Karl Andersson

Anthropologist

Week 29: 15-21 July 2019

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A bit of a chaotic week. I had to attend an emergency board meeting for my house, so I missed the last unit of Media Activism on Tuesday, but sent my impressions of the readings to the lecturer beforehand.

I also started working more thoroughly on my essay for Media Activism, which I hereby decide to finish a first draft of by the end of next week! I’ve done a bit of footwork for it this week, and I also discovered how relevant Foucault’s Discipline and Punish is for it. I love his take on lepers and plague victims!

There was also the last unit of Qualitative Methods, a course that I see as extremely important and that has walked along us ever since the first in-house classes in October last year. The lecturer will not join us in the next year, so it was a bit of a sad goodbye. I’ve really appreciated these last units on interviewing.

And the last unit of Space and Place was on Monday, but there will also be a colloquium in a week’s time – I’ll be presenting then.

As for my final project I felt I needed some advice about how to handle anonymous informants. I wanted tips and inspiration from the final projects of previous generations, since I can’t imagine I will do a traditional “talking heads” film. So I emailed the programme directors, and one of them suggested I come out to FU campus to talk to him about it. We met on Thursday and he had lots of tips for me. He lent me a handful of films and theses, and pointed me to some other sources. The meeting made me feel really relieved, because I realised just how free I am to create my final project – the film. Afterwards I got an email from him saying that he had now watched my machinima and that he “loved it”. He included some more tips and reflections. This all got me in a very good mood and led me to the following:

I’ve decided that my “preparatory fieldtrip” to Japan in September will not (only) be preparatory, but rather when I start filming! I’ll need a lot of B-roll if I’m only going to have anonymous informants. Since S will be away filming too, our little team needs a new gimbal, and DJI very conveniently released Ronin-SC this week, so I placed an order immediately. I’m also looking into some nice lenses – what a jungle it is! I’m having one in mind …

This week I’ve also started an email conversation with the Japanese person I emailed last week. His answers are really interesting.

Filming preparations: I just sent off the first email to a Japanese shop to ask if I can come there and film a bit. I’m sure I can get many shots without permission, but having it would take away the stress. Before sending off the email I spent some time updating my userpage at FU, which is my more static homepage, like a business card. (And I suppose it will vanish after I have graduated.)

I attended the Stadtfest with A on Saturday and continued to a private party with S.

Lastly, it turns out the book I ordered from a seller on Japanese Amazon to use for the subtitles of my machinima only took three days to reach Germany. But since then it’s been stuck in customs in Frankfurt for three weeks. It’s one book sold to me for 45 yen = 0.37 euro. So if they want me to pay German VAT for it, that would be 3 cent.

Package in customs

Readings

Space and Place

Media Activism

Unit 10: Digital Cultural Activism

  • Budka, P. 2019. “Indigenous media technologies in ‘the digital age’: Cultural articulation, digital practices, and sociopolitical concepts.” In S. S. Yu & M. D. Matsaganis (Eds.), Ethnic media in the digital age. Pp. 162–172. New York: Routledge.
    2) Nakamura, L, & P. A. Chow-White. 2012. “Introduction – race and digital technology: Code, the color line, and the information society.” In L. Nakamura & P. A. Chow-White (Eds.), Race after the Internet. Pp. 1–18. New York: Routledge.

My essay

  • Milan, Stefania, and Lonneke van der Velden. 2016. “The Alternative Epistemologies of Data Activism.” In Digital Culture & Society, special issue “The Politics of Big Data” (October 2016). Pp. 57–74.
  • Foucault, Michel. 1975. Discipline and Punish. Excerpts and the beginning of Part 3: “Panopticism.” Pp. 195–201. Amazing!

Qualitative Methods

Phenomenological interviews

  • Englander, M. 2012. “The Interview: Data Collection in Descriptive Phenomenological Human Scientific Research.” In Journal of Phenomenological Psychology (43): 13–35.

Final Project

Films borrowed from and/or recommended by the institute:

  • Laurent Van Lancker:
    • Eth(n)ics Vietnam (2001, 26 min)
    • Disorient (2010, 36 min)
  • D.E. Moore: Dansumae (2014, ca 40 min)
  • David Ferrando Giraut: The Accursed Stare (2017, 35 min)

Japanese

Apps

  • Memrise: 77,100 (jōyō kanji, start of 小6)
  • Nextbook 漢字:
    • Repeat of 小2 level 11–74 (finish)

Manga

  • 武井宏之: ユンボル 1 (2010): Chapter 1 (第1工程), pp. 1–64

Other

Articles

Videos

Reader Interactions

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