Around the Web

Well, first things first. Happy birthday to Strong, although it’s already past in Finland.

“Less Sexy” Indigenous People: Culture Matters and Gringo Tambo have collected a number of reports on harassment of indigenous people in Sucre, Bolivia’s other capital city. Jovan at Culture Matters was quick to point out the irony of this story breaking so close to the story on “undiscovered” Amazonians, aptly calling it the “less sexy indigenous story.”

AAA makes NPR: The AAA online project on Understanding Race was featured on NPR. Listen Here. In tangentially related news, new findings on genetic diversity among 2000 year-old remains in Denmark are being touted as conclusive counter evidence to the notion of purity of a Nordic race. (also here).

Alternet reposted a great article by Nir Rosen on the Ur district in Baghdad–a really interesting neighborhood study and analysis of urban politics.

Social Educating Sites? InsideHigherEd reported a couple weeks ago that Blackboard has a Facebook application. According to one Blackboard representative interviewed, the rationale was to get students to check Blackboard more often, since they associate that website with ‘work’ and facebook with recreation.

Spartans of the Plains: Literary Review published a review of Pekka Hämäläinen’s book on Comanche resistance to Spanish and U.S. colonialism. The reviewer accused the book of being too academic and jargony, but perhaps that won’t bother SM readers.

Tourists meet Immigrants. Immigrants, Tourists: I am not versed at all in academic studies of tourism or immigration, but one common complaint I’ve heard is that the two fields don’t often talk to one another. That’s why I found the photographs from Imogen Tyler’s article on ASA Globalog quite compelling. The article doesn’t directly address the relationship of tourists and immigrants, but it is an interesting read nonetheless.

Happy Fathers Day: So, SM is not endorsing a transcultural idea of fatherhood, but Slate’s photographs of fathers from around the world is pretty adorable.

4 thoughts on “Around the Web

  1. Has there been a discussion on the anthropology of tourism on SM? As an undergrad student thinking of grad school in anthropology and working on a senior thesis on culture and tourism, I have appreciated discussions of methodology and other issues related to anthropology research that I’ve read about here. However, I keep hoping for tourism to pop up as a topic and this is the first time I’ve seen it. Can anyone direct me to earlier discussions on the topic? Or any insight on why it sometimes seems to be a less-talked about topic in anthropology in general (if that is even true?)
    Thanks!

    Jen

  2. Jennifer, there is a listserve for tourism studies which has a lot of anthro people on it. Sign up for it here: http://www.h-net.org/lists/subscribe.cgi

    I don’t know about savageminds’ treatment of it, but anthro in general has a tense relationship with the study of tourism. (I think it was Vincent Crapanzano who attributed this tension to the fact that tourists fancy themselves as amateur anthropologists, and anthropologists find tourists often make a mess of field sites for actual scholars. Think of study abroad programs that send people to live in another country for a year and feature outings to local rituals, etc. where they snap no end of pictures.) There is also the problem that tourism is a very boujie undertaking, and some folks think that makes it a boujie topic to study despite its enormous importance to and impact on local economies and lives. There’s a fair amount of anthropological literature that directly addresses (and tends to affirm your suspicion) of anthropologists avoiding tourism studies. (Though I think there has been serious headway made in the last 5 years or so about this.)

    If you go to AAA this Fall, you should check out Quetzil Castaneda’s annual workshop on tourist studies. He has great resources. In fact, you might want to write to him just as a networking thing. (He’s quite friendly and helpful.) He’d also be good for directing you to good bibliographic stuff, and would know which programs to target if you apply to MA/PhD programs (apart from his own U Washington.)

  3. LFB–

    Thanks so much. I’ve read a little into the literature and seen the tensions you mentioned, but it’s sometimes hard to tell whether those sorts of tensions are still alive or fading. I appreciate your insight. Unfortunately, I’ll be on a study abroad program next fall (hopefully not for the sole purpose of snapping photos), but I’ll definitely look into the other resources you suggested. Maybe I can catch the panel the following year.

    Thanks again.

  4. No problem. And yes, my feeling is the tensions are very much alive and well, especially when academic job markets dwindle and anthropologists encounter other academics who feel their vacations in Bali, or Ghana, or Mexico qualify them to speak authoritatively about the cultures found there.

    Enjoy your study abroad. Check out the article(s) on study abroad students in Sharon Gmelch’s excellent reader on tourism if you haven’t already. It will encourage you to do some “deep hanging out”, interrogate authenticity, and to get the most of it.

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