Image: Human Planet production team members Tuppence Stone and Cecilia Hue with 10 year old Shede, a Tubu girl who crosses the Sahara in a camel train searching for water.
British museum event: media and nation building
Seminar Series at the British Museum’s Centre for Anthropology
When: Thursday 21st April 2011 at 10.00 am (tea & coffee served from 9.30am)
Where: Centre for Anthropology, British Museum
The British Museum’s Centre for Anthropology, in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), is delighted to present for the 4th seminar of the series a discussion between Dr John Postill author of ‘Media and Nation-building: How the Iban Became Malaysian’ and Dr Felicia Hughes-Freeland who reviewed the work for the JRAI.
This event is free. Click here for more details.
Japan: Looking ahead to recovery
Guest post by Jin Sato
On April 4, 2011, the Asia Society and the Japan Society co-sponsored a Japan town hall meeting in New York City to discuss questions related to the recent earthquake. Several prominent experts constituted the panel which was moderated by Fred Katayama. Topics and questions for discussion were formulated by Jin Sato of the University of Tokyo and visiting democracy and development fellow at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, Princeton University.
The event was taped and can be viewed by clicking on the image below.
Questions were clustered into three areas in order to generate broad discussion about the disaster’s impact on Japanese politics, economics and social life, as well as to assess the extent of the uniqueness and historical significance of the changes for the Japanese people, and for Japan as a nation:
1. Japan’s Reliance on Nuclear Energy: The Politics of Risk Sharing
Japan has only 20 percent self-sufficiency in primary energy supply and more than half of that is nuclear power. Historically, the main rationale for advocating nuclear power was to enable Japan to be more self-sufficient. More than 30 years ago, during the incidents of “oil shock” and petrochemical shortage in the 1970s, the Japanese people learned the lesson of dependence on fossil fuels. Given the magnitude of the ongoing catastrophe, questions such as these arise:
- Is it time to question Japan’s dependence on nuclear energy as the primary domestic source of electric power?
- Given this kind of catastrophe, is it appropriate for Japan to allow the private sector to continue to manage this kind of high-risk operation?
- What should be the role of the government?
- How do we democratically control high-risk operations?
- Will a growing awareness of the inequitable distribution of risk lead to the Japanese public questioning of the reliance on nuclear energy?
2. The Future of the Japan Brand: Economic Fallout of the Disaster
Historically, the myth of superior Japanese technology has prevailed and even in this tragic series of events, the international community was shocked to discover the failure of the “failsafe” Japanese nuclear technology and safety mechanisms. Questions include:
- Will this incident signal the beginning of the end to the myth of Japanese technological superiority?
- What will be the impact of the current nuclear crisis on Japan’s reputation as a high-tech exporter and more generally on the “Japan brand”?
2011 summer Zulu program
June 13 – August 5
The University of Pennsylvania’s African Studies Center will host the 2011 Summer Zulu Program to teach intensive Zulu language and culture. The program will run for 8 weeks, from June 13 through August 5, 2011. They will offer elementary and intermediate levels; they will consider the advanced level also provided they get sufficient enrollments. No prerequisite for beginners (elementary level), and students/professionals from any academic backgrounds can apply.
If you have any questions about the Summer Zulu Program please feel free to contact Audrey N Mbeje at mbeje@sas.upenn.edu or via zulu-language@sas.upenn.edu.
Resource for anthro and related jobs
In case you don’t know about this site, please check it out:
http://www.getanthropologyjobs.com/
Anthro in the news 4/2/11
• You’re most welcome
Hugh Raffles, cultural anthropology professor at the New School and newly embraced U.S. citizen, published an op-ed in the New York Times–above the crease and with a large color illustration. Congratulations! The gist of the essay is that immigrant humans, like immigrant non-human biological species, do more good than harm by introducing variety and creativity.
• Fog of…what
The question is: can computational science help to prevent or win wars? As covered in an article in Nature, the Pentagon is betting yes (to both preventing and winning, presumably). The U.S. government is moving millions of dollars into computational social science programs within the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Nature called on Robert Albro, cultural anthropologist in the School of International Service at American University in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the American Anthropological Association’s Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the Security and Intelligence Communities. Albro comments “…voodoo science is all too frequently generated from the work of computational social science.” [Blogger’s note: like you, I wondered what exactly computational social science is. I searched, in Google, and found this definition from a George Mason University website: Computational social science is the interdisciplinary science of complex social systems and their investigation through computational modeling and related techniques].
• Sugar daddies not so sweet
Schools in South China’s Guandong province are launching a crash course for girls about self-respect and how to resist the sweet talk of sugar daddies. The China Daily quotes Li Xia, an anthropologist/women’s studies scholar, who says “Wanting to rely on men is a complicated social phenomenon caused by various factors and it is improper to attribute it to personal immorality.” [Blogger’s note: that would be whose immorality–his or hers?]
• Identifying war criminals in Central Africa
William Samarin, professor of linguistics and anthropology at the University of Toronto, has testified about the ability of Central Africans to identify Lingala, a Congolese language, as the language spoken by their alleged aggressors from the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC). His views are contested.
• What’s going on? Racial/ethnic shifts in U.S. cities
Newly released census data show that the black population of Detroit and Washington, D.C., has declined in the past ten years. NPR speaks with Roderick Harrison, associate professor of sociology and anthropology at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Harrison is former chief of racial statistics at the U.S. Census Bureau. [Blogger’s note: around five years ago, I had a conversation with a black taxi driver. in D.C., in which the topic of “race” in D.C. came up. He told me something like this: he had recently driven two white men–maybe businessmen or political people–who discussed how they were going to turn D.C. into a white city. I was appalled. I said: really, they said that? He said, yes, and here I am, a black man, driving this cab, listening to them talk like this.]
It’s spreading: obesity stigma
Anthropologyworks cannot claim credit for helping an anthropology study rise to the top as a story, since no direct evidence exists to show that our March 29 Tweet played a role.
But it just might have.
The study is based on survey questions posed to people in many cultural contexts around the world. Findings indicate that social preferences for a slim body and negative views of a not-slim body are no longer confined to the U.S./”the West.”
In fact, preferences for a slim body, especially a female slim body, are now prominent in Samoa and Mexico, for example.
It is not often that an article published in the distinguished journal, Current Anthropology, makes it to the front page of the New York Times. And “not often” is probably inaccurate. More like: rarely. Or maybe: never? [Blogger’s note: please send in examples of CA articles that have attracted major media coverage in the past, via our comment button.]
And the story is gaining momentum as you read this post. The obesity stigma study is on a roll, with other mainstream media outlets chiming in. Maybe Alexis Brewer, the lead author who is a professor of anthropology at Arizona State University and author of Obesity: Cultural and Biocultural Perspectives, will be invited to the Daily Show!
New (April Fools’ Day) research on Yetis
Please note, this post is satirical. Please enjoy a laugh, but do not even think of citing this in any kind of scholarly research. Though some of the names are real, the post is not to be taken seriously.
Guest post by Jonathan Higman
A newly-created research institute at a Russian university is looking for adventurous GW students to study the yeti.
“In Russia there are about 30 authoritative scientists who are engaged in studying the phenomenon of the ‘Abominable Snowman.’ All of them will be integrated into this institute,” said Igor Burtsev, the
director.
Maxim Lysenko, director of internationalization at KemSU, said the George Washington University, and especially its anthropology students, are attractive candidates to help with the research because of their love of studying abroad and their track record of work in biological anthropology.
Lysenko pointed to continuing work on fossil footprints in Kenya by Brian Richmond and several of his students and their related research into modern human gait.
“As with Bigfoot,” Lysenko said, “much of the evidence for the yeti is in the form of pedal impressions.”
Cleveland Krantz of Grays Harbor College in Washington State, a noted investigator of Bigfoot, is skeptical. “I’ve seen the pictures,” he told the Vancouver (Wash.) Star, “and to me they say, ‘Just some fat dude with rickets.'” However, he urged further research into the matter.
“I’d let my own daughter go yeti-hunting in Siberia,” Krantz explained. “I mean, they have 30 scientists trying to study zero yetis. They need help.”
The proposed U.S. program is still in the planning stage, Lysenko said, and no Americans will be participating before the summer of 2012. The institute is hoping for students who are “fun-loving and adventurous,” since most of the yeti reports come from remote regions that are best reached by helicopter.
“Skydiving experience would be a plus,” he said. So would knowledge of Russian, although most of the people reporting yetis are native speakers of Shor or other Turkic languages.
“That’s sometimes a problem,” Lysenko admitted. “One time we thought a Shor speaker was talking about a yeti but the word he was using actually meant Sumo wrestler.”
Contacted about the proposed program, GW Eurasian studies student Louise Bryant said it would be a great résumé-building experience.
“In these competitive times,” she explained, “being able to say I used my language skills to do cutting-edge science in a remote part of Eurasia would be great for my career. Plus, yetis are totally cool.”
Jonathan Higman is the lead administrator at the George Washington University Department of Anthropology. He received his M.A. in anthropology in 1983. Despite considerable birdwatching in alpine environments, he has never observed anything rarer than a mountain lion.
Upcoming events at UMass
Please see below for details on two upcoming activities of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Center for Heritage and Society
Why Does the Past Matter? Changing Visions, Media, and Rationales in the 21st Century: May 4-7, 2011
This conference includes almost 200 speakers from 34 countries. The goal of this conference is to bring together a wide range of academics, public officials, planners, educators, heritage professionals, and community leaders to examine the practical value of the past—by means of a rigorous humanities and social science reexamination through five distinct thematic lenses: identity, culture, economics, ecology, and civil society. For more information, please visit: http://www.whydoesthepastmatter.org.
International Heritage Online Studies: 3 Summer Sessions
For more information about our Summer Online Program of professional training courses on digital, intangible, and community-engaged heritage, as well as courses in collaboration with the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, please visit: http://www.umass.edu/chs/courses/online.html.
Anthro in the news 3/28/11
• Japan has to deal with “nuclear allergy”
Contaminated water, spinach, people and perhaps more. Peter Wynn Kirby writes about concepts of pollution, contamination, and stigma in Japan. He is a researcher with the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Oxford and a research fellow at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris. His latest book is Troubled Natures: Waste, Environment, Japan.
• Lessons from Chernobyl about radiation pollution
Adriana Petryna, professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, was quoted in the New York Times: “Mismanagement of information creates consequences down the line.” Additionally, regarding the post-tsunami/quake/nuclear situation in Japan, the same article quoted Joshua Breslau, medical anthropologist at UC Davis: “We have to be careful that we don’t create a whole class of victims, that we don’t put people in some diagnostic box that makes them permanently dependent.” Blogger’s note: kind of we-ish, isn’t it?
• Spiritual healing in Cuba
Drug Week picked up on a new publication in Anthropology & Medicine about Cuban scientific spiritists in Havana. The lead author is Santo D. Espirito and colleagues at the University of Lisbon.
• Hot stuff
Louisiana’s Avery Island is the home of the legendary tabasco hot sauce manufactured, since 1868, by the McIlhenny family. The Economist quoted Nick Sitzer, folklorist and professor of anthropology and American studies at Tulane University, in an article about how the McIlhenny family provides for its employees full health, dental and retirement benefits. Blogger’s note: for further reading, enjoy Jeffrey Rothfelder’s McIlhenny’s Gold: How a Louisiana family Built the Tabasco Empire.
• Book launch in Islamabad
A galaxy of diplomats, intellectuals, educationists, students and foreigners at the premises of German Embassy in Islamabad celebrated the publication of At the Shrine of the Red Sufi: Five Days and Nights on Pilgrimage in Pakistan, by German cultural anthropologist, Dr Jürgen Wasim Frembgen.
• Don’t cut anth
Mounting opposition to proposed cuts at Glasgow University includes resistance to cutting anthropology courses.
• Dirty museum exhibition
From Dutch obsession with cleanliness to English chamber pots and more, a new exhibit in London mounted by the Wellcome Collection looks at dirt around the world. “Dirt: the Filthy Reality of Everyday Life” exemplifies the great cultural anthropologist Mary Douglas‘s dictum that dirt is “matter out of place.” Depending on context, dirt can excite disgust, moral outrage or sexual excitement. Blogger’s note: What more can you ask for? The exhibit is free at the Wellcome Collection until August 31.
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