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In "Medical Anthropology: Improving Nutrition in Malawi," Patten notes that in
Malawi culture, goats have traditionally been seen as
a. walking bank accounts.
b. animals bred solely for milk production.
c. animals that don"t provide enough in resources to warrant raising them.
d. nuisance animals that eat the crops grown by villagers.
According to Shandy and Moe in "Negotiating Work and Family in America," women
now serve as primary breadwinners in __________ percent of all families, and own
__________ of all U.S. businesses.
a. 30, two thirds
b. 40, one third
c. 20, two thirds
d. 10, one third
In "Medical Anthropology: Improving Nutrition in Malawi," Patten notes that some
villages were not good candidates for the social research project due to
a. a language barrier between the anthropologists and the villagers.
b. an ongoing problem of animal theft.
c. the elders' resistance to the plan.
d. the resistance of women head-of-households in those villages.
In "Run for the Wall: An American Pilgrimage," Dubisch notes that participants in the
Run for the Wall
a. often frightened onlookers with their "outlaw biker" looks.
b. annoyed other motorists by hogging miles of highway with hundreds of bikes.
c. were mostly members of Western, especially Californian, motorcycle clubs.
d. were usually Vietnam veterans.
According to Cronk in "Reciprocity and the Power of Giving," the Mount Hagen tribes
of New Guinea use a gift giving system called "moka" to gain prestige and
a. guarantee security.
b. establish new relationships.
c. build trust.
d. shame rivals.
The belief and feeling that one's own culture is best is called
a. cultural relativism.
b. naive realism.
c. detached observation.
d. ethnocentrism.
In "The Military Name Game," Boxer notes that the name for U.S. operations in
Afghanistan, "Infinite Justice," was dropped because
a. the term, "justice," implied a legal rationale for pursuing the conflict and there was
none.
b. the phrase was too general and meaningless.
c. the Council on American-Islamic Relations felt it implied a godly role for the U.S.
d. the phrase angered the U.S.'s Arab allies.
According to Sutherland in "The Case of an American Gypsy," Gypsies find which of
the following things polluting (marime)?
a. relatives from other vitsas
b. non-Gypsies
c. Social Security benefits
d. driving cars
As societies grow larger, people may do most of their socializing in
a. ethnic groups.
b. territorial groups.
c. social networks.
d. kinship groups.
In "How Sushi Went Global," Bestor notes that Japan's control over sushi as a Japanese
cultural entity
a. has diminished as it has become more widely available around the world, from
baseball stadiums to fine dining establishments in the United States, and from
apartments in Madrid to Buenos Aires.
b. has weakened, as many non-Japanese sushi bars that identify with other ethnicities
have opened in metropolitan areas outside of Japan.
c. is apparent in the use of Japanese buyers and "tuna techs" to instruct New England
fishermen on the proper techniques to catch, handle, and pack tuna for export.
d. has diminshed; the number of U.S. visas granted to Japanese sushi chefs, tuna
buyers, and other workers in the global sushi business has dropped to under 200 a year.
Which of the following factors encourages Third World women to migrate to the First
World for work, according to Ehrenreich and Hochschild's article "Global Women in the
New Economy"?
a. the amount of money they can make and send home
b. the possibility of achieving citizenship in the host country
c. the potential for improved health care
d. the possibility of eventually moving their families to the host country.
When a man is simultaneously married to two or more women, anthropologists call the
arrangement
a. polygamy.
b. polygyny.
c. polyandry.
d. exogamy.
The right to make and enforce public policy is called
a. coercion.
b. authority.
c. legitimacy.
d. leadership.
According to McCurdy in "Family and Kinship in Village India," when Bhils visit other
villages, they usually stay with
a. members of their patriclan.
b. friends, not kin.
c. members of their extended family.
d. feminal kin.
According to Guneratne and Bjork in "Village Walks," the Tharu village of Pipariya is
located adjacent to
a. the Chitwan national forest.
b. the Himalayan mountains.
c. the Tarai National Forest.
d. the border with India.
Family and Kinship in Village India
DAVID W. McCURDY
Summary In this article, David McCurdy describes the importance of kinship among
rural Bhil tribal peoples living in Ratakote, a hill village located in the southern part of
Rajasthan near Udaipur, India. He argues that an elaborate and extended kinship system
is not only a useful way for peasants to organize their labor, land holdings, and broader
social connections, but that it is also a system that can be adapted to the
market-dominated economic system currently emerging in India.
Americans find it difficult to comprehend the importance of extended kinship, but for
the Bhils, the significance of kinship seems elementary. A wedding arranged by a
villager for his daughter in 1985 illustrates the point nicely. To begin the arrangement,
the father must consult the members of his patrilineage, who must later provide money
and labor for the wedding. He will send out word to his feminal kinthe relatives of the
women who have married into his line and the relatives of the men that women of his
line have marriedin other villages. When prospective grooms are found, the first
consideration is clan membership. Clans are large and consist of local lineages living in
many villages over a wide territory. Bhils cannot marry into their own, their mother's, or
their father's mother's clans; this constitutes incest.
Once a suitable spouse is found, negotiations commence to set a dapa (bride price), the
money and prestige goods given by the groom's family to that of the bride. Bride price
is part of an exchange for the labor and loyalty of the bride. Marriage becomes an
alliance between the two families but involves potential conflict. To clearly state that
rights to her loyalty, labor, and children shift to her husband's family at marriage, the
wedding ceremony symbolizes the bride's removal from her natal group. After
marriage, a relationship built on formal respect keeps the bride's family at a proper
distance.
Extended kinship systems seem well suited to agrarian peasant life where families best
control landholding and economic production. Today, India is industrializing and the
market economy is attracting many rural peasants to cities as well as restructuring
economic relationships in rural villages. The market economy can easily weaken
kinship systems by providing individuals with salaries and independence, causing
people to move to find work, and creating jobs that compete for time with family
obligations. Despite expansion of the market, Indians, including the Bhils described in
this article, have adapted kinship relationships to provide support as they scatter across
their country and around the world.
In "Family and Kinship in Village India," McCurdy notes that when a groom ritually
breaks into his future bride's house at the beginning of the final wedding ceremony, the
act is one way to symbolize her movement from her natal family to his.
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 observes that Tswana farmers speak about their
feelings with candor.
The parents of a potential bride will arrange a match directly with the groom himself
(not with his family) only if he
a. is already married, owns his own home, and is well established.
b. is not yet married, owns his own home, and is well established.
c. is not related to the bride and is not yet married.
d. does not plan to leave the Fouta Djallon to earn money.
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.
According to Patten in "Medical Anthropology: Improving Nutrition in Malawi," the
UDLP team undertook a plan to try teaching Malawi women how to incorporate cow's
milk into the gruel fed to babies and children, to get more protein and calories into their
diet.
The Worst Lover: Boyfriend Spirits in Senegal
RACHEL MUELLER
Summary This article by Rachel Mueller details the unique coexistence and
cooperation in modern Senegal of the Sufi sect of Islam, and Lbou, a religious cult that
attributes inexplicable behavior, health issues, and adversity to troublesome spirits (rab)
who intentionally interact and sometimes possess girls and women.
According to Mueller, Senegal is a growing, cosmopolitan country filled with history
and a tradition of great hospitality, or terenga. By all appearancesprayer mats in office
buildings, posters and photos of Islamic holy men in the cities' taxis, and people in
prayer five times a daySenegal, and in particular, Dakar, is filled with people who
practice Islam. Sprinkled among the followers of Muhammad are individuals who
adhere to a religious tradition that involves invisible spirits roaming the earth and
interacting with humans, sometimes in an unpleasant and troublesome manner.
Mueller details the reasons these spirits are unhappy, and relates tales of their efforts to
possess young women who are beautiful and well dressed. Women and girls are
encouraged to cover their knees in public (these are a particular weakness of the faru
rab, the "boyfriend spirits" who possess and preoccupy girls and women) and dress
conservatively, even while sleeping. Islam and Lbou intersect at times, namely when
Islamic holy men are called upon to communicate with the spirits who bother women.
Significantly, however, female healers and priestesses (called an ndeppkat) also play an
important role in liaising with the spirit world. Both the Islamic holy men and the
ndeppkat, Mueller explains, learn about the rab and determine what can be done to
discourage or drive him away. The remedies may include bathing in holy water, making
animal sacrifices, and dressing in a color unpleasant to the rab. Unfortunately, these
efforts do not always work, and an elaborate ritual called an ndepp may be necessary to
exorcise the rab entirely.
Mueller elaborates on the intersection of Islam and Lbou, as well as the effect that
modernization, globalization, and the Internet might have on the future of the Lbou
beliefs and traditions. Although Senegalese with financial means now turn to Western
doctors for solutions to what they believe is rab spirit control, and some of the effects
are cured, many continue to turn to healers because the rab spirit world is so strongly
engrained in the Lbou culture.
In "The Worst Lover: Boyfriend Spirits in Senegal," Mueller notes that, in Lbou
religious tradition, the rab originally coexisted in harmony with humans, but became
angered by their practice of Islam.
The five pillars of the Islamic faith include: the recitation of the __________, daily
prayers, fasting during __________, annual charitable giving, and pilgrimage to Mecca
once
during the lifetime of those who are able.
a. Koran, Shahada
b. Shahada, Ramadan
c. Hijab, si Dios lo quiere
d. Insh"allah, Shahada
Phonology consists of the categories and rules for forming symbols that engage which
of the
channels available to humans for communication?
a. sight
b. touch
c. taste
d. sound
Shandy and Moe, in "Negotiating Work and Family in America," argue that a key to
women's rank is
a. control over family finances.
b. having a large number of children.
c. obtaining high-level occupational positions.
d. their contribution of goods and services toward family maintenance.
Among some Indian cultures, a(n) __________ is described as a supernaturally
controlled, painful, or physically dangerous test that is used to settle a dispute.
a. moot
b. go-between
c. self-redress
d. ordeal
In "The Worst Lover: Boyfriend Spirits in Senegal," Mueller explains that an ndepp is
a. a single day spent in prayer to Mohammad, led by local marabout.
b. a private ceremony for the family of the girl possessed.
c. a ritual that involves making a month-long pilgrimage to a holy site.
d. a large, public ceremony that lasts for several days and includes dancing, drumming,
and singing.
A feud is an example of
a. coercion.
b. a legal dispute.
c. an infralegal dispute.
d. an extralegal dispute.
In his article, Lee claims that when he studied them in the 1960s, !Kung
a. ate all of the edible plants and animals found in their environment.
b. lived in camps, each of which had a defended territory.
c. enjoyed a large amount of leisure time.
d. had to move every few days in search of scarce foodstuffs.
Any use of anthropological knowledge that makes social interaction more predictable
among persons having different cultural codes is called
a. academic anthropology.
b. action anthropology.
c. administrative anthropology.
d. adjustment anthropology.
An economic philosophy that emphasizes the free movement of goods, capital, and
services, with cuts to public expenditures for social services is called
a. redistribution.
b. neo-liberalism.
c. subsistence.
d. allocation of resources.
Mixed Blood
JEFFERSON M. FISH
Summary This article illustrates how the American concept of race is a cultural
construction, not a biological reality. Fish explains how there are no races among
humans, because the concept of race relates to individuals who mate but can bear no
fertile offspring. Clearly, this is not true of present-day humans. Human beings form a
single species.
Our evident variations in physical appearance around the globe has occurred through
the processes of random mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift (accidental
selection). Most traits that Americans think of as racial, such as skin color, are adaptive
to differences in environmental conditions.
If races are not biologically distinguishable groups, what are they? They are what are
known as "folk classifications" of people based on culturally selected criteria. People
everywhere classify things in folk taxonomies, but classifications of the same things
may vary from society to society. For example, Americans classify avocados as
vegetables and eat them in salads. Brazilians classify avocados as fruits and eat them
with lemon and sugar for dessert.
Although there are many ways in which people could classify each other, such as by
body shape for example, many Americans learn to group each other into "races" based
primarily on skin color (largely "white," "Asian," "black," or "Latino") and that these
groups are rooted in biological reality. Yet at the same time, there is a history of
classifying people according to hypo-descent, another social construction that is more
about perceived ancestry. Many Americans still tend to rank races; white is highest,
followed by Asian, Hispanic (Latino), and black. Children are allocated the racial
classification of their lowest- (hypo) ranking parent. If your mother is classified as
black and your father white, you might still be classified as black no matter what you
look like.
This is in stark contrast to Brazilians, for example, who classify people into tipos
(types) on the basis of what they look like. Examples include loura (completely blond),
preta (dark skin, broader nose), sarar (tight curly blond or red hair, blue eyes, broad
nose, and thick lips), and cabo verde (straight black hair, dark skin, brown eyes, narrow
nose, and thin lips). The children of a Brazilian couple could be classified into different
tipos if each child looks different.
The American conception of race is beginning to change as more people of different
"races" intermarry and immigrants whose racial identities are difficult to classify by the
American system enter the country. "Other" is a fast-growing category of racial identity.
According to Fish in "Mixed Blood," North Americans fail in their attempt to classify
people into races because they ignore important physical differences such as body shape
(rounded and lanky, for example).
If the people of a village prefer that their children marry spouses from other villages,
they follow the rule of village endogamy.
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.
According to Williamson, conservation efforts by the Bolivian government and
conservation groups have largely succeeded in preventing illegal logging in the
Chimanes Indian Reserve.
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.
A marriage, considered an important alliance between families in Fouta Djallon, is
typically arranged by the parents of the bride.
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.
Some of the women interviewed at the Power River Basin felt that their physical
size gave them an advantage over their male counterparts.
Conversation Style: Talking on the Job
DEBORAH TANNEN
Summary In this selection excerpted from her book Talking from 9 to 5, Deborah
Tannen describes misunderstandings in the work place based on the different speaking
styles of men and women. Tannen notes that most people blame miscommunication on
the intentions, different abilities, and character of others, or on their own failure or the
failure of the relationship. Miscommunication in the work place, however, often occurs
between men and women because gender is a basic indicator of identity and because
men and women learn different styles of speaking.
Tannen introduces an example of gender-based misunderstanding in which a female
manager first uses praise then follows with suggestions to improve a male employee's
substandard report. The manager thinks she is diplomatic; the employee mistakes her
comments solely as praise and miscommunication occurs. When the revised report is
submitted, few of the suggested changes appear, and the employee thinks the manager
has been dishonest by first praising and now criticizing the report. The differences,
argues Tanner, have to do with different styles of speaking. Men avoid being put in a
one-down position by using oppositions such as banter, joking, teasing, and playful
put-downs. Women seek the appearance of equality and try to avoid flexing their
muscles to get jobs done. The misunderstandings occur when actors take each other's
speaking styles literally.
The remainder of the selection deals with a particular male speaking style, the
reluctance to ask directions. Women ask directions because it seems to be the fastest
way to get things done. Men hesitate to ask questions, claiming that they develop their
navigation skills by going at things independently. Tannen argues that men avoid asking
questions because it puts them in a one- down position. Each style has its pitfalls. Male
pilots or doctors who fail to ask questions may endanger their own or other people's
lives. Female doctors and managers who ask too many questions may risk signaling that
they are tentative or unsure of themselves.
Tannen concludes by saying that neither style is inherently wrong, just different, and
that speakers should be aware of gender-based speaking styles and flexible in their own
use of them.
In Tannen's article "Conversation Style: Talking on the Job," claims that women's
speaking styles, based on a need to create the appearance of equality, are a better form
of communication in the work place than men's more direct speaking styles.
Culture shock is the process of discovering and describing a particular culture.
Language is a system of cultural knowledge used to generate and interpret speech.
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.
In "Nuer Refugees in America," Shandy notes that the UN defines refugees as IDPs,
meaning "internally displaced persons."
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.
As he describes it in his article "Using Anthropology," McCurdy notes that one of the
problems at UTC was that warehouse workers failed to count books correctly.
Ethnography and Culture
JAMES P. SPRADLEY
Summary In this introductory chapter from his book Participant Observation, Spradley
defines and emphasizes the importance of ethnographic fieldwork and the concept of
culture. Ethnography is the work of describing a culture. It requires the discovery of the
native or insider's point of view.
Cultural behavior consists of the actions generated by cultural knowledge. Cultural
artifacts, based on cultural behavior and cultural knowledge, are the things people make
or shape from natural resources. Culture, itself, is the socially acquired knowledge that
people use to generate behavior and interpret experience. Different cross-cultural
interpretations of the same event easily cause misunderstandings.
Culture may also be explicit (part of our conscious awareness) or tacit (outside
awareness). The meaning of things for members of a group is at the heart of the culture
concept, a point related to Blumer's notion of symbolic interactionism. The concept of
culture as acquired knowledge has much in common with symbolic interactionism, a
theory that seeks to explain human behavior in terms of meanings. Blumer's theory rests
on three premises. The first is that "human beings act toward things on the basis of the
meanings that the things have for them." The second is that the "meaning of such things
is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with one's fellows."
The third is that "meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretive
process used by the person dealing with the things he encounters." Spradley concludes
by characterizing culture as a map, a guide to action and interpretation.
Anthropologists, such as George Hicks, look for inside meaning when they do
ethnographic research.
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.
According to Reed, when colonists develop the tropical forest in which Guaran live, the
Indians must farm more and more land to survive.
The process of making and carrying out public policy according to cultural categories
and rules is called the political system.
An army private must salute when he approaches an officer and hold the salute until
after the officer has returned the greeting. This is an illustration of a status.
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.
In "Malawi Versus the World Bank," Patten argues that 95 percent of the Malawian
population lives on small farms 1 to 4 acres in size.
An informant is what anthropologists call the individuals from whom they learn a
culture.
Reciprocity and the Power of Giving
LEE CRONK
Summary Cronk argues that everywhere in the world, gifts are used positively to
establish and maintain social relationships, but also negatively to intimidate and fight
others. These characteristics apply just as fully to gift exchange in industrial societies as
they do for other peoples.
Anthropologists learned about the complexities of gift giving through first-hand
experience during fieldwork. Richard Lee's !Kung informants criticized his gift of an
ox, saying the ox was thin and inadequate when clearly it was not. (See article 2 in
Conformity and Conflict). Rada Dyson-Hudson met with a similar reaction when she
attempted to give pots to her Turkana informants. Cronk also experienced the same
reaction when he gave clothing to the Mukogodo, who elaborate the act of gift
exchange more than do most people. In every case, informants attached different
meanings to gift giving than did the anthropologists..
Gift giving has several dimensions, including how the gift is received and how it is
reciprocated. Often "to reciprocate at once indicates a desire to end the relationship,"
Cronk points out. He also notes that some gift giving arrangements, such as hxaro
among the !Kung, are designed solely to maintain a friendly relationship. In addition,
the worth of gifts may not be taken into account. The Trobriand kula ring, involving
shell necklaces and armbands, represents one of the most elaborate gift exchanges ever
described by anthropologists.
Gift giving may not always be benevolent. The Kwakiutl potlatch, where rivals tried to
"flatten" each other with gifts, is a good example. Potlatching actually became a
substitute for war after the Canadian government suppressed real fighting.
Reciprocal gift giving is also important in U.S. society. Examples include a form of
benevolent gift giving, called swapping among African Americans living in an area of
Illinois called the flats. Scientific papers, usually referred to as contributions, are really
gifts and have higher value than those papers written for money. Even the citations of
other people's work so liberally scattered throughout academic papers may be viewed as
a form of gift exchange.
Gifts may also be used to manipulate people, as Grace Goodell documents for a World
Bank-funded project in Iran. The gift of an irrigation project crushed local level
political organizations and shifted control to the central government. International
relations often involve gift giving. The "concessions" made between the U.S. and Soviet
governments during disarmament negotiations several years ago are a good example.
Cronk concludes by pointing out that American Indians understood the gift's power to
unify, antagonize, or subjugate and that all of us would do well to learn the same lesson.
In "Reciprocity and the Power of Giving," Cronk cites Hagstrom's argument that
citations of other people's work in academic articles as well as the articles themselves,
are a form of gift.
Becoming Muslim in Europe
MIKAELA ROGOZEN-SOLTAR
Increased globalization has brought people of different backgrounds in contact with one
another more than ever before. In "Becoming Muslim in Europe," Mikaela
Rogozen-Soltar argues that this has created conflict, mutual influence, and increased
intercultural and interreligious marriages. These marriages, particularly in countries
such as Spain, where religion and national identity are deeply entwined, can be very
difficult to navigate and highlight basic cultural differences. Rogozen-Soltar identifies
and discusses one of the biggest cultural differences that exists today, that of Muslim
and non-Muslim marriage partners. Her article illustrates the unique challenges faced
by Muslim converts in Spanish culture, where Catholicism is seen as part of one's
"Spanishness."
Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion based on new births and converts to the
faith. Spain has a rich, 800-year-old Muslim history, easily found in historic landmarks
like the Alhambra, and in Spanish dance, music, and cuisine. However, over several
hundred years since the Spanish Inquisition, and Francisco Franco's enforcement of
Catholicism as the national religion from 1939 until 1975, most Spaniards equate
"being Spanish" with being Catholic. Additionally, many Spaniards view Islam as a
threat to Spanish identity and fear its resurgence in Spain.
In recent years, as Muslims have migrated to Spain and married Spanish women, some
Spaniards have been forced to reexamine their understanding of what it means to be
Spanish. Rogozen-Soltar recounts the experience of Maria Martinez and her evolution
from a Spanish woman with stereotypical views of Islam, to someone in love with a
Muslim man, to one who chooses to convert to Islam. Her experience illustrates the
judgment she and other converts to Islam face in Spain.
The experiences of Maria and other converts to Islam highlight how importantand how
entrenchedcultural identities and memberships in social groups can be. Even though
Maria initially could not imagine how she, a Spanish woman, could become a Muslim,
her growing knowledge of Islam eventually allowed her to shift her view of her cultural
identity. This led to a different perspective of Spain's Muslim history than that of the
majority of her countrymen. Now she tries to educate others about her changed views
by reminding Catholic and secular Spaniards of Spain's Muslim heritage, while
reinforcing the normalcy of Islam. She is careful not to try to convert friends, but
instead focuses on creating understanding by drawing parallels between the two
religions. For example, she equates Insh"alla (God willing) with si Dios lo quiere (God
willing), a phrase commonly heard in Spain.
From 1939 to 1975, Francisco Franco enforced Catholicism as the national religion
of Spain.
Conversation Style: Talking on the Job
DEBORAH TANNEN
Summary In this selection excerpted from her book Talking from 9 to 5, Deborah
Tannen describes misunderstandings in the work place based on the different speaking
styles of men and women. Tannen notes that most people blame miscommunication on
the intentions, different abilities, and character of others, or on their own failure or the
failure of the relationship. Miscommunication in the work place, however, often occurs
between men and women because gender is a basic indicator of identity and because
men and women learn different styles of speaking.
Tannen introduces an example of gender-based misunderstanding in which a female
manager first uses praise then follows with suggestions to improve a male employee's
substandard report. The manager thinks she is diplomatic; the employee mistakes her
comments solely as praise and miscommunication occurs. When the revised report is
submitted, few of the suggested changes appear, and the employee thinks the manager
has been dishonest by first praising and now criticizing the report. The differences,
argues Tanner, have to do with different styles of speaking. Men avoid being put in a
one-down position by using oppositions such as banter, joking, teasing, and playful
put-downs. Women seek the appearance of equality and try to avoid flexing their
muscles to get jobs done. The misunderstandings occur when actors take each other's
speaking styles literally.
The remainder of the selection deals with a particular male speaking style, the
reluctance to ask directions. Women ask directions because it seems to be the fastest
way to get things done. Men hesitate to ask questions, claiming that they develop their
navigation skills by going at things independently. Tannen argues that men avoid asking
questions because it puts them in a one- down position. Each style has its pitfalls. Male
pilots or doctors who fail to ask questions may endanger their own or other people's
lives. Female doctors and managers who ask too many questions may risk signaling that
they are tentative or unsure of themselves.
Tannen concludes by saying that neither style is inherently wrong, just different, and
that speakers should be aware of gender-based speaking styles and flexible in their own
use of them.
In "Conversation Style: Talking on the Job," Tannen argues that most people blame
misunderstandings on the ambivalence of words used by men and women when they
talk at work.
Ethnography and Culture
JAMES P. SPRADLEY
Summary In this introductory chapter from his book Participant Observation, Spradley
defines and emphasizes the importance of ethnographic fieldwork and the concept of
culture. Ethnography is the work of describing a culture. It requires the discovery of the
native or insider's point of view.
Cultural behavior consists of the actions generated by cultural knowledge. Cultural
artifacts, based on cultural behavior and cultural knowledge, are the things people make
or shape from natural resources. Culture, itself, is the socially acquired knowledge that
people use to generate behavior and interpret experience. Different cross-cultural
interpretations of the same event easily cause misunderstandings.
Culture may also be explicit (part of our conscious awareness) or tacit (outside
awareness). The meaning of things for members of a group is at the heart of the culture
concept, a point related to Blumer's notion of symbolic interactionism. The concept of
culture as acquired knowledge has much in common with symbolic interactionism, a
theory that seeks to explain human behavior in terms of meanings. Blumer's theory rests
on three premises. The first is that "human beings act toward things on the basis of the
meanings that the things have for them." The second is that the "meaning of such things
is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with one's fellows."
The third is that "meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretive
process used by the person dealing with the things he encounters." Spradley concludes
by characterizing culture as a map, a guide to action and interpretation.
The concept of "explicit culture" is a key part of Herbert Blumer's theory of symbolic
interaction.
Cultural diffusion 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.
