antropologi.info | Page 353 of 726 | social and cultural anthropology blog

New blog: The Anthropologists – Last primitive tribe on earth?

Published on July 20, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing, technology

Wow! Is this the Danish version of Savage Minds? Six anthropologists (partly students) from the Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen have started the blog “Matter Out Of Place”. Their first blog post deals with our favorite subject – Public Anthropology and the lack of sharing knowledge on the web.

Jane Mejdahl writes:

First of all anthropologists have to face the obvious and realize the potential in publishing thoughts online and sharing knowlegde. Secondly we have to overcome our fear of being trite and simplifying …

(…)

Surely some of us do our fieldwork in far away places without any access to the Internet, computers etc., let alone access to electricity, but a lot of anthropology’s tradtional fields of study are already embracing the possibillities provided by the digital era.

Take a look at indigineuos people’s use of online communication as a mean of resistance and raising awareness. And I bet that Margaret Mead’s lovesick youth in Samoa is busy creating connections and dating online as we speak. Some of us may study people from the other side of the digital divide, but that doesn’t mean that our texts, thoughts, analysis have to remain there. I know for a fact that most anthropologists know how to use a computer. We know how to study issues of social concern. Would it be to much to ask for some sort of combination of the two? Or are we forever stuck in the wilderness?

>> read the whole post

>> about their blog

Wow! Is this the Danish version of Savage Minds? Six anthropologists (partly students) from the Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen have started the blog "Matter Out Of Place". Their first blog post deals with our favorite subject - Public…

New: Anthropology Matters with book reviews

Published on July 20, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, websites

To promote discussion about recently published books in anthropology, the Open Access anthropology journal Anthropology Matters has added a new page to their website – a book reviews page. The first book review is by Andrew Irving, who has written about Arnd Schneider’s and Christopher Wright’s new book, Contemporary Art and Anthropology. Three older reviews can be read there as well.

>> visit Anthropology Matters Reviews

OTHER BOOK REVIEW SITES:

American Ethnologist Book reviews

Danny Yee’s Book Reviews (anthropology)

Book reviews by The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology

To promote discussion about recently published books in anthropology, the Open Access anthropology journal Anthropology Matters has added a new page to their website - a book reviews page. The first book review is by Andrew Irving, who has written…

Anthropologist studies British and American gardening traditions

Published on July 20, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, culture traditions, Us and Them

No place to escape from anthropologists. Not even in your own garden! Jane Nadel-Klein is researching the modern-day garden and its rubber-clogged inhabitants, according to the Indiapolis Star. The anthropologist says, that “an examination of the garden-club lady can help our understanding of humankind” because “the more we know about the history of a human practice, the more we know what we share.” >> more in the Indiapolis Star.

SEE ALSO:

Jane Nadel-Klein. Fishing for Heritage: Modernity and Loss along the Scottish Coast (Book review, Australian Journal of Anthropology)

E-mail has become the new snail mail – Text Messaging on Rise

Published on July 19, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, corporate & business anthropology, cyberanthropology, internet, youth

E-mail is so last millennium. Young people see it as a good way to reach an elder – a parent, teacher or a boss – or to receive an attached file. But email is increasingly losing favor to instant and text messaging, according to an ap-article:

Much like home postal boxes have become receptacles for junk mail, bills and the occasional greeting card, electronic mailboxes have become cluttered with spam. That makes them a pain to weed through, and the problem is only expected to worsen as some e-mail providers allow online marketers to bypass spam filters for a fee. Beyond that, e-mail has become most associated with school and work.

“It used to be just fun,” says Danah Boyd, a doctoral candidate who studies social media at the University of California, Berkeley [and blogger]. “Now it’s about parents and authority.”

(…)

When immediacy is a factor – as it often is – most young people much prefer the telephone or instant messaging for everything from casual to heart-to-heart conversations, according to research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Boyd says, young people have developped skills for chatting with “a bazillion people at once”. They understand how to negotiate the interruptions a lot better than adults.

Anne Kirah, design anthropologist at Microsoft, even thinks young people’s brains work differently because they’ve grown up with IM, making them more adept at it.

Companies really need to respond to the way people work and communicate. The focus, she says, should be the outcome:

“Nine to 5 has been replaced with ‘Give me a deadline and I will meet your deadline,'” Kirah says of young people’s work habits. “They’re saying ‘I might work until 2 a.m. that night. But I will do it all on my terms.'”

>> read the whole story in the Washington Post

Ethnographic Study on “Digital Kids”

An interview with Anne Kirah: Lead design anthropologist

E-mail is so last millennium. Young people see it as a good way to reach an elder - a parent, teacher or a boss - or to receive an attached file. But email is increasingly losing favor to instant and…

Forschungsprojekt untersucht Rituale in Internet

Published on July 19, 2006 by lorenz Posted in Ethnologie Sozialanthropologie Kulturanthropologie, interdiziplinär, Internet, Religion Spiritualität, Kosmologie, Technologie

Man kann eine virtuelle Kerze anzünden und ein Fürbittegebet anklicken. Man kann ein Labyrinth betreten, dort virtuellen Fußstapfen folgen und an einzelnen Wegstationen meditieren. An der Uni Heidelberg werden diese modernen religioesen Erscheinungsformen seit vier Jahren erforscht, meldet die Deutsche Welle. Beteiligt am interdisziplinaeren Forschungsprojekt “Ritualdynamik” sind die klassischen Indologie, die Ethnologie, Soziologie und Religionswissenschaft.

Im Internet treffen die Forscher auf Erstaunliches. Neue Rituale und religioese Ausdrucksformen werden da zusammengebastelt.

Wir lesen:

“Im Internet gibt es neue Ritualräume”, sagt der Religionswissenschaftler Gregor Ahn. Computer-User nehmen Avatar-Figuren und treffen sich virtuell mit anderen solchen Stellvertretern. “In diesen Versammlungsräumen, die zum Teil Kirchencharakter haben, finden regelrechte religiöse Versammlungen statt und es werden auch Gottesdienste abgehalten.”

Warum diese Forschung für die Wissenschaftler so spannend ist, erklärt Simone Heidbrink, wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Heidelberger Projekt: “Wie Individuen glauben, was sie tun und wie sie Rituale durchführen, das war bislang nicht sichtbar zu machen. Da gibt erst das Medium Internet dem Individuum eine Stimme. Wir können so erkennen. was ganz normale Menschen auf der Straße glauben.”

>> weiter bei der Deutschen Welle

Auf der Homepage des Forschungsprojektes Ritualdynamik hat es eine Menge Berichte und Publikationen im Volltext.