ASAA/NZ BLOG
For this week's digest I am addressing space, spatial relations and the new craze of Pokemon GO. The power of the video games both to pop culture and to urban culture. How it becomes a potent force in altering their mutual understandings. Also giving a nod to the US military and the importance of the silence in enacting social change.
In light of mine and the social media worlds' overwhelming responses to Jesse William’s speech at the BET awards I am grounding this weeks digest in the opposite response. The issues of inward and outward stigma and discrimination. However can the world be completely brained when ‘we’ are often geared toward ignorance and misguided efforts.
In the light of the recent, heartbreaking, events in Pulse, an LGBTQI night club in Orlando I felt the need to use this week's digest to use to talk about the lives of those who identify as LGBTQI. Whether ‘in’ or ‘outside’ of the metaphorical closet I wanted to discuss the realities for those of us affected by the issues raised in the articles below. Highlighting that whether hidden or seen, safety is not something that is guaranteed and this can be largely influenced by the legislation that creates the ‘worlds’ we all exist within.
With the constant pressure to do the ‘right’ thing. I have chosen to use this week's digest to explore the importance and validation of sometimes doing what is deemed to be ‘wrong’. Whether it be overly coddling the youth of today, defining a meaning, trial and error in the workplace or how you choose to present yourself to the world, the wrong can sometimes teach as many valuable and important lessons as the right.
On Wednesday 9 March 2016 Dr Barbara Andersen gave an ethnographically rich seminar titled "Gender, Infrastructure, and Health Care in Papua New Guinea" at Victoria University of Wellington. Harriet Lane-Tobin took the opportunity to interview Barbara, the newest permanent staff member in Social Anthropology at Massey University (Albany), about her research.
