By Rhoda Woets
Almost every month, I join a small group of anthropologists from the VU to go to the movies. Last month, we went to the action movie Black Panther to do a little bit of fieldwork from a soft, lazy cinema chair. Combining a relaxing evening with collecting data for a blog post has little in common with the hardship of fieldwork that anthropologist write about in their ethnographies. No mud on my boots, thank you very much. Let the arm chair anthropologist return, this time freed from an ethnocentric view on culture and armed with 3D glasses.
Category: Muziek, kunst & media
By Dominique van de Kamp During the pre-master of Social and Cultural Anthropology, we followed a course called “Core themes of Anthropology,” by Ton Salman. In our first class, he mentioned that every anthropologist would like to be a fly on the wall, almost invisible – however impossible *. From that moment on, we started calling ourselves the “Flies on the wall.”
Two years later, we handed in our theses and a great part of us went to celebrate together in Rome. There I wrote something about the flies on the wall, which turned out to be my notes of an engaged anthropologist:
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By Peter Versteeg Recently Chris Cornell, singer of the bands Soundgarden and Audio-slave, died. Soundgarden is probably best known for their early nineties song ‘Black Hole Sun’, which is the invocation of a sort of natural disaster which will swallow everything that is ugly and false. It is a cry to be released from a depression that is caused by an awareness that life has become hollow and that the earth has been delivered into the hands of frauds, crooks and idiots. Cornell took his own life. Announcing his tragic death, news shows showed exactly this song as he played it during the last earthly gig he ever played. It is not difficult to feel its ominousness.
By Matthias Teeuwen Last AALS lecture was an inspiring and thought-provoking presentation by Dr. Paolo Favero on the myriad possibilities that emerging technologies provide to conducting ethnographic research. He talked about the implications of the use of i-docs (interactive documentaries such as Highrise), wearable camera’s (used exclusively in Leviathan), user GPS (Dr Favero gave an example of its use in Rider Spoke), and much more in ethnographic research. Here are some impressions.
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By Ina Keuper On 7 December the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology organized its second Ethnographic Film Day, which featured four rather different ethnographic documentaries. Former staff member Ina Keuper was there and shares some thoughts on Standplaats Wereld about these particular films and the role of this visual medium in anthropology.
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Door Ton Salman Het zijn, wereldwijd, tijden van eerbetoon aan culturele tradities. Tot aan de vakantiefolders toe worden de “authentieke dansen”, de “oorspronkelijke rituelen” en de “intact gebleven, rustgevende dorps-levensritmes” beloofd aan –inmiddels ook– de massatoerist. Je kunt het meemaken in Vietnam, in Zambia, in Peru; “echte cultuur” kun je overal beleven.
En over dat cultuurtoerisme zijn inmiddels de nodige publicaties verschenen, over de voor- en nadelen voor de “locals”, over de effecten op economieën, over (erg scheve) winstdelingen, over de “agency” van de “authentieke dansers”, en over de verknipte toerist die massaal iets anders dan massatoerisme wil. De mooiste titel binnen dit veld is waarschijnlijk die van Nick Stanley: “Being Ourselves for You: The Global Display of Cultures”, al uit 1998.
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Door Ellen van de Bovenkamp
Egypte 2011: net als documentairemaakster Anna Roussillon terug is in Frankrijk breekt de revolutie uit. Ze baalt verschrikkelijk dat ze dit historische moment mist. Toch is ze er vervolgens in geslaagd een fantastische documentaire over die revolutie te maken. Ana Ash-Sha’ab – ‘Ik ben het volk’ – werd zeer lovend ontvangen op Europese filmfestivals.
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By Jordi Bok As anthropologist Daniel Miller takes place behind the microphone to start his lecture, a whistle blows through the lecture room. It is not a starting signal, but the noise of a WhatsApp-notification. Some people laugh, some look annoyed and others just ignore it. Slightly embarrassed, the girl sitting next to me quickly checks her phone to see who contacted her at this inconvenient moment. This perfectly sets the stage for what prof. Daniel Miller is going to talk about today, 12 February 2016, as part of the Amsterdam Anthropology Lectures at VU University: social media.
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Door Freek Colombijn De Nederlandse muziekindustrie schijnt het goed gedaan te hebben in 2015, maar de trend van fysieke muziekdragers als CDs is een gestaag dalende verkoop. De enige uitzondering hierop is de verkoop van vinyl, ouderwetse grammofoonplaten. De laatste platenspeciaalzaken hebben bakken vol elpees terwijl de CDs het met steeds minder ruimte moeten doen. Kenners zeggen dat het analoge geluid van een elpee mooier is dan het digitale geluid van een CD, maar dan moet je wel een goede installatie en goede oren hebben om het verschil te merken. Wellicht speelt er ook een element van nostalgie mee waarom grammofoonplaten het goed doen.
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