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“Tribal wives” – Pseudo-anthropology by BBC?

Published on July 3, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, indigenous people / minorities, media, Native American, Us and Them

The BBC has sent six British women to be “second wives” to so-called “tribesmen” in – according to the BBC “some of the world’s most remote communities”. “Any anthropologist feels pleased when the hidden peoples of the world get a chance to appear on television, but the BBC series Tribal Wives is misleading”, anthropologist Michael Stewart comments in The Guardian.

The tv-programm, he writes, gives us “a romantic notion of a Shangri-La”, based on the idea “that we have lost something that only the “savage” can teach us”. This film claims to be a window on another world, but we mainly learn about what it means to be a westerner in that situation.

Steward watched the episode about a British woman who spent a month with the Huaorani in Ecuador. Their village is far from isolated. It is a well-known eco-tourism destination with an airstrip in the middle of the village, according to the anthropologist.

>> read the whole comment in The Guardian

In a comment on the Survial International blog, Guy Edwards writes that the “overall impression was that of a circus where Huaorani culture was portrayed as simple and backward” and adds: “The BBC and/or the other production organisations involved should apologize and compensate the Huaorani for any damages.”

For more info on the programm, see UK women to become ‘tribal wives’ (BBC 10.11.06) How the Waorani tribe made me relax (BBC 24.6.08), Mudhut life for Lana enough to drive her away from drink (Evening News Edinburgh 2.7.08) and a more positive review in The Times by Caitlin Moran Tribal Wives – the acceptable face of reality TV from the BBC

“Good story about cannibals. Pity it’s not even close to the truth”

The Double Standards of the “Uncontacted Tribes” Circus

From Stone Age to 21st century – More “fun” with savages

The BBC has sent six British women to be "second wives" to so-called "tribesmen" in - according to the BBC "some of the world's most remote communities". "Any anthropologist feels pleased when the hidden peoples of the world get a…

The Double Standards of the “Uncontacted Tribes” Circus

Published on June 4, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, globalisation, indigenous people / minorities, Latin- and Central America, media, Native American, Us and Them

The story of the so-called “uncontacted tribes” in the Amazon has made its way around the world (even to Norway!). At the same time, there is a complete lack of interest in the story of indigenous people being publicly humiliated in Bolivia, the CultureMatters author Jovan Maud notes.

Are indigenous groups only interesting as long as they are “uncontacted” and “lost”? Has this something to do with obscure notions of “purity”?

Anyway, the anthropology blog CultureMatters has done a great job in deconstructing the “uncontacted tribes”-myth and criticizing organisations like Survival International that use this myth in their work to help indigenous peoples. CultureMatters-blogger Greg Downey writes:

While I certainly agree that small pockets of cultural diversity should not be aggressively assimilated, I feel a little queasy that we have to sell the drive for cultural autonomy and respect for foraging peoples with the whole ‘never seen a white man’ drivel. The term ‘uncontacted’ is part of the problem; ‘isolated’ would be better, as these groups have seldom ‘never seen a white man.’

(…)

One of the reasons these groups are attracting attention is that they are under pressure, especially on the Peruvian side of the border, not only from the usual suspects (miners, loggers, and ranchers), but also from a French petroleum company that wants to drill in the area.

Why can’t we go with that story: protecting the environment, wildlife, and the local people’s ways of life against the shattering impact of wreckless resource extraction to feed petroleum addiction? Why do we have to stoop to the whole ‘they think the plane is a giant bird or spirit’ and ‘their way of life was unchanged for 10,000 years’ cannard?

The CultureMatters-author was interviewed by ABC Radio in Melbourne about this issue and they started discussing the common idea that it is ‘inevitable’ through ‘progress’ that people like this will have to disappear.

He comments:

I wonder if all those ‘well, it’s sad but that’s the inevitable cost of progress’ really even think for thirty seconds about what they’re saying: are they saying that every acre of land that might support people who want to hunt or gather food, inevitably, must be drilled, logged, burned, or dug up for minerals? Really?

>> read the whole story on Culture Matters “‘Uncontacted Indians?!’ — contact an anthropologist!”

Savage Minds followed up with Stone-Age Links and a post The myth of the “untouched” Amazon that concludes that “today’s hunter-gatherers might be descended from the builders of four-lane highways, bridges, moats and canals”.

And Maximilian Forte writes (in a satirical post) about a maybe even greater discovery Four New Tribes Discovered: 3 in the USA, 1 in Iraq

With similar thoughs in my head, I wrote one year ago “Help the Hadza!” – Why focus on culture and not on human rights?

How to get more young readers? Associated Press turns to anthropologists

Published on May 21, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, corporate & business anthropology, internet, media, Us and Them, youth

The number of young newspaper readers is declining. In order to better understand the behaviors of young readers, Associated Press commissioned a team of anthropologists to follow 18 young individuals around the world and examine their media habits, the Editors Weblog reports.

The Anthropologists found few major cultural differences. “The young digital consumers in Hyderabad were very similar to the ones in Silicon Valley in the United States”, said Jim Kennedy from AP.

The researchers uncovered the social aspects of reading news: Almost all of their informants shared news with each other, through text messages, emails and social networks. “These young consumers are looking up to news as a form of social currency”, Kennedy said.

Strangely enough, 16 of the 18 individuals consumed news through email, “a popular and powerful platform that often tends to be discounted by traditional media”, according to the Editors Weblog.

The full results of the study will be presented at the 2008 World Editors Forum in Gothenburg, Sweden, to be held June 1-4.

>> read the whole story on the Editors Weblog

SEE ALSO:

Ethnographic Study on “Digital Kids”

Why the head of IT should be an anthropologist: The true value of IT will come not from information or technology per se but from the social side

Introduction to “Media Worlds”: Media an important field for anthropology

Online: EASA-conference papers on media anthropology

Ethnographic study: Social network sites are “virtual campfires”

Published on May 21, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, cyberanthropology, internet, journal articles / papers, media, Us and Them, websites, youth

After five years participant observation, anthropologist Jenny Ryan has published her masters’ thesis about the social network sites Facebook, My Space and Tribe.net. She created a beautiful web version of her thesis at http://www.thevirtualcampfire.org/

In her thesis, she proposes that everyday involvement with these sites can be metaphorically represented as a “virtual campfire” that “bridges the gap between the place of the hearth and the space of the cosmos, potentially reversing what has been called “the disintegration of the public sphere” (Habermas 1962: 175).

She explains in her introduction:

Thousands of years ago, our early human ancestors gathered around campfires, creating communal hearths of warmth and light. There they might tell stories, converse about the day’s events, perhaps engage in shamanistic rituals involving plants, music and dance, or simply gaze silently at the flames in collective meditation.

Today, the fireplace in my family’s living room shares its centralizing power with the television, around which we gather with our laptops and cellphones by our sides. Our time spent together is increasingly mediated by new technologies, enabling new forms of storytelling, altering our processes of individual and collective identity formation, and extending the possibilities for creating and maintaining social relationships.

(…)

My central argument in this thesis is that online social networks can potentially serve as both places of the hearth and avenues to the cosmos. Over time, these sites function as personal records of one’s experiences and relationships. These archives are made up of a variety of forms akin to older modes of record keeping, such as address books, journals, diaries, photo albums, personal correspondences, and yearbooks.

Additionally, they serve as gateways to the greater milieu, enabling the circulation of information about the world and granting members the capacity to participate in various ways. For teenagers and marginalized groups, in particular, these sites can be safe spaces for exploring and experimenting with identity, as well as for connecting to new people and ideas.

Ryan plans to add interactive features to the website version of her thesis, maybe she’ll turn it into a wiki, she writes in her blog.

>> visit The Virtual Campfire

>> Jenny Ryan’s bog

The Birth of a Cyberethnographer: The MU5 is to Blame

Interview with Michael Wesch: How collaborative technologies change scholarship

Why anthropologists blog: Blogs more interesting than journals?

Another way of doing fieldwork: Developing websites with your informants!

Ethnographic research on Friendster’s online communities

How internet changes the life among the First Nations in Canada

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

The Internet Gift Culture

After five years participant observation, anthropologist Jenny Ryan has published her masters' thesis about the social network sites Facebook, My Space and Tribe.net. She created a beautiful web version of her thesis at http://www.thevirtualcampfire.org/

In her thesis, she proposes that everyday…

Anthropology blogs more interesting than journals?

Published on May 19, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, cyberanthropology, internet, journal articles / papers, media, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing

Have anthropology journals ignored students? Is this one of the reasons for the popularity of anthropology blogs? Anthropology journals are not well known among students, Owen Wiltshire writes in his class assignment Why do anthropologists blog? A mini ethnography, a story, and a field report:

A restrictive publishing environment gives little voice to students. Not only that, but anthropology journals have ignored students and perhaps in doing this they have missed out on generating a name for themselves. As more and more material becomes freely available online, it becomes a matter of knowing where to look – and my small survey of students revealed that journals are not well known.
(…)
My small survey revealed that students had a hard time identifying a prestigious journal in their field, and the survey from Savage Minds shows that graduate students make up a large percentage of the readership. In my exploration of blogs I found a number of graduate students writing them. So perhaps the limited distribution of academic publishing contributes to the desirability of the blogsphere.

Owen Wiltshire found much “interesting thought” in the blogosphere and wonders if journal publications would only serve for the purposes of gaining prestige: “Everything is being said in conversations elsewhere, but is ‘proved’ in journals”.

In his text, he discusses several reasons for why anthropologists blog – or do not blog. Among other things he talked to several anthropologists who wish there was more room for new ways of writing anthropology.

Several students don’t want to share their thoughts online because they fear of having ideas “stolen”:

Another anthropology professor discussed the way societies he had studied were hierarchical, depending on secrecy and not necessarily the democratic exchange of knowledge – but as my interviews revealed many students worry that ideas can be stolen, and this is perhaps another reason people might have to not blog. Anthropologists in this sense are a hierarchical organization too, and secrecy is indeed a reason many do not feel comfortable sharing or discussing their ideas.

Here is his prelimarlary summary:

Why do Anthropologists Blog?

Public engagement – feedback from beyond the discipline
Less formal – much broader range of style, more complex ways of manipulating knowledge
(video, text, dynamic content)
Community, feedback. Enjoy discussing ideas with others.
Prestige – great place to get known, at least by other anthro bloggers
Younger generation growing up with online publishing – not worried about privacy as much
Perhaps an escape from work/professionalism when reflecting on anthropological ideas

Why Don’t Anthropologists Blog?

Fear that their work isn’t good enough
Do not want to have their name associated with it
Generally not part of internet culture – accessibility
Lack of time – anthropology is a professional topic – there aren’t many “amateur
anthropologists” – although this is one thing many bloggers want to change
Fear of having ideas stolen – desire to “own” ideas.
Prefer traditional publishing mediums – books
Desire for more filtered knowledge
Desire to maintain privacy outside of work

Wiltshire explored this issue by participation in the blogosphere through his own blog, and reading and writing on numerous other anthropology blogs. He also discussed blogging, sharing information, and public engagement with a focus group of six students, and multiple interviews with students and one professor – all at Concordia University.

>> read the whole text on Wiltshire’s blog

>> Follow-up post: forced vs free writing: “Students ignore journals, just as much as journals ignore students”

Interview with Michael Wesch: How collaborative technologies change scholarship

antropologi.info survey: Six anthropologists on Anthropology and Internet

Paper by Erkan Saka: Blogging as a Research Tool for Ethnographic Fieldwork

On fieldwork: “Blogging sharpens the attention”

Blogging and Public Anthropology: When free speech costs a career

Danah Boyd on Open Access: “Boycott locked-down journals”

Success in publishing defined by quality? Anthropology Matters on “The Politics of Publishing”