Writing Academically, Part 2: The Butler Did It

You're not writing a crime novel. We don't want suspense. We want a clear, well-formulated argument beginning from the first sentence of your text. Think of it as game of backwards Cluedo, the board game where you have to guess an assassin, a murder weapon and a crime scene. We want who, how and where, and we want it to begin with. Start by stating exactly what you think; that the butler did it in the dining room with a wrench. Let's look at a short example, a text by Heiko Henkel concerning the Muhammed cartoon crisis in Denmark, 2005: "Using a conceptual framework developed by Axel Honneth, I suggest in this article that the cartoon crisis is part of an ongoing struggle for recognition...

Read more

Writing Academically, Part 1

Since this is supposed to be a blog for budding young anthropologists, I thought it wouldn't be enough to just have resumes and analyses of texts. We need to know how to get started on our writing as well. How do you write an anthropological essay?. Obviously this isn't the only way to do it, and I've never published a New York Times best-seller. However, I have written my fair share of essays and at least I know how I like to write. It seems logical to me that everyone should put some effort into finding what works for them and construct a personalized work method adapted to their needs. Knowing the steps I go through might help you along the way - so here goes. Know what you'll be writing...

Read more

Producing Culture: A Reading of Marshall Sahlins’ Culture and Practical Reason

I've just finished reading Culture and Practical Reason by Marshall Sahlins, a cozy 400 pages of a theoretical debate between materialism and symbolism in Anthropology. It was a highly actual book when it was written, but I must admit it seems a little bit dated now. However, the book has some extremely well-written and interesting passages and forms a persuasive and coherent arguement in favor of symbolic analysis in the social sciences. I wrote this paper as a critical reading of the book for a course in Symbolic Anthropology, and this is my original text. You'll notice my references to Wolff in the middle part, cleverly recycled from an earlier...

Read more

Visca la Sardana? Catalan Folk Dancing as Failed Rituals

A sardana perfomance in Plaça Catedral, Barcelona. Author's photo As you may or may not know, I'm currently doing fieldwork on Catalan national identity and separatist politics in Barcelona. In this vein, I did a short, non-empirical analysis of the traditional Catalan folk dance known as Sardana. Treat is as an analysis of ritual and one of those comparisons between cultures, we Anthropologists are often so fond of. Here I juxtapose Javanese burial rituals and European folk dancing in modernity. It was quite well-received by the "natives" I showed it to, although they didn't agree with my admittedly stretched conclusion. Here's the original text for your pleasure. Introduction In this...

Read more