‘Mental health’ has been shown to be social and environmental, though we’ve heard of Prozac, and even music therapy led by professionals. Well-being may also be connected to collective, organized sound among ordinary people. I’d like to share a recent study in biomedicine, and draw these scientific conclusions into the anthropological realm. First, because I’d like to bring biomedicine into anthropological discussions, so that the medical system fathered by Hippocrates can meet other medical systems, particularly those of the immense continent of Africa.…
Tag: anthropology
Would sobriety coins be an acceptable form of payment at the liquor store?
Notes From the Liquor Store
It’s the second time Rita has been into the liquor store where I work in Chico, California. Last time was Wednesday, when it was pouring rain, and the man she was with was dressed from hood to boots in bright yellow PVC. She’s from Paradise, or what was the town in which the November 8th ‘Camp Fire’ destroyed 19,000 buildings, and she keeps telling me to watch the city council. …
“Certain esoteric rites” for The Ethnographer
There need be no explanation for most occupations– but ethnographer? At least one of Argentina’s beloved poets would not have asked what I do if we’d met at a cocktail party, so I’d told him I was an ethnographer. It’s 1969, an assortment of olives and cheese crumbles between us, I swirl my dram glass nervously, to be conversing with the great Jorge Luis Borges, who seems to perceive the troubling nakedness under Ethnography’s cloak of neat dichotomies, authoritative conclusions, and its lone hero.…
Digital Ethnography
Today I had the random idea to search YouTube.com for the keyword “ethnography” to see what, if anything, it would come up with. The first two videos that were listed intrigued me. The videos are products of Kansas State University’s anthropology department. The students and faculty of that department have created an on-going project focusing specifically on digital ethnography.
I think this type of project is so exciting and can come up with really interesting results.…
Inter-disciplinary Teams
This is the first semester of the Engineering for Peoples and Markets Program at Fresno State. The program consists of two teams. Each team consists of two or three engineer majors (computer and electrical), an entrepreneurship major, and an anthropology major. The purpose of our team is to work together on the creation, design, and marketability of a piece of technology created by the engineers for their senior projects. It has been interesting discovering each of our roles within this project, and the experience of working with people trained in different fields has been valuable. …