Around the Web Digest: Week of June 21

It’s been a rollercoaster week in US politics! Hope that, no matter where you are in the world, something in the news made you happy this week. Send me any blog links at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com.

According to this post on Media/Anthropology, bilingualism has a different social valence in Spain (where it signifies upward mobility) and Denmark (where it signifies loss of competency in Danish): Educating “Bilingual” Children in Spain and Denmark

At Raving Anthropology, a student is chronicling her fieldwork on drug use and harm reduction in electronic dance music halls in Toronto. In Eat, Sleep, Anth, Repeat, she discusses entering the field, and follows up with excerpts from her field notes in Field Notes: This Data Collection is Interfering with My Dancing. (There’s strong language in case you’re squeamish).

This AAA blog post points out that white middle-class parenting standards should not be taken as the norm, with any difference seen as a lack: White+Word Gap=Wrong! 

New York Magazine’s page, the Science of Us, asks the question, When Did the End Begin? They provide 6 separate accounts of the beginning of the Anthropocene, a few of which come from anthropologists.

According to this fascinating but short NPR story, Americans experience schizophrenia differently than people in other places because their conception of their minds as a fortress makes it feel like an invasion: Auditory Hallucinations May Vary Across Cultures 

The Guardian reports that a 17th-century bishop was buried with a 5-month old fetus, concealed in the bed of herbs that surrounded and preserved his body: Scan of Mummified Body of Swedish Bishop Reveals Baby Hidden in Coffin

A few of my friends shared this article from McClatchy DC, which discusses archaeologists’ excitement and panic as frozen bodies and artifacts are being revealed and exposed to rapid decomposition: As Globe Warms, Melting Glaciers Revealing More Than Bare Earth 

In similar mummified news, this article in the Siberian Times seems a bit problematic but the necropsy of a 12,000 year old domesticated puppy is exciting… Does anyone have a better link discussing this? Autopsy Carried Out on World’s Oldest Dog Mummified by Ice 

The blog Elfshot: Sticks and Stones features reproductions of Northern artifacts, like the ones described here: Atlatls and Darts for Alaska and the Yukon

Middle Savagery came out with these recommendations for staying safe in the field for archaeologists: Health and Safety for Academic Archaeologists Part 2

See you next week!

 

Rebecca Nelson

Rebecca Nelson is the executive director of América Solidaria U.S. She recently graduated with a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on volunteer tourism in Guatemala and how it is opening up new avenues for tourists and hosts to develop more cosmopolitan understandings of the world (as well as opening up new forms of friction over the circulation of knowledge).