This conference entitled Materialising the Subject: phenomenological and post-ANT objects in the social sciences provides the opportunity for inter-disciplinary and trans-Atlantic debate about some of the most recent theoretical and methodological moves in sociology, anthropology, geography and philosophy. When considered together these moves reveal multiple approaches to a common theoretical concern - the dissolution of the subject/object distinction - the corollary of which, across the social sciences, is the "turn to ontology" and the consequent effort to radically rework our understanding of what it is (for humans and non-humans) to constitute a world.

Moving beyond the actor-network as an analytical category, which usefully contests the assumption that humans and non-humans are separate entities and that reality is, therefore, objectively given and revealed by science; post-actor-network theory challenges the tendency to reify the form of the network/object as a stable relational configuration (Latour B. 2005; Law J. and Hassard J. 1999). The move now is to explain the emergence and experience of "things", such as diseases, as the fluid outcome of various, often contested, sets of material practices (Mol A. 2003). These practices are understood to be highly specific, spatially distributed assemblages or enactments (Law J. and Mol A. 2001) that gain their stability from perpetual performance. The analytical category, here, becomes "material practice" with distinct methodological implications and the notion of form shifts away from singularity and towards a multiple configuration of more fragile relational elements.

In a parallel "relational" move in social anthropology, one which unsettles the Euro-American concept of the subject as individual, the material practice of exchange takes centre stage in a theory that explains how certain kinds of objects, like gifts, come to substantiate the specific form of sociality through which personhood is distributed (Strathern M. 1988; 1991). Such an analysis makes possible comparisons and contrasts between different relational forms and notions of the person that objects come to substantiate among various human collectives (Viveiros de Castro 1998b; 2004). This includes a consideration of the effects of new forms of property arising from innovations in the production of socio-technical, subject/object hybrids such as genetically engineered human cells (Strathern M. 1996; J. Edwards 2005).

Having always done what sociologists of science and technology were just beginning to do in the West, anthropologists were praised by actor-network theorists (B. Latour 1993) for attending, in other parts of the world, to the subject/object hybrids that were constitutive of radically different understandings of human and non-human groupings, relations and capacities. Wishing to bring into existence an "anthropology of the modern world", one which treats the subject/object distinction as the foundational myth of modernity and which undermines, therefore, the objective premises of the asymmetry between "the West and the rest", Bruno Latour makes possible new terms of theoretical engagement for an anthropology which is increasingly "at home". At the same time, however, the link is clear and productive with a post-colonial anthropology coming to terms with the paradox engendered by modernity's loss of confidence and the modernising drive of post-colonial nation states.

Arguably, however, the "turn to ontology" relies, for its novelty, on a conceptualisation of epistemology that makes knowledge the outcome of processes of conscious abstraction, theorisation, formalisation, institutionalisation, representation and interpretation. This risks a reproduction of the dichotomies between "knowing" and "doing" and between "mind" and "body" that have already been challenged in phenomenological theories of embodiment and in models of situated learning in cognitive psychology. Indeed, despite the accusation, at the heart of actor network theory (Latour B. 1993; 1999c; 2005), that phenomenology is inadequate to the task of assembling a radical theory of object-centred-sociality, those of a phenomenological persuasion might argue that the insights of actor-network theory are not new to them (Ihde D. 2003); that the notions of 'intentionality, inter-subjectivity and life-world not only pre-empt the conclusions of the actor network theorists but do so in a way that makes the distinction between ontology and epistemology as untenable as the one between subjects and objects or "the social" and "the world".

Railing against the abstract concepts of the philosophers and seeking a new charter for method in the social sciences, sociologists (Law 2004), anthropologists (Henare A, Holbraad M & Wastell S. 2006) and geographers (Thrift 2007) find, in the ethnographic method what looks like common ground a material practice that is a philosophical one too. Clearly, there are lessons to be learned from conversations, across disciplines, about similar objects of analysis and how these objects are constituted and stabilised as "things", with all kinds of historically specific effects.

The objective of the conference is to provide an advanced forum for five in-conversation style debates between world renowned scholars and to make these live conversations accessible a) to a scholarly audience of 50 in the place where the conversations will happen in February 2009 - at the Manchester Museum b) to a wider public via an interactive website on which audio files of the conversations will be posted and c) to a wider scholarly audience via publication of the position papers and transcribed conversations.

Inspired by specific scholarly contributions to existing debate, the five conversations will encompass the following questions/themes for on-going discourse:

After Networks: spatio-temporal analytics.
Does it make any Sense to Say that Objects Have Agency?
Is Phenomenology Really an Albatross?
Skilled Practice: cognition as human-artefact-human orientation system.
Not Networks Per Se, but Distributed Enactments

Click below for the programme

Programme:
Materialising the Subject: phenomenological and post-ANT objects in the social sciences An International Conference
Venue: Manchester Museum, Oxford Road

Date: 26-27 February 2009

Conference Programme
Day One - Thursday 26th February 2009

12.00 - 1.00 - registrations and lunch

1.00 - 3.15 - Welcome, introduction and session one:

After Networks: spatio-temporal analytics

In conversation:

Assistant Professor Robert Oppenheim (USA), Dept. of Asian Studies, University of Texas at Austin
(https://www.utexas.edu/research/eureka/faculty/view.php?pid=1729)

Dr Matt Candei, Sigrid Rausing Lecturer in Collaborative Anthropology, Dept. of Social Anthropology (University of Cambridge) (http://www.candea.net/)

Professor Harvey Molotch (USA), Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Molotch)

3.15 - 3.45 - tea/coffee

3.45 - 5.30 - session two:

Does it make any Sense to Say that Objects Have Agency?

In conversation:

Dr Martin Holbraad, Lecturer, Dept. of Anthropology (Social Anthropology), University College London. (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/staff/m_holbraad)

Dr Monika Buscher, Senior Lecturer, Centre for Science Studies, Lancaster University. (http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology/profiles/Monika-Buscher/)

Professor Susanne Kuechler, Dept. of Anthropology (Material Culture) University College London. (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/staff/s_kuechler/index)

Dr Soumhya Venkatesan, Lecturer, Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester. (http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/socialanthropology/about/staff/venkatesan/)

7.30 - Conference Dinner - Venue TBC

Day Two - Friday 27th February 2009

9.00 - 10.45 - session three:

Is phenomenology really an albatross?

In Conversation:

Professor Don Ihde (USA) Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Ihde)

Professor Michael Jackson (USA) Distinguished Visiting Professor of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson_(anthropology)

Professor Nigel Thrift, Vice Chancellor, (University of Warwick)( www.nigelthrift.org)

10.45 - 11.15 - tea/coffee

11.15 - 1.00 - session four:

Skilled Practice: cognition as human-artefact-human orientation system

In conversation:

Professor Christina Toren, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews (http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/anthropology/dept/staff/?staffid=150)

Professor Tim Ingold, Chair in Social Anthropology, University of Aberdeen (http://www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone/staff/details.php?id=tim.ingold)

Associate Professor Morten Pedersen, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen (http://antropologi.ku.dk/english/staff/beskrivelse/?id=255694)

1.00 - 2.00 - lunch

2.00 - 3.45 - session five:

Not Networks Per Se, but Distributed Enactments

In conversation:

Professor John Law (Centre for Science Studies, University of Lancaster) (http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology/profiles/John-Law/)

Professor Penny Harvey, Professor of Social Anthropology (University of Manchester)( http://virtualsociety.sbs.ox.ac.uk/people/harvey.htm)

Dr Albena Yaneva, Lecturer in the School of Architecture, University of Manchester (http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/architecture/staff/yaneva_albena.htm

3.45 - 4.15 tea/coffee and End

Posted by Haidy L Geismar at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | Posted to Conferences and other events

Kaori O'Connor, Anthropology UCL

For all those who think fashion and textile studies have become over-theorised, over-historicised, too preoccupied with handicrafts or brands, too oriented towards consumption and above all too divorced from how clothes happen, this new journal that examines creative processes and practices in the context of new technology, the mass market and the global fashion industry will be extremely welcome.

For more information: http://www.bergpublishers.com/JournalsHomepage/FashionPractice/EditorialInformation/tabid/3731/Default.aspx

Posted by Graeme Were at 5:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Posted to From the news

Mark Ward, correspondent for BBC Technology News writes about the trials and tribulations of search engines for the world wide web. Metatomix builds a database known as a semantic ontology, which attempts to capture how all the different parts of an organisation understand a particular thing.

And CKelty on Savage Minds, highlights the development of a "browser for black people":
http://savageminds.org/2008/12/17/let-freedom-ring-from-your-navigation-toolbar/

Posted by Patrick Laviolette at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Posted to From the news

Szilvia Simai-Mesquita,
Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil

The research "Made in Brazil: Jeans and Identity Export to the Global Fantasy Market", explores how the representation of Brazilian-ness today can be understood through the visibilities of a new identity construction which is driven by a desire for emancipation but which is subject to a neo-colonial concern for a favourable image abroad as a prerequisite for further foreign investment in the country. This ambiguous position is analysed in a recent working paper focusing on the process of fantasy construction for export.

In this recent paper I argued that (i) the construction of images of Brazilian-ness is a very complex and ambiguous process containing a large amount of fetishism and determined by post-colonial mimicry; (ii) cultural fetishism contributes to the materialization of the Brazilian national imaginary. Through the Brazilian samba-jeans fetish various national imaginaries can be studied; (iii) finally, the importance of the exploitation of Brazilian exoticism in these existing fantasies were discussed and considered whether the samba-jeans myth was part of a bigger political–economic process and whether it contributes to the glamorization of misery for global marketing purposes.

Three image-contributing fantasies – (i) the tropical, (ii) the post-colonial female and her body, and (iii) the samba and the carnivalesque – were explored in the research paper and it was argued that the fetishistic power of these fantasies drive people to perceive Brazilian samba jeans not in their 'thing-ness' but in their fantasized state of fabricated representation of Brazilian-ness abroad, which feeds the myth and popularity of these jeans and creates a longing for them.

The opening question from which the analysis sets out was an etymology inspired interdisciplinary exploration of the name Brazil. Through this initial analysis it is uncovered that Brazil has a history of intrinsic mimesis, born out of mimicry and carrying this weight in its own name. The word 'Brazil' is a corruption of the European name for the Malaysian sapang tree, from whose reddish wood was drawn an extract not unlike saffron, but which tints less and has no flavour. When this was discovered and trafficked from the tropical South this corresponding part of the New World metonymically assumed an alien name, the nominally transferred referential for the whole territory.

According to this view, Pau Brasil, 'Brazil-wood', was the first notable item to be exported from this land but was also a designator of the land itself and ultimately of its identity by carrying the name of the first exported object in the name of its own identity. Thus Brazilian-ness also has a complex symbolic sphere in analysis. This nominal condemnation of the colonial rulers, the eye of the outside world, understandably became the dominant perspective and intrinsic for the invention of Brazil's self-image throughout its history. Pau Brasil was also a powerful cultural movement in twentieth-century Brazil. The Brazilian poet Oswald de Andrade (1890–1954) initiated the Poesia Pau Brasil (Brazil-wood Poetry) in 1925 when he published his famous 'Brazil-wood Manifesto'. Brazil-wood was his intended symbol for Brazilian culture as an international commodity in its own right; his Brazil-wood Poetry was conceived of as an export product, as something to combat the historical imitation of European models.

The end of colonialism, resistance, modernization contributed to the development of the modern Brazilian national exotic or Creole identity: the one who felt sympathy for his or her own cultural exoticism and heritage, the one who put an emphasis on the new ideology of multiracial Brazil, but who at the same time desired to attain socio-economic prestige and the imagined cultural sophistication of the former European colonizers. This struggle of ambiguity and auto-contradiction drove Brazilians to initiate the creation of an exoticized image of their own Brazilian-ness. This psycho-social process has become a political and economic strategy during the last few decades and has formed itself into a national strategy. Visual materials of Brazilian Samba Jeans used in my research provided ideological insight into this Brazilian strategy and national imaginary.

The first strategic Brazilian Samba Jeans myth contributing fantasy explored in my working paper was the tropical fantasy. I found that fantasized images of the tropical in Brazilian jeans catalogues are overwhelming. These images include bright sunshine, beautiful beaches, tropical paradise and fruits. Such powerful tropical fantasies are used by many prestigious Brazilian jeans companies. As Picture 1 clearly shows, the Sawary Jeans catalogue used eight pictures and attached the parts to one another on its opening page. These pictures are lacking in variety and repeat common images of the tropical. These include green, tropical forests; tropical beaches, palm trees and Mediterranean-style architecture. These pictures are then repeated on the following pages, where young women appear wearing various Sawary jeans placed on the pictures introduced on the opening page. In fact, the idea comes through clearly; the tropical images appear far more in the catalogue than any of the jeans models, which clearly reinforces the idea that Sawary is selling a tropical fantasy rather than jeans as things in themselves. Similar images can be found in the brochure of the Samba-Jeans Company, showing the beach at Rio de Janeiro (Picture 2).

This Rio image has, in fact, historically been seen in Brazilian culture as a symbol of optimism. Although Rio de Janeiro is among the most dangerous cities in the world, its charm and its reputation abroad are still powerful. According to Nicholas Brown the apolitical image of Rio de Janeiro has been culturally constructed since the 1950s, through associated images of 'pretty girls, beaches and the scenic backdrop of a postcard Rio de Janeiro' (Brown, 2003 :124). The tropical fantasy provides a path to an illusionary state of satisfaction (Freud, 1961) and through this attraction and appeal this psychological power can be used in favourable image creation for marketing (in this case, specifically export) purposes. Thus, as Freud (1927) argued, a fetishist is able simultaneously to believe in his or her displaced desire or fantasy and to recognize that it is not real but fantasy. However, this does not reduce the power of the fantasy of the displaced desire over the individual. The tropical fantasy works exactly for this reason: through its psycho-power people have constructed the image of Brazilian samba jeans and worked it into a fetish.

The second fantasy explored was the postcolonial female body fantasy. The imaginaries of this fantasy include the sadomasochist fantasy, which comes directly from the historical imaginary on female passivity and developed into a common obsession among Brazilian males, namely that females like being beaten on their bottom as well as from the practice of bottom-oriented samba dancing and also from recent derogative stereotypes formed on the basis of perceptions of Brazilian immigrants abroad. All these developed an exaggerated interest in, and the mass fantasy that sex appeal is focused on, the bottom. In fact, the most common way of centring attention on the bottom involves concentrating all or any decorations present on the jeans on that body part. This can be observed in the picture below (Picture 3).

The last Brazilian samba jeans myth contributing fantasy explored was the Samba and Carnivalesque imaginary. In my research I found that the image and history of samba culture and the carnivalesque gives a sensation of rebelliousness, a dissenter or non-conformist illusionary feeling to youth which can be seen on the following model. (Picture 4).

The conclusion of my paper was that it would be naïve to think that these fantasies are constructed just for the sake of enjoyment and that there are no political and economic consequences. This complex and ambiguous fantasy market and jeans trade in and outside Brazil is a serious and complex identity industry linking politics, fantasy and economics. Thus the phenomenon of Brazilian samba jeans is a political, psychoanalytical and economic notion. I also noted in my research paper that there is one element in this representation that is problematic, and that is the use of the socially peripheral or semi-peripheral condition of the people who are fantasized through Brazilian samba jeans.

The fantasies presented in my research, namely the tropical, post-colonial women and carnivalesque samba, are all related to socially peripheral groups of people. The protagonists of these fantasies are from the global south (tropical), Creole or immigrant women (post-colonial women), and slave descendants (carnivalesque samba). The exploitation of their disadvantage as an aesthetical representation becomes problematic for two main reasons. If aesthetic representation does not have ideological limits it will mean that any peripheral or semi-peripheral condition can be represented aesthetically and therefore enjoyed. If the Creole woman or the misery of the Amazon is to be aesthetically represented, then it is at some level enjoyed. At this point samba jeans become problematic and subject to critique because the protagonists of fantasies constructing their sex appeal, who make them into a myth, would not necessarily agree on such a representation. Furthermore, these images are used for marketing purposes, which means that somebody can make a profit from them. On the grounds of these points, I suggest, the export of Brazilian samba-jeans remains problematic.

References:
Brown, N. (2003). Bossaposbossa: Or, Postmodernism as Semi-Peripheral Symptom. The New Centennial Review 3.2 (Summer) 117-159.

Freud, S. (1927). Fetishism. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol 22. London: Hogarth Press.

Freud, S. (1961). Civilization and its Discontents, New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Posted by Haidy L Geismar at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | Posted to Notes from the Field

Call for Film Submissions

1-4th July 2009 at Leeds Metropolitan University

Submissions are invited from any field of ethnographic film. Only films released on/after 1 January 2006 are eligible for competitive screening.

DVD or VHS preview tapes must be accompanied by entry fee and submission form sent by post to the RAI office by 15 January 2009.

Visit the homepage for further details

Posted by Patrick Laviolette at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Posted to Conferences and other events

From Maya Valladares, Hunter College and Brooklyn Museum

Both of the below projects compliment Sturken's book "Tourists of History," and both are also great in their own right. They help get one's head around war, memory, consumption, and material culture in nice (and in the case of the first link, fairly hilarious) ways.
http://www.americathegiftshop.com/#/start

Cheney Shredding Secret Documents Snow Globe

This art project by Philip Toledano asks what if American foreign policy had a gift shop? What would our souvenirs of the past eight years be?

http://www.objectsandmemory.org/aboutnew.html

This documentary by Bruce Danitz and Jonathan Fein starts soon after September 11, 2001, and guided by the narration of Frank Langella, the film follows, verité style, the efforts of museum curators and everyday folk who were driven to collect and preserve objects that, once ordinary, are now irreplaceable.

Posted by Haidy L Geismar at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Posted to Good Links

Salary: £37,651 - £43,622
Type: Full Time - Tenured

Applications are invited for an indefinite full-time Lectureship in the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania & the Americas, School of World Art Studies and Museology, University of East Anglia, UK, to commence on 1 September 2009. Primary responsibilities include co-teaching an MA course, supervising graduate students, limited undergraduate teaching and participation in research projects. See www.sru.uea.ac.uk for further information on the Sainsbury Research Unit.

The closing date for applications is 19 January 2009 and interviews are expected to be held on 27 February 2009. Further particulars and an application form can be obtained from the University's web page at: http://www.uea.ac.uk/hr/jobs/ or by e-mail at hr@uea.ac.uk or by calling the answerphone on 01603 593493 or by mail to the Human Resources Division, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ. Please quote the appropriate reference number.

Requirements:
Applicants should have a doctorate in anthropology, art history, archaeology or a related subject and should have fieldwork experience, strong interests in visual arts, a good record of original research and the capacity for research led instruction. Expertise in museum anthropology and theoretical approaches to material culture is desirable.

NOTES: International candidates will be considered and the employer will assist with relocation costs.

Apply online at http://careercenter.aaanet.org/jobdetail.cfm?job=3037333.32

Posted by Haidy L Geismar at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Posted to Announcements and Listings

The Research School of Humanities at the Australian National University is calling for applicants for its 2010 Visiting Fellowships program.

"Imaging Identity"

Understandings of self and other occur universally through images. Traversing history and culture, the production, presentation and apprehension of images is essential to how persons come to know themselves and make sense of their relations with others. Can it be said that certain image making practices are associated with particular ways of being human? Do imaging media have different effects cross-culturally? What new potentialities and challenges do digital processes pose to visual conceptions of identity? Under what conditions can images produce and encourage empathy? In posing these questions we invoke debates about the efficacy, impact and agency of images. We particularly encourage applications from researchers working in the medium of portraiture.

Deadline: 28 February 2009
Further information:
http://rsh.anu.edu.au/fellowships/vf2010/annualtheme.php

Posted by Haidy L Geismar at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Posted to Announcements and Listings

The Florida Visual Anthropologists (FLAVA) group of the University of Florida's Department of Anthropology (www.anthro.ufl.edu) is coordinating with the English and Fine Arts Departments to host the 4th Annual Digital Assembly Conference at The University of Florida, March 5-7th, 2009. The conference, an event originating from the Digital Assembly in the English Department (http://www.english.ufl.edu/da), is hosted by graduate students and is calling for cross-disciplinary research and original works from various fields including Cultural and Visual Anthropology, English, Studio Art, Art History, Media Studies and Journalism.

The theme of the conference is materiality, particularly discursive practices and considerations of media conventions and implications of materiality in criticism and analysis of media projects from ethnographic films/photography to documentaries, from novels to newsprint, from experimental works to performance art. The visual arts have long contemplated the place materiality holds in the academy, questioning the meaning of material structures and pushing the bounds of materiality beyond the tangible, visible, or physical. More recently, the fields of visual and cultural anthropology have expanded this discussion to an issue of expression and meaning across cultures, as well as an issue of representation within the discipline. Concepts to explore could cover a wide range such as, but not limited to, the following:

. Critiquing media and the visual image in the academy considering its increased recognition as crucial to meaning making
. Popular trends in media experimentation
. The role of form and technology in anthropological and media projects
. The representation of the unrepresentable. How can the "invisible" be made visible? How do different cultures negotiate this? How do different fields negotiate this?
. How different fields use the visual image and how the written text is used in conjunction with the image. Is textual support still necessary to be considered serious work?
. The role of media analysis in various fields (literary, artistic, and anthropological) and its relation to form.
. The implication of intangible concepts like time, memory, spirituality, etc. in the visual form vs. the written text. How do different cultures represent these concepts? How is it translated in different fields of study?
. How history is represented through time and materiality
. The future of the study of materiality in the various subfields of anthropology as well as other fields outside anthropology

There will be a night of screenings to start off the conference, so students are highly encouraged to submit films. However, projects may be in any other form including photographic essays, papers, etc. The student/artist will be responsible for transporting work. Complex work will require the student/artist be present to set up the piece. Please submit statement (max. 200 words) along with university affiliation, department, and degree program by the extended deadline January 5, 2009.

Send submissions to Jennifer Fiers, jenfiers@yahoo.com

Posted by Haidy L Geismar at 5:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | Posted to Conferences and other events

Răzvan Nicolescu.
PhD student, Department of Anthropology, University College London.

This post is based on my MA dissertation on boredom and its relation with communication technology, among Romanian teenagers. It is founded mainly on a two months fieldwork I conducted this summer. I worked with 14 – 17 years old teenagers who lived in upper middle class families, residing primarily in central and affluent neighborhoods in Bucharest. I focused on a particular ‘instantiation’ of boredom, which I named the ‘after-school boredom,’ considered as it was individually or collectively experienced by teenagers. Boredom was not necessarily grasped in relation with any particular technology, but I used technology mainly to frame this particular incidence of boredom.

Indeed, there is a tight link between boredom and technology, but not because one follows the other, but because one creates the conditions for the other to emerge. Exploring teenagers’ perpetual balance between these experiences, I examined the two main factors that articulate this subtle relation: the first one is represented by teenagers' individual and group self-introspection, under specific forms such as self-awareness. This attitude further shaped a certain emerging normativity within teenagers’ peer groups. At the level of experience, teenagers consider everyday boredom especially in relation with the potentiality for excitement offered by the various communities they form. In the second perspective, I explored the social norms and institutions that largely regulated the social self. In this context, the rather unexpected encounter between boredom, as an individual or group subjectivity, and the appropriation of technology contests the ethical norms drawn upon teenagers by different institutions such as the family or school. Fostered by this twofold permanent interrogation of the self, teenagers actively engage with a permanent process of intensification of their existing social ties. I am suggesting that by appropriating communication technology within the collective accumulated expertise, teenagers dialectically negotiate the terms of their social relations against an ever changing set of ethical self-made norms. Teenagers are able to reproduce their social arrangements especially because while being bored or excited they insist on those normative schemes driven by group expectations. Furthermore, I am arguing that the permanent adjustment of teenagers’ social engagement corresponds to their enduring effort to overcome the underlying conflict between boredom and excitement.

Summarizing, periods of boredom are commonly thought (by teenagers, and particularly by their parents and professors) to be filled up by technology, namely by the various forms of exciting opportunities offered by the mobile phone, access to the internet, messaging systems, offline and online gaming, music, or television. Looking at how teenagers use such opportunities, I suggest that the intimate relation between boredom and technology is to be understood dialectically: on the one hand such personal technologies are constantly appreciated by the individuals as objects of desire per se, while on the other hand they represent unproblematic means for the individuals to access specific peer groups they are already engaged with. In other words, the object of desire distinctively shifts between the technological object itself and teenagers’ social sphere. This dualism is generating consistent tension in teenagers. In my thesis I argue that they manage to solve this anguish by constantly evaluating it against one particular set of ethical norms negotiated within the group. Teenagers’ notion of ‘value’ is what remains constant throughout their perpetual swing between boredom and excitement.

But what is boredom?
[to be bored is] ‘to have nothing to do, to finish all the things you have [to finish] that day and to want to do something and to come with no idea!... You haven’t the faintest idea what to do! And there is nobody there to tell you [what to do]…’ (Miruna, 16 yo)
or, more existentially:
[Boredom] ‘is like some small little worms that come to your feet, like that, and simply don’t let you stay in bed… you don't have peace! So you don’t have peace and you must do something in that moment: to consume your energy somehow, or at least to enter Mes for example, or to talk to phone, to let your thoughts go in some other direction, not to stay and think: ‘God, I’m staying in my room, like between four walls [laughs] and I cannot stand anymore, I cannot stand it!’ And I am looking for flies!’ (Beata, 16 yo)

I will give a sense of what is actually happening during this kind of boredom, by taking here only one aspect of it: that is the different strategies teenagers use in order to overcome boredom.

Most frequently, the afterschool boredom is experienced individually, while teenagers are in their own apartments. Usually it ‘settles in’ after some rather intense activity, such as practicing sports, finishing homework, or even playing for six hours on the computer. While bored, teenagers complain that ‘there is not much to do,’ time is ‘still,’ and especially that ‘you simply don’t know what to do!’ Under those circumstances, recuperation of the activities which are considered ‘interesting’ turn out to be something strongest desired. The main strategy teenagers use to ‘fight boredom’ is to promptly engage through various forms of communication with the most trusted friends. Following one of my informants’ words, this strategy could be called ’phone a friend!’ Indeed, mobile phone is renowned as the most reliable media one can use when bored. This strategy is generally considered the most active engagement with dissipation of boredom.

The second, more problematic, strategy consists in a rather ‘passive’ engagement (in the first place) with a larger audience: the bored (endangered) self publicly announce the fact that he or she is… bored. This announcement is explicitly done by broadcasting this annoying disposition to an extended list of contacts by means of Internet messaging systems, such as Yahoo Messenger or Skype. Such messages could be as simple as: ‘I am boooored…,’ as well as they could stand for a straight invitation to some specific activity: 'I am bored. Who wants to play Counter Strike?' In any case, teenagers could send such messages to several hundreds contacts. By publicly acknowledging they are bored, teenagers participate to a collective game with simple rules: in the first phase, they offer their peers the option to adopt or not the required attitude towards such a rescue mission. In a second phase, both senders and receivers would have one opportunity to engage into conversation: they could subtly choose if they want to respond or not, as well as the intensity of such response. Following that decision, the initiator of the message chooses at his or her leisure the persons and the modality he or she wants to continue the conversation. This method of dissimulated enquiry leads ultimately to a broader selection base for the future conversation. From this perspective, the apparently passive activity to ‘stay on’ the Messenger hoping that something interesting would happen constitutes in fact a dynamic method of exploration.

All these strategies include issues such as, for instance, differentiated response times (that correspond to the various levels of intimacy between peers), or a common preoccupation for maintaining a certain balance between a too enthusiastic attitude and an aloof one, between constancy and instability, and ultimately between boredom and excitement. Usually determination is to be found outside the self. As one consequence, if the expectation to overcome boredom is not met, the peer group is also in danger. During this entire process, the existing relationship is not questioned. What is questioned is how the peer group still responds to the individual need to overcome boredom.

From this perspective, boredom is perceived by teenagers as a temporary and precarious suspension of their notion of value, considered within their dual relation with the technological object and the various social groups they are part of.

As a consequence, technology constitutes just a means to expand the self through its active exploration of opportunities. Technology is important not because of what it enables people to do (relate, play, entertain), but because of how people do articulate their individual or collective selves through it. Both strategies outlined here, or more generally the way teenagers act (in the world) articulates a certain collective ethical realm, permanently adjusted by the bored or excited individuals against a set of shared values.

Posted by Haidy L Geismar at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | Posted to Notes from the Field

Material Culture and Technology in British and French Traditions

Dans la trajectoire des choses: Culture matérielle et technologie dans les traditions britannique et française

Journées Techniques & Culture, Marseille 16 January 2009

In preparation for Issue No.53 of Techniques & Culture we would like to announce a one day workshop entitled “Within the Trajectory of Things: Material Culture and Technology in British and French Traditions” taking place on the 16th of January 2009 in Marseille.

The proposed workshop aims to assess and discuss French and British approaches to material culture: the former being distinguished by concentrating on ‘techniques’ and the latter on ‘consumption’ (Faure-Rouesnel 2001; Julien & Rosselin 2005).

When looking at the study of material culture it can be seen that in both countries great progress has been made in terms of innovative methods, methodologies, concepts and theories.

In the British tradition, Mauss’s seminal text on body techniques had a major impact on the analysis of the socially constructed body. Importantly, the term ‘technology’ itself has also increasingly acquired a Foucaultian sense, encompassing practices, consumption and demonstrating that daily usages can also constitute meaningful acts. Equally, studies on praxeology, developed by the French research group “Matière à Penser” have found their way into Anglophone literature (Warnier 2001).

In the Francophone tradition, the study of consumption has greatly benefited from the work of Appadurai (1986), Kopytoff (1986), Miller (1987; 2005) and open studies addressing modernity. Notions such as the biography of things or materiality increasingly find their way into French studies, be it museology or the analysis of modernity. However, one can observe that concepts such as “chaîne opératoire” (Cresswell 1996) or technical systems (Lemonnier 1986), although employed in British-American archaeology, seem to have been ignored by the British anthropology of material culture. In contrast new materials and techniques are becoming a subject of anthropological approach, as a way to unpack modern understanding of material culture. In other words, techniques and technology, in relation to historical ‘beings’ and their social lives, are understood and used differently according to the research context.

Recent publications (e.g. Schlanger 2006), events and research projects constitute an opportunity for taking stock of differences, respective influences, and for increasing the dialogue. Consequently, the proposed Techniques & Culture workshop will enable the introduction, debate and illustration of these approaches, concepts and theories of techniques and technology, as being both empirically grounded, by locating them in existing trends in the study of material culture.

The workshop will raise the following questions:

• What are the respective uses of the term “technology” in both traditions, and their consequences? As Sigaut (1985, 2002) recalls, the definitions could be at the origin of the different understandings and research.
• What are the influences of Mauss’s writings on technology and body techniques (1935) on contemporary approaches of material culture?
• What is the position of the study of techniques in both British and French contemporary studies and analysis of material culture?
• What are the passage points between both “traditions”, when describing the relationship between, on the one hand, making and production and, on the other hand, usages and biography of things?
• Because of its particular importance for the analysis of material cultures, “technology” has been mostly included within anthropological and archaeological concerns and methods. If, as Haudricourt (1985) advocated, “technology” can become in itself a domain of enquiries, how can other disciplinary approaches, such as ethology, philosophy, sociology, or even engineering and ergonomics be included?

This workshop is organised by Laurence Douny (UCL), and Ludovic Coupaye (CREDO/SRU) with the support of the journal Techniques & Culture. Papers, in English or in French, will be published in Techniques & Culture and published on-line in English. This workshop is part of a series of workshops taking part over 3 days as part of the Master Programme of the EHESS “Evolution, objects, techniques et cultures”, directed by Frédéric Joulian (EHESS) and Olivier Gosselain (ULB).

Contact Details for confirmation and further questions:
Ludovic Coupaye
Email: ludocoupaye@gmail.com
Phone : (+33) 6 68 15 95 92
Laurence Douny
Email: l.douny@ucl.ac.uk

Posted by Graeme Were at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Posted to Conferences and other events

Francesca Simon Millar, PhD candidate Material Culture, UCL

Image 1: 3D scan of a Sepik Yam Mask, Papua New Guinea from the Ethnographic collection at UCL (Source: E –curator project)

Digital heritage technologies are radically changing the way we engage with material culture and are negotiating new ways of knowing and understanding the object. Realising the importance of digital technologies and new interdisciplinary possibilities, the E-curator project at UCL has been undertaken with the goal of applying two state of the art digital technologies: 3D colour laser scanning and e-science technologies. The research group behind the E-curator project are scanning six objects from across UCL Museums and Collections using an Arius 3D colour laser scanner installed in the Chorley Institute. It is the highest resolution and most geometrically accurate 3D colour scanner currently in the UK. The 3D object scans and relevant catalogue information are stored on an e-science storage system, Storage Resource Broker (SRB). Curators and conservators can then access the 3D object scans and catalogue information via the E-curator website, which displays the records stored at different sites.

Image 2: Aruis 3D scanner which is stored in the Chorley Institute at UCL. (Source: E- Curator project)

The project seeks to: (i) develop a traceable methodology for recording surface detail and colour quality of a range of object types and materials; (ii) explore potential for producing validated datasets to allow closer and more scientific examination of groups of objects, their manufacture and issues of wear and deterioration; (iii) examine how resulting datasets can be transmitted, shared and compared between disparate locations and institutions, for effectiveness in conservation reports and data transmissibility vis-à-vis conservation and object loans; (iv) begin to build expertise in use and transmission of 3D scan data as a curatorial tool.

Image 3: 3D scan of a West African Medicine bundle from the Ethnographic collection at UCL (source: E- curator project)

When users access the E- curator website, a list of 3D scan images from different collections will be displayed. Consider a user who wants to view and analyse the medicine bundle from the ethnographic collection. When he/she clicks on the object, a new window pops up displaying the 3D image and relevant metadata of the medicine bundle. By clicking on the small icons at the bottom of the 3D image, the user can tumble, pan, zoom and rotate the 3D image to analyse the surface of the medicine bundle. He/she can toggle the lighting to examine the differences on the surface. Links to different sets of raw data are provided if the user is interested in examining the 3D images at different scanning and processing stages. Firstly the aligned ‘registered’ version of the point cloud without colour or point processing, secondly a ‘processed’ version with cleaned colours and geometry, and thirdly a ‘presentation’ file with enhanced colours and filled holes. For the use of conservators and curators the second model will be the most relevant since it has undergone the least approximation and processing. Thus the website will function as an interface for object identification and assessment. With an appropriate storage infrastructure, data sets may also be integrated more widely by researchers around the world. Feedback to date has been very good, although great stress has been placed by users on the materiality of the digital image and what has been lost and gained in the replication of the real object.

From an anthropological perspective it is interesting to consider the interplay between the original six objects: how the technician works with the objects, uses the equipment to create digital images, visualises problems and uses specialist software in the post production stage in order to create a better image capture. The technician produces a scan image through the embodied movement of the Aruis 3D system. The scans are stiched together to configure the 3D whole and are cleaned and colour matched through the post processing software thus engendering a notion of visual resemblance.

Image 4: This shows the technicians screen during the processing of the scan data. Scans are stiched together to compile a whole 3D image. (Source: E-curator project)

My initial research with the project has pinpointed a series of research questions, which all centre around the relation between the digital image and knowledge. The first issue I want to explore is the corporeal identity of the digital image. During the scanning process I noticed that the motion of the scanner replicated the movements of the human body. Such practice is highly relevant to current anthropological thinking, particularly with Warnier’s (2001) praxeological approach, and Harraway’s (1991) cyborg manifesto because in the process of laser scanning, the body and machine become interwoven. The second issue I intend to explore is the multi-sensory qualities of digital images. Research has shown within the scanning process that non tactile (light and reflection) and, more importantly, tactile (texture, sensation, feel) can be expressed in the mediation of a good or bad scan result. Initial research revealed that although the technician does not touch the image a tactile response is negotiated through the mouse, through a hand- to- eye coordination. The third issue which I will trace out is the different forms of material knowledge and attachments to the digital image which are consecrated through everyday practice.

Please feel free to browse the 3D images on the E-curator website. In order to view them you need administrative rights as you must install an ACFIVEX viewer. The viewer is not compatible with MAC computers.

http://data02.geospatial.ucl.ac.uk:8080/eCurator05/pages/main.jsp

Or if you want to read more about the project

http://www.museums.ucl.ac.uk/research/ecurator/index.html
The project is jointly funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC).

The members of the E-curator team
Dr Ian Brown, Mona Hess, Sally MacDonald, Yean-Hoon Ong, Dr Stuart Robson, Francesca Simon Millar and Dr Graeme Were.

Posted by Graeme Were at 6:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | Posted to Notes from the Field

Museum Studies / Museum Anthropology / Digital Heritage

Project: Reanimating cultural heritage: digital repatriation, knowledge networks and civil society strengthening in Sierra Leone

Applications are invited for a 3-year full-time PhD studentship to be held at University College London in the field of Museum Studies / Museum Anthropology / Digital Heritage. The studentship is associated with a large project funded under the Arts & Humanities Research Council’s ‘Beyond Text’ programme, which is concerned with innovating ‘digital curatorship’ in relation to Sierra Leonean collections dispersed in the global museumscape. The project considers how objects that have become isolated from the oral and performative contexts that originally animated them can be reanimated in digital space alongside associated images, video clips, sounds, texts and other media. In partnership with the Department of Informatics at Sussex University, as well as the British Museum, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, Glasgow Museums and collaborating institutions in Sierra Leone, a digital heritage resource will be created that utilizes social networking technologies to reconnect objects with disparate communities and foster reciprocal knowledge exchange across boundaries. Whereas the practice of ‘digital repatriation’ has become increasingly popular with museums, the reception of such initiatives by source communities has not been critically assessed. Thus, a crucial part of the project will be to employ innovative participatory methods to pilot and evaluate the digital resource in Sierra Leone. Further details of the project can be seen at http://www.beyondtext.ac.uk/projects/reanimatingculturalheritage.shtml

It is anticipated that the student will be involved in all aspects of the project, but will be able to shape the particular focus of the PhD research within the broader project objectives. To be eligible for a full award, which covers tuition fees and a maintenance grant (currently £14,500 per annum), applicants should be normally resident in the UK. Applicants should have a good first degree and, preferably, postgraduate experience in museum anthropology, material/visual culture studies, museum studies, or similar. A strong interest in cultural heritage technologies is essential and experience in computing will be an advantage. The studentship will be supervised by Dr Paul Basu and will be based in the Institute of Archaeology, though closely affiliated with the Department of Anthropology and UCL’s Centre for Museums, Heritage and Material Culture Studies. The studentship must start no later than 1 January 2009.

If you are interested in applying or for further information, please contact Paul Basu by email at paul.basu@ucl.ac.uk or p.basu@sussex.ac.uk as soon as possible.

Posted by Graeme Were at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Posted to Announcements and Listings