A new definition of health? An open letter of autochthonous peoples and medical anthropologists to the WHO.

PubMed

Charlier, P; Coppens, Y; Malaurie, J; Brun, L; Kepanga, M; Hoang-Opermann, V; Correa Calfin, J A; Nuku, G; Ushiga, M; Schor, X E; Deo, S; Hassin, J; Hervé, C

2017-01-01

Currently, for many practitioners (hospital and liberals) and researchers (including public health), the WHO definition of health is outdated: first it seems more utopian than pragmatic; then, it proves unsuitable for a large part of the world population. There is clearly a need to refine this definition or propose additional criteria to be more relevant or discriminating. In this perspective, what can indigenous people offer in the elaboration of a new definition of health? In this article, leaders or representatives of autochthonous peoples, anthropologists and physicians from many cultural origins (Amazonia, Patagonia, Papua New-Guinea, Inuit, North-American Indian, sub-Saharan Africa, India, China, Melanesia and Polynesia) have tried to identify and explain several key concepts that WHO should reintegrate into its new definition of health: human equilibrium in nature, accepted spirituality and adaptation. On the sidelines of the application of COP21 decisions that should give back to man his place into the environment, autochthonous people leaders, anthropologists and MDs explain why these three concepts are fundamental and universal health determinants, and need to be included in a new WHO definition of health. Copyright © 2016 European Federation of Internal Medicine. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

When rational men fall sick: an inquiry into some assumptions made by medical anthropologists.

PubMed

Young, A

1981-12-01

Medical anthropologist spend most of their time eliciting and interpreting people's statements about sickness and health. For this task, they make certain assumptions about the importance of language and reason. In this paper I argue that their assumptions are tailored to fit an hypothetical Rational Man rather than real people. The concept of 'explanatory models of sickness' is used to illustrate this point. My critique begins by drawing attention to two non-cognitive determinants of people's statements: their degree of emotional arousal and their capacities for discoursing on medical subjects. These determinants are briefly discussed and then set aside, to make room for the paper's argument proper. This starts with the observation that medical anthropologists tend to overlook the fact that they have established a cognitive no man's land stretching between their informants' statements and the cognitive structures which are supposed to generate these statements. I survey this void, using a five-fold model of medical knowledge. People use one kind of knowledge to organize their medical experiences and perceptions. In Rational Man writing, this form of knowledge is considered equivalent to cognitive structures (e.g., causal models, classificatory schemes), but I argue that is also includes knowledge of prototypical sickness events and knowledge that is embedded in actions, social relations, and material equipment. The theoretical implications of the five-fold model are outlined. This is followed by an analysis of the reasoning processes in which people use medical knowledge to produce the statements whose meaning we wish to learn. I demonstrate the importance of being able to distinguish operational and monothetic forms of reasoning from pre-operational and polythetic ones. Rational Man writers are described as ignoring the latter pair. The concept of 'prototypes' is reintroduced to illustrate these points.

New Directions in U.S. Foreign Assistance and New Roles for Anthropologists. Studies in Third World Societies, Publication Number Forty-Four.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mason, John P., Ed.; Clark, Mari H., Ed.

Given recent developments throughout the world, the status of U.S. foreign assistance policies is uncertain. This document is a collection of papers whose authors, all anthropologists concerned with developing nations, critically examine new directions in development assistance in the 1990s. The papers include an introduction (M. Clark; J. Mason);…

What Does It Mean to Be an Activist Scholar? Re-imagining Our Responses as Anthropologists of Education to Contemporary Challenges

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schultz, Katherine

2014-01-01

In this address, I ask: What do we bring as anthropologists and educators to our work? Two projects frame my arguments: my work with teachers in Aceh, Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami and my term on a school board in an impoverished U.S. city. I conclude that at a time when challenges are simultaneously local and global, immediate and long term,…

Accuracy Rates of Ancestry Estimation by Forensic Anthropologists Using Identified Forensic Cases.

PubMed

Thomas, Richard M; Parks, Connie L; Richard, Adam H

2017-07-01

A common task in forensic anthropology involves the estimation of the ancestry of a decedent by comparing their skeletal morphology and measurements to skeletons of individuals from known geographic groups. However, the accuracy rates of ancestry estimation methods in actual forensic casework have rarely been studied. This article uses 99 forensic cases with identified skeletal remains to develop accuracy rates for ancestry estimations conducted by forensic anthropologists. The overall rate of correct ancestry estimation from these cases is 90.9%, which is comparable to most research-derived rates and those reported by individual practitioners. Statistical tests showed no significant difference in accuracy rates depending on examiner education level or on the estimated or identified ancestry. More recent cases showed a significantly higher accuracy rate. The incorporation of metric analyses into the ancestry estimate in these cases led to a higher accuracy rate. © 2017 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

The "in-between writer": Howard Stein, PhD, professor emeritus, psycho-analytic anthropologist, poet, educator, transdisciplinary scholar.

PubMed

Reilly, Jo Marie

2016-09-01

This commentary reflects the professional life story of a prolific and well-published poet, Howard Stein. An anthropologist by training, Howard's poetry is well known and well respected by family physicians. It is within family medicine that Howard found his professional home, and in his 45-plus-year career he has shared the value of "patient story"; the value of the doctor-patient relationship; and the art of listening deeply to self, colleagues, and patients. This commentary offers a tribute to Howard's professional life and his contributions to family and narrative medicine. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

How should forensic anthropologists correct national weather service temperature data for use in estimating the postmortem interval?

PubMed

Dabbs, Gretchen R

2015-05-01

This study examines the correlation between site-specific and retrospectively collected temperature data from the National Weather Service (NWS) over an extended time period. Using iButtonLink thermochrons (model DS1921G), hourly temperature readings were collected at 15 sites (1 validation; 14 experimental) from December 2010 to January 2012. Comparison between the site-specific temperature data and data retrieved from an official reporter of NWS temperature data shows statistically significant differences between the two in 71.4% (10/14) of cases. The difference ranged between 0.04 and 2.81°C. Examination of both regression and simple adjustment of the mean difference over extended periods (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 9 months) suggests that on the timescale typical in forensic anthropology cases neither method of correction is consistent or reliable and that forensic anthropologists would be better suited using uncorrected NWS temperature data when the postmortem interval is extended. © 2015 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

[Social anthropology and anthropologists of the past and present: from exoticism and the imagined reciprocity to everyday inequalities].

PubMed

Neufeld, María Rosa

2012-01-01

In this article we examine two moments in anthropology. First we characterize anthropology as a subject specialized in the study of "the others", which developed in those countries that led the European and North American colonial expansion. We underline the links that existed between this historical context, the features of ethnography -the theoretic-methodological approach developed by anthropologistsand the concept of culture, that became the core of this discipline. Secondly, we intend to further the understanding of some trends of contemporary anthropology: the fact that nowadays anthropologists work on the societies they belong to, their operations (documenting the undocumented, unveiling dayliness, de-naturalizing), which find their roots in earlier anthropology. It also highlights the shift of focus from reciprocity relations to power and inequity relations. Finally it sheds light on some original developments in Latin American anthropology, considering some cases in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.

Accuracy Rates of Sex Estimation by Forensic Anthropologists through Comparison with DNA Typing Results in Forensic Casework.

PubMed

Thomas, Richard M; Parks, Connie L; Richard, Adam H

2016-09-01

A common task in forensic anthropology involves the estimation of the biological sex of a decedent by exploiting the sexual dimorphism between males and females. Estimation methods are often based on analysis of skeletal collections of known sex and most include a research-based accuracy rate. However, the accuracy rates of sex estimation methods in actual forensic casework have rarely been studied. This article uses sex determinations based on DNA results from 360 forensic cases to develop accuracy rates for sex estimations conducted by forensic anthropologists. The overall rate of correct sex estimation from these cases is 94.7% with increasing accuracy rates as more skeletal material is available for analysis and as the education level and certification of the examiner increases. Nine of 19 incorrect assessments resulted from cases in which one skeletal element was available, suggesting that the use of an "undetermined" result may be more appropriate for these cases. Published 2016. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

The Portapotty Experiment: Neoliberal approaches to the intertwined epidemics of opioid-related overdose and HIV/HCV, and why we need cultural anthropologists in the South Bronx.

PubMed

Wolfson-Stofko, Brett; Curtis, Ric; Fuentes, Faustino; Manchess, Ed; Del Rio-Cumba, Alexis; Bennett, Alex S

2016-12-01

The following report from the field focuses on the authors' collective efforts to operate an ad hoc safer injection facility (SIF) out of portapotties (portable toilets) in an area of the South Bronx that has consistently experienced some of the highest overdose morbidity and mortality rates in New York City over the past decade (New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 2011, 2015, 2016). Safer injection facilities (also known as supervised injection facilities, drug consumption rooms, etc.) operating outside the US provide a legal, hygienic, and supervised environment for individuals to use drugs in order to minimize the likelihood of fatal overdose and the spread of blood-borne infections while reducing public injection. In the US, the operation of SIFs is federally prohibited by the federal "Crack House" statute though federal, state, and local elected officials can sanction their operation to various degrees (Beletsky, Davis, Anderson, & Burris, 2008). The activists, researchers, undergraduate students and peers from syringe exchange programs who came together to operate the portapotties discovered that they were, in many ways, emblematic of neoliberal solutions to disease prevention: primarily focused on auditing individual risk behaviors and virtually blind to the wider social context that shapes those lives. That social context - the culture of drug injection - was and is out in the open for all of us to see. Going forward, the cultural anthropologist's toolbox will be opened up and used by large groups of undergraduate students to better understand the culture of drug use and how it is changing.

Advanced Concepts and Methods of Approximate Reasoning

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-12-01

immeasurably by numerous conversations and discussions with Nadal Bat- tle, Hamid Berenji , Piero Bonissone, Bernadette Bouchon-Meunier, Miguel Delgado, Di...comments of Claudi Alsina, Hamid Berenji , Piero Bonissone, Didier Dubois, Francesc Esteva, Oscar Firschein, Marty Fischler, Pascal Fua, Maria Angeles

Discours polemique, refutation et resolution des sequences conversationnelles (Argumentative Discourse, Refutation and Outcome of Conversational Sequences).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moeschler, Jacques

1981-01-01

Analyzes the strategies employed in terminating conversational exchanges, with particular attention to argumentative sequences. Examines the features that distinguish these sequences from those that have a transactional character, and discusses the patterns of verbal interaction attendant to negative responses. Societe Nouvelle Didier Erudition,…

An anthropologist in unexpected places

PubMed Central

Knutsen, Johan Henrik

2014-01-01

Much contemporary anthropology has turned away from exclusive focus on so-called “primitive” tribes in far-away places. The study of urban people has become more prominent, and some researchers have also turned their gaze towards marginalized minorities in their communities. Philippe Bourgois is an example of this. He is well known for studying crack dealers in East Harlem, New York ( In Search of Respect) and homeless heroin addicts in San Francisco (Righteous Dopefiend). Kula Kula was lucky enough to catch him in his office, and had a chat via skype. PMID:25436019

An Anthropologist Bridges Two Worlds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shea, Christopher

2009-01-01

Philippe Bourgois, who has spent his career studying some of America's roughest neighborhoods and subcultures, got an unusually harsh welcome to his new hometown: Last May, during a trip to North Philly to make contact with some drug dealers, he got caught up in a police raid. The arrest was Bourgois's first, though hardly his first brush with…

Echanges, interventions et actes de langage dans la structure de la conversation (Exchanges, Turns at Talk and Speech Acts in the Structure of Conversation).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roulet, Eddy

1981-01-01

Attempts to show how the surface structure of conversation can be described by means of a few principles and simple categories, regardless of its level of complexity. Accordingly, proposes a model that emphasizes the pragmatic functions of certain connectors and markers in the context of conversation exchanges. Societe Nouvelle Didier Erudition,…

L'E.A.P. ou l'anglais enseigne dans les etudes superieures. Un guide pour le debutant (E.A.P. or English for Academic Purposes: A Guide for the Beginner).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roe, Peter J.

1981-01-01

Addresses those readers who are not familiar with EAP, offering an introductory discussion of its objectives and methods, in two parts. Devotes the first part to the needs that justify an EAP approach, and the second to its methodology, with particular attention to interdisciplinary, task-oriented instruction. Societe Nouvelle Didier Erudition, 40…

Microsporidiosis

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-06-01

Microsporidia and basis for benzimidazole sensitivity: an update. J Eukaryot Microbiol. 1996;43:109S. 76. Edlind TD, Li J, Visvesvara GS, Vodkin MH... benzimidazole resistance. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2008;52:790- 793. 168. Didier ES. Effects of albendazole, fumagillin, and TNP-470 on microsporidial replication in vitro. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 1997;41:1541-1546.

Anthropology in Agricultural Health and Safety Research and Intervention.

PubMed

Arcury, Thomas

2017-01-01

Agriculture remains a dangerous industry, even as agricultural science and technology continue to advance. Research that goes beyond technological changes to address safety culture and policy are needed to improve health and safety in agriculture. In this commentary, I consider the potential for anthropology to contribute to agricultural health and safety research by addressing three aims: (1) I briefly consider what the articles in this issue of the Journal of Agromedicine say about anthropologists in agricultural health and safety; (2) I discuss what anthropologists can add to agricultural health and safety research; and (3) I examine ways in which anthropologists can participate in agricultural health and safety research. In using their traditions of rigorous field research to understand how those working in agriculture perceive and interpret factors affecting occupational health and safety (their "emic" perspective), and translating this perspective to improve the understanding of occupational health professionals and policy makers (an "etic" perspective), anthropologists can expose myths that limit improvements in agricultural health and safety. Addressing significant questions, working with the most vulnerable agricultural communities, and being outside establishment agriculture provide anthropologists with the opportunity to improve health and safety policy and regulation in agriculture.

["There can be no unnecessary risks"].

PubMed

Ledesma, Enrique

2015-01-01

The psychoanalytical point of view regarding the notion of risks helps us to understand the concept of transference and counter transference. Practice analysis groups provide an opportunity for collective discussion and the sharing of experience of clinical situations. Interview with Didier Gauchy, a psychiatrist-psychoanalyst in Lyon. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

PSYCHOLOGICAL VERSUS SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS OF ETHNOCENTRISM.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

CAMPBELL, DONALD T.; LEVINE, ROBERT A.

A COOPERATIVE CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF ETHNOCENTRISM IS BASED UPON DATA COLLECTED BY ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN VARIOUS GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATIONS. EACH ANTHROPOLOGIST SPENT TWO MONTHS COLLECTING DATA ON TRADITIONAL INTERGROUP RELATIONS, STEREOTYPES, AND HYPOTHETICAL CORRELATES OF RELATED SYMPTOMS OF ETHNOCENTRISM. SOCIETAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES ARE…

Anthropology: Contemporary Perspectives. [And] Instructor's Manual to Accompany Anthropology: Contemporary Perspectives.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hunter, David E., Ed.; Whitten, Phillip, Ed.

Forty-seven articles comprise this reader designed for beginning college students and instructors in an introductory anthropology course. Original contributions from both anthropologists and non-anthropologists are reprinted. The readings, drawn primarily from the popular press but including some of the discipline's "classical" articles, are…

The Closing of the "Bazaar of Cultures": Anthropology as Scapegoat.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Klass, Morton

1990-01-01

Notes Allan Bloom's attack on anthropologists and the concept of cultural relativism. Rejects the idea that the study of other cultures leads to giving up one's own culture. Suggests that Bloom represents a nativistic revitalization movement which has found that anthropologists make excellent scapegoats. (EVL)

Some Issues Concerning Aggression and Violence in Human Beings.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ponton, Elizabeth

1986-01-01

Examines aggression and violence from an interdisciplinary perspective. Humanistic psychologist Rollo May sees violence as the end product of power deprivation. Anthropologists Konrad Lorenz and Robert Ardrey regard aggression as an innate biological drive. Anthropologist Richard Leakey views it as a learned, culturally determined response.…

Adolescents' Conceptualization of Self/Culture in the Wake of Bi-Culturalism: An Exploratory Cross-Cultural Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bandlamudi, Lakshmi

Historically, the definition of culture has been a much debated issue for anthropologists. While some anthropologists define culture as being invisible to the subject, others have conceptualized culture as knowledge and symbol. This study explores the ways in which culture reveals itself to another culture. Subjects (N=24) were first generation…

"All My Relatives Are Noble" - Recovering the Feminine in Ella Cara Deloria's Waterlily

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cotera, Maria Eugenia

2004-01-01

In the early 1940s Dakota anthropologist Ella Deloria began talking to her mentor, feminist anthropologist Ruth Benedict, about the possibility of transforming her ethnographic research into a novel that would bring Plains Indian culture to life for the American reading public. In writing Waterlily, a historical novel that documented early…

American Indian Reader: Anthropology. Book One of a Series in Educational Perspectives.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Henry, Jeannette, Ed.

The anthropological reader about American Indians presents 28 articles dated from 1968 to 1971. It is divided into 4 parts: the anthropologist: the man and the discipline; a giant step between 2 worlds; scientific investigation: archaeology; and early agricultural and economy: 3 studies. Also included are (1) discussion: an anthropologist as…

"The Good Child": Anthropological Perspectives on Morality and Childhood

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fechter, Anne-Meike

2014-01-01

Currently, there is no clearly delineated field that could be described as "the anthropology of morality". There exists, however, an increasingly visible and vocal interest in issues of morality among anthropologists. Although there has been a lack of explicit study, it has become clear that anthropologists have, in fact, been concerned…

Cognitive anthropology is a cognitive science.

PubMed

Boster, James S

2012-07-01

Cognitive anthropology contributes to cognitive science as a complement to cognitive psychology. The chief threat to its survival has not been rejection by other cognitive scientists but by other cultural anthropologists. It will remain a part of cognitive science as long as cognitive anthropologists research, teach, and publish. Copyright © 2012 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Cancer and the Comics: Graphic Narratives and Biolegitimate Lives.

PubMed

McMullin, Juliet

2016-06-01

Cancer graphic narratives, I argue, are part of a medical imaginary that includes representations of difference and biomedical technology that engage Fassin's (2009) concept of biolegitimacy. Framed in three parts, the argument first draws on discourses about cancer graphic narratives from graphic medicine scholars and authors to demonstrate a construction of universal suffering. Second, I examine tropes of hope and difference as a biotechnical embrace. Finally, I consider biosociality within the context of this imaginary and the construction of a meaningful life. Autobiographical graphic narrative as a creative genre that seeks to give voice to individual illness experiences in the context of biomedicine raises anthropological questions about the interplay between the ordinary and biolegitmate. Cancer graphic narratives deconstruct the big events to demonstrate the ordinary ways that a life constructed as different becomes valued through access to medical technologies. © 2014 by the American Anthropological Association.

Applications of Space-Age Technology in Anthropology

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1991-01-01

The papers in this volume were presented at a conference entitled, 'Applications of Space-Age Technology in Anthropology,' held November 28, 1990, at NASA's Science and Technology Laboratory. One reason for this conference was to facilitate information exchange among a diverse group of anthropologists. Much of the research in anthropology that has made use of satellite image processing, geographical information systems, and global positioning systems has been known to only a small group of practitioners. A second reason for this conference was to promote scientific dialogue between anthropologists and professionals outside of anthropology. It is certain that both the development and proper application of new technologies will only result from greater cooperation between technicians and 'end-users.' Anthropologists can provide many useful applications to justify the costs of new technological development.

French and US Army’s dilemma Between Athena and Ares: Keep a Sense of Humanity in a Technological Warfare?

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-06-13

approach describing complexity and friction in warfare is less and less understood by a society developed in a positivist way of mind ( Auguste Comte ). The...Publication (ADRP) 3-07, Stability (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, August 2012). 2Didier Danet and Jean-Paul Hanon, “Digitization and...operations is still a relatively new phenomenon, but one that is gaining traction. In August 2008, a successful ambush against a French company in the

Vendor advertorial issue, 2004

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Agnihotri, Newal

The focus of the July-August issue is on vendor advertorials. Major articles/reports in this issue include: A fascinating technology, by Andy White, GE Energy; Exciting times for the nuclear industry, by John Polcyn, AECL Technologies; SG replacement oversight program, by Ram Prabhakar, Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station; Modifications for improvement, by Herbert Deutschmann, Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate, HSK, Switzerland; and, Human factor approach in engineering, by Laure Quentin, EDF and Didier Niger, UNIPE, France.

Welcome home, Descartes! rethinking the anthropology of the body.

PubMed

Ecks, Stefan

2009-01-01

For many scholars, the Cartesian mind/body split is one of the fundamental mistakes of the Western scientific tradition. Anthropologists who study notions of the body in cultures around the world regularly take Descartes as their point of departure. Many also suggest that breaking free from Descartes is politically liberating: if the mindful body could be rediscovered, society could move away from its materialist, positivist, and commodity-fetishizing ways. Beyond the Body Proper is anthropology's best and most comprehensive anti-Cartesian manifesto to date. This volume brings together some of the finest studies on the cultural and historical diversity of bodies and minds. Yet anthropologists' blanket rejection of the mind/body dualism seems politically self-defeating. If anthropologists want to criticize racism, gender hierarchies, or discrimination against disabled people, they need to believe that the mind is independent from the body. In other words, they need to uphold the Cartesian split.

Workshop Report: Early-Career Anthropologists: Vocation and Occupation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Follis, Karolina S.; Rogler, Christian R.

2015-01-01

Casualisation takes different forms in different academic contexts, from the "adjunctification" of teaching in the U.S.A. to precarious grant-funded postdoc positions common in Europe and the U.K. and the efforts to introduce other forms of temporary academic employment in New Zealand (Shore and Davidson 2014) and Australia (Barcan…

An Anthropologist Explores the Culture of Video Blogging

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Young, Jeffrey R.

2007-01-01

Michael L. Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, was writing a paper about social networking and other interactive tools, which are collectively referred to as Web 2.0, when he decided to make use of the technology to spread his message. So he put together a short video with examples of Web 2.0…

Cesare Lombroso: an anthropologist between evolution and degeneration.

PubMed

Mazzarello, Paolo

2011-01-01

Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) was a prominent Italian medical doctor and intellectual in the second half of the nineteenth century. He became world famous for his theory that criminality, madness and genius were all sides of the same psychobiological condition: an expression of degeneration, a sort of regression along the phylogenetic scale, and an arrest at an early stage of evolution. Degeneration affected criminals especially, in particular the "born delinquent" whose development had stopped at an early stage, making them the most "atavistic" types of human being. Lombroso also advocated the theory that genius was closely linked with madness. A man of genius was a degenerate, an example of retrograde evolution in whom madness was a form of "biological compensation" for excessive intellectual development. To confirm this theory, in August 1897, Lombroso, while attending the Twelfth International Medical Congress in Moscow, decided to meet the great Russian writer Lev Tolstoy in order to directly verify, in him, his theory of degeneration in the genius. Lombroso's anthropological ideas fuelled a heated debate on the biological determinism of human behaviour.

Schooling after Childhood: The Schooling Rituals of Anthropologists.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Singleton, John

The paper explores the social and cultural processes in the schooling rituals of graduate students in anthropology. Four areas of concern are noted. The first area concerns rites of passage and professional competence. The author explains that the period of graduate professional schooling represents the second stage of a rite of passage after one…

[Julian Talko-Hryncewicz--physician, anthropologist and Siberia explorer].

PubMed

Supady, Jerzy

2007-01-01

Julian Talko-Hryncewicz was born in Polish family of noble descent in Lithuania in 1850. He graduated from University in Kiev with diploma in medicine in 1876. He begun his practice in Zwinogródka in Ukraine. He left to Siberia in 1891 where he got the job of regional physician in the town Troickosowsk. He got back to Poland to run the Department of Anthropology at the Jagiellonian University in 1809. During the First World War he organised the Buriacki Field Hospital (1915-1917) in Petersburg. In the independent Poland he got back to the Jagiellonian University where he published many medical and anthropological publications. He died in Cracow in 1936.

Science and miscegenation in the early twentieth century: Edgard Roquette-Pinto's debates and controversies with US physical anthropology.

PubMed

Souza, Vanderlei Sebastião de

2016-01-01

The article analyzes Brazilian anthropologist Edgard Roquette-Pinto's participation in the international debate that involved the field of physical anthropology and discussions on miscegenation in the first decades of the twentieth century. Special focus is on his readings and interpretations of a group of US anthropologists and eugenicists and his controversies with them, including Charles Davenport, Madison Grant, and Franz Boas. The article explores the various ways in which Roquette-Pinto interpreted and incorporated their ideas and how his anthropological interpretations took on new meanings when they moved beyond Brazil's borders.

[Anthropology at the heart of medicine].

PubMed

Vidal, Laurent

2008-10-01

Anthropology and medicine share many concerns, but have had trouble collaborating in the past. The anthropologist has had to plead both with his colleagues and physicians to move beyond a < culturalist > vision that would confine him to the study of traditional or alternative medicines and representations of populations and the sick. The anthropologist's approach perceived as intrusive has also raised fears in the medical world. These reciprocal misunderstandings and stereotypes need to be overcome by an anthropology that studies the practices and knowledge of modern medicine as they are elaborated daily. Anthropology will dialogue with medicine without judging it. In its turn, medicine will open its sites of healing and teaching to the anthropologist. Anthropology at the heart of medicine is organized around the idea that the paths and expectations of health professionals reflect the specicifities of the local system of health. The individual dimensions of practices cannot be divorced from the functioning of structures of health and decision. Finally, like any other kind of anthropology, medical anthropology must scrutinize its own methods and ethics in a critical way.

In search of racial types: soldiers and the anthropological mapping of the Romanian nation, 1914–44

PubMed Central

TURDA, MARIUS

2013-01-01

Turda’s article explores the diverse ways in which racial research conducted on prisoners-of-war (POWs) and soldiers contributed to the emergence of anthropological narratives of national identity in Romania between 1914 and 1944. It first discusses racial typologies produced by Austrian, German, Italian and Polish anthropologists investigating POWs during the First World War, and then examines how Romanian physicians and anthropologists engaged with these typologies while refining their own scientific and nationalist agendas. An essential corollary to this development was a strong commitment to the cultivation of distinct Romanian racial types. The interwar and Second World War periods witnessed the full flowering of a Romanian race science that accommodated a racial hierarchy as the basis for national difference. Moreover, by identifying the racial types purportedly constituting the Romanian nation, anthropologists not only hoped to develop a systematic racial inventory of Romania’s ethnic communities, but also to reinforce the myth of ethnogenesis, which described the Romanians as worthy of their noble European origins and legitimized their territorial claims. PMID:24363459

Anthropology in public health emergencies: what is anthropology good for?

PubMed Central

Beshar, Isabel; Bedford, Juliet; du Cros, Philipp; Stringer, Beverley

2018-01-01

Recent outbreaks of Ebola virus disease (2013–2016) and Zika virus (2015–2016) bring renewed recognition of the need to understand social pathways of disease transmission and barriers to care. Social scientists, anthropologists in particular, have been recognised as important players in disease outbreak response because of their ability to assess social, economic and political factors in local contexts. However, in emergency public health response, as with any interdisciplinary setting, different professions may disagree over methods, ethics and the nature of evidence itself. A disease outbreak is no place to begin to negotiate disciplinary differences. Given increasing demand for anthropologists to work alongside epidemiologists, clinicians and public health professionals in health crises, this paper gives a basic introduction to anthropological methods and seeks to bridge the gap in disciplinary expectations within emergencies. It asks: ‘What can anthropologists do in a public health crisis and how do they do it?’ It argues for an interdisciplinary conception of emergency and the recognition that social, psychological and institutional factors influence all aspects of care. PMID:29607097

Anthropology in public health emergencies: what is anthropology good for?

PubMed

Stellmach, Darryl; Beshar, Isabel; Bedford, Juliet; du Cros, Philipp; Stringer, Beverley

2018-01-01

Recent outbreaks of Ebola virus disease (2013-2016) and Zika virus (2015-2016) bring renewed recognition of the need to understand social pathways of disease transmission and barriers to care. Social scientists, anthropologists in particular, have been recognised as important players in disease outbreak response because of their ability to assess social, economic and political factors in local contexts. However, in emergency public health response, as with any interdisciplinary setting, different professions may disagree over methods, ethics and the nature of evidence itself. A disease outbreak is no place to begin to negotiate disciplinary differences. Given increasing demand for anthropologists to work alongside epidemiologists, clinicians and public health professionals in health crises, this paper gives a basic introduction to anthropological methods and seeks to bridge the gap in disciplinary expectations within emergencies. It asks: 'What can anthropologists do in a public health crisis and how do they do it?' It argues for an interdisciplinary conception of emergency and the recognition that social, psychological and institutional factors influence all aspects of care.

Introduction

PubMed Central

Taussig, Karen-Sue; Gibbon, Sahra Elizabeth

2013-01-01

We introduce this special issue of Medial Anthropology Quarterly on public health genomics by exploring both the unique contribution of ethnographic sensibility that medical anthropologists bring to the study of genomics and some of the key insights offered by the essays in this collection. As anthropologists, we are concerned with the power dynamics and larger cultural commitments embedded in practices associated with public health. We seek to understand, first, the broad significance of genomics as a cultural object and, second, the social action set into motion as researchers seek to translate genomic knowledge and technology into public health benefits. PMID:24214906

An Anthropologist's Reflections on Defining Quality in Education Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tobin, Joseph

2007-01-01

In the USA there is a contemporary discourse of crisis about the state of education and a parallel discourse that lays a large portion of the blame onto the poor quality of educational research. The solution offered is "scientific research." This article presents critiques of the core assumptions of the scientific research as secure argument.…

A New Metaphor for Teaching: Science Teacher as Anthropologist.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hodson, Derek

This paper addresses problems inherent in traditional science teaching and argues that the pitfalls of assimilation and exclusion can be avoided by adopting an anthropological approach: regarding scientists as a sub-cultural group with its own language and ways of thinking about, investigating, and explaining phenomena and events, its distinctive…

An Anthropologist Examines the Navy’s Recruiting Process.

DTIC Science & Technology

1981-12-01

world ." So why does an Hispanic choose the Navy? "Mainly I think it’s because the image of the Navy has changed. There used to be a World War Two...after the Second World War . From this first stream of migrants branched a second, comprised of people who did most of the manual labor in the construc...Hispanics there was a higher military participation in World War Two and the Korean War , and these experiences had significant acculturating effects

RACE RELATIONSHIPS: COLLEGIALITY AND DEMARCATION IN PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY.

PubMed

Sachs Collopy, Peter

2015-01-01

In 1962, anthropologist Carleton Coon argued in The Origin of Races that some human races had evolved further than others. Among his most vocal critics were geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky and anthropologist Ashley Montagu, each of whom had known Coon for decades. I use this episode, and the long relationships between scientists that preceded it, to argue that scientific research on race was intertwined not only with political projects to conserve or reform race relations, but also with the relationships scientists shared as colleagues. Demarcation between science and pseudoscience, between legitimate research and scientific racism, involved emotional as well as intellectual labor. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The role of forensic anthropology in mass disaster resolution.

PubMed

Hinkes, M J

1989-07-01

On Dec.12, 1985, a military charter DC-8 crashed shortly after takeoff at Gander, Nfld., Canada. All 256 aboard were killed, making this the deadliest U.S. military aircraft accident in history. The investigation team (consisting of forensic pathologists, odontologists, radiologists, anthropologists, graves registration personnel, and systems engineers) succeeded in identifying the remains of all 248 manifested passengers and 8 crewmembers. The unique contribution of anthropology necessitates that a forensic anthropologist be included in all phases of casualty resolution from recovery and initial processing to final evaluation, rather than being summoned as a last resort. This approach would yield immediate information on "unknowns" and would eliminate subsequent duplication of effort.

The new biological anthropology: bringing Washburn's new physical anthropology into 2010 and beyond--the 2008 AAPA luncheon lecture.

PubMed

Fuentes, Agustin

2010-01-01

Nearly 60 years ago, Sherwood Washburn issued a call for a "New Physical Anthropology," a transition from measurement and classification toward a focus on the processes and mechanisms of evolutionary change. He advocated multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to the understanding of human behavior, biology, and history. Many interpret this as a call for a practice that is both biological and anthropological. Is this what we do? Are we biological anthropologists yet? In this essay, I explore what we, Physical Anthropologists, as a discipline are doing in the context of a New Physical Anthropology, where we might be headed, and why this discussion is crucial to our relevance. Copyright © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

78 FR 2433 - Notice of Inventory Completion: Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, Fort Collins, CO

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-01-11

... Discovery). Although specific provenience of the human remains is unknown, osteological analysis conducted by physical anthropologists and by independent forensic scientists determined that the remains are of...

A Brief History of Media Anthropology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eiselein, E. B.; Topper, Martin

1976-01-01

Media and anthropology have been inalienably linked since the beginning of anthropology. Anthropologists have experimented with a variety of media to communicate anthropology to new audiences. (Author)

'Freud's speculations in ethnology': A reflection on anthropology's encounter with psychoanalysis.

PubMed

Rivera, Patrick S

2017-06-01

In the early 20th century, many analysts - Freud and Ernest Jones in particular - were confident that cultural anthropologists would demonstrate the universal nature of the Oedipus complex and other unconscious phenomena. Collaboration between the two disciplines, however, was undermined by a series of controversies surrounding the relationship between psychology and culture. This paper re-examines the three episodes that framed anthropology's early encounter with psychoanalysis, emphasizing the important works and their critical reception. Freud's Totem and Taboo began the interdisciplinary dialogue, but it was Bronislaw Malinowski's embrace of psychoanalysis - a development anticipated through a close reading of his personal diaries - that marked a turning point in relations between the two disciplines. Malinowski argued that an avuncular (rather than an Oedipal) complex existed in the Trobriand Islands. Ernest Jones' critical dismissal of this theory alienated Malinowski from psychoanalysis and ended ethnographers' serious exploration of Freudian thought. A subsequent ethnographic movement, 'culture and personality,' was erroneously seen by many anthropologists as a product of Freudian theory. When 'culture and personality' was abandoned, anthropologists believed that psychoanalysis had been discredited as well - a narrative that still informs the historiography of the discipline and its rejection of psychoanalytical theory. Copyright © 2017 Institute of Psychoanalysis.

Forensic anthropology in Europe: an assessment of current status and application.

PubMed

Kranioti, Elena; Paine, Robert

2011-01-01

Forensic anthropology is the discipline that traditionally deals with the examination of human remains for legal purposes and it derives from the fields of anatomy, physical anthropology and forensic medicine. For more than a century, forensic anthropologists in the United States have been offering their services in the court of law complementing the medico-legal investigation of other forensic professionals. The current status in European countries is presented here. The development of forensic anthropology varies significantly among the countries of Europe. Whereas some countries show a long history of research activity in the forensic sciences, including forensic anthropology (i.e. France, Germany and Spain), others are exhibiting a recent, rapid development (i.e. United Kingdom). In some cases, forensic anthropologists are employed within the academic realm (i.e. U.K., Denmark, Portugal, Turkey), forensic institutions (Netherlands) or government organizations (Spain, Hungary), although the vast majority of them remain limited to freelance activities on a sporadic basis. Often, European scientists that deal with skeletal remains come from nonphysical anthropology disciplines such as archaeology, forensic medicine and biology. In many cases they do not have adequate training equivalent to the forensic anthropologists in the USA. Naturally, without common training and a common legal system, an accreditation system for Europe will be difficult to implement.

To Fairly Tell: Social Mobility, Life Histories, and the Anthropologist

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Benei, Veronique

2010-01-01

This article focuses on social agents' own understandings of socio-economic mobility and social achievement, exploring the possibilities offered by the tool of "family" life history in the context of formerly Untouchable communities in western India, Maharashtra. While arguing in favour of family life histories as both resource and…

75 FR 36676 - Notice of Inventory Completion: Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Jefferson City, MO

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-06-28

... forensic anthropologist at the University of Missouri, Columbia, who in turn notified the Department of... to the wishes of the tribe, analysis was confined to confirmation of Native American ancestry, and...

Reconciling "stress" and "health" in physical anthropology: what can bioarchaeologists learn from the other subdisciplines?

PubMed

Reitsema, Laurie J; McIlvaine, Britney Kyle

2014-10-01

The concepts of "stress" and "health" are foundational in physical anthropology as guidelines for interpreting human behavior and biocultural adaptation in the past and present. Though related, stress and health are not coterminous, and while the term "health" encompasses some aspects of "stress," health refers to a more holistic condition beyond just physiological disruption, and is of considerable significance in contributing to anthropologists' understanding of humanity's lived experiences. Bioarchaeological interpretations of human health generally are made from datasets consisting of skeletal markers of stress, markers that result from (chronic) physiological disruption (e.g., porotic hyperostosis; linear enamel hypoplasia). Non-specific indicators of stress may measure episodes of stress and indicate that infection, disease, or nutritional deficiencies were present in a population, but in assessing these markers, bioarchaeologists are not measuring "health" in the same way as are human biologists, medical anthropologists, or primatologists. Rather than continue to diverge on separate (albeit parallel) trajectories, bioarchaeologists are advised to pursue interlinkages with other subfields within physical anthropology toward bridging "stress" and "health." The papers in this special symposium set include bioarchaeologists, human biologists, molecular anthropologists, and primatologists whose research develops this link between the concepts of "stress" and "health," encouraging new avenues for bioarchaeologists to consider and reconsider health in past human populations. Copyright © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

"Doctor, Why Didn't You Adopt My Baby?" Observant Participation, Care, and the Simultaneous Practice of Medicine and Anthropology.

PubMed

Sufrin, Carolyn

2015-12-01

Medical anthropology has long appreciated the clinical encounter as a rich source of data and a key site for critical inquiry. It is no surprise, then, that a number of physician-anthropologists have used their clinical insights to make important contributions to the field. How does this duality challenge and enhance the moral practice and ethics of care inherent both to ethnography and to medicine? How do bureaucratic and professional obligations of HIPAA and the IRB intersect with aspirations of anthropology to understand human experience and of medicine to heal with compassion? In this paper, I describe my simultaneous fieldwork and clinical practice at an urban women's jail in the United States. In this setting, being a physician facilitates privileged access to people and spaces within, garners easy trust, and enables an insider perspective more akin to observant participation than participant observation. Through experiences of delivering the infants of incarcerated pregnant women and of being with the mothers as they navigate drug addiction, child custody battles, and re-incarceration, the roles of doctor and anthropologist become mutually constitutive and transformative. Moreover, the dual practice reveals congruities and cracks in each discipline's ethics of care. Being an anthropologist among informants who may have been patients reworks expectations of care and necessitates ethical practice informed by the dual roles.

[Anthropology and synthetic Darwinism in the Third Reich: The Evolution of Organisms (1943)].

PubMed

Hossfeld, Uwe; Junker, Thomas

2003-03-01

This essay will analyse early attempts to base anthropology on the theoretical model provided by the emerging synthetic Darwinism of the 1940s. In the first section we will investigate the historical context of the publication of one of the central documents of synthetic Darwinism in Germany: Gerhard Heberer's Die Evolution der Organismen (1943). Anthropology was covered extensively in this book. The second section will give an impression of the live and work of the five anthropologists represented in Heberer's book: Christian von Krogh, Wilhelm Gieseler, Otto Reche, Hans Weinert, and Gerhard Heberer. The third part of our paper will clarify whether these anthropologists shared a common theoretical outlook with the founders of synthetic Darwinism, and to what degree they were committed to the racial ideas of the Third Reich.

Chillihuani's Culture of Respect and the Circle of Courage

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bolin, Inge

2010-01-01

A Canadian anthropologist describes how "rituals of respect" permeate the indigenous culture of a remote mountainous village in Peru. When children's needs for belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity are met, they thrive and achieve their full potential.

Contribution of Forensic Anthropology to Identification Process in Croatia: Examples of Victims Recovered in Wells

PubMed Central

Šlaus, Mario; Strinović, Davor; Petrovečki, Vedrana; Vyroubal, Vlasta

2007-01-01

Aim To describe the contribution of forensic anthropology to the recovery, analysis, and identification of victims from the 1991-1995 war in Croatia recovered in wells. Methods From 1996 to the present, human remains of a total of 61 individuals have been recovered from 13 wells. Six wells contained the remains of a single individual, one well contained the remains of 2 individuals, and 6 wells contained the remains 3 or more individuals. The majority of wells, containing 90.2% (55/61) of recovered individuals, were located within a 4 km radius of the Croatian-Serbian border. Results Forensic anthropologists re-individualized 26/61 (42.6%) individuals out of skeletonized and commingled remains, provided basic biological data on sex, age-at-death, and stature in all identifications (n = 37), as well as established positive identification by recognizing unique skeletal features (antemortem fractures and skeletal evidence of antemortem surgical interventions) in 3/37 (8.1%) cases. Trauma analyses carried out by forensic anthropologists contributed to the determination of the cause of death in 38/61 (62.3%) individuals and to the probable cause of death in an additional 18/61 (29.5%) individuals. The most frequent (27/38, 71.0%) type of trauma causing death in individuals recovered from wells was a single gunshot wound. Conclusion Forensic anthropologists, collaborating closely with forensic pathologists, forensic odontologists, forensic radiologists, criminologists, and molecular biologists contributed significantly to trauma analysis and identification of war victims recovered from wells. PMID:17696305

Cable Television: Applied Anthropology in a New Town

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Topper, Martin D.; Wilson, W. Leigh

1976-01-01

The anthropologist's role in using cable television as a tool of applied anthropology in a new town was examined. The project's purpose was to give a group of people a new usage for a communications medium. (Author/NQ)

Filming The Man Hunters

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hockings, Paul

1976-01-01

"The Man Hunters" is a film about paleoanthropology. This article is a personal account of how the film was put together using anthropological knowledge and numerous anthropologists and how the film was received by the American public. (Author)

Reflections on the future of anthropology.

PubMed

Sosa, Richard

2009-12-01

In his plenary session entitled Five Questions on the Future, Harvard anthropologist Arthur Kleinman capitalized on the 2009 Society for Medical Anthropology Conference's theme of Medical Anthropology at the Intersections to speculate on the future of the discipline.

Navigating Diagnoses: Understanding Mind–Body Relations, Mental Health, and Stigma in Nepal

PubMed Central

Harper, Ian

2013-01-01

Anthropologists and psychiatrists traditionally have used the salience of a mind–body dichotomy to distinguish Western from non-Western ethnopsychologies. However, despite claims of mind–body holism in non-Western cultures, mind–body divisions are prominent in non-Western groups. In this article, we discuss three issues: the ethnopsychology of mind–body dichotomies in Nepal, the relationship between mind–body dichotomies and the hierarchy of resort in a medical pluralistic context, and, lastly, the role of mind–body dichotomies in public health interventions (biomedical and psychosocial) aimed toward decreasing the stigmatization of mental illness. We assert that, by understanding mind–body relations in non-Western settings, their implications, and ways in which to reconstitute these relations in a less stigmatizing manner, medical anthropologists and mental health workers can contribute to the reduction of stigma in global mental healthcare. PMID:18784989

75 FR 5105 - Notice of Inventory Completion: Western Michigan University, Anthropology Department, Kalamazoo, MI

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-02-01

... University, Anthropology Department, Kalamazoo, MI AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior. ACTION: Notice... objects in the possession of Western Michigan University, Anthropology Department, Kalamazoo, MI. The... analysis. Dr. Robert Sundick, a physical anthropologist in the Anthropology Department at Western Michigan...

Millennium Mindsets.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kaye, Beverly L.

1999-01-01

Describes primary career mindsets that characterize the next millennium: inquirer, imaginer, player, congruence seeker, feedback junkie, reputation regulator, change chaser, trend tracker, alert anthropologist, global framer, accomplished juggler, ambiguity survivor, risk taker, anxiety appreciator, and aha! seeker. (Author/JOW)

75 FR 45658 - Notice of Inventory Completion: Museum of Cultural and Natural History, Central Michigan...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-08-03

... Cultural and Natural History, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI; Correction AGENCY: National... Natural History, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI. The human remains and associated funerary... History professional staff and physical anthropologists from Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI...

Reflections on the Future of Anthropology

PubMed Central

Sosa, Richard

2009-01-01

In his plenary session entitled Five Questions on the Future, Harvard anthropologist Arthur Kleinman capitalized on the 2009 Society for Medical Anthropology Conference’s theme of Medical Anthropology at the Intersections to speculate on the future of the discipline. PMID:20027285

78 FR 65370 - Notice of Inventory Completion: Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, Tucson, AZ

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-10-31

... Office for forensic analysis. The Pinal County Medical Examiner, Dr Rebecca Hsu, transferred the remains... were transferred to Pinal County Medical Examiner's Office for forensic analysis. The Pinal County.... Bruce Anderson, Forensic Anthropologist, PCOME, Tucson, AZ 85714, telephone (520) 243-8600...

A Historical Overview for the MX Base Expansion, Clovis, New Mexico.

DTIC Science & Technology

1981-07-01

Bailey 1960-1981 L. R. Baxter 1952-1960 H. C. Delaney 1941-1952 Estelle Ruhlman 1913-1941 (Patentee) * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SW!: Richard M...pany, Portales. Collins, Michael B. 1971 A review of Llano Estacado arciaeology and ethnohistory. Plains Anthropologist 16(52):85. Crocchiola, F. Stanley

Child Care: Exploring Private and Public Sector Approaches. Hearing before the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families. House of Representatives, Ninety-Eighth Congress, Second Session (San Francisco, CA, June 18, 1984).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Congress of the U.S., Washington, DC. House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families.

Testimony was heard concerning unmet needs for child care and current child care policy. Appearing before the Committee were California government officials, agency administrators and directors, school district officials, psychologists, anthropologists, and other researcher/practitioners, doctors, lawyers, parents, and children. Testimony covered…

The Study of Small Groups and Microevolution: A Project for Physical Anthropology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rice, Patricia C.

1985-01-01

Describes a hands-on project in which anthropology students play the role of professional physical anthropologist in collecting and analyzing data on a small group of contemporary humans. Use of simulated data to represent ancestral populations results in an analysis of microevolution. (KH)

Crossing boundaries to improve mental health in the Americas: international collaborative authorship.

PubMed

Killion, Chery M

2007-01-01

A nurse anthropologist with a background in international collaborations attended Project LEAD for two years, which enabled her to continue to serve as an advocate for the mentally ill in Belize. The anthropologist collaborated with a psychiatrist from Belize to develop a cross-cultural, cross-discipline publication, "Mental Health in Belize: A National Priority, " which highlights the work of psychiatric nurse practitioners in the country. The researcher learned to collaborate with her peer in Belize through face to face discussions and e-mail and overcame technological difficulties and cultural barriers to produce an international publication. Project LEAD gave the author a sense of self-discovery and self-knowledge, reinforced core values, and developed a frame of reference for leadership. The author also benefited from discussions by local, national, and international leaders on leadership in terms of its key components, contexts, challenges, triumphs, and styles.

Dell H. Hymes: His Scholarship and Legacy in Anthropology and Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hornberger, Nancy H., Ed.

2011-01-01

Dell Hathaway Hymes, linguistic anthropologist and educational visionary extraordinaire, passed away in November 2009, leaving behind a voluminous scholarship and inspirational legacy in the study of language and inequality, ethnography, sociolinguistics, Native American ethnopoetics, and education. This essay provides a brief account of Hymes's…

Moments of Teaching and Learning in a Children's Hospital: Affects, Textures, and Temporalities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ehret, Christian

2018-01-01

Although nonrepresentational theory has enriched anthropologists' understanding of affect in social and cultural life, it has a short history in education research, where representational paradigms dominate. This article develops nonrepresentational theories of moments, temporal textures, and affective pedagogies in order to evoke affects of…

Essential Skills for Principals.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Terry, Paul M.

1999-01-01

No matter what standards they follow, principals must be skilled team builders, instructional leaders, and visionary risk-takers. There are five emerging roles: historian, cheerleader, lightning rod, landscaper (environmental scanner), and anthropologist. To succeed, principals must be empowered by districts, become authentic leaders, and make…

A Study of the Need for Cross-Cultural Capability Development in the Members of the United States Military

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-06-16

past. According to cultural anthropologist Montgomery McFate, “Our ethnocentrism , biased assumptions and mirror-imagining have had negative outcomes...Center is staffed by experts in the field of culture and has accumulated volumes of culturally relevant information to assist Air Force members in

More Clever than the Devil: "Ujanja" as Schooling Strategy in Tanzania

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vavrus, Frances

2015-01-01

This article explores the concept of "cleverness" as it is employed by Tanzanian youth to improve their likelihood of succeeding in school. It analyzes the Swahili term "ujanja," which combines cleverness, opportunism, and deception, while it also illustrates an educational anthropologist's ongoing process of familiarization…

An Anthropological View of the Change in Attitudes toward Mental Illnesses and Physical Handicaps.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ross, John Alan

1983-01-01

Anthropologists contend that throughout man's history mental illness has been part of all cultures, and, universally, peoples had taxonomies that classified such maladies. Primitive peoples were better able to treat culturally-defined mental illnesses and could, consequently, accommodate behaviors which in Western cultures would require…

Santa Muerte: Threatening the U.S. Homeland

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-03-08

7 Religious Transmutation ...Religious Transmutation Similarly, a small number of anthropologists do not support the notorious claims about Santa Muerte. They believe that...Muerte, it is no wonder that the religion is spreading globally. Random Terror Slave holding, sexual activity with minors, kidnapping, and

Anthropology and America

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldschmidt, Walter

1976-01-01

Traces anthropology as a discipline from its origins in the 19th century to the present, defines the areas of interest of physical and cultural anthropologists, reviews major anthropological works, and identifies contributions made to American anthropology by sociology, psychology, and economics. (Author/DB)

Immersion, Immigration, Immutability: Regimes of Learning and Politics of Labeling in Study Abroad

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doerr, Neriko Musha; Suarez, Richard

2018-01-01

This article investigates how the use of the term "immersion" to describe one's experience abroad performatively interpellates individuals and reproduces power relations. A collaboration between an anthropologist (Doerr) and a study-abroad student (Suarez), it analyzes the student's interpretation of three types of experience he had in…

Culture, Education, Anthropology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Varenne, Herve

2008-01-01

This article argues that the anthropology of education must focus on what people do to educate themselves outside the constraints constituting the problematics of schooling. Anthropologists must do this precisely to fulfill their public role as legitimate participants in the conversations about understanding and transforming schooling. When…

AnthroNotes: Museum of Natural History Publications for Educators, 2002.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Selig, Ruth O., Ed.; Brooks, Alison S., Ed.; Lanouette, JoAnne, Ed.

2002-01-01

The journal is intended for anthropologists, archaeologists, teachers, museum and other professionals interested in the wider dissemination of anthropology, particularly in schools. It offers in-depth articles on current anthropological research, teaching activities, and reviews of new resources. The winter/spring issue contains four sections: (1)…

Women in History--Maria Montessori

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zierdt, Ginger L.

2007-01-01

This article profiles Maria Montessori, an international ambassador for children who became known for her theories and methods of pedagogy, called the "Montessori Method." Montessori developed an educational theory, which combined ideas of scholar Froebel, anthropologists Giuseooe Serge, French physicians Jean Itard and Edouard Sequin,…

Contact and Connection: A Cross-Cultural Look at Parenting Styles in Bali and the United States

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kestenberg-Amighi, Janet

2004-01-01

This article argues that a culturally approved style of nonverbal parent-infant interaction influences the unfolding parent-child relationship and the child's social development. The author, an anthropologist, compares parenting styles in the "low-contact" culture of the United States with parenting in the "high-contact"…

Community-Based Research and Student Development: An Interview with Trisha Thorme

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Shea, Joseph

2012-01-01

A growing number of universities have implemented community-based research pedagogy into their undergraduate education. Integrating academic training with community engagement has the potential to engage students in a way volunteering may not. This interview with Trisha Thorme, an anthropologist and assistant director of Princeton University's…

76 FR 14052 - Notice of Inventory Completion: Sabine River Authority of Texas, Quitman, TX

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-03-15

... associated funerary objects are non-human bone fragments. Dr. Harrell Gill-King, Anthropologist, University... the determinations in this notice. A detailed assessment of the human remains was made by University... sent the remains to the University of North Texas, Denton, TX, for forensic evaluation. The human...

Working with Child Prostitutes in Thailand: Problems of Practice and Interpretation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Montgomery, Heather

2007-01-01

Conducting anthropological fieldwork on the emotive issue of child prostitution raises difficult issues for anthropologists and other researchers. This article examines the ethical dilemmas of working with these extremely vulnerable children, focusing on the difference between the researcher's own interpretations and those given by the children…

Listening to Girls Talk about Their Bodies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nichter, Mimi

2000-01-01

This article, written by an anthropologist who has studied the culture of teenage girls, explores influences on their sense of self, including those of peers, parents, and the media. Educators and parents can play important roles in helping young people navigate successfully through adolescence. (Author/MKA)

A Current Appraisal of the Behavioral Sciences, Revised Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Handy, Rollo; Harwood, E. C.

This book discusses modern scientific inquiry and examines the procedures of inquiry into human behavior used in the behavioral science disciplines. Psychologists look at the individual's adjustive procedures and the evolution of those adjustments within a species. Anthropologists inquire into the behavioral similarities and differences of human…

From Hometown to Nontown: Rural Community Effects of Suburbanization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salamon, Sonya

2003-01-01

Regional suburbanization processes are transforming rural America socially and physically, threatening the uniqueness of small towns whose diversity is a national resource. This article reviews existing holistic descriptions of American rural communities since post-World War II by rural sociologists and anthropologists. Three new community case…

European Influences on the Theory and Philosophy of Viktor Lowenfeld.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Michael, John A.; Morris, Jerry W.

1985-01-01

Discusses how the work of art theorists, art educators, psychologists, and anthropologists who were predecessors or contemporaries of Viktor Lowenfeld influenced Lowenfeld's philosophy and theory of art education. Included are Friedrich Froebel, James Sully, Franz Cizek, Siegfried Levinstein, Max Verworn, Walter Krotzsch, George Luquet, and Karl…

From Fiction to Field Notes: Observing Ibo Culture in "Things Fall Apart."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schur, Joan Brodsky

1997-01-01

Demonstrates how introducing students to African literature can appeal to their imaginations and encourage them to develop their insights into African culture. Outlines the procedures in a middle school class where the students are transformed into anthropologists as they read Chinua Achebe's, "Things Fall Apart." (MJP)

Barriers and Opportunities for America's Young Black Men. Hearing before the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families. House of Representatives, One Hundred First Congress, First Session.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Congress of the U.S., Washington, DC. House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families.

This document discusses a hearing which concerns the needs of America's young black men who live in city neighborhoods with little or no opportunity for meaningful employment or educational success. Economists, educators, psychologists, anthropologists, and community activists testified on both the structural barriers that restrict young black…

The Creation and Maintenance of a "Learning-Loving Minority" in Conventional High Schools: A Research-Based Response to John Ogbu

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Matusov, Eugene; DePalma, Renee; Smith, Mark Philip

2010-01-01

This research focuses on the adaptation strategies of students from an innovative elementary school run as a community of learners who have been involuntarily "thrown into" competitive, credentialism-based high schools. We apply the anthropologist John Ogbu's comparative historico-ecological framework of "minority" to the innovative school…

Phonetics and Other Disciplines: Then and Now.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bronstein, Arthur J.; Raphael, Lawrence J.

Phonetic science is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. Phoneticians rely on, or at least collaborate with, sociologists, psychologists, biologists, poets, physicists, anthropologists, neurologists and others. A look at the history of phonetics reveals that this seemingly recent trend has deep roots. In fact, it is possible to draw parallels…

Cultural Relevance and Educational Issues: Readings in Anthropology and Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ianni, Francis A. J., Ed.; Storey, Edward, Ed.

The recent activity of anthropologists whose primary interest are in education and of educators whose orientation is anthropological suggests this division of labor: The first division, "anthropology and education," is the most expansive and the least specific. A second, "anthropology in education," concerns the anthropological presence, whether…

The Globalizing Labor Market in Education: Teachers as Cultural Ambassadors or Agents of Institutional Isomorphism?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Kara D.; Stevick, Doyle

2014-01-01

Institutional isomorphists and other proponents of world culture theory argue that schools around the world are converging in many ways, whereas anthropologists and others question this conclusion, often arguing that local cultural differences belie superficial similarities. These viewpoints are not merely academic explanations of the spread and…

Reliable and Valid Stories?--Turning Ethnographic Data into Narratives.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bishop, Wendy

Ethnographic research projects have surged in recent years and are well represented in Research in the Teaching of English (RTE) bibliographies. However, methods texts were written for social scientists and anthropologists, not for writing researchers. Methods texts and rhetoric programs' general grounding in positivistic research imply that…

Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume 5.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Siegel, Bernard J., Ed.; And Others

Seventeen articles focus on current research interests of anthropologists. The volume is part of a five-year project designed to identify interesting directions in physical, linguistic, archaeological, social, and cultural anthropology. Covering a wide range of anthropological subjects, the articles discuss a history of physical anthropology,…

SOME CURRENT PROBLEMS IN SECOND-LANGUAGE TEACHING.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

WARDHAUGH, RONALD

ALTHOUGH THE LINGUISTS, PSYCHOLOGISTS, AND TEACHERS WHO HAVE STRESSED THE HABITUAL ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE HAVE MADE MANY USEFUL CONTRIBUTIONS TO LINGUISTIC RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE TEACHING, THERE STILL REMAIN SOME BASIC PROBLEMS. WITH THE PSYCHOLOGIST, PEDAGOGUE, SOCIOLOGIST, AND ANTHROPOLOGIST, THE LINGUIST MUST ATTACK THE GROUP OF PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED…

[The dialogues between anthropology and health: contributions to public policies].

PubMed

Langdon, Esther Jean

2014-04-01

In order to examine the development of anthropological paradigms and their dialogue with medicine, I divide the discussion into two general, but non-exclusive, approaches: one that focuses on health and disease as social and cultural experience and construction, and another that examines health from an interactional and political perspective. For the first approach, I focus on North American and French theories that find resonance in the anthropological dialogue in Brazil. For the second political approach, the discussion originates in the dialogue among anthropologists in Latin America who have been developing models to contribute to an interdisciplinary approach necessary for health policies and intervention in health. The concepts of practices in self-care and intermedicality, among others, are explored due to their contribution in anthropology to public policies in health. These anthropologists have argued that health practices should be understood through the notions of autonomy, collectivity, agency and praxis, as opposed to the notions of the biomedical perspective characterized as being universalist, biological, individualist and a-historical.

Historical Trends in Graduate Research and Training of Diplomates of the American Board of Forensic Anthropology.

PubMed

Bethard, Jonathan D

2017-01-01

The history of forensic anthropology has been documented by numerous scholars. These contributions have described the work of early pioneers in the field and have described important milestones, such as the founding of the Physical Anthropology Section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) in 1972 and the American Board of Forensic Anthropology (ABFA) in 1977. This paper contributes to the growing literature on the history of forensic anthropology by documenting the academic training of all individuals who have been granted diplomate status by the ABFA (n = 115). Doctoral dissertation titles were queried to discern broad patterns of research foci. A total of 39 doctoral granting institutions have trained diplomates and 77.3% of board-certified forensic anthropologists wrote dissertations involving skeletal biology, bioarchaeology, or forensic anthropology. Board-certified forensic anthropologists are a broadly trained group of professionals with far-reaching anthropological interests and expertise. © 2016 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

'Between a rock and a hard place': applied anthropology and AIDS research on a commercial farm in Zambia.

PubMed

Bond, V

1997-01-01

Fieldwork on a commercial farm in southern Zambia, which was aimed at designing an HIV prevention program for farm workers, gradually exposed the nature of sexual liaisons between young girls, coming to work on the farm from the surrounding villages, and older migrant men workers. Before completing fieldwork, the anthropologist voiced her concern about the implications of these liaisons for the spread of STDs and HIV with the local rural community, farm management and farm workers. The immediate outcome of her intercessions was the decision by management to sack under-age workers. Although some members of the local community, including local research assistants, and some managers and workers welcomed this decision, others were angered by it. Caught between interest groups and conflicting guidelines, the anthropologist, it is argued, was in a no-win situation, 'between a rock and a hard place'. The paper proposes that the application of anthropological ethics in AIDS research needs some re-evaluation.

Traumatic injury pattern analysis in a light rail transit death: a retrospective case study.

PubMed

Kendell, Ashley E; Fleischman, Julie M; Fulginiti, Laura C

2015-05-01

Within the context of medical examiner's offices, forensic anthropologists are increasingly being asked to assist with the interpretation of traumatic skeletal injury. This case study presents an example of trauma analysis performed by forensic anthropologists at the Maricopa County Forensic Science Center in Phoenix, Arizona. The primary goal of this study is to document an uncommon pattern of traumatic injury-severe grinding abrasions of the lower appendage that macroscopically resemble sharp force trauma, especially as observed in dismemberment cases-resulting from an individual being dragged beneath a Light Rail train for c. 1.7 miles. The abraded skeletal elements include a femoral shaft fragment, a femoral head portion, and the right foot. Second, this study aims to illustrate the efficacy of forensic anthropological analysis of patterned skeletal trauma. Finally, this study demonstrates the critical importance of analyzing scene information before drawing conclusions as to the etiology of a traumatic injury pattern. © 2015 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

"Monkeys, babies, idiots" and "primitives": nature-nurture debates and philanthropic foundation support for American anthropology in the 1920s and 1930s.

PubMed

Biehn, Kersten Jacobson

2009-01-01

There has been a long discussion among historians about the impact that foundation policies had on the development of the social sciences during the interwar era. This discussion has centered on the degree to which foundation officers, particularly from the Rockefeller boards, exercised a hegemonic influence on research. In this essay, I argue that the field of American cultural anthropology has been neglected and must be reconsidered as a window into foundation intervention in nature-nurture debates. Despite foundation efforts to craft an anthropology policy that privileged hereditarian explanations, I contend that cultural anthropologists were committed to proving the primacy of "nurture," even when that commitment cost them valuable research dollars. It was this commitment that provided an essential bulwark for the discipline. Ironically, it was the need to negotiate with foundations about the purpose of their research that helped cultural anthropologists to articulate their unique, and thus intrinsically valuable, approach to nature-nurture debates.

Critical Anthropology of Global Health "takes a stand" statement: a critical medical anthropological approach to the U.S.'s Affordable Care Act.

PubMed

Horton, Sarah; Abadía, Cesar; Mulligan, Jessica; Thompson, Jennifer Jo

2014-03-01

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010--the U.S.'s first major health care reform in over half a century-has sparked new debates in the United States about individual responsibility, the collective good, and the social contract. Although the ACA aims to reduce the number of the uninsured through the simultaneous expansion of the private insurance industry and government-funded Medicaid, critics charge it merely expands rather than reforms the existing fragmented and costly employer-based health care system. Focusing in particular on the ACA's individual mandate and its planned Medicaid expansion, this statement charts a course for ethnographic contributions to the on-the-ground impact of the ACA while showcasing ways critical medical anthropologists can join the debate. We conclude with ways that anthropologists may use critiques of the ACA as a platform from which to denaturalize assumptions of "cost" and "profit" that underpin the global spread of market-based medicine more broadly. © 2014 by the American Anthropological Association.

Biological Discourses on Human Races and Scientific Racism in Brazil (1832-1911).

PubMed

Arteaga, Juanma Sánchez

2017-05-01

This paper analyzes biological and scientific discourses about the racial composition of the Brazilian population, between 1832 and 1911. The first of these dates represents Darwin's first arrival in the South-American country during his voyage on H.M.S. Beagle. The study ends in 1911, with the celebration of the First universal Races congress in London, where the Brazilian physical anthropologist J.B. Lacerda predicted the complete extinction of black Brazilians by the year 2012. Contemporary European and North-American racial theories had a profound influence in Brazilian scientific debates on race and miscegenation. These debates also reflected a wider political and cultural concern, shared by most Brazilian scholars, about the future of the Nation. With few known exceptions, Brazilian evolutionists, medical doctors, physical anthropologists, and naturalists, considered that the racial composition of the population was a handicap to the commonly shared nationalistic goal of creating a modern and progressive Brazilian Republic.

Bilateral first rib anomalous articulations with pseudarthroses mimicking healing fractures in an infant with abusive head injury.

PubMed

Pasquale-Styles, Melissa A; Crowder, Christian M; Fridie, Jeannette; Milla, Sarah S

2014-11-01

Bilateral symmetric bone nodules were observed in the anterolateral first ribs of an infant with shaking injuries at autopsy. The location prompted diagnostic considerations of healing fractures versus anomalous articulations with pseudarthroses. The forensic pathologist worked with forensic anthropologists and pediatric radiologists to evaluate autopsy findings and compare premortem and postmortem X-rays. Gross examination of the bones by the pathologist and anthropologists confirmed bilateral, callus-like bone nodules in first-rib locations associated with pseudarthroses. Histologic examination of one of the bones further showed features most consistent with pseudarthrosis, not a healing fracture. Radiologists then compared multiple premortem and postmortem radiographs that showed no remodeling of the bone over a 2-week interval between the time of injury and death, which would be unexpected for a healing fracture in an infant. This multidisciplinary approach resulted in the appropriate diagnosis of pseudarthroses due to anomalous articulations, an uncommon finding in forensic pathology. © 2014 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Thick prescriptions: toward an interpretation of pharmaceutical sales practices.

PubMed

Oldani, Michael J

2004-09-01

Anthropologists of medicine and science are increasingly studying all aspects of pharmaceutical industry practices--from research and development to the marketing of prescription drugs. This article ethnographically explores one particular stage in the life cycle of pharmaceuticals: sales and marketing. Drawing on a range of sources-investigative journalism, medical ethics, and autoethnography--the author examines the day-to-day activities of pharmaceutical salespersons, or drug reps, during the 1990s. He describes in detail the pharmaceutical gift cycle, a three-way exchange network between doctors, salespersons, and patients and how this process of exchange is currently in a state of involution. This gift economy exists to generate prescriptions (scripts) and can mask and/or perpetuate risks and side effects for patients. With implications of pharmaceutical industry practices impacting everything from the personal-psychological to the global political economy, medical anthropologists can play a lead role in the emerging scholarly discourse concerned with critical pharmaceutical studies.

The Contemporary City as Backbone: Museum Rotterdam Meets the Challenge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van de Laar, Paul Th.

2013-01-01

Changes at Museum Rotterdam illustrate how history museums can rethink their relationship to history and community. Recognizing that its residents are increasingly transnational, without ties to the Rotterdam of the past, Museum Rotterdam is using the tools of urban anthropologists to involve residents in exploring contemporary heritage. Museum…

Ariadne's Thread and Indra's Net: Reflections on Ethnography, Ethnicity, Identity, Culture, and Interaction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moerman, Michael

1993-01-01

Defines and illustrates the main tools used in intercultural research: ethnography, ethnicity, social interaction, identity, and culture. These are the ongoing product of intersecting processes. All are social accomplishments, influenced by the context in which they occur. The anthropologist and native jointly participate in these enterprises. (17…

The Modernization of Colonialism and the Educability of the "Native": Transpacific Knowledge Networks and Education in the Interwar Years

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McLeod, Julie; Paisley, Fiona

2016-01-01

This article focuses on a seminar-conference held in Hawaii in 1936 on the "educability" of native peoples. The seminar-conference was convened by New Zealand anthropologist Felix Keesing and Yale education professor Charles Loram and supported by the Carnegie Corporation, among other organizations. Conference delegates--who came from…

Studying Nomads on the Tibetan Plateau.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldstein, Melvyn C.; Beall, Cynthia M.

1986-01-01

Noting that few western social scientists have been allowed to enter Tibet, this article describes the 5-month experience of 2 United States anthropologists. Included are 5 photographs of nomads, a description of the research conditions, and a collection of observations and tentative conclusions about these highland peoples (JDH)

American Indian Literature Appropriate for Secondary and Middle-Level Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Charles, Jim

American Indian literature deserves a more prominent place in the English language arts curriculum. Oral literature of American Indians includes didactic stories, told to maintain tribal mores and value systems; it also includes humorous and entertaining stories, as well as histories of various American Indian peoples. Anthropologists and…

Anthropology and International Business. Studies in Third World Societies. Publication Number Twenty-Eight.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Serrie, Hendrick, Ed.

The range and possibilities of "business anthropology" are explored in fourteen papers. The papers are presented in an order designed to illustrate five major roles for anthropologists interested in working with business: (1) conducting cross-cultural orientation programs for business personnel working in foreign countries or with different…

Tenacious Southern Progressives: Confounding Mencken's Myth of Mediocrity.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Allen, Louise; Reynolds, Katherine

After H.L. Mencken in a 1920 essay labeled the American South "the Sahara of the Bozart," the journalist Gerald Johnson debated with him the merits of southern intellectual life primarily as indicated in southern literature. There were noteworthy southern artists, journalists, social anthropologists, and educators, ranging from the…

A Matter of Scale: Multi-Scale Ethnographic Research on Education in the United States

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eisenhart, Margaret

2017-01-01

In recent years, cultural anthropologists conducting educational ethnographies in the US have pursued some new methodological approaches. These new approaches can be attributed to advances in cultural theory, evolving norms of research practice, and the affordances of new technologies. In this article, I review three such approaches under the…

Towards a Discovery-Oriented Ethnography in Researching the Professional Context of Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Friberg, Torbjörn

2014-01-01

Today anthropologists seem to be increasingly studying phenomena in their own societies. Many have a focus on policies in organizations and an interest in explicating cultural phenomena constituted by power and governance. Consequently, a recent interest has emerged in Michel Foucault's philosophy, especially as an inspiration for ethnographic…

Interculturalism and Non-Formal Education in Brazil: A Buberian Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guilherme, Alexandre; Morgan, W. J.; Freire, Ida

2012-01-01

Gilberto Freyre, the great Brazilian historian and sociologist, described Brazil as a "racial paradise", a place where different races and nationalities have come to live together in a sort of "racial democracy". The literature on this topic has become extensive as anthropologists, social scientists and historians felt the need…

A Comparative Approach to Educational Forms and Learning Processes.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lave, Jean

1982-01-01

Study of processes by which Liberian apprentice tailors learn their craft is the basis for questioning the traditional dichotomy of "formal" and "informal" education. Used as an analogy to demonstrate that anthropologists need not leave the study of learning to the psychologists, but can make valuable contributions by pursuing…

Subdisciplines of Anthropology: A Modular Approach. Cultural Anthropology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kassebaum, Peter

Designed for use as supplementary instructional material in a cultural anthropology course, this learning module introduces the idea that anthropology is composed of a number of subdisciplines and that cultural anthropology has numerous subfields which are the specialty areas for many practicing anthropologists. Beginning with a general discussion…

Experiments with Image Theatre: Accessing and Giving Meaning to Sensory Experiences in Social Anthropology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strauss, Annika

2017-01-01

This article puts forward an experiential teaching method for becoming aware of, getting access to, and giving meaning to the sensory experiences that constitute and shape learning processes during social anthropological fieldwork. While social anthropologists use all their senses in the field, the preparation and processing of fieldwork are…

Academic Performance, Acculturation and Ethnic Identity Traits of First and Second Generation Mexican-American High School Students in a Rural Iowa Town.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iber, George Leland

This study analyzes how acculturation and ethnic identity traits of first- and second-generation Mexican-American high school students in West Liberty, Iowa, correlate with their academic performance. The analysis tests the educational theories of educational anthropologists John Ogbu and Henry Trueba, to determine the extent to which these…

Acquiring Cultural Perceptions during Study Abroad: The Influence of Youthful Associates

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meredith, R. Alan

2010-01-01

The interdependence of language and culture highlights the need to find methods for second language students to acquire cultural information and practices. This article reviews definitions of culture posited by anthropologists and language educators and discusses problems related to the recent paradigm shift from "small "c" and big…

Motivations of North American Indians in Athletic Games.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pesavento, Wilma J.

This is a report on the motives of North American Indians in holding their athletic games. Data were researched from "Annual Reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology" published between 1881 and 1933. Anthropologists, artifact collectors, artist-writers, and historians provided primary evidential sources for athletic game motivation.…

Mesa Verde: A Study of Man in an Agricultural Setting. Library Packet.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Community Health Service (DHEW/PHS), Bethesda, MD.

This collection of secondary readings contains general information about the ecology of living space, and specific information about the prehistory ecology of Mesa Verde, Colorado. There is also a section on how anthropologists use trees to date artifacts. A related document is indexed as ED 001 721. (AWW)

Collaborative Educational Ethnography: Problems and Profits.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gibson, Margaret A.

1985-01-01

The Punjabi Education Project was a collaborative research effort involving a Sikh community in California, a school district, a community organization, and an educational anthropologist. The project aimed to improve relations between the ethnic and mainstream groups at a local high school and simultaneously to improve educational performance…

Religious Studies: The Shaping of a Field and a Guide to Reference Resources.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lippy, Charles H.

1992-01-01

Discusses the development of religious studies as an academic discipline. Examines the work of leading thinkers in the field, including anthropologists Sir James Fraser and Edward Burnett Taylor, sociologist Max Weber, and psychologist Erik Erikson. Identifies some of the many reference works that deal with religious studies. (SG)

Helping Preservice Teachers (PSTs) Understand the Realities of Poverty: Innovative Curriculum Modules

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cho, Moon-Heum; Convertino, Christina; Khourey-Bowers, Claudia

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study was to develop an innovative addition to the curriculum to help preservice teachers cultivate an understanding of poverty. Using technology, an interdisciplinary team created two online learning modules entitled Teacher as Learning Facilitator and Teacher as Anthropologist. Preservice teachers valued the newly developed…

Journey to the 'New Normal' and Beyond: Reflections on Learning in a Community of Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watson-Gegeo, Karen Ann

2005-01-01

Through poetry and strips of narrative, this paper discusses the embodied experience of chemical sensitivity and the anthropologist author's and other patients' journey through altered perception towards knowledge, community and transformation in the context of a medical clinic. The narratives are situated in several strands of relevant theory,…

Age of metamorphic events : petrochronology and hygrochronology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bosse, Valerie; Villa, Igor M.

2017-04-01

Geodynamic models of the lithosphere require quantitative data from natural samples. Time is a key parameter: it allows to calculate rates and duration of geological processes and provides informations about the involved physical processes (Vance et al. 2003). Large-scale orogenic models require linking geochronological data with other parameters: structures, kinematics, magmatic and metamorphic petrology (P-T-A-X conditions), thermobarometric evolution of the lithosphere, chemical dynamics (Muller, 2003). This requires geochronometers that are both powerful chemical and petrological tracers. In-situ techniques allow dating a mineral in its petrological-microstructural environment. Getting a "date" has become quite easy... But what do we date in the end ? What is the link between the numbers obtained from the mass spectrometer and the age of the metamorphic event we are trying to date ? How can we transform the date into a geological meaningful age ? What do we learn about the behavior of the geochronometer minerals? Now that we can perform precise dating on very small samples directly in the studied rock, it is important to improve the way we interpret the ages to give them more pertinence in the geodynamic context. We propose to discuss the Th/U/Pb system isotopic closure in various metamorphic contexts using our published examples of in situ dating on monazite and zircon (Bosse et al. 2009; Didier et al. 2014, 2015). The studied examples show that (i) fluid assisted dissolution-precipitation processes rather than temperature-dependent solid diffusion predominantly govern the closure of the Th/U/Pb system (ii) monazite and zircon are sensitive to the interaction with fluids of specific composition (F, CO2, K ...), even at low temperature (iii) in the absence of fluids, monazite is able to record HT events and to retain this information in poly-orogenic contexts or during partial melting events (iv) complex chemical and isotopic zonations, well known in monazite

The Review of and Reaction to Selected Anthropology Projects by Professional Anthropologists.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dynneson, Thomas L.; Taylor, Bob L.

The main concern of this paper is to determine the accuracy and representativeness of anthropology material from: Anthropology Curriculum Project (ACP); Education Development Center's Man A Course of Study (MACOS); Materials and Activities for Teachers and Children (MATCH); University of Minnesota's Project Social Studies; Anthropology Curriculum…

Participation, representation, and shared experiences of women scholars in biological anthropology.

PubMed

Turner, Trudy R; Bernstein, Robin M; Taylor, Andrea B; Asangba, Abigail; Bekelman, Traci; Cramer, Jennifer Danzy; Elton, Sarah; Harvati, Katarina; Williams-Hatala, Erin Marie; Kauffman, Laurie; Middleton, Emily; Richtsmeier, Joan; Szathmáry, Emőke; Torres-Rouff, Christina; Thayer, Zaneta; Villaseñor, Amelia; Vogel, Erin

2018-01-01

American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA) membership surveys from 1996 and 1998 revealed significant gender disparities in academic status. A 2014 follow-up survey showed that gender equality had improved, particularly with respect to the number of women in tenure-stream positions. However, although women comprised 70% of AAPA membership at that time, the percentage of women full professors remained low. Here, we continue to consider the status of women in biological anthropology by examining the representation of women through a quantitative analysis of their participation in annual meetings of the AAPA during the past 20 years. We also review the programmatic goals of the AAPA Committee on Diversity Women's Initiative (COD-WIN) and provide survey results of women who participated in COD-WIN professional development workshops. Finally, we examine the diversity of women's career paths through the personal narratives of 14 women biological anthropologists spanning all ranks from graduate student to Professor Emeritus. We find that over the past 20 years, the percentage of women first authors of invited symposia talks has increased, particularly in the sub-disciplines of bioarchaeology, genetics, and paleoanthropology. The percentage of women first authors on contributed talks and posters has also increased. However, these observed increases are still lower than expected given the percentage of graduate student women and women at the rank of assistant and associate professor. The personal narratives highlight first-hand the impact of mentoring on career trajectory, the challenges of achieving work-life satisfaction, and resilience in the face of the unexpected. We end with some suggestions for how to continue to improve equality and equity for women in biological anthropology. © 2018 American Association of Physical Anthropologists.

Anthropology for the Classroom. The Social Science Teacher; Volume 3 Number 1, 1973.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Townley, Charles, Ed.

This report of a conference attended by teachers and anthropologists concerns itself with the desirability and practicalities of teaching anthropology at the elementary and secondary levels in Britain. The papers reflect the varied objectives of a group trying to introduce a new element into school curricula. The president of the Royal…

Conflict and the Common Good. Studies in Third World Societies, Publication Number Twenty-Four.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Merrill, Robert S., Ed.; Willner, Dorothy, Ed.

The fundamental theme of these papers is what constitutes the common good and the issues and problems related to the understanding of that common good. Several anthropologists and a political scientist explore this theme in various geographic settings and from many theoretical and methodological perspectives. Among the countries and cultures…

Ethnography by Design: On Goals and Mediating Artefacts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Segelström, Fabian; Holmlid, Stefan

2015-01-01

Design ethnography is the appropriation of ethnography for the purposes of informing design. This paper investigates the effects of these appropriations, through a comparative study of how designers and anthropologists approach the same field site and by a review of new techniques introduced by designers to do ethnography. The techniques reviewed…

School & Society. Learning Content through Culture.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trueba, Henry T., Ed.; Delgado-Gaitan, Concha, Ed.

Over the last 30 years, educational anthropologists have been exploring the organizational structure of schools and their relationship to society in order to shed light on the complex processes of acquisition, organization, and transmission of cultural knowledge. This volume covers the need to provide a field-based, well-documented cultural…

The Flagbearers: Israeli Druze Women Challenge Traditional Gender Roles

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weiner-Levy, Naomi

2006-01-01

This ethnographic study expands educational anthropologists' knowledge of the relationship between higher education and personal and social change in so-called traditional societies. It describes transitions in the status of Druze women in Israel brought about by the first women from the community to obtain higher education, granting new insights…

Chapter Two: Foundations for the Study of Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Young, Richard F.

2008-01-01

In this chapter, the historical roots of contemporary Practice Theory are unearthed in the work of semioticians, philosophers, and anthropologists. Saussure's semiotic theory is contrasted with that of Peirce, and the importance of Peirce's work for understanding the context of signs is stressed. The philosophy of language in the writings of…

Body Language in the Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miller, Patrick W.

2005-01-01

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mae West would seem to have little in common, but there is one thing they both understood--the importance of body language. Educators, psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists define body language or nonverbal communication as communication without words. It includes overt behaviors such as facial expressions, eye…

The Island Earth

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mead, Margaret

1970-01-01

Dr. Mead, the world-renowned anthropologist and expert behavioral scientist, is associated with the American Museum of Natural History, which acts as her headquarters as she documents her observations on Man, society and technology. She discusses the need to develop specialists with concern for saving the endangered planet earth. (Editor/GR)

Contesting the Politics of Culture, Rewriting the Boundaries of Inclusion: Working for Social Justice with Muslim and Arab Communities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abu El-Haj, Thea R.

2002-01-01

Recommends that educational anthropologists publicly attack the ideological purposes to which the concept of culture has been deployed following the September 11 attacks, noting the importance of supporting schools, communities, and the media in addressing the power and politics of race and religion in contemporary social and political contexts.…

The Tragedy of Terrorism: Perspective, Reflection, and Action in the Aftermath.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Macias, Jose

2002-01-01

Public reactions to the September 11 terrorist attacks have ranged from shock, fear, and anger to group profiling and acts of violent retribution. Suggests that the cycle of terrorism requires perspective and reflection so that educational anthropologists can facilitate, through education, more useful understandings of the phenomenon of terrorism.…

Proceedings of the Conference on Joint Problem Solving and Microcomputers (San Diego, California, March 31 - April 2, 1983). Technical Report No. 1.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cole, Michael; And Others

A group of American and Japanese psychologists, anthropologists, linguists, and computer scientists gathered at the University of California, San Diego, to exchange ideas on models of joint problem solving and their special relevance to the design and implementation of computer-based systems of instruction. Much of the discussion focused on…

The Culture-Area Concept: Does it Diffract Anthropological Light?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Howard, James H.

1975-01-01

It is contended that the consistent employment of the culture area theory by several generations of anthropologists, historians, and writers on American Indian art has tended to create a highly unrealistic and rigid picture of American Indian Cultures in the eyes of both the public and the Indian people themselves. (JC)

Color in the Classroom: How American Schools Taught Race, 1900-1954

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burkholder, Zoe

2011-01-01

Between the turn of the twentieth century and the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision in 1954, the way that American schools taught about "race" changed dramatically. This transformation was engineered by the nation's most prominent anthropologists, including Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, and Margaret Mead, during World War II.…

Patterns of Sophistication and Naivety: Some Features of Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Education. Occasional Paper No. 22.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Erickson, Frederick

The limits and boundaries of anthropology are briefly discussed, along with a general description of lay attitudes towards the field. A research case is given to illustrate the way in which anthropological study methods can contribute to educational research. Noted among these contributions is an informed distrust that anthropologists exhibit…

On Teaching Ethnographic Film

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clarfield, Geoffrey

2013-01-01

The author of this article, a developmental anthropologist, illustrates how the instructor can use ethnographic films to enhance the study of anthropology and override notions about the scope and efficacy of Western intervention in the Third World, provided the instructor places such films in their proper historical and cultural context. He…

75 FR 34760 - Final Determination for Federal Acknowledgment of the Shinnecock Indian Nation

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-06-18

... group's trustees on April 2, 2010, followed by a telephone call to their counsel. These communications... petitioner's comments included a 9-page cover letter signed by the group's attorney with 71 pages of exhibits... (``Comment'') by the group's consulting anthropologist, commenting on issues under Sec. 83.7, consisted of 46...

Human Images: A Communications Approach to Culture.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chalfen, Richard

The premise of this 14 week anthropology course is that endeavors by the mass media should be understood as cultural enterprises. Students will examine the means by which anthropologists, photographers, filmmakers, writers, new reporters or other observers translate their observations of another culture to members of their own culture. The Eskimo…

Conceptualizing the Role of Culture in Political Change.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aronoff, Myron J.

Using as a point of departure anthropologist Clifford Geertz's study of culture with special emphasis on political change, the paper develops a theoretical framework for studying the relationship between culture and political change. A major objective of this anthropological approach to the study of political culture is to help political…

Clifford Geertz and Beyond: The Interpretive Interview/Essay and Reflexive Ethnography.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Page, Miriam Dempsey

In "The Uses of Diversity," the interpretive anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, says that it is impossible to completely get inside the point of view of another culture. Geertz contends, however, that despite multiple voices in the growing body of reflexive ethnographies there is still an author composing the work. Besides Geertz,…

A World of Babies: Imagined Childcare Guides for Seven Societies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

DeLoache, Judy S., Ed.; Gottlieb, Alma, Ed.

People living in different parts of the world hold diverse beliefs about the nature and the nurturing of infants. Celebrating that diversity and based on the research of anthropologists, psychologists, and historians, this book presents information on child care from seven societies around the world, past and present, illustrating how the…

Gender Bias in Women

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bynum, Gregory Lewis

2014-01-01

The philosophical anthropologist Dorothy Dinnerstein, in her 1976 work "The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise," argued that in order for us to address the excesses of male-dominated rule in society (militarism, rapacious consumerism), we must attack the root cause of patriarchy--women's domination of early…

The Indian Liberation and Social Rights Movement in Kollasuyu (Bolivia). IWGIA Document 30.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Apaza, Julio Tumiri, Ed.

For some time the Aymara and Quechua Indians have been adopting resolutions and submitting them to the relevant authorities. Compiled by the Centro de Coordinacion y Promocion Campesina "Mink'A" for consideration by the "First Meeting of Anthropologists in the Andean Region" held in September 1975, this document gives a general…

76 FR 36148 - Notice of Inventory Completion: Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-06-21

... was found in the Bird and Mammal collection of the UCLA Department of Biology and subsequently...: Based on the analysis performed by a physical anthropologist it is determined that the mandible is... the physical remains of one individual of Native American ancestry. Pursuant to 43 CFR 10.11(c)(1...

William Golding's Iconoclastic Views about the Neanderthal Man in "The Inheritors"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Youssef, Sayed Mohammed

2016-01-01

William Golding has been identified as a nonconformist whose opinions always go contrary to what is customarily accepted or established. This is shown in all his novels, more specifically "The Inheritors", in which he defies long established opinions held by anthropologists, historians, archaeologists as well as many others about the…

African-American Soul Force: Dance, Music and Vera Mae Green.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bolles, A. Lynn

1986-01-01

The Black anthropologist, Vera Mae Green, is featured in this analysis of the concept of soul as applied to African-Americans. Music and dance are used to express soul in cultural context. But soul is also a force, an energy which encompasses the Black experience and makes Black culture persevere. (VM)

Postrace: Every Good-bye Ain't Gone

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ford, Iris Carter

2010-01-01

In this commentary, anthropologist Iris Carter Ford reflects on the preceding pieces by Carmen Kynard and Signithia Fordham. She identifies parallels among the two essays and her own life, drawing out themes that emerge from the narratives. Integrating ideas about "talking black" and "talking back," Ford notes that both phenomena have roots in…

HBCUs and Writing Programs: Critical Hip Hop Language Pedagogy and First-Year Student Success

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stone, Brian J.; Stewart, Shawanda

2016-01-01

In the 2015-16 school year, the authors of this article developed an innovative research and assessment project on a new first year composition curriculum based on a pedagogy they call Critical Hip Hop Rhetoric Pedagogy (CHHRP), an educational approach built upon the classroom-based research of linguistic anthropologist H. Samy Alim…

American Involvement in Fringe Religious Cults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Intellect, 1977

1977-01-01

"Twenty million Americans are involved in fringe religious cults such as spiritualism, Hare Krishna, Scientology, and Black Gospel groups," according to anthropologist Irving Zaretsky of the University of Chicago. He recently completed a 10-year period as a participant-observer of fringe religious groups in the San Francisco Bay area and the…

Old Ponape. Pohnpei Ni Mwehin Kawa.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lawrence, Pensile, Comp.; And Others

This book presents English and Ponape versions of the stories, legends, and histories originally transcribed by anthropologists attached to the Thilenius South Sea Expedition of 1908-1910. The natives of the Marshall Islands in Micronesia who related these stories are identified, but the material is much older and represents the cultural heritage…

Racial Definition Handbook.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nelson, William J.

Our culture draws lines between "races" in a variety of ways. Professional scholars and society in general each have their own set of aims and methods for dividing by race. The professional classifiers have been at times inconsistent and fallacious in their methods. The scientific classifiers (physical anthropologists, for example) assume an…

Isocrates, Sophistry, and Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Welch, Kathleen E.

Some tentative connections can be made between 20th-century cultural and rhetorical reception of Isocrates' writing and selected issues in historical literacy. Specifically, two literacy scholars, David Bleich and Brian Street, the former a humanist and the latter an anthropologist, can be read concerning some issues in literacy as applied to…

The Effect of Alien Cultures on Local Traditions.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Olatunji, P. G.

There are often many problems, as well as many benefits, in the incorporation of non-local (alien) cultures into an existing cultural framework. This paper explores this process; it consists of five parts, beginning with a detailed definition and discussion of the meaning of culture as seen by psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and…

American Homelands: Classroom Approaches towards a Complex Concept

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Post, Chris W.

2008-01-01

Geographers, along with anthropologists and sociologists, have been debating the homeland concept as it applies in North America for decades. In recent years, the political ideology of the war on terror has added another dimension to this discussion. If the attention given to the concept by introductory textbooks is any indication, homelands are…

Language Death: A Freirean Solution in the Heart of the Amazon

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guilherme, Alex

2013-01-01

"Language death" is an undeniable phenomenon of our modern times as languages have started to disappear at an alarming rate. This has led linguists, anthropologists, philosophers and educationists to engage with this issue at various levels in an attempt to try to understand the decline in this rich area of human communication and…

Mongolian Folktales.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stuart, Kevin C., Comp.; Grimme, Holger K., Ed.

What Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm brothers achieved by collecting stories from the common people that had been handed down orally from generation to generation is also achieved in this collection of folktales consisting of 45 fables and 65 tales and short stories. This publication, addressed to educators, anthropologists, and specialists…

Nisaidie Nif Anye Mwenyewe, Pomogi Mne Eto Sdelat' Samomu: A Comparative Case Study of the Implementation of Montessori Pedagogy in the United Republic of Tanzania and the Russian Federation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schnepf, Candy A.

2010-01-01

The system of education developed by Maria Montessori, noted Italian feminist, anthropologist and physician, is the single largest pedagogy in the world with over 22,000 public, private, parochial, and charter schools on six continents, enduring even as other teaching methods have waxed and waned. Despite its international diffusion and longevity,…

Child's Play: Myth, Mimesis and Make-Believe.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldman, L. R.

This book addresses the need for anthropologists to produce in-depth ethnographies of children's play. In examining the subject from a cross-cultural perspective, the book argues that understanding the way children transform their environment to create make-believe is enhanced by viewing their creations as oral poetry. The result is a richly…

A burning problem: social dynamics of disaster risk reduction through wildfire mitigation

Treesearch

Susan Charnley; Melissa R. Poe; Alan A. Ager; Thomas A. Spies; Emily K. Platt; Keith A. Olsen

2015-01-01

Disasters result from hazards affecting vulnerable people. Most disasters research by anthropologists focuses on vulnerability; this article focuses on natural hazards. We use the case of wildfire mitigation on United States Forest Service lands in the northwestern United States to examine social, political, and economic variables at multiple scales that influence fire...

Native American Ceremonial Athletic Games.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pesavento, Wilma J.

This is a report on the relationship of North American Indian athletic games to ceremonies. Data for this investigation were researched from 48 "Annual Reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution" published from 1881 to 1933, and the 84 volumes of the "American Anthropologist" published from 1888 to 1974. Observational…

A New Tradition: A Reflection on Collaboration and Contact Zones

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clifford-Napoleone, Amber R.

2013-01-01

Anthropologist James Clifford published his influential essay "Museums as Contact Zones" in 1997. He explored the aspects and limits of museums as contact zones in the globalized world, and focused on the museum's role in cross-cultural dialogue in the twentieth century. In "A New Tradition: A Reflection on Collaboration and Contact…

Rescuing American Prehistory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Custred, Glynn

2005-01-01

Decency would suggest that people should be allowed to bury their own dead. But, with the help of a climate of racial intimidation, modern Indian tribes, backed by the federal government, asserted exclusive ownership of everything before Columbus. Glynn Custred remembers a stalwart anthropologist who cried foul and preserved the knowledge of our…

Is an Inuit Literary History Possible?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Keavy

2010-01-01

In 1921, the Greenlandic anthropologist Knud Rasmussen set out to travel twenty thousand miles by dog team across Inuit Nunaat--the Inuit homeland. During this three-year journey--the famous Fifth Thule Expedition--Rasmussen was struck by the similarities in the language and culture of Inuit communities across the entire Arctic. Considering the…

The Evolution from Generation to Post-XX

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feng, Zhao

2011-01-01

Young people represent the future, and youth is an eternal topic. In the 1970s when the American anthropologist Margaret Mead published her famous work "Generation Gap," research on generations gained sudden popularity worldwide, and ever since the 1980s when "Generation Gap" was brought to China, research by scholars in this…

Feet, Footwork, Footwear, and "Being Alive" in the Modern School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burke, Catherine

2018-01-01

This article considers the theoretical argument of anthropologist Tim Ingold, that the denial and subsequent encasement of bare feet in footwear was a critical characteristic of the development of modern societies, in exploring three aspects of feet, footwork, and footwear in the history of the modern school. First, the material conditions of feet…

World Trade Center human identification project: experiences with individual body identification cases.

PubMed

Budimlija, Zoran M; Prinz, Mechthild K; Zelson-Mundorff, Amy; Wiersema, Jason; Bartelink, Eric; MacKinnon, Gaille; Nazzaruolo, Bianca L; Estacio, Sheila M; Hennessey, Michael J; Shaler, Robert C

2003-06-01

To present individual body identification efforts, as part of the World Trade Center (WTC) mass disaster identification project. More than 500 samples were tested by using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and short tandem repeat (STR) typing. The extent to which the remains were fragmented and affected by taphonomic factors complicated the identification project. Anthropologists reviewed 19,000 samples, and detected inconsistencies in 69, which were further split into 239 new cases and re-sampled by DNA specialists. The severity and nature of the disaster required an interdisciplinary effort. DNA profiling of 500 samples was successful in 75% of the cases. All discrepancies, which occurred between bone and tissue samples taken from the same body part, were resolved by re-sampling and re-testing of preferably bone tissue. Anthropologists detected inconsistencies in 69 cases, which were then split into 239 new cases. Out of 125 "split" cases, 65 were excluded from their original case. Of these 65 cases, 37 did not match any profiles in M-FISys, probably because profiles were incomplete or no exemplar for the victim was available. Out of the 60 remains not excluded from their original case, 30 were partial profiles and did not reach the statistical requirement to match their original case, because the population frequency of the DNA profile had to be anthropologists were needed to evaluate the consistency between all linked body parts. Especially in disasters with a high potential for commingling, the described anthropological review process should be part of the investigation.

The Role of the State Educational Agency in the Development of Innovative Programs in Student Teaching.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Edelfelt, Roy A., Ed.

In the introduction to this collection of papers, William Drummond summarizes the national conference proceedings and personal reactions to them. Chapter 1, "The Revolution Explosion," is a talk by Frankie Beth Nelson about the way an anthropologist looks at the school and its purposes. Chapter 2 (SP 002 631), "Student Teaching: The State of the…

Cross-Cultural Language Learning and Web Design Complexity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Park, Ji Yong

2015-01-01

Accepting the fact that culture and language are interrelated in second language learning (SLL), the web sites should be designed to integrate with the cultural aspects. Yet many SLL web sites fail to integrate with the cultural aspects and/or focus on language acquisition only. This study identified three issues: (1) anthropologists'…

Culture Shock and Anthropological Fieldwork.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barker, David Read

The document reviews literature on the effects of culture shock and suggests reasons that anthropological writings seldom deal with the subject. Definitions of culture shock begin with the writings of anthropologist Kalvero Oberg, who first introduced the term in the mid 1950s. Oberg wrote that culture shock is precipitated by the anxiety that…

Waiting for the Masculists

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barlow, Dudley

2004-01-01

The author of this article looks back at television advertising from the last 50 years. He observes the position of women in American society as creatures who served at men's pleasure and for men's pleasure. When future anthropologists examine today's television advertising, one significant change they will note is that the culture is more…

Difficult Collective Deliberations: Anthropological Notes toward a Theory of Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Varenne, Herve

2007-01-01

Background/Context: In the 1970s, Lawrence Cremin urged researchers to remember that education is more than schooling. Few heeded this call, perhaps because of the absence of the theoretical framework needed to make this more than a platitude. As a cultural anthropologist, I argue that education is a fundamental human activity that is infinitely…

Seeing Speech Production through the Window of Complex Interactions: Introduction to the Supplement of Select Papers from the 10th International Seminar on Speech Production (ISSP) in Cologne

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fuchs, Susanne; Lancia, Leonardo

2016-01-01

Purpose: As the famous linguist and anthropologist C. Hockett noted about 30 years ago, "What one sees of language, as of anything, depends on the angle of view, and different explorers approach from different directions. Unfortunately, sometimes they become so enamored of their particular approach that they incline to scoff at any other, so…

In Search of Housing: Urban Families in Rural Contexts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lawson Clark, Sherri

2012-01-01

Researchers have been following a trend posited by the renowned anthropologist Janet Fitchen, which examines the increasing movement of low-income people to rural communities drawn not necessarily by labor market forces, but by the characteristics and amenities found in rural towns. This study adds to that literature by focusing on the ways in…

Ethics or Morals: Understanding Students' Values Related to Genetic Tests on Humans

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lindahl, Mats Gunnar

2009-01-01

To make meaning of scientific knowledge in such a way that concepts and values of the life-world are not threatened is difficult for students and laymen. Ethics and morals pertaining to the use of genetic tests for hereditary diseases have been investigated and discussed by educators, anthropologists, medical doctors and philosophers giving, at…

Terrorism in Native America: Interrogating the Past, Examining the Present, and Constructing a Liberatory Future.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haynes Writer, Jeanette

2002-01-01

Draws on critical race theory to examine the concept and practice of terrorism on Native Americans by the U.S. government, providing two examples of terrorism (the Sand Creek Massacre and the murder of Anna Mae Aquash). Asserts that educators and educational anthropologists must critically analyze issues of power and media portrayals of terrorism…

Case Western U. Scholar Collects Tales of Tibetans Facing Tumultuous Times

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grasgreen, Allie

2008-01-01

Melvyn C. Goldstein, an anthropologist at Case Western Reserve University, has spent 40 years, off and on, collecting oral histories from Tibet. As rural Tibetans who have endured decades of tumult approach old age, Goldstein, who is also a director of the university's Center for Research on Tibet, has preserved their stories. He has interviewed…

A Time to Keep Silence and a Time to Speak

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Connor, Brendan H.; Mangual Figueroa, Ariana

2017-01-01

The authors consider the implications of speaking out and remaining silent in the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. They reflect on the forms of speech available to and expected of educators and educational anthropologists in order to raise questions about whose voices are heard or ignored in the current public discourse. Drawing…

Is the Great American Teacher Dead? Principles to Resurrect Meaningful, Effective, and Consciousness Raising Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ivers, John J.

2012-01-01

A couple of decades ago, a visiting anthropologist agreed with some U.S. authors that the American intellectual on university campuses is basically dead and his/her demise is reflected in the superficial, boring, and uninspiring content to which students are exposed. More recent evidence indicates that things have not changed very much. In this…

Anthropology and environmental policy: What counts?

Treesearch

Susan Charnley; William H. Durham

2010-01-01

In this article, we call for enhanced quantitative and environmental analysis in the work of environmental anthropologists who wish to influence policy. Using a database of 77 leading monographs published between 1967 and 2006, 147 articles by the same authors, and a separate sample of 137 articles from the journal Human Organization, we document a...

Imaginaries of "East and West": Slippery Curricular Signifiers in Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aoki, Ted T.

The labels "East and West," suggest two distinct cultural wholes. "East and West" is understood as a binary of two separate preexisting entities, which can be bridged or brought together to conjoin in an "and." This image has dominated Western modernist thought in the works of historians, anthropologists, and others. Educators, like tourists or…

Culture in Animals: The Case of a Non-human Primate Culture of Low Aggression and High Affiliation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sapolsky, Robert M.

2006-01-01

Philosophers often consider what it is that makes individuals human. For biologists considering the same, the answer is often framed in the context of what are the key differences between humans and other animals. One vestige of human uniqueness still often cited by anthropologists is culture. However, this notion has been challenged in recent…

Japan's High Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rohlen, Thomas P.

The author, an anthropologist, spent 14 months (1974-75) in the industrial port city of Kobe (Japan) observing a cross section of urban high schools, including Japan's most elite private school and a night vocational school plagued by absenteeism and delinquency. He reports on the character of the institutions and of the experience via…

The End of Life, The Ends of Life: An Anthropological View

PubMed Central

Varisco, Daniel Martin

2012-01-01

All known human societies have a worldview that deserves to be called religion; all religions must explain death. Anthropologists study the diversity of religious systems, present and past, in order to understand what is common to humanity. Rather than starting from the view of a particular revelation or set of doctrines, the anthropologist tries to step outside his or her own subjective worldview and identify patterns in the evolution of human thinking about the reality of physical death. Are humans the only animals that are conscious of death, or do we share sentiments observable in our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees? At what point in history did the concept of an afterlife, life in some spiritual sense after physical death, appear? Is the religious explanation of life and death a mere reflection of a communal social fact, as the sociologist Emil Durkheim suggested, or a shared psychological trait, as more recent scholars assert? Can and should the modern scientist make a definitive statement about the finality of death and human consciousness? PMID:23610511

Guidelines for the recognition of cemetery remains in Greece.

PubMed

Eliopoulos, Constantine; Moraitis, Konstantinos; Reyes, Federico; Spiliopoulou, Chara; Manolis, Sotiris

2011-06-01

Forensic pathologists frequently consult anthropologists for the identification of skeletonized human remains. These remains may be the result of criminal activity or remains that were unearthed because of erosion, or during construction projects. In some cases, human remains that had been previously buried in a cemetery may be the subject of a forensic investigation. Early recognition of cemetery remains prevents unnecessary efforts and conserves precious resources. One of the key characteristics of cemetery remains is the presence of embalmed tissue. However, there are countries where embalming is not a common practice, and other clues must be sought for identifying previously buried remains. Current funerary customs in Greece and, in particular, the tradition of exhumations result in a large number of misplaced human remains. The present study presents examples of cemetery remains from Greece and offers guidelines for recognizing changes on skeletal remains that may be indicative of a cemetery origin. Location of discovery, condition of the remains, and the types of associated artifacts are all factors that aid forensic anthropologists in identifying cemetery remains.

Evolutionary contributions to solving the "matrilineal puzzle": a test of Holden, Sear, and Mace's model.

PubMed

Mattison, Siobhán M

2011-07-01

Matriliny has long been debated by anthropologists positing either its primitive or its puzzling nature. More recently, evolutionary anthropologists have attempted to recast matriliny as an adaptive solution to modern social and ecological environments, tying together much of what was known to be associated with matriliny. This paper briefly reviews the major anthropological currents in studies of matriliny and discusses the contribution of evolutionary anthropology to this body of literature. It discusses the utility of an evolutionary framework in the context of the first independent test of Holden et al.'s 2003 model of matriliny as daughter-biased investment. It finds that historical daughter-biased transmission of land among the Mosuo is consistent with the model, whereas current income transmission is not. In both cases, resources had equivalent impacts on male and female reproduction, a result which predicts daughter-biased resource transmission given any nonzero level of paternity uncertainty. However, whereas land was transmitted traditionally to daughters, income today is invested in both sexes. Possible reasons for this discrepancy are discussed.

Patterns of trauma induced by motorboat and ferry propellers as illustrated by three known cases from Rhode Island.

PubMed

Semeraro, Dominique; Passalacqua, Nicholas V; Symes, Steven; Gilson, Thomas

2012-11-01

Understanding patterns of trauma is important to determining cause and manner of death. A thorough evaluation of taphonomy, trauma, and bone fracture mechanisms is necessary to reconstruct the circumstances of the death. This study examines the skeletal trauma caused by boat propeller strikes in terms of wound characteristics and location based on three cases from Rhode Island. These case studies review the traumatic characteristics caused by propeller injuries and highlight the anatomic regions most likely to sustain skeletal trauma. With this information, investigators may be able to identify propeller trauma even in severely decomposed remains. The discussion of boat propeller trauma also raises issues regarding how forensic anthropologists and forensic pathologists classify trauma (specifically blunt force vs. sharp) and highlights semantic issues arising in trauma classification. The study also discusses why these propeller cases should be classified as blunt trauma rather than sharp or chop/hack trauma. Ultimately, the authors urge consistency and communication between pathologist and forensic anthropologists performing trauma analyses. © 2012 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

The end of life, the ends of life: an anthropological view.

PubMed

Varisco, Daniel Martin

2011-12-01

All known human societies have a worldview that deserves to be called religion; all religions must explain death. Anthropologists study the diversity of religious systems, present and past, in order to understand what is common to humanity. Rather than starting from the view of a particular revelation or set of doctrines, the anthropologist tries to step outside his or her own subjective worldview and identify patterns in the evolution of human thinking about the reality of physical death. Are humans the only animals that are conscious of death, or do we share sentiments observable in our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees? At what point in history did the concept of an afterlife, life in some spiritual sense after physical death, appear? Is the religious explanation of life and death a mere reflection of a communal social fact, as the sociologist Emil Durkheim suggested, or a shared psychological trait, as more recent scholars assert? Can and should the modern scientist make a definitive statement about the finality of death and human consciousness?

Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs: Arranged from American Indian Ceremonials and Sports.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fletcher, Alice C.

This volume describes and gives instructions for Native American dances and games as gathered by, and in some cases adapted by, an anthropologist working among native peoples at the beginning of the 20th Century. Part I contains dances and songs. The first is called "The Life of the Corn," a drama in five dances. Also included are three…

Toys: Universal Tools for Learning, Communication and Inclusion for Children with Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

PACER Center, 2005

2005-01-01

The toys children use during play are extremely important in their development. Anthropologists have found evidence of toys dating back as far as the first record of human life and among all cultures. Toys can be an entertaining and educational way for children to learn and respond to social situations, and they give children the opportunity to…

Reflections on the Human Terrain System During the First 4 Years

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-09-01

contracted social science research and analysis capability in both Iraq and Afghanistan to conduct empirical qualitative and quantita- tive...contracted social science research and analysis capability in both Iraq and Afghanistan to conduct empirical qualitative and quantita- tive research to...problematic.29 All research products in the public domain (including ethnographies produced by academic anthropologists) are accessible by intelligence

Little Choice for the Chumash: Colonialism, Cattle, and Coercion in Mission Period California

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dartt-Newton, Deana; Erlandson, Jon M.

2006-01-01

This article deals with the Chumash people, their history, as well as colonization and coercion during the mission period in California. In this article, the authors examine a complex paper on the missionization of the Chumash Indians of the California Coast published in American Anthropologist by Daniel O. Larson, John R. Johnson, and Joel C.…

Last Words: The Dying of Languages.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sampat, Payal

2001-01-01

Discusses the problem of language extinction as cultural homogeneity spreads over the earth. Just 600 of the world's 6,800 languages are safe from extinction meaning that they are still being learned by children. Many anthropologists see the decline as analogous to biodiversity loss: it is a form of cultural impoverishment and a loss of our…

All Intimate Grammars Leak: Reflections on "Indian Languages in Unexpected Places"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kroskrity, Paul V.

2011-01-01

In this discussion of a set of studies that fits the trope of "Indian Languages in Unexpected Places," I explore the obvious necessity of developing a relevant notion of linguistic "leakage" following a famous image from the writings of the linguistic anthropologist Edward Sapir. Though in its original use, the concept applied more to the order of…

Expanding the Qawm: Culturally Savvy Counterinsurgency and Nation-Building in Afghanistan

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-03-31

logical step in that it contravenes the proclivity to impose a single, nationwide template upon an inherently local issue. As anthropologist Kevin ...of Islam without the need to communicate in a hierarchical line with leadership .” 42...middle of a competition between tribal, or qawm leadership institutions, such as jirgas and khans; religious functionaries, to include shuras and

Anthropology and Popular Culture: A Case Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Estes, Jack

The study of popular culture in the United States is an appropriate anthropological endeavor, as evidenced in a case study of the volcanic eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Oregon. By examining its popular arts, anthropologists gain understanding of the culture and its people. For example, an analysis of reactions to the Mt. St. Helens eruption…

Ethnography and Ethics: A Critique of Gregory Bateson (1904-1980)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watras, Joseph

2010-01-01

This essay about the work of a famous anthropologist is an attempt to illuminate one way that researchers could apply their findings about the behavior of people in particular groups to ethical considerations of social relations. I argue that Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) is a good example because he applied a few seminal ideas to a wide range of…

Perspectives on the Organization of Societies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rothman, Stanley

2003-01-01

In the 1950s, under the aegis of such leading sociologists as Talcott Parsons, anthropologists like Clyde Kluckhohn of Harvard and Alfred Kroeber of the University of California at Berkeley, as well as political scientists Gabriel Almond and Lucien Pye, of Yale and MIT, respectively, the analysis of societal and political culture came to play a…

Memory, Trauma, and Phantasmagoria in Claudia Llosa's "La Teta Asustada"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rueda, Carolina

2015-01-01

The film "La teta asustada" (Claudia Llosa, 2009) was inspired by the text titled "Entre prójimos: El conflicto armado interno y la política de la reconciliación en el Perú" by the medical anthropologist Kimberly Theidon. In this study, Theidon compiles the testimonies of a group of indigenous women who were sexually assaulted…

The Uncle Remus Dialect: A Preliminary Linguistic View.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Long, Richard A.

Anthropologist Melville Herskovits, in the section on language of his book "The Myth of the Negro Past" (1941), gives one of the first scientific orientations to the study of black speech in the United States. His basic contribution was to establish the following main points: (1) that the black people in the New World came from regions…

War: Anthropologists and Sociologists Ask Whether Warfare and Aggression are Inherited or Learned

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trotter, Robert J.

1973-01-01

Presents opposing philosophies relating to the nature of aggression in man. One position advocates that human aggression is the product of evolution and is inherited, while the other proposes a cultural pattern model of aggression and uses two empirical tests in an attempt to disprove the genetic model. (JR)

Cholera ante portas - The re-emergence of cholera in Kinshasa after a ten-year hiatus.

PubMed

Bompangue, Didier; Vesenbeckh, Silvan Manuel; Giraudoux, Patrick; Castro, Marcia; Muyembe, Jean-Jacques; Kebela Ilunga, Benoît; Murray, Megan

2012-02-17

Cholera is an endemic disease in certain well-defined areas in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The west of the country, including the mega-city Kinshasa, has been free of cases since mid 2001 when the last outbreak ended. We used routinely collected passive surveillance data to construct epidemic curves of the cholera cases and map the spatio-temporal progress of the disease during the first 47 weeks of 2011. We compared the spatial distribution of disease spread to that which occurred in the last cholera epidemic in Kinshasa between 1996 and 2001. To better understand previous determinants of cholera spread in this region, we conducted a correlation analysis to assess the impact of rainfall on weekly health zone cholera case counts between December 1998 and March 2001 and a Generalized Linear Model (GLM) regression analysis to identify factors that have been associated with the most vulnerable health zones within Kinshasa between October 1998 and June 1999. In February 2011, cholera reemerged in a region surrounding Kisangani and gradually spread westwards following the course of the Congo River to Kinshasa, home to 10 million people. Ten sampled isolates were confirmed to be Vibrio cholerae O1, biotype El Tor, serotype Inaba, resistant to trimethoprim-sulfa, furazolidone, nalidixic acid, sulfisoxaole, and streptomycin, and intermediate resistant to Chloramphenicol. An analysis of a previous outbreak in Kinshasa shows that rainfall was correlated with case counts and that health zone population densities as well as fishing and trade activities were predictors of case counts. Cholera is particularly difficult to tackle in the DRC. Given the duration of the rainy season and increased riverine traffic from the eastern provinces in late 2011, we expect further increases in cholera in the coming months and especially within the mega-city Kinshasa. We urge all partners involved in the response to remain alert.Didier Bompangue and Silvan Vesenbeckh

Cholera ante portas – The re-emergence of cholera in Kinshasa after a ten-year hiatus

PubMed Central

Bompangue, Didier; Vesenbeckh, Silvan Manuel; Giraudoux, Patrick; Castro, Marcia; Muyembe, Jean-Jacques; Kebela Ilunga, Benoît; Murray, Megan

2012-01-01

alert. Didier Bompangue and Silvan Vesenbeckh contributed equally to this work. *corresponding author: Silvan Vesenbeckh, Harvard School of Public Health (vesenbeckh@gmail.com) Didier Bompangue is Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology (University of Kinshasa) and Epidemiologist in the DRC Ministry of Health. He was involved in the investigations of the described outbreak since February 2011. PMID:22453903

Preliminary GIS analysis of the agricultural landscape of Cuyo Cuyo, Department of Puno, Peru

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Winterhalder, Bruce; Evans, Tom

1991-01-01

Computerized analysis of a geographic database (GIS) for Cuyo Cuyo, (Dept. Puno, Peru) is used to correlate the agricultural production zones of two adjacent communities to altitude, slope, aspect, and other geomorphological features of the high-altitude eastern escarpment landscape. The techniques exemplified will allow ecological anthropologists to analyze spatial patterns at regional scales with much greater control over the data.

Prediction Markets: Another Tool in the Intelligence Kitbag

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-02-20

the eminent British anthropologist and statistician, Francis Galton . He was passing by an English county fair when he noticed an advertisement for a...available from http://libnt4.lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/essays/ untruth.htm; Internet; accessed 14 December 2006. 18 Francis Galton , Memories of My Life...USAWC STRATEGY RESEARCH PROJECT PREDICTION MARKETS: ANOTHER TOOL IN THE INTELLIGENCE KITBAG by Colonel

Now+Next. 2015 Annual Report

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smithsonian Institution, 2015

2015-01-01

In 2015, the Smithsonian welcomed hundreds of thousands of people to the newly renovated Renwick Gallery (p. 6), their scientists peered to the edge of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way (p. 18), and their anthropologists helped identify the remains of leaders of the Jamestown colony (p. 28). The theme of this year's annual report is…

Life beyond earth and the mind of man

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Berendzen, R. (Editor)

1973-01-01

A symposium is reported on the implications of the possibility of extraterrestrial life for social, philosophical, and humanistic impacts. The viewpoints from astronomers, biologists, physicists, anthropologists, and theologians are given. Costs involved for finding this life are discussed along with the possible benefits to society. The direct implications from radio telescopes, the Pioneer 10 plaque, and discussions between the panelists are also reported.

[Anthropology engaged against Ebola (2014-2016): approaches, contributions and new questions].

PubMed

Desclaux, Alice; Anoko, Julienne

2017-10-02

Anthropologists contributed to the response to the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in three ways : as Ebola experts, cultural mediators between populations and caregivers, and researchers. This article presents a preliminary review of approaches, contributions and related issues based on a literature review, case studies and debates. The anthropological research discussed in this article concerns four themes : epidemiological contexts of transmission ; cultural interpretation of illness and social responses ; social construction of stakeholders' experience ; critical analysis of public health interventions. In addition to insightful contributions, particularly regarding the socio-political contexts and their interfaces with global public health measures, anthropologists tested forms of communication to facilitate access of public health actors to their results. However, these heterogeneous forms of engagement raise a number of questions, especially when they reflect anthropological interpretations that exclude any critical or reflexive dimension, or when anthropology is considered to be similar to social intervention. Nevertheless, anthropological research provides a major contribution, which could be even greater if transnational networks set up by researchers to analyse the socio-political, economic and biocultural dimensions of emerging epidemics are supported in order to improve ?preparedness? for future health crises.

Culture, Urbanism and Changing Human Biology.

PubMed

Schell, L M

2014-04-03

Anthropologists have long known that human activity driven by culture changes the environment. This is apparent in the archaeological record and through the study of the modern environment. Perhaps the largest change since the paleolithic era is the organization of human populations in cities. New environments can reshape human biology through evolution as shown by the evolution of the hominid lineage. Evolution is not the only process capable of reshaping our biology. Some changes in our human biology are adaptive and evolutionary while others are pathological. What changes in human biology may be wrought by the modern urban environment? One significant new change in the environment is the introduction of pollutants largely through urbanization. Pollutants can affect human biology in myriad ways. Evidence shows that human growth, reproduction, and cognitive functioning can be altered by some pollutants, and altered in different ways depending on the pollutant. Thus, pollutants have significance for human biologists and anthropologists generally. Further, they illustrate the bio-cultural interaction characterizing human change. Humans adapt by changing the environment, a cultural process, and then change biologically to adjust to that new environment. This ongoing, interactive process is a fundamental characteristic of human change over the millennia.

Ethnology in the metropole: Robert Knox, Robert Gordon Latham and local sites of observational training.

PubMed

Sera-Shriar, Efram

2011-12-01

Anthropologists have traditionally separated the history of their discipline into two main diverging methodological paradigms: nineteenth-century armchair theorizing, and twentieth-century field-based research. But this tradition obscures both the complexity of the observational practices of early nineteenth-century researchers and the high degree of continuity between these practices and the techniques that came later. While historians have long since abandoned the notion that nineteenth-century ethnologists and anthropologists were merely 'armchair' theorists, this paper shows that there is still much to learn once one asks more insistently what the observational practices of early researchers were actually like. By way of bringing out this complexity and continuity, this essay re-examines the work of two well-known British ethnologists, Robert Knox, and Robert Gordon Latham; looking in particular at their methods of observing, analysing and representing different racial groups. In the work of each figure, early training in natural history, anatomy and physiology can be seen to have influenced their observational practices when it came to identifying and classifying human varieties. Moreover, in both cases, Knox and Latham developed locally-based observational training sites. Crown Copyright © 2011. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Buntaro Adachi (1865-1945): Japanese master of human anatomic variation.

PubMed

Watanabe, Koichi; Shoja, Mohammadali M; Loukas, Marios; Tubbs, R Shane

2012-11-01

Buntaro Adachi (1865-1945) was a Japanese physician, anatomist, and anthropologist and is most remembered for his study on human anatomic variation. At the end of 19th Century, one of the main focuses in anthropology was the comparison between the races. In Japan, anthropological studies of the origin of the modern Japanese race were carried out by Adachi and others. Adachi believed that differences went beyond the bones that were commonly studied in his day and, therefore, investigated soft tissues of the body. Two products of his intense study of variation of human anatomy were Das Arteriensystem der Japaner (The Arterial System of the Japanese) published in 1928 and Das Venensystem der Japaner (The Venous System of the Japanese) published in 1933 and 1940. These books received much attention and were praised by anatomists and anthropologists around the world. Even now, these books are invaluable as references for human anatomic variation. Herein, we provide an overview of the life and achievements of Buntaro Adachi and to our knowledge, this is the first such review in the English language. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

[T. Shevchenko in biography of physician, ethnographer and traveller M. Myklukho-Maklaĭ].

PubMed

Martsinkovs'kyĭ, I B

2007-01-01

The biography of the doctor, N. Miklukho-Maklay, a world scientist, anthropologist, ethnographer and travaller has Ukrainian roots. N. Miklukho-Maklay himself and his father knew and was interested in work of T. Shevchenko. N. Miklukho-Maklay and T. Shevchenko spoke out against colonial policy and social inequality: N. Miklukho-Maklay against racism and T. Shevchenko against the serfdom as a form of slavery.

European Stroke Science Workshop

PubMed Central

Mattle, Heinrich P.; Brainin, Michael; Chamorro, Angel; Diener, Hans Christoph; Hacke, Werner; Leys, Didier; Norrving, Bo; Ward, Nick

2012-01-01

The European Stroke Organisation (ESO) held its first European Stroke Science Workshop in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany (15-17 December 2011). Stroke experts based in Europe were invited to present and discuss their current research. The scope of the workshop was to review the most recent findings of selected topics in stroke, to exchange ideas, to stimulate new research and to enhance collaboration between European stroke research groups. Seven scientific sessions were held, each starting with a keynote lecture to review the state of the art of the given topic, followed by 4 or 5 short presentations by experts. They were asked to limit their presentations to 10 slides containing only recent information. The meeting was organized by the executive committee of the ESO (Heinrich Mattle, chairman, Michael Brainin, Angel Chamorro, Werner Hacke, Didier Leys) and supported by the European Stroke Conference (Michael Hennerici). In this article we summarize the main contents of this successful workshop. PMID:22836350

Why 400 Years to Discover Countless Planets?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carr, Paul H.

2011-04-01

In 1584, Dominican monk Giordano Bruno envisioned the stars as "countless suns with countless earths, all rotating around their suns." Searching for intellectual freedom, he fled his native Italy to Protestant Switzerland and Germany, but in 1600 the Roman Inquisition condemned him for heresy. He was burned at the stake. Fast-forwarding to 1995, the Swiss astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz announced the discovery of a planet orbiting a star similar to our sun (51 Pegasi). In 2010, 500 planets had been found orbiting 421 stars. On Feb 2, 2011, NASA announced 1200 planet candidates. It took 400 years for telescope technology to advance and for Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Bradley, and Foucault to make major contributions, culminating in today's astrophysics with digital imaging and processing. Contrasting with Bruno, in 2010 Dominican Francisco Ayala, who had been president of the Sigma Xi and AAAS, won the 1.6M Templeton Prize for affirming life's spiritual dimension.

Chronic Q Fever Diagnosis—Consensus Guideline versus Expert Opinion

PubMed Central

Wegdam-Blans, Marjolijn C.A.; Wever, Peter C.; Renders, Nicole H.M.; Delsing, Corine E.; Sprong, Tom; van Kasteren, Marjo E.E.; Bijlmer, Henk; Notermans, Daan; Oosterheert, Jan Jelrik; Stals, Frans S.; Nabuurs-Franssen, Marrigje H.; Bleeker-Rovers, Chantal P.

2015-01-01

Chronic Q fever, caused by Coxiella burnetii, has high mortality and morbidity rates if left untreated. Controversy about the diagnosis of this complex disease has emerged recently. We applied the guideline from the Dutch Q Fever Consensus Group and a set of diagnostic criteria proposed by Didier Raoult to all 284 chronic Q fever patients included in the Dutch National Chronic Q Fever Database during 2006–2012. Of the patients who had proven cases of chronic Q fever by the Dutch guideline, 46 (30.5%) would not have received a diagnosis by the alternative criteria designed by Raoult, and 14 (4.9%) would have been considered to have possible chronic Q fever. Six patients with proven chronic Q fever died of related causes. Until results from future studies are available, by which current guidelines can be modified, we believe that the Dutch literature-based consensus guideline is more sensitive and easier to use in clinical practice. PMID:26277798

How to make stone soup: Is the "Paleo diet" a missed opportunity for anthropologists?

PubMed

Chang, Melanie L; Nowell, April

2016-09-01

For the past few years, people everywhere have been "going Paleo." Websites and social media touting the benefits of eating a "Paleo diet" and following a "Paleolithic life style" serve as calls to arms for health-conscious individuals seeking information about the latest health and fitness trends. Many of these people participate in programs such as Crossfit, which involve major social and life-style modification components and therefore facilitate the dissemination of dietary fads. 1 The PALEOf(x) TM conference, which bills itself as "the world's premier holistic wellness event," has attracted sellout crowds of thousands of attendees for the last four years. 2 Consumers can wear Paleo clothing, download Paleo shopping and exercise apps to their smartphones, order prepackaged Paleo food, prepare it using Paleo cooking implements, or expediently buy Paleo convenience foods from Paleodiet™ vending machines 3 and "Cultured Caveman" food trucks. 4 The Paleo diet is touted by movie stars, reality TV personalities, and professional athletes, including LeBron James and the entire Miami Dolphins NFL team. 5,6 Books with titles such as The Primal Blueprint, 7 Cavewomen Don't Get Fat, 8 and Paleo Perfected 9 (the latter by the stodgy America's Test Kitchen) are legion, and many are bestsellers. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

[Disability, for a revolution of thought and action].

PubMed

Gardou, Charles

2014-05-01

While considerable progress has been made, disabled people are still perceived as "separate" beings in our society. For them to be integrated, it is necessary to accept their difference and favour their autonomy. The respect of the rights of disabled people thereby enables professionals to position themselves within an ethical support approach. An interview with Charles Gardou, an anthropologist and university professor at Lumière-Lyon 2 University.

Personal equations: reflections on the history of fieldwork, with special reference to sociocultural anthropology.

PubMed

Kuklick, Henrika

2011-03-01

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, diverse sciences grounded in natural history made a virtue of field research that somehow tested scientists' endurance; disciplinary change derived from the premise that witnesses were made reliable by character-molding trials. The turn to the field was a function of structural transformations in various quarters, including (but hardly limited to) global politics, communications systems, and scientific institutions, and it conduced to biogeographical explanations, taxonomic schemes that admitted of heterogeneity, and affective research styles. Sociocultural anthropology, which took specialized shape at the beginning of the twentieth century, shared many properties with other field sciences, but its method--participant observation-was distinctive. Critical to the method's definition were the efforts of the British experimental psychologist-anthropologist W. H. R. Rivers, who relied on notions then widespread in Europe and the United States. The discipline's future mythic hero, Bronislaw Malinowski, embraced Rivers's model. For both men, proper fieldwork meant using the researcher's body as an instrument and entailed understanding both the anthropologist's body and the research subject's body as energy systems; this symmetry facilitated a relativist perspective. Participant observation remains central to sociocultural anthropology, but the discipline's pedagogic habits contributed to loss of memory of its energetic conceptualization.

Culture, Urbanism and Changing Human Biology

PubMed Central

Schell, L.M.

2014-01-01

Anthropologists have long known that human activity driven by culture changes the environment. This is apparent in the archaeological record and through the study of the modern environment. Perhaps the largest change since the paleolithic era is the organization of human populations in cities. New environments can reshape human biology through evolution as shown by the evolution of the hominid lineage. Evolution is not the only process capable of reshaping our biology. Some changes in our human biology are adaptive and evolutionary while others are pathological. What changes in human biology may be wrought by the modern urban environment? One significant new change in the environment is the introduction of pollutants largely through urbanization. Pollutants can affect human biology in myriad ways. Evidence shows that human growth, reproduction, and cognitive functioning can be altered by some pollutants, and altered in different ways depending on the pollutant. Thus, pollutants have significance for human biologists and anthropologists generally. Further, they illustrate the bio-cultural interaction characterizing human change. Humans adapt by changing the environment, a cultural process, and then change biologically to adjust to that new environment. This ongoing, interactive process is a fundamental characteristic of human change over the millennia. PMID:25598655

Dietary health does affect histological age assessment: an evaluation of the Stout and Paine (1992) age estimation equation using secondary osteons from the rib.

PubMed

Paine, Robert R; Brenton, Barrett P

2006-05-01

An age at death estimation equation that uses rib histological variables presented by Stout and Paine was used to evaluate a skeletal population of individuals with a known age at death and cause of death from either malnutrition or the niacin deficiency disease pellagra. The sample was comprised of 26 autopsied black South Africans. Histological analysis of mounted thin sections involved the microscopic measurement of cortical area and a count of the number of intact and fragmentary secondary osteons for the entire cross-section of the rib. Rib osteon population density values were then calculated for each case. It was found that this equation under-aged individuals on average by 29.2 years. Overall, secondary osteon size and Haversian canals tended to be larger than expected, while cortical bone area was less when compared with a control population. The implications of these findings are critical given that many of the skeletal remains examined by forensic anthropologists come from marginalized backgrounds, including malnutrition. This research suggests that measurements based on healthy cases may not be useful in an analysis of individuals with poor diet and health. It is argued that new standards for histological age assessment methods need to be created that account for variation in the health status of individuals examined by forensic anthropologists.

Bergmann's Rule, Adaptation, and Thermoregulation in Arctic Animals: Conflicting Perspectives from Physiology, Evolutionary Biology, and Physical Anthropology After World War II.

PubMed

Hagen, Joel B

2017-05-01

Bergmann's rule and Allen's rule played important roles in mid-twentieth century discussions of adaptation, variation, and geographical distribution. Although inherited from the nineteenth-century natural history tradition these rules gained significance during the consolidation of the modern synthesis as evolutionary theorists focused attention on populations as units of evolution. For systematists, the rules provided a compelling rationale for identifying geographical races or subspecies, a function that was also picked up by some physical anthropologists. More generally, the rules provided strong evidence for adaptation by natural selection. Supporters of the rules tacitly, or often explicitly, assumed that the clines described by the rules reflected adaptations for thermoregulation. This assumption was challenged by the physiologists Laurence Irving and Per Scholander based on their arctic research conducted after World War II. Their critique spurred a controversy played out in a series of articles in Evolution, in Ernst Mayr's Animal Species and Evolution, and in the writings of other prominent evolutionary biologists and physical anthropologists. Considering this episode highlights the complexity and ambiguity of important biological concepts such as adaptation, homeostasis, and self-regulation. It also demonstrates how different disciplinary orientations and styles of scientific research influenced evolutionary explanations, and the consequent difficulties of constructing a truly synthetic evolutionary biology in the decades immediately following World War II.

Conversations between anthropology and psychiatry: drawing out the best from interdisciplinarity in global mental health.

PubMed

Rosso Buckton, Amanda

2015-12-01

Conversations between anthropologists and psychiatrists have led to new theoretical trajectories, research agendas and clinical practices as social scientists and medical practitioners forged new understandings about the interaction of culture, personhood and illness. However, the demands of global mental health, coupled with health service provision requirements, mean that mental health interventions set up with the best intentions can fail to take into account the knowledge and expertise that social sciences can contribute to a programme's success. In this paper, I reflect on conversations between an anthropologist and mental health professionals in direct reference to data analysis of an AusAID mental health capacity-building programme undertaken in the Pacific region. Social and cultural perspectives embedded within programmes can provide richer, more contextualised interventions. In drawing on the combined expertise of anthropology and psychiatry, new taken-for-granted reference points embedding cultural approaches form the basis for delivery of global mental health programmes. These perspectives include: Locating mental health programmes within development critiques. Situating the subjects of development within contextualised settings, acknowledging and respecting local knowledge, understandings and practices. A focus on interdisciplinarity as the basis for future practice in global mental health projects. © The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists 2015.

U.S. Special Forces: Culture Warriors

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-12-01

appropriate. 5 B. THESIS STRUCTURE The thesis proceeds as follows: Chapter II examines the concept of culture by looking at how academia, the business...refer to culture simply as a concept . Sociologist Orlando Patterson notes that “there is strong resistance to attempts to explain any aspect of human...behavior in cultural terms,”8 while anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber and others explain, “the concept ( culture ) has had a name for less than eighty

Keeping the feet of the gods and the saints warm: mundane pragmatics in times of suffering and uncertainty.

PubMed

van Dongen, Els

2008-12-01

In this article the author writes about mundane pragmatics, or everyday deeds, in times of suffering and uncertainty. Such pragmatics differ from cultural practices such as biomedical therapies or individual health-seeking behaviour patterns. Medical anthropologists and others working in the field of health and illness often overlook such pragmatics. However, these actions are of great social value and express the connectedness and bonds between people. They also express our deep beliefs, hopes, powerlessness and vulnerability.

[Participatory observation in the 1995 count of population and housing. An anthropological experience].

PubMed

Mindek, D

1996-01-01

"The experience of an anthropologist who participated as enumerator in [Mexico's] Conteo de Poblacion y Vivienda 1995 is analyzed in this paper. The author describes briefly the methodology...for each stage of the enumeration; she systematically points [out] the circumstances and reasons that determine why the different groups involved in the process do not follow the rules. She [examines] the questions that the informers usually avoid answering, or the ones they answer hardly and imprecisely." (EXCERPT)

Marmosets as model species in neuroscience and evolutionary anthropology.

PubMed

Burkart, Judith M; Finkenwirth, Christa

2015-04-01

Marmosets are increasingly used as model species by both neuroscientists and evolutionary anthropologists, but with a different rationale for doing so. Whereas neuroscientists stress that marmosets share many cognitive traits with humans due to common descent, anthropologists stress those traits shared with marmosets - and callitrichid monkeys in general - due to convergent evolution, as a consequence of the cooperative breeding system that characterizes both humans and callitrichids. Similarities in socio-cognitive abilities due to convergence, rather than homology, raise the question whether these similarities also extend to the proximate regulatory mechanisms, which is particularly relevant for neuroscientific investigations. In this review, we first provide an overview of the convergent adaptations to cooperative breeding at the psychological and cognitive level in primates, which bear important implications for our understanding of human cognitive evolution. In the second part, we zoom in on two of these convergent adaptations, proactive prosociality and social learning, and compare their proximate regulation in marmosets and humans with regard to oxytocin and cognitive top down regulation. Our analysis suggests considerable similarity in these regulatory mechanisms presumably because the convergent traits emerged due to small motivational changes that define how pre-existing cognitive mechanisms are quantitatively combined. This finding reconciles the prima facie contradictory rationale for using marmosets as high priority model species in neuroscience and anthropology. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd and the Japan Neuroscience Society. All rights reserved.

Acculturation and Its Discontents: A Case for Bringing Anthropology Back into the Conversation

PubMed Central

Guarnaccia, Peter J.; Hausmann-Stabile, Carolina

2016-01-01

Anthropologists’ contribution to the study of cultural change is urgent in light of the increasing number of people of different backgrounds who are migrating around the globe and settling in new communities, and the opportunities and challenges that come along with that process. By examining the anthropological literature on acculturation going back to the 1936 Memorandum by Redfield, Linton and Herskovits, this paper reviews and assesses the discipline’s perspective on acculturation, and lays out the case for why it is critical for anthropologists to re-engage the concept. Although other disciplines, particularly psychology and sociology, have dominated the field of acculturation research more recently, they mostly have done so with a narrow focus. While it is important to acknowledge the pitfalls of anthropology’s past study of acculturation, there are important features of the acculturation construct that continue to be relevant. Among these are the study of acculturation as a process that is multidimensional; the investigation of how different kinds of power affect the acculturation process; the impacts of attitudes, actions and policies of the receiving group on how acculturation proceeds; the role of “real history” in understanding processes of acculturation; and the global perspective on these processes. We suggest ways in which anthropologists can reignite the field of acculturation research by engaging with Redfield, Linton and Herskovits’ framework and subsequent anthropological literature. PMID:27595125

Honors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2013-12-01

Twenty-three AGU members are among the newly elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, announced on 25 November 2013. They are Lance F. Bosart, University at Albany, State University of New York; William Henry Brune III, Pennsylvania State University; Robert H. Byrne, University of South Florida; Walter K. Dodds, Kansas State University; Sherilyn Claire Fritz, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Kevin P. Furlong, Pennsylvania State University; Arnold L. Gordon, Columbia University; Thomas A. Herring, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Malcolm Hughes, University of Arizona; Thomas C. Johnson, University of Minnesota Duluth; Jack A. Kaye, NASA; Samuel P. Kounaves, Tufts University; Klaus S. Lackner, Columbia University; Yiqi Luo, University of Oklahoma; Jean-Bernard Minster, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego (UCSD); Kenneth H. Nealson, University of Southern California; Walter Clarkson Pitman III, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; James E. Quick, Southern Methodist University; Ross J. Salawitch, University of Maryland, College Park; Didier Sornette, ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology); Michael Stein, University of Chicago; Bradley M. Tebo, Oregon Health and Science University; and Mark H. Thiemens, UCSD.

The Skin-Ego: Dyadic Sensuality, Trauma in Infancy, and Adult Narcissistic Issues.

PubMed

Anzieu-Premmereur, Christine

2015-10-01

The skin-ego is a metaphor created by the French psychoanalyst Didier Anzieu to describe the process by which the infant's emerging ego develops a container for psychic contents and achieves a secure feeling of well-being. The ego encloses the psychic apparatus as the skin encloses the body. The ego becomes able to fix barriers protecting the internal world and to screen exchanges with the id, the superego, and the outside world. The skin-ego is an envelope that contains thoughts and gives to thinking activity some limits, continuity, and a protection against the instincts. The functions of the skin-ego are to maintain thoughts, to contain ideas and affects, to provide a protective shield, to register traces of primary communication with the outside world, to manage inter-sensorial correspondences, to individuate, to support sexual excitation, and to recharge the libido. The skin-ego is the foundation of the container-contained relationship. An important part of psychoanalytic work with borderline patients is the reconstruction of the earliest phases of the skin-ego and their consequences for mental organization.

Applications of a hand-held GPS receiver in South American rain forests

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Baksh, Michael

1991-01-01

A hand-held Global Positioning System receiver was used to determine the precise locations of villages, houses, gardens, and other cultural and environmental features in poorly mapped South American rain forests. The Magellan NAV 1000 unit profides extremely accurate latitude and longitude information, but determination of altitude is problematical. Overall, the receiver effectively allows anthropologists to obtain essential locational data useful for categorizing land uses, mapping tribal boundaries, and other applications in regions where environmental conditions are harsh and/or accessibility is difficult.

New technology and regional studies in human ecology: A Papua New Guinea example

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Morren, George E. B., Jr.

1991-01-01

Two key issues in using technologies such as digital image processing and geographic information systems are a conceptually and methodologically valid research design and the exploitation of varied sources of data. With this realized, the new technologies offer anthropologists the opportunity to test hypotheses about spatial and temporal variations in the features of interest within a regionally coherent mosaic of social groups and landscapes. Current research on the Mountain OK of Papua New Guinea is described with reference to these issues.

Amateur versus professional: the search for Bigfoot.

PubMed

Regal, Brian

2008-06-01

Those who would seek monsters not as metaphors, but as flesh and blood organisms have gone largely overlooked by the history of science. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s a group of amateur monster hunters and physical anthropologists began to pursue such creatures as Sasquatch, Bigfoot and the Yeti as living species. Whether or not such creatures exist, the monster hunters themselves are fascinating subjects for study, illustrating the tensions that are all too common between amateur naturalists and professional scientists.

ORNL`s war on crime, technically speaking

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Xiques, P.

This paper describes research being carried out by the Center for Applied Science and Technology for Law Enforcement (CASTLE), at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This program works on projects which are solvable, affordable, and outside the scope of the private sector. Examples are presented of work related to: the lifetime of childrens fingerprints compared to adults; the development of ways of providing cooler body armor; digital enhancement technology applied to security-camera images from crime scenes; victim identification by skeletal reconstruction for use by forensic anthropologists.

Medical anthropology and Ebola in Congo: cultural models and humanistic care.

PubMed

Hewlett, B S; Epelboin, A; Hewlett, B L; Formenty, P

2005-09-01

Seldom have medical anthropologists been involved in efforts to control high mortality diseases such as Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) This paper describes the results of two distinct but complementary interventions during the first phases of an outbreak in the Republic of Congo in 2003. The first approach emphasized understanding local peoples cultural models and political-economic explanations for the disease while the second approach focused on providing more humanitarian care of patients by identifying and incorporating local beliefs and practices into patient care and response efforts.

Back to the future: ethnodevelopment among the Jalq'a of Bolivia.

PubMed

Healy, K

1992-01-01

The story is told of how several Chilean anthropologists and Bolivian colleagues helped the Jalq'a people to revive their traditional handicrafts as a model for microregional development. The quest was initially undertaken to find out about "potolo" weavings. The Jalq'a people were found in numbers totaling 25,000 impoverished and with very high infant mortality rates, low incomes, and social disorganization. although the traditional woven dresses were still worn, the color combinations and motifs had lost their originality and precision. The story was told about how during the 1960s and 1970s the poor cash economy had forced people to sell their textiles to tourists and traders for lower than market value. Eventually it became apparent that there were no longer models of the traditional garments to inspire new generations. Upon the anthropologists arrival and inquiries, it was related that local interest to revive production of these native textiles was still there. The craft revival took root because of the interest in the people not just as artisans but as people, and rapport was established. The background of the anthropologists is related. A grassroots support organization (GSO) was formed to assist in economic development that was rooted in the life of the community. The pace was set by participants and a few women at first were trained in commercial production. A shaman was asked to conduct a ritual ceremony which involved calling upon the mountain deities, the Mallkus, to give them a sign. The Mallkus agreed the project was good and the Jalq'a must conserve their language and culture and textiles. New workshops were blessed in a similar way. In the first workshop the challenge was for the women to determine how to make the many strange animals that appeared in Jalq'a designs; a photographic archive was put together and the hand-dyed colors restored with some difficulty. The exhibit of the textiles after several years led to new respect for the Jalq'a and

The cultural parameters of lead poisoning: A medical anthropologist's view of intervention in environmental lead exposure

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Trotter, R.T. II

1990-11-01

This article identifies four culturally shaped sources of lead exposure in human societies: modern and historic technological sources; food habits; culturally defined health beliefs; and beauty practices. Examples of these potential sources of lead poisoning are presented from current cultures. They include the use of lead-glazed cooking pottery in Mexican-American households; folk medical use of lead in Hispanic, Arabic, South Asian, Chinese, and Hmong communities; as well as the use of lead as a cosmetic in the Near East, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. Four interacting cultural conditions that create barriers to the reduction of lead exposure and lead poisoningmore » are identified and discussed. These are knowledge deficiencies, communication resistance, cultural reinterpretations, and incongruity of explanatory models.« less

An Anthropologist among the Psychometricians: Assessment Events, Ethnography, and Differential Item Functioning in the Mongolian Gobi

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maddox, Bryan; Zumbo, Bruno D.; Tay-Lim, Brenda; Qu, Demin

2015-01-01

This article explores the potential for ethnographic observations to inform the analysis of test item performance. In 2010, a standardized, large-scale adult literacy assessment took place in Mongolia as part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Programme (LAMP). In a novel form…

Global Health, Medical Anthropology, and Social Marketing: Steps to the Ecology of Collaboration.

PubMed

Whiteford, Linda

2015-06-01

Anthropology and global health have long been a focus of research for both biological and medical anthropologists. Research has looked at physiological adaptations to high altitudes, community responses to water-borne diseases, the integration of traditional and biomedical approaches to health, global responses to HIV/AIDS, and more recently, to the application of cultural approaches to the control of the Ebola epidemic. Academic anthropology has employed theory and methods to extend knowledge, but less often to apply that knowledge. However, anthropologists outside of the academy have tackled global health issues such as family planning and breast-feeding by bringing together applied medical anthropology and social marketing. In 2014, that potent and provocative combination resulted in the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida being made the home of an innovative center designed to combine academic and applied anthropology with social marketing in order to facilitate social change. This article discusses how inter- and intra-disciplinary research/application has led to the development of Florida's first World Health Organization Collaborating Center (WHO CC), and the first such center to focus on social marketing, social change and non-communicable diseases. This article explains the genesis of the Center and presents readers with a brief overview, basic principles and applications of social marketing by reviewing a case study of a water conservation project. The article concludes with thoughts on the ecology of collaboration among global health, medical anthropology and social marketing practitioners.

Coping and the biosocial consequences of food insecurity in the 21st century.

PubMed

Hadley, Craig; Crooks, Deborah L

2012-01-01

Food security occurs when all members of a household have reliable access to food in sufficient quantity and quality to maintain an active and healthy lifestyle. Given the important biological and social value of food for humans, food and food sufficiency have been traditional topics of study among biological anthropologists. The focus on food insecurity, however, has emerged within the past two decades and recent global events, including the food crisis of 2007/2008, have led to renewed interests in the topic of food insecurity and wellbeing. Here, we review current and novel threats to food security, current thinking on measurement and definitions, and then outline a model that links food insecurity to coping strategies and then to health outcomes. We suggest that coping strategies are typically context-specific and can be food and nonfood based. We further suggest that coping strategies may impact health quite broadly, not just through nutritional pathways. We then review available data on the relationship between food insecurity and nutritional status, chronic diseases, infectious diseases, and mental health. Our review highlights the far reaching consequences of food insecurity for human wellbeing but also the considerable variability in its effect and our limited empirical knowledge of the pathways through which food insecurity impacts health. We conclude by offering thoughts on how biological anthropologists might contribute to growing our understanding of food insecurity and human health and wellbeing. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Race in biology and anthropology: A study of college texts and professors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lieberman, Leonard; Hampton, Raymond E.; Littlefield, Alice; Hallead, Glen

Information about social issues is underemphasized in college science education. This article takes the race concept as an example of this neglect. We review the history of the race concept and report the current status of the concept in textbooks and among professors. Responses to surveys of faculty at Ph.D.-granting departments indicate that 67% of biologists accept the concept of biological races in the species Homo sapiens, while only 50% of physical anthropologists do so. Content analysis of college textbooks indicates a significant degree of change over time (1936-1984) in physical anthropology but a lesser degree in biology. We suggest several reasons for the dissimilarity in the two disciplines. We propose continued use of the concept for some infrahuman species, while abandoning its application to Homo sapiens. For those biologists and anthropologists who continue to use the concept, scientific accuracy can be achieved by the presentation in lecture and text of the following ideas: first, consensus among scientists on the race concept's utility and accuracy does not exist; second, there is more variation within than between so-called races; third, discordant gradations due to natural selection, drift, and interbreeding make consistent racial boundary lines impossible to identify; fourth, past use of the race concept has had harmful consequences; fifth, the most precise study of human hereditary variation maps one trait at a time; and sixth, racial labels are misleading, especially as most populations have a cultural designation.

Bringing political ecology into critical medical anthropology: a challenge to biocultural approaches.

PubMed

Baer, H A

1996-12-01

This essay presents an effort to incorporate the "environment" into critical medical anthropology. Rather than relying upon the multifactorial approach characteristic of medical ecology or biocultural approaches in medical anthropology, it urges critical medical anthropologists to turn to the burgeoning literature on eco-Marxism, eco-socialism, or political ecology in their efforts to develop a political ecology of health. Given that political ecologists generally advocate democratic eco-socialism as a meaningful alternative to the capitalist world system, this essay also presents a critical examination of the environmental record of post-revolutionary societies.

Toward a critical anthropology on the impact of global warming on health and human societies.

PubMed

Baer, Hans A

2008-01-01

This op-ed essay urges medical anthropologists to join a growing number of public health scholars to examine the impact of global warming on health. Adopting a critical medical anthropology perspective, I argue that global warming is yet another manifestation of the contradictions of the capitalist world system. Ultimately, an serious effort to mitigate the impact of global warming not only on health but also settlement patterns and subsistence will require the creation of a new global political economy based upon social parity, democratic processes, and environmental sustainability.

Conducting Qualitative Research on Stigmatizing Conditions with Military Populations

PubMed Central

Lincoln, Martha L.; Ames, Genevieve M.; Moore, Roland S.

2016-01-01

This article addresses the conduct of qualitative research regarding sensitive or stigmatizing topics with military populations, and provides suggestions for implementing culturally responsive and effective data collection with these groups. Given high rates of underreporting of sensitive and stigmatizing conditions in the military, qualitative methods have potential to shed light on phenomena that are not well understood. Drawing on a study of U.S. Army National Guard personnel by civilian anthropologists, we present lessons learned and argue that the value of similar studies can be maximized by culturally responsive research design. PMID:27722033

Race, populations, and genomics: Africa as laboratory.

PubMed

Braun, Lundy; Hammonds, Evelynn

2008-11-01

Much of the recent debate over race, genetics, and health has focused on the extent to which typological notions of race have biological meaning. Less attention, however, has been paid to the assumptions about the nature of "populations" that both inform contemporary biological and medical research and that underlie the concept of race. Focusing specifically on Africa in the 1930s and 1940s, this paper explores the history of how fluid societies were transformed into bounded units amenable to scientific analysis. In the so-called "Golden Age of Ethnography," university-trained social anthropologists, primarily from Britain and South Africa, took to the field to systematically study, organize, and order the world's diverse peoples. Intent on creating a scientific methodology of neutral observation, they replaced amateur travelers, traders, colonial administrators, and missionaries as authoritative knowledge producers about the customs, beliefs, and languages of indigenous peoples. At the same time, linguists were engaged in unifying African languages and mapping language onto primordial "tribal" territories. We argue that the notion of populations or "tribes" as discrete units suitable for scientific sampling and classification emerged in the 1930s and 1940s with the ethnographic turn in social anthropology and the professionalization and institutionalization of linguistics in Western and South African universities. Once named and entered into international atlases and databases by anthropologists in the U.S., the existence of populations as bounded entities became self-evident, thus setting the stage for their use in large-scale population genetic studies and the contemporary reinvigoration of broad claims of difference based on population identification.

New perspectives in forensic anthropology.

PubMed

Dirkmaat, Dennis C; Cabo, Luis L; Ousley, Stephen D; Symes, Steven A

2008-01-01

A critical review of the conceptual and practical evolution of forensic anthropology during the last two decades serves to identify two key external factors and four tightly inter-related internal methodological advances that have significantly affected the discipline. These key developments have not only altered the current practice of forensic anthropology, but also its goals, objectives, scope, and definition. The development of DNA analysis techniques served to undermine the classic role of forensic anthropology as a field almost exclusively focused on victim identification. The introduction of the Daubert criteria in the courtroom presentation of scientific testimony accompanied the development of new human comparative samples and tools for data analysis and sharing, resulting in a vastly enhanced role for quantitative methods in human skeletal analysis. Additionally, new questions asked of forensic anthropologists, beyond identity, required sound scientific bases and expanded the scope of the field. This environment favored the incipient development of the interrelated fields of forensic taphonomy, forensic archaeology, and forensic trauma analysis, fields concerned with the reconstruction of events surrounding death. Far from representing the mere addition of new methodological techniques, these disciplines (especially, forensic taphonomy) provide forensic anthropology with a new conceptual framework, which is broader, deeper, and more solidly entrenched in the natural sciences. It is argued that this new framework represents a true paradigm shift, as it modifies not only the way in which classic forensic anthropological questions are answered, but also the goals and tasks of forensic anthropologists, and their perception of what can be considered a legitimate question or problem to be answered within the field.

Measurements of the talus in the assessment of population affinity.

PubMed

Bidmos, Mubarak A; Dayal, Manisha R; Adegboye, Oyelola A

2018-06-01

As part of their routine work, forensic anthropologists are expected to report population affinity as part of the biological profile of an individual. The skull is the most widely used bone for the estimation of population affinity but it is not always present in a forensic case. Thus, other bones that preserve well have been shown to give a good indication of either the sex or population affinity of an individual. In this study, the potential of measurements of the talus was investigated for the purpose of estimating population affinity in South Africans. Nine measurements from two hundred and twenty tali of South African Africans (SAA) and South African Whites (SAW) from the Raymond A. Dart Collection of Human Skeletons were used. Direct and step-wise discriminant function and logistic regression analyses were carried out using SPSS and SAS. Talar length was the best single variable for discriminating between these two groups for males while in females the head height was the best single predictor. Average accuracies for correct population affinity classification using logistic regression analysis were higher than those obtained from discriminant function analysis. This study was the first of its type to employ discriminant function analyses and logistic regression analyses to estimate the population affinity of an individual from the talus. Thus these equations can now be used by South African anthropologists when estimating the population affinity of dismembered or damaged or incomplete skeletal remains of SAA and SAW. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Machine-Readable Data Files in the Social Sciences: An Anthropologist and a Librarian Look at the Issues.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bernard, H. Russell; Jones, Ray

1984-01-01

Focuses on problems in making machine-readable data files (MRDFs) accessible and in using them: quality of data in MRDFs themselves (social scientists' concern) and accessibility--availability of bibliographic control, quality of documentation, level of user skills (librarians' concern). Skills needed by social scientists and librarians are…

Toward a genealogy of culture.

PubMed

Rendon, M

2001-12-01

Using psychoanalytic theory, this paper attempts to trace the natural history of the phenomenon designated as Culture. It postulates that psychoanalysis, a product of the Hegelian philosophical revolution, is still one of the best instruments to understand Culture. It traces the origins of culture as postulated by Freud and the pioneer anthropologists and its course from early and evolved religion through humanism, science, and finally postmodernism. It emphasizes the dialectical concepts in psychoanalysis and reviews summarily those psychoanalysts that, according to the author, have had a major impact on the study of culture: Freud, Horney, and Lacan.

Art as an Evolutionary Adaptation: Inspiration from the Visible Supernovae of AD 1054 and AD 3054

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Corbally, C. J.; Rappaport, M. B.

2016-01-01

The authors, an astronomer/priest and an anthropologist/biologist, describe their use of the dramatic arts at the INSAP VIII meeting in their performance of two short skits on the sighting of a supernova in AD 1054 (creating the beautiful Crab Nebula) and a future “Rho Cas” stellar explosion in the constellation Cassiopeia, in AD 3054. They speculate on the emergence of science, religion, and art as bona fide adaptations, responding to natural selection, which served early hominins well in their struggle for existence. They draw parallels to the continued functions of science, religion, and art in modern society.

Giving and getting: altruism and exchange in transplantation.

PubMed

Lamanna, Mary Ann

1997-01-01

In the study of organ and tissue transplantation, the focus tends to be on donation. But where there is "giving," there is also "getting:" receiving help. Altruism, helping behavior, and the exchange of benefits have received extensive attention from social psychological researchers. The gift exchange described by anthropologist Marcel Mauss provides a framework for reviewing this social psychological research on altruism and exchange and applying it to transplantation. An overall conclusion is that altruistic donation is not so ethically or clinically problematic, while receiving help has a complex psychosocial context that needs to be acknowledged and given more attention.

[Anthropological medicine: myth and reality].

PubMed

Bataille, M

1995-01-01

After discussing the term "anthropologist doctor", the author describes the hard job of the psychiatrist in the penitentiary in Lantin. From the historical account of the penitentiary anthropology service, he establishes that this service has never had the necessary financial means to create and run laboratories of penitentiary anthropology, especially after the law for social defence was voted and enforced. He fears that, for want of money, the creation now of observation and treatment services would reduce the time one could spend working with prisoners in psychiatric wards. He deals briefly with the condition of psychopaths and drug-addicts in prisons.

Ways of knowing: Howard Stein's border-crossing use of poetry to interrogate clinical medicine, medical education, and health care organizations.

PubMed

Shapiro, Johanna

2016-09-01

This article explores how medical anthropologist Howard Stein's poetry and his unique practice of sharing this poetry with the patients, physicians, and administrators who inspired it create ways of knowing that are at once revelatory and emancipatory. Stein's writing shows readers that poetry can be considered as a form of data and as a method of investigation into the processes of the human soul. Furthermore, it represents a kind of intervention that invites health professional readers toward connection, bridge building, and solidarity with their patients and with one another. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Geodynamic evolution and sedimentary infill of the northern Levant Basin: A source to sink-perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hawie, N.

2013-12-01

Nicolas Hawie a,b,c (nicolas.hawie@upmc.fr) Didier Granjeon c (didier.granjeon@ifpen.fr) Christian Gorini a,b (christian.gorini@upmc.fr) Remy Deschamps c (remy.deschamps@ifpen.fr) Fadi H. Nader c (fadi-henri.nader@ifpen.fr) Carla Müller Delphine Desmares f (delphine.desmares@upmc.fr) Lucien Montadert e (lucien.montadert@beicip.com) François Baudin a (francois.baudin@upmc.fr) a UMR 7193 Institut des Sciences de la Terre de Paris, Université Pierre et Marie Curie/ Univ. Paris 06, case 117. 4, place Jussieu 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France b iSTEP, UMR 7193, CNRS, F-75005, Paris, France c IFP Energies nouvelles, 1-4 avenue du Bois Préau 92852 Rueil Malmaison Cedex, France d UMR 7207, Centre de Recherche sur la Paleobiodiversité et les Paleoenvironnements. Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Tour 46-56 5ème. 4, place Jussieu 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France e Beicip Franlab, 232 Av. Napoléon Bonaparte, 95502 Rueil-Malmaison, France Sedimentological and biostratigraphic investigations onshore Lebanon coupled with 2D offshore reflection seismic data allowed proposing a new Mesozoic-Present tectono-stratigraphic framework for the northern Levant Margin and Basin. The seismic interpretation supported by in-depth facies analysis permitted to depict the potential depositional environments offshore Lebanon as no well has yet been drilled. The Levant region has been affected by successive geodynamic events that modified the architecture of its margin and basin from a Late Triassic to Middle Jurassic rift into a Late Cretaceous subduction followed by collision and Miocene-Present strike slip motion. The interplay between major geodynamic events as well as sea level fluctuations impacted on the sedimentary infill of the basin. During Jurassic and Cretaceous, the Levant Margin is dominated by the aggradation of a carbonate platform while deepwater mixed-systems prevailed in the basin. During the Oligo-Miocene, three major sedimentary pathways are expected to drive important

Are we using the appropriate reference samples to develop juvenile age estimation methods based on bone size? An exploration of growth differences between average children and those who become victims of homicide.

PubMed

Spake, Laure; Cardoso, Hugo F V

2018-01-01

The population on which forensic juvenile skeletal age estimation methods are applied has not been critically considered. Previous research suggests that child victims of homicide tend to be from socioeconomically disadvantaged contexts, and that these contexts impair linear growth. This study investigates whether juvenile skeletal remains examined by forensic anthropologists are short for age compared to their normal healthy peers. Cadaver lengths were obtained from records of autopsies of 1256 individuals, aged birth to eighteen years at death, conducted between 2000 and 2015 in Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. Growth status of the forensic population, represented by homicide victims, and general population, represented by accident victims, were compared using height for age Z-scores and independent sample t-tests. Cadaver lengths of the accident victims were compared to growth references using one sample t-tests to evaluate whether accident victims reflect the general population. Homicide victims are shorter for age than accident victims in samples from the U.S., but not in Australia and New Zealand. Accident victims are more representative of the general population in Australia and New Zealand. Different results in Australia and New Zealand as opposed to the U.S. may be linked to socioeconomic inequality. These results suggest that physical anthropologists should critically select reference samples when devising forensic juvenile skeletal age estimation methods. Children examined in forensic investigations may be short for age, and thus methods developed on normal healthy children may yield inaccurate results. A healthy reference population may not necessarily constitute an appropriate growth comparison for the forensic anthropology population. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Gods, Germs, and Petri Dishes: Toward a Nonsecular Medical Anthropology.

PubMed

Roberts, Elizabeth F S

2016-01-01

This commentary calls on medical anthropology to become programmatically non-secular. Despite recent anthropological critiques of secularity, within and outside of anthropology, most contemporary medical anthropologists continue to leave deities and religiosity out of their examinations of healing practices, especially in their accounts of biomedicine. Through a critical, relational constructionist lens, which traces how all entities are both constructed and real, a non-secular medical anthropology would insist that when deities are part of medical practice, they are integral to analysis. Importantly then, within the symmetrical nature of this same constructionist lens, biomedical entities like germs and petri dishes need to be accounted for just as much as deities.

An evolutionary perspective on health psychology: new approaches and applications.

PubMed

Tybur, Joshua M; Bryan, Angela D; Hooper, Ann E Caldwell

2012-12-20

Although health psychologists' efforts to understand and promote health are most effective when guided by theory, health psychology has not taken full advantage of theoretical insights provided by evolutionary psychology. Here, we argue that evolutionary perspectives can fruitfully inform strategies for addressing some of the challenges facing health psychologists. Evolutionary psychology's emphasis on modular, functionally specialized psychological systems can inform approaches to understanding the myriad behaviors grouped under the umbrella of "health," as can theoretical perspectives used by evolutionary anthropologists, biologists, and psychologists (e.g., Life History Theory). We detail some early investigations into evolutionary health psychology, and we provide suggestions for directions for future research.

Early Homo and the role of the genus in paleoanthropology.

PubMed

Villmoare, Brian

2018-01-01

The history of the discovery of early fossils attributed to the genus Homo has been contentious, with scholars disagreeing over the generic assignment of fossils proposed as members of our genus. In this manuscript I review the history of discovery and debate over early Homo and evaluate the various taxonomic hypotheses for the genus. To get a sense of how hominin taxonomy compares to taxonomic practice outside paleoanthropology, I compare the diversity of Homo to genera in other vertebrate clades. Finally, I propose a taxonomic model that hews closely to current models for hominin phylogeny and is consistent with taxonomic practice across evolutionary biology. © 2018 American Association of Physical Anthropologists.

"Violent Intent Modeling: Incorporating Cultural Knowledge into the Analytical Process

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sanfilippo, Antonio P.; Nibbs, Faith G.

2007-08-24

While culture has a significant effect on the appropriate interpretation of textual data, the incorporation of cultural considerations into data transformations has not been systematic. Recognizing that the successful prevention of terrorist activities could hinge on the knowledge of the subcultures, Anthropologist and DHS intern Faith Nibbs has been addressing the need to incorporate cultural knowledge into the analytical process. In this Brown Bag she will present how cultural ideology is being used to understand how the rhetoric of group leaders influences the likelihood of their constituents to engage in violent or radicalized behavior, and how violent intent modeling canmore » benefit from understanding that process.« less

Promoting Wellness in Lamaze Classes

PubMed Central

Hotelling, Barbara A.

2005-01-01

Lamaze childbirth educators are responsible for teaching wellness-based classes that do not add to the anxiety of the current, fear-based culture of maternity health care. Expectant parents' vulnerable months of pregnancy offer “teachable moments” for the childbirth educator, during which parents can be encouraged to alter their lifestyles and adopt the concept of wellness to their principles of living. In this article, concepts of wellness are examined, drawing from the writings of wellness advocates, midwifery researchers, and an anthropologist. Nutrition, physical exercise, breathing, and awareness of the five senses are components of potential class content explored in this article. PMID:17273442

Sri Lanka. Political violence and ethnic conflict.

PubMed

Rogers, J D; Spencer, J; Uyangoda, J

1998-07-01

In recent years, Sri Lanka has experienced 2 violent rebellions in which youths have played a prominent role, 1 in the majority Sinhala community and 1 in the minority Tamil community. The former was crushed, but the latter remains ongoing, with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who claim to represent the Tamil minority, battling the Sinhala-dominated government. Prospects for peace in the short- and medium term appear poor. These events have generated an impressive body of interdisciplinary interpretation, but several important topics have received relatively little attention. Most ongoing research is being carried out by anthropologists, historians, and political scientists, but psychological insights would offer important complementary perspectives.

The 'relics of Joan of Arc': a forensic multidisciplinary analysis.

PubMed

Charlier, P; Poupon, J; Eb, A; De Mazancourt, P; Gilbert, T; Huynh-Charlier, I; Loublier, Y; Verhille, A M; Moulheirat, C; Patou-Mathis, M; Robbiola, L; Montagut, R; Masson, F; Etcheberry, A; Brun, L; Willerslev, E; de la Grandmaison, G Lorin; Durigon, M

2010-01-30

Archaeological remains can provide concrete cases, making it possible to develop, refine or validate medico-legal techniques. In the case of the so-called 'Joan of Arc's relics' (a group of bone and archaeological remains known as the 'Bottle of Chinon'), 14 specialists analysed the samples such as a cadaver X of carbonised aspect: forensic anthropologist, medical examiners, pathologists, geneticists, radiologist, biochemists, palynologists, zoologist and archaeologist. Materials, methods and results of this study are presented here. This study aims to offer an exploitable methodology for the modern medico-legal cases of small quantities of human bones of carbonised aspect. 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The quest for an absolute chronology in human prehistory: anthropologists, chemists and the fluorine dating method in palaeoanthropology.

PubMed

Goodrum, Matthew R; Olson, Cora

2009-03-01

By the early twentieth century there was a growing need within palaeoanthropology and prehistoric archaeology to find a way of dating fossils and artefacts in order to know the age of specific specimens, but more importantly to establish an absolute chronology for human prehistory. The radiocarbon and potassium-argon dating methods revolutionized palaeoanthropology during the last half of the twentieth century. However, prior to the invention of these methods there were attempts to devise chemical means of dating fossil bone. Collaborations between Emile Rivière and Adolphe Carnot in the 1890s led to the development of the fluorine dating method, but it was not until the 1940s that this method was improved and widely implemented by Kenneth Oakley to resolve a number of problems in palaeoanthropology, including the Piltdown Man controversy. The invention of the fluorine dating method marked a significant advance in the quest for absolute dating in palaeoanthropology, but it also highlights interesting problems and issues relating to the ability of palaeoanthropologists and chemists to bring together different skills and bodies of knowledge in order successfully to develop and apply the fluorine dating method.

Straight eye for the gay guy: composing queerness.

PubMed

Alexander, Jonathan

2010-01-01

Drawing on the work of Didier Eribon and his theorization of the construction of gay male subjectivity, this article examines different "texts," broadly defined, that grapple specifically with straight men attempting to represent male homosexuality: Norman Mailer's essay, "The Homosexual Villain"; the Bravo reality television series Boy Meets Boy, and Michael Griffith's short story, "Hooper Gets a Perm." These texts represent attempts by straight authors to grapple with queer experience in ways that move the imagination of queers beyond simple stereotypes or uncritical explorations of the sexual "other." In the process of examining these texts, the following questions are addressed: What happens when a straight man attempts to represent a gay man? Does he "get it right," and is such a question even useful? More specifically, what is the value in having straights imagine queerness? Is such an imagining possible? Is such desirable? And, if so, what are the contours of such an imagining-as well as its possibilities and limitations, pedagogically, personally, and politically? Ultimately, I contend that the straight imagining of queerness offers rich potential for mutual understanding; furthermore, attempting to understand what goes into the making of those representations tells us much about how queerness circulates in our culture as a subject, a figure of discussion, contention, and representation.

Surface analysis of stone and bone tools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stemp, W. James; Watson, Adam S.; Evans, Adrian A.

2016-03-01

Microwear (use-wear) analysis is a powerful method for identifying tool use that archaeologists and anthropologists employ to determine the activities undertaken by both humans and their hominin ancestors. Knowledge of tool use allows for more accurate and detailed reconstructions of past behavior, particularly in relation to subsistence practices, economic activities, conflict and ritual. It can also be used to document changes in these activities over time, in different locations, and by different members of society, in terms of gender and status, for example. Both stone and bone tools have been analyzed using a variety of techniques that focus on the observation, documentation and interpretation of wear traces. Traditionally, microwear analysis relied on the qualitative assessment of wear features using microscopes and often included comparisons between replicated tools used experimentally and the recovered artifacts, as well as functional analogies dependent upon modern implements and those used by indigenous peoples from various places around the world. Determination of tool use has also relied on the recovery and analysis of both organic and inorganic residues of past worked materials that survived in and on artifact surfaces. To determine tool use and better understand the mechanics of wear formation, particularly on stone and bone, archaeologists and anthropologists have increasingly turned to surface metrology and tribology to assist them in their research. This paper provides a history of the development of traditional microwear analysis in archaeology and anthropology and also explores the introduction and adoption of more modern methods and technologies for documenting and identifying wear on stone and bone tools, specifically those developed for the engineering sciences to study surface structures on micro- and nanoscales. The current state of microwear analysis is discussed as are the future directions in the study of microwear on stone and bone tools.

Biomechanical Studies on Patterns of Cranial Bone Fracture Using the Immature Porcine Model.

PubMed

Haut, Roger C; Wei, Feng

2017-02-01

This review was prepared for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Lissner Medal. It specifically discusses research performed in the Orthopaedic Biomechanics Laboratories on pediatric cranial bone mechanics and patterns of fracture in collaboration with the Forensic Anthropology Laboratory at Michigan State University. Cranial fractures are often an important element seen by forensic anthropologists during the investigation of pediatric trauma cases litigated in courts. While forensic anthropologists and forensic biomechanists are often called on to testify in these cases, there is little basic science developed in support of their testimony. The following is a review of studies conducted in the above laboratories and supported by the National Institute of Justice to begin an understanding of the mechanics and patterns of pediatric cranial bone fracture. With the lack of human pediatric specimens, the studies utilize an immature porcine model. Because much case evidence involves cranial bone fracture, the studies described below focus on determining input loading based on the resultant bone fracture pattern. The studies involve impact to the parietal bone, the most often fractured cranial bone, and begin with experiments on entrapped heads, progressing to those involving free-falling heads. The studies involve head drops onto different types and shapes of interfaces with variations of impact energy. The studies show linear fractures initiating from sutural boundaries, away from the impact site, for flat surface impacts, in contrast to depressed fractures for more focal impacts. The results have been incorporated into a "Fracture Printing Interface (FPI)," using machine learning and pattern recognition algorithms. The interface has been used to help interpret mechanisms of injury in pediatric death cases collected from medical examiner offices. The ultimate aim of this program of study is to develop a "Human Fracture Printing Interface" that can be used by

[Criminal methods in archaeology--collaboration between Forensic Medicine Department, Pomeranian Medical University and the Archaeological Museum in Gdańsk].

PubMed

Kempińska-Podhorodecka, Agnieszka; Knap, Oktawian; Parafiniuk, Mirosław

2007-01-01

During excavation works carried in the Old Town by the Archaeological Museum in Gdańsk, human remains were found which date back to the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. On the basis of Gdańsk townsmen's skulls, Forensic Medicine Department, Pomeranian Medical University (PAM) performed the skull based face reconstruction of 8 individuals. In this study, we wanted to present possibilities of using Gierasimow reconstruction method for museum goals. Reconstruction is an anthropological method which aims at reconstructing bony elements of a skull and head soft tissue. The most commonly employed modern way of reconstruction is Gierasimow's method which is based on the observation of soft tissue thickness and its dependence on the form and level of development of different skull areas. Standards for tissue thickness were elaborated for various points (along the profile and transverse sections); they were based on the examination of soft tissue thickness performed on the corpse (for each sex separately). Deviations from the standards result from racial affiliation, age, and the level of development of adequate skull areas. The research scheme includes determination of sex and age, and collection of the detailed craniometrical and cranioscopic data with comprehensive description of the features which can affect the appearance of soft parts. After relevant measurements are done, the muscles are modeled. During the following stage, soft tissue thickness is marked in particular points as stalks and ridges. Next they are joined together to achieve the final effect of reconstruction. From this moment, finishing works are continued by a sculptor in cooperation with an anthropologist. The results of research conducted by anthropologists, anatomists, morphologists, physicians and criminologists are of great importance and they convey both cognitive and practical meaning. Reconstructions appeal to human imagination, and for that reason they are also addressed to non

The emotional, political, and analytical labor of engaged anthropology amidst violent political conflict.

PubMed

Castillo, Rosa Cordillera

2015-01-01

Given the harsh realities that people live through in southern Philippines, where there is rife human rights violations and violent political conflict, it becomes difficult and arguably unethical for anthropologists to assume a position of neutrality. Following calls for engaged anthropology, I contend that engagement entails simultaneously an emotional, political, and analytical labor and troubles the separation of the self and other. I suggest that a way to labor through these challenges of researching suffering, and the reciprocal obligations this implicates, is to utilize feminist reflexivity and epistemic reflexivity. These necessitate an objectification of the self and one's intellectual field to achieve an epistemological break that would lead to an understanding of the other and their realities.

Emotion work, ethnography, and survival strategies on the streets of Yogyakarta.

PubMed

Stodulka, Thomas

2015-01-01

Anthropological research with street-related children, adolescents, and young adults raises epistemological, methodical, and ethical predicaments. In this article, I illustrate the advantages of an anthropology that acknowledges the ethnographer's emotions as valuable data when conducting research with marginalized communities. By drawing on my own experiences when conducting long-term fieldwork, I argue that systematic self-reflexivity and an emotionally aware epistemology enhance both the anthropologist's emotional literacy and his or her understanding of informants and interlocutors. The integration of the ethnographer's emotions in the analysis and interpretation of ethnographic data can assist in formulating anthropological theory, challenging the limits of traditional empiricism, and raising emotions to a category of epistemic value.

Whole-body 3D scanner and scan data report

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Addleman, Stephen R.

1997-03-01

With the first whole-body 3D scanner now available the next adventure confronting the user is what to do with all of the data. While the system was built for anthropologists, it has created interest among users from a wide variety of fields. Users with applications in the fields of anthropology, costume design, garment design, entertainment, VR and gaming have a need for the data in formats unique to their fields. Data from the scanner is being converted to solid models for art and design and NURBS for computer graphics applications. Motion capture has made scan data move and dance. The scanner has created a need for advanced application software just as other scanners have in the past.

To meat or not to meat? New perspectives on Neanderthal ecology.

PubMed

Fiorenza, Luca; Benazzi, Stefano; Henry, Amanda G; Salazar-García, Domingo C; Blasco, Ruth; Picin, Andrea; Wroe, Stephen; Kullmer, Ottmar

2015-02-01

Neanderthals have been commonly depicted as top predators who met their nutritional needs by focusing entirely on meat. This information mostly derives from faunal assemblage analyses and stable isotope studies: methods that tend to underestimate plant consumption and overestimate the intake of animal proteins. Several studies in fact demonstrate that there is a physiological limit to the amount of animal proteins that can be consumed: exceeding these values causes protein toxicity that can be particularly dangerous to pregnant women and newborns. Consequently, to avoid food poisoning from meat-based diets, Neanderthals must have incorporated alternative food sources in their daily diets, including plant materials as well. © 2014 American Association of Physical Anthropologists.

The multiple meanings of ataques de nervios in the Latino community.

PubMed

Guarnaccia, P J; DeLaCancela, V; Carrillo, E

1989-05-01

Ataques de nervios ("attacks of nerves") have been discussed in the psychiatric and anthropological literature for over thirty years. The early psychiatric articles focused on the pathology expressed by the ataque. More recent articles by anthropologists and Latino mental health professionals have reconceptualized the ataque through understanding its cultural meaning and the social factors which provoke an ataque de nervios. This article is a contribution to this reinterpretation of the ataque de nervios among Latinos. Through a series of case studies, we argue that the ataque is an expression of anger and grief resulting from the disruption of family systems, the process of migration, and concerns about family members in peoples' countries of origin.

Communicating science: Reflections of an AGU public affairs intern

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huth, Tyler

2012-10-01

This past summer, I read a biography of the geologist and anthropologist John Wesley Powell. Among his many important accomplishments, Powell was a legendary explorer of the then largely unknown American West, a leader in the founding of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and its second director, and the founder of the Cosmos Club in Washington, D. C. He was a student of the Earth from an early age, fought and lost an arm for the Union during the Civil War, advanced to the rank of major, led the first successful expedition down the entirety of the Grand Canyon, and then spent the rest of his life coupling scientific knowledge with public policy.

Anthropology for the Schools: An Analysis of Selected Anthropology Curriculum Projects and Units with Content Ratings by Professional Anthropologists.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dynneson, Thomas L.

This thesis examines anthropology teaching materials for public schools in light of their characteristics -- subject content, rationale and objectives, antecedent conditions, evaluation, background of materials development -- and the determination of their accuracy and representation. The study also serves as a guide to types of anthropology…

From application to implication in medical anthropology: political, historical and narrative interpretations of the world of sickness and health.

PubMed

Nunes, Mônica de Oliveira

2014-01-01

This article reviews some of the current writing on medical anthropology, and is guided by political orientation/implication in the choice of its study targets, its analysis and its construction of solutions for the problems investigated. Starting from the narratives of anthropologists, it goes on to show the historical and socio-political bases characteristic of the subject in their countries of origin or migration. Within a general overview of the three principal contemporary trends - critical medical anthropology, the anthropology of suffering and the anthropology of biopower - the focus is on theoretical and thematic choices to meet the demand for "politicization" of the anthropological debate in the field of health, on the basis of which an "implied" medical anthropology is advocated.

A case of undeclared debt? Claude Lévi-Strauss' ambiguities and paradoxes toward analytical psychology.

PubMed

Serina, Florent

2018-06-09

If his relationship to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis has been widely acknowledged, Claude Lévi-Strauss' rapport with C.G. Jung's analytical psychology remains quite obscure. While secondary commentary has been abundant, its approach has above all been intertextual, to the detriment of a rigorously historical reading. Even if certain arguments put forward by supporters of so-called "influence" deserve to be taken into account, especially because they highlight Lévi-Strauss ambiguities and paradoxes toward Jung, this paper provides proof that a precise reading of the texts, with the help of recent studies on the intellectual genesis of Lévi-Strauss, lead to reject the thesis of an unstated debt owed by the French anthropologist to the Zurich psychologist. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Becoming Buzz Lightyear and Other Clinical Tales: Indigenizing Disney in a World of Disability

PubMed Central

Mattingly, Cheryl

2010-01-01

Increasingly, anthropologists are investigating the place of mass media in our lives, for we live, as Ortner (1999) notes, in a ‘media-saturated world.’ This paper explores the role of (globalized) children's mass media – with particular emphasis on Disney – and its influence on one particular community of consumers. The community consists of African American children who face serious disabilities and chronic illnesses, as well as the families who care for them. Disney films and characters permeate the lives and imaginations of these children and parenting kin. While the compelling power of Disney can legitimately be construed as a form of global domination, an emphasis on domination and on the consumer as unwitting victim easily underestimates the agency of the audience. PMID:21643552

Utilities of gossip across organizational levels : Multilevel selection, free-riders, and teams.

PubMed

Kniffin, Kevin M; Wilson, David Sloan

2005-09-01

Gossip is a subject that has been studied by researchers from an array of disciplines with various foci and methods. We measured the content of language use by members of a competitive sports team across 18 months, integrating qualitative ethnographic methods with quantitative sampling and analysis. We hypothesized that the use of gossip will vary significantly depending on whether it is used for self-serving or group-serving purposes. Our results support a model of gossip derived from multilevel selection theory that expects gossip to serve group-beneficial rules when rewards are partitioned at the group level on a scale that permits mutual monitoring. We integrate our case study with earlier studies of gossip conducted by anthropologists, psychologists, and management researchers.

Entangled ethnography: imagining a future for young adults with learning disabilities.

PubMed

Ginsburg, Faye; Rapp, Rayna

2013-12-01

Our article draws on one aspect of our multi-sited long-term ethnographic research in New York City on cultural innovation and Learning Disabilities (LD). We focus on our efforts to help create two innovative transition programs that also became sites for our study when we discovered that young adults with disabilities were too often "transitioning to nowhere" as they left high school. Because of our stakes in this process as parents of children with learning disabilities as well as anthropologists, we have come to think of our method as entangled ethnography, bringing the insights of both insider and outsider perspectives into productive dialog, tailoring a longstanding approach in critical anthropology to research demedicalizing the experience of disability. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction. Shrines, substances and medicine in sub-Saharan Africa: archaeological, anthropological, and historical perspectives

PubMed Central

Insoll, Timothy

2011-01-01

Whereas shrines in Africa, and to a lesser extent their links with medicine and healing, have been extensively studied by historians and anthropologists, they have been largely neglected by archaeologists. Focus has been placed upon palaeopathology when medicine is considered in archaeological contexts. Difficulties certainly exist in defining medicine shrines, substances and practices archaeologically, yet research can take various forms – scapegoats and figural representations of disease; divination and diagnosis; trade and spread of medicinal substances, shrines, and amulets; syncretism of different traditions and materiality; the material culture associated with healing and medicinal substance; depictions in rock art; genetic research. A move beyond palaeopathology is required to begin to understand the archaeology of medicine shrines, substances, practices and healing in sub-Saharan Africa. PMID:21810034

Suicide prevention in the Pacific War (WW II).

PubMed

Suzuki, P T

1991-01-01

During the war against Japan, there were two facets of an American program to prevent suicide among the Japanese. One was a research component in the Foreign Morale Analysis Division (FMAD), a subunit of the Office of War Information. The principal FMAD figure who did most of the research on Japanese suicide and ways to prevent suicide among the Japanese military was the anthropologist Ruth Benedict, assisted by her Japanese-American aide Robert Hashima. The second facet was the suicide prevention program itself, which was put into effect toward the end of the war in the battles of Saipan and Okinawa. This program of action was undertaken by American GIs. These unheralded activities in suicide prevention merit a place in the annals of suicide prevention programs.

Trauma Affecting Asian-Pacific Islanders in the San Francisco Bay Area

PubMed Central

Bith-Melander, Pollie; Jindal, Charulata; Efird, Jimmy T.

2017-01-01

Trauma is a transgenerational process that overwhelms the community and the ability of family members to cope with life stressors. An anthropologist trained in ethnographic methods observed three focus groups from a non-profit agency providing trauma and mental health services to Asian Americans living in the San Francisco Bay Area of United States. Supplemental information also was collected from staff interviews and notes. Many of the clients were immigrants, refugees, or adult children of these groups. This report consisted of authentic observations and rich qualitative information to characterize the impact of trauma on refugees and immigrants. Observations suggest that collective trauma, direct or indirect, can impede the success and survivability of a population, even after many generations. PMID:28895918

Understanding the organisational context for adverse events in the health services: the role of cultural censorship.

PubMed

Hart, E; Hazelgrove, J

2001-12-01

This paper responds to the current emphasis on organisational learning in the NHS as a means of improving healthcare systems and making hospitals safer places for patients. Conspiracies of silence have been identified as obstacles to organisational learning, covering error and hampering communication. In this paper we question the usefulness of the term and suggest that "cultural censorship", a concept developed by the anthropologist Robin Sherriff, provides a much needed insight into cultures of silence within the NHS. Drawing on a number of illustrations, but in particular the Ritchie inquiry into the disgraced gynaecologist Rodney Ledward, we show how the defining characteristics of cultural censorship can help us to understand how adverse events get pushed underground, only to flourish in the underside of organisational life.

Race, ethnicity, and racism in medical anthropology, 1977-2002.

PubMed

Gravlee, Clarence C; Sweet, Elizabeth

2008-03-01

Researchers across the health sciences are engaged in a vigorous debate over the role that the concepts of "race" and "ethnicity" play in health research and clinical practice. Here we contribute to that debate by examining how the concepts of race, ethnicity, and racism are used in medical-anthropological research. We present a content analysis of Medical Anthropology and Medical Anthropology Quarterly, based on a systematic random sample of empirical research articles (n = 283) published in these journals from 1977 to 2002. We identify both differences and similarities in the use of race, ethnicity, and racism concepts in medical anthropology and neighboring disciplines, and we offer recommendations for ways that medical anthropologists can contribute to the broader debate over racial and ethnic inequalities in health.

Virtual anthropology.

PubMed

Weber, Gerhard W

2015-02-01

Comparative morphology, dealing with the diversity of form and shape, and functional morphology, the study of the relationship between the structure and the function of an organism's parts, are both important subdisciplines in biological research. Virtual anthropology (VA) contributes to comparative morphology by taking advantage of technological innovations, and it also offers new opportunities for functional analyses. It exploits digital technologies and pools experts from different domains such as anthropology, primatology, medicine, paleontology, mathematics, statistics, computer science, and engineering. VA as a technical term was coined in the late 1990s from the perspective of anthropologists with the intent of being mostly applied to biological questions concerning recent and fossil hominoids. More generally, however, there are advanced methods to study shape and size or to manipulate data digitally suitable for application to all kinds of primates, mammals, other vertebrates, and invertebrates or to issues regarding plants, tools, or other objects. In this sense, we could also call the field "virtual morphology." The approach yields permanently available virtual copies of specimens and data that comprehensively quantify geometry, including previously neglected anatomical regions. It applies advanced statistical methods, supports the reconstruction of specimens based on reproducible manipulations, and promotes the acquisition of larger samples by data sharing via electronic archives. Finally, it can help identify new, hidden traits, which is particularly important in paleoanthropology, where the scarcity of material demands extracting information from fragmentary remains. This contribution presents a current view of the six main work steps of VA: digitize, expose, compare, reconstruct, materialize, and share. The VA machinery has also been successfully used in biomechanical studies which simulate the stress and strains appearing in structures. Although

Prehistoric human settling on the Tibetan Plateau

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, F.; Zhang, D.; Dong, G.; Xia, H.

2017-12-01

When and where did human first settle down on the Tibetan Plateau is under hot debate among archaeologist, anthropologists, geneticist and paleo-geographers. Based on systematic archaeological, chronological and archaeo-botanical studies of 53 sites in Northeastern Tibetan Plateau, we propose that agriculture facilitated human permanent settlement on the Tibetan Plateau initially since 5200 years ago below 2500 masl and since 3600 years ago up to around 4000 masl, possibly assisted by domesticated animals (Chen et al. 2015). By redating the age of hand- and footprints in Chusang site in Tibet, Meyer et al. (2017) argue that hunter-gatherers permanently occupied central Tibetan Plateau in early Holocene (before 7.4 ka) without the help of agriculture. Except for the possible problem of dating, however, the limited hand- and footprints could only indicate the presence of prehistoric hunter-gatherers on the remote central Tibetan Plateau in the early Holocene, unable to support the permanent inhabitation assertion (Zhang et al., 2017). To better understand how human spread to, settle on and adapt to the Tibetan Plateau, we are closely working together with anthropologists, archaeologists and geneticists to do system Paleolithic surveys, full excavations, and genetic analysis of ancient and modern human, animals and plants. Our preliminary study show that human migrated to the Tibetan Plateau from the last Deglacial period to late Holocene mainly from North China via Yellow River valley and its tributary valleys in the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau (NETP). This migration is constituted of four stages (Upper Paleolithic, Epi-Paleolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age) with different adaptation strategies, including microlithic technology, millet and barley farming, and sheep herding and so on (Zhang et al., 2016). In addition, our new finds in Tibet indicate that there are probably more migration routes from southeast and southwest Tibetan Plateau in the late Pleistocene or

A Study on Generic Representation of Skeletal Remains Replication of Prehistoric Burial

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shao, C.-W.; Chiu, H.-L.; Chang, S.-K.

2015-08-01

Generic representation of skeletal remains from burials consists of three dimensions which include physical anthropologists, replication technicians, and promotional educators. For the reason that archaeological excavation is irreversible and disruptive, detail documentation and replication technologies are surely needed for many purposes. Unearthed bones during the process of 3D digital scanning need to go through reverse procedure, 3D scanning, digital model superimposition, rapid prototyping, mould making, and the integrated errors generated from the presentation of colours and textures are important issues for the presentation of replicate skeleton remains among professional decisions conducted by physical anthropologists, subjective determination of makers, and the expectations of viewers. This study presents several cases and examines current issues on display and replication technologies for human skeletal remains of prehistoric burials. This study documented detail colour changes of human skeleton over time for the reference of reproduction. The tolerance errors of quantification and required technical qualification is acquired according to the precision of 3D scanning, the specification requirement of rapid prototyping machine, and the mould making process should following the professional requirement for physical anthropological study. Additionally, the colorimeter is adopted to record and analyse the "colour change" of the human skeletal remains from wet to dry condition. Then, the "colure change" is used to evaluate the "real" surface texture and colour presentation of human skeletal remains, and to limit the artistic presentation among the human skeletal remains reproduction. The"Lingdao man No.1", is a well preserved burial of early Neolithic period (8300 B.P.) excavated from Liangdao-Daowei site, Matsu, Taiwan , as the replicating object for this study. In this study, we examined the reproduction procedures step by step for ensuring the surface

Mortuary operations in the aftermath of the 2009 Victorian bushfires.

PubMed

Leditschke, Jodie; Collett, Sarsha; Ellen, Rebecca

2011-02-25

On the day of the 2009 Victorian bushfires the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine activated its emergency plan. Within 48 h a temporary body storage facility was constructed adjacent to the existing mortuary. This temporary facility had the capacity to store up to 300 deceased persons. Pathologists, anthropologists, odontologists, police and mortuary assistants responded from all around Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia. The existing forensic mortuary and staff were divided into two areas: DVI (disaster victim identification) and "routine operations". A high priority for the mortuary was to ensure the casework of the "routine" deceased persons (those cases which were not related to the bushfires) was handled concurrently and in a timely manner. On admission each set of victim remains was given both a Coroner's case number in addition to the DVI number allocated at the scene. The case was CT scanned, examined by a pathologist, an anthropologist, and odontologist and in some instances a fingerprint expert. Where possible a DNA sample was taken. All processes, samples, labels and paperwork underwent a quality assurance check prior to the case completion. Regular audits were conducted. All of post mortem examinations were completed within 20 days of admission. Occupational health and safety issues of the staff were a high priority; this included correct manual handling, infection control and psychological debriefings. During the operation it was found that some remains were contaminated with asbestos. Procedures were set in place to manage these cases individually and each was isolated to reduce the risk of exposure by staff to asbestos. This overall mortuary operation identified a number of significant challenges, in particular the management of multiple parts of human remains for one individual. A new procedure was developed to ensure that all human remains, where possible, were reconciled with identified deceased persons prior to the release to the funeral

An old balancing act: resources v. population.

PubMed

Murphy, E

1977-11-01

Population concern is found not only among modern man, but among primitive peoples and animal groups. Although some researchers object to extrapolating from animal behavior to human behavior, it is still an oft-observed fact that crowding produces fighting, territorial aggression, or other behaviors which disperse the population and relieve the pressures on food and other resources. Female chimpanzees bear offspring at 5-year intervals although they come into estrus yearly. This may be due to the ovulation suppression effects of lactation, which is lengthy among chimps. A similar repression gives humans respite from childbearing. Among primitive peoples similar population control mechanisms are at work. The Rendille camel herders in Kenya tried to limit population by insisting on monogamy and late marriage and killing boys born on Wednesday or younger ones after circumcision of the eldest brother. Among 96 births observed to the Netsilik Eskimos, an anthropologist noted that 38 female babies were left to die from exposure before becoming "people" in a naming ceremony. Cheyenne Indians limited population by insisting a woman should not have another child until her 1st is 10-years old. This required rigorous abstinence. Anthropologist Mary Douglas suggests a group will often define optimal population by perceived scarcity of things that are important to their society. The Pacific islanders of Tikopia strongly disapprove of families with more than 2 or 3 children. This limitation seems due to the limitation of cocoanuts. The Rendille limit population because of their desire to assure enough camels to go around. Researchers have followed with interest the 1st demographic transition of the Kung tribe of Africa. When they were hunter-gathers, women had high status because they provided at least half the food and births were 4-5 years apart because the nourishment level was so low pregnancy did not occur during lactation. Now that they have become farmers women's status

Anthropology in a postcolonial colony: Helen I. Safa's contribution to Puerto Rican ethnography.

PubMed

Duany, Jorge

2010-01-01

This article assesses Helen I. Safa's legacy to anthropological thought in Puerto Rico. The first part of the article locates Safa's research on the Island within a long tradition of fieldwork by U.S. scholars since the early twentieth century. More recent research, conducted mostly by Puerto Rican women anthropologists and other social scientists, has expanded upon Safa's insights on gender and work. The second part of the essay analyzes Safa's major empirical work, The Urban Poor of Puerto Rico: A Study in Development and Inequality. Above all, this book helped overcome the theoretical impasse over the culture of poverty that characterized much of urban anthropology during the 1960s and 1970s. The article concludes with an appraisal of the relevance of Safa's work for the ethnography of contemporary Puerto Rico.

Medical anthropology and the physician assistant profession.

PubMed

Henry, Lisa R

2015-01-01

Medical anthropology is a subfield of anthropology that investigates how culture influences people's ideas and behaviors regarding health and illness. Medical anthropology contributes to the understanding of how and why health systems operate the way they do, how different people understand and interact with these systems and cultural practices, and what assets people use and challenges they may encounter when constructing perceptions of their own health conditions. The goal of this article is to highlight the methodological tools and analytical insights that medical anthropology offers to the study of physician assistants (PAs). The article discusses the field of medical anthropology; the advantages of ethnographic and qualitative research; and how medical anthropology can explain how PAs fit into improved health delivery services by exploring three studies of PAs by medical anthropologists.

Familiarity breeds: incest and the Ptolemaic Dynasty.

PubMed

Ager, Sheila L

2005-01-01

This paper examines the problem of Ptolemaic incest from a variety of cross-disciplinary perspectives. Specifically, it seeks to establish the following: that there is little in the ancient record to support the common claim that the Ptolemies suffered extensively from the deleterious genetic effects of inbreeding; that the various theories so far put forward as explanations for Ptolemaic incest offer at best only a partial rationale for this dynastic practice; that the most compelling rationale for Ptolemaic incest is to be found in complex, and perhaps unconscious, symbolic motivations analogous to those observed by anthropologists in other cultures; and finally, that, for the Ptolemies, incest was, like the "truphê" for which they were so notorious, a dynastic signature which highlighted their singularity and above all, their power.

Demedicalizing Health: The Kitchen as a Site of Care.

PubMed

Yates-Doerr, Emily; Carney, Megan A

2016-01-01

Attention to culinary care can enrich the framing of health within medical anthropology. We focus on care practices in six Latin American kitchens to illuminate forms of health not located within a singular human subject. In these kitchens, women cared not for individuals but for meals, targeting the health of families and landscapes. Many medical anthropologists have critiqued health for its associations with biomedicine/biocapitalism, some even taking a stance 'against health.' Although sympathetic to this critique, our focus on women's practices of caring for health through food highlights dissonances between clinical and nonclinical forms of health. We call for the development of an expanded vocabulary of health that recognizes health care treatment strategies that do not target solely the human body but also social, political, and environmental afflictions.

[The archeology of slavery on Jesuit fazendas: first research notes].

PubMed

Symanski, Luís Cláudio P; Gomes, Flávio

2012-12-01

These preliminary research notes present theoretical and methodological questions regarding a recently inaugurated investigation in historical archeology that intends to analyze daily life under slavery, demographic regimes, cultural practices, and so on. A survey of archeological sites on former 'senzalas' (slave quarters) and slave-owning fazendas in the Paraíba Valley and northern part of the state of Rio de Janeiro is currently in progress. With the cooperation of historians, archeologists, and anthropologists, records of the material culture of slave populations, which originally comprised indigenes and later Africans, are being located at excavations underway on the fazenda that is part of the Jesuit school in Campos dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro, first run by the clergy and later by members of the laity in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

Where do those remains come from?

PubMed

Nociarová, Dominika; Adserias, M Jose; Malgosa, Assumpció; Galtés, Ignasi

2014-12-01

Part of the study of skeletal remains or corpses in advance decay located in the field involves determining their origin. They may be the result of criminal activity, accident, unearthed because of erosion, or they may also have originated from a cemetery. The discovery site, condition of the remains, and the associated artifacts, are factors that could be helpful for the forensic anthropologist to identify the origin of the remains. In order to contribute to this recognition, an analysis was made of the exhumations of 168 unclaimed human remains from the cemetery of Terrassa (Catalonia, Spain). This investigation presents a description of artifacts and conditions of remains that could indicate that the human remains may have originated from a cemetery. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Personal review and justice analysis of nursing experiences in Haiti.

PubMed

Emmott, Helen

2008-08-01

Health care providers frequently struggle to develop wise applications of theoretical knowledge. As a nurse studying traditional approaches in ethics while simultaneously volunteering in Haiti, I wrestled with the notion of justice in the midst of radical material inequities. Paul Farmer, physician and anthropologist, provides an analytic perspective for health care providers who work in poor and underserved countries by expanding the liberation theology of the 1970s to include social applications. Analyzing my past experiences in Haiti using Farmer's methodology provided insight into my successes and failures and prompted me to search for personal and professional reasons to provide care for the poor in the future. This type of reflection is essential for health care providers who work with the underserved, regardless of their religion or the country in which they work.

Primary Care Practice: Uncertainty and Surprise

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Crabtree, Benjamin F.

I will focus my comments on uncertainty and surprise in primary care practices. I am a medical anthropologist by training, and have been a full-time researcher in family medicine for close to twenty years. In this talk I want to look at primary care practices as complex systems, particularly taking the perspective of translating evidence into practice. I am going to discuss briefly the challenges we have in primary care, and in medicine in general, of translating new evidence into the everyday care of patients. To do this, I will look at two studies that we have conducted on family practices, then think about how practices can be best characterized as complex adaptive systems. Finally, I will focus on the implications of this portrayal for disseminating new knowledge into practice.

Attachment. A pancultural need but a cultural construct.

PubMed

Keller, Heidi

2016-04-01

Attachment theory can be considered as the most important theory for children's socioemotional development during the first years of life with substantial implications also for the application in clinical and educational fields. Attachment theory has been developed out of the prevailing Euro-American childcare philosophy and based on a selective review of knowledge available from different disciplines, including evolutionary theory, ethology, and systems theory. What is left out is systematic evidence for relationship formation beyond the exclusive dyadic Western mother-child format. Recent evidence published by cultural anthropologists, psychologists, and evolutionary theorists is discussed in this paper especially with respect to caregiving arrangements with multiple caregivers. It is concluded that there is not one model of relationship formation that is adaptive for all of the world's population. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Listmania. How lists can open up fresh possibilities for research in the history of science.

PubMed

Delbourgo, James; Müller-Wille, Staffan

2012-12-01

Anthropologists, linguists, cultural historians, and literary scholars have long emphasized the value of examining writing as a material practice and have often invoked the list as a paradigmatic example thereof. This Focus section explores how lists can open up fresh possibilities for research in the history of science. Drawing on examples from the early modern period, the contributors argue that attention to practices of list making reveals important relations between mercantile, administrative, and scientific attempts to organize the contents of the world. Early modern lists projected both spatial and temporal visions of nature: they inventoried objects in the process of exchange and collection; they projected possible trajectories for future endeavor; they publicized the social identities of scientific practitioners; and they became research tools that transformed understandings of the natural order.

Shrunken head (tsantsa): a complete forensic analysis procedure.

PubMed

Charlier, P; Huynh-Charlier, I; Brun, L; Hervé, C; de la Grandmaison, G Lorin

2012-10-10

Based on the analysis of shrunken heads referred to our forensic laboratory for anthropological expertise, and data from both anthropological and medical literature, we propose a complete forensic procedure for the analysis of such pieces. A list of 14 original morphological criteria has been developed, based on the global aspect, color, physical deformation, anatomical details, and eventual associated material (wood, vegetal fibers, sand, charcoals, etc.). Such criteria have been tested on a control sample of 20 tsantsa (i.e. shrunken heads from the Jivaro or Shuar tribes of South America). Further complementary analyses are described such as CT-scan and microscopic examination. Such expertise is more and more asked to forensic anthropologists and practitioners in a context of global repatriation of human artifacts to native communities. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Patenting nature or protecting culture? Ethnopharmacology and indigenous intellectual property rights.

PubMed

McGonigle, Ian Vincent

2016-04-01

Ethnopharmacologists are scientists and anthropologists that study indigenous medicines and healing practices, and who often develop new therapies and medicines for wider use. Ethnopharmacologists do fieldwork with indigenous peoples in traditional societies, where they encounter a wide range of cultural values and varying ideas about the nature of property relations. This poses difficulties for protecting indigenous intellectual property and for making just trade agreements. This Note reviews the legal issues relevant to the protection of indigenous resources in ethnopharmacology trade agreements, and suggests that recent developments in anthropology and the social study of science could be instructive in furthering the legal discourse and in providing policy directions. Specifically, the Note introduces the concepts of 'ontological pluralism' and 'epistemic subsidiarity', which could help lawmakers write sui generis trade agreements to better protect indigenous knowledge and resources.

Modern morphometry: new perspectives in physical anthropology.

PubMed

Mantini, Simone; Ripani, Maurizio

2009-06-01

In the past one hundred years physical anthropology has recourse to more and more efficient methods, which provide several new information regarding, human evolution and biology. Apart from the molecular approach, the introduction of new computed assisted techniques gave rise to a new concept of morphometry. Computed tomography and 3D-imaging, allowed providing anatomical description of the external and inner structures exceeding the problems encountered with the traditional morphometric methods. Furthermore, the support of geometric morphometrics, allowed creating geometric models to investigate morphological variation in terms of evolution, ontogeny and variability. The integration of these new tools gave rise to the virtual anthropology and to a new image of the anthropologist in which anatomical, biological, mathematical statistical and data processing information are fused in a multidisciplinary approach.

Cultural-Ecological Theory of Academic Disengagement Used to Explain a Story of Race, Culture and Education.

PubMed

Ogunyemi, Boluwaji

2017-01-01

Students of African ancestry often share an experience of being a racialized minority in the context of the educational institution. Late Professor of Anthropology John Ogbu's Cultural-ecological Theory of Academic Disengagement is employed to describe the negative responses encountered by peers in the name of academic achievement. The late Nigerian-American anthropologist John Ogbu described that it is often socially disadvantageous for black youth to prosper academically in formal education. Black students are often seen as betraying their cultural identities by aspiring to academic success and scholastic achievement and are met with repugnance by black peers. The notion of "acting white" is unnecessary, impertinent should be abandoned outright as achievement should have no color. Copyright © 2017 National Medical Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

International Congress on Transposable Elements (ICTE) 2012 in Saint Malo and the sea of TE stories.

PubMed

Ainouche, Abdelkader; Bétermier, Mireille; Chandler, Mick; Cordaux, Richard; Cristofari, Gaël; Deragon, Jean-Marc; Lesage, Pascale; Panaud, Olivier; Quesneville, Hadi; Vaury, Chantal; Vieira, Cristina; Vitte, Clémentine

2012-10-30

An international conference on Transposable Elements (TEs) was held 21-24 April 2012 in Saint Malo, France. Organized by the French Transposition Community (GDR Elements Génétiques Mobiles et Génomes, CNRS) and the French Society of Genetics (SFG), the conference's goal was to bring together researchers from around the world who study transposition in diverse organisms using multiple experimental approaches. The meeting drew more than 217 attendees and most contributed through poster presentations (117), invited talks and short talks selected from poster abstracts (48 in total). The talks were organized into four scientific sessions, focused on: impact of TEs on genomes, control of transposition, evolution of TEs and mechanisms of transposition. Here, we present highlights from the talks given during the platform sessions. The conference was sponsored by Alliance pour les sciences de la vie et de la santé (Aviesan), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (INSERM), Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA), Université de Perpignan, Université de Rennes 1, Région Bretagne and Mobile DNA. CHAIR OF THE ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE: Jean-Marc Deragon ORGANIZERS: Abdelkader Ainouche, Mireille Bétermier, Mick Chandler, Richard Cordaux, Gaël Cristofari, Jean-Marc Deragon, Pascale Lesage, Didier Mazel, Olivier Panaud, Hadi Quesneville, Chantal Vaury, Cristina Vieira and Clémentine Vitte.

[Literary, biographic and autoethnographic contributions in Spanish medical anthropology: the case of Catalonia].

PubMed

Alegre-Agís, Elisa; Riccò, Isabella

2017-01-01

The autoethnographic method has been an important contribution to the development of medical anthropology in Spain. This article first reviews and explores documents published before 1980 that are usually classified as literature and autobiography and are linked to the health-disease-care process, a paradigmatic example of which is Ramona Via's diary Com neixen els Catalans [How Catalans are born] published in 1972. The second part of the article is focused on contributions carried out since the 1980s using the concept of autoethnography, which have as their object the body, health and illness based on a subjective ethnographic experience. This period, unlike the first, is characterized by the emergence of anthropologist authors who have promoted the development of this method, legitimized by the Tarragona School and substantialized in the first Spanish conference of autoethnography in 2015.

Women and the family of the future.

PubMed

Quimby, C H

1994-02-01

The complexities of current societal trends impose a daunting challenge to providers of maternal child health services. Demographers, anthropologists, sociologists, policy makers, and health care providers struggle to grasp the multiple issues in an effort to create useful strategies for the 21st century. The 1990s have been labeled the decade of women's health. Legislative and policy efforts have focused new and much-needed attention on women as recipients and providers of health care. The realities of mothers in the work force, the epidemic of adolescent pregnancy, the swelling ranks of women and children in poverty, the increasing number of women with acquired immune deficiency syndrome, the new advances in reproductive technology, and the effect of population and immigration trends greatly influence the childbearing client of the future and create enormous pressures for critical problem solving.

Medicalization of global health 2: The medicalization of global mental health.

PubMed

Clark, Jocalyn

2014-01-01

Once an orphan field, 'global mental health' now has wide acknowledgement and prominence on the global health agenda. Increased recognition draws needed attention to individual suffering and the population impacts, but medicalizing global mental health produces a narrow view of the problems and solutions. Early framing by advocates of the global mental health problem emphasised biological disease, linked psychiatry with neurology, and reinforced categories of mental health disorders. Universality of biomedical concepts across culture is assumed in the globalisation of mental health but is strongly disputed by transcultural psychiatrists and anthropologists. Global mental health movement priorities take an individualised view, emphasising treatment and scale-up and neglecting social and structural determinants of health. To meet international targets and address the problem's broad social and cultural dimensions, the global mental health movement and advocates must develop more comprehensive strategies and include more diverse perspectives.

The transition from quantity to quality: A neglected causal mechanism in accounting for social evolution

PubMed Central

Carneiro, Robert L.

2000-01-01

Students of social evolution are concerned not only with the general course it has followed, but also with the mechanisms that have brought it about. One such mechanism comes into play when the quantitative increase in some entity, usually population, reaching a certain threshold, gives rise to a qualitative change in the structure of a society. This mechanism, first recognized by Hegel, was seized on by Marx and Engels. However, neither they nor their current followers among anthropologists have made much use of it in attempting to explain social evolution. But as this paper attempts to show, in those few instances when the mechanism has been invoked, it has heightened our understanding of the process of social evolution. And, it is argued, if the mechanism were more widely applied, further understanding of the course of evolution could be expected to result. PMID:11050189

Signing on for dirty work: Taking stock of a public psychiatry project from the inside.

PubMed

Pope, Leah G; Cubellis, Lauren; Hopper, Kim

2016-08-01

As applied anthropologists used to working at arm's length from public psychiatry, we step out of the daily grind to take stock of the challenges of taking on ethnography entrained-harnessed to the implementation of a new program. These include the loss of critical distance, the struggles to negotiate locally viable forms of authority and relevance, the necessity of sustaining a Janus-faced relation with principal players, the urgency of seeing time-sensitive information converted into corrective feedback, and the undeniable attraction of being part of "committed work" with game-changing potential. In so doing, we rework the terms of witnessing and revive an old alternative: that documentary dirty work be reclaimed as a variant of public anthropology, one that transforms the work of application from mere afterthought to integral part of the original inquiry. © The Author(s) 2016.

Aboriginal astronomical traditions from Ooldea, South Australia. Part 1: Nyeeruna and 'The Orion Story'

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leaman, Trevor M.; Hamacher, Duane W.

2014-07-01

Whilst camped at Ooldea, South Australia, between 1919 and 1935, the amateur anthropologist Daisy Bates CBE recorded the daily lives, lore and oral traditions of the Aboriginal people of the Great Victoria Desert region surrounding Ooldea. Among her archived notes are stories regarding the Aboriginal astronomical traditions of this region. One story in particular, involving the stars making up the modern western constellations of Orion and Taurus, and thus referred to here as 'The Orion Story', stands out for its level of detail and possible references to transient astronomical phenomena. Here, we critically analyse several important elements of 'The Orion Story', including its relationship to an important secret-sacred male initiation rite. This paper is the first in a series attempting to reconstruct a more complete picture of the sky knowledge and star lore of the Aboriginal people of the Great Victoria Desert.

Patenting nature or protecting culture? Ethnopharmacology and indigenous intellectual property rights

PubMed Central

McGonigle, Ian Vincent

2016-01-01

Ethnopharmacologists are scientists and anthropologists that study indigenous medicines and healing practices, and who often develop new therapies and medicines for wider use. Ethnopharmacologists do fieldwork with indigenous peoples in traditional societies, where they encounter a wide range of cultural values and varying ideas about the nature of property relations. This poses difficulties for protecting indigenous intellectual property and for making just trade agreements. This Note reviews the legal issues relevant to the protection of indigenous resources in ethnopharmacology trade agreements, and suggests that recent developments in anthropology and the social study of science could be instructive in furthering the legal discourse and in providing policy directions. Specifically, the Note introduces the concepts of ‘ontological pluralism’ and ‘epistemic subsidiarity’, which could help lawmakers write sui generis trade agreements to better protect indigenous knowledge and resources. PMID:27774245

Entangled traditions of race: Physical anthropology in Hungary and Romania, 1900-1940.

PubMed

Turda, Marius

2010-01-01

This article discusses the relationship between race and physical anthropology in Hungary and Romania between 1900 and 1940. It begins by looking at institutional developments in both countries and how these influenced the most important Hungarian and Romanian anthropologists' professional and research agendas. Drawing from a wide range of primary sources, the article reveals the significant role the concept of race played in articulating anthropological and ethnic narratives of national belonging. It is necessary to understand the appeal of the idea of race in this context. With idealized images of national communities and racial hierarchies creeping back into Eastern European popular culture and politics, one needs to understand the latent and often unrecognized legacies of race in shaping not only scientific disciplines like anthropology, but also the emergence and entrancement of modern Hungarian and Romanian nationalism.

Java, Indonesia

NASA Image and Video Library

1996-01-20

STS072-737-012 (11-20 Jan. 1996) --- The astronauts photographed this view of Java, an Indonesian island. Java lies between the Java Sea at top and the Indian Ocean at bottom (north is located at top center). A line of volcanoes on the southern edge of the island, trending from central to eastern areas, is highlighted by a ring of clouds. Off the southern coast of Java is the Java Trench where the Australian plate, to the south, is diving under the Eurasia plate to the north. According to anthropologists, Java has one of the highest populations in Indonesia because the soil is enriched by volcanic ash. Merapi volcano, at left edge, second volcano to the right, rises to 9,550 feet and erupts frequently. Madura Island, partially obscured by clouds, can be seen on the upper eastern end of Java.

A record of change - Science and elder observations on the Navajo Nation

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hiza-Redsteer, Margaret M.; Wessells, Stephen M.

2017-09-20

A Record of Change - Science and Elder Observations on the Navajo Nation is a 25-minute documentary about combining observations from Navajo elders with conventional science to determine how tribal lands and culture are affected by climate change. On the Navajo Nation, there is a shortage of historical climate data, making it difficult to assess changing environmental conditions.This video reveals how a team of scientists, anthropologists, and translators combined the rich local knowledge of Navajo elders with recent scientific investigation to effectively document environmental change. Increasing aridity and declining snowfall in this poorly monitored region of the Southwest are accompanied by declining river flow and migrating sand dunes. The observations of Navajo elders verify and supplement this record of change by informing how shifting weather patterns are reflected in Navajo cultural practices and living conditions.

Understanding the organisational context for adverse events in the health services: the role of cultural censorship

PubMed Central

Hart, E; Hazelgrove, J

2001-01-01

This paper responds to the current emphasis on organisational learning in the NHS as a means of improving healthcare systems and making hospitals safer places for patients. Conspiracies of silence have been identified as obstacles to organisational learning, covering error and hampering communication. In this paper we question the usefulness of the term and suggest that "cultural censorship", a concept developed by the anthropologist Robin Sherriff, provides a much needed insight into cultures of silence within the NHS. Drawing on a number of illustrations, but in particular the Ritchie inquiry into the disgraced gynaecologist Rodney Ledward, we show how the defining characteristics of cultural censorship can help us to understand how adverse events get pushed underground, only to flourish in the underside of organisational life. Key Words: cultural censorship; organisational culture; quality improvement; patient safety PMID:11743156

Observations of red-giant variable stars by Aboriginal Australians

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hamacher, Duane W.

2018-04-01

Aboriginal Australians carefully observe the properties and positions of stars, including both overt and subtle changes in their brightness, for subsistence and social application. These observations are encoded in oral tradition. I examine two Aboriginal oral traditions from South Australia that describe the periodic changing brightness in three pulsating, red-giant variable stars: Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis), Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri), and Antares (Alpha Scorpii). The Australian Aboriginal accounts stand as the only known descriptions of pulsating variable stars in any Indigenous oral tradition in the world. Researchers examining these oral traditions over the last century, including anthropologists and astronomers, missed the description of these stars as being variable in nature as the ethnographic record contained several misidentifications of stars and celestial objects. Arguably, ethnographers working on Indigenous Knowledge Systems should have academic training in both the natural and social sciences.

Anthropology of health in Brazil: a border discourse.

PubMed

Langdon, Esther Jean; Follér, Maj-Lis

2012-01-01

This article traces the development of anthropological research on health in Brazil in light of discussions on modernity/coloniality and world anthropologies. Originating in the 1970s, stimulated by external and internal pressures for scientific production and along with the expansion of graduate programs, a network of anthropologists has consolidated and multiplied in Brazil. We describe the development of research groups, meetings, and publications in order to characterize Brazilian anthropology of health as a research program that distinguishes itself from North Atlantic medical anthropology. We examine the visibility and circulation of references in academic publications to explore the participation of Brazilians in the global discourse and, more specifically, in the North-South dialogue. From a comparative perspective, we argue that anthropological investigations of health reflect a perspective and ethos distinctive to Brazil and its historical and political processes.

Review of corruption in the health sector: theory, methods and interventions.

PubMed

Vian, Taryn

2008-03-01

There is increasing interest among health policymakers, planners and donors in how corruption affects health care access and outcomes, and what can be done to combat corruption in the health sector. Efforts to explain the risk of abuse of entrusted power for private gain have examined the links between corruption and various aspects of management, financing and governance. Behavioural scientists and anthropologists also point to individual and social characteristics which influence the behaviour of government agents and clients. This article presents a comprehensive framework and a set of methodologies for describing and measuring how opportunities, pressures and rationalizations influence corruption in the health sector. The article discusses implications for intervention, and presents examples of how theory has been applied in research and practice. Challenges of tailoring anti-corruption strategies to particular contexts, and future directions for research, are addressed.

A Mother’s Heart is Weighed Down with Stones: A Phenomenological Approach to the Experience of Transnational Motherhood

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

Although recent scholarship on transnational mothers has rigorously examined the effect of migration on gender constructs and ideologies, it neglects analysis of the lived experience of separated mothers and children. In privileging the exploration of transnational separations through the single analytical lens of gender, such research reduces the embodied distress of mothers and children to mere “gender false consciousness.” This paper calls upon anthropologists to redress this oversight by undertaking a phenomenological analysis of the lived experience of transnational motherhood. Eschewing an analysis of mothers and children as isolated social roles, I show that the suffering of mothers and children is profoundly relational. Through analysis of the narratives of undocumented Salvadoran mothers residing in the U.S., I show how the strain of such mothers’ undocumented status is lived and shouldered within the intersubjective space of the family. PMID:19101786

Forensic anthropology in Latin America.

PubMed

Işcan, M Y; Olivera, H E

2000-03-13

Forensic anthropology has been one of the fastest growing medico-legal disciplines both in its contribution to the practical needs of the legal system and research accomplishments. New anthropological standards were developed to apply to a specific population of a region. The purpose of this paper is to analyze a large sample of anthropological forensic cases and to review pertinent literature that deals with anthropological standards developed for the population of the continent of Central and South America. Using Uruguay as an example, there was not a single office or anthropologist assigned to analyze human skeletal remains in Uruguay. In 1991 the Laboratorio de Antropología Forense at the Morgue Judicial of Montevideo was created. A total of 189 forensic anthropological cases (276 individuals) were analyzed since this date. Twenty six percent of cases involving human remains were positively identified. The majority came from the Departamento de Montevideo, the largest population district of the country. Most of the cases fell into the 60 to 69 years old age range (35%). Females represented 32% of the total. Since the establishment of the laboratory, the number of forensic cases increased considerably from 20 in 1991 to 40 in 1997. The case studies were accompanied with skull-photo superimposition and facial reconstruction when no other evidence for positive identification was available. This service provided by the laboratory was quickly known to coroners, law enforcement agencies, and other legal authorities and thus utilized not only in Uruguay but also in several other countries in the continent. Because of the obvious need for an anthropologist, there are now university programs to provide forensic anthropological education. Yet, research has lagged behind considerably. Deficiencies are obvious in basic osteological standards of estimating age, calculating stature, determining sex and assessing race that can be applied to populations of the continent

On the identification of Dragon Kings among extreme-valued outliers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Riva, M.; Neuman, S. P.; Guadagnini, A.

2013-07-01

Extreme values of earth, environmental, ecological, physical, biological, financial and other variables often form outliers to heavy tails of empirical frequency distributions. Quite commonly such tails are approximated by stretched exponential, log-normal or power functions. Recently there has been an interest in distinguishing between extreme-valued outliers that belong to the parent population of most data in a sample and those that do not. The first type, called Gray Swans by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (often confused in the literature with Taleb's totally unknowable Black Swans), is drawn from a known distribution of the tails which can thus be extrapolated beyond the range of sampled values. However, the magnitudes and/or space-time locations of unsampled Gray Swans cannot be foretold. The second type of extreme-valued outliers, termed Dragon Kings by Didier Sornette, may in his view be sometimes predicted based on how other data in the sample behave. This intriguing prospect has recently motivated some authors to propose statistical tests capable of identifying Dragon Kings in a given random sample. Here we apply three such tests to log air permeability data measured on the faces of a Berea sandstone block and to synthetic data generated in a manner statistically consistent with these measurements. We interpret the measurements to be, and generate synthetic data that are, samples from α-stable sub-Gaussian random fields subordinated to truncated fractional Gaussian noise (tfGn). All these data have frequency distributions characterized by power-law tails with extreme-valued outliers about the tail edges.

Skillful Revelation: Local Healers, Rationalists, and Their 'Trickery' in Chhattisgarh, Central India.

PubMed

Macdonald, Helen M

2015-01-01

To understand the workings of medicine, healing, placebo, belief, and rationality, medical anthropologists need to pay attention to the complex relations of various forms of revelation, contemplation, and rejoining revelation that attach to illness and healing. In this article two performances of a healing technique located in the agricultural plain of Chhattisgarh, central India, are compared: one representing scientific rationality; the other 'blind' superstition. In both performances the practitioner's aim is to reveal: the local healer reveals witchcraft objects from the afflicted body; the local rationalist society reveals the healer's technique as a fraudulent trick. Each performance shares 'an aesthetics of revelation'-they rely on seeing or revealing to obtain their social effect. The interplay between forms of revelation, a reliance on aesthetics for the revelation, and the ways of seeing can indicate how distinctions are made (or not) between doctor and quack, expertise and gimmickry, and truth and falsehood.

Beyond multispecies ethnography: Engaging with violence and animal rights in anthropology

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Anthropologists have mediated between discriminated communities and outsiders, helping to influence public opinion through advocacy work. But can anthropological advocacy be applied to the case of violence against nonhumans? Ethical inquiries in anthropology also engage with the manifold ways through which human and nonhuman lives are entangled and emplaced within wider ecological relationships, converging in the so-called multispecies ethnography, but failing to account for exploitation. Reflecting on this omission, this article discusses the applicability of engaged anthropology to the range of issues from the use of nonhumans in medical experimentation and food production industry, to habitat destruction, and in broader contexts involving violence against nonhumans. Concluding that the existing forms of anthropological engagement are inadequate in dealing with the massive scale of nonhuman abuse, this article will suggest directions for a radical anthropology that engages with deep ecology, animal rights, animal welfare, and ecological justice. PMID:29081571

The Place of Identity Dissonance and Emotional Motivations in Bio-Cultural Models of Religious Experience: A Report from the 19th Century.

PubMed

Powell, Adam

2017-01-01

Durham University's 'Hearing the Voice' project involves a multi-disciplinary exploration of hallucinatory-type phenomena in an attempt to revaluate and reframe discussions of these experiences. As part of this project, contemporaneous religious experiences (supernatural voices and visions) in the United States from the first half of the nineteenth century have been analysed, shedding light on the value and applicability of contemporary bio-cultural models of religious experience for such historical cases. In particular, this essay outlines four historical cases, seeking to utilise and to refine four theoretical models, including anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann's 'absorption hypothesis', by returning to something like William James' concern with 'discordant personalities'. Ultimately, the paper argues that emphasis on the role of identity dissonance must not be omitted from the analytical tools applied to these nineteenth-century examples, and perhaps should be retained for any study of religious experience generally.

Cultural patterns of trauma among 19th-century-born males in cadaver collections.

PubMed

De La Cova, Carlina

2010-01-01

Comprehending violence among bioarchaeological and historical groups is a topic of recent interest among biological anthropologists. This research examines trauma among African American and Euro-American males of low socioeconomic status born between 1825 and 1877. A total of 651 male skeletons from the Cobb, Terry, and Hamann-Todd anatomical collections were macroscopically evaluated for skeletal trauma, based on the presence of fractures and weapon-related wounds, and statistically analyzed according to ancestry, birth (Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction), combined ancestry - birth, and collection cohorts. Results indicated that African Americans and Euro-Americans expressed ethnic differences in regard to interpersonal violence. To interpret these disparities, documentary data were used to reconstruct the socioeconomic and cultural environment of these individuals. This research emphasizes the importance of evaluating skeletal data within the context of class, culture, and environment so that behavioral patterns observed in the skeleton can be better understood.

Mobility, Latino Migrants, and the Geography of Sex Work: Using Ethnography in Public Health Assessments.

PubMed

Sangaramoorthy, Thurka; Kroeger, Karen

2013-01-01

Recent studies have documented frequent use of female sex workers among Latino migrant men in the southeastern United States, yet little is known about the context in which sex work takes place, or the women who provide these services. As anthropologists working in applied public health, we use rapid ethnographic assessment as a technical assistance tool to document local understandings of the organization and typology of sex work and patterns of mobility among sex workers and their Latino migrant clients. By incorporating ethnographic methods in traditional public health needs assessments, we were able to highlight the diversity of migrant experiences and better understand the health needs of mobile populations more broadly. We discuss the findings in terms of their practical implications for HIV/STD prevention and call on public health to incorporate the concept of mobility as an organizing principle for the delivery of health care services.

Applying syndemics and chronicity: interpretations from studies of poverty, depression, and diabetes.

PubMed

Weaver, Lesley Jo; Mendenhall, Emily

2014-01-01

Medical anthropologists working with global health agendas must develop transdisciplinary frameworks to communicate their work. This article explores two similar but underutilized theoretical frameworks in medical anthropology, and discusses how they facilitate new insights about the relationships between epidemiological patterns and individual-level illness experiences. Two cases from our fieldwork in New Delhi and Chicago are presented to illustrate how syndemics and chronicity theories explain the epidemic problems of co-occurring depression and type 2 diabetes. We use these case studies to illustrate how the holistic agendas of syndemics and chronicity theories allow critical scholars to attend to the macrosocial factors contributing to the rise of noncommunicable diseases while still honoring the diversity of experiences that make individual illness experiences, and actual outcomes, unique. Such an approach not only promotes a more integrative medical anthropology, but also contributes to global health dialogues around diabetes, depression, and their overlap.

Medicalization of global health 2: the medicalization of global mental health

PubMed Central

Clark, Jocalyn

2014-01-01

Once an orphan field, ‘global mental health’ now has wide acknowledgement and prominence on the global health agenda. Increased recognition draws needed attention to individual suffering and the population impacts, but medicalizing global mental health produces a narrow view of the problems and solutions. Early framing by advocates of the global mental health problem emphasised biological disease, linked psychiatry with neurology, and reinforced categories of mental health disorders. Universality of biomedical concepts across culture is assumed in the globalisation of mental health but is strongly disputed by transcultural psychiatrists and anthropologists. Global mental health movement priorities take an individualised view, emphasising treatment and scale-up and neglecting social and structural determinants of health. To meet international targets and address the problem's broad social and cultural dimensions, the global mental health movement and advocates must develop more comprehensive strategies and include more diverse perspectives. PMID:24848660

Eugenics and racial biology in Sweden and the USSR: contacts across the Baltic Sea.

PubMed

Rudling, Per Anders

2014-01-01

The 1920s saw a significant exchange between eugenicists in Sweden and the young Soviet state. Sweden did not take part in World War I, and during the years following immediately upon the Versailles peace treaty, Swedish scholars came to serve as an intermediary link between, on the one hand, Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany, and, on the other hand, Western powers. Swedish eugenicists organized conferences, lecture tours, visits, scholarly exchanges, and transfers and translation of eugenic research. Herman Lundborg, the director of the world's first State Institute of Racial Biology, was an old-fashioned, deeply conservative, and anti-communist "scientific" racist, who somewhat paradoxically came to serve as something of a Western liaison for Soviet eugenicists. Whereas the contacts were disrupted in 1930, Swedish eugenicists had a lasting impact on Soviet physical anthropologists, who cited their works well into the 1970s, long after they had been discredited in Sweden.

Do "illegal" im/migrants have a right to health? Engaging ethical theory as social practice at a Tel Aviv open clinic.

PubMed

Willen, Sarah S

2011-09-01

As the notion of a "right to health" gains influence, it is increasingly deployed in ways that are diverse, contextually variable, and at times logically inconsistent. Drawing on extended fieldwork at an Israeli human rights organization that advocates for "illegal" migrants and other vulnerable groups, this article contends that medical anthropologists cannot simply rally behind this right. Instead, we must take it as an object of ethnographic analysis and explore bow it is invoked, debated, and resisted in specific contexts. Critical ethnographies of right to health discourse and practice can enlighten us, and help us enlighten scholars in other fields, to the complexity, messiness, and "mushiness" (Sen 2009) of this right, especially in the context of advocacy on unauthorized im/migrants' behalf. It can also deepen understanding of the complicated and sometimes tense relationships among human rights, humanitarianism, and other contemporary idioms of social justice mobilization, especially in the health domain.

The contribution of applied social sciences to obesity stigma-related public health approaches.

PubMed

Bombak, Andrea E

2014-01-01

Obesity is viewed as a major public health concern, and obesity stigma is pervasive. Such marginalization renders obese persons a "special population." Weight bias arises in part due to popular sources' attribution of obesity causation to individual lifestyle factors. This may not accurately reflect the experiences of obese individuals or their perspectives on health and quality of life. A powerful role may exist for applied social scientists, such as anthropologists or sociologists, in exploring the lived and embodied experiences of this largely discredited population. This novel research may aid in public health intervention planning. Through these studies, applied social scientists could help develop a nonstigmatizing, salutogenic approach to public health that accurately reflects the health priorities of all individuals. Such an approach would call upon applied social science's strengths in investigating the mundane, problematizing the "taken for granted" and developing emic (insiders') understandings of marginalized populations.

Beyond multispecies ethnography: Engaging with violence and animal rights in anthropology.

PubMed

Kopnina, Helen

2017-09-01

Anthropologists have mediated between discriminated communities and outsiders, helping to influence public opinion through advocacy work. But can anthropological advocacy be applied to the case of violence against nonhumans? Ethical inquiries in anthropology also engage with the manifold ways through which human and nonhuman lives are entangled and emplaced within wider ecological relationships, converging in the so-called multispecies ethnography, but failing to account for exploitation. Reflecting on this omission, this article discusses the applicability of engaged anthropology to the range of issues from the use of nonhumans in medical experimentation and food production industry, to habitat destruction, and in broader contexts involving violence against nonhumans. Concluding that the existing forms of anthropological engagement are inadequate in dealing with the massive scale of nonhuman abuse, this article will suggest directions for a radical anthropology that engages with deep ecology, animal rights, animal welfare, and ecological justice.

The epigenome and nature/nurture reunification: a challenge for anthropology.

PubMed

Lock, Margaret

2013-01-01

Recognition among molecular biologists of variables external to the body that can bring about hereditable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotypes has reignited nature/nurture discussion. These epigenetic findings may well set off a new round of somatic reductionism because research is confined largely to the molecular level. A brief review of the late nineteenth-century formulation of the nature/nurture concept is followed by a discussion of the positions taken by Boas and Kroeber on this matter. I then illustrate how current research into Alzheimer's disease uses a reductionistic approach, despite epigenetic findings in this field that make the shortcomings of reductionism clear. In order to transcend the somatic reductionism associated with epigenetics, drawing on concepts of local biologies and embedded bodies, anthropologists can carry out research in which epigenetic findings are contextualized in the specific historical, socio/political, and environmental realities of lived experience.

Female-selective abortion in Asia: patterns, policies, and debates.

PubMed

Miller, B D

2001-12-01

Since the early 1980s, the use of sex-selective abortion increased in many Asian contexts. Estimates indicate that several million female fetuses were aborted in the last two decades of the twentieth century. This article takes a currently unusual approach for a cultural anthropologist in pursuing cross-national comparisons of trends in sex-selective abortion. The risks involved in such an approach are taken in the hope that it will yield insights not gained through localized analysis. After reviewing the available evidence on female-selective abortion, I discuss features of Asian culture that support strong son preference. Next I review the related issues of increased technological availability for prenatal sex selection and national policies about sex selection. Last, I consider several positions on female-selective abortion and how cultural anthropology may contribute to understanding the global context and consequences of prenatal gender discrimination.

Anthropology is missing: on the World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change.

PubMed

Trostle, James

2010-07-01

When the World Bank publishes a report on climate change, the world takes notice. What are its diagnoses and treatments, and how present is anthropology in this analysis? The 2010 World Development Report on climate change provides few new diagnostic tools and no clear Bank policy revisions. It often fails to harmonize neoliberal development rhetoric with new climate-change imperatives. It nods to the importance of social context and risk perception yet refers primarily to behavioral economics and psychological constructs. Although anthropologists are documenting the local effects and human responses to larger-scale, climate-driven processes, our work is absent in the report. To play a role at global scale we would do well to learn more about concepts like nonlinearity and emergence, systems analysis, modeling, and disease dynamics. Our adroitness in developing metaphors and methods for crossing scale will make our efforts more visible and applicable.

Three pioneers of comparative psychology in America, 1843-1890: Lewis H. Morgan, John Bascom, and Joseph LeConte.

PubMed

Johnston, Timothy D

2003-02-01

Scientific comparative psychology in America dates from the mid-1890s, but there is a body of earlier literature on the topic, written during a period of theistic debates over Darwinian evolution. The anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan rejected instinct as an explanation of animal behavior in 1843 and defended the mental similarities between animals and humans, although he was not an evolutionist. John Bascom's textbook Comparative Psychology (1878) is the earliest American work to use that title, and its theistic approach anticipates some arguments found in much later evolutionary works. Beginning in 1860, the geologist Joseph LeConte, who is well known for defending the compatibility of evolution and religion, wrote several articles in which he outlined a comparative evolutionary approach to psychological problems. However, these writers did not establish a coherent research tradition and were ignored by the "New Psychologists" of the 1880s.

Lessons from Srebrenica: the contributions and limitations of physical anthropology in identifying victims of war crimes.

PubMed

Komar, Debra

2003-07-01

In July 1995, the town of Srebrenica fell to Bosnian-Serb forces, leaving more than 7000 Muslim men missing and presumed dead. Anthropologists participating in the identification process were faced with a unique problem: the victims appeared identical. All were adult males of a single ethnic group. Decomposition as well as the absence of antemortem (AM) medical and dental records confounded identification. As of December 1999, only 63 men had been positively identified using DNA, personal effects, and identification papers. Are current anthropological methods of sex, age, and stature estimation and AM trauma assessment sufficiently accurate to differentiate the remaining victims and aid in their identification? Comparisons of relative-reported AM information and postmortem examination records for 59 of the 63 identified individuals indicated that while all individuals were sexed correctly, only 42.4% were accurately aged and 29.4% had a stature estimate that included their reported height.

The verification of ethnographic data.

PubMed

Pool, Robert

2017-09-01

Anthropologists are increasingly required to account for the data on which they base their interpretations and to make it available for public scrutiny and re-analysis. While this may seem straightforward (why not place our data in online repositories?), it is not. Ethnographic 'data' may consist of everything from verbatim transcripts ('hard data') to memories and impressions ('soft data'). Hard data can be archived and re-analysed; soft data cannot. The focus on hard 'objective' data contributes to the delegitimizing of the soft data that are essential for ethnographic understanding, and without which hard data cannot be properly interpreted. However, the credibility of ethnographic interpretation requires the possibility of verification. This could be achieved by obligatory, standardised forms of personal storage with the option for audit if required, and by being more explicit in publications about the nature and status of the data and the process of interpretation.

Anthropological discourses on the globalization of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in post-conflict societies.

PubMed

Moghimi, Yavar

2012-01-01

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a construct that has moved far beyond its origins in Veterans Administration hospitals after the Vietnam War. It is now commonly used in post-conflict societies by humanitarian agencies and researchers. This article looks at the ever-growing expansion of PTSD and reviews medical anthropologists' critiques of this cross-cultural dissemination of Western psychiatric knowledge. The article also reviews post-conflict ethnographies and their results, which often highlight a mismatch between local priorities and the psycho-social services being provided by outside agencies. Finally, the author highlights interventions that are currently being undertaken by humanitarian agencies in an attempt to bridge psychiatric expertise and local forms of healing. Although PTSD is a useful construct for conceptualizing the experience of those who have suffered traumatic events, it does not lend itself to universal cross-cultural application and should be cautiously applied in post-conflict societies.

The Place of Identity Dissonance and Emotional Motivations in Bio-Cultural Models of Religious Experience: A Report from the 19th Century

PubMed Central

Powell, Adam

2017-01-01

Durham University’s ‘Hearing the Voice’ project involves a multi-disciplinary exploration of hallucinatory-type phenomena in an attempt to revaluate and reframe discussions of these experiences. As part of this project, contemporaneous religious experiences (supernatural voices and visions) in the United States from the first half of the nineteenth century have been analysed, shedding light on the value and applicability of contemporary bio-cultural models of religious experience for such historical cases. In particular, this essay outlines four historical cases, seeking to utilise and to refine four theoretical models, including anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann’s ‘absorption hypothesis’, by returning to something like William James’ concern with ‘discordant personalities’. Ultimately, the paper argues that emphasis on the role of identity dissonance must not be omitted from the analytical tools applied to these nineteenth-century examples, and perhaps should be retained for any study of religious experience generally. PMID:28989797

The blood transfusion taboo of Jehovah's Witnesses: origin, development and function of a controversial doctrine.

PubMed

Singelenberg, R

1990-01-01

Jehovah's Witnesses are not allowed to accept a blood transfusion. According to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society this therapy is a transgression of divine precepts. Additionally, in the judgement of the believers, secular proof is abundant these days; to them AIDS is a powerful justification to abstain from blood. Founded on the work of the anthropologist Mary Douglas, it is argued that the rejection of this medical therapy is based on perceptions of pollution and purity inherent in the Watch Tower Society's ideological concept of anti-worldliness. Rooted in the movement's pre-war opposition to vaccination the implementation of the taboo was triggered by the prevailing social-political climate surrounding the Society during the Second World War, resulting in this intriguing and controversial religious proscription. For the community of Jehovah's Witnesses the blood transfusion taboo still functions as a significant mechanism of sectarian boundary maintenance.

Death, taxes, public opinion, and the Midas touch of Mary Tyler Moore: accounting for promises by politicians to help avert and control diabetes.

PubMed

Rock, Melanie

2003-06-01

Anthropologists have begun to publish ethnographic accounts of policy-making, but few have studied medical or health matters, despite broad acceptance in anthropology that "biopower" permeates contemporary societies. This article presents some findings from an ethnographic study of how diabetes gained recognition as a pressing public health problem in Canada. It underlines the importance of statistics for constituting power within and across nation states. Statistics imbricate people and things distributed across vast distances, but they still need to be generated and invoked by individuals to engender effects--as illustrated in this article by the contributions of researchers, aboriginal leaders, and an American actress, Mary Tyler Moore--in this case, the development of Canadian government policies justified in the name of averting and controlling diabetes. To make sense of these findings, subtle differences between two concepts coined by Michel Foucault, "biopower" and "governmentality," seem significant.

Stigma, community, ethnography: Joan Ablon's contribution to the anthropology of impairment-disability.

PubMed

Shuttleworth, Russell P; Kasnitz, Devva

2004-06-01

Joan Ablon has helped establish the anthropology of impairment-disability and significantly contributed to the role of anthropology in disability studies. In this article, we review the development of and situate Ablon's ethnographic research in the anthropology of impairment-disability. We then address various methodological issues in her work including her ethnographic approach, her grounding in action anthropology and her support for the development of the academic study of disability in anthropology and the careers of disabled anthropologists. The next section of the article examines Ablon's use of the notion of stigma, her understanding of community, and her engagement with disability rights. As examples of themes important to disability studies, we present her discussion of the implications of the ideal of the body beautiful, and gender differences in negotiating intimacy for people with physical differences. We close with a discussion of the future of an anthropology of impairment-disability.

"I Don't Know the Words He Uses": Therapeutic Communication among Q'eqchi Maya Healers and Their Patients.

PubMed

Waldram, James B

2015-09-01

Traditional or indigenous healing is often assumed to involve rich forms of dialogical and symbolic communication between healer and patient that serve to explain its salience and efficacy. An ethnographic study of Q'eqchi Maya healing in Belize suggests, however, that communication in some forms of indigenous healing may also be minimal and peripheral to treatment and more akin to that of biomedicine than so-called traditional medicine. While communication may still involve symbolic, intercorporeal, and other forms of subtle intersubjective connection, anthropologists often overreach in an effort to portray such healing systems in contradistinction to biomedicine. It is argued here that Q'eqchi healing might best be thought of as a form of empirically based restorative medicine in which communication is purely instrumental to the healer's task of diagnosing and eliminating pathology and restoring the health of the patient. © 2015 by the American Anthropological Association.

Sex Assessment from the Volume of the First Metatarsal Bone: A Comparison of Linear and Volume Measurements.

PubMed

Gibelli, Daniele; Poppa, Pasquale; Cummaudo, Marco; Mattia, Mirko; Cappella, Annalisa; Mazzarelli, Debora; Zago, Matteo; Sforza, Chiarella; Cattaneo, Cristina

2017-11-01

Sexual dimorphism is a crucial characteristic of skeleton. In the last years, volumetric and surface 3D acquisition systems have enabled anthropologists to assess surfaces and volumes, whose potential still needs to be verified. This article aimed at assessing volume and linear parameters of the first metatarsal bone through 3D acquisition by laser scanning. Sixty-eight skeletons underwent 3D scan through laser scanner: Seven linear measurements and volume from each bone were assessed. A cutoff value of 13,370 mm 3 was found, with an accuracy of 80.8%. Linear measurements outperformed volume: metatarsal length and mediolateral width of base showed higher cross-validated accuracies (respectively, 82.1% and 79.1%, raising at 83.6% when both of them were included). Further studies are needed to verify the real advantage for sex assessment provided by volume measurements. © 2017 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Troubling objectivity: the promises and pitfalls of training Haitian clinicians in qualitative research methods.H.

PubMed

Minn, Pierre

2015-01-01

Building research capacity is a central component of many contemporary global health programs and partnerships. While medical anthropologists have been conducting qualitative research in resource-poor settings for decades, they are increasingly called on to train "local" clinicians, researchers, and students in qualitative research methods. In this article, I describe the process of teaching introductory courses in qualitative research methods to Haitian clinicians, hospital staff, and medical students, who rarely encounter qualitative research in their training or practice. These trainings allow participants to identify and begin to address challenges related to health services delivery, quality of care, and provider-patient relations. However, they also run the risk of perpetuating colonial legacies of objectification and reinforcing hierarchies of knowledge and knowledge production. As these trainings increase in number and scope, they offer the opportunity to reflect critically on new forms of transnational interventions that aim to reduce health disparities.

Medical Anthropology in Africa: The Trouble with a Single Story.

PubMed

Mkhwanazi, Nolwazi

2016-01-01

In the growing number of publications in medical anthropology about sub-Saharan Africa, there is a tendency to tell a single story of medicine, health, and health-seeking behavior. The heavy reliance on telling this singular story means that there is very little exposure to other stories. In this article, I draw on five books published in the past five years to illustrate the various components that make up this dominant narrative. I then provide examples of two accounts about medicine, health, and health-seeking behavior in Africa that deviate from this dominant narrative, in order to show the themes that alternative accounts have foregrounded. Ultimately, I make a plea to medical anthropologists to be mindful of the existence of this singular story and to resist the tendency to use its components as scaffolding in their accounts of medicine, health, and health-seeking behavior in Africa.

The "childhood obesity epidemic": health crisis or social construction?

PubMed

Moffat, Tina

2010-03-01

There has been a meteoric rise over the past two decades in the medical research and media coverage of the so-called global childhood obesity epidemic. Recently, in response to this phenomenon, there has been a spate of books and articles in the fields of critical sociology and cultural studies that have argued that this "epidemic" is socially constructed, what Natalie Boero (2007) dubs a "postmodern epidemic." As an anthropologist who has studied child nutrition and obesity in relation to poverty and the school environment, I am concerned about both the lack of reflexivity among medical researchers as well as critical scholars' treatment of the problem as entirely socially constructed. In this article I present both sides of this debate and then discuss how wee can attempt to navigate a middle course that recognizes this health issue but also offers alternative approaches to those set by the biomedical agenda.

An Anthropologist Who Studies Music and Poetics in a Rain Forest in Papua New Guinea Worries about the Future of the Natives There.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mangan, Katherine S.

1991-01-01

Living with the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea and completing his anthropology dissertation, Steven Feld saw ceremonial life begin to die and the sounds of helicopters and drill rigs compete with birds and waterfalls. Feld's sophisticated recordings preserve some ways in which the people act and blend with their environment. (MSE)

Ethical issues in paleopathological and anthropological research experiences.

PubMed

Licata, Marta; Monza, Francesca

2017-10-23

In recent years, archaeologists and anthropologists involved in the study of human remains have had to take into consideration ethical issues, which have come to the fore. The aim of this study is to illustrate the ethical and religious issues involved in relation to the positions of researchers. Ethical issues involve the different study phases of human remains: archaeological excavation, anthropological analysis and, finally, museum display. Osteoarchaeological remains may find a place in museums. However, in recent years, even the display of human remains museum has had to face new important ethical issue involving previously ignored or neglected aspect. The adoption of Native American Grave Protection Act in 1990 in the United States and the Human Tissue Act in 2004 in England, has created new scenarios relating to the storage of human remains in museum. All this caused a series of changes in the study of human remains, but many issues remain open to debate.

Ethnopharmacology in the work of Melville William Hilton-Simpson (1881-1938)--historical analysis and current research opportunities.

PubMed

Helmstädter, A

2016-06-01

In the early 20th century, the British anthropologist Melville William Hilton-Simpson (1881-1938) did explorations in Africa, mainly the Congo region and the Aurès region in Algeria. He showed considerable interest in local medicinal practices and plants used by the natives, mainly the Algerian Berbers. He left notes, letters and publications about traditional medicine which were screened for relevant information about medicinal plant use. His reports were compared with current knowledge and recent study results. Many plants described by Hilton-Simpson as therapeutically relevant could prove their efficacy in current studies which again shows that historical sources may exert some reliability. The study, however, unveiled a couple of plants reported as traditionally used, but neglected by modern science so far. These, including Marrubium supinum, Cynoglossum pictum (= C. creticum), Sonchus maritimus, and two Erodium species, are strongly recommended to be further studied. Foresightedly, this approach was already intended by Hilton-Simpson himself.

ANTHROPOLOGY AT WAR: ROBERT H. LOWIE AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE CULTURE CONCEPT, 1904 to 1954.

PubMed

Bargheer, Stefan

2017-03-01

The concept of culture used in American anthropology has fundamentally transformed throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The changing resonance of the work of Robert H. Lowie offers revealing insights into this development. Lowie was part of the first generation of students of Franz Boas that highlighted the importance of individual variation for the study of both primitive and civilized societies. Yet, its initial resonance notwithstanding, the culture concept that prevailed in the discipline went into a different direction as the result of anthropologists' involvement in the war effort. It was advanced by the second generation of Boas' students such as Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, who stressed the homogeneity of cultures. The contrast highlights the diversity of approaches available within anthropology in the first half of the century and the crucial impact of World War II in determining which of these possibilities became institutionalized in the decades after the war. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The power of sex: some reflections on the Caldwell's "African sexuality" thesis.

PubMed

Heald, S

1995-01-01

J.C. Caldwell et al. would like to construct a model of African society which is capable of generating ideas about the nature of sex behavior. Such a model would explain population and fertility patterns as well as those relevant to the spread of HIV. However, the author is concerned with the values and morality of sexuality in East Africa. She stresses that her intention is not to comprehensively rebut Caldwell's work, but simply to reflect upon the nature of sexuality in East Africa while drawing upon the works of Caldwell. The author's goal is to highlight areas of disagreement and to present and re-present evidence from the ethnographic record in order to move toward more satisfactory descriptive criteria with which to begin to think, as an anthropologist, about sexual morality in Africa. Sections consider Africa's alternative civilization, the lineage model, respect, the metaphor of mingling, affection, and alliance and contract.

The power of contextual effects in forensic anthropology: a study of biasability in the visual interpretations of trauma analysis on skeletal remains.

PubMed

Nakhaeizadeh, Sherry; Hanson, Ian; Dozzi, Nathalie

2014-09-01

The potential for contextual information to bias assessments in the forensic sciences has been demonstrated, in several forensic disiplines. In this paper, biasability potential within forensic anthropology was examined by analyzing the effects of external manipulations on judgments and decision-making in visual trauma assessment. Three separate websites were created containing fourteen identical images. Participants were randomly assigned to one website. Each website provided different contextual information, to assess variation of interpretation of the same images between contexts. The results indicated a higher scoring of trauma identification responses for the Mass grave context. Furthermore, a significant biasing effect was detected in the interpretation of four images. Less experienced participants were more likely to indicate presence of trauma. This research demonstrates bias impact in forensic anthropological trauma assessments and highlights the importance of recognizing and limiting cognitive vulnerabilities that forensic anthropologists might bring to the analysis. © 2014 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Information technology leadership in academic medical centers: a tale of four cultures.

PubMed

Friedman, C P

1999-07-01

Persons and groups within academic medical centers bring consistent and predictable viewpoints to planning and decision making. The varied professional and academic cultures of these individuals appear to account primarily for the diversity of their viewpoints. Understanding these professional cultures can help leaders achieve some predictability in the complex environments for which they are responsible. Leaders in information technology in particular, in order to be successful, must become part-time anthropologists, immersing themselves in the varied workplaces of their constituents to understand the work they do and the cultures that have grown up around this work. Only in this way will they be able to manage the challenges that arise continuously as the technology and the needs it can address change over time. In this article, the author briefly describes the concept of culture, portrays four specific professional cultures that typically coexist in academic medical centers, and argues that understanding these cultures is absolutely critical to effective management and use of information resources.

[Identification of a murderer on the basis of a biting pattern on body of the victim].

PubMed

Zaba, Czesław; Lorkiewicz-Muszyńska, Dorota; Glapiński, Mariusz; Smoluch, Krzysztof; Swiderski, Paweł

2010-01-01

The authors present a case of identification of a a murderer on the basis of his dentition pattern, reflected by a biting wound on the breast of the victim. The case is exceptional not only from the viewpoint of the authors, but also in view of very sporadic reports on this subject in forensic literature. Cases of biting by humans are not frequent in the forensic/ medical practice, and instances of identification of the perpetrator by his dental pattern reflected in the biting wound are very rare. In Poland, such problems have been the domain of mainly criminologists and only occasionally of forensic medics in collaboration with dentists and anthropologists. Due to the very low number of such cases in Poland, no experts in the matter are available. For this reason, we deemed it purposeful to present respective investigative principles and techniques for identification of a human perpetrator on the basis of the dental pattern reflected in a biting wound on the victim's body.

Introducing disability studies to occupational therapy students.

PubMed

Block, Pamela; Ricafrente-Biazon, Melissa; Russo, Ann; Chu, Ke Yun; Sud, Suman; Koerner, Lori; Vittoria, Karen; Landgrover, Alyssa; Olowu, Tosin

2005-01-01

This article is a work of collaborative ethnography about teaching and learning disability studies within the context of an occupational therapy graduate program. In spring 2004,14 occupational therapy students were introduced to disability studies by their cultural anthropologist (nonoccupational therapist) course instructor. During the one-credit course, they were expected to complete readings, watch films, attend guest lectures, and make a site visit. The occupational therapy students were required to write a journal to record personal reactions and new insights gained from these experiences. This article focuses on a thematic analysis of the students' journaled responses to the film "Dance Me to My Song," and a site visit to a local Independent Living Center. Students were expected to analyze these experiences from both disability studies and occupational therapy perspectives. The article addresses philosophical and practical differences between occupational therapy and disability studies and identifies opportunities for collaboration between occupational therapists and independent living specialists.

The Social Life of Health Insurance in Low- to Middle-income Countries: An Anthropological Research Agenda.

PubMed

Dao, Amy; Nichter, Mark

2016-03-01

The following article identifies new areas for engaged medical anthropological research on health insurance in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Based on a review of the literature and pilot research, we identify gaps in how insurance is understood, administered, used, and abused. We provide a historical overview of insurance as an emerging global health panacea and then offer brief assessments of three high-profile attempts to provide universal health coverage. Considerable research on health insurance in LMICs has been quantitative and focused on a limited set of outcomes. To advance the field, we identify eight productive areas for future ethnographic research that will add depth to our understanding of the social life and impact of health insurance in LMICs. Anthropologists can provide unique insights into shifting health and financial practices that accompany insurance coverage, while documenting insurance programs as they evolve and respond to contingencies. © 2015 by the American Anthropological Association.

Toward an Anthropology of Insurance and Health Reform: An Introduction to the Special Issue.

PubMed

Dao, Amy; Mulligan, Jessica

2016-03-01

This article introduces a special issue of Medical Anthropology Quarterly on health insurance and health reform. We begin by reviewing anthropological contributions to the study of financial models for health care and then discuss the unique contributions offered by the articles of this collection. The contributors demonstrate how insurance accentuates--but does not resolve tensions between granting universal access to care and rationing limited resources, between social solidarity and individual responsibility, and between private markets and public goods. Insurance does not have a single meaning, logic, or effect but needs to be viewed in practice, in context, and from multiple vantage points. As the field of insurance studies in the social sciences grows and as health reforms across the globe continue to use insurance to restructure the organization of health care, it is incumbent on medical anthropologists to undertake a renewed and concerted study of health insurance and health systems. © 2016 by the American Anthropological Association.

THE LOSS OF MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT MH17: A FORENSIC AND HUMANITARIAN TASK.

PubMed

Ranson, David

2015-06-01

While forensic medical tasks are usually associated with supporting the criminal justice system, there are a range of forensic medical skills that can be brought to bear on addressing humanitarian activities. Disaster victim identification is a procedure that has achieved international standardisation through the work of a multinational Interpol Standing Committee. While part of a police organisation, it includes forensic pathologists, anthropologists, odontologists and molecular biologists who provide most of the specialist scientific input regarding identification that is integrated with police processes such as document examination and fingerprinting. The loss of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 represented a major activation of these procedures in an environment that had both humanitarian and forensic criminal investigation components. The information that is derived from the processes involved in disaster victim identification has a value that goes far beyond the determination of identity. It has an important humanitarian role in supporting the family and friends of the victims in their bereavement journey.

µ-XRF Studies on the Colour Brilliance in Ancient Wool Carpets

PubMed Central

Meyer, Markus; Borca, Camelia N.; Huthwelker, Thomas; Bieber, Manfred; Meßlinger, Karl; Fink, Rainer H.

2017-01-01

Many handmade ancient and recent oriental wool carpets show outstanding brilliance and persistence of colour that is not achieved by common industrial dyeing procedures. Anthropologists have suggested the influence of wool fermentation prior to dyeing as key technique to achieve the high dyeing quality. By means of μ-XRF elemental mapping of mordant metals we corroborate this view and show a deep and homogenous penetration of colourants into fermented wool fibres. Furthermore we are able to apply this technique and prove that the fermentation process for ancient specimens cannot be investigated by standard methods due to the lack of intact cuticle layers. This finding suggests a broad range of further investigations that will contribute to a deeper understanding of the development of traditional dyeing techniques. Spectroscopic studies add information on the oxidation states of the metal ions within the respective mordant-dye-complexes and suggest a partial charge transfer as basis for a significant colour change when Fe mordants are used. PMID:29109824

Taking a historical turn: possible points of connection between social pyschology and history.

PubMed

Knights, Mark

2012-12-01

The article confronts methodological differences between (and among) social psychologists and historians about how far the social psychologist should be interested only in contemporary or very recent history and how far general conclusions can be drawn about human behaviour across time and space. The article suggests that social psychology need not be present-centric and might take different forms of a 'historical turn'. In turn, it is suggested, historians can benefit from approaches developed by social psychologists. Seven possible points of connection with the discipline of history are put forward in the hope of fostering future collaborations. These are: the nature of modernity; collective memory and the uses of the past; political discourse and ideologies; partisanship; the public sphere; stereotypes; and languages and images. Indeed, just as they can encourage closer collaboration between historians and social psychologists, these themes might also open a wider inter-disciplinary discussion with anthropologists, sociologists, literary scholars, art historians and scholars of political discourse.

Focus: Global histories of science. Introduction.

PubMed

Sivasundaram, Sujit

2010-03-01

An interest in global histories of science is not new. Yet the project envisioned by this Focus section is different from that pursued by natural historians and natural philosophers in the early modern age. Instead of tracing universal patterns, there is value in attending to the connections and disconnections of science on the global stage. Instead of assuming the precision of science's boundaries, historians might consider the categories of "science" and "indigenous knowledge" to have emerged from globalization. New global histories of science will be characterized by critical reflection on the limits of generalization, as well as a creative adoption of new sources, methods, and chronologies, in an attempt to decenter the European history of science. Such a project holds the promise of opening up new conversations between historians, anthropologists, philosophers, and sociologists of science. It is of critical importance if the discipline is not to fragment into regional and national subfields or become dominated by structural frameworks such as imperialism.

Reconciling evidence-based practice and cultural competence in mental health services: introduction to a special issue.

PubMed

Gone, Joseph P

2015-04-01

The calls for evidence-based practice (EBP) and cultural competence (CC) represent two increasingly influential mandates within the mental health professions. Advocates of EBP seek to standardize clinical practice by ensuring that only treatment techniques that have demonstrated therapeutic outcomes under scientifically controlled conditions would be adopted and promoted in mental health services. Advocates of CC seek to diversify clinical practice by ensuring that treatment approaches are designed and refined for a multicultural clientele that reflects a wide variety of psychological orientations and life experiences. As these two powerful mandates collide, the fundamental challenge becomes how to accommodate substantive cultural divergences in psychosocial experience using narrowly prescriptive clinical practices and approaches, without trivializing either professional knowledge or cultural difference. In this Introduction to a special issue of Transcultural Psychiatry, the virtue of an interdisciplinary conversation between and among anthropologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and social work researchers in addressing these tensions is extolled. © The Author(s) 2015.

Nipah Virus Transmission from Bats to Humans Associated with Drinking Traditional Liquor Made from Date Palm Sap, Bangladesh, 2011–2014

PubMed Central

Sazzad, Hossain M.S.; Satter, Syed Moinuddin; Sultana, Sharmin; Hossain, M. Jahangir; Hasan, Murshid; Rahman, Mahmudur; Campbell, Shelley; Cannon, Deborah L.; Ströher, Ute; Daszak, Peter; Luby, Stephen P.; Gurley, Emily S.

2016-01-01

Nipah virus (NiV) is a paramyxovirus, and Pteropus spp. bats are the natural reservoir. From December 2010 through March 2014, hospital-based encephalitis surveillance in Bangladesh identified 18 clusters of NiV infection. The source of infection for case-patients in 3 clusters in 2 districts was unknown. A team of epidemiologists and anthropologists investigated these 3 clusters comprising 14 case-patients, 8 of whom died. Among the 14 case-patients, 8 drank fermented date palm sap (tari) regularly before their illness, and 6 provided care to a person infected with NiV. The process of preparing date palm trees for tari production was similar to the process of collecting date palm sap for fresh consumption. Bat excreta was reportedly found inside pots used to make tari. These findings suggest that drinking tari is a potential pathway of NiV transmission. Interventions that prevent bat access to date palm sap might prevent tari-associated NiV infection. PMID:26981928

Heaps of health, metaphysical fitness: Ayurveda and the ontology of good health in medical anthropology.

PubMed

Alter, J S

1999-02-01

Because most scholars take it for granted that medicine is concerned with healing and problems of ill health, the way in which various medical systems define good health has not been adequately studied. Moreover, good health as such is usually regarded as a natural, normative state of being even by most medical anthropologists, who otherwise take a critical, relativist perspective on the subject of illness, pain, and disease. Using the case of Ayurvedic medicine, this article shows that there is a very different way of looking at the question of how health is embodied. This perspective is proactive and concerned with overall fitness rather than reactive and primarily concerned with either illness or disease. The argument presented here therefore seeks to go beyond the limiting--although extremely useful--orientation of remedial health care and suggest a radical challenge to some of the most basic ontological assumptions in the cross-cultural comparative study of medical systems.

An analysis of the phenomenon of increased parental participation during the child's dental experience.

PubMed

Pinkham, J R

1991-01-01

The role of the parent during their child's dental experience, in contemporary society, has changed during the past decade and should be addressed by pediatric dentists. Included in this matter are issues regarding risk management and practice management. Behavioral pediatric dentistry is in flux, much like the world that it serves; there appear to be schisms within the profession regarding one aspect of this: the presence of parents in the dental operatory. Presented here is an analysis of the paradigm-shifts in society since World War II, when a postfigurative parenting strategy was in vogue. An explication of noted anthropologist Margaret Mead's descriptions of this and two subsequent parenting styles, including configurative (or transitional) and prefigurative (contemporary) are presented. They are analyzed in terms of parental attitudes concerning trusting their child to authority figures, including the dental clinician. This emerging protective instinct is termed "social hypertrophy", based on social biologist Edward O. Wilson's work. Dentists are encouraged to understand parental attitudes and avoid unnecessary conflict.

Skulls, brains, and memorial culture: on cerebral biographies of scientists in the nineteenth century.

PubMed

Hagner, Michael

2003-06-01

In this paper, I will argue that the scientific investigation of skulls and brains of geniuses went hand in hand with hagiographical celebrations of scientists. My analysis starts with late-eighteenth century anatomists and anthropologists who highlighted quantitative parameters such as the size and weight of the brain in order to explain intellectual differences between women and men and Europeans and non-Europeans, geniuses and ordinary persons. After 1800 these parameters were modified by phrenological inspections of the skull and brain. As the phrenological examination of the skulls of Immanuel Kant, Wilhelm Heinse, Arthur Schopenhauer and others shows, the anthropometrical data was interpreted in light of biographical circumstances. The same pattern of interpretation can be found in non-phrenological contexts: Reports about extraordinary brains were part of biographical sketches, mainly delivered in celebratory obituaries. It was only in this context that moral reservations about dissecting the brains of geniuses could be overcome, which led to a more systematic investigation of brains of geniuses after 1860.

Analysis of clay smoking pipes from archeological sites in the region of the Guanabara Bay (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) by FT-IR

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Freitas, Renato P.; Ribeiro, Iohanna M.; Calza, Cristiane; Oliveira, Ana L.; Silva, Mariane L.; Felix, Valter S.; Ferreira, Douglas S.; Coelho, Felipe A.; Gaspar, Maria D.; Pimenta, André R.; Medeiros, Elanio A.; Lopes, Ricardo T.

2016-06-01

In this study, twenty samples of clay smoking pipes excavated in an 18 km2 area between the Macacu and Caceribu rivers, in the municipality of Itaboraí, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil were analyzed by FT-IR technique. The samples, excavated in different archeological sites of the region, are dated between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries and are part of the material culture left by Africans and African descendants that lived in the complex. FT-IR analyses and complementary SEM-EDS studies showed that the clay paste used in the manufacture of smoking pipes, mostly handcrafted, is composed of quartz, feldspar, phyllosilicates and iron oxides. Multivariate statistical tests (PCA) were applied to FT-IR data to assess the interactions between the archeological sites. The results indicated that one archeological site - Macacu IV - is greatly related to the other sites. The results obtained have helped archeologists and anthropologists in better understanding the manufacturing process employed in ancient ceramic artifacts produced during the period of colonial Brazil.

Human remains sold to the highest bidder! A snapshot of the buying and selling of human skeletal remains on eBay, an Internet auction site.

PubMed

Huxley, Angie K; Finnegan, Michael

2004-01-01

Internet auction sites have become increasingly popular, with diverse items up for sale to the public worldwide. The purposes of this paper are to inform the forensic community that human skeletal remains, old and new, are for sale on the eBay internet auction site, and to advise forensic scientists that eBay does not use a forensic anthropologist to assess photographs of these materials. Over the last few years, this website was "surfed," with numerous auctions during this period. After contacting eBay by email, representatives responded that they adhere to Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and that their website indicates that auctions must state that sale of human remains is for instructional purposes only. Based on the photographs, the remains appear to be of prehistoric and modern origin. An unfortunate consequence of such sale may generate interest in stealing remains from graves, mortuaries, hospitals, or county morgues worldwide.

Psychology in the human sciences in France, 1920-1940: Ignace Meyerson's historical psychology.

PubMed

Parot, F

2000-05-01

Between World War I and World War II, psychology adopted a direction open to human sciences; I. Meyerson was the main organizer of this choice. Leading the Societe de Psychologie and the Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique, he tried to construct an individual and collective psychology that reflected not only the scientific preoccupations of his masters and friends but also their political choices: They had been the founders of the Human Rights League at the end of the 19th century. Behind Durkheim and Seignobos, with Mauss, Levy-Bruhl, and Blondel, Meyerson answered the new historians' call for a unified science of "mentalities," a historical psychology of collective representations. Meyerson offered to sociologists, anthropologists, linguists, and historians several forums to debate in which psychology was the unifying science. But at the end of the World War II, his psychology was marginalized, and a postivistic and behavioristic way was preferred. Meyerson's historical psychology disappeared from academic psychology, but historians have preserved its legacy.

Using ethnography to investigate life scientists' information needs.

PubMed Central

Forsythe, D E

1998-01-01

Designing information resources that actually meet the information needs of individuals requires detailed knowledge of these needs. This poses a challenge for developers. Because the meaning of particular terms can vary by field, professional knowledge differs to some extent in different disciplines, and the questions that people ask assume a certain amount of unarticulated background knowledge, understanding the information needs of life scientists is not a trivial undertaking. One source of help in meeting this challenge is ethnography, a set of research methods and an associated conceptual stance developed and used by anthropologists for investigating uncontrolled real-world settings. Drawing on the author's experience in using ethnographic techniques to study clinicians' information needs, this paper describes why such research is necessary, why it requires particular research methods, what an ethnographic perspective has added to the study of information needs, and what this broader approach has revealed about the types of information sought by clinicians in the course of their daily practice. PMID:9681177

Forensic Applicability of Femur Subtrochanteric Shape to Ancestry Assessment in Thai and White American Males.

PubMed

Tallman, Sean D; Winburn, Allysha P

2015-09-01

Ancestry assessment from the postcranial skeleton presents a significant challenge to forensic anthropologists. However, metric dimensions of the femur subtrochanteric region are believed to distinguish between individuals of Asian and non-Asian descent. This study tests the discriminatory power of subtrochanteric shape using modern samples of 128 Thai and 77 White American males. Results indicate that the samples' platymeric index distributions are significantly different (p≤0.001), with the Thai platymeric index range generally lower and the White American range generally higher. While the application of ancestry assessment methods developed from Native American subtrochanteric data results in low correct classification rates for the Thai sample (50.8-57.8%), adapting these methods to the current samples leads to better classification. The Thai data may be more useful in forensic analysis than previously published subtrochanteric data derived from Native American samples. Adapting methods to include appropriate geographic and contemporaneous populations increases the accuracy of femur subtrochanteric ancestry methods. © 2015 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Wayfinding in Social Networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liben-Nowell, David

With the recent explosion of popularity of commercial social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, the size of social networks that can be studied scientifically has passed from the scale traditionally studied by sociologists and anthropologists to the scale of networks more typically studied by computer scientists. In this chapter, I will highlight a recent line of computational research into the modeling and analysis of the small-world phenomenon - the observation that typical pairs of people in a social network are connected by very short chains of intermediate friends - and the ability of members of a large social network to collectively find efficient routes to reach individuals in the network. I will survey several recent mathematical models of social networks that account for these phenomena, with an emphasis on both the provable properties of these social-network models and the empirical validation of the models against real large-scale social-network data.

The verification of ethnographic data

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Anthropologists are increasingly required to account for the data on which they base their interpretations and to make it available for public scrutiny and re-analysis. While this may seem straightforward (why not place our data in online repositories?), it is not. Ethnographic ‘data’ may consist of everything from verbatim transcripts (‘hard data’) to memories and impressions (‘soft data’). Hard data can be archived and re-analysed; soft data cannot. The focus on hard ‘objective’ data contributes to the delegitimizing of the soft data that are essential for ethnographic understanding, and without which hard data cannot be properly interpreted. However, the credibility of ethnographic interpretation requires the possibility of verification. This could be achieved by obligatory, standardised forms of personal storage with the option for audit if required, and by being more explicit in publications about the nature and status of the data and the process of interpretation. PMID:29081713

Sociopolitical adjustment among Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

PubMed

Centlivres, P; Centlivres-demont, M

1987-01-01

Although international organizations and Pakistanis expect Afghans to act like true refugees--dependent, obedient, and grateful--Afghans consider themselves as temporary exiles who, in protest against an anti-Islamic government, found temporary refuge in Pakistan; or as soldiers in the holy wars who temporarily use their Islamic neighbor as a base before returning to fight in Afghanistan. Conforming to this concept and to these objectives, the refugees seek to preserve a certain autonomy and to lean towards forms of organization which are derived either from their traditional social structure, or as is more common now, from the ideology of the Islamic movements. One can understand that this situation may cause many misunderstandings, especially with international organizations which finance and supervise aid to the Afghan refugees in Pakistan. As for anthropologists, it is necessary to go beyond known concepts, to relativize familiar models and to act on changes which have come about in the structures and ideology of the Afghan people.

Medical Research Participation as "Ethical Intercorporeality": Caring for Bio-Social Bodies in a Mexican Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Study.

PubMed

Wentzell, Emily

2017-03-01

While medical research ethics guidelines frame participants as individual and autonomous, anthropologists emphasize the relational nature of health research participation. I analyze interviews with Mexican male HPV study participants and their wives to examine how research participants themselves focus on relationships when imagining research-related benefits. I argue that couples incorporated the local trope of the Mexican citizenry as a biologically homogeneous national body, which individual members help or harm through their gendered health behavior to understand these benefits. I use the concept of "ethical intercorporeality" to discuss spouses' understandings of themselves as parts of bio-social wholes-the couple, family, and society-that they believed men's research participation could aid both physically and socially. This finding extends the insight that focusing on relationships rather than individuals is necessary for understanding the consequences of medical research by showing how participants themselves might apply this perspective in context-specific ways. © 2016 by the American Anthropological Association.

Nipah Virus Transmission from Bats to Humans Associated with Drinking Traditional Liquor Made from Date Palm Sap, Bangladesh, 2011-2014.

PubMed

Islam, M Saiful; Sazzad, Hossain M S; Satter, Syed Moinuddin; Sultana, Sharmin; Hossain, M Jahangir; Hasan, Murshid; Rahman, Mahmudur; Campbell, Shelley; Cannon, Deborah L; Ströher, Ute; Daszak, Peter; Luby, Stephen P; Gurley, Emily S

2016-04-01

Nipah virus (NiV) is a paramyxovirus, and Pteropus spp. bats are the natural reservoir. From December 2010 through March 2014, hospital-based encephalitis surveillance in Bangladesh identified 18 clusters of NiV infection. The source of infection for case-patients in 3 clusters in 2 districts was unknown. A team of epidemiologists and anthropologists investigated these 3 clusters comprising 14 case-patients, 8 of whom died. Among the 14 case-patients, 8 drank fermented date palm sap (tari) regularly before their illness, and 6 provided care to a person infected with NiV. The process of preparing date palm trees for tari production was similar to the process of collecting date palm sap for fresh consumption. Bat excreta was reportedly found inside pots used to make tari. These findings suggest that drinking tari is a potential pathway of NiV transmission. Interventions that prevent bat access to date palm sap might prevent tari-associated NiV infection.

A Chilling Example? Uruguay, Philip Morris International, and WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

PubMed

Russell, Andrew; Wainwright, Megan; Mamudu, Hadii

2015-06-01

The World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is the first international public health treaty to address the global spread of tobacco products. Ethnographic research at the fourth meeting of the FCTC's Conference of the Parties in Uruguay highlights the role of the FCTC in recalibrating the relationship between international trade and investment agreements and those of global public health. Specifically, we chart the origins and development of the Punta del Este Declaration, tabled by Uruguay at the conference, to counter a legal request by Philip Morris International, the world's largest tobacco transnational, for arbitration by the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes over Uruguay's alleged violations of several international trade and investment treaties. We argue that medical anthropologists should give greater consideration to global health governance and diplomacy as a potential counterweight to the 'politics of resignation' associated with corporate capitalism. © 2014 by the American Anthropological Association.

Training Dogs to Feel Good: Embodying Wellbeing in Multispecies Relations.

PubMed

Porter, Natalie Hannah

2018-06-21

Social science concepts of well-being are largely premised on notions of a common humanity with shared physical needs and broadly legible experiences of the world. While medical anthropologists have interrogated ideas of universal bodily subjectivities, articulations of well-being across species boundaries remain underexplored. This article offers a conceptualization of well-being that attends to species difference. Drawing on ethnographic research with an animal rescue organization, I argue that in the context of partially connected bodily experiences, rescue workers navigate distinctions between dogs' internal feelings and external actions, and they train their bodies alongside dogs' bodies to cultivate canine well-being. A multispecies perspective complicates ideals of autonomy and self-actualization long associated with well-being and opens up avenues for considering well-being as an intercorporeal relationship conditioned in unequal bodies and embodied interactions. [well-being, multispecies ethnography, dog training, embodiment, intercorporeality] This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

How do rituals affect cooperation? An experimental field study comparing nine ritual types.

PubMed

Fischer, Ronald; Callander, Rohan; Reddish, Paul; Bulbulia, Joseph

2013-06-01

Collective rituals have long puzzled anthropologists, yet little is known about how rituals affect participants. Our study investigated the effects of nine naturally occurring rituals on prosociality. We operationalized prosociality as (1) attitudes about fellow ritual participants and (2) decisions in a public goods game. The nine rituals varied in levels of synchrony and levels of sacred attribution. We found that rituals with synchronous body movements were more likely to enhance prosocial attitudes. We also found that rituals judged to be sacred were associated with the largest contributions in the public goods game. Path analysis favored a model in which sacred values mediate the effects of synchronous movements on prosocial behaviors. Our analysis offers the first quantitative evidence for the long-standing anthropological conjecture that rituals orchestrate body motions and sacred values to support prosociality. Our analysis, moreover, adds precision to this old conjecture with evidence of a specific mechanism: ritual synchrony increases perceptions of oneness with others, which increases sacred values to intensify prosocial behaviors.

Suicide and the afterlife: popular religion and the standardisation of 'culture' in Japan.

PubMed

Picone, Mary

2012-06-01

For an overwhelming majority of commentators, including many anthropologists, 'Japanese culture' is still associated with a positive view of suicide. Western-language writings have contributed by feedback loop to perpetuate this stereotype. Besides the local 'samurai ethic', Japanese Buddhism is also said not to prohibit taking one's life. However, the most popular examples of heroic self-sacrifice, from the Edo period to WWII, are fraught with covert contradictions. From ancient times to the present religious practitioners of all sorts have maintained that suicide creates unhappy, resentful spirits who harm the living. This article discusses many examples of a diverse series of narratives, from spirit medium's séances to drama to contemporary films, in which the anguished spirits of suicides are allowed to express themselves directly. After the figures rose alarmingly in the late 1990s various religious organisations have attempted to fight the stigma suffered by bereaved family members and have introduced new interpretations and new rituals.

The Erosion of Rights to Abortion Care in the United States: A Call for a Renewed Anthropological Engagement with the Politics of Abortion.

PubMed

Andaya, Elise; Mishtal, Joanna

2017-03-01

Women's rights to legal abortion in the United States are now facing their greatest social and legislative challenges since its 1973 legalization. Legislation restricting rights and access to abortion care has been passed at state and federal levels at an unprecedented rate. Given the renewed vigor of anti-abortion movements, we call on anthropologists to engage with this shifting landscape of reproductive politics. This article examines recent legislation that has severely limited abortion access and maps possible directions for future anthropological analysis. We argue that anthropology can provide unique contributions to broader abortion research. The study of abortion politics in the United States today is not only a rich opportunity for applied and policy-oriented ethnographic research. It also provides a sharply focused lens onto broader theoretical concerns in anthropology and new social formations across moral, medical, political, and scientific fields in 21st-century America. © 2016 by the American Anthropological Association.

The identification of living persons on images: A literature review.

PubMed

Gibelli, D; Obertová, Z; Ritz-Timme, S; Gabriel, P; Arent, T; Ratnayake, M; De Angelis, D; Cattaneo, C

2016-03-01

Personal identification in the forensic context commonly concerns unknown decedents. However, recently there has been an increase in cases which require identification of living persons, especially from surveillance systems. These cases bring about a relatively new challenge for forensic anthropologists and pathologists concerning the selection of the most suitable methodological approaches with regard to the limitations of the photographic representation of a given person for individualization and identity. Facial features are instinctively the primary focus for identification approaches. However, other body parts (e.g. hands), and body height and gait (on videos) have been considered in cases of personal identification. This review aims at summarizing the state-of-the-art concerning the identification of the living on images and videos, including a critical evaluation of the advantages and limitations of different methods. Recommendations are given in order to aid forensic practitioners who face cases of identification of living persons. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The difficult task of assessing perimortem and postmortem fractures on the skeleton: a blind text on 210 fractures of known origin.

PubMed

Cappella, Annalisa; Amadasi, Alberto; Castoldi, Elisa; Mazzarelli, Debora; Gaudio, Daniel; Cattaneo, Cristina

2014-11-01

The distinction between perimortem and postmortem fractures is an important challenge for forensic anthropology. Such a crucial task is presently based on macro-morphological criteria widely accepted in the scientific community. However, several limits affect these parameters which have not yet been investigated thoroughly. This study aims at highlighting the pitfalls and errors in evaluating perimortem or postmortem fractures. Two trained forensic anthropologists were asked to classify 210 fractures of known origin in four skeletons (three victims of blunt force trauma and one natural death) as perimortem, postmortem, or dubious, twice in 6 months in order to assess intraobserver error also. Results show large errors, ranging from 14.8 to 37% for perimortem fractures and from 5.5 to 14.8% for postmortem ones; more than 80% of errors concerned trabecular bone. This supports the need for more objective and reliable criteria for a correct assessment of peri- and postmortem bone fractures. © 2014 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Cooperation and the evolution of intelligence

PubMed Central

McNally, Luke; Brown, Sam P.; Jackson, Andrew L.

2012-01-01

The high levels of intelligence seen in humans, other primates, certain cetaceans and birds remain a major puzzle for evolutionary biologists, anthropologists and psychologists. It has long been held that social interactions provide the selection pressures necessary for the evolution of advanced cognitive abilities (the ‘social intelligence hypothesis’), and in recent years decision-making in the context of cooperative social interactions has been conjectured to be of particular importance. Here we use an artificial neural network model to show that selection for efficient decision-making in cooperative dilemmas can give rise to selection pressures for greater cognitive abilities, and that intelligent strategies can themselves select for greater intelligence, leading to a Machiavellian arms race. Our results provide mechanistic support for the social intelligence hypothesis, highlight the potential importance of cooperative behaviour in the evolution of intelligence and may help us to explain the distribution of cooperation with intelligence across taxa. PMID:22496188

Report of the 4th European Zebrafish Principal Investigator Meeting.

PubMed

Lopes, Susana S; Distel, Martin; Linker, Claudia; Fior, Rita; Monteiro, Rui; Bianco, Isaac H; Portugues, Ruben; Strähle, Uwe; Saúde, Leonor

2016-12-01

The European Zebrafish Principal Investigator Meeting (EZPM) is an ideal forum for group leaders using this fantastic animal model not only to discuss science but also to strengthen their interactions, to push forward technological advances, and to define guidelines for the use of this fish in research. The city of Lisbon (Portugal) was voted by the European group leaders to be the setting for the 4th EZPM, and the organizing committee, composed by Leonor Saúde (iMM Lisboa, PT), Susana Lopes (CEDOC, PT), Michael Orger (Champalimaud Foundation, PT), Rui Oliveira (ISPA, PT), and António Jacinto (CEDOC, PT), was very enthusiastic to organize a productive event. The 4th EZPM took place from March 15 to 19 at Pavilhão do Conhecimento, a Science Museum and Educational Center winner of The Great Prize FAD of Arquitecture 1999 and The Society for Environmental Graphic Design Award 2011. Over 5 days, 135 group leaders (89 men and 46 women) coming from 19 different European countries and also from the United States, Turkey, Israel, Chile, and Singapore presented and discussed their recent research achievements. In addition to the scientific oral and poster presentations, the group leaders gathered in very lively community sessions on morphants versus mutants (chaired by Didier Stainier, Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, DE), funding issues (chaired by Uwe Strahle, KIT-ITG, DE), and gender equality (chaired by Corinne Houart, KCL, United Kingdom). One of the highlights of the 4th EZPM was the guided visit to Oceanário de Lisboa, an international award-winning place that celebrates life with a stunning display of living aquatic creatures.

[Medical education and medical anthropology in Europe: the cases of Italy and Spain].

PubMed

Comelles, Josep M; Riccò, Isabella; Bañuelos, Aida Terrón; Perdiguero-Gil, Enrique

2017-01-01

The aim of this article is to compare the development of health education in Italy and Spain from the point of view of the role played by medical anthropology in both countries. The context is provided by the changes in the concept of health education advocated by the UN technical agencies, especially the World Health Organization and Unesco, during the second half of the twentieth century. Despite their many similarities, Italy and Spain underwent different political evolutions over the last century. Therefore, it is interesting to compare both cases and the influence the social sciences had in health education initiatives. In order to assess the role of medical anthropology, the 1958 launch and the development of the Centro Sperimentale per l'Educazione Sanitaria (Perugia, Italy), which was at the forefront of health education in Europe until the 1990s, was reconstructed through oral sources. After a brief description of the scant initiatives regarding health education existing in the Spain of the dictatorship, the influence of the Perusine anthropologists on Spanish health education during the democratic transition is evaluated.

From forest fires to fisheries management: anthropology, conservation biology, and historical ecology.

PubMed

Braje, Todd J; Rick, Torben C

2013-01-01

Human-environmental relationships have long been of interest to a variety of scientists, including ecologists, biologists, anthropologists, and many others. In anthropology, this interest was especially prevalent among cultural ecologists of the 1970s and earlier, who tended to explain culture as the result of techno-environmental constraints. More recently researchers have used historical ecology, an approach that focuses on the long-term dialectical relationship between humans and their environments, as well as long-term prehuman ecological datasets. An important contribution of anthropology to historical ecology is that anthropological datasets dealing with ethnohistory, traditional ecological knowledge, and human skeletal analysis, as well as archeological datasets on faunal and floral remains, artifacts, geochemistry, and stratigraphic analysis, provide a deep time perspective (across decades, centuries, and millennia) on the evolution of ecosystems and the place of people in those larger systems. Historical ecological data also have an applied component that can provide important information on the relative abundances of flora and fauna, changes in biogeography, alternations in food webs, landscape evolution, and much more. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

History, research and practice of forensic anthropology in Thailand.

PubMed

Traithepchanapai, Pongpon; Mahakkanukrauh, Pasuk; Kranioti, Elena F

2016-04-01

Forensic anthropology is an increasingly developing discipline born about a century ago in the United States with the objective to contribute the knowledge of bone biology and physical anthropology to the emerging needs of the court of law. The development of research in biological and forensic anthropology has made rapid progress worldwide in the past few years, however, in most countries--with the exception of the United States--forensic anthropology work is still considered within the duties of the forensic pathologist. This paper attempts to summarise the history and development of forensic anthropology in Thailand by providing information on past and current research and practice that can help forensic practitioners to apply existing methods in forensic cases and mass disasters. It is hoped that the lessons learned from the tsunami catastrophe and the emerging need for positive identification in medicolegal settings will lead to rapid advances in education, training and professional engagement of anthropologists from the forensic departments and the law enforcement agencies in Thailand. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sherwood Washburn's New physical anthropology: rejecting the "religion of taxonomy".

PubMed

Mikels-Carrasco, Jessica

2012-01-01

Many physical anthropologists and nearly all of those studying primatology today can trace their academic genealogy to Sherwood Larned Washburn. His New physical anthropology, fully articulated in a 1951 paper, proposed that the study of hominid evolution must link understandings of form, function, and behavior along with the environment in order most accurately to reconstruct the evolution of our ancestors. This shift of concentration from strictly analyzing fossil remains to what Washburn termed adaptive complexes challenged not only Washburn's predecessors, but also led Washburn to critique the very system of academia within which he worked. Collaboration across multiple disciplines, linking the four fields of anthropology in order to understand humans and application of our understandings of human evolution to the betterment of society, are the hallmarks of Washburnian anthropology. In this paper I will explore how Washburn's New physical anthropology led him to not only change the research direction in physical anthropology, but also to challenge the academia within which he worked. I will conclude by reflecting on the prospects of continuing to practice Washburnian Anthropology.

[The Declaration of Istanbul on organ trafficking and transplant tourism].

PubMed

2009-01-01

A Summit Meeting that convened over 150 representatives of scientific and medical bodies from around the world was held in Istanbul from April 30 to May 2, 2008 to address the urgent and growing problem of organ sales, transplant tourism and trafficking in organ donors in the context of the global shortage of organs. Preparatory work for the meeting was undertaken by a Steering Committee convened by The Transplantation Society and the International Society of Nephrology in Dubai in December 2007. Participants at the Istanbul Summit were selected by the Steering Committee according to the following criteria: The country liaisons with The Transplantation Society representing virtually all countries with transplantation programs; representatives from international societies and the Vatican; key stakeholders in nephrology and transplantation; public policy experts in organ transplantation; and ethicists, anthropologists, sociologists, and legal academic well-recognized for their work on transplantation policy and practice. This Declaration represents the consensus of the Summit participants and is an authorized Spanish translation that will help disseminate this information among Mexican health professionals and interested readers.

The Implications of the Cognitive Sciences for the Relation Between Religion and Science Education: The Case of Evolutionary Theory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Blancke, Stefaan; De Smedt, Johan; De Cruz, Helen; Boudry, Maarten; Braeckman, Johan

2012-08-01

This paper discusses the relationship between religion and science education in the light of the cognitive sciences. We challenge the popular view that science and religion are compatible, a view that suggests that learning and understanding evolutionary theory has no effect on students' religious beliefs and vice versa. We develop a cognitive perspective on how students manage to reconcile evolutionary theory with their religious beliefs. We underwrite the claim developed by cognitive scientists and anthropologists that religion is natural because it taps into people's intuitive understanding of the natural world which is constrained by essentialist, teleological and intentional biases. After contrasting the naturalness of religion with the unnaturalness of science, we discuss the difficulties cognitive and developmental scientists have identified in learning and accepting evolutionary theory. We indicate how religious beliefs impede students' understanding and acceptance of evolutionary theory. We explore a number of options available to students for reconciling an informed understanding of evolutionary theory with their religious beliefs. To conclude, we discuss the implications of our account for science and biology teachers.

Evidence for tuberculosis in 18th/19th century slaves in Anse Sainte-Marguerite (Guadeloupe - French Western Indies).

PubMed

Lösch, Sandra; Kim, Mi-Ra; Dutour, Olivier; Courtaud, Patrice; Maixner, Frank; Romon, Thomas; Sola, Christophe; Zink, Albert

2015-06-01

During the American colonization in the 18th and 19th century, Africans were captured and shipped to America. Harsh living and working conditions often led to chronic diseases and high mortality rates. Slaves in the Caribbean were forced to work mainly on sugar plantations. They were buried in cemeteries like Anse Sainte-Marguerite on the isle of Grande-Terre (Guadeloupe) which was examined by archaeologists and physical anthropologists. Morphological studies on osseous remains of 148 individuals revealed 15 cases with signs for bone tuberculosis and a high frequency of periosteal reactions which indicates early stages of the disease. 11 bone samples from these cemeteries were analysed for ancient DNA. The samples were extracted with established procedures and examined for the cytoplasmic multicopy β-actin gene and Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex DNA (IS 6110) by PCR. An amplification product for M. tuberculosis with the size of 123 bp was obtained. Sequencing confirmed the result. This study shows evidence of M. tuberculosis complex DNA in a Caribbean slave population. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Scanning electron microscope analysis of gunshot defects to bone: an underutilized source of information on ballistic trauma.

PubMed

Rickman, John M; Smith, Martin J

2014-11-01

Recent years have seen increasing involvement by forensic anthropologists in the interpretation of skeletal trauma. With regard to ballistic injuries, there is now a large literature detailing gross features of such trauma; however, less attention has been given to microscopic characteristics. This article presents analysis of experimentally induced gunshot trauma in animal bone (Bos taurus scapulae) using full metal jacket (FMJ), soft point (SP), and captive bolt projectiles. The results were examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Additional analysis was conducted on a purported parietal gunshot lesion in a human cranial specimen. A range of features was observed in these samples suggesting that fibrolamellar bone response to projectile impact is analogous to that observed in synthetic composite laminates. The results indicate that direction of bullet travel can be discerned microscopically even when it is ambiguous on gross examination. It was also possible to distinguish SP from FMJ lesions. SEM analysis is therefore recommended as a previously underexploited tool in the analysis of ballistic trauma. © 2014 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

[The Declaration of Istanbul on organ trafficking and transplant tourism].

PubMed

2008-01-01

To address the urgent and growing problems of organ sales, transplant tourism and trafficking in organ donors in context of global shortage of organs a Summit Meeting of more than 150 representatives of scientific and medical bodies from around the world was held in Istanbul from April 30 to May 2, 2008. Preparatory work for the meeting was undertaken by a Steering Committee convened by The Transplantation Society and the International Society of Nephrology in Dubai in 2007. Participants at the Istanbul Summit were selected by the Steering Committee according to the following considerations: The country liaisons with The Transplantation Society representing virtually all countries with transplantation programs; Representatives from international societies and the Vatican; Individuals holding leadership positions in nephrology and transplantation; Stakeholders in the public policy aspect of organ transplantation; and ethicists, anthropologists, sociologists, and legal academic well recognized for their writings regarding transplantation policy and practice. This Declaration represents the consensus of the Summit participants and it is an authorized Spanish translation version in order to divulging between Mexican healths professionals and to who concern this topic.

Estimating a child's age from an image using whole body proportions.

PubMed

Lucas, Teghan; Henneberg, Maciej

2017-09-01

The use and distribution of child pornography is an increasing problem. Forensic anthropologists are often asked to estimate a child's age from a photograph. Previous studies have attempted to estimate the age of children from photographs using ratios of the face. Here, we propose to include body measurement ratios into age estimates. A total of 1603 boys and 1833 girls aged 5-16 years were measured over a 10-year period. They are 'Cape Coloured' children from South Africa. Their age was regressed on ratios derived from anthropometric measurements of the head as well as the body. Multiple regression equations including four ratios for each sex (head height to shoulder and hip width, knee width, leg length and trunk length) have a standard error of 1.6-1.7 years. The error is of the same order as variation of differences between biological and chronological ages of the children. Thus, the error cannot be minimised any further as it is a direct reflection of a naturally occurring phenomenon.

Cross-cultural reading the mind in the eyes: an fMRI investigation.

PubMed

Adams, Reginald B; Rule, Nicholas O; Franklin, Robert G; Wang, Elsie; Stevenson, Michael T; Yoshikawa, Sakiko; Nomura, Mitsue; Sato, Wataru; Kveraga, Kestutis; Ambady, Nalini

2010-01-01

The ability to infer others' thoughts, intentions, and feelings is regarded as uniquely human. Over the last few decades, this remarkable ability has captivated the attention of philosophers, primatologists, clinical and developmental psychologists, anthropologists, social psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists. Most would agree that the capacity to reason about others' mental states is innately prepared, essential for successful human social interaction. Whether this ability is culturally tuned, however, remains entirely uncharted on both the behavioral and neural levels. Here we provide the first behavioral and neural evidence for an intracultural advantage (better performance for same- vs. other-culture) in mental state decoding in a sample of native Japanese and white American participants. We examined the neural correlates of this intracultural advantage using fMRI, revealing greater bilateral posterior superior temporal sulci recruitment during same- versus other-culture mental state decoding in both cultural groups. These findings offer preliminary support for cultural consistency in the neurological architecture subserving high-level mental state reasoning, as well as its differential recruitment based on cultural group membership.

Analysis of clay smoking pipes from archeological sites in the region of the Guanabara Bay (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) by FT-IR.

PubMed

Freitas, Renato P; Ribeiro, Iohanna M; Calza, Cristiane; Oliveira, Ana L; Silva, Mariane L; Felix, Valter S; Ferreira, Douglas S; Coelho, Felipe A; Gaspar, Maria D; Pimenta, André R; Medeiros, Elanio A; Lopes, Ricardo T

2016-06-15

In this study, twenty samples of clay smoking pipes excavated in an 18km(2) area between the Macacu and Caceribu rivers, in the municipality of Itaboraí, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil were analyzed by FT-IR technique. The samples, excavated in different archeological sites of the region, are dated between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries and are part of the material culture left by Africans and African descendants that lived in the complex. FT-IR analyses and complementary SEM-EDS studies showed that the clay paste used in the manufacture of smoking pipes, mostly handcrafted, is composed of quartz, feldspar, phyllosilicates and iron oxides. Multivariate statistical tests (PCA) were applied to FT-IR data to assess the interactions between the archeological sites. The results indicated that one archeological site - Macacu IV - is greatly related to the other sites. The results obtained have helped archeologists and anthropologists in better understanding the manufacturing process employed in ancient ceramic artifacts produced during the period of colonial Brazil. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Applying Evolutionary Anthropology

PubMed Central

Gibson, Mhairi A; Lawson, David W

2015-01-01

Evolutionary anthropology provides a powerful theoretical framework for understanding how both current environments and legacies of past selection shape human behavioral diversity. This integrative and pluralistic field, combining ethnographic, demographic, and sociological methods, has provided new insights into the ultimate forces and proximate pathways that guide human adaptation and variation. Here, we present the argument that evolutionary anthropological studies of human behavior also hold great, largely untapped, potential to guide the design, implementation, and evaluation of social and public health policy. Focusing on the key anthropological themes of reproduction, production, and distribution we highlight classic and recent research demonstrating the value of an evolutionary perspective to improving human well-being. The challenge now comes in transforming relevance into action and, for that, evolutionary behavioral anthropologists will need to forge deeper connections with other applied social scientists and policy-makers. We are hopeful that these developments are underway and that, with the current tide of enthusiasm for evidence-based approaches to policy, evolutionary anthropology is well positioned to make a strong contribution. PMID:25684561

From psychosocial equilibrium to catastrophic breakdown: Cyprus 1955-1974.

PubMed

Galatariotou, Catia

2008-08-01

The recent history of Cyprus presents an example of a society in which a centuries-long peaceful coexistence of diverse populations gave way to violence and murderous hate, with devastating end results. This paper tries to understand and describe the process by which Cypriot society slid from a position of psychosocial equilibrium and integration towards one of disintegration, fragmentation and catastrophic breakdown. This paper draws from work by social anthropologists, sociologists, historians and others, and from my own personal experience. To these I applied insights afforded by psychoanalysis to identify and explore the psychic processes and states of mind that characterized a psychosocial disintegrative process. I came to see external political events and internal psychological processes as inseparably intertwined and dynamically interdependent, each emanating from and catalysing the other. The factual details of the process described are of course unique in their local specificity, but the psychic phenomena that characterized it are not: at both the individual and group levels they are replicated in other societies undergoing similar processes of self-destruction.

Ethics or Morals: Understanding Students' Values Related to Genetic Tests on Humans

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lindahl, Mats Gunnar

2009-10-01

To make meaning of scientific knowledge in such a way that concepts and values of the life-world are not threatened is difficult for students and laymen. Ethics and morals pertaining to the use of genetic tests for hereditary diseases have been investigated and discussed by educators, anthropologists, medical doctors and philosophers giving, at least in part, diverging results. This study investigates how students explain and understand their argumentation about dilemmas concerning gene testing for the purpose to reduce hereditary diseases. Thirteen students were interviewed about their views on this issue. Qualitative analysis was done primarily by relating students’ argumentation to their movements between ethics and morals as opposing poles. Students used either objective or subjective knowledge but had difficulties to integrate them. They tried to negotiate ethic arguments using utilitarian motives and medical knowledge with sympathy or irrational and personal arguments. They discussed the embryo’s moral status to decide if it was replaceable in a social group or not. The educational implications of the students’ use of knowledge in personal arguments are discussed.

[Did Mozart Suffer from Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome?

PubMed

Palacios-Sánchez, Leonardo; Botero-Meneses, Juan Sebastián; Vergara-Méndez, Laura Daniela; Pachón, Natalia; Martínez, Arianna; Ramírez, Santiago

The personal and private lives of great men and women in history, like writers, painters and musicians, have been the subject of great interest for many years. A clear example of this is the vast scrutiny is cast over the famous composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. What may have started as curiosity, rapidly evolved into extensive research, as the answers about the musician's legendary talent may lie in the details of his life (his childhood, his relationships, his quirks and his mannerisms). It is usually up to historians, anthropologists or philosophers to delve into the pages of old books, trying to grasp answers and clues. However, for some time, Physicians have sought their own part in solving the puzzle. The long told hypothesis regarding Mozart's diagnosis of Gilles de la Tourette syndrome will be examined. Could all of the peculiarities and oddities of the genius be caused by a neurological disorder? Or was this musical genius just an eccentric brilliant man?. Copyright © 2016 Asociación Colombiana de Psiquiatría. Publicado por Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

Fantastic plastic? Experimental evaluation of polyurethane bone substitutes as proxies for human bone in trauma simulations.

PubMed

Smith, Martin J; James, Stephen; Pover, Tim; Ball, Nina; Barnetson, Victoria; Foster, Bethany; Guy, Carl; Rickman, John; Walton, Virginia

2015-09-01

Recent years have seen steady improvements in the recognition and interpretation of violence related injuries in human skeletal remains. Such work has at times benefited from the involvement of biological anthropologists in forensic casework and has often relied upon comparison of documented examples with trauma observed in skeletal remains. In cases where no such example exists investigators must turn to experimentation. The selection of experimental samples is problematic as animal proxies may be too dissimilar to humans and human cadavers may be undesirable for a raft of reasons. The current article examines a third alternative in the form of polyurethane plates and spheres marketed as viable proxies for human bone in ballistic experiments. Through subjecting these samples to a range of impacts from both modern and archaic missile weapons it was established that such material generally responds similarly to bone on a broad, macroscopic scale but when examined in closer detail exhibits a range of dissimilarities that call for caution in extrapolating such results to real bone. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The evolution of screening.

PubMed

Gray, J A

2001-01-01

Botany is usually considered to be the gentlest of sciences with botanists being regarded as people who study relatively safe specimens, compared with, for example, anthropologists or microbiologists. However, botanists have their moments, particularly when collecting new species. The great botanists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries risked their lives in collecting and bringing back species, which we now take for granted, and Robert Brown was one of these adventurers, a young Scot who accompanied Sir Joseph Banks to New Holland. It was not, however, for his adventurous lifestyle that Brown is remembered but for his startling observation of the movements of pollen grains on a microscope slide. He noted that the pollen grains were in perpetual agitated motion, without purpose or direction but full of energy. This motion, called Brownian motion, arises from the movement of molecules, and Brownian motion is the term that has been applied to much of healthcare, including many screening programmes, which have in the past been marked more by the amount of energy and activity than by a clear sense of direction or positive achievement.

Teaching in hunter–gatherer infancy

PubMed Central

Hewlett, Barry S.; Roulette, Casey J.

2016-01-01

A debate exists as to whether teaching is part of human nature and central to understanding culture or whether it is a recent invention of Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic cultures. Some social–cultural anthropologists and cultural psychologists indicate teaching is rare in small-scale cultures while cognitive psychologists and evolutionary biologists indicate it is universal and key to understanding human culture. This study addresses the following questions: Does teaching of infants exist in hunter–gatherers? If teaching occurs in infancy, what skills or knowledge is transmitted by this process, how often does it occur and who is teaching? The study focuses on late infancy because cognitive psychologists indicate that one form of teaching, called natural pedagogy, emerges at this age. Videotapes of Aka hunter–gatherer infants were used to evaluate whether or not teaching exists among Aka hunter–gatherers of central Africa. The study finds evidence of multiple forms of teaching, including natural pedagogy, that are used to enhance learning of a variety of skills and knowledge. PMID:26909166

Applying evolutionary anthropology.

PubMed

Gibson, Mhairi A; Lawson, David W

2015-01-01

Evolutionary anthropology provides a powerful theoretical framework for understanding how both current environments and legacies of past selection shape human behavioral diversity. This integrative and pluralistic field, combining ethnographic, demographic, and sociological methods, has provided new insights into the ultimate forces and proximate pathways that guide human adaptation and variation. Here, we present the argument that evolutionary anthropological studies of human behavior also hold great, largely untapped, potential to guide the design, implementation, and evaluation of social and public health policy. Focusing on the key anthropological themes of reproduction, production, and distribution we highlight classic and recent research demonstrating the value of an evolutionary perspective to improving human well-being. The challenge now comes in transforming relevance into action and, for that, evolutionary behavioral anthropologists will need to forge deeper connections with other applied social scientists and policy-makers. We are hopeful that these developments are underway and that, with the current tide of enthusiasm for evidence-based approaches to policy, evolutionary anthropology is well positioned to make a strong contribution. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Reliability of the Walker Cranial Nonmetric Method and Implications for Sex Estimation.

PubMed

Lewis, Cheyenne J; Garvin, Heather M

2016-05-01

The cranial trait scoring method presented in Buikstra and Ubelaker (Standards for data collection from human skeletal remains. Fayetteville, AR: Arkansas Archeological Survey Research Series No. 44, 1994) and Walker (Am J Phys Anthropol, 136, 2008 and 39) is the most common nonmetric cranial sex estimation method utilized by physical and forensic anthropologists. As such, the reliability and accuracy of the method is vital to ensure its validity in forensic applications. In this study, inter- and intra-observer error rates for the Walker scoring method were calculated using a sample of U.S. White and Black individuals (n = 135). Cohen's weighted kappas, intraclass correlation coefficients, and percentage agreements indicate good agreement between trials and observers for all traits except the mental eminence. Slight disagreement in scoring, however, was found to impact sex classifications, leading to lower accuracy rates than those published by Walker. Furthermore, experience does appear to impact trait scoring and sex classification. The use of revised population-specific equations that avoid the mental eminence is highly recommended to minimize the potential for misclassifications. © 2016 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Sacred content, secular context: a generative theory of religion and spirituality for social work.

PubMed

Liechty, Daniel

2013-01-01

Although a secular profession, social work practitioners and educators do explore human spirituality, and this is embraced now by the profession as integral to a holistic view of the human being. Social workers in hospice and end-of-life care are on the front line of this shift. Still needed is for the profession to coalesce around a generative theory of religion to inform the discipline. The author proposes that a synthesis of ideas, particularly from anthropologists Ernest Becker and Fredrick Streng, provides a generative theory of religion that advances meaningful interface between diverse religious and spiritual ideations of clients and clinicians alike. This theory of generative death anxiety locates the basic religious urge as response to the human awareness of the ontological condition of mortality, which then becomes expressed existentially in all of its diverse particularities. This approach avoids being overly reductionist, yet does provide categories for clear analysis. It cultivates critical respect for human religiosity and fosters productive and creative incorporation of human spirituality into the practical and pragmatic clinical perspective.

Environment and science: Chapter 9

USGS Publications Warehouse

Pearce, John; Talbot, Sandra L.

2017-01-01

Alaska is part of an international circumpolar North, which makes the United States an Arctic nation. Alaska is a place of Indigenous ingenuity and adaptation, a place where environmental extremes challenge the ways of living. In its more recent history, Alaska has been a place of resources and influx-a land known best for what it provides. This frontier persona, with its sourdoughs and prospectors, has not been easily shed, but Alaska today is pivotal because it represents America's North and a complex and changing Arctic. North: Finding Place in Alaska explores the state's various facets through exhibitions and artifacts at the Anchorage Museum and the words of a diverse selection of writers, curators, historians, anthropologists, and artists. From romantic landscapes by Rockwell Kent and Thomas Hill, to the art and spirituality of Alaska's Native peoples represented by a bentwood feast dish and a uniquely carved hook for catching halibut, this collection examines connections throughout the circumpolar North. No longer as remote as once thought, Alaska serves as a narrative for our future.

The distribution of cultural and biological diversity in Africa.

PubMed Central

Moore, Joslin L; Manne, Lisa; Brooks, Thomas; Burgess, Neil D; Davies, Robert; Rahbek, Carsten; Williams, Paul; Balmford, Andrew

2002-01-01

Anthropologists, biologists and linguists have all noted an apparent coincidence in species diversity and human cultural or linguistic diversity. We present, to our knowledge, one of the first quantitative descriptions of this coincidence and show that, for 2 degrees x 2 degrees grid cells across sub-Saharan Africa, cultural diversity and vertebrate species diversity exhibit marked similarities in their overall distribution. In addition, we show that 71% of the observed variation in species richness and 36% in language richness can be explained on the basis of environmental factors, suggesting that similar factors, especially those associated with rainfall and productivity, affect the distributions of both species and languages. Nevertheless, the form of the relationships between species richness and language richness and environmental factors differs, and it is unlikely that comparable mechanisms underpin the similar patterns of species and language richness. Moreover, the fact that the environmental factors considered here explain less than half of the variation in language richness indicates that other factors, many of which are likely to be historical or social, also influence the distribution of languages. PMID:12204124

Defining Life

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Abstract Any definition is intricately connected to a theory that gives it meaning. Accordingly, this article discusses various definitions of life held in the astrobiology community by considering their connected “theories of life.” These include certain “list” definitions and a popular definition that holds that life is a “self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.” We then act as “anthropologists,” studying what scientists do to determine which definition-theories of life they constructively hold as they design missions to seek non-terran life. We also look at how constructive beliefs about biosignatures change as observational data accumulate. And we consider how a definition centered on Darwinian evolution might itself be forced to change as supra-Darwinian species emerge, including in our descendents, and consider the chances of our encountering supra-Darwinian species in our exploration of the Cosmos. Last, we ask what chemical structures might support Darwinian evolution universally; these structures might be universal biosignatures. Key Words: Evolution—Life—Life detection—Biosignatures. Astrobiology 10, 1021–1030. PMID:21162682

Chemical Differentiation of Osseous, Dental, and Non-skeletal Materials in Forensic Anthropology using Elemental Analysis.

PubMed

Zimmerman, Heather A; Meizel-Lambert, Cayli J; Schultz, John J; Sigman, Michael E

2015-03-01

Forensic anthropologists are generally able to identify skeletal materials (bone and tooth) using gross anatomical features; however, highly fragmented or taphonomically altered materials may be problematic to identify. Several chemical analysis techniques have been shown to be reliable laboratory methods that can be used to determine if questionable fragments are osseous, dental, or non-skeletal in nature. The purpose of this review is to provide a detailed background of chemical analysis techniques focusing on elemental compositions that have been assessed for use in differentiating osseous, dental, and non-skeletal materials. More recently, chemical analysis studies have also focused on using the elemental composition of osseous/dental materials to evaluate species and provide individual discrimination, but have generally been successful only in small, closed groups, limiting their use forensically. Despite significant advances incorporating a variety of instruments, including handheld devices, further research is necessary to address issues in standardization, error rates, and sample size/diversity. Copyright © 2014 Forensic Science Society. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Point of view filming and the elicitation interview.

PubMed

Skinner, Jonathan; Gormley, Gerard J

2016-08-01

Face-to-face interviews are a fundamental research tool in qualitative research. Whilst this form of data collection can provide many valuable insights, it can often fall short of providing a complete picture of a research subject's experiences. Point of view (PoV) interviewing is an elicitation technique used in the social sciences as a means of enriching data obtained from research interviews. Recording research subjects' first person perspectives, for example by wearing digital video glasses, can afford deeper insights into their experiences. PoV interviewing can promote making visible the unverbalizable and does not rely as much on memory as the traditional interview. The use of such relatively inexpensive technology is gaining interest in health profession educational research and pedagogy, such as dynamic simulation-based learning and research activities. In this interview, Dr Gerry Gormley (a medical education researcher) talks to Dr Jonathan Skinner (an anthropologist with an interest in PoV interviewing), exploring some of the many crossover implications with PoV interviewing for medical education research and practice.

A phenomenological view of language shift.

PubMed

Tsitsipis, Lukas D

2004-01-01

Sociolinguistic studies of language shift have in their majority framed their research object in a horizon of theoretically received variables such as class, ethnicity, locality, attitudes etc. In spite of a limited usefulness of such conceptual variables, and of a recently emerging focus on agency, negotiation, and praxis the best results we obtain have not questioned in a coherent and theoretically sound manner the continuing hegemony of mechanistic-metaphorical models (language death, language suicide). In this paper I propose to examine language shift as a multifaceted phenomenon, joining in this respect work by other linguistic anthropologists researching similar areas. I specifically argue that by replacing vertical concepts such as age and generation, and dichotomous logics such as center and periphery with phenomenologically inspired concepts such as typifications, consociateship, contemporariness, and stream of consciousness we are in a better position to generalize about language shift dynamics. Data for this work is derived primarily from the Albanian speech communities of modern Greece, but also from other communities for comparative purposes.

Current research in transcultural psychiatry in the Nordic countries.

PubMed

Ekblad, Solvig; Kastrup, Marianne Carisius

2013-12-01

This article discusses major themes in recent transcultural psychiatric research in the Nordic countries from 2008 to 2011: (a) epidemiological studies of migration, (b) indigenous populations, and (c) quality of psychiatric care for migrants. Over the past several decades, the populations of the Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, which were relatively homogeneous, have become increasingly culturally diverse. Many migrants to Nordic countries have been exposed to extreme stress, such as threats of death and/or torture and other severe social adversities before, during, and after migration, with potential effects on their physical, mental, social, and spiritual health. Growing interest in transcultural issues is reflected in the level of scientific research and clinical activity in the field by Nordic physicians, psychologists, social scientists, demographers, medical anthropologists, as well as other clinicians and policy planners. Research includes work with migrants and indigenous minorities in the Nordic countries, as well as comparisons with mental health in postconflict countries. We conclude by suggesting future directions for transcultural psychiatry research and providing guidelines for the education and training of future clinicians in the Nordic countries.

Power in the nursing home: the case of a special care unit.

PubMed

McLean, A

2001-01-01

This article examines the effects and nature of power in a special care unit of a nursing home devoted to elders with dementia and/or disturbed behaviors. Drawing from two case studies and contemporary theories on power, I illustrate how the hierarchical structure of the clinic, together with the diffuseness and pervasiveness of disciplinary power, serves to shape the lives of--and to constrain the resistance opportunities open to--elders within the clinic. I also discuss the dilemma facing ethnographers of the clinic who may witness the sometimes disastrous effects of power but feel incapable, in their positions as researchers, of challenging the actions of clinical staff. At the same time, I observe how the contradictions of disciplinary power are often experienced by clinical staff who themselves struggle between taking actions they feel they must and those they would prefer. Far from acceding to the impotency that clinical anthropologists too often feel within a research setting, I argue that they can help to incite in their clinical colleagues the urgency of carrying out more productive alternatives to conventional "disciplinary" practices.

Inca - interparietal bones in neurocranium of human skulls in central India

PubMed Central

Marathe, RR; Yogesh, AS; Pandit, SV; Joshi, M; Trivedi, GN

2010-01-01

Inca bones are accessory bones found in neurocranium of human skulls. Occurrence of Inca bones is rare as compared to other inter sutural bones such as wormian bones. These Inca ossicles are regarded as variants of the normal. The reporting of such occurrences is inadequate from Central India. Objectives: To find the incidence of Inca variants in Central India. Materials and Methods: In the present study, 380 dried adult human skulls were examined. All specimen samples were procured from various Medical colleges of Central India. They were analyzed for gross incidence, sexual dimorphism and number of fragments of Inca bones. Results: Gross incidence of Inca bones was found to be 1.315 %. Incidence rate was higher in male skulls than female skulls (male: 1.428%; female: 1.176%). The Inca bones frequently occurred signally. Out of the five observed Inca ossicles, two were fragmented. Conclusions: This data gives idea regarding gross incidence, sexual dimorphism and number of fragments of Inca bones in neurocranium of human skulls from Central India. The knowledge of this variable is useful for neurosurgeons, anthropologists and radiologists. PMID:21799611

Inca - interparietal bones in neurocranium of human skulls in central India.

PubMed

Marathe, Rr; Yogesh, As; Pandit, Sv; Joshi, M; Trivedi, Gn

2010-01-01

Inca bones are accessory bones found in neurocranium of human skulls. Occurrence of Inca bones is rare as compared to other inter sutural bones such as wormian bones. These Inca ossicles are regarded as variants of the normal. The reporting of such occurrences is inadequate from Central India. To find the incidence of Inca variants in Central India. In the present study, 380 dried adult human skulls were examined. All specimen samples were procured from various Medical colleges of Central India. They were analyzed for gross incidence, sexual dimorphism and number of fragments of Inca bones. Gross incidence of Inca bones was found to be 1.315 %. Incidence rate was higher in male skulls than female skulls (male: 1.428%; female: 1.176%). The Inca bones frequently occurred signally. Out of the five observed Inca ossicles, two were fragmented. This data gives idea regarding gross incidence, sexual dimorphism and number of fragments of Inca bones in neurocranium of human skulls from Central India. The knowledge of this variable is useful for neurosurgeons, anthropologists and radiologists.

A novel method for pair-matching using three-dimensional digital models of bone: mesh-to-mesh value comparison.

PubMed

Karell, Mara A; Langstaff, Helen K; Halazonetis, Demetrios J; Minghetti, Caterina; Frelat, Mélanie; Kranioti, Elena F

2016-09-01

The commingling of human remains often hinders forensic/physical anthropologists during the identification process, as there are limited methods to accurately sort these remains. This study investigates a new method for pair-matching, a common individualization technique, which uses digital three-dimensional models of bone: mesh-to-mesh value comparison (MVC). The MVC method digitally compares the entire three-dimensional geometry of two bones at once to produce a single value to indicate their similarity. Two different versions of this method, one manual and the other automated, were created and then tested for how well they accurately pair-matched humeri. Each version was assessed using sensitivity and specificity. The manual mesh-to-mesh value comparison method was 100 % sensitive and 100 % specific. The automated mesh-to-mesh value comparison method was 95 % sensitive and 60 % specific. Our results indicate that the mesh-to-mesh value comparison method overall is a powerful new tool for accurately pair-matching commingled skeletal elements, although the automated version still needs improvement.

[Two hundred blood tests from Auschwitz. A notorious research project and the question about the contribution Adolf Butenandts].

PubMed

Trunk, Achim

2007-01-01

The 1939 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and later President of the Max Planck Society Adolf Butenandt has been increasingly exposed to criticism in recent years. One far-reaching accusation against him is his postulated participation in the human experiments executed by the SS-physician Josef Mengele in the Auschwitz concentration camp. It concerns a project initiated by anthropologist Otmar von Verschuer in 1943. For this, Verschu-ER Obtained blood samples from his assistant Mengele in the Auschwitz concentration camp. When methodological problems occurred in the project Butenandt helped Verschuer. According to the reconstruction of geneticist Benno Müller-Hill the research project included lethal human experiments: Mengele had selectively infected concentration camp detainees with tuberculosis to observe their racially conditioned resistibility against that disease, he claims. This reconstruction, however, contradicts other sources. Therefore an alternative reconstruction is offered here. According to that, the project represented a large-scale attempt of serological race diagnosis in man. Human experiments are not plausible for this project. Yet it is clearly connected to race biological research and implementation.

What is so new about mixed methods?

PubMed

Pelto, Pertti J

2015-06-01

In this article, I dispute claims that mixed methods research emerged only recently in the social sciences. I argue that some anthropologists and sociologists (and others) have used mixed methods in fieldwork for at least 80 years, and there are studies from early in the 20th century that clearly fall within the definition of "mixed methods." I explore some of the history of the mixing of qualitative and quantitative data in earlier ethnographic works and show that in some sectors of social science research, the "emergence" and proliferation of mixed methods were particularly notable around the middle of the 20th century. Furthermore, concerning issues about "paradigms of research" in the social sciences, I identify some of the types of research in which the mixing of QUAL and QUAN approaches was more likely to occur. I suggest that some of the literature about research paradigms has involved a certain amount of "myth-making" in connection with descriptions of qualitative and quantitative research assumptions and styles. © The Author(s) 2015.

Human Cooperation and Its Underlying Mechanisms.

PubMed

Strang, Sabrina; Park, Soyoung Q

Cooperation is a uniquely human behavior and can be observed across cultures. In order to maintain cooperative behavior in society, people are willing to punish deviant behavior on their own expenses and even without any personal benefits. Cooperation has been object of research in several disciplines. Psychologists, economists, sociologists, biologists, and anthropologists have suggested several motives possibly underlying cooperative behavior. In recent years, there has been substantial progress in understanding neural mechanisms enforcing cooperation. Psychological as well as economic theories were tested for their plausibility using neuroscientific methods. For example, paradigms from behavioral economics were adapted to be tested in the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. Also, related brain functions were modulated by using transmagnetic brain stimulation (TMS). While cooperative behavior has often been associated with positive emotions, noncooperative behavior was found to be linked to negative emotions. On a neural level, the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), the striatum, and other reward-related brain areas have been shown to be activated by cooperation, whereas noncooperation has mainly been associated with activity in the insula.

PREFACE: European Workshop on Advanced Control and Diagnosis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schulte, Horst; Georg, Sören

2014-12-01

The European Workshop on Advanced Control and Diagnosis is an annual event that has been organised since 2003 by Control Engineering departments of several European universities in Germany, France, the UK, Poland, Italy, Hungary and Denmark. The overall planning of the workshops is conducted by the Intelligent Control and Diagnosis (ICD) steering committee. This year's ACD workshop took place at HTW Berlin (University of Applied Sciences) and was organised by the Control Engineering group of School of Engineering I of HTW Berlin. 38 papers were presented at ACD 2014, with contributions spanning a variety of fields in modern control science: Discrete control, nonlinear control, model predictive control, system identification, fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control, control applications, applications of fuzzy logic, as well as modelling and simulation, the latter two forming a basis for all tasks in modern control. Three interesting and high-quality plenary lectures were delivered. The first plenary speaker was Wolfgang Weber from Pepperl+Fuchs, a German manufacturer of state-of-the-art industrial sensors and process interfaces. The second and third plenary speakers were two internationally high-ranked researchers in their respective fields, Prof. Didier Theilliol from Université de Lorraine and Prof. Carsten Scherer from Universität Stuttgart. Taken together, the three plenary lectures sought to contribute to closing the gap between theory and applications. On behalf of the whole ACD 2014 organising committee, we would like to thank all those who submitted papers and participated in the workshop. We hope it was a fruitful and memorable event for all. Together we are looking forward to the next ACD workshop in 2015 in Pilsen, Czech Republic. Horst Schulte (General Chair), Sören Georg (Programme Chair)

The Elephant in the Living Room that No One Wants to Talk about: Why U.S. Anthropologists Are Unable to Acknowledge the End of Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tanaka, Greg

2009-01-01

Findings from a four-year action research project at a highly diverse, West Coast U.S. university reveal that a large percentage of white students cannot trace their identities to a particular nation in Europe and are, as a result, unable to name the shared meanings of a particular ethnic culture. Each time Latino, Asian American, and African…

Anthropological film: a scientific and humanistic resource.

PubMed

Soren, E R

1974-12-20

More than a scientific endeavor but not strictly one of the humanities either, anthropology stands between these basic kinds of intellectual pursuit, bridging and contributing to both. Not limited to natural history, anthropology touches art, historical process, and human values, drawing from the materials and approaches of both science and humanities. This professional interest in a broad understanding of the human condition has led anthropologists to adapt and use modern cameras and films to inquire further into the variety of ways of life of mankind and to develop method and theory to prepare anthropological film as a permanent scientific and humanistic resource. Until quite recently the evolution of human culture and organization has diverged in the hitherto isolated regions of the world. Now this divergence has virtually ceased; we are witnessing an unprecedented period in human history-one where cultural divergence has turned to cultural convergence and where the varieties of independently evolved expressions of basic human potential are giving way to a single system of modern communications, transport, commerce, and manufacturing technology. Before the varieties of ways of life of the world disappear, they can be preserved in facsimile in anthropological films. As primary, undifferentiated visual information, these films facilitate that early step in the creation of new knowledge which is sometimes called humanistic and without which scientific application lies dormant, lacking an idea to test. In keeping with the two scholarly faces of anthropology, humanistic and scientific, anthropological films may provide material permitting both humanistic insight and the more controlled formulations of science. The lightweight filming equipment recently developed has been adapted by anthropologists as a tool of scholarly visual inquiry; methods of retrieving visual data from changing and vanishing ways of life have been developed; and new ways to reveal human beings

Mortality and morbidity in the city of Bern, Switzerland, 1805-1815 with special emphasis on infant, child and maternal deaths.

PubMed

Rüttimann, D; Loesch, S

2012-02-01

childbed fever in the early 1800s was low. Bern's data indicate that the extent of deaths related to childbirth in this period is overrated. This research has an explicit interdisciplinary value for various fields including both the humanities and natural sciences, since information reported here represents the complete age and sex structure of a deceased population. Physical anthropologists can use these data as a true reference group for their palaeodemographic studies of preindustrial Central Europe of the late 18th and early 19th century. It is a call to both historians and anthropologists to use our resources to a better effect through combination of methods and exchange of knowledge. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

The Portapotty Experiment: Neoliberal approaches to the intertwined epidemics of opioid-related overdose and HIV/HCV, and why we need cultural anthropologists in the South Bronx

PubMed Central

Wolfson-Stofko, Brett; Curtis, Ric; Fuentes, Faustino; Manchess, Ed; Del Rio-Cumba, Alexis; Bennett, Alex S.

2016-01-01

The following report from the field focuses on the authors’ collective efforts to operate an ad hoc safer injection facility (SIF) out of portapotties (portable toilets) in an area of the South Bronx that has consistently experienced some of the highest overdose morbidity and mortality rates in New York City over the past decade (New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 2011, 2015, 2016). Safer injection facilities (also known as supervised injection facilities, drug consumption rooms, etc.) operating outside the US provide a legal, hygienic, and supervised environment for individuals to use drugs in order to minimize the likelihood of fatal overdose and the spread of blood-borne infections while reducing public injection. In the US, the operation of SIFs is federally prohibited by the federal “Crack House” statute though federal, state, and local elected officials can sanction their operation to various degrees (Beletsky, Davis, Anderson, & Burris, 2008). The activists, researchers, undergraduate students and peers from syringe exchange programs who came together to operate the portapotties discovered that they were, in many ways, emblematic of neoliberal solutions to disease prevention: primarily focused on auditing individual risk behaviors and virtually blind to the wider social context that shapes those lives. That social context — the culture of drug injection — was and is out in the open for all of us to see. Going forward, the cultural anthropologist’s toolbox will be opened up and used by large groups of undergraduate students to better understand the culture of drug use and how it is changing. PMID:27917016

Ethnography: studying the fate of health promotion in coronary families.

PubMed

Preston, R M

1997-03-01

The concept of the 'mindful body', 'coronary candidacy' and "prevention paradox' are three of many interesting themes explored in this paper which examines how, and to what extent, health information is received and translated into the daily domestic setting by coronary family groups. Taking an ethnographic approach to collecting data highlights both the advantages and disadvantages of this methodology in practice. Certainly, the emergence of a health promotion orientation in health care is an area which is intimately connected to aspects of human culture and society that have long been a central concern of anthropologists. This mini-ethnography provides an anthropological understanding of the knowledge, beliefs and behaviours associated with heart disease and its prevention. The concept of the 'mindful body' is provided as a critical interpretive approach to analysing the potential outcome of prescribed lifestyle changes, as given to coronary sufferers and their families during the period following coronary artery bypass surgery. Data drawn from this study confirms the evidence of lay epidemiology which works within the cultural field of fate, luck and destiny, and which has interesting implications as to how nurses might plan for their health promotion strategies in the future.

Comparative morphometry of facial surface models obtained from a stereo vision system in a healthy population

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

López, Leticia; Gastélum, Alfonso; Chan, Yuk Hin; Delmas, Patrice; Escorcia, Lilia; Márquez, Jorge

2014-11-01

Our goal is to obtain three-dimensional measurements of craniofacial morphology in a healthy population, using standard landmarks established by a physical-anthropology specialist and picked from computer reconstructions of the face of each subject. To do this, we designed a multi-stereo vision system that will be used to create a data base of human faces surfaces from a healthy population, for eventual applications in medicine, forensic sciences and anthropology. The acquisition process consists of obtaining the depth map information from three points of views, each depth map is obtained from a calibrated pair of cameras. The depth maps are used to build a complete, frontal, triangular-surface representation of the subject face. The triangular surface is used to locate the landmarks and the measurements are analyzed with a MATLAB script. The classification of the subjects was done with the aid of a specialist anthropologist that defines specific subject indices, according to the lengths, areas, ratios, etc., of the different structures and the relationships among facial features. We studied a healthy population and the indices from this population will be used to obtain representative averages that later help with the study and classification of possible pathologies.

[The Base of the Skull. Rudolf Virchow between Pathology and Anthropology].

PubMed

Seemann, Sophie

2016-01-01

Throughout his scientific career, the pathologist and anthropologist Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902) examined countless skulls, gradually changing his perspective on this object of research. Initially, he was mainly concerned with pathologically deformed skulls. From the 1850s onwards, he gradually developed a more anthropological approach, and anthropology increasingly came to dominate his scientific interest. This article shows how different influences became central for the establishment of his specific and dynamic model of the human skull development and its successful application in anthropology. Crucial for this process were Virchow's collaboration with his teacher Robert Froriep (1804-1861) in the department of pathology of the Charité, his research on cretinism and rickets, as well as his description of the base of the skull as the center of skull development. His research work was attended by and showed a reciprocal interaction with the buildup of large skull collections. This article uses Virchow's original publications on skull pathology as well as his still preserved skull specimens from the collection of the Berlin Museum of Medical History at the Charité for an integrated text and object based analysis.

Reticulate evolution and the human past: an anthropological perspective.

PubMed

Winder, Isabelle C; Winder, Nick P

2014-01-01

The evidence is mounting that reticulate (web-like) evolution has shaped the biological histories of many macroscopic plants and animals, including non-human primates closely related to Homo sapiens, but the implications of this non-hierarchical evolution for anthropological enquiry are not yet fully understood. When they are understood, the result may be a paradigm shift in evolutionary anthropology. This paper reviews the evidence for reticulated evolution in the non-human primates and human lineage. Then it makes the case for extrapolating this sort of patterning to Homo sapiens and other hominins and explores the implications this would have for research design, method and understandings of evolution in anthropology. Reticulation was significant in human evolutionary history and continues to influence societies today. Anthropologists and human scientists-whether working on ancient or modern populations-thus need to consider the implications of non-hierarchic evolution, particularly where molecular clocks, mathematical models and simplifying assumptions about evolutionary processes are used. This is not just a problem for palaeoanthropology. The simple fact of different mating systems among modern human groups, for example, may demand that more attention is paid to the potential for complexity in human genetic and cultural histories.

Setting culture apart: distinguishing culture from behavior and social structure in safety and injury research.

PubMed

Myers, Douglas J; Nyce, James M; Dekker, Sidney W A

2014-07-01

The concept of culture is now widely used by those who conduct research on safety and work-related injury outcomes. We argue that as the term has been applied by an increasingly diverse set of disciplines, its scope has broadened beyond how it was defined and intended for use by sociologists and anthropologists. As a result, this more inclusive concept has lost some of its precision and analytic power. We suggest that the utility of this "new" understanding of culture could be improved if researchers more clearly delineated the ideological - the socially constructed abstract systems of meaning, norms, beliefs and values (which we refer to as culture) - from concrete behaviors, social relations and other properties of workplaces (e.g., organizational structures) and of society itself. This may help researchers investigate how culture and social structures can affect safety and injury outcomes with increased analytic rigor. In addition, maintaining an analytical distinction between culture and other social factors can help intervention efforts better understand the target of the intervention and therefore may improve chances of both scientific and instrumental success. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

[Culture-bound syndromes: pertinence as a diagnostic category].

PubMed

Perez, S; Junod, A; Pilard, M

2000-01-01

Culture-bound syndromes (CBS) are supposedly confined to one specific cultural areas. These syndromes were first studied by western anthropologists and psychiatrists working overseas, and later by practitioners treating patients from societies with traditional customs and values. The latest edition of the American Psychiatry Association classification (DSM IV) includes an annex on CBS. This report gives a concise background of the process that led to the inclusion of this annex. Then using Koro (a sudden and intense fear that the genitals organs will recede into the body) as an example, a number psychopathological parallels are drawn between CBS and classic manifestations of individual and mass hysteria. The pertinence of individualizing the CBS in the psychiatric nosography including the epistemologic implications is analyzed with reference to the concepts of the French and American Schools of Anthropology. Since attitudes toward mental illness are culturally determined and subject to variation in time and space, we feel that this debate should be placed within the context of a general dialectic between etic (universality) and emic (cultural specificity) rather than a controversy on the need for an annex on CBS in the DSM IV.

From posttrauma intervention to immunization of the social body: pragmatics and politics of a resilience program in Israel's periphery.

PubMed

Friedman-Peleg, Keren; Goodman, Yehuda C

2010-09-01

This article traces a critical change in the professional therapy of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): from treatment of a disorder borne by individuals to treatment of an anticipated disorder to be prevented by fortifying the entire population. A community resilience program in the city of Sderot in southern Israel, which has been subjected to Qassam rockets by its Palestinian neighbors across the border, serves as our case study. Drawing on an ethnographic study of this new therapeutic program, we analyze how the social body that the professionals attempt to immunize against trauma was treated. In particular, we follow the various practices used to expand the clinical. We found that the population was split into several groups on a continuum between the clinical and the preclinical, each receiving different treatment. Moreover, the social body managed according to this new form of PTSD was articulated through ethnic and geopolitical power relations between professionals from the country's center and professionals from its periphery, and between the professionals and the city's residents. Finally, we discuss how this Israeli case compares with other national sites of the growing globalization of PTSD, like Bali, Haiti and Ethiopia, which anthropologists have been exploring in recent years.

From head to tail: new models and approaches in primate functional anatomy and biomechanics.

PubMed

Organ, Jason M; Deleon, Valerie B; Wang, Qian; Smith, Timothy D

2010-04-01

This special issue of The Anatomical Record (AR) is based on interest generated by a symposium at the 2008 annual meeting of the American Association of Anatomists (AAA) at Experimental Biology, entitled "An Evolutionary Perspective on Human Anatomy." The development of this volume in turn provided impetus for a Biological Anthropology Mini-Meeting, organized by members of the AAA for the 2010 Experimental Biology meeting in Anaheim, California. The research presented in these pages reflects the themes of these symposia and provides a snapshot of the current state of primate functional anatomy and biomechanics research. The 17 articles in this special issue utilize new models and/or approaches to study long-standing questions about the evolution of our closest relatives, including soft-tissue dissection and microanatomical techniques, experimental approaches to morphology, kinematic and kinetic biomechanics, high-resolution computed tomography, and Finite Element Analysis (FEA). This volume continues a close historical association between the disciplines of anatomy and biological anthropology: anatomists benefit from an understanding of the evolutionary history of our modern form, and biological anthropologists rely on anatomical principles to make informed evolutionary inferences about our closest relatives. (c) 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Unfolding epidemiological stories: how the WHO made frozen blood into a flexible resource for the future.

PubMed

Radin, Joanna

2014-09-01

In the decades after World War II, the World Health Organization (WHO) played an important role in managing the process of stabilizing collections of variable blood samples as a fundamentally unstable, protean, and unfolding biomedical resource. In this system, known and as yet unknown constituents of blood were positioned as relevant to the work of multiple constituencies including human population geneticists, physical anthropologists, and immunologists. To facilitate serving these and other constituencies, it was crucial to standardize practices of collecting and preserving samples of blood from globally distributed human populations. The WHO achieved this by linking its administrative infrastructure-comprised of expert advisory groups and technical reports-to key laboratories, which served as sites for demonstrating and also for disseminating standards for working with variable blood samples. The practices that were articulated in making blood samples into a flexible resource contributes to emerging histories of global health that highlight the centrality of new institutions, like the WHO, new forms of expertise, like population genetics and serological epidemiology, and new kinds of research materials, like frozen blood. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Scaling up: human genetics as a Cold War network.

PubMed

Lindee, Susan

2014-09-01

In this commentary I explore how the papers here illuminate the processes of collection that have been so central to the history of human genetics since 1945. The development of human population genetics in the Cold War period produced databases and biobanks that have endured into the present, and that continue to be used and debated. In the decades after the bomb, scientists collected and transferred human biological materials and information from populations of interest, and as they moved these biological resources or biosocial resources acquired new meanings and uses. The papers here collate these practices and map their desires and ironies. They explore how a large international network of geneticists, biological anthropologists, virologists and other physicians and scientists interacted with local informants, research subjects and public officials. They also track the networks and standards that mobilized the transfer of information, genealogies, tissue and blood samples. As Joanna Radin suggests here, the massive collections of human biological materials and data were often understood to be resources for an "as-yet-unknown" future. The stories told here contain elements of surveillance, extraction, salvage and eschatology. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Anthropology and cultural neuroscience: creating productive intersections in parallel fields.

PubMed

Brown, R A; Seligman, R

2009-01-01

Partly due to the failure of anthropology to productively engage the fields of psychology and neuroscience, investigations in cultural neuroscience have occurred largely without the active involvement of anthropologists or anthropological theory. Dramatic advances in the tools and findings of social neuroscience have emerged in parallel with significant advances in anthropology that connect social and political-economic processes with fine-grained descriptions of individual experience and behavior. We describe four domains of inquiry that follow from these recent developments, and provide suggestions for intersections between anthropological tools - such as social theory, ethnography, and quantitative modeling of cultural models - and cultural neuroscience. These domains are: the sociocultural construction of emotion, status and dominance, the embodiment of social information, and the dual social and biological nature of ritual. Anthropology can help locate unique or interesting populations and phenomena for cultural neuroscience research. Anthropological tools can also help "drill down" to investigate key socialization processes accountable for cross-group differences. Furthermore, anthropological research points at meaningful underlying complexity in assumed relationships between social forces and biological outcomes. Finally, ethnographic knowledge of cultural content can aid with the development of ecologically relevant stimuli for use in experimental protocols.

The social production of health: critical contributions from evolutionary, biological, and cultural anthropology.

PubMed

Levin, Betty Wolder; Browner, C H

2005-08-01

In 1946, the newly formed World Health Organization boldly sought to conceptualize "health" as wellbeing in the positive sense, "not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." Yet nearly six decades later, researchers are still principally concerned with pathology and its characteristics and consequences. This special issue is the result of an effort to broaden the focus. Anthropologists working from evolutionary, biological and sociocultural perspectives and in diverse geographic regions were asked to examine meanings associated with health and/or to identify social conditions and practices that have contributed to positive physiological and psychological states in particular cultures, times, or across time. Most notable, perhaps, was discovering how difficult it is for Western social scientists to move beyond pathology-based thinking; most authors represented here regard health primarily as the absence of disease. Still, these papers articulate and address questions key to understanding health in and of itself, including: How is health conceptualized? What kinds of social conditions lead to health? And, how do social inequalities affect health? This introduction critically discusses previous work on the subject to contextualize the original research papers offered here.

Dynamics of genetic and morphological variability within Neandertals.

PubMed

Hawks, John

2012-01-01

Paleogenomics may suggest changes to the way anthropologists have discussed the dynamics and morphological diversity among Neandertals. Genetic comparisons show that later Neandertals had relatively low autosomal genetic variation compared to recent humans. The known mitochondrial sample from Neandertals covers a broader geographic and temporal range, and shows greater diversity. This review addresses how genetic data compare to morphological and archaeological evidence about Neandertal variation and dynamics. Traditional views emphasized the morphological differences between western and eastern Neandertal populations, and between early and later Neandertals. Genomes broadly support these groupings, without resolving the outstanding question of the affinities of specimens from southwest Asia. However, the pattern of genetic variation appears to reject a long, in situ transformation of Neandertal groups over time, suggesting instead a more rapid process of regional dispersal and partial population replacement. Archaeological indicators sample dynamics on a much finer timescale than morphological or genetic evidence, and point to dispersal and turnover among Neandertals on a regional scale. In this way, genetic evidence may provide a bridge between the timescales relevant to morphological and archaeological comparisons. New ways of looking at the morphology of Neandertals may yield a better picture of their interactions and movements.

Culture and psychiatric diagnosis.

PubMed

Lewis-Fernández, Roberto; Aggarwal, Neil Krishan

2013-01-01

Since the publication of DSM-IV in 1994, neurobiologists and anthropologists have criticized the rigidity of its diagnostic criteria that appear to exclude whole classes of alternate illness presentations, as well as the lack of attention in contemporary psychiatric nosology to the role of contextual factors in the emergence and characteristics of psychopathology. Experts in culture and mental health have responded to these criticisms by revising the very process of diagnosis for DSM-5. Specifically, the DSM-5 Cultural Issues Subgroup has recommended that concepts of culture be included more prominently in several areas: an introductory chapter on Cultural Aspects of Psychiatric Diagnosis - composed of a conceptual introduction, a revised Outline for Cultural Formulation, a Cultural Formulation Interview that operationalizes this Outline, and a glossary on cultural concepts of distress - as well as material directly related to culture that is incorporated into the description of each disorder. This chapter surveys these recommendations to demonstrate how culture and context interact with psychiatric diagnosis at multiple levels. A greater appreciation of the interplay between culture, context, and biology can help clinicians improve diagnostic and treatment planning. Copyright © 2013 APA*

Revealing the face of an ancient Egyptian: synthesis of current and traditional approaches to evidence-based facial approximation.

PubMed

Lindsay, Kaitlin E; Rühli, Frank J; Deleon, Valerie Burke

2015-06-01

The technique of forensic facial approximation, or reconstruction, is one of many facets of the field of mummy studies. Although far from a rigorous scientific technique, evidence-based visualization of antemortem appearance may supplement radiological, chemical, histological, and epidemiological studies of ancient remains. Published guidelines exist for creating facial approximations, but few approximations are published with documentation of the specific process and references used. Additionally, significant new research has taken place in recent years which helps define best practices in the field. This case study records the facial approximation of a 3,000-year-old ancient Egyptian woman using medical imaging data and the digital sculpting program, ZBrush. It represents a synthesis of current published techniques based on the most solid anatomical and/or statistical evidence. Through this study, it was found that although certain improvements have been made in developing repeatable, evidence-based guidelines for facial approximation, there are many proposed methods still awaiting confirmation from comprehensive studies. This study attempts to assist artists, anthropologists, and forensic investigators working in facial approximation by presenting the recommended methods in a chronological and usable format. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

On the controversy over non-human culture: the reasons for disagreement and possible directions toward consensus.

PubMed

Pagnotta, Murillo

2014-11-01

In recent decades, animal behaviorists have been using the term culture in relation to non-human animals, starting a controversy with social scientists that is still far from cooling down. I investigated the meanings of the term culture as used by social and cultural anthropologists, and also its recent use by ethologists, in order to better understand this controversy and identify possible paths that might lead to a consensus. I argue that disagreements in the level of theories involve definitions of culture and theories of behavioral development, while disagreements in the level of worldviews include the acceptance or rejection of the idea of a radical distinction between humans and other animals. Reaching a synthetic approach to (human and non-human) animal behavior depends on constructing a consensus in both levels. It is also necessary to discuss how to include symbolic communication in a comparative perspective. I conclude that this might lead to the abandonment or reconstruction of the related dichotomies of nature-culture, innate-acquired and gene-environment. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Neotropical Behaviour. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The reliability of forensic osteology--a case in point. Case study.

PubMed

Kemkes-Grottenthaler, A

2001-03-01

The medico-legal investigation of skeletons is a trans-disciplinary effort by forensic scientists as well as physical anthropologists. The advent of DNA extraction and amplification from bones and teeth has led to the assumption that morphological assessment of skeletal remains might soon become obsolete. But despite the introduction and success of molecular biology, the analysis of skeletal biology will remain an integral part of the identification process. This is due to the fact, that the skeletal record allows relatively fast and accurate inferences about the identity of the victim. Moreover, a standard biological profile may be established to effectively narrow the police investigator's search parameters. The following study demonstrates how skeletal biology may collaborate in the forensic investigation and support DNA fingerprinting evidence. In this case, the information gained from standard morphological methods about the unknown person's sex, age and heritage immediately led the police to suspect, that the remains were that of a young man from Vietnam, who had been missing for 2.5 years. The investigation then quickly shifted to prove the victim's identity via DNA extraction and mtDNA sequence analysis and biostatistical calculations involving questions of kinship [4].

Cultural macroevolution on neighbor graphs : vertical and horizontal transmission among Western North American Indian societies.

PubMed

Towner, Mary C; Grote, Mark N; Venti, Jay; Borgerhoff Mulder, Monique

2012-09-01

What are the driving forces of cultural macroevolution, the evolution of cultural traits that characterize societies or populations? This question has engaged anthropologists for more than a century, with little consensus regarding the answer. We develop and fit autologistic models, built upon both spatial and linguistic neighbor graphs, for 44 cultural traits of 172 societies in the Western North American Indian (WNAI) database. For each trait, we compare models including or excluding one or both neighbor graphs, and for the majority of traits we find strong evidence in favor of a model which uses both spatial and linguistic neighbors to predict a trait's distribution. Our results run counter to the assertion that cultural trait distributions can be explained largely by the transmission of traits from parent to daughter populations and are thus best analyzed with phylogenies. In contrast, we show that vertical and horizontal transmission pathways can be incorporated in a single model, that both transmission modes may indeed operate on the same trait, and that for most traits in the WNAI database, accounting for only one mode of transmission would result in a loss of information.

Stag Parties Linger: Continued Gender Bias in a Female-Rich Scientific Discipline

PubMed Central

Isbell, Lynne A.; Young, Truman P.; Harcourt, Alexander H.

2012-01-01

Discussions about the underrepresentation of women in science are challenged by uncertainty over the relative effects of the lack of assertiveness by women and the lack of recognition of them by male colleagues because the two are often indistinguishable. They can be distinguished at professional meetings, however, by comparing symposia, which are largely by invitation, and posters and other talks, which are largely participant-initiated. Analysis of 21 annual meetings of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists reveals that within the subfield of primatology, women give more posters than talks, whereas men give more talks than posters. But most strikingly, among symposia the proportion of female participants differs dramatically by the gender of the organizer. Male-organized symposia have half the number of female first authors (29%) that symposia organized by women (64%) or by both men and women (58%) have, and half that of female participation in talks and posters (65%). We found a similar gender bias from men in symposia from the past 12 annual meetings of the American Society of Primatologists. The bias is surprising given that women are the numerical majority in primatology and have achieved substantial peer recognition in this discipline. PMID:23185407

The Quiet Migration Redux: International Adoption, Race, and Difference

PubMed Central

Leinaweaver, Jessaca B.

2014-01-01

Demographers frame international adoption primarily as an unusual kind of migration. This insight offers anthropologists new ways to think about kinship. Drawing on demographic scholarship and anthropological kinship and migration studies, this article develops a new and hybrid approach to international adoption as a complex social process that is both migratory and productive of kinship. Viewing international adoption as a form of migration reveals how the stated “push factors” and actual “pull factors” of international adoption do not align perfectly. Using an anthropological life course perspective, the article then explores how the experiences of these “migrants” and those close to them, over time, are better understood as racialization than solely the product of migration. Looking at adoptees’ lives through a migration lens reveals some of the persistent discomforts that prevent open conversations about racial difference and minority status in an adoptive context, that is, one where children have been caused to migrate, recruited into families. This article draws on data from ethnographic fieldwork with Spanish parents who have adopted Peruvian children to argue that international adoption is a unique form of immigration that produces a minority category within a majority population. PMID:25598546

Single (sub)species then and now: An examination of the nonracial perspective of C. Loring Brace.

PubMed

Smith, Shelley L

2018-01-01

C. Loring Brace's writings on the concept of race have been among the most influential within anthropology. A review of the development of Brace's perspective on race shows that his philosophical approaches to fossil and modern human variation are consistent and integrated. Brace's views on race are compared with those of Ashley Montagu and Frank Livingstone, who also proposed eliminating "race" from anthropology, and with those of Stanley Garn and Alice Brues, who accepted "racial" subdivisions of humans. Carleton Coon's writings are more divergent; the aftermath of the publication of his Origin of Races highlights significant political tensions of the 1960s that intersected with scientific changes in anthropology emanating from the Evolutionary Synthesis. Recent forensic and "no race" positions are compared to explore their differences and the possibility of reconciliation, and the role of Brace and others in combating proposals of intellectual differences among human groups is discussed. While a spectrum of anthropological opinion regarding race exists, the commonalities are sufficient to allow valuable, united commentary emphasizing the complexity of modern human cultural and biological variation. © 2018 American Association of Physical Anthropologists.

[The significance of sickle cell anemia within the context of the Brazilian government's 'racial policies' (1995-2004)].

PubMed

Fry, Peter H

2005-01-01

This essay reflects on the social significance of growing interest in sickle cell anemia and other illnesses associated with the black body in Brazil. I explore the discursive network that has taken shape around the disease within the social context of its production. I first summarize anthropologist Melbourne Tapper's analysis of the United States program to fight sickle cell anemia in the 1970s, shortly after blacks attained victories in the civil rights movement. Tapper (1999) argues that one of the consequences of this policy was the creation of a responsible black citizenry. In the late 1990s, the Brazilian government developed a program (Programa de Anemia Falciforme) that counted on the heavy participation of black activists and that also contributed to the formation of a "responsible black community". My argument is that sickle cell anemia becomes much more than an illness to be eradicated. The discourse surrounding it is a powerful element in the process of naturalization of the "black race" (and, by logical and political complement, the "white race") in a country that until recently imagined itself a biologically and culturally hybrid nation.

Ancient hunters and their modern representatives: William Sollas's (1849-1936) Anthropology from disappointed bridge to trunkless tree and the instrumentalisation of racial conflict.

PubMed

Sommer, Marianne

2005-01-01

During the first decades of the 20th century, many anthropologists who had previously adhered to a linear view of human evolution, from an ape via Pithecanthropus erectus (today Homo erectus) and Neanderthal to modern humans, began to change their outlook. A shift towards a branching model of human evolution began to take hold. Among the scientific factors motivating this trend was the insight that mammalian evolution in general was best represented by a branching tree, rather than by a straight line, and that several new fossil hominids were discovered that differed significantly in their morphology but seemed to date from about the same period. The ideological and practical implications of imperialism and WWI have also been identified as formative of the new evolutionary scenarios in which racial conflict played a crucial role. The paper will illustrate this general shift in anthropological theory for one particular scientist, William Sollas (1849-1936). Sollas achieved a synthesis of human morphological and cultural evolution in what I will refer to as an imperialist model. In this theoretical framework, migration, conflict, and replacement became the main mechanisms for progress spurred by 'nature's tyrant,' natural selection.

Patterns of trauma and violence in 19th-century-born African American and Euro-American females.

PubMed

de la Cova, Carlina

Trauma and violence has been a topic of interest to biological anthropologists. This study examined the presence of trauma, including interpersonal violence, in a sample (n=256) of African American and Euro-American females of low socioeconomic status, born from 1800 to 1877, from the Terry Collection. Individuals were statistically analyzed according to ancestry (African American and Euro-American), birth (Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction), and birth status (Enslaved Black, Pre-Reconstruction White, Liberated Black, Reconstruction White) cohorts to determine if differences in trauma and fracture patterning existed between African Americans and Euro-Americans. Results indicated that there were significant differences. African American females had higher rates of cranial, nasal, and hand phalanx trauma and Euro-Americans had larger frequencies of hip and radial fractures. This variation in fracture patterning could have been the result of intimate partner violence, interpersonal violence, osteoporosis, or accidental injury. Historical research revealed that many of these women were inmates in mental hospitals, further suggesting that the observed trauma may have been the result of interpersonal and structural violence induced by institutionalization. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Magical hair as dirt: Ecstatic bodies and postcolonial reform in South India.

PubMed

Ramberg, Lucinda

2009-12-01

This paper offers an ethnography of the medicalization of matted locks of hair (jade) worn by female ecstatics in a South Indian devi (goddess) cult. These jade are taken by devotees of the devi Yellamma to be a manifestation of her presence in the bodies of women who enter possession states and give oracles. At her temples across the central Deccan Plateau, Yellamma women can be seen wearing heavy locks of matted hair anointed with turmeric, the color and healing properties of which are identified with this devi. Under a recent government-sponsored campaign, reformers cut jade and hand out packets of shampoo as a means of reforming the extended and illicit sexuality of these women. Associations between sexuality and hair practices have long preoccupied anthropologists interested in the relationship between the body and culture. In this paper, I draw on this literature and more than 2 years of field research to consider the encounter between biomedical and Shakta epistemologies of the body dramatized in these jade cutting campaigns. This effort to remake the body as a fit site and sign of modernity elaborates the postcolonial politics of sexuality, gender and religiosity in India.

Restitution of the research data in ethnographic health research: issues for debate based on field research conducted in Brazil and France.

PubMed

Ferreira, Jaqueline

2015-09-01

This study examines relevant aspects about the way anthropological research data restitution has been applied in the area of health, based on data obtained from ethnographic field research conducted in Brazil and France. These experiences show that data restitution has been part of the area of research, in different forms and time frames, making it possible to extend periods spent in the field and to interact with individual respondents. This also made it possible to interact with research interlocutors and compare different points of view, adding new information and thereby enriching the research. These aspects raise important questions that require reflection, from an ethical and epistemological standpoint. One is related to the demands made on health anthropologists when they begin their field research and how they deal with these questions: how will researchers use the data they collect without worrying that this may be wrongly interpreted or used in some way to reinforce normative patterns? So, how should an anthropological debate be "translated"? Conscientious researchers will seek to validate their analysis, to discover new points of view and provoke new lines of questioning. Thus, such data should provoke reflexivity about new avenues of research and interpretations.

Model of socio-cultural dimensions involved in adherence to antiretroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS in public health care centers in Chile.

PubMed

Stuardo Ávila, Valeria; Manriquez Urbina, Jose Manuel; Fajreldin Chuaqui, Valentina; Belmar Prieto, Julieta; Valenzuela Santibáñez, Victoria

2016-11-01

In Chile, over 14,000 adults are living with HIV receive antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Adequate adherence to HAART has a major impact on survival. There is little consensus on the causes of poor adherence, due to the unique and diverse sociocultural parameters involved in the issue. The objective of this study was to identify sociocultural dimensions that serve as barriers or facilitators to HAART adherence among persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) in Chile. A qualitative study design, with an exploratory followed by a descriptive phase was conducted. The study population consisted of adults living with HIV/AIDS, with and without HAART. A theoretical sample was designed and three gender profiles defined: women, men, and transwomen. Data collection methods included in-depth interviews by anthropologists in seven public health care centers for PLHIV. The model of sociocultural dimensions indicated that factors associated with family, expectations, gender/sexuality, affect, relationship with HIV, HAART, work, social support and networks, and stigma and discrimination influenced adherence, with different patterns among profiles. This study found that adherence is a dynamic category. It is crucial to consider sociocultural factors in developing strategies to improve HAART adherence.

Going like gangbusters: transnational tobacco companies "making a killing" in South America.

PubMed

Stebbins, K R

2001-06-01

This article reports on the recent growth of transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) in South America. Although some scholarly attention has been directed toward such growth in Asia and eastern Europe, South America has also been targeted by the TTCs' aggressive expansionist practices in recent years. Fighting "Big Tobacco" is entirely different from combating most public health problems. Unlike cigarettes, most infectious diseases and maternal and child health problems never provide profits to transnational corporations and governments. Also, most public health problems (with alcohol being another notable exception) are not exacerbated by extensive advertising campaigns that promote the cause of the health problems. Supported by data gathered during three months of fieldwork in Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Argentina in 1997, this article suggests that the TTCs' marketing strategies override cultural differences in the choices people make regarding smoking and health. Combining critical medical anthropology and public health, this article concludes that unless dramatic actions are taken, an avoidable outbreak of tobacco-related diseases will eventually reach epidemic proportions on the South American continent. It is also a "call to arms" for more medical anthropologists to investigate tobacco-related matters around the world.

The Quiet Migration Redux: International Adoption, Race, and Difference.

PubMed

Leinaweaver, Jessaca B

2014-01-01

Demographers frame international adoption primarily as an unusual kind of migration. This insight offers anthropologists new ways to think about kinship. Drawing on demographic scholarship and anthropological kinship and migration studies, this article develops a new and hybrid approach to international adoption as a complex social process that is both migratory and productive of kinship. Viewing international adoption as a form of migration reveals how the stated "push factors" and actual "pull factors" of international adoption do not align perfectly. Using an anthropological life course perspective, the article then explores how the experiences of these "migrants" and those close to them, over time, are better understood as racialization than solely the product of migration. Looking at adoptees' lives through a migration lens reveals some of the persistent discomforts that prevent open conversations about racial difference and minority status in an adoptive context, that is, one where children have been caused to migrate, recruited into families. This article draws on data from ethnographic fieldwork with Spanish parents who have adopted Peruvian children to argue that international adoption is a unique form of immigration that produces a minority category within a majority population.

The Human Behavioral Ecology of Contemporary World Issues : Applications to Public Policy and International Development.

PubMed

Tucker, Bram; Rende Taylor, Lisa

2007-09-01

Human behavioral ecology (HBE) began as an attempt to explain human economic, reproductive, and social behavior using neodarwinian theory in concert with theory from ecology and economics, and ethnographic methods. HBE has addressed subsistence decision-making, cooperation, life history trade-offs, parental investment, mate choice, and marriage strategies among hunter-gatherers, herders, peasants, and wage earners in rural and urban settings throughout the world. Despite our rich insights into human behavior, HBE has very rarely been used as a tool to help the people with whom we work. This article introduces a special issue of Human Nature which explores the application of HBE to significant world issues through the design and critique of public policy and international development projects. The articles by Tucker, Shenk, Leonetti et al., and Neil were presented at the 104th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in Washington, D.C., in December 2005, in the first organized session of the nascent Evolutionary Anthropology Section (EAS). We conclude this introduction by summarizing some theoretical challenges to applying HBE, and ways in which evolutionary anthropologists can contribute to solving tough world issues.

Towards a reconciling model about the initial peopling of America.

PubMed

Mazières, Stéphane

2011-07-01

The last two decades have seen numerous debates in the field of the initial settlement of America and noteworthy was the disagreement between physical and molecular anthropologists. Recently, it has been pointed out that this discordance could partly originate from the description methods and classification labels used in craniometry, which did not account fairly for the within-sample and within-group variance. From there, a federative model for the initial peopling of America has been designed which could now explain the biological variability found at both the craniofacial and genetic level. This is a major step in the study of the initial settlement of America, which deserved to be highlighted. The present paper recalls the two conflicting models that prevailed for the last 20 years of anthropological studies in America before browsing the newly accepted hypothesis about the origin of the first Amerindians as seen by its authors. Lastly, the article evokes some areas of investigations, which could furnish significant fallouts about the dynamics of the peopling of Americas in the future. Copyright © 2011 Académie des sciences. Published by Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.

The identification of Josef Mengele. A triumph of international cooperation.

PubMed

Eckert, W G; Teixeira, W R

1985-09-01

In recent weeks, world attention has been focused on the identification of skeletal remains suspected of being those of the most widely sought Nazi war criminal still at large--Josef Mengele. Several important turns in the investigation of his whereabouts led to a small city south of São Paulo, where he had been living until 1979. Mengele was reported to have drowned and to have been buried in a country cemetery near his last residence. The initial processing of the remains was done at the Medicolegal Institute of São Paulo by police officials in consultation with anthropologists and dentists as well as Dr. Wilmes Teixeira of Mogi das Cruzes, a suburb of São Paulo. Dr. Teixeira coordinated the team of authorized international forensic experts officially representing the governments of West Germany and the United States, as well as the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles, who joined Brazilian scientists in completing identification. The success of the investigation was due to complete cooperation among members of the team, resulting in verification, within a reasonable scientific certainty, that these were the remains of Josef Mengele.

Of woods and webs: possible alternatives to the tree of life for studying genomic fluidity in E. coli.

PubMed

Beauregard-Racine, Julie; Bicep, Cédric; Schliep, Klaus; Lopez, Philippe; Lapointe, François-Joseph; Bapteste, Eric

2011-07-20

evolution.This manuscript was reviewed by: Ford Doolittle, Tal Pupko, Richard Burian, James McInerney, Didier Raoult, and Yan Boucher.

On the dynamics of the world demographic transition and financial-economic crises forecasts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Akaev, A.; Sadovnichy, V.; Korotayev, A.

2012-05-01

The article considers dynamic processes involving non-linear power-law behavior in such apparently diverse spheres, as demographic dynamics and dynamics of prices of highly liquid commodities such as oil and gold. All the respective variables exhibit features of explosive growth containing precursors indicating approaching phase transitions/catastrophes/crises. The first part of the article analyzes mathematical models of demographic dynamics that describe various scenarios of demographic development in the post-phase-transition period, including a model that takes the limitedness of the Earth carrying capacity into account. This model points to a critical point in the early 2050s, when the world population, after reaching its maximum value may decrease afterward stabilizing then at a certain stationary level. The article presents an analysis of the influence of the demographic transition (directly connected with the hyperexponential growth of the world population) on the global socioeconomic and geopolitical development. The second part deals with the phenomenon of explosive growth of prices of such highly liquid commodities as oil and gold. It is demonstrated that at present the respective processes could be regarded as precursors of waves of the global financial-economic crisis that will demand the change of the current global economic and political system. It is also shown that the moments of the start of the first and second waves of the current global crisis could have been forecasted with a model of accelerating log-periodic fluctuations superimposed over a power-law trend with a finite singularity developed by Didier Sornette and collaborators. With respect to the oil prices, it is shown that it was possible to forecast the 2008 crisis with a precision up to a month already in 2007. The gold price dynamics was used to calculate the possible time of the start of the second wave of the global crisis (July-August 2011); note that this forecast has turned out

Representatives of countries participating in the International Space Station toured KSC's Space Sta

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1998-01-01

and Shuttle Upgrades; Steve Francois, director, International Space Station and Shuttle Processing; Roy Tharpe, Boeing launch site manager; Jon Cowart, ISS elements manager; John Schumacher, NASA associate administrator for external relations; Didier Kechemair, space advistor to the French minister for education, research, and technology; Yoshinori Yoshimura, NASDA; and Loren Shriver, KSC deputy director for launch and payload processing. Node 1 of the ISS is in the background.

When ancestral heritage is a source of discomfort: culture, pre-object relatedness, and self-alienation.

PubMed

Kradin, Richard L

2012-04-01

The ancestral claims on an individual can evoke mental conflict when they involve separating from an ethnic group whose beliefs and customs are devalued by the dominant culture. However, these claims are engraved on the psyche early in development by caretakers to the level of pre-object relatedness, where contents and affect tones are implicit and may be unavailable for later psychoanalytical interventions. In addition, as the anthropologist Clifford Geertz notes, one's culture of origin precedes the development of psyche and creates its own set of claims that must be renegotiated when one encounters a different domain of cultural symbols, a confrontation that can produce psychological dissonance and self-alienation. In this paper, three cases are examined in which mental conflicts were evoked by attempts at divesting ancestral claims in response to conscious efforts to assimilate into the dominant culture. These patients suffered from separation guilt and unstable self-esteem and reported dream imagery suggesting psychological imbalance. The requirement to carefully delineate the ancestral claims on psyche as well as those contents and affects that may not be accessible to therapeutic intervention is emphasized, and the importance of compromise and acceptance with respect to the psychological demands of the unconscious are considered. 2012, The Society of Analytical Psychology.

An overview of age estimation in forensic anthropology: perspectives and practical considerations.

PubMed

Márquez-Grant, Nicholas

2015-01-01

Information on methods of age estimation in physical anthropology, in particular with regard to age-at-death from human skeletal remains, is widely available in the literature. However, the practicalities and real challenges faced in forensic casework are not always highlighted. To provide a practitioner's perspective, regarding age estimation in forensic anthropology (both in the living as well as the dead), with an emphasis on the types of cases, the value of such work and its challenges and limitations. The paper reviews the current literature on age estimation with a focus on forensic anthropology, but it also brings the author's personal perspective derived from a number of forensic cases. Although much is known about what methods to use, but not always how to apply them, little attention has been given in the literature to the real practicalities faced by forensic anthropologists, for example: the challenges in different types of scenarios; how to report age estimations; responsibilities; and ethical concerns. This paper gathers some of these aspects into one overview which includes the value of such work and the practical challenges, not necessarily with the methods themselves, but also with regard to how these are applied in the different cases where age estimation is required.

Theory and method at the intersection of anthropology and cultural neuroscience

PubMed Central

Brown, Ryan A.

2010-01-01

Anthropologists have become increasingly interested in embodiment—that is, the ways that socio-cultural factors influence the form, behavior and subjective experience of human bodies. At the same time, social cognitive neuroscience has begun to reveal the mechanisms of embodiment by investigating the neural underpinnings and consequences of social experience. Despite this overlap, the two fields have barely engaged one another. We suggest three interconnected domains of inquiry in which the intersection of neuroscience and anthropology can productively inform our understanding of the relationship between human brains and their socio-cultural contexts. These are: the social construction of emotion, cultural psychiatry, and the embodiment of ritual. We build on both current research findings in cultural neuroscience and ethnographic data on cultural differences in thought and behavior, to generate novel, ecologically informed hypotheses for future study. In addition, we lay out a specific suggestion for operationalizing insights from anthropology in the context of cultural neuroscience research. Specifically, we advocate the development of field studies that use portable measurement technologies to connect individual patterns of biological response with socio-cultural processes. We illustrate the potential of such an approach with data from a study of psychophysiology and religious devotion in Northeastern Brazil. PMID:19965815

Northerners versus southerners: Italian anthropology and psychology faced with the "southern question".

PubMed

Cimino, Guido; Foschi, Renato

2014-11-01

Following the Unification of Italy (1861), when confronted with the underdevelopment problems of the south that had given rise to the so-called "southern question," some Italian anthropologists and psychologists began to study the populations of the south from the psycho-anthropological point of view. These scientists, at times subject to preconceived ideas toward the southerners, conveyed observations and descriptions of the southern character traits that, in general, were considered different, in a negative sense, with respect to those of the northern peoples. To explain such diversity in the "psychological" characteristics between the north and south of the country (presumed cause also of the south's backwardness), various hypotheses were advanced related to the kind of heredity theory adopted, which could be of, more or less, an "innatist" or "transformist" or "environmentalist" kind. The distinction proposed in this article between at least 2 different "hereditarian" theories formulated by the Italian scientists, and the confrontation of these theories with the hypotheses expressed by the "southernist" sociologists, contrary to the idea of "racial varieties" present in the Italian population, allows one to understand in what way and in what sense, at the threshold of the 20th century, there arose the ideology of "Nordicism" and the roots of racism were planted.