anthropology in the news | antropologi.info

Marshall Sahlins wants to make the Internet the new medium for pamphleteering

Published on October 21, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, internet, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing

Creative Commons

Marshall Sahlins wants to make the Internet the new medium for traditional pamphleteering. Sahlins, a celebrated anthropologist at the University of Chicago and the founder of Prickly Paradigm Press, has decided to re-release the press’s backlist with “some rights reserved.” This week, Prickly Paradigm goes online with the publication of five pamphlets under a Creative Commons license.

“I just want to say that I truly support the idea of the free dissemination of intellectual information, and that I truly lament the various forms of copyrights and patents that are being put on so-called intellectual property. I also lament the collusion of universities in licensing the results of scientific research, and thus violating the project of the free dissemination of knowledge that is their reason for existence. So I consider it an important act to release these books under a Creative Commons type of license. I’m happy, and also a little proud, to do so.”

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SEE ALSO:
What is Creative Commons?
Prickly Paradigm Press (Five articles on the bottom of the page are free to download. More will follow later on)
News from the open access movement
Budapest Open Access Initiative

Creative Commons

Modern technology helps reinvigorate traditional values

Published on October 21, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, books, religion cosmology, technology, Us and Them

The University of Chicago Press

An interview with anthropologist Jonah Blank, author of Mullahs on the Mainframe: Islam and Modernity among the Daudi Bohras. The Daudi Bohras are a unique denomination of Indian Muslims, with a worldwide population numbering up to one million.

“Perhaps the most important lesson the Bohras can teach outsiders is that Muslims can indeed embrace modernity while remaining true to their traditions and core beliefs.”

“Perhaps the most important way in which technology has bolstered traditional values has been by permitting Bohras around the world to have immediate and constant contact with the dai-ul-mutlaq (the spirtual leader of the community). Due to the dai’s crucial importance, Bohras have eagerly pounced on each new generation of communications technology—from fax to email to digital cellphones—to maintain close contact with the dawat (the Bohra clergy)”. >> continue

The University of Chicago Press

“The science of ethnography is an ideal tool to designing mobile phones”

Published on October 20, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, corporate & business anthropology, design anthropology, gift economy gift giving, technology

The Feature

People often confuse what they want with what they need when it comes to consumer products. Manufacturers try to collect this information through interviews, but observing users’ behavior in their natural environment can provide better insights. The science of ethnography can be an ideal tool to learn how teenagers use mobile phones and to help shape designs to cater to them.

Last year, a team of researchers went to a sixth-form college in England and for five months observed the way a group of students used their mobile phones. The researchers used these observations, along with periodic interviews, to come up with a concept for a 3G mobile phone that addressed their findings.

The researchers came to the conclusion that mobile phones were not only used as tools for transmitting and receiving information, but were also used as tools to establish and maintain the status of social networks. Mobiles facilitated the “obligations of exchange.” In particular, students have a social contract with each other to give and accept “gifts” in the form of text messages. The gift’s value is derived in part from the message’s content, but it also comes from the fact that the gift was given at all, regardless of its content.
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The Feature

Japanese Cybercultures – Ethnographic Studies

Published on October 19, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, books, cyberanthropology, internet, technology

Leslie M. Tkach-Kawasaki, University of Tsukuba (Japan), Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies

What is your image of Japan? A technologically hip nation of cyber-savvy samurai? A land where culture can be both cute and conformist? In Japanese Cybercultures, editors Nanette Gottlieb and Mark McLelland challenge our perceptions of Japan and the Internet through a range of fascinating perspectives.

Adding to a growing body of ethnographic studies focusing on Internet use in different countries, the three thematic sections of the book — popular culture; gender and sexuality; and politics and religion — demonstrate how the use of the Internet is both entrenched in and changing various perspectives of daily life in Japan. >> continue

Leslie M. Tkach-Kawasaki, University of Tsukuba (Japan), Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies

What is your image of Japan? A technologically hip nation of cyber-savvy samurai? A land where culture can be both cute and conformist? In Japanese Cybercultures, editors Nanette Gottlieb…

Women struggle for power in Sápmi

Published on October 19, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, gender, indigenous people / minorities, Saami

Sami Radio

The President of the Saami Parliament, Sven-Roald Nystø, will not run for office next year. Consequently the stage is set for a change of power – for the first time in history, the President could be a woman. >> les mer

Sami Radio