The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada has just released a report warmly praising itself for its achievements in fostering “international collaboration.” SSHRC states at the outset: Now as globalization heightens its importance, collaboration is crucial to sustaining excellence in Canadian research and training. It secures access to the world pool of knowledge, helps us address critical national and global issues, and provides training opportunities that prepare... Read Full Story

The previous post, meant as a humorous educational exercise caused me to reflect on some of the conflicted tendencies contained within it, both on my part and the part of Trinidadians with different perspectives, personal histories, and social class backgrounds, and I am thankful for the messages that were posted, and those sent in private, both serious and tongue-and-cheek. SLACKNESS There are those who will assert that “the Trinidadian way” is one that frowns upon any public coarseness... Read Full Story

(Following my colleagues at the APE blog, I will have a special little entertaining piece from now on, to start off each new week) It is illegal to say FUCK in public in Trinidad & Tobago. ••••• Creep with me as I crawl through the hood… Rapper DMX was arrested again this weekend. This time, the rapper, whose real name is Earl Simmons, was nabbed mid-concert Saturday night in Trinidad, where police officers accused him of using profane language. According to the Associated Press, the 28-year... Read Full Story

CNN aired a piece on a “baby dropping ritual” in India in the Anderson Cooper segment last night, accompanied by Cooper’s wincing, and news reader Erica Hill’s raised voice exclaiming: “Look at that!“. The transcript on the CNN website is titled, in the mode of the gawker: “Villagers throw babies from temple roof“. Given the lack of contextualizing, the almost complete absence of any explanation, and the continuous looping of the drop (which looked harmless to me), accompanied by shouts... Read Full Story

Many thanks again to Lorenz Khazaleh at antropologi.info for bringing my attention to this fascinating interview with Maurice Bloch, where views are expressed that sit perfectly well with the thrust of the Open Anthropology Project. This also ties in with my response to the comment that I am “ambivalent” about my own work that one can find here. Interviewed by Maarja Kaaristo in Eurozine in February of this year, Maurice Block makes several statements that I found to be critically relevant... Read Full Story

(Thanks again to Lorenz Khazaleh and his blog for notification of the release of the current issue of Anthropology News.) In a short commentary titled, “Practical Challenges of Multi-Sited Ethnography“, written by Ulla Berg in Anthropology News (May, 2008), there is one basic limitation that I want to highlight, and some of my commentary might remind readers of George Marcus’ “no new ideas” argument (parts of which I agree with, and parts of which apply to his own argument). Ulla Berg is not... Read Full Story

A very interesting conversational interview between Tiziana Terranova and Marc Bousquet is available on the How the University Works website. I only wish to reproduce some notes and memorable quotes from this discussion, since they cover a great deal of important ground on the concept of the university as an “ivory tower”, a term that I have reproduced on this blog, and in fact appears in one of the category headings. Let me preface their discussion by noting that the “ivory tower... Read Full Story

From Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983) Executives holding a corporate board meeting: Exec #1: Item six on the agenda: “The Meaning of Life” Now uh, Harry, you’ve had some thoughts on this. Exec #2: Yeah, I’ve had a team working on this over the past few weeks, and what we’ve come up with can be reduced to two fundamental concepts. One: People aren’t wearing enough hats. Two: Matter is energy. In the universe there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some... Read Full Story

Theory in Action! The Journal of the Transformative Studies Institute (TSI) www.transformativestudies.org ****CALL FOR PAPERS**** Dear All, This is a call for papers for the peer-reviewed journal Theory in Action, a forum for ideas and discussion of research that connects theory and action: Do elections matter? Do they express the voices of citizens or do they simply legitimize corporate interests? What does the U.S. election mean for workers, the middle class, and for other nations... Read Full Story

The New World Movement The New World Movement that originated among Caribbean scholars and public intellectuals in the late 1960s, can probably be seen as part of that region's experience of what Immanuel Wallerstein has called the World Revolution of 1968. Many figures, locally prominent and some internationally famous as well had roots in this movement, or were associated with it, including: Norman Girvan, George Beckford, Clive Thomas, Walter Rodney, Orlando Patterson, Trevor Munroe, Lloyd... Read Full Story