What Day is It? Depends on whose Calendar You Consult

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Just when you think you know what day it is, along comes this research on the ancient Mayan calendar.

By fifth grade, most schoolchildren know that a week contains seven days, a month contains either 30 or 31 days (or 28 days, in those strange “leap years”), and a year contains 12 months and 365 days.

That seems self-evident, right?

Not so fast.

The quasi- (increasingly) hegemonic calendar long common across the global North and, now, parts of the global South has long had competitors—including the ancient Mayan calendar, which features an 819-day cycle.

What might have motivated Mayan scholars to orient a calendar around 819 days?

New research by anthropologists John Linden and Victoria Bricker from Tulane University suggests intriguing explanations. Ancient Mayans were astute astronomers and mathematicians and, according to Linden and Bricker, calculated human calendrical systems based on cyclical orbits of Mercury, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Saturn. The article linked here offers more detailed calculations that, to my non-mathematical eye, sure seem convincing.

When I lived among the Beng in Côte d’Ivoire, I became used to their indigenous temporal system, based on a six-day week. But the Beng also acknowledged the seven-day week of their neighbors, and they easily interdigitated the two systems: every 42 days, a sacred day required special rituals acknowledging the intersection of the two calendars.

In other words, the Beng don’t dismiss alternate calendars as mutually incompatible. Maybe they are better anthropologists than those in the global North who might easily deride the Mayan calendar as quaint but anachronistic.

Calendars, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Relativity, Culture, Maya, Time Read more

Science and “Alternative” Science; or, some Quick Meditations on the Virtues of a Feedback Loop

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Many non-Western epistemologies and healing systems have long posited close ties between mind, body, and emotion. Or, rather, these outlooks have categorized as a single feedback loop what Western world views, including biomedical science, have long categorized as three distinct zones of experience (not to mention, many sub-zones). Why else would modern science have developed separate specialties for professionals tackling issues with specific body parts, and other professionals tackling “behavioral” challenges, as if body and behavior inhabited different worlds?

Now, “modern” science is discovering what many across the global South have long known: that mind, body, and emotion indeed constitute a single, linked system. A new research study by scientists at Washington University in St. Louis shows “a literal linkage of body and mind in the very structure of the brain.”

With this new research, perhaps those health practices relegated by medical insurance companies to the dismissive category of “alternative” will begin to find their place in what mainstream medical professionals accept as legitimate. Imagine a world in which health insurance plans covered yoga classes, meditation circles, and foot massages—all well-traveled practices in reducing “stress.”

It warms my heart when scientists challenge themselves to rethink basic world views, after strange data unexpectedly show up that don’t support their assumptions.

Say what we will about the blind spots of science—and, yes, there are many. But, at its best, the scientific method organizes itself around its own feedback loop. As such, it contains within it the capacity to exceed itself.

It turns out that the model of feedback loop that underlies the work of many health practitioners across the global South likewise underlies the very scientific method that long disputed the relevance of the feedback loop as a model for human health.

Which means, the premise behind “alternative” medicine underlies the premise behind the scientific method.

Which means, we’re all in this boat together. Either we’re all “alternative” or none of us is. And, the logical conclusion must be: none of us is, because all of us can’t be.

Hidden Linkages: Scientists Find Mind-Body Connection Is Built Into Brain
Health care, medical anthropology, Medical issues, Science Read more

Gun Safety is a Philosophical Issue

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YES to far more sensible gun-purchase background checks and restrictions.

YES to more comprehensive mental health treatment options.

Credit: pikisuperstar via www.freepik.com

It’s not EITHER-OR.

I don’t know how we’ve gotten to the point that one of these strategies is assumed to exclude the other. (By “we,” I’m referring to the U.S. More on that later.)

On second thought, maybe I do know. Let’s take it from the top.

This is an issue of binary thinking gone amok.

Does that seem too abstract? Stay with me.

The U.S. is rooted in a binary political system. Two major parties suck the air out of the room. Every once in a while, someone floats a wan attempt at a third party. But it quickly deflates. Occasionally, third parties have made a difference — think, the Green Party, which, statistically speaking, deprived both Al Gore and Hillary Clinton of presidential victories. Yet, no third party has risen to become a major component of our political system.

Then, too, we’ve got a stubborn attachment to a binary gender system. The first question most expectant American parents ask when they have a chance — whether from the technician reading the first sonogram, or from the OB/GYN in the delivery room — is typically not “Does the baby look healthy?” but “Is it a boy or a girl?”

The trendy “reveal parties” that have become so popular in recent years are so obviously about the revelation of gender of a baby still in utero that the invitations don’t even need to indicate that “gender” is what is being “revealed.”

And the creative methods that expectant parents have concocted to reveal this “essential” fact become ever more clever versions of culturally conventional color symbolism: pink- or blue-colored something-or-other, from over-the-top balloon extravaganzas to piñata-exploded confetti.

Popping this piñata produces a shower of either pink or blue confetti

The increasingly disturbing and violent backlash against, first, gay identities and, more recently, transsexual identities signals the intense commitment to binary gender categories that marks mainstream U.S. society today.

The propensity toward binary thinking takes on more intangible directions, too. Our movies regularly promote binary thinking when it comes to morality. As all the “super-hero” movies so easily and dramatically proclaim, it’s easy to tell apart the “good guy” from the “bad guy.” On the rare occasions when the two ethical positions overlap, or their identity becomes confusing — as when Darth Vader turns out to be Luke Skywalker’s father — such complicated personae remain emotionally powerful precisely because their ambiguity is so culturally unexpected.

Instagram post by Apartment3k.com, Dec. 28, 2015

Contemporary artists get this. They easily work in the “between” zone, leaving viewers to sort through the ambiguities of what they may or may not be seeing. This self-portrait by Portuguese painter, Paula Rego, unsettles precisely because she paints herself in a stereotypical male posture, while obviously female — no doubt, as Cath Pound asserts, to assert her right to enter the mostly male art canon.

Paula Rego, The Artist in Her Studio, 1993. Courtesy of Leeds City Art Gallery and Kunstmuseum Den Haag.

All of which brings us back to that vexing issue of gun violence in the U.S., and how to reduce it. The gender ambiguity in which Paula Rego revels may suggest a philosophical path forward beyond the binary thinking that has conceptually imprisoned us.

No, reducing gun violence doesn’t mean blaming only either individuals with mental illness or their families or lax gun ownership laws or troubling cultural values.

In other words: No, one level of responsibility doesn’t negate another level of responsibility.

And, so: No, we don’t need to choose between sensible gun-purchase background checks/restrictions on the one hand, and more comprehensive mental health treatment options on the other hand.

Surely, if social science has taught us anything, it’s that complex social problems have multiple social foundations.

Meaning, complex social problems require multiple social solutions.

Does that sound too challenging?

Let’s remember: We are a clever species. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Binary thinking — it’s this OR that, but surely not this AND that — has gotten us into too many messes.

For a change, let’s imagine that politics doesn’t always have to be a zero-sum game, with one side the winner and the other, the loser.

The Democrats are right that outrageously lax gun ownership laws make it far, far too easy for Americans to legally play with, buy, and own guns.

A child aims a gun, at the 2013
National Rifle Association Annual Meeting in Houston, Texas.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

As of 2017, the U.S. has, by far, the highest rate of gun ownership on the planet: 120 guns per 100 people. We are followed, only very distantly, by the Falkland Islands and Yemen, which have 62 and 53 guns per 100 people, respectively.

By contrast, Japan has 0.3 guns owned per 100 people. Why? It’s way, way harder for a private citizen to buy a gun in Japan.

As noted in the World Population Review, “For Japanese citizens to purchase a gun, they must attend an all-day class, pass a written exam, and complete a shooting range test, scoring at least 95% accuracy. Candidates will also receive a mental health evaluation, performed at a hospital, and will have a comprehensive background check done by the government. Only shotguns and rifles can be purchased. The class and exam must be retaken every three years.”

Is it a coincidence that Japan also has one of the world’s lowest rates of gun deaths, at 0.2 per 100,000 people?

By contrast, the rate of gun deaths in the U.S. — at nearly 14 deaths per 100,000 people — is higher than that of such violent places as Iraq, Eritrea, and the Philippines.

Surely the stark comparison between the U.S. (with the world’s laxest gun ownership laws and one of the world’s highest gun death rates) and Japan (with the world’s strictest gun ownership laws and one of the world’s lowest gun death rates) ought to give pause.

Still, all these stark statistics don’t mean that drastically regulating gun ownership will solve all problems of interpersonal violence in the U.S.

The Republicans are also right that there’s a mental health crisis, and it’s time to fund mental health far, far more comprehensively, and proactively.

Well, ironically, Republicans may not actually believe this line that they like to tout. As attorney Tristan Snell observed on Twitter recently, almost no Republicans actually vote to fund mental health initiatives:

But that’s the subject for another blog post.

For now, let’s take Republicans at their (un-trustworthy) word and imagine we can transcend the binary thinking implicit in assuming that either the Republicans or Democrats are right on this issue, but not both.

If this past year’s horrendous gun death statistics are any prediction, a lot of lives depend on it.

Binary thinking, Gun control, Philosophical anthropology Read more

What Do Hair Salons Have to Do with Prayer, Magic, and the Development of Literacy?

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It turns out, the first complete sentence ever written by a human (at least, as of what we know now) concerned hair.

New archaeological evidence — discovered in Israel in 2016 and analyzed recently — confirms that “the oldest instance of a sentence written using the alphabet is on an inscription on an ancient ivory comb” — and it highlighted head lice.

Some 3,700 years ago, a wealthy man in Tel Lachish, an ancient Canaanite city in the foothills of central Israel, wrote seven words in the Phoenician (or Canaanite) alphabet that can be translated roughly as: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and beard.”

The ancient author was not being paranoid: “A tooth of the comb was actually discovered to possess the tough outer shell of a head louse.” 

From analyzing technical components of the writing, the brilliant archaeologists who discovered this amazing find (Daniel Vainstub et al.) believe that the comb was produced not long after the earliest forms of the Phoenician alphabet was created. Given that the Phoenician alphabet eventually served as the foundation of what became the Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and Cyrillic alphabets, dare we speculate that modern Western writing systems have their origins in efforts to control the natural world via supernatural means?

Another interesting point suggested by this find: The author inscribed his wish on ivory from an elephant’s tusk that would likely have come from Egypt. This provenance suggests that the comb’s owner was wealthy enough to buy a luxury item imported from a distance.

Four contemporary implications I take away from this fascinating research:

  • then as now, attention to hair responds to an elemental human need
  • then as now, income inequality allowed a minority of elites to gain access to rarities inaccessible to most
  • then as now, riches didn’t inure humans from pest-based afflictions
  • then as now, prayer — as a particular, verbal form of magic — was a tempting solution to all sorts of life’s troubles, including itchy head bugs.

I was never very good at archaeology (don’t ask), but I love learning what intrepid archaeologists uncover.

Curious about how the scholars managed to decode the faintly visible scrawls? Read the details of their impressive methods here.

Ancient Israel, Archaeology, Hair, Literacy, Magic, Prayer Read more

Why “The Great Replacement Theory” is not a Theory, and why that Matters

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The notion of a “theory” comes from science. As such, the term conveys all the legitimacy upon which the scientific method relies. It should not be tossed around casually like a frisbee in the park.

The so-called “Great Replacement Theory” we are now reading about in mainstream publications is not a theory. Therefore, it should not be called a theory. And it should not be graced with capital letters. Both these practices suggest unearned legitimacy. And, unearned legitimacy carries great risk.

We now know that repeatedly making false claims will train people to slowly accept those false claims. Recent research by a team of psychologists and cognitive scientists warns us that we humans tend to increase our belief in any claims—true or false, reasonable or unreasonable, likely or unlikely—the more often we hear or read about them. So, as we repeatedly encounter something being called a “theory,” we become more easily inclined to agree that it IS a theory. Once that happens, it moves into the realm of science. As such, we begin to attribute it truth status.

What does it mean that a “theory” is grounded in the scientific method? Here’s one statement from Scientific American:

A scientific theory is an explanation of some aspect of the natural world that has been substantiated through repeated experiments or testing.

The American Museum of Natural History expands on this basic principle:

A theory not only explains known facts; it also allows scientists to make predictions of what they should observe if a theory is true. Scientific theories are testable. New evidence should be compatible with a theory. If it isn’t, the theory is refined or rejected. The longer the central elements of a theory hold—the more observations it predicts, the more tests it passes, the more facts it explains—the stronger the theory.

What is now being called the “great replacement theory” has nothing of the attributes of a theory. It has not been “substantiated through repeated experiments.” It has not been “substantiated through testing.” It does not “explain known facts.” It is not “compatible with new evidence.”

Jews are not “replacing” Christians. (As one Jewish studies scholar notes, “America’s Jewish birthrate has fallen, and Jews are barely replacing themselves, let alone the white population as a whole“). Nor are people of color “replacing” white people. True, the demographic profile of the U.S. is changing. But that is nothing new. In fact, it has always been the case. Since the founding of the Republic, new groups of refugees (starting with the Pilgrims), followed by newer groups of immigrants, have continually brought new languages, new musics, new cultural practices, new cuisines, and new religious traditions to these shores. Given this history that undergirds all American history, it should not surprise us that, as one recent study notes, most Americans do not care about the “changing” demographic profile of the American population. “Change” is the one constant of U.S. demographic history.

But some white Christians are afraid of such scenarios. Their fears are stoked by right-wing talk-show hosts promoting outlandish fantasies of racist and anti-Semitic “what-if” schemes. As they have been at other times in the past, these schemes are now being interbraided, with the fate of Western history’s two great “othered” groups—Jews and Blacks—being once again bound by linked stereotypes.

With fear a powerful motivator, these invented “replacement” plots slip easily into the vaunted category of “fact,” once they are covered with the veneer of science . . . simply by being called a “theory.”

Or, should I write, “Theory”?

Adding a capital letter to a word claiming to be something it is not makes matters worse. As one professional author/editor explains it, some people erroneously think that “sticking a capital letter at the front of a word would make it seem more grand, more important, more worthy of respect.” But, as another professional editor notes, this practice is nothing more than “rogue capitalization.” 

YOUR Words Matter

All of which is to urge:

Journalists and politicians: please stop mindlessly repeating the offensive, misleading, and dangerous phrase, “Great Replacement Theory”!

When referring to this notion—which has inspired all too many recent massacres, from El Paso to Buffalo—don’t be afraid to use more words, if more words are required for accuracy. Call it out for what it is. How about . . .

the dangerous claim known as “great replacement theory” that is rooted in racist and anti-Semitic paranoia.

Update Nov. 2022: I’ve just learned of a new M.A. thesis by Cheryl Hege about “white replacement theory” completed from the perspective of political science. It looks quite promising. If you have an account with ResearchGate, you can find it at no charge online here.

Anti-racist activism, Anti-Semitism, Journalism, Journalists, Language and culture, Language politics, Pundits, Racism, Writing Read more

A Strange Past Returns Strangely

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The last time I heard anyone utter the name, Przemysl, I must have been ten or eleven years old. In his thickly Yiddishized English, my maternal grandfather must have been telling me something about his early life. And I must have been listening more intently than I realized.

I don’t recall exactly what he was recounting. Maybe it was something about his parents requiring him to drop out of school after third grade so he could spend his days on the streets with a pushcart, selling stuff and more stuff to contribute to his family’s meager household income. Maybe it was something about his decision in 1911 to leave that unpromising life of poverty and anti-Semitism and somehow, at age 19 or 20, make his way to Hamburg and, thence, board a ship (as a stowaway, as I found out decades later — maybe, like many other young Jewish men around him, creatively escaping conscription into the Austro-Hungarian army?) that was bound for New York.

What I did recall was that strange-sounding name. Przemysl. Only decades later would I find out how to spell it.

I had to hire a professional genealogist friend to find out where my grandfather was born. (Thank you, Joy Kestenbaum!) It turns out, it wasn’t in Przemysl but a town some 50 miles to the east, with another odd-sounding name I’d also heard during my childhood. I remembered it as Zeluzutz; my brilliant genealogist friend identified it as Zaliztsi.

There had also been talk of another town that I remembered sounding something like Tarnopol. My memory wasn’t too far off on that one. Joy identified it as Ternopil.

And another city that I remembered as sounding like Lavuv — in, I now know, its Russian pronunciation. That turned out to be Lviv — as the Ukrainians call it.

Throughout my childhood, all these hard-to-pronounce toponyms belonged to another era. I wasn’t sure how they fit together, or to which countries they belonged — sometimes my grandfather said Poland, sometimes Austria (by which, I later figured out, he meant the Austro-Hungarian empire)— or which one my grandfather had called home. But I knew he had some relationship to all these distance spaces.

A week or two into my senior year in high school, I mentioned to my grandfather that I’d just started taking a beginning course in the Russian language. Immediately, my grandfather switched to speaking in Russian. Where did that come from? I wondered. All he said, in a faraway voice, was that he’d picked up some Russian along the way.

“But I thought you were from Poland,” I vaguely protested.

“The border was always changing,” he mumbled. “Sometimes Poland. Sometimes Russia. Sometimes Austria.” Then he must have changed the subject. Or gone silent. All I remember is no explanation.

It would be some years before I read enough history to understand the painful complexities of that perplexing statement.

Along the way, I discovered more languages that my grandfather could at least get by in. There was Yiddish, of course — his first language. And Hebrew, from all his time in the synagogue. (As an adult, there was one across the street from his apartment building in the Bronx.) Was Polish his third language, and Russian, his fourth? Or was it the other way around? He knew some German, too, I discovered later. Either way, he would have picked up English as his sixth language, from his long-ago, emergency needs as a new immigrant. Unless he spoke some Ukrainian, as well. (Did he? Now, I imagine it quite likely.) In that case, English would have been #7.

All those early tongues must have forged plenty of neuronal pathways that demanded more traffic. During the 50 years that he worked as a waiter in various Jewish delis in New York’s Lower East Side, my grandfather spent his lunch breaks scouring the trash cans along the Bowery, looking for books. The French and Spanish grammar texts he found lodged between discarded newspapers and half-eaten sandwiches served as sources for his independent study of yet two more languages. Later, my husband-to-be borrowed that beat-up Spanish primer as he crammed for the foreign language exam he would soon take, to complete his graduate program in creative writing.

My grandfather was that strange mix of working-class cosmopolitan with untapped skills. An elementary school dropout who could have excelled in a university. A polyglot who could have become a linguist. A tinkerer who could have become an engineer. A mandolin player who could have become a musician. A refugee who could have become embittered. He became none of those things.

Instead, my ever-calm grandfather (I never once heard him raise his voice or even scowl) enjoyed his one cigar a day. Beyond that indulgence, he led a frugal but fulfilled life. He and my grandmother raised my mother and my aunt in a one-bedroom, rent-controlled, third-floor-walk-up apartment that they rented for 50 years. Their frugality helped fund my expensive college education.

It was to these thoughts that I turned when I heard Przemysl featuring in a news broadcast this week. Of the 700,000-and-counting Ukrainians fleeing a land suddenly turned treacherous, most, the journalist claimed, were crossing the border into Poland. Indeed, most were massing at Lviv, the western-most city on the Ukraine-Polish border, waiting to cross — from towns such as Ternopil — into Przemysl, the Polish city on the other side of that border.

Przemysl? Really?

Przemysl, Poland. 27th Feb. 2022. After crossing the border from Shehyni in Ukraine to Medyka in Poland, refugees seek clothing and blankets provided by Polish volunteers from police officers.
Many Ukrainians leave the country after military actions by Russia on Ukrainian territory.
Credit: Michael Kappeler/dpa/Alamy Live News

Was it from there that my grandfather continued trekking for another 221 hours (with stops along the way) the 1,085 additional kilometers to Hamburg, maybe hitching a ride or two from a farmer in an oxcart before he reached Berlin? And, lacking both a GPS and money, how did he find his way from there to Hamburg?

These trajectories of early 20th century challenges seemed to belong to an alien era until last week, when Vladimir Putin decided brutally to revive them.

New histories of suffering are now being forged, creating new generations of refugees, Jewish and otherwise. A world away from my comfortable American life, those emergency refugees feel like unexpectedly kindred spirits as I imagine my grandfather in the spaces that fleeing Ukrainians are now negotiating with increasing desperation.

Yes, if we are lucky, we make our lives anew. That, after all, has been the promise of America for thousands of immigrants to these shores. But even as we claim to forge selves from our own goals and grit, the ghosts of our ancestors hover around us, remind us of their histories, and both haunt and heal us, one traumatic story at a time.

Ancestors, Anti-Semitism, Citizenship, Current Issues, History, Humanistic anthropology, Immigration, Linguistic Anthropology, Memoir, Refugees, Russia, Self, Ukraine Read more

Ten Treasures (and a Bonus): A Selection of Anthropological Gems You Might Have Missed from the Past Few Years

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I began interviewing authors of fabulous new anthropology books for this space back in 2016. While completing 11 interviews, I also amassed a backlog of more terrific books whose authors I planned to interview. One thing led to another, and my embarrassingly accumulating backlog fell hostage to a pandemic. I’ve finally harnessed my guilt and bundled these beauties into a group. No author interviews this time (who has time for that in a pandemic?), but below, you’ll find capsule descriptions of why I love every entry in this archive.

To be sure, my selection is idiosyncratic. I don’t claim that these books are the only works in anthropology worth reading that were published in the past few years. Yet, individually, each of these books grabbed my attention because of its brilliant analysis of some topic(s) I judge to have critical importance to the world. Plus, the writing in all these books is oh-so-readable. Collectively, they remind us: Anthropology is not only alive and well, the discipline continues to offers unique insights into vexing issues in ways that only long-term immersion can produce.

Acknowledgments: In curating this collection, I’m inspired by Philip Graham‘s “Some Books You May Have Missed” posts for the literary/arts magazine, Ninth Letter, for which he serves as Editor-at-Large. (You can read his latest literary rundown of great new fiction and creative non-fiction here.)

So, here goes.

*

C. Richard King, Redskins: Insult and Brand (University of Nebraska Press)

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, one of the many critical lessons that at least some of white America has learned is this: Representation matters. In that sense, Richard King‘s brilliant book provided an overdue argument that at least one sports team has finally heard. In 2020, the Washington Redskins at last acknowledged the racist foundation to their team’s name, which they changed (temporarily) to the Washington Football Team (with a new name soon to be announced here). The placeholder name may be boring— but boring is better than offensive. For its part, King’s scholarly exercise in a theoretically and historically informed argument can now be considered a paragon of engaged, critical anthropology. A review in the Chicago Tribune called this a “must-read book.”

Publisher’s webpage here.

*

Amy Starecheski, Ours to Lose: When Squatters Became Homeowners in New York City (University of Chicago Press)

Over the past two pandemic years, real estate stories have dominated the news, from personal tragedies (eviction stories following job loss) to personal triumphs (the privileged few scooping up “deals” outside major metropolitan areas). Lurking behind those individual tales chronicling the human joys and costs of gentrification lies a broader story of economic trends (falling prices in some markets, skyrocketing prices in others). In that sense, this book by anthropologist/oral historian Amy Starecheski remains more timely than ever. A beautifully crafted narrative balances individual tales of urban squatters’ experiences across three decades of New York City’s increasingly unaffordable housing market with “big-picture” trends of macroeconomic, political, and legal developments in New York and beyond. This book contains so many lessons about where and how to make a livable space for “home.” A “recommended” book by Choice.

Publisher’s webpage here.

*

Rosa De Jorio, Cultural Heritage in Mali in the Neoliberal Era (University of Illinois Press)

Rosa De Jorio‘s early research in West Africa concerned women’s political participation in Mali.  In this book, De Jorio focuses on the same country but has switched gears to focus on cultural heritage.  Political scientists rarely pay attention to artistic and cultural performances, while art historians rarely focus on political structures.  In a broad sense, this book might be characterized as an engagement of political perspectives with humanistic spaces.  As such, I take this work—based on careful field research in urban Mali over the course of 16 years—as a model for how scholars working elsewhere might unpack the questions De Jorio asks here surrounding the politics of culture and the culture of politics. Jean-Loup Amselle calls this book “in the tradition of Michel Foucault’s work.” The title appeared in the Interpretations of Culture in the New Millenium series (now closed), edited by Norman E. Whitten, Jr.

Publisher’s webpage here.

*


Jane C. Desmond, Human-Animal Relations in Art, Science, and Everyday Life (University of Chicago Press)

Some years ago, I made a case for an anthropology of infancy.  In this book, Jane Desmond makes something of a similar case for an anthropology of animals.  In both arenas, subjects communicate with us in ways that we adults/humans understand only partially, and with difficulty—as if through a scrim.  Of course, the same can be said for all communication among human adults . . . but the barriers appear more extreme and daunting with both human infants and non-human animals.  In a provocative set of thematically linked essays (think: pet cemeteries, taxidermy, roadkill), Desmond makes a persuasive case for developing a robust ethnography of non-human animals and, perhaps more broadly for an inter-species ethnography.  An NPR review called it “an important and moving book.” The title appears in the terrific new Animal Lives series at Chicago edited by Desmond.

Publisher’s webpage here.

*

Jennifer Cole and Christian Groes (eds.), Affective Circuits: African Migrations to Europe and the Pursuit of Social Regeneration (University of Chicago Press)

If the predominant narrative of Covid-19 emphasized immobility, that memo didn’t reach African migrants. Over the past two years, refugees fleeing Africa’s multiple postcolonial catastrophes have continued to seek more hospitable living spaces. This rich collection co-edited by Jennifer Cole and Christian Groes thus speaks to continuing hemispheric challenges, even as it centers personal experience. Moving discussions humanize the dehumanizing images, statistics, and political directives that dominate so much discussion of African migrants in Europe. Eleven case studies range from intimate topics such as child fostering, bi-national marriages, and coming-of-age rituals to explorations of the ways that government actors, laws, and policies shape migrants’ lives.  As such, this volume serves as a welcome, “bottom-up” corrective to the “top-down” trope of “migrant crisis” that too often frames both government policies and journalists’ stories coming out of the EU. The book won the Most Notable Recent Collection Award from the Council on Anthropology and Reproduction.

Publisher’s webpage here.

*

Andrew Bank, Pioneers of the Field: South Africa’s Women Anthropologists (Cambridge University Press)

The notion of a “scholarly canon” is a bit of an oxymoron. Do what passed as the great works in any given field in the past still deserve pride of place today? By contrast, in re-reading “the classics” year after year, what hidden treasures might we have overlooked because of unconscious biases surrounding what “counts” as quality scholarship . . . and who “counts” as serious scholars? The brilliant scholars who have become so demonized by the U.S. right of late in promoting critical race theory prompt us to recognize the importance of regularly revisiting “the canon,” to rethink our understanding of history with new eyes and new questions. In Pioneers of the Field, historian of science Andrew Bank has done our discipline a great favor by reminding us of six brilliant women scholars of the early/mid-20th century whose work had a major impact both within and beyond South Africa. If you’re an Africanist up on your early British social anthropology, you might at least have heard of Audrey Richards, Monica Wilson, and Hilda Kuper, but if Winifred Hoernlé, Ellen Hellman, and Eileen Krige weren’t even on your radar, they will be now. Elizabeth Colson called this volume a “major contribution to intellectual history.” No History of Anthropology course should neglect this correct-the-record book.

Publisher’s webpage here.

*

Ana Mariella Bacigalupo, Thunder Shaman: Making History with Mapuche Spirits in Chile and Patagonia (University of Texas Press)

There’s a good reason this marvelous book received Honorable Mention for the 2017 PROSE Award for Anthropology offered by the Association of American Publishers. Ana Mariella Bacigalupo challenges stereotypical images of shamans as either extinct or anachronistic religious practitioners long left behind by history. Based on extraordinary research that Bacigalupo conducted from 1991 to 2015, the book serves, at once, as a biography of a single Mapuche shaman who accepted the author into her life in a deep, cross-cultural friendship; and an argument for a reëxamination of how we define what counts as “religion” in the modern world.

Publisher’s webpage here.

*

Naomi Leite, Unorthodox Kin: Portuguese Marranos and the Global Search for Belonging (University of California Press)

When I lived in Lisbon in 2006-07, I found myself shocked and appalled at the extent to which the nation’s long, rich, and traumatic Jewish history had been rendered virtually invisible. In this riveting book, anthropologist Naomi Leite profiles a small group of Portuguese who are actively reclaiming their ancestral Jewish ancestry hidden from them, and from the nation, for centuries. With its beautiful narrative writing allied with a thoughtful analytic engagement linking hyper-local spaces in Lisbon with hyper-global spaces of international Jewish tourists, it’s easy to see why the book won two awards and was a finalist/honorable mention for two more:

Publisher’s webpage here.

*

Timothy R. Landry, Vodún: Secrecy and the Search for Divine Power (University of Pennsylvania Press)

This intriguing work offers another fascinating look at international religious tourism. In this case, Western tourists travel from the U.S. and Europe to Bénin, homeland of the famed religion of Vodún (a.k.a. “voodoo”), in search of a West African spirituality. Becoming apprenticed to a Vodún priest, Timothy Landry offers, at once, an outsider’s and insider’s look at Vodún practice from the intertwined perspectives of practitioner, acolyte, seeker, and casual tourist. Along the way, he engages with issues ranging from the challenges inherent in representation of a stigmatized religious tradition to the ethical quandaries inevitably brought on by participant-observation. The book won the Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion from the Society for the Anthropology of Religion. It appears in the Contemporary Ethnography series that I edit for Penn Press.

Publisher’s webpage here.

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Michelle Johnson, Remaking Islam in African Portugal: Lisbon—Mecca—Bissau (Indiana University Press)

Grounded in rich fieldwork in both Guinea-Bissau and Portugal conducted across 20 years, this book is an ethnographer’s dream. Oozing with gorgeous ethnographic details, the book at the same time tackles all the issues one could hope to think about concerning West African Muslims’ lives in Europe. Challenges of racism. Challenges of Islamophobia. Challenges by mainstream Muslims of heterodox practices. All these big-picture issues frame the stories Michelle Johnson exquisitely tells. Those stories center stunning discussions of life-cycle and other rituals—including a never-before-described practice of “writing on the hand” to initiate young students into learning the Qu’ran. Along the way, Johnson explores how immigrant African women and men rethink and adapt rural practices of female genital cutting, pilgrimages to Mecca, and funerals to urban neighborhoods in a European capital. Paul Stoller predicts: “Given the depth of its analytical insights and the grace of its presentation, this is a work that will be read, savored, and debated for many years to come.” This fabulous book appears in Indiana’s Framing the Global series.

Publisher’s webpage here.

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Cati Coe, Changes in Care: Aging, Migration, and Social Class in West Africa (Rutgers University Press)

Hot off the press, this new ethnography, like Johnson’s, sings with all that contemporary anthropology can offer. Over the course of 20+ years, Cati Coe has lived and conducted research for long periods both in Ghana, and in the U.S. with Ghanaian migrants. The result is just the sort of rich ethnography that centers global flows, while also remaining deeply grounded in knowledge of intimate practices of the local. A short film accompanies the book, available online here. The book appears in Rutgers’ wonderful Global Perspectives on Aging series, edited by Sarah Lamb.

Publisher’s webpage here.

Academia, Africa, Africanist scholarship, Animal rights, Anthropology, Anthropology of religion, Benin, Book reviews, Books, Caretaking, Citizenship, Community, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural values, Culture, Current Issues, Economic anthropology, Ethnographic writing, Ethnography, Europe, Feminism, Ghana, History of Anthropology, Homeless, Immigration, Islamophobia, Judaism, Linguistic Anthropology, Lisbon, Mali, Mapuche, Migration, Naming, New York City, Othering, Portugal, Public anthropology, Public policy, Racism, Shamanism, Sports teams, Vodun, West Africa Read more

It’s Not “Just” a Symbol

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“Tails” side of the new U.S.
quarter featuring Maya Angelou

The new Maya Angelou quarter is a symbol, yes.

But not “just” a symbol.

Because, symbols matter.

If they didn’t, they would just be like other, ordinary stuff.

If symbols didn’t matter, we wouldn’t fight over them. As in, people burning or otherwise desecrating flags when they’re mad at their government, and other people fuming at the sight or even thought of such actions.

If symbols didn’t matter, we wouldn’t protest when the wrong symbol appears in the wrong place for the wrong reason—say, a statue of a Confederate leader in a public square, visually celebrating the institution of slavery. As in: Why is there STILL a statue of Jefferson Davis in the “Statuary Hall” section of the U.S. Capitol?

A statue of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, left, in Statuary Hall at the Capitol in Washington.
(Credit:Doug Mills/The New York Times; original here)

If symbols didn’t matter, we wouldn’t proclaim the need for the right symbol that never appears when it should—say, an image of a Black woman on a piece of currency.

As in: The new quarter featuring legendary poet and activist Maya Angelou on the back of the quarter that bears George Washington’s image on the front.

There are two notable components of this new quarter.

First, on the “heads” side, we see George Washington. Founders of nations are a big deal. No matter who they are, they carry their own symbolic weight. Anything occurring with them borrows some of their power. The semiotician would point out: It’s a metonymic transfer, its own type of magic. Sound too theoretical? Here’s a more down-to-earth way of making the same point. Anything, or anyone, appearing on the flip side of George Washington announces: I am worthy of sharing space with this venerable ancestor . . . and becomes even more important, the minute the space is shared.

There’s also the irony that the nation’s founder was, himself, a slave owner. In the double image on the new quarter, the author of I Know Why a Caged Bird Sings could also be said to be rebuking our collective father for his moral failures.

Second, Maya Angelou isn’t just appearing on a coffee cup, a shoelace, or a fencepost. She’s appearing on money. For a capitalist system, that’s also a big deal.

Money is, literally, the object that signifies value par excellence in a capitalist system. Since money serves as the symbolic foundation of any capitalist economy, whatever images gets stamped on its “legal tender” is chosen very, very carefully.

If mostly the faces of men, or of White people, show up on coins, that makes statements about who we value. And, those statements are seen every day by Americans. According to the U.S. Treasury, a given coin will circulate for a good thirty years or longer. Quite a lot of people will see and hold it. That’s another reason that who shows up on coins is subject to a lot of thought.

Announced this month, a new American Women Quarters Program will feature a series of notable (but under-appreciated) American women on the “tails” side, beginning with Maya Angelou.

The series is the brainchild of a bipartisan group of four female members of Congress, who co-introduced the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020, to solicit public input into new US coin designs.

Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen certainly seems to have taken this new series seriously. A no-nonsense economist who has taught at Harvard, LSE, and UC-Berkeley, Yellen “often speaks in a monotone voice about Fed policy.” Yet, clearly, even this financial wiz understands the powerful symbolism embedded in the system over which she currently has dominion. Secretary Yellen positively waxed poetic when introducing the new American Women Quarters Program: 

“Each time we redesign our currency, we have the chance to say something about our country—what we value, and how we’ve progressed as a society.”

Janet Yellen, Secretary of the U.S. Treasury

All of which is to say: Maya Angelou showing up with George Washington on quarters is reason to celebrate!

For more, read the NPR piece about the new coin here. Read what Michelle Obama has to say about it here. See a preview of images from the entire new series of five American Women Quarters here.

Economic anthropology, Feminism, Gender equity, Inequality, Money, Politics of representation, Public anthropology, Racism, Social justice, Symbols, U.S. Congress, Women's activism, Women's issues Read more

What Should Teachers Teach?

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Source here.

Educators are wringing their hands these days about how much students have “fallen behind” the past year.  News story after news story laments a year of “lost learning.” 

Source here.

Those premature dirges assume a very narrow definition of “learning.”

Students everywhere have learned a great deal the past year. But what they’ve learned is far from the classic facts that they get tested on in English and algebra classes.

If math and reading scores are down, knowledge about the world is up.  Way up.

This past year, K-12 students have learned about viruses and epidemiology, racism and social justice, shortages and supply chains, loneliness and community.  From math and science to history and psychology, the lessons are profound, and worth exploring in great depth.  Instead of starting the school year regretting missed lessons that emphasize failure, how about starting on a note of opportunity?

This may be the biggest teachable moment in any contemporary schoolteacher’s career.  Teachers: grab it! What might new syllabi look like?

Source here.

Crafting active-learning exercises across 45 years of teaching college students has inspired me to rethink current pedagogical challenges.  Let’s imagine some Covid-inspired curricula.   

History: In what ways did, and didn’t, the Covid pandemic replicate the 1918-20 influenza pandemic?  The Black Plague?  What lessons do past pandemics hold for the future? How should students evaluate divergent data, rival interpretations, and competing claims?

Figure thumbnail fx1
Poster published in the  Illustrated Current News, 1918. Source here.

Math: Teach students to read charts tracking Covid infections and vaccinations.  Compare the utility of different ways to visualize quantitative data. Do tables or bar graphs best illustrate certain kinds of data?

COVID Net Hospitalizations 12-14-2020
Source here.

Do pie charts better illustrate other kinds of data? Are all published tables equally accurate? How should students evaluate divergent data, rival interpretations, and competing claims?

Pie chart comparing Covid-19 infection rates globally, as of March 5, 2020. Source here.

Biology: How do viruses infect people?  What are all those spikes on the Coronavirus, anyway, and why is it called a “coronavirus”? How do vaccines work? How should students evaluate divergent data, rival interpretations, and competing claims?

8 Questions Employers Should Ask About Coronavirus
Source here (via Centers for Disease Control).

Social studies: How does critical race theory explain George Floyd’s murder?  How does democracy work?  Why have 78 percent of Covid vaccine shots been administered in high- and upper-middle-income countries, while only 0.5 percent of doses have been administered in low-income countries? How should students evaluate divergent data, rival interpretations, and competing claims?

One of countless protests around the world against racist police violence, sparked by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Source here (via AFP).

Literature/English: Whose poems speak to the loneliness of quarantine? (Emily Dickinson? Claude McKay? Li Bai?)

Geography: Map supply chains for product shortages students experienced.  Brainstorm new technologies to halt climate change. How should students evaluate divergent data, rival interpretations, and competing claims?

These Maps Show Which Countries Could Survive Climate Change
Global map comparing risk levels to human life from climate change, due to a combination of geological, political, and economic factors. Source here.

Art: How can artists powerfully express their own engagements with the past year and speak movingly to others? For inspiration, check out the Plywood Protection Project.  Have students scavenge materials and recycle them into artworks to promote social justice.

Shop owners boarding up windows with plywood against Black Lives Matters protests in lower Manhattan. Source here.
Tanda Francis, RockIt Black (Queensbridge Park, Queens)
Sculpture (RockIt Black) by Tanda Francis,
made from scavenged plywood,
on exhibit at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Source here.

Beneath all the specific subject matter ripe for discussion, notice the refrain?

How should students evaluate divergent data, rival interpretations, and competing claims?

That is the critical lesson that every teacher, at every grade level, ought to be teaching all year, in every class. Given the increasingly unhinged and medically dangerous calls online to inhale hydrogen peroxide, ingest horse-sized doses of deworming medicine, and gargle with Betadine as futile and potentially fatal prevention tactics against Covid-19, our very lives are at stake.

Anthropology of education, Learning, Pedagogy, Schools, Teaching Read more

What if . . .?

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What if a country had a great public health system?

What if that country had a veritable army of public health nurses?

What if those public health nurses received two years of extra training in specialties such as maternity care and mental health?

What if maternity nurses made two years of regular, free, home visits to all pregnant and post-partum women?

What if those public health nurses were paid generous salaries to demonstrate their value to society?

Sound like a fantasy?

Enter Denmark.

Denmark

According to one website, the average annual salary earned by Danish nurses to perform the above-listed (and plenty of other) services is $199,731 USD.

And, according to another website, the EU nation with the highest Covid vaccination rate of children age 12 and up is currently — maybe you guessed it — also Denmark. They’ve also vaccinated way more adults. Altogether, as of Sept. 6th, 73% of Danes have been fully vaccinated, compared to 62% of Americans.

I don’t see that as a coincidence.

Denmark’s public health system is so comprehensive, so systematic, so thoughtful, and so FREE, that it’s hard to imagine them NOT having the highest vaccination rate of children age 12 and up. According to the Borgen Project, here are some of the laudable features of Denmark’s public health system:

“All citizens in Denmark enjoy universal, equal and free healthcare services. Citizens have equal access to treatment, diagnosis and choice of hospital . . . . Healthcare services include primary and preventive care, specialist care, hospital care, mental health care, long-term care and children’s dental services.

Denmark Coverage Graphic

Denmark organizes child healthcare into primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare systems. The primary level is free for all Danish citizens.

Tax revenue funds healthcare in Denmark. The state government, regions and municipalities operate the healthcare system and each sector has its own role. 

The healthcare system runs more effectively than other developed countries, such as the U.S. and other European countries. For instance, experts attribute low mortality in Denmark to its healthcare success. . . . Denmark spends relatively less money on healthcare in comparison to the USA. In 2016, the U.S. spent 17.21% of its GDP on healthcare, while Denmark only spent 10.37%. By contrast, in 2015, the life expectancy at birth in Denmark was 80.8 years, yet it was 78.8 years in the U.S. 

The high-quality healthcare system increases life expectancy. Danish life expectancy [even] slightly exceeds the average of the E.U. 

Healthcare in Denmark sets a good example for elderly care in other countries.  . . Danish senior citizens have the right to enjoy home care services for free, including practical help and personal care, if they are unable to live independently. Similarly, preventive measures and home visits can help citizens above 80 years old to plan their lives and care.“

Denmark Organization Graphic

The U.S. doesn’t have anything like any of the above systems. Instead, we value individual choice and effort over any notion of either community health or collective rights. That sounds good — until a pandemic reminds us of how lethal that value can prove.

Is it any wonder that Denmark is doing such a better job than the U.S. in vaccinating its teens against Covid?

Community, Covid-19, Cultural Anthropology, Current Issues, Public health Read more
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