Blogthropology 2.0

How to become the consumer of your own Productivity?

2010-06-05T08:59:00.005-04:00

This semester is over.

Take a moment to look back and ask if you participated fully.

Being a mere listener and reader in class is not enough.

Asking questions, challenging others' views (including the professor), and sharing insights and reflections as well as triumphs and failures without any loss of power, all are VITAL to learning.

You cannot learn simply from listening. Remember the expression in the syllabus?

What I hear, I forget.
What I hear and see, I remember a little.
What I hear, see, and ask questions about or discuss with someone else, I begin to understand.
What I hear, see, discuss and do, I acquire knowledge and skill.
What I teach to another, I master. Mel Silberman, Active Learning (1996)

This is based on the following Chinese philosophical expression:
"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."
by Xunzi (340-245 BC), one of the three greatest Confucian scholars of early years.

Colonialism, Memory and Massacres in India

2010-05-19T11:30:00.002-04:00

Pavneet Singh shared about the massacres that took place in India/Pakistan in the late 1940s. He wanted to share this sad and brilliant ethnographic video of a elder Sikh man recalling the massacres from his past. Very emotional. What kind of courage does it take to share this still today and what kind of courage and compassion do ethnographers need to bring?

Sharing Your Final Reflections (AFTER our ebook is done)

2010-05-11T06:30:00.008-04:00

Please submit your reflections after the SPEAK ebook is complete. (Originally posted for Fall 2009 deadline)

Discover if you popped this semester and what you learned from ANT1001. Before you begin, take a moment to review your own work from start to finish.

After reviewing your own work and reading our final version of SPEAK, reply to 2 (two) of the following questions (of your choice) as a comment below this blog post.

You must indicate what questions you are responding to in your comments. Keep it simple: cut and paste the question into your comment before you answer.
1. Share how readings in the Kottak and/or the Conformity & Conflict reader created a shift in your view of the world? In other words, how did you come to see the world with lenses from another culture (even if momentarily) this semester? Please use etic terms to help explain what happened whenever possible.
2. How might the ebook SPEAK challenge ethnocentric thinking about being a student or about being in college (You can address the collaborative process and/or the collective essays but not exclusively your own essay--THINK BIGGER PICTURE)?
3. Clifford Geertz wrote that it "takes a certain kind of mind to sail out of sight from land in an outrigger canoe" ("Anti Anti-Relativism," 1984). In other words, letting go of what you already know and embracing the unknown is not a normal thing for us humans. What ethnocentric thinking did you learn to let go of in this course? What could you apply that process to that you have been resisting letting go of (i.e., prejudice, bias, ethnocentric thinking about this or that group of people as different)?
4. You were acknowledged as a GREAT ONE every class. You have been a "participant-observer" (revisit Kottak pp. 48-50) all semester in this course experiment. What do you see from an etic point of view about "cultural adaptation" (see Kottak, 3-4), "agency" (see Kottak, 35-36), or the "Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis" (see Kottak, 73-74 or revisit the C&C essay)?
5. You can make a counter-offer for one question if you want to say/write anything else.
There are posts from previous semesters recorded in the comments sections. You can read them if you like.

Clay Shirky: How cellphones, Twitter, Facebook can make history

2010-04-17T01:26:00.002-04:00

At 2:18": "What's important here is not technological capital but social capital. These tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring....Now that media is increasingly social, innovation can happen ANYWHERE that people can take for granted that we are in this altogether."

Collaboration

2010-04-15T17:56:00.002-04:00

The Baruch Bigger Picture Book

2010-04-15T17:26:00.003-04:00

NO CLASS TUE APR 20 - Professor Gaunt is at a Twitter Conference and you should spend this time working on your draft of your essay. In lieu of attendance, please submit your draft by email to kyra.gaunt@baruch.cuny.edu by 5pm Tuesday.
NO QUIZ. Ethnicity and Race chapters and group presentation is postponed. Thu we will begin to edit your essays and launch the survey.
READ BY TUE APR 20: The Audacity of Humanity Ebook

Read at least the cover page, tag cloud of contents, authors page (created by Wordle.net), the intro by Kyra Gaunt, and 8-10 different essays or more.
WRITE A RESPONSE BY EMAIL
- Share what was your favorite essay in Audacity of Humanity and why?
- Share how these essays exemplify the title of the book AUDACITY OF HUMANITY? In other words, based on a sampling of the essays, what is audacious and what speaks to humanity, in your own words?

Watch two or three videos of your choice from below and write a few comments on each to show you watched it.

The digital ethnography from KSU by Mike Wesch called A VISION OF STUDENTS TODAY
Learning to Change, Changing to Learn (5:37") features my favorite quote "it means the death of education, but the birth of learning."
Networked Student - A video about the idea that learning occurs from diverse social network and ties.
OPTIONAL: TED Talk: How Schools Kill Creativity by Sir Ken Robinson (19:21").

Begin to write a 300 word essay that begins "What matters to me is..."

It can be about being a student, being a young adult embarking on life. Anything that makes you happy, that you desire, or that would make being a school more a reflection of what matters in life to you or to people as a whole.
It can be small, simple or mundane. It's more like what matters to you right now.
This might seem audacious. Like this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. No one may agree with me, but this thing you write about lights you up. It simply mattters. If the world might take a listen to your thoughts about X or Z, life would be different for people (in my humble opinion).
This can be a "discovery draft" or a "shitty first draft". Just write and ask later whether it's a good idea. If you feel compelled to write (and it REALLY CAN BE ABOUT ANYTHING YOU ARE INTERESTED IN RIGHT NOW). Write on!

SEND A RESPONSE ON EMAIL SHOWING YOU COMPLETED ALL OF THE ABOVE AND ATTACH A DRAFT OF YOUR ESSAY ABOUT WHAT MATTERS RIGHT NOW

Share about your favorite Audacity of Humanity Ebook Essay and/or bio and why
What does it mean to be audacious and in this book and what does it say about humanity as a collective of ideas.
Attach your "shitty first draft" of a possible 300 words or less essay. Don't worry about a title yet. But if one comes to mind, share it.

_________________

YOUR COMMENTS BELOW

So you have some ideas about what we should or should not be up to with this project. I love what Bishoy said. This is an opportunity like no other. When do you get to CREATE instead of consume as a student. This book will be launched to students to inspire them to begin to inquire into what matters that represents Baruch College. Get the Bigger Picture of Baruch from our ebook.

Ultimately, I want you to see how simple it is to make a difference in a small but powerful way with an ebook. And I want to apply all the etic principles of ethnography and anthropology to ourselves and our environment. Make a difference RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.

Add your comments below. BE GREAT. Google anything you are unsure of or if you need help use Google HELP to log on to make a comment. Also see sidebar for instructions on commenting on the blog.

Free ebook THE AUDACITY OF HUMANITY ed. by Prof. Gaunt in 3 weeks

2010-04-06T10:00:00.009-04:00

Before spring break I mentioned that I was creating an ebook that inspired our final project The Baruch Big Picture Book. I released it to the world on Friday April 2, 2010 and it's been viewed by over 3000 people since then and counting.

The ebook is called THE AUDACITY OF HUMANITY and it features over 39 authors, ages 10 to 63, from 5 continents, representing multiple ethnicities, sexualities and belief systems with different abilities and limitations. We are ONE people, the human race, courageously up-ending stereotypes and generalizations.

Each contributor offers their story as a radical transformation of what leadership can be. We are not contained by description (check out our bios). We agree to be offended and stay connected. From A to Zed, we are a collective testament to the audacity of humanity. Be the audacity of that!!

One is a former student from ANT1001. Read the page under the tag "LEARNING ENGLISH" by Mei.

This is free. Liberate it. Tweet it, email it, post it on your own site.

Bringing Beginner's Mind/Etic Research to Women in Islam

2010-04-06T10:00:00.002-04:00

“In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few”
Shunryu Suzuki quotes (Japanese Zen priest, ?-1971)

Originally posted 3/31/2009 at 1:54pm

I said last week I'd send an email about our conversations last class. The group presenting on gender presented a few videos out-of-cultural-context without any intervention into the generalizing stereotypes that exist in our culture about 1) women in Islam and 2) female circumcision in Africa. These two topics are fraught with stereotypes, "evolutionary" bias (like they are behind the modern way things SHOULD be), and mere misinformation that is worse than the truths are for actual men and women who are Muslims in the majority of cases.

Here's a different view than what we saw last Thu in class.

I insist that everyone take a look at a great website I found on PBS called GLOBAL CONNECTIONS: The Middle East. The first question they delve into is "What factors determine the changing roles of women in Middle East and Islamic societies?

Some Americans believe that Muslim women are oppressed by their religion, forced to cover themselves completely, denied education and other basic rights. It is true that Muslim women, like women all over the world, have struggled against inequality and restrictive practices in education, work force participation, and family roles. Many of these oppressive practices, however, do not come from Islam itself, but are part of local cultural traditions. (To think about the difference between religion and culture, ask yourself if the high rate of domestic violence in the United States is related to Christianity, the predominant religion.)...

The Quran explicitly states that men and women are equal in the eyes of God. Furthermore, the Quran:
forbids female infanticide (practiced in pre-Islamic Arabia and other parts of the world)
instructs Muslims to educate daughters as well as sons
insists that women have the right to refuse a prospective husband
gives women rights if they are divorced by their husband
gives women the right to divorce in certain cases
gives women the right to own and inherit property (though in Sunni Islam they get only half of what men inherit. Men are expected to care for their mothers and any unmarried female relatives, and would, it is reasoned, need greater resources for this purpose.)
While polygyny is permissible, it is discouraged and on the whole practiced less frequently than imagined by Westerners. It is more frequent in the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia. Many Muslims cite the Quranic phrase "But treat them equally... and if you cannot, then one [wife] is better" and argue that monogamy is preferable, or even mandatory.

The Quran and the role of women

As the Islamic state and religion expanded, interpretations of the gender roles laid out in the Quran varied with different cultures. For example, some religious scholars in ninth- and 10th-century Iraq were prescribing more restrictive roles for women, while elite women in Islamic Spain were sometimes able to bend these rules and mix quite freely with men (see Walladah bint Mustakfi below).

Some contemporary women -- and men as well -- reject the limitations put on women and are reinterpreting the Quran from this perspective.

How do you bring beginner's mind to something that seems so strange, even shocking at first? What tools do you have to have to begin considering how to think like an anthropologist. Think about how Geertz had to learn how to see sculptures in jungles, paintings in deserts, and political order OUTSIDE of state political structures that we recognize as "normal" or "the way is should be."

We will discuss this in class this week and the coming weeks.

YouTube Digital Ethnography from ANT students in Kansas

2010-04-06T10:00:00.000-04:00

Originally posted on 11/5/2007 at 1:17pm.

A short video summarizing some of the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. Created by Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University. Made by students in a Cultural Anthropology Class in Spring 2007.

Ch. 8 - RELIGION: What do we know about how religions got started?

2010-04-06T00:53:00.000-04:00

Originally posted 4.23.2009 at 4:21am

Watch one or all three of the videos. One is an excellent ethnographic short of Cargo cults. The second is on Rastafarianism. The third is a dialogue between a Catholic priest and a Brahmin priest of Hinduism.

Cargo cults are compared to the cult of Jesus in this 6:03" segment:

This features a man from a community of Rastafarians, who have settled in the small southern Ethiopian town of Shashamene (3:01"):

This is a fascinating dialogue between a French Roman Catholic official (it seems) and a Hindu official or Brahmin priest.

POST A COMMENT: Decided to give you a bit more direction for the comment here. PICK ONE QUESTION TO COMMENT ON.

Q#1: After viewing the video on either Cargo Cults, Rastafarianism, or the dialogue between the Catholic Priest and the Brahmin priest, how does the example you chose to watch highlight

the social constructed nature of religion as well as
how our view of others is a manifestation of our own grinding and their reaction one cultural constructed by theirs.

If you are unsure of the culture of Cargo cults, see Kottak Mirror for Humanity, p. 195 again.

Q#2: How has the world capitalist economy of core and periphery stratification of nations perhaps contributed to the spread and formation of religions like Rastafarianism and Cargo cults?

Getting People to Talk on Ethnographic Interviewing

2010-03-11T13:30:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 10/13/09 12:40pm:
The Illinois Institute of Technology's Gabe Biller and Kristy Scovel created an introductory video on how to conduct an ethnographic interview. It features Dori Tunstall who teaches Design Ethnography at the University of Illinios Chicago and Colleen Murray of Jump Associates along with a host of IIT folks. We will watch this great video in class. I also want you to watch it a second time by Tue Oct 16th. I found this 33 minute video on the blog http://eskar.dk/andreas/blog/?p=313

You can also learn more about "extreme user research" mentioned in the video.

Getting People to Talk: An Ethnography & Interviewing Primer from Gabe & Kristy on Vimeo.

Notes on Writing about C&C Ethnographies

2010-03-04T10:29:00.004-05:00

WE ARE LEARNING ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN ETHNOGRAPHER; TO DO ETHNOGRAPHY

Thought I should compile some notes on your C&C essays that you all can learn from. Want to use crowd-sourcing of feedback more often.

OVERALL: You should think about what these essays are demonstrating that anthropologists need to learn, do, and think that combats ethnocentrism and what actions did this involve to conduct and write a great ethnography.
How does the author use terms (emic explanations) to reveal the native beliefs and core values? How does he use anthropological or etic terms to do the same? What methods did he apply to learn the emic explanations? How effective was he/she?
Rather than writing a book report about how YOU reacted to the reading or what you remember about the "story" write about what's being revealed to you about conducting fieldwork, participant-observation and ethnography.
Don't waste paper putting the biblography on a separate page and strictly follow the format given.
Always refer to authors by their LAST NAME. You will never find a reference to an article by DAVID. No need to add titles like professor or "Dr."

ABOUT SAPIR-WHORF ESSAY BY THOMSON

A student wrote: "Not to take these readings literally but I think we should consider the fact that we do make very instinctual decisions as we speak". Consider that this is NOT instinctual but LEARNED. It is cultural not in any way biological. Notice how we even use language AGAINST language when we evoke "biology" (VERY instinctual). This means we didn't learn it. It's in us - like DNA.
Here is an exemplar model of description and critical thought: "My attention was captured as I tried to disentangle the "whys" in the way the Bushmen treated /ontah and his deeds. ...How can an ox look like a sac of bones to most villagers and, at the same time, be perceived as the largest, fattest game to "whitey". As I read on, I laughed in confusion....Are the !Kung playing a joke on a poor man?..."Insulting the mean" (http://www/slideshare.net/PaulVMcDowell/kung-san-of-the-kalahari-desert) was a way to prevent a young hunter rom becoming arrogant and dominating. My embarrassment ...was being ethnocentric (Kottak, 37).
HERE IS ONE I EDITING ALONG THE WAY: "In chapter 4 of Mirror of Humanity, Kottak writes about how Americans simplify the shades of color from teal, blue-green, hunter green and so on into one label “green” (CITATION MISSING: Kottak, p. ??). There isn’t any difference between the way that so called “advanced civilizations” use language and the way extinct (??? Who said anything about extinct dialects? What are these??) and lesser (Whose language is lesser?? Watch it1 Your ethnocentrism is showing!) used dialects use language. Thus, every language has its own ways of distinguishing the same phenomena; therefore each language is effective (WC—word choice--affective refers to feelings and emotion) for the group of people that use it. [GREAT POINT]
Another exemplar model: "Whorf argues that English speakers think in past-present-future (Thomson, 115). Thus, our lives operate accordingly. We hurry to catch the train, the bus or to work. Accurately, we are catching the time that our language teaches us. It can come, pass, or never be back. When we build a building, we measure the progress by designating different stages of being finished on specific days....We think and do any possibilities throught he way we measure time through language (or the way language measures time)....The words we use to describe the world are all we know about it [learned through enculturation and it differs from other cultures--not for better or worse]. Our imagination is also restricted by the lexicon we use (Kottak, 70).

Are these useful and explain why if you can. PLEASE POST A COMMENT for practice.

The Future of Social Media in Higher Education: McGraw-Hill sponsored panel 2/5/1010 9:31AM

2010-02-05T19:42:00.003-05:00

This panel took place today and was uploaded on USTREAM as part of the Social Media Week that took place all week and ends Sat at the Roger Smith Hotel for a barcamp-style workshop from 7:30 - 5:30pm http://smw-newyork.sched.org/

NOTICE: Problems with email on Blackboard

2010-02-04T17:54:00.004-05:00

If you have not been receiving emails and/or you recently transferred to Baruch from a sister institutions in CUNY, you need to manually UPDATE EMAIL or update your email from the HOME PAGE at Baruch College.

Go to HOME PAGE

In the TOOLS menu on the far left, click UPDATE EMAIL

Your current email in the system will show, please insert your CUNY email address from Baruch. You cannot use any other email for Blackboard.
The email you input must end with @baruchmail.cuny.edu.

Thanks, Prof. G

MUST SEE YOUTUBE TV: Using Twitter to Create the Future in the Classroom

2010-01-31T12:02:00.003-05:00

From Twitter Handbook Blog:

August 9th, 2008
· by Warren Whitlock · Filed Under: Twitter · Twitter Videos · Twitter in Education

@mwesch used social media tools to turn what could have been a boring university lecture class into an experience that harnessed the power of students knowledge, connections and imagination.

His views on education are refreshing. The outcome from the class is fascinating.

While watching this video, I kept thinking of more ways that a small group of people can do more than we had imagined.

I look forward to seeing your comments about how you will use this in your network, relationships, groups, business and life.

Please put your @ handle in your comment so we can follow you on Twitter.
Professor G's handle @kyraocity Come follow me!

Social Media: Twitter Guide and Its Use in College Classrooms

2010-01-30T11:02:00.005-05:00

Hey ANT1001-ers. Please read the non-fanatical beginner's guide to Twitter and skim through the two other articles listed below on using social media in the classroom.

Social Media: Twitter Guide and Its Use in College Classrooms My dear social media friend Deanna Zandt wrote the definitive must-read guide to Twitter in a blog titled:

A non-fanatical beginner's guide to Twitter

(If you're not sure what Twitter is, or why you should consider Twittering, check out "Why Twitter, anyways?")

Edited 1/3/2010 to include updates to Twitter interface over the past few months.

Thanks to a bunch of mainstream media coverage, a lot of folks around me are becoming more interested in participating in the Twitterverse. "All right, all right," they say. "You've convinced me. But how do I get started?" It's almost like walking into a giant party for the first time: You're not sure where your friends are, the bar is on the other side of the room, and the bathrooms are anyone's guess. Allow me to be your party guide.

Sure, sure, you could also just Google "beginner's guide to Twitter" and read a any number of other guides that have been written. Problem is, I feel like most of them focus on two niches: how to be a fanatical Twitterer, and/or how to be a really obnoxiously popular Twitterer. What I'm aiming for here is more for people who want to experiment a little and connect with other folks on a pretty direct level. We'll talk later about different ways you can participate, but for now, let's just get the basics down....click for more.

OTHER ARTICLES ON TWITTER IN COLLEGE CLASSROOM
Here are some brief articles that serve as resources for understanding the power of social media in college-level classrooms.

Effectively Using Social Media in Education: A College Educator on the Advantages of the Web 2.0 Classroom by Lisa Manfield, Dec 30, 2008
From Twitter 101: Social Media's Move to College Classrooms http://bit.ly/2DSH7u 7/17/09

Student Introductions

2010-01-22T17:05:00.001-05:00

Welcome to ANT1001 - Spring 2010!
I expect each of you to learn how to comment on our group blog and the best way is to dive in.

FIRST, sign up or subscribe to the blog on the right. Subscribe to posts and comments.

SECOND, read the INSTRUCTIONS TO COMMENT.

Then introduce yourself to the class.

Share your name and any nickname
Your major/year
The borough/region of NY metro area where you now live
Then describe the way a person introduces themselves in your native culture/community (in no more than 25-50 words).

What do they say? Is there formal/informal versions of introductions?
How do you physically greet/meet another person or persons?
Does age matter?
Is there a difference in greeting men vs. women vs. children?
And does that introduction represent a particular culture in your mind or a different culture to others?

EXAMPLE: When you greet another person of same age in black culture, you often see people give each other "dap" or a special handshake. "Dap" comes from a brand of hair grease or palmade from the South. Most associate it with men but women do it too. Older folks do not ordinarily do this.

OLPC Donate one laptop per Baruch Class

2009-11-30T19:58:00.006-05:00

SEND THIS LINK TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY: http://www.firstgiving.com/barucholpc

.

Creating our Marketing Campaign for One Laptop Per Class Campaign

2009-11-30T18:57:00.003-05:00

We need to make at least 200 paper airplanes to release into atrium on Thu Dec 10th during club hours. Please use the Nick's Plane design in the video or your best version otherwise.

For more on the design visit: http://www.paperairplanes.co.uk/nickplan.php
This paper airplane is a superb glider it is very well balanced indeed even when made by the most inexperienced child. It can be quickly made from a sheet of A4 paper and I really like it. I drew this page up and placed it on the internet within a day of learning to make this paper airplane.

Jane Elliot's A Class Divided (Frontline Doc)

2009-11-09T11:30:00.001-05:00

Originally posted 10/5/07 12:17 PM

FRONTLINE: A Class Divided - 1 of 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCjDxAwfXV0

If you missed class or want to see the video we watched in class, here it is. I posed that WORDS create WORLDS and that Jane Elliot's experiment with her third grade class shown in this documentary gives you a etic view of how this works around discrimination.

You should watch parts 1 and 2 on YouTube.

What were your thoughts?

PS Also here is the link to the Opinion in The Ticker on "Exclusive Diversity" at Baruch College published 9/24/07 by several editors on staff.

Race & Racism in Brazil

2009-11-09T11:30:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 5/19/09 4:37 PM
After we read Jeffrey Fish's essay on race in Brazil titled MIXED BLOOD in the Conformity & Conflict textbook (McCurdy & Spradley), you could be left thinking racism doesn't exist in Brazil. This video paints another picture.

The Leech and the Earthworm

2009-11-03T19:38:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 11/20/07
Marc Silver directed a documentary about indigneous people's views on genetic engineering. This is the title sequence based on a folktale. What do you think about the emic vs. etic view of such a tale? What assumptions come up for the outsider who is white, from a colonial nation, from the US, or for the native Australian seeing this tale in a film for the first time?

Check out Marc's cool website.
http://www.marcsilver.net/#

HOMEWORK: THU NOV 3 HOW CORPORATIONS BECAME LEGAL PERSONS

2009-11-03T16:00:00.002-05:00

Originally posted 5/13/09
The last few weeks I have been emphasizing how individuals are shaped by culturally-defined contexts of race, ethnicity, nation, sex, gender, class, achieved vs. ascribed status, and much more. Ethnography gains insight into the cultural mindset through the ways individuals understand how their culture and/or the world works. This presumes a mindset that seems like it is reality but it is the glasses we were conditioned to see with.

In your introduction to anthropology (ANT1001) we examined how we evolved as a human species from the band, the tribe, the chief and the state out of which grew state economies and capitalism. Westernization, colonialism, and cultural imperialism was an outcome that could not be consistent with the values of the generalized reciprocity of the band. Or so we've been taught. Enculturation and acculturation is everywhere but it is not the end of possibilities in our choices as individuals or groups. But we'd have to be responsible for HOW we learned what we know and WHAT that learning has been for. Ethnography is the tool to excating that learning process and knowing way of being.

I didn't get to a set of short video clips from the award-winning Canadian documentary THE CORPORATION (watch the whole documentary here). Now that you have begun to see the power of ethnography as a tool for understanding cultural mindsets, probably one of our best tools students of culture and humankind has, this documentary takes the conversation to a level not often thought of.

How corporate culture has usurped the status of the individual and the effects that is having on our existence as part of a global human culture.

YOUR RESPONSE: Check out these segments and I'd love to hear how you think this connects to the evolution of the study of man -- anthropology.

YOUR HOMEWORK rather than reading an essay is to watch the documentary THE CORPORATION (3 hrs) on google videos

Come back to class Thu, prepared to share at least one thing that really stood out in this documentary about how the corporation has become a person in our culture.

Kottak Ch. 10, World System & Colonialization

2009-10-28T22:54:00.004-04:00

Rarely do we consider that music and dance and poetry play a key role in how everyday people learn about the global politics of the world. Kottak's title "World System" might be today referred to as the global economy and how capitalism came to be. Colonialization played a huge role in shaping the power dynamics and relationship between nations and its peoples.

This chapter reveals the etic framework. The song "ARE MY HANDS CLEAN?" helps us make the macro level of the economics more real and palpable...and uneasy. This is not a nice story or a myth about how the core nations came to be connected through power, wealth and prestige over the periphery and semi-peripheral nations. But it makes it real. Gets to the emic level of looking at from the outside in and the inside out.

Are My Hands Clean?
Lyrics and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon. Songtalk Publishing Co. 1985
Performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock from the album Live at Carnegie Hall (1988)

I wear garments touched by hands from all over the world
35% cotton, 65% polyester, the journey begins in Central America
In the cotton fields of El Salvador
In a province soaked in blood,
Pesticide-sprayed workers toil in a broiling sun
Pulling cotton for two dollars a day.

Then we move on up to another rung—Cargill
A top-forty trading conglomerate, takes the cotton through the Panama Canal
Up the Eastern seaboard, coming to the US of A for the first time
In South Carolina
At the Burlington mills
Joins a shipment of polyester filament courtesy of the New Jersey petro-chemical mills of Dupont
Dupont strands of filament begin in the South American country of Venezuela
Where oil riggers bring up oil from the earth for six dollars a day

Then Exxon, largest oil company in the world,
Upgrades the product in the country of Trinidad and Tobago
Then back into the Caribbean and Atlantic Seas
To the factories of Dupont
On the way to the Burlington mills
In South Carolina
To meet the cotton from the blood-soaked fields of El Salvador
In South Carolina

Burlington factories hum with the business of weaving oil and cotton into miles of fabric
for Sears
Who takes this bounty back into the Caribbean Sea
Headed for Haiti this time—May she be one day soon free—

Far from the Port-au-Prince palace
Third world women toil doing piece work to Sears specifications
For three dollars a day
My sisters make my blouse
It leaves the third world for the last time
Coming back into the sea to be sealed in plastic for me
This third world sister
And I go to the Sears department store where I buy my blouse
On sale for 20% discount
Are my hands clean?

Ch.4 Language: Does Your Culture's Language Shape How You Perceive the World

2009-10-15T16:24:00.000-04:00

Language: As Kottak discusses, it is based on "arbitrary, learned associations between words and the things they stand for." Humans, not other animals as far as we can tell, have the linguistic capacity to discuss the past and future, share their unique or cultural view of their experiences, and benefit from their experiences.

My cat Delilah seems to know the difference between night and day but she can't discuss what happened two days ago with me (or it seems to another cat) to share me how much she loved the petting session we had or hated that I was away all day long.

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis claims that a culture's language has a significant impact on how the members of the culture perceive things. For example, in American English we use a lot of metaphors about battle and war. What is we replaced them with metaphors of dance? Would we perceive our interactions differently?

"I shot down all your points" vs. "I'm tired of dancing to those points"
"You're always attacking my points" vs. "You're always dancing around my points"
"I win." vs. "What a great dance!"

What about the metaphors we use to talk about love?

Below, I offer 3 examples to bring your into the anthropological world of language, into the study of linguistics. First, language change in English literature, then two quotes and finally a TED Talk video that I love. All is followed by a suggestion for comments.

Language Changes in Bible: (taken from Wesch lecture notes):

English 11th Century:
Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum; Si þin nama gehalgod
English about 1400 CE:
Oure fader that art in heuenis halowid be thi name ...
English 1611 (King James):
Our father which art in heauen, hallowed be thy name.
English 1963 (Phillips):
Our Heavenly Father, may your name be honored;
English 1970 (K. Condon):
Our Father in Heaven, let your holy name be known

On the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (or the "linguistic relativity hypothesis"):

[Language] diversity is a diversity not of sounds and signs but of ways of looking at the world (Karl Kerenyi, 1976).

From a TED talk by anthropologist Wade Davis:

Language is not just a body of vocabulary or set of grammatical rules. A language is the flash of the human spirit. It is vehicle through which the soul of each particular culture comes into the material world. Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind; a watershed of thought; an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities....fully half [of 6000] are no longer whispered into the ears of children.

[22 mins TED TALK]

TRY IT ON (suggestion for comments): What kinds of metaphors do you notice yourself speaking as part of being male or female, Black, Caribbean, or Asian, as part of your student club, or your home country/nation? How have those metaphors or other uses of language shaped the way you perceive yourself and the world around you?

Biocultural Language Diversity (Terralingua.org)

2009-10-15T06:56:00.006-04:00

Click the image for more FAQs on language

Most in the U.S., ethnocentrically think English is the most-widely spoken language. But if you think about it, that defies logic.

With just over 1.3 billion people (1,330,044,605 as of mid-2008), China is the world's largest and most populous country.
As the world's population is approximately 6.7 billion, China represents a full 20% of the world's population so one in every five people on the planet is a resident of China. (Matt Rosenberg, About.com).

If this is the case, there is no way English is the language with the most speakers. Check out the top 20 oral languages spoken on the planet.

William Kwamkwamba on Daily Show (the author of the book I shared)

2009-10-14T10:06:00.001-04:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

William Kamkwamba

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Ron Paul Interview

Kottak Ch. 5 - Making A Living (Subsistence)

2009-09-21T19:32:00.004-04:00

HERE ARE SOME OF THE CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

Know what an adaptive strategy is. In addition, you should be familiar with Cohen's typology of societies based on their adaptive strategies.
Understand examples of how today's globalizing world and state policies are altering the ways of life of many communities that traditionally practiced different adaptive strategies.
Distinguish between modes and means of production
Understand how industrialism leads to the alienation of producers from their products.
Distinguish between the various forms of distribution and exchange, including the market principle, redistribution, and generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity.
Click here to read the previous posts on the potlatch and watch two brief videos of the ritual. Specifically, you should know what it is, where it has been practiced, and how it relates to local and regional patterns of resource abundance and shortage.

What role do religious and social ceremonies play in an economy?
Answer: The potlatch of the native groups of the North Pacific coast of North America is a good example of the integral role a festival can play in a group's economy. The sponsors of a potlatch traditionally gave away food, blankets, pieces of copper, and other material goods. In return, they gained social prestige, and the more they gave away, the more their prestige increased. Like most regions of the world, the North Pacific coast of North America is subject to local fluctuations in resource abundance. One village might have a good year while another experienced a bad one. A village enjoying a good year would take advantage of its surplus to increase its prestige by hosting a potlatch and inviting the members of the surrounding villages to attend. In this way, the potlatch created and maintained a regional economy in which a series of villages pooled their resources. The needy villages would receive the surplus from the wealthy villages, which in turn gained prestige.

Kottak Ch. 3, Culture: Is Shared, Learned, Adaptive, Maladaptive....

2009-09-15T18:55:00.005-04:00

What a great conversation and inquiry in the 4:10 section today! The 2:30 Section wasn't bad either but 4:10 rocked my world with their questions. Come on, great ones! Do it up!

Questions like:

What is cultural and what is not?
Is hunger cultural or biological?
Is hearing cultural and/or biological? Is seeing cultural?? Thanks Liping for your inquiry with me after class ended.

So let's keep it going? If you are not the symbol of your name (Kyra) and that name is not intrinsic or natural to you? What does that information make available to you about who you are, could be or want to be??

What could you then play with about who you are?? What cultural processes that we are reading about could you use to play with??

Mapping our Locations : Who We Are

2009-09-07T18:07:00.009-04:00

Click the link or map below to go to our own ANT1001 Google Map for class members' locations and restaurants starting Fall 2009. CHOOSE MY MAPS. Then select our class map from the right sidebar and click EDIT.

Add a placemark for your home (use male or female figure and your first name and last initial only for privacy's sake). You can mark your neighborhood or your exact location. Add a placemark for your favorite restaurant.

We can then see who we are as a group based on some primary data. You can change the type of placemark from male/female figure to a form of transportation placemark to signify how you got from other locations where you once lived (airplace, bus, train/subway, etc.).

Check it out. Then we can really see who we are and where we have been and travel.

Welcome Fall 2009 Sections of ANT1001 with Prof. G

2009-08-27T04:55:00.004-04:00

Hello and Welcome to our Group Blog!
Both sections of ANT1001 meet here. One is a learning community. The other is not -- but we will share the same things. Each of you will be sharing this blog as a community of about 60+ students from dozens of countries, a lesson in itself. Maybe we are the real text to be studied.

HOMEWORK: You should read Kottak's Mirror for Humanity, Chap. #1 for a quiz in class Sep 3rd.

HOW TO INTRODUCE YOURSELF IN YOUR FIRST POST
Please introduce yourself to the group.

Share your name and/or the name you'd like to be called.
Share where you are from originally and where you live in the Metro area.
What train do you ride to Baruch College?
What's your favorite food when eating out?
Why drew you to choosing Baruch?
How do you greet someone your age in your native culture? What do you say and/or do, if anything, that differs from the generic "Hello, how are ya?" with or without a handshake here in the city?

BEST QUESTIONS: Inquiring minds want to know

2009-05-29T07:16:00.005-04:00

After reading the Conformity and Conflict essay on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis by David Thomson, Kevin C. wrote:

Why is it that when an unsightly person on the street mutters non-sense to imaginary figures, they're crazy? But when someone talks to a figure they believe to be true but can't prove, on their knees, in a pointy building, its prayer?

EXTRA CREDIT: TED TALK ON CULTURAL WEB OF LIFE--THE ETHNOSPHERE

2009-05-16T10:29:00.005-04:00

Watch this video and read about Wade Davis and write a 250-word comment relating it to what you learned from the video and from the class about cultural anthropology and how you think it relates to the real world in your life.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/wade_davis_on_endangered_cultures.html

You can earn 1-3 extra points towards your overall grade. Post the comment HERE below not on your personal blog for credit.

Ethnography: Emic Perceptions

2009-05-13T23:27:00.013-04:00

Reality and Perception (from http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/001200.html)

People who say "perception is reality" should stop saying it. Perception is a reality, in the sense that it's something we have to deal with. But perception isn't reality itself. In fact, perception is often demonstrably false. {CHECK OUT OTHER PERCEPTIONAL TESTS}

OK, the following test works better if you hear these instructions rather than if you read these instructions.
That said, here's the test:

1. Look around the room you're in.
2. Now, close your eyes.
3. Answer this question: Is the room still there?
Posted by Ara Rubyan on April 23, 2003 at 8:02 PM

For the conversation of race, how do you describe/identify a diverse group of people without talking to them about their race/ethnicity? Does it mean anything that you describe them a certain way ultimately? How does our enculturated view of race shape our views or perceptions of race? Does it change and how when you learn that race was learned as a social construct?

The science of anthropology -- ethnography -- is not about getting rid of things. It's about assessing different views of life and comparing how we view life. You could come to the conclusion that ANYTHING is possible rather than things don't exist. I'll talk more about this the last day of class.

It's hard to see the world beyond ourselves.
It's even harder to see the world beyond our clan, our country, our religion . . .

It's hard to see justice.
It's easy for blind bigotry to backfire.

UNTIL WE
DEVELOP THE NEEDED
PERCEPTION, WE DO
NOT "SEE."

"The more we learn and understand, the more we realize that most of the universe is, in fact, outside our understanding -- like most of the electromagnetic spectrum is outside our perception. Much -- and likely most -- of that "outsideness" is in ways, in dimensions, that we find hard or impossible to grasp (see falter points)." Might ethnography be essential to us?

Everytime instructors communicate, new concepts compete with preconceived ideas of the listeners. All students (in classrooms or of life) hold these ideas but they are unaware of their private theories or universes. Ethnography is a conduit to awareness (think Josh Klein's interviews in college). It is our job as enlightened beings to discover how to free ourselves from the private universe we were born into, raised in, taught by others and accepted as if the only or right truth or reality. An important conduit is not "knowing" but "not knowing" being willing to let go of being right or wrong.

By doing ethnography, you may discover we are all inventing taxonomies, rituals, and beliefs or myths we live by.

CULTURAL IMPERIALISM + ETHNOCENTRISM = LACK OF EDUCATION

2009-05-12T09:40:00.004-04:00

HammerSickle
February 24, 2007
YouTube-Outcome Of Consumerism And Pop Culture

"Intention of this video is to show how pop culture and consumerism are making people superficial and stupid. People in 1st world use resources five times more than people in 3rd World but their level of knowledge and understanding is far lower than any 3rd world country" (More info from YouTube). Most citizens are clueless about the basics. At one point the interviewer asks about the "Coalition of the Willing" and the anwers are humorous but our ignorance is what keeps the core's hegemony and imperialism in place.

REMADE IN AMERICA: NY Times series on Immigration

2009-05-07T19:56:00.001-04:00

http://projects.nytimes.com/immigration/

Refugees, Poverty and Venture Capitalism

2009-05-07T18:39:00.013-04:00

CURIOUS CONVERSATIONS OF RACE/RACISM
Well we had a unpredictable conversation today. My intention was to as I said "push you off the edge" of the social construct of race/ethnicity or more importantly "difference" as if being different means something. Perhaps it means everything and nothing.

Today was an agree to be offended kind of conversation and I truly appreciate you being willing to stay in the conversation even when it was uncomfortable, confusing, or difficult to hear or talk about. Race, racism, are both social constructs but what do we need to really get about that to make a difference for our children's children and in what way? This conversation might be THE conversation of the semester for you. Maybe not. And if it isn't, it's all good. You'll pop anyhow. Promise!

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE: THE ROAD TO REFUGEE SETTLEMENT
I didn't get to have a conversation about Thok in the Conformity & Conflict chapter on refugees in class today. So you should share any thoughts about that chapter. Share in regards to this question if you like:

QUESTION: How does Thok's story influence your views of U.S. immigration policies? or immigration policies in your home country?

After Losing Freedom, Some Immigrants Face Loss of Child Custody

“My parents were poor, and they never gave me to anyone,” Ms. Bail recalled. “I was not going to give my son to anyone either.”

There was a related article in NYT about refugees that is a must read. One of the other TED Fellows brought it to my attention serendipitously just after class today.

TED TALK: A VENTURE CAPITALIST FOR POVERTY
I mentioned I wanted to share a TED talk related to the chapter.

This video was chosen inside the intention of having your POWERFULLY RELATED to what's possible of out the process of ethnography, out of the ethnographic method of participant-observation and interviewing.

Jacqueline Novogratz heads the venture-capitalist organization for poverty called THE ACUMEN FUND. Here's a short video about what the Acumen Fund is all about.

TED TALK: Actress Sarah Jones transforms blackness into elderly Jew & fast-talking DR

2009-04-29T13:09:00.005-04:00

See Homework post below on RACISM: A HISTORY.

I am delighted to share one of my most favorite TED TALKS from the Long Beach conference. Sarah Jones is a locally-born actress, a Broadway star, and she won a major battle against the FCC over language in a hip-hop critique based on her poem THIS REVOLUTION.

Homework for Thu: RACISM A HISTORY

2009-04-28T14:26:00.010-04:00

PLEASE WATCH the following clips (30 mins total) from the BBC documentary Racism: A History

NEW FEATURE: Indicate your reaction to the post at the bottom near the comment button.

1) Racism a History - The Colour of Money Part 1/6

2) Racism a History - The Colour of Money Part 2/6

3) Racism a History - The Colour of Money Part 3/6

PS: Remember this from early in the class. Puts religion and other concepts we studied in perspective as if now a retrospective of what you've now learned:

BONUS: "What we are" Dance Monkeys Dance by Ernest Cline - www.ernestcline.com

Cultural Anthropologists are Hacking Cultures

2009-04-05T19:28:00.007-04:00

Next class, just before spring break, we have visitors: A hacker and a simplicity expert

Joshua Klein is a fervent hacker of all things, including wet, pulpy systems like animals and people and the way they behave.
• Josh’s TED talk The Amazing Intelligence of Crows
http://www.wireless.is/about.php

Bill Jensen: "80% of what you need, you've already got!" & "Everything you do uses a portion of someone else's life."
• One of Bill’s videos: Making it Easier to Get Things Done
http://www.simplerwork.com/about_us.htm

Cultural Anthropology: Quoted from http://www.aaanet.org/about/WhatisAnthropology.cfm

"In North America the discipline's largest branch, cultural anthropology, applies the comparative method and evolutionary perspective to human culture. Culture represents the entire database of knowledge, values, and traditional ways of viewing the world, which have been transmitted from one generation ahead to the next — nongenetically, apart from DNA — through words, concepts, and symbols."

"Cultural anthropologists study humans through a descriptive lens called the ethnographic method, based on participant observation, in tandem with face-to-face interviews, normally conducted in the native tongue. Ethnographers compare what they see and hear themselves with the observations and findings of studies conducted in other societies. Originally, anthropologists pieced together a complete way of life for a culture, viewed as a whole. Today, the more likely focus is on a narrower aspect of cultural life, such as economics, politics, religion or art." [For your mini-ethnographies: even narrower units of observation are expected]

"Cultural anthropologists seek to understand the internal logic of another society. It helps outsiders make sense of behaviors that, like face painting or scarification, may seem bizarre or senseless. Through the comparative method an anthropologist learns to avoid "ethnocentrism," the tendency to interpret strange customs on the basis of preconceptions derived from one's own cultural background. Moreover, this same process helps us see our own society — the color "red" again — through fresh eyes."

We can turn the principle around and see our everyday surroundings in a new light, with the same sense of wonder and discovery anthropologists experience when studying life in a Brazilian rain-forest tribe. Though many picture cultural anthropologists thousands of miles from home residing in thatched huts amid wicker fences, growing numbers now study U.S. groups instead, applying anthropological perspectives to their own culture and society.

For example, why do Americans have customized urinals like the one to the left? Or what drives the popularity of the video game Grand Theft Auto? Other cultures would surely see these as senseless. But an ethnographer is interested, willing to be interested, in how it makes senses to its users through the ethnographic method.

Use the ethnographic method as often as possible from here on out.

SHARING PROJECT QUESTIONS

2009-03-26T10:23:00.003-04:00

Please submit your questions to peer-review and review by Professor Gaunt here. In a comment, post the following elements of your mini-ethnography

What is the cultural unit of observation you are observing?
The mosque on 116th and Lenox in Harlem
What is your project question?
Q: What is the significance of the mosque in Muslim culture and how does it differ from
experience in a Christian church?
Who your key cultural consultant is and why (first name and their role will do)
The imam of the mosque
What is your participant-observation?
Attending a Friday service and a evening event at the mosque

Anyone can respond, pock and prod. Invite each other to step beyond the obvious, the familiar and what seems cliche. Thanks, Prof. G

Oral Presentations Makeover

2009-03-24T04:00:00.003-04:00

Well I realize that each class has different needs. The Spring 09 section could use a bit more guidance on the presentations. So here goes. Check BB for some new leads on presenting and here is a really great example of a young person like you presenting with powerpoint and images to tell a story that is entertaining and fun. The latter video is bit edgier.

Sky McCloud Presentation from Duarte Design on Vimeo.

For something less full of slides, check this one out with video in the presentation:

Bungee Chord Parenting from Duarte Design on Vimeo.

Ch. 8 Gender, pt 2: Sex vs. Gender Identity

2009-03-23T12:42:00.005-04:00

Check out this National Geographic Video on women in Samoa. How can all these varieties of what defines women co-exist in the world? Should they? Why or why not?

For more on the Etoro read here.

Here's another video of eunuchs in India also from NG.

Life Without Fathers: The Mosuo People or the Kingdom of Women in China

2009-03-23T01:38:00.005-04:00

VIDEO LINK: China's "Kingdom of Women"

If you think the Na people's practice is not contemporary watch this National Geographic video of a similar group in China. The Mosuo peoples.

Why do you think we resist thinking this is normal, contemporary or modern, and natural? Why do we always make it different and distant?

Here is another video of the Mosuo where they have no word for father:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoTrARDa8BU

As of 10/2009 this link is not working.

Visit
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2005/07/introduction_to.html#

or Read article in Slate magazine. China's "Kingdom of Women" by Cynthia Barnes
Posted Monday, Nov. 13, 2006, at 1:03 PM ET

Ch. 8 Gender: Mindblowing TED Talks on Women & Gender Roles

2009-03-21T13:15:00.021-04:00

The author of this week's ethnography in C&C Nancy Scheper-Hughes writes "I argue that a high expectancy of child death is a powerful shaper of maternal thinking and practice." in "Mother Love" an article appearing in New Internationalist in 1994. This quote makes sense if you have read Chap. 5 in C&C already.

I am not arguing that mother love [in Alto do Cruziero/Brazil], as we understand it, is deficient or absent in the threatened little human community of Bom Jesus. Rather, the course of mother love is different, shaped by overwhelming economic and cultural constraints. The discussion attempts to overcome the distinctions between ‘natural’ and ‘socialized’ affects, between ‘deep’ private feelings and ‘superficial’ public sentiments – to show how emotion is shaped by political and economic context as well as by culture. It can be understood as a ‘political economy’ of the emotions.

Although gender has tended to be discussed relative to women only it really is a dynamic shaped in relationship to the other sex. Male to female and female to male.

For instance, while the United States still lacks gender equality, women's roles are no longer restricted to the domestic sphere in many places around the world. But women are still vulnerable esp in economic downturns according to representatives of the UN in a report on International Women's Day (March 6):

Yakin Ertürk, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its Causes and Consequences, ... marked the Day with a statement underscoring the importance for men and women to join forces in this time of economic turmoil.
“The scale and impact of the current crisis is still largely unknown, but it is expected that women and girls in both developed and developing countries will be particularly affected by job cuts, loss of livelihoods, increased responsibilities in all spheres of their life, and an increased risk of societal and domestic violence,” said Ms. Ertürk.
She highlighted the World Bank’s prediction of 53 million more people being driven into poverty in developing countries this year, bringing the total number of those living on less than $2 a day to over 1.5 billion.
“Studies have shown that violence against women intensifies when men experience displacement and dispossession related to economic crises, migration, war, foreign occupation or other situations where masculinities compete and power relations are altered in society,” added Ms. Ertürk.

Ms. Pillay noted, however, that there is a new generation of powerful women growing up around the world with a strong sense of their identity and strength.

“They say ‘no’ to harmful practices such as early marriage, female genital mutilation and sexual harassment. They want to go to school and get an education. They want to be lawyers, doctors, judges and members of parliament. They want to change the world.

These two recently released TED Talks feature two remarkable women transforming ordinary conversations about who women are, what is possible from both disability and ability, and what strange and unpredictable things they can inspire.

ASSIGNMENT: Watch BOTH videos and write a comment. ALSO read other people's comments.

Short and Swift Inventory for Pre-Interview by Email

2009-03-10T20:45:00.008-04:00

TRY ASKING YOUR CULTURAL CONSULTANT TO ANSWER THE FOLLOWING:

What is your name?
Where were you born?
Where were your parents born?
Where were your grandparents born?
Where were your Great Grandparents born?

What were you doing 12 minutes ago?
12 hours ago?
12 weeks ago?
12 months ago?
12 years ago?
24 years ago?

Did you go to University? Where?
Are you easy to approach and start a conversation with?
What are you doing now as a hobby?
What activity could you do all day long without getting bored?

What community groups do you belong to?
What is your favorite source for news?
Have you ever witnessed a perception-changing event in your life?

Who defines greatness for you?
Have you changed your lifestyle significantly? How and why?
What is your wish for the world or idea worth spreading and to whom?

THIS WEEK (Mar 10 & 12): Intro to Mini-Ethnography & TED Talk

2009-03-10T20:13:00.007-04:00

I want you to check out the following links (as well as the tags above): "MINI-ETHNOGRAPHY" and "INTERVIEWING".

Here's a great video on doing interviews: It's 30 mins long but a must see, take notes, and learn how to get people to talk and what NOT to do.

THIS WEEK: COMMENT ON 30 min VIDEO

--------------------------

FROM TED2009:

In the meantime, TED released the most AMAZING media technology I saw while at TED2009. It's called "Sixth Sense" and it was created by the MIT Media Lab.

Politics: Influence and Power

2009-03-02T14:42:00.002-05:00

Ch. 6 Political Systems - Social Networks from Bands and Beyond

2009-03-02T11:30:00.014-05:00

I was thinking about why humans created political systems. Was it to create ways of dealing with conflicts within bands or among tribes? Is this what led to the creation of laws? And who gets to make the laws and why?

The following list about the complexity of groups helps me understand the need for political systems on a level I hadn't considered before. As human population began to increase and more and more "strangers" began to interact. Their ideas of how to subsist changed and needed to be managed on some level. And there was a need to cope with the exponential relations that came with larger and larger populations--governance became a necessity or so it seemed.

The Complexity of Groups
2 people = 1 relation
3 people = 3 relations
4 people = 6 relations
5 people = 10 relations
12 people = 66 relations
35 people = 600 relations
50 people = 1225 relations

Wesch has a diagram that suggests two ways humans have organized themselves -- (uncentralized) INFLUENCE and (centralized) POWER -- as we moved from bands and tribes to chiefdoms and states. You might consider Chapter 6 a way of looking at how "law & order" came into being. If you add the barrel model of culture to this and think about ideas alone, somehow we need uncentralized and centralized ways of organizing ideas alone. That's what the information age has come to be about in some ways. It's also what TED is doing with their tag "IDEAS WORTH SPREADING". They use video to share ideas with a world of people no matter what their level of wealth, power and prestige (Weber).

Wesch's list (above) of the complexity of groups also makes me think of Web 2.0 (click the tags for references to Web 2.0 at the top of the blog). Web 2.0 or online social networks like MySpace and Facebook are allowing a new kind of governance for the people, of the people, by the people more or less. Or is it a return to the egalitarianism of bands?

The Internet, esp. Web 2.0 -- user-generated-content stage of the WWW-- is allowing millions of users to mix both the INFLUENCE of being in a small band or tribe with the POWER of industrialization. Individuals can broadcast like state governments once exclusively did. You and I can talk to the writers of our textbooks or government officials with ease.

Students can write THEIR OWN textbooks and create THEIR OWN education with other students around the world whether in Russia, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, or just the South Bronx. They all can access and use info immediately without being limited by wealth, power or prestige (Weber). That was nearly impossible in my time before the Web appeared esp. for the lowest class of folks in our society or for folks outside the U.S. in developing countries. Now with a laptop at an Internet Cafe you can reach the world with the click of a mouse and a keyboard.

QUESTION FOR COMMENTS: How are people in industrialized nations claiming or reclaiming being egalitarian in the anthropological sense? Conversely, how are people in developing nations becoming powerful--in the sense of the "achieved status" found in the U.S.? Could someone from a lower caste in India move beyond their "ascribed status" today and how so? Do a little homework on Google with this one. Don't just share your own opinion. Gather evidence online.

P.S.
I love the image (below) of the world that shows the various social networking sites that dominate each region. Facebook and Myspace are dominant in the U.S. but not so elsewhere.

Consider all the networks being created BEYOND BORDERS with the WWW. For example, you've heard of doctors without borders, but what about teachers without borders, mothers without borders, architects without borders, students without borders, lawyers without borders, to CEOs without borders. Google any of these for more info.

The Ultimate ReBoot: THE FIRST TALK AT TED2009

2009-02-23T14:39:00.002-05:00

Juan Enriquez:
Beyond the crisis, mindboggling science and the arrival of Homo evolutis

Chapter 5: Making A Living (Subsistence and A Brief History of Mankind)

2009-02-15T00:28:00.009-05:00

One of the professors who inspires my teaching is Prof. Mike Wesch at KSU (National Teacher of the Year). I love his cultural anthro syllabus and the intention of his course:

Cultural Anthropology explores different cultures in all of their manifestations - from how people make a living to what people live for. In an increasingly interconnected world, cultural differences lie at the root of many of our most pressing challenges, throughout the world and in our own personal lives. There has never been a time when Cultural Anthropology has been more important than it is right now.

Subsistence.

minimal (or marginal) resources for subsisting; "social security provided only a bare subsistence"
a means of surviving; "farming is a hard means of subsistence"
the state of existing in reality; having substance http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
The means of living; obtaining food and shelter necessary to support life; everything that is done to "make a living" resweb.llu.edu/rford/docs/VGD/GSLVT/gslglossary.html

Last week you read about culture. This week about making a living.

Chapter 5 - Making a Living seems rather dry and uninteresting to most students. However, this chapter begins to explain the history of mankind through five adaptive strategies used to subsist, to survive, to ... make a living. It is useful to know these strategies, which are still part of modern culture in some places. These strategies help us distinguish between the ways humans in the past and the present organized into groups that shape our the shared, learned, symbolic and integrated culture we live by as well as reflect adaptive and maladaptive approaches to our survival.

This chapter will also help you understand the documentary The Corporation (which we will watch) that explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time that rose out of industrialization. "Taking its [the corporation's] status as a legal "person" to the logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist's couch to ask 'What kind of person is it?' " As we look at the forms of reciprocity that are common in each adaptive strategy, the example of corporations reflect the tensions of balanced and negative reciprocity.

YOUR COMMENTS THIS WEEK: Rather than quoting the chapter this week, write a 1-3 sentences responding to the (1) video above IF THE WORLD WE A VILLAGE as well as the (2) videos below on the Kwakiutl potlatch which was once outlawed by the government in British Columbia.

Ch. 2- Culture: What We Are

2009-02-10T09:00:00.004-05:00

Thursday the world celebrates the 150th birthday of Charles Darwin the author of the Origin of the Species. Do you believe in evolution? Why or why not?

Chapter 3 is about how humans adapt to this world. Culture is our access to adapting to who we are and what we are and can be. Here are the objectives of the chapter:

Understand the defining attributes of culture. In particular, you should understand what it means that culture is learned, shared, symbolic, all-encompassing, and integrated; the relationship between culture and nature; and how culture can be both adaptive and maladaptive.
Identify the different levels of culture and why it is important to distinguish between them.
Understand the relationship between culture and individuals.
Distinguish between ethnocentrism and cultural relativism and how both relate to human rights and anthropological research.
Know the differences between cultural universalities, generalities, and particularities, and be able to provide examples of each.
Understand the mechanisms of cultural change.
Know what globalization is, the forces that are bringing it about, and its effects on local communities.

This video is a sort of reflexive ethnography of Western society and culture. Irony and humor are often useful in bringing out hidden social constructs. So check it out:

What we are; Dance Monkeys Dance by Ernest Cline - www.ernestcline.com

Many people believe in evolution. Some do not. Perhaps life is not about our beliefs per se but rather about what we can discover about ourselves from such explorations. The humor of Ricky Gervais' Introduction To The Bible (1/2) makes fun on Darwin, if you like.

I'd love to hear what struck you, what thought or ideas from Chapter 3 struck you as new or different from your previous ways of thinking. Everyone should comment on the chapter once a week or blog at least once a week.

PS. Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4

Prof. G meets BG and many more at TED2009!

2009-02-10T08:04:00.004-05:00

Last week was the most amazing week of my life. I fell in love not only with TED (Ideas Worth Spreading) but with the 40 other TED Fellows who, like me, were selected for our work as "polymaths" - people excelling in more than one field.

There was one person I really needed to meet. I came from a somewhat humble beginning but more than that I thought I could never hobnob with the big boys. Now that it's happened...well...it seems so...ordinary. Yes! I met Bill Gates. You may have heard he released mosquitos, live ones, into the conference during his talk about Malaria (they weren't infected).

BG and I talked. Even if only briefly. I wanted to feel like this man and I were two ordinary people up to two extraordinary paths. And I got that! It happened on Friday at 8:20am. Friday February 6. 4 days ago almost to the hour. OK. It was more than a normal moment, but ithe Wow of it was that I belonged. Being at TED was amazing for me. I fell in love with my purpose fully and wholeheartedly (the picture is of me giving my talk titled RACISM AS A RESOURCE). It was filmed and (fingers crossed) it WILL be on the TED.com site eventually. My mission: to empower and enable individuals and organizations to empower people's words not their difference. I am out to transform conflict in a single conversation rather than going to war years later. That was my unveiling.

This year's theme was THE GREAT UNVEILING and TED lived up to that and more in 4 non-stop days of talks, performances (HERBIE HANCOCK, REGINA SPEKTOR & JAMIE CALLUM!!!), and beauty of architecture and scientific breakthroughs. We were introduced to unbelievable things never heard of before. I am sure I have enough to share with you ALL SEMESTER LONG and there was as much humor as there was innovation.

MY HIGHLIGHTS: Meeting Hans Gosling and Jill Bolte Taylor. Hanging with Quincy Jones Friday night. I sang for him "You taught my heart to sing" at the Gala Party after the TED Prize Winners gave their talks. The MIT Media Lab unveilings (mind-blowing). The new 3-D film technology from 3eality that had Bono touching my face!!! And three remarkable winners of the 2009 TED Prize: deep-ocean explorer Sylvia Earle, astronomer Jill Tarter, and maestro Jose Antonio Abreu. Each of them is a leader in his/her chosen field of work, with an unconventional viewpoint and a vision to transform the world. Each wins $100,000 plus "One Wish to Change the World." Quincy and I bonded after Maestro Abreu's wish:

José Abreu’s Wish

“I wish you would help create and document a special training program for at least 50 gifted young musicians, passionate for their art and for social justice, and dedicated to developing El Sistema in the US and in other countries.”

I will share the AMAZING inventions and innovations I witnessed like Siftables from the MIT Media Lab.

Siftables aims to enable people to interact with information and media in physical, natural ways that approach interactions with physical objects in our everyday lives. ... Siftables are independent, compact devices with sensing, graphical display, and wireless communication capabilities. They can be physically manipulated as a group to interact with digital information and media.

There is SO MUCH TO SHARE that I was exposed to that BLEW MY MIND!! Here is the FAVORITE TALK OF TED2009. It's essentially about the social constructs of the way we talk about genius. It's given by author Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame. TED is amazing to have these talks online 2 days after they appeared!!

Chapter 2 : Ethics and Method

2009-01-29T18:25:00.007-05:00

I invite you each week to post a comment about the readings or about questions that you find yourself asking about cultural anthropology or our class discussions. Anything is possible to discuss as long as you can make it relevant to the group. No talking to yourself out loud, so to speak. Speak to forwarding the action of our shared community of knowledge. Thanks, Prof. G

Some key ideas to discuss in Chapter 2: ethics, ethnographic practices, etc.

INTRODUCING TED TALKS: Anthropologist Wade Davis muses on the worldwide web of belief and ritual that makes us human. He shares breathtaking photos and stories of the Elder Brothers, a group of Sierra Nevada indians whose spiritual practice holds the world in balance.
A National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, Wade Davis travels the globe to live alongside indigenous people, and document their cultural practices in books, photographs, and film.

Where do you notice Social Constructs today?

2009-01-28T08:06:00.009-05:00

Bonus assignment: Give 1-2 examples of other social constructs you notice between now and next class.

On Day One of the Spring 09 Semester, I introduced the concept of SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS using a map upside down. How did you learn that north was up? North is not UP in the physical universe, is it? Read a previous post explaining social constructs.

The definition I shared in class was "an idea (time), a concept (masculinity) or an artifact (money) that seems natural or obvious to those who accept it but in fact is an invention of a particular culture or society."

The most well-known example is the "earth is flat". While the earth may appear to be flat to our everyday perceptions, in reality we cannot see the whole earth and its curvature. Thus, the social construct is not the condition of the flatness we see, but rather the view itself that people share. This view affects people's behaviors, thoughts, feelings and actions. It is a context from which people may live their lives.

A more common social construct that seems invisible to us is money. Money is not real in the way we view it. It is worth much more than the material it is printed on but by social agreement in any country we assign it certain values.

"Mathematics is a social construct. Numbers are words and ideas, not physical laws. Math is used to describe the physical universe, so it is shaped into a form that matches the universe as well as possible, giving it a framework. All things we would call math use this same framework. But describing a Law and being a Law are different things. Math measures things that exist, and it does this very well. It can also do things that the universe that it is describing cannot. The truth in numbers is not fundamental. It is built by humans." (http://everything2.com/node/163462).

Here are definitions from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_construction):

A social construction or social construct any phenomenon "invented" or "constructed" by participants in a particular culture or society, existing because people agree to behave as if it exists or follow certain conventional rules. One example of a social construct is social status. Another example of social construction is the use of fiat money, which is worth more than the paper it is printed on only because society has agreed to treat it as valuable.

Pinker (2002, p. 202) writes that "social constructions: they exist only because people tacitly agree to act as if they exist".

One of the main theses of gender theory is that genders and gender roles are mere social constructs, and that there is nothing natural about being a man or a woman, a heterosexual or a homosexual, or even a transsexual, since genders are mere social appearances and built-in ideas, not unlike men's clothes or women's clothes.

USED BOOKS FOR SALE from Previous Students

2009-01-25T10:18:00.004-05:00

I am invited former ANT1001 students who have used books to sell to post to this item. Stay tuned. The outlines of each chapter are available at http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0073405248/student_view0/index.html

Check out the comments section below this post

REQUIRED TEXTS
Should acquire by no later than 2nd week of classes; see me if you have any problem doing this. The books may be in late at the bookstore and of course check online for used copies but make a special request of any seller that you need that ASAP!! Give them a date. Let them know you need it urgently. They may honor your request. They can't if they don't know. ;-)

Kottak, Conrad P. Mirror for Humanity: A Concise Introduction for Cultural Anthropology, 6th edition (not the 5th) (McGraw-Hill, 2008)
Spradley and McCurdy. Conformity and Conflict. (Boston: Pearson, 2008). [sample professional ethnographies]

Thanks for OLPC for our 2008 Contribution

2009-01-13T11:52:00.001-05:00

January 13, 2009

Thank you for your contribution of $597 to the One Laptop per Child Foundation. Further we confirm that no tangible benefits were received by you, the donor, in exchange for the gift referenced above. Your order number is 13PSPJ55814IM1IOEJFCR32FGAB8Q6VHHGA.

The mission of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) movement is to ensure that every school-aged child in the lesser-developed parts of the world is able to engage effectively with their own personal laptop, networked to the world, so that they, their families and their communities can openly collaborate as they learn and learn about learning together.

The OLPC Foundation is focused on enhancing and sustaining learning among those children, their families and communities in lesser developed communities by ensuring rich, diverse and open access to innovative learning materials and by encouraging interactive learning, communication and exploration with their XO laptops. For this purpose, the Foundation provides grants and other support for the development and use of collaborative learning resources and other initiatives that enrich children’s learning.

Your contribution will help us move forward with these important programs for children. Please tell your friends and colleagues about the One Laptop per Child program (www.laptop.org) and encourage them also to support our mission.

Sincerely,
Robert D. Fadel
One Laptop per Child Foundation

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: XOXOXO

2008-12-27T13:07:00.007-05:00

We bought THREE, count 'em THREE, XO laptops from our campaign from Dec 16 - 23.

My paypal account charged me $15.57 in fees which I am covering and I donated another $20 from myself. We raised a total of $642.

We have $45 remaining. I asked for a single donation on Twitter of $144 to buy a fourth. We'll see what happens. Otherwise, I will keep the $55 for next year's campaign unless someone really needs their donation returned. I'll gladly do that.

Greetings from Amazon Payments,
Your Dec 27, 2008 payment to OLPC Foundation for $597.00 has completed successfully. Here are the payment details:

Payment details:
---------------
Transaction ID: 13PSPJ55814IM1IOEJFCR32FGAB8Q6
VHHGA
Recipient: OLPC Foundation
For: Donation to provide children in developing countries with a laptop
Amount: $597.00
Date: Dec 27, 2008
Payment method: Mastercard XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-7018
Reference: Donation to provide children in developing countries with a laptop
Thank you for using Amazon Payments.

CHECK OUT 2008 THANK YOU'S
FROM ACTUAL KIDS WHO GOT AN XO LAPTOP

HERE'S THE FINAL COUNT

2:30 Section
$324 in total donations from 40% of a class of 20 students
from Daniela, Caroline, Melissa, Lynda (and her mom), Kashif, Victor
and special thanks to Yaroslav. Oh and I forgot to add Jessica Gil!!

4:10 Section
$228 in total donations from 38% of a class of 26 students
from Nicaury, Terentiy, Claumery (special thanks to her office), Craig,
Jou-man/Erica, Nuzzy, Ivana, Gabrijela, Jiaying, Kayla, Maimouna and Xiang.

Also Prof. Sarah Ryan and I made contributions to the overall effort.

NEXT YEAR / 2009:
I will send out an announcement. Best way to keep in touch is through our blog. Check back in November or contact me directly. I invite you all to participate. We will start November 1 next year. I learned SO MUCH that will make next year's campaign SING! and GENERATE LOTS OF DONATIONS! I would love to have a meeting to organize things in September of 2009. If you're interested add your email and name to the comments below.

CONGRATULATIONS TO EACH AND EVERY CLASS MEMBER ON OUR MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Rhode Island: An Immigrant Jail in an Immigrant Town

2008-12-27T09:41:00.002-05:00

So many of you were moved by the last Conformity & Conflict chapter we read on immigrants vs. refugees. Happened upon this video from NYTimes this week on immigrants in Rhode Island. One of the things I am concerned about relative to illegal immigrants is creating a culture where the institution of the family is not at all respected among those whom we deem "illegal". They are still human beings and creating a capitalistic culture of wealth on top of family's misery seems unethical no matter what circumstances led to that plight.

NYTIMES: U.S.
An Immigrant Jail in an Immigrant Town

Locking up unauthorized immigrants for deportation is a growth industry. The jail in Central Falls, R.I., tried to cash in, but in a town full of immigrants, one result is a community living in fear.

Prof. G is going to TED2009!

2008-12-23T10:55:00.005-05:00

I am ecstatic!!! I am getting SO EXCITED about going to TED Feb 2-6, 2009!

They just sent me the line up of speakers that includes Bill Gates on Day One. It is said that you can measure your influence by the people you interact with. My influence will be exponentially shifting from this event and it's already shifting from my introduction to the other 30 fellows. We are movers and shakers on the planet. About the conference theme:

Our theme is "The Great Unveiling" and every speaker is planning to share something they've never shared in public before. Stand by for new discoveries, new ideas, new beginnings. (In addition to the featured speakers, we have more than 50 members of the audience offering shorter contributions.)

I won't be speaking on stage but I have the opportunity speak among the TED fellows and be recorded for a TED U TALK!!! I am there!! Enjoy the video and stay tuned to the blog in February. I'll blog each day about it. For now, check out this teaser that was sent to us.

PS. There is one AMAZING TED talk I didn't get to show this term. It's by HANS GOSLING. Look in our tag cloud and check it out. It is relevant to what we think about the THIRD WORLD and how to debunk the stereotypes we have about us vs. them. Simply look for Hans Gosling in the blog's tag cloud.

OLPC Mission Part 1

2008-12-20T10:28:00.003-05:00

Let's say you can't donate. Then be part of the marketing of our video!

To help promote our video over the next three days, got to YouTube and rate and comment on it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSWu6CLVL6Y

Also Nicholas Negroponte, founder of OLPC, throws the XO laptop! Check it out!

BARUCH XO CAMPAIGN GOES PUBLIC!!

2008-12-20T01:12:00.001-05:00

Thanks to all who participated in making the concept, the video and making it all happen with your time and your dollars! What can $199 buy? A World of Difference!

One Laptop Per Class and other models for giving back

2008-12-17T08:06:00.003-05:00

Hey I am going to miss the Fa08 generation of ANT1001!!

To the 2:30 section representin' SEEK, keep playing and loving and being great with each other all the way to graduation - NO JOKIN!! No one left behind! This is your greatest opportunity to shine beyond anything you've known before. But it takes 4 years!! Come on!

To the 4:10 section, I learned SO MUCH from you about other countries that I never had known. Taiwan, Albania, Serbia, Bangladesh, and Brooklyn much much more!! Your group presentations rocked my world!! And your listening to one another -- priceless!

Special thanks to you! Yes you! who is reading this. Without you, none of what happened was possible. Get that!!

The ONE LAPTOP PER CLASS video will be edited by Jeffrey from the 2:30 section.
What we are up is launching a yearly campaign called ONE LAPTOP PER CLASS where each Baruch class (700+) will be asked to by a $199 laptop. We already raised $199 + $280 from our two sections alone!! And we haven't collected all the donations yet.

TO MAKE A DONATION: click here

If each student and faculty of each class participates the cost is less than $10 per person for a class size of 20 - 100. We are doing the final edits on a viral video to entice other colleges and universities to join us by Dec 31st this year and to create buzz for next.

We just started finals today and we have already raised the funds for at least 2 laptops from both sections. The viral video is based on the Mastercard priceless commercial ads + Mike Wesch's Students Today videos. It will be launched in a day or two to catch the Dec 31 deadline for this year's OLPC.com campaign.

ALSO
Check out Darius Goes West
http://www.dariusgoeswest.org/

In this multi-award-winning documentary, fifteen-year-old Darius Weems and eleven of his best friends set off across America with the ultimate goal of getting his wheelchair customized on MTV’s Pimp My Ride. The result is a rarely seen testament to the explosive idealism of today’s youth, as well as a vivid portrayal of adventure, of brotherhood, and of the character and strength it takes to shed light on an uncertain future.

Not only does Darius Weems bravely face his own inevitable fate with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), but through his unflinching humor and his extraordinary laugh, he sparks a revolution in the lives of everyone who crosses–and then shares–his courageous path.

Raul Midon - Life Beyond Research Papers + Blindness + New Technology

2008-12-13T14:31:00.004-05:00

MY MOTTO: "I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong." Richard Feyman

Dialogic Editing 101

2008-12-13T13:35:00.006-05:00

I told you before I left for the funeral that I'd get you something on Dialogic Editing. Sorry for the delay. Here it is.

This practice helps tease out the difference between your etic view and their emic view of the culture (in some of your cases, there may be some overlap between the two).

After you have completed your draft. Submit it to your cultural consultant(s).

STEP 1
Have them read your draft.

STEP 2
Capture their reactions and feedback like a 2nd interview.

STEP 3
Read the one page from an article on Dialogic Editing
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhnm7kdd_22fzkcd7gd

STEP 4
Write a response titled (see below) based on the following questions. Keep it brief and succinct. You may go over your page limit if needed.

SECTION TITLE Dialogic Editing: A Postscript and Conclusion.

1. Ask your cultural consultant what they thought of your essay. Did you get what was important and what mattered to them? Or just what you saw from the outside?

2. Is there anything you missed that they thought must be included? Were there any misunderstandings? If so, try to notice why you misunderstood and write about that in this section.

3. Do they have any comments, after thoughts, or questions about the process or even suggestions regarding the interaction, your questions, or the essay? If so, capture the exchange and notice what you learned about the dialogic process of seeing from different points of views about a culture (from within and from without).

4. What did you learn from the dialogic editing? And from the entire project and process?

ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD/ THE XO COMPUTER

2008-12-09T19:56:00.002-05:00

When I first got to Baruch in 2006, I heard a question raised about our prized diversity at Baruch from President Waldron. She said we know we are the most diverse institution but how does that translate to our culture or school on the whole?

Students from both sections of ANT1001 today agreed to launch a plan to invite the Baruch Community to participate in a ONE LAPTOP PER CLASS campaign (classes of 20 or more). We can donate money for an XO laptop for a child in the Third World that is being nationally advertised on TV and radio.

(How many classes do you think there at Baruch?)

DIVERSITY AT BARUCH AND FOR THE WORLD
As a diverse school representing over 121 countries, we as Baruch College have a unique opportunity to give laptops to educate the children of the world. The buy one get one campaign is $349 a pair but its only $199 to give a laptop. Let's just give laptops!!

With 20 students in a class, that $10 per person. $20 for two.
With 30 students, it's only $6 per person or $12 for two.

There are 57 students combined in both sections. 95% of those present were willing to support the campaign and/or contribute to a laptop. I am going to contact OLPC and see if THEY'LL set up a system for us. I already sent the email just now.

We have a committee of 8 students (Daniela, Enki, Bilal, Kashif, Ellie, Nuzzy, and Diana and maybe Angel) working to organize things.

ON THU DEC 11: We are creating a viral video on Thu and if approved it would be shown on the video kiosks on campus and linked as an announcement on Baruch sites and emails.

VIRAL CAMPAIGNING
We are on to an effective viral campaign. It could be city wide universities and colleges or even nationwide. Every child should have access to an education no matter where they are from. By tapping our own diversity at Baruch we can bridge the gaps that divide us (between students/faculty/staff, between nations/ethnicities, sexes, abilites, etc.).

If we play it right, we should contact OLPC with this as a idea to launch at all universities and colleges with Baruch as the leader.

I am writing for your support and participation. Regarding collecting money, given the short notice, we will simply use Amazon.com this year and create an old-fashioned (paper and pen) system of accounting for how much each class raises as well as posting it on our blog.

DATES
The span of the campaign would be from Fri Dec 12 to Wed Dec 23. If anyone wanted to contribute through Dec 31 online that would be fine too as long as they could note that on our blog.

I am aiming for at least 400 laptops this year. Next year? let's see how we do this year!

The mission of the OLPC campaign is to be able to provide laptops children can take home every night in an entire school. I think we could do something amazing (Obama like) in just 10 days.

CAN I COUNT ON YOUR SUPPORT?
This is a SIMPLE viral, online and email campaign. No paper flyers. I want to send an announcement inviting all faculty and staff to participate in all three schools by Friday.

Prof. G - Just some thoughts on your posts of late

2008-12-09T08:05:00.007-05:00

I have been really enjoying the comments and reactions to Majora Carter's TED Talk and the post on Social Responsibility. I wished more of you responded to my previous post about whether "individual" or "fear" are social constructs. I am very interested in leading you all to consider that if most ideas we live by are socially constructed, like myths we live by, and all human cultures have their own way of thinking, believing, behaving and feeling about this common humanity we share, why is it so difficult to change something we made up? How do we get stuck with these things? It has implications for economics, for how we talk about our times. "We are in a financial crisis" gives a particular point of view of life when we might have had the same amount of money or even more during the Clinton administration boom and been worse off. Why?

Daniela was responding to the TED talk about the South Bronx with Majora Carter who is an excellent and passionate non-profit leader for greening the ghetto. Daniela as well as Edwin made some AWESOME comments--go back and read them. But often we can talk about change and what's missing but because we live in the US more often than not we have the luxury of talking but not necessarily acting.

We have so many luxuries here in the U.S. The luxury of a democracy, of money, of our position in the world, of choice, of free speech. They are awesome and wouldn't trade em for the world.

“Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind”

Henry David Thoreau (American Essayist, Poet and Philosopher, 1817-1862)

What do you think would have Thoreau say this and what about what you learned this semester from doing/reading/participating-observing/writing about anthropology, what aspects of what you have learned would you use as evidence for your answer?

AFTERTHOGHT: Hey what if "luxury" is something you can simply create (words create worlds)? What would you create in your speaking and how? Maybe it begins with simple pleasures.

A Refugee Crisis in Afghanistan - NYTIMES Video

2008-12-05T09:04:00.001-05:00

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY NOW, CORPORATE AND CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY 4 LIFE

2008-11-26T08:40:00.012-05:00

All of your comments about the circumstances of sweatshop labor revealed a deep concern for your relationship as students to others who are less fortunate in the world. This is the start of becoming a student OF the world rather than IN the world. Your insight and awareness is something to be proud of. Don't undermine it with guilt or shame, blame or fault, or even regret.

Consider this re-definition from Landmark Education.

Responsibility is not about blame, shame, guilt, fault, or regret. It starts with a willingness to consider being cause in the matter.

No one else is coming to save us. Responsibility might be creatively responding using the resources you have as a college student (technology, the power of your institution--Baruch/CUNY, the radio station, blogs, etc. ) or the resources of your position (galvanizing other students or people with similar interests) to make a difference, to impact the world we live in.

Perhaps you all could be like the students in the video and organize Baruch students to explore what unfair labor practices we as a group of people are unknowingly supporting. Awareness is an important form of activism.

Perhaps this poem might be useful in being cause in the matter.
"Our Deepest Fear"
by Marianne Williamson from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

ABOUT MIRACLES AND FEAR
By the way, how would anthropologists study MIRACLES or even FEAR? Guilt, shame or blame? What etic category applies or would be useful? How, when or where would you participate and observe miracles or fear? Where would you conduct fieldwork? Better yet, what social construct is at work behind the perception/reality of MIRACLES, FEAR or SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY? What construct prevents us from seeing them/it?

One thought for me, because I don't have an answer for this, is the social construct of "the individual" (does it really exists in nature or is it merely a social discourse perceived in some cultures and not others?). Hmm? What a paradox. "Individual" is a social construct. That's something I've NEVER thought about before.

IN CONCLUSION
What I am learning from my own inquiry is that "noticing" is the most powerful tool in participant-observation and ethnography.

Applying Anthropology: Who Identifies the Needs of Locals?

2008-11-25T13:10:00.006-05:00

Applied Anthropology is distinct from the academic or theoretical side of the discipline. Through the use of anthropological data, theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve contemporary problems involving HUMAN BEHAVIOR and social and cultural forces, conditions and contexts. The ethnographic method is an invaluable tools for learning and studying the local firsthand. So who should identify the needs of the local people? Is it the ethnographer, the scientist, who returns home after fieldwork? Or the cultural consultants, the insiders, the locals themselves?

Here's an example of a local from the South Bronx determining development needs for her community. Applied anthropology empowers local people to fulfill their own needs.

Talks Majora Carter: Greening the ghetto

Conformity and Conflict: A Mother's Love

2008-11-12T18:07:00.002-05:00

Read more on mother love by Nancy Scheper-Hughes

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them”.
Epictetus (Greek philosopher associated with the Stoics, AD 55-c.135)

Chap 10 - The World Economic System and Colonialization

2008-11-11T17:59:00.008-05:00

Globalization and Colonialization is Fostering Unity among Youth
Most of my experience with colonialization has not seemed good. I am a person of African descent. My family history is traced to slavery. Forced migration led my people here. In the mid to late 1990s, I was one of those who challenged globalization at the political level. The bourgeosie were stealing the labor of the proletariat. Now mothers as well as fathers were not home with the children. All parents and even children have to work to make a living. Americans spend more time with fellow workers than their families and since the climate at work tends to be so strict, the anxiety and venting about our circumstances tend to fall on the family and kin in a strange version of negative reciprocity. Family seems last on our list time-wise. The impact of industrialization and commodification in our state economy.

So we are having a conversation, an inquiry, that is designed to really get up under your social constructs, which can seem like getting under your skin. Stirring up confusion, angry, and other feelings that may not be comfortable. Know this: it's all part of the learning process. Like walking out to look at the edge of the earth before our superstitions were upended, it can really seem threatening to confront our social constructs and the discourses that keep them in place. Our mindset is designed to reinforce the status quo. We cannot really seem beyond "what makes sense" or seems "real" to us. It's not a social construct. That's the way life is.

Here is the first video I want you to examine and dig into. It's called SOMETHING TO HIDE documenting a delegation composed of university students who head to El Salvador to find out who makes clothing for Nike and Wal-Mart. They find out it's people their age with little knowledge of their labor rights.

The second video called THE HIDDEN FACE OF GLOBALIZATION is produced by the same media organization the National Labor Committee. They support workers rights in a global economy. The second video is also about sweatshops but in Bhangladesh. Watching both had me realize how universal or at lease pervasive this experience has become relative to some of the largest US corporations such as Nike. From El Salvador to Bhangladesh cultlure is becoming a universally dismal like of labor and not much else.

It has been through live aid concerts and sweatshop campaigns that young people around the world have been out to make a difference. In 2008, Live 8 founded by Bob Geldof advocated for canceling Africa's debt to save African lives. Check out his appeal at the concert.

Social Control

2008-11-06T14:03:00.006-05:00

In this TED Talk video Julia Sweeney talks about her transition in understanding religion from the time she turned 7 till now. Towards the end however she stresses the fact that no matter what religion, ultimately some of the ideals that they are based on sound ludicrous. For example, the story of God impregnating the Virgin Mary without the use of intercourse, and giving birth to the son of God. I may believe in this, however pretend you as an intellectual of 18+ never heard the story before. Would you not think of the story as just a myth? Is it another form of Social Control in that as child you were influenced to believe this and ultimately think it to be true? Do we choose to believe in it now because it works? Or do we just have nothing else to believe in?

Chapter 9: Religion

2008-11-05T17:25:00.002-05:00

This week in Thursday, November 6, 2008, our group will discuss religion in a variety of different ways. We want to show how different every religion is and how others use ethnocentrism, believing that their religion is better than other religions. Before class, we want everyone to think about their own religions, if you have one, and what kind of practices your religion performs. Think about whether or not other people from other religions will criticize them.
On thursday, Jiaying will discuss family culture on the Chinese New Year. She will explain the process of how they worship the Gods, as well as bring some of the materials used to worship gods. This will allow us to understand some aspect of the Chinese religion.
Ivana will speak about her Christian Evangelic religion in her home town in Serbia. Her town is separated by an invisible line, dividing the homes of the Christian Evangelics on one side and the Catholics on the other side. This will show how religion can separate people and even cause conflicts.

The picture on the left is the Catholic church on one side of the town, while the picture on the right is the Christian Evangelic church, located on the opposite side of the town.

Eun Ji will be discussing religion in South Korea. Almost 46% of the South Koreans express no religious preference. Of the religious people, 29% are Christian, 23% are Buddhist and 3% have other religious beliefs. Christianity is the biggest religion in South Korea. Christianity in South Korea has a relatively short history, but after a difficult beginning, it has seen significant growth and success. South Korea has different kind of denominations, for example, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptism and Full gospel. Although Presbyterian is the most well-known, there are more followers for Full gospel so here is a clip on full gospel.
Yoido Ful Gospel Church

This is a video of worship in full Gospel Churches in South Korea.

Christian Music Video Body Worship Dance - Worthy Is The Lamb

Tanzina will show some interesting videos on taboos in religion.

The New First Family, A New President, A New America

2008-11-05T06:32:00.000-05:00

Voting on Gay Marriage Today - Nov 4

2008-11-04T15:29:00.003-05:00

While McNeil-Lehrer reports a record breaking turnout from the electorate today, major initiatives concerning gay marriage are being decided in voting in three major states.

"Initiatives dealing with gay marriage, stem cell research and abortion also are on the ballot in several states.

California's Proposition 8 would terminate marriage rights for gay couples. Arizona's Proposition 102 would amend the state's constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. Similarly, Florida's Proposition 2 would amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage."

Why is it that humans fight over defining laws for other people in this manner? What is the assumption about humans that such activity suggests? That we must be all the same? What do you think?

Group 4 Gender

2008-11-04T13:03:00.003-05:00

On thursday Oct 30 our group made a presentation on Gender. We discussed gender roles throughout different cultures and societies. Lorrain told a story about how she helped her team win a soccer game as young child. However, the opposing coach wanted the win to be nullified because he accused Lorrain of being a boy because of her looks. This caused Lorraine's family to get very upset and just shows how the opposing coach couldn't believe that a girl could accomplish what Lorraine did on the field. Lorraine also showed a video about small children as they innocently pointed out gender roles in our society www.youtube.com/watch?v=am8n5bXefi0
Gabrielle talked her family who are part of a Moroccan Jewish culture. She described how the women of household are supposed to be the ones in charge of cleaning the house and cooking the food. She also mentioned her grandfather's views of gender roles as he had a problem with Gabrielle enrolling in sports activites because she was a girl.
Edwin talked about chauvinism in todays world. He explained that chauvinism is the belief that men are better then women. Male chauvinists often believe that women are property and can accomplish nothing with out men. As out dated a belief as it may seem to us, with the women's rights movements, many people, both men and women, hold this belief to be true. Edwin than showed the following videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0xoKiH8JJM and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptx52QwFz10
I talked about how humans are all alike and how sex is seperated by just one single chromosome. I played this video www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRGNGpwb8nE
Enki showed a "Ted Talk" like video in which a guest speaker discusses how an aid of 50/50 in a poor country given to men and women was not the right solution. The speaker showed how women are better able to manage money than men and use it to take care of their family. The aid given soon moved to a 60/40 split and continued moving in the women's favor until almost all aid was given to the woman of the household.
Nicaury showed how disney cartoons invoke messages of sexism, male strength, and male dominance. She played this video:

Use Active Learning for Your Group's Time in Class

2008-11-03T09:42:00.004-05:00

PLEASE NOTE: The week your group is responsible for presenting on Thursday, you and your group members are only responsible for READING the Conformity & Conflict chapter HOWEVER you are not REQUIRED to write any response. You are welcome to comment on it but are not required to do so. My apologies to past groups for not stating this earlier.

The presentations so far have been great. Now I'd like to encourage different kinds of learning environments. The group presentations are also an opportunity to create an active learning environment -- that's where students are not lectured to but actuall create and contribute to what's learned from their own participation. Instead of presenting ideas and videos, you can use a video or facts/statistics to poll other students' thinking or beliefs. It's sort of like moment of participant-observation where the group operates as the scientists polling the emic views of the other students.

Previously I posted guidelines to inspire ideas for your group presentation. I requested it be 15-20 mins. I will allow you up to 20-25 minutes from now on. Please be mindful of that limitation (prepare + practice and time yourselves). Check out the previous posts on group presentations.

ACTIVE TRAINING/LEARNING STRATEGIES
Did any of you see the film FREEDOM WRITERS? In it Hilary Swank's character, a first-time teacher in a "war-zone" urban school abandons traditional teaching practices to get the students more involved in caring about their education. Your group presentations might abandon the traditional method of "presenting" ideas by having the rest of the students actively generate their emic views about religion, race/ethnicity, and the world economic system during your 20-25 mins.

Have the class do a "Take a stand exercise" (polling them on current immigration policy or the history of racial stratification. Do a "campfire" sharing session where groups of 3-4 students share a story/myth that reflects a core value in their religion/faith. Then have the groups discuss the stories they heard from an etic/anthropological perspective: what generalities or universals were shared in the stories; what is it that humans in each culture are striving for and why is there so much conflict between religions given the core values? You are welcome to steal or borrow any of these ideas. Strategies for active learning (rather than just listening) are much more fun and the group does much less work in the end.

Here are great resources for active learning strategies, do your own search on Google, or think of a great example from a film, a book you read, or from a favorite class you took before. I personally love the first one on trading spaces using post it notes.

http://www.activetraining.com/active_learning/tool_trading_places.htm
http://www.activetraining.com/active_learning/WeaveCourseContent.pdf
http://www.cat.ilstu.edu/additional/tips/actEngage.php
Also check out TEACHERTUBE for great resources and videos

Religion and the Supernatural (cf. Wesch)

2008-10-30T22:14:00.007-04:00

Found a great story below about Hinduism that shows how the religious emic view is cultural integrated with other values of Indian society/culture. It comes from on Mike Wesch's Wiki under the topic of Religion + the Supernatural

He writes: " Religion responds to BIG QUESTIONS: Why death? Why life?"

"The world is much more than what meets the eyes. We experience great sorrows - and great elation. We experience death - We fall in love - and sometimes we have what for lack of a better word we might call "the religious experience" --- all of these experiences are beyond words. And then there is the world itself."

"Where did it come from? It too is beyond words. You can say it is the Big Bang - but what was before that - You can say it was God, Allah, Spiderwoman of the Hopi, Afek of the Nekalimin, any number of thousands of Gods that Humans put their faith in ... but is that just a word we place on something unexplainable?"

"Ultimately the ground of our being is a mystery - as humans we name it by many names ... You have probably heard of several religions - Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam ... there are in fact no less than 5000 religions. Each one as adamant as the others that they have the right answer in their pocket. Great diversity - yet remarkably similar as well. How do we explain this diversity?"

"Worldwide we find that religion expresses, explains, and legitimizes cultural practices, values, and the socio-political order" (Wesch).

INDIA - HINDUISM ... INDRA'S LESSON

"There is a wonderful story in one of the Upanishads about the god Indra. Now, it happened at this time that a great monster had enclosed all the waters of the earth, so there was a terrible drought, and the world was in a very bad condition. It took Indra quite a while to realize that he had a box of thunderbolts and that all he had to do was drop a thunderbolt on the monster and blow him up. When he did that, the waters flowed, and the world was refreshed, and Indra said, "What a great boy am I."

So, thinking, "What a great boy am I," Indra goes up to the cosmic mountain, which is the central mountain of the world, and decides to build a palace worthy of such as he. The main carpenter of the gods goes to work on it, and in very quick order he gets the palace into pretty good condition. But every time Indra comes to inspect it, he has bigger ideas about how splendid and grandiose the palace should be. Finally, the carpenter says, "My god, we are both immortal, and there is no end to his desires. I am caught for eternity." So he goes to Brahma, the creator god, and complain. Brahma sits on a lotus, the symbol of divine energy and divine grace. The lotus grows from the navel of Vishnu, who is the sleeping god, whose dream is the universe. So the carpenter comes to the edge of the great pond of the universe and tells his story to Brahma. Brahma says, "You go home. I will fix this up." Brahma gets off his lotus and kneels down to address sleeping Vishnu. Vishnu just makes a gesture and says something like, "Listen, fly, something is going to happen." {CLICK ON THE PHOTO FOR INFO ABOUT IT}

Next morning, at the gate of the palace that is being built, there appears a beautiful blue boy with a lot of children around him, just admiring his beauty. The porter at the gate of the new palace goes running to Indra, and Indra says, "Well, bring in the boy." The boy is brought in, and Indra, the king god, sitting on his throne, says, "Young man, welcome. And what brings you to my palace?" "Well," says the boy with a voice like thunder rolling on the horizon, "I have been told that you are building such a palace as no Indra before you ever built." And Indra says, "Indras before me, young man- what are you talking about?" The boy says, "Indras before you. I have seen them come and go, come and go. Just think, Vishnu sleeps in the cosmic ocean, and the lotus of the universe grows from his navel. On the lotus sits Brahma, the creator. Brahma opens his eyes, and a world comes into being, governed by an Indra. Brahma closes his eyes, and a world goes out of being. The life of a Brahma is 432,000 years. When he dies, the lotus goes back, and another lotus is formed, and another Brahma. Then think of the galaxies beyond galaxies in infinite space, each a lotus, with a Brahma sitting on it, opening his eyes, closing his eyes. And Indras? There may be wise men in your court who would volunteer to count the drops of water in the oceans or the grains of sand on the beaches, but no one would count those Brahmin, let alone those Indras."

While the boy was talking, an army of ants parades across the floor. The boy laughs when he sees them, and Indra's hair stands on end, and he says to the boy, "Why do you laugh?" The boy answers, "Don't ask unless you are willing to be hurt." Indra says, "I ask. Teach." (That, by the way, is a good Oriental idea: you don't teach until you are asked. You don't force your mission down people's throats.) And so the boy points to the ants and says, "Former Indras all.Through many lifetimes they rise from the lowest conditions to the highest illumination. And then they drop their thunderbolt on a monster, and they think, 'What a good boy am I.' And down they go again."

This story illustrates some core values of Hinduism:

Cycles - Reincarnation
Each person has their place (Caste)
Subdue individuality - Be humble. These are the Virtues.

Analyzing Gender and our Reactions to studying Gender

2008-10-30T13:58:00.005-04:00

ABOUT CHRISSIE and LEARNING ABOUT SEX vs. GENDER
I noticed a lot of reactions among both men and women about collapsing sex and gender OR about some worry or concern that if someone like Chrissie exists (born with internalized male organs but looks like a man) the whole notion of sex or gender is threatened. The reaction itself is a kind of ethnocentrism. It leads to fear and even violence in places and contexts where such threats seem to threaten community or societal values and persons become targets. They are targets used to maintain the social constructed nature of cultures. This is from the collapsing of biological notions with learned ways of being--culture.

Anthropologists can use there participant-observation methods and the power of ethnography to LEARN HOW SUCH CULTURAL REACTIONS WORK. Why is this such a threat? What triggers the threat? What dissolves the threat? Why are so many of you more threatened that Chrissie seems to be? Remember the high percentage of women who are sexually men in Australia is particular to Australia. Notice how no one asked why that is? Why Australia?

Here's a video I am showing in each section today before the group presentations. Posted on YouTube by male user tencups on June 28, 2006. Tencups is short for Ten Cups Golf Channel. George the actual user from Austin (I believe Texas) and he calls himself a "certified golf nut." With his own hidden camera video he supposedly confirms "the superior consciousness of women". The video titled Why Women should be in Charge has a low number of views (3,801) relatively speaking for being on since 2006. I posted a video about 4 months ago and I have over 700 views. What's interesting is that youtube marketers insist that anything with women's sexual bodies or "T&A" (tits and ass) will get lots of views on YouTube.

What if the George of Ten Cups is missing the actual context of why women ARE NOT in charge? How could this video support that conclusion?

What I find even more fascinating and somewhat predictable about this video are the range of YouTube Comments. Take a sample and notice what doesn't get said. We shared about this in class.

theratking666 (2 months ago) -1

he probably only showed the ones were the man messed up and there were 500 women who screwed the whole test and hes such a liberal minded arse he didnt want to disgrace his vagina

liseestelle (4 months ago) 0

careful of stereotyping.....

LegendaryMario (5 months ago) 0

lol giri, men need help in the 21st centure? what is that. go die

girigoku31st (7 months ago) 0

Makes no sense.. Gosh.. Men need more help in the 21st centure in all developed and handsomely developing countries..

bipper1 (7 months ago) 0

Tencups is a liberal baby-boomer loser. His generation produced a bunch of self hating men. Can't wait for them to die off so we can let the real men take over. Worst generation EVER!

Grubnar (1 year ago) -1

Strange, in my experience men and women are surely diffent but exacly the other way around. Its the women that always fail to read and follow the instructions. I dont know why!

horuvex (1 year ago) 0

This is really interesting. While maybe not a reason women should be "in charge" it proves that men do things differently. My guess is the men dismiss most of this writing as advertising. It is true women are more observant, especially regarding human emotions.

haleylovesrichard (3 months ago) 0

well youd think theyd see all the arrows and atleast look at it though you do have a good point it just doesnt make much sense im kinda thinking that guy may have set it up but then again what would he get out of it??

datiger (2 years ago) 0

Okay... what was the point.? Men don´t read signs.?
We do logical conclusions. What´s logical about a place where there´s "self-service" and you have to pay, although nobody is checking if you do.

Also check out the YouTube videos Men's Power In Society or see Buffet tag about his secretaries.

Five Genders in Indonesia from National Geographic

2008-10-30T10:01:00.002-04:00

Jeffrey Lam from the 2:30 section found this video. He wrote:

I found a interesting video on genders and I thought i would share it with you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9VmLJ3niVo

Kottak - Gender

2008-10-22T16:06:00.004-04:00

Next week we explore how the cultural meanings assigned to the biological differences between females and males and some variations from the norm that can assist us in getting related to the kind of ethnocentrism that arises around sexuality, gender roles and sexual orientations. Below are some short videos and links that will assist us in exploring the cultural evolution of the ways we think and learn about gender.

Lauren Wells Hasten/Digital Anthropologist writes:

Used interchangeably in both anthropological research and popular conversation, the words "sex" and "gender" are usually handled as synonyms. They are in fact two different things, and each incorporates multiple aspects. Sex itself refers to the biological manifestation of gender as well as to sexual activity; a person's sex is usually determined by the genitalia that are present at birth, while sex refers to the physical activity that involves the stimulation of these genitals. ... most Americans expect a person with female genitalia to desire a sexual partner of the opposite biological sex, and ....

The Hilary Factor from Reuters
Apr 18 - Best selling Author Deborah Tannen details "The Hillary Factor" and understanding gender in the Presidential campaign.Tannen says when a female politician shows a softer side, whether its ...
The gender trap
"We're familiar with drug testing for athletes, but officials at the Beijing Olympics will be taking things one stage further and examining competitors whose sex is in doubt. And it is far from being a new problem, as Emine Saner discovers..."
Al Roker interviews Leonard Sax, "Why Gender Matters" (2005)
For more from MSNBC
Read more about the anthropological study of multiple genders
Gender Puzzle - 44min. documentary: http://www.booserver.com/projects.php?ProjectID=2394

WEEKLY RESPONSES to "Life Without Fathers or Husbands" by Clifford Geertz

2008-10-21T17:59:00.008-04:00

Found a really great resource online. A Marriage and Family Encyclopedia that has entries on every nation from Brazil to Haiti all the way up to Vietnam and Zambia.

Post your brief comments below regarding "Life Without Fathers or Husbands" by Clifford Geertz

In this YouTube video Geertz speaks on the process of writing an ethnography in anthropology.

http://ksuanth.wetpaint.com/page/Sex+Love+and+Marriage+Lecture

Mosuo Women in China (Life without Fathers)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoTrARDa8BU

NYT Article 2006 on Bride Price

2008-10-21T14:28:00.003-04:00

http://ksuanth.wetpaint.com/page/Sex+Love+and+Marriage+Lecture

Photographs: Child Brides

About our role in Afghanistan around 2006 when this above article was published (from Wikipedia "War in Afghanistan (2001–present)":

By May 2008, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had an estimated 47,000 troops from 40 countries, with NATO members providing the core of the force. The United States has approximately 17,000 troops in ISAF. By May 2008, ISAF had an estimated 47,000 troops from 40 countries, with NATO members providing the core of the force. The United States has approximately 17,000 troops in ISAF.

And now for a little humor about arranged marriages:

Play on Words and the Worlds They Create

2008-10-21T13:53:00.002-04:00

Hey professor i came across this email that was sent to me and it reminded me of the language chapter in Kottak. it also serves a purpose to brighten and bring a smile and laughter to everyone:

EVER WONDER
Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?- -
Why women can't put on mascara with their mouth closed?- -
Why don't you ever see the headline "Psychic Wins Lottery"?- -
Why is "abbreviated" such a long word?- -
Why is it that doctors call what they do "practice"?- -
Why is it that to stop Windows 98, you have to click on "Start"?- -
Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid- made with real lemons?
Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?
When dog food is new and improved tasting, who tests it?
Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?-
You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes?
Why- don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?
Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?
Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?

From Claumery, XZ24C section

FIRST DRAFT: PROPOSAL FOR MINI-ETHNOGRAPHY DUE TUE OCT 21

2008-10-17T16:31:00.007-04:00

In addition taking the online quiz for Ch.7 Families, Kinship and Marriage
you also are expected to write up a proposal for your mini-ethnography

It should include:

SUBJECT OF THE ETHNOGRAPHY: What are you going to study? Be as specific as possible. If interviewing a person, what cultures are involved?
I.e., the Carnegie Deli in Manhattan. My grandmother's migration from Cuba in the 1930s.
Key Cultural Consultant(s). Who you intend to interview with a couple of options suggested if you don't already know them. Provide some basic info (age, ethnicity, nationality, sex, etc.) What makes them a KEY cultural consultant in your eyes or in the eyes of the cultural community?
Participant-Observation/Emic View. What is the site of your study? A ritual, event, place, or location? Give an address if possible or place it is associated with. In what way will you participate in the culture to get an insider's view?
What interests you most and what questions do you anticipate about this project or the person you are interviewing.
Name 3-4 etic concepts you could use to address your interests or questions. Use the concepts from the Kottak and the Conformity and Conflict. Avoid generalizing. Saying I will explore "language" may be too general, but saying I will explore the "focal vocabulary" and differences in speaking between coaches and players related to gender and race is very specific.
Paper & extras: Have fun with this. Write a conventional ethnography and supplement it with a slide show or youTube video and share it with not only the class but the world.

New Guidelines for Group Presentations

2008-10-17T12:56:00.020-04:00

For students to discover new views of their own worldviews and others.
To counter the ethnocentrism of US educated students
To compare multiple emic views and bring a slice of it to the week's conversation.
To bring Baruch's diverse cultures into the mix--consider using your own cultural backgrounds as a starting point for the discussion.
To present a group view of the subject in 20 mins or less in a way that expands or disturbs our social constructs about the week's subject.
Before or immediately after your presentation, create a group post to further the discussion and capture what your presentation was about.

Next week's subject in the Kottak and Conformity&Conflict readings is Families, Kinship and Marriage. Here are some great suggestions (NOTE: SUGGESTIONS) for each group's preparation. Delegate tasks so each group member contributes more or less to the project in a way that works for them.

BLOG & BLACKBOARD
Review the video Did You Know 2.0 (8 mins) and checkout our blog's tag cloud, videobar, and newsfeeds. Use your group's email/discussion board on Blackboard.
THE CONTEXT IS DECISIVE
Explore how the U.S. and your home country have changed using gapminder.org. Watch the gapminder.org tutorial first to quickly understand how to use it.
FIND A KEY CULTURAL CONSULTANT
Skim the articles on Anthrosource and/or Lexis-Nexis through the Baruch Library DATABASES page or search current news videos from NYTimes, Associated Press, PBS and/or National Geographic. Also look at the bibliographies for the chapters of our weekly reading.
THAT WAS OUTTA CITE!!
Cite or keep track of all the sources used (urls, books, articles, videos) and create a bibliography as a group post on the blog for our class and the next to use for the week's subject. Oral communication requires documentation, too.
TO POWERPOINT OR NOT TO POWERPOINT?
Despite what I've said before, you CAN use powerpoint (see a great example about water). Instead of talking, use only visual or sonic communication (photography, hypertext, music, film, audio). How about dancing to learn about courting practices in mating??
SOCIAL COLLABORATION 101
Consider creating a slideshow, a social bookmarking account with Digg or Delicious, a youtube channel, or a Flickr or Tumblr account that can be used and built upon next class (ask Prof. G to create an acct for long-term use).
DANCE IN THE CONVERSATION
Get us out of our seats, if possible. Use polling or taking a stand, etc. http://www.activetraining.com/active_learning/WeaveCourseContent.pdf
K.I.S.S.
Keep it simple, stupid. The best stories and presentations are simple. Think Chris Abani in his TED Talk.

IDEAS FOR FAMILY (or another chapter):

Compile family photographs or Google images for the week's subject and create a slide show that reflects the members of your group.
Choose a provocative video (e.g., on Shakers) to create a panel of experts discussing the pros and cons followed by Q&A.
Choose a familiar word related to the subject (monogamy). Create a slide with a definition from Merriam-Webster's Dictionary. Then show other slides comparing same word or idea defined in other ways, from other sources, famous or indigenous people's sayings, jokes, or other dictionaries, such as a French, Swahili, or slang dictionary.

THE BEST PRESENTATIONS
What makes the best presentations the best, you ask? Hmm. I decided to search the web on that and found a few interesting links:

http://www.knowhr.com/blog/2006/08/21/top-10-best-presentations-ever/
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/09/winners-of-worl.html
Use the 10/20/30 rule of powerpoint. No more than 10 slides in 20 mins at 30 point font.
http://www.slideshare.net/contest/

NEW BLOG FEATURES & USES FOR GROUP PRESENTATIONS

2008-10-17T12:00:00.003-04:00

I may not be new to blogging but I am discovering the untapped power of having a blog for this class. I have been wanting to make sure you all stay current with current affairs not just in US but around the globe or perhaps to have YOU share your views of the world with our blog.

So blogger.com allows for video feeds and news feeds from other blogs and sites. So I added that to the right side of the blog. Check it out. The VIDEO BAR is linked to four YouTube channels:

I also created WHAT'S NEW IN WORLDVIEWS (menu to the right) with links to newsfeeds from NYTimes US report, Associated Press, AlJazeeraTV, Now on PBS, Frontline on PBS, TED Talks, Media Matters, and Wired Magazine on culture.

Let me know if there is a video channel or a newsfeed we should add. Or if you'd like to be responsible for updated the video feed and newsfeed for each week's theme around your group presentation, let's do that.

Race-Baiting, Smear Campaigns and Islamaphobia in Current US Election

2008-10-17T10:05:00.008-04:00

AGREE TO BE OFFENDED
As many of you know, one of the things that matter to me is transforming the converations of race and racism not only in the US but in the world. This was how I began promoting the practice of AGREE TO BE OFFENDED (and stay in the conversation anyhow), which was a gift from a young Korean woman in a hip-hop class I taught at NYU in 2005. We got that people always take things personally and that the groundrule of agreeing to be offended allowed us to openly say so and stay connected. This allowed the possibility of transforming any barrier between people. I am playing to transform racism.

As a professor of anthropology and as a singer-songwriter, I can make a difference in practicing and sharing a new kind of courage and compassion for anothers' worldview. I can combat ethnocentrism by not being ethnocentric myself and inviting others to call me on my own if it surfaces. Most of us did not LEARN to have a capacity for all of humanity however it shows up, esp. when it does not conform to our worldview. Especially when my worldview, not theirs, leads to fear and hatred. It's my worldview I must be vigilant against not others. I've been noticing how fear impacts me not only around race/racism but in how often I hear the fear around this financial crisis. Even in parts of the world where there is NO money to be found, invested or stretched, humans beings have a remarkable spirit to survive and tolerate difference in times of war and poverty.

FEAR-MONGERING IN THE US ELECTION
ColorofChange.org (Changing the Color of Democracy) has captured evidence of McCain and Palin race-baiting the issue of Obama being a terrorist at rallies and evidence that supporters at these McCain/Palin rallies have yelled "kill him,"¹ "terrorist,"² "traitor!"³ and "off with his head!"⁴ about Obama. There videos and other references to this evidence are listed below.

What I find most interesting is how the U.S. media is underreporting the actual evidence and only commenting on the possible race-baiting involved. Meanwhile the English version of the Arabic-language news network is breaking the news quite effectively in this video. Al-Jazeera English TV is the only independent Middle Eastern news outlet. featuring great background pieces and global reactions to current news. How ironic. This Islamaphobia that has invaded US whisper campaigns has many non-muslim or non-Arab citizens and immigrants unwilling to investigate the veracity of not only the claims against Obama but to insist our national media outlets and the McCain campaign stop this hate inciting speech among white working class Americans who fear Obama will make America 'black'.

FROM WIKIPEDIA: Al Jazeera (Arabic: الجزيرة‎, al-jazīrah, IPA: [aldʒaˈziːra], meaning "The Island," referring to their status as the only independent Middle Eastern news station^[1], is a television network headquartered in Doha, Qatar. Initially launched as an Arabic news and current affairs satellite TV channel with the same name, Al Jazeera has since expanded into a network with several outlets, including the Internet and specialty TV channels in multiple languages, and in several regions of the world.

The original Al Jazeera channel's willingness to broadcast dissenting views, including on call-in shows, created controversies in Persian Gulf States. The station gained worldwide attention following the September 11, 2001 attacks, when it broadcast video statements by Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders (see Videos of Osama bin Laden).

American citizens have never have heard of AlJazeera before it broadcast Osama bin Laden's videos, and guilt by association, is not a democratic value. This video reveals aspects of American culture we rarely see on CBS, NBC, or ABC News soundbytes this election season. Thank godness for the Web 2.0 era where many alternative and even ordinary broadcasters can get the message out.

References

1. "Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit Bull Look Tame," Washington Post, 10/07/08
http://tinyurl.com/3wmg4c

2. "Obama called a terrorist" (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvXf9AUHTqM

3. "McCain Supporter Yells Out 'Traitor!'" (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiESklGDuH4

4. "McCain's 'Fellow Prisoners'," First Read, 10/08/08
http://tinyurl.com/4qc5vn

5. McCain-Obama Presidential Debate Transcript, Commission on Presidential Debates, 10/15/08
http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2008d.html

6. "TV Ad: Dangerous", John McCain campaign, 10/06/08
http://tinyurl.com/48j9uj

7. See reference 1.

8. See reference 1.

9. "'Kill Him' Yell At Clearwater Palin Rally Being Probed," Tampa Bay Online, 10/10/08
http://tinyurl.com/442vn5

10. See reference 4.

11. "McCain camp defends the behavior?," First Read, 10/10/08
http://tinyurl.com/4az7uw

12. "John Lewis vs. John McCain," First Read, 10/11/08
http://tinyurl.com/3m6qln

13. "The Sidewalk to Nowhere, McCain Supporters in Bethlehem, PA" (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itEucdhf4Us

14. "Misconceptions of Obama fuel Republican campaign" (video), Al-Jazeera, 10/13/08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRqcfqiXCX0

15. "Florida Sheriff Intros Palin, Says 'Barack Hussein Obama'," (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woNYeyOQnuI

16. "McCain and Palin in Bethlehem: A live report!" Philly.com, 10/08/08
http://tinyurl.com/3wvq9x

17. "Who is Barack Obama?" Snopes.com, January 2008
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp

An Exemplar Mini-Ethnography: Ruehl No. 105

2008-10-13T10:35:00.017-04:00

This is an excerpt of an excellent and exemplary ethnography by Lisa F. from Sp08. It received an A. It had excellent use of key etic concepts from anthropology throughout (Weber; colonialism; race; class; and gender). It honored the limit of 5-7 pages in length. Lisa's role as an employee strongly aided her participant-observations. She uses her interview material (emic) well (interspersed throughout the text) and she had excellent sources supporting her reading of the culture as a text--The store Ruehl in Paramus, NJ.

This was a great mini-ethnography; a wonderful re-construction of a social reality that most customers and workers would not notice.

Ruehl No. 105: What About the Bulldog? by Lisa F.

The entire document is viewable at:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhnm7kdd_202365rzkw

The Abercrombie and Fitch moose is a dominant symbol in American style. The Hollister Co. seagull is very distinguished as well. But what about the bulldog? A French bulldog named Trubble represents RUEHL, pronounced “rule,” the more sophisticated and most expensive branch of the Abercrombie enterprise. Of the three largest counterparts of the whole Abercrombie company, RUEHL is much lesser known than Abercrombie and Fitch and Hollister. Although lesser known, RUEHL is just as culturally significant as its sister companies. Currently, I am employed at RUEHL in the Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey. Through participant observation and an interview with my manager, Lisa Rella, who is my key cultural consultant, I will explore the cultural significance of “my” store, Ruehl 105.

RUEHL is the most expensive of all the Abercrombie stores with a look that hails from Greenwich Village in New York City. RUEHL’s target consumers are college and post-college adults ages 22 to 35, so the clothes have higher quality and a more sophisticated look than the others to appeal to older customers. By this I mean that the clothing is less marked with “RUEHL” or Trubble on it, which appeals to older customers who are “over” the loud exclamation of where their clothes are from. “Ruehl is the first to focus on this new core customer: a person in the early stages of a career who can afford better quality but still wants youthful looks”(Hazel). The outside of the store resembles a brownstone house because brownstones are popular residences in the Village. The layout of the inside is very different from the typical store; it has several dimly lit rooms, ladders, vintage books, couches, intricate lighting, and something employees call “the bed,” which is a little section of the store made up of huge pillows. With the loud music, dim lighting, and the ubiquitous smell of cologne, customers either love or hate the RUEHL experience (Scardino, Ruehl No.925).

Lisa Rella, my key cultural consultant, was born in Hackensack, New Jersey but has lived in Rochelle Park all her life. Her father is Italian and Polish and her mother is Irish and British. In October 2004, when she was 18, she began working at RUEHL, in the Garden State Plaza, as a model, which is a person who works on the sales floor and does any number of jobs, such as ringing on the cash register, greeting customers, folding clothes, monitoring fitting rooms, among others. One must be 18 to work at RUEHL. After seven months of working she left the company to concentrate on school. In May 2007, Lisa graduated Ramapo College of New Jersey with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. To be a manager at any one of the Abercrombie companies, one must have a college degree. In June of 2007, Lisa came back to RUEHL as a Manager-in-Training, and now she is one of the stores full-time Store Managers (Interview).

My employment at RUEHL began in September 2007 when a friend, who worked there in the summer, called me and asked me if I wanted to work at RUEHL during the school year because I live at home. I agreed, filled out an application, and went to the group interview, and I have been working there as a model ever since. Almost immediately, you observe the clientele, coworkers and the interactions they have with each other. The interview was done in the stock room of RUEHL on April 21, 2008, and it lasted about 40 minutes. This was after the store closed because there would have been a large number of interruptions if we did the interview during operating hours. Also, while working, I did some participant observation of the customers and employees. Some things I saw immediately made me realize that there are anthropological concepts in progress, and other times I had to decide what concept it was and connect it to the observation. Everything that I observed I jotted down on paper so I would not forget because some really great anthropology topics occur in and around RUEHL.

Bibliography

[Must include 2 – 3 anthropological concepts discussed in Kottak. You may reference Conformity & Conflict. Must include at least 3 other sources found through AnthroSource, Lexis-Nexis, NYTimes, and Wikipedia. Must include 2 references from your pre- and post- interview. Read up on your subject BEFORE you start interviewing. Learn as much as you can BEFORE to expand your listening and questioning. This bibliography is missing the followup interview Lisa did. It would be listed in this fashion: Rella, Lisa. Telephone Interview (dialogic editing feedback). 10 May 2008.]

Hazel, Debra. (2005). Abercrombie’s RUEHL No. 925 Makes Customers Feel at Home. Retrieved April 20, 2008 from http://www.icsc.org/srch/sct/sct0205/retailing_3.php
Kottak, Conrad Phillip. 2008. “Mirror For Humanity.” 124, 133, 201-203, 206. McGraw-Hill
Rella, Lisa. Personal Interview. 21 April 2008.
Scardino, Emily. (2004). Ruehl: A&F’s Hip New Retail Concept. Retrieved April 19, 2008 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FNP/is_18_43/ai_n6212855
Wikipedia. (2008). Ruehl No.925. Retrieved April 17, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruehl_No.925

FROM LISA: Professor, I am not allowed to take pictures of the inside of RUEHL but I would love it if you saw what it looks like. If you Google Image “RUEHL No. 925” some pictures will come up. I would love for you to get a sense of the inside of the store. Also, in the two articles I used, they talk about the actual store I work at! I just thought that was a little fun note! Thanks for a great semester.

Chapter 6 - Politcal Systems (Group 3 Presentation)

2008-10-11T22:31:00.005-04:00

We started off the presentation with a game of Jeopardy, political style. We gave clues about different terms we learned from the chapter and the class had to give the answer in the form of a question. It was confusing at first, but the class got the hang of it eventually.

We watched a short video that described different political governments we are more familiar with such as democracy and monarchy.

Then we watched another film that talked about how the U.S. Government is a "scam". It bashes the decisions of the U.S government and gives us an insight on what is really happening in our political system.

Lastly, we watched a video about life in North Korea under a totalitarian dictatorship.

Group 3
Hyun wook Jeong
Ken Zhen
Rickey Li
Xiang Wang
Terentiy Bronikou

Connecticut Ruling Overturns Ban on Same-Sex Marriage

2008-10-10T12:36:00.002-04:00

For the groups doing their presentations on Families, Marriage and Kinship, make sure you pay attention to what's happening in the news. Current affairs are great topics for conversation.

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Friday, October 10, 2008 -- 12:17 PM ET
-----

Connecticut Ruling Overturns Ban on Same-Sex Marriage

Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have the right to marry, making the state the third to legalize such unions.

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

Go to the link to see the Text of the Ruling, which in part read:

We conclude that, in light of the history of pernicious discrimination faced by gay men and lesbians,1 and because the institution of marriage carries with it a status and significance that the newly created classification of civil unions does not embody, the segregation of heterosexual and homosexual couples into separate institutions constitutes a cognizable harm. We also conclude that (1) our state scheme discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, (2) for the same reasons that classifications predicated on gender are considered quasi-suspect for purposes of the equal protection provisions of the United States constitution, sexual orientation constitutes a quasi-suspect classification for purposes of the equal protection provisions of the state constitution, and, therefore, our statutes discriminating against gay persons are subject to heightened or intermediate judicial scrutiny, and (3) the state has failed to provide sufficient justification for excluding same sex couples from the institution of
marriage.

CLARIFYING Social Construct

2008-10-10T11:55:00.008-04:00

I noticed a few of you have been using the idea of a social construct a bit too generally. Here is the definition again:

A social construction (social construct) is a concept or practice which may appear to be natural and obvious to those who accept it, but in reality is an invention or artifact of a particular culture or society. Social constructs are generally understood to be the by-products (often unintended or unconscious) of countless human choices rather than laws resulting from divine will or nature.

People never see social constructs from an emic point of view. The insider never can see it. Like the fish never sees the water or humans never think about air. It's taken for granted. The etic view, the participant observer, the outsider (even insiders can become outsiders to their own culture from travel, migration, going away to college, etc.) the begin to see how people in a culture accept the invention as natural and obvious.

Anthropologists use interviewing inside of participant-observation to "expose the way in which a particular belief has been shaped by social forces" (Writes philosopher Paul A. Boghossian in WHAT IS SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION? philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/docs/IO/1153/socialconstruction.pdf).

For instance, how did we/you learn the belief that North is up. One social force impacting that view was colonialism by the British Empire. They created a view through maps emphasizing the upper parts where they were located in their emic view. Reading importance from top to bottom is a social construction. Not all cultures read and have their views correlated that way. Others are equally valid in seeing things differently. "Another society, differing from us only in their social values [their learned ways of thinking, feeling, believing and behaving], would have arrived at a different and incompatible belief [or view]." Boghossian writes further:

There are certainly many things, and facts about them, that are socially constructed in the sense ... : money, citizenship and newspapers, for example. None of these things could have existed without society [or enculturation and acculturation]; and each of them could have been constructed differently had we so chosen

If a belief of ours were shown to be socially constructed ... it would follow that we could abandon it without fear of irrationality [the earth is flat; Muslims are evil; carbohydrates are bad for you; noticing skin color causes racism]

[I]f we have the belief not because there is adequate evidence in its favor but because having it subserves some contingent social purpose [Muslims are evil], then if we happen not to share the social purpose it subserves we ought to be free to reject it.

Much important work has been done ... most significantly, it seems to me, [on the] topics of gender and race. Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex, 1953) and other feminist scholars since, have illuminated the extent to which gender roles are not inevitable but are rather the product of social forces. Anthony Appiah (Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race, 1996, with Amy Gutman) has been particularly forceful in demonstrating that nothing physical or biological corresponds to the racial categories that play a pervasive role in our social lives, that these categories owe their existence more to their social function [stratification of resources and wealth affecting our views of who has wealth, power and prestige] than they do to the scientific evidence.

To clarify and be sure you are clear about what a social construct is, tell me what this says to you. How did you have the idea before reading this and how has it changed? If you get it, you can recreate it in your own words and even give an example back to me as if its yours.

Kottak Ch. 7 - Families, Kinship and Marriage

2008-10-08T15:01:00.002-04:00

NEXT CHAPTER is on Families, Kinship and Marriage (Oct 21, 23)

Watch the Rick Smolan TED Talk on an Amerasian adoption (25 mins) BEFORE class Tue Oct 21 in addition to your assignment to take the online quiz. For the following Thursday, read "Life without Fathers" in Conformity & Conflict. We will discuss the implications of the photographer's intentions and impact in international adoption.

Questions to consider about Natasha's Story: If Natasha had been Amerasian, but looked more Asian than American, how would her enculturation have been different or how might her acculturation into an American family have differed? Would this story of adoption been as compelling? Why or why not? Consider these questions from several points of view: Rick the photographer, Natasha's grandmother, Natasha, Natasha's uncle, and Natasha's adoptive parents.

Your Final Project: Mini-Ethnography incl. an Interview

2008-10-08T14:13:00.013-04:00

Don't forget to watch the video on ethnographic interviewing before next class Oct 16th. [Click on the index card and discover the INDEXED blog]

STAYING ON COURSE
Meeting once a week can lead to a pitfall -- being disoriented about our course of actions.
Remember to

Read the Kottak chapter for the week and read the Conformity and Conflict Chapter assigned and write a 250-500 response each week (exceptions are in the schedule).
Take the online quiz when indicated on the schedule
Prepare for your group's presentation -- the assignments are on the blog
Begin to consider an aspect of life/culture you would like to study through participant-observation for your final project -- a mini-ethnography. We will do some exercises and actually draft your proposal during class on Thu Oct 16th. You will revise it and set up an interview the next week. A deadline will be announced in class.

ABOUT INDIVIDUALS & CULTURE
Consider we are interviewing individuals but from an anthropological perspective, individuals are a reflection of larger cultural phenomena. The interview will be used to gain insight into the emic worldview of a specific culture through the individual/interviewee. As the ethnographer, you will have to determine the framing of what you learn--this is the etic viewpoint, applying anthropologial concepts and thinking, choosing what captures your attention and it may or may not be what the interviewee thinks is interesting about his/her own culture.

Here's a excerpt from Chapter 3 - Culture of the Kottak to get you thinking about what you will be studying.

Culture and the Individual: Agency and Practice (from Kottak Ch.3)
People use their culture actively and creatively, rather than blindly following its dictates. Cultures are dynamic and constantly changing.
Culture is contested—that is, different groups in society struggle with one another over whose ideas, values, goals, and beliefs will prevail.
Common symbols may have radically different meanings to different individuals and groups in the same culture.
Ideal culture consists of what people say they should do and what they say they do, whereas real culture refers to their actual behavior.
Agency refers to the actions that individuals take, both alone and in groups, in forming and transforming cultural identities.
Practice theory recognizes that individuals within a society or culture have diverse motives and intentions and different degrees of power and influence.
Practice theory focuses on how individuals influence, create, and transform the world they live in.
Culture shapes how individuals experience and respond to external events, but individuals also play an active role in how society functions and changes.

GETTING STARTED/BRAINSTORMING A POSSIBLE PROJECT:

Who would you love to meet from NYC and why? Call or email about an interview for a course at Baruch College.
What cultural event or institution do you already participate in that you could study? Who would be a great key cultural consultant?
What matters to you regarding family, gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, social stratification, or the world? Is there an institution, an event, or a person whom would make a great key cultural consultant on how things work?
Who is a person you already know whom you admire and why? Consider interviewing them on their life from an anthropological view. (i.e., How did you become a successful stock broker on Wall Street as a woman? This would explore gender and business.)

Group #3 Presents - Kottak, Political Systems

2008-10-07T18:25:00.003-04:00

Each group will be required to create a post around the chapter theme and their presentation.

Register to Vote - Tell Five Friends Today

2008-10-06T12:45:00.001-04:00

Today is the deadline to register to vote in New York. Do it online. See info in video.

ANTHRO IN REVIEW: Research Process, Ethnocentrism & Government

2008-10-01T12:23:00.003-04:00

Check out these short videos by Studio4Learning that offer overviews of some key concepts, themes or practices like the research process:

Research Process-- Framing the Research Question

Cultural Relativism & Ethnocentrism

American Government: Types of Government

Kottak Political Systems - Check Tag Cloud for Key Words

2008-10-01T11:43:00.004-04:00

This week comment on one of the previous posts on the topic of Political Systems. Check out the keywords from the chapter in the tag cloud in addition to Political Systems which has several posts. Try power, prestige, big men, etc. You choose and post a comment. Read at least 5-6 other comments AND try to say something that's never been said before or that hasn't been noticed by previous comments.

PS. Witness a spectacular photography highlight a shocking and underreported global crisis at the TED event on Oct 3 and Oct 4th in Union Square

James Nachtwey, one of the world’s greatest photojournalists and winner of the 2007 TEDPrize, received “one wish to change the world”:

“I’m working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it, in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age.”

http://www.tedprize.org/nachtwey/eventlocation.html