Anthro Exam 3

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religion

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-• “belief and ritual concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces.” (Wallace, 1966).
--– Dictionary definitions: a) a belief in a divine or superhuman power or powers to be obeyed and worshiped as the creator(s) or ruler(s) of the universe. (b) expression of such a belief in conduct and ritual.
--human universal (all cultures have religion). One intent is to understand and be in harmony with supernatural realm.

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Why Does Religion Persist?

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• Transmitted through enculturation (strong part of group’s core cultural values).
– Religion does more than explain the mysterious: creates and maintains social solidarity (group identity), provides solace in dealing with uncertainty (psychological benefits).

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Totemism

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Symbolic association with an object (animal) through stipulated descent. Sacred emblems symbolizing common identity. Functions to create solidarity among groups of people.

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Mana

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Sacred, impersonal force (resides in people, animals, plants, or objects.) Concept common in South Pacific. Mana associated with luck or fortune. Can be used to explain differential success (why are some lucky and others unlucky?)

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Magic

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Supernatural techniques intended to accomplish specific aims. Magic most prevalent in situations of chance and uncertainly. People turn to magic when they feel they cannot control matters (e.g., hazardous activities). Reduces stress: creates illusion of control when little control exists.

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Taboos

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Strong social prohibition against words, objects, actions, discussions, or people that are considered undesirable by a society. Breaking a taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent.

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Rituals

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• Stylized and repetitive. Performed in special (sacred) places and at set times. Convey information about participants and their traditions. Transmit enduring cultural messages.

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Rites of Passage

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• Rituals associated with transition from one place or stage of life to another. Confer to individuals change in social status. Help create (and maintain) group identity.

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Normal Social Structure

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Heterogeneity, inequality, names, dress distinctions, conditional obedience, moderation, avoiding pain and suffering

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liminality

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homogeneity, equality, anonymity, naked or uniform dress, total obedience, excess, restraint/indulgence, accept pain and suffering

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Communitas

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collective liminality. Intense feeling of social solidarity among initiates.

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incorporation

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Re-Integrated in Society With a New Status

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witchcraft

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Beliefs widely distributed (nearly universal).
- Incorporates non-human powers.
-Witchcraft as “innate, inherited ability to cause people misfortune or to kill them.” (E-Pritchard) --Witches become socially important during times of crisis (e.g., drought, plague).
-accusations more common during times of stress and social upheaval

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Zandeland

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had witch doctors

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Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate Events (Evans-Pritchard): Colonial Context

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• British extending control over parts of Africa. Opinion that beliefs in witchcraft and other “superstitions” evidence that “primitive peoples” were inferior. Evans-Pritchard sought to demonstrate otherwise.

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Azande Witchcraft (EP)

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• Classification of misfortunes that are harmful to people. A mechanism for explaining unfortunate events. Accepted as common, routine, and part of everyday existence.

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Evans-Pritchard Witchcraft explains unfortunate events

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-Blamed pot breaking on whitchcraft
-I have walked on this trail hundreds of time/ Why was I not looking out for stumps? And why did this cut fester?
Witchcraft
--We know that pillars rot, thereby causing graneries to collapse. But why did this one collapse when a man was resting inside?
Witchcraft
--Witchcraft did not cause the man to seek shelter from the sun
-Witchcraft did not cause the granary to collapse
--Witchcraft did cause the two events occur simultaneously

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Proximate (Secondary) Cause (EP)

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• An event which is immediately responsible for causing an observed result.
-The sun at noon was hot. --Explains why the man sought shade in grnary
-Termites weaken the pillar. -Explains why granary collapsed

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Ultimate Cause (EP)

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• The real reason something occurred. The reason two disparate events coincided in time and place.
• “Witchcraft brings a man in relation with events in such a way that he sustains injury.”

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Caveats (EP)_

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• Witchcraft does not explain all deaths and other unfortunate events. Not all witchcraft accusations are credible.
• Incompetence, laziness, ignorance, stupidity. Witchcraft does not exclude natural causation. Belief is consistent with human responsibility and “rational appreciation of nature” (i.e., empirical knowledge of cause and effect).

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Feminine Power at Sea (Rodgers)

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• Linguistic analysis of maritime culture. Focus on naming and launching ships of the British Royal Navy.
-Metaphor: ship as living, feminine, and anthropomorphic being
--Ship as fictive woman: all powerful mother who nurtures
-Boat is always referred to in feminine terms

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Feminine Power at Sea

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• Positive: Ship anthropomorphized as woman. Christening performed by woman
• Negative: Taboos against women on board. Taboos against women in shipyard.
• Christening a ship: Rite of passage?
• Transitions: land to water,
-patron=high ranking woman
--bottle strikes, ship moves, name pronounced
--deviation=bad luck

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Sports Rituals

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-Stylized and repetitive
-Performed in special places and at set times
--Convey information about participants and their traditions

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The maori

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Indigenous people of new Zealand

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magic

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Supernatural techniques inteded to accomplish specific aims

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Baseball Magic (Gmelch)

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• Rituals intended to manipulate odds of success. Magical rituals much more common in situations of uncertainty.

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Gmelch's Questions

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How does the risk and uncertainty in pitching, hitting, and fielding affect players? How do players try to control the outcomes of their performance?

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Routines as Rituals (Gmelch)

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• Rituals: prescribed behaviors in which there is no empirical connection between the means and the desired end.
• Comforting, bring sense of order to the world. Help with concentration.

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Fetish (similar to Mana)

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• Material object believed to embody supernatural power. Fetishized objects aid and protect owner.
Examples: charms and amulets, lucky uniform numbers, article of clothing

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Taboos (Gmelch)

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• Strong prohibition against words, objects, actions, discussions, or people. Breaking baseball taboos leads to misfortune. Most are idiosyncratic (held by individuals). Some are part of baseball culture:
Don’t step on white lines
Don’t mention no-hitter to pitcher

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essential activities (Gmelch)

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--Pitching: high level of uncertainty, best pitches can be hit, much magic
--hitting: high level of uncertainty, .333 batting average is outstanding, much magic
--fielding: low level of uncertainty, fielding average below .950= minor league, little magic

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Ascribe Status

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Automatic, a status that you have little or no control over.

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Achieved Status

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Statuses that come through choices, actions, accomplishments.

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Social Stratification

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• Hierarchical ranking of individuals and groups in any given society.
--Inequality patterned in such a way that people of one group tend to get more rewards or have higher status than others. --Ideologies behind social stratification tend to be transmitted from one generation to another.

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Race

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any of the groups into which humans can be divided according to their physical characteristics, e.g. color of their skin, color and type of hair, shape of eyes and nose.

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Ethnic Groups

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a group of people distinguished by cultural similarities (shared among members of that group) and differences (between that group and others); ethnic group members share beliefs, values, habits, customs, and norms, and a common language, religion, history, and geography.

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Race and Ethnicity

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are ascribed statuses that influence how we view ourselves and others and that can be used as a basis for social stratification.

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Hypodescent

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The principle that a child of mixed descent is automatically classified as minority.

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Genotype

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The fundamental constitution of an organism in terms of its hereditary factors.

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Phenotype

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The manifest characteristics of an organism collectively, including anatomical and physiological traits, that result from both its heredity and its environment.

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Social Construction of Race

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• “Races” defined in “culturally arbitrary, rather than scientific, manner.”
• Why do we use skin color to define some “races” and eye shape/hair color to define other “races”?
British viewed the irish as being a completely different race (savages)
If the primary basis of race is biological then,
Why do our ideas about race change through time?
Why do our ideas about race vary across culture?
Different ways of classifying race crossculturally

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Anthropology and Race

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• Trying to classify people into discrete “racial” groups is not a new phenomenon.
• Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) made one of the first attempts to classify the human species.
• Five sub-species of humans based on temperament, dress, and culture.

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Anthropometry

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• Important method in physical anthropology. Measurement of the human body to understanding human physical variation. Early application (Galton): identity those with criminal proclivities based on body measurements.

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Analytical Problems

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• Groups could be formed according to anthropometric measures of cranium. But those groups made no logical sense! brachycephalic = Turks, Hawaiians, Thai, dolichocephalics = English, North African, Australian Aborigines.

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Nature vs. Nurture (Boas)

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• Compared children of immigrants’ craniums with parents’ craniums. Significant changes (hence, cranial shape and brain size are not merely inherited, but are shaped by complex factors. Major challenge to notion that biological race is a meaningful scientific category.

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Reactions in Scientific Community

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• Rejection of race as a valid biological unit.
• Dividing up people into discrete “types” isn’t natural: these groups do not exist in nature.
• Recognition that human variation is clinal (human variations don’t have sharp boundaries).
• Recognition that race (like gender) is a social construct. It is not disconnected from biology. Yet our perceptions and classifications arise through social practices, beliefs, and behaviors.
Where do you draw the ling between white or black?
Recognition that race is a social construct

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Racial Odyssey (Rensberger)

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• Humans have many differences besides skin color, hair texture, and facial features.
• Evolutionary success attributable to genetic variability.
• Some “racial” traits reflect evolutionary adaptations to different environments.

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Natural Selection

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• Which traits are advantageous in a particular physical environment?
• Advantageous traits passed on because more with that trait survive to reproduce.
Cold environment: short and stout better for heat conservations
Hot environment: tall and thin better for heat radiation

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Skin Color and Evolution: UV radiation

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• Harm: disrupts cell division; causes cancers. Benefit: Vitamin D synthesis
• Melanin (pigmentation) blocks UV. Block too much = no Vitamin D. Block too little = disrupts cell division.

• “Hybrid vigor” is key to evolutionary success.
• Nobody has discovered a reliable way to distinguish one race from another because there is no such thing as a homogeneous race.
• Because sin color is not unique to a single group, how can it be a marker of distinct races?

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Race in Japan

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Concept of racial purity.
• Defined in opposition to others. Cultural mechanisms (e.g., segregation, taboos on “interracial” marriage) separate people. Burakumin (occupationally related). Indistinct from majority, yet perceived as racially different. High level of discrimination
We consider these people to be the same race.
--In Japan they would be considered racially different
Important point
Just because there is no scientific validity to the taxonomy of people grouped as races does not mean that race, as a concept, is meaningless or unimportant
Remains incredibily important as a social construct (still make judgements of people based on race)

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Race and the US census

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• 1850-1920: Categorization used expressly to advance “scientific” racial theories.
• Inclusion of mulatto category for the purpose of using census data to study race and to advance scientific racial theories
• Census data used to “prove” blacks and mulattos are less fertile and live shorter lives, and hence that they are inferior (in biological and evolutionary sense).
Blacks should not mix with whites for their own good
Alabama
Laws that prohibited the intermarriage of white or blacks

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‘Mixed Race’, ‘Mixed Origins’, or What? (Peter Aspinall)

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• Mixed Parentage, Mixed Race, Mixed Origins, Dual Heritage, Mixed Heritage, Biracial . . .
• Why lack of consensus?
• “no link has been made between the underlying conceptual base for identifying this population and the way it is summarily described in terminology.” (emphasis added)

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Problems (Aspinall)

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• Mixed Race: assumes there are pure races.
• Mixed Origin: “Face validity” problem: lacks reference to ethnicity or race (which it’s supposed to be referencing). Implies place (of origin).
• Métis/Métisse: People with parents from different ethnic groups. Over-defined: “oscillation, paradox, hybridity, heteroglossia, paradox . . .” Specific Canadian usage: mixed White/Native Am. No currency as self-descriptor in Britain.
• Mixed/Dual/Multiple Heritage: No currency among those of “mixed race”. Heritage is non-specific with respect to inherited (“racial”) characteristics. Dual heritage limits to two (what if your father is “Asian” and your mother is White-African?

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Mix Raced as most Acceptable? (Aspinall)

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• Has negative connotations (race contested as concept, negative historical associations).
• However, term generally understood and deployed in everyday usage. Term of choice for many who are mixed.

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important point

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• Just because there is no scientific validity to the taxonomy of people grouped as “races” does not mean that “race”, as a concept, is meaningless or unimportant.
• Race as a Social Construct informs our actions and behaviors.
• We classify people according to physical characteristics and assume those correspond with social, cultural, and psychological characteristics. We treat people of different “races” differently.

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Race

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Ascribed status (assumed to have biological basis.)

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Racism

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: discrimination against a group that is assumed to have a biological basis.
•divides people into dominant/ subordinate based on ascribed status.

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Under the Shadow of Tuskagee (Gamble)
What Is Tuskegee?

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• An infamous biomedical research study (1932-1972). Control group left untreated for syphilis to study if no treatment was better than drugs under development. Control group not informed of their condition. Control group primarily poor African Americans. Prominent example of “medical racism”.

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Common Misconception (Gamble)

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• Because of Tuskegee African-Americans do not trust medical and public health system.
• Reluctance to participate in clinical trials. Reluctance to donate organs. Reluctance to participate in needle exchange programs (HIV prevention).

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Foundations for distrust pre-date Tuskegee. (Gamble)

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• Pre-emancipation experiments on slaves. Post-emancipation fear of “night doctors” (doctors who stole bodies for experimentation). Extensive grave robbing for dissection bodies. Disproportionate use of African-Americans in medical studies.

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Main Points (Gamble)

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Tuskegee’s shadow lingers; but legacy of medical racism precedes Tuskegee.

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The Bell Curve Phenomenon (Cohen)
Claim

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“Intelligence” is trans-cultural and can be measured. IQ tests measure it fairly. Intelligence genetically determined. “Races” differ in intelligence. IQ is a cause of poverty, class, status, criminality, etc.

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Cohen

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• “Most Americans really can’t comprehend that there are other systems of thought and they fail to recognize the ‘blinders’ that our own culture imposes, blinders that keep us looking in a common direction and prevent us from seeing alternatives.”
• Those who design standardized tests fail to see how their questions are culturally biased.

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Conclusions and potential consequences (Cohen)

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• IQ tests measure cultural literacy as much as intelligence. Those from culture that devises the test likely to do better than those from outside that culture.
• If there is a strong relationship between “race” and IQ and if we believe that IQ tests are fair measures of intelligence then socioeconomic stratification looks like a natural outcome of biologically (not socially) determined opportunities and differences.

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Denigrating the other: Caricatures have consequences (cohen)

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• Portrayal of Native Americans denies historical injustices. (“They are savages; we brought them civilization.”)
• Portrayal of Jews complicit in genocide. (“They are parasites; we need to kill them.”)
• Portrayal of African-Americans complicit in maintaining power structure and privilege. (“They are inferior; we need to control them.”)

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Eugenics

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From Greek, meaning “of good stock.”
• Study and practice of selective breeding in order to improve the quality of the human species.

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Sir Francis Galton

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Influenced by Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Reasoned that, by protecting the weak, humans were acting against natural selection. If less intelligent people have more kids than more intelligent people, then “reversion toward mediocrity.”

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Eugenics Movement, USA

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• IQ tests developed, early 1900s (first “scientific” tests to determine intelligence.) Eugenics became prominent, early 1900s. Compulsory sterilization practiced against those deemed unfit to breed (e.g., those with low IQ).
• Legalized Eugenics: Carrie Buck as a “genetic threat to society.” Deemed low intelligence, institutionalized. Gave birth to illegitimate child (raped?) Supreme Court decision: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough,” Oliver Wendall Holmes. Forcibly sterilized.

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Linguistic Profiling (John Baugh)

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• Racial profiling: based on visual cues.
• Linguistic profiling: based on auditory cues.

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Linguistic Profiling (Baugh)

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• Linguistic patterns (phonetics, grammar, vocabulary) vary by ethnic group.
• People judge intelligence (and other characteristics) based on linguistic patterns.
• People treat others according to judgments made on the basis of linguistic patterns.

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Ethnic Group

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• members share beliefs, values, habits, customs, and norms because of their common background.
• Distinctions from other groups based on language, religion, historical experience, and geographic placement.
• Markers include collective name, belief in common descent, and association with a specific territory.
Tibetans—common history (songtsen gampo is founder of the Tibetan empire)
Common religion—buddhism
share name, beliefs, customs, language, religion, historical experience, territory

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Nation-State

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• “Independent, centrally organized political unit, or government.”
• Relatively modern phenomenon.
• Political boundaries do not correlate with ethnic boundaries.
• Most nations are therefore ethnically diverse.

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Nationalism

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•stresses solidarity regardless of socio-economic class, rural-urban, regional, or ethnic distinctions.
•often instilled through national school system.
• Pay homage to the nation (pledge of allegiance).
• Learn lingua franca (linguistic uniformity).

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Nationality

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• “Ethnic groups that once had, or wish to have or regain, autonomous political status.”
• Not all ethnic groups (some have autonomous political status).
Saami,basques,kurds, Tibetans
•live within nation states.
•Leaders of nation states often consider this to be threats to national unity.
Han- 92% of china, political and economic dominance of the nation
Ethnic group: a group of people distinguished by cultural similarities and differences
--ethnic groups that once had, or wish to have or regain, autonomous political status
Classified as ethnic group not nationality b/c they do have autonomous political status
Uighur, mongol, Tibetans are both ethnic groups and nationalities

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Assimilation

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• The process of change that a minority group may experience when it moves to a country where another culture dominates; the minority is incorporated into the dominant culture to the point that it no longer exists as a separate cultural unit.
• Adopt language, norms, mannerisms, customs, etc. of host/dominant society.
• Can be forced, coerced, or encouraged or voluntary

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Forced Assimilation

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native Americans—strong movement to assimilate (forcibly)—give up culture, language, gender-roles

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Coerced Assimilation

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German-Americans, Japanese-Americans—Whose side of the war are you really on?

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Multiculturalism

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• Individuals socialized into dominant culture as well as their original culture.
English + Spanish
Fourth of july + cinco de mayo
Hamburger + tamales

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Acculturation

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• The exchange of cultural features (e.g., language, clothing) that results when groups come into continuous firsthand contact; the original cultural patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct.
--USA has moved from assimilation to multiculturalism presently,
--Attempts at forced assimilation often lead to conflicts between majority and minority

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Bicultural Conflict (sung)

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• Focus on cultural conflicts that confront children of Chinese immigrants at home and in school.
• Parents and teachers (unaware of conflicts) ascribe other meanings or motives to child’s behavior.
• Child forced to choose between parent’s culture and norms of new society (desire to fit in).

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Aggressiveness (Sung)

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American Society: glorifies the aggressive male. Chinese Society: aggressive male at the bottom of the social order.

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Sexuality (Sung)

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American Society: dating is a big part of junior high and high school. Chinese Society: Most immigrant parents (more so before than now) had arranged marriages, discourage their children from dating.

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Sports (Sung)

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American Society: Emphasis on competition and development of the physique. Chinese Society: Emphasis on developing the intellect.

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Education (sung)

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American Society: Being smart is devalued. Chinese Society: Education is the highest virtue.

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Thrift (Sung)

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American Society: Credit and debt mentality, children have spending money. Chinese Society: Immigrants insecurity, save money for the future (parents sacrifice for children). Children don’t have spending money.
Bicultural conflict
Parents vs teachers

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Playing Indian at Halftime (Pewawardy)

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• Mascots Are Good: Honor native cultures, embody school traditions, intensify pleasure of sports.
• Mascots Are Bad: Promote stereotypes, revive historical oppression, cause pain to Native-Americans

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Problems (pewawardy)

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• Hollywood produced stereotypical images: dress (e.g., turkey feather headdresses) and behaviors (e.g., scalping, tomahawk chop, dancing, war-whooping, drum beating).
• Hollywood’s images morphed into mascots that perpetuate stereotypes among non-Indians and negatively impact Indian children’s self-esteem.

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Pewawardy

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• Stereotypical images “relegate American Indian people to a colonial representation of history”.
• Getting rid of logos/mascots/nicknames in schools represents “an issue of decolonization and educational equity.”

As a cultural relativist
One must strive to unerstand why Indian mascots are an important symbol of school’s heritage (perspective of many students and alumni)
If the very people you claim to be honoring are offended by the way you portray them, why would you continue yo do it?

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Cultural Imperialism

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• The spread or advance of one culture at the expense of others, or its imposition on other societies, which it modifies, replaces, or destroys—usually because of differential economic or political influence.

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Globalization

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• “The accelerating interdependence of nations in a world system linked economically and through mass media and modern transportation systems.” (Kottak)
• Not a new process – what is new is current pace (the accelerating interdependence).

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Today's World System

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• Rooted in colonialism. Based on capitalism. Increasing dominance of international trade.
• Single world system committed to production for sale or exchange.
• Radical departure from when most production was for local consumption.

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Anthropology: Changing Focus

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• Anthropologists used to study groups as if they were isolates (geographically bounded, culturally distinct).
• Today, emphasis on studying impact of globalization on local communities.
• Framework = Modern World System: the intersections of local, national, regional, and global processes.

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Wallerstein: World Systems Theory

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• Core – the most powerful nations who dominate international economy. Core monopolizes the most profitable activities (e.g., finance).
• Semi-Periphery and Periphery (Third World, Underdeveloped). Less power, wealth, and influence. Yet possess resources necessary for core.
• Periphery less technologically advanced. Places where raw products (agriculture, mining) are produced. Places where labor is cheap. Fundamentally exploitative relationship between core and periphery.

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Industrialization

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• Process started in Europe (1700s). Closely related to colonialism. Long-distance trade supplied capital. Global networks of extraction (raw materials), production (finished goods), and consumption. Exploitative system.
• Transformation from domestic (home handicraft) to industrial (factory) production. Factories clustered where coal and labor cheap. Industrialization fueled urban growth. Increasing social stratification.

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Marx

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Class consciousness as key concept. Industrialization = bourgeoisie control means of production. Proletariat must sell their labor to survive. Collective interest rooted primarily in socioeconomic group.

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Weber

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Stratification based on more than economic factors. Wealth, power, and prestige (and don’t ignore identity based on ethnicity, religion, nationality, etc.)

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Intervention Philosophy

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• Guiding principle of colonialism, conquest, missionary activities, or development.
• An ideological justification for outsiders to guide native peoples in specific directions. “White Man’s Burden”

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Colonialism and the World System

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• Based on capitalist (industrial) production. Extraction of raw materials from colonized lands, sent to industrial production centers. Value added goods shipped back.

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Colonialism and Identity

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• Colonialism shaped the world as we know it today. Borders of many countries (e.g., Iraq, India, Pakistan, most of Africa and Latin America) are legacies of colonialism.
• “Ethnic Groups” and “Tribes” identified, named, and solidified by colonial powers (see Bowen).

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Postcolonial/Postsocialist Studies

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• Anthropologists study interactions between:
• European nations and societies they colonized. Russia and the former Soviet Republics.
• New Intervention Philosophies. Development. Neoliberalism.

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Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night: Outsourcing phone services

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• Facilitated by modern communication networks (ability to perform consumer functions from remote locations).

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Globalization of labor (nalini)

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• Taking jobs from some (US loses jobs); giving jobs to others (India gains jobs).
• Phone Centers = “sweatshops”?

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Veiling Differences (nalini)

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• Key to Success = customer thinks she/he is talking to an American!
• Dialectical training (Midwestern US vernacular). English aliases (“Toby Smith”, “Carol Jones”). Schedule according to Eastern Standard Time. Don’t voluntarily reveal calling from India.

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The downside: "temporal inversion"

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• Health Consequences: Psychological stresses, poor eating habits, sleep deprivation.

• Social Consequences
• Decoupling individual from family routines, obligations, and networks. Placing women in hazardous situations.

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Cultural Imperialism? (nalini)

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• Is the globalization of labor (e.g., call centers) an example of cultural imperialism?
The sprea of advance of one culture at the expense of others, or its imposition on other societies, which it modifies, replaces, or destroys—usually because of differential economic or political influence
Speak like Americans, use American names, learn about American holidays, live on USA time

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Local/Global Connections

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• Desire enmeshes people in complex economic networks (e.g., with Bolivian peasants; Guatemalan smallholders).
• Desire exists at both sites of production and consumption (Benson and Fischer).
• Desire connects people in new and complex relationships of production/exchange (Bestor)
• Desire in one place linked to exploitation and social ills in other places (see Weatherford).

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Broccoli and Desire (Benson and Fischer)
Multi-Sited Ethnography

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• Fieldwork conducted among smallholders and middlemen in Guatemala, grocery shoppers in Nashville.

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What is Desire? (B & F)

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• A “collective phenomenon shaped by interface of individual intentions, local worlds, and global flows.”
• “An ongoing, future-oriented process.”
• A project that seeks to “make and remake the world around certain values.”

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Export Crops (B&F)

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• Requires surplus land. Demand from abroad. Market (prices, information) controlled by corporations and middle men. High risk, low returns.

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Relative Wealth (B&F)

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• Smallholders: family farms where small amount of land is owned by the family which acts as the primary unit of production. Smallholders with relatively large landholding are relatively wealthy and can grow for foreign market. Feed family from milpa fields. Achieve relative affluence through export.

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Broccoli and desire (B&F)

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• I grow broccoli because it fits my moral worldview (family production). I retain control over means of production (land). I am upwardly mobile (self, and kids thru education). I want to be part of the global system.

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Susan: Broccoli as a Health food

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• A grocery store “trains demands that inform the broader agricultural market” (e.g., what will be produced in Guatemala). Shoppers’ “expectations are mediated by popular cultural images about what is healthy, clean, a bargain, . . .”

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romanticizing desire

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• Broccoli from Mayan farmers fits globally conscious consumer image. It must be more organic than US mega-producers. It supports smallholders trying to maintain their traditional lifestyles.

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Broccoli and desire

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• I eat broccoli because I want to be healthier. Make healthy food for my family. Support traditional lifestyles.

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How Sushi Went Global (Bestor)Growth of Sushi in USA

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• From strange foreign item (1970s – low demand) to upscale fare (1990s – high demand).
• Americans changing diets (less red meat). Adapting to new markets (Kosher sushi, cooked sushi, “California Roll”, etc.). Connections with socioeconomic class (marker of economic standing and “worldliness”).

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Points to ponder (Bestor)

Back 116

• Globalization ≠ Westernization (flows of info/commodities/technologies go both ways).
• Sushi = example of acculturation (adopting Japanese cuisine in American society).

Front 117

Cocaine and Economic Deterioration, Bolivia (Weatherford)

Back 117

• “The demands of the world market have eroded local subsistence economies for centuries.”
• How has cocaine contributed to this process? How does consumption of cocaine in US affect peasants in Bolivia?

Front 118

Impacts of Cash Cropping (weatherford)

Back 118

• Rural villages depleted of work force.
• Families and traditional cultural patterns disintegrate.
• People can no longer afford local products that suddenly become valued in the West.

Front 119

Health Impacts (weatherford)

Back 119

• Young men become permanently disabled:
• Chemicals dissolve pisacocas skin so they lose use of feet and hands.
• Pisacocas lose mind from smoking laced cigarettes supplied by producers.
• Spread of STDs through producer-sponsored prostitution (to keep workforce happy).

Front 120

Nutritional Impacts (weatherford)

Back 120

• More land used for coca production than food production (peasants must buy food).
• Impoverishment drains labor from rural farming areas (loss of labor = less production).

Front 121

Economic Impacts

Back 121

• Rural poverty gets worse (especially as the young and able become disabled).
• Economic disparities increase (those who control production/distribution get wealthy).

Front 122

Intervention philosophy

Back 122

• An ideological justification to guide native peoples in specific directions.
• Today’s intervention philosophy = development.
• Guiding Principles: industrialization, modernization, Westernization, and individualism are desirable advances (“progress”).
Third world= underdeveloped
They can only progress through intervention by First World nations (former colonialists)

Front 123

roots of development

Back 123

• Began at the end of colonialism (post WWII).
• New form of political-economic interaction between core and periphery.
• Like colonialists, developers envision themselves:
• Not as exploiters of poor places and peoples
• But as agents of progress.
Major ideological debates post WW2 between communism and capitalism (soviet union and allies vs US and allies)
Use capitalism to generate wealth and make everyone better off

Front 124

Cold War (1950s-1990s) and Development

Back 124

• Many parts of the world characterized by huge inequities.
• Fear of peasant movements and Communism.
• Solution = development
• Bring people into capitalist system.
• Develop industries and markets
• Make friends through development
MAD=mutually assured destruction—no one wanted to be the first to fire
International development used as tool

Front 125

Development Industry

Back 125

• Major growth since 1950s
• National organizations (USAID, AUSAID, GTZ)
• Multinational organizations (UNDP)
• Non-Governmental Organizations (Gates Foundation)
• Missionary Organizations
• Dissemination of capital and technical knowledge
• Flow from “Developed” to “Underdeveloped”
• But who determines how to develop? Who measures “success” of development? Who really benefits from development?

Front 126

Anthro's Changing Objectives

Back 126

• Previous Consensus: Role is to understand and describe other societies. (we have no business changing them)
• Today’s Consensus: Anthropologists have the skills and knowledge to help solve problems.
We have a moral obligation to reciprocate

Front 127

Anthropology and Development

Back 127

• Academic Dimension: Critiquing assumptions and discourses of development
• Applied Dimension: Working with local people to design culturally appropriate and socially sensitive projects.

Front 128

Kottak's Suggestion for Development

Back 128

• To maximize social and economic benefits, [development] projects must be culturally compatible, respond to locally perceived needs, involve men and women in planning and carrying out the changes that affect them, harness traditional organizations, be flexible.

Front 129

Avoid Over-Innovation

Back 129

• Projects may fail because they are not economically or culturally compatible.
• Can’t assume that people are willing to make dramatic lifestyle changes for sake of “efficiency”.
A lot of washing clothes was social. Put in sinks that face a wall, which removes the social aspect of washing
Developers: practical chore, design based on efficiency
Women: practical chore plus social interaction
Over-innovation: failed to consider social dimension of practical chore

Front 130

Avoid Under-differentiation

Back 130

• Neglecting cultural variability and differences.
• Developing countries are all the same
• Uniform approach to problem solving.
What works in Botswana must work in Bolivia→ doesn’t always work
Design a rural health care system in Nepal after move. Dowry death---supposed to pay husband, instead a kitchen accident is staged and the wife is killed to retaliate at family for not paying. “Many women come to the health posts seeking treatment for burns. We know what that is all about” –Dowry death is not a major issue in Nepal. Thinking that what happens in India must happen in Nepal

Front 131

Anthropological Advantage

Back 131

• Development officials are often socially distant from those they seek to benefit.
• Through fieldwork anthropologist are socially close to those they seek to benefit.
A major obstacle to health care in Nepal is bribery. It should be free.
Problem: development officials are socially and economically disconnected from targets of disconnect
Ceylon (sri lanka)—only whites have the power and resources to make you better, but do you have the knowledge and cultural understanding to?

Front 132

Invisible Colour (Loftsdottir)
Research Questions

Back 132

• Issues of racial identity have been ignored in the context of international development.
• How does development stimulate and recreate racialized notions?
• How are racial identities constructed through development encounters?

Front 133

Who gives, Who recieves? (Loftsdottir)

Back 133

• “How is ‘whiteness’ created and recreated through the discourses and actions of development institutions and others interested in aid?”
• “How do images of dark-skinned people in developing countries as an almost objective reality perpetuate a certain image of ‘whiteness’?”
donor=white
recipients=dark
critique on development.

Front 134

Developscape (Loftsdottir)

Back 134

• Lived practices and visual representations of development in countries that give and receive aid.
Looking at donor countries and recipient countries and looking how development plays out
• Tangible and intangible elements associated with progress that are embedded in ideas about modernization.
Development officials are the white people
Dark skinned peoiple involved in management are low level workers
Evident hierarchy within development organization

Front 135

Recipient Countries (Loftsdottir)

Back 135

• Hierarchy of who is in charge and who is subordinate; signs advertising projects; cars marked with logos of development organizations; exclusive spaces for development officials.
Given development aid
Exclusive spaces reserved for Westerners (eg aid workers) and affluent locals
Membership open to diplomats, embassy employees, and foreigners

Front 136

Donor Countries (Loftsdottir)

Back 136

• Discourses about donor nation (“we are generous”); contrasting donors (saviors) with recipients (people in need).
Give development aid
Wodaabe perspective—development projects derive from and belong to white people

Front 137

Loftsdottir's Point

Back 137

• Continuous depictions of “Third World” peoples as impoverished and helpless . . .
+
• Continuous portrayal of Whites as saviors
=
• A commentary on ‘whiteness’ created and recreated through the discourses and actions of development institutions.
Caveat—this is not a criticism of those who generouslt help others
It is a anthroplogical critique of the message about ethnic others that are continually deployed through media of development

Front 138

Anthropology of Development

Back 138

• International development seen as extension of colonialism (control resources in poor nations).
• Intervention philosophy (“improve standards of living”) to ensure continuing dependency.
• Laden with ethnocentric assumptions (“they need to be more like us.”)

Front 139

The Price of Progress (bodley)

Back 139

• Benefits of progress for indigenous peoples are often illusory and detrimental.
• Progress (“development”) pushed on people as way of getting at their resources.

Front 140

Measuring quality of life (bodley)

Back 140

• Usual Means: GNP, per capita income, employment rates, literacy rates, consumption, doctors and hospital beds/1000, etc.
• Goldschmidt: “Does progress or economic development increase or decrease a given culture’s ability to satisfy the physical and psychological needs of its population, or its stability?”
• Nutritional status, mental health, crime, family stability, relationship to natural resource base.

Front 141

Dietary Changes

Back 141

• Voluntary: Adopting “prestige” foods (e.g., white rice).
• Involuntary: More time devoted to earning cash, less time to growing/procuring traditional foods. Increased consumption of processed foods.
• Forced: Elimination of traditional foods by powerful groups (e.g., forming National Parks).
Negative impacts on nutrition
Nauru is the fattest nation on earth: 94 percent of population is overweight
Diseases of development (bodley)
This does not mean that people are invariably worse off because of development

Front 142

The Ugly American Revisited (James Brain)

Back 142

• Ignorance, arrogance, and ethnocentrism of aid officials causing harm to US interests abroad.
• Creates hatred among those we want to “help”.
• Why does USAID reject projects that are small-scale, cheap, technologically simple (e.g., water pumps powered by bicycles)?

Front 143

Brain

Back 143

SE asian country facing communist insurrection
--The ugly American: humble engineer who lives and works with villagers to develop low tech solutions (bicycle powered pumps)
--Efforts undermined by State Dept officials living in luxury amidst poverty
--Development officials are socially and economically disconnected from the ‘targets’ of development
--Many of us felt guilty and even outraged that the ignorance and ethnocentricism of our aid administrators were getting us hated in the world
--Why USAID rejects projects that are small and cheap?
---Not spectacular enough (US image issue), Small projects too difficult to administer, No American institutions would make a profit

Front 144

Issue: Vested Interests

Back 144

• “There is something in it for a lot of people.”
• Tanzanian (Elites): free vehicles, salaried jobs (low level), new buildings, scholarships to USA.
• Americans: salaried jobs (high level) with many perks (housing allowance, servants), contracts for US institutions (universities).
USAID offices are larger than many embassies
USAID signs only English (educated elite)
American employees with local knowledge transferred elsewhere (too close to natives)

Front 145

The Ugly Americans (developscape)

Back 145

• AID staff: Live in mansions with servants and guards. Rarely speak the local language. Little, if any, understanding of local culture. Social contacts = local government elites. Job = envision and shepherd toward completion multi-million dollar projects.

Front 146

Co-opting universities

Back 146

• Grant money as government subsidy to universities.
• Creating “experts” who actually know very little about topic (farming) in target of intervention (Africa).

Front 147

Why Does USAID persist?

Back 147

• Vested Interests: Political. Make allies.
• Vested Interests: Economic. Cash for those who get contracts (universities, corporations), good jobs for USAID officials, benefits to powerful in recipient nations.

Front 148

Early Endeavors

Back 148

• Sol Tax’s Fox Project (1940s – 1950s). Native American settlement in Iowa. Originally a field school for training Ph.D. students. “You keep asking questions. But what’s in it for us?” Action Anthropology.
• Allan Holmberg’s Vicos Project (1950s – 1960s). Peruvian Andes. Goal: reduce socioeconomic stratification, integrate indigenous population into market economy.

Front 149

Haciendas

Back 149

land grants to the elite (legacy of Spanish colonialism).

Front 150

Patron

Back 150

owner of a hacienda, member of elite land-owning class.

Front 151

Campesinos

Back 151

peasants, people who worked the land and paid portion of produce to the patrón.

Front 152

Of Worms and Other Parasites (Dettwyler)
Cultural Beliefs

Back 152

• Schistosomiasis nearly universal.
• Takes years for symptoms to develop (e.g., blood in urine).
• Red urine for boys interpreted as sign of puberty/sexual maturity (i.e., it’s normal).

Front 153

Dettwyler

Back 153

Difficult to Believe Links
• Behavior and long-term manifestation of illness.
– food and health; sex and AIDS; smoking and lung cancer; contaminated water and arsenic poisoning

Front 154

Mediating the Forest-Farmer Relationship (Dove)
The Context

Back 154

• Shift in Forest Service from:
– State to private lands. Commercial to mixed commercial/subsistence production. Rural elite to small farmer.

Myth: Small farmers ill-disposed toward trees and tree cultivation.
Reality: Development of farm forestry hindered by foresters (agents of govt.) who did not like working with farmers.

Front 155

Research Methods (Dove)

Back 155

• Group interviews; Surveys; In-depth interviews (with farmers and forestry officials); longitudinal monitoring of farm dynamics.

Front 156

Grass-Roots Approach

Back 156

• Assumption: farmers don’t know anything about cultivating trees.
• Solution: Newsletter for farmers sharing and emphasizing the knowledge that farmers have (e.g., thorn fences).

Front 157

Insights from Anthropology

Back 157

• Study all dimensions (farmers and officials).
• Listen to people and learn what they know and what they do.
• Communicate that knowledge to those who have the power (e.g., the govt.) to implement development projects.

Front 158

The Anthropological lens

Back 158

• Anthropologists in ideal position to listen to concerns of development “targets”.
• Anthropologists can sympathize with local concerns (participant observation gives unique perspective).
• Anthropologists more aware of social and economic (power) differentials between developers and targets of development.

Front 159

Critical Reflections (Wallace)
Applied Anthropology: Shortcomings

Back 159

• Anthropologists have long engaged in development projects.
• Success and failure only assessed retrospectively.
• Purpose: show how anthropological insights can be used to adapt projects in an ongoing manner.

Front 160

Good Roots Project: Initial Goals

Back 160

• Quantify extent of deforestation.
• Determine causes of deforestation.
• Establish system so that locals can reclaim denuded land.

Front 161

Mistake: Prioritize Science or Development?

Back 161

• Project recipients chosen through random sampling (scientific endeavor).
• Problem: Enthusiasm varied widely.
• Shift to purposive sampling.

Front 162

Mistake: Incorrect goals

Back 162

• In meetings with experts team viewed as “experts” – did not listen closely to locals.
• Focus on planting forest trees did not generate local enthusiasm (“what are the benefits”?)
• Shift from forestry to agro-forestry:
– Fast growing trees that can generate income (citrus for markets) and fuelwood.

Front 163

Mistake: Under-differentiation

Back 163

• Assumption: project in north could be replicated with minimum change in south.
• Problems:
– Cultural differences (need for intense social interactions to gain rapport).
– Land tenure differences (tenant farmers versus smallholders).

Front 164

Messages (wallace)

Back 164

• Most people in development emphasize successes and downplay failures:
– Development jobs dependent on success.
– Who is the primary beneficiary? (Ugly American)
• “Identifying and understanding the errors in application and the errors in assessment were fundamental to the success of Good Roots.”

Front 165

Medical Anthropology

Back 165

• Applies the tools of anthropology (holistic approach, participant observation, focus on culture) to study human illness, suffering, disease, and well-being. Why do certain diseases and health conditions affect particular populations? How is illness socially constructed, diagnosed, managed, and treated in different societies?

Front 166

Cultural Adaptations to Endemic Malaria (Brown) Medical Anthropology: Ecological Approach

Back 166

• Cultural Ecology: How do cultural beliefs and practices shape human behaviors (e.g., sexuality, residence patterns) that then alter the ecological relationship between host and pathogen?

Front 167

Adaptation (brown)

Back 167

“fundamental process of evolution in which particular traits are selected in a given environment because they increase an organism’s chances for survival and reproduction.” (e.g., skin pigmentation)

Front 168

Cultural Adaptation (brown)

Back 168

culture traits or social institutions which function to increase the chances of survival for a society in a particular ecological context.”

Front 169

Geographic Distribution of Malaria (brown)

Back 169

• Less prevalent in highlands (cooler temps and less standing water disrupt breeding cycle).
• More prevalent in rural areas (“sylvatic nature of the Sardinian malaria vector”).

Front 170

Human Ecology (brown)

Back 170

Relationship between humans and their environment.
• Nucleated settlement pattern (HHs concentrated rather than being dispersed). Settlements on higher, drier ground. Mosquitoes in/around agricultural land where there is standing water. More work (loads); less risk of infection.

Front 171

Social Organization

Back 171

• Men occupy the public domain (jobs, agricultural labor, politics, etc.). Women confined to nucleated settlements and domestic domain. Women less exposed to mosquitoes. Landowning class did not engage in agricultural labor (stay in nucleated settlements = less exposure to malaria). Segments of aristocracy relocated to rural areas during height of malaria season when infection rates higher in urban areas. Farm workers exposed (nearby wetlands at dusk and dawn), but not aristocracy.

Front 172

Cultural Ideology (brown)

Back 172

• Do folk theories of fever causation reduce malaria relapse rates (i.e., adaptive value)?
• Sudden temperature changes or cold drafts cause fever. Hence, avoidance reduces relapse.

Front 173

Conclusions (brown)

Back 173

• Unit of analysis = population (contrast with Lockhart’s life story of a street boy).
• Evidence that settlement pattern and social organization reduced risk of infection for some (women, aristocracy).
• Inverse transhumance and social organization reduced risk of infection for some (shepherds).

Front 174

Life and Death of a Street Boy (Lockhart) Medical Anthropology: Experiential Approach

Back 174

• How do people experience illness? How do they express their experiences? Focus on stories people tell about illness. The way people feel, perceive, and live with illness. The way people make sense of illness.

Front 175

Theoretical Perspectives (Lockhart)

Back 175

• Concept of violence broadened to include structural forces and social oppression that impact on health, human rights, and dignity.
• Structural Violence (Farmer): Institutionalized inequalities that deny marginalized individuals access to critical resources for their health and well-being.
• Everyday Violence (Scheper-Hughes): Routinized experiences of violence in an individual’s life.
• Participant Observation

Front 176

Historical Context (lockhart)

Back 176

• Colonial emphasis on cotton production. Cash crops for export. Post-Colonial economic mismanagement, stagnation, and decline. Structural adjustment policies. Reducing subsidies and opening up to market forces as condition for IMF loans. Result: rural farmers on the brink.

Front 177

Politcal Economy

Back 177

• Broad social forces contributed to the impoverishment of Juma’s family.
• Constraints on making a living for rural migrants to the city made family socially and economically vulnerable.

Front 178

Structural Violence (lockhart)

Back 178

• Widows easily dispossessed of land despite laws permitting them to inherit. Rural migrants lack skills and connections to make a living. Mother relies on “survival sex” to make ends meet (contracts HIV). Poverty and death of mother forces Juma to the streets.

Front 179

Everyday Violency (lockhart)

Back 179

• Street children enact violence on a regular basis. Membership in a group (Nyenga Dog) is necessary for survival.
• Being raped = membership initiation. Raping = means to display and maintain hierarchy. Fighting to protect territory and economic assets. Being beaten by vigilantes and the police as reality of street life.

Front 180

Insights (lockhart)

Back 180

• By focusing on an individual’s experiences the author can analyze how structural and everyday violence shapes people’s lives, the interplay between political economic forces and individual agency, the environment of risk that shapes people’s perceptions of certain illnesses (HIV).

Front 181

Rethinking the Biological Clock (Friese et al.) Medical Anthropology: Anthropology of Biomedicine

Back 181

• Critical approach to the study of biomedicine. Understanding biomedicine as a system of ethno-medicine that involves issues of power, gender, etc. Studying processes of knowledge creation. How does knowledge acquire status of “fact” rather than “belief”. Emphasis on biotechnologies.

Front 182

Medicalization

Back 182

The process by which human experiences are redefined as medical problems.

Front 183

Infertility

Back 183

formerly seen as social problem, but with increasing demand for treatment and growth of industry has been redefined as medical problem.

Front 184

Eleventh-Hour Moms

Back 184

Conceive using donated eggs. Bio clock narrative shifts from “menopause” to “old eggs”.

Front 185

Miracle Moms

Back 185

Conceive with own eggs when age defines them as “non-reproductive” (menopausal).

Front 186

Ovarian Reserve

Back 186

the diminishing quantity (and quality) of ova. Biomedical concept that breaks connection between reproductive capacity and menstruation. In other words, reproductive capacity ends prior to menopause.

Front 187

Conclusions (Friese)

Back 187

• New reproductive technologies influence how we view the life course. Menopause no longer marks transition from reproductive to post-reproductive. Medical discourse on eggs truncates reproductive years (ends prior to menopause). New reproductive technologies extend reproductive years (can reproduce after menopause).

Front 188

Ethnographic Photography (Harper)

Back 188

• Earlier Applications: “Used more to confirm textual descriptions.”
• Contemporary Applications: “not so much to claim ‘this is what is,’ but to create a dialogue around the competing and complementary meanings of images.”

Front 189

Harper

Back 189

• Photography has multiple uses within the context of ethnographic research and analysis.
• Establishing authority of author, reliability of account. Confirming/enhancing textual descriptions. Creating a dialogue around meanings. Supporting arguments made in text. Documenting spatial relationships. Documenting landscape changes. Etc.

Front 190

Harper

Back 190

Usees photos to call attention to ideas which are elaborated in text
Structural similarities with functional differences
Swimming ponds versus manure pits
Assembly line worker’s perspective vs small scale craft dairy farmer
Comparison is by its nature valued laden

Front 191

Advertising and Global Culture (Janus)

Back 191

• Study of transnational culture (culture that is not bound to a single locality).
• Consumption: a common theme of transnational culture.
• Advertising: a means for creating or disseminating transnational culture.
• “Transnational advertising is one of the major reasons both for the spread of transnational culture and the breakdown of traditional cultures.”
• Transnational corporations and ad agencies act as “agents of change”: Create perception of “need”. Spread Western goods and Western values.

Front 192

Advertising

Back 192

• Television ads have immense impact globally. Rapid dissemination of transnational cultural values. Messages created by multi-national corporations meant to have universal appeal. Goal: get everybody to think and act like good consumers.

Front 193

How Does Advertising work?

Back 193

• Advertisements are, “Assemblages of signs that produce the meanings that help sell products and thus promote consumer ideology.” Signs consist of two elements. Signifier (material object, word, or picture). Signified (the meaning ascribed to the material object, word, or picture)
• Through Transference advertising can affect how we think about our own identities, aspirations, and desires.
• Advertising therefore has the potential to be an agent for culture change (and cultural imperialism).

Front 194

Points to ponder

Back 194

• Are these ads inducing or promoting culture change? Agents of culture change? Or are these ads consciously using indigenous culture to sell their products? Reflecting processes of culture change that are already underway?
(china) Mcdonalds commercial→ makes eating an indiviual act where eating is supposed to be very social
Korean—respect for authority and hierarchy
Coca-cola—emphasizing traditional values
Reflecting increasing spatial and economic mobility of china’s youth. Yet, emphasizing importance of family and filial piety

Front 195

Intruders in Sacred Space (Eindhoven et al.)
Going Native

Back 195

• Finding the “most primitive and isolated tribes who have little/no contact with outsiders.”
• Billed as anthropology for the masses, anthropology for dummies. Why call it “anthropology?”

Front 196

Criticisms by Anthropologists (Eindhoven)

Back 196

• Exploiting ‘exotic’ people for entertainment.
• Providing minimal compensation while making a considerable profit (economic exploitation).
• One-sided, distorted representations.
• What is a tribe? Why use that term?
• No mention that they live in nation-states.
• Ethnocentrism. Promoting the assumption of Western cultural supremacy.

Front 197

Anthropological Authority

Back 197

• Anthropologists (e.g., Malinowski) at the forefront of debunking ethnocentric portrayals of others (by colonial admins. and missionaries).
• Through fieldwork anthropologists established rapport, the authority to represent different peoples, the ability to act as intermediaries between vulnerable/marginalized people and outsiders.

Front 198

Anthroplogical authority

Back 198

• Nowadays NGO workers, tourists, students (study abroad) and modern media are “encroaching on the ‘sacred’ territory of anthropology – the ‘noble savage’ who inhabits ‘out of the way places.’”
• While anthropologists strive to make others seem less exotic, the media (and tourists, etc) strive to make them seem more exotic.

Front 199

Whither the anthroplogist?

Back 199

• Anthropologists have failed to popularize ethnographic knowledge.
• How many anthropologists are visible public intellectuals?
• How many books written by anthropologists are widely read by a non-academic audience?

Front 200

Why the disdain?

Back 200

• Popular accounts are marginal in the academic award structure.
• For tenure, one must write an “academic” book.
• Anthropologists accuse those who write popular accounts of “selling out” for profit.
• Commercializing ethnographic knowledge for entertainment can result in ostracism.

Front 201

indigenizing popular culture

Back 201

Modifying “forces from world centers” to fit the local culture.

Front 202

Resistance

Back 202

Analytical tools for understanding domination and oppression in modern world system.
• Public and Hidden Transcripts (James Scott)
• Weapons of the Weak: Hidden transcripts can be transformed into public expressions of dissent against those in power. Resistance in the form of veiled messages rather than open defiance.

Front 203

Postal workers (ghana)

Back 203

Forbidden to speak during tedious work. Music without instruments: communication, dealing with boredom, improving efficiency.

Front 204

Thomas Mapfumo (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe)

Back 204

Chimurenga, “Struggle” music. Indexing the 19th century anti-colonial rebellion named Chimurenga. Hidden Transcript: appears innocuous but openly called for war in Shona language (not understood by white colonialists). Post-Colonial Zimbabwe: Chimurenga music, but now against Mugabe’s govt. Mapfumo banned from Zimbabwe

Front 205

Fela Kuti (Nigeria)

Back 205

Indigenizing Popular Culture: Created Afro-Beat (fusion of West African music, jazz, James Brown style singing).
Resistance: Used music to criticize Nigeria’s post-colonial dictatorship.

Front 206

Oliver Mtukudzi (Zimbabwe)

Back 206

Melodies inspired by traditional instrument – the mbira. Raising social awareness about issues such as HIV/AIDS.

Front 207

K’naan (Somalia)

Back 207

Somalia: poetic and musical genres as socially sanctioned spaces to articulate grievances and social critique.
K’naan blends Somali poetic structures with rap and hip hop to critique ongoing strife in Somalia.

Front 208

music as resistance

Back 208

Resisting and challenging the authority of colonial and contemporary regimes.

Front 209

The blues as resistance

Back 209

• Early Blues (c.1900): veiled from public; it doesn’t count as “real” music. Hidden transcript against legacies of slavery (racism and subordination). Bessie Brown, Big Bill Broonzy.

Front 210

The blues transformed

Back 210

lues used as a “weapon of the weak” (critiquing hegemonic power, subordination).
• But goes mainstream (popular in white society), so no longer a “hidden transcript”.
John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Muddy Waters

Front 211

Music as resistance

Back 211

• Listening to blues and rock becomes form of resistance (against parental authority; against state authority) among youths. Country Joe McDonald, Sex Pistols
• Youth were rebelling in england

Front 212

Music and Symbolic Capital

Back 212

Symbolic Capital (Pierre Bourdieu)
• Using higher prestige dialects can result in social and economic benefits.
• Listening to certain types of music can result in social benefits. In specific contexts some forms of music have higher symbolic capital than others.

Front 213

Hip-Hop culture as resistance

Back 213

• Urban, African-American critique of minority experience in stratified American society. Popular among mainstream (white, middle class) American youths: symbolic capital, resisting parental authority.

Front 214

Japanese Hip-Hop (Condry)
Globalization: Economic, Political, and Cultural

Back 214

• Economic: 16th – 19th CE, growth of capitalist world system.
• Political: 19th – 20th CE, global linkages thru nation states and multinational corporations.
• Cultural: 21st CE, cultural forms (e.g., hip-hop) are leading global changes in politics and economics.

Front 215

Convergence: Linguistic Perspective (Condry)

Back 215

• Code switching and US slang as symbolic capital.
• Geki yaba shitto (extremely bad shit = good music).
• Shakkazombie in da house (Shakka Zombie has arrived).

Front 216

Convergence: Cultural Perspective (Condry)

Back 216

Japanese hip-hop as revolutionary challenge:
To age-grade hierarchy. “Youth need to speak out for themselves!”
To ideology that group harmony trumps individual expression. “Culture of the first person singular.” “I’m this!” “This is who I am!”

Front 217

Genba (Actual Site) Globalism

Back 217

• Processing of global forms at local level is mediated through local language, political-economic structure, characteristic social relations, and cultural norms.
• Hip-hop “refracted and transformed” at site of hip-hop clubs in Japan.
• New cultural forms emerge: blend of the indigenous and the imported.

Front 218

Indigenizing popular culture

Back 218

Teriyaki Boyz (Japan), War Party (Canada), Karmacy (India/USA), Free Raga Funk

Front 219

TIbetan Diary

Back 219

• Reject the simplistic equation that Buddhism = Tibetan Culture.
• Challenge the assumption that culture (e.g., Buddhist principles) determine thoughts and actions of Tibetans.
• Focus on life course to explore what happens when individual aspirations clash with cultural ideals and social expectations.

Front 220

Human agency

Back 220

just because your culture has expectations, you have the agency to manipulate or go around the system

Front 221

ehtnography

Back 221

• A descriptive account of a particular community, society, or culture based on first-hand fieldwork during which ethnographer adopts a holistic approach.
• Old School = highly descriptive and holistic. Contemporary = “problem oriented.”

Front 222

Participant Observation: Situating the Anthropologist in the Field

Back 222

Males: higher status than female. Access to male domains of knowledge (religion, politics, trade)
: denied access to many female domains of knowledge (child bearing, reproduction)
Literate in tibetan: high status, treated with deference by people of authority, access to texts and historical archives
American: western=high status, assumption of medical knowledge, viewed as potential jindag (patron)
Most Tibetans have two given names (henry Harold) and no family name (Smith)
Thus, Tashi Dondrup and Pema Dondrup are not necessarily related

Front 223

Nepal

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Hindu Kingdom from late 1700s. Monarchy recently transformed into constitutional democracy. Roughly 28 million people representing 50+ distinct ethnic groups. One of the poorest nations on earth.

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Kutang

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Economy based on farming, herding, and trade. Heterodox religious traditions (Buddhism, but also shamanism and animal sacrifice). Ethnic mixing of Ghale (Gurung) and Tibetan. Kukay, double entendre.

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Upper Nubri

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Ethnic mixing of Tibetan and Ghale (Gurung). Western Tibetan dialect. Economy based on farming, herding, trade. Buddhist. Nyingmapa affiliation, celibacy not required.

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Gomba

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1. Place of solitude, i.e., a place far away from villages or towns.
2. Monastery (residence for monks and nuns).
3. Village temple for communal rituals.

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Oral Sources of Nubri

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Stories connected with key figures. Stories connected with the landscape.

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Written Sources of Nubri

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Tibetan histories of neighboring kingdoms. Monastery/temple charters. Colophons to religious texts. Lineage documents. Administrative documents.

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Incorporation Within Gungtang Kingdom

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• King Lhachogde extended realm into Nubri in the late 11th CE. “In Nubri, the rugged mountainous area in the center [of his realm] which resembles a great highland wrapped in a silk curtain, he built a royal residence together with an enclosure.” (18th century history of Gungtang)
• King Bumdegon built a fort across river from present location of Sama in the late 13th CE. “In order to suppress the barberous border region of Nubri, he [Bumdegon] built Dragzdong Nagpo (Black Cliff Fort) at Rö (Sama).” (18th century history of Gungtang)

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Ngadag

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“Possessing Power”. “Lord, king, sovereign”. “One who exercises control over land, people, and wealth” (i.e., feudal landowner).

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Arrival of the Ngadag Lamas

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• Yönden Puntsok settles in Sama (1640s?). Sticks ritual dagger in ground at winter pasture, creates an ever-flowing spring. Henceforth his descendants are the incumbents of Pema Chöling Gomba.

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Incorporation with Nepal

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Prithvi Narayan Shah’s conquests create Kingdom of Nepal (1769). 1850s war with Tibet results in borders fixed at Himalayan passes. Henceforth, mirig böpa; miser Nepali (“Tibetan ethnicity; subjects of Nepal”)

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Marginalization in a Hindu Kingdom

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• Social stratification based on caste hierarchy (ascribed status with Brahmins at top). Non-Hindus (e.g., Tibetans) = low status. Eat cows (sacred in Hindu worldview), drink alcohol, not very hygienic.
• Bhotays (Tibetans) = “enslavable alcohol drinkers”

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Why did the child die?

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• Total Fertility Rate = 5.3 births/woman. Moderated by high frequency of female celibacy (the nun effect).
• Infant Mortality Rate = 220  / 1,000 births. USA (2011) = 7  / 1,000 births.

Child died after attempt to cure spiritually using a Mamo replica

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Combining Research Methods

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• Participant Observation. First-hand witness to demographic events (births, deaths) as they unfold; understanding how people diagnose and deal with disease.
• In-Depth Interviews. Cultural perspectives on what demographic events mean in the eyes of the actors.
• Genealogical Method. Reveals the importance of Shiri Ngadag lineage; helps explain social importance son.
• Archival Research. Studying the ritual text provides insights into local conceptions of illness and healing.

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Social Stratification in Sama

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• Principle of patrilineal descent. Key term: gyupa.: Descent group traced through patrilineage. Hierarchy of gyupa

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The Four Gyupa (Descent Lineages)

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• Ngadag: “Possessing Power”. Descendants of Tibetan emperors.
• Pönzang: “Good Rulers”. Ghale (gyal?): high status Gurungs from Barpak.
• Yorkung: “Irrigators”. Commoners from Tibet.
• Chumin: “Low and Inferior”/“Lacking Cattle”. Lower status commoners from Tibet.

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Pema Wangdu

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• Father from Bi, mother from Kyirong. Mother’s clan is prestigious, but what about father’s clan and family? Father moves family back to Bi. Alien land and people. Lack of status and resources leads to suffering.

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Tashi Dondrup

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• Illegitimate child. No fields or animals (work for food). No inheritance (can’t get married). Destined for a life of hardship. Personality and work-ethic (agency) mitigate his circumstances.

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Tashi Dorje

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• Second son of Sama’s head lama. Inherent status (lama lineage). Mother died shortly after his birth. Communal responsibility to raise him. Template from the past (story of ambiguity surrounding true identity of Tri Songdetsen’s mother).
No mother (affected status)
Substitute mother
Just like an ancestor—emphasize the importance of lineage and of the substitute mother

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Adolescent Discord
Pema Döndrup Renounces His Inheritance

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• Worldly householder’s life contradicts his religious inclinations. Personal ambition (to become a celibate, reclusive lama) clashed with family expectations (to become worldly householder).

--send a substitute son to Tsetan—gets an inheritor and bi reduces number of inheritors
arranged marriage for substitute son (pema)
substitute son says get me out of here

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Tashi Dorje

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was forced to marry when he wanted to be a celibate monk
If tinley gyatso dies before producing a male heir, and if tashi dorje is a calibate monk, then the position of head lama would pass to lama gyatso and his sons.

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Lopön Zangpo: Celibacy and Succession

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• Born in 1929, youngest of three sons. Became a celibate monk at Dagkar Taso. Became primary disciple of Dagkar Rinpoche. Throughout the Tibetan world he is a renowned teacher and highly recognized intellectual.
• Vow of celibacy required of monks. Nyingma communities also have non-celibate practitioners (e.g., Ngadag lamas). Tolerance towards monks (but not nuns) who do not adhere to vows of celibacy. Logon Zangpo needed a successor

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Beyul (Hidden Valley)
What is a Beyul?

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• A valley hidden by Padmasambava to be discovered at a time of need in the future. A place where refugees can flee from political and social turmoil in Tibet. A place where society can be recreated in order to preserve religious teachings and the ideal Tibetan social order.

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Social Stratifications

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--ridig with tibetan societies: lama by birth, blacksmith by birth
--being recognized as a reincarnate lama is a oute to upward mobility

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Gender Stratification

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Domestic picublic dichotomy
Men occupy public roles (lama, village leader, trader); women are responsible for reproduction and household maintenance
Monks perform religious functions; nuns perform domestic functions (caretakers for the elderly)

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Gender Stratification

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Women are more intelligent than men, but more passionate. Only men can attain enlightenment

Women use sexuality to strategic ends
When fire burns in the mouth of the eighty-year old man, ashes are poured into the mouths of his brother
Om tetu retu tare soha (I pay reverence to your mount, and leave you with the fantasy of my genitals)
Strong son preference can result in skewed sex rations 9more males)
HISTORICAL LEGACY OF FREMALE infanticide and differential treatemnet in china and northern india

Geneder stratification is evident…nevertheless
Women have considerable power within the household
No evidence of differential treatment or female infanticide

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Rules of Engagement

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• Incest Prohibition. Cannot be from the same descent lineage (gyupa). Must have 7 generations separation on father’s side. Cross-cousin preference. Exchange and bridal debt. If you are a woman, ideal marital partners are mother’s brother’s son or father’s sister’s son. Only about 25 percent of marriages work this way
Lamas lose power through intimate contact with women of inferior lineage/ Exception: the ngadag male is illegitimate and not a lama
Blacksmith and butchers have to marry within own stratum

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Religious Purposes

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• Everybody who comes in contact with the Kanjur receives special blessings. Symbolic protection for the herds (against bovine pestilence) and fields (against hail, early snow, floods, drought, etc.). Symbolic protection for villagers (health, prosperity, longevity, social harmony).

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Practical Purposes

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• Timing. Spring when food stores running low. Communal Sponsorship. Every reader eats three square meals per day, courtesy of the surplus from taxes. Individual Sponsorship. Patrons who were very successful previous year feed participants (and gain prestige by doing so).

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Tibetan men

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plow, cut wood, cut grass, carry loads, herd and trade

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tibetan women

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sow seeds, weed, cut grass, carry loads, herd and milk

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Balanced reciprocity

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labor exchange

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Herding

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• Transhumance: seasonal movements to exploit pastures at different elevations. Herd composition is important.

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yak

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meat, transport, breeding, dairy, breeding

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crossbreed

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meat, transport, breeding, dairy

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cow

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breeding, dair

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Trans-Himalayan Trade

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• “We trade or we starve.” Trade used to be a highly profitable endeavor (lowland grains for Tibetan salt and wool). Now trade is an essential subsistence activity (wood for barley).

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Yartsa Gunbu (Caterpillar Fungus)

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• Boosts immune system and virility. Very popular in Tibetan and Chinese medicine. Current popularity driving collection efforts wherever it is found (Sama empties in May!)

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Dealing with Uncertainty: Cult of the Mountain Deity

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• Religious Syncretism: The fusion of diverse religious beliefs and practices.
• Mountain Worship in Tibet: Pre-Buddhist practice – the yullha (village protector).
• Legend – Padmasambhava transformed mountain deities into chökyong (protectors of the Buddhist religion).

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Honoring Lord Pungyen

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• Offering a Yak. The Tree Offering. The Annual Horse Race.

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Coordinating Ritual and Economic Activities

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• Kanjur Circumambulation Festival. Timing: Late winter/early spring. Depleted food stores. Blessing fields before plowing/planting.
• Horse Race in Honor of Lord Pungyen. Timing: Late spring. Sowing complete. Bovines to the highlands.

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Culture and the Individual: Problematic Assumptions

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• Cultural ideals equated with actual behaviors (i.e., culture predetermines peoples’ thoughts and actions).
• Assumption that people in “traditional” societies act in strict according with cultural rules. Where is the agency?

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Evading Moral Mandates

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• A Buddhist Cultural Ideal: Killing animals is sinful and has negative consequences for the individual (laws of karma). Assumption: Tibetans are Buddhists and therefore don’t eat meat. Reality: Tibetans living at high altitude depend on meat for their survival.
Cultural rules are subject to interpretation, manipulation, and contestation.
The yak died vs. I killed the yak
My words puts the blame on me

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Pema Döndrup’s Dilemma: Ideals and Realities

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• Strong sentiment of filial piety (devotion to parents) in Tibetan society.
• After crossing the river, don’t forget the bridge. After gaining maturity, don’t forget your parents.
• Cultural ideals can be difficult to fulfill: Tashi cares for aging mother, but who will care for Tashi? Balang (Ox, a.k.a. Rinyel) the half-brother? Pema Döndrup’s religious ambitions clash with the plight of his aging parents.

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Pema Döndrup Rejects His Family Responsibilities

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• Kutang – sons (and their wives) are expected to care for ageing parents. Pema Döndrup’s brothers died. Dilemmas: Who will care for the ageing parents? Will Pema Döndrup become a worldly householder and marry his brother’s widow?

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THe levirate

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A marital rule requiring or permitting a man to marry his deceased brother’s wife. Allows for the continuity of a household after a key member (the household head) has died.

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Reasons for ordering a nun

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• Cultural Rationale: Parents acquire merit. Nun acquires modicum of prestige. Socioeconomic Rationale: Nun will not marry. Parents retain her in the household so that in the future she can be a caretaker for the elderly.

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Ideal Household Cycle

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Time 1: Eldest daughter ordained as a nun, remains at home with her parents and siblings.
Time 2: Eldest son marries, wife moves in with family.
Time 3: Child born to eldest son and wife; time for them to inherit and establish independent household.
Time 4: Marriage arranged for youngest daughter;
she moves to husbands household.
Time 5: Youngest son marries; his wife moves in.
Time 6: Child born to youngest son and his wife; time for them to claim inheritance and for parents to retire.

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Life Course of a nun in Sama

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• Ordained at a young age (parental decision to ensure old-age caretaker). Assists in raising younger siblings.
• Moves to retirement home with ageing parents, acts as their primary caretaker and contributes (economically) to brother’s household. Inherits gomba home after parents die. But who will care for her in old age?

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Buddhist worldview death

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• Life is a continuous cycle of birth, maturation, degeneration, death, rebirth . . . Death is inevitable; rebirth is inevitable. Enlightenment is to break forever the process of cyclical suffering.

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If not enlightened

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• Physical body as temporary vessel; consciousness principle (namshey) endures. Namshey wanders in intermediate realm (bardo) until emerging through rebirth. Rebirth shaped by force of previous actions (positive and negative).

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Mindfulness of death

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“The presumption that you will not die is the source of all trouble and the antidote to that – mindfulness of death – is the source of all marvels.” Tsongkhapa

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Tsongkhapa’s Message

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• Incredibly rare to be reborn as a human. Must take advantage of the opportunity to attain enlightenment. Death = the end of that opportunity.
• Most people think “I will not die yet”, and therefore procrastinate their religious practice. Better to think “I will die tomorrow”. Attachment to worldly affairs dissipates. Turn away from sinful deeds. Engage in activities that will ensure an auspicious future rebirth (i.e., human).

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Three roots of pratice

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• Contemplation on the certainty of death. Contemplation that the time of death is uncertain. Contemplation that at the time of death nothing is of benefit except religious practice.

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Reincarnation
Death and Consciousness Transference

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• Requires a lama in Nubri. Ideal exit point – crown of the head. Intent – maximize the possibility that the consciousness principle (namshey) can find rebirth in the human realm.

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Preparing the Corpse for Disposal

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• Corpse remains in the house until disposal. Astrologer determines auspicious day for disposal (3-5 days after death). Take measures to prevent corpse from becoming rolang (bind in crouching position, keep dogs and cats away).

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Tibetan Methods for Corpse Disposal

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• “Sky Burial”. Chop up the corpse, feed to vultures. Most common method in Tibet (wwod is scarce).
• Cremation. Most common method in Nubri (wood is abundant).

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Applying Anthro

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• Original Study. Household demographic processes. Revealed Serious health issues (e.g., high infant and maternal mortality) due to poor sanitation and lack of primary health services.

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Nepal S.E.E.D.S. (www.nepalseeds.org)

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• Grassroots approach: Nepal S.E.E.D.S only funds projects that are local initiatives.
• Working in partnership with locals: Nepal S.E.E.D.S provides funding, locals provide land, labor, etc.
• Projects must be culturally compatible (e.g., support indigenous healing traditions, Tibetan language as part of curriculum).
• Local monitoring of projects: monitor hired from each region to report on successes and failures. Project committees established by villagers for oversight.
• Local ownership of projects: locals responsible for maintaining and expanding project.
• Nepal S.E.E.D.S.’ Goal: to become unnecessary (otherwise, dependency in the name of development?)