“Mana is the concept of an impersonal force or quality that resides in people, animals, and inanimate objects. The concept is common to many Oceanic languages, including Melanesian, Polynesian, and Micronesian.

In anthropological discourse, mana as a generalized concept has attained a significant amount of interest, often understood as a precursor to formal religion. It has commonly been interpreted as ‘the stuff of which magic is formed’, as well as the substance of which souls are made.

Modern fantasy fiction and computer and role-playing games have adopted mana as a term for magic points—an expendable resource out of which magic users form their magical spells.

Mana should not be confused with the Biblical manna (also spelled mana or mannah) which, according to the Bible (Exodus, chapter 16), provided sustenance for the Israelites. (…)”

via.

Beyonce would like to be known as “Sasha Fierce”

Just like the “Seinfeld” episode where George wanted everyone to call him “T-Bone,” Beyonce Knowles would like to be known by a bold new name.

The R&B singer has christened herself “Sasha Fierce” for her new double album, “I Am … Sasha Fierce,” due in U.S. stores on November 18, and has released a lengthy justification for the comical moniker.

“I have someone else that takes over when it’s time for me to work and when I’m on stage, this alter ego that I’ve created that kind of protects me and who I really am,” the former Destiny’s Child frontwoman said in a statement.”

This probably already is widely known. I have come across Ernest Cline’s via Dialogic this morning for the first time. Dance Monkey Dance, about which I’m not sure whether it is a visualization by somebody else on a slam-poem by Cline or created by Cline himself, is a magnificant example of how certain anthropologic knowledge in a non-dry and entertaining but well-elaborated and critical way can be mediated to the public.

Klicking through Cline’s bio I’m amazed by both, its digital structure simplicistically reproducing the narrative [form follows content] and the very cyberpunk exhibit that is presented over there.

Forgotten Flags is an interactive documentary by Florian Thalhofer.

“Germany, summer 2006–a sea of black, red and gold. The 2006 Soccer World Cup changed the way Germans perceived their own country. What is left over half a year later? Florian Thalhofer and Juliane Henrich traveled 2562 km all over Germany to talk to people that still have a German flag outside their houses. They met astonishing ordinary people with all kinds of different German accents. (English subtitles by Anja Tachler and Wenzel Bilger.) The Korsakow-Film “Forgotten Flags” is presented by the Goethe-Institute as part of the Odysseus Project.”

This is not solely about nationalism reemerging in Germany–we learn a lot about the author’s identity here, I’d like to add to Adrian’s note by which I’ve come across the film.

Once you’re there, have a worthwhile look at Thalhofer’s other projects, too.

I ve mentioned Casino Ganzo earlier. Let me now second the motion.  

  Let me begin with something that seems completely unrelated to the dialog I’m referring to.

Freddy Frinton’s comedy sketch Dinner for One  [non-deutschophone passengers pass here and here or better: watch video here (11 min)] and its reception is of special interest to anyone who humanologically works on the phenomenon of national culture. [The theoretical reflection of any humor and laughter related issues is another big branch that interdisciplinarily deals with Dinner for One. Furthermore it is the intersection of those approaches that can be concretened on the academic Gegenstand of Dinner for One, too.] 

What I want to do though is not asking why people in Germany do watch it and periodically do laugh about it on the evening of Dec 31st since 1972, but spending a moment on the reflection of why Dinner for One in Great Britain, where it stems from, is less laughed about.  To this purpose I’ll reproduce some of the impulses one of my teachers had given in class last summer for in a way they correspond with why I don’t laugh when watching Dinner for One, either. 

Professor Stollmann has directed my attention on details I formerly had perceived as mere slapstick elements Laurel and Hardy or Didi Hallervorden alike. I never spent attention on who is represented at Miss Sophie’s table, as there is Sir Toby, Admiral von Schneider, Mr. Pommeroy and Mr. Winterbottom. ["Is everybody here", Miss Sophie asks having come down the stairway to the hall. "Indeed, they are, yeah. They are all here for your anniversary, Miss Sophie," James the Butler replies. "All five places are laid out?" she reassures.  "All laid out as usual", he reconfirms.] Two of four guests are civil citizens, one is a representant of the Oberhaus, one represents the military. What always has stuck me instead is the laid out fifth place at the table.  [See transcript on NDR.] No I’m no numerologist. What I want to say is Dinner for One for me always has been a representation of social drama in the first place. Too close I am to old people’s places within our society and too close I always have been to friends getting drawn into alcoholism to be able to laugh about James the Butler in his drunkenness.      

I never spent attention on what element of the furniture the butler constantly stumbles on which is a tigerskin–its prepared skull, to be exact.  As for Germany’s relatively short colonial history and the lack of broad identification as Kolonialmacht with all of its postmodern implications, that artefact of british colonial past in India when stumbled on is perceived differently than if it was identified as element of one’s own past: It’s the Other(s), its not related to “myself” and “my past”, so it can be laughed about.  /me  personally had not seen the tigerskull as a colonial artefact but as a means to transport the “drunken butler” as a mere slapstick element. It could have been anything else. But of course a comedy sketch is a composed arrangement and anything in it is chosen by purpose. Between finding something funny or not may lie the individual distance to the Gegenstand. James anyway appears to stumble on the tigerskull already before the dinner begins.

Lets now turn to something related. I personally am sick of blinking text that comes along with a variety of advertisement techniques offline and online. So that’s why I just could not get the joke.   

“Someone from the Hansestadt Bremen, be it by accident, or may there be deeper issues beyond mere chance, accused me of having used derogatory speech, unworthy of an anthropologist, as out of my mouth had come the words ‘nomads’ and ‘tribe’,” I am told.

I have no idea of “deeper issues beyond mere chance” and no idea about who from my department has been in the audience in the workshop Zephyrin participated at EASA 06 in Bristol.

“I … had to answer to the tribe-accusation, and said: ‘I didn’t say “tribe”. I said “my tribe”!’ To end the now emerging complete bewilderment I finally spoiled it all by explaining: ‘By Jove, it’s a joke!’ 

Reading his research blog from its beginning I have noticed him using the expression “my tribe” often and I actually do doubt it being a mere joke. That “accusation” in Bristol would have been a perfect possibility to a) distinct Participant Observation from Thick Participation (this is a hot spot still in the discipline, as anyone will know, dealing with issues of objectivity and academic distance related to the etic/emic debate) and b) point to the interrelation he has with his  field transfered on a different level than the technical. (His paper was about multitasking and the different channels that are used for communication within the community he researches, as far as I remember.)  Another reason for taking up that “accusation” seriously is that it moreover would have been a great chance to push towards an academic reflection of  ”political correctness” regarding knowledge production and towards an ethnography of what is not spoken about. 

Wish I had been there to raise my voice.   

I’m a nonbetterable neohistoricist among all those anthropologists. Much attention is spent on the ‘cyber’ prefix , but what about Punk?

To read as soon as possible: Gods and Gorillas [interview with anthropologist Barbara J. King on the evolution of religion]. What struck me actually is not so much the origin of religion in human societies, but a certain attitude towards animals that comes to expression here: ”King observes that non-human primates show empathy and meaning-making in their social actions”, writes Tad.  For the time being read more at fieldnotes.  

Cultural Relativism in sociocultural anthropology is taught, but I for myself have not yet sufficiently answered questions of is something like that really practised or is it an abstract paradigm. 

Pain–n’importe physical or mental pain–and culturally shaped attitudes, practices and discourses in western societies that relate to physical and/or mental pain (medication) seems to be one key complexe that is related to contemporary debate on ‘moral’ and ‘cultural relativism’.  

This entry mainly is an attempt to begin to figure my mixed emotions after having read a male anthropologist’s recent article on female circumcision some days ago.  My immediate association in the first place really only is the note that–at least–the “pharaonic circumcision”  is not comparable to the practices of circumcisions on e.g. jewish or muslim males that are mostly known. A “pharaonic circumcision” transfered on human male genitals means that your penis is cut off in its totality. 

Can’t tell–ask the children. Not their parents.  

just be at ethno::log puts up a nice one questioning western images of ‘the arab’: Where does the cultural ‘arab’ stereotype come from?

She links to a mash-up that contains scenes taken off several audiovisual media, mostly mainstream films, anglophone each, as far as I figured the sources and asks how far we think to be influenced by certain stereotypes circulated by media as represented in said moviefile.

Having reflected the position I instinctively took on first, after a few hours I must admit, I can’t but recall a very moment from my early studies. Dirk Hoerder, who gave an introductory class on the history of the Northern Americas, asked us how the indians of the great prairees had hunted the buffalo before the europeans came. Sitting in the first row his eyes fell on me. On horses, I said. No, he said, horses were brought to the american continent by europeans. And then he turned around and stopped in for a second, smiled at me and said, thx that was exactly what I wanted to hear. I understood a lot from that dialog because by my biography I became aware certain knowledge of mine indeed was rooted in images created by Karl May.

(Tokei-ihto was there, too. But that’s another entry.)