Ethnographic Explorations

Due to the success of a hit TV show, Sister Wives, on TLC, the idea of plural marriage is becoming more familiar to most of us. However, despite what cable TV presents, plural marriage doesn't always just look like a man married to four women with a lots of kids! Plural marriage (AKA polygamy) means being married to more than one spouse at a time. Polygamy is the complete opposite of monogamy, or marriage to only one spouse at a time. Polygamy plays a very large role in other cultures around the globe.

There are three main types of polygamy which are polygyny, polyandry, and group marriage.

1. Polygyny is the marriage of one man to more than one woman at the same time. In the TV show, Sister Wives, the Browns practice this type of relationship. In the United States and many other Westernized countries it is illegal. The show began a couple of years ago and it started off with the Brown family having to flee from their home in Utah,which is a large Mormon populated area. The family had to pick up and leave in the middle of night and leave their entire life behind while they fled to a neighboring state. Other examples of polygyny is seen in the culture of the Luyha people of Kenya, Africa, as well as in parts of the Mormon faith of our modern world (which the Browns practice).

2. Polyandry is the marriage between one woman and multiple men. This is a less common type of polygamy than polygyny. Examples of polyandry kinships used to exist within the Toda people in Southern India. 

3. Group Marriage is the last type of polygamy and is by far the rarest. This relationship is between multiple men and multiple women. However this type of relationship is non-existent in the modern world. I believe that the modern "Open Relationship" relationship branches off from group marriage on a smaller scale. 

The idea behind this post revolves around our discussion about cultural differences throughout the world. This video is part of a documentary called “God Grew Tired of Us,” which follows a group of Sudanese men who move to America from Sudan. These men walked into America with no clue of what they would see and experience. It was culture shock, and although there are things they loved about America, they also hated things as well.

As we discussed in class, cultures evolve through various stages. Sudan is not as advanced as the United States is, and this can be seen from the short four minute clip I’ve attached. The Sudanese have not formulated the technology we have today, which makes our worlds seem lifetimes apart. We are aliens to them. We do not fit into their view of the world, and the minute they stepped into ours, people judged them and used the color of their skin against them. Racism exists everywhere, even the U.S.. People at the local gas station claimed to be intimidated when the “Lost Boys” all walked into the gas station at once, because of the color of their skin. 

This year in the United States, 100,000 people are on the list for kidney transplant. And many of them — more than 4,000 every year — will die waiting.

That’s because there’s a huge imbalance between the global need for kidney transplants and the tiny supply of them, which the World Health Organization says amounts to “maybe a tenth of the worldwide need.”

“That adds up to tens of thousands of people every year who are on dialysis, on waiting lists and have no prospect, really, of getting a transplant any time soon,” says Kevin Sack, a national correspondent for The New York Times. That shortage prompts many people to buy kidneys illegally on the black market, which Sack has been investigating for the past year.

Read the full story here:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2014/12/released_from_federal_prison_black_market_kidney_broker_in_nj_sting_avoids_deportation.html

Thirty miles from NYC, in the Ramapo Mountains of NJ, lives a forgotten indigenous people shrouded in mystery, fighting for acceptance as Native Americans - The Ramapough Mountain Indians.

Showing at Athens Cinema International Film and Video Festival this Friday, 5pm.