Anthro blog

Citation

Comaroff, John.

     2010.  The End of Anthropology, Again: On the Future of an In/Discipline.  In American Anthropologist.  American Anthropological Association 112(4): 524-38.

Abstract

 “Is the field of anthropology truly near its death?”  The answer to this question would be “Not quite,” according to John Comaroff in The End of Anthropology, Again: On the Future of an In/Discipline.  Anthropology’s impending death has been anticipated for a while on numerous occasions, and yet for a variety of reasons as well.  However, it is rather argued that a new indiscipline has erupted, involving a redefinition of its concepts and knowledge production on a larger scale.  

The potential crisis comes with three symptomatologies, mainly pointing towards the failing nature of the ethnography.  Although the methodology of the ethnography was once traced back to the anthropologist, this is no longer the case, as other disciplines have covered similar topics and explained these topics even more thoroughly and more insightfully than ever—in comparison to the “thin” anthropological ethnographic accounts (Comaroff 2010: 526).  The concept of explaining even a broad topic, such as culture itself, is no longer needed analytically due to the rise of educational programs, exposure through branding by nations and other media, and controversies in trademarking, as insisted by “natives” (Comaroff 2010: 526).  Therefore, what exactly does anthropology focus on anymore?  There is not one subject matter that anthropology can call their own.

In reaction to the dilemma, anthropologists have tried to focus back onto the (exotic) local.  As part of the goals of anthropology, attempts to reinstate the ability to “get inside and understand small-scale communities, to comprehend [their] systems of knowledge” creates a sense of security (Comaroff 2010: 528).  Fieldwork continues to thrive since ethnography can continue to function without any rules to dictate against it.  Within these ethnographies also include the authors’ description of experiences, images, and events in narratives while simultaneously hoping to not impose any authorial order and allowing them to “speak for themselves.” Using description as a way of presentation of the local subject does not equate to anthropological methods, however.  This lack of anthropological outlook relates to the third reaction, which suggests that the return to the concept of culture is back in the author’s own phenomenology (experience, belief, and being-in-the-world) (Comaroff 2010: 529).  

These problematic reactions of retreating into the local, resorting to the empirical, and returning to the cultural actually call for a move toward the notion of indiscipline—a more favorable rise due to the need for reshifting of concepts and methodology in anthropology.  The “demise” of the discipline ultimately came with a re-identification. Anthropologists no longer have a specific subject matter or rules within their methods/concepts.  Comaroff states, “We are what we study and how we study it” (Comaroff 2010: 529).  It is no longer stressed to focus back on “the exotic local” just because anthropology has done this for years to keep the discipline alive.  By opening up different fields to anthropologists, it allows for true critical thinking and interest, thus promoting analytical discourse among these individuals.  Comaroff also mentions the operation of being-and-becoming, which “refers to establishing how it is that verbs of doing become nouns of being…thus to illuminate the pathways by which lived worlds are pragmatically produced, socially construed, and naturalized” (Comaroff 2010: 530).  Therefore, instead of presenting the local as mentioned before, the method is more subtle in that it situates the person, place, or thing, but brings about their meaning and their chances of becoming. By widening the field of interests instead of focusing on a sole theme and establishing its naturality, the anthropologist no longer has a defining role to add any contraindications or paradoxes.  The methodology can finally present itself without the help of the anthropologist, as its unexpectedness would, in reality, be both familiar and strange.  

Citation

Jenks, A.C.

     2011. From “Lists of Traits” to “Open-Mindedness”: Emerging Issues in Cultural Competence Education. In Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 35 (2): 209-235. Electronic document, http://link.springer.com.proxy-tu.researchport.umd.edu/article/10.1007/s11013-011-9212-4.  DOI 10.1007/s11013-011-9212-4

Abstract

In the field of biomedicine, whether attention is on “culturally appropriate care,” “multicultural health care,” or even “cultural sensitivity,” these phrases ultimately converge into a single main issue—the general idea of “culture” in medical care is actually unclear.  How should a culture be addressed when it is foreign to both the provider and the patient? What goals should be set in order provide the best quality care in the end?  There is obviously a much needed call for attention and effort to improve cultural competence due to the social and cultural context of sickness and need for better patient-provider relationship within cross-cultural exchanges. With increasing recruitment of providers from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups, use of interpreters and translated materials to accommodate limited English proficient (LEP) patients, and the creation of ethnically specialized clinics, the cultural competence movement has slowly begun, but is still in need of universal understanding.

For quite some time, anthropologists have been quite critical of healthcare’s approach to culture.  Specifically, critics have “pointed to an essentialized, static notion of culture that is conflated with racial and ethnic categories, seen to exist only among exotic ‘Others,’ and ultimately places the blame for health disparities on the ‘difference’ of culturally marked patients” (Jenks 2011: 211).  The complexity of the issue regarding the existence of exotic “Others” therefore highlights the drive for ongoing efforts of the cultural competence movement to teach culture. Instead of having a “list of traits” associated with various racial and ethnic groups mastered by health providers and applied to patients as necessary, “open-mindedness” becomes the more preferred method in willing to learn about differences and treating each patient as an individual (Jenks 2011: 209).  Approaches in cultural competence training have thus sprung up in undergraduate medical education, residency training, continuing medical education programs, and extracurricular lectures and workshops for other health professionals.

Jenks mentions her ethnographic research conducted in Southern California in 2005 and 2006 which examines the way a depoliticized, individual notion of culture and the need for open-mindedness emerge from responses to the critiques of cultural competence (Jenks 2011: 212).  Due to the rise of CLAS (Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services) in California, she conducted semi-structured interviews with eight cultural and linguistic specialists at managed care organizations due to their role in developing cultural competence training programs, nine second-year medical students with self-identified interests in cultural competence, two medical anthropology professors, one medical school administrator and cultural competence program developer, and seven additional cultural competence promoters working with patient advocacy groups.  These interviews were 1-2 hours in length in order to analyze these individuals’ critique of biomedicine and cultural competence. Some excerpts include:

“We spent a lot of time on culture in general and things that don’t seem to apply to us—‘‘oh, people think differently.’’ Yeah, I know, we’ve got that. But getting specifically how each culture views one specific thing—instead they make a big point of saying, ‘‘don’t stereotype.’’ But you have to…”

“I think a lot of people want to have categories. But what is your typical Black patient or your typical Latino patient going to be like? Are they going to not speak English or have diabetes out of control? People want to have some kind of framework going in. The idea of just treating each patient as their own separate entity is too broad or a little too uncertain…”

“It’s tricky because you want to educate people and you want to make better doctors out of people, but you also have to make sure that people are going to be open to your content. And if you make it so harsh, no one’s going to be open to the topic in the first place. It’s tricky because you don’t want to turn people off with the very mention of your program.”

 Also, looking back at previous cultural competency approaches include the use of “tip sheets” and “pocket guides” with alphabetized lists of racial and ethnic groups (Jenks 2011: 215).  Critics have attacked this notion due to the “quick and superficial fix” in order to be politically correct.  Therefore, what is the right or wrong way to “do” and “have” cultural competence?  Overall, the concept of “open-mindedness” by healthcare providers becomes useful and genuine in practice as a way of recognizing that differences exist which thereby creates an open environment to welcome more knowledge that will eventually treat patient as an individual.  At the same time, there can be reported difficulty with challenges that patients may present (such as lack of insurance or inability to keep up with medications as directed) and as a reaction, personal biases of providers may play a role in this part of health care.  Continuing education will eventually increase the emphasis on culture in order to reform how cultural competence is both taught and learned.  

 Themes

Having cultural competence is not a technical skill of memorizing a list of traits, making generalizations, or having stereotypes

Being open-minded in healthcare allows consideration of the patient as an individual, but there are caveats in the resulting outcome

1) Please take the author’s critique of Western enlightenment, modernity, globalization and identity that informs their theoretical orientation of ‘theory from the south’ and explain how your chapter (and the conclusion of your assigned chapter) exemplifies these ideas while presenting a summary of your chapter.

[reference pages 105-107]

“Outrage against aliens has provided a versatile call to arms, forcing a new line of separation that unifies a home-grown population otherwise divided by class, color, culture, and much else; not fully or finally, of course but nonetheless visibly and volubly” (Comaroff & Comaroff: 105).

 The statement above practically summarizes Chapter 4: Nations With/Out Borders (The Politics of Being and the Problem of Belonging).  The xenophobia and rage that South Africa is practicing originates from the increase in migration, which simultaneously occurred during rises in South African poverty, disease, and regional fires.  The image of fire also plays a role throughout this chapter, not only literally but also figuratively, as fire represents the anger/anxiety South Africans feel towards the introduction of aliens to their home.  Despite the fact that borders are opened for the movement of goods to serve the capital economy, South Africans also hope to immediately close their borders with any hints of incoming, yet unwanted migration involved.  This relates to the authors’ main critique due to the similar instances that postcolonies, such as South Africa, act towards their management of spatial separation, proving similar to European colonial regimes.

2) How do the authors use the notion of fire and nature to situate ‘belonging’ the South African nation state?

[reference pages 99-100]

The imagery of fire and the burning bush, pertaining to the South African nation state, signifies charged political anxieties and the hope that the ashes might arise to a new sense of community, nationality and inclusion (Comaroff & Comaroff 2012: 99).  The burning bush particularly includes flowers, the Giant Protea (fynbos), which is the national emblem of South Africa.  The resemblance of nationalism within the flora accommodates the relationship between the South African peoples to their state and to nature.

Not to mention, the use of fynbos have just become a recent indigenous plant in southern Cape by the end of the 1960s.  At the time, the marketing of fynbos became a part of the international demand for local flora—the commodified value essentially led fynbos to be deemed a “South Africa treasure” (Comaroff & Comaroff 2012: 99). As fire is endemic to the Cape, “foreign plants were only one of many factors held to produce fires of distinct kinds” at the time of 1979 (Comaroff & Comaroff 2012: 100).  Overall, the subject of foreign plants and fire being popular at the same time as laws being made against immigrants enhanced the dissention against “aliens.”  As the blaze in Cape Town arose, projects toward rooting out alien vegetation created jobs for only the unemployed South African individuals as opposed to immigrants. As Thabo Mbeki quotes in the end of the passage, “Alien plants stand in the way of the African renaissance” (Comaroff & Comaroff 2012: 101).  

3) What do they posit as the three transformation of the South African state?

[reference pages 96-98]

(1)    The reconfiguration of the modernist subject-citizen

A concern with political identity arises due to the fact that nation-states have become increasingly diverse in many fields—gender, sexuality, age, race, religion, style and of course, many more that the authors have not mentioned.  As these dissimilarities within nation-states continue to exist and grow, the more dissonance arises due to the fear of losing these nation-states’ integrity and “historical roots” (autochthony).  Anything that appears to endanger the “place of birth”, loyalty, or integrity of origin, is immediately rendered as a potential threat. “Whatever other identities the citizen-subject of the 21st century may bear, s/he is unavoidably either an autochthon or an alien…Nonhumans, also, may be autochthons or aliens” (Comaroff & Comaroff 2012: 97).

(2)    The regulation of borders and limits of sovereignty

As governments cannot control each and every factor that a nation-state endures in terms of currency, labor, unwanted aliens, and let alone internal issues of crime, religious movements, and others, this has led contemporary nation-states in South Africa to resemble “patchworks of sovereignties” (Comaroff & Comaroff 2012: 97).  These nation-states are arranged in spaces with barriers around their communities, separating themselves from the terrains of ungovernability (Comaroff & Comaroff 2012: 97).  However, the authors point out that this implementation of borders to the South African state is an ultimate paradox.  As the neoliberal capitalist economy must continue to thrive, the states simultaneously open and secure their frontiers so that the movement of goods and services continue to facilitate the inflow of wealth.  The borders will immediately close due to fear of migrants; yet the second-thought of keeping these borders closed creates fear that the economy will not benefit.  South Africa, just like the U.S. and Western Europe alike, are both xenophobic in these ways.

(3)    The decentering of politics into other domains (law, technology, ritual, media, and the market)

To shift the focus off the reality of neoliberal capitalism and its effects over time within a state, states have taken special interests in other domains to fight for towards public awareness.  Neoliberalism has transcended to be considered as a natural process while “public life is reduced to struggles, often fought by means of lawfare…over the environment, abortion, healthcare, child welfare, domestic abuse, gender inequality, human rights, crime, and capital punishment” (Comaroff & Comaroff 2012: 98).  Each topic takes the limelight until disintegrating to collective consciousness when the topic decides to become an issue again over time.

4) What is wrong with aliens? (How do they use plant species as metaphors for xenophobia and belonging)

[reference page 102]

Chapter 1

1) What is the author’s critique of Western enlightenment broadly?

In Theory From the South, it is proposed that Western enlightenment is deemed to be a disguise of a “wellspring of universal learning” while the non-West, or otherwise the global south, is an exotic reservoir of “unprocessed data” (Comaroff & Comaroff 2012: 1). Due to this known and familiar concept of the West, authors Comaroff and Comaroff include in their critique that this notion should reconsidered in perspective—beginning from the historical processes that created such a division.  The authors further reposition these common assessments by proposing an acknowledgement to the modernity of Africa that is rarely ever realized even though Africa is “ahead of the curve” (Comaroff & Comaroff 2012: 16).  

2) How do the authors want to reposition ‘modernity’, particularly in Africa, to distinguish an ‘African modernity?

The authors first begin to distinguish modernity from modernization, as seen on page 9, including that modernity refers to the “orientation to being-in-the-world…to a concept of the person as self-actualizing subject, to an ideal of humanity as species-being, to a vision of history as a progressive, man-made construction…” (Comaroff & Comaroff 2012).  Modernization is rather a pretentious ideology that suggests “all humanity ought to aspire to [and] to which all history ought to lead, toward which all the peoples ought to evolve” (Comaroff & Comaroff 2012: 9).  Particularly in Africa, the global south, there is apparent modernity rather than modernization.  The African modernity ignores the plain and simple distinction of being considered “behind” or “developing” to the capitalistic global market in terms of modernization. Its regions instead embrace the social, economic, cultural, and moral dimensions of life itself.  

 3) So, how is Europe ‘evolving’ toward Africa?  Explain the authors subtitle.

The authors point out that Euro-America and the south are essentially in the same rank/level of world-historical processes, yet the south seemingly developed independently just fine. This includes the long-term methods of cost efficiency, highly flexible, informal economies, and the attention and appreciation to work, time, and value (Comaroff and Comaroff 2012: 13).  The “counter-evolutionary” subtitle, How Euro-America Is Evolving Toward Africa, purposefully allows the authors to bring attention to this analysis of Africa as a “petri dish.”  It is suggested that the processes of neoliberalism was intentionally tested in the global south so that the same operation can be exported to Euro-America (Comaroff and Comaroff 2012: 14).  

4) Why do the authors consider nation-states in Africa to be ‘quite advanced and sophisticated mutations’ of globalization, rather than ‘immature forms’ of it?

Just as James Ferguson quotes in Seeing Like an Oil Company: Space, Security, and Global Capital in Neoliberal Africa (2005), Africa’s combination of mineral extraction enclaves and weakened governed societies constitute “not an immature form of globalization, but a quite advanced and sophisticated mutation of it” [380].  Both Comaroff and Comaroff also consider the nation-states in Africa under this same logic due to the increase of foreign direct investment (FDI). The authors report an increase of capital inflows to Africa which “rose by 16 percent to $61.9 billion in 2008, while falling 20 percent worldwide” (2012: 15).  It is obvious that the global south’s economies are able to expand and thrive under their own new regulatory techniques in a transnational trade.

5) What are Stiglitz’s critiques of neoliberalism?

George Stiglitz previously argued that in regards to neoliberalism, as seen in trade and capital markets, and including the privatization of public assets, these processes would not be ideal for developing economies.  He specifically points out the flaws of neoliberalism due to its “restrictive conditions,” “[in]efficiency of the market,” and misunderstanding of the conditions of which self-regulating markets actually operate (Comaroff and Comaroff 2012: 16).  Due to the expectation of pending results of the “petri dish” of developing countries, it becomes comfortable to ignore the economic history that made the current Euro-America what it is today.

 6) (From page 20 on) Review the primary concepts summarized for each of the following chapters: ‘autonomous person’ (Chapter 2), ‘policulturalism’ (Chapter 3), ‘borders and belonging’ and ‘xenophobia’(Chapter 4), ‘democracy’ (Chapter 5), ‘politics/law/identity’ (Chapter 6), ‘zombies and necropolitics’ (Chapter 7), ‘AIDS’ (Chapter 8).  These will be the guiding premises for each group but all students need to have a working knowledge of the concepts and thesis associated with each.

Borders and Belonging: The paradox of national borders simultaneously being open and closed - open for profit and consumer demand; closed to “aliens” potentially likely to “steal” jobs.

Citation

Brodkin, K.

     2000. Global Capitalism: What’s Race Got to Do with It? In American Ethnologist. American Anthropological Association 27(2): 237-256.

Abstract

           Although the expectation of the future of capitalism was a hopeful disintegration towards socialism, capitalism instead has increased in power by crossing over national boundaries to spread globally.  The emergence of a “global village” thus facilitated a new meaning of culture in which individuals from all over the world participate as mass consumers in the “free” world economy (Brodkin 2000:238).  However, Karen Brodkin argues that since capitalism is now a force stronger than ever before, it has become apparent that the construction of race and racism has been influenced to pervade not only social elements of a population, but also the work force.  

           Brodkin uses the United States as an example to discuss the structure of capitalist production and its effect on Jews.  She states “Jews are one of several ethnic groups whose racial assignment in the last 150 years has gone from white to off-white and back to white” (Brodkin 2000: 240).  Being considered “white”, the dominant social class in the U.S., briefly applied to Jews prior to the mid-19th century until a new large stream of Jews entered by the 1880s.  These Jews faced anti-Semitism without much “racial unwhitening.”  When a larger scale of Jews immigrated to the U.S., Jews ceased to be white, but became white again after World War II (Brodkin 2000: 240).

           It turns out that despite the off-white or white racial reassignments, Eastern European Jewish immigrants were considered the most skilled workers of the industrial workforce.  There were still occupational restrictions that these individuals had to face anyway due to racial hostility.  Brodkin mentions the American Federation of Labor craft unions, which included a “privileged labor class” of Irish, British, and Germans, excluded Jews in a violent manner while also preventing them to have jobs in print, transportation, or construction.  “For those unions, whiteness was an important requisite for membership” (Brodkin 2000: 241).

           Thus, the act of race making allowed for the process of capitalism to influence job degradation and racial darkening.  Only those who were white were able to work in specifically high status jobs whereas degrading and tedious positions were left for non-white laborers.  Brodkin goes on to point out that, “state race-making policies have dovetailed with capitalist projects of organizing relationships to the means of production racially” (2000: 244).  This fueled the desire for class formation based on race in order to contribute to the economy “as productively as possible” per say.  Women were soon affected by this capitalist based social structure as well when women who worked side by side with men would soon lead to “unauthorized contact.”  In time, state regulation on women proved similar to race-based differential treatment since “the state manifests an interest in protecting the mothers of future Americans [but the benefits] have not been extended equally—or at all—to non- or off-white women” (Brodkin 2000: 245).  It is overall emphasized that anthropologists should examine race, class and gender as purposefully set identifiers for capitalistic modes of production regulated by the global political economy.

Themes

Race and gender are capitalism’s class relations of production

Capitalism is responsible for racism and sexism in the labor force

Citation

Ferguson, J.

     2005. Seeing Like an Oil Company: Space, Security, and Global Capital in Neoliberal Africa.  In American Anthropologist. American Anthropological Association 107(3):377-382.

Abstract

In a 1998 article called Seeing Like a State by fellow anthropologist, James Scott, it was proposed that the leading force behind globalization and transnational development was a dynamic of standardization, homogenization, and grid making, which especially applied to developmentalist states.  These three factors were essential in order to “see like a state,” according to Scott’s analysis.  However, Ferguson attempts to provide limitations to this analysis in Seeing Like an Oil Company: Space, Security, and Global Capital in Neoliberal Africa due to new realizations of divisions between “usable” versus “unusable” territories being used for capitalist mineral-extraction investments.  Therefore, the term “globalization” ultimately becomes misleading.

Ferguson discusses the limitations of standardization, homogenization, and grid making in regards to the most popular economic investment that resides in Africa—although without much benefit to the wider society: oil.  The first example provided by Ferguson sets up the scene in Angola, one of the world’s leading oil exporters that produces approximately 1 million barrels per day (bpd).  Simultaneously, the Angolans are the poorest individuals on the planet, getting ranked at the lowest level of human development according to the UN Human Development Index (Ferguson 2005:378).  The enclaves of mineral extraction that only a few Angolans are allowed to work in, among the hired majority of foreign workers, are protected by private armies and security forces.  It was as if as though the occupation of these paramilitaries have driven off the locals in order for the mineral-extractive business to continue booming.  Although, a common scenario presented by Ferguson also includes the integration of multinational corporations that segregates itself from the larger society.  

Therefore, the movement of capital becomes apparent in the sense that globalization does not actually “encompass or cover contiguous geographic space” (Ferguson 2005:379).  The movement of capital moves from point to point while bypassing the uninhabited land that is occupied by the multinational oil corporations and/or paramilitaries.  Focusing in on the Zambian Copperbelt, the development of copper mining subsequently led to the development of “company towns.”  This includes company-provided housing, schools, hospitals, and social education programs, such as clubs, recreational activities and domestic education programs to create “housewives” and “modern mothers”.   Workers for these mining towns simultaneously became “skilled, unionized, highly paid, and politically powerful” over time (Ferguson 2005: 379).  For a brief period, the education that these Zambians received allowed for the achievement of higher wages, powerful unions and strong nation-state control over national wealth, but were later considered as “inefficiencies” responsible for the copper industry’s decline, according to the advocates of privatization and neoliberal reform.  However, “as more and more of the functions of the state were ‘outsourced’ to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), state capacity deteriorated rapidly” (Ferguson 2005:379).  The capital “hops” over Zambia showed the failure of homogenizing the copper industry through the nationalization of social and political programs.

Ferguson therefore proceeds to differentiate the view of major corporations regarding Africa and potential advertising oil concessions.  Africa either becomes“usable” with secured enclaves and government through private or semiprivate means, or“unusable” with disengaged states with occasional government by NGOs.  This analysis applies to the behavior of major international corporations occupying African countries simply for the development of capital-attracting enclaves.  It was noted that countries with “raging civil wars and illiberal governments” are the easiest to take advantage of for these organizations’ success and hence, military takeover and regulation (Ferguson 2005:380).  Overall, with an improved understanding  to the real meaning of neoliberalism and globalization, Ferguson lets the audience dive into the U.S. focus on Iraq to have the underlying speculation of the “global” model.

Themes

Global capitalism is not standardized or homogeneous as large corporations make out to be, as seen in the U.S. oil business occupation in Africa

Although the definition of globalization includes “encompassing or covering contiguous geographic space,” multinational corporations move point to point within a nation–further segregating the “undeveloped” with company towns, foreign oil companies and its foreign workers, and more

Citation

Ferguson, J. & Gupta, A.

     2002.  Spatializing states: toward an ethnography of neoliberal governmentality.  In American Ethnologist.  American AnthropologicalAssociation 29(4): 981-1002.

Abstract

           In the field of anthropology, the concern over the idea of the “modern state” derives from the curiosity of the actual role states have over local communities and how these states came about in the first place.  Despite the evident historical processes of neoliberalism, the imagination of the state should be further explored and understood in a sociocultural context. The goals of this article attempt to discuss state spatialization—particularly, vertical encompassment to describe states—and to highlight attention to the concept of transnational governmentality, which questions the changing forms of state spatialization and thus, its potential for globalization.

           The idea of vertical encompassment divides the institution of the state having two images: verticality and encompassment. In terms of verticality, a state is considered to be “above” civil society, community, and family in the sense that the state has the higher command and all-knowing role in that particular relationship.  In terms of encompassment, the image of the state “begins with family and local community and ends with the system of nation-states” (Ferguson & Gupta, 2002: 982).  The effects of locality to region to nation-state, and on a larger scale, to international community explain the metaphor of encompassment to emphasize the image of a “higher and above” state.  As conceived in the West, the idea of the state possesses such “’higher’ functions as reason, control, and regulation, as against the irrationality, passions, and uncontrollable appetites of the lower regions of society’ (Ferguson & Gupta, 200: 983).  It is therefore suggestive that due to the states’ important, yet powerful role in being better able to manage its citizens than the average society itself, the concept of the state is widely accepted and encompassed.  States ultimately practice a top-down approach in manipulating/planning society, which can be seen when the state begins to micromanage community roles while simultaneously keeping their larger role of upholding power and management.  Hence, the idea of the state is closely studied for this reason.  It seems as if there is a need for a state, as “in the Foucaldian sense, it constructs a commonsense state that simply is ‘up there’ somewhere, operating at a ‘higher level’ (Ferguson & Gupta, 2002: 983).  The imagination of order and higher power signifies the relationship among the state and its subjects in which the nature of state spatialization shall be explored even further with a case example in India.

           In 1975, the Anganwadi Program was launched in India as a response for raised awareness on some of the world’s highest rates of maternal mortality and infant mortality, morbidity, and malnutrition (Ferguson & Gupta, 2002: 984).  This program specifically aimed to provide supplementary nutrition, education, immunizations, and preventive medicine for poor and lower-caste women and young children. However, it was pointed out that “the Anganwadi program well illustrates the concern with the welfare of the population that Foucault identifies as the central aspect of ‘governmentality’ in the modern world” (Ferguson & Gupta, 2002: 984).  It was soon discovered that the workers of the Anganwadi program felt concerned with the surveillance and regulation that the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program had over them—even though these workers were also a part of the roles of surveillance as well.  The rituals of surveillance overall represented and embodied state hierarchy and encompassment.  It was as though the “higher up” officials had a better sense of the general good even though they did not actually work the same roles as the Aganwadi workers.

           In the second part of the article, as laid out originally, the discussion on transnational governmentality involved the extension of the idea of “govermentality” by Michel Foucault (Ferguson & Gupta, 2002: 989).  Recalling to the notion of the omnipresence of power, Ferguson and Gupta reiterate Foucault’s analysis of power’s productive dimension that is able to permeate through all mechanisms generally conceive as separate: “the state, civil society, the family, down to the intimate details of what we regard as personal life” (2002: 989).  Therefore, the ideas of vertical encompassment have also stretched to global governance, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organization (WTO).  Although these key institutions are simply “higher” than nation-states, the significance behind these programs show modes of government being set up on a global scale.

          The second case example given was on Zambia, noting that its original history of neoliberalism involved the British South Africa Company but currently, today continues to be ruled by transnational organizations, although not considered as governments (Ferguson & Gupta, 2002: 992).  A group of democratic local organizations, known as grassroots, also currently exist in Africa that play roles in taking over the “most basic functions and powers of the state” (Ferguson and Gupta, 2002: 993).  It becomes apparent that these types of organizations consider themselves the “above” over the “below” local communities.  Even though such organizations are technically not states, the aspects of the roles these organizations play within a country or community “below” them becomes statelike.  The spatialization of the state therefore reinforces its ability for globalization, as seen with the development of transnational nongovernmental organizations and grassroot democracies.

Themes

The state’s image of vertical encompassment reinforces the power of the state over its subjects

Similar to Foucault’s idea of governmentality and power, the imagination of the state is widely encompassed due to its function to reason, control, and regulate

Citation

Vuckovic, Nancy

     1999 Fast Relief: Buying Time with Medications. In Medical Anthropology Quarterly.  American Anthropological Association 13(1): 51-68.  Electronic document, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy-tu.researchport.umd.edu/doi/10.1525/maq.1999.13.1.51/pdf. Accessed March 21, 2015.

Abstract

When thinking about the possibility of “losing time,” what immediately comes to mind?  Losing time to do homework?  Losing time to cook dinner?  Losing time to sleep?  With these thoughts in mind, the idea of losing time is ultimately bad.  As Vuckovic begins in “Fast Relief: Buying Time with Medications,” “Lack of time is a plague of industrialized, high-income societies”, or what she likes to term as, “time famine” in the contemporary U.S. (1999: 51).  The experience of time famine happens to affect everyday decisions that consequently affect household life, self-care, and self-medication.  Vuckovic’s research primarily surrounded the lives of different mothers of young children, but what was found was that time famine affects the lives of women and men of all ages alike.

The Western view of time is commonly generated as “a scarce resource that ought to be normally utilized,” as influenced by the spirit of capitalism (Vuckovic 1999: 52).  In turn, technological advancements came about, which expanded the expectations of productivity and discipline.  The ability to multitask enabled a faster pace in work and other modes of productive activity.  One clear example is the existence of cell phones—a device that individuals can be easily reached virtually anywhere at an expected appropriate and timely manner. Whether it is through e-mail, phone, text or other applications, the concept of a cell phone enables its user to become both a productive citizen and consumer in capitalistic society.  The idea of time famine has therefore permeated through all forms of social nature and mindsets to the point that it also affects how individuals react to illness.

As women were the primary subjects of Vuckovic’s research, it was noted that “despite changes in gender roles related to wage and domestic labor, women are still predominantly responsible for the day-to-day care of children, for the upkeep of the home, and for domestic health care on a broad level” (Vuckovic 1999: 54).  Yet at the same time, these mothers also happened to have full-time jobs and other social commitments that they chose to maintain.  Time famine played a large role in these women’s lives, as it became a practical need to maintain the household and workplace to preserve the U.S. cultural ideal of progress and productivity.  The phrase, “I don’t have time to be sick,” became a running motto for these women in the study.  Not only were these women overworking themselves leading to lack of sleep, but they were also avoiding taking time off from work whenever they are ill.  “Women reach for medicinal solutions to alleviate symptoms quickly, and to avoid having them ‘go into’ something worse.” (Vuckovic 1999: 56).  At times, whether the symptoms are minor or major, the consumption of medicine tends to increase anyhow in order to prevent future symptoms from emerging.  In fact, this also applies to how women respond to their children’s illnesses as well.  One report from a mother regarding her child’s illness includes, “So, if they wake up with a temperature, I give them some Tylenol and then we go to school and we pray that the temperature doesn’t go up during the day and they don’t call me” (Vuckovic 1999: 58).  This mindset comes solely from the fact that women are continuing their opportunity towards productive labor and even avoiding professional medical care, as in tapping into the family’s financial resources.

Another interesting expectation of medicinal effects involves the “instant gratification” of consuming “greater amounts and varieties of medications” (Vuckovic 1999: 60).  The impatience with illness is now further emphasized in the impatience with medicinal efficiency. Women reported that they became impatient when medicines failed to achieve a desired effect after a short time, as seen in the quote, “I should feel better in about 10 minutes.  And if not, I’ll just take more” (Vuckovic 1999: 60). Soon, multisymptom products caught interest in promoting time efficiency in illness and less time spent buying separate products for specificity.  Yet, in the case of productivity, non-drowsy formulas (daytime products without antihistamines) are also used in order to alleviate symptoms while at work.  “Turning a sick day into a work day” avoids losing time to illness and simultaneously, keeping consumers loyal to brand commodities of the pharmaceutical industry.

In terms of sleep, the sleep-inducing effect of antihistamines can be desirable as a way of being efficient even while sleeping.  Vuckovic mentions, “On occasion, the sleep-inducing effect of cold and allergy medicines was so desired that women took products with antihistamines even when they did not have respiratory symptoms” (1999: 61). Instead, women take these agents in order to fall asleep quickly in case their nights are “unproductive” and “in order to avoid losing time because of an uncooperative body” (Vuckovic 1999: 61).

The concept of time famine is widely recognized in all social classes, gender, and cultures, despite the time of the article’s initial publishing.  Due to the ever-increasing industrial society and technological advancements in modern day, the possibility of losing time from being productive and efficient is costly.  It affects activity, relationships, health, commodities and more. The focus on medicinal consumption is just one example of how time and need for productivity affects health. Medicines ultimately allow an individual’s time management to be resourceful by eliminating the sick role and preventing to “bother” the individual with the natural biological functions that respond to bacteria or viruses entering the body.  As mentioned before, children are also affected as well due to the demand for quick fixes by OTC medications instead of immediate professional care. As a time-saving commodity, medicines prevent worry of “losing time” in this society.

 Themes

Time famine, which is a plague involving chronic shortage of time, pervades all of contemporary U.S. society

Medicines are used as time-saving commodities in increasing an individual’s capacity to be efficient

Whether minor or major symptoms are occurring, individuals consume medications to prevent later symptoms from aggregating or worsening to maintain productivity

My Interest

Framing questions throughout thebook:

1) What is the social/political/economic/historical significance of the devil?

Taussig’s significance in mentioning the devil comes from his research of South American peasant communities that have been affected by the lifelong history of European imperialism.  Through the process of proletariatinization, the devil becomes the most powerful image since it “mediates the opposed ways of viewing the human significance of the economy.”

 2) What is commodity fetishism?

Through Karl Marx’s influence, Taussig explains the concept of commodity fetishism as an obscured, yet existent obsession on the market value of production (commodity).  Individuals are inherently fixated on money, supply/demand for products, and the belief that money is the “only way to live.”  Taussig argues that the concept applies a perception to social relationships among average everyday individuals and the overall existence of economics.  Commodity essentially becomes a “fetish” since consumers would ignore the truth of the real implications of the system of exploitation on which they depend.

3) What does the devil have to do with capitalism?

The symbolism of the devil represents a “mediation” between pre-capitalism and capitalism onto an objectified society.  It is metaphoric to the fact that the devil is widely known to be the sign of evil, yet the temptation to participate in capitalism reinforces its image.

Chapter 1

1) How does Taussig explain the transformation of labor and time?

Taussig describes the transformation of labor and time as the progression of abstract concepts that are essentially materalized as the result of marketing and the demand for products. Labor and time are initially conceptualized as natural aspects of human life that are intangible and insignificant with respect to quanity, duration, or cost when considered solely as individual entities without any other exerting influences or demands. However, Taussig states that labor and time are transformed when influenced by the industrial production system. In Taussig’s view, if demand from the labor market influences the need for more supply from the industry, then labor and time are transformed into “substantial and real” commodities defined by wages, work schedules, and productivity.

2) What is negative criticism?

Negative criticism is a type of metacognition in which individuals are aware of their own interpretation society’s norms and subjects these interpretations to a series of criticisms. Taussig then argues that it is these criticisms that provide the means of changing the social infrastructure of society in a practical and tangible manner.

3) Discuss the tension/meeting/transition of precapitalist and capitalist societies Taussig begins to outline in this chapter. 

The tension between precapitalist and capitalist societies appears to have stemmed from how production of goods and marketing were viewed. Precapitalist societies appeared to highly value the very personal process of producing a product, whereas capitalist societies placed more emphasis and importance on the quantity of producing a product. The meeting and transition of the two types of socities occurred through social movements that eventually led to the establishment of new social norms. These movements were in favor of capitalist views that gradually led to the establishment of capitalism as the new social norm.

Chapter 2

1) Discuss Taussig’s explanation of magic and devil beliefs.

Tassuig argues that magic and devil beliefs are used to conceptualize the peasants’ opposition to  capitalism. Historically, peasants associate a state of unnatural order that is then associated with capitalism. Devil beliefs are used to mediate the questionable benefits of capitalism and the hazards of engaging in such a system.

2) What are various things the devil represents?

The various things that the devil represents include a mediator, pain, havoc, gluttony, or a state of unnatural order.

3) What are the reactions of the ‘neophyte proletarians’ to capitalism?

Neophyte proletarians regard capitalism as unnatural and evil as the other resistors of capitalism. However, they still reluctantly engage in capitalist practices. Though neophyte proletarians still engage in capitalist practices, this group of workers nonetheless remains devoted to the principles that ultimately underlie all peasant production.

4) How does commodity fetishism differentiate between precapitalist and capitalist economies?

Commodity fetishism differentiates between precapitalist and capitalist economies through the way in which products in either economy becomes valued. Commody fetishism distinguishes one from the other based on the connection between manufacturer and product. Precapitalist economies are defined by commodity fetishism with a focus on a strong, “organic” relationship between a person and the product they created. Capitalist economies are defined by the subordination of men to their product as a means of producing.

Chapter 3

1) What is the history of haciendas in Colombia and how did they contribute to labor division over time?

Haciendas are Spanish estates residing on large plantations/ranches that had significantly contributed to the labor division in the Cauca Valley of Colombia. Slaves owned by families worked on these farms to produce crops, thus suffering long strenuous hours on top of cruel management.  Particularly, the largest slave estate in the Cauca Valley was owned by the Aborleda family. Sergio and Julio Arboleda owned approximately 1400 slaves to rotate among the mines of the Pacific coast and haciendas at the southern rim by the time of 1830 (Taussig, 1980:46).  Slave discontent with unpaid labor, strenuous hours, and most importantly, being owned and tortured by slave owners led to mass revolt and havoc within these haciendas.  The Arborledas attempted to fight against the riots for abolition, but in the end, were unsuccessful, which subsequently led to the disappearance of free labor (Taussig, 1980:48).

2) How did Black peasants form a new social class from this history?

 The appearance of concertados soon came about by 1852.  These individuals were ex-slaves who agreed to work for a chosen number of days on the haciendas, but only in return for small land ownership (Taussig, 1980:48).  This new institutionalized category of workers also turned out to be another conflict when the original slave owners realized the struggle to maintain total power over land or have enough laborers to increase their own wealth.  Blacks soon took advantage of their ex-masters’ failures and disunity, allowing their resistance to continue to persist into full force.  This soon left the haciendas to become neglected, gold mining to collapse, and prices of agricultural products to increase when supply was low due to labor shortage (Taussig, 1980:50).  Simultaneously, while the Cauca’s economy was failing, it was also causing the severing of ties between the hacienda and chapel due to exslaves forming their own self-subsisting populations and interpreting Christianity independently (Taussig, 1980:51).  In effect, unrelenting violence caused divide in religious beliefs.  Exslaves considered themselves as Liberals, who kept the true meaning and word of God, and thereby fought against the Conservatives, the slave owners and the clergy. Conservatives essentially represented the devil—the idea that the colonization that brought about slavery was meant to be conserved.  

Chapter 4

1) How were peasants an obstacle to progress?

Black peasants were able to self-subsist economically through cash crops, such as cocoa and plantains, for a brief period despite the impending settlement of capitalistic institutions (Taussig, 1980:79). Peasants had previously chosen not to overproduce a surplus of crops and only seem to trade within pre-established connections with other producers; thus avoiding the dooming capitalist system for monetary profit.  Progress was therefore not succeeding on capitalistic terms. These peasants seemed to only grow what they needed to grow while the market demanded their crops only for monetary gain.  Essentially, “progress” to capitalism sought that these self-sufficient modes of production had to end, as cash cropping did not satisfy the economy. 

2) What were the consequences of peasants turning toward cash cropping?

Due to gradual realization of land shortage, it became apparent that in order to make a profit, the peasant class had to figure out ways to exchange under the capitalistic market.  “They had nothing to fall back on but their labor power, which they are forced to exchange on the market…” (Taussig, 1980:92).  The pressure to participate in capitalism placed value on the need to earn wages to eat and feed their families.  The peasants ended up becoming dependent on to the capitalist market since their own crops now belonged to the market and they were soon forced to become consumers by purchasing other commodities to fend for themselves.

3) What feeds neocolonial underdevelopment?

The notion of neocolonial underdevelopment realizes the gradual transition from a precapitalist to capitalist society.  In consideration of “underdevelopment,” it is obvious that due to the constant acts of resistance by the peasants to colonization, the transition had taken a while. Cash cropping was just one step of contributing to the dominant economy, but finally relying on the system of capitalism had fed neocolonial development.  However, now that the self-sufficient modes of production have ended and transformed to proletarian, these individuals in the Cauca Valley are now acting as rational economic wage-earners in capitalism’s eyes.

Chapter 5

1) Explain the process, rationale and consequences of the contract between the devil and the proletarianized worker.  How is this a process of indigenization?

The devil contract is made between the devil and the proletarianized worker due to the individual’s temptation to give into consumerism.  Just as Taussig has mentioned several times, money is barren. Money being earned and used in the capitalistic economy can increase production, wage, and spending, causing this cycle to repeat.  However, buying commodities will not develop into more money.  This is seen in the example of the muñeco (a figurine/doll).  Taussig writes, “The contract is supposed to be made in the deepest secrecy, individually, and with the aid of a sorcerer” (1980:95).  The male worker would prepare this doll using flour and cast a spell in order to hide it at his place of work.  While working throughout the day, the worker would also chant or perform a special prayer.  “Another aspect of the belief is that the man working with the muñeco does not need to work any harder than the other workers” (Taussig, 1980:95).  It is obvious that a contract has been made with the devil due to the fact that these workers retain their past indigenous way of living but maintain the capitalistic ways of wage earning.  The muñeco figurine continues the governing of labor by a natural spirit that the peasants decide to continue believing as well.

2) Explain the conversion of official religion to folk rites.  Provide an example.

           Due to the eventual dominance of Christianity among the peasants of the Cauca Valley in Colombia, the official Church vision was popularly believed, such as the trisection of hell, earth, and heaven in the belief of spirits of the afterlife and belief of spirit forces (Taussig, 1980:104).  Prior to this popular cosmology however, folk rites of curing households were the common form of magic.  The conversion of official religion to folk rites can thus be seen with the act of household cleansing using salt and holy water. With holy water, it is essential for curing sorcery by obtaining this item after a preist’s blessing.  With salt, it consists of the mixture of earth and ground-up bones and skulls from the cemetary (Taussig, 1980:106).  The act of indigenizing Christianity with folk rites show the syncretic relationship of capitalism’s effects.  The forging of Christianity during conquest may have had popular understanding/welcome, yet the recreation and attributing of magical powers proved the continuity of indigenization.

Chapter 6

1) Explain the ‘antinomies of production’ as illustrated in the beginning of the chapter.  How does this explain Taussig’s main thesis?

           The antinomies of production divides two antithetical exchange systems that operate at the same time: a system of reciprocity (self-renewal) and a system of unequal exchange (self-extinction).  “The decision confronting an economically pressed worker who must choose between work for a peasant or work for an agribusiness is an excruciating one” (Taussig, 1980:114).  It is ultimately deciding whether or not to proceed with the devil contract while thinking about in terms of the individual’s own belief systems and living (self-renewal) as well as having the ability to afford to maintain the conditions of living in a capitalistic society (self-extinction).  However, due to the syncretism of the process, modes of production towards an economy is not the only notion affected.  The antinomies of production pertain to: social divide in regards to cosmology and official religion, health concerns due to the endangerment of life, and the use-value of crops/goods that are able to be made for the owner themselves instead of larger forces.  It is clear of Taussig’s main thesis of commodity fetishism and the devil contract due to the transition of being a peasant to a neophyte proletarian. Maintaining a peasant status may be a form of self-renewal due to the continuance of folk rites and self-subsistence. Yet, becoming a proletarian allows wage-earning and thus, exchange, albeit unequal and unfair.  Humans are therefore disindividualized and commodified, which represents how capitalism degrades its individuals that the system is dependent to exist in the first place.

Chapter 7

1) How does money become barren?

Money is barren due to the fact that it cannot reproduce into another form of making more money.  As Taussig outlines in a table on page 131, the use-value of money is intended for a natural means of exchange.  However, the exchange-value of money via commodity fetishism, devil contract, and capitalism, resides in the belief that money could lead to more money (capital). Under the devil contract, the ways in obtaining money for selfish pleasure is essentially evil and unnatural.  In order for money to become barren again is to understand and utilize the use-exchange of money as a natural way of satisfying needs.

Chapter 8

1) Explain the concept and importance of ‘Uncle Tio’.  How did rites change after nationalization?

Tio is the uncle and/or the devil who holds “the power of life and death over the mines and over the miners, who conducts rites of sacrifices and gift exchange to the spirt represented by the icons…” (Taussig, 1980:143).  Prior to nationalization, mine ownership was theoretically shared by the peasant workers, but miners generally considered Tio the true owner.  The miners would often devote gifts to Tio with the belief that Tio will reciprocate with gifts of life for them.  However, when the transition to capitalism began and militaries took ownership of the mines in 1964, these folk rites became prohibited. The reaction was remarkable, in which Taussig quotes, “They [the miners] are forced by the management hierarchy to struggle with the rock face and to hate the work that destroys their lungs and shortens their lives.  Yet, at the same time, they care for the mine” (1980:146).  Miners relentlessly practiced their folk rites despite low wages, health risks, and fears of physical harm and death from both military management and an angry Tio.

Chapter 9

1) How do preconquest institutions still flourish in the Andes?  Provide an example.

In regards to the individuals in the Andes, “the force of cultural intrusion stimulated a culture of resistance” according to Taussig (1980:160).  It is important to note that the constant tension among the indigenous towards the colonization of the West showed a persistence of crypto-paganism. Christianity was vehemently abhorred by the Aymara.  Reportedly, fanaticism of some deities have worn out, but the culture of tradition and rituals continue to exist due to the resistance of the larger influences.

Chapter 10

1) How does traditional religion interpret and defy Christianity?  How did they become syncretic?

Out of fear for punishment or death, the assimilated Indians would subtly defy their Christian colonists by continuing their belief in huacas. “Unlike the devil of the Christians, who tempts mankind into evil ways and widens the cleavage in an all-or-nothing cosmic drama, the spirits (chicchans) who assist the devil in Chorti belief frighten people out of their immorality” (Taussig, 1980:180). Therefore, these Indians still believed that by assimilating to Catholicism completely, they would be angering the huacas.  The traditional religion therefore interpreted Christianity in their own syncretic way—by practicing similar rites of Christianity but mainly to restore the balance of the nature they know.

Chapter 11

1) How have spirit owners of nature become the embodiment of reciprocity between commodity change and exploitation?

The spirit owners of nature have the power to exert life or death on the people of mountains and the mines. This represents the embodiment of reciprocity between commodity change and exploitation because the original owners (tin miners) now subjugate themselves under the capitalist regime in order to help continue production of commodities for their own survival and for the market.

Chapter 12

1) What are the differences between preconquest and colonial mining?  What are the implications of these changes?

Pre-conquest mining was originally an economic activity of natural exchange regarding silver and gold as decoration and ornamentation. Colonial mining then went to the forefront of the capitalist economy when the Spanish arrived for nationalization of the mines. Just as commodity fetishism dictates, the transition from use-value to exchange value of these minerals represents the impact capitalism has made.  The work surrounding mining soon made life oppressive for the miners and their families due to a shift in focus of the real reason to mine for these minerals.

Chapter 13

1) What is the importance of the ch’alla? 

The ch’alla is a ritual of offerings and sacrifices that gives thanks to the Earth for the fruits, vegetables, and minerals that it had supplied while simultaneously, ensuring the future to be granted with good fortune as well.  

Chapter 14

1) What are the differences between peasants and miners?  How does Tio moderate these differences?

Peasants are able to own their own means of production, as they are self-sufficient with ownership of lands, reciprocal exchange, and organization of their own work.  On the other hand, the tin miners seemingly only work to produce and gain for wages. There is no control over the organization of mining and the continued rites are based on fear of an angry Tio and hopes for additional monetary gain.  As the devil, Tio mediates between the nature/condition of the mine as well as the legal ownership of the mine.  He is believed to be responsible for the gathering of the minerals that the minors seek for their capitalist authorities.  By replacing these minerals within the mines, the wealth will not be exhausted (Taussig, 1980:224).  The miners therefore continue to plea to Tio for good production while they practice their daily rituals in sacrifices.

Epilogue: The Sun Gives Without Receiving

1) Pick your favorite ‘devil pact’ and relate it to Taussig’s thesis.

Citation

Greenlee, Edwin J.

   1991 Discourse, Foucault, and Critical Medical Anthropology. In Central 

    Issues in Anthropology. American Anthropological Association 9 (1): 79-82.  

    Electronic document, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy-

    tu.researchport.umd.edu/doi/10.1525/cia.1991.9.1.79/pdf.  Accessed 

    February 26, 2015.

Thesis

          The influence of Foucault affected more than just the discourse of sex during the Victorian era, as Foucault’s ideas transcended to even into the field of medicine to this day.  With a closer examination into Western biomedicine, the ideology behind biopower essentially reveals an act of social control through ever-changing biomedical practices, working in tandem with existing class interests.  

Details

          Foucault’s critical analysis on questioning power and knowledge in societies had also stimulated a discourse in the field of medical anthropology.  Greenlee points out that “discourse analysis is an extremely valuable heuristic device for organizing research on science and biomedicine as ideology” (p. 79).  Whether it is the genre of biomedicine altogether or the actual techniques of medical practices, the ideology behind the two are arranged in a form of social control that are particularly suitable to the dominant higher class.  Greenlee then turns to Young in which he quotes “’medical practices are simultaneously ideological practices when they justify the social arrangements through which disease, healing and curing are distributed in society and when they justify the social consequences of sickness’ (Young 1982: 271).”  The ideology behind biomedicine becomes more than just the simplicity of “the doctor treated the patient back to health.” Instead, the social interaction that takes place between the doctor and the subject becomes identified through the practices and treatment that the subject will endure, as decided by the provider.  Hence, the justification in ideology would be through an analysis of the social interaction in treating the sickness.

           Greenlee moves forward in discussing an examination into knowledge, as he states, “Knowledge, along with science and medicine, is a socially constructed phenomenon.  As such, within the setting of contemporary western society, knowledge reflects existing social class divisions” (p. 80).  These statements alone from the article represent what Foucault has pointed out before in The History of Sexuality—that power is omnipresent.  The polymorphous techniques of power allows power to reinforce knowledge and knowledge to reinforce power due to the promise of the confession.  In medical anthropology, knowledge working in tandem with science and medicine becomes conflicted when looking at class, race, or gender.  This is due to the fact that there are still non-dominant types of knowledge and science that can offer alternative models and solutions to a confession.  However, within the world of biomedicine, it must be considered that the dominant view may always be enforced despite class, race, or gender divisions.  Greenlee states, “These alternatives, because of their subordinate status, are not as clearly articulated and ordered as the worldview of the dominant social order and are consequently more difficult to discern than are hegemonic formulations” (p. 80).  In whole truth, the hegemonic formulations have ultimately been derived from the same knowledge of when diseases and illnesses of the social world were created historically by men.  

           Foucault’s work had additionally been provided in Figures in the article, where Figure 2 is notable to represent the division among “Erudite knowledge” and “Subjugated knowledge.”  Particularly, under “Erudite knowledge” Greenlee includes “elite texts, dominant institutions controlling knowledge production, and specialist knowledge.”  Under “Subjugated knowledge,” he includes “forgotten/ignored knowledge, diverse sources of knowledge creation, and popular/minor knowledges” (p. 81).  Through this understanding, Greenlee relates Foucault’s analysis to apply to doctor and patient discourses as a whole—of course, the doctor being the erudite and the subjugate being the patient.  The discourses included in “Erudite knowledge” dictates the origin of power that the doctor propagated from, including books, school, and finally, the education by the erudites similar to the erudites before them.  Alternatively, subjugates receive their knowledge from “forgotten/ignored knowledge,” meaning that these individuals have been taught “good versus bad, right versus wrong, healthy versus unhealthy” by an institution beforehand, but may have repressed the knowledge.  Subjugated knowledge also comes from many other sources, such as self-study in books, peers/family members, or in the contemporary age, the internet, and finally, popular/minor knowledges from media, at home remedies, or even alternative methods suggested by the non-dominant specialists.

           The discourse regarding erudites and subjugates becomes problematic in the contemporary world of biomedicine due to the ever-changing field and ongoing development of diseases and even pharmaceuticals.  Although knowledge is socially constructed and omnipresent, potential bias of medical practices must be analyzed through a multiplicity of discourses and solved in order to be able to reproduce biopower efficiently.  Greenlee points out that “As ideology, biomedicine becomes involved in social conflict in American society and it responds to changes in this conflict. It functions, in addition, to legitimate the existing social order, to conceal the class basis of society, and to create a worldview which is congruent with the interests of the dominant social class” (p. 82).  Based on this ideal, the acknowledgement of biopower must exist even if it cannot be tamed or destroyed.  The “willingness” notion certainly comes into play here, if many organizations, whether government, state, or local, hospitals, and collectively, healthcare providers would allow the sphere of erudite knowledge to widen and expand to something holistic for all types of medical practices.  

Themes

With the influence of Foucault, biomedicine serves as an ideology in critical medical anthropology

Knowledge, along with science and medicine, is a socially constructed phenomenon

Reading Questions

1) What is the repressive hypothesis?  How does Foucault’s take on sex differ from it?

The repressive hypothesis is the idea that the history of sexuality, specifically since the beginning of the 17th century (the rise of the Victorian era), included the suppression of the topicof “sex” due to the restrictions and limitations of the Victorian bourgeois.  However, in Foucault’s opinion, although sex hadbeen repressed, the purposeful deliberation of speaking about it has become a consciousform of preaching.  By defying the establishedpower, there is anticipation of oncoming freedom due to the many years of oppression, repression, and silence by higher authority.  Sex ultimately used to be shameless.  It had little secrecy as well as judgment because it was a natural concept that individuals could be proud of during this time.  It was not until the rise of institutional regulation of sex, as sex became associated with political-economic causes.

His repressive hypothesis is outlined on page 10, as a series of doubts:

First Doubt [historical]

 Is sexual repression truly an established historical fact?

Is what first comes into view—and consequently permits one to advance an initial hypothesis—really the accentuation or even the establishment of a regime of sexual repression beginning in the 17th century?

Second Doubt [historico-theoretical]

Do the workings of power, and in particular those mechanisms that are brought into play in societies such as ours, really belong primarily to the category of repression?

Are prohibition, censorship, and denial truly the forms through which power is exercised in a general way, if not in every society, most certainly in our own?

Third Doubt [historico-political]

Did the critical discourse that addresses itself to repression come to act as a roadblock to a power mechanism that has operated unchallenged up to that point or is it not in fact part of the same historical network as the thing it denounces (and doubtless misrepresents) by calling it repression?

Was there really a historical rupture between the age of repression and the critical analysis of repression?

2) Explain Foucault’s conception of power.  What is distinctive about it?  Provide a couple of examples of how power is utilized in the text.  What is the regime of power-knowledge-pleasure?

The power of the Victorian bourgeoisie toward the concept of sex reflects a hypocrisy that Foucault successfully emphasized—instead of having sexual indecency and improper demeanor made public, such energy in “mischief” should be directed towards making a profit instead.  Sex is now considered to be controlled by the government out of acts of censorship, the appropriateness of modern prudishness, and sex becoming a “police matter.”  Power has essentially become “an ordered maximizations of collective and individual forces” (pg. 24-25).  Thus, the purpose of the repressive hypothesis is to “define the regime of power-knowledge-pleasure that sustains the discourse on human sexuality…” (pg. 11).  This relationship between power-knowledge-pleasure sustains the conception of power due to the polymorphous techniques of power.  There are essentially different forms of being submissive due to the social construction of norms/practices in which identities are situated in.  For example, a doctor would easily represent the institution of the medical field from which the doctor gained their own knowledge from.  The authority bestowed within the doctor’s knowledge would be shared via confession from the patient seeking help.  The pleasure would internally come from the benefit of the patient receiving the help and perhaps, even the benefit of the doctor being able to produce the knowledge, enabling dominance.

3) Explain how Foucault uses the term ‘discourse’.

Foucault uses the term “discourse” multiple times in the text, referring synonymously to discussion and explanations of the theories relating to sex.  The idea of sexuality has not been the subject of open discourse—therefore, Foucault attempts to explain “the will that sustains [discourses on sex] and the strategic intention that supports them” (pg. 8).  There is essentially a willingness to never be separated from the institution individuals are propagated from, which brings about the idea of “the confessional.” The confession, explained later on, serves as an intimate ritual of discourse, allowing the separation of power (who is the dominant agency versus who is the confessor) obvious within a relationship.  Foucault explains in many different ways how all forms of discourse can be taken to a broader sense of the theory of power dynamics within a system.  

**Combo** 4) Explain the power of the confessional according to Foucault and its relationship to the West   &   6) Explain how Foucault conceptualizes the creation of the subject and how sex and sexuality are social constructions.

The power of the confessional relates to the idea of a productive operation of power through social subjectivity.  Authorities that are apart of institutions that are held with high regard may act upon the individual due to the truth of the “confession.”  By this act of acknowledgement to the authority’s role, the authority would be reinforced to provide back to the individual who provided the confession.  This would then underline the idea that power creates social subjects.  One major example of the Christian West, as mentioned by Foucault, would be the customs of the Christian pastoral.  In this case, an individual would confess to a priest as a way of seeking forgiveness from God or seeking ways to repent their sins.  The relationship between a priest and penitent reinforces the authority of the Church and its religion’s recommendations/constraints. The priest would provide the “words of God”; thus making the individual under institutional guidelines as the “penitent” and/or subject.  This concept of the power of the confessional can also apply to other relationships with the same underlying power mechanism within each social interaction: patient-doctor, student-teacher, child-parent.  

 5) What is Foucault’s genealogical method?

Foucault’s genealogical method is to explain that the concept of sexuality is never fixed, but rather constantly changing due to the relationship between science and confession.  He quotes, “Throughout the nineteenth century, sex seems to have been incorporated into two very distinct orders of knowledge: a biology of reproduction, which developed continuously according to a general scientific normativity, and a medicine of sex conforming to quite different rules of formation” (pg. 54).  Although the relationship between the two may have originally been “two very distinct orders of knowledge,” the “truth of sex” brought about the intertwining of confession and scientific discourse.  He mentions five ways that brought them together (pg. 65-67):

Through a clinical codification of the inducement to speak

Through the postulate of a general and diffuse causality

Through the principle of a latency intrinsic to sexuality

Through the method of interpretation

Through the medicalization of the effects of confession

He therefore states that “society has equipped itself with a scientia sexualis,” meaning that sexuality has become another scientific study to be gathered through objective data and facts, as a way to produce the “true” discourses on sex.  This induces that through data and facts, sex can be controlled and understood into knowledge to be used by institutional authority for their “subjects’ confession.”

7) What is the distinction between the “deployment of sexuality” and the “deployment of alliance”?

"The attempt to understand what humans go and conceive economically, politically, socially, morally, cognitively and emotionally all at once has always been a hallmark of anthropology, and the goal remains a usable and productive program."

                   Eric Wolf, ”Inventing Society” in American Ethnologist (1988)

Basic Premise

Eric Wolf is an anthropologist that studied closely on Latin American peasants –best known for his adaptation of Marxist perspectives to explain social class power dynamics, process and history, which went against the mainstream of anthropology in the 1950s-60s. Instead of commonly treating societies or cultures as isolated, static entities, Wolf presented his encounters through the study of process. Cultures were now known to be constantly changing entities influenced by individuals, even on local working levels, due to the interconnection of socioeconomic factors and historical processes on a larger scale. 

                 Mexican peasants on the field, circa 1955. (Source)

Background and Contributions

Born in Vienna, Austria in 1923, Eric Wolf was raised by a Russian mother and an Austrian father, which can already show where his multicultural influences began. In fact, his Austrian father originally ran a textile factory, until they all moved to Queens, New York to avoid Jewish persecution and hence, Nazi takeover. When Wolf arrived to America in 1940, he decided to serve the army during WWII for 3 years before completing a B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology at Queens College. He then completed a Ph.D. program in Anthropology at Columbia University in 1946 until he began his fieldwork among coffee growers in Puerto Rico and continuing research in and on Mexico.

Wolf’s fame in anthropological research had originally involved these studies in Puerto Rico and Mexico due to his comparative studies of peasant communities in the late 1940s to 1960s. His interests specifically implicated the factors of social class and power relationships, which affect and form larger, complex societies to a nation. Hence, the strong influence of Eric Wolf towards anthropology can best be seen through this adaptation of Marxism. Wolf emphasized that society cannot be viewed as a bounded/structured entity that follows a specific order as part of a static culture. Instead, such peasant communities, operating at local levels, relate and contribute to the economic and political forces of the larger society. He highlights terms, such as “structural power” and “organizational power,” to explain the structural forces of the political economy and allocation of social labor. Within this “structural power” include individuals, or the peasants, that actually predicate the different modes of production, which in turn, affect the larger/complex societies altogether. Eric Wolf’s developmental perspective uses a Marxist approach to explain how modes of production can explain the influence and interconnection of societies. His stance in anthropological research solely operated on a macro scale, using historical, political, and socioeconomic factors to dictate how/why cultural processes are complex and diverse in an interconnected society.

Eric Wolf’s anthropological impact during this time was controversial, since the main stream of anthropology had viewed societies as static/bounded systems (including bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states). However, Wolf argues that societies will remain to be constantly changing in their process—therefore, the focus of anthropological research should include attention to the individual, as the individual contributing to society can make large impacts holistically than what the anthropologists’ back then did not consider. As cultures will continue to differentiate over time, it is important to not lose sight of their interconnectedness, in consideration of the macroscopic history that influenced such societal processes.

Other Works

Europe and the People Without History

Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis

Pathways of Power: Building an Anthropology of the Modern World

Obligatory Anthropology Meme

Reading Questions

1) What is the premise of Stoller’s argument for ethnographic fieldwork, practice and writing?

After reading Paul Stoller’sarticle, “Ethnographies as texts/Ethnographers as griots,” the idea of a “griot" is essentially related to the role of an ethnographer by communicating through oral presentation, printed works, and also, imagery of knowledge. By relating these two terms together, as the term “griot” is commonly known among the Songhay-speaking peoples of the Republics of Mali and Niger, their roles are tocommunicate analytical truth and sensual awareness regarding social knowledge forthe benefit of their audience—in this case, the audience is the entire community for the next generation’s understanding. Thus, Stoller presents that ethnographic fieldwork, practice, and writing should follow the same goals as cultural ethnic griots: “(1) a critical awareness of the senses, (2) an attentiveness to voice and (3) a recognition of the increasingly political implications of their works” (p. 358). Both ethnographers and griots must realize that their roles in society ultimately teach individuals around them a social knowledge that has been explored and studied by their own selves.

2) How are ethnographies considered to be ‘griotic tales’?

Since ethnographers are griots (and griots are ethnographers), the practices of griots and ethnographers can take up different forms—whether through oral rendition, film, pictures, poetry, or books (ethnographies). Thus, ethnographies can be considered “griotic tales,” as these works are produced from studies and/or research that most likely includes the customs of a culture and its individuals. What makes ethnographies “griotic” is that they accomplish truth to its purpose. The way they are presented make it susceptible that the main audience will truly understand the chief message.  Even if the ethnographer sharing the knowledge passed away or the culture being studied became extinct, the dead can “live” again through the ethnography. Just as Stoller quotes, “The words that constitute history are much too powerful to be ‘owned’ by any one person or group of people; rather these words ‘own’ those who speak them” (p. 353).  Thus, through griots telling their tales or as ethnographies are published and shared widely, the information told by these individuals can be passed on to many generations.

 3) What is the foundation of Barthes view on writing in response to poststructural criticism? What was the impact in anthropology?

While poststructural criticism attacks the view of societal structuralism managed by political and socioeconomic factors, Barthes subsequently brought about the concept of “the middle voice” to play a role in the field of anthropology. Barthes’ foundation essentially built upon the view that “one does not write in isolation of cultural and historical conditions” (Stoller, p. 355). Therefore, as fueled by poststructuralist criticism, Barthes’ notion of the middle voice is strengthened as being authorless in itself. This meaning that the “voice” is its own “agent of action” through the words itself, rather than the person communicating the message. Instead of the basis of structuralism controlling yet another factor, the middle voice allows the “depossession” of writing. Barthes’ response as the “death-of-the-author syndrome” had allowed a mild impact in anthropology through ethnographies. Stoller mentions that “anthropologists [had] began to reflect on their own ethnographic practices” (p. 356). However, a criticism on “ethnographic realism, in which anthropologists constructed societies as totalities” soon led to further criticism of “suggesting future directions in ethnographic expression” that eventually became limited (Stoller, p. 356). The “middle of voice” did gain attention and sparked controversy; yet, its success in ethnographies brought about other political and social theories of ethnographic literature.

4) What does Stoller take away from his training in sorcery?

Stoller mentions on page 359 that he was a “practitioner of sorcery who has attacked enemies and who has been attacked by foes.” After his training with Songhay sorcery, he was granted roles as “apprentice sorcerer and griot” with the goal to tell his sorcerer elders’ story and to “bring respect to them” once in America. Stoller proceeded to write In Sorcery’s Shadow when he soon realized that unlike Barthes, he “did not want his subjectivity to be completely imprisoned by language” (p. 360). He realized the importance of pain, confusion and euphoric experience to be personalized within his words in order to sympathize with his intended audience. He learned that as a griot and ethnographer, there is a struggle to communicate in words that cannot be without “personal, moral and theoretical problems” that would eventually mean leaving the novel without the answers to these problems as well. He quotes, “Readers are left to ponder these issues for themselves in the same way that members of Songhay audiences ponder the unanswered issues that griots articulate in their performances” (Stoller, p. 360). Stoller ultimately takes away that the purpose of an ethnographer’s writing and the complex performance of a griot must keep in mind of the sensitivity of the audience and the importance of variety in regards to social settings.

5) What kind of ethnographies are argued for in the post-postmodern era?

Abstract

Citation

Stoller,Paul.

1994 Ethnographies as Texts/Ethnographers as Griots. In American Ethnologist.  American Anthropological Association 21(2): 353-366. Electronic document, http://www.jstor.org/stable/645893. Accessed January 27, 2015.

Thesis

The roles of ethnographers and West African griots/bards are ultimately similar due to their importance of informing society of sociocultural life and customs. However, simultaneously, these individuals are burdened by the politics of representation, in which it must be realized that it is highly important to consider a “griotic-based” strategy of getting messages across that would eventually lead to respect and value of the information.

Details

As griots originate in the West African Sahel, the practice of these individuals first involve a series of intensive training to prepare themselves for their role. Griots must learn to “dispossess their ‘selves’ from the ‘old words’ they have learned.” As accomplished griots talk of the remnants of the past, their words do not solely rely on their own personal experiences. Instead, “they are possessed by the forces of the past”—all out of respect for the elders of the past, but enough knowledge to pass on to the next generation without fabrication. Ethnographers essentially follow the same role as griots, as modern society is familiar with today. Although not as theatrical as griots, ethnographers can attest to imparting society with the knowledge of human culture and customs through scientific research and study within ethnographies.

The overall caveat to ethnography and anthropology, as inspired by griot practice and griotic tales, involves the hesitancy of bias told within the information passed along to society. With the concept of “the middle voice,” the authors of the ethnographic writing become “dead,” meaning that the words in the writing itself exist on their own without the influence of politicoeconomic factors or social class consideration. Hence, the dead are able to “live” again in spirit, as expressed through words. Of course, other factors matter as well to convey messages appropriately regarding a society, including practicing cultural relativism, having enough knowledge on the subject being talked about, and respecting history and its individuals.

The future of ethnography must never be considered as “transparent,” as the complexities of the contemporary world are continuously multiplying in varieties. Ethnographies shall continue to be written as interpretive and analytical texts instead of simple “written up data.” Although common poststructural criticism may interfere with modernity, the reporting of true cultural customs and sociopolitical movements is important for successful and meaningful anthropological study.

Themes

Griots and ethnographers must pass their knowledge effectively in order for the information to be passed down along generations

Ethnographers should acknowledge an embodied implication in their ethnographies through cultural relativism, attentiveness, and respect to cultural boundaries

Ethnographers must face up to the fact that the “dead author syndrome” can never be fully accomplished, but the sensitivity and consideration of the audience must always be kept in mind