Boas, Foucault, and the "Native Anthropologist": Notes toward a Neo-Boasian Anthropology

This article proposes the possibility of a neo-Boasian anthropology conceived at the intersection of Foucauldian genealogy, Boasian historicism, and the epistemic rethinking of the discipline's Self/Other binary. Shifting from a perspective of posing the ethnographic object as Other toward a Boasian conception of the past as the principal site of inquiry, the piece thus advocates an anthropological project grounded in the history of the present. This conception, it is argued, can overcome several of the dilemmas currently facing the discipline, the awkward status of "native anthropology" foremost among them.     

Some highlights in the history of fungi in medicine – A personal journey

The history of the role of fungi in the development of medicine has largely been neglected. Here the early recognition of the germ theory will be discussed in relation to surface infections, the “cholera fungus theory” and recognition of the phenomenon of microbial antagonism. This leads to a short review of the history of those antibiotics produced by fungi, notably penicillin. Finally, the history of the recognition of the potential role fungi play as casual agents of cancer will be discussed; although currently neglected, this work may prove to be of future significance. This history of medical mycology is discussed from the standpoint of my own interest and research into this fascinating, and often overlooked area of medical history.     

Scientific Discrimination and the Activist Scientist: L.C. Dunn and the Professionalization of Genetics and Human Genetics in the United States

During the 1920s and 1930s geneticist L.C. Dunn of Columbia University cautioned Americans against endorsing eugenic policies and called attention to eugenicists’ less than rigorous practices. Then, from the mid-1940s to early 1950s he attacked scientific racism and Nazi Rassenhygiene by co-authoring Heredity, Race and Society with Theodosius Dobzhansky and collaborating with members of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) on their international campaign against racism. Even though shaking the foundations of scientific discrimination was Dunn’s primary concern during the interwar and post-World War II years, his campaigns had ancillary consequences for the discipline. He contributed to the professionalization of genetics during the 1920s and 1930s and sought respectability for human genetics in the 1940s and 1950s. My article aims to elucidate the activist scientist’s role in undermining scientific discrimination by exploring aspects of Dunn’s scientific work and political activism from the 1920s to 1950s. Definitions are provided for scientific discrimination and activist scientist.     

Sociology and regional studies in the United States

During the interwar years, theories purporting to show that the people of Ireland were racially distinct from their Anglo-Saxon neighbours underwent a significant revival in Britain. These doctrines, which had featured prominently in nineteenth-century scientific and political discourse, were again employed following the secession of the Irish Free State from the United Kingdom in 1921, both to explain the apparent failure of the British civilizing mission in Ireland and to assuage what many Britons regarded as a national humiliation. Although the discrediting of scientific racism in the 1930s undermined the premises upon which many of these ideas were based, racial hibernophobia was an important component of the post-Great War re-definition of British national identity during a period of economic and political upheaval.     

The rise of academic physical anthropology in the United States (1880–1980): A historical overview

This paper surveys the development of physical anthropology in the period from 1880 to 1980, beginning with the founding of the U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology and the advent of professionalism in anthropology. The growth of physical anthropology within academic anthropology and the effect of the bias toward ethnology and archaeology is considered. Three historical phases are suggested: pre-1900, the pre-academic period of physical anthropology; 1900–1930, the initial development of academic physical anthropology, which witnessed the founding of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology and the American Association of Physical Anthropologists by Hrdli?ka, and of Hooton's program at Harvard University; 1930-present, which has seen the full development of physical anthropology in an academic context.     

Plasticity,political economy,and physical growth status of Guatemala Maya children living in the United States

Migration of Maya refugees to the United States since the late 1970s affords the opportunity to study the consequences of life in a new environment on the growth of Maya children. The children of this study live in Indiantown, Florida, and Los Angeles, California. Maya children between 4 and 14 years old (n = 240) were measured for height, weight, fatness, and muscularity. Overall, compared with reference data for the United States, the Maya children are, on average, healthy and well nourished. They are taller and heavier and carry more fat and muscle mass than Maya children living in a village in Guatemala. However, they are shorter, on average, than children of black, Mexican-American, and white ethnicity living in Indiantown. Children of Maya immigrants born in the United States tend to be taller than immigrant children born in Guatemala or Mexico. Families that invest economic and social resources in their children tend to have taller children. More economically successful families have taller children. Migration theory and political economy theory from the social sciences are combined with plasticity theory and life history theory (parental investment) from biology to interpret these data. Am J Phys Anthropol 102:17–32, 1997. © 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Collaborative production and experimental labor: two models of dissertation authorship in the eighteenth century

This article examines two early modern models of dissertation authorship that both relied on extensive collaboration between the degree candidate and his supervisor. The dissertation conducted on the traditional model, practiced until the eighteenth century at German universities, was a joint product of the supervisor, who prepared the thesis in writing, and the degree candidate, who defended it in the oral disputation. The two collaborators shared the credit for a successfully defended thesis in different forms: right for public recognition and rights to use and reproduce the thesis. Instead of sharing the credit as two equal partners, each of them took advantage of his credit in ways that benefited his status. In the model that Albrecht von Haller introduced at Göttingen, the supervisor provided the student with a laboratory and experimental training, while the degree candidate wrote a thesis by himself based on the experiments he carried out, and defended the thesis without the supervisor chairing the disputation. The Haller model reveals two new elements that heralded the development of modern scientific education: divisibility of laboratory labor between the student’s experimentation and the research program to which it belongs; and feasibility of the requirement of experimental work in return for the exclusive authorship of the doctoral thesis.     

Beyond the Post-Structural Impasse in the Anthropology of Development

In recent years anthropologists have produced innovative and critical scholarship that refuses to simplify or essentialise the development process. However, for the most part the anthropology of development remains closely tied to the post-structuralist paradigm. Why, after more than two decades, does the post-structuralist critique continue to hold its dominant grip on the anthropology of development? Why haven’t anthropologists been able to move the anthropology of development, or development itself, further ahead? These are the main questions addressed in this article. More specifically, it is argued that the anthropology of development has reached an impasse; it remains bound to an overly structural interpretation of the development process, a construction that privileges not only structure over agency, but also hegemony over dialectics. Using the ethnography of a high-profile case of development in northwest Namibia, the article suggests a possible path forward by outlining a proposal for a simultaneous theoretical re-orientation and methodological reclamation in the anthropology of development.     

American Anthropology in the Middle Decades: A View from Hollywood

North American anthropology had an earlier interest in studies of the United States and in critical approaches than is often recognized. Such interests were pursued before World War II but were set aside during the war and in anthropology's postwar expansion. This perspective on anthropological history was inspired by the work of Hortense Powdermaker, specifically the disjunction between her 1930s research in segregated Mississippi and her pioneering study of Hollywood in the late 1940s. Reexamining that study highlights the theoretical framework that led to omissions in her account of Hollywood, while her explanation of movie content invites a more diachronic approach. Parallels between the history of the movies and that of cultural anthropology from the 1930s through the 1960s suggest how both were shaped by the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War.     

Revisiting Hrdlička and Boas: Asymmetries of Race and Anti-Imperialism in Interwar Anthropology

ABSTRACT  Physical anthropologist Aleš Hrdlička is often remembered as an institutional and political opponent of Franz Boas and as an advocate of racial typology against which the Boasian antiracialist position in American anthropology developed. I argue that Hrdlička nonetheless also has more subtle lessons to offer about the political limits of Boasian antiracism. Examining Hrdlička's engagement with the politics of Europe and East Asia from the 1920s to the 1940s, particularly with the intellectual grounding of Japanese imperialism, I suggest that he was perhaps uniquely cognizant of a "second problem of race in the world"—the racist assimilationism of the Japanese empire—vis-à-vis the Boasian grasp of race, rooted in a response to U.S. and Nazi racisms, as a category of invidious difference. Moreover, I contend that the lacuna that Hrdlička helps us identify has continued to haunt the discipline at certain key moments of Boasian critique of other ideological forces.     

No Story Is Ever Just a Story

The 41 films at the 2004 Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival showcased a multiplicity of styles and approaches, thus widening the perspective of "what counts" as ethnographic film. The two main events—A Tribute to Jean Rouch and Native Voices—epitomized the festival's commitment to diversity and creative talent. Despite the festival's awkward location in the American Museum of Natural History, the films tackled challenging political subjects and directly addressed questions of representation. Postscreening musical performances, informational panels, and audience–director discussion sessions shaped the festival itself as an ethnographic experience, as well as being a venue for the year's best documentary films. Festival highlights were Raven Tales: How Raven Stole the Sun (2004), Mr. Patterns (2004), and Beauty Academy of Kabul (2004).     

Genetic structuring in the freshwater mussel Anodonta corresponds with major hydrologic basins in the western United States

Freshwater mussels (unionids) are increasingly recognized as important providers of ecosystem services, yet are among the most endangered fauna in the world. Because unionids are generally sessile and require specific fish hosts for development and dispersal, they are particularly vulnerable to habitat degradation. Surprisingly, little is known about the distribution of genetic diversity in freshwater mussels and this gap has a negative impact on taxonomy, monitoring, conservation and ecological research in these species. Here, we focus on western North American Anodonta, one of only three genera known to exist in this broad landscape and which contains three highly divergent lineages. We describe phylogeographical subdivision in the most widespread and diverse of these lineages, which includes Anodonta californiensis and Anodonta nuttalliana and occurs from Canada to Mexico. Using mitochondrial and nuclear data, we found that genetic structuring within this clade is inconsistent with morphologically based species designations, but instead follows patterns of vicariance among major hydrogeologic basins. Furthermore, there was a strong tendency for population diversity within drainage systems to increase downstream, implying greater habitat or host fish availability in this direction. Microsatellite results indicated that sampling locations were all genetically distinct, even at short distances. Many of our sample populations showed evidence of a recent demographic bottleneck, although this effect seemed to be very local and not drainage or basin‐specific. This study provides a foundation for the establishment of appropriate management units and future research on adaptive differentiation and host fish relationships.     

池塘养鱼的最早记载和《范蠡养鱼经》问世时间问题

在《中国古代动物学史》中,《中国鱼类学史纲要》的著者提出：中国是世界上最早从事池塘养鱼的国家,其依据是卜辞(公元前l600～l046年)中有“在圃渔”,“圃”即池塘;又说《范蠡养鱼经》有2400年的历史。笔者以为这两条判断都不能成立。“圃”的甲骨原文作“甫”,指水草沼泽地,不是池塘养鱼;《范蠡养鱼经》不是范蠡所作,系后人伪托之书,书中提到范蠡与齐威王的谈话不可能发生,因为范蠡是在越灭吴后(公元前473年)退隐,而齐威王公元前356～320年在位,两人相差百年以上。书中提到鱼塘里放养“神守”(鳖),可是秦(公元前22l～206年)以前的古籍里只有大量的单音词“鳖”,没有双音词“神守”,“神守”可能在汉朝(公元前206年至公元220年)才出现。由此可证《养鱼经》的成书约在汉代。此外,《陶朱公养鱼经》的陶朱公是后人对范蠡的尊称,如果此书是范蠡自己所作,决不可能自称《陶朱公养鱼经》。最后,古今度量衡不同,《中国鱼类学史纲要》中一些地方直接把古亩等同于今市亩分析,属于疏忽。     

Large-scale Regional Variation in Diatom-water Chemistry Relationships: Rivers of the Eastern United States

We analyzed diatom and water chemistry data collected by The Academy of Natural Sciences from 47 rivers throughout the eastern United States to address several ecological questions. How does the composition of diatom assemblages vary over large regional scales? What are the most important environmental factors affecting assemblage composition and how does their influence vary among regions and with spatial scale? How do distributions and autecological characteristics of individual taxa vary spatially? What are the implications of answers to these questions for use of diatoms as water quality indicators? Data for 186 samples at 116 sites were collected from 1951 to 1991 on moderate- to large-sized rivers ranging from Maine to Texas as part of Academy monitoring and survey programs, most initiated and implemented by Dr. Ruth Patrick. Several sites were highly impaired by point and non-point source pollution. Diatom assemblages grouped into four main categories, based on multivariate analyses. Group membership correlated equally well with intermediate-scale geographic regions and water chemistry: (1) Northeastern US rivers with lower alkalinity and hardness, and pH 6.5–7.8; (2) Primarily dilute coastal plain rivers in the southeastern United States with the lowest average pH (5.5–7.3) of all sites and some with high DOC; (3) Rivers within and west of the Appalachian Mountains, generally having higher pH (>7.5) than those in other regions, but with relatively low chloride concentrations; and (4) Gulf Coast rivers with the highest chloride (>100 mg l^?1), hardness (>250 mg l^?1), and pH of rivers in all the groups. Hardness, pH, alkalinity, and Cl explained most of the variation among diatom assemblages, based on ordination analysis. Factors related to water quality problems, such as BOD, P, NH₄, and turbidity explained much less variability at the eastern US scale, but were more important in the four intermediate-scale regions. Diatom taxa abundance-weighted mean values for water chemistry characteristics varied among the four intermediate-scale regions, often greatly, and in proportion to the average measured values for each region. Design of calibration data sets for development of water quality indicators should account for spatial scale in relation to species dispersal, regional geochemistry and habitat types, and human-influenced water chemistry characteristics.