This Week in Ethnography, I have thought about Public Anthropology. Samuel Gerald Collins of All Tomorrow’s Cultures posted a great piece on the subject this week entitled Tagging Anthropology. Public Anthropology is not a new subject by any means. A Google search on the subject will show over 600,000 results and limiting your search to Savage Minds will still give you more than a week’s worth of reading. In fact, this subject is so mature that the The 9th Annual Public Anthropology Conference is just around the corner (not the first or second, but the 9th!) …
Category: General Anthropology
The PhD as an Existential Question???
To PhD or not to PhD, that is that a question for you? Well, at Ethnography.com we have years of unsolicited advice to those of wondering if all the uncertainties of grad school are for you or not.
For example those of you have lousy grades for any number of reasons, and question not your own capacity, but that of your chosen profession to give your application a second look, check out “Can Bad Grades and Graduate School Go Together?…
Culture Rears its Head in the US Presidential Campaign
There is a good editorial about that classic anthropological question “What is Culture?” in the New York Times today by Ta-Nehisi Coates. This is salient because presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently made assertions about the nature of culture and its relationships to economic activity while he was in Israel recently. His statements, made in the heat of a political campaign, have meant that the Culture Question will at least briefly (and probably ephemerally) push itself again into the national consciousness. …
The Internet Archive
As of this morning, The Internet Archive is now offering content via the BitTorrent P2P networking protocol: Internet Archive Torrents
There is a nice (if unorganized) collection of early anthropology among the 1.2 million books in the archive. As you might expect, there is a large assortment of early journals and classic works. But, there is also a surprising amount of grey literature: lectures, occasional papers, and so forth.
Anthropological Field Research in the Internet Age
Another classic question in the age of the internet: How do indigenous peoples feel about anthropology graduate students doing fieldwork? Mark Dawson first reported his research about this subject in a classic post here at Ethnography.com on April 1, 2007.
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.
The Ecological Annum
I have to admit I laughed at the phrase “ecological annum” when James used it as a foil for his post on the duration of fieldwork. The phrase (real or invented) dates from a period when anthropologists primarily studied agriculturists and hunter-gatherers with long trips to the field and little concern for budgets. At first glance it is exactly the kind of old fashioned advice that seems at odds with the realities of conducting fieldwork in the early 21st century.…
Where in the World is Kennewick Man?
Who has recently seen Kennewick Man? Kenny was last seen in 2007, as described in an Ethnography.com classic by Cynthia van Gilder KENNEWICK MAN SIGHTED BUYING GROCERIES IN VIRGINIA. Has anyone else seen him more recently? Is he still in Virginia, or has he moved on?
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.
Changes at Ethnography.com, and an Invitation to Blog
If anyone has paid close attention, which we doubt, to the “masthead” at Ethnography.com, you will have noticed some changes. Our founder and Czar, Mark Dawson, has been kicked upstairs, and is now, “Czar Emeritus. “ So after stints in California, Iraq, Alaska, Afghanistan, and Florida Mark is now reigning from an undisclosed location where he is preparing for this December’s Mayan Apocalypse on behalf of AAA. In particular, he needs codices about Mayan Magic—you can seek him out at AAA in San Francisco this November—maybe your donation will reach him in time that he can prevent the end of the discipline. …
This Week in Ethnography: Second Digital Ethnography Week _ Trento 17-21 sept. 2012
There is not much to report in “This Week in Ethnography”, a segment I am inventing as a means of reporting on the global pulse of this most important subject. The one item that jumped out of my feeds at me was that I missed the application deadline (of July 22, 2012) for the:
…Second Digital Ethnography Week _ Trento 17-21 sept. 2012
The second “Digital Ethnography Week” (DEW), an intensive week focused on the study of digital methods and digital ethnographic approaches.
“Culture” in the Science Fictional Universe of “Big Data”
As the Obama Administration’s new “Big Data Research and Development Initiative” has made clear, the “big data” era is officially upon us. The term – “big data” has been used in multiple ways, but most generally refers to the avalanche of “raw data” generated by the internet and other new kinds of data-capturing sensor and digital technologies. Or, as one big data guru more pithily put it, it is “all the stuff we do online” – and more.…
Higher Education Expands Worldwide, but Contracts in California?
During the last nine years, I squeezed guest teaching gigs in Tanzania, Germany, and China in-between my duties at Chico State. Each time I do this, I am impressed by the vibrancy of growing university systems abroad and the rapid expansion of higher education opportunities. Each country is pushing more of their students into post-secondary institutions. Indeed, there is a Europe-wide goal of having at least 40% of all 30-34 year olds graduating at the level of a US Bachelor’s degree by 2020 (The US and California have been stuck at 25-30% since about 1970).…
Why I chose not to get a PhD
I got to spend some time with a friend recently that decided some time ago to restart her PhD work. She is already ABD, but is starting the dissertation over from scratch. My question was “Why?” She is a well-respected professional, and within the her field a PhD will likely be of limited benefit professionally compared to the mountain of work ahead of her, not to mention the expense involved.
In the course of the conversation I was reflecting on my own choice to not get a PhD and thinking that it might provide food for thought for a larger audience.…