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Gift economies and open source software: Anthropological reflections

Published on April 13, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, cyberanthropology, gift economy gift giving, internet, persons and theories, technology

David Zeitlyn, University of Kent at Canterbury

Building on Eric Raymond’s work this article discusses the motivation and rewards that lead some software engineers to participate in the open source movement. It is suggested that software engineers in the open source movement may have sub-groupings which parallel kinship groups such as lineages. Within such groups gift giving is not necessarily or directly reciprocated, instead members work according to the ‘axiom of kinship amity’ – direct economic calculation is not appropriate within the group. What Bourdieu calls ‘symbolic capital’ can be used to understand how people work in order to enhance the reputation (of themselves and their group). >> continue (pdf) (Link updated 12.4.2021)

(Found in the huge paper collection on Open Source at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Cyberanthropology – links

David Zeitlyn, University of Kent at Canterbury

New book by Lila Abu-Lughod: The Politics of Television in Egypt

Published on April 8, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, books, media, persons and theories

Cairo Magazine

“Dramas of Nationhood. The Politics of Television in Egypt” by anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod is the first major work to analyze contemporary Egypt TV watching nation. 10 years went into researching and writing the book. Ten years spent watching television melodramas with Egypt’s subalterns to write a book that no one who watches television will ever read. It is an academic work that analyzes the “post-Orientalist epistemes” in the relationship between Egyptian melodramatic series and the (re)production of the nation/state.

In a region over-colonized by Western political scientists and journalists writing “behind the scenes” accounts, a book that takes seriously the oeuvre of Usama Anwar Ukasha (“the Naguib Mahfouz of Egyptian television”) comes as a breath of fresh air. >> continue (link updated)

Interview with Lila Abu-Lughod by Nermeen Shaikh of AsiaSource

American Ethnologist Book review: “The Anthropology of Media: A Reader” and “Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain”

Book review “Faye D. Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod and Brian Larkin: Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain (Australian Journal of AnthropologyAugust, 2004 by Jennifer Deger – findarticles.com)

Cairo Magazine

"Dramas of Nationhood. The Politics of Television in Egypt" by anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod is the first major work to analyze contemporary Egypt TV watching nation. 10 years went into researching and writing the book. Ten years spent watching television…

Shattering shaman myths: New book explores female roots of shamanism

Published on April 8, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, culture traditions, gender, persons and theories, religion cosmology

University of Buffalo Reporter

In a new book published last month by Random House, Barbara Tedlock, professor of anthropology, challenges the historical hegemony of the male shamanic tradition, restores women to their essential place in the history of spirituality and celebrates their continuing role in the worldwide resurgence of shamanism.

Tedlock’s book, “The Woman in a Shaman’s Body”, also presents empirical studies that find common shamanic practices to be very effective in medical terms and discusses why this is the case. Women shamans, she says, have often practiced in the fields of healing, birthing children, gathering and growing food, keeping communities in balance, presiding over ceremonies and rites of passage, maintaining relations with the dead, teaching, ministering to those in need, communing with nature to learn her secrets, preserving the wisdom traditions, divining the future and dancing with gods and goddesses. >> continue

University of Buffalo Reporter

Race again: Anthropologist Kerim Friedman comments on controversial article

Published on March 16, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, persons and theories, Us and Them

A few days ago, Armand Marie Leroi, an evolutionary developmental biologist at Imperial College in London, wrote a controversial article in the New York Times. She claimed, that contrary to what anthropologists have to say on the subject, perhaps “race” isn’t a purely social construct, but does have some scientific validity after all.

Anthropologist and blogger Kerim Friedman comments on this article:

“The sad fact is that race is not simply a shorthand for Leroi’s maps with elevations, contour lines, and reference grids, but refers to all kinds of cultural and political differences that have nothing to do with genetics. More importantly, these genetic difference map rather poorly on to our common sense notions about “race,” in ways that do nothing to help us understand the many important genetic issues that Leroi believes the term will help us face.”

He invited population biologist Fredrick Gentz, a Ph.D. candidate at Temple University, to comment on the article.
>> read more on Kerim Friedman’s blog

Anthropology and Race – Discussions in the Classroom

American Anthropological Association Statement on “Race”

What is Civilization?

Published on March 15, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, persons and theories, Us and Them

Anthropik Network

When asked this question directly, many people answer that a civilization is simply a synonym for “society”–that a civilization is simply a group of people living together. This definition is betrayed when you press the point with borderline examples. Are you comfortable with the phrase “Inuit Civilization”? Or “!Kung Civilization?” Or “Australian Aborigine Civilization”? Most people are not. There is no doubt as to whether the Inuit, !Kung or Aborigines constitute societies, but we waver on the question of their civilization. Obviously, then, the two words are not the synonyms some would claim. >> continue

Read also the most recent entry The Meaning of Civilization

Anthropik Network

When asked this question directly, many people answer that a civilization is simply a synonym for "society"--that a civilization is simply a group of people living together. This definition is betrayed when you press the point with borderline examples.…