“Everyone knows what cultural anthropology is about: it’s about culture. The trouble is that no one is quite sure what culture is. Not only is it an essentially contested concept, like democracy, religion, simplicity, or social justice, it is a multiply defined one, multiply employed, ineradicably imprecise. It is fugitive, unsteady, encyclopedic, and normatively charged, […]
Some personal and initial observations on mobile phone photography: The now common ability to take photographs with mobile phones brings photography into daily life in a way which once characterized only professionals and amateurs who carried a camera with them everywhere. The weight, investment and obviousness of camera meant that even if one […]
Fear and Money in Dubai by Mike Davis [New Left Review]
“Under the enlightened despotism of its Emir and ceo, 58-year-old Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum, Dubai has become the new global icon of imagineered urbanism. Multi-billionaire Sheikh Mo—as he is known to Dubai’s expats—has a straightforward if immodest goal: ‘I want to be Number One in […]
Photo by Erich Harvey @ flickr
Photo by BobJack @ flickr
Photo by Steph & Adam @ flickr
I just got back from the University of Calgary where I presented a paper on theories of mobility at the What is a City? conference. These days Calgary is all abuzz at the prospect of getting a real Norman Foster skyscraper thanks to fossil-fuel juggernaut EnCana. Calgary, Alberta’s most populated city, is flush with cash […]