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Cultural Backstreet Tours: Explore your town with anthropologists!

Published on October 30, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, development empowerment, Northern America, websites

An extinct fishing village, the Polish flats, German Heritage, the Homeless of Southeastern Winsconsin, and the African American neighborhood of Bronzeville: Anthropologists offer Cultural backstreet tours! (source).

These tours are arranged by Urban Anthropology Inc. (UrbAn), an American non-profit organization, “a community based membership association dedicated to the celebration of cultural diversity and a holistic approach to urban problem-solving”. Their website provides lots of information incl presentation of the tour guides and their study on homeless people

These tours are arranged by Urban Anthropology Inc. (UrbAn), an American non-profit organization,…

Collaborative Ethnography: Luke Eric Lassiter Receives Margaret Mead Anthropology Award

Published on October 29, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, development empowerment, fieldwork / methods, persons and theories

Anthropology professor Luke Eric Lassiter has received the 2005 Margaret Mead Award from the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology. The Margaret Mead Award celebrates the tradition of bringing anthropology to bear on wider social and cultural issues. Lassiter received the award in part for his book, The Other Side of Middletown: Exploring Muncie’s African American Community as well as for his explorations of race relations and collaborative, community-based research and writing, according to Huntington News.

On his website, Lassiter explains the concept of Collaborative Ethnography. In his opinion, Collaboratice Ethnography is “among the most powerful ways to advance a more relevant and public scholarship”. Collaborative Ethnography, he explains,

(…) seeks to make collaboration an explicit and deliberate part of not only fieldwork but also part of the writing process itself. Community collaborators thus become a central part of the construction of ethnographic texts — which shifts their role from “informants” (who merely inform the knowledge on which ethnographies are based) to “consultants” (who co-interpret culture and its representation along with the ethnographer).

(…)

Such an approach also shifts the role of ethnographers: they are no longer the sole authorities on culture, but facilitators who use their skills to address community-centered questions and issues.

Lessiter has published extensively on this subject. Five articles on collaborative ethnography and public anthropology are available as pdf-documents on his website.

INTEL-ethnographers challenge our assumptions of the digital divide

Published on October 27, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, corporate & business anthropology, development empowerment, internet, Latin- and Central America, technology

(via Bits and Bytes Interesting story by INTEL-etnographers Tony Salvador and John Sherry (one of them – Sherry – is actually an anthropologist!) on their work in India, Peru and Hungary. They summarize some of their findings after four years circling the world to find out how computers are being used by typical people in different cultures.

One of their main points:

The split between those with and those without access to digital technologies is referred to as the digital divide. But that phrase hides the complexity of the problem, because it focuses on the “having” and the “not having” of technology. Instead, what really matters is the ability to benefit from technology, whether or not that technology is personally owned.

They go on with various examples, among others they show how even the computer illiterate reap the advantages of the Web, made possible by public Internet facilities. The ethnographers remind us of that only about 10 percent of the people on the planet are familiar with the Internet and what it can do.

>> read the whole story in Spectrum Online

UPDATE Kerim Friedman comments:

I believe we can better understand the impact of new communications technologies if we emphasize the similarities, rather than just the differences, with older technologies.

>> read his post on Savage Minds

SEE ALSO

Internet and development in India

“How Media and Digital Technology Empower Indigenous Survival

Intel is using locally hired anthropologists in new development centers

More and more blogging anthropologists – but the digital divide persists

(via Bits and Bytes Interesting story by INTEL-etnographers Tony Salvador and John Sherry (one of them - Sherry - is actually an anthropologist!) on their work in India, Peru and Hungary. They summarize some of their findings after four years…

“We have a huge responsibility to give back to the places we study from”

Published on October 20, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, development empowerment, ethics

“We have a huge responsibility to give back to the places we study from,” anthropology professor Sharon Hutchinson says in a portrait on the website of the University of Winston-Madison. She has increasingly designed her courses to help students think through moral and practical dilemmas. For 25 years, Hutchinson has been involved in the southern Sudan as an anthropologist and human rights activist >> continue (link updated)

SEE ALSO:

Review of her book “Nuer Dilemmas: Coping with Money, War and the State” (Australian Journal of Anthropology) (link updated)

Challenges of Providing Anthropological Expertise: On the conflict in Sudan

Anthropology in a Time of Crisis. A Note from Nepal

"We have a huge responsibility to give back to the places we study from," anthropology professor Sharon Hutchinson says in a portrait on the website of the University of Winston-Madison. She has increasingly designed her courses to help students think…

Anthropology News October: How Anthropologists Can Respond to Disasters

Published on October 20, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, development empowerment

In Anthropology News October, Kerry Fosher and Stacy Lathrop criticize that many emergency preparedness plans do not account for local practice. Since 2001, there has been produced a large amount of data and knowledge on responding to emergencies. What is lacking in their opinion, is “intelligent analysis of this information communicated meaningfully to the emergency planners and responders who will need to use it”:

Anthropologists, skilled in social network analysis and ethnography, can contribute by providing the required analysis of massive information and communicating findings effectively. Many common concepts, such as “capacity building,” are centered in social relationships, the things you can’t easily photograph or quantify, but that are nonetheless essential to develop.

Every commentator on Hurricane Katrina and other disasters can say the right things about “coordination,” “collaboration” and “protecting underserved populations.” But anthropologists know the complexity and processes associated with those goals, and should ensure that the next round of solutions for emergency preparedness are grounded in the realities and practices of planners, responders and the communities they serve.

>> read the whole text

Also in Anthropology News, Patricia Plunket summarizes a seminar on natural disaster research in anthropology

SEE ALSO:

Katrina disaster has roots in 1700s / Earthquake disaster in South Asia man-made (including more links on the anthropology of disaster)