The structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss and the critique of Feminist Anthropology are discussed in an Iranian.com piece on gender.

The problem with structuralism is that it discards the concepts of freedom and choice, merely emphasizing the way different social structures shape an individual’s experience, outlook and behaviour. As for the works of Lévi-Strauss, feminist anthropologists of the 1970’s criticised its theoretical approach and empirical contention by introducing the discursive category of ‘gender’. Gender was defined as the essential component of power relationships that are founded on apparent differences between the sexes (3). Actually since the 1980’s, “difference” and “power” have been the main elements of gender analysis in social and human sciences.

Read more here:

Conceptualizing Gender (2) Post-structural theories

by Azadeh Azad 03-May-2012 

Dillon Mahoney

#Anthropology

Once upon a time, in the late 19^th century, anthropology was popular, but it wasn't necessarily a good thing. From pseudo-scientific justifications of racial hierarchies to the displays of so-called primitive people at ethnographic expositions, anthropology satisfied an ever growing public yearning for the exotic thrill. This thrill for the exotic, for the occult, for the uncivilized, was fueled on the one hand by an assumption that gazing at exotic peoples was like traveling back in time, like staring at your own primitive reflection. On the other hand, and quite paradoxically, this nostalgia for an imagined past was fueled by a modern desire to eliminate the “primitive” aspects of modern, civilized society. In contrast to anthropological evolutionism with its origins in European colonization and natural history, the American anthropologist, Franz Boas, considered by many to be the father of American cultural anthropology, felt that anthropology had an obligation to counter incorrect assumptions about the superiority of the West. While Working on ethnographic exhibits at museums and “Pre-Colombian Expositions,” Boas believed in these early days of his career that, by making anthropological knowledge from long-term research with so-called “primitive cultures” publicly available, he could ingrain in average citizens certain ideas of cultural relativism – that while all cultures are different, none is better or worse, more “civilized” or less. He argued that anthropology had an important role to play in providing the public with beneficial examples of cultural differences and similarities that they might then use for self-reflection.

I think of Boas as I write this first post of Anthropology Now's Betwixt and Between, because just like Boas, our goal here is founded on a possibly naïve assumption that when presented with anthropological perspectives on contemporary events, the public will learn to think beyond simple “white” vs. “black,” “us” vs. “them” or “West” vs. “rest” ways of understanding cultural differences and similarities. Instead of connecting to the public through public displays like Boas, we will use the World Wide Web. Instead of looking for the exotic in history or in distant locations, we look for the exotic in our own home fields and look for the familiar in faraway places. Instead of invoking science to legitimize our ideas, we aim to encourage critical anthropological thought, of science too. In short, we hope that we can help make anthropological insights more popular and accessible without being superficial.

If it were not for the sudden explosion of excitement caused by Kony2012 and the accompanying viral video, I would not think back to Boas right now.  Within one week of being posted on YouTube by San Diego-based creators Invisible Children, Inc. The 25-minute video profiling Central African warlord Joseph Kony and his recruitment of child soldiers had received more than 80 million views, prompting a wave of youth mobilization in American high schools and furious critiques of Invisible Children, Inc. Having taught about Joseph Kony and his Lords Liberation Army in my Anthropology of Africa classes at Rutgers University, I was intrigued by any discussion of Kony.  However, and quite to my own disappointment, I could see the same problems encountered by Boas in the late 19th century emerging from Kony2012.  I cannot help but wonder if Invisible Children are not trying to achieve something similar to a 19th century Popular Anthropology through the use of videos like that profiling Joseph Kony.  Like the “exotic” and evolutionary-oriented anthropological exhibitions of the past, they allow us to gaze at a “primitive” reality (who would dare to argue that child soldiers represent progress?) at some far away exotic land from the comforts of our own familiar environment. And like the ethnographic expositions of the past, their popular message distorts more than it reveals. However, unlike the ethnographic expositions of the past, Kony2012 is free for everybody with high speed internet. Now, press “like” to make a change!

Since the early days of the industrial revolution, intellectuals have been warning of the dangerous myth of technology as an emancipatory force. First, because it is exactly what many of those in positions of power want us to think, and second, because it blinds us to the violent sides of so-called progress. We, as a new generation of anthropologists that have both the access and the understanding of new media, face the challenge of provoking the public to think beyond taken-for-granted notions of right and wrong in the face of widespread social injustice.

So we return to Boas.  By the eve of the First World War, Boas had left the museums for the classrooms at Columbia University and began to train a new generation of American cultural anthropologists.  His attempts to make the American public more aware of cultural differences and similarities had not worked as planned.  His confidence in the mobilization of the public, of popular anthropology, or of how the public would respond to anthropological knowledge presented through popular displays was shaken, especially after the Spanish American War and a continued rise in American imperialism throughout the early 20th century. In 1916, Boas wrote that “the number of people in [the United States] who are willing and able to enter into modes of thought of other nations is altogether too small … The American who is cognizant only of his own standpoint sets himself up as arbiter of the world.”  These words are just as true 100 years later, especially in light of the naiveté accompanying Kony2012.  How can Anthropology Now's guest blogger venue take on this new challenge of disseminating and translating anthropological knowledge, while learning from Franz Boas, Kony2012, and so many others who have attempted to bridge the gap between social knowledge and social action?  We are not completely sure, but this uncertainty implies numerous possibilities, and possibility is a wonderful place to start.

Dillon Mahoney teaches cultural and linguistic anthropology at Rutgers University. His research focuses on the politics of telecommunications and tourism development in East Africa. He has done research in Mombasa, Kenya since 2001.

Betwixt and Between is Anthropology Now's guest blogger venue. We welcome posts that engage the public with contemporary issues and anthropological thought. Betwixt and Between lies between the material and the virtual; between the local and the global; between the text and the hyper-text; between the real and the imagined; between academic-speak and daily-speak. It refers to a state of being in several worlds at once, to a state of being neither here nor there, while being here and there at the same time. It is a state of uncertainty, of insecurity and of numerous possibilities.

Angela Garcia, Anthropology Now author, wrote an op-ed in LA Times on anti-addiction vaccines:

My aunt Marion is in the hospital dying of liver and kidney failure, the result of her 20-year struggle with heroin use. I was told of her imminent death the same day news broke about a vaccine against the drug. "Breakthrough heroin vaccine could render drug 'useless' in addicts," one headline read. "Scientists create vaccine against heroin high," proclaimed another.

Meanwhile, my aunt finds temporary relief in the ever more frequent administration of opiate pain medication — the very kind of drugs she used illegally.

The idea of an anti-addiction vaccine is not new. For nearly 40 years scientists have been working on vaccines against all kinds of addictions, including nicotine, marijuana and alcohol. There are even trials of vaccines to prevent obesity. None of the anti-addiction vaccines has yet received Food and Drug Administration approval, however, and most of the studies are still in their early stages.

Read the rest here:

Heroin vaccine won't 'cure' what ails addicts
By Angela Garcia
April 15, 2012

Before we can understand an alien civilization, it might be useful to understand our own.

To help in this task, anthropologist Kathryn Denning of York University in Toronto, Canada studies the very human way that scientists, engineers and members of the public think about space exploration and the search for alien life.

From Star Trek to SETI, our modern world is constantly imagining possible futures where we dart around the galaxy engaging with bizarre alien races. Denning points out that when people talk about these futures, they often invoke the past. But they frequently seem to have a poor understanding of history

Read more at Wired Magazine

Q&A: The Anthropology of Searching for Aliens
By Adam Mann April 4, 2012

The White House named Jim Yong Kim as its nominee to head to World Bank. Jim Yong Kim is the president of Dartmouth College, an anthropologist, a physician and a global health expert. This nomination forms a radical break from the traditional profiles of the World Bank leaders. Shall this appointment be approved, this would be one of the most influential positions any anthropologist has ever reached. It remains to be seen how Jim Yong Kim anthropological understanding would translate into global and local policies.

Elinor Ochs’ latest research on child-rearing practices among middle class US families receives wide spread media attention:

Anthropologist Elinor Ochs and her colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles have studied family life as far away as Samoa and the Peruvian Amazon region, but for the last decade they have focused on a society closer to home: the American middle class.

Why do American children depend on their parents to do things for them that they are capable of doing for themselves? How do U.S. working parents’ views of “family time” affect their stress levels? These are just two of the questions that researchers at UCLA’s Center on Everyday Lives of Families, or CELF, are trying to answer in their work.

By studying families at home—or, as the scientists say, “in vivo”—rather than in a lab, they hope to better grasp how families with two working parents balance child care, household duties and career, and how this balance affects their health and well-being.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal:

A Field Guide to the Middle-Class U.S. Family
By SHIRLEY S. WANG, March 13th

Also, read responses to the original article at The Washington Post and Slate Magazine

Janice D’Arcy - Are we asking enough of our kids? Anthropologists don’t think so

Libby Copeland  - The American Middle Class: Guilty Parents and Lazy Kids

A year after whole neighborhoods were killed by the Japanese tsunami, rumors of ghosts swirl in Ishinomaki as the city struggles to come to terms with the tragedy.

One reconstruction project appears stalled because of fears the undead spirits of those who perished last March will bring bad luck.

”I heard people working to repair the store became sick because of ghosts,” Satoshi Abe, 64, says, gesturing to a half-repaired supermarket. ”People died everywhere, here and there. The city is full of such stories

…anthropologist Takeo Funabiki says it is only ”natural” that stories of the supernatural abound after such an event.

”Human beings find it very difficult to accept death, whether they are inclined by nature to superstition or are very scientifically minded,” he says. ”A sudden or abnormal death, anything other than someone dying in bed of old age, is particularly difficult for people to comprehend.”

Read the rest at The Sydney Morning Herald

Tsunami recedes but ghosts linger
March 10, 2012
Everything from building work to taxi services are still affected by fears of undead spirits, writes Miwa Suzuki.

Nate Greenslit writes for From the Fields, a Wired Science op-ed series:

As an anthropologist of science, I am fascinated with how people create their own meaning from scientific content, which in turn shapes public understanding of science and, ultimately, scientific agendas themselves.

YouTube has become a lively repository for this kind of meaning-making. A great example is advertising for antidepressants: User-generated parody videos have given neuroscientific claims about depression a new cultural life.

So-called “direct-to-consumer” television and print advertising of antidepressants has been a controversial practice since its introduction in 1997, prohibited in all countries except for the U.S. and New Zealand. This sometimes-political lightning rod of the pharmaceutical industry has also been the de facto promulgator of putative neuroscientific theories of depression and anxiety disorders.

Read more here:

Op-Ed: Why YouTube Matters to the Science of Depression
By Nate Greenslit, February 28, 2012
Wired Scienece

Amber Case is a cyborg anthropologist. The TED Website explains:

Technology is evolving us, says Amber Case, as we become a screen-staring, button-clicking new version of homo sapiens. We now rely on “external brains” (cell phones and computers) to communicate, remember, even live out secondary lives. But will these machines ultimately connect or conquer us? Case offers surprising insight into our cyborg selves.

Press here for a direct link to her TED talk.

Amber Case: We are all cyborgs now

Speaking to Voice of America, Medical Anthropologist Elise Johansen joins the widespread call to end Female Genital Mutilation:

…FGM, a practice which dates back thousands of years, persists despite widespread recognition of its harmful physical and psychological effects on girls and women.

Involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, FGM’s immediate health complications include severe pain, shock and hemorrhage, and longer-term consequences such as cyst formation, infertility, increased risk of childbirth complications, and newborn deaths.

Elise Johansen, a Medical Anthropologist for the World Health Organization (WHO), says that although traditional circumcisers remain the primary practitioners of FGM, doctors, nurses and other health-care providers are increasingly conducting the procedure, perpetuating the so-called medicalization of FGM.

“By allowing health care providers to perform FGM, it signals that this is an okay practice, that maybe it is healthy or harmless,” she says, explaining that the WHO strongly opposes the practice. “So it actually contributes to make sure that the practice continues, I think.”

Read more here:

Health, Rights Groups Demand Tougher Anti-FGM Laws
Lisa Schlein | Geneva