The Global Gender Forum and the Sigur Center for Asian Studies present:
Burma After the By-Elections: Taking Gender and Human Security Into Account
Panelists: Christina Fink, Professor of Practice, the Elliott School of International Affairs, GW Tom Malinowski, Washington Director, Human Rights Watch Mark Taylor, Senior Coordinator, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, State Department Wenchi Yu, Senior Advisor, the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues, State Department
Moderator: Deepa Ollapally, Associate Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, GW
When: Tuesday, April 3 | 5:30-6:45p Where: The Elliott School of International Affairs, Lindner Family Commons (Room 602)
1957 E St, NW
Democratic parties’ participation in the April 1 by-elections in Burma reflect a partial political opening and the expectation that some of the country’s pressing challenges can be addressed. This panel will highlight human security issues, taking into account the ways in which men and women may be differently affected, and will consider how the US government and US organizations might be able to play a supportive role.
• “Surprise” nomination for World Bank President
Surprise, surprise! Not a financial player, not an economist, not a white male. The White House on Friday named Jim Yong Kim, the president of Dartmouth College and a global health expert, as its nominee to lead the World Bank.
The nomination received widespread international coverage, including an article in the Independent by British-born economist and Dartmouth professor David Blanchflower. He writes: “There always the sense in the Dartmouth community that he was not going to be with us for long as he was headed for a big international job. I do have a sense that his appointment to the World Bank is a better match given his global interests. Assuming Jim Kim is appointed, which seems likely, although he is not an economist, he will be the first leader of the World Bank with any development experience. He also has the advantage that he is non-white, non-Wasp and he’s not Larry Summers.” ”
An article in the Washington Post quoted economist Nancy Birdsall, director of the Center for Global Development, DC think tank, as saying “This nomination suggests, on the face of it, a vision of the bank that is narrower than might be ideal.” She said that Kim has experience with individual programs in very poor countries, but it is not clear how he will tackle transnational issues such as climate change and corruption. [Blogger’s note: a “double doc” physician, anthropologist, and hand-son development practitioner is defined as “narrow” compared to previous World Bank presidents who have rarely stepped outside a limo and a 5-star hotel in a poor country?].
The Museum of AIDS in Africa (MAA) is seeking a skilled intern to help pilot its Virtual Memorial project at the upcoming International AIDS Conference in Washington, DC, July 22-27, 2012 – preference will given to African students, and those living with HIV. We’ll pay you a small honorarium, your conference fees, travel and accomodation; you’ll get to work on a cutting-edge digital museum and memorialization project with some of the biggest names in HIV activism and be part of the launch of the Museum that has Africans, AIDS advocates and the cultural world abuzz.
The Museum’s vision is “to transform the individual and social response to the African AIDS epidemic by honouring those who have lost their lives, empowering those infected and affected, building knowledge and inspiring about the history, science and response to the pandemic, to support the ultimate goal of an Africa free from AIDS.”
The third annual sustainable Haiti conference and 2012 investment forum
When: April 23 – 25 Where: Miami Beach Convention Center
Sustainatopia and Sustainable Haiti have partnered with the Haitian Diaspora Federation (HDF) to bring a focus on investments to this year’s conferences. The Haitian Diaspora Federation will present the 2012 Investment Forum: Pote Kole Pou Ayiti Dekole – a conversation about the necessity for sustained investments that create jobs.
• Explaining human language heats up
A big debate exists among scholars who study human language. The extreme poles can be summarized as the Noam Chomsky position of innatism and a “language organ” and the basic similarity of all languages. On the other side is the constructivist, relativist position championed by Daniel Everett, a linguist and anthropologist at Bentley University in Massachusetts. Everett has published a new book called Language: The Cultural Tool. In it he argues that language is not the product of a “language organ” but an extension of general intelligence and contextually responsive. Everett began his career as a Christian missionary but abandoned his faith because of his extended conversations with the Pirahã Indians of Brazil. In his new book, he argues that speakers craft their languages to meet their needs. The Pirahã have no numbers beyond two because they have no money, engage in little barter trade, do not store food for the future and do not think about the distant past.
According to coverage in the Guardian, the language of the Pirahã is a unique cultural tool – like their knowledge of plant toxins, and their ability to fish with a bow and arrow – adapted for their particular circumstances. [Blogger’s note: stay tuned for more media coverage of Everett’s work: according to an email from Dan to me on Saturday, a film from the Smithsonian Channel will come out in May called Grammar of Happiness [this film has just won the Young Europeans Jury Award at the FIPA film festival in Biarritz]; this upcoming week the New York Times will have a feature article on him, his book, and the controversy surrounding his work; and the next week the Chronicle for Higher Education will carry a feature article].
• Homophobic language and gay men’s mental health in Ireland
The Irish Times reported on a four-year study of gay young men in Cork, Ireland, by Swedish anthropologist Felicia Garcia. She focused on suicidal men and learned that homophobic language inhibits gay men from talking about their feelings compared to young men she had interviewed in Venezuela. In the Cork city area, young men have suicide rates four times higher than young women. The article notes that, according to Garcia: “Young Irish men internalise the belief that they are untrained to cope with stressful situations and they also suffer from the perception that women are the mentally stronger sex.” [Blogger’s note: this piece is directly related to the findings of Nancy Scheper-Hughes in her first book, Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics.]
• Illegal organ trade
Several media outlets including ABC picked up on a recent publication by Monir Moniruzzaman, assistant professor of anthropology at Michigan State University, who studied trafficking in human kidneys and the experiences of those who were victims of organ trafficking. He interviewed 33 kidney sellers in Bangladesh and found they typically did not get the money they were promised. They are also plagued with serious health problems that prevent them from working as well as shame and depression. The study appears in the Medical Anthropology Quarterly. “This is a serious form of exploitation of impoverished people, whose bodily organs become market commodities to prolong the lives of the wealthy few,” said Moniruzzaman who delivered his research findings and recommendations on human organ trafficking to both the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
• Mothers are key
The Huffington Post praised an article in this week’s Times Higher Education supplement by anthropologist Eric Michael Johnson on the critical importance of mothers in the long-term wellbeing of children: “Johnson’s article is a powerful read. He suggests that effective motherhood, where emotional bonds are made early and encouraged by society is likely to lead to happier and better functioning humans. His point is clear. Mummy is the key.” [Blogger’s note: March 18 was Mother’s Day in the U.K. Happy Mother’s Day to all!] Continue reading “Anthro in the news 3/19/12”→
Last Saturday, just days before this week’s final of the BBC’s amateur cooking competition, Masterchef, I was standing outside Hammersmith underground station in London, talking to a Mauritian Muslim friend. He was convinced that one of the competitors, Shelina Permalloo, born in Southampton of Mauritian Hindu Telugu parentage would win. He reckoned he had spotted how much the two judges, Australian-born restaurateur John Torode and his Cockney co-presenter, greengrocer Gregg Wallace, appreciate her Mauritian-inspired food as well as her personality.
Up until this point, I thought 29-year-old Shelina, a resident of Tooting in south London, had a very good chance of being crowned champion as she had made it through to the final three of more than 20 contestants. But my Mauritian friend convinced me that not only would it be good for Shelina, but it would also be good for the TV series as the former charity worker brought a point of differentiation to the food on display through her creative use of spices. And, as he pointed out, Wallace kept repeating that Shelina “brings sunshine to a plate.” Quite an endorsement.
And so it came to pass. Yesterday evening, Shelina Permalloo was duly crowned U.K. Masterchef 2012 champion. She very gracefully gave a great deal of credit to her widowed mother, claiming that she was really just her mother’s “sous chef.” Shelina added:
IV Annual Regina Herzfeld Symposium on the Cultural Heritage of Native Americans:
Recognized, Unrecognized or Inter-Tribal: Conflict in Indian Identity Politics
Joe Watkins
Director, Native American Studies Program,
University of Oklahoma
When: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 | 3:00pm Where: In the Pryzbyla Center, Room 321/323
Department of Anthropology
The Catholic University of America
Washington DC
Whether one identifies as Native American or as American Indian, the contemporary politics of “being” Indian goes beyond ease of definition. Some tribes use a minimum “blood quantum” (percentage of “Indian blood”) while others require only proof of descent from a previously acknowledged member of the group. With the burgeoning of economic development schemes in Indian country, the question of WHO is Indian takes on new meaning and relevance. Using examples from contemporary issues, I will discuss the ways that Indian identity has been manipulated to suit the needs of the individual or group that wants to be “Indian” or that wants to prevent others from being considered so.
This event is at Catholic University. The Edward Pryzbyla Center is near the parking garage. The nearest major intersection is Michigan Avenue and Monroe Street, NE.
Supported by the Regina Flannery Herzfeld Memorial Fund
The Royal Anthropological Institute and the British Museum’s Centre for Anthropology present:
Anthropology in the World
When: June 8-10 Where: British Museum’s Clore Centre
An international conference that explores the relevance and contribution of anthropology outside academia to fields such as health, education, law, media and business.
All the world’s a stage. Political geography often adopts theatrical terms such as “actors” and “performance” into its jargon. Using theatrical terms to spotlight the Tibetan government in exile, at a presentation sponsored by the CIGA Seminar Series at the George Washington University, Fiona McConnell delivered a presentation entitled, “Rehearsing the State: The Governance Practices of the Tibetan Government in Exile.” McConnell is a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College, the University of Cambridge.
Tibetan flag
Using the performance analogy, McConnell conceptualizes the long waiting period of the Tibetan government in exile as rehearsal, the Dalai Lama as playwright, and receptive countries as audience. She explores questions of the nature of state and statecraft and what the state-like Tibetan government in exile reflects about conventional statehood.
Addressing the nature of state and statecraft, she pointed to how the Tibetan government in exile, the Central Tibetan Administration, exercises a degree of sovereignty without having sovereignty. The government in exile is unrecognized and lacks authority. Yet, the Central Tibetan Administration has government headquarters, a network of schools and hospitals, eleven “pseudo-embassies” which organize the Dalai Lama’s official visits, and passport-like official documents.
McConnell discussed the roles and functions of states in the imagination and in reality and the fundamentality of the idea and ideal to understanding polity. She asserted that rather than trying to pin down what a political entity is, it is more productive to ask what it does.
Fiona McConnell speaks at GW. March 2012.
She then turned to the geography of temporality and explained how, in the drama of the Tibetan government in exile, its waiting period before returning to Tibet can be seen as a rehearsal. If statecraft is a set of practices to be performed and perfected, then this rehearsal time presents an anticipatory opportunity to practice and perfect state practices. While in India, the state controls immigration cards and taxes, the Central Tibetan Administration runs foreign visas and day-to-day operations. Tibetan settlements in India are economically sufficient communities which foster nationalism in exile and a pan-Tibetan identity which did not exist in pre-1959 homeland Tibet. Thus, the Central Tibetan Administration has developed state-like practices to ensure uniformity of practices across scattered, diasporic communities.
According to McConnell, exiled communities are defined by a timeline to return. They are shaped by the necessity to deal with both the immediate needs of exile as well as the contested future of its path to statehood. The Tibetan government in exile has been in rehearsal in Dharamshala, India, since 1959. Rehearsal depends on participation, presenting the challenge of how to keep people engaged. It also depends on belief in the script, in the playwright, and in the eventuality of a final performance. Continue reading “Rehearsing the state: Governance without sovereignty among Tibetans in exile”→
• News coverage of Iran contributes to misunderstanding
An article in the New York Times quotes cultural anthropologist William Beeman as saying that he believes The Times’s coverage has contributed to a dangerous public misunderstanding of the situation. Beeman is professor of cultural anthropology and chair of the anthropology department at the University of Minnesota and author of the book, The ‘Great Satan’ vs. the ‘Mad Mullahs’: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other. The article provides a critique of The Times’ coverage of Iran’s nuclear program including that The Times has given too much space to Israeli proponents of an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, has failed to mention often enough that Israel itself has nuclear arms, has sometimes overstated the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has repeated the questionable assertion that Iran’s leaders seek the eradication of Israel, has failed to analyze the Iranian supreme leader’s statement that nuclear weapons are a ”sin,” and has published misleading headlines.
• Patriotism and voting in Iran
In a tv interview about the recent elections in Iran, William Beeman says: “When a population is under pressure from the outside, they do not rise up and overthrow their own government, they rally behind their leaders and this is, I think in this particular case when we take a look at the elections, I think we will find that the Iranian people have not been discouraged by the sanctions that have been leveled against them, but in fact have shown their patriotism and their love of their own country.”
• Relevance of anthropology debated
A symposium in honor of cultural anthropology professor Laura Nader, University of California at Berkeley, was held at the Berkeley campus. It was called “Anthropology in the World.” Two notable speakers were Governor Jerry Brown and Ralph Nader, consumer activist, frequent presidential contender, and sister of Laura. Ralph Nader talked about “Anthropology from Margaret Mead to 2012.” Coverage in the Sacramento Bee did not provide details on Governor Brown’s comments in the debate.
• Take that anthro degree and…. …become a world class figure skater. Meryl Davis and Charlie White are the only American ice dancing team to ever win the world championships. An article in the New York Times described their style, skills, and daily routine. It also mentioned that both are part-time students at the University of Michigan where she is double majoring in anthropology and Italian while he is majoring in political science. Both, however, are determined to bring home the gold at the 2014 Games in Russia.
…become a politician. Nick Clegg is the British Liberal Democrat Leader and the Deputy Prime Minister. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, he expresses shock to find hundreds of people in Britain are earning millions every year but paying little tax: “There are hundreds of people earning millions per year who are barely paying 20 per cent tax, forget 40 per cent, forget 50 per cent, forget 30 per cent. They are not even paying 20 per cent.” He is proposing a tycoon tax, a legal minimum tax rate that everyone should pay on their earnings. You may wonder where the blogger is going with this piece, so here you go: Clegg studied archaeology and anthropology at Robinson College, Cambridge University.
Panelists:
anthropologyworks 