anthropology in the news | antropologi.info

“A new interdisciplinary approach to the perception of art”

Published on November 1, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, art, fieldwork / methods, interdisciplinary

When, why and how are individuals moved by a piece of art in a museum or gallery? How can art change people’s lives? Anthropologist Sandra Dudley, and neuroscientist Rodrigo Quian Quiroga will develop a new, interdisciplinary approach to the perception of gallery art according to a press release.

The anthropologist explains:

What we’re studying is a basic level of human experience of the material and visual world. It doesn’t always happen that an individual will feel the wow factor when they look at a piece of art in a museum, but it does happen sometimes. What causes that? Why does certain art appeal to certain people? What lasting impact does it have on their lives?
(…)
(The study) will inform how galleries are laid out, how art is contextualised. Potentially, there are big implications in how this research may change practice.

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga adds:

It will be interesting from a scientific angle too. What makes people interested in a particular piece of art in a gallery? Is it lighting? The surrounding environment? Previous information? How will they explore this art, or will they just pass by and miss it? For me, from a neuroscience point of view, this is very interesting.

The two researchers work together with the Art Fund. Director David Barrie says:

The Art Fund firmly believes that art can really change people’s lives: that’s at the heart of everything we do. But it’s very hard to prove. My hope is that this pioneering piece of work will be the start of a much wider programme of research which will, over time, help us to understand just how art can exercise its power over us. Maybe then it won’t be so hard to persuade our political leaders to invest in it!

Dudley’s research has previously led her to spend a year in a jungle refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border:

It may sound a long way from gallery art, but my work there shares the same focus on human experience of, and aesthetic response to, the material world.

Quian Quiroga is known for his research on how the brain responds to images.
 
The project will combine participant observation and interviews with the use of an eye tracker. Quian Quiroga explaines:

When you look at something, you don’t see it as a whole. Your eyes are continually moving, gazing at a tiny portion of the visual field, and the picture is reconstructed in your brain. From the eye tracker we can infer exactly what you’re looking at. Then we can reconstruct the signal and see exactly how people look at different pieces of art.

The research project is part of the ‘Beyond Text’ initiative by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

>> read the whole press release

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When, why and how are individuals moved by a piece of art in a museum or gallery? How can art change people's lives? Anthropologist Sandra Dudley, and neuroscientist Rodrigo Quian Quiroga will develop a new, interdisciplinary approach to the…

Accused of being CIA-spy: Anthropologist on fieldwork among Cambodian muslims

Published on October 26, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Asia, fieldwork / methods, religion cosmology

Are muslim communities getting more sceptical towards anthropologists? In an interview with Phnom Pen Post, anthropologist Bjørn Blengsli tells about his research among muslims in Cambodia – “one of the fastest-changing Muslim societies in the world”.

After September 11, he got arrested and expelled from the village and the district. He was accused of being one of “60 identified CIA spies”. (After a letter from the Ministry of Religion and meetings with undersecretaries of state, he could continue his research.)

Furthermore, Blengsli is concerned about reports of certain researchers who have pretended to convert to Islam in order to gain the confidence of Muslim informants. Muslims consider such people hypocrites, or munafiq – one who is more dangerous to Muslims than the enemies of Islam, he says. “I am afraid that this kind of devious behavior will negatively impact legitimate researchers in the future.”

Blengsli is especially interested in religious change and the impact of foreign donors on religious schooling. He found out that the schools’ religious content is closely linked to the type of religion practiced in the donor countries – often conservative Arab countries. Islamic schooling has led to a “growing sympathy for fundamentalist understandings of the faith and terrorism”.

In his opinion, secular education should be implemented in all Muslim schools:

The secular education among Muslims is still low when compared to that of the Khmer, with Muslim girls most disadvantaged in their pursuit of secular education. Increased knowledge not only about the Khmer society, but also the different sects within Islam is also imperative. As many as 99 percent of Muslim religious students believe there is only one correct interpretation of their religion and this is extremely dangerous.

>> read the whole interview

Earlier, he told Arab News:

In Cambodia … religious activists from the Arab world are arriving with a new view on religion and they preach an austere version of Islam. These organizations want to purify Cham Islamic practice by getting rid of the many influences from Buddhism.

He was also interviewed by the New York Times. He said:

‘This country is ripe for Muslim missionaries. They had to start all over again. They had no religious leaders, nothing. They lost almost everything — their script, their rituals, almost all their written material. They were left with a couple of myths. That’s why today a purification movement is so easy. They are very vulnerable, and a lot of people are coming into Cambodia and telling them how to change.

But he added that ”being fundamentalist does not mean being a terrorist.” And ”If you have radical, militant Muslims living in Cambodia, I have not seen any proof.”

“Arabs and Muslims should be wary of anthropologists”

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Are muslim communities getting more sceptical towards anthropologists? In an interview with Phnom Pen Post, anthropologist Bjørn Blengsli tells about his research among muslims in Cambodia - "one of the fastest-changing Muslim societies in the world".

After September 11, he got…

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…

A short summary of recent open access news

Published on October 21, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing, University / Academia

AAA Creates “Open Access” to Anthropological Research announced the American Anthropological Association two weeks ago. But in reality, open access is only granted to two journals (American Anthropologist and Anthropology News) and to articles that are at least 35 years old!

AAAs move has received mixed reactions as Peter Suber’s Open Access News and Inside Higher Ed summarize.

Is it a first step as Alex Golub suggests or is it rather a way to avoid discussions about actual Open Access as Alexandre Enkerli argues?

Will AAAs recent move lead to greater divisions between the AAA and anthropologists who want to engage with the wider world by making their research more accessible online?

Additionally, the AAA has announced that they are going to conduct preliminary research on the economic issues faced by scholarly society publishers in the humanities and social sciences as consequence of the demand for open access to their peer reviewed journals, Culture Matters informs.

Until now, the AAA has opposed Open Access to journal articles.

More than 80% of all anthropology open access journals are published outside of the U.S, as Maximilian Forte has found out.

As last year, the Savage Minds bloggers are going to promote the Open Access issue at the annual meeting of the AAA. Chris Kelty writes:

Ergo, I am hereby inaugurating an independent awards show to be performed at the AAA. I’m willing to organize it this year, if others are willing to help out (please!?). Nothing too extravagant or long, I’m thinking a guerrilla ceremony in the lobby. I’ll need people to hold the signs, act as paparazzi, maybe a little musical act before and after… and especially: NOMINATIONS. Post them here, or email me (ckelty at ucla etc ). I’m not sure what the prizes will be yet, but they will be good, I promise.

These are the categories I’ve come up with so far:

1. most excellent (and second most excellent) open access article in anthropology or associated disciplines, 2007-8. open access = green, gold, self-archived or institutional repository.

2. most excellent open access teaching materials 2007-8. Syllabus, teaching materials, assessment ideas, technologies or tools, ideas for teaching.

3. most excellent idea for making anthropology public.

4. most (or least?) excellent new theoretical fad.

5. most excellent anthropology blog (SM recuses itself, naturally).

6. most excellent business plan idea for the AAA.

7. most excellent award category not listed here.

>> more at Savage Minds

As the Open Acess Anthropology blog, I forgot that the 14th of october was the Open Access Day

AAA Creates "Open Access" to Anthropological Research announced the American Anthropological Association two weeks ago. But in reality, open access is only granted to two journals (American Anthropologist and Anthropology News) and to articles that are at least 35 years…

NEW: antropologi.info call for papers and job announcements (beta)

Published on October 18, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, internal notes

I have installed a new bulletin board for job announcements and call for papers. Announcements are now easier accessible.

Until now, I’ve posted announcements in one of the forums. Apart from the German forum, the forums haven’t been a huge success, so I am considering closing them and concentrate on announcements instead (I often receive emails where I am asked to put announcements on the antropologi.info website).

There are two ways of publishing announcements:

1) send them to me

2) register (takes 10 seconds) and do it yourself.

So take a look at the new announcement site and tell me if it looks okay. I’ll integrate the bulletin board into the site afterwards.

I have installed a new bulletin board for job announcements and call for papers. Announcements are now easier accessible.

Until now, I've posted announcements in one of the forums. Apart from the German forum, the forums haven't been a huge…