Author: Stephanie Betz, PhD candidate at the Australian National University and a digital anthropologist researching the intersections between people and technology. Her doctoral research is an ethnographic study of the relationships people develop with and through computer-controlled video game characters. Her research interests include artificial intelligence and machine learning, art and images, and narrative-based communities. … Continue reading Encoding Value: What is cryptocurrency, and what does it mean for society?
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Post-Bureaucratic Stress: Reflections on getting a police check in Vietnam
Bureaucracy is so deadly dull because it’s so mundane. But, as Steve Woolgar points out in his book Mundane Governance, the Latin etymology of ‘mundane’ is ‘of the world’ - just the way things are. And that’s only true of your experience with bureaucracy if you belong in the world in which you are living. If, as a grown-up, you’ve had to do any adulting in a country where you’re unfamiliar with the rules, then you'll know that bureaucracy becomes anything but mundane because you are not ‘of the world’ in which you’re trying to operate. So in this post, I want to draw on an experience from my fieldwork to explore how mundane bureaucracy, when you’re away from home, can be a stark reminder that you are ‘matter out of place’.
Talking like a child: Language learning for anthropology fieldwork
In preparing for fieldwork, I took a class on language training with Piers Kelly. While Piers was talking more specifically about learning in a context where a language hadn’t been written down before or had very limited resources, I think there was a nice takeaway for any learner of a second (or third, or more…) … Continue reading Talking like a child: Language learning for anthropology fieldwork
Eduardo Viveiros de Castro: “I would like the Museu Nacional to remain as a ruin, a memory of the dead things.”
This week, a translation of an interview between anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro of the Museu Nacional in Brazil, and journalist Alexandra Prado Coelho. "My wish, with the rage that we are all feeling, is to leave this ruin as a memento mori, with the memory of the dead, of the dead things, of the dead peoples, of the dead archives, destroyed in this fire. I would not build in that place. And, above all, I would not attempt to hide, to erase this event, pretending that nothing happened and to try to put there a modern building, a digital museum, an internet museum – I do not doubt that these ideas will come forward. I would like that it remains in ashes, in ruins, only the façade standing, so that all can see and remember. A memorial." With thanks to Thiago Opperman for the translation.
Is Life What You Make of It?
In regard to how much pre-determined ‘luck’ compares to perceptions of social mobility, it is useful to remember that both luck and feelings of free-will play into social inequities. Social security measures that aim “to help people help themselves” could better acknowledge whether people really feel like they have a choice to contribute to their own and others’ circumstances, and then care for ‘being’ part of that change.
When the world invades “the field:” emotion, introspection, and ethnography
It’s been years since anthropology set aside the fantasy of “the field” -- a bounded research site, where the locals, and the researcher studying them, are insulated from events in the wider world. But assumptions about “the field,” and what doing fieldwork will be like, are hard to shake. I knew full well, when I … Continue reading When the world invades “the field:” emotion, introspection, and ethnography
Beyond Stereotypes: Success, failure, and the complexity of women’s education in Iran
During my 15 months of fieldwork in Iran, the gripe that a bachelor’s degree was now equivalent to that of a high school certificate from a few years earlier was pervasive. This has seen a tandem effect of young men who historically belonged to the educated classes now frequently forgoing tertiary study, and moving straight into the job market. However, such options are rarely open to women, leaving education as one of the main, if not the only way for improving social standing.
Is Higher Education a “Family-Friendly” Career Choice?
At the end of a day of academic work, you may not want to talk to anybody else, and giving yourself that option is a form of self-care. But that kind of self-care doesn’t help you to play well with others, so it becomes a vexed choice - be a good academic, or a good wife and mother.
Gender and Mental health: The need for a wider lens
As the Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby powerfully put it, it would help if we didn’t start by seeing females and males as being from different planets. Experiences of violence and the broader social receptiveness to vulnerability, along with the manifestation of mental disorders and treatment, are influenced - but not entirely determined by gender.
Imagining new imaginaries for the university
Are we seeing a shift away from explicitly imagining alternatives to the status quo? Are we even still capable, as a society, of envisaging these alternative imaginaries? There is a ‘discursive regime’ - ie. a way of speaking and discussing ideas that is so pervasive as to become inescapable - at play in discussions of universities (and indeed, the world at large) that precludes the consideration of alternatives to neoliberalisation, marketisation and capitalism more broadly. But systematic application of the imagination can create ideas, and “ideas can change reality, for ideas can turn into reasons for action, which in turn can become causes of change.” (Barnett, 2013, p. 7).
The Familiar Strange 