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Towards an anthropology of security
** via cascanews ** Call for papers for a special session at the 2010 Annual Conference of the Canadian Anthropological Society / Société canadienne d’anthropologie (CASCA) May 31 to June 3 2010, Montréal Despite the fact that references to (in)security are becoming a normal feature of contemporary political discourses, anthropologists rarely engage directly...
New media and cultural change, 1980-2010
Still musing and reading in my spare time about new media and cultural change from 1980 to 2010. Of possible interest: * New book out on the barriers to the free flow of media contents across international borders: Cultural Barriers to the Success of Foreign Media Content: Western Media in China,...
Political agency and communication
Downing, John (1996) Internationalizing Media Theory. London: Sage. Gledhill, John (2000) Power and its Disguises. London: Pluto. p. x. According to Downing, questions of state, of totalitarian systems, of political activism, etc, have often been studied without reference to communication, ‘as though politics consisted of mute pieces on a chessboard’. On reading this...
Whitehall’s web revolution: the inside story
Original Message Received: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:27:37 PM GMT From: Steven Clift <…> To: newswire <…> Subject: [DW] UK – Whitehall’s web revolution: the inside story #gov20 #opengov From: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/01/whitehalls-web-revolution-the-inside-story/ Prospect has uncovered the story behind Tim Berners-Lee’s work deep inside British government, and his remarkable success at busting open a closed, data-hugging state Before working as...
Digital epidemics and social fields
Working on a paper on ‘viral’ digital contents, i.e. those jokes, rumours, videos, photos, etc. that spread like wild fire over email, SMS, personal network sites and so on. Some of the ideas I’m chewing on: * To study digital epidemics one must take into account both psychological and ecological (social)...
CFA: The politics of digital media in the Balkans and the Middle East
From: [...] Helga Tawil Souri Sent: 20 January 2010 17:06 To: [medianthro list] [...] Editors: Helga Tawil-Souri (New York University) and Zala Volcic (University of Queensland) We invite abstract submissions for an edited book on the creation, dissemination, interpretation, and role of digital media for political purposes in the Balkans and the Middle East. The...
Material World
WHAT ARE SURFACES? Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers London, 1st-3rd September 2010 www.rgs.org/AC2010 Session organisers: Isla Forsyth (University of Glasgow), James Robinson (Aberystwyth University), Hayden Lorimer (University of Glasgow), Peter Merriman (Aberystwyth......
Asian/Pacific American Documentary Heritage Archives Survey
http://dlibdev.nyu.edu/tamimentapa/ The Asian/Pacific American Documentary Heritage Archives Survey is the first systematic attempt to map available and potential Asian/Pacific American archival collections in the New York metropolitan area. The project seeks to address the underrepresentation of East Coast Asian......
Smithsonian Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology
Dear Colleagues – I am pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for the Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA), a research training initiative launched in 2009 by the Smithsonian Department of Anthropology with support from the National......
The return of the Wittelsbach Diamond—or is it?
Does the recutting of a famous gemstone—improving its luster and increasing its market value—fundamentally alter its identity as a historical artifact by erasing signs of use? Which temporary owners of an object get to decide whether and how to......
Contemporary medical science and technology as a challenge for museums
Contemporary medical science and technology as a challenge for museums Copenhagen, 16-19 September, 2010 The 15th biannual conference of the European Association of Museums for the History of Medical Sciences (EAMHMS) will be held at the University of Copenhagen, 16–19......
This article on the BBC Technology website presents some of the latest gadgets designed for use in schools. It shows some of the new devices used for administering student attendence, interactive teaching and immersive teaching environments. As the school......
Teaching Anthropology
Need your help. Resignation advice: Got it?
So, gentle readers....I need your advice. What do you do in lower higher education to resign from an extra-contractual position when you have come to the conclusion that you are getting hosed?I mean none of the promises that were made to you by your President have come true even...
Its always nice to be reading along and find a reference to anthropology which not only seems to understand us but to promote the best of us.So, here I was sipping the morning coffee with my laptop open to the Sunday papers (look Ma, no ink-stained fingers) and I ran...
Things White People Love: Avatar
No, I haven't seen it. I probably won't. I always hate it when Hollywood drives the bus--especially for two hours and forty minutes. Besides being an Avatar virgin means I don't become overly invested in my own opinions of it and I am interested in the opinions of my students...
Tomorrow is my baby girl's twentieth birthday. In the artificial construct of American age, it is the last year I can refer to her as a baby girl. Next year, she will be an adult.There has been a lively discussion on the SACC listserv about measuring educational success. ...
So, I saw this on the Huffington Post and it was just so way cool that I had to share.Seems that empires are like zits. First they grow, then they explode, then, eventually, they just disappear.My favorite part is in 1960 when African independence kicks in. I so...
Happy Thanksgiving: "We got hosed"
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Open Access Anthropology
Social Sciences Open Access Repository
Via John Postill’s Media/Anthropology blog, a post about a new Open Access Repository for all the social sciences. “SSOAR [Social Science Open Access Repository] is geared towards a scholarly audience in the social sciences wishing to search quality-controlled content across disciplinary boundaries and to access documents directly and free of...
Editorial on Commerical and Not-for-Profit Scholarly Publishing
Readers of the Open Access Anthropology blog might have an interest in an opinion essay that I (Jason Baird Jackson) wrote recently. In it, I lay out some modest steps that scholars interested in changing the direction of scholarly communications might take. The focus is a plea to withdraw from...
Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity
Readers of Open Access Anthropology will want to check out the announcements for (and press coverage of) the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity that was just announced by Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT and Berkeley. I just finished speaking to Inside Higher Education about it for a story that they will run...
The Impact of the Web 2.0 World on Scholarly Societies
A friend who is very involved in the leadership of the American Folklore Society just shared with me a link to James Lappin’s very effective blog post “The Impact of the Web 2.0 World on the Records Management Society.” While presented as a case study of information science/archives organizations in...
I think that this is the week’s big news in scholarly communications issues. Its not open access, but it is not-for-profit. There is much that could be said. Hopefully there will be some discussion among anthropologists, especially in light of the AAA’s experiences working with the University of California Press...
Scholarly Society-Library Partnerships Webcast Now Online
The video archive version of the recent Association for Research Libraries (ARL) webcast on “Reaching Out to Leaders of Scholarly Societies at Research Institutions” to which I contributed is now available online. It can be gotten to for free, all that is required is signing in for ARL headcounting purposes. ...
Museum Anthropology
Another interesting example of international repatriation, of objects held in France returned to Nigeria. This return could be the beginning of more, as clearly some are calling for a more systematic and complete approach to repatriation for these kinds of objects: "In the keynote address entitled, Towards a Strategy for...
Director of Interpretation Position
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is searching for an outstanding Director of Interpretation to join an extraordinary team in remaking the visitor experience at our nearly century old institution. With the mission "to inspire wonder, discovery and responsibility for our natural and cultural worlds," we aspire to...
Repatriation Coordinator Position
The University of Massachusetts Amherst seeks a Repatriation Coordinator to oversee compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The position is a three year 12 month lectureship in the Department of Anthropology, starting at $53,762.50. The Repatriation Coordinator directs a small part-time staff and teaches two courses...
University of Delaware's Permanent Collection
At a time when many university museums are struggling, it is exciting to read that the University of Delaware is investing in a new home for its permanent collection. What a great experience for students, and what an opportunity to exhibit new materials!...
No doubt many of you have already read about this controversy, for the time being, seemingly resolved. It involves the infamous Yale secret society, human remains, and the antiquities market. A great combination for controversy if there ever was one!If you don't know about the past and similar dispute, check...
Exciting news from the UBC Museum of Anthropology: Check it out!...
The Blog
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The November issue of Wired Magazine (UK) features "Unlocking the Digital City", a series of articles exploring how new technologies have transformed - and are continually reinventing - urban life and urban landscapes. The entire issue is worth reading. Below are excerpts from three perspectives on the promises and realities...
I came across this list of the top 25 anthropology blogs as compiled by Invesp Consulting (an e-commerce conversion optimization company, of course). Their Blog-Rank statistics are based solely on (automated) data extraction from various aspects of online content, such as RSS membership, Yahoo and Google indexed pages and pagerank,...
VoiceThread for collaborative learning and teaching
I read this review article today on Educ@conTIC (Spanish only) about a web-based service for creating collaborative, multimedia conversations. VoiceThread is "a powerful new way to talk about and share your images, documents, and videos".With VoiceThread, group conversations are collected and shared in one place from anywhere in the world....
Spain still below average, natives still digital
The latest from a European Commission report on Internet use throughout Europe has found that Spain should seek to improve and expand upon the use of new technologies in homes and businesses. Less than half of Spaniards make use of the Internet regularly, and those who use it daily represent...
ScienceDaily: Anthropology News
Ancient human teeth show that stress early in development can shorten life span
Ancient human teeth are telling secrets that may relate to modern-day health: Some stressful events that occurred early in development are linked to shorter lifespans. "Prehistoric remains are providing strong, physical evidence that people who acquired tooth enamel defects while in the womb or early childhood tended to die earlier,...
Last ancestor humans shared with worms had sophisticated brain, microRNAs show
The last ancestor we shared with worms, which roamed the seas around 600 million years ago, may already have had a sophisticated brain. Fossils cannot give us this information, but scientists have obtained it by studying small molecules called microRNAs....
DNA testing on 2,000-year-old bones in Italy reveal East Asian ancestry
Researchers excavating an ancient Roman cemetery were surprised when DNA testing on a set of bones revealed East Asian ancestry....
Developmental delay may explain behavior of easygoing bonobo apes
New research suggests that evolutionary changes in cognitive development underlie the extensive social and behavioral differences that exist between two closely related species of great apes. The study enhances our understanding of our two closest living relatives, chimpanzees and the lesser-known bonobos, and may provide key insight into human evolution....
Language structure is partly determined by social structure
Psychologists argue that human languages may adapt more like biological organisms than previously thought and that the more common and popular the language, the simpler its construction to facilitate its survival....
Saving endangered languages from being forgotten
With only 3.000 speakers in Northwest Siberia the Ob-Ugrian language Mansi is on the verge of extinction. Predictions say it will be extinct in ten to twenty years at the latest. The same holds true for Khanti, a member of the same language family. It is for this reason that...
Glossographia
The World Loanword Database project (WOLD), edited by Martin Haspelmath and Uri Tadmor, is now online and freely available to users. It’s a remarkable resource compiled with the purpose of analyzing language contact at the lexical level. Over fifty linguists (including my colleague Martha Ratliff here at...
Over the last week there has been a groundswell of action in opposition to the decision to eliminate the paleography program at King’s College London, most significantly the position of the Chair of Paleography, Professor David Ganz, which is the only such position in the UK and perhaps in the...
Medieval anthropology: a working bibliography
Back in May I discussed the curious absence of anthropological research on the Middle Ages or ‘medieval anthropology’, and made wild and obviously false promises to produce a bibliography of this hemidemisemidiscipline. - I’ve excluded material that is strictly bioarchaeological / forensic / epidemiological in nature; biological anthropologists do all sorts...
Back in November 2008 I wrote a post, ‘Debunking and de-Basque-ing‘ talking about the general state of Basque paleolinguistics and epigraphy, with specific reference to claims that a set of inscriptions from Iruña-Veleia were not the best evidence we have for the early use of a Basque ancestral language but...
Discount numerals! V for the price of IV!
The excellent people at Cambridge have provided me with a downloadable flyer for Numerical Notation: A Comparative History which can be redeemed online, by phone or by mail for a 20% discount off the list price ($76 US instead of $95). This offer is good until the end of...
I am always very careful to indicate, in guidelines for essays and papers, that I don’t care what bibliographic or citation format my students use. APA, MLA, AAA, NWA … I always say that as long as they pick one format and use it consistently, they’ll be just fine....
Visual Anthropology of Japan
Scholarship for Visual Anthropology Students
Here is a scholarship from the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan for students studying in Japan. Check out the details for the photo entry and the video entry below. Seems like something that a student of visual anthropology should be able to put together either as a new project or...
From today's Japan Today:16 security cameras installed on Akihabara streetsIn a reaction to the 2008 stabbing rampage in Akihabara, the Kanda-Suehiro-cho neighborhood association installed 16 security cameras on streetlamps in the area Tuesday. These are the first surveillance cameras to go up in the Akihabara area.After the June 8, 2008...
Kyoto Asian Studies Group February Meeting: Karakuri Ningyo Robots
Photo borrowed from karakuri.info.Here's an announcement about the Kyoto Asian Studies Group February meeting (via H-Japan):This February, the Kyoto Asian Studies Group lecture will be by Murakami Kazuo who will present Edo Period Karakuri Culture and Japanese Robots. This talk will be followed by a demonstration of karakuri (automata) by...
Image borrowed from Shugendo Now Welcome PageAn announcement from H-Japan brought this film to my attention. Here is a brief description form the film's web page:How does one integrate lessons learned from nature in daily life?This feature documentary is an experiential journey into the mystical practices of Japanese mountain asceticism....
Happy Year of the Tiger. And Go Hanshin Tigers...I happened upon this image when reading the recent article about Jack London's reporting of China and Japan during the Russo-Japanese War. The article, written by Daniel A. Métraux, is called Jack London, Asian Wars and the “Yellow Peril.” Here is a...
Photo borrowed from body. space. time. – Japanese Video Art Exhibition(curated by Masayo KAJIMURA and Saskia Wendland) http://www.nipponconnection.com/nippon-2009/programm-culture-eng.htmlHere's an announcement for a very interesting Japanese film festival in Germany. brief description comes from the event's web page:From 15th to 19th April Nippon Connection once again presents exciting and creative cinema...
Anthropology.net
The Wikipedia entry for Y-chromosome haplogroup T claims: “The distribution of haplogroup T in most parts of Europe is spotty or regionalized”. As it is through much of the rest of the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_T_(Y-DNA) However from the map at Wiki we can see that Y-hap T is largely distributed along coastlines and...
Reduced Brain Size of Homo floresiensis Hints at Her Likely Ancestors
See also: Is Homo floresiensis really that strange? – Zinjanthropus@ A Primate of Modern Aspect A new, detailed and freely accessible paper, Reconstructing the Ups and Downs of Primate Brain Evolution: Implications for Adaptive Hypotheses and Homo floresiensis (provisional PDF) has just come online at BMC Biology, in which Stephen H....
Four Stone Hearth #85: Cold Wind Edition at A Very Remote Period Indeed
Julien has posted the current edition of Four Stone Hearth over at his blog, marking the 85th occasion on which this anthropology blog carnival has appeared online. There’s a distinct archaeological feel to the opening section, including mention of the Silk Road, something I’ve been mulling over of late, but...
The Archaeology Channel – “Timeless India” by Zafar Hai
The Archaeology Channel – Timeless India TAC have made available a 25-minute promotional film produced and directed by Zafar Hai on behalf of the Ministry of Tourism in India, and narrated by no less a luminary than Michael York. Featuring many historic locations and exotic sights such as temples, this film is...
Wednesday Round-up at Neuroanthropology – Videogaming/ 100th Edition
As readers here may be aware, recent reports from the world of neuroscience with an anthropological slant are assembled every Wednesday over at Neuroanthropology, and this week’s edition includes, amongst many others: Chris Kelty et al., Outlaw Biology? Public Participation in the Age of Big Bio Looks like a fascinating symposium this...
Pego do Diabo (Loures, Portugal): Tracing the Final Days of Iberian Neanderthals
Such is the frequency these days of research into Neanderthals published by Professor João Zilhão, I’m beginning to wonder whether he hasn’t created multiple copies of himself, rather in the manner of a kinder, more constructive Dr. Manhattan, in a bid to leave no cave unexplored, no Neanderthal left behind...
Golublog: An Anthropology Blog
The “modern sensibility” of this Robin Hood is actually one of the least interesting things about it. Admittedly, thin-hipped Jonas Armstrong looks pretty good in his narrow-legged emo-boy leather trousers, and I’d even go so far as saying that he works the forest green hoodie successfully. But that is about...
“The social Super-Robot, mighty Leviathan in his behaviorist’s paradise, is a stirring vision, not devoid of a certain icy grandeur. But the Mind remembers, as in a dream, its pristine thrills; and it turns it gaze away from the Robot… The creative urge stirs once more. Intuition leaps. The phantoms...
Gratuitous and derivative. In an age of endless, lucrative, and repetitive franchise-based blockbusters, it takes a lot of work to be called ‘derivative’. And in a post-300 world, the bar for gratuitous sex and violence has been set so low that it would take a scanning electron microscope to find...
1. Yes, but does it play Warcraft? 2. It’s a bit sad that Jobs can no longer power the reality distortion field around his body — once upon a time the best part of Apple agitprop were the Jobs presentations. Now of the two videos on the Apple website, its the...
I spent New Year’s Eve December 31, 1999, in the house of the pastor of the Lutheran Church in Waiwanda waiting for what many believed was the end of the world. On New Year’s Eve December 31, 2009, I spent the evening on the lanai with my wife watching fireworks...
There is a lot that is remarkable about Gene Wolf’s Book Of The New Sun tetralogy, but surely one of the most arresting bits (for me at least) comes in the conclusion of the first book where the narrator, a torturer by trade, compares his new-found role as author to...
Conversations with Dina
Daily updates on what I’m reading Best Connected Individuals Are Not the Most Influential Spreaders in Social Networks – CLIPS: "…. the importance of hubs may have been overstated, say Kitsak and pals. "In contrast to common belief, the most influential spreaders in a social network do not correspond to the...
Daily updates on what I’m reading Calling non-USA based women activists – CLIP: "Today I'm proud to announce the BlogHer 2010 International Activist Scholarship Program. Here's how it works: If you or someone you know is a woman blogger, outside the United States, blogging to raise awareness, consciousness or funding to...
Reliance Netconnect Broadband on Macbook with Snow Leopard
Final hiccups solved! Ever since I upgraded to Snow Leopard, I’ve been struggling to get my netconnect broadband modem to work as well as it previously did. I’ve blogged about my initial hiccups, where I thought I’d found a great solution. Well it worked, but my speeds have been abysmal. ...
Daily updates on what I’m reading A New Mobile Radar concept from Nokia Research Centre | via @tsuvik – Make sure you check out the video too! CLIP: "Nokia Research Center (NRC) Helsinki today unveiled a new research concept at “Demo House 2010″ research exhibition in Espoo, Finland. The mobile radar...
Daily updates on what I’m reading Mattel takes innovation to the dogs with its Puppy Tweets – CLIP: "Puppy Tweets is a plastic tag with a sound and motion sensor that you attach to your pet's dog collar and connect its USB receiver to your computer. Then you create a Twitter...
Daily updates on what I’m reading Smartphones Market – CLIP: "For more from Tomi this is a 30min video that makes the case for the next 4billion users and more importantly reinforces the opportunity just around the corner. Some great examples and sound bites. Yes the mobile is the future. This...
DNApes
Amazing TED talk: Pranav Mistry's SixthSense technology!
At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data -- including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop." In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he'll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities...
You have the chance to name a chimpanzee featured in this month's National Geographic Magazine. The adult male chimpanzee in print on page 138-139 is quickly becoming famous as his story is read by millions of readers around the world.It was only recently that the unique cultural behaviors of chimpanzees...
More on cannibalism in bonobos
Following the publication of filial cannibalism in wild bonobos, the BBC has done the following write up:Bonobo 'cannibalises' own infantBy Matt WalkerA wild bonobo has been seen cannibalising her own recently deceased two and a half-year-old infant.Among apes, such behaviour is extremely rare, only being reported before among orangutans, and...
British scientists deny existence of Gspot - world pities British women...
from The Guardian.co.ukFrench hit back after British attack on G-spot touches nerve by Lizzy DaviesAfter scientists in London declared the G-spot may be a myth, gynaecologists gather in Paris to launch counterattack ...
Mount Cameroon National Park comes to being
from WWF (panda.org)A new park created by the Cameroonian government that encompasses the highest mountain in West and Central Africa will help protect some of the rarest ecosystems in the Congo Basin. The government of Cameroon recently signed a decree creating the 58,178 hectare Mount Cameroon National Park, which...
Conservation Canines @ U. of Washington
Dieter L drew my attention to this, thanks! Since I work on genetic capture-recapture of elusive species this amazed me, especially the "matching dogs" (See last paragraph)Conservation Canineshttp://conservationbiology.net/conservation-canines/Our center developed the scat detection dog program in 1997. Having pioneered the development and application of many of the fecal-based hormone and...
remote central
Shedding New Light on Saturn and Enceladus/Test post
Shedding New Light on Saturn (Dec. 27, 2009) - Planetary Radio | The Planetary SocietyAs The Crust Turns: Cassini Data Show Enceladus in Motion - NASA JPL A recent podcast from the Planetary Society featured the Cassini mission at Saturn, home to shimmering rings and mysterious moons, where the spacecraft...
Posthumous Dues - Mac Tonnies, Author and Blogger, Dead at 34
UFOMystic: Remembering Mac It was something of a shock to hear the very sad news that author and blogger Mac Tonnies passed away in his sleep last week, aged only 34. We briefly corresponded several years ago, and he was about the first person in the public eye to say they...
From Memory/Take No More/Hospital Records Podcast
Whilst the world waits with bated breath for the release date of 'Take No More' from Utah Jazz, featured on the 96th edition of the only dnb podcast you'll ever need to hear, here's a quick look at Mistabishi's much vaunted Matrix Remix of 'From Memory', also featured as the...
Stimulus Respond - 'Icon' Edition - Call for Contributions
Following on from the previous 'Numbers' edition, Open publication - Free publishing - More stimulus Stimulus Respond are now seeking content for the next issue, called 'Icon', as we see from this advisory: We are currently soliciting contributions for the next edition of the next issue of Stimulus Respond, called Icon....
Jupiter Impact Points Us To Mars
ESA Science & Technology: Hubble views new dark spot on JupiterOver the past few days, spectacular images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope have shown the scene of a vast impact - roughly twice the length of Europe - which has scarred the surface of Jupiter, making this the second...
A Blog is Born: NickG Productions: To whom it may concern..
NickG Productions: To whom it may concern..A quick heads-up to a new blog written by NickG, who is technically, or at least biologically part of the remote central stable of writers, so this is to wish him all good luck in what I hope will be a long and very...
Yahoo! News Search Results for anthropology
Lawmakers weigh human trafficking bill (The Barre Montpelier Times Argus)
MONTPELIER — A college student sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday and told lawmakers Vermont needs to do its part to "help end one of the worst atrocities in the world today." ... - By DAVE GRAM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS...
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA (Aljazeera)
An indigenous tribe from India's Andaman Islands, thought to have existed for 65,000 years, has disappeared with the death of its last member. According to the indigenous advocacy group Survival International, Boa Senior, the last known member of the Bo tribe, died last week at the age of 85....
Anthropologist analyzes disparity in childbirth (The Rebel Yell)
Preganancy gives good depiction of natural selection Applying Charles Darwin’s revolutionary concept of natural selection to childbirth, one of the leading experts in anthropology explored why humans give birth in such a complicated way. Karen Rosenberg, chair of the department of anthropology at The University of Delaware, gave her lecture...
Beneath springs, an ancient world (Orlando Sentinel)
Construction project uncovers mother lode of relics Thousands of swimmers every year flock to Salt Springs Recreation Area to snorkel and walk along the sandy bottom of the popular water hole....
Ancient human teeth show that stress early in development can shorten life span (Science Daily)
Ancient human teeth are telling secrets that may relate to modern-day health: Some stressful events that occurred early in development are linked to shorter lifespans. "Prehistoric remains are providing strong, physical evidence that people who acquired tooth enamel defects while in the womb or early childhood tended to die earlier,...
Binghamton University grad student pleads innocent in stabbing of professor (Press & Sun-Bulletin)
A Binghamton University graduate student accused of intentionally killing a professor by stabbing him multiple times with a knife pleaded innocent Thursday to one felony count of second-degree murder....