Dear Cecil and all,
I have known of you and your fine efforts for many years via Crispin.
In your messaged you provided an excellent example of anthropological
methods. Highly valid. Understand the people and their needs.
Classical Anthropology as an academic discipline attempts to NOT
influence the culture being studied. You are studying and learning how
to improve their lives via appropriate changes that can be incorporated
into their homes, in this case via stoves.
There is another side to the anthropology issue. It is the study of
the introduction of an innovation (whether good or bad is not the issue)
and its impact on their lives. The introduction of a "new-to-them"
stove innovation (such as TLUD stoves that are ignited on the top, etc)
that could impact many lives in serious ways is also a valid topic for
the skills and methods of anthropologists, as well as of marketing
specialists who also look at "acceptance / rejection" of what is new,
but with a different perspective.
We look forward to your continued efforts.
Paul
Paul S. Anderson, PhD aka "Dr TLUD"
Email: [email protected] Skype: paultlud Phone: +1-309-452-7072
Website: www.drtlud.com
On 1/22/2013 3:49 AM, Cecil Cook wrote:
Dear Pual, Kevin, Crispin, Marc, and kindred stovers,
I am a much backslid applied anthropologists who took a 30 year side
trip into appropriate technology in South Africa at the instigation of
Crispin. Now a days Crispin is still misleading me by asking me to
assist him and the World Bank design, test, produce, and market ever
more perfect low cost biomass stoves in places like Ulaanbataar in
Mongolia, Yogyakarta in Java, and most recently Battambang in
Cambodia. With fiendish friends like Crispin, who needs enemies?
Kevin's comic stories about the idiot savant who is very good at
drawing circles around bullet holes is unfortunately a hilarious
metaphor for the multiple problems and predicaments that stove
scientists, inventors and enthusiasts typically create for themselves
when they (we?) try to innovate ever more perfect biomass burning
stoves for imagined and therefore voiceless stove customers.
I recently discovered there is a significant market in Central Java
for big portable charcoal stoves so that neighbours can
(see the excellent original message)
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