An open access review in Pacific Affairs of Deborah McDowell Aoki’s book, Widows of Japan: An Anthropological Perspective, says that this “…comprehensive study of Japanese widows brings into focus the complex, ambiguous, often tragic history of the impact of spousal death on Japanese women. Her eight years of research from 1996 included 58 interviews with women from urban and rural areas. She states the themes in the introduction: ‘the fetishism of female bodies to protect and embody family honor, the historical role of state formation in creating family and kinship systems, and the integrative functions provided by women…’ ”
Category: gender & sexuality
Women who become men in the Balkans
Throughout the Balkan region, some women take on male roles and appearance. They are referred to, in English, as sworn virgins. Slate, among other publications, carried a photo essay of several sworn virgins of Albania. The anthropological and related literature on sworn virgins is thin. Some studies refer to the women as “cross dressers,” which seems to be an inadequate label. It is unclear whether the practice is dying out or continuing as always.
How to know what works when intervention programs lack time and money for evaluations?
A report describing results from a systematic review of programs seeking to reduce female genital mutilation/cutting in several African countries offers this conclusion:
[Our] systematic review shows that there is a paucity of high quality evaluations of the effectiveness of interventions to reduce the prevalence of FGM/C. We included eight controlled studies assessing the effectiveness of five broad categories of interventions, set in seven different countries in Africa. We identified no controlled interventions that had taken place in other parts of the world. All of the evaluation studies were characterized by low methodological quality. Thus, while our calculated effect sizes for prevalence of FGM/C, knowledge, beliefs, and intentions about FGM/C suggested that there appear to be positive developments as a result of interventions, the low quality of the body of evidence affects the interpretation of results and draws the validity of the findings into doubt.
In other words, if one is seeking rigorous, control-trial tested findings about intervention effectives for FGM/C intervention programs, we don’t have it.
In spite of these dismal conclusions, the 156 page report provides a more positive overall contribution by describing several important programs. And even though they lack formal, statistically dependable evaluations, they do seem to be headed in the direction of reducing the practice of FGM/C.
Feminist anthropology sessions
Borders
When: Nov 14-18
Where: San Francisco
The Association for Feminist Anthropology welcomes sessions to be considered for inclusion in AFA’s programming for the 111th AAA Annual Meeting. The AAA meeting theme this year is “Borders,” so AFA particularly welcomes panels that take up “borders” from a feminist anthropological perspective.
For more information, visit the AFA website.
Mauritius takes a step towards gender equality in politics
By contributor Sean Carey
Mauritius continues to change. The Indian Ocean island, famous for its white coral beaches and azure seas, has come a long way since independence from the U.K., in 1968. The transformation of the economy from a reliance on sugar exports to Europe to one that is forecast to grow by 4.1 percent in 2012 through tourism, financial services, business outsourcing and high-end fashion products continues despite the economic turbulence affecting most of the advanced economies.
Some local commentators argue about how Mauritius should best position itself in the global economy as power shifts from West to East and elsewhere – for example, should it stay with its traditional trading partners in Europe, should it seek to forge new alliances among the growth economies of Asia, or should it try and do both? The last seems to be the favourite option at the moment. Nevertheless, the ethnically diverse country of 1.3 million people maintains an excellent reputation with outside agencies, including Moody’s which recently reaffirmed its “investment-grade credit status.”
But change in economic activities is not the only game in town. Because of cross-cutting ties of social class, kinship and ethnicity, the country, which boasts a free press and independently-owned radio stations (though no independently-owned, local television stations), is one of the liveliest democracies in the world.
Now gender has become part of the formal political mix. As of January 1, a new gender law specifies that at least one-third of candidates in local elections must be women. Elections, which are held every five years, are due in April.
Whereas in larger countries like the U.S. and U.K., local representatives are often remote and have an abstract relationship with electors, this is not the case in Mauritius, which measures 787 square miles. Customary expectations ensure that routine face-to-face encounters and public meetings in the capital, Port Louis, and other towns and villages are an important part of the way politics is conducted — including how support for parties and political leaders is measured.
In his New Year address, the Mauritian Prime Minister, Dr. Navinchandra Ramgoolam, welcomed the change to the electoral system: “We must ensure that the number of women candidates rises considerably,” he said. Currently, around 6.5 percentof local councillors are women, so an increase in their number in the near future is almost inevitable.
However, the Dublin and London-educated Prime Minister has been more circumspect as to whether changes at the local level should be rolled out for general elections. At the moment, 13 out of 70 deputies in the Mauritian parliament are women, but only two of them have made it to the 25-strong Cabinet.
Continue reading “Mauritius takes a step towards gender equality in politics”
Lap-dancing and moralities in a global world
By contributor Sean Carey
I am driving along Mile End Road in east London around midnight with a Bangladeshi friend. I am giving him a lift home, after we had paid a brief visit to a “gentlemen’s club” located on the border between Tower Hamlets and the City, the so-called Square Mile, London’s preeminent financial district. “Well, I can now say that I am not very keen on lap-dancing clubs,” my friend informs me.
We had just spent around 45 minutes in the club. The venue opened two years ago. It is one of 11 currently licensed lap-dancing clubs in Tower Hamlets. Only those 18 or over can cross the threshold. The club opens in the late afternoon and closes at 3AM, Monday to Friday. Young, predominantly white men –- “City boys”, as they are known — with high levels of disposable income sit either at the bar, tables or in armchairs –- and can either talk amongst themselves or engage in conversation with around a dozen “girls” who are looking for clients. For a fee of £20, a striptease can be performed in an alcove at the back of the club. A “private” room is also available. The club takes a proportion of the women’s earnings and, along with the sale of alcohol, is a key revenue stream. “Do you ever have any trouble,” I ask the owner. “Never,” he replies. “Everyone is as good as gold. In any case, we have really good security.” He then indicates two very large men, one black one white, at the club’s entrance. He pauses and adds: “The only trouble we have is with the local authority.” More on this later.
My friend is nominally Muslim –- he visits the mosque only occasionally and is largely secular in outlook. He likes the U.K. and London in particular. Apart from his early years, he has spent most of his life in Tower Hamlets. He very much admires open and tolerant multicultural societies. “Each to his own,” could sum up his personal outlook in terms of how people organise their personal lives. But perhaps he has reached the limit of tolerance after a visit to the lap-dancing club. And even a relatively weak religious identity clearly plays a part in how he evaluates such cultural forms. “Everyone likes to have a good time, have a drink and meet people, but perhaps it would be better to meet somewhere else.” He paused for a moment to reflect. Because we had also visited a Bangladeshi-owned “Indian” restaurant earlier in the evening he then added: “On the other hand, running a restaurant which serves alcohol is also prohibited in the Koran.” He was obviously wrestling with the metaphysical problem of adjudicating between making a living from two types of businesses that according to Islamic law are forbidden (haram).
I asked: “From a Koranic point of view which is worse: running a restaurant which serves alcohol, or running a lap dancing club?”
“Difficult to say,” he answered. “Both are bad.”
I felt the issue could be explored further. “All right, but leaving aside for the moment how you view it, tell me how most Bangladeshis, either in the U.K. or in Bangladesh, would see the situation? Would they see owning a lap-dancing club as worse, the same or somewhat better than owning a restaurant which serves alcohol?”
Put this way, my friend was able to answer very quickly: “Oh, in both countries they would see the lap-dancing club as worse.”
How did my friend and I end up making our first visit to a lap-dancing club? We had been visiting a Bangladeshi-owned “Indian” restaurant in the Aldgate area to talk about my friend’s recent move to Sylhet, Bangladesh, to set up a business in the part of the country from which he originates. He wanted to run some ideas about marketing and branding past me.
Continue reading “Lap-dancing and moralities in a global world”
Request for anthro literature
Anthropology in Action editor, Dr Christine McCourt, is seeking anthropological literature to aid research on aspects of medicalization in childbirth in Saudi Arabia and the experience of Afghan refugee women having a baby in the UK.
Any knowledge, resources, or assistance would be greatly appreciated and can be passed on to anthropologyinaction@yahoogroups.com
On board: going across the sea to Ireland
By contributor Sean Carey
The last time I travelled from the U.K. to Ireland on board the Isle of Inishmore was eight years ago. Then all the members of the crew I encountered were Irish. Now, apart from the disembodied Irish captain’s voice coming from the bridge welcoming all those on board and providing a weather forecast, all the voices I hear and people I meet are East European.
My experience this past summer on board an Irish Ferries’ vessel was a lesson in the complexities of migration. The vessel makes a four hour crossing between Pembroke Dock in Wales and Rosslare in the Irish Republic and back again twice a day in the high season and once in the low season.
Where have the new crew members working on the Isle of Inishmore come from? To find out I talked with Zydranus, a 35-year-old Lithuanian, who stands on one of the decks welcoming passengers. He has worked for Irish Ferries, part of the Irish Continental Group (ICG), for three years. Zydranus reveals that there are now very few Irish people working on the boat — one of the two captains (the other is British) and a couple of engineers in the engine room. He doesn’t know what happened to the former Irish crew members. He says that East Europeans –- mainly Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian and a small number of Estonians — have been working on Irish Ferries’ vessels for several years.
Hearing this account I assumed that the replacement of most Irish and other crew members by Eastern Europeans was part and parcel of the conventional globalization narrative in which Ireland, the one-time “Celtic Tiger,” had played a starring role. It would go something like this: the boom in the Irish economy which lasted from 1995 to 2008 meant that young Irish people no longer wanted to work at sea, preferring less demanding and better paid jobs on land. The resulting gap in the labor market meant that they were replaced by migrant workers keen to better themselves in a foreign land. In other words, everyone wins from an economic point of view.
On my return to the U.K., however, I found that this was not the case. In fact, there was a bitter dispute between Irish Ferries and the crews’ Dublin-based union, Siptu. It was announced in September 2005 that the company, citing competition from budget airlines like Ryanair and easyJet as well as other ferry operators, would replace the existing workforce with less well paid foreign workers in order to protect the bottom line.
The result was that three Irish and one Welsh crew members barricaded themselves into the engine control room of the Isle of Inishmore for three weeks until a deal was struck in December. The deal allowed those who were currently employed and who wanted to continue working to do so. Siptu also obtained a promise that East European workers would get at least the Irish minimum wage. However, the union failed to change the company’s policy to register its vessels abroad.
Back on board the Isle of Inishmore in late August, I talked to two friendly receptionists, Evilina, 33, and Michal, 27, who are from Lithuania and Poland respectively. They tell me that most of the 86-strong crew are recruited by agents in Poland and Latvia. Some like Michal come from seafaring backgrounds, but others like Evilina do not.
For the most part, the modern global shipping industry is an exclusively masculine preserve. But passenger ferries are in a different category –- part shipping and part hospitality sector. The latter allows female workers an entry point.
Continue reading “On board: going across the sea to Ireland”
It’s spreading: obesity stigma
Anthropologyworks cannot claim credit for helping an anthropology study rise to the top as a story, since no direct evidence exists to show that our March 29 Tweet played a role.
But it just might have.
The study is based on survey questions posed to people in many cultural contexts around the world. Findings indicate that social preferences for a slim body and negative views of a not-slim body are no longer confined to the U.S./”the West.”
In fact, preferences for a slim body, especially a female slim body, are now prominent in Samoa and Mexico, for example.
It is not often that an article published in the distinguished journal, Current Anthropology, makes it to the front page of the New York Times. And “not often” is probably inaccurate. More like: rarely. Or maybe: never? [Blogger’s note: please send in examples of CA articles that have attracted major media coverage in the past, via our comment button.]
And the story is gaining momentum as you read this post. The obesity stigma study is on a roll, with other mainstream media outlets chiming in. Maybe Alexis Brewer, the lead author who is a professor of anthropology at Arizona State University and author of Obesity: Cultural and Biocultural Perspectives, will be invited to the Daily Show!
(Child) sex in the city
There are people who buy and sell other people all over the world today. Among the most severe forms of human trafficking is child sex trafficking. And Washington, DC is one of the “hot spots” for this crime.
The extent, causes, approaches to prevention, and recovery of victims were among the many compelling topics addressed by four anti-sex trafficking activists who participated in a panel discussion at George Washington University on October 18. The event was sponsored by the Global Women’s Forum, part of the Global Gender Initiative of the Elliott School of International Affairs.
- Fighting Sex Trafficking, Four Approached by Local Organizations. Speakers (left to right) Mastrean, Neff, Mathon-Mathieu, Powell, Bertone. Photo taken by Mathilde Bras, exchange student from Sciences Po, Paris.
Panelists included Andrea Powell (co-founder and executive director, FAIR Fund), Faiza Mathon-Mathieu (counsel, Rebecca Project for Human Rights), Erin Neff (assistant project manager, Courtney’s House), and Taryn Mastrean (programs administrator, Shared Hope International). The panel was moderated by Andrea Bertone, visiting assistant professor of international affairs at GW.
Powell launched the discussion by pointing out that when she was first studying “people buying people” in Bonn, Germany, the term “human trafficking” didn’t even exist. When she returned to the US, she thought that the problem wouldn’t be serious. She learned otherwise, and that young people with difficult home situations are at high risk of becoming victims of sex trafficking. With FAIR Fund, she has helped build capacity in communities to identify victims and to make sure that family services are aware of the complex needs of trafficked children. She works with young people directly and has established a preventive education campaign called “Tell Your Friends.” Powell emphasized the gap between the number of children who need help and the lack of places to shelter them. Services in Belgrade are better than they are in Washington, DC.
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