Picturing Culture: The Photography of Muttappan teyyam between 1920 and Today

Three different appropriations of a 1928 photograph from South India allow insights into German anthropology in the 1920s, contemporary German museum practices, and present-day ritual forms in northern Kerala. Juxtaposing these readings as what Edwards named evidential strategies, power of representation, and re-experiencing demonstrates the possibilities and limits of visual representation. The article contributes to a Picturing Culture debate that considers entrenched visual economies of archived photographs, and opts for an understanding of different aspects of cultural knowledge transported through photographs.     

Beyond Critique: Rethinking Roles for the Anthropology of Mental Health

The current supremacy of the ‘bio-bio-bio’ model within the discipline of psychiatry has progressively marginalized social science approaches to mental health. This situation begs the question, what role is there for the anthropology of mental health? In this essay, I contend that there are three essential roles for the anthropology of mental health in an era of biological psychiatry. These roles are to (i) provide a meaningful critique of practices, beliefs, and movements within current psychiatry; (ii) illuminate the socio-cultural, clinical, and familial context of suffering and healing regarding emotional distress/mental illness; and (iii) act as a catalyst for positive change regarding healing, services and provisions for people with emotional distress/mental illness. My argument is unified by my contention that a credible anthropology of mental health intending to make a societal contribution should offer no opposition without proposition. In other words, any critique must be counter-balanced by the detailing of solutions and proposals for change. This will ensure that the anthropology of mental health continues to contribute critical knowledge to the understanding of mental suffering, distress, and healing. Such social and cultural approaches are becoming especially important given the widespread disenchantment with an increasingly dominant biological psychiatry.     

Picturing a People: George Johnston, Tlingit Photographer

Picturing. People: George Johnston, Tlingit Photographer. 1997. 50 minutes. video directed by Carol Geddes and produced by Sally Bochner and George Hargrove. For more information contact the National Film Board of Canada, P.O. Box 6100, Station Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3H5.     

Beyond Symbiosis: Cleaner Shrimp Clean Up in Culture

Cleaner organisms exhibit a remarkable natural behaviour where they consume ectoparasites attached to “client” organisms. While this behaviour can be utilized as a natural method of parasitic disease control (or biocontrol), it is not known whether cleaner organisms can also limit reinfection from parasite eggs and larvae within the environment. Here we show that cleaner shrimp, Lysmata amboinensis, consume eggs and larvae of a harmful monogenean parasite, Neobenedenia sp., in aquaculture. Shrimp consumed parasite eggs under diurnal (63%) and nocturnal (14%) conditions as well as infectious larvae (oncomiracidia) diurnally (26%). Furthermore, we trialled the inclusion of cleaner shrimp for preventative parasite management of ornamental fish, Pseudanthias squamipinnis, and found shrimp reduced oncomiracidia infection success of host fish by half compared to controls (held without shrimp). Fish held without cleaner shrimp exhibited pigmentation changes as a result of infection, possibly indicative of a stress response. These results provide the first empirical evidence that cleaner organisms reduce parasite loads in the environment through non-symbiotic cleaning activities. Our research findings have relevance to aquaculture and the marine ornamental trade, where cleaner shrimp could be applied for prophylaxis and control of ectoparasite infections.     

Picturing Personhood: Brain Scans and Biomedical Identity

Picturing Personhood: Brain Scans and Biomedical Identity . Joseph Dumit. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. xii. 272 pp.     

The Cure and Feeding of Windigos: A Critique

This paper suggests that, contrary to a view recently expressed, the usual treatment of windigo psychosis is not nutritional in nature. When ingestion is involved (which is rare), its sequel (vomiting to expell the windigo heart of ice) is given more curative importance, challenging the view that the northern Algonquians somehow "grasped" the idea of a nutritive cure for windigos. Nor is evidence, at this point, clear on nutritional causes of windigo.