The structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss and the critique of Feminist Anthropology are discussed in an Iranian.com piece on gender.

The problem with structuralism is that it discards the concepts of freedom and choice, merely emphasizing the way different social structures shape an individual’s experience, outlook and behaviour. As for the works of Lévi-Strauss, feminist anthropologists of the 1970’s criticised its theoretical approach and empirical contention by introducing the discursive category of ‘gender’. Gender was defined as the essential component of power relationships that are founded on apparent differences between the sexes (3). Actually since the 1980’s, “difference” and “power” have been the main elements of gender analysis in social and human sciences.

Read more here:

Conceptualizing Gender (2) Post-structural theories

by Azadeh Azad 03-May-2012 

From Alex Argyriadis, a PhD Candidate in History and Anthropology at the University of Peloponnese, Greece:

The first Program on Everyday Life and Culture in Greece was recently instituted at The University of Peloponnese. Founder and Head of the Program is the anthropologist C. Nadia Seremetakis (www.seremetakis.com), known worldwide for her influential writings as well as her engagement with and contributions in public anthropology.

The Program, aiming to promote and sustain a dialogue between academia and the wider society, held its first public- multimedia-participatory Symposium on Taste and Memory in the S. Peloponnese (region of Messinia) from March 13 to 19, and will hold, by popular demand, more events in other regions in the coming months.

Based on Professor Seremetakis’s notion of “ethnography as performance” and drawing on her book The Senses Still, this event involved the active, voluntary participation of over 20 schools (elementary and high school) in the region, over 25 local cultural organizations, public organizations such as theater, dance, music, the area authorities (all six Mayors and municipalities of Messinia), 75 university students, and numerous citizens.

As Professor Seremetakis claims, the effective mobilization and collaboration of all these forces in presenting original works for a specific event like this—call it public anthropology, cultural management, public education, or whatever—, can only be attained by “good ethnography—ethnography as both research method and writing. The former trains you to ‘excavate’ and ‘communicate’, the latter to ‘synthesize’ effectively the uncovered fragments.”

This multidisciplinary event featured lectures by renown Greek scholars, artistic performances, and a four-level exhibition which included over 300 student’s paintings and ceramic creations of sweet and salty memories, numerous narrations and poems on “recipes with memory”, as well as collections of gastronomic metaphors in everyday speech, poetry, popular lyrics, ancient texts, fairytales, and much more. These were accompanied by homemade tit-bits and sweets offered by citizens, and local products by world-acclaimed food businesses.

Film projections included a video documentary which showed the mobilization and preparation of schools (students and teachers) in anticipating their participation in the event. This film was also produced by UoP students-doctoral candidates under the supervision of Prof. Seremetakis.

The aftertaste of the event included aesthetic and gustatory interventions in the eating areas of the university by both local citizens and students, as well as the installation of a handmade compost bin on the university campus.

The event was attended by over 500 citizens, 179 of which received certification, among them 76 undergraduate and graduate students, and was covered by local and national media.

As Prof. Seremetakis stated to the media, this certainly offers a different picture of “Greek crisis” than the one prevailing in the news.

This, if I may add, is a prime example of public anthropology in a country where anthropology has no public face.

contact: Program on Everyday Culture, everydayculturehellas@gmail.com

Angela Garcia, Anthropology Now author, wrote an op-ed in LA Times on anti-addiction vaccines:

My aunt Marion is in the hospital dying of liver and kidney failure, the result of her 20-year struggle with heroin use. I was told of her imminent death the same day news broke about a vaccine against the drug. "Breakthrough heroin vaccine could render drug 'useless' in addicts," one headline read. "Scientists create vaccine against heroin high," proclaimed another.

Meanwhile, my aunt finds temporary relief in the ever more frequent administration of opiate pain medication — the very kind of drugs she used illegally.

The idea of an anti-addiction vaccine is not new. For nearly 40 years scientists have been working on vaccines against all kinds of addictions, including nicotine, marijuana and alcohol. There are even trials of vaccines to prevent obesity. None of the anti-addiction vaccines has yet received Food and Drug Administration approval, however, and most of the studies are still in their early stages.

Read the rest here:

Heroin vaccine won't 'cure' what ails addicts
By Angela Garcia
April 15, 2012

Before we can understand an alien civilization, it might be useful to understand our own.

To help in this task, anthropologist Kathryn Denning of York University in Toronto, Canada studies the very human way that scientists, engineers and members of the public think about space exploration and the search for alien life.

From Star Trek to SETI, our modern world is constantly imagining possible futures where we dart around the galaxy engaging with bizarre alien races. Denning points out that when people talk about these futures, they often invoke the past. But they frequently seem to have a poor understanding of history

Read more at Wired Magazine

Q&A: The Anthropology of Searching for Aliens
By Adam Mann April 4, 2012

The White House named Jim Yong Kim as its nominee to head to World Bank. Jim Yong Kim is the president of Dartmouth College, an anthropologist, a physician and a global health expert. This nomination forms a radical break from the traditional profiles of the World Bank leaders. Shall this appointment be approved, this would be one of the most influential positions any anthropologist has ever reached. It remains to be seen how Jim Yong Kim anthropological understanding would translate into global and local policies.

Elinor Ochs’ latest research on child-rearing practices among middle class US families receives wide spread media attention:

Anthropologist Elinor Ochs and her colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles have studied family life as far away as Samoa and the Peruvian Amazon region, but for the last decade they have focused on a society closer to home: the American middle class.

Why do American children depend on their parents to do things for them that they are capable of doing for themselves? How do U.S. working parents’ views of “family time” affect their stress levels? These are just two of the questions that researchers at UCLA’s Center on Everyday Lives of Families, or CELF, are trying to answer in their work.

By studying families at home—or, as the scientists say, “in vivo”—rather than in a lab, they hope to better grasp how families with two working parents balance child care, household duties and career, and how this balance affects their health and well-being.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal:

A Field Guide to the Middle-Class U.S. Family
By SHIRLEY S. WANG, March 13th

Also, read responses to the original article at The Washington Post and Slate Magazine

Janice D’Arcy - Are we asking enough of our kids? Anthropologists don’t think so

Libby Copeland  - The American Middle Class: Guilty Parents and Lazy Kids

A year after whole neighborhoods were killed by the Japanese tsunami, rumors of ghosts swirl in Ishinomaki as the city struggles to come to terms with the tragedy.

One reconstruction project appears stalled because of fears the undead spirits of those who perished last March will bring bad luck.

”I heard people working to repair the store became sick because of ghosts,” Satoshi Abe, 64, says, gesturing to a half-repaired supermarket. ”People died everywhere, here and there. The city is full of such stories

…anthropologist Takeo Funabiki says it is only ”natural” that stories of the supernatural abound after such an event.

”Human beings find it very difficult to accept death, whether they are inclined by nature to superstition or are very scientifically minded,” he says. ”A sudden or abnormal death, anything other than someone dying in bed of old age, is particularly difficult for people to comprehend.”

Read the rest at The Sydney Morning Herald

Tsunami recedes but ghosts linger
March 10, 2012
Everything from building work to taxi services are still affected by fears of undead spirits, writes Miwa Suzuki.

Nate Greenslit writes for From the Fields, a Wired Science op-ed series:

As an anthropologist of science, I am fascinated with how people create their own meaning from scientific content, which in turn shapes public understanding of science and, ultimately, scientific agendas themselves.

YouTube has become a lively repository for this kind of meaning-making. A great example is advertising for antidepressants: User-generated parody videos have given neuroscientific claims about depression a new cultural life.

So-called “direct-to-consumer” television and print advertising of antidepressants has been a controversial practice since its introduction in 1997, prohibited in all countries except for the U.S. and New Zealand. This sometimes-political lightning rod of the pharmaceutical industry has also been the de facto promulgator of putative neuroscientific theories of depression and anxiety disorders.

Read more here:

Op-Ed: Why YouTube Matters to the Science of Depression
By Nate Greenslit, February 28, 2012
Wired Scienece

Amber Case is a cyborg anthropologist. The TED Website explains:

Technology is evolving us, says Amber Case, as we become a screen-staring, button-clicking new version of homo sapiens. We now rely on “external brains” (cell phones and computers) to communicate, remember, even live out secondary lives. But will these machines ultimately connect or conquer us? Case offers surprising insight into our cyborg selves.

Press here for a direct link to her TED talk.

Amber Case: We are all cyborgs now

With NY Fashion Week well underway, New York Magazine’s fashion section, The Cut, posted online an article contemplating the mysteries of fashion language – citing anthropologist James Ferguson and sociolinguist Penny Eckert in the process. A sample:

“Such abstract language reminded [Eckert] of the work of anthropologist James Ferguson, who studies urban life in the Copperbelt in Africa, and ‘commented that there are people in urban settings who would make stylistic moves that were meaningless…’”

Check the rest out here: Why Do We So Rarely Say Anything Meaningful About Fashion?