The Bounds of Belief in Belize: Health, Belief, and Biomedicine in Rural Communities

Conference Flyer where this paper was presented

by douglas c reeser on 12.12.12
As an anthropologist, it is expected that I present my research to the public. One of the most accepted means of doing this is through national and international conferences. A big issue with conferences, however, is that they reach a very specific public. Conferences are often quite costly which limits who has access, many papers are presented to very small audiences, and the papers are rarely published or otherwise made available. So while I get "credit" in the eyes of colleagues and potential employers for presenting at a prestigious conference, chances are just 20 people ever get to see, hear, or read my paper. To me, that is a limited public.

I was lucky enough to have a paper accepted at the latest annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association. I was only able to attend because of a small travel grant that covered my airfare to San Francisco and my room for the week. Although well attended, the conference is quite pricey (almost $200 for student membership and registration), which limits attendees to primarily anthropologists. My paper was given on the first day of the conference when many people are still arriving, and the audience was quite small. So in an effort to make my research available to a wider public, I am sharing the paper here, for free.

Read the abstract and the entire paper after the jump:

Three Monks: Antique Animation from China

by douglas reeser on July 17, 2012
Recently a friend turned us on to Obscure Animation, a channel on youtube that has a bunch of old and rare animations. It's difficult to choose a favorite, as they're all interesting in their own way. It's just cool to see such an excellent collection in one place. With a big thanks to those behind Obscure Animation, we present for you here, Three Monks, a quite famous animated short made in 1980 by the celebrated director, A Da. 


The film is based on the proverb that posits: "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water."

From Obscure Animation: 

Three Monks is a Chinese animated short, released in 1980 and directed by A Da. It is one of the most famous and beloved of Shanghai Animation Film Studio's productions, and has won awards at film festivals throughout the world. A note about the columns of text that appear at the beginning: the first column reads, "one monk fetches water to drink", the second column reads, "two monks carry water to drink", and the third one merely says, "three monks". The unfinished sentence reflects the film's central question, which is whether the three main characters will learn to work together so that they can all have water to drink.