Germany is known for its green attitude towards the environment and recycling. It is a leader in wind and solar energy, and has an excellent public transportation system which keeps many of us off the roads. There are also many recycling programs, with machines that collect recyclable bottles, and pay back deposits in many grocery stores. The recycling extends even into the household where we separate, clean, and collect various kinds of trash.…
Author: Tony Waters
Tony Waters is czar and editor of Ethnography.com. He came to us from the Sociology department at California State University at Chico where he has been a professor since 1996. In 2016 though he suddenly found himself with a new gig at Payap University in northern Thailand where he is on the faculty of the Peace Studies Department. He has also been a guest professor in Germany, and Tanzania. In the past, his main interests have been international development and refugees in Thailand, Tanzania, and California. This reflects a former career in the Peace Corps (Thailand), and refugee camps (Thailand and Tanzania). His books include: Crime and Immigrant Youth (1999), Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan (2001), The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture: Life Beneath of the Marketplace (2007), When Killing is a Crime (2007), and Schooling, Bureaucracy, and Childhood: Bureaucratizing the Child (2012). His hobby is trying to learn strange languages–and the mistakes that that implies. Tony is a prolific academic, you can read more of his work at academia.edu.or purchase one (or more!) of his books from Amazon.com.
Dinner for One–The World’s Most Frequently Broadcast Film!
We spent the 2nd Day of Christmas (December 26) at the home of German friends. There I was asked what I thought about the film “Dinner for One,” a film where a 90 year-old woman is served a birthday dinner by her butler. I’d never hear of it. Turns out it is an 11 minute long British film (in English) from the 1960s which has something of a cult-following in Germany, as well as a few other northern European countries.…
The Verb “To Chill”
Most Americans know of the common English slang „to chill.“ It is clearly a verb, and used to describe teenagers what teenagers do when they go somewhere together. My understanding of chilling is that it is something you do with friends, it is unplanned, and you do low key sort of things like lie on a couch, talk, watch videos, play games, and eat doritos.
My daughter Kirsten came home from her German school yesterday to tell me that she had learned a new adjective at school “chillig” which is a borrowing from English of the word “to chill” but with the German adjectival ending making it into the English equivalent of “chill-ish.”.…
Really Nice Strangers
I have traveled quite a bit in the last few months. In June I was in Thailand about ten days, and I have been living in Germany since August. During this time, I have had the usual mix-ups that go with traveling—missing trains, wandering off in unforeseen circumstances, and just generally misplacing stuff. Generally people are pretty nice about these things. Indeed, I just met “met” my third really nice stranger in these travels, so I guess it is time to acknowledge them.…
Human Terrain System: Too Little, Too Late, and So What?
Ok, Mark Dawson finally wrote often enough about the Human Terrain System for me to investigate what this military program actually is. I have some sympathy for the idea of using anthropology in the military because I have seen too many anthropologically incorrect lieutenants proclaiming to the press something along the lines of “You gotta be here to understand the bad guys. All the bad guys understand is strength/power/force/money. It is just their culture.…
Chico and Berkeley old version
The current version of this paper is here.
Tony Waters is czar and editor of Ethnography.com. He came to us from the Sociology department at California State University at Chico where he has been a professor since 1996. In 2016 though he suddenly found himself with a new gig at Payap University in northern Thailand where he is on the faculty of the Peace Studies Department. He has also been a guest professor in Germany, and Tanzania.
Applied Ethnography and the German Military in Afghanistan
I went to a workshop Friday in which anthropological involvement with the German military in Afghanistan was described. The German army is participating in the NATO operation in northern Afghanistan, which is in one of the more peaceful areas of that country. An ethnologist, Dr. Monika Lanik reported on the difficulties in developing inter-cultural competence in the context of deployments. Ethnographic competence is considered important because the German military is taking on a new international character as a result of peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan, and the former Yugoslavia.…
From Economics to Culture, and Finally Metaphysics
Last week I gave my students a classic think and reflect question: what is the relationship between culture and economics. Three particularly good responses stick in my mind, and I want to share them with ethnography.com.
The first student thinks like Mark, likened culture, economics, and politics to a car. The engine is economics, politics is the fuel, and the wheels are culture. The car needs the fuel of politics to keep going.…
Jeffrey Sachs, William Easterly and…Bronislaw Malinowski???
It is popular today to frame the development debate in the context of two books by economists, the glass half-full story of Jeffrey Sachs The End of Poverty, and the glass half-empty story of William Easterly The White Man’s Burden. Both writers observed the world of foreign development aid for years. Sachs’ conclusion is that given the weak investment in remote third world villages, it is not surprising that development has not occurred.…
Can Bad Grades and Graduate School Go Together?
Someone asked Mark whether getting “bad grades” means for becoming an anthropologist. Every graduate anthropology program is different, of course, and there are no blanket statements possible. But, good grades are always a fantastic idea if you are trying to get into graduate school, in anthropology or any other subject. After all, the professors evaluating your applications mostly had good grades. And since the graduate school admissions process is in large part considered to be about identifying who will be a professor in the future (even if your goal is to be a practitioner), the admissions committee is typically looking for someone who will end up being something like them.…
An Ethnography of the African Art Trade
Monica Udvardy from the University of Kentucky is involved with the repatriation of stolen vigango statues from US museums, to their owners in Kenya. Vigango are funerary statues which are typically removed (with or without the permission of the owners) from hillsides in Kenya, into a thriving local art market, and on to North American museums. Her story involves field ethnography, teaching, activism, and the ethics of both anthropology and business.…
Is there a point to learning another language?
I am teaching at a German University which trains people to work internationally. This means that classes are held in both German and English, students do internships abroad, and all students are assumed to be fluent in both English and German. Last night, one of the students who did an internship in the UK last summer, indicated that she had heard a British manager indicate that it was not necessary for English speakers to learn a second language, as everyone else is learning English.…