• Too Poor to Do the Right Thing
Many people in the United States can no longer afford to bury or cremate their dead loved ones due to the so-called economic downturn. According to an article in the New York Times, “Coroners and medical examiners across the country are reporting spikes in the number of unclaimed bodies and indigent burials with states, counties, and private funeral homes having to foot the bill when families cannot.” Oregon has seen a 50 percent increase in unclaimed bodies.
In Tennessee, unclaimed remains are donated to the Forensic Anthropological Research Center, also known as the “Body Farm.” The bodies are buried and students use them to study patterns of decomposition over time. This year, the Center received more bodies than it could handle and was forced to halt its donation program.
There is no good news here.
• Son of an Anthropologist Wins Nobel Peace Prize
On a brighter note, President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this week, a happening that was widely covered in the mainstream media though, as far as I can tell, no one so far has connected his peace-making efforts to the potential influence of his mother, Ann Dunham, who was a cultural anthropologist.
A BBC documentary, “Dreams from My Mother,” provides insights into the life of Stanley Ann Dunham (so-named because of her parents’ wish to have a son). It shows how, after her second divorce, she moved to Yogyakarta, in Java, and began her lifelong study of indigenous crafts industries. Later she was admitted to the PhD program at the University of Hawai’i where she pursued the archaeology and cultural anthropology of blacksmithing in Java. Moving beyond her academic studies, in order to help people in these industries, she constructed a model of micro-financing which is now the standard in Indonesia. She generated support for her work from the Ford Foundation and the World Bank to help poor rural people launch small businesses.
Ann Dunham was an unconventional woman: a devoted mother, pioneering scholar, and applied anthropologist working on behalf of the poor. Is her importance, as an anthropologist and humanitarian activist, in the achievements of her son getting the attention it deserves?
anthropologyworks 