• Beyond Tsimane health as “yardstick”

An article in The New York Times headlines findings about the good health and longevity in an indigenous group of the Bolivian Amazon as a “yardstick” (presumably for “advanced” populations in “developed” countries). Since 2002, when the Tsimane Health and Life History Project was founded, more than 50 Bolivian and American researchers, doctors and students have participated in the health project, generating an array of landmark studies. The population of 13,000, which stretches along the Maniqui River, has become the most studied population in the Western hemisphere. ”This is the most productive research site in anthropology today,” said Ray Hames, an anthropologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Samuel Bowles, of the behavioral sciences program at the Santa Fe Institute, said, ”The Tsimane will soon become a basic point of reference for everyone studying small-scale societies.” Michael Gurven, an anthropologist at University of California, Santa Barbara, who is a co-founder and co-director of the project, said the primary focus of the Tsimane studies was aging. ”We look at what’s different and what’s similar between the Tsimane and Western populations,” he said. The Tsimane also have the advantage of variety within that population, said Hillard Kaplan, an anthropologist at the University of New Mexico and the project’s other co-founder and co-director. A small number of the Tsimane live in or around San Borja, the area’s only town; they own motorcycles and use cellphones. The contrast to the modern world provides a fascinating basis for study, with ”real public health significance for us,” said John C. Haaga, a program officer at the National Institutes of Health, which has supported the Tsimane studies for years. The studies have required time and personnel. Thesis students live in communities for up to a year. A roving medical unit visits almost all 90 Tsimane villages at least once a year. The infiltration of doctors and anthropologists has had some impact on the culture, the researchers acknowledge, but not as much as might be expected. The article goes on to discuss ethical issues of impact of the researchers’ presence and whether or not to provide health care interventions. [Blogger’s note: I hope the Tsimane can take the outsiders’ lifeways as a “yardstick” and try to protect themselves from the health downsides of modernity.]

• Anthropologist released from Turkish prison

A court in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır ruled to release anthropologist Müge Tuzcuoğlu and eight other suspects pending trial in the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) suit. Tuzcuoğlu said she was still in a state of shock due to her sudden release, after her life had turned upside down following her arrest on March 8, 2012. Tuzcuoğlu, a cultural anthropologist who wrote the book Ben Bir Taşım (I Am a Stone) added that she felt bittersweet despite her release, as a number of her friends still remained locked up behind bars. She is quoted as saying, “I was arrested seven months ago by [armed people.] This arrest has to do with what a social scientist…sees when they look at a poor neighborhood. Is that a community with a penchant for criminal activity, or is it the lives of people resisting against being drawn into destitution that seem so perplexing to us?”
Continue reading “Anthro in the news 10/01/12” →

• Hello, Big Organic

Cultural anthropologist Elisa Sobo published an essay in The Huffington Post based on her ongoing research on education and health in a U.S., school, including views of the students’ parents. She comments that, “As organic market shares have grown, the environmentally-friendly, healthful, and socially just diet that early advocates promoted seems to have been somewhat forgotten. Big Food has entered the organic business, changing fundamentally what it comprises. For example, now, over 250 non-organic substances can by law, be included in foods labeled ‘organic’. Plus, organic no longer by definition means locally or non-industrially produced.” Sobo is a professor of anthropology at San Diego State University. Her current projects include a study exploring cultural models of child development as applied in classroom teaching, particularly in the Waldorf or Steiner education system.

• More on women’s breasts in the news

An op-ed in The Irish Times, titled Fascination with Kate’s Breasts and Karen’s Clothes Makes Idiots of Us All, discusses the debate raised by Adrienne Pine‘s recent breastfeeding of her baby while teaching a university class. Pine is an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at American University in Washington, DC. The other women mentioned are Kate Middleton and Karen Woods, the wife of Seán Quinn, jr.

• American scholar of Nigeria honored

The Guardian (Nigeria) carried a story about Debra Klein, a cultural anthropologist from Gavilan College in  Gilroy, California, noting that she “is deeply in love with black culture, Yoruba cultural heritage especially…[and she] speaks Yoruba with relative ease, her genealogy as an American notwithstanding.”  She recently completed a Faculty Research Fellowship in the performing arts department at the University of Ilorin, ending with a public lecture on her study, Reclaiming the Orisa in Nigeria: The Intersection of Traditional Indigenous Religion and Islam in Yoruba Popular Culture.

• Anthropologists speak at workshop in India

A two-day workshop on Advanced Research Methods in the Social Sciences, concluded at the Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology & Sciences in Allahabad. The workshop was jointly organized by the department of anthropology and the department of agricultural extension education. Professor Jahanara, head of the department of anthropology and extension education, gave the welcome speech.  Professor  V.S.  Sahay, head of the department of anthropology at Allahabad University, gave a presentation on the Chowre people of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Continue reading “Anthro in the news 9/24/12” →