Sorting fruit may be a sensory art, and it is possible to get entirely lost in the aesthetics of skilful hands and the physicality of localised knowledge. But these depictions should not come at the cost of a loss of context, and we should question why this work takes place, who largely occupies these roles, and what power they hold in these socioeconomic systems.
Ep. #45: Financial Identity, Quiet Fields, Silencing Students & Angry Anthropologists: This Month On TFS
Simon [1:00] begins our chat by asking what happens to your identity when you become a dependent spouse; that is, when your partner is supporting the household financially and you are not, especially in a new country. “For the last maybe 20 or 30 years, the assumption has been that both men and women will … Continue reading Ep. #45: Financial Identity, Quiet Fields, Silencing Students & Angry Anthropologists: This Month On TFS
“We will give to you so that you can give to us”: A Tale of Two Manuscripts
I debated for quite a long while as to what kind of second project I thought would be the most useful, given the circumstances. ... My main concern, however, remains: what will be the most accessible and useful for Shaligram practitioners themselves?
Ep. #44: Digitising Migrants: Annalisa Pelizza on the European immigration crisis in an age of Big Data
“Migration issues in Europe are a hot topic right now - it's not news that they have been used in the last 50 years as a way to steer public opinion into right wing positions...they are mobilised as elements in a narration of invasion, losing cultural specificities - not only individuals are mobilised in discursive terms, but there are also infrastructures that create people as migrants - not having access to proper work, or being put into certain infrastructures from which it’s virtually impossible to get out, creates people as migrants, as outsiders to society.” In Episode 7 of our STS Interview Series, Jodie is interviewing Annalisa Pelizza, Professor in Technology Studies of Communication at the University of Bologna in Italy about how migrants shape Europe and are shaped by European infrastructures.
The arguments against climbing Uluru… and why people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones
Author: Dr. Yasmine Musharbash, senior lecturer in anthropology at the Australian National University. The focus of her ethnographic work has been on Warlpiri people living in Yuendumu, in the Northern Territory, Australia. Her interests include the anthropology of the everyday, human/other-than-human interactions, and the anthropology of emotion. Editorial note: On July 15th 2019, an Australian … Continue reading The arguments against climbing Uluru… and why people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones
Ep. #43: Deepfakes, words vs actions, hatred in anthropology and social dissociation: This month on TFS (Re-Release)
On this month's panel episode, digital anthropologist Dr Stephanie Betz (5:50) discusses “deepfakes”. It's been possible to doctor images to a very high degree of believability for a long time - Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes, was fooled by fake images of two young girls playing in their garden with a community of fairies back in 1917! But deepfake technologies are now making it possible to create fake video footage so realistic that it's almost impossible to detect with the naked eye, and so easy to create that all you need is a smart phone. How will society adapt to these changes?
The one thing that changed everything: Complex illness & the functional fallacy of a singular cause
When I asked my research participants what they felt had caused theirs or their patient’s schizophrenia, it was often put down to one thing or another, rather than one thing and another:
"It was because of this one bad acid tab”
“It was hereditary”
“It was the trauma”
... But when it came to the solution, it tended to be a multitude of things.
Ep. #42: Economies of Openness: Ros Attenborough on cultures of trust, exclusion & generosity in STS
"All of these questions deserve...just that little bit extra thought about what would openness look like for my study and in my discipline? What would it achieve? What effects would it have? And you know that when you have research interview data it's never going to be as simple as just 'publishing it on the internet'. There … Continue reading Ep. #42: Economies of Openness: Ros Attenborough on cultures of trust, exclusion & generosity in STS
I did it for the data
As an ethnographer of porn, I entered the field with some hard limits and never crossed them. I never ended up doing anything I regretted, but the pressure to push myself and my boundaries was palatable that evening.
Ep. #41: Mediocrity, Confusing Cake, Public Accountability & Gift Reciprocity: This month on TFS
Simon (0:48) kicks off this panel by asking us about mediocrity. He reflects on his fieldwork in Iran, where he observed – particularly in the education sphere - that there was a very small difference between being ‘perfect’ and being a ‘failure’. “In Australia we…have this kind of uncomfortable-ness, I think, with excellence and the … Continue reading Ep. #41: Mediocrity, Confusing Cake, Public Accountability & Gift Reciprocity: This month on TFS
The Familiar Strange 