Tons of newly published open anthropology

When it rains it pours. In the past two days it seems like I’ve been deluged with quality open access anthropology. Perhaps open access is not the right word, since some of them have pretty traditional copyright on them, but the important thing is that they are all free to read, and all deserve to be read. Where to begin?

I mentioned earlier that for many people ontology was a major theme at AAAs. Well now the good folks at Cultural Anthropology have published the papers from the Politics of Ontology Session. Short. Sweet. Ontologytastic. Most of what happens at the AAAs doesn’t live on in any meaningful way, or else is published years afterwards. It’s amazing, frankly, to see such relevant stuff from such high-calibre people get thrown up on the Intarweb.

Speaking of high-calibre, Museum Anthropology Review has published a ginormous double issue on digital repatriation and the circulation of indigenous knowledge. Its an amazing collection of papers that help get the word out about the cutting edge of digital repatriation projects which are out there. Hats off to the organizers.

There are also many new less scholarly, more general-interest pieces out now. Limn, an art magazine/scholarly journal hybrid founded by our own Chris Kelty, published its fourth issue on Food Infrastructures. Yum. There is also a new issue of Anthropology of This Century out as well as a new number of Popular Anthropology.

I wish I could recommend specific articles out of all these journals, but frankly I’m swamped — and eager to hear what you all have to say. Anything in here you’re particularly keen to read? Or what would you recommend, having read some of this stuff? The Internetz wants to know.

Rex

Alex Golub is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. His book Leviathans at The Gold Mine has been published by Duke University Press. You can contact him at rex@savageminds.org

3 thoughts on “Tons of newly published open anthropology

  1. In my case, the most interesting readings are the digital repatriation/return/circulation ones. especially because I am just now beginning to deal with this particular issue in the area where I work. Just read through the introduction to the journal issue and it raises many fascinating topics and issues.Good stuff!

  2. I enjoyed Laidlaw’s review of Bloch’s new book in AotC. Seems like the cognitivists and the ontologists are both finding exciting new ways to avoid being called essentialists.

  3. Rex, point taken. That particular excess was, just for the record, incited by reading the papers from the Politics of Ontology session at the AAA to which you provided the link. Just wish to note that my animus is not directed at anthropologists who do research and write in non-scientific styles. I am, to cite just two examples, a great admirer of both Ruth Behar and Kim Narayan, whose work I find deeply moving. I am also not averse to critical theory well-presented. Thanks to the formation of the new Speculative Realism Group on OAC, I have finally gotten around to reading Graham Harman’s Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics. That book is now available as an open access PDF [http://www.re-press.org/book-files/OA_Version_780980544060_Prince_of_Networks.pdf]. It is lucid, readable, and eminently recommendable to anyone who wants to know more about where the “ontological turn” is coming from.

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