anthropology in the news | antropologi.info

Anthropologists wonder about iPod-culture

Published on January 31, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, culture traditions, internet, music, technology

Detroit News

Portable music players create their own culture. iPod users, who also call themselves “iPeople,” say they can’t get enough of the music downloaded from computer hard drives, the Internet and CD collections. Cultural anthropologists and techno experts wonder what the impact of their actions will be. At this point, experts are still grappling for answers. >> continue (updated link, original no longer available)

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iPod Nation? (The Tufts Daily, updated link)

Detroit News

Portable music players create their own culture. iPod users, who also call themselves "iPeople," say they can't get enough of the music downloaded from computer hard drives, the Internet and CD collections. Cultural anthropologists and techno experts wonder what…

U.S. exposure to foreign literature promotes tolerance in multicultural world

Published on January 31, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, globalisation, Northern America, Us and Them

The Soth End Newspaper

It seems every aspect of American life is undergoing a “Globalization” except one — our literary culture. Explanations for this phenomenon vary, from lack of interest to lack of availability, but one thing is certain: A majority of Americans have a profound disinterest in the literary and cultural works of other countries. >> continue

The Soth End Newspaper

Stories of an African Bar Girl – “an ethnography done by an illiterate”

Published on January 27, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology in the news, books, fieldwork / methods, gender

Anthropologist Eric Gable, allAfrica.com

It is hard to decide what to call this remarkable book, the first of two volumes. It is for the most part a collection of stories told by a West African bar girl,”Hawa,” to anthropologist and musicologist John Chernoff in the mid 1970s. She tells about her life as a girl in a Muslim village and as a young woman in Accra, Lomé, and several other places, the lives of her fellow bar girls and about the men (mostly European but also African) she encountered, took from, gave to and left.

Chernoff wants the reader to approach Hawa’s stories as “an ethnography done by an illiterate.” Hawa is not only an ethnographic subject; she is also an observer, an ethnographer. Like all ethnographers her observations are partial, skewed, but also enlightening. >> continue

Anthropologist Eric Gable, allAfrica.com

It is hard to decide what to call this remarkable book, the first of two volumes. It is for the most part a collection of stories told by a West African bar girl,"Hawa," to anthropologist and musicologist…

More and more academics use blogs

Published on January 24, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing, University / Academia

BBC

(via weblogs in education) Until a few months ago, the attention paid to web logs, or blogs, focused mainly on politics and the media business. Now, the technology that has been an alternative source of news to many academics is being incorporated more fully into university life.

Esther Maccallum-Stewart, a Sussex University historian is one of the pioneering British academic bloggers who are using the technology to teach and carry out research. “I feel very strongly that information should be disseminated into the internet world, but I also feel that academics can become too insular, constructing their own language and cliques which do nothing to promote the getting of knowledge.”

That need for knowledge provision is the reason why Warwick University is giving its students and staff free space on its server to start their own blogs. The blogging project at the university is arguably the largest of its kind in the academic world with some 2,600 users. >> continue

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Blog on Weblogs in Education

BBC

(via weblogs in education) Until a few months ago, the attention paid to web logs, or blogs, focused mainly on politics and the media business. Now, the technology that has been an alternative source of news to many academics is…

“Pop culture is a powerful tool to promote national integration”

Published on January 24, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, media, music, Us and Them, youth

RedNova News

WHEN reality television show Malaysian Idol came under attack last year, Dr Wan Zawawi Ibrahim, a professor of social anthropology, was one of the few academics who came to its defence. He is optimistic of pop culture’s positive effect on national integration and the creation of new identities among the young.

“Malaysian Idol is an example of pop culture which has created social spaces for youngsters of different ethnic groups to come together,” says the 57-year old researcher. The notion of pop culture as a social binding tool is not new. It has proliferated in local films, music or theatre years before the Idol series was even conceptualised.

Wan Zawawi also wants more social spaces for youths to come together. “Malaysian Idol, the National Service programme, cybercafes and even designer coffee outlets like Starbucks and Coffee Bean are social spaces for youths of various ethnicities to interact with each other,” he adds. >> les mer

RedNova News