• Sex work: beyond the Swedish model
At a symposium in Adelaide, experts discussed different models for regulating prostitution including the Swedish model  in which selling sex is decriminalized but procuring sex is illegal. Swedish social anthropologist Petra Ostergren said that the Swedish model is not pragmatic, treats sex workers like children, and has driven sex work underground. Catherine Healy, national coordinator of the New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective, reported that a five-year review of decriminalization there found that it was a success with laws working to protect sex workers’ health and safety.

• Anthro of zombies
NPR covers an anthropology class on zombies and their cultural importance that anthropology professor Jeffrey Mantz teaches at George Mason University. Key lessons include: they are everywhere, they will eat you if you get too close, and a zombie attack is probably not the worst thing that will happen to you.

• Anthro of spooky
The Chronicle for Higher Education carried an article about the research of cultural anthropology professor Misty Bastian, of Franklin & Marshall College, on the paranormal research industry and people who believe in the paranormal. The article includes a link to a video clip of Bastian and her student, Jessica Garber, discussing their work.

• It takes a student
Thomas Prince is a student of anthropology and economics at Concordia University. In 2009 he spent time in Uganda building homes with other Concordia students. While there, he visited jewelry stores to find gifts to take home for family, friends, and his girlfriend, Laura Schnurr, an international business student at Concordia. Now, both Thomas and Laura have founded Beads of Awareness, a small business to help sell Ugandan jewelry and spread awareness in the West, and, with its profits, to support community initiatives in Uganda.

• An Oxford first
Two students attending Oxford University are the first Australian Aboriginals to do so. Paul Gray and Christian Bumbarra Thompson are both recipients of a Charles Perkins scholarship which is named after a trailblazing Aboriginal soccer player. Thompson is pursuing doctoral study on the anthropology collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Gray is examining the effects of early experiences of abuse and neglect on children in foster care.

• Paleo push back (a regular mini-feature of anthro-in-the-news): stone tool making
A method of making stone weapons called pressure flaking was previously thought to have emerged first in Europe. Evidence from Blombos Cave in South Africa shows that pressure flaking was being done there 55,000 years earlier than evidence from France and Spain. Africa News quotes Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado of Natural History and co-author of the paper in Science describing the find: “It’s a very skilful and advanced technique that no one expected to occur at such an early age in SA.”

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 11/01/10” →