Keith Hart's Blog (34)

keith@oac

Iceland's revenge

At the height of the credit boom, three Icelandic banks built up a huge trade by offering higher interest rates on deposits in Britain especially, but also in some other European countries, notably the Netherlands. At one time these banks had liabilities much larger than Iceland's GNP. Their owners bought football clubs and the like. Iceland has a legally ambiguous relationship to the European Union and it wasn't clear which… Continue

Added by Keith Hart on April 21, 2010 at 9:00am — No Comments

keith@oac

Morality in the movies

I have made a living from the analytical professions, but my passion has always been for stories. Fiction has the great advantage of allowing us to make things up, rather than passively reflect the world as it is. It involves people making complex moral decisions while in movement. By choosing a form nearer to human life, the great authors of novels, plays and movies could turn out to be our finest social thinkers:… Continue

Added by Keith Hart on April 13, 2010 at 9:30am — No Comments

keith@oac

The unity of self and society

Twentieth-century society was conceived of as an impersonal mechanism defined by international division of labour, national bureaucracy and scientific laws understood only by experts. Not surprisingly, most people felt ignorant and impotent in the face of such a society. Yet, we have never been more conscious of ourselves as unique personalities who make a difference. That is why questions of identity are so central… Continue

Added by Keith Hart on April 11, 2010 at 10:30pm — 11 Comments

keith@oac

The Empathic Civilization

"It is then certain that compassion is a natural feeling, which, by moderating the violence of love of self in each individual, contributes to the preservation of the whole species." (Rousseau)

"The peoples of the earth have entered in varying degree into a universal community, and it has developed to the point where a violation of rights in one part of the world is felt everywhere."… Continue

Added by Keith Hart on April 7, 2010 at 2:00pm — 12 Comments

keith@oac

Jamaica

I was sitting on a beach in Jamaica reading a collection of C.L.R. James’s occasional writings on cricket. The place had once belonged to Errol Flynn. My daughter was playing on the edge of the sea. James had been the deputy cricket correspondent for the Manchester Guardian in the 1930s. I found myself reading about my father’s heroes in the Lancashire cricket team of that period as if it were today’s sports… Continue

Added by Keith Hart on April 5, 2010 at 3:00pm — 1 Comment

keith@oac

On the move

I was once starting a flight from Paris to Chicago, two of my favourite cities. I put on the headset, but I was reading a magazine and didn't look at the screen. They were running the usual stuff -- sitcoms, news, sports. Suddenly I became aware that I was tapping my foot to the music. It was an ad, but my foot got going and I realised I was on my way to America, the land where the music moves forward. It was an American Airlines… Continue

Added by Keith Hart on March 31, 2010 at 10:30am — 7 Comments

keith@oac

Kant's Anthropology

Each of us embarks on a journey outward into the world and inward into the self. Society is mysterious to us because we have lived in it and it now dwells inside us at a level that is not ordinarily visible from the perspective of everyday life. All the places we have lived in are… Continue

Added by Keith Hart on March 27, 2010 at 6:00am — No Comments

keith@oac

Mintz on Haiti

Huon Wardle has posted a memoir by Sidney Mintz, Remembering Haiti: lessons from the field, on two Group threads devoted to that country, here and… Continue

Added by Keith Hart on March 25, 2010 at 11:00am — No Comments

keith@oac

Starting a blog

"The distinctive feature of our age is that mankind as a whole is on the way to becoming fully conscious of itself." (C.L.R. James).

I saw a Nora Ephron movie the other night, about a young New Yorker who starts a foodie blog based on working her way through Julia Childs' French cook book, with Meryl Streep as Childs writing the book in Paris fifty years before. I realized that I had never done a blog in that sense,… Continue

Added by Keith Hart on March 24, 2010 at 9:00am — 1 Comment

Online Anthropology Newspaper

Fran Barone has recently unveiled our first step towards providing fast feeds for the latest posts here in the OAC Group Index. But the revolution in assembling and sorting relevant online information is gathering pace and anthropology is part of it. Kerim Friedman has just set up an online anthropology newspaper at Twitter Tim.es, as he explains in… Continue

Added by Keith Hart on January 15, 2010 at 11:30am — 3 Comments

Against Culturalism

Joana Breidenbach and Pál Nyíri have just published a book, Seeing Culture Everywhere: From Genocide to Consumer Habits, (Washington University Presss, 2009).

In an excerpt from a note on the book, they write:

>In his book Foreign News, anthropologist Ulf Hannerz lamented the inability of anthropologists – the professional students of human cultures – to respond adequately to… Continue

Added by Keith Hart on December 30, 2009 at 3:30pm — 2 Comments

Diep Salute from Global Studio

Global Studio (established 2005) is a place based action research program where international students, academics and professionals come together with local universities, local government , NGOs and CBOs to collaborate with disadvantaged communities.

GS grew out of the work of the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Improving the Lives of Slum Dwellers (2002-04) with founding partners… Continue

Added by Keith Hart on December 20, 2009 at 1:48pm — No Comments

The Periodic Table of World Internet Facts

The periodic table has been produced by Jonathan Gosier, CEO of an African startup in Kampala, Uganda, Appfrica International. It is available as a hi res image or as a poster.

About a quarter of the world's population is currently online. Each block contains a country's name, rank (and sequential order of the chart), place… Continue

Added by Keith Hart on December 15, 2009 at 10:30am — No Comments

The Anthropology Song: a viral video for people like us?

Thanks to Kerim and Savage Minds for Dai Cooper's Anthropology Song.

Watch it, sing along and pass it on. Check out Daionisio's channel too.

And now the interview (courtesy antropologi.info):

Maybe nobody has better explained what anthropology is all about. "I… Continue

Added by Keith Hart on October 19, 2009 at 10:00am — No Comments