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.

Student Housing and Ethnic Segregation at Chico State

Posted on November 5, 2015November 5, 2015 by Tony Waters

This is a rather odd post for a blog which typically addresses national and international issues. This blog is about my own university, Chico State, in California, which has worked very hard to qualify for federal money to be a “Hispanic Serving Institution.” This is a good thing, as California is rapidly changing ethnic composition as California has always done in the last 200 years. The idea is that Chico State will get extra money if it can attract and serve at least 25% full time “Hispanic” students (in California this typically means students who have a family history in Mexico, or Central America who are typically referred to as Chicano or Latino).…

Vigilantism in a Tanzanian Village, 1997

Posted on November 3, 2015November 2, 2015 by Tony Waters

Vigilantism in a Tanzanian Village, 1997

from

When Killing is a Crime, by Tony Waters

Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1997

By Essau Magugudi in Kigoma

NOVEMBER 27, 1997, is deeply etched in the memories of Shunga villagers. It was on this day that they took law into their own hands and hacked to death three bandits who they suspected of carrying out acts of robbery in villages surrounding refugee settlements of Mutabira and Muyovozi.

…

Caddish Behavior as Described by Max Weber: Ethics, Romantic Love, and the Versailles Treaty Negotiations of 1919

Posted on October 29, 2015October 22, 2016 by Tony Waters

In this extract from Max Weber’s classic essay “Politics as Vocation.” Max Weber is about to let loose regarding the insistence of the victorious Allies of World War I that Germany accept fault for starting the war in 1914, and feel “guilty” for doing so. He doesn’t like this, and compares it to the ethics of a romantic cad.

You will rarely find a man, who no longer loves a woman and therefore turns to another, will not feel the need to justify himself by arguing: “She was not worth my love, or she disappointed me”—or what other reasons there may be.

…

“Teach Like You Do in America,” While Still Doing it the Tanzanian Way!

Posted on October 28, 2015October 27, 2015 by Tony Waters

The first time I was told to “teach like you do in America” was in 2003-2004 in Tanzania where I was a Fulbright Scholar at the Sociology Department at the University of Dar Es Salaam (see Waters 2007). UDSM is a large sprawling African university, spread across “The Hill” near the Indian Ocean coast. UDSM prides itself for schooling presidents from Tanzania, Uganda, Congo, and South Sudan and its many graduates who played critical roles in first the decolonization of Africa, and now the political leadership of many countries.…

The Fallacy of “Workforce Ready” in Public Education

Posted on October 17, 2015October 19, 2015 by Tony Waters

The United States was set back on its heels in the 1930s by the Great Depression. As a result, the United States charged the high schools with making the children “workforce ready.” The hope was that the schools could train children for the workforce of tomorrow—i.e. the 1940s—when the manufacturing base of the United States would be revitalized, and prosperity would return. I this context, children were kept in school longer (and out of the workforce), with the idea that they would be able to recreate the successful societies that the planners knew—the cities of the pre-Depression 1920s.…

Here is Why You Should Not Listen to Popular Music–But Will Anyway!

Posted on October 15, 2015October 14, 2015 by Tony Waters

One of my favorite sociological essays is Teodor Adorno’s 1941 “On Popular Music.” Adorno didn’t much like the popular music he heard on the radio in Los Angeles, and said so. He found it simplistic, monotonous, limited and manipulative. With an emphasis on manipulative. For besides being a classically trained musician, Adorno was also a leading critic of capitalism, and especially its need for endless consumption so that large corporations could generate profits.…

The Problem With “Teaching Like You Do in America” While Abroad

Posted on October 3, 2015October 3, 2015 by Tony Waters

What are the limits to globalization? Does it apply to the university systems of the world, or is one university system just about the same as every other?

My experience is that at least for sociology, it is not “always just the same. I have taught abroad in Tanzania and Germany, and in each place, I ran up against different cultural expectations about what a university education involves. Recently, Palgrave Communications published my article explaining why it is in fact difficult to teach abroad.…

More Drama at Chico State: Bullies, Bullying, Administrative Power, Incivility, Cheese Cubes, and Cookies!

Posted on October 1, 2015October 1, 2015 by Tony Waters

The meeting about shared governance at Chico State that Julie attended and reported on here at Ethnography.com “Shared Governance or Managed Dissent,” in the form of a letter from California State University Chancellor Timothy White has run into a brick wall. The dispute has turned into an argument over the meaning of the word “civility,” and almost incidentally, the nature of bullying.Not a good frame work for addressing problems raised by the Academic Senate!…

Teach Like You Do in America!

Posted on September 25, 2015December 5, 2015 by Tony Waters

“Teach like you do in America!” is the default instruction I receive when teaching overseas. I have heard it in Germany, Tanzania, and last summer in China. It is the default instruction by my hosts who assume that university classes are “about the same” everywhere in a globalizing world. What can I say? It ain’t completely true, and I wrote 4,000+ words to make this point in Palgrave Communications, a new Open Source journal.…

Globalization and Mlitary Honor: The Dedication of a Statue of the Hmong General Vang Pao in California

Posted on September 14, 2015September 13, 2015 by Tony Waters

I stopped by the dedication of the new statue of the Hmong General Vang Pao at the Chico City Hall near my university on Saturday. General Vang Pao led the Hmong forces which were allied with the United States during the “Secret War” that the CIA conducted in the country of Laos between about 1960 and 1975. Several hundred thousand Lao Hmong were brought to the United States between 1975 and about 1995 in acknowledgment of their status of as American allies during the Secret War.”…

Is There Humor Hiding in the Translations of Bourdieu or Weber?

Posted on September 12, 2015September 12, 2015 by Tony Waters

There’s an interesting discussion about how to translate Bourdieu from French to English at the Scatterplot blog. In English at least (I don’t read French), the translations of Bourdieu often seem circular and confusing. What Steve Valsey seems to be asking is, is this really necessary? His answer is no, and he offers a translation of Bourdieu’s definition of habitus in more “standard” English. As one of he commenters on the blog notes, similar questions can be asked of Bible translators.…

Who is the Greater Threat to Reading in the Academy? Aggrieved Students, or Budget-cutting Administrators?

Posted on August 31, 2015August 30, 2015 by Tony Waters

Aggrieved students find books dangerous; neoliberal administrators say they’re useless. I’d take the former any day

Corey Robin is a political science department chair from New York. He finds that bottom-line focused higher education administrators to be a greater risk to an educated society than aggrieved students. He has a provocative essay in Salon “Higher Education’s Real Censors What We’re Missing in the Debate over Trigger Warnings and Coddled Students.”…