Karl Andersson

Anthropologist

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Week 52: 24-30 December 2018

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And so it’s the last week of the year. I’ve spent it on La Palma, hiking in the mountains and reading Roberto Saviano’s La paranza dei bambini (in Swedish translation) by the pool. It’s great!

Like the last two years, I recorded a summary of the books I read during the year:

2018 was an important year for me. It was the year when I decided to get back to studying, applied for a few master’s programmes and eventually started the Visual and Media Anthropology programme in Berlin. I’m loving every minute of it. Not that the programme is perfect in itself, but it does provide the possibility to make the most out of it, something that I’m determined to do. We’re still at the stage where we’re building the foundation of our anthropological knowledge, which will then come to use when we start focusing on our own research projects.

One more week of free time before the studies start again.

Study

Digital Anthropology Unit 8

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

  • Quaranta, Domenico (2015): Situating Post-Internet Art. In Catricalà, Valentino: Media Art: Towards a New Definition of Art in the Age of Technology, pp. 121-134.
  • Cornell, Lauren and Halter, Ed, eds. (2015): Hard Reboot: An Introduction to Mass Effect. In Mass Effect: Art and the Internet in the Twenty-First Century, pp. xv-xxxiii (15-33).

Week 51: 17-23 December 2018

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Last week of school this year! Almost three months of intense studies lie behind me: This week we finished unit 7 of both Classics and Varieties of Ethnographic Film and Digital Anthropology, where I was one of the presenters:

Presentation on microcelebrities.

Study

Ethnographic Film Unit 7

Towards a shared Anthropology: Jean Rouch and Cinéma-Vérité

  • Rouch, Jean (2003): The Camera and Man. In ​Paul Hockings (ed.): Principles of Visual Anthropology, pp.79-98.
  • Grimshaw, Anna (2001): The anthropological cinema of Jean Rouch. In ​The Ethnographer’s Eye: Ways of seeing in Modern Anthropology, pp. 112-120.

Films to this unit:

  • Michel Brault and Gilles Groulx: Les Raquetteurs​ (1958, 15 min.)
  • Jean Rouch: Chronicle of a Summer​ (1961, 87 min.)

Digital Anthropology Unit 7

Online Celebrities: Social media as a marketing tool.

  • Seaver, Nick (2017): Algorithms as culture: Some tactics for the ethnography of algorithmic systems. In Big Data & Society 4, no. 2, pp. 1-12.
  • Related film: The American Meme (2018, 98 min)

Other

Articles

Film & video

Week 50: 10-16 December 2018

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First of all, the weeks pass incredibly fast. It feels like it’s always Sunday again and I’m wrapping up another one of these weekly study diary posts.

Again, I didn’t read all texts for Digital Anthropology Unit 6 on Thursday, despite interesting subjects. The presentation of the SD card article was so interesting that I read the text afterwards though. And I suppose I will get back to the other ones as well. Apparently the purpose with Unit 6 was to see how the authors wrap their findings in an appropriate theory, sort of. And that was super interesting, since I had some criticism regarding that for one of the texts, which I vented in class.

And we had another class in Qualitative Methods on Wednesday that demanded some fast reading due to confusion (not just me) about dates.

Ethnographic Film Unit 6 on Tuesday was on Jean Rouch part 1.

I’ve read up on internet celebrities during the week and started putting together my presentation this weekend. I will present on Thursday next week, so I’m quite focused on that now.

What more? I bought a Nintendo Switch and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate! Plus tried out streaming my first game of Paladins to Twitch:

At least I didn’t kill my team mates.

Study

Qualitative Methods

  • Kohler Riessman, C. (2008): Chapter 2: Constructing Narratives for Inquiry. In Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences, pp. 21-51.
  • Kohler Riessman, C. (2008): Chapter 3: Thematic Analysis. Ibid, pp. 53-77.
  • Related video: Rethinking Wellbeing – Professor Catherine Kohler Riessman. (Summary: On applied linguistics in health; “narrative research that looks at language”, as opposed to grounded theory and qualitative research in general, which generally focuses more on the themes that can be found behind the language, they want to look through the language.)

Ethnographic Film Unit 6

  • Russell, Catherine (1999): Ecstatic Ethnography: Filming Possession Rituals. In Experimental Ethnography, pp.193-237. (Continued with the two last sections: Bill Viola: Existentialism, Technology, and the Other and Group Fantasies and Simulated Subjectivites = 229-237. Still haven’t read the sections on Mead and Deren = 199-218.)

Digital Anthropology Unit 6

Mobile Media Practices: Texts, Technologies and Online Subjectivities on
the Move.

Digital Anthropology Unit 7

Online Celebrities: Social media as a marketing tool.

Other

Articles

Video

Week 48: 26 November – 2 December 2018

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This week was extremely busy, as can be seen from the amounts of reading. I had somehow missed the two assigned texts for Qualitative Methods – both quite long and dense, and on the subject of coding for grounded theory. I managed to squeeze them in right before class though. In addition I finished writing up my ethnographic fieldnotes assignment for that class only the day before (due to a late peer review, which in turn was due to my original “peer” dropping out of the course). I was not happy with the results of my assignment, but take comfort in the fact that of all assignments we’ll do, this is probably the least important, and the course is not graded. Even so, it’s annoying to not deliver the best you can.

For my upcoming presentation in Digital Anthropology I registered on Facebook (hello again, old bitch!), Instagram and Snapchat.

We also got a special introduction to Second Life, which I appreciated immensely. I didn’t even know this virtual world still existed.

But mostly I worked on my presentation for Unit 5 of Ethnographic Film, which will happen on Tuesday. I had a meeting with my co-presenters and will now write up my part of the presentation.

Study

Qualitative Methods

  • Kahn, Seth (2011): Putting Ethnographic Writing in Context. In Writing Spaces: Readings on Writings, vol. 2, p. 175-192.
  • Emerson, R. M. et al (1995): Processing Fieldnotes: Coding and Memoing. In Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, p. 142-168.
  • Miles & Huberman (1994): Chapter 4: Early Steps in Analysis. In Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook, p. 50-89.

Ethnographic Film, Unit 4

  • Jarvie, Ian Charles (1983): The Problem of the Ethnographic Real, incl. comments and reply. In Current Anthropology, Vol. 24 (3), p. 313-325.

Ethnographic Film, Unit 5

  • MacDougall, David (2001): Gifts of Circumstance. (Review of Making Forest of Bliss: Intention, Circumstance and Chance in Nonfiction Film.) In Visual Anthropology Review, vol. 17 (1) (spring-summer 2001), pp. 68-85.
  • Bucci, Mauro (2012): Forest of Bliss: Sensory Experience and Ethnographic Film. In Visual Ethnography, vol. 1. n. 1 (June 2012), p. 30-53. (Extra, skimmed very selectively.)

Digital Anthropology, Unit 4

  • Boellstorff, Tom et al (2012): Chapter 2: Three Brief Histories and Chapter 4: Research Design & Preparation. In Ethnography and Virtual Worlds. Handbook of methods, pp. 13-28 and 52-64.
  • Kendall, Blake (2016): Sharing the Road: the Post-Internet Hitchhiker. In Journal of Visual and Media Anthropology 2, no. 1, pp. 40-55.

The films to this unit were all “machinimas”:

In addition we watched a rough cut by one of the presenters.

Digital Anthropology, Unit 7

  • Abidin, Crystal (2018): Chapter 1: What is an internet celebrity anyway? In Internet Celebrity. Understanding Fame Online, p. 1-18.

Project

I was contacted by a person on a Japanese website. Following ethical protocol, I replied by introducing myself as an anthropology student and asked if I could ask him some questions for a study. He obliged and I sent off a couple of questions of quite a personal nature. He replied. I was exhilarated, not least because we were communicating in Japanese. So I now have my second informant, in a totally different area, and I will call him “B”. He might be a candidate for my machinima project in Digital Anthropology.

Other

Articles

Film

  • Anna Odell: Återträffen (The Reunion, 2013). Rewatched. Still as brilliant; as an anthropology student I now saw the film as an autoethnography.

Week 47: 19-25 November 2018

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I was away for the first three days of this week, and although I could participate in the Ethnographic Film Unit 3 class on Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein on Tuesday night, I didn’t have any time to read during those days.

I was therefore slightly unprepared for the Digital Anthropology Unit 3 class on Thursday, but it was so interesting that I read all the recommended readings after class. (I was partly late with my readings for Unit 3 because I had started to look into those for Unit 7, since that’s where I’ll be having a presentation.) I really love this course and think the readings are very well chosen, with a few exceptions. I get lots of ideas all the time about things to research, and I write them down.

On Saturday I took a day off to edit my first five minute movie from Ethiopia, where we go to Azwa Mariam Monastery on an island in Lake Tana by Bahir Dar.

Study

Ethnographic Film, Unit 3

  • Film: Sergei Eisenstein: Battleship Potemkin (1925, 75 min)

Ethnographic Film, Unit 4

  • Unit 4: Early Documentary/Fiction Film: Realism & Neorealism. Module introduction.
  • Grimshaw, Anna (2001): The light of reason: John Grierson, Radcliffe-Brown and the enlightenement project. In The Ethnographer’s Eye: Ways of seeing in Modern Anthropology, pp. 57-68.

Films to this unit:

  • Roberto Rossellini: Rome Open City (1945, 102 min)
  • Edgar Anstey & Arthur Elton (prod. by John Grierson): Housing Problems (1935, 15 min)
  • Harry Watt & Basil Wright (prod. by John Grierson): Night Mail (1936, 22 min)

Digital Anthropology, Unit 3

  • Postill, J., and Sarah Pink (2012): Social media ethnography: the digital researcher in a messy web. Media International Australia, 14 p.
  • Daniel Miller et al. (2016): Introductory chapters. In How the World Changed Social Media, pp. 1-41.
  • Video: Daniel Miller introduces Tales from Facebook
  • Frömming et al. (2017): Digital Environments and the Future of Ethnography. An Introduction. In Digital Environments. Ethnographic Perspectives across Global Online and Offline Spaces, pp. 13-21.
  • Collins, Samuel et al (2017): Ethnographic Apps/Apps as Ethnography. In Anthropology Now 9, no. 1, pp. 102-118.

Digital Anthropology, Unit 7

  • Baym, Nancy (2012): Fans or Friends? Seeing Social Media audiences as musicians do. In Journal of Audience and Reception Studies 9, no. 2, pp. 286-316.
  • Baym, Nancy (2015): Connect with your audience! The relational labor of connection. In The Communication Review 18, no. 1, pp. 14-22.
  • Abidin, Crystal (2018): Preface. In Internet Celebrity. Understanding Fame Online, p. ixx-xxii.

Other

Articles

Podcast

Week 46: 12-18 November 2018

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The Ethnographic Film series continued with Unit 2 – Margaret Mead and Timothy Asch. Unlike for Unit 1 (Robert Flaherty) I didn’t do all readings, only the two mandatory ones. I watched all videos though. I will be the presenter of Unit 5, about Robert Gardner and Forest of Bliss, and will therefore focus on the readings to that unit, while only reading the mandatory ones for the others.

We had a session on grounded theory in Qualitative Methods, and I must say I really, really like it. The introductory readings were not that easy to get through, but I felt excitement at grasping something that was completely new to me, and which makes such perfect sense. This is exactly what I hoped to be able to learn at this programme. “So this is how they do it”, was the feeling. The social scientists, that is. I’m now thinking about how I will be able to use grounded theory in my future research. Next session, in two weeks, will cover coding.

The second unit of Digital Anthropology had lots of introductory readings to the course as a whole, and many of them were really interesting. I especially liked Boellstorff’s notion of “the gap” between virtual and actual, and how it is the gap that defines the virtual as virtual, and thereby also the actual as actual. Without the gap, there is no virtual, but also no actual. The gap is therefore what defines us as human beings. It is essential.

With so many interesting readings, not much in the “Other” category!

Study

Qualitative Methods, Unit 8: Interviewing

Qualitative Methods, Unit 9: Grounded Theory

  • Module introduction: Grounded Theory (objectivist and constructivist).
  • Willig, C. (2013): Grounded Theory Methodology. Chapter 7 in Introducing Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3 ed., pp. 69-82.
  • Charmaz, K. (2000): Grounded Theory. Objectivist and Constructivist Methods. Chapter 19 in N. K. Denzin, Y.S. Lincoln (Ed.): Handbook of Qualitative Research, pp. 509-535.

Ethnographic Film, Unit 3: Dziga Vertov

  • Barnouw, Erik (1974): Reporter. In Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film, pp. 51-71.
  • Petric, Vlada (1978): Dziga Vertov as Theorist. In Cinema Journal, Vol.18 (1), pp. 29-44.

And the film:

  • Dziga Vertov: Man with a Movie Camera (1929, 80 min)

Ethnographic Film, Unit 5: Robert Gardner

  • Loizos, Peter (1993): Robert Gardner in Tahiti, or the rejection of realism. In Innovation in Ethnographic Film, pp.139-168.
  • Ruby, Jay (2000): Robert Gardner and Anthropological Cinema. in Picturing Culture: Explorations of Film and Anthropology, pp. 95-113.
  • Parry, Jonathan P. (1988): Comment on Robert Gardner’s “Forest of Bliss”. In SVA Newsletter.
  • Cooper, Thomas W. (1987): Forest of Bliss by Robert Gardner. In Film Quarterly, Vol. 41 (1) (Autumn, 1987), pp. 58-61.
  • Mishler, Craig (1985): Narrativity and Metaphor in Ethnographic Film: A Critique of Robert Gardner’s Dead Birds. In American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 87 (3) (September 1985), pp. 668-672.
  • Östör, Ákos (1988): Misreading the Metaphor: A Comment on Mishler’s “Narrativity and Metaphor”. In American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 90 (4) (December 1988), pp. 978-980.

And these films by Robert Gardner (I’m starting to realise what an amazing resource Alexander Street is, which we have access to through our university):

  • Forest of Bliss (1986, 90 min) (mandatory)
  • Dead Birds (1963, 84 min) (recommended)
  • The Nuer (1971, 73 min) (recommended) – by Hilary Harris and George Breidenbach, but Gardner was involved
  • Deep Hearts (1980, 50 min) (extra)

Digital Anthropology, Unit 2

  • Haraway, Donna J. (1985): A Cyborg Manifesto. In Manifestly Haraway (2016), pp. 3-90 (or 5-68 without the fluff). 😑 (I wish I liked this text more!)

Japanese

Other

Articles

Podcast