Ethnographic writing, poetics, and sensory sensemaking
“There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all” ~ Oscar Wilde Recently I came to realise…
Tag: Uncategorized
A very short history of ayahuasca expansion and its relevance to social science
“Drugs are like chameleons. They take on the characteristics of the culture they are in” Des Tramacchi. The mercurial psychoactive effects of ayahuasca seemingly allow the substance to ac…
Europe is the main and permanent loser in this world crisis
Europe is likely to be the main and permanent loser in the current world crisis. It is once again the focus of world attention; and its current plight…
Claude Lévi-Strauss: anthropologist or shaman?
If we are led to believe that what takes place in our mind is something not substantially or fundamentally different from the basic phenomena of life itself,…
Who Needs an Ethnographer?
Originally posted on In a Merry Hour: Caitlin E McDonald: I recently found myself lamenting the lack of ethnography in my professional life with a new acquaintance. Don’t…
Anthropology & design
“Anthropology provides a kind of thick description that contextualises design processes and products, and design offers anthropology creative means of exploring and representing what it means to…
From Sleep, to Dreams, to Altered States
Hey Guys, Tune in tomorrow at 1 pm Eastern Standard Time for the next episode of This Anthropological Life! In the last two episodes we went from the…
Fare protest!
On December 20th of last year, I made the attached recording at a subway station in Mexico City. On it, the normal voices of travelers resound a bit…
Mobility and body
Examining movement in and through the cityscape of Kolkata, the research deals with the sensory perceptions of mobility. The approach extends on recent contributions to urban anthropology and…
Mobile Health in Context
Mobile Health in Context: How Information is Woven Into Our Lives @SusannahFox @PewResearch Susannah Fox from Pew Review Research put together an excellent presentation of the latest…
Performing the Sound Ethnography Project, Concord
I was recently invited to curate and perform the Sound Ethnography Project at Concord, an artist-run gallery and trans-disciplinary collective in Los Angeles, for the opening of their…
full text online publications coming soon
I have started putting up papers, book reviews and some book chapters on http://uq.academia.edu/GerhardHoffstaedter, but not everyone is on the one platform, so I’ll build a repository for…
The Bengal Studies panel
Panel proposal for the Bengal studies panel entered. We will see if it gets accepted! The Bengal studies panel has been a recurrent phenomenon at the EASAS /…
AARON SWARTZ. GUERILLA OPEN ACCESS MANIFESTO
By Aaron Swartz. July 2008. Reposted to honor his goals, to remember him, and to motivate change in the justice system that failed him. His suicide is…
Thesis Defended. Issue #2: Public Anthropology
A few weeks have gone by, flowers have bloomed, the snow is gone, and I’m far less agitated then I was immediately after the thesis defence experience. In…
Thesis defended. Issue #1:representing anthropology & being cynical.
How was it? Brutal [even if it was accepted with minor revisions!] !!! I’ll do my best to summarise the experience, and issues raised, over the next few…
Open Access – Books & Journals
[This post is a reply to a reader’s question, “What about books?”] Discussions related to Open Access often focus on journals, but as one thesis reader has asked…
Making anthropology accessible online (some conclusions)
Another thesis version has been submitted and this project is finally coming to a long drawn out close. In the end I’ve created a rather ugly beast. It’s…
Concentration and the Internet
A few tips to quickly share. I am easily distracted, and easily inspired. As a result I’ll be in the middle of a thesis paragraph when I’ll jump…