anthropology in the news | antropologi.info

“You can’t understand America without understanding the world”

Published on November 15, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, University / Academia, Us and Them

Nice interview with anthropologist Alan Klima in University paper The California Aggie about anthropology in general.

For example the anthropologist’s answer to the question how he became interested in anthropology:

I was always interested in social theory, thinking about what is going on in the world and at one point in college I realized that there are all of these different ways of thinking, ways of doing things around the world – that there is no way you could really understand humans and society and history without understanding all of the variety in the world.

So I guess I was eventually very interested in U.S. society and social problems and had a lot of thoughts about that and realized that you can’t really understand these things unless you understand the tremendous variety in the world.

Or his definition of anthropology:

Sociocultural anthropology is the study of all alternative world knowledges. Political knowledges, religious knowledges, scientific knowledges, medical knowledges – that there are a lot of different ways to think about things.

The situation of anthropology in the US:

I think for most professors in the U.S., that you’re sort of a class of people that’s not very well respected in the wider society, and often your voice doesn’t count in a direct way, unlike in other countries in the world, where if there’s an issue the television might come to the university and ask professors what they think. But that doesn’t happen so much in the U.S.

Or look at his his comparision of anthropologists with garbage collectors when he is asked if anthropologists can change the world:

I also think of it (work as anthropologist) as sometimes as similar to people who collect the garbage. They are not changing the world, but if they didn’t do it, things would get really messy. Somebody’s got to do that. Somebody’s got to be in the academy thinking all kinds of experimental and critical thoughts and sharing that with students and thinking that over with students. If we didn’t have that, things would be a lot worse. I can’t really say that I or any of the other professors are totally changing the world for the better.

>> read the whole interview in The California Aggie

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Nice interview with anthropologist Alan Klima in University paper The California Aggie about anthropology in general.

For example the anthropologist's answer to the question how he became interested in anthropology:

I was always interested in social theory, thinking about what is…

How anthropological research can reduce the paper usage in offices

Published on November 15, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, corporate & business anthropology, design anthropology, technology

(Links updated 14.2.2025) Another example of anthropologists in product development: As a consequence of anthropological research, Xerox is developing a new kind of paper where the printed information simply disappears within about 16 hours, allowing the paper to be reused.

Why this? Xerox-anthropologist Brinda Dalal, an anthropologist at Xerox, found out that 21 percent of copier documents ed up in the recycling bin on the same day they are produced. In most offices, paper is used as a medium of display rather than storage. Paper is only only printed out or copied when needed for meetings, editing and annotating, or reading away from a computer. The result is, of course, an enormous quantity of waste paper and environmental problems.

>> read the whole story on ZDNet

Actually, the New York Times wrote about this self-erasable paper one year ago. They called anthropologist Brinda Dalal for “garbologist”. She told, she was surprised by the results: “Nobody looks at the ephemeral information going through people’s waste baskets.”

>> Some papers by Brinda Dalal

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(Links updated 14.2.2025) Another example of anthropologists in product development: As a consequence of anthropological research, Xerox is developing a new kind of paper where the printed information simply disappears within about 16 hours, allowing the paper to be reused.…

Dissertation: Imam’s influence on Muslims overestimated

Published on November 15, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Europe, religion cosmology

Participants in the debate on Islam often overestimate the authority and influence of imams. The role of the imam is especially limited when it comes to so-called “second and third generation immigrants”. This is the conclusion reached by anthropologist Welmoet Boender in her dissertation Imam in Nederland, for which she was awarded her doctorate at the University of Leiden on Tuesday, according to expatica.com:

Boender’s research shows that not only the imam in the mosque defines appropriate standards and values and behaviour for the faithful, but television sheiks, internet imams, friends and family members and (translated) books also play a role. (…) In the public debate the imam is often seen as an instrument to integrate Muslims in Dutch society. (…) In light of the limited role that imams play for many Muslims, he will most likely fall short of this task.

>> read the whole story on Expatica.com

The dissertation is not online (yet?). I have not found any information in English. For those who do read Dutch, the blog Closer by Martijn de Koning of course provides more information in his post Imam in Nederland – Welmoet Boender.

I’ve found an older texts by Welmoet Boender though Imams in the Netherlands: An Impression.

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Participants in the debate on Islam often overestimate the authority and influence of imams. The role of the imam is especially limited when it comes to so-called "second and third generation immigrants". This is the conclusion reached by anthropologist Welmoet…

American Anthropological Association opposes collaboration with the military – Bloggers react

Published on November 12, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, ethics

A few days ago, the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) decided to oppose the embedding of anthropologists in military teams (HTS) in Iraq and Afghanistan. The use of anthropological knowledge in the U.S. military and the militarisation of anthropology has been the most discussed topic among anthropologists this year.

We read:

The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association concludes (i) that the HTS program creates conditions which are likely to place anthropologists in positions in which their work will be in violation of the AAA Code of Ethics and (ii) that its use of anthropologists poses a danger to both other anthropologists and persons other anthropologists study.

Thus the Executive Board expresses its disapproval of the HTS program.

In the context of a war that is widely recognized as a denial of human rights and based on faulty intelligence and undemocratic principles, the Executive Board sees the HTS project as a problematic application of anthropological expertise, most specifically on ethical grounds. We have grave concerns about the involvement of anthropological knowledge and skill in the HTS project. The Executive Board views the HTS project as an unacceptable application of anthropological expertise.

To facilitate discussion on this subject, the AAA has created this blog as a forum for members to post comments regarding the Executive Board statement and related issues. Currently, their first and only blog post about the Board statement has 64 comments!

It was fascinating to see how quickly the anthropological blogosphere reacted. Short time after the publication of the statement, the first blog posts appeared:

L.L. Wynn at Culture Matters summarizes the statement and the first reactions.

Alex Golub, Savage Minds sounds enthusiastic:

The statement clearly (in my humble opinion) shows the influence of SM (Savage Minds) and the anthropological noosphere more generally on the AAA exec board and every reader, commenter and Mind should be proud to see that this is really a case of our community forming a ‘civil sphere’ that can inform AAA decision making.

I am blown away by the quality of the comments on the AAA blog, as well as the fact that they are published by professors writing in their own name. This is the first time I have seen the anthropology professoriate as a professoriate. I hope that the AAA blog become a major site in the anthropological noosphere.

Kambiz Kamrani, anthropology.net is not so happy about the decision and summarizes some criticisms.

One of the most detailed commentary can be found on the blog Open Anthropology by Maximilian Forte. After having read through over 60 comments on the AAA blog he wrote the post Empty Scholasticism at its Best on the AAA Blog. See also his comment Politics and Ethics: Anthropologists and Human Terrain Systems.

Futhermore, Forte noticed that the AAA still has job adverts for the HTS by the U.S. military on its website (see an example). “This should be a source of embarrassment for the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, although thus far there is little indication of any”, Forte writes.

UPDATE (17.11.07):“The AAA disapproving of HTS is unfortunate, U.S. militrary anthropologist Marcus Griffin writes. “Anthropology will have failed to take advantage of an important opportunity to make a difference in the world”. >> continue reading on his blog (link updated)

Urban anthropologist: "Recognize that people want to come to the big cities"

Published on November 12, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, development empowerment, Latin- and Central America, poverty

(LINKS UPDATED 21.9.2020) More and more people live in mega cities. Rather than fixating on investing in the countryside, donor agencies need to recognize that people want to come to the big cities. And rather than demolishing squatter developments one should integrate these self-made communities into the surrounding neighborhoods, anthropologist Janice Perlman said in a lecture according to Multi Housing News.

The cities whose populations are expected to increase the most Mumbai, Lagos and Mexico City etc) are according to the anthropologist also the least equipped to handle the massive influx of people. The world’s slums will likely become even more massive in scale, and this, in turn, will hinder the ability of many cities to be truly sustainable. However, according to Perlman, there are steps that can be taken now to avoid an ecological disaster.

The anthropologist is the founder and executive director of the Mega-Cities Project, a transnational nonprofit network that strives to aid urban dwellers around the world. It concentrates its efforts to make cities more socially just, ecologically sustainable, politically participatory and economically productive.

>> read the whole article in the Multi Housing News

According to the Megacities website, Perlman is about to finish a book on the dynamics of urban poverty in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The book’s working title, Marginality from Myth to Reality: Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, 1969-2005 is based on field research she has done over that period of time. This study documents what has happened to the original study participants of her 1969 research which became the classic book, The Myth of Marginality: Urban Politics and Poverty in Rio de Janeiro (UC Press, 1976).

She explains:

As a young graduate student in 1968-69, during the height of the Brazilian military dictatorship I lived in three favelas in Rio de Janeiro and interviewed 250 residents in each.
(…)
I discovered that the prevailing stereotypes of favela residents (which I termed the myths of marginality) were “empirically false, analytically misleading and invidious in their policy implications” — as they were used to justify the eradication of favelas. My book created a paradigm shift from “blaming the victim” to recognizing migrants as highly motivated urban pioneers and from socio-cultural modernization theory to structural dependency theory.
(…)
How has life changed over the last three decades? (…) The answers are paradoxical. While the material condition of life has improved, the human condition has deteriorated. The fear of favela eradication has been replaced by the fear of being killed in the cross-fire between drug gangs and the police. Despite the return to democracy after the 20-year dictatorship, people feel more excluded and say they have less bargaining power than before; and despite community upgrading, the poor feel more marginalized than ever.

She has put online several papers on her research in Rio’s favelas, environmental justice and related issues.

>> visit the Megacities Project website

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