Cloth, Gender, Continuity, and Change: Fabricating Unity in Anthropology

In this article, I compare backstrap-loom weaving in three cultural contexts: the ancient Maya, the ancient Aztecs, and 20th-century Mesoamerica. Although continuities are present, important differences exist in the ways that weaving was situated historically. Among the Classic Maya, weaving defined class; in Aztec Mexico, weaving defined gender; and in 20th-century Mesoamerica, weaving defined ethnicity. A comparison of these cases suggests that historical study is a useful tool for both archaeologists and ethnographers. It promotes recognition of the diversity of practice and belief in ancient societies. It helps to define the scope of contemporary ethnographic study. It combats cultural essentialism and injects agency into our accounts. It enables us to acknowledge both the rich heritage of indigenous peoples and the fact of culture change. Comparative historical study provides a strong rationale for the continued association of archaeology and cultural anthropology as parts of a wider anthropological whole.     

Gender,Environmental Change,and Migration Aspirations and Abilities in Tangier and Tinghir,Morocco

Human Ecology - Gender plays a role in all aspects of migration but is underrepresented in migration theories, particularly relating to environmental migration. In this research I address how men...     

Drinking, Conduct Disorder, and Social Change: Navajo Experiences

Drinking, Conduct Disorder, and Social Change: Navajo Experiences. Stephen J. Kunitz and Jerrold E. Levy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. xiii. 262 pp.     

The Gender Politics of Educational Change.

The Gender Politics of Educational Change. Amanda Datnow. Washington, DC: Falmer Press, 1998. 161 pages.     

Suicide and Social Change in China

Using recently available data from China's Disease Surveillance Points system, we estimate that there are over 300,000 suicides in China per year; this makes suicide one of the most important causes of death in the country and makes the suicide rate in China one of the highest in the world. Moreover, the pattern of suicides in China is quite different than in other parts of the world – there are more completed suicides among females than males and rural rates are three-fold urban rates. The lack of reliable suicide data prior to 1987 makes it difficult to determine whether the rates are currently rising, falling, or staying constant. However, reports of suicides in the Chinese press and case studies conducted by the authors suggest (but do not prove) that the high rates of suicide currently experienced are related to the social changes that have occurred with the economic reforms (which started in 1978). Another possible explanation for the high rates of suicide is the large numbers of persons with depressive illness in China who remain untreated. Single-cause models of suicide (i.e., social factors or mental illness) do not do justice to the complexity of the processes involved and, therefore, do not provide useful information about the etiology and prevention of suicide in China or elsewhere. We describe our own dynamic model of suicide that includes five interacting factors which, we believe, collectively determine the suicide rates in a community.     

Disgust versus Lust: Exploring the Interactions of Disgust and Fear with Sexual Arousal in Women

Sexual arousal is a motivational state that moves humans toward situations that inherently pose a risk of disease transmission. Disgust is an emotion that adaptively moves humans away from such situations. Incongruent is the fact that sexual activity is elementary to human fitness yet involves strong disgust elicitors. Using an experimental paradigm, we investigated how these two states interact. Women (final N=76) were assigned to one of four conditions: rate disgust stimuli then watch a pornographic clip; watch a pornographic clip then rate disgust stimuli; rate fear stimuli then watch a pornographic clip; or watch a pornographic clip then rate fear stimuli. Women’s genital sexual arousal was measured with vaginal photoplethysmography and their disgust and fear reactions were measured via self-report. We did not find that baseline disgust propensity predicted sexual arousal in women who were exposed to neutral stimuli before erotic content. In the Erotic-before-Disgust condition we did not find that sexual arousal straightforwardly predicted decreased image disgust ratings. However, we did find some evidence that sexual arousal increased self-reported disgust in women with high trait disgust and sexual arousal decreased self-reported disgust in women with low trait disgust. Women who were exposed to disgusting images before erotic content showed significantly less sexual arousal than women in the control condition or women exposed to fear-inducing images before erotic content. In the Disgust-before-Erotic condition the degree of self-reported disgust was negatively correlated with genital sexual arousal. Hence, in the conflict between the ultimate goals of reproduction and disease avoidance, cues of the presence of pathogens significantly reduce the motivation to engage in mating behaviors that, by their nature, entail a risk of pathogen transmission.     

Intensification, Tipping Points, and Social Change in a Coupled Forager-Resource System

This paper presents a stylized bioeconomic model of hunter-gatherer foraging effort designed to study the process of intensification on open-access resources. A critical insight derived from the model is that the very success of an adaptation at the level of an individual forager group can create system-level vulnerabilities that subsequently feed back to cause emergent social change. The model illustrates how the intensification of harvest time by individuals within a habitat creates a forager-resource system that becomes vulnerable to perturbations. When the system is vulnerable, it is characterized by two resource harvest equilibria: a sustainable, low-effort equilibrium and a degraded, high-effort equilibrium. In this situation, the forager-resource system can be shocked back and forth between these different equilibria by perturbations, generating considerable risk for foragers. We use the model to isolate the ecological conditions under which the instability of the system generates the risk that foragers will experience a shortfall of resources, and we suggest a mechanism that might lead foragers to adopt social institutions that regulate who can access a habitat as an adaptive response. As an illustration of the potential utility of the insights drawn from the model, comparisons are made with a substantial ethnographic data set.     

Morals, Medicine and Change: Morality Brokers, Social Phobias, and French Psychiatry

This paper will examine how French neurotics are being transformed into 'social phobics' and how the appearance of this group may be tied to new personal and social ideals. There are many people and factors that contribute to this changing definition of mental illness. Amongst these, I will focus on the role of three groups who are most vocally acting as morality brokers in the creation of these new subjects: psychiatrists, patients' groups and pharmaceutical companies.     

Women of Belize: Gender and Change in Central America

Women of Belize: Gender and Change in Central America. Irma McClaurin. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996.218 pp.     

Gender Equity in Social Forestry Programs in Bangladesh

Conceptual issues of gender equity in development are examined and analyzed with respect to the Social forestry project (Village and Farm Forestry Project; VFFP) as a means to redistribute access to productive resources and household benefits. A random sample of 120 VFFP participants, both men and women, was interviewed regarding their division of labor and their access to resources and benefits in relation to the project. The survey suggests that women and men produce different quantities and types of labor for the VFFP. Although women supply more labor than men, it is possible that women's overall labor burden is reduced in relation to the national average. For VFFP participants called core farmers, women enjoy the same access to productive resources and services as men, with the important exception that women do not generally have land rights. Yet 100% of interviewed women core farmers answered positively to six indicators of sociocultural advancement because of their participation in the VFFP. Among a second tier of VFFP participants called participating farmers, a large majority of women respondents claim rights on most resources and services important in the VFFP, although these proportions are less than among men respondents. Most women participating farmers answered affirmatively to the six indicators of sociocultural advancement, but in lesser proportions than among women core farmers.     

Disgust implicated in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Psychiatric classificatory systems consider obsessions and compulsions as forms of anxiety disorder. However, the neurology of diseases associated with obsessive-compulsive symptoms suggests the involvement of fronto-striatal regions likely to be involved in the mediation of the emotion of disgust, suggesting that dysfunctions of disgust should be considered alongside anxiety in the pathogenesis of obsessive-compulsive behaviours. We therefore tested recognition of facial expressions of basic emotions (including disgust) by groups of participants with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and with Gilles de la Tourette''s syndrome (GTS) with an without co-present obsessive-compulsive behaviours (GTS with OCB; GTS without OCB). A group of people suffering from panic disorder and generalized anxiety were also included in the study. Both groups with obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCD; GTS with OCB) showed impaired recognition of facial expressions of disgust. Such problems were not evident in participants with panic disorder and generalized anxiety, or for participants with GTS without obsessions or compulsions, indicating that the deficit is closely related to the presence of obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Participants with OCD were able to assign words to emotion categories without difficulty, showing that their problem with disgust is linked to a failure to recognize this emotion in others and not a comprehension or response criterion effect. Impaired recognition of disgust is consistent with the neurology of OCD and with the idea that abnormal experience of disgust may be involved in the genesis of obsessions and compulsions.     

Communities of Faith: Sectarianism, Identity, and Social Change on a Danish Island

Communities of Faith: Sectarianism, Identity, and Social Change on. Danish Island. Andrew Buckser. New Directions in Anthropology, 5. Providence, RI, and Oxford, England: Berghahn Books, 1996. 264 pp.     

Netting in Nepal: Social Change,the Life Course,and Brideservice in Sangila

The links among family characteristics, pre-marital experiences organized outside the family, and participation in choice of spouse are now well established for historical transformations in a range of social settings. Less examined are the consequences of these changes for subsequent inter-familial relationships in societies where marriage organizes kin alliances and interfamilial labor obligations. Using survey and ethnographic data gathered in Nepal, this paper examines the implications of change in work, living experiences, and the marriage process for subsequent inter-familial relationships exemplified by crosscousin marriage and the provision of brideservice. Hypotheses are developed which consider the impact of community context on these behaviors; these are tested in logistic regression analyses for the first marriages of all 430 ever-married women in the community. Cross-cousin marriage and brideservice are shown to be related to prior familial characteristics, life-course experience, and elements of the marriage process in ways that are significantly conditioned by community history and proximity to urban centers.