July 2009 Blog Posts (16)

Formalising personnel (in spanish)

There is a great ad at the moment encouraging employers to 'blanquear' their personnel, which means formalising, registering them - there is a tax moratorium right now enabling that without penalties. I am clearly not the only person to notice this, as it has provoked some comments on blogs, etc. Here is the ad itself + a parody version (about 'negreando' personnel, given the current financial crisis):…

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Added by Sian Lazar on July 27, 2009 at 9:20pm — No Comments

Greetings back from the Moving Anthropology Student Network

Replying to Keith's hello to the MASN (= The Moving Anthropology Student Network) I'd like to answer the same way by advertising our ning-group a little, too.

The MASN was constituted in Vienna in 2005 as a meeting ground and communication-platform for students of cultural and social anthropology. Since then we've come a long way, with meetings, workshops and conferences in half a… Continue

Added by Benjamin Hirschfeld on July 27, 2009 at 6:30pm — No Comments

Port-of-Spain then and now - is sustainable infrastructure dependent on a people's mindset?

A friend from the US Information Services of Trinidad & Tobago sent these photos of Colonial Trinidad via e-mail. While the photos bring back nostalgia and patriotism, they also bring to my mind questions on sustainable infrastructure and the cultural aspects of such, in Port-of-Spain.

I have heard my elderly relatives say they wish Colonialism never ended in Trinidad. I would of course scoff at this (and still do), but now I understand a bit what they meant. The workable order… Continue

Added by Astrid Franchiska Kowlessar on July 27, 2009 at 2:00am — No Comments

Anthropology of Space: Universe versus Habitat

We have put up a new discussion within the group "Environmental Anthropology". It deals with O. F. Bollnow's anthropology of space, resp. the "theory" that human space perception is primary related to the spatial organisation of the habitat: space in German = "Raum" < "räumen" = clear a place from wilderness plants and the like for dwelling.…

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Added by Nold Egenter on July 24, 2009 at 3:35pm — No Comments

Anthropology of Space: Universe versus Habitat

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Added by Nold Egenter on July 24, 2009 at 3:26pm — No Comments

Trinidad’s love affair with music from the 1980s – more to it than meets the ear…

It happens at any party – the house party, the club, the political party, even at church harvests, this return to music from the 1980s.

I left Trinidad as a teenager to live/study/work abroad and never really went back until Valentine’s Day 2006, returning with adult eyes eleven years after. One big experiment, with me being a variable as well! I wouldn’t give away all the juicy details of my re-adjustment (or lack thereof in some cases) to the most southerly isle of the Caribbean,… Continue

Added by Astrid Franchiska Kowlessar on July 23, 2009 at 12:00am — 2 Comments

SEMANTIC ARCHITECTURE IN JAPAN

There is a new video in our group showing "Semantic Architecture" in Japan (see former photos, but now with explanations). Christian religion found these sacred buildings formed with plant materials in many traditional societies all over the world. Since they were built as deities or other sacred objects they were classified into religion, but, since they were made with primitive construction methods (which for the local peoples means: very old and valuable things!) the missionaries classified… Continue

Added by Nold Egenter on July 21, 2009 at 12:48am — No Comments

PAST AND FUTURES: READINGS IN A CONTEMPORARY WORLD- Call for Papers

Brief Note:

PASTS AND FUTURES:READINGS IN A CONTEMPORARY WORLD

The end of the twentieth century has seen momentous shifts both in

production and in production relations, now visible in new clusters that

dominate physical and intellectual landscapes. This has substantially

changed the way we perceive ourselves, as well as the world around us.

And yet, this transformation is only partial, visible in some landscapes.

Old theories are inadequate to address the… Continue

Added by ESWARAPPA KASI on July 18, 2009 at 7:29am — 1 Comment

Open Access: "Stop worrying about journals and learn to love repositories"

Mike Smith has a terrific posting about a scientific discipline (High Energy Physics) that created their own online repository for papers over ten years ago, and a recent paper that concludes that citations of these papers are five times those not archived.

Read it at Publishing Archaeology.

Added by Paul Wren on July 17, 2009 at 8:46pm — No Comments

Tribos Urbanas?

Ao observar a vida urbana da grande Lisboa, dei comigo a pensar na imensa diversidade que existe nos grandes centros, como pode ser observado por qualquer um de nós, e que, embora esteja cada vez mais impregnado o individualismo é o próprio indíviduo que necessita de fazer parte de algo. Ora aí está o ponto fundamental da discussão aqui lançada, a pertença ao grupo. Creio eu que em primeiro lugar o indíviduo se fascina com as características do grupo ao qual pretende pertencer, ou seja, estão… Continue

Added by Joana Galhardas on July 17, 2009 at 1:27pm — 10 Comments

Four Stone Hearth #71

Four Stone Hearth rounds up the best anthropology blogging of the past fortnight in one handy carnival. This time Neuroanthropology.net is hosting Four Stone Hearth #71 - Australiana Edition.

Four Stone Hearth covers archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology, with applied stuff… Continue

Added by Daniel Lende on July 16, 2009 at 12:28pm — No Comments

What is "Traditional Architecture"?

There is a new Discussion Theme in the Group "Anthropology of Habitat and Architecture". It deals with the ethnology or anthropology of the house and its problems. It also introduces a new class: (topo-)semantic and symbolic architecture (life tree-fetish-maypole-complex) and what it can contribute to our understanding of (Neolithic type of) sedentary village culture.

Added by Nold Egenter on July 14, 2009 at 3:37pm — No Comments

Trade unions of public sector workers in Argentina.

This is some information about my current fieldwork. I am hoping to add to it as I find the time, but for now, below is a summary of my current research.

I am currently conducting fieldwork for a research project on ‘Citizenship, Trade Unionism and Subjectivity in Buenos Aires’. Argentinean trade unions are a totally fascinating field, in part because of a history of (sometimes contested) support for the Peronist movement from the 1940s onwards. In a world where – the story goes –… Continue

Added by Sian Lazar on July 13, 2009 at 4:19pm — 5 Comments

Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling

Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling is extending its deadline for submission, this time to July 13. I expect few interesting talks on the interactive and collaborative storytelling (and story-making) in virtual worlds there at the event (to be held in Portugal in December 2009). Among the suggested topics I found a few that I'd really like to learn more about,… Continue

Added by Slava Kozlov aka Centralasian on July 11, 2009 at 12:41pm — No Comments

Relocation, Relocation

I've suggested in a couple of OAC places that the heart of this site ought to be its Discussion Forum. That is where we can collectively exploit the threaded sociality that characterises this kind of website - a sociality that is primarily spun through threads not groups.

The individual and collective benefits of starting a thread in the Discussion Forum as opposed to a group are by now clear. As an individual thread… Continue

Added by John Postill on July 11, 2009 at 10:00am — 1 Comment

Reference Library

Often I find I encounter something interesting in core classes which is not covered in depth; I also find if I do not note it somewhere I will forget to follow-up on lines of inquiry of interest to me. This unorganized method of study has gotten me into trouble when trying to disengage from what is interesting and focus on what is required. Out of sheer self-preservation, I have been creating a database of sources; I have decided to post links to them online, making them accessible wherever I… Continue

Added by Victoria Reed on July 10, 2009 at 3:36pm — 3 Comments