Anthropologyworks 10 best of 2009

The following list was determined by a panel of one, though, as you can see, many of the choices are externally validated. Congratulations to one and all!

Best Student Essays in Public Anthropology: The public anthropology award winners of 2009 are 19 students in Diana French’s Anthropology 100 class, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, at the University of British Columbia-Okanagan.
Best Anthropology Song … or was it the only one? Certainly the only one performed at the AAA meetings.
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8035515&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1
Best Long-term Field Research: Olga Linares, of the Smithsonian’s Tropical Research Institute in Panama, has been doing fieldwork in three regions of Senegal for 40 years. She has witnessed many changes including a doubling of the number of poor people, declining rainfall, abandonment of rice fields and effects of the drop in currency value. She describes how Senegalese women farmers creatively cope with these changes.
Best Contribution to Anthropological Ethics: the AAA-commissioned report (PDF) on the Human Terrain System was submitted in November; the product of many months of work by several contributors, it condemns the role of anthropologists in U.S. military operations.

Best Special Issue of a Journal: Social Science and Medicine, Volume 70, issue 1 (requires login), edited by Catherine Panter-Brick of Durham University, contains 20 articles on conflict, violence and health. I will be assigning several of them in my spring medical anthropology seminar.
Best News About One of My GW Colleagues: Patty Kelly, research professor of anthropology, is co-winner of the Sharon Stephens Prize and runner-up for the Victor Turner Prize for her book, Lydia’s Open Door: Inside Mexico’s Most Modern Brothel.
Best New Journal: Collaborative Anthropologies, edited by Luke Eric Lassiter.
Best Anthropology Conference: The September meeting of the Society for Medical Anthropology at Yale University. Although I wasn’t able to attend, my colleagues who did have praised the plenary speakers, rich array of papers, impressive attendance and organization, including meals for the attendees.
Best Kinship Story: The President of the United States’ mother was a cultural anthropologist, and Duke University Press published a revised version of her dissertation, Surviving against Odds.
Best Public Impact: A shared shout-out to Antonio N. Zavaleta, professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, who received the Premio Otli Award from the Mexican government for his work improving the quality of life for Mexican citizens living abroad, and to Patricia Easteal, associate professor in the University of Canberra’s faculty of law, who won the Australian of the Year Award for her efforts in advancing human rights and justice in Australia. More info here.

Anthro in the news 12/28/2009

• 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.

Anthro in the news 12/21/09

• Cultural anthropologist wins national award in Australia

A book critiquing public policy toward Australia’s aborigines over several decades has won the Manning Clark House Cultural Award 2009. The awardee is Peter Sutton, a cultural anthropologist and linguist and senior research fellow at the University of Adelaide and the South Australian Museum. His book, The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the End of the Liberal Consensus, challenges the way successive governments have dealt with indigenous issues. According to the Canberra Times, it has polarized many readers in both academic and mainstream circles. The author says he has been surprised at the depth of feeling: “I’m touched by the fact that so many people are relieved by the book… It’s given them a certain cathartic release from silences and from being unable to think where they were heading.” He has, however, been upset by the “more personal attacks.”

• Ardi wins as top scientific breakthrough

Science magazine anointed Ardipithecus ramidus (its long-awaited description, not the discovery of the fossils since they were found over a decade ago) as the Breakthrough of 2009, and the mainstream media eagerly picked up on the announcement. According to Bruce Alberts, editor-in-chief of Science, the Ardipithecus research “changes the way we think about early human evolution, and it represents the culmination of 15 years of painstaking, highly collaborative research by 47 scientists of diverse expertise from nine nations, who carefully analyzed 150,000 specimens of fossilized animals and plants” (source). A special issue of Science was devoted to articles by various team members on the fossils and their significance.

• Anthropologists honored by AAAS

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) announced its 531 new fellows. Seven are anthropologists: Susan M. Cachel, Rutgers University; Diane Zaino Chase, University of Central Florida; Katerina Harvati, Eberhard Karls University of Tübigen; Andrew Hill, Yale University; Gary D. James, Binghamton University; Ellen Messer, Brandeis University; Yolanda Moses, University. of California, Riverside; and Lynnette Leidy Sievert, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

• Nancy Scheper-Hughes releases interview about Israeli illegal organ harvesting

In 2000, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, professor of anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, conducted and taped an interview with Yehuda Hiss, former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv. Hiss admitted that in the 1990s pathologists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from family members. Hiss was removed from his post in 2004 when details about the organ harvesting were first reported, but he still works at Abu Kabir. According to the Guardian, Israel’s health ministry says that all harvesting in Israel is now done with permission and in accordance with ethics and Jewish law. The article is not clear as to why Scheper-Hughes decided to release the interview now.

• Rice as life in Japan

A feature article in the double holiday edition of the Economist about the importance of rice in Japan draws heavily on the insights of cultural anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, the William F. Vilas professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is an authority on Japanese culture and author of many prominent books including Rice As Self: Japanese Identity through Time. She notes that the origin myths of many cultures focus on the origin of the universe, whereas Japan’s is “…about the transformation of a wilderness into a land of abundant rice at the command of the Sun Goddess, whose descendants, the emperors, rule the country by officiating at rice rituals.” These rituals are closely tied to Shintoism, Japan’s indigenous religion, which emphasizes the importance of subordination of self-interest to the well-being of the group. Rice is a major component of national identity: to be Japanese is to eat rice, specifically rice grown in Japan. But modernity threatens the centrality of rice in the diet as young urbanites increasingly opt for meals featuring meat, potatoes and bread. A growing movement, however, seeks to preserve Japan’s rice heritage. One such development is the establishment of an upscale restaurant in Tokyo called Kokoromai (“Heart of Rice”) which has more than 10 varieties of rice on the menu.

• The silent epidemic of childhood hunger in the U.S.

An article in The Washington Post addresses the challenges of widespread and growing childhood hunger in the U.S. and quotes medical anthropologist Mariana Chilton of Drexel University. Commenting on how the problem of child hunger is complex and subtle and cannot be solved by providing food alone, she says “Most people who are hungry are not clinically manifesting what we consider hunger. It doesn’t even affect body weight.” The lack of nutritious food is just one of several pressures facing low-income families including housing and energy costs. Chilton is part of Children’s Health Watch, a network of pediatricians and public health researchers in Philadelphia and four other U.S. cities, and she is organizer of the “Witnesses to Hunger Project” which has provided video cameras to 40 mothers to document the challenges they face and their efforts to feed their children. The videos will be used to lobby the U.S. government.

•Anthropology puts the people in technology engineering

Intel Labs’ People and Practices Research group (PaPR) has a vision of a more human-centered technology future. The group applies principles from “forward-looking anthropology” along with sociology and psychology to predict what people will require in the future. Ken Anderson, an anthropologist with PaPR, says, “We are trying to understand what people actually do in order to better design technology.” For example, because people frequently task switch when using technology, Intel is working on a new turbo boost feature that will be delivered early in 2010.

• Anthropology puts the people in public policy

The Dominion Post carried an article about a one-day seminar in Wellington led by Christian Bason (LinkedIn), head of the Danish thinktank Mindlab. The purpose was to talk about how to redesign public policy processes to take into account the people they are trying to help: taxpayers. Mindlab was established in Denmark to improve service delivery through understanding what people need. One example of success was reducing turnaround time for work injury cases. Bason said that anthropology has become “hip” in government service in Denmark: “instead of studying tribes in South America they are using anthropology to study taxpayers.”

• Anthropology puts the culture in skin care products

Tramayne Butler earned a PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of Michigan and is now founder and CEO of AnthroSpa Logic LLC, which produces natural skin care products. She started researching and developing her line while teaching part-time as an adjunct instructor and spending time at home with her two young children. Inspired by her fieldwork in Kenya and extensive world travels, she realized that skin care products could benefit from cross-cultural knowledge about medicinal and beauty practices and use of organic materials.

• Leprosy most old

The DNA of a 1st century CE man buried in a tomb in the Old City of Jerusalem reveals that he had leprosy, making him the oldest proven case of leprosy. The location of the tomb suggests that he may have been a priest or member of the social elite. The condition of his hair and the quality of the textile shroud he wore are further indications that he was not a social outcast, in spite of suffering from a disfiguring disease. Details of the research are published in PLoS ONE.

• Say it with flowers

Flowers placed near the head of a human buried during the Bronze Age is the first such evidence from that period. The grave is located south of Perth, Scotland. The findings are described by Kenneth Brophy of the University of Glasgow in the journal British Archaeology. BBC news quotes Brophy as saying that the discovery of the flowers brought home to him the human touch involved, that “actually these are people that you are dealing with.”

• Dancing to a different culture

Researchers in the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, confirm the diversity of human cultures and human cognition. They asked a group of German children and a group of Namibian children to learn a dance. The German children and the Namibian children, however, consistently used different hand movement directions. Daniel Haun comments, “The human mind varies more across cultures than we generally thought.” The findings are published in the journal Current Biology.

• More evidence of chimp smarts

Primatologist Jill Preutz of Iowa State University has observed a group of savanna chimpanzees in Senegal for over nine years. Her latest discovery is that the chimpanzees understand how wildfires behave and can predict the movement of wildfire well enough to avoid it calmly. She feels that this finding sheds light on how early human ancestors may have learned to control fire. A paper co-authored with Thomas LaDuke of East Stroudsburg University, is published online in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

• Stone age pantry

Archaeologist Julio Mercader of the University of Calgary, with colleagues from Mozambique’s University of Eduardo Mondiane, has found the earliest direct evidence of extensive consumption of wild cereals. Dozens of stone tools, excavated from deep within a cave near Lake Niassa in Mozambique, were used to grind wild sorghum by Homo sapiens more than 100,000 years ago. Mercader comments that “inclusion of cereals in our diet is considered an important step in human evolution because of the technical complexity and the culinary manipulation required.” The findings are published in Science.

• Tough teeth for tough times

A team of researchers, including biological anthropologists Paul Constantino and Peter Lucas of The George Washington University, have shown that natural selection in three ape species favors those with teeth that can handle “fallback foods” during times of scarcity. Gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees favor a fruit-based diet. But they all possess molars than can allow them to chew tough foods such as leaves and bark. The findings are published in Science.

• Development projects do not benefit India’s tribals

KIRTADS (Kerala Institute for Research, Training and Development Studies of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) organized a national seminar to discuss tribal knowledge, biodiversity, intellectural property rights and the impact of modernity on livelihood sustainability. Vineetha Menon, professor and head of the anthropology department at Kannur University, says that modernity has disturbed the tribals’ livelihood systems and that poverty-eradication schemes have not helped them. K. N. K. Sharma, former director of KIRTADS, pointed to the negative effects of land alienation and expressed criticism of the government for not protecting tribal land rights.

• Nepali cultural anthropologist dies

Renowned cultural anthropologist Saubhagya Shah died as a consequence of a heart attack at the age of 45. Shah earned his doctorate in anthropology from Harvard University. He was a professor in Tribhuvan University’s sociology department and coordinator of its Conflict, Peace and Development Studies program. Shah’s interests focused on the state, democratization and development. In his chapter in the edited book, State of Nepal, he offers a critique of the burgeoning NGO sector in democratic Nepal and notes that both government and non-governmental sectors are competing for the same resources. In an essay titled “Democracy and the Ruse of Empire” (PDF file), Shah points out: “It is ironic that the more Nepal sinks into the abyss of violence and anarchy, the more it emerges as an attractive destination for all manners of gun runners, conflict managers, crisis entrepreneurs and democracy missionaries out to make a quick buck or a fast name.” We have lost a keenly insightful anthropologist and articulate champion of peace, human rights, and counter-imperialism.

• Still remembering L-S
British cultural anthropologist Adam Kuper has written a tribute to Claude Lévi-Strauss which received a full page in Nature (login required).

To market, to market

Farming women hold up more than half the sky in rural Senegal. Olga Linares, a researcher with the Smithsonian’s Tropical Research Institute in Panama, has been doing fieldwork in three regions of Senegal for 40 years. She has witnessed many changes over this period including a doubling of the number of poor people, declining rainfall and abandonment of many of the rice fields, and the effects of the drop in the value of African currencies. During this period, the World Bank has admitted to neglecting agriculture.

Although variations exist across the three regions, Linares finds a general pattern of women developing gardens that they cultivate on their own or with groups of women to produce vegetables for sale in nearby markets. The installation of drip irrigation systems, with the assistance of NGOs, is the single-most important innovation in saving women countless hours carrying water over long distances to their gardens.

Linares points out that it is women’s traditional knowledge of farming that is critical in this new endeavor, along with help from NGOs and extension services. Their familiarity with what works and what doesn’t is “ultimately responsible” for the success of their gardens. With cash from sales, they support the household economy including clothing, rice for daily meals, and children’s schooling. Vegetables that are not sold are consumed by household members or fed to their domestic animals.

All in all, it’s a win-win situation that builds on women’s traditional knowledge, capabilities, and cooperation can lead to life-sustaining change.

Image: A farmer in Senegal by Flickr user vredeseilanden. Licensed by Creative Commons.

The purrfect solution?

by Barbara Miller

Cheetahs are major draws for the international tourist industry in southern African countries. In Namibia, home of one-fourth of the world’s population of cheetahs, tourists pay big money for the chance of a close-up look at these large cats. The cheetah population has been declining in recent decades, however, mainly due to being killed by farmers. The tourist industry therefore cannot guarantee a sighting to high-paying visitors.

In an article in the Financial Times, journalist Colin Barraclough describes his stay at the Okonjima Lodge in Namibia where a double room costs between US $250-1000 per night. The AfriCat Foundation, based at the Lodge, is a nonprofit organization established to help protect Namibia’s big cats. Barraclough saw pens where injured and orphaned cats are housed in preparation for their return to the wild. While this effort may warm the heart of animal lovers, it’s not done out of altruistic feelings about the animals but to protect profits from high-end tourism.

A major challenge in cheetah population management is tracking the whereabouts of wild cheetahs. Conservationists need data on their numbers and location so they can step in to help if a problem arises that would affect cheetah health and wellbeing. But cheetahs don’t like to be monitored. Radio collaring, for example, causes them stress. The age-old way of reading their tracks appears promising as a non-invasive method. The article proclaims: “San Bushmen can consistently identify individual cheetahs from their footprints.”

So, the tourist industry and conservationists want to track cheetahs and San Bushmen know how to track them. Does this sound like a wonderful opportunity for the San to benefit from tourism by using their traditional tracking knowledge?

No such luck. The article further states that AfriCat is partnering with WildTrack, an animal monitoring group that aims to use computers to produce an algorithim to track free-roaming cheetahs based on data about their footprints. Computers will digest San knowledge and generate output for scientifically technicians to use.

Here is a shining example of how indigenous knowledge has potential to contribute to conservation and cultural survival by providing employment to the San people who have been harshly displaced from their homelands. Instead, once again, a takeover — only this time of knowledge instead of land. The takeover is glaringly obvious in the article’s proclamation: “Bushmen put scientists on the right track” followed by the words of a European cheetah researcher at a wildlife sanctuary in Namibia: “We hope computers can do the same.”

Photo, “Cheetah”, from Flickr via Creative Commons.

The cradle of agriculture in ruins?

By Barbara Miller

An article in The New York Times titled “Idle Iraqi Date Farms Show Decline of Economy “ (Aug. 14, 2009) describes the severe deterioration of agriculture in Iraq and highlights date farming as particularly hard hit. The article notes lack of water, fungi and pests as causal factors in the decline of the agricultural economy.

Any comments on more in-depth sources of information on the state of agriculture in Iraq? Is something more going on than drought and pests, though admittedly that’s a pretty serious combination of threats? Are anthropologists or other social scientists doing local-level studies on this topic?

These date palm trees are in Cairo, because there weren’t any Creative Commons-licensed photos of date palm trees in Iraq.