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Karl Andersson

Anthropologist

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Study diary

Week 4: 21-27 January 2019

January 27, 2019 by Leave a Comment

It was a wonderful, intense week full of readings and some ethnographic films. I’m in the process of setting up my research project in Digital Anthropology, since I will be presenting about that on Thursday next week. More on that later.

The readings, presentations and discussion in Digital Anthropology Unit 10 landed in the conviction (for me at least) that the “true or false” is the least important aspect of fake news. Instead, they and their adherents should be seen as a belief system or cult, as worthy of study (and respect) as any esoteric group. Focusing on “true or false” thereby becomes as uninteresting as discussing whether God exists.

I think the framework of virtual world research would be applicable for the study of “fake news fans”. Pizzagate is an example of how things go completely wrong when someone takes the virtual concept of fake news into the actual world. Like an exception that proves the rule, that incident confirms how the virtuality of fake news is taken for granted.

In Ethnographic Film Unit 9 Lydall’s text Beating around the Bush was really interesting in describing and analysing the “wife beating” of the Hamar.

ReadingI started reading Michael Fisch’s ethnography on the Tokyo commuter train network An Anthropology of the Machine. I heard an interview with him in the Anthropod podcast in September 2018 (week 38, 2018), and when he surfaced again in a seminal reading by Brian Larkin for Digital Anthropology Unit 9, on infrastructures (week 2, 2019), I checked him up again and realised that this book had just been released. So far he’s laying out the theory. Although I primarily bought this book “for fun”, I think it fits very well into my studies and projects.

Just like Tom Boellstorff in his Second Life research, Fisch focuses on “the gap”. Whereas Boellstorff’s gap is between the virtual and the actual world, Fisch’s gap is between the time table of the trains (the ideal world) and the actual outcome. It’s not unrelated at all and definitely relevant for the things I want to study.

Since the chapter 8 in the handbook by Boellstorff et al was the reading for the Digital Anthropology Colloquium 1 next week, I started reading the book from the start. It’s such an easy an inspiring read, and so well written, that I think the book in full should be mandatory for the very first unit of this course. (We read chapters 2 and 4 for Unit 4 – week 48, 2018.)

Finished Mr Robot season 2 but was not impressed by the resolution.

The week ended with Chris Marker’s film Sans Soleil. I did not like it. At all.

As every week I checked the latest Gutenberg reviews. It’s so sad to see people work a lot on something and then get it completely wrong.

Study

Digital Anthropology Unit 10

Studying online phenomena: Fake News, Virality and manipulative data practices

  • The Conversation/Yuwei Lin: #DeleteFacebook is still feeding the beast – but there are ways to overcome surveillance capitalism
  • Michael Zimmer: How Contextual Integrity can help us with Research Ethics in Pervasive Data

Digital Anthropology Colloquium 1

Students’ Planned Research & the Ethical Considerations.

  • Boellstorff, Tom, Bonnie Nardi, Cecilia Pearce, and T.L. Taylor (2012): Chapter 8: Ethics. In Ethnography and Virtual Worlds. Handbook of methods., pp. 129-150.

Extra

Readings related to my research.

  • Boellstorff, Tom, Bonnie Nardi, Cecilia Pearce, and T.L. Taylor (2012): Ethnography and Virtual Worlds. Handbook of methods:
    • Foreword by George Marcus (pp. xiii-xvii)
    • 1: Why this handbook? (pp. 1-12)
    • 3: Ten myths about ethnography (pp. 29-51)
  • Fisch, Michael (2018): An Anthropology of the Machine. Tokyo’s Commuter Train Network:
    • Preface (pp. ix-xi)
    • Introduction: Toward a Theory of the Machine (pp. 1-28)
    • 1: Finessing the Interval (pp. 29-47)
  • Frennea, Melissa (2012): The Prevalence of Rape and Child Pornography in Yaoi, 34 p.

Ethnographic Film Unit 10

Issues of Representation: A Case Study of the Hamar

  • Lydall, Jean (2006): Imperilled name and pained heart. More about Duka’s Dilemma’. In Jean Lydall and Ivo Strecker (eds.): The Perils of Face, Essays on cultural contact, respect and self-esteem in southern Ethiopia, pp. 311-337.
  • Lydall, Jean (1994): Beating around the Bush. In Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, volume II, 26 p.

And these films:

  • Robert Gardner: Rivers of Sand​ (1974, 84 min)
  • Kaira Strecker and Jean Lydall: Duka’s Dilemma​ (2001, 88 min)

Ethnographic Film Unit 11

Autoethnography

  • Russell, Catherine (1999): Autoethnography: Journeys of the Self. In Experimental Ethnography, pp. 275-315.

And the film:

  • Chris Marker: Sans Soleil (1982, 100 min)

Other

Articles

  • The Economist: The steam has gone out of globalisation
  • The Economist: Donald Trump made a dreadful miscalculation over the shutdown
  • The Economist: Companies can appeal to workers and consumers with liberal messages
  • The Economist: The arrival of Foxconn in Wisconsin divides Democrats
  • The Guardian/Elfriede Jelinek, Milan Kundera, Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, and 26 others: Fight for Europe – or the wreckers will destroy it
  • The Independent/Lucy Jones: Why the Fyre Festival documentaries were so terrifying
  • Insider: The world’s biggest YouTube stars told us they’re burning out because of the unrelenting pressure to post new videos
  • Post Status/Brian Krogsgard: Post formats are slowly dying, and that’s okay (great piece from 2014 that made me understand the trajectory of post formats and why I don’t need them)

Podcast

  • Alexandre Enkerli: Rapport: The Informal Ethnographer Podcast (2009)
    • 6: Draft Aesthetics
    • 7: Teaching Ethnography
    • 8: Failures of Anthropology

Film & video

  • Hubert Sauper: Darwin’s Nightmare (2004, 107 min)
  • Gurminder K Bhambra: Colonial Histories/Postcolonial Societies: On the Politics of Selective Memory in Europe (2018, 95 min)
  • Casey Neistat: Burnt OUT YouTubers
  • Simone Giertz: My brain tumor is back

Filed Under: Digital Anthropology, Study diary Tagged With: Chris Marker, Jean Lydall, Michael Fisch, Tom Boellstorff

Week 3: 14-20 January 2019

January 20, 2019 by Leave a Comment

The week’s highlight was unit 9 of Digital Anthropology and the one-minute video assignment for that workshop.

Unit 9 of Ethnographic Film covered ethics and spurred me to write on the different ethics of journalism and anthropology.

I’ve already read all mandatory readings for next week’s Digital Anthropology Unit 10, which seems to be very interesting, judging from the readings. I was especially intrigued by Stark’s text, which put the data usage of social media in perspective by combining technology and psychology. His conclusions are similar to my own thinking over the last couple of years. It’s a compliment to the lecturers that all readings are from 2018 for this highly current class.

I’ve had it with Gutenberg and went back to WordPress’ Classic Editor, which as of now has over 2 million active installs. I really think I gave Gutenberg a try, but in the end the endless hassles cramped my creativity too much. Finally peace of mind!

Study

Digital Anthropology Unit 9

Artistic Practice in the Virtual Age // Post-internet Art

  • Aporta, Claudio, and Eric Higgs (2005): Satellite culture: global positioning systems, Inuit wayfinding, and the need for a new account of technology. In Current Anthropology 46 no. 5, pp. 729-753.
  • Kaplan, Louis & Melissa Shiff (2016): Mapping Ararat: An Augmented Reality Walking Tour for an Imaginary Jewish Homeland. In Anthrovision 4, no. 2, pp. 1-23.
  • Kendall, Blake (2018): Life in Motion Blur: Visualising the Virtual & Material Paths of Progress. Visual essay, 15 min.

Digital Anthropology Unit 10

Studying online phenomena: Fake News, Virality and manipulative data practices

  • Bounegru, Liliana, Jonathan Gray, Tommaso Venturini, and Michele Mauri (2018): A Field Guide to Fake News and other information disorders, 216 p.
  • Coates, Jamie (2018): So ‘Hot’ Right Now. Reflections on Virality and Sociality from Transnational Digital China. In Digital Culture & Society 3, no. 2, pp. 77-98.
  • Stark, Luke (2018): Algorithmic psychometrics and the scalable subject. In Social Studies of Science 48, no. 2, pp. 204-231.

In addition, I found a film made by one of the authors:

  • Coates, Jamie: Tokyo Pengyou (2018, 48 min)

Ethnographic Film Unit 9

Ethics and Ethnographic Filmmaking

  • Barbash, Ilisa & Lucien Taylor, eds. (1997): Sections Ethics and Reciprocity in chapter Getting going: from Fieldwork to filming (part 1). In Cross-Cultural Filmmaking: A Handbook for Making Documentary and Ethnographic Films and Videos, pp. 48-69.
  • Pink, Sarah (2006): Ethics and Ethnographic Research. In Doing Visual Ethnography, pp. 36-46.

And these films:

  • Gary Kildea and Andrea Simon: Koriam’s Law – and the dead who govern (2005, 113 min)
  • Les Mclaren and Annie Stiven: Taking Pictures (1996, 57 min)

Project

Related to my interactions with Japanese men on Twitter:

  • Gayjin Japan: 9monsters

Other

Articles

  • Wishcrys: Confessions from a young woman academic in five parts
  • Wishcrys: Academia and the refusal of overwork culture
  • The Economist: How the shutdown in Washington ends
  • The Economist: Apple succumbs to the smartphone malaise
  • The Economist: The maturing of the smartphone industry is cause for celebration
  • The Economist: Japan tries to keep the elderly out of hospital
  • The Economist: Who owns Kafka?
  • The Economist: Michel Houellebecq’s new book is eerily prescient
  • The Spectator/Tom Slater: Gillette and the rise of woke capitalism

Podcast

  • Bögministeriet: Det med att leva med sina beslut (2018, 64 min)

Video

  • Gillette: We Believe: The Best Men Can Be | Gillette (Short Film)

Filed Under: Study diary

Week 49: 3-9 December 2018

December 9, 2018 by Karl Leave a Comment

Miles car rental

The week’s highlight was my presentation on Robert Gardner in Unit 5 of Ethnographic Film. I was a bit nervous but I was well prepared and it went pretty smoothly – both the class and the teacher seemed to like it. It’s a challenge to present in front of the screen, while the whole class is watching in front of their screens.

Presentation on Gardner.
Miles car rental
Cheap rental from Miles.

With so much film viewing on laptops, I decided to finally buy a projector. Then I changed my mind. You have to pay so much to get decent quality, and I know I would get annoyed by the fan. And I had almost forgotten that I have an unused 60-inch plasma in the office. The hardest thing is to transport it, but on Friday we rented a Miles transporter and made the move. The result is fantastic and the rental only cost 11 euro for 8 km, despite we had the car for over an hour due to traffic and carrying.

And then it finally happened: I did not read everything for this week’s Digital Anthropology class. That is of course natural and to be expected – it’s up to us students to choose how thoroughly we participate in this programme. That said, until now I’ve read all mandatory readings and most of the recommended ones too – for every course. But I’ve reached a point where I must be more selective in my readings as my research interests become clearer. That’s a good thing.

Study

Ethnographic Film, Unit 6

  • Module introduction: Ciné-trance.
  • Stoller, Paul (1992): Les Maîtres Fous. In ​The Cinematic Griot: The Ethnography of Jean Rouch, pp. 145-160.
  • Russell, Catherine (1999): Ecstatic Ethnography: Filming Possession Rituals. In Experimental Ethnography, pp.193-237. (Read selectively the chapter introduction and Jean Rouch: Ciné-transe = pp. 193-199 and 218-229.)

And the films:

  • Jean Rouch: Les Maîtres Fous (1955, 29 min)
  • Bill Viola: I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like (1986, 89 min)

Digital Anthropology, Unit 5

  •  Gillespie, Marie; Osseiran, Souad; Cheesman, Marie (2018): Syrian Refugees and the Digital Passage to Europe: Smartphone Infrastructures and Affordances. In: Social Media + Society 4, no. 1, pp. 1-12.
  • Video: Exodus Our Journey To Europe Ep. 01 (2016, 59 min)
  • Video: Your phone is now a refugee’s phone

Digital Anthropology, Unit 7

  • Jurgenson, Nathan & Rey, PJ (2013): The Fan Dance: How Privacy Thrives in an Age of Hyper-Publicity. In Lovink, Geert & Rasch, Miriam, eds: Unlike Us Reader. Social Media Monopolies and Their Alternatives, pp. 61-75.
  • Abidin, Crystal (2018): Chapter 2: Qualities of Internet Celebrity. In Internet Celebrity. Understanding Fame Online, pp. 19-36.

Other

Articles

  • The Economist: Indigenous peoples across the world no longer seem doomed to extinction
  • The Economist: How to save Ethiopia’s democratic revolution
  • The Economist: The promise and peril of Ethiopia’s democratic revolution
  • The Economist: Brazil’s classrooms become a battleground in a culture war
  • The Economist: The Central European University is moving to Vienna
  • The Economist: Satellites may connect the entire world to the internet
  • Explain that stuff: Satellites
  • Sankaku Complex: Saint Seiya Goes Forward With Female Saints In “Saintia Shou”

Film, video & games

  • Draxtor Despres: Our Digital Selves: My Avatar is me (2018, 75 min)
  • The Nerdwriter: Why Are There So Few Smartphones In Popular Movies?
  • Mr Robot S1E4-5 (2015, 98 min, rewatched)
  • PS3: 街スベリ (2010)
  • Wii U: 太鼓の達人 Wii Uば~じょん! (2013)

Filed Under: Study diary

Week 40: 1-7 October 2018

October 7, 2018 by Karl Leave a Comment

The first week of the program was extremely intense despite Wednesday was a holiday. Modes of representation on Monday and Tuesday; Qualitative methods on Thursday and Friday. An assignment on Monday night, and the graduation exhibition of Generation 9 on Friday, followed by drinks at Krass Böser Wolf.

It feels like being at a very concentrated conference. And that feels great – I devour every minute of the program. One more week of intense, mandatory inhouse classes coming up.

Study

Modes of representation

Videos we watched in class:

  • Jorge Furtado: Ilha Das Flores, 1989
  • Frederick Wiseman: Titicut Follies, 1967
  • Johan van der Keuken: Herman Slobbe / Blind Kind II, 1966
  • Renzo Martens: Episode I, 2002
  • John Smith: Hotel Diaries: Museum Piece, 2004

Not to mention our assignments, here are my three minutes:

Anthropology and Photography

  • Lucie Ryzova, 2014: Nostalgia for the Modern: Archive Fever in Egypt in the Age of Post-Photography, in Costanza Caraffa and Tiziana Serena (eds.): Photographic Archives and the Idea of Nation, pp. 301-318.

Japanese

  • Intermediate Japanese. Review of Chapter 5.
  • Memrise: 47,500
    • 2136 Jōyō Kanji by Grade, level 13 (half) → 500 of 2136 kanji learned

Other

Otaku papers

  • Patrick W. Galbraith, 2011: Lolicon: The Reality of ‘Virtual Child Pornography’ in Japan. In Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No 1, pp. 83-114.

Articles

  • The Economist: The real victims of campus activism are the students (book review of The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.)
  • The Economist: Justice Brett Kavanaugh
  • The Economist: High hopes for Hakeem Jeffries
  • The Economist: Flu’s success owes much to its genetic mutability

Video

  • John Smith – The Girl Chewing Gum 1976

Exhibition

  • Malleable Borders, Shifting Identities: 2018 Graduation Exhibition of the Freie Universität MA Visual and Media Anthropology program.

Work

I managed to cram in a podcast episode on Saturday:

Filed Under: Study diary

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Unreal Boys - a film about shotacon

Unreal Boys is my graduation film. It’s a documentary about three young men in Tokyo who are into the Japanese manga genre shotacon. Read more.

Tiling short film

Tiling is a short film that I made as part of a semester paper. Read more and watch it here.

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