exoticism – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

The Revenge of the Local, the Horror of the Provincial, and Western Cosmopolitanism at Risk

Anti-Globalization? What Madness Is This? John Jarratt in Wolf Creek (Australia) This is true Monday Morning Madness, though I never expected to start anyone’s Monday off with a dosage of horror, or as I argue here, the Western elites’ perceived horrors of anti-globalization and resentful localisms. Nowhere, I think, is this sentiment best captured than […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

They Fell For It (Suckers): “New Tribe Discovered”

My “Four New Tribes Discovered” post not only brought in over 1,000 hits in just 48 hours, from combined on-site and syndicated views, the post is now listed in the #1 spot on CNN.com’s search results for “new tribe discovered” and has slipped a little on Google, from the seventh to the tenth listing. My […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

CNN’s “Mondo Cane”: Screaming Muslim Babies in India, and Gawking Journalists (updated)

CNN aired a piece on a “baby dropping ritual” in India in the Anderson Cooper segment last night, accompanied by Cooper’s wincing, and news reader Erica Hill’s raised voice exclaiming: “Look at that!“. The transcript on the CNN website is titled, in the mode of the gawker: “Villagers throw babies from temple roof“. Given the […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

France’s Imperial Leader Explains Africa to Itself

From James McDougall’s article, “Sarkozy and Africa: big white chief’s bad memory,” 7 December, 2007, openDemocracy: The headline event of Sarkozy’s first (and brief) tour of sub-Saharan Africa was a speech, written by special advisor Henri Guaino, delivered “to the élite of Africa’s young people” on 26 July at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in […]