What caught my eye as I was reading this sketch was the theoretical framework that is being used. I am intrigued about the role that Marxism plays in modern day Cairo.
The way the sketches unpack the different christianities practiced, embodied and politicized in post opening China
I was most interested in the sketch's description of the structure of the ethnography. As Raymond mentioned, the A-Z Insectpedia structure "mocks the ieda that there can be any complete account of A-Z human insect relations." The ethnography documents several stories from people around the world interacting with insects.
I think the discussion of power and how it operates in different ways at different scales was particularly interesting. While Kameko points out that this book was written in 1997, I think the descriptions of how power is expressed, fostered, and obstructed in this particular cultural context are pertinent to examinations of power structures that are a continuing part of the refugee experience today.
The sketch that most drew my interest was the discussion of the text's empirical data. The nature of online virtual ethnography and video games is so novel and interesting to me, so that was very intriguing.
Santiago writes "It (the ethnograhy) introduces the challenge of sustainability and provides context that legitimate the relevance of utopian projects to the modern world". In answering the question "how is the critism of the text performed", Santiago adds there are different scholarly views toward Utopianism. The author presents it
"as a transformation according to contemporary values rather than a failure...it presents the modern world as opposed to the object of analysis, to the ethos of the intentional communities". I'm very interested in reading more of the communities' understanding of Utopianism and how they position utopia and modernity in a temporality frame.
I share an interest with the author and the sketcher on virtual reality, the rules therein, and what we can learn about about human behavior from how they behave in a virtual world so I found the entire sketch fascinating.
Some key elements that resonated me:
"this did not stop players from being offensive, racist, or discriminatory in anyways in fact some saw it as a challenge, creating multiple accounts to keep harassing residents in the world," would have extraordinarily informative information on bullying behavior and the persistence of predatory behavior.
I'd also love psychological profiles of avatars versus their creators. Are their avatars braver? Clever? What does the mask say about the wearer?
I'm also interested in the LGBTQ aspect of finding subaltern or subversive modes of expression in virtual space where the costs for expression in the real world may be too high.
It also raises an interesting question about capitalism: what is an economic system where you don't have to eat, drink, or subsist? Does it raise the symbolic floor of a welfare system?
There's really quite a lot here that drew my interest and I'd love to have a deeper conversation on the topic.
I believe what most drew me in the text is the basic premise of exploring an interaction between human and non-human animals. It seemed strange at first but often in order study humans it seems you study everything around it, and in this case animals were that non-human obect.
What drew my interest to the text is how the sketch mentions the connections these broader topics of UFO sightings and conspiracies have with the legacies of colonialism and violence in US history; how the question of narrative reveals a unique link between the two.
The text's interviews with family members who have lost a loved one in the desert are the most interesting and powerful thing about this text and of the ethnography as a whole. To be able to understand the extent of the structural violence, one must hear from those who have lost their lives as a result of the policies, the structure of the system and the transit route as an experience.