We are modern. We see the world through modern eyes, in a modern context. It's very hard to unlearn that perspective, or even to understand what it means. From the modernist point of view, a lot of behaviors and institutions from times gone by make no sense at all. If you want to be entertained…
I recently finished reading Ara Norenzayan’s Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. It’s an important book, which is also a lot of fun to read. However, it will be hear…
With authorities ineffective, the 2,200-strong Ka’apor, in the Brazilian state of Maranhão, are taking on the illegal loggers with technology and direct action
There is an unspoken taboo among paleoanthropologists against calling what made us human a social revolution – and Christopher Boehm’s work has broken through that taboo, CHRIS KNIGHT of the Radical Anthropology Group argues in this guest post. Knight is responding to Steve Drury’s extended review of Boehm’s recent book, published by People & Nature earlier this month.
Many of the internal changes within anthropology as a discipline—particularly the "postmodern turn" of the 1980s—can only be understood in the context of broader changes in the class composition of the societies in which university departments exist, and, in particular, the role of the university in the reproduction of a professional-managerial class that has come to displace any working-class elements in what pass for mainstream "left" political parties. Reflexivity, and what I call "vulgar Foucauldianism," while dressed up as activism, seem instead to represent above all the consciousness of this class. In its place, the essay proposes a politics combining support for social movements and a prefigurative politics in the academic sphere.
On October 16-17, a group of doctoral and postdoctoral students from the Research Group on Anthropology with a Public Orientation (GIAOP) based at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid are organizing a fabulous workshop on ‘Open access in anthropology and beyond.’ I am delighted at the initiative of these researchers, and the fact that this will be taking place in Madrid, at Medialab-Prado.
As Paulo Freire has written, “While both humanization and dehumanization are real alternatives, only the first is man’s vocation. This vocation is constantly negated. It is hindered by injustice, exploitation, oppression, and the violence of the oppressors; it is affirmed by the yearning of the oppressed for freedom and justice, and by their struggle to recover their lost humanity.”
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. What if we could rebuild our society in a way that works for everyone? Epochal changes are now underway that are radically transforming how society operates.
If you want to change society—or are interested in aiding or evaluating the efforts of others to do so—some understanding of exactly how environmental circumstances affect such efforts could be extremely helpful.
With the February 2014 issue, Cultural Anthropologygoes fully open access. This means that the journal is now freely available to anyone anywhere who has access to the Internet (rather than just those who can afford the fees that allow them to get behind the paywall of a commercial press), thereby returning publishing to the commons, where academic life begins. We wish to thank all those who have expended so much time and labor in making the transition possible—former CA editors Kim and Mike Fortun, our talented and indefatigable former and present managing editors Ali Kenner and Tim Elfenbein, web consultant Ryan Schenk, former Society for Cultural Anthropology presidents Danilyn Rutherford and Brad Weiss, Oona Schmid at the American Anthropological Association, members of the OA advisory committee Jessica Cattelino, Chris Kelty, and Jason Jackson, and Paolo Mangiafico and Kevin Smith at the Duke University Libraries.
It is my great pleasure to report that my latest book, Ultrasociety, has been published. It is now available on the Amazon as an e-book (Kindle). Once we check the proof copy, you will also be able…
All human societies have been shaped by religion, leading psychologists to wonder how it arose, and whether particular forms of belief have affected other aspects of evolved social structure. According to one recent view, for example, belief in a "big God"—an all-powerful, punitive deity who sits in moral judgement on our actions—has been instrumental in bringing about social and political complexity in human cultures.
Cadell Last, an evolutionary anthropologist currently studying in Belgium, has published a theory on human evolution and about the future of the human species.
" the economists have come to believe their own fictions. It is very strange stuff altogether. They build the models based on the a priori assumptions that they hold. Seemingly they then forget these assumptions. Then when they need an answer they consult the model which spits back at them what they already built into it. This output is then assumed to be Truth because it comes imbued with a sort of aura. In more practical, real-world sciences this has a name: its called GIGO which stands for Garbage-In, Garbage-Out. In more primitive societies this is similar to constructing altars to supposed oracles and then going to these altars to find out about the future, only to find a Truth that you yourself have already built into the altar. "
One of the factors in city-making that we explore in Cities By Citizens is the tension between democracy (rule by the people) and technocracy (rule by experts.) Planners are the obvious experts who shape the city, but so too do economists.
Neo-classical economics (all about markets) has come under sustained criticism recently, for its bias towards certain interests in societies. So too have the arbitrary assumptions that economists have made in their theories, many of which are being shown to be just plain wrong.
This article takes a well-deserved poke at the pretensions of economics, in the tradition of Horace Miner's "Body Ritual among the Nacerima": https://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.html
Findings from anthropology, social psychology, game theory, and many other fields consistently suggest that where people cooperate with others as they would like others to cooperate with them, it leads to positive outcomes for all concerned.
"100,000 years ago, humans, aided by much larger brains and by an advanced form of communication, created communities that could hold down not only domination behaviours by alpha individuals, but any other behaviour they identified as being directly or potentially deleterious to members of the group."
Maka Si Tomni (Surrounding the Universe) Jhon Goes In Center presents the Lakota Paradigm that shows the contrasts between a Lakota culture that lived from a connected point-of-view and in balance with the earth, and modern technological society and marvels like the space shuttle collecting data and ignorant of its meaning.
One of the most profound changes that occurs when modern schooling is introduced into traditional societies around the world is a radical shift in the locus of power and control over learning from children, families, and communities to ever more centralized systems of authority. While all cultures are different, in many non-modernized societies children enjoy wide latitude to learn by free play, interaction with other children of multiple ages, immersion in nature, and direct participation in adult work and activities. They may have meaningful responsibilities in the economic life of the family and may be expected to treat elders with respect, but there is often little direct adult control over their individual moment-to-moment movements and choices, and they learn by experience, experimentation, trial and error, by independent observation of nature and human behavior, and through voluntary community sharing of information, story, song, and ritual. Local elders and community traditions are autonomous and respected as sources of wisdom and practical knowledge, and children are integrated into local livelihoods, knowledge systems, and ethical and spiritual awareness through elegantindigenous pedagogies that have been honed over generations to minimize conflict while effectively transmitting what each child needs to know to be a successfully functioning member of the community.
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