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Other Anthropologists (other + anthropologist)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences100%

Selected Abstracts

Conspiracy, history, and therapy at a Berlin Stammtisch

AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 3 2006
DOMINIC BOYER
In this article, I analyze conspiratorial knowledge in discussions of East German politics and history around a Berlin Stammtisch (regulars' table). The Stammtisch is a venerable, mostly masculine institution of German political culture that defines an intimate fraternal space within which social knowledge and political judgments are articulated, negotiated, and contested. Here, I am particularly interested in how talk of the "covert agencies" and "hidden relations" operating behind the scenes of political life in East Germany merged with more general and contemporary concerns about the relationship of Germanness to history. Whereas other anthropologists have emphasized the importance of conspiratorial knowledge as a mode of revealing otherwise obscure social and historical forces, I show how, in this context, conspiratorial knowledge operates in a different way to displace, dampen, or interrupt associations of contemporary Germanness with an imagined cultural inheritance of authoritarianism. [source]

CREATING YOUR OWN CONSULTING BUSINESS

ANNALS OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRACTICE, Issue 1 2008
Carla N. Littlefield
As academic positions become more competitive, many anthropologists are exploring the possibilities for creating their own consulting businesses. However, entrepreneurship is not a topic usually taught in graduate anthropology programs. In this article, two anthropologists provide advice on starting and operating a consulting business. The purpose of this article is to acquaint the budding professional with the basics of starting and operating a small business based on the skills, educational background, and experience of a professional anthropologist. The first part, Small Business Start-Up, describes the process of creating a business, from conducting a self-assessment to developing a plan to promote your services. The second part, Operating the Small Business, provides several frameworks for delivering good consultant services, from understanding the consulting process to an introduction to project management. Anthropologists are trained in data collection, analysis, and interpretation. We may also receive instruction on research design and how to conduct fieldwork and research. Our anthropological training in observing and understanding the beliefs and behaviors of groups, as well as seeing things from the client's unique perspective, gives us an edge as consultants. Our training helps us work in other cultural settings, and to work with different groups and subgroups. The authors emphasize networking as a fundamental promotion strategy that can take place at professional meetings (local, regional, or national) or with community organizations relevant to one's business (organizations, foundations, or coalitions). This article includes several useful websites for start-up topics and for networking with other anthropologists. [source]

A new synthesis: Resituating approaches to the evolution of human behaviour

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 3 2009
Agustín Fuentes
Most anthropologists would agree that humans are simultaneously historical, biological, behavioral, and social. However, many researchers retain a relatively dualistic paradigm dividing anthropological questions into biological and/or social aspects. Many practitioners of Neo-Darwinian perspectives prioritize natural selection in all explanations of human evolution. Many other anthropologists refuse to acknowledge a significant role for biological features and biological histories in human action, sensation, and engagement. Both perspectives are misplaced. Incorporating emerging perspectives in evolutionary theory into the broader anthropological discourse may help discard simplistic dualisms and resituate our assessments of the evolution of human behavior. In this essay I review three major emergent themes in evolutionary theory; Multi-Inheritance Systems Theory, Developmental Systems Theory, and Niche Construction. I suggest, with one brief example, that placing these elements in transaction with other perspectives in anthropology might enhance the possibilities of assessing human evolution and behavior. [source]

Front and Back Covers, Volume 23, Number 1.

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 1 2007
February 200
Front and back cover caption, volume 23 issue 1 Front cover A Dutch participant in the reality television series Groeten uit de rimboe, in which Dutch and Belgian families immerse themselves in the daily life of the world's ,most primitive tribes'. Some time afterwards, their hosts pay a return visit to experience life in Europe, screened on television in the sequel Groeten terug. The two series have been subject to heated debate in the Dutch media, having been both lauded as unpretentious entertainment and condemned as unethical ,popular anthropology'. The attention of Myrna Eindhoven, Laurens Bakker and Gerard Persoon was first drawn to the series when a family was sent to Mentawai, where all three have done fieldwork. While they themselves are critical of the unashamed focus on entertainment, they became intrigued by the reactions of other anthropologists to the series. Here they connect this case from the Netherlands to the ongoing debate on ,popular anthropology' in ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, triggered by the UK series Tribe. Dutch anthropologists have mostly dismissed the series as ,not anthropology', criticizing it as exploitative and as ethnocentric. But do anthropologists have the authority to define ,popular anthropology'? How do we come to terms with blatant commercialization of our fieldwork sites, and their conversion into exotic locations for popular entertainment? Back cover NATION-BUILDING IN EAST TIMOR East Timor celebrates its Independence Day on 20 May each year. The day forms the backdrop for the largest annual encounter between the political centre and the periphery. In this photo, an elder (katuas) member of Fretilin, the largest political party, blends traditional and modern at the Independence Day celebrations in the capital, Dili, in 2005. As an exemplar of the United Nations' capacity for ,nation-building', the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste (or ,East Timor' as it is more popularly known) developed into something of a ,poster boy' for the United Nations from the day it became a sovereign nation on 20 May 2002. But in April 2006, some months after the last remaining UN staff had left, violence in the streets of the capital began to undermine social and political stability, resulting in the overthrow of prime minister Mari Alkatiri. Under the more engaged leadership of his successor, José Ramos-Horta, the threat of unrest has abated to some extent. Nevertheless, the country faces an array of serious problems , political, social and economic. In his article in this issue, David Hicks draws on his anthropological fieldwork to highlight the widening gap between the ,centre' and the ,periphery'. Hicks argues that the former embodies the institutions and quasi-Western values professed by the national leaders in Dili, while the latter centres around the traditional, largely indigenous values of the country's local communities, who comprise the overwhelming majority of the population. Although already latent before the United Nations left, this widening divergence in values is eroding the political integrity of the first nation-state to become a member of the United Nations in the 21st century, and if it continues to grow, will call into question the ability of the United Nations to ,manufacture' nation-states. Anthropology has an important role to play in highlighting and analysing the implications of grassroots discrepancies between local populations and political elites. More than this, it has a role to play in confronting the international community with the ethical and other consequences of its increasingly regular interventions in third countries. [source]