I was just checking through my ridiculously full gmail inbox when I saw the latest “content alert” from Anthropology News. One piece really struck my attention: the announcement of a new open access publication called Open Anthropology. AAA president Leith Mullings writes: I am very pleased to announce that at its May meeting, the Executive [...]Here is my opening thought: What’s stopping us from rethinking and reshaping academia? Ideas? I’ll tell you one thing that’s stopping us: the belief that “nothing can be done” to fix the system. As long as we all stand by and accept this, surely nothing will change. That’s one easy way to keep the status [...]For me one of the highlights of the annual meeting of the AAA is migrating from one reception to another like a hunter-gatherer constantly seeking to optimize food foraging strategies. While the Wenner-Gren typically has the heaviest hors d’oeuvers (this year they even had free booze) I find the best company at the joint reception [...]
Researching bicycling, like many ethnographic projects, suggests a bodily incorporation of the ethnographer into some local practice. I mean, I could study the social and cultural life of bicycling and not also ride a bike, but that would be like a celiac studying people who sample bread. Actually, that’s kind of accurate, because there is [...]If you are an academic who has published in non-open access peer-review journals and haven’t yet taken any steps to make those articles available for free on the internet, you are doing it wrong. Doing so will ensure that more people read and cite your work. It will also make that work available to people [...]Some folks argue that we are living in post-racial times. That the days of racism are over. After the Civil Rights era, it all just evaporated. And the election of Barack Obama was somehow more proof of the fact that racism is no longer an issue in the U-S-A. This “racism is no longer a [...]University budgets are getting cut left and right. There’s a debate about this going on at my university right now. I hear conversations about the lack of funding, the economic crisis, and the need to cut programs. I also hear conversations where words like “productivity” and “performance” and “economic viability” are being thrown around a [...]Today I learned the term “desk reject.” I’ve never worked as an editor for an academic journal. It seems like a thankless job, and I have nothing but admiration for those who find the time and energy to do it well. But I have gotten to a stage in my career where I am frequently [...]