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“Anthropologists must get more involved in IT design and security

Published on November 2, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, corporate & business anthropology, design anthropology, technology

ZDNet UK

People are the biggest security threat facing IT, a report says. That is not where the problem lies. People should come first, programmers second. We especially see it in online security, where the user is supposed to remember all manner of things – tiny yellow padlocks, checking URLs for https://, and a different password for every site.

Computer security is designed by engineers and sold by marketing departments. Neither group is known for its deep insights into human behaviour. There are two groups of people who must get much more involved in IT design, security: Humanities experts are one group – anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, graphics designers, even dramatists – while the other is the user base itself. >> continue

ZDNet UK

Coming Back Around to Culture – an anthropologist’s thoughts about Technology

Published on October 25, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, corporate & business anthropology, culture traditions, design anthropology, technology

TechnoTaste

I have come back around finally to the reason I came to School of Information Management Systems in the first place: a belief that the tools and perspectives of anthropology are useful and needed.

In the face of all the new technologies and applications today it’s easy to forget that behavior drives technology. If culture drives behavior, at least to some degree, then it ought to be essential, not only to the way we understand the uses and contexts of technology, but to its design.

It’s not useful to take for granted that there is something fundamentally new about the informational, technical world in which we live. I have a sneaking suspicion that a great deal more is the same than is different. Culture is too important – too pervasive and immutable – to respond on a whim to the development of new technologies, even if they fundamentally change the way we live. >> continue

TechnoTaste

I have come back around finally to the reason I came to School of Information Management Systems in the first place: a belief that the tools and perspectives of anthropology are useful and needed.

In the face of all the new…

Modern technology helps reinvigorate traditional values

Published on October 21, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, books, religion cosmology, technology, Us and Them

The University of Chicago Press

An interview with anthropologist Jonah Blank, author of Mullahs on the Mainframe: Islam and Modernity among the Daudi Bohras. The Daudi Bohras are a unique denomination of Indian Muslims, with a worldwide population numbering up to one million.

“Perhaps the most important lesson the Bohras can teach outsiders is that Muslims can indeed embrace modernity while remaining true to their traditions and core beliefs.”

“Perhaps the most important way in which technology has bolstered traditional values has been by permitting Bohras around the world to have immediate and constant contact with the dai-ul-mutlaq (the spirtual leader of the community). Due to the dai’s crucial importance, Bohras have eagerly pounced on each new generation of communications technology—from fax to email to digital cellphones—to maintain close contact with the dawat (the Bohra clergy)”. >> continue

The University of Chicago Press

“The science of ethnography is an ideal tool to designing mobile phones”

Published on October 20, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, corporate & business anthropology, design anthropology, gift economy gift giving, technology

The Feature

People often confuse what they want with what they need when it comes to consumer products. Manufacturers try to collect this information through interviews, but observing users’ behavior in their natural environment can provide better insights. The science of ethnography can be an ideal tool to learn how teenagers use mobile phones and to help shape designs to cater to them.

Last year, a team of researchers went to a sixth-form college in England and for five months observed the way a group of students used their mobile phones. The researchers used these observations, along with periodic interviews, to come up with a concept for a 3G mobile phone that addressed their findings.

The researchers came to the conclusion that mobile phones were not only used as tools for transmitting and receiving information, but were also used as tools to establish and maintain the status of social networks. Mobiles facilitated the “obligations of exchange.” In particular, students have a social contract with each other to give and accept “gifts” in the form of text messages. The gift’s value is derived in part from the message’s content, but it also comes from the fact that the gift was given at all, regardless of its content.
>> continue

The Feature

Japanese Cybercultures – Ethnographic Studies

Published on October 19, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, books, cyberanthropology, internet, technology

Leslie M. Tkach-Kawasaki, University of Tsukuba (Japan), Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies

What is your image of Japan? A technologically hip nation of cyber-savvy samurai? A land where culture can be both cute and conformist? In Japanese Cybercultures, editors Nanette Gottlieb and Mark McLelland challenge our perceptions of Japan and the Internet through a range of fascinating perspectives.

Adding to a growing body of ethnographic studies focusing on Internet use in different countries, the three thematic sections of the book — popular culture; gender and sexuality; and politics and religion — demonstrate how the use of the Internet is both entrenched in and changing various perspectives of daily life in Japan. >> continue

Leslie M. Tkach-Kawasaki, University of Tsukuba (Japan), Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies

What is your image of Japan? A technologically hip nation of cyber-savvy samurai? A land where culture can be both cute and conformist? In Japanese Cybercultures, editors Nanette Gottlieb…