All posts by Rebecca Nelson

Rebecca Nelson

Rebecca Nelson is the executive director of América Solidaria U.S. She recently graduated with a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on volunteer tourism in Guatemala and how it is opening up new avenues for tourists and hosts to develop more cosmopolitan understandings of the world (as well as opening up new forms of friction over the circulation of knowledge).

Around the Web Digest: Week of July 12

It was my birthday weekend, so I’ll just say “Here are some blogs. Enjoy!” Send me anything you’ve written or read at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com.

The blog Sex and Psychology breaks down this American Anthropologist article: Is Kissing a Universal Sexual and Romantic Behavior Among Humans? The answer? No. Of course.

Archaeodeath actually vindicates the TV show Vikings in showing grave robbings (although of course they got the details wrong): Vikings Season 2: Floki Digs Up Dad 

This post on Phys.Org, Anthropologist Leads Global Effort to Improve Climate Change Models, features such a classic anthropologist quote: “The models are over-simplified,” [archaeologist] Morrison explained. “They are based on mathematical equations relating how many people were in a particular area and what they think that did to transform vegetation. But, they don’t integrate evidence […] about how people organized agriculture—differences such as dry versus wet crops, like rice paddies—that show the same number of people can have a very different impact on the land.”

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Around the Web Digest: Week of July 5

I’m brimming with conference energy from the Guatemala Scholars Network meeting this last week in Antigua, Guatemala, so this post will be longer than usual. Thanks for reaching out with links and suggestions at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com.

Language Log featured this Open Letter to Terry Gross, host of NPR’s Fresh Air, that I found useful as a reminder that just because privilege goes unmarked, it shouldn’t necessarily be seen as the norm or default. (In other words, it’s not “speech” and “gay speech,” it’s “straight speech” and “gay speech”).

Along similar lines, thank you, Society for Linguistic Anthropology, for pointing out that young women are blamed for creating “annoying” vocal aberrations like uptalk and vocal fry, just as women are blamed for not “leaning in” in the workplace: (Socio-)Phonetics in the News. (Also, as an aside, radio host Ira Glass exhibits more vocal fry than anyone I’ve ever heard).

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Around the Web Digest: Week of June 28

Savage Minders, was your Sunday ruined by the absence of the Around the Web Digest? I’ll have to cast the blame on my intermittent Internet access here in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Thanks to those who’ve sent me links for the digest at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com! (For those who haven’t, make this your resolution for next week).

This post on Cotton Belt Journal connects recent debates about the Confederate flag to the archaeology of African American history: This Place Matters: Remembering African American Heritage Sites

I’m becoming a big fan of Food Anthropology… their posts on “food pedagogy” always make me want to revisit my syllabi and push myself to engage more with the local environment: “You Can’t Talk About Food Without Talking”: Aimee Hosemann with a Professor’s Perspective on the Course “Food and Culture”

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Around the Web Digest: Week of June 21

It’s been a rollercoaster week in US politics! Hope that, no matter where you are in the world, something in the news made you happy this week. Send me any blog links at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com.

According to this post on Media/Anthropology, bilingualism has a different social valence in Spain (where it signifies upward mobility) and Denmark (where it signifies loss of competency in Danish): Educating “Bilingual” Children in Spain and Denmark

At Raving Anthropology, a student is chronicling her fieldwork on drug use and harm reduction in electronic dance music halls in Toronto. In Eat, Sleep, Anth, Repeat, she discusses entering the field, and follows up with excerpts from her field notes in Field Notes: This Data Collection is Interfering with My Dancing. (There’s strong language in case you’re squeamish).

This AAA blog post points out that white middle-class parenting standards should not be taken as the norm, with any difference seen as a lack: White+Word Gap=Wrong! 

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Around the Web Digest: Week of June 14

This week either the anthroblogosphere was quiet, or I was too distracted by the hoopla surrounding Rachel Dolezal to keep up… help me out  by sending me links at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com!

As you might have expected, anthropologists weighed in on the scandal surrounding Rachel Dolezal, the academic who was outed as “passing” as black. In this interview on the AAA blog, Patricia Sunderland points out that strategic racial repositioning has a long history:  Race and Rachel Dolezal

And on Anthropology While White, The Rules That Rachel Broke discusses “racecraft” and Dolezal’s negation of the continuous social processes that go into creating racial identity, in favor of a personal, psychological narrative.

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Around the Web Digest: Week of June 7

I love when good online content finds me! Keep submitting links to me at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com and I’m happy to feature them on here.

The title of this Washington Post article is pretty self-explanatory: Why Congress Should Not Cut Funding to the Social Sciences. Takeaway? Aside from having any intrinsic value, understanding social phenomena is important for shaping public policy.

My friends and I were just comparing notes on Ph.D. research with some people we know from the biology department, and they couldn’t understand our view of research as a basically solitary activity in anthropology. This post on the Global Social Media Impact Study Project Blog addresses that very perception: A Methodological Case of Comparative Anthropology 

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Around the Web Digest: Week of May 31

It’s unofficially archaeology week here at the headquarters of the Around the Web Digest… Send me anything I need to feature on here at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com.

Past Horizons: Adventures in Archaeology features this attractive post about the excavation of a drover’s track and inn from the 18th-19th centuries: Ancient Routeway Revealed in Argyll

The crew at DigVentures obviously loves and hates clickbait as much as I do… Check out these 7 Medieval Medicines Dug Up By Archaeologists – the third one will change the way you see medieval medicine forever!

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Around the Web Digest: Week of May 24

Happy Sunday! Did you know the Spanish word for “pansy,” pensamiento, also means “thought,” just as in the French? I bet you did; you’re all so clever. If there’s anything you want me to share with our readers, send me the link at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com.

In A Hobby Anthropologist Dissects the Tribes of the Upper East Side, the New York Times pans Wednesday Martin’s new quasi-ethnography on the elite women of the Upper East Side, Primates of Park Avenue. The Othering tone of the title calls to mind “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” but without the famous article’s self-conscious awareness of this tendency in anthropological writing. While she appears to have more of an anthropology background than the NY Times gives her credit for, the work sounds superficial and, according to the review, gender-biased in singling out women for criticism.

Yahoo! News featured this story, New Species of Human Ancestor Found in Ethiopia, with the claim that Australopithecus afarensis (represented by the famous “Lucy” skeleton) may not be humanity’s ancestor. Anthropology.net also profiled this discovery, with a link to the original study, but focused only on the claim that a new species has been discovered with characteristics distinct from A. afarensis: Say Hello to Australopithecus deyiremeda, a Newly Discovered 3.4 Million-Year Old Hominid.

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Around the Web Digest: Week of May 17

 

And we’re back for the shift into the summer blogging season! Thank you for your submissions… send anything of interest to me at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com.

Bioarchaeologist Kristina Killgrove is blogging at Forbes. Several recent posts look interesting but I pulled out this one on dentistry: Roman Forum Yields Stash Of Teeth Extracted By Ancient Dentist 

This post on The Conversation describes the discovery of ancient stone tools that have reset the boundary for toolmaking yet again: Our Stone Tool Discovery Pushes Back the Archaeological Record by 700,000 Years 

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Around the Web Digest: Week of May 3

¡Hola chicos y chicas! Next week instead of the weekly digest I’ll be sending you all a “Wish You Were Here” postcard from the Yucatán. As always, you can bring blogs to my attention at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com .

In my ongoing search for anthropologists in the private sector, I came across this piece in MetroNews Canada on Ford’s cultural anthropologist. A fun excerpt: “How does one gather cultural anthropological data? By shadowing people, from the time they get up to the time they’re done for the night, for several days in a row, much like a reality show, just without the cameras, fake drama, and C-list celebrities.” Yes, Ford Motor Company Has Its Own Cultural Anthropologist

In high school, I did a report on cannibalistic practices around the world… so of course I was a sucker for this sensationalizing piece in The Conversation. One good thing about the Paleo Diet is that it’s opened a space to talk about the human past:   The “Other” Red Meat: On the “Real” Palaeodiet

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Around the Web Digest: Week of April 26

It’s that time of year that makes you grateful for good students and good moments throughout the semester… we just had a great review session that helped put the whole course into perspective. If anything is happening online that I need to know about, send me the link at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com.

This post on Brain Pickings is a little older but a reader just brought it to my attention (thanks!). It describes a broad-ranging public conversation between Margaret Mead and the writer James Baldwin that touches on issues of the extent of our moral responsibility and the formation of American racial/ethnic identities:  A Rap on Race: Margaret Mead and James Baldwin’s Rare Conversation on Forgiveness and the Difference Between Guilt and Responsibility 

For this week’s piece of shameless self-promotion, here’s a post I wrote for Anthropology News about a tour I took of a Guatemalan archaeological site that took a post-colonial turn: Welcome to the Jungle: Touring Tikal 

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Around the Web Digest: Week of April 19

I practiced writing “Dr. Rebecca Nelson” a few times but it still doesn’t flow naturally… The anthropology blogs seemed a bit quiet this week, which makes sense for this time of year. It’s also possible that I missed some good pieces (something you can remedy by sending me links at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com).

This Past Horizons post summarizes an Open Access article suggesting that Caribbean architecture that could be flexibly rebuilt might provide a model for aid workers providing disaster relief: Humanitarian Decision Makers and Archaeologists Should Collaborate 

This “GradHacker” post on Inside Higher Ed is not specifically anthropological, but it might be of interest if you’re new to academic conferences and networking: Preparing for Conferences. We can forgive them for the title of the section and the use of “hacking” to refer to any kind of daily activity…

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Around the Web Digest: Week of April 12

Greetings to everyone at the SAA meetings this week. Also, I defend my dissertation on Thursday so wish me luck! As always, if you write or read anything interesting in the anthroblogosphere, let me know at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com and I will include it here.

This is an article published last year by Business Insider Australia, recently republished by the New Zealand mag Stuff. I include it because I’m currently facing the job market and I have questions. First, where are these companies and why are they not stalking my LinkedIn profile? Second, why are these kinds of stories of anthropologists in the private sector getting passed around? Do we cling to them as signs of the commercial value of our field? Why Companies are Desperate to Hire Anthropologists

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Around the Web Digest: Week of April 5

I’ve declared it Language Week at the Around the Web Digest! If you write or come across any interesting blogs, email me the links at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com

This New Yorker article discusses a particularly paradoxical new phrase, drawing from the history of negation: What Part of “No, Totally” Don’t You Understand? 

Slate featured this article Jahai speakers from the Malay Peninsula have a rich language for describing smells and perform better on smell tests than English speakers: English Speakers Stink at Identifying Smells

This Language Log post links to a modern noire masterpiece about a detente between prescriptivists and descriptivists as they face off against the clickbaiters: The Conditional Entente

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Around the Web Digest: Week of March 29

If you observe it, happy Easter! The theme for this week seems to be “navel-gazing,” with a variety of blogs across the anthroblogosphere focusing on anthropology itself and academia as a whole. Don’t go anywhere, though: these are interesting posts. Please send any cool blog posts my way at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com… particularly if you wrote them!

I can sympathize with this topical post on the Scientific American anthropology blog, which takes a jaundiced historical view of childish April Fool’s Day pranks like the one we featured on here… Then and Now: April Fools’ Day—How Did We Get Here?

Moving from one holiday post to another, DigVentures has some lovely visuals in this post on ancient egg decorating: How to Decorate Your Easter Egg Like It’s 60,000 BC

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