ESSAY

I believe that self-evaluation is a necessary step in the process of self-assurance of the quality of my education, so it must be linked to my expectations of it. Because of that, I would like to talk about why I chose to study this profession, in order to talk about the self-evaluation of my academic year. I chose Anthropology as a career in a period in which I didn’t know what to study. I felt lost, but at least I knew that I wanted a career pertaining to the Social Sciences. I finally chose Anthropology by curiosity and mainly because it seemed to solve some doubts (or to approach them at least) that I had about our society. In view of these considerations, is that in my self evaluation I want to talk about the theoretical tools that I have learned and the usefulness of social Anthropology this year.

During this year, I’ve learned much about cultural materialism, structuralism, functionalism, post-structuralism, cognitive and symbolical anthropology, and many other theoretical tools. I think that this is associated to the fact that I like all these theories, because I think they allow Scientifics and anthropologists to generate verifiable and cross-cultural knowledge. But, on the other hand, there are many theories and theoretical tools that I did not learn this year and that were mentioned in the curricular program. I think that this is generally due to the lack of motivation that I have to those theories. In addition, many times I could not learn about these theories because teachers were not trained or prepared pedagogically to teach these theories.

On the other hand, this year I believe that I progressed much in my vision of the practical utility of the social Anthropology. In broad terms, it seems to me that Anthropology is a great instrument or tool of analysis methodology: one can choose the component that serves better for one to investigate a specific object, in order to help people and to protect “natives” of the unconscious cultural contradictions of the socioeconomic structure that restrict their repertoire of action.

Finally, I would like to conclude by saying that in this year I feel that I have progressed greatly as much theoretically as mentally in my future occupation in social Anthropology. I think that in this year I have confirmed my affection to Anthropology and now I am certainly that I want to obtain my degree. It is why I believe that my self-evaluation of this year was positive. Although I believe that I must learn to make an effort to learn all those theoretical aspects that do not please to me, in order of being a good anthropologist.

=)

I think that this subject is very uninteresting and boring. I suggest that you change it for the next year, dear reader.

I like challenges and to issue those challenges to win the fucking soccer game of life. Anthropology is a challenge that lasts almost 90 minutes and that we have to face hardly through science and with bravery, courage, audacity, valor and faith.

Actually, Social Anthropology needs complex statistical computer software to process and to analyze qualitative and quantitative data. The technology challenge is then, the problem of buying fucking expensive licenses. The most used statistical software in Anthropology is SPSS, a very useful program because it can develop functional correlations and co variances between sociocultural variables. Nevertheless its license is very expensive, so it’s very difficult to use it in a “legal way” (we can use it a legal way however, at the university for example). I think that we can resolve that by using illegal licenses (crack software are very easy to look in the web) or by developing free software as Linux software do.

The principal challenge in social matters is that in our country the little State’s bottoms are not destined to Social Sciences studies. Therefore, the studies that anthropologist can do are very limited by the economics resources. I think that we can solve this problem through doing a nuclear war and destroying capitalism and globalization. On the other hand, in Anthropology we have the political problem of the cultural relativism and ethnocentrism. Consequently, we have the challenge of trying to explain the causes of certain sociocultural phenomenon with the purpose of helping involved sociocultural agents, and not to make “worse” its material and immaterial situation.

The principal challenge in education is that we have many bad classes or done by professors that don’t know about pedagogy. Sometimes I think, and also other friends of anthropology, that our education “is like shit”. I can say that our curricular program is much disorganized and unsystematic, so I think that we have to complain and to fight to improve our fucking education through violent actions.


Kisses, peace and love.

Money and Social Sciences ....

The most important things in the world are soccer and love (including the different kinds of love). The first thing can be useful to eat and to survive, the second generally NO. After explaining these important subjects of my worldview and personality I will begin to speak about money and Anthropology.

The Social Science of Anthropology and the money are important things, but in very different ways.

Anthropology is useful to transcend as a subject that can to propose a change through an historical, political and scientific moral PROYECT.
On the other hand, money is important because it’s the expression (an object) of “absolute value” (in a Marxist-Leninist perspective) that becomes a subject with “own life”. Money is a hegemonic and powerful fetish, a “universal prostitute” for which everything and everybody is penetrable and useful because of its value of change.

I think that soccer is life, so Anthropology is the method by which we can join soccer to life, in order to promote a des-alienation in the population and to promote the “historicity” of the social groups interested in the social and political promotion of soccer. Consequently I must say that for me money has a dichotomizing and complex problem. On the one hand, I need money to eat, to go to the stadium, and to many other things, as to study Social Anthropology at the Universidad de Chile. On the other hand, I wish to help people, and their principal problem it’s a consequence of MONEY and social inequality (that also it is consequence of salary).

In general terms, I choose to study Social Anthropology because I want to use Social Sciences to facilitate the approach of people and soccer in a positive and integrative way. This sport is very special, because in it people can share (all the different social classes) a good moment that it would allow the development of nonviolent and healthy organized movements. So I consider soccer as an important social practice because it does not need much money, reason by why it approaches people and gives opportunities to realize powerful social projects. An example of this is when Clotario Best reunited to workers in soccer matches for later discussing social projects harmonically.

Faculty

Created in 1989, the Socials Sciences Faculty has the mission of bring up professionals with high academic and investigation skills of 4 important disciplines: Anthropology, Education, Psychology and Sociology.

Actually the Faculty is living a process of “Curricular Renovation”, because of the process of reorganization of the Undergraduate education. This process is oriented to give to students an education of excellence according to the new eras of the Chilean education. The process empathizes new methodologies of teaching and learning; different modalities of debit and forms of degree; to tie the formation of pre and postgraduates; and to renew the curricular “malla” of the careers and programs distributed in the Faculty.

The curricular “malla” of Anthropology has changed gradually, but I think that it still would have to being improved more. I think that are many courses and teachers that would have to be “eliminated” and that we must demand others. WHAT WOULD BE MY FIRST STEPS TO DEALING WITHTHIS SITUATION? I think that no much, because the Anthropology representatives are the one who must do it and I’m not one. However I can to suggest changes in class meetings to see if my companions agree with courses that I would like to change. The benefits of that would be a best methodological and theoretical preparation and for that reason more efficient professionals.

On the other hand, the creation of more computation rooms would be very good. Although this problem has been improved lately, the increasing computers necessity of students has still not been satisfied

Music

My preferred styles of music are the rock and the “cumbias villeras”. The “cumbias villeras” or “shantytown cumbias” are a distinctive kind of cumbia that were born in Argentine and then popularized in other South American countries. They are characterized for being a vulgar and coarse form of cumbia music born in the shantytowns around Buenos Aires and that is derivated musically of “Cumbia sonidera’ and Peruvian Cumbia.

I listen to rock music a 60% of the time, and cumbia music a 30 % of time (the other 10 percent of “my musical life” are of others different musical styles as metal, pop, reggae and reggeaton).

My favorite rock band is Pink Floyd. I knew it in the school by the influence of one of my best friends. I have 5 of its original discs (my favorite one is “The Dark Side of the Moon”) and I like much its music because it’s an exciting, relaxing and psychedelic rock style. When I listen to them I feel that I am a pixel of the world traveling through the light waves.

I like also classic rock, and my favorite bands are The Beatles (and its brilliant, innovating and changing style), the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin (and its psychedelic and lovely style) and the Doors (I love Jim Morrison, but in a heterosexual way).

In the other hand my favorite “shantytown cumbias” bands are Pala Ancha, Altos Cumbieros, Dama Gratis, Los Pibes Chorros and Nestor en Bloque.

My favourite song is “Wish you were here” played by Pink Floyd. I love the strong emotions that it represents and inspires.

My first and unique concert was the one of Bob Dylan that was in 2008.

Actually I am learning to play a Yembe, that’s a native African percussion instrument.

“The search for clumsy solutions”

This article, written by Matthew Taylor, talks about the use (in recent years) of cultural theory and Social Sciences in the political decisions of the UK government.

Actually government leaders include increasingly insights from fields such as social psychology, social marketing, neuroscience and of social/cultural anthropology, because those areas give knowledge about of what drive human behaviour.

The article says that leaders need to identify which are the most useful knowledge contributed by this findings and perspectives of the cultural theory. Matthew Taylor says that this approach doesn’t offer simple answers but it can be useful to give clues about why some government strategies fail and why there are others that are so successful. In general, this idea of behaviour change focuses on strategies of communication and incentive rather than compulsion.

Taylor explain that since 2004, after a report on changing behaviour from the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, the idea of behaviour changes become a very important part of social and public policy debate.

Behaviour change has become a “key objective” of public health and environmental policy. In addition, this perspective affects in very different areas as obesity, recycling, sexual health, energy use and many others.

Behaviour change considers humans actions in three levels of mental process:
-“the automatic and hard-wired”: the things we do because we are human beings
-“the tacit and culturally conditioned”: the things we do because of cultural and social structures
- “the consciously arrive at”: the things we decide to do in our social actions

http://www.guardianpublic.co.uk/solace-taylor-october

Good Food

One of my favorite food is the Dolma (also known as dolmade), that is a recipe of stuffed vegetable dishes that were originated in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire and its surrounding regions. The best-known dolma variety is the “grape-leaf dolma”, which is often called as “sarma”. Its recipe includes frequently vegetables as zucchini, lettuce, eggplant, tomato and pepper, and it may or may not include meat (I like both styles, but I love much the vegetarian sarma). When dolma included meat it is generally served hot, often with spicy sauce; but when dolma hasn’t meat, it is generally served cold. Both are often eaten with yoghurt, but with a yogurt without sugar and flavor (that are the yogurt that we usually use). I enjoy eating it when I go to the Restaurant Arabe Guarak in Viña del Mar.

Another of my favorite foods is the crunchy cheese flavored peanut that I buy in Jumbo’s supermarkets. I usually get it after the different classes when I’m going to my house, and I enjoy eating it everywhere.

I’m just learning to cook basic stuff as rice. The best food that I have ever prepared is a food of cooked vegetables that once I improvised.

I think that popcorns remember me to the cinemas (for obvious reasons xD). I think that sometimes pineapples remember me to Rapa Nui, because in this island there are the best pineapples of the world.

My perfect 3 course meal would be: shrimps to the “pilpil” as the appetizer, pizza with anchovies to the “chorrilana” as main course, and guavas as desert.