research – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

Ethnographies of Resistance Movements: Legible to the Authorities

About 739 posts ago, I published “Exposing the Network,” wherein I expressed my worries about making data on resistance movements and anarchist networks available to open source intelligence gathering by the authorities. The value of such research may be great for discussions internal to anthropology, but the data on which the discussions are based are […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Neocolonialism: It’s Post-Independence, Not Post-Colonial

Unintended Open Source Ethnography For as much serendipity as conventional, on the ground, ethnography is known to entail, the “approach” discussed here is barely an approach at all: it was unprovoked, unplanned, without coordination, being neither methodical nor systematic. It became a collaboration, out of mutual interest, from distinct and separate positions, but there was […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Blind Spots: Ethical Research in the Midst of Counterinsurgency

“Rough Terrain,” an article by Vanessa Gezari in the Washington Post (30 Aug. 2009), one of the latest in a series of articles in the mainstream media devoted to the Human Terrain System published over the past two years, introduces us to the figure of “Doc”: Karl Slaikeu, a 64-year-old psychologist and conflict-resolution specialist from […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Como protegerse contra un antropólogo: Un código de ética desde la base

The following is a Spanish translation of the original and unrevised document that appeared in English on this blog on 09 September, 2008. Lo siguiente es una traducción al español del documento original que apareció en Inglés en este blog el día 09 de septiembre, 2008. Algunos de los cambios en el texto original no […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

How to Protect Yourself from an Anthropologist: A Code of Ethics from the Bottom Up (2.0)

Revised: 21 September 2008 This document is meant to be the start of a decolonized code of ethics, ethics as seen not from the point of view of the foreign anthropologist, but from the vantage point of the community “receiving” that anthropologist. The history behind this document is quite long, dating at least to Vine […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Political Reactions to SSHRC Funding: Bloc Québécois

Following from five previous posts on the impacts on research arising from the structure of funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), I have had at least one reaction from a member of Canada’s Federal Parliament. Incidentally, the last of that series of posts can be seen here, with the […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Social Science Research Funding in Canada: Additional Notes (4.3)

The Limitations of Blogging about SSHRC Blogging about complex topics about which little has been researched and published obviously confronts and presents some serious limitations. I am referring here to the previous post on funding by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Trying to understand, let alone convey, the complexities of shifting […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

SSHRC Policy on Open Access

From the blog of Jim Till, currently a member of the Executive Committee of Project Open Source|Open Access at the University of Toronto: “Christian Sylvain, the Director, Policy, Planning, and International Affairs of Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), made a presentation, Open Access and SSHRC, at Open Access: the New World of […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Yes Master, Ethnography is Truth

But it’s not ethnographic. It’s not a real ethnography. How many times have fellow anthropologists heard such statements? Don’t lie: say “dozens of times.” Some, perhaps most anthropologists have convinced themselves that the path to truth runs through fieldwork. Any other knowledge gaining methodology is suspect, tainted, partial (i.e., surveys, reading newspaper reports, archival research, […]