Anthro in the news 8/1/11

• On the Norway massacre
Thomas Hylland Eriksen, professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, commented on the terrorist attacks in Oslo in several media sources. Please read his essay describing a week of media involvement.

Cultural anthropologist Marcel M. Suarez-Orozco of New York University co-authored an article in the Huffington Post about how widespread in Norway deep anger about immigration may be. He mentions the work of Unni Wikan, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo.

• Central Park takeovers: First American Indians lost it, then African Americans
Central Park, in the heart of Manhattan, is likely one of the most valuable bits of real estate in the world. Before the arrival of Europeans, it was the home of American Indians. A brief historical interlude is coming to light about an African-American community that lived there until the creation of Central Park in the 1850s. The leaders of the Institute for the Exploration of Seneca Village History, a consortium of three professors from City College, Barnard College and New York University, won permission from the city to excavate in the park. About two-thirds of the residents of Seneca Village were African-American, while the rest were of European descent, mostly Irish.

• Discovery of very large serpent mound
What may be the world’s largest serpent mound has been discovered in Mariemount Ohio. Ruth Tankersley, wife of University of Cincinnati archaeology professor Ken Tankersley, first noted the unusual shape in a satellite image. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, she showed the photo to her husband saying “What in the world is this?” He responded, “It’s a snake.” Both Tankersleys have been involved in excavations in the area.

• War and “civilization”
Warfare, triggered by political conflict between the fifth century BCE and the first century CE, likely shaped the development of the first settlement that would classify as a civilization in the Titicaca basin of southern Peru. Charles Stanish, director of UCLA’s Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, and Abigail Levine, a UCLA graduate student in anthropology, used archaeological evidence from the basin to trace the evolution of two states in the region.

• DNA says Neanderthals and modern humans had sex
Many modern-day humans are likely carrying a fragment of Neanderthal DNA on one of their sex chromosomes, according to a new study that supports earlier publications stating that Neanderthals and humans interbred. The DNA fragment, found on the human X chromosome, is present in 9 percent of humans across the world from Asia to Europe to America, except in Africa, where it does not appear: “It’s in the Middle East, it’s in Europe, it’s in Eurasia, it’s in America, it’s in Australia,” said researcher Damian Labuda of the University of Montreal.

• Neanderthal demise
New research sheds light on why, after 300,000 years of domination in Eurasia, Neanderthals abruptly disappeared. Researchers from the University of Cambridge have discovered that modern humans coming from Africa swarmed the region, arriving with over ten times the population as the Neanderthal inhabitants. Findings are published in the journal Science by Professor Sir Paul Mellars, Professor Emeritus of Prehistory and Human Evolution, and Jennifer French, a second-year PhD student in the Department of Archaeology at Cambridge.

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When pink pajamas go public

By Sean Carey

One day last January, around 7:00 in the evening, I was coming out of Sainsbury’s in St. Albans (near a car wash described in a previous post), laden with bags of shopping. I saw a white woman in her mid-30s, getting out of her smart sports car at the supermarket’s filling station.

Why did I notice her? Despite the winter cold and gloom, she was wearing bright pink pajamas and color-matching furry slippers.

By coincidence, I recognized her as a receptionist at my local branch of HSBC, “the world’s local bank” as it says in the ads. But I had never seen her, or anyone wearing this sort of clothing in a public place before.

As a never-off-duty cultural anthropologist I was very keen to see how the cashiers in the filling station would react to the unusually attired customer. I decided that it was an opportune time to engage in some participant observation by driving my car to the forecourt and putting some fuel in the tank.

My timing was impeccable. I followed the pajama-clad HSBC employee into the filling station’s check out and stood behind her in the queue. When it was her turn to pay, the transaction went smoothly enough.

Despite their obvious curiosity, neither of the two cashiers seated behind the counter was bold enough to ask the woman why she was dressed the way she was. I did notice a twinkle of amusement, however, in the eyes of the female cashier when she caught the gaze of her male colleague. He smiled back at her. I found myself smiling as well.

At the time, I thought that going out in public while dressed in pink pajamas and furry slippers was idiosyncratic. I discovered a few weeks later that such attire is a fad in at least one other part of the U.K., where the country’s largest supermarket group, Tesco, decided that it would try and eliminate it before it became a long-term trend.

Despite the financial penalty to the company, Tesco refused to serve customers dressed in pajamas or walking barefoot in its store in St. Mellons in Cardiff, Wales. Signs placed at the entrance of the supermarket read:

To avoid causing offence or embarrassment to others we ask that our customers are appropriately dressed when visiting our store (footwear must be worn at all times and no nightwear is permitted).

“We’re not a nightclub with a strict dress code, and jeans and trainers are of course more than welcome,” a Tesco representative told reporters. “We do, however, request that customers do not shop in their PJs or nightgowns.”

Here is an anthropology connection, from more than half a century ago, to understanding pajamas-in-public.

“Ever since the middle of the 18th century, the scope and rigour of formality has been on the decline, modes of dress and of address have become increasingly casual, precedence and protocol increasingly irrelevant,” wrote British anthropologist Sir Edmund Leach in an essay for New Society in 1965. He was commenting on the deep social and cultural changes that had taken hold in most of Western Europe, the U.S., and “newly westernised” countries like Japan.
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22 July, 2011. Oslo

Guest post by Thomas Hylland Eriksen

It was only a matter of hours between the blast in central Oslo and my most extensive and exhausting engagement with international media since I started out as an anthropologist in the 1980s. Between Friday night and Wednesday, I spoke on radio, on television (via a mobile phone), to newspapers and magazines from China to Chile, and wrote articles for nearly a dozen publications in five countries.

My priorities shifted in a matter of hours. Our holiday house was turned into a makeshift media centre, and the computer was online almost 24/7.

Thomas Hylland Eriksen in Cuba, 2007. Courtesy of the author.

My engagement with the terrorist attack on Norway is easy to explain. First, although rightwing extremism is not my field of research, cultural diversity in Europe and Norway is, as well as nationalism and ethnicity. Second, I have first-hand experience of the new, Islamophobic kind of nationalism, having been on the receiving end of relatively unpleasant attacks from these quarters for several years.

Actually, I am the only contemporary intellectual mentioned by the terrorist in his writings and YouTube video – a symbol of everything that went wrong with Norway. I have asked YouTube to remove the video.

A few words about the articles: The earliest piece, for OpenDemocracy, was an initial attempt to make sense of the catastrophe and to begin reflecting on the consequences for Norwegian society. It overlaps substantially with articles in Sydsvenska Dagbladet and Information, which, respectively, cover southern Sweden including Lund and Malmö, and a smallish, but select left-leaning audience in Denmark. The title of these Scandinavian-published articles, “Men who hate social democrats,” plays on the Scandinavian title of the first novel in Stieg Larsson’s trilogy (Men Who Hate Women).
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Anthro in the news 7/25/11

• On extreme rightwing terrorism in Norway
Thomas Hylland Eriksen….published an essay in the Guardian in which he notes that rightwing extremists in Norway are not very visible and that it’s difficult to easily label various websites, blogs, and chat groups as “rightwing.” One thing the various loose networks and groups may have in common is resentment of the “defenders of diversity” who are seen as an “elite” who are “traitors.” Eriksen is professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo.

• Get back: to Chagos at last?
Cultural anthropologist Sean Carey published an article in the Mauritius Times that provides an update on the Chagos Islanders’ right of return.

• Nigeria improving women’s reproductive health
The Vanguard (Lagos) quotes Niyi Akinnaso, a lecturer in anthropology at Temple University, Philadelphia, on the three “delays” that predispose pregnant women and their infants to death. The World Bank is looking at Nigeria’s Abiye Project, in Ondo State, as a model for addressing the three delays, and more.

• Pride of Angola
Angola Press referenced Angolan cultural anthropologist Américo Kunonoca on the importance of the National Anthropology Museum in Luanda as a major scientific resource. It contains information on all ethnic groups in the country.

• Lo and behold: Wales claims oldest rock art in Britain
Faint scratching on the wall of a seaside cave in Wales, dated to 13,000 years ago, seem to depict a reindeer. Findings are reported by George Nash, visiting fellow in archaeology at Bristol University.

• Away from all that
Archaeologist Zahi Hawass, former Minister of Antiquities in Egypt, is quoted in the arts section of the New York Times, as saying: “I am retiring to focus on my own work, as a scholar and a writer, away from politics.”

• Read my very ancient footprints
Discovery News reports that the oldest known human ancestor footprints, dated to 3.7 million years ago, reveal that some of the earliest members of our family tree walked fully upright rather than partially upright. The findings are published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. If correct, this new interpretation pushes back the date for upright walking by nearly 2 million years.

• In memoriam
Georges Condominas, a French cultural anthropologist best known for his studies of the Mnong in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, died at the age of 90 years. Condominas was honored by the government of Vietnam in 2007 for his contributions. Born in the northern city of Hai Phong to a French father and Portuguese Vietnamese mother, Condominas spent many years living in the Mnong Gar people’s village in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak conducting ethnographic research. He also conducted studies in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Japan.

On the politics of exile

Guest post by Majid Razvi

If “monk-politician” strikes you as somewhat of a contradiction… well, you might be right. Meet Samdhong Rinpoche, Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. His title contains within it a sad reminder of the current plight of the Tibetans.

On July 14, the Culture in Global Affairs Research and Policy Program of the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University hosted Samdhong Rinpoche as a speaker in the CIGA Seminar Series.

Rinpoche began with an apology for his English skills, which proved to be better than many native speakers. He then declared that he was “not comfortable” with politics. (I am reminded of Plato’s hypothetical philosopher-kings, who would likely be not at all interested in the political position. Perhaps reluctance should be a prerequisite for public office!)

His lecture delved into the history of Tibet and its people. What struck me most, however, was Rinpoche’s constant reiteration of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s longstanding position: what is important is not political autonomy, but cultural and religious freedom.

“We are not concerned with who is ruling Tibet,” said Rinpoche, “but how they are ruling Tibet.”

During the Q&A session, a reporter asked how Samdhong Rinpoche felt about President Obama’s failure to meet with the Dalai Lama. With that blend of rigorous logic and holistic wisdom that so-perfectly characterizes Buddhism, Rinpoche pointed out that ascribing such a “failure” to the President before His Holiness had left the country was premature.

Two days later, at the White House:

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and President Barack Obama — His Holiness the Dalai Lama with President Barack Obama, July 16 2011. Flickr, Creative Commons

Majid Razvi received his B.A. in 2011 from Virginia Commonwealth University where he majored in Philosophy and Religious Studies. He has a strong interest in Tibetan epistemology, logic, and argumentation. He intends to pursue graduate study in philosophy.

Call for participants for upcoming anthropology conference

Conference Dates: October 14-16, 2011
American University, Washington DC

Submission deadline: September 16, 2011 5PM Eastern Time
Contact: AUPublicAnthro@gmail.com
Website: http://american.edu/cas/anthropology/public

(Re)Defining Power: Paradigms of Praxis

The Eighth Annual Public Anthropology Conference

Join us for a conference that examines and uncovers various systems of power. New paradigms of praxis must be about more than making power visible. Our challenge in this conference, then, is to both locate and redefine power. We invite academic and professional anthropologists, social scientists, activists, public health professionals, filmmakers and educators to join us in this inquiry into power. We welcome panels, papers, and skill workshops drawing upon some of the following frameworks for challenging power – critical race studies, interrogations of the nonprofit industrial complex, anti-displacement, critical animal studies, environmental justice, education reform and policy, disability studies, activism-based research, and performance and queer studies – but we invite papers of all types and from all social justice movements.

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Anthro in the news 7/18/11

UPDATE: Zahi Hawass has confirmed that he is losing his appointment as Egyptian Antiquities Minister in an ongoing cabinet shuffle.

• Whose lies are better?
Two weeks ago, cultural anthropologist Mike McGovern of Yale University published an op-ed in the New York Times about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case in which he argued for understanding of why the immigrant hotel maid would have lied on her asylum application. His position is that life in Guinea can be so difficult and dangerous that lying to get out can make sense, given the context. Now, Robert Fulford, professor of journalism at Massey College of the University of Toronto, claims that McGovern abuses the concept of cultural relativism and is building a culture of excuse-making. Blogger’s note: there appears to be the likelihood of lying on both sides of the case. Questions are: whose lies will be more damaging to the person’s credibility, and whose lies will be left to lie?

• Gillian Tett on the European financial situation
Cultural anthropologist Gillian Tett, an award-winning journalist at the Financial Times, where she is an assistant editor overseeing global financial markets coverage, appeared on the U.S. news television show, Morning Joe. She discussed the European financial situation and, particularly, Irish banking. And she actually managed to work in the word ‘anthropology’!

• Morocco’s Arab Spring
Paul Silverstein, cultural anthropology professor at Reed College, gave a radio interview about Morocco’s response to the Arab Spring movement. He also comments on Morocco’s new constitution that was overwhelmingly approved on July 1.

• Anthro of chess
Robert Desjarlais, a cultural anthropology professor at Sarah Lawrence College, has published a new book on chess, Counterplay: An Anthropologist at the Chess Board. The Boston Globe online included a piece on the book in its section on (guess what?) chess.
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Nodding syndrome: what next for South Sudan?

An article in Nature discusses high and rising rates of something referred to in English as “nodding syndrome” among several hundred children in South Sudan, northern Uganda and other neighboring regions.

A photo caption states that each village in South Sudan has an afflicted child. Nodding syndrome is found among children 5-15 years of age. Children with the affliction often have seizures. The cause is unknown.

children in South Sudan — Children in South Sudan. Flickr/sidelife

Call for papers

Hong Kong and Asian Cinema: Creativity and Culture in an Era of Globalization

This meeting of the Asian Cinema Studies Society welcomes paper, poster, workshop and panel proposals covering all aspects of Asian film and media. Although proposals related to the conference theme of Hong Kong and Asian cinema in the era of globalization may be given priority, proposals on all aspects of Asian film and media are welcome.

Please send proposals of 200-300 words as RTF or WORD attachments to Dr. Natalie Wong at siulamwong@gmail.com. For all proposals, be certain to include the title, author(s) name(s), institutional affiliation, mailing address, and email contacts, as well as a brief biography of each contributor. For panel, workshop, and group submissions, be certain to provide a brief description (100 words) of the contribution of each participant. Sessions will be 1 1/2 hours in duration, and time limits will be strictly enforced.

Deadline for proposals: December 31, 2011

See website for more details.

2011 Winners of UC Press/Public Anthropology Competition

The University of California Press in association with the Center for a Public Anthropology annually sponsors an international competition that awards a formal, publishing contract for the best book proposal submitted—independent of whether the author has completed (or even started) the proposed manuscript.

This year, there were 282 submissions. They were from every continent (except Antarctica) and a wide range of professions and disciplines. See the winning submissions.

The California Series in Public Anthropology draws professional scholars from a wide range of disciplines to address major public issues. To reinforce this effort, the University of California Press in association with the Center for a Public Anthropology sponsors an international competition that awards a prize of $5,000 plus a formal, publishing contract for the best book proposal submitted.

The deadline for the 2012 competition is March 1, 2012.