Anthro in the news 1/11/10

• Tell it to the Marines
NPR aired an interview with cultural anthropologist Paula Holmes-Eber who teaches “operational culture” at Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia. Classes include discussion of cultural sensitivity and the cultural/social consequences of military presence and military actions, such as blowing up a bridge.

• Nacirema craziness goes global
In an article called “The Americanization of Mental Illness” in The New York Times Magazine, Ethan Watters (blog) describes how Western, especially American, globalization includes the spread of Western/American understandings of mental health and illness. He points to some of the negative consequences of this trend.

In discussing why people diagnosed with schizophrenia in developing countries fare better than those in industrialized countries, he draws on the work of medical anthropologist Juli McGruder of the University of Puget Sound. McGruder’s research in Zanzibar shows how Swahili spiritual beliefs and healing practices help the ill person by avoiding stigma and keeping social and family ties intact. Note: Nacirema is “American” spelled backwards.

• Guardians of the nameless dead
The bodies of hundreds of victims of political violence in Colombia are often disposed of by being thrown into rivers. Sometimes the bodies wash up on the river bank. WIS News describes the work of one local civil servant, Maria Ines Mejia, who spends time recovering bodies from the Cauca River and thereby helping authorities record the deaths and chronicle the killings.

Maria Victoria Uribe, an anthropologist with Colombia’s National Commission of Reconciliation and Reparation, names people like Mejia as “unknown heroes.” Michelle Hamilton, an expert in body composition who directs the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University, notes that “…you can imagine trying to grab onto a water-logged body with the skin slipping off. It can come off in your hands.”

• Celebration and warning
Survival International’s “weighty coffee-table book,” We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples, is reviewed in the Ecologist. The unity and diversity of indigenous peoples around the world is celebrated in beautiful photographs and through the words of tribal and non-tribal people. Given that Survival International commissioned the book, it also expectedly contains a message of deep concern about the dangers to survival that so many indigenous/tribal cultures face.

• Who rules?
Janine Wedel is a cultural anthropologist and professor of public policy at George Mason University. Her book, The Shadow Elite: How the World’s New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market, was reviewed in the Financial Times and by Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post. Wedel has appeared at several book launches in D.C.
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Boomerang aid: giving to get back

According to the World Health Organization, the Asia-Pacific region is one of the highest risk areas for the emergence of new infectious diseases. Factors such as dense rural populations living in close proximity to animals and dense urban housing are found throughout the region. Existing national and regional capacity to prevent or deal with disease outbreaks is uneven, ranging from more adequate systems in Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand to countries with minimal health-care infrastructure such as the Solomon Islands, Micronesia, and Papua New Guinea.

In June 2007, the revised International Health Regulations (IHR) of the World Health Organization became official after a 12-year revision process. The new IHR emphasizes prevention of disease outbreaks and spread rather than reaction. Each member state of the WHO has five years to fulfill the seven key obligations. While richer countries will not face a serious problem in implementation, developing country members will find it difficult if not impossible to meet the obligations by the deadline. They require an advanced health-care infrastructure including well-trained medical professionals and scientists, diagnostic laboratories, surveillance systems, and health care services far beyond their economic means.

In an article in the Australian Journal of International Affairs, Adam Kamradt-Scott, Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, reviews the challenges to the developing countries in the region of meeting the IHR obligations. He then considers the role of Australian aid in helping developing countries. Most recent AusAID funds have supported general development goals such as improving economic infrastructure and local employment with smaller amounts of funding targeted to strengthen health care infrastructure.

Kamradt-Scott finds this pattern regrettable since more emphasis on health care investment would have two “spin-off benefits:” improving the capacity for early identification of disease outbreaks and strategic building on the investments Australia has already made in enhancing pandemic preparedness in the region. Both, in turn, will benefit Australia in protecting the health of its own people.

A final benefit the author mentions, drawn from a AusAID document, is that such aid from Australia to regional LDCs will “bolster, and potentially extend, its existing sphere of influence” and help Australia achieve “other foreign policy objectives such as promoting regional stability and governance reform.” Refreshingly direct, isn’t it.

Cultural anthropologists have defined many categories of gift-giving and exchange including the “free gift” for which there is no thought of a return of any kind at any time. A “free gift” is the logical opposite of theft in which someone takes something from someone else with no intention to ever return it to the owner. In between is reciprocity (which has subcategories such as generalized or balanced) in which two people exchange items of roughly equivalent value over time with no exact date specified for the return. Kula trading in the Trobriand Islands is a classic example of reciprocity. And then there is market exchange in which a seller seeks to make a profit through a sale in which a buyer agrees to transfer a specified payment by a specified date.

Development aid explicitly to expand influence poses a challenge to anthropological categories of giving and exchange. Unlike a pure gift, there is a sense on the part of the giver that a return is expected. Unlike reciprocity as in the kula, identifiably similar goods are not exchanged between roughly equal-status trading partners. Unlike market exchange, there is no sale involved, no buyer and seller. It’s not theft. It’s a gift given with the knowledge that its benefits will come back to the giver. It’s boomerang aid.

I don’t mean to point the finger of blame at Australia alone since many other countries, my own included, direct most of their aid to serve their own political or business interests. Readers: do you know of any recent studies that have compared bilateral aid organizations in terms of how much of their aid is self-interested and how much is more altruistic?

Photo, “long distance”, from Flickr, Creative Commons.

Anthro in the news 12/21/09

• Cultural anthropologist wins national award in Australia

A book critiquing public policy toward Australia’s aborigines over several decades has won the Manning Clark House Cultural Award 2009. The awardee is Peter Sutton, a cultural anthropologist and linguist and senior research fellow at the University of Adelaide and the South Australian Museum. His book, The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the End of the Liberal Consensus, challenges the way successive governments have dealt with indigenous issues. According to the Canberra Times, it has polarized many readers in both academic and mainstream circles. The author says he has been surprised at the depth of feeling: “I’m touched by the fact that so many people are relieved by the book… It’s given them a certain cathartic release from silences and from being unable to think where they were heading.” He has, however, been upset by the “more personal attacks.”

• Ardi wins as top scientific breakthrough

Science magazine anointed Ardipithecus ramidus (its long-awaited description, not the discovery of the fossils since they were found over a decade ago) as the Breakthrough of 2009, and the mainstream media eagerly picked up on the announcement. According to Bruce Alberts, editor-in-chief of Science, the Ardipithecus research “changes the way we think about early human evolution, and it represents the culmination of 15 years of painstaking, highly collaborative research by 47 scientists of diverse expertise from nine nations, who carefully analyzed 150,000 specimens of fossilized animals and plants” (source). A special issue of Science was devoted to articles by various team members on the fossils and their significance.

• Anthropologists honored by AAAS

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) announced its 531 new fellows. Seven are anthropologists: Susan M. Cachel, Rutgers University; Diane Zaino Chase, University of Central Florida; Katerina Harvati, Eberhard Karls University of Tübigen; Andrew Hill, Yale University; Gary D. James, Binghamton University; Ellen Messer, Brandeis University; Yolanda Moses, University. of California, Riverside; and Lynnette Leidy Sievert, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

• Nancy Scheper-Hughes releases interview about Israeli illegal organ harvesting

In 2000, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, professor of anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, conducted and taped an interview with Yehuda Hiss, former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv. Hiss admitted that in the 1990s pathologists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from family members. Hiss was removed from his post in 2004 when details about the organ harvesting were first reported, but he still works at Abu Kabir. According to the Guardian, Israel’s health ministry says that all harvesting in Israel is now done with permission and in accordance with ethics and Jewish law. The article is not clear as to why Scheper-Hughes decided to release the interview now.

• Rice as life in Japan

A feature article in the double holiday edition of the Economist about the importance of rice in Japan draws heavily on the insights of cultural anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, the William F. Vilas professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is an authority on Japanese culture and author of many prominent books including Rice As Self: Japanese Identity through Time. She notes that the origin myths of many cultures focus on the origin of the universe, whereas Japan’s is “…about the transformation of a wilderness into a land of abundant rice at the command of the Sun Goddess, whose descendants, the emperors, rule the country by officiating at rice rituals.” These rituals are closely tied to Shintoism, Japan’s indigenous religion, which emphasizes the importance of subordination of self-interest to the well-being of the group. Rice is a major component of national identity: to be Japanese is to eat rice, specifically rice grown in Japan. But modernity threatens the centrality of rice in the diet as young urbanites increasingly opt for meals featuring meat, potatoes and bread. A growing movement, however, seeks to preserve Japan’s rice heritage. One such development is the establishment of an upscale restaurant in Tokyo called Kokoromai (“Heart of Rice”) which has more than 10 varieties of rice on the menu.

• The silent epidemic of childhood hunger in the U.S.

An article in The Washington Post addresses the challenges of widespread and growing childhood hunger in the U.S. and quotes medical anthropologist Mariana Chilton of Drexel University. Commenting on how the problem of child hunger is complex and subtle and cannot be solved by providing food alone, she says “Most people who are hungry are not clinically manifesting what we consider hunger. It doesn’t even affect body weight.” The lack of nutritious food is just one of several pressures facing low-income families including housing and energy costs. Chilton is part of Children’s Health Watch, a network of pediatricians and public health researchers in Philadelphia and four other U.S. cities, and she is organizer of the “Witnesses to Hunger Project” which has provided video cameras to 40 mothers to document the challenges they face and their efforts to feed their children. The videos will be used to lobby the U.S. government.

•Anthropology puts the people in technology engineering

Intel Labs’ People and Practices Research group (PaPR) has a vision of a more human-centered technology future. The group applies principles from “forward-looking anthropology” along with sociology and psychology to predict what people will require in the future. Ken Anderson, an anthropologist with PaPR, says, “We are trying to understand what people actually do in order to better design technology.” For example, because people frequently task switch when using technology, Intel is working on a new turbo boost feature that will be delivered early in 2010.

• Anthropology puts the people in public policy

The Dominion Post carried an article about a one-day seminar in Wellington led by Christian Bason (LinkedIn), head of the Danish thinktank Mindlab. The purpose was to talk about how to redesign public policy processes to take into account the people they are trying to help: taxpayers. Mindlab was established in Denmark to improve service delivery through understanding what people need. One example of success was reducing turnaround time for work injury cases. Bason said that anthropology has become “hip” in government service in Denmark: “instead of studying tribes in South America they are using anthropology to study taxpayers.”

• Anthropology puts the culture in skin care products

Tramayne Butler earned a PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of Michigan and is now founder and CEO of AnthroSpa Logic LLC, which produces natural skin care products. She started researching and developing her line while teaching part-time as an adjunct instructor and spending time at home with her two young children. Inspired by her fieldwork in Kenya and extensive world travels, she realized that skin care products could benefit from cross-cultural knowledge about medicinal and beauty practices and use of organic materials.

• Leprosy most old

The DNA of a 1st century CE man buried in a tomb in the Old City of Jerusalem reveals that he had leprosy, making him the oldest proven case of leprosy. The location of the tomb suggests that he may have been a priest or member of the social elite. The condition of his hair and the quality of the textile shroud he wore are further indications that he was not a social outcast, in spite of suffering from a disfiguring disease. Details of the research are published in PLoS ONE.

• Say it with flowers

Flowers placed near the head of a human buried during the Bronze Age is the first such evidence from that period. The grave is located south of Perth, Scotland. The findings are described by Kenneth Brophy of the University of Glasgow in the journal British Archaeology. BBC news quotes Brophy as saying that the discovery of the flowers brought home to him the human touch involved, that “actually these are people that you are dealing with.”

• Dancing to a different culture

Researchers in the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, confirm the diversity of human cultures and human cognition. They asked a group of German children and a group of Namibian children to learn a dance. The German children and the Namibian children, however, consistently used different hand movement directions. Daniel Haun comments, “The human mind varies more across cultures than we generally thought.” The findings are published in the journal Current Biology.

• More evidence of chimp smarts

Primatologist Jill Preutz of Iowa State University has observed a group of savanna chimpanzees in Senegal for over nine years. Her latest discovery is that the chimpanzees understand how wildfires behave and can predict the movement of wildfire well enough to avoid it calmly. She feels that this finding sheds light on how early human ancestors may have learned to control fire. A paper co-authored with Thomas LaDuke of East Stroudsburg University, is published online in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

• Stone age pantry

Archaeologist Julio Mercader of the University of Calgary, with colleagues from Mozambique’s University of Eduardo Mondiane, has found the earliest direct evidence of extensive consumption of wild cereals. Dozens of stone tools, excavated from deep within a cave near Lake Niassa in Mozambique, were used to grind wild sorghum by Homo sapiens more than 100,000 years ago. Mercader comments that “inclusion of cereals in our diet is considered an important step in human evolution because of the technical complexity and the culinary manipulation required.” The findings are published in Science.

• Tough teeth for tough times

A team of researchers, including biological anthropologists Paul Constantino and Peter Lucas of The George Washington University, have shown that natural selection in three ape species favors those with teeth that can handle “fallback foods” during times of scarcity. Gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees favor a fruit-based diet. But they all possess molars than can allow them to chew tough foods such as leaves and bark. The findings are published in Science.

• Development projects do not benefit India’s tribals

KIRTADS (Kerala Institute for Research, Training and Development Studies of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) organized a national seminar to discuss tribal knowledge, biodiversity, intellectural property rights and the impact of modernity on livelihood sustainability. Vineetha Menon, professor and head of the anthropology department at Kannur University, says that modernity has disturbed the tribals’ livelihood systems and that poverty-eradication schemes have not helped them. K. N. K. Sharma, former director of KIRTADS, pointed to the negative effects of land alienation and expressed criticism of the government for not protecting tribal land rights.

• Nepali cultural anthropologist dies

Renowned cultural anthropologist Saubhagya Shah died as a consequence of a heart attack at the age of 45. Shah earned his doctorate in anthropology from Harvard University. He was a professor in Tribhuvan University’s sociology department and coordinator of its Conflict, Peace and Development Studies program. Shah’s interests focused on the state, democratization and development. In his chapter in the edited book, State of Nepal, he offers a critique of the burgeoning NGO sector in democratic Nepal and notes that both government and non-governmental sectors are competing for the same resources. In an essay titled “Democracy and the Ruse of Empire” (PDF file), Shah points out: “It is ironic that the more Nepal sinks into the abyss of violence and anarchy, the more it emerges as an attractive destination for all manners of gun runners, conflict managers, crisis entrepreneurs and democracy missionaries out to make a quick buck or a fast name.” We have lost a keenly insightful anthropologist and articulate champion of peace, human rights, and counter-imperialism.

• Still remembering L-S
British cultural anthropologist Adam Kuper has written a tribute to Claude Lévi-Strauss which received a full page in Nature (login required).

To market, to market

Farming women hold up more than half the sky in rural Senegal. Olga Linares, a researcher with the Smithsonian’s Tropical Research Institute in Panama, has been doing fieldwork in three regions of Senegal for 40 years. She has witnessed many changes over this period including a doubling of the number of poor people, declining rainfall and abandonment of many of the rice fields, and the effects of the drop in the value of African currencies. During this period, the World Bank has admitted to neglecting agriculture.

Although variations exist across the three regions, Linares finds a general pattern of women developing gardens that they cultivate on their own or with groups of women to produce vegetables for sale in nearby markets. The installation of drip irrigation systems, with the assistance of NGOs, is the single-most important innovation in saving women countless hours carrying water over long distances to their gardens.

Linares points out that it is women’s traditional knowledge of farming that is critical in this new endeavor, along with help from NGOs and extension services. Their familiarity with what works and what doesn’t is “ultimately responsible” for the success of their gardens. With cash from sales, they support the household economy including clothing, rice for daily meals, and children’s schooling. Vegetables that are not sold are consumed by household members or fed to their domestic animals.

All in all, it’s a win-win situation that builds on women’s traditional knowledge, capabilities, and cooperation can lead to life-sustaining change.

Image: A farmer in Senegal by Flickr user vredeseilanden. Licensed by Creative Commons.

Accountability lost

by Barbara Miller

A category of local conflict in Peru is called conflictos mineros, mining conflicts. The existence of this specific term reflects the frequency of such conflicts in Peru following neoliberal economic reforms in the early 1990s. Fabiana Li, now a Newton International Fellow based at the University of Manchester, conducted research for her doctoral dissertation in anthropology at the University of California at Davis on mining accountability and conflicts in Cajamarca, Peru. In an article in PoLAR, she shows how the EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) documents and its approval process skew the outcome in favor of the mining companies.

Public mechanisms of evaluation and record-keeping are supposed to hold corporations accountable to local people. Li describes and analyzes the proceedings of a public workshop and a public hearing about the expansion of the country’s largest gold mine. The EIA is intended to serve as an instrument through which risks are made visible to the public. The risks that are shared with the public, however, are those that engineers can manage with mitigation plans. Furthermore, the EIA entrusts companies to carry out background studies on the landscape and the “social component,” to establish the “baseline” characteristics of the site, and to conduct monitoring as the project progresses.

Such company-sponsored studies, not surprisingly, provide a carefully constructed partial picture, erasing or framing out problematic issues. In spite of its claims to public accountability and transparency, the EIA works in non-transparent ways to serve the interests of the mining companies and the neo-liberal state.

Popular participation is emphasized as part of the process. Company representatives listen to the people who appear at the meetings. They take notes for hours on end. A critique of such participation is that it is in fact disempowering because it provides the appearance of public approval. As Li notes, contesting the approval of an EIA is difficult, and only one mining project has ever been halted at the EIA stage.

Nonetheless, many people in Cajamarca and elsewhere in Peru are pursuing creative forms of activism including seeking other scientific opinions to produce “counter-information.” The playing field in terms of scientific expertise, however, is extremely uneven. EIAs, including baseline studies and environmental monitoring, “increasingly rely on the language and tools of large-scale, capital-intensive science.” The need for scientific counter-arguments places a heavy financial burden on NGOs and campesino groups.

The EIA documents and so-called “popular participation” transform “participants” into unwitting or unwilling collaborators who had their chance to speak up during the EIA process. The companies are protecting their interests, using legalized, scientific, and performative means. But even such encircling power doesn’t mean there will never be another Bougainville.

Photo, “Yanacocha Gold Mine”, from Flickr, Creative Commons.

Daily life of ordinary people in ancient Maya murals

The prehistory tends to favor elites. Ancient Maya iconography, writing, and artifacts reveal much about the ruling class, warfare, and elite rituals in Mesoamerica. A recent discovery of extensive mural paintings at Calakmul, located in southern Mexico near the Guatemalan border, sheds light on the majority of the population, those of lower social classes around AD 620-700. Scenes show people eating, cooking, and carrying goods. The murals have hieroglyphic captions naming the actors such as “maize-gruel person,” “maize-grain person,””salt person,” “tobacco person,” and “clay vessel person.” It’s almost as if the murals were painted by an ethnographer who set out to document everyday life of ordinary people.

Photo, “Estela 50 de Iztapa”, from Flickr and Creative Commons.