• Mexican national award to U.S. anthropology professor
Antonio N. Zavaleta, professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, received the Premio Otli Award. It is given by the Mexican government to non-Mexican citizens who work to improve the quality of life for Mexican citizens living abroad.
• Australian of the Year Award goes to legal anthropologist/law professor
The Australian of the Year Award goes to an Australian recognized for bettering the world and inspiring others to do so as well. Patricia Easteal, associate professor in the University of Canberra’s faculty of law, won the award for her efforts in advancing human rights and justice in Australia by highlighting equity issues in the law, courts, prisons and policing. She earned a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh and is a dual citizen of the United States and Australia. Her publications, including 13 books authored or co-edited and more than 100 journal articles, have had an impact on legal reform and public policy especially in the area of violence against women. “There is still a way to go,” she says.
• Liberté, égalité, sexualité
An article in The Independent describes how schools across France may be facing student revolts about the right to wear sexy clothes in school. Some schools forbid low-slung trousers (for males presumably), short garments (for females presumably) and piercings. A rumor at one school of a potential ban on all contact between couples prompted students to threaten a “day of kissing.” Sociologist Michel Fize of the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique says that he is not surprised at the increase in teenagers wanting to dress provocatively. He places the blame on television and a “hyper-erotic” society: “How can you say to a teenage girl that she is baring too much of her shoulder when those on television are doing exactly that?” In the meantime, isn’t this the same country that gets upset when Muslim girls want to cover their heads in school?
• A community of heroin addicts
WHYY Radio interviewed cultural anthropologist Philippe Bourgois, professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, about his 12 years of research with homeless heroin addicts and crack smokers in San Francisco. Bourgois and photographer Jeff Schonberg published their findings in a 2009 book, Righteous Dopefiend. An exhibit by the Slought Foundation in Philadelphia provided an “ethno-photographic” display during December.
• Chimpanzee cutlery
For the first time, chimpanzees have been seen using tools, specifically cleavers and anvils, to cut food into bite-sized bits, according to a report from BBC. In other words they are processing food with tools, a significant step beyond using tools to procure food as in ant-fishing and nut-cracking. The study of chimpanzees in the Nimba Mountains of Guinea was carried out by Ph.D. student Kathelijne Koops and William McGrew of the University of Cambridge and Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University.
• First foreign geisha or not?
Mainstream media picked up on the debut of cultural anthropologist Fiona Graham, an Australian by birth with a Ph.D. from Oxford, as Sayuki, a trained geisha who bills herself as the first foreign geisha. In the 1970s, however, American cultural anthropologist Liza Dalby, with a Ph.D. from Stanford, did long-term participant observation in a geisha community and trained to be a geisha, making her the more likely first foreign geisha. Dalby is the author of Geisha, among other books. Graham seems to be suggesting that Dalby didn’t go through all the necessary steps and dressed and acted as a geisha simply through the courtesy of her geisha friends.
• Modern human behavior = compartmentalized activity areas
One indicator of “modern humans” is the existence of defined living areas for different activities which is taken to indicate formalized conceptualization of living space and organizational skills. A new study by archaeologists at Hebrew University, published in Science, has pushed back the date for such behavior to as early as 750,000 years ago. Evidence comes from the site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in northern Israel. Excavations were carried out under the direction of Naama Goren-Inbar. Members of the international research team include Ella Werker, Nira Alperson-Afil, Gonen Sharon, Rivka Rabinovich, Shosh Ashkenazi, Irit Zohar and Rebecca Biton of the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology; Mordechai Kislev and Yoel Melamed of Bar Ilan University; Gideon Hartman of the Max Planck Institute; and Craig Feibel of Rutgers University. Archaeologist Alison S. Brooks, an anthropology professor at The George Washington University and not involved in the research, is quoted in The New York Times as saying: ”This is an extraordinary site,” and the evidence of hearths itself “implies some kind of spatial organization.” But what would Foucault say? Didn’t he write that the disciplinary use of space occurred in the late 18th century?
• Precolonial farming in Hawai’i
A multidisciplinary team including archaeologist Patrick Kirch, professor of anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, has found evidence of extensive dryland farming systems dating from precolonial times that could have supported one million people. Ecologist Samuel Gon III, cultural advisor and senior scientist with the Nature Conservancy, is quoted in the Star Bulletin as saying that the findings suggest “we can wean our reliance on food from the outside.” The research is described in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
• Headless in Vanuatu
The oldest and largest skeleton find in the Pacific Ocean has been discovered in a coral reef in Vanuatu. The multidisciplinary research team is led by Stuart Bedford and Matthew Spriggs of Australian National University in collaboration with the Vanuatu Cultural Centre. So far, 71 individuals have been recorded. They are all headless and some have their limbs broken, perhaps so they could be stuffed into crevices in the reef. Mads Ravn, team member and head of research at the University of Stavanger’s Museum of Archaeology in Norway is quoted in Science Daily: “The way these people are buried bears witness of a body concept which is different from the whole-body concept in Europe…”
• Nazareth house dated to the time of Jesus
A dwelling in Nazareth appears to be dated to the time of Jesus and was probably one of about 50 houses in what was then a remote hamlet. The research is being carried out by a team of Israeli archaeologists led by Yardena Alexandre, excavations director at the Israel Antiquities Authority. Alexandre said, “There was a logical possibility that a young Jesus could have played around the house with his cousins and friends.”
• Tis the time for lists
Several news media have presented their list of notable deaths in 2009. Three English-language sources that I have seen — The Sunday Times (London), The Observer (England), and the Los Angeles Times — include French cultural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss on their lists. The Sunday Times has a modest list of four, so that’s quite a tribute. The Observer‘s list, organized chronologically by death date, is too long to count. Ditto for the list in the LA Times which organized individuals into categories such as “from the halls of power,” “big screen and small,” “cultural trailblazers,” “wordsmiths” and “LA legends.” Lévi-Strauss’ name appears in the “agents of change” group which also includes Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Norman Borlaug.
Stunned by the massive New York Times obituary coverage (starting on the front page with a photo and continuing with an interior full-page) following the death of American economist Paul Samuelson, this blogger feels that there may be some justice in the world after all since Professor Samuelson didn’t make it on any of the lists discussed here.
anthropologyworks 