Equivocal locations: being ‘red’ in ‘Red Bologna’

This article addresses a classic ethnographic problem in the study of Italy: how is it that people can subscribe simultaneously to seemingly contradictory ideologies, such as Catholicism and Communism? It does so by describing examples from Italy's ‘showcase city’ of the left, ‘Red Bologna’, in which to be ‘red’ is ubiquitous but each person's ‘red’ is a different thing: being ‘red’ (differently) is the idiom in which real political distinctions are expressed over issues like religion or immigration. In parallel, I discuss the relationship between the ‘field’ as a location and the ‘field’ as a conceptual topic. My account replicates internal ethnographic differences at the analytical level by highlighting the differences between being left‐wing in Bologna and its meaning as a concept in anthropology. Hence the ‘equivocal location’: a field‐site that is productively different, from what an inexperienced ethnographer expected from it, from conceptual discussions in anthropology, and from itself.     

The ‘Thailand Controversy’ Revisited

The so‐called ‘Thailand controversy’ divided the anthropological communities of Australia and the US in the early 1970s. In the heat of opposition to the Vietnam War, allegations were made that some anthropologists and institutions, particularly the Tribal Research Centre in Thailand, had worked hand in glove with the military/intelligence establishment and contrary to the interests of the minority peoples who lived in the hills of north Thailand, who were the subjects of research. The author was one of those so accused and the paper presents his view of the episode. It traces the genesis of the Tribal Research Centre, the publication of an inflammatory article in the US, and the subsequent escalation of the controversy there. It then details its impact on the Australian anthropological community, with particular reference to the Sydney University Department. Finally, it describes the climax of the controversy in the Australian Association of Social Anthropologists, and the American Anthropological Association. In conclusion, it argues that the confused intensity of the affair was a product of a mix of political passions, ethical considerations, and different views about the role of academics in society.     

Complementary ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ approaches to basal ganglia function

Recently, two quite different approaches exemplifying ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ philosophies have shed new light on basal ganglia function. In vitro work using organotypic co-cultures has implicated the subthalamic nucleus (STN) and the external segment of the globus pallidus (GP_e) as pacemakers for low-frequency bursting that is reminiscent of the activity produced in Parkinsonian tremor. A circuit essential for avian song learning has been identified as part of the basal ganglia with surprisingly well conserved cellular details; investigation of this system may help to address general issues of basal ganglia function.     

‘Dancing the image’: materiality and spirituality in Andean religious ‘images’

In the Christian tradition, representing the divine has often been considered both an impossible and yet necessary endeavour rooted in the human need in certain moments of weakness to visualize God. In this article, based on research findings from fieldwork carried out with urban indigenous groups in La Paz, Bolivia, I suggest that the articulation of local and Catholic representational traditions and practices has produced an understanding of the religious image not so much as an object of detached contemplation or a reference to a religious symbol but rather as an energized element which physically shapes the relationship and exchange between the material and the spiritual world. I suggest that through a study of Andean religious images we may be able to produce an alternative ontological perspective on the relationship between the spiritual, material, and living worlds.

Résumé

Dans la tradition chrétienne, la représentation du divin est souvent considérée comme une gageure impossible et pourtant nécessaire, motivée par la nécessité humaine de visualiser Dieu dans les moments de faiblesse. À partir des matériaux de terrain obtenus auprès de groupes autochtones urbains à La Paz, en Bolivie, l'auteur suggère ici que l'articulation des traditions et pratiques de représentation locales et catholiques a conduit à concevoir l'image religieuse moins comme un objet de contemplation détachée ou une référence à un symbole religieux que comme un élément chargé d'énergie, qui donne physiquement forme à la relation et aux échanges entre le monde matériel et le monde spirituel. L'article suggère qu'à travers l'étude des images religieuses andines, on pourrait élaborer un autre point de vue ontologique sur la relation entre les mondes spirituel, matériel et vivant.     

The Self viewed from ‘Within’ or ‘Without’ Twists and Turns in Gender Identity in a Patrilineal Society

The paper explores some of the complexities of west African concepts of self and gender. Its point of departure is a conviction that understanding is ill served by Western notions of self and gender, which are based on definitive divisions between the legal and moral self on the one hand, and the self as subjectively known on the other. Moreover, Western concepts of gender oppose male and female, whereas in the African context reciprocity; the 'relations between’ receive emphasis. The analysis uses original fieldwork data, and historical records to present a picture of a conceptual order upon which Western categories are being superimposed.     

Cleaner Wrasses Keep Track of the ‘When’ and ‘What’ in a Foraging Task1

In recent years evidence has accumulated that at least some animals can remember the ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ of personal experiences. Currently, evidence for such ability is taxonomically restricted to birds and mammals. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that cleaner wrasses Labroides dimidiatus are able to remember when they interacted with what after a single event. In nature, cleaners remove ectoparasites from other reef fishes, so‐called clients. Clients are depleted, non‐stationary food patches at the end of an interaction and replenished only after a delay. In our experiments, we presented twelve cleaners every 2.5 min, a choice between two of a total of four plates with different colours and patterns. One plate was always accessible but contained a non‐preferred food item while the other three contained a preferred food item, but allowed a next feeding event only after 5, 10 or 15 min. Thus, to maximise food intake, cleaners had to remember for each choice when they had last interacted with which plate. When confronted with two plates offering preferred food, cleaners showed an overall significant preference for the plate that allowed access during the trial. For six cleaners, the preference was significant. Also, on trials involving the always accessible plate, cleaners discriminated between trials in which they had to eat the non‐preferred food and trials on which they could eat the preferred food. In conclusion, cleaners are able to track the ‘when’ and ‘what’ (or possibly ‘who’) within a biologically meaningful time period.     

A ‘metaphising’ dung beetle

Humans and beetles both have a species-specific Umwelt circumscribed by their sensory equipment. However, Ladislav Kováč argues that humans, unlike beetles, have invented scientific instruments that are able to reach beyond the conceptual borders of our Umwelt.You may have seen the film Microcosmos, produced in 1996 by the French biologists Claude Nuridsany and Marie Perrenou. It does not star humans, but much smaller creatures, mostly insects. The filmmakers'' magnifying camera transposes the viewer into the world of these organisms. For me, Microcosmos is not an ordinary naturalist documentary; it is an exercise in metaphysics.One sequence in the film shows a dung beetle—with the ‘philosophical'' generic name Sisyphus—rolling a ball of horse manure twice its size that becomes stuck on a twig. As the creature struggles to free the dung, it gives the impression that it is both worried and obstinate. As we humans know, the ball represents a most valuable treasure for the beetle: it will lay its eggs into the manure that will later feed its offspring. The behaviour of the beetle is biologically meaningful; it serves its Darwinian fitness.Yet, the dung beetle knows nothing of the function of manure, nor of the horse that dropped the excrement, nor of the human who owned the horse. Sisyphus lives in a world that is circumscribed by its somatic sensors—a species-specific world that the German biologist and philosopher Jakob von Uexküll would have called the dung beetle''s ‘Umwelt''. The horse, too, has its own Umwelt, as does the human. Yet, the world of the horse, just like the world of the man, does not exist for the beetle.If a ‘scholar'' among dung beetles attempted to visualize the world ‘out there'', what would be the dung-beetles'' metaphysics—their image of a part of the world about which they have no data furnished by their sensors? What would be their religions, their truths, or the Truth—revealed, and thus indisputable?Beetles are most successful animals; one animal in every four is a beetle, leading the biologist J.B.S. Haldane to quip that the Creator must have “had an inordinate fondness for beetles”. Are we humans so different from dung beetles? By birth we are similar: inter faeces et urinas nascimur—we are born between faeces and urine—as Aurelius Augustine remarked 1,600 years ago. Humans also have a species-specific Umwelt that has been shaped by biological evolution. A richer one than is the Umwelt of beetles, as we have more sensors than have they. Relative to the body size, we also possess a much larger brain and with it the capacity to make versatile movements with our hands and to finely manipulate with our fingers.This manual dexterity has enabled humans to fabricate artefacts that are, in a sense, extensions and refinements of the human hand. The simplest one, a coarse-chipped stone, represents the evolutionary origins of artefacts. Step-by-step, by a ratchet-like process, artefacts have become ever more complicated: as an example, a Boeing 777 is assembled from more than three million parts. At each step, humans have just added a tiny improvement to the previously achieved state. Over time, the evolution of artefacts has become less dependent on human intention and may soon result in artefacts with the capacity for self-improvement and self-reproduction. In fact, it is by artefacts that humans transcend their biology; artefacts make humans different from beetles. Here is the essence of the difference: humans roll their artefactual balls, no less worried and obstinate than beetles, but, in contrast to the latter, humans often do it even if the action is biologically meaningless, at the expense of their Darwinian fitness. Humans are biologically less rational than are beetles.Artefacts have immensely enriched the human Umwelt. From among them, scientific instruments should be singled out, as they function as novel, extrasomatic sensors of the human species. They have substantially fine-grained human knowledge of the Umwelt. But they are also reaching out—both to a distance and at a rate that is exponentially increasing—behind the boundary of the human Umwelt, behind its conceptual confines that we call Kant''s barriers. Into the world that has long been a subject of human ‘dung-beetle-like'' metaphysics. Nevertheless, our theories about this world could now be substantiated by data coming from the extrasomatic sensors. These instruments, fumbling in the unknown, supply reliable and reproducible data such that their messages must be true. They supersede our arbitrary guesses and fancies, but their truth seems to be out of our conceptual grasp. Conceptually, our mind confines us to our species-specific Umwelt.We continue to share the common fate of our fellow dung beetles: There is undeniably a world outside the confinements of our species-specific Umwelt, but if the world of humans is too complex for the neural ganglia of beetles, the world beyond Kant''s barriers may similarly exceed the capacity of the human brain. The physicist Richard Feynman (1965) stated, perhaps resignedly, “I can safely say that nobody today understands quantum mechanics.” Frank Gannon (2007) likewise commented that biological research, similarly to research in quantum mechanics, might be approaching a state “too complex to comprehend”. New models of the human brain itself may turn out to be “true and effective—and beyond comprehension” (Kováč, 2009).The advances of science notwithstanding, the knowledge of the universe that we have gained on the planet Earth might yet be in its infancy. However, in contrast to the limited capacity of humans, the continuing evolution of artefacts may mean that they face no limits in their explorative potential. They might soon dispense with our conceptual assistance exploring the realms that will remain closed to the human mind forever.     

Reversing a ‘backwards’ motor

Ncd, a kinesin-related microtubule motor protein that moves the ‘wrong’ way on microtubules, towards the minus ends, has now been made to move like kinesin, towards plus ends, by fusing regions from outside the kinesin motor domain to the Ncd motor.^1,2 Since it is the kinesin motor domain that binds to and moves on the microtubule, the finding that regions outside the motor domain can confer directionality of Ncd movement is remarkable—it implies a structural basis for motor polarity. Here we consider this finding from a structural point of view and discuss the implications for motor function and evolution. BioEssays 20:108–112, 1998. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.