“thuggish, stupid youth” stereotype banished

TheFIX (Australia) reported that Maori Television in New Zealand has pulled an Australian mini-series, Jonah from Tonga, from the air. The article includes commentary from social anthropologist Helen Lee, professor and head of La Trobe University’s sociology and anthropology department: “I just think it’s dreadful. It’s just awful. It’s creating a terrible stereotype that’s just deeply offensive to Tongans…It’s just a stereotype of this kind of thuggish, stupid youth which does not in any way represent what Tongan youth are like.”

educated women freezing eggs

The Independent reported on a study, led by medical anthropologist Marcia Inhorn of Yale University, of 150 women in the U.S. and Israel who had undertaken elective egg freezing. In-depth interviews reveal that the primary motivation among educated, professional women is the lack of a suitable spouse or partner. This finding contradicts previous reports, mainly in the media, that women freeze their eggs to defer pregnancy for professional reasons.

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Continue reading “anthro in the news 7/10/17” →

nature, culture, and breastfeeding

NPR (U.S.) reported on anthropological research about how mothers gain breastfeeding expertise in different cultural contexts. Brooke Scelza, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Los Angeles, was surprised to find, when she had a baby, that breastfeeding was not automatically easy.  Given the importance of infant feeding for its survival, she wanted to learn more about the practice, so she did research among the Himba of northern Namibia where all mothers breastfeed. She learned about the importance in that context of a woman’s mother in infant care. In some cases, new mothers learn breastfeeding from other women in the group, as among the Beng of the Ivory Coast as studied by cultural anthropologist Alma Gottlieb of the University of Illinois. The article mentions that other supportive factors may be constant contact between the mother and infant following birth and lack of stigma about breastfeeding in public.

cosmetic surgery on the rise

The Times of India and other media reported on a study by the Nuffield Council that shows a rising number of women under 40 in the U.K. who seek cosmetic procedures including facelifts, nose reshaping, breast enlargement or reduction, tummy tucking, and more. The increased demand for appearance-enhancing procedures may be due to the influence of social media in creating “appearance anxiety.” Jeanette Edwards, professor of social anthropology at the University of Manchester and chair of the Council  inquiry, said:  “We’ve been shocked by some of the evidence we’ve seen, including make-over apps and cosmetic surgery `games’ that target girls as young as nine.”

Continue reading “anthro in the news 7/3/17” →

Researchers from Yale University, together with partners at universities in Canada, Jordan, and the United Kingdom, have developed a brief and reliable survey tool to measure resilience in children and adolescents who have been displaced by the brutal conflict in Syria.

Over 5 million people have been forced to flee the six-year-old conflict in Syria, and over 650,000 Syrians are now rebuilding their lives in neighboring Jordan. Building resilience in people affected by war is a priority for humanitarian workers, but there is no established measure that could help assess the strengths that young people in the Middle East have in adversity. This makes it difficult to assess the nature of resilience and to track changes over time.

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Efforts to reduce teen pregnancy rates in Brazil have shown mixed results, and new research from Vanderbilt University suggests that the recent growth of psychological approaches to teen pregnancy prevention may have detrimental effects.

Teen pregnancy has traditionally been seen as a problem linked to poverty, low educational opportunities and family dysfunction. In recent years, researchers have linked teen pregnancy to measures of developmental immaturity, sexual risk-taking and long-lasting depression. This new body of research has started influencing the content of teen pregnancy prevention campaigns.

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electability over vision

The New Statesman published commentary by David Graeber, professor of social anthropology at the London School of Economics, in response to the recent U.K. parliamentary election. He writes: “…How did we get to the point where the candidate of a major party was judged not by his political vision, programme or sensibilities, but by an estimation of how different classes of imagined voters were likely to respond to him? How is it that this has become our basic standard for judging politicians? And by “we” I am referring not just to political junkies, professional or otherwise, but to the electorate as a whole.”

honeymoon in France

The New York Times carried an article about the political success of France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, as well as the challenges he faces. The article quotes Marc Abélès, professor of political anthropology at the École Des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. He is optimistic: “There is a sort of change in the culture…There was an atmosphere that was a bit deadening, the impression that one couldn’t get out, that one was cornered…And I think against that backdrop something was pushed. We were completely looking at things negatively, and now people have a tendency to see things more positively.”

Continue reading “anthro in the news 6/26/17” →

genetic modification/ genetic editing: word game?

The Washington Post reported on efforts by DuPont Pioneer, the division of DuPont that produces GMOs, to build consumer trust through focus groups, a website, and animated videos. The article includes commentary from Glenn Davis Stone, professor of anthropology and environmental studies at Washington University in St. Louis: …the controversy over GMOs has become so fractious that even independent scientists have “let their role in educating be trampled by their interest in convincing.” Many are so frustrated by the impasse, he added, that they’ll gloss over questions such as regulation, rather than risk giving the other side anti-GMO ammunition.

call for slow anthropology

The Huffington Post published an article by cultural anthropologist Paul Stoller, professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, in which he recommends cultural anthropology during the Trump presidency: “In the Age of Trump a slow and shared approach to human social relations fosters knowledge in a time of ignorance. It creates webs of social and emotional understanding that transcend our social and cultural differences. By way of edifying conversation, a slow and shared approach to human relations goes a long way toward reclaiming a humanity that fast culture threatens to decimate.” He spotlights the work of Lisbet Holtedahl, a Norwegian anthropologist and filmmaker, who embodies a slow and shared approach to her scholarship and her films.

Continue reading “anthro in the news 6/19/17” →

when a national army threatens its people

The Wire published commentary by Partha Chatterjee, professor of anthropology & Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University, in which he addresses the question: When does a nation’s army start to believe that to preserve its authority, it must be feared by its own people? He writes: “The example of Israel that is often cited these days as the model from which India should learn is, in this context, particularly troubling. Israel is, properly speaking, a settler colony that regards Palestinians as a hostile and rebellious other that must be subdued and kept apart. Is that what India’s political leaders believe their relation must be to the people of Kashmir or Manipur or Nagaland? One can only hope that as a nation, we have not reached the edge of a slippery slope.”

racial politics and university admissions

The Guardian reported on challenges facing Brazilian higher education in improving enrollment rates of students in lower income categories and black, brown, and indigenous students. Brazil’s law of social quotas was passed in 2012 and was meant to be in full compliance by 2016.  A major problem is rooted in the practice of aspiring students reporting their own racial category. Abuses have been reported with white-looking students gaining admission by claiming to be non-white. The article quotes Rogerio Reis, an anthropology professor: “We saw the most incredible situations unfold…People would shave their heads, wear beanies, get a tan. Just a series of strategies to turn themselves black.” [Blogger’s note: self-stated “racial” identity and “looks” are extremely questionable criteria for determining access to a coveted university slot. Though far from perfect, an income/poverty measure seems preferable depending on the information source].

 

Continue reading “anthro in the news 6/12/17” →

hope for democracy at the grassroots

Japan Today published commentary from social anthropologist Dame Henrietta Moore, director of the Institute for Global Prosperity at University College London where she also holds the Chair in Culture, Philosophy and Design. Noting the seeming political disarray in several major democratic countries, she writes: “Yet all around the world, there are growing grassroots movements challenging this status quo. Recognizing the shortcomings of the political and economic systems around them, people are seizing the opportunity to effect change for themselves and their communities.”

gay sex conviction in Korean military decried

The Korea Herald reported on the response from Americans living in the Republic of Korea to the recent conviction by the Korean military of a gay soldier for having consensual sex. The article includes comments from Timothy Gitzen, an activist for Solidarity for LGBT Human Rights for Korea and a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of Minnesota: “…it’s state-sanctioned violence against its own people…It is the same argument people would use in the US to talk about segregation in the military between people of color and white soldiers…”

 

Continue reading “anthro in the news 6/5/17” →

programmers hooked on Soylent

Salon reported on the popularity of Soylent, a meal replacement powder, in California’s Silicon Valley. The article quotes Jan English-Lueck, professor of anthropology at San Jose State and Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for the Future. She has been studying Silicon Valley culture for years and points to how “people are fascinated with speed and efficiency.” Further, “Food is very much a part of how we express our culture…Soylent is one form of highly functional, highly efficient food that isn’t going to interfere with your ability be productive.”

luxury cultures

The Huffington Post published an interview with cultural anthropologist David Abèlés, director of the French-Argentine Centre in Buenos Aires, about his latest research on luxury markets and arts around the world. He comments: “We cannot distinguish the trends affecting the industry and commerce of luxury from broader changes within capitalism. Anthropology provides a multifaceted point of view by approaching luxury as a total social artefact.”

Continue reading “anthro in the news 5/29/17” →

What are the relationships between body, health, mobility and urban environments? What happens when these connections are out of balance? And how do traffic and mobility—by vehicle or bicycle—fit into this equation?

These are some of the questions undergraduate students creatively explored this spring in Duke Global Health Institute assistant professor Harris Solomon’s Anthropology and Global Health seminar, which centered around the theme of injury, with ghost bikes as a case study.

The course culminated in three final small group projects—a podcast, a community action event and a website. Each group focused on a different ghost bike in Durham, North Carolina.

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