FieldNotes is on Hiatus

I am currently on a research and writing leave until January 2010. I will not be updating FieldNotes regularly until I am back in the classroom next winter.

I am, however, on twitter and facebook. I hope you’ll find me there.

Joys of Twitter

I’ve been twittering for about a month now. I like it a lot more than I imagined I would. Here’s why:

I am so very pleased at the professional and personal connections I’ve already made.

I get the criticisms — ‘no one cares about just anyone taking out the garbage’ — but I realize now that you might care about the mundane in the lives of the people you know and care about. As in most things, the context of your conversation is key. Often, the conversations are more substantial than household garbage anyway.

I am on twitter at: tbrrhd. Please let me know where I can follow you.

Flip Video MinoHD: A FieldNotes Review

Flip Video MinoHD

Originally uploaded by TFM

I’ve been using the tiny Flip Video MinoHD (by Pure Digital Technologies) for about a month now. I’ve had a chance to try it in a fieldwork setting (elder interviews) and while traveling on vacation. While I have never had that much interest in doing video (professionally or personally), the MinoHD is lots of fun, easy to use and (obviously) extremely portable.

I see several advantages and disadvantages to using this camcorder for fieldwork. They are as follows:

Advantages and Strengths

Disadvantages

In sum, this camcorder is probably best for short subjects, such as talking briefly with someone standing at a particular location where video images would add to the recording keeping. I intend, for example, to use the camcorder while standing outside with an elder who is telling a story about the location in which we are standing. It is ideal for scenery. It is not great for longer interviews largely because of the need to download the video file after one hour.

As someone who would never have considered carrying a video camera with me while doing fieldwork, I will carry this one because of its size, ease of use and convenience.

An assortment of short videos taken on the Flip Video MinoHD is available on my YouTube channel. Or, take a look at this 30s clip of commuters walking through the Shinagawa train station in Tokyo. (Note: you must toggle the HD button in Flickr or the HQ button in YouTube to see the videos in HD. These buttons are found in the video screen.)

CASCA / AES Conference Starts Tomorrow at UBC

I’ll be around the CASCA conference at UBC this week. I hope to see you there.

BTW: If you are on twitter, please mark your Casca tweets with the hashtag #CASCA.

Forests for the Future: Local Ecological Knowledge Project Videos

UBC Anthropology Prof Charles Menzies has posted four short videos on the Forests for the Future website. The videos are shot in the Gitxaała community (Tsimshian) on the British Columbia north coast. From the website:

… from 2007 to 2009 one of our research objectives involved the development of social indicators to assist in sustainable forest management …

The video segments … are part of our work developing social indicators. In the videos Gitxaała community members demonstrate and discuss important aspects of local cultural practices. Our indicators of social wellbeing were built upon understanding the importance of harvesting, fishing, gathering, processing and teaching about historical and contemporary Gitxaała practices that are demonstrated in these four video segments.

The videos depict Gitxaała people harvesting resources like cedar. They discuss their practices. ‘Stories from the Smokehouse’ shows the hanging of salmon in a smokehouse and the cutting of salmon into strips. No commentary is given in any video. The videos are very neat — very interesting vignettes into the food collection and processing practices of the Gitxaała.

Charles and the others at Forest for the Future are looking for comments on the videos. The website is set up for comments. Please do so.

(via Charles’ Twitter feed)

Delgamuukw, Aboriginal Title, Harcourt and Campbell

Conservative MP John Cummins writes a long history of aboriginal title debates since the 1991 Delgamuukw decision. In sum:

Recognition of aboriginal title would transfer control of 95 per cent of British Columbia to native leaders who represent little more than three percent of the population. If you own it, control it and have title to it, it follows that revenues which flow from the land such as stumpage fees, mining royalties, rents and access fees for recreational and sporting activities that you impose will be yours.

How the provincial treasury, robbed of these revenues, would maintain its obligations to all British Columbians, including roads, medical and education services, is not addressed by Campbell’s recognition and reconciliation proposal.

Widdowson and Howard Excerpt in Toronto Star

Celebrating the Donner prize nominees, the Toronto Star has published a short excerpt (maybe a series of consolidations?) of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry by Widdowson and Howard.

(I have discussed this book on the blog before. Albert Howard weighed in.)

Phil Fontaine responds:

The Donner Prize is supposed to reward “excellence and innovation in Canadian public policy writing.” Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry is neither excellent nor innovative. It is a diatribe cloaked in a thin veil of “research.”

(In both articles, as is usually the case, the comments reveal all sorts of perspectives on aboriginal issues.)

Also:

Beliefs and rituals of Aboriginal peoples are not merely “atavistic cultural” survivals that are holding them back, as book’s authors claim

Book recycles paternalistic native stereotypes (TorStar)

BC NDP Supports Recognition Act

The BC NDP have announced they support the idea of recognizing aboriginal title in BC.

(The Recognition Act is legislation proposed by the Liberals. It was shelved because of concerns that the legislation was being rushed before the election. More details here.)

Federal Government to Sign Maa-Nulth Treaty

The Federal government will sign the Maa-Nulth Treaty (Vancouver Island) on Thursday April 9, 20009. From the WestCoaster.ca:

During a ceremony scheduled to take place in Port Alberni Thursday, the federal government will sign the Maa-nulth Treaty. The federal government is the last government to sign the tripartite treaty. Already, the Maa-nulth bands and the provincial government have ratified the deal.

“It means it’s real,” said hereditary Chief Anne Mack, of the Toquaht First Nation. “We can now really take steps forward.”

The Maa-nulth include the Ucluelet, Toquaht, Uchucklesaht, Kyuquot and Huu-ay-aht First Nations.

More:

Maa-nulth Nations celebrate treaty signing (Alberni Valley Times; April 9, 2009)

Maa-nulth, Canada and BC Take Important Step Toward Maa-nuulth Treaty on Vancouver Island (Marketwire; April 9, 2009)

PBS Series on Native American History Airs April 13

Update: All episodes of We Shall Remain are available on the web.

PBS will begin airing We Shall Remain, a five part series on Native American history on April 13. It is showing in Vancouver on Detroit PBS (Shaw channel 43) at 6p. We Shall Remain is part of PBS’ American Experience series.

From the website:

At the heart of the project is a five-part television series that shows how Native peoples valiantly resisted expulsion from their lands and fought the extinction of their culture — from the Wampanoags of New England in the 1600s who used their alliance with the English to weaken rival tribes, to the bold new leaders of the 1970s who harnessed the momentum of the civil rights movement to forge a pan-Indian identity. We Shall Remain represents an unprecedented collaboration between Native and non-Native filmmakers and involves Native advisors and scholars at all levels of the project.