Talking Anthropology

We talked about EASA´s development, the recent protests in and changes of Israeli society and anthropology´s tradition in the region as well as the discipline´s challenges. Dan shared his experiences of how he came to be an anthropologist and provides some advice for students considering a PhD in anthropology. Dan is interested in ethnicity and nationalism, environment and society, globalisation and transnationalism, identity, ethnography, housing and housing co-operatives, the Palestinian citizens of Israel, Palestinians, Islamic movements, Israeli society and Middle East Politics; Bedouins and places such as Nazareth and Sinai. Further talks recorded at EASA provide interviews with Helena Wulff, Professor at the University of Stockholm and Prof. Henrietta L. Moore from Cambridge University. For more information about EASA please check our http://www.easaonline.org/.

We talked about the meaning of the EASA conference theme “Uncertainty and Disquiet”, the tradition of the discipline in Sweden and how to keep friendships over vast distances. Central to the talk is Helena´s approach to writing and she provides helpful advice to develop strategies and techniques for the improvement of one´s own texts. We touched on issues concerning the handling of critique, rejection, envy, competition and collaboration, and the tension between the creative potential of crisis and increased competition due to shrinking funding opportunities. Helena Wulff´s research is in the anthropology of communication and aesthetics based on a wide range of studies on the social worlds of literary production, dance, and visual arts. Her specialist skills are in expressive cultural form (dance, art, images, and text) in a transnational perspective, visual culture, the emotions, and media as well as anthropological methods. Helena has held visiting professorships at the University of Ulster, the University of Vienna, the National University of Singapore, and the University of Illinois. Drawing on her research, she also occasionally writes popular articles for newspapers and magazines in Sweden and the UK. Helena has conducted field studies in Stockholm, London, New York, Frankfurt-am-Main, and Ireland (mostly Dublin). Her current research is on writing and literature as cultural process and form focusing on contemporary Irish writers as cultural translators and public intellectuals. Further talks recorded at the EASA conference provide interviews with Henrietta Moore, Professor at Cambridge University and Dan Rabinowitz from Tel Aviv University. For more information about EASA please check our http://www.easaonline.org/.

This episode is another non regular one and comes from the University of Manchester Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory (GDAT). The motion to be debated is: The concept of neoliberalism has become an obstacle to the anthropological understanding of the twenty-first century. The motion will be proposed by James Laidlaw (Cambridge) and Jonathan Mair (Cambridge and Manchester). It will be opposed by Thomas Hylland Eriksen (Oslo) and Keir Martin (Manchester).

This podcast was recorded at the 12th European Association of Social Anthropologists conference in Nanterre, Paris in July 2012 where I had the chance to interview Professor Henrietta Moore from the University of Cambridge.We talked about the meaning of the EASA conference theme “Uncertainty and Disquiet”, the tradition of the discipline in the UK and anthropology´s contemporary challenges. We touch on issues concerning the decline of funding, increasing protests and pressures of mobility as well as open access approaches, such as the HAU Journal of Ethnographic Theory (http://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau). Professor Moore gives us her perspective on theoretical avenues pivotal to the discipline and her criteria for good anthropology and well-written ethnographies. She will also talk about the reasons for her long-term fascination for anthropology and give young anthropologists some advice for their academic career. Henrietta Moore has a continuing long-term research engagement with Africa. Her research programme has focused on gender, livelihood strategies, social transformation and symbolic systems. She is one of the leading theorists of gender in Social Anthropology, and her work has developed a distinctive approach to the analysis of the interrelations of material and symbolic gender systems, embodiment and performance, identity and sexuality.

In dieser Sendung spreche ich mit Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ulrike Felt über die spannende Disziplin der Wissenschaftsforschung. Die Sendung gibt einen sehr guten Einblick in das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Wissenschaft, Gesellschaft und Politik. Ich wünsche lehrreiche Unterhaltung und freue mich über Kommentare, E-Mails und Flattr-Klicks!   Referenzen: Felt, Ulrike; Nowotny, Helga and Taschwer, Klaus (1995) ‘Wissenschaftsforschung. Eine Einführung’ (Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus). Felt, Ulrike; Nowotny, Helga (Hrsg) (1995) ‘Social Studies of Science in an International Perspective / Wissenschaftsforschung: Themen und Fragestellungen einer in Österreich neuen Disziplin, Proceedings of a Workshop (University of Vienna, 13-14 January 1994)’ (Wien: Institut für Wissenschaftstheorie und Wissenschaftsforschung, Universität Wien). Latour, Bruno; Woolgar, Stève (1979) ‘Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts’ (Princeton University Press). Knorr Cetina, Karin (1981) ‘The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of         Science’ (Oxford: Pergamon Press). Nowotny, Helga; Scott, Peter; Gibbons, Michael (2001) ‘Rethinking science: knowledge in an age of uncertainty’ (Cambridge: Polity). Fleck, Ludwik; Schäfer, Lothar; Schnelle, Thomas (Hrsg.) (1980) ‘Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache: Einführung in die Lehre vom Denkstil und Denkkollektiv’ (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp). Wiener Institut für Wissenschaftsforschung  WP: Wissenschaftsforschung WP: Mode 2 Weltgesundheitsorganisation Project OPUS besprochenes Projekt zur Nano-Wissenschaft und österreichischer Gesellschaft Institutsseite Ulrike Felt Homepage von Helga Nowotny WP: Adipositas WP: Cern WP: Grüne Gentechnik WP: Ludwik Fleck WP: Karin Knorr-Cetina WP: Helga Nowotny

Internet Café in Ghana Jenna Burrell is Assistant Profesor at the School of Information in Berkley and recently wrote a book about Internet Cafes in Ghana. During her seven year on-and-off fieldwork, she focused on the interesting topic of spamming and internet scams from youth groups in these african internet cafesy. In this interview we take a look at the klischees against african internet users and how they acted as a self full filling prophecies that lead to the widespread of internet scams in Ghana. The internet is not so global and egalitarian after all, if live in the wrong place.     Referenzen: Jenna Burrell. 2012. Invisible Users: Youth in the Internet Caf’s of Urban Ghana (Acting with Technology). MIT Press. this book on amazon Audio Recording from Jenna about her book Video from Jenna about her book Jenna’s blog Jenna on twitter @jennaburrell Jenna’s CV the blog All Africa  undersea cable map homepage for the book WP: Network Neutrality WP: Internet Fraud Ethnography Matters blogpost about Ethnography Matters on the school of information blog TA19 – African Hackerspaces interview with programmer from Ushahidi UPDATE: a good explanation of the global distribution of internet access can one find in this comprehensive ARTE Video (german):

Gemeinsam mit meinem Freund und Podcast-Kollegen Daniel Meßner habe ich mir die Zeit genommen ein bisschen über die Bedeutung unseres Podcast Hobbys zu philosophieren. Wir sprechen über unsere Motivationen und Erfahrungen zum Senden ins Internet. Mit dieser Episode will ich auch auf meine alternativen Produktionen hinweisen und einen Schlussstrich für die Netzpolitik und Netzkultur in diesem Kanal ziehen. Es soll hier nicht mehr um Themen gehen, die nicht einen anthropologischen oder wissenschaftlichen Bezug haben. Für Hörer_innen, die diese Themen geschätzt haben, gibt es von nun an Netzkinder.at.

Bratislava Hackerspace progressbar celebrated it’s first birthday and we gave it a visit. You hear the story of several slovaks one week before the national election 2012 talking about their situation as net-citizens. The show concludes by overflow from the metalab talking about a new project. Birthday invitation to the progressbar hacker space the dada-ACTA project the webhosting company websupport which got sued and their austiran branch overflows new project hackerspaceshop WP: 3D Printer the website of mitch altman habitat.fm streaming collective on the banned book about the corruption scandal: more on the charges an article mentioning the company WebSupport on the slovak protests society for open information technologies on the Slovak National Security Office “hack” short story about the police and the WebSupport servers

This is the yearly roundup panel at the 28. Chaos Communication Congress (28c3) about the future of the annual event of the chaos computer club (ccc) and the year in perspective of hacker events. Our guests were Tim Pritlove, Jérémie Zimmermann, Mitch Altman, Onkie from Telecomix, HJ from Noisebridge/Dresden, bicyclemark and on the decks was gmc.

In dieser Episode unterhalte ich mich mit Dr. Andre Gingrich im Rahmen der DGV-Tagung in Wien. Wir sprachen über die deutschsprachige Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie, die Zukunft des Faches, den Kulturbegriff, anthropologische Auseinandersetzungen mit Rassismus und das digitale Feld.

Cyberanthropology ist das Thema der heutigen Sendung. Gemeinsam mit Alexander Knorr und Bernadette habe ich mir am Rande der heuer in Wien stattfindenden Tagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde (DGV) über dieses Thema und das gleichnamige Buch von Alexander unterhalten.   Themen: (chronologisch)         * Warum "Cyber"anthropology?         * Was ist unter Kybernetik zu verstehen?         * Verwurzelung dieser Denkschule in den Sozialwissenschaften         * Die langen 1960er und wie der Staat zum Apparat wurde         * Wie ist die Kybernetik in unsere Gesellschaften eingewoben         * Die Kybernetisierung der Hochschulen         * Ein kurzer Querschnitt von Alexanders Buch         * Grenzfälle des Menschenbildes         * Das Drama um die Ambivalenz von Technologie         * Die Bedeutung der (Computer-) Spiele für die Aneignung von Technologie         * Begriffshygiene hinsichtlich "virtuell" und "Cyber-"         * Die Charakteristika technisch vermittelter Interaktion         * Wie ist Alexander zum Digitalen gekommen?         * Meine simplizifierte Sicht des Kontrollverlustes

Die UNESCO ist wahrscheinlich die bekannteste Unterorganisation der vereinten Nationen. Oft als das Gehirn der UN oder Welt-Kultusministerium bezeichnet, gibt es viel Halbwissen über sie und ihre weltweiten Aktivitäten. Mein heutiger Gast Christoph Brumann hat Feldforschung in der "Arena" der UNESCO betrieben und organisierte einen Workshop im Rahmen der DGV Tagung. Themen: * die UNESCO * Konvention zum materiellen und immateriellen Kulturerbe * Entscheidungsfindung in der UNESCO * Lokale Auswirkungen des Globalen Kulturstatus auf Nationalstaaten und betroffene Regionen * Brumanns Feldforschung in der Arena der UNESCO * der Kulturbegriff in der UNESCO und seine Kritik * Das Problem mit Definitionen in Konventionen * der Kulturbegriff in der Anthropologie und auf der DGV Tagung * der amtliche Kulturbegriff * der Workshop zur UNESCO auf der DGV Tagung * Begriffswandel in der Anthropologie/Ethnologie/Völkerkunde "Da Kriege im Geist der Menschen entstehen, muss auch der Frieden im Geist der Menschen verankert werden." Aus der Präambel der UNESCO Ressourcen: * UNESCO: http://www.unesco.org/ * Der Workshop auf der DGV Tagung: http://www.tagung2011.dgv-net.de/tl_files/tagung11/WS7.pdf * Christoph Brumann: http://www.eth.mpg.de/cms/de/people/d/brumann/index.html * George Marcus. 1995. Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography. in Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 24 (1995), 95-117. http://www.dourish.com/classes/readings/Marcus-MultiSitedEthnography-ARA.pdf * Thomas Hyland Erikson. 2001. Between Universalism and relativism: A Critique of. UNESCO‟s concept of culture. In Jane Cowan, Marie-Bénédicte Dembour and Richard Wilson, eds., Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives, pp. 127–48. Cambridge University Press 2001.: http://folk.uio.no/geirthe/UNESCO.html * WP: Funktionalismus: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funktionalismus_(Gesellschaft) * Christoph Brumann. 2004. Der urbane Raum als öffentliches Gut: Kyoto und die Stadtbildkonflikte. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 129:183-210. * Christoph Brumann. 1999. Writing for Culture: Why a Successful Concept Should Not Be Discarded. (With CA Comment). Current Anthropology 40, Supplement:1-27: http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.1086/200058

In this episode you hear the keynote speech of Gustavo Lins Ribeiro - a famous Brasilian Anthropologist - with the title "What's in a copy". He gave his speech at the biannual conference of the german society of ethnology in the austrian academy of science . The introduction to the speaker is held by Prof. Andre Gingrich and after the talk you will hear a short interview I did with Gustavo.

The combination of a year reading into a subject and the element of total surprise made for a great interview. Gabriella Coleman and I finally set down to have a talk at the Chaos Communication Camp 2011 in Germany. I hope you enjoy and comment! Topics: * how Gabriella came to her discipline * the path to Free and open source culture * What Anthropology has to offer? advantages and limits * "going native" * working with digital material in social science * problems of anthropology studying the digital in western countries * necessary media literacy for studying digital communities * Hackers protesting the church of Scientology * publication and review process in social sciences * her research about Anonymous * Gabriela's role as scientist/spokesperson/activist * Forthcoming book: Coding and Freedome, the ethics and pleasures of hacking * emerging new Hacking entities Anonymous, AntiSec, LulSec, Telecomix

This is the first show of our radio station at the Chaos Communication Camp. We first explain what this Camp and our radio is with the help of lindworm and my college GMC. The second half of the show we are joined by bicyclemark one of the first and famous podcasters who explains a bit his work and what originally motivated him to start podcasting. topics: WTF is the chaos communication camp?!? hackers on a plane (HOAP) hackerspaces Luftfahrt Museum Finowfurt working as a podcaster how bicyclemark started podcasting projects in Afghanistan conflict minerals in consumer electronics “fairphone” link: events.ccc.de media.ccc.de @lindworm @bicyclemark Luftfahrt Museum Finowfurt hackerspaces.org nickfarr.org citizenreporter.org small world news Tim Pritlove Ushahidi TA19 Interview with one of the African developers of Usahidi Fairphone WP: Electronic Waste marks talk at camp about fairphone .. (so far not published, but should come up here)