CELEBRATING MAY10 25 YEARS!

by LAUREN (Robi n ) D e R by CSW Male Heroism, Demonic Pigs, and Memories of Violence in the Haitian-Dominican Borderlands1

1 MAY 10 MAY 10

Community Building, 21st Century style!

During Women’s History Month, Gloria hot-button issues. In “Climates, Clocks, and In an interview in this month’s issue, Steinem remarked, “If I could have one wish Kids,” graduate students and faculty shared Lucy Burns praises CSW’s support: “CSW has for the women’s movement worldwide, it their experiences making critical decisions been incredibly committed to junior fac- would be to have feminist groups every- about family planning, career timelines, ulty, especially junior faculty of color. I have where. We’re communal creatures. We need and the impacts of institutional climates. benefited greatly from that…. In my time to gather together once a week or once a Participants talked of networks of very close as an Assistant Professor here at UCLA, CSW month and discover we’re not alone, and friends and supportive partners as crucial has been one of the most supportive units to be able to tell the truth together.” She to having children while pursuing academic outside of my department.” Reaching across expressed this wish in response to a ques- careers. In the April issue, Daniella Perry the campus continues to be crucial to CSW’s tion about who was at the forefront of the reported on the workshop and shared her mission. Now, we also reach across the women’s movement now. For her, leader- thoughts about the importance of getting country and around the globe through our ship was less an issue than community. and giving support while pursuing a PhD website and listservs, our site on the Califor- Steinem lives her words, keeping up an and a family. In “PhDs: Careers beyond the nia Digital Library, and our Facebook page active network of political allies, writing Academy,” a distinguished group of women and Twitter account. Become a fan or follow groups, and retreats as a foundation for her who chose not to pursue an academic us and get regular updates! political engagement, her writing, and her career shared their experiences and advice activism. Fostering a supportive commu- with a group of about fifty graduate stu- –Kathleen McHugh nity is crucial to the mission of CSW and we dents in disciplines ranging from astrophys- cultivate it in a number of ways. This year, a ics to women’s studies. In the June issue, series of workshops, brought scholars and Jaimie Baron will be writing a report about graduate students together around several the workshop.

3 Male heroism, conitinued from page 1 ast July, I spoke with Gumercindo Sebala alias “el ranchero,” who told me Lthe story of a harrowing trip home on his motorcycle to the tiny provincial central frontier town of Bánica, Dominican Republic. Bánica is located right on the banks of the Artibonite river, which is the official border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Like most residents, Sebala is a small-scale subsistence farmer who raises pigs, goats, and cattle. It was night and he was on his motorcycle when he was forced to stop due to a very large tree—perhaps a Ceiba— which had fallen across the road, blocking his way. He got off his bike confounded by the tree since it was a species that is not quickly as it had appeared. When he arrived goats and to amass wealth. Strongmen such common in the region today, looked around, home, he told his landlady about the episode, as the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, the only to be accosted by a beast he could who asserted with complete confidence that Haitian outlaw Charlemagne Peralte, and the not immediately recognize. He had trouble it had been a bacá, an evil spirit prepared by notorious Tonton Macoutes have been said 2 identifying the creature that jumped onto the someone for purposes of sorcery. to have had such powers of transformation. trunk. Resembling a dog or a pig, he finally This essay seeks to interpret a particular They are hot spirits, which are difficult to concluded it must have been a jabali, a kind version of stories about a highly feared control, and often entail a sacrifice; they can of feral boar with long whiskers that was phenomena called bacá—imaginary hybrid even turn on their owners. In the Dominican common in the area into the 1970s. Thinking beasts that steal farm animals, harvests, central frontier town of Bánica, butchers told to himself lo mato o me mata (“I kill it or it kills and cash through shape-shifting. Created me stories about sheep that meowed, goats me”), he grabbed his gun just as the animal by sorcerers, bacás are spirit creatures that with pigs’ tails, person with pig ears, and bulls disappeared, vanishing into the night as enable people to become dogs, cats, pigs, and which cried like a baby—animals which were 4 MAY10 CSWupdate Interviews, Bánica, Dominican Republic, July, 2009 Translated transcription of stories about Creole vs. Gringo Pigs; swine fever massacre 1979; and a bacá sighting, in which it appeared as a jarabali or creole feral pig.

“El Ranchero” Sebala – the others were better quality? – Exactly. Tastier. Let’s take an example. The Gringo chicken and the Creole chicken don’t have the same taste. One has to have an example. They don’t taste the same. That’s it. Those (Creole) pigs are the ones with the best tasting meat. Because the Creole pigs have such taste that if you taste some today, you want to keep on eating it. That’s the truth. – like the Gringo chicken? – yes, and the Creole Guinea fowl. That’s how they are, and that’s how we are too. If I know someone’s selling Creole chicken, I will buy it all up. If Pipil over there has killed a goat, I will ask him, Pipil, is it a creole goat or an Americano? Give it to me – even if it’s only the feet, head, the liver, and I will buy it because I really like creole goat. Click on image to watch video. – the taste is really good. – The swine flu has always existed here. We call it cacedó. But Ramón Alcantara what happened was that the Americans wanted to sell their – so was it the same to care for the two types of pigs? product. So they killed the ones here to replace them with white – no, these (Gringo pigs) sometimes do not like to eat scrapings pigs. of yucca, mango. They (Creole pigs) ate everything. Sometimes – Were there protests, or did people hide their animals, because I these don’t eat household leftovers. would think that people were desperate, especially the poor? – so like Gringos they are spoiled? – there were national protests and municipal protests. And some – yes that’s it! people hid them (their pigs) in the mountains, very hidden, and even today, there are people who have these pigs hidden in the hills. There was a path that not everyone entered – but they

5 MAY10 CSWupdate know the mountains, and they know every corner, nook – a pig? and crevice. – I could not say what kind it was. It was an animal but I could not and they put them there, and even today that type of pig distinguish what type. For example, you are here, and it goes still exists. “prrr” and away it goes. That’s what happened to me. – are they wild? – like a chupacabra? – not really – they are kept tied up. They tie them up or put – something like that. And it went like this… them in a pig pen and they keep them there. And those – It flew? are the best tasting pigs. – no. – I had my gun ready to kill it. I always have my firearm just in case. Bacá Sighting If I go out during the day or at night – not with a bad intention, of – I was coming on my motorcycle from San Juan to here, course. It was a strange thing, though. It had a large snout (pico) and I saw a large stick in the road – but not your average as if it was a jarabali – one of those pigs – one of the wild pigs that stick – it was huge – and I said how does a stick of that had the whiskers. size appear in the road? Here there are no large trees – no – yes, that has large teeth. Ceiba of that size. I stopped to see what it was. I thought, – that’s it! I kill it or it kills me – I am always prepared – it kills me – and that has long hairs on either side of the mouth, those long or I kill it, right? So something is strange if I’ve never seen whiskers. such a huge branch before, right? So I see it. And I say, – so maybe it was a wild Creole boar? ok, let’s see what it is. I am always armed, not with any – that’s what I say – that it was a wild boar. So I thought it was a intention but – you never know – to defend myself. And I jarabali – one of that kind of wild pig. That’s what we call them. saw an animal – and I am looking at it and it at me – and But it never stopped. then it hopped like this, like this – and I am thinking what – a jarabali is a cimarrón pig. is going to happen now? And on top of a huge stick. And – and that has long whiskers around the mouth. And I was afterwards, when I arrived here, Alicia, who still lived here, watching it and it disappeared. I didn’t know why. It must have said, “well, that was a bacá.” This was Alicia’s home then. left very fast. That’s what I think. – Did you see the animal? – yes. – What kind was it? – that I cannot say – a dog, a goat. I could not tell. It was pitch black.

6 MAY10 CSWupdate really bacás or spirit animals. I heard haunting Prince killed a woman said to have been a most popular changelings in these tales, wood stories about how invisible visitors were lougarou, poised to suck children’s blood appeared regularly in the bacá narratives I eradicated and how virile men fought off these in the dead of night. These narratives are have collected. In one story, a thief turned beasts during struggles in the bush. Ranchers reflective of a highly tangible notion of evil, into a tree stump during a hurricane so as to and butchers told of bacás that eviscerated one evidenced as well in beliefs that bad avoid capture by the police. Such powers of their herds and drained their cash. I even dreams occur due to the entry of a wicked metamorphosis are most often said to emanate encountered a curandera (healer) who boasted presence into the body, which is why it is from Haiti. Scholars have noted the effects of that she could make one for me. considered preferable to sleep sideways or deforestation on Haitian peasant economies, Bacases are a particular subset of shape- face down. but they have not yet considered how the shifter lore in the Dominican campo; others Wood and animals are key natural symbols decline of the wilderness (el monte) has include galipotes and tuntunes. The version in Bánica; the very name of the town derives created anxieties associated with diminishing of bacá narratives interpreted here are from the Arawak term for ebony because of access to everyday forms of magical protection specific to the central frontier region, where the rich forests that sheltered the area into from evil. Indeed, shape-shifter lore about they appear as a local variant of Haitian the eighteenth century. The town’s patron demonic cattle arose in the early conquest lougarou lore in which the core feature is the saint is Saint Francis, guardian of animals. period during another ecological crisis, anthropomorphism of the object—the stick, Indeed, mahogany is the national wood and when grief over Indian deaths in Mexico rock, or dog is actually a person. In Haiti, such is considered sacred, as is the Mata de Piñon, was channeled into Nahua narratives about accusations that beef was actually human flesh which is said to be able to bleed like a person Spaniards turning them into horses. landed several people in jail on cannibalism and can be used to protect a house from evil From a Dominican perspective there is a charges in the 1870s. Bacá narratives can be spirits and natural disasters (although in Haiti it nationalist resonance to these bacá narratives adapted to fit new rumor paradigms as they is also used to capture spirits and bottle them since Haitians are renowned for their superior arise, for example, morphing into a version of into zombies).4 There is a mahogany (caoba) sorcery powers and are thus seen as ultimately the chupacabras, a black dog with a penchant forest in los Haitises where if one tries to cut responsible for bacás and their thievery. for attacking goats when those rumors spread the trees, the earsplitting sound of drumming Located in Haiti for much of the nineteenth across Latin America.3 And rumors surfaced will emerge until stopped.5 Dogs seen century and a central theater of war during recently with a vengeance as tent dwellers swinging in hammocks or in rocking chairs the Haitian revolution and its aftermath, amidst the post-earthquake ruins of Port au are said to be bacás. While animals are the Bánica has long supplied meat products to 7 MAY10 CSWupdate the Haitian side of the central frontier, which area, as well as French-derived traditions of may provide clues which reveal resonances is too mountainous to sustain livestock; the loupgarou. which are not available to the conscious mind although today Dominicans sell beef and Given the fantastic nature of these shape- of the informant.9 rice to Haitians who supply Dominicans with shifting beasts, I originally assumed that I I would like to consider bacá talk as a goat, pig, and guinea fowl. In addition to the would need to use a folklorists’ methodology genre of embodied historical memory of the disappearance of the forest, bacá narratives to interpret them and that I would be past, one that is conveyed by the history and must be contextualized within cultural searching for story kernels, genres, and poetics of the particular forms these spirits economies of difference that emerged within variations alone. But I want to argue that these inhabit, from dogs, pigs, cattle and extinct the broader history of transborder circuits of stories can be read as a form of historical species of wood. As such they are popular markets, migration, and religious pilgrimage evidence, even if as a genre they are not oral recollections of a landscape and economy in the Haitian-Dominican borderlands. The tradition as such, since their historicity resides which came to an abrupt end with the small-holder economies of Bánica and the in their poetics—the historical meanings USAID-induced swine slaughter of 1979 when corresponding Haitian town of Biassou are that have accrued to formulaic elements or U.S. officials feared that a swine flu epidemic heavily reliant on pastoralism—cattle, goat, key symbols, rather than their narrative.6 could threaten the domestic pork industry and sheep, and pig. This informs the cultural Witchcraft can thus provide a standpoint ordered that all pigs on the island be killed. meanings of animals where people reside from which to reflect on different kinds of If history is always a story about power, these intimately with their beasts and for whom historicities.7 Following Carlo Ginzburg, one haunting tales represent suppressed subaltern animals occupy much of their imaginative and might read these key signs metonymically, histories of a desire for a time and a place accusatory discourse. These may still harbor a as “the verbal condensation of a historical when life was far easier for the rural poor in view of themselves as at the mercy of natural process.”8 Thus reading these texts as historical the borderlands, as well as the surfacing of forces and thus may hold an enchanted view evidence requires removing elements from certain memories of trauma from the colonial of animals as representing the power of an the narrative sequence within which they are past.10 These were animals might be termed often inscrutable nature. The bacá has several embedded and tracing the historical context what Rosalind Shaw has called “embodied crosscutting genealogies since shape-shifter which over time has accrued certain meanings memories” of the montero economy one beliefs are prominent in African as well as to key symbols like varnish on a brass plate. that provided free access to the hunting of Amerindian cultures such as the now-extinct Drawing upon Freud, one might say that wild pigs, goats and cattle in the forested Taino and Arawak who once inhabited this inadvertent or minor details in these stories interior and which sustained this region and 8 MAY10 CSWupdate its poor for centuries until the 1950s. These throws her interpretation in obliquely from The work of the Devil? phantasmic ghosts represent popular desires the margins, women are highly guarded about These narratives might be classed within the to hold on to the last vestigial traces of the free their bacá observations. This is probably due genre of Latin American devil-pact lore except range economy of monteria which provided to the important role Catholicism plays in this for the fact that bacás are also said to protect ready subsistence for the poor for centuries, community, and the fact that women typically one’s crops or beasts, so they are powerful while they are also vernacular histories of run the cofradias or religious brotherhoods but not necessarily negative, which is why I trauma from the colonial terror unleashed for San Francisco and other regional patron am hesitant to term them devil pact narratives upon the free peasantry; while simultaneously saints. Honorable personhood for women which has a univocally negative moral channeling some of the virile pride freedmen requires a discursive strategy of distancing timbre.14 In Bánica, there is another genre of felt as powerful hunters in the mountainous oneself as far as possible away from these bacá narratives in which wealth generation is interior.11 They are not unchanging static creatures and their stories, especially since more central which more closely conforms to images, however, but represent a “process uttering their name could conjure them into the devil-pact model; like witchcraft narratives of historical sedimentation” that shapes being. Bánica has one of the oldest Catholic those accused are community outsiders either a vision of moral community, yet one churches in the country, and I have not yet by regional provenance or class. Stories about which is constantly revised to meet new met a woman who would confess publicly export free-trade–zone owners and politicians circumstances.12 to believing in bacás. While loath to head on fall within this rubric, or the dog of Consuelo Yet as we shall see, there is a strong confrontations with the demonic, they will Ingenio which was said to change form and gendered dimension to these stories. Mary admit to being indirectly affected by them. size and was seen all over the place which Crain in her research in Ecuador has argued This was apparent in stories I heard just after many said was José Mota’s bacá.15 Or the that similar devil pact tales are women’s stories the Haitian earthquake (which some said had assembly zone in Santiago owned by someone of resistance to wage labor exploitation; been caused by a bacá) that the presence of from the large regional town of San Juan de women play a more veiled role in this case, evil—in addition to the restless spirits of the la Maguana which was found to have been however.13 Due to the strong presence of unburied dead—were causing nightmares and the scene of mysterious deaths and blood in the Catholic Church, women are loath to keeping people awake at night. the toilets; or the tale of an alcalde (mayor) locate themselves as protagonists or even who was said to have had a “muchachito” or narrators of these stories of the demonic. small black man who smoked and was actually As in Sebala’s story in which his neighbor a bacá which made his large herd of cattle 9 MAY10 CSWupdate in Haiti grow while his neighbor’s failed; helped generate wealth as well.17 Yet my motifs.21 This perspective also reduces his bacá eventually causing the suicide of bacá narratives are not always about wealth the essence of these tales to a popular his cousin who was his political rival. The generation, and thus could also be seen as commentary on markets and inequality, centrality of blood imagery, desiccation a vision of evil as wily and inscrutable. Early thus indicating the presence of a culture and unnatural death—what Dundes calls modern British witch trials also reported the of “generalized reciprocity.”22 Yet this view the “bloodthirsty revenant” —render these devil appearing as a dog, cat or fly.18 Latin avoids the question of the specificity of the stories a different substream of the bacá American tales about witches frequently demonic vehicle—why are one particular genre, however, one more akin to vampire involve their ability to transmogrify, often into set of beasts are invoked rather than others? stories than shape-shifter tales, even if the birds, enabling them to locate children in What is it about certain animals—dogs or pigs two forms are related. These tales also order to suck their blood.19 In the British West in particular—that make them more prone conform to Freuds’ insights about why the Indies, women with supernatural powers are to emplotment in demonic tales than other “beloved dead” become “demons” since said to transform into animals, particularly cats beasts? Michael Taussig has urged scholars those accused are usually blood kin. By or dogs by ingesting potions; not surprisingly, to attend to the vivid detail of devil pact contrast, Dundes would describe bacá tales they are also wealthy and said to grow in narratives, yet no one has yet taken on the as “memorates” that is, personal stories of power via eviscerating the life blood of centrality of the beast itself in new world encounters with supernatural creatures told others.20 Scholars may be imposing a binary representations of evil, a fact with particular as true. 16 moral vision upon a corpus of belief that salience in contexts in which pastoralism Bacá stories clearly form part of a actually expresses a more complex vision, one provides the backbone of economic life.23 transnational genre of Latin American lore, which presumes the existence of a range of An important context for bacá tales is and certain formulaic elements can be invisible supernatural forces, not invariably of the forest itself, a space of enchantment found from Colombia to Nicaragua, such as the classic Faustian type. cast as feminine, and one which harbors the highly suspicious bull with gold teeth. Scholars of devil pact narratives have alluring female wood sprites. As in France, Stories in which the wealthy are said to have identified the genre via the plot or moral of where Peter Sahlins reports the woods made their money by turning their workers the stories—the wealth or “bitter money” were anthropomorphized as a “feminine into animals have surfaced in Colombia that is generated which carries a satanic cast. supernatural being,” Dominican forests have and Nicaragua, and Gould reports a tale They thus classify the tale on the basis of its long been inhabited by ciguapas, for example, of an enchanted burro which purportedly narrative genre rather than its constitutive which are mute indian women with long 10 MAY10 CSWupdate hair who walk with their feet backwards.24 potent home-made Haitian rum. They are families who constitute a kind of local They appear to be wereanimals but in a private because people are aware that they aristocracy, to their field hands. I have heard different sense than the bacá since they are are not rational explanations, which is why bacá stories recounted by former síndicos themselves hybrids; people without language they are termed boca del chivo or disparates, (rural mayors), as well as elementary school or clothes covered with long hair or fur, stupid beliefs. They are male not only in teachers, pig farmers, day laborers and the innocents who live in a pre-edenic state. performance setting, but also in content. military. Class marking in this poor rural They are mischievous and kidnap people They are prototypically stories of bravery in community is not altogether clear, however, often using them to sire offspring. Upon their relation to an adversary of untold proportions since, for example teachers are poor but return, then, their victims are blessed with since the bacá at first glance appears to be a have symbolic capital. Sebala for one, is “poderes” thus they maintain a connection to creature but it is actually of the spirit world, today an indigent pig farmer, but he named lo mas allá—the world of the spirits. Trees are a small demon able to wreak untold havoc. his children after his favorite philosophers, gendered as hembra and macho and female They are also traveler’s tales, usually cast as including Socrates, Thucydides, and Hegel, is the unmarked category, a fact that indicates encounters on roads; yet as Hyde has noted, a cosmopolitan gesture. Of course, men that the forest is a feminine space.25 El monte given his abilities to vanquish a demon, the have a wider spectrum of movement than (the wilderness, the bush) is associated with protagonist is not a mere mortal but rather most women do, and these stories take place fertility, and menstruating women can ruin himself divine.28 Thus in telling these trickster on the road and cast the narrator as a virile a harvest, cause disease in livestock, and tales, notwithstanding the comraderie of his protector of family and nation from diabolical spoil eggs, just as lesbians are said to cause mates (since these stories are not told in public forces.30 Men are also intimately linked to earthquakes.26 Since mountains historically but rather among close friends) the protagonist their animals, whether they are cattle ranchers have been wooded, they are also seen as is also engaging in “crab antics” which cast or raise fighting cocks or pigs; it is the men sacred, and can demand cash or goods.27 him above his peers.29 In a context in which who are primarily responsible for herding It is important to note, however, that these the logic of conjuring is taken for granted— the animals from pen to savanna, and men stories are the subject of a particular form of that uttering the name of Satan can invoke it slaughter the animals when its time to butcher story telling. Bacá tales are resolutely male –these are stories told in private. them. For the poor whose lack of income drinking stories. As such they are most often As male stories, they also span the class means that they cannot adequately provide told at night, in private, among groups of men, spectrum in this rural community, from the for their family these narratives may also help and accompanied by plenty of beer or kleren, descendents of the founding cattle ranching heal a “wounded masculinity” by casting 11 MAY10 CSWupdate the protagonist in a heroic mode.31 Given southern border towns of Pedernales and maintenance, they were an ample and secure the preponderance of female out-migration Jimaní were central to the effort in 1978, protein source; they also could be used as from the Dominican campo today, combined while later outbreaks occurred in Dajabón credit to secure a loan. with the lack of available land, livestock and and the province of Elias Piña where Bánica Although hunting was prototypically a male well remunerated work for rural men, one is located.36 Worse still, the pig slaughter pastime, interestingly the creole pig massacre could also say that these stories provide the arrived after a series of droughts that left had an important gendered component to opportunity to enact a heroic performance the population even more dependent on it. Irrespective of the popular prohibition which aims at persuading the audience that livestock.37 against killing female swine, especially the the male protagonist may be immobile but is Until then, creole pigs had been the pregnant and their offspring (which are still capable of male virtues such as protecting mainstay of the peasant subsistence taboo to eat), many of these were killed, a their families and communities from danger.32 economy. Not only was the black boar a fact which outraged owners who railed that For this reason, the performative dimension of key symbol to Haiti, the chosen sacrificial “this was the only thing to sustain a family.”40 bacá storytelling and the genres of male self- object at Makandal’s bois caiman vodoun Moreover, some of the most strident resistance fashioning it enables is as important as their ceremony, the event which started the was from women who were outraged at the content.33 Haitian revolution. The French term marron governments’ orders and preferred to kill and The free range boar hunting economy of which became maroon for runaway slave eat their own pigs rather than hand them monteria continued into the 1970s throughout came from the puerco cimmarón (wild pig) over to the troops.41 Women, of course, were the country until the arrival of swine flu in who was the originary primordial forest the primary caretakers for the family hogs 1979, when it struck in the Artibonite valley.34 creature on both sides of the island.38 Creole which were tied up in the patio and lived USAID spent $30 million dollars in the pigs were extremely well adapted to their off household leftovers, and probably stood slaughter of all pigs on the island, hoping that environment, thriving on palm fronds, worms to lose more from their husbands from this this would curtail the disease from spreading and grubs, they disposed of household food source of family income. (See photograph on north to the U.S..35 Given the importance of remains, their excrement providing fertilizer page 1.) feral swine to poor subsistence farmers in the for the conuco or garden plot, and their During the swine fever slaughter, women border, it should not be a surprise that this rooting loosening the soil for planting. For may have been particularly irate since they region was devastated more than any other an initial cost of less than $10 their offspring had fewer other options for generating by the pig eradication program in 1978. The could sell for $250.39 For virtually no cost in cash than men and thus were even more 12 MAY10 CSWupdate dependent on their pigs than their menfolk. In stations in border towns such as Barahona, western hemisphere—became the largest net their pitiful complaints to the authorities they Pedernales, Neyba and Jimaní.44 food importer in Latin America. Given the wrote that “we are women who live off pig This essay asks that we read these bacá dramatic erosion in food security since 1979, production” who are now destitute. The pig visions as embodied historical memories, it might not be a surprise that the creole pig assault cut to the heart of the family, perhaps which like dreams, require deciphering. continues to haunt the border, a poignant even more so since the rate of serial polygyny They are flashes of memory which seek to reminder of better days for the campesinado. and thus female-headed households in the repossess elements of the past and reanimate In over 50 hours of interviewing I have not yet border was higher than elsewhere, so there or reemplot them in historical time.45 These met one person who received a white U.S. were more women headed households with bácas may have been embraced during replacement pig, although I have been told a single income stream. One women from the food crisis that developed right after that these were much more difficult to handle Villa Vasquez wrote that she had received the creole pig slaughter in the 1980s, as than the mansa or gentle jabali. Indeed, I a voucher for reimbursement for the loss of Reagan’s Caribbean Basin Initiative intended was told that due to their viciousness, you her pig but when she went to the Agricultural to transform the Caribbean from a food had to watch them constantly; they were so Bank she was told there was no money left sustaining economy into one that produced ruthless, they would even eat a small child. and she wrote “please pay as soon as possible, nontraditional products for export, a vision Indeed, these tales of gringo man-eating pigs I am a poor widow with seven children to in which cheap labor was the comparative are reminiscent of the vicious attack dogs take care of.”42 Nearly a half of all those who advantage of Haiti and the Dominican brought to hunt down runaway slaves and wrote in to complain were women, primarily Republic. Even USAID admitted they knew ravage them in the colonial period. These from the largest segment—the “humildes” this shift would cause tremendous rural urban tales of the bacá, as Luise White has said, and “gente pobre” (the humble poor) who displacement, increasing urban populations can thus uncover intimate layers of personal owned fewer than ten hogs.43 Which is by 75%; one which would generate an ample experience and emotions such as anger and why the governmental campaign to explain reserve army of labor which would keep its betrayal which are not always apparent in the rationale of the slaughter and eat more price down.46 As Haitian labor was supposed the cold historical archive.47 They also reveal pork was aired on the Dimención Feminina to shift to export free trade zones in the the central place that items such as wood (Feminine Dimension) and Nosotros en su capital, lower tariffs imposed by IMF “shock and pork have played in the social history of Hogar (We at Home) programs, alongside treatment” eventually displaced Haitian staple the central frontier, as commodities which Radio Guaracuya, and on popular rural radio foods as Haiti—the poorest country in the formed the basis of the subsistence economy, 13 MAY10 CSWupdate while maintaining the magic of the gift.48 As 3. for more on chupacabras in Puerto Rico, see Stanford University Press, 2003. my essay “Imperial Secrets: Vampires and elsewhere in Latin America, in Bánica the 12. shaw, Memories of the Slave Trade, 226. Nationhood in Puerto Rico,” in A Religion 13. Mary Crain, “Poetics and Politics in the “hearth defines the home,” and indeed bonds of Fools? Superstition in Historical and Ecuadorian Andes: Women’s Narratives of family are indexed through where one eats Comparative Perspective, edited by Steven of Death and Devil Possession,” American and who feeds you, and most of all, what’s for Smith and Allen Knight, Oxford: Oxford Ethnologist 18, No. 1 (Feb., 1991): 67-89. University Press, 290-312. 14. this was underscored to me in discussions dinner.49 4. Ken de Pree, Beware of the Baca! Folklore of with informants about how to classify the bacá Lauren (Robin) Derby is a Professor in the the Dominican Republic, Samaná, Dominican which I would term sorcery yet which flattens Department of History at UCLA. She received Republic: K. Du Pree, 1989, 25. into far more morally dubious term withcraft in a CSW Faculty Development Grant to support 5. Juan Guaroa Ubiñas Renville, El Mensaje de Spanish, a label they rejected as inappropriate. this research. los sabios: Historias y leyendas educativas For a more devilish interpretation of the dominicanas, Santo Domingo: Editora Manatí, NOTES bacá, see Christian Krohn-Hansen, Political 2002, 101-103. Authoritarianism in the Dominican Republic, 1. this essay is based on fieldwork funded by a 6. Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. UCLA International Studies Center, the Center Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. 15. Juan Guaroa Ubiñas Renville, Mitos, creencias for Research on Women, and a Faculty COR 7. Englund cited by Rosalind Shaw, Memories y leyendas dominicanas, 193. Grant, UCLA, which have funded altogether of the Slave Trade: Ritual and the Historical 16. alan Dundes, ed., The Vampire: A Casebook, six short trips to Bánica and its environs since Imagination in Sierra Leone, Chicago: Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998, October 2008. I wish to thank Martha Ellen University of Chicago Press, 2002, 205. chapter 11, esp. 165, 159. Davis, Abercio Alcántara and Irma Mora 8. Carlo Ginzburg, Clues, Myths and the 17. Michael Taussig, The Devil and Commodity who have all been extremely helpful in my Historical Method, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Fetishism in Latin America, Chapel Hill: research. Thanks as well to Guaroa Ubiñas University Press, 1992, 103. University of North Carolina Press, 1980; Renville for his tales and encouragement, 9. Ginzburg, Clues, 101. Marc Edelman, “Landlords and the Devil: and Katherine Smith, who facilitated my 10. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Class, Ethnic and Gender Dimensions of interviewing in Port au Prince. This research Power and the Production of History, Boston: Central American Peasant Narratives,” Cultural is very much in progress and comments are Beacon Press, 1995. Anthropology 9, No. 1 (Feb, 1994): 67089; welcome. 11. Benjamin quoted in Fisher, Modernity Jeffrey Gould, To Lead as Equals: Rural Protest 2. see The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery and Political Consciousness in Chinandega, the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo in the Age of Revolution, Durham: Duke Nicaragua, 1912-1979, University of North (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009); and University Press, 2004, 140. For more on Carolina Press, 1990. Robert Debs Heinl and Nancy Gordon Heinl, monteria see Richard Turits, Foundations of 18. norman Cohn quoted in Elaine G. Breslaw, Written in Blood: The Story of the Haitian Despotism: Peasants, The Trujillo Regime and ed., Witches of the Atlantic World: A Historical People, 1492-1971 (Boston: Houhgton Mifflin Modernity in Dominican History, Stanford: Reader and Primary Sourcebook, New York: 1978), 602. 14 MAY10 CSWupdate New York University Press, 2000, 55. 27. labourt, Sana, sana, 162. Amigo del Hogar, 2002, 333. 19. Edgar martin del Campo, “The Global Making 28. lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes the World: 39. Michael Dash, ed., Haiti Anthology: Libete, of a Mexican Vampire: Mesoamerican, Mischief, Myth and Art, New York: North Point Princeton: Marcus Weiner, 1999, 105. European, African and Twentieth-Century Press, 1998. 40. letter to the president from Cornelio Florian Media Influences on theT eyollohcuani” 29. Peter J. Wilson, Crab Antics: The Social Recio, Sección de Boca de Cachón, Jimanó; History of Religions 49, No. 2 (2009), 107-40, Anthropology of the English-Speaking Peoples Letter to the president from 32 petitioners, stresses the primacy of European and African- of the Caribbean, New Haven: Yale University Tamayo, 21 Jan. 1979, MA, AGN. derived belief in his account of the origins of Press, 1973. 41. Interview, Bánica, July, 2010. the Nahua Teyollohcuani. 30. Mathew C. Gutmann, ed., Changing Men and 42. to Secretary of State for Agriculture, Informe 20. I.e. duppy women; see Jane Beck, To Masculinities in Latin America, Durham: Duke sobre el Sacrificio de Cerdos, from Héctor Windward of the Land: The Occult World of University Press, 2003, 137. Inchausteguí Cabral, Secretario de Estado sin Alexander Charles, 1979, 205 and passim. 31. Gutmann, Changing Men, 127. Cartera, 19 April 1979, MA, AGN. 21. Robert A. Georges and Michael Owen Jones, 32. light Carruyo, Producing Knowledge, 43. Most pig farmers had less than ten, about a “Folklore as Genre and Type,” in Folkloristics: Protecting Forests: Rural Encounters with third had 25-30, and a handful had 70-80 hogs An Introduction, Bloomington: Indiana Gender, Ecotourism and International Aid in (estimate from a sample of lists of “personas University Press, 1995. the Dominican Republic, University Park, PA: que perdieron sus cerdos,” MA, AGN). 22. Brackette Williams, Stains on my name, War in Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008, 82. 44. Receipt for $300 RD, Fondo Especial Para el my Veins: Guyana and the Politics of Cultural 33. Roger D. Abrahams, The Man-o-Words in the Desarrollo Agropecuario, 12 Feb., 1979; $240 Struggle, Durham: Duke University Press, West Indies: Performance and the Emergence and $375 RD, 23 April 1979; MA, AGN. 1991, 110. of Creole Culture, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins 45. for more on this approach, see Andrew Apter, 23. taussig, The Devil and Commodity Fetishism, University Press, 1983, chapter 5. “Introduction,” Activating the Past: Historical 17. 34. “Proyecto Eradicación F. P.A.: Actividades Memory in the Black Atlantic, London: 24. Peter Sahlins, Forest Rites: The War of the para los Proximos 30 Dias,” Ministerio de Cambridge Scholars Press, in press. Demoiselles in Nineteenth-Century France, Agricultura, Archivo General de la Nación 46. Dash, Libete, 228. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994, (hereafter MA, AGN), Santo Domingo, 1979. 47. luise White, Speaking with Vampires: Rumor 48. Pérez describes ciguapas as either male or 35. CPTC_07-02.pdf (web document). and History in Colonial Africa, Berkeley: female but the example in his book is female 36. In 1997; see GUAOO_34_CSFSurvDomRep. University of California Press, 2000, 85. and I have never heard of one appearing as pdf (web document). 48. arjun Appadurai, “Introduction,” The Social male; Juan B. Pérez, Geografia y sociedad, 37. letter to the president and Secretary of State Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Santo Domingo: Editora del Caribe, 1972, of Agriculture, from a group of 105 petitioners Perspective, New York: Cambridge, 1996, 12. 242-243. from El Guayabal de Postrer Rio, MA, 21 Mar. 49. Mary Weismantel, Food, Gender and Poverty 25. José Schiffino, Riqueza Forestal Dominicana, 1979, AGN. in the Ecuadorian Andes, Ill: Waveland Press, Ciudad Trujillo: Montalvo, 1945. 38. Carlos Esteban Deive, Antologia de la flora 1998, 169. 26. labourt, Sana, Sana, 117. y fauna de Santo Domingo en cronistas y viajeros, siglos XV–XX, Santo Domingo: Editora 15 MAY10 CSWupdate Q & A w i t h J a i m i e B ar o n Lucy Mae San Pablo Burns Studying the interlocking genealogies of the Filipino American performing body

Lucy Mae San Pablo Burns, who joined Can you tell us a bit about “Puro Arte: rary performance practices by Filipinos the Department of Asian American Stud- On the Filipino Performing Body”? and Filipino Americans, such as in U.S. ies at UCLA in 2005, recently received a taxi dance halls, anti–martial law the- CSW Faculty Development Grant to sup- “Puro Arte: On the Filipino Perform- ater, and the play Miss Saigon. I do so by port her research for “Puro Arte: On the ing Body” is a book-length study of the bringing together a diverse set of materi- Filipino Performing Body.” She kindly emergence of Filipino American theater als through an interdisciplinary research agreed to talk with us about her current and performance. It stresses the Filipino method combining performance theory, project and activities. performing body’s interlocking genealo- close textual analysis of plays and other gies as it conjoins colonial histories of cultural texts, archival research, and oral the Philippines with U.S. race relations interviews of performers, playwrights, di- and discourses of globalization. In Puro rectors, and other cultural producers. Arte, I stage a conversation between Part of what I am exploring in this colonial constructions of and contempo- book is how certain bodies come to have 16 MAY10 CSWupdate metaphorical and/or analogical value. that considers and highlights the labor works and fields of study, offer to our In other words, I’m interested in the and productive possibilities of puro arte in understanding of migrancy as a condi- process by which some bodies can eas- the history of the Philippines colonization. tion of contemporary late twentieth/ ily and unquestionably call up a world early twenty-first century? and others are reduced to particularity. What else are you working on? I continue to be interested in dra- Puro arte, translated from Spanish I am lucky to be in collaboration with two maturgy work, though that has taken a into English, simply means “pure art.” great scholars in the UC system—Professor back seat when I began my job here at In Filipino, however, puro arte per- Christine Bacareza Balance (Asian Ameri- UCLA. I am fortunate to be working on forms a more ironic function, gestur- can Studies, UC Irvine) and Kevin Fellezs one of the best projects I've ever been ing rather to the labor of overacting, (Music, UC Merced)—as we organize a involved in, a play titled How to Make histrionics, playfulness, and purely workshop symposium, titled “California it to the Dance Floor: A Salsa Guide over-the-top dramatics. Puro arte lang Dreaming: Production and Aesthetics in for Women (Based on Actual Experi- iyan is phrase I often heard as a child. I Asian American Art.” This gathering ex- ences) by Cindy García (Professor of can still hear my aunt’s dismissive tone plores artistic processes and the circula- Dance at the University of Minnesota as she brushed aside my complaint as tion of art objects to understand the place and a UCLA alum) The play explores simply a show I was putting on. To be of California in the artistic imaginary. many things including social relations called out as puro arte is to call into With “California Dreaming,” we approach amongst Latino migrants, power and question one’s veracity, genuineness. “California” as both a specific locale and gender, and (perceived and actual) My taking of puro arte as a descrip- an identity marker that circulates, tying battles between different styles of salsa tive metaphor for the emergence of the the state’s artistic imaginary, labor, and dancing. In the play, which is set in a Filipino performing body is inspired by economy to Asia Pacific, the Americas, and salsa dance club, a lot happens in one the sentiment and creative “flippin’” the world. night: Guadalupe and Coatlalopeuh that poet/performance artist joelbtan Another project I am working is one that reunite after more than five hundred makes in his poem “ignacio–in 2 parts” considers the intersection of performance years of being separated by colonial (seguro in Spanish means “surely”; and migration. In brief, the main question violence, Cuban singer diva (and long- seguro in Tagalog means “probably”). animating this project is what do perfor- dead) La Lupe shows up, and a red- Like tan, I perform an appropriative act mance and migration, as analytical frame- headed Chicana feminist ethnographer 17 MAY10 CSWupdate initiates revolutionary rumblings—all I wrote on the performance of the terno and comparative racialization through because she uses the bathroom stalls to (also known as the butterfly dress, the the Center, and most recently received a note down her observations. It is action- Philippine national costume). The class Faculty Development Grant towards the packed, funny, chaotic­—dead icons com- will cover a range of topics exploring ra- completion of my manuscript. Last year, ing in, lines from another play make it in cial formation and embodiment through CSW provided me the tremendous op- there, a head is served on a platter, and clothing, costume, fashion, and dressing portunity of receiving feedback on my a skeleton goddess wonders why she is practices. book-in-progress. not being asked to dance. Plus the salsa I think CSW is one of the most real- dancing styles and a live DJ! While it is all Has the presence of CSW on campus ized centers on campus. It has such a di- that, How to Make it to the Dance Floor is been important to you and to your versity of programming, and it is clearly also heart-breaking and introspective. By fellow faculty members? an intellectual unit. I also appreciate its the way, we’re not finished with it yet! In my time as an Assistant Professor feminist approach to achieving its multi- here at UCLA, CSW has been one of the faceted programming through opportu- What courses are you teaching? Are you most supportive units outside of my de- nities such as curatorial grants for faculty planning any new one? partment. I think it has the most dynam- and research scholars. Courses I have taught here at UCLA in- ic programming of the many centers on Lucy Mae San Pablo Burns is an Assistant clude Feminist Performance and Race, campus. I'm always adding CSW events Professor in the Department of Asian Introduction to Filipino American Stud- to my calendar. For example, I attended American Studies at UCLA. Her publica- ies, The Art of Protest, and Exploring “Exploring Metaculture with Devil Bun- tions include an anthology titled The Col- Asian American Theater. I’m teaching ny” (yay Gigi!). And, I recommended it or of Theater (edited with Roberta Uno). She received a CSW Faculty Development these last two courses this quarter and it's to my students as well! Grant to support her research for “Puro really exciting. CSW has been incredibly committed Arte: On the Filipino Performing Body.” There are two new courses that I’m to junior faculty, especially junior faculty Jaimie Baron is a PhD candidate in the hoping to teach next year—Cultures Of of color. I have benefited greatly from Department of Cinema and Media Stud- and Against Empire and Dressing the Na- that—I’ve been a part of a faculty-curat- ies at UCLA. tion. In Dressing the Nation, I’m putting ed reading group, co-organized a year- together a class that builds from an essay long series on transnational feminisms 18 MAY10 CSWupdate by Hannah Landecker

Food Nutritional Epigenetics as and Exposurethe Molecular Politics of Eating

From fruits engineered to be high in it has developed into a fine art. Since 1997 health-related condition,” such as high blood anthocynanins to cheese sticks fortified with nutritional supplements have been allowed pressure. omega-3 fatty acids, supermarket shelves to bear general claims about “supporting In general, this linking of particular food are increasingly stocked with foods bearing immune function” or “strengthening the molecules to health is part of a peculiarly a health message about their constituent body’s defenses” as long as they include this twenty-first century synthesis of food and molecules. Even if you don’t know an text: “This statement has not been evaluated medicine. Food has been understood to be antioxidant from a trans-fat, you’re likely to by the Food and Drug Administration. This medicinal in many different ways in different be able to categorize these two molecules product is not intended to diagnose, treat, historical periods; one has only to consult as good or evil. Ever since the first words cure, or prevent any disease.” Conventional the Roman physician Galen on the qualities about cholesterol were allowed to appear on foods as well as nutritional supplements are of lentils to see that it is not new to think packages of rolled oats, the peculiar rhetoric of allowed to make “qualified” health claims if about food as more than fuel for the body. the health effect that makes no specific claims they can “establish a relationship between According to The Properties of Foodstuffs, has been under intense development, and a food or food component and a disease or twice-boiled lentil soup will dry up gastric

19 MAY10 CSWupdate What are the political and social consequences of the sciences of food and metabolism used to establish a relationship between food and health? fluxes and increase the tone of the esophagus, as the marketing language and popular the political and social consequences of the and is thus an appropriate food for those with perception of food’s therapeutic or disease- sciences of food and metabolism used to gastric complaints. However, in our time, an preventing effects. establish a relationship between food and intensely molecular language of interaction As a social scientist, I am interested in the health? My studies are directed at some of between food and the body is in play. It is increasingly molecular focus of contemporary the places in which the language and logic of the interaction of food’s molecules with the eating discourse, and the attendant anxieties food as molecular medicine is currently under body’s molecules that draw the focus of and uncertainties produced by seeing food construction, and I have focused my attention biomedical research, and, in consequence, as both potential preventative medicine on the biomedical research laboratory. I have shapes regulatory cultures of food as well and potential threat to health. What are been looking at nutritional epigenetics, an

20 MAY10 CSWupdate Nutritional epigenetics seeks to understand how the molecules in food affect long-term health through their interaction with the molecules that mediate gene expression in the area of biomedical research that seeks to link the findings produced by this research are body. nutrition with patterns of gene expression. particularly significant in relation to prenatal The basic hypothesis of nutritional epigenetics and early postnatal nutrition. As such, the is that food type and availability during so- politics of parenting are inextricably entwined called “critical periods” of development with even the most esoteric-seeming affect patterns of gene expression and thus experiments in the molecular biology of the physiology and disease susceptibility metabolism. of an organism for the rest of its life, and Nutritional epigenetics seeks to understand perhaps the life of future generations. Thus, how the molecules in food affect long-term

21 MAY10 CSWupdate health through their interaction with the identical, but have very different bodies, idea is that food conditions early in life, in molecules that mediate gene expression in because the set of molecules attached to the utero or early postnatal life, affect patterns of the body. Much of the work done in this DNA are different and thus modulate the gene expression and thus the way the body area is done in animal models. In particular, same genes differently. These changes are works for a lifetime, and perhaps beyond. the agouti mouse model has been used to referred to as “epi”-genetic, exactly because There is even some evidence that methylation establish a link between prenatal and early they do not affect the gene sequence in the patterns are heritable between generations of postnatal nutrition and gene expression. The same way as a mutation would, but work mice. Scientists call these animals “epigenetic agouti mouse model has a piece of foreign instead at the level of regulation. biosensors,” because their bodies show at DNA called a retrotransposon in the promoter Pregnant agouti mice fed diets a macroscopic scale events happening at a region of the agouti gene, which normally supplemented with substances that contribute molecular scale. produces the agouti protein in select cells methyl groups to the methylation process These scientific developments mark a in the body and affects coat color. If the produce litters in which a higher proportion of pronounced shift in our understanding of retrotransposon is heavily methylated—has the pups have brown, thin bodies than their both food and metabolism. Where classic many CH3 groups attached to the cytosine non-supplemented peers. Pups weaned and biochemical studies of metabolism depicted molecules in the DNA sequence (the C’s in then fed a diet depleted in methyl donors food as fuel or as substrate for the building ATCG)—then the gene is not expressed at show loss of methylation of genes associated blocks of the body, nutritional epigenetics high levels. However, if the retrotransposon with diabetes. Even if the mice are switched depicts food as information or molecular is not methylated, the DNA is open to other back to a methyl-donor sufficient diet after signal. This information, conveyed by the molecules that spur the transcription and 60 days, the effect on gene expression lasts molecules traveling from the outside of translation of the gene into its protein product, through their lifetime (Waterland et al. 2006). the body to the inside, indicates what kind and the agouti protein is expressed all over the These molecular effects of diet have also been of environment the body will grow up to mouse body. This wide expression of agouti found in human populations—individuals who occupy and thus affects the systems that protein has several effects on the mouse’s were in utero during the Dutch hunger winter respond to the environment. In the logic body—most noticeably it is fat and yellow of 1944-1945 show reduced methylation of of nutritional epigenetics, food at critical instead of thin and brown, and it suffers the same gene locus associated with diabetes periods in development actually shapes the from susceptibility to diabetes and cancer. in comparison with their siblings born after metabolic interface that will process food later Significantly, two mice can be genetically the war (Heijmans et al, 2008). The basic in the life of the organism. Or, to put it most 22 MAY10 CSWupdate By looking at how something social, such as “eating,” is conceptualized and constructed as an experimental variable, we can track the ways in which the social is given scientific materiality, and the ways, in turn, material scientific objects are then taken as meaningful for social life and can change understandings of such broad concepts as “environment” or “food.”

23 MAY10 CSWupdate bluntly, food shapes the conditions of its own the molecules fed to these mice. Agouti mice reception in the future. Food, as a carrier of whose diets were supplemented with genistein biologically significant molecules, is a kind of had offspring whose coat colors shifted toward environmental exposure that shapes the way brown, indicating increased methylation of the body responds to the environment. the agouti promotor (Dolinoy et al. 2006). When scientists do experiments, they are Genistein is a socially significant molecule, creating highly controlled situations to test because soy is everywhere. Soy is consumed particular hypotheses about the effects of in the form of soy milk and tofu and food on health. By looking at how something edamame; it is a commonly used ingredient to social, such as “eating,” is conceptualized increase protein content or lend texture and and constructed as an experimental variable, form to foods; it is fed to industrially farmed we can track the ways in which the social is chickens and pigs. It is also frequently used given scientific materiality, and the ways, in as a base for infant formula. Of course, the turn, material scientific objects are then taken experiment does nothing more than signal that as meaningful for social life and can change soy in the diet can affect gene methylation; understandings of such broad concepts as it does not indicate whether this is a good, “environment” or “food.” When experiments bad or neutral occurrence, nor what kinds of are done with animal models such as the dosage might have health effects, nor whether Top, soybeans; below, molecular structure of genistein. agouti mouse, the controlled setting that is these effects happen in humans in the same created in the laboratory is what I call an way as mice. Nonetheless, the results seem “experimental image” of human life, and in highly applicable to human affairs exactly this experimental image an emerging discourse because of the ubiquity of soy. of food as exposure becomes very clear. A second socially significant molecule In the agouti mouse model system, three that feeds these experimental animals is folic substances in particular characterize the acid, which provides methyl groups to the experimental image: soy, folic acid, and metabolic cycles that methylate DNA. Folic bisphenol-A. Soy-derived genistein is one of acid is probably a familiar micronutrient for

24 MAY10 CSWupdate readers. Because folic acid supplementation fortification came into place, unmetabolized has been shown to decrease the incidence of folic acid is present in the blood of most The idea of food as neural tube defects and anencephaly when individuals—particularly children and the consumed in the first trimester of pregnancy, elderly who consume higher proportions of exposure is intensified mandatory folic acid fortification of all wheat cereal and bread (Smith et al. 2008). The products in the United States was instituted rate of neural tube birth defects has dropped by the slippage between as a public health measure in 1998. Currently markedly in the United States since the over 65 countries world-wide have mandatory introduction of this policy. Debate has begun the notions of food and fortification of wheat or maize flour or both. to reopen however, as questions are raised Folic acid is a synthetic form of a molecule about links between methylation and cancer, toxin. whose natural form is called folate. Folate is and excess folic acid could be responsible for in high levels in things like oranges, beans, causing or exacerbating colon cancer in older and leafy green vegetables. Folic acid is in adults, even as it prevents birth defects. all wheat products, and is added to many The idea of food as exposure is intensified “functional foods” such as nutrition bars. by the slippage between the notions of Consumers have little control over the amount food and toxin. Also using the agouti of folic acid they consume, as it is not a model, researchers fed mice high levels mandatory part of food labeling to indicate of bisphenol-A, observed the depression how much is in a serving of a bread or cereal of methylation caused by it, and then product—only the original fortification is attempted to counter the effect with methyl- mandated. Pregnant or periconceptual supplementation (Dolinoy 2007). Bisphenol-A women, meanwhile, are encouraged to is a plastic-derived endocrine-disrupting take an additional folic acid supplement of molecule that is ingested through food and 100% RDA on top of their regular diet and drink, because it is in the linings of cans their regular intake of fortified foodstuffs. and plastic containers used for storage and Now, more than ten years after mandatory transport. Food can therefore be biologically

25 MAY10 CSWupdate active in terms of epigenetic changes in a sense of collective or social responsibility that are chosen to represent “food” in these its “natural” state, in its manufactured or for health and regulatory approaches, as controlled settings contribute strongly to a engineered state, and in its unintentionally these are things well beyond our control as notion of food as a kind of molecular cloud polluted form. individuals. If people are encased within these that surrounds us. However, this science is Genistein and folic acid are pervasive and environments, then all one can do is work on relatively new and so far its main impact invisible ingredients rather than discrete and those environments and the amelioration of has been to shift the way food is studied in obvious components of food, and bisphenol-A their effects and do it in a way which affects molecular biology and epidemiology rather is also undetectable and widespread. There more than one individual at a time. than to shift the way food is controlled are clear implications for conceptualizing Nutritional epigenetics, in linking food and or perceived in spheres of regulation or food as a discrete object that can be refused food pollutants to health, has the potential consumption. versus food as a miasma in which people to contribute to both an individualized Epigenetics raises questions about the are immersed. The first frame—food as politics of eating and an increased sense governance of food and the environment controlled by individual choice—implies of social responsibility for caring for the more generally in the interests of human that personalized nutrition will be part of food environments of populations. It might health. It remains to be seen how or whether personalized medicine, drives the production seem yet another way to pin responsibility this will translate into regulatory changes, for of consumables for health, and increases for fetal and child health on the individual example, banning the use of Bisphenol-A in the imperative to monitor food intake at actions of pregnant women, but the politics food containers, a rethinking of the regulation the molecular level, thus increasing the of this particular linkage of eating and long- of supplements and functional foods, or susceptibility of publics to molecularized term health points in a rather different renewed attention to the public health marketing. This is the frame in which many direction. The logic of epigenetics spreads the impact of improving prenatal care. Or how functional foods operate: consumers are responsibility over many generations as well as it might translate into individual action: as encouraged to take care of themselves by between men and women, as epidemiological epigenetics becomes more familiar to public buying and eating foods with tangible health studies point to an important role of male audiences through newspaper accounts, benefits, such as the promise that one pot of nutrition in influencing epigenetic regulation food health claims, and popularizations, it yoghurt a day equals one person’s improved in offspring (Kaati et al, 2002). Analysis of the will be important to track how consumers digestion/immune function. The second experimental images being generated in the incorporate this narrative into their food frame—food as milieu—leans instead toward laboratory indicates that the kinds of objects choices and their understandings of food and 26 MAY10 CSWupdate the body. At its heart, nutritional epigenetics Dolinoy, D.C., Huang, D., Jirtle, R.L. (2007) and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life, represents a hope for intervention in the “Maternal nutrient supplementation MIT Press, 2006. counteracts bisphenol A-induced DNA Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson, Mismatch: The long-term health of bodies and thus the hypomethylation in early development.” Lifestyle Diseases Timebomb, Oxford University general health of populations, via the medium Proceedings of the National Academy of Press, 2008. of food. Epigenetics has a very specific Sciences. 104: 13056–13061. Powell, O. (2003). Galen, On the Properties temporal logic to it, one that emphasizes the of Foodstuffs, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge multigenerational impact of the environments University Press. surrounding fetuses and children. Given the Heijmans, B., Tobi, E., Stein, A., Putter, H., social and cultural importance of food and Blauw, G., Susser, E., Slagboom, P.E., and Lumey, L.H. (2008). “Persistent epigenetic eating and the fraught nature of contemporary differences associated with prenatal exposure parenting when it comes to feeding children, to famine in humans.” Proceedings of the the unfolding generation of these specific links National Academy of Sciences 105(44): 17046–17049. between nutrition and health calls for our Kaati, G., Bygren, L. O., Edvinsson, S. (2002). continued critical attention. “Cardiovascular and diabetes mortality determined by nutrition during parents’ and Hannah Landecker is an Associate Professor grandparents’ slow growth period.” European in the Center for Society and Genetics in Journal of Human Genetics 10: 682-688. the Department of Sociology at UCLA. She Smith, A., Kim, Y., Refsum H. (2008). “Is folic received a CSW faculty Development Grant to acid good for everyone?” American Journal of support this research. Clinical Nutrition 87(3): 517. Waterland, R. A., Lin, J. R., Smith, C.A., and Sources R.L. Jirtle (2006). “Post-weaning diet affects Dolinoy, D., Weidman, J., Waterland, R.A., Jirtle, genomic imprinting at the insulin-like growth R.L. (2006). “Maternal genistein alters coat factor 2 (Igf2) locus.” Human Molecular color and protects Avy mouse offspring from Genetics 15(5): 705. obesity by modifying the fetal epigenome.” Environmental Health Perspectives 114(4): For Further Reading 567–572. Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb, Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral

27 MAY10 CSWupdate Hear the Voices The Need for Personal Narratives in Holocaust Studies

by Margarete Myers Feinstein

t may come as a surprise to scholars recognized that the dynamics between Education and at Yale University’s Fortunoff in gender studies that the use of interviewer and interviewee influenced what Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, personal narratives as historical was remembered, how it was recalled, and many Holocaust scholars long rejected sourcesI is controversial in Holocaust studies. what was shared. Increasing awareness of the the study of the recollections of victims Surprising because oral history and women’s subjectivity and shifting nature of memories and favored instead the use of written history have grown up together. Both are led scholars to focus on discourse and evidence provided by the perpetrators. The engaged in recovering experiences that the language. These developments only seemed preeminent Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg, dominant historiography has ignored and to confirm the opinion of leading Holocaust for example, rejected survivor testimony on neglected. At the same time, the influence scholars that survivor narratives had no principle. Trained as a political scientist, he of feminist scholars on oral history has led value as documents. was interested in how the bureaucratic state to greater understanding of the interview Despite famous collections of videotaped could be turned to use in mass murder. The process itself. Concerned with hierarchies survivor testimonies at the USC Shoah memories of victims were not important and power relationships, feminist scholars Foundation Institute for Visual History and from that perspective, especially since

28 MAY10 CSWupdate viewed through German documents, the receive any information about national The preeminent Holocaust victims appeared to have cooperated with identity or politics until the end of the scholar Raul Hilberg, for or offered little resistance to the Germans. interview when I did ask more directed example, rejected survivor Historians are also trained to give preference questions. Soon, I realized that I needed to to the written word over the verbal and listen to what the survivors were telling me testimony on principle. visual. Saul Friedländer did use survivor rather than what they were not. Trained as a political testimonies in his Pulitzer Prize–winning The women spoke overwhelmingly scientist, he was interested book, The Years of Extermination: Nazi about domestic concerns. They had quickly Germany and the Jews, where he intended married men they had met after liberation in how the bureaucratic them to disrupt the historical analysis by and then found themselves confronted state could be turned to use provoking in the reader a sense of disbelief. with pregnancies. They shared their fears in mass murder. He did not use them, however, to gain of German doctors, the toll that pregnancy knowledge. took on their ravaged bodies. Their time I had undergone similar historical became consumed with the task of providing training, but when I submitted my first for their young families: washing diapers article about Holocaust survivors in the could take all night and standing in the line displaced persons (DP) camps, the journal for milk rations could take a good part of editors recommended that I supplement the morning. These activities rarely entered my research with oral history. The result the written record and yet they were vital to had a profound impact on the course of my the renewal of Holocaust survivors as they research. By coincidence the first survivors struggled to recreate family and to establish whom I interviewed were women. I had a sense of normalcy in the immediate conceived of my study as one focusing aftermath of the Holocaust. on national identity, but I carefully asked Awakened by these women survivors to interviewees broad, open-ended questions the need for a gender-sensitive study of DPs, so as not to influence unduly the memories my research then focused on the ways in recalled by my subjects. Often I would not which survivors came to understand their 29 MAY10 CSWupdate Awakened by these women Holocaust experiences and to create Jewish mothers and foster mothers while helpful survivors to the need for life while still on German soil. Drawing on men were never referred to as fathers. In scholarship that suggests that women and one memoir, I finally encountered one man a gender-sensitive study men experienced the Holocaust differently, described as a father figure in the post- of DPs, my research then I explored how their recovery might also liberation period, only to learn a few pages focused on the ways in be gendered. I first entered the field in later that he was an SS man attempting to the 1990s when women historians were escape detection by infiltrating a band of which survivors came to asserting that women had survived the survivors. That the one father figure I had understand their Holocaust Holocaust “better” than men. They based encountered turned out to have been a wolf experiences and to create their claims on women’s social networking in sheep’s clothing led me to investigate and domestic skills. My work and that of further the absence of father figures. Was it Jewish life while still on other young scholars suggested that too a sign of a crisis of Jewish paternal authority German soil. literal readings of survivor narratives were or did it say something about how survivors leading to faulty conclusions. Pascale Bos, constructed their narratives? I concluded for example, pointed out that some scholars that men acted in ways that could have have mistakenly concluded that women been interpreted as fatherly, but that men were singled out for the humiliation of had more terms to describe these caring shaving off of hair because women survivors’ relationships than did women. They could narratives dwell on this event more so than be comrades, soldiers at arms, colleagues, men’s (33–34). While the Nazis’ treatment brothers, and uncles. Women tended to of men and women in this regard was the have fewer points of reference and chose to same, the narratives tell how the shaving was describe their behavior in maternal terms. experienced and recounted differently by What this study demonstrated is that gender women and men. is an important factor in determining the Along the same lines, I found myself actual ordeals men and women faced as well wondering why survivors frequently referred as in the ways in which they interpreted and to caring women, regardless of their ages, as narrated those events (Feinstein). 30 MAY10 CSWupdate In the past, sources have been an obstacle my book, Holocaust Survivors in Postwar Memories of the DP to the study of the private lives of DPs. Germany, 1945–1957, published this January experience, however, are The records most commonly used by by Cambridge University Press, I have usually less traumatic historians to document their work on DPs, supplemented the written record of DP such as reports written by military and documents with diaries, memoirs, and oral than those of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation history interviews. It is essential to treat Holocaust. While the Administration (UNRRA) personnel, personal narratives of the Holocaust with ability to communicate frequently ignored domestic life. Often great care. Scholars have discussed the women and children were only mentioned difficulties that survivors have articulating the trauma of the when their marriages and births were their memories and that their audiences Holocaust is limited by registered. Social workers, psychologists, have comprehending them; researchers have what is “tellable” by the and other observers recorded their warned against the temptation of infusing interpretations of DP attitudes and living meaning into survivors’ suffering. Memories survivor and “hearable” conditions in reports and journals, but often of the DP experience, however, are usually by the reader or they imposed their own preconceived ideas less traumatic than those of the Holocaust. interviewer, memories of onto the DPs. Thus, they often tell us more While the ability to communicate the about the attitudes of the observers than of trauma of the Holocaust is limited by what the DP period are easier the DPs themselves. The study of domestic is “tellable” by the survivor and “hearable” to convey. life and identity construction requires the by the reader or interviewer, memories of use of new sources, such as memoirs and the DP period are easier to convey. Like oral history interviews. all historical documents, however, DP Personal narratives can illuminate the narratives need to be analyzed by taking meanings behind DP behavior, helping into account their manner of creation, the us to understand the significance of purpose for which they were created, and religious ritual after the Holocaust, to the intended audience. An awareness of the explain attitudes toward revenge and conditions in which the recounted memory questions of gender and ethnic identity. In was encoded and in which it was retrieved 31 MAY10 CSWupdate Memory studies also show as well as how the gender of the survivor are shared by numerous rememberers” that individual memories shaped the memory can help the historian (305). Carefully read and analyzed, DP gauge its usefulness for historical evidence. personal narratives can provide important are surprisingly consistent In the cases of a few survivors, I was able information about events as well as about the over time. When one has to compare both earlier and later interviews, meanings survivors have given them. access to a large number and interviews with memoirs. The central My determination to use oral histories memories remained constant with slight was strengthened when I viewed videotaped of personal narratives, variations in the details that the survivor interviews at the USC Shoah Foundation they can help isolate core remembered or chose to share at a particular Institute. I had already gathered much memories and screen out time. Historian Christopher Browning has material about pregnancy in the DP camps, also discovered that survivor memories are but I was interested in learning more about any distortions. more stable and less alterable over time than abortions, and the index at the archive one might expect, affirming their usefulness allowed me to identify which testimonies as historical documents, particularly when discussed abortion. Of the five Holocaust no other records exist (47). Memory studies survivor interviews in the archives that also show that individual memories are discuss abortion in the DP camps, only one, surprisingly consistent over time. When one a German Jewish survivor, actually had an has access to a large number of personal abortion in postwar Germany. The second narratives, they can help isolate core woman suffered a miscarriage that required memories and screen out any distortions. a dilation and curettage that she mistakenly Neuroscientist Daniel Schacter has argued referred to as an abortion. In the third that videotaped interviews with Holocaust interview, the DP contemplated an abortion survivors “can help to ensure that forgetting but chose not to risk an illegal procedure. and distortion—which can infiltrate Tragically her son died when his skull was any individual rememberer’s story—are crushed during a forceps delivery. counteracted by the overwhelming truths Two remaining testimonies about abortion that emerge from core elements that reveal that German doctors recommended 32 MAY10 CSWupdate that the women terminate their pregnancies. time in order to determine whether the ...it soon became apparent The outcomes of these two pregnancies, the women’s complaints suggested incompetence that more than a quarter of successful deliveries of healthy babies with or worse on the part of the caregivers. In no ill effect to the mothers, raise questions both cases mentioned above, the doctors the women who discussed about whether the doctors had been had not followed German medical standards the medical care they genuinely concerned about the mothers’ when recommending abortions. Many DPs received during pregnancy health or whether they were using the interpreted the lack of pain relief during excuse of maternal risk to encourage DPs childbirth as a deliberate, antisemitic described events that did to terminate viable pregnancies. Most DP withholding of care; however, the use of not meet the standards of women expressed fear at being treated by pain medication during delivery was not care of the time. Some of the German medical personnel, remembering standard medical practice. Also, many the role that German physicians had played medications were not to be had because of cases were likely the result in grotesque human experiments and also postwar shortages. These survivors, many of incompetence but others recalling that Jewish mothers and infants of whom experienced the pain of childbirth rose to the standard of had been targeted for death. Pregnancy and for the first time while under the care of childbirth revived Holocaust terrors and left German healthcare workers, interpreted malpractice. A few notable the women feeling particularly vulnerable. the lack of relief as a continuation of their cases suggested that malice Watching their interviews, I wondered, mistreatment by the Nazis. Later, when they was at play. This aspect of whether their feelings of victimization were contrasted their experiences with those of simply an understandable reaction based their daughters, many of whom gave birth in survivors’ experiences on past experience or whether the women the U.S. during a time when anesthesia was would not have come to had indeed been victimized in the postwar commonly used, they felt convinced that the light were it not for the period. Germans had deliberately tormented them. As I investigated the experiences of DP At the same time, it soon became apparent oral histories. women with German medical personnel, I that more than a quarter of the women who compared the reported experiences of the discussed the medical care they received DPs to German medical standards of the during pregnancy described events that did 33 MAY10 CSWupdate not meet the standards of care of the time. black market), dealt with emigration issues Browning, Christopher. Collected Memories: Some of the cases were likely the result of and the authorities. This division of labor Holocaust History and Post-War Testimony. Madison: U of Wisconsin Press, 2003. incompetence but others rose to the standard was encouraged both by the conditions of Feinstein, Margarete Myers. “Absent Fathers, of malpractice. A few notable cases suggested camp life and by attempts to recreate the Present Mothers: Images of Parenthood in that malice was at play. This aspect of “normalcy” of their prewar homes. This Holocaust Survivor Narratives.” Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies and survivors’ experiences would not have come domestic situation rarely made it into the Gender Issues 13 (Spring 2007): 155–182. to light were it not for the oral histories. written record. Schacter, Daniel L. Searching for Memory: The On a visit to the DP camps, the future Personal narratives can teach us much Brain, the Mind, and the Past. New York: prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, about aspects of people’s lives that do not Basic Books, 1996. questioned why so few DP women were in enter the documents that historians prefer. In leadership positions. The answer lies in the the case of Holocaust survivors, the written tremendous domestic responsibilities they documents were often created by outsiders had assumed because of the harsh conditions who had their own agendas and prejudices. of camp life. The arrival of children had To ignore the survivors’ memoirs and oral encouraged the reestablishment of prewar histories would be to create history based on gender roles. Women assumed household sources no more credible. In some instances, duties of diapering, laundry, cleaning, there would be no other documents at all. and procuring and preparing food. Fears To ignore the survivors’ testimonies in those that Jewish children would not be allowed cases would be to let their history go untold. to survive heightened natural maternal Margarete Myers Feinstein is a CSW Research concern, putting great pressure on Jewish Scholar. women to protect their children. Although Works Cited some women managed to continue their Bos, Pascale Rachel. “Women and the Holocaust: Analyzing Gender Difference.” Experience employment or schooling, most gave up and Expression: Women, the Nazis, and the these activities when their children were Holocaust. Eds. Elizabeth R. Baer and Myrna born. Men worked (for the Allies, in DP Goldenberg. Detroit: Wayne State U P, 2003), vocational schools and workshops, or on the 23–50. 34 MAY10 CSWupdate Why Do Women Rebel? Understanding State Repression and Female Participation in Sri Lanka

by Nimmi Gowrinathan

When I see the enemy, I think of my brothers, and how they were killed, how they were captured and beaten, and how they did this to all our people, and the thought comes that if I can get close to the enemy, I can do whatever I want.

–Interview with Sita, LTTE cadre, March 1996 (Trawick, 2007)

n May 17, 2009, the Government of OSri Lanka declared a military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a guerilla group who had waged a thirty-year-war for a separate state for ethnic Tamils living amongst the Sinhalese majority on the island. The few journalists

35 MAY10 CSWupdate who had access to the conflict zone in the final days of the bloody war report that one all-women’s unit of the LTTE fended off Sri Lankan Army military advances for nearly a week. In the year since the defeat of the LTTE, access to territories formerly controlled by the rebel movement has slowly increased—opening up the space for inquiries into life within the borders of, what was, a fledgling nation. One of the most underexamined amongst these continues to be the impact of the conflict on the lives of women in Tamil society, in particular the thousands who chose to take up arms and join the militant resistance movement. The women who survived now remain in detention centers across the island, with little to no access to the outside world. As we witness a resurgence of the state repression and militarization that first initiated this seemingly intractable ethnic conflict, how do we understand the impact of these processes on the lives and experiences of the female combatant? Formed in the mid 1980s, the self- determination platform of the LTTE was modeled after liberation movements in 36 MAY10 CSWupdate Latin America and elsewhere, and the Eelam (Balasingham, 2001). The case of thousands group soon became known (and feared) as The female rebel (and often, female martyr) of female combatants one of the most ruthless and sophisticated and their role in resistance movements from participating in the guerilla movements in the world. The the Black Panthers in the U.S. to the freedom case of thousands of female combatants Liberation Tigers fighters in the Eritrean People’s Liberation participating in the Liberation Tigers of Front is a symbol that evokes mixed emotions of Tamil Eelam, a Tamil Eelam, a nationalist movement and reactions in academic literature and the nationalist movement which fought for an independent state media—and particularly amongst feminist which fought for an in Sri Lanka, is one of several where writers and scholars. In the post 9/11 era, independent state in Sri an analysis of the relationship between all such rebels and martyrs quickly became Lanka, is one of several state repression and the nature of female terrorists and suicide bombers—further where an analysis of the participation is particularly relevant. In increasing the fascination with and scrutiny relationship between 1983, the dedication and passion of of the “female terrorist.” In 2007 Marie state repression four female Jaffna University students Claire magazine published an interview with who were actively protesting the and the nature of a female LTTE suicide bomber who was in marginalization of the minority Tamil custody, highlighting some of the central female participation is community led to their inauguration into tensions in how these women are perceived: particularly relevant. what was then the seeds of a revolutionary “Listening to Menake talk, it’s hard not to movement. Breaking free of conservative sympathize. Her future will be at least as grim cultural gender roles, resisting state as her past has been. And yet, had she not oppression, joining brothers and fathers, been apprehended, her legacy would have and guaranteed, momentarily, safe shelter been that of mass murder” (Marie Claire, and food, these women eventually 2007). We are conflicted in our understanding constituted the “Womens Military Wing” of the “agency” of this woman and her role and “Birds of Paradise” Units, accounting in acts of political violence, a tension further for 30% of the participants in an ongoing complicated by western understandings struggle for an independent state of Tamil of female “empowerment.” Even with the 37 MAY10 CSWupdate numbers of female combatants increasing “unexploited constituency” (Coomeraswamy, resistance. (Kampwirth, 2002; Viterna, globally (most movements report participation 1997; Victor, 2004). Understanding female 2006). These studies enable women to be levels between 20 and 40%), limited scholastic participants as a homogeneous collective, this “ideologues” and active revolutionaries in interest, as well as the difficulty in accessing approach to the agency of female combatants their own right, rather than passive followers these women, has limited our ability to tends to “diminish women’s credibility of a patriarchal movement (Cunningham, understand the experiences and motivations and influence both within and outside 2003:186). of women who engage in rebel movements. In organizations” (Cunningham, 2003). The seeds of my own intellectual interest my research I attempt to better understand the Taking the role of female combatants more in the women of the LTTE began with a “agency” of the individual female combatant seriously, feminist scholars have found that grassroots experience with girls living in the in the LTTE and to explore the causes that large-scale structural changes combined with conflict-affected zones in the northern and led to her choice to join an armed rebel a rise in international feminism specifically eastern districts (areas partially controlled movement. generated new forms of women’s activism by the LTTE). Developing a leadership and Existing studies in political science and (Kampwirth, 2002). It has also been argued English-teaching program for orphanages resulting theories of mobilization and that periods of conflict and the absence of in these areas from 2002 to 2005, I spent participation in rebel movements often rely men open up spaces of agency for women my summers living amongst these young on the underlying assumptions about gender. to cross private/public barriers and to assume girls, listening to the traumatic stories of Women have often been assumed to be new roles as heads of households, thereby their journey to this place. As a result of a more peaceful and less warlike than men, shifting cultural norms to allow for the temporary ceasefire, girls who had relatives creating an expectation that women are mobilization of female fighters (Rajasingham, in the LTTE were joined by young women primarily nurturing and nonviolent beings. 2001: 105). Recent research on female who had been recently released by the LTTE. As women began to be considered within fighters inL atin America has identified Self-conscious about their short hair and broader debates on mobilization, recruitment, multiple factors that might push women often more aggressive than their peers, these and participation, gender-based mobilization to join rebel movements, amongst which young women largely kept to themselves. was often viewed from the perspective of state repression (using varying definitions of Some had joined the LTTE voluntarily, a patriarchal leadership, where women are repression) is often a catalyst independently or others were abducted—but each of their life only understood as “disempowered cogs” in conjunction with existing activist networks histories challenged and complicated my who have been discovered as an as yet pushing women towards violent forms of preconceptions about agency and the impact 38 MAY10 CSWupdate of state repression on female combatants. in India, as well as leaders of civil society The seeds of my own From 2004 to 2009, I have engaged in and academics in Sri Lanka. Close ties to intellectual interest in looking at issues around gender, militarization, the communities I worked with also gave the women of the LTTE and state repression in Sri Lanka from a me access to regions and archived materials number of vantage points. While in the that have been overlooked in most existing began with a grassroots doctoral program at UCLA, I have also been scholarship. The approach I take in this study experience with girls working part-time as the Director of South combines approaches adopted in existing living in the conflict- Asia Programs at Operation USA. I managed interdisciplinary studies to create a unique affected zones in the post-tsunami and post-conflict humanitarian theoretical framework within which the northern and eastern programs on the island, focusing in particular hypotheses developed in my dissertation districts (areas partially on vocational training and educational support can be tested. This framework applies controlled by the LTTE). for young girls and women in the northeast. social psychological approaches to existing Developing a leadership Later, as the UN representative of Operation understandings of the state repression within and English-teaching USA, I chaired the Sri Lanka Working Group political science. I argue that the approach of NGOs, spearheading advocacy efforts with taken in this dissertation is best able to program for orphanages policymakers and members of civil society highlight the central role of state repression in these areas from 2002 in the U.S. around issues impacting Tamil in understanding the causes and types of to 2005, I spent my summers communities in Sri Lanka. Working with the female participation in rebel movements. The living amongst these very active Tamil diaspora in the United States, theoretical framework is comprised of three young girls, listening I also developed Tamil Women’s Groups, distinct components, which draw on and to the traumatic stories which are formal community groups across the build upon existing theoretical approaches put of their journey to this country that raise funds and awareness around forward in various disciplines. place. issues impacting Tamil women in Sri Lanka. First, this study moves away from static In my academic research, I developed a conceptions of female participation and unique sample set of interviews with current conceptually situates the grievances of the and former female fighters, political leaders individual female combatant in an interactive in the LTTE, former fighters in refugee camps dialectic with the grievances of a collective 39 MAY10 CSWupdate group, such as the LTTE. This approach her choice to participate.1 Drawing on the highlights that there is a multicausal pathway approach put forth by Miranda Alison, I view Working within this for each individual female combatant female combatants as exercising “restricted framework, I find that into rebel movements (Viterna, 2006) but agency,” acting as “agents making their given pre-existing own choices, though acting within multiple understands varied individual grievances as conditions of inequality reflective of and incorporated into collective hierarchical structures and specific contexts” (both social and gender), grievances framed by the LTTE. (Alison, 2004). the identity of female This study also draws on a “person- Working within this framework, I find that centered” approach more common in given pre-existing conditions of inequality combatants in the LTTE anthropology, where theories on specific (both social and gender), the identity of (a unique intersection behaviors of personal or cultural experience female combatants in the LTTE (a unique of ethnicity and gender) are understood through interviews that allow intersection of ethnicity and gender) were were mobilized by for reflection on past and current experiences mobilized by multiple mechanisms, among multiple mechanisms, of female combatants. (Hollan, 2008) Rather which experiences of direct and indirect among which state repression were most likely to shape the than focusing on particular events (moments of experiences of direct state repression or specific experiences in the nature of their eventual participation in the and indirect state movement), this approach extracts patterns movement. repression were most in the behavior of female combatants from While the hardline approach of the within the broader context of an individual government of Sri Lanka drew widespread likely to shape the combatant’s life story. criticism for its blatant violation of nature of their eventual Finally, this study shifts the site of agency internationally established humanitarian and participation in the away from being entirely embedded in the human rights norms, the military defeat was movement. rebel leadership and its ability to influence absolute. A hastily called presidential and and recruit possible female combatants to parliamentary election that consolidated being a more nuanced relationship which 1. “Agency” here is understood as women taking action with allows the female combatant some agency in purpose and meaning, though the meanings and contexts of these actions may be partially culturally pre-determined, and not entirely intrinsic (Paul, 1990).

40 MAY10 CSWupdate power in the center, but political grievances continued harassment and intimidation as they F emale Terrorism,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism of the Tamil people remain unaddressed push for the implementation of basic standards 26 (2003): 171–195. Nimmi Gowrinathan, “The Space Between Politics of democracy, transparency, and human rights (Gowrinathan, 2010). Female activists and Reality: A Minority View of the Sri Lankan in the capital city of Colombo fear that in former conflict areas. They have been Elections” Huffingtonpost.com, accessed the entrenched militarization and harsh denied access to the female leadership of the January 24, 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost. com/nimmi-gowrinathan/the-space-between- crackdown on all forms of dissent under LTTE, whose actions and writings had once politic_b_434321.html extended “state of emergency” policies has initiated a new discussion around gender and Douglas Hollan, “Setting a New Standard: The limited the space for women’s activism, militarization. As we attempt to understand Person-Centered Interviewing and Observation particularly those from the Tamil minority the driving forces behind the mobilization of Robert I. Levy,” Ethos 33:4 (Jan 2008), 459– 466. of women into an armed resistance struggle, (Interview with author, Colombo, January Karen Kampwirth, Women in Guerilla Movements: 2010). state repression emerges as one of the primary Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas, Cuba (University This space was ironically most present at causes of female militancy. Nearly thirty Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2002), 1–22 a moment when the LTTE was at the height years later, as the context and conditions of Robert A. Paul, “What Does Anybody Want? Desire, of its political power. Visiting former rebel repression re-emerge, the question remains, Purpose, and the Acting Subject in the Study strongholds, one woman activist commented will history repeat itself? of Culture?” Cultural Anthropology, 5:4 (Nov. recently on the role of Tamil women in the 1990), 431–451. Nimmi Gowrinathan is a PhD candidate in the Rajasingham-Senanayake, “Ambivalent LTTE: “Women had this romantic notion of Department of Political Science at UCLA. He Empowerment: The Tragedy of Tamil Women emancipation and were looking for a taste of received a CSW/Graduate Division Irving and in Conflict,” inWomen, War and Peace in South equality, which the rebels were providing” Jean Stone Dissertation Year Fellowship for AY Asia (Delhi: Sage Publications, 2001), 105–125. Feizal Samath, “How the War Gave Tamil Women (Semath, 2010). During the peace talks in 2009-10. More Space,” Inter Press Service News Agency, 2002, the Subcommittee on Gender Affairs April 21, 2010. http://www.ipsnews.net/print. brought members of civil society across the Citations asp?idnews=51132. Radhika Coomersawamy, “The impact of tradition, island together with the female leadership of Margaret Trawick, Enemy Lines: Warfare, Childhood, culture & religion on women in South Asia.” and Play in Batticaloa (Los Angeles: University of the LTTE to discuss ways to address issues of International Center for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka, California Press, 2007). gender equality that should be incorporated 1988. Jocely S. Viterna, “Pulled, Pushed, and Persuaded: into any political solution. ”LTTE Women—Is This Liberation,” Sunday Times, Explaining Women’s Mobilization into the January 5, 1997. Colombo. Salvadoran Guerilla Army,” American Journal of Many of these same activists now face Karla J. Cunningham, “Cross-Regional Trends in Sociology 112:1 (July 2006), 1–45. 41 MAY10 CSWupdate Seeking Sex in an Electronic Age by Patrick Keilty

echnology is never merely used, never extended our culture’s spatial and temporal Vivian Sobchack,2 Kate Hayles,3 and Brian Tmerely instrumental. It is incorporated consciousness, so too have representation Massumi,4 have become interested in the into our lives in ways that are socially pervasive technologies, such as the photograph, film, radically material nature of our human and profoundly personal, informed not only and the Internet. Technologies help shape and 2. Sobchack, Vivian. (2004). Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and by its own specific materiality, but also by reflect our presence to the world and to others. Moving Image Culture. Berkeley/Los Angeles, CA: UC Press. a political, economic, historical, and social In the past decade, scholars, such as Don Ihde,1 3. Hayles, N. Katherine. (1999). How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. context. Just as transportation technologies, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 4. Massumi, Brian. (2002). Parables for the Virtual: Movement, such as the train, plane, and automobile, have 1. Ihde, Don. (2002). Bodies in Technology. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Affect, Sensation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 42 MAY10 CSWupdate These new forms of sexual sociability also reveal the body’s participation in creating new media cultures, which lies at the intersection of sexuality studies and studies of our embodied encounters with technology. existence in an increasingly electronic age. intersection of sexuality studies and studies of wonder arise from the relation of images to In concert with these corporal concerns, our embodied encounters with technology. their location within a digital space, from their sexuality scholars have wondered how objective Online pornography is especially ripe with representation of particular acts, body parts, encounters with computer technologies may examples of the ways in which the body and other such fetishes, and their proximity reconstitute our sexual sociability. At the end participates in creating new media cultures. to similar or different images, a kind of sexual of his lengthy cultural history of masturbation, There are literally thousands of websites that Wunderkammer. Indeed, several scholars have Thomas Laqueur observes that masturbation, cater to every masturbatory fantasy imaginable. conceived of the display of digital objects once a solitary sexual pleasure governed by But what is new is the way in which these within a digital space as part of a Baroque Enlightenment sexual ethics, has become an sites reflect and create fetishistic communities genealogy.6 increasingly public, social, and communal and diagram relations of sexual desire through Pornographic video hosting services experience online.5 These new forms of sexual the arrangement of images on display. This (basically YouTube for pornography), for sociability also reveal the body’s participation in is because pornographic images online have example, have incorporated social networking creating new media cultures, which lies at the often been arranged around corporal and social 6. Murray, Timothy. (2008). Digital Baroque: New Media Art and experiences, whereby curiosity, frustration, Cinematic Folds. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota 5. Laqueur, Thomas W. (2003). Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Press; Munster, Anna. (2006). Materializing New Media: Masturbation. New York: Zone Books, 419. surprise, desire, repulsion, pleasure, and Embodiment and Information Aesthetics. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press. 43 MAY10 CSWupdate Pornographic video hosting services (basically YouTube for pornography), for example, have incorporated social networking design elements into their websites, making explicit sexual communities online.

design elements into their websites, making these images are particular to viewer-initiated particular purpose. Many online pornography explicit sexual communities online. Viewers spatialization. websites, then, effectively catalog and index can “befriend” each other, exchange stories, The corporal and social experiences viewers sexual fetishes. These systems, following follow each other’s uploaded videos or favorite have with online pornography thus enable Suzanne Briet, not only point to an object but videos, and contribute to wikis. Viewers add an image’s relation and proximity to each also reflect the social networks in which the titles, descriptive tags, commentary, and narrative other and reflect an image’s place in a larger object appears. Any catalog or index is always description about images that solicit or repel network of sexual fetishistic relations. Conceived a culturally embedded and socially networked them. These textual fragments contribute to diagrammatically, an image functions as a phenomenon.7 the metadata of an image, which enables single node around which a constellation of Yet these images do not maintain a fixed searching, retrieval, and the arrangement of images, along with their respective textual identity in relation to other images. Nor do images on display though a predetermined fragments, maps a fetishistic network within they represent the static presentation of a thing. dataset in the design of an algorithm. In this a digital space. These corporal arrangements Instead, these images are performed when sense, viewers enter into a participatory, albeit adhere to the associative principles of indexing looked at or experienced. Their corporal and mediated and constrained, relationship with and classification systems, in which objects are 7. Briet. Suzanne. (2006). What is Documentation?: English placed always in relation to other objects for a Translation of the Classic French Text. Trans. R. E. Day and L. online pornography in that the arrangement of Martinet. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. 44 MAY10 CSWupdate social arrangements constitute, according concern ergonomics: its stationary status, the instrumental. It is itself a site of social relations Johanna Drucker, an “active, dynamic field of height and size of a screen, a reliance on the that has become incorporated into our lives, forces and energies in dynamic suspension, proximity of certain hardware (such as the transforms us as embodied subjects, and alters acting on each other within a frame of mouse, keyboard, and electrical outlet), and an our subjectivity. constraint” to produce the conditions a appropriate level of illumination of the screen, Patrick Keilty is a PhD candidate in the viewer is provoked by in the constitutive act to name a few. These limitations can be said Department of Information Studies with a of seeking, viewing, or hearing that makes to further mediate, constrain, and structure concentration in Women’s Studies at UCLA. His dissertation project is entitled “Seeking an image.8 Thus, these images and their the body’s participation in creating new media Sex: Embodiment and Electronic Culture.” arrangements are lived events, not fixed cultures, which are of necessity technologically entities. grounded and structured. As technologies It is important to remember, too, that a change, so too will the structures of these viewer’s experience with these images is always social relations. Pause for a while, for example, mediated through through one’s own body over the impact of mobile electronic devices capacity and the particular material limitations on sociability and one quickly grasps how of a technology. Some of these limits can be important technological structure becomes. seen in the material limits that characterize The corporal and social arrangements of the operation of a computer’s information pornographic images online are only one flow: the capacity of silicon to conduct example of the many ways in which the body electrons at particular speeds, its resistance to participates in creating new media cultures. degrees of deterioration, its ability to change Understanding these arrangements allows one in composition and properties according to to map the contours of new forms of sexual temperatures, the possibility of its combination sociability in an electronic age. In this way, the (or not) with other material flows, and so on. Internet does not merely act as a repository for And then there are any number of material objects. Instead, these objects are relational limitations of the desktop computer that and dynamic, and their arrangement is socially 8. Drucker, Johanna. (2009). “Entity to Event: From Literal, and culturally embedded. The Internet is, Mechanistic Materiality to Probabilistic Materiality.” Parallax 15 (4), p. 14 therefore, never merely used, never merely 45 MAY10 CSWupdate Bruin Feminists for Equality Go to Washington UCLA Students Attend Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Young Women’s Leadership Conference

by Miranda Petersen, Myra Duran, and Cindy Le from left to right: Myra Duran, Cindy Le, and Miranda Petersen

ver spring break three members of and Cindy Le, participated in this three-day (FMF); Shelby Knox, who was the subject of Othe student group, Bruin Feminists for event that focused on a broad range of issues a documentary on abstinence-only education Equality, were given the opportunity to attend facing the next generation of young women in in Texas, “The Education of Shelby Knox”; the Feminist Majority Foundation’s National the United States and around the world. The and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton Young Women’s Leadership conference in conference featured speakers such as Eleanor (D-Washington, DC). Washington, DC, with the generous help Smeal, former president of the National The timing of our trip to the nation’s of the Center for the Study of Women. The Organization of Women (NOW) and current capital could not have been more three of us, Miranda Petersen, Myra Duran, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation serendipitous, as it ended up being the same 46 MAY10 CSWupdate weekend that historic health care reform bill was passed by the U.S. Senate. The energy of the conference was extremely tense as the Stupak Amendment resurfaced, and our morning assembly was paused while conference attendees placed desperate calls to Congress members to make sure it would not be included in the final bill. In addition to the events surrounding health care reform, we were able to join more than a hundred thousand people in a historic march on Capitol Hill demanding comprehensive immigration reform. The conference itself included several workshops on issues such as the re- introduction of the Convention on the While most of the workshops provided at to this was the popularity of the session, Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination the conference centered around topics most which packed a large room and drew many Against Women (CEDAW), birth control relevant to the FMF’s own interests, there was questions and emotional responses. access, women in the media, and campus one workshop that we felt was refreshing in The workshop, titled “Access Denied: organizing. In addition, one of our members, its break from the norm: “Immigration Reform Women, Immigration Reform, and Myra Duran, was asked to speak on a panel as a Feminist Issue.” We were surprised and Reproductive Justice,” focused on many (see photo) about her own experience going encouraged to see the FMF focusing on an immigration issues that have not only been undercover at a Crisis Pregnancy Center issue which has not traditionally been viewed neglected in the feminist discourse, but in the (CPC), and the insidious ways in which these as a “feminist issue,” although it is one that has immigration debates as well. For example, centers carry out their anti-abortion agenda strong implications for women in this country, Veronica Bayetti Flores of the National Latina by misleading pregnant women and posing and had personal relevance to many of the Institute for Reproductive Health spoke about as comprehensive reproductive clinics. people attending the conference. A testament the human rights abuses that women in the 47 MAY10 CSWupdate Leaving this conference, country illegally have faced while giving on issues like immigration reform is a trend birth, including incidents of women being that will continue, because it is an attitude that we are motivated to handcuffed to their hospital beds during labor, is absolutely vital to keeping feminism alive in explore new ways to women who developed infections from not our younger generation. engage our peers in being allowed to breastfeed or pump, and Leaving this conference, we are motivated women whose children were immediately to explore new ways to engage our peers in dialogue about what removed and placed in foster care against the dialogue about what feminism means in our feminism means in our mothers’ wishes. She also spoke of transgender own lives, and to expand the definition of own lives, and to expand issues within the immigration debate, telling what constitutes a “feminist issue.” We are stories of transgender immigrants who have determined to continue expanding our own the definition of what died in jail because their AIDS medication had conceptions of feminism to more fully and constitutes a “feminist been withheld. These are just a few stories accurately include issues such as immigration issue.” out of many that highlight the importance of and civil rights, LGBTQ rights, and class women’s and LGBT issues within the larger and race inequality. This conference was an need for immigration reform. amazing experience, one that has energized Attending this workshop stirred conflicting our existing feminist passions, as well as thoughts about the focus of larger feminist sparked new and exciting interests that we organizations, such as FMF and NOW, and hope can be reflected through the organizing emphasized the need to expand on issues of Bruin Feminists for Equality. beyond the traditional feminist areas of employment and reproductive rights. While it was inspiring to see young women from across the country collaborate and organize around feminist issues, younger generations have new challenges they must face, and the older feminist organizations are in need of catching up. We hope that FMF’s expansion 48 MAY10 CSWupdate MAY 10

Visiting Scholar Program!

CSW has revived the Visiting CSW will provide office space to To apply , submit a letter of applica- Scholars program to take ad- visiting international scholars who tion describing your project and how vantage of scholars who have a have visa sponsorship, financial sup- it relates to CSW’s current research permanent academic affiliation port, and another campus unit that projects. elsewhere but who are conducting has provided official visiting scholar research and residing temporar- affiliation with UCLA. The Center is ily in Los Angeles. CSW may offer unable to sponsor or fund interna- office space or university affiliation tional visiting scholars. to faculty conducting research that pertains to ongoing Center projects CSW will provide office space and and research areas. The following university affiliation for visiting do- guidelines distinguish between the mestic scholars. No financial sup- services available to international port is available. and domestic scholars:

49 MAY 10

UCLA Center for the Study of Women CSW Update is the newsletter of the UCLA Center for the DIRECR TO Kathleen McHugh Posrr fes o , English and Cinema and Media Studies Study of Women. It is published monthly during the academic M I AnaG NG EDITOR B renda Johnson-Grau year. UCLA faculty, staff, AMITD NIS RATIVE ANALYST J essie Babiarz and students are welcome to AMITD NIS RATIVE ASSISTANT Patricija Petracˇ submit articles for inclusion. If you have questions, please STUET D N ASSISTANTS J aimie Baron, Sarah Cho, Chelsey Crowley, Libby Dierker, email the publications staff at Hao Dieu, Andrey Gordienko, Erin Hill, Jackie Hunt, Angelica Lai, Susan McKibben, Sadie Menchen, [email protected] Alfonso Orozco, Monica Peña, Dayo Spencer-Walters, EDITOR/DESIGNER and Wenpeng Zou Brenda Johnson-Grau CPS AM U ADDRESS 1500 Public Affairs Building 722203 EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS MAILING ADDRESS UCLA CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF WOMEN Jaimie Baron, Sarah Cho, Box 957222 Libby Dierker, Hao Dieu, Los Angeles, CA 90095-7222 Sadie Menchen, and Wenpeng Zou

PHONE/FAX 310 825 0590 / 310 825 0456 EMAIL [email protected]

50