Spanish designer Miguel Adrover owns a galabia (pron. juh-LAH-bee-yuh), a long, loose-flowing gown, handmade for him by a tailor in Egypt. Wearing it in various places around the world provides Adrover with snapshot social insights. When he wears it in the Middle East, he is more integrated into society. Outside the Middle East, it signals: gay. He no longer wears it when flying to the United States since, at airports, a galabia signals: terrorist. Once in New York City, he wears it around town where it elicits a friendly response from Middle Eastern taxi drivers.

Different dress, different guy. Nice guy, gay guy, terrorist.

Same guy, different dress.

Source: “Multi-culti” in the New York Times magazine p166 (March 14). Image: Two men wearing galabias at Luxor Temple, Egypt. Creative commons licensed content from Flickr user Curious Zed.

• Religion and relief aid in Haiti
BBC carried an article pointing to the low profile of voodoo in the aftermath of the earthquake. Some observers think that Christian organizations are dominating the scene and even denying benefits to Haitians who demonstrate adherence to voodoo (a blend of Christian and African beliefs and rituals) by wearing peasant clothing or a voodoo handkerchief. Although voodoo practitioners were included in the three days of prayer in February, voodoo leaders themselves have kept a low profile. Gerald Murray, professor of anthropology at the University of Florida, comments: “For a religion that’s supposedly the national religion of the Haitian people, it’s amazingly absent in the earthquake phenomena.” He points the role of theology. In the voodoo belief system, natural disasters are caused by bondye, a distant supreme being that cannot be influenced by humans. Humans can propitiate only loa, beings in charge of more everyday matters such as illness. Because the earthquake was not caused by loa, voodoo leaders are theologically framed out of the larger picture. They are, however, likely to be playing a major, if quiet, role helping people deal with the effects of the earthquake on their health and welfare.

•For her own good…
In Cameroon, and perhaps elsewhere in West and Central Africa, many mothers “iron” the emerging breasts of their young daughters in order to protect them from male sexual interests and possible pregnancy. The process varies but seems typically to involve pressing a hot stone or piece of wood onto a girl’s breasts. An article in the Washington Post quotes Flavien Ndonko, an anthropologist with the German Agency for Technical Cooperation: “It’s body mutilation and against women’s rights.” He noted that some of the consequences are abscesses, infection, deformation, lactation problems, cysts, possible links to breast cancer, and emotional stress. A survey he helped to conduct revealed that one-fourth of girls had experienced breast ironing.

• Freakanomics beware: here comes anthropology!
Robin Dunbar’s new book, How Many Friends Does One Person Need?, is reviewed in the Scotsman. Dunbar is a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford University who thinks widely, poses big questions, and brings science to them. In this book he addresses such issues as how the symmetry in Barack Obama’s face helped him win the election, why women gossip and men brag, why laughter is good for you, why morning sickness is good for babies, and the social consequences of the unbalanced sex ratio in China.

• The lost have been found, again
According to oral traditions of the Lemba tribe of Zimbabwe and South Africa, their ancestors were Jews who fled the Holy Land 2,500 years ago. Many of the customs of this population of around 80,000, are exact parallels with Jewish tradition. British researchers have now established a genetic link to a common ancestor who lived about 3,000 years ago in north Arabia. This discovery confirms a longstanding argument about such a link by Tudor Parfitt, a professor in the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Parfitt has been studying the Lembas’ cultural practices and language for over a decade.

• The unregistered millions
The births of more than 45 million children worldwide are unregistered. Most of these are in South Asia and Africa. Many countries have not explained why it is important to have a birth certificate. Cultural and logistical constraints are also at play, as explained by Olungah Owuor, lecturer in anthropology at the University of Nairobi: “Birth certificates are a foreign concept to Africa, where celebrations and rituals were normally what would mark the birth of a child…The public must first be socialised to understand the importance of having the document before the Government issues ultimatums that would force people to get the certificate just for the sake of it.”

• She cooks for him
Harvard University’s Richard Wrangham, professor of human evolutionary biology, published the popular book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, last year. It is the subject of a new documentary from BBC Horizons. In the Sun Herald, Simon Webster quotes Wrangham’s understanding of the links among cooking, gender roles, and marriage: Marriage is a “protection racket in which a woman is required to feed a man because of the threat of having her food taken by other men.” This blogger hasn’t seen the documentary and wonders if Wrangham actually says that…if so, it raises basic questions about science and whereof one can and cannot speak.

• Read my eggshell
Lines etched into 60,000 year-old ostrich eggshells found in South Africa have the archaeologists debating whether they are evidence of the earliest art or the earliest written “language.” Excavations by archaeologist Pierre-Jean Texier of the University of Bordeaux and his colleagues have unearthed more than 270 fragments. The fragments span a period of over 5,000 years but show consistently similar designs. Long-term repetition is a hallmark of symbolic communication and modern human thinking. The eggshells were likely used as containers, and markings may have indicated the contents or the owner. Until recently, Texier says, Bushmen in the region carved geometric motifs on ostrich eggshells as a mark of ownership. Findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

• The flushing gene
Around half of all people of Asian descent have a genetic trait that causes the face to redden when a person drinks alcoholic beverages. New research suggests that the genetic mutation for alcohol-induced facial flushing emerged 10,000 years ago in southern China. As quoted in Time.com, Bing Su, one of the researchers involved in the study from the China Academy of Sciences, says: “This is one of the few cases reported demonstrating the genetic adaptation of human populations to the dramatic changes in agriculture and diet in Neolithic times.” The argument is that the red-face gene evolved as an alarm system warning the person to drink less. Findings will be published in BMC Evolutionary Biology.

• More on culture shaping genes
Related to the previous discussion of the flushing gene is Nicholas Wade’s article in the New York Times on lactose tolerance as the major example of cultural change affecting genetic change. The argument that culture and genes can co-evolve has been slow to catch on in mainstream science. According to Mark Stoneking, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, the selective pressure of culture is relatively recent, probably dating to 10,000-20,000 years ago.

The Culture in Global Affairs program is hosting its second event of 2010 this week on Wednesday, February 24.  For those in the D.C. area, we would love to have you join us. You can RSVP here.

Conflicts in Israeli Feminism and the Question of Palestine
Dr. Smadar Lavie
Associate Professor of Studies in Women and Gender
University of Virginia

February 24, 2010
6:30 – 8:00 p.m.
1957 E Street NW, Lindner Family Commons (Room 602)
RSVP Here

Professor Lavie explores the conflicts inside the Israeli feminist movements. What is largely known outside Israel, and in English, as “Israeli feminism” is the feminism of the minority European-Jewish elite. It bears little or no appeal to the grassroots – the Mizrahi (“eastern,” Hebrew) majority of Israeli women, who are of Middle Eastern origins. Most Mizrahi communities vote for right-wing parties partially because left-wing parties are associated with the Ashkenazi elite. The deep commitment of the general Mizrahi population to Zionist ideology places Mizrahi feminists, critical of Ashkenazi Zionism, in a predicament.

The number of research proposals submitted by cultural anthropologists to the U.S. National Science Foundation has risen dramatically in the past few years according to Deborah Winslow in American Anthropological Association’s Anthropology News (Winslow is the cultural anthropology program officer at the NSF).

Encouraged by the rising number of applications, Winslow comments, “I believe that anthropologists are needed to solve the world’s most urgent problems, but we must do basic, gritty and time-consuming research to get the recognition that will accord us voice.”

I agree with Winslow that cultural anthropology has relevance to solving the world’s problems, and I am happy that the number of cultural anthropology proposals is rising. But I don’t see a direct relationship between more research by cultural anthropologists and more recognition and voice.

That won’t happen until more cultural anthropologists want to, and learn to, present their findings outside the academic box.  As in the mainstream media.

Since this blog began in late August 2009, I have been scanning media coverage of anthropology (all four fields) for my weekly blog feature, “Anthro in the News.” You don’t have to be a mathematician to see that biological anthropology and archaeology have much more visibility than cultural or linguistic anthropology. In fact, a single finding in biological anthropology or archaeology may be picked up by several outlets.  Last year, the only cultural anthropology news hitting multiples media buttons  was the death of Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Several reasons account for the media bias toward biological anthropology and archaeology. Here are four that I think are important (if you think of more, please share them in the comment section):

1. Research by biological anthropologists and archaeologists is considered “scientific,” and the media  more actively pursue science news than non-science news from academia [related to #4].

2. Biological anthropologists and archaeologist make “discoveries” which constitute “breaking news” and create buzz. Compare the following: “Chimpanzees understand wildfire and dance to it” and “Oregonians avoid accepting food stamps due to pride” and consider which one was a media hit.

3. Biological anthropologists and archaeologists are more likely to be able to publish their results quickly, in short articles, and with snappy, media-friendly summaries.

4. The public is more interested in findings in biological anthropology and archaeology (“the missing link,” buried gold treasure, and endangered species).

In a nutshell, cultural anthropology is neglected by the media because it’s less scientific, sexy, and snappy. And therefore cultural anthropology loses traction in educating the public via the media.

Relatedly, cultural anthropologists lose ground in influencing policy. So-called “public anthropologists” are no strangers to this discussion: they have been working hard, and uphill, for several years to raise the visibility of culture anthropology outside academia. This post applauds their efforts and seeks to add muscle to it.

In that direction, I highly recommend Cornelia Dean’s brief book, Am I Making Myself Clear? A Scientist’s Guide to Talking to the Public. Whether or not you consider yourself a “scientist,” you will find many helpful insights on topics such as the journalism landscape, being prepared as a source of knowledge, establishing credibility, writing op-eds, doing radio/tv interviews, writing books, being an expert witness, and influencing or making policy.

Beyond Cornelia Dean’s suggestions, other increasingly available and powerful avenues for getting your message out exist: video — documentaries, YouTube. Social media. Blogging. Even tweeting:  develop a following of your friends, family, students, and others, and tweet about something relevant in the news, or offer an interpretive comment or quick critique.

Image from Harvard University Press.

From the Anthropology in Action network: Call for participants in a panel on public anthropology for a world in Crisis. Sarah Pink (Loughborough University), Simone Abram (Leeds Metropolitan University) and Halvard Vike (University of Oslo) have proposed a panel on Public Anthropology for a World in Crisis for the EASA 2010 Conference in Maynooth, August 24 – 27, 2010. Use this link to go to the online submission system for abstracts or to email questions.

Short Abstract: This panel explores how a contemporary public anthropology might be imagined, is emerging, and is capable of making interventions outside academic contexts. We are interested in theoretically and methodologically informed case studies, position papers, critical and historical considerations.

Long Abstract: The idea that anthropologists can and should play a role as public intellectuals and activists has long-since been (and been debated as) part of the history of the discipline. Recently attention has been applied to this area of anthropological practice in a growing literature on the topic (as is also happening in a parallel way for Sociology). In this panel we explore how a contemporary public anthropology might be imagined, is already emerging, and is capable of making interventions outside academic contexts. We are interested in theoretically and methodologically informed case studies, position papers, critical and historical considerations. Contributions to this panel should examine questions of: how a public anthropology (or anthropologies) can operate in contemporary political, policy, cultural, social, (new) media and mobile contexts; and the implications of this.

• Paul Farmer on U.S.-Haiti relations
Last Thursday, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing to explore how U.S. foreign aid can best help Haiti. Senator Christopher Dodd (Democrat, Connecticut) suggested that “some sort of receivership,” at least temporarily is in order. Senator Bob Corker (Republican, Tennessee) agreed. One of the three witnesses at the hearing was anthropologist/doctor/health activist Paul Farmer, now also the deputy United Nations envoy to Haiti. He disagreed with such an idea, pointing to the long history of Washington overthrowing and blockading Haitian governments which has contributed to the currently dysfunctional government.

• Let freedom ring
Tristam Riley-Smith first worked as a journalist and then earned a PhD in social anthropology from Cambridge University. He later began working for the British civil service and was posted for several years to the British Embassy in Washington, DC. As reviewed in the Economist, his book The Cracked Bell: America and the Afflictions of Liberty, draws on all three strands of his training and experience to provide an “engaging and ambitious” commentary on contemporary America and its use and abuse of the concept of “liberty.”

• Neolithic surgery
A discovery in France of an apparent warrior male with an amputated limb joins two other archaeological findings of evidence that surgery was practiced in the early Neolithic in Europe. Limb  amputations have also been found in what is now Germany and the Czech Republic.

• Smart chimpanzees and slow bonobos?
It is well known that substantial social differences exist between two closely related great ape species: chimpanzees and bonobos (the latter are less well-known and often lumped under the former). Notably, bonobos are typified as a peaceful species whose members use sexual interactions to prevent conflict. Chimpanzees are typified as more prone to conflict and competition, and thus, sadly, more like modern humans. The question of why such differences exist between chimpanzees and bonobos prompts biological anthropologists to look for answers in biology. Recent research led by Victoria Wobber of Harvard University’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, suggests that the reason lies in differences in the pace of cognitive development over the life cycle. She and her team compared skills of semi-free-ranging infants, juveniles, and adults in three feeding competition tasks. The findings show that chimpanzee  infants and juveniles are more likely to share food than adult chimpanzees who advance to a stage of “sharing intolerance.” In contrast, bonobo adults retain juvenile levels of “sharing tolerance.” The upshot, per Wobber and colleagues, is that adult bonobos are less cognitively advanced than adult chimpanzees because they retain a juvenile tendency to share. The study was published online in Current Biology. This blogger asks readers to check out the article and ponder the argument, evidence, findings, and implications for understanding cognitive development in humans, variations in selfishness/generosity across cultures, and the cultural shaping of researchers’ categories and values (ie, selfish/successful chimpanzees and sharing/loser bonobos).

•  Altruistic chimpanzees adopt orphans
Behavioral variation across chimpanzee groups throws into question any attempt, such as the above study, to lump all chimps into one category.  Adoptive behavior of chimpanzee caregivers, both male and females, has been discovered in the Taï Forest of the Ivory Coast. The adopters devote substantial time and care to juveniles not biologically related to them. The research leader, Christophe Boesch of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig comments: “I don’t know of any other cases of unrelated orphans being adopted.” This discovery, he goes on to argue, requires a major shift in discussions about what makes humans human since altruistic behavior has been long argued to make us special. It also requires attention to variation within species and avoidance of broad generalizations at the species level.

This post is drawn from the remarks made by Robert Maguire, Randolph Jennings senior fellow, United States Institute of Peace, and associate professor of international affairs, Trinity University, Washington, D.C., one of five panelists who spoke at Risk, Suffering and Response: The Earthquake Crisis in Haiti 2010. He provided written notes on his presentation which are provided here. The panel was videorecorded and will be available for viewing on the Elliott School of International Affairs website. (Link to follow when it is posted.)

Professor Maguire said that he has been asked by top officials from the U.S. government, the government of Haiti and the United Nations to assess the damage “from afar” as input to the donors meeting in Montreal. He discussed several areas of “damage” that preceded the earthquake:

1. The effects of decades of misrule by predatory governments and a rigid system of socio-economic dominance by Haiti’s elites, factors which have resulted in extreme disparities between rich and poor
2. The long-term denigration of Haitians by outsiders, from televangelists to misinformed “experts” who label Haiti as a “basket case” or “failed state”
3. Misinformed development policies and programs over several decades that used Haiti as a source of cheap labor, have led to severe population concentration in Port au Prince and neglect of land in rural areas, and promoted since the 1980s a Taiwan-style form of development based on urban industries which neglected rural areas and overlooked the fact that Haiti did not share with Taiwan crucial factors such as land reform, improved agriculture, and education
4. Lack of public investment in services because of uncaring, corrupt governments
5. By the 1990s, Haiti had become a republic of NGOs

He went on to lay out specific priorities that will help address such underlying “damage” and establish a more balanced country demographically, economically, and socially:

1. The tragedy offers a context in which one can work to “rebalance” Haiti
2. Pay attention to the migration out of Port au Prince and work with the migrants to help provide work, services, and restored dignity for them
3. Institute a decentralized system of “Welcome Centers” in towns and villages to assist and integrate the returnees including providing medical care and continuing education
4. Equip the Centers to set up a Civic Service Corps to provide work for cash in several sectors such as public works/environmental restoration
5. It is essential to invest in the rural areas in order to stem the flow of likely return migration to a rebuilt Port au Prince

Image: before-and-after screenshots of the Presidential Palace and an area of Port-au-Prince, from Google.

Anna Miller, a communications and marketing writer for GW’s Medical Center, wrote about the panel I organized on Haiti in her article “A Nation in Crisis: Learning from the Past and Preparing for the Future.'”

Miller posted her story as a comment on a previous post, but I wanted to add it here as a full post for those who missed it before.

A Nation in Crisis: Learning from the Past and Preparing for the Future
Panelists Discuss “Risk, Suffering and Response: The Haiti Earthquake Crisis of 2010”
By Anna Miller

“Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.” This factoid, cited among prime-time reporters and casual conversers alike, may be true or false. But, at a panel discussion hosted at The George Washington University (GW) Elliott School of International Affairs, Jan. 25, one thing became clear: the liberal use of this phrase only exacerbates the country’s already plentiful problems.

“Having uttered [this phrase], one need not examine the causes and context of poverty in Haiti,” said panelist Dr. Drexel Woodson, associate professor of Applied Research in Anthropology at the University of Arizona. “One can also easily—but falsely—assume that poverty somehow explains corruption, illness, incompetence, ignorance, miseducation, violence and much else.”

The four other panelists—whose expertise varied and whose relationships to Haiti ranged widely—agreed. The recent earthquake, they asserted, has engendered a denigrating caricature of the Haitian population, which, in reality, is “compassionate, resilient and genius,” according to panelist Kyrah Malika Daniels, junior curator, National Museum of American History. And, in order to respond appropriately to the current crisis, a careful evaluation of the nation’s history and culture is vital.
Continue reading “Review of the Haiti panel by GW Medical Center writer Anna Miller” →