics, can be linked to culture, then it’s electrifying.

>> read the whole interview in The Guardian

>> Gillian Tett’s articles in the Financial Times

SEE ALSO:

Gillian Tett: Investors need to understand the tribal nature of banking culture

Anthropologist Gillian Tett finds insight into Japan’s bad-loan crisis