Category Archives: Descriptions

David Graeber on Ethnography

Taken from the Preface to his 2009 book ‘Direct Action, An Ethnography’ all about the 2000/2001 protests and riots against the WTO, etc., pages vii-viii: Call this book, then, a tribute to the continued relevance of ethnographic writing. By “ethnographic writing,” … Continue reading

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Orwell on miners; the working-class; and unemployment in the 30s

I’m reading George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier, as a re-tweet from my diligent twitter friend Sam_Crisp alerted me to the fact that the University of Adelaide is periodically releasing out-of-copyright e-books (and Orwell, having been dead 50 years  is now … Continue reading

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Some thoughts on Pete Ashton’s FYPA.net

Alright so this is going to be some nit-picky bullshit because that’s what I’m training to do. A Doctor of Philosophy is a nitpicky asshole and eventually I’m going to have to prove to the world academy that I know … Continue reading

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Tim Morton on climate, denial, and responsibility

The following extremely lengthy extract is from Timothy Morton’s ‘The Ecological Thought’ which is (appropriately enough) heavily influencing my current thinking, distilling a lot of background intuitions and assumptions into a more definite form. Here’s Morton, at the beginning of Chapter 3, … Continue reading

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Why do I write?

Why do I write? I haven’t stopped to think about it lately, and I probably should. So I sat down for an afternoon and tried to come up with all the reasons why I write. Here, in no particular order, … Continue reading

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Describing Bad Company 2, part 1 of many

Latour’s maxim for where to begin an ANT-like description is ‘in media res’ – in the middle of things. Perhaps we could start in the pilot’s seat of a helicopter. Better yet – we could be even more descriptive than … Continue reading

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