"Nothing Is Just", anthropologist Dustin M. Wax wrote in one of his first posts on Savage Minds: Filmmaking isn’t “just” making movies: Marriage isn’t “just” a marker of committment. Family isn’t “just” the people you are related to. Giving gifts isn’t “just” a form of exchange."

The same can be said about disasters like the Katrina hurricane. In the book "Catastrophe & Culture. The Anthropology of Disaster" (2002), Susanna M. Hoffman and Anthony Oliver-Smith stress cultural aspects of disasters, that disasters are embedded in cultural practices of societies. "Disasters do not just happen", they write in their introduction:

"Many societies in their native practices, before colonialisation, globalisation, and other interferences, had knowledge and strategies to deal with the nature of their physical platform, to the extent that a disaster, at least up to certain extremes, might not even constitute a "disaster" to them, but simply part of their lifeways and experience (Schneider 1957). For example, Sahelian nomads for centuries adapted to the periodic droughts of their region through interethnic cooperative linkages with sedentary farmers and by altering migration routes (Lovejoy and Baier 1976). In contemporary conditions, these strategies often have been disrupted by such things as governmental policies, economic development, population increase, or nation-state boundaries, such that maladaption, conditioned by the outer world, now hovers near (see McCabe, this volume)"

(quoted from page 8-9) (to be continued in later posts)

SEE ALSO:
The Anthropology of Disaster - Anthropologists on Katrina

Yale anthropologist David Graeber has been recently fired for his anarchist activism. For a long time, there were no news, and the Graeber solidarity blog hasn't been updated either. Now, Yale Daily News writes that Graeber has formally appealed the decision amid suspicion the denial was based on his political views.

According to Yale policy, Graeber is allowed to remain at Yale for one year to allow time for him to find another job. And this semester, the location of Graeber 's lecture course had to be moved to accommodate an unexpectedly high enrollment of about 80 students, Graeber said.

>> read the whole story

SEE ALSO:

While the blog is dead, the Solidarity with David Graeber-Webpage has lots of information

Review of Graeber's book: Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology / download the whole book

(post in progress)

A quick round-up of some news and blog-entries on the Katrina-disaster:

Anthropologist Anthony Oliver-Smith has researched how communities re-emerge from destruction. He's surprisingly pessimistic according to a press release (University of Florida):

“When neighborhoods that are tightly woven together get impacted like this, and houses get torn up and people are displaced, that breaks up some of those cooperative networks; they lose access to services they can afford such as child care,” he said. He hope authorities will consider those needs when they help people rebuild."

His pessimism might be explained by some findings in his book Catastrophe and Culture: the Anthropology of Disaster that he edited together with Susanna M. Hoffman: People won't learn from past disaster experience and adjust their behavior accordingly.

In an review of this book in The American Ethnologist Paul L. Doughty writes:

With the relentless attention given to all kinds of disasters by the popular media, from sinking ferries in South Asia, exploding volcanoes, El Niño perturbations, oil spills, and airplane crashes, it is high time anthropologists turned serious attention to the examination of their impacts on society and culture in both the short and long term.

Among the case studies in the book, we'll find a optimistic review of how indigenous people managed to deal with the effects of natural perturbations that have regularly caused major problems throughout Andean history.

Paul L. Doughty:

Surely this is a hopeful finding, suggesting that people today might also learn from past disaster experience and adjust their behavior accordingly. But will they? Reading other case materials in this book, however, one becomes a bit depressed because it seems humans are reticent to learn from past experience and show an unwillingness to accept the conclusions to be drawn from it.

>> read the whole review

>> Anthony Oliver-Smith: Environment and Disaster in Honduras: The Social Construction of Hurricane Mitch

Race, Poverty and Katrina: Craig E. Colten, professor of geography and anthropology at Louisiana State University, says race played a role in the New Orleans' level of preparedness for Hurricane Katrina. >> listen to the interview at NPR

Nomadic Thoughts: More on Katrina and Anthropology

Will Klinger writes:

The dynamics of the entire situation beg for anthropological insight. Overnight the Superdome was transformed into a new society with new rules and new survival tactics. How did they deal with unrest? These are anthropological questions whose answers can serve a purpose. That purpose make become more obvious in the coming weeks and months but it is safe to conclude at this point that by studying how the people affected by the hurricane reacted and acted will be integral to planning for similar future situations.

>> continue

SEE ALSO:

French Quarter survivors are forming "tribes" to survive (BoingBoing)

Katrina Help Wiki / see more Katrina help resources (Dina Mehta) - as always Dina's blog is the best place regarding social tools, see her entry Skype virtual call centre opens web to Katrina refugees

WikiNews: Effect_of_Hurricane_Katrina_on_New_Orleans

Kerim Friedman: Government irresponsibility, race and damage control

American Anthropological Association Responds to Katrina

Blogs on Katrina (Technorati)

Tsunami and Internet: Social Tools - Ripples to Waves of the Future

MORE DISASTER ANTHROPOLOGY

Abdul Safique: Impact of the super cyclone: myths & realities

"Disasters do not just happen" - The Anthropology of Disaster (2)

New website: Understanding Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences

"Disasters are also a social event": Panel says Katrina disaster has roots in 1700s

Anthropology News October: How Anthropologists Can Respond to Disasters

The first entry of a new blog called "New anthropology" starts presenting us new ways of anthropology

"Two ways to express what I call New Anthropology.
1. The new theoretical concern should be highlighted: A Cognitive Turn!
2. The new learning methods should be applied: Timeless and remote learning on the net!!"

Lots of links! (unfortunately some sites require a browser of doubtful quality)

>> continue

Very interesting review by David Trigger in the August-edition of The Australian Journal of Anthropology. Michael F. Brown's book "Who Owns Native Culture?" discusses Indigenous assertions of ownership of cultural information. These can be in tension with the claims of non-Indigenous people who may wish to access particular sites and land areas, discuss certain areas of Indigenous knowledge without being censored etc. According to David Trigger, Michael Brown seeks a balance between 'the interests of indigenous groups and the requirements of liberal democracy'.

Michael Brown shows how this conflict is more complex than it might seem at first glance. Early in the book, he asks why the incorporation of native cultural forms should be defined as theft, when native peoples themselves (as with all societies) have selectively appropriated Christian and other symbols and religious practices. How does the ownership claim over usage of Indigenous cultural ideas and designs sit with the creative mixing of cultures often termed 'hybridity' or 'creolisation' by scholars? Are New Age adherents, for example, really guilty of 'blasphemy and cultural aggression', when embracing their own versions of such rituals as sweat-lodges (derived from certain North American Indian cultures)?

>> continue (Link updated with copy)

The book has its own website with lots of news, articles, reviews and links related to the book! Excellent!!!!!!!!!

READ ALSO Indigenousness and the Politics of Spirituality where anthropologist Sabina Magliocco argues against cultural ownership: "Taken to its logical extreme, it leads directly to essentialization and racism"

"Despite the fascinating content, the book is a methodical anthropological study, and thus heavy going at times. One longs to hear more Na voices, to read more stories of their ways", David Loftus writes in his review of the book A Society without Fathers or Husbands: The Na of China by anthropologist Cai Hua. His critism reminds on debates in the 1980s and 90s ("How could such interesting people (anthropologists) doing such interesting things (fieldwork) produce such dull books?"). While the debate contributed to some more personal ethnographies (personal reflections on fieldwork, multiple voices etc), postmodernism led to some totally unreadable accounts.

The reviewed book is about a matrilineal society where "genetic fathers have no recognized kinship with children, and no part in their upbringing". Furthermore, "men and women take multiple sex partners. "An attempt to monopolize one's partner is always considered shameful and stupid," Cai Hua writes, "and the villagers will mock it for a long time."

>> read the whole review on blogcritics.org

ON MATRILINEAL SOCIETIES SEE ALSO:

Eggi's Village. Life Among the Minangkabau of Indonesia (another matrilineal society)

Contemporary matriarchal societies: The Nagovisi, Khasi, Garo, and Machiguenga

Matriarchy: history or reality?

Anthropologists: U.S. Marriage Model Is Not Universal Norm

MORE ON ACADEMIC WRITING:

How To Speak and Write Postmodern

Karla Poewe: Writing Culture and Writing Fieldwork: The Proliferation of Experimental and Experiential Ethnographies

In the August 2005 issue of The Australian Journal of Anthropology, Jocelyn Grace reviews the book "Medical Anthropology in Ecological Perspective" by Ann McElroy and Patricia Townsend. The review is interesting, especially because it addresses differences in regional traditions in anthropology.

The USA might be the only region (or one of the few) in the world where the evolutionary perspective plays a role in anthropology. Nevertheless, the authors claim:

Combined with evolutionary theory and field methodology, medical ecology has provided some key organizing principles for medical anthropology. Although no single approach 'unites the field', there is a 'broad tacit consensus' that ecology and evolution are core concepts.

Grace writes in her review:

Although this may be the case in the United States, it is certainly not true of medical anthropology in Australia. (...) Given its theoretical orientation, Medical Anthropology in Ecological Perspective is not a likely choice as a core text for teaching medical anthropology in Australia.

The same could be said about anthropology in Europe.

>> read the whole review

The African Studies Quarterly is an Open Access Online Journal for African Studies.

In their recent issue there's an article by anthropologist Rebecca Gearhart on Taking American Race Relations on the Road...to Africa:

"As an anthropologist who leads undergraduates to East Africa, I am in hot pursuit of a way to help my students avoid taking the particular way in which Americans understand race with them to Africa. So far, I have been unsuccessful in prying my students loose from the color-coded framework that has organized race relations for them throughout their lives. American notions of race often become obstacles to understanding how social relationships are negotiated outside of the American context. (...) Social relationships in Kenya are not defined by skin color the way they are in America. From a Kenyan perspective, "race" might be translated as: cultural heritage, first language, home district, family name, profession, and/or ethnic affiliation."

>> continue

Their recent issue has lots of interesting book reviews, among others Joseph Adjaye's ethnography "Boundaries of Self and Other in Ghanaian Popular Culture". Adjaye studies his own society:

Joseph Adjaye offers us an inspiring ethnography of several rituals among the Akan, Krobo, and Bono in Ghana. The book offers a vivid impression of the (post)colonial transformations of libations, funerals, naming ceremonies, female initiation practices and two festivals (Bakatue and Apoo), which the author tries to explain by using and refining different theoretical approaches. The strength of this book is situated in the author’s personal experiences. As the eldest son in an Akan family, he has to take up specific rules during rituals.

>> continue

Another book review: Men and Masculinities in Modern Africa. Edited by Lisa A. Lindsay and Stephan F. Miescher:

"This book is the first collection of its kind to focus on the practices of masculinities especially in West Africa. Covering early colonial period through post-independence, the editors and contributors discuss how masculinities have been constructed and contested in sub-Saharan Africa. The book challenges stereotypes of African men as inferior and victims of colonialism."

>> continue