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KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE December 2005 • News

world of those poised on the intersection of eco- nomics and anthropology. Raymond Apthorpe K NOWLEDGE EXCHANGE discusses some of the contributions he made to anthropological theory before he became a devel- opment economist. Peter Gathercole illuminates the connections between and the museum world. Many of the accounts address the colonial con- text of anthropology and the last days of the Anthropological and Other British Empire. Akbar Ahmed reflects on Pakistan; Fürer-Haimendorf on ; and G I Ancestors Jones, , Audrey Richards and Philip Mayer on Africa. Notes on Setting up a Visual remember their teachers Margaret Mead, Clyde Some of the most important ethnographers of Archive of the Discipline Kluckhohn, G C Homans and others. the 20th century talk about their fieldwork. They The next generation of “ancestors” in our worked in Africa (Mair, La Fontaine, Goody, archive include such anthropologists as Evans- Barnes, Gulliver, Hill, Geertz, Banton, Pat Caplan, Pritchard, Fortes, Gluckman, Michael Banton, Iona and Philip Mayer, Ruel), the Middle East SARAH HARRISON John Barnes, Andre Beteille, Ronald Frankenberg, (Marx), Europe (Loizos, Boissevain, Paine, Jack Goody, Jean La Fontaine, Peter Rivière, S J Frankenberg, Herzfeld), South America (Rivière, U CAMBRIDGE Tambiah, Peter Worsley and Nur Yalman. Turner), North America (Balikci), South and Strangely, anthropologists have devoted a lot of Scarlett Epstein, a distinguished development South East Asia (Allen, Ahmed, Tambiah, the energy investigating and recording other people’s anthropologist, talks mainly about her experi- Caplans, Epstein, Leach, Adrian Mayer, Herzfeld, communities, yet very little time doing the same ences of growing up in Vienna as a Jew just before for their own. In 1982, Cambridge University the Second World War. Polly Hill describes the See Ancestors on page 22 anthropologist Jack Goody changed this when he recorded for posterity ’ lecture, “Divination”; Audrey Richards’ talk, “On Fieldwork”; and M N Srinivas’ talk, “On Looking Back.” Discussion of each of their talks was also recorded in the same studio. This effort continued when Goody’s colleague, Alan Macfarlane, conducted an informal three- hour interview with Christoph von Fürer- Haimendorf about his life and work on a low- band Umatic video camera in June 1983. Some 20 years after these efforts the department of at Cambridge became home to over 45 interviews and lectures recorded in a range of different video formats. We recog- nized then that it was clearly time to post Goody’s experiment to the Internet. As a result, there is now an online visual archive of 57 video inter- views and lectures spanning several generations of anthropologists and covering a range of important movements and topics in the field for anyone to download. The archive, Anthropological Ancestors, continues to grow as we interview more of our col- leagues. The project, we hope, will enable our dis- ciplinary descendants to catch a glimpse of the rich heritage of anthropological research and bring the frank insights of the authors behind the books we read, our “ancestors,” alive.

Generational Voices The generation of structural-functionalists who were pupils of Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown are well represented in our archive by John Beattie, Raymond and Rosemary Firth, Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, Meyer Fortes, Edmund Leach, Lucy Mair, Audrey Richards and M N Srinivas. Together they offer many insights into the teach- ing methods, paradigms and context of British social anthropology between the World Wars. US anthropology is represented through inter- views and lectures by George Appell, Clifford A partial screen-shot of the index page showing some of the anthropological ancestors whose videos are Geertz, Terry Turner and Asen Balikci, who available. Photo courtesy Mark Turin, Digital Himalaya Project, , 2005

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Preserving the Voices (Haimendorf), very full summaries (Worsley, Ancestors Enormous changes in audio-visual recording Lattimore, Barnes, Lambert) to shorter synopses. Continued from page 21 technology over the last half century have led to Until 2004 it would have been extremely great improvements in the quality of recordings, expensive to host even heavily compressed video along with backwards compatibility problems for files on a server for academic use, since each hour Snellgrove, Srinivas, Yalman), the Pacific (the archives. We realized in 2003, for example, that of MPEG 4 video occupies about 400 MB. Appells, the Firths, Geertz, Salmond, Worsley, many of the early interviews would be lost if we Fortunately, the Universities of Cambridge and Gathercole) and East Asia (Dore, Picken). didn’t digitize or convert them to newer media MIT had just launched Dspace, a digital archiving A number of the interviewees reflect on the since they were recorded on vanishing magnetic project (www.dspace.cam.ac.uk), and the Anthro- formats of deteriorating quality. ethics of anthropology and on issues of human pological Ancestors collection was selected as the Furthermore, unless converted into a web- rights (George Appell, Turner) or the problems of first visual data set from Cambridge. compatible format, the value and reach of this anthropological advocacy (Paine). The present system allows a user to watch a The Marxist strand runs right through an inter- historical archive would remain restricted. With short extract of any interview, view the full inter- view of Peter Gathercole. Similarly Peter Worsley some modest support from the British Academy, view in real time or download and save the whole provides a rich account of the development of the tapes were converted to digital format from interview for later use, perhaps of most interest to the Marxist movement in Britain. VHS, Umatic, Video 8, Hi8 and other formats. Jack Goody, Anne Salmond, Peter Burke and The footage was then edited for various kinds of faculty teaching the who others reflect on anthropology and history defects, and, very occasionally, for potentially may want to burn the video file to CD or DVD. throughout their interviews, while Pat Caplan and libellous or damaging comments. To the side of the film is a scrolling text field with Rosemary Firth are among those who discuss the Sarah Harrison and Mark Turin then under- a time-coded synopsis of the interview. role of women in anthropology. Other notable sec- took the time-consuming task of preparing sum- The Anthropological Ancestors collection tions are by Akbar Ahmed on Islam and anthro- maries of the interviews in order to make them is accessible at www.alanmacfarlane.com/ pology and Geertz on reflexivity and writing. more useful, ranging from full transcripts ancestors/index.html ANI

MEETING CALENDAR and Anthropology.” For information, 2006 see www.theasa.org/conferences.htm Notice of meetings with specific interest to anthropologists may be included in this column Apr 12–16 FOR THE ANTHRO- on a space-available basis and will be carried until the meeting takes place. Submit informa- January tion via email to [email protected]. As a service to attendees, please submit announce- POLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS SPRING MEETING, Asilomar Conference Grounds, Jan 5–8 ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE ments at least three months prior to the deadline for proposals. Pacific Grove, CA. Theme: "So What? Now OF AMERICA, 107th annual meeting, Ideological and Implementational Spaces.” hwww.ewc3.org/UK/contact/ What?—Anthropology of Consciousness Montréal, Quebec, Palais des Congres Contact: David Cassels Johnson at cue@ Responds to a World In Crisis." Contact: convention center. For information, registration.asp?h=3 gse.upenn.edu. For information, see [email protected]. For information, see www.archaeological.org/ Mar 26–Apr 2 DISCCRS II SYMPOSIUM, www.gse.upenn.edu/cue/ Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove, see www.sacaaa.org CA. For information, see http://aslo. Apr 13–16 SOCIETY FOR THE ANTHRO- February March org/phd.html POLOGY OF NORTH AMERICA ANNU- Feb 5–7 IMAGI-NATION: THE CULTURAL Mar 28–Apr 2 SOCIETY FOR APPLIED AL MEETING, New York, NY. Theme: Mar 3 ROADS AND WALLS: PRAXIS OF ZIONISM, Arizona State ANTHROPOLOGY, Vancouver, BC, Hyatt "Anthropology in an Uncertain Age." CONCRETE HISTORIES, Graduate University. Contact: Shai Ginsburg or Arieh Student Conference, UC-Santa Cruz. Regency Hotel. Theme: “World on the Saposnik, Department of Languages and Contact: [email protected] Edge.” For information, see www.sfaa.net Literatures, Arizona State University, PO Box or contact [email protected] May 870202, Tempe, AZ 85287; shaig@asu. Mar 5–12 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF May 5–6 SOCIETY FOR CULTURAL edu. For information, see www.asu.edu/ PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGISTS, 75th ANTHROPOLOGY SPRING MEETING, clas/jewishstudies/conference.html annual meeting, Anchorage, AK. For infor- April mation, see www.physanth.org/annmeet/ Milwaukee, WI, Pfister Hotel. Theme: Feb 16–20 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION Apr 1–2 UNITE FOR SIGHT’S 3RD “Translations of Value.” For information, Mar 6–7 GIS TECHNICAL INNOVATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL HEALTH see www.aaanet.org/sca/meetings/ St Louis, MO. Theme: “Grand Challenges, AND APPLICATIONS, Palmer House Hilton CONFERENCE, Yale, New Haven, CT. meetingsindex.htm Great Opportunities.” For information, see Hotel, Chicago, IL. Theme: “Innovation in Theme: “Empowering Communities to www.aaas.org/ Digital Forensics.” For information, see May 9–14 CANADIAN ANTHROPOLOG- Bridge Health Divides.” For information, www.tfilearning.com/tfi/c/portal_public/ ICAL SOCIETY, Montreal, Canada, Con- Feb 18–20 SYMPOSIUM ON MARITIME see www.uniteforsight.org/2006_ layout?p_l_id=27.38 or www.tfilearning.com cordia University. Theme: “Human Nature/ ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY OF annual_conference.php HAWAI’I AND THE PACIFIC, Kona Coast, Mar 16–19, 2ND INTERNATIONAL CON- Human Identity: Anthropological Revision- Apr 8 33RD ANNUAL WESTERN Big Island, Hawai’i. Theme: “Our Voyaging FERENCE ON EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAE- ings.” For information, see www.casca ANTHROPOLOGY/SOCIOLOGY I Ancestors.” Contact: [email protected]. OLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL anthropologica.ca/an_casca2006cfp.htm AN For information, see www.mahhi.org PARKS, Százhalombatta, Hungary. UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH Contact: [email protected] or CONFERENCE, Santa Clara University, Feb 22–27 THE SOCIETY FOR CROSS [email protected] Santa Clara, CA. For information, see CULTURAL RESEARCH (SCCR) AND www.scu.edu/cas/anthrosoc THE SOCIETY FOR ANTHROPOLOGICAL Mar 27–28 ISLAM AND BIOETHICS: November 15–19, 2006 SCIENCES JOINT MEETING, Mulberry Inn, CONCERNS, CHALLENGES AND Apr 6–9 CENTRAL STATES ANTHROPO- Savannah, GA. Contact: Bob Manlove at RESPONSES, Nittany Lion Inn, Penn State LOGICAL SOCIETY, Creighton University, AMERICAN [email protected]. For information, see University. For information, see http:// Omaha, NE. Theme: “Anthropology ANTHROPOLOGICAL http://sccr.org rockethics.psu.edu/islam_bioethics/ Making a Difference.” For information contact [email protected] or see www.iupui. ASSOCIATION Feb 24–25 IN EDUCA- Mar 27–29 THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL edu/~csas/Annual_Meeting.htm TION RESEARCH FORUM, University CONFERENCE ON EARLY WARNING 105th Annual Meeting of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of (EWC III), Bonn, Germany. Theme: Apr 10–13 ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL San Jose, California Education, Philadelphia, PA. Theme: "From Concept to Action." Contact: ANTHROPOLOGISTS, University of “Educators and Ethnographers Filling [email protected]. For information, see Keele, UK. Theme: “Cosmopolitanism

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