GLOBALIZATION – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

101 Things We Learned from WikiLeaks’ Podesta Emails

US voters have been given a rare, even unprecedented opportunity to look at the machinery inside an electoral campaign and a foundation, as presented by the insiders themselves. Being afforded this privilege motivated one columnist to assert: “Those voting for Hillary Clinton, defending Clinton and supporting Clinton without reading the information reported by WikiLeaks are […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The Ultimate Proletarian and the Neoliberal Condition

“Proletarian” has acquired many layers of meaning over the centuries, possibly in part because the many, historically changing situations of proletarians became more complex. Since the advent of western European capitalism in the sixteenth century, proletarians were defined as “members of the lowest class”. By the mid-1800s, they were “the lowest class” composed of “indigent […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Thoughtful, Respectful, and Progressive: Regarding the “Responsibility to Protect”

Some of this has already been raised, in my recent interview with Phil Taylor, plus in an excellent article by Ken Stone, “UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay: ‘Pretext-maker’ for Western Military Aggression,” and by The Wrong Kind of Green (“Must Watch: MP Laurent Louis Exposes International Neo-Colonialists Behind ‘War On Terror’ & ‘Humanitarian Interventions’ […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

A Minor Bun Engine Made Benny Lava, May He Poop on My Knee: Cross-Cultural Translation Under Conditions of Contemporary Electronic Globalization

After an absence of more than three months, it is time for another installment of Monday Morning Madness. The idea of “translating” another language into your own, by assuming that words that sound the same as words in your language are the same, is not a surprising one — the results can be disastrous, or […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The World is Flat? by Aronica & Ramdoo (Book website and readings)

Thanks to Ms. Susan Ashcroft, Research Associate at Meghan-Kiffer Press, for the notification that the website for the book by Ronald Aronica and Mtetwa Ramdoo, The World is Flat? A Critical Analysis of Thomas L. Friedman’s New York Times Bestseller has added a long series of freely available articles of relevance to the book. This […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Globalization, Democracy, and Canada versus the People of Haiti

In Canada, with its imperial adventure in Afghanistan, its aid workers who speak in suspiciously counterinsurgent terms of “restoring peace and stability” and achieving “progress,” and its continuing belligerence toward First Nations communities protesting for the right to live without uranium poisoning, it should not be surprising to see how much of the mass media […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Globalization, Democracy, and Canada versus the People of Haiti

by Maximilian C. Forte

Humour, Obscenity, and Localized Globalization(s)

The previous post, meant as a humorous educational exercise caused me to reflect on some of the conflicted tendencies contained within it, both on my part and the part of Trinidadians with different perspectives, personal histories, and social class backgrounds, and I am thankful for the messages that were posted, and those sent in private, […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

CONCEPTUAL Challenges of Multi-Sited Ethnography

(Thanks again to Lorenz Khazaleh and his blog for notification of the release of the current issue of Anthropology News.) In a short commentary titled, “Practical Challenges of Multi-Sited Ethnography“, written by Ulla Berg in Anthropology News (May, 2008), there is one basic limitation that I want to highlight, and some of my commentary might […]