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.

Getting People to Talk on Ethnographic Interviewing

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

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.

1. 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.
2. 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?
3. 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.
4. Don't waste paper putting the biblography on a separate page and strictly follow the format given.
5. 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

1. 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.
2. 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).
3. 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]
4. 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.

HOMEWORK: THU NOV 3 HOW CORPORATIONS BECAME LEGAL PERSONS

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.

Ethnography: Emic Perceptions

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 Anthropologists are Hacking Cultures

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.

Chapter 2 : Ethics and Method

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.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY NOW, CORPORATE AND CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY 4 LIFE

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.

An Exemplar Mini-Ethnography: Ruehl No. 105

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.]

1. 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
2. Kottak, Conrad Phillip. 2008. “Mirror For Humanity.” 124, 133, 201-203, 206. McGraw-Hill
3. Rella, Lisa. Personal Interview. 21 April 2008.
4. 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
5. 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.

Your Final Project: Mini-Ethnography incl. an Interview

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

1. 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).
   
2. Take the online quiz when indicated on the schedule
3. Prepare for your group's presentation -- the assignments are on the blog
4. 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.
  1. 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.)
  

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."

The Gods Must be Crazy

I just finished watching a film called "The Gods Must be Crazy."

Constantly, I was reminded of how those people we are so quick to call backward, are, in many ways, better off than we are. The introduction of the film provides a uniquely strange view and concept of our culture that we so often take for granted. We are a people who live by numbers: when the clock says 8.00, we wake up. When it gets to 9.00, we act busy, before settling back down at 12.00 to eat. The warm, National-Geographic-esque narration makes Xixo, a bushman and main character of the film, strikingly relatable to the viewer. In many ways, he begins to seem more "human" than we are.

Filled with clean, mild and genuine late 1970's comedy, the film in an enjoyable watch if you view it through the right lens; in my case, the anthropological. Head to your local Blockbuster or *cough* torrent site to get the film. You won't regret it.

Click here to get more info on this film.

Blog by Abraham Hedaya

AAA STATEMENTS ON ETHICS

Principles of Professional Responsibility

Adopted by the Council of the American Anthropological Association
May 1971 (As amended through November 1986)

Note: This statement of principles is not intended to supersede previous statements and resolutions of the Association. Its intent is to clarify professional responsibilities in the chief areas of professional concern to anthropologists.

Preamble

Anthropologists work in many parts of the world in close personal association with the peoples and situations they study. Their professional situation is, therefore, uniquely varied and complex. They are involved with their...

PLEASE READ THE REST OF STATEMENT FOR TUE FEB 19th at http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/ethstmnt.htm

Photo is of Shauna LaTosky doing fieldwork on transcultural understanding in Southern Ethiopia. Click photo for more on Shauna's work.

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.

Desi Salons

The topic of the mini-ethnography that I am working on is about Indian Salon’s. My ethnography does not deal with a specific salon, but, the entire group of “desi” salons located in New York and how they exist in a diverse culture and help globalize. I used the term “Desi” Salons because “Desi” is a slang word that stands for the South-Asian community and a South Asian person will be fully aware of the existence of a desi salon in the area, while the same salon might seem like a just another salon to a pedestrian on the sidewalks of NYC. There are numerous salons in NYC, but nobody thinks of a salon based on a specific cultural background. These salons are separated from the usually salons because they use certain techniques that is only known to the South-Asian community and is popular amongst the South Asian public. For instance let us take an example of Henna Tattoos. Henna tattoos have been a part of the Indian culture since centuries, but, now it is becoming more popular worldwide. There are certain designs that are classified as traditional and the artists who know this can only be found in the “desi” salons in New York. Threading has been one of the famous techniques of eyebrow hair removal and in recent years and more people are becoming familiar to it. The ethnography will deal with who first started the Indian techniques in the United States and how it speeded out.

Techniques of Good Ethnography - from Wikipedia

Here are some forms you will find useful for your project. This info is also available for downloading on the Blackboard site: ETHNOGRAPHY WORKSHEETS
Includes: Interview checklist, Interview Report Form, and That's a Good Question.

Techniques

1. Direct, first-hand observation of daily behavior. This can include participant observation.
2. Conversation with different levels of formality. This can involve small talk to long interviews.
3. The genealogical method. This is a set of procedures by which ethnographers discover and record connections of kinship, descent and marriage using diagrams and symbols.
4. Detailed work with key consultants about particular areas of community life.
5. In-depth interviewing.
6. Discovery of local beliefs and perceptions.
7. Problem-oriented research.
8. Longitudinal research. This is continuous long-term study of an area or site.
9. Team research.
10. Case studies

Not all of these techniques are used by ethnographers, but interviews and participant observation are the most widely used

Photo of Bronisław Malinowski.

Malinowski articulated the practice of participant observation and ethnography with his book Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922). It was later revealed in his posthumous diaries that he himself had not followed his own innovative technique. He made up many of his reports and kept himself separated from the people he studied. His student E. E. Evans-Pritchard actually took his teacher's practice to heart in The Nuer (1940). This text became a model for ethnography to come.

Political Systems - Boxer Muhammad Ali & Comedian George Carlin resist the Big Men

This segment of a 2007 ESPN documentary video about Muhammad Ali brings the issues in Chap 7 of the Kottak into the present.

"Ali's 65" debuts Jan. 3, 2007 on ESPN
Ali's 65, produced by Televersemedia, a Stamford, Connecticut production company, is a one-hour special that will explore the impact and true meaning of Muhammad Ali's life, exploring why there had never been an athlete like Ali before and why there will likely never be anyone like him again. Ali's 65 captures never before told stories of "The Greatest" from Spike Lee, George Foreman, Lennox Lewis, Ali's brother Rahman Ali, and in his final interview, Ed Bradley. For more information, please visit www.televersemedia.com

The 2:30 section shared a great video remix of a George Carlin's HBO Special called 'This Life is Worth Losing'.



Wikipedia's biography of Carlin states:

Grammy-winning American stand-up comedian, actor, and author.

Carlin is especially noted for his political and black humor and his observations on language, psychology, and religion along with many taboo subjects. In fact, Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5-4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's right to regulate Carlin's act on the public airwaves.

A good cultural anthropologist, an ethnographer who does their job well, always does a "background check" so to speak, on things they present publicly. I request we all be good ethnographers and do our scholarly homework on anything we present to the class and briefly contextualize the facts (For instance, "This is a YouTube video remix of comedian George Carlin, known for his black humor, speaking about the "Big Men" of corporate America"....etc.)

Here is the remix of a segment from his HBO special shown with graphics signifying all the corporate brands of the "owners of America" -- the BIG MEN. Great example of how the polities described in the chapter are present in our state polity.

The group in the 2:30 section will post their videos soon. Prof. G