1.
Massively Multiplayer Online
Collaborative Anthropology
2008 Annual Meeting
American Anthropological Association
San Francisco, CA
November 19-23, 2008

2.
p. kerim friedman
kerim.oxus.net

3.
ci.ndhu.edu.tw

4.
savageminds.org

5.
fournineandahalf.com

6.
Turnbull’s Typewriter

7.
Participant observation, the classic formula for
ethnographic work, leaves little room for texts.
But still, somewhere lost in his account of
fieldwork among the Mbuti pygmies – running
along jungle paths, sitting up at night singing,
sleeping in a crowded leaf hut – Colin Turnbull
mentions that he lugged around a typewriter.
Clifford 1986

8.
the 1980’s post-literary
moment

9.
writing as a process
which must be
examined contextually,
rhetorically,
institutionally,
generically, politically,
and historically

10.
Clifford worries that the essays in
Writing Culture quot;will be accused of
having gone too far: poetry will again
be banned from the city, power from
the halls of sciencequot;

11.
not far enough

12.
We need to revisit
assumptions about the
possibilities and limits of a
post-literary anthropology in
the age of the internet.

13.
rethinking collaboration

14.
“in the collaborative model is
there a full give and take,
where at every step of the
research knowledge and
expertise is shared”
El Dorado Task Force 2002

15.
How to create
“dialogic” texts?

16.
form vs. process

17.
production vs.
dissemination

18.
can anthropology be
remixed?

19.
three case-studies

20.
wiki- bureaucratization

21.
“ignore all rules”

22.
This page may meet Wikipedia’s criteria for speedy
deletion. The given reason is: It is a very short
article providing little or no context (CSD A1),
contains no content whatsoever (CSD A3),
consists only of links elsewhere (CSD A3) or a
rephrasing of the title (CSD A3). Speedy concern: It
is a very short article providing little or no context
(CSD A1), contains no content whatsoever (CSD
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rephrasing of the title (CSD A3). If this page does
not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, or you
intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do
not remove this notice from pages that you have
created yourself.

23.
wikipedia bias

24.
“people work on what
they want to work on”
- ethan zuckerman

25.
“most of the people
who work on wikipedia
are white, male
technocrats from the
US and europe.”
- ethan zuckerman

26.
What they write about:
• technology
• science fiction
• libertarianism
• life in the US/Europe

27.
african literature anime

28.
Wikipedia:BIAS

29.
image ethics

30.
Attention Field Workers: great
offense can be caused if this
material is shown to tribal
Aboriginal people. The author
strongly requests in the
interests of future research that
this not be done.
- Catherine Ellis
(quoted by Nicolas Peterson)

31.
Don’t look!

32.
mukurtuarchive.org

33.
anti-social networks?

34.
Homophily refers to the fact
that “you’re likely to
befriend, talk to, work with
and share ideas with people
who’ve got common ethnic,
religious and economic
background with you.”
- Ethan Zuckerman

35.
readers also liked...

36.
“MySpace has most of the
kids who are socially
ostracized at school because
they are geeks, freaks, or
queers....The goodie two
shoes, jocks, athletes, or
other ‘good’ kids are now
going to Facebook.”
- Danah Boyd

37.
% net users by country

38.
globalvoicesonline.org

39.
institutional barriers to
cooperation

40.
research guidelines

41.
limited access

42.
Thanks!
slideshare.com/kerim

43.
• http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/
2004/09/28/systemic-biases-in-wikipedia/
• http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/
2008/04/25/homophily-serendipity-
xenophilia/
• http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/13/arts/
13BOOK.html
• http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/
ClassDivisions.html

44.
• Peterson, N. 2003. “The Changing Photographic
Contract: Aborigines and Image Ethics.” In
Photography's Other Histories, ed. C. Pinney, and N.
Peterson, 119-145. Durham: Duke University
Press.
• Clifford, James & George E Marcus. 1986.
Introduction: Partial truths. In In Writing Culture: the
Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley:
University of California Press.