• Social networking vs. social class in England?
People who do not embrace the web will be increasingly cut off from its professional and financial benefits, warns David Zeitlyn, a social (cultural) anthropologist at the University of Kent, England, thus leading to an ever larger digital divide in England. The country’s poorer North East is the region with the highest percentage of people who are not engaging with the internet. Nearly one-third of the people in the North East are reluctant to use the internet for more than sending email and occasional browsing. London and the North West are leading England’s digital revolution with only 19 percent of the population defining themselves as technophobes.
Zeitlyn’s findings are based on his analysis of the “Digital Anthropology” poll of 2,000 web users. He sees class structure as fast-changing in England with a digital elite emerging and thriving and social networking overtaking traditional social class indicators (parents’ social and economic status and education) in shaping a person’s life status.
• Anthropologist is interim Prime Minister of Madagascar
Madagascar’s four main political groups agreed to a power-sharing deal and the appointment of Eugène Mangalaza, an anthropology professor, as Prime Minister of the interim government. Mangalaza has taught anthropology and philosophy at the University of Toamasina. As someone fairly unknown in political circles, he was a surprise choice. Elections will be held in the next six months.
• British economist puts anthropology in its place
Noted British economist and Financial Times columnist John Kay has this to say about the relationship between economics and other disciplines: “Economics is not so much the queen of the social sciences but the servant, and needs to base itself on anthropology, psychology, and the sociology of ideas. The future of investing–and economics–lies in that more eclectic vision.”
• Gusterson skeptical of the Minerva Initiative awards
The Chronicle for Higher Education carried an article entitled “New Pentagon-NSF Grants Draw Criticism from Social Scientists” in which it cited Hugh Gusterson as “one of the most prominent skeptics” of the Minerva Initiative. The Pentagon has funded, so far, 17 projects that were solicited and reviewed by the National Science Foundation under a “special agreement” with the Pentagon that has provided, so far, $7.6 million. Awardees include 13 political scientists, five economists, three sociologists, two psychologists, two computer scientists, one linguist, and one communications scholar (several of the 17 awards have more than one principle investigator). Craig Calhoun, president of the US Social Science Research Council expressed concern about the narrowness of the projects in terms of their focus on “quasi-universal models” and reliance on techniques that are ungrounded in terms of particular country or region. He pointed to the lack of knowledge based on anthropology and fieldwork. Hugh Gusterson agrees: “The people one could think of who might really be able to give Pentagon thinking a jolt and explain how things look from the point of view of disaffected people in the Middle East–I just don’t see them here.”
anthropologyworks 