Skip to content

Oct 26

2 Comments

Scholarly Communication and the Occupation of Everything

In the current context of global protest, economic failure and political transformation, anthropologists of many backgrounds are finding their voice and addressing the critical issues of the moment. For those with jobs that are being given the speedup treatment, it is hard to keep up with all of the thoughtful and provocative work being created and shared (especially online) right now. The evocative opening line of Jason Antrosio’s recent essay “Anthropology, Moral Optimism, and Capitalism: A Four-Field Manifesto” hints as the gestalt.

A spectre is stalking Capitalism–the spectre of Anthropology. All the Powers of Capitalism have bound themselves in a crusade against this spectre: the Florida Governor and the U.S. President, Dominique-Strauss Kahn and the IMF, Wall Street and Congress.

My thanks go to everyone who is tracking, discussing, fostering, and hosting these discussions. I hope other key nodes in the conversation will forgive me if I single out the Neuroanthropology bloggers Daniel Lende and Greg Downey for their vital work.

Open Access Week and Occupy Everything both continue and I still cannot muster time to read or say much. Rex Golub at Savage Minds is right when he observes that I always bury my lead. He might also note that I say everything too obliquely. So, for tonight, here is a restatement of my previous post in less opaque language.

Going forward from here, if your anthropological research tells you that large corporations are part of the problem, then please do not publish your discoveries or your proposals on this point in books and journals published by large corporations.

 

Oct 24

1 Comment

Open Access Week + Occupy Scholarly Communications #occupyscholcomm #oaweek

My job is eating my lunch at present so I have not yet had time to engage properly with open access week, which began today (well, yesterday since it just passed midnight where I am). Learn more from the Open Access Week website here ( http://www.openaccessweek.org/ ) and by searching “Open Access Week” on the open web and by looking for “open access week” and “#oaweek” on Twitter. Thankfully many good folks are working hard to get the word out.

If you think that the Occupy Wall Street (etc.) folks have anything like a point in their concerns about the unsustainable nature of the status quo or the need to acknowledge the influence that a small number of large corporations have in our lives and work, then the open access movement, together with the critique of, and efforts to reform, the scholarly communications system are for you. Above and beyond discussions of open access, a taste of the Occupy Scholarly Communications conversation can be found in Heather Morrison’s October 23, 2011 post “High Profits for Commercial Publishers-or Jobs for Academics Let’s #occupyscholcomm”

Next year, when open access week comes again, lets hope that some of the most vocal, articulate, and visible scholars working on questions of income inequality and corporate power will not have published their sophisticated accounts of emergent phenomena such as the Occupy movement with publishers like Polity (people Polity effectively = Wiley) and Palgrave-Macmillian or in journals owned wholly by Sage or Taylor and Francis. Our doing this occasionally is ironic and even kind of funny, but its starting to suggest that we actually do not get it, even when we get it.

Oct 20

2 Comments

Why Michael Wesch’s “Blogging” Should Count

In his essay “Blogging for Promotion: An Immodest Proposal” anthropologist Greg Downey outlines a clear set of actionable proposals for reform at the intersection of scholarly communications practices and academic tenure and promotion practices. I commend his essay, which was published today (10/20/11) on Neuroanthropology, a compelling and influential PLoS (Public Library of Science) weblog that he runs with Daniel Linde. Rather than discussing this important contribution here in depth, I am going to try enacting one of its proposals. (For reference, see especially the discussion that follows Downey’s section heading “An immodest proposal (not an indecent proposition)”.)

First the set up. I am working extensively right now preparing a new course for spring 2011. This course was devised as part of my participation in a two year think-tank funded by the Teagle Foundation (a funder supporting projects designed to foster innovation in undergraduate teaching and learning) and organized by the American Folklore Society. The AFS project was built around the theme “What is the relationship between lay and expert knowledge in a complex society?” Colleagues teaching in a range of institutions, from community colleges and private liberal arts colleges to large research institutions gathered to explore the frontiers of research-based teaching, changing curriculum practices, and the wider contexts of our work in a small border discipline bridging the humanities and the social sciences, as well as the academy and the public sphere. As part of our work, we developed plans for new courses and teaching resources. Part of my work focused on working out plans for the course that I will initially teach next spring (it opens for enrollment today).

I have mentioned the course here previously. In a nutshell it uses the toolkit of folkloristics (and by extension my other field–cultural anthropology) to consider human responses–including aesthetic, expressive, customary, and communal responses–to a range of recently emergent and highly contested human social problems. Called “The New Social Problems: Communal and Expressive Responses” the new problem domains to be considered include such things as the digital divide, genetic engineering, intellectual property contests, and nanotechnologies. I am sure that I will be discussing the course further as it moves forward. The important point in this context is noting the influence that one colleague–whom I do not know and whom I have not yet met–has had on the shaping of my plans for this experimental course.

Michael Wesch, on his website/weblog Digital Ethnography (which is a key node in the digital infrastructure of his undergraduate-based research group), has regularly and effectively documented the pedagogical experiments and research work that he has been pursuing (over many years) with many successive groups of Kansas State University students. Wesch has been appropriately recognized and celebrated for the innovative work that he and his students have been doing. What I want to highlight here is that the manner in which he has documented and explained this work has made it richly available for the wider scholarly community. Because he has used http://mediatedcultures.net as a venue for reporting on his work, his strategies and experiences are openly and immediately accessible to me (and to my students) as well as to everyone else able to surmount the digital divide. Essays like “Our Class on How We Run Our Class” in which Wesch and his students describe (and enact) the technical and intellectual strategies through which a standard U.S. undergraduate course is turned into a deeply meaningful research collaboratory for social scientific investigation are just not available in the conventional published literature in our field. It is on the basis of the inspiration provided and the information conveyed by Wesch and his students that I am able to imagine a very different kind of course to pursue with my own students in January.

Michael Wesch’s Digital Ethnography efforts represent the kinds of “blogging” work that deserves to count as a substantive scholarly contribution (bridging teaching, research, and service) in such areas as annual review and tenure and promotion considerations.

Oct 19

1 Comment

Loans and Books: Two Brief Observations Made During the Student Debt Revolt

Many excellent graduate students with whom I have the honor of working receive only modest or no assistantship or fellowship aid. Historically, many have supported themselves in part during graduate school with government-backed student loans. This has always been a source of anxiety for me, but matters grew worse for U.S. students earlier this year when the major federal loan program changed its structure so that graduate students receiving such loans must begin paying them back immediately rather than after graduation. For students studying in the world in which I work, such a scenario is hardly possible. Even students with assistantships are just above the poverty line.

Meanwhile, more and more excellent scholarly resources ideal for the training of these students are being produced. But they are on the market at a price that no starving graduate student can afford and at which most professors would feel guilty assigning them. This reoccurring thought returned to me when I noted the publication of a very impressive looking ethnobiology textbook. It was also on my mind when I spoke last week to an editor of what promises to be the absolutely essential handbook for folklore studies. That volume will be rich beyond measure, but at 680 pages and 29 cents per page how will any of us afford to purchase it? If my library can afford it, I plan to sit and read it cover to cover in the stacks. Excellent scholars are producing excellent work, but the business model fails us, or at least our students.

A glimmer of hope came during the #AFS11 meetings. A group of folklorists have begun discussions aimed at creating an free and open access textbook for undergraduate folklore studies. One possible publication platform being discussed is connexions centered at Rice University. Hopefully folklore studies can become a leading field in the cultivation of Open Educational Resources. I cannot see how we can continue down the path that we are heading.

Oct 17

Sukkot=Time to Check Out Gabrielle Berlinger’s Beautiful Photographs of People, Buildings, and Food

It is Sukkot time again and I urge everyone to check out Gabrielle Berlinger’s beautiful photographs. She is at the end of her current fieldwork period in Tel Aviv where she has been studying many interlocking topics, with Sukkot at the center of things. Her reporting and her photographs are beautiful. Don’t miss out.

Oct 11

Folklore Collection Special Exhibition at Wells Library for #AFS11

Today I got to see the exhibition at the Wells Library focusing on Indiana University’s unbelievable folklore studies collection. The exhibition, in the library lobby, was put together by a team led by IU folklore librarian Moria Marsh and has been installed as part of the programming for #AFS11. I got to see the exhibition today and it is great.

Among the cool items on exhibition at the Library is the award recently won by the Open Folklore project, a joint effort of the AFS and the IU Bloomington Libraries.

There are tons of AFS-related exhibitions around campus and town. Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to get them ready.

Oct 11

A Day of Pre- Pre-conference Activities at #AFS11

Today, out of town folklorists started appearing around Bloomington for a series of events designed to rally the local troops and welcome the earliest of the visitors coming to Bloomington for the American Folklore Society meetings. I spent the early afternoon in a fruitful Open Folklore planning meeting, but my colleagues welcomed Dr. Fekade Azeze, Associate Associate Professor of Ethiopian Literature and Folklore, and Coordinator of the Folklore Graduate Programme, at Addis Adeba University in Ethiopia. USC Folklorist Tok Thompson moderated a discussion with Dr. Azeze at midday and then he delivered a lecture on customary dispute resolution in the afternoon. I made it to the talk and it was very stimulating material. Dr. Azeze described the customary legal system of two of the largest Ethiopian peoples and situated these practices in the contemporary context, describing efforts to study such systems as a means of indigenizing the national legal system, which is largely founded on non-Eithiopian principles and practices.

Immediately after the lecture, there was an opening reception for the Faces of Fieldwork exhibition curated by Pravina Shukla, Michael Lee, and Carrie Hertz and on exhibition at the Mathers Museum. The portrait photographs submitted by the contributing ethnographers were stunning, the exhibition was well mounted by the Mathers staff, and the reception was a nice opportunity to experience the exhibition and welcome guests to town for the meetings.

I had to get home for family responsibilities, by a departmental reception for early-arriving alumni (Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology) was held. I am sure that a good time was had by all.

Tomorrow things begin in earnest, with pre-conference tours both on-campus (IU research collections and archives) and off (Southern Indiana regional sights focusing on the limestone industry). The meeting will open formally tomorrow night, with the highlight being Henry Glassie’s plenary lecture and a big welcoming reception. I will spend the day in an AFS board meeting.

Safe travels and welcome!

Oct 10

#OccupyWallStreet Discussion at the American Folklore Society Meetings (#AFS11)

#OccupyWallStreet Discussion at the American Folklore Society Meetings (#AFS11)

Saturday, October 15
12:30-1:15 p.m.
Alumni Hall
Indiana Memorial Union

Want to process the current moment of social protest and global revolution? Want to discuss the prospects for a human economy? Have stories, questions, fears or hopes to share? Does this moment speak to the concerns of our field? Does our field have something distinctive to offer those seeking social and economic change?

Interested folklorists are invited to gather for a lunchtime discussion of such themes. In the spirit of the current protests, we’ll find our path to open-ended conversation in an informal way. Think of it as a potluck, but for ideas, comments, and questions. Everyone is welcome, even those who just want to listen. Bring a box lunch if you want more than food for thought.

This gathering has been organized quickly, informally, and unofficially, but has been put together in consultation with leaders of the AFS and in collaboration with its Politics, Folklore, and Social Justice Section.

Questions:

Jason Jackson: jasonbairdjackson@gmail.com or @jasonjackson2
Christina Barr barrchristina@gmail.com or @barrchristina

Oct 9

On Making Conference Programs and Reports Back to 1889 Freely Accessible Online

Earlier I posted about the recent news from the Open Folklore project. One piece of the larger story was the news that the American Folklore Society, in partnership with the IU Bloomington Libraries, has made a nearly complete set of AFS conference programs and conference reports available for free online. These documents provide information on the annual meetings of the AFS going back to the society’s founding.  There are still a few missing items to be found and added to the collection, but its almost all there and this is an important accomplishment. These documents are can be found via Open Folklore search and browsed in IUScholarWorks Repository.

Most importantly, these documents are a valuable resource to scholars. They are key historical documents, but they are also invaluable to those who need to know who studied what when?

Beyond their documentary value, the folklorists and ethnologists involved in the AFS should be proud of this accomplishment. Through collaborative partnerships and the deployment of some elbow grease, another worthy open access milestone has been met. Such efforts require labor and in-kind support, but they do not require a major grant, custom digital infrastructures, and outsourced service providers.

 

 

Oct 8

Highlights from #AFS68: The View from #AFS11

The last time AFS met in Bloomington was 1968. Studying the program for that meeting (which is now freely accessible in IUScholarWorks Repository and discoverable in Open Folklore Search), is very interesting. I cannot resist noting some highlights.

At that meeting, Bess Lomax Hawes showed her new film on the rhyming games of African American girls, Pizza Pizza Daddy-o. This is one of my absolute favorites and can be watched today online via FolkStreams.

Pizza Pizza Daddy-o was shown are the opening act for Richard Dorson’s AFS Presidential Address. The keynote was published under the same title that it had in the program “A Theory for American Folklore Reviewed.” This address was published in the Journal of American Folklore, where it can be found today via JSTOR.

With so many folklorists doing digital and computational work, it is interesting to note that one presentation on the program treated “The Use of a Computer in a Belief Collection.” That paper was by Samuel J. Sackett  then of Fort Hays Kansas State College. That paper also went on to be published, in this instance in Western Folklore, where it can also be found via JSTOR. Think about it.  Folklorists were doing computational work in the 1960s and presenting it at their meetings! Folklorists are digital humanities pioneers.

The program included many well-known names presenting on work that would go on to become canonical. Michael Owen Jones talked about Appalachian chairmaking, Richard Bauman theorized folklore and community, Kenny Goldstein spoke on the study of singer repertoires, Roger Welsch addressed on Nebraska architecture, Barre Toelken examined metaphor, Joann Kealiinohomoku explored Hopi arts, Dan Ben-Amos lectured on storytelling, William Wilson pursued Finnish nationalism, while Peter Furst looked at Huichol mythology, William Bascom tackled African Cinderellas, Daniel Crowley addressed diffusionist studies of African expressive culture, and Jan Brunvand treated Mormon jokes. It is exciting to think that so many of these scholars will have the opportunity to return, after the passage of 43 years, to Bloomington for another AFS meeting.

I will be 85 in 2054, so I guess that there is bit of a chance that I might also get to see a second AFS meeting in Bloomington. Whether meetings as we know them will exist then, is a topic for another post.

 

 

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →