• Big male sports in U.S. universities
Orin Starn, a Duke University professor of cultural anthropology is a longtime critic of Duke’s participation in Division I athletics. As quoted in the New York Times, he objects to sports occupying “this gigantic place in the university landscape.” He calls basketball “a strain of anti-intellectualism” that claims too much time and attention. Starn, who teaches a course on the “Anthropology of Sports,” provides an anthropological interpretation: “Big-time sports have become a modern tribal religion for college students.” There are sacred symbols (team logos), a high priest (Coach K) and shared rituals (chants and face painting). “This generation loves pageantry and tradition. School spirit is in right now. Now it’s hip to be a joiner and it’s hip to be a sports fan.” Also, he observed, “these kids have grown up with the idea that sports are really a major part of American society and something they should care about.” [Blogger’s note: maybe this is a good time to look into big-time sports rejectionists…like students who don’t opt for the Greek system — how do they fare in terms of their future “success” and “happiness”?]

• More on macho
The Gazette (Montreal) carried an article about how the male stereotype of the “…all-powerful protector and provider is doing a disservice to men – pressuring them to conform and ultimately leaving many powerless to face the challenges of modern society.” Many academics working in the area of masculinity studies consider how the culture of maleness affects men. The article notes the work of Wayne Martino, of the University of Western Ontario, whose research on is on masculinity, gender and role modeling.

• And more…Oxford University report says it all boils down to macho
The New York Daily News, along with several other mainstream media outlets, carried a piece about “male warrior” behavior and its role in the world’s conflicts: “From the football field to the front lines, scientists are blaming conflict on what they call the ‘male warrior’ behavior, a natural instinct that causes men to be aggressive to ‘outsiders.'” According to the news, evolution shapes men to be fighters, while women have historically resolved conflicts peacefully. “Our review of the academic literature suggests that the human mind is shaped in a way that tends to perpetuate conflict with ‘outsiders,’” said professor and study author Mark van Vugt.

• But wait..possibly nice Norse marauders?
The Bronze-age Norse may have an inaccurately bad reputation. Archaeological research in the Outer Hebrides suggests peaceful intermixing and continuity of Hebridean culture. The research team has looked at hundreds of sites.

• Car flags, racism and push-back in Australia
An op-ed in the Herald Sun (Australia) states that Australia Day has developed into “kick an Australian Day.” “It is almost an industry. In the past few days you have been told that if you enjoy Australia Day, there’s a fair chance you are a drunk, a redneck, and flying the flag, not because you are proud, but because you are racist.” The author addresses a study by Farida Fozdar, a cultural anthropologist at the University of West Australia which revealed a correlation between showing an Australian flag on one’s car and racist attitudes. “She also found that 91 per cent of flag bearers thought migrants should adopt Australian values and only 76 per cent of non-flag wavers felt the same, which makes you wonder about the question. Why would anybody who embraces Australian values not think they were good for all? The problem here is fairness. Yes, it’s a nice headline for an academic, but it is offensive to anybody who flies the flag, and such a small sample is hardly definitive.”

• The immortal words of MM
The Hindu (India) carried an article recalling Margaret Mead’s wisdom. Sixty years ago, the world renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead recorded her essay for the series: “This I Believe.” She calls for understanding “the other” and not just trying to look for similarity in other cultures or to influence others into one’s own way of life: “I believe that to understand human beings it is necessary to think of them as part of the whole living world. Our essential humanity depends not only on the complex biological structure which has been developed through the ages from very simple beginnings, but also upon the great social inventions which have been made by human beings, perpetuated by human beings, and in turn give human beings their stature as builders, thinkers, statesmen, artists, seers and prophets.”

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 1/30/12” →

• Ships crashing in the day
Canada’s Globe and Mail carried an article on what big cruise ship crashes mean for the industry: “The crash of the Costa Concordia cruise ship […like that of the Titanic] a century ago, is more about the overriding ambiguity of the image — the mismatch between the insulated adventure we’re buying and the rocks and icebergs that still can get in the way.” The article quotes Erve Chambers, professor of anthropology at the University of Maryland: “With both disasters, the same delusion is at work…These ships are so big and so powerful that they are seen to prevail over nature.” [Blogger’s note: these comments remind me of how delusion is a key factor in “modern life,” along with denial — consider Tea Party beliefs and values].

• Our babies our politics: Republican presidential candidates big on babies

An article in the New York Times pointed to the high fertility level of several of the Republican presidential candidates. Both Rick Santorum and (dropout) Jon M. Huntsman Jr. each have seven children. Mitt Romney is the father of five as is Ron Paul. But Newt Gingrich and (dropout) Rick Perry have only two children each. The article quotes Jenell Paris, who teaches anthropology at Messiah College in Pennsylvania:  “For evangelicals, an anticontraception position is not seen as exclusively Roman Catholic, as it would have been in the past.” She pointed to several developments in evangelical culture to explain this shift toward an anticontraception position.

• Teenagers talking online

The New York Times Sunday style section carried a major article about Danah Boyd as someone who has gained fame as an anthropologist of youth online communication. Boyd is senior researcher at Microsoft, an assistant professor at New York University, and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. She publishes in academic outlets, she speaks in important public venues, she teaches, and she tweets. The article describes her support for teens’ access to the online world as a supportive space: “The Internet was my saving grace…I would spend my teenage nights talking to strangers online, realizing there were other smart kids out there.” Her views and insights offer a tempering perspective to parents and others who worry about the dangers that lurk online.

• Binge drinking

The Atlantic carried an article critiquing the recent CDC definition of binge drinking. The author writes: “To describe drinking solely in terms of statistical correlation to problem behaviors may undermine the complexity of what it means to drink and even to drink a lot. Anthropology may offer a more nuanced view than the CDC’s focus on epidemiologic and economic risk factors. If, as the CDC suggests, alcohol causes problem behavior, other cultures should have the same lack of moral inhibition when they drink.” The author, a craft bartender in Washington, DC, cites the work of cultural anthropologist Dwight Heath: “…perhaps the foremost expert on drinking and culture — and a professor of anthropology at Brown University — describes drinking as a bio-pyscho-social experience in his International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture. Heath describes cultures that, despite drinking almost lethal amounts of alcohol, sit peacefully while imbibing, with no instances of violence, crime, or suicide. Many examples of peaceful, safe drinking exist (even within our culture) and show that, while the act of drinking alcohol engenders certain physical effects, our cultural interpretation and psychological state determine what those effects mean.” The author concludes: “The last thing I wish to do is minimize these problems or even suggest that alcohol is without sin, but there’s no way to understand the true impact of alcohol within society without understanding how culture shapes its use. If I’m a binge drinker, then so be it. I’m a binge drinker. But this only obscures real problem uses of alcohol since, as a binge drinker, I seem to be doing just fine.” [Blogger’s note: I am thrilled to report that an M.A. student taking my medical anthropology seminar contributed research for the article in the Atlantic: congratulations to Clare Kelley].

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 1/23/12” →

• The invisible anthropologist speaks about Haiti
Paul Farmer, rarely identified in the media as a cultural anthropologists as well as a doctor and humanitarian health advocate, was quoted on the front page of the Washington Post, above the crease, in an article about Haiti two years after the disastrous earthquake: “‘Recovery is here. It is painfully slow, it is agonizing to watch, but it is recovery,’ said Paul Farmer, a Harvard physician who has spent three decades in Haiti and whose group, Partners in Health, is opening a modern, 320-bed public teaching hospital an hour north of the Haitian capital.”

• Pentagon cuts are not so deep
TRNN interviewed Catherine Lutz about proposed cuts to the Pentagon budget. Lutz, a cultural anthropologist, is Thomas J. Watson Jr. professor of anthropology and international studies at Brown University where she is also chair of the anthropology department and director of the Watson Institute’s Costs of War study. In the interview, she states that “… the big picture hasn’t changed strategically. They’re still—the Pentagon and the Obama administration are still trying to position the U.S. military as the force which can do it all and be everywhere 24-7 to try and monitor and manage or control events… The budget itself has some decrease that’s going to occur, but this is quite small. When you control for inflation, it will be on the order of 4 percent over the next five years in comparison with last five…”

• Ritual sacrifice in context of globalizations and big business pressure
An article in the Daily Mail (London) about the recent “sacrificial” murder of a young girl in rural India quotes Subhadra Channa, professor of anthropology at Delhi University. Channa says that ritual sacrifice has been a tradition in India’s central belt in the past but that it may now be fuelled by attempts by big business to take land: “The tribal people feel really threatened. They are feeling helpless in the face of a big power,” she said.

• Mozambique sees relevance of anthropologists
The Africa news carried an article about a new agreement linking the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) and the Mozambican Ministry for the Coordination of Environmental Action that will engage the university in training environmental staff who will monitor new “mega-projects” in the country such as natural gas projects in the Rovuma Basin. The Vice-Chancellor of the University commented on the availability of knowledge at UEM and the need to integrate knowledge into policies: “It is who we train, just to cite a few examples, architects, doctors, sociologists, anthropologists, environmental engineers and educators…”

• Take that anthro degree
…and become a research biologist who makes fascinating discoveries about nonhuman primate sociality. Susanne Schultz graduated with a B.Sc. in anthropology from the University of California at Davis. She went on to earn an M.A. in ecology and evolution from the University of Stony Brook and then a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Liverpool. She is currently pursuing several research projects at Oxford University’s Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology under funding from a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship through 2013. BBC picked up on a publication in Nature in which Schultz discusses the importance of being “flexibly social” in human evolution.

…and become a writer. With his B.A. in cultural anthropology from Wesleyan University, Sebastian Junger has gone to become a world-famous writer and documentary film-maker. He is the author of two books — The Perfect Storm and War — and co-producer, with the late Tim Hetherington, of the documentary film, Restrepo. He is also a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. This past week, he contributed a piece called In War, We All Desecrate the Enemy, in the Washington Post. In it, he discusses the four U.S. marines who urinated on dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. [Blogger’s note: please read his essay, read his book War, and watch Restrepo. Then you will even more surely understand Junger’s point in the WaPo article that the act of desecration of the four marines is one in which we — in war-supporting countries — all participated].

…and become a realtor. In Nashville, Tennessee, Jessica Averbuch is a partner and managing broker in a Nashville real estate. She holds a B.A. in anthropology from Washington University, St. Louis, and an M.A. from the University of Texas. She moved to Nashville with her husband who is chief financial officer of the company and also runs the mortgage company. She comments on why she likes her work: “The relationships. It’s a business, but it is very personal. In my new role as broker, the agents in my office are my clients, so that creates a whole new set of relationships. It’s an opportunity to train and mentor and help them develop their businesses.” In addition, “I’m really involved in the community. I’m on the board of Renewal House, which serves women battling addiction. I spend a lot of time on that.”

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 1/16/12” →

• Is it time to ban plastic surgery?
The Los Angeles times carried an article by Alexander Edmonds, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and author of a book called Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex, and Plastic Surgery in Brazil. Here are some extracts from the article: “The faulty breast implants made by the French company Poly Implants Protheses, or PIP, have grabbed headlines around the world in recent weeks, and it’s no wonder. The prostheses are more prone to rupture than other models, and they contain an industrial grade of silicone never intended for use in a medical device. The scandal is also global in scope. Sold in 65 countries, the implants were re-branded by a Dutch company registered in Cyprus, offered on credit in Venezuela and smuggled into Bolivia, where they were bought by medical tourists….Some plastic surgeries similarly lie in a gray zone between necessity and medical enhancement. For example, breast reduction is seen by many in the United States as medically justifiable. But in Brazil the operation often has mainly a cosmetic aim (small breasts are an erotic ideal, while larger breasts are seen as matronly)…But while medical advances can result in safer cosmetic procedures, they can also contribute to their normalization. Yesterday’s vanity is often today’s health, or at least well-being. As beauty becomes a more visible part of medicine, health risks may become less visible. And that is a big risk.” This article has been picked up by the Korea Herald.

• Golf, sex and racism
A new book by Orin Starn looks at the “Tiger Woods incident” in the context of golf, race and celebrity culture in the United States. Starn is professor and chair of cultural anthropology at Duke University. The book is called The Passion of Tiger Woods: An Anthropologist Reports on Golf, Race, and Celebrity Scandal. According to the reviewer, “Starn comes by his interest in Woods honestly. He began golfing at 12 with his grandfather, played on his college golf team and has a 5 handicap. In a conversational voice, he explores golf’s history and how using social media helped him get at the range of responses the public had to the Woods incident.”

• American football, military values, and violence
The Spanish newspaper El Pais quoted Peter Wogan, associate professor of anthropology at Willamette University in Oregon, in an article about football and American culture. Building on his “Tackle This” post for Anthroworks,Wogan comments to El Pais on how American football links with military tactics and values: “It’s two groups of men, coordinated and synchronized, who have to advance together, as one. …The players [like soldiers] stay on the field to save their buddies, so I don’t think the violence is gratuitous” [Blogger’s note: thanks to Peter Wogan for bringing the El Pais article to my attention and for translating this quotation into English].

• OWS and David Graeber’s claim to fame
The Daily Telegraph (London) carried an article on January 7 about the proliferation of writing about and for the 99 percent: “Under the banner of Occupy Writers, well over 3,000 writers have come out in support of the Occupy movement. Among them the likes of Jennifer Egan, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville and Salman Rushdie are very successful. Most writers, though, struggle even to earn minimum-wage rates from their trade. They cobble together careers through lecturing, copy-editing, penning the odd article…” The article goes on to refer to David Graeber’s book, Debt, as the “richest elaboration” of the critique of extreme capitalism.

• Class cancelled before it starts
Columbia University’s anthropology department planned to offer a class this spring that would be “a field-based course about Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement more broadly.” It was supposed to offer “training in ethnographic research methods alongside a critical exploration of the conjunctural issues in the Occupy movement.” According to the New York Daily News, “But then the adults stepped in and killed the idea.” The Columbia Spectator provides some background as of January 6: Associate Vice President for Public Affairs Brian Connolly said that Columbia’s Committee on Instruction has not approved the proposed class, which would allow students to conduct fieldwork at OWS protests. “A few news outlets reported that Columbia would be offering a new undergraduate course regarding Occupy Wall Street,” Connolly said in an email. “News reports and some departmental postings regarding the spring semester were premature.”

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 1/9/12” →

• “Aid from abroad can sometimes help”
In a review in the New York Times of a book on recent Haitian history, the reviewer addresses the differing effects of external and internal factors in explaining Haiti’s current situation. Near the end of the essay, the author that “…aid from abroad can sometimes  help, as with the work of the estimable, Creole-speaking Dr. Paul Farmer and his Partners in Health Program…” Blogger’s note: Once again, Paul Farmer’s impact is noted without any mention of the fact that he is a cultural anthropologist. At least his Creole abilities made it into the article. That’s kind of anthro.

• Politics of culture in Indonesia
The Jakarta Post carried an article about a major “cultural project” the government is undertaking. It mentions anthropologist Jean Couteau’s criticism of the project for focusing only on Islamic and Malay traditions.

• New anthropology course at Columbia University on OWS
According to an article in CBS News, Columbia University will offer a new course next semester on Occupy Wall Street. The class will be run by the anthropology department and taught by Dr. Hannah Appel, a veteran of the Occupy movement. It will include class work at Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus and fieldwork requiring students to become involved with the Occupy movement. The course will be called “Occupy the Field: Global Finance, Inequality, Social Movement.” Blogger’s note: what would Governor Perry say?

• Debt relief as step number one
According to David Graeber, an anthropologist at Goldsmiths College of the University of London, the first act of many successful rebellions in history was to annihilate the records of debt owed. In his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years, Graeber describes how “cancelling the debts, destroying the records, reallocating the land, was to become the standard list of peasant revolutionaries everywhere”.

• A new age category: middle childhood
The Science section of the New York Times carried a front page article on “middle childhood” which researchers say begins around 5 or 6 years and ends with the teen years. It discusses findings from the September issue of the journal Human Nature. “Middle childhood has been very much overlooked until recently,” said David Lancy, an anthropologist at Utah State University and a contributor to the special issue, “which makes it all the more exciting to participate in the field today.” An underlying message is that there is something biological going on around the age of 5-6 years that enables children to be more like adults. Therefore, in many societies, boys and girls start take on some adult roles around this time such as sibling care, gathering wood, herding, or agricultural work. But taking on such tasks for “middle-aged children” is not universal, as demonstrated by the article about the Pumé, a foraging group in west-central Venezuela. Among the Pumé, preadolescent girls do little in terms of work, while their brothers do more. Girls chat with each other and do beadwork.

• Thinking like a Neanderthal
The New York Times carried a review of a new book, How to Think Like a Neandertal, by Thomas Wynn, an anthropologist, and Frederick Coolidge, a psychologist, both at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Their book goes beyond the physical evidence to speculate about Neanderthals. They suggest that Neanderthals were empathetic, possessed some language, were companionable, attached to family, able to plan ahead, and had impressive mechanical skills.

• Thinking like a chimpanzee
Not so dumb either, are wild chimpanzees according to new a study showing that chimpanzees monitor the information available to other chimpanzees and inform group members of danger. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and the University of St. Andrews, Great Britain, set up a study with wild chimpanzees in Uganda. They found that chimpanzees were more likely to send an alarm call about a snake to unaware group members than to aware group members. Thus, they recognize awareness and unawareness in others, and they can share new information with others by means of communication.

• In memoriam
Khoo Khay Jin died in December in Penang, Malaysia. Khay Jin, a leading public intellectual, had an M.Phil. from Columbia University and spent a large part of his career (1975-1995) as a lecturer in anthropology and sociology in the School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang. He taught rural sociology and peasant societies, economic anthropology, Southeast Asian ethnography, the sociology of development, ethnic relations, social theory and the philosophy of social science. Khay Jin was a multi-talented person. He was a gifted child prodigy in mathematics and music, and played the piano in his younger days under the name of Philip Khoo.

• In-sourcing life-saving peanut food
The Guardian mentioned the role of Paul Farmer, medical anthropologist, physician, and health activitist, in an article about ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTFs). RUTFs are small packets of a peanut butter-like paste, fortified with minerals and vitamins. Products such as Plumpy’nut can reverse child malnutrition within weeks. But most RUTFs are produced in the US or Europe, then bought by aid agencies such as Unicef, and transported to reach those in need. Some social enterprises question this business model and seek to promote production in developing countries. Partners in Health, leads the way. It has been producing RUTFs in Haiti since 2006.

• U.S. public universities in crisis
Nancy Scheper-Hughes published an essay in the Chronicle for Higher Education on the current crisis in U.S. public universities: “Although public universities are under attack throughout the United States, the University of California is taking a particularly hard beating, metaphorically and literally…state support for the University of California is steadily shrinking, undergraduate tuition has almost doubled since 2007, and classroom spaces once reserved for California residents are being sold to affluent students from out of state and abroad. Diversity is good for any institution, but a diversity limited to those who can buy it is not diversity at all…”

• The meaning of money
Cultural anthropologist David Graeber of Goldsmith’s College, London, reflects on the meaning of money in the Guardian: “It affects every aspect of our lives, is often said to be the root of all evil, and the analysis of the world that it makes possible – what we call “the economy” – is so important to us that economists have become the high priests of our society. Yet, oddly, there is absolutely no consensus among economists about what money really is.”

• Russian middle class protesting
The Times of India carried an interview with Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov who teaches social anthropology at Cambridge University, England. Currently in Moscow, he spoke about anti-government protests in Russia, a changed public mood and influences like the Arab Spring and a global economic slowdown.

• Two anthro books named best of the year
In The Australian, writer Peter Carey, states his preferences: “In a period where all our old assumptions must be in question, it can be a tonic to read the works of those who have never shared them. I’m speaking about anarchists, who seem to be finding new readers every day. Here are two books so brimful of ideas they made my heart sing, both by anarchists, one an anthropologist and the other a geographer. The geographer is a Yale professor, James C. Scott, who made me think about the Marsh Arabs and the Asian hill peoples with new respect in The Art of Not being Governed. David Graeber is an anthropologist, an American professor from Goldsmith’s in London, who has been widely credited with inventing the great slogan for Occupy Wall Street: “We are the 99 per cent.” His new book Debt: The First 5000 Years speaks very clearly to our present world. It is a history of social and economic transactions, an interrogation of debt, tribute, gifts, the curiously economic language of religion, the fairytales we have told ourselves about the origin of money (and on, and on.) Not every argument is concluded or tied together, but line for line it is lucid. Graeber’s knowledge in encyclopedic. He offers more astonishments than I can count.” [Blogger’s note: Scott is an anthropologist/political scientist].

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 12/26/11” →

• Russia’s middle class protesting the most
The Times of India carried an interview with Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov who teaches social anthropology at Cambridge University, England. Currently in Moscow, he spoke with Srijana Mitra Das about anti-government protests in Russia, a changed public mood and influences like the Arab Spring.

• Anthro of hackers
“Anonymous is by nature, as well as design, difficult to define,” said New York University assistant professor of media, culture and communication Gabriella Coleman at a gathering at the Brookings Institution on Dec. 9. “It made my life as an anthropologist very difficult at times.” She has spent the past decade studying hackers, meeting with members of the hacking community and using formal academic tools to understand this emerging sector of society.

• The future of shopping in the U.K.
Sean Carey, contributing blogger at aw, published a piece in the New Statesman on what Westfield London reveals about the future of shopping in the U.K. He writes, “The key element in Westfield’s success is the same as for street markets: offering consumers something different from what is available in convential high streets.”

• Anthropology, sociology and Occupy Wall Street
The Hindustan Times (India) carried an article about the differences between anthropology and sociology and the implications for understanding the OWS movement.

• Sports, masculinity and sexual excess in India
Also from India, an interview in the Bangalore Mirror with cultural anthropologist Joe Alter, professor at the University of Pittsburgh focuses on his new book, Moral Materialism: Sex and Masculinity in Modern India. Son of missionary parents who lived in India, Alter explains why he chose to look at celibacy and masculinity together.

• Experiencing a rationed Christmas
Residents of Hearne, Texas, were able to experience a Christmas styled in the 1940s when Camp Hearne featured a “Rationed Christmas 1944.” Camp Hearne was a prisoner of war camp during World War II. “The prisoners here were from the German Afrikan Korps and there were about at its peak about 4,500 prisoners…,” said Michael Waters, an anthropology professor at Texas A&M University. The short program discussed how local residents had to ration goods like sugar, and so cookies were made with sugar substitute. People were able to visit the camp and learn about what life was like there nearly 70 years ago.

• Take that anthro degree and…
…become a brand anthropologist: Richard Wise is the resident Brand Anthropologist at the experiential marketing firm, Mirrorball. He received a masters at the University of Sorbonne in Paris. He has spoken at various conferences, most recently the Future Trends Conference in Miami. You can follow him on Twitter @CultureRevealed or his Tumblr where he highlights cultural trends and offers insights. You can read an interview with him at Curiosity Matters. In response to the question, “As a cultural anthropologist, you approach planning from an intellectual, academic angle. How valuable is the study of cultural trends to brands?” he responds, “Look at the list of problems brands bring you to solve. They almost always come back to cultural issues.”

• Maya musical scale played its own tune
The pre-Columbian Maya had a musical scale different from the western one, according to experts who examined and played 125 instruments recovered from Maya sites, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History. After 18 months of work, researchers have identified the possible sounds played at funerals, at agricultural ceremonies to bring rain, and when hunting birds by attracting them with imitation birdcalls. Museum director Diana Magaloni said this research project will continue with some 200 pre-Columbian instruments from the Gulf cultures and 40 more from the Mexica culture.

• Yale returns artifacts to Peru
NPR carried a story about how Yale University is giving back thousands of ceramics, jewelry and human bones from the Peabody Museum in New Haven to the International Center for the Study of Machu Picchu and Inca Culture. Yale anthropology professor Richard Burger has been in charge of the ancient artifacts for nearly 30 years. Standing in the courtyard of a museum in Cuzco, Peru, he says the historic building was placed above an Inca palace — set atop a foundation of ancient Inca stone walls: “The Inca who built this palace was the son of Pachacutec or Pachacuti, as he’s sometimes called,” Burger says. “Pachacuti was responsible for building Machu Picchu, so in some way, the materials are returning to the son of the builder of Machu Picchu. It’s like bringing back the family goods.”

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 12/19/11” →

• And deliver us from leaders
CounterPunch carried a piece about OWS and commentary about one of its important non-leaders, cultural anthropologist David Graeber: “Mainstream liberals and the Institutional Left frequently criticize the Occupy movement for its lack of public spokespersons and its lack of clear demands. But according to David Graeber, it came very close to having those things — and to being just another protest that fizzled out after a few days.” Graeber, an anarchist University of London anthropology professor, attended a preliminary meeting in early August to prepare for the next month’s Occupation. As he recounts, it was shaping up as a typical top-down movement controlled by the usual suspects of the Institutional Left. So he returned to London.

• Our debt, our selves
The New York Times book review section included a one-page review of David Graeber’s new book Debt: The First 5,000 Years. According to the reviewer, the book “…reads like a lengthy field report on the state of our economic and moral disrepair. In the best tradition of anthropology, Graeber treats debt ceilings, subprime mortgages and credit default swaps as if they were the exotic practices of some self-destructive tribe. Written in a brash, engaging style, the book is also a philosophical inquiry into the nature of debt — where it came from and how it evolved. Graeber’s claim is that the past 400 years of Western history represent a grievous departure from how human societies have traditionally thought about our obligations to one another. What makes the work more than a screed is its intricate examination of societies from ancient Mesopotamia to 1990s Madagascar, and thinkers ranging from Rabelais to Nietzsche — and to George W. Bush’s brother Neil.” [Blogger’s note: Debt is a big book, about a big subject, and worth the time. I have made it only to page 120 so far, where Graeber asks, “What, then is debt?” I took a sneak peak to the end, on page 391, where he writes: “What is a debt anyway? A debt is just the perversion of a promise. It is a promise corrupted by both math and violence. If freedom (real freedom) is the ability to make friends, then it is also, necessarily, is the ability to make real promises.”]

• U.S. Christmas traditions
Benjamin K. Swartz, retired Ball State University anthropology professor, has long been interested in Christmas traditions in the United States. He presents his findings in “The Origin of American Christmas Myth and Custom.” He writes that “fundamentally, Christmas celebration is based on intertwining of two ethnic patterns, Roman transition rites and Germano-Celtic Yule (jiuleis) rites-feasting and mortuary practice.” He notes that the “first known use of the word Christes-Maess was in England, 1038,” and traces the holiday from when “Puritans passed an anti-Christmas law in 1659” to 1885, when “a law was enacted giving federal employees Christmas day off.”

• Dumpster anthropology
Gillian Tett wrote a piece in the Financial Times about the ongoing doctoral research of cultural anthropology student, David Giles, of the University of Washington. Giles is studying food waste by diving into dumpsters in Seattle and assessing their contents.

• Lap dancing as art?
The Bloomberg Times covered Judith Hanna’s research on lap-dancing and the controversy about whether or not it is an art form. Hanna, a professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Maryland, has spent almost 50 years studying the cultural expression of dance. Since 1995, Hanna, has helped clubs repel efforts to tax, regulate or close them, arguing more than 100 times that striptease is just as much an art as ballet. Next year, her lap-dances-are-art argument will be part of an appeal before New York’s highest court. A stripper in heels is like a ballerina en pointe, she says, and her communication of feeling is no different than that of the New York City Ballet— and no less protected by the First Amendment. “Patrons of gentleman’s clubs aren’t just there to look at nude bodies…They want to read into it. It’s not just the eroticism, it’s the beauty of the body, and the fantasy they create.” Hanna says she has observed at least 1,500 performances in her defense of the $12 billion U.S. exotic-dance industry, which comprises about 4,000 clubs. When a city or state passes a law to kick the clubs out of town, owners turn to Hanna. She sends clients an average bill of about $3,000, and estimates that she has 45 wins to 21 losses.

• Take that anthro degree and…
→become an artist. San Francisco Public Defender Chief Attorney and collage artist Matt Gonzalez recently interviewed fellow artist Joanna Ubach. Ubach was born in Portugal and attended Colegio do Bom Successo in Lisbon where she studied anthropology and fine art and where she first began painting with oils. In 2007, she earned a B.A. in anthropology and fine art from the University of Arizona. She lives in San Francisco and is undertaking a masters degree in fine art at the Academy of Art. Examples of her work can be found at her website.

→become an actress. Thandie Newton is known as one of Hollywood’s most intelligent actresses after studying social anthropology at Cambridge University in England. The Crash star has revealed that she first discovered reading because it allowed her to escape her tricky teenage years.

→become an activist/entrepreneur. Hecky Villanueva was working for a doctorate degree in anthropology at the University of Arizona when he heard about the bamboo bike business in the United States. He surfed and searched the internet about bamboo bikes, since he wanted to start a similar business in the Philippines. He was finally able to contact a bamboo bike builder in California named Craig Calfee. In 2009, Craig visited the Philippines upon Hecky’s request and conducted a bamboo bike building workshop. This was how KawayanTech started. The company makes bikes for children and adults as well as mountain bikes for more adventurous types.

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 12/12/11” →

• David Graeber, the Occupy movement, and debt
An article in the New Yorker magazine called “Pre-Occupied: The origins and future of Wall Street,” focuses on the Zucotti Park occupation in Manhattan. It mentions the formative role of anarchist anthropologist David Graeber and notes his communications with Berkeley activist, Micah White. White recently nominated his entry on Wikipedia for deletion on the grounds that he is “non-notable.” The Guardian (London) carried a review article called “Books for Giving: Economics”. One of the books reviewed is Graeber’s monumental study called Debt: The First 5,000 Years. The reviewer says that is has become “one of the year’s most influential books.”

• Drug wars in Mexico threaten potters’ art and livelihood
The Dallas News carried an article about the loss of pottery sales and traditions in Chihuahua, Mexico, due to drug-related violence. It focuses on the small village of Mata Ortiz, located 150 miles from the U.S. border. It is home to some of the most prominent potters in the world. But the drug wars have driven the tourists away. The article mentions anthropologist Spencer MacCallum who has studied and written about the potters of the village. He says that the consequences for the potters are “devastating.” He notes: “With no demand for their pottery and nobody coming, I hate to see fine artists working on the road-building up in the sierra.”

• Pop-up shopping in London
Sean Carey, our contributing blogger, published a piece in the New Statesman on what is reputedly the first pop-up shopping mall. With his usual, on-the-ground lively reporting, Sean takes us to Boxpark: “It’s midday, and I am walking along Shoreditch High Street headed towards the northern end of Brick Lane. I turn into Bethnal Green Road. There is a lot of activity going on — lots of young people of various nationalities purposefully moving stuff around while others stand back and survey the results of their endeavours. I wonder what’s happening as this is normally a dead area — except on evenings at weekends, when the affluent young people of London and their counterparts from overseas come out to play and move between the various bars, clubs and restaurants in Greater Shoreditch.” There’s more, and it’s interesting, so read on.

• Take that anthro degree and…MA grad in anthropology is a documentary film-maker
Life and its various forms have always fascinated Rajive McMullen, an Indo-Canadian research scholar at the Punjab University, India. McMullen earned BA and MA degrees in anthropology from the University of Toronto. After 15 years away, he returned to India and made an anthropological documentary called The Lover and the Beloved: A Journey into Tantra, released earlier this month. The film portrays tantriks, aghoris and other holy seekers of northern India who call themselves the disciples of Guru Gorakhnath, believed to be an incarnation of Lord Shiva. The film offers a dramatic insight into tantriks’ ideas about the life cycle, especially about death. Express India quotes McMullen as saying, “It is a realistic attempt to understand both the practice and the illusive theory behind Indian Tantrism, and is intended to challenge widespread Western misinterpretations of this stream of thought.”

• Take that anthro degree and…sports/anthropology major now co-founder of Afrikids Ghana
The Daily Telegraph (London) ran a long article about AfriKids, and NGO that works in Ghana to prevent the infanticide of physically deformed infants, child labor, homelessness, and human trafficking. One of the organization’s co-founders is Georgie Feinberg, who lives in Buckinghamshire. During part of her gap year, at the age of 18, she went to Accra and volunteered in a children’s home. She returned to England and earned a BA in sports and anthropology at Oxford Brookes University. She also raised L30,000 for the children’s home. She returned to Ghana, and from then on became a driving force in creating AfriKids Ghana.

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 12/5/11” →

• Forensic anthropologists testify in child murder trial in Scotland
BBC News reported on a trial in Scotland involving testimony from two forensic anthropologists: Sue Black, a professor of human anatomy and forensic anthropology at Dundee University and Dr. Cunningham, a lecturer in anthropology at Dundee University. Both worked on a report which was presented in court.

• Forensic anthropologists working on murder cases in Texas
Dr. Jennifer Love is forensic anthropology director of the identification unit at the Harris County Medical Examiners Office. She and other forensic anthropologists are looking into several murder cases from as far back in 1981.

• First international student at Sikkim University
The Telegraph (India) reported on Sikkim University’s first foreign student. Tatsuki Shirai from Japan joined Sikkim Government College last year to study sociology and the Eastern Himalayas. The student came to Sikkim on a scholarship from the Hitosubashi University in Tokyo. He will return to Hitosubashi University next year to complete his undergraduate program in sociology and cultural anthropology.

• Arab spring of archaeology in Egypt?
Nature carried an article about the politics of doing archaeology in Egypt under the reign of Zawi Hawass. According to the article, “Many archaeologists working in Egypt are reluctant to speak about Hawass on the record out of fear that he could regain influence in the country. But in private, several researchers say that Hawass was intolerant of opposition and blocked excavation permits to those who published results or theories that clashed with his own.” Megan Rowland of the University of Cambridge, who recently completed a master’s degree on the political significance of Egypt’s antiquities during the revolution, is quoted as saying that “researchers who crossed Hawass became targets of intense criticism or had their permits revoked.”

• DNA sheds light on ancient “twin” burial
Two infants buried together nearly a thousand years ago in a single grave found at what is now the Angel Mounds State Historic Site in Indiana have long been thought to be twins. Scientists using an automated DNA sequencing system at the Indiana Molecular Biology Institute at Indiana University-Bloomington have learned that they were not biologically related. Charla Marshall, adjunct professor of anthropology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, led the team of researchers. Marshall and three co-authors report their findings in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

• Ancient tuna fishing
The New Scientists reports on findings that deep sea tuna fishing occurred 42,000 years ago in island southeast Asia. Sue O’Connor at the Australian National University in Canberra and colleagues found evidence in deposits at the Jerimalai shelter on Timor-Leste, including 38,000 fish bones from 23 different taxa, including tuna and parrotfish that are found only in deep water. ABC Australia carried an interview with some of the researchers about fish hooks found at the site.

• Software to help locate fossils
According to a piece in Science Daily, Glenn Conroy, professor of  physical anthropology and colleagues at Western Michigan University, have developed a software model that mimics the workings of the human brain. So far it has proved productive in pinpointing fossil sites in the Great Divide Basin, a 4,000-square-mile stretch of rocky desert in Wyoming

• In memoriam
Allen R. Maxwell, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Alabama, died November 16, 2011, at the age of 71 years. He retired from the University of Alabama in 2010 after 36 years of service to the department of anthropology. Maxwell was recognized for raising the national academic profile of the department, beginning with a major revision of the anthropology curriculum when he joined the faculty in 1974. Maxwell published more than 80 scholarly articles or book chapters and gave 68 major conference presentations. His work as an ethnographer and linguist centered on the peoples of Borneo, especially Brunei and Sarawak. He enjoyed an international reputation for the depth of his understanding of Borneo’s many cultures.