#anthropology #CulturalAnthropology

Indigenous peoples the world over when they see cultural anthropologists approaching. #anthropology #culturalanthropology

@selfawarepatterns Great question. Babies exhibit what is called 'proto language,' which enables semogenesis (realisation of meaning), and which in turn gives rise to what we are both, I think, describing as consciousness. For the example of non-verbal adults, there is a range of possible scenarios. Most of these include some kind of capacity for language. The non-verbal parameter doesn't really affect this capacity. #Semiotics #SocialSemiotics #Linguistics #SystemicFunctionalLinguistics #Anthropology #SocialAnthropology #CulturalAnthropology #CognitiveAnthropology (apologies for all the tags)

@selfawarepatterns Great cartoon. In social semiotics, we say that consciousness is *realised* by language, and language is a social medium. If an entity (i.e. organism) doesn't have the capacity for agent-oriented social interaction, then it doesn't haver the capacity for genuine language, and therefore does not have the capacity for consciousness. #Anthropology #SocialAnthropology #CulturalAnthropology

Great article on the science of #Anthropology #SocialAnthropology #CulturalAnthropology: "Measuring with body parts is a handy and persistent cross-cultural phenomenon" https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi2352

“Defence of Indigenous lands in Brazil still poses many dangers, a year after killing of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips.” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/5/one-year-after-killings-in-brazils-amazon-tensions-run-high #Anthropology #SocialAnthroplogy #CulturalAnthropology

“Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips were killed in the Amazon …
A year later their Indigenous allies risk death to carry on the work” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2023/jun/01/bruno-pereira-dom-phillips-amazon-indigenous-patrol-groups #anthropology #socialanthropology #culturalanthropology

"The Babylonians had a completely different conceptualisation of a right triangle. They saw it as half of a rectangle, and due to their sophisticated sexagesimal (base 60) number system they were able to construct a wide variety of right triangles using only exact ratios." https://theconversation.com/written-in-stone-the-worlds-first-trigonometry-revealed-in-an-ancient-babylonian-tablet-81472 #Anthropology #CulturalAnthropology #SocialAnthropology #Math #Mathematics

This is where the Australian Reserve Bank comes in. The people who run the reserve bank (the Governing Board) are big-number people. This means that they believe that in order for more import people's numbers to stay big, everybody else's numbers have to be kept small.

So to do that, they change the 'inflation rate'. This is a kind of a trick that means people with large numbers can still pretty much buy and sell whatever they want, but people with small numbers suddenly can't afford things like food, houses, medicine and school.

When asked why they are doing this, the Reserve Bank Governing Board uses religious-sounding language, like "inflation is evil" and "we have to keep inflation under control". To an anthropologist, this sounds no different to any other statement that would be made by a person who is totally unaware of the imaginary basis of their own cultural beliefs.

#Economics #Anthropology #SocialAnthropology #CulturalAnthropology

For example, in Australia at the moment, the Reserve Bank operates under a general contract with the federal government. The primary agreed function of this contract is that the Reserve Bank use its authority to control the value of the Australian currency as a means of indirectly controlling inflation. #economics #Anthropology #SocialAnthropology #CulturalAnthropology

Of course, consistent with all cultural models, there is a veritable spaghetti of imaginary conceptual dynamics at work in this model of economics, but let's put that to one side for a moment. The point here, is that the Reserve Bank has only one social power, which is to 'control the value of currency'. In practice, this means choosing a number (interest) to attribute to another number (currency). The result is a third number, called an 'interest rate'. This variation of this latter number means that individual members of the associated society, each of whom is separately allocated a certain number of their own (their 'cash flow'), suddenly has to the ability to swap parts of that number for more or less food, housing, healthcare. education, etc. #economics Consistent with Durkheim's predictions, economic models consequently tend to be a persistent flash-point for conflict in these kinds of societies. Whereas there are plenty of contractual agreements at the lower-levels of economic-focused social interaction, like buying and selling things, there is almost no contractual agreement at the level of governmental economic policy (except at a very general level). #economics #Anthropology #SocialAnthropology #CulturalAnthropology

Consistent with Durkheim's predictions, economic models consequently tend to be a persistent flash-point for conflict in these kinds of societies. Whereas there are plenty of contractual agreements at the lower-levels of economic-focused social interaction, like buying and selling things, there is almost no contractual agreement at the level of governmental economic policy (except at a very general level).

For example, in Australia at the moment, the Reserve Bank operates under a general contract with the federal government. The primary agreed function of this contract is that the Reserve Bank use its authority to control the value of the Australian currency as a means of indirectly controlling inflation. #economics #Anthropology #SocialAnthropology #CulturalAnthropology

So, back on the topic of highly influential cultural models (specifically #economics): Back in the 1890s Emile Durkheim observed that conflict between cohorts within larger populations usually arise when incompatibilities between their respective cultural models reach a critical level.

The legal-contractual basis for social interactions in large, multicultural metropolitan society is an adaptive strategy managing this constant risk of conflict. Legal contracts render the bases of social interactions explicit, whereas in more culturally homogenous societies, they tend to be rendered tacitly, so don't require binding contracts. #Anthropology #SocialAnthropology #CulturalAnthropology

“Caste discrimination in Australia is on the rise – but some are fighting back” https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/18/a-disease-caste-discrimination-in-australia-is-on-the-rise-but-some-are-fighting-back #Anthropology #SocialAnthropology #CulturalAnthropology

How does collective conflict escalate when it is in no one’s long term interests?

Usually because it is in someone’s short term interest to foster division, and that same someone has no regard for the the long term consequences for other people.

#Anthropology #SocialAnthropology #CulturalAnthropology #Psychology #ConflictStudies

Had to listen to a whine about that old ‘science-is-bad-because-positivism’ trope today.

PSA: Positivism is not science. It’s just philosophers fantasising about what they think science might be, despite zero experience doing science.

#Anthropology #SocialAnthropology #CulturalAnthropology #Science #PhilosophyOfScience #AntiScience

@ArchaeoIain Yes, at the level of cultural models, that is certainly accurate. At the level of economic theory, there is some great literature on variations in attribution of value to different types of currency. The value of fiat currencies (like the Australian dollar), for example, is based on the underlying value of national productivity. The value of most non-fiat currencies is usually based on the value some other kind of underlying asset, like gold. By contrast, the value of crypto currencies, which represent a special kind of non-fiat currency, is not linked to any underlying asset (except hype). This is what makes crypto currencies so unstable (just like hype).

Your son is 100% correct that crypto currencies very clearly illustrate the overarching cultural principle of all currencies, which is a tacit contract between an issuer and a holder, that they will both share in a common imaginary system of expectations. #Anthropology #SocialAnthropology #CulturalAnthropology #ModernMonetaryTheory

When people ask for a definition of ‘social culture’, one of the best examples to use is economics. Although it can be shocking to realise (because it is so widely taken for granted), most people quickly recognise that money is completely imaginary, that what it represents is an elaborate network of shared ideas and nothing more. Once the questioner has assimilated that understanding, they will begin to recognise social culture everywhere. #anthropology #SocialAnthropology #CulturalAnthropology

One of #CulturalAnthropology's most striking features, in its post-1960s 'literary' configuration, is its treatment of all socio-cultural phenomena from the perspective of "critique".

Unlike medicine or any other form of expertise concerned with human well-being, most post-1960s cultural anthropology does not distinguish between describing and explaining its object of study on the one hand, and proposing therapeutic solutions to social problems on the other. Instead, social anthropology treats its entire object of study *as* pathological from the outset.

In cultural anthropology today, almost every scholarly book and article that you pick up, will start, not with a description and an explanation about how one or another instance of human social culture operates, but instead with a highly evaluative complaint about an alleged social pathology. It is almost as if, since the 1960s, cultural anthropology has 'forgotten' how to describe and explain its own purported object of expertise.

This is a problem for cultural anthropology because, in failing to distinguish between the description and explanation of human social culture on the one hand, and the evaluation of human social pathology on the other, the field undermines its own credibility and capacity to distinguish between expertise and advocacy. This is a distinction that is fundamental to all forms of genuinely useful expertise including not only medicine, but also law and science. #SocialAnthropology #Anthropology

Good morning #Fediverse :fediverse:! Hope you've all had a great weekend. In this morning's #ConnectionList #Introduction #Connections post, in which I help to more richly connect us together, I'd like you to meet:

@ZoeGlatt is a #PhD candidate and #DigitalEthnography #researcher, and founder of @DigitalEthnographyCollective. They (not assuming pronouns) are submitting in March and are interested in jobs researching #SocialMedia culture, #CreativeLabour and #CreativeIndustries

@ndporter is into #SocialScience, #Data and #DataEquity and works with the #Carpentries. The #Carpentries is a volunteer-driven movement to provide #researchers with foundational computational skills in technologies like #Python 🐍, #Git ⌨️ and #HPC #programming 💻

@pip works in #design for #AI at #CSIRO #ProductManagement

@safiyanoble is the author of "Algorithms of Oppression", which if you haven't read it, should be on your reading list, especially if you're into #AIethics or #FairML. It sits in a similar space to @VirginiaEubanks "Automating Inequality" and shows how algorithms serve to reinforce existing structures of oppression, particularly of POC.

@fionatribe is a #CulturalAnthropology person who is interested in #MaterialCulture, #Architecture and #Anthropology

@metasecsol works as an #InfoSec researcher at the #W3 and as a #Lecturer in #InformationSecurity #DevSecOps