Category: anthro in the news

anthro in the news 1/25/2016

 

Eritrea landscape. Source: Creative Commons

Misguided U.K. asylum policy

As described in an article in the Guardian, John Campbell, reader in the anthropology of Africa and law at the University of London, U.K. asylum policy for Eritreans is misguided. Campbell analyzed two Country Information Guidance documents issued by the Home Office last year which say that it is safe to return asylum seekers to Eritrea. Campbell argues that this position over-relies on one outdated source and does not take into account other available evidence and. Campbell is reported to have said: “An undergraduate would be failed for this sort of thing.” The Home Office has not responded.

 

Haiti: Still seeking an elected president


Poster encouraging citizens to vote in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, January 2016. Source: Nicholas Johnson, IGIS

An article in the Huffington Post offers insights into the unresolved presidential election in Haiti. It focuses on one candidate who is closely linked with the banana industry. Co-authors are Jennifer Vansteenkiste, a Ph.D. candidate in geography at the University of Guelph and Mark Schuller, associate professor of anthropology and NGO leadership development at Northern Illinois University and affiliate at the Faculté d’Ethnologie, l’Université d’État d’Haïti.

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anthro in the news 1/18/16

 

Source: Google Images/Creative Commons

Autism that can kill

Kim Shively, professor of cultural anthropology at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, published an article in the Morning Call (Allentown, Pennsylvania) about how autism can be fatal to children. Her article notes a recent death by drowning of a five-year old autistic boy in Allentown. She focuses on the variety of autism that involves a tendency to wander away from home, arguing that it is the most dangerous, especially for non-verbal children. She notes that “public safety and health service providers in our area…have poor understanding of what autism is or how it is manifested.” She offers three recommendations.

 

Sons of a paramount chief, seated, with an African slave, 1904. The Guardian/Institute for Iranian Contemporary Historical Studies, Tehran, Iran

African slavery in Iran

Anthropologist Pedram Khosronejad is Farzaneh Family Scholar and Associate Director for Iranian and Persian Gulf Studies at the School of International Studies of Oklahoma State University. He has embarked on a new and controversial topic in Iranian studies, developing a narrative on African slavery in Persia through archival photography, interviews, and texts. The African slave trade in the Persian Gulf began well before the Islamic period. Mediaeval accounts refer to slaves working as household servants, bodyguards, militiamen and sailors in the Persian Gulf including what is today southern Iran. In Iran’s modern history, Africans were integral to elite households.

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anthro in the news 1/11/16

 

Source: Washington Post

Buy a kidney, exploit the poor and desperate

Washington Post published a weekly “In Theory” piece by medical anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes of the University of California at Berkeley. She is also director of Organs Watch, and advisor to the World Health Organization, the European Union, and the United Nations. She writes: “Be aware that the sale of organs has damaged the families of sellers and their communities — in Syria, India, Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Ukraine, Brazil, Egypt, the Philippines, Turkey and wherever political refugees wash up on the shores of Europe. A kidney for an (un)safe passage to freedom: This is the unbalanced agreement demanded of many families fleeing political conflict and drought. In the watery slums of Manila, the obligation to sell a kidney for the financial sake of the family is being passed down from the father to his wife to their underage sons and daughters, whose bodies are seen as a family piggy-bank.”

 

Too many men?

Politico Magazine and the Australian cited Barbara Miller‘s work on male-biased sex ratios in relation to the many refugees entering Europe. Politico mentions her argument that countries should consider a balanced sex ratio to be a public good. The Australian quotes her as saying that heavily male-biased sex ratios can be a risk to local security. [Blogger’s notes: (1) political scientist Valerie Hudson of Texas A & M University has done much to promote awareness of the connection between heavily male-biased sex ratios and violence; a much earlier, foundational study on the social implications of male-biased sex ratios is an article by anthropologists William Divale and Marvin Harris appeared in the American Anthropologist in 1976. (2) It would be most unfortunate if the “too many men” factor were to become a knee-jerk justification for denying male asylum seekers since a common pattern of refugee migration is that a “pioneer” male first arrives and then brings in his family; see the next entry on U.S. family immigration/reunification policies].

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anthro in the news 1/4/16

Sidney Mintz: Founder of the anthropology of food

Cultural anthropologist Sarah Hill, associate professor at Western Michigan University, published an article in the Boston Review detailing the work of cultural anthropologist Sidney Mintz of the Johns Hopkins University. [See also:  In memoriam, below]. Mintz is lauded as the founder of “food anthropology” with the publications of his landmark book in 1985, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. Hill writes: “…at the heart of Sweetness and Power lies an understanding of the history of capitalism in the Atlantic world that goes far to explain slavery’s enduring legacy.”

 

Can planet Earth be saved?

In an article in The Atlantic, several U.S. experts, including cultural anthropologist Elizabeth Moreno, assistant professor at Oregon State University, offer reasons for despair and hope about the future of our planet. Her reason for despair: “As an anthropologist working alongside indigenous communities in the United States, it’s hard not to see climate change as another wave of violence inherent in the colonial ideal. Colonized geographies like communities in Alaska, small nation states in the Pacific, and large nations in sub-Saharan Africa all share the heaviest burdens of a rapidly changing climate…These burdens are all part of climate injustice…I [also] despair because…climate change needs alternative cultural models for framing problems and non-Western solutions.”  On the side of hope: “The rest of the world is talking back…. It’s going to be an interesting century.”

 

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anthro in the news 12/28/2015

Source: Google Images/Creative Commons

To address ISIS, social science essential

Two social scientists at the University of Oxford,, one a social anthropologist and the other an economist, co-authored an article in the Huffington Post about how “…European states need to go beyond the obvious target, ISIS and its twisted interpretation of Islam, and delve deeper into the complex genesis of violence. Violence is located not just in extremist ideology but also in struggles over the distribution of power within and across nations.” And later on, they write about “…the need to problematize the state and its policies alongside their targets of attack. We need to unpack the common sense view of the state as a benevolent agent operating under explicit policy directions.” Mohammad Talib is Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz fellow in the Anthropology of Muslim Societies at the Oxford Centre for Islamic studies, and Adeel Malik is Globe Fellow in the Economies of Muslim Societies.

 

Miss Honduras at the 2015 Miss Universe contest. Source: Richard D. Salyer/Courtesy of Miss Universe Organization

Stop the killing: A message from Miss Honduras

National Public Radio (U.S.) carried an article about the national costume worn by Miss Honduras, Iroshka Lindaly Elvir, in the Miss Universe contest. It included many decorative skulls. According to archaeologist Rosemary A. Joyce, professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Elvir’s costume drew on Maya culture to bring world attention to violence in Honduras.  The U.N. has ranked Honduras as having the highest murder rate in the world. Joyce noted that: “[Elvir] uploaded pictures to her Facebook page in which she is wearing that outfit holding a sign [that reads] ‘CICIH YA’ which is a call for an independent, U.N.-appointed anti-corruption task force to be appointed for Honduras.”

 

 

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anthro in the news 12/21/2015

 

Source: Google Images/Creative Commons

Syrian refugees in poverty

Marketplace (American Public Media) published a piece on the dire economic situation of Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. According to a new report from UNHCR, Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan have limited opportunities to work since only a small group of refugees has work permits. It quotes Dawn Chatty, professor of anthropology and forced migration at the University of Oxford: “While refugee camps can provide a haven for the displaced population, the reality is that many Syrians in Jordan don’t have access to them…In Lebanon, refugee camps don’t exist…Many are surviving with irregular part-time jobs…and bad pay.”

 

No lip kissing, please, we’re Indian

James Bond gets only a half kiss in Spectre. Source: News Nation

The Times of India carried an article about a talk at the Godrej Culture Lab in Mumbai by William Mazzarella, professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago and author of Censorium: Cinema and the Open Edge of Mass Publicity. He noted how the censorship story has been unfolding in Indian film:  “Censorship itself is a kind of publicity that thrives on visibility…Censorship seems to be flourishing despite the fact that it hasn’t been able to silence or control a great deal of our public conscience space. So maybe we need to think differently about what the censors are up to.”  He speculated on James Bond’s half kiss in the version of Spectre that made it to Indian movie halls.

 

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anthro in the news 12/14/2015

On refugee-phobia

Pilapa Esara Carroll, associate professor of anthropology at the College at Brockport of the State University of New York, co-authored an op-ed in the Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY) about the need to end refugee-phobia:  “We urge our political leaders to refrain from viewing potential U.S. citizens as threats to our nation. Legislation to halt refugee resettlement and to add more bureaucracy to the refugee vetting process are band-aid responses to complex international problems. Neither legislative acts address the root causes of the Syrian war or the mass displacement of Syrians.”

 

The human nature of peace

An article in the Huffington Post draws on cultural anthropologist Douglas Fry of the University of Alabama, with a focus on his new edited book War, Peace and Human Nature. According to the article, Fry summarizes the findings of decades of research on peaceful societies around the world and argues that assumptions about the war-like nature of humans and the inevitability of war are both erroneous and yet deeply ingrained in American culture. A clear alternative vision of a peaceful society is therefore needed. Research has found that when societies define themselves as peaceful, they are much more likely to behave and organize themselves in a consistent manner. Iceland, Denmark, Canada, and Norway provide good examples.

 

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anthro in the news 12/7/2015

 

A view of Mauna Loa taken from a Pu'u near The Onizuka Center for International Astronomy Visitor Information Station at Mauna Kea. source: Wikipedia

Saying no to big telescope in Hawaii

Indigenous peoples everywhere seek the right to say no to various outside interventions. The National Post (Canada) reported on the controversial plan to build a giant telescope in Hawaii on top of Mauna Kea, a sacred mountain. A proposal to build the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) makes claims that it will benefit the whole world, and that Mauna Kea is the best and most rational place to build it. The article quoted, J. Kehaulani Kauanui, associate professor of anthropology and American Studies at Wesleyan University: “…telescopes on Mauna Kea are “supplant(ing) our indigenous temple of worship” and the TMT would constitute a “desecration” of the cynosure of Hawaiian existence. The Post article goes on to comment: “Canadians know well what this sort of fight looks like at home. It turns out other places have aboriginal peoples who want the right to say no, too.”

 

U.S. military is working on a bomber that later could be nuclear-certified. Source: PressTV

U.S. as major threat to world peace and security

PressTV (Iran) carried an article about the possibility of a new nuclear arms race involving Russia and China and untold financial costs. It drew on comments from Dennis Etler, professor of anthropology at Cabrillo College in California. Etler noted that the United States has “a military budget which exceeds that of all other countries combined, ” adding that the U.S. “has hundreds of military bases spread across the length and breadth of the globe, it has invaded sovereign nations throughout the world to protect what it claims is its national security, it has imposed economic sanctions on countries it deems adversaries, and supports subversion and separatism in order to dismember nations it wishes to control…This has all happened time and again. The U.S. as a result of its unilateral actions has become the major threat to world peace and security.”

 

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anthro in the news 11/30/2015

ISIS recruits through friends and social media

An article in the New York Times on ISIS recruitment provides extensive commentary from cultural anthropologist Scott Atran, co-founder of the Center for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict and senior research fellow at Oxford University. He noted that research has found that radicalization rarely occurs in mosques and rarely through anonymous recruiters and strangers. At a meeting held on Foreign Terrorist Fighters organized by the U.N. Security Council’s counter-terrorism committee. Atran said: “it is the call to glory and adventure that moves these young people to join the Islamic State…jihad offers them a way to become heroes.” Atran, who has interviewed captured fighters from the Islamic State and the al-Qaida linked Nusra Front, added that Islamic State leaders “understand youth much better than the governments that are fighting against them.” They know how to speak to the rebelliousness and idealism of youth, and they are adept at using social media to target youth.

 

Weapon of mass destruction

Nuclear weapons test on Bikini Atoll of the Marshall Islands. 1946. source: Creative Commons

The Washington Post reported on the enduring effects of U.S. nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific where, from 1946 to 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear tests. If their combined explosive power was divided over that 12-year period, it would equal 1.6 Hiroshima-size explosions per day. The article quoted cultural anthropologist Glenn Alcalay who teaches at Montclair State University in New Jersey. “We have basically destroyed a culture…We’ve stolen their future. When you take the future from a people, you’ve destroyed them.”

 

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anthro in the news 11/23/2015

 

As of November 21, Brussels was on high alert for a possible terrorist attack. source: Smirnoff, Creative Commons

What does ISIS want?

CBS (Minnesota) carried a brief interview with cultural anthropologist William Beeman of the University of Minnesota. He addresses the question: What does ISIS want? He says ISIS is seeking to recreate the Islamic caliphate that was active in the Islamic world from the time of the Prophet to 1926 when the caliph was abandoned: “They would like the entire world to be Muslim, but they want the world to be Muslim in a very, very narrowly defined manner…They are fundamentalist Muslims and their idea of Islam is quite different from the rest of the Islamic world…They want the U.S. to declare war in the worst way…by doing battle, they think they will eventually succeed, they eventually will conquer and establish their domination over the world…it’s a bit of megalomania.”

 

source: Creative Commons

Combating “homegrown” terrorism in France

John Bowen, Dunbar-Cleve Professor of Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times about how France can combat “homegrown terrorism”

What can France do? I leave aside the questions of border security, surveillance and military strategy in Syria: Those are above my pay grade. But I have two recommendations for how President Francois Hollande can improve matters at home. One, break the isolation. Continue efforts already begun to redesign the urban landscape so that it encourages a sense of national belonging rather than a sense of exclusion. Cease the repeated efforts to stigmatize practicing Muslims with silly rules banning face coverings in public or preventing school officials from offering non-pork meal options to children. The French prize their laïcité — their strict separation of church and state — but there should be room for religious observance in a free, open society. Second, recognize that mainstream Islamic teachers are part of the solution. Many have worked hard to build cultural associations and religious schools, where young people can learn a more complex and responsible idea of Islam. Understand that they base their teachings in a centuries-old body of work, as do Catholic, Jewish and other religious scholars, and stop telling them to devise a brand new “French Islam.” They are citizens or long-term residents of France and participants in global networks of religious scholarship. Whether they help in religious schools or as chaplains in the prisons, they need much more recognition and support from the French state.

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