methods

As we head into tomorrow’s Super Tuesday contests, statistics, analytics, and minutia of all sorts are being bandied about, examined for their possible predictions and the clues they can give us about how those who turn out to caucus will make their choices for the presidential candidates who want to represent them. In a classic piece, Skidmore College’s Andrew Lindner looks at how such numbers and stats remain a form of elite knowledge in “The Sociology of Silver,” published online and in our first TSP volume with W.W. Norton & Company, The Social Side of Politics.

Just one more, late addition to last week’s round-up: the TSP Media Award for an article in The Atlantic earlier in the spring. The piece described the growing trend in market research of hiring anthropologists to do fieldwork on how people actually use and talk about the products they consume.

In addition to the phenomenon itself, there was a lot of great food for ethnographic thought in the piece. Some highlights include: more...