Those in power almost always want to stay in power and they have the official means to manipulate the system in ways that underwrites the status quo.  Let’s take an example from the Arab Spring in Egypt.  As reported on Al Jazzera, the ruling military tribunal in Egypt released details about the districts and rules governing the upcoming 2011 parliamentary elections.  They way they decided to map out the districts and write the governing rules of each favored the election of…

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Some anthropologists are uncomfortable with describing human-environment interactions in the language of systems. The concern seems to be that human-environment interactions don't work, in some fundamental way, like computers, engines, or other proto-typically designed things. These interactions are held to be too complex, too non-linear, too open for the systems metaphor to be appropriate, or at least useful. For my part, I think that the concept of a system is entailed by any… Continue