I will be presenting at the 2008 Northwest Anthropological Conference held in (so I’ve been told) beautiful Victoria, B.C.
My presentation will be on the cultural change of land use in Skagit County over the past 60 years, using photos to analyze what people were up to, as well as what was important to people. For example, in the 1950s only one picture of the cat and because the kid was playing with it; in the 1980s lots of pictures of dogs all by themselves, they are the featured player in the article.
I’m only going for a day, so I don’t know how much I’ll be able to see, but I hope to get a little bit out of the whole deal.
I’ll write an synopsis when I get back.
Tag: modern culture
Filing a complaint
I’m having the worst time getting things through bureaucratic tape and getting my complaints heard, so while these stories are a little dated, I figured I’d post these two about people making blatant statements about a particular culture with their complaints.
The first one is the story about how a 5th grader noticed something wrong on an exhibit at the Smithsonian. The sad thing is people working within the Smithsonian had noticed it too, but it took someone from outside the system to make them fix it. Hooray for bureaucracy!
This story is about two women who are divorcing the same man. They are working within their culture’s limitations to assert their rights. Since it technically has to be the man who initiates the divorce, they figured if they teamed up and asked for a divorce it’d be near impossible for him to turn them down. Strength in numbers!
Documented and Democratized
This article in Newsweek really got me started thinking about this idea of the “Millenial” generation (post 1982, so I JUST missed the cut) as being over-documented, over-exposed, lack of privacy, democratization of information, lack of understanding of copyright and ownership laws, and how technologies like the Internet and cell phones have existed for as long as they’ve been aware enough to notice (although I still remember my mom being really excited about getting the Internet and me being disappointed because I couldn’t find any games).
I know everyone says “this” generation is new and like nothing they’ve seen before, but “this” generation really IS like nothing we’ve seen before. It’s like the first generation of colonists born in the American Colonies way back when. Sure their parents gave them this new land and brought them up in these new frontiers, but these kids were immersed in it from the moment they set foot outside, and all the while trying to adapt their parents’ cultures and customs to this new reality.
I am fascinated to see what this generation, who has no fear or apprehension of technology, who is used to reality TV and learning physical discipline like parkour off the internet, and texting people while hanging out with other people, will come up with on their own, how they adapt their grandparents belief systems to this new way of living. This generation is also a lot more international, and yet not necessarily internationally aware, than previous generations. What exactly will go down? Stay tuned!
Interesting phenomenon, would love feedback
Carol Barron of Dublin City University told me this story at The Association for the Study of Play annual conference a few weeks ago:
When she was a nurse working in a middle eastern country a few years ago, she was married and yet had no children. The first wives would bring their children in to be examined, and bring the third or fourth wife along to. They would ask her if she was married, then if she had children, and when she said no they would be sad and cluck their tongues and say “oh, so sad, no children, no children.”
The Muslim women were not allowed to take birth control, yet birth control pills was still sold in their country for the non-Muslims. And when the first wives would wander off, the third or fourth wife would pull birth control pills from under their berqua and whisper “no children, children” with a smile.
The fact that these women were able to subvert their culture like this first without getting caught and second without any real concern of getting caught fascinated me. I’d love to hear more from other people who have heard or seen similar experiences of subversion of oppressive culture in this way.
rules and regulations
A psych study found that women actually have dominant roles in marriage relationships when it comes to anything involving the family unit or couple, including vacations: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19713567/
This of course flies in the face of a bunch of other studies, but as the article points out most other studies looked at how much money each couple made and used that as a main variable, whereas in this study they asked each couple who makes the decisions on what subjects and used that as their main criteria. I’d like to see this study repeated several times, but at the same time anecdotally it makes sense, or to quote a very amusing movie: “Yes, the man is the head of the house, but the woman is the neck. And the neck can turn the head anyway it wants.” (Bonus points to whoever recognizes that quote).
An interesting commentary on how race is perceived in Brazil and how goverment regulations there might actually be reverting the national mentality back to the way it was in the 1880s: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2124080,00.html
We all talk good
Okay, this took me forever to get to posting, but I still thought it was interesting. A collective study done showed that men and women actually use approximately the same amount of words:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/06/TALKING.TMP&tsp=1
News about cities’ inhabitants
½ of humanity in will be living cities by next year: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19458575/
The famous female pharoah Hatshepsut’s mummy has been identified as officially her. It was found around the same time as King Tut, but nobody bothered to mess with her until now: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/06/27/egypt.mummy.ap/index.html
This is an article about how in the past five years Rome’s tourists have gotten more drunk and rowdy: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/world/europe/26rome.html?ref=world
I stayed in the neighborhood they highlight in the article, and as a young American tourist who lives in a college town and didn’t stay out past 12:30 a.m., I didn’t think it was that bad. As a resident I could see how having an apartment that looks over the campo de fiori would be annoying if you’re trying to get some sleep on a Saturday night, but my reaction was somewhat similar to the author’s: it’s technically a commercial area, so if you’re a resident there then yes, there’ll be some noise in the most popular squares. There is almost no noise on the side-streets or smaller squares. But the prude in me agrees that tourists shouldn’t be allowed to get away with rude, obnoxious behavior in someone else’s backyard.
Women for war, Men for babies
They have now agreed to allow Nepalese women to join the Gurkha army, a reportedly fierce group of warrior-types: http://uk.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUKDEL14414220070626
I never understood the whole “well, they want to fight, but we won’t let them” thing. No women, no homosexuals, no flat-footed people. To sound completely callous, if someone wants to get themselves killed, let them in, train the crap out of them, give them a gun and let them have at it.
Basically a scientific rant about how men get physiologically ready to have kids too along with their partners: http://www.slate.com/id/2168389/fr/flyout
It’s funny because I knew about men having hormonal cycles just like women (just not as dramatically), and it’s been proven before that women at least are affected hormonally by smell and being in proximity to other women, so it makes sense that men would be affected the same way, especially when a woman is putting off the amount of hormones that one tends to do during pregnancy, but the author makes a good point that no one really seems to give it much credit. Anecdotally, though, I’ve seen the effects they mention in men I know who become dads.
culture halted and culture preserved
Comet over Canada killed Clovis? (ooh, alliteration): http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18789488/
Rafe has already debunked it.
I don’t know why I thought the Smithsonian would be immune to political pressure, especially when you’re just down the street from the White House…: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18789206/
Six states in India ban sex-ed because it might be offensive to Indian culture. According to the article, India has the highest amount per capita of HIV. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18723555/
THIS is what I would love to do as a living: help people preserve traditional culture like this woman is doing in her village http://www.slate.com/id/2161053/fr/flyout
Pull quote: “Traditions were always meant to serve the present,” she says. “We may not be fully nomadic, as we were in the past, but we still travel to visit family, or pay respects, or attend initiation ceremonies. Hunting is still hunting, even if our men use rifles and Land Cruisers. Our culture doesn’t teach us to hide from new things, and in many ways modern life is easier and less violent than our old ways. But that doesn’t mean the altyerre is any less important or sacred to us.”
The native Australians and Maori seem to be the most successful at preserving and maintaining, just on what little I’ve read. It’d be fun to figure out what they’re doing right and if it could be applied to U.S. (even if it’s just nicer politicians).
Activists the world over
Activists in Washington State are trying to pass an initiative that would annul weddings in Washington after three years if no offspring had been produced (it is in reference to arguments made by the state supreme court): http://www.queerty.com/queer/news/wash-state-gay-activist-put-marriage-to-the-test-20070206.php
They acknowledge it’s silly, and even some gay activist groups have said they won’t sign the petition, but even as a straight person who will probably someday get married and have kids, it’s damned amusing.
Evangelical Churchies in Kenya are protesting against a skeleton uncovered by Richard Leakey in the 80’s, who is claimed to be the most complete prehistoric skeleton ever found, and it’s release to the public this month BECAUSE…they think it would disprove the church on creationism: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17029155/.
| Jeez, these people are driving me CRAZY! “No, don’t release hard science, because it’ll hurt our poor little fragile egos that have to be constantly fluffed by all our adoring fans, um, I mean worshippers, um, I mean GOD’s worshippers. It is God’s will we close our ears and eyes to actually see how the earth is put together!” Argghhdsdlafj! I don’t believe in God, but did it every occur to these people that, assuming there was a god, he might have made the earth a little bit differently than some pompous humans living 1000 years ago wrote it down? Or whenever the first written versions of the Bible came out.
*takes a few deep breaths to regain composure* In other news, refugees are seeking asylum in Mauritania: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/2dd8d8fec300efb17f98d99c3f7554e4.htm |
Mental Flowers 