Post 8: Vicente presents Hooverphonic

My favorite kind of music is trip-hop. I actually listen to many kind of music so it’s hard to decide which one is my favorite, but I’m going to talk about trip-hop, because it’s what I’m listening recently. Trip-hop is catalogued as an electronic kind of music, but I think it’s more like a mix between hip-hop and electronic, but no one of them is really recognizable. Trip hop was born in 1990 and I describe it as a really slow kind of music and usually accompanied with soft voices (although men usually sing as ‘rapping’). But actually, trip hop music is very experimental and that’s what I like about it ¡There are many weird things in every song!

One of my favorite bands of this genre is Hooverphonic. Hooverphonic’s most famous song is ‘mad about you’. I came to know this band when I was in secondary school, when a really good friend introduces me to this kind of music, but actually I never really listened until I enter into university (I don’t know why, just happened).

Also I like Massive Attack, well-know because one of their songs appears in the opening of House M.D. (a medical TV show) and Portishead, which is maybe the most important band of this genre. Anyone who says they like Portishead must know ‘glory box’. In fact, Hooverphonic mixes their song ‘mad about you’ with Portishead’s ‘glory box’ in their concerts as a tribute

Post 7: Who's to blame?

I’m not a very environmentally friendly person in my daily practices. I don’t know a lot about it, but this is also something I personally don’t believe. Don’t get me wrong. I do think that worrying about environment is important and I really appreciate what many people do about it.

But being ecologist is expensive, for example, to throw away you garbage, you need to buy these big black bags and you are not supposed to use a supermarket bag. But, what you are supposed to do with so many bags every time they give you when you buy in the supermarket? Yes, you can buy an eco-bag, but how you are going to throw your garbage? These black bags are expensive! The poverty in Chile is very high and people who live with the minimum can’t afford those expenses.

On the other hand, people can separate their garbage in organic and non-organic garbage, but there is only one garbage truck. That makes no sense!

I think that companies and industries need to worry about the environment because they cause most of the problems to it. They contaminate and people should ask them to do something about it. For example, people complain about smokers because they contaminate, but industries contaminate like one million cigarettes and nobody says anything about it. I really like organizations who do strikes against who really contaminate about environment.

Post 6: In the field

As anthropology’s student we have to do a lot of fieldwork. In my personal experience I’ve visited many placed, for example, in urban anthropology I went to Bajos de Mena, a suburb in Puente Alto, described as the most dangerous place in Santiago and in rural anthropology, I visited Llallauquén, a little town placed on the shores of Rapel’s lake. In Ethnography I went to El Golf neighborhood and I made ethnography about Plaza Perú, a very interesting square where many Peruvian maids gathered together. Finally, for Qualitative Methodology, I visited Lastarria neighborhood, a place in the core of Santiago, well known for everyone in city.

This was very interesting, because –as I said- a well-known place means you need to clear your mind and think about it as you have never visited before. Like a tourist. One of the problems of visiting a neighborhood like Lastarria is that everyone wants to tell you the marvelous things about it, but you want to know the problems, something interesting to study in. A hard thing to do in there was to make older people to trust in you, and in Lastarria many people was very old.

But one of the good things is to know what people things about themselves, but this is maybe the best thing in every fieldwork you made.

Post 5: From politics to cooking

I would like to work in something related to my career. It’s not very accurate to say that I will work as an anthropologist, because it doesn’t say too much about it. I would like to know many places around the world and to write books or reports about my travels and to know different cultures and societies. Also, I would like to record on videotape my experience and to make documentaries to teach about anthropology and its ethical and methodological problems. But that is like a dream job, because I don’t know who is going to pay me for that. Travelling is expensive.

On the other hand, I would like to do a PhD in political anthropology. Political anthropology studies how do different cultures understand the social link between people. For example, countries in the world are organized by State and it controlled everything inside the country, however, they are cultures that do not follow this pattern, for example, there are cultures in Polynesia that are organized by giving and receiving gifts. This is very interesting because it teaches you that there are others kind of social organization and not only the Greek concept of politics.

If no one of them works, I’m very good at cooking and I can be a chef.