“We can learn a lot by listening to people talk about their lives – saying whatever is important to them.  This is especially true in places where there are diverse points of view - like a university campus,” says UCI anthropologist and documentary photographer Frank Cancian. 

His latest project, a blog called Main Street UCI, is aiming to capture some of these points of view in an effort to digitize and archive firsthand accounts of life at UCI. 

• Check it out at blogs.uci.edu/mainstreetuci and add your experience to UCI’s history. Ideas and observations shared on the blog will be saved in library archives that are open to the public.

For the less-tech savvy, Dictionary.com defines a blog as a website containing the experiences, observations and opinions of the site’s writer or group of writers. 

In the School of Social Sciences, blogs have provided an opportunity for researchers to share experiences, thoughts and studies on a number of topics ranging from the human brain to mobile money in Haiti. 

“We’re in the unique position of having two researchers in Haiti right at the moment when mobile phone-based money transfer services are being launched,” says Bill Maurer, anthropology professor.  He also directs the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion which hosts the Haiti blog. 

“Our researchers post regular blogs on their observations of how these new services are – and are not – reaching the people they are intended to serve. And because they’re there for a long time, they can really track developments as they happen. ”

Check out some of the blogs currently being hosted by UCI social sciences faculty, departments and centers.  A continually growing list will be kept at www.socsci.uci.edu/ss_blogs.

• Computational Models of Language at UC Irvine  
• Humanitarianism in Africa
• InterSciWiki (complexity science, mathematical behavioral science) 
• MADLAB – UCI’s Memory & Decision-Making Laboratory
• Main Street UCI
• Mobile Money in Haiti
• Politics Outdoors (politics and protests) 
• The Religious Marketplace (economics and religion)
• Talking Brains (cognitive science and brain research)

 

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The opinions expressed by those in the above listed blogs do not necessarily reflect the opinions of UCI and/or the School of Social Sciences. UCI and the School of Social Sciences are not responsible for the accuracy of the information supplied therein.