Anthro in the news 2/3/14

World Bank’s development plan for Myanmar

Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank and trained medical anthropologist and medical doctor, published an article in The Huffington Post describing the World Bank’s three pillars of its new $2 billion multi-year public and private sector investment program in Myanmar. Noting that 70 percent of Myanmar’s people lack access to electricity, especially in rural areas, he asserts that: “We share the Government’s commitment to expanding reliable, affordable access to electricity, especially to rural areas. That’s why, over the next five years, we’re seeking to invest $1 billion dollars in Myanmar’s power sector…” [Blogger’s notes: So electricity development gets half of the total. Further, the article doesn’t specify how the electricity will be generated, but likely through constructing large hydroelectric dams.]

He then discusses the importance of investing in health, endorsing the government’s goal of “universal health coverage by 2030.” He then turns briefly to agriculture.

[Blogger’s note: Kim was in Myanmar for two days, and I have never been there. But anyone who knows anything about large-scale hydroelectric development has to know that it inevitably displaces thousands of people in rural areas, ruining their small-scale farming opportunities, reducing their food access, damaging their health in many ways, and damaging the ecology.

The World Bank has “accountability” mechanisms in place that supposedly involve close consultation with local communities. So, let’s see how it goes in Myanmar as the Bank and other external players push for economic growth through investing in the energy sector. It goes without saying that the Bank and businesses are profit-seekers: they are not charities. Let’s see if there will be sufficient attention to social justice, including truly informed consent among those displaced and fair compensation for loss of land, water/fishing rights, and other livelihood factors. No matter what, they will never see a proportional return to them from future profits that the energy sector will undoubtedly reap in the future.]

Hospitals defining the time to die

Cultural anthropologist Sharon Kaufman published an article in The Huffington Post on, “Defining Death: Four Decades of Ambivalence”. She discusses several cases in the U.S. in which a person was near death, hospitalized and whether they were allowed to die.

She asks what can we learn from these stories and how can we develop a clearer understanding and acceptance of death? Some first steps: “…Families need to comprehend both what the medical ventilator can do and what its limitations are. Doctors need to talk with families, to continue to provide them with compassionate care during and, perhaps most importantly, following the death of such a patient. And because a ventilator-tethered patient looks so alive, a simple declaration of death is no longer enough. Finally, medical schools need to give higher priority to teaching the communication skills that doctors will increasingly need as they confront the vortex created by unexpected death, complex technology, and the threat of litigation.”

Kaufman is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She has conducted research for 25 years on medicine, the end of life, and the social impacts of advanced medical technologies in an aging society. She is the author of the book, …And a Time to Die: How American Hospitals Shape the End of Life.

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 2/3/14” →

Anthro in the news 1/27/14

From Davos, with anthropology
Jim Yong Kim. Photograph: Enrique Castro-Mendivil/Reuters

Several media sources connected with Jim Yong Kim during this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. According to coverage from CNN in Davos, World Bank president and medical anthropologist Jim Yong Kim has called for a concerted global effort to help Syria’s refugees, saying the international community has failed to formulate an adequate response to a “humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions…”

CNBC also reports on Kim and his view that that Southern Europe is facing the risk of losing a whole generation to chronic unemployment: “Among the things that we’re especially concerned about are the extremely high rates of youth unemployment because that has implications not just for the short term, but especially in the medium to long term.”

The Huffington Post presents Kim’s views on pollution, noting that he has called on global leaders to address climate change: “This is the year to take action. There are no excuses.” His clarion call comes shortly after a WEF report revealed that failure to arrest, and adapt to global warming is one the greatest threats facing our planet.

More about Jim Kim: The World Bank and big dam problems

The Washington Post, in its business section, published an article about the U.S. pushing for greater oversight of the World Bank as it pushes ahead with its new plan to solve extreme poverty through major hydro-elective projects: “In a blow to plans set by World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, the United States recently approved an appropriations bill that orders the bank’s U.S. board member to vote against any major hydroelectric project — a type of development that has been a source of local land conflicts and controversies throughout the bank’s history including the ongoing case of the displacements and human rights abuses related to the Chixoy dam in Guatemala. The measure also demands that the organization undertake ‘independent outside evaluations’ of all of its lending.” [Blogger’s note: In October, CIGA hosted a talk at the Elliott School by Barbara Rose Johnston who is a leading advocate and expert on the Chixoy dam project and the human rights abuses it involved].

Forcing women into marriage

An article in Al Jazeera on forced marriage among Hindus, Muslims, and Jews around the world, mentions the work of cultural anthropologist Ric Curtis of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Curtis, along with some of his students, interviewed 100 students at several City University of New York campuses, focusing on students from Middle Eastern, North African and Southeast Asian (MENASA) countries to try to determine the extent of forced marriage, an issue he suspects is more widespread than what the research shows: “All that we are seeing is the ugly tip of the iceberg, but how much more is there?”

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 1/27/14” →

Anthro in the news 1/20/14

Thomas Robert Malthus

China’s one-child policy: Malthus more than Mao

An article in The Times (London) cites the research of Harvard University cultural anthropology professor Susan Greenhalgh that reveals how the visit of a Chinese mathematician to an international meeting in Helsinki put him in touch with Malthusian thinking about population growth and its dangers and specifically the book, The Limits to Growth.

Falling down on the job in Cambodia

Over the past two years, many garment workers in Cambodia have fainted and been hospitalized and production has slowed or shut down, according to a report in The New York Times by Julia Wallace, the executive editor of The Cambodian Daily. In one instance, a worker started issuing commands in a language that sounded like Chinese, claiming to speak for an ancestral spirit and demanding raw chicken. No raw chicken was provided, and more faintings occurred.

The article mentions the work of two cultural anthropologists, Michael Taussig and Aihwa Ong, who have described spiritual responses to oppression. Taussig wrote about Colombian peasants working on sugar cane plantations in the 1970s and their perceptions of having sold their souls to the devil.

More closely related to the Cambodian case is Aihwa Ong’s research on spirit possession among women factory workers in Malaysia in the 1970s. Ong interpreted women’s spiritual affliction as a protest against harsh working conditions. Such “protests” however did not result in better working conditions for the women. In Cambodia, in contrast, mass faintings have produced a positive response – indirectly, through public support for workers’ rights after a government crackdown on demonstrating workers and, directly, through a raise in the minimum wage. [Blogger’s note: garment workers in developing countries need all the help they can get, so bring on the spirits!].

The future of jobs in the world

An article in The Economist on the future of employment drew on the work of many scholars including cultural anthropologist David Graeber of the London School of Economics. The views in general are not promising for employment rates, given the ever rising replacement of labor by technology. Increasing income equality is projected. The article alludes to Graeber’s perspective that much modern labor consists of “bullshit jobs” (low- and mid-level screen-sitting that serves simply to occupy workers for whom the economy no longer has much use) and that keeping bullshit workers employed is a ruling class practice to maintain control. [Blogger’s note: interested readers should consult Graeber’s original writings for more details].

Eating cake and talking about death

Art du Jour, an art gallery and education space in downtown Santa Cruz, CA is a bright and cozy place where some 30 strangers gather to talk about death and dying. To help begin those conversations comes a new concept in an unlikely phrase: the Death Cafe. Death Cafes originated in England, the country where the hospice movement began. An article in the San Jose Mercury on Death Cafes in California quoted Shelley Adler, a U.C. San Francisco medical anthropologist who held the first San Francisco Death Cafe this past spring:

“Bundt cake makes everything easier…[regarding death, she says]. “We have more than 100 euphemisms for it. The end. Pass away. Kick the bucket. It’s not that we want to avoid it, necessarily. It’s everywhere, from zombie movies to video games. But we were desperately in need of a platform. And, when you face it, you suddenly feel unloaded. It’s not as scary.”

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 1/20/14” →

Anthro in the news 1/13/14

UN Headquarters Haiti after 2010 Earthquake. UN Photo. Wikicommons.

Where did the money for Haiti go?

A Montreal group is blasting Ottawa’s earthquake relief in Haiti for its lack of transparency and poor results. The Coalition for Haiti, citing a report by Paul Cliche, an anthropologist and researcher on development issues with the Université de Montréal, notes that conditions remain dire in Haiti following the devastating earthquake on January 12, 2010. In addition to the lack of transparency, Cliché concludes in his study that Canada’s approach to humanitarian aid in Haiti is flawed on several fronts. For example, too much Canadian aid money has been spent on Band-Aid-type fixes, including offering rental subsidies to persuade Haitians to move from emergency camps to substandard temporary housing rather than building permanent homes or repairing damaged homes. Cliche says that it is impossible to determine who received over two thirds of the $554.8 million reconstruction money Canada sent to Haiti.

Four years later: Too bitter, too little, too late

The Haitian Times published an article by cultural anthropologist and professor at Northern Illinois University, Mark Schuller, in which he comments on the situation in Port-au-Prince four years after the earthquake:

“On the surface, things are calm. Port-au-Prince appears to be in security. Kidnapping stats are way down from the end of the year. Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe presented a list of accomplishments four years on, which include the construction of 5,000 houses. The protests that engulfed the streets almost daily in November and early December, including thousands recently for an increase in Haiti’s minimum wage to 500 gourdes a day (about $11.35, or $1.42 per hour), have dissipated for the holiday season.”

Schuller then describes a fire in one of the camps that destroyed the entire camp. And, “Today a large march is scheduled to advocate for housing rights. Word is that other larger, more politically motivated, protests will resume in the week.”

Link between U.S. soldiers’ suicide and toxic leaders

Forbes Magazine carried an article about a National Public Radio news investigation aired this week covering the topic of toxic leadership in the military. It focuses on research by David Matsuda, an anthropology professor, who was working with the U.S. army in Iraq to help understand local cultures. While there, a general asked him to investigate the high suicide rate among U.S. soldiers, which prompted Matsuda to study the culture of the Army. The standard investigation of a suicide in the Army is to ask what was wrong with the individual soldier, such as a history of mental illness or a marital breakup. Matsuda pursued a different angle and discovered that soldiers who took their own lives usually did have personal problems, but they also had leaders who were pushing them over the edge by making their lives a living hell. The NPR link provides access to the audio. Continue reading “Anthro in the news 1/13/14” →

Anthro in the news 12/30/13

E-cigarettes: good or bad?

As of the end of 2013, e-cigarettes are hot. According to an article in The Calgary Herald, one sign of the burgeoning popularity of e-cigarettes is that Internet searches for the products have grown exponentially in recent years. A study by U.S. researchers showed a several hundred-fold increase between 2008 and 2010 in searches for the devices over other smoking alternatives such as nicotine patches.

Richard Hurt, who runs the nicotine dependence center at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, suggests the expansion of the e-cigarette industry and market is harmful because it is turning back the clock on tobacco control.

Cultural anthropologist Kirsten Bell, in contrast, believes e-cigarettes deserve a chance. A professor at the University of British Columbia, Bell has researched the public health responses to the devices. She feels e-cigarettes aren’t being given a fair shot: “They were sort of being condemned without trial by the majority of people in mainstream tobacco control in public health…You have this sort of unquestioning extension of smoke-free legislation to cover e-cigarettes when of course an e-cigarette isn’t a cigarette. It’s not a combustible product.” Bell thinks a moralistic agenda is at play, equating nicotine use with smoking, even though the dangers of cigarettes relate to how they deliver nicotine, not the compound itself

Couple Snap a Selfie, Macedonia. Adam Jones, Ph.D. Wiki Commons.

The meaning in the selfie

The Philadelphia Inquirer carried an article on the selfie in which it referred to the research of archaeologist Dean Snow on Paleolithic handprints on cave walls. What’s the connection? The fact that women are more likely than men to post selfies today and that Snow’s analysis of the handprints indicates that the majority were made by women. The meaning: authenticate the event. [Blogger’s note: that still doesn’t explain the gender difference].

Faye Harrison and public engagement

In an article in The Huffington Post, Gina Ulysses of Wesleyan University describes the contributions of University of Florida anthropologist Faye V. Harrison to the ongoing conversations about the future of the university and the “value of a liberal education within a hostile market economy.” Ulysses conducted the interview with Harrison at the November meetings of the American Anthropological Association.

Faye Harrison. University of Florida, 2010.

Harrison’s three-decade long career has been marked by dedication to publicly-engaged work about people who produce and apply both academic and nonacademic knowledge. Her research agenda goes beyond the ivory tower, into what she calls “peripheralized” and “minoritized” areas, engaging people who are typically left out of processes of knowledge-making.

What’s next for Harrison? For one thing, she is co-organizing, with cultural anthropologist Yasuko Takezawa of Kyoto University, a three-session panel entitled “Engaging Race and Racism in the New Millennium: Exploring Visibilities and Invisibilities for the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences” for the intercongress in Chiba, Japan, that will be held in May 2014. Continue reading “Anthro in the news 12/30/13” →

Anthro in the news 12/23/13

US Department of Homeland Security, US Border Patrol.

US-Mexico Border Patrol agents need training in every-day police skills

USA Today reported on the increasing number of cases nationwide in which Border Patrol agents back up local police or perform other police duties, such as serving warrants or responding to domestic disputes. Sometimes incidents turn deadly. Some critics say they aren’t adequately trained for this work. A report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General released in September found that many Border Patrol agents don’t understand their own policies on when to use force. The report also said trainees who leave the Border Patrol Academy “are not fully prepared for possible real-life situations they might encounter.”

The article quoted Josiah Heyman, a cultural anthropology professor at the University of Texas-El Paso, who has studied the border for 30 years, “Border Patrol agents are not adequately trained to solve problems with words,” he said. “They don’t have these every-day police skills.”

“Life in India humbles you”

The Hindu carried an article highlighting the work of cultural anthropologist Assa Doron. The Hindu caught Doron while he was vacationing in Kerala with his family, taking a break from his new book on garbage and waste disposal systems in India, co-authored with Robin Jeffrey. They are tracing the issue from the Mughal times, to the era when the British ruled India, to the present-day.

Orillas_del_Ganges — Boats on Ganges River in Varanasi. Maria Carmen. Flickr Commons.

Earlier, Doron co-authored Cellphone Nation, also with Jeffrey. Doron’s book, Life of the Ganga: Boatmen and The Ritual Economy, is a study of the boatmen of the Ganga and their multi-layered, multi-hued relationship with the river and the people. He is working on an anthology, a collection of works on the Ganga, including poems, essays and notes written by the likes of Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, and also translations of poems in Hindi on the river. Doron has also edited Gender and Masculinities: Histories, Texts and Practices in India and Sri Lanka. It includes chapters on the idea of masculinity, tracing it in history, literature, and development.

When asked: what has India taught him over the years, he responded, “Never take anything for granted. Life in India humbles you and fascinates you.”

Interview with David Kertzer

Oppenheim_-_Kidnapping_of_Edgardo_Mortara_-_1862 — "The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara" by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim

In an interview with The Tablet, cultural anthropologist and university professor at Brown University, David Kertzer, discusses the impact the 19^th century kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara had on both Italian and Jewish history. Renewed interest in the case is prompted by the Sotheby’s sale of the recently discovered painting, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. The painting, by 19th-century German-Jewish painter Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, depicts Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old Italian Jewish boy seized by church authorities from his family’s home in Bologna, based on a rumor that he had been baptized by the family’s illiterate gentile servant girl. If baptized, the boy would have to be considered a Catholic in the eyes of the church and would no longer be allowed to remain in the home of his Jewish family. Despite the family’s desperate pleas and protestations, Edgardo was brought to a monastery in Rome, taken in by the pope, and raised as a Catholic. When he grew up, he became a priest.

In 1997, Kertzer published a book on the Mortara case, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. A finalist for the National Book Award, it was adapted into an opera and a play. A feature film is now in the works. The interview includes questions about the painting itself, its historical context, where it should reside, and what it means today.

Kertzer has spent much of his academic career researching Catholic Church-Jewish relations, the role of religion in politics, and the formation of political identities. His 2001 book, The Popes against the Jews: The Vatican’s Role in the Rise of Modern Antisemitism, has been translated into nine languages. His forthcoming publication, The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe, the result of research conducted in the newly opened Vatican archives, will come out next month.

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 12/23/13” →

Anthro in the news 12/16/13

• Understanding the fragility of African states

The recent French interventions in Libya and Mali, and the most recent one in the Central African Republic, raise the question of the very existence of the state on the continent according to Jean-Loup Amselle, an anthropologist and director of Studies at the EHESS (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences) in Paris.

Marcel Mauss. Flickr: Les bibliothèques de l'UPEC.

In an article in Worldcrunch, Anselle refers to classic studies by anthropologists that identified the existence in precolonial times of two types of societies: state societies represented by kingdoms and empires, and segmentary lineage societies, organized in tribes.

He states that the former’s characteristics are very different from those of the rational bureaucratic state, which one can observe nowadays in most developed countries.

For example, the Malian state machinery, like that of many other African countries, is “riddled by networks that feed on the range of resources available on the continent: mining and oil as well as international aid and drug trafficking.” The functioning of such networks is based on Marcel Mauss‘ theories of reciprocity and gift exchange, set out in his 1924 essay The Gift.

• G8 aid pledge for nutrition in developing countries

In June, the G8 Nutrition for Growth Summit pledged a landmark $4.15 billion to combat malnutrition in the developing world, the largest sum ever pledged to support nutrition. Nevertheless, a pledge is just a pledge, and a key step is to ensure the committed funds are realized. Then comes the implementation.

An article from Think Africa quotes Elizabeth Hull, a nutrition specialist and anthropology lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies, as noting that the funding compact contains “a strong emphasis on private-sector principles such as value for money and so on … The approach promoted seems to be very ‘outcomes’ focused.”

[Blogger’s note: six months after the pledge of $4.15 billion, it appears that only a fraction of that amount is actually a secure commitment; and experts say that even the full pledge level is far short of what is needed to solve malnutrition in low income countries].

• “The thieving craft” redeemed

Yirrkala_EXH_pg_770x375detail — From left: Mowarra Ganambarr Ḏätiwuy Thunderman and shark site, Arnhem Bay; Nänyin’ Maymuru Djarrakpi; Mundukul Marawili Fish trap, Baraltja. Berndt Museum of Anthropology, Perth

A review in the Australian of a new exhibit, “Yirrkala Drawings,” in Sydney praises the richness and beauty of art works displayed and provides some context of how they were collected.

Cultural anthropologist Ron Berndt conducted fieldwork in Arnhem Land, one of the five regions of Australia’s Northern Territory, in the early-mid twentieth century. His goal was the creation of a record of clan beliefs and the links between place and story-cycle. At the same time, he collected many drawings and marked down the drawings with numerals referring to expositions about them in his notebooks.

This is the first formal display of the large body of the drawings in an exhibition context, allowing for their full originality to be explored, and taken in. The principal scholar of Yolngu art history, Howard Morphy, professor of anthropology and director of the Research School of Humanities and the Arts at the Australian National University, offers an account of the works and their visual grammar in a catalog essay. Thus anthropology, that “thieving craft,” in this case, in some way, redeems itself by preserving and documenting art once taken away. Yirrkala Drawings is at the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney until February 23, 2013.

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Anthro in the news 12/9/13

Marlene McKay. Credit: Liam Richards/Canadian Press

• Violence against indigenous women and girls in Canada: stop it

Canada paused on Friday to remember the 14 young Montreal women who were murdered by a misogynistic madman. As part of the tribute, the Saskatoon Women’s Community Coalition unveiled a public art display of shoes in the square at City Hall to illustrate the lifetime loss of girls and women who are fatal victims of violence, often domestic abuse that forces them out onto the streets.

An article in The Toronto Star quoted Marlene McKay, a Métis anthropologist who has studied marginalized aboriginal women as well as the “broken women from Saskatoon’s 20th Street.” She said that history has inflicted so much pain and lowered the self-worth of Canada’s aboriginal women that the fact hundreds are missing has become little more than a sociological footnote. Feminism, she says, is still pretty much an F-word in indigenous culture: “We are just entering that conversation.”

• Belize in the news

The Huffington Post carried an interview with Joe Awe, a Belizean activist, entrepreneur, anthropologist, Mayanist, tourism lecturer at a junior college, and one of Belize’s top tour guides. Awe shares facts and ideas about Belize’s history, culture, ecotourism, economy and sustainable development.

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 12/9/13” →

Anthro in the news 12/2/13

• Breast cancer screening in Israel: opportunity or not?

In Israel, a push to screen for a breast cancer gene leaves many women conflicted, according to an article in The New York Times. Israel has one of the highest rates of breast cancer in the world, and many scientists are advocating what may be the first national screening campaign to test women for cancer-causing genetic mutations that are common among Jews. But the tests mean that women have to choose between what they want to know, when they want to know it, and what to do with the information.

Komen Race Jerusalem 2012 — Komen Race for the Cure (for breast cancer) in Jerusalem 2012. Flickr/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv

Jews of Ashkenazi, or central and eastern European, backgrounds, make up about half of the Jewish population in Israel and the vast majority of those in the U.S. They are much more likely to carry mutations that pose risks for breast and ovarian cancers, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The debate about screening is economic — will the state cover the costs of testing — and ethnic — will only Ashkenazi Jews be routinely tested? Israel is a melting pot of both Arab citizens and Jews from all over the world, and only half of the country’s six million Jews are of Ashkenazi ancestry.

Moreover, even though the testing would be voluntary, women could feel pressured to participate, said Barbara A. Koenig, a professor of medical anthropology and bioethics at the University of California, San Francisco. “When you institute mass screening, you’re making a collective decision that this is a good thing.”

• Sharing amidst poverty in the U.S.

An article in The Los Angeles times described how L.A.’s close-knit Tongan community struggles with poverty while maintaining their strong cultural tradition of sharing. Statistics show half of Tongan Angelenos live in poverty. But, they say, a culture of sharing means “no Tongan is here to get rich”—because even the smallest thing is given.

Scholars believe the numbers of people in the Tongan diaspora is larger than the population of Tongans on the islands. The article quotes Cathy A. Small, a Northern Arizona University anthropology professor who has long studied Tongan communities. When visiting a classroom in Tonga a few years ago, children were told to write letters to their mothers in New Zealand, saying what they wanted for their birthdays. “Nobody found the assignment strange.”

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 12/2/13” →

Anthro in the news 11/25/13

Paul Farmer, Bill Clinton — Paul Farmer, Michele Montas, and former President Bill Clinton. Flickr/UN Photo

• Paul Farmer lauds Bill Clinton

Medical anthropologist and doctor Paul Farmer has credentials that require their own paragraph. He is Kolokotrones University professor and chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School; chief of the Division of Global Health Equity, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and co-founder of Partners In Health.

Farmer published an article in The Huffington Post celebrating President Bill Clinton who, nearly 13 years after leaving office, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. Farmer writes, “While his accomplishments as the 42nd President of the United States were extraordinary, the work he’s done since then as a private citizen has had as profound an impact on millions more around the world.”

[Blogger’s note: this may be a first – when an anthropologist gets to pat a former president on the back?]

• Japan on the verge

A review in The Japan Times of Anne Allison’s new book, Precarious Japan, praised it as “a forward-thinking commentary on the current state of Japan, detailing a progressive history from the economic collapse in 1991 to how the country functions today in a modern, post-earthquake society.”

Allison, Robert O. Keohane professor of cultural anthropology and women’s studies at Duke University, explores how Japanese society is on the cusp of a new transition. Prior to the country’s economic decline, gender and societal roles were firmly secured in Japan: Men were full-time workers, typically loyal to a single company for most of their lives; woman were housewives, dedicating their lives to the caretaking of their households and families.

Allison explores how this paradigm is rapidly shifting — despite the lag in society’s perceptions of gender roles. The review also comments that “Allison gives an eye-opening view into the darker aspects of modern Japanese society, and how such instability is effecting both individuals and the country at large … Despite being an academic book, readers in Japan will likely feel connected to the events and conditions that Allison describes … For those wondering just how precarious Japan’s future really is, this book is a good place to start.”

A review of Allison’s book in The Atlantic focused on her description of Japan’s highly competitive school system and its cautionary implications for the U.S. For more insights about the book and Anne Allison’s perspectives, NPR provides a wide-ranging audio interview with the author.

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 11/25/13” →