The “Best of Anthro 2008” Prizes

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]

23 thoughts on “The “Best of Anthro 2008” Prizes

  1. Oh, and this my vote for best award category title of all time:

    “Best Use of Horror Films to Make a Point about Globalization.”

    Nice.

    *Did my last comment go through? I was logged into wordpress and things got a little wacky for a sec there. Hmmm.

    1. I agree, enkerli. Daniel did a hell of a job on this list. This is all his baby, and I’m still working my way through it, impressed at the level of discussion happening online in ‘unreviewed’ weblogs. I hope we, or someone else, can do this again for next year. It’s a real demonstration of what the virtual anthropology community is doing.

  2. Well I am really hoping I make your best list next year!

    I thought you might appreciate looking at this book when it comes out in April.

    http://brucemhood.wordpress.com/about-supersense/

    No matter whether you are a believer or a skeptic, it has something really important to say from the world of child development about the origins of adult belief.

    Best

    Bruce

  3. Woo hoo! Thanks for the prize 😀 Unfortunately my own (“L – Change the world”) has little to do with anthropology, unless you’re interested in how bloggers are enticed into doing reviews for films…

    Interesting list!

  4. Thanks for this initiative, and for the Best Fieldtrip and Best Illustration prizes!

    BTW Check out this Marcellino 2.0 pingback on the other post, they are a commercial site stealing your content to get some Google juice. Send them a cease and desist DMCA notice and they’ll have to take it offline.

Leave a comment