A Novel Approach to Tradition: Torres Strait Islanders and Ion Idriess

This paper considers the significance of the novel Drums of Mer (1941) in contemporary Torres Strait Islanders' lives. Its use as narrative by many Islanders today constitutes one means by which men especially have come to know themselves, white others, and their past. In particular, I explore the ways in which this story appeals to and is appealed to by Yam Island people. Contrary to literary deconstructions of Idriess's representations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, my paper argues that in seriously attending to Torres Strait readings of Drums of Mer we can see that for contemporary Islander readers, it is not themselves who are other but rather the white protagonists. I employ Said's (1994) notion of ‘cultural overlap’ and de Certeau's (1988) understandings of reading and writing as ‘everyday practices’ to frame my analysis of the differing impacts of the historical novel, Drums of Mer, and the Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits. It is through story telling that Yam Island selves are placed in the past and the present, and in Idriess's memorable story a similar effect is achieved. In his novel approach, the past becomes his-story, a romanticised refraction of the Reports. Unlike the Reports, this novel is a sensual rendering of a Torres Strait past, and at this level it operates as a mnemonic device for Yam Island people, triggering memories and the imagination through the senses. This Torres Strait Islander detour by way of a past via a story, can be understood as a means by which Yam Island people continue to actively produce powerful images of themselves, for both themselves and for others.     

Corsets,Culture and Contingency: Reflections on Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock1

This article turns an anthropological sensitivity onto a literary text from its own society. It takes Joan Lindsay's novel ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ and ‘reads’ it in the light of ideas prominent in recent anthropological writings (the ideas of Lévi-Strauss are particularly used): it also articulates an interpretation by using notions current in modern literary and cultural analysis. The article points out that Lindsay's text has most commonly been interpreted as being about mysterious natural forces injurious to man. Whilst the text explores the disjunction between nature and culture, the article interprets the text as exploring the nature of cultural institutions and cultural processes.     

Snuggles,Cuddles and Sexuality: An(other) Anthropological Interpretation of May Gibbs's Snugglepot and Cuddlepie1

This paper offers an interpretation of May Gibbs's classic illustrated children's story, The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie. Its inspiration was Annette Hamilton's 1975 anthropological analysis, ‘Snugglepot and Cuddlepie: happy families in Australian society’. Rather than effacing that account, my reinterpretation draws on and augments it, even as it turns it ‘inside out’. The paper argues that stories acquire mythic status by magnetising interpretation. In suggesting that questions of subjectivity, identity and sublimated obsession are central concerns of May Gibbs's story, it directs our attention to the authoring of culture, its creation, transmission and transformation. The ‘Mother of the Gumnuts’ emerges from her recurring depictions of kinship and friendship, marriage and adoption, twinship and mirroring, androgyny, ambiguity and ambivalence, as queerly contemporary. If the approach advocated here is correct, such a revelation (and the sense we make of its significance) will not only complicate, but also enhance, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie's enduring appeal and emblematic status as a national icon.     

Darkroom Magic

Abstract

S. D. Schindler (story by Phyllis Krasilovsky), THE FIRST TULIPS IN HOLLAND, Doubleday: New York, 1982, unpaged, $12.95 (boards)

Tomie de Paola, Francis: The Poor Man of Assisi, Holiday House: New York, 1982, unpaged, $14.95

Piero Ventura (story by Gian P. Ceserani), Marco Polo, Putnam: New York, 1982, unpaged, $9.95 (boards)

Demi, The Adventures of Marco Polo, Holt, Rinehart &; Winston: New York, 1982, unpaged, $6.95 (boards)

Bernice Loewenstein (text by Dan Beekman), Forest, Village, Town, City, Thomas Crowell: New York, 1982, 40 pages, $9.50

Huck Scarry, Life on a Barge, Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1982, 70 pages, $9.95, (boards)

Douglas Florian, The City, Thomas Crowell: New York, 1982, unpaged, $8.95

Byron Barton, Airport, Thomas Crowell: New York, 1982, unpaged, $9.95

Gail Gibbons, Trucks, Thomas Crowell: New York, 1981, unpaged, n.p. i

Robert Quackenbush, City Trucks, Albert Whitman: Chicago, 1981, unpaged, n.p.i. (boards)

John Lim, Merchants of the Mysterious East, Tundra: Plattsburgh, N.Y., 1981, 32 pages, $12.95

Sandra J. Russell, A Farmer's Dozen, Harper: New York, 1982, unpaged, $8.95

Mary Azarian, A Farmer's Alphabet, David Godine: Boston, Mass., 1981, 62 pages, $6.95

Victoria Chess, Alfred's Alphabet Walk, Greenwillow: New York, 1979, unpaged, $7.95

Jack Kent (“story” by M. Elting and M. Folson), Q IS FOR DUCK, Clarion Books: New York, 1980, unpaged, $8.95 ($3.95 paper)

Borje Svensson (paper engineering by James Diaz), BLOCK BOOKS (LETTERS, NUMBERS, COLORS, ANIMALS), Viking: New York, 1981, unpaged, $2.50 each     

Charles Darwin goes to school: the role of cartoons and narrative in setting science in an historical context

Science education is under revision. Recent changes in society require changes in education to respond to new demands. Scientific literacy can be considered a new goal of science education and the epistemological gap between natural sciences and literacy disciplines must be overcome. The history of science is a possible bridge to link these ‘two cultures’ and to foster an interdisciplinary approach in the classroom. This paper acknowledges Darwin's legacy and proposes the use of cartoons and narrative expositions to put this interesting chapter of science into its historical context. A five-lesson didactic sequence was developed to tell part of the story of Darwin's expedition through South America for students from 10 to 12 years of age. Beyond geological and biological perspectives, the inclusion of historical, social and geographical facts demonstrated the beauty and complexity of the findings that Darwin employed to propose the theory of evolution.     

Nationalism,nation and territory: Jacint Verdaguer and the Catalan Renaixença

This paper seeks to explain the historic importance to Catalan nationalism of the nineteenth-century poet and priest, Jacint Verdaguer. In order to do so, rather than focus on his contribution – and that of the wider cultural revival, the Renaixença – to the development of the Catalan language as the basis for national political mobilization, this paper argues that we cannot fully understand Verdaguer's importance without reference to his role in constructing a geographical narrative linking nation and territory. At the same time, given that national meanings are always contested, the paper proposes a dialectical approach to nationalism that situates the work of writers within the context of power struggles between social groups. Consequently, Veradguer's centrality to Catalan nationalism is ultimately explained by his role in producing a geographical narrative capable of attracting important sectors of rural Catalonia to the hegemonic project of the industrial bourgeoisie.     

Race and place at the city limits: imaginative geographies of South Central Los Angeles

In the early 1990s, a new cycle of films emerged that depicted complex portrayals of the lives of African-Americans in the neighbourhoods in which they lived. This so-called ‘hood genre was quite radical in its foregrounding of structural racism and police violence. But Hollywood's marketing of these films muted this radical content by directly contradicting explicit signifiers in the films’ story worlds. While many of the ‘hood films take place on the urban fringe and in suburbs, their promotional materials worked to confine the action, to a mythic ‘inner city'.

This essay studies the two most popular films of the genre, Boyz n the Hood and Menace II Society, to illustrate how ‘paratexts' redistricted 'hood films. Through a comparative analysis of the films and their promotional materials, this essay argues Hollywood marketed a racialized ‘imaginative geography' for this important genre of African-American cinema.     

The Play is Now Reality: Affective Turns, Narrative Struggles, and Theorizing Emotion as Practical Experience

Discursive approaches to subjectivity have been critiqued most recently for its dismissal of a living body that moves and senses. While identity as performative has proven invaluable to contemporary cultural theory for its dynamic conceptualization of power in everyday practice, the emergence of what some scholars have named an “affective turn” has prompted calls for configuring the body as more than a complex set of significations, but also a vibrant energy field in perpetual emergence. Centered on an enacted story created by two clinical therapists and two South Asian immigrant domestic violence survivors during a therapeutic support group session, this paper brings the affective turn into dialog with narrative theory. I juxtapose two different readings of this clinical “performance.” One interpretation recognizes affect theory’s value for highlighting sensation and the virtual in moments of transformation. Nonetheless I argue it overlooks a lived history. Thus, using a specifically dramatistic approach to narrative, the second analysis stresses the importance of personal experience and meaning-making in strengthening the link between affect and subjectivity. In doing so, the case study also argues for emotion’s critical link to practical and moral experience.     

海南霸王岭陆均松空间分布格局及其与微生境异质性的关系

应用地统计学及限制性排序分析方法,对海南霸王岭陆均松(Dacrydium pectinatum)幼苗、幼树、成树及其微生境因子的空间分布特征进行分析。结果表明:1)陆均松不同生活史阶段空间分布格局存在明显差异,幼苗阶段表现为聚集性分布,具有显著的空间自相关结构,聚集强度随年龄增长呈逐渐减弱趋势;2)RDA分析表明,陆均松空间分布格局与微生境因子的关系在不同生活史阶段存在差异,生境过滤的影响会随着生活史阶段的不同而有所差别;3)微生境变量对陆均松幼苗、幼树、成树空间变异的总解释量分别为78.4%、41.2%、33.6%,微生境因素对陆均松分布的限制作用主要集中在幼苗阶段;4)在大尺度条件下,PCNM变量与微生境变量具有较大的共同解释量(22.2%),存在典型的"诱导空间变差"现象,微生境变量空间变化引起响应变量即陆均松幼苗、幼树、成树的分布产生类似的空间结构。研究结果证实了微生境因子与不同生活史阶段陆均松分布的关联性,为深入理解陆均松种群维持机制、空间分布格局、更新动态与生境的关系提供科学依据。     

Beneath the master narrative: human trafficking, myths of sexual slavery and ethnographic realities

This paper explores the disconnections between anti-trafficking discourse and the local experience of responding to human trafficking as indicated in ethnographic data from Bosnia and Kazakhstan. Using the concept of “uptake,” I examine how anti-trafficking discourse operates as a master narrative, drawing on techniques of emotion and logic, as well as a specific type of victim story. I also consider how, despite an emerging counter discourse that questions the data and challenges current policy, human trafficking discourse continues to be retold in media and reproduced in popular culture, often in ways that actually diverge from the current version of the grand narrative. In contrast to these uncritical representations, ethnographic data from Bosnia suggest that the master narrative is selective in how it represents the history of the problem and that it does not “take up” important details about the context that fosters sexual exploitation, despite Bosnia’s compliance with US policy. Conversely, Kazakhstan suffers a liminal status regardless of local efforts to prevent the problem from happening within its borders as well as evidence that the crime is not widespread. While perhaps not mythical, I suggest that the master narrative contains the stuff of legend as it occupies the critical spaces of policy, activism and development, leaving open the question of how to address the nuances and needs of responding to victims of gender violence.     

PREDICTIVE TESTING AND EXISTENTIAL ABSURDITY: RESONANCES BETWEEN EXPERIENCES AROUND GENETIC DIAGNOSIS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF ALBERT CAMUS

Predictive genetic testing may confront those affected with difficult life situations that they have not experienced before. These life situations may be interpreted as ‘absurd’. In this paper we present a case study of a predictive test situation, showing the perspective of a woman going through the process of deciding for or against taking the test, and struggling with feelings of alienation. To interpret her experiences, we refer to the concept of absurdity, developed by the French Philosopher Albert Camus. Camus' writings on absurdity appear to resonate with patients' stories when they talk about their body and experiences of illness. In this paper we draw on Camus' philosophical essay ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ (1942), and compare the absurd experiences of Sisyphus with the interviewee's story. This comparison opens up a field of ethical reflection. We demonstrate that Camus' concept of absurdity offers a new and promising approach to understanding the fragility of patients' situations, especially in the field of predictive testing. We show that people affected might find new meaning through narratives that help them to reconstruct the absurd without totally overcoming it. In conclusion, we will draw out some normative consequences of our narrative approach.     

Remarks on Satnam Virdee's Racism,Class and the Racialized Outsider

This contribution to a roundtable on Satnam Virdee's recent Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider praises the range, coherence and method of the book's unprecedented synthetic account. It argues that Virdee's careful consideration of race, nationality and migration changes the whole story of the working-class movement in Britain. The article closes by wondering whether the author's optimism regarding the fostering of solidarity in the recent past can fully survive scrutiny.     

From the delta to Detroit: Packaging a folk epic for a new folk

This paper provides a narrative account of the making of the video, Tales from Arab Detroit: Abu Zayd Comes to America. It focuses upon the original project which involved bringing Egyptian epic‐singers to Detroit to perform selections from the epic of the Banî Hilâl tribe and their hero, Abu Zayd, in September 1993. The paper offers a brief background to the epic tradition itself, an analysis of two of the Detroit performances, a critique of the portrayal of the singers found in the final version of the video, and concludes with a textual ethnographer's thoughts about ethnographic filmmaking.     

In search of the missing subject: narrative identity and posthumous wronging

With the advanced methods of analysing old biological material, it is pressing to discuss what should be allowed to be done with human remains, particularly for well documented historical individuals. We argue that Queen Christina of Sweden, who challenged the traditional gender roles, has an interest in maintaining her privacy when there are continued attempts to reveal her ‘true’ gender. In the long-running philosophical debate on posthumous wronging, the fundamental question is: Who is wronged? Our aim is to find this ‘missing subject’ using narrative theory.Narrative identity emphasises the fact that no person is alone in knowing or telling their life story. People’s lives are entangled and parts of the life story of a deceased person can remain in the living realm. Since the narrative identity of a person does not necessarily end upon their death, and this narrative continues to relate directly to the person who once existed, it is the narrative subject that can continue to be posthumously wronged. Queen Christina can no longer maintain her own identity, but we maintain it by our research into her life. We propose three duties relevant for posthumous wronging: the duty of truthfulness, the duty of recognition and the duty to respect privacy.     

Discovery of the bot fly collection of Bracy Clark,with designation of lectotypes in Cuterebra

The story of the discovery and evaluation of an old bot fly collection as the long lost Bracy Clark collection is recounted. Clark's publications and the specimens are collated in detail. The bot material is listed, and lectotypes are designated for four species of North American Cuterebra.     

Commodifying Development Experience: Deconstructing Development as Gift in the Development Blockbuster

This paper discusses the recent rise of popular ‘blockbuster’ books written by international development industry insiders and produced by commercial publishers. The paper explores a set of common stylistic devices found within this emerging genre. Though each book is different, a key trope is the story of an author's earlier professional life—the hard lessons and gritty insights that have supposedly emerged from it—that normally underpins each narrative. By living the challenges involved in development work at first hand, and by making mistakes and experiencing epiphanies along the way, these author-professionals want readers to know that they have found out the hard way that long-cherished beliefs about development now need to be questioned. Readers are invited to relive these lessons and epiphanies, and to think and act differently about development by upholding a highly pragmatic form of development professionalism. Combining elements of research monograph, self-help book and personal memoir, these development blockbuster books can be understood not only as commodities, but also as part of the development gift. The authors promise a gift of experience but, in reality, these books are mundane commodities enmeshed in capitalist exchange relations.     

An unethical trial and the politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil: The case of Prevent Senior

The Brazilian Federal Senate created a Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPI) to investigate the Bolsonaro government's irregularities in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the cases that drew attention was the research conducted by Prevent Senior, a private health insurance company, on the early treatment of COVID-19. The article analyzes the scientific validity of the research and the ethical problems related to its implementation. It is based on analysis of Prevent Senior's report of the clinical study, the Brazilian and USA clinical trial registries, the Senate's CPI report, and on the information reported by the media. This case of scientific fraud and political-ideological bias exemplifies how Prevent Senior, using a questionable protocol to enhance its reputation and gain government support, was instrumental in building the “early treatment” narrative for COVID-19, and shows how it served as a basis for a government public policy that promoted the use of ineffective drugs.     

Ratatouille: An Animated Account of Cooking,Taste, and Human Evolution

This paper analyzes the immensely popular animated film Ratatouille as a social and cultural document. It begins with a recapitulation of the movie's story line – a saga of an astute, ambitious and talented rat, who becomes transformed into an accomplished haute cuisine chef. The film illustrates recent anthropological writings on the central role of cooking in human evolution. It also shows how varieties of cooking and table manners provide key indications of the civilizing process. Ultimately, Ratatouille explores distinctions and similarities between “man and beast”. It communicates the idea that all living creatures share more in terms of aptitude and feeling than divides them.     

What Is a Story?

This paper attempts to discover the criteria by which a listener accepts or rejects an item of oral narrative as being a story. The hypotheses are: (1) such criteria relate to structure rather than content, although the listener does not consciously distinguish structure from content; (2) the structure must have a certain minimal and maximal degree of complexity and be of a certain kind; (3) the criteria will hold cross-culturally. Information gathered from ethnographies and folklore literature is inadequate to confirm the hypotheses, but it does not contradict them. An experiment to test hypotheses (1) and (2) produced a certain degree of negative confirmation: listeners rejected as a story any narrative item which did not conform to the structural criteria regarded as minimal by myself; however, they also rejected items which I regarded as well structured but which were bizarre or nonsensical in content. The confusion of structure and content tended to confirm hypothesis (1).