David Jacobson
Brown 205
Department of Anthropology
Brandeis University
P.O. Box 549110, MS 006
Waltham, MA 02454-9110
jacobson@brandeis.edu
(781) 736-2228
Director of Graduate Studies
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Social Anthropology. Urban anthropology. Computer-mediated Communication. Families and Households. United States. Africa.
Background and Description
Dave Jacobson is a social anthropologist specializing in the study of urban life, families and households, and computer-mediated communication. After undergraduate training in sociology at Colby College, he received a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Rochester. In different ethnographic settings, he has focused on three major issues: the organization of diversity and the problem of social order; the ways in which cultural categories and social norms inform meaning and shape social behavior and social relationships; and the structure and functioning of social networks. His earliest fieldwork was in East Africa where he studied social change and social adaptation among Africans in Ugandan cities and towns. His subsequent research, based primarily in the U.S., has included the study of engineers and scientists and the ways in which technical professionals cope with unemployment; stress and support in stepfamily formation and functioning; and the development of the nuclear intelligence community during and in the decade after World War II. His current research focuses on two areas: the cultural context of household economics, examining the ways in which householders manage various resources, and the organization of online interaction, including similarities and differences between behavior in cities and in cyberspace.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2008 "Two Levels of Personal": The Cultural Context of Intimacy in Instant Messaging. In Remote Relationships in a Small World (Ed., Samantha Holland), pp. 219-240. Oxford: Peter Lang.
2007 Interpreting Instant Messaging: Context and Meaning in Computer-Mediated Communication. Journal of Anthropological Research, 63: 359-381.
2003 Stepfamilies in Cultural Context: Problems in Middle-Class U.S. Stepfamilies. Etnofoor, XVI(1):31-42.
2002 On Theorizing Presence. Journal of Virtual Environments 6:1. www.brandeis.edu/pubs/jove/HTML/V6/presence.html
2001 Presence Revisited: Imagination, Competence, and Activity in Text-Based Virtual Worlds. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 4:6:653-673.
2001 Parenting from Separate Households: A Cultural Perspective (with Joan Liem and Robert Weiss). In New Directions in Kinship Studies, (Ed., Linda Stone), Pp. 229-244. Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield.
1999 Impression Formation in Cyberspace: Online Expectations and Offline Experiences in Text-Based Virtual Communities. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication jcmc.indiana.edu/vol5/issue1/jacobson.html
1999 Doing Research in Cyberspace. Field Methods 11:2:127-145. http://www.unet.brandeis.edu/~jacobson/Doing_Research.html
1998 Insider and Outsider Perspectives in the Anthropology of Science: A Cautionary Tale (with Charles Ziegler). Perspectives on Science 6:4:361-380.
1996 Contexts and Cues in Cyberspace: The Pragmatics of Naming in Text-Based Virtual Realities. Journal of Anthropological Research 52:4:461-479. http://www.unet.brandeis.edu/~jacobson/Contexts_and_Cues.html
1996 Popular Delusions and Scientific Beliefs: Conflicting Belief Systems of Scientists and Administrators in the Creation of a Covert Technological Surveillance System (with Charles Ziegler). In Naked Science (ed. Laura Nader), pp. 228-238. New York: Routledge.
1995 Incomplete Institution or Culture Shock: Institutional and Processual Models of Stepfamily Instability. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage 24:1/2:3-18.
1995 Spying Without Spies: Origins of America's Secret Nuclear Surveillance System. (with Charles Ziegler.) Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
1993 What's Fair? Concepts of Financial Management in Stepfamily Households. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage 12:3/4:221-238.
1991 Reading Ethnography. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
1990 Stress and Support in Stepfamily Formation. In Social Support: An Interactional View. Eds., B. R. Sarason, I. G. Sarason, and G. R. Pierce, pp. 199-218. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
1989 Context and the Sociological Study of Stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 30:257-260.
1987a Models of Stress and Meanings of Unemployment: Reactions to Job Loss among Technical Professionals. Social Science and Medicine 24:1:13-21.
1987b The Cultural Context of Social Support and Support Networks. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1:1:42-67.
1986 Itinerant Townsmen: Friendship and Social Order in Urban Uganda (reissued). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
1986 Types and Timing of Social Support. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 27:250-264.