veganism and food taboos

The Guardian carried an article on how veganism may be shifting the categories of food in Western cultures. It refers to the thinking of British anthropologist Edmund Leach who: “…described how humans make categories of things in order to create social logic. Although the animal species around us form a continuum (of which we, Homo sapiens, are a part), we name, categorise, and then treat those animals differently according to separate logic that applies to each category. Where the distinctions are unclear, or transgressed, they’re troubling and become taboo. English people (Leach’s example from his 1964 paper) have a binary of edible-inedible. But also a tripartite categorisation: beyond SELF comes PET – LIVESTOCK – WILD ANIMAL. Pets get names, they share emotional moments with us and we definitely don’t eat them – they become a sacred category.” Food taboos are a longstanding and fertile area of research and thinking in sociocultural anthropology, and the analysis of possible changes in food taboos promises to keep anthropologists busy into the future.

a whole lot of networking going on

St Louis Public Radio reported on the Winter Olympic Games and how such games, as festivals that showcase athletic talent and provide sports entertainment, are more than just that. In a live radio program, a reporter talked to Susan Brownell, professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri at Saint Louis, who is attending the Olympics in South Korea and studying them.  She says: “…it’s a really interesting moment in Olympic history and maybe world history when this big mega-event has left the conventional western powers for the first time in its over 100-year-history for three Olympic Games.”  The 2018 Winter Olympics is the sixth Olympics Brownell will attend. She said that there are commonalities in the games over time, such as the street festivals and hospitality houses, which are buildings open to the public hosted by different nations. Commenting that the Olympics are a “global ritual” for celebrating humanity, she noted that tremendous amounts of global and internet coverage of the Olympics helps build shared experiences: “I’ve been interested in the ritual aspect of the Olympic Games ever since I was an undergraduate, just because there is this theory in anthropology that rituals build a sense of humanity and solidarity.” She will studying the hospitality houses in South Korea to see what goes on in the houses, where corporate sponsors and national Olympic committees have rooms to host VIPs and arrange meetings. She will also look at how host countries promote their own businesses during the games: “There’s actually a lot of very serious networking,” she said, particularly in the corporate world. “I feel that this is just a part of the growing integration of the global economy and the increasingly multinational nature of so many of the corporations in the world today.”

Continue reading “anthro in the news 2/12/18” →

Anne-Maria Makhulu explores systematic economic inequity in post-Apartheid South Africa

Anne-Maria Makhulu is an associate professor of cultural anthropology and African and African-American studies at Duke. Much of her work, including her current research, focuses on globalization and issues of political economy in South Africa.

Makhulu is examining what she deems a broken promise made to a majority black population of South Africa 23 years ago when democracy took hold there following the end of apartheid.

She spoke with Duke Today recently about her current work. Here are excerpts:

Continue reading “what i'm working on: financial divisions in South Africa” →

the cultural politics of couscous

Quartz carried an article on the disputed history of couscous and rising interest in North Africa of gaining UNESCO recognition of it as part of the region’s intangible cultural heritage. Many believe it was first made by the Berber or Amazigh communities as early as the seventh century; they lived and moved across North Africa before Arab migration into the region. Records of couscous prepared and sold have also been found in West Africa, and it was also eaten by the Moors in Spain. Recognition from UNESCO would be “a way to strengthen the strong links between peoples [in the Maghreb], in a way that enables them to respond to the same traditions with the same culinary expressions,” said Ouiza Gallèze, a researcher with Algerian National Centre of Research in Social and Cultural Anthropology.

coffee life in Japan

An article in The National Post (Canada) that describes coffee culture in Japan includes commentary from Merry White, professor of anthropology at Boston University. She says that although Japan’s taste for coffee is more recent than Europe’s, cafés were important spaces in Japanese society well before the “Seattle-driven coffee boom.” In Japan, coffee shops have been flourishing since the late nineteenth century. Although she does not remember how the brew tasted, one of White’s earliest Tokyo café experiences during her first trip in the 1960s set the tone for her career in Japanese coffee studies: “We were asked to take off all our clothes and were painted with blue paint. And I remember thinking at the time, ‘Oh wow! This is the most avant-garde place in the world.’”

Continue reading “anthro in the news 2/5/18” →

By Sean Carey

I have just been to my local bank in St Albans, a commuter town not far from the suburbs of north London, and am walking down the hill to return to my car. The sun is shining but it’s a chilly day. It’s still winter, after all.

I become aware of a slim woman, with a very smart bob hairstyle, dressed in black trousers and black top walking slowly in front of me. She’s not wearing a coat, which is puzzling. I think that she must work in one of the banks or estate agents in this part of town and may have popped out for some fresh air, a cigarette, or something else before she returns to sit in front of a computer.

Bill’s restaurant, part of an 80+ chain part-owned by billionaire serial entrepreneur and philanthropist Richard Caring, is located at the crossroads in the center of town. It’s a prime site. A few days ago, I noticed Bill’s was being refurbished. Now it appears to be open. 

Continue reading “pre-brexit: there is such a thing as a free lunch” →

LGBT murder rate in Brazil

The Guardian reported on the rising rate of murder of LGBT people in Brazil, a 30 percent increase from 2016-2017. The article quoted Luiz Mott, an anthropologist and president of Grupo Gay de Bahia. He said the increased violence owed much to the prominence of ultraconservative politicians, many of whom are linked to the country’s powerful evangelical caucus in congress: “It’s a discourse that destroys solidarity and equates LGBT people to animals.” 

colonialism, genocide, and anthropology

The New Yorker carried an extensive piece about colonialism, genocide, and the roots of anthropology. [The following draws from the article]: In the first genocide of the twentieth century, German colonists in southern Africa pushed Herero people into the desert and forced others into concentration camps. Sixty-five thousand Herero died. Similar tactics killed ten thousand Nama people. In 1906, Felix von Luschan, an Austrian-born anthropologist, sent letters to colonial officers asking that they gather bones and ship them to him in Berlin, for research. Earlier, when the American Museum of Natural History in New York City was founded in 1869, anthropologists were circling the globe, buying bones from dealers, and digging up graves in the name of science. Many anthropologists sought to differentiate races by physical characteristics, such as skull size. Franz Boas, often called the father of modern anthropology, rejected the supposed hierarchy of races, arguing that human behavior varied independently of so-defined racial characteristics. Yet, when Boas worked as a curator and then head of the anthropology department at the A.M.N.H., he asked an explorer to bring living Eskimos to New York for research, then had their bodies dissected and studied when they died. Now, more than one hundred years later, descendant communities around the world are seeking repatriation from museums of skeletal remains of their ancestors.

Continue reading “anthro in the news 1/29/18” →

after an unfortunate delay, anthro in the news is back!

good to think: the post-work world

The Guardian carried an article about the many problems with work in industrial/post-industrial societies, highlighting David Graeber‘s work on bullshit jobs and the possibly jobless future. Graeber, professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, is a member of a loose, transatlantic network of thinkers who advocate a profoundly different future for both high-income countries and low-income countries where the crises of work and the threat to it from robots and climate change are, they argue, even greater. Calling this future “post-work,” they are engaged in a debate about whether post-work economies must include a universal basic income paid by the state to every working-age person so that they can survive when the great automation comes.

a cultural bridge-builder

The Huffington Post published an article lauding the work of anthropologist Jonathan Benthall, honorary research at University College London, by Akbar Ahmed, anthropologist and Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. Ahmed writes: “For far too long, Western anthropology has been seen by its critics as a tool of Western imperialists, a means of understanding how to best exploit “under-developed” societies. On the other hand there are those anthropologists who use their knowledge to create bridges between cultures and peoples. Jonathan Benthall is one of them. I first got to know Jonathan, the former director of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) and now an honorary researcher in the Department of Anthropology at University College London, several decades ago. Since then I have been impressed by how he has extended the boundaries of anthropology. He has consistently championed the under-dog and spent the last decades building bridges between Islam and the West. Jonathan has taken a particular interest in Islamic charity organizations. His most recent book is Islamic Charities and Islamic Humanism in Troubled Times (2016). He considers his research in this field to be his most significant legacy.”

Continue reading “anthro in the news 1/25/18” →

The Trump administration announced it will end the Temporary Immigration Status allowing immigrants from El Salvador to work and live legally in the U.S. It recently ended the TPS for Nicaraguans when the program expires in January 2019. The future of TPS beneficiaries from other countries, including Haiti, and Honduras, has not been determined yet. Other TPS beneficiaries from Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Nepal and Yemen are also currently protected.

Jason De León, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, has spent the last five years studying undocumented migration to the U.S., as well as migration from Central America through Mexico.

Continue reading “White House announces end of TPS for El Salvador” →

Haiti pride

The Haitian Revolution defeated the army of Napoleon Bonaparte and established the only country in the world based on a revolt of enslaved people — a lot to be proud of. Yet, some Americans see something other than a country that has overcome and continues to overcome extreme adversity. The Huffington Post published a piece by Mark Schuller, associate professor of anthropology and NGO studies professor at Northern Illinois University and a Haiti solidarity activist. He writes: “On Thursday, the day before the eighth anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti that killed at least 230,000 people, President Trump called Haiti – as well as a single, undifferentiated ‘Africa’ – ‘shithole countries.’ Of course, the president’s first impulse was to deny the statement, just as he had denied the statement made public through an anonymous source to the New York Times that ‘all Haitians have AIDS.’ Triggering the conversation is his administration’s denial of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 58,000 people from Haiti currently living in the U.S., some for as much as thirty years. His comments speak to the callous attitude of an individual that feels no accountability, who thinks he can rewrite history as is convenient.”

claiming indigeneity in India

The Times of India reported on the effort of the Badaga people of India’s Nilgiri Hills region to gain indigenous status. Their effort has received support from Paul Hockings, emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Hockings, who has done research among the Badaga. He is quoted as saying: “the tribe despite its sketchy history is as indigenous to the Nilgiris as the English are to Britain… The length of time in their abode has no particular bearing on their indigeneity. The Badagas today have no cultural roots outside the district, which is also true of the Kotas and Todas, and it is in this sense that all three communities are indeed indigenous.” This determination comes as a relief for the community because, in fact, it was Hockings’ statement in the 1960s about the possibility of the Badagas originating in another state that added fuel to the debate on the tribe’s ethnicity.

Continue reading “anthro in the news 1/15/18” →

police violence also kills with trauma and loss

AlterNet published commentary by Christen A. Smith, associate professor of African and African diaspora studies and anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. She writes: “The sting of the premature death of 27-year-old Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, is still fresh. On Christmas Eve, Erica Garner suffered a massive heart attack which caused extensive brain damage. She died on Dec. 30. This latest loss emphasizes something we have known: Black women are dying from the trauma of police violence and this issue must be grappled with before more die. When I heard the news of Erica Garner’s heart attack, a wave of familiar shock and pain ran through me. I immediately recognized the correlation between her heart attack and her father’s death because I had seen it before. As an anthropologist who studies the impact of police violence on black communities in Brazil and the United States, I was familiar with many stories like Erica’s. My research examines the ways that police violence kills black women slowly through trauma, pain and loss.”

recommended reading re Iran protests

The Napa Valley Register (California) carried an article about how people can better understand the protests in Iran: “If you want to understand what has provoked days of protests in Iran and where they might be heading….To understand the frustrations driving the young, working-class Iranians who began the protests, I recommend reading [anthropologist] Shahram Khosravi‘s “Precarious Lives: Waiting and Hope in Iran,” published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.”  Khosravi is professor of social anthropology at Stockholm University.

Continue reading “anthro in the news 1/8/18” →

anthropology in the news is taking a break this week but will return on January 8