ethnography Archives | Research & Innovation

Two 91��ɫ profs receive Ontario Early Researcher Awards

fmaquito — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 08:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ Professors Natasha Myers and Thilo Womelsdorf have been awarded $100,000 each in funding under the Ontario government’s Early Researcher Awards program.

Ontario’s Ministry of Economic Development & Innovation announced the awards Monday. 91��ɫ’s research investment of $50,000 will match the funds for the award.

The program helps promising, recently appointed Ontario researchers build research teams of undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, research associates and technicians. The goal of the program is to improve Ontario’s ability to attract and retain the best and brightest research talent. Ontario’s Early Researcher Awards investment of $8.68 million will support 62 emerging researchers and their teams at 19 institutions across the province.

Professor , of the Department of Biology in the Faculty of Science & Engineering and member of 91��ɫ’s Centre for Vision Research, is studying how individuals focus their attention on one object, thought or event, while ignoring other external information. His research examines the three major regions of the brain that guide and determine selective attention, to find out how they work and interact. Womelsdorf’s research will identify how networks of brain cells coordinate separable attention information using state-of-the-art technologies and will critically advance hotly-debated, neuro-economic decision making theories. The research will lead to a better understanding of various diseases that widely affect health, education and the economy of Ontario.

Professor Natasha Myers, of the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, examines how plants are acquiring new status and visibility in our culture. Specifically, she explores the ways that artists and scientists are transforming our everyday assumptions through artworks and experiments that render plants as active, sensing organisms. This ethnographic research with practitioners both in Ontario and at international sites will shed light on the ethical and political significance of these shifts in perception about nonhuman life and the order of things.

“I am most pleased that the Ministry of Research and Economic Development has recognized the achievements of 91��ɫ Professors Natasha Myers and Thilo Womelsdorf, who are actively engaged in conducting globally competitive research in the early stages of their careers,” said Robert Haché, 91��ɫ’s vice-president research & innovation. “Our early career researchers represent the future of research at 91��ɫ and contribute to building Canada’s knowledge-based economy. The funding provided by the Ministry will provide these emerging researchers with resources to build their innovative research programs.”

“This research work is important to helping us meet our health care challenges while fostering long-term job creation and economic growth,” said Brad Duguid, minister of economic development and innovation.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Fourth annual anthropology lecture looks at rocks, stones and other vital things

fmaquito — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Hugh Raffles is a professor of anthropology at Eugene Lang College at The New School for Social Research in New 91��ɫ City.

Raffles will deliver a special guest lecture today titled, "Rocks, Stones & Other Vital Things" as part of the fourth annual lecture hosted by the Department of Anthropology at 91��ɫ. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Founders College Senior Common Room, 305 Founders College at 4:30pm.

Right: Professor Hugh Raffles

Raffles will speak about his new ethnographic project that explores the lives of rocks and stones. There are currently two central problems that anthropologists face. The first is familiar to anthropologists: What are the forms of life enacted by objects that, in the Western philosophical tradition, are commonly considered inanimate? The second, although related, may be less familiar: What can we learn from stones? Raffles explores these questions ethnographically, assuming that they are susceptible to empirical investigation. His research considers a limited set of cases, two of which are introduced in this talk: the ancient monuments of the British Isles and the Chinese "scholar's rocks".

Professor Jody Berland of the Division of Humanities and the Graduate Program in Communications and Culture, and Professor Peter Timmerman of the Faculty of Environmental Studies will respond briefly to the talk before discussion is open to the public.

Raffles' research and writing on the cultural and historical anthropology of "nature" explores connections among people, other beings and "inanimate" phenomena. He is the author of Insectopedia (Pantheon Books, 2010) and In Amazonia: A Natural History (Princeton University Press, 2002).

The lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology, the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Environmental Studies, and the Office of the Master of Founders College.

For more information, contact Margaret MacDonald at maggie@yorku.ca.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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CERLAC sponsors lecture on Caribbean women's religious dress March 10

fmaquito — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Religion and culture Professor Carol Duncan of Wilfrid Laurier University will explore Caribbean women’s religious dress traditions at the next instalment of the Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean’s (CERLAC) Caribbean Lecture Series.

“Caribbean Religion and Female Esthetic” will take place Thursday, March 10, from 12:30 to 2:30pm in the Conference Centre on the fifth Floor of the 91��ɫ Research Tower, Keele campus.

In particular, Duncan will look at the religious dress in the Spiritual Baptist faith as a site of meaning-making and identity construction. Drawing on ethnographic research, multiple associations of religious dress, including modesty, leadership and African diasporan religious identities are discussed.

“My research suggests that religious clothing is simultaneously material culture, artistic production and narrative in cloth, linking contemporary life experiences in large urban centres, to which Caribbean people have emigrated, and Caribbean past,” says Duncan.

Left: Carol Duncan

She is the author of This Spot of Ground: Spiritual Baptists in Toronto (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008) and co-author of Black Church Studies: An Introduction (Abingdon Press, 2007).

The event is co-sponsored by Founders College, Latin American & Caribbean Studies, the Department of Humanities, Vanier College, African Studies, Culture & Expression and Religious Studies.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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Professor and anthropologist David Murray examines homosexuality and hate around the world

fmaquito — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Why does homosexuality incite vitriolic rhetoric, hate and violence around the world, and does homophobia operate differently across social, political and economic terrains? Those are just some of the questions examined in the book , edited by 91��ɫ anthropology Professor .

Published by Duke University Press, Homophobias looks at these questions through critical interrogations and analysis of diverse sites where homophobic discourses are produced, including New 91��ɫ City, Australia, the Caribbean, Greece, India and Indonesia, as well as American Christian churches. The idea is to uncover the complex operational processes of homophobias and their intimate relationships to nationalism, sexism, racism, class and colonialism.

In the book's preface, Murray notes that the term "homophobia" had moved into the global sphere. This got him thinking about the term's meaning and the existence of homophobia. "Homophobia had gone global, and to be accused of being homophobic was to be accused of something more than just not liking homosexuals; furthermore, this accusation now carried potentially serious economic and political repercussions." He hopes the book will be the initial step in answering some of the questions the term homophobia raises.

Left: David Murray

Murray gathered researchers from a diverse range of ethnographic sites "to demonstrate how homophobia is a phenomenon that has no centre or origin, but more importantly, to examine how, or if, a transnational, comparative and ethnographically informed perspective might extend, challenge or change our understandings of homophobia."

In part one – "Displacing Homophobia" – some of the issues the contributors examine include homophobia in New 91��ɫ's gay central, American Christian homophobia and homophobia as racism. In part two – "Transnational Homophobias" – they look at homosexual hate in Jamaica, political homophobia in Indonesia, as well as the Barbadian media. In examining these issues, Homophobias provides innovative analytical insights that expose the complex and intersecting cultural, political and economic forces contributing to the development of new forms of homophobia.

Murray, the director of the Graduate Program in Women’s Studies at 91��ɫ, is the author of .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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91��ɫ prof's film about South African jazz singer previews Friday

fmaquito — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

A preview of the film , shot in New 91��ɫ City and Cape Town and directed by 91��ɫ anthropology and education Professor , will screen Friday, April 23 at 91��ɫ. The film details the life history of South African-born jazz singer Sathima Bea Benjamin.

Right: Sathima Bea Benjamin

Sathima’s Windsong traces Benjamin’s story as it unfolds through her own reflections and reminiscence and is woven together with the music she has created. It also includes the reflections of five people who know her work and the milieu which shaped it.

In her flat in the Chelsea Hotel in New 91��ɫ, where she has lived for 32 years, Benjamin patches together her journeys, both literal and figurative. Those journeys have taken her from apartheid South Africa and “the pattern of brokenness” she grew up in to Europe where a chance meeting and recording with Duke Ellington took place. From there, she was on to New 91��ɫ where she started afresh and set up her own record company.

Left: Daniel Yon

“As it moves back and forth between Cape Town and New 91��ɫ, to the lyrics and rhythm of her music, it becomes, much like the title of her haunting song Windsong, a reflection on history, time and place, on apartheid, anti-apartheid and their legacies, as well as the passionate questions of memory, displacement and belonging,” says Yon.

This is not Yon’s first effort at making an ethnographic film. “In fact, it continues some of the themes and concerns of an earlier film, (2007), to do with memory, place, belonging, travel, identity. The qualities of Sathima Benjamin's music attracted my attention and my conversations with her revealed a fascinating history of ‘journeys',” he says.

Right: Sathima Bea Benjamin performing

The film will screen from 3:30 to 5:30pm at the Nat Taylor Cinema, N102 Ross Building., Keele campus. After the preview screening, a wine and cheese reception will follow in the Founders Senior Common Room, 305 Founders College, Keele campus. Admission to the film is free.

RSVP by Tuesday, April 20, to Emily Tjimos, administrative assistant in the Faculty of Education, at etjimos@edu.yorku.ca or at 416-736-2100 ext. 66301.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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