MetaFilter posts tagged with Anthropology

A Long, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Free Software

Monday, stony Monday — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:00:07 -0800

In Two Bits (full-book in html) , Christopher M. Kelty investigates the history and cultural significance of Free Software, revealing the people and practices that have transformed not only software, but also music, film, science, and education. The author encourage his readers to modulate the book. Sadly, Two Bits has not been endorsed by Richard Stallman. There have been reviews, notably in MIT's Technology Review and Inside Higher Ed. It also has provoked interesting reactions from readers, including this story about the early Korean Internet, and this (title-inspiring) comment from Thomas Lord. [via LtU]

Dell Hymes, 1927-2009

fourcheesemac — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:49:31 -0800

Dell Hymes, a giant of sociolinguistic theory, has died. "He didn't have much patience for wasting your time in academic endeavors that wouldn't have a direct relevance for the world and for righting some of the inequalities in the world," [Dr. Nancy] Hornberger said. Or as Dr. Hymes himself put it, describing his approach to anthropology: "I am always interested in combating elitism and narrowness. . . . The justification for the existence of anthropology is to find out about the world, not produce third-rate philosophers." Explore In Vain I Tried To Tell You on Google Books. Prof. Hymes' Web Page at the University of Virginia Jason Baird Jackson's thoughts on Prof. Hymes' passing. And we lost another major figure in the history of Native American Studies recently as well, at nearly the same age. Karl Kroeber, 1926-2009.

I say potato, you say...potato!

Gyan — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:46:09 -0800

Would it be inherently evil if there were not 6,000 spoken languages but one?

Ardipithecus: We Meet At Last

HumanComplex — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:45:11 -0800

Ardipithecus: We Meet At Last. (Single Link Carl Zimmer)

Masters of Illusion: The Great Management Consultancy Swindle

Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:15:34 -0800

"The most important of the all-too-human functions of consultants is to sanctify and communicate opinion. Like ministers of information, consultants condense the message, smooth out the dissonances, unify the rhetoric, and then repeat and amplify it ad nauseam through the client's rank and file. The chief message to be communicated is that you will be expected to work much harder than you ever have before and your chances of losing your job are infinitely greater than you ever imagined."

If you've ever known a management consultant, this explains why they always seem to have that "outrageously unjustified level of self-confidence." A fascinating insider's look into the anthropology of business consulting -- Masters of Illusion: The Great Management Consultancy Swindle

Um, Mike, I think my dogs can do that

device55 — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:18:12 -0800

As an evolutionary anthropologist, I find it is important to consider the evolution of other speci...OMG PUPPIES Photos! Video! who's a good boy?

no h?

kliuless — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 05:54:55 -0800

Twilight of the Neandertals - "Some 28,000 years ago in what is now the British territory of Gibraltar, a group of Neandertals eked out a living along the rocky Mediterranean coast. They were quite possibly the last of their kind [meanwhile] around 30,000 years ago, the number of modern humans who lived to be old enough to be grandparents began to skyrocket." (via) BONUS -Logarithmic timeline of the universe -Timeline of knowledge-representation -Homo sapiens to 10,000 BC -The Economic History of the Entire World -Cruel Windfall: How Wars, Plagues, and Urban Disease Propelled Europe's Rise to Riches -Slouching Towards Utopia: Twentieth Century Economic History

BA holders, rejoice.

greatgefilte — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:18:31 -0800

What can you with an anthropology degree? Bust an illegal organ transplant ring, apparently. Meet Nancy Scheper-Hughes, a professor of medical anthropology at Berkeley who helped bust Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum, the kidney broker implicated in the huge New Jersey sting. Listen to an interview with Brian Lehrer.

"....Because it is bitter, and because it is my heart."

orthogonality — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:26:04 -0800

From these various anthropological approaches, a basic dichotomy has emerged between two types of societies from very different ecosystems: societies born in rain forests and those that thrive in deserts.... Begin with religious beliefs. A striking proportion of rain forest dwellers are polytheistic, worshipping an array of spirits and gods.... But desert dwellers... are usually monotheistic. Of course, despite allegiances to a single deity, other supernatural beings may be involved, like angels and djinns and Satan. But the hierarchy is notable, with minor deities subservient to the Omnipotent One. This division makes ecological sense.... Desert societies, with their far-flung members tending goats and camels, are classic spawning grounds for warrior classes and the accessories of militarism.... Rain forest cultures also are less likely to harbor beliefs about the inferiority of women; you won’t be likely to find rain forest men giving thanks in prayer that they were not created female, as is the case in at least one notable desert-derived religion.... (Previously, previously, previously)

The quick and the dead

stbalbach — Sun, 17 May 2009 14:31:39 -0800

Recent research has shown Neanderthals were sophisticated and fearless hunters, successfully killing a large variety of dangerous game. But as far as humans were concerned, Neanderthals may have possibly been tasty main courses themselves, perhaps one reason for their, uh, "disappearance". Yet humans didn't always sit atop the food pyramid - the oldest human hair has been discovered - inside fossilized 200,000 year old hyena dung.

Online archaeology and anthropology film from Penn

Rumple — Sun, 03 May 2009 13:28:19 -0800

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has put 675 reels of archival 16 mm film online via the Internet Archive. Most of the film is unedited, and stems either from Museum research, or was donated by interested amateurs. Much of it is silent, reflecting the technology of the day. One highlight are the four surviving reels of the long-running TV show 'What in the World" (look for the episode starring Vincent Price), but the archive is full of other hidden gems, such as the 1950s archaeological expedition to Tikal, a 1940 film "A 1000 Mile Road Trip Across America", and Glimpses of Life Among the Catawba and Cherokee Indians of the Carolinas (1927). The films are downloadable in various formats, including MPEG2, Ogg Video, and 512Kb MPEG4. Happy browsing! via.

Natives Telling Stories

CheeseDigestsAll — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:00:59 -0800

Last year, best-selling biologist Jared Diamond (prev) published an article in the New Yorker describing a cycle of revenge in Papua New Guinea, contrasting the conflicting human needs for vengeance and for justice. (Mefi discussion). Now, the subjects of Diamond's article are seeking their own revenge, suing the publishers for $10 million, claiming Diamond's story amounts to false accusations of serious criminal activity, including murder. Behind the lawsuit is a lengthy investigation by the Art Science Research Laboratory, a media criticism organization founded by Rhonda Roland Shearer. The ASRL investigation points to several significant errors attributable to Diamond and a lack of serious fact-checking by the New Yorker. It appears that Diamond may have relied on a single source, who may have been more of a raconteur than historian, and his reputation as a science writer will surely suffer as a result. Of course, the larger question of verifying anthropological studies remains. As a New Guinean notes, "When foreigners come to our culture, we tell stories as entertainment."

Animal behaviour: Grape expectations

kliuless — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 07:10:32 -0800

Revealing how we are just a bunch of monkeys... (via) Franz de Waals and Sarah Brosnan

...trained brown capuchin monkeys to give them pebbles in exchange for cucumbers. Almost overnight, a capuchin economy developed, with hungry monkeys harvesting small stones. But the marketplace was disrupted when the scientists got mischievous: instead of giving every monkey a cucumber in exchange for pebbles, they started giving some monkeys a tasty grape instead. (Monkeys prefer grapes to cucumbers.) After witnessing this injustice, the monkeys earning cucumbers went on strike. Some started throwing their cucumbers at the scientists; the vast majority just stopped collecting pebbles. The capuchin economy ground to a halt. The monkeys were willing to forfeit cheap food simply to register their anger at the arbitrary pay scale.

in other words, it could be up to our kids to replenish our trust networks... BONUS GRAPES

How Do We Know What We Know?

netbros — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:18:30 -0800

For most of us, science arrives in our lives packaged neatly as fact. But how did it get that way? Science is an active process of observation and investigation. Evidence: How Do We Know What We Know? [HTML version, Flash version also available] examines that process, revealing the ways in which ideas and information become knowledge and understanding. In this case study in human origins, the folks from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology explore how scientific evidence is being used to shape our current understanding of ourselves: What makes us human—and how did we get this way?

Anthropology Goes to War, and Bad Things Happen

fourcheesemac — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:36:26 -0800

Paula Loyd, a 36 year old anthropologist and US Army reservist, is the third social scientist to be killed within the last 8 months while working for the US Army's controversial Human Terrain System project in Afghanistan. The circumstances of her death were gruesome. Her death was then brutally avenged by a fellow HTS worker and military contractor, Don Ayala, now awaiting trial for murder. HTS, has been controversial from the start (NY Times). The American Anthropological Association has opposed the project in no uncertain terms, recognizing a long history of anthropologists' complicity with military and colonial power. Loyd herself had been critical of the role of US military contractors in Afghanistan (YouTube video, 2006).

Best of Anthro 2008

homunculus — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 13:32:15 -0800

Neuroanthropology's Best of Anthropology Blogging 2008. [Via]

Lévi-Strauss at 100

fourcheesemac — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 15:38:14 -0800

Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss turned 100 on Friday. NPR's Frank Browning offers an appreciation of his work (audio). Anthropologist Dan Sperber (at OpenDemocracy) offers a succinct appraisal of his influence. Patrick Wilcken (TLS) writes about "the century of Claude Lévi-Strauss." Need to know the basics? Claude Lévi-Strauss (Wikipedia). Here are some Books by CLS. (Google Books search). There's no quick way to summarize a career that taught us whole new ways of understanding the place of mind in culture, the language-like qualities of myth and kinship, or the nature of cross-cultural inquiry and understanding. But here's some excerpts from his 1958 book Structural Anthropology, which was personally influential for me.

How We Evolve

homunculus — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:16:29 -0800

How We Evolve: "A growing number of scientists argue that human culture itself has become the foremost agent of biological change, making us — for the past 10,000 years or so — the inadvertent architects of our own future selves." Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution (previously). International HapMap Project (previously). The Genographic Project (previously).

audio memories of the world

nickyskye — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:25:12 -0800

Sound glimpses into the past. The Phonogrammarchiv was founded in 1899 and is the oldest audiovisual research archive in the world. There are some fascinating sound samples listenable online from the Historical Collections-1899 to 1950, including: The First Expeditions 1901 to Croatia, Brazil and the Isle of Lesbos; Zulu Recordings 1908; Papua New Guinea (1904-1909) and some lovely recordings of old Musical Boxes from Vienna and Prague. The Austrian Audiovisual Research Archive For the sound samples of the musical boxes, click on the images.

John Curran posts Great Diagrams in Anthropology, Linguistics, and Social Theory

puckish — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:39:57 -0800

Who said structuralism was dead? John Curran posts Great Diagrams in Anthropology, Linguistics, and Social Theory - an illustrated assortment of sociology's greatest hits, arranged neatly for your viewing pleasure.

An anthropological introduction to YouTube

PeterMcDermott — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:34:09 -0800

Anthropologists in the digital domain tend to be a day late and a dollar short as far as us early adopters are concerned, but Michael Wesch managed to capture the popular imagination with his YouTube video, The Machine is Us/ing Us. He recently gave a presentation to the Library of Congress titled An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube in which he talks about the best of the web (not to be confused with The Best of The Web.)

The Changing Face of the Inner City

digaman — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:43:58 -0800

Are you a young middle-class creative type (probably white) who has chosen to live in an urban neighborhood that your parents would have shunned? Have the families that formerly lived in your neighborhood (probably not white) been pushed out by soaring rents and real-estate prices to the city fringes or suburbs? The New Republic on demographic inversion.

Fowler Museum of Cultural History

Kattullus — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:36:23 -0800

The UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History has an extensive, searchable online collection. It focuse on material art and household items and has objects from all over the world. The website can be browsed either by geographic orgin: Africa, Asia, North and Central America, Pacific, South America, or through its two exhibits, Intersections: World Arts, Local Lives and Fowler in Focus. Some of my favorite objects (but really, everything is entrancing) are The Blind Scholar (a Taiwanese handpuppet), Chikunga (a Zambian mask) and a stirrup spout bottle which looks like a puma eating a piglet (Peruvian). All items have accompanying descriptions and some have short texts or audioguides with further information.

The Ethnosphere

homunculus — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 16:50:08 -0800

"Cultures at the far edge of the world" (YT) and "The worldwide web of belief and ritual" (YT). Two TED talks by anthropologist and explorer Wade Davis (previously) on the diversity of the world's indigenous cultures and their beliefs, and the richness of the "Ethnosphere," which he describes as "the sum total of all thoughts and dreams, myths, ideas, inspirations, intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness." [Via Mind Hacks]

"They are almost certain not to understand what the plane is -- perhaps a spirit or a large bird."

Rhaomi — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:18:12 -0800

"Skin painted bright red, heads partially shaved, arrows drawn back in the longbows and aimed square at the aircraft buzzing overhead. The gesture is unmistakable: Stay Away. The apparent aggression shown by these people is quite understandable, for they are members of one of Earth's last uncontacted tribes." The unnamed tribe is just one of dozens around the world (though most are located primarily in the depths of the Amazon basin). The discovery comes at a time of increased pressure on these isolated cultures to surrender their lands and resources to loggers and oil drillers, as well as the diseases and other troubles they carry. And while advocacy groups like Survival International campaign to prevent damaging encounters -- ranging from deforestation and urban encroachment to radical "human safari" ecotours -- even the most well-intentioned first contacts can result in violence and death. Images: One, Two, Three More news reports Previous thread discussing a South American first contact For the Wikiholics: Uncontacted peoples, First contact (anthropology), Cargo cult, and Outside Context Problem