Came across an interesting report via MindHacks on the different conceptions of happiness between East Asians and European-Americans.  I’m always happy to see research that closely and thoughtfully considers the impact of culture on pretty much any behavior or concept often taken as universal.  As an anthropology and psychology student I always approached psychological research [...]

1.  First of all, know what fois gras is. 2.  Take a class on etiquette.  And romance. 3.  When she asks if she’s fat, say no.  Tell her she’s beautiful and that, in fact, she should eat more because she looks too thin. 4.  Being French means loving to cook.  Really cook.  Not what we [...]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9rUzLoKpfs For several years, anthropologist Karen Ho worked at an investment firm on Wall Street.  Her experience there resulted in her dissertation Liquefying Corporations and Communities:  Wall Street World Views and Socioeconomic Transformations in the Post-Industrial US. Today, Time released a brief interview with Ho, in which she discusses her thoughts on what’s wrong with [...]

From Beyond Culture Citing Washburn (1973) on the importance of play in learning “Through play (emotional, repetitious, from within) children prepare for the adult life of their culture.  Separation of education from life…is new in the history of primates.  In the American school there is no view of adult life…In schools discipline is substituted for [...]

I came across a haunting trailer today for a documentary by (of?) Josh Harris and Ondi Timoner called We Live in Public.  According to Jason Calacanis, who wrote an excellent email-turned-blog-post about the documentary’s subject matter, “It’s a cautionary tale about the dehumanizing effects of technology, a somber topic that we all need to consider [...]

A few highlights from my current read, Edward T. Hall‘s Beyond Culture (Chapter 4 – Hidden Culture) “…language is not…a system for transferring thoughts or meaning from one brain to another, but a system for organizing information and for releasing thoughts and responses in other organisms.” (pg 57) (my emphasis) “Two things get in the [...]

I’m looking forward to reading this recently published report from the Internet & Democracy Project out of the Berkman Center titled  Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture and Dissent.  Interestingly, they found that Arabic bloggers tend to be more concerned with domestic rather than international issues, at least in their blogs.  Some snippets below. We [...]