Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing

Conference Podcasting: Anthropologists thrilled to have their speeches recorded

Published on March 30, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, internet, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing, University / Academia

Are we on the way to “Open Access Conferences”? As already announced, several sessions at the conference of the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) will be published as podcasts. Jen Cardew who has taken the initiative to this project reports that all presenters (except for one) were very happy to have their speeches to be recorded:

Presenters were; Paul Farmer, Phillipe Bourgois, Merrill Singer, Linda Whiteford, Carolyn Nordstrom, Barbara Rylko-Bauer, Didier Fassin, and Jame Quesada, all of whom were excellent speakers with excellent things to say. The room was packed and I believe there was 300+ people at any given time. These are the rockstars of anthropology. All of the presenters were thrilled to have their speeches recorded for the podcasting project and they even had me announce the project to the group. The fact that all of these presenters were excited about the opportunity to be recorded made the project worth it to me in itself. It actually was quite an honor :)
(…)
It was very reassuring to see that the anthropologists were open to new technology, as we are not known as a “techy” or “progressive with new technology” field :)

There are also some students doing informal interviews and some minimal coverage of the conference, which will be published on the web, she writes. Their goal was to seek out how anthropologists are using technology.

Anthropologists no longer a primitive tribe?

Published on March 26, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, internet, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing, websites

It’s only a few weeks ago that anthropologist Michael Wesch explained in an extremly popular YouTube-video how collaborative web technologies change scholarship. Now Jen Cardew at Synthesis of Thoughts tells us that several sessions at the conference of the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) are set to be recorded and published as podcasts.

A new website is set up: http://www.sfaapodcasts.net/ The first podcast will be up by April 7th.

That’s good news. Last summer, anthropologists were criticized for being the last primitive tribe on earth because they didn’t embrace the possibillities provided by the digital era. Several times, I’ve written about how difficult it is to get information about what’s going on on conferences.

It's only a few weeks ago that anthropologist Michael Wesch explained in an extremly popular YouTube-video how collaborative web technologies change scholarship. Now Jen Cardew at Synthesis of Thoughts tells us that several sessions at the conference of the Society…

Omertaa – Open access journal for Applied Anthropology

Published on March 21, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, journal articles / papers, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing, websites

(via Moving Anthropology Student Network) Another new anthropology journal and of course with open access for everybody: Omertaa, journal for Applied Anthropology. It was launched in January 2007 and is an international peer reviewed journal, associated with the organisation Expeditions, Research in Applied Anthropology.

The goals of the Omertaa journal are:

* To be a forum for anthropologists working in- and outside universities.
* To encourage a bridge between practice inside and outside the university
* To explore the use of anthropology in policy research and implementation.
* To serve as a forum for inquiry into the present state and future of anthropology in general.

As Sam Janssen explains in the introduction of the first volume: One of the main objectives of the journal is, to bring the knowledge and craftmanship of social and cultural anthropology back where it should come from: the field.

It seems to be a journal in the making. As of today, their editorial board only consists of two people. Marc Vanlangendonck is the Chied Editor.

The first volume is based on field research on Gozo, the sister island of Malta. The second volume will be about”Development work and the anthropological focus”.

Anpere – New Open Access Anthropology Journal

New Open Access Journal: After Culture – Emergent Anthropologies

2006 – The Year of Open Access Anthropology?

(via Moving Anthropology Student Network) Another new anthropology journal and of course with open access for everybody: Omertaa, journal for Applied Anthropology. It was launched in January 2007 and is an international peer reviewed journal, associated with the organisation…

Museum Anthropology Review: Blogging book reviews

Published on March 21, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing, websites

Another example of experimenting with the internet: The journal Museum Anthropology (MUA) has started publishing its book reviews in a blog called Museum Anthropology Review:

Its purpose is the dissemination of reviews, essays, obituaries and other editorially-reviewed content complementing the work of Museum Anthropology. It reflects the research and outreach interests of the Council for Museum Anthropology and is offered as a resource enhancing all fields concerned with the study of material culture and with the place of museums and related institutions in social life.

Journal editor Jason Baird Jackson explains:

On a case by case basis, I am asking authors of reviews-in-hand if they would be willing to publish their review online. Publishing reviews in this way takes advantage of the following benefits of the online medium (among others): immediate rather than delayed publication, free access to anyone in the world with internet access, the ability to incorporate internet hyperlinks, the ability to publish color images along with the review, the ability (if desired by the author) to turn on the blog’s comment function for the review (thus allowing others to comment on the review or its subject matter), and the ability for an author to simply send an email link for the review to whomever they wish to share the review with.

Because reviews published thus are easily found by anyone doing internet searches, they may become a subject of discussion elsewhere on the web. They can also benefit from the power of the social networking dynamic of the web today, such as with folksonomy tagging. This strategy also provides more space for publication of peer-reviewed articles in the journal itself.

>> visit the Museum Anthropology Review

New: Anthropology Matters with book reviews

American Ethnologist: Book Reviews in Full-Text!

Lots of book reviews on The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology’s site

Another example of experimenting with the internet: The journal Museum Anthropology (MUA) has started publishing its book reviews in a blog called Museum Anthropology Review:

Its purpose is the dissemination of reviews, essays, obituaries and other editorially-reviewed content complementing the…

Book and papers online: Working towards a global community of anthropologists

Published on February 10, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, cosmopolitanism, globalisation, journal articles / papers, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing, University / Academia

How many Siberian anthropologists do you know? What are Chinese anthropologists engaged in? The discipline of anthropology is quite ethnocentric. It is dominated by research institutes in the U.S and Britain. Only a small elite interacts on a global level. It’s time to globalize anthropology! To connect anthropologists from all over the world, to make anthropology more multivocal, richer and diverse. We need to create World Anthropologies.

That’s the endeavor of the World Anthropologies Network.

One year ago, Gustavo Lins Ribeiro and Arturo Escobar published the book World Anthropologies. Disciplinary Transformations within Systems of Power. Now, you can read the whole book online, including more recent papers.

Among others, you can read Reshaping Anthropology: A View from Japan (by Shinji Yamashita), Anthropology in a Post-Colonial Africa: the Survival Debate (by Paul Nchoji Nkwi) or World Anthropologies. Cosmopolitics for a New Global Scenario in Anthropology (by Gustavo Lins Ribeiro) and many more.

“We intend this volume as a contribution to the making of a new transnational community of anthropologists”, Gustavo Lins Ribeiro and Arturo Escobar write in their introduction. “Anthropologies everywhere will benefit from the scholarship already existing in globally fragmented spaces”:

We see a tremendous transformative potential in embracing this project. Whether conceived in terms of diversifying anthropological practices while maintaining a unified sense of the field or adumbrating a ‘post-anthropological era’ in which the idea of a single or universal anthropology is put into question, we believe there are great gains to be made by opening up to new possibilities of dialogue and exchange among world anthropologies.
(…)
Eurocentrism can only be transcended if we approach the modern colonial world system from the exteriority, i.e. from the colonial difference (modernity’s hidden face). The result of this operation is diversality or the possibility of epistemic diversity as a universal project.

>> continue reading the introduction

>> overview over all papers of the World Anthropologies Network

The network already has quite a lot of members from all continents – except from Africa (typical somehow!)

In Anthropology News October Gustavo Lins Ribeiro wrote about the lacking globalisation of anthropology, see my summary How can we create a more plural anthropological community?

(Thanks to the journal Ethnologic at the University of Munich for the link. The World Anthropologies website has been down for several month, but now it’s up and running again)

Open Source Anthropology : Are anthropologists serious about sharing knowledge?

For an Anthropology of Cosmopolitanism

The Future of Anthropology: “We ought to build our own mass media”

More and more anthropologists, but they’re absent from public debates – “Engaging Anthropology” (1)

The Five Major Challenges for Anthropology