A New Commonwealth — Ver 5.0
I came across these anecdotal scribbles recently. They were written in the context of September 11th, the War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq while I was teaching in the US. I was led by various encounters to reflect on whether American society was descending into fascism. The style is partly historical generalization and […] →Read more
Summary A three-part interview with Keith Hart by Ryan Anderson on Savage Minds Blog Part 1 The Open Access (OA) movement is one of resistance to the privatization of any commons. But its current focus is shaped by the tension between wanting an intellectual commons and accepting, for career purposes, academic preoccupation with private ownership […] →Read more
Talkin’ World War III Blues Bob Dylan One time ago a crazy dream came to me I dreamt I was walkin’ into World War Three I went to the doctor the very next day To see what kinda words he could say He said it was a bad dream I wouldn’t worry ’bout it none, […] →Read more
The true history of British social anthropology’s origins, seen through the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres strait (CAETS) [1] Three centuries of anthropology. Between evolution and ethnography. The CAETS’ protagonists (minus Rivers). The CAETS and functionalist ethnography. Rivers was the founder of British social anthropology. Rivers between anthropology and psychology. →Read more
Summary: The new anthropologist is a self-appointed people’s representative in the double sense of writing them up and acting as their advocate. And anthropology is a sort of democratic politics, informed by long-term, empty-headed exposure to strangers wherever they live and shaped by the main public issues of the day. This populism is hostile to […] →Read more
Sir James Steuart was a Jacobite exile who brought the term ‘political economy’ from Continental Europe to Britain. Almost a decade before The Wealth of Nations he published Principles of Political Economy in 1767. For advocating a free Scottish home market with initial protection from foreign predators, including England (this was 50 years after the Union!), […] →Read more
My old friend’s speech for January 28th this year. “Burns is one of the reasons I am proud to be a Scot, a socialist, a nationalist, and an internationalist. Burns was all of these things, but much more.” →Read more
A selection 1982-1999 Various places Refuge (Paresseux nerveux) A short history of knowledge Ishmael at the masthead (View from a balcony, Jamaica) One glad look Nuclear reaction i can smell the world burning →Read more
Alex Foti to nettime, 17 December 2016 Dear Vahid, for the very little it’s worth i’ve been campaigning to save Aleppo since the siege and furiously since the assad-putin-iran atrocities escalated. i agree about the complicity by omission of the left, which finds a depressing parallel with most of the left muddling truth about ethnic […] →Read more
Transcription of an interview with Federico Neiburg and Fernando Rabossi held at the National Museum (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), on May 23rd, 2011. It will be published in Portuguese at Revista de Sociologia & Antropologia in 2019. Federico Neiburg (FN): You have your PhD in anthropology from Cambridge, having studied Latin and Greek […] →Read more
The two great memory banks are language and money. Exchange of meanings through language and of objects through money are now converging in a single network of communication, the internet.
We must learn how to use this digital revolution to advance the human conversation about a better world. Our political task is to make a world society fit for all humanity.
