technology | antropologi.info

Ethnographic Skype

Published on April 15, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, cyberanthropology, fieldwork / methods, technology

Alexander Knorr, Xirdalium

Oftentimes there is a confusion about what anthropological ‘fieldwork’ actually is. One aim of my project is to transpose anthropology’s rich and powerful methodology to the terra nova online: thick participation plus its weaknesses compensated by other methods like the ethnographic interview.

As Damien Stolarz has put it, Shapiro provides us with a “Simple hack using Skype as an audio interviewing and archive tool. Instead of needing phone interview recording hardware (which you might not have) you can use computer tools (which you have in abundance).” This contains tremendous possibilities for every trustworthy cyberanthropologist. >> continue (Link updated)

Dina Mehta: How social software and social tools are truly worldchanging

Skype and VOIP – all posts by Dina Mehta

antropologi.info’s links on Cyberanthropology

LINKS UPDATED 9.1.2021

Alexander Knorr, Xirdalium

Oftentimes there is a confusion about what anthropological 'fieldwork' actually is. One aim of my project is to transpose anthropology's rich and powerful methodology to the terra nova online: thick participation plus its weaknesses compensated by other methods…

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

Smithsonian Folkways to Open MP3 Music Store

Published on April 1, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, indigenous people / minorities, music, technology

Washington Post

The Smithsonian Institution is entering the highly competitive world of music downloads by offering the Smithsonian Folkways collection of ethnic and traditional music in an online music store. Smithsonian Global Sound, the new project, will be formally launched during the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in June.

Global Sound will charge 99 cents a song, which are available in MP3 format. The Smithsonian will pay royalties to the artists, as its recording label has done with records and CDs. The Web site, www.smithsonianglobalsound.org, will allow searches by artist, geographic location, language, cultural group or instrument. All of the Folkways archives, including photographs, can be downloaded onto a screen. >> continue

Washington Post

First Swahili PC office suite released in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Published on March 8, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology in the news, language, technology

Wikinews

The office suite was translated from the English version of OpenOffice.org, an open source suite based on Sun Microsystems’ StarOffice. This is the first ever release of a word processor in Swahili. The translation effort required translating 18,000 English strings, made up of one or more words, many of which have previously had no direct Swahili equivalent. As part of the translation, the team developed a glossary of 1500 technical words in Swahili. >> continue

Wikinews

The office suite was translated from the English version of OpenOffice.org, an open source suite based on Sun Microsystems' StarOffice. This is the first ever release of a word processor in Swahili. The translation effort required translating 18,000 English strings,…

Instant Messaging – Studying A New Form of Communication

Published on February 13, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, language, media, technology

Susan D Blum, U Notre Dame, Anthropology News, American Anthropological Association

Teaching an upper-division undergraduate class on linguistic anthropology, “Doing Things with Words,” at the University of Notre Dame, nothing got my students so excited—not gossip, not gender, maybe accent—as the topic of Instant Messaging

As a team, my eight students (Theresa Davey, Anastasia Envall, Mark Gernerd, Tiffanné Mahomes, Maria Monroe, Jenna Nowak, Matthew Patricoski and Jacob Weiler) and I investigated every aspect of Instant Messaging that we could to assess how it was affecting—if it was affecting—students’ daily experiences. The fact that IMing involves writing but is conceptualized as talk makes it especially germane for linguistic anthropological analysis. >> continue (link updated)

SEE ALSO THEIR PAPER: Instant Messaging: Functions of a New Communicative Tool (pdf) (Link updated)

Susan D Blum, U Notre Dame, Anthropology News, American Anthropological Association