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…
Tag: ethnography
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…
New book: Before Boas – The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German Enlightenment
I would like to announce a newly published book exploring why the cradle of our discipline was to be found in ethnographic research in the Russian Arctic. The…
Three! (anthro-po-etry)
100 words I stood on the edge of the square… a lot of strangers were there… I heard the echos of their grey talking about the weather… You…
Committing Crimes during Fieldwork: Ethics, Ethnography, and “On The Run”
At this point the debate about Alice Goffman’s book On The Run looks something like this: Goffman writes a successful ethnography. Journalists are peeved that Goffman followed social science …
Personal and public aesthetics: What I learned from my own visceral reactions in the field
Photo by Nell Hayes At first, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but over the first several months in my fieldsite in northern Chile I…
It’s not just about Chinese migrant workers
Chinese female migrant workers working in a local reflective vest workshop. Photo by Xinyuan Wang A question always strikes me as I write up ethnography and prepare for…
“I’m crazy for the moment.” A quest for rituals #1
„-T.: OMG! Doherty claims he’s clean. That’s not Doherty anymore. ”Sex, Drugs and rock’n’roll” prince of the 21th (sic) century is now dead to me. – T. added:…
Social media and new rewards in learning
Photo by Elisabetta Costa Education has become an important topic of investigation in our comparative research. Last May we also explored and presented our findings in a…
Creating Methods that Speak Across Disciplines in Medical Anthropology by Emily Mendenhall
María and I finished our three hours together with a blood spot and a hug. It was an extra long hug, and I couldn’t be sure if it…
Field Notes: This data collection is interfering with my dancing.
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…
After knocking: Picturing youth itineraries
Look at me and explain „who do you want to be in ten years?”. „I want to be a famous professor, living abroad. I want to publish a…
Eat, sleep, anth, repeat: It begins
Sunglasses in the darkness. White shorts, no shirt. Perspiration shining on his skin in the wild, flashing lights. A familiar-looking backpack on his shoulders, strapped over his muscular…
“There is no world.” The troubled imagination of a hipster band
In 2013 I moved to Riga, Latvia for an entire year to teach and proceed in a self-constructed ethnographic project. At times dreams came true, yes, they did,…
‘Mellencamp’s classroom tape’
John Mellencamp is one of my favorite rock singers. I find it fascinating how he depicts urban life. It is well-known that in his songs he delivers sharp…
Anthropology Blogging 101: Anthropology Attacks!
by Dick Powis This post is part of the Anthropology Blogging 101 series. Before I joined Savage Minds (SM), I had a blog called “Anthropology Attacks!” (AA; complete…
Tristes Tropiques: Revisited
When I first encountered Lévi-Strauss in graduate school, I thought the title of his monumental work sounded strange. At that time, I spoke absolutely no Portuguese but…
The Sexual Lives of Others
The sexual lives of others. It may seem a new and tantalizing topic for an ethnography, yet this particular genre has a long history in anthropology. In the…
literary-ethnography: A good visual for talking about…
literary-ethnography: A good visual for talking about ethnographic methods. This certainly would have been useful for my Thesis, although we did have very good guidance at the University…
Pixels and Politics: Representation in Video Games
By Christine Tomlinson To read Tom Boellstorff’s introduction to this book reviews series, head over to The Book Review as Conversation. T. L. Taylor. 2006. Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online…
Anthropological Horizons: An Interview with Series Editor Michael Lambek
In addition to all of the work we do in the Higher Education Division of University of Toronto Press to publish materials for undergraduate anthropology students—especially the Teaching…
Open Access Articles from the American Anthropological Association
The AAA has decided to feature the “most-discussed” articles (as measured by Altmetrics) from Anthrosource by making them temporarily open-access. Among these are several articles that mi…
50 major public research organisations in Europe adopt four new common principles on Open Access Publisher Services
Originally posted on News Service: In a press release published yesterday, 50 Science Europe members agreed on 4 new common principles expected for publisher members when providing payments/subsidies…
From a. to A.
Introduction I would love telling tales from the city where the city served as a powerful stage for the different characters like in James Joyce’s ”Dubliners”. The city…