Wednesday, December 14, 2022

World Council of Anthropological Associations, WCAA - video list

Thanks (?) to Covid more and more conversations among researchers take place online, thus reducing the carbon footprint and making it practical for a much, much wider audience to participate. As well, when conversations are recorded for public playback, then future audiences can also search and discover the ideas found there.

The WCAA, together with the WAU (World Anthropologies Union), has hosted many of these scholarly online get-togethers, including October 2022 (Human Rights 1) and December 2022 (Human Rights 2, livestream on Dec. 14; upload to follow). The events are meant to bring anthropologists to engage is current issues, emerging problems, and perennial questions about understanding and communicating insights of human life on planet Earth.

WAU/WCAA website: www.waunet.org/wcaa/videos

Wednesday, November 30, 2022

children's books for cross-cultural & anthropology learning

In reply to a listserv question about books for young people with a cross-cultural or anthropological angle, a few colleagues replied. Here are their suggested books.
________________________________________________
I've bought a bunch of books like the ones I'll list below for both my kids (long ago) and grandkids (who are almost your grandkids' ages) and they've always enjoyed these.  For kids, I think a personalized/children's perspective like what these books offer seem to grab their attention.  My son (a history buff from early on) also loved books on ancient history; the fictional newspaper format of some of these also grabbed him when he was around 11-12.  My daughter also loved the "American Girl" biographies of imagined girls from different places around the world.
Hope these ideas are helpful!

Children Just Like Me: A new celebration of children around the world
A Life Like Mine: How Children Live Around the World
The Usborne Book of Living Long Ago: Everyday life through the Ages
History News: The Roman News

--FICTION--
R. L. LaFevers, Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos
Karuna Riazi, The Gauntlet
Caroline Lawrence, Roman Mysteries series
Eliot Schrefer's series of books about great apes, beginning with Endangered
Any of the Rick Riordan Presents series, such as Kwame Mbila Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky and Roshani Chokshi Aru Shah and the End of Time
D. J. MacHale's Pendragon series, beginning with The Merchant of Death
And an older classic, Zilpha Keatley Snyder The Egypt Game

...These are all novels rather than nonfiction, but at this age I think the most important thing is to engage their imagination. Another good bet might be David Macaulay's books on architecture (Castle, Cathedral, Pyramid, etc.), which look like picture books but are actually quite information-dense fictionalized but realistic stories of how these ancient monuments were created, and for a sense of archaeological practice, The Motel of the Mysteries, which tells a story of future archaeologists excavating a twentieth-century motel and coming to completely mistaken conclusions.


Barbara Crane Navarro, 2014, Amazon Rainforest Magic: The Adventures of Namowe, a Yanomami boy.
 - One of several children's books on Yanomami, but seems like the best.

Navarro is a French artist. For a dozen years she has devoted several months annually to living with Yanomami in Venezuela and Brazil. They inspired her artistic practice which includes creations to draw public attention to the devastation of the Yanomami and their rainforest habitat. Also check her Rainforest Art Project online.

Sunday, November 6, 2022

in the month of November - focus on Indigenous people today

The newsletter from the American Anthropological Association is featuring the "Native American month" of November with several links to stories, careers, lives, and resources. This collection comes from the AIA (Association of Indigenous Anthropologists), a section withing the American Anthro. Assoc.

Resources



Watching

 

Listening

 

Reading

 

Doing


Community members are actively contributing their anthropological knowledge to important public conversations.

 

Friday, October 21, 2022

Watching ethnographic films online (Kanopy streaming service via many libraries)

Just announced from the Royal Anthropological Institute - a selection of film titles now available on the streaming service at Kanopy:

=-=-= original announcement from the RAI film officer:
We are happy to announce that a selection of films from our extensive catalogue of enthnographic and anthropological films is now available on the educational streaming platform Kanopy. 

Films are available to stream for free through subscribing institutions, including public libraries and many universities. Log in via your institution and start watching now. 

spotlight on Archaeology - people & their environment via material traces recovered & posited

The American Anthropological Association features a different one of its 3-dozen plus Sections. This time it is the Archaeology Division.
See the recommended things to hear, watch, and read:

Watching

 

Listening

 

Reading

 

Doing

 

Shopping

 

Following

=-=-=-=-= SEE ALSO

Monday, September 26, 2022

museums and genocide episodes showcased

There have been so many instances (Bosnia/Serbia 1992, Rwanda 1998, way back to 1915 Armenia, 1820s Trail of Tears in USA, Cossacks, Shtetl pogroms); see also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide
Still more: Biblical record of Jews escaping Egyptian bondage and crossing the Jordan river to kill local residents of 'promised' land. Today in Israel the Holocaust is put in prominent, clear view at Yad Vashem. Native peoples throughout the New World were killed actively and passively, bodily and culturally in many instances, methods, and locations. Tasmania and the continent of Australia is filled with injustices, too. And in mid-September 2022 the dictator of the Russian Federation, #PutinWarCriminal, is targeting ethnic minorities to be destroyed in Ukraine by being pushed into the killing zone.

Here and there the subject of genocide is showcased in a museum form - both in static display, but also in programming events to generate discussion and awareness and further documentation of personal accounts.

The suppressing, sterilization, and killing of people and cultural landscape of the Turkic peoples in the west part of China since 2017 joins the Burmar's Path to Genocide exhibit is quite substantial and has been up for nearly two years now. The physical exhibit is in USHHM and also can be toured online (they do a number of presentations in Cox Bazaar and with the Rohingya community): https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/burmas-path-to-genocide

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Local accent - English spoken in Yorkshire, Britain's north

Roman occupiers put the sound of the city sited on the banks of the river Ouse into Latin letters as "Eboracum." Viking occupiers 400 years later heard the name as "Jorvik," from which people today call it York and which settlers at the meeting of the Hudson and East Rivers at Manhattan took as the reference for NEW York.

In this 5-minute video there are several speakers young and old from Yorkshire, as well as a hint of Northumbria (Geordie) or else from the Scottish borders, whose vocabulary, rhythms, and accents display the Yorkshire accent. The subject is a sad one about deadly sepsis: Hannah Brown whose flu-like symptoms suddenly flared into mortal illness which the hospital was unable to stop.

Monday, August 1, 2022

Pre-college anthropology examples (panel discussion) 2022

Many of us stumbled upon the fascinating world we now make careers in. But more and more places purposefully introduce young people to ideas and methods for understanding identity, culture, and context in time and place. Many weeks ago The Royal Anthropological Institute held an online panel discussion on past and current instances of anthropology being taught and schools and (secondary school) in Scotland and in England. Last week they announced the recording (1:52) for viewing of the session and Q and A that followed (begins from 1:10:00), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYM6p4Jb9YM 

Within the conversation during QA there were comparisons offered from Kenya, Italy, Israel, and Germany, among other places.

Whether you watch for children in your own family and for friends, or it is an abiding interest in advancing anthropology more generally in schools around you, this session offers a lot of good examples of overcoming obstacles, opening eyes, and enlisting help of others adjacent or amenable to anthropology for pre-college learners.

The commenting function on the video is not activated, but you can always send email to www.therai.org.uk or pursue contacts given in the recording itself.

Wednesday, June 15, 2022

Online "laugh, laugh" spellings in 26 languages


1 - Thai: "55555" is the most curious graphic representation and the reason behind it is because the number 5 in Thai is pronounced "haa". To laugh a lot you will see 55555555+(+) adding the "+" sign. 

2 - Portuguese: In both Portugal and Brazil, laughter is written "kkkkk" but you will also find  "rsrsrs" (abbreviation of "riso", meaning "laughter") and the ironic "rarara".

3 - Turkish: "hahaha", "ahahah", "jsjsjsjs", "weqeqwqewqew" or, the funniest option, random letters like: "dksajdksajdoşad" (which is the most common) are used to laugh.

4 - Malay: because "ha" x 3 times equals "hahaha", Malay speakers write "Ha3Ha3Ha3" or "Ha3". They also write laughter the way an English speaker writes, like "haha" or "ha, ha".

Sunday, June 5, 2022

About Black Accent, "blaccent"


The concept of "Blaccent" or African American Vernacular English will always elude me. I don't mean that on a conceptual level, but rather a practical one since I "talk white." My voice has been a source of great pain throughout my life since the simple act of speaking earns me the ire, even if unintentionally, of a large swath of Black Americans. Whenever I meet other Black people, projections about my past, connection to my culture, and self-love are hurled before me as conversational obstacles outside of the already daunting process of forging a human connection.

Saturday, May 14, 2022

Writing the past for people without history

Story about one of Norway's 16 cities during the Middle Ages, excavated in 30 seasons from the early 1950s until 1981 and producing 45,000 artifacts and many human remains, too. Only now is a new generation taking the work of interpreting the excavated materials.


Of course there are many more societies without written records than there are ones with a system of writing or other form of keeping records. Now in 2022 still there are something between 6700 and 6900 human languages, of which just 100 or so read and write in the same language that they speak. However, population-wise a sizable majority of living-breathing humans speak just one of 20 or 30 languages. All the diversity in the remaining ones accounts for a fraction of those walking the planet. In other words, "people without history" (part of the title for Eric Wolf's famous book from the 1980s) are relatively few persons, but relatively most languages/societies. Stated in reverse, the people who do record history account for relatively few societies, but numerically far outnumber the souls who live out their lives with no writing use.

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

recorded lecture 4/2022 , "Robo-Sexism: Gendering AI and Robots in Japan and ..."

"Robo-Sexism:  Gendering AI and Robots in Japan and the United States (and Elsewhere)" HYBRID event from April 22, 2022. recorded at https://vimeo.com/703001303 

DESCRIPTION
In humans, gender constitutes an array of learned behaviors that are cosmetically enabled and enhanced. Gender(ed) behaviors are both socially and historically shaped and are also contingent upon many situational influences, including individual choices. How is gender assigned in actual (as opposed to fictional) robots? Robertson will explore the sex/gender stereotypes and operational functions informing the design and embodiment of artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, especially humanoids and androids.

Robots have been imagined, designed, and deployed in rhetorical and tangible forms alike to reinforce conservative models of sex/gender roles, ethnic nationalism, and "traditional" family structures. Robertson considers the ramifications of "retro-tech" and also nascent efforts to redress robo-sexism.

SEE ALSO
Robo sapiens japanicus: Robots, Gender, Family, and the Japanese Nation [2017 U. California Press]

Jennifer Robertson, Professor Emerita, Anthropology and History of Art, University of Michigan
https://professorjenniferrobertson.com/interviews-podcasts-and-blogs-selection/

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Speaking with an accent - 7 min. explainer

Presenter comes from West Lancashire, adjacent to Liverpool's own "liverpudlian" (scouse) accent and illustrates some of the forces that come into play when creating the particular way that people speak in a specific landscape. Examples are given from among the 56 recognized varieties across the British Isles. Often the best (conserved, traditional) illustrations can be heard in preschool children with contact with grandparents; also among livelihoods closely associated with the land (and sea), such as farmers and fishermen.

Monday, March 7, 2022

Film Festival-7, indigenous languages today and tomorrow

=-= crossposting March 7, 2022 film festival organizer's email message


This year, our festival showcased 45 languages through 35 exceptional films that span over 16 regions around the world. Your support contributes to our continued success and the quality of the festival. 


If you enjoyed this year's festival and would like to revisit some of the programming, you can explore open access films on our website and watch roundtable sessions on our YouTube channel. You can also stay up-to-date with the festival by subscribing to our mailing list for occasional newsletters about our films, events, and related programming.


Gracias, tekk, mahalo, merci, and thank you!

—The Mother Tongue Film Festival Team


 

7th Annual Mother Tongue Film Festival  

February 17 – March 4, 2022

Thursday, January 13, 2022

Exhibit "Race: are we so different?" now online thanks to Google-Arts/culture initiative

Little by little the google form of spreading access to collections and displays grows each year.

Thursday, November 4, 2021

Reinterpreting mummified human remains of Central Asia via ancient DNA results

Bronze Age Tarim mummies aren't who scientists thought they were

The study was published Oct. 27, 2021 in the journal Nature.

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

headstones maker at work

Physical traces of past centuries can be seen in stonework. Cemeteries offer a kind of sociological gallery of stonecutters. This story looks at headstone carving by hand in 2021, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hand-carved-gravestones

Thursday, September 23, 2021

archaeology from melting snows - Mongolia prehistory

Story of human activity once buried in snow and ice but now revealed as the Earth heats up.

Friday, September 10, 2021

outreach & archaeology topics

crossposting from D. Stapp on September 9, 2021
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The Journal of Northwest Anthropology has today released an edited collection of 24 essays focused on reaching out to the public and others. We are making an e-copy available to those who are interested on our website for no cost. The essays are focused on projects, writings, curricula, and recommendations. You can get your e-copy of How Do We Reach More? Sharing Cultural and Archaeological Research with Others at the following address:

www.northwestanthropology.com/how-do-we-reach-more


While many of us do a lot of outreach, I think it is safe to say we need to do more to make this world a better place. I'd be interested in my colleagues thoughts on strategies they have used to reach more. 

Saturday, August 28, 2021

English spelling - some hurdles for new learners

FB posting of poems that embody the wacky spelling of our shared language, with preface by young person with Dysgraphia - writing/spelling difficulties,

Open poem lines:

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, laugh, and through.
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword
Well done! And now if you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps,
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
...

Sunday, July 25, 2021

Archaeology beneath today's Istanbul

Five-minute radio story to hear online, or to view the transcript with many vivid photos to illustrate the story of archaeology that lies beneath the city streets, https://www.npr.org/2021/07/23/1016814868/beneath-istanbul-archaeologists-explore-an-ancient-citys-byzantine-basements

Monday, March 1, 2021

Language and Zoom remote video communication, American Sign Language

The interplay of sign language and telecommunication methods and styles and tastes features here,

Friday, February 19, 2021

films in Native Languages - LOTE (Languages Other Than English)

This is an engaging article and overview to the subject.

Excerpt
... .Another notable choice was for the 2021 opening night film, Waikiki (2020), directed by Christopher Kahunahana. This film took us all on an emotional and harrowing journey that guided us to introspection. Correa, who was born and raised in Hawaiʻi, described his experience watching Waikiki: "I watched it and I cried. It spoke to the experience that happens to a lot of us in Hawai'i. The film itself is centered around this idea of mental illness in society and disconnection from the land. I think that is something that affects all Native Hawaiians. We're always trying to get back to the land. We are always trying to find that connection."

These films made a lasting impression because language is a grounds for and a form of intimacy. For those of us who live away from our motherland, it is a way to reconnect with our family and culture. For those of us whose motherland has been taken away, it roots us to our land.

Thursday, February 11, 2021

book and documentary (Kyushu) - 40 years of Japan fieldwork

Promoting her latest book, Prof. Joy Hendry talks of her long-term ties to the people of rural Japan [extremis.com 2021 An Affair with a Village],

book and documentary (Kyushu) - 40 years of Japan fieldwork

Promoting her latest book, Prof. Joy Hendry and her long-term ties to the people of rural Japan,

Sunday, January 3, 2021

archaeology - 12 sites featured in Smithsonian Institution book

[description from publication page 1/2021]

A new book Incredible Archaeology: Inspiring Places From Our Human Past, out this month from Smithsonian Books, explores some of the world's most spectacular ancient wonders. (Alpineguide/Alamy). SMITHSONIANMAG.COM | Nov. 30, 2020, 9 a.m.

Incredible Archaeology: Inspiring Places from Our Human Past is a global tour of ancient sites, from the famous and much-visited Machu Picchu to lesser-traversed places, like North America's Viking Settlement, L'anse Aux Meadows, or the rock paintings of the San people in South Africa's Game Pass Shelter. The collection, offered by Smithsonian Books and assembled by writer and editor Paul Bahn, includes breathtaking photos of temples entangled in jungle, settlements once concealed by rising water, and ancient cities long abandoned. Incredible Archaeology takes readers on an arm-chair journey to far-flung corners of the globe and spans thousands of years, from our earliest ancestors to the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

These selected 12 places sampled from Incredible Archeology are a testament to human ingenuity and perseverance.

The Viking Settlement of L'Anse Aux Meadows
   The Great Houses of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico held great symbolic and ceremonial importance to the Chacoan people. (Efrain Padro / Alamy)
      The Mountaintop City of Monte Albán
         The Geoglyph Nazca Lines
The Iron Age Settlement at Biskupin
   The Sanctuary of Delphi
      The Twin Temples at Abu Simbel
         Game Pass Shelter
The City of Ur
   Cave Temples and Monasteries at Ajanta
      Aboriginal Art in Kakadu National Park
         Gyeongju: Museum Without Walls

Friday, November 13, 2020

online resource to explore for anthropology

Maybe this source will present good things to share with students and colleagues now or in future years.
Used in conjunction with Wikipedias in multiple languages, this concentration of anthropology presentations will be a place to explore from time to time.
_________________________________________
OARR: Open Anthropology Research Repository is the free, publicly available anthropology resource where you can find and share research.

Sunday, July 19, 2020

Dogs sniffing our (human) bones from centuries ago

Excerpt from "Archaeology Dogs Can Help Scholars Sniff Out the Past"

A dog's nose performs at least 10,000 times better than ours. Specifically, dogs pick up on low-molecular-weight compounds that easily evaporate at room temperature and often carry an odor—what scientists call volatile organic compounds. Canines can detect one such part in every trillion.
     As a result, dogs have demonstrated uncanny olfactory abilities. They have sniffed out melanoma skin cancer in humans and detected pregnancy in cows just by picking up scents in their bodily fluids.
     So, what exactly are canines detecting at archaeological digs? "Our dogs are not actually searching for bones," Glavaš emphasizes. "They are searching for the molecules of human decomposition."

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Stories told by trash of the ancestors, digging on Mackinac Island


Literally salvage archaeology in two senses of the term: quick work at the time of major construction to salvage social and cultural information from the exposed ground, and also salvage as in 'junk yard' salvaging value from what has been discarded.

This article describes the work undertaken as part of the relocation of the island airstrip.

Friday, June 26, 2020

language as political hot-potato that is hard to handle (English graveyard, Gaelic text)

excerpt from Church of England refuses to allow foreign language on a gravestone, calling it a "political statement"

...the Church of England pushed back again when they saw the planned inscription on the cross: "In ár gcroíthe go deo," which means, "In our hearts forever" in the Irish language. This didn't seem particularly radical, especially as there are already Welsh inscriptions in the same cemetery. But once again, the diocesan advisory committee denied the family's headstone proposal. "Given the passions and feelings connected with the use of Irish Gaelic," said a Church judge who is also a local government judge, "There is a sad risk that the phrase would be regarded as some form of slogan or that its inclusion without translation would of itself be seen as a political statement."


After yet another appeal, the judge agreed to allow the Irish words only if they're accompanied by an English translation.



Thursday, June 4, 2020

Britain's "Pompeii" time capsule, the Bronze Age site at Must Farm

Awarded the 2020 Antiquities prize for newly published and open access article, "The Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement."

The article provides a site overview and the current interpretations of the archaeology alongside discussing the material found during the 2015-16 excavations.

See https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2019.38


or look at Facebook for updates to the project, https://www.facebook.com/MustFarmArchaeology/

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Language listening - ear for regional accents

A 5 min. stand-up comedy routine: regional USA accents by Fred Armisen, pretty impressive, https://youtu.be/G72tZdjnS2A
 - Good for people with an ear for languages; and for people learning USA lingua-culture.