All posts by Ryan

Ryan

Ryan Anderson is a cultural and environmental anthropologist. His current research focuses on coastal conservation, sustainability, and development in the Californias. He also writes about politics, economics, and media. You can reach him at ryan AT savageminds dot org or @anthropologia on twitter.

News: Princeton and Open Access

Did you hear this?  In light of all the recent debates and discussions about publishing and open access, check out this news:

Prestigious US academic institution Princeton University will prevent researchers from giving the copyright of scholarly articles to journal publishers, except in certain cases where a waiver may be granted.

The new rule is part of an Open Access policy aimed at broadening the reach of their scholarly work and encouraging publishers to adjust standard contracts that commonly require exclusive copyright as a condition of publication.

Universities pay millions of dollars a year for academic journal subscriptions. People without subscriptions, which can cost up to $25,000 a year for some journals or hundreds of dollars for a single issue, are often prevented from reading taxpayer funded research. Individual articles are also commonly locked behind pay walls.

Read the rest, here.  More about this soon, but I just wanted to post this and see what others think about these developments.  Check out some of the discussion in the comments section as well.  Very, very interesting…

 

*Hat tip to Justin Shaffner for sending this my way.  Thanks!

Imagined Anthropological Communities (that’s right: another post about publishing & open access)

Benedict Anderson’s* classic text “Imagined Communities” happens to be a pretty fascinating book to read while thinking about academia, communication, open access, publishing, and the formation of community.  Anderson’s argument is that print capitalism provided a critical medium that facilitated the production of national identities:

Speakers of a huge variety of Frenches, Englishes, or Spanishes, who might find it difficult or even impossible to understand one another in conversation, became capable of comprehending one another via print and paper.  In the process, they gradually became aware of the hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people in their particular language-field, and at the same time that only those hundreds of thousands, or millions, so belonged.  These fellow-readers, to whom they were connected through print, formed, in their secular, particular, visible invisibility, the embryo of the nationally imagined community (2006: 44).

However, as Anderson goes on to point out, there are limits to this construction of imagined communities: “The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them, encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic boundaries, beyond which lie other nations” (2006: 7).  Nations have edges–they do not include every possible member of the human species.  These communities are inclusive and exclusive all at once.  Language, transmitted through a particular medium (in this case print capitalism) can be marshaled to engender powerful shared social meanings and connections.  But the reverse is also true.  Language and communication can also be used (purposefully or not) as a means of exclusion.

Think about those ideas on a much smaller scale.  Way smaller.  Academics–and anthropologists in particular–form a certain kind of imagined community as well. Continue reading →

Hipstamatic, Authentic, and (maybe) True

Anthropologists talk a lot about authenticity.  I think Edward Bruner put it really well when he said this: “[M]y position is that authenticity is a red herring, to be examined only when tourists, the locals, or the producers themselves use the term” (Culture on Tour, 2005:5).  Rather than focus on whether or not something is truly authentic (which can lead to a never-ending debate), Bruner instead argues that it makes more sense to look at how different people think about, debate, and define what they feel is authentic.  The focus shifts from a philosophical discussion about truth to an empirical investigation of how different people create and imagine what is and what is not authentic.  This, to me, is a really productive methodological tool that anthropology can bring to the table.  It’s a good starting point for trying to hash out what “authenticity” is really all about.

So, here’s the question of the day: Can images taken with an iPhone Hipstamatic app really be authentic?  Or is this a sign of the end of truth in photography? Continue reading →

Anthropology & Academic Publishing: Update

Well, if there’s one thing that George Monbiot’s piece about academic publishing has accomplished, it has certainly created some discussion around the internets.  First of all, Lorenz over at anthropology.info has a great post that provides a good summary of some of the debates, reactions, and discussions about this whole issue.  Lorenz also provides an excellent selection of related links at the bottom of this post.

There are two specific posts that I want to highlight out of all this.  The first is Jason Baird Jackson’s post “How enclosed by Large For-Profit Publishers is the Anthropology Journal Literature?”  This one is definitely worth a read for anyone who is interested in this whole publishing conundrum.  Jackson also talks about some of the possible avenues for anyone who is concerned about where to publish: “Recent commentators in the anthropology publishing discussions have wondered whom they should be publishing with in light of their concerns over the state of publishing in the field?”  Check out his post to see what he recommends. Continue reading →

Academic Publishing: Join in, or opt out?

In academia, publishing matters.  We all know it.  Why?  Because everyone tells us how much it matters, and we all keep reinforcing and reproducing that importance through a kind of academic habitus.   As a grad student, I am constantly reminded of the value of publishing.  Professors tell me about it.  Other stressed out, worried grad students tell me about it.  Training seminars and workshops tell me all about it.  Like many rituals, repetition is key.  And it’s not just publishing per se–we need to publish in the right places!  This is because, apparently, information is actually better (or more prestigious) if it’s located in one place rather than another.  But who determines which places are the rights ones?  And what happens if there’s a problem, a kink, or a glitch in the system itself?  Then what?

The overall process is very cyclical.  We know the drill: we all need to publish so we can get grants and jobs, fight our way to tenure, and then tell new students that they need to do the same.  Like the agricultural cycle, it’s a system that needs constant renewal.  We need to publish to increase our social and political capital, so that we can move up through the hierarchy.  I get it.  I think we all get it.  Everyone seems to participate in the process.  The further along we go, the deeper we are mired in the inner-workings of it all.  It’s almost as if there’s no choice in the matter.  Hence the saying: Publish or perish.  What a great slogan, no?  Either you get your article published, or you sink into a deep abyss of failure.  No pressure though.  Just makes you want to jump right in the game, doesn’t it?

So, when there’s critical news about this publishing world–which seems to determine our intellectual existence–I pay attention.  I can’t help it.  Just yesterday, Kerim posted a link on twitter about a recent article by George Monbiot that excoriates the academic publishing industry.  Have you read it?  Or are you so buried in the madness of graduate school, the insanity of the tenure track system, or the bureaucracy of academia that it somehow passed you by?  If so, you’re in luck.  Here are some choice selections, served up in convenient little snippets, like burgers sliding down a fast food chute, just for you… Continue reading →

The search for anthropology in public, part II

Whenever I go into a bookstore, I always check out the anthropology section (see part I here).  A curious habit, or custom, or something like that.  What can I say?  I have my routines.  I like to see what happens to be on the shelves and compare that to my own understandings of what contemporary anthropology is all about.  I imagine that this is some sort of litmus test that tells us something about the state of anthropology in the public sphere.  Maybe, maybe not.  More about that shortly.  So, the last time I did this informal empirical investigation, the results were similar to past experiences: not phenomenal.  The most “anthropological” books included:

  1. Composing a Life by Mary Catherine Bateson

  2. The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond

  3. 1491 by Charles Mann

  4. Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna

Bateson’s was the only book I saw that was written by an actual anthropologist.  How it is that only one anthropologist happens to be in the anthropology section is beyond me.  This was a particularly skewed sample, I’ll admit–usually there’s at least a Wade Davis, Margaret Mead, or even Sir James Frazier in the mix.  Not this time.  The rest of the section was incredibly eclectic, and included everything from books by Drew Pinsky to one by Maira Kalman (which does look pretty cool, though not what I would define as anthropology).  Some of this eclectic-ness had to be due to some restocking malfunctions, undoubtedly, but overall the section on anthropology was, as is often the case, a strange and somewhat askew reflection of the discipline.  Yes, that is an opinion.  And now, it’s time for some questions: Continue reading →

Wasting away again in Grantlandia…

…searching for my lost book by Bernard.  Ya, that title needs to be read with the underlying melody of a certain Jimmy Buffet song, which is always good to hear when you are mired in the depths of the purgatory that is academic grant writing.  That’s where I happen to be trapped at present.  Please feel free to send me a postcard, or say hi if you happen to be down here too.  If you know the way out, at least leave some bread crumbs to mark the path.  Seriously.

Moving on to the heart of the matter: I am in that special stage of graduate school where I spend the majority of my time attempting to create the perfect little document that will help me get that BIG, IMPORTANT GRANT so that I can actually go into the field and move on with my research.  For some reason that perfect little document remains elusive.  It is more than likely my own fault, rather than some macro-structural issue. There is definitely a learning curve when it comes to making appeals to that complex funding machine that few people truly understand.  When it comes to getting that BIG, IMPORTANT GRANT, I happen to be zero for two at this point.  So if this were a baseball game, I would be in literal and metaphorical trouble.  But, I could always get inspiration from one of the all-time great hitters like Rod Carew, and pull off a clutch ninth inning hit.  That means money.  End of metaphor.

Anyway, I happen to find grant writing incredibly excruciating on numerous levels.  From what I hear around the halls of academia, I am definitely not alone.  On the flip side, I can’t imagine having to spend hours and hours reading one grant after another about the “complexities” or “nuances” of this or that particular social conundrum.  Imagine that!  The whole grant writing process is filled with real people–and that’s a good thing to keep in mind.  Let’s not dehumanize the process, folks.  We’re all just people, trying to find our way in this world.  Insert moody, yet pensive background music that makes us rethink our life priorities.

Enough pensiveness.  Let’s talk about the trials and travails of grant writing.  I’ll start, with some thoughts, questions, and observations that I have learned along the way.  Then hopefully some of your will chime in and give me your two or three cents about the matter.  Keep in mind the fact that I am not currently a grant writing MASTER, and realize that I am in the middle of working through all of this out too.  I may never figure it out!  If you are in the same fix, read along and join in.  If you are not quite at this stage and terrified of the whole process, read along and join in.  If you are in fact a grant writing master, read along and join in.  If you are currently sitting on piles of grant money that you don’t know what do to with…WHAT??!  HOW?!?  Just kidding.  Please read along, everyone, and let’s see if we can make that special place known as Grantlandia just a bit sunnier–or at least less horrifyingly stressful. Continue reading →

The Vonnegut factor

I just spent the last few days driving across the massive territory that is the United States via the hot, humid route known as the I-40.  (The heat index in Oklahoma City was 118, by the way.)  I-40 happens to be strewn with that ever interesting media known as the billboard, which got me thinking about how and why we (anthropologists) use our particular forms of media to communicate information, ideas, and concepts to diverse audiences.  Yes, this post has something to do with anthropology AND Kurt Vonnegut.  Just wait.

So all of those billboards kept blazing past me.  They had all sorts of messages on them, from the blandly utilitarian and boring (THIS SPACE AVAILABLE) to the humorous/weird (JEAN SHORTS ARE NEVER OK*) all the way to the erotic (XXX MEGA ADULT SUPERSTORE NEXT LEFT).  There’s certainly no shortage of themes and styles.  The billboard medium has certain constraints, of course (size, font, images, and the fact that drivers are gunning their engines anywhere between 60 and 100 miles per hour and only view those masterpieces of highway art for a few wondrous seconds).  So billboard artists and advertisers have to make important decisions in order to broadcast their messages effectively and efficiently.  They can go with humor, or shock, or offer alluring information that weary road warriors just can’t resist (HUGE, SPARKLING CLEAN RESTROOMS 25 MILES).  Similar messages or information can be transmitted to viewers in radically different ways–there are numerous methods for telling drivers to pull over and buy some crap at the next exit. Continue reading →

Anthros & Econs: Crossing the chasm

The more I read about political economy and economic anthropology, the more I have wondered about the discipline of economics. What, exactly, are those economists up to, how do they approach their field of study, and why? I have read a good amount about modern economics, and how it differs from anthropology, but I haven’t really read all that much from economists themselves (especially about method and theory). Sure, I read Krugman’s blog, and I follow sites like Calculated Risk, Economist’s View (Mark Thoma), and Economics and Ethics. One of my favorite econ blogs was written by the late Alison Snow Jones (aka “Maxine Udall”). She had a real talent for writing about and exploring the implications of economics in a very personal and fascinating way.* Still, I wonder why there isn’t more of a conversation between anthropologists and economists. Especially considering our overlapping interests.  So why is there such a chasm between the two disciplines?  Is it because our ways of thinking about and analyzing human nature are soooooo different that there is no room for dialog, or what? Continue reading →

Making the (Funding) Cut: The NSF, Anthropology, and the value of social science

Social science research isn’t on the firmest ground in these days of economic malaise, but it’s not like this news is exactly exploding into the headlines across the nation.  Funding cuts, like the recent “trimming” of the Fulbright program,* seem to take place somewhat under the radar.   The same can be said of the recent debates about the value of social, behavioral, and economic (SBE) sciences that took place about a month ago in a congressional hearing on June 2, 2011 (this link has PDFs of the introductory statements and the testimony of all the witnesses).  The social sciences face an uphill battle, in part, because some folks see them as mere “soft sciences” that do not merit public support.  The House panel subcommittee meeting was about assessing the relative merit of the social sciences and how federal funding should or should not be allocated to researchers.  Did you hear about this?  Well, I didn’t–at least not until just a few days ago.  Funny what can happen in the middle of the summer, isn’t it?  Anyway, here’s a recap of what went down according to a summary from the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA):

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) chaired the panel, which included the testimony of four witnesses:  Myron Gutman (Assistant Director for NSF’s SBE directorate), Hillary Anger Elfenbein (Olin School of Business at Washington University, St. Louis), Peter Wood (President of the National Association of Scholars), and finally Diana Furchtgott-Roth (Senior fellow at the Hudson Institute).  Here’s how Brooks described the basic purpose of the hearing:

The goal of this hearing is not to question whether the social, behavioral, and economic sciences produce interesting and sound research, as I believe we all can agree that they do. I come from a social science background. I have a degree in political science and economics. Rather, the goal of our hearing is to look at the need for federal investments in these disciplines, how we determine what those needs are in the context of national priorities, and how we prioritize funding for those needs, not only within the social science disciplines, but also within all science disciplines, particularly when federal research dollars are scarce.

Brooks’ language sounds cool, rational, and impartial.  However, according to journalist Jeffrey Mervis:

Brooks may have been pulling his punches. In comments to ScienceInsider after the hearing, Brooks expressed serious doubts about the value of the social sciences. The freshman legislator said he “understands the value of basic research” because his constituents in and around Huntsville, Alabama, make up “one of, if not the most, highly educated districts in the sciences.” Brooks did say that “my priorities would be to protect basic research in the sciences as much as possible, even to the extent of cutting entitlements, in order to generate enough funding for basic research.” But his definition of the term “basic research” turns out to be synonymous with the so-called hard sciences, and to exclude the social sciences.

Continue reading →

Making tourist destinations: To serve society?

Places all around the world are being transformed, restructured, and reinvented to appeal to the international tourism market. Developers, politicians, bankers, investors, hoteliers, and entrepreneurs contribute to reformulating places according to the wants, needs, expectations, desires, and hopes of a global mass of travelers who have the time (and money) to hop scotch around the planet in search of experiences.  The question, though, is this: Who benefits from all these changes?  Do these new tourist places really only benefit powerful politicians, developers, and investors? Or do they serve society* in some larger sense? Continue reading →

The lives (and meanings) of tourist spaces

I have always been pretty fascinated by the life histories of tourism destinations.  Thinking about touristic spaces in a kind of archaeological sense–that is, over greater periods of time–is endlessly fascinating.  I often wonder about the future of places like Las Vegas, Cancun, and Nakheel, especially since many international organizations (like the UNWTO) promote tourism development as a sustainable, surefire solution for socio-economic development.  What will Vegas–or Cancun–look like in 100 years?  What purpose will these places serve, and how sustainable will they actually be in the long run?

Many countries around the world continue to promote and finance ever more tourism development, in hopes that these investments will create long-lasting social and economic benefits.  At least, that’s how the narrative goes.  But what kinds of social spaces and places are being created under the guise of tourism, and what futures do these places face?  What are the lasting social, political, and economic effects of these spaces?  For a little insight, I am going to discuss a few tourist destinations that I have read about recently: Elmina, Ghana, Prora, Germany, and finally Acapulco, Mexico. Continue reading →

Photographic Methods

Most anthropologists take cameras into the field, whether they consider them a part of their formal methods or not. They may take iPhones, point and shoots, “prosumer” SLRs, or maybe even some amazing old Nikon from the 1960s that can be used for picture-taking and hammering nails (if you have ever owned an old Nikkormat, you know what I am talking about here). What I am interested in here is how different people actually use cameras during fieldwork. For this post I really hope to hear from some of you about how you put cameras to work during your research, whether you’re formal about it or not. To start this off, I’ll talk about some of the ways that I use cameras—and how I am thinking about using them in my upcoming dissertation fieldwork. So here goes: Continue reading →

Sontag’s argument: photographic interventions, etc

I just spent the last week (along with my wife, who is also a grad student in anthropology) driving across the country—it was a bit more eventful than either of us had expected (thunderstorms in Kansas and Missouri, brake problems at 11,00 feet in Colorado, sand storms in northeast Arizona, and ridiculously dense 3 a.m. fog at the Cajon pass in Los Angeles). The trip reminded me, once again, that geography does matter—despite the arguments of technophiles who seem to think that the magic of the internet and other globalizing technologies have rendered silly impediments like massive mountain ranges irrelevant. Ya, that’s not the case. Mountains matter, and the battle between inclement weather and a 2000 GMC Jimmy is no contest, period.

Of course, we did have the chance to be tourists on this cross-country trek, and both of us had our camera equipment stuffed into the truck with the rest of our necessary graduate student detritus. Sure, we’re social science grad students—but make no mistake: we’re tourists just like anyone else out there who wields maps, guidebooks, and the desire to “see some cool stuff along the way.” So I feel like I have the appropriate experience (personal and observational) to make a few comments about the co-evolved relationship that exists between tourist behavior and photography. And yes, this does have something to do with anthropology. Continue reading →

Photographs and anonymity: keeping faces hidden, or not

Since I am in the middle of working on grants in preparation for upcoming fieldwork, I have a lot of methodological issues on my mind.  I am going to use photography as a primary part of my research plan, and there are some critical questions that keep cropping up: when should research participants remain anonymous?  When does it make sense to show participants’ faces in photographs–and attach names/biographies to those faces?  Many of the ethnographies that I read keep subjects anonymous–in text and in images–almost axiomatically.  This is pretty standard practice for many ethnographers, and considering the ethics and politics of ethnography, I understand why.  However, I am wondering if there are times when it makes more sense (or when it’s the best ethical choice) to actually show faces and attach names/identities to photographs.  More importantly, whose responsibility–or right–is it to make these decisions?

Continue reading →