Academics in many different fields (communication studies, psychology, business studies etc.) have written about the way Facebook is used in the Western world, but we should not forget that Facebook as a phenomenon has reached many corners of the world often considered as remote. This development has taken place in a span of just seven years, and it is thus timely that anthropologists have begun to devote their attention to how Facebook is used in the communities where they work. Daniel Miller’s Tales from Facebook leads by example in this regard. Tales from Facebook is an ethnographically rich book, and I cannot hope to touch upon all the issues that it raises and manages to discuss. It is divided into two parts. The first (and most lengthy) part is a series of ethnographic cases depicting how different people in Trinidad use Facebook in their own individual ways. Part II more explicitly refers to anthropological theory and tries to draw conclusions about Facebook on a general level although still based upon the cases presented in the first part. The book is well written in an easily accessible language, and while intended for a wider audience, it still manages, through the presentation of the ethnographic cases, to refer to key themes within anthropology (exchange, agency, performance, identity, sociality, morality, time/space etc.), and many Facebook practices are shown to be directly related to the cultural specificity of important offline phenomena in Trinidad (such as bacchanal). Through the discussion of the cases, Miller shows that while Facebook as a company may be pulling in certain directions in the attempt to define what Facebook should be, users also claim ownership of Facebook and have their own agendas that are more conservative than that of the company. Miller demonstrates that Facebook cannot be reduced to what anyone in particular tries to define it as. As ‘culture’ in the making, Facebook espouses many of the social concerns that dominate people’s offline lives. Miller thus convincingly argues that it is not what is new about Facebook which makes it interesting, but actually how Facebook allows people to ‘reconnect’ to offline concerns of maintaining social networks and a sense of community – something that is made harder in contemporary times often depicted as dominated by individualism, capitalism and neo-liberalism. What I find most interesting is Miller’s comparison of Facebook with kula through Nancy Munn’s work The Fame of Gawa, which leads him to conclude that Facebook (like kula) exemplifies what anthropologists mean by ‘culture’ in that it allows the expansion of people’s (social) worlds and ‘spacetime’. Miller has elaborated on this in the online forum Open Anthropology Cooperative (http://openanthcoop.ning.com/ forum/topics/online-seminar-112-novem ber), where ideas contained in Tales from Facebook are discussed further. Miller is humble in his attention and devotedness to ethnographic material and the concerns that individual people have for the (digital) world around them, and in his insistence that theoretical discussions must be grounded in these minutiae of individual Trinidadians’ lives. While sophisticated in its approach and in the way the book shows the complexities of Facebook usage, the popular style in which the book is written sometimes tends to convey a romantic atmos-

Tales from Facebook

Connected Curriculum Higher Education

The atlas of world cultures

Selfie-taking and posting is one of the most popular activities among teenagers, an important part of online self-presentation that is related to identity issues and peer relations. The scholarly literature emphasizes different yet conflicting motivations for selfie-behavior, stressing deeper analysis of psychological factors and the influence of gender and age. Expectancies are "explanatory device[s]" that can help us study adolescent behavior. However, no instruments have been devised that specifically explore the expectations teenagers have about selfies and their influence on selfie-frequency. The current study proposes a short and reliable instrument to identify teen expectancies about selfie-behavior. This instrument was validated using a sample of 646 Italian adolescents (14 to 19 years old) by means of Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). We also explore the relationship between selfie expectancies and selfie-frequency, as well as the role of gender in shaping selfies. Our results point toward a 7-factor model that characterizes expectations toward selfies as a multi-dimensional construct linked to both positive and negative perceptions of the nature and consequences of selfies. The overall model fitted the data sufficiently (χ2 = 5067.051, p 0.0000; CFI = 0.962; TLI = 0.954; RMSEA ≤ 0.05: 0.035; SRMR = 0.046), showing an adequate reliability of the scale (α = 0.830). Bivariate correlations between selfie expectancies and selfie-frequency (r = 0.338, p < 0.001) confirmed the convergent validity of the tool. Selfie-sharing is a common practice that is widespread among the participants in this study. Self-promotion represents a positive function of selfies. Selfies promote self-presentation and self-confidence, both in boys and girls. Moreover, selfie expectancies address sexual self-attractiveness, especially among boys. Despite the positive aspects of selfies, our results stress adolescent awareness of the negative consequences of this type of web-exposure. This is especially true among girls, whose selfie-behavior is, paradoxically, more frequent than boys. Self-management through selfie-posting is a positive outcome of selfie-behavior that plays a key role among adolescents, even though the dangers of manipulating selfies in order to garner approval from one's peers need to be considered. The positive psychometric properties of the measure point toward the need for further research on both generalized and specific selfie-behaviors.

/pdf/selfie-expectancies-among-adolescents-construction-and-acxe5ui4da.pdf

Selfie Expectancies Among Adolescents: Construction and Validation of an Instrument to Assess Expectancies Toward Selfies Among Boys and Girls.

Ecologies of comparison is an ethnography of Hong Kong’s environmental movements and controversies of the late 1990s coupled with a theoretical meditation on the nature of comparison, and the gener...

Ecologies of comparison: An ethnography of endangerment in Hong Kong

Shaping Higher Education With Students - Ways to Connect Research and Teaching

This paper confronts the disparity between a tradition that has defined anthropology as a comparative discipline and the practices which increasingly embrace cultural relativism and the uniqueness of each fieldsite. It suggests that it is possible to resolve this dilemma, through creating a vertical structure that complements the horizontal task of comparison across fieldsites. This vertical structure is composed of different methods of dissemination which make explicit a series of steps from a baseline of popular dissemination which stresses the uniqueness of individuals, through books and journal articles with increasing degrees of generalisation and comparison. Following this structure leads us up through analysis to the creation and employment of theory. This allows us to make comparisons and generalisations without sacrificing our assertion of specificity and uniqueness. We illustrate this argument though a recent nine-field site comparison of the use and consequences of social media in a project called ‘Why We Post.’

/pdf/contemporary-comparative-anthropology-the-why-we-post-1by9dltr12.pdf

Contemporary Comparative Anthropology – The Why We Post Project

Why We Post

Based on ethnographic research on digital learning from the Why We Post project at UCL Anthropology, this paper outlines how academic insights can benefit pedagogy, reaching beyond traditional modes of education towards public engagement. The paper demonstrates how a spectrum of digital dissemination, ranging from the academic (such as journal papers) to the public (such as a website and MOOC), can transform anthropological research into global education at the same time as maintaining intellectual integrity. In an uncertain world, fear of 'the other' and anxiety around the rapid rise of technology permeates public discourse. Anthropological education offers an antidote by focussing on the culturally-constructed nature of dynamic phenomena shaping our world. In order to shift wider perspectives towards an appreciation of cultural diversity, this paper argues that public anthropology needs to be held in higher regard within the discipline.

Why We Post: digital methods for public anthropology

Based on ethnographic research on digital learning from the Why We Post project at UCL Anthropology, this paper outlines how academic insights can benefit pedagogy, reaching beyond traditional modes of education towards public engagement. The paper demonstrates how a spectrum of digital dissemination, ranging from the academic (such as journal papers) to the public (such as a website and MOOC), can transform anthropological research into global education at the same time as maintaining intellectual integrity. In an uncertain world, fear of 'the other' and anxiety around the rapid rise of technology permeates public discourse. Anthropological education offers an antidote by focussing on the culturally-constructed nature of dynamic phenomena shaping our world. In order to shift wider perspectives towards an appreciation of cultural diversity, this paper argues that public anthropology needs to be held in higher regard within the discipline.

Laura Haapio-Kirk

Papers

Shaping Higher Education With Students - Ways to Connect Research and Teaching

Contemporary Comparative Anthropology – The Why We Post Project

Why We Post

Why We Post: digital methods for public anthropology

Why We Post