Ethnography.com

Author: mark

Here is a call for papers, a nice reason to see Liverpool in the Fall.

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The 5th Annual Joint University of Liverpool Management School and Keele University Institute for Public Policy and Management Symposium on Current Developments in Ethnographic Research in the Social and Management Sciences.

In Association with the Journal Ethnography

Work, Organisations and Ethnography

Wednesday 1st – Friday 3rd September 2010

Venue:
Queen Mary, University of London. Mile End Road, London, England

Call for Papers

In recent years, ethnography has become an increasingly popular mode of research enquiry within the social and management sciences.…

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Contemporary Ethnography Across the Disciplines Hui

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This announcement showed up in my e-mail, nicely formatted too:

Contemporary Ethnography Across the Disciplines Hui

17 – 19 November 2010

University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

Kia ora koutou (Greetings to everyone)!

New Zealand’s first international ethnography hui will give participants the opportunity to meet with like-minded researchers and experience the rich cultural tradition that is Aoteaoroa, New Zealand.  The hui, or conference gathering, will take place at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand from 17-19 November, 2010, with exciting pre-conference workshops scheduled for the afternoon of Monday 16 November 2010. …

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Now Available for your Xmas giving, Chief Culture Officer by Grant McCracken!

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chief culture officerI am pleased to let people know about a new book by fellow social science innovator, Grant McCracken.  Hi book ” Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities” was a major inspiration for me when I started my career in design anthropology and have have been reading his blog ever since.  (Grant, please..please go back to the old format!).  Below is the press release, and I will follow up after I give it a read.  …

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The Chrysler Peapod, The Reason Innovation Gets a Bad Name

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I believe the time of the electric vehicle is drawing near. It makes a lot of sense: we already have the ubiquitous infrastructure for “fueling” – any electric socket -, can be recharged with renewable energy, and does not have the fear factor some people have about driving around with a tank of hydrogen in back of them. (BTW, hydrogen as fuel is as safe as standard gasoline using modern storage methods).…

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Ok, this is just for amusement, and pretty good at that.

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Most people reading this blog will be unaware of my past as a European style clown, street performer, juggler, musician and well… all the odd eclectic things you learn on the road over about a decade of wandering. Without those years I would not have the thought process I have today, one that I like than you kindly. I still love it when I see something new, that I have not seen before.…

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The growing work of anthropologists with the military parallels the evolution of design anthropology – 15 years later…

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Lord knows I would welcome much stronger examination of the credentials of people that claim to be social scientists / anthropologists that are working in the military. There is the potential for the development of an excellent sub-discipline of anthropologists doing direct applied work for various forms of the federal government and the military (which for all I know already exists, I am new to this arena). I have no doubt there have been anthropologists working in all levels of Government/Military/Intel worlds for many years, but they may have not been/are called anthropologists in most official job titles I suspect.…

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Go Barney Go!

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I am a registered independent, I always have been. I have voted all over the political map because I don’t think I should have to vote for a party but the person. With the health care debates its hard NOT to see the republican party as the greed supporting evil empire. There have been death threats of people attending meetings, republican operations to disrupt meetings. Look, my late father.. a die hard conservative republican family practice doctor… spend some time as the medical director of an HMO.…

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I like celebrities that turn out to be, well… normal.

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Jodi Foster is one. She seems normal because she aggressively stays out of the public eye. This is interesting given that Howards Huges self-imposed isolation was seen as anything but normal. On the other hand, that seems to have been borne out. Lately I have been reading the blog WWdN: In Exile. This is the blog of Will Wheaton, most well known to people as the character Wesley Crusher on the television program “Star Trek, The Next Generation” and also, like many, I came to wish the same fate on the character Crusher as many Star Wars fans wished in the character JarJar Binx.  …

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So long Billy, we walked a bit of the same road

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billymaysI like pitchmen, well the good ones and Billy Mays was that.  He was one of the best known pitchmen of the last decade.

You have to understand, for nearly I decade I performed in the streets, festivals and fairs in the U.S. and Canada, and encountered the pitchmen, talkers, hawkers and shills of all manner.  Billy was the logical evolution.  Were the things he pitched sometimes crap? Of course.  Caveat Emptor has been the motto of all performers, not just the pitchman, since people started to barter. …

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