antropologi.info - anthropology in the news blog

The website of The Association of Feminist Anthropology is another place to look for anthropology books and ethnographies.

One of the books reviewed is written by folklorist Carol Burke "Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-And-Tight: Gender, Folklore, and Changing Military Culture":

Drawing from her background as a folklorist and an “insider” who served as a civilian faculty member of the Naval Academy, Carol Burke examines the military as an occupational folk group and unpacks the various aspects of military culture that continue to separate and exclude on the basis of gender. In addition to highlighting the more obvious customs and ceremonies, Burke also attends to the secret rituals and informal aspects that, even when officially “banned,” are still practiced in boot camps, military academies, and aboard submarines and aircraft carriers.

>> read the review (updated link)

>> another review at H-Net

>> more book reviews by the Association for Feminist Anthropology

The first entry of a new blog called "New anthropology" starts presenting us new ways of anthropology

"Two ways to express what I call New Anthropology.
1. The new theoretical concern should be highlighted: A Cognitive Turn!
2. The new learning methods should be applied: Timeless and remote learning on the net!!"

Lots of links! (unfortunately some sites require a browser of doubtful quality)

>> continue

Has anybody heard of the "Corporate Anthropology Center"? "The Global Hub for Cultural Business Anthropology"? They offer "Training and Certification - Consumer Research and Database - IntraCorporate Services - Competition Analysis" etc (extremly business-like rhetoric!).

They claim to have been in business since 1979, but a google-search returns no results, the website seems to be new, lacks a title and looks quite unprofessional (one page with lots of text, no menue). The domain was registred only one month ago and is owned by Sally Austin.

>> continue to Corporate Anthropology Center

You can download several articles and papers on Anthropology of Mongolia on Christopher Kaplonski's website. He is currently doing research on concepts of democracy in Mongolia and political Violence and its legacy.

He writes:

Among other things, I have looked at how different political parties confronted the issue of rehabilitation and compensation for the victims of political repression. Exactly who is a victim and who is not a victim raises important questions about identity and politics. Given the importance of this category to work on human rights, reconciliation, truth commissions and memory studies, it intrigues and puzzles me that it has been left almost completely unexamined in existing research. I thus see an integral part of this larger project on political violence being the problematization of the label of "victim."

(...)

It is very interesting and important to me that any discussion of the concept of democracy that I've read in Mongolian explains the concept in terms of its Greek origins and Western theories. As an anthropologist, I'm pretty convinced that this is not the most useful approach. Rather, I think it is important not to just to look at how people respond to surveys, or understand European and American political theory but how they actually talk and act in different situations. My current thinking is that in many ways, the textbook definition of democracy is irrelevant in the daily life of people. People seem to be thinking of democracy as a form of 'anti-socialism.'

>> read more on his website

The layout is clean and friendly, but the navigation is quite confusing. Here some shortcuts:

>> conference papers to download

>> more articles to download

>> section about Mongolia incl lots of pictures

>> his general section on anthropology, fieldwork and data-analysis

Ethan Zuckerman, Global Voices

The BBC has a long tradition of encouraging readers and listeners of their Africa service to talk about their views of the continent. BBC is going a step further, looking for people with interesting stories to tell, arming them with digital cameras and encouraging them to get posting. >> continue to Global Voices (many links to recommended blogs!)

>> go directly to BBCs "My Africa - Africa Diaries"

Norwegian Anthropologist Brigt Dale has started to blog in English - additionally to Norwegian. In his first post, he writes:

First of all, I will try to follow up on my motto for my Norwegian blog, and relentlessly attack and scrutinise all things which irritates me or puzzles me, but I will also comment upon spesific areas of interest like research politics (including the "bullitics" of our present government), visual and social anthropology (which happens to be my caling, if not my present occupation), as well as some personal rambling on films, music and litterature.

My hope is that this blog might join some of those excellent others which together constitute a Norwegian-based sphere in the international blogging-community (if such a singular entity exists).

As he is a "big fan of accessabillity when it comes to scientific work", he has put online several texts, including his thesis, based on an anthropological fieldwork on the island of Tobago, West Indies.

As noted earlier here, you can watch his film Boys Will Be Boys online.

>> continue to "the occational blog"

(via Fieldnotes): Ethnomusicologist Aaron Fox has set up a website and blog as an "extension of the book": "I'm not going to republish the book on the site, but the book deals so much with sound that I had to make it possible for people to hear the music", he explains and adds: "I also really wanted to be able to interact with readers -- as we are doing now! Seems to me this is just the most under-used capacity of the web as an adjunct to traditional publishing. It's not like academic books sell in the tens of thousands, so it seems perfectly reasonable and possible to enter into a real dialogue with serious readers."

Anthropologist Tad McIlwraith on Fieldnotes comments: "I think about this in the context of my work with First Nations people and wonder if I could convince them to allow their actual voices to be found in files on my website. I think my work would be enhanced if they’d agree to that."

Aaron Fox' book is called Real County: Music and Language in Working Class Culture and is according to Tad McIlwraith "a fantastic ethnography".

Savage Minds has recently pointed to the blog by the Anthropology librarian Cynthia Tysick, University at Buffalo, New York. She seems to be surfing alot and lists a lot of useful links. Some of her recent entries are Introduction to Indigenous Peoples and How can blogging help my research?