The Familiar Strange

This month on TFS, we are joined by special guests Sophie Pezzutto and Saidalavi P.C., two PhD candidates from the Australian National University. Sophie's research interests are on social media and the gig economy in relation to the transgender community, while Said is working on caste among Muslim communities in Southern India.

Sophie [1:24] starts us off by reflecting on a fight she had during her fieldwork which centred around her being there as both an ethnographer AND as a friend, saying "I think those two roles often conflicted with one another". In this instance, as an ethnographer, we can find conflict when trying to balance those boundaries. As a researcher, you need to take notes to give your research claims evidence, but as a friend you want to establish a kind of sacred trust of confidentiality. Sophie asks us how do we, as anthropologists, balance our duties as researchers and our duties to give back to the community? Where does trust and loyalty come into the equation?

Next, we turn to Said [7:00] who has just returned from fieldwork in Kerala, Southern India. Here, he researched barbery and the gradual shift from home-services to established barbershops, considering how that reflects the status of barbers in Islamic society. In this instance, Said was asked by some barbers: what can you do with this research to change the community? Sophie shares her experience when this situation is reversed, where a researcher feels like they want to advocate for a community, but that isn't reciprocated. Alex tells us that in his field, he had to "keep promising less and less" since he didn't have the level of power that his informants perceived he did. Simon suggests that anthropology has the power to increase understanding and awareness of niche communities or subgroups of a community, and perhaps it is the responsibility of an anthropologist to share knowledge, as Ruth Benedict (*not Margaret Mead) says: "The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences."

Alex [13:09] steers away from the fieldwork reflections and to the thing everyone is talking about right now: corona virus. "[T]he other day, when I was just checking out at Woolworths, and I noticed everyone around me had two twelve-packs of toilet paper... and I gathered that was the ... maximum amount that was socially acceptable to buy at that moment." He asks whether toilet paper and 'panic buying' habits - 'to hoard or not to hoard?' - reflect an individual's perceived social responsibility to the wider community?

Finally, Simon [18.20] ends our panel with the thorny issue of criticism in the academic world. This was brought forth upon learning his thesis was passed with minor corrections - CONGRATULATIONS SIMON! But despite the good news and accepting that the criticisms of his work are valid and constructive, he feels a sense of burnout, like he just doesn't "have the power to keep going”. He asks: what do you do when faced with this situation? Sophie suggests taking a holiday, Alex has found getting some distance from the criticisms can help - so do something else for a while and come back to it - but that is tricky when you are limited by a time constraint. There are different ways to respond to criticism, so how do you respond to criticism?

Links and citations can be found on our website.

This anthropology podcast is supported by the Australian Anthropological Society, the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific and College of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, and is produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association.

Our Patreon can be found at https://www.patreon.com/thefamiliarstrange

Music by Pete Dabro: dabro1.bandcamp.com

Shownotes by Matthew Phung and Deanna Catto

Podcast edited by Simon Theobald and Matthew Phung

“It was a really difficult dilemma for me, because I felt that I needed to stand by my work, but at the same time what was more important was the social movement, because you know, what am I writing for?”

In this episode (which is our first interview of 2020!) we bring you our interview with Dr Amita Baviskar that was recorded at the AAS Conference last year, which Amita was one of the keynote speakers at. Amita is currently based at the Institute of Economic Growth in India, with interests in food, social inequality and ecological politics, author of multiple books including 'In the Belly of the River: Tribal Conflicts over Development in the Narmada Valley', recipient of the 2010 Infosys Prize, and is a visiting fellow at several universities, including Stanford, Cornell, Yale, The Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) and UC Berkeley.

Amita spoke with our very own Alex D'Aloia about her work on the anti-dam movement in the Narmada Valley, India, discussing the controversy that arose among other activists after publication, her tips for early career anthropologists looking to make meaningful anthropology, and wrap up by unpack(ag)ing the meaning behind Maggi 2-minute noodles and how this relates to caste distinctions in India.

We should also mention that this is Alex’s first interview! Let us know what you thought about the interview, or any questions you have about the episode, certain topics you'd like us to tease out more, or just anthropology in general, at either @ TSFTweets on Twitter or search for The Familiar Strange Chats group on Facebook.

For full list of quotes, links and citations, visit our website thefamiliarstrange.com

Our Patreon can be found at https://www.patreon.com/thefamiliarstrange

This anthropology podcast is supported by the Australian Anthropological Society, the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific and College of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, and is produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association.

Music by Pete Dabro: dabro1.bandcamp.com

Shownotes by Matthew Phung and Deanna Catto

Podcast edited by Alex D’Aloia and Matthew Phung

Welcome to our first podcast of 2020! And to kick of the new year season of TFS, we are joined by the lovely Kirsty Wissing, PhD candidate from the School of Culture, History and Language at the Australian National University.

Alex [1:16] begins off our discussion with a bit of activism. Referring to the work of Nancy Scheper-Hughes, he asks: when you're an anthropologist going to generate knowledge about culture, but you are simultaneously an activist (i.e. going into a field to advocate for a certain cause), how does that shape or influence your perspective? Kirsty draws upon her own experience in her research, Jodie questions how this changes in different contexts (particularly when money is involved!), and Simon reminds us to think critically about what 'doing good' means in the discipline. So, is there a way we can be anthropologists and work without partaking in some kind of 'activism'?

Next, Jodie [6:19] pulls us into the world of Fintech. After first assuring us that she isn't referring to fish, she tells us it's "technology that is aiming to make change in financial areas" to eliminate the likelihood of human corruption. So instead of trusting humans to remain honest in these transactions, the human is removed and replaced with technology - which in turn transfers our trust to the tech. What does this say about the current era if we are determined to replace humans with technologies where trust is necessary? How does our relationship with trust and truth reflect that of humans and machines?

Simon [9:10] moves us onto a more harrowing topic - the recent assassination of Qasem Soleimani by the United States. This opens a broader discussion of truth in politics, especially when we compare politics in the West, which is seen as being an inherently 'dirty business' with politics in Iran, where there is a notion that politics should not be dirty, "that it should be a more noble virtue". We try to unpack the differences between what is the truth in politics, and what are rights, and how their relationship can change the political landscape or response to something like a sanctioned assassination. Thoughts?

Lastly, Kirsty [12:49] wraps up our panel this month by drawing on her own research around water and purity in relation to the hydro-power Akosombo Dam in Ghana, which is reflected in the many different truths that surround and encapsulate it: "there are many different ways of telling the same story". Who decides that water is pure? Who has the authority to decide? Is it a question of how water is packaged, or a question of spiritual values? How do ideas of cleanliness show us who is trusted and trustworthy?

Links and Citations can be found on our website https://thefamiliarstrange.com/

This anthropology podcast is supported by the Australian Anthropological Society, the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific and College of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, and is produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association.

Music by Pete Dabro: dabro1.bandcamp.com

Shownotes by Matthew Phung and Deanna Catto

Podcast edited by Matthew Phung and Alexander D'Aloia

Jodie [1:26] begins our panel this month with a recent incident in Canberra, Australia, where a woman was shot by a 'random' gunman. Luckily her wound was not life-threatening. This story was HUGE here, but at the same time the story was released, Australia was (and currently still is in some places) on fire. Jodie asks us whether we should care so much about one person being shot, when the world is – literally – burning. How do we decide what stories are “newsworthy”? Should we be focusing on the local stories or should we be broadening our focus to the bigger picture, or global-focus, particularly in times of crisis?

Kylie [6:13] then reflects on something she's noticed during these early stages of her PhD - that she is becoming her project. That is, it is becoming a part of her identity, in a way that she had not anticipated. She asks, particularly in instances like this, "how can we as researchers draw the line between life and work; what you DO and who you ARE?" Jodie shares from her own experience that “If you are somebody who identifies strongly with your work – irrespective of whether or not you’re doing a PhD – then I think the longer you spend with a particular type of work, the more you’re going to embody that work and draw that into your identity.” Simon suggests that it comes down to commitment, and that PhD's themselves are transformative. Where do you draw the line? Is there a line that can even be drawn?

Next Simon [12:16] questions the ethics of doing anthropological research in a place or context that is considered "dangerous". If you don't know, Simon did his fieldwork in Iran, where there has been recent attention given to the arrests on dual citizens. Kylie suggests that we should not shy away from researching these places, especially for anthropologists, otherwise we limit the knowledge that could be gained about them. Alex suggests that maybe we need to re-frame our question of "should we research dangerous places?" to "to whom are we ethically responsible to and why when doing this kind of research?" Is the fact we are even discussing this question a sign of privilege?

Lastly, Alex [17:40] ends our conversation with a touch of institutionalisation - or rather, he questions the reality of ANU's recent announcement to cap numbers of undergraduate students coming into the university. According to Alex, Brian Schmidt, Vice-Chancellor of ANU, said that this will allow ANU to focus on the strong link between research and teaching, however ... in practice is this how it will really play out? If we look closer, does academia really value education equally to research?

Links and Citations can be found at thefamiliarstrange.com

Support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/thefamiliarstrange

This anthropology podcast is supported by the Australian Anthropological Society, the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific and College of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, and is produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association.

Music by Pete Dabro: dabro1.bandcamp.com

Shownotes by Deanna Catto

Podcast edited by Matthew Phung and Kylie Wong Dolan

This episode, Kylie interviews a very familiar guest ... Dr Jodie-Lee Trembath (aka Jodie from TFS)! Now, Jodie's no stranger to qualifications, but this year she completed her PhD - which is a MAMMOTH achievement - so we thought it was about time to pick her brain to understand more about universities and fieldwork. They start off by discussing Jodie's research in Vietnam, about 'authenticity' and the perpetuation of an authentic image, about the navigation of being both an 'insider' and an 'outsider' in the field, and finally they talk about us - that is, The Familiar Strange project.

This is also Kylie's first interview on TFS!

"Is this food authentic? Well, that depends on whether YOU think that authentic food needs to be from a particular place, whether it needs to have a particular flavour, have specific ingredients that come from a particular place? If you don't think all of those things are necessary for authenticity, then you might think that a particular food is perfectly authentic, and vice versa."

The full shownotes with all quotes, links and citations can be found at thefamiliarstrange.com

This anthropology podcast is supported by the Australian Anthropological Society, the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific and College of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, and is produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association.

Music by Pete Dabro: dabro1.bandcamp.com

Shownotes by Deanna Catto

Podcast edited by Matthew Phung and Kylie Wong Dolan

Monica Heller est professeure en anthropologie linguistique à l’Université de Toronto (Canada). Émilie Urbain est professeure adjointe de linguistique au département de français de l’Université Carleton. Elles sont bilingues (français/anglais). Elles ont grandi et travaillent dans des zones périphériques des marchés linguistiques dominants de production du savoir anthropologique que sont les États-Unis et la France (le Canada francophone – aussi bien le Québec que l’Ontario et l’Acadie; la Belgique, la Louisiane). Leur discipline est périphérique et floue: l’anthropologie linguistique n’existe qu’en Amérique de Nord, dans un rapport difficile avec l’anthropologie socioculturelle. Ailleurs ça s’appelle la sociolinguistique; complètement évacuée de l’anthropologie, elle existe dans un rapport difficile avec les sciences du langage. Leur conversation examine les différents aspects de ce point de vue des marges.

Every so often, The Familiar Strange will bring you bonus episodes in languages other than English. In today's episode, Monica Heller, professor of linguistic anthropology at the University of Toronto, and Émilie Urbain, assistant professor of French at Carleton University, discuss the work of building knowledge across national, linguistic, and disciplinary boundaries.

This podcast was recorded at the annual conference of the American Anthropological Association in San Jose, California, on November 14, 2018.

CITATIONS

Basque, Maurice (2008) "Minorités de langue officielle: Réflexions personnelles." Canadian Issues, , 20.

Frenette, Yves (1998) Brève histoire des Canadiens français Montréal, Éditions du Boréal.

Heller, M and B McElhinny (2017) Language, Colonialism, Capitalism: Toward a Critical History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press

Heller, Monica (2011) Paths to Post-nationalism: A Critical Ethnography of Language and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Project website: http://www.uncanadienerrant.ca/"

Urbain, Émilie (2016), « Towards a “Bilingual American Citizen”: language ideologies, citizenship and race in 19th Century French Louisiana », Language and Communication, 51: 17-29.

This anthropology podcast is supported by the Australian Anthropological Society, the schools of Culture, History, and Language and Archaeology and Anthropology at Australian National University, and the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, and is produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association.

This month, Kylie [0:50] kicks off our conversation by reflecting on our blog about racism in sport and asks us about the ethics of ad targeting on social media. This comes after we decided to try boosting the blog post through a paid Facebook advertisement, since we felt this was a topic that needed to be discussed in the broader community. “What happened when we did that was a number of people commented on the blog, [but] they continued with all the racist narratives that the blog was trying to negate” – effectively normalising these kinds of comments. Since we are still digesting this situation, we are left asking many questions: given our founding goals at The Familiar Strange to engage in a public anthropology, should we be pushing into audiences that result in uncomfortable conversations? Should we really expect people to read our content if they find it through advertisements rather than organically, or when they know their values are different to ours at TFS?

Next, we move onto Jodie [6:15] who’s been thinking about a comment we received on our website that was along the lines of "it would be great to hear more about introverted anthropologists". Jodie mentioned her own experiences in this situation, where she needed to find strategies during her fieldwork to recharge and give herself 'space' from her research. Alex suggests being realistic about yourself and the circumstances under which you are doing research. Simon reminds us that fieldwork IS tough – regardless of whether you are introverted or extraverted – and that getting to the “hanging out” stage of fieldwork takes time to reach, but there are some strategies we can implement to help us cope during these tough times. What coping mechanisms work for you?

Simon [11:49] then draws us to Kurdistan, which has been given a lot of attention recently following the American withdrawal from the region and the political ramifications of this decision. Simon asks us to think anthropologically about what happens when relationships, like this one, are torn apart, what is the nature of social change that goes on and what are the end results of such a sudden split? Jodie shares “I think that the relations that have been entangled in a context like that are so much more than just human to human relations; there are ideas that have gotten tangled up that kind of require the relationship space in order to be kept alive … it’s a really complex web, it’s not just, you know, you remove the bodies from the space and then it’s all over and done with."

Lastly, Alex [16:00] ends our conversation by looking at a different political situation: the mass protests in Ecuador, where Indigenous people are being used on a very symbolic way, as defenders of the country (at least this is the case on social media and as depicted in news articles). Alex asks: what does it mean for a people, particularly an Indigenous group, to become symbolic leaders of a movement, where often throughout history they have been delegated to the periphery?

Links and citations can be found at thefamiliarstrange.com

This anthropology podcast is supported by the Australian Anthropological Society, the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific and College of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, and is produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook and subscribe to our mailing list to stay up to date on our new content. You can head over to our Facebook group The Familiar Strange Chats and tell us what you thought of the episode, the topics discussed, and ask any questions you have – we’d love to keep talking strange with you! Finally, if you’d like to help support TFS further, check out our Patreon page – every donation helps us to keep The Familiar Strange going.

Music by Pete Dabro: dabro1.bandcamp.com

Shownotes by Deanna Catto

Podcast edited by Matthew Phung and Kylie Wong Dolan

"I think you’d be crazy to go into something like anthropology if you want to learn how to say whatever other people tell you to say - you know, maybe you should become a lawyer!"

This week we bring you a special treat – an interview between our good friend Zoe Hatten and her PhD supervisor Professor Andrew Kipnis. Andrew Kipnis, Professor at the Australian National University and author of multiple books, most recently From Village to City: Social Transformation in a Chinese Country Sect, spoke with Zoe at the AAA Conference in San Jose last year. They spoke about the way academics speak at conferences and the divide between younger and older generation anthropologists, about funeral ceremonies in China and how to navigate the intricacies of social relationships when doing fieldwork, and discussed the evolution of methods and ideas in action, reflecting on Andrew’s career.

QUOTES and LINKS can be found at our website thefamiliarstrange.com

And if you haven’t already checked it out, head over to our Facebook group The Familiar Strange Chats. We’d like to keep our discussions going from this podcast episode, so let us know your thoughts: what was most interesting? What was most surprising? Did the episode remind you of something else you’ve read, seen, or heard lately – if so, what is it? Let’s keep talking strange, together.

Our Patreon can be found at https://www.patreon.com/thefamiliarstrange

This anthropology podcast is supported by the Australian Anthropological Society, the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific and College of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, and is produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association.

Music by Pete Dabro: dabro1.bandcamp.com

Shownotes by Deanna Catto

Podcast edited by Ian Pollock and Matthew Phung

Firstly, we’d like to introduce you all to Alex D’Aloia, who is managing our Facebook group TFS Chats – you might remember the blog post that he wrote for us at the start of this year: "Anthropologists and Dragons". Make sure to check out the chat group after listening to this episode and let us know what questions you have and what you found most interesting.

Julia [1:19] starts off our conversation this month by turning our attention to things – specifically, things that we have an emotional attachment to that are in our home environment. From an anthropological perspective, we could turn to Daniel Miller, who writes about material culture and attachment; but there’s also a rise in minimalistic households formed around Marie Kondo’s example of, essentially, if it doesn’t spark joy, then you don’t need it, which creates a new understanding of what the material household environment should be. How do we deal with stuff and the emotion of stuff in the home environment?

Kylie [6:54] then moves our conversation towards activism, asking us: what is it that insights social action, especially when the social action is for things bigger than us? For instance, in Australia we have seen social support of this kind recently regarding the introduction of the extradition bill in Hong Kong as well as the case against the deportation of the Tamil family. Alex thinks of Benedict Anderson’s imagined communities and navigating our sense of belonging while Jodie questions how much is social action about the organisation of communities and how much is it about the way that social action builds momentum?

Next Jodie [11:42] talks about another topic very close to home for those of us from Australia – bushfire season, which has started much earlier this year than it usually does. We have to think carefully about what a bushfire means in order to manage it, and Jodie tells us that to different people, fire means different things – to a firefighter it means one thing, to an anthropologist it means another, particularly in Indigenous contexts. Touching on Tim Neale’s paper, about the increased inclusion of Indigenous people in fire management discussions (not only in Australia), Jodie asks us about the meaning of fire and how we know when it’s dangerous.

Alex [15:58] wraps up our conversation with some questions about anthropological methods - specifically during the early writing up stage. “Where I’ve been having difficulties is … trying to connect this to theory … my reluctance of imposing my own thoughts and models on my data and my informants”. Julia offers an alternative viewpoint, suggesting that you could approach the task from the opposite end – start with the theory and then find examples where the things your participants have said helps to back up the theory. Jodie encourages researchers to ask themselves “what is it that makes me think this is what I am observing?” and to be transparent about how your thinking developed.

LINKS AND CITATIONS can be found on our website thefamiliarstrange.com

If you'd like to support TFS, head over to our Patreon page

This anthropology podcast is supported by the Australian Anthropological Society, the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific and College of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, and is produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association.

Music by Pete Dabro: dabro1.bandcamp.com

Shownotes by Deanna Catto, with assistance from our intern Sheawin Leong.

Podcast edited by Matthew Phung and Kylie Wong Dolan

“Not only do we need engineers working alongside anthropologists to do good quality engineering, I also think that we need to do an anthropology of engineers… Engineers are making our world, right? And, the way that we, as engineers, think collectively, behave collectively, what we consider to be important... I think somebody should be watching that and reflecting on that and [relaying] that back to us, to society, to understand how the people who are making our world actually view the world.”

This is the eighth and FINAL episode in our STS podcast series. The aim of this series was to explore the intersection between science and anthropology, to better understand the contemporary issues that the amazing people featured in this series try to solve. We'd like to take this moment to thank everyone who has been a part of our STS series, as well as everyone who has listened along with us.

So in this episode, Ian chats with Professor Elanor Huntington, the first (and current) female Dean of Engineering and Computer Science at the Australian National University. While Elanor's research has specialised in quantum optics (which, from my understanding, relates to the application of quantum mechanics to phenomena involving light), she is also looking to the future - a future of STEM that needs anthropologists. They talk about the problematic nature of describing human behaviour through numbers and algorithms, unpack what an anthropology of the internet would entail, they discuss the importance of trust in scientific endeavours and the decline of the 'expert', and ponder what the future of engineering will look like, as well as what it means to take control of making your future.

For a list of our links and citations, as well as our favourite quotes from this episode, visit thefamiliarstrange.com

Our Patreon can be found at https://www.patreon.com/thefamiliarstrange

This anthropology podcast is supported by the Australian Anthropological Society, the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific and College of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, and is produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association.

Music by Pete Dabro: dabro1.bandcamp.com

Shownotes by Deanna Catto

Podcast edited by Ian Pollock