| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 09:29 - Dec 15 with 1327 views | Ewan_Oozami |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 17:45 - Dec 14 by lowhouseblue |
i always thought the black death was fairly indiscriminate in terms of class. given that in cities and villages there wan't great geographical class separation - having servants etc ruled that out - it swept through households and killed regardless of status. lots of aristocrats and royals died. so deaths weren't strongly associated with economic condition, which seems a flaw in the argument. |
If you could afford to keep clean or move from from a plague area to somewhere far away (assuming you weren't carrying it with you) you had a better chance of surviving than if you stayed behind or lived in squalor.
However, in England at least, it does appear that overall economic inequality reduced after the plague as there was a severe shortage of labour and real wages rose at quite a high rate for the next 200 years! |  |
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 09:34 - Dec 15 with 1297 views | jayessess |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 09:29 - Dec 15 by Ewan_Oozami |
If you could afford to keep clean or move from from a plague area to somewhere far away (assuming you weren't carrying it with you) you had a better chance of surviving than if you stayed behind or lived in squalor.
However, in England at least, it does appear that overall economic inequality reduced after the plague as there was a severe shortage of labour and real wages rose at quite a high rate for the next 200 years! |
There aren't many things that you can generalise about across most of human history, but "if you have access to more resources, better food and better living conditions, you are less likely to die of disease" is a probably one of them. [Post edited 15 Dec 2023 9:35]
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 09:35 - Dec 15 with 1286 views | TractorWood |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 09:21 - Dec 15 by jayessess |
One thing I would say, as someone with a PhD in a cognate discipline (History), some fields that deal regularly with the past are not terribly good at historicising their claims and terminology. Whenever you deal with the past you need to situate everything you are doing in the particular social practices/cultures/processes of the time you are studying - their meaning then, not now. If this showed up on my desk, I'd want to ask what they understood "race" to mean to people in the 14th Century? How do people in this period articulate difference, racial or otherwise? How does that articulation shape 14th Century life? What are the "structures" you see dictating the life chances of non-Europeans in 14th Century England?
I'd presume this paper went to other archaeologists for peer review because if it went to a Medieval Historian (especially the ones that the Daily Mail would consider "woke"), they'd be all over "structural racism" as an anachronism. People in the Medieval world aren't "race thinking" like people do in the modern world, their "structures" aren't the structures of the modern state and capital, so it's not a terribly helpful framework for this kind of work.
I do wonder sometimes if this kind of claim isn't partially driven by some of the neo-liberal metrics that shape academic output. One of the big agendas in contemporary academia is "impact" - projects get measured on how much impact they have on the wider society, so when your work has no obvious direct impact I'm sure there's a temptation to make claims like this. Of course, if we just accepted that the purpose of much academic research is just to deepen human knowledge and stopped trying to measure and rank everybody all the f***ing time this would be less of an issue. [Post edited 15 Dec 2023 9:24]
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You are clearly better placed to opine. Surely most people would be preoccupied by the black death, great famine and peasants revolt to have too much time for anthropological reflection? |  |
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 09:38 - Dec 15 with 1258 views | TractorWood |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 09:29 - Dec 15 by Ewan_Oozami |
If you could afford to keep clean or move from from a plague area to somewhere far away (assuming you weren't carrying it with you) you had a better chance of surviving than if you stayed behind or lived in squalor.
However, in England at least, it does appear that overall economic inequality reduced after the plague as there was a severe shortage of labour and real wages rose at quite a high rate for the next 200 years! |
A warming western Europe, some contextually rapid improvement in technology and a decent chunk of urbanisiation post plague made it a pretty decent gig I bet. | |
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 09:40 - Dec 15 with 1242 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 09:29 - Dec 15 by Ewan_Oozami |
If you could afford to keep clean or move from from a plague area to somewhere far away (assuming you weren't carrying it with you) you had a better chance of surviving than if you stayed behind or lived in squalor.
However, in England at least, it does appear that overall economic inequality reduced after the plague as there was a severe shortage of labour and real wages rose at quite a high rate for the next 200 years! |
I find this whole thing a bit odd. I’ve no idea why some people get upset with the suggestion that racial inequality *may* have led to different survival outcomes. It’s hardly a novel suggestion: it was a key finding from the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic too. They should be at least aware that inequality is a driver of different health outcomes.
There’s talk of there being an agenda. I’ve no idea what that is either. Should we not be trying to identify or address inequality? Or are they offended that their Great Britain isn’t always so great? It’s all very odd.None of it makes any sense apart from through the lens of manufactured outrage (or ‘culture war’ or whatever we’re calling it). |  |
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 09:47 - Dec 15 with 1232 views | jayessess |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 09:35 - Dec 15 by TractorWood |
You are clearly better placed to opine. Surely most people would be preoccupied by the black death, great famine and peasants revolt to have too much time for anthropological reflection? |
Partially that, but mainly that the particular forms of race thinking that characterise the modern European world are really products of the 19th Century and beyond. In this country it's the Victorians who start thinking systematically about categorising the world into "races" and that word shifts in meaning throughout that century and well into the 20th Century.
I'm not a Medievalist, so I'd be out on a limb claiming a lot of specialist expertise for that period, but my understanding is that they would be more likely to think about difference in religious terms (Christians, jews, moors, hindus, heathens etc.), that such thoughts about difference might in some ways be analogous to later racial thinking but would be historically specific rather than expressing some kind of universal taxonomy that human beings use throughout history.
That's what I mean by "historicising" really - what does the empirical fact of genetic difference mean to these historical subjects in particular? [Post edited 15 Dec 2023 11:27]
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:00 - Dec 15 with 1195 views | lowhouseblue |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 07:42 - Dec 15 by Herbivore |
I'm not sure how well "thinking for yourself" is working for you, mate. You've had people whose livelihoods are in the field of academic research explain patiently to you why Badenoch's intervention amounts to an attack on academic freedom and your response has been to post a link to a Daily Mail article and basically go "nah bruv, whatevs". Perhaps try a different tack, maybe listening to those with greater knowledge than you would be a good place to start. As for your accusations of arrogance and self-righteousness, I've just had to put a new irony meter on my Christmas list. |
really well done on the demonstration of arrogance and self-righteousness. you do it beautifully and you really are a patronising twerp. people have asserted that badenoch criticising an article is an 'attack on academic freedom' but they haven't provided ANY logical reason to support that. none. academic freedom does not require academics or their research to be protected from criticism and debate. quite the opposite in fact. academic freedom depends upon, is strengthened by, and at its heart essentially is, criticism and debate. an article using an entirely modern (and contentious) reading of the 14th century to back up assertions about race and structural inequality in the modern world (a world in which almost nothing is the same) deserves challenge and critique. in academia over the decades, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, there has been a vast increase in institutions and research output much of which is of pretty mixed quality. placing a very heavy handed modern political agenda on historical research may well be an example of that. and waving around our professions and qualifications etc on a football message board like big willies isn't something i'm in to to be honest. |  |
| And so as the loose-bowelled pigeon of time swoops low over the unsuspecting tourist of destiny, and the flatulent skunk of fate wanders into the air-conditioning system of eternity, I notice it's the end of the show |
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:13 - Dec 15 with 1150 views | Ewan_Oozami |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 18:16 - Dec 14 by lowhouseblue |
but debate in the real world doesn't just occur through the exchange of academic articles. non academics, even politicians, are allowed to express views on academic arguments and even criticise them. that's the nature of public debate. |
On what grounds can politicians criticise academic arguments if they are not experts in that field? | |
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:18 - Dec 15 with 1136 views | leitrimblue |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 09:21 - Dec 15 by jayessess |
One thing I would say, as someone with a PhD in a cognate discipline (History), some fields that deal regularly with the past are not terribly good at historicising their claims and terminology. Whenever you deal with the past you need to situate everything you are doing in the particular social practices/cultures/processes of the time you are studying - their meaning then, not now. If this showed up on my desk, I'd want to ask what they understood "race" to mean to people in the 14th Century? How do people in this period articulate difference, racial or otherwise? How does that articulation shape 14th Century life? What are the "structures" you see dictating the life chances of non-Europeans in 14th Century England?
I'd presume this paper went to other archaeologists for peer review because if it went to a Medieval Historian (especially the ones that the Daily Mail would consider "woke"), they'd be all over "structural racism" as an anachronism. People in the Medieval world aren't "race thinking" like people do in the modern world, their "structures" aren't the structures of the modern state and capital, so it's not a terribly helpful framework for this kind of work.
I do wonder sometimes if this kind of claim isn't partially driven by some of the neo-liberal metrics that shape academic output. One of the big agendas in contemporary academia is "impact" - projects get measured on how much impact they have on the wider society, so when your work has no obvious direct impact I'm sure there's a temptation to make claims like this. Of course, if we just accepted that the purpose of much academic research is just to deepen human knowledge and stopped trying to measure and rank everybody all the f***ing time this would be less of an issue. [Post edited 15 Dec 2023 9:24]
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I'm guessing it was peer reviewed by 'sciency' archaeological types, Osteoarchaeologists or bioarchaeologists probably.
In my opinion for purely archaeological research its quite poor and the size of the skeletal assemblages used is way to small to be making such statements about their results.
Though one of the main problems I have with Badennoch here is that she seems offended by the results of the research rather then having issues with its quality or the way in which it was carried out.
This makes me think that even if the research was carried out in a more professional way. Say a larger skeletal sample, at least in multiples of hundreds ( though I'm not sure how many large plague skeletal assemblages exist) recording of strontium isotopes in teeth and DNA samples may have indicated where in the world they lived as children etc, helping to prove that the skeletons were of African descent. But the research still came to the same conclusions I fear then Badennoch and Inaya Folarin etc would still have the same issues.
That's the most worrying part for me |  | | |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:23 - Dec 15 with 1103 views | lowhouseblue |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:13 - Dec 15 by Ewan_Oozami |
On what grounds can politicians criticise academic arguments if they are not experts in that field? |
in humanities and social sciences enough of the basic structure is usually clear so that even non-experts can engage with it. they can see the assumptions made, the factors excluded, the simplifications and aggregations, the data limitations, the logic by which conclusions are drawn, the qualifications which come with the conclusions, and any assertions which go beyond the studies core focus and amount to speculation or hypothesis. all of that should be made every clear in good academic work. people can also see how other experts have critiqued the work and draw arguments from that - as is the case in the mail article. we should be welcoming wider engagement in such debates. | |
| And so as the loose-bowelled pigeon of time swoops low over the unsuspecting tourist of destiny, and the flatulent skunk of fate wanders into the air-conditioning system of eternity, I notice it's the end of the show |
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:23 - Dec 15 with 1104 views | DanTheMan |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:18 - Dec 15 by leitrimblue |
I'm guessing it was peer reviewed by 'sciency' archaeological types, Osteoarchaeologists or bioarchaeologists probably.
In my opinion for purely archaeological research its quite poor and the size of the skeletal assemblages used is way to small to be making such statements about their results.
Though one of the main problems I have with Badennoch here is that she seems offended by the results of the research rather then having issues with its quality or the way in which it was carried out.
This makes me think that even if the research was carried out in a more professional way. Say a larger skeletal sample, at least in multiples of hundreds ( though I'm not sure how many large plague skeletal assemblages exist) recording of strontium isotopes in teeth and DNA samples may have indicated where in the world they lived as children etc, helping to prove that the skeletons were of African descent. But the research still came to the same conclusions I fear then Badennoch and Inaya Folarin etc would still have the same issues.
That's the most worrying part for me |
"Though one of the main problems I have with Badennoch here is that she seems offended by the results of the research rather then having issues with its quality or the way in which it was carried out."
This is the biggest problem. I'm all for being critical of scientific research, but the criticism is just labelling it woke and comparing it to phrenology. There's very little actual criticism of the study itself, but they don't have the expertise to do so. I very much doubt either the MP or Badenoch read the paper.
They then apply pressure to the Museum saying who knows what.
You might know but would the Museum be reliant on Government funding? |  |
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:27 - Dec 15 with 1080 views | jayessess |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:00 - Dec 15 by lowhouseblue |
really well done on the demonstration of arrogance and self-righteousness. you do it beautifully and you really are a patronising twerp. people have asserted that badenoch criticising an article is an 'attack on academic freedom' but they haven't provided ANY logical reason to support that. none. academic freedom does not require academics or their research to be protected from criticism and debate. quite the opposite in fact. academic freedom depends upon, is strengthened by, and at its heart essentially is, criticism and debate. an article using an entirely modern (and contentious) reading of the 14th century to back up assertions about race and structural inequality in the modern world (a world in which almost nothing is the same) deserves challenge and critique. in academia over the decades, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, there has been a vast increase in institutions and research output much of which is of pretty mixed quality. placing a very heavy handed modern political agenda on historical research may well be an example of that. and waving around our professions and qualifications etc on a football message board like big willies isn't something i'm in to to be honest. |
You honestly can't see that the following might have chilling effect on what people want to publish?
(a) the press putting your name up in lights as a "woke archaeologist", inevitably directing a whole load of abuse your way (for e.g. a colleague of mine who works on Empire gets slagged off in the right-wing press intermittently and as a result gets fairly regular abuse via email, social media, even letters, including death threats, demands to her employer to sack her etc.).
(b) an actual minister of state legitimising and feeding that discussion for political reasons.
(c) that the government of the day stating that particular research shouldn't be done is threatening in the longer term.
There seems to be this weird cognitive dissonance on the Right, where "cancel culture" is this great threat to human freedom and what you can and can't say, but that dragging some fairly ordinary university researcher through the pages of the Daily Mail and Telegraph is all just fun and games. [Post edited 15 Dec 2023 10:28]
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:33 - Dec 15 with 1053 views | leitrimblue |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:23 - Dec 15 by DanTheMan |
"Though one of the main problems I have with Badennoch here is that she seems offended by the results of the research rather then having issues with its quality or the way in which it was carried out."
This is the biggest problem. I'm all for being critical of scientific research, but the criticism is just labelling it woke and comparing it to phrenology. There's very little actual criticism of the study itself, but they don't have the expertise to do so. I very much doubt either the MP or Badenoch read the paper.
They then apply pressure to the Museum saying who knows what.
You might know but would the Museum be reliant on Government funding? |
Think your 2nd paragraph is spot on Dan. If the research had been carried out to the highest standards and came out with the same results they will still have criticised it without having the skill set to do so.
I live and work in Ireland for the last 20 odd years so not sure how reliant on government funding museum is.
( I used to do a bit of work with MOLAS back in the day which is the museum of London Archaeological service and they were very much at the top of their game) | | | |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:35 - Dec 15 with 1035 views | DJR |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:18 - Dec 15 by leitrimblue |
I'm guessing it was peer reviewed by 'sciency' archaeological types, Osteoarchaeologists or bioarchaeologists probably.
In my opinion for purely archaeological research its quite poor and the size of the skeletal assemblages used is way to small to be making such statements about their results.
Though one of the main problems I have with Badennoch here is that she seems offended by the results of the research rather then having issues with its quality or the way in which it was carried out.
This makes me think that even if the research was carried out in a more professional way. Say a larger skeletal sample, at least in multiples of hundreds ( though I'm not sure how many large plague skeletal assemblages exist) recording of strontium isotopes in teeth and DNA samples may have indicated where in the world they lived as children etc, helping to prove that the skeletons were of African descent. But the research still came to the same conclusions I fear then Badennoch and Inaya Folarin etc would still have the same issues.
That's the most worrying part for me |
Concern about sample size was my feeling too based on the abstract.
And the fact that a plague burial site contained a disproportionate number of skeletons of African descent struck me as being capable of other explanations. A few that spring to mind include
that it was situated in an area where such people lived
that it was the custom (perhaps not a pleasant one) to bury such people together
that people of African descent were more susceptible to the plague for medical reasons.
And it should be observed that the conclusion in the abstract ("These findings may reflect premodern structural racism’s devastating effects.") appears to me to be pretty weak, given that the word "may" invites the suggestion that it could equally be followed by the words "or may not".
Of course, maybe these things are discussed in the report itself, but I don't want to pay 25 dollars to find out. [Post edited 15 Dec 2023 10:41]
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:37 - Dec 15 with 1015 views | jayessess |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:33 - Dec 15 by leitrimblue |
Think your 2nd paragraph is spot on Dan. If the research had been carried out to the highest standards and came out with the same results they will still have criticised it without having the skill set to do so.
I live and work in Ireland for the last 20 odd years so not sure how reliant on government funding museum is.
( I used to do a bit of work with MOLAS back in the day which is the museum of London Archaeological service and they were very much at the top of their game) |
Funded by the GLA since 2008 (prior to which it was directly funded by DCMS). | |
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:43 - Dec 15 with 982 views | leitrimblue |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:35 - Dec 15 by DJR |
Concern about sample size was my feeling too based on the abstract.
And the fact that a plague burial site contained a disproportionate number of skeletons of African descent struck me as being capable of other explanations. A few that spring to mind include
that it was situated in an area where such people lived
that it was the custom (perhaps not a pleasant one) to bury such people together
that people of African descent were more susceptible to the plague for medical reasons.
And it should be observed that the conclusion in the abstract ("These findings may reflect premodern structural racism’s devastating effects.") appears to me to be pretty weak, given that the word "may" invites the suggestion that it could equally be followed by the words "or may not".
Of course, maybe these things are discussed in the report itself, but I don't want to pay 25 dollars to find out. [Post edited 15 Dec 2023 10:41]
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The sample size and the fact they don't seem to have investigated other possibilities for the disproportionate number of skeletons of African descent are both signs of low quality and not completely thought through research in my opinion.
To be honest archaeology as more then its fair share of this poor quality research. Couldn't advise anyone to go beyond the abstract and spend £25 on it | | | |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:48 - Dec 15 with 953 views | lowhouseblue |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:27 - Dec 15 by jayessess |
You honestly can't see that the following might have chilling effect on what people want to publish?
(a) the press putting your name up in lights as a "woke archaeologist", inevitably directing a whole load of abuse your way (for e.g. a colleague of mine who works on Empire gets slagged off in the right-wing press intermittently and as a result gets fairly regular abuse via email, social media, even letters, including death threats, demands to her employer to sack her etc.).
(b) an actual minister of state legitimising and feeding that discussion for political reasons.
(c) that the government of the day stating that particular research shouldn't be done is threatening in the longer term.
There seems to be this weird cognitive dissonance on the Right, where "cancel culture" is this great threat to human freedom and what you can and can't say, but that dragging some fairly ordinary university researcher through the pages of the Daily Mail and Telegraph is all just fun and games. [Post edited 15 Dec 2023 10:28]
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it's very difficult because academic research in the humanities and social sciences can't and shouldn't exist in separation from wider public debate about policy and politics. no one in academia would want it to. personalised attacks in the way of your colleague are disgusting and unacceptable, but that it a much wider issue about how people behave and the character of public debate in a social media world. i don't think you can expect politicians not to engage in political debate and controversy because of that though. this also has to be set in the context of academia which more broadly is very supportive of work which is ideologically alien to the tories and in which the range of political views represented has become increasingly narrow. any 'chilling effect' has to be set in the, for the authors, very supportive context of current academic values and beliefs. i agree with you that the impulse behind cancel culture is two sided, but the power within academia is currently is very much on one side. a researcher currently challenging notions of structural racism for example would probably have a very hard time from broader colleagues. | |
| And so as the loose-bowelled pigeon of time swoops low over the unsuspecting tourist of destiny, and the flatulent skunk of fate wanders into the air-conditioning system of eternity, I notice it's the end of the show |
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:57 - Dec 15 with 911 views | DJR |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:43 - Dec 15 by leitrimblue |
The sample size and the fact they don't seem to have investigated other possibilities for the disproportionate number of skeletons of African descent are both signs of low quality and not completely thought through research in my opinion.
To be honest archaeology as more then its fair share of this poor quality research. Couldn't advise anyone to go beyond the abstract and spend £25 on it |
The other thing that is not clear from the abstract is what is meant by African affiliation. Does this mean sub-Saharan African affiliation or north African (ie. Arab, Berber) affiliation, or both?
You would think this is something that would be clarified in the abstract, given the 13th Century African man discovered from a burial site in Ipswich was thought to be from Tunis. [Post edited 15 Dec 2023 11:45]
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 11:00 - Dec 15 with 881 views | lowhouseblue |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:18 - Dec 15 by leitrimblue |
I'm guessing it was peer reviewed by 'sciency' archaeological types, Osteoarchaeologists or bioarchaeologists probably.
In my opinion for purely archaeological research its quite poor and the size of the skeletal assemblages used is way to small to be making such statements about their results.
Though one of the main problems I have with Badennoch here is that she seems offended by the results of the research rather then having issues with its quality or the way in which it was carried out.
This makes me think that even if the research was carried out in a more professional way. Say a larger skeletal sample, at least in multiples of hundreds ( though I'm not sure how many large plague skeletal assemblages exist) recording of strontium isotopes in teeth and DNA samples may have indicated where in the world they lived as children etc, helping to prove that the skeletons were of African descent. But the research still came to the same conclusions I fear then Badennoch and Inaya Folarin etc would still have the same issues.
That's the most worrying part for me |
their classification system across the two grave sites seems to have ended up with 12% being of african decent. isn't that incredibly high for 14th century london. there was of course people in big cities at that time of african decent but i thought the accepted view was that the numbers were low. isn't 12% surprising? | |
| And so as the loose-bowelled pigeon of time swoops low over the unsuspecting tourist of destiny, and the flatulent skunk of fate wanders into the air-conditioning system of eternity, I notice it's the end of the show |
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 11:12 - Dec 15 with 826 views | Cotty |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 11:00 - Dec 15 by lowhouseblue |
their classification system across the two grave sites seems to have ended up with 12% being of african decent. isn't that incredibly high for 14th century london. there was of course people in big cities at that time of african decent but i thought the accepted view was that the numbers were low. isn't 12% surprising? |
So you agree with the premise of the paper then! Hallelujah!
Edit: This thread is absolute gold. It culminates in the lead protagonist accidentally agreeing with the study. You couldn't make it up. [Post edited 15 Dec 2023 11:13]
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 11:13 - Dec 15 with 813 views | leitrimblue |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 11:00 - Dec 15 by lowhouseblue |
their classification system across the two grave sites seems to have ended up with 12% being of african decent. isn't that incredibly high for 14th century london. there was of course people in big cities at that time of african decent but i thought the accepted view was that the numbers were low. isn't 12% surprising? |
Medieval London wouldn't be my strong point, but yer 12% seems way above what I would imagine. I'd struggle to see it even reaching 1-2% but I haven't worked in London for well over 20 years.
I tend to try and stay away from the excavation of large cemeteries or mass graves now, but i used to be quite well known for it. About 20 years ago I was behind the excavation of a large medieval cemetery in Donegal containing 1200-1300 skeletons( still the largest in Ireland I think) and the amount if weird research that's been carried out on them over the last 20 years is incredible.
Some of it as been quite revealing and interesting ( the osteo and medical side mainly) while other times I've been less then impressed at the proposals. | | | |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 11:16 - Dec 15 with 781 views | lowhouseblue |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 11:12 - Dec 15 by Cotty |
So you agree with the premise of the paper then! Hallelujah!
Edit: This thread is absolute gold. It culminates in the lead protagonist accidentally agreeing with the study. You couldn't make it up. [Post edited 15 Dec 2023 11:13]
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eh? explain your reasoning?? surely, if the classification system produces numbers which don't match other historical understanding it in fact throws the classification system in to question? | |
| And so as the loose-bowelled pigeon of time swoops low over the unsuspecting tourist of destiny, and the flatulent skunk of fate wanders into the air-conditioning system of eternity, I notice it's the end of the show |
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 11:17 - Dec 15 with 766 views | jayessess |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 10:48 - Dec 15 by lowhouseblue |
it's very difficult because academic research in the humanities and social sciences can't and shouldn't exist in separation from wider public debate about policy and politics. no one in academia would want it to. personalised attacks in the way of your colleague are disgusting and unacceptable, but that it a much wider issue about how people behave and the character of public debate in a social media world. i don't think you can expect politicians not to engage in political debate and controversy because of that though. this also has to be set in the context of academia which more broadly is very supportive of work which is ideologically alien to the tories and in which the range of political views represented has become increasingly narrow. any 'chilling effect' has to be set in the, for the authors, very supportive context of current academic values and beliefs. i agree with you that the impulse behind cancel culture is two sided, but the power within academia is currently is very much on one side. a researcher currently challenging notions of structural racism for example would probably have a very hard time from broader colleagues. |
Would you say that 14th-Century Bio-Archaeology was a particularly urgent matter of state though? It's hard to see any particular purpose to this wider public discussion other than generating that sort of abuse (and I think it's massively underplaying the role of the press and political figures to attribute that mainly to social media culture).
People over-estimate how supportive Higher Education Institutions are when they're getting pressure from the newspapers and the government. I'm not sure how much comfort I'd take from colleagues' willingness to console me over a pint if I somehow appeared in a Daily Mail double-page feature about woke historians who hate Britain!
(Would also add, whatever the problems with just "having a wider public debate" about academic research, a Minister of State writing a letter to your employer to express concern about your research goes well beyond that) [Post edited 15 Dec 2023 11:25]
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 11:19 - Dec 15 with 733 views | bluelagos |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 11:12 - Dec 15 by Cotty |
So you agree with the premise of the paper then! Hallelujah!
Edit: This thread is absolute gold. It culminates in the lead protagonist accidentally agreeing with the study. You couldn't make it up. [Post edited 15 Dec 2023 11:13]
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And he can't even see why 🤣🤣🤣 |  |
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| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 11:21 - Dec 15 with 710 views | Cotty |
| Can one of you anti woke boys explain the problem here? on 11:16 - Dec 15 by lowhouseblue |
eh? explain your reasoning?? surely, if the classification system produces numbers which don't match other historical understanding it in fact throws the classification system in to question? |
Disclaimer: I haven't read the study, I have a big pile of more interesting ones that I need to read on my desk. But if, as is my understanding, they have been excavating mass plague burial sites, and there is a higher than expected proportion of a particular ethnic group, that is evidence to support the hypothesis that ethnicity was a factor in mortality. | | | |
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