ANTH 3131 C A

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ANTH 3131
CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
SYLLABUS & WORKBOOK
SPRING 2006
CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
ANTH 3131, SPRING 2006: TUESDAYS 4-7PM – BAYOU BLDG., ROOM 1211
INSTRUCTOR: DEEPA S. REDDY
OFFICE: SUITE 2617-2
PHONE: 281/283-3331
EMAIL: REDDY@UHCL.EDU
OFFICE HOURS: TUESDAYS & WEDNESDAYS, 2-3PM AND 7-8PM (OR BY APPOINTMENT)
HTTP://COURSESITE.CL.UH.EDU/HSH/REDDY
TEACHING ASSISTANT: SANDRA NELSON
PHONE: 281-482-6914 EMAIL: NELSONS3915@UHCL.EDU
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This is an upper level course which will focus on reading and analyzing ethnographic
texts. The course aims to explore the methods by which anthropology attempts to study and understand “culture.”
COURSE OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this course are fourfold: (1) to explore the concept of “culture,”
definitions of cultural difference and diversity; (2) to introduce students to important topics in cultural
anthropology such as kinship, gender, economy, religion, and ethnicity; (3) to examine the nature of ethnographic
fieldwork and the specific ways in which it fosters cultural analysis; and (4) to enable students to reflect critically
on aspects of our/their own societies.
COURSE FORMAT: This course will be structured around lectures, group-work assignments and discussions based
on assigned texts and ethnographic films.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
o Matthews Masayuki Hamabata (1990) Crested Kimono: Power and Love in the Japanese Business
Family
o Kirin Narayan (1992) Storytellers, Saints and Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching
o Cori Hayden (2003) When Nature Goes Public: the making and unmaking of bioprospecting in Mexico
WORKBOOK: All students will be provided with a workbook with questions related to the readings. These are
meant to help you identify important themes, concepts and vocabularies in the assigned texts and films, and to
function as exam-reviews/ study-guides once they are completed. You will be given some time after each classsession to look over the relevant questions in the workbook, but will not be filling out the answers during class
time. You are required to do that as you are doing the readings in preparation for class, or on your own time after
the class has ended.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
Exams (3)
Journals
Attendance and Participation
70%
10%
20%
Attendance and Participation: Since participation accounts for a substantial part of the final grade, attendance is
mandatory, and all students are expected to do the assigned readings before each class in order to participate fully
in class discussion (See also “Attendance Policy” below). A good attendance record (no more than two missed
sessions in the semester) is necessary for a good grade in this class.
Exams: There will be three exams held on the dates indicated on the schedule below. Exams will be held at the
beginning of class on the day scheduled, and must be written in class. They may cover material from one or more
of the required texts, class-discussions, and ethnographic films; and they may be each structured differently,
depending on the specific material covered. You will have 45 minutes to 1 hour to complete the exam, depending
on its length. Further details will be discussed in class. NOTE: ALL EXAMS TO BE HELD IN DELTA 202
Exam Material Covered
Readings: “One hundred percent American,” “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” and
#1
Crested Kimono, Chapters 1-7
Films: Stranger with a Camera & Keeping it Real
Readings: Storytellers, Saints and Scoundrels, Introduction & Chapters 1-7, 10-11
#2
Films: The Japanese Version
Readings: When Nature Goes Public, Introduction, Chapters 1-8; Barabara Belejack
#3
essay
Film: Forest of Bliss, Life Running Out of Control
Journals: Students are required to complete two journal entries, 4-5 pages each, on two out of the three
ethnographies we will be reading in the course of the semester. This will work best if you take notes and think
about the issues raised as you are completing your reading, then write up your response to the text. You are not
expected to submit polished essays, but you should aim for serious reflection and engagement with the course
materials (no point-form entries please!). Be sure to proofread; grammar, style, and comprehension will all be
noted. Journal entries will be assigned “pass/fail” grades. Please note the due dates in the schedule of readings
below.
COURSE POLICIES
Academic Honesty Policy
As a UHCL student, you are responsible for knowing and observing the University’s standards for academic honesty,
which are set forth in the UHCL Catalog and Section 4.2 of the UHCL Student Handbook (available online at:
http://b3308-adm.cl.uh.edu/PolicyProcedures/studentlife/acadhone.html).
Plagiarism
The most serious breach of academic integrity is handing in others’ work as your own. Any words, phrases, or
sentences taken from another text must be enclosed in quotation marks. Whether you are quoting word for word or
borrowing an idea and putting it in your own words, you must credit your source. All instances of plagiarism will be
referred to the Dean of Students.
Absences
I realize that illness or unforeseen crisis can make attendance impossible. I also know that excessive absences hurt the
class as a whole. Class attendance and your participation are important parts of the educational process in this seminar.
Two absences will pass without mention. Additional absences will lower your final grade. If you are facing a
situation that will result in an inordinate number of absences or an inability to complete assignments on schedule,
please let me know as soon as possible.
Changes to the Syllabus
The dates on the schedule represent my best estimate of the time we will give each text. Dates will change if we choose
to devote more or less time to one of the readings.
Withdrawal
The last date for drops without penalty is listed in this semester's schedule of classes and on the UHCL web:
http://www.uhcl.edu/admissions/. You are responsible for independently verifying that date.
Incompletes
A grade of "I" is granted only when a documented emergency arises late in the semester. An "I" is not an option for
someone who has been behind all semester.
Students with Disabilities
If you have a disability that requires special accommodation, you must:
. talk with the Coordinator of Health Disability Services (x. 2627);
. talk with me and we’ll make all necessary arrangements.
You must do this at the start of the semester, or as soon as possible after the disability is diagnosed during the semester.
ANTH3131 Fall 2005: Syllabus and Workbook/
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SCHEDULE OF READINGS
Week 1
January 17
Introduction and Overview
Readings
“One Hundred Percent American” (Workbook)
“Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” (Workbook)
Week 2
January 24
Films
Week 3
January 31
Readings
Week 4
February 7
Readings
Week 5
February 14
Experience, authenticity and “culture”
Keeping it Real and Stranger with a Camera
1. Fieldwork in urban environments
2. The organization of the business family
Crested Kimono, Chapters 1-3
3. Power and Authority
Crested Kimono, Chapters 4-5
JOURNAL ENTRY DUE DATE #1
Readings
4. Gender, family, structures of feeling
5. Kinship systems & terminologies
Crested Kimono, Chapters 6-7
Week 6
February 21
EXAM 1
****NOTE: EXAM AND CLASS TO BE HELD IN DELTA 202****
Film
A Japanese perspective on Experience and Authenticity
The Japanese Version
Week 7
February 28
Readings
4-6pm:
1. Introduction to Storytelling in Hindu Cultures
(Guest Lecturer: Kapila Sankaran Love)
6-7pm:
Women’s Studies Week event; Attendance is Required
Fuerza Unida talk and sale of cooperative goods
Storytellers, Saints and Scoundrels – Introduction, Chapters 1-4
Week 8
March 7
Readings
2. Authority and Fieldwork
3. Kinship and Asceticism
Storytellers, Saints and Scoundrels –Chapters 5-7
Week 9
March 14
SPRING BREAK
Week 10
March 21
Readings
JOURNAL ENTRY DUE DATE #2
4. Forms of Belief and Critique
5. Conceptualizing Individual Action
Storytellers, Saints and Scoundrels – Chapters 10-11
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Week 11
March 28
EXAM 2
****NOTE: EXAM AND CLASS TO BE HELD IN DELTA 202****
Film
Death on the Ganga
Forest of Bliss
Week 12
April 4
Films
Reading
Week 13
April 11
Readings
Week 14
April 18
Readings
Week 15
April 25
1. Introduction to Science Studies (or Nature meets Culture – again)
Life Running Out of Control
Barbara Belejack (2002) “Bio “gold” Rush in Chiapas on Hold,” in NACLA Vol.
XXXV, #5
1. The issues and their contexts
Note: skip pp. 109-122
When Nature Goes Public – Chapters 1-3
2. Sites, Methods, Epistemologies
When Nature Goes Public – Chapters 4-5
JOURNAL ENTRY DUE DATE #3
Readings
3. Chains, Channels, Gatekeepers
When Nature Goes Public – Chapters 6-8
Week 16
May 2
EXAM 3 (final)
****NOTE: EXAM TO BE HELD IN DELTA 202****
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GENERAL TERMS AND CONCEPTS
1. Culture: “ … that complex whole which includes belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities
and habits acquired by man [sic] as a member of society …” – E.B. Tylor
What does the article “One Hundred Percent American” tell us about the concept of culture?
2. Ethnography
3. Fieldwork
4. Participant Observation
5. Informant
6. Representation
7. Culture Shock
8. Ethnocentrism
9. Cultural Relativism
10. Why did Horace Miner write the article on the “Nacirema”? What was the point he was trying to make?
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One Hundred Percent American
Ralph Linton
The American Century vol. 40, 1937
There can be no question about the average American's Americanism or his desire to preserve this
precious heritage at all costs. Nevertheless, some insidious foreign ideas have already wormed their way into his
civilization without his realizing what was going on. Thus, dawn finds the unsuspecting patriot garbed in pajamas,
a garment of East Indian origin; and lying in a bed built on a pattern which originated in either Persia or Asia
Minor. He is muffled to the ears in un–American materials: cotton, first domesticated in India; linen, domesticated
in the Middle East; wool from an animal native to Asia Minor; or silk whose uses were first discovered by the
Chinese.
On awakening he glances at the clock, a medieval European invention, rises in haste, and goes to the
bathroom. Here, if he stops to think about it, he must feel himself in the presence of a great American institution;
he will have heard stories of both the quality and frequency of foreign plumbing and will know that in no other
country does the average man or woman perform their ablutions in the midst of such splendor. But the insidious
foreign influences pursue him even here. Glass was invented by the ancient Egyptians, the use of glazed tiles for
floors and walls in the Middle East, porcelain in China, and the art of enameling on metal by Mediterranean
artisans of the Bronze Age. Even his bathtub and toilet are but slightly modified copies of Roman originals. The
only purely American contribution to the ensemble is the steam radiator, against which our patriot very briefly
and unintentionally places his posterior.
Returning to the bedroom, the unconscious victim of un–American practices removes his clothes from a
chair, invented in the Near East, and proceeds to dress. He puts on close–fitting tailored garments whose form
derives from the skin clothing of the ancient nomads of the Asiatic steppes and fastens them with buttons whose
prototypes appeared in Europe at the close of the Stone Age. He puts on his feet stiff coverings made from hide
prepared by a process invented in ancient Egypt and cut to a pattern which can be traced back to ancient Greece
and makes sure they are properly polished, also a Greek idea. Lastly, he ties about his neck a strip of bright–
colored cloth, which is a vestigial survival of the shoulder shawls worn by seventeenth–century Croats. He gives
himself a final appraisal in the mirror, an old Mediterranean invention and goes downstairs to breakfast.
Here a whole new series of foreign things confront him. His food and drink are placed before him in
pottery vessels, the popular name of which – china – is sufficient evidence of their origin. His fork is a medieval
Italian invention and his spoon a copy of a Roman original. He will usually begin his meal with coffee, an
Abyssinian plant first discovered by Arabs. The American is quite likely to need it to dispel the morning after
affects of over–indulgence in fermented drinks, invented in the Near East; or distilled ones, invented by the
alchemists of medieval Europe.
If our patriot is old–fashioned enough to adhere to the so–called American breakfast, his coffee will be
accompanied by an orange, or orange juice, domesticated in the Mediterranean region, a cantaloupe domesticated
in Persia, or grapes domesticated in Asia Minor. From this he will go on to waffles, a Scandinavian invention,
with plenty of butter, originally a Near–Eastern cosmetic.
Breakfast over, he sprints for his train – the train, not the sprinting, being an English invention. At the
station, he pauses for a moment to buy a newspaper, paying for it with coins invented in ancient Lydia. Once on
the train he settles back to inhale the fumes of a cigarette invented in Mexico, or a cigar invented in Brazil.
Meanwhile, he reads the news of the day, imprinted in characters invented by the ancient Semites by a process
invented in Germany upon a material invented in China. As he scans the latest editorial pointing out the dire
results to our institutions of accepting foreign ideas, he will not fail to thank a Hebrew God in an Indo–European
language that he is one hundred percent (decimal system invented by the Greeks) American (from Americus
Vespucci, Italian geographer).
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"Body Ritual among the Nacirema"
Horace Miner [1]
American Anthropologist 58:3, June 1956.
Most cultures exhibit a particular configuration or style. A single value or pattern of perceiving the world often
leaves its stamp on several institutions in the society. Examples are "machismo" in Spanish–influenced cultures,
"face" in Japanese culture, and "pollution by females" in some highland New Guinea cultures. Here Horace
Miner demonstrates that "attitudes about the body" have a pervasive influence on many institutions in Nacirema
society.
The anthropologist has become so familiar with the diversity of ways in which different people behave in
similar situations that he is not apt to be surprised by even the most exotic customs. In fact, if all of the logically
possible combinations of behavior have not been found somewhere in the world, he is apt to suspect that they
must be present in some yet undescribed tribe. The point has, in fact, been expressed with respect to clan
organization by Murdock.[2] In this light, the magical beliefs and practices of the Nacirema present such unusual
aspects that it seems desirable to describe them as an example of the extremes to which human behavior can go.
Professor Linton [3] first brought the ritual of the Nacirema to the attention of anthropologists twenty
years ago, but the culture of this people is still very poorly understood. They are a North American group living in
the territory between the Canadian Cree, the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico, and the Carib and Arawak of the
Antilles. Little is known of their origin, although tradition states that they came from the east....
Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed market economy which has evolved in a rich
natural habitat. While much of the people's time is devoted to economic pursuits, a large part of the fruits of these
labors and a considerable portion of the day are spent in ritual activity. The focus of this activity is the human
body, the appearance and health of which loom as a dominant concern in the ethos of the people. While such a
concern is certainly not unusual, its ceremonial aspects and associated philosophy are unique.
The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that
its natural tendency is to debility and disease. Incarcerated in such a body, man's only hope is to avert these
characteristics through the use of ritual and ceremony. Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this
purpose. The more powerful individuals in the society have several shrines in their houses and, in fact, the
opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number of such ritual centers it possesses. Most houses are
of wattle and daub construction, but the shrine rooms of the more wealthy are walled with stone. Poorer families
imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine walls.
While each family has at least one such shrine, the rituals associated with it are not family ceremonies but
are private and secret. The rites are normally only discussed with children, and then only during the period when
they are being initiated into these mysteries. I was able, however, to establish sufficient rapport with the natives to
examine these shrines and to have the rituals described to me.
The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is built into the wall. In this chest are kept the many
charms and magical potions without which no native believes he could live. These preparations are secured from a
variety of specialized practitioners. The most powerful of these are the medicine men, whose assistance must be
rewarded with substantial gifts. However, the medicine men do not provide the curative potions for their clients,
but decide what the ingredients should be and then write them down in an ancient and secret language. This
writing is understood only by the medicine men and by the herbalists who, for another gift, provide the required
charm.
The charm is not disposed of after it has served its purpose, but is placed in the charm box of the
household shrine. As these magical materials are specific for certain ills, and the real or imagined maladies of the
people are many, the charm–box is usually full to overflowing. The magical packets are so numerous that people
forget what their purposes were and fear to use them again. While the natives are very vague on this point, we can
only assume that the idea in retaining all the old magical materials is that their presence in the charm–box, before
which the body rituals are conducted, will in some way protect the worshiper.
Beneath the charm–box is a small font. Each day every member of the family, in succession, enters the
shrine room, bows his head before the charm–box, mingles different sorts of holy water in the font, and proceeds
with a brief rite of ablution.[4] The holy waters are secured from the Water Temple of the community, where the
priests conduct elaborate ceremonies to make the liquid ritually pure.
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In the hierarchy of magical practitioners, and below the medicine men in prestige, are specialists whose
designation is best translated as "holy–mouth–men." The Nacirema have an almost pathological horror of and
fascination with the mouth, the condition of which is believed to have a supernatural influence on all social
relationships. Were it not for the rituals of the mouth, they believe that their teeth would fall out, their gums bleed,
their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers reject them. They also believe that a strong
relationship exists between oral and moral characteristics. For example, there is a ritual ablution of the mouth for
children which is supposed to improve their moral fiber.
The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth–rite. Despite the fact that these people are
so punctilious [5] about care of the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated stranger as
revolting. It was reported to me that the ritual consists of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth,
along with certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures.[6]
In addition to the private mouth–rite, the people seek out a holy–mouth–man once or twice a year. These
practitioners have an impressive set of paraphernalia, consisting of a variety of augers, awls, probes, and prods.
The use of these items in the exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves almost unbelievable ritual torture of the
client. The holy–mouth–man opens the client's mouth and, using the above mentioned tools, enlarges any holes
which decay may have created in the teeth. Magical materials are put into these holes. If there are no naturally
occurring holes in the teeth, large sections of one or more teeth are gouged out so that the supernatural substance
can be applied. In the client's view, the purpose of these ministrations [7] is to arrest decay and to draw friends.
The extremely sacred and traditional character of the rite is evident in the fact that the natives return to the holy–
mouth–men year after year, despite the fact that their teeth continue to decay.
It is to be hoped that, when a thorough study of the Nacirema is made, there will be careful inquiry into
the personality structure of these people. One has but to watch the gleam in the eye of a holy–mouth–man, as he
jabs an awl into an exposed nerve, to suspect that a certain amount of sadism is involved. If this can be
established, a very interesting pattern emerges, for most of the population shows definite masochistic tendencies.
It was to these that Professor Linton referred in discussing a distinctive part of the daily body ritual which is
performed only by men. This part of the rite includes scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp
instrument. Special women's rites are performed only four times during each lunar month, but what they lack in
frequency is made up in barbarity. As part of this ceremony, women bake their heads in small ovens for about an
hour. The theoretically interesting point is that what seems to be a preponderantly masochistic people have
developed sadistic specialists.
The medicine men have an imposing temple, or latipso, in every community of any size. The more
elaborate ceremonies required to treat very sick patients can only be performed at this temple. These ceremonies
involve not only the thaumaturge [8] but a permanent group of vestal maidens who move sedately about the
temple chambers in distinctive costume and headdress.
The latipso ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal that a fair proportion of the really sick natives
who enter the temple ever recover. Small children whose indoctrination is still incomplete have been known to
resist attempts to take them to the temple because "that is where you go to die." Despite this fact, sick adults are
not only willing but eager to undergo the protracted ritual purification, if they can afford to do so. No matter how
ill the supplicant or how grave the emergency, the guardians of many temples will not admit a client if he cannot
give a rich gift to the custodian. Even after one has gained and survived the ceremonies, the guardians will not
permit the neophyte to leave until he makes still another gift.
The supplicant entering the temple is first stripped of all his or her clothes. In everyday life the Nacirema
avoids exposure of his body and its natural functions. Bathing and excretory acts are performed only in the
secrecy of the household shrine, where they are ritualized as part of the body–rites. Psychological shock results
from the fact that body secrecy is suddenly lost upon entry into the latipso. A man, whose own wife has never
seen him in an excretory act, suddenly finds himself naked and assisted by a vestal maiden while he performs his
natural functions into a sacred vessel. This sort of ceremonial treatment is necessitated by the fact that the excreta
are used by a diviner to ascertain the course and nature of the client's sickness. Female clients, on the other hand,
find their naked bodies are subjected to the scrutiny, manipulation and prodding of the medicine men.
Few supplicants in the temple are well enough to do anything but lie on their hard beds. The daily
ceremonies, like the rites of the holy–mouth–men, involve discomfort and torture. With ritual precision, the
vestals awaken their miserable charges each dawn and roll them about on their beds of pain while performing
ablutions, in the formal movements of which the maidens are highly trained. At other times they insert magic
wands in the supplicant's mouth or force him to eat substances which are supposed to be healing. From time to
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time the medicine men come to their clients and jab magically treated needles into their flesh. The fact that these
temple ceremonies may not cure, and may even kill the neophyte, in no way decreases the people's faith in the
medicine men.
There remains one other kind of practitioner, known as a "listener." This witchdoctor has the power to
exorcise the devils that lodge in the heads of people who have been bewitched. The Nacirema believe that parents
bewitch their own children. Mothers are particularly suspected of putting a curse on children while teaching them
the secret body rituals. The counter–magic of the witchdoctor is unusual in its lack of ritual. The patient simply
tells the "listener" all his troubles and fears, beginning with the earliest difficulties he can remember. The memory
displayed by the Nacirema in these exorcism sessions is truly remarkable. It is not uncommon for the patient to
bemoan the rejection he felt upon being weaned as a babe, and a few individuals even see their troubles going
back to the traumatic effects of their own birth.
In conclusion, mention must be made of certain practices which have their base in native esthetics but
which depend upon the pervasive aversion to the natural body and its functions. There are ritual fasts to make fat
people thin and ceremonial feasts to make thin people fat. Still other rites are used to make women's breasts larger
if they are small, and smaller if they are large. General dissatisfaction with breast shape is symbolized in the fact
that the ideal form is virtually outside the range of human variation. A few women afflicted with almost inhuman
hyper–mammary development are so idolized that they make a handsome living by simply going from village to
village and permitting the natives to stare at them for a fee.
Reference has already been made to the fact that excretory functions are ritualized, routinized, and
relegated to secrecy. Natural reproductive functions are similarly distorted. Intercourse is taboo as a topic and
scheduled as an act. Efforts are made to avoid pregnancy by the use of magical materials or by limiting
intercourse to certain phases of the moon. Conception is actually very infrequent. When pregnant, women dress so
as to hide their condition. Parturition takes place in secret, without friends or relatives to assist, and the majority
of women do not nurse their infants.
Our review of the ritual life of the Nacirema has certainly shown them to be a magic–ridden people. It is
hard to understand how they have managed to exist so long under the burdens which they have imposed upon
themselves. But even such exotic customs as these take on real meaning when they are viewed with the insight
provided by Malinowski [9] when he wrote:
Looking from far and above, from our high places of safety in the developed civilization, it is easy to see
all the crudity and irrelevance of magic. But without its power and guidance early man could not have mastered
his practical difficulties as he has done, nor could man have advanced to the higher stages of civilization.[10]
NOTES
1 From "Body Ritual among the Nacirema," American Anthropologist 58 (1956): 503–507. All footnotes were
added by John A. Dowell, Michigan State University.
2 George Peter Murdock (1897–1996 [?]), famous ethnographer.
3 Ralph Linton (1893–1953), best known for studies of enculturation (maintaining that all culture is learned rather
than inherited; the process by which a society's culture is transmitted from one generation to the next), claiming
culture is humanity's "social heredity."
4 A washing or cleansing of the body or a part of the body. From the Latin abluere, to wash away.
5 Marked by precise observance of the finer points of etiquette and formal conduct.
6 It is worthy of note that since Prof. Miner's original research was conducted, the Nacirema have almost
universally abandoned the natural bristles of their private mouth–rite in favor of oil–based polymerized synthetics.
Additionally, the powders associated with this ritual have generally been semi–liquefied. Other updates to the
Nacirema culture shall be eschewed in this document for the sake of parsimony.
7 Tending to religious or other important functions.
8 A miracle–worker.
9 Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942), famous cultural anthropologist best known for his argument that people
everywhere share common biological and psychological needs and that the function of all cultural institutions is
to fulfill such needs; the nature of the institution is determined by its function.
10 Did you get it?
ANTH3131 Fall 2005: Syllabus and Workbook/
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From Gary Larson’s The Far Side
ANTH3131 Fall 2005: Syllabus and Workbook/
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KEEPING IT REAL, DIR. SUNNY BERGMAN
1. What is the “experience economy”?
2. List some examples of “experience” that people in the film offer. How do they define each of these?
3. The film uses various examples to explore the desire for authenticity: Homelessness, Adventure tourism,
Hippie Culture. Note how the “authentic” is defined differently in each of these scenarios. What is
included and what is deliberately left out? What are the implications of making such choices – for those
consuming the experience and for those creating it?
Hippie Culture
Tour with a Homeless Guide
Adventure Tourism
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4. Who are the consumers of “experience economy” and what do they seem to be looking for?
5. What are some of the other examples of “authenticity” cited in the film? Why?
6. How (i.e. by what specific processes) do such ideas become transformed into commercial products? What
must happen to experience for it to appear “real”?
7. In what ways are each of the “Experiences” explored in the film given “value”?
8. In what ways do media images pervade our lives? What is “mediated experience”?
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STRANGER WITH A CAMERA, DIR. ELIZABETH BARRET
1. What is this film about? In other words, what are the central questions the filmmaker tries to address?
2. Why did Hobart Ison kill the Canadian filmmaker Hugh O’Connor? How did people in Appalachia react to
the two trials that followed? In your opinion, were Ison’s actions justified? What position, if any, does the
filmmaker take on this issue?
3. How does the filmmaker approach the problem of “representation”? How had journalists and writers before
her chosen to represent poverty/ the poor? What were some of the problems involved in such approaches to
representing poverty/ the poor that the film identifies?
4. Also consider, having watched Keeping it Real, how the residents of Appalachia react to the fact that their
lives as they know them are mediated by filmmakers and photographers – the fact that the camera picks up
their experiences and transforms these for wider consumption.
5. Visit the film’s website: http://www.itvs.org/strangerwithacamera/index.html.
As you are going through this website, think of the filmmaker as an ethnographer/anthropologist.
Think about what responsibilities the anthropologist has to the people and the communities s/he is representing.
Pay special attention to the following questions from the section on “Media”:
• “Can media exposure promote social change?
• “Can the media promote reform and economic development in poor communities?
• “Are there different standards and/or practices for media makers living and working within a community and
those who have no long-term relationship with the people they are portraying?”
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MATTHEWS MASAYUKI HAMABATA, CRESTED KIMONO: POWER AND LOVE IN THE
JAPANESE BUSINESS FAMILY
Glossary
1. doozoku gaisha – family business
2. Gaijin – foreigners
3. Tatemae – surface reality
4. Fukoo – unfilial
5. Boku – “I” used by boys
6. On – hierarchical relationship, debt cannot be repaid
7. Giri – not necessarily a hierarchical relationship, based on duty and obligation
8. Ninjoo – relationship based on deep, positive, personal feeling
9. Shachoo – president of a company, husband
10. Okusama – president’s wife
11. Ie – the household
12. Muko–yooshi – “adopted son”, son–in–law
13. Fufu–yooshi – married pair that is adopted
14. Choonan – oldest son
15. Choojo – oldest daughter
16. Omiai – formal process of arranging marriages
17. Keitoo – reciting lineages
18. Shinseki (relatives) networks – networks created through marriage alliances
19. Uchi – “our household”, insiders, connected with ninjoo
20. Obon – festival of the dead
21. Butsudan – family altar, cabinet
22. Ihai – memorial tablets
23. Honke – main family
24. Bunke – branch family
25. Oyome–san – daughter–in–law in “strange” family
Doing fieldwork in urban environments (Chapters 1–2)
1. What group of people does Hamabata choose to study? Why is he interested in them?
2. What does Hamabata discover when he first tries to begin his field research? What are some of the
difficulties he encounters? What is the “period of ghosthood” that he refers to on page 5? What are the three
“boundaries” that he talks about (pp.6–17), and how does he manage to cross them? What is his tateme or his
“Tokyo mask”?
3. How does gift–giving enable Hamabata to more fully “become a person” (p.18) and conduct his research?
What are the three different categories of gift–giving he lists and describes (on, giri and ninjoo)? What
function/s does gift–giving serve in Japanese society? How do “individuals come to develop and modify their
roles in relation to one another” (p.21) through gift exchanges?
4. Which members of the Japanese business family does he initially approach for interviews? How do they
respond and why? To which other informants does Hamabata decide to shift his focus after these experiences
and why? What do these experiences tell us about the assumptions Hamabata brings to his research?
5. How has the “family” been traditionally studied? How does Hamabata modify this concept? What does he
say about the distinctions that are often made between “public” and “private/domestic”? (pp.30–1)
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The organization of the business family (Chapters 3–5)
Households
1. What is the ie? Why does Hamabata suggest the ie is a model of corporate grouping rather than a family
(p.34)?
2. What is primogeniture?
3. How is succession to the headship of a household ideally determined? What, however, happens in reality
most of the time? What conclusions does Hamabata draw from this apparent discrepancy? Why does
Hamabata say that the ie is made up of positions rather than individuals?
4. Why does Hamabata suggest that the ie is a “normative concept” (p.46)?
5. Who is a muko–yooshi? What role does this person fulfill in the ie?
6. What is the difference between ie, uchi, and otaku? What is the “language of verticality” that Hamabata
refers to on p. 47, and what does it communicate? Hamabata suggests that the same meanings can be
communicated both through language as well as by non–verbal means; what are some examples of the latter?
7. How does the discussion of the ie develop the distinctions between giri and ninjoo that were first introduced
in the initial chapters of the book?
8. What does Hamabata say about the distinction between ‘outer form’ and ‘inner feeling’? Which, if either, is
more real to the Japanese?
Death
1. Why is Hamabata interested in death and mourning in his study of the ie?
2. What happens when a person dies? What happens to a person’s spirit when s/he dies, and what must family–
members do to ensure the person becomes an ancestor? When does a person become an ancestor? What
happens at the 49th day ceremony? What is the obon? What is the difference between the 49th day ceremony
and the obon? What is nii–bon? What are the differences between personal rites and ancestral rites?
Authority
1. Why does Hamanata suggest that “in the apparently cohesive structure of the ie there exists slightly below the
surface the possibility of open conflict” (p. 87)?
2. What is the difference between ‘power’ and ‘authority’? Why is it necessary that each new head of the ie
must be acknowledged as the new head by those under him?
3. Why must authority rest in the position that a person occupies rather than the person him/herself? Hamabata
writes on p. 91: “one acts in the name of a higher order, thus sparing the exercise of power the nakedness of
coercion and granting it the grace of authority.” What does this statement mean?
4. What does the example of the grandfather in the Moriuchi ie indicate (pp. 91––)? What happens after the
grandfather’s death? Why do the regents try to keep grandfather alive symbolically? How are they able to
achieve this?
5. What do these anecdotes tells us about the distinction between power and authority? About why power must
be transformed into authority if the ie is to continue to function smoothly?
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Gender, Family and Structures of Feeling Chapters 6–7
Marriage and Love
1. How are marriages arranged? Why can marriage be considered a rite of passage in Japanese culture and in
the ie?
2. What is the difference between honne and tateme? How are the two balanced or negotiated, as in Reiko’s
case (pp. 135––)?
3. Do women cut off their ties with their natal families after marriage? Are they expected to shift their loyalties
to their new families?
4. Do they prefer to marry out of their own families or bring in a muko–yooshi? What are the advantages and
disadvantages of either marrying out or bringing a muko–yooshi in? Why would a muko–yooshi never
entirely be trusted?
5. What is shinseki? What is the importance of shinseki for the existence and continued success of the ie? What
does this tell us about the importance of marriage for the survival of the ie?
6. Do women in the Japanese business family participate in business–related activities? How and why?
7. How do women sometimes function as the crucial links between businesses and between families? What
examples does Hamabata provide of this in the text? Why is this an important part of his argument?
8. Do women in the ie have power? How can women in the ie acquire power?
9. Think about how giri (outer form, social obligations) works to structure ninjoo (inner, personal feelings), and
about whether this worldview is something familiar or completely distant from anything you have ever
experienced.
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KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY
Descent rules
1. Patriline / Patrilineage / Patrilineal Descent
2. Matriline/ Matrilineage / Matrilineal Descent
3. Bilateral Descent
Residence Rules
1. Neolocality
2. Bilocality
3. Patrilocality
4. Virilocality
5. Matrilocality
6. Uxorilocality
Forms of Marriage:
1. Monogamy
2. Polygamy
a) Polygyny
b) Polyandry
Other Terms:
1. Pater
2. Genitor
3. Cross cousins
4. Parallel cousins
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THE JAPANESE VERSION, DIR. LOUIS ALVAREZ AND ANDREW KOLKER
A Study Guide to the film is available on the internet at http://www.cnam.com/ (Click on the film title
and then on “Downloads”and finally “Study guide”).
For those of you interested in how societies other than the Japanese may perceive the West, click on the
“Palimpsest: Cairo” link on the above website.
1. What is the “onion metaphor” with which the filmmakers begin their narrative?
2. What aspects of Japanese culture are they interested in exploring in this film? Why do the producers
want to focus on Japanese popular culture?
3. How do you respond to the wedding sequences in the film? To the couple who choose to have a
Christian wedding even though they are not Christian? What does this tell us about religious belief
systems in Japan?
4. How do you respond to the account about women who opt for plastic surgery in order to look less
Japanese? Think also about the ways in which images from popular culture (television, magazines)
mould people’s body-images here in the U.S.: what various things do we do in order to look like
those images from the media?
5. Who are “Gaijin tarentos” and “pandas”? What function do they appear to serve in Japanese
society?
6. What various stereotypes of American culture does the show “UltraQuiz” rely upon? List your
examples.
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7. How do you respond to the game-show scenes (the penalty round of the UltraQuiz Show) taped in
Las Vegas towards the end of the film? What is the elaborate set-up involved in this part of the
game-show meant to re-create, for its Japanese contestant? What do these scenes tell us about the
relationship between nightmares and fantasies in the Japanese imagining of “America”?
8. How does mass-media influence our life-styles?
Group-work Assignment
1. List as many elements of American culture popularized in Japan as you can recall from the film.
Think about your list, and identify how each of these elements has been tailored to suit Japanese
needs, customs, or beliefs.
2. Name some examples of Japanese culture that have been popularized in the United States.
3. How do your two lists compare? How important are the examples in List-1 to Japanese culture, as
compared to the examples in List-2 to American culture?
4. Why might Americans be less aware of Japan and Japanese culture than the Japanese are of us?
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KIRIN NARAYAN, STORYTELLERS, SAINTS, AND SCOUNDRELS: FOLK NARRATIVE IN
HINDU RELIGIOUS TEACHING
Introduction to Modern Hindu Cultures
1. Where is Narayan’s research conducted? What is the primary focus of her study? What specific
kinds of stories is she most interested in, and why? What are some of the sources of these stories?
2. What is the city of Nasik like? What is Swamiji’s flat (where Narayan does most of her fieldwork)
like (think about Narayan’s descriptions of Swamiji’s room etc.)?
3. How do you respond to the story about the King who loses his toe? How does Narayan analyse it?
4. What is polytheism (as compared to monotheism)?
5. What is caste?
6. What is Dharma?
7. What is karma?
8. What are ‘katha performances’?
9. Is Hinduism today the same as it was fifty or a hundred years ago? Is Hindu religious practice the
same all over India? How have various sources of knowledge and practice, both Indian and
Western, contributed to our understandings of contemporary Hinduism?
Authority and Fieldwork
1. How does Narayan decide to do her field research with the Swamiji? What is her own educational
and personal background? How does the Swamiji generally regard her?
2. How does Narayan go about collecting her data? What varied sources of information does she draw
upon?
3. To what do the terms “self” and “other” refer? How do these shift in Narayan’s experience of
fieldwork?
4. How do you respond to the opening story about “shit”? Why does Narayan recount that episode in
her text? What does this tell us about the Swamiji as an informant? About the relationship of the
informant to the ethnographer in this case?
5. Why does the Swamiji call Narayan’s work a “business” (p.57)? How does Narayan interpret and
respond to his comment? (As you continue reading, keep track of the various moments at which the
Swamiji challenges Narayan,, how she responds, and what conclusions she draws from these
challenges.)
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The Contexts of Storytelling
1. Who else is present in the Swamiji’s flat while Narayan is conducting her research? What are their
backgrounds, and what has drawn them there? How does their presence affect the course of each
storytelling session?
2. How are we encouraged to interpret each story the Swamiji tells? How does the room, the smells,
and other such non–verbal elements contribute to the processes of interpretation?
3. Remember that the stories Swamiji tells often are taken from Hindu scriptures and other religious
texts. How do individual storytellers (including the Swamiji) modify their narratives according to
context? Is this permissible and why?
History of Hindu Asceticism
1. Who is a sadhu? A sannyasi? Is a sadhu/ sannyasi a man or a woman? Hindu or non–Hindu? Are
sadhus and sannyasis completely freed of caste distinctions? Why or why not?
2. What is the difference between a guru and a sadhu?
3. From what sources does the modern idea of Hindu asceticism emerge?
• Scriptural sources: What are the four stages of life, as defined by the Hindu scriptures? (p.67)
• History: How did sannyas historically evolve to become an important part of Hindu religious
practice? Pay particular attention to the history that Narayan provides on pp. 68–73.
(You must know the following: what was the influence of Buddhism on the development of Hindu
asceticism? What was the bhakti movement, and how did it transform the notion of asceticism? How
did Hindu ascetics respond first to the Islamic invasions from the 11th century onwards, and then later to
the arrival of the British? What were some stereotypes of ascetics perpetuated from that time on? Who
was Vivekananda, and what was his influence on once again re–molding Hindu asceticism?)
4. Drawing from this historical background, what would you say are the different sources of the
Swamiji’s modern practices and beliefs?
Kinship and Asceticism
1. What are the important differences between a sannyasi and a householder?
2. How do you respond to the story about “loincloths and celibacy”? What are some of the different
versions of this story? How does Narayan analyze this story? What does the story tell us about the
distinction between being a householder and being an ascetic?
3. How do you respond to the story “Falling in”? What conclusions does Narayan draw from this and
the previous story? What are the thematic similarities of the two?
Forms of Belief and Critique
1. How does the Swamiji tell the story about the nosecutters? Why does he draw members of the
audience into his narrative? How do they respond to this?
2. Why does Narayan’s mother comment on p.139 that it is “explosive to tell an anti–cult story within a
cult”? Why does the Swamiji tell Gulelal not to “cut off any noses” on his next trip to the U.S.
(p.139)?
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3. What are some other versions of this story – in what other contexts has it been told?
4. What is the importance of this set of stories? How do they encourage reflexivity? How do they
make us think about religion as a commodity that can be bought and sold? How are such stories
incorporated into Hindu religious practice and why?
Conceptualizing Individual Action
1. How do you respond to the stories about “death and laughter”? What do these stories suggest about
the nature of karma or about fate?
2. What effect does the laughter and amusement of the sadhus have? Does it encourage us to see all
things that happen within a framework of ‘divine will’ (as in the story about the King who lost his
toe)?
3. What does this ability to see things ordinary people cannot see tell us about sadhus?
4. How is the destiny of any given human being determined? Is it only by karma?
5. What is lila?
6. How can individual actions also shape destiny, according to Hindu belief? What does this tell us
about the kinds of relationships people can have with deities?
7. How does the Swamiji seek to communicate the meanings of the stories he tells? Does he tell people
how to interpret his narratives? Does he assign a single meaning to any of his stories? Why or why
not? Are his stories necessarily religious?
8. What is the metaphor of the pot or glass that Nathu Maharaj speaks of on p.106?
9. What are examples of the different storyteller–figures that we have come across in this text?
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FOREST OF BLISS, DIR. ROBERT GARDNER (1986)
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LIFE RUNNING OUT OF CONTROL,
DIR.
BERTRAM VERHAAG (2004)
What are GMOs? (and so also, what is “GM Canola”?)
What is genetic pollution? What are its causes, how does it happen, and what are its potential
consequences?
Pay attention to the details and repercussions of the Monsanto vs. Schmeiser case. What are the issues
involved? What sorts of responses (from farmers) has it generated?
How does the one organic farmer articulate his role as “steward” of biodiversity?
Pay attention to the details of the lawsuit filed by Saskatchewan organic farmers. How do they seek to
build a case against Monsanto? What new burdens are farmers faced with, as a result of this battle with
big agro-business?
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What were the consequences of introducing “Bt cotton” into Indian farms? With what options did it
leave farmers? What were their complaints?
According to Vandana Shiva (and the filmmakers), what is the relationship of Genetic Engineering
technologies to expanding capitalist markets?
What is “Navdanya”? In what ways is the Navdanya movement a response to the logic of patenting and
intellectual property protections?
Also check out: http://www.navdanya.org/
What does Andrew Kimbrell, with the Center for Food Safety in Washington, say about new
technologies, the manipulation of life forms, and factory farming practices? A bit later on, what does he
say about the “mechanistic” view of the world reflected in factory farming?
Also check out: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/
What is “terminator technology”? How does it shape the relationship of farmers to agro-corporations?
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What does Traavic, the Icelandic researcher interviewed, have to say about the need for and the results
of research on consuming genetically modified foods?
How does the restaurateur interviewed see his role (and that of other chefs and restaurateurs) as
“gatekeepers”? Why?
Know what the goals of the Human Genome Project and the later (very controversial) Human Genome
Diversity Project were. What were some of the objections recorded in this film to the latter project?
Note the examples given in this film of the alliance between researchers and pharmaceutical
corporations. What are the risks and results for the human subjects involved? Note the details given of
the Icelandic initiative spearheaded by decode.
What does Kimbrell have to say about the promise of “miracle cures”?
ANTH3131 Fall 2005: Syllabus and Workbook/ 25
What are the ethical/social concerns raised by the prospect of creating “designer babies”?
Finally, there’s a good deal of hype that tends to surround any discussion of technology, particularly as
it intersects with “life”. The film gives you many examples of the “uses” and applications of genetic
technologies. Consider arranging these in ascending (or descending) order of importance and risk.
Where do the risks seem tremendous, where less so? What more would you need to know and
understand before being able to evaluate these risks?
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BARBARA BELEJACK (2002) “BIO “GOLD” RUSH IN CHIAPAS ON HOLD”
ANTH3131 Fall 2005: Syllabus and Workbook/ 27
CORI HAYDEN, WHEN NATURE GOES PUBLIC
THE ISSUES AND THEIR CONTEXTS (CHAPTERS 1-3)
CHAPTER 1: INTERESTS AND PUBLICS
1. What is “science studies”? 20
2. What is bioprospecting?
3. What are interests and publics? (definitions on 19)
4. Who can stake a claim to knowledge or plants that are collected in the South and industrialized
in the North? 20
5. What, according to Hayden, makes any given fact authoritative? What (or who) is “Homo
Economicus”?
6. What is the Information Economy? 23
7. What are Intellectual Property rights (IPRs)?
8. What are Patents? On what basis does one make a claim to patent rights? 24
9. Who is the Lockean Subject? 41
10. What was considered “common heritage” (until the UN’s 1992 conference) and how did that
categorization change?
11. Diamond vs. Chakrabarty case (26): How did this case further blur the distinction between the
man-made and the natural?
12. What is the history of relations between colonialism, natural history and botany? 30
13. What is ethno-botany? 31
14. Do ethnobotanists always see their work in terms of value production? How else have they
viewed what they do?
15. What is epistemological advocacy? What forms does it take?
16. What was the Declaration of Belém, and how does it help to define “ethical research practice”?
35
17. As a result, how is “traditional knowledge” defined?
18. What is “knowledge activism”? 38-9
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19. How do biological plant materials then become a nationalist issue – or come to be seen as
establishing “sovereignty”? 43
CHAPTER 2: NEOLIBERALISM’S NATURE
1. What is Neoliberalism? 48
2. What is sustainability? (def’n on 48-9)
3. How does Biodiversity become a scheme for sustainable development?
4. What agreement was developed by Merck and INBio as a result of such logic? 50
5. How may we compare Mining to contemporary Bioprospecting?
6. Which institutions help to redefine bioprospecting? 52
7. What are the definitions of “nature” and “biodiversity” that emerge? How is “biodiversity”
distinguished from “the wilderness”? 52
8. What was significant about the 1980s for understanding Biodiversity? 54
9. What are conventional pharmaceuticals? 54
10. So, how come companies returned to biological product screening at all? 56
11. What is the metaphor of genetic information?
12. What were the outcomes of the 1992 UN Convention on Biodiversity?
13. What is “international redistributive justice”? 65
14. Where were the “global commons”? 64
15. What was the Merck-INBio Agreement?
16. Which of the first ICBG projects is Hayden to discuss?
17. How did each of the collaborations pictured on page 68 get set up? Who initiated each? 67-8
18. What are the benefit-sharing contracts? 68
19. How are Materials to be transferred and why? 69
20. What are the different confidentiality provisions – and why are these in place?
21. How does the promise of future royalties shape the ICBG research?
ANTH3131 Fall 2005: Syllabus and Workbook/ 29
22. What is the relationship between “funding source” and “research product”?
23. Why does Hayden say characterize community “stewards” as “ambivalent”? Do stewards exist in
the community (only needing to be identified) or must they be somehow created through this
research? How and why?
24. What is the discourse of global environmentalism and the global family?
25. How readily did La Mesa residents see themselves in the roles of stewards? Why?
26. What are the communities’ priorities? Are they skeptical about the researchers’ interests?
27. What are some of the short-term projects that Bye developed as a way of giving something back
to the communities?
28. What is being demanded of the communities? What is being asked of researchers?
CHAPTER 3: PROSPECTING IN MEXICO
1. What were these neoliberal reforms & why were they undertaken? 87
2. What tasks did the Mexican government have to undertake, as a result of entering the “global
biodiversity family”?
3. What was PRODERS (Program for Regional Sustainable Development)?
4. What was the INE’s approach? 91
5. Where does economic development meet sustainability?
6. What is the UN Convention on Biodiversity and what are the expectations of and rewards for
signatories?
7. When is a collection scientific and when is it commercial? 95
8. What is “national patrimony” and how was it critical to the formation of Mexican nationhood?
98
9. What was the Microbe-screening contract brokered by UNAM?
10. What was the significance of the Zapatista rebellion to issues of biodiversity?
11. So, what is different between the way the opposition to (1) Diversa-UNAM contract and (2)
Maya ICBG was phrased? 100
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12. When was the Maya ICBG established and with what goals? Why did it provoke such
opposition?
13. What were the objections to the Maya ICBG voiced by RAFI/COMPITCH?
14. What is RAFI’s history in this area of activism? 105-6
15. What is the difference between saying “no” and “no without normalcy”? 104
SITES, METHODS, EPISTEMOLOGIES (CHAPTERS 4-5)
CHAPTER 4: MARKET RESEARCH
1. What is Market Research?
2. Why do prospecting agreements need local subjects?
3. Who is the Lockean benefit recipient?
4. Are plant vendors benefit recipients?
5. What is the “market model of exchange”?
6. What is medicina popular?
7. What is naturismo?
8. What is the “Shaman’s apprentice of drug discovery”? How is this different from Market
research?
9. what are the benefits of “market research”?
10. How do interlocutors in the market see/construct/recognize scientists?
11. How do scientists construct their own research project (in response)?
12. What’s the relationship between “popular” knowledge (as that found in the market) and its
scientific counterparts?
13. How do Markets produce Taxonomies?
14. What is Linnean taxonomy?
15. What are “medicinal plant complexes”? (150-4)
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CHAPTER 5: BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
1. What is “roadside collection”? What are its advantages – in what sense are roads extremely
useful to research? Why does it become necessary?
2. What are the multiple concerns that help guide researchers to particular plants?
3. Who has traveled these roads before? 172-3
4. What is “roadside opportunism”?
5. What are “disturbed areas”?
6. What are ruderals and what sorts of plants grow there? (175)
7. What are “disturbed” landscapes and how are these distinguished from “human modified”
landscapes? (175)
8. What are examples of “human modified landscapes”? What impact do these have on collection?
(176)
9. How may we compare roadside collection and Market research?
10. How exactly do roads become marked as “public” spaces?
11. Collecting in Mining Towns: How do researchers come into contact with “communities” through
roadside collection? How are roadside communities constituted – and are they unique in any
ways?
12. How do people in old mining towns understand the researchers’ work?
13. What are “minimalist moments of exchange”? 185
CHAINS, CHANNELS, GATEKEEPERS (CHAPTERS 6-8)
CHAPTER 6: THE BRINE SHRIMP ASSAY
1. What and how do plants produce? 195
2. What factors make plant “production” difficult to study?
3. Why is the distinction between what life has and what Life does significant?
4. What characteristics make Brine Shrimp useful and for what ends?
5. On what bases are brine shrimp seen to “stand for” humans?
6. What is the relationship of pharmacology to toxicology, according to Hayden?
ANTH3131 Fall 2005: Syllabus and Workbook/ 32
7. Who developed brine shrimp assay & with what rationale?
8. Consider the Brine Shrimp Assay as a method that has its own beneficiaries: Who (all) stand to
benefit from the Brine Shrimp Assay?
9. What is the “speculative chain of value production”? (211)
CHAPTER 7: PRESUMPTIONS OF INTEREST
1. What are the ICBG programs conflicting conceptions of “local investment”?
2. Hayden traces the “flow” or “travel” of knowledge in four different ways. What are these, and
what are the outcomes and implications of each? [We’ll discuss this in class, so don’t worry if
you have difficulty with these sections]
3. Why are the metaphors of blocks, flows, and circulation significant?
4. How can blocking technologies channel benefits?
5. What is the Confidentiality provision built into the ICBG Agreement? What is its purported aim?
What are its implications?
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