I have learned today about a brand new website and forum for discussing endangered languages. It was set up by Matthew McDaniel who has a significant interest in the Akha of Mongolia. The site uses RSS feeds and provides opportunities for registered users to contribute to a dialogue about endangered languages. I look forward to [...]
The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), described as a conservative Dallas-based research organization, is wondering how to incorporate traditional knowledge (TK) into legal definitions of intellectual property rights (IPR). IPI held a forum in Washington, DC to consider issues and questions like: The extension of property rights to include “traditional knowledge.” How can the traditional [...]
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Oneman at Savage Minds presents a summary of several recent news items related to sexuality and gender. The discussion in the comments section is worth reading too.
Christine Mingie at Forestry Law Blog has posted what she beleives to be a template for new Forest and Range Agreements between First Nations and the British Columbia Government. Falling under the auspices of the ‘New Relationship‘ between BC and First Nations, this template, says Mingie, “represents a dramatic shift in policy in British Columbia [...]
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Two stories that appeared this week are timely for my classes. 1) Thanks first to Alex for the the link to the story about witch executions in Papua New Guinea. The article worked well in my Anthropology of Religion class, particularly after watching the film ‘Witchcraft Among the Azande’ last week. Alex’s comments about the [...]
Saturday, January 14, 2006
I blogged earlier about a dispute between the Navajo and other Native American groups in Arizona and the Arizona Snowbowl Ski Area (Flagstaff). The Navajo and others went to court to try and stop the ski area from expanding the skiable terrain and from making snow with wastewater. Potential environmental issues were compounded by the [...]
Thursday, January 12, 2006
My Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality students will want to take a look at these current posts. 1) From Savage Minds: Kerim (or maybe not?) discusses an article from The New Republic dscussing the poor performance of boys in grade school and the corresponding drop in numbers of men in college courses. This quotation jumped [...]
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Ckelty blogs at SavageMinds about a short piece in the New Yorker about studying coffee shops like Starbucks anthropologically. The article describes a researcher (an historian) traveling the world to see how people act in Starbucks. His work leads to conclusions like: … moms predominate [in Starbucks] in late morning, teens take over after 3 [...]
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Nicholas Klassen reflects on Chinook Jargon in TheTyee.ca today. Chinook Jargon is a trade language used along the Pacific Coast and well into the interior of western North America to facilitate communication and trade between groups of people who otherwise spoke different languages. Klassen’s discussion emphasizes how Chinook Jargon was used by speakers to create [...]
Lorenz (antropologi.info) has posted a terrific and fascinating summary of anthropology in the blogosphere for 2005. The post summarizes (and links to) the major debates and points of discussion from the past year and offers a list of anthropology blogs and their interests. Thanks for this, Lorenz … it is very useful and a great [...]
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