CONTEXTS

body / object narratives

Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY contexts.stanford.edu Contexts is a peer-reviewed publication that creates space for undergraduates to thoughtfully engage with anthropological methods and topics.

All papers published in contexts are published under an attribution, non-commercial, and share-alike Creative Commons License. All copyright is retained by the original authors.

Cover Image: Caroline Aung (‘20) Layout Design: Tal Even-Kesef • www.dewdotdesign.com

For information regarding the journal, please visit our website at contexts.stanford.edu. CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS

4 Letter from the Editors

5-15 Histories Lost and Found: Reckoning with Mythologies of Poverty and Assimilation within the Black Diaspora by Layo Laniyan

16-21 Living as Becoming: Envisioning Life Chances Within and Against Sociomedical Constraints by Caroline Aung

22-27 Counting or Discounting Bodies? A Case Study of Global Health Interventions in Early Infant Diagnosis in Accra, Ghana by Mahima Krishnamoorthi

28-33 The Role of Masculinity in the English Prison by Josh Cobler

34-40 Travel-Sized Sites: Art, Souvenirs, and Tourism (and Subversion, Capitalism, and Erasure) in South Africa by Lilith Frakes

41-42 Meet the Authors LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

Dear Reader,

This year’s editorial team is proud to present the 12th installment of CONTEXTS, Stan- ford’s Undergraduate Research Journal of Anthropology.

Every year, CONTEXTS showcases exceptional student research in anthropology and the social sciences that asks larger, critical questions within the discipline and beyond. Our au- thors for this year’s publication encourage us to (re)think notions of body and object, taking us through the border between life and death at hospice care, to the different performances of masculinity within English prisons, to the lingering memories and mythologies of pover- ty and assimilation in the black diaspora.

All of the authors this year experiment with the boundaries presented in this year’s theme: body / object narrative.

CONTEXTS aims to blur and push predetermined dominant narratives in many different times and spaces, especially the intersections of established concepts and the emerging socio-political moment. Each author provides their own conceptualizations of the multiple possibilities of body, being, and life-- a joyous and cacophonic accumulation of counternar- ratives against the established rhythm of body and objects.

We are incredibly grateful for the amount of time and dedication that our authors spent on their pieces-- for the hours of archival and field research that went into the drafting of each piece, the many rounds of revising and editing that each author undertook throughout the year amidst a global pandemic, and the unique forms of dialogue and discourse to engage with this year’s theme. We would also like to thank Anthropology faculty member, Ange- la Garcia, graduate editor, Alisha Cherian, and our student services officer, Tina Jeon, for their support and guidance. Finally, we would like to thank our readers for supporting this publication, which is crucial to the fostering and development of each of our researcher’s intellectual pursuits at Stanford and beyond.

We hope you enjoy this year’s issue.

Warmly,

The Editorial Team

Tony Hackett ‘20 | Sabrina Jiang ‘20 | Eunice Jung ‘21 | Harleen Kaur ‘21 My father, a recent college graduate, left Nigeria for America in 1998, only a promise of a job with an oil company awaiting him across the wa- Histories ter. My mother came soon after on a similar work visa, and they eventu- ally settled down in the outskirts of Austin, Texas.

Lost and That is all I know about my parent’s immigration to the United States. That story has stood, untouched, as a kind of lore in my family for years. One never retold in its entirety - rather, one pieced together in different memories, disjointed fragments Found: melded into something, somewhere between narrative and its interpretation. I have begun to discover more, to ascertain what transpired between my parent’s migra- Reckoning with tion and my birth. Mythologies The southern summers endured, the harsh winters of the Midwest braved, the hopes of the spring withered - those stories still exist in uncertainty. These narra- of Poverty and tives themselves are not truths – they are fragments from lived experiences weaved Assimilation into a tenuous cohesion, an approximation. Yet, I often find myself looking back at the stories I do know. I look back to the stories of their immigration before the turn within the of the century, of their acclimation to Texas, of their assimilation to a land that had Black Diaspora only previously existed as a sort of legend.

Layo Laniyan I look back at those stories and wonder what narratives they willed into meaning.

I. Denial job.” I’ve come to see it in the way - our histories grew to emphasize all that he would cling to those verses that was gained, with a disinterest He wore the green Ralph Lau- like scripture, tethering his fleeting for what we lost. ren button-down, the one he memories in a reality he could still found on the clearance rack at grasp. We are not unique. These are Now I find myself in a sort of race Marshall’s, the only shirt he experiences that expose the narra- against time. The history of my owned to fit the occasion. She tive tensions of not only my family, family blurs further into myth with wore a strapless dress, black but those of others similar. each retelling. The bearers of those and yellow. stories themselves are rapidly disap- The arc of our memories bends pearing. Hindsight complicates, and Hindsight complicates. It colors the towards a sort of American folk- I find myself fighting to resist that lens through which we view our lore, and the stories of my parents pull, grasping at straws, trying to histories. In each act of recollection, grow to mirror traditional models snatch reality from amnesia. we create new versions of the past of immigrant success stories - the - we reframe, reconsider, fill in the rags-to-riches stories, the up-by- Even now… gaps, contextualize where needed. the-bootstraps folklores, the Horatio I feel the draw of that mythology, And soon the line between reality Alger fantasies. Hard work, grit, in- that romanticized, edited version... and our own projections blur. I’ve dividualism valued above all - suc- I find myself looking back come to understand that truth in cess occurring in a vacuum. In the the context of my own family’s sto- same way that one might appraise a and wondering what was ry. I’ve come to see it in my father’s rose blooming through the sidewalk real, what was true repeated refrains of “I came here cracks - with an eye for its resilience – Dorothy Allison, A Question of Class with a suitcase and a promise of a and a disregard for its bruised petals

6 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 In my family’s constructed history, family now espouses does just that The process of assimilation plays we created distinctions. For in any by placing an emphasis on individ- out in both implicit and explicit success story, the gap between those ual drive and grit. I understand, ways. One needs to grow acclimated who make it and those who do not because I know the alternatives to to this country’s traditions, customs, must be addressed, however implic- that narrative - that my family’s idiosyncrasies. On a deeper level, itly. So we created that gap. We had success was not predicated on any however, assimilation is not only a to, because the immigration story individual merit, but rather upon matter of adoption - assimilation is a of my family is not American. They chance. The reality that our im- matter of belief. As Mary C. Waters did not cross a steamboat to await migration story could have easily notes in her book Ethnic Options: the arbiters of their fates at Ellis ended in ruin would be too much to Choosing Identity in America, that Island. For my family’s story does bear, and I admit that I find myself paradigm is rooted in the experi- not fit into the American canon, gravitating towards those mythol- ences of early white immigrants in of tattered rucksacks crossing the ogies in fear of that alternative. Yet the 1960s: “white immigrants from Atlantic. Our story is not captured another part of me believes the very Europe would provide a model or a in documentaries shown to middle opposite. comparison point for the experience schoolers, nor in the textbooks I of other ethnic and racial groups... read growing up. They did not meld That tension, between two compet- the models of assimilation and cul- seamlessly into the great cultural ing interpretations of my family’s tural pluralism used by American melting pot of our country. They history, is my impetus. My own sociologists were developed based did not go into their enclaves, form- education in the US has brought on [these] experiences”(Waters 5). ing communities that would be ele- me to a conclusion opposite of my In this formulation, to truly assim- vated as paradigms of integration for parents. I believe that no event ilate into this country is simply to years to come. No, my parents were occurs in a vacuum. I am skeptical adopt its ideologies. And to adopt marked as Black immigrants in this of up-by-the-bootstraps narratives, those ideologies is to believe in the country the second they stepped critical of respectability politics. Yet, myths it tells itself. foot on its soil. I still hold the belief that my parents succeeded in this country because For immigrants, the process of Between me and the other world of their own abilities, grit, and sac- assimilation is always framed in there is ever an unasked question… rifice. terms of the end goal, in terms of ascension, in terms of achieving The How does it feel to be a problem? This paper is thus an attempt to Dream. But that framing leaves a I answer seldom a word… reconcile tensions in how I under- gap. Because for every one success And yet, being a problem is a strange stand my place in this country, in story, a hundred more fall to the experience–peculiar even for one how I understand my family’s place. wayside, left at the sacrificial altar. who has never been anything else. Because Black immigrants lie at an What of those left behind? What is – W.E.B. DuBois, Of Our Spiritual Strivings intersection - problematized in their the alternative to that race to the Blackness, in their proximity to top? My parents had to distinguish other African-Americans. Yet, their themselves from African-Americans, success wielded against other parts Looking at poverty gives an in- create separation between them- of the Black community. What does sight into that counter perspective. selves and a culture that the main- it mean to be both the problem and Poverty allows us to look into what stream synonymized with poverty. the solution? African immigrants seek to avoid, They had to prove they were strong, rather than what they seek to attain. where their counterparts were What does it mean… It allows me to understand what my seemingly weak. They had to deny to be fetishized… family ran from, rather than what we ran towards. their kin. With that reality in mind, What does it mean to be the solution? it seems fitting that the history my – Jeff Chang, We Gon’ Be Alright

contexts.stanford.edu 7 1910 Harris Country Court- house, lower floor interior of the courtroom. The court- house has undergone many renovations and alterations since its completion, yet it remains the symbolic seat of government in Harris Coun- ty, a hub for immigration from the African continent.

Photo credit: Wayne Wendel

II. Pain and Guilt of five Mexican families living at squarely on the shoulders of the the margins of society, paying close poor. Lewis’s framework portrays They crowded into the wait- attention to the ways in which they poverty as something internalized ing room of the Harris Coun- adapt to the burden of poverty in - poverty as a mindset, poverty as a ty Clerk’s office. An envelope their social structures and belief worldview. Yet, while Lewis’s frame- holding his driver’s licenses, her systems. Lewis introduces the idea work introduces a lens with which passport, and the $72.00 fee sat of a culture of poverty, a sociocul- we can analyze other narratives of on his lap. tural theory that he further explores poverty, its significance in the con- in later writings. In The Culture of text of the mythologies that we seek Poverty, one of his later writings to explore lies in its influence. The Poverty lies in a space between published by Scientific American, work not only defined Oscar Lewis’s realities - between willful amnesia he further expounds upon that academic career, but it also forms and indicting histories, between concept: the foundation of America’s tradi- theory and praxis, between myth tional understanding of poverty, as and truth. Narratives fill that space Once the culture of poverty has anthropologist Charles A. Valentine - narratives that sanitize it, strip it come into existence it tends to notes in article Culture of Poverty: of its teeth, make it palatable, and perpetuate itself…The disinte- Critique and Counter-proposals: render it comprehensible. To un- gration, the nonintegration of the “The idea of a ‘culture of poverty’ derstand that ecosystem, one needs poor with respect to the major comes from the well-known work to make sense of the myriad sourc- institutions of society...The slum of Oscar Lewis, though it has been es that seek to capture or explain economy turns inward…The endlessly applied and popularized poverty. We begin with the origin individual who grows up in this by others” (Valentine 181). More- of the myths with which we reckon culture has a strong feeling of fa- over, implicit in his characterization today. We look to the work of Oscar talism, helplessness, dependence, of the impoverished lies a funda- Lewis, an American anthropologist and inferiority. (Lewis 21) mental paradigm: with the right best known for his research into mentality and values, one can claw cross-generational poverty. Lewis’s Lewis introduces an anthropologi- their way out of poverty. Five Families: Mexican Studies in the cal framework to understand pov- Culture of Poverty is an anthropo- erty from an outside perspective Therein lies the basis of the myth. logical account following the lives - a framework that places the fault Lewis’s work drives the myths that

8 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 we cling to, the didactics we es- working-class hero was invari- when I chose to—and Mamaw told pouse to, the success stories that ably male, righteously indignant, me that if Mom had a problem with we elevate. And to understand that and inhumanly noble. The reality the arrangement, she could talk to ecosystem of poverty and its my- of self-hatred and violence was the barrel of Mamaw’s gun. This thologies, we must consider other either absent or caricatured. The was hillbilly justice, and it didn’t narratives through the lens of this poverty I knew was dreary, dead- fail me” (Vance 78). By the mea- pervading myth. To achieve some ening, shameful. (61) sures that Lewis lists - high rates of sort of proximity to truth, to reality, unemployment, low wages, unstable one needs to make sense of fiction. In this passage, Allison offers a por- family life - Vance lives in a culture trayal of poverty that reframes the of poverty. Yet, the community from Every moment happens twice: myth birthed by Lewis. Rather than which Vance hails subscribes to inside and outside, framing poverty in terms of its suf- the notion of poverty as a personal ferers, as Lewis does, Allison offers failure. He points specifically to his and they are two different histories a portrayal that flips the blame onto grandparents, who “had an almost – Zadie Smith, White Teeth its purveyors. She points out the religious faith in hard work and the fetishization, the exoticization, the American Dream”(35), as an illustra- We look to three works to explore canonization of poverty that renders tion of this: this interplay: J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly stories like hers invisible. For Alli- Elegy, Dorothy Allison’s A Ques- son, this force is not only a means They knew that life was a strug- tion of Class, and Jesmyn Ward’s to misplace blame. It is a force that gle, and though the odds were a Men We Reaped. The works all offer silences. It is a force that erases. It is bit longer for people like them, competing insights into the inter- a force that deadens. That portrayal that fact didn’t excuse failure. actions between poverty and the renders poverty an aesthetic, reduc- ‘Never be like these fucking losers narratives that seek to explain it - es to it the ruins from which the who think the deck is stacked each captures the lives of different American hero rises. against them,’ my grandma often individuals struggling within that told me. (36) ecosystem. J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, however, adds another layer to the perspec- The community from which Vance We first look to Dorothy Allison’s tive offered by Allison. In his mem- hails does not reject the idea that essay A Question of Class in Our oir, Vance, a white American ven- poverty is a matter of individual Own Words: Writings from Women's ture capitalist and author, explores choice. Rather, they subscribe to Lives. Allison, a white American his own connection to the social ills the same myth that others wield writer who grew up in rural South of his hometown of Middletown, against them. Vance himself espous- Carolina, both chronicles her reflec- Ohio. This narrative is unique in es similar beliefs, claiming that the tions on her upbringing as a poor its larger significance - it operates difference between “friends [who] woman and explores the ramifica- as a prototypical American success blossom into successful adults and tions of the narratives commonly story on one hand while trying to others [who] fall victim to the worst used to explain poverty in her life. grapple with what Vance sees as the of Middletown’s temptations” is Specifically, she explores the nar- social decay of America at the same solely a matter of “the expectations ratives that surround her - mythol- time. Particularly interesting, how- they have for their own lives”(194). ogies, pointedly, that she has been ever, is how Vance interacts with Vance and his community reap- struggling to shed since her youth. the culture of poverty framework propriate that myth as a badge of Allison describes such myths: that Lewis employs. Vance describes honor. They use myth to make similar circumstances - a slum distinctions amongst themselves, The poverty depicted in books economy turning inwards, with its between the deserving and unde- and movies was romantic, a own informal institutions operat- serving, between the righteous and backdrop for the story of how ing in place: “Mom would officially unrighteous, between the victims it was escaped…[from the left- retain custody, but from that day and victors. That appropriation of wing intellectual] perspective, the forward I lived in her house only myth, however, grows complicated

contexts.stanford.edu 9 when placed in conversation with as Allison describes: “the work- communities from which they came. other narratives. ing-class hero was invariably male, And with that endeavor in mind, we righteously indignant, and inhu- now turn to the narratives coming In her memoir, Jesmyn Ward, an manly noble” (61). Ward’s commu- out of the African immigrant expe- African-American novelist, exam- nity, conversely, exists several devi- rience. ines rural poverty from a unique ations away from that portrait, and, lens, as she seeks to make sense thus, it carries that myth differently: III. Anger and Bargaining of the death of five men in her life “I was too immature to imagine at while chronicling her own upbring- the time that the darkness [I car- I only recently learned of the ing as a Black woman in the South. ried]...that conviction of worthless- year my mother spent apart Rather, she writes about the victims ness and self-loathing, could have from my father when she first of poverty in her community in touched others in my community. arrived, spent working be- a way that almost absolves them. What I did not understand then tween Illinois and Indiana. I She shifts the blame external, and was that the same pressures were only recently learned about my perhaps her treatment of Black men weighing on us all...we distrusted father’s first night in the US, in her writing is the best example of the society around us, the culture spent sleeping on the bare floor this move: that cornered us and told us we of an apartment in the outskirts were perpetually less” (169). Where This tradition of men leaving Vance’s community reappropriates of Houston. Those were once their families here seems system- the myths of poverty, Ward’s com- histories erased. ic, fostered by endemic poverty. munity internalizes them. In that Sometimes color seems an acci- contrast lies a contingency particu- How do African immigrants come dental factor, but then it doesn’t, larly relevant to our understanding into play? How do they function especially when one thinks of the of poverty: in this pursuit, some in this ecosystem? How does one forced fracturing of families that narratives hold more value than capture the sentiments of an entire the earliest African Americans others. Because when faced with the community? What narratives should endured under the yoke of slavery. difficult reality that Allison, Vance, be centered, which do we build this (Ward 131) and Ward all live in the same world, foundation upon? And, perhaps one realizes that factors intrinsic most importantly, how does one For Ward, this trend is not a per- about each writer fundamentally account for gaps? sonal failure on behalf of the men in colors the way in which they in- her life. Rather, it is the byproduct teract with mythologies of poverty. In this endeavor, what is not found of deliberate external forces. This There lies the next step forward. is equally important as what is. trauma, this fracturing to which she Because there is a gap in narratives bears witness, is something im- Poverty is confounding, uneven, from African immigrants, especially posed on her community, not a by- unsettled. To attempt to derive a in terms of stories that reckon with product of the community’s failings. uniform understanding of how the American mythologies. According to For Ward, poverty is forced upon poor interact with its myths is akin sociocultural anthropologist Jemima her community. Poverty is inflicted. to grasping at straws – an ill-fated Pierre, that gap only now has: “Until Poverty is exacted. pursuit to impose uniformity on very recently, voluntary Black im- something inherently sundry. Yet, migration to the United States was How does that reality converse poverty can still be illuminating. not acknowledged and, often, Black with that of Vance’s? How can the Because where we may be unable immigrants suffered from what Roy two coexist in the same world? The to glean truths about the experi- Bryce-Laporte labeled ‘invisibili- answer perhaps lies in what dis- ence itself, we may be able to find ty’”(Pierre 149). Professor of social tinguishes the two communities. commonalities in how different work Ezekiel Umo Ette, similarly, Vance’s community exists in relative groups interact with it. In the case notes that “the literature on immi- proximity to what American has of our three narratives, we can glean gration and acculturation is selective canonized as the righteous poor, truths about the writers and the in its examination of...transnation-

10 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 al community” and “very little is serves as a step in that direction - to gerian writer that immigrated to the written in the literature about West an approximate understanding that US in 1988. In his memoir Never African immigrants”(Ette xii). Thus, can be challenged, complicated. Look an American in the Eye, Ndibe in order to argue for correlations tells the story of his own migration and causations, concessions must With that in mind, we look to from Nigeria to the United States, be made. In the space in which A Squatter’s Tale, written in 1997 where he came to edit the (now in- we are working, where a scarcity by Nigerian writer and lawyer Ike solvent) African Commentary mag- of narratives is a fact that must be Oguine, as our springboard. The azine. Immediately after the maga- accounted for, we may only be able novel chronicles the life of Obi, zine’s collapse, Ndibe finds himself to achieve proximity to a full pic- a young man forced to flee from living paycheck to paycheck. He ture. With that constraint in mind, Nigeria to the United States when compares his state to the panhan- we look to the narratives that are his finance company collapses. As dlers he sees on the streets, remark- available, the ones that may serve he reckons with his own proximity ing that “[his] situation reminded to capture the outlook of an entire to it, the frame with which Ogu- [him] of those vagrants who haunt community. ine’s character understands pover- American street corners, a card- ty grows apparent. One instance, board sign held aloft, inscribed with Yet, another step must be taken. To when a long-time friend of Obi the plaintive proclamation WILL account for this relative dearth of drives him through West Oakland, WORK FOR FOOD” (Ndibe 108). narratives, we must reconsider the is particularly telling: “I’d seen very To Ndibe, the homeless exist almost sources from which we seek to draw little of Oakland since I arrived, disembodied, phantoms that haunt. insight. While research and scholar- and the streets [my friend] and I Yet, he still regards them with a ship on Black immigrants have been drove through were depressing: they degree of pity (“plaintive proclama- on the rise, first-person narratives struck me as places from which tion”), and, perhaps more tellingly, that explore the interaction between hope and ambition had been wrung he can see himself in them. Con- poverty and immigration are diffi- out. People neglected or couldn’t versely, John A. Arthur, a Professor cult to come by. Moreover, with the afford to put a fresh coat of paint of Sociology and Criminology at the literature available, any source with on their homes” (Oguine 29). In University of Minnesota, Duluth, a degree of separation from the story the language Obi uses to describe captures the opposite phenomenon: itself comes with flaws. Antholo- Oakland, an interesting tension “As I probed into the attitudes of gies are filtered through the eyes of emerges. He describes its people in immigrants toward American-born others. Academic papers maintain a way that almost portrays them as blacks...their statements depicted a degree of separation from their victims, lacking autonomy in their an urban black America in which subjects, taking a surgical approach own suffering. The phrase “wrung the scourge of poverty has been to experiences inherently human, out” belies the notion the state of compounded by joblessness...low inherently visceral. Anecdotes and Oakland is externally imposed. self-concept, and despair”(Arthur folklore permute with every retell- Similarly, other wording choices 78). The immigrants that Arthur ing. Piecing together something (such as “neglected” and “depress- interviews display a conception of complete, that captures the mul- ing”) communicates a degree of poverty more in line with Lewis’s tiplicity of these truths and ven- pity that Obi feels towards who he framework. Those immigrants shift tures on regardless, thus requires describes as “his African-American the onus to African-Americans, and a range of sources.Thus, literature cousins”(30). Obi’s understanding in that gap a tension emerges. and fiction enter the fray. Literature of poverty contradicts that of Lewis is a reflection of the author, of their and Vance - he absolves the poor, The trial needed to create monsters, perspective, of their upbringing, of rather than charging them. But is then decree those monsters must be their world view. And in this en- that a consistent sentiment? locked away so that the world could be deavor to capture the complexity of made safe and right again. ideology through an entire commu- For further proof, we return to the nity, such a source may serve us in narratives that we do have. We turn – Elizabeth Weil, In the Ashes of Ghost Ship a way that others cannot. Literature to the writings of Okey Ndibe, a Ni- contexts.stanford.edu 11 Yet, if that tension exists within African immigrants periences, Oguine captures an important phenomenon: when they first arrive, it does not last. Obi’s first foray an element of the assimilation process for African immi- into Oakland captures this phenomenon: “‘At night this grants is a kind of indoctrination. This country incul- can be a very dangerous area,’ [his friend] said with cates these mythologies of poverty into its newcomers. visible revulsion, ‘that is when the drug dealers begin business, and then you have shootings and the police In a return to other scholarship that is available, a sim- sirens. I think they are all asleep during the day”(29). ilar trend emerges. John A. Arthur captures a similar Obi’s acclimatization to the US begins with a famil- phenomenon in his book African Women in the United iarizing of the area and the people within it, and his States: Crossing Transnational Borders: friend functions as his guide through the process. And therein lies a compelling idea: if African immigrants Persistent discrimination toward Black represents a do not arrive with these pre-existing understandings of deep-seated concern among the immigrant women. The poverty, they adopt them soon after they arrive. Obi’s way to counteract and minimize this discrimination, introduction to West Oakland serves to remind him according to the immigrant women, is not via assimila- the distinction between African Americans and Afri- tion but through the formation of a new Black identity can immigrants, imploring him to “violently [reject] that is based upon a Black African ethos devoid of vic- any identification with what strikes him as irreversible timhood mentality and powerlessness often portrayed disaster, the way one might disown and denounce a by Black cultural and social society. (Arthur 109) family member suffering from incurable alcoholism and kleptomania.”. He is “con- fronted with scenes...during the drive through West Oakland… [like] the terrible images of in- ner-city violence and despair on TV”. As a self-described “suc- cess-obsessed [immigrant]”, he feels a need to “get as far away as possible, psychically if not physically, from that horrible pit”(30). Obi himself remarks on the significance of that trip in the context of his racial socialization: “that was perhaps why [my friend] took me on that tour of West Oakland - to teach me early on how to be revolted by the inner city and the African-Americans who, no Hew Locke, For Those in Peril on the Sea, photographed by Daniel Azoulay. matter how successful some of The installation, displayed in Peréz Art Museum Miami, consists of dozens of scaled-down them may become, are in our ship replicas, creating the impression of a massive exodus taking place above the viewer. minds chained to the inner city” (30). Arthur offers a reality in line with the world Oguine builds, adding the perspective of African women into the The caricature of “a family suffering from incurable conversation. While we cannot, given our small sample alcoholism and kleptomania” brings its own connota- size, make general claims about the process of assimila- tions, implicitly shifting the blame onto the victims of tion for all African immigrants, a compelling possibility poverty. Similarly, other wording choices (“irreversible arises. In terms of their belief in American myths of disaster,” “horrible pit”) communicate a shift in how poverty, Obi and the African women that Arthur studies Obi views African-Americans. If applicable to other ex- may display thinking more in line with the poor white

12 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 communities of the Midwest that to how holes in ethnicity theory be- The “culture of poverty” discourse Vance describes than the Black come apparent when faced with the employs the same cultural narra- communities Jesmyn Ward depicts. case of Black immigration. Pierre tives as ethnicity theory to propa- To understand the ramifications of explains this by telling how the gate culturally racist ideas about that phenomenon, however, one framework came about “at the turn (United States) Black experiences. needs to understand how those my- of the century as scholars attempted It posits the behaviors and prac- thologies can be wielded as a sword to...find an alternative to the bio- tices of the Black poor against an against the African diaspora. logical determinism of the concept imagined set of “middle class” val- of race”(144) and was influenced ues that are, in the last instance, IV. Depression “by the massive influx of European unattainable and then proceeds to immigrants into the United States construct the people as “unassimi- These were once histories lost. during the early part of the twenti- lable.” (149) The fan blades did little to cut eth century”(145): through summer air as they The true significance of this fact lies crowded near the clerk. The The White European immigrant in the irony. By operating within courtroom was almost barren: experience soon came to serve the this ethnicity theory framework, as no onlookers filled the pews, controlling model for understand- they do when making distinctions no decorations lined the walls, ing the incorporation of all groups between them and African-Ameri- into United States society...The cans, African immigrants actually no voices rung out in joy. They linking of the “assimilation” dis- reinforce the very sword wielded crowded the court stand, fum- course to the notion of immigrant against them, to “propagate cul- bling through that manila en- “success” led to a valorization of turally deterministic notions of velope once again. The judge (White) European ethnic cultural Black identity formation”(149). And asked if they had rings to ex- practices and the discussions of that preservation of paradigms change. They shook their heads scholars soon became centered on ultimately reinforces “the negative no. the need for racialized non-White racialization and subordination of groups (particularly African all Blacks—immigrants and United How can mythology be wielded? Americans) to emulate the cultur- States-born alike”(149). Like a sword, eviscerating and dou- al practices of successfully incor- ble-edged? Like a shield, pardoning porated European immigrants. The paradigms of assimilation in and guarding? We now look to the (145-147) place for African immigrants thus work of the sociocultural anthro- encourages a form of self-erasure, pologist Pierre for insight into the In this passage, Pierre challenges both psychological and cultural. For consequences of Lewis’s culture of the very foundation upon which African immigrants, assimilation is poverty framework on the Black we understand immigration and not adaptation. It is not acclimati- diaspora. In her essay Black Immi- assimilation, illustrating how the zation. No, it is a cruel twist of the grants in the United States and the traditional paradigms in place Stockholm Syndrome - the captive “Cultural Narratives” of Ethnicity, function to elevate white European forced to espouse the very myths Pierre calls into question the idea of immigrant practices. That elevation, wielded against them, forced to Black immigrant “distinctiveness” however, coincides with a devaluing eschew their closest relations in this from African-Americans, arguing of Black immigration and, by exten- country. This dark inversion of the that such a notion operates within sion, Black culture. Thus, popular American Dream. a “culture of poverty” framework to ethnicity theory, in its eschewing perpetuate stereotypes about Black of the realities of racialization for Assimilation is self-injury. inferiority in general. In building immigrants, functions similarly to Assimilation is self-erasure. up to that argument, she introduces Lewis’s culture of poverty frame- Assimilation is fratricide. the field of popular ethnicity theory work: and reframes Oscar Lewis’s thesis in terms of it. She specifically points contexts.stanford.edu 13 V. Acceptance. different sympathy...race, more than almost any other factor, delineates the boundaries of political obligation They were married that day, under the fluores- and empathy” (Hooker 6-7). But if the entire process cent lights of the county clerk’s office. He wore a of assimilation is predicated upon a sort of familial thrifted Ralph Lauren button-down, she a black severing, how does political solidarity change within and yellow strapless dress. No onlookers filled the Black community? The very process of inculcation the pews. No bells rang out in celebration. When into this country’s ecosystem of race undercuts the they returned home to that barren apartment in intraracial accord that seems essential. At the intersec- outskirts of Houston, little had changed. And, tion between Hooker’s thesis and our working under- it wouldn’t be until twenty years later that they standing of Black assimilation, a compelling corollary reclaimed that day. It would be twenty years un- emerges: the very process of assimilation may serve to til they reclaimed their history. These were once actually undermine political solidarity within the Black histories lost. diaspora. Other questions thus arise. Is this phenome- non prevalent within other immigrant groups as well? Since the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Na- If this self-hatred is externally imposed, who is at fault? tionality Act, the number of African immigrants in the United States has grown significantly. Between the Who do we hold responsible? How do we reckon with years of 1980 and 2007, for example, the number of Af- the lacerations, with the fractures, with the scars, with rican-born immigrants grew from 101,520 to 1,023,363 the trauma that this country imposed? It would be (Moore 89). Yet, the immigrant group under scrutiny is easy for us as a nation to lament the tragedy, the irony, still relatively small - between 1971 and 2003, immi- the injustice of it all, but our hands are dirtied as well. gration from Africa made up roughly 3.3 percent of all For this paradigm of assimilation rests upon the castle immigration to America (Shaw-Taylor, Tuch 11). Even this country built. It underlies the lies we tell ourselves within the Black American population, the current about The Dream; it underwrites our assumptions population of Black immigrants is small: according to about mobility, our tenuous constructions of race, our census data and immigration counts as of 2000, there entrenched understandings of ethnicity. This phenome- are little over six hundred thousand Africans from non, this prescription We are complicit in this erasure. sub-Saharan Africa - roughly 2 percent of the total We are complicit in this injury. We are complicit in this Black population (12). Regardless of numbers, however, plunder. this exploration exposes the realities of assimilation in this country. If this coun- try’s paradigm of assimilation is rooted in self-erasure, in fratricide, in self-injury, what are the rippling consequences?

One space yet to be explored is the area of racial solidarity, and Juliet Hooker’s Race and the Politics of Solidarity offers a framework to work with. Hooker, a professor of political science at Brown University, argues that the practice of political solidarity has been shaped by the social fact of race, emphasizing the im- portance of reconciling racial injustices in achieving unity in multicultural society: “One of the fundamental features of the racialized politics of solidarity is thus the way embodied racial difference results in Payless African Food Store, exterior. The store sells a range of spices, meats, gro- ceries, and supplies, and it is a popular staple within various African immigrant communities in the Houston area. Photo credit: Google Maps.

14 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 Until we reckon with the injuries we WORKS CITED impose, communities will continue to Allison, Dorothy. A Question of Class. In Our Own Words: Writings from Women's be torn apart. History will continue Lives, edited by Mary Crawford and Rhoda K. Unger. Boston: McGraw-Hill, to be swept to the wayside. We will 2001. Print. continue to erase this multiplicity, to Arthur, John A. African Women Immigrants in the United States: Crossing Transnational shroud these interactions between Borders. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. narrative and interpretation, to ignore Arthur, John A. Invisible Sojourners: African Immigrant Diaspora in the United States. this textured weaving of lived expe- Praeger, 2000. riences into a semblance of common- ality. They will become a palimpsest, Chang, Jeff. We Gon' Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation. , 2016. Print. a rich history and complexity refused Ette, Ezekiel U. Nigerian Immigrants in the United States: Race, Identity, and in the name of self-delusion. And this Acculturation. , 2011. Print. country, drunk on its own mytholo- Hooker, Juliet. Race and the Politics of Solidarity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. gies, will rest itself upon the wreaths Print. of its sins, while the masses and their Laniyan, Tola and Tunde Laniyan. Family Immigration History Interview. 3 March 2019. realities detached lie at the sacrificial altar. We will have failed them. Lewis, Oscar. Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty. Basic Books, 2000. VI. Resolution Lewis, Oscar. THE CULTURE OF POVERTY. Ekistics, vol. 23, no. 134, 1967, pp. 3–5. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43614445.

They were married that day, be- Lewis, Oscar. The Culture of Poverty. Scientific American, vol. 215, no. 4, 1966, pp. fore an ensemble of close friends 19–25. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24931078. and family. He wore a black Moore, Ami R. The American Dream through the Eyes of Black African Immigrants in tuxedo, she a white dress. They Texas. University Press of America, 2015. exchanged the vows left unsaid Ndibe, Okey. Never Look an American in the Eye: A Memoir: Flying Turtles, Colonial for years, the promises deferred Ghosts, and the Making of a Nigerian American., 2016. Print. that first day. They made up for Pierre, Jemima. Black Immigrants in the United States and the “Cultural Narratives” of lost time, reclaimed a history Ethnicity. In Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. 2004. long buried. My parents officially Shaw-Taylor, Yoku, and Steven A. Tuch. The Other African Americans: Contemporary married in early March, in a cer- African and Caribbean Immigrants in the United States., 2007. Print. emony circumstance denied them Smith, Zadie. White Teeth: A Novel., 2000. Print twenty years ago. And as I sat in the front pews bearing witness to Vance, J D. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. , 2016. Print. their story coming full circle, I Valentine, Charlie A. Culture and Poverty: Critique and Counter-Proposals. Current smiled. Anthropology, vol. 10, no. 2/3, 1969, pp. 181–201. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2740476.

Too much had been lost. Too many Ward, Jesmyn. Men We Reaped: A Memoir., 2013. Print. narratives thrown to the wayside, too Waters, Mary C. Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America. Berkeley: University of many silenced in canonization. And I California Press, 1990. Print. often find myself looking back at the Weil, Elizabeth. In The Ashes of Ghost Ship. The New York Times, The New York Times, stories of my parents - at the stories 12 Dec. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/magazine/oakland-warehouse- that I do know. I find myself grasping fire-ghost-ship.html for tales long erased. But there that day, one story had been reclaimed. One, but enough.

contexts.stanford.edu 15 notion of becoming in anthropology. Drawing from the ideas of philoso- Living as Becoming: pher Gilles Deleuze, they promote kinds of ethnographic analysis that pay attention to “human efforts to Envisioning Life Chances exceed and escape forms of knowl- edge and power and to express desires that might be world altering” Within and Against (Biehl and Locke, 2010, p. 317). Necessarily theoretically incomplete, Biehl and Locke advance ethno- graphic projects that acknowledge Sociomedical Constraints the innate open-endedness, ambi- guity, and creative capacities in the aspirations and agency of individu- Caroline Aung als and collectives. While Deleuze did not originally intend to apply the notion of becoming to individ- Content Warning: This essay explores ual life, Biehl and Locke draw from topics related to death and dying. Deleuze’s ideas to reveal the signifi- cance of microanalysis in anthropol- ogy, attending to the personal ways Accompanying a nurse, social work- he either grimaced or grinned at our that people navigate, grapple with, er, and chaplain from Hospice Aus- entrance, I noticed the tightness of and transcend various social struc- tin, the main hospice organization his skin over his swollen legs, which tures and schemas in which they in Austin, I met Tom in his hotel were covered in sores, and his find themselves caught (p.335). room which his estranged mother alarmingly emaciated upper body. In this paper, I employ a lens of had recently paid for upon learning The nurse made strained banter becoming to analyze the predica- about his three to six month prog- with him then quickly tended to the ment of Tom, a hospice patient I nosis. The hospice team and I shuf- lesions on his calves, while the so- met during fieldwork by focusing fled into the cramped space, which cial worker began outlining logistics on how multiple sociomedical forces smelled of old food and smoke. I no- involved in the process of crema- constrain his becoming of a par- ticed a skeletal puppy, whose matted tion. When I asked Tom about what ticular way. I hence use the con- fur looked like it was once white. his experience in hospice has been cept of becoming as synonymous The puppy giddily raced around us, like, he turned to explaining why to the possibility of him viewing occasionally brushing against my he is, in fact, thinking about revok- and living his life according to his ankles, when I became aware of the ing hospice services: “I don’t wanna own convictions, a possibility that poop by my feet. A torn coloring die… just the linguistic structure seems preempted by frameworks book laid open on a pillow, cables of even just talking to me… I don’t surrounding hospice care, diagnoses and wires sprawled from a drawer like to be talked to like this is it. and prognoses, medical risk, and beneath the television, open bags And that’s kind of how it is.” The drug addiction. Furthermore, I uti- of chips sat on the counter, black chaplain soon intervened, “Like see, lize concepts from Christina Sharpe marks soiled the walls, cardboard that’s our job–to help people come and Gilles Deleuze to illuminate the boxes of miscellaneous items over- to a place where they can say good- ways that Tom attempts to rupture flowed from the closet and crowded bye to life, and it’s different.” the schemas that neglect his affec- the bed, on which Tom reclined. He tive and practical desires and raise was unusually young for a hospice Anthropologists Joao Biehl and Peter the question of what circumstances patient–only in his early thirties. As Locke engage extensively with the would make his aspirations of be- coming realizable.

16 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 iors and conversations with him failed to reflect such concern as they revolved around the anticipation of his impending passing.

In a private conversation, Tom’s nurse related to me her interpreta- tion of the hospice philosophy when she asserted that “part of our job is to help people come around to the fact that they’re dying... If you go to your death moment completely denying the fact that you’re dying, you have no opportunity to recon- cile and say goodbye to people, and that’s tragic.” She further reasoned,

We get people all the time who don’t want to accept the fact that they’re dying, but we know that they’re dying. There really isn’t an option. Somebody who has pancreatic cancer that comes to you that weighs like ninety pounds and is not eating, and they don’t believe that they are dying. It’s just like, I hate to be–it’s not that I don’t believe in miracles, but I’m a scientist when it comes down to it. You go with the facts. Film photograph taken by the author to help illustrate the concept of becoming. You can’t give people false hope. I’m not going to lie to them either and be like, “Yeah, this is going to be just visits. He later urgently expressed fine.” Because that robs people of the Founded in 1979, Hospice Austin to me, “I can feel when I’m get- opportunity to come to terms with conducts itself as a typical hospice ting closer and closer to death. I’ve it, which is part of what we do. in admitting only people with life been dying for years. But to have expectancies of six months or less, someone talk to me as if I’m alive The nurse viewed the life chances necessitating that patients in their and want me to live--I need that. of people deemed “end-of-life” as service do not pursue curative I need someone to talk to me as if essentially set and thought that to treatment, and attending exclusive- they want me to live, like they care give any other impression is to “give ly to end-of-life matters–require- about me in that way. It’s import- people false hope.” Her faith in the ments dictated by the U.S. Medicare ant. It’s really fucking important.” scientific objectivity of diagnoses Hospice Benefit established in 1986 He desperately resisted being per- and prognoses left little to no room (National Hospice and Palliative ceived as terminally ill and desired for the prospect of patients’ thinking Care Organization, 2016). Aware relationships sympathetic to his and living otherwise in her margin- of the hospice staff’s assumptions convictions about living despite his alization of “miracles.” Moreover, about the imminence of his death, precarious health. While the team when I asked her about whether or Tom felt an upsetting interpersonal purported to care about whether not she thought Tom was dying, tension during the team’s weekly Tom lives, he felt like their behav- she answered by deflecting to the contexts.stanford.edu 17 medical expertise of doctors: “Oh beliefs may be further reinforced by disease categories, resulting in what yeah, absolutely. I don’t think–I how patient compliance makes hos- he calls the “tyranny of diagnosis.” guess part of that is because like pice workers’ jobs easier and more Despite the degree of arbitrariness three or four different doctors said efficient (McNamara, 1994). One and uncertainty inherent in medi- he’s six months from dying, and hospice nurse explained, cal analyses of personal conditions, I trust their word because they’re technology, bureaucratic structures, doctors, and that’s what they do.” The best death is one where people and hospitals of the 20th century She also viewed her approach as a have made peace with their families, concertize pervasive ideas about form of service to her clients since friends, themselves, God. Those are objective medical narratives for in- she thought to treat them different- the best deaths. And they generally dividual patients (Rosenburg, 2002). ly would be to “rob” them of the are the kindest, least painful, least While most hospice staff recognize crucial opportunity of dying well. symptoms, problems deaths… I that prognoses are not always accu- The primary way she helped people would say the best death is when rate (e.g. someone with end-stage come to terms with their impending the person who is terminally-ill has cancer has a more predictable illness death is through educating them been able to face their fears, and trajectory than someone with, for about their degenerating bodies. face their end, and say the most instance, heart failure), the hospice As she described how she interacts important things, which [are], “I’m approach tends to revolve around with Tom: “[His] legs are starting to sorry, please forgive me, and I love evidential assumptions about swell–why is that happening? Well, you.” And if they can do those things patients’ inevitable decline. you’ve got cancer in your liver, and with themselves, and whoever means there’s a thing called albumin, and something to them, they generally Tom encountered other sociomed- it helps pull the fluid out.’ So I try to have a pretty good death. ical restraints when he attempted explain to them what’s happening, to find a heart surgeon willing to and I feel like the more information As such, patients are encouraged to perform on him. During one of the they get about what’s happening to comply with medical evidence indi- hospice team’s visits, he conveyed, their body, the more they’re able cating their death in order to make “My odds of dying on the table— to [accept death].” The nurse again peace with themselves and others dying or having a very severe per- appealed to the apparent certitude and minimize their physical, social, manent complication from on the of medical knowledge in attempting and emotional suffering. Hospice table doing the surgery or during to guide Tom and others to accept workers seem critically influenced the days after— are fifty-fifty. And their inevitable decline. Although by these views, resulting in the they don’t like going higher than the hospice team may recognize that constraint of Tom’s affective agency twelve percent, and they’re like, ‘So prognoses are not necessarily “crys- through the interpersonal dynamics we’re not going to do it. We don’t tal-ball” truths, their interpersonal between him and his care providers. wanna help you.’ And I’m like, ‘Well interactions with Tom did not make it’s a hundred percent now that I’m such recognitions apparent, evident The hospice structure and philos- gonna die. Like fifty-fifty is great in Tom’s consequent distress. ophy also seem profoundly shaped odds compared to that.’” To the by a common trust in the factuality surgeon, the chance of complica- A 2017 literature review of medical of diagnoses and prognoses, evident tions from performing the surgery articles that defined or used mea- in the Hospice Medicare Benefit may have meant endangering his sures of good death revealed that requiring organizations to admit license or misspending resources; one of the main recurring themes only people with prognoses of six to Tom, the risk did nothing to included life completion, involving months or less and the hospice discourage him from pursuing the saying goodbyes and acceptance of nurse’s dependence on doctors’ con- sole opportunity at expanding his impending death. Moreover, Elis- firmation of individual prognoses. life chances–a fatal disjunction in abeth Kubler-Ross’ 1969 book On Historian Charles Rosenburg eluci- interpretations of medical risk and Death and Dying has popularized dates how diagnoses and prognoses consequently the value of Tom’s notions of dying well as involving have garnered such social control own life. Tom also believed that the the acceptance of death, while these through the development of specific surgeon sees him as a “piece of shit

18 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 druggie,” as he angrily recounted to tiple sociomedical systems that ciomedical epistemes in which he me over the phone, preempted his viewing and shaping seems fatally trapped? Attempts at his life according to his convictions. rupture may have been reflected in [The surgeon] said, “You make Hospice workers’ assumptions about his hospice nurse’s account of some decisions that make it more likely his impending death and implic- of their interactions about whether it’s your fault. I don’t want to do the it insistence on him accepting his he should undergo heart surgery: surgery for you to ruin the valve.” decline, as well as the surgeon’s But if I get two years and fuck it up beliefs about medical risk and drug [Tom] would like to force me into who cares, I get to spend two years addicts, impaired his ability to yes-no answers. Oh, it always made with my daughter. He said, “No, I effectively and practically live on me so uncomfortable. And he was don’t want to do it.” That’s when he his own terms. It may be helpful like, “If it was you, would you do came up with those numbers. Those to compare these inhibiting struc- it?” And I was like, “[Tom], I can’t numbers are good reason not to do tures to the episteme that Christina answer that question, I don’t know.” the surgery... but I get two years. Sharpe describes: “The question for And he was like, “Answer it.” I was Isn’t that worth it? He’s like, “No, theory is how to live in the wake of like, “If it was me, and there was you don’t care about your life, why slavery, in slavery’s afterlives, the any way to extend my life so I could should I?” I shouldn’t talk about it afterlife of property, how, in short, be alive longer, I would take it. Be- because it’ll make me cry. to inhabit and rupture this episteme cause I have a kid.” I said that. If I with their, with our, knowable lives. truly believed–because I’m not going The surgeon’s judgements about ‘What else is there to know’ now? to tell him a falsehood, because I Tom’s heroin usage determined his In excess of: ‘Hers is the same fate don’t believe that surgery is going calculations of the worthiness of of every other Black Venus’ (Hart- to miraculously save his life, but it Tom’s life, as the injurious health man 2008, p. 2)?” (Sharpe, 2016, is honest to say if it was me, and I effects of heroin and prejudices p. 51). Sharpe’s book In the Wake: believed that there was something I about Tom’s shamefully negligent On Blackness and Being is largely could do to save my life so I can be character as a drug addict deterred dedicated to exploring means of around for my kid, I would do it. the surgeon from treating him. undermining racially oppressive And that’s honest. But I didn’t say to Tom’s future prospects thus became frameworks through aesthetic and him, “Yeah, you should go do that.” foreclosed by conventional thinking literary kinds of analysis that foster surrounding medical risk and drug new, more humane ways of seeing Tom tried to disrupt the frameworks addicts. However, these judgements and being in slavery’s aftermath. It of hospice and medical risk through along with “those numbers” that the is important to acknowledge that urging his hospice nurse to view surgeon used to justify refraining Tom is a white-presenting male, and his situation in different ways, just from treatment could not outweigh that racism in the U.S. remains a far as Sharpe encourages readers to the indeterminable significance that more widespread and violent issue adopt alternative analytics through Tom attributed to having a couple than the ones explored in this essay. which “we might imagine other- more years to be with his daughter, Still, with Tom’s status as a debili- wise from what we know now” (p. who although stays with his ex- tated, non-compliant patient and as 19). Through entreating his nurse girlfriend, centrally contributed to a heroin user, Sharpe’s theoretical to subjectively inhabit his position, his motivations to live. Through the outlook helps to illuminate how the Tom attempted to counter overrid- phone static, I hear his voice shak- perpetuation of some wider trends ing interpretations of him as a ter- ing: “Can you imagine how it feels of thought and practices rest on the minally-ill, hopeless heroin addict. to be looked in the eye and told that disregard for and curtailment of While the rupture that he seeks you may have two to five years more certain lives, along with the latent may not have manifested fully, these years, but they won’t do it? That’s possibilities for interrupting such confrontations hint at the destabili- heartbreaking, how could you do trends. zation of the nurse’s hospice philos- that?” ophy through her discomfort and What would it mean for Tom and honest (albeit hesitant) admission of Tom found himself caught in mul- others to break through the so- identifying with his sentiments as a contexts.stanford.edu 19 parent. When I privately asked the ly-ill along with their grieving loved and medical experts. He depicted nurse whether she is convinced of ones. As a result, the nurse felt as if an exceptional capacity to “push Tom’s imminent death, she answers, the psychological switch required in through” and defy anticipations of “Yes. There’s no way without–I don’t stepping outside her current way of his death to show the personally know if it’s six months, I don’t know thinking may further threaten her defining strength of his will to live about that. With all of his wounds, with unbearable emotional exhaus- over any imposing medical judge- and the fact he has this terrible ede- tion. Tom additionally perceived ments. Furthermore, Tom’s self-con- ma, and he’s decompensating and his own existence itself as a kind of ception as a “fighter” seemed rooted getting weaker, I feel like that only rupturing of medical expectations. in his relationship with past trauma: ends one way. But I’m a hospice He imparted narratives from his after telling us about the harrowing nurse, that’s how I think of things. life that expressed and reinforced physical and emotional abuse and I don’t think in terms of cure. So I his self-identity as a “fighter” that school bullying he endured during could be completely wrong, I don’t transcends medical understanding, childhood, he related how when know.” Her response ended in what representing how he personally he was around thirteen years-old, feels like part frustration, part resig- related to obstructing forces from he realized, “I don’t have to have nation. She seemed to consider the medical thinking. For instance, negative shit. I don’t have to have possibility of accompanying Tom in after talking about trying to find a people taking advantage of me. I challenging her hospice perspective, surgeon who will treat him, he told don’t have to have people do this to continuing to describe that helping me and the hospice team about his me.” He continued to recount how people come to terms with their previous surgeries: during a recent therapy session, a death becomes part of what one counselor had admitted to him, “To does as a hospice nurse: “That be- I’ve already pushed through it twice, tell you the truth, people don’t live comes part of your M.O. Where I’m where they expected me to die, and through your childhood that can kind of struggling is- does that have when I ask [the surgeons] questions hug their daughter. People don’t live to be part of your M.O.? Is that just to like, figure out things, they’re through childhoods that are violent a habit? And we just have to change like, “You have to tell us. We don’t and abusive, and you are just differ- that for different people? And I see people that have survived what ent.” Tom again portrayed how he think we do, and maybe that’s what you’ve survived.” Actually, it’s kind believed his life confounds medical [Tom’s] picking up on, is that. But of uncomfortable because A, there’;s analyses due to the bare power of then again, my job cannot be, “Let’s nobody to talk to that’s been through his will to endure. Regardless of look at all the options you have for my experience, and B, when I thank whether Tom’s stories were accurate treatment.” You can’t do all that. You the heart surgeon for the surgery, or not, the ways in which he narra- can’t be a hospice nurse in a hospice the surgical teams thanked me tively conceives of himself revealed mindset thinking about helping instead... he goes, “You are the kind his envisioned disruptive position people die–it’s a hugely emotional of patient that we wait our whole within broader medical structures. job. It is incredibly difficult.” career for, because the human body is a machine, you can only do so Songwriting may also serve as a She recognized how her approach to much. At some point it’s down to symbolic vehicle through which hospice remains not only amenable you, and the only reason you’re alive Tom countered presiding percep- to interruption, but also perhaps right now has nothing to do with us. tions of his life chances as essen- called to interruption in certain You’re a fighter, and we never have tially set. Following the shade of the situations. Yet, she felt like violat- seen this.” hotel building in the humid after- ing her philosophy for particular noon heat, the hospice chaplain and patients has harmful visceral impli- Through this story, Tom under- I accompanied Tom to the parking cations for her own life. With case mined notions of medical risk curb outside his room where he loads of over thirty clients, care through illustrating his capacity to started smoking a cigarette. We providers at Hospice Austin bear an shock surgeons into gratitude and began chatting about writing music immense emotional toll in tending consequently invert the expected when he pulled out his phone to to individuals who are terminal- power dynamics between himself share a recording of a song he wrote

20 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 for his daughter to appreciate after claiming life. Self-determining ca- the possible that life holds through his death. With his acoustic guitar pacities can serve as acts of resis- and beyond technical assessments” strummed slowly in a minor key, tance to hindering forces, as means (Biehl and Locke, 2010, p. 319). we listened to him sing, “My sweet to endure hardship, as sources of Working towards a particular way darling, listen well to the greatest boundless possibilities for being. In of becoming, he continually assert- truth that I have to tell. That is that his world where systematic con- ed his desires and self-identity as no one can choose for you, even if it straints abounded, Tom’s exhorta- potentially subversive counter-forces feels like they do. ‘Cause you don’t tion for his daughter to view herself in the face of broader schemas that have to do anything, no matter how as a kind of “infinity” may have restricted his affective and practical bad it gets, there’s always a choice reflected “a request to stand out of autonomy. Through interacting with to bring...Don’t give up the power time together, to resist the stulti- hospice staff, creating and convey- that you have, that was born into fying temporality and time that is ing personal narratives, and writing you, allows you to last. And you can not ours,” in Jose Muñoz’s descrip- songs, Tom struggled to create “a be anything that you want to be. tions of queer political imagination delicate and incomplete health that You are infinity.” If we are to view (Muñoz, 2019, p. 187). The desire stems from efforts to carve out life writing as a process of becoming– to become in this way remained chances from things too big, strong as, in Deleuze’s conception, “always Tom’s own abiding “truth,” which he and suffocating” (p. 318). His efforts incomplete, always in the midst of wished to pass on to his daughter, hence raise the question of the pos- being formed, and goes beyond the even in the case where his strivings sibility of altering the current episte- matter of any livable or lived expe- become curtailed by his own death. mes around hospice care, diagnoses rience”–then we may understand and prognoses, medical risk, and Tom’s song as part of his own efforts Tom’s efforts to define himself drug addicts in ways that would of becoming (Deleuze, 1997, p. 1). against and outside governing make his aspirations of becoming He communicated the subversive, sociomedical systems of thought realizable. empowering, and expansive effects and practices pointed to “the angst, of realizing one’s own agency and uncertainty, and the passion for

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Deleuze, Gilles (1997). Essays Critical and Clinical. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Meier, Emily A. “Defining a Good Death (Successful Dying): Literature Review and a Call for Research and Public Dialogue.” American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry vol. 23, no. 4, 2016, pp. 261-271.

Mcnamara, Beverley (1994). The Institutionalization of the Good Death. Social Science & Medicine, 39(11), pp. 1501-1508.

Muñoz, José Esteban (2019). Cruising Utopia: the Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York City, New York: New York University Press, 2019.

National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (2016, March 28). History of Hospice Care. Retrieved from www.nhpco.org/history-hospice-care.

Rosenberg, Charles E. (2002). The Tyranny of Diagnosis: Specific Entities and Individual Experience.The Milbank Quarterly, 80(2), pp. 237–260.

Sharpe, Christina Elizabeth (2016). In the Wake: on Blackness and Being. Durham, NC: Duke University Press

Acknowledgements: I am grateful for the support of Professor Angela Garcia, whose feedbackand course Living and Dying in the Contemporary World contributed significantly to the development of this essay. I am also grateful for the Stanford Haas Center’s Community-Based Research Fellowship, which funded my fieldwork, and for Hospice Austin for being a generous community partner.

contexts.stanford.edu 21 Counting or Introduction I walked into the clinic through the back side gate that was guarded by mul- tiple dogs. Although I had been entered the International Health Care Clinic Discounting in Accra, Ghana through this gate at eight in the morning every day, the seven black Labradors shouted at me, as if I was an unrecognized intruder. I moved past them and entered the clinic to find a group of womn, many of whom were nursing, while listening to Amelia speak about healthy nutritional prac- Bodies? tices. On Saturdays, the IHCC, an HIV clinic that serves over one thousand people living with HIV, brings a pediatrician, a nutritionist, and a few nurses to speak to pregnant women and new mothers who have been diagnosed with HIV (See Appendix A). For a few hours, the mothers hear about how to pre- A Case Study pare nutritious meals for their newborns with the few healthy options avail- able to them. The program is part of the clinic’s, and the larger HIV preven- of Global Health tion and treatment community’s, ini- Interventions tiative to aid infants and children who in Early Infant are at risk of expo- sure to HIV. The clinic itself treats Diagnosis in over two hundred pregnant women Accra, Ghana that are HIV+ and aids them in pre- venting mother to Mahima Krishnamoorthi child transmission (PMTCT) of the disease. Image 1. The IHCC clinic hosts nutrition education for HIV+ mothers.

When I first began my three-month practices for HIV+ women that are as early infant diagnosis (EID), and internship at the clinic, the head pregnant are incredibly important two consecutive follow up tests at nurse, Guro, oriented me around to convey to patients. In fact, the 12 and 18 months. Early infant the clinic, illustrating the pro- United Nation's new Sustainable diagnosis is incredibly important, tocols, and the projects that are Development Goals has placed a especially in low-resource settings; working to resolve some of the heightened emphasis on PMTCT in if an HIV-exposed infant is given barriers and gaps that patients are the context of better health for their ART within the first 12 weeks of facing. Guro, a Dutch nurse who children (WHO), and many global life, they are 75% less likely to die had spent the last fifteen years health funders have increased their from an AIDS-related illness. This in Accra, felt very strongly about budgetary outlines to better encom- is one of the reasons WHO recom- maternal and child health, specifi- pass PMTCT programs. The World mends that infants born to mothers cally preventing maternal to child Health Organization recommends living with HIV are tested between transmission (PMTCT). Because that all HIV-exposed infants (HEI) four and six weeks old, and it has HIV can be transmitted through have access to HIV virologic testing proven to be an incredibly import- breast milk, healthy breastfeeding by age 4–6 weeks of life, denoted ant measure in reducing mother to

22 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 child transmission. WHO further recommends that another HIV test is carried out at 18 months and/or when breastfeeding ends to provide the final infant diagnosis, given that HIV can be transmitted through breast milk. As proportionally more infant infections are now occurring during breastfeeding these tests are becoming increasingly important. However, Guro brought up protocol and funding constraints within the IHCC's PMTCT program.“Women are simply not coming for their one year and eighteen month tests and we are losing funding.” The clinic Table 1. Out of n=340 mothers in the IHCC records from Jan 2012-Jun 2017, was finding themselves in a curious 263 had brought their infants in for the 6 week DNA PCR test, and only 14 had brought in their children for the 1 year. predicament. Serving more than one thousand HIV+ patients, the IHCC receives the majority of its funding from international donors, primarily trates the decrease in rates of EID at the one year and eighteen month the Global Fund. The Global Fund 12 and 18 months. The IHCC, and tests are extremely low, placing the finances the clinic’s program for other clinics around the world, have clinic in jeopardy of losing funding PMTCT on the stipulation that the strategically lined up the 6 week from its international donors be- clinic produces basic data that can EID visit with a vaccination visit for cause the IHCC cannot demonstrate demonstrate that the clinic is fol- infants. In this way, new mothers data that illustrates them following lowing the WHO guidelines of early have two important motivations WHO guidelines. Guro and I decid- infant diagnosis at six weeks, one for coming to clinic: to find out if ed that we would spend the major- year and eighteen months. These their child is free from HIV and to ity of my three months on finding datasets are intended to include the vaccinate them from other diseases. more about the barriers preventing rates of early infant diagnosis, the Given that most women at the IHCC mothers from coming in to test their percentage of positive and negative are on antiretroviral therapy, and newborns for HIV. test results, the proportion of preg- thus are at very low likelihoods of nant women on antiretroviral ther- transmitting HIV to their children, My investigation and observations apy, the proportion of new mothers those 6 week tests are essentially took place over three months in the following best breastfeeding practic- always negative. And this is very summer of 2017 in Accra, Gha- es and an array of other qualitative promising, showcasing the leaps na. The International Health Care and quantitative measures. How- and bounds that health and medi- Clinic was an important field site ever, as Guro explained, pregnant cine have made in the field of HIV. given that it has an adjoining West mothers in Accra are often not com- However, because the clinic states to Africa AIDS Foundation, a nonprofit ing to their second and third follow mothers that their children are HIV organization that operates through up tests. Barriers to early infant free, there is little to no reason why much of the same infrastructure as diagnosis is a well known issue, and a mother would want to come in for the clinic. The collaboration of these is certainly not limited to Accra. For another test. In fact, at that point, two entities allowed for the space women at the IHCC, I learned from the mother often feels that further to be a very interesting field site, Guro that they often do not have the testing is seemingly unnecessary, and working within the preexisting means for making multiple trips to too expensive, and motivated by the PMTCT program and team helped the HIV clinic. Guro explained the clinic instead of the mother. Thus, initiate interviewing of mothers and most common scenario that illus- the rates of mothers coming in for other stakeholders nearby. I spoke contexts.stanford.edu 23 to 15 informants and observed five focused on ensuring that interven- to simply diagnose someone with weeks of maternal nutrition educa- tion programs they choose to fund HIV and send that data to the Glob- tion as well as other AIDS-related are implemented in areas in the al Fund; an HIV clinic or an NGO conferences with local NGOs and most “dire” of need. Essentially, this must “track” this patient, follow up HIV clinics. requires “epidemiological mapping” with their treatment, find out if the in which the agencies necessitate treatment is working, and contin- Entering the clinic, during my the identification of bodies that are uously report changes to numbers eighth week of the program, I talked diagnosed with HIV. Epidemiologi- of HIV positive patients. This is to a few of the pregnant women cal mapping has become extremely a grave challenge for clinics like about their experiences. It was not useful in public health Certainly, IHCC, who often face loss to follow often the same mothers every week, there are well-intentioned moti- up and thus cannot provide the type but the few that I was able to keep vations behind this requirement; of data that the Global Fund re- up with provided insight into their to provide a population with an quires. Specifically, the head physi- lives. I talked to one pregnant moth- AIDS response, there must exist an cian at the clinic discussed with me er, who was waiting at the clinic for identified and available HIV-pos- the issues of follow up calls. “When a medical visit, about early infant itive group. The more bodies that many of our patients do not have diagnosis and what she knew about are identified as needing care and a phone number that they can be the different recommended test intervention in a specific region, the reached at, and when the ones who dates. She stated that she was not more likely that they may be en- do often change their phone number planning on coming in for her one rolled into an apparatus where they every few months without notify- year or 18-month test dates. I asked can be subject to intervention. ing us, it is easier to lose track of a her if there were any specific rea- patient than it is to keep up with sons why she did not feel the need As Vinh-Kim Nguyen explains them.” Even more so, in areas where to come in. She looked down at the in The Republic of Therapy, the identity documents are unreliable, child playing in her lap, back up at movement towards quantifying and often obtained multiple times for me, and said, “The 6 week test said identifying people diagnosed with different sources and of poor quali- my child was negative. My child HIV had primarily began with very ty, consistent data sent to the Global looks fine. I don’t have the money to specific populations, largely patients Fund may be inaccurate and unre- come here whenever I want. What that were readily available through liable. Guro showed me some of the would you do?” the healthcare system such as preg- data for the early infant diagnosis nant women, those with sexually and when I asked if I could separate transmitted infections or TB, and it by age of the mother, she laughed. Body Counts hospitalized patients. Starting in the “You can certainly try. But you’ll early 2000s, though, these surveys see everyone’s birthday is January This issue of financial assistance were replaced with those that repre- 1st, and the year is largely a guess.” and data collection being inextri- sented a broader population, aiming With a lack of birth certification, cably linked is not limited to the to create a more accurate analysis of and birthdays being identified in IHCC in Accra, Ghana. The impor- the data. As Nguyen explains, “This late childhood based on schooling, tance of quantitative data in global shift makes sense in the context of most of the Ghanaian mothers had health has been a recent topic of a program that aggressively seeks birthdays that might have been a debate in medical anthropology. to map the population available few years off of their actual date of According to the “Global Fund’s through more accurate measuring” birth. Thus, these accountability Approach to Monitoring and Eval- (Nguyen 2010: 179). However, mass requirements that the Global Fund uation” statement, "qualitative data treatment programs that require necessitates in order for clinics to are important for satisfying account- “body counts” also create pressure receive, and continue to receive, ability requirements for donors as within the organizations that they funding, are often impractical for well as for grant recipients” (Global are funding to provide quantitative clinics to garner data. Fund, 2016). Agencies like the Glob- data concerning diagnosis that is of- al Fund and PEPFAR are primarily ten not possible. It isn’t just enough

24 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 The Requirements: child’s body itself. Moreover, the Who, When, and How WHO also strongly recommends serological testing for all infants at The Global Fund, PEPFAR and oth- 12 months, regardless of the test er similar funding agencies assemble result at 6 weeks. HIV can also be their requirements for data collec- transmitted through breast milk, tion based on recommendations that and most mothers are moving away are assembled by the World Health from breast feeding and attempting Organization (WHO). Early viro- to accustom their children to food logical diagnosis of HIV infection other than their mother’s milk at or in infants and children is one of the around 12 months, and consequent- primary goals of the WHO’s recom- ly the WHO determined this to be mendations for HIV treatment and an adequate time to test for any HIV care. In the WHO’s 2010 HIV/AIDS antibodies. Finally, the WHO rec- Programme on recommendations ommends an 18-month test in order on the diagnosis of HIV infection to confirm the diagnosis of the child in infants and children, there are using an HIV viral test that identi- thirteen strong recommendations fies any viral particles rather than listed for clinics to carry out for identifying antibodies. These are the prevention of mother to child trans- recommendations that were assem- mission, and the following section bled by the WHO and are outlined PEPFAR assembles their annual fact- discusses these guidelines and the in the PEPFAR and Global Fund’s sheet which represents their yearly total results. The primary demonstration of WHO's motivations for them. requirements for continual funding. their data is shown in the table to the left, which lists raw numbers of individ- The WHO has placed a specific uals on AZT that are enrolled in clinics focus on preventing transmission Relying on the Numbers that are funded by the agency, a clear of HIV to infants and children, as demonstration of abstraction and reduc- HIV has a far worse prognosis and Unfortunately, while the language tion of patients to numbers progression for infants and children within the WHO programme ap- than it does for adults. Currently, pears focused on suggestion and only an estimated of 15% of HIV-ex- recommendation, many funders clinics that are funded by PEPFAR. posed infants needing testing are such as the Global Fund will only Simply listing numbers of bodies tested in the first two months of provide further financial assistance clearly showcases the significance of life. Because of this, the WHO has to clinics with the presentation of raw quantitative data in evaluating reviewed and revised recommenda- data that aligns with WHO guide- global health interventions. tions for clinics to commence con- lines. According to Guro, all of crete programs for diagnosis testing the funding protocols, contracts, This reliance on numbers in global in infants and children. The WHO documents and even promotional health interventions was heavily recommends that HIV serological material include WHO guidelines explored in Vincanne Adams’ text, testing is conducted for all infants as contingent. This can also be seen Metrics: What Counts in Global at 6 weeks. HIV can be transmitted through PEPFAR’s fact sheets that Health. As Adams explains in her through pregnancy, labor and deliv- they present every year, a concise text, from July 2010 until March ery, and at 6 weeks, any antibodies and easy to digest amalgamation of 2013, members of two Senagelese that are actually from the mother its latest results each year. The ma- health workers’ unions hold a data but moved past the placenta into the jor table is one that is titled “Num- collection strike against the Minis- fetus, are no longer evident. Thus, ber of Individuals Supported on An- try of Health, while still providing at 6 weeks, the serological test can tiretroviral Treatment” and it simply care to their patients. This was determine the status of the child by lists numbers of total bodies that meant to bring light to the health identifying any antibodies from the are on AZT and are being treated at care resource distribution inequality

contexts.stanford.edu 25 across the country. The Ministry Abstraction and Reduction their child is diagnosed as HIV neg- of Health in Senegal allocated its in Biomedicine ative, then they are far less likely to resources from the Global Fund come to the one year and 18 month across the country, but these union Abstraction is the process of taking testing dates given that their “child members made it clear to Adams some concept out of its original con- looks fine.” Thus, the “body counts” that they wanted to “withhold text or source in order to distance it that PEPFAR and Global Fund are health data to undermine the re- and understand it in its own singu- aiming to collect largely ignore the lationship between Senegal and larity. This conceptualization of dif- intense cultural impetus that exists the international aid community” ferent ideas, especially quantitative for so many of the women that are (Adams 2016: 105). This data reten- data, is often undergone in scientific not represented in these data sets. tion strike was extremely powerful, research. There is certainly a neces- Moreover, funding agencies are much more so than one that would sity for raw data to be understood as essentially punishing clinics for not have simply affected working con- it is, numbers. However, in science, being able to represent data as accu- ditions in these specific clinics. The this inability to place data back in rately and expansively as possible, health workers knew that by with- its original context or source often leaving clinics in a unique predica- holding data from the Ministry of leads to dehumanization and ab- ment and an unending cycle of loss Health, the potential funding for the straction of individuals and people. to follow up of pregnant mothers, next funding cycle from the Global Science can often abstract out the inability to produce raw data, loss Fund and other donors would be very humanity from which their in funding, and subsequently less in jeopardy, and this was exactly data is extracted in the first place. resources to reach out to mothers what occurred. Adams explains themselves. Thus, the IHCC find that “this strike demonstrates that This abstraction is evident within themselves in a position where it is regular and precise production of the pregnant mothers diagnosed almost incentivized to provide data, local health data plays a key role in with HIV. Many of the pregnant if it is falsified. At a conference of the global enterprise” (Adams 2016: mothers enrolled in treatment at the HIV clinics and NGOs in Accra, 106). This data retention strike also the IHCC are unable to come in one administrative officer stood illuminates the importance of data for their one year and 18-month up after a discussion of the HIV collection in biomedical sectors of diagnostic testing of their infants prevalence in pregnant women in developing nations that are receiv- due to the cost of traveling, often Ghana and said “if we tell them the ing funding from other countries. far distances to the IHCC. Howev- prevalence rate is decreasing then As medical anthropologist Claire er, there are certainly many clinics they will give us less money. We Wendland places this significance closer to some of these women’s must continue to provide the upper of data in the context of Western homes. So why are they traveling so bound of 5-6%.” This desperate cry views of biomedicine. According to far to the IHCC in Accra? One of the for falsification in order to continue Wendland, biomedicine, due to its mothers told me, “No one knows to receive adequate funding show- neutrality objectivity, “is also seen me here,” and this sentiment was cases the inability of quantitative as universally and beneficially good” shared by the majority of the wom- data to solely provide an under- (Wendland 2010: 11), and because en that I interviewed that lived far standing of intervention impact in of this, it is constructed as being away from the IHCC. Stigma is still a region. The clinics are forced to completely neutral and void of any a side effect of HIV, one that isn’t take on the roles of the funding unique cultural impetus, allowing it listed on AZT bottles or diagnosis agencies and view their patients as to be freely traded, bought and sold. documents, and it can sometimes be commodities. Montoya brings up a The ability of medicine to transcend the most debilitating aspect of the new conception of the body – body borders “lends itself to globaliza- disease. As a result, it is easier for as commodity, representing the lack tion” (Wendland 2010: 7) and thus these mothers to avoid any seeming- of agency that the body itself pres- makes funding agencies able to re- ly unnecessary trips to the clinic for ents. Rather, the body encompasses duce and abstract the raw data from fear of being seen by someone that a value to its proprietors. Montoya the bodies it was taken. they know. If, at the 6-week mark, conveys the irony in Webster’s

26 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 definition of commodity, relaying body counts in order to expand method, we need to begin pursuing that to say that a thing is “capable” biomedicine from a solely neutral new methods of assessing health is to impute agency to an inanimate and objective field to one that rec- needs and evaluating interven- object. “Such a definition denies the ognizes the importance of cultural tions. This could potentially be in a human role in the process of com- impetus and social determinants metrics model that focuses on more moditization” (Montoya 2011: 120). of health. How can we reach this than just quantitative numbers, or The IHCC and other clinics are, in goal in global health interventions? an entire radical overhaul of this this climate of reliance on numbers, Perhaps a preliminary solution is system in general. Of course, this forced to abstract their own patients that of skepticism – we must be will take time, but in the meantime, and use their body counts as a way skeptic of the quantitative data that we must be able to move toward to receive funding. we see represented in factsheets this direction in global health. We such as those produced annually cannot simply stand by as clinics Conclusion by funding agencies like PEPFAR. are mandated to enforce regulations As Adams explains in her epilogue, that they do not agree with and I argue that global health agencies “‘we need to […] undo their claims while women in Accra, Ghana, and and funding organizations need to on certainty, on standardization and around the world plead with us, change their framework in order truth’ (Adams 2016: 227). Second- saying “What would you do?” to move away from abstraction and ly, and certainly the more difficult

WORKS CITED

2014 PEPFAR Latest's Results. Publication. PEPFAR. 2014.

Adams, Vincanne. Metrics: What Counts in Global Health. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016.

Global Fund’s Approach to Monitoring and Evaluation. Report. Global Fund. 2016.

HIV/AIDS Programme. Report. World Health Organization. 2010.

Montoya, Michael J. Making the Mexican Diabetic: Race, Science, and the Genetics of Inequality. Berkley: University of California Press, 2011.

Nguyen, Vinh-Kim. The Republic of Therapy: Triage and Sovereignty in West Africas Time of AIDS. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.

Wendland, Claire L. A Heart for the Work: Journeys through an African Medical School. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 2010.

contexts.stanford.edu 27 The Role of Masculinity in the English Prison

Josh Cobler

Bright and early, I found myself in Warwickshire.

After a long car ride of green hills and hearing my driver explain why he voted to leave the EU, I entered Her Majesty’s Prison Rye Hill for a morning choral workshop with the people incarcerated there. I found myself swept away com- pletely by the beauty and technical depth of the prison choir and their kindness as they taught me how to harmonize alongside them.

HMP Rye Hill only houses sex offenders. Some of the people around me had committed horrific acts, things that leave such terrible scars on survivors of these actions. And yet they showed themselves to me as complicated people with complicated pasts and complicated ways of seeking redemption.

Over the last month, as I’ve been immersed in the criminal justice system of England & Wales, I’ve been trying to grapple with my own core beliefs—about punishment, about rehabilitation, about judgment, and most importantly, about empathy.

My search for answers has come up short. But what I can tell you is that, espe- cially in my confusion and inner turmoil, the sound of the choir is haunting.

Above is the Facebook post that I wrote and shared the terms. The first prison I visited, HMP Cookham Wood, afternoon after going to Her Majesty’s Prison Rye Hill. was a male juveniles’ prison in Kent, England, incarcer- It was the second male-only prison that I had visited ating boys and young men between the ages of 15 and over the course of my term at Oxford, studying the role 18 in single-occupancy cells. After speaking with some of arts in rehabilitative programs in the English prison of the incarcerated youth, hearing stories that often system. I came in completely unsure what I was going involved recurring themes of poverty and childhood to get: I had no background or personal experience trauma, it was unsurprisingly easy for me to leave the with prisons. In many ways, that lack of exposure was overcrowded prison and say, “How can this be allowed? probably for the best, because it meant that I lacked ex- These are children! They have so much potential in pectations and was able to come as close as possible to their futures if we just give them the opportunity to entering tabula rasa, which can be incredibly useful for succeed!” After all, I believed that children could only being empathetic and hearing people out on their own ever be victims of a broken system, and to incarcerate

28 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 the predominantly working class, Black youth for crimes that came as a result of poverty felt like a gross miscarriage of what I perceived as a just use of the criminal justice sys- tem. This youth prison helped me sidestep the more difficult questions underlying this experience—about punishment, about rehabilitation, about judgment, and most impor- tantly, about empathy—that HMP Rye Hill, a prison that exclusively housed adult male sex offenders, forced me to confront.

Media representations of male-only prisons often showcase spaces of intense masculinity. While imper- fect, these representations were not unlike what I observed; my own ex- A view of the entrance to HMP Rye Hill, a category ‘B’ prison, within which 664 adult perience at HMP Cookham Wood, men are incarcerated. Visitors must provide legal identification upon entry, leave an all-male youth prison, certainly biometric information, and go through strict security processes that include X-Ray had a certain masculine air, with machines and handheld metal detector wands. incarcerated teens often yelling, Credit: Newsteam / SWNS Group. fighting, screaming, and moving in ways that showcased physical The all-male prison is no exception which men must indicate a “po- threats and power. But why was this to this. To conceptualize the specific tential capacity for aggression” that the case? Does the structure of the form of masculinity that appears must be “constantly maintained in prison regime necessitate or even within the English prison system, the face of systemic disrespect and cultivate a particular form of mas- Yvonne Jewkes, a sociologist and re- stigmatization” (Jewkes 2005, 45). It culinity from those incarcerated? searcher on criminality at the Uni- is this potential capacity for aggres- Drawing on participant-observation versity of Bath, writes of a “fratri- sion that I argue is used as a way from rehabilitative art workshops in archy,” a framework that places the for incarcerated men to resist the English, male-only prisons, I argue “facts of male power and feelings structure of the prison. that masculinity within the prison of individual male powerlessness” system is a direct, structural result within the context of a patriarchal Michel Foucault’s Discipline and of the prison, and effective attempts society (Jewkes 2005, 46-47). Un- Punish, a canonical text on the at rehabilitation of incarcerated der fratriarchal environments, men construction and symbolic presence men will require a deconstruction create codes of behavior that glam- of prisons, highlights an overarch- and breakdown of these forms of orize three aspects of masculinity ing theme of the prison environ- masculinity that pervade the prison in particular: impregnating women, ment: dominance. The chapters environment. providing for one’s dependents, and of “The Body of the Condemned” protecting one’s kin. Fratriarchal at- and “Docile Bodies” examine dis- Masculinity itself can imply many titudes, Jewkes argues, are a learned ciplinary power, a form of power meanings, and it is important to response to “the imperatives of the within the prison system that can note that different flavors of mascu- criminal inmate culture,” often a be exercised through hierarchical linity take shape depending on the reproduction and transformation observation and the normalization context and structure it is within. of working-class English culture in of judgment, specifically “imposing

contexts.stanford.edu 29 precise and detailed norms” (Gut- result, incarcerated individuals fear seer, each individual thus exercising ting and Oksala 2019). The purpose losing their limited access to freer this surveillance over, and against, of this disciplinary power is to cre- movement, causing them to surveil himself. A superb formula: power ate docile bodies, bodies that “may themselves and force themselves to exercised continuously and for what be subjected, used, transformed, act in accordance with these forms turns out to be at minimal cost. (De- and improved” (Foucault, 180). In of restricted movement. veaux, 225). doing so, because those who wield power are often institutions such as It is impossible to separate the links Furthermore, if we continue to take the state the exerciser of power, the between these structures of domi- metaphors of performance implic- prison regime[1] that the state imple- nance in prisons from their broad- it within Foucault’s theories, and ments is able to control the bodies er interactions with structures of explicit within feminist scholar- of those within the confines of the patriarchy.[2] Feminist writers have ship, such as that of Judith Butler, prison, manipulating the spaces, frequently expanded on Foucault’s who believed that gender itself is a time, and movements of bodies so work to deepen their analysis of re- performance, it becomes difficult as to render them docile. It is not lations of gender-based power. The to separate the similarities of the difficult for those who have nev- first wave of feminist scholarship performances of the prisoner, forced er entered a prison to imagine the that focused on Foucault saw par- to perform in a way that is compli- ways in which prisons can control allels the transition from sovereign ant with the exertion of disciplinary the space, time, and movement power (power that a king or other power, and women,[3] forced to per- of the incarcerated body, but for sovereign can hold over the body) to form acceptable notions of gender the sake of clarity, I will use HMP modern, disciplinary power (such under the male gaze. In the prison Cookham Wood as an example. as that to create the docile body, system, the male gaze necessitates as described earlier) as fundamen- that men act in accordance with Incarcerated youth at HMP tally similar to the historical shift fratriarchal attitudes of a correct Cookham Wood are kept within in more overt methods of women’s performance of gender, or they strict schedules thanks to the prison oppression to the more insidious find themselves at risk of a “femi- regime; they are kept in solitary ways that women are controlled and nization” that would weaken their cells for much of the day, only to subjugated. One example of this, authority and social system (Jewkes be released during meal times, fitting well with Foucault’s ideas 2005, 47). educational hours, and some brief of surveillance, is the male gaze, socialization periods. Incarcerated which exerts control over the ways In the prison, this link between the youth must be escorted throughout in which people will engage with dominance of disciplinary power the prison, expected to hold their space, time, and movement without and patriarchy become even clearer: hands behind their backs and to the overt threat of physical violence: these structures of dominance cre- walk in orderly lines. As such, space ate a hegemonic masculine culture and time is in the power of the There is no need for arms, physical of fratriarchy. David Gilmore, an prison regime and structure, effec- violence, material constraints. Just anthropologist who argued that tively taken from the incarcerated a gaze. An inspecting gaze, a gaze masculinity across cultures has a youth. This control of movement which each individual under its culturally sanctioned creates docility among the bodies weight will end by interiorising to emphasis on toughness and ag- of incarcerated youth, knowing that the point that he is his own over- gression, writes that the “harsher if they fight against disciplinary power, they may face even more restrictions on their space, time, [1] By regime, I refer to its definition as “a system or ordered way of doing things,” and regime is the term and movement—being moved to a that prisons in the United Kingdom themselves use. [2] Prisons, and the English prison system in particular, cannot be separated from their connection to struc- different ward of the prison, having tures of racial and class domination either. However, a fuller analysis of the links between English prisons, more time extended before reach- race, and class fall outside the scope of this article. ing parole, or losing access to areas [3] While I use women here, the male gaze and heteropatriarchal structures also affect non-binary individu- als, LGBT individuals, and those who might normally be expected to, but ultimately do not such as the recreation center. As a adhere to traditional notions of masculinity.

30 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 the environment and the scarcer tive attempts need to address con- space within the system of disci- the resources, the more manhood ceptions of masculinity: masculinity plinary power and outside of patri- is stressed as inspiration and goal” is prized within the prison, and archy. Other research has shown (Gilmore 1990, 224). Indeed, few while this may provide relief from that arts programs within prisons environments offer “a more intense- the overbearing force of disciplinary can reduce anger from prisoners ly harsh, unproductive, and impov- power, it continues to further the and develop empathy (Wilson et erished set of circumstances than oppression and subjugation of wom- al., 2008), which directly opposes the prison” (Jewkes 51). She writes en through its continued reproduc- hypermasculine performances of that physical jostling for power is tion of patriarchal attitudes and aggression and emotionlessness. But “perhaps especially visible in pris- cultures. most importantly, benefits of arts in ons because they are such blatantly programs in prisons are not always status-depriving environments and The arts, however, can be a useful quantifiable (Cox and Gelsthorpe, therefore create a particularly acute way to subvert this tendency to seek 2012). This is ever more the case need for indices of relative status” resistance out of heteropatriarchal when it comes to deconstructions of (Jewkes, 53). In this way, mascu- structures. A wide variety of schol- masculinity through arts programs. linity and fratriarchy can be under- arly evidence exists suggesting that After all, masculinity and hyper- stood as an act of resistance against the arts have an immense potential masculinity as concepts are difficult the structure of the prison, which is to counter attitudes and behaviors to code and quantify for the purpos- founded upon disciplinary power. arising out of performances of hy- es of quantitative analysis, as these By taking up the performances of permasculinity. The arts themselves take up culturally specific forms aggression, physical strength, and can create a space for “reflection, that take shape in different ways other aspects of masculinity, men community, and consensus build- depending on changing contexts. are able to reclaim a form of “rela- ing” (Williams, 2012), all of which However, the theoretical framing of tive status” that forced docility has can offer the opportunity to find Erving Goffman can shed some light taken from them. It is important to note, yet again, the connection here between disciplinary power and patriarchy: incarcerated men, in their own acts of resistance against their perceived feminization in the state’s attempt to render their bodies docile, are tapping into larger patri- archal structures that privilege mas- culinity over femininity. Femininity in this all-male prison context then becomes less of a gender expres- sion in its own right, and quickly becomes the absence of fratriarchal masculinity—that is, forced docil- ity and the denial of authority and agency. This is an inversion of how we often think of “an act of resis- tance,” which is quite often viewed positively in the context of fighting against oppression; yet here, this act of resistance attempts to leverage Most prisons in England are located in relatively less populated, more rural areas, and those who are incarcerated are often incarcerated in locations away from their home one structure of oppression in order communities. This photo was taken by the author on the drive from Oxford to a village to find relief from a different one. near Ruby in Warwickshire, a small, aging, mostly white village where business ser- This is precisely why any rehabilita- vices have been declining due to the loss of the railway line and station. contexts.stanford.edu 31 on the mechanisms through which by voice register, a necessary ele- in a prison for sex offenders, im- this occurs. Goffman, using the ment of a choir that just as easily pressed and amazed at the kindness language of theater, writes about the could have led to power dynamics and humanity of them all and how frontstage, “where the public aspect between those with more ‘mascu- they defied all my expectations for of one’s identity will be presented line,’ deeper voices and those with an all-male prison. But what was in social engagement with other,” more ‘feminine,’ higher voices, there also haunting was what this showed and the backstage, “where one’s seemed to be no concern over a me about the prison system and basic, personal ontological security need to perform masculinity. Pow- our ideas of rehabilitation. The site system is restored and where the er in the room was not decided by of the choral workshop provided tensions associated with sustaining matters as trivial as voice register. I a critical space for reflection that the particular bodily, gestural, and learned during the choral workshop encouraged a breakdown of the verbal codes that are demanded in break about the interests and lives hegemonic form of masculinity and this setting are diffused,” from a of those in the room—one person fratriarchal attitudes created with- social psychological lens (Jewkes, used to sing on a cruise ship, an- in the prison structure. It became 54). In the prison setting, the gaze other had always wanted to visit immediately clear that these spaces, of the prison forces the frontstage Disneyland, and another was even where incarcerated men were able to to be constantly ‘on,’ never allowing curious about whether gay pride free from the masculine posturing incarcerated people to restore their parades and celebrations were as required of them within the prison, own “personal ontological security large and popular in the United created an opportunity to restore system.” This lack of ontological se- States as he thought they were! As the humanity of those whose in- curity pushes incarcerated men even I wrote in my Facebook post, they carceration had dehumanized them further towards toxic masculinity. each revealed themselves to me “as and provided few means for rehabil- Meanwhile, the arts provide a break complicated people with compli- itation and restorative justice. And from this, allowing a re-scripting cated pasts and complicated ways while these types of arts programs and re-performance of the individ- of seeking redemption.” One of my shouldn’t be seen as a panacea, it is ual such that the backstage can be fears regarding the choral workshop extremely distressing to see these accessed. was that it would be confined spa- programs’ funding frequently at risk tially and temporally to the location of being cut; indeed, the coalition HMP Rye Hill’s choral workshop of the music room at the time of the government of the United King- provides an incredibly interesting weekly choral workshops, but much dom—which saw the right-wing case study of this. It was surprising to my surprise, many of the men Conservative Party and the centrist that, in a prison solely for those sang down the stairs as they exited Liberal Democrats work together convicted of sex offenses, the cho- both the room and the recreation in government from 2010–2015— ral workshop seemed to be a space building. The constant need to slashed funding for arts programs in devoid of the typical forms of mas- perform masculinity seemed to no prisons (Robertson 2013). culinity seen in the English prison. longer be necessary, neither in the The workshop room was a space space of the choral workshop nor At the same time, as arts programs where the jostling of power that the areas surrounding it. in prisons continue gasping for Jewkes describes was no longer rel- air, trying to survive the difficult evant; the fratriarchal posturing— “My search for answers has come political realities of being connect- the yelling, fighting, screaming, up short,” I wrote back in Febru- ed to prisons and being viewed as and moving in ways that showcased ary. “But what I can tell you is that, ‘non-essential,’ I worry that we may physical threats and power—that especially in my confusion and lose sight of the overarching struc- I had expected ultimately never inner turmoil, the sound of the tural problems with prisons in the appeared, despite the fact that I choir is haunting.” Upon further first place. If there is anything that was a stranger entering their space, reflection, the aspect of it that was has haunted me since my visit to which just as easily could have set so confusing, that created so much the two prisons—and made even off for them to perform strength to turmoil, that haunted me was the clearer by diving into the topic of us. Even in the separation of people incongruity of it all—here I was, masculinity in prison—it is that

32 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 the prison system is not working, as men needed to adopt in order to sites of punishment and instead its very structure only reproduces survive, no amount of choral prac- look toward a site of restoration and replicates forms of oppression tices, painting classes, woodworking ones in which—like the choral within prison cultures. An opti- workshops, or Shakespeare plays workshop—new spaces of self-re- mistic observer might come to the within prisons will be able to fix the flection can be created, and rehabili- conclusion that the prison as an underlying structural problem of tation can occur. institution is broken. But instead, I prisons, even if these arts programs would posit that it is working exact- do immense good in the meantime. Based on my own experience as a ly as designed. The prison system as It is not the lack of arts programs participant-observer in an arts pro- it exists today in England is not set that is the underlying problem in gram whose goal was rehabilitation, up for rehabilitation. It is created to the failure for prisons to rehabilitate it seems that the English prison has punish. The exertion of disciplinary those incarcerated within them; it’s never served as a site for complicat- power within the prison regime is the institution and site of the pris- ed people with complicated pasts not an unintentional consequence; on itself, the way that the prison to find ways of seeking redemption. rather, it occurs there by design. regime replicates and recreates Maybe instead of funneling work- patterns of structural violence. To ing class English men into prisons While arts programs like the ones disrupt this violence, we must go that only reify violence, it’s time we I participated in were useful in bolder than looking to the prison as build those redemptive institutions disrupting the fratriarchal attitudes a justified site to separate those we instead. and behaviors that incarcerated deem criminal. We must go beyond

WORKS CITED

Cox, Alexandra, and Loraine Gelsthorpe. "Creative encounters: whatever happened to the arts in prisons?" The Arts of Imprisonment: Control, Resistance and Empowerment (2012): 255-274.

Deveaux, Monique. "Feminism and empowerment: A critical reading of Foucault." Feminist studies 20.2 (1994): 223-247.

Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books.

Gilmore, David. 1990. Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Gutting, Gary and Oksala, Johanna. 2019. “Michel Foucault.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2019 Edition, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Accessed July 30, 2020. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/foucault/.

Jewkes, Yvonne. "Men Behind Bars: “Doing” Masculinity as an Adaptation to Imprisonment." Men and Masculinities 8.1 (2005): 44-63.

Roberston, Tim. “Arts in Prison: Why Cut Our Chance to Create Crime-Free Futures?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 25 Nov. 2013, www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2013/nov/25/arts-re hab-crime-criminal-justice.

Wilson, Catherine, et al. "Promoting forgiveness in violent offenders: A more positive approach to offender rehabilitation?" Aggression and Violent Behavior 13.3 (2008): 195-200.

Williams, Rachel Marie-Crane. "Teaching and learning: The pedagogy of arts education in prison settings." The Arts of Imprisonment: Control, Resistance and Empowerment (2012): 233-242.

contexts.stanford.edu 33 the city. Through a case study an- alyzing trends in visual art in the souvenir industry in Cape Town, in- Travel-Sized Sites: herently linked to memories of colo- nialism and apartheid, it is possible to identify by which images tourists Art, Souvenirs, and want to remember South Africa, the evolutionary “Motherland” of hu- manity, and how the industry both Tourism (and Subversion, caters to and subverts this Western gaze.

While anthropology has always Capitalism, and Erasure) included artifacts from even before the museum system from the 19th century, modern souvenir studies, in South Africa despite its shallow existing academ- ic scholarship, spans a multitude of disciplines (Swanson and Timothy, Lilith Frakes 289-299). Consumer behavior, art history, geography, museum studies, anthropology, history, philosophy, Tourism as a practice deserves alence of the tourism industry in retailing, literary criticism, and so- heavy scrutiny. Few can disagree South Africa, specifically in regards ciology all play a part in analyzing that the underlying principle of to souvenir purchases by tourists. the status of souvenirs and tourist tourist travel enables its participants This topic is made more complex by commodities within their contexts to be exposed to cultures, coun- South Africa’s history of colonial- of selling, and the people who tries, and customs other than their ism (under the Dutch and English) choose to buy them. The term itself, own. However, the implications of and apartheid (the institutionalized souvenir, “is originally a French tourism set amongst 21st century social and political policy by which verb indicating the action to remem- world politics, class difference, and White South Africans controlled a ber. Translated as an English noun it race dynamics calls to question stratified society based upon racial represents an object through which more actively the intentions of the categories from 1948 to its repeal something is remembered” (Olalere, tourists (specifically Western) when in 1991). The findings of my own 1). Pierre Noara’s famous “lieux de traveling to the Global South. The field work in a case study of visual memoire” (or “sites of memory”) rise of the tourism industry and art for sale in Cape Town attempt refers to the certain places or objects commercialization of cultures that to unpack trends in tourist art that of heritage or cultural value that has resulted has produced massive cater to Westerners’ conceptions of evokes powerful memories of heri- markets of souvenirs curated for Africa, but also how such art can tage to communities (Nora, 7). In a the Western tourist gaze. In South be used for identity claims in South similar way, after their acquisition, Africa, souvenirs within the tourism African communities and an exam- souvenirs can in a similar way act as industry, has created contensta- ple of how tourist art can be sub- portable “sites of memory” to their tion in the status of art and what verted to tell a different story about owners. Yet despite the exciting it is meant to evoke to its purchas- what South Africa looks like. Last implications of what souvenirs can er. This paper will provide a brief summer while working as an intern mean, they are often disregarded overview of Souvenir Studies and at the Iziko Museum’s Archaeology as a serious field of study. Perhaps debates within the discipline about department in Cape Town, I had the this comes from their duality; being authenticity and primitive art fol- opportunity to conduct “field work” “simultaneously granted signifi- lowed by a discussion of the prev- in various souvenir markets across cance and disregarded” (Ramsay,

34 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 200). Souvenirs are regarded highly production, or by indigenous people ism unpopular in South Africa be- by their purchasers, and yet often to who cultural significance has be- fore the democratic election of 1994, discounted by academics as a “mis- come synonymous with the tourist but afterwards [the country] was guided preoccupation” of tourists industry. Such debates of authentic- opened up more to tourism both as (Swanson, 491). ity and agency within souvenir con- an economic opportunity, and as sumption find fertile ground within a way to bolster national identity Much of this debate centers around the tourism industry in 21st century (Grundlingh, 120). The development ideas of authenticity, as many souve- South Africa. of tourist sites in many post-colonial nirs stake a claim to a preserved countries is, at least in part, seen culture or tradition while inherently Here it is important to make a as desirable because of the slew of existent “for commercialization to distinction in the categories that “economic potential” which accom- generate income” (Swanson, 491). fall under souvenirs, especially re- panies tourism (Barillet, iiv), and Most tourists themselves hold a no- garding “primitive art.” In the 19th powerful Western institutions such tion of what constitutes the “authen- century, the Arts and Crafts Move- as UNESCO and the World Bank tic” in the space they have chosen ment in the US and Europe was have aided this process, creating to visit before they even arrive, and grounded in a yearning for a pre-in- many World Heritage Sites in South typically evaluate souvenirs to bring dustrial past, one that affirmed “the Africa both in relation to its colo- home by that personal standard joy of labor” and shifted relative nial and apartheid histories. And, (Swanson, 492). And yet, the range value towards those qualities as- with a staggering upward growth of souvenirs that people choose to sociated with craft (Davis, 196). projected to reach almost 20 million encapsulate their memories of a The distinction between “craft” and international tourists by the year certain space differ wildly. Arriving “art” in the perceived collective and 2023, the tourism industry in South home with a purchased souvenir, utilitarian nature of objects “places Africa has certainly succeeded in the object can capture what quali- emphasis is on ‘skill’ of the produc- becoming an economic pillar of the ties the tourist found unique about er (‘artisan’) versus ‘genius’ (‘artist’)” country (Lock, 2019). Surveys from their place of travel, and embody (Davis, 196). The emphasis placed the Ministry of Tourism indicate how they chose to shape that mem- on objects created by hand alludes that the top five overseas countries ory (Swanson, 492). Thus, authen- to older technologies of production with the largest number of tourists ticity is in the eye of the beholder, and social relations to other peo- visiting South Africa were the USA, who arrives in a foreign land with ple, and thus souvenirs as such are UK, Germany, the Netherlands and a preconceived idea of what about “primitive” artifacts of a backwards France (“Tourism and Migration”). it is “authentic” and returns home society that tourists want to recall. Though most of these economic with evidence of this predisposi- This “‘taste for the objects of colo- gains are reaped by the corporations tion in the form of souvenirs. To nial others’ by elites distraught by owning hotels or tourism packages souvenir producers and sellers, the the rise of consumer capitalism is (domestic and international), for importance of “commoditiz[ing] the the assertion of a pan-humanism many, involvement in the tourist in- intangible meanings of souvenirs, that is, nonetheless, hierarchical” dustry in South Africa comes in the and turn[ing] them into a tangible, (Davis, 196). The connection that form of selling souvenirs to tourists. consumable product[s] for sale” has many want their souvenirs to impart impacted the shape of the industry about the culture they have visited However, an industry based around in countries that are economically promises to transcend the global the commodification of memory in a shaped by being tourist destina- hierarchy of race and class when it nation still reeling from the trauma tions (Swanson, 494). The resulting only serves to further perpetuate it. of racism and discriminatory state commoditization process has been policies is not without contestation. criticized for “stealing the spirit” of Tourism arose as a major industry Motivations, especially by Western the artwork it boasts to be authentic within the South African economy white tourists to visit South Africa (Swanson, 495), as made-in-mass in the wake the end of apartheid have been met with deserved scru- by people who have no cultural (Mathers, 526). Political unrest and tiny, because as national narratives attachment to their products or human rights violations made tour- begin to be challenged “for their contexts.stanford.edu 35 depictions of society and its past, benign intent of each of these words almost twice as authentic to tourists tourism continue[s] to provide a safe it is important to problematize what as seeing it on a shelf, much to the haven for a troubled history that has come to be perceived as authen- irony that the human connection glorifies colonial adventure and a tic, connecting, and empowering to that validates the purchase is itself repudiated anthropology of primi- a market built around the perpet- a staging of authenticity for the tivism” (Witz, 277). As scholarship uation of what tourists want to re- benefit of the tourist. The idea of has investigated, most international member their time in Africa by. As “connection” as a desirable quality tourists aim to fill their itinerary previously mentioned, the search for in souvenir consumption is thus a in South Africa with visits to game authenticity is central to selecting fabrication as well. parks (Mathers, 527), “cultural souvenirs. What makes an object villages” (Mathers, 527), townships “authentic,” on the other hand is Ironically, a disruption of the hierar- (Witz, 286), and the city capital hard to pin down. Some anthro- chy of race and class is exactly what Cape Town (Burgold, 169). These pologists have pointed to attributes tourists try to achieve when pur- encounters have been propelled in including “product uniqueness; chasing a souvenir that carries im- part by the government’s interest in cultural and historical integrity; the plications of “empowerment” of the boosting tourism with acts and doc- craft’s utilitarian function; esthetics; venders. One prevelant example of uments detailing the framework for quality of workmanship; the artist’s “pro-poor” tourism in South Africa development in the industry (Heath, connection to the product, having are township tours (also known as 282), and are overwhelmingly dom- produced it with his or her own slum tourism), where buses of inter- inated by tourist’s desire “to experi- hands; [and] being able to watch national tourists are taken through ence at one and the same time a trip the artisan in his or her creative townships, a form of apartheid relo- into a primeval ‘natural’ past and element” (Swanson, 492). Interest- cation housing for citizens classified traditional ‘African’ culture” (Ma- ingly, many of these criteria focus as black. A remnant of the racist thers, 527). And because accord- just as much on the object’s creator architecture of apartheid, townships ing to “the South African Tourism and their process of creation as it embody the real systemic oppres- department, shopping and nightlife does the souvenir itself. Sellers are sion against black South Africans are the top activities for tourists in aware of this romanticized appeal that has not been dismantled under South Africa” (Olalere, 1), this rep- and many integrate it into their sale the new South African democra- resentation to tourists of a “frozen... technique, working to “enchant cy. Though regarded as “morally peculiar Disney-like version of its objects [to buyers] by fostering a dubious” by some, township tours past and present” (Mathers, 533) is sense of attachment to objects and are marketed by tour companies predominantly apparent in the sou- their place of production/purchase” as having educational and philan- venirs that tourists buy. (Ramsay, 204). This sense of trans- thropic values through witnessing parency of production and familiari- the difficulty of life in townships, as In a fascinating study conducted ty with the creator makes the object well as exposing tourists to the “au- from 2012 to 2016, over 360 inter- as a souvenir a richer source of thentic Cape Town” (Burgold, 162). national tourists in South Africa memory. Not only can this souvenir In fact, one opportunity all town- were surveyed “to examine the then encapsulate a sort of histor- ship tours boast of engagement with influence of product attributes on ic sense of preservation in South local habitants through purchasing souvenir purchasing decisions” African culture and remind one of souvenirs. Thus, through physi- (Olalere, 3). In survey responses, their time on the country , but it cally handing money to a former the three highest reasons provided also calls to mind a social connec- victim of racist policy, the facade as to why tourists choose to buy tion to its creator, and thus a sense of financial empowerment to the the souvenirs they did were be- of knowing a “real” South African. local poor is enacted, while tourism cause of the item’s “authenticity,” This sense of attachment to both companies make the real profit. the “connection” it fostered, and the product and production creates a This transaction allows the tourist purchase’s ability to foster “em- sort of “double fetish” to consum- to feel they have “empowered” the powerment” for the maker or seller ers (Ramsay, 204), the notion that local individual through purchasing (Olalere, 5). Despite the seemingly seeing an object made makes it a souvenir, when in fact, tourism

36 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 income through such avenues is one Keeping this analysis of the primary ber of stalls in Cape Town alone governmental technique to ignore attractions tourists hold for South that sell (and oftentimes create the citizens who still suffer from African souvenirs in mind, it is on sight) paintings make it clear the same living conditions today as possible to narrow the scope of dis- that the tourist market platforms when they did under apartheid. And cussion to one specific category of hand-painted representations as one thus, “the tourism industry and its souvenir prevalent in South Africa; of the most valued souvenir reflect- supposed potential for poverty al- visual art. Of any type of souvenir, ing their view of South Africa. In leviation is exposed as, if anything, pictographic representations may be the pursuit of defining what tour- an agent for supporting the con- the most straight forward in terms ists want to remember from “The tinuation of apartheid geography” of examining what tourists wish to Motherland,” identifying patterns in (Mathers, 528). remember their trips by. The num- visual tourist art is essential.

(fig. 1, Frakes)

Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 show examples of the ubiquity of representations of African animals in art marketed to tourists in Cape Town. (fig. 2, Frakes) contexts.stanford.edu 37 Taking to the streets of Cape Town exotic, depicting the abundance of to identify said patterns, I identi- wildlife one will scarcely find away fied two pervasive motifs stood out, from fenced game parks that take perhaps the most common being governmental priority to restorative representations of African animals. land distribution. In purchasing As game drives and safari parks paintings of typically African an- are such a popular draw to inter- imals as souvenirs to remember national tourists, this is not wholly South Africa by, the tourist engag- surprising. The notoriety of the “Big es in a sort of fantasy of an idyllic Five” most famous African animals colonial-era fantasy, where what is (lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, “African” is at the disposal of the and Cape buffalo) has drawn West- Western gaze, and can exist even erners since the colonial era, to hunt after colonial forces have destroyed or more recently to see in their “nat- the landscape and ecology they ural” environments. In fact, across choose to remember. the world, foreign animals inspire When pieces of souvenir art aren't a staggering amount of souvenirs, depicting wild animals, the majority perhaps because they encapsulate point to a second trend in street art what is exotic and familiar about in Cape Town, depictions of faceless a place “whilst at the same time black people. Often placed among retaining the foreignness and mys- idyllic tribal scenes and dressed in tery of a historic culture” (Beard, matching traditional clothing, these 514). This allure for the foreign yet figures harken back to a scene that familiar is the same one that drove most tourists will not see reflected (fig. 3, Frakes) European game hunters in the 19th in their visit to South Africa, yet one century to flock to South Africa, they evidently wish to remember of colonial settlers, wherein they aiding colonial expansion, displac- the country by. These images por- have to ability to “buy” black bod- ing indigenous people, devastating tray anonymous black bodies, ubiq- ies, which are depersonalized and flora and fauna, and providing a uitously dissolving individuals to a turned into abstract bodies without clear example of the Global North faceless black population in a way lived experience or humanity. If as a consumer for the Global South’s that appears to other Africans while the dominant presence of such art “raw material” (“History of Hunt- fetishizing their pre-colonial ways in the tourist market places can be ing”). In many ways, the Western of life. This dissolution of individ- correlated to what images tourists colonial drive to capture the em- uality harkens back to the division readily consume as souvenirs, these bodiment of a wild frontier lives that divides primitive crafts from paintings indicate that tourists want on through these souvenirs. More high art, that idea of the individual to remember an othered, simple , often than not, these depict African genius as opposed to the collective and undeveloped version of South animals devoid of setting or con- uniformity of primitive production. Africa, one that exists outside of text, some painted in bright surreal These depictions also frequently time and the progress they associate colors. If the most common trend include individual silhouettes of with their own societies. among paintings for sale to tourists black African women (fig. 3 hold in South Africa is surreal depic- several examples). Voluptuous and Art made for tourists often reinforc- tions of African animals, it begs the sexualized, they are treated sim- es what tourists want to see in order question of what such images are ilarly to the faceless masses in so to be profitable. And, in turn, this selected to evoke of tourists’ time far that they are defined by their art can skew tourists’ perceptions of in the country. It stands to reason bodies, unidentifiable and in mass, the destination and its cultures in that paintings such as displayed in available for purchase to the west- ways that are inaccurate and stereo- figures 1 and 2 call to mind a sort ern buyer. Such paintings posit typical. Western tourists specifically of wild paradise, uncivilized and Western tourists in the position “seek out artefacts that are clearly

38 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 conceived, often over-simplified plified Pan-African iconography notion that they have of the place were confirmed from the view of before they go). This paper thus far a South African citizen, but rather has examined the subjectivity of than seeing these patterns as one authenticity in tourist art in Cape which is utilized through the tour- Town based on the tourists’ concep- ist gaze to paint an unsophisticated tion of South Africa, and in doing and portrait of an entire continent, so has privileged this gaze even she recast them as a tool to ground through deconstructing it. identity claims in post-apartheid South African society. However, it is critical to remember that the Western tourist gaze is not Analyzing a final case study of sub- the only one. During the time of verting tropes in tourist art while my research I was fortunate enough bearing in mind the subjectivity to be working as an intern in the of what constitutes authenticity in Archeology and Collections depart- South African art, and the precon- ments of the Iziko South African ceptions a western author brings Museums. Discussing the goals of to this discussion, can reveal how this research paper with my South tourist art can be subverted to tell African colleague and supervisor in a different story about what South the collections department, Janene Africa looks like through souvenirs. Van Wyk, I was made aware of a Amongst the typical patterns in perspective I had not yet consid- South African visual art marketed (fig. 4, Frakes) ered; that of how ubiquitously Af- to tourists, the image in Figure 5 rican art can operate within circles stands out as a unique perspective Fig. 3 and Fig.4 illustrates another trend of “colored” South Africans (the on the city of Cape Town. The set- in art popular in public marketplaces apartheid category for mixed raced ting itself stands apart from most art in the city. Images of numerous, faceless Africans, often including an indigenous citizens that has continued after the available, it is grounded in the city and tribal motif, dominate common dismanteling of that legal system). itself and depicts a realistic scene, tourist marketplaces. After discussing my conclusions re- not that of an idealized African garding the status of South African Savanna, but the color, people, and tourist art, [she?] responded: even the trash in the streets of Cape Town. Figure 5 also privileges the recognisable as ‘African.’ South Af- You say tourist art, but these things, angle of perspective of someone rica does not always fit the mold of like they sell in the square, these walking on the street, providing a what foreigners expect from Africa, things I see all over my colored mechanism of framing that fore- a continent that retains an image friend’s homes. The coaster sets grounds the maze-like shops of of primitiveness, wildness and raw with African animals on them or Cape Town streets, and the natural emotional expression, and to some the bright paintings of people on the beauty of the mountains that sur- extent builds its tourist industry on wall. But this is not in the home of a round the Cape as looming, distant, this image” (Mathers, 531). Within Zulu or Xhosa, they have this idea of and unreachable through the city’s this cyclical method of produc- their people. They tell colored people infrastructure. Interestingly, many tion between what tourists want to “you have no culture” -- I have had of these barriers call to mind the see and what is made available for some cheeky bastards say it to my architecture of apartheid and colo- them, authenticity appears to exist face! But for colored people... those nial powers which exerted control solely in the eye of the beholder, African images are there (van Wyk). over black African movement and that is if the beholder is a western freedom. Table Mountain was an tourist (that souvenirs exist for the Through this conversation the important place to Khoisan peoples purposes of tourism and the pre- identified generic troupes of sim- of the Cape before Dutch coloniza- contexts.stanford.edu 39 tion forced indigenous people off of the land. Access to the mountain became restricted to the Afrikaans elite during the colonial period (Van Sittert, 163), and was also racially restricted during aparthied to white recreational climbers (Bam-Hutchi- son, 18th July), Today, a cable car ride up Table Mountain is a luxury few colored or black residents of Cape Town can afford, and is pre- dominantly utilized by white South Africans and tourists. These ongo- ing political disputes of land access in current day South Africa can be traced back to the country’s colonial era, and the barrier to entry that (fig. 5, Frakes) This photo depicts a potential antithesis to the trends previously the black population experiences in outlined in the paper, focusing on the lived reality and politics of contemporary regards to the land, itself a signif- Cape Town rather than on the faceless African collectives or big game animals icant site of memory and heritage, more commonly found. does not restrict access to white South Africans and tourists (Van Sittert, 162). In Figure 5 that re- placeed “far more importance...on Figure 5 is a piece of tourist art striction in access to land is accen- their products’ profitability than which seemingly subverts the tuated and explored. The building the well-being of the black Afri- expectations of what most tourists to the left bears a massive crucifix cans who produced, delivered, or seek in souvenirs of South Africa and the words “God is Love.” South consumed the soft drinks” (Spivey, (according to figures 1-4). In fact, Africa is a predominantly Christian ii), utilizing the governmentally despite its intended audience and county, but Christianity is often institutionalized racism to under- colors indicative of tourist art, this seen as an oppressive force and a pay black laborers. The personal painting seems to blur the line colonially-imported form of control testimony given to Dr. Bam-Hutchi- between the qualifications of prim- (Bam-Hutchison, 18th July). Howev- son’s class of a woman growing itive tourist art, and simply “art.” er, under the structure of apartheid, up under apartheid illustrates the However, at the end of the day the the Church was one of the few sanc- lived reality of oppression that the tourist industry is built around tioned places to gather, and thus American institution took part in, what its consumers want to memo- became a form of assembly utilized as her older brother dropped out of rialize about their time in Africa, to enable revolution under apartheid school at sixteen in order to provide and pontificating about how this as well (Bam-Hutchison, 18th July). his four siblings, and after a full day painting may balance my previous of work at the Coca-Cola bottling opinion about the all-encompass- The shop on the right hand side of plant, could afford a rare meal for ing oppressive nature of the tourist the street in the painting displays a his siblings of white bread and a industry on the arts in the tourism massive “Coca-Cola” logo, a com- shared bottle of coke. Between these driven economy of South Africa, mon sight when walking the streets two buildings in figure 5, there is an may in actuality be a ploy to justify of the city. However, the popularity aptly placed door bearing the sign what I want to buy into about my of coke in South Africa traces back “no entry,” indicative of the forces of own time in Cape Town. Howev- to a history rooted in the corpora- religion and capitalism (both forces er, through analyzing souvenirs as tion's exploitation of black workers of colonial and apartheid power) sites of memory that reflect a tour- under the apartheid system. During which work to constrict black Afri- ist’s representation of a place after apartheid, the Coca-Cola company cans. they have gone home, survey work

40 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 done of the predominantly Western the function of these paintings as cater to the tourist gaze of predom- tourist’s souvenir purchases in Cape reflections of Cape Town. This art inantly Western consumers. As Town has revealed that they evalu- also has a place in claims of iden- objects of both cultural and capital ated the purchases they made as be- tity in the scene of post-apartheid value, the status of souvenirs within ing authentic, creating connections, identity politics of South African the tourism industry of South Africa and for purposes of empowering communities today. Of course, to will always be contested to a certain the seller. These criteria are used to say visual tourist art in the city of degree, and their role as portable examine the biggest trends in South Cape Town is a monolithic category sites of memory will vary accord- African visual tourist art for sale would be a faulty generalization. ingly, depending on their owners’ in markets across the city of Cape An analysis of Figure 5, a piece of associations; be it colonialist atti- Town, and how this art is catered to visual art sold in a tourist market tudes, claims to identity politics, or the Western Tourist Gaze. However, in Cape Town appears to subvert a lovely vacation. this argument itself privileges the the tourist market’s aforementioned Western gaze though its analysis of biggest trends and a proclivity to

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contexts.stanford.edu 41 MEET THE AUTHORS

Layo Laniyan (‘22) is a sophomore from Houston, Texas, and he has called the city home for 11 years. His parents immigrated to the US one year before he was born, and he is the oldest of three. The experiences of his parents immigrating and acclimat- ing to the US largely motivated his gravitation to studying nar- rative and race at Stanford. He is majoring in English, with an interdisciplinary concentration in race, ethnicity, and represen- tations of the body. Within the major, he is interested in post- colonial literature, Black studies, comparative race studies, and literary theory. He is specifically interested in researching how representations of the Black body manifest in literature and how those manifestations underlie larger interactions between the raced body and established structures in the United States (such as the legal and medical institutions). He is also interested in the intersections between literature, anthropology, and the medical sciences. He hopes to combine these focuses in future research. Outside of classes and research, he loves urban dance, soul food, and watching The Good Place.

Caroline Aung (‘20) is a senior from Austin, Texas studying medical anthropology. She is interested in the intersections be- tween ethnography, medical ethics, community-based participa- tory research, and public health. Through the Stanford Ethics in Society Honors program, she is writing a thesis about the social and ethical dimensions of treating hospice patients who hope against their imminent death. After graduation, she hopes to further explore how anthropological perspectives can be applied beyond academia to promote the health and wellbeing of mar- ginalized populations. She loves listening to indie-rock, reading and attempting to write poetry, and casual running.

42 CONTEXTS Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology Volume 12 | 2019-2020 MEET THE AUTHORS

Mahima Krishnamoorthi (’20) is from Modesto, CA and is concentrating in Medical Anthropology. She has specific interests in understanding the sociocultural discourse of particularly de- bated biomedical topics like HIV and abortion. Her undergraduate honors thesis focused on the impact of stigma on care and support networks for women in the Bay Area who have abortions. At Stan- ford, Mahima was involved as a volunteer at Cardinal Free Clinics, a teaching assistant for the university’s comprehensive sexual health education course, and a research assistant at the Global Child Health lab in the Stanford School of Medicine. Following gradu- ation, Mahima will be moving to New York to conduct women’s health research during a gap year before medical school.

Josh Cobler (’20) is a junior majoring in anthropology and mi- noring in economics. His research broadly explores the experienc- es of students at highly-selective universities, with a more specific focus on understanding how race, gender, sexuality, and geographic identity shapes students’ understandings and self-definitions of their own class identities.

Lilith Frakes (‘21) (she/her) is junior at Stanford University, ma- joring in Anthropology and Comparative Literature. Previous pub- lications include several book reviews for John's Hopkins' Imagine magazine, and several pieces featured in the Leland Quarterly Win/ Spr '19 edition. Frakes is passionate about questions of heritage anthropology and archaeology, tourism, decolonization, art, and non-human primates. Though the covid-19 pandemic has halted fieldwork for the foreseeable future, Frakes hopes to continue inves- tigating these topics personally and academically.

contexts.stanford.edu 43