Like a bunch of post-it notes

This post is more like a collage of information, along the lines of a Peter Beard diary or a book of stories by William T Vollmann. Sure, long, cohesive narrative posts are great. But this isn't one of them. There are just too many ideas floating around, and instead of forgetting them I am just going to jam a bunch all into one post. Why not?

Since I already mentioned Beard, here is a photograph of one of his diaries, which are jam-packed, nonlinear, and completely fascinating:

"Astrid Heeren and Veruschka, April 7-8" Peter Beard, 1988

Beard is a long way from the ordered world of Ansel Adams, that's for sure. I found the above image on this site (scroll down for the post on collages). I first encountered the work of Peter Beard at the Fahey Klein gallery in Los Angeles about 10 years ago, and he has been one of my favorite photographers ever since. There is something to be said for letting loose, and Beard is certainly bound by few conventions. Beard's website is here.

Glenn Beck and archaeology (or pseudoarchaeology to be more accurate). So, Beck went on his show and demonstrated his absolute lack of understanding when it comes to archaeology. I seem to be a couple of days behind the curve, but I first found out about this via Matt's post over at Savage Minds. Here's the video (be prepared for some really lame understandings of archaeology):

I was about to break out my history of archaeology books by Willey and Sabloff and Bruce Trigger and start writing my response to this, complete with a thorough discussion of 19th century archaeological hoaxes, but then I realized that A Hot Cup of Joe and Johan Normark over at Archaeological Haecceities already covered the issue quite well. A quote from A Hot Cup of Joe:

In the 19th century, there was a prevailing myth of a “Moundbuilder society” that somehow vanished. This often became twisted into the agendas of certain religious and political causes but the credit couldn’t possibly go to the Native Americans. To recognize these people as the rightful designers and builders of such magnificent and detailed constructions would mean admitting that the Native Americans were something more than the “savages” and “heathens” they were characterized and marginalized as. Such characterizations made it far easier to force them off their lands, displace them, and treat them as less than white.

Fortunately, such beliefs and agendas have been forced out of academia early on by the likes of Cyrus Thomas, who had a Federal Government budget to find out the truth of the Moundbuilder mystery. His work was empirical and it concluded that the mounds “were built by the Indians.” In addition, he had the occasion to debunk some of the “tablets” that were cropping up here and there, including the Davenport tablet to which he launched a full, empirical investigation that discovered that it had been planted recently (to 1894) in a mound in Davenport, Iowa.

Hmmm. Why do we need some sort of public outreach in anthropology and archaeology? Well, Glenn Beck and his myopic, nationalistic uses of archaeology are Exhibit A. This kind of reminds me of an article written by Bettina Arnold about the nationalistic and political misuses of archaeology during the 20th century. The main point here is that archaeology has been manipulated for political purposes many times in the past, so it's not like Beck is inventing a new genre here.

Elizabeth Edwards on photography and anthropology:

"An anthropological photograph is any photograph from which an anthropologist could gain useful, meaningful visual information"

-from the 1992 publication Anthropology and Photography

Skaters and anthropologists. Check out this clip from a 1980s Bones Brigade skate video. It's humorous and right on the mark at the same time:

The "anthropologist" in the video is great. His words definitely seem to have a strong resemblance to the writings of Craig Stecyk:

"Two hundred years of American technology has unwittingly created a massive cement playground of unlimited potential. But it was the minds of 11 year olds that could see that potential."

-CR Stecyk III, from his Facebook Page.

If you don't know about Stecyk or what he is known for, there is a fairly recent documentary called Dogtown and Z-Boys that will fill you in. The original Dogtown articles by Stecyk are archived here, and are well worth reading, especially for anyone interested in the history and culture of skateboarding and surfing in Southern California (and anywhere, really). Stecyk's writings, to me, are decidedly sociological and anthropological in some senses--and that's why the bookish anthropologist in the above video is both plausible and hilarious at the same time. It's strange when an "anti-establishement", counter-culture subgroup like skaters starts getting anthropologized. But that's exactly what's happening. Stecyk is a good writer, and his work is definitely an inspiring example for anyone who is interested in looking at current subcultures anthropologically. It's important to look at social groups like this, but it's also important to try to find ways of writing and talking about these groups in creative ways. Work like this gives me all kinds of ideas about how I want to approach ethnography.

Somewhat related, Emily Chivers Yochim has published new book out about Skateboarders. I haven't read it yet, so I can't really make any comments yet. I'm interested to see how she approaches the subject. But the coolest part is that the book is available online to read. Check it out here. Mimi Ito discusses this book and the larger project that it is part of, here.

Barbara Miller over at anthropologyworks has a great post about "Paul Farmer in the news." What I like about Miller's site is that she is always tracking when and where anthropology is mentioned in the media. This is a good antidote for some of my complaints about the relative obscurity of the discipline--I think it makes sense to go out and see who is talking about anthropology, what people are doing with anthropology, and how people are in fact engaging with the discipline. Related: check out this post from the AAA blog.

Since Walker Evans is probably my favorite photographer of all time, I decided that I should probably read the famous book that he made in collaboration with the writer James Agee, Let US Now Praise Famous Men. I have read parts, but never the whole book all the way through. Well, now that I am getting ready to start framing my own fieldwork (which will include a photographic component), it's time to read this classic text. It's another example of the kind of work that I find really appealing and inspiring. Just for fun, here's an Evans photo:

Garage, by Walker Evans. Atlanta, GA, 1936.

I also finally bought the book Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes, because I have seen it cited so many times that I decided I need to read it. It goes up on the shelf next to books by Susan Sontag, David Levi Strauss, Elizabeth Edwards, John Berger, and others.

I found out about the 17 Magazine project from this post on Sociological Images. Yet another fascinating (and entertaining) project. This was conceived by 18 year old high school senior Jamie Keiles. Keiles has a new project and blog called Teenagerie, which is witty and critical look at adolescent life.

Here is the last note. I am reading David H. Price's book "Anthropological Intelligence," which is yet another book that I have wanted to read so far. I am on the fourth chapter now, and this book is definitely a good read for anyone who is interested in looking further into the relationship between anthropology, nation-states, and war. Some folks dismiss the concerns of contemporary anthropologists who are critical and resistant to programs like the Human Terrain Systems project, and Price's book provides some reasons to at least think twice about these issues.

Thanks for putting up with this. I will attempt to return to more cohesive posting in the near future. No guarantees though...

The official and the unofficial

This is interesting. David Price wrote a short review about anthropology blogs--it's pretty fascinating when two different styles of communication start referring to one another. Here is a little excerpt from Rex at Savage Minds about this:

Today I woke up to the usual quarterly flow of new journal alerts into my inbox and was surprised — delighted, really — to see a very complimentary article in the latest American Anthropologist on Savage Minds, Zero Anthropology, and the AAA blog. In another proof of its incredible capacity to do the work of our association, AnthroSource has the article behind a paywall while Wiley-Blackwell has it available for everyone to read (here is the abstract and you can download the PDF here sorry here is the actual link).

The (short) article is well worth reading. It gets me thinking about how--and why--anthropologists create information. In many ways, I find journal articles to be both extremely useful and extremely closed. I wonder how publishing models will change, or if they will change in the near future. The problem, ultimately, is about the control of information. There HAS to be some measure of control, right? Maybe.

Overall, I prefer the informal nature of blogs to a lot of what I have to read all the time. It's interesting to see people bend the rules a little, mix up the standard presentations, and even just post some things off the cuff. Here are some of the sites that I check all the time:

Zero Anthropology
Neuroanthropology
Middle Savagery
Sociological Images
Savage Minds
anthropologyworks
Archaeological Haecceities

David Price on HTS (Counterpunch)

David Price has a new article over at Counterpunch that discusses the experiences of John Allison, a cultural anthropologist/archaeologist who was recruited into the Human Terrain Systems project. An excerpt:

These issues have such significance to professionally trained anthropologists that the military is increasingly becoming aware that the unethical nature of the everyday procedures makes it difficult for them to hire Ph.D. anthropologists with normative understandings of ethical practices. One choice for the military facing this problem would be to halt a program that necessitates engaging in ethically problematic behaviors; the other choice for the military could be to start training their own “ethnographers” and “anthropologists,” with a different standard of ethical behavior. According to John Allison, the military appears interested in the second of these two choices; in early December he wrote me that he concluded, “that the military is beginning to do an end run by producing its own anthropologists/social scientist PhDs at West Point, the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy and other cooperating institutions; thus marginalizing the criticism.”

Take the time to read the whole article. This is, in my opinion, a serious problem for anthropologists (understatement).