As a long-standing professional rule, I do not comment on or talk about my direct professional work here on Ethnography.com. Clients get a bit touchy about the sort of thing. Long-time readers will note that since joining the Human Terrain System project that I no longer write about it. I can (as can any one in the HTS) blog about my work as much as I care to if I wish.…
Category: General Anthropology
On the Cover of the Rolling Stone
Well, not really. Not on the cover, anyway. And not in Rolling Stone. But I love that song!
But hey hey, anyone see this? HTS makes it into Newsweek, and I’m intrigued all over again. Seems it’s not being as valuable a program as it could be, at least in part because the social scientists who would be most equipped to help the military in Iraq—think: those who speak relevant languages and/or have spent significant time in the Middle East, or (gasp!)…
How to Cite ethnography.com in an academic paper
I added a section called about ethnography.com to the site. It also includes an example of how to cite posts from e.com in print papers.
Here is an example of how to cite an entry in an academic paper:
Waters, T. (2008, April 4). The Battle for Kosovo on the Internet. Ethnography.com.
Retrieved April 11, 2008, from Ethnography.com: http://www.ethnography.com/.
Just to satisfy all you people that have been rushing to quote us in Scientific American.…
What are the most pressing issues for anthropology to work on?
A couple of months ago I spent the evening at CSU Fresno with students and faculty and we had a wonderful wide ranging conversation about anthropology, ethics, war, peace and a few minutes on circumcision just for good measure.
One of the questions we asked ourselves was who is really working on the most pressing issues of the day? Do we really need another study on gender and identity as expressed among pre-schoolers when the ice cap is turning to a slushie?…
The Battle for Kosovo on the Internet
Cees van Dijk is a Dutch free-lance academic living in Kosovo, which declared its independence in February, 2008. He would like to share this commentary about the use of the internet to frame and counter-frame claims about Kosovo’s legitimacy by Serb and Kosovo activists. He finds the argument interesting in the context of the Kosovo that he experiences daily where “Albanians are insulted as Jihadists by Serbians despite the fact that just like in European or North American cities, hardly any women are veiled or wearing a hijab, women roam the streets freely, men, defamed as radical Islamists enjoy a drink once in a while (it has to be noted that Kosovo’s Peja beer brewery is one of the largest ones in the Balkans) and there are no road bombs or kidnappings.”…
Call For Papers: Epic2008, Submission Deadline April 18th
This years theme for the 2008 EPIC conference is Being Seen: Paradoxes and Practices of (In)Visibility. Its being held in Copenhagen, Denmark October 15th to 18th. Go to the submissions page for the most up to date information on the different deadlines for Papers, Workshops and Artifacts.
This is the primary conference for people that do applied work in industry, but it attracts a wide variety of people and professions. Besides, if you can get your company to cough up a trip to Denmark, who are you to complain?…
Sour Grapes and Fake Names
Last week, Mike responded to one of my postings about the difference between the quality of education at Chico and Berkeley with a two word response: “sour grapes.” Presumably, this is because he does not agree with me that Chico has higher quality undergraduate programs than Chico State. Maybe, it is because he went to Berkeley, I don’t know. Anyway, I would hope to have a good discussion on-line or by email about why he disagreed with me.…
Of illness and Myth
Sweet mother in heaven. I have been sick as a dog for days with a cold that has been going around laying people up for one and two weeks. You know the one, you think you are getting better one day and are feeling your brains turn to mush the next.
When you have been sick for a while and stuck in bed flipping through History Channel, Discovery, TLC and National Geography channel you really start to appreciate the cottage industry of “The da Vinci Code.”…
Would a President Obama Bring an Anthropological Perspective to the White House?
I was impressed with Barack Obama’s statement on race in America. It showed an awareness of empathy, race, and culture that I am more accustomed to hearing about in university seminars in say, anthropology, than political addresses in the middle of a campaign. I hope that Obama is correct in assuming that the American people are ready for such an approach.
Obama himself of course has had unusual exposure to anthropological thinking. …
Culture and Car Bombs
Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb by Mike Davis is about culture albeit in a very macabre fashion. It is about how the car bomb (actually a horse-drawn cart), “invented” by a Mario Buda who bombed Wall Street in September 1920 is became a tool of create urban terror. Buda’s wagon killed 38-40, and injured 200 passers-by. The response by the US government of course was quick and harsh–and Buda was never caught. …
I forgot to mention my thanks to the Network of Concerned Anthropologists.
Had it not been for the great controversy over the Human Terrain System spearheaded by the vocal minority at the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, I might have never known about this great opportunity. When I heard about the HTS program through an article mentioning the NCA, my first reaction was “How can I participate?” Using anthropology to reduce death and injury. Sounds like a good idea to me.
So my heartfelt thanks to the Network of Concerned Anthropologists for showing me this new and exciting career path in applied anthropology that I had been unaware of before.…
Changing Careers, Changing Locations
I recently moved on from a wonderful long career in design anthropology to my latest adventure. I joined the Army’s Human Terrain System program and for the next few months I’ll be living near the Ft. Leavenworth area. How much I’ll be writing about my HTS training and work is unknown at this point. Over the years I have tended not to write about any of my professional work directly, but who knows.…