E-MERGENT ANTHROPOLOGIES: PRACTICE PAROCHIALIZES AS BANDWIDTH INCREASES

Abstract

This paper anticipates anthropologists' uses of the Internet in the face of several key technology trends. It draws on the past several years of the author's Internet uses in service to the profession, as a medium for scholarly exchange and teaching, and for development of interactive tools for collaborative research. Service to the profession has included acting as web-servant for the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology (with its internship links, Mentor Program, and on-line resume workshop); participating in the AAA Advisory Group on Electronic Communications, and helping to develop the Society for Applied Anthropology's web site. Helping to start up the online Journal of Political Ecology and a year-long electronic correspondence with a 5th grade class illustrate two dimensions of scholarly exchange and teaching in non-traditional venues. Interactive tool development covers a range of projects in the domains of energy, environmental, and social policy. Prospects for the E-mergent future of electronic communications in anthropology are offered in light of such likely technology trends as: (1) increases in bandwidth and processing speed (2) decreasing costs of memory storage (3) increasing availability and affordability of ancillary equipment (e.g., desktop video, audio input devices) (4) rapidly increasing accessibility of content in non-traditional venues and to non-academic audiences (5) increasing commercial feasibility of micro-transaction cost-recovery for publishers.