Anthropology of Knowledge

Towards an anthropology of disciplinarity

by Rena Lederman

A Note on Saḷāyatanas in Pāli Nikāyas

by Giuliano Giustarini

Aproximación experimental á obtención de bronce binario na Prehistoria do Noroeste Peninsular

by Jodok Lackinger

"End Master Work, in Máster de Historia Territorio e Recursos Patrimoniais directed by Beatriz Comendador Rey, Universiadade de Vigo, 2011"

End Master Work about archaeometallurgy and experimental archaeollogy, we have do some experimets of  bronze... more End Master Work about archaeometallurgy and experimental archaeollogy, we have do some experimets of  bronze obtain by cementation of tin ore and metallic copper, process to obtain charcoal and lost wax casting tecnique to make bronze archaeollogycal objects.
The didactic potential of those works was also suggested.

Carbon classified? Unpacking heterogeneous relations inscribed into corporate carbon emissions

by Ingmar Lippert

draft only; to be published summer 2012 as I. Lippert. Carbon classified? Unpacking heterogeneous relations inscribed into corporate carbon emissions. ephemera, 12(1), 2012.

How does a corporation know it emits carbon? Acquiring such knowledge starts with the classification of... more How does a corporation know it emits carbon? Acquiring such knowledge starts with the classification of environmentally relevant consumption information. This paper visits the corporate location at which this underlying element for their knowledge is assembled to give rise to carbon emissions. Using an Actor- network theory (ANT) framework, the aim is to investigate the actors who bring together the elements needed to classify their carbon emission sources and unpack the heterogeneous relations drawn on. Based on an ethnographic study of corporate agents of ecological modernisation over a period of 13 months, this paper provides an exploration of three cases of enacting classification. Drawing on Actor-Network theory, we problematise the silencing of a range of possible modalities of consumption facts and point to the ontological ethics involved in such performances. In a context of global warming and corporations construing themselves as able and suitable to manage their emissions, and, additionally, given that the construction of carbon emissions has performative consequences, the underlying practices need to be declassified, i.e. opened for public scrutiny. Hence the paper concludes by arguing for a collective engagement with the ontological politics of carbon.

Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description, by Tim Ingold (book review)

by Phillip Vannini

Forthcoming, yet-to-be-copy-edited review of Ingold's recent work, to be published in the journal Transfers

My book review of Tim Ingold's Being Alive, Ways of Walking, and Redrawing Anthropology My book review of Tim Ingold's Being Alive, Ways of Walking, and Redrawing Anthropology

Looking at me, looking at you: qualitative research and the politics of knowledge representations in advertising and academia

by Chris Hackley

Last Call for Papers "Raumwissen und Wissensräume"; Deadline 25-04-12

by Stefan Schreiber

Call for Papers: "Raumwissen und Wissensräume. Interdisziplinärer Theorie-Workshop für NachwuchswissenschaftlerInnen" des Lesezirkels der Cross Sectional Group V „Space and Collective Identities“ des Exzellenzclusters „Topoi. The Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations” vom 7.–9. August 2012 in Berlin

more info at: http://www.topoi.org/event/raumwissen-und-wissensraume/

The act of discovery: an ethnography of the subject:object relation in archaeological practice

by Matt Edgeworth

‘The act of discovery: an ethnography of the subject-object relation in archaeological practice’ by Matt Edgeworth. Doctoral thesis. University of Durham, 1991.

(Original and unabridged) 1991 thesis on ethnography of archaeological practice.

Themes covered include:... more (Original and unabridged) 1991 thesis on ethnography of archaeological practice.

Themes covered include:

material resistance
fluidity of emerging materials
rhythms of work and tool-use
archaeological inference-in-action
acquisition and transmission of craft skills
embodied perception of artefacts
phenomenology of archaeological practices

The thesis gives detailed accounts of processes taking place "under the moving blade of the trowel", long before the well-known phrase ‘at the trowel’s edge’ was coined.

Introductory chapters are somewhat out of date, but the main ethnographic section is arguably as relevant as ever. This early work is rarely cited in the post-processual literature. In a recently published book, however, Gavin Lucas describes the thesis as:

“almost unrivalled, even today...a superb analysis of the archaeological operation from a material perspective ...quite ahead of its time... still offers one of the best and sustained analyses of how archaeological facts are produced in the field, from a participant-observer on an excavation of a Bronze Age site in Britain” (Lucas 2012, 'Understanding the archaeological record', p203).

Book review of T. Rego, La filosofía del sentido común según Aristóteles. Roma: Leonardo da Vinci, 2011. 137pp.

by David Torrijos-Castrillejo

"Anuario Filosófico" 45 (2012) 203-206

Rego compare Aristotle with a contemporary philosopher, Antonio Livi. He searchs his realism (that stands under the... more Rego compare Aristotle with a contemporary philosopher, Antonio Livi. He searchs his realism (that stands under the name of "philosophy of common sense or alethic logic") in Aristotelian philosophy. So he looks for the material logic in Aristotle.
The first part deals with the common sense in the methodology of Aristotle, while the second reviews the verification of the five judgments implicitly made ​​by common sense according to Livi.

Le cadre de référence" trans action" en transfert des connaissances

by Hélène Belleau

Accounting for Atmosphere - Climate Futures, Climates Past

by Jerome Whitington

Currently under review - please contact me to cite or with comments

Among other things, the anthropological significance of climate change is that it represents an emergent attempt to... more Among other things, the anthropological significance of climate change is that it represents an emergent attempt to manage the chemical composition of the atmosphere. Such a project is built around carbon accounting techniques as the core infrastructures for regulating the human practices that emit greenhouse gases. While the project may well fail, this perspective is held by the actors themselves—calling attention to environmentalism as the politics of possibility, distinct from an older politics of prudence, limits and necessity. Carbon accounting, far from normalizing numbers into a predictable knowledge regime, instead builds new techniques of mediation into durable infrastructures, what Rabinow calls remediation. Following Chris Kelty’s work with free software ‘geeks,’ I ‘model’ this activity along two axes, working with numbers, in which quantification infrastructure creates the capacity for work in a politically vexed situation, and thinking through things, in which the infrastructure enables people to think through the futures of climate policy even while they use things to think with. Building conceptual relations into durable forms is a sort of experimental practice in which understanding the implications of one’s assumptions—even those poorly understood or unacknowledged—is a public, embodied and physically extensive practice. But this makes new techniques of living prone to error. Such could describe climate change itself.

Rekombinante Praxen. Wissensarbeit als Gegenstand der Europäischen Ethnologie

by Stefan Beck

Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 96, 2000/2, pp. 218–246

From a praxeological perspective, the article explores knowledge cultures typical for late modern societies. Drawing... more From a praxeological perspective, the article explores knowledge cultures typical for late modern societies. Drawing on fieldwork studying a genetic screening in Cyprus and hospital practices in Germany, the interplay of different kinds of professional knowledges employed by medical experts – geneticists, physicists, genetic counselors – is analyzed. Special attention is given to the different epistemic settings of knowledge production and processes of knowledge transfer in professional settings as well as to the appropriation of knowledge by actors in everyday contexts. The article proposes to study different modes of knowledge production, storage, transfer, and appropriation as defining practices for modern knowledge societies. In order to do so, the modification of fieldwork practices and theoretical propositions of cultural analysis seems to be eminent. The argument is developed in part by critically examining previous studies on work in German European Ethnology (Volkskunde).

Entwicklung durch Wissen: eine neue globale Wissensarchitektur

by Markus Kaiser

Evers, H.-D., M. Kaiser and C. Müller. 2003. Entwicklung durch Wissen: eine neue globale Wissensarchitektur. Soziale Welt, 54 (1): 49-70.

Knowledge in development: epistemic machineries in a global context

by Markus Kaiser

also: (together with Hans-Dieter Evers and Christine Müller): Knowledge in
Development: Epistemic Machineries in a Global Context, in: Thomas
Menkhoff, Hans-Dieter Evers, and Yue Wah Chay (Eds.): Governing and
Managing Knowledge in Asia. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing,
2010 pp. pp. 163-186.

Knowledge has become a decisive and competitive resource for local and global development, especially since the... more Knowledge has become a decisive and competitive resource for local and global development, especially since the paradigm “knowledge for development” was initiated and promoted by the World Bank in 1998–1999. Through the use of novel management structures and technologically supported social networks, development organisations and development experts are central actors in producing and steering global knowledge. In the various regions of the world development experts have established a powerful transnational epistemic community and play a strategic role in knowledge sharing. In the process of electronic modification, knowledge is moderated, codified and standardised to facilitate distribution and possible acquisition. We will portray the emergence of this particular global knowledge architecture and its modes of knowledge engineering. The article indicates that these new efforts of development cooperation, with their ambitious aim of closing the North–South knowledge gap and the digital divide, reproduce exactly those disparities that they seek to overcome. Strategies conceived with the best of intentions end up creating a knowledge trap. The article will give empirical evidence from South-East and Central Asia as well as from West Africa. We plead for a strategy of diversity in development cooperation and for a new constellation in valuing global and local knowledge in the creation of substantial, strong and dynamic knowledge societies.

Informatic Unconscious: On the Evolution of Digital Reason in Anthropology

by Dominic Boyer

First glimpse at my book on news journalism (and anthropology) in the era of digital media and late liberalism... Comments very welcome!

Neoliberalism as discourse: between Foucauldian political economy and Marxian poststructuralism

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Neoliberalism as discourse: between Foucauldian political economy and Marxian poststructuralism. Critical Discourse Studies.

Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies... more Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies influenced by Foucault in emphasizing neoliberalism as a form of governmentality, and on the other hand, inquiries influenced by Marx in foregrounding neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology. This article seeks to shine some light on this division in an effort to open up new debates and recast existing ones in such a way that might lead to more flexible understandings of neoliberalism as a discourse. A discourse approach moves theorizations forward by recognizing neoliberalism is neither a ‘top down’ nor ‘bottom up’ phenomena, but rather a circuitous process of socio-spatial transformation.

On the Embedment of Classical Models of Dichotomy in Modern Anthropology: the Case of Literacy Studies

by Manuel Joao Ramos

“Tyfus, wszy, klatki, karmiciele i II wojna światowa” [“Typhus, Lice, Cages, Feeders and the Second World War“]

by Adam F. Kola

“Tyfus, wszy, klatki, karmiciele i II wojna światowa” [“Typhus, Lice, Cages, Feeders and the Second World War“], in: "Rzeczy i ludzie. Humanistyka wobec materialności" ["Things and Humans. The Humanities Towards Materiality"], eds. J. Kowalewski, W. Piasek, M. Śliwa, Olsztyn: Colloquia Humaniorum 2008, pp. 299-318 [PL].

This is a story of typhus, lice, cages, feeders in the scenery of Lviv (present in western Ukraine) during WWII.... more This is a story of typhus, lice, cages, feeders in the scenery of Lviv (present in western Ukraine) during WWII. Herein I take into consideration Bruno Latour guideline, that one of the most important methodological principle of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is following the actors, both human and non-human. However, we should be conscious that such a story is usually focused on the role of Rudolf Weigl (called Polish Oskar Schindler), a biologist and inventor of the vaccine for epidemic typhus, who leads institute in Lviv in that time, and saved a great number of intellectuals, Jews, Polish resistance soldiers, etc., against Nazi Germans and Soviet Russians (among the others, we should mentioned Ludwik Fleck, Zbigniew Herbert, Stefan Banach, etc.). Hence, in this detailed description I am trying to follow all actors of that story, especially in the Weigl’s laboratory. As a conclusion of the text, it should be underlined, that in perspective presented here ANT is only a complementation of humanistic perspective, not totally different field of interests. That is why this article could not be treated as an “orthodox” Latourian approach, but rather one of the voices in the discussion about non-anthropocentric knowledge (I would rather say: not-only-anthropocentric knowledge).

“Antropologizacja literaturoznawstwa a komparatystyka” [“Antropologization of the Literary Studies and Comparative Studies”]

by Adam F. Kola

“Antropologizacja literaturoznawstwa a komparatystyka” [“Antropologization of the Literary Studies and Comparative Studies”], in: "Antropologizowanie humanistyki. Zjawisko – procesy – perspektywy" ["Antropologization of the Humanities. Phenomenon – Process – Outlook"], eds. J. Kowalewski, W. Piasek, Olsztyn: Colloquia Humaniorum 2009, pp. 83-106 [PL].

The aim of the paper is comparison of the process of development of cultural anthropology and comparative studies in... more The aim of the paper is comparison of the process of development of cultural anthropology and comparative studies in the perspective of post-war anthropologization of whole humanities and social science. It ought to be emphasized, that this proposition is different from Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek or Michael Riffaterre’s complementarity of comparative literature and cultural studies, cultural theory or cultural critique. Afterward I underline some of the key issues of cultural anthropology, and their application into the comparative literature. Among the others, I analyzed in this article three of them: (1) Practice shows that intercultural communication is possible and effective. In philosophy I would defend the idea of “internal realism” or “pragmatic realism”, or – in different terms – “intentional rationality” (Michał Buchowski). In this approach people act in accordance with the norms, and convictions, beliefs shared in their community (like in Jerzy Kmita’definition of culture). Ergo: all cultures are rational in their own perspective. Based on this issue we could rethink the idea of intercultural translation (borrowed from Stanley Tambiah and supported by Hilary Putnam), and combine those topics with the paradigm central for current comparative literature. (2) Moreover, in this article I presented transformation from Goethe’s idea of ‘Weltliterature’ to David Damrosch’s world literature and the consequences of that process from the perspective of anthropologization of comparative studies. (3) Finally, I combine this approaches with globalization in the gaze of cultural anthropology (especially questions of relativism, multiculturalism, acculturation, intercultural exchange, etc.), and the possible (not only academic but also social) role of comparative literature in (post)modern world.

Cultures of meta-cognition: developing an anthropological theory of belief

by Jonathan Mair

Paper given at the Goldsmith's anthropology seminar, 7 December 2011.