The Familiar Strange · Ep #102: Gender in the Mines & Anthro Origin Stories: This Month on TFS We are back for 2023! This month we welcome our newest Familiar Stranger Nitya! Nitya has just finished their Master of Anthropology and is current doing some further work into Gender and mining. In this episode we … Continue reading Ep #102: Gender in the Mines & Anthro Origin Stories: This Month on TFS
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My Divine Pet Rock
Amusing anecdotes about fieldwork were, from what I could tell, basic currency throughout university halls, on conference panels, and in graduate student lounges. Many of my teachers and advisors had often relayed similar, if self-deprecating, stories about their own spectacular mishaps or moments of levity while working with people in every context imaginable: research participants, colleagues, friends, and community leaders alike. So why then was this reaction to my story so sudden and so visceral?
Ep #58: Individuals, Whiteness, Gendered Fandoms and Picking Field Stories to Tell: This Month on TFS
This week we bring you another from home Zoom panel! This week we are joined by Senior lecturer Dr Yasmine Musharbash. Dr Musharbash is currently based in the Northern territory and has research interests in monsters, sleep and death. Alex [1:44] starts us off this week by returning to a topic touched on in the … Continue reading Ep #58: Individuals, Whiteness, Gendered Fandoms and Picking Field Stories to Tell: This Month on TFS
Ep. #21 Misogyny, irrational politics, the ontological turn, and multi-media learning: this month on TFS
Jodie (1:04), drawing on the book Down Girl by Australian philosopher Kate Manne, starts us off by asking what misogyny is, and how we should tackle it as a culture. “If our goal is behaviour change, for bigots to stop being bigots, racists to stop being racists, misogynists to stop being misogynists… is the approach … Continue reading Ep. #21 Misogyny, irrational politics, the ontological turn, and multi-media learning: this month on TFS
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.
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.
What the Tech Sector Could Learn from Anthropology
Technology is a social tool that requires understanding of social and cultural factors for it to be a driver of equality. Failing to incorporate an anthropological perspective into tech design, development and policy risks increasing social inequalities driven by digital exclusion. It also makes it more likely that your product or service will fail.
Digital connectivity and data mediate culture, systems and life today. Failing to take into account the importance of “small data” in a world of big data risks boxing people into categories of belonging which inaccurately represent their lives, hopes, fears and desires in this world.
Living and F*cking with Acronyms: A response to Dennis Altman’s call to rethink LGBTI
Last week Australian academic Dennis Altman published a provocative piece in The Conversation, suggesting that it was time to re think the label LGBTI. In the place of the acronym LGBTI, which he describes as ‘a direct product of American identity politics’, he proposes the acronym SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) a term that originates in human rights discourses. Now it is here, as a white, queer anthropologist who studies what development means to slum children in India, that the celebration and adoption of a term produced by a global body like the UN baffles me a little.
Ep. #1 Campus free speech, mundane governance, truth in politics, and creeps v. @ssholes: this month on TFS
Jodie, Simon, Julia, and Ian preview what's coming up on The Familiar Strange blog in the coming month. On today's show, Jodie (1:40) follows up on 2015 fracas at Yale about free speech and Halloween, in response to a discussion on Sam Harris' podcast "Waking Up" (www.samharris.org/podcast/item/facing-the-crowd); Simon (7:10) takes us to Iran for a look … Continue reading Ep. #1 Campus free speech, mundane governance, truth in politics, and creeps v. @ssholes: this month on TFS
To adult is human. To outsource your adulting? Divine.
Author: Jodie-Lee Trembath My life reached a whole new level of weird recently. I signed up to a fortnightly subscription for deodorant delivery. My husband and I, as busy, professional DINKs (sort of – I’m on a PhD scholarship, but still, there are two of us) outsource a lot of our adulting responsibilities – we’ve … Continue reading To adult is human. To outsource your adulting? Divine.
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