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Nomads help anthropologists get their PhD’s but dont’ get any feedback

Published on December 18, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology in the news, ethics, fieldwork / methods, Us and Them

New York Times writes about the Ariaal society in northern Kenya and some bad behaving anthropologists. The Ariaal answer all their strange questions. But anthropologists don’t give something back. A local chief, Stephen Lesseren, said he wished their work would lead to more benefits for his people:

“We don’t mind helping people get their Ph.D.’s. But once they get their Ph.D.’s, many of them go away. They don’t send us their reports. What have we achieved from the plucking of our hair? We want feedback. We want development.”

“I thought I was being bewitched,” Koitaton Garawale, a weathered cattleman, said of the time a researcher plucked a few hairs from atop his head. “I was afraid. I’d never seen such a thing before.”

>> read the whole story

New York Times writes about the Ariaal society in northern Kenya and some bad behaving anthropologists. The Ariaal answer all their strange questions. But anthropologists don't give something back. A local chief, Stephen Lesseren, said he wished their work would…

“We have a huge responsibility to give back to the places we study from”

Published on October 20, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, development empowerment, ethics

“We have a huge responsibility to give back to the places we study from,” anthropology professor Sharon Hutchinson says in a portrait on the website of the University of Winston-Madison. She has increasingly designed her courses to help students think through moral and practical dilemmas. For 25 years, Hutchinson has been involved in the southern Sudan as an anthropologist and human rights activist >> continue (link updated)

SEE ALSO:

Review of her book “Nuer Dilemmas: Coping with Money, War and the State” (Australian Journal of Anthropology) (link updated)

Challenges of Providing Anthropological Expertise: On the conflict in Sudan

Anthropology in a Time of Crisis. A Note from Nepal

"We have a huge responsibility to give back to the places we study from," anthropology professor Sharon Hutchinson says in a portrait on the website of the University of Winston-Madison. She has increasingly designed her courses to help students think…

On Savage Minds: Debate on the Construction of Indigenous Culture by Anthropologists

Published on September 19, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, ethics, history, indigenous people / minorities, Native American, Northern America, Us and Them, Visual Anthropology

Early visual anthropologists produced a form of salvage anthropology that uncoupled “traditional” society from any form of change, Patrick Harries (University of Cape Town), writes in an article on the the history of visual anthropology in South Africa. Although almost 100,000 workers from southern Mozambique were employed, not one photograph of a migrant worker appeared in anthropological monographs.

Kerim Friedman tells a similar story on Savage Minds. It’s about Edward S. Curtis’ huge collections of photographs, now digitalised by the Library of Congress.

Friedman quotes Pedro Ponce’s text on Curtis:

“In order to portray traditional customs and dress, Curtis — using techniques accepted by many anthropologists of his day — removed modern clothes and other signs of contemporary life from his pictures. A portrait of a Piegan lodge, for example, originally showed an alarm clock between two seated men. Curtis cut the clock out of the negative and included the retouched image in The North American Indian.”

In a comment, Nancy Leclerc writes about consequences for Indians today:

“Several anthropologists pointed out that the negative judgements of white settlers toward Aboriginals largely stemmed from their perception that members of the latter group were not living up to the ideals of the past, a past that was largely romanticised.”

>> read more on Savage Minds

Early visual anthropologists produced a form of salvage anthropology that uncoupled "traditional" society from any form of change, Patrick Harries (University of Cape Town), writes in an article on the the history of visual anthropology in South Africa. Although almost…

Understanding the ‘Natives’ at a Big University: Anthropologist studies students

Published on August 4, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, ethics, fieldwork / methods, University / Academia, youth

Gil Klein, Media General News Service

WASHINGTON – When most anthropologists do field work, they head off to places like Indonesia to study such things as 20th century head-hunting rituals. But when Rebekah Nathan wanted to study a foreign culture, she turned in her faculty parking pass, enrolled at her own university as a freshman and moved into a dorm.

“I had to learn a new language, a new speed of talk,” Nathan said. “Much quicker, much more shorthand. It comes from IM-ing (instant messaging). Even the number of “likes” in a sentence marked my age. I had to put a lot more in … so I talk like I know how he was like …”

Rebekah Nathan is not the anthropologist’s real name. She’s not saying where she teaches and did her research — or even where she was during a telephone interview. Her methods have raised a buzz in the academic community even before the September release of her book, “My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student.” After an article and excerpt appeared in the “Chronicle of Higher Education,” she was criticized for involving students in her research without their “informed consent.” >> continue (Link updated)

Rebekah Nathan: An Anthropologist Goes Under Cover (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 29.7.05)

Undercover Freshman (Inside Higher Education, 13.7.05)

An anthropologist’s undercover project raises ethical hackles (The Boston Globe, 7.8.05)

Gil Klein, Media General News Service

WASHINGTON - When most anthropologists do field work, they head off to places like Indonesia to study such things as 20th century head-hunting rituals. But when Rebekah Nathan wanted to study a foreign culture, she…

More on the return of spies to college campuses

Published on June 6, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, ethics, politics, University / Academia

As posted earlier, the CIA is sponsering anthropologists to gather sensitive information during their fieldwork.

The Kansas City Star provides more detailes about the spies on the campus. Among others, they interviewed Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, who leads the American Anthropological Association’s Committee on Ethics. She says:

“It’s the secrecy that runs afoul of our ethical code.When you don’t own up — when you don’t honestly say who you are, and for whom you’re working — then you’re not doing social science. You’re doing espionage.

Furthermore, we read that Felix Moos who defended the CIa-program in Anthropology Today says, that he “has fielded hundreds of electronic letters and interview requests from around the world and that “about 60 percent realize I’m on the right track”. He adds:“About 40 percent feel it’s government intrusion into the universities. You know, the usual suspects …”

>> read the whole article in the Kansas City Star

As posted earlier, the CIA is sponsering anthropologists to gather sensitive information during their fieldwork.

The Kansas City Star provides more detailes about the spies on the campus. Among others, they interviewed Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, who leads the American Anthropological Association’s Committee…