Trained as a cultural anthropologist at the University of Chicago, I have gone on to do fieldwork in Brazil and the United States. I have written one book, Learning Capoeira: Lessons in Cunning from an Afro-Brazilian Art (Oxford, 2005). I have also co-authored and co-edited several, including, with Dr. Daniel Lende, The Encultured Brain: An Introduction to Neuroanthropology (MIT, 2012), and with Dr. Melissa Fisher, Frontiers of Capital: Ethnographic Reflections on the New Economy (Duke, 2006).
My research interests include neuroanthropology, psychological anthropology, sport, dance, human rights, neuroscience, phenomenology, economic anthropology, and just about anything else that catches my attention.
Daniel did a posting earlier today on Sex, Lies and IRB Tape: Netporn to SurveyFail that explores a research project that self-immolated through bad design, horrible conflict management, and a number of other character flaws. I’m really glad Daniel did this because he’s the more tech-savvy half of this duo. I just saw this yesterday and started to read up on the commentary but quickly realized that I was over my head, having pretty much exhausted my ability to navigate communication technology and resulting subcultural movements with a Twitter-related post a while back.
But I did want to add a couple of points because I’m particularly interested in research design and ethics and because I like kicking researchers when they’re down. No, no, just kidding — because I find the focus of ‘evolutionary’ theorists on the supposed ‘hard wiring’ of sexuality to be one of the more irritating and, well, hard-wired theoretical assumptions, even in the face of OVERWHELMING evidence to the malleability of human sexuality.
I apologize for not putting up some clever graphic, but I spent most of today helping friends build their mud-brick house and then went to a Showground Association meeting, where I was elected president (that’s kind of like the County Fairground in my town). My brain’s fried, but I don’t want to let this post sit for too long or it’s moment will have well and truly passed.
Research ethics
In my brief and incomplete survey of the discussions of this research, it became obvious that slash fans were particularly irritated, not just by the initial bad research design, but also by the seeming inability to apologize, learn from criticism or even simply back off on the part of the researchers.
On your mark!
The format of our upcoming conference is unusual for anthropology: instead of the usual, 15- to 20-minute paper in a panel, with multiple parallel panels, we’re opting for very short presentations to the whole assembled conference. I’ll try to explain the logic, and my previous experience with speed presentations.
So often at conferences, the focus is on research that has already been conducted. It’s done and dusted, and the author reads a pre-publication version of a future article. In fact, sometimes the audience comes to feel that the presentation is even further along, that the published version is either in press somewhere or mostly finished. This can give many conference presentations a kind of maturity, but at the cost of discussion; when people do get to talk or ask questions, they may have the impression that they are talking to hear themselves speak. The author’s work is mostly done, and any question about research methods is too late.
In speed presentations, however, we’re encouraging people to present research ideas, works in the early stages of development, and first passes of ideas. Because the format is shorter, the research can still be in progress or even in proposal stages. This allows discussions to be much more productive; like the roundtable on research methods, we’re hoping that this will spark discussion of how to get at difficult questions, techniques for eliciting data, and hybrid methodologies that combine strengths from different fields.
Because neuroanthropology is a nascent field, this sort of collective brainstorming session, with presentation as much introductions, provocations, and ice-breakers for future exchange, seemed to us to make the most sense. So if you’re considering it, don’t hesitate to bring your half-baked ideas, your unrealized research ambitions, and your works in progress. This is exactly the sort of material that will benefit most from a forward-looking, future-oriented conference like The Encultured Brain.
In addition, at some conferences, you feel like you’re competing against other sessions. Someone you’d like to see present is talking at the same time your panel is scheduled; hell, you’d even skip your own talk if you could, so how can you expect to have a big audience? That won’t be an issue here. We’ve been very careful to invite some of the most generous, congenial, and free-thinking colleagues we could find, so we’re going to try hard to put everyone on equal footing. For at least five minutes, you’ll have everyone’s complete attention.
After your presentation, everyone will have pre-printed slips to respond to your work, so that they can’t drop you a note, pass on their cards if they want to get in touch, suggest a technique or a reading you might not know of, or otherwise give you some feedback. In the breaks, with food and drink to put us all in a better mood, you’ll have a chance to chase down that future collaborator who just inspired you with their presentation. And if someone’s presenting something you’re not interested in, you can relax — it’s going to be over quick.
The format is sort of like speed-dating for research exchange. It will help us to see what is out there, who’s doing what sort of work, to swap ideas, ask each other for assistance, and try to set up some future collaboration. So if you’re thinking about joining us, but you don’t think you’re quite ready to present at the American Anthropological Association or the Society for Psychological Anthropology or the Cognitive Science Society, then this conference is definitely the place to help bring your work closer to realization.
Our colleague Lisa Wynn has put up a massive post on academic publishing based on a workshop she did this past week (that is, Lisa was the workshop giver). Especially for anthropologists, it’s a great resource, with many a suggestion for how to get your next great ethnographic of anthropological masterwork into print.
There’s discussions of all the traditional subjects (journals, book chapters, books) as well as a consideration of newer forms of reaching the anthropological public.
‘Tis the season for conference announcements! This one was forwarded to me by Joan Jocson at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (thanks, Joan!).
The Institute of General Semantics is now taking registrations for the 57th Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture & Dinner and 3-Day International IGS Conference. Anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson will be giving the keynote lecture: “The Changing Shapes of Lives: Making Meaning Across Time.’
Joan passed along the mission statement of the IGS, which I have to share with our readers:
The Institute of General Semantics (IGS) promotes a scientific approach to understanding human behavior, especially that related to symbol systems and language, and the application of proven principles that guide advancements in critical thinking, rational behavior, and general sanity.
Amen, people! Proven principles to promote GENERAL SANITY — that’s something I can certainly get behind. If only I could persuade all the administrators at my university to get on board with that one!
For more information on the conference and registration, just follow this link over to the IGS website. The jump over to their site is worth it just to check out the silent movie clips of the earlier conferences (gestures from other eras just seem so odd — the past is another country, eh?) and the great quotes on prejudice, communication and other semantic issues running down the left of the page. Personal favourite: ‘The trouble with people is not so much with their ignorance as it is with their knowing so many things that are not so’ (William Alanson White).
Greg Laden and Ad Hominem are stalking the Aquatic Ape Theory, but I’m on the tail of the Monkey King!
My friend and colleague, the anthroblogorific Lisa Wynn, sent me a link to this amazing video of Jyoti Raj, aka the ‘Indian monkey king’ or the ‘Chitrandurga Spiderman’ (from the name of the fort he is seen scaling). Lisa sent the video link after I revealed during lunch the startling depth of my fascination with the variability of human feet (see my previous post on barefoot running). If you haven’t already seen it, here’s the video: ‘India Monkey King scales new heights.’
Among the reasons I’m glad Lisa introduced me to Jyoti Raj (including that I’m going to use the video in my lecture on humans as primates next week), I’ve been collecting materials on free climbing for my sports book, a chapter I haven’t started to write. She suggested I check out the last few moments of the video, in which Raj appears to use his toes actively to climb. That is, Raj appears in the last few seconds to be climbing with bare feet and actually using his toes to grasp the corners of the structure.
Since I’m spending a fair bit of time thinking about feet these days, I thought I would take the opportunity presented by Mr. Jyoti Raj’s amazing ability to climb – especially the possibility that he might be grasping with his toes when he climbs, and not just resting weight on his feet – to string together a sprawling, loosely-connected consideration of activity-derived anatomical abnormality, or, if you prefer, freaky feet.
This posting, however, is also a plea for help, as I’m really hoping someone out there can help me to find good research, even single case studies, on the kinds of anatomical features that develop with intense training. But I’ll make my plea for help clearer as I go. For now, on to Spiderman…
The famous photo of Malinowski learning the enforcement mechanism for the kula ring as reanimated skeletons attack his camp.For our readers not too familiar with the history or current state of anthropology, you could find much more useful resources, but why bother? Consult Uncyclopedia’s article on ‘anthropology,’ a muddled mess of baseless assertions and inaccuracies; in other words, probably as good a definition as any other.
Wizened anthropologists will notice all sorts of crucial elements that are still missing from the entry; our friends on the Australian Anthropological Society mailing list have pointed out that perhaps the most famous recently-deceased anthropologist, Michel Foucault, is missing from the un-entry. I also noted the absence of any discussion of the role of hallucinogens in the production of anthropological theory, from the early crucial inspiration of absinthe to the later influence of Amazonian pharmacology and performance-enhancing peyote, to more recent experimentation with endo-generated narcotics such as extreme reflexivity and disciplinary megalomania/self-castigation bipolarism.
Also mysteriously missing is any mention of thesis-related slavery in the teaching of anthropology, chunky ethnic jewelry or hemp clothing, or any word with the prefix ‘post-‘. In other words, the uncyclopedia entry on anthropology is a work in progress, but definitely not likely to become the least bit more accurate or reflect the field in a favourable light. I’d heartily recommend that you click on the link to visit the site so that someone might fall under the illusion from the page traffic that anthropology has a larger audience than it actually has, or you could maliciously hack the page and suggest that the field is closely related to sociology.
Neuroanthropology 
