YouTube Digital Ethnography from ANT students in Kansas

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.

Jane Elliot's A Class Divided (Frontline Doc)

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.

OLPC Mission Part 1

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!!

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!

Analyzing Gender and our Reactions to studying Gender

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.

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

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

New Guidelines for Group Presentations

1. For students to discover new views of their own worldviews and others.
   
2. To counter the ethnocentrism of US educated students
3. To compare multiple emic views and bring a slice of it to the week's conversation.
4. To bring Baruch's diverse cultures into the mix--consider using your own cultural backgrounds as a starting point for the discussion.
5. 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.
6. 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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
   
3. 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.
   
4. 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.
   
5. 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??
   
6. 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).
   
7. 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
   
8. 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/
  

Ch. 3: The Culture of Double-Standards: Comedy Reveals Discourses

Each week I will create a post to forward our discussions and the readings by Friday. This post is a bit of overview and mashup of Chapter 3 - Culture. Check for a new post by no later than Friday by 5pm for the coming week. Spend about an hour with the post. Check out the related links and explore beyond the surface of the post. Do you own searches if you like and add new links to your comments.

HOMEWORK FOR THU 9/11: Study of Humankind

In Chapters 1 and 2 of the Kottak we began to distinguish what is anthropology. The word is from the Greek anthropos ("human") and logia ("study") — the study of humankind.

[We watched this video WHAT WE ARE in class on 9-9-08 about who we are as humans.]

Nothing human is alien to anthropological study -- even elections. Though anthropology is easy to define, it is difficult to describe. Its subject matter is both exotic (e.g., star lore of the Australian aborigines) and commonplace (anatomy of the foot). And its focus is both sweeping (the evolution of language) and microscopic (the use-wear of obsidian tools). Anthropologists may study ancient Mayan hieroglyphics, the music of African Pygmies, and the corporate culture of a U.S. oil industry.

But always, the common goal links these vastly different projects: to advance knowledge of who we are, how we came to be that way — and where we may go in the future.

I am a human, and nothing human can be of indifference to me.
--Terence, The Self-Torturer

Someone passed me this video from Jon Stewart's The Daily Show exposing the gender double-standards during the Republican National Convention. It is decidedly democratic in perspective. While it will offend some, it is a great "text" in the discourse of exposing opponents. Why do we have this phenomenon of exposing double-standards? Why do we need it? What role does it play in the long run for groups?

A double-standard is a form of a discourse -- an institutionalized way of thinking, a social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic, "the limits of acceptable speech" (Butler) like a possible truth--and double-standards are not limited to elections in the US.





POST A COMMENT: Might double-standards be a cultural universal? Or is it a generality or particular to US elections? What do you think and why? [LIMIT 250 word count!]

Curiosity. In a sense, we all "do" anthropology because it is rooted in a universal human trait: curiosity. We are curious about ourselves and about other people, the living as well as the dead, here and around the globe. We ask anthropological questions:

• Do all societies have customs of exposing double-standards in elections or competitions?
• As a species, are human beings innately suspicious or desiring change?
• When did people first begin lying or being political?

Such questions are part of a folk anthropology practiced in school yards, office buildings, neighborhood cafes and comedy shows. But if we are all amateur anthropologists, what do the professionals ("ethnographers") study?

POST A COMMENT: How does the science of anthropology differ from ordinary opinion sharing and "common sense?" What methods distinguish this difference? Give an example from Chapters 1-3 of the Kottak , the essay "Eating Christmas in Kalahari," or of your own. [LIMIT 250 word count!]

Read at least 5 comments every week. Reply once a week. Use the suggested post ideas or post your own questions. A 2-3 lined post is sufficient but it must be more than "I like this post."

Assignment for Thu Mar 20: Ted Talks & the Global Family

I. Talks Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen


II. MUST SEE: Check out the African American Lives 2 website for insights into family following the forced migration and separation of black families that are the by product of slavery in America. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aalives/videos/index.html

III. TWo Scenes from HBO's Big Love (polygamy)




QUESTIONS: What are other forms of marriage or family that are NOT mentioned in the Kottak chapter? For instance, miscegnation or green card marriages.

Read the chapter on Life without Fathers in Spradley text.

Ch.5 Making a Living: Commenting on Corn

Chapter Five introduces us to the adaptive strategies humans have used to make a living. Hunting, gathering (foraging), horiticulture, and agriculture. This week I want to focus specifically on the product CORN to aid us in understanding how industrialism leads to the alienation of producers from their products. Click here to learn about the zillion uses of corn including for biofuel.

By Thu Mar 6th at noon, post a comment after watching the following videos for our class discussion of Making a Living:

1. A conversation with director of the documentary KING CORN (watch all 3 parts)
2. A TED Talk about the Omnivore's Dilemma, looking at humans and the world from the plant's point of view. He introduced to me the concept of permaculture, and
3. A TED Talk about developing a commodity exchange for maize (corn) in Ethopia.

This is your homework for Thursday's class. Take notes and bring your notes to class. Also make a comment on the blog below by Thu at noon (click COMMENTS at the bottom of this post). What you could comment about is:

• How did corn become so important to us according to the director of King Corn? What do you think about that?
  
• How much corn do you think you consume in your diet? What did you learn that was new about corn in our culture?
  
• What did you think about the permaculture example Pollan presented?
  
• How might what you learned about corn from these videos provide a great example of how culture is learned, shared, integrated, all-encompassing, and/or symbolic?
• What did you learn about Ethiopia's production of corn and what it says about small farmers' knowledge of markets?
  
• Anything else you'd like to share relevant to MAKING A LIVING chapter.
  

This will help us take a look at how agriculture and the possibility of permaculture can transform our relationship to what we eat, how we eat, how consumers get what they eat and how we might transform our relationship to the environment and to agribusiness.



FOOD NEWS: A Conversation with 'King Corn' Filmmaker: Part 1

Pt. 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5bAfPsUAb8&feature=user
Pt. 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2vARSdg7bw&feature=user



TEDTalks Michael Pollan: The omnivore's next dilemma



Talks Eleni Gabre-Madhin: Building a commodities market in Ethiopia
Note: Maize is another word for corn

Shift Happens 2.0 Video viewed by 5 million + Remix

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

An official update to the original "Shift Happens" video from Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, this June 2007 update includes new and updated statistics, thought-provoking questions and a fresh design. For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com -- Content by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, design and development by XPLANE.

Check out this REMIX of Shift Happens 2.0 which is esp. compelling to students and teachers in US.

Le Grand Content - How, why and what is life? An Ethnographic inquiry

I found this on http://www.ethnography.com/category/blogging-gems/. While at first it seems absurd and humorous, there is something dead on and thought-provoking about this animated video. This is a great little short film by Clemens Kogler.

From the YouTube description
Le Grand Content examines the omnipresent Powerpoint-culture in search for its philosophical potential. Intersections and diagrams are assembled to form a grand ‘association-chain-massacre’. which challenges itself to answer all questions of the universe and some more. Of course, it totally fails this assignment, but in its failure it still manages to produce some magical nuance and shades between the great topics death, cable tv, emotions and hamsters.

Chapter 9: Gender

Each person found ways of expressing gender roles or stereotypes:

This video shows typical stereotypes:

Here are two different societies and how they work:

The Irish Society:

• The role of men is to complete tasks that involve fixing and lifting things and are usually more of a disciplinarian to their children than their mother.
• Women are more likely to take up chores such as cooking and are usually more affectionate to their children than their father.
• However, there seems to be less of an opportunity for women to advance in the workforce when compared to the United States.
• The media portray all Irish men as alcoholics who come home after a night at the bar to abuse their wives.

The Dominican Society:

• The Dominican culture is more acceptance of a patriarchy system.
• Men are usually viewed to tend to public matter of working, politics and social events.
• Women are inferior in those aspects and are responsible for extra domestic activities.
• All women does is cook, clean, attend their sons and cater to her husband when he comes home.
• When going out, men are the ones who drive, chose the venue and had control over all household activities and decisions.
• Society views men control normal, the husband would be viewed as less of a man and criticized in the community.
• Along with sexual behaviors, society allows men to have more than one partner; in some instances it is praised.
• Yet if a female was to have more than one partner she is instantly a hoe.
• Most Latin cultures view men superior over women socially, politically and economically.

Here are pictures from Senegal:

All cultures are different, view the culture you came from and share how different your culture is. Also think about this, what is the difference between gender stereotypes and gender roles?

Anthropology in Street Fighting

Chapter 8 – Families, Kinship, and Marriage

Posted by ANT1001 4:10 section (Aditi, Adiba, Fahim, and Marija)

We learned about nuclear families in this chapter. It is said that a person lives in at least two nuclear families during his or her lifetime. An American would be surprised to know that how many countries still live in extended family. I [Adiba??] remember living in an extended family when I was in India. Everyone member from the patrilineal side of the family lives in the same house and all the children in the house live as siblings, there are no cousins, its just a one big family. This type of living can be classified as an extended patrilocality.

Talking about the divorce rates in recent years, they have soared unbelievably. It is not only in Canada and the United States that these numbers have gone up, but, also in other nations which are becoming westernized. As a result of these divorces the number of single parents has gone up. There are still debates going on in the eastern world if this right or wrong. It is one of the favorite topics with that psychologists in the East discuss.

Another interesting topic that was discussed in this chapter was about descent and lineages or clans. I belong to a patrilocal culture and it was interesting to know from my fellow group members about the matrilocality descent lineage in their culture. The most interesting topic in the chapter was marriage. I could personally relate to this topic because it mentioned about the complicated marriage system that exists in India. Being a witness to endogamy and caste system, this section of the chapter made the most sense to me. Dowry and plural marriages have also been discussed in this chapter. Dowry has existed in the South Asian community since the civilization started. It still exits. Even though there are oppositions to it, but, still one can hear cases of suicide or murder due to dowry and bride wealth quiet often in India. The question that arises in relation to this chapter is, due to westernization of the world, many cultures are loosing their form of institution of marriage, kinship and parenting, is this the right way to go and what should North America adopt from other cultures in order to drop the soaring divorce rates?

Video on kinship and marriage-
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3590143710531876202&q=family+and+kinship&total=25&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2
Funny Video of comedian Russell Peters speaking on relationship between immigrant parents and their kids-
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Nn5jlrxcpkI

MODERN TRIBALISM (Chap 7 Political Systems)

TRIBALISM IN OUR MODERN WORLD:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5XusQuHiJE
When reading the chapter on political systems we realized that the word “tribe” is not a word of past but is still present in our modern society. In the tribal system there were “village heads” and “big men,” who had control over the population but didn’t have the authority to enforce rules. The village head and the big man are still present in our society. Men of wealth who demonstrate hard work and potential become leaders in our modern society. Often these people aspire masses by their intellect, actions, but most importantly their wealth. The big men of our modern society could be the owners of corporations that control the world and influence the political decisions. These people posses a great amount of wealth that allows them to use it to lobby the politicians and create changes in the system that benefit them.

Here is a short video about this:
WHO OWNS AMERICA?
In this video George Carlin talks about politics and the effect of "big men" - the “owners” of America on our society. In this case the big men are the corporation owners who influence the politics and basically run the country even though they are not put in power by people.
http://www.youtube.com/v/9KVTfcAyYGg

How is tribal culture still present in our society? We can see the evidence of modern tribalism in our culture every day. People often try to differentiate themselves from one another and they form groups that share similarities with the old tribes that existed in the past. An example of this would be the street gangs. In such gang there is always a leader who is respected by the gang members. This gang leader would be a modern type of a village head. We all in some way participate in some kind of a tribal life.

MODERN TRIBALISAM
This short clip illustrates the importance tribalism in our modern world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5XusQuHiJE

Greatest force in nations, markets, business: TRIBALISM
http://www.youtube.com/v/HzKOu0UKCL4

What is the reason that people start to come back to tribalism? Many believe that the reason for the rediscovery of tribalism is descending in education and cultural intelligence. People lose the connection with the world and what is happening around them, they become apathetic and try to find their way through life in some kind of modern tribalism. What do you think about this? Is it necessarily a bad thing?

Questions to consider for this chapter:
Has the mankind start descending back to tribalism because of decline in education and cultural intelligence?

Is tribalism still prevalent in our modern lives? How is tribal life in the past similar to the life in our today’s society?

Chapter 7 Poltical Systems

Chapter 7 dicusses about Political Systems and how they affect everyday life. Anthropologist use a sociopolitical typology to classify societies. These titles include the following: bands, tribes, chiefdoms, or states. Foragers use a band- oragnized approach. Bandleaders could not enforce laws or punishments and were first among equals. In horiculture villages leaders have limited power so they lead by persuassion and example. age and gender can also have an effect on politics. Males are seen as the warriors and have to earn movement in grades. The state is made up of many communites and is based on a centural government and social stratification. Chiefdoms are similar to states but lack stratificatio. Like bands and tribes, chiefdoms are organized by kinship, marriage, and descent. According to Weber, the three dimensions of stratification: wealth, power, and prestige. A socioeconomic stratum encompasses people of all ages and sexes. Population control, judiciary, enforcement, and fiscal are systems found in all states. A ruling system or government regulates the state.

One interesting subject we learned in reading this Chapter was about the Inuit. The male role in society took a great affect on prestige. Similar to today, most disputes were over women. Since no government existed rivals challegned each other to a song battle. This is similar to rap in today's world in which songs are made about other rappers in defense of one's self. We also found it interesting that thefts were uncommon. Every man took care of himself and there was no notion of private ownership. Americans pride themselves on competion. If there was no government, as memebers of the class do you feel Americans could handle situations in a justified way as the Inuits did? On the other hand, why do people feel the need to result to competition as a means of just getting by? Power and competion play a major factor in our everyday lives. As citizens and avergae students do you think this can ever change?

This is another video about the Inuits in Chapter 7. We tried to delete the previous post but are unsure if it worked. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz9-e8h2Zo8. Being a band/ community in northern Canada, the Inuits are effected by globalwarming. This people are threatended by assimilation. The food production is deteriorating as a reault of globalwarming since the Inuits are interconnected with the enviornment around them. As memebers of the American community, do you feel that it is just to so call "upgrade" people and force them to live industrialized? If not, what can we do as human beings to help or change the future of our world?

Chapter 5 – Language and Communication

Many of us do not realize how the development of language has actually affected not only our world and culture, but more specifically shaped our ideas. Since the development of language around 5000BC the human race gained a new form of expression that each culture developed into its own unique form.

What we as a group decided we should further examine is the Sapirwhorf hypothesis. This states that different languages produce different ways of thinking. Therefore each language should have certain aspects that wouldn’t translate into another or wouldn’t convey the same meaning, so consider…

Take an idea like freedom or slavery and questioning the fact of whether these things would exist without the actual word (Freedom) existing. (Let’s say a totalitarian government in America takes control and decides to remove the words rebellion, disloyalty, traitor, coup, and revolution or there exists a culture without these words, would these ideas still exist for the people without language to express them?) After you have responded to this question, then try to think of some words in your language that would be hard to translate and explain why. (If you only speak English, consider English words that would be hard to express in another language.)

Here are some interesting, perhaps even funny videos that could aid you in your thinking process about language.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHQ2756cyD8

George Carlin explains how perception changes with words, but the overall idea or fact is the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h67k9eEw9AY