Inorganic life and ayahuasca plant spirits
As icons of the difference between nature and culture, there is arguably nothing more opposite than plant life and computers. Such is common sense and is based upon key…
Tag: Uncategorized
Begegnung von Generationen
In diesem Jahr wird das Institut für Ethnologie in Leipzig 100 Jahre alt. Zu diesem Anlass haben aktuelle Studierende ihre VorgängerInnen befragt. Wie war es in den 1970er…
From a Pacific – Turtle Island Muliwai
By Hinemoana of Turtle Island: Liza Keanuenueokalani Williams, Lani Teves, Fuifuilupe Niumetolu, Maile Arvin, Kēhaulani Vaughn, and Natalee Kēhaulani Bauer We are a group of Pacific Islander women, ac…
The so-called language gap
Thirty million words. That sounds precise….enormous….impressive. That is the estimate by some scholars of the difference in words heard by disadvantaged kids in comparison to kids with advantages….
Mazurka Klandestina
Mazurka Klandestina beschreibt eine Graswurzelbewegung, die das Tanzen zurück auf die Straßen und Plätze der Städte bringt. Ausgehend von Italien treffen sich Menschen informell zur einfachen Freude a…
Physicists, alchemists, and ayahuasca shamans: A study of grammar and the body
Are there any common denominators that may underlie the practices of leading physicists and scientists, Renaissance alchemists, and indigenous Amazonian ayahuasca healers? There are obviously a myriad…
Foaming at the Mouth: World Cup, Ritual and Behaviour Change
Shared feelings and heavily ritualised behaviour commonly define football fans around the world. For decades anthropologists and sociologists have documented beautifully these aspects of fandom. And I…
The Culture Consultant: The Importance of business anthropology – 1/2
“Corporations live or die by their connection to culture”. This quote by the anthropologist and author Grant McCracken brings to the forefront the importance of culture within the…
From the Amazon to Australia: A Dumontian analysis of ayahuasca healing
The psychoactive beverage ayahuasca is used differently in Australia compared to in its homeland of indigenous Amazonia. The simplicity of this statement is haunted by an immense complexity. The…
Insects of healing and malady in Australian ayahuasca visions
Yesterday I took my copy of William James’ Varieties off the shelf to read more about his notion of radical empiricism and shortly after placing it on…
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…
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 /…