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George Marcus: "Journals? Who cares?"

Published on October 25, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, fieldwork / methods, journal articles / papers, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing, persons and theories

(LINKS UPDATED 20.5.2022) When George Marcus, one of the most influential anthropologists, was in Oslo recently, I asked him what he thinks about Open access. His answer surprised me. “Journals? Who cares?”, he replied. There is in his opinion little original thinking in journals, there are no longer exciting debates. “Maybe it’s because I’m getting older”, he said. “I don’t care.” He explained that “journals are meant to establish people”, to advance careers.

George Marcus offered similar pessimistic views in an interview in the journal Cultural Anthropology (subscription needed) in spring. Among other things, he said, that there are “no new ideas in anthropology”.

Maximilian Forte at Open Anthropology does not agree with Marcus and summarizes parts of the interview in his post George Marcus: “No New Ideas” (2.0) & the After-Life of Anthropology (1.1)

I mentioned Forte’s critique. Marcus replied “Of course Forte does not agree. Younger anthropologists are interested in progress and new ideas.”

Additionally, Marcus explained me his vision of the anthropologist as collaborator. Anthropologists should not study other people, but work together with them, and treat them as co-researcher. Nowadays, our informants may be interested in the same questions as the anthropologst, and they might even have studied anthropology as well. Marcus wrote an experimental book about the nobility in Portugal called Ocasião: The Marquis and the Anthropologist, A Collaboration.

George Marcus talkes about these issues in another interview in the Open Access journal After Culture, see Elise McCarthy, Valerie A. Olson: After Writing Culture: an interview with George Marcus.

George Marcus is best known for the books Writing Culture (edited together with James Clifford) and “Anthropology as a cultural critique” (written together with Michael Fischer)

For those of you who can read Norwegian, there’s an article by me on George Marcus here.

UPDATE: Peter Suber (Open access news) comments:

Did this transcript miss something or did George Marcus miss something? Even if we concede for the sake of argument that there are no new ideas in the field of anthropology, and that journals are more about advancing careers than advancing research, Marcus’ answer was not responsive. Apparently he thinks OA is all about journals, which it isn’t. It’s all about access, which may be through journals or repositories or many other vehicles (like wikis, ebooks, multimedia webcasts, P2P networks, RSS feeds…). It’s as if someone had asked, “What do you think about freedom of speech?” and he answered, “Public speaking? Who cares? It’s all grandstanding and vanity.”

Good point! I have to admit that Marcus was very busy and did not have much time for this interview – and I had lots of questions! We talked just a few minutes on Open Access while we we took the subway from the city up to the university campus at Blindern. He said he admires Chris Kelty’s work on open source and open access, but he does not seem to be up to date in regard to blogging, web2.0 etc (few anthropologists actually are, and most anthropologists have never heard of the Open Access movement)

ANOTHER UPDATE Dorothea Salo does not agree with Peter Suber. Yes, its about journals, she writes.

What is it we’re asking faculty to self-archive? Theses and dissertations, yes; (…) If we weren’t talking about the journal literature, why would repository-rats get so much flak (…) when we take in other things?

So follow Dr. Marcus’s train of thought here: if the journal literature isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, why would he waste time fighting for open access to it? There’s a lot to fight for in the world!

Interesting comment by Chris Kelty on journals:

I think George is right that journals are not where the action is—- and this is related to why I and others are so passionate about open access. Journals are increasingly getting slower, more clogged with submissions, finding it difficult to get reviewers, cash strapped and so on. And at the same time, getting published in a “good” journal (i.e. one with “prestige”) is getting more and more important for people who want permanent jobs in the academy.

the result is that the interesting debates and discussions have moved elsewhere… in some fields (though not anthropology, I fear) they have moved online and into the blogosphere. In others (anthropology I fear) they have retreated into departments and enclaves of other sorts, or have produced and increased sense of alienation from things.

(LINKS UPDATED 20.5.2022) When George Marcus, one of the most influential anthropologists, was in Oslo recently, I asked him what he thinks about Open access. His answer surprised me. "Journals? Who cares?", he replied. There is in his opinion…

Nigel Barley: "Fiction gives better answers than anthropology"

Published on September 14, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, books, fieldwork / methods

(LINKS UPDATED 18.2.2021) “Fiction’s more fun. It lets you look inside people’s heads in a way you wouldn’t dare to do if you stuck to anthropology”, anthropologist Nigel Barley says in an interview with the Telegraph:

“As an anthropologist you’re always asking questions such as: How different can different peoples be? Are we all reducible to a common humanity? And if so: what is it? Nobody can answer these questions. But I like to use fiction to try to answer anthropological questions. And fiction, I find, gives better answers.”

His book The Duke of Puddledock records Nigel’s travels, literal and figurative. It is part biography, part autobiography, part natural history, part anthropology, and part travelogue.

>> read the whole story in the Telegraph

Nigel Barley, most known for his funny book The Innocent Anthropologist: Notes from a Mud Hut is not the only anthropologist who explores the possibilities of fiction.

A few weeks ago, I read about Tahmima Anam, the first Bangladeshi writer to win the Overall First Book Award at The Commonwealth Writers Prize 2008. She has a PhD in Social Anthropology from Harvard University, and an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway College.

“I wrote A Golden Age because I wanted the story of the Bangladesh war to reach an international audience”, she says. She travelled throughout Bangladesh, interviewing ex-freedom fighters, military officers, students, and survivors of the 1971 war. The novel is a fictionalised account of these war stories, combined with her own family history.

In an interview with the Boston Globe she explains why she wrote a novel, rather than a nonfiction book:

I felt that this was a human story that needed character and plot. I wanted it to touch people’s hearts, as the stories I had heard had touched my heart. I wanted people to have a visceral sense of what it was like to be there at that time, and I didn’t think that nonfiction, for all its beauties and virtues, could do that.

And in an interview with the Guardian she says:

After graduating from university I started a PhD in social anthropology, but really I was dreaming of writing a novel. I would sit in my lectures and scribble in the margins of my notebooks. But for a long time, I didn’t tell anyone I wanted to be a writer; it was my undercover identity. It was when I started doing the research that it became more real. I travelled back to Bangladesh and met survivors of the Bangladesh war. After hearing their stories, I felt that I really ought to take the project more seriously, and that’s when I began writing the novel in earnest.

The most compelling ethnographies and ethnographic fiction

The Secret of Good Ethnographies – Engaging Anthropology Part III

Why is anthropological writing so boring? New issue of Anthropology Matters

(LINKS UPDATED 18.2.2021) "Fiction's more fun. It lets you look inside people's heads in a way you wouldn't dare to do if you stuck to anthropology", anthropologist Nigel Barley says in an interview with the Telegraph:

"As an anthropologist you're always…

Manga instead of scientific paper: How art enriches anthropology

Published on April 14, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, art, Asia, fieldwork / methods

“Anthropologist creates oceanic manga fantasy” is the headline of a story in The Daily Yomiuri Shimbun (Japanese newspaper). “I want to portray in manga what I gained from field investigation, but cannot fully express in scientific papers,” anthropologist Daisaku Tsuru says.

Tsuru is assistant cultural anthropology professor at Toyama University and the author of Nacun, a manga focusing on the mystery of (sea) life:

Nacun is based on Tsuru’s own experience of having researched fishing culture on an isolated island in Okinawa Prefecture for a total of six months while at graduate school.

Nacun, set in the future, revolves around graduate student Terunari Ishii. In the manga’s world, humans have expanded their range of marine activities thanks to the development of a convenient underwater breathing device in 2051. Ishii, who has received a prophecy in the form of a video left by an academic genius, begins living on an isolated island in the prefecture to find clues for the development of artificial intelligence.

The depiction of Ishii, who blends into local life through encounters with a lonely, middle-aged fisherman or a mysterious, beautiful girl who plays with dolphins, reflects parts of Tsuru’s fieldwork. At the same time, it can be read as a coming-of-age tale of an impressionable young man.

“Such a depiction of Ishii, that he idly spends his time drinking with fishermen, at least on days when he cannot go out fishing, is surely based on my own experience,” Tsuru said with a smile.

But the most fascinating aspect of Nacun is likely its clever combination of oceanic science fiction and romanticism with the inner psychological world of traditional Okinawans, typified by the worship of utaki, or sacred grounds.

>> read the whole story in the Daily Yomiuri (link updated)

A few days ago I mentioned an interview I’ve conducted with Lavleen Kaur, a criminologist who studies the relationship between Norwegian-Pakistanis and Norwegian-Indians. For her, theater and research go hand-in-hand. She has studied classic Indian dance in Lonon and also has experience as a choreographer and instructor.

She said:

– Yes, the artistic and academic aspects are for me something that go hand-in-hand and they are something I actively link together. For example, I came in contact with many of my informants for my Master’s degree by staging a play in cooperation with the Indian Welfare Society of Norway. (…) The piece was based on a book that was written in the 1600s, Heer by Waris Shah. The story of “Heer and Ranjha”, the Romeo and Juliette from Punjab, is something both Indians and Pakistanis have a very special relationship to.

(…)

– We set up the play in a traditional original version, and more recent version that focused on a mixed couple. This generated quite a response! There were people who started leaving and paternal heads of family who did not want to attend the second version, which they considered to be a “youthful notion”. The play helped start a debate within the community about topics that today we are compelled to relate to. There was a lot of participant-observation – it was “going native” in a very real sense.

>> read the whole interview

UPDATE: Entertaining Research writes about an archaelogist who has danced his thesis

SEE ALSO:

Connecting Art and Anthropology

"Anthropologist creates oceanic manga fantasy" is the headline of a story in The Daily Yomiuri Shimbun (Japanese newspaper). "I want to portray in manga what I gained from field investigation, but cannot fully express in scientific papers," anthropologist Daisaku Tsuru…

Transforming the Anthropology of Childhood – Anthropology News April

Published on April 4, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, fieldwork / methods, journal articles / papers, persons and theories, youth

Has Anthropology News gone open-access? 14 articles of the new issue are online. Anthropology News examines new ways of thinking about childhood and children’s roles and experiences. Methodological challenges of anthropological work with and of children are addressed as well.

We can read articles on children and climate change and disasters, on a successful antipoverty program for working poor adults and their children where anthropologists were involved, children as anthropologists, on children’s rights and much more.

>> overview over all articles

In this issue, we also are informed about the existence of a website called Anthropology of Childhood that grew out of collaborative efforts at Utah State University between anthropologist David Lancy and past and present students in his anthropology of childhood class.

Ethnographic study: Why the education system fails white working-class children

Anthropologist calls for a greater appreciation of child labor

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

Play as research method – new Anthropology Matters is out

Has Anthropology News gone open-access? 14 articles of the new issue are online. Anthropology News examines new ways of thinking about childhood and children's roles and experiences. Methodological challenges of anthropological work with and of children are addressed as well.

We…

Examples of engaging anthropology – New issue of “Anthropology Matters”

Published on April 3, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, Europe, fieldwork / methods, journal articles / papers, youth

How can anthropology contribute to understanding and fighting inequality? The new issue of Anthropology Matters brings together articles from the first British postgraduate MA in Applied Anthropology and Community and Youth Work. Most of the students are experienced youth workers, working with underprivileged, marginalised youth in the UK.

As Alpa Shah writes in her editorial:

All the papers are in some form interested in the lessons from and for anthropological theory and analysis in its engagement with applied action. The articles focus on youth, encourage youth workers to be critically aware of the policy discourses with which they operate, the structural inequalities which they veil, and promote a more reflexive praxis of working with youth in order to create spaces of critical thinking between them.

One example is Saffron Burley’s analysis of the growing trend among young people in urban areas in the UK to own fighting dog breeds such as bull terriers, and the resultant “moral panic” that this has caused among dominant groups. Burley employed participant observation by taking a young Pit Bull Terrier called “Biscuit” out for walks in the area, in order to understand these young people better.

The result, Alpa Shah writes, is “an insightful ethnographic account which explores the subtle potentials that exist in the union of the young person and the dog”:

Burley’s work not only contributes to our understanding of inequality, marginalisation and animal-human relations, but concludes with some lessons for community and youth workers – rather than seeing the dogs as “problems”, as external to the young person, the dog needs to be drawn into the centre of understandings of the dilemmas and tensions faced by youth.

The issue is dedicated to an engaging anthropologist and participant of the MA course at Goldsmith who was killed in a bicycle accident in January: Paul Hendrich. In his phd-project on “Charting a new course for Deptford Town Hall”, Hendrich examines his own institutional context at Goldsmiths College and the debates surrounding the history of the racism of the British slave trade that is embedded in Deptford’s former Town Hall:

As I was putting the finishing touches to this editorial, Paul Hendrich’s wife, Sasha, called with the devastating news that Paul had been run over on his bicycle by a lorry. Paul was 36 years old and had a one year old daughter, Agatha. His death is a deep loss to all of us. Paul was a very special person with some extremely rare qualities. His life was committed to engaging an everyday struggle against racism. He held a passion and belief that anthropology could and should be used for and rethought through this struggle against racism and it is this that guided his engagement with academia.

>> read the whole editorial

>> read Charting a new course for Deptford Town Hall by Paul Hendrich

>> overview over all articles in Anthropology Matters Journal, 2008, Vol 10 (1) Engaging Anthropology