Gapnotes

Study

Media Anthropology

• Brian Larkin, 1997: Indian Films and Nigerian Lovers: Media and the Creation of Parallel Modernities, in Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, vol. 67, no. 3, p. 406-440.

Japanese

• Memrise: 94,400
  • 2136 Jōyō Kanji by Grade, level 7 = 3rd grade 1-40 = 295 of 2136 kanji learned.

Other

Articles

• Medium: Why Anthropology Is Becoming Big Business in China
• The Economist: Tencent’s kingdom is under assault from China’s regulators
• The Economist: The anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats fail to achieve an electoral breakthrough
• The Economist: How Europe determines whether asylum-seekers are gay
• The Economist: Should the tech giants be liable for content?
• The Economist: Japan is worried about its alliance with America
• The Economist: Ethiopian Airlines is founding new African flag carriers
• The Economist: The FDA moves to harsh the mellow of e-cigarettes
• The Economist: Councils in England and Wales hatch their own solutions to prostitution
• The Economist: Road makers turn to recycled plastic for tougher surfaces
• Wired: There Are No More Small Phones

Youtube

• Getting Started in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds!
• Napster Documentary: Culture of Free | Retro Report | The New York Times
• Visual Anthropology: The Meaning of “Sakura” in Japan
• Je Suis Femme Blanc
• Reimagine Photography as Anthropology
• Shit Visual Anthropology Students Say
• Why I love my major – Linguistic Anthropology
• Apple: September Event 2018

Podcasts

• Hur kan vi #8: Aron Flam: “Vi är slavar för staten”
• justDPodd: 120. X3mt nästan levande

Film

• Ruben Östlund: The Square (2017)

Work

I’ve started hosting the podcast of the 5th of July Foundation again – in Swedish:

Study

Ethnographic Film, Unit 1 continued: Robert Flaherty

• Heider, Karl G, 1976: Ethnographic Film.
  • Chapter 1: “Introduction”, p. 3-15.
  • Chapter 2: “A History of Ethnographic Film”, p. 16-27.
  • Related video: Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life. Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1925. (The two made King Kong in 1933.)

Anthropology and Photography

• Christopher Pinney: Notes from the Surface of the Image. Photography, Postcolonialism, and Vernacular Modernism. 19 p.
• Karen Strassler: Refracted Visions. Popular Photography and National Modernity in Java. Chapter 3 and Epilogue, 48 p.
• Christopher Wright: Supple Bodies: The Papua New Guinea Photographs of Captain Francis R. Barton, 1899–1907. 24 p.

Other

Book

• R. Taggart Murphy: Japan and the Shackles of the Past (2016). Extremely initiated! Provides the details as well as the bigger picture – of history, politics, and economics. Very critical of the Abe administration as well as the US occupation of Japan. Obviously took a while to read, but I finished it this week.

Articles

• The Economist: Errol Morris’s new film takes aim at Steve Bannon­­­­—and misses
• Vox: In Fahrenheit 11/9, Michael Moore spares no one — especially self-satisfied liberals
• The Economist: Nike’s controversial new ad
• Vox: Why the social media boycott over Colin Kaepernick is a win for Nike
• The Economist: The global smartphone supply chain needs an upgrade
• The Economist: How social-media platforms dispense justice
• The Economist: India unbans gay sex
• The Economist: Naked Europe covers up
• The Economist: Immigration worries loom over Sweden’s election campaign
• The Economist: Sweden’s anti-immigrant populists prepare for big gains
• The Economist: Why Sweden’s election promises to change the country
• The Economist: A court in Myanmar jails two reporters for breaking a secrecy law
• The Economist: Suu Kyi keeps quiet as reporters are jailed on trumped-up charges
• Medium/Lance Ulanoff: Apple’s iPhone Event Signals a Design Inflection Point

Film & TV

• Richard Gardt & Göran Uhlin, 2018: A Swedish Elephant
• SVT, 2010: Våra vänners liv. Binge-watched the full series, 10 one-hour episodes.
• SVT, live: Valvaka (election night).

This is the beginning of my study diary, where I will keep track of what I read during my studies of visual and media anthropology. The study programme will begin in October, but we have already got access to some of the content. In addition, I will include various other readings that may or may not be related to anthropology.

Study

Ethnographic Film, Unit 1: Robert Flaherty

• Nanook of the North, 1922 (Youtube)
• Ruby, Jay 2000 Picturing Culture: Explorations of Film and Anthropology. Introduction. p.1-39.
• Grimshaw, Anna 2001 ‘The Innocent Eye: Flaherty, Malinowski and the Romantic Quest’ in The Ethnographer’s Eye: Ways of seeing in Modern Anthropology
• Rony, Fatimah Tobing 1996 ‘Taxidermy and Romantic Ethnography: Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North’ in The Third Eye: Race, Cinema and Ethnographic Spectacle.

To be continued with more “recommended readings” …

Qualitative Methods

• Bohannan, L. (1966 (reprinted)). Shakespeare in the Bush. (Context and Meaning; Universal meanings and local contexts)
• Turner, V. (1969). The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-Structure. P. 4-21. (What Is Ethnography? Realist and analytic ethnography, objectivity and subjectivity in anthropological research.)
• Behar, R. (1993). Translated Woman. Crossing the Border with Esperanza’s Story. 39 p. (Narrative Anthropology.)
• Spradley, J. P. (1980). Participant Observation. P. 53-84. (Tools of Ethnographic Research. Fieldwork.)
• Desjarlais, R. R. (1994). Struggling Along: The Possibilities for Experience among the Homeless Mentally Ill. In American Anthropologist, 96(4), p. 886-901. (Phenomenological Anthropology.)

Related and/or interesting

Books

• Gabriella Coleman: Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy – The Many Faces of Anonymous (2015). 👊 (An amazing if lengthy and detailed anthropological account of modern digital subcultures. I wish I had read it before I accidentally interviewed Biella at the Princeton Fung Forum in 2017.)
• Hiroki Azuma: Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals (2001). 👍 (Not what I thought it would be, but an excellent introduction to the concepts of modernity and postmodernity, as represented by otaku. I devoured this book slowly and minutiously.)
• Nega Mezlekia: Notes from the Hyena’s Belly: An Ethiopian Boyhood (2002).

Articles

• Medium: Anthropology & User Experience: Why Anthropologists are perfectly trained for a profession they’ve never heard of. By Juliette St Andrew. (2015)
• The Economist: Anthropologists at war. Naive ethnography v post-structuralism in Afghanistan. (2009)
• The Economist: The way forward on immigration to the West.
• The Economist explains: How YouTube deals with inappropriate videos.

Otaku papers

• Thomas Lamarre, 2013: Cool, Creepy, Moé: Otaku Fictions, Discourses, and Policies.
• Yuji Gushiken and Tatiane Hirata, 2014: Processes of Cultural and Media Consumption: The Image of ‘Otaku’, from Japan to the World. (Brazil.)
• Anna Madill, 2015: Boys’ Love manga for girls: Paedophilic, satirical, queer readings and English law. (Skimmed and aborted, not relevant.)

Japan Review 26: Special Issue Shunga

• C. Andrew Gerstle and Timothy Clark: Introduction. P. 3-14.
• Hayakawa Monta: Who Were the Audiences for Shunga? P. 17-36.
• Ishigami Aki: The Reception of Shunga in the Modern Era: From Meiji to the Pre-WWII Years. P. 37-55.

Youtube

• Uncontacted Tribes

Why should the Indians be kept under a glass dome forever? Naked with feathers, singing and dancing. There’s no point us wanting the Indians to stay the same, you know? To never change. Of course they’ll discover the world and change. Is it dangerous? It is. Will it cause trouble? It will. Will some die? They will. Will some go mad? Sure, but that’s how things are, my friend. That’s how life is. That’s how I see it. I don’t see a problem. In 20 or 30 years a Sapanahua will be reading, writing, studying in Rio Branco, at the University of Acre. What’s the problem? Whatever doesn’t change and adapt in nature dies. That’s Darwin.

— Brazilian anthropologist Carlos Morales in Uncontacted Tribes

• Anthropology Field Notes – Visual Anthropologist Karl Heider
• Digital Anthropology Daniel Miller
• Lessons in Digital Anthropology: Kaitlin Maud (TED) 👎 (I agree with this comment: “This should not be called Digital Anthropology. Let me just call myself an engineer!”)
• Gabriella Coleman: Anonymous and the Politics of Leaking 👍 (Perfect complement to her excellent book on Anonymous.)
• The human insights missing from big data | Tricia Wang (TED) (Got interested in her after having heard her on This Anthro Life.)
• Boyer Lectures 2017: Professor Genevieve Bell
• Casey Neistat: The Logan Paul Interview 🤦‍♂️

Podcasts

I’m currently trying out several anthropology podcasts pretty randomly in the hope of “getting to know” some of them:

• This Anthro Life: Tech Ethnography, Data and Social Justice w/ Dr. Tricia Wang 👎 (Seems interesting but I had a very hard time following. Why can’t interviewees just record their voice on their phone nowadays and send the file to the hosts afterward instead of this neverending Skype compression?)
• University of Oxford – Anthropology: Oliver Scott Curry: The seven moral rules found all around the world. (Recorded seminar.)
• Online Gods (LMU Munich): Episode 1: Big Data and The Ladies Finger. (India focus. Interesting interview with Ralph Schroeder of Oxford Internet Institute.)
• Anthrotalking (Stockholm University): Exploring anthropological methods. 👍 (Interviews with three anthropologists.)
• Anthropod (Society of Cultural Anthropology, USA): Teresa Caldeira on Urban Practices and Ethnographic Intimacy. 👍 (Brazil.)
• Anthropological Airwaves (American Anthropologist, USA): Media Projects of Becoming in Religion and Fashion.

Tech

• Harv: Using curves in Final Cut
• Ripple: Final Cut Pro 10.4: Color Wheels