Monday I participated in a workshop on the use of multiple water quality models in the Chesapeake Bay Program – the benefits and drawbacks. Throughout the day, much of the discussion centered around the ways that multiple models could improve the science of water quality management – there was almost unanimous agreement on that, though [...]
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Let’s say you’re a scientist – I’m pretty sure this isn’t my audience, so it’s a safe bet you’re not. But let’s say you are… You’re looking at a lake, and you see that there is one portion of the lake where you find mostly male fish with a certain speckled pattern. This in spite [...]
Last night I was doing some reading and watching for the upcoming UMD Anthropology Theory Discussion Group session on materiality, embodiment, and non-human agency. I was thinking about this concept of agency that’s so important to my work and to the work of others who have inspired me – Latour, Stengers, Bennett, Bryant, etc. First [...]
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Also tagged agency, Bennett, Bryant, determination, efficacy, Haraway, intentionality, Latour, Materialism, Stengers, work
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Thursday, August 30, 2012
Last week I wrote an exam on the topic of the anthropology of environmental knowledge, broadly defined. This included sections on both traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and scientific knowledge about the environment, and it also involved thinking about ways of reconciling them as they often conflict with one another. I have yet to see my [...]
Today I’m reading the chapter from Helmreich’s Alien Ocean on aquatic invasive species (AIS) in Hawaii. In the chapter, he discusses the politically charged climate in which the issue of invasive species has become entangled in Hawaii. At stake is the definition of “native” versus “alien” in a place where to be “native” carries a [...]
Recently there have been a couple of posts – on Savage Minds and Neuroanthropology – discussing how anthropologists can appeal to a more general audience by changing their writng style. On Neuroanthropology, Daniel and Greg discuss their distaste for Thomas Freidman’s approach to writing as well as the lessons that anthropologists can learn from him [...]
One of the most important things I’ve taken from my philosophical engagements – notably Levi Bryant, Gregory Bateson, and Bruno Latour – is that change (even existence) takes work. I’ve talked a lot about work before. This is because it is, for me, a foundational concept. In order to understand something, we have to follow [...]
The following is an extended quote (I apologize for the length, but I couldn’t see cutting it down any further) from Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s probably unfair to characterize this as Robinson’s vision of politics as it is actually the vision of one of the characters in the book – Sax Russel. [...]
The following is the text of a talk I will be giving at the Anthro(+) conference this coming Friday. It’s a rough draft, and will be edited and improved over the next few days, but I wanted to share it here now and see if anyone has feedback that might help me make it better. [...]
