The relationship between Western science (scientists, government officials, etc.) and Aboriginal knowledge has often been rocky, with Westerners often only acknowledging the value of local indigenous …
The Canadian government’s program of cultural genocide in residential schools included the erasure of aboriginal languages. In Undoing Linguicide (an hour long audio documentary for CBC Radio’s Ideas…
I talked to a lot of middle-class recreational drug users for my research. None of them had any idea when they were younger that they’d end up dropping…
There’s a term that comes up pretty frequently when talking about electronic music events. A search within my interviews (excepts from which are quoted here) and field notes…
Describing, in words, what it’s like to be at a rave is one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do for my research. How can one…
Read Part One Read Part Two Download the complete paper Importing Empire, Exporting Capital: Canadian Universities as Retail Outlets for US Anthropology The “Americanist tradition” has been rep…
Here is the call for papers for the best annual food studies conference in North America with the most confusing name. This is the annual joint meeting of…
Caption: Artemisia annua which yields an anti-malarial drug, source: Wikipedia Nobel Prize catalyzes controversy in China The New York Times reported on reactions in China about…
NOTE: I will not be discussing my regular research topic (drug use) in this post, out of respect to the organizers of Harvest. All names have been changed.…
Budka, P. 2015. From marginalization to self-determined participation: Indigenous digital infrastructures and technology appropriation in Northwestern Ontario’s remote communities. Journal des a…
Budka, P. 2015. Indigenous audio-visual media production and broadcasting – Canadian Examples. Paper at “Eleventh Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies”, Vienna, Austria: University of Vienna,…
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…
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…
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…
Most of what I knew about psytrance (psychedelic trance) raves before I actually went to one came from this article in Vice: Psytrance really is a counter-culture in…
Budka, P. 2015. Indigene Modernität durch digitale Medientechnologien? Infrastrukturentwicklung, Technologieaneignung und soziokulturelle Praktiken im Nordwestlichen Ontario, Kanada. Vortrag im Colloq…
The following is a selection of some of the more entertaining notes from my first official field research night. (The last post was a preliminary getting-a-feel-for-things outing.) I…
Budka, P. 2015. Review of Unmasking deep democracy: An anthropology of indigenous media in Canada, by S. B. Hafsteinsson. Aarhus: Intervention Press, 2013. Social Anthropology, 23/2: 240-242. In…
Disenchantment and British politics Emma Crewe, social anthropologist and research associate at SOAS, the University of London, published an op-ed in the Times Higher Education (U.K.) on how…
When it was still called the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Al-Jamahiriya al-arabiya al-Libiya al-sha’abiya al-ishtirakiya), and Col. Muammar Gaddafi was still the de facto head of state,…
Review essay, Part 2 (see Part 1) Referring to the process by which he studied Cuban democracy, August explicitly refers to it as “ethnographic research” (p. xiii). This…
Budka, P. 2014. Indigenous futures and digital infrastructures: How First Nation communities connect themselves in Northwestern Ontario. Paper at “13th Biennial Conference of the European Association …
Molyneaux, H., O’Donnell, S., Kakekaspan, C., Walmark, B., Budka, P., Gibson, K. 2014. Social media in remote First Nation communities. Canadian Journal of Communication, 39(2): 275-288. Abstract Comm…