Today felt like a very “anthropological day” for me. I purposively waited till I was comfortable with the interviewing process before interviewing some of the more visible and well known players in the hacker cultural and political world. So nearly after 20 months of research, and 50 in person interviews, I finally interviewed John Gillmore. After 3 hours we got through like half of the things I wanted to talk about so I will have to go back for more. It was a great interview reminding me of why I like being an anthropologist too . And I “feel” so much more like an anthropologist (that is I kinda know what I am doing) than when I started although not entirely so. Along with my project, this research is *very much* also a training period of learning how to be an anthropologist. I have and will make mistakes that will hopefully be reflective feedback tools to improve my own practice of anthropology if I do indeed continue to be an anthropologist (after today’s interview, I had this strong urge to be a biographer inspired by John Gillmore’s tales as a software developer, passionate learner, political provocateur, and all all round interesting guy). But after 10 minutes of serious, deep thought, I was like: “hell no, not 6 years into my degree and 3 years into this project.” But maybe later…

I get asked a lot what anthropology is or what the differences are between a sociologist and anthropologist. I cringe at those questions because I would like to answer with ease and total clarity but feel like I usually fail. But my interest in answering this question, well, was sparked after I received an email that claimed that morality could only studied from a philosophical perspective, which was written by a quantitative sociologist. It really irked me not only because I think it is a ridiculous assertion but it was a blow to my entire project as I was putting ethics under anthropological not philosophical scrutiny. Anger motivates. So here I will attempt at a fist stab at explaining in “lay terms” what composes the craft of anthropology in the hopes of brining some sense to what it is we do.

To attempt this, I am going to at times dip into my own autobiographical experiences as well as borrow some concepts and metaphors from the world of software hacking, but a first a caveat especially about the later. My use of metaphorical comparisons are meant to more richly make a point about something (in this case anthropology) not to equate the two. That is it is a means for an ends not an end in itself. I will also be probably chastised by my anthropological colleagues for “using native categories” as modes of explanation but luckily none but 2 read my blog because they are for the most part so technophobic that it even perturbs me. But hey, I think this is a great exercise. Instead of using anthropological concepts and categories to try to understand hacker culture (which is what I will do with my dissertation anyway), why not use hacker categories to explain anthropology?

So, here it is: Anthropologists essentially “reverse engineer” culture. We don’t just understand and convey surface manifestations of culture (which might be what you find in a National Geographic piece), but we like to consider and examine the underlying mechanisms that produce and reproduce social worlds, that is the source code of culture. We are just as interested in how “culture” is made by the aggregate of social actors who act through social institutions, undertake material practices, and participate in a wide range of mundane and ritual activities (all the while, being attentive to that the fact that culture is shaped by larger socio-historical forces). Sounds hard, doesn’t it? But hey who ever said that reverse engineering was ever easy?
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For the rest of this essay, go here This is admittedly the longest thing I have ever written for my blog so only the brave of heart, enter.