Tag Archives: outsider

June 16, 2013 | 4 Comments

Virtual identity: Subversive attention


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Eddie Vedder, Damien Echols

Eddie Vedder embraces Damien Echols
(CC BY-SA CarolinaaPPaz)

While working on this month’s edition on virtual identity, I’ve been reading Life After Death, Damien Echols’ memoir of a ruptured life. At 18, Echols was convicted along with two other men of the murders of three children, allegedly in a Satanic ritual.

It wasn’t until 2011, after Echols had spent 18 years facing execution on Death Row, that he and the other two members of the “West Memphis Three” were released in the wake of new DNA evidence and critical media attention. The prosecution’s case had rested on coercive confessions and unfounded fears about the involvement of local heavy metal enthusiasts in Satanic orgies. Thus it seems that one horror — the murder of three innocent second graders — was followed by another, in which three teenagers were convicted of those murders based on little more than the crime of liking Metallica [1]. Unfortunately stories like Echols’ aren’t that surprising.

Identity gets intertwined with attention — how we see ourselves, and how others see (or don’t see) us.

In addition to its portrayal of grave problems in the American justice system, the book is striking for the layered and conflicting accounts of identity that come into play. Identity gets intertwined with attention — how we see ourselves, and how others see (or don’t see) us.

Echols first came to the attention of local authorities because of his outsider identity. He was a ‘freak’ because he wore black and t-shirts advertising metal bands. He explored a range of religious practices — Catholicism (which led him to change his name [2]), Wicca, mystical esoterica — in a community where evangelical fundamentalism held sway. His difference made him a magnet for rumors.

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July 3, 2012 | 11 Comments

Outside In: Breaking Some Anthropology Rules for Design [guest contributor]


Note: Apart from the author’s illustration by Shu Kuge, all photos are by Shibaura House.

 

Our July guest contributor is Jared Braiterman, a design anthropologist based in Tokyo, Japan. Jared starts off the summer with an exciting post, first telling us that we should break anthropology rules and second suggesting that design anthropology is distinct from ethnography.   The last time we had a post this provocativel was guest contributor Sam Ladner asked if “Corporate Ethnography sucked?” What are your thoughts on Jared’s ideas? What rules do you break? And how different do you think design anthropology is from ethnography? We’d love to hear your thoughts on Jared’s article in the comments section.

I came across Jared’s work via the AnthroDesign network, a great online group of social scientists and designers. (Thanks Anthrodesign!) Jared’s work caught my attention because he documents his research process very openly and I was inspired by his transparency. On  Tokyo Green Space, Jared writes about his research on making cities more livable. His blog focuses on Tokyo, but urban planners around the world turn to Jared for leadership on making cities healthy places for humans.  He also writes about his work in leading customer-focused design teams for established brands and startups. The American Anthropologist has reviewed his blog as a form of public anthropology. In addition to blogging, he has published internationally about human interfaces and urban landscapes. Here’s a wonderful interview with Jared in the Techno Times section of the Japan Times. Jared is currently a Research Fellow in Landscape Architecture Science at the Tokyo University of Agriculture.  You can learn more about his work at TokyoGreenSpace or find him on twitter.

Read our past guest contributor’s posts and consider contributing to Ethnography Matters. Email us! – Tricia

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Leading a workshop about fieldwork and Tokyo green mapping for Shibaura House, I ask Japanese participants to imagine themselves as outsiders. Outsider in Japanese is an imported word, and I want to challenge them to consider if such people exist in Japan.

Last year’s tsunami and nuclear disaster prompted a revolt against government and corporate leaders’ promotion of a harmonious “nuclear village.” And Japan now faces dire predictions of an unprecedented population decline of thirty percent in the next forty years. Now more than ever before, Japanese seem eager to explore new ways to engage each other and the world.

Read More… Outside In: Breaking Some Anthropology Rules for Design [guest contributor]