Blogger’s note: the past week was relatively quiet for anthropology. In fact, far more news coverage appeared for beer than for anthropology.

Speaking truth to big mining

An anthropologist engaged by Fortescue Metals Group says his services were discontinued after he refused a demand to amend sections of his report discussing indigenous heritage where the company wanted to mine. In a statement made to a lawyer, Brad Goode says his “tenure with FMG was not continued” after he insisted on including references to the cultural significance of Kangeenarina Creek in the Pilbara and representing the wishes of the Yindjibarndi people to have a 50m exclusion zone either side of the creek.

Fieldwork debts

Catherine Sanders contributed an article to The Huffington Post on her debts to the people in Nepal who hosted her fieldwork. Sanders is completing her Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Montana and is a Research Associate at The ISIS Foundation, where her research informs health improvement projects in Nepal and Uganda. She says, “I’m writing about indebtedness today because I’m in serious debt to the people of Nepal. They had to feed me, teach me how to behave, and rescue me from baby cows for over a year. Some of those things you can pay for with money, but money doesn’t begin to touch most of them, and here’s why: being indebted in Nepal means placing a social contract alongside the money… They know that the one certitude is that their day will come, tomorrow most likely. Being in debt is saying, ‘when and if I can, I will be there for you, too.’ This terrified me. I didn’t know if I would be there for them, or even if I was, if I could offer them anything…I am in debt to the people of Nepal. I will never be able to pay it back. And I will never give up trying.”

Indigenous alcoholism policy in Australia

In Northern Australia, the threat of mandatory rehabilitation will be used to intentionally push problem street drunks out of public view and into the “scrub.” The government will also create up to 400 beds in alcohol rehabilitation facilities and a new body to manage NGO rehabilitation services. The article in The Australian quotes Richard Chenhall, a lecturer in medical anthropology at the University of Melbourne, as saying that there is little evidence that mandatory rehabilitation is more effective than previous measures: “The approach is more about getting problem drunks — read: Aboriginal people drinking in public spaces — off the streets,” he said. And, further, “The policy is effectively criminalising drunkenness…”
Continue reading “Anthro in the news 10/22/2012” →

• Reforming the World Bank

One of the world’s most influential cultural anthropologists (and a medical doctor, scientist, and former university president), Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, outlined his plans to overhaul the development institution, saying he wants to create a “solutions bank” that can more quickly meet the needs of the world’s poorest countries. “We must become faster, more innovative and more flexible,” Kim told finance ministers and central bankers gathered in Tokyo for the annual International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings.

• Architecture and anthropology for public health

In 2006, Michael Murphy, a 26-year-old architecture student, approached Paul Farmer, global health pioneer and medical anthropologist, after a lecture at Harvard. Murphy asked which architects Farmer had worked with to build the clinics, housing, schools and roads he had described in his talk. Murphy was hoping to put his design degree to use by apprenticing with the humanitarian architects aiding Farmer’s work. It turns out, those architects did not exist. Soon after, Murphy flew to Rwanda where he and other students became Farmer’s architects. Murphy lived in Rwanda for over a year while the Butaro Hospital in northern Rwanda, which laborers built with local materials, was designed. The site, once a military outpost, is now a 150-bed, 60,000-square-foot health care center. In its first year, it served 21,000 people. It employs 270 people, most of them local. According to The New York Times, “For the 340,000 people who live in this region of Northern Rwanda, the project marks a literal reclamation: an area that was once a site of genocidal violence is now a center for state-of-the-art medical care. Healing happens there. An unmistakable grace permeates the place.”
Continue reading “Anthro in the news 10/15/12” →

• Goudougoudou lives on in Haiti

Since the catastrophic 2010 earthquake in Haiti, there has indeed been some progress, writes cultural anthropologist Mark Schuller in The Huffington Post…”but the on-the-ground realities are more complex and sobering.” Schuller has visited eight camps in a longitudinal study over seven visits. Schuller is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and NGO Leadership Development at Northern Illinois University and affiliate at the Faculté d’Ethnologie, l’Université d’État d’Haïti. His most recent book is Killing with Kindness: Haiti, International Aid, and NGOs, with a foreword by Paul Farmer.

• Romney as a transactionalist

An article in The Atlantic, typified Mitt Romney as a “transaction man: someone who moves assets around with a speed and force that leaves many of the rest of us bewildered. The insurrection in business has profoundly affected the lives of most people who work, pay taxes, and get government benefits. It’s the backdrop of this Presidential election.” The article proceeded to link this characterization to a debate in anthropology detailed here “over transactionalism kicked off by the 1959 monograph Political Leadership among Swat Pathans by Norwegian social anthropologist Fredrik Barth. Anthropology had for decades been dominated by structural functionalism’s focus on society’s forms and norms. Barth instead focused on the role of the individual’s rational self-interest in northern Pakistan’s Swat Valley.” And, further, that Obama’s “You didn’t build that” is to structural functionalism what Romney’s “We built it” is to Barthian transactionalism. [Blogger’s note: see the response on Savage Minds which dismisses the value of this inerpretation and various comments on Twitter].

• Tailgating parties about sharing

According to cultural anthropologist John Sherry, pregame tailgating is a complex community-building exercise that hearkens back to ancient harvest festivals: it “…is more about sharing than it is about competition” and helps build the brands of people’s favorite teams. “The individual traditions that they are creating add to the larger tradition,” he says. “They see it as participating in the team experience.” Sherry, who is in the anthropology department at the University of Notre Dame, conducted a two-year study of college tailgating and found that the parking lot parties are rooted in harvest celebrations in ancient Rome and Greece and in picnics during Civil War battles. They also share similarities with modern-day camp-outs at Jimmy Buffett concerts and Occupy Wall Street encampments: “The idea of getting out of your house and feasting and drinking somewhere else is a pretty old tradition,” Sherry says. “People eat and drink and build up community in the process. It’s one last blowout before we hunker down for winter.”

• Patio dreaming

After a dreary few years, the U.S. housing market is showing signs of life. A mid-September report from the National Association of Realtors found that home resales rose 7.8% from a year before. New housing is up, too. What do American home buyers want: outdoor living spaces where adults can relax and kids can play. But…”Anyone who studies how Americans spend their time eventually comes to a stark conclusion: Impressions and reality differ a great deal.” The article mentions a “fascinating book” called Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century, based on an anthropological study of middle-class Los Angeles families. Researchers from UCLA’s Center on Everyday Lives of Families recorded hours of footage, documented possessions, and clocked how people spent their days to the minute. While these families may yearn to spend time on their patio, in fact, they don’t.
Continue reading “Anthro in the news 10/8/12” →