Drugs are… good? No, that can’t be right. Can it?
Like most academics, I’m obsessive. I spend a lot of my free time doing searches for new research on recreational drug use. I do this partly because there’s…
Tag: ethnography
Announcing the 100 Ethnographies Project
About 20 years ago, I attended some kind of workshop or gathering for postgraduate anthropology students at the Australian National University, where I was a PhD student in…
Embracing Impostor Syndrome
image source It seems a fair amount of academics, especially women, suffer from impostor syndrome, “a constant fear of being discovered to be a fraud and a charlatan.”…
Indispensability of medical anthropology
Medical anthropology, although considered a subcategory in anthropology, has been making contributions to medicine and public health since the development of anthropology itself. The fact that anthrop…
CFA: Theorising Media and Conflict workshop, Vienna, 23-24 Oct 2015
A Media Anthropology Network event European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology University of Vienna, Austria 23-24 October 2015 ** Financial …
In Search of Hope #HumanRights
On April 30 and May 1, 2015 fourteen anthropologists from seven countries and thirteen universities and research institutions came together on the campus of McGill University to attend…
Asking Gramsci’s question #crisis
Some object to the word ‘crisis’. However, it is useful for describing the sense that what seemed to be an understandable present and a plausible future have become…
Ropa americana online: the local market for used clothing
A Facebook announcement from an online shop in northern Chile announces “Jackets, Vests, and Sweatshirts” Ebay, Etsy, Alibaba, and Taobao have changed the way many people around the…
“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…
Buses, Metros, Shoes & Confusing Journeys #Fieldnotes
This week we continue our thread on fieldnotes via four posts that all in their own way elaborate this thread’s overarching theme: journey. As is familiar to all…
Without Footnotes: Writing Creative Ethnography
Without Footnotes: Writing Creative Ethnography: literary-ethnography: This is a podcast from a panel session sponsored by the Society for Applied Anthropology at the 2009 American Anthropological Asso…
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…
VISUAL TURN IV: People and Stuff– A Conversation with Keith M. Murphy (2/2)
In a previous post, I described the process of an ‘Ethnocharrette’ – essentially a strategy that incorporates aspects of design methodology into anthropological practice. As part of a…
VISUAL TURN III: Anthropology of/by Design — An Interview with Keith M. Murphy
Encounters with art and design by an anthropologist and curious non-expert in visual culture. Since starting to work alongside an artist and a designer, I’ve become more aware…
Visual Turn II: Teaching to Take Stock
Encounters with art and design by an anthropologist and curious non-expert in visual culture. Earlier this year I was reading the Internet and came across Duke University Press’…
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…
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…
On real problems
I came across a confrontational moment in one of my interview transcripts. We had been talking about philosophers’ metanarratives about “truth.” But my interlocutor found my question…
Psytrance, a world unto itself
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…