anthropology in the news | antropologi.info

Some new anthropology blogs and websites (round-up part 1)

Published on January 20, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, websites

More and more anthropologists are blogging. Here a short overview over new websites and blogs that I’ve added recently to the “anthropology newspaper” sites http://www.antropologi.info/blog and http://www.antropologi.info/feeds/anthropology

Material World
Lots of longer articles (less “bloggy” than conventional blogs) in this group blog of scholars working in the anthropology departments of University College London and New York University. It “aims to create a new international community of academics, students, curators, artists and anyone else with particular interests in material and visual culture” (via announcement at Museum Anthropology).

Linguistic Anthropology
A (more “bloggy”) group blog from the members of the Linguistic Anthropology e-mail list (via announcement at Savage Minds).

Northern Waterways
Blog by cultural anthropologist Ed Labenski about northern Canadian anthropology, aboriginal rights and resource development and canoeing (via announcement at Fieldnotes).

Locating Ethnography
Blog by anthropologist Michaela Lord (University of Hull, UK). She’s finally started blogging about her research about British migrants in France.

Intute Social Sciences Blog
General university, education and social science news by Intute ( service created by a network of UK universities and partners)

warauduati
German anthropologist Marc Murschhauser has promised to blog more about his fieldwork, “taking interviews, observating culture, asking the right questions, writing notes, and living within difficult conditions”.

Culture Matters
Engaged blog by students and staff of applied anthropology at Macquarie University (Australia) about emergent trends in applied anthropology.

Critically Cultural
Blog by anthropologist Amelia Guimarin who is especially interested in visual media, for example body piercing.

Anthropology 2.0
Website by Marc K. Hebert from the University of South Florida, where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in Applied Anthropology. Focus on how new media can contribute to a more public anthropology.

Understanding Race
New website by the American Anthropological Association, including a blog, papers and presentations.

Two bloggers have moved their blogs.
Sarapen has moved from edublogs to anthroblogs. The new address of his blog about online anthropology on Filipino bloggers is http://www.anthroblogs.org/sarapen/ .
Anthronaut, currently on fieldwork in Peru has moved to wordpress.com and can now be found at http://anthronaut.wordpress.com/

Have i forgotten some new (social-) anthropology blogs?

UPDATE:

Student Anthropologists
Blog that was established during the 2006 AAA meeting. Now it also includes a forum, a wiki and bookmarks (del.icio.us)

On fieldwork: “Blogging sharpens the attention”

More and more blogging anthropologists – but the digital divide persists

New blog: The Anthropologists – Last primitive tribe on earth?

More and more anthropologists are blogging. Here a short overview over new websites and blogs that I've added recently to the "anthropology newspaper" sites http://www.antropologi.info/blog and http://www.antropologi.info/feeds/anthropology

Material World
Lots of longer articles (less "bloggy" than conventional blogs) in this group blog…

Soon more updates!

Published on January 16, 2007 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, notes

Hi again. In contrast to most other bloggers, I’ve stopped updating around Christmas and New Year. It took some time to get started again, but now at least the Norwegian and the German part of this website are (more or less) updated. So you can expect a round up and more anthropology news on this blog during this week! Lorenz

Hi again. In contrast to most other bloggers, I've stopped updating around Christmas and New Year. It took some time to get started again, but now at least the Norwegian and the German part of this website are (more or…

Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves

Published on December 17, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, Europe, gender, religion cosmology, Us and Them

(LINKS UPDATED 11.1.2021) “Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State and Public Space” is the title of a new book by American anthropologist John R. Bowen. For nearly three years ago, the French government banned headscarves and similar clothing that indicates religious affiliation from public schools.

Bowen writes in the introduction:

French public figures seemed to blame the headscarves for a surprising range of France’s problems including anti-Semitism, Islamic fundamentalism, growing ghettoization in the poor suburbs, and the breakdown of order in the classroom. A vote against headscarves would, we heard, support women battling for freedom in Afghanistan, schoolteachers trying to teach history in Lyon, and all those who wished to reinforce the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.

He explains:

France has a long-standing tradition of state control and support of religious activity despite its modern laws concerning secularity. We often have the misconception that the state stays out of religious affairs. In fact, the French government pays the salaries of all teachers in private religious schools, it organized a national Islamic body, and it and city governments put a lot of money into building churches and mosques.

But because the Republican political tradition that developed out of the French Revolution of 1789 targeted the privileges of the Catholic Church, many French citizens developed a certain allergy to religions’ symbolism in public, and particularly in schools, a battleground between the Church and the Republic.

From that research, he’s working on another book, titled “Shaping Islam in France,” to be published in 2008, which will examine how French Muslims strive to build a base for their religious lives in a society that views these practices as incompatible with national values.

>> read the whole article on the website of Washington University in St.Louis

>> John R. Bowen: Muslims and Citizens. France’s headscarf controversy (Boston Review February/March 2004)

>> John R. Bowen: Pluralism and Normativity in French Islamic Reasoning (pdf)

>> John R. Bowen: Beyond Migration: Islam as a Transnational Public Space (pdf)

>> John R. Bowen: Does French Islam Have Borders? Dilemmas of Domestication in a Global Religious Field (pdf)

France: More and more muslims observe Ramadan

(LINKS UPDATED 11.1.2021) "Why the French Don't Like Headscarves: Islam, the State and Public Space" is the title of a new book by American anthropologist John R. Bowen. For nearly three years ago, the French government banned headscarves and similar…

Male circumcision prevents AIDS?

Published on December 17, 2006 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology in the news, medical anthropology / ethnobothany

Two major studies have found that male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection by half, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Dozens of studies conducted since the 1980s found similar results but lacked the scientific rigor of a randomized clinical trial.

“This is a landmark day in the history of fighting this epidemic”, said medical anthropologist Robert Bailey, who led one of the the two studies. Bailey first became interested in circumcision for AIDS prevention in 1985, when colleagues in the field began noticing that HIV rates were much higher in regions of Africa populated by non-circumcising communities.

Doctors theorize that circumcision might protect against HIV infection because the foreskin is rich in a type of white blood cell that is a favorite target of the AIDS virus. In addition, some studies suggest that circumcised males are less likely to have other sexually transmitted diseases, which cause sores that serve as gateways for HIV to enter the bloodstream.

Researchers stress that circumcision should not be considered a replacement for other measures such as the use of condoms. Male circumcision requires trained personnel, sterile instruments etc. In the developing world, these resources are often in short supply, and, in their absence, the procedure can lead to infections and even death.

Another study will attempt to determine whether women also benefit from the reduced HIV infection risk in a population of circumcised men.

>> read the whole story in the San Francisco Chronicle

“There’s no AIDS here because men and women are equal”

Cultural values and the spreading of AIDS in Africa

“Ethnographic perspectives needed in discussion on public health care system”

AIDS and Anthropology – Papers by the AIDS and Anthropology Working Group

Wanted: Cultural anthropologist to sort out Seattle’s Christmas trees

Published on December 17, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, religion cosmology

Are public Christmas trees an “unconstitunal endorsement of one religion over another”? The debates about the removal of nine Christmas trees at the Seattle airport remind of the hijab-controversis and the display of (supposedly) religious symbols in the public. The Christmas trees at the airport had come down after a rabbi requested that a Hanukkah menorah also be displayed. “We decided to take the trees down because we didn’t want to be exclusive,” said airport spokeswoman Terri-Ann Betancourt.

Seattle Times:

Port of Seattle staff felt adding the menorah would have required adding symbols for other religions and cultures in the Northwest, said Terri-Ann Betancourt, the airport’s spokeswoman. The holidays are the busiest season at the airport, she said, and staff didn’t have time to play cultural anthropologists.

Andrew Gumbel comments in The Independent:

By Monday night, the trees were back, as if nothing had happened. Airport officials, frantically wiping egg off their collective faces, thanked Rabbi Bogomilsky for seeing the light and promised to rethink their seasonal decorations for next year. Cultural anthropologists across the US are no doubt busy honing their application letters already.

>> Wanted: cultural anthropologist to sort out Seattle’s ‘holiday trees’ (Andrew Gumbel, The Independent 13.12.06)

>> Airport puts away holiday trees rather than risk being “exclusive” (Seattle Times, 10.12.06)

>> Christmas trees going back up at Sea-Tac (Seattle Times, 12.12.06)

>> Treeless in Seattle? The port stumbles (Robert L. Jamieson Jr, Seattle Post Intelligencer, 12.12.06)

>> Christmas trees date back to ancient nature lovers (seattle Times, 12.12.06)

Are public Christmas trees an "unconstitunal endorsement of one religion over another"? The debates about the removal of nine Christmas trees at the Seattle airport remind of the hijab-controversis and the display of (supposedly) religious symbols in the public. The…