Tunnel Vision: Part One – Resisting post‐colonialism in Australian anthropology

This essay is based on my conviction that Australian ethnography's narrow purview and anthropology's theoretical limitations need exploring and explaining. While internationally the discipline developed new sites, new theoretical fields and new political ideas in the post‐colonial era from around 1970, classicism continued to dominate research in Australia. New forms of Aboriginal social life and politics created by changing ‘post‐colonial’ conditions largely escaped ethnographic attention, but anthropology was rescued from irrelevance with the emergence of opportunities to assist the courts and Aborigines with land retrievals. By examining selected ethnographies and exceptions to the discipline's main trajectory, I hope to encourage reflection and expansion so that the discipline might realise its potential as the most radical and critical of the social sciences.     

‘Destiny is written by God’: Islamic predestination,responsibility, and transcendence in Central Morocco

Tracing the story of Atiqa, a young Moroccan woman in her late twenties, and the revivalist imagination that informs it, I reflect in this article on how responsibility is imagined and reckoned with when human choice and action encounter the transcendental forces of destiny. Far from leading to an abeyance of responsibility in the face of worldly and transcendental powers, I show that it is precisely the idea of a divine predestination based on God's omnipotence and omniscience that triggers an ethical reflection on questions of choice, action, and consequence. Atiqa's story provides insights with regard to the notion of human responsibility under God's will. Revealing the relational dynamics of the encounter (and disjuncture) between human and divine intentionalities, it compels us not only to move beyond the emphasis on the embodiment of divine will present in the paradigm of self-cultivation, but also to reconsider transcendence in current anthropological debates on ethics.     

Modelling,abstraction, and computation in systems biology: A view from computer science

Systems biology is centrally engaged with computational modelling across multiple scales and at many levels of abstraction. Formal modelling, precise and formalised abstraction relationships, and computation also lie at the heart of computer science—and over the past decade a growing number of computer scientists have been bringing their discipline's core intellectual and computational tools to bear on biology in fascinating new ways. This paper explores some of the apparent points of contact between the two fields, in the context of a multi-disciplinary discussion on conceptual foundations of systems biology.     

Tunnel Vision: Part Two—Explaining Australian anthropology's conservatism

Part One of Tunnel Vision discussed the limited scope of ethnographic attention in Australia in the late 20th century, and the discipline's reluctance to take up post‐colonial ideas that were influential elsewhere. In Part Two I examine the challenges faced by apolitical classicism since the 1970s, and the continuing resistance of historical and political perspectives in Indigenist anthropology, despite some individual attempts to blaze new trails. Demands for specialised work related to land rights and native title has meant the survival of anthropological classicism and a failure to explore basic questions concerning Indigenous conditions in Australia.     

Rethinking genes

The gene is the central construct of twentieth-century biology and evolution. It is a construct because, like “culture” in anthropology, “gene” is widely used and is central to the discipline's discourse, but eludes rigorous definition. Although the gene is acknowledged as a material entity, its membership criteria are unclear and its boundaries are fuzzy—indeed, more than one can occupy the same space at the same time. The purpose of this essay is to bring to light recent refinements in our conception of the gene and their implications for its use in biological anthropology.     

Spatial decomposition of predation risk using resource selection functions: an example in a wolf–elk predator–prey system

Predation is a fundamental ecological and evolutionary process that varies in space, and the avoidance of predation risk is of central importance in foraging theory. While there has been a recent growth of approaches to spatially model predation risk, these approaches lack an adequate mechanistic framework that can be applied to real landscapes. In this paper we show how predation risk can be decomposed into encounter and attack stages, and modeled spatially using resource selection functions (RSF) and resource selection probability functions (RSPF). We use this approach to compare the effects of landscape attributes on the relative probability of encounter, the conditional probability of death given encounter, and overall wolf and elk resource selection to test whether predation risk is simply equivalent to location of the predator. We then combine the probability of encounter and conditional probability of death into a spatially explicit function of predation risk following Lima and Dill's reformulation of Holling's functional response. We illustrate this approach in a wolf–elk system in and adjacent to Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. In this system we found that the odds of elk being encountered by wolves was 1.3 times higher in pine forest and 4.1 times less in grasslands than other habitats. The relative odds of being killed in pine forests, given an encounter, increased by 1.2. Other habitats, such as grasslands, afforded elk reduced odds (4.1 times less) of being encountered and subsequently killed (1.4 times less) by wolves. Our approach illustrates that predation risk is not necessarily equivalent to just where predators are found. We show that landscape attributes can render prey more or less susceptible to predation and effects of landscape features can differ between the encounter and attack stages of predation. We conclude by suggesting applications of our approach to model predator–prey dynamics using spatial predation risk functions in theoretical and applied settings.     

Orientalism in the Documentary Representation of Culture

Structured around the idea that there is a non-linguistic and cross-cultural, possibly biological, basis on which the understanding of pictures rests, this essay looks at the ways whereby images in documentary films challenge the notion of cultural difference. Drawing on Said's Orientalism [1978] and its impact on the basic assumptions of anthropologists, the essay stresses Said's relevance to documentary film theorists, and discusses the work of visual anthropologists and filmmakers influenced by Merleau-Ponty's ideas about the phenomenology of perception. Discussion suggests that the kind of knowledge disclosed by revelatory films represents an important answer to one of the fundamental epistemological issues that Said does not take up in Orientalism, namely the question of the materialization of an “authentic human encounter” not subjugated to the dead book. The essay implies that we should have no objection in principle to the self/other dichotomy when it is used intelligently.     

“I Throw Them Out of Here”: The Horse Trade as Phronetic Action

Practices involving horses have become increasingly popular in the spheres of sport and leisure throughout the Western world, and the trade in selling horses has expanded. The horse is characteristically understood as a commodity to be bought and sold several times during its lifetime. What is new in selling horses, however, is the significance of the emotional dimension of owning a horse. The purpose of my research was to scrutinize the ways in which ethical and emotional questions are taken into account in the trade in leisure horses, aspects that are often left out of consideration in favor of the more obvious instrumental values of selling animals. I asked how horse dealers perceive the future relationship between a horse and a prospective buyer based on the first encounter between the two. In particular, my interest was in horse dealers' tacit knowledge of the horses they sell, the actions taken to match the right buyers and the right horses, and the perceived implications of these for the welfare of the horses. To investigate this, I applied Aristotle's concept of phronesis, as well as Donna Haraway's idea of encounter value. The empirical study is qualitative, and was carried out in Finland where the practice of keeping leisure horses has become increasingly popular during the past few decades. The data consist of 10 thematic interviews conducted with horse dealers in 2012. According to the analysis, it appears that dealers' attempts to protect the horses they sell can be understood as phronetic actions aimed at securing the welfare of the horses. Assessing the encounter value of both the horse and the buyer functions as a tool for achieving this goal. The study thus problematizes the taken-for-granted dualistic view of relating to animals either instrumentally or emotionally.     

Transport of animals between rooms: a little-noted aspect of laboratory procedure that may interfere with memory

This study investigated the effects of transporting animals from the experimental room to the animal facility in between experimental sessions, a procedure routinely employed in experimental research, on long-term social recognition memory. By using the intruder-resident paradigm, independent groups of Wistar rats exposed to a 2-h encounter with an adult intruder were transported from the experimental room to the animal facility either 0.5 or 6 h after the encounter. The following day, residents were exposed to a second encounter with either the same or a different (unfamiliar) intruder. Resident's social and non-social behaviors were carefully scored and subjected to Principal Component Analysis, thus allowing to parcel out variance and relatedness among these behaviors. Resident rats transported 6 h after the first encounter exhibited reduced amount of social investigation towards familiar intruders, but an increase of social investigation when exposed to a different intruder as compared to the first encounter. These effects revealed a consistent long-lasting (24 h) social recognition memory in rats. In contrast, resident rats transported 0.5 h after the first encounter did not exhibit social recognition memory. These results indicate that this common, little-noted, laboratory procedure disturbs long-term social recognition memory.     

Affect,creativity, and community‐making in a Congolese song‐dance performance: or how to follow the movement of the social

In rural Punu society, song‐dance performances of rejoicing are deeply connected with forces of regeneration; they not only celebrate the sexual encounter but also, in their constituent dynamic, aim progressively to awaken a shared feeling of joy that leads to the intensification of the dancing and to the creation and diffusion of new songs. I seek to account for this regenerative potential by pursuing Turner's processual view of ritual performance, which acknowledges moments of structure and lack of structure. In this regard, I develop the dynamic of community‐making and creative flow in the performances with reference to Collins's reading of Durkheim's collective effervescence and Tarde's idea of imitation. As a whole, I argue that paying attention to rhythm and affect, inasmuch as they are a lived realization of structure and flow, is essential for understanding the revitalizing articulation between these terms and for following the ongoing movement of the social.     

Developing Motion Picture Appreciation

Abstract

A well-dressed art viewer (who appears to be affluent and highly educated) is observed gazing at several contemporary works in an art museum gallery. Out of this gentleman's view, in an adjacent gallery, a blue-collar worker enters carrying a new and attractive, but ordinary-looking door that he quickly but carefully places on the floor, leaning it against a wall near several artworks. The worker exits the gallery just as the art viewer enters it. With great concentration, the viewer contemplates all of the artworks he sees. His attention is immediately drawn to the door left behind by the workman. The viewer is intrigued by the door, which he obviously mistakes for a work of art. The door is studied intensively and at length by the viewer who seems to be searching for layers of meaning. That deep intellectual pursuit is interrupted abruptly, however, when the worker reenters the gallery, picks up the door, and carries it away. Evidently, the worker's job is to install the door elsewhere in the museum, no doubt where it will not be mistaken for a work of art. Had he been asked to comment on the art viewer's encounter with the door, the worker would surely have expressed some degree of puzzlement and criticism because—from the worker's viewpoint—anyone with even a small measure of common sense (something the “expert” art viewer apparently lacks) knows the difference between a door and a work of art, no matter how finely crafted the door may be.     

Acetylcholinesterase: Role of the enzyme's charge distribution in steering charged ligands toward the active site

The electrostatic steering of charged ligands toward the active site of Torpedo californica acetylcholinesterase is investigated by Brownian dynamics simulations of wild type enzyme and several mutated forms, in which some normally charged residues are neutralized. The simulations reveal that the total ligand influx through a surface of 42 Å radius centered in the enzyme monomer and separated from the protein surface by I-14 Å is not significantly influenced by electrostatic interactions. Electrostatic effects are visible for encounters with a surface of 32 Å radius, which is partially hidden inside the protein, but mostly within the solvent. A clear accumulation of encounter events for that sphere is observed in the area directly above the entrance to the active site gorge. In this area, the encounter events are increased by 40% compared to the case of a neutral ligand. However, the differences among the encounter rates for the various mutants considered here are not pronounced, all rate constants being within ±10% of the average value. The enzyme charge distribution becomes more important as the charged ligand moves toward the bottom of the gorge, where the active site is located. We show that neither the enzyme's total charge, nor its dipole moment, fully account for the electrostatic steering of ligand to the active site. Higher moments of the enzyme's charge distribution are also important. However, for a series of mutations for which the direction of the enzyme dipole moment is constant within a few degrees, one observes a gradual decrease in the diffusional encounter rate constant with the number of neutralized residues. On the other hand, for other mutants that change the direction of the dipole moment from that of the wild type, the calculated encounter rate constants can be very close to that of the wild type. The present work yields two new insights to the kinetics of acetylcholinesterase. First, evolution appears to have built a redundant electrostatic steering capability into this important enzyme through the overall distribution of its thousands of partially charged atoms. And second, roughly half of the rate enhancement due to electrostatics arises from steering of the substrate outside the enzyme; the other half of the rate enhancement arises from improved trapping of the substrate after it has entered the gorge. The computational results reproduce qualitatively, and help to rationalize, many surprising experimental results obtained recently for human acetylcholinesterase. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The ‘successful’ return: Caribbean narratives of migration,family, and gender

Research on female migrant caregivers has tended to focus upon the emotional and social problems they encounter working abroad, given women's traditional role as caregivers for their own families. This article analyses how Caribbean women who have returned after a period abroad as domestic workers inscribe their migration experiences within the gendered narrative of the good relative who migrates to help the family left behind and therefore deserves social recognition in the community of origin. It argues that this narrative allows the women to both affirm and reinterpret local family and gender roles within the context of migration. This analysis points to the close connection between narrative structures, accounts of migration experiences, and self‐presentations and suggests that narratives about family and gender roles not only reflect people's lives, but are also a malleable resource that can be (re)shaped to validate a variety of life‐courses.     

The influence of snow on the functional response of grazing ungulates

The forage intake rate of grazing ungulates is limited either by the rate at which they encounter food items, or the rate at which food items are handled. Whether an ungulate is encounter‐ or handling‐limited influences spatial and temporal depletion of forage, daily time budgets, and ultimately animal condition. Previously, vegetation abundance has been used as a surrogate for an ungulate's encounter rate with food items and related to observed bite rate to determine whether intake rate is encounter‐ or handling‐limited. In temperate climates snow accumulation during winter limits access to vegetation by forcing animals to wade and paw through snow to consume underlying vegetation, increasing the amount of time required to encounter a food item. As a result, an ungulate may be handling‐limited when foraging in a high biomass system under snow‐free conditions, but becomes encounter‐limited when snow accumulates. We derived a model that provides a frame work for estimating the rate at which a grazing ungulate encounters vegetation by considering foraging velocity, vegetation biomass and the time required to paw away snow when present. We then used data from focal observations of 36 wild elk Cervus canadensis wintering on a montane grassland in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta, Canada, to apply our model and estimate encounter rate over a range of vegetation abundance and snow conditions. Using AIC_c in a model selection approach we found that an asymptotic regression model of observed bite rate as a function of estimated encounter rate provided a better fit than similar models using only vegetation abundance as the explanatory variable. An asymptotic model suggests elk were handling‐limited in the absence of snow, but became encounter‐limited when snow accumulated. Our results demonstrate the importance of considering the influence of factors other than vegetation abundance on the intake rate of grazing ungulates.     

Legitimising Belief: Identity Politics,Utility, Strategies of Concealment,and Rationalisation in Australian Aboriginal Religion

The ‘women's business’ on Hindmarsh Island has had spectacular success although vital evidence had been kept secret ‘in a sealed envelope’. This paper, drawing primarily on the author's own encounter with the native title claims procedure, discusses various formative processes involved in the contemporary construction of Aboriginal indigeneity in which religious belief is heavily valorised. Subjected to a process of rationalisation for a long time, religious traditions are now being used as a strategic resource in native title claims. In the endeavour to make best possible use of the jurisprudential opportunity offered, the maintenance of secrecy and cloaking of information emerges as an important strategy. Secrecy clearly is an integral part of traditional Aboriginal culture. However, cloaking in fact may not only privilege esoteric contents, but merge with attempts of deliberate deception. Yet, in itself this too might be considered an Aboriginal cultural tradition.     

Face to face with the woolly spider monkey. Review of faces in the forest: The Endangered Muriqui Monkeys of Brazil,by Karen B. Strier. New York,Oxford University Press,Inc., 1992, 138 pp, $49.50

During an intertroop encounter, an infanticide was observed in a population of ringtailed lemurs (Lemur catta) at Berenty Reserve, Madagascar. The killer was a male that had not been previously observed to mate with any females in the infant's troop. This observation, combined with other observations of infanticidal behavior by males at Berenty Reserve and the Duke University Primate Center, is consistent with the hypothesis that infanticide is a reproductive tactic for some male ringtailed lemurs. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Reluctant pluralists: European Muslims and essentialist identities

An emerging consensus among scholars of Muslim political and social identity suggests that Western Muslims live out an anti-essentialist critique of identity construction. Considering this view, this paper examines a cross-national comparison of British Bangladeshis in London and Spanish Moroccans in Madrid that solicits the perceptions of working-class Muslim men. While the results indeed reaffirm respondents' concomitant relationships to a variety of identity paradigms, interview content demonstrates that subjects' multiplicity is complicated by their desire to meet – not reject – the essentialist standards of belonging to the identity paradigms discursively available to them. Rather than defiantly cherry-picking preferred characteristics of religion, ethnicity and nationality, individuals' responses suggest that they are trying to fulfil perceived standards of authenticity. Such a contention helps explain the prevalence of Western Muslims' expressed and well-documented ‘identity crisis’, suggests the enduring relevance of identity essentialisms, and more broadly, complicates post-modern conceptions of identity formation.     

A female's past experience with predators affects male courtship and the care her offspring will receive from their father

Differential allocation occurs when individuals adjust their reproductive investment based on their partner''s traits. However, it remains unknown whether animals differentially allocate based on their partner''s past experiences with predation risk. If animals can detect a potential mate''s experience with predators, this might inform them about the stress level of their potential mate, the likelihood of parental effects in offspring and/or the dangers present in the environment. Using threespined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), we examined whether a female''s previous experience with being chased by a model predator while yolking eggs affects male mating effort and offspring care. Males displayed fewer conspicuous courtship behaviours towards females that had experienced predation risk in the past compared with unexposed females. This differential allocation extended to how males cared for the resulting offspring of these matings: fathers provided less parental care to offspring of females that had experienced predation risk in the past. Our results show for the first time, to our knowledge, that variation among females in their predator encounters can contribute to behavioural variation among males in courtship and parental care, even when males themselves do not encounter a predator. These results, together with previous findings, suggest that maternal predator exposure can influence offspring development both directly and indirectly, through how it affects father care.     

Functional response: rigorous estimation and sensitivity to genetic variation in prey

Holling's type II functional response is a cornerstone of community ecology and coevolutionary theory. The so‐called disc equation is the most widely used model of the type II response, yet thus far no robust experimental assessment has been achieved in any single system. Fundamental issues that remain to be assessed include whether the assumptions of the disc equation are fulfilled, whether the disc equation yields accurate estimates of predation‐related individual traits, and whether differences in disc equation parameters can capture genetic variation in prey behaviour. This paper provides a rigorous approach to all of these questions. The functional response of the predatory mite Pergamasus crassipes on three genetically distinct clones of the springtail Folsomia candida was measured at six levels of prey density in controlled conditions where prey number and arena size were concomitantly manipulated. A crucial assumption of Holling's disc equation was fulfilled by maintaining a constant prey density for the entire experimental period of predation. The timing of each attack and capture, as well as the duration of the handling time, were recorded by constant observation. We contrasted three different methods to calculate functional response curves: (1) indirect estimation of the disc equation's parameters from the number of prey killed by the end of each experimental run; (2) direct estimation of the parameters via a unique protocol of constant observation; and (3) independently deriving a function based on direct measurements of encounter rate and attack success. The basic assumptions of the disk equation were globally fulfilled. Estimations of the functional response's parameters (type II) were remarkably congruent across approach (1) and (2). A single genetic effect was detected – the relationship between the encounter rate and prey density differed significantly between clones – whereas a direct comparison of functional response across clones failed to reveal genetic variation.