another anthro blog

In “Assessing the Future Landscape of Scholarly Communication: An In-depth Study of Faculty Needs and Ways of Meeting Them” (Harley et al. 2008 ) (via Suber’s OA News) a group of researchers from Berkeley provide a preliminary report on their study of how new communication technologies are viewed by faculty. I almost worried my research might be redundant (not that it matters at masters level?) but then I started reading and realized they didn’t include much from an anthropological perspective, and instead cover numerous disciplines to explore differences between them as well. It’s a really well put together report, with really revealing statements about the academic hierarchy. I’m looking forward to hearing more from their research!

“As we found in our planning study, peer-reviewed prestige publications are the “coin of the realm” in tenure and promotion decisions.”

this next one is really great - considering I plan to do my research at Concordia if its approved.

“Another observation is that every institution and department can have different traditions and standards. It was suggested by some that standards at second-tier institutions vary significantly from those in the top tier (less selective journals and presses, fewer publications, more emphasis on teaching, etc.), but that anxiety about getting published in what is described as a “competitive” market can be much higher.”

now is when the news they are reporting gets REALLY bad

“Finally, the advice given to pre-tenure scholars was quite consistent across fields: focus on publishing in the right venues and avoid too much time spent on public engagement, committee work, writing op-ed pieces, developing websites, blogging, and other non-traditional forms of electronic dissemination (including courses).”

lol! ouch! Is it April fools? Nope, its May. This study reveals a faculty bent on maintaining the status quo! I am honored to be studying at such a progressive school - where I’ve met incredibly dynamic and progressive teachers who blog, and encourage blogging! Thanks to Max Forte and Alexandre Enkerli who have encouraged, and inspired the use of blogging in academics. It will be great to present a report from a purely anthropological perspective, and I’m encouraged with the line of investigation I proposed.

Over the past few months I’ve been looking into the question “why do anthropologists blog?”. I’ve written up my reflections into a “mini ethnography” of sorts. The project involved a small survey, interviews, and a focus group - involving students and teachers. I would have kept it short and sweet, but there was a bit of a length competition going on in the class, and I encouraged myself to write perhaps a bit too much.

Yes, it’s a class assignment - it weaves in debates that are less interesting to people not involved in the class, but for those interested in academic blogging and the culture of publishing in anthropology, why not give it a read and let me know what you think.

I was holding off on posting this till it was reviewed by my professor and classmates, but as is the problem with all forms of review - it takes a lot of time! So here it is, mostly unreviewed, raw, and certainly in need of some revision. Feel free to comment anonymously, and again, flame on! (especially at how I just drop this reference to Wacquant and then drift off into nothingness… someone pick up on this and comment because im just too tired to critique myself!).

“Why do anthropologists blog?” - a mini ethnography, and class assignment.

Abstract

In the past few years Anthropologists have increasingly taken up blogging. The anthropology blogsphere is a rapidly growing community that has created a new space for all levels of the anthropological hierarchy to express themselves. It has also opened doors to engagement with those outside anthropology. Within debates surrounding traditional publishing formats, this report examines the ways blogs might work to allow anthropologists to reflect and discuss more, while officially publishing less. It is an exploration into the culture of publishing in anthropology, and the reasons anthropologists do, or do not, blog.

and the write up of this mini ethnography begins! It feels quite strange hitting the end of the semester just as things had started to roll.

I’ve done a lot of talking about blogging recently, interviewing students and professors about how they do and do not use blogs or other ict’s, for academic purposes. I asked about sharing assignments in public to generate feedback and about exposure to online anthropology in general.

To tie into the ideas floating around the blogsphere about sharing and distributing knowledge online, I asked a lot of questions relating to prestige and publishing. I wondered to what extent students had an idea about which academic journals were considered prestigious, and it is interesting to compare to the response I get from professors. Discussions also dealt with privacy, and the desire and necessity to engage people inside and outside the university.

I wondered to what extent people would rather restrict access to their blogs to people in their class, or if they would be happy sharing it publicly. Not very many people I interviewed would be happy sharing their class assignments online. These questions of privacy tied into the question “why don’t anthropologists blog?”.

In a focus group held with mostly social science students we had an engaging discussion around the need for public engagement in anthropology. Almost everyone in the focus group felt that jargon in academia worked against developing interest, and that they used different language in their essays depending on the particular class and teacher.

This post is mostly to encourage myself to post my own work online and as soon as I’ve written up a mini ethnography based on these interviews and of course all the great self reflexive “why this blog” posts out there.

The blog seems to encourage short, brief, disconnected thought. I want to keep coming back to these entries to edit them and somehow it seems wrong to do that in “blog form”. It’s hard to develop on ideas when you can control how they link together. Order by date? I’m not so timely! Howabout order by “last edited”?

And of course, once this mini ethnography is finished it’ll be time to start the real thesis research. I presented the topic in class, and I’ll work on posting the presentation on here soon.

Little did I know Marc Herbert, who recently let me know about a call for papers for a new online journal, runs a fantastic site that deals with exactly the issue I’ve been pondering. For one, I love his use of wiki’s over blog posts for managing information. I need to get out of this confining blog structure asap. I wonder how many gold mine blogs I’ve been missing out on.

Why do anthropologists blog? Check out Marc’s anthropology 2.0 site.

Then go read Max’s post “Path’s Ahead” , which discusses why a public anthropology is important - as a means of reformulating the disciplinary focus, encouraging public engagement, and basically making anthropology something interesting outside the brains of professional anthropologists. I find it particularly interesting to note that theres no quick way to do this, and I’m glad there are no expectations for student blogs like this one to actually encourage public interest!

Also, here is a great post from Max about blogging - asking the same questions I have been about who aside teachers and students might be interested in anthropology. He points out that to some extent, it is written for himself. This is very true of my blog, and I do think its helped me focus ideas for my research. And on the issue of public anthropology, blogs are perhaps the richest source for information.

During a discussion related to my mini-ethnography “Why Do Anthropologists Blog?”, one interviewee [lol dare I say informant in public???] felt that to a large extent blogging was part of our mass media, fame, superstar culture where we all want to make it big. This was a fun perspective to consider, even though I do disagree with it. [and if MTV wants to interview me I'm available]. A quick visit to the stats page is also quite ego calming.

Another fantastic resource discussing public anthropology can be found on the Remixing Anthropology blog. Kimberly Christen discusses her upcoming presentation:

“Within these new scenarios for collaboration and exchange come questions (and anxieties) about the properness of sharing—what information can be shared? What should be shared?”

I’ll be very choked if these presentations don’t get broadcast online!

Alexandre Enkerli, ethnomusicologist, brewmaster, and blogger extraordinaire, recently commented on the possibilities for managing online content distribution in terms of confidentiality and trust. As I look into online communities, playing around with this blog and other peoples, I’ve certainly found it interesting and difficult to moderate what I say. I can’t tell who I’m talking to, and its been a learning experience figuring out the proper contexts to write. Enkerli has created a number of different blogs, and writes on a diverse set of topics. I joked around on one of his casual posts, and after reading it felt I didn’t do it justice in terms of maintaining a formal tone. Blogging anthropology challenges disciplinary boundaries in very interesting ways – especially when it comes to knowing how to relate to each other. Enkerli writes on numerous topics in multiple languages, some very academic, others very casual, and he does it all on the same blog.

What differentiates a comment on blog, from a comment with that same person in a conversation offline. Do anthropological blogs have particular demands for commentators? When mixing styles of messages, how can we target the appropriate audience? It’s not just a matter of writing privately, and publicly.

What exactly will academics gain from increased feedback with those outside the halls of universities? (pardon me as I fart in the air, but I need to get this proposal together asap, and this happens to be whats on my mind). Is it worth exposing formal academic thought to casual feedback? Are the walls of the ivory tower (authority, prestige, discipline) there to protect intellectuals from hordes of casual barbaric commentators? At the same time, lots of very thoughtful discussions are carried on in the midst of casual banter. Am I wrong to differentiate casual from thoughtful? Is thoughtfulness a kind of formality? The demand for thoughtfulness anyways. [this all somehow relates to the part in my proposal asking how anthropological knowledge is distributed online - and how disciplinary boundaries are changed].

To try and get a more rational perspective I need to go back and find out why exactly disciplinary boundaries are problematic. Currently “I know” that we need to be more interdisciplinary, and “I know” we should publish things open access. Unfortunately I can’t support my feelings very well. Off to the databases…

As part of my proposal, and for a class I’m currently taking, I’m working on a mini-ethnography that asks “Why do anthropologists blog?”. This research was inspired by a series of interviews on anthropologi.info that looked into online participation by six anthropologists.

Here is the original series of interviews by Lorenz :

http://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/anthropology.php?p=1278&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

An interesting followup discussion on Savageminds can be found here.

http://savageminds.org/2005/08/17/talking-to-blogging-anthropologists/#comment-2807

I’ve setup meetings with four anthropologists to do interviews over the next couple of weeks. I’ve tried to take the feedback Lorenz received in the Savageminds discussion into this new set of interviews so that they can build on each other. In this way I’ve tried to find anthropologists who do not blog, and who might have pessimistic attitudes to the internet in general. I’ve also asked all the teachers at the university who I know blog to take part.

If you have any questions you would like me to ask while I’m doing the interviews, now is the time to let me know! I’d be happy to integrate your questions into the research!

A few more interesting links to academic blogging:

“Academic Blogging: Some BloggerCon III Afterthoughts”

http://cyberlibris.typepad.com/blog/2004/11/academic_bloggi.html

“Thoughts on Blogging by a Poorly Masked Academic”

http://dialogic.blogspot.com/2006/05/thoughts-on-blogging-by-poorly-masked.html

Kerim Friedman’s article “Welcome to the Blogsphere” http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dfqcv2wx_133g69wsg

A new student run anthropology e-journal run by the National Association for Student Anthropologists (NASA) is inviting anthropology students at the undergrad and graduate levels to submit papers on inclusion, collaboration and engagement. Thanks for letting me know and for using the blogsphere to get the message out. Here is the website.

Details follow:

Attention grad and undergrad anthro students: Please
consider submitting an article to the new anthropology e-
journal sponsored by the National Assoc. of Student
Anthropologists (NASA). The call for papers (pasted below)
is organized around the theme for the AAA 2008 Annual
Meetings. Completed manuscripts of 1000 words should be
submitted by April 21, 2008 to nasaejournal@gmail.com.
See below for more information…

The National Association of Student Anthropologists (NASA)
will launch its first online publication, The NASA e-
Journal, under the banner of the 2008 American
Anthropological Association conference theme: “Inclusion,
Collaboration, and Engagement.”

We seek scholarly submissions from undergraduate and
graduate students worldwide about the application of
anthropological theories and methods outside of academia or
across disciplines for the purpose of exploring,
problematizing, or addressing social problems. Have you
worked in an internship, co-op or another job as a student
anthropologist and wish to reflect on how you relied on your
anthropological training? Perhaps you collaborated with
students from other disciplines at a volunteer organization
and seek to describe the value you added from an
anthropological perspective? Is there a paper you submitted
for a service-learning class where you addressed a social
problem using anthropological methods? Have you done
fieldwork in a community where you sought to create positive
social change in the process of gathering data? Tell us
about it! Scholarly articles should be 1,000 words in length
and will be subject to a double blind review process.

We also welcome innovative commentary submissions to the e-
Journal. Commentaries are opinion or avant-garde pieces of
work which are the original work of the authors. These
submissions are to express the next generation of
anthropologists’ ideas, goals and beliefs of the direction
our discipline should head, be it locally, nationally or
globally. We seek a plurality of voices on this issue and
intend to raise awareness among fellow students as well as
more established anthropologists about the direction our
discipline is heading. Commentary submissions might include
such mediums as written pieces (1,000 words in length),
photo stories (10 photos + 1,000 words of commentary in
length) and videos/YouTubeC clips (10-minute maximum in
duration + 1,000 words of commentary in length)

Submission Guidelines:
Please submit a full 1,000 word manuscript for consideration
by midnight EST on April 21, 2008 along with any
accompanying materials.
. Authors should complete their submissions according
to the AAA style guide
(http://aaanet.org/pubs/style_guide.htm).
. Submissions should be saved in Microsoft Word “.doc”
format with the file title being the first author’s last
name and first initial. (example: HebertM.doc)
. We invite authors to provide drawings, graphs and
maps to enhance the visual component of each article. These
should be included as separate attachments in the email.
Graphics should be saved as “.jpg” format. The file name
should be the first authors last name, first initial and
then the number of the photo. (example: HebertM1.jpg) Please
also include reference in your text where graphics should be
placed by inserting the above identifier in the text.
. Videos should be provided as a link (if located on a
site such as YouTube) or included as a graphics file in a
readily viewable format such as QuickTime or Windows Media
Player.
. Please send submissions to the e-Journal editorial
team with the subject heading “NASA Manuscripts - Vol. 1″ at
nasaejournal@gmail.com.

Authors will be notified regardless if their work has been
selected for publication or not. We look forward to
publishing submissions for Volume 1 of the NASA e-Journal in
the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009.

Over at Savage Minds there is a great discussion going on regarding anonymous and public peer review. Personally, I think anonymous review is pretty important - and while the community has been kind so far, I sincerely hope someone will rip into this blog in a huge way. I’m confident that I can stand any attacks on me, my personality, my writing, and of course on my ideas. I’m also pretty confident that while some criticisms can be voiced directly, there are challenges to really saying whats on your mind. I also feel that these harsher criticisms need an anonymous outlet. Anonymity for me is a kind of freedom.

Flame wars and flame posts also have a wonderful effect of making a page seem a lot less pretentious. So please. Flame on this post, and on this page, and please do it anonymously so I don’t feel the need to kick your ass

Of course, this tough skinned approach only works so far. One of the most interesting academic blogs I’ve come across so far has been danah boyd’s (http://www.danah.org). I would love to be able to write as openly as she does, but she admits it is quite difficult to do. In her post “Why Blogs Aren’t a Safe Space” (2004) danah boyd discusses how the blog is her space, and that anonymous reviewers have often been the ones attacking her personally. She writes:

“One thing that we’re missing as disconnected souls reading each other’s words is a shared social structure where we can intuitively understand when to critique and when to support. The blog world too easily lends itself to a forum for attacking each other, purportedly to critique ideas. How often are anonymous critiques truly constructive? How easy is it to tear apart someone you don’t know? Stanley Milgram learned that ages ago… if you feel like your responsibility is to critique, you can do so infinitely, regardless of how another might feel. And the further removed you are from witnessing the horrific reactions, the more you can continue on. Sometimes, i think we’re all a bit sadistic.”

And so I realize, that there is an element of sadism involved in writing for the world at large. Whats true of the web however, is also true of the real world. danah boyd writes “I continue to be reminded that blogging is not a safe space for me. There’s no common understanding, common ground. “

Further, not to cite every word from her blog (although I recommend it entirely, as its incredibly open and insightful), she writes:

“Unlike many group blogs, this one has an identity. It’s a blog about women and tech. It’s a blog by women involved in tech. It’s a blog by thinking women who think, say, and create far more than a few posts a month on the site. There is an unspoken context. These are things that i take for granted. I try to keep posts short, but in doing so, i fail to lay out the framework and thus i’m attacked both for what i say and what i don’t say. Instead of creative suggestions, “perhaps you forgot this,” i usually see you’re wrong/foolish/inappropriate. Sometimes i wonder if we created misbehaving as a tool to increase our masochistic lashings. It’s certainly not a forum for interesting conversation in a safe space.”

So when is criticism a good thing, and what rules have been put in place to control the way anthropological work is reviewed? Is there a kind of code of conduct among anthropology websites? danah boyd argues that her blog has a particular identity, and that within that identity there is proper and improper behavior. Just because we can attack someone anonymously, doesn’t mean we should.

My question to everyone out there is: Once your work has been reviewed, how do you go about responding to the critique? Can you simply ignore it if you find it offensive, nasty, or irrelevant? I’m wondering to what extent peer review silences opinions, and to what extent authors appreciate having a chance to change things before they go into print. In the case of anonymous reviews, do you wish you could respond to them directly? Have you ever incorporated the anonymous reviewers statements directly into your work to respond to it?

Are anthropological journals “safe” spaces to publish ideas?

[sadistic] flame on [/sadistic]

Over at Antropologi.info there is an interesting discussion into the ways blogging can play an important role in fieldwork. This blog is part of my field notes, thats for sure. They argue that the use of a blog for reflecting on the field works to stimulate interest and to increase collaboration with other researchers.

Linked to that great link is a discussion on how blogging your field notes equals “open access field notes“. Well your reading mine. Enjoy

Prof. Forte of openanthropology.wordpress.com is also getting his students to blog. I’m taking his cyberethnography class - and while all the students in the class are encouraged to write a blog, they are not necessarily encouraged to make it openly available. (for privacy and maybe liability reasons?)

Open access is but a small part of what makes online communication so interesting. Lawrence Lessig, who published Free Culture with the Creative Commons open license, used an internet wiki to integrate community support into the revising and editing process. I haven’t investigated it much yet, but certainly this provides an interesting idea for anthropological journals.

It could make it easier for reviewers to review work prior to publishing - especially when there are no worries about “leaking” the content out, to be stolen and published elsewhere. I wonder how many journals are using new technologies to simplify and coordinate the publishing process. Again, open source software movements might have a lot to share, given their expertise in building community motivation, and in bringing together diverse linguistic groups to work together on a single project. They have also produced fantastic tools for document control, version histories, and collaborative project management.

Its about control over the research once its been published, and control over the work to get it published. Obviously this control isn’t a bad thing, but the different approaches to developing respectability and authority must create very different kinds of publishing community.

Perhaps it is even about moving beyond the idea of creating essays as static, final productions. Sure it’s hard to update a book once its been printed, but theres no reason online publications can’t be turned into ongoing projects. As Lawrence Lessig showed, a broader community can be incorporated into the editing process, and new versions of old works can be produced. Ideas are not set in stone and not owned by any particular person [except mine], and so with the development of online technologies, to what extent does academic review need to occur prior to publishing, and to what extent can it occur after? Could responses be more consistently linked to the original productions? Can they be worked into them?

Making academic research more available through open access is just the tip of the ice berg. Maybe online communities demand (or open up) different forms of management, given the different medium?.

I think part of my research will have to deal with respectability and publishing. I wonder if anthropologists all know/have an opinion about which journals are prestigious and which aren’t. I’ll definitely ask.