“Drugs are bad,” he said, sipping his beer: Legality vs. social acceptability
I’ve found it highly interesting to hear drug users trash talk other drugs, even while they’re high on their own preferred substance. Gina* thinks that alcohol is the…
Tag: anthropology
Change jobs, return to research or enrol in further higher ed?
You get to a point in your life where you start to reflect on your skill set and your current responsibilities and you wonder whether these match up…
Anthropoliteia and the Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR)
Two bits of news concerning both Anthropoliteia and the journal Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR): First, we’re all so excited that our own William Garriot, along with friend-of-A…
STI, HIV, AIDS, TB, conferences of this month
The Joint World STI & HIV & ASHM Congress starts on Sunday 13 September 2015 at the Brisbance Convention Centre! That’s today (in local time)!!! It is the first time the International So…
Sharing anthropological discoveries on social media: ‘marketing’ or ‘interactive learning’?
Social media and engaging anthropology? (Photo: Pabak Sarkar CC BY 2.0) Over the last year, people have often asked us questions like “Surely you will market your project using social…
Humans of The Willamette Valley: A Celebration of Life
Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit Portland, Oregon for the very first time and take an unexpected “side trip” about 90 minutes north to a…
A stubborn conundrum
Professor Margaret Lock has published an exhaustive ethnography of Alzheimer disease research in her latest book, The Alzheimer Conundrum. I recently reviewed this book for The Australian Journal of…
A photo fell out of a book…
My book group (I say with inner pleasure at finally belonging to one) usually decide on books to read for the coming months by asking for suggestions from…
Black American Men and Brazilian Women
Any attempt to understand black American men and their relationships with Brazilian women must first consider cultural characteristics and the significance of social values. Now, we are…
Geeks Gone D.I.Y.: A Quick Guide to Zines
By Marissa Lorusso In many societies, the power of the written word is unequally distributed: access to literacy and literature, along with editing, publishing, and distribution don’t always…
Writing, writing, writing
Writing looms large in my life now. I’m getting better at it than I was. I like short form [140 characters] but adore longer form, like blogs. And…
Second session of digital ethnography reading group
by Will Balmford Research assistant Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC) School of Media and Communication RMIT University Melbourne, Australia After a successful first session of the Digital Et…
Job opportunity: Can you help the world discover our findings?
Can you help us build our dissemination materials? (photo by MF) As part of our project’s ambitious dissemination plans we are currently seeking to recruit a content manager to assist…
Playing Along: Fieldwork, Emotional Labor and Self-Care
By Emma Louise Backe For any practicing or aspiring anthropologist, fieldwork is the defining, almost qualifying practice of the discipline. As an undergraduate studying sociocultural anthropology, we…
Using storytelling to build online courses
The project team filming a video for our online course Recently we have been filming a new online course on the anthropology of social media that will be available…
Notes on the first digital ethnography reading session
by Allister Hill PhD candidate Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC) RMIT University, Melbourne Last week, on 9 July 2015, the Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC) ran its first…
A state of trance: Inner peace rising from chaos
The experience of getting inside Sound Academy for Armin van Buuren was the low point of the night. After an evening of rain and dancing at the electronic…
“…the cultural elements of folktales help both bridge common ground between cultures and bring…”
“…the cultural elements of folktales help both bridge common ground between cultures and bring out cultural differences – developing cultural awareness that is essential if we are to…
Teenage views on Culture (Nordplus closing interviews, 2013)
“Learning Skills for Sustainable Development” Date: 26th – 29th November, 2013 Venue: Riga State Gymnasium Nr. 2 Time for opening: on 26th November at 16.00 Closing: on 29th…
If you could recommend 4 to 10 texts for people to read in regards to gender and social theory, which would you suggest?
Toward a Decolonial Feminism by Maria Lugones Undoing Gender by Judith Butler History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
Anthropology Blogging 101: Anthropologizing
By Amy Santee This post is part of the Anthropology Blogging 101 series. I started Anthropologizing in 2011 after I finished grad school at The University of Memphis. The…
A happy ending for 30,000 mollyed-out kids running around Toronto.
My heart dropped into my stomach when I first saw the announcement. Fireworks and junk during Zedd’s finale. “You’re welcome for this 3-second photo op,” thought the cleanup…
Fiji Fieldschool press release
Photo by Suhad Hussain. 2015 Macquarie University students in the unit, Anth 225 ‘Field school in anthropology: Fiji,’ are currently on Beqa Island in Fiji where they are…
Thinking About Liminality in Tahrir Square
I have a chapter on the Egyptian revolution in this new book. As I struggled to make sense of the dramatic changes in Egypt from January 2011 forward,…