Sunday, January 31, 2016

Anthropology agenda: Turkey’s witch hunt on academics include an anthropologist, Sibel Özbudun whose Facebook shares shown as evidence…

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Prof. Özbudun is charged with supporting PKK due to some of her sharings online that are nothing to do with PKK. One of the posts is related to a poem from Can Yücel, a leftist poet [this of course reminds one that Erdoğan was once imprisoned for a poem he recited and he always used that how he was a victim]. The news in Turkish is here. Turkish authorities’ insane attitudes against pro-Kurdish citizens create new legal absurdities everyday now… A Google Scholar search on her works…

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David Bowie, Anthropology, and the Pleasure of Difference

I’m hardly the biggest David Bowie fan in the world, but when I heard he had passed away I knew I the news would make waves in social media. What I didn’t know was how big those waves would be. It was amazing to listen to my friends and colleagues who were old enough to remember the Bowie of the 1970s and 1980s speak about what a difference he had made in their lives. What I heard spoke not just about the musician but the man and his ideas, ideas which — yes, I’m going there — are deeply anthropological.

Sam Beck, senior lecturer in the College of Human Ecology, has co-edited a new volume on the theory and practice of public anthropology. Source: Cornell Chronicle, Mark Vorreuter/College of Human Ecology

Forget God, Interreligious Understanding begins withAnthropology
Patheos (blog)
The single most important question in interreligious dialogue today is not theological. Is anthropological. And it arises because between the different religions there are fundamentally different ways of understanding not merely what it means to be

Digital Ethnography

By Allister Hill
PhD student
Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC)
RMIT University, Melbourne

See other posts under digital ethnography reading group

On Tuesday 15 December we wrapped up the last of the Digital Ethnography Reading Sessions (DERS) for the year by reading the introductory chapter to ‘Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practice’ by DERC’s own collective of esteemed academics – Pink, Horst, Postill, Hjorth, Lewis, & Tacchi (2016). As a concise argument (or perhaps even befuddlement), engaging with this collaboration was a way for to celebrate ‘the reason for the season’, aka why we are all here at the Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC).

Mixed Exhibits: The best of both worlds?

Post by Laia Pujol-Tost:

Archaeology is mostly about materiality. Its epistemological foundation is based on the relationship between humans and the material culture. Some of this objects, will later be displayed in museums to convey interpretations of the past. Yet, as Yannis Hamilakis and other authors have argued, Archaeology is a modern “science”. As such, it is mostly about the eye, and little about the body. On site, it mostly records and analyses visual, spatial, geometrical features. At the museum, this has meant a universal rule of not touching, and objects are isolated in showcases, for the sake of… mutual protection.

Doing remote ethnography

by John Postill
RMIT University
Melbourne

Draft chapter to appear in the RoutledgeCompanion to Digital Ethnography
Eds. Larissa Hjorth, Heather Horst, Anne Galloway & Genevieve Bell
January 2016

See PDF

Abstract

The lack of such northerly sites prior to 45,000 years ago makes it quite likely that this mammoth kill was made by modern humans (it would be quite a coincidence if it was made by Neandertals at the same time as the expansionary Homo sapiens make their appearance all over the rest of Eurasia). If this is right, it’s quite remarkable that by the mid to late 40,000s, modern humans were at ease from the equator to the arctic and from Europe to the remotest parts of Asia.

Science 15 Jan 2016:
Vol. 351, Issue 6270, pp. 260-263

In closing my first AN President’s column, I declared AAA a safe, accessible and shared space that welcomes anthropologists to come together to discuss, deliberate, agree, disagree, and agree to disagree on some of today’s most important and challenging issues. I wished for members to fully engage AAA. Now I write with ways to do so—right now and upcoming this April.

US Anthropology is Imperial, not Universal

academicimperialism

Part Two of: “Canadian Anthropology or Cultural Imperialism?”

Read Part One

Department of Anthropology celebrates their 50th anniversary
The Gateway Online
Over the past 50 years, the University of Alberta‘s Department ofAnthropology, like the cultures it studies, has adapted to the transformations and upheavals in Canadian society. The Department of Anthropology celebrated its 50th anniversary on Jan.8,

Pixel vs Pigment. The goal of Virtual Reality in Archaeology

Savage Minds welcomes guest blogger Colleen Morgan.

Post by Laia Pujol-Tost.

Archaeology has a long tradition of using visual representations to depict the past. For most of its history, images were done by hand and based on artistic skills and conventions. But the last fifteen years, we have witnessed 3D models take over archaeological visualization. It is interesting to note that while hand-drawn depictions tend to show human figures and seem to be associated with scenes of “daily life”, virtual reconstructions mostly show architectural remains and public spaces, usually devoid of people and objects. Yet, authors state that their intention is to represent the past.

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The image that represents the state of higher education in Turkey…

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On the right hand side, you see the head of Turkey’s Higher Education Council…

Erdoğan has called for academics calling for peace: “They can struggle as much as they want. There is no old Turkey anymore where those self-proclaimed wise, calling themselves intellectual, academic used to rule”.
Foundation Universities Communication and Solidarity Network has stated “Foundation Universities are public areas and demanding peace in society and reacting against ones committing crimes against peace constitute actions for public interest”.
President Erdoğan has stepped up his harsh rhetoric against academics who called for an end to military operations in Turkey’s southeast, warning that they would pay the price for “falling into a pit of treachery”
APSA has written an open letter to Turkish President Erdoğan, criticizing the measures against at least 1,128 Turkish academics who signed a petition calling for an end to ongoing military operations in the country’s southeast
Turkish teacher jailed for making rude gesture at President Erdoğan

Woman will serve 11 months and 20 days in prison for making ‘ugly gesture with her hand’ at 2014 political rally

A Turkish court has sentenced a teacher to almost a year in prison for making a rude gesture at President Tayyip Erdoğan at a political rally in 2014, according to local media reports.

A Turkish woman was sentenced to 11 months in prison on Jan. 20 for “insulting” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by shouting and directing a hand gesture toward him in the Aegean province of İzmir in 2014

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In case you missed: Turkish man opens fire on teahouse for ‘overpriced tea’

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Thanks God, only one injured… 
Turkish police were hunting a man who sprayed a teahouse in the northwest of the country with bullets after he took umbrage for being charged “double” for a glass of traditional tea

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.@ecealgan discusses: “The Anatolian Agency and Turkish government spin the news: Does Biden support Academics for Peace or not? …

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A look at the coverage of Biden’s visit to Turkey and the implications of his visit for the peace process with the Kurdish minority and Academics for Peace Initiative

U.S. Vice President Biden’s visit to Turkey last Friday and Saturday (Jan 22-23) was a topsy-turvy one for a number of reasons and for various groups in Turkey from pro-government media institutions to those who want the armed clashes between the Turkish state and Kurdish guerrillas to end, including the ‘Academics for Peace’ signatories. Initially 1128 and now over 2000 Turkish academics are being accused of aiding terrorist organizations through a petition calling for an end to Turkey’s military operations in a number of southeastern provinces and thus, have also become the subject of discussion and target of pro-government media during Biden’s visit………

 

In other news…

HDP Co-Chair Demirtaş has said that fire opened on group of 15 people, 10 people wounded and they couldn’t be taken to hospital.

Gov’t denies talks with Öcalan or PKK heads, vows more military operations

A senior official has denied claims that the government is conducting secret talks with the imprisoned leader of the outlawed PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, or any other PKK leaders, saying operations against PKK militants in east and southeast Turkey will continue
Stating that his wife Başak Demirtaş had received a sick report due to illness, HDP Co-Chair Demirtaş has apologized to his wife and the public for coming in the position of making such a statement.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has found that a jail sentence given to a 15-year-old boy for attending a demonstration in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır in 2008 was disproportionate
University Academic Members Association Board of Directors has announced that it defends the academic liberties and the freedom of expression of the academics.
A group of intellectuals and activists have expressed their support for Academics for Peace Initiative, and informing against themselves declared that they put their signature under the words of academics subjected to investigation.

Support for Academics from 1,500 Health Workers

The text signed by over 1,500 health workers has demanded academics voicing request for peace to remain untouched, peace in the country to be established, and life and keeping people alive to be made of top priority.
No solid legal steps have been taken in the nine years since Armenian-origin journalist Hrant Dink was assassinated outside his office in Istanbul on Jan. 19, 2007, as thousands of people gathered to commemorate the late Agos editor-in-chief on the anniversary of his death
611 academics who haven’t signed the declaration titled “We will not be a party to this crime” signed by 1,128 academics have expressed support for the declaration.

Turkish academics deserve solidarity: the fight for academic freedom is global

One can only conclude that the Turkish Government’s heavy-handed reaction to petitions supporting arrested academics is the continuation of a wider trend of restricting civil liberties and freedom of speech.

Istanbul police suspend students protesting against YOK, November 2015.

Hundreds of academics from around the world have expressed solidarity with their colleagues suspected of terrorism crimes after signing a petition to call for an end to ongoing violence in southeastern Turkey in a statement sent to the Hürriyet Daily News
Hundreds of Turkish academics have expressed solidarity with their colleagues suspected of terrorism crimes after signing a petition to call for an end to ongoing violence in southeastern Turkey in a statement sent to the Hürriyet Daily News
Bülent Bilmez from Bilgi University, slammed the government-led smear against his colleagues and said there is an operation under way against freedom of expression in Turkey. “This campaign has turned into a witch hunt launched in a state of law. None
Okan University Presidency has expressed that opposing all sorts of terror acts and violence is a necessity for respect for human rights and that freedom of expression should be sensitively guarded.
137 student groups and student representations from various universities have said, “We are standing against massacre policies and threats, standing with our lecturers desiring peace”.
Agos Weekly Chief Editor Hrant Dink is being commemorated nine years after his death on the spot where he had been murdered. The crowd is chanting slogans “We are all Hrant, we are all Tahir Elçi”.

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New photo from Facebook January 31, 2016 at 01:05PM

Büyük bir fırtına Brisbane’e (Avustralya) yaklaşıyordu. via Reddit. via Facebook Pages http://ift.tt/1heKubC

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: facebook

Eurosphere agenda: Footballers in Greece stage a sit-in to protest rising migrant deaths…

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Footballers stage migrants protest
Footballers in Greece stage a sit-in protest at the start of a game over the death toll of migrants trying to reach the country.
Making money out of the migrant crisis
The business making money out of the migrant crisis
• All 22 players sit in silence before AEL Larissa versus Acharnaikos
• Club attacks ‘brutal indifference of EU and Turkey’ to refugee crisis
VIDEO: Is this a stolen Picasso?
Police in Turkey have recovered what they say is a stolen painting by Pablo Picasso, in an undercover operation in Istanbul.
VIDEO: ‘Venice Carnival is magical’
Thousands of people have packed the narrow streets of Venice for its annual week-long carnival.

The tensions between Rome and Brussels have intensified, with a tough exchange of words in the light of the unfolding refugee crisis, and a looming banking crisis in Italy.

Politicians in democracies have to listen to their citizens and across the continent there is little appetite for more immigration. Gaining support for an equitable and workable migration policy will take time, eloquence and courage

VIDEO: ‘Police brutality’ at Macedonia border
The Macedonian government has been forced to defend itself against allegations of police brutality, with officers being accused of beating up migrants who try to slip past the recently-built border fence.

Romani women of the Balkans: battling intersectional oppression

Centuries old oppression founded on gender, race, cultural group, and socio-economic class is being challenged by Romani women who are combating their public and private marginalization through initiatives embedded within the Roma identity.

A Romani woman reveals her tattoos in a landfill site. Economic exclusion and poverty have fuelled the local drug and sex trade.

A rough guide to surviving Davos

Your guide to the world’s Alpine business club

Germany-merkel-s-mig_gilm

A 26-year-old Algerian man has become the first person arrested in connection with a string of sexual assaults during New Year’s celebrations in Cologne that sparked a debate about Germany’s ability to integrate migrants.

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