Anthro in the news 5/17/10

• Africa is not a big country
In a letter to the editor of The New York Times concerning an article on the global war on AIDS, Steve Black zings it for totalizing “Africa.” He writes, “Now just imagine what would happen to investment in the United States if articles did not distinguish between the United States and Colombia and discussed “American drug lords”?” Black spent a year in Durban, South Africa, while pursuing a Ph.D. in anthropology. See also this.

• The tragedy of trachoma
Infectious trachoma is widespread among the indigenous peoples of Australia. Some eye care specialists argue that services in remote areas to provide eye care should be increased. Peter Sutton, an anthropologist, responds that spending more on services is questionable when much of the burden of trachoma could be prevented by improved facial hygiene.

• Let’s face it
A French proposal to ban full face veils for women has prompted much media discussion. The Daily Star (Lebanon) quotes Abdelrhani Moundib, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco: “The West has the right to preserve its secularism … As a Moroccan Muslim, I am against the burqa. I see nothing in it that relates to Islam or chastity.”

• Talk to me
Just hearing your mother’s voice can raise levels of oxytocin, the “cuddle hormone,” according to an experimental study conducted by biological anthropologist Leslie Seltzer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

• Jaws are us (guys)
Human males have thicker jaw bones than human females. The interpretation of this difference, provided by biological anthropologist David Puts of Penn State University, is based in evolution. Physically superior males were more attractive to females as mates, and male jaw bones were part of the selective mix: “Males have thicker jawbones, which may have come from men hitting each other and the thickestboned men surviving,” he said. “Things are different for us now in many ways.” Blogger’s note: I hope he’s right about things being better now.

• Makerere University drops archaeology B.A. degree
Scrapped programs on the main campus of Makerere University, Uganda, include the B.A. in archaeology. In all, 20 programs were dropped including the bachelor’s degrees in dance, tourism and wildlife health and management, and the master’s program in ethics and public management.

One day for mothers

“Mother’s Day Paint Job,” creative commons licensed on Flickr.

One day out of 365? Not good enough.

Anthropologists have analyzed some annual holidays such as Mardi Gras in the West and Holi among Hindus in South Asia. They often involve “inversion.”

In Mardi Gras, people have a riotously good time in ways not normally accepted. Sexuality is emphasized. Some participants cross-dress.

During Holi, people get smashed on bhang, a powerful hash milkshake. In villages, low caste people pour buckets of urine on high caste people. Women beat their husbands with brooms.

Interestingly, these important holidays, like Mother’s Day, occur in the spring. Some aspects of Mother’s Day indicate that it is a ritual of reversal, though of a more quiet kind that Mardi Gras or Holi.

The functional theory of reversal rituals or holidays relies on the model of a pressure cooker. The pressure cooker model says that a reversal ritual allows a period of time, often just a day, within which people get a break from their normal roles and routine. Having experienced a release from the pressure, they go back to the same old same old for another 364 days.

My casually collected evidence for how Mother’s Day is marked in the United States reveals aspects of reversal in gift-giving, especially taking mom out for a meal, remembering her with a greeting card or a long distance phone call if you can’t visit her. These gifts constitute important reversals in terms of two core aspects of motherhood around the world: meal provision and care through communication.

Does Mother’s Day, as celebrated in the United States at least, fit the pressure cooker model? Such may be the unconscious hope of many children: okay, mom, I took you out for brunch and gave you a card, so be happy.

My hope is that all of us, born of a mother who cared for us, know that a ratio of 1/365 is not good enough by half. While further research is needed, my hunch is that the expectations for Mother’s Day is the bottom line. You have to do something–at least make a phone call. If not you are in deep trouble.

But that which is necessary is by no means sufficient.

Blogger’s note: Wikipedia’s entry on Mother’s Day around the world is worth a visit.

A tale of two op-eds

They are both about Haiti. They are both worth reading. In my view, one is the best of op-eds and one is the worst. Please read them and say what you think and why.

Op-ed #1: In the February 7 New York Times, Ben Fountain takes us to rural Haiti in 1999. After driving for a few hours away from Port-au-Prince, he saw sprawling mansions in the hillsides. “Had oil been discovered in Haiti”? His Haitian friend shook his head: “Drogue. Drugs.” Fountain talks about how Haiti, 10 years ago, had become a major transshipment point for cocaine from South America to the United States. It still is. The Haitian military helps keep this billion-dollar-a-year trade going. Fountain concludes: “So it’s come to this: the richest country in the hemisphere and the poorest, the first republic and the second, trapped together in the New World’s most glaring modern failure: the war on drugs.”

Op-ed #2: In the February 5 Wall Street Journal, Lawrence Harrison writes from Boston about how the Haitian people’s widespread devotion to voodoo is its “curse.” He states that although Haiti has received billions of dollars in foreign aid over the past half-century, its progress indicators are more like those of Africa than Latin America. The reason: the powerful influence of voodoo, which, he explains came from Africa and continues to be an “obstacle to development” there. Harrison avers that that all Haitians feel its influence. His sources of data? A son-in-law of his “who is Haitian and holds a graduate degree from Harvard.” And an American missionary who lived in Haiti for 20 years. Shaky grounds? Not for Harrison, who sums it all up for us: “Haiti’s predicament is caused by a set of values, beliefs, and attitudes…”

Image: “Members of the Jordanian Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) take position during a drug seizure exercise. 22/Dec/2008. UN Photo/Marco Dormino.” Link. Creative commons licensed Flickr content.