HOW DID WE GET HERE?
(a thread of threads, quotes, and links)
This is a collection of writings and research concerned with how we got where we are today, which is in fact the story of what has been done to us, and what has been taken from us.
By "us" we're talking about "the 99%", "workers", "wage slaves", all non-owners of private property, "the poor", unhoused people, indigenous people, even plenty of people who swear by capitalism and identify as "capitalist" yet have no capital of their own and no serious hope of ever having any worth speaking of. In other words almost everyone except for the very few who have had the power to exploit us and shape our lives to serve their agenda. We're going to examine institutions and concepts that have deeply altered our world at all levels, both our external and internal realities.
By "here" we are talking about climate crisis and myriad other environmental catastrophes resulting from hyper-excessive extraction, consumption and waste; a world of rampant inequality and exploitation, hunger and starvation; a world of fences, walls, tollbooths, prisons, police, bullshit jobs and criminalized poverty; a world overrun with cars and preventable diseases; a world of vanishing biodiversity and blooming fascism; a world where "democracy" results in being led by some of the worst of humanity; a world ruled by an imaginary but all-powerful and single-minded god: Capital.
Our inspiration and structural framework for this survey is this quote from "The Prehistory of Private Property", an important work from political philosopher Karl Widerquist and anthropologist Grant S. McCall:
"After hundreds of millennia in which all humans had direct access to the commons, it took only a few centuries for enclosure, colonialism, capitalism, and industrialization to cut off the vast majority of people on Earth from direct access to the means of economic production and therefore to rob them of the power to say no. It took only a few generations to convince most people that this situation was natural and inevitable. That false lesson needs to be unlearned."
In “The Giving Environment: Another Perspective on the Economic System of Gatherer-Hunters,” the #anthropologist Nurit Bird-David described an interesting social institution among the Nayaka, a forager society in southern India. Bird-David calls this “demand sharing.”
“Nayaka give to each other, request from each other, expect to get what they ask for, and feel obliged to give what they are asked for. They do not give resources to each other in a calculated, foresighted fashion, with a view to receiving something in return, nor do they make claims for debts.”
From a human behavior analysis standpoint, this image is absolutely fascinating. There is so much information about human behavior that can be extracted from the data represented here
EDIT: OMFG 1701 IS THE DESIGNATION OF THE STAR SHIP ENTERPRISE (NCC-1701). TREKKIES WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?!? :zerotwoevillaugh:
Does anyone here know how to find statistics on student numbers per discipline - ie how many students in the world enrol for/graduate with each discipline? And how these numbers change over time? I am particularly interested in #Anthropology but it would be good to see it in comparison.
"""
If modern human intelligence evolved 60,000 years ago, why did civilization not develop until 10,000 BC? This question lies at the heart of the sapient paradox, one of the great mysteries of human existence. Potential explanations range from a reconsideration of prehistory to the power of collective learning to early humans getting stuck in "gossip traps."
"""
A solar developer sent a state lands archaeologist a string of urgent text messages, which we obtained through a public records request, insisting that she keep her findings private and not share them with tribes.
But when his texts reached the state lands archaeologist, she was already at Badger Mountain --- showing her findings to a tribal representative.
Does anyone have any references for interpretive social science(ish) papers that use public comments (as in a federal register) as data? Or perhaps any methods papers that address using public comments? (Have I asked this already?) TIA!
Hello! Just wanted to do a quick #ShoutOut here for a brilliant MA at Goldsmiths run by Anthropology and Social and Therapeutic Studies (STACS) at Goldsmiths. It is a unique programme combining theory and practice, academic with professional qualifications. There are three pathways:
MAs in Applied Anthroplogy and Community Youth Work; Community Development; and Community Arts
I've just finished teaching a class on Anthropology of Food in Japan. How I like this topic, wow... it's really, really cool, being able to think about culture through the meals we eat, food production and consumption systems. As the anthropological motto says, food is good not only for eating, but also for thinking. @anthropology#anthropology#japan
Not sure I can bring myself to watch this, with major redundancies at my university and others, and whole departments being closed down, because there are not enough students. The whole sector is breaking apart. I hope the series will consider this too.
Yes, your son should go, and even better if he chooses a subject like #Anthropology which is shrinking just as the world needs it more than ever #university#UK#TheCrumble
One more posthumous book by #DavidGraeber. Is he the Tupak of nonfiction?
"As questions of decolonisation rub up against the legacy of Enlightenment thinking in the West, anthropologist David Graeber argues in his posthumous book Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia (to be published early next year) that Enlightenment ideas themselves are not intrinsically European and were indeed shaped by non-European sources."
Another paper taking issue with the trendy 'Woman the hunter' arguments. #Martin et al say:
'...we strongly disagree with a central premise that appears to motivate this scholarship: that the idea of evolved gendered subsistence activities derives largely from incorrect assumptions extrapolated from patriarchal norms today and/or rationalizations of “implicit male superiority” based solely on anatomical gender differences. Such claims are belied by extensive ethnographic and human behavioral ecology research across multiple extant foraging societies. These studies document the near universality of gendered divisions of labor, with women's large-scale participation in hunting occurring only in specific societies (i.e., the Agta) or contexts (i.e., small-game hunting) (Bird, 1999; Hoffman, Farquharson, & Venkataraman, 2023).'
Might any of the #urbanstudies#envhum#anthropology#sts colleagues here know of any interesting critique or analysis of "nature-based solutions" and their growing prevalence in contemporary urban arenas worth reading? Thanks in advance!
Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist James George Frazer died #OTD in 1941.
He is best known for his influential work "The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion," which explores the similarities among magical and religious beliefs across diverse cultures. Frazer proposed that human belief progressed through three stages: primitive magic, replaced by religion, and finally replaced by science.
Un petit fil d'ethnologie/anthropologie ce matin pour les plus curieux d'entre vous.
Je pense souvent à ce livre d'Harry Walker, Under a Watchful Eye. Self, Power, and Intimacy in Amazonia, University of California Press, 2012.
Et j'ai compris ce matin pourquoi ce livre me fascine : je crois que j'aurais aimé être un bébé Uranina. Dans mon hamac (ou "avec" mon hamac).
Qu'on me laisse le temps de devenir un être humain (et là aussi, j'aurais aimé être un être humain Uranina)
Faudrait envoyer ce livre à Bernard Lahire (spécialiste universel autoproclamé du maternage depuis son dernier ouvrage) Mais évidemment, il n'en aura rien à carrer, donc je vais m'abstenir et plutôt vous inviter à le lire !
J'avais traduit naguère quelques extraits ici pour ceux qui sont curieux :
"“Veux-tu voyager dans ton hamac ?” La petite-fille de Rosa, qui avait récemment commencé à se tenir debout toute seule, était encore trop jeune pour parler. Pourtant, à ma grande surprise, elle semblait parfaitement comprendre la question. Elle a chanté “Brrrrrr !” en imitant les sons vibrants et distinctifs de la berceuse lorsqu’elle est produite sous forme de trille bilabiale. La jeune fille a été rapidement hissée dans son hamac par sa mère, qui s’apprêtait à partir pour le jardin, et a reçu l’ordre de s’endormir et d’aller “errer” (tijiaco). Après l’avoir bordée, la longue corde a été remise à Rosa qui, à peine interrompue dans sa tâche de fabrication d’un sac en ficelle, a commencé à balancer le hamac d’un côté à l’autre, en chantant doucement pendant qu’elle travaillait."
"South Africa also unduly limited the scope of its litigation by confining it only to the question of violation of the Convention against Genocide adopted in 1948 immediately after World War II."
Another instance of #censorship at German universities, this one within my own discipline, #Anthropology.
Professor Ghassan Hage has been subjected to a smear campaign by certain journalists and pro-Israel activists for his stance condemning war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli army and settlers against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
#JustFinished The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow.
This was a great book! Graeber and Wengrow integrate new archeological discoveries with anthropology and turn common belief on its side. In the same way that we used to think that evolution was a progressive march to new and improved species, we also thought that human development was on an upward arc to better things, with capitalism and
Polynesians steering by the stars met Native Americans long before Europeans arrived (www.science.org)
Study of modern DNA shakes up ideas of when and where contact happened.