Archive for april, 2009
Technology is culture!
Posted by Johanna in Anthropology on april 27th, 2009
Christopher Kelty in his book 2bits, claims that Free Software is an expression of culture in the sense that culture, as well as Free Software is an ongoing ever changing process. What differs culture and Free Software is that the latter threaten and presupposes a reorientation of power and knowledge as we know it and that availability modificability and reusability are the main ingredient in this process of reorientation. Neither the Free Software or the platform that the internet constitutes are stable and unchanging concepts, therefore they are two concepts that are in process of reorientation 24/7. The culture of Free Software builds on the past and reconfigures its features in an eternal process of modification. ‘modificability is a way of making flexible, modifiable infrastructures like the internet as safe as permanent, inflexible ones like roads and bridges’ (Kelty 2008:12). The public sphere of Free Software has its basis in the social imagination of its creators, re-inventors and users.
On this note I would like to stress the parallel to the concept of Free Software and the concept of culture. Both have a shared meaning, ethics and moral as its core. And culture is always related to history, the past is in the present and culture is also being reinvented and has a changing character with the shared concepts of meaning at its core. The same can be said about Free Software. Availability, reusability and modifiability are at the heart of the reorientation that makes Free Software so radical.
My first fieldwork
Posted by Johanna in Anthropology, Gender on april 24th, 2009
Years before I knew I wanted to become an Anthropologist, age 18 I was about to graduate from gymnasium, embarking on my last assignment; projectwork. I chose to talk gender with girls on the verge of adolescence. In a nearby school I found a teacher who lend me her female pupils an hour a week. The girls were about the age of 12 and I conducted discussions, interviews and surveys together with them and presented my findings in a report. My aim with the project was to present alternative discourses on how to be girls, and to strengthen the girls in preparation for the highschool culture that awaited them. Being girl in a transitional phase is something that I can relate to because of my own experience and I wanted to mediate this knowledge to the 12 year old girls. This was my first fieldwork, and my first assignment on the topic of gender. And in a sense my Master thesis work is not so different topic-wise, the difference being that the Delhi girls showed me alternative discourses on womanhood, on my project work in gymnasium I aimed at showing the younger girls alternative discourses. Gender research in focus.
The Abstract
Posted by Johanna in Anthropology, Gender, India on april 21st, 2009
I am about to finish my Master thesis in Anthropology on the topic of gender identity among young middle class girls in Delhi. Since the thesis that is due to be finished within a months time I am publishing the abstract, which is under construction, please feel free to comment or question the following.This thesis attempts to understand the ways in which gender is constructed and negotiated in the everyday lives of young urban girls in Delhi. I have investigated how the Desi girls negotiate their gender identities in relation to what is considered normative in their sociological setting. Approaching the topic of gender I engaged in participant observation including semi structured interviews and spending time with young middle class girls during 2 months in Delhi at the end of 2008. The girls I encountered in the field are all seniors at College and at phase of transition, being young, educated and of marriageable age. This is a portrait of how a selected group of informants negotiate gender and reflects on gender within the future that lies ahead. Using the theoretical framework of discourse analysis I contextualize the informant’s accounts discursively, to frame the opinions expressed during interviews session. I present a specific qualitative study with a selected group of informants.
Key words: Gender, Girls, Middle class, Delhi, Discourse analysis
Top 5 Anthropological books
Posted by Johanna in Anthropology on april 17th, 2009
These are the 5 anthropological books I enjoyed reading the most during my Masters in Anthropology at Stockholm University;It was not easy to make this list, so please feel free to comment with your own top 5 of anthrobooks together we can make the list longer!
Coming of Age in Samoa – By Margaret Mead
India Dreams -By Paolo Favero
Coming of Age in Second Life – By Tom Boellstorff
Selling Crack in El Barrio – Phillippe Bourgois
I en Klass för sig – Fanny Ambjörnsson
Accounts from a popular culture schooled feminist
Posted by Johanna in Gender, Popular culture on april 15th, 2009
My Master thesis in Anthropology is on the topic of “Gender identity among young middle class girls in Delhi”. During my anthropological fieldwork I interacted with Indian College Girls using the method of participant observation in my field, South Delhi. Since I am an anthropologist embarking a gender discussion in my MA, it is necessary for me to reflexively clarify my standpoint and knowledge in this field by tracing events in my own experience that indicates my enthusiasm for researching girls making gender. I begun to reflect on gender when I was the age of my informants, attending gymnasium, when I started noticing how the Swedish society (many times referred to as the most equal country in the world) is gendered and how the inequalities affected me more than my male friends.I am a popular culture schooled feminist. My awareness was awaken by feminists authors and journalists who received a vast amount of attention in the media in the late 90ies in Sweden. The critical feminist writers; Nina Björk, Belinda Olsson, Karolina Ramqvist, Linda Skugge and Fanny Ambjörnsson shared their experiences and helped me shape my feminist identity. These women served as role models for me since they in their writings problematised and pointed out the gender roles in Sweden by sharing self lived stories through popular media channels. Since I found feminism through media channels and not via academia I call myself popular culture schooled feminist.
The Picture of Today
Posted by Johanna in Popular culture on april 13th, 2009
Some Street culture from Warsawa
