May 2009 Blog Posts (7)

Open Access Anthropology

It occurred to me that many of the people joining OAC may be unaware of the work we have been doing over at Open Access Anthropology. There is also a Google Group for OAA. This is more narrowly focused than OAC, encouraging anthropologists to publish in Open Access journals and to practice self archiving.

See… Continue

Added by Kerim Friedman on May 31, 2009 at 7:00am — 1 Comment

What Social Web Services do Anthropologists need? Part 2: Open Systems

I mentioned these over on Keith Hart's page, but I think they deserve a repost:

One of the goals I see for OAC is to facilitate organizing of peer reviewed journals and academic conferences outside of, or in addition to, those official ones which happen within various associations, such as the AAA. For this I see two great resources:

1. Open Journal Systems

2. Open Conference… Continue

Added by Kerim Friedman on May 30, 2009 at 5:05am — 5 Comments

What Social Web Services do Anthropologists need? Part 1: Geolocation Data

There are two geolocation services I think would do a lot to help anthropologists: 1. Information about existing research which pertains to the current region, and 2. data on the presence of researchers currently in a particular location.

The second one already exists, in a way, in Google Latitude, which will tell you where your friends are at a given moment. But my idea would be to be able to see on a map the presence of any member of OAC on a map, so that we could better facilitate… Continue

Added by Kerim Friedman on May 30, 2009 at 5:00am — 2 Comments

Is OAC too Web2.0 for its own good?

I'm amazed at the number of people who have joined and added content to OAC here on ning. Truly awe-inspiring. However, I have to say that I worry a lot about the platform. I never liked Facebook much and Ning seems like a poor imitation of Facebook. Will OAC devolve into people answering quizzes: "Which anthropology network am I?" I personally prefer Google Groups because of its simplicity, and the fact that people can use it as they like: via e-mail, via RSS, or via the web. I find that… Continue

Added by Kerim Friedman on May 30, 2009 at 2:04am — 17 Comments

Contemporary Slavery

Dear friends,

I would like to share the following UNESCO-report by Dr. Joel Kirk from 2008 with you, Unfinished Business: A Comparative Survey of Historical and Contemporary Slavery: http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=38451&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html. The sale of children, child labour, child soldiers, human trafficking, organised prostitution, etc., spring immediately to mind as modern forms of slavery.

The UNESCO.report is a direct… Continue

Added by Bernhard Bierlich on May 29, 2009 at 3:40pm — 9 Comments

The Pacific Garbage Patches: Pollution and Environmental Publics

This is an idea for a paper. Comments are welcome, but keep in mind that these ideas are at a very provisional stage.

The "Great Pacific Garbage Patches" are two massive collections of plastic flotsam that have accumulated in the North Pacific Gyre, one in the Sea of Japan and the other off the coast of Hawaii. They are the product of central vortexes in the Ocean where… Continue

Added by Josh Reno on May 29, 2009 at 5:00am — 8 Comments