School of Anthropology and Conservation

The exponential rise of information available means we can now, in theory, access knowledge on almost any question we ask. However, as the amount of unverified information increases, so too does the challenge in deciding which information to trust. Farmers, when learning about agricultural innovations, have historically relied on in-person advice from traditional ‘experts’, such as agricultural advisers, to inform farm management. As more farmers go online for information, it is not clear whether they are now using digital information to corroborate in-person advice from traditional ‘experts’, or if they are foregoing ‘expert’ advice in preference for peer-generated information. To fill this knowledge gap, we sought to understand how farmers in two contrasting European countries (Hungary and the UK) learnt about sustainable soil innovations and who influenced them to innovate. Through interviews with 82 respondents, we found farmers in both countries regularly used online sources to...

Summary In the context of the high-profile controversy that has unfolded in the UK around the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and its possible adverse effects, this paper addresses how parents in Brighton are thinking about MMR for their own children. Research focusing on parents' engagement with MMR has been dominated by analysis of the proximate influences on their choices, and in particular scientific and media information, guiding policy to focus on information and education.

Abstract The people of Vava'u, Tonga, manage to deal with most incidences of" mental illness" without resorting to institutionalization or overt stigmatization. The terms used to describe unusual behavior, though pejorative in the eyes of psychiatrist Dr Mapa Puloka, are contestable and negotiable. Through the creative use of a multiplicity of explanations, people have in���� uence over the potential stigma to suffering relatives.

This article argues for a shift from an evaluation of the efficacy of “traditional medicine” to an analysis of the influence of notions of efficacy on health seeking and health outcomes. Studies on the therapeutic value of traditional medicine tend to focus on countering or engaging with biomedical models to explain the process and efficacy of healing. Less examined is how efficacy is evaluated by traditional healers and patients themselves. Ethnographic research focused on health seeking and language use in Tonga reveals a diversity of claims of efficacy that relate to the social and epistemological positions of healers, health workers, and patients. Using the celebrated case of a man who was cured by a healer after the hospital could do no more for him facilitates greater epistemological dialogue and poses a challenge to the current efficacy consensuses in medical anthropology and Tonga.

Summary In the context of the high-profile controversy that has unfolded in the UK around the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and its possible adverse effects, this paper addresses how parents in Brighton are thinking about MMR for their own children. Research focusing on parents' engagement with MMR has been dominated by analysis of the proximate influences on their choices, and in particular scientific and media information, guiding policy to focus on information and education. The ethnographic work in Brighton ...

The Global Mental Health (GMH) movement has raised questions of the translatability of psychiatric concepts and the challenges of community engagement. In Tonga, the local psychiatrist Dr Puloka successfully established a publicly accessible psychiatry that has improved admission rates for serious mental illnesses and addressed some of the stigma attached to diagnosis. On the basis of historical analysis and ethnographic fieldwork with healers, doctors, and patients since 1998, this article offers an ethnographic contextualization of the development and reception of Puloka’s three key interventions during the 1990s: (a) collaboration with traditional healers; (b) translation of psychiatric diagnoses into local cultural concepts; and (c) encouraging freedom of movement and legal appeal to involuntary admission. Dr Puloka’s use of medical anthropological and transcultural psychiatry research informed a community-engaged brokerage between the implications of psychiatric nosologies and ...

Bilateral health system development in Tonga is implicated in a misrepresentation of ‘traditional’ healing that has serious implications for the provision of health care. It has strengthened the tendency to homogenise and stereotype a diverse body of healers in counter distinction with biomedicine. The diversity of and syncretism in non-biomedical local healing practice is little appreciated in policy debates. Addressing the epistemological, social and linguistic context of syncretism in terms sensitive to healers’ concerns and conceptualisations is vital to build on the pre-existing collaborations between health professionals and a diverse body of healers in a country that has experienced a marked shift from communicable to noncommunicable disorders. This paper examines the diversity and syncretism of five of the most popular ‘spirit’ healers in Vava’u, Tonga in terms suggested by healers themselves using the Tongan concept and value of tauhi vaha’a (to evoke and intensify relatedn...

Hau‘ofa’s aside begs the question, “Positive for whom?” In Vava‘u, people su" ering from “mental illness” bene# t from a ! exibility of truth and the contestability of Tongan terms used to describe their behaviour. $ is article ethnographically examines the reasons for Vava‘uan resistance to medical ideas of mental illness and the implications on the lives of those su" ering. Manu, the central character in Hau‘ofa’s classic of Paci# c literature, Tales of the Tikongs (1994) is a good place to start. He exempli# es the humorous association between “mental illness” and inappropriate truthfulness. Written on the back of Manu’s shirt are the words, “Religion and Education Destroy Original Wisdom.”

An anthropological perspective on the impact of Dual, Mixed Reality and 'PolySocial Reality' (PoSR) on Location Awareness and other applications in Smart Environments. We intend to initiate a friendly inter- disciplinary discussion on the interaction aspects and cultural implications surrounding these new forms of integrated technologies. Anthropologists examine human group behavior in the context of culture. Because the LAMDa workshop is addressing 'group behavior,' we will contribute to the workshop with our understanding of humans, culture and group behavior and to learn from others what type of group behavior is expected as new technologies and their subsequent experiences are created for human use. When we discuss human group behavior, we refer to the definition of a social group: a collection of humans who repeatedly interact within a system.

Humans can, and do switch context between environments and blend traces of one into the other in a socially unconscious manner often seemingly simultaneously. We propose that the cultures and behaviors of humans are increasingly actively permeating Internet and network- based applications, as well as those that are geolocal. With the future Internet of things, Dual Reality and Mixed Reality, the opportunity for humans to extend their own blended reality, as well as to create new ones is unfolding. That said, because humans interact within groups, the multiplexing of their mutual blended realities rapidly creates a PoSR. Sorting out the relationships between realities as well as between synchronous and asynchronous time and geolocal space can create a condition where realities are simultaneous and the idea of 'x' can be perceived as equaling 'not x.' We explore this new type of interoperability between virtual and physical, ideational and material, representations and objects and culture.

Keywords

Time, Space, Asynchronous, Ubiquitous, Pervasive, Dual Reality, Mixed Reality, Blended Reality, Polyreality, PolySocial Reality (PoSR)