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Savage Minds starts “Anthro Classics Online”

Published on May 24, 2006 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, culture traditions, persons and theories

Kerim Friedman at Savage Minds recently announced a new series about classical works in anthropology which are available online. The idea, he writes, is to “both encourage newbies to read some classical anthropological texts as well as allow those with Ph.D.s in the discipline to debate the contemporary value of these works”.

The first entry: Laura Bohannon: “Shakespeare in the Bush” – the essay that turned Kerim on to anthropology:

It explores how difficult it is to translate Shakespeare’s Hamlet into the cultural idiom of the Tiv in West Africa (the Tiv are mostly located in Nigeria). While the article takes on a straw-man argument (the idea that there is something universal about Shakespeare’s plays overlooks just how hard it is for even American school kids to learn to appreciate Hamlet), it is a well written article which I believe holds up to the test of time.

>> read the whole post at Savage Minds

Kerim Friedman at Savage Minds recently announced a new series about classical works in anthropology which are available online. The idea, he writes, is to "both encourage newbies to read some classical anthropological texts as well as allow those with…

Anthropologist: "The proper way of eating is with a spoon and a fork"

Published on May 14, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, culture traditions, food and drink, migration, websites

(Links updated 7.9.2020) A Montreal newspaper story has rapidly sent Filipino tempers rising around the world. Luc Cagadoc, a 7-year-old pupil, was punished by a lunchtime day-care monitor: “You are in Canada. Here in Canada you should eat the way Canadians eat,” the Quebecois educator allegedly said, and went on to observe that Luc “ate like a pig.” The reason: Luc insisted on eating with a spoon and fork as most Filipinos do.

“Educators and parents alike should find ways to work together to avoid traumatizing children who deserve more than to be made to feel inferior because of their parent’s culture”, the editor (I suppose) of the Philippine Daily Inquirer comments (text no longer online).

In a follow-up article called “Spoon Wars” (no longer online), anthropologist Michael L. Tan gives us more information about food, eating habits and cultural history (that’s the role anthropologists should play, isn’t it?):

For Filipinos, and most Asians, spoons were the greatest invention ever. Throw away the knife and the fork but never the spoon, which we use for soups, desserts, vegetables, even to cut meat.

Anyone with knowledge of culinary history can tell you the spoon was the first eating utensil to have been invented. Knives, well, they were originally invented as weapons, and then got reduced for the dining table. And the fork, the infamous fork that westerners insist is the main eating utensil? They come much later, introduced from the Middle East into southern Europe, but treated with disdain by the northern Europeans.

(…)

Etiquette changes all the time because they’re based on meanings we give to people, events, places. In earlier less civil times, meals could become quite violent so the last thing you needed were utensils brandished like weapons, which is why the Chinese resisted knives and forks and stuck to chopsticks.

(…)

But don’t worry, with 8 million Filipinos living and working in Canada and all kinds of other remote, savage lands, many infiltrating homes as nannies and cooks and housekeepers, we’ll teach the world that the proper way of eating is with a spoon and a fork.

Michael L. Tan is an engaged anthropologist. He publishes most of his columns in a blog called Pinoy Kasi. His older texts can be found at http://www.pinoykasi.homestead.com. His current texts are available here: https://opinion.inquirer.net/byline/michael-l-tan

(Links updated 7.9.2020) A Montreal newspaper story has rapidly sent Filipino tempers rising around the world. Luc Cagadoc, a 7-year-old pupil, was punished by a lunchtime day-care monitor: “You are in Canada. Here in Canada you should eat the way…

A Solar power equipped school as gift to the Maasai: Good or bad?

Published on May 10, 2006 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology in the news, culture traditions, development empowerment, indigenous people / minorities

Journalists often draw strict lines between “us” – the modern – and “them” – living in the stone age – although, as anthropologist Kerim Friedman put it we’re all modern now.

According to a recent story by Knight Ridder Newspapers, a gift to Maasai people in Kenya “adds fuel to debate on tribe’s future”. The article starts like this:

For centuries, the Masai people of Kenya have lived in huts without power or running water, used plants and minerals to heal themselves, and survived on a diet of cow milk, meat and blood.

So when Patrick O’Sullivan, a visitor from Silicon Valley entered one of their villages and left behind a school equipped with solar power, laptops and a projector, he sparked an old debate about the tribe’s desire to preserve its culture while surviving in a modern world encroaching on its way of life.

What follows is a typical debate that might have taken place in so called modern socities when Internet was introduced: The elder people are rejecting changes:

But with the light came questions for the entire village. Elders – who had spent much of their lives resisting assimilation into the modern world, fighting British colonizers, and lobbying the Kenyan government for the tribe’s right to self-sufficiency – felt their work was being lost in the tide of support from parents and teachers for O’Sullivan’s school.

“Mostly elder people don’t absolutely want the change. They want people to be as they were before,” David Ole Koshal, leader of Oloolaimutia village, said on O’Sullivan’s video footage.

What is so special about it? Why focus on the resistance by the elder people? As we read, most people embrace the changes:

Most Masai parents and teachers were delighted with the new tools for their children. The school’s enrollment doubled from roughly 200 to 410, partly because children tending cattle during the day were able to attend classes at night thanks to solar-powered lights.

But as anthropology professor Lea B. Pellett said:

The more information and knowledge the better, but the Masai will have to take ownership of the change and preserve what is most important to them from their culture.

>> read the whole story in the Central Daily

Cultural lag, a lethal drag

Women in Cameroon:Information technology as a way out of the cultural cul-de-sac

“Aboriginal knowledge is science”

Journalists often draw strict lines between "us" - the modern - and "them" - living in the stone age - although, as anthropologist Kerim Friedman put it we're all modern now.

According to a recent story by Knight Ridder Newspapers,…

Conference blogging: “Quit using the word ‘culture’ wherever possible”

Published on April 9, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, culture traditions, persons and theories

On the recent conference by the Society for Applied Anthropology, Mary Odell Butler from Battelle suggested that anthropologists ought to quit using the word ‘culture’ wherever possible, according to Judd Antin at Technotaste who writes:

“The larger and more interesting point she made, is that talking about culture instead of more specific perceptions or processes, is a scapegoat. It relieves us of the burden of talking about specific ideas, habits, and histories. She gave an example that I remember well. Contrast these two statements:

Many African-American women have developed a culturally-based perception that they will be disrespected in community healthcare clinics.

vs.

Many African-American women have learned through their experience and that of their friends and family that they will be disrespected in community healthcare clinics.

Culture, in other words, is too often a gloss for actual perception and practice. Why not call a rose a rose?”

>> read the whole post on TechnoTaste

Judd Antin has written two more posts about the conference: Wednesday Morning at SfAA and SfAA 2006: To Start. There was no press coverage (no surprise). Jen Cardew at anthroblogs did some conference blogging, but the notes aren’t especially reader-friendly.

Jen made an interesting remark about getting in touch with people at conferences. It’s an advantage to be a smoker:

I would like to note that the only people who have approached me, or that I have approached at the conference thus far have been smokers outside on a smoke break. I am actually thankful that I am a smoker right now, what a wonderful social tool! I’m kind of shy, so it is not too often that I approach people to chat.

Jen has also written about Smokers as a Subculture

The Culture Struggle: How cultures are instruments of social power

Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Savage Minds: An old warhorse revisited: Do we need another book about culture?

Thomas Hylland Eriksen: Why culture should be brought back in

The Secret Society of Anthropologists

"The larger and more interesting point…

Popular IT-anthropologists: Observe families until they go to bed

Published on April 4, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, corporate & business anthropology, culture traditions, technology

Intel recently advertised four anthropologist openings and had more than 300 applicants, including top-notch researchers from the best schools according to Union Tribune San Diego. The newspaper portrays several IT-anthropologists, among others Anne Kirah who is heading a team of eight anthropologists at Microsoft:

She focused on immigrants and refugees in her anthropology graduate studies at the University of Oslo, Norway. Today, she takes notes on people’s daily lives, from Japan to France and Australia, in her role as Microsoft’s chief anthropologist. Data from the families she studies led the company to add several features to the Vista operating system, due out next year.

Much of the team’s research is conducted without a link to a specific product:

The anthropologists will typically spend two days with people, or families, who have agreed to let them into their lives. Kirah will knock on the subject’s door at the hour when they wake up and stay with them until they go to bed.

For anthropologists who wonder if they need to be a computer geek in order to work as an IT-anthropologists: When Anne Kirah was ansked if she was interested to work for Microsoft she “thought Microsoft made chips, and I didn’t really know what a chip was.”

INTEL-anthropologist Genevieve Bell compares academic and business life:

One of the biggest differences between her Intel research and university studies is that she doesn’t have to spend a lot of time writing grant proposals, she said. And instead of teaching in a Stanford classroom, she’s introducing social science to engineers in meeting rooms, she said. “I’m doing vibrant, rich, rewarding work that’s intellectually exciting,” Bell said. “I’m giving a voice to people who otherwise wouldn’t be in the conversation.”

Also a former suicide-prevention counselor (Kelly Chessen) were engaged by a computer company – that actually specializes in data-recovery:

While the counseling of computer-crash victims might sound humorous, a hard-drive meltdown can create despair on the same level as the suicide hotline, Chessen said. She has taken calls from people who have just been fired over lost data or who are facing the loss of years of work or the demise of an entire small business.

“We’ve had people talk about taking their lives if their data can’t be restored,” Chessen said. “A lot of my job is really just listening to people, even when they’re angry and yelling. I help give them hope.”

>> read the whole story in the Union Tribune

>> Microsoft and the Australian tribe – Interview with Anne Kirah (ABC Radio Australia)

(all links updated 3.1.17)

INTEL and Microsoft conference “a coming-out party” for ethnography

INTEL-ethnographers challenge our assumptions of the digital divide

Office Culture – good overview about corporate anthropology in FinancialTimes