From Discover.com and noted by Anne Galloway comes a discussion about the reasons for cultural diversity and the idea that in order to protect themselves, cultures behave like different biological species. I find several ideas of note here. In particular, the interview includes more discussion about linguistic diversity, why fewer and fewer languages are surviving [...]
Many thanks to Robert Diaz and to the students in History 358, ‘Natives and Newcomers’ at the University of Victoria for their invitation to speak about big game guiding and hunting in northern British Columbia. The questions were great … there was lots of talk of research methods, of gender and the advantages and challenges [...]
There is news in the Vancouver Sun today about consultation between a mining company and local First Nations in north-central British Columbia. It relates to the Kemess North mine. What interests me about the news story is the prominent position native traditional knowledge is given in the negotiations. From the article: Northgate Minerals Corp. said [...]
Nancy at Savage Minds wrote a terrific post yesterday about the value of experiential teaching in anthropology. Here’s a quotation which resonants with me and the goals I strive for as a teacher of anthropology: With experimentation, I have found that my students already know much of what I’m there to teach them. By asking [...]
Thanks so much to Anne Galloway at Purse Lip Square Jaw for alerting me to the recent article by Gillian Tett in the Financial Times. The article is about anthropologists studying ‘office culture’ … things like email and computer use. As Anne says: Anyway, [the article is] worth a read. It’s supportive of anthropological research [...]
I am currently reading Putting a Song on Top of It: Expression and Identity on the San Carlos Apache Reservation (Arizona, 2004) by David Samuels, and thoroughly enjoying it. It is terrific ethnography … part linguistic anthropology and part ethnomusicology … describing the role of popular music and bands (mainly old country music) for Apache [...]
For the linguistic and legal anthropologists among us, Rob Hyndman notes a series of neat and amusing posts about the ‘generic’ texts and disclaimers lawyers add to their emails and other correspondence. Here’s a quote from the original post from Ernie the Attorney, a self-proclaimer collector of boilerplate language: Boilerplate language is intended to bore [...]
My students are starting to think about their term assignments – 15 minutes observations of a scene in everyday life – and I continue see great examples of things or places they might observe. The goal of the assignment is to identify the taken-for-granteds in our own culture, to identify the rules for behavior and [...]
When I first started this blog I had a hard time finding other anthropology blogs to use as models or inspiration. In recent days, however, I have found my way to terrific anthropology blogs and become engaged in interesting discussions and debates. Several other people have also commented on the appearance of new anthropology blogs [...]
There are some interesting discussions going on about the importance of four field anthropology here and here; in the second link, connections between the four subfields are identified. (Again, this is good fodder for those of us wondering about what anthropology is all about early in the term.) Sphere: Related Content
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