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The Sakha have had to adapt to physical and social changes over the years. Which of
the following was a pre-Soviet-era adaptation?
a. consolidation of Sakha subsistence practices into sovkhozi, the agro-industrial state
farm operations
b. industrialization during the 1950s
c. paying iasak, or fur tribute, to colonizers
d. land loss due to border changes
According to Crate, which of the following is a change to which the Sakha were forced
to adapt at the turn of the 21st century?
a. a subtle and gradual, increasing change in the cycles and patterns of weather and
climate
b. Soviet-era industrialization in the form of diamond mining
c. annexation of land by colonizers
d. land changes resulting from the fall of the Soviet Union
The surveys and interviews conducted by Crate identified nine ways that the global
climate changes have forced the Sakha to further adapt to their climate. Of the nine
areas, which was found to be of most concern?
a. lagging and extended seasons
b. changing precipitation patterns
c. too much water on the land
d. colder summers
According to Crate, the decline in hares, an important game species for the Sakha,
cannot be attributed solely to the effects of climate change. What other reason does she
cite for this change?
a. more time and resources for the Sakha to hunt than during Soviet times
b. the drying up of the land where hares typically nest
c. improvements on traditional Sakha hunting ethics
d. the use of better rifles
Crate's research turned up several reasons that the Sakha identified for the local climate
changes. Which of the following was blamed by most of the participants?
a. the Viliui hydroelectric reservoir
b. the natural wet and dry cycles of the area's ecosystem
c. the recent overabundance of technology and mechanization
d. global climate change
According to Crate, the detailed and specific observations of people like the Viliui
Sakha
a. are important only to the people of northeastern Siberia.
b. are not relevant to the global community and should not inform policy initiatives.
c. contribute important information about the local effects of global climate change.
d. demonstrate that global climate change is not affecting the Republic of Sakha.
The Viliui Sakha developed a belief system that helped them understand and interact
with the very extreme environment of Siberia. One example of this system is
represented by
a. The creation of a buulus to store meat, milk products, and ice.
b. The shaman who communicates with the abaahi (evil spirits) of the underworld
during times of crisis and the Bull of Winter.
c. Black shamans traveling to the sky realms.
d. White shamans traveling to middle earth.
Forest Development the Indian Way
RICHARD K. REED
Summary When Richard Reed first entered the Guaran village of Itanaram over 20
years ago, he had to make an arduous journey, first on rugged dirt roads by car, then for
two days on foot along a tropical forest trail. Only rivers and swampy areas broke the
forest canopy. The village itself was buried in the forest, with houses scattered along a
trail next to a small river. Reed's subsequent study revealed a tightly knit community
whose members were tied together by kinship and values on sharing and cooperation.
Political structure was informal; a village leader (tamoi) mediated disputes. Although
villagers exploited their tropical forest environment, they did so in a way that permitted
its renewal. Men cleared garden plots in the forest. Women burned the brush and
planted the fields with beans, manioc, and orange trees. As fields became exhausted
after two or three years, new plots were cleared and old ones permitted to lie fallow for
10 to 20 years so they could be reclaimed by the forest. Hunting and fishing provided a
significant portion of people's food and, though seemingly isolated, villagers traded
some forest products especially yerba-mate leaves, for hooks, machetes, soap, and salt
with outsiders. Results of his study were described in "Cultivating the Tropical Forest,"
an article included in earlier editions of Conformity and Conflict.
Subsequent visits to Itanaram over the intervening years reveal changes commonly
found in many areas of the Amazon drainage. Roads now bisect the forest, bringing an
influx of ranchers, farmers, traders, frontier towns, and truck traffic. Clear cutting for
farms and ranches has devastated Guaran life and its sustainable economy. Settlements
stand isolated and devoid of resources. Villagers can no longer practice slash-and-burn
agriculture; there are no animals to hunt or fish to catch. Without renewable resources,
many Indians have joined the legions of unemployed or underemployed in frontier
towns, and suicide rates, especially among young men, have skyrocketed.
Shouldn"t the Guaran simply accept the pain that accompanies modern development
and look forward to a brighter future? No, argues Reed, because the use of forestland
for ranches and farming is unsustainable. Cleared land quickly ceases to produce and is
left vacant without a surrounding forest to reclaim it, leaving a red desert. Instead, the
Guaran model for forest exploitation, even when it involves the extraction of forest
products for sale to outsiders, is more economical because it is sustainable. Persuaded
by this argument, the Nature Conservancy has recently bought and set aside 280 square
miles of forest for sustainable development using the Guaran model.
Reed argues that people must be prevented from living in the Amazon forest if the
tropical ecosystem is to survive.
Marriage and Adulthood in West Africa
SUSANNA FIORATTA
Summary
Across cultures, marriage is a rite of passage that confers statusboth legal and socialon
those who participate in it. Marriage often increases social status and, in some societies
such as the United States, affords participants legal protections not available through
other means. However, it is not generally thought of as something that affects an
individual's status as an adult. Individuals in the United States and other countries have
every reason to believe that they will be successful whether they marry or not. In her
article, "Marriage and Adulthood in West Africa," Susanna Fioratta describes a society
in Guinea where marriage is the only way to be considered a responsible adult.
For both men and women in the Fouta Djallon, marriage is not a choice. It is vitally
important that an individual be married in order to be considered a responsible adult
worthy of offering advice, taking on roles in the community, and being trusted with
money. Even potential leaderssuch as 72-year-old presidential candidatesmust have a
wife, children, and a home; otherwise, they are considered incapable of being
responsible, not worthy of offering advice, and unable to show sympathy or pity. In the
local Pular language, there is not even a word to describe an unmarried adult woman.
There are only words for girl or virgin (jiwo) and woman (debbo). A state of being an
adult unmarried woman is incomprehensible.
Achieving and maintaining a marriage in the Fouta Djallon is very difficult. Men must
make enough money to support a wife and family, build a house, and care for extended
family. This requires migrating to nearby countries to find work and save money.
Women, for their part, must endure painful excision to be considered eligible for
marriage. As wives, they must submit to their husbands at all times, cook and clean for
a dozen or more individuals, bear and take care of children, maintain a garden of
vegetables, and do so with inadequate funds. To make ends meet, wives often earn
supplemental income selling snacks, cloth, or other items in the village. Divorce and
premature death are not uncommon. When women are divorced or their husbands die
prematurely, their parents quickly arrange new marriages; some widows are inherited as
wives of their deceased husband's brothers.
Fioratta argues that the challenges associated with marriage are what allow both men
and women to demonstrate that they are responsible, trustworthy adults. Despite these
challenges, particularly for women, marriage is a highly sought-after status and is
necessary to becoming a respected elder in the community.
Young men in the Fouta Djallon are at a disadvantage when it comes to finding a
suitable marriage partner because the population is made up of more men than women.
1 Law and Order
JAMES P. SPRADLEY AND DAVID W. McCURDY
Summary In this article, Spradley and McCurdy present law in the context of dispute
resolution, using cases drawn from anthropologist Laura Nader's work in Ralu"a, a
Zapotec Indian village located in southern Mexico.
The article deals with several concepts: the structure of legal culture, including
substantive law and procedural law, legal levels, legal principles, and cultural values.
Substantive law consists of the legal statutes that define right and wrong. This is
illustrated by the flirtation of a married man with an unmarried woman, which the
Zapotec treat as a crime. Similarly, the case of a son who harvested coffee from his
father's land without permission is also defined as a crime to be dealt with by the
community's legal system.
Legal levels refer to the ways in which disputes are settled by different kinds of
authority agents. Among the Zapotec, several levels for settling disputes exist. Disputes
can be settled by family elders, witches, local officials, the priest, supernatural beings,
or officials in the municipio. If all else fails, the dispute can be taken to the district court
in Villa Alta.
Procedural law refers to the agreed-upon ways to settle disputes, which are often
unwritten, and therefore implicit in nature. In Ralu"a, for example, it is generally
agreed that one should not take family disputes to court, and disputes between villagers
(such as an argument over the washing stone) should be taken to court only if they
cannot be settled between the disputing individuals beforehand. In this case, the dispute
was settled when the presidente (village chairman who also presides over the village
court) and other elected village officials formed a work force, improved the washing
facilities at the well, and declared that washing stones would no longer be owned by
individuals.
Legal systems reflect legal principles and cultural values. Legal principles are based
on the fundamental values of a culture; a legal principle is a broad conception of some
desirable state of affairs that gives rise to many substantive and procedural rules.
Americans put great emphasis on establishing truth, while for the Zapotec, a major legal
principle is to "make the balance." This means to encourage compromise and settlement
so that disputes disappear and disputants get along with each other in the future. This in
turn is based on the Zapotec cultural value of maintaining social equilibrium. A direct
confrontation between individuals where one loses and another wins is unsettling to
community members.
In the article "Law and Order" Spradley and McCurdy argue that a key to maintaining
order in the tightly knit Zapotec community of Ralu"a is the strict application of law
and punishment by village officials.
According to Mueller "The Worst Lover: Boyfriend Spirits in Senegal," originally rab
were invisible spirits that lived in harmony with the nomadic humans and made their
homes in trees. The nature of the relationship changed when
a. the humans angered the Madge-juenne, a grand rab, and she sent the faru rab to
trouble them.
b. modernization and globalization began to conflict with belief in spirits.
c. humans needed land to grow more crops and began cutting down trees.
d. the Senegalese fully embraced Islam and turned their backs on their traditional belief
systems.
Multicultural literally means more than one culture, but the term is usually applied to
situations where groups with different cultural backgrounds are part of a larger
social aggregate.
Religion helps people cope with ultimate problems of their existence such as the
meaning of life, death, evil, and transcendent values.
The marriage of one man to two or more women is called polygyny.
A good example of reciprocal exchange in American society is gift giving at birthdays.
Malawi Versus the World Bank
SONIA PATTEN
Summary This article by Sonia Patten describes the impact of market-oriented World
Bank and International Monetary Fund policy on the subsistence farmers of Malawi.
Early on these two lending institutions adopted the "Washington Consensus," a policy
designed to reform the economies of poor nations by instituting capitalism and bringing
them into the world economy. The "Consensus" required borrowing countries to adopt
five rules in order to receive loans: (1) cut spending on health, (2) privatize state-owned
enterprises, (3) allow market set interest rates, (4) open their economies to foreign
investment and competition, and (5) manage currency rates.
Malawi is a small African nation. Ninety-five percent of its population lives on small
one to four acre plots of land typically producing just enough food (maize in this case)
to feed family members and participate in ceremonies such as weddings. Maize is hard
on the land because it requires substantial nutrients to grow properly. There is no land
left to farm in Malawi, thus no way to let some of it lie fallow to recover its fertility.
British colonial officials recognized the negative impact of exhausted land on maize
yields and started providing subsidized fertilizer by 1952, a policy continued after
independence. By the early "80s Malawi approached the World Bank for a loan because
of a balance of payments problem. By 1990 the government had ended fertilizer
subsidy programs, price controls, and regulated seed prices, and devalued its currency.
Unable to afford the cost, farmers grew crops without using fertilizer. The result was
vastly reduced crop yields, starvation and malnutrition, and a life expectancy of 37
years. Malawians responded by skipping meals, mixing brans with maize flour, adding
cassava to maize four, selling assets and land, and in some cases begging.
Before the 2007 planting season, Malawi's president reinstituted the subsidization of
fertilizer. The resulting yield that year so large that the country was able to export grain.
Malnutrition dropped and health increased. The Malawian case illustrates the impact of
macro-economic policy on a local micro economy.
According to Patten in "Malawi Versus the World Bank," the Malawian farmers
responded to their inability to grow enough food by seeking work in the country's cities.
Cross-Cultural Law:The Case of an American Gypsy
ANNE SUTHERLAND
Summary This article by Anne Sutherland looks at what happens when members of
one culture live under the legal jurisdiction of another. The article describes the case of
a young Gypsy man accused of using someone else's Social Security number, and the
role played by an anthropologist in his court defense.
The young Gypsy male used the Social Security number of a five-year-old nephew to
apply for a car loan. Gypsies believe that their vitsa (clan) has rights over property such
as names and Social Security numbers, and that vitsa members can share in these
things. Although he had no intention of stealing the car or defrauding anyone, the man
was charged under a law that makes it a felony to use someone else's Social Security
number. The police also concluded that he was part of a car theft ring.
Sutherland became involved in the case as an expert witness for the defense. Her first
act was to discover whether the young man was a Gypsy and what his name was.
Gypsies take on many "American" names, which they change often. Their identities are
more typically associated with their vitsa, or clan, and a larger grouping of clans called
a natsia. During the trial she testified that the young man had no intention of defrauding
or stealing from anyone. She noted that it was usual for members of vitsas to share
American names, Social Security numbers, and other marks of identity. Despite her
testimony, however, the defendant was convicted.
Sutherland concludes her article with three points. First, Gypsies, who are a nomadic
group, do not stress individual identities, which are so important to settled Americans.
For hundreds of years the people and governments of the countries in which they live
have persecuted Gypsies. She cites ample evidence that American police also consider
them a criminal society. Hiding their identities has been their response to this
persecution. Second, Gypsies suffer in jail to an unusual extent because they believe
they are polluted there. Gypsies avoid long contact with non-Gypsies and their food
because the latter pollute (marime) them. Their own relatives shun them if this happens,
and they must go through a period of purification before reintegration into their own
society. Third, there is a clash between the Gypsy view of membership in a corporate
kin group and the usual American view of individual rights.
In "The Case of an American Gypsy," Sutherland notes that the young Gypsy man she
helped to defend in court refused to eat jail food, as a protest for not being allowed to
call his relatives.
Any guidelines that can lead directly to action are called "policy."
Illegal Logging and Frontier Conservation
NATHAN WILLIAMSON
The Bolivian government has worked for years with NGOs (nongovernmental
organizations) to create plans for sustainable levels of managed logging in the Bolivian
lowlands to protect the Amazon rainforestin particular the Chimanes Indian
Reservefrom clear cutting by illegal loggers, ranchers, and farmers. Unfortunately, the
policies put in place have largely failed, as Williamson details in his article. His
research, beginning nearly a decade after the conservation policy was established,
shows that illegal logging continues in the lowlands in a variety of ways, fueled by
poverty, weak government enforcement, and a worldwide demand for tropical
hardwoods. As his research indicates, conservation policy must take into account how
those who live in and around the forest are using it, in addition to the goals of those
forming policy.
For the Chimanes Indians living in the Bolivian lowlands surrounding the Maniqui
River, preserving the most valuable tropical hardwoods means eliminating one of the
few ways the men in the tribe can earn money to feed their families.
For economic reasons, local tribes earning a subsistence living, bands of chainsaw
gangs called cuartoneros and even small, illegal logging companies continue to
selectively and illegally harvest mahogany and other tropical hardwood trees, leaving
behind the less valuable species.
Each group involved in illegal harvesting has a slightly different impact on the forest
than does the legal, approved logger who is restricted by the conservation policies in
place. The Chimanes Indians stay close to the river and only clear paths wide enough
for oxcarts to get the timbers to the river. Cuartoneros (chain saw gangs) use machetes,
chainsaws, and a backbreaking relay system to get the cuartones (timbers) to the river,
where they float them to small sawmills that sell the wood to larger lumber companies.
Both the Chimanes Indians and cuartoneros go into the rainforest and reemerge more
than a month later with timbers that will earn them three to five times more than the one
dollar a day that most can earn working as manual laborers. Though less destructive
than the legal methods that have more impact on the forest, they will still eventually
strip the forest of its most valuable treesthe one thing that the Bolivian government and
NGOs hope to prevent.
Perhaps a viable solution, Williamson suggests, is an international trade agreement that
controls the export of tropical hardwood and vilifies the use of illegally harvested
woods, similar to the campaigns of the fur industry. Otherwise, the Chimanes and
cuartoneros will continue to find ways to support their families, and eventually even
approved logging companies may be tempted toward more damaging ways of logging.
Williamson believes that sustainably logging virgin rainforest in ways that would
permit recovery and timber production over the course of the next 100 years would not
cost any more than the current efforts that permit illegal logging.
Cultural hybridization is the process by which a cultural custom, item, or concept
is modified or hybridized to fit the cultural context of a society that borrows it.
Poverty at Work: Office Employment and the Crack Alternative
PHILIPPE BOURGOIS
Summary The transition from a manufacturing economy to one based on office work is
more culturally disruptive to poorly educated working class city dwellers than one
might suspect. This is the conclusion drawn by Philippe Bourgois based on his three
and one-half year ethnographic study of Puerto-Rican crack cocaine dealers in New
Your City's Spanish Harlem.
When Puerto Ricans first moved to New York City, men with little education were able
to find factory work that enabled them to support their families with dignity. As time
went by, sons followed in their fathers' footsteps, quitting school in their middle teens to
take manufacturing jobs that required little formal education but provided a decent
living and a respected place in surrounding Puerto Rican working class society.
Protected by unions, their macho urban street culture could be openly expressed on the
production line without serious consequences.
All this changed, however, between 1963 and 1983 when over half the factories in New
York City either closed or moved to less expensive areas. Toughness and male swagger
that worked well on the factory production line now intimidated the better-educated
largely Anglo people who worked above them. The poor workers were often unable to
read even the simplest directions. Worse, they often found themselves supervised by
women, a rare occurrence in Puerto Rican society. Even the way they walked and
looked intimidated Anglo co-workers. Above all, they felt "dissed" (disrespected) by
office Anglos, who would often comment openly about their lack of education and
ability. Working at the minimum wage, most lasted on the job for only a few days.
Unemployed once again, many turned to selling crack in a lucrative underground
economy, which placed them on a self-destructive track of drug addiction, violence, and
arrest. Even becoming bicultural, adopting Anglo office culture at work and street
culture at home, did not work well. Friends and family members accused them of
selling out their heritage.
In an epilogue, Bourgois notes that four things changed this bleak underground work
environment in Spanish Harlem during the late 1990s: the economy grew at a high and
sustained rate providing more jobs even for the poor; the size of the Mexican immigrant
population increased significantly in Spanish Harlem; the war on drugs criminalized
many of the poor; and marijuana, not crack, became the drug of choice. As a result,
more men found work in the regular economy. But despite this turn of events, Bourgois
concludes that there is little hope in the long run for New York's inner city poor.
In "Poverty at Work: Office Work and the Crack Alternative," Bourgois notes in an
addendum to his article that prosperity in the 1990s increased the number of Puerto
Rican men who sold crack as the price of the drug escalated.
Global Women in the New Economy
BARBARA EHRENREICH AND ARLIE RUSSELL HOCHSCHILD
Summary In this selection, Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hochschild look at an
important aspect of globalization: the movement of poor women from Third World
societies to wealthier nations. Published as the introduction to Global Women: Nannies,
Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, the piece begins with the story of a Sri
Lankan woman serving as a nanny to a two-year-old child in Greece. The subject of a
documentary film, When Mother Comes Home for Christmas, Josephene Perera has
been a migrant worker for 10 years. She earns enough to support her three children at
home, but only gets to see them once a year. Over time two of her children show signs
of distress. Despite this, she returns once again to her job in Greece, trading a life of
poverty at home for money in a distant land. Put another way, she gives up her family
life to make one for parents who work full time in a wealthy nation.
The authors stress several points about the flow of immigrant workers over the last few
years. Movement has occurred between poor and rich countries. The international
workforce, once largely consisting of men, now includes a substantial number of
women, laboring as domestics, nannies, and sex-for-hire workers. The change marks a
different relationship between rich and poor nations. Once rich nations mined poor ones
for their natural resources; now they mine them for people. Four migration patterns
stand out: one is the flow of workers from Southeast Asia to the Middle and Far East; a
second from Eastern to Western Europe; a third from South and Central America to
North America; and a fourth from Africa to Europe. In many of these places, foreign
workers have taken domestic jobs once held by local people. For example, in America
maids and nannies were once largely the domain of black women. These jobs are now
largely filled by Latinas. Poor countries have come to value the money sent home by
their citizens working abroad, and some have programs to prepare female citizens for
foreign service and to find jobs abroad.
There are a number of factors that attract poor women to do overseas work. There are
plenty of jobs for domestics in wealthier countries because so many women there have
gone to work in what was once a largely male economy. Job opportunities are even
greater in First World countries, because governments have not instituted programs to
help their working women with child care and other domestic needs; men have not
stepped in to fill the gap at home; and men have created a demand for sex-for-hire
workers. In addition, as the wealth gap between rich and poor countries grows, women
from poor countries can make many times the amount of money they could earn at
home by taking jobs abroad.
Women may also be "pushed" to leave their countries in order to work abroad. Some
leave to escape abuse at home. Many women who leave are well educated but had
found no reasonably paid opportunities.
As Ehrenreich and Hochschild observe in "Global Women in the New Economy," one
reason First World women hire Third World women as domestics and nannies is that
First World governments have not instituted programs to help them with child care.
The physical environment is one area of human experience that people everywhere
categorize in the same way.
Forest Development the Indian Way
RICHARD K. REED
Summary When Richard Reed first entered the Guaran village of Itanaram over 20
years ago, he had to make an arduous journey, first on rugged dirt roads by car, then for
two days on foot along a tropical forest trail. Only rivers and swampy areas broke the
forest canopy. The village itself was buried in the forest, with houses scattered along a
trail next to a small river. Reed's subsequent study revealed a tightly knit community
whose members were tied together by kinship and values on sharing and cooperation.
Political structure was informal; a village leader (tamoi) mediated disputes. Although
villagers exploited their tropical forest environment, they did so in a way that permitted
its renewal. Men cleared garden plots in the forest. Women burned the brush and
planted the fields with beans, manioc, and orange trees. As fields became exhausted
after two or three years, new plots were cleared and old ones permitted to lie fallow for
10 to 20 years so they could be reclaimed by the forest. Hunting and fishing provided a
significant portion of people's food and, though seemingly isolated, villagers traded
some forest products especially yerba-mate leaves, for hooks, machetes, soap, and salt
with outsiders. Results of his study were described in "Cultivating the Tropical Forest,"
an article included in earlier editions of Conformity and Conflict.
Subsequent visits to Itanaram over the intervening years reveal changes commonly
found in many areas of the Amazon drainage. Roads now bisect the forest, bringing an
influx of ranchers, farmers, traders, frontier towns, and truck traffic. Clear cutting for
farms and ranches has devastated Guaran life and its sustainable economy. Settlements
stand isolated and devoid of resources. Villagers can no longer practice slash-and-burn
agriculture; there are no animals to hunt or fish to catch. Without renewable resources,
many Indians have joined the legions of unemployed or underemployed in frontier
towns, and suicide rates, especially among young men, have skyrocketed.
Shouldn"t the Guaran simply accept the pain that accompanies modern development
and look forward to a brighter future? No, argues Reed, because the use of forestland
for ranches and farming is unsustainable. Cleared land quickly ceases to produce and is
left vacant without a surrounding forest to reclaim it, leaving a red desert. Instead, the
Guaran model for forest exploitation, even when it involves the extraction of forest
products for sale to outsiders, is more economical because it is sustainable. Persuaded
by this argument, the Nature Conservancy has recently bought and set aside 280 square
miles of forest for sustainable development using the Guaran model.
By sustainable development, Reed means that commercial lumber companies and
ranchers should replant the tropical forest after they have cut it down and permit
exploited areas to regenerate for approximately 40 years.
Mother's Love: Death without Weeping
NANCY SCHEPER-HUGHES
Summary In this article, Nancy Scheper-Hughes argued that under conditions of
extreme poverty where there are high rates of infant mortality, it is a natural human
response for mothers to distance themselves emotionally from their dead and dying
infants.
Scheper-Hughes based her conclusion on 25 years of fieldwork, starting in 1965, in the
shantytown of Alto do Cruzeiro on the edge of Bom Jesus de Mata, a market town in
northeast Brazil. Poverty in the shantytown produced a life expectancy of only 40 years,
largely due to high rates of infant mortality.
Scheper-Hughes first encountered women's reactions to infant death in 1965 when 350
children died in a "great baby die-off." Mothers seemed strangely indifferent to the
deaths of their children. It was then that Scheper-Hughes concluded that mothering in
Alto do Cruzeiro meant learning to abstain from forming emotional ties to their infants
who were sick or weakthose who were likely to die.
Social conditions were marked by brittle marriages; single parenting by women was the
norm. Most had no choice but to work in the "shadow economy"; babies were
frequently left home alone because infants could not be taken to work. Midwives and
other women supported mothers in their detachment. Even civil authorities and the
clergy discouraged the attachment of mothers to their babies. Registration of infant
deaths was short and informal. Doctors did not recognize malnutrition and, instead of
treating a child at risk of dying, merely tranquilized them. The church did not hold
ceremonies for dead children, and infants were buried without headstones in graves that
would be used over and over again.
In an epilogue added by Scheper-Hughes for this edition, the author notes that by 2008
much had changed in Bom Jesus. The advent of a democratic government brought a
national health care system, a change in Catholic beliefs about infant death, an
under-the-counter "morning after" pill, and most important, the installation of water
pipes throughout the city. The result was a dramatic decline in both infant birth and
death rates. Mothers who once were resigned to "letting go" of sickly babies now "hold
on" to their infants. Unfortunately, high infant mortality has been replaced by a new
form of violence: the killing of young men, by gang leaders, banditos, and local police.
In her article, "Mother's Love: Death Without Weeping," Nancy Scheper-Hughes argues
that mothers in the shantytown of Alto do Cruzeiro learned to accept the death of a
child without grieving.
Using Anthropology
DAVID W. McCURDY
Summary In this article, McCurdy discusses some of the professional applications of
anthropology, such as in advertising, engineering, teaching, and business, to name a
few. He also argues that an anthropological perspectivecharacterized by ethnographic
research, embracing the concept of microculture, and cross-cultural sensitivitycan help
professionals perform better in a wide array of situations.
McCurdy illustrates his argument using the case of a newly appointed warehouse
manager who is called upon to improve service to customer outlets operated by UTC, a
large corporation. Instead of bringing in new rules and regulations, as most new
managers do, she chose to undertake an ethnographic approach during her six-week
"grace period." By using ethnographic research she was able to discover the detailed
nature of the problem, while building goodwill with the warehouse employees.
The educational materials handled by the warehouse had been reaching customer
outlets in poor condition and in inaccurate amounts. Warehouse employees, who had
been under great pressure to work rapidly, had felt forced to estimate, rather than count,
the materials they shipped to outlets.
By having the books shrink-wrapped and reducing the size of the shipping boxes, the
manager was able to speed up work at the warehouse, ensure that the right number of
books and other materials was being shipped, and improved the condition of the goods
at their destination.
By using an ethnographic approach, the new manager had revealed the problems at
hand. Only this made it possible to find realistic solutions.
McCurdy reports in "Using Anthropology" that an anthropologist who works as a
consultant discovered that Chicago-area natural gas consumers lied on questionnaires
when they said they were trying to conserve energy.
Nice Girls Don"t Talk to Rastas
GEORGE GMELCH
Summary This article uses the experience of an American student studying abroad to
illustrate the concept of naive realism, especially the American insensitivity to the
existence of social class and the nature of small communities. Gmelch noted that one of
his students, Hanna, whose research he was supervising in Barbados, suddenly
encountered a serious fieldwork problem. Her fieldwork involved living in a rural
Barbadian community, where she worked in the village school and lived with a host
family. For several weeks her work went well. Rapport with her host mother and other
villagers was excellent and she was enthusiastic about her experience. Then suddenly
her homestay mother demanded that she move out because of what villagers were
saying about her. It turned out that she had been seen talking to a Rastafarian named
Joseph, and based on their view of Rastas, villagers had concluded that she was
smoking marijuana and bathing naked with him and other Rastas. Some even thought
she was a drug addict.
Gmelch learned that indeed she had met a Rastafarian named Joseph, spoken to him
publicly several times in the village, and visited his cave in the hills on a couple of
occasions. Hanna was puzzled why villagers would be upset by her behavior. Her
fieldwork was based around the concept that anthropologists are supposed to be
interested in different kinds of people
Her problem related to the existence of class in the Barbadian community; Rastafarians
were looked down on. People felt that Rastas often stole vegetables and fruit from
villagers and lacked good morals because they often went naked and looked bizarre.
The situation was compounded by the size and face-to-face nature of village life.
Unlike suburban and urban communities in the U.S., everyone knew each other in the
village. Peoples' behavior was a constant topic of gossip.
Gmelch dealt with the situation by talking to village elders and Hanna's homestay
mother. He explained that she did not understand their concern about Rastas, that she
had not slept with Rastas, and that she meant no harm. In the end, Hanna was allowed
to remain in the village. She learned that her U.S. suburban culture denied the existence
of class and lacked a sense of how close people in a small community can be, combined
with an American sense of personal autonomy. In short, she naively assumed that
people in rural Barbados would view her behavior by her own standards.
In a "postscript" follow up years later, Hanna explained the profound impact that
meeting Joseph had had on her sense of openmindedness, and her growing awareness of
discrimination and prejudice.
Gmelch's article, "Nice Girls Don"t Talk to Rastas," describes a conflict caused by his
student's naive realism as she did fieldwork in a rural Barbadian community.
When an anthropologist attempts to make social interaction more predictable in cases
where two people are operating with different cultural codes, he or she is doing action
anthropology.
Language refers to the behavior that produces vocal sounds.
Roles are the categories of different kinds of people who interact.
If an anthropologist studied how the use of tobacco spread throughout the world, he or
she would be interested in cultural diffusion.
Fieldwork on Prostitution in the Era of AIDS
CLAIRE E. STERK
Summary This article discusses ethnographic fieldwork as a processentering the field,
making contact, and developing rapport, as well as ethical dilemmas and stress.
Undertaking fieldwork in a Western microculture (in this case the culture of prostitute
life), illustrates how participant observation, originally developed to discover the
content of non-Western cultures, can be adapted for use at home. Sterk's goal was to
learn about the lives of prostitutes from the women themselves. Her subjects comprised
180 "low end" prostitutes--those who worked on the streets and in the crack houses of
Atlanta and New York in the 1980s and 1990s.
Sterk learned that gatekeepers (initial contacts who give you access to other informants)
can become less important with time. Some self-nominated key informants had access
to only part of a cultural scene. Encouraging women to have some control over the
research process enhanced rapport; this meant letting informants tell their own stories
and refraining from judgement. Interviews were conducted in private and required
consent forms, which perhaps surprisingly Sterk was able to obtain. Abusive figures
who controlled prostitutespimpssometimes presented an impediment to research.
Fieldwork involved stress, which was partially relieved by being able to leave the field.
Leaving the field, however, led to feelings of guilt.
The article ends with six observations about prostitutes and their culture. Prostitutes
often blame past experiences for their current status and alienation from "normal"
people. There are different kinds of prostitutesstreetwalkers, women who became
hooked on drugs after they started in the profession, women who entered the life
already addicted to drugs, and women who turned tricks as payment for drugs.
Contracting AIDS was a great risk for prostitutes, but condom use was often rejected by
their customers and pimps. Men are often violent toward prostitutes. Finally, women
did sometimes leave this microculture, but their past often followed them.
According to Sterk in her article, "Fieldwork on Prostitution in the Era of AIDS,"
virtually all the prostitutes she interviewed or observed were hooked on drugs.
Culture is the patterned behavior characteristic of a group of people.
In "How Sushi Went Global," Bestor thinks the reason that the Japanese had to turn to
the world market for bluefin tuna was that
a. they had completely fished out bluefin tuna in the Pacific.
b. an international agreement prevented fishing within 200 miles of other countries'
shores.
c. the Japanese discovered that Atlantic tuna were much better than their own Pacific
tuna.
d. sushi became more popular in Japan in the 1960s, and demand outran supply.
According to Guneratne and Bjork in "Village Walks," the authors
a. ended up giving lectures about Tharu culture to tourists.
b. (especially Bjork) were themselves a tourist attraction.
c. tried to change the way the Tharu were characterized by tour guides and tourist
companies.
d. helped Tharu villagers avoid tourists whenever possible.
Medical Anthropology: Improving Nutrition in Malawi
SONIA PATTEN
Summary In this article, anthropologist Sonia Patten describes her experience as an
anthropologist on a team of researchers working to improve infant and child nutrition in
rural Malawi, a small nation in Africa. She and colleagues from two American
universities, under the auspices of the University Development Linkages Program,
worked with faculty from a college in the University of Malawi system to develop and
implement a program addressing the mortality rate for children, a rate that at the time
was very nearly one in four.
Patten and her team members developed a plan to provide milk-producing goats to the
women of the villages, teach them how to care for and raise the animals, and show them
how to incorporate the protein- and calorie-rich milk into recipes that they could feed
their malnourished children. The team met with village leaders and elders to convince
them to allow women to own the goats, explain how the plan would work, and ensure
them that this was a worthwhile effort to help combat the malnutrition their children
faced. Once convinced, researchers identified villages that would be the best candidates
for this social researchthose with an animal-theft problem were considered too
problematic to include in the project.
A baseline survey of households that included children under five was conducted, while
scientists from the research team crossbred goats with the necessary characteristics on a
local Malawi farm. Eventually women were provided with a goat and the basic toolsa
bucket, a measuring cup, and a panto get started. Local members of the research team
taught the women how to incorporate the goat's milk into their children's food and made
weekly visits to villages to weigh and measure the children. The children, even those
who were receiving even small amounts of goat's milk, all showed steady height and
weight gains, at least for a time.
The project continued to address food insecurity problems and issues that arose from
the goat-raising efforts. The researchers taught the women how to plant, grow, and
process soybeans into flour that they could use when no goat's milk was available. All
of their efforts were sustainablewomen were asked to return their first baby goat to the
researchers and 5 kg of seed after the first harvest. The research team's efforts worked
within the culture of the Malawi, incorporated indigenous resources, and were
conducted in the native language of the villagers.
The author concludes that the project was highly valued by rural women, as evidenced
by the number who wanted to participate. It proved that the addition of goat's milk to a
child's diet was valuable, and the success of the project is noted by similar projects that
were introduced by Malawi nongovernmental organizations. Additionally, Patten
elaborates on the importance of having an anthropologist on a research team, and
identifies her role and responsibilities. Her expertise proved valuable to the acceptance
of the project and the high level of participation by the Malawian villagers.
Child undernourishment in Malawi is a major problem, with a mortality rate for
children under five of 24 percent, or very nearly one in four.
According to Boxer in "The Military Name Game," military operations' names such as
Roundup, Killer, Ripper, Courageous, Audacious, and Dauntless were used by
__________ during ________________.
a. General MacArthur, the Korean War
b. Winston Churchill, World War II
c. General Abrams, the Vietnam War
d. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the war with Iraq
According to Tannen in "Conversation Style: Talking on the Job," men often avoid
asking directions because
a. their over-direct style does not yield accurate answers.
b. asking puts them in a one-down position.
c. they fail to listen to the answers they get.
d. they don"t want others to perceive them as uninformed.
In "Conversation Style: Talking on the Job," Tannen notes that men often fail to ask for
directions and that women usually do ask for directions. Because it is easy to show that
not asking for directions can have dire consequences, she suggests that men
a. should change and ask for directions.
b. should ask for directions but in an indirect manner.
c. should be flexible, asking for directions when it seems appropriate to do so.
d. should have a female companion ask for directions.
According to Stryker in "Ethnography in the Public Interest," in order to receive
medical treatment, female inmates in the California prison system had to
a. file a $10 copay form.
b. always see an MTA first.
c. always see a nurse practitioner first.
d. receive a ducat.
McCurdy claims in "Using Anthropology" that in many companies, newly installed
managers tend to
a. listen to their employees' suggestions.
b. ask employees to teach them the new job.
c. leave their employees alone.
d. impose a new agenda on their employees.
Once the mahogany tree has been located, the cuartoneros
a. work quickly to cut the tree and carry it to the nearest road.
b. work with the Chimanes scouts to carry the tree by oxcart to the nearest waterway.
c. clear a trail from the tree to the nearest large stream or river before doing any further
cutting.
d. get permission from Bolivian authorities to harvest the tree.
Illegal Logging and Frontier Conservation
NATHAN WILLIAMSON
The Bolivian government has worked for years with NGOs (nongovernmental
organizations) to create plans for sustainable levels of managed logging in the Bolivian
lowlands to protect the Amazon rainforestin particular the Chimanes Indian
Reservefrom clear cutting by illegal loggers, ranchers, and farmers. Unfortunately, the
policies put in place have largely failed, as Williamson details in his article. His
research, beginning nearly a decade after the conservation policy was established,
shows that illegal logging continues in the lowlands in a variety of ways, fueled by
poverty, weak government enforcement, and a worldwide demand for tropical
hardwoods. As his research indicates, conservation policy must take into account how
those who live in and around the forest are using it, in addition to the goals of those
forming policy.
For the Chimanes Indians living in the Bolivian lowlands surrounding the Maniqui
River, preserving the most valuable tropical hardwoods means eliminating one of the
few ways the men in the tribe can earn money to feed their families.
For economic reasons, local tribes earning a subsistence living, bands of chainsaw
gangs called cuartoneros and even small, illegal logging companies continue to
selectively and illegally harvest mahogany and other tropical hardwood trees, leaving
behind the less valuable species.
Each group involved in illegal harvesting has a slightly different impact on the forest
than does the legal, approved logger who is restricted by the conservation policies in
place. The Chimanes Indians stay close to the river and only clear paths wide enough
for oxcarts to get the timbers to the river. Cuartoneros (chain saw gangs) use machetes,
chainsaws, and a backbreaking relay system to get the cuartones (timbers) to the river,
where they float them to small sawmills that sell the wood to larger lumber companies.
Both the Chimanes Indians and cuartoneros go into the rainforest and reemerge more
than a month later with timbers that will earn them three to five times more than the one
dollar a day that most can earn working as manual laborers. Though less destructive
than the legal methods that have more impact on the forest, they will still eventually
strip the forest of its most valuable treesthe one thing that the Bolivian government and
NGOs hope to prevent.
Perhaps a viable solution, Williamson suggests, is an international trade agreement that
controls the export of tropical hardwood and vilifies the use of illegally harvested
woods, similar to the campaigns of the fur industry. Otherwise, the Chimanes and
cuartoneros will continue to find ways to support their families, and eventually even
approved logging companies may be tempted toward more damaging ways of logging.
Cuartoneros, or chainsaw crews, are often made up of poor men from San Borja. They
hunt for and harvest mahogany in more remote areas of the Bolivian lowlands.
According to McCurdy in "Family and Kinship in Village India," a major tension in
Bhil society occurs over the movement of a woman from her own family to that of her
husband at marriage. Which of the following is a way Bhil cultural practices reduce this
tension?
a. Grooms ritually storm the bride's house to symbolize that they are taking the woman
away from her family.
b. After the wedding, the family of the bride has no contact with the groom, his new
bride, and his extended family for one year.
c. The bride and groom move to a village where neither family lives to start their own
lives.
d. The bride's family keeps in close, familiar contact with the groom's family, visits
often, and checks on their daughter's welfare.
According to Stryker in "Ethnography in the Public Interest,"
a. overcrowding was not a problem at the prisons she studied.
b. women were very well paid for the work they did in the prison.
c. women sometimes faked illness to get faster medical attention.
d. women had equal and unfettered access to adequate medical care.
Advice for Developers: Peace Corps Problems in Botswana
HOYT S. ALVERSON
Summary This classic article by Hoyt Alverson provides an excellent example of how
anthropology can be applied to the solution of practical problems. Although written
years ago, its message is equally relevant today as Peace Corps volunteers, USAID
workers, military personnel, and NGO (non-governmental organization) employees
engage in nation building around the world. Alverson's conclusion is clear:
development work in foreign (and even in some domestic) settings requires
cross-cultural understanding.
Alverson was asked by a program director to investigate problems with the Peace
Corps' development efforts in Botswana. Volunteers, he was told, were to introduce
development projects to Tswana farmers but found it difficult to so. The Tswana often
resisted the volunteers' efforts. They would seem to cooperate but eventually nothing
happened. Frustrated, volunteers tended to isolate themselves, failed to learn the local
language, and hung out with other Americans or Europeans. Some gave up. Others
failed to complete their two-year contracts. Many felt spiteful toward the Tswana and
some even experienced nervous breakdowns.
Alverson approached his task by looking at both the culture and perspective of the
Peace Corps volunteers, and the culture and responses of the Tswana. (Alverson had
already spent 15 months doing ethnographic research in a Tswana community.) He
discovered that volunteers had many unstated assumptions, based on culture. Often, for
example, volunteers wished to be respected for their superior knowledge and their ways
of doing things, which they believed were better. Volunteers also believed that the
Tswana had asked them to help impart their Western cultural knowledge and that they,
the volunteers, were different from colonial authorities because they did not force
people to change. The conclusion to draw from this information is simple: the
volunteers' self-perception made it harder for them to learn about the people they were
there to engage.
The remainder of Alverson's paper deals with areas of cross-cultural misunderstandings
between volunteers and the Tswana. One example is the concept of time. The American
volunteer's concept of time is lineal: the Tswana concept sees time as bounded by
events. Volunteers became frustrated when the Tswana did not show up on time.
Another example is that volunteers appreciate candor as they talk. The Tswana like
smooth, non-confrontational discourse. As a result, a Tswana may lie about something
to avoid conflict.
In sum, Alverson sees the discomfort displayed by American Peace Corps volunteers in
Botswana as a consequence of life in a very different, culturally defined Tswana world.
The implied solution is to inform volunteers about their own cultural and
self-perceptions, and teach volunteers as much as possible about the culture of those
with whom they intend to work.
In "Advice for Developers," Alverson suggests that the Tswana are liable to show up at
a volunteer's door when the American says, "We should get together sometime."
A key way for women in the mines to build workplace relationships with their
male coworkers is to
a. cultivate a very professional demeanor.
b. swear excessively and in the most vulgar manner.
c. come to work with well manicured nails and nice makeup.
d. engage in practical jokes.
According to Lee, a !Kung hunter
a. eats all of a kill himself.
b. shares game only with his own family.
c. gives all the meat from an animal he has killed to the man who made the arrow he
used.
d. shares what he kills with others and expects them to reciprocate.
We Are Going Underwater
SUSAN A. CRATE
Summary The Viliui Sakha, a horse- and cattle-breeding people of northeastern
Siberia, live in an extreme, subarctic climate that has continuous permafrost and annual
temperature swings of 180 degrees Fahrenheit. This place-based community has
adapted to many different changes over hundreds of yearsbeginning with Russian
imperial expansion in the 1600s and as recently as a result of the breakup of the Soviet
Union in the 1990s. More recently, their adaptations have been in response to local,
physical changes brought about by global climate change. In her essay, Susan Crate
outlines the most notable ways global climate change has impacted life for the Sakha,
and details their remarkable capacity to adapt to these changes.
Crate conducted surveys and interviewed elders of the community who had the
advantage of witnessing many decades of change, offering a perspective that not many
other community members could. Crate's research identified nine ways in which global
climate change has impacted the Sakha, including increased water on the land, late and
lagging seasons, a decline in certain game species, and temperature fluctuations. These
changes cannot be attributed solely to climate change; many of them have multiple
stressors. Regardless, the Sakha have had to make psychological, social, and physical
adaptations to accommodate the new reality of their physical world. Interestingly, very
few of the Sakha attribute the changes to global climate change, and instead point to
other local causes such as a hydroelectric reservoir or the overabundance of technology
and mechanization. Despite this, the Sakha will continue to adapt as they have for
hundreds of years, figuring out how to negotiate the additional water on their land,
learning how to adjust their practices to have enough hay for their cows and horses, and
purchasing electric freezers to replace the traditional buluus (underground freezers) that
are now increasingly flooded out. The Sakha and their adaptations are offered by Crate
as an example of how communities and scientists might benefit from sharing
information. Scientists have much to learn about how climate change is affecting local
environments and culture, and communities can learn from scientists how to adapt in
ways to address these local changes.
While many think of geologists and chemists as those best equipped to help the world
adapt to the effects of global climate change, Crate believes that anthropologists can
help communities weather these changes by fostering a greater understanding of how
people like the Sakha have adapted and continue to do so successfully. By identifying
and learning about those communities that are the most flexible in their responses to
local changes, communities will have a model to follow when global climate change
begins to have a greater impact on the more temperate zones of the planet.
According to Crate, her research with the Sakha clarified her belief that global climate
change was affecting not only the villagers' physical environment, but also their
adaptations to that environment.
Negotiating Work and Family in America DIANNA SHANDY AND KARINE MOE
Summary In this article, Dianna Shandy and Karine Moe explore the complexities of
the latest research on how generations of women have handled the challenges of
negotiating work and family in America. By combining labor statistics, interviews with
more than 100 women, focus groups, and surveys of nearly 1000 college graduates, the
authors explore the advances of women in the workforce, their experiences juggling
families and careers outside of the home, and the subsequent choices new generations
of women are making in this area.
Anthropologists used to view the gender relationship between men and women as one
of inherent male domination. Ernestine Friedl, however, argued that control of publicly
distributed resources was key to women's power. Among the Hadza of Tanzania for
example, men and women gather food equally, and subsequently relate to one another
with relative gender equality. In contrast, when men supply virtually all of the food,
such as among the Inuit of the Arctic, there is significant gender inequality.
Similar cultural ranking exists in the United States. In the United States one's
occupation determines relative rank. Today, women hold positions previously reserved
for men onlypositions that include leadership, management, and business ownership.
Women make up half of the workforce on all U.S. payrolls, and own one third of the
businesses in the United States. Additionally, women now account for more than 50
percent of all college students and are the majority of those enrolled in graduate or
professional schools. Women have made great strides toward gender equality in the
workplace over the last few decades, but many are still opting out when they have
children.
Many gender-related factors both push women out of the workforce and pull them
toward family and home, such as a woman's "second shift" or experiencing a "glass
ceiling" (the proverbial barrier preventing advancement to a higher position). Unlike
other industrialized nations, women in the United States of at least three generations
have experienced and continue to experience significant structural barriers to flexible
and affordable childcare.
Given the low cultural ranking given of the occupation of "full-time motherhood,"
women often struggle to maintain a sense of gender equality, prestige, and power while
at home. Some do so by forming strong social groups. Still others describe themselves
as career women taking time off to stay home with kids.
In "Negotiating Work and Family in America," Shandy and Moe argue that it is
only older women who face structural barriers in an attempt to negotiate work and
family responsibilities.
According to McCurdy in "Motorcycles, Membership, and Belonging," the official
magazine of the GWRRA that reaches over 70,000 members is called
a. Wing World.
b. Wing Nut.
c. Gold Wing Riders Monthly.
d. Wing Ding.
According to Miner in "Body Ritual among the Nacirema," the Nacirema believe that
a. mothers are the only people who can teach their children body rituals.
b. fathers tend to put a curse on their children when they try to teach them body rituals.
c. holy-mouth-men, unless they are given a large gift, will harm children.
d. mothers are likely to put a curse on their children when they teach them body rituals.
According to Reed in "Forest Development the Indian Way," Guaran Indians subsist in
the Amazon tropical forest largely by
a. slash-and-burn farming.
b. horticulture and foraging.
c. foraging.
d. rubber tree tapping.
If a friend were to say, "He's the president of the college," the term "president" would
refer to a
a. status.
b. role.
c. social situation.
d. social relationship.
According to Mueller in "The Worst Lover: Boyfriend Spirits in Senegal," if visiting a
marabou cannot rid a girl or woman of a troublesome rab, the next step is to
a. make a sacrifice of small animals.
b. take baths in holy water.
c. participate in an elaborate ritual called an ndepp.
d. dress conservatively while awake and while sleeping.
Which one of the following is a characteristic of Third World women who migrate for
work, as reported by Ehrenreich and Hochschild in "Global Women in the New
Economy"?
a. Most are under 20 years of age.
b. Many are better educated than other women from their home country.
c. Most are single without children.
d. Most migrate to escape abusive husbands or other family members.
In "Poverty at Work: Office Work and the Crack Alternative," Bourgois argues that the
most important reason that second generation Puerto Rican men living in Spanish
Harlem find it unpleasant to work in New York City's professional offices is
a. the work pays too little.
b. they feel they are treated with disrespect.
c. they can"t get to work because they are too poor to own cars.
d. they speak no English.
According to Spradley and McCurdy in "Law and Order," the rule in Ralu"a that
principales and their families should not use the court to settle family disputes is an
example of
a. self-redress.
b. legal levels.
c. legal structure.
d. procedural law.
According to Spradley, the actions generated by cultural knowledge are called
a. cultural behavior.
b. cultural generation.
c. cultural artifacts.
d. explicit culture.
According to Patten in "Malawi Versus the World Bank," the main crop of subsistence
farmers in Malawi is
a. cassava.
b. wheat.
c. sorghum.
d. maize.
According to Dubisch in "Run for the Wall: An American Pilgrimage," anthropologist
Victor Turner believed that ritual
a. organized all human behavior.
b. could be seen in people's normal, day-to-day behavior.
c. had two poles, one ideological and the other sensory.
d. is designed to express freedom, self-reliance, patriotism, and individuality.
Any use of anthropological knowledge by anthropologists to increase the power of self-
determination of a particular cultural group is called
a. action anthropology.
b. academic anthropology.
c. advocate anthropology.
d. adjustment anthropology.
According to Goldstein in "Polyandry: When Brothers Take a Wife," Tibetan polyandry
functions above all to
a. permit richer farmers to maintain their standard of living.
b. respond to a shortage of women caused by high rates of female infanticide.
c. preserve the matriline.
d. preserve the patriline.
Based on Alverson's report in "Advice for Developers," which one of the following
statements about Peace Corps volunteers is true?
a. They easily recognize Tswana class and age distinctions.
b. They are often able to make up a good lie rather than tell the truth.
c They like their privacy and resent it when the Tswana interrupt their tranquility.
d. They are offended by the usual candor of Tswana speech.
Folk concepts of ghosts, spirits, ancestral beings, and gods are, according to most
anthropologists, signs of belief in
a. the supernatural.
b. taboo.
c. magic.
d. impersonal supernatural force.
Global Women in the New Economy
BARBARA EHRENREICH AND ARLIE RUSSELL HOCHSCHILD
Summary In this selection, Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hochschild look at an
important aspect of globalization: the movement of poor women from Third World
societies to wealthier nations. Published as the introduction to Global Women: Nannies,
Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, the piece begins with the story of a Sri
Lankan woman serving as a nanny to a two-year-old child in Greece. The subject of a
documentary film, When Mother Comes Home for Christmas, Josephene Perera has
been a migrant worker for 10 years. She earns enough to support her three children at
home, but only gets to see them once a year. Over time two of her children show signs
of distress. Despite this, she returns once again to her job in Greece, trading a life of
poverty at home for money in a distant land. Put another way, she gives up her family
life to make one for parents who work full time in a wealthy nation.
The authors stress several points about the flow of immigrant workers over the last few
years. Movement has occurred between poor and rich countries. The international
workforce, once largely consisting of men, now includes a substantial number of
women, laboring as domestics, nannies, and sex-for-hire workers. The change marks a
different relationship between rich and poor nations. Once rich nations mined poor ones
for their natural resources; now they mine them for people. Four migration patterns
stand out: one is the flow of workers from Southeast Asia to the Middle and Far East; a
second from Eastern to Western Europe; a third from South and Central America to
North America; and a fourth from Africa to Europe. In many of these places, foreign
workers have taken domestic jobs once held by local people. For example, in America
maids and nannies were once largely the domain of black women. These jobs are now
largely filled by Latinas. Poor countries have come to value the money sent home by
their citizens working abroad, and some have programs to prepare female citizens for
foreign service and to find jobs abroad.
There are a number of factors that attract poor women to do overseas work. There are
plenty of jobs for domestics in wealthier countries because so many women there have
gone to work in what was once a largely male economy. Job opportunities are even
greater in First World countries, because governments have not instituted programs to
help their working women with child care and other domestic needs; men have not
stepped in to fill the gap at home; and men have created a demand for sex-for-hire
workers. In addition, as the wealth gap between rich and poor countries grows, women
from poor countries can make many times the amount of money they could earn at
home by taking jobs abroad.
Women may also be "pushed" to leave their countries in order to work abroad. Some
leave to escape abuse at home. Many women who leave are well educated but had
found no reasonably paid opportunities.
In "Global Women in the New Economy," Ehrenreich and Hochschild report that Third
World women working as maids and nannies in America have caused the American
children they care for to feel stress, because such women are foreign and cannot
understand how to treat their American charges.
The minimal categories of speech sounds that serve to keep utterances apart are called
phonemes
Nuer Refugees in America
DIANNA SHANDY
Summary In this article updated in 2015, Dianna Shandy, who has conducted
ethnographic research among Nuer refugees in the upper Midwest since 1997, looks at
what their status as refugees means, how they managed to come to the United States,
why they were located in more than 30 different U.S. states, how a people raised as
cattle herders survive and adapt to life in a U.S. urban setting, and what this tells us
about "the interconnectedness of a globalizing world and anthropology's role in it."
Although no special categories were assigned to people who first migrated to the United
States (they were all simply called immigrants), today there are at least two categories ,
migrants and refugees based on their reasons for coming here. The United Nations (UN)
defines refugees as people who have left a country because of a well-founded fear of
persecution based on race; religion; nationality; membership in a particular social
group; or political opinion. They are not merely IDPs (internally displaced persons)
who have left home but are willing to return. To manage the refugee "problem" (by
2014 there were 60 million refugees in the world), there is a UN agency headed by a
high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR). The UN and many countries see three
solutions for refugee placement: voluntary repatriation, integration into a country of
asylum, or rarely, third-country resettlement. Typically, refugees are first housed in
camps, and then certified for resettlement. The United States takes in a limited number
of refugees and employs the UN criteria for refugee certification. But decisions about
who is eligible vary, based on officials' interpretations of the criteria and ever shifting
resettlement policies. Officials also must deal with cross-cultural differences and
language barriers as they decide who is a refugee and who is an "economic refugee"
(someone whose main motive to move is for economic advantage).
The Nuer who live in the United States have made it through this bureaucratic process.
Thok Ding, who is mentioned in the article, was brought up herding cattle in a Nuer
pastoral village, experienced the death of his father when northerners attacked his
village, moved with his family to a camp in Ethiopia, attended and excelled at a
Christian mission school there, moved to another camp for further schooling, moved
back to the Sudan with his family when fighting broke out in Ethiopia, traveled back to
Addis Ababa where he joined friends, moved to a camp in Kenya, applied for refugee
status with the UN there, and was eventually accepted for refugee resettlement by the
United States. His arrival and settlement in the United States was facilitated by
Lutheran Social Services, a volunteer organization ("volag" to insiders) contracted by
the United States. Helped by the organization, he was placed in Minneapolis, settled in
an apartment, and guided toward a job. Later he left Minneapolis for Des Moines and a
job in the meat packing industry, where he hopes to continue his education, save money,
marry a woman from the South Sudan, and bring his family, with whom he corresponds
frequently and to whom he sends money, to the United States.
The case illustrates several points. Refugee issues are complex and varied, and involve
endless bureaucratic hurdles. Refugees who manage to gain resettlement (many do not)
must be tenacious, ambitious, clever, and opportunistic. The Nuer make successful
refugees because many possess these characteristics.
According to Shandy in "Nuer Refugees in America," Nuer refugees have been sent to
the United States by Christian missionaries who live in South Sudan.
Four anthropological classifications of societies based on food-getting techniques are
hunting and gathering, horticulture, pastoralism, and agriculture.
Nice Girls Don"t Talk to Rastas
GEORGE GMELCH
Summary This article uses the experience of an American student studying abroad to
illustrate the concept of naive realism, especially the American insensitivity to the
existence of social class and the nature of small communities. Gmelch noted that one of
his students, Hanna, whose research he was supervising in Barbados, suddenly
encountered a serious fieldwork problem. Her fieldwork involved living in a rural
Barbadian community, where she worked in the village school and lived with a host
family. For several weeks her work went well. Rapport with her host mother and other
villagers was excellent and she was enthusiastic about her experience. Then suddenly
her homestay mother demanded that she move out because of what villagers were
saying about her. It turned out that she had been seen talking to a Rastafarian named
Joseph, and based on their view of Rastas, villagers had concluded that she was
smoking marijuana and bathing naked with him and other Rastas. Some even thought
she was a drug addict.
Gmelch learned that indeed she had met a Rastafarian named Joseph, spoken to him
publicly several times in the village, and visited his cave in the hills on a couple of
occasions. Hanna was puzzled why villagers would be upset by her behavior. Her
fieldwork was based around the concept that anthropologists are supposed to be
interested in different kinds of people
Her problem related to the existence of class in the Barbadian community; Rastafarians
were looked down on. People felt that Rastas often stole vegetables and fruit from
villagers and lacked good morals because they often went naked and looked bizarre.
The situation was compounded by the size and face-to-face nature of village life.
Unlike suburban and urban communities in the U.S., everyone knew each other in the
village. Peoples' behavior was a constant topic of gossip.
Gmelch dealt with the situation by talking to village elders and Hanna's homestay
mother. He explained that she did not understand their concern about Rastas, that she
had not slept with Rastas, and that she meant no harm. In the end, Hanna was allowed
to remain in the village. She learned that her U.S. suburban culture denied the existence
of class and lacked a sense of how close people in a small community can be, combined
with an American sense of personal autonomy. In short, she naively assumed that
people in rural Barbados would view her behavior by her own standards.
In a "postscript" follow up years later, Hanna explained the profound impact that
meeting Joseph had had on her sense of openmindedness, and her growing awareness of
discrimination and prejudice.
In his article "Nice Girls Don"t Talk to Rastas," Gmelch argues that the U.S. students
often work on the idea of personal autonomy, meaning that if they see what they
believe is truth they can act without concern for what others think.
Women in the Mine
JESSICA SMITH ROLSTON
Summary This article details the unique and complex gender roles that have developed
in the coal mines in Wyoming's Powder River Basin. Typically thought of as full of
stereotypically ultra macho men, the coal mines in Wyoming disprove this assumption.
In addition to being comprised mostly of family men, women work alongside men as
equalsin numbers greater than in the industry as a wholein nearly every capacity.
Women miners have developed ways to build rapport with male coworkers that ensure
that they are treated with respect. This article details this complex system.
The Powder River Basin is home to a dozen coal mines that were opened in response to
the energy crisis of the mid-1970s and early 1980s. Many women in the area had grown
up riding horses, fishing, hunting, or working on farms and ranches, and were quite
comfortable getting dirty and doing manual labor. Mining seemed a natural fit, and
offered high pay for those without a college education. Females employed by the mines
can make between $65,000 and $100,000, depending on experience and overtime.
In addition to having to learn the ins and outs of a new industry, women had to learn
how to succeed in a traditionally male environment. They have done so by adjusting
their identities and taking on personas at work in order to gain respect and craft
camaraderie with male coworkers. Common labels like tomboy, lady, girly girl, and
bitch have developed very specific connotations; these personas represent specific
gender identities that bring a range of emotionsfrom respect to disdain to
disapprovalfrom coworkers. Smith Rolston details how the persona a woman chooses at
the mine can have far reaching implications and how adopting a single persona is not
enough; women in the mines must constantly and strategically adjust their personas to
fit the situation, potentially changing identity mid-conversation, mid-shift, or at any
time to respond appropriately to their male coworkers' notions of femininity.
Women represent between 25 and 50 percent of the total employees working in
Wyoming's Power River Basin coal mines.
Women in the Mine
JESSICA SMITH ROLSTON
Summary This article details the unique and complex gender roles that have developed
in the coal mines in Wyoming's Powder River Basin. Typically thought of as full of
stereotypically ultra macho men, the coal mines in Wyoming disprove this assumption.
In addition to being comprised mostly of family men, women work alongside men as
equalsin numbers greater than in the industry as a wholein nearly every capacity.
Women miners have developed ways to build rapport with male coworkers that ensure
that they are treated with respect. This article details this complex system.
The Powder River Basin is home to a dozen coal mines that were opened in response to
the energy crisis of the mid-1970s and early 1980s. Many women in the area had grown
up riding horses, fishing, hunting, or working on farms and ranches, and were quite
comfortable getting dirty and doing manual labor. Mining seemed a natural fit, and
offered high pay for those without a college education. Females employed by the mines
can make between $65,000 and $100,000, depending on experience and overtime.
In addition to having to learn the ins and outs of a new industry, women had to learn
how to succeed in a traditionally male environment. They have done so by adjusting
their identities and taking on personas at work in order to gain respect and craft
camaraderie with male coworkers. Common labels like tomboy, lady, girly girl, and
bitch have developed very specific connotations; these personas represent specific
gender identities that bring a range of emotionsfrom respect to disdain to
disapprovalfrom coworkers. Smith Rolston details how the persona a woman chooses at
the mine can have far reaching implications and how adopting a single persona is not
enough; women in the mines must constantly and strategically adjust their personas to
fit the situation, potentially changing identity mid-conversation, mid-shift, or at any
time to respond appropriately to their male coworkers' notions of femininity.
To be successful as a female coal miner, one must choose an identitytomboy, lady,
or girly girland never stray from that identity
Poverty at Work: Office Employment and the Crack Alternative
PHILIPPE BOURGOIS
Summary The transition from a manufacturing economy to one based on office work is
more culturally disruptive to poorly educated working class city dwellers than one
might suspect. This is the conclusion drawn by Philippe Bourgois based on his three
and one-half year ethnographic study of Puerto-Rican crack cocaine dealers in New
Your City's Spanish Harlem.
When Puerto Ricans first moved to New York City, men with little education were able
to find factory work that enabled them to support their families with dignity. As time
went by, sons followed in their fathers' footsteps, quitting school in their middle teens to
take manufacturing jobs that required little formal education but provided a decent
living and a respected place in surrounding Puerto Rican working class society.
Protected by unions, their macho urban street culture could be openly expressed on the
production line without serious consequences.
All this changed, however, between 1963 and 1983 when over half the factories in New
York City either closed or moved to less expensive areas. Toughness and male swagger
that worked well on the factory production line now intimidated the better-educated
largely Anglo people who worked above them. The poor workers were often unable to
read even the simplest directions. Worse, they often found themselves supervised by
women, a rare occurrence in Puerto Rican society. Even the way they walked and
looked intimidated Anglo co-workers. Above all, they felt "dissed" (disrespected) by
office Anglos, who would often comment openly about their lack of education and
ability. Working at the minimum wage, most lasted on the job for only a few days.
Unemployed once again, many turned to selling crack in a lucrative underground
economy, which placed them on a self-destructive track of drug addiction, violence, and
arrest. Even becoming bicultural, adopting Anglo office culture at work and street
culture at home, did not work well. Friends and family members accused them of
selling out their heritage.
In an epilogue, Bourgois notes that four things changed this bleak underground work
environment in Spanish Harlem during the late 1990s: the economy grew at a high and
sustained rate providing more jobs even for the poor; the size of the Mexican immigrant
population increased significantly in Spanish Harlem; the war on drugs criminalized
many of the poor; and marijuana, not crack, became the drug of choice. As a result,
more men found work in the regular economy. But despite this turn of events, Bourgois
concludes that there is little hope in the long run for New York's inner city poor.
According to Bourgois in the article "Poverty at Work: Office Work and the Crack
Alternative," second generation Puerto Rican residents living in Spanish Harlem began
to sell crack cocaine because they could find no other work in New York City.
If a dictator makes people adhere to his policies by using force, his actions would fall
under the definition of support.
Polyandry: When Brothers Take a Wife
MELVYN C. GOLDSTEIN
Summary In this article, Goldstein discusses the functions of a rare custom, fraternal
polyandry. Along with monogamy, it is one of the most common forms of marriage in
Tibetan society. Among the Tibetans of northern Nepal, it is common for a woman to
marry two or more men who are brothers. This arrangement is generally made with the
consent of the woman's parents. The oldest brother typically manages the household,
with all of the brothers dividing the work equally and participating as sexual partners
with the wife. Although brothers in such an arrangement can quarrel with each other
and occasionally argue over sexual rights to the shared spouse, many men and women
prefer the arrangement.
All of the children of the marriage are treated equally by all of the brothers, and no
attempt is made to keep track of biological linkage. All of the children treat all the
brothers equally, in some regions referring to them as "elder" or "younger." Divorce is
possible; an unhappy brother can simply leave the main house and set up his own
household. Any children remain in the main household, even if the departing brother is
the real father.
Two theories have previously been advanced by anthropologists to explain polyandry.
One argues that the custom results from a shortage of women due to female infanticide.
The other is that polyandry correlates with a shortage of arable land. The claim is that
with polyandrous marriage, land can be held in the same male line without subdivision.
Goldstein challenges both explanations. There is not, he argues, a high rate of female
infanticide among Tibetans, and many Tibetan women live out their lives unmarried,
yet bear children. If scarce land were the problem, one would expect poor families with
little land to practice polyandry, but it is wealthy farmers who prefer the custom.
Polyandry does serve to reduce the birth rate, but Tibetans do not recognize this latent
function. Instead, for the wealthier Tibetans who practice it, polyandry is desirable
because it permits them to keep land holdings together and continue to live a more
prosperous life.
By entering into a polyandrous marriage with his brothers, a Tibetan man has access to
family land, animals, and any other inheritances. He shares any work burden with his
brothers, and thus is afforded greater security. He may not have as much personal
freedom as he would in a monogamous marriage, but what he loses in freedom he gains
in the economic security, affluence, and prestige that comes with a larger, asset-holding,
polyandrous family.
In "Polyandry: When Brothers Take a Wife," Goldstein argues that the Tibetan practice
of polyandry is analogous to the practice of primogeniture in nineteenth-century
England.
Baseball Magic
GEORGE GMELCH
Summary This updated selection by George Gmelch shows how Americans use
magical ritual to reduce the anxiety associated with uncertainty. Gmelch focuses on
baseball players but cites the work of Bronislaw Malinowski on magic in the Trobriand
Islands, where islanders use magic when braving dangerous marine trips. In both cases,
so different at first glance, magic is used to reduce anxiety and increase a sense of
control.
Ritual in baseball involves those prescribed behaviors in which there is no connection
between the behavior (e.g., tapping home plate three times) and the desired end (e.g.,
getting a base hit). Gmelch describes how ritual surrounds two of the three main
activities associated with the gamehitting and pitching. This is because both involve
great uncertainty. Fielding, the other main activity, is relatively error-free and therefore
receives little magical attention.
Baseball players display most varieties of magic. They use personal magic, such as a
regular cap adjustment before each pitch. Fetishes are also used; these are
charmsusually small objects believed to embody supernatural power (luck) that can aid
or protect the owner. Baseball fetishes are sometimes lucky pennies. Magic practices
also include special diets, special clothing, and a host of other devices they feel are
associated with successful play. They also observe taboos (things that should not be
done, and that can bring bad luck), including one against crossing bats.
At the root of such behavior is this notion: people associate things with each other that
have no functional relationship. If a pitcher eats pancakes for breakfast and wins a game
that day, he may continue to eat them each time he plays because the act is now
associated with success on the field. Citing research on rats and pigeons, Gmelch notes
that once an association is established, it only takes sporadic success to perpetuate the
relationship. Gmelch concludes that although baseball players do not attribute their acts
to any special, supernatural power, they nonetheless follow ritual practices carefully to
influence luck and guard against failure.
Skinner explains magic as a response to uncertainty, an attempt to control the
unpredictable.
Detached observation is a research approach in which investigators observe human
behavior and create their own categories and theories to describe and explain it.
Acculturation refers to the process of learning one's culture.
The Hunters: Scarce Resources in the Kalahari
RICHARD BORSHAY LEE
With an update by Richard Lee and Megan Biesele
Summary Basing his conclusions on an extensive study of !Kung subsistence activity
and nutrition in 1963, Richard Lee challenges the notion that hunters and gatherers
lived a hand-to-mouth existence. Despite residence in the Kalahari Desert, where there
is an average yearly rainfall of only six to nine inches, !Kung managed to lead a
remarkably stable, relaxed existence. They resided in camps located at permanent water
holes. They frequently visited relatives in other camps but rarely moved long distances
to hunt and gather.
Overall, hunter gathering provided over 85% of subsistence needs. A key to assured
subsistence was the availability of vegetable foods, particularly the mongongo nut. !
Kung could subsist entirely on such foods although they preferred meat. Vegetable
foods made up 60 to 80 percent of their diet. The abundance of their sparse environment
was revealed by the fact that !Kung ate selectively, consuming only some of the edible
plant and animal species found around them. A significant number of !Kung lived
beyond the age of 60, and approximately 40 percent of the population did no productive
work. !Kung spent only about two and one-half days a week in productive activity,
using the remainder of their time for leisure activities. Lee concluded that for many
hunting and gathering groups, a dependence on plant foods produced a stable, effective
way of life.
The way of life described for 1963 has changed, however. By 1994, most Ju/"Hoansi !
Kung were living in permanent settlements, eking out a living by herding, farming, and
craft production. Hunting and gathering now only supply about 30 percent of their
subsistence needs. The spread of commercial ranching on the areas in which they
traditionally foraged may soon reduce this figure to zero.
Richard Lee claims that the consumption of edible plants, rather than meat, was the key
to successful subsistence for the !Kung in 1963.
The primary means of gaining conformity and order from individual members of a
society is through enculturation.
Eating Christmas in the Kalahari
RICHARD BORSHAY LEE
Summary In this article, Lee describes a classic case of cross-cultural
misunderstanding that occurred near the completion of his fieldwork among the !Kung
Bushmen. To thank the !Kung for allowing him to live and work among them, Lee
decided to donate an especially large ox for them to eat at their annual Christmas feast.
To his dismay, the !Kung seemed disappointed with the animal he had chosen, claiming
that it was too thin, old, and sick. Their attitude persisted even after the butchered ox
proved to be so large and fat that it fed 150 people for two days.
Only later did Lee discover that the !Kung customarily denigrate and ridicule hunters
who have killed large game in order to "cool" their potential arrogance. To Lee, the ox
meant a gift, and in American culture gifts should be reciprocated with thanks and
appreciation. To the !Kung, the ox was a large animal to be shared, something hunters
contribute regularly. For them, the provider must be kept in line lest he become
impressed by his own importance (a position related to the !Kung value on equality).
Because of these different cultural interpretations of the same act, cross-cultural
misunderstanding resulted.
As a postscript to this article, remember that the !Kung were studied by Lee in the 60s;
few live as foragers today. For an update on the !Kung see the epilogue to article 8 by
Lee and Biesele.
The !Kung ridiculed the ox given them by Lee for their Christmas feast because this is
the usual way they "cool" the arrogance of people who provide important things for
others.
Mother's Love: Death without Weeping
NANCY SCHEPER-HUGHES
Summary In this article, Nancy Scheper-Hughes argued that under conditions of
extreme poverty where there are high rates of infant mortality, it is a natural human
response for mothers to distance themselves emotionally from their dead and dying
infants.
Scheper-Hughes based her conclusion on 25 years of fieldwork, starting in 1965, in the
shantytown of Alto do Cruzeiro on the edge of Bom Jesus de Mata, a market town in
northeast Brazil. Poverty in the shantytown produced a life expectancy of only 40 years,
largely due to high rates of infant mortality.
Scheper-Hughes first encountered women's reactions to infant death in 1965 when 350
children died in a "great baby die-off." Mothers seemed strangely indifferent to the
deaths of their children. It was then that Scheper-Hughes concluded that mothering in
Alto do Cruzeiro meant learning to abstain from forming emotional ties to their infants
who were sick or weakthose who were likely to die.
Social conditions were marked by brittle marriages; single parenting by women was the
norm. Most had no choice but to work in the "shadow economy"; babies were
frequently left home alone because infants could not be taken to work. Midwives and
other women supported mothers in their detachment. Even civil authorities and the
clergy discouraged the attachment of mothers to their babies. Registration of infant
deaths was short and informal. Doctors did not recognize malnutrition and, instead of
treating a child at risk of dying, merely tranquilized them. The church did not hold
ceremonies for dead children, and infants were buried without headstones in graves that
would be used over and over again.
In an epilogue added by Scheper-Hughes for this edition, the author notes that by 2008
much had changed in Bom Jesus. The advent of a democratic government brought a
national health care system, a change in Catholic beliefs about infant death, an
under-the-counter "morning after" pill, and most important, the installation of water
pipes throughout the city. The result was a dramatic decline in both infant birth and
death rates. Mothers who once were resigned to "letting go" of sickly babies now "hold
on" to their infants. Unfortunately, high infant mortality has been replaced by a new
form of violence: the killing of young men, by gang leaders, banditos, and local police.
According to Scheper-Hughes in "Mother's Love: Death Without Weeping," mothers
living in Alto do Cruzeiro in northeastern Brazil have been known to actually hasten the
death of babies they felt would not survive by failing to feed them properly.
Nice Girls Don"t Talk to Rastas
GEORGE GMELCH
Summary This article uses the experience of an American student studying abroad to
illustrate the concept of naive realism, especially the American insensitivity to the
existence of social class and the nature of small communities. Gmelch noted that one of
his students, Hanna, whose research he was supervising in Barbados, suddenly
encountered a serious fieldwork problem. Her fieldwork involved living in a rural
Barbadian community, where she worked in the village school and lived with a host
family. For several weeks her work went well. Rapport with her host mother and other
villagers was excellent and she was enthusiastic about her experience. Then suddenly
her homestay mother demanded that she move out because of what villagers were
saying about her. It turned out that she had been seen talking to a Rastafarian named
Joseph, and based on their view of Rastas, villagers had concluded that she was
smoking marijuana and bathing naked with him and other Rastas. Some even thought
she was a drug addict.
Gmelch learned that indeed she had met a Rastafarian named Joseph, spoken to him
publicly several times in the village, and visited his cave in the hills on a couple of
occasions. Hanna was puzzled why villagers would be upset by her behavior. Her
fieldwork was based around the concept that anthropologists are supposed to be
interested in different kinds of people
Her problem related to the existence of class in the Barbadian community; Rastafarians
were looked down on. People felt that Rastas often stole vegetables and fruit from
villagers and lacked good morals because they often went naked and looked bizarre.
The situation was compounded by the size and face-to-face nature of village life.
Unlike suburban and urban communities in the U.S., everyone knew each other in the
village. Peoples' behavior was a constant topic of gossip.
Gmelch dealt with the situation by talking to village elders and Hanna's homestay
mother. He explained that she did not understand their concern about Rastas, that she
had not slept with Rastas, and that she meant no harm. In the end, Hanna was allowed
to remain in the village. She learned that her U.S. suburban culture denied the existence
of class and lacked a sense of how close people in a small community can be, combined
with an American sense of personal autonomy. In short, she naively assumed that
people in rural Barbados would view her behavior by her own standards.
In a "postscript" follow up years later, Hanna explained the profound impact that
meeting Joseph had had on her sense of openmindedness, and her growing awareness of
discrimination and prejudice.
In "Nice Girls Don"t Talk to Rastas," Gmelch describes how one of his study abroad
students ran into trouble when she began living with a Rastafarian.
The economic system defines the provision of goods and services to meet human
biological and social wants.
