promises

Dear readers, if you exist:

As an anthropologist I mostly feel like a little kid playing with toys I’m not yet old enough for.

Nevertheless, don’t despair- we’re all really busy right now (finals!) but look for posts in the coming weeks on:

Transgenic corn in the Mexican milpa (intellectual property rights and nature narratives)

Zapatista commodities, identity and the crisis of U.S. radical activism

maybe even:

David Graeber, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and why activists (and you too) need to get over the ’60s

Christian anarchist moments on the blogosphere.

And those are just the promises I’m making. In the meantime go read American Ethnography or something.

ugly food is illegal

Horrifying ethnographic tidbit! Apparently in the EU it’s illegal to sell produce in non-standard shapes. Regulations are being “relaxed” — but only on 25% of produce. Why, European regulators, why? (Thank Jonathan at the blog “Wasted Food” for leading to gasps from my station in the library.)

“is the revolution really as simple as dancing?”

Check out this video from the ever-amazing BrownFemiPower (originally via Carmen). Watching people dance makes me happy!

To be topical, there’s some interesting stuff in the comments when Ilyka asks (and I paraphrase) “is the revolution really as simple as dancing?” BFP says “It gets a lot harder when you start thinking in terms of larger abstract concepts like “equality” or “freedom” or something along those lines–cuz everybody is going to have a much different idea on what “equality” means–for example, the rwoc [radical women of color] critique of white centered feminism that applies here is what do you mean when you say equality with men? MOC [men of color] aren’t ‘equal’ with white men–so who are WOC [women of color] trying to be equal with? What group of men? And can we include equality with wihte women, cuz we aren’t equal with white women either, ya know?”

And then “and it seems like far too often–we get together to cry, and then run back out into the fight again–and forget to recognize that joy in today’s world is a radical emotion–the mobilization of joy and love and commitment is something that so rarely happens–because it’s not realistic, it’s not angry and mean enough, it’s considered ‘candy’ organizing, you know? but what gender is associated with joy and love and commitment? would a gender analysis be useful in understanding why “snotty and snarky” is rewarded and joy and love is dismissed?”

So, question: When do things need to be simple and when do they need to be complicated? In anthropology or otherwise?

Full Circle Open Access!

So I was skimming over some really cool anthroblogs in bloglines (which is a really cool blog manager, btw), when I came across, Open Access Anthropology, run by Kerim Friedman, Alex Golub, Kambiz Kamrani, and Christopher Kelty (all of whom are pretty involved in the anthroblogosphere. The most recent post is about Clarence Gravlee’s site, a prof at Unversity of Florida, who’s work covers…drum roll please…racial and ethnic inequalities in healthcare contexts! Most of his publications, teaching materials, ponderings are available on his site.

Structuralist Diagram of Philippe Descola’s Lecture, “Anthropology and Ontology”

In his lecture, “Anthropology and Ontology,” Descola discussed the various mechanisms through which ontologies are used, and how things (people, animals, objects) are distributed within the world. The lecture provided structuralist ways of understanding the various ways people understand the non-human other in non-naturalist terms (naturalism, roughly boiled down to the assumption that nature exists and contains all truths, though feel free to correct me on this one).

Feeling rather confused at the time, I approached a professor of mine who rather gleefully provided the following diagram. The diagram represents how one’s body and interiority (religiosity, spirituality, etc) are positioned in relation to a non-human. Totemism, for an example, explores how certain entities (like a human and an animal) share characteristics. That a totemic animal can be used as a form of identity expression, “The qualities of a raccoon are the same within me, we are linked.” Animism, on the other hand, is the view that there is a continuity of souls (say, between a human and an animal), yet a discontinuity of bodies. One can break this bodily discontinuity by adorning oneself with the body of the animal (e.g.) or other types of clothing. Analogism represents the discontinuity among both the body and interiority of the relationship, so one must be created, or as Descola describes, “terms that are joined myst be initially distinguished.” Naturalism is the concept that we are all continuous as bodies-in-the-world (we are all made up of the same particles), yet there exists neither an internal nor a “supernatural” connection.

While this diagram leaves out many shiny bits from the lecture, it does provide quite a handy and simple Descola toolkit for befuddled students. It’s also easier to file away in the noggin. Anyone else present at the lecture should feel free to chime in!