Coincidentally, I've been reading Karl Gaspar's "The Masses are Messiah: Contemplating the Filipino Soul."  The book written by a Filipino theologian, whose background is obviously Marxist, explores the spirituality of the Filipinos.  He expounds on the concept of "masa" (common people) and "misa" (religious rite) as he explains Filipino spirituality and poverty in the Philippines.  I'm still halfway in my reading, but I found Midgley's views from class struggle to selfish gene very relevant…

Among the cryptic writings of Deleuze and Guattari there lay an array of oddities which take such a unique and singular form that their significance is by no means apparent. These oddities, along with the very nature of the theories, makes the task of understanding the works of…

“I went down into the under-world of London with an attitude of mind which I may best liken to that of the explorer. I was open to be convinced by the evidence of my eyes, rather than by the teachings of those who had not seen, or…

I have taken an interest in a - seemingly irrelevant to anthropologists - controversy over the shooting of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit in New Zealand. The protests were incited by Warner Bros' threats to move the film production to Europe, just because the actor's Union went on strike over employment conditions. This is the story I narrate on my website:…

"¿Hace cuántos años que murió?" pregunta un niño a su madre y en medio del silencio del cálculo que busca la respuesta, aparece una mujer que se roba la atención de todos, trae una torta blanquísma en la manos. Discretamente me empino para ver…

In an article I read recently in the Leonardo journal Paul Lang draws some wonderful similarities between the process of scientific discovery and artistic creativity, focussing upon music as an…

Read this anthropologist's dissertation outline and how he implemented Gunnar Myrdal's theories in an Indigenous community:

"An Introduction of Family Planning Program to Akhas in Thailand"

For more:…

The ideas expressed and questions posed here are a follow up to an earlier piece entitled 'Is anthropology art?' and the discussion which ensued with John McCreery…

The original text has "flown away". Well, it happens every once in a while, and I tend to think there are "reasons" for such things, for I think the Zande's way of thinking interesting; I don't find them particularly magical or malicious, so I tend to think it in terms of pratītyasamutpāda. (^ ^ )

Below are a couple of excerpts from my dissertation. I mended it slightly. There I did a bit of…

Keith Hart has, several times since I joined OAC, urged us to look deeper into anthropology's history and consider the anthropology of Immanuel Kant. I must confess that I have resisted this suggestion, anticipating a head-banging encounter with Kantian critical philosophy. Today, however, having a bit of time on my hands and procrastinating from getting to work on other tasks, I turned to Questia to see what I would find if I searched for "Kant anthropology." At the top of the list of works…

The question of anthropology's correct place in the academic division of labour has split the discipline for a long time. The positivist view of the likes of Radcliffe-Brown being placed in distinction to the perception of the later Evans-Pritchard who saw it belonging to the humanities. So where are we now? Have we resolved this age old dispute? Alas, no. Many anthropologists and social scientists still harbour a secret desire…

In October of 2009, I heard Dr. Kenneth Harris give a talk at Imperial College's Neuro-science Technology Symposium on what I will call the capitalist brain. Now by this I do not mean the brain of a capitalist nor even the brain as molded by one (e.g., the news media has popularized the developing practices of…

A post related to;

A comment added to "The language of reciprocity and exchange" by John McCreery

Filipino vocabulary on gift…