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.

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

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

1. the social constructed nature of religion as well as
2. 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?

Oral Presentations Makeover

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

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.

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

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.

Politics: Influence and Power

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!

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/
  

NEW BLOG FEATURES & USES FOR GROUP PRESENTATIONS

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:

• Journeyman Pictures
• Broadcaster PBS
• AlJazeeraEnglishTV

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.

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.

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

TED TALK: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen

Thursday September 27th, in our Introduction to Cultural Anthro at Baruch College, we watched a TED TALK video (Technology Entertainment and Design) of Hans Gosling Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen.

In the video he uses the acronym "OECD" that stands for:
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an international organization of those developed countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and a free market economy. For more see, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OECD. Here's the video for those who missed class Thursday.


After the 4:05 section, one student asked a great question, which went over my head at the time. Gosling is debunking third-world myths but after viewing the video, the student said, they are still considered third-world myths after viewing the video. Gosling doesn't ask us to stop using "third world". I explained his intention but I had an epiphany about his question just after the student left class. We think we are trying to change things (change "third-world" to ???). But this video is about attacking people's PERCEPTIONS. Perceptions are the front-line of sustaining "social constructs" and this is why the study of cultural anthropology can be so meaningful with its emic and etic perspectives on the so-called Third World or on those who led us to using those terms in the first place (precursors to OECD??).

What do you think is the power of the video? What does it attack in your own preconceptions of the world not just the "third world"?