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anthropology (general)

Inuit play makes fun of anthropologists

Published on by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Arctic / Northern Regions, culture traditions, indigenous people / minorities, inuit, Us and Them

Nunatsiaq News

Erin Brubacher, who, with Odile Nelson, is co-directing and acting in the play in Iqaluit this weekend, says this is a play that “fits with the community”. “The issues involved are universal: interracial marriage, the concept of cultural appropriation, political correctness…,” Taylor says. “Many Native issues are cross-cultural.”

One of the themes in the play involves a group of kids on a reserve who are visited by a group of anthropologists researching traditional legends. None of the elders will talk to the anthropologists, so instead, the kids told them the legends their grandparents had told them, in some cases making them up for 50 cents a legend.

The play not only makes fun of the anthropologists, but also the kids who made up the stories, and “how a trick can come back and trick you,” as Taylor puts it. >>continue

Nunatsiaq News

Erin Brubacher, who, with Odile Nelson, is co-directing and acting in the play in Iqaluit this weekend, says this is a play that "fits with the community". "The issues involved are universal: interracial marriage, the concept of cultural appropriation,…

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A personal look at anthropology

Published on by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Arctic / Northern Regions, books, culture traditions, indigenous people / minorities, inuit

Kenai Peninsula Online (Alaska)

Generations of anthropologists have appeared in Alaska Native villages and attempted, with varying degrees of tact, naivete or insight, to explain the villagers’ lives. Margaret B. Blackman who teaches anthropology at the State University of New York College at Brockport parts in “Upside Down: Seasons among the Nunamiut,” from typical scholarly writing to create a book of essays that read more like personal memoir than academic treatise.

” … I tired of academic writing,” she says in her introduction. ” … I became increasingly irritated with the uncanny ability of so many anthropologists to render, in stilted prose, the most interesting cultures hopelessly pedantic and unappealing. I wanted to write differently about Anaktuvuk Pass.” The result is a beautifully written exploration of an anthropologist’s life as well as a portrait of the remote Nunamiut village in the Brooks Range. >>continue

Kenai Peninsula Online (Alaska)

Generations of anthropologists have appeared in Alaska Native villages and attempted, with varying degrees of tact, naivete or insight, to explain the villagers' lives. Margaret B. Blackman who teaches anthropology at the State University of New York…

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The Rediff Interview/Nandini Chattopadhyay: Music and Protest

Published on by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, music, persons and theories, politics

Rediff India

“I was doing my first major anthropology project studying the Baul protest movement and how it used music to talk about injustice, superstitions and hypocrisy. In Brazil too some of its most popular music and dance started in the ghettos as a protest against colonial rule and later against social inequities in general.”

“Anthropology is what I do in my everyday life. In addition to living in India, I have lived in Singapore, Montreal, Canada and San Francisco. I have also traveled extensively across Asia and Europe. Learning different languages, philosophies, belief systems and social codes of conduct are what I have been doing as part of my everyday life. Being an anthropologist is somewhat of a continuation of that” >>continue

Rediff India

"I was doing my first major anthropology project studying the Baul protest movement and how it used music to talk about injustice, superstitions and hypocrisy. In Brazil too some of its most popular music and dance started in the…

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Odyssey of an Anthropologist – new book about Malinowski

Published on by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, books, persons and theories

Daily Telegraph

Michael Young’s 690-page book is the first of two projected volumes. It takes Malinowski from his birth in Poland in 1884 to his return to England from the Trobriand Islands in 1920 – when his most famous work was yet to be written, and his public career lay ahead of him. Young has made use of a wealth of private papers, especially diaries and love-letters; he has also tracked down archival sources in Poland, England, Australia, Papua New Guinea and elsewhere >>continue

Daily Telegraph

Michael Young's 690-page book is the first of two projected volumes. It takes Malinowski from his birth in Poland in 1884 to his return to England from the Trobriand Islands in 1920 - when his most famous work was…

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