Just announced from the Royal Anthropological Institute - a selection of film titles now available on the streaming service at Kanopy:

https://www.kanopy.com/en/category/63039

=-=-= original announcement from the RAI film officer:

We are happy to announce that a selection of films from our extensive catalogue of enthnographic and anthropological films is now available on the educational streaming platform Kanopy.

Films are available to stream for free through subscribing institutions, including public libraries and many universities. Log in via your institution and start watching now.

spotlight on Archaeology - people & their environment via material traces recovered & posited

The American Anthropological Association features a different one of its 3-dozen plus Sections. This time it is the Archaeology Division.

See the recommended things to hear, watch, and read:

Watching

Community as Rebellion: Surviving Academia as a Woman of Color, YouTube
Reclaiming Our Heritage: The Monacan Indian Nation of Virginia, The Archaeology Channel
Diving for the Clotilda: The Archaeology, History, and Legacy of the Last Known Slave Ship, YouTube
White Hill Plantation: Excavation Units, YouTube

Listening

The Sounds of Borders, AnthroPod
Classic Tides | Peasants and the Medieval Countryside, Tides of history
The New Science of Archaeoecology, The Archaeology Show
More Parts of Cladh Hallan, The Dirt

Reading

Doing

DHR Virginia Department of Historic Resources Threatened Sites Program Ongoing
Fairfield Fridays Fairfield Archaeology Park, Hayes VA | Fridays 10 - 4:00pm EDT
"A City Built on Ships: Reconstructing 18th-Century Ships Excavated from the Alexandria Waterfront" Online | October 26, 7:00pm EDT
Advocacy for Archaeologists: Building Strong Relationships with Local, State, and Federal Policymakers Online | December 8, 1 - 2:00pm EDT

Shopping

Following

=-=-=-=-= SEE ALSO

AAA Resources

Advances in Archaeological Practice, Cambridge Core
Herding Heritage, Anthropology News
Archaeology in 2021: Repatriation, reclamation, and reckoning with historical trauma, American Anthropologist

2022-09-26

museums and genocide episodes showcased

There have been so many instances (Bosnia/Serbia 1992, Rwanda 1998, way back to 1915 Armenia, 1820s Trail of Tears in USA, Cossacks, Shtetl pogroms); see also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

Still more: Biblical record of Jews escaping Egyptian bondage and crossing the Jordan river to kill local residents of 'promised' land. Today in Israel the Holocaust is put in prominent, clear view at Yad Vashem. Native peoples throughout the New World were killed actively and passively, bodily and culturally in many instances, methods, and locations. Tasmania and the continent of Australia is filled with injustices, too. And in mid-September 2022 the dictator of the Russian Federation, #PutinWarCriminal, is targeting ethnic minorities to be destroyed in Ukraine by being pushed into the killing zone.

Here and there the subject of genocide is showcased in a museum form - both in static display, but also in programming events to generate discussion and awareness and further documentation of personal accounts.

The suppressing, sterilization, and killing of people and cultural landscape of the Turkic peoples in the west part of China since 2017 joins the Burmar's Path to Genocide exhibit is quite substantial and has been up for nearly two years now. The physical exhibit is in USHHM and also can be toured online (they do a number of presentations in Cox Bazaar and with the Rohingya community): https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/burmas-path-to-genocide

2022-09-22

Local accent - English spoken in Yorkshire, Britain's north

Roman occupiers put the sound of the city sited on the banks of the river Ouse into Latin letters as "Eboracum." Viking occupiers 400 years later heard the name as "Jorvik," from which people today call it York and which settlers at the meeting of the Hudson and East Rivers at Manhattan took as the reference for NEW York.

In this 5-minute video there are several speakers young and old from Yorkshire, as well as a hint of Northumbria (Geordie) or else from the Scottish borders, whose vocabulary, rhythms, and accents display the Yorkshire accent. The subject is a sad one about deadly sepsis: Hannah Brown whose flu-like symptoms suddenly flared into mortal illness which the hospital was unable to stop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLpaTYDeXG0

2022-08-01

Pre-college anthropology examples (panel discussion) 2022

Many of us stumbled upon the fascinating world we now make careers in. But more and more places purposefully introduce young people to ideas and methods for understanding identity, culture, and context in time and place. Many weeks ago The Royal Anthropological Institute held an online panel discussion on past and current instances of anthropology being taught and schools and (secondary school) in Scotland and in England. Last week they announced the recording (1:52) for viewing of the session and Q and A that followed (begins from 1:10:00), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYM6p4Jb9YM

Within the conversation during QA there were comparisons offered from Kenya, Italy, Israel, and Germany, among other places.

Whether you watch for children in your own family and for friends, or it is an abiding interest in advancing anthropology more generally in schools around you, this session offers a lot of good examples of overcoming obstacles, opening eyes, and enlisting help of others adjacent or amenable to anthropology for pre-college learners.

The commenting function on the video is not activated, but you can always send email to www.therai.org.uk or pursue contacts given in the recording itself.

2022-07-06

Language lore - click languages in SE corner of Africa

- quoting boingboing.net for July 6, 2022 (about 3.5 minutes)

Sakhile Dube of "Safari and Surf" in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal Province explains the click sounds heard in the Zulu language (aka IsiZulu), a Bantu language spoken by more than ten million people in the region.

https://youtu.be/kBW2eDx3h8w

How to pronounce Zulu Clicks with Sakhile from Safari and Surf - Wilderness Adventures

Many of the South African Tribes use click sounds in their language, this is a great Zulu click lesson with Sakhile from Safari and Surf - Wilderness Adventu...

youtu.be

2022-06-15

Online "laugh, laugh" spellings in 26 languages

Sample from full article at https://preply.com/en/d/laughing-around-the-world-map--lp

1 - Thai: "55555" is the most curious graphic representation and the reason behind it is because the number 5 in Thai is pronounced "haa". To laugh a lot you will see 55555555+(+) adding the "+" sign.

2 - Portuguese: In both Portugal and Brazil, laughter is written "kkkkk" but you will also find "rsrsrs" (abbreviation of "riso", meaning "laughter") and the ironic "rarara".

3 - Turkish: "hahaha", "ahahah", "jsjsjsjs", "weqeqwqewqew" or, the funniest option, random letters like: "dksajdksajdoşad" (which is the most common) are used to laugh.

4 - Malay: because "ha" x 3 times equals "hahaha", Malay speakers write "Ha3Ha3Ha3" or "Ha3". They also write laughter the way an English speaker writes, like "haha" or "ha, ha".

2022-06-05

About Black Accent, "blaccent"

excerpt from https://boingboing.net/2022/06/04/the-history-of-blaccent.html

The concept of "Blaccent" or African American Vernacular English will always elude me. I don't mean that on a conceptual level, but rather a practical one since I "talk white." My voice has been a source of great pain throughout my life since the simple act of speaking earns me the ire, even if unintentionally, of a large swath of Black Americans. Whenever I meet other Black people, projections about my past, connection to my culture, and self-love are hurled before me as conversational obstacles outside of the already daunting process of forging a human connection.

Video link, https://youtu.be/8mXaccYFKRQ

2022-05-14

Writing the past for people without history

Story about one of Norway's 16 cities during the Middle Ages, excavated in 30 seasons from the early 1950s until 1981 and producing 45,000 artifacts and many human remains, too. Only now is a new generation taking the work of interpreting the excavated materials.

Uncovering the Secrets of a Forgotten Viking Town - Atlas Obscura

Of course there are many more societies without written records than there are ones with a system of writing or other form of keeping records. Now in 2022 still there are something between 6700 and 6900 human languages, of which just 100 or so read and write in the same language that they speak. However, population-wise a sizable majority of living-breathing humans speak just one of 20 or 30 languages. All the diversity in the remaining ones accounts for a fraction of those walking the planet. In other words, "people without history" (part of the title for Eric Wolf's famous book from the 1980s) are relatively few persons, but relatively most languages/societies. Stated in reverse, the people who do record history account for relatively few societies, but numerically far outnumber the souls who live out their lives with no writing use.

2022-03-29

Speaking with an accent - 7 min. explainer

Presenter comes from West Lancashire, adjacent to Liverpool's own "liverpudlian" (scouse) accent and illustrates some of the forces that come into play when creating the particular way that people speak in a specific landscape. Examples are given from among the 56 recognized varieties across the British Isles. Often the best (conserved, traditional) illustrations can be heard in preschool children with contact with grandparents; also among livelihoods closely associated with the land (and sea), such as farmers and fishermen.

Why do we have accents?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXaorSYACPo

2022-03-07

Film Festival-7, indigenous languages today and tomorrow

=-= crossposting March 7, 2022 film festival organizer's email message

This year, our festival showcased 45 languages through 35 exceptional films that span over 16 regions around the world. Your support contributes to our continued success and the quality of the festival.

If you enjoyed this year's festival and would like to revisit some of the programming, you can explore open access films on our website and watch roundtable sessions on our YouTube channel. You can also stay up-to-date with the festival by subscribing to our mailing list for occasional newsletters about our films, events, and related programming.

Gracias, tekk, mahalo, merci, and thank you!

—The Mother Tongue Film Festival Team

7th Annual Mother Tongue Film Festival

February 17 – March 4, 2022

2022-01-29

Reconsidering our Neanderthal ancestry 160 to 45,000 years ago

Weekly radio show, On The Media (OTM), https://www.npr.org/podcasts/452538775/on-the-media

January 28, 2022 - Humans, Being

When you hear the word "Neanderthal," you probably picture a mindless, clumsy brute. It's often used as an insult — even by our president, who last year called anti-maskers "Neanderthals." But what if we have more in common with our ancestral cousins than we think? On this week's On the Media, hear how these early humans have been unfairly maligned in science and in popular culture.

1. John Hawks [@johnhawks], professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, on our biological family tree—and the complicated branch that is Neanderthals. Listen.

2. Rebecca Wragg Sykes [@LeMoustier], archeologist and author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, on and what we know about how they lived. Listen.

3. Clive Finlayson [@CliveFinlayson], Director, Chief Scientist, and Curator of the Gibraltar National Museum, on how studying what's inside Gorham and Vanguard caves can help reconstruct Neanderthal life beyond them. Listen.

4. Angela Saini, science journalist, on how Neanderthals have been co-opted to push mythologies about the genetic basis of race.

2022-01-13

Exhibit "Race: are we so different?" now online thanks to Google-Arts/culture initiative

See https://artsandculture.google.com/story/race-are-we-so-different/ugKy-3EjEtQeIg

Little by little the google form of spreading access to collections and displays grows each year.

2021-11-04

Reinterpreting mummified human remains of Central Asia via ancient DNA results

Bronze Age Tarim mummies aren't who scientists thought they were

The study was published Oct. 27, 2021 in the journal Nature.

2021-10-31

Halloween goes global - chronicle with insights from anthropology

https://www.sapiens.org/culture/halloween-history-global/ was published in 2018, but still pinpoints the meanings and motives today for this many-sided, globalizing event: "How Halloween Has Traveled the Globe. Whether trick-or-treating in the United States or costume play celebrations in Japan, Allhallows Eve has taken many forms as its traditions travel the world." By Amber Dance.

2021-10-27

headstones maker at work

Physical traces of past centuries can be seen in stonework. Cemeteries offer a kind of sociological gallery of stonecutters. This story looks at headstone carving by hand in 2021, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hand-carved-gravestones

2021-09-23

archaeology from melting snows - Mongolia prehistory

Story of human activity once buried in snow and ice but now revealed as the Earth heats up.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mongolia-ice-melt-archaeology

2021-09-10

outreach & archaeology topics

crossposting from D. Stapp on September 9, 2021

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The Journal of Northwest Anthropology has today released an edited collection of 24 essays focused on reaching out to the public and others. We are making an e-copy available to those who are interested on our website for no cost. The essays are focused on projects, writings, curricula, and recommendations. You can get your e-copy of How Do We Reach More? Sharing Cultural and Archaeological Research with Others at the following address:

www.northwestanthropology.com/how-do-we-reach-more

While many of us do a lot of outreach, I think it is safe to say we need to do more to make this world a better place. I'd be interested in my colleagues thoughts on strategies they have used to reach more.

2021-08-28

English spelling - some hurdles for new learners

FB posting of poems that embody the wacky spelling of our shared language, with preface by young person with Dysgraphia - writing/spelling difficulties,

https://www.facebook.com/meaganmcgovern/posts/10159432170070902

Open poem lines:

I take it you already know

Of tough and bough and cough and dough

Others may stumble, but not you

On hiccough, thorough, laugh, and through.

And cork and work and card and ward

And font and front and word and sword

Well done! And now if you wish, perhaps

To learn of less familiar traps,

Beware of heard, a dreadful word...

2021-07-25

Archaeology beneath today's Istanbul

Five-minute radio story to hear online, or to view the transcript with many vivid photos to illustrate the story of archaeology that lies beneath the city streets, https://www.npr.org/2021/07/23/1016814868/beneath-istanbul-archaeologists-explore-an-ancient-citys-byzantine-basements

2021-03-01

Language and Zoom remote video communication, American Sign Language

The interplay of sign language and telecommunication methods and styles and tastes features here,

https://boingboing.net/2021/03/01/how-zoom-is-changing-american-sign-language.html

2021-02-25

Why designating a language "endangered" may lead to problems

Paper presented 2/2021 via online platform and then the source text shared on LinkedIn:

Rethinking the Language of Language Endangerment

Gerald Roche (Senior Research Fellow, La Trobe University)

- read or download, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hAzBTh75EtPosKALx4H431PMMKMGZBGT_eS1ySyKQZU/edit

2021-02-19

films in Native Languages - LOTE (Languages Other Than English)

This is an engaging article and overview to the subject.

Excerpt

... .Another notable choice was for the 2021 opening night film, Waikiki (2020), directed by Christopher Kahunahana. This film took us all on an emotional and harrowing journey that guided us to introspection. Correa, who was born and raised in Hawaiʻi, described his experience watching Waikiki: "I watched it and I cried. It spoke to the experience that happens to a lot of us in Hawai'i. The film itself is centered around this idea of mental illness in society and disconnection from the land. I think that is something that affects all Native Hawaiians. We're always trying to get back to the land. We are always trying to find that connection."

These films made a lasting impression because language is a grounds for and a form of intimacy. For those of us who live away from our motherland, it is a way to reconnect with our family and culture. For those of us whose motherland has been taken away, it roots us to our land.

Full article, https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/what-is-a-mother-tongue-film

2023-12-18

2023-12-17

2023-11-20

2022-12-14

2022-11-06

2022-10-21