233 research outputs found
The Perception of Culture in the Virtual Worlde
No full textInterview with Tom BOELLSTORFF by Alexandra Rysuľov
Coming of age in "Second Life": An anthropologist explores the virtually human, by Tom Boellstorff
No full textTom Boellstorff. Coming of age in "Second Life": An anthropologist explores the virtually human. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 2008. $39.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-691-13528-1
Opening our anthropological conversations: An Interview with Tom Boellstorff
Get PDFI had the chance to conduct an email-based interview with Tom Boellstorff during this past month to explore some of his views about Open Access (hereafter OA) publishing in anthropology.
Ryan Anderson: First of all, thanks for taking the time to do this interview, Tom. Here at Savage Minds we write about Open Access (OA) a lot, and many of our contributors seem to be in agreement about the need to look into alternative publishing options. But not everyone knows about OA or is in agreement with the push to head in that direction, and this includes many people who are well established in anthropology. So, what‘s your opinion about OA? Is this an issue that should matter for anthropologists who are already successful within the current publishing regime, for example
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Making Sense of Disability and Development in La Paz, Bolivia
No full textABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATIONMaking Sense of Disability and Development in La Paz, Bolivia
by
Megan Neal
Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology
University of California, Irvine, 2021
Professor Tom Boellstorff, ChairThis dissertation examines the development of a multisensory therapy used to treat children with multiple disabilities at a public institution, focusing on medical expertise, social inequality, and the senses. Drawing on twelve months of ethnographic research I conducted from 2017 to 2018 in La Paz, Bolivia, I examine multisensory therapy sessions where I observed children diagnosed with severe multiple disabilities at a public institution. To contextualize this clinical work, I observed Bolivians with disabilities and their families in public and domestic contexts that were part and parcel of their everyday lives. I also conducted interviews with multisensory therapists, Bolivians with disabilities, families, government officials, and rehabilitation specialists. I highlight how disabled citizens in Bolivia experience exclusionary barriers linked to ability, gender, ethnicity, geography, and wealth inequality. I show how these forms of exclusion problematize how neurological impairments are being constructed as barriers to development in medical approaches as well as national and international development projects. In weaving this data together, I suggest that although rehabilitative models tend to focus on developing individuals, the everyday practice of multisensory therapy was heavily shaped by social and political inequalities related to ability, class, gender, race, and geography
Tom Boellstorff: Coming of Age of Second Life. An Anthropologist Explores of Virtual Human.: Princeton University Press, Princeton 2008, 316 s.
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Anatomy of an Article: The Peer‐Review Process as Method
Get PDFIn this article, we provide an unprecedented insider view of the peer-review process. Specifically, we highlight how an author (Vora) revised a manuscript submitted to American Anthropologist in a manner that resulted in its eventual publication in the journal. This included responding in various revisions of the manuscript to comments from the editor (Boellstorff), as well as a reviewer who has agreed to reveal her identity (Karen Ho). By showing examples of this revision process, we explore the "anatomy of an article," illustrating how a deeper understanding of the peer-review process can contribute to anthropological professionalization and successful publishing. © 2012 by the American Anthropological Association
Anthropology in/of Circulation: The Future of Open Access and Scholarly Societies
No full textPresented here is a conversation among anthropologists whose research and experience have given them special insight into recent changes in the ways scholarship is produced and shared.Kelty, Christopher M.; Fischer, Michael M. J.; Golub, Alex; Jackson, Jason Baird; Christen, Kimberly; Brown, Michael F.; Boellstorff, Tom. Anthropology in/of Circulation: the Future of Open Access and Scholarly Societies. Cultural Anthropology. August 2008, Vol 23, No 3, 559-588
A Ludicrous Discipline? Ethnography and Game Studies
Get PDFThe information age has, under our noses, become the gaming age. It appears likely that gaming and its associated notion of play may become a master metaphor for a range of human social relations, with the potential for new freedoms and new creativity as well as new oppressions and inequality. Although no methodological or theoretical approach can represent a cure-all for any discipline, in this article the author discusses how anthropological approaches can contribute significantly to a game studies nimble enough to respond to the unanticipated, conjunctural, and above all rapidly changing cyberworlds through which everyone in some way is now in the process of redefining the human project. © 2006 Sage Publications
Words with friends: writing collaboratively online
Get PDFTom Boellstorff, Bonnie Nardi, both from University of California, Celia Pearce, Georgia Institute of Technology and T. L. Taylor from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method. The Handbook had been written as an entirely collaborative document, with a single authorial voice. They achieved their goal with a mix of synchronous and asynchronous collaboration methods. Aside from a small number of face-to-face meetings, they spent many hours in email and Skype discussing how best to present the principles of ethnographic research, how to clear up misconceptions regarding its scope and value, and how to reach a wide audience. Their breakthrough occurred when they realized that rather than propose an edit in a comment box, they could make the proposed edit in the text and paste the old version in a comment box. While they used asynchronous collaboration primarily during the early phases of composing the manuscript, they did return to asynchronous collaborating after the synchronous phase, in the final stages of writing
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This Is Not Your Mother’s Samoa Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human . By Tom Boellstorff. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
Get PDFMillions of people around the world today spend portions of their lives in online virtual worlds. Second Life is one of the largest of these virtual worlds. The residents of Second Life create communities, buy property and build homes, go to concerts, meet in bars, attend weddings and religious services, buy and sell virtual goods and services, find friendship, fall in love--the possibilities are endless, and all encountered through a computer screen.Coming of Age in Second Lifeis the first book of anthropology to examine this thriving alternate universe. Tom Boellstorff conducted more than two years of fieldwork in Second Life, living among and observing its residents in exactly the same way anthropologists traditionally have done to learn about cultures and social groups in the so-called real world. He conducted his research as the avatar "Tom Bukowski," and applied the rigorous methods of anthropology to study many facets of this new frontier of human life, including issues of gender, race, sex, money, conflict and antisocial behavior, the construction of place and time, and the interplay of self and group. Coming of Age in Second Lifeshows how virtual worlds can change ideas about identity and society. Bringing anthropology into territory never before studied, this book demonstrates that in some ways humans have always been virtual, and that virtual worlds in all their rich complexity build upon a human capacity for culture that is as old as humanity itself. © 2008 by Princeton University Press. All Rights Reserved
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