Cross posted: limits of a monetized economy



I've written about the failure of our economic models to account for our happiness and welfare in the work place. I want to go into a little more detail about what an alternative view for our society might look like… Continue

Trying to get a little more quantifiable with my social research.

So I broke out some statistical mathematics, and applied it to the New Age, Vedic, Christian, and Pagan spirituality I observed in a farmers market. I'd love to hear any commentary on my methods, as I'm still new to stats.

 

http://ashkuff.com/akaBlog/?p=5077

 

For those of you into photography, and don't care about math, plenty…

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The Following is one of my essays in adoptive kinship, hope you guys share some opinion:



Kinship in a Western middle-class family has traditionally been defined by their biogenetic relationships and the blood-tie between relatives (Schneider 1968: 23). As Schneider pointed out the traditional definition of kinship, even though among Western societies the existence of relatives by marriage is acknowledged, made biogenetic kinship real kinship (1968:24). During the Cold War, the… Continue

The society of the spectacle lives on, growing stronger and stronger with each passing hour as marketing methods engender the gross explosion of mass commodification – Mao Tse Tung T-shirts, Deep fried…

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I just joined the COOP and am pleased to see so much activity from such an array of anthropologists.  I am a Principal at Weinman Schnee Morais, a marketing research firm in NYC (www.wsm-inc.com).  We often blend anthropological and psychological methods in our reseach.  For more on how to do that, see the following of my publications:

 

Refocusing Focus Groups: A Practical Guide.  Ithaca: Paramount Market…

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Related post

 

I'd like to share some information and tips for ebook reading that I've discovered so far.

 

1. File formats



Most widely supported ebook file formats are ePub and Mobi. (Check this wikipedia page.) Many apps are available to read ebooks on electronic…

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            In the contemporary climate, where the nation-state model so deeply permeates political and economic discourse, the notions of nationalism and national identity are granted ever more important status within social theory. Supranational organisations such as the IMF, European Union and World Bank represent a new level of abstraction for social scientists to examine. Members of societies or cultures no longer only identify,… Continue

Cross posted on the the Lobster Brain: Mixing Food and Ideas

 

Are you a Fried Twinkie?

Corporate America fills us with FDA approved créme filling, but Hunter Thompson explores the chemical meltdown aftermath in Hell's Angels



The fried Twinkie, is both authentic and in-authentic, a paradox of our post-industrial…

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John's proposal  that we reconsider the role of creative literature in anthropology/ethnography is timely as I have gone back to writing short stories about the people whose faces are stored in my memory.  Like in this "first draft" piece , I know the protagonist did exist, but my memory of him is very limited.  What I have in mind are the things that happened to me where he played a peripheral part.  The question is whether this story of estrangement and derangement-- mine and Sorro's-- is…

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I wonder how many of us have seen the YouTube video  The Rural Women Solar Engineers of Africa. I find it inspiring in all sorts of ways, as a demonstration of how ordinary people can make a huge difference in their local communities and of how smart thinking can explode conventional ideas about how to run projects aimed at alleviating poverty. As an anthropologist interested in…

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In some Asian countries a culture of gender discrimination that leads to the selection of a child’s sex is creating grave social problems. The number of males born for every 100 females illustrates its dimensions. In Vietnam the number is 107, in Taiwan 109, in India 112, and in China estimates range as high as 119. Given the size of the populations in India and China, these skewed sex ratios yield an enormous female deficit. However, these countries are the exception. Western countries and…

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I bought a Kindle about two weeks ago.

Actually it was one friend of mine who made me buy that - he had been studying abroad and came back to Korea before moving to another "continent" to finish his doctoral research. As the shipping rate was to high, he said, he had to dump out most of his books before coming back here momentarily, which sounds like a total disaster to me. : (

Telling this story, he strongly recommended me and others hanging around together to get one ebook…

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It appears that Lewis Binford passed away yesterday. While I have never been very intrigued by archaeological theory, it is undeniable that Binford's early work on "new archaeology" was, as my professor once proclaimed, "the shot heard 'round the world" (or at least in the field of archaeology). And although I am a cultural anthropologist, I do have a great appreciation for the way in which he revolutionized the field of archaeology.

 

Here is his obituary:…

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The Growth and Future of Business Anthropology

 

     Varieties of surveys have indicated that employers look for the skills that undergraduate training in anthropology provides. The subject matter of anthropology is intrinsically fascinating; as such, it offers valuable preparation for careers in journalism, politics, public relations, or public administration, fields that involve investigative skills and working with diverse groups. Today,…

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A preliminary reading of some of the themes of Deleuze and Guattari, so I would appreciate any criticism or comment:

 

Of all those who sought to counteract the structuralist invasion envisioned by Derrida (2009) arguably the most creative, provocative and influential were Deleuze and Guattari. Their works permeate a vast range of discursive formations in a highly Deleuzian intersectory, affective and…

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