ethnografix

Ed Carr on Publishing, peer review, and how "only the senior faculty can save us"

2012-01-31T00:37:00.003-05:00

Who can save us...from ourselves? Who can put an end to the current fiasco that is academic publishing? Since we are all so entrenched in this system, where can we look for a way out? In a post about some of the issues that academia faces when it comes to the current politics of publishing and peer review, geographer Ed Carr over at Open the Echo Chamber makes the case that escape and salvation from may lie in the hands of senior faculty. Is he right? He might be.

Carr starts off the post by expressing his concern that academia is using practices like peer review as a way to segregate itself from wider audiences. He argues that peer review is, at heart, not a bad thing, since it provides a way of vetting ideas in an important way. But, he writes:

the practice of peer review in contemporary academia has turned really problematic. Most respected journals are more expensive than ever, making access to them the near-sole province of academics with access to libraries willing to purchase such journals. The pressure to publish increases all the time, both in rising demands on individual researchers (my requirements for tenure were much tougher than most requirements from a generation before) and in terms of an ever-expanding academic community.

One of the deeper issues, Carr argues, is that peer review can be riddled with politics that end up "slowing the flow of innovative ideas into academia" because those ideas may "run contrary to previously-accepted ideas upon which many reviewers might have done their work." Ultimately, Carr writes, these issues with peer review certainly don't do much to help with the public image of academia (although he is speaking more specifically to geographers here, this applies to academics in general).

Here's Carr's solution, or, at least, his ideas for a way to start digging out of this trench:

So, a modest proposal: senior colleagues of mine in Geography – yes, those of you who are full professors at the top of the profession, who have nothing to lose from a change in the status quo at this point – who will get together and identify a couple of open-access, very low-cost journals and more or less pronounce them valid (probably in part by blessing them with a few of your own papers to start). Don’t pick the ones that want to charge $1500 in publishing fees – those are absurd. But pick something different . . .

Again, although he is speaking directly to other geographers here, I think this proposal applies to and should resonate with the anthropological crowd as well. For Carr, such a move would be a critical step for opening up academic publishing to wider possibilities, conversations, and collaborations. I agree,nd I think he is right that certain established faculty members are in an important position for inciting and promoting change. It's a matter of interest and desire.

At the same time, coming from the position of a graduate student, I can't help but wonder how those of us on, well, lower rungs of the academic ladder can do to actively foster these kinds of changes. Since we are all encouraged to publish publish publish, maybe it would be a good idea to start thinking more strategically about how and why we are publishing, and more importantly WHO we decide to publish with. If every graduate student and new professor is constantly upholding the current regime by basically giving up the fruits of their labor (and effectively providing certain publishers with a never-ending stream of valuable products), why WOULD anything change? So, in the end, I think that Carr is definitely right, but that many of these changes are going to have to start taking place on multiple fronts as well.

On that note, check this out.

Cross-posted on Savage Minds, of course.

John Hawks & Open Access News

2012-01-11T01:32:00.000-05:00

From john hawks weblog:

"Today's NIH repository and the data access provisions of NSF grants were established by acts of Congress in the late 1990s. In my opinion, the agencies have in many areas gotten away with the bare minimum of compliance with these regulations. Worse, far from strengthening open access to publications and data, some in Congress want to reverse them. The current effort owes much to lobbying by academic publishers, and large campaign donations from officers and employees of those publishers to key Congressmen."

Read the rest here.

The sound & the fury (plus questions)

2012-01-11T01:24:00.001-05:00

The sound: It was late afternoon. I was in the middle of conducting an interview, recording the conversation with a small digital voice recorder. Rain falling outside, in droves. I could hear water rushing down the street. The sound of water pouring from the roof. Water dripping from here and there. Clinking and clattering on the tin roof above. Inside, one light in the corner of the room fought back the cold of the rain outside. I was talking with a mother and her son amidst the incessant rain. The sound of the rainfall wasn’t exactly overwhelming, just constant. In the moment, it all sounded pretty nice.

The fury: When I finally checked the recording later that night, the rain made it almost impossible to hear the conversation. The voices of mother and son were swept up in an auditory wrecking ball that sounded more like a tornado than raindrops. The interview was still salvageable, but it was hardly a masterpiece of ethnographic audio. Frustrating.

Read the rest on Savage Minds, here.

Defining Political Ecology

2011-12-15T11:02:00.002-05:00

Political Ecology is an interdisciplinary collection of scholars and writers who investigate the politics of human-environment relationships. Is political ecology a discipline? A field of study? A theory? A framework for approaching problems? Whatever it is, you will find a lot of geographers, sociologists, environmental scientists, and, yes, anthropologists who identify with the goals and perspectives of political ecology. I think it's a pretty fascinating collection of ideas and interests. But that's just me.

The Political Ecology Working Group at the University of Kentucky (of which I am a part) has a new series that explores key issues in political ecology through short online essays. The first round asked the question: What is political ecology? Here's a selection from the opening essay, written by Paul Robbins from the University of Arizona:

Political Ecology is a kind of text

Political Ecology represents neither a theory nor a method, but instead reflects a global community of practice, convened around a certain kind of text.

As a community of practice, political ecology has formed a general constituency: a global conversation revolving around a set of themes, which adopts a specific sort of critical attitude. It is drawn from a large group of people who write professionally (like university academics) as well as those in international agencies (e.g. FAO), NGOs (e.g. WWF), state bureaucracies (e.g. USEPA), and local organizations. Typically, its constituency operates in the borderlands between analysis and action and between social practice and environmental change. It is, however, a community that holds a deep skepticism precisely of the institutions within which it operates. Its members, prodded by a sense that something has gone profoundly wrong...

Read the rest of of this essay, and all the others, here.

Political Ecology: Where is the politics?

2011-12-14T23:02:00.001-05:00

Atthe entrance to not so small Mexican pueblo not far from the where Iam doing my fieldwork, a homemade banner waves in the afternoonbreeze. It's not really a banner—it's a white sheet that has beenspray painted with a message for all passersby. The sign proclaimssupport for a large scale mega-development that has everyone in theregion in an uproar. Some people are against it, since they fearthat it will pillage the environment, rob them of fresh water, andturn these desert landscapes into scenic afterthoughts for theeighteenth hole. This is a distinct possibility. Others, however,cry out in support of the project. They want the jobs. And who canblame them? It's not like there are exactly a ton of jobs aroundhere. Nobody is getting rich, so when some large internationaldeveloper says that they are going to bring in 19,000 new jobs,people listen.

Meanwhile,on the other side of town, the once verdant wetlands have beencompletely ground away to carve out the beginnings of a new harborand marina. Soon, the hotels will be built—and the golf courses. Always golf courses. All of this will require water, which isn'texactly abundant around these parts. Down the road, theconservationists fight to save the region, to make their case forfinding a way to keep things as they are—at least to an extent. But the pressure of possibilities—those 19,000 jobs—pushes peopleapart. Real estate values skyrocket, people make the hard decisionto sell their lands. But where does all of this lead? Where can itlead? If this isn't an ecology laden with politics, I don't know what is.

Sohere I am: the researcher, putting myself in the middle of all this. And the question is this: What am I going to do? Write a nicelyworded article that will appear in some handsome and reputableacademic journal? Or will I actually do something? Because thesepolitical ecologies aren't just here, they are everywhere. Thepolitics of human-environment relationships are undeniably pervasive. See, for example, the ways in which the landscapes of my own hometown are also being churned and transformed to make room for18-holed, water sucking, wetlands-destroying leisure-scapes:

Golf course in process. Carlsbad, CA, 2005. Photo: RA.

Bureaucracies & the power of nonsense

2011-12-14T20:00:00.001-05:00

For some reason, I am feeling decidedly anti-bureaucracy today. Does this ever happen to you? What is it about bureaucracy that it is so difficult, that drives us mad? Let me give an obvious answer that you would expect from some cultural anthropology type like myself: it's because of the inhumanity of it all. The inhumanity of some bureaucracies can become so thick that they turn us all into blithering fools.

We get backed into a corner, with no place to turn. Our choices are cut off--we are stuck with the hassles of lines, rules, and forms. We wait on phones, we try to find official offices with no address. You know what I'm talking about. We become not just fools in this process, but blithering fools. But there is power in the inefficiency of bureaucracies--Weber knew that, as did many others. You know that too, don't you? If you want to know more about this, please click here for more options.

Apologies for that...there must be some sort of glitch in the system. I will send out a request for someone to post a note about composing an email to resolve this issue at a later date. Please wait. In the mean time, if you haven't read David Graeber's "Beyond power/knowledge: an exploration of the relation of power, ignorance and stupidity," well, you should. Here is your chance.

Let me give you a short example of the hilarity of bureaucracy from some of my recent travel experiences:

Read the rest on Savage Minds.

Firefox is frozen

2011-12-13T13:29:00.002-05:00

This is funny:

Found here.

UC Davis: Dissent and pepper spray

2011-11-19T21:04:00.001-05:00

The police show the world how NOT to handle dissent and protests at UC Davis. From the Huffington Post:

On Friday, a group of University of California, Davis students, part of the Occupy Wall Street movement on campus, became the latest victims of alleged police brutality to be captured on video. The videos show the students seated on the ground as a UC Davis police officer brandishes a red canister of pepper spray, showing it off for the crowd before dousing the seated students in a heavy, thick mist.

And here's more from CNN:

The chancellor of the University of California, Davis, under calls to resign, Saturday called police use of pepper spray on seated Occupy protesters "chilling" and established a task force to look into the incident.

The video broadcast by CNN Sacramento affiliate KOVR showed an officer, in a sweeping motion, spraying protesters point blank on Friday before other officers moved in. Eleven people were treated on site for effects of the yellow spray. Two of them were sent to the hospital, university officials said.

Here's one of the videos of this incident:

Assistant professor of English Nathan Brown wrote an open letter to the UC Davis Chancellor. Here's a selection:

I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and I teach in the Program in Critical Theory and in Science & Technology Studies. I have a strong record of research, teaching, and service. I am currently a Board Member of the Davis Faculty Association. I have also taken an active role in supporting the student movement to defend public education on our campus and throughout the UC system. In a word: I am the sort of young faculty member, like many of my colleagues, this campus needs. I am an asset to the University of California at Davis.

Read the rest. Here's my question: Now what? I find it pretty shocking and disturbing that the police reacted to this protest in this way. Yes, I can understand the fact that the police had a job to do, and I can understand the fact that UC Davis felt it needed to "do something" about the protests. Fine. But this? Since when is it necessary to resort to these kinds of actions when dealing with non-violent protesters? Why are these student encampments so threatening that they necessitate pepper spray and violence? What were these police thinking? What do they really think they accomplished with this? Do we really want to sit back and watch as the government (and university officials) respond to dissent and protests like this? At what point is enough enough?

Eating tool up close

2011-11-18T20:52:00.001-05:00

I took this one a few years back, just found it, and am now posting it here. Sometimes it's a good idea to look closely at the world around us.

Interview with Jason Baird Jackson, Part 3

2011-11-16T09:28:00.001-05:00

This is the last segment of this three part interview with Jason Baird Jackson about anthropology and open access. See Part 1 here, and Part 2, here.

Ryan Anderson: I think this last point you make about the direct role that faculty and graduate students play in all this is really important. We all have choices, and ultimately the publishing and communication system is what we make of it. So, as a last question for you, what advice do you have for people who are interested in these issues but unsure where to start looking for others who share similar concerns, values, and commitments?

Jason Baird Jackson: The open access community is by its very nature, open. In North American and European contexts, finding folks eager to help students and established scholars negotiate these questions is pretty easy. If one is at a university with a research- oriented library, there will be one or more librarians specializing in these issues. Such librarians often lead workshops on such topics as “author’s rights,” “copyright issues for scholars,” and “open access.” Librarians have a strong service ethic and are usually very eager to help scholars get their bearings on these topics. They are SO eager to find faculty allies on these questions. If you give them a moment, they will also passionately explain why OA matters so much to the future of the library and its public service mission...

Read the rest on Savage Minds.

Quote of the week: Jason Baird Jackson

2011-11-14T10:34:00.001-05:00

"I have long cared about the serials crisis and now that the world is thinking more critically about student debt, I want us all to realize the direct relationship between the scholarly communications system, and the scholarly society system, and the neoliberalization of the American research university. Skyrocketing tuition is a consequence of public disinvestment in public universities like mine and yours. Leasing (we no longer purchase) toll access scholarship at ever higher costs from exceedingly profitable commercial firms (and their society partners) is not helping close the inequality gap in higher education. It is hardly the only factor involved (ex: think health care costs) but it is one of the few factors in which faculty and graduate students have a direct role to play—as authors, as disciplinary policy shapers, as peer-reviewers, as editors, etc. As contributors to the scholarly publishing system, we have choices available to us. We can make our work open in a number of ways and we can support and encourage those whose values and commitments align with out own."

-Jason Baird Jackson, here.

(just wanted to highlight this in case some of you missed it)

Sociological Images: Playboy centerfold composites, 1960s-1990s

2011-11-14T10:17:00.001-05:00

Lisa Wade over at Sociological Images (a fantastic site, by the way) posted this composite image of all the Playboy centerfolds from the 1960s to the 1990s. So what do you see in these images? Join the conversation in the comments here.

Hat Tip to Matt Thompson at Savage Minds.

Anthropology & Open Access: An Interview with Jason Baird Jackson (Part 2 of 3)

2011-11-11T10:12:00.001-05:00

See Part 1 of this interview here.

Ryan Anderson: So what are the major stumbling blocks holding up a transition to Open Access in your view? What's keeping most people from making this jump? Lastly, what do you think about the system employed by the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) where authors can post working papers? Can a system like that be a stepping stone to OA?

Jason Baird Jackson: At the author level, one stumbling block is a pervasive lack of basic knowledge about these issues among scholars and policy makers within our field (and in most fields). I am sympathetic to everyone’s plight. It is all very complicated and uncertain therefore doing what we have always done has proven the easiest path. Most of us do not understand copyright or the Creative Commons system. Most of us do not understand journal business models or how it is that librarians have made so much (expensive) information so easily available to those of us with the luxury of university affiliations. In the face of much confusion and anxiety, just sending our manuscripts to the editors and journals that we know in the way that we have always done has seemed sensible and prudent.

Related is the situation in which we perceive that we understand the changing landscape better than we do. A clear instance is when we post the final published versions of our writings online because we wrongly believe ourselves to have the right to do so. The increasing prevalence of such accidental piracy fosters the misunderstanding that such practices are the right way to do open access. Such piracy is counter-productive on many levels and is unnecessary given that there are legal and technically better ways to pursue OA.

Such author-centered issues are the major stumbling block for green OA. The fact that many scholars do not have direct access to a home institutional repository is another factor. I tried to suggest that there are usually workarounds for this in my earlier comments. Your mentioning of the Social Science Research Network represents another possible solution that anthropologists should investigate more actively [see Adam Leeds' comment about SSRN here on Savage Minds a while back]. I have not yet given it the attention that it deserves as a possible option for anthropologists.

The biggest factor driving green OA are funder and especially institutional OA mandates (touched upon above). Those who are most eager to promote OA in anthropology can work locally to establish mandates in their home institutions. When a university such as Kansas or California or a college such as Oberlin, or when (hypothetically) a research institute, applied anthropology agency or museum, establish a green OA mandate, this has the almost immediate effect of educating the entire research community at such an institution about the issues that we have been talking about, above and beyond the obvious direct benefit of bringing a large portion of that institution’s research output into the OA domain. Such mandates can be established at the school or department level in instances where an institution-wide mandate cannot yet be achieved. The most prominent and persistent advocate for green OA and for green OA mandates is cognitive scientist Steven Harnad, who makes the case consistently and forcefully, on the basis of much evidence, at his website Open Access Archivangelism.

Read the rest on Savage Minds, here.

Quote of the week: John Hawks

2011-11-07T22:01:00.001-05:00

From John Hawks' latest post about publishing and open access:

"Seems to me that integrating online discussion into the academic literature would be done most simply by exploiting the system most widely used for citation tracking in the literature itself -- and that many blogs (including mine) already track. However, adding DOI to content turns out to involve an expensive membership to a cartel run by publishers."

Read the rest, here.

Anthropology & Open Access: An Interview with Jason Baird Jackson (Savage Minds)

2011-11-07T09:38:00.000-05:00

During the last few weeks I had the chance to conduct an email based interview with Jason Baird Jackson about Open Access (OA), academic publishing, and anthropology (cross-posted on Savage Minds)...

Ryan Anderson: Thanks for doing this interview, Jason. My first question is really basic: What IS open access all about, and how is it any different from standard academic publishing?

Jason Baird Jackson: Its a pleasure to have this chance to talk about open access (hereafter, OA). When I am asked to recommend an explanation of what OA is about, I usually point colleagues to the basic introductory documents assembled by philosopher and OA strategist Peter Suber. His one page "Very Brief Introduction to Open Access" is a great place to start. It begins noting: "Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder." There is much more that scholarly authors, societies, publishers, and libraries need to know about OA, but this is a good start. The features that Suber notes in this sentence comprise the basic differences that you are searching for.

OA evokes different things for different people and interest groups. I suspect that we will touch on some of the range of concerns that these actors bring to the topic. For a time, it made sense to speak of OA as an alternative to standard academic publishing but I do not think that this framing works any longer. While OA represents a significant set of transformations in what we might think of as the inherited scholarly publishing domain, OA is now at the heart of standard academic publishing. That does not mean that there is agreement about the issues or about emergent practices or even about the definition of basic terms. My "its all one system now" view just acknowledges such facts on the ground as the reality that we now have academic authors publishing in "gold OA" journals without even realizing that such a nameable kind of publication exists as such. On the other side of the ledger, the largest commercial publishers are fully, if sometimes begrudgingly, involved in open access through their having acceded to public, university, and funder demands for what is called "green OA" and via their author-pays approaches to gold and "hybrid” OA". (We'll touch on these modes, perhaps.) While people like me tend to talk about OA as a means towards a dramatic transformation of scholarly communication, one aimed at making it more sustainable, accountable, ethical, public, etc., commercial publishers increasingly describe OA as just another business model. We are debating and rebuilding the same publishing system even if, at times, and in some senses, it seems like OA advocates are creating an alternative infrastructure for the discovery, circulation, evaluation, and reuse of scholarly research outputs.

It can be treated as a different topic, one that we need only acknowledge and not discuss, but I just used the terribly clumsy phrase "research outputs" as a way of highlighting the parallel transformations that we are experiencing in the system of scholarly genres. Running alongside the OA transformation, the canonical genres—journal article and scholarly book—are being remixed and destabilized in countless ways. For anthropology, these generic changes are different from those that followed the field's "writing culture" debates. Earlier, we wondered what we could say in a book. Now we wonder what a book is. In your own corner of the new territory, I could ask: Is your anthropologies project a journal, a scholarly website, a weblog? Do your authors know? Such questions are increasingly present and point to what a time of experimentation we are in. OA advocates in anthropology have been particularly attentive to this related-but-not-the-same issue of genre. That said, the core of the OA discussion has been the journal article as we've known it and few would deny its continued centrality as the currency of the academic realm.

RA: These are really fascinating questions, and I want to see if we can get into them some more. This whole subject of genres and different media or publication outcomes seems like a crucial issue to me. In some senses, I think that anthropology is trapped in a very old model--we all just look to produce books, and articles in top-rated journals. As for your questions about what the anthropologies project is--I wonder this all the time but am not sure what to tell people. (See Michael E. Smith's recent post about this very issue, and Jason's response.) What I have noticed is that calling it a blog can potentially lead people to take it less seriously--as in, "Oh, it's just a blog you're working on, I see." The irony of course is the free blog platform has the same POTENTIAL as The American Anthropologist does to display words, ideas, and images. The difference between them is the social and political systems in which they exist and are used and understood. I mean, the same words show up, so the limits are actually imposed by us.

So, I have two sets of questions that come to mind with all of this. First, what's the difference between Green OA and Gold OA? Does this difference really matter? Second, what's the difference between the "just another business model" view on the one hand (i.e. the way that some publishers are looking at this) and the position of OA advocates in anthropology who are rethinking what you call "scholarly research outputs"? Are these positions fundamentally at odds with one another?

JBJ: Your first question, about green and gold OA is a good place to start because it represents the kind of basic factual information that all academic authors need to know. We can learn a lot from resources easily found online. Peter Suber's slightly longer "Open Access Overview" is one great resource among several. Understanding green and gold "paths" to OA is one of several key distinctions necessary for making sense of the shifting academic publishing landscape. I have used the phrase "terms of art" when talking about such key concepts previously and I fear that folks have not realized that I was making a specific point in describing them in that way. The phrase "term of art" refers to words or phrases that have, in a legal sense, a very precise meaning within a subject area. To not know them or to have vague understandings of them stops or derails conversation and effective action. We see such counterproductive slippage when our friends in anthropology use the phrase "open source" (a software development strategy) synonymously with "open access" (an approach to the circulation of scholarly research). When I am at my most frustrated, I think that an unwillingness to master the basic terms and concepts has contributed to the muddled mess that conversations on anthropology publishing have tended to become. Then I calm down and try to go back to trying to learn more as a student of such things and to teach better as an interested community member.

Suber notes that there are two main vehicles for "delivering OA to research articles, OA journals ("gold OA") and OA repositories ("green OA")." The journal that I presently edit--Museum Anthropology Review (MAR)--is a gold OA journal. Every item published in the journal is openly available online at no cost. There are many issues in the mix, but for now it is enough to note that in a gold OA journal, the content is born digital and, more relevantly, born open. When people speak of an OA journal, journals like MAR, First Monday, or Asian Ethnology are what people have in mind. Like their "toll access" counterparts, OA journals usually engage in peer-review (for articles), have editors and editorial boards, regular publication schedules and all the rest of the inhered apparatus of scholarly journal publishing. They have different business models (of which there are several) than toll access journals because they do not rely on restricting access and collecting subscriptions, pay-per-view fees, and other tolls.

The universe of "green OA" centers on a kind of database known as a repository. Repositories are usually organized around a discipline (arXiv [physics] and PubMed Central [medicine] are examples) or a research institution (DASH [Harvard University] and TopSCHOLAR [Western Kentucky University] are examples). Repositories could be created by funders or other interested parties, but for technical reasons that I'll set aside for now, institutional repositories are the most prominent and promising type.

When university faculties impose "OA mandates" upon themselves (as Harvard’s faculty and hundreds of others have already done) or when a funder makes "OA deposit" a condition of acceptance for a grant, these actors are not insisting that a scholar-author must publish in an (gold) OA journal such as Oral Tradition or Cultural Analysis, they are insisting that the scholar-author make their work freely available online via a repository. What does that mean, literally? It means that some version of the scholar's journal article is uploaded (as a file with associated metadata) and permanently archived in a central digital database (repository). Such repositories make the work discoverable and accessible to interested readers. The metadata associated with such works can be harvested by broad search tools like Google Scholar and narrower projects such as Open Folklore (the OA promotion and portal project for folklore and ethnology that I work on). Such search tools lead users to the actual work where it lives and is accessible in its home repository.

What does the "archived" or "deposited" work look like? Here we go again with some unavoidable terms of art, but first I need to make clear that green OA articulates with the toll access journal landscape. When we say that subscription-based journals such as Comparative Studies in Society and History, Ethnohistory, or Economic Botany "support" OA, we mean that they have policies that allow their authors to make their work openly available as an individual matter outside the main publication channel provided by the journals themselves. The normative (and best) way to do this is via repository "deposit." Here come the key terms. The phrase "green OA" means that SOME version of the article can be made available in OA form via a repository (or some other means, such as a personal website). To make sense of what is and isn't allowed under the terms of individual journal author's agreements, one needs to know the difference between a "pre-print" and a "post-print" and an "publisher's version." My favorite source for explicating this differences is the informational page accompanying the RoMEO database. RoMEO is a resource for learning about the OA policies of different journals. In a nutshell, a pre-print is the version of an article as it exists in manuscript form prior to its being peer-reviewed and accepted by a journal. A post-print is an article manuscript as it has been modified by its author(s) on the basis of peer-reivew. The post-print version is the final version that an author submits to an editor in anticipation that the work will then enter the journal's production processes, which will include such steps as copyediting and typesetting. If you look at a pre-print or a post-print, it has the hallmarks of (and usually is) an author-produced document. These versions look and feel different from the publisher's version, which is the final document that is actually published. To look at them, such versions have been typeset or formatted according to journal standards. In a digital context, such versions have often been "marked up" with technical coding that allows for various enhancements. Underneath, they may also carry digital rights management (DRM) technologies that prevent, or seek to hinder, unauthorized uses (piracy). If you download an article in PDF form from JSTOR or ProjectMuse or Wiley Online Library, you are looking at a publisher's version.

A journal is "green" if an author is allowed to freely circulate at least their accepted post-print. Some journals also allow authors to freely circulate and deposit the publisher's version, but this is uncommon. Most publishers see all of the work that they put into turning a post-print into a published article as their investment and they are not inclined to give it away. In contrast, some publishers (again, the minority) ask authors to deposit the publisher's version because they see it as the version that will best reflect upon the quality work done by the press in question. It is my understanding that this view is behind the OA policies of the University of California Press Journals program. The important thing to note here is that two toll access journals can both be "green" but can allow or not allow different things vis-a-vis repository deposit by authors. I have touched on it elsewhere but I want to stress again that many nice people in anthropology are breaking the law (i.e. are out of compliance with their signed author agreements) because they have made publisher's versions of their articles available online via personal or departmental websites when they are not allowed to do so.

What is the difference then between green and gold? We can answer that question from the perspective of different actors. For an interested would-be reader with internet access but without access to the information resources paid for by a major research library, both paths are great.

Everything in a gold OA journal is readily discoverable and available in neat and tidy form. If an author publishing in a toll access journal had made her work accessible via the green OA path, then that work too is available to our interested reader. In post-print form, it may not look as tidy as the published version, but the ideas are there and useable, which is worth a lot. If our author is employed by a university that has imposed an OA mandate, then vast amounts of valuable information is being made available. Because so few academic authors know about these processes, our reader is much less likely to be able to gain access to writings by authors affiliated with non-mandate institutions. Still, one need not (as an author) be subject to a mandate in order to participate in OA publishing along either path.

For an author, the differences between green and gold are likely to seem significant. If a junior author has been told, in unambiguous terms, that she needs to publish in journals X, Y, and Z in order to be favorably evaluated for tenure and promotion (and I am simplifying and exaggerating for rhetorical purposes), then she is likely to aim for those journals regardless of whether they are gold or green (or even yellow [pre-print only] or white [no OA allowed]. Much here depends on the journal landscape within a field.

If well-established journals in a field give up their subscription-based business model and convert to gold OA [two close to home examples are Asian Ethnology and Oral Tradition], then the status of those journals is usually not diminished by this move. After 155 years, The Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society are no more or less prestigious because the APS allows the whole world to read its content for free. Still, many gold OA journals are "start ups" and authors may have anxieties about journal stature. Here, the passage of time is sorting out the quality questions. All the old evaluation criteria, like acceptance rates, editorial boards, and "Is this content any good?" still apply. Despite the rise of bibliometrics, different fields still have different attitudes about journal prestige. Cultural anthropology, and folklore studies even more, have historically been very flat relative to other fields in which there is a clear pecking order. Few of us would want to defend an argument that the Journal of Anthropological Research is somehow categorically better or worse than Anthropological Quarterly. They have their own communities, traditions and histories, but they belong to a broad peer group that would include numerous other titles. Cultural anthropology's indifference to (mainly) or resistance to impact factor rankings stems from such perceptions.

Be that as it may, for authors, where you publish usually matters a lot for a lot of reasons. If a stressed out, untenured person is working under the shadow of journal hierarchy talk, she is going to choose accordingly. If she is committed to OA for ethical reasons (like social justice) and/or for selfish reasons (like self-promotion), she may need to publish (for the present) in toll access journals. She can usually choose those with green OA policies and then utilize a repository at her home institution to make available post-prints of her work. In the absence of a repository at her home institution, she can hopefully turn to one at an institution at which she can muster some kind of secondary affiliation. Alternatively she may be able to find a subject repository suitable to, and willing to take, her work. In a worst-case scenario, she can make her post-prints available on a personal website (up until the time when she can gain access to a repository). [If a journal's author agreement does not allow automatically for green OA repository deposit, she can still negotiate for such rights individually using free and easy to use legal tool like the Scholars Copyright Addendum Engine from Science Commons.

For publishers and libraries, the green-gold distinction is huge. If, and how, a publisher engages with OA is fundamental to that publisher's business model. There are a growing number of different ways that publishers, both for-profit and not-for-profit (including scholarly societies) are making it work. Publishing costs money, hence every kind of publisher has to have some workable business model. We may touch on business models before we are done, but here I will just note that under present conditions, green OA (as we have it now) is seen as compatible with the preservation of the older subscription-based toll access journal system. We are not presently at a stage in which green OA has made scholarship sufficiently accessible in free-to-end-users ways as to (in and of itself) cause subscription cancelations by libraries. The later possibility is why toll access publishers are generally so opposed to OA mandates. Letting the occasional author post a stray article here or there has not been a game changer. If everyone everywhere started doing it, the story would probably be different. I am already going on and on and probably cannot do justice to what we might call the deeper "structural" issues that are visible from the vantage point of the two great parties whose relationship can now be fairly characterized as antagonistic--libraries and publishers. My Indiana University colleague David Lewis (Dean of Libraries at IUPUI) has recently authored a very interesting analysis of open access journal dynamics in light of these structural issues. I strongly recommend his paper for an account of these issues and some predictions on where things are headed.

One last set of points about green and gold. While it is not perfect (as evidenced by Museum Anthropology Review not being included within it), the Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ) is the main resource for discovering gold OA journals across disciplines. To learn about, and compare, the OA policies of various toll access journals, the place to look is the SHERPA/RoMEO database. (Among other things, SHERPA/RoMEO tells you whether a journal is green or not.) To find out what universities, departments, research institutes, etc. have adopted OA mandates, consult the Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies (ROARMAP) databse. To find the OA repositories that exist in the world, the place to look is the Director of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).

To be continued...

NPR's Planet Money: Amartya Sen and the not so invisible hand

2011-11-03T09:50:00.000-04:00

Check it out on NPR:

Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg chat with Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics, about his new book, The Idea of Justice, and its critique of the theory of social justice. Sen spends time in his book, and on the podcast, talking about what he sees as common misinterpretations of Adam Smith's oft-cited but perhaps more complex embrace of an absolute free market.

Here's the link.

PS: The first part of the podcast is about the late economist Paul Samuelson. The part on Sen starts at around 11:00.

40,000 Murders Since 2006 (Mexico)

2011-10-27T12:08:00.000-04:00

From a recent article on Time.com by Ioan Grillo:

In his comprehensive and compelling new book, El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency, British correspondent Ioan Grillo, who also reports for TIME, narrates the Mexican underworld's "radical transformation from drug smugglers into paramilitary death squads ... a criminal insurgency that poses the biggest armed threat to Mexico since its 1910 revolution." Grillo outlines both the Mexican and American policy failures that fostered the crisis, which has produced 40,000 murders south of the border since 2006. More important, he offers a rare and unsettling look into the lives of ordinary Mexicans and other Latin Americans "sucked into [the drug war] or victimized by it."

Read the rest here.

WT Vollmann on the "rules" for writing (1990)

2011-10-26T22:46:00.000-04:00

Here are William T. Vollmann's rules for writing:

     1. We should never write without feeling.
     2. Unless we are much more interesting than we imagine we are, we should strive to feel not only about Self, but also about Other. Not the vacuum so often between Self and Other. Not the unworthiness of Other. Not the Other as a negation or eclipse of Self. Not even about the Other exclusive of Self, because that is but a trickster-egoist's way of worshiping Self secretly. We must treat Self and Other as equal partners. (Of course I am suggesting nothing new. I do not mean to suggest anything new. Health is. more important than novelty.)
     3. We should portray important human problems.
     4. We should seek for solutions to those problems. Whether or not we find them, the seeking will deepen the portrait.
     5. We should know our subject, treating it with the respect with which Self must treat Other. We should know it in all senses, until our eyes are bleary from seeing it, our ears ring from listening to it, our muscles ache from embracing it, our gonads are raw from making love to it. (If this sounds pompous, it is perhaps because I wear thick spectacles.)
     6. We should believe that truth exists.
     7. We should aim to benefit others in addition to ourselves

From here. As with any set of rules, you don't really have to listen to any of them. But you can if you want to. Especially if you're stuck in grad school and feel like your writing has gone to hell with all of the formulaic grant proposals you have been working on. Just an idea that I pulled out of thin air. Nothing to see here...

Anthropology & Intellectual Reconstruction

2011-10-26T08:17:00.000-04:00

Over at the "Democracy in America" blog at The Economist, M.S. has a new post that replies to Florida Governor Rick Scott's recent "we don't need no anthropologists" statement. The author provides a rehash of the whole debacle, and then quotes Arizona State University president Michael Crow's response to the situation:

[R]esolving the complex challenges that confront our nation and the world requires more than expertise in science and technology. We must also educate individuals capable of meaningful civic participation, creative expression, and communicating insights across borders. The potential for graduates in any field to achieve professional success and to contribute significantly to our economy depends on an education that entails more than calculus.

Curricula expressly tailored in response to the demands of the workforce must be balanced with opportunities for students to develop their capacity for critical thinking, analytical reasoning, creativity, and leadership—all of which we learn from the full spectrum of disciplines associated with a liberal arts education. Taken together with the rigorous training provided in the STEM fields, the opportunities for exploration and learning that Gov. Scott is intent on marginalizing are those that have defined our national approach to higher education.

M.S. argues that Crow's statement is "a solid response," but that something more is needed: "What it lacks are rhetorical oomph and concrete examples." So what can provide that extra OOMPH and rhetorical power? Actual examples of anthropologists putting their training and knowledge to work:

Some of the best analysis of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, and of the ongoing follies on Wall Street these days, has been produced by the Financial Times' Gillian Tett. Ms Tett began warning that collateralised debt obligations and credit-default swaps were likely to lead to a major financial implosion in 2005 or so. The people who devise such complex derivatives are generally trained in physics or math. Ms Tett has a PhD in anthropology.

Read the rest on Savage Minds, here.

LA Times: "Kumeyaay living in Baja offer glimpse into the past"

2011-09-30T11:10:00.001-04:00

Check out this great LA Times video about the Kumeyaay in northern Baja California. It features Mike Wilken, on of my former colleagues from San Diego State, who does some great work on the histories of the Kumeyaay. The photographer/videographer is Don Bartletti, a photographer I have admired for a long time. Check it out!

Mesa Verde, May 2011

2011-09-30T10:54:00.000-04:00

Spaces that inspire (a walk downtown)

2011-09-29T17:14:00.002-04:00

Three from the state fair, 2010

2011-09-29T17:07:00.000-04:00

Backyard anthropology #1: Culturally Defined "Bad Plants" Edition

2011-09-29T15:40:00.000-04:00

Bad plants, you ask? I'm talking about weeds, people. You know, those resilient botanical "pests" that pervade gardens, lawns, and yards and require the intervention of the lethal products designed by Monsanto. Plants that are so bad, so terrible, so pernicious that we need to poison them with all of our industrial might. Ya, those plants. The funny thing, though, is that the very definition of what is and what is not a weed is very much a matter of social learning. Nobody is born with the automatic knowledge that dandelions are not pretty flowers; we have to learn that they nothing more than evil little plants that only want to suck the life out of the putting green that is the front lawn. At least, that's the so-called "common knowledge" about weeds, and many of us simply go along with it. We follow the instructions and advice of the plant gurus who tell us which ones are "good" and which ones deserve nothing more than the botanical death sentence.

The irony is that the definition of what is and what is not a weed is certainly a matter of social learning. That's right: what we think of as weeds all depends on how we were taught to categorize and value certain plants. Some plants are weeds because they are not "indigenous," an argument that gets more slippery as you go further back in time. When, after all, do we set the botanical boundary for indigeneity One hundred years ago? A thousand? Ten thousand? As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered."

Just the other day I was looking over a nice selection of acceptable and unacceptable plants at my mom's house in California. One that caught my attention is the notorious "spurge," which sounds like something that floods into town and devastates everything in it's path. Watch out! The spurge is coming into town. I mean, it's a weed after all. But what do I know? I thought it looked kinda cool, and might be suitable as a cheap, resilient ground cover or something. But, alas, numerous online plant and gardening sources informed me that spurge is little more than an evil plant that deserves only the treatment that companies like Monsanto can dream up. That's right: it's in the botanical category of plants that requires THE DEATH SENTENCE.

All of this leads me to a recent NPR segment "'Weeds': In Defense of Botany's Cockroach." If you have ever wondered why some plants get such a bad rap, this is a great piece to check out.

Ah, doesn't ZERO PERCENT sound good to you?

2011-09-28T23:31:00.001-04:00

More publishing fun:

Found this via Jason Baird Jackson.

Wall Street, Economics, Anthropology & Protests

2011-09-26T20:14:00.000-04:00

Lorenz has a good new post about the recent "Occupy Wall Street" protests. Here's a selection:

While the Guardian is sending an anthropologist on fieldwork among bankers to give us insight in the destructive culture of finance, thousands of people in New York are occupying the Wall Street, “the financial Gomorrah of America” and “greatest corrupter of our democracy”.

Inspired by the massive public protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and Madrid’s Puerta del Sol Square, hundreds have slept outside near Wall Street for the past three nights. The campaign “Occupy Wall Street” began on Saturday when thousands gathered in New York City’s Financial District.

As Egyptian researcher Maha Abdelrahman said a few months ago, we might be witness to a global revolutionary movement against neoliberalism.

The post also includes this video of anthropologist David Graeber on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now:

Check out the video, and make sure to read through the entirety of Lorenz's post. Considering all of the debates about debt these days, it makes sense to look deeper into exactly what it's all about. I just got Graeber's book recently, and I am looking forward to reading it. One thing that economic anthropologists add to these discussions that economists tend to forget is HISTORY.

OAC e-seminar in progress (SEP 26--OCT 7)!

2011-09-26T14:35:00.000-04:00

I am taking part in an e-seminar this week and next week over at the OAC. The seminar is based upon a working paper (here's the link) that I wrote about about my research on the politics of tourism and development in Baja California Sur. It's a piece that combines a historical approach with anthropological discussions of value. It is basically a background and foundation for how I am going to approach my upcoming fieldwork (I am working to get into the field asap). And, since all of this is very much a work in progress, I am hoping to hear what some of you out there in the internets have to say. So, stop by and check it out if you have time. Even better, leave a comment or two. Don't be shy! The discussion lasts for a while, so there's time to peruse the paper then post a question, comment, etc. It's all pretty wide open. If you haven't joined the OAC, now is as good a time as any!

PS: Thanks to Keith Hart, Justin Shaffner, and everyone else at OAC for this opportunity!

Grad life looks something like this...

2011-09-24T12:06:00.000-04:00

Gasland (what's in your water?)

2011-09-21T20:32:00.000-04:00

Just saw this documentary called Gasland. Have you seen it? Maybe you should check it out:

Errol Morris, Truth & Photography

2011-09-21T10:06:00.001-04:00

I recently wrote a post on Savage Minds about NY Times photographer Damon Winter, who stirred up some controversy when he used the "hipstamatic" app on his iPhone to create a photo-essay about US troops in Iraq. Some people felt that his use of the app put the authenticity or veracity of his images into question--others argued that photography is always about making certain stylistic, technical, and editorial choices.

So, to keep the discussion about truth and photography going for a bit, check out this NPR piece called "Errol Morris looks for truth outside photographs."

Use what you got

2011-09-19T16:57:00.003-04:00

"The fact is that relatively few photographers ever master their medium. Instead they allow the medium to master them and go on an endless squirrel cage chase from new lens to new paper to new developer to new gadget, never staying with one piece of equipment long enough to learn its full capacities, becoming lost in a maze of technical information that is of little or no use since they don't know what to do with it."

- Edward Weston

A walk in the park (with spatial matters on the brain)

2011-09-18T18:43:00.003-04:00

Over the past year or so I have been reading a lot more work that focuses on issues such as space, place, and nature. More anthropologists have been looking into these issues in the past ten years. Setha Low and Teresa Caldeira are two really good examples. I have also been reading a lot of work by geographers--Neil Smith, Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja, Doreen Massey, and others. Soja argues that while many researchers in the social sciences and humanities take consideration of things like culture and history as fundamental, they often neglect concerns about space. This is an important point. Regardless, the more I read along these lines, the more it infects my thinking. This is a good thing. Take, for example, this set of images. They were taken during a recent walk in a nearby park, when I was working on some geographical readings. Parks are pretty fascinating places. People go to them to experience "nature," but it's a very ordered, constructed, bounded, manicured, and ultimately human induced sort of nature. We like to make "nature," in essence, with our gardens, walls, pathways, and such. Anyway, here's a few of those images, with some captions for good measure.

This one is technically on the way to the park, but the strange spatial matters are already apparent. Grass plays an interesting role in our landscaping and understanding of nature. This is the theme that runs through all of these images. Grass is everywhere, but it's very much shaped by our ideas and actions. What I like most about this one is the fact that the grass is clearly creeping it's way back across the sidewalk. Nature requires constant attention to keep it looking pretty and in check--otherwise it runs rampant and we might lose our way.

Here is where the flower garden ends, cut into an unmistakable corner to separate the planted area from the surrounding field of grass. What is most striking is how geometric this is, and how it reflects an explicit way of thinking about and arranging space. The flowers go here. And the planter ends, here. Notice, once again, the invading weeds that seek to undermine all of these great designs.

We often think about what we can see on the surface, not what exists below. Imagine all of the roots and passageways that exist below places like this. This image is particularly Deleuzian/Guattarian for me, and I am not trying to be obtuse. Deleuze and Guattari talked a lot about rhizomes, and this image is a fascinating example of a human induced rhizomatic system that runs underneath the leisurely and "natural" park system. These two metal covers are just a hint of what lies below.

Another curving pathway, with trees places in pleasing locations alongside the path. Here is a clear division between where the pedestrian is supposed to walk and where most do not. But some cross the threshold and march across the grass. Why? What makes someone want to wander around through the grass? Better yet, what makes the vast majority of people follow the pre-planned asphalt path? Why, when faced with this situation, do many of us simply go along with the order and routine of the space?

We often think that there are clear boundaries between nature and non-nature. But look closely at the edge of this walkway--one bleeds into another, and the division isn't even static. The grass keeps pushing and growing, and has to be beaten back by machines with spinning blades and such. The battle to define and bound nature is endless, and violent. No matter...the asphalt keeps cracking, and the grass will probably win out eventually. Regardless, both are products of human intervention.

I am not going to say a lot about this one because if you look at it in a certain way it speaks for itself. This is a clearly defined space for "being in nature." Fascinating. The concrete pad is the best part. Sit here to view nature.

I am going to end with this one, which shows how intertwined humans are with the environments they produce. These places reflect ideas about space and the so-called natural world, and they are also places full of memories. Parks are often marked with memorials like this, so that new people who pass through can remember others who came before them. Notice, once again, the role that the grass plays in all of this. It not only frames the tree, it also rings the marker itself. Gardeners have to work to maintain this aesthetic segregation.

Cross-Posted at Plurality Press.

Barbara Fister on Tending the "Walled Gardens"

2011-09-13T17:33:00.001-04:00

Here's the conclusion of Barbara Fister's recent piece "Where There is no Vision, We Publish and Perish." The last three paragraphs are so good I had to include them all:

An old King James Bible line just came to me, which happens if you're old enough and were taught by nuns: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Turns out there’s another piece to that proverb that complicates the meaning a bit: “but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” (Proverbs, 29:18) It doesn’t sound as classy in the NRSV: “Where there is no prophecy, the people cast off restraint, but happy are those who keep the law.”

It seems to me the law we should follow is that old fashioned notion that the truth will set us free, and our job as scholars is to seek the truth and share it as widely as we can. We’re letting self-interest - in furthering our careers, boosting our institutional reputations, and protecting our disciplinary territory – divert us from that fundamental law. And I, for one, am not happy.

It’ll cost money. It’ll take some serious work to hammer out the agreements, just as it took a lot of work for JSTOR to get publishers on board in the first place. But we need to do more for the world than tend our little walled gardens. We can do better. Where's that visionary thinking that started the whole thing?

Take the time to read the rest, here.

Anthropology: Open Access & Academic Publishing Reading List

2011-09-13T17:07:00.002-04:00

There have been a lot of recent posts and discussions about the state of affairs in academic publishing, and other important issues such as open access. Here's a compilation of a few of the more recent posts:

Jason Baird Jackson:

The AAA/Wiley is already a Green OA Publisher

How Enclosed by Large For-Profit Publishers is the Anthropology Journal Literature?

On “Academic Publishers Make Murdoch Look like a Socialist”

Page Proofs ≠ Post-Prints; Websites ≠ Repositories

Christopher Kelty:

Where your money and your articles meet

How Not to Run a University Press (or How Sausage is Made)

Alex Golub:

Big Content runs 66% of our journals, but the Open Access shortfall is our fault

Open access anthropology needs a civil service

Peter Suber:

Open Access Overview

George Monbiot:

Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist

Barbara Fister:

Where There Is No Vision, We Publish and Perish

Lorenz:

"Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist": A call for action

Project Gutenberg

2011-09-12T11:10:00.002-04:00

"Michael Hart, the inventor of the e-book and the founder of Project Gutenberg, passed away this week at his home in Urbana, Illinois. He was 64. Project Gutenberg has published an obituary, as have most major newspapers. That’s not surprising: his impact on the Internet and his vision of a future of open accessible content are profoundly important."

Read the rest, here.

Matt Thompson: "Let public anthropology be fast, cheap, and out of control."

2011-09-07T01:04:00.000-04:00

Matt Thompson just wrote a fantastic post over at SM. Here's the end of it:

What I’m trying to say is don’t sit around waiting for the next Margaret Mead. And anthropology doesn’t become more relevant to Jose Six-pack once we cross Marshall Sahlins with Marshall Mathers. We can all be public intellectuals of a local, non-celebrity sort. Find something where you are, some way to play a role however small and do it. It doesn’t have to be hard. You don’t have to write a grant. Just share what you know and what you do with the people around you. Let public anthropology be fast, cheap, and out of control.

Now, go read the beginning and middle, here.

Jason Baird Jackson on Anthropology & Academic Publishing

2011-09-05T09:59:00.002-04:00

Following some recent discussions on Savage Minds, Jason Baird Jackson has a new post that explores the enclosure of anthropological journal literature by for-profit publishers. This is definitely well worth a read. Here's the intro:

It is early fall and that means that it is the season for anthropologists to think out loud about the publishing ecology characterizing their field. As American anthropologists await final confirmation that their national association has renewed its publishing agreement with Wiley-Blackwell, the annual conversation has been renewed at Savage Minds [here] and [here] and elsewhere. Anthropologists have been reading and circulating George Monblot’s essay in The Guardian “Academic Publishers Make Murdock Look Like a Socialist” and the essay has, it seems, awoken some new interest in the anthropology publishing debates that have have been ongoing for many years now.

Read the rest, here.

Mintz: A sense of purpose

2011-09-04T13:20:00.000-04:00

"Studies of the everyday in modern life, of the changing character of mundane matters like food, viewed from the joined perspective of production and consumption, use and function, and concerned with the differential emergence and variation of meaning, may be one way to inspirit a discipline now dangerously close to losing its sense of purpose."

--Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power 1985: 213.

anthropologies #6 (the anthro-geography issue)

2011-09-02T10:02:00.004-04:00

Anthropology & Geography

September 2011

~ Contents ~

Introduction to this issue
Ryan Anderson

Anthropology and Geography: A materialist synthesis between disciplines
Aaron Kappeler & Patrick Bigger

The anthropologist as adolescent
Kristin Monroe

Political Ecology: an interdisciplinary bridge
Brian Grabbatin

Reflections on the Disciplinary Intersection of Geography and Anthropology
in the American Academy
Tim Brock

Disciplines unbound?:
Some thoughts on the maintenance and transcendence of academic boundaries
Scott Matter

Dashboard Scribbles: Nonacademic Thoughts on Academia, Geography, and Anthropology
Annemarie Galeucia

Settlement Patterns and Cultural Ecology: Geography and Anthropology
Caitlyn Yoshiko McNabb

Fred Kniffen and Lousisiana State University Geography and Anthropology:
Representing the Nexus and (Plural) Cultural Study
Garrett Wolf & Caitlyn Yoshiko McNabb

Franz Boas: Geographer/Anthropologist
Ryan Anderson

Photo: Anza-Borrego Desert, 2006 by Ryan Anderson.

the search for anthropology in public, part II

2011-08-24T11:34:00.000-04:00

Whenever I go into a bookstore, I always check out the anthropology section (see part I here). A curious habit, or custom, or something like that. What can I say? I have my routines. I like to see what happens to be on the shelves and compare that to my own understandings of what contemporary anthropology is all about. I imagine that this is some sort of litmus test that tells us something about the state of anthropology in the public sphere. Maybe, maybe not. More about that shortly. So, the last time I did this informal empirical investigation, the results were similar to past experiences: not phenomenal. The most "anthropological" books included:

1. Composing a Life by Mary Catherine Bateson

2. The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond

3. 1491 by Charles Mann

4. Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna

Bateson's was the only book I saw that was written by an actual anthropologist. How it is that only one anthropologist happens to be in the anthropology section is beyond me. This was a particularly skewed sample, I'll admit--usually there's at least a Wade Davis, Margaret Mead, or even Sir James Frazier in the mix. Not this time. The rest of the section was incredibly eclectic, and included everything from books by Drew Pinsky to one by Maira Kalman (which does look pretty cool, though not what I would define as anthropology). Some of this eclectic-ness had to be due to some restocking malfunctions, undoubtedly, but overall the section on anthropology was, as is often the case, a strange and somewhat askew reflection of the discipline. Yes, that is an opinion. And now, it's time for some questions...

Read the rest on Savage Minds, here.

Zizek on how he defines himself

2011-08-20T20:50:00.000-04:00

When asked in an interview how he defines himself, here's what Slavoj Zizek has to say:

I don’t define myself. I hate myself. If you ask me to define myself at gun point putting a gun to my head and tell me ‘tell me, if you don’t, I’ll shoot you’. Then I would say ‘I am a Hegelian Philosopher’. This is what interests me more than anything. The goal is Hegel, more than Lacan, more than Marx. We are just analyzing culture. It’s over now. We need what we once called ‘return to Metaphysical questions.’ We need what we call ‘Big Philosophy’. We need again to ask, ‘what is this universe?’, ‘What is freedom?’ and so on.

From here.

Wasting away again in Grantlandia

2011-08-17T22:02:00.000-04:00

...searching for my lost book by Bernard. Ya, that title needs to be read with the underlying melody of a certain Jimmy Buffet song, which is always good to hear when you are mired in the depths of the purgatory that is academic grant writing. That's where I happen to be trapped at present. Please feel free to send me a postcard, or say hi if you happen to be down here too. If you know the way out, at least leave some bread crumbs to mark the path. Seriously.

Moving on to the heart of the matter: I am in that special stage of graduate school where I spend the majority of my time attempting to create the perfect little document that will help me get that BIG, IMPORTANT GRANT so that I can actually go into the field and move on with my research. For some reason that perfect little document remains elusive. It is more than likely my own fault, rather than some macro-structural issue. There is definitely a learning curve when it comes to making appeals to that complex funding machine that few people truly understand. When it comes to getting that BIG, IMPORTANT GRANT, I happen to be zero for two at this point. So if this were a baseball game, I would be in literal and metaphorical trouble. But, I could always get inspiration from one of the all-time great hitters like Rod Carew, and pull off a clutch ninth inning hit. That means money. End of metaphor.

Anyway, I happen to find grant writing incredibly excruciating on numerous levels. From what I hear around the halls of academia, I am definitely not alone. On the flip side, I can't imagine having to spend hours and hours reading one grant after another about the "complexities" or "nuances" of this or that particular social conundrum. Imagine that! The whole grant writing process is filled with real people--and that's a good thing to keep in mind. Let's not dehumanize the process, folks. We're all just people, trying to find our way in this world. Insert moody, yet pensive background music that makes us rethink our life priorities.

Enough pensiveness. Let's talk about the trials and travails of grant writing. I'll start, with some thoughts, questions, and observations that I have learned along the way. Then hopefully some of your will chime in and give me your two or three cents about the matter. Keep in mind the fact that I am not currently a grant writing MASTER, and realize that I am in the middle of working through all of this out too. I may never figure it out! If you are in the same fix, read along and join in. If you are not quite at this stage and terrified of the whole process, read along and join in. If you are in fact a grant writing master, read along and join in. If you are currently sitting on piles of grant money that you don't know what do to with...WHAT??! HOW?!? Just kidding. Please read along, everyone, and let's see if we can make that special place known as Grantlandia just a bit sunnier--or at least less horrifyingly stressful.

(in no particular order of importance)

1. Style. I am finding the question of style to be a little difficult at times. As you can see, I tend to be a little on the narrative side, but there just isn't a lot of space to GET NARRATIVE. So word choices need the Hemingway method, which is all about getting straight to the point. Hemingway is probably too wordy, but you get the point. Be concise.

2. Style, part II: On the other end of the spectrum, there is what I call the "citation dumping" issue. This is where you make a claim and then proceed to fill the next six lines with citations, like this: (Anderson 1977, 2009, 2011a, 20011b, 2012; Parsons 1919; Boas 1899; Kroeber 1945; Mead 1921; Farmer 2004; Malinowski 1928; Davis 1990; 2002; Low 2005, 2009..and so on). When is it enough? When is it going completely overboard? Does it depend on the actual grant in question? Does it depend on the point being raised? For me, this particular stylistic move is particularly unreadable, but I understand that it has a certain utility. I'd be interested to see what some others have to say about this.

3. Preparation. I read an essay by Michael Watts about writing grants called "The Holy Grail: In Pursuit of the PhD Proposal." Here is what he had to say: "One of the great curiosities of academia is that the art of writing a research proposal--arguably one of the most difficult and demanding tasks confronting any research student--is so weakly institutionalized." The essay is online here, along with some other great resources for proposal writing (thanks, UC Berkeley, for putting that online). Considering the difficulty and importance of this process, it seems like grant writing should be more integrated into the whole grad school process. Right? So why isn't this the case? Or is it actually the case, just not everywhere? Inquiring minds would like to know.

4. Eye strain. It's a good idea to look away from your computer screen every 20-30 minutes, at least for about 20 seconds. This decreases the need to utilize this stuff.

5. Reality check: So what happens when students don't get these grants? The what? Should they sit around for years on end waiting until they do get one, or find some other way to get themselves into the field? When is it time to either change the field site or the topic? This is a big question, and a huge problem in the overall political economy of grad school these days. If the money isn't there--or the research just isn't appealing to funding institutions--what should a grad student do?

6. The F-Word. No, not that f-word. I am talking about Foucault, and more generally about some of the issues with relying too heavily on THE BIG THINKERS THAT EVERYONE CITES YEAR AFTER YEAR. I learned this lesson the hard way the first time around, and then got some strategic advice about using THE BIG THINKERS. Use them wisely, and concisely. Also, keep in mind the fact that reviewers come from different theoretical camps: don't beat them over the head with your favorite BIG THINKER, because it might work against you. This was some of the best advice I received: If the reviewer is already on board with your particular theoretical camp, then it doesn't take much to let them know where you stand. The strategy comes into play when you learn how to put just enough so that it works on all fronts. I am still working on this, by the way.

7. Harry Wolcott said this: "For the most part, the research that gets attended to is research on topics that attracts money and status, political factors beyond the control researchers themselves." (In The Art of Fieldwork, 2005: 135). Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Does it all come down to politics? A bigger issue to keep in mind.

8. Remember the massive economic crisis of 2008? Ya, that's not over yet. So this means that funding is pretty constrained these days. Which makes it all the more imperative to really think about your budget. You don't want to be dismissed outright because you asked for 19 grand when you only *really* needed about three. Be realistic.

9. Follow the grant directions closely. Don't get disqualified on a technicality. Make sure that you actually answer the questions that the proposal guidelines ask, or that you have all of the required sections where they should be.

10. Question: What's the difference between a grant proposal and the actual research on the ground? What happens when all of those theories and methodological frameworks--written up for a grant competition to sound innovative and appealing--run into the messy realities of actual fieldwork? This leads to another question: Is grant writing really a good way to conceptualize an actual research plan? Is there a difference between creating a research plan and writing a competitive grant proposal? Should there be a difference?

11. Rejection. Look, don't take it personally, and be sure to really look at what the reviewers said--even if you disagree with them. You're going to face the same process again, and will need to defend your stance. Oftentimes, you get some pretty good ideas/feedback from those reviews,a and it can help you as you learn to navigate these kinds of processes. Learn from the experience, and keep going forward.

12. If at all possible, find some time to take a break every now and again. Grants matter, yes. And they are incredibly stressful to prepare. But, taking a short break can do wonders for mental clarity and creativity. Go outside, look at some trees, stare at the ocean for a while--whatever. It helps.

Cross-posted on Savage Minds

anthropologies #5: The physical/bioanth issue

2011-08-02T00:36:00.000-04:00

Anthropology Gets Physical (& Biological)

August 2011

Poster child for the synergy between culture and biology: the opposable thumb. Photo: Ryan Anderson, 2011.

~ Contents ~

Introduction: The anthropological clash
Ryan Anderson

Biocultural Bodies and the Anatomy of Controversy
Kristina Killgrove

Biological anthropology: providing the historical context for all your anthropological questions
Kristi Lewton

The Role of a Biological Perspective
Britteny Howell

Blurring the Lines: Ethnoprimatology in Anthropology
Amanda L. Ellwanger

Primatology as Anthropology
Nicholas Ellwanger

Bones of Study: The Bioarchaeology Perspective
Erin Blankenship-Sefczek

Selected References for Further Reading in Biological Anthropology
Britteny Howell

Anthros & Econs: Crossing the chasm

2011-07-23T15:06:00.000-04:00

The more I read about political economy and economic anthropology, the more I have wondered about the discipline of economics. What, exactly, are those economists up to, how do they approach their field of study, and why? I have read a good amount about modern economics, and how it differs from anthropology, but I haven't really read all that much from economists themselves (especially about method and theory). Sure, I read Krugman's blog, and I follow sites like Calculated Risk, Economist's View (Mark Thoma), and Economics and Ethics. One of my favorite econ blogs was written by the late Alison Snow Jones (aka "Maxine Udall"). She had a real talent for writing about and exploring the implications of economics in a very personal and fascinating way.* Still, I wonder why there isn't more of a conversation between anthropologists and economists. Especially considering our overlapping interests. So why is there such a chasm between the two disciplines? Is it because our ways of thinking about and analyzing human nature are soooooo different that there is no room for dialog, or what?

In a recent essay called "Anthropologists and the Economists Without History," Jason Antrosio wrote:

Many anthropologists receive a caricature of economics. This caricature has been promoted by neo-classical economists, who sought dominance and the erasure of heterogeneous approaches. Restoring a fuller history can help to promote a rapprochement between anthropology and economics.

I agree that anthropologists often have a limited picture of what economics is all about, and that we sometimes lump any and all economists in with the neo-classical folks. I, for one, am guilty of that, and I realize that I need to put some time in to learning more about what economists actually do if I want to move beyond arguments and understandings that are based upon mere caricatures. Not all economists think alike--and that's a pretty important point to keep in mind.

Jason also argues that a renewed focus on the history of economic thought might be a good way to bridge anthropology and economics. Interestingly, Loomnie recently posted something about a project that Bruce Caldwell--from Duke University--is heading, which focuses on putting discussions about methodology and the history of economic thought back into graduate training. Caldwell states that an emphasis on the history of economic thought has been absent from many economics graduate programs around the country for some time. Duke, apparently, is one place where this kind of training has survived. Check out the video and Caldwell's explanation of his Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke. Interesting, no?

I would really like to see how this history of economic thought is taught, and what (if any) overlap there is with anthropology (and economic anthropology more specifically). What kinds of readings are on the table, and does this open up a space for talking about human behavior and economics that moves beyond the standard neo-classical framework? Some day, actually, would like to spend some time learning how economics grad courses are taught--I really have no idea what they do, how they set up seminars, and why anthropology and economics ends up in such different places when it comes to ideas about human motivations, etc. I think it would be pretty fascinating, for instance, to sit in on some graduate seminars in economics--but that's just me. Dialog--or even debates--require some sort of mutual understanding to actually be interesting (and effective).

When was the last time that anthropologists and economists had a sustained conversation about their overlapping interests in human behavior? Was it waaaaaaay back in 1941 when Knight and Herskovitz had their little fireside chat? Was it during the infamous debate between the formalists and the substantivists? What would a renewed conversation--or even debate--between anthropologists and economists look like? Do we need some kind of collaboration or dialog between anthropologists and economists? What would we all hope to achieve with this? Is there room for dialog, or are the disciplines so theoretically, methodologically, and politically different that there is no possibility for productive engagement?

In their recent book Economic Anthropology, Chris Hann and Keith Hart write about one of their main goals: "We hope to persuade economists with real world concerns to take an interest in what anthropologists have discovered about the human economy, and in the kinds of theories we have advanced to understand it" (Hann and Hart 2011:9). However, they also make this point quite clear: "There is not much hope for dialogue with those who define economics exclusively as the application of an individualistic logic of utility maximization to all domains of social life" (Hann and Hart 2011:9). Ultimately, they say, "The project of economics needs to be rescued from the economists" (Hann and Hart 2011:162).

David Graeber, in his seminal book Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value, argues: "In fact, the effort to reconcile the two disciplines is in many ways inherently contradictory. This is because economics and anthropology were created with almost entirely opposite purposes in mind" (Graeber 2001:7).** Anthropologists and economists do approach the study of human behavior and society in some radically different ways. However, it's pretty safe to say that not all economists think alike--and the same can of course be said of anthropologists. So maybe, indeed, there is room for some sort of productive engagement.

One thing that does seem pretty clear to me is that anthropologists talk about economists much more than the reverse. When was the last time you saw an economist refer to an anthropologist in any way? Anthropologists, especially those with an economic bent, talk about economists and their BIG IDEAS all the time. The only problem? I am not sure there's really anyone on the other end of the metaphorical phone, if you know what I mean (they aren't necessarily all that concerned with the BIG IDEAS from anthropology). I could be wrong, but for the most part I do not think that economists spend much time, if any, reading about what anthropologists have to say about economic issues.

What does this mean? Well, considering the spate of economic "events" that have taken place since 2008, I think it's probably high time for anthropologists--who have more than their fair share of experience studying human behavior--to get themselves back into larger debates and discussions about economics. It's definitely time for some rethinking about the relationships between individuals, the market, and society, that's for sure. And if people aren't listening, we'll have to find ways to make our thoughts on these economic matters known. Sitting around waiting for the Adam Smith's invisible hand to get this engagement started isn't doing us any good. Where should this all start? Well, as Jason Antrosio argues, a revamped exploration of history would probably be a good place place to begin.

*Here are a few of my favorite posts from Maxine Udall:

Economics: Art or Science?

Amartya Sen: The Uses and Abuses of Adam Smith

Faith-Based Economics

The (Crippled) Invisible Hand

**Graeber's book, which I just reread this summer, is a fantastic read. Highly recommended. Now I just need to get my hands his new book on debt, which also sounds really good.

Cross-posted at Savage Minds.

The history of economic thought

2011-07-15T17:24:00.001-04:00

Loomnie posted this interesting interview of Bruce Caldwell, an econ professor at Duke University who is working on putting history back into economics. Here's a short description of the interview:

Who is going to teach fields like economic methodology and the history of economic thought if these fields aren’t taught to current graduate students? Bruce Caldwell is filling this hole in the graduate curriculum. The Hayek scholar is ramping-up the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University to educate a generation of future professors – a generation that is well-versed in the history of economic thought, and that communicates with other social sciences and the humanities. These are the seeds of new economic thinking.

Loomnie says that he finds this idea "really, really interesting" and I agree. I wonder if there is any engagement with economic anthropology here--or if that would be a possibility. In one part of the video Caldwell says that he really appreciates the different perspectives that other humanities and social sciences bring to studies of the history of economic thought. I know that anthropologists have tried to engage with economists in the past, but that hasn't panned out all that well. It would be interesting, despite all of the differences, to see more discussions between the econs and the anthros.

Making the (Funding) Cut: The NSF, Anthropology, and the value of social science

2011-07-13T14:00:00.000-04:00

Social science research isn't on the firmest ground in these days of economic malaise, but it's not like this news is exactly exploding into the headlines across the nation. Funding cuts, like the recent "trimming" of the Fulbright program,* seem to take place somewhat under the radar. The same can be said of the recent debates about the value of social, behavioral, and economic (SBE) sciences that took place about a month ago in a congressional hearing on June 2, 2011 (this link has PDFs of the introductory statements and the testimony of all the witnesses). The social sciences face an uphill battle, in part, because some folks see them as mere "soft sciences" that do not merit public support. The House panel subcommittee meeting was about assessing the relative merit of the social sciences and how federal funding should or should not be allocated to researchers. Did you hear about this? Well, I didn't--at least not until just a few days ago. Funny what can happen in the middle of the summer, isn't it? Anyway, here's a recap of what went down according to a summary from the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA):

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) chaired the panel, which included the testimony of four witnesses: Myron Gutman (Assistant Director for NSF's SBE directorate), Hillary Anger Elfenbein (Olin School of Business at Washington University, St. Louis), Peter Wood (President of the National Association of Scholars), and finally Diana Furchtgott-Roth (Senior fellow at the Hudson Institute). Here's how Brooks described the basic purpose of the hearing:

The goal of this hearing is not to question whether the social, behavioral, and economic sciences produce interesting and sound research, as I believe we all can agree that they do. I come from a social science background. I have a degree in political science and economics. Rather, the goal of our hearing is to look at the need for federal investments in these disciplines, how we determine what those needs are in the context of national priorities, and how we prioritize funding for those needs, not only within the social science disciplines, but also within all science disciplines, particularly when federal research dollars are scarce.

Brooks' language sounds cool, rational, and impartial. However, according to journalist Jeffrey Mervis:

Brooks may have been pulling his punches. In comments to ScienceInsider after the hearing, Brooks expressed serious doubts about the value of the social sciences. The freshman legislator said he "understands the value of basic research" because his constituents in and around Huntsville, Alabama, make up "one of, if not the most, highly educated districts in the sciences." Brooks did say that "my priorities would be to protect basic research in the sciences as much as possible, even to the extent of cutting entitlements, in order to generate enough funding for basic research." But his definition of the term "basic research" turns out to be synonymous with the so-called hard sciences, and to exclude the social sciences.

Gutman, for his part, argued in defense of NSF funding for social science research. From the COSSA report: "[Gutman] provided many examples of how SBE research has served the nation including research on human actions and decision making, terrorism, artificial speech, matching markets and kidney transplants, spectrum auctions and the importance of protecting social networks in disaster situations." Elfeinbein, who is a psychologist by training, also provided testimony about the value and applicability of of social science research. She discussed the applicability of her own research for business, the military, medicine, and education. When asked why SBE science is important for science in general, the Federal government, and the American taxpayer, Elfeinbein stated (from the PDF of her actual testimony):

The social and behavioral sciences in general are important because technology, health, industry, and politics are ultimately in the hands of people--who behave rationally and irrationally. The learning and implementation of all other sciences depends on the human factor.

That is certainly a point that many anthropologists would agree with. Up next was the anthropologist in the crowd, Peter Wood. His position was that "the SBE sciences should not be x-ed out completely from the budget of the NSF or other federal agencies." However, Wood did say that he thinks a small percentage of SBE funding goes to what he called "trivialities and politicized programs." Wood laid out a "triage" approach to cutting the SBE NSF budget, which he explained in more detail a few days later in a post he wrote for the Chronicle of High Ed called "How to Save the Social Sciences." Wood's first point was that there is plenty of funding sources that are non-governmental, so NSF funding isn't all that necessary. His second point: there are already too many SBE PhD's, and the NSF is making the situation worse by continuing to fund them. His third point of this triage is where things start getting a little dicey. Wood advised the panel to:

Pay attention to the rise of anti-scientific ideologies within SBE disciplines. In my field of anthropology, for example, the recent controversy over the attempt by the Executive Board of American Anthropological Association to jettison “science” from the AAA’s mission statement is a pertinent example. Should NSF fund “social science” research in fields that reject the paradigm of scientific investigation?

Take the time to read the COSSA report, and Wood's version of his testimony. I don't know all that much about Peter Wood, and I really do not understand why he would characterize anthropology like this. It makes no sense to me. Look, I am not going to over-editorialize here, but I do not think this was the most judicious way of representing the discipline of anthropology, especially in a House hearing.** Regardless, Wood wrapped up his testimony with some very specific suggestions about funding cuts:

Cut that $57-million sustainability-education program. It appears to be nothing but ideology dressed up to look like basic science.
Cut funding for economics. Alternative funding for research in economics is abundant.
Cut funding for social-science dissertations. It is perfectly possible for graduate students to complete dissertations while supporting themselves.
Cut every program that is designed to advance women and minorities in the social sciences. Women and minorities are seldom disadvantaged in these fields, and anyway it isn’t the task of the National Science Foundation to engage in social policy.
Cut the NSF’s “RAPID” program. This is the funding mechanism that NSF uses to allocate support to programs that it deems in need of immediate support and which can’t wait for the normal peer-review process.

Furchtgott-Roth, who is a former Chief Economist at the Department of Labor, was the last to provide testimony. Her argument about NSF funding for SBE sciences: CUT IT ALL. Why? According to the COSSA summary, she said:

Since "social, behavioral and economic sciences research does not fit the conditions that define it as a 'public good,'" [...] it should receive no funding from the Federal government, particularly NSF. She indicated that Foundations were a source that SBE scientists could use and since Smith, Marx, and Keynes all conducted their research without government support, so could today's economists and other social scientists.

She does acknowledge the value of SBE research, but there is an important caveat: "There is much outstanding work produced every year in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences. It fills journals and working papers and is presented at conferences. The question at issue is not the quality of this research, but whether the federal government should fund it" (Furchtgott-Roth testinomy). She then goes on to argue that there are plenty of private foundations with plenty of funding, and that if the federal government does indeed fund SBE research, the NSF is not the right place. Lastly, when asked if SBE research "advances the physical and life sciences," she flatly said no. Furchtgott-Roth's conclusion about federal funding and social science was this:

During this time of shrinking federal dollars, when our debt is over $14 trillion and our deficit this year is projected at $1.6 trillion, the NSF should focus on basic physical and life sciences research rather than research in the social, economic and behavioral science.

We all know that more funding cuts are probably coming, and that things aren't going to be getting better anytime soon. This makes it all the more imperative that anthropologists pay attention to the ways in which anthropology--and social science in general--is understood by and represented to the wider public. This includes congressional committees that make funding decisions, often with limited understanding of the breadth and depth of anthropological work. From the cuts to the Fulbright program, to this recent panel hearing, to Senator Tom Coburn's recent report on the NSF, it's clear that the social sciences are under fire. This isn't exactly a new story, however: similar cuts were apparently proposed for NSF social science grants back in 2007, but those were successfully defeated.

On July 12, the American Association for the Advancement of Science issued a press release that speaks to these very issues:

More than 140 scientific societies and universities today sent a letter urging U.S. policymakers, in their need to cut spending, to avoid singling out specific programs—such as the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences—and to refrain from bypassing independent peer review.

The letter, routed to key lawmakers who are preparing to debate the Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill for fiscal year 2012, opposes any attempts to eliminate or substantially reduce funding for particular research programs. Defunding specific grants or entire scientific disciplines "sets a dangerous precedent that, in the end, will inhibit scientific progress and our international competitiveness," the group warned.

While the Society for Anthropological Sciences is a part of the letter, the American Anthropological Association is curiously absent. I'm not sure why. Regardless, it would probably behoove the anthropological community to become a more active--and vocal--part of these discussions. Silence, in this case, is certainly not golden.

*About a month or so ago, Kerim wrote about the cuts to the Fulbright program here on Savage Minds.

**Peter Wood wrote about the whole #AAAFail controversy on the Chronicle of Higher Ed. For comparison, check out Daniel Lende's summary of the whole ordeal, here.

Cross-posted on Savage Minds

Edward Carr on development

2011-07-09T01:17:00.001-04:00

Why do so many anthropologists of development simply limit themselves to critiques of development rather than direct engagement? Maybe, says Edward Carr, to maintain some sort of distance between themselves and their "objects" of study? More from Carr:

However, limiting oneself to critique still invokes an ethics of engagement, for if these critiques come too late to be acted upon, or do not speak to the institutional context from which these practices spring, the end result will be writing accessible only by other academics that has little if any benefit to those with whom we work in the Global South. This de facto extractive knowledge industry can hardly be seen as progressive, and its existence should upset us.

Now there's something to think about.

Making tourist destinations: To Serve Society?

2011-07-08T13:54:00.001-04:00

Places all around the world are being transformed, restructured, and reinvented to appeal to the international tourism market. Developers, politicians, bankers, investors, hoteliers, and entrepreneurs contribute to reformulating places according to the wants, needs, expectations, desires, and hopes of a global mass of travelers who have the time (and money) to hop scotch around the planet in search of experiences. The question, though, is this: Who benefits from all these changes? Do these new tourist places really only benefit powerful politicians, developers, and investors? Or do they serve society* in some larger sense?

Karl Polanyi, in a much lauded book that is getting its fair share of attention these days of economic malaise, argued that the economy should, ideally, serve the interests of society. Proponents of the self-regulating market basically argued the reverse: that society should in effect be structured according to the supposedly rational logic of the market. These same sentiments continue to be promulgated by economists, politicians, and pundits today--these are the proponents of the "free market" who seek to fix the economy by cutting it free from the mores of government, rules, and regulations. Such an arrangement, for Polanyi, was particularly troubling: "Ultimately, that is why the control of the economic system by the market is of overwhelming to the whole organization of society: it means no less than the running of a society as an adjunct to the market. Instead of economy being embedded in social relations, social relations are embedded in economic systems" (2001:60).

Tourism development is a particularly relevant case in which specific places are made to serve the demands and needs of wider economic markets. Since my research is in Mexico, I tend to focus on places like Cancun, Acapulco, Chichen Itza, and Los Cabos--but this argument applies elsewhere as well. Tourism markets go through trends and fads, just like any other market. One of the most prominent trends in Mexican tourism development these days focuses on luxury and exclusivity (see Berger and Wood 2010). Los Cabos, which is exemplified by the coastal tourism city of Cabo San Lucas, may well be one of the new models of tourism, with its focus on high end hotels, marinas, restaurants, and golf courses.

The place where Los Cabos sits today was once little more than a relatively small fishing community on the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula. This was in the 1970s and early 1980s. Today, it has been reshaped--geographically, economically, and architecturally--to attract tourists from around the world (although most come from the United States). While Los Cabos may indeed bring a certain amount of jobs for Mexican workers (many of them migrate to tourism zones in search of work), make no mistake: it is a place that has been designed to cash in on market trends. Tourism zones cater to tourists, and they tend to benefit the politicians, investors, and developers who own the land, businesses, hotels, marinas, and golf courses where those tourists spend their money.

These places may be known internally as idyllic, beautiful, and desirable destinations, but they are also notorious for their high socio-economic inequality, if not outright social segregation (see Lopez et al 2006; Clancy 2001; Castellanos 2010; Hiernaux 1999; Wilson 2008). Places like Cancun and Los Cabos are literally ringed with colonias--urban or semi-urban neighborhoods, settlements, etc--where the standards of living are far below that of the tourism zone itself. This arrangement is by no means accidental, since these communities service the tourism sector through low wage jobs (see Castellanos 2010 for some specific insight into this relationship). These are the kinds of images and realities, of course, that you aren't going to find in airline magazines. But they are just as much a part of "the tourism experience" as the sandy beaches and comfortable hotels, even if the vast majority of tourists have no idea. It's all part of the structure, so to speak.

At this point you may be thinking: Ok, I know where you're going with this. You might think that I am just another "critical anthropologist" making the argument that tourism development is "problematic," and that we need to rethink it, and so on. Maybe we can move past that at some point. I am not against tourism development per se, and I am certainly not going to claim that all tourism development is somehow exploitative, negative, and unwanted, or that local people are always passive victims of the grist mill that is economic development. In fact, many people that I have talked to in various parts of Mexico have some pretty optimistic or hopeful ideas about the potential of tourism development.

Yes, tourism is full of complications and problems, but for many people it translates to opportunities, money, and jobs. The problems arise when communities or places are completely restructured or transformed according to external ideals, desires, and expectations. So, in a sense, it often comes down to politics and power: the ability (legally, socially, economically) to fully participate (or not) in the development process itself. This is based upon what I have seen (and read) so far--and these are exactly the kinds of issues that I will be exploring in my upcoming fieldwork.

All of this comes back to the issue Polanyi brought up way back in 1944: should the economy serve society, or should we allow society to be restructured in such a way that it serves the needs and whims of the economy (i.e. the market)? In the case of many tourism developments in Mexico, what happens to places like Cancun and Los Cabos when market trends shift? What happens when places become passé, when they not are no longer the hot destinations? What then of all the hotels, marinas, and other structures that were specifically designed to appeal to one moment in time? What happens to all of the people who migrate across the country to find work in or around the tourism industry when the flow of moneyed travelers dries up? In essence, these tourist spaces are examples of ordering society according to the logic of the market, rather than the long term interests or needs of society (communities who bear the brunt of tourism, etc) on the whole.

I don't really have any firm conclusions at this point, since many of the issues and questions that I am dealing with here need more empirical and ethnographic investigation. But I find this idea of making places according to market trends--rather than the needs of community and society--to be particular interesting and useful. Landscapes and communities throughout Mexico--and beyond--are in the midst of dramatic transformations that seek to remake places to draw in tourists. These tourists are in reality an abstract mass of traveling consumers whose tastes are both fickle and constantly in flux. One day a place can be a tourist "hot spot," and the next it can be almost completely forgotten (reminiscent of the plot in Alexander Garland's novel "The Beach"). Polanyi--and the contemporary economic anthropologists who are following in his tracks--are definitely on to something here: the ways in which we think about and enact society in relation to the market isn't just some abstract, theoretical issue.

So who is served by tourism development in Mexico? Well, let me put it this way: If tourism development is only geared toward satisfying the exogenous desires of tourists (i.e. market demand), with little concern for the interests of communities themselves, it seems that society will indeed be served--as curious, quaint, nostalgic tidbits to be consumed like a daily special and then unceremoniously cast aside when the next best thing arrives on the map. As Polanyi argues: a society subordinated to the unfettered whims of the market, rather than the reverse, is nothing more than a recipe for conflict, inequality, and, ultimately, disaster. In the global shell game that is international tourism development, the interests and long-term welfare of society should be a primary concern--rather than the market--since the much idealized "free hand" of Adam Smith sure isn't going to provide any jobs when formerly desirable places like Cancun (and, someday, Los Cabos) are no longer gracing the headlines of the latest trend-setting travel magazines, TV shows, and web sites.

*Why yes, this is indeed a not so subtle reference to a famous short story and an episode of the Twilight Zone, all at once.

Cross-Posted on Savage Minds, here.

References

Berger, Dina, and Andrew Grant Wood. 2010. Holiday in Mexico. Durham: Duke University Press.

Castellanos, M. Bianet. 2010. A Return to Servitude. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Clancy, Michael. 2001. Exporting Paradise. New York: Pergamon.

Hiernaux, Daniel Nicholas. 1999. Cancun Bliss. In The Tourist City. Dennis R. Judd and Susan S.

Fainstein, eds. Pp. 124-142. New Haven: Yale University Press.

López-López, Álvaro, Judith Cukier, and Álvaro Sánchez Crispín. 2006. Segregation of Tourist Space in Los Cabos, Mexico. Tourism Geographies Vol. 8(4): 359-379.

Polanyi, Karl. 2001[1944]. The Great Transformation. Boston: Beacon Press.

Wilson, Tamar Diana. 2008. Economic and Social Impacts of Tourism in Mexico. Latin American Perspectives 160 35(3): 37-52.

Anthropologies #4

2011-07-04T12:56:00.001-04:00

Taking Anthropology to Economics

July 2011

Currency, 2009. Photo by Veronica Miranda.

~ Contents ~

Introduction
Ryan Anderson

Economic Anthropology
Jeffrey H. Cohen

The Economy
Toby Austin Locke

Anthropology and the Economists Without History
Jason Antrosio

Model Behaviors
Ryan Anderson

Visual Anthropology: Before the economic crash
Ryan Anderson

News and updates: Savage Minds, etc

2011-06-26T01:07:00.001-04:00

The news this summer is that I have been given the chance to blog at Savage Minds full-time, which is great. I have always been a fan of their site, and I am definitely excited to take part. So most of my blogging will shift over there, but I will still cross-post here as well. My posts at SM will focus specifically on anthropology, and I will still use this site for some other themes (photography especially) that I tend to write about. So far this summer my blogging has been somewhat limited, but I plan on getting more going pretty soon. I have been out in California getting some time to regroup after a particularly long semester. I am also trying to read some key books before I take my quals this fall. Beyond all that, my wife and I have been able to get in some time alongside the Pacific Ocean, which was much needed for the creativity barometer, if you know what I mean.

One of the main themes for this summer reading: development and economics. I just finished reading Neil Smith's Uneven Development, and finally reread Harvey's Spaces of Global Capitalism. I am in the middle of reading Hart and Hann's (2010) Economic Anthropology, which is great so far. Another good read that I came across yesterday: Amartya Sen's recent article on the relevance of Adam Smith. You can access the PDF here. My side project, in addition to my readings for the quals, is finding ways to investigate modern economic theory and practice, especially concepts like the so-called "free market," which people use all the time without a lot of, well, empirical basis. Anyway, that's what's happening in my free time.

The lives (and meanings) of tourist spaces

2011-06-26T00:54:00.000-04:00

I have always been pretty fascinated by the life histories of tourism destinations. Thinking about touristic spaces in a kind of archaeological sense--that is, over greater periods of time--is endlessly fascinating. I often wonder about the future of places like Las Vegas, Cancun, and Nakheel, especially since many international organizations (like the UNWTO) promote tourism development as a sustainable, surefire solution for socio-economic development. What will Vegas--or Cancun--look like in 100 years? What purpose will these places serve, and how sustainable will they actually be in the long run?

Many countries around the world continue to promote and finance ever more tourism development, in hopes that these investments will create long-lasting social and economic benefits. At least, that's how the narrative goes. But what kinds of social spaces and places are being created under the guise of tourism, and what futures do these places face? What are the lasting social, political, and economic effects of these spaces? For a little insight, I am going to discuss a few tourist destinations that I have read about recently: Elmina, Ghana, Prora, Germany, and finally Acapulco, Mexico.

Edward Bruner's writes about Elmina Castle in Ghana in his wonderful book Culture on Tour (2005). His discussion, which is in chapter three, brings up some poignant issues, one of them being that any tourist location has a multiplicity of histories and meanings. Bruner focuses on how African-American tourists travel to Elmina to experience a connection with their shared understandings of heritage and history. The irony of the chapter, however, is that the local Ghanaians do not share the same understandings about the castle itself. While the American tourists come to see the castle as a brutal representation of the transatlantic slave trade, the Ghanaians have a much broader conception of the same place. For many African American US tourists, "the castles are a sacred ground not to be desecrated. They do not want the castles to be made beautiful or to be whitewashed...Some diaspora Blacks feel that even though they are not Ghanaians, the castles belong to them" (Bruner 2005:103).

As Bruner explains, however, the majority of Ghanaians aren't all that worried about the histories of slavery. For them, the castle is part of a longer history that extends from the Portuguese, who built the castle in 1482, all the way to the present day, in which the castle is a money-making tourist destination. "First came the Portuguese," writes Bruner, "then the Dutch, followed by the British, and now the tourists" (2005:104). The Ghanaians understand the castle as part of a longer national history, while African Americans focus on the slave trade, which peaked between 1700-1850 (ibid). Ghanaians want the castles to be attractive and appealing to tourists, so they support restoration. African Americans, who only see the site in terms of the slave trade, want it to look "authentic"--which to them means that it fits their ideas and expectations about one historical period.

One of the biggest issues today, Bruner argues, is how to reconcile all of the different interpretations of Elmina. Interested parties include not only local people and African American tourists, but also other tourists (British, Dutch, etc), museum professionals, international organizations, and politicians. What, in the end, is the best way to represent the site? Which history--out of the 500 years of the site--should be emphasized and promoted as "authentic"? This is, of course, a poltical and economic choice, and there really is no "right" answer to the question.

At present (in 2005 at least), as Bruner explains, local people have been pushed aside and the castle at Elmina serves the interests of tourists--there are in fact posted signs that restrict access to the site (2005:114). The castle has been a site of conflict and contestation for centuries--the Dutch captured it in 1637, the British controlled it by 1872, and the Ghanaians themselves after independence in 1957 (Bruner 2005:104). These conflicts continue, clearly, even as the cast of characters changes. And the current uses, meanings, and politics of Elmina are no less political and economic than they were 500 years ago.

Prora is the Nazi German tourism resort that never really was. I just read about this particular place recently, and it is one touristic history that I previously had no knowledge of (for more, look here and here). It was built, but it was never actually visited by any tourists in its day--despite the grand visions of Nazi planners. Apparently, the site was constructed as part of the "Strength Through Joy" program that was meant to revitalize German workers through a few sunny days in a beach resort. Prora was built between 1936 and 1939, but when the Germans invaded Poland, plans for its use fell by the wayside.

Today, the massive modernist structures stand ominously on the landscape, and present a perplexing problem for German land-use planners and politicians today. What, after all, should be done with a structure--and place--that has ties to such dark histories? Should the place be demolished, as some argue, or should it be turned into a tourist destination despite its past? It was built by the Nazis, but never really used by them--yet the buildings still share an indisputable link to their actions. Some have argued that it should indeed be destroyed, while others say that it should be turned into everything from an international university to a youth hostel. Clearly, there is plenty of disagreement:

Some of the tens of thousands of Germans who visit here each year raise a fundamental question: Why not just knock it down? Ingrid and Klaus Berlin, cycling near the derelict Block 1, said they had not been able to agree on an answer.

Mr. Berlin, 56, said he found it fascinating to realize that “a man could lead people in this way, that they could manipulate people like this.” But Mrs. Berlin, 55, differed. “Why does this beautiful landscape have to suffer under a sight like this?” she said.

Unlike the Elmina castle in Ghana, Prora is intertwined with very specific histories. While the debates surrounding the representation of place in Elmina are all about picking which histories to focus on (and what audience to market to), the issue with Prora is how to best deal with the dark histories it represents. Should the site be dedicated to remembering and challenging the histories of Nazi Germany through exhibits and museums? Or should those histories be challenged and demolished by sweeping the landscape clean of that terrible past? Once again, this comes down to politics and economics. Meanwhile, the surrounding landscape--and the looming architectural features--keep trudging through time.

If there is one tourism site that really fascinates me, and one that I want to spend some time studying, it's Acapulco. Why, you ask? Well, it's not for the margaritas. Acapulco is the former jewel of Mexican tourism, yet today it is--according to many--in an obvious state of economic decline (see Kastelein 2010; Sackett 2010). It was also one of the models that inspired Mexico's current focus on creating large-scale coastal tourism resorts (see Clancy 2001). In the 1950s and 60s, Acapulco was THE place to go for many American tourists, elites, and plenty of Hollywood stars. Today, however, while Acapulco still draws a decent crowd, it is also obviously a destination in decline: "Acapulco's decline is a well-kept secret abroad, as are its social divisions (about one third of its greater population of about two million people lives in slum conditions)" (Kastelein:2010).

Acapulco was, in fact, part of the rationale behind creating the massive, state-planned tourism resorts in places like Cancun, Huatulco, and Loreto, among others (Clancy 2001). This process started in the late 1960s, when Mexican state planners and politicians saw the potential of the growing international tourism market. Acapulco, which clearly attracted visitors from the US, provided inspiration for the idea that Mexico could compete with the tourism market in the Caribbean. But these planners were also well aware of the fact that, even in the 1970s, Acapulco was already plagued by haphazard development and urbanization. Cancun was the first state-planned city that was meant to take advantage of Mexico's tourism potential while avoiding the pitfalls of uncontrolled development. Did it work? Well, the present day sprawl of Cancun seems to argue otherwise. But for some, it's a clear (economic success).

But what of Acapulco? For me, this would be an interesting place to begin a comparative study of the long term effects of tourism development on particular destinations. As I already said, I have never been there, but considering the fact that my current research is about the continuation of large-scale development in Mexico (in this case Baja California Sur), I think it would make sense to visit earlier destinations to investigate some of the lasting effects of a place that has served tourism markets for decades. The most interesting question about Acapulco, for me, is what will happen to this place as its decline continues? What becomes of a former star of international tourism once its popularity (and infrastructure) has deteriorated? The same question can be asked of numerous other large-scale tourism destinations, which are purportedly created to engender some kind of social and economic benefit. But what do these places really become?

If the histories of Elmina and Prora tell us anything, it's that any tourism destination or space serves a particular set of political and economic interests. Elmina sits in the middle of numerous ideals and interpretations, while certain politicians and business people try to find ways to turn it into a continual source of revenue. The Dutch and the British sought certain forms of "revenue," and tourism planners today do the same, they just look in different places. For Prora, the issue is all about memory, history, and meanings that are nearly impossible to dismiss. This may not seem to apply to larger discussions about tourism places, but I think it does. People flock to particular destinations, in part, because of what they think or image those places to be. The value or desirability of any destination is closely linked with the ways in which people impart meaning--and how those meanings are disseminated through media, conversation, history, narrative, and memory. On one level, Prora is just a place where a massive structure sits along the seaside. But it's clearly something more, something worse. Ideas, then, stick quite well. Buildings are not just piles of concrete. Places are something more than points on maps. It all depends on how they are positioned within wider systems of (social) meaning.

Acapulco, for it's part, might be seen as a lighthearted, fun place. The same goes for Cancun and Cabo San Lucas. Sure, they're fun. But what other meanings and experiences can be attached to these places--what is hidden from view. Urban slums, after all, are just as real and part of Cancun and Acapulco as the nice, clean hotels and alluring beaches. Again, like Elmina and Prora, it comes down to politics--who tells the story, and what story ends up getting told. It's about perspective, yes, and interests. But these interests constantly shift over time--they are by no means stable.

And then we have the issue of sustainability, which is still a popular word that people like to use. Considering the histories and politics of tourism destinations, what do all of these proclamations about sustainable tourism development really mean? Acapulco clearly tells us that the popularity of even the most prized tourism destination has a shelf life. Elmina tells us that people will make of a site what they wish. So what now? How can we understand and critically assess the construction of new tourism destinations, which require millions of dollars--not to mention lots of land? Cancun, after all, had already hit its peak, which is why Cabo San Lucas is the new Mexican jewel. Well, for now, at least. The process keeps shifting, despite the promises of stability that we hear from politicians and international organizations.

Cross-posted at Savage Minds

References

Bruner, Edward. 2005. Culture on Tour: Ethnographies of Travel. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Clancy, Michael. 2001. Exporting Paradise. New York: Pergamon.

Kastelein, Barbara. 2010. The Beach and Beyond. In Holiday in Mexico: Critical Reflections on Tourism and Tourist Encounters. Dina Berger and Andrew Grant Wood, eds. Durham: Duke University Press. Pp. 320-370.

Sackett, Andrew. 2010. Fun in Acapulco? The Politics of Development on the Mexican Riviera. In Holiday in Mexico: Critical Reflections on Tourism and Tourist Encounters. Dina Berger and Andrew Grant Wood, eds. Durham: Duke University Press. Pp. 161-182.

Anthropology and high school?

2011-06-13T18:38:00.001-04:00

Teaching intro to anthropology classes has been really fascinating over the last couple of years. It's also been pretty fun too. What I have always enjoyed is the fact that many students react pretty positively to anthropology, even if they thought it was about bugs or dinosaurs when they first enrolled in class. This happens pretty often--lots of students tell me they had no idea what anthropology was all about when they signed up for class. This happens, I think, because anthro classes often satisfy certain requirements, so students take the courses without knowing for sure what they are all about. Now, I can't say that ALL of the students who have taken my classes ended up liking anthropology, but at the end of the semester, many of them admitted that the course was a pleasant surprise.

So this makes me wonder about the reasons why students have not heard much about anthropology (this has more to do with the PR issues of the discipline itself), and how it might be possible to anthropologize--so to speak--high school a bit. How many high schools even offer anthropology courses? What would it take to add a more anthropological perspective to high school history, social studies, and even biology/science courses? Would this be possible, or is anthropology just too much for high school? Based upon the interest of students that I have taught, and my own memories of high school, I really don't think it's too crazy to think about teaching anthropology at that level. Anyway, this is just something I'm thinking about at present, and if any of you out there in internetland have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

Anthropologies #3: The Archaeology Issue

2011-05-15T21:33:00.001-04:00

Archaeology + Anthropology

May 2011

Monte Alban, Oaxaca, Mexico 2008. Photo by Ryan Anderson.

~ Contents ~

Introduction to this issue
Ryan Anderson

Towards a non-anthropocentric and non-anthropological archaeology
Johan Normark

What does an archaeological perspective bring to anthropology?
Maureen Meyers

Archaeology, Anthropology, and Multi-sited Ethnography
Colleen Morgan

Why Anthropology is too Narrow an Intellectual Context for Archaeology
Michael E. Smith

Archaeology: More than Strata and Sherds
Paul Wren

Archaeological Perspectives and Anthropology
Nicolas Laracuente

Archaeology as part of anthropology
Olaf Jaime-Riveron

Alcohol and Archaeologists
Scott R. Hutson

A Qualitative History of “Cultural Resource” Management
Adam Giacinto

Visual Anthropology: Yucatecan Archaeological Sights
Veronica Miranda

Reader Responses: The Archaeology Issue (Open Thread)

From the trenches of grad school: notes from the semester's edge

2011-05-15T21:32:00.000-04:00

Well, I think that was the longest semester I have ever experienced. I think I was pretty much behind starting in week two, and I never really caught up. The good news is that this was my last semester of coursework, so I am done with seminars at long last. Nothing against graduate seminars--they are great and all--but I have been taking them since 2007 when I started my M.A., and I am definitely ready to be done. Maybe someday I will look back and long for the days when I was taking classes and scrambling to read and write papers all week, who knows? Right now though, I am glad to be done so I can focus on grant proposals and finding a way to get myself into the field (so I can actually get this PhD thing done). That's the project goal for this summer: get myself into Baja California by mid Fall. Wish me luck. Anyway, how about some rambling notes from the trenches of grad school?

1. Writing papers. I am not sure if I am the only one, but by the end of my time taking classes I feel like it's really time to get out into the field to actually get some real data to work with. I have written all sorts of papers about development, the politics of tourism, history, and other such things that pertain to my research site--and I have written papers from some different theoretical positions and perspectives. However, at this point, it feels like I am pretty much spinning in circles. It's fun to put ideas through different theoretical pinball machines, but at some point there is a need to actually go do a project, collect data, etc. I'm ready. I wonder if this kind of I'm-writing-in-circles-feeling happens to anyone else.

2. Grants. I read an essay by Michael Watts about grant writing and he said that this is some of the most difficult work in grad school (and probably after). I agree. Grant writing can be a pretty brutal process. You have about 10 pages (at most sometimes) to convince people that YOU ARE THE ONE who they really need to fund. I am still working on my technique with all of this, and I will keep you all updated about the process. I worked on my NSF proposal all last semester, and then revised it before submitting it for the January. I did not get funded on that first round, but I did learn some important lessons. I will talk about some of these details more in the future, but one of the first and most important things I learned is that writing these things is really, really all about strategy and tactics. In my case, the reviewers definitely did not agree about my proposal--so this is something that we all have to prepare for. Probably the hardest part about writing these grants--at least for me--is that it's not easy to imagine who the audience is. My very mixed reviews made this all the more clear. Usually when I write I have a certain idea of who I am writing for--but in the case of the NSF my proposal could be reviewed by anthropologists or other social scientists who come from some very different theoretical or methodological camps. This means that we all have to plan accordingly when writing these things. The key--I suppose--is making your theoretical position/argument clear without completely alienating scholars from "opposing" perspectives. A tall order indeed. In the end, it's all very political, and it requires walking some tightropes. Some of the best advice I have received lately: when it comes to certain theoretical trends, a little bit (meaning a little mention) can go a long way. Don't pile it on--the people who are on board are already on board.

3. Some lessons from Grant-landia: Writing these documents is a trial by fire learning process. But I have at least learned a few things from my first attempts here. One is this: it's not necessarily the best idea to fill your theoretical discussions with THE BIG NAMES. Probably because grant reviewers always have to see the references to THE BIG NAMES. So it's a good idea to include a lot of the not-so-big-names so that people know that you have read them. This is purely tactical.

4. Anthropology, grad school, and purpose. Brian McKenna posted this link on the E-Anth listserv. It has sparked an interesting discussion. Read through it and see what you think. My question: what, exactly, are we producing in academia? Are we simply reproducing the system in which we exist, or what? The ironic thing about anthropology and many other social sciences is that they spend a lot of time critiquing systems, looking at the GAP between discourse and actuality, etc. But when the critical eye gets turned inward, it's not always that comfortable. At the very least, it's worth looking into. I read articles like this and they start making me wonder: ok, so what IS the point of all this anthropology stuff? What am I going to do with it? Not a bad thing to ponder, if you ask me.

Speaking of purpose, public engagement, and DOING SOMETHING, check out this article. Also, have a look at Owen Wiltshire's discussions about his thesis project. Very interesting.

5. Get in the field. Some of the best advice I heard all years was this: just get yourself into the field. It's easy to sit around and think about what's going to happen, or how you ideally want fieldwork to unfold--but there is theory and there is reality. I agree that getting into the field is key, and that focusing on a solid methodological plan is a good starting point. From my past experiences, the realities of "the field" can never quite be predicted when you're writing grants and proposals from thousands of miles away. This is why I always find these processes really frustrating--especially when it comes to theoretical discussions in proposals. I am pretty reluctant about casting some theoretical net over a project beforehand--but many I am just too inductive. However, during my M.A. fieldwork I learned not to get too attached to the theoretical frameworks in my proposals--it's best to keep things flexible, and to bring theory along as a kind of tool kit. If it works and helps with the analysis, great. If not, either set it aside until later or just ditch it. Regardless, getting into the field makes a lot of sense, and I wish that more of the methodological design phase could take place in the field setting rather than from the detached perspective at the University.

6. Traditions. There are some deeply entrenched traditions in anthropology, but I don't think all of them make a lot of sense (economically and otherwise). There is still a good amount of prestige attached to those DISTANT field sites. It seems that many anthropologists--and funding reviewers--are holding on to the Malinowski model of fieldwork. Nothing against traveling half way around the world to undertake fieldwork, but I don't think this is necessarily the BEST MODEL for everyone, especially since there are plenty of opportunities for more locally-based anthropological projects. In fact, in my view anthropology needs to focus a bit more on research that takes place in the US. Granted, there are issues and problems to be addressed all around the world...but they are also plenty of issues happening right around the corner. Just my two cents--especially after talking to some of my colleagues who are doing work here in the US and who are not always getting the support and interest they should.

7. Going outside/living life. Probably the worst part of grad school--at least for me--has been the sedentary lifestyle. Some people manage to keep up with going outside and living life, but I have to admit that I spent a ridiculous amount of time in front of my computer for the past two years. This is not necessarily all that good for productivity or mental clarity. In fact, at this point, I think my brain and mental creativity are both pretty well charbroiled. So I really do believe the folks who argue for balance in life...although I am not always sure how and where that balance is supposed to fit in to graduate life. Now that my classes are over I am really looking forward to getting away from the computer and the books for some good mental breaks. I am also hoping that my brain recovers and I the creativity fires up again.

8. I read another article recently (sorry, I forgot the link--I will try to find this) that said academics spend a large chunk of their time working on writing grants. Overall, I am not sure what I think about this. If we work hard for years and then spend the vast majority of our time trying to write grants, what does that mean? That we actually produce more bureaucratic documents than anything else? More about this later.

Ancient Urban Planning at ASU: Yui Kamoda

2011-04-20T23:13:00.003-04:00

Ok, this is just cool. As some of you may know, I started off studying archaeology before I turned to the dark side and took up cultural anthropology. I have to say that studies in archaeology have never completely left me. In fact, I think that my predilections lie somewhere between the two fields, and I think that's a good thing. For me, trying to look at contemporary places, spaces, and objects through an archaeological perspective is tremendously fascinating and useful. Think about places like football stadiums--tons of interesting ways to look at the social, political, and spatial implications of such seemingly everyday structures. Anyway, I just came across a post over on Michael E. Smith's site "Wide Urban World" that's fantastic. It's a guest post by one of his students, Yui Kamoda, that applies an archaeological urban planning analysis to the campus of ASU. Check it out. Great stuff. When I see work like this it reaffirms my belief that cultural anthropology has a lot to gain from paying attention to archaeological perspectives (and the reverse is true as well, IMO).

Vonnegut on Writing

2011-04-17T17:07:00.002-04:00

I like Kurt Vonnegut*. Here are his rules for writing:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Good advice, indeed. Especially numbers one and five. Oh, and eight. I'm not sure which one is my favorite. Regardless, I need to go read, grade, and then read some more. The usual Sunday stuff.

*Especially in the book Galapagos. Pay close attention to his brilliant use of the underdog of the keyboard**, the asterisk. If you haven't read this book, put down whatever critical theory book you are reading and grab it. Well worth your time.

**Why yes, you can put a footnote within a footnote. Why do you ask? There are, after all, no REAL rules for writing (despite what some of my friends argue).

Anthropologies #2: The Tourism Issue

2011-04-15T23:25:00.000-04:00

Anthropologies of Tourism

April 2011

Tourists at Cobá, Quintana Roo, Mexico 2008 - Photo by Ryan Anderson

~ Contents ~

Introduction to this issue
Ryan Anderson

Tourism: Trinketization and the Manufacture of the Exotic
John Hutnyk

Arrivals, perceived and actual
Sarah Taylor

A San Diego Cultural Narrative
Conor Muirhead

Tourism Research as "Global Ethnography"
Michael A. Di Giovine

Peripatetic Cultures: When Nomads meet Tourists
Tamas Regi

The Social Conceptualization of Tourists
Sergi Yanes

Visual Anthropology: Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum
Conor Muirhead

Open Thread: The Tourism Issue

Violence, Borders, and Blind Spots

2011-04-03T23:08:00.000-04:00

Last week I watched a film called "Backyard," which is about the violence in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Located on just the other side of El Paso, Texas, Juarez is a city plagued by violence, corruption, and poverty. One of the most striking parts of the film: this place exists right on the edge of the US-Mexico border and these problems continue to exist. It's not as if people don't know about what's happening in Juarez, but for some reason the violence continues, unabated. In fact, since around 2008, things have only gotten worse.

The subject of Cuidad Juarez came up again on Friday, when I went to a lecture on campus about that explored the politics of violence, poverty, and corruption in the city. The lecture presented more of the same: a story about government corruption, rampant violence, and the urban youth who bear the brunt of a seemingly unstoppable "continuum of violence." The overall point: all of the brutal murders of young men and women are constantly being rationalized by the Mexican government (and others). The women, the narrative goes, are getting killed because they are out on the streets (ie they must be prostitutes), and the young men get murdered because they are the guilty associates of narcotraficantes. This creates a situation of impunity, in which the Mexican State basically forgoes the need to investigate these crimes, since, in effect, they claim that the victims themselves basically "had it coming."

One of the main points of the talk was that this climate of impunity has basically gutted the social movements that have risen up to try to stop this violence--the speaker told us that Ciudad Juarez lost nearly 20 percent of its population (mostly from the middle class) in just one year. Journalists have been silenced, or outright killed. The Mexican State, for its part, has increased the militarization of the city and claimed that the rise in violence is actually a sign of success. The military, says the Mexican State, is disrupting the narco-networks, and causing them to lose a grip on their power. This, supposedly, explains the uptick in violence. Meanwhile, the people of Juarez are caught in a seemingly impossible and brutal crossfire laden with corruption, murder, and violence.

All of this, right across the border. These are the kinds of things that seemingly abstract political boundaries can obscure. But we all play our part in looking the other way. Despite everything that has happened--and continues to happen--in places like Ciudad Juarez, the show goes on here in the US. How is this even possible?

***

I have never been to Juarez, so all of my knowledge of the place comes secondhand sources. But I have had my fair share of experience with another major border city: Tijuana. I grew up in San Diego, California, and the US-Mexico border was just something that we were all used to. As young surfers who went around chasing waves in places like K-38 and Punta San Jose, the border was little more than a minor inconvenience. That's how it is when your starting point happens to be the US of A, after all. That border was certainly much more permeable for me and my friends than it was for many others.

When I was a teenager, I was able to cross into Tijuana with little more than a driver's license. Fittingly, the historical and political significance of my migratory possibilities--based upon the possession of the 'right' documents--never really crossed my mind. Meanwhile, thousands of people from places I had never heard of (Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guatemala) attempted to cross in the opposite direction in search of jobs...many of them unsuccessful. The irony of it all was that I was able to unthinkingly cross into their country, while they went through hell to try to get into mine--into the very Northern San Diego community where I lived--in order to work long, brutal days picking strawberries, washing dishes, or tending gardens.

I learned about the details of my political blind spot years later when I read a book by an anthropologist who actually did fieldwork in my home town. Such subjects never came up in my high school history class, for some reason or another. And that's part of my point: the foundations for apathy start in how we think about, talk about, and teach seemingly innocuous subjects like history. So one good place to rethink things, as I see it, is education. This isn't about teaching one side of history, but about teaching history in ways that extends beyond the usual narratives (and this would include more local histories as well). At least from my personal experience, the interrelated histories of Mexico and the US aren't exactly a top priority in public education, and such curriculum decisions have powerful political implications. While I grew up only about 45 minutes from Tijuana, I really never knew much about it. All things considered, this is pretty astounding when you really think about it. If kids in El Paso and San Diego learn more about the actual people who live across the border, how can or will that change the ways in which we think about the issues and problems that exist on our borders?

Tijuana, much like Juarez, has a reputation as a violent and corrupt city. And, also like Juarez, things seemed to get worse after Felipe Calderon took over in 2006 and started his war on drugs. Tijuana has a long relationship with its sister city of San Diego, a history of intertwined economies, politics, and even families. As one of the largest border crossings in the world, if not the largest, it's a shockingly massive example of commerce and migration. I have waited in line for 6 hours trying to cross that border (heading back into the US), along with thousands and thousands of others. Yet, also like Juarez, there is a tremendous socio-economic disparity between Tijuana and San Diego. For anyone who knows both cities, this is readily apparent. I remember the ridiculously ironic vistas of seeing San Diego while waiting in line to cross the border. How, I often wondered (and still do) are such differences created, perpetuated, and maintained?

The ironic thing about borders is that we create and maintain them daily by our actions. Sure, there are fences and checkpoints and other material markers of those borders, and those physical boundaries are definitely real. I am not dismissing the fact that we are literally separated in many ways. But there is more to the border than just the fences, the ICE, and all of those checkpoints in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. These borders are constructed early on (ie grade school) and maintained over lifetimes. We build and rebuild these borders through the ways we talk about and teach the past, and through the ways we engage in debates about the present. There is no reason why the relationship between the US and Mexico has to be the way it is. Just as we erect literal walls, we continue to enact and create socio-political walls that separate on obfuscate just as perniciously as any high-tech security fence ever could. At least, some of us do--and others poke holes in those social walls. Still, in the grand scheme, it seems pretty apparent that these barriers remain fairly well entrenched, especially considering the recent histories of places like Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, those sister cities that we ignore when things get just a little too uncomfortable.

Ok, so what am I arguing here? That the violence in places like Juarez and Tijuana would magically go away if we found a way to deal with the social and political barriers that exist between the US? That the US is the real source of the problems in these places? No, and no. My argument is, however, that we are much more connected to these places than many of us know (or are willing to admit), and that the issues like poverty, rampant violence, and corruption certainly aren't going to go away by switching the geopolitical channel. My argument is that the relative lack of historical and political knowledge about Mexico--and the extensive social and historical ties that exist between the US and Mexico--certainly don't help. Why is it that we have had this longstanding inability to find a reasonable and human solution for immigration reform? How is it possible that many border cities have been plagued by the collateral damage of drug wars (while US consumers continue to consume those drugs in ridiculous quantities)? How does violence continue in places like Juarez and Tijuana, just across the border from other places like El Paso and San Diego?

Because, at some level, there are people on both sides of the border who benefit from the status quo. These things continue, in my opinion, because some people are making a profit (whether from drugs, prostitution, international trade, or cheap labor), and many others could care less. Some people have a vested interest in keeping things as they are, and plenty of others don't have enough interest to want things to change. That's how the persistent and egregious violence in places like Ciudad Juarez become possible. Maybe, at some point, those of us on both sides of the border who actually give a damn will find ways to work toward making that which has remained possible--violence, corruption, and exploitation on both sides--impossible at last. If the problems exist on both sides of our physical and social borders, then the solutions do as well.

Writing Matters

2011-03-28T13:55:00.003-04:00

If there's one thing that I think needs some more emphasis in anthropological training, it's writing. I'm not talking about just grant writing, or proposal writing, but the whole craft (ie method) of writing. Writing is, in fact, one of the primary methods of anthropology (and numerous other social science disciplines), but how often is it seriously considered a core part of methodological training? Not all that often - it's almost as if everyone is magically expected to know how to write well, and that, so they say, is that. Well, maybe there's another route to take. And that's why I can appreciate Michael C. Munger's article on The Chronicle of Higher Ed "10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly." It was posted in September of last year, and it brings up some good points and tips about writing...better.

One thing that I go for is the volume method, and I took this directly from my days as a photographer. Someone once said that "Good writers write" and hence "good photographers make photographs," so the key to good photography is taking lots of pictures, just as the key to good writing is, yes, writing a lot. Nobody ever got good at anything by dabbling every other month. My good friend Tom, who taught me pretty much everything about photography that I know, also called this the TRASH CAN METHOD, meaning that it's important to take lots of pictures but also to realize that most of them are going to be crap and destined for the waste bins of history. Volume is key: this means that it's important to work a lot. But editing is also critical: this means that it's just as important to realize that most of what we create (whether photographs or paragraphs) are going to be seriously deficient and will need tremendous revision (or a complete restart).

It's all a big process, and the hardest part is getting used to plugging away, regardless of the bad paragraphs, false starts, out of focus images, poorly conceived ideas, or weak arguments. Brett Weston, one of my absolute favorite photographers, once said that photography is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent sheer, brutal drudgery. I think the same applies to writing. Part of the difficulty is learning how to weather the bad streaks and lame attempts while finding ways to grab hold of the key ideas, discoveries, and moments of inspiration long enough to pin them down on paper (or Microsoft Word------------you know what I mean*) and create something that's actually heading somewhere. The good ideas, it seems, arise from a sea of crap. Plenty of fertilizer, I suppose, to pave the way for the future. So goes writing: we all just have to keep tilling the mental fields, and eventually spring will show up. Ok, I'm done with the metaphors for the day.

*This grammatical disaster is an inside joke that only a certain grammarian will appreciate.

Anthropological Favorites: Robert Sapolsky

2011-03-26T13:06:00.002-04:00

Robert Sapolsky is one of my favorite anthropological types around. (technically, he is a neuroscientist and a primatologist). Not only does he study some amazingly fascinating topics (ie the fact that humans and other primates are smart enough to basically "make ourselves sick" by stressing out), but he is also an excellent speaker, writer, and general communicator of anthropological ideas. We need more and more Sapolsky's, that's for sure. Here's a short clip that I often use in intro classes:

Another great video is Sapolsky's 2009 Class Day Lecture at Stanford on"The Uniqueness of Humans."

Immanuel Wallerstein on Libya

2011-03-17T19:19:00.001-04:00

Here's a short excerpt from a new piece by Wallerstein:

There is so much hypocrisy and so much confused analysis about what is going on in Libya that one hardly knows where to begin. The most neglected aspect of the situation is the deep division in the world left. Several left Latin American states, and most notably Venezuela, are fulsome in their support of Colonel Qaddafi. But the spokespersons of the world left in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, and indeed North America, decidedly don’t agree.

Hugo Chavez’s analysis seems to focus primarily, indeed exclusively, on the fact that the United States and western Europe have been issuing threats and condemnations of the Qaddafi regime. Qaddafi, Chavez, and some others insist that the western world wishes to invade Libya and “steal” Libya’s oil. The whole analysis misses entirely what has been happening, and reflects badly on Chavez’s judgment – and indeed on his reputation with the rest of the world left.

Read the rest here.

Anthropologies Issue 1: What is anthropology?

2011-03-15T14:21:00.000-04:00

So the first issue of the new project I have been working on (with the help of Stacy Gilmore, Keith Hart, David Picard, Alyson O'Daniel, Megan Maurer, and others) is finally posted. Please comment, express your reactions, and post something in the Open Thread. The whole point is to get some conversation going about anthropology. This project is just getting started, and I think there is potential to make something pretty interesting. Here's the contents of this first issue:

What is Anthropology?
March 2011

~ Contents ~

This Issue: Anthropology?

What is Anthropology? - David Picard

Should I Pursue Anthropology? - Stacie Gilmore

Kant, anthropology and the new human universal - Keith Hart

Anthropology as Collaboration - Alyson O'Daniel

Anthropology is not Geography - Megan Maurer

Anthropologies Exist in Everyday Details - Ryan Anderson

Visual Anthropology: At the Zoo (2001-2006) - Ryan Anderson

Open Thread: So what's anthropology all about anyway?

Anthropological Sundays #4: The Human Terrain System & Anthropology: Is "Culture" Really the Issue?

2011-03-14T01:27:00.004-04:00

This past Friday I had the chance to see the film "Human Terrain," which critically explores the US military's implementation of the Human Terrain System program in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the the program in which "anthropology goes to war," meaning that social scientific concepts--and social scientists themselves--are being recruited to make war more "culturally-sensitive" and, supposedly, less lethal. The thing is, there aren't too many anthropologists who are actually joining this program.

While proponents of HTS often mention the desire to win the "hearts and minds" of Afghans and Iraqis and make the war effort more "efficient" through the use of socio-cultural knowledge, detractors (many of them anthropologists) argue that the program creates serious ethical issues and conveniently sidesteps many larger political issues in the process. Numerous anthropologists have spoken out against HTS--including the American Anthropological Association, since it was implemented in 2007. There have been some critiques leveled at academic anthropologists for expressing open resistance to HTS. So what's the deal here? Are the anthropologists who speak out against HTS simply cloistering themselves in the ivory tower, or is there legitimate reason to not only be suspect of this effort to "militarize anthropology"?

First off, the mission statement from the US Army's HTS Home page states that the program is designed to:

Recruit, train, deploy, and support an embedded operationally focused socio-cultural capability; conduct operationally relevant socio-cultural research and analysis; develop and maintain a socio-cultural knowledge base, in order to enable operational decision- making, enhance operational effectiveness, and preserve and share socio-cultural institutional knowledge.

Many people argue that HTS is NOT an intelligence gathering operation, and that it is not espionage. The underlying idea is that gaining an improved understanding of culture will make things better on the ground, and while this sounds quite appealing on the surface, I think it makes sense to look further into what this means. Just to add a little more background, here is a description of HTS from BAE systems (which looks like a study abroad program page if you ask me):

In addition to the most advanced weapons systems, intelligence and personnel, there is another valuable resource for America's military. It is the ability to understand the people, culture, traditions and social underpinnings that define an area of engagement. This is where BAE Systems’ Human Terrain System (HTS) program comes in. Because better understanding leads to more powerful and lasting solutions.

So, even though proponents proclaim that HTS is non-lethal (or non-kinetic as it is sometimes put), it is still part of a larger arsenal of "resources" that can be tapped in the theater of war. Again, as with the mission statement on the US Army's page, the BAE description of the program emphasizes the importance of cultural understanding in an "area of engagement" in order to foment "more powerful and lasting solutions," whatever those "solutions may be. As numerous anthropologists have pointed out, one of the fundamental issues with the military's use of HTS is that it has a particularly rigid, if not completely defunct, conception of the idea of "culture" that allows the justification of this program. Now, this may sound like an academic point, but I assure you it is not. As David Price argues in a 2009 piece in Counterpunch,

The notion of using anthropologists and other social scientists to gather information, probe and soothe the feelings of those living in these environments, increasingly monitored and controlled by machines, strikes me as an anthropological abomination. Given what we know anthropologically about the complexities of how culture works, it also seems doomed to failure.

Simple notions of mechanical, disarticulated representations of culture can be found in the Army’s new Counterinsurgency Field Manual, in which particular forms of anthropological theory were selected not because they “work” or are intellectually cohesive but because they offer the promise of “managing” the complexities of culture, as if increased sensitivities, greater knowledge, panoptical legibility could be used in a linear fashion to engineer domination. Such notions of culture fit the military’s structural view of the world. It is the false promise of “culture” as a controllable, linear product that drives the COIN Team’s particular construction of “culture.” Within the military, the COIN Team is not alone in this folly: I’ve just finished a critique of the recently leaked Special Forces Advisor Guide (TC-31-73), and found a widespread adoption of dated anthropological notions of culture and personality theories, being selected and used to produce essentialized reductions of entire continents as having a limited set of uniform cultural traits.

In short, HTS utilizes "culture" in a way that completely disregards histories and politics, and often frames conflicts in Afghanistan, for example, as if they are the result of mere cultural differences (their version of culture fits in with a very outdated notion that dates from around the 1940s, in which entire nations were understood to have singular, unified characters or personalities. Despite the fact that such conceptions of culture have been thoroughly critiqued over the past 60-70 years, a popular notion of culture that stems from this time period is still quite pervasive. In this sense, anthropologists are often fighting against some of the terms they helped to define, which is ironic). This, the argument goes, just requires a deeper understanding of cultural knowledge in order to reduce casualties.

But is "culture" really the problem? I think there is good reason to question the claim that the violence and upheaval in places like Afghanistan are fundamentally rooted in cultural differences, since such thinking completely elides larger social and political realities. First of all, it's pretty important to realize that there isn't just one "culture" or cultural pattern that can explain the behaviors and proclivities of all Afghans. Anyone who claims that there is such a thing is hanging on to an understanding of culture that is seriously warped and lacking in empirical basis. There are numerous groups in that country, each with their own histories and particularities. Culture--whether in Afghanistan or the US--is not just some static object or state that people inherently possess. Instead, it's a fluid, historical, constantly shifting process through which people learn and relearn social rules, norms, boundaries, and expectations.

Much of the HTS rhetoric sounds as if there is a singular code or pattern that needs to be learned by soldiers so that they can then understand the minds of Afghans and somehow make everything better. This kind of static, reified understanding of culture is also reflected in the thinking of folks like the late Samuel Huntington, Lawrence Harrison, and even people like David Brooks. Each of these authors use(d) culture as a primary explanatory framework, even if their understanding of cultural processes themselves were by no means based in any sort of data-supported reality. Huntington often argued that the ongoing conflicts between the "west" and the rest could be understood in purely cultural terms. Harrison has basically rehashed the old "culture of poverty" argument to explain away global inequality as mere cultural traits and predispositions. Brooks makes an argument that is closely aligned with Harrison, going so far as to say that poverty in Haiti is due to "a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences."

All three of these uses of culture are egregiously ahistorical and they ultimately allow for an understanding of complex problems that completely evades political factors. The west and the east clash not because of geopolitical power struggles over resources and territories, but because of deep cultural differences--or so folks like Huntington would have us believe. The nation of Haiti is plagued with poverty not because of hundreds of years of political conflict, corruption, interventions, and social turmoil, but because the people themselves are resistant to progress--that's the version of culture that Brooks and Harrison are peddling.

And this is exactly the way in which proponents of HTS are employing culture. For them, culture is a problem that needs to be addressed, so naturally they need social scientists to help them with this particular puzzle. But it's just not that simple--the real issues behind the conflict extend far beyond cultural differences, that's for sure. While the HTS rhetoric may sound as if it's geared toward improving conditions on the ground, the real issues exist at a much higher level. People in Afghanistan aren't resisting US troops or refusing to cooperate simply because they have a different way of perceiving the world--such explanations completely obfuscate the fact that the people of Afghanistan are actually political aware of the situations and realities they face. They observe the world around them, and they deal with constantly changing situations and make decisions based upon experience and judgment. They aren't simply robots who are acting out of some supposed collective cultural mindset that magically developed over the last 1000 years. They're stuck in the middle of a ridiculously complex--and violent--situation, and many of them are probably more worried about survival than anything else.

What matters is attention not only to history, but also to all of the complex power relationships and political situations that pervade the region at various scales. Many of the people are caught somewhere between the US military, the Taliban, and a pretty unpredictable set of economic and political circumstances. Despite the glossy claims of the US military and the folks behind HTS, the problem ain't culture. More than anything, the problems are political and economic--and no amount of superficial cultural sensitivity is going to ameliorate that fact. It's certainly not a cultural trait unique to the people of Afghanistan to be wary, if not downright terrified, in the face of violence and warfare. And that's an understatement.

*Is HTS a dead issue? Some might argue that it is. However, just as I was getting ready to submit this post, this article showed up on one of the anthropology listservs that I subscribe to.

Blogging archaeology: Photographs, locations, politics

2011-03-12T10:58:00.002-05:00

Colleen Morgan over at Middle Savagery has a great new project going (already mentioned a few times here) called Blogging Archaeology, which is in anticipation of an upcoming session at this year's SAA meetings. The link above highlights some of the responses to the first week's question: "Question 1: The emergence of the short form, or blog entry, is becoming a popular way to transmit a wide range of archaeological knowledge. What is the place of this conversation within academic, professional, and public discourse? Simply put, what can the short form do for archaeology?" Definitely take the time to read through these posts, since there are some excellent, thoughtful responses.

So here's the question for this week:

"Blogging archaeology is often fraught with tensions that are sometimes not immediately apparent. Beyond the general problems that come with performing as a public intellectual, what risks do archaeologists take when they make themselves available to the public via blogging? What (if any) are the unexpected consequences of blogging? How do you choose what to share?"

For my answer I am going to focus on some of the dilemmas with posting photographs that can potentially reveal sensitive information. I think Colleen's question for this week applies to both archaeology and anthropology in general, since choosing what to put online is always a critical issue (for academic, political, and even personal reasons). It is definitely important to think about what's being posted, how it can be used, and what some of the potential impacts could be.

Monte Alban, Oaxaca, 2008

The photograph above was taken at a high profile site in Oaxaca, so it wasn't really an issue for me: people already know about this site. But problems can come up when dealing with sites that are not publicly known (and protected). While blogging is good for bringing about wider public understanding and knowledge about archaeology, there is good reason to think carefully about what we post. I don't claim to have all of the answers, but I think about these questions all the time in the context of my own research and some of my past experiences. Anthropology and archaeology can take us to some pretty amazing places, and it's a good thing to share these experiences with wider audiences. At the same time, it's a good idea to at least think about what kinds of things should not be posted. But it's not as if there is some clear cut line that makes everything simple. Of course not. Nothing is ever easy, is it?

When it comes to photographs (and naming specific locations), well, these issues always seem to be pretty difficult. At some point we want to be able to talk about actual locations, rather than just vague regions. Sometimes when everything is hidden there isn't much of the story left to tell. So keeping everything anonymous certainly has its drawbacks, but there are also issues with letting people know where particular research sites exist (political reasons, etc). As a general rule, I tend to be pretty conservative about the photographs that I post, especially those that relate to archaeological sites. I worked on field projects while I was at SDSU and Palomar College in San Marcos, CA, and also worked on numerous CRM (cultural resource management) projects between 2004 and 2008. Some of the projects were pretty amazing, and I always had my camera with me, but I didn't post all that much online, for some very specific reasons. It's a fine line between bringing attention to an issue and making the location of a specific site known to broader audiences. There were several sites that I worked on that either had sensitive material (burials, rock art, rock rings) or were in politically sensitive places (ie private property and so on). Sometimes I will post photographs that show a general location, and provide a sense of the environment, but that don't really tell people where sites are specifically located, like this:

Anza-Borrego State Park, 2006. This is where I spent most of the summer of 2006 working on a pretty massive CRM project. Since we were out there in July and August, it was pretty hot (understatement).

Overall, though, I try to keep locations pretty vague when it comes to these kinds of archaeological sites. But I would be interested to hear how some other folks deal with these kinds of issues. How do you decide what to post, and what to leave out? What kinds of issues (names, locations, politics, type of site, etc) do you take into consideration? What kinds of methods do you use to give a sense of a site while still obscuring the location (I try to show landscapes that do not have specific landmarks that make the location easy to determine...sometimes you can show what a site looks like by providing a mid range shot that doesn't have a horizon). In the end, these kinds of issues aren't exactly cut and dry, and there is never going to be one answer that works for all cases. So it's a process that will always require thought and critical reflection. When it comes to publishing and disseminating information, there are always going to be some risks. It definitely helps to think through the issues at stake before posting online, rather than after. Again, I'd be really interested to hear what others have to say about this. I don't have all the answers, but considering my constant use of photography, I wish I did!

Sara Perry on blogging, media, archeaology, and communication

2011-03-12T09:41:00.000-05:00

Sara Perry has a great new post about blogging, media, and communication on her site, which is part of the "Blogging Archaeology" discussion that is going on at Middle Savagery. Here's my favorite part:

In the interests of brevity, I won’t add to these comments beyond saying that I think we have a responsibility to remember that blogging is simply one form of media, and whilst people (especially academics) like to pick on it as an especially dangerous and uncontrollable communicative device, I think this is misconstrued and blinding. Blogs and social media have advantages and disadvantages—like every other type of communicative tool. By focusing on them alone (as is common in academia), I’m concerned that we are all-too-conveniently avoiding discussion of the limitations and, indeed, prejudices of other modes of publication (e.g., the academic journal or text or edited volume). These modes are often exclusive, insular, and inaccessible (both physically, linguistically and intellectually). They offer limited opportunities to respond. They can become canonised and cemented as truth and, in so doing, serve to perpetuate the status quo.

Read the rest here.

Brian McKenna on Gillian Tett

2011-03-11T03:02:00.004-05:00

More people need to read the new article about Gillian Tett by Brian McKenna. Just my opinion, but here's a selection to give you a taste:

Tett is absolutely correct that anthropologists (and indeed all academics) need to project themselves more forcefully into the culture. “Anthropologists are well trained to absorb information, not project it.”

They have to “emit."

Tett is doing very important work. She writes from a privileged place in a glamorous and competitive world. At the same time she tests the limits of what is possible. Whether or not she goes far enough is a question to ponder. But all of us must ask ourselves the same question, "How far do each of us go in a hierarchical environment?" As Bourdieu might say, we are all limited by the habitus and the dominant cultural discourse of our own contexts. Tett, like all of us, is shaped by her everyday environment and has constraints on what she is able to write, without censor or self-censor.

Check out the rest at Counterpunch, here.

How could you possibly know what this is?

2011-03-11T02:11:00.002-05:00

Kitchen-scape #1, February 2011. That's all I'm saying. And no, this doesn't have much to do with anthropology, unless you really want to stretch the boundaries.

Collaboration Abounds: Savage Minds - Neuroanthropology - Middle Savagery

2011-03-06T12:03:00.003-05:00

There's a lot of good stuff to check out lately in anthro/archaeo blogging world, that's for sure. The first stems from the idea that Rex at Savage Minds came up with a few weeks back: love letters to anthropology. Various people responded to this collaborative call--including Rex himself--and Daniel Lende put several of these together at Neuroanthropology. Definitely worth taking some time to read through...and think about how and why we're all doing this anthropology thing.

Next, Colleen Morgan posted a roundup of her "Blogging Archaeology" carnival, which is in anticipation of a session on blogging and archaeology at the 2011 SAA meetings in Sacramento (some of my friends are going to the SAAs this year, and they better go to this panel and tell me how things went). There are all kinds of reactions and opinions about the potentialities and drawbacks of using blogs as a communicative tool--or even a research tool. Some folks are more optimistic than others...but that the whole point. It's about discussion, connections, chucking ideas out there and seeing what happens.

Anyway, what I like best about this is that there are groups of people putting ideas together and making projects like this. These discussions take a form that is quite different from the presentation style of the usual "debate" in an academic journal (or even conference), in that they are bit looser, more informal, maybe a little less refined. I like these open conversations, since they show some of the process at work. Sometimes, when we're looking at finished ethnographies or archaeological monographs, it's not easy to see how the project went from the madness of fieldwork and research to the final version (which is cleaned up, edited, and presented in a very neat manner). Grace Krause from the MSU Campus Archaeology Program sums this up pretty nicely:

Much of the information and opinion expressed on blogs is transient and will never be formally published, but this does not mean there is no value in fast-paced reporting. Rather, blogging represents a missing link in the academic thought process that was rarely seen before the rising popularity of digital media. This is what is happening, this is what we’re thinking about right now as opposed to waiting months or years for an official publication, if it ever comes. Blog entries are Polaroid pictures of archaeological ideas, instant and unpolished, but nevertheless the perfect way to watch those ideas germinate and develop over time.

Maybe, after all, some of these types of discussions will make us all start rethinking the FINAL PRODUCTS as well. Who knows? What I like best of all is that I can wake up on a Sunday morning and check out what all of these people are thinking, writing, and exploring about anthropology and archaeology while I'm eating my cereal. Super cool.

Notes about Grandin's "The Last Colonial Massacre"

2011-03-04T12:14:00.005-05:00

There is one overarching theme that crops up in these readings that I can’t stop thinking about: democracy. I have read several histories and ethnographies that talk about US interventions and policies in Latin America, and the stories are usually pretty similar. This book by Greg Grandin provides more of the same: the US took a position on Guatemala that was completely anti-democratic, all in the name of democracy.

Grandin writes about this reinterpretation of democracy toward the end of his book: “the idea, widely held in different forms at the end of World War II, that freedom and equality are mutually fulfilling has been replaced by a more vigilant definition, one that stresses personal liberties and free markets and sees any attempt to achieve social equality as leading to at best declining productivity and at worst political turmoil” (197). This new definition of democracy obviously fits with certain political and economic needs, and defines freedom in terms of “efficient” or open markets. Actual social reform or democracy becomes problematic, because the right or will of particular populations may, in fact, be economically or politically inconvenient for certain government elites or interested outsiders.

My argument here isn’t meant to lionize the political left in Latin America, since the histories of Cuba (to name one) illustrate quite clearly that the socialists are by no means saints either. As Grandin shows throughout his book, the actual histories of violence in the communities of Guatemala are quite complex, contradictory, and difficult to assess. What I am talking about are the relationships between ideals (freedom, democracy, liberty), discourse, and actual political interventions. It’s ridiculously ironic how the US claims to be the global supporter of democracy and freedom, despite it’s less than stellar track record in Latin America, where supporting autocratic regimes was the norm for decades (this helps to explain why so many Latin American nations have a certain ambivalence toward the US).

In effect, US rhetoric about democracy has been incredibly hypocritical and self-serving. Basically, political freedom and prosperity in the US (and elsewhere in the west) has often hinged upon repression elsewhere (Latin America, the Middle East, etc). As Grandin writes, “The way the United States fought the Cold War on the ground was anything but liberal or democratic” (190). Even worse, these histories of intervention remain, in large part, out of public knowledge in the US. Every time I decide to talk about the histories of Guatemala in an intro course, it’s amazing how many students say they had absolutely no idea what happened. These histories are generally taught as being all about eliminating the anti-communist threat, and all of the details of the actual complexities of the events, the details of the real human lives that were lost, are completely obliterated. And today we have a population who thinks that US interventions in Latin America were all about justice, when they were more about serving particular economic and political interests. If that’s not an illustration of hegemonic ideological power, I don’t know what is.

To top all of this off, Grandin provides an example of how the US justified its actions in Guatemala. In a 1986 “retrospective survey” of the violence and war that plagued Guatemala for decades, the US State Department writes, “The explanation for Guatemala’s high level of violence probably is rooted in cultural and sociological factors unique to Guatemala … The use of violence to settle disputes of almost any nature is accepted in Guatemala’s indigenous culture” (100). Not only did the US make excuses for the Guatemalan government and provide material support, it also completely explained away all political factors by using a watered-down, twisted concept of culture to argue that all of the violence was ultimately part of the inherent nature of the Guatemalan people themselves.

This is Exhibit A for the ways in which the anthropological concept of “culture” can be used in incredibly insidious ways to justify pretty much anything. It’s also a good reason for anthropologists to remain actively engaged and vigilant in national and international debates about the histories of development and violence in Latin America to avoid the myopic, Ronald Reagan-esque black and white terms in which many pundits, politicians, and analysts still talk about these issues (Gunder Frank’s analytical arguments, while imperfect, were part of a strong reaction to depoliticized explanations about development and conflict in the “Third World”). Despite the best efforts of many US historians and politicians, Grandin illustrates the fact that democracy can take some very different forms, and while particular governments may not be convenient for the US and other western nations, actively allowing them to be crushed has only resulted in repeated histories of devastation. At some point, it seems the US would learn to actually side with popular democratic movements. But then, maybe the US has already decided which side it wants to take, and the idealists who actually hold onto particular notions about governance and freedom just haven’t figured that out yet.

References

Grandin, Greg. 2004. The Last Colonial Massacre. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Anthropological Sundays #2: From Pith Helmets to Blogs

2011-02-27T23:58:00.002-05:00

For many people, the word "anthropologist" conjures up wonderfully arcane and colonialist images of some guy wandering around among "native" people, maybe wearing a pith helmet, and sipping some tea inside a canvas tent. Taking notes. Making deep observations about cultures, rituals, and other neat stuff. Something like that. Hey, I have no idea how anthropology became associated with the pith helmet wearing colonialist type (scroll down to the part on social and cultural anthropology). Anyway, what can you do? Some stereotypes have tremendous resiliency...I guess when some of the most famous 20th century practitioners actually did dress the part these images tend to stick. So it goes. These days, things are a bit different. You're just as likely to meet an anthropologist who works in Baluchistan as you are one who studies the social meanings and experiences of Second Life. Ya, times change.

The funny thing is that while anthropologists are famous for venturing into remote places to study supposedly distant and unknown people (even if that wasn't really always the case), and even though they like to tell stories about all of the strange foods and behaviors that have been privy to, they can be a pretty conservative bunch when to comes to exploring certain "new" horizons. So what am I talking about? I'm talking about that exotic territory known as the Internet. For some reason, anthropologists have been a bit slow to find their way into the vastness that is the internet. For the most part, as I talked about last week, anthropologists tend to stick to good old fashioned journal articles, books, and academic conferences when it comes to talking about what it is they actually do these days. No wonder so many people don't really know what they're up to. Fortunately, a good number of anthropologists are stepping outside of the usual boundaries, and I think this is a good move. This post is about some of my favorite anthropologists and anthropology-related online "places."

The first one, and probably one of the most well known (at least among other anthros) is Savage Minds. It's also one of the older and more established anthropological group blogs out there. The site is run by collection of anthro profs and some grad students, and it's been around for several years now. SM is a good combination of posts that are geared toward a wider audiences and others that speak to more academic concerns. There are posts that cover everything from the recent events in Wisconsin to the "intersection of anthropology and comic books, graphic novels, comic strips, animation, and other manner of popular drawn art."

Neuroanthropology, which is run by Daniel Lende and Greg Downey, is another favorite site. Here is the site's bio:

Neuroanthropology. Sometimes it’s straight-up neuroscience, sometimes it’s all anthropology, most of the time it’s somewhere in the middle. Greg is the cultural guy, now interested in bio stuff. Daniel is the bio guy, now interested in cultural stuff. Or, to say it differently, Greg does capoiera and mixed martial arts and other sports. Daniel does alcohol and drugs. Two very different styles of recreation.

What impresses me most about Neuroanthropology is the sheer amount of work these guys do--they are always posting all kinds of good stuff. They write about a fascinating part of anthropology, which explores the boundaries between culture and neurobiology. They also write a lot about public anthropology, publishing, and finding ways to rethink how anthropologists communicate with wider audiences. Another excellent part of this site is the weekly roundups that Lende puts together (every Wednesday--here's the latest).

Zero Anthropology, headed up by Max Forte, is where you can go for some politically-charged anthropology. The writers of this site, Forte included, aren't shy about expressing their take on numerous geopolitical events. This is not a version of anthropology that pretends to hide behind an illusion of "objectivity," that's for sure. For some, this might be a bit uncomfortable, while for others this is exactly what is in order. If anything, Zero Anthropology goes to show that there are certainly competing claims about what it is that anthropology is, and should be, all about. The last several years the site has focused heavily on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, with the assistance of writers like John Stanton, the debates and politics of social scientists' involvement in the Human Terrain Systems project. If you were wondering where the political legacy of Eric Wolf landed, it might be here. For those of you who have never heard of this site, here is a nice little post that can catch you up on the entire year of 2010. That was easy.

Then there are my favorite archaeological blogs/sites. Colleen Morgan runs Middle Savagery, which is a fantastic site. She is always up to something fascinating, is a great photographer, and has a pretty unique way of presenting her work and ideas. Morgan's posts cover a lot of ground, that's for sure, and I never get tired of reading her work. In fact, every time I check out her site I get far too many inspirations and ideas...especially when I am supposed to be keeping myself focused on graduate school. If I had to pick one site that points the way for the ways in which blogs and other online media can be used to communicate and explore anthropology/archaeology, I think Colleen's site would be numero uno. Ya, that's how anthropology should look today. A long way from my intro to anthropology textbook, which cost me about 55 bucks and wasn't even in color. Another favorite archaeological blog is Johan Normark's Archaeological Haecceities, where you can get a good dose of theoretical archaeology AND 2012 debunking. Oh, and don't forget to check out the work of one of my all time favorite archaeologists, Michael Shanks. Take some time to look around his site...Shanks does some pretty cool work (not the standard archaeological fare by any means).

Ok, one last site before this post gets waaaaay too long: John Postill's media/anthropology. As someone who started as a photographer before going back to school to study anthropology, I have always been really interested in the borders between anthropology and media. There's certainly a lot of common ground between the two--and the histories go way back. As soon as cameras were invented, anthropologists and archaeologists were using them in fieldwork. Postill's site is one of my new favorites, precisely because of the ways in which he explores media through an anthropological lends. Check out his post "Why twitter is not to be ridiculed," or this one about social media and the uprisings in Egypt. This is just the kind of anthropology that I want to see more of.

Ok, I need to wrap this up, because I am still two chapters away from finishing a book that needs to be done ASAP (it's a good one though: Greg Grandin's The Last Colonial Massacre. Yet another book about Latin American history that makes it all too clear that the US never really learned too many lessons about supporting autocratic, repressive regimes...but that's for another time). If you've made it this far, you might be close to a codeine-esque stupor,* so I'll call it quits.

*Yes, I stole that from William T. Vollmann's intro to The Atlas. I steal all the time, and you can't stop me.

PS: A modified version of this post (with a poll) is cross-posted here.

Photographic Delusions

2011-02-26T22:59:00.002-05:00

Seriously, I miss having an M6. And I miss having my Wisner 4x5, and that really good Rodenstock 210 that I used for about 10 years. I also miss my Rolleiflex, which was in really good shape. I miss my SL66 too. How on earth did I get rid of all those great cameras? Oh, that's right, I went back to school and became a poor anthropology grad student. These days I used a Canon 30D, which is OK, but not my favorite of all time. Ya, I have some other cameras at the moment (like a solid old Nifformat just in case), but the 30D is the one I use most of the time. It works, for now. But at some point I want some NEW STUFF, if you know what I mean. Why does everything that I need/want cost at least $1000 more than I have?

Something to consider: the famous photographer Edward Weston made some pretty amazing photographs with some P.O.S. lens he bought in a thrift store. Lesson: it doesn't take a Leica to make good photographs. So there you have it. Onward.

Black Diamonds - Trailer for a film about MTR

2011-02-26T09:22:00.001-05:00

Here's one more:

For more about this film, check this website. This is an issue that is incredibly controversial throughout Appalachia, and there aren't easy answers. But one of the first steps is taking a closer look at the effects of these extraction processes, and listening to the people whose livelihoods and ways of life are affected. Yes, coal mining is about jobs, but it's also about clean water, public health, and the clash between local communities and mining companies. A larger part of the issue is the fact that coal is used widely throughout the US, but the costs of coal production aren't always considered--or even imagined--but the people who use it to power their daily lives. Often, when we take "costs" into account, we are really only looking at a highly reductive version of reality. Costs are about more than just what shows up on ledgers.

James Danziger on what we get from artists

2011-02-26T08:40:00.003-05:00

James Danziger's blog The Year in Pictures is always full of all kinds of good stuff. Here is a snippet from his latest post:

And as I thought about this, I realized that one of the things artists give us is a way of defining and ordering what we see. A sea horizon can be a Meyerowitz or a Sugimoto. A random gesture in a park can be a Winogrand. A tackily colored interior can be an Eggleston. And rather than taking away from the pleasure of seeing these things, for those of us who are not artists I think it actually adds pleasure. Recognizing the association is in itself a creative gesture. Thus the realization that the scene outside my window (below) was like a Leong was both a gift from the artist and a gift from and to myself.

Photo by James Danziger, 2011.

A few more MTR pics

2011-02-25T09:57:00.003-05:00

Mountain Top Removal & KFTC

2011-02-24T23:14:00.008-05:00

This past weekend was the Dimensions of Political Ecology conference at the University of Kentucky. One part of the conference was a field trip in conjunction with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC) to see some of the effects of Mountain Top Removal (MTR) out in Eastern Kentucky. The photographs above are just a few of the images I took on that drizzly day. The national demand for "cheap" power (coal) results in these radically "transformed" landscapes--the worst part of all of this is how clear it is who is really paying the price for all of this: the small communities who live in the heart of coal country. Trucks rumble through communities throughout Eastern Kentucky (and elsewhere), hauling the raw materials that power so many daily lives. But how many of us actually think about--or can even imagine--the effects of this type of energy extraction? How "clean" is coal when we take the experiences of local communities into account? It's no accident that these sites remain out of public view.

Max Forte channels H.L. Mencken re: Libya

2011-02-24T20:05:00.004-05:00

I'm not going to ruin it for all three of you who read this site. Just go check out this post by Max Forte over at the all-nuanced edition of Zero Anthropology. Here is a selection from one of the choice bits:

As observers of the complexities around the social negotiation of constructed meanings, it would do us well to remember that democracy is inscribed as a gesture of erasure, that human rights exist as an absence through an erasure that is the sign of their own creation. What we urgently need then are less of the over-determined portrayals of reality that lead to debased forms of point scoring– “dictator!” “murderer! “bastard!”–and more sophisticated treatments of the contingency of discourse, while tacking back to the free floating signifiers that constitute the flows of democracy instantiated in the reflexive negotiation of identity best understood as friction where the practice of inscription is embodied but ever perched on the border with the simulacra of memory qua narrative.

I think I am going to put "simulacra of memory qua narrative" on some academic t-shirts and see if I can cash in on this while the fire is still hot. Nuance, after all, is in.*

*If this post doesn't make sense, that's ok.

Anthropological Sundays #1: Anthropology?

2011-02-20T19:04:00.009-05:00

Ok, I'll go ahead and admit it: anthropologists aren't all that well known these days. Whenever I tell people that I am in grad school studying anthropology, I am often met by somewhat bewildered looks. Not all the time--sometimes people seem pretty interested and answer "cool," or something like that. But more people seem to be a little perplexed, and tend to respond with something like, "Anthropology? Is that the study of dinosaurs?" Or my favorite: "How are you going to make any money doing that?" And while those answers can be a bit disconcerting (to say the least), they are actually pretty telling. Anthropology, when it comes to larger public discussions and debates, tends lead a fairly invisible existence. Is this because the general public is simply too disinterested in what anthropologists do? Not really. Is it because the general public is just a lazy, uneducated bunch? No, I don't think that's it either. It's because anthropologists don't publish much of their work in accessible formats. Most of the really good contemporary anthropology--from cultural to physical--is bound up in academic journals that are by no means geared toward non-academic audiences. If you read this types of publications, you know what I mean.

When was the last time any anthropologist was well-known outside of academic circles? In the days of Margaret Mead? Mead was a pretty well-known public figure in her day and even wrote for Redbook magazine for a short period, which certainly expanded the boundaries a bit. The most frequent reference to Mead I see today is the famous quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever does." Who hasn't heard that one? I see that quote all over the place--on posters, used as a tagline on blogs, in books, and even in political speeches. Hey, it is a good quote--no complaints here.

These days, I think that Jane Goodall is probably the most widely recognized anthropologist around, even though many people don't necessarily link primatology with anthropology per se. Goodall, in fact, was one of the first anthropologists that I found fascinating when I first started studying anthropology as an undergrad--along with Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas . Early on I wanted to be a primatologist, then I headed into archaeology for several years before settling on cultural anthropology. But Goodall was definitely an early inspirational figure (if you get the chance to hear her speak, I highly recommend it).

Outside of Goodall, however, what anthropologists are well-known these days? That's actually a good question. My guess at this point would be that maybe a certain number of people have heard of Paul Farmer , especially after Tracy Kidder's book Mountains Beyond Mountains was published. Farmer is a pretty outstanding individual, and his work (in Haiti and elsewhere) is absolutely relevant and important. Overall, though, I'd be interested to know how many people have heard about the projects he's involved in.

The other possibility for a well-known anthropologist today is Robert Sapolsky, who is a neurobiologist and primatologist (if you haven't seen that 2009 presentation in the link, definitely watch it--good stuff). Sapolsky might not define himself as an anthropologist first and foremost--I'm not really sure about that. But a lot of his work is based in anthropology, and it's pretty fascinating. I am especially interested in his work on stress in humans and animals .

Who else? There are a few anthropologists who do get a certain amount of press, come to think of it. David Attenborough is one (maybe), and the more I think about it, he may be one of the most well known anthros out there. And I have always liked a lot of the programs he made, which covered a pretty broad range and often extended far beyond anthropology. Sure, I have my quibbles about some of the ways in which he explains human behavior, but overall I still like a lot of the work he has done. Like Goodall, Attenborough was a key early inspiration who made science and anthropology both interesting and fascinating to me. And he has a pretty cool delivery to boot.

Another anthropologist who gets a lot of media coverage and attention is the ubiquitous Zahi Zawass (you know, the archaeologist who is always on the History Channel). He certainly gets his name out there, although his methods are a bit, well, suspect. He's certainly a showman, and he definitely borrowed some of his schtick from a 1981 film by Stephen Speilberg . But he doesn't exactly have the best of reputations in the field, all things considered. There is always a delicate balance between ratings and accuracy, and Dr. Zawass has seemingly made his stance on that matter. Entertaining, yes, but he might not be the best representation of what anthropology is all about. Just sayin.

So it seems pretty true that anthropologists aren't exactly the most well-known folks out there. After thinking this through, my guess is that Goodall, Attenborough, and Hawass might be the most publicly known figures, and some people may have heard of Paul Farmer. Beyond that, I'm not sure who else people have heard much about. I think there might be some archaeologists who are fairly well known, such as Brian Fagan and maybe Michael Coe. Archaeologists do get a certain amount of press, especially when they work on high profile sites around the world, and National Geographic might be the most successful forum for making that work public. Paleoanthropologists also garner some attention, but I am not sure how many of them are actually all that well known by name. People like Tim White, Richard Leakey (and the rest of his family), Don Johanson certainly garner their fair share of attention when they discover very old human stuff, so to speak . I think these findings do generate a certain amount of public interest, and they are absolutely fascinating (for anyone who likes to read about the discover of early stone tools, evidence of bipedalism, and such), but I am not sure how much of this actually "sticks" in the larger public data bank.

Yes, I do have a point, and it's coming up soon.* Am I arguing that anthropologists need to go all "pop culture" and find any way to reach a wider audience? No, not at all. The irony here is that I actually think that a lot of contemporary anthropologists (physical/biological, cultural, linguistic, and archaeological) do some extremely fascinating and relevant work. In fact, every time I teach an intro course to anthropology, many students are genuinely engaged with the course. Many of them ask me why they have never heard about anthropology--and that's a pretty good question. Despite all of the great work, most people outside of the academy haven't heard much about what anthropologists are up to these days. And this is something that needs to change (there's my point).

The obligation to make some changes, as I see it, lies with the anthropologists themselves, who need to find ways to extend their findings and ideas to different audiences--in creative, interesting ways (this is the REAL point). Personally, I think that more people should know about the work of Philippe Bourgois , whose work on heroin addicts in the US pushes the boundaries of what anthropology is supposedly all about. I also think that more people should know about Karen Ho's work, especially her recent ethnographic study of the culture of Wall Street (a fascinating read for anyone interested in economics). One last favorite: Check out Setha Low's work on the anthropology of gated communities . Especially if you grew up in suburbia, like I did. There's some good work out there, that's for sure (and these are just a few examples from cultural anthropology).

Clearly, I think that anthropology has relevance. And yes, as a graduate student in cultural anthropology I am completely biased. But when I look around at all the work being done in the field, especially considering the world around me, I definitely think that anthropologists (and, in fact, many other social scientists) have quite a lot to add to public knowledge, discourse, and debate. This feeling is reinforced pretty much every time I turn on TV news, in fact. The relevance is definitely not an issue. Anthropologists just need to crawl out of their journals and jump into the broad, confusing, complex, and contentious brawl that is public discourse. The only way to ensure that they will actually be irrelevant is if they continue to stay out of the fray.

Ok, enough of the soapboxing. You all know where I stand. I need to go read an article called "Supply-side Sushi" (Bestor 2001) so I can write a little paper and keep the profs happy.

*Very soon, in fact.

PS: A slightly modified version of this is cross-posted here.

UPDATE: A new comment brings up a good question: Is Attenborough really an anthropologist? I have heard him called an anthropologist from time to time, but have always wondered about that. I know he studied anthropology for a certain amount of time, but I am not sure if he finished his degree or not. He might be more accurately called a naturalist, as the comment points out. I think he is sometimes understood as being an anthropologist in some spheres, but I have always wondered exactly what he should be called. A naturalist who treads some of the boundaries of anthropology? An anthropologically-leaning journalist? Who knows? Anyway, I included him on here because he is sometimes promulgated as an anthropologist, at least in some parts. It's actually an interesting question: how do we technically define who is and who is not an anthropologist? I think the same argument applies to Zahi Hawass, who is technically not an anthropologist per se, but more of an archaeologist/Egyptologist (slash TV personality, of course). See what happens when we start talking about the public sphere? Things start getting fuzzy.

Concepts = tools

2011-02-16T18:08:00.005-05:00

Concepts are like tools, right? No...they ARE tools. I recently read a great chapter by the late Eric Wolf called "Contested Concepts," which provides an excellent discussion of some particularly critical tools in anthropology: culture, power, and ideology. A great read (but I have always been partial to Wolf)--and I think I need to reread it pretty soon, just for fun. Sometimes people talk about ditching one tool (culture) or another (ideology), but for me sometimes its more effective to trace the meanings of these concepts, understand how they have changed over time, and find ways of applying them in new, more refined ways. Rather than continually going to the hardware store (ie always creating neologisms for "new" concepts), sometimes it's not a bad idea if staple tools develop a well-worn patina from continual use and re-use. But then, I may be completely overdoing it with this analogy. This happens from time to time.

Speaking of tools, here's the documentary photographer's equivalent of a "critical tool":

Just when you thought I couldn't get Jim Marshall* and Eric Wolf into the same post, there it is. Take that, doubters! That's right, I just compared "culture" to a Leica. They each have their benefits and limits--and it's important to fully explore their possibilities before either jumping on the bandwagon or dismissing them outright. But that just my pure, unadulterated opinion right there.

Yes, I am supposed to be working right now...

*Image: That's Marshall's Leica M4, which certainly illustrates the fact that sometimes good tools can be used over and over again with consistent, yet innovative, results.

New project in the works: anthropologies

2011-02-14T16:29:00.010-05:00

Ideas abound. I am completely fascinated with the possibilities of communicating and publishing anthropology in some different ways. In fact, that's pretty much all I have been thinking about for the last few days. What else can we do with anthropology? How can we find new, collaborative ways of not only making connections between anthropologists, but also encouraging debate and dialog with wider audiences (the "general" public, journalists, pundits, and maybe even macroeconomists)?

I have one idea in the works, and it's kind of a blend of some old school ideas (magazines) and newer school technologies (blogs). The plan is to have it be somewhere in between a blog, a magazine, a journal, and a thrashed old notebook. All that, but online. It's actually not all that novel, really, but I am pretty excited about the overall plan, regardless. I am putting together a site called "anthropologies" that will be published regularly (once a month for starters), and will be structured around key themes. Kind of like one of my favorite literary Magazines (The Sun), but from an anthropological perspective.

My plan is to include essays from people at various levels: grad students, new PhDs, established academics, and anthros working outside academia. It all depends on whose willing to take part! Some of the themes that I am thinking of covering: anthropology and economics (especially considering the madness of 2008), the politics of tourism, archaeologies of the past and present, the political economy of grad school...and so on. Again: ideas abound.

The other key focus is on working with the essay format. I am taking some inspiration from one of my favorite science writers of all time: Stephen Jay Gould. The goal is to present issues, provoke discussion, and generally encourage open and diverse communication through the creative and engaged exploration of some open-ended themes. For the first issue, which I want to put together for March 2011, the theme is extremely wide open: "What is Anthropology?" Hopefully that will generate a variety of answers. Now I just have to put this thing together. And I will probably need quite a bit of help. If you're interested and want to know more about this, email me here:

ethnografix at gmail dot com

The site is under construction, but here is how it's looking at present.

Comments? Thoughts? Ideas?

UPDATE: The first edition is POSTED!!!

Daniel Lende: "You can read this blog for free"

2011-02-12T10:31:00.003-05:00

Daniel Lende over at Neuroanthropology has a new post about some of the possibilities for anthropology. He talks about some of the recent PR controversies that took place within the field, and how this is illustrative of some of the primary issues and challenges that anthropologists face these days. We are, it seems, at a bit of a crossroads. And it's probably about time to move away from some of the old models and explore new ways of not only doing anthropology, but also publishing and disseminating anthropology. My favorite part of the post is when Lende talks about the contrast between old school publishing models (which lock up information behind expensive subscriptions) and some of the new possibilities:

The Nature commentary by Adam Kuper and Jonathan Marks is behind a paywall. It costs $32 to buy, unless you have institutional access. Ulf Hannerz’s article in American Anthropologist, which Greg drew on extensively in writing about diversity as anthropology’s brand, is available either through institutional access or by joining the American Anthropological Association. The cheapest AAA membership costs $70. You can read this blog for free (my emphasis).

That last line is a beauty. The point, as I see it, isn't to do away with journals, but instead to realize that the publication models are severely limiting. If we are all about the dissemination of anthropological analysis, concepts, and ideas to wider audiences, how is that supposed to happen if all of the latest research sits behind a subscription wall? The irony of course is that there is still a fairly skeptical view among THE ACADEMY about online publishing. Many question whether or not REAL RESEARCH can be published online. I mean, is it possible? However, I have recently run a complex experiment and come to the conclusion that yes, all 26 letters of the English alphabet do show up on screen, so it is indeed possible to publish real, valuable, and important work online. The only thing stopping this is a lack of either interest or desire. So it goes. As Lende points out:

A negative view of writing online (i.e., blogging) and a closed view of knowledge production (i.e., through institutional access or society membership) is still predominant in anthropology.

It's funny, when you think about. Or, at least, when I think about it. Anthropologists are doing all sorts of cutting edge, timely, and fascinating research. So why is our publishing model and ideology so....well...stale? The good thing is that people like Lende, Greg Downey, the folks at the OAC (Open Anthropology Cooperative), Max Forte, the Savage Minds crew, John Hawks, John Postill, Colleen Morgan, and a slew of others are indeed messing with the boundaries. Who knows? Maybe, at some point, more people outside of the academic world will actually know what anthropologists are up to.

Here's another good section from Lende's post:

Online media, not just writing, is an incredible way to reach the public. Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropologist who became interested in new media and teaching after doing his doctoral work in Papua New Guinea, work with his students to create a video, A Vision of Students Today. It has been viewed 4,136,850 times. That is an incredible impact.
And open access? Take PLoS One. It was founded in 2006, and covers research in science and medicine. In five years, it became the world’s largest journal. That is incredible success. One of its more technical journals, PLoS Biology, was founded in 2003, the first of the PLoS journals. It has been the highest impact journal in biology, as ranked by the Institute for Scientific Information. Open access isn’t just viable – it is the way to reach the broadest possible audience and have the greatest scholarly impact.

On Amazon, which came to fame and financial success by selling books online, its #1 product is its Kindle e-reader. Books themselves are going digital. And not just books. Amazon recently launched Kindle Singles, which presents “a compelling idea–well researched, well argued, and well illustrated–expressed at its natural length.” Apple’s iPad offers ways to integrate multi-media features with traditional text. Digital innovation in how we present scholarly material is already happening, and will continue to grow extremely rapidly.

Anthropologists need to go digital – blogging, collaborating, creating, sharing, and disseminating the field online. Blogs, the integration of new media with text, e-publications, and open-access publishing need to be part of how we keep our borderlands discipline healthy and vibrant.

To do otherwise, is to make the field into a marginal borderland, rather than the key meeting place and vibrant area of production the anthropology is today and can be even more so in the future.

Agreed. No need to remain on the borderlands any longer. Time to go push the boundaries and go digital. What's stopping us?

UPDATE: Check out Michael E. Smith's response to this issue: "Anthropologists Urged to Unite Behind Archaic Policies and Technology."

Wash: Oceanside December 2010

2011-02-11T17:37:00.001-05:00

Things vs People (Zero Anth on the AAA & Egypt)

2011-02-09T19:32:00.006-05:00

Max Forte on the recent response of the AAA to events in Egypt:

In a first-rate public exercise of missing the point, the American Anthropological Association released a statement on 02 February, in conjunction with the Archaeological Institute of America, misleadingly titled “Statement of Support for Egypt.” After getting past the brief formality of noting that Egyptian lives and rights are being trampled upon, the statement goes on to focus on the fate of the artifacts housed at the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities–visited by countless tourists, and a specialized class of tourists known as archaeologists. Self-interest, anyone? Indeed, the statement is 190 words, of which at most 31 are devoted to Egyptian lives and rights, and 150 are devoted to the blessed artifacts.

Read the rest here, then sit back and ponder the meaning of anthropology.

Victor Davis Hanson puts "multiculturalism" through the partisan blender

2011-02-09T17:00:00.004-05:00

This one's going to be short and sweet. I stumbled across Victor Davis Hanson's post earlier today, found his "discussion" about multiculturalism to be, well, interesting. Have a look:

Where did multiculturalism come from? It is a bastard child of Marxism, of course, inasmuch as it is anti-capitalist and judges left-wing or pseudo-left-wing totalitarians far less harshly than right-wing authoritarians...

I am still unclear why or how Hanson attaches multiculturalism specifically to Marxism, of all things. Does anyone remember when or where Marx put forth his support of this concept? Talk about being anachronistic. The other interesting thing here is that Hanson seems to assume that all purported multiculturalists act and think alike: they are all sympathetic to leftist dictators, and they are all anti-capitalist. He is actually conflating the broad concept of multiculturalism (which has a wide application in many contemporary nation states) with specific political views and positions. Interesting tactic. Last time I checked, multiculturalism basically refers to the idea that cultural diversity should be respected and accepted in contemporary nation states (as opposed to assimilationist models).

Here's more from Hanson:

Finally, multiculturalism is a form of political and historical ignorance. The multiculturalist is an ahistorical fool, who confuses the cultural periphery with the core. Thus the United States is enriched by “multicultural” music, food, fashion, art, and literature from a Mexico or Kenya or Egypt. Fine, wonderful, all the better. But one, in the spirit of “diversity,” does not wish to embrace the Mexican judiciary, the Kenyan economic system, or the Arab attitude to women.

How is it ahistorical to pay attention to the diverse peoples who actually took part in history? How is it in any way "ignorant" to realize that history is rarely as simple as grade school texts make it out to be? I don't see the logic in his point, at all. And, when Hanson argues that multiculturalists confuse the cultural periphery with the core, what exactly is he talking about? Is he saying that only powerful groups should be considered legitimate members of society? Are only some histories worth paying attention to? I'd be interested to see how Hanson defines the cultural core and periphery of the United States. Also, notice how he conflates policies of particular nation states with culture.

Hanson throws lots of words around. But I think he basically conflates many issues more than he actually explains anything. It's more of a partisan political piece than any sort of historical analysis--and the word on the (digital) street is that Hanson is a historian. Anyway, I need to get back to work.

Conference at the University of Kentucky: Dimensions of Political Ecology

2011-02-07T12:25:00.004-05:00

Well, it's getting pretty close to the conference that the Political Ecology Working Group is putting together at the University of Kentucky. In fact, I need to finish my paper SOON. The conference focuses on interdisciplinary research that explores the nexus between nature and society. To find out a bit more, check out the PEWG website at the U of Kentucky. Also, here is a copy of a preliminary flier, just to add some visual zest to this post:

*Photograph: Power lines running across the deserts in Imperial County, California, 2006. Taken by yours truly while I was burning up in the middle of the summer.

Reshaping the landscape: California 2006

2011-02-07T12:22:00.003-05:00

Media/Anthropology: Selected bookmarks (Egypt & Tunisia)

2011-02-06T10:18:00.004-05:00

John Postill over at media/anthropology has a great new post that lists some key articles, commentaries, and discussions that trace the development of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia over the last month or so. Many of them focus on the role that media has played in all of these events, which is an important issue to discuss (some people assume that technology is the driving force behind these social movements, but there is good reason to rethink that position a bit). Anyway, here is one of my favorite quotes listed:

“Egyptians aren’t demonstrating for an Islamic government any more than the Tunisians were; they’re demonstrating for an honest government – one that will improve education and infrastructure, reduce poverty and inflation, end the Emergency Law, stop torturing people in police stations, stop doing the bidding of the US and Israel in Palestine, stop rigging elections, and, above all, stop lying to them.”

– Adam Shatz, London Review of Books Blog

Read the rest of John's post, here.

Democracy or Extremism? Political Ideals and Egypt

2011-02-05T14:45:00.004-05:00

The US has a pretty confusing--if not outright contradictory--history of foreign policy. On the surface, we supposedly are the champions of democracy, human rights, and freedom. Right? Those are the ideals that the nation was founded upon, and they continue to play a primary role in the political rhetoric and overall idealism of its people.

However, the US also has a history of making alliances with autocratic regimes and/or dictatorships that serve particular short-term interests (Somoza, Pinochet, the Shah of Iran, the Saudi regime, and of course Mubarak in Egypt). These alliances, while politically expedient, haven't exactly lead to the greatest results--and the histories of Latin America, to name one regional example, speak quite clearly to that. Such decisions also stand in pretty stark contrast to our supposed ideals about governance and freedom.

Anyway, what's somewhat disturbing and shocking is the sheer number of people calling for the continued support of the Mubarak regime, which is a continuation of the same kind of international policy that we have relied upon for far too long. What's this all about? Fear? A belief in the whole "clash of the civilizations" scheme that old Sam Huntington used to peddle? Why have so many politicians, pundits, and citizens of the US (and the west in general) been so hesitant, so wary about the events in Egypt? Are their worries grounded, or are these folks overreacting a bit? And what about all of those American ideals about democracy, human rights, and political freedom?

Enough questions, how about some more Zizek:

Vonnegut on ridiculously simplistic social divisions

2011-02-03T23:34:00.003-05:00

"Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative."

-Kurt Vonnegut, 2004.

Zizek on events in Egypt

2011-02-03T22:57:00.002-05:00

Slavoj Zizek on revolution, the west, Egypt, and fear:

What cannot but strike the eye in the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt is the conspicuous absence of Muslim fundamentalism. In the best secular democratic tradition, people simply revolted against an oppressive regime, its corruption and poverty, and demanded freedom and economic hope. The cynical wisdom of western liberals, according to which, in Arab countries, genuine democratic sense is limited to narrow liberal elites while the vast majority can only be mobilised through religious fundamentalism or nationalism, has been proven wrong. The big question is what will happen next? Who will emerge as the political winner?

Read the rest here.

Power, realpolitik, and freedom: Egypt and US Ideals about Freedom

2011-02-03T10:26:00.006-05:00

What absolutely blows me away is how quickly some folks drop their supposed ideals about freedom and democracy when the people under consideration are far away (like in Egypt, for example). It's shocking, actually, to hear some folks out there calling for the support of Mubarak as a close ally (check the comments section). I don't get it. Democracy, it seems, only applies here at home. When it comes to a distant population like the people of Egypt, it seems that many people are willing to sidestep all of the rhetoric about political freedom and openly advocate supporting a repressive policy state, all in the name of "our interests." Horribly ironic, no? Granted, the situation in Egypt is far from clear, but I definitely do not think that going back to the "support the nearest dictator who will toe the line" model is the way to go. Absolutely not. Anyway, here are some quotes that are apt for folks on all sides of the political spectrum here in the US:

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.

-Ronald Reagan

Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

-Ronald Reagan

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

-Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Letter to Josiah Quincy, Sept. 11, 1773.

A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.

-President Thomas Jefferson.

Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

-Thomas Paine.

The search for anthropology in public, part I*

2011-02-03T00:10:00.006-05:00

There has been a lot of discussion of late about the pubic recognition (or lack thereof) of anthropology. Daniel Lende has yet another post that has other links that you can follow to catch up if you haven't been keeping up with your anthro-blog quota over the last couple of weeks. The most recent discussion, which was started by Greg Downey at Neuroanthropology PLoS, traveled to Savage Minds, then to the Open Anthropology Cooperative, and now back to Neuroanthropology, is about "branding" anthropology. Why? Because, in general, the wider public has about as much exposure to anthropology as Latin grammar. That is to say, not much. Whose fault is this, you ask? It's all on the anthropologists, who, for some reason, don't seem to like putting their ideas out in public anymore. Remember when Margaret Mead was a well known public figure? Ya, that was several decades ago. Hence all the discussions about public exposure, branding, and such. Basically, anthropology has a PR problem--and it's not because their work is irrelevant. It's because their primary publication model is based upon the same philosophies that are behind Fort Knox.

Anyway, this post is supposed to be about finding anthropology in public, so I need to move forward. I have this habit. Every time I go to a bookstore, I make sure I check the "anthropology" section just to assess the state of affairs. Call it professional interest, or something. I made a few visits over the winter break, and I just happened to make another quick check just tonight. My overall assessment of the situation: not good. If you're lucky you might see a book by Wade Davis, maybe one by Clifford Geertz if you're really lucky (Interpretation of Cultures is fairly common), and maybe one by Margaret Mead. Jared Diamond is almost always there. Other than that, the anthro section tends to be a little dated, a little strange, a little eclectic, and quite often...pretty boring. It's true. When it comes to having a larger selection of interesting texts that might have a chance of appealing to a wider audience, the historians, political scientists, and the sociologists are winning hands down. Even the economists are winning--by far. It's true. People have heard of Paul Krugman, and they actually buy his book.s So what's the deal here? Why is anthropology so, well, absent? Is this how things are looking in YOUR local stores? Do I just have faulty data, or is the situation really this grim?**

*There may or may not be a Part II to this post.

**Yes, it's true. This conversation isn't all that interesting and is only going to appeal to anthropologists who are sitting around trying to figure out how to explain--again--what they spend all of their waking life doing.

Spoof on US State Department's Position on Egyptian Protests

2011-01-31T09:54:00.001-05:00