Review: The 105th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association

This was my first and hopefully not my last experience visiting and presenting at "The Triple As." I was happy to have presented early in the week as this left me relaxed to enjoy the rest of the conference. My favorite panel was “Exploring Activity as Culture, Community, and Identity” because it addressed issues relevant to my interests and presented new ways for thinking about old things; it is exactly the kind of anthropology that inspires and excites me. The papers in the panel would make a great reader for a mid-level, major and non-major, undergraduate course in Anthropology. That is not to say that they are not theoretically complex and worthy of more advanced consideration, however they have a certain mass appeal that makes them perfect for getting students inspired, excited, and generally interested in Anthropology and anthropological thinking (approaching things from the mindset of an anthropologist). I especially enjoyed the comments made by discussant Bradd Shore.

Dr. Shore used a term he coined "activity fetishism" in his response to the papers on topics such as Capoeira, Irish Folk Music, Ballroom and Salsa Dancing, and Tae Kwon Doe. In the Fall 2003 Newsletter from the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life (MARIAL), Shore elaborates on Max Weber's "Protestant ethic",

"In contemporary America, this old work ethic is still with us. However, in the context of middle-class consumer culture, it has become difficult to distinguish work from consumption activities. Work as a moral virtue has morphed into obsession with activities as status markers, much as if they were consumer items."

This "obsession with activities" is essentially the "activity fetishism" to which Shore refered in his discussion and which I find particularly relevant to my own research on the contemporary western practice of body piercing as well as my interest in, and proposed research on social networking websites. I haven't formulated any sort of argument relating activity fetishism to my work, but the gears are turning, expect to see a post about it shortly.

Although I found the conference as a whole to be very rewarding, I'd have to say, subject wise, I got the most out of the Exploring Activity panel. I also enjoyed the panel titled, "Anthropology at the Crossroads of Digital Society," Mike Wesch and Shelly Errington's panel on digital ethnography, Ken Anderson's panel on anthropology at Intel, Adam Fish's panel titled, "Cultures of Production in Film and Television," and of course, all the SVA presentations and films. The conference also went logistically well, with only a few minor (unimportant) issues:

1) No scheduled nap time. As one of my colleagues pointed out during an especially drowsy moment one afternoon, most of the world has some form of mid-day rest time (ex: siesta), yet the AAA, which of all organizations should be most "culturally sensitive," schedules panels straight through the day, from 8 am to 9 pm. Luckily there were several coffee shops inside, connected to, or very close by the convention center, and we were able to drug ourselves awake every morning and keep ourselves going every afternoon.

2) How about a workshop on "How to dance at contemporary western social events?" I'm joking, everyone was having a good time at the dance and that's all that matters, right?

3) Why can't Anthropologists clean up after themselves? I understand setting down a coffee cup or water bottle, forgetting about it, and walking away, but blatantly leaving trash on tables, chairs, and the floor . . . what's up with that?! I witnessed multiple instances, especially with the food served at the conference, of people getting up from their table and leaving their trash. This was not a table service situation, but a common area for people to eat, work, and talk, and it was not being taken care of by those who were sharing it, rather the conference center staff would routinely come by to clean up after those who couldn't clean up after themselves, it was quite a shame.

4) I love the Bay Area and I was born in San Jose . . . but it is so damn expensive!

All in all, the conference was good, I enjoyed myself, and it sure beat actually working!

Visual Research Conference Day 2

Today (technically yesterday) marked the end of the Visual Research Conference. We saw some great stuff from Kate Hennessy, Guido Carlo Pigliasco and 3 of Peter Biella’s students from his Visual Anthropology class at San Francisco State University, including Dom Brassey. The conference ended at 2 pm. I stuck around for the 8:15 (African, Fijan, Italian, etc. time [I think that’s some kind of Anthropologist joke. I don’t quite it get since it seems to apply to such a broad spectrum of regions, nations, ethnicities, but I guess it refers to starting later than scheduled]) screening of Dick Werbner’s “Shade Seekers and The Mixer” and didn’t leave the Convention Center until 10, but I’m glad I did because the film was great and we got to talk to Dick about it.

I had lunch at an Indian restaurant where I got a “Naan: Spicy Lamb.” It was naan stuffed with spicy lamb, like a calzone, and served with some sauce for dipping. It was delicious and unexpected. I love the Bay Area. Not that there aren’t great places to eat and shop and generally “be” in Southern California, I’m just nostalgic about everything up here. I have a completely idealized view of Bay Area. Today I rode public transportation, Light Rail, for the first time since my visit to Holland in March. It was clean, quick, and cheap (as in free, though I paid [$3.50], my ticket wasn’t checked. I actually paid for 2 tickets because I didn’t know they were only good for 2 hours from the time of purchase not the entire day, oh well).

Aside from the food, my lunch was also very interesting because of my company. I feel a little uneasy about writing this here because of issues of informed consent. I don’t think my lunch date was informed, so I’m just going to give this to you as an anecdote, take from it what you will. I went to lunch with an undergraduate graphic design student from Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City, Utah. I knew this going into lunch, I also knew that he came to the AAA Conference for the Society for Visual Anthropology’s Film and Video Festival to conduct research for his thesis project. He is interested in how people create biographies and collect, analyze, and archive objects and information in different cultures. He didn’t really have any idea what Anthropology was before registering for the conference, he just thought that the film festival would give him some insight into his thesis topic. Sitting at lunch, talking about how he even came across the conference and film festival in the first place, I was squirming to ask him, “So, are you Mormon?” He said yes. I asked if he went on a mission. He said yes. I asked where. He said Taiwan. We talked about that. It was very interesting. He was carrying around a nearly falling apart copy of Collier and Collier’s “Visual Anthropology” that he bought at a used bookstore in New York for $5. Nice guy, very interesting. When I said, “I don’t think me lunch date was informed,” I mean that I didn’t think he knew enough about Anthropology to know that, with me being an Anthropologist and him such an interesting subject, our conversation was inevitably a sort of field work. And, that’s why I’m not going to say anything more about that.

Again, long wake, short sleep. PEACE!

Visual Research Conference Day 1

After some bad accident-related traffic on Hwy 17, I made it to the Convention Center just 15 minutes after 9 am. Presentations had not yet started, so that worked out well for me. Jonathan Marion gave his presentation on Salsa Dancing, then I gave mine on body piercing. I got good reviews, including a wonderful complement from Richard Werbner, "Brilliant photography." Had a good lunch: -$8, good dinner: -$22, got my car from the parking garage: -$18, and gave a ride to a new friend:+$9. That puts me $9 over my $30 departmental per diem. Ha! Yeah . . . I'm brown bagging it tomorrow, but it's alright because my Grandma Dottie will be making it, and everything she makes is good. [Note: My Grandma Dottie is not dead. She is also not really my grandmother, just a really nice lady who has taken care of me since I was 2 years old.] I've gotta get to bed, have another early and long day tomorrow. PEACE!