May 21, 2008
Introducing Native Anthropologist
My name is Olumide Abimbola. I am a Nigerian PhD candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany. I have an MA in Development Studies from the Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden.
My research is on informal transborder trade in used clothing between the Republic of Bénin and Nigeria. Theoretically, I am interested in the Sociology of Association or Actor-Network Theory. I am also interested in New Institutional Economics and the ways institutions affect trade and economic behavior. There are of course others that I cannot think of at the moment. I will write about them as they arise.
I have just created a new blog - Native Anthropologist - here on Anthroblogs.
The blog is going to be about general anthropological issues that I find interesting. At the moment I am on fieldwork in the used clothing market in Cotonou, around the border area between Benin and Nigeria, and at the retail markets in Lagos, Nigeria. Actually, I am typing this message at the market, in front of 'my' shop. So, I might end up talking about my fieldwork and research on the blog.
Yea, that is all for the moment. See you at www.anthroblogs.org/nativeanthropologist!
Posted by olumideabimbola at 06:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 22, 2008
Greetings Everyone
I'm a new member to this community. I'm James Mullooly and I teach anthropology at Fresno State. I have a few blogs of my own at theanthrogeek.wordpress.com.
Posted by theanthrogeek at 12:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 07, 2007
The AAA has a blog...
...found here.
The auspicious inaugural post went straight to work, reporting on the Executive Committee's Statement on the Human Terrain System (i.e., anthropologist spies/advisers on the ground in Iraq). The permalink to the post is here; the Statement is found here.
Welcome to the blogosphere, AAA and especially one technology-averse Board member I happen to know well!
Posted by johnn at 01:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 19, 2007
Anthropologists at War
It's worth taking a look at the growing collection of entries at the Savage Minds blog under the category Anthropology at War.
Posted by johnn at 09:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 30, 2007
Download the SfAA podcasts now, they will be taken down in 2 days!!
(X-posted at SfAApodcasts.net)
I wanted to remind everyone that the SfAA podcasts from the 67th Annual Meeting of the SfAA will be taken down from this website on August 1, 2007. To this end, make sure you download the podcasts that you want before then. Also, if you know someone that might be interested in any of the recordings- make sure you tell them about the website soon so that they will have the opportunity to download the podcasts before then too. After August 1 there will be more frequent updates, calls for help, and calls for participation on this site, so please continue to subscribe to this site's RSS feed or email updates of new posts so that you don't miss out! If you've had thoughts/comments/complaints/etc. that you haven't submitted, now would be a great time to do that too so that they can be considered when we plan for next year!
Why are the podcasts being taken down you ask?
What an excellent question! The decision to make the files available for a few months was mainly based on two factors. Tom May and I picked a date to remove the files after hearing some participants concerns of having the files available long-term. Also, we are storing the files on a file server at the University of North Texas this year. The Center for Distributed Learning at UNT was not able to guarantee free server space past the date.
Going forward, I believe that we (still looking for volunteers!) will keep the files up either permanently or for a longer period of time. This will all depend on how much feedback and communication we receive from participants on the matter. The server space for next year has been taken care of, so that will no longer be a factor.
Link to SfAApodcasts.net
Posted by Jen at 06:50 AM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2007
Podcasts of a few sessions at the SfAA conference
The Society for Applied Anthropology held its 67th Annual Meeting in Tampa, FL last month. I had the privilege of recording ten session to publish as podcasts. The first two podcasts are now up at SfAApodcasts.net. There will be one or two sessions published every week until mid-May. Check them out, let me know what you think and enjoy!
Posted by Jen at 06:45 AM | Comments (1)
March 14, 2007
Four Stone Hearth #11
Check out the 11th edition of the Four Stone Hearth blog carnival, up at Aardvarchaeology.
Posted by Will at 05:08 PM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2007
Four Stone Hearth #9
A special, short-notice edition of the Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is up at Hot Cup of Joe. Props to Carl for filling in. There are some great entries this week so check it out.
Posted by Will at 04:06 AM | Comments (0)
January 31, 2007
Four Stone Hearth #8
Be sure to head over to Northstate Science for the latest edition of the Four Stone Hearth carnival, the latest in anthropology related blogging. Boas Blog will be hosting on February 14th so stay tuned for submission information.
Posted by Will at 07:33 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2007
Four Stone Hearth #7
The seventh installment of the Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is up at Aardvarchaeology. Check it out for some great reading, as always.
(cross-posted at Nomadic Thoughts)
Posted by Will at 08:37 AM
November 29, 2006
In the hizzouse
Hello, my name is Jesse de Leon and I'm new to these parts. My old blog is over there and it's about my Master's research on Filipino bloggers. Well, it's kind of morphed into something else, now it's mostly me holding forth on whatever I feel like. I got sick of Edublogs and their not fun hosting (ask me if you want to know the boring details) and decided to move here to Anthroblogs. Thanks again to John Norvell for giving me a new forum for my online musings.
So, I'm a 1.5 generation Filipino immigrant who's working on his Master's thesis in social anthropology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. I'm planning on moving my old posts over to Anthroblogs, but that involves Perl and scripting and work, and (1) I suck at programming, (2) I've never used Perl before, and (3) I'm trying to finish a chapter of my thesis to include in applications to PhD schools, which all means that I won't have time to properly set up my new blog anytime this year. But if anyone is better at Perl than me, who only started learning it 2 days ago, I would dearly love to benefit from your expertise. I've already found 2 scripts on the Internet that will mostly do what I want, which is migrating posts from my old blog to my new one. Moving comments would also be nice, but moving the posts is essential. But I'm having trouble figuring out what parameters to set and such, so I need help with that.
Anyway, I thought I'd just start blogging on the new site and worry about all that later. I'm glad to join Anthroblogs and I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Posted by sarapen at 02:45 PM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2006
Four Stone Hearth Blog Carnival
Myself and several other bloggers have been collaborating with Kambiz from Anthropology.net on a new project called Four Stone Hearth. It is a blog carnival focusing on topics related to the four subfields of anthropology (hence the four stones). If you're not familiar with blog carnivals, check out the brand new official Four Stone Hearth website at fourstonehearth.net or the Wikipedia article. Kambiz did a fantastic job on the web design and organizing everything. He is still looking for someone to host on January 17th. Nomadic Thoughts will be hosting the carnival on December 20th, so stay tuned for more info as that date gets closer. Until then, first up is Anthropology.net on the 25th.
(cross-posted on Nomadic Thoughts)
Posted by Will at 08:26 AM | Comments (0)
October 06, 2006
Blocking blogs
Here at the Federal University of Roraima, in far-northern Brazil, where I am currently visiting professor of anthropology and a Fulbright scholar, the University deals with spam, viruses, and general Internet anxiety by blocking access to various sites. I discovered last week, when I tried to log into Anthroblogs, that this site has made the list somehow. My queries to the computer support department have met with contradictory responses of the type "oh, no, we don't censor anything but we do block blogs because, you know, not all students use them for good things." Because I "justified" my need for access, Anthroblogs was liberated for my IP.
In Brazil, Orkut is the target of the hysteria that in the US goes to myspace.com, and Orkut is blocked totally at the University. I was able to connect to my personal blog, hosted at this same IP and with identical software, and I know that no spam or viruses are coming from Anthroblog blogs, so I can only assume that someone scanned the access logs on the University's proxy and singled out anything with "blog" in the URL. So far, I can still get to most of the blogs that I regularly read. I'm hoping to engage someone from University adminstration about their use policies. I wrote to complain that my anthropology studensts here are being blocked from access to all of these blogs by anthropologists by a policy that is random and undoubtedly wholly ineffective.
Does anyone else know of Universities that block some or all "blogs" for security purposes?
Posted by johnn at 07:19 AM | Comments (0)
March 20, 2006
Hello World
Hi everyone!
I thought I would start off my time here on anthroblogs by introducing myself. This is my first post as well as my first "blog entry.
I was born and raised in Melbourne, FL.And, I have every intention of eventually moving back. I'm a huge fan of Brevard County. I moved to Tampa to go to USF where I graduated with my bachelor's in Anthropology last year.
I have since moved to a small town in southern Georgia to help open and manage a college textbook store. I decided to take a break from school before going back to Grad school and I think it was a good choice. I've learned a lot and had a lot of experiences since graduating; I now know that I do not like living in a small southern town, where as before I just thought I wouldn't like it.
I have two favorite things to do; travel and philosophize with friends over beers. Both of which I get to do fairly often. I enjoy talking with people that come from different schools of thought and/or different fields of study and/or different points of view. I firmly believe that collaboration leads to bigger and better ideas.
My primary focus right now is getting into a grad school. I've started studying for the GRE and seeking out prospective programs. I'd like to study how constraints effect American culture. I like to study American culture and really do not have much interest in going out of the country to do research. Grad school almost consumes my thoughts these days; I really miss school and I'm anxious to get back into it.
Today is my second day having a computer since last May. My computer broke last year during exam week and I had to finish my BA with a borrowed laptop. I apologize if this all gets off to a slow start, I'm trying to reconnect with the real world after having very minimum access to a computer. I feel like I've missed out on so much!
I'll most likely start off with a few old paper topics and gently introduce you all to my "Smoking" research. I'd love to hear feedback (both positive and negative), if anyone has anything to offer.
Thank you to Will and John Norvell for helping me get started with all of this.
Jen
Posted by Jen at 04:40 PM | Comments (2)
January 16, 2006
A reflection on academic blogs
A former student of mine posted this reflective comment on her blog, which she started for my course last summer:
i had forgotten how much i love reading other people's blogs! i occasionally read the [often politically charged] blog of one of my friends - and when i was perusing it today, i found a link to the faculty blog for the chicago law school. that got me thinking about my summer anthropology professor and how i used to read both his blog. after doing some searches, i've found quite the array of academic blogs and i'm kinda perplexed at my fixation on them. is it some vicarious attempt at social [and intellectual] mobiliy on my part? by reading about the lives of these 'successful' people might i be able to learn some 'tricks of the trade'? humbug! what i think is really going on here is that i truly enjoy a well-written, articulate, perceptive and reflective piece of commentary interjected with voice, personality, and humanity. and you know what? these blogs of professors and academics often offer that, in addition to really interesting links to more reading material and other media (film, music, literature, etc.). these high-end academics don't seem so distant anymore, so ivory towerish, if you know what i mean. sure, you get heady crtiques and analyses of current events and issues, but they're not written in the inaccessible worthy-of-publishing-in-a-reputable-journal jibber jabber. their voices are those of people, spouses, parents, neighbors, photographers, hikers, shoppers, foodies - the professor becomes a person in their blog. their identity isn't so fragmented into all its multiple roles - you can read about how they are all roles and more simultaneously. so it's great that your professor on sabaatical in amsterdam goes out to pubs every night or that your other young professor is having to face the biological clock while on a working vacation in spain. i love it - voices of interesting, intelligent people that have so much to offer, and now, in a way, they're accessible. yay for the internet.
Posted by johnn at 03:02 AM | Comments (0)
September 30, 2005
New to AnthroBlogs: Josué
I want to welcome the newest AnthroBlog blogger, Josué, an undergraduate social sciences major from from Brazil. His blog is called "AnthroBoundaries." With the UK, the US, and Venezuela, Brazil is now the fourth country represented here (I was counting Leda on the "Buriti" blog by her US institutional affiliation, not her homeland/research site)!
Posted by johnn at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
August 06, 2005
anthropologi.info Newspaper
A new "newspaper" has been set up by anthropologi.info. It is essentially an aggregation of anthropology weblogs on one page, similar to a blogroll but with recent posts all in one place. It's still in a testing phase and will hopefully prove to be a useful tool (thanks Savage Minds).
Posted by Will at 09:45 AM | Comments (0)
August 05, 2005
The state of the blogosphere
Dave Sifry of Technorati has posted three articles on the current size and state of the blogosphere, his latest "State of the Blogosphere" report:
The total number of blogs has doubled in the last five months; the number of posts per day has doubled in last seven.
Posted by johnn at 08:52 AM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2005
Trackback pings -- I'm giving up
After several months of hardly any trackback spam, all my blogs, including the ones here, are now nightly deluged with trackback spam of the most vile sort, even by Internet standards. So, I've turned off trackback for all of my entries and have instead registered with Technorati and linked to them in the sidebar to keep track of who links to me. I recommend the other authors here do the same.
Posted by johnn at 01:25 AM | Comments (2)
June 02, 2005
Close call for the Smithsonian
I've been following some interesting blog discussion about the recent controversy surrounding the Smithsonian Institution co-sponsoring a showing of a film called "The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe" which is directly opposed to evolutionary theory. Apparently the Smithsonian is not officially co-sponsoring the film any longer but are still providing the venue.
Original Carpetbagger Report story.
Carpetbagger Report followup.
Comments at The Panda's Thumb.
June 3 editorial in the Washington Post
Posted by Will at 09:06 PM | Comments (0)
June 01, 2005
One more aboard for AnthroBlogs
Hi Everyone! I'm Daniel Alegrett, 28, an anthropology student from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, in Caracas, Venezuela, and John has signed me up to blog in http://www.anthroblogs.org/antropologia/, which will be called something like Antropología or Antropología in Babilonia ;-). This blog's postings probably will be mostly in Spanish, hoping it can contribute to some socio- or linguodiversity in such a fine project as a community of anthropologists-bloggers. I'll be posting first some old class short essays on local archaeology just to test the blog's possibilities, and then move on to some other things, according to my own interests and bits and bites that we (for 'we' I mean probably my wife and I) think might interest you.
In case you wonder, I've mostly followed my School's curriculum on linguistic anthropology (but that doesn't mean I'll be an anthropolinguist), and my wife has mostly followed archaeology (and she probably will be an archaeologist). I'm into sociology and anthropology of knowledge, have worked on Indigenous issues, had an introduction to an Indigenous language, and trying to develop some research on the anthropology of the body (am I a trend-follower?), still loosely trying to orient it to (ethno-) ontology and ethics. I'm quite fuzzy and confused about it, but I like the idea, whatever it turns out to be. My wife Ananda Lakshmi, 22, is working out a thesis on ethno-archaeology of space, on somewhat phenomenological stances.
Posted by dalegrett at 09:31 PM | Comments (3)
May 31, 2005
AnthroBlogs back with new hosting
Anthroblogs and the AnthroWiki were off-line for six days as I worked through a dispute with Rob Borofsky at Public Anthropology, with whom this site was formerly affiliated. After some acrimony and much negotiation, we are now hosted elsewhere and no longer have any connection whatsoever with Professor Borofsky or the Center for a Public Anthropology. Access to our files, blocked by Prof. Borofsky during the dispute, has now been restored and all blogs should be back to where they were on May 24. I apologize for any inconvenience to readers, to websites that may have linked to here and found dead links or feeds, and, especially, to all the authors and commenters on this site who had no access to their blogs during this week.
Posted by johnn at 03:04 PM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2005
A Historian comments on academic blogging and history
Via Inside Higher Ed, check out this article by Ralph Luker on the increasing role of blogging in the field of history.
Posted by johnn at 07:58 PM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2005
Blogging in Academia
The Village Voice ran an article last week on academic bloggers, and published a sample list here.
They describe it as having a podium and an audience 24/7. Who wouldn't want that? err...well...if you put it like that..I think lots of them have better use of their digital soapbox than that (as the article makes clear).
Posted by johnn at 07:58 AM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2005
Good for the gander
I have started trying to talk people into starting blogs here on this site, and I've made having a public blog a requirement for my students. Personally, as amazingly interesting and important I find the blogging sensation, I have been somewhat resistant to starting my own. The software itself is great for organizing one's life, but I only recently opened up my personal blog to public scrutiny. (I may even get un-shy enough to post the link here!)
But, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and I've launched my own AnthroBlog blog, called, for the moment, "Motes and Theories on Anthropology."
Here's the link to it: http://www.anthroblogs.org/norvell/
I'll be blogging here from time to time about how it's going.
Posted by johnn at 05:43 PM | Comments (3)
February 06, 2005
Welcome to AnthroBlogs!
This is the inaugural post on this meta blog of AnthroBlogs. All registered bloggers on this site are invited to co-author this blog and use it to report on and discuss their experiences--technical, intellectual, frustrating, rewarding, whatever--and get help. I am hoping to build a vibrant community of anthropologists of all kinds weblogging their ideas, reading and discussing each other's blogs, and responding to commentary from the broader public. I encourage new authors to copyright their blogs with a Creative Commons license and to allow comments from registered users. Blogs here can have any number of purposes and formats: group blogs, reflections on teaching, reports from the field, news on particular topics and places, personal intellectual journals, and whatever else you can think up. I can't wait to see...
Please email me with any questions or concerns and happy blogging!
John M. Norvell
Scripps College
Posted by johnn at 03:52 PM | Comments (1)