The Prism

What Next?

2011-02-14T14:15:00.003-05:00

The dictator has been handed his pink slip, and not so quietly, been shown to the door. What then? A few days of revelry, yes, then the protesters get kicked out of the square - the time has come to get back to business. But will it be business as usual, or will there be real change? Now is the time when that question will truly be answered.

Of course it won't be business as usual in the strict sense - Mubarak is gone, and nothing's going to bring him back. But how deep will the changes go? Will the Egyptian military still control the country? Will the emergency rules be released? Will there be a crack-down on the protesters? Will the next elections be truly free and fair? Who will lead? What other social and political changes will occur as a result? These questions remain unanswered as of yet.

You see, it's one thing to take down a dictator - to deconstruct a regime. It's a marvelous thing, to be sure: a moment of beautiful chaos where the passions of the populace are ignited and the affective resonance carries the movement forward. Wave upon wave crashing upon the rigid cliffs - no rock can withstand the power of the water!

But once the deconstruction has been done, the real work is only just beginning. The aftermath is not so momentous, not so beautiful or romantic, but it is, by far, more important (and, in my opinion, far more interesting anthropologically) than the revolution. Now is the time when a new world can be built out of the rubble. Now is the time when the questions posed above will be answered. What will that new world look like? I don't know.

Kim Stanley Robinson defines Utopia as "Struggle Forever" but too often we stop fighting when the battle is only half won. My hope is that the Egyptian people don't stop now; that they continue the fight, and build a better society for themselves and for the world.

(Cross-posted at Eidetic Illuminations)

The Anthropology of a Revolution

2011-02-13T13:55:00.001-05:00

The spark has been ignited and the whole world is aflame. The Egyptian people rose up and took back their country, and, in so doing, sent waves of response and reaction across the globe. Democratic uprisings have now occurred in several other Islamic nations, and commentators in the West are beginning to wonder: Why not here? Yes... why not?
The blogosphere has been buzzing over the last few weeks with news and analysis of the uprising in Egypt. I want to share some of the best - most anthropological - coverage that I've seen:

Graham Harman has been providing detailed coverage of the events including his own experience return to Egypt during the protests and being evacuated.
At Immanence, Adrian Ivakhiv provides some thoughts on the revolution from a process-relational perspective. He also offers a look at the affective resonance that drives these types of events.
At Zero Anthropology, Max Forte has been serving up insight in his usual provocative style, including a piece on what he calls the "(Hillary) Clinton Doctrine" of foreign policy at play right now in Egypt and other nations.
Chris Vitale has posted Eleven Theses Toward a Theory of Political Change, drawing lessons from the Egyptian people.
Krista Tippett's On Being had a special program titled "Demonstrations, Hopes, and Dreams" in which she interviewed Anthropologist Scott Atran about the future of Egypt and the role of the US in democratic uprisings.
Undestanding Society asks the question "Is there a Revolution Underway in Egypt?"
Kerim at Savage Minds speculates on the role of social media in the events in Egypt.
And Michael at Archive Fire offers his Congratulations to the Egyptian People.

If I've missed anything, I apologize. Please feel free to add your own links in the comments section.

Daniel Lende: "You can read this blog for free"

2011-02-13T11:36:00.003-05:00

Daniel Lende over at Neuroanthropology has a new post about some of the possibilities for anthropology. He talks about some of the recent PR controversies that took place within the field, and how this is illustrative of some of the primary issues and challenges that anthropologists face these days. We are, it seems, at a bit of a crossroads. And it's probably about time to move away from some of the old models and explore new ways of not only doing anthropology, but also publishing and disseminating anthropology. My favorite part of the post is when Lende talks about the contrast between old school publishing models (which lock up information behind expensive subscriptions) and some of the new possibilities:

The Nature commentary by Adam Kuper and Jonathan Marks is behind a paywall. It costs $32 to buy, unless you have institutional access. Ulf Hannerz’s article in American Anthropologist, which Greg drew on extensively in writing about diversity as anthropology’s brand, is available either through institutional access or by joining the American Anthropological Association. The cheapest AAA membership costs $70. You can read this blog for free (my emphasis).

That last line is a beauty. The point, as I see it, isn't to do away with journals, but instead to realize that the publication models are severely limiting. If we are all about the dissemination of anthropological analysis, concepts, and ideas to wider audiences, how is that supposed to happen if all of the latest research sits behind a subscription wall? The irony of course is that there is still a fairly skeptical view among THE ACADEMY about online publishing. Many question whether or not REAL RESEARCH can be published online. I mean, is it possible? However, I have recently run a complex experiment and come to the conclusion that yes, all 26 letters of the English alphabet do show up on screen, so it is indeed possible to publish real, valuable, and important work online. The only thing stopping this is a lack of either interest or desire. So it goes. As Lende points out:

A negative view of writing online (i.e., blogging) and a closed view of knowledge production (i.e., through institutional access or society membership) is still predominant in anthropology.

It's funny, when you think about. Or, at least, when I think about it. Anthropologists are doing all sorts of cutting edge, timely, and fascinating research. So why is our publishing model and ideology so....well...stale? The good thing is that people like Lende, Greg Downey, the folks at the OAC (Open Anthropology Cooperative), Max Forte, the Savage Minds crew, John Hawks, John Postill, Colleen Morgan, and a slew of others are indeed messing with the boundaries. Who knows? Maybe, at some point, more people outside of the academic world will actually know what anthropologists are up to.

Here's another good section from Lende's post:

Online media, not just writing, is an incredible way to reach the public. Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropologist who became interested in new media and teaching after doing his doctoral work in Papua New Guinea, work with his students to create a video, A Vision of Students Today. It has been viewed 4,136,850 times. That is an incredible impact.
And open access? Take PLoS One. It was founded in 2006, and covers research in science and medicine. In five years, it became the world’s largest journal. That is incredible success. One of its more technical journals, PLoS Biology, was founded in 2003, the first of the PLoS journals. It has been the highest impact journal in biology, as ranked by the Institute for Scientific Information. Open access isn’t just viable – it is the way to reach the broadest possible audience and have the greatest scholarly impact.

On Amazon, which came to fame and financial success by selling books online, its #1 product is its Kindle e-reader. Books themselves are going digital. And not just books. Amazon recently launched Kindle Singles, which presents “a compelling idea–well researched, well argued, and well illustrated–expressed at its natural length.” Apple’s iPad offers ways to integrate multi-media features with traditional text. Digital innovation in how we present scholarly material is already happening, and will continue to grow extremely rapidly.

Anthropologists need to go digital – blogging, collaborating, creating, sharing, and disseminating the field online. Blogs, the integration of new media with text, e-publications, and open-access publishing need to be part of how we keep our borderlands discipline healthy and vibrant.

To do otherwise, is to make the field into a marginal borderland, rather than the key meeting place and vibrant area of production the anthropology is today and can be even more so in the future.

Agreed. No need to remain on the borderlands any longer. Time to go push the boundaries and go digital. What's stopping us?

Cross-posted @ Ethnografix

Convincing Climate Deniers

2010-03-12T14:37:00.002-05:00

This article is cross-posted at Eidetic Illuminations.

Recently there has been quite a commotion on the Environmental Anthropology (EANTH) listserv over the science around global climate change (GCC). Essentially, a couple of climate deniers have stirred up the list, and they've been encouraged by a combination of polite people who want all voices to be heard and others who are willing to argue with them endlessly. This got me thinking about what it will take to convince climate deniers, and whether or not we should actually waste our time.

Part 1 - What is a Skeptic?
First of all, the climate deniers on the EANTH list have insisted on being called skeptics rather than deniers. They claim that "deniers" is a pejorative term meant to associate them with the likes of Holocaust deniers. So the question arises, what is a skeptic and do these individuals deserve that title?
A skeptic is a person who has an inherent doubt about any claim, and, therefore, requires a certain burden of proof to be established. Even then, a skeptic might hold on to some doubt as new evidence comes along which may change the picture. A genuine skeptic would look at the two sides of the climate debate and see that the climate scientists have a mountain of strong evidence in support of their claim (most of which is freely available from the IPCC) and a general consensus among scientists and the leading scientific organizations around the world that climate change is occurring and that it is caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gasses. The skeptic would then look at the denier's case and see a paltry amount of very weak evidence, and no general consensus except among energy companies, and others for whom climate policy poses a potential threat. A genuine skeptic might look for alternative explanations, but would conceed that the weight of the evidence is in favor of anthropogenic climate change.
As a result, I reject the use of the term skeptic to describe climate deniers. They don't weigh each side equally, expecting the same burden of proof from both sides. They have taken an emotional, political stance against climate change, and will automatically reject any evidence that contradicts them. Furthermore, their "science" is driven by economic and political claims, and backed by substantial funding from oil companies.
In fact, science has a built in skepticism. Any claims must be backed by substantial evidence, and those that are not will be outed in the peer-review process. I think a great disservice has been done to science in the last decade by those who think that all opinions should carry equal weight. In the scientific world, however, claims that cannot bear the burden of proof (i.e. intelligent design and climate denial) must be discarded. Climate deniers will claim that a conspiracy of scientists has kept them from getting a fair consideration. However no such conspiracy exists, and I would be far more doubtful of "science" that comes from powerful corporations with a vested interest in halting climate policy.

Part 2 - What will it take to convince them?
As I said above, climate deniers have taken an emotional, political stance against climate change science. They are not scientists, they are not concerned with the accuracy of the data, and they are will re-interpret or discard any data that contradicts their position. The mountains of evidence that support the climate change science is not enough to convince them, so what is?
I don't think anything will convince them short of some massive disaster with clear and direct ties to climate change. Nor will long, drawn out discussion and arguments on email listservs. Whenever I see debates such as the one on the EANTH list, I am torn between the desire to correct the climate deniers and the knowledge that my arguments will never change their minds. We seem to be caught in a double bind - we can't keep quiet or they'll win, and we can't engage in discussion because they don't care about the evidence. It seems to me that all we can do is mechanically repeat the facts "The planet is warming. The warming is caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gasses. It's already harming people, and will only get worse. We can do something about it." Rinse and repeat.

Part 3 - Do we really need to convince them?
The media tends to exaggerate extremes, and that's why we hear scientists arguing with climate deniers all the time in the news. Some of that needs to be done, especially for building support at the policy level. But it should be done in the way I mentioned above. Like the captured soldier being interrogated - just repeat: name, rank and serial number (or in this case, the facts behind climate change).
But Policy is not the only way to address climate change meaningfully. As Elinor Ostrom has pointed out in her report to the World Bank, Polycentric Approaches to Climate Change, we should be looking for multiple solutions on multiple scales.
When I was doing my research on the controversy surround the Holcomb power plant, I talked to a lot of people in Western Kansas about issues like climate change. There were a couple of people who suggested to me that they believed that climate change is a fiction, but overall I got the sense that most people are aware of the science and at least somewhat concerned about the potential problems that could occur. They may not be fully convinced, but they are not generally climate deniers like the two on the EANTH list or those in the media. They want to do something about climate change, but, at the same time, they take a pragmatic view of it. They are concerned about their jobs, about their families, about their health. They want a better life for themselves and their children, and climate change simply isn't the most pressing issue in their lives.
On the plus side, we don't need to convince them either, we just have to sympathize with them and figure out workable solutions that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, provide jobs and other economic benefits for them, and help build sustainable communities. This kind of grassroots effort could then develop into a broad-based support for national policy and international governance. This approach, I believe, will be far more successful than trying to convince all of the deniers and trying to craft national legislation or international policy that will satisfy everyone.

Obesifying America

2010-03-01T10:25:00.005-05:00

By now everyone knows that obesity is a serious problem in the US. We hear about it in the news on a regular basis. The CDC recently released a study claiming that obesity costs us about $147 billion per year in direct and indirect costs, and the First Lady has made it her personal mission to educate Americans about living a healthy lifestyle (see here).
It's an issue that hits home for me as well. My father is currently obese and trying to lose weight. He's making progress, but his weight has caused him innumerable health problems. He has bad knees and ankles, has a stint in his heart, and takes ridiculous amounts of medicine to keep his blood pressure and cholesterol down and to treat many other diet related problems. It pains me sometimes to see him struggle to move around and do his daily chores. It's especially disconcerting when I think that his dad died of a heart attack at roughly the same age.
With that in mind, I think the focus on obesity and the stigma associated with it is misguided. If we continue to focus on weight and appearance as a determinant of health, we risk swinging the pendulum in the other direction and ending up with an anorexia epidemic.

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Instead, the focus should be on providing access to quality, fresh foods and encouraging a healthy diet and physical activity. But the issue is complex - it's one of the most obvious examples of a biocultural disease (one that involves both biological and social-cultural factors). In his award winning TED talk, Jamie Oliver focuses on a triangle of causal factors - Main Street (i.e. big business), the home, and the school.

The subsidy system needs to be fixed so that we're not making unhealthy food cheap. Instead we should be subsidizing fresh, organic produce and ensuring that it is available to everyone. Currently there are places where people simply can't get fresh food (called "food deserts"). And for those who do have access, it's often more economical to buy the unhealthy processed foods than it is to buy quality fresh food.

Furthermore, schools need to provide healthy meals and should not provide unhealthy foods. I remember when I was an intern at the Connecticut General Assembly. The representative I was working for was sponsoring a bill to ban junk food from schools. It went through several committees and got watered down to the point where it was basically meaningless - it limited the sale of sugary milk drinks and eliminated some (but not all) vending machines. Nevertheless, the Republicans were vehemently opposed to it. They thought that it was an imposition on their ability to decide what's best for their own children. But there is not right to access junk food. If parents want to provide that, then they can pack a lunch. By default, schools should serve healthy meals and not provide unhealthy food as an alternative.

People need to learn to cook again. Ideally they'd learn to garden and preserve their food as well, but that's not necessary. As a college student I see people eat some seriously disgusting things simply because they can't make food for themselves. Instead they eat fast food or heat up a pizza.

In fact, preparing a meal is very easy, but it does require time, and time is an issue as well. A lot of people simply don't have enough time to prepare fresh food every day for every meal. Between work, school, children, and entertainment, it's understandable that people would simply go to the freezer for something to heat up instead of actually cooking.

I think, fundamentally, we need to make it possible and desirable to connect to our food again. We need to be able to know where our food comes from, how to prepare it, and where it's going to. This is a lot more complicated than it sounds, but if we were to accomplish it, we would be healthier, happier, and more environmentally responsible as well.

The Redistribution of Wealth: Comparative Economics, Neoliberal Capitalism and Wall-Street Bonuses

2010-01-15T17:37:00.004-05:00

One thing I've noticed from studying anthropology and reading ethnographies of other cultures is that every economic system, whether it's composed of egalitarian hunter-gatherers or hierarchical aristocracies, has had some method for redistributing wealth. I think there's a good reason for this; it seems intuitive to me, though I couldn't back it up with actual data, that the natural flow of wealth is always upward. That is, wealth tends to flow towards those who already have it and away from those who do not. There are, of course, exceptions, but it seems to be a reasonable generalization. The same is true for power. Though I don't agree that wealth and power are equivalent, I do believe that there is a reciprocal relationship between the two - wealth can buy power and power can attract wealth. In fact, it may be this cyclical relationship between power and wealth that drives the upward flow of both.

The problem is that, when a society's wealth becomes overly concentrated in a few hands, that society becomes increasingly unstable. Extreme poverty sits outside in the cold while extravagant wealth dances and drinks cocktails in a penthouse on the top floor. The flow is unsustainable, and it is the flow of wealth, like blood through veins, which keeps a society alive. This is why every economic system has developed some system for redistributing wealth - small groups use reciprocity, slightly larger groups use complex rituals and centralized priesthoods, even larger groups use governments and taxation. The point is to siphon wealth from those who have a lot of it and give it to those who have little, thus maintaining the flow of wealth and a degree of equality within the population.

I'm sure you've all seen, or at least heard of the champagne glass distribution of wealth. What has happened in recent decades is that wealth has become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a very small population. The reason for this is that classical, laissez-faire Capitalism, as it's presented in theory, lacks any form of redistributive mechanism. Government intervention through taxation, the only form of redistribution that could potentially handle the enormous flow of money generated by industrial capitalism, is considered harmful and the "invisible hand" of the market is supposed to take care of everything.

In the past, the government has intervened anyway. After the Great Depression made it clear that laissez-faire capitalism doesn't work, the US government implemented a series of social programs that effectively redistributed wealth to the general population (mostly in the form of services rather than actual cash). In the years that followed, welfare state capitalism attempted to balance the distribution of wealth (though it still allowed for extreme differences as well, and it also gave rise to the Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned about). Then, in the 1970s, the oil crisis hit and the world was thrown into another economic recession. This time the blame was placed on Keynesian economics and the welfare state, and Neoliberal economists were able to worm their way in to a dominant role.

There is, however, a key difference between Neoliberal economics and classical capitalism. The difference is that Neoliberals are not opposed to the redistribution of wealth, as long as the wealth is redistributed to those at the top in the hope that it would "trickle down" to the rest of the population (which, of course, is the opposite of the theory proposed above). The result is that there has been an acceleration of the natural upward flow of wealth so that, in just a few decades we have seen both the US and the Global economies develop that champagne glass shape. The problems with this have become glaringly apparent in the last decade as the global economy has been plunged into a deep recession and a number of economic scandals (i.e. Enron and Godlman Sachs) have plagued our nation.

However, policy makers have done nothing to address the root cause of the crisis - the lack of redistribution of wealth. Bush's final act was to give trillions of dollars to the banks to bail them out of their problems. Obama has continued that approach, and what we see now is that the banks are the only groups to have recovered - drawing record profits roughly equivalent to the amount of taxpayer money they were given by the government and offering enormous bonuses to the very CEOs that caused the current economic crisis.

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With this principle in mind - that an economy requires redistribution of wealth in order to be sustainable - the best practice, one which most economists would likely scoff at, would have been to give the money to the poorest populations either in the form of hard cash or services (i.e. universal health care, subsidized college tuition, social security programs, etc.). That kind of subsidy would truly lift all boats, as the money would flow up the wealth ladder, enriching everyone on the way. Instead, our governments and international agencies continue to support the trickle-down theory, which amounts to corporate welfare and legitimized theft by the wealthy from the poor.

It's time we were outraged by this. It's time somebody said "Enough is enough!" and demanded that the corporations give back our money so we can do something useful instead of waste it on a fragile, inequitable economic system.

Cap'n Trade, Human Rights and Alternative Approaches to Climate Change

2009-11-28T11:42:00.001-05:00

Update Dec. 1, 2009: Here's a video from Annie Leonard (The Story of Stuff) on Cap and Trade. It says just about everything I mentioned below, only better and with animations. Enjoy.

With the Copenhagen conference quickly approaching, Climate Change is the next big agenda in US politics. The solution that's being offered - the only politically viable solution, I've been told - is Cap'n Trade. As most of you probably know, this is a system where carbon emissions would be capped and taxed beyond a certain point, but polluters could purchase offsets that would allow them to avoid the caps. In my opinion, the plan is flawed for a number of reasons:

1) It only affects the largest emitters. The current plan's cap is so high that most emitters wouldn't have to do anything to avoid the cap. Certainly, the cap will be reduced over time, but it would probably only have a minor impact for the next 10 years or more.
2) Most of the credits are slated to be given away, gratis, by the US government. This is meant to make the plan acceptable to power companies, but essentially it allows them to continue doing what they've been doing while appearing to comply with carbon reduction - subsidized by the government.
3) Companies can buy offsets which would, theoretically, neutralize the effect of their carbon emissions. This amounts to a sleight of hand, which allows industrialized nations and high emitters to continue their normal practices while giving the impression that something is being done to reduce carbon emissions. The fact is that without substantial reduction in carbon emissions as opposed to sequestration, we will not be able to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide to the recommended 350 ppm level that is necessary for avoiding the worst case scenarios of Climate Change.
4) The carbon offset plan is essentially another mechanism for wealthy nations to push the environmental and social consequences of our lifestyle onto poorer nations. Many of these projects displace indigenous populations or involve other human rights abuses.

Cap'n Trade is a solution which is tailor made for industry - not a genuine attempt to limit carbon emissions. In their efforts to make the regulations politically viable (meaning that they will encounter less resistance from the energy industry), our legislators have made them more or less worthless.

Further complicating the Climate Change issue is the recent leak of a mass of emails between some of the world's preeminent climate scientists. This has laid bare the deeply political processes involved in climate science, and left many concerned about the public's perception of the issue. Jerome Whitington over at Accounting for Atmosphere points out that "...what we’re left with is a silly, irresponsible debate between elite Northern science and the elite Northern conservative populists who don’t want the UN eroding their right to play frontiersmen on the grand stage of American exceptionalism."

In a recent report to the World Bank, Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom "A Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change" proposes an alternative to the typical Western approaches based on Markets and Science. She emphasizes multiple solutions at multiple scales which would take into account the on-the-ground experiences and local knowledge of the people who are most affected by Climate Change. The result would be a system that would be more resilient, more open to innovative approaches, and less prone to total failure.
Climate change is, without a doubt, a huge issue. We need to find real solutions rather than giving the energy industry an easy way out. We also need to think of Climate Change as an Environmental Justice issue, and make sure that the interests of those who are most affected (usually those who are least involved in the modern industrial project) are accounted for.

Interview: Colleen Morgan

2009-11-22T14:17:00.003-05:00

The following is from an email-based interview with Colleen Morgan, who runs the blog Middle Savagery. These days I have a lot of questions about the direction(s) of anthropology, especially when it comes to the publication and dissemination of the information that anthropologists produce. Since Colleen Morgan's dissertation research is heavily focused on the use of New Media in archaeology, I thought that she would be a great person to start the discussion with:

Ryan Anderson: What do you think about the current model for academic publishing?

Colleen Morgan: I think that we are currently seeing academic publishing in flux—in academic disciplines such as physics, you see a wide engagement with open access publication, but in anthropology and archaeology we are still struggling with the complexities involved with our unique disciplines. In archaeology we have several different forms of data that we collect and there is not a robust, viable methodology for integrating these data in traditional publication or online. I think that there is still a lot of resistance to open access publication, and while there are some very valid reasons for this resistance such as revealing sacred indigenous knowledge or depicting sacred objects or human remains, the current "closed," paper-based publication model is not viable in the long term. That said, it is a dangerous prospect for graduate students who are trying to publish and establish their research--hiring and tenure are still based solely on peer-reviewed articles in traditional journals.

RA: In your opinion, how well do anthropologists and archaeologists engage with wider audiences?

CM: I think I have a skewed perspective on outreach within the anthropological and archaeological community. In my program at UC Berkeley, we are encouraged to do large amounts of outreach and we are given academic credit for this work. I am sure that this is not the case at other academic institutions and I do not know how much people do on their own. I think that archaeologists in particular do pretty well with outreach in a person-to-person scenario where people come to the site and we explain what we are doing as we work. In other respects we could do more with online outreach, and even more involvement in community-based research.

RA: Should anthropologists/archaeologists try to reach a more public audience?

CM: It is symptomatic of the current mode of the information age that archaeologists are attempting to make our data more available to the public. How much of this information will be lost in the ever increasing digital noise is the question. Fundamentally I show my roots in contract archaeology when I say that of course we should try to reach a wider audience--our funding structure and preservation of sites depends on it.

Ultimately the tension is between our interpretations of the past that show doubt, complexity, and conflict and a public that wants clarity, narrative, and resolution. Can we and should we cater to these impulses when they conflict with our "messy" interpretations? Obviously not, but it takes a good deal of skill to maintain a balance--I am not the Carl Sagan of anthropology, by any means.

RA: What are the benefits of attempting to reach wider audiences? And what about the drawbacks?

CM: Well, as I stated above, the benefits include getting more funding and perhaps saving sites from being completely looted. I will be utterly selfish though, in saying that one of the main benefits to reaching a wider audience is that moment of understanding and interest on a person's face as I describe an artifact or a site to them and they find a personal connection to a place and a way of life that was once far removed from their personal sphere. There are also benefits to learning how adaptable we are as a species and how our social relationships have been very different in the past--different in ways that make our current controversies over sex and religion seem rather minor.

The drawbacks have become even more pronounced for me in my more recent work in the Middle East with the highly politicized views of the past, especially in regard to the Bible and Islam. I am just beginning to negotiate these territories, but I still feel that it is important for us to share our finds, and be the major source of information about these finds. It is important in these cases to be comfortable in one's role as the interpreter of this information and to be available to rebut outrageous or inflammatory reuse of our data.

RA: How do you think information will be published and disseminated in the near future? What changes do you imagine (or hope) will take place, if any? If you could change anything about the current model, what would it be?

CM: In stark contrast with my interest in digital archaeology, I would dearly love some of the old modes of visual communication back, such as medium format photography and Victorian-grade site artists for illustrations. As I grow more comfortable with photography and 3D reconstructions, I get a greater appreciation for the interpretive potential of these older technologies. I hope that in the future there is room (and funding!) for all of these representations. The dream is obviously to have the uber-database with all archaeological materials and sites cataloged in a geo-located, cross-referenced, folksonomic structure, but finding the time, money, and legion of monkeys at typewriters to do all of the data entry is problematic, to
put it mildly.

In the short term, I don't see much of a change in publishing and dissemination, sadly. I think that we will see a greater availability of traditionally published articles and books, but big innovations will be slow to come because they are not rewarded financially or academically. There is also not an established peer review system for digital materials and there are only a handful of archaeologists trained in digital methodologies to critically evaluate these works. A lot of my work is at a very foundational level, coming up with citational strategies and showing the relevance of a particular technological application to theoretical and interpretive archaeological work.

One relatively small change that I would like to see in the digital publication world is a move toward Creative Commons licensing for all archaeological photography. There really is no reason to keep the rights for images locked up and not many people respect these copyrights anyway.

Cross-posted at Ethnografix.

Mobility. Prison. Class. Strands of society from sociology and rap

2009-11-16T21:09:00.007-05:00

According to an online dictionnary, a strand is "a pattern forming a unity within a larger structural whole". Can a juxtaposition of quotes from a book* by the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and some songs** of french rap (with english subtitles) bring light to some aspects of a larger structural whole ? If you have about half an hour, you can see for yourself.

"The mobility enjoyed by "the people who invest" - who have the capital, the money needed for investment - brings about a disengagement of power towards any duty, a phenomenon which takes a new form, of a yet unseen radicality : no more duties towards the workers, towards the youngest or weakest, towards future generations, towards the preservation of the condition of life. In one word, we are witnessing the end of the duty to contribute to everyday life of the community, and its perpetuation. Today exists an assymetry of a new kind between the deterritorialized nature of power and the maintenance of "life in general" in its territorial frames - life which the new power, able to move suddenly and without warning, is free to exploit, and to abandon to the consequences of this exploitation."
Bauman, 1999, p. 20.

"The summit of the new hierarchy is extra-territorial; its lower strata are marked by varying degrees of spatial constraints, and the lowest is that of the glebae adscripti (those who are ascribed to the glebe), exploitable at leisure. "
Bauman, 1999, p. 160

"The state that seems the most awful to us, the most cruel and ghastly, is forced immobility, the fact of being enchained somewhere without having the right to leave; what makes this situation unbearable, is impossibility to move, rather than frustration which would come from an actual desire to leave. Not being able to move is a remarkable sign of impotence, incapability and pain. (...) Immobilization is the fate that people who are haunted by their own immobilization would like to see imposed on whom they are afraid of, and who deserve to their eyes an exemplary and cruel punishment."
Bauman, 1999, pp. 183-184.

About why the penal system strikes lower classes harder than higher classes, Bauman gives the following reasons :

"On the one hand, we find the particular intents of lawmakers, who have a very precise notion of order. What actions are susceptible to find a place in the Penal Code ? Acts which can committ those who are excluded from this notion of order : losers and oppressed ones. Stealing the resources of entire nations, is "promoting free enterprise"; stealing the livelihood of whole families and communities, is called "downsizing", or "rationalizing". Those two thefts are of course not inscribed in the list of criminal acts and susceptible to sanction."
Bauman, 1999, p. 185

(Lyrics -in french - here )

"On the other hand, as every police services dealing with this kind of affairs know, illegal behaviors committed at the "summit" of the hierarchy are hardly separable from the tight web of day-to-day and "ordinary" affairs. (...) The crimes of "high society" are ill-defined, and are furthermore extremely difficult to track down. (...) These crimes imply a degree of financial and juridical sophistication, almost impossible to understand for an outsider, especially if he is profane or unexperienced. These wrongdoings are "disembodied", they are without physical substance; they "exist" in pure space, in the imaginary space of pure abstraction : they are literally invisible. Relying on its intuition and its common sense, the population can suspect that the constitution of fortunes is punctuated with thefts, but nothing is more difficult than to point a precise action. (...) It is hard to see how judging the convicted ones could alleviate the everyday sorrow hauting poor neighborhoods or dangerous streets of our cities. There is thus not really any political advantage to get for who "actually" act against crimes "at the summit" . "
Bauman, 1999, 186-188.

[the following video contains graphic violence almost from the beginning]

* I translated the quotes from a french edition : Zygmunt Bauman, 1999, Le coût humain de la mondialisation , Hachettes. [1998, Globalization. The Human Consequences, Polity Press and Blackwell publishers]
** Kery James - Banlieusards // Kery James - Thug Life // Mafia K'1 Fry - C'est la Guerre // Ideal J - Hardcore //
- Subtitles by youtuber hiphopisdead92 Very big thanks to him.

If you wish so, please feel free to leave a comment below.

Educate

2009-10-09T10:11:00.006-04:00

What is the actual role of education? Is it to actually educate and teach people how to think critically? Or is education all about creating obedient citizens who work within a given socio-economic system? Or, is "education" something that is differential across the United States, something that can be one thing in one place, and something completely different in another?

Is our education system fair? Is it even consistent? Why are some communities so resistant and frustrated with public education? Why do they feel that it's a waste to use taxpayer money for public education. Right about now, I think it's time for my favorite Paulo Freire quote:

Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world (1970).

Is the education system here in the US about freedom, or about control? Or, is it about apathy? Paul Krugman recently wrote a piece on his blog called "The Uneducated American." Here is a small excerpt:

If you had to explain America’s economic success with one word, that word would be “education.” In the 19th century, America led the way in universal basic education. Then, as other nations followed suit, the “high school revolution” of the early 20th century took us to a whole new level. And in the years after World War II, America established a commanding position in higher education.

But that was then. The rise of American education was, overwhelmingly, the rise of public education — and for the past 30 years our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Education, as one of the largest components of public spending, has inevitably suffered.

For me, this only brings up more questions. What is the role of education here in the US? And what are the realities of our education system? What purpose does it really serve? This conversation is not something that should simply be brushed off. I think that paying attention to the complaints about public education (from various social and political positions) is important here. What is it about our public education system that is creating so much tension for so many groups of people? And, on the other hand, why are some groups of people fairly content with certain ideals and realities about public education?

Progress/development

2009-10-07T16:33:00.002-04:00

So, dictionary.com defines "development" as:

"the act or process of developing; growth; progress."

That would mean that "international development" means something like "international growth and progress". Right?

Interesting:

Cross-posted at Ethnografix.

Evolutionary Politics, again: The Growing Pains of Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron, and Charles Darwin

2009-09-25T16:20:00.011-04:00

Here we go again, and again, and just one more time. This year is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, which has generated controversy from the day it was released. There has been a longstanding battle in the United States between Creationists and scientists over Evolutionary theory. This epic and continuing confrontation includes the Scopes Monkey Trial, Epperson vs. Arkansas in 1968, Daniel vs. Waters in 1975, McLean vs. Arkansas in 1982, Edwards vs. Aguillard in the 1980s, the subsequent shift from "creationism" to "intelligent design," the Kansas Evolution hearings in 2005, and the more recent trial in Dover, Pennsylvania. It has been a long and contentious history, indeed.

Here is the NOVA documentary that was made about the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Trial:

The Dover trial became a forum in which ideas about science, evolution, religion, and politics were placed under intense scrutiny. The end result, however, was a decisive ruling against the Intelligent Design movement, which has clear links with earlier "creationist" movements.

One of the newest salvos in this broad campaign comes from former teen sitcom star Kirk Cameron and his colleague Ray Comfort:

For Comfort and Cameron, this issue is about "the culture of our nation" and how the nations youth is being "brainwashed by atheistic evolution." As Cameron states, the only way to "change the sinful heart of the individual" is through the "power of the gospel." Clearly, for Comfort and Cameron, this is a moral and ethical battle that they face. Here is a conversation between Ray Comfort and televangelist Pat Robertson in which Comfort makes his ambitions and concerns quite clear:

This leaves me wondering exactly what it is that Comfort and Cameron are looking for, and what they are really trying to accomplish. Is this really about evolution and science, or is there something else going on here? First of all, I think it is not only quite fascinating how Comfort frames his introduction of Charles Darwin as a bitter, frustrated man who never knew God. This is anything but a balanced way of leading into a discussion about the "basics" of evolution, and serves as a rhetorical means of discrediting Darwin before any discussion of his ideas even begins. It's tactical, of course, and directly at the audience he is speaking with.

So it's certainly apparent that Comfort has his issues with Darwin. In his view, Evolution is little more than a "fairy tale for grown-ups" that is a form of idolatry in which man has created a God in his own image (side note: this is, then, a reversal of the Judeo-Christian system in which man is created in God's image). This "god," according to Comfort, is one that does not "require moral accountability," which is why so many people have latched onto the idea. So there, I think, we reach the crux of the matter not only for Comfort and many others. This is about morality, it is about faith, and it's about politics.

Still, I am not completely sure why Darwin and the theory of evolution have become the lightning rod for Comfort, Cameron, and other creationists today. I do not see why evolution, let alone Darwin's ideas, are such a threat. When Kirk Cameron says that he is concerned about college kids being "brainwashed," I can't help but think of the incredible irony, since Comfort's 50 page "introduction" to Darwin's book is little more than a butchery of history, science, and evolutionary theory. It is absolute propaganda dressed up as a "fair and balanced" presentation of the argument. It is anything but. Comfort clearly has his mind made up from the start, and is simply scrambling for a way to discredit what he feels is his god-given enemy. And I think, ultimately, that the whole argument is absolutely irrelevant.

Maybe I have read way too much Stephen Jay Gould, but I really think that this head-on collision between science and religion need not exist. And in many cases, when speaking about Catholicism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, there is no major clash. Why is that? Why is one specific sect of Christianity so concerned with Darwin, science, and the theory of evolution? Interestingly, the former chief astronomer of the Vatican once stated that,

Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be. If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science.

One of my absolute favorite aspects of my field is the anthropological study of religion. Creation stories--from the Dogon to the Kumeyaay to the Maya--are ways in which different human groups have organized, categorized, rationalized, and explained the world around them. Creation stories are found throughout the world, take a variety of forms, and serve different culturally and historically-specific purposes. The creation stories that Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron adhere to, based upon Judeo-Christian ideologies, represent just a fraction of the ways in which humans have given meaning and form to the world they live in. The Biblical account of creation is indeed a fascinating narrative. For some people Genesis provides the explanatory framework that provides unquestionable meaning in their lives--just as other people place incredible value in their own faith-based ideas.

Testing creation stories with empirical reality is, from my point of view, rather beside the point. Religion is a system based upon belief and acceptance of certain ascribed realities, and for that reason it exists outside of the scope of scientific exploration. As Clifford Geertz wrote about the difficulties of actually trying to grasp religious meanings as they are understood by the faithful, "So far as we are concerned with religion as a perspective, with the meaningful interpretation it gives to experience, we necessarily see it through a pretty dark glass" (in Islam Observed, pg 109). Anthropologists can interpret religious beliefs, but in many ways they will always remain completely outside of what they really mean to those who believe. Science, and this includes anthropology, can only operate with the experienced realities that are readily observable, or that participants can relate. Beyond that, the core of religious belief remains wholly outside of the scope of scientific validation or scrutiny. How can faith be tested scientifically? It can't.

The reverse can be argued as well. Science cannot be tested by faith-based realities, which cover completely different (non-empirical) territory. In religion, the answers to questions are already known, so there is no use for any kind of empirical testing. It is beside the point. And I think that many creationists are missing the larger point of their own religious beliefs while they bash their heads on the mantle of Darwinian evolution.

In the end, this whole ordeal seems to be more about politics than anything else. Comfort, Cameron, and their fellow creationists feel that they have the answers to life, and they want to push their way into scientific discourse to argue their case. The only problem? They don't belong anywhere near science, and their arguments make that abundantly clear. "Intelligent design" is little more than a VERY thinly veiled version of the "scientific creationism" of the 1980s. The NOVA documentary made that point quite well.

These creationists, while attempting to frame their arguments in scientific terms, are little more than rhetorical hitchhikers who are trying to make political inroads against what they feel is a threat to their worldview. My argument? Maybe it's time for creationists like Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron to rethink their game plan. If they are trying to share their "good news" with the rest of the world, I am not sure if dressing up their beliefs in a cheap scientific costume is the best way to go. If they want to enter the stage and participate in the national discourse about the direction of our society, why not do so with honesty and openness, instead of deceit and outright slander? Instead of continually re-creating conflict where none need exist, they might actually be able to find a way to encourage dialog and communication about these often contentious subjects.

Birthers, Tea Parties and Astro-Turf

2009-09-21T22:16:00.010-04:00

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/melissascamera/

Recently, US liberals have been struggling to understand the current upsurge in radical right-wing sentiment. A number of people have offered their opinions (see here and here for some insightful posts). Some say it's an “astro-turf” movement promoted by corporations and special-interests. Others claim that the movement is composed of far-right nut-jobs who have hijacked the political debate. Yet another view (recently dismissed by the administration) holds that there is an underlying racist element to the movement. It seems to me that all of these explanations hold some truth, but all of them are partial and none of them provides a method for combating what has proven to be an extremely influential movement.

Not knowing any of the demographics for people involved in the various protests – whether it's anti-healthcare, anti-stimulus, anti-government or just anti-Obama – my sense is that these are not the people who would generally be consider to be right-wing extremists. These are not the people who have bunkers and weapons caches in their back yards; who paste big American flags to the back of their trucks and hang out along the Mexican border hunting for illegal aliens. Instead these are ordinary citizens whose political views would ordinarily be described as right-leaning moderate. What has driven them further away from the center is an existential uncertainty and perhaps even resentment which has crystallized around an antipathy for the persona of President Obama and his moderate-left policies.

Certainly, special interests are active in this movement, and there are definitely some extremists involved as well. Latent racism is also a contributing factor. However, my sense is that there is no over-arching motive behind these protests, rather, what we have here is a heterogeneous collection of individuals and groups, each with their own unique ideology and social-political motivations, which have been drawn together to oppose the current administration. This process has been catalyzed by media sensationalism and corporate funding, but these could not be considered primary driving forces – they merely hasten a reaction that already existed in the background.

The result is what is referred to by William Connolly (drawing on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guatarri) as a resonance machine – an

“...energized complexit[y] of mutual imbrication and interinvolvement, in which heretofore unconnected or loosely associated elements fold, bend, blend, emulsify, and resolve incompletely into each other, forging a qualitative assemblage resistant to classical models of explanation” (his italics).

The same kind of mechanism could be said to have been behind the conservative revival of the 1980s and 90s as well as the election of Barack Obama himself.

The danger in allowing this resonance machine to continue uncontested is the potential for a revival of the neoconservative policies of the 1980s and 90s which have left a lasting scar on the face of the U.S. that has only just begun to heal. Its effects can be seen in the state of the media, in the economic crisis, in the environmental crisis, in health care, and in many other domains as well. With increased media attention and faster methods of communication, the current resonance machine has the potential to be more far reaching and dramatic than the prior. One does not have to be a supporter of Obama or his policies to recognize this threat – it goes against our own basic self-interest and the necessity of moving ahead with important socioeconomic and environmental reforms.

Because they have a foundation in affective thought, a resonance machine cannot be countered with rational arguments. Nor can they be picked apart and contested piece by piece. Town hall meetings may have some impact, but are also insufficient, and any concessions made may further catalyze their growth.

What's needed is a counter-resonance machine. One that disarms the influence of the first, halts its self-organization and redirects the energy into a more positive set of goals. In order to resist the underlying fear and resentment of the current machine, the counter-machine would have to be based on mutual respect and responsibility as well as a sense that there is great potential in uncertainty. The strategy for building such a resonance-machine would have to be long term – incorporating the current debates over health care and environmental regulation, but looking beyond them as well – and involve a number of tactics including education, policy, outreach, grassroots organizing, activism, and outright resistance.

There is no way of knowing exactly what tactics will work best or what end-form the counter-resonance machine will take. Experimentation will be key. In order to be effective, though, it must not center around the persona or policies of President Obama – doing so would make it too fragile and easily disbursed. As with the current machine, it will have to be a heterogeneous assemblage with no single underlying motive or ideology, but, rather than halting the search for solutions to our challenges, our machine will move them forward in a positive direction, possibly resulting in ideas that are different from those promoted by the administration.

While democrats and the media fumble around trying to understand and explain the growing anti-Obama movement, the resonance machine continues to grow. The consequences of leaving it uncontested or of taking a limited approach to resisting it are socio-political stagnation at best and, potentially, a return of the neoconservative policies of the 1980s, with greater force and greater potential for harm. Working to build a positive counter-resonance machine will not only halt the current resonance machine but will also help to propel the US into a brighter, healthier, and happier society.

9/11 & Collective Memory

2009-09-16T09:49:00.009-04:00

In her book Paradise in Ashes, Beatriz Manz wrote:

Collective memory is clearly a social product, but individual memory also flows from social context. Individuals tap their own recollections, draw on discussions with each other, and filter these perceptions of the past not only through their own interim experiences, but also through the social arena in which society as a whole interprets these events (230-31).

Paradise in Ashes is about the tragedies and murders that took place in Guatemala during the 1970s and 1980s. Memory serves an important role throughout Manz' discussion of how people dealt with, memorialized, and moved past the atrocities they endured. It is not only an excellent book in its own right, but it is highly relevant to a larger discussion about the role of collective memory.

Ground Zero, New York, 2004. Photograph by Ryan Anderson.

Last week marked eight years since September 11, 2001. The internet is a medium that lends itself to all sorts of ideas and projects, and the collective memorization of 9/11 is one of them. Last Friday I was sifting through different sites, paying attention to the vast stories, reflections, and memories that people have of that day. Here are just a few examples of how this event has been remembered, carried on, reflected upon, and disseminated:

Lorie Byrd over at the blog Wizbang, wrote a post called "Never Forget--Eight Years Later." Here is a small excerpt:

Whether criticized for it or not, I think it is also important that we remember what it felt like on that day. I was watching the Today Show and saw the second plane hit the tower in real time. I remember shock, disbelief, and sadness, but most of all a vulnerability that did not exist on September 10. That feeling stayed with me for quite some time. I had felt it to a much lesser extent when the WTC was bombed years earlier, but 9/11/01 was, obviously, on a level never before seen in our nation's history. When I heard the announcement that the Pentagon had been hit as well, and then saw video of the gaping hole, my only thought was "we have been attacked and we are at war."

Byrd's post is a mix of reflection, politics, and personal memories of what the event means to her. For her, remembrance of this specific day has been on ongoing project, and she links to the past posts she has written about the subject as well. Additionally, she posted links to other sites and colleagues who also wrote about and memorialized the event, which illustrates some of the ways that collective memory works online.

SusanG at Daily Kos used the speech by president Obama as a way to mark the day. Interestingly, she did not offer any commentary of her own, and instead let the words of the president speak for her. The discussion forum of the post is where the real action is, and where people express not only their memories, but also their political views as to how the event should be remembered. This is collective memory in action.

Scott at Powerline wrote "Dartmouth's 9/11," which provides snapshot portraits of Dartmouth alumni who lost their lives on 9/11. These were found in the New York Times piece called Portraits of Grief. Here is just one example that Scott posted:

Kevin P. Connors (Tuck) '73

Whether it was climbing a mountain, playing charades or challenging his four brothers and his sister to a game of Monopoly, Kevin Connors would not be defeated. At work, there was the thrill of picking the next big investment for clients of Euro Brokers, where he was a vice president. At home, the simplest of family gatherings became thrill-seeking adventures. Children would be pitted against adults, and Mr. Connors, 55, would side with the team he thought had the best chance of winning.

"My brother was a voracious fan of winning at all things," said Sheila Connors LeDuc. "He once bought a boat to sail around the world. When it sank off the coast of South America, he beat the ocean by not drowning."

And when planes struck the World Trade Center, Mrs. LeDuc was certain that her brother would survive once more. Slowly, she has had to accept another probability. "This was bigger than the boat going down," she said. "I just hope he is at peace and that those of us who mourn him can come to the same peace."

Matt Corley at Think Progress wrote this in a 9/11/2009 post:

Recently, the Guardian interviewed former New York governor George Pataki to discuss the eighth anniversary of 9/11. Pataki, who was in Manhattan when the World Trade Center was hit, used the opportunity to criticize the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate CIA interrogators who went beyond their legal guidance, saying it “jeopardizes” national security...

This post is overtly about the continuing politics that surround 9/11, and less about remembering or reflecting on the event. Still, I would argue that it is in fact about collective memory and how the event is characterized throughout the nation. Everyone has their take. It's all a part of the way many Americans circulate, contest, and reshape how that one day is talked about and remembered in larger national discourse. Collective memory, in many ways, is a process more than anything else. Memories are shaped by the present, and the ways that different events are viewed depends a lot on individual perspectives and politics. There are vastly different ways that people from across the political and social spectrum talk about and remember 9/11 through blogs and other online media, and there is no one "right" way to do it. What 9/11 means, in the end, all depends on this vast conversation that Americans continue to participate in, effectively shaping, creating, and re-creating conceptions and memories of that day over and over again.

Contentious Cuba

2009-09-12T16:43:00.009-04:00

In the contentious debate about health care reform in the United States, Cuba is used on all sides as either a model of success or a model of failure. It all depends on who you ask.

One popular--and incredibly controversial--example is Michael Moore's 2007 film Sicko, which lauded the preventative health care system in Cuba. The film took a highly critical look at health care in the US, and Moore decided to use Cuba as an example to prove his point--a decision that may have backfired. Here is the film's trailer:

Reviews of Moore's film reflect the highly divisive nature of the health care debate, which is often split across ideological and political lines. For example, blogger Michelle Malkin responded to the release of Moore's film by writing, "Michael Moore is playing martyr to full effect in advance of the premiere of his latest crockumentary effort." Christopher Hayes at The Nation summed up the film in this way:

Sicko is far, far less partisan than Fahrenheit, but much more ideological. And as such, it is more consistent in what it offers--with one major caveat. The film's final half-hour, in which Moore takes 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba, serves only to reinforce the decades-old slander that equates social democracy with repressive socialism. It's a major miscalculation and nearly squanders the first hour and a half of the film in which Moore so deftly guts arguments that socialized medicine represents the vanguard of Marxism. But that final section aside, the film functions as a compelling advertisement for an alternative way of ordering society, one in which, as in France, there's vacation, paid sick time, doctors who make house calls and even, amazingly, a state-supplied nanny who will come to your house and do your laundry after you've had a child. Who wouldn't want that?

CNN's Tom Charity had similar criticisms:

If Moore missteps, it's in the one sequence he and the Weinstein Company have made sure everyone has already heard about (with a little help from the U.S. government): the boat lift to Cuba for three ailing 9/11 heroes. It's Stunt Man Mike at his crudest, and not as effective as he intended.
To be sure, it's bitterly ironic that Guantanamo detainees have access to better medical care than the soldiers who guard them, but Moore is easily diverted into a silly commercial for Cuban socialist medicine that plays exactly like the kind of Soviet propaganda films he sends up earlier in the movie.

Charity did, however, recommend the film to his readers, despite the flaws. For Charity, the health care system is "sick, no question," and Moore's film might just make the idea of reform a more pressing issue on the national political agenda. It has certainly increased attention on the subject.

In September of 2007, ABC journalist John Stossel ran a series called "Sick in America," with one specific segment in which he directly challenges Moore's claims about health care in Cuba:

Reviews and commentaries on Moore's film run the gamut, and political debate about the health care system in Cuba (which is often held up as a comparison to the health care system in the United States) has continued up to this day. Cuba is both the hero and the villain in this national discourse, which in many ways isn't about Cuba at all--it's about health care in the United States, and whether or not there should be any changes to the system we have in place.

So where are the anthropologists in all this? Good question. Since anthropologists work all over the world, there must be one or two working in Cuba who can provide some insight, right? Indeed, there are. In 2007, University of South Florida medical anthropologist Linda Whiteford, along with Laurence Branch, a professor of health policy and management at USF, published the book Primary Health Care in Cuba: The Other Revolution. Carolyn Sargent, the current president of the Society for Medical Anthropology describes the book as, "a groundbreaking work. Primary Health Care in Cuba makes a significant contribution to medical anthropology and public health by documenting the history, political economy, and ideology that has produced the Cuban primary health care system" (from the back cover of the book).

Whiteford and Branch write:

One of the great achievements of the Cuban Revolution has been its "other revolution," its revolution in health care. This other revolution resulted in the successful reduction in health disparities and inequalities throughout Cuba between 1959 and 2000. This reduction is partly visible in the design and practice of primary health care, the focus of this book (Whiteford and Branch 2007: 7-8).

Anthropologist Katherine Hirschfeld, however, has a very different take on Cuba and its health care system. In a highly critical review of Whiteford and Branch's book in March of this year, Hirschfeld argues that it has oversimplified and over-romanticized the reality of health care in Cuba:

Had more rigorous methods been employed, some very different conclusions might have been reached regarding the respective costs and benefits of the Cuban system. Even a modest attempt at community ethnography, for instance, would have revealed local voices that are often at odds with, or even humorously dismissive of the health claims made by Cuban officials...Even a minimal investigation of lifestyle and income differentials between political elites and disenfranchised populations (such as the families residing in squatter settlements on the outskirts of Havana) would have revealed a gulf between rich and poor that has come to rival that of previous Cuban regimes (Hirschfeld 2009: 294).

Cuba plays a strange, and often contradictory role in political discourse in the United States. In regards to the current debate about national health care reform, the Cuban system is held up by all sides. Some see it as a model to find inspiration from, while others see it as a symbol of the road to disaster. Pundits disagree, journalists disagree, and anthropologists seemingly disagree. It seems clear that romanticizing ANY health care system is not going to get the debate anywhere.

The primary fault that I see with Michael Moore's film, for example, is that while it promotes dialog about the health care debate, and certainly has a number of strong critical points about the US health care system, his choice to color the Canadian, French, British, and lastly Cuban health care systems as idyllic Edens of public health was a serious mistake. Does sugarcoating the possible alternatives really accomplish anything? In the public debate about possible reform, losing a critical perspective about the benefits, flaws, and alternatives to the current system is certainly not going to push the debate forward. While the Cuban health care system may have certain highly laudable aspects to it, ignoring its faults (and clearly there are some serious faults to the system) will only serve to hinder this critical national conversation.

Health care as a human right

2009-09-12T15:34:00.003-04:00

Is health care a human right? Medical anthropologist Dr. Paul Farmer says yes:

Some, such as Donald Sensing over at Sense of Events, argue that health care should NOT be thought of as a "natural right". Sensing argues that health care should be seen as more of a service than a right:

The presumption that health care is a right, and therefore must be equal for everyone, is founded on two critical errors of understanding. The first is that health care is a resource that is simply available for those who need it, or that can be made equally available through proper legislation and regulation. The second error is that medical care and access to it can be rationed by command more equally, economically and fairly than by demand.

Phil Niles rearranges the question and asks instead HOW MUCH health care is a human right:

With all of the emotional and financial investment in health care, it is important to address the situation with an actionable approach - not an ideologic one. My suggestion is to quantify just HOW MUCH health care we believe is "right" to provide, recognize that we should cap public health care spending, and focus the moral/fiscal debate on how high that cap should be set. Let's achieve our ambitions of providing access for the uninsured with the most likely way of succeeding: by haggling about the price.

This is a conflict-ridden issue, and opinions abound. Before any progress can be made in this debate, do some basic issues need to be worked out? Is there any common ground in the health care debate? Is health care something that should be affordable and available to everyone and anyone? Or should health care be placed within the market forces of competition, supply & demand, and profit. Is the answer somewhere in between? Can the value of public health be quantified? Where does personal responsibility come into play? Do people earn health care, or is it something they all deserve as a matter of course?

Mission

2009-09-09T00:00:00.006-04:00

Inspired by the goals of public anthropology, this blog aims to invigorate and shape public debate through anthropological insights, using internet media. We hope to address issues such as war, health care, violence, poverty, racism, etc from anthropological perspectives but in an accessible format, through a mix of anthropology and journalism. Achieving this will also require an active effort to tap into debates on other sites about contemporary political and social issues, from all parts of the political spectrum.

If you're interested in participating on this blog and contributing some posts, please contact us at: anthropologicalprism@gmail.com

Bloggers

2009-09-08T23:55:00.004-04:00

Ryan Anderson - http://ethnografix.blogspot.com/

Stacie Gilmore - http://kaben2010.wordpress.com/, twitter: @sgil

J.M

Jeremy Trombley - http://jmtrom.blogspot.com/, twitter: @jmtrombley