Here I continue to build on all the passion other anthropology bloggers have put into their writing, their sites, and their preferred media. In Part One I covered how anthropology blogging is relevant using three different categories: Public Relevance, Anthropological Vision, and Being Human.

In Part Two I will cover four more themes: (a) Controversy, Commentary and Critique; (b) Empiricism and Scholarship, (c) Language; and (d) Blogging. As before, these are the categories that came to me as I read the submissions and represent one way to parse the great work others have done. I hope it proves useful for exploration, teaching, fun, and sharing with others what anthropology is all about.

Controversy, Commentary and Critique

Anthropology courts controversy and revels in critique, and we bloggers produce a running commentary on events of the day. Or events of the past, for that matter. Given our anthropological vision we indeed find strength, perhaps even some authority, in offering critique that takes “common sense” and shakes it up, questioning common assumptions through cultural insights, cross-cultural data, and archaeological and evolutionary ideas.

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The Best of Anthropology Blogging 2008 shows what we bloggers have done – anthropology has both a public voice and a powerful presence on the Internet. In this post I want to speak to that presence, building on The “Best of Anthro 2008” Prizes and the descriptions of the posts that anthro bloggers selected as their most popular and their best.

The prizes were to get attention, such an important feature of Internet buzz (and it worked!); the descriptions for power browsing. Here I want to bring greater focus on why anthropology blogging is relevant. I hope my summary of the efforts of many helps you explore, learn, enjoy, teach, muse, argue, and share.

In reading over the posts again, I came up with seven categories. They are: (1) Public Relevance; (2) Anthropological Vision; (3) Being Human; (4) Controversy, Commentary and Critique; (5) Empiricism and Scholarship, (6) Language; and (7) Blogging. I’ve highlighted illustrative posts in each category, then provided a list of other good examples. I will cover the first three categories in this post and the other four in part two.

I should say that this is my own subjective reading of the posts, my own way of thinking through them. Someone else would surely do it differently; this is just my attempt at highlighting why anthropology blogging is important.

Public Relevance

Why should anthropology matter to people reading and browsing out there? Here are posts that address issues of public concern, and that show that anthropology can make a difference in myriad ways.

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Everyone gets a prize! Multiple winners where appropriate! Plus a going-away gift, a list of the most-commented-on posts. Or if awards aren’t your thing, you can go traditional and check out everyone’s submissions.

Best Hippos
The Zodiac (Greg Laden’s Blog)

Best Thesis Proposal
Sharing knowledge: how the internet is fueling change in anthropology (Another Anthro Blog)

Best Interview
The story behind an HTS picture (Culture Matters)
How electricity changes daily life in Zanzibar – Interview with anthropologist Tanja Winther (Antropologi)

Best Bird Song in Two-Part Anthro Harmony
Crakes, objects and sounds (Listening to Birds)

Lo Mejor en Español
El ciclo doméstico y la comunicación cientifica (Grafos y Accidentes)

Best Cross-Cultural Research
Balance between cultures: equilibrium training (Neuroanthropology)

Best Reflection on Scientific Frustration
Second-Worst Possible Fieldwork Result (Aardvarchaeology)

Best Ethical Debate
Untangling Ethics: A framework for anthropology (In Harmonium)

Best French Outside France
Language Ownership: Does the French language belong to France? (Linguistic Anthropology)

Best Photos
A Bizarre British Ritual named Crufts. (Urbi et Orbi)
Proud to be one! (Testimony of the spade)

Best 3D Inuit Map
Tactile Maps and Imaginary Geographies (Middle Savagery)

Best Reporting of Breaking News
Occupation of the New School University, NYC (Open Anthropology)
Neanderthals Had Language (Babel’s Dawn)

Best Debunking of Biblical Hallucinogens
A Review of Methodology in “Biblical Entheogens” (Archaeoporn)

Best European Genes
500K SNP Europe-wide study of genetic structure (Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog)

Best Illustration
Semantically Challenged (Urbi et Orbi)
Do you know this feeling? (The Ideophone)

Best Giants
Breitenwinner Cave Giant Skeletons a Hoax (Archaeoporn)

Best Fieldtrip
Three medieval churches, two rune stones, and a mound (Testimony of the spade)
Under the spell of ideophones (The Ideophone)

Best Use of a Playboy Cover
Maria and Meaning (Ethnografix)

Best Blind Date
How Y-STR variance accumulates: a comment on Zhivotovsky, Underhill and Feldman (2006) (Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog)

Best Comic Book
Utilized Glass and Experimental Archaeology in Kalaupapa (Middle Savagery)

Best Debate about Teaching
What being an anthropologist means to me: apparently, it means a long post (Teaching Anthropology)

Best Anthropology Superhero
Do Politicians and Pundits Think We’re Stupid? (From the Annals of Anthroman)

Best Fieldwork Memoir
Africa on my mind (The Memory Bank)

Best Bottleneck Breakage
Did humans face extinction 70,000 years ago? (John Hawks Weblog)

Best General Discussion
Neanderthals were not stupid (A Hot Cup of Joe)
Human Evolution on Trail – Technology (remote central)
Chomsky’s Theory of Language Origins (Babel’s Dawn)

Best Spike Lee Joint
Spike on Spike (From the Annals of Anthroman)

Best Use of Romantic Poetry
Studying Sin (Neuroanthropology)

Best Famous Anthropologist
Tim Ingold: ‘Anthropology is not ethnography’ (media/anthropology)
George Marcus: “Journals? Who cares?” (Antropologi)

Best Demonstration of Osteoarthritis
It gets worse after the middle ages: Bone disease and the Medieval period (Part I) (moneduloides)

Best Snake Striking Graphic
The Serpent Mound (A Hot Cup of Joe)

Best List
Ethnographic fiction (Culture Matters)

Best Support of Junior Faculty
What’s in a Name? (Brainstorm)

Best 15,000 Year Old Human Face
La Marche Cave :: Faces From The Ice Age (remote central)

Best Captions
The Great Abandonment (Middle Savagery)

Best Local Corner
Border Patrols (trinketization)

Best Anxious Parisian
Field notes from Paris: social pathology and the globalization of sentiments (Somatosphere)

Best Reflection on YouTube
“An anthropological introduction to YouTube” video of Library of Congress presentation (Digital Ethnography)

Best Obama Is An Anthropologist Post
Son of an Anthropologist (Disparate)

Best Cosleeping Advice
Cosleeping and Biological Imperatives: Why Human Babies Do Not and Should Not Sleep Alone (Neuroanthropology)

Best Diary Entry
Writing Diary (trinketization)

Best Taking Experimental Philosophy to Task
Philosophers Discover Lost Tribe in Jungles of Free Will (Savage Minds)

Best Use of Horror Films to Make a Point about Globalization
The Revenge of the Local, the Horror of the Provincial, and Western Cosmopolitanism at Risk (Open Anthropology)

Best Stripper Tattoo
Never Piss Off a Stripper: the ethnography of reality television (Teaching Anthropology)

Best Detective
L – Change the world (anthroblogia)

Best Sarah Palin Post
A Campaign of Condescencion? You Betcha! (Linguistic Anthropology)
Culture Wars, Anthropology, and the Palin Effect (Brainstorm)

Best Reflection on Privacy
“those without agency have sentimentality and vice versa” (Savage Minds)

Best Tearing Down the Walls of Learning
Revisiting “A Vision of Students Today” (Digital Ethnography)

Best Use of Ritalin
Grandma’s little helper (Somatosphere)

Best Whine
When Do Immigrants Learn English? Likely, not when you think (Greg Laden’s Blog)

Best Change in a Working Paper
Local leadership and personal media: a practice-theoretical approach (media/anthropology)

Best Call for Definitions to Come Later
Anthropology and culture – call for precision! (toBEintheWORLD)

Best Shop Window
Meditation (Urbi et Orbi)

Best CEO
Bronfman Epiphany? (Critical World Blog)

Best Marketing Blindspot
Juegos y roles en antropología y marketing (Grafos y accidentes)

Most Comments
500K SNP Europe-wide study of genetic structure (Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog) [135 comments]
What’s in a Name? (Brainstorm) [91 comments]
Philosophers Discover Lost Tribe in Jungles of Free Will (Savage Minds) [60 comments]
When Do Immigrants Learn English? Likely, not when you think. (Greg Laden’s Blog) [52 comments]
“An anthropological introduction to YouTube” video of Library of Congress presentation (Digital Ethnography) [49 comments]
Culture Wars, Anthropology, and the Palin Effect (Brainstorm) [34 comments]
Revisiting “A Vision of Students Today” (Digital Ethnography) [34 comments]
How Y-STR variance accumulates: a comment on Zhivotovsky, Underhill and Feldman (2006) (Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog) [33 comments]
Breitenwinner Cave Giant Skeletons a Hoax (Archaeoporn) [25 comments]
Second-Worst Possible Fieldwork Result (Aarvarchaeology) [23 comments]
Cosleeping and Biological Imperatives: Why Human Babies Do Not and Should Not Sleep Alone [20 comments]
Ethnographic fiction (Culture Matters) [17 comments]
Untangling Ethics: a framework for anthropology (In Harmonium) [13 comments]
The story behind an HTS picture (Culture Matters) [13 comments]
Occupation of the New School University, NYC (Open Anthropology) [12 comments]
What being an anthropologist means to me: apparently, it means a long post (Teaching Anthropology) [12 comments]
El ciclo doméstico y la comunicación científica (Grafos y acidentes) [11 comments]
The Revenge of the Local, the Horror of the Provincial, and Western Cosmopolitanism at Risk (Open Anthropology) [11 comments]
community, the internet, and anthropology (Another Anthro Blog) [10 comments]
Stable Bilingualism and Multilingualism in Canada (Disparate) [9 comments]