8 ms·

Anthropology in Ruins?

163 points by barry-cotter 4y ago

paul_funyun 4y ago
Sounds like an AA meeting with powerpoints. Avoiding research of which natives disapprove, collecting data, or digging up bones and artifacts is an easy way to make a living, but not something to subsidize with grants or taxpayer funds. Quit paying academics not to do anthropology; at worst you'll get the same results for free.
HideousKojima 4y ago
It's the same for every field these days. A relative of mine, as part of his bar association continuing education requirements, attended a seminar on helping minority juvenile defendants. Instead of teaching useful things that might actually help these kids like, y'know, strategies for securing better plea deals for your clients, the whole thing was about recognizing the white privilege inherent in the justice system etc etc yadda yadda.
- paul_funyun 4y ago
  CLE requirements are and always have been nothing more than a handout to providers. The jurisdictions that don't have them are doing fine. The best thing you can do if you're sitting at a CLE is complete another CLE on your laptop so you don't have to waste any more time on that crap than necessary. Edit: Correction; high-end ones are an excuse for big law lawyers to booze and schmooze on the company dime.
pram 4y ago
seydor 4y ago
I don't know what happened to anthropology but this attitude has indeed ruined it as a science. Asking any question that relates to physical attributes leads to immediate branding as racist. Any talk of genetics is met with a chorus of "epigenetics" , without even understanding how those work. When did it become so extreme that questions aren't even allowed. An example of such a question: "How has lactose intolerance affected european cultures, and what other historical cultural traits are influenced by genetics"
- paul_funyun 4y ago
  When they passed laws that put tribal myths on the same level as western science. Found a 10,000 year old skeleton? Sorry, the Lakota-Sioux say he's an ancestor and you're racist if you want to test DNA to confirm (not that DNA could ever show tribal membership). If you pay big bucks they'll let you test, but the right to do anything with the results will depend on the tribe's assessment of your results. Repatriation laws as they exist are cancer. Of course, tenured academics have strong incentive to support the paradigm that doesn't require any real work, so there's that.
  - einpoklum 4y ago
    The thing is, the context of such arguments may be an attempt by some pipeline-laying, mining or real-estate company to put their hands on ancestral native american lands. A lot of incentive to claim "we science-d it up and it's all fine and we can take your land."
    - simonh 4y ago
      I don't buy the argument that, because these other people might abuse the science for political or commercial ends, therefore it's ok for some other people to abuse the science for their own ends. Let's just fight abuse of the science.
      - the-smug-one 4y ago
        I don't buy the way you're constructing your argument! You're saying that both party A and party B wants to "abuse the science for political or commercial ends". But the political ends of party B is to prevent the destruction of their native lands, including the historical artifacts within that land, by party A. One of these is defensive, only abusing the system to prevent destructive abuse, and one is offensive. >Let's just fight abuse of the science. We'd all love this, I think. But what about before that? I don't think it's in our interests to not use the rules to our advantage before a new ruleset (that's non-abusive) has been put in place.
jl6 4y ago
comeonbrandon 4y ago
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kbrkbr 4y ago
I’m honestly shocked every time I read something like this. My first reaction is: where did this go so wrong? “Scepticism is violence”? Scepticism once was science! And everything I learned points to that it should be so. But then I think that I maybe get something wrong. Maybe I miss something on a deep level. Because so many seem to embrace “this” whatever it is. I can’t understand it. Can anyone?
- i_dont_know_ 4y ago
  I think many sciences understand that there's a dominant narrative that isn't always right... for instance, we've had a tendency to write and look at history as a succession of important, pivotal men. In this very outdated view, the reason the Tudor period in England was the way it was is because of Henry VIII and that's all that's important to say about it. More modern historians try to answer the questions about what life and society was like back then, and how that whole story of society shaped events more than just the politicking and daily lives of the most powerful monarch. So, for history, you have a 'classical' approach of just focusing on the politics and intrigues of the most powerful, and you have a more 'modern' holistic way of going about it. I'd argue the latter is better, but to get there, there had to be some moments of open-mindedness and willingness to look at it from other angles. My best guess is that many social sciences, including anthropology, are also undergoing some sort of 'classical' vs 'modern' approach, which I think is ultimately a good thing. There used to be a time in the not-so-distant past where anthropologists would find, say, calendars that would count down 28 days and go "why would the men back then make a calendar that counts lunar cycles?" without ever thinking that maybe a woman made the calendar for herself. I think we're better off with a collective practice of anthropology that's capable of thinking those kinds of thoughts. That having been said, though, I wouldn't want to be an anthropologist right now. It feels like they're throwing so many assumptions up in the air and questioning everything to the point that they can't really do studies of substance. Like the whole bit about studying violence in native American cultures... doing such studies might impact the way those cultures are seen today, but surely there's a way to still study it in a way to mitigate those consequences? Surely it doesn't mean we can't even think about studying it? I dunno, I think long-term we'll get a better anthropology practice out of all of this (I read a great but somewhat controversial book called "The Dawn of Everything" recently touching on some of this) but looking at it from the middle of the process without having any idea where it's going... it looks and probably is quite frustrating.
kome 4y ago
This is also true for sociology in the US. An interesting trend tho: élite universities keep some positivist or modernist pockets, the others are fully gone post-modern, mostly just following fads.
jsbdkdbcjcndkd 4y ago
aaron695 4y ago
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082349872349872 4y ago
Stipulating that "Anthropology [is] in Ruins", could you all please inform me what has been lost? Physics and Electrical Engineering can point to, eg, GPS/ГЛОНАСС/GALILEO/北斗 as an example of successful application. Being ignorant of CP Snow's other culture, I am not aware of any major results from Anthropology; what are some?
ramraj07 4y ago
- maweki 4y ago
  > some kind of weird conspiracy theory that there was no systematic problem in children murdered in those orphanages and schools in Canada GPR is not magic. When ground penetrating radar does show a disturbance, that is not proof of a burial site and everybody presenting it as such, probably has an agenda as well. Even in the context of the (highly problematic) "orphanages", a ground disturbance alone does not make a grave site. So being sceptical until at least an exploratory dig at that point, is not necessarily a "weird conspiracy theory that there was no systematic problem" but justified scepticism, whether GPR data was interpreted correctly. Edit: Being sceptical of the existence of a burial site at this specific location is not the same as seeing no systematic problem in that system of "schooling" in Canada.
  - ramraj07 4y ago
    This maybe true. I agree skepticism should be warranted and pursued. I just don’t know if this person is who should be trusted in making judgements about the entire field from one of their field reports to one conference. For someone who complained about lack of rigor (a mom wrote a paper based on her experience) she wrote a long tirade based on just her experience with no indication of objectivity either.
    - maweki 4y ago
      I truly believe that a blog post recapping my personal experience and a paper submitted to a conference have different standards of rigor. At least my blog posts have little less rigor than my scientific publications. But that might just be me.
- tgv 4y ago
  > This author seems to [...] insist that all appropriation of samples and artifacts from communities is justified by the studies I did not get that from the article. > Also some kind of weird conspiracy theory that there was no systematic problem in children murdered in those orphanages and schools in Canada. The talk did not present any evidence for the particular school that was the topic of the talk. > But to give this individual any place in the discussion seems like asking Kanye West to come and talk in a round table about Zionism or something. That conclusion is totally unwarranted. It's precisely the kind of attack I was expecting to hit her, just not so soon, and not here. The author is worried about the state of her field, because so many of the conference talks were highly subjective, and you almost make a Godwin by comparing her to an unhinged individual who made racist remarks to a large audience.
Ste_Evans 4y ago
vector_spaces 4y ago
It's worth keeping in mind that Minding the Campus is run by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative-libertarian think tank. It's very "weird" how lately these proxy sites pushing socially conservative agendas that turn out to be run by conservative think tanks have been landing and languishing on the front page here
- tgv 4y ago
  If you take that approach, don't mind if everybody starts ignoring everything that might be related to an organization pushing an agenda. You're basically advocating that everyone stays in their own echo chamber, an anti-scientific attitude if there ever was one.
  - vlz 4y ago
    That does not seem like a fair assessment. The OP said „it is worth keeping in mind“ not „ignore the article“. I think it is worth keeping in mind. The article still stands and the questions it raises against the current state of the authors field are still valid. Don‘t get drawn into thinking there are always just two sides.
    - nosianu 4y ago
      > The OP said „it is worth keeping in mind“ But nothing of substance, only innuendo. What does that particular phrase even mean? It stops before actually saying anything. > Don‘t get drawn into thinking there are always just two sides. Exactly what I mean. What is your point, when you actually apply it to the current blog post and discussion? Also, "always two sides" does not mean two sides worth spending equal amounts of time on. We've also had "two sides" for climate change and vaccines since forever, basically, for any topic you can find people with a different opinion. But knowing that alone is kind of useless. No, pointing to somebody's origin or affiliations alone does not provide any value. It can be - if you start from there and become more concrete with respect to the specific text we are looking at. Strangely enough, this kind of statement also is the exact opposite of what is the purported goals, e.g. being against "racism": Mere affiliation is seen as sufficient as an argument against somebody and all their work, without even the tiniest bit of effort at actually looking at what they have. I sure don't mind somebody pointing out such affiliations - but I would at the very least want to see at least a token effort of them looking at the evidence in front of them in form of the text being discussed.
fxtentacle 4y ago
They certainly seem to have a rather impractical ideology: Leischner, who described herself as a “white settler” from a “multigeneration of settlers [and] ancestor-farmers,” noted that captured audio (even when the indigenous sold these recordings) evinces an “extraction mindset” akin to mining resources from the land. In her work with the Nuxalk, Leischner decided not to record any of the interviews, so as not to continue the legacy of extraction.
- l0b0 4y ago
  Making any transcriptions, translations, interpretations, etc completely unfalsifiable. If anyone is actually doing this they are either a con artist or just devoid of any idea of how science works.
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  I don't even understand what is being "extracted" in the first place. If I go and take coal, diamonds, fish, what-have-you: yeah, there's a problem here. But learning about people's cultures...? How is that even remotely similar to mining? Do they now have less culture to share amongst themselves because The White Man came and "extracted" some of it? There was a story some months ago on HN about an anthropologist recording a dying language with just a few speakers left. They described just how eager many of the elderly people were to share their language and culture, glad their heritage wouldn't completely perish when they would. It's my experience most people are happy and willing to share their culture. Exceptions apply for some cultures, but the Nuxalk people here agreed to do the interviews, so I presume they were in the "happy to share" camp. And all it takes is a few words: "do you mind of I record it?" Here she is making the decision for the indigenous people instead of empowering them to make their own decisions. I believe there is a word to describe that sort of thing...
- rubslopes 4y ago
  Isn't she extracting information, just by talking to them? Shame on her, then.
throwawayfear 4y ago
woke is a cult that is deteriorating our institutional ability to innovate and perform. it seems intentional at this point.
igorkraw 4y ago
- paul_funyun 4y ago
  If you don't want to look at human remains, what are you doing at an academic presentation about human remains? It's not some anthropology mystery box, attendees have some idea of what the presentation will be about.
- incrudible 4y ago
  People are just getting tired of critical theory. Heard it once, heard it all. It adds nothing of substance. Which would be fine, if it did not get in the way of actual research.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean, Catholic churches and tombs do get studied. Including historical human remains. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34031599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34031599
  - igorkraw 4y ago
    And if the community served by Notre dame consented that's fine. But I have been in places in Italy that specifically shut down the mass and certain parts of the churches to tourists because people use these places to have communion with God. The whole point is about respecting the communities you want to research. You can replace catholics with whatever group you identify as, and the taboo being violated by whatever thing you find is the red line
    - Beltalowda 4y ago
      But no one is argueing we should be allowed to just do whatever and waltz all over people's wishes, of course there are limits, and of course we should take people's beliefs and traditions in to account. I don't think there is any serious researcher left who feels any different, even though there might be disagreement on where the limits are exactly. And that's really what this is about: what is reasonable? If a group doesn't want to learn about past acts of violence and prohibits anyone else from studying it, is that reasonable? Are the victims of said violence also not entitled to this research? Italian Churches may close their doors, as is their right, but Italian churches aren't preventing entire areas of research from happening. Churches did in the past, and still try today at times, and people generally aren't too positive about that. Even most hard-core young-earth creationists don't really make any effort to stop research from happening: instead they do their own "research" in an attempt to refute the genuine research. I would say that a large part of why Western culture has slowly becoming more liberal and empathic over the centuries is the study of history, and understanding what happened, and more importantly why. I would strongly encourage everyone to object to anything they don't like, either as an individual or as a group, but I think it's foolish to simply shrug and accept any objection without any examination on how reasonable it is. "I don't want you to take a picture of me" is reasonable. "I don't want you to take a picture of anyone of my ethnic group" is not.
wokwokwok 4y ago
- bilirubin 4y ago
bilirubin 4y ago
Asooka 4y ago
The self-flaggelation will continue until funding for it stops.
rhn_mk1 4y ago
What are the quoted session titles meant to illustrate? I thought those were meant to show poor research quality, and whereas "unsettling" does imply bias, I can't see anything special in “Pronouns, Bottoms, Cat-Ears And Cuerpes, Girl: For An Intersectional Trans Linguistic Anthropology”. It seems like research on a linguistic trend.
- fastball 4y ago
  I think a big part of the author's issue is the focus on current anthropological "study" rather than historical anthropological science – both when it comes to the things studied (their issue with the talk you mention) but also when it comes to priorities, e.g. caring too much (my impression of author's opinion) about whether or not something is sacred / etc. Clearly the author is a person that likes anthropology for what it can tell us about history and the past and prefers to do this in a way that is as strongly scientific as possible (read: falsifiable). Whether or not her version of anthropology is the right one is up to the reader. As with a lot of modern science there is a lot of jockying for funding, and Weiss is potentially venting frustration that such things are getting funding in place of work she finds more important / productive.
cvlmoi 4y ago
> Most famously, it included a paper in which an anthropologist kept a masturbation diary about his self-pleasure while viewing Japanese anime-pornography It's even worse than it sounds if you click through the link in the article. This guy wrote an entire paper on how he felt while whacking himself off to child porn. Disgusting. At least the paper was retracted, though I'm amazed the editors let it through in the first place - and with such glowing praise.
- nunez 4y ago
  Amazing that they praised it given how apologist their retraction note seemed.
cardanome 4y ago
Note that one of the two papers she quoted as evidence for the claimed growing trend of "Anthropology of the self" has been retracted: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14687941221096600 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14687941221096... The rest of the article also seems to be mostly hot air. Respecting whether people want to be touched or prefer distance? Woke horror! Being accessible to blind people? Ridiculous! Reflecting about colonialism and problematic aspects of anthropology? I better clutch my pearls even harder! Caring about the wishes of indigenous people? Literally 1984 Now yes we might have a discussion about Anthropology "over correcting" a bit too much in certain aspects but not with right-wing media that tries to push a certain narrative. (Like I do think professionals should be able to cope with seeing pictures of mummies. You don't really need to have a trigger warning for every image, just one general warning for the whole presentation. But hey, it's a nice gesture. People trying to be mindful of other people is hardly the beginning of a woke dictatorship though.)
- fastball 4y ago
  Isn't the retraction of the paper the author's point? That people are pushing nonsense and it is getting into "peer-reviewed" journals? The rest of your comment doesn't really follow the HN guidelines when it comes to the principle of charity – you seem to be trying to deliberately come up with the worst possible interpretation of each point rather than actually attempting to have a constructive conversation about these things.
  - vector_spaces 4y ago
    The article is similar though. The "gaze" of the reader is doing all the heavy lifting here. Weiss is relying on us finding e.g. the ribbons indicating proximity preferences, and all the talk titles and so on as silly and as ridiculous as she does. What exactly is there left to engage with when you remove the bad faith ranting against her peers and junior researchers? Personally I don't think the original article itself meets site guidelines. It's culture war content, it's entirely in bad faith, and it's inviting (for the most part) really ugly and uninteresting discussion. There's little to seriously engage with here in a way that meets site guidelines
nunez 4y ago
I found this interesting comment about the author of this piece: > For some context, Elizabeth Weiss was locked out of research materials from her own place of employment because she was a racist and unprofessional, so much so that her department literally held a panel called “What to Do When One of Your Tenured Professors is a Racist”. She’s been called out for being unprofessional by multiple anthropological organizations and a number of other experts in her field. > You can take the redneck out of Arkansas…. I then found this article while doing a super quick Google on this claim: https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/02/01/professor-who-drew-ire-for-photo-with-native-american-skull-sues-san-jose-state-officials/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/02/01/professor-who-drew-ir... I also found this, which might be the origin of her being labelled as racist: https://www.cal-catholic.com/san-jose-state-accuses-elizabeth-weiss-of-scientific-racism/ https://www.cal-catholic.com/san-jose-state-accuses-elizabet... Specifically: "On December 18, 2020, San Jose State University Associate Anthropology Professor A.J. Faas sent an email to his department promoting a new website that encouraged scholars to cite the work of black academics in their research. Called CiteBlackAuthors.com, it was started in the wake of the death of Minneapolis man George Floyd at the hands of police. “Help us spread the word and the WORK of Black, academic professionals,” Faas wrote. But one member of the department, Professor Elizabeth Weiss, offered a contrary viewpoint. “Although the intent of Cite Black Authors may be well-meaning,” Weiss, who is tenured, wrote back to her colleagues, “as a scholar in search of objective knowledge, I encourage researchers to look for the best source material and realize that an author’s ethnicity, race, or color of their skin has no actual bearing on the validity of their contribution.” Months later, Weiss’ department chair, Roberto Gonzalez, would publicly criticize her, saying she responded to the Cite Black Authors email in an “extremely insensitive way." I don't know who to believe. On one hand, I can understand someone being pissed about going to talks that don't live up to their headlines or speakers inserting their political views into ill-fitting places. On the other hand, the author seems to have said some possibly well meaning, but understandably very insensitive things, that makes her look more culturally-insensitive. Regardless, I found this to be a good read as someone who knows nothing about anthropology.
- kodyo 4y ago
  She said to look for the best source material, regardless of the author's immutable characteristics. Isn't that what you expect from scientists?
kodyo 4y ago
Somebody wasn't minding the door and post-modern Marxists snuck in. Now they've Theorized your science and they get to define what the proper way of knowing is, and what it means to be an expert. Don't argue, or you're racist/sexist/homophobic.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

163 points by barry-cotter 4y ago

Sounds like an AA meeting with powerpoints. Avoiding research of which natives disapprove, collecting data, or digging up bones and artifacts is an easy way to make a living, but not something to subsidize with grants or taxpayer funds. Quit paying academics not to do anthropology; at worst you'll get the same results for free.

HideousKojima 4y ago

It's the same for every field these days. A relative of mine, as part of his bar association continuing education requirements, attended a seminar on helping minority juvenile defendants. Instead of teaching useful things that might actually help these kids like, y'know, strategies for securing better plea deals for your clients, the whole thing was about recognizing the white privilege inherent in the justice system etc etc yadda yadda.

paul_funyun 4y ago
CLE requirements are and always have been nothing more than a handout to providers. The jurisdictions that don't have them are doing fine. The best thing you can do if you're sitting at a CLE is complete another CLE on your laptop so you don't have to waste any more time on that crap than necessary. Edit: Correction; high-end ones are an excuse for big law lawyers to booze and schmooze on the company dime.

pram 4y ago

seydor 4y ago

I don't know what happened to anthropology but this attitude has indeed ruined it as a science. Asking any question that relates to physical attributes leads to immediate branding as racist. Any talk of genetics is met with a chorus of "epigenetics" , without even understanding how those work. When did it become so extreme that questions aren't even allowed. An example of such a question: "How has lactose intolerance affected european cultures, and what other historical cultural traits are influenced by genetics"

paul_funyun 4y ago
When they passed laws that put tribal myths on the same level as western science. Found a 10,000 year old skeleton? Sorry, the Lakota-Sioux say he's an ancestor and you're racist if you want to test DNA to confirm (not that DNA could ever show tribal membership). If you pay big bucks they'll let you test, but the right to do anything with the results will depend on the tribe's assessment of your results. Repatriation laws as they exist are cancer. Of course, tenured academics have strong incentive to support the paradigm that doesn't require any real work, so there's that.
- einpoklum 4y ago
  The thing is, the context of such arguments may be an attempt by some pipeline-laying, mining or real-estate company to put their hands on ancestral native american lands. A lot of incentive to claim "we science-d it up and it's all fine and we can take your land."
  - simonh 4y ago
    I don't buy the argument that, because these other people might abuse the science for political or commercial ends, therefore it's ok for some other people to abuse the science for their own ends. Let's just fight abuse of the science.
    - the-smug-one 4y ago
      I don't buy the way you're constructing your argument! You're saying that both party A and party B wants to "abuse the science for political or commercial ends". But the political ends of party B is to prevent the destruction of their native lands, including the historical artifacts within that land, by party A. One of these is defensive, only abusing the system to prevent destructive abuse, and one is offensive. >Let's just fight abuse of the science. We'd all love this, I think. But what about before that? I don't think it's in our interests to not use the rules to our advantage before a new ruleset (that's non-abusive) has been put in place.

jl6 4y ago

comeonbrandon 4y ago

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kbrkbr 4y ago

I’m honestly shocked every time I read something like this. My first reaction is: where did this go so wrong? “Scepticism is violence”? Scepticism once was science! And everything I learned points to that it should be so. But then I think that I maybe get something wrong. Maybe I miss something on a deep level. Because so many seem to embrace “this” whatever it is. I can’t understand it. Can anyone?

i_dont_know_ 4y ago
I think many sciences understand that there's a dominant narrative that isn't always right... for instance, we've had a tendency to write and look at history as a succession of important, pivotal men. In this very outdated view, the reason the Tudor period in England was the way it was is because of Henry VIII and that's all that's important to say about it. More modern historians try to answer the questions about what life and society was like back then, and how that whole story of society shaped events more than just the politicking and daily lives of the most powerful monarch. So, for history, you have a 'classical' approach of just focusing on the politics and intrigues of the most powerful, and you have a more 'modern' holistic way of going about it. I'd argue the latter is better, but to get there, there had to be some moments of open-mindedness and willingness to look at it from other angles. My best guess is that many social sciences, including anthropology, are also undergoing some sort of 'classical' vs 'modern' approach, which I think is ultimately a good thing. There used to be a time in the not-so-distant past where anthropologists would find, say, calendars that would count down 28 days and go "why would the men back then make a calendar that counts lunar cycles?" without ever thinking that maybe a woman made the calendar for herself. I think we're better off with a collective practice of anthropology that's capable of thinking those kinds of thoughts. That having been said, though, I wouldn't want to be an anthropologist right now. It feels like they're throwing so many assumptions up in the air and questioning everything to the point that they can't really do studies of substance. Like the whole bit about studying violence in native American cultures... doing such studies might impact the way those cultures are seen today, but surely there's a way to still study it in a way to mitigate those consequences? Surely it doesn't mean we can't even think about studying it? I dunno, I think long-term we'll get a better anthropology practice out of all of this (I read a great but somewhat controversial book called "The Dawn of Everything" recently touching on some of this) but looking at it from the middle of the process without having any idea where it's going... it looks and probably is quite frustrating.

kome 4y ago

This is also true for sociology in the US. An interesting trend tho: élite universities keep some positivist or modernist pockets, the others are fully gone post-modern, mostly just following fads.

jsbdkdbcjcndkd 4y ago

aaron695 4y ago

[dead]

082349872349872 4y ago

Stipulating that "Anthropology [is] in Ruins", could you all please inform me what has been lost? Physics and Electrical Engineering can point to, eg, GPS/ГЛОНАСС/GALILEO/北斗 as an example of successful application. Being ignorant of CP Snow's other culture, I am not aware of any major results from Anthropology; what are some?

ramraj07 4y ago

maweki 4y ago
> some kind of weird conspiracy theory that there was no systematic problem in children murdered in those orphanages and schools in Canada GPR is not magic. When ground penetrating radar does show a disturbance, that is not proof of a burial site and everybody presenting it as such, probably has an agenda as well. Even in the context of the (highly problematic) "orphanages", a ground disturbance alone does not make a grave site. So being sceptical until at least an exploratory dig at that point, is not necessarily a "weird conspiracy theory that there was no systematic problem" but justified scepticism, whether GPR data was interpreted correctly. Edit: Being sceptical of the existence of a burial site at this specific location is not the same as seeing no systematic problem in that system of "schooling" in Canada.
- ramraj07 4y ago
  This maybe true. I agree skepticism should be warranted and pursued. I just don’t know if this person is who should be trusted in making judgements about the entire field from one of their field reports to one conference. For someone who complained about lack of rigor (a mom wrote a paper based on her experience) she wrote a long tirade based on just her experience with no indication of objectivity either.
  - maweki 4y ago
    I truly believe that a blog post recapping my personal experience and a paper submitted to a conference have different standards of rigor. At least my blog posts have little less rigor than my scientific publications. But that might just be me.
tgv 4y ago
> This author seems to [...] insist that all appropriation of samples and artifacts from communities is justified by the studies I did not get that from the article. > Also some kind of weird conspiracy theory that there was no systematic problem in children murdered in those orphanages and schools in Canada. The talk did not present any evidence for the particular school that was the topic of the talk. > But to give this individual any place in the discussion seems like asking Kanye West to come and talk in a round table about Zionism or something. That conclusion is totally unwarranted. It's precisely the kind of attack I was expecting to hit her, just not so soon, and not here. The author is worried about the state of her field, because so many of the conference talks were highly subjective, and you almost make a Godwin by comparing her to an unhinged individual who made racist remarks to a large audience.

Ste_Evans 4y ago

vector_spaces 4y ago

It's worth keeping in mind that Minding the Campus is run by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative-libertarian think tank. It's very "weird" how lately these proxy sites pushing socially conservative agendas that turn out to be run by conservative think tanks have been landing and languishing on the front page here

tgv 4y ago
If you take that approach, don't mind if everybody starts ignoring everything that might be related to an organization pushing an agenda. You're basically advocating that everyone stays in their own echo chamber, an anti-scientific attitude if there ever was one.
- vlz 4y ago
  That does not seem like a fair assessment. The OP said „it is worth keeping in mind“ not „ignore the article“. I think it is worth keeping in mind. The article still stands and the questions it raises against the current state of the authors field are still valid. Don‘t get drawn into thinking there are always just two sides.
  - nosianu 4y ago
    > The OP said „it is worth keeping in mind“ But nothing of substance, only innuendo. What does that particular phrase even mean? It stops before actually saying anything. > Don‘t get drawn into thinking there are always just two sides. Exactly what I mean. What is your point, when you actually apply it to the current blog post and discussion? Also, "always two sides" does not mean two sides worth spending equal amounts of time on. We've also had "two sides" for climate change and vaccines since forever, basically, for any topic you can find people with a different opinion. But knowing that alone is kind of useless. No, pointing to somebody's origin or affiliations alone does not provide any value. It can be - if you start from there and become more concrete with respect to the specific text we are looking at. Strangely enough, this kind of statement also is the exact opposite of what is the purported goals, e.g. being against "racism": Mere affiliation is seen as sufficient as an argument against somebody and all their work, without even the tiniest bit of effort at actually looking at what they have. I sure don't mind somebody pointing out such affiliations - but I would at the very least want to see at least a token effort of them looking at the evidence in front of them in form of the text being discussed.

fxtentacle 4y ago

They certainly seem to have a rather impractical ideology: Leischner, who described herself as a “white settler” from a “multigeneration of settlers [and] ancestor-farmers,” noted that captured audio (even when the indigenous sold these recordings) evinces an “extraction mindset” akin to mining resources from the land. In her work with the Nuxalk, Leischner decided not to record any of the interviews, so as not to continue the legacy of extraction.

l0b0 4y ago
Making any transcriptions, translations, interpretations, etc completely unfalsifiable. If anyone is actually doing this they are either a con artist or just devoid of any idea of how science works.
Beltalowda 4y ago
I don't even understand what is being "extracted" in the first place. If I go and take coal, diamonds, fish, what-have-you: yeah, there's a problem here. But learning about people's cultures...? How is that even remotely similar to mining? Do they now have less culture to share amongst themselves because The White Man came and "extracted" some of it? There was a story some months ago on HN about an anthropologist recording a dying language with just a few speakers left. They described just how eager many of the elderly people were to share their language and culture, glad their heritage wouldn't completely perish when they would. It's my experience most people are happy and willing to share their culture. Exceptions apply for some cultures, but the Nuxalk people here agreed to do the interviews, so I presume they were in the "happy to share" camp. And all it takes is a few words: "do you mind of I record it?" Here she is making the decision for the indigenous people instead of empowering them to make their own decisions. I believe there is a word to describe that sort of thing...
rubslopes 4y ago
Isn't she extracting information, just by talking to them? Shame on her, then.

throwawayfear 4y ago

woke is a cult that is deteriorating our institutional ability to innovate and perform. it seems intentional at this point.

igorkraw 4y ago

paul_funyun 4y ago
If you don't want to look at human remains, what are you doing at an academic presentation about human remains? It's not some anthropology mystery box, attendees have some idea of what the presentation will be about.
incrudible 4y ago
People are just getting tired of critical theory. Heard it once, heard it all. It adds nothing of substance. Which would be fine, if it did not get in the way of actual research.
zozbot234 4y ago
I'm not sure what you mean, Catholic churches and tombs do get studied. Including historical human remains. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34031599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34031599
- igorkraw 4y ago
  And if the community served by Notre dame consented that's fine. But I have been in places in Italy that specifically shut down the mass and certain parts of the churches to tourists because people use these places to have communion with God. The whole point is about respecting the communities you want to research. You can replace catholics with whatever group you identify as, and the taboo being violated by whatever thing you find is the red line
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    But no one is argueing we should be allowed to just do whatever and waltz all over people's wishes, of course there are limits, and of course we should take people's beliefs and traditions in to account. I don't think there is any serious researcher left who feels any different, even though there might be disagreement on where the limits are exactly. And that's really what this is about: what is reasonable? If a group doesn't want to learn about past acts of violence and prohibits anyone else from studying it, is that reasonable? Are the victims of said violence also not entitled to this research? Italian Churches may close their doors, as is their right, but Italian churches aren't preventing entire areas of research from happening. Churches did in the past, and still try today at times, and people generally aren't too positive about that. Even most hard-core young-earth creationists don't really make any effort to stop research from happening: instead they do their own "research" in an attempt to refute the genuine research. I would say that a large part of why Western culture has slowly becoming more liberal and empathic over the centuries is the study of history, and understanding what happened, and more importantly why. I would strongly encourage everyone to object to anything they don't like, either as an individual or as a group, but I think it's foolish to simply shrug and accept any objection without any examination on how reasonable it is. "I don't want you to take a picture of me" is reasonable. "I don't want you to take a picture of anyone of my ethnic group" is not.

wokwokwok 4y ago

bilirubin 4y ago

bilirubin 4y ago

Asooka 4y ago

The self-flaggelation will continue until funding for it stops.

rhn_mk1 4y ago

What are the quoted session titles meant to illustrate? I thought those were meant to show poor research quality, and whereas "unsettling" does imply bias, I can't see anything special in “Pronouns, Bottoms, Cat-Ears And Cuerpes, Girl: For An Intersectional Trans Linguistic Anthropology”. It seems like research on a linguistic trend.

fastball 4y ago
I think a big part of the author's issue is the focus on current anthropological "study" rather than historical anthropological science – both when it comes to the things studied (their issue with the talk you mention) but also when it comes to priorities, e.g. caring too much (my impression of author's opinion) about whether or not something is sacred / etc. Clearly the author is a person that likes anthropology for what it can tell us about history and the past and prefers to do this in a way that is as strongly scientific as possible (read: falsifiable). Whether or not her version of anthropology is the right one is up to the reader. As with a lot of modern science there is a lot of jockying for funding, and Weiss is potentially venting frustration that such things are getting funding in place of work she finds more important / productive.

cvlmoi 4y ago

> Most famously, it included a paper in which an anthropologist kept a masturbation diary about his self-pleasure while viewing Japanese anime-pornography It's even worse than it sounds if you click through the link in the article. This guy wrote an entire paper on how he felt while whacking himself off to child porn. Disgusting. At least the paper was retracted, though I'm amazed the editors let it through in the first place - and with such glowing praise.

nunez 4y ago
Amazing that they praised it given how apologist their retraction note seemed.

cardanome 4y ago

Note that one of the two papers she quoted as evidence for the claimed growing trend of "Anthropology of the self" has been retracted: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14687941221096600 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14687941221096... The rest of the article also seems to be mostly hot air. Respecting whether people want to be touched or prefer distance? Woke horror! Being accessible to blind people? Ridiculous! Reflecting about colonialism and problematic aspects of anthropology? I better clutch my pearls even harder! Caring about the wishes of indigenous people? Literally 1984 Now yes we might have a discussion about Anthropology "over correcting" a bit too much in certain aspects but not with right-wing media that tries to push a certain narrative. (Like I do think professionals should be able to cope with seeing pictures of mummies. You don't really need to have a trigger warning for every image, just one general warning for the whole presentation. But hey, it's a nice gesture. People trying to be mindful of other people is hardly the beginning of a woke dictatorship though.)

fastball 4y ago
Isn't the retraction of the paper the author's point? That people are pushing nonsense and it is getting into "peer-reviewed" journals? The rest of your comment doesn't really follow the HN guidelines when it comes to the principle of charity – you seem to be trying to deliberately come up with the worst possible interpretation of each point rather than actually attempting to have a constructive conversation about these things.
- vector_spaces 4y ago
  The article is similar though. The "gaze" of the reader is doing all the heavy lifting here. Weiss is relying on us finding e.g. the ribbons indicating proximity preferences, and all the talk titles and so on as silly and as ridiculous as she does. What exactly is there left to engage with when you remove the bad faith ranting against her peers and junior researchers? Personally I don't think the original article itself meets site guidelines. It's culture war content, it's entirely in bad faith, and it's inviting (for the most part) really ugly and uninteresting discussion. There's little to seriously engage with here in a way that meets site guidelines

nunez 4y ago

I found this interesting comment about the author of this piece: > For some context, Elizabeth Weiss was locked out of research materials from her own place of employment because she was a racist and unprofessional, so much so that her department literally held a panel called “What to Do When One of Your Tenured Professors is a Racist”. She’s been called out for being unprofessional by multiple anthropological organizations and a number of other experts in her field. > You can take the redneck out of Arkansas…. I then found this article while doing a super quick Google on this claim: https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/02/01/professor-who-drew-ire-for-photo-with-native-american-skull-sues-san-jose-state-officials/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/02/01/professor-who-drew-ir... I also found this, which might be the origin of her being labelled as racist: https://www.cal-catholic.com/san-jose-state-accuses-elizabeth-weiss-of-scientific-racism/ https://www.cal-catholic.com/san-jose-state-accuses-elizabet... Specifically: "On December 18, 2020, San Jose State University Associate Anthropology Professor A.J. Faas sent an email to his department promoting a new website that encouraged scholars to cite the work of black academics in their research. Called CiteBlackAuthors.com, it was started in the wake of the death of Minneapolis man George Floyd at the hands of police. “Help us spread the word and the WORK of Black, academic professionals,” Faas wrote. But one member of the department, Professor Elizabeth Weiss, offered a contrary viewpoint. “Although the intent of Cite Black Authors may be well-meaning,” Weiss, who is tenured, wrote back to her colleagues, “as a scholar in search of objective knowledge, I encourage researchers to look for the best source material and realize that an author’s ethnicity, race, or color of their skin has no actual bearing on the validity of their contribution.” Months later, Weiss’ department chair, Roberto Gonzalez, would publicly criticize her, saying she responded to the Cite Black Authors email in an “extremely insensitive way." I don't know who to believe. On one hand, I can understand someone being pissed about going to talks that don't live up to their headlines or speakers inserting their political views into ill-fitting places. On the other hand, the author seems to have said some possibly well meaning, but understandably very insensitive things, that makes her look more culturally-insensitive. Regardless, I found this to be a good read as someone who knows nothing about anthropology.

kodyo 4y ago
She said to look for the best source material, regardless of the author's immutable characteristics. Isn't that what you expect from scientists?

kodyo 4y ago

Somebody wasn't minding the door and post-modern Marxists snuck in. Now they've Theorized your science and they get to define what the proper way of knowing is, and what it means to be an expert. Don't argue, or you're racist/sexist/homophobic.

deleted 4y ago

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