Anthropologist of Media,
Performance, and Pop Culture
in the Americas
Performance, and Pop Culture
in the Americas
publications of interest
Polleras, Protest, and Piledrivers: Staging Spectacular Violence in Bolivia
in Bodies on the Front Lines: Performance, Gender, and Sexuality in Latin America and the Caribbean
in Bodies on the Front Lines: Performance, Gender, and Sexuality in Latin America and the Caribbean
In Bolivia, Indigenous peoples are known for their tradition of rebellion, which began with insurrections against Spanish colonial government in the 1500s. Current protests invoke this history, resulting in dual discourses—that of Indigenous and working-class Bolivians who recall this history with pride and continue to assert their rights within street demonstrations; and another, firmly entrenched with elite Bolivians who decry these protests as violent, uncivilized, and evidence of Indigenous peoples’ inherent inferiority. Within this larger context of discursive links between violence and indigeneity, in the early 2000s women began wrestling in exhibition lucha libre events while wearing the pollera, a skirt associated with the chola indigenous women, and more particularly, with their involvement in protest. Using performance studies, theories on violence and society, and ethnography, this chapter explores the ways that staging violence in spectacular form simultaneously recalls the social hierarchies, state violence, and exclusions that are part of the consequences of colonization in the Americas, as well as presents an opportunity for imagining different futures for Indigenous women.
The Routledge Companion to Media Anthropology provides a broad overview of the widening and flourishing area of media anthropology, and outlines key themes, debates, and emerging directions.
The book draws together the work of scholars from across the globe, with rich ethnographic studies that address a wide range of media practices and forms. The chapters offer wide-ranging explorations of how forms of mediation influence communication, social relationships, cultural practices, participation, and social change, as well as production and access to information and knowledge. This volume considers new developments, and highlights the ways in which anthropology can contribute to the study of the human condition and the social processes in which media are entangled.
This is an indispensable teaching resource for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students and an essential text for scholars working across the areas that media anthropology engages with, including anthropology, sociology, media and cultural studies, internet and communication studies, and science and technology studies.
The book draws together the work of scholars from across the globe, with rich ethnographic studies that address a wide range of media practices and forms. The chapters offer wide-ranging explorations of how forms of mediation influence communication, social relationships, cultural practices, participation, and social change, as well as production and access to information and knowledge. This volume considers new developments, and highlights the ways in which anthropology can contribute to the study of the human condition and the social processes in which media are entangled.
This is an indispensable teaching resource for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students and an essential text for scholars working across the areas that media anthropology engages with, including anthropology, sociology, media and cultural studies, internet and communication studies, and science and technology studies.
My previously printed article, Writing on the Walls: Discourses on Bolivian Immigrants in Chilean Meme Humor, which explores the ways Chileans' humorous memes expressing xenophobia against Bolivian migrants naturalizes other forms of violence against them, is now reprinted. The volume has been called "The first distinctly global and interdisciplinary perspective on hateful language online." It's now available here from Indiana University Press.
Moving beyond Euro-American allegations of "fake news," contributors draw attention to local idioms and practices and explore the profound implications for how community is imagined, enacted, and brutally enforced around the world. With a cross-cultural framework nuanced by ethnography and field-based research, the volume investigates a wide range of cases—from anti-immigrant memes targeted at Bolivians in Chile to trolls serving the ruling AK Party in Turkey—to ask how the potential of extreme speech to talk back to authorities has come under attack by diverse forms of digital hate cultures. Offering a much-needed global perspective on the "dark side" of the internet, Digital Hate is a timely and critical look at the raging debates around online media's failed promises.
See the full text here
A wildly popular form of mass media and live entertainment, professional wrestling makes a spectacle of violent acts. With its long history of working contemporary events into storylines and commenting upon cultural and military conflicts, professional wrestling is also intrinsically political. This volume asks how professional wrestling is implicated in the current resurgence of populist politics, whether right-wing, or leftist and socialist. How might it do more than reflect and reaffirm the status quo? While provoked by the disruptive performances of Trump as candidate and president, and mindful of his longstanding ties to the WWE, this timely volume looks more broadly and internationally at the infusion of professional wrestling’s worldview into the twinned discourses of politics and populism.
See full description, table of contents, and order the book here
See full description, table of contents, and order the book here
Las Redes Sociales en el Norte de Chile
Social Media in Northern Chile now available in Spanish!
Este libro, que está basado en 15 meses de investigación etnográfica en la ciudad de Alto Hospicio en el norte de Chile, describe cómo sus habitantes usan las redes sociales y los efectos en sus vidas diarias. Nell Haynes sostiene que las redes sociales son un lugar donde los residentes de Alto Hospicio, u hospiceños, expresan sus sentimientos de marginación como resultado de vivir en una ciudad lejos de la capital nacional y con una calidad de vida notoriamente baja en comparación con otras áreas urbanas en Chile.
Al alejarse de manera activa de los habitantes de ciudades como Santiago, los hospiceños se identifican como ciudadanos marginados y expresan un nuevo tipo de norma social. Sin embargo, Haynes descubre que al contrastar sus propias experiencias vividas con las de las personas en áreas metropolitanas, los Hospiceños están fortaleciendo su propio sentido de comunidad y el sentimiento de normatividad que
da forma a su cotidianidad. Esta emocionante conclusión se basa en la variedad de publicaciones en las redes sociales, particularmente Facebook, sobre relaciones personales, política y ciudadanía nacional.
Social Media in Northern Chile now available in Spanish!
Este libro, que está basado en 15 meses de investigación etnográfica en la ciudad de Alto Hospicio en el norte de Chile, describe cómo sus habitantes usan las redes sociales y los efectos en sus vidas diarias. Nell Haynes sostiene que las redes sociales son un lugar donde los residentes de Alto Hospicio, u hospiceños, expresan sus sentimientos de marginación como resultado de vivir en una ciudad lejos de la capital nacional y con una calidad de vida notoriamente baja en comparación con otras áreas urbanas en Chile.
Al alejarse de manera activa de los habitantes de ciudades como Santiago, los hospiceños se identifican como ciudadanos marginados y expresan un nuevo tipo de norma social. Sin embargo, Haynes descubre que al contrastar sus propias experiencias vividas con las de las personas en áreas metropolitanas, los Hospiceños están fortaleciendo su propio sentido de comunidad y el sentimiento de normatividad que
da forma a su cotidianidad. Esta emocionante conclusión se basa en la variedad de publicaciones en las redes sociales, particularmente Facebook, sobre relaciones personales, política y ciudadanía nacional.
How the World Changed Social Media is the MOST READ OPEN ACCESS E-BOOK ON JSTOR!
This book offers a comparative analysis summarising the results of the ethnographic research exploring the impact of social media on politics and gender, education and commerce. What is the result of the increased emphasis on visual communicatin? Are we becoming mroe individual or more social? Why is public social media so conservative? Why does equality online fail to shift inequality offline? How did memes become the moral police of the internet?
How the World Changed Social Media argues that the only way to appreciate and understanding something as intimate and ubiquitous as social media is to be immersed in the lives of the people who post. Only then can we discover how peole all around the world have already transformed social media in such unexpected ways and assess the consequences.
Go to the UCL Press website to order your copy or download free PDFs.
This book offers a comparative analysis summarising the results of the ethnographic research exploring the impact of social media on politics and gender, education and commerce. What is the result of the increased emphasis on visual communicatin? Are we becoming mroe individual or more social? Why is public social media so conservative? Why does equality online fail to shift inequality offline? How did memes become the moral police of the internet?
How the World Changed Social Media argues that the only way to appreciate and understanding something as intimate and ubiquitous as social media is to be immersed in the lives of the people who post. Only then can we discover how peole all around the world have already transformed social media in such unexpected ways and assess the consequences.
Go to the UCL Press website to order your copy or download free PDFs.
Social Media in Northern Chile: Posting the Extraordinarily Ordinary
Based on 15 months of ethnographic research in the city of Alto Hospicio in northern Chile, this book describes how the residents use social media, and the consequences of this use in their daily lives. Nell Haynes argues that social media is a place where Alto Hospicio’s residents – or Hospiceños – express their feelings of marginalisation that result from living in city far from the national capital, and with a notoriously low quality of life compared to other urban areas in Chile.
In actively distancing themselves from residents in cities such as Santiago, Hospiceños identify as marginalised citizens, and express a new kind of social norm. Yet Haynes finds that by contrasting their own lived experiences with those of people in metropolitan areas, Hospiceños are strengthening their own sense of community and the sense of normativity that shapes their daily lives. This exciting conclusion is illustrated by the range of social media posts about personal relationships, politics and national citizenship, particularly on Facebook.
Go to the UCL Press website to order your copy or download free PDFs.
Based on 15 months of ethnographic research in the city of Alto Hospicio in northern Chile, this book describes how the residents use social media, and the consequences of this use in their daily lives. Nell Haynes argues that social media is a place where Alto Hospicio’s residents – or Hospiceños – express their feelings of marginalisation that result from living in city far from the national capital, and with a notoriously low quality of life compared to other urban areas in Chile.
In actively distancing themselves from residents in cities such as Santiago, Hospiceños identify as marginalised citizens, and express a new kind of social norm. Yet Haynes finds that by contrasting their own lived experiences with those of people in metropolitan areas, Hospiceños are strengthening their own sense of community and the sense of normativity that shapes their daily lives. This exciting conclusion is illustrated by the range of social media posts about personal relationships, politics and national citizenship, particularly on Facebook.
Go to the UCL Press website to order your copy or download free PDFs.
