This Anthro Life

This episode focuses on a conversation between Adam and Amy about a TEDtalk titled The Power of Vulnerability presented by Brené Brown. In this video, Brown breaks down the “wholehearted individual” one who has courage, social connection, compassion, and an appreciation for his/her vulnerabilities. They were unashamed to be vulnerable. They are comfortable with saying I love you first, putting an opinion piece out regardless of potential backlash, being authentic without fear. As Brown stresses, the wholehearted have ”the willingness to do something with no guarantees”.  It’s allowing for things to fall outside of your control. To accept the controllable and the chaotic aspects of life. Check Out These Links To Consider Wholehearted Authenticity Audiobook:The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connection, and Courage Michael Jackson “Anthropology and Existential Turn” by Michael Jackson and Albert Piette in What is Existential Anthropology Ricardo Godoy who posts rejection letters on his door at Brandeis University Not everyone is like this. Brown points out that many people numb themselves with things like alcohol, drugs, and food to avoid the emotions and thoughts that make them vulnerable. The issue behind numbing is that attempting to erase feelings of sadness, anger, disappointment, embarrassment, and grief also numbs feelings of happiness, love, and connection, which makes people feel more vulnerable and upset continuing in a cycle of misery. Brown outlines what is behind numbness: “making the uncertain certain”, only valuing the perfect, and pretending that what we do has no effect on others. These habits get in the way of leading a full happy where you feel worthy of love and that you belong. This episode of This Anthropological Life considers the multidimensionality of vulnerability and empathy including: context, biology, technology, and gender. Check Out the Links Below to Build a Better Understanding of Brown’s Concepts of Vulnerability and This Anthro Life’s Takes on Empathy Video: The Power of Empathy This Anthro Life Episode 4: Violence and Empathy A...

As you may have noticed, TAL has been on a bit of a break from releasing new episodes. But, the good news is that we have not been idle. The other night when Ryan and Adam were out and about they got to talking about TAL and their perspectives on public anthropology. What does the future hold? What inspires change? Realizing they were on to something good, they pulled out a phone and hit record. This episode is what came out. We hope you’ll enjoy! This episode was recorded live and near a kitchen so please forgive the extra noise :). In this FreeThink Ryan and Adam get a little personal, shedding light on their own stories, views on art, religion, creative writing, literature, and what it is that drives the team to do anthropology. “Human Being is an art, and we gotta dig into that” – Adam In this episode grapple with the questions Can we bring beauty and the poetics of human nature back into anthropology? How do we take criticisms about anthropology and turn them into something positive? How do we be public while not bringing in jargon, but also infusing social science knowledge into our content while still keeping it accessible? Should we change our name? “Truth is always stranger than fiction” – Ryan If you wish to further unpack the subjects we discussed in this episode check out the following links! David Carrasco – Historian of Religion Michael Jackson – Existential Anthropology Middlemarch as the best ethnography ever! It gets into the heart of Victorian life. What do you think? Aztec by Gary Jennings “The Aztec World of Gary Jennings” by Michael E. Smith On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation “The Art of Looking: How to Live with Presence, Break the Tyranny of Productivity, and Learn to See Our Everyday Wonderland”  by Maria Popova

Psychedelia is the culture and experiences of psychedelic substances. Where did all the research on psychedelic drugs go? Could psychedelics be used in psychotherapy? How are hallucinogenic drugs used cross-culturally? In this episode of This Anthro Life Adam and Ryan explore the world of psychedelic drugs with Hamilton Morris of Vice’s Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia. We discuss his fieldwork in the Amazon where he hunted for a locally important frog, the potential diagnostic, medicinal, and therapeutic uses of psychedelics, as well as the obstacles in the way of studying human consciousness. Special thanks to Alice Kelikian and the Brandeis Program in Film, Television and Interactive Media for sponsoring the interview! Who is Hamilton Morris? Hamilton Morris is a journalist for Vice, scientist, and an anthropologist who seeks to understand hallucinogenic drugs and human consciousness through a scientific and cultural perspective.  He has traveled all around the world studying psychoactive drugs by participating in rituals and consuming the drugs his informants are using. He documents his experiences on Vice’s Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia.  Morris’ adventures are reminiscent of anthropologist and ethnobotanist Wade Davis’ own studies, but you will have to listen in to see for yourself! When asked what drew Morris into his field he responded “I like good stories. That’s a big part of it. I think that there’s a lot of great stories in this area. Some of the best stories I have ever heard, a lot of weird stories, a lot of people that dedicate their lives in a really serious way to these substances. They have a passion a religious almost passion for these things and that belief, I think, is really compelling from a storytelling perspective.” To Learn More About Morris and his Projects Check Out The Links Below! Hamilton Morris Twitter Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia A Psychonaut’s Adventures in Videoland Hamilton Gets High For A Living and Invites You to Watch

with Aneil and Ryan  Special Guest: Serra Hakyemez Is waiting political? Can you cut in line at Starbucks during your hectic morning commute?  In this episode of TAL we team up with Serra Hakyemez, a Junior Research Fellow from the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University to discuss her paper entitled, “Waiting, Acting Political, Hope, Doubt, and Endurance in the Anti-Terrorism Courts of Northern Kurdistan”, which focuses on the ways political detainees’ families are actively shaping and constructing community identities while waiting in the courthouse (Brandeis Anthropology Research Seminar). We also discuss the pedagogical effect the process of waiting has on the families and the role of repetition.  Whether you are waiting in line or waiting for our newest TAL episode to download take some time to scroll through our notes! Why Waiting? Serra spent time waiting to talk to lawyers, for the trials, and to talk with families. She noticed that waiting seemed to be a large part of the judicial process. She found that even the courthouse is designed for people to wait in it (i.e. long hallway with a long line of chairs). Outside of the courtroom there is a hallway where families are expected to wait for long periods of time (often decades!) for the trial of their family members. Inside the courtroom there are no chairs and it is designed to make those within it uncomfortable. The trials themselves are often over in 15-30 minutes. Is Waiting Static? A frame of inaction? Short answer is no. Waiting for the trial forces the families to schedule their domestic. work, and political lives around the time they will be waiting. Families and lawyers spend their time actively seeking out judges, lawyers, and other families. They are constructing a community through which they can protest against the state and find hope. The actual process of waiting is a spectacle or a ritual of the state. It is a way for the state to inscribe its power on the people.The families are building these communities within the courtroom to work against the state and state violence. Check out this link to learn more about ethnography and waiting Becoming While Waiting Action is part of the endurance of waiting as it makes waiting bearable. The feeling that you cannot act results in either feelings of impotence or cynicism. Serra found that the families felt neither of these. Instead of being inactive, the families were discussing the news and how it might affect their situation. They organized protests against the judges and the court system. The families were becoming political while waiting. The families are exploring the dynamic between the PKK and the state. They are acknowledging the presence of this external force on their daily lives and are becoming actors within this process by becoming a protester or a “terrorist”. There is also a pedagogical aspect to waiting in the courtroom with many children of political detainee families wanting to become lawyers. By observing the trials for most of their lives, the families often end up knowing the laws better than some of the lawyers. Check out the links below to learn more about the PKK.

Today’s D+A minisode follows last week’s powerful conversation with Jara Connell on protests and people-powered forms of resistance. In this minisode Jara offers us a nugget of wisdom to be cautious about thinking all protests are the same or that we can even evaluate them with the same criteria. TAL D+A Minisodes are short, actionable steps you can take in your everyday life to become more socially savvy, culturally competent and holistic in your actions. If you have any suggestions for D+A minisodes or longer Conversations, drop us a line! We’re always looking for new ideas.

  What does mass-protesting accomplish? Does no arrests equate success? Why is protesting disruptive? And more! In this action packed episode of This Anthropological Life, Aneil, Adam, and Ryan talk to Jara Connell about mass protesting and the strategies behind social movements. Who is Jara Connell? Jara is a PhD candidate at Brandeis University. She focuses on race, space, and policing in Saint Louis. Jara’s Master’s thesis dealt with sex and gender politics in Ferguson. When Jara is not advocating for social change and challenging dominant political agendas she takes her cat, Booger, on walks. Twitter Linkedin What Do Mass Protests Actually Do? Mass Protests function as platforms to show support, motivate, create networks, and express the mass-discontent of the population. The Women’s March on Washington and those that occurred in solidarity in other cities are examples of mass-protesting events with the purpose of showing solidarity in the face of potential threat from the state and signalling a need for change. These forms of protests tend to function as opportunities for local organizations to draw recruits to their cause, so when smaller scale events occur in the future, they can call upon those individuals without the needs of posting in public forums. In the end, mass protests are events with initiative agendas. They are not meant to be the only statement of a cause, but rather a starting point for continued action. Strategies and next step actions must be considered to move beyond the initial show of solidarity and acknowledgment of a problem. Tune into the Podcast for More Information on Mass Protesting! Is There a Correct Way to Protest? There is not one correct way to protest. Protest strategies need to be able to evolve and be flexible in order to better assess the most effective ways to produce change in different environments. However, we do need to be careful about what is being labeled “the right way to protest”. Immediately following the Women’s March on Washington came information that no one was arrested, but no arrests does not necessarily point to an effective protest. In the case of the Women’s March on Washington, the march was planned and permitted by the state. Roads were cleared ahead of time and non-protesters were able to avoid the disruption of protest crowds and move about their day normally. So two big parts of protesting (disruption and unpredictability) were taken out of the equation and it was all cleared with the very state they were protesting against.   To Learn More About Evaluations of the Women’s March Check Out the Links Below and Tune into the Podcast!

Minisodes are finally here! If this is your first TAL Podcast experience, welcome! We recommend you start off with our regular Conversation series – 25ish minute dialogues about everything and anything human – one topic at a time. Design + Application (DnA, get it??) Minisodes are bite-sized actionable insights and social building blocks to help you become more socially savvy, culturally competent, and holistic in thinking and action. With D+A we move from anthropological thinking to anthropological doing. These are 5-10 minute nuggets from our guests on Conversations or inspiring tidbits we come across that you can use in your daily lives. We release these weekly on Monday mornings to give you a boost for the week. To kick things off, Dr. Andi Simon discusses with the TAL team how to deal with change. Our brains may not like change, but it is perhaps the one constant we have in life. Dr. Simon teaches us a few hacks to get your mind in the right state to deal with change. If you like minisodes and want to hear more, let us know! Tweet us or shoot us a review on iTunes!  

How can we make change easier? Do women lead differently from men? What is corporate anthropology? Ryan, Adam, and Aneil are back to answer these questions and more with Dr. Andi Simon. Change is hard, but with Dr. Simon’s toolkit of anthropological knowledge, games, and theater she is able to help businesses change a little easier. We have a copy of Dr. Simon’s great book On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights to give away to one lucky listener. How do you do that? Drop us a review on iTunes within a week of this episode release (Released January 25th), and email us with what review you wrote. We’ll pick a lucky winner from the reviewers and send you the book! Who is Dr. Andi Simon? Dr. Andi Simon founded the company Simon Associates Management Consultants and uses her anthropological training to help corporations change during times of stagnation and even times of growth. Simon views businesses as “pretty interesting self-contained social entities with culture, values, beliefs, and behaviors and every time someone says ‘oh no that’s not the way we do things here’ you know the power of culture is not to be underestimated”, with this in mind it is no wonder her training as an anthropologist fits so well in the corporate world. Dr. Simon wrote the book On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights and maintains a blog that discusses the uses of corporate anthropology and the need for anthropological methodology. She has also appeared in Forbes and Bloomberg Businessweek. Check out the links below to learn more about Dr. Andi Simon! Is Your Business on the Brink? Andi Simon Observation into Innovation What is Corporate Anthropology? If we consider corporations as “self-contained social entities with culture” then it follows that anthropologists will study them. Corporate anthropology uses anthropological theory to study everything to do with corporations and business practices. The field looks at company organization,  marketing strategies, and business trends to look at culture in the business world.

Will Emojis be the death of writing? Are emojis modern day hieroglyphs? Is the increased use of emojis in textual conversations a sign of the end of language as we know it? In our first episode of the New Year we discuss the origin of emojis as well as the importance of actively seeking to understand the hidden biases of language. Check out our What’s Your Story page to tell us what you would like us to discuss in our next episode! What is an Emoji?

Giving Gifts and the Spirit of Sharing Summary: Why can’t you get rid of that ugly sweater from Grandma? What rules dictate your selection of gifts this holiday season? What is the deal with those freaking pajamas you get every year? In this holiday episode of This Anthropological Life, we discuss the social implications behind giving and receiving gifts, giving in the animal kingdom, bad gifts, altruism, and the primordial debt. Consider this our gift to you and reciprocate with a review or a donation on our secure Paypal page! We would love to hear from you!  Vocab Inalienable Possessions are objects that are connected to the social identity of the original owner even after death  (i.e. a wedding ring that has been passed down from mother to daughter within a family, patrimonial objects). Hau the spirit of the Gift, is the idea that there is something imbued in the object itself that animates it, thus its own desires must be incorporated in the exchange as well as the giver and receiver’s. The Primordial Debt is the debt we owe to something beyond ourselves (i.e. the sacred, deities, gods, etc.) for setting the conditions for creation. Giving in Nature: Gift giving is a practice that we see paralleled in the natural world. In particular, chimpanzees are known to find more value in the social act of giving food. Experiments dealing with this topic have found that chimpanzees tend to make decisions that would benefit others in order to strengthen their social ties. Even cats bring their owners dead mice to show affection, while this is not necessarily occurring at the same level as the chimp. There is still some idea of wanting to give back or show affection. In these examples, we see that what is being given is strongly tied to what the giver deems valuable. “Based on what the being would want for itself. Like cats really enjoy dead mice, and of course with the chimps with grapes you have more sugar, so it is probably tastier. So it seems that with people we base our gifts on what we would want to receive” The Gift – Mauss When discussing the social implications behind gift giving it is almost impossible to get through a full conversation without discussing Marcel Mauss. Mauss wrote the foundational book on gift-giving, The Gift. In The Gift, Mauss discusses gift-giving as a tool for creating and maintaining social bonds through the reciprocal nature of gifts.

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