departmentANTHROPOLOGY of STANFORD 2015-2016 newsletter, volume ix

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 1 CONTENTS

1 Letter from the Chair

2 Anthropology and Global Inequality 3 Faculty Interviews 3 Jim Ferguson 4 Thomas Blom Hansen 7 Andrew Bauer 8 Drug addiction, violence and poverty in Mexico 10 Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention 11 Tribal Migrants in Global India 12 Reindeer in Angola: middle class aspiration in an unequal world 14 States of Divorce: Reproducing Palestinian Statelessness and Jordanian Citizenship 16 Questioning the “Digital Divide” in the Context of Low-Income Internet Use in Tunis 18 To Change Everything 20 Department News 32 PhD Letters from the Field 36 Undergraduate Fieldnotes 40 Alumni News 47 Student Achievements 49 Anthropology Faculty

e tte r f rom th e ch The 2015/2016 year air has been another produc- tive year for the Department of Anthropology with several department-hosted conferences and workshops, a new book by Liisa Malkki, and a multitude of undergraduate events. One major bright spot was Lochlann Jain’s award of the 2016 J.I Staley Prize for her book Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us. This well-deserved prize is a testament of Lochlann’s hard work and dedication to the field of medical anthropology. Please join me in con- gratulating her on this accomplishment. On the faculty front, I am pleased to announce that Angela Garcia, who joined the department in 2011, was promoted to the rank of Associate Profes- sor with tenure. I am also delighted to report that Andrew Bauer (PhD Univer- sity Chicago, 2010) joined the department as Assistant Professor of Anthropology. Andrew comes to us from University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) where he served three years as Assistant Professor of Anthropology and held appointments in the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Department of Geography and Geographical Information Sciences. As an anthropological archaeologist, Andrew’s research broadly focuses on the archaeology of human-environment relations, and makes use of multiple interdisciplin- ary methods including geomorphology, paleoecology, remote sensing, and other Geographical Information Systems to enhance his anthropological investigation. Andrew’s arrival adds to the geographical scope and technical breadth of our archaeology program, strengthening our already formidable archaeology group. In this issue of the newsletter, we asked faculty, alumni, and students to share their work on global inequality. In the following pages, graduate students Jennifer Hsieh and Vivian Lu wrote about interviews they conducted with professors Jim Ferguson, Thomas Blom Hansen, and Andrew Bauer on their respective research relating to this topic. In addition, we have included a reprint of a Q&A with Angela Garcia discussing her research on drug addiction, violence, and poverty in Mexico. Two alumni, Danyelle O’Hara (BA 1989) and Dolly Kikon (PhD 2013) shared their current work and opinion on how inequality may be addressed. Finally, four students, Jess Auerbach, Eda Pepi, Karem Said, and Margaret DeLoney, contributed articles on their current research. Lastly, in August, I will be stepping down as the Department Chair, and the position will pass into the experienced and capable hands of Jim Ferguson.

Best wishes to all,

Sylvia Yanagisako Edward Clark Crossett Professor of Humanistic Studies Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 1 Anthropology and Global Inequality by JENNIFER HSIEH and VIVIAN LU, DOCTORAL CANDIDATES

Inequality, in its many societal forms, has recently become one of the most hotly-debated topics in the present moment in the United States. From the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis to the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements, everyday concerns around the impact of inequality on individual lives have brought issues of income inequality, racial inequality and other societal inequalities to center stage in American media and political debates. While inequality is emerging as an important analytic for Ameri- cans to understand their own society, what kinds of insight can anthropologists offer through their work on inequality across the globe and across human history?

At Stanford’s Department of Anthropology, archaeologists, medical anthropologists, ecological and envi- ronmental anthropologists, and sociocultural anthropologists contribute different analytical frameworks and entry-points into variegated studies of inequality across human societies. Whether it is with a focus on the social and the cultural, the material, or the environmental, the topic of inequality serves as a common focal point in both contemporary and historical studies of the social world. In the following pages, three faculty members discuss their current projects in distinct regions around the world. By providing unique in- sights into the differences and commonalities from one field site to the next, they demonstrate the poten- tial for anthropologists to engage in global discussions about inequality, as well as the capacity for anthro- pologists to engage in complex, multidimensional discussions about present-day issues. James Ferguson, the Susan S. and William H. Hindle Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor in the Department of Anthropology, discusses the recent publication of his book, Give a Man a Fish (2015, Duke University Press), and the politics of income distribution in southern Africa. Thomas Hansen, the Reliance- Dhirubhai Ambani Professor in South Asian Studies and Professor in Anthropology, talks about his work in examining the impact of economic inequality within existing, formalized structures of stratification in India and South Africa as a way to provide global context that undermines the idea of “American exceptional- ism.” Finally, Andrew Bauer, Assistant Professor in Anthropology, shares his archaeological and paleoenvi- ronmental research in India. With a focus on prehistoric material culture, Bauer investigates the longitudi- nal relationship between early forms of social inequalities and large-scale environmental transformations.

Along with graduate students who are at various stages of their Ph.D. research, these three professors provide a unique insight into ways of engaging with issues of global inequality through anthropological methods and inquiry.

2 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 Global Inequality and Interview with James Ferguson

Many anthropologists Africa often seek not to escape relations of in- distinguish their mode of equality, but to find ways to enter into them— analysis from policy-ori- a relation of inequality is at least a relation, ented studies by charting and access to social relationships is one of the out the problem, rather main ways that poor people find their way than offering solutions. in life. You can’t get at those relationships, ANTHROPOLOGY ANTHROPOLOGY How does your book Give though, by just looking at household surveys a Man a Fish differ from on income; here the anthropological fieldwork this approach and why focuses on real people and the complicated have you chosen to do so? social lives they lead is crucial.

I’m not making policy From Occupy Wall Street to the popularity of recommendations in Give Thomas Piketty’s book “Capital” to the cur- a Man a Fish, but I am taking seriously what rent presidential debates, societal inequality takes place in and around the making of policy. has increasingly become a topic of public And I am increasingly dissatisfied with the sort debate and interest in the US. Given that of anthropological intervention that just takes much of anthropological literature is con- the form of a denunciation of all the things cerned with understanding issues of inequal- we’re against. That’s too easy: “Down with ity based in other parts of the world, what Neoliberalism!” An anthropological analysis are some of the insights from Give a Man a should also be able to identify what the goals Fish that may be used to analyze the case of and stakes are of a politics: what are we for? income and racial inequality in the present- (however that “we” might be constituted). day U.S.? What do we want? And where can we identify possibilities as well as dangers in the emerging We’ve often assumed that these issues take new forms of politics we encounter in a place a radically different form in the industrialized like southern Africa? countries of the global North (like the US) than they do in the “Third World” or global South What are some of the common assumptions (welfare states and tax policy in the North, about inequality and income distribution “problems of development” in the South). But that you challenge in your book? How does I think that separation is less and less help- an anthropological method of fieldwork and ful, and many of the issues I’ve been dealing participant-observation enable you to make with in places like South Africa are surprisingly these arguments? relevant to the US. Non-labor-based claims on income, for instance, are very important in I think we too often think of inequality as South Africa, where many lack employment, simply a quantitative asymmetry—one person but huge numbers of people receive social or household has a higher income or net worth grants such as pensions, child care grants, and than another. But as an anthropologist, I think disability payments. That experience allows of inequality first of all as an aspect of social me to see, looking back at the US, how mis- relationships. So inequalities are not just num- leading it is to suppose that here everybody bers—they are ways in which people are linked somehow earns their living via labor. In fact, to each other, and bound up into larger sys- in an aging population, more and more people tems of obligation and care. As I argue in the live on pensions, expanding numbers are get- book, that’s why very poor people in southern [Continued on page 6]

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 3 Global Inequality and Interview with Thomas Blom Hansen

What are some of your current research Can you explain how the anthropo- projects and how do they engage with logical method of fieldwork, such questions of equality or inequality? as engaging with a community for a long period of time, contribute There is no way that you can work in place to conversations and analyses of like India without engaging questions of inequality? ANTHROPOLOGY ANTHROPOLOGY cultural, social, and economic differences, and, of course, inequality. But inequality and In my work inequality has never difference are not the same things. To call a been a research question as such. I relationship unequal presupposes that the am basically interested what politi- notion of equality has already taken root as cal and social terms people deploy a shared ideal and concept in a given situa- to interpret their own world, and tion. So the proper anthropological questions how these change over time. I’m must be: when, and how, do some differences get framed as interested in the global circulation of inequality, i.e. framed as an injustice? What effects does such terms and discourse, how these get a framing have on people’s perception of themselves and their vernacularized and made meaningful society. in a particular context, in a particular history. How do new frames in turn My work in India has dealt with the formation of the idea of modify people’s ways of thinking of majorities and minorities. How does a majority identity get themselves? formed in an extremely diverse society? How and when do categories of people begin to think of themselves as minori- At the moment I’m working on a ties? Are these minorities in a deeper cultural sense, such as collection of essays that centers on religious minorities? Or are they social minorities, such as com- a figure that I find very interesting – munities that have been at the bottom of the caste hierarchy the local activist (for want of a better for millennia but only now insist on their own history? I don’t term). I have worked in India and take the language of inequality as a natural given because it South Africa, both highly politicized presupposes that equality is a timeless value. It is not. Equality societies, and you find activists and and inequality always have vernacular histories. Indians won community workers everywhere. formal political equality and the vote in 1947 and democratic When I say ‘activist’ you may think politics has been the midwife of multiple claims about other anti-globalization protesters but I’m kinds of inequality. Economic inequality is one of them but thinking of a much more localized, there are other claims, such as the recognition of a community commonplace and embedded figure. as being worthy of respect, of equal access to institutional ben- A lot of us will have experienced a efits, education etc. India is a forerunner in the world when it scene where we introduce ourselves comes to affirmative action. In 1950 the Indian constitution in- in a new neighborhood and people troduced an extensive system of reserved seats and quotas for will say, ‘oh you’re interested in this the historically disadvantaged communities. This system has problem, so-and-so knows about this grown and has become bitterly contested precisely because because s/he has made this complaint it converts political equality into other forms of aspirations to the municipal council’, or some- for equality, and because it frames deeply naturalized histori- thing like that. But a hundred years cal and social hierarchies as illegitimate systems of unequal ago, or even fifty years ago, such a access. person did not exist in most places, it was not a globalized figure that we

4 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 all recognize. I’m interested in how enablers to get into our work, but we of this ongoing conversion of univer- the activist, or community organizer, often don’t theorize who they are, sal concepts and discourses, such as became such a legitimate figure. How how did they come into being, how inequality, into vernacular frames that did millions of people across the world did they become gatekeepers in these motivate people, the very stuff that become known as organizers, or we communities? We forget that these creates and modifies everyday life. could call them local busybodies? often are people who interpret and How did such figures become tolerat- change their local world, they make How does understanding inequali- ed, and often venerated, even as they culture, change the terms of everyday ties worldwide help us understand are at odds with local systems of rank, talk and yet we haven’t really dealt inequality in the USA? power and esteem? The word in Hindi with them systematically. is karyakarta – the doer of things - The classical ethos of anthropology someone who takes it upon himself I suspect there are two reasons for was to produce knowledge about or herself to speak on behalf of a this omission. Firstly, there may radically different worlds in order to community, to articulate a grievance, be a fear that foregrounding these generate broader, more varied and to work on behalf of other people. The figures can disturb, or even dilute, more truly universal insights into what term connotes ‘service’ even subser- the credibility of how the anthropolo- constitutes human life and cultural vience to the community, just like gists describe authentic ethnographic imagination. I still find some value in community organizers in South Africa encounters with ordinary people – still that. As to the US, the biggest task call themselves ‘community workers’ the unspoken gold standard in the that anthropology might have is to to signal that they are neither leaders discipline. My argument is that today, question “American exceptionalism” nor entitled. And yet the reality is the community organizer is already in all its forms in order to show that much more complex. One can only part of any authentic ethnographic America is a lot like the rest of the access that layer of people once you encounter and must also be part of world, more so than people like to spend a long time in communities and the record. think about. People are taught in this win people’s trust. In fact it is often country that the US is unique, it is such local organizers that will ’vet’ the Secondly, I suspect that many morally superior, economically self visiting anthropologist! anthropologists are a bit uncomfort- sufficient, even the rule of law and able with the fact that many local policing are more fair here – although Modern anthropology relies entirely organizers speak a pretty universal- that is an argument that is hard to on these kinds of people, for access, ist language of dignity, self-respect, make these days. The conversation for clearance. It is very difficult to justice, inequality, all the stuff that on equality and inequality would open any book by anthropologists anthropologists are used to dismiss- benefit immensely from looking at today without seeing these sorts of ing as universalist frames and there- what is happening elsewhere, also people acknowledged in the Fore- fore somewhat less authentic and outside the western world. Here one word – whether in Brazil, Philippines, local. But I find it amazing that we finds very sophisticated conversa- Mexico, North Africa, the US, wher- around the world encounter millions tions about equality and inequality ever people work. Anthropologists of people who in their own vernacular and a willingness to face up to the fact rely on local people who are willing to tongue, address local problems in of class as a systemic feature of the speak up, or to organize, to be nodal a universalist language of equality, economy that also must be addressed points in a network of people who freedom, dignity, self determination. at a systemic level. have an opinion and who represent What do we of anthropologists make themselves in a wider public. Most of that? I think we should deploy American exceptionalism also applies anthropologists use these people ethnography to record and interpret to race and ethnicity. Yes, race plays as informers and interlocutors, as the local epistemological dynamics

[Continued on page 6]

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 5 Interview with Jim Ferguson [Continued from page 3] ting disability payments, and a host of other sorts of what I society and culture always entails thinking about power, call “distributive payments” constitute a much bigger part about inequality, about historically-constituted structures of the picture than we generally think. And much higher of domination. So in that sense, inequality is always cen- rates of unemployment may be headed our way too, if we tral to my teaching, even if it doesn’t pop out as a discrete can believe some of the current predictions about the likely topic (“This week we’re going to consider inequality!”). effects of the coming new round of artificial intelligence and robot-based automation. In fact, this fear has led to In your opinion, how might anthropologists be in dialog a recent burst of interest in the US (and in Silicon Valley in with non-anthropologists (economists, political sci- particular) in the idea of a state-provided “universal basic entists, activists, etc.) in confronting issues of global income”—an idea that, as I show in the book, is also an inequality? interesting feature of the southern African discussion. I think anthropology, as a field, could do a better job of How does anthropology (method, theory, praxis) con- engaging in some of these big global conversations. It’s tribute a useful perspective for understanding global fine to have specialized scholarly discussions within the inequality? Specifically, how does this topic come up discipline (indeed, it is essential). But we could be a little in your classroom (if at all), and how do you encourage bolder, I think, in making strong arguments about things students to engage with issues of social inequality? that transcend the local concerns of our fieldsites. Be- cause that’s the point at which you cross swords with the I don’t think of inequality as some sort of separate topic economists, or engage the interests of political actors since, in my understanding, inequality is always present, or organized social movements, or whatever -- it’s when and is an integral dimension of all social systems, at all you’re going beyond the comfort zone of localized ethno- scales (including the global). For me, then, thinking about graphic description to dive into issues that broader publics care about.

Interview with Thomas Blom Hansen [Continued from page 4] a unique part in American life but it is the Bay Area. I asked the organiz- have grown up with globalization as not as unique as you might think – it ers why American history – slavery, a fact of life, after the Cold War when is on par with colonial forms of racism conquest of the West, the doctrine America’s moral superiority is no lon- in many parts of the world. I think it is of Manifest Destiny, etc. – was not ger a given, are less inclined to believe the job of anthropologists to point out on the syllabus. They thought the in exceptionalism. Anthropologists that racial inequalities in the US are teachers would not be ready for it yet. often complain about not being taken part of a much larger global history. I think that may be a correct assess- seriously but I see lots of room for African American intellectuals have ment, but it shows that we have work critical intervention right there. Who, known this for a very long time, from to do. but anthropologists, are better placed the very beginning in fact, but even to demonstrate how global dynamics in the academic community there is American exceptionalism has been connect people in this country with everything and everybody else? The resistance to embrace this obvious used as a shield by privileged Ameri- most important thing is that anthro- historical fact. I have volunteered to cans to not be held to the same stan- pologists should be unafraid. Also at co-teach a week long course called dards as the rest of the world. Trump home. “Imperialism” aimed at high school expresses that sentiment today. and community college teachers in However, younger generations that

6 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 Global Inequality and Interview with Andrew Bauer

management of cattle, sheep, and goats was thus deeply implicated in the politics of social inequality during the period.

How does anthropology contribute a useful perspective for understanding global inequality?

ANTHROPOLOGY ANTHROPOLOGY How does your research engage with contempo- rary debates on inequality?

I think that it’s clear that anthropology has a lot to contribute to our understandings of global inequality. One of the ways that I see this in my own research is in relationship to environmental conservation issues and climate change. Climate change is, I think, rightly becoming more prominent What are the ways in which your work inves- in political discourse, particularly as narratives of tigates and analyzes societal inequality? How the Anthropocene have taken hold in both popular do you investigate inequality through material and academic conversations. Anthropology adds a culture in archaeology? useful perspective to climate change discussions by both stressing and documenting that humans do Much of my archaeological research in India has not contribute to environmental transformations been focused on the Iron Age period, which dates to as an undifferentiated species but do so as situated, between 1200-300 BCE. For a long time, archaeolo- placed-based, social actors. This puts anthropology gists have pointed to salient differences in mega- in a great position to enrich debate about how cer- lithic memorial architecture and valued grave goods tain communities will differentially perceive and ex- that are evident during this period to suggest that perience environmental impacts related to climate it was a time of great social transformation, during change, such as sea level rise, or melting glaciers in which pronounced social inequalities developed alpine communities, changing crop seasons, etc., out of largely egalitarian relations of the previous while also allowing anthropologists to detail how Neolithic Period. social inequalities are related to the production of such large-scale environmental transformation. My research has sought to understand how such Obviously, for instance, not all of earth’s human social inequalities were generated and reproduced. inhabitants equally consume or produce fossil fuels For instance, mapping the spatial distribution of that are contributing to global warming. artifacts and architecture on settlement sites has demonstrated that symbolically distinct and spatial- My archaeological and paleoenvironmental re- ly segregated residential zones worked to reinforce search in India has shown that significant social social distinctions and inequalities among these differences were linked to broad scale environmen- communities. Furthermore, analyses of artifacts tal transformations thousands of years ago, such from excavated settlements have also documented as increased soil erosion. Understanding how such significant differences in consumption activities social differences are related to environmental among different architectural spaces and houses changes, and how inequalities might be reproduced and suggest that only some members of these by the differential effects of environmental trans- communities could sponsor large-scale communal formations related to climate change, is something feasting events. It appears that successful herd that anthropologists are well positioned to address.

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 7 Global Inequality and Drug addiction, violence and poverty in Mexico by AMY LEE

Once considered as a mere pathway to smuggle drugs to the U.S., Mexico is now suffering from rapid increase in drug addiction. The National Addiction Survey in 2008 reported that the number of people who had used drugs increased by a million between 2002 and 2008 – from 3.5 ANTHROPOLOGY ANTHROPOLOGY million to 4.5 million.* At the intersection of social sciences, the humanities and public health, Angela Garcia, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology tells how drug addic- tion, violence and poverty are related and where she sees hopes for a better future in the region.

Q: How did you be- In both the U.S. and Mexico, I document the come interested in the struggles of impoverished families who must make drug addiction issues decisions about how to care for addicted kin, and in Mexico and how did I explore how researchers and professional health your interest evolve? providers might better understand and support their efforts, especially when they don’t align with AG: In my first project, Western, professional approaches to drug treat- I studied intergenera- ment. tional heroin addiction among low-income For instance, in Mexico, there are thousands Hispanos in northern of unregulated, residential drug rehabilitation New Mexico, a popula- centers. These centers are called anexos (annexes). tion which traces its’ Run and utilized by Mexico’s working poor, anexos heritage to the region’s are concentrated in areas affected by drug-related original Spanish set- violence, and they utilize a form of violence as tlers. Recently, there’s care to treat drug addiction. There are thousands been a lot of attention of anexos in Mexico City and thousands more in the media about the throughout the country. My current research problem of heroin addiction among poor whites in examines why these centers are proliferating, and rural America. But the problem of heroin addic- how drug-related violence shapes their drug treat- tion has been around for generations in northern ment practices. New Mexico. I sought to understand how the region’s colonial history, entrenched intergenera- Q: How is drug addiction related to poverty and tional poverty, the criminalization of addiction depression? and culture fed into dynamics of heroin addiction within Hispano families. AG: Poverty and depression interact with drug addiction in complicated ways. We know they can During this research, I began to consider the other push people into using drugs, and can exacerbate side to the story of the addiction in New Mexico, problems associated with poverty and mental ill- specifically drug trafficking, violence, and poverty ness. But drugs can also relieve suffering caused in Mexico. Although addiction is a global concern, by these same problems, at least temporarily. a lot of research on drug addiction tends to be Indeed, in New Mexico, Hispanos referred to focused in the U.S. or Europe. As an anthropolo- heroin as “medicina” (medicine), a term that gist who studies addiction, I feel a responsibility to suggests the therapeutic effects of a substance we think beyond the U.S. tend to think of only in negative terms. In Mexico, I’ve documented the impact of ongoing exposure *source: http://www.narconon.org/drug-infor- to drug-related violence and crime on mental mation/mexico-drug-addiction.html

8 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 health, especially in terms of anxiety, depression riorated. As a woman and a mother of two young and trauma. These are widespread and growing children, I’ve had to suspend my observations of problems, and they have a role in the growth in some centers, although I try to remain in contact addictions in Mexico. with people via Skype and mobile messaging.

Q: What are some unique characteristics of vio- For the most part, I no longer conduct field lence, addiction and drug treatment in Mexico? observations by myself, especially if it’s at a new site. I go with research assistants or trusted local AG: For the past few decades, alcoholism has guides who are familiar with the neighborhood. been a major public health issue in Mexico, and I also check in with friends and journalists about drugs, such as heroin and marijuana, produced in the security situation in particular areas before Mexico, generally passed through the country on heading out to do observations or interviews. My the way to the U.S. But internatinal markets have research includes multiple centers and neighbor- been growing rapidly in Mexico, especially in poor hoods, so if things get too risky in one place, I’ll urban settings and along Mexico's border with the go elsewhere. If fieldwork is impossible, I turn to U.S. Aside from the growing epidemiologial data archival research or data analysis. on drug use in Mexico, there is little research on the social implications of drugs in communities Q: What inspires you to continue with your with high rate of addiction. My work is trying to research? help fill this knowledge gap. AG: Most people that I’ve encountered are good A central theme in my current work is the psy- people, doing the best they can in difficult situ- chological and social consequences of the “Drug ations. They’re working hard to keep their loved War,” and their effects on drug use and drug treat- ones and community safe and healthy in an ex- ment. In Mexico, I examine this question from the tremely vulnerable environment. Their dedication perspective of anexos, whose therapeutic practices to inspires me. can include things like mock kidnappings, forced confessions, hazing rituals and physical violence. I am also committed to addressing the failures These harrowing practices reveal a lot about life and harms of the drug war. I hope that my work in settings where poverty, drugs, and violence are proves helpful in the fight to end this deadly war, everyday realities. I’m trying to show how anexos’ which has caused so much useless suffering. There entanglements in violence and suffering reveal are reasons to feel optimistic, but much more that the profoundly unequal and dangerous world that needs to be done. Mexico is today. Q: What is one thing that keeps you awake at Q: Your research seems to involve a lot of night? fieldwork in local areas that might expose you to dangerous situations. Can you share your AG: A profound sense of disconnection between hands-on advice for others who are interested in being at a place like Stanford and conducting similar fieldwork? What are some practical tips research in such marginalized settings, but this that you’ve learned as an experienced anthro- disconnection is also a driving force for my work. pologist in the area? This article was originally published on Decem- AG: The majority of my ethnographic work ber 8, 2015 on The Office of International Affairs involves observing what is happening in these cen- (OIA) website, https://oia.stanford.edu/news/ ters, which tend to be located in insecure neigh- drug-addiction-violence-and-poverty-mexico. borhoods. Unfortunately, in the past five years, the security situation in these areas has badly dete-

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 9 Global Inequality and Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention by DANYELLE O'HARA (BA Anthropology 1989)

In her essay “Earthbound,” contributing factors. Moreover, technical and finan- bell hooks equates the human cial support is difficult for African American landown- relationship with land and ers to access because nonprofit service providers

ANTHROPOLOGY ANTHROPOLOGY nature, particularly for African in the region are notoriously under-resourced and Americans, with a deepened because a long history of discrimination and a cor- understanding of who we responding lack of trust has resulted in the underuti- are as humans, our power lization of United States Department of Agriculture relative to nature, and the fal- programs. lacy of white supremacy that infuses American culture.1 In the late 1990’s, black farmers and landowners, hooks’ assertion is reflected with support from community based groups, orga- clearly in African Americans’ nized to file a class action lawsuit, Pigford v. Glick- post-emancipation efforts man, against USDA for decades of discrimination. to acquire land through The lawsuit, acknowledged as one of the United Reconstruction and into the States’ largest ever civil rights cases, brought at- Jim Crow era, circumventing treacherous and per- tention to issues of racism in federal agencies and sistent barriers. Blacks did what they did to acquire provided cash settlements to a number of black land because they understood the inherent power of landowners. While the case could never resolve landownership. To this day, landownership remains completely the intergenerational loss—in money, a primary source of rural African American power and land, opportunity, and dignity—caused by decades of wealth. USDA practices and policies, it has created a political will to begin nudging these tainted systems towards In the absence of sustained social and political com- change. mitment to support African American socio-economic advancement, black landownership has always been Various initiatives and organizations have worked to threatened. While it peaked in 1910 at 16 to 19 million leverage this promise of change, including the U.S. acres 2, it has decreased to less than 7 million acres to- Endowment for Forestry and Communities’ Sus- day.3 Despite this dramatic loss, farm and forestland tainable Forestry African American Land Retention continue to be important sources of African American (SFLR) program. Following two years of research and family wealth, with a total value of $14.3 billion.4 review by the Endowment board and staff, in 2013 the SFLR made grants to three multi-county sites The causes of underutilization and involuntary loss in Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina to of black-owned land are numerous and complex. In provide legal services and improve forestry practices addition to fragmented family ownership and resulting with the goals of increasing land values and helping unstable land titles, financial pressure from develop- African American landowners stem land loss. To bol- ment and consequent rising taxes, failure to maximize ster these efforts, the program also seeks to catalyze the potential of land due to lack of information, limited changes in policies that inadvertently create barri- access to government programs, and lack of credit are ers to African American participation in government programs. The program will be expanded to two 1 hooks, bell, “Earthbound,” in The Colors of Nature: Culture, additional southern sites in 2016. Identity, and the Natural World, edited by Deming, Alison and Savoy, Lauret, p. 67-71, 2002. The U.S. has much work to do to acknowledge (let 2 Note: Statistics referring to African American land owner- alone, redress) past and present wrongs, but this ship and land loss are frequently shifting, thus those pro- project provides quiet indication it might be possible vided here should be understood as illustrative rather than definitive. to move in this direction. The progress made by 3 1999 Agricultural Economics and Land Ownership Survey, SFLR to-date suggests it might be possible to, with USDA, Census of Agriculture. time, heal relationships and reshape structures that 4 Who Owns the Land? Agricultural Land Ownership by Race/ have systematically denied people their rights to a Ethnicity, Wood, Gilbert, Sharp, Rural America, Economic piece of the American pie. Research Service, USDA, Winter 2002, Volume 17, Issue 4.

10 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 Tribal Migrants in Global India by DOLLY KIKON (PHD Anthropology 2013)

My current research project titled "Leaving the Land: From 2013 till 2015, I adopted Indigenous Migration from the Resource Frontier a multi sited ethnographic to the Urban Sprawl in India" looks at the increas- approach and conducted ing trend of outmigration from the highlands of fieldwork in Delhi, Mumbai, Northeast India. In the last decade, large numbers Chennai, and Trivandrum of indigenous youth from the uplands of Northeast meeting tribal migrants from India have migrated to metropolitan cities across the Northeast India. My field loca- country (and abroad) as migrant workers. These ob- tion ranged from the kitchen servations emerged in conversation with my doctoral of a five star luxury hotel in research in Northeast India (2009-2011). My doctoral Mumbai, a Japanese fine dissertation titled "Disturbed Area Acts: Anxiet- dining restaurant in Bandra, ies and Intimacies of the State in Northeast India" a suburban housing complex engaged with extractive resources, particularly coal in Pune where I met interns and oil in the foothills of Northeast India. The central training to become front desk receptionists, all the story from my doctoral work was the transformation way to a hospitality recruitment center in Dimapur of land relations, especially the privatization of tribal teaching soft skills to prospective tribal migrants. land holdings and natural resources. How did the ongoing extractive resource activities in the foothills and uplands of Northeast India reach Certain social groups such as women, poor house- the shores of the Arabian Sea in South India? During holds, widows, and the landless families were ex- my doctoral fieldwork (2009-2011), a majority of the cluded from positions of power and decision-making households either had a family member who was a bodies like the traditional councils. Such practices migrant worker or someone in the family who was reproduced new gender hierarchies and forms of heading off to a city in the heartland of India. Wheth- inequality. For instance, Naga customary laws in er it was at Varkala, the resort town along the coast the hill state of Nagaland prohibited women from of the Arabian Sea in Kerala, or in the working class inheriting ancestral land and property. Yet women neighborhood of Kalina in Mumbai, several tribal were visible as traders and farmers in Naga society. migrants from the uplands of Northeast India worked Women decided which crops to plant in the fields as waiters, sales persons, masseurs, security guards, and which produce to sell at the weekly markets. and domestic workers. They came from families who Decisions about buying and selling lands or matters were losing their land to business corporations and relating to extractive resource activities (coal, timber, powerful landowners, or were left with small patches sand) and cash crops (rubber, tea, citrus, cardamom, of land that were unable to sustain the family. These ginger), however, rested with the male members of tribal migrants sent remittances to family members the family. who had no way of earning an income back home.

As a result of the armed conflict situation across My current research project on tribal migration gives Northeast India, there are several female headed new insights about the insecurities, desires, and households because the majority of male members expectation of tribal youth in contemporary India. had joined the armed movement, been killed, or Since India’s independence in 1947, the Northeast become addicted to alcohol and drugs, a phenom- frontiers of India have remained peripheral in the enon that is pervasive in militarized societies across national discourse on citizenship, human rights and the world. In recent times, young women from these economic development. Today, the region continues female headed households constitute a sizable num- to capture the limits of India’s cultural and political ber of the tribal migrant workforce in metropolitan imagination, and its citizens continue to be refracted cities across India. These activities highlighted how through prisms of violence, militarization, economic the politics of development, extractive economic deprivation, and the extractive resource regime. Yet, activities, land, migrations, and gender relations are the increasing trend of outmigration from this fron- interconnected in the militarized resource frontier of Northeast India. [Continued on page 31]

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 11 Global Inequality and Reindeer in Angola: middle class aspiration in an unequal world by JESS MERRY BRETT AUERBACH, Dissertation Writer

On a blistering hot day at the beginning of De- cember, 2014, I arrived at the private school in Lobito, Angola where I taught music. In front of the ANTHROPOLOGY ANTHROPOLOGY entrance, a pair of exhausted-looking polystyrene reindeer had come to a halt. Behind them, a card- board sleigh. On further inspection, an enormous in- flated Father Christmas was attached to the school walls, trying, it appeared, to enter via the rooftop gymnasium. Children wearing the school's colourful uniform gathered around the reindeer enthusiasti- cally, laughing and shouting as they tumbled out of their parents’ cars and private busses. On the other side of the road, other children – dressed in the knee-length white shapeless coats of public educa- tion, with flipflops on their feet – stared on. Image 2: New Homes, Old Homes

My research was about the emergent Angolan which so often focus on abject suffering and exclusion. In middle class, a group of people who are neither part looking at inequality through the lens of those who had of the long-established, largely-kleptocratic elite something, I tried to understand flourishing in the context of of that country, nor on the brink of poverty. They scarcity and to rub against expectations of Africa embodied are new professionals in a socio-political space that in what Teju Cole famously called the ‘White-Savior Industrial itself is only in its second decade of post-colonial, Complex’ (Cole, 2012). roughly democratic peace, and they have high hopes for the future. Most have just enough to Importantly—to me, at least— I also tried to do this in Por- invest in private education, where a generator the tuguese. As Engseng Ho, Anna Tsing and others have dem- size of some Angolan houses keeps the lights on in onstrated (Ho, 2006; Tsing, 2015), worlds are often created the building and maintains constant connection to beyond the ear and eye of English idiom and economic norma- the Internet. These are the people who are building tivity. In Angola, it was Brazil, Portugal, and to an extent Cuba new houses and beginning to make very different that were the points of reference for socio-economic change, demands of the Angolan state from those of gen- intrinsically interwoven with both deep and recent history erations that have come before. from slavery through de-colonial war and ideological struggle, and into the present (Alencastro, 2000; Candido, 2013; Costa da Silva, 2005; Hatzky, 2012). Relatively few Angolans speak English fluently, but a large portion of the population has engaged the literature, law, and structures of thinking of the former Portuguese empire. Each year, hundreds of young people from the city where I lived in Angola travel to Brazil, where they study in some of that country's 3000+ universities. There they engage in sophisticated dialogue that—simply by virtue of occurring in Portuguese—is often completely missed by those who rely solely on Anglophone scholarly buttresses.

By virtue of its reliance on mostly English texts, the Anthro- pology of/and Global Inequality has the potential to insidi- ously re-instill notions of haves and have-nots that reflect the Image 1: Reindeer at School cultural biases of the English speaking world and are often disconnected from reality (Gabler, 2016). A recent project by The research I undertook and am now writing up Dori Tunstall and Julie Hill (Tunstall & Hill, 2016) considered was about success, hopefulness, and happiness. the covers of Anthropology textbooks, arguing that these It was an attempt to add more to the stories that too continue to reinforce ideas of Otherness far beyond their circulate outside of post-war countries, stories sell-by date. They offer, instead, ‘decolonized counter-images’

12 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 militaries, Angolan bodies in all the firing lines), the Fun Park had become a refugee camp. It is now the most dangerous zone of the city. Periodically, its ruins arise in unexpected places, such as on the beach, one early morning in December 2014, where it is placed such that the computer – decidedly disconnected from the Internet - can be witnessed, and the future dreamed and accounted for. Who made this scene, presumably at night? Did this person also hope for red-nosed deer on the rooftops at Christmas? My working definition of the middle class during research was ‘a car, a house, and an education’ – where does a car, a computer, and the beach fit in to that?

References Alencastro, L. F. de. (2000). O Trato dos Viventes: Formação do Brasil no Atlântico Sul, Séculos XVI e XVII. Belo Horizonte: Campanha das Letras. Candido, M. P. (2013). An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and its Hinterland. Belo Hori- zonte: Cambridge University Press. Cole, T. (2012). The White-Savior Industrial Complex. The Atlantic. Retrieved May 3, 2016, from http://www. theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/the- white-savior-industrial-complex/254843/ Costa da Silva, A. (2005). Um Rio Chamado Atlântico: Image 3 and 4: Covers (from Turnstall and Hill, 2016) a África no Brasil e o Brasil na África. Lisboa: Nova Fronteira. that in a very different way do exactly what my research on Gabler, N. (2016). The Secret Shame of Middle-Class the Angolan-school-visited-by-reindeers attempts to achieve: Americans. The Atlantic, (May). Retrieved from http:// www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/my- that is, a refocusing of the lens of anthropological inquiry on secret-shame/476415/#article-comments the peculiarities of so-called consumer culture—including its Hatzky, C. (2012). Cubans in Angola: South-South pedagogic aspect. Cooperation and Transfer of Knowledge, 1976-1991. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. The reindeer outside the school in Lobito were amusing, but Ho, E. (2006). The Graves of Tarim: Geneaology and also powerful reminders of the surreal geographic realities of Mobility Across the Indian Ocean. Belo Horizonte: today’s world, where in many ways the children for whom they University of California Press. brought gifts have far more in common with their economic Tsing, A. (2015). The Mushroom at the End of the peers in Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon (and to a lesser degree World: on the Possibility of Life in Post-Capitalist Ruins. Reykjavik and London) than they do with many of their neigh- Princeton: Princeton University Press. bors. And yet, unlike in the past, the other children wearing Tunstall, D., & Hill, J. (2016). Rebranding Anthropol- white and gazing at the reindeer from the far side of the road ogy Textbooks. personal blog. Retrieved May 12, 2016, are increasingly very conscious of all the material goods that from http://dori3.typepad.com/my_weblog/2016/04/ they can see but that they do not have: around them, on the rebranding-anthropology-textbooks.html Internet, and on public media. The intimacy of unequal experi- ence is profound whether it be in Angola, or in the contempo- rary USA, and I suspect that intimate inequality will be an area in which we as anthropologists increasingly find our friction.

Where does success fit with the realities of global inequality, and how is it celebrated? A few days after the reindeer landed, my students received embossed certificates for hard work and achievement, which they undoubtedly deserved. Yet in the same week, I came across this scene on a nearby beach at dawn. In it we see an empty can of beer, and a dodgem car from the Fun Park that was the recreational crown of the city under the Portuguese. During the Angolan Civil War (three decades, US versus USSR financially, South African and Cuban Image 5: the beach, Lobito, 2014

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 13 Global Inequality and ANTHROPOLOGY ANTHROPOLOGY Photo credit: Yasmin Khan Yasmin Photo credit:

States of Divorce: Reproducing Palestinian Stat e l essness and Jordanian Citizenship by EDA PEPI, Dissertation Writer

“Hello, she is having the baby now. ried young woman in the middle of hear Nadia say: You must come get Nadia. Thank you the night. I rushed into the back of for doing this for us. Thank you! Thank the taxi, and we didn’t speak until we “Unknown; I don’t know who the you! Thank you, very much!” I reas- got to their home in Jabal al-Natheef, baby’s father is.” sured him that it was no trouble. “She an impoverished urban neighborhood is crying; and she’s afraid. I sent a taxi of Amman. I scurried up the narrow, Nadia had married her husband, Anis, to get you. Hurry!” he added before dilapidated stairway, into their apart- around 16 years before that night— hanging up. ment. Nadia was clearly in pain and the night when their other son was refused to let go of her husband. He born. And she had divorced Anis less It was around 1AM when I received kissed her and pushed her toward me. than a year prior to it. Theirs is not this call from Nadia’s husband. Even I hurried her downstairs, into the taxi, the story of an unplanned pregnancy. though he and Nadia had divorced, and to a hospital in wealthier West It is the story of careful family plan- she was now having their second Amman, away from their neighbor- ning in response to gendered and child. And they still referred to each hood. I was called in to be there ethnic-based regulation of citizenship other as husband and wife. After the for Nadia during labor, but also to in Jordan. They wanted and planned divorce, they had continued to live prepare the doctor about Nadia’s for another child. They had arranged together, with their 15-year-old son. complicated family situation. So after for me to bring Nadia into the hospital The timid teenager looked embar- 7 hours of labor, when the hospital months before. Her husband couldn’t rassed when he arrived in the taxi his administrator asked about the iden- very well be next to her when she father had sent for me. I understood. tity of the father, the doctor and the claimed to not know the identity of He was picking up a foreign, unmar- administrator were not shocked to the baby’s father. They got divorced

14 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 so she could state that the father was ship through their mothers. Nadia migrants—and no one contests their unknown and, in this way, ensure that and Anis are one of many families “right of return” to Syria or Egypt. this child would not be stateless like that have chosen to get divorced The gender-biased nationality law their 15-year-old son Layth. before having more children in order does not only affect Palestinians; it to ensure that these children are not affects the children of potentially all A gender-biased nationality law stateless. They see it as another way Jordanian women. forbids Jordanian women, but not of being married. A marriage that, Jordanian men, from passing their they hope, continues in the eyes of The strategies that families like citizenships to their children. Because God, even if it doesn’t in the eyes of Nadia’s resort to in their desperation nationality in Jordan is dependent on the law. have created new institutional spaces the father, children of many mixed- in which inequality is naturalized, nationality couples are rendered Based on over three years of ethno- even biologized, within gendered and stateless. Nadia is not allowed to pass graphic fieldwork conducted between increasingly racialized hierarchies her Jordanian citizenship to her son 2011 and 2015, my research highlights of cultural difference. Jordan faces Layth, and Anis has no citizenship to Jordanian women’s material and unemployment rates of nearly 30% confer. Anis is a Palestinian refugee symbolic reproduction of geo-political (World Bank 2016) and its public debt from Gaza. Jordan granted citizen- inequalities that are localized through makes up 79.2% of GDP (Central Bank ship to West Bank Palestinians in gendered regulation of citizenship. of Jordan 2015). In this economic 1949, in preparation for its annexation These processes, in turn, fuel and context, my work has opened up lines of the West Bank from 1950 to 1967. make sustainable regional and global of inquiry into how Jordan is strategi- After the 1967 war, in which Jordan inequalities by transforming them cally shrinking its citizenry by polic- lost the West Bank and Egypt lost through gendered and racialized prac- ing women’s bodies. It turns some the Gaza Strip, Palestinian refugees tices and discourses. The localization citizens, the would-be citizen children from Gaza fled to Jordan but were of the “Palestinian problem” at the of Jordanian women married to non- not granted citizenship. The Jorda- intersection of marriage and Jor- citizen men, into immigrants, or even nian government has granted them dan’s dependent nationality laws has stateless persons. This renders them temporary Jordanian passports that reproduced deeply embedded gender ineligible for government welfare and must be renewed biennially, passports hierarchies, with concomitant tech- socio-economic provisions. These without the national number that in- niques that racialize the “Palestinian demographic insecurities and eco- dexes citizenship. They are stateless. problem” and render the reproduction nomic precarity have fed a race-based of statelessness routine. discourse of difference between There are two exceptions in the law. Jordanians of Palestinian ancestry The first one exempts children born In Jordan, the host of the largest and East Bank Jordanians. Commonly of stateless fathers. These children number of Palestinian refugees in referred to as Bedouin, East Bank Jor- can acquire citizenship through their the world, family life has emerged danians have filled government and Jordanian mothers. But Jordan, which as a key site where geo-political and public sector jobs since the civil war is not a signatory to any of the UN global inequalities are localized and of 1970 between the regime and the conventions on refugees and state- reproduced. This would be a fringe Palestinian Liberation Organization less persons, has taken the position problem, except Palestinians com- (PLO). Public servants are not a ma- that Palestinians are not stateless. prise two-thirds of Jordan’s popula- jority, but they form a coherent class. In Jordan, mixed-nationality couples tion. Jordan maintains this gender- They have been ethnicized as Bedouin are not eligible for the statelessness biased nationality law to close paths using a vocabulary of indigeneity that exception due to regional struggles to citizenship for Palestinians; this many of them feel must be protected for sovereignty articulated through preserves their “right of return” to a at all costs by controlling the marital a discourse known as the “Alter- future Palestine. Many Jordanians are choices of the women that Palestinian nate Homeland” solution. Jordan quick to point out that the gender-bi- men marry, or could marry. maintains that Palestinians are not ased nationality law “is not about the stateless in order to preempt claims women; it’s about the Palestinians.” Stuck in the middle are families like that Jordan is Palestine, interpreted Yet, by law, children of Jordanian men those of Nadia and Anis, for whom as obviating the need for a Palestinian married to noncitizen Palestinian divorce has become the only option state. With no other options, many women are citizens, with no regard to ensure the viability of their family. mixed-nationality couples, whose for their “right of return.” Under Four of 20 such families with whom I children would be rendered stateless, this same law, children of Jordanian worked closely during my fieldwork turn to the second exception. It stipu- women married to non-Palestinian opted to get divorced so their children lates that children born of unknown foreign men, like Syrians or Egyptians, fathers can acquire Jordanian citizen- are considered Syrian or Egyptian im- [Continued on page 48]

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 15 Global Inequality and Questioning the “Digital Divide” in the Context of Low-Income Internet Use in Tunis by KAREM SAID, Field Researcher

It is taken for granted that the internet im- discourse, it is morally problematic that most of the world’s proves the lives of its users, and this under- inhabitants do not currently access the internet due to a lack

ANTHROPOLOGY ANTHROPOLOGY standing informs a 2013 Tunisian government of infrastructural development, an inability to pay service decision that telecommunications in general and equipment fees, or both. The language commonly used should be regarded as a universal right. This in this discourse expresses an urgent need to “bridge” or decision has bolstered existing policies meant “close” a purported gap between those who have internet to increase internet access. The sudden access and those who don’t. By describing this way of think- mushrooming of “Publinet” internet cafes in ing and speaking of it as a discourse, I don’t mean to insist popular neighborhoods of Tunis after Tunisia’s upon an opposite position. There are of course countless revolutionary uprising in 2010-2011 helped to ways in which the internet can improve people’s lives or, expose people to the internet, which in turn led at the very least, change their lives in culturally significant residents to invest in devices and equipment ways. that would allow them to access the internet In referencing “digital divide discourse,” I would firstly from home. Publinets are still in business, highlight that there is no single divide. The experience of not however, thanks to internet outages at home, having access to the internet differs depending in part upon a lack of funds for bills and fees, a high rate of the degree to which local and national institutions, organi- phone theft, and the purchase of used devices zations and businesses are networked and have websites that break down. that offer access to information and services. In lieu of such In my dissertation research in Hay Ettadhamon, local online presence, users primarily engage with interna- a low-income municipality of the capital, tional sites, most of which feature English content. I would several participants have described the inter- also draw attention to how, as a prevailing way of speaking net as having become as necessary as water and thinking, the digital divide discourse is invested with and electricity – a phenomenon that has taken place over the last five years. In economic terms, this growing desire for and dependency upon the internet is called “internet penetra- tion.” Increasing internet penetration serves as a development goal in pursuit of greater global economic integration, which is in accordance with economic recommendations made by the World Bank and affiliated agencies. Given the structural imbalances of economic integration, and the profits that dominant Information and Communications Technology (ICT) firms stand to make from untapped markets, it is worth asking exactly how increased internet use impacts the lives of low-income residents in popular neighborhoods. References to the “digital divide” and the as- sumptions supporting this term have become a matter of common sense in the world. The This Publinet entrance advertises one hour of internet for one dinar discourse of the “digital divide” comprises (about 50 cents), which is the most competitive rate among area in- ternet cafes. The owner also offers printing and copying services, word humanitarian ideas and rhetoric surrounding processing services, CD/DVD burning, computer repair, and ready- internet access. Within the framework of this made research assignments for school.

16 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 multiple and contingent than can be envisioned by humanitarian pleas to close a single digital divide. In the context of popular neighborhoods in Tunis, such policies have had an impact upon urban formation as dozens of Publinets com- pete for clientele. Originally, the “Publinet” was proposed by Tunisian government decree in 1998, alongside “Publipost” postal offices and “Publitel” phone booth centers, as part of an ef- fort to provide places in urban space that would ease and encourage communication for Tuni- sian citizens. However, Publinets were rarely found in popular neighborhoods, due in part to restrictions surrounding who could secure gov- ernment permission to open a Publinet. These restrictions were eased following the Tunisian revolutionary uprising of 2010-2011. Today, in the popular neighborhoods of Tunis, Decoration in Hay Ettadhamon Publinets takes many forms. In this Publinets serve as mixed gender spaces of case, a poster appeals to groups of boys who come in to play the soccer video game Contra Strike. Separate PlayStation centers are almost associational life for multiple generations of Tu- exclusively for young men. nisians in ways that interweave online sociality with feelings of neighborhood membership and solidarity. This is especially significant for girls the power to expand business enterprise. It is in this way and women who cannot sit at coffee shops, that Mark Zuckerberg can claim that Facebook’s Free which are the primary places for congrega- Basics platform – one offered for free to mobile phone tion in the area. Publinet clientele are prone to subscribers in order to introduce them to the inter- flux, both over the course of a given day and net – is “something good for the world” as opposed to across the school year. A given Publinet can something good for Facebook’s long-term growth1. As be dominated during the daytime by groups the social media site of choice in the country, Facebook of young boys playing the soccer video game is only the most visible of ICT firms that stand to profit Contra Strike and then give way to people over from increased internet access in Tunisia. In fact, within 50 who arrive after work to Skype with sons and Hay Ettadhamon, one is more likely to hear complaints daughters who have migrated abroad. about internet addiction and time spent on Facebook In addition to neighborhood solidarity, there than about examples in which the internet has helped are ways in which the internet allows residents to resolve problems. As of yet, internet media in the an ability to feel on par with their more privi- area is not viewed as a panacea for structural inequality. leged peers in other areas of the city. Chatting It is commonly understood to be a source of relief and with other Tunisians on Facebook and Skype entertainment. can grant people in Hay Ettadhamon a sense of The actual results of internet access policies are more contemporaneity and connection that can help obviate the significance of class differences. 1 Goel, Vindu. “Facebook Leads and Effort to Lower Barrier While talk of closing a single digital divide may to Internet Access,” New York Times. August, 20, 2013. http:// distort the actual work internet access does nyti.ms/14h5ytf. It’s worth noting that Free Basics was banned in addressing the needs of the poor, there in India following a debate about the colonizing ambitions of are nonetheless ways in which internet use Facebook. See LaFrance, Adrienne. “Facebook and the New promotes semblances of equality that prove Colonialism,” The Atlantic. February 11, 2016. The Free Basics platform has been discontinued in Tunisia. meaningful within the context of Tunisia.

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 17 Global Inequality and To Change Everything by MARGUERITE DE LONEY, Dissertation Writer

In some form or another, I have always been interested in Aware of this contradiction, I faced a disciplinary crisis: How archaeological questions of inequality through the lens of could I conduct an archaeology project in Portobelo in order colonialism and its effects, identity, and power relations. to fulfill the requirements of my discipline, to receive those These are the questions that I took with me to the “field” in three letters, PhD, that demonstrate that I possess and am the summer of 2012 when I was to search for a “site” to con- capable of producing expert knowledge considered more ANTHROPOLOGY ANTHROPOLOGY duct a dissertation project. Then, drawn by the promise of valid than local ways of knowing? How could I contribute archaeology, I proposed to realize a spatial study of material to archaeological knowledge about past Afrocolonial agency culture as a means to understanding past and present iden- and identities, while in the name of conserving said past for tity formation. The goal was to “contribute meaningfully others to consume, that same knowledge is used (regardless to archaeological knowledge” while highlighting issues of of my intentions) to dislocate living Afrocolonials? The an- agency, race and ethnicity. My search for a “site” to pursue swer: I could not. In 2012, I went to Portobelo thinking that these goals landed me in Portobelo, Panamá, which from I could address inequality through archaeology; I went home a disciplinary perspective appeared to be perfect for such seeing how my discipline produces it. This was the begin- a project. However, it is in Portobelo that my relationship ning of a fundamental conflict I have come to have with my with archaeology began to change. Here, I am faced with discipline, a conflict that shapes how I understand research the ugliness of archaeology, its violent effects and inherent justice and the role that we, social scientists, can (and should) inequality—the dark side of archaeology, a side that we have play in bringing about alternative futures. critiqued, and yet continue to perpetuate. The case of Portobelo is yet another instance in a growing number of heritage dislocations resulting from the coercive removal of settlements to fulfill UNESCO requirements. The dilemma of heritage displacement and the structural violence perpetuated by archaeological projects upon local communi- ties provides the larger context for where I find my research in Portobelo entangled. Here, I have realized that our rheto- ric—our nice talk about resistance, memory, justice, and empowerment—only Figure 1: Map of Portobelo, Panamá serves to mask the ways that archaeol- This was the reality of what I ethically could not avoid in ogy and Eurocentric conducting an archaeology project in Portobelo: In 2012, heritage practices Portobelo, was inscribed on UNESCO’s List of World Heri- are implicated in tage Sites in Danger. Reasons stated for such inscription the alienation of include limited conservation planning, lack of established local communities boundaries, and urban encroachment affecting the universal from their land and value of the “site.” In 2014 an ICOMOS advisory mission livelihoods by ab- recommended that the Panamanian government expedite stracting them from the relocation of families occupying the inner areas of the place. The specter “site.” Accordingly, in 2015, the Panamanian government’s of dispossession Ministry of Housing has prepared a plan outlining the at Portobelo, and removal of inhabitants to new houses constructed in a filled other communities swamp to the east of town. Interestingly, while plans are around the globe, being made to dislocate the inhabitants of Portobelo—who demands more from are the descendants of maroons collectively known as the us and our research. Congos—a UNESCO project titled “Afrocolonial Archaeol- It demands that ogy, Slave Route Sites of Memory: Resistance, Freedom and we confront the Heritage” is currently underway in Panamá. Portobelo is one false promises of Image 1: Fort Santiago de la Gloria at of the “sites” highlighted in this project. archaeology within dusk

18 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 from, and proceeds according to local needs and desires requires community-based participatory practices, which is my core methodology. Using these methods, I seek to engage in research justice by integrating knowl- edge production with political empowerment, recogniz- ing the Portobelo community as competent to shape methodological, theoretical, and practical outcomes. To this extent I am currently working on a mapping project with the community. Using spatial technology to visualize the power of local knowledge, the goal is to co-create maps which account for the community’s daily activities, perceptions, and bodily attitudes of Portobelo not as an archaeological “site,” but as a place that shapes their identities and sense of belonging.

The ultimate goal of this project lies in its process of co-creating emancipatory knowledge for the purpose of social action today by taking alternative worlds and Image 2: Homes existing within the ruins of the old Fort Santiago. knowledges seriously. It is no longer enough for me to hold archaeology accountable to a better understanding the logics of modernity, and consider the possibilities of its of the present, to research how structures of oppres- transformation in struggles for social justice. It demands sion operate so that we can critique them, but to never that we engage in alternative practices and modes of thinking act upon them. I hold us collectively accountable to that do not serve the discipline, but counter archaeology’s ge- bringing about an alternative future. As such, I reject nealogy of coloniality. It demands a radically political type of the colonial arrogance of the privileges bestowed to research project, a decolonial one, firmly rooted in the local academic knowledge and the type of archaeologists it histories and experiences of the Portobelo community. disciplines us to be. I choose to be disobedient, to be un-disciplined, because I am not interested in the prom- I take this demand seriously. In my research I attempt to ise of archaeology. I am interested in its possibilities. respond to it by taking Congo embodied experiences and memory as a means of knowing in and of themselves, and not merely an object of study. This has led me to reformu- late my research of identity formation at Portobelo through the perspectives of place-making and performance. These perspectives assert a logic of difference and possibility built on the local practices of oppressed peoples for the con- struction of alternative worlds. They, thus, offer a means to counter the inequalities produced by archaeology’s privileg- ing of Eurocentric systems of knowledge over other forms of knowledge, like embodied knowledge. By engaging in a politics of place, my research with the Portobelo community seeks to address the binary between “intangible heritage” (oral histories, performances, rituals) and “tangible heritage” (buildings, objects) that perpetuates a racist and ethnocentric logic of coloniality within disciplinary practices.

If archaeology is truly to be a craft serving society, then the archaeological process must begin with communities. For this reason, I have made the ethical decision not to excavate, to give me and the Portobelo people the opportunity to do a different kind of archaeology based in community-defined Image 3: Congos of Portobelo, expressing social memory needs and future visions. Research that recognizes, learns through game-dance-ritual performance.

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 19 New Faculty Andrew Bauer, Assistant Professor

Andrew Bauer joined the depart- Andrew’s first monograph, Before ment in September of 2015 after Vijayanagara: Prehistoric Landscapes having served three years as an and Politics in the Tungabhadra Basin, Assistant Professor of Anthropology was published last year in a canonical at the University of Illinois (Urbana- series on South Asian archaeology

department news Champaign), where he also held by the American Institute of Indian appointments in the Center for South Studies and Manohar Publishers. Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Before Vijayanagara investigated the Department of Geography and the historical relationships between Geographical Information Science. the institutionalization of politi- Andrew’s research and teaching cal inequalities and the creation of interests broadly focus on environ- material and symbolic environments mental archaeology and anthropol- that conditioned their reproduction ogy, interests that he has fostered during the South Indian Iron Age (ca. since his early training at the under- 1200-300 BCE). The work integrated graduate level. He grew up in Ohio landform, pollen, architectural, and and received his Bachelor’s Degree artifactual data from more than 200 from the University Akron. While at sites and features with environmental Akron, Andrew studied anthropology, geology, information derived from multispec- and geography and was fortunate to have had tral remote sensing classifications many research opportunities that allowed him to illustrate that a series of environ- to conduct fieldwork at various sites in Ohio and mental features that are now widely southeastern Turkey as part of interdisciplinary believed to be “natural” were created research teams. These early experiences helped during the Iron Age as a means of him develop broad interests in the intersections appropriating space for politically of the natural sciences and the social sciences. instrumental ritual activities and Upon completing his undergraduate degree he agro-pastoral production. Through his pursued his PhD in anthropology at the Univer- argument Andrew underscored the sity of Chicago. There he completed his graduate broader points that environments are training (PhD 2010) and was fortunate to begin always partly social products, both conducting archaeological fieldwork in a region in their historical-material actualities of northern Karnataka, India—a place that he and in how they are conceptualized greatly enjoys spending his time away from and understood, and that social and campus and that has now served as the site of his political strategies are operationalized research activities for nearly 15 years. in and through material forms laid out in a spatial world that is meaning- Andrew’s research reflects his primary interests in fully populated with both human and human-environment relations, which he consid- nonhuman actors. ers to broadly call attention to the political and ecological effects of the production of cultural Andrew brings with him to Stanford landscapes as well as to a host of nonhuman ma- several active multidisciplinary field terial things and species with which people forge projects in the southern Deccan relationships. Andrew’s research interests draw region of India that build on his previ- on a wide range of literature from anthropology, ous work. In a multi-year project he is geography, and science studies, and he similarly turning his attention to an investiga- makes use of multiple interdisciplinary methods tion of the transition from Iron Age to enhance their applicability to an anthropologi- political configurations to the early cal investigation of how social relationships and dynastic polities of South India at the material environments concurrently come into urban site of Maski, using systematic being. These include geomorphology, paleoecol- survey, geophysical and multispectral ogy, remote sensing, and the use of Geographical remote sensing, and targeted excava- Information Systems.

20 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 tions and paleoecological sampling to ships between forms of human land as a new historiographical period examine how politicized settlement use and metrics of species richness and when humans are making an unprec- practices, metallurgical production diversity. edented impact on global climate (e.g., specialized crafting of iron and that has consequences for all species gold), and intensified agro-pastoral This latter project reflects Andrew’s on Earth. The project highlights that land use transformed existing social re- commitment to the relevance of ar- an archaeological approach to under- lations and environmental processes. chaeology to both contemporary social standing landscape histories is not only In association with this project he is theory and environmental and social capable of documenting how social also more specifically documenting policy. Drawing on the results of his relationships and environments were relationships between ancient land fieldwork on historical human environ- produced and politicized in the past, use and contemporary biodiversity on ments, Andrew is currently developing but also that doing so can shed critical South India’s inselberg hills ("island his next book project for publication, light on contemporary understandings mountains"). Understanding these tentatively titled Materializing Climate: of modernity and Nature and what relationships is critical to evaluating Toward a Critical Anthropology of the they both affirm and silence. current conservation policies that Anthropocene. This book, co-authored are intended to protect and sustain with socio-cultural anthropologist Andrew is delighted to be part of the such “hotspot” environments. This Mona Bhan, draws on environmental Stanford community and looks for- project involves sampling a range of archaeology and anthropology to criti- ward to involving a range of Stanford environmental proxy indicators from cally investigate the empirical, philo- students in his research. multiple archaeological land use sites sophical, and political implications of to document the historical relation- the current usage of the Anthropocene

New Books

Liisa Malkki, Professor The Need to Help: The Domestic Arts of International Humanitarianism Duke University Press Books (Sept. 11, 2015)

department news In The Need to Help Liisa H. Malkki shifts the focus of the study of hu- manitarian intervention from aid recipients to aid workers themselves. The anthropological commitment to understand the motivations and desires of these professionals and how they imagine themselves in the world "out there," led Malkki to spend more than a decade interviewing members of the international Finnish Red Cross, as well as observing Finns who volun- teered from their homes through gifts of handwork. The need to help, she shows, can come from a profound neediness—the need for aid workers and volunteers to be part of the lively world and something greater than them- selves, and, in the case of the elderly who knit "trauma teddies" and "aid bunnies" for "needy children," the need to fight loneliness and loss of personhood. In seriously examining aspects of humanitarian aid often dismissed as sentimental, or trivial, Malkki complicates notions of what constitutes real political work. She traces how the international is always entangled in the domestic, whether in the shape of the need to leave home or handmade gifts that are an aid to sociality and to the imagination of the world.

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 21 Conferences and Workshops

Matsutake Worlds Spring 2016 Symposium (March 29, 2016)

On March 29th, matsutake mad- mushroom. The session began ness hit the Department during with three graduate student the interdisciplinary Matsutake discussants: Dilshanie Per- Worlds Symposium, co-coordi- era (Anthropology), Madeline nated by Madeline Brown and Brown (Anthropology), and Da- Miyako Inoue. This one-day vid Stentiford (Modern Thought department news symposium was an opportunity and Literature). Each discus- to cross-pollinate scholarly ideas sant was asked to prepare with members of the Matsutake remarks about Anna Tsing’s Worlds Research Group (MWRG): recent book, The Mushroom at Timothy Choy (UC Davis), Lieba the End of the World. Our hope Faier (UCLA), Michael Hathaway was to bring different perspec- (Simon Fraser University), Shiho tives to bear on the same text, Satsuka (University of Toronto) and release ideas to spark and Anna Tsing (UC Santa Cruz). The MWRG is an ongo- further conversations and connections. After Dr. Tsing ing experimental collaboration among these scholars, responded to the discussant comments, we heard who each approach matsutake mushroom connections from each of the MWRG members about their ongoing from a unique perspective. Multispecies interactions research projects, before opening the floor to general are of increasing interest to anthropologists, as we seek discussion. Symposium participants hailed from diverse to think beyond our limited anthropocentric lens and disciplines such as Biology, the Emmett Interdisciplinary investigate the intricate webs that connect both human Program in Environment and Resources, Earth Systems, and nonhuman entities. This symposium provided a forum East Asian Studies, and Bioengineering. What a treat to for students, professors, industry professionals, and bring so many brilliant minds together in one place! After other mushroom enthusiasts to discuss topics as varied the formal session concluded, participants continued to as commodity chains, fungal sensory perception, Marx- mingle over delicious food and drink. Our hope from this ism, disturbance ecologies, ethnicity and cross cultural symposium is that matsutake mushrooms will continue connections, the mycorrhizal network, and life in the to inspire future collaborations and ideas about multispe- Anthropocene; all centered on one figure: the matsutake cies connections and social-ecological processes.

Techniques of Mediation (Winter and Spring 2016)

The Techniques of Mediation research workshop explores how tech- nologies of inscription, mediation, information, and archives create the social world, by examining a wide range of historical and contemporary assemblages of people, machines, and organizations that have shaped complex diagrams of power and of social life. The workshop approaches this question through new theoretical understandings of the concept of mediation. The 20th-century legacy that privileged epistemology con- fined mediation to the status of an inert and transparent subsidiary of representation and interpretation, and has left mediation’s material pres- ence and its capacity of enactment largely unexplored. From index cards to databases, from the alphabet to ASCII, and from the abacus to the algorithm, the workshop will explore concrete cases of mediation’s effectiveness, and by doing so expand our assessment of mediation to the status of technically – and materially – determinate processes of world-making and knowledge produc- tion. Faculty sponsors are Miyako Inoue (Department of Anthropology) and Tom Mullaney (Department of History).

22 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 Shades of Sovereignty: Lineages of Authority and Social Order in South Asia (May 19 - 20, 2016)

A workshop held on May 19 -20 at Stanford examined the archival approaches. historical layers and contemporary shadowy forms of politi- cal sovereignty across modern South Asia. State power and The organizers, Dr. sources of authority in the region have remained uneven Eric Beverley, a his- across space both during and after the period of British torian of South Asia colonial dominance. based at SUNY Stony Brook, and Thomas Recent historical and social scientific scholarship has Blom Hansen, Profes- identified key shifts and deep complexities in South Asian sor of Anthropology at political sovereignty from Mughal imperial fragmentation Stanford envision this and expanding East India Company authority; decades of workshop as the basis nationalist self-assertion and decolonization; and then in for broader conversa- postcolonial reconfigurations of relationships between the tion on sovereignty in national center, provinces and localities, and urban spaces. the 21st century at a Much of this work has underscored the unevenness and series of workshops contingency of political sovereignty across space through- in the coming years. out the subcontinent's recent history. Beverley and Hansen hope to deploy the historical permu- tations of sovereignty as a perspective that can shed new Anthropologists and political scientists have also demon- light on current regions of great political instability in the strated that this deeper history has rendered repertoires of world, on the dynamics of concessions, offshore economies authority and sovereign power in various regions and areas and special economic zones, and on the differential legal across the subcontinent that profoundly shape contempo- regimes and rights claims left behind by complex histories rary political imaginations and social orders of sovereignty.

The workshop provided two days of intense reflection on The hope is to involve historians, anthropologists and historical echoes, enduring structures of legitimacy, and others scholars of other post-imperial contexts and minor recent political and cultural dynamics in deeply uneven states, potentially including Northern Nigeria and southern landscapes of practical legal and political sovereignty. The Africa, Siam/Thailand and insular Southeast Asia, former nine presentations adopted a range of disciplinary perspec- Ottoman domains and the Gulf States, the Russian Empire tives such as anthropology, history, political science and and the Americas. legal studies, relying on both fieldwork-based and textual-

The 2017 American ethnological society Spring Conference will take place Thursday, March 30 to Saturday, April 1 at Stanford University. For more information, see: http://aesonline.org/meetings/spring-conference/

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 23 Grants, Awards, and Prizes

Bill Durham received funding from ers), together with the input of an to understand thoughts and other John Templeton Foundation for his international conference of experts, mental events in particular ways. project titled "The Boundaries of and consultation with distinguished We hypothesize that different cul- Humanity: Humans, Animals and guest speakers, we will assemble a tural understandings of the mind— Machines in the Age of Biotech- comprehensive annotated survey of specifically, how separate the mind nology" the distinguishing characteristics of is from the world, how important

human nature, together with a well- inner experience is held to be, and Advances across a broad front in documented and realistic picture of how real the imagination is held to department news biology, cognitive psychology, and the practical and conceptual chal- be—shape the way people pay at- computer technology are challeng- lenges posed by emerging bio and tention to and interpret events they ing our traditional notions of human information technologies. deem supernatural. nature and calling into question

the terms of self-description that Within the frame of these perspec- To pursue the research we have define our distinctive place and pur- tives, we will propose a definitive built a team of eminent anthropolo- pose within the order of creation. multidisciplinary project that seeks gists and psychologists. Working Blurring the boundaries between a coherent physical, cultural, and with younger scholars and with humans, animals, and machines, philosophical anthropology – an international scholars, we will take these advances raise theoretical understanding of the 'boundaries a mixed methods, multi-phase and practical problems of profound of humanity' that defends human approach, combining participant importance for the future of human dignity and promotes the personal, observation, semi-structured civilization. social, and spiritual flourishing of interviews, quantitative surveys,

human life. and experimental research. We will The funding will support research, work in five different countries: organization, and strategic prepara- Ghana, India (Tamil Nadu), Thai- tion essential for a comprehensive land, Vanuatu/ Oceania and the project of global dialogue, scientific US. These countries vary in ways inquiry, and thoughtful scholarship Tanya Luhrmann received funding that we predict have psychologi- to address these important issues. from John Templeton Foundation for cally meaningful implications for Through extensive literature review her project titled "Spiritual curiosity supernatural experience. In addition and consultation the project will ex- and the experience of God" to examining group differences by plore several Big Questions central country, we will also examine up to themes in the JTF Life Sciences This project sets out to understand to four populations per country: programs: What are the unique and how cultural variation in ideas about urban charismatic Christian; rural defining features of human nature? the mind shapes the way people charismatic Christian; urban non- What construction and conditions seek and experience the supernatu- Christian; rural non-Christian. We (biological, social, and spiritual) ral through a large comparative compare these four populations not make these features possible? And, project. We propose that although only to have comparable groups but most perplexing, what is the human belief in supernatural agents may also to investigate the impact of future? build upon psychological biases in charismatic Christianity and indus- human cognition, faith is cultur- trialization on the way people think Grounded in the active dialogue of ally constituted through effortful about thinking and their experience an ongoing interdisciplinary faculty attention, often to the mind and to of the supernatural. seminar with our Stanford col- mental events. Prayer, for example, leagues (as well as invited Silicon requires the person praying to Valley engineers and industry lead- examine their thoughts and, often,

24 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 Loch lann Jain was awarded the 2016 J.I. Staley Prize for her book Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us

Professor Lochlann Jain has been selected to receive the 2016 J.I. Staley Prize for her book Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us. Pre- sented by The School for Advanced Research (SAR), the J.I. Staley Prize is given annually to a living author for a book that exemplifies outstanding scholarship and writing in anthropology. The award recognizes innovative works that go beyond traditional frontiers and dominant schools of thought in anthropology and add new dimensions to our understanding of the human species. It honors books that cross subdisciplinary boundaries within anthropology and reach out in new and expanded interdisciplinary directions.

Jain will receive the prize at an event and reception at Stanford this Fall.

Undergrad Events

Majors night - September 30, 2015 department news

This year, Major’s night was held on September 30th and was a great success! Freshmen and sophomores were greeted by friendly faces of The Department of Anthropology. UG Committee Chair-Miyako Inoue, Peer Advisors-Vy Le, Meredith Pelrine, and Isabelle Barnard, and UG Student Services Specialist-Anahid Sarkissian were all on hand to field questions related to Anthropology and share the many research opportunities avail- able to them.

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 25 Undergrad Events

"Meet the Department" Dinner - October 29, 2015 During the beginning of Au- tumn Quarter, Undergraduate students met with Faculty and Department Affiliates over a dinner social. Each member of the Department of Anthropol-

department news ogy presented their research interests and shared what courses they plan to offer in the upcoming year. Attend- ees were entered in a raffle to win some great prizes!

aNTHROPOLOGY cAREER nIGHT - mARCH 1, 2016 At the Department of Anthropology Career Night, anthropology alumni shared their experiences on how an anthropology back- ground has shaped their career pathways. Panelists included: • Jennifer J. Flattery- Research Scientist at California Department of Public Health • Kim Grose Moore- Community Organizer, Executive Director, and Leadership Coach • Madeline Larsen Lamperti- Investigator for the Federal Public Defender office in Oakland, California • Kelly Vicars- Associate Editor for Epic Magazine

43rd Annual Western Departments of Anthropology and Sociology Undergraduate Research Conference - April 23, 2016

Anthropology Seniors Isabelle Barnard, Renjie Wong, and Meredith Pelrine were selected to present their research at this year’s Anthropology and Sociology Conference held at Santa Clara University.

26 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 Admit Weekend Open House - April 29th 2016

The Anthropology Undergraduate Peer Advisors tabled out- side of the department during Admit Week- end. Newly admitted students stopped by to find out more about the major and what anthropology entails.

Senior Good-Bye Lunch and Study Break - May 20th 2016

All Anthro students were invited to have one final Lunch with the graduating class of 2016. The seniors took some time to reflect on their time at Stanford as an Anthropology major.

Honors/Master Presentations - May 23, 2016

This year, six students presented their paper at the Honors/Mas- ter presentation, including: Margaret Tomaszczuk : “Social Experiences of Digital Technology Use at Çatalhöyük” Mariam Kyarunts: “Patients as Consumers of Health Care: A Case Study of the Patient Experience in a Sample of the San Mateo County Low-income Population Receiving Care in an Emergency Department” Renjie Wong: “Refashioning Napoletanita’: Identity, Corporeality, Photo Credit: Allison Mickel and Value Creation in the Neapolitan Luxury Menswear Industry”

Meredith Pelrine: “Where Asexual and Queer Meet: Quotidian and Communal Experiences among Bay Area Queer Aces” Vy Le: “HIV and Motherhood in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: Caregiving of HIV Positive Children as a Moral Mode of Disease Engagement” Isabelle Barnard: “Kitchen Tigers, Jungle Dogs: Human-Animal Relationships in Amazonian Runa Households”

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 27 Undergrad Events

Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award - May 23, 2016

The Undergraduate Peer Advisors presented this year’s Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award during the department’s spring picnic. Anthropology undergradu- ates were asked to nominate professors, based on their experiences with this professor in the classroom, as an advisor, or otherwise. A number of nominations were department news received, and based on student responses, Paulla Ebron was selected as the recipient of this year’s Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award.

Many of this year’s seniors had the pleasure of work- ing with Professor Ebron in the methods class, which a number recognized as one of their favorite classes at Stanford. Professor Ebron promotes thoughtful, ethi- cal engagement with anthropology, and helps empower students to think critically and creatively within the discipline. As one student wrote in their nomination, she “has always been great about giving detailed feedback, providing help with assignments, and even offering help outside of the class.”

During the award presentation, Paulla Ebron was also recognized for her generosity, her insights, and her com- mitment to supporting undergraduates all while fostering a wonderful classroom environment.

aNTHROPOLOGY sPRING pICNIC - May 23, 2016

* All photos taken by Allison Mickel

28 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 Interview with lochlann Jain (May 10, 2016) by Meredith Pelrine, Undergrad Peer Advisor and Anthropology Senior

On May 10, 2016, and contradictions in cancer’s role and meaning the Anthropology in the medical industry and economy at large in Undergraduate Peer the United States. Advisors hosted an interview with Pro- We were particularly interested in Professor fessor Lochlann Jain Jain’s methodological approaches for Malignant to give students the and for her other research projects. She told us chance to hear more that her training is to get everything that she about what it means can, and so she read stacks and stacks of medi- to be an anthropolo- cal reports, history accounts, journal articles, gist, and to learn magazines, and pieces of advertising for Malig- about the particu- nant. Students asked about how Professor Jain larities of Professor balanced her academic writing in the book with Jain’s work and her her personal history with cancer. She described history with anthro- her desire to call upon readers’ anger without giv- pology. ing the book an angry tone, exposing the costs of cancer’s place in the economy in a way that was Professor Jain’s not blameworthy. Framing each chapter in the research deals with book as a kind of case study that could be read on photo by L.A. Cicerto, Stanford News how stories are its own, apart from the others, she used particu- told about injuries, lar sets of relationships between companies and integrating the study of fields such as medicine, kinds of data to explore cancer and its uncertain- law, advertising, and engineering. Two of the ties. Uncertainty is integral, too, to Professor Peer Advisors, Isabelle Barnard and Vy Le, asked Jain’s most recent research project, concerned Professor Jain questions about her academic jour- with how narratives about the origins of HIV ney to anthropology, how she came to develop come to be produced and dismissed. her current and past research projects, her advice for undergraduate anthropology students, and As one of our last questions, we asked Professor what experiences she has found most valuable Jain for what advice she might offer undergradu- in her academic career. This event gave students ate students in anthropology. She suggested that the opportunity to learn more about the interests we explore our possibilities, and remember that and questions that sparked Professor Jain’s initial while a career in anthropology is wonderful, there entry into anthropology and her subsequent are many wonderful things one can do. In short, research projects. she reminded us that fulfillment can be found both in and outside of careers, and that no one Professor Jain described how she came eventu- career choice is the only right one for any of us. ally to anthropology through studying in other The event was an excellent opportunity not only fields and finding that, though interesting, they to learn about the close details of how anthropol- did not offer everything she was looking for. She ogy is actually done, but also to see how multi- became interested in questions about how things tudes of fields can be integrated in interesting are made to seem natural, and pursued research ways to offer meaningful and often overlooked projects that dealt with these kinds of questions, insights. Professor Jain reminded us to explore particularly in relation to science and technol- questions that have not yet been asked, to look ogy. Her most recent book, Malignant: How for the missing spaces in theory and in data. The Cancer Becomes Us, deals such questions as well. Peer Advisors are tremendously grateful to Pro- Professor Jain described how her own experience fessor Jain for having been kind enough to speak with cancer and the uncertainty and insufficient with us and to share her experiences in anthro- language around it led her to explore the tensions pology with students.

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 29 Undergrad Events

Anthropology Career Panel (March 1, 2016) by Meredith Pelrine, Undergrad Peer Advisor and Anthropology Senior

wanted and pursue multiple interests at the same time.

The same interests that led the panelists

department news to choose anthropology were also critical in their choice of career paths. We asked the panelists how they use anthropology in their jobs, and in particular what parts of their anthropological training they have drawn on in their current careers and general career paths. All the panelists had much to say about how they use anthropology, and described how the skills that are most critical to their jobs are extremely well-served by having an anthropological approach behind them. Kim said that anthropology is the lens What can you do with an anthropology major? On through which she views the world. She told us Tuesday, March 1, the Undergraduate Peer Advi- that she strives to be a participant observer in the sors hosted the 2016 Anthropology Career Panel world and in her job as a leadership coach, trainer, to discuss this question. We invited four Stanford and consultant for grassroots community orga- Anthropology alumni from different fields: Jen- nizing efforts. She works to find that which goes nifer Flattery, a Research Scientist at the California unnoticed and uses her observations to help the Department of Public Health; Kim Grose Moore, groups she works with interact effectively. Kelly a leadership coach, trainer, and consultant for also referenced the tools and methodology of an- grassroots community organizing efforts; Madeline thropological practice, and described her work as Larsen Lamperti, an investigator for the Oakland Epic Magazine’s Associate Editor as fundamentally Public Defender Office; and Kelly Vicars, an as- ethnographic; she must immerse herself in others’ sociate editor at Epic Magazine in San Francisco. worlds, learn about them, and ask questions. She The panel was held over dinner, and a number of described interviewing as a kind of art, and noted undergraduate students were in attendance. We that success at her job hinges on relationships with asked the alumni panelists questions about their people. This is also the case for Madeline, who career paths, the ways in which they use anthro- spoke of how she spends much of her time trying pology at their jobs, their challenges in finding to understand the social relationships between their careers, and their advice for anthropology her client and their community, their family, and undergraduate students. The panelists were deeply the criminal justice system. She told us that when passionate about anthropology, and discussed how you understand a person’s story, you understand it is not just a degree, but also a perspective and their motivations, and you can correct your own approach for understanding the world, confronting assumptions. Thus, her job as an investigator for challenges, and engaging with people in real and the Oakland Public Defender Office requires her to meaningful ways. deeply listen to her clients, and to be prepared to act as translator between her client and a justice Our first question for the panelists was why they system that largely misunderstands her clients’ chose anthropology. Both Kelly and Kim discussed needs and motivations. Similarly, Jennifer indicat- their deep-seated curiosity and interest in the lived ed that the orientation of public health is by nature experiences of people, and Kim also mentioned anthropological. Its patient being the community, the appeal of the particular scale of anthropology it requires deeply understanding the social milieu as compared to other fields. Madeline and Jennifer and inner workings of the community in question both discussed how they found that anthropol- in order to know how best to approach health is- ogy integrated their varied interests in a satisfying sues and provide solutions. way, enabling them to take exactly the classes they

30 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 To better understand how anthropology is received out- Tribal Migrants [Continued from page 11] side of Stanford, we also asked the panelists whether other tier region allows us to understand the people in their careers have appreciated their anthropologi- economic and political transformations cal background. Kelly noted that even when others don’t in the highlands of Northeast India and know what anthropology is--and most particularly when job forces us to examine the factors that interviewers don’t know--this gives you the chance to tell have pushed thousands of tribal people them, and describe how anthropology can be made useful to leave home in search of livelihood in fields from consulting to tech to communications. Kim options across urban India. supplemented this by adding that, in her experience, those who know what anthropology is hold a lot of respect for I am fascinated how places like North- the discipline. However, she encourages students applying east India, often described, as remote, for jobs to demonstrate how they’ve actually applied their underdeveloped, and dangerous anthropological training in cross-cultural communication and for much of the 20th century, have relationship-building. Madeline indicated that most people emerged as the future hubs of energy at her job do not know she has a degree in anthropology, but and resources in India. The waiting that when they find out they tend not to be surprised, given lounge at Guwahati airport, the larg- how regularly her job requires deep cultural sensitivity. As a est city in Northeast India, displays Research Scientist for the California Department of Public huge boards promoting energy com- Health, Jennifer has also found that her coworkers appreciate panies and the operations of the Oil the cultural sensitivity that her anthropological training helps and Natural Gas Corporation across her provide, particularly for effectively communicating mes- Northeast India. As the region attracts sages about health and safety to a given community. capital, companies, and business deals, the population in the villages is rapidly We ended the event by asking the panelists what pieces dwindling as the youth and able bodied of advice they had to offer anthropology undergraduate residents become migrants and head students as we think about our careers and life after gradu- off to work in mainland India. Every ation. The themes of curiosity and communication that had time I look at the gigantic, glossy bill- run through the entire panel continued into the answers to boards at Guwahati airport, they remind this question. Kelly suggested we take seriously the increas- me about the future of this frontier ing relevance of digital spaces as a site for anthropological region and the ongoing transformations inquiry, and both Madeline and Jennifer encouraged us to I have briefly shared in this piece. The listen closely to our own interests and passions and follow privatization of tribal land, extractive where they lead, to new and perhaps unexpected possibili- resource activities, and the increasing ties. Kim offered three pieces of advice. First, following Rilke, trend of outmigration, I believe, enables to “live the questions,” and inhabit the space of not knowing, us to join the crucial conversations growing familiar with discomfort. Second, to find ways to about social justice, equality, and ac- care for our inner life, and cultivate practices that keep our in- countability with various actors ranging ner life happy. And finally, for those of us interested in social from practitioners, host communities, justice and social change, to check in with ourselves regularly policy makers, and human rights groups about how we believe change happens, and to modify our across the globe. approaches in keeping with our own evolving theories of change.

This panel was tremendously inspirational and encouraging. We were able to see how anthropology can remain a critical element of one’s life well after leaving the university, as well as how an anthropological approach can offer a rich toolkit for finding a career, doing it well, and being satisfied with one’s work. The Peer Advisors and students in attendance were deeply grateful for the panelists’ presence and for the passion that they brought to their stories and their advice. We look forward to using the same kinds of self-reflexivity, curiosity, and engagement that the panelists demonstrated as we move forward into life and careers beyond Stanford.

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 31 From the Field

by Maddie Brown, dissertation writer letter

single fir tree towers over the potato and bean fields between my host-family’s home and the main village center. This species is valued as a rot-resistant wood used in conjunction with a Alocal pine for burying the dead. This individual’s trunk is maybe two feet in diameter now, but Uncle Lu (“uncle” is the polite term of address for adults) says if the tree’s owners let this tree keep growing, they will be able to make three or more coffins out of it. Large trees like this fir are rare in this part of Yunnan Province, China, particularly in the middle of agricultural fields. Before the 1998 state-led logging ban, Un- cle Lu says that the government actively encouraged villag- ers to clear more farmland and to cut forests for expanding timber markets. Now there are many stumps, but also large stands of trees and individuals – like this fir – that remained protected for one reason or another. Ecological, cultural, and economic concerns all intertwine in the mountainous landscape here. My research investigates how social relationships mediate ac- cess to and shape the management of wild edible mushrooms in Baihua village, a Yi nationality community in SW China. Baihua is unique for having self-organized to create a special- ized, community-based mushroom management system. I spent much of the past two rainy seasons (June – December in 2014 and 2015) living and gathering mushrooms with harvesters. Along the way I learned much about coopera- tion, contracts, and resource management strategies; but also about the place in which I became temporarily embedded. In this piece, I’d like to share a small piece of this place, and some of the ways those who live there think about and expe- rience the local social and natural landscapes. In Baihua, most evenings are spent sitting on short stools around a fire in the open-air kitchen, while rain patters on the tile roof above. The men smoke home-cured tobacco or purchased cigarettes out of long pipes, while the women keep their hands busy shucking corn or chopping up grasses and other vegetation to make pig food. In the summer, women also twist hemp fibers together with the furry underside of wild huocao leaves. This thread is then woven into a coarse, off-white fabric traditionally worn by Yi people for funerals and mourning. Teenagers and children spend the evening taking selfies and messaging on wechat, or watching soap operas and mythical dramas on TV. The scene is unlike any- thing in my day-to-day life as a graduate student in the Bay Area, but has become familiar. Mushroom harvesters know these woods as more than just an economic resource. Each hill encountered has a history of land ownership, disturbance, and experiences; which col-

32 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 lectively form its contemporary character and expectations for the future. The forest parcel contracted by Uncle Lu in 2014 had previously been harvested by another community member, who encountered a patch of seven heihuzhang mushrooms, but which had not come up for several years. Uncle Lu spent the season excitedly checking that same spot, to see if this would be the year when the highly anticipated mushrooms would come back. To walk with a harvester along their collection path is to receive a constant stream of location-based reports from an expert reviewer. “This area has no matsutake, I’ve been here spiritual healings from a traditional Yi healer. Still another many times and never seen any…there are a lot of tameye mountain, which we pass often on our daily movements, is (Suillus sp.) in our forest this year…Mezeze mountain always where children who have passed away too young are buried. has a lot of achimenpei (Lactarius sp.)…matsutake won’t My friend was careful not to bring her baby to certain parts come up under these scrubby broadleaved trees, they need of this mountain. These landscape histories are inextricably pine trees.” As with any healthy debate about the character entwined with the lived experiences and oral histories of the of the natural world, not all knowledge is shared. Longtime people who live in Baihua. harvesters hold several differing beliefs about whether the sunny or foggy sides of mountains slopes produce more These forests also conjure memories for me now. One hillside mushrooms, and over which slopes will produce mushrooms is where during the 2015 National Week, four of us went out earlier or later in the season. Through hours and years of in the dark after dinner and used fire to gather a wasp nest, observation, a local natural history is collectively assembled. before frying up their larvae with oil and salt. Another hill, wobobo, is where I was invited by a large group of harvesters Entire mountains also have stories. On the 15th day of the to join their camp for the day, and we ate freshly captured third month in the lunar calendar, Baihua villagers gather grilled snake and squirrel. The gentle sloping hill above the on one local mountain to barbecue and make offerings. eucalyptus plantation is where we saw a poisonous snake Money is placed in tree roots to inspire good luck in the year harvesting mushrooms while being filmed by a CCTV to come. Another mountain is where people go to receive documentary crew. The moist microclimate along the river that winds between two large ridges is where a delicious wild Apiaceous green grows in abundance, while the drier high ridges is where a savory wild mint relative used in chicken soups can be found. One day while walking with Uncle Lu through the forest, he remarks that some harvester tracks are actually old goat paths, from when locals used to graze their goats in these woods. He tells me goats find the most natural and easy path up the mountain, tamping the earth as they move. When we hike through the mountains, mapping parcel boundaries or collecting mushrooms, we follow where the goats have already found a path. Fieldwork is often like this. I have ques- tions I need answered and specific datasets to construct, and these tasks will be accomplished, in time. But between these formal data collection activities, I am frequently reminded that these harvesters have been here before, and sometimes the best insights or conversations come from following their lead and listening.

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 33 From the Field

by Young su park, field researcher letter A barber friend waves his hand and invites me to drink coffee with his neighbors at a bunna suqii (coffee stall). The place is small—about 6 people can sit shoulder-to-shoul- der—and it is always filled with the fragrance of roasting coffee and the chatter of everyday conversations. A repair- man tells a joke about a refugee from South Sudan seeking asylum in Korea. A butcher frets about the absence of meat sales during the fasting period. A driver asks me about jobs at Korean NGOs and routes to take when visiting Korea. In the midst of this lively atmosphere, I am warmly welcomed as a “nama kenya” (our people) because I try to speak their mother tongue, Afaan Oromo. They assign me a gossa (clan), Hexoosaa, which is also the name of the district. Looking back, it took me a long time to find my place in this rural town in Ethiopia.

I arrived in Iteya last summer, one month after the elec- tion. Initially, I had doubts whether I would receive a 3-month tourist visa because of all the stories surround- ing visa rejections and Korean NGO worker evacuations due to tightened security during the election. Fortunately, tensions from ethnic politics subsided without major violence after the election, and I was able to receive my visa without much delay. It had taken a long time—almost three months—for me to acquire a residence ID, secure a research affiliation, and obtain ethical approvals. However, I was able to use this time wisely to deeply engage with the Korean community in Addis Ababa and to learn Afaan Oromo.

I was introduced as an anthropology doctoral student, image 2: Gathering under the oda tree and both Koreans and Ethiopians thought that I came to Ethiopia to study Lucy, the hominid bone fossils that were me that he had access to all the fossils that were not open discovered by paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson in to the public because of his connections with the cultural 1974, or to document the exotic customs of minority ethnic heritage agency. People I met in Addis Ababa were puzzled groups near the border. A Korean doctor even confided in to hear that I was there to study the history and culture of Oromo people to improve a global health program.

Yet the Oromo people I met in Iteya immediately under- stood what I meant and whispered in my ears about the tragic historical event of their district: “harka fi harma muraa Aanolee (cutting of hands and breasts in Aanolee).” Although the massacre in Aanolee happened one century ago, the Oromo people in Iteya remember it because one generation of Oromo males survived and lived on without their right hands. The right hand is the hand for greet- ings, eating, and holding rights. Ten years ago, a memorial monument with an amputated hand holding a severed breast was erected, serving as a constant reminder of this Image 1: Placard for Korean war veterans in the Korean public tragic event in Aanolee. health training center

34 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 the continuing practice of eviction and land dispossession, all in the name of the Addis Ababa Master Plan. This Master Plan expands the territory of Addis Ababa into the neigh- boring Oromia regional state which ignited rage about ethnic discrimination. For Oromo people in many parts of Ethiopia, the Master Plan expansion also heightened their yearning for independence.

On the day of a cooperative meeting organized by a Korean NGO, I learned about the sociopolitical meaning of the tree under which the villagers were gathered. It was under this Oda tree that many historical events took place, including the massacre at Aanolee. But the Oda tree had a longer history as the meeting place for the Gadaa system, the traditional political organization of Oromo people, because the Oda tree can provide shade for hundreds of people. Oromo people are proud of the democratic characteristics of Gadaa system and often proclaim that Oromo people in- vented a democratic political system 400 years ago, before Americans founded a democratic country in the western world. Indeed, the center of the Oromia state flag promi- nently features the symbolic Oda tree.

In some ways, one can argue that the Oromo people’s democratic alternatives were more successfully navigated in today’s political climate than they were in the past. Al- though the Gadaa system does not actively exist anymore, the symbolism of holding community meetings under the Oda tree and inscribing the symbol of Oda tree in the regional flag demonstrates Oromo people’s yearning for some kind of return to democratization. As Walter Benja- min once said, holding onto fragments of the past, such In Iteya, there are two places that people simply call as the Gadaa system and the Oda tree, can overcome the ‘Korea’: an elementary school and a public health train- present and give hope to the future, in this case, a future ing center where I live. Both buildings were constructed of democratization and independence. A new Oda tree by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), has been planted in the middle of the public health training which also sends volunteers. In the public health train- center as a gesture to this symbolic future. ing center, I found several memorials for the Korean War. Photos of families holding portraits of their fallen soldiers are displayed prominently in the lounge. In the auditorium, a huge placard explaining Ethiopia’s participation in the Korean War covered the entire back wall. Some Arsi Oromo people argue that the Korean government concentrates their global health and rural development projects in the Arsi Zone because many Arsi Oromo soldiers took part in the Korean War. This connection is why the Korean global health program has spaces designed to remember the Korean War.

In the middle of my field year, political unrest concerning Oromo people went on for more than three months over Image 3: Oda tree in the Korean public health training center

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 35 Fieldnotes Where Asexual and Queer Meet: Quotidian and Communal Experiences among Bay Area Queer Aces

undergrad by Meredith Pelrine, undergrad anthropology major

“So are you gay?” attraction. This definition has been crafted through online asexual community dialogues, and is accepted So said many of the people I conducted my research with, by most asexual people (as well as used in the vast ma- describing people’s reactions to hearing them describe jority of recent literature about asexuality). Asexuality, their asexuality. Misunderstandings, stereotypes, and total like many sexuality-related identities, is imagined on a lack of awareness about asexuality abound, and so it is spectrum, whereby people can experience no sexual at- perhaps no surprise that many heterosexual people quickly traction, some sexual attraction, regular sexual attrac- reduce non-heterosexual orientations to the one most tion, or anywhere in between. “Queer” does not have salient in their minds. Asexuality is not the same thing as such a commonly accepted definition, and can have a being gay, but whether it might be a kind of queerness is a multitude of meanings. Here, however, I am using the question of some debate, and one integral to my research term to refer to the personal individual identity—as in project. how someone refers to themselves. This means that it can have meanings ranging from any non-normative My research examines the intersection of queerness and sexual orientation to a particularly politicized kind of asexuality, particularly for people who identify as both pansexuality to a synonym for gay or lesbian, as defined asexual and queer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Asexual- by the particular individuals I spoke with. During the ity is most commonly defined as not experiencing sexual summers of 2014 and 2015, when I conducted my

36 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 research, I engaged with people online and in person ences, and make profound impacts on each other’s in the Bay Area about how they defined asexuality and well- being. This often includes a stringent commitment queerness and their experiences with different kinds of to the idea that no one is broken, that experiences are communities. fluid, and that how you choose to define yourself at any moment is valid and real and deserves recognition and My research revolves around one very general question respect, regardless of how you defined yourself before, and another more specific one: How do asexual-and- or may define yourself after. queer people, particularly in the Bay Area and also in certain online communities, think about, talk about, This encompasses, then, not only asexual-and-queer and experience these identities? And, in particular, how people, but others who are often framed as broken, or do they experience their queerness, and define queer forced into static, unchanging boxes, including trans identity more broadly? In my thesis, I discuss these people and neurodivergent and disabled people. I questions through three layers: how individual asexual- suggest that confronting invisibility and assailability and-queer people experience their identities on (inter) as issues that asexual-and-queer people face drives personal levels, how asexual-and-queer community solidarity with these other marginalized groups who are organizing is done online and in person, and how and described as also being subject to invisibility and assail- with whom asexual-and-queer people form ties of soli- ability on the basis of such identities. In forming these darity across different identities. I argue that asexuality ties of solidarity, asexual-and-queer people are carving challenges rigorous associations of romance with sex out space in the contemporary United States for people and sex with freedom, and in so doing offers a critical with non-normative experiences and desires to exist as intervention into both mainstream queer discourse and whole, unbroken subjects. dominant discourse in the U.S. more generally. I am hesitant about making any kind of broad claim On the interpersonal level, I describe two kinds of that asexuality is inherently queer. Though most of the experiences that my asexual-and-queer interlocutors people I conducted my research with said as much, often described having. These two recurring and related there were still a sizable number who insisted it wasn’t, themes are invisibility and assailability. Many interview- and still others who were ambivalent or undecided ees discussed feelings of double invisibility, frequently about the issue. What I am less hesitant about, how- as queer people in a heteronormative society and as ever, is making a claim as to what asexuality can offer asexual people in an often sex-oriented queer commu- to queer discourse, queer spaces, and queer organizing. nity. “Assailability” here refers to much the same idea Asexuality as an idea, a set of experiences, and a way of as “privilege,” but from the opposite end of the power reimagining the world challenges assumptions about spectrum. Where privilege refers to how holding par- intimacy, love, and liberation that are dominant both ticular identity components gives people more power inside queer communities and outside of them. of various kinds, assailability, in contrast, refers to how holding particular identity components makes people Intimacy can be felt and expressed in an infinite number more vulnerable to violence in a variety of realms—dis- of ways, and no one way of engaging with someone or cursively, structurally, and physically. Assailability is a showing affection is inherently more affectionate than useful framework for understanding asexual-and-queer other. Attractions and the kinds of intimacies they fos- experiences in contrast to something like “sexual privi- ter do not come in one form; romantic, sexual, sensual, lege” because it better acknowledges the ways in which and aesthetic attractions can all exist independent of sexuality for certain people is never privileged, particu- each other, or consistently related to each other, or larly along lines of race and gender. My interlocutors conditionally related to each other. These experiences described how their asexual-and-queer identities put vary from person to person, and sometimes across them in a position to be constantly defending these time for a given person. Romantic love does not require identities and their lived experiences as real, valid, and sex, sex does not require romantic love. Liberation worthwhile. and self-actualization are not one-size-fits-all, nor are they simple actions realized by individual people alone. On the community level, I explore the vibrant commu- Rather, they are continually and irrevocably integrated nity formation that has occurred around these shared into social worlds and shaped by community dynamics experiences, as well as which people are very often left and experiences. Asexuality can offer an intervention out of the discourse in such communities. This commu- into sex-centralized queer discourse by pointing to the nity formation happens most particularly online, where multiple ways in which intimacy, self-actualization, and people from disparate places can connect, share experi- personal liberation can be realized.

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 37 38 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 Fieldnotes

Kitchen Tigers, Jungle Dogs: Human-Animal Relations in Amazonian Runa Households

undergrad by ISABELLE BARNARD, undergrad anthropology major

My research is based on two summers of fieldwork with Supai is a Kichwa word that generations of missionar- Kichwa-speaking Runa families in Ecuador’s Upper Ama- ies have glossed as “devil.” The translation is not exact, zon. In my honors thesis, I explore the household space as of course—supai are more like a type of forest spirit, a contact zone in which beings from humans to chickens dangerous but not always malevolent. But contempo- to pet monkeys cohabitate. I examine the practices of rary Kichwa cosmology draws from a vibrant medley care, as well as violence, that emerge from these compan- of cultures, contacts, and influences; the spirit world, ion species relations. In doing so, I hope to both trouble with its hodgepodge of Christian and indigenous beliefs boundaries between categories like wild/domestic and human/animal, and to point toward an ecological praxis and vocabulary, is no exception. I had heard of supai and an ethic of transspecies care that can emerge from the stealing children, or locking unlucky forest-goers inside home. What follows is an excerpt from my second chapter. of trees. Taking dogs, however, was a new kind of crime. Why did the supai take the dog? I asked Carmen. She I heard the dogs before I saw them. I was perched on a shrugged. It was a good dog, a hunting dog, she said. It wooden bench inside the tarabita, a cage-like structure followed well, and that’s why the forest spirit wanted it. suspended on heavy wires that carried people across So supai keep dogs? I asked, insistent. She nodded, and Jatunyaku River to Amarunkachi, the Kichwa commu- turned back to the fire. nity on the other side. It was a nerve-wracking journey, whitewater rapids churning far below us while the ma- The dogs I met in Runa households were liminal crea- chine started, stopped, sputtered, and started again. As tures, travelers between worlds. Forbidden to enter the we approached the riverbank, it took a moment for my inner sanctum of the home, the kitchen and sleeping distracted brain to register the racket: five dogs barking areas, they were nonetheless its defenders, securing frantically and dashing toward us as the tarabita glided the boundaries of the household against both human over the ground and came to a creaky halt. Caaaaram- and nonhuman intruders. They roamed the jungle and ba! cried my host father to the dogs, kicking the closest crossed the river freely, but in doing so they faced a one out of the way before stepping forward to greet me. whole host of threats: pumas, supai, unsavory humans The dogs, mollified by the realization that I was a guest that might steal or poison them. In the household, dogs and not an intruder, lay back down in the shade. were safe; in the jungle, they faced the same kinds of dangers as humans who ventured outside their front This display of canine aggression was not unwarranted doors. Not quite wild but not fully domestic, dogs –the Ecuadorian Amazon can be a perilous place for moved between human, animal, and even spirit worlds. dogs and humans alike. Sitting by the fire with my They were loud, furry, fleshy, and often flea-infested host mother, Carmen, that evening, I asked her if the ambassadors of animality in the most cultural of spaces, dogs had names. Yes, she replied, and pointed them the family home. out: Cando, Bandito, Rabo, Puka, and the smallest one, a scrawny mutt named Luna. But there used to be That night, while the rest of the family slept, I got up to another dog, too, Carmen informed me. A little white use the bathroom. As I picked my way back from the one named Blanca. One day, she just never came back outhouse in the dark, I tripped over Cando, sprawled from the woods. The family spent hours searching for out in the dirt by the doorstep. He looked up at me her, but she was nowhere to be found. Blanca belonged sleepily; I reached down and scratched his ears, then to my host brother, a police officer in his forties. He was stepped over him and into the house. It was my first crying and crying when they lost the dog, Carmen told night in my new field site, and this canine gatekeeper’s me. So she just disappeared? I ask. A devil took her, she indifference to my presence felt almost like a welcome. explained in Spanish. And then, switching to Kichwa: A supai stole her.

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 39 Alumni News

gy, School of Anthropology, The University work on dance has been most recently 1950 of Arizona. acknowledged with an Erasmus Visiting Scholar award (Hungary), an honorary Nancy M Williams (1950 BA) Pell Fender (1967 MA) doctorate from the University of Limerick, Honorary Reader in Anthropology, Development Director, Growing Home. and keynotes at the Irish World Academy School of Social Science, University of of Music and Dance, and Dance Research Queensland. I continue as co-editor of Michael Agar (1967 AB) Forum Ireland. Lastly, I am completing a Ethknoworks Chief Paradigm Mechanic. book on the Pilobolus Dance Theater. anthropology Oceania, and have begun a project with a senior Yolngu woman, Langani Marika, to See www.ethknoworks.com for various write her life story. personal constructions of irreality. See my Savannah T Walling [Elaine Walling] (1968 2013 book The Lively Science and recent BA) Martha M Bell [Martha March] (1958 BA) Savage Minds blog "Rewind and Fast Artistic Director, Vancouver Moving The- Enjoying retirement and watching one son Forward" for how I explain what we do. Or atre, Associate Artistic Director, Down- and daughter-in-law re-model our barn to better, watch the final season of Justified town Eastside Heart of the City Festival accommodate themselves and two Gua- on Amazon. Co-wrote & published "From the Heart temalan boys they have fostered for the of a City: Community-Engaged Theatre last 15 years. The boys are thriving in local Michael L Burton (1968 PhD) and Music Productions from Vancouver's schools. My spare time is filled caring for 4 Professor Emeritus, UCI I have been Downtown Eastside 2002-2013"; Directed, rescue ponies, making quilts for homeless writing papers based on my research con- curated, co-conceived, co-produced: "The children, and growing plants for our local cerning food practices in Micronesia. Big House": A Community Gathering and community center/Grange. Cultural Feast to Honour founding Com- Susan Evans (1968 BA) munities of the Downtown Eastside (93 Retired Professor of Behavioral Sciences, cultural presenters, artists, & community Chair of Women's Studies, City College of participants ages 8 and 85); Co-Produced 1960 San Francisco, (1970-2004). "Tracks: 7th Canadian Community Play & Art Symposium": a six day national Lynda Lytle Holmstrom [Lynda Lytle] George Gmelch (1968 BA) symposium bringing together community- (1961 BA) Professor of anthropology, University of engaged Indigenous and settler/immi- Professor Emerita, Sociology, Boston San Francisco, and Union College. New grant artists, thinkers, educators who College. I keep professionally active as book: Playing with Tigers: a minor-league collaborate to create art with, for & about Professor Emerita, including supervising Chronicle of the Sixties, published by the communities (Vancouver/Coast Salish Ter- independent student research projects University of Nebraska Press. ritories & Enderby, BC/Secwepemcul'ecw); (one of these just won the sociology de- Co-produced &toured across Canada with partment's prize for the outstanding senior Frances Ann Hitchcock (1968 AB) "Train of Thought", a 7-week journey of honors thesis for this academic year) and Senior Advisor Scientific Collections and reconciliation & collaboration through making conference presentations (e.g., Environmental Safeguards, National Park participatory art-making between First on semi-retirement, on being department Service. Coordinate National Park Service Nation & settler/immigrant artists and chair). benefits sharing and technology transfer, communities (led by Toronto's Jumblies scientific collections policy. Theatre); Produced "12th Annual Down- Susan C Seymour (1962 BA) town Eastside Heart of the City Festival"; Jean M. Pitzer Professor Emerita of Anya Peterson Royce (1968 AB) Co-wrote & performed in "Bah! Humbug!", Anthropology, Pitzer College. New book: Chancellor's Professor of Anthropology, an East Side musical on Coast Salish ter- Cora Du Bois: Anthropologist, Diplomat, Director, Performing Arts Archive, Indiana ritories inspired by Dickens' “A Christmas Agent (University of Nebraska Press 2015). University. My research with the Isthmus Carol”. "Cora Du Bois: Brief life of a formidable Zapotec of Oaxaca currently examines anthropologist: 1903-1991", Harvard how Zapotec artists—musicians, painters, Peaslee F DuMont (1969 MA) Magazine. This is Harvard's first official poets, negotiate the landscape between Retired Family Practice Doctor, with a recognition that Du Bois was its first heritage and innovation (two grants, a strong interest in Holistic and Integral tenured woman professor in the Faculty of book chapter in press, and a blog). In Medicine. Now a full-time Grandfather, Arts and Sciences. recognition of my work there since 1968, I and loving it! Member AIHM (formerly was awarded the Medalla Guendabinnizaa AHMA). As day-and-night caregiver for Ronald P Rohner (1964 PhD) [Spirit of the Zapotec People] 2015-2016, 3-1/2year-old Asher, son of my first daugh- Prof Emeritus Department HDFS Uconn, given by the Fundación Histórico Cul- ter Quetzal, I am a participant-observer in Storrs. Founding President and Executive tural Juchitán for distinguished scholarly Jon Kabat-Zinn's observation that children Director, International Society for Inter- contributions to the Isthmus Zapotec. are great Zen-masters, provided one can personal Acceptance-Rejection, Director, First non-Mexican scholar to be a recipi- keep his-her energy interactive rather Center for the Study of Interpersonal Ac- ent. My 1975 book Prestigio y afiliación en than reactive. And my close bonding with ceptance & Rejection. una comunidad urbana: Juchitán, Oaxaca, my second daughter Natalie reminds was reprinted in a special collection (2016) me of my mother's essay on Time as a Stephen L Zegura (1965 BA) of the 25 most important books written Double-Helix. Natalie is environmentalist Retired, Emeritus Professor of Anthropolo- about the Isthmus Zapotec of Mexico. My extraordinaire, who manages anxiousness

40 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 with gratitude. And I get to live with both lished my story, “Artifacts of Conscience”, Jerry A Moles (1972 PhD) daughters, wife of 46 years, and grandson! an amusing recollections of a Spring 1969 Chair, Board of Directors, NeoSynthesis required Anthro course in Archaeology. Research Centre (Sri Lanka), Facilitator, William F Gerdes (1969 MA) We planted fake artifacts that were never New River Landcare, SW Virginia Very happily retired. For those who wish caught. The story also has personal info Purpose Prize Fellow, Established NGOs to visit Costa Rica, see my condo for rent about me if you want to look it up. in both Sri Lanka and the Southern Ap- by the sea at VRBO.COM/499624. Also palachians, Advisory Boards of Landcare ask me about my new casita for long term Carolyn L Clark-Gamble [Carolyn Clark] International (Nairobi), Secretariat for stays at $1400/month, here in Atenas. Off (1971 BA) International Landcare (Australia), Virginia to the pool! Professor of Speech Communication Beginning Farmer & Rancher Coalition, (retired). 1987-88: Fulbright instructor at Virginia Tech Center for Natural Resource George W Nowell (1969 AB) the University of Nis, Serbia. My husband Assessment & Decision Support, Appa- Senior Attorney Law Offices of George W. Rick and I completed backpacking the lachia Foodshed project (Virginia, West Nowell. I have applied my anthropology 2650-mile Pacific Crest Trail. We trekked Virginia, North Carolina). training for over 35 years in the practice about 400 miles a year, during our three of general civil law, with an emphasis on week vacations, completing the entire trail Ruth Huey (1972 BA) maritime and general transportation law. over eight summers. It is strenuous, peace- Research Programmer, The Scripps Re- My offices continue to be in San Francisco ful, rewarding, and gorgeous--much more search Institute, La Jolla, CA. and Redwood City. I read various anthro- beautiful than shown in the film "Wild." pology/archaeology publications regularly Stephen A Dougherty (1973 BA) and try to keep up with early hominids, ne- Joseph S Eisenlauer (1971 BA) Retired. Mulling about writing a book - anderthals and anything pre-Greek in Tur- Professor of Anthropology & Archaeology, may contain just a touch of Anthropology key. I also follow the literature surrounding Los Angeles Pierce College, Woodland related ideas. use of the National Stolen Property Act as Hills, CA. Post-baccalaureate study Univer- a tool to reduce looting and international sidad de las Americas (Puebla, Mex.), M.A. Stephen Lawson (1973 BA) trafficking of stolen art, artifacts and Cal State Hayward, Ph.D. UCLA. Have Linus Pauling Institute, Oregon State Uni- cultural objects. My paper on the subject taught at Pierce College for the last 20 versity. I wrote a commentary, "Linus Paul- is occasionally cited. I am always eager to years. Archaeological fieldwork in Austria, ing on the brain," for the Journal of Anes- share experiences. France, Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, Arizona thesia History and am now working on a and California. Current research interests preface and appendix for a new edition of include hunter-gatherer technology and Cancer and Vitamin C by Ewan Cameron remote sensing techniques. and Linus Pauling. The new appendix will 1970 discuss developments over the last twenty Nancy J Reynolds (1971 BA) years, including case reports, clinical trials, Eric L Almquist (1970 AB) Recently retired. I worked my last shift in and molecular mechanisms involved in the Partner, Bain and Company. Published the Marin General delivery room on Labor anticancer effect of vitamin C. several articles and book reviews in the Day weekend 2015, figuring that it was a Journal of Economic History and The date I could remember. I had worked 35 Susan Almy (1974 MA, PhD) Economic History Review. More recent years as an OB/GYN doctor, eight years Ranking Democrat, New Hampshire House articles in Harvard Business Review and in multicultural Oakland, the rest as a of Representatives. Practicing anthropolo- related publications. Currently conducting locus tenens or hospitalist in the East Bay, gist. Preserved municipal assessing rights; research on a theory of economic value. Marin, and rural Northern CA. I traveled domestic violence and shoreland protec- with my husband and daughter for 1-2 tion funding; explained what the First- Ruth C DeMaio [Ruth Sitton] (1970 BA) months annually, initially sailing to Mexico World anti-GMO movement has done to Community health nurse, laid-off, virtu- for five winters, then choosing a new coun- essential small-farmer food crop research ally retired. Adjusting to retirement of try to explore for a month every year af- in tropical countries to agriculture commit- husband of 40 years who struggles with terwards. I am now trying to "be home" as tee; struggle to improve our tax system, combat PTSD; booking trip to Croatia/ if exploring a foreign country, mushroom, fund basic services and roads adequately; Italy this summer to go on pilgrimage to writing, and basketry classes, Mendocino explain how the state budget works to visit vets and find in-laws alive and dead; Music and Film Festivals, hiking the cliffs other reps and to citizens; act as commu- supporting children in their lives and voca- and forests of the North Coast, and plan- nity resource for especially low-income tions as homemaker/parent, grade school ning that next trip. Life is good!! constituents. I guess 10 straight terms teacher, Dominican priest, and aspiring elected and moving my city from total R to actor; doting on grandchildren; supporting Jean Jackson (1972 PhD) total D counts too. brother in caring for 94 year-old mother; Professor of anthropology emeritus, M.I.T. fostering Rwandan orphan who just gradu- New book: 2015: Changes in Fieldnotes Peter Enemark (1974 MA) ated from university; dancing with Hula Practice over the Past Thirty Years in US Retired. My most important recent ac- Halau and Mexican Folklorico troupe.... Anthropology. In Roger Sanjek and Susan complishments are having two grandsons, W. Tratner, eds., eFieldnotes: The Mak- Luca and Nico. I had very little to do with Charles E Fulkerson (1970) ings of Anthropology in the Digital World. either of these accomplishments. Semi-retired writer/illustrator. The Nov/ Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Dec 2015 issue of Stanford magazine pub- Press: 42-64.

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Helen B Habbert [Helen Berkman] (1974 Janice M LeCocq (1980 PhD) that time I have also held out-of-classroom BA) CEO, Parvus Therapeutics Inc. CEO of positions and have been a mentor teacher. President, QRC Associates. Independent privately held biopharmaceutical company I also deliver online training in using Tech- consultant with focus on facilitating engaged in the development and com- nology in the classroom. group processes and managing long-term mercialization of Navacim therapeutics, projects. Special expertise in strategic novel nanoparticle based immune com- Emily Bunker (1981 AB) planning and collaborative problem plexes that induce the in-vivo expansion of Writer and editor. I am writing a book solving involving multi-party interests. disease-specific T- and B-regulatory cells about the early days of general anesthesia. anthropology Clients include educational institutions, resulting in the restoration of immune My other work is editing petroleum engi- government agencies, hospitals/health- tolerance. Navacims can be readily be neering books and articles. care systems, physician practices, national tailored to target a broad range of autoim- corporations, community groups, and mune diseases and have the potential Alexis H Johnson (1981 AB) nonprofit social service organizations. to radically improve the lives of patients General Counsel, State of NM, General suffering from these diseases. Services Dept. Rhonda Martyn (1974 BS) Faculty, Dance Department, Cabrillo Col- P. Steven Sangren (1980 PhD) Kathryn Anderson-Levitt (1982 PhD) lege. Professor of Anthropology and Asian Stud- Adjunct Professor, UCLA, Professor ies. Boyer Prize, Society for Psychological Emerita, U Michigan-Dearborn. 2015 Ellen Lewin (1975 PhD) Anthropology. George & Louise Spindler Award from the A volume that I co-edited (with Leni M. Council on Anthropology and Education, Silverstein) will be published in 2016 by Philip H Otto (1980 BA) Distinguished Teaching Award, UCLA Rutgers University Press, titled “Mapping President of Otto Design Group, Inc. Department of Education. Feminist Anthropology in the Twenty-First Otto Design Group builds environments Century”. and brands. We develop brand systems, Steven Borish (1982 PhD) including visual identities, packaging, and Associate Professor, Department of Hu- Shelley Cerasaro (1975 BA) physical environments. Our designs bring man Development and Women's Stud- Naturopathic Doctor. brands to life, create category defining ies, California State University East Bay. destinations and help businesses grow. Borish, S. and Gilbert, S. (2016) Wad- Margaret I Hernandez (1975 BA) Participant observation and interpretation dington’s Epigenetic Landscape, History Executive Director, YWCA of the Harbor drive our process. We are responsive and of. In: Kliman, R.M. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Area & South Bay. 4-time President of flexible--assembling specialized teams Evolutionary Biology. vol. 4, pp. 349–357. the Wilmington Rotary Club; membership to meet the needs of our unique clients. Oxford: Academic Press. S. Borish, A. doubled in the last two years. Initiation Sometimes we step in at the beginning Scott, M. Kolipinski, M. Pace, S. Ghosh, of a building project intended to house of ideation--to name, shape and build the Manifest Destiny and Traumatization of special needs youth between the ages of experience from the ground up or guide Indigenous Native American Culture: Soul 16 - 24 who are homeless but are pursuing a process already in motion in order to Wound followed by Renewal and Revital- their education or a trade. Chair, City of strengthen the focus and ensure a good ization (2015. In J. Mendoza (ed.), Native Carson Public Relations Commission. return on investment. We work at every Americans: Cultural Diversity, Health Issues scale, from international retail roll-outs and Challenges. New York: Nova Science Terry T Gerritsen (1975 BA) to event driven pop-up environments Publishers. Writer. Just had my 26th novel, "Playing and everything in- between. We shape With Fire," published. My screenplay communities at the civic level and work Sierra Pena (1982 BA, MA) "Island Zero" is now in production. It's a with governments bring world-class art to Family Physician. My oldest son will start horror feature film starring Laila Robins. public spaces. We bring service, attention college this year, leaving me at home with to detail and a spirit of collaboration to two more teenagers and two German John Justeson (1978 PhD) everything we do. We revel in the act of Shepherds. Makes my undergrad days Professor, Dept of Anthropology, Uni- creating meaningful design solutions. seem so long ago. Warm wishes to all. versity at Albany. Continuing research on Mesoamerican historical linguistics, hiero- Michael R Dove (1981 PhD) Carol Thomsen [Carol Putnam] (1982 BS) glyphic writing, and indigenous astronomi- Margaret K. Musser Professor of Social Co-Founder, All Five. What do Anthropol- cal concepts. Ecology, Co-Coordinator, Joint Anthro- ogy and Early Childhood Education have pology/Environmental Studies Doctoral in common? At least two Stanford alums: Dan Callahan (1979 BA) Program, Curator, Peabody Museum of Kaitlin Beaver Smith, class of ’07 and I VP of Cloud Services, CGNET. Continue to Natural History, Chair, Council on South- (’81) are Co-Founders, of All Five, an early push forward repositioning CGNET as a east Asian Studies. childhood education program founded provider of cloud-enabled services. Grew to eliminate the opportunity gap before revenue by 25% last year. Barry Bakin (1981 BA) it starts. The journey began at Stanford Adult Teacher, English as a Second Lan- and included studies under Professors guage, Division of Adult and Career Educa- Shelly and Renalto Rosaldo and two years tion, Los Angeles Unified School District. I in Indonesia mostly through Volunteers 1980 have been an ESL teacher in adult educa- in Asia. This was followed by many years tion for 29 years in Los Angeles. During of teaching and parenting with an eye to

42 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 the cultural aspects of, child development. Border Economic Networks in Greater Grants Officer, Rust Family Foundation. I Important pause to this “grand” career. I Mekong Subregion (GMS); 3) Country have recently initiated a new granting pro- met my husband, Chris Thomsen, at Stan- research report (Thailand) on disaster gram in Archaeological Research for the ford Sierra Camp and my dream of living management in Thailand; 4) Visiting Fel- Rust Family Foundation. In just the last six there came true for 10 years. Kaitlin and I low, UNICEF, Florence, Italy. months we have reviewed proposals and met two years ago and have been working provided funding for over 15 archaeologi- together for over a year. As quality early Lisa K Hoffman (1987 MA) cal projects around the world, including childhood education across socioeconomic Activist. I continue to work with social Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, France, Croatia, and cultural groups becomes, more impor- change organizations locally and globally Jordan, and Mongolia. Interested Stanford tant for our economy, our society, and our with a focus on indigenous communities in alumni with archaeological projects should communities, All Five is uniquely designed Latin America and the Caribbean. For the review the program guidelines at: http:// to meet the needs of children and families past five years, I have been collaborating rfamfound1.org/rfp2015.html and reach with cultural sensitivity and economic with the Tsa’chila community in the Pacific out to me via email. equality. lowland rainforest of Ecuador on a bio- cultural preservation project that brings Merry L Eilers (1984 MA) youth and elders together to preserve the Retired. As a member of American Women Tsa’fiki language, culture, and traditions. 1990 for International Understanding, I have The team has published four children’s been a delegate to Russia, the Balkan books on Tsa’chila folklore in Tsa’fiki and Elizabeth P Azerad [Elizabeth Perez] (1990 countries, Burma, and Ethiopia. We meet Spanish that include original illustrations AB) with high level women's organizations, as by youth; the Ministry of Bilingual Educa- Shaman, Energy Medicine Practitioner, well as U.S. Ambassaadors. Our organiza- tion is now adopting these books for use Private Practice. I've returned to healing tion also hosts the U.S. State Dept.'s select in other villages. Other accomplishments after my allopathic career was cut short International Women of Courage each include training grassroots organizations by a disabling illness. I recently graduated year. in Dominican Republic and Peru, partici- from the Light Body School of the Four pating in an expert committee to draft an Winds Society. I am available to serve Julia Offen (1986 BA, MA) international treaty to address and prevent individuals and organizations through Freelance Research, Writing, Editing; violence against women, and supporting Illuminations, Soul Retrieval, Destiny Map- Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Editor, public schools in Oakland to address the ping, Death and Womb Rites and any other Anthropology and Humanism Journal, achievement/opportunity gap among low- aspects of life or property where energy or Society for Humanistic Anthropology. income students of color. entities are stuck or heavy.

K. Tsianina Lomawaima [K. Tsianina Carr] Joy R Doyle [Joy Maro Roe] (1988 BA) Sharon O Talbott [Sharon Tu] (1991 (1987 PhD) Family Physician at the Palo Alto Medical MA) Professor, Justice & Social Inquiry, and Foundation. Marketing Director at a global energy Distinguished Scholar of Indigenous consulting firm. My eldest child is studying Education, both in the School of Social Orin Starn (1989 PhD) linguistics at UC Santa Cruz and has been Transformation, Arizona State University. Professor, Cultural Anthropology, Duke briefing me on the current state of linguis- In February 2016, selected as a 2016 Fellow University. Editor of Writing Culture and tic anthropology... What a delight to share of the American Educational Research the life of Anthropology (Duke University this with him! Both my son and daughter Association/AERA, and elected to the Press, 2015); wrote "Introduction." In When are interested in the role that culture, National Academy of Education. Rains Became Floods: Memories of a Child gender, and faith play in their search for Soldier in Peru, (Duke University Press, solutions to global warming, environ- Claudio Lomnitz (1987 PhD) 2015) mental degradation, religious conflict, Professor, Columbia University. Span- inequity, and implicit bias. I am humbled ish translation of The Return of Comrade Danyelle O'Hara (1989 BA) and inspired by the next generation. Ricardo Flores Magón (Zone Books, 2014), Program Director for the US Endowment translated by Jorge Aguilar Mora, Editorial for Forestry and Communities. I manage Marilyn Tseng (1991 AM, AB) ERA (Mexico City). New play, co-authored a program for the US Endowment for Research professor / Lecturer at Cal Poly with Alberto Lomnitz, titled Mamá Rosa, el Forestry and Communities focused on San Luis Obispo. musical, to open at the Festival Internacio- sustainable forestry as a tool for land re- nal Cervantino (Guanajuato), 2017. tention for African Americans in the south. Catherine Goodstein (1991 BA) Separately, a colleague and I have de- Physician, Ob/Gyn. Pattamaporn Busapathumrong (1987 MA) veloped a project with conservation land Fellow, Office of Royal Society, Bangkok, trusts called the Community Conservation Sofia Sorensen (1991 AB) Thailand; Fellow, Royal Anthropological Learning Journey. The Learning Journey is English Learner Coordinator, Santa Cruz Institute (RAI), London, England. Recent focused on helping land trusts work with a County Office of Education. researches and publications: 1) Challenges broader range of communities to increase and trends on social researches in ASEAN their capacity to authentically engage with Sean Caster (1992 BA) Community with the Emphasis on Socio- communities in which they work. Director of merchandising, McMaster-Carr Cultural Community (SCC) Blueprint; 2) Supply Co. 23-1/2 years of fun working at Preliminary Study on Gendering Cross- Michele A Miller (1990 MA, 1989 BA) the same company with smart and curious

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 43 Alumni News

peers. 4 great kids with oldest at U of Camp, a collaborative archaeology and the university's backyard. I'm publishing Illinois-Urbana-Champaign. heritage project in Pojoaque Pueblo, New a new book, Schooltalk: Rethinking What Mexico. I am also External Professor at the We Say About—and To—Students Every Joanna Davidson (1992 BA) Santa Fe Institute and a Research Associ- Day (The New Press, fall 2016). Schooltalk Assistant Professor, Dept. of Anthropol- ate at the Crow Canyon Archaeological asks educators to rethink their everyday ogy, Boston University. My first book - Center. communications about and with young Sacred Rice: An Ethnography of Identity, people as a critical realm of equity effort Environment & Development in Rural West Jennifer R Najera (1997 AB) in education. The book contains many anthropology Africa - came out with Oxford University Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at insights from anthropologists! Press this year. UC Riverside. New book: The Borderlands of Race by UT Press (Spring 2015). It is an Daniel Shafer (1999 MA) Nancy M Mithlo (1993 PhD) historical ethnography about the culture of Attorney at The Law Office of Daniel M. Associate Professor of Art History and Mexican segregation in South Texas during Shafer. Private legal practice focusing Visual Arts, Occidental College and Chair the twentieth century. on business and commercial law; First of American Indian Studies, Autry Museum Amendment and media law; and arts and of the American West. Recently received Karen G Schollmeyer [Karen Gust] (1997 entertainment. a new National Endowment for the Arts BA) grant to investigate how museums can Preservation Archaeologist, Archaeology Anu Menon (1999 BA) more effectively address the way the Southwest. I'm an archaeologist at Archae- Consultant with Coro Northern California. I public views visual representations of ology Southwest, a nonprofit focused on live in San Francisco with my husband and American Indians. archaeological site protection, education, 6 year old son. I enjoy working at CORO, and research. I teach an archaeological an organization dedicated to expanding Wako Takayama (1993 MA) field school in New Mexico for college the leadership capacity of individuals, or- Clover, UX Research Lead. students every summer and do research ganizations and communities. I also serve on southwestern archaeology, especially on the board of Presidio Knolls School Dee Espinoza [Dee Jones] (1993 BA) animal bones, ancient food and food and the San Francisco Mayor's Equal Pay CEO, Espinoza Consulting Services. Her security, and ancient migration and move- Advisory Board. company, Espinoza Consulting Services ment. Although I write the usual articles in (ECS), is celebrating its 6th year of provid- academic journals only another archaeolo- ing environmental consulting services gist could love, we enjoy sharing our re- (www.ecs-arch.com). ECS currently has search in less nerdy venues too, including 2000 employees and/or projects six states. a quarterly magazine and public lecture Much of their recent expansion is due to series. We also help landowners and other Rachel W Sears [Rachel White] (2003 MA) satisfied, repeat customers and the ease of stakeholders find creative ways to protect Attorney. It's been a great year! I served contracting of the Small Business Admin- and preserve archaeological sites and as a law clerk to a federal judge for a year istration’s 8(a)BD program, of which ECS collections. When I’m not at work, I’m here in Maine, and now am working for a is a part. In 2015, ECS also received a Rural enjoying Tucson, AZ with my husband and law firm in Portland. My practice focuses Economic Development Grant to rehabili- two daughters (ages 6 and 10). on corporate law and estate planning. I tate their corporate headquarters. She is love the human side of estate planning passionate about fostering economic and Jessica S Zwaska (1998 BA) work. I married a fantastic man in the business growth in her community. To this Teacher at the Laboratory Schools at middle of my clerkship, and we live to- end, Dee is serving her second year as a The University of Chicago. I am fortunate gether in Portland with our dog. We've had Trustee for the town of La Jara. Recently enough to have discovered and pursued a dismal ski season in the East this year, the Colorado Governor appointed her to a career that I am passionate about and so we have turned our attention toward the Minority Business Advisory Council. committed to. Teaching allows me to com- boating season. Her husband, Julian, is also busy with his bine my belief in the power of education growing collision repair business, JEAR. with the daily (hourly! minute-to-minute!) Gwen Ambler (2003 BA) They are both very active in their com- challenges and joys of being with children. Clinical Research Officer, PATH. munity and are spearheading efforts to I bring many of my anthropological inter- develop an outdoors sports complex in ests to my students and continuously look Regina Richter Lagha [Regina Richter] their rural southern Colorado town. for connections to make and share with (2003 BA) them between their learning and those of Project Evaluator, Geriatrics Workforce En- Maria V Albright [Vicki Anguiano] (1994 children timelessly and globally. hancement Program, UCLA. Successfully BA) Day job: Mom to two daughters, ages defended my doctoral dissertation in 2014, 9 and 7, Evening job: Spanish interpreter. Mica Pollock (1999 MA) right before giving birth to my daughter Professor of Education Studies and Direc- Eman in May 2014. Currently, we're living Scott G Ortman (1994 BA) tor, Center for Research on Educational in Los Angeles where I recently joined the Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Equity, Assessment, and Teaching Excel- Department of Medicine-Geriatrics at University of Colorado Boulder. These days lence (CREATE), UC San Diego. At UCSD, UCLA as the project evaluator for a multi- I am PI the Social Reactors Project (http:// CREATE is leading a university-wide initia- year federally funded grant program, www.colorado.edu/socialreactors/) and co- tive to learn how to leverage the resources the Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement director of the CU/Pojoaque Youth Culture of a university for the K12 community in Program (GWEP).

44 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 Diana Reddy (2003 BA) promoted to the rank of full professor at I have recently begun working for the Na- PhD Student in Jurisprudence and Social the University of Toronto. He is also the tional Park Service at Haleakalā National Policy, UC Berkeley, starting in Fall 2016. editor of a new book series at the Univer- Park, on my home island of Maui, Hawai'i. After 7 years as an attorney, litigating to sity of California Press—Atelier: Ethno- I am tasked with ensuring the preservation advance worker justice, I am returning to graphic Inquiry in the Twenty-First Century. of the park's archaeological sites, historic the academy to study the social and legal buildings and structures, and museum col- dynamics that shape the modern experi- Scott D Walter (2007 BA) lection. I have gained expertise on many ence of "work". Made a human being! Tejas Vitreoretinal Surgery Fellow at Duke national laws and policies for the protec- Suren Sutaria-Reddy was born in Austin, University Eye Center. I am currently train- tion of cultural resources, and am working TX. ing to be a retina surgeon at the Duke Eye with the native community to care for the Center. I was awarded a research fellow- pre-Contact Native Hawaiian resources Nicole Fox [Nikki Probst] (2004 MA, 2003 ship for the 2015-16 academic year from at the park. I have much to learn and am BA ) the Heed Ophthalmic Foundation, as well excited to have begun my journey with the Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Department as a research grant from the American So- park service. of State. I have spent the last year in ciety of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons. Washington, D.C. as a Policy Advisor in Current research interests include retinal Ivette G Gomez (2009 BA) Secretary Kerry's Office of Global Women's imaging in diabetic macular edema and Research Associate, Women's Health Issues at the U.S. State Department. In ad- vitreomacular traction syndrome, as well Policy, Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. dition to serving as the principal advisor on as experimental surgery for retinal compli- all matters in Sub-Saharan Africa, I shape cations of hypotony (low eye pressure). Mitali Thakor (2009 BAH) policies that promote women's political PhD Candidate at MIT, in the Program in participation, economic empowerment, Stephanie Cruz (2008 BA) History, Anthropology, and STS (HASTS). and entrepreneurship; and advance U.S. Graduate Student of Anthropology at Uni- I'm thrilled to share that I will be defend- efforts to empower adolescent girls. In versity of Washington-Seattle. Conducting ing my dissertation in summer 2016 addition, I inform policy on cross-cutting field work on the West Coast. Working with and beginning a two year Postdoctoral issues such as gender-based violence, legal a public health dentist through an award Fellowship in Anthropology and Gender reform, health, education, and peace and from the WT Grant Foundation to study & Sexuality Studies at Northwestern Uni- security. In April, I'll be moving to Dhaka the use of research in policy that emerges versity. My research covers feminist STS, for two years to cover the labor portfolio from Medicaid dental benefit lawsuits. queer theory, digital anthropology, and as a Democracy and Governance Officer at issues of policing, migration, trafficking, USAID's Mission in Bangladesh. Sam Dubal (2008 BA) and surveillance. MD student, Harvard Medical School. I Dana E Jensen (2004 MA) completed my Ph.D. in medical anthropol- Political-Military Affairs Officer - U.S. ogy at UC-Berkeley and UCSF in 2015. My Embassy, The Hague. Advise the U.S. book, 'Against Humanity: Why the Concept 2010 Departments of State and Defense, NATO, Does Violence to the Common Good', and the Federal interagency on Dutch de- will be published in the near future by UC Nikhil Anand (2011 PhD) fense policy, foreign policy, and domestic Press. After finishing medical school in Department of Anthropology, University politics. 2017, I plan to train as a trauma surgeon. of Pennsylvania.

Julia K Nelson (2004 BA) Carolyn M duPont [Carolyn Mansfield] Jason E Lewis (2011 PhD) Cambridge University. I'm currently pursu- (2008 BA) Research Assistant Professor, Dept. of ing my MBA at the Judge School of Busi- MBA & MPA Candidate, MIT Sloan School Anthropology and Turkana Basin Institute, ness at Cambridge, specialising in social of Management and Harvard Kennedy Stony Brook University. In May 2015, after innovation. School. I'm in the last year of gradu- several years of field and lab work, my ate school, where I'm focusing on the team and I announced of the discovery Howard Chiou (2006 MS) intersection of finance, real estate, and of the oldest stone artifacts made by our Visiting Faculty, Stanford University Clini- sustainability - how to bring private capital ancestors 3.3 million years ago in West cal Excellence Research Center; MD-PhD investment to environmental projects, Turkana, Kenya. This discovery, push- Candidate, Emory University. including timber and green infrastructure ing back the beginning of the known in cities. I just published my first academic archaeological record by 700,000 years, Kate Bearman (2006 BA) paper on the use of green bonds for land was published on the cover of Nature, Associate Attorney at Quinn Emanuel conservation: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/ garnered nearly 2 billion media views, and Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP. papers.cfm?abstract_id=2700311. As of was listed as the #6 top science story of mid-March, I'm still looking for a full-time 2015 by Discover Magazine, in the top 10 Matt Zafra (2006 BA) role in the Boston area where I'm happily of Archaeology Magazine, and was even Oliver Wyman Group, Health & Life Sci- settled with my husband Johnny duPont mentioned recently on the Late Show with ences. (BS '09 MS '10). Stephen Colbert. I am one of the Directors of the Turkana Basin Institute’s Origins Kevin L O'Neill (2007 PhD) Rachel E Hodara (2008 BA) Field School in Kenya, which introduces Professor, University of Toronto Archaeologist and Cultural Resources Pro- students of all backgrounds to humanity’s Kevin Lewis O'Neill (PhD 2007) has been gram Manager, Haleakalā National Park. place in nature and how we came to oc-

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 45 Alumni News

cupy that place. My dedication to teach- ward to continuing both and interweaving ulty of Arts Research Support Fund from ing resulted in my being awarded Rutgers the experiences into a larger body of work the University of Melbourne. University’s Distinguished Teaching Award I hope to develop by pursuing a doctor- in May 2014. ate within the field of Anthropology and Joshua W Samuels (2013 PhD, 2001 BA ) Social Sciences in the next year or two. Clinical Assistant Professor of Anthropol- Trinidad Rico (2011 PhD) ogy, The Catholic University of America. Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Austin Zeiderman (2012 PhD) Department of Liberal Arts, Texas A&M Assistant Professor of Urban Geography, Anna Malaika G Ntiriwah Asare (2014 BA) anthropology University at Qatar. My book Constructing London School of Economics. This is my Teacher I recently graduated from the Destruction: Heritage narratives in the second year as Assistant Professor in the University of Cambridge in England with tsunami city was published in April for the Department of Geography and Environ- my MPhil in Multidisciplinary Gender Institute of Archaeology Critical Cultural ment at the London School of Economics. Studies with distinction. I was also ac- Heritage Series of UCL.. In May, the book based on my PhD re- cepted into PhD programs this year in search will be published by Duke Universi- American studies. Since graduating I have Damian Satterthwaite-Phillips (2011 PhD) ty Press. The title is Endangered City: The published multiple articles with The Huff- Owner: Phillips Research & Analytics. Led Politics of Security and Risk in Bogotá. ington Post and For Harriet. the Northwest Arctic Borough's Subsis- tence Mapping Project. Publications: Da- Karen Acevedo (2012 BA) Tracy Vu (2014 BA) mian Satterthwaite-Phillips, Christopher Student - UCSF School of Nursing. Cur- J.P. Morgan Analyst. Krenz, Glenn Gray, and Liz Dodd. (In press, rently finishing up my Masters of Science 2016). Iñuuniałiqput ililugu nunaŋŋuanun in Nursing at UCSF with the end goal of Patrick M Gallagher (2015 PhD) (Documenting our way of life with maps): becoming a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. Assistant Professor, Department of Northwest Arctic Borough subsistence map- Anthropology, University of Texas at San ping project. Vol. 1. Kotzebue, AK: North- Corisande Fenwick (2013 PhD) Antonio. west Arctic Borough; Nelda A. Rivera, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Mediter- Jan Novakofski, Hsin-Yi Weng, Amy Kelly, ranean Archaeology, University College Laura G Marsh (2015 MA) Damian Satterthwaite-Phillips, Marilyn O. London. I recently took up a permanent Academic Language Center Coordina- Ruiz, Nohra Mateus-Pinilla. (2015). Metals lectureship at the Institute of Archaeol- tor and English Professor, Universidad in obex and retropharyngeal lymph nodes ogy, UCL and am very happy to be back Antonio Ruiz de Montoya (Lima, Peru); of Illinois white-tailed deer and their varia- in my hometown of London. I have spent Lecturer, Pontificia Universidad Católica tions associated with sex and CWD status. my first year at UCL on a Leverhulme Early de Perú (Lima, Peru). After graduation, Prion 9, 1:48-58. Career Fellowship which has given me I worked with Programa Archaeológico time to work on my book on Byzantine Chavín de Huántar heading the ceramic Tiffany C Cain (2011 MA) and Islamic North Africa and to start new analysis for the site, in Chavín de Huántar, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropol- fieldwork projects in Tunisia and Morocco. Perú. I then volunteered with the Peruvian ogy, University of Pennsylvania. I am fin- I have just been awarded a British Acad- Ministry of Cultural in their education de- ishing up my 4th year in the PhD program emy Rising Star Engagement Award for a partment related to Qhapac Ñan (Unesco in Anthropology at UPenn. I have been new project 'Rethinking the Early Islamic World Heritage) performing statisti- mostly in the field and grant writing this State'. cal analyses and writing a report about year. I recently won the competitive Teece the surveys filled out by K-12 students Fellowship for Dissertation Research at Dolly Kikon (2013 PhD) who participated in their workshops. I Penn. With this support, I will continue my Lecturer, Anthropology and Development also helped carry out these workshops, research on political violence, historical Studies,, School of Social and Political especially their summer camp in which we memory, cultural heritage, and indigene- Science. Dolly Kikon accepted a tenured taught the students about culture heritage ity in Quintana Roo, Mexico, where I study track offer as a lecturer at the School of and took them on fieldtrips to sites; at the the historical legacy and archaeology of Social and Political Sciences, University of end of the program, they became the tour the Caste War of Yucatan and its impact on Melbourne. From 2013-2015 Dolly was a guides and made promotional materials present day political consciousness. Look- postdoctoral fellow at the Department of for the Huaca which was our base for the ing forward to writing this coming year! Anthropology, Stockholm University She workshop. When the academic school led an interdisciplinary research project year started in Peru, I began my jobs an Katrina M Salas-Padilla (2011 BA) that focused on the increasing trend of English professor at Universidad Antonio Teacher at Villa Sophia School and Ad- outmigration among upland societies Ruiz de Montoya and Coordinator of the vocate + Research Advisor for COMPASS in India. The project titled, "The Indian Academic Language Center there, as well Group on Autism. I have spent the last six Underbelly: Marginalization, Migration, as Lecturer in archaeology at Pontificia years in the Silicon Valley Tech Industry and State Intervention in the Periphery," Universidad Católica de Perú where I teach doing predominantly self-funded field examined the expansion and outcomes a course on petrographic ceramic analysis. work as a contractor for early stage tech- of developmental activities by the Indian nology companies. I have simultaneously state in areas associated with economic Josee Smith (2015 BA) become certified in Applied Behavioral 'backwardness', subsistence agriculture, Paralegal at an employment and labor law Analysis Therapy and I am training in Rap- and armed conflict. Currently, Dolly holds firm. Learning to crochet! id Promoting Method to teach and treat an Engaged Anthropology Grant from the people on the Autism Spectrum. I look for- Wenner Gren Foundation and also a Fac-

46 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 Achievements

2015 Undergraduate Awards Beagle II Award Nancy Ogden Ortiz Memorial Prize for Outstanding Sam Reeve

student Performance in Anthro 90B Theory in Cultural and Social “Remembering Pinochet in Chilean Universities” Anthropology Mariam Kyarunts Briana Mostoller and Angelica Previte “Nia Espero: A Search for Modern Esperanto Identity” Anthropology Award for Outstanding Performance in Anthro 90C Theory in Ecological, Environmental, and Jenna Frowein Evolutionary Anthropology “Exploring Nature's Intuition to Design” Stephanie Bieler Sandro Luna The Joseph H. Greenberg Prize for Undergraduate Aca- “Judology: Discovering the Culture, Science, and Nutri- demic Excellence tion of Judo ” Renjie Wong Kimberly Krebs Franz Boas Summer Scholars The James Lowell Gibbs, Jr. Award for Outstanding Ser- Winston Chen vice to the Department in Anthropology “Mechanisms of Reproducing Masculinity: A Case Study Phuong (Vy) Le of Language and Infrastructure” Meredith Pelrine Isabelle Barnard Allison Perry “How do Community Gardens Live Up to Their Name? The Robert Bayard Textor Award for Outstanding Cre- An Examination of Perceptions and Practices of Seattle ativity in Anthropology Gardeners” Isabelle Barnard Solveij Praxis Firestone Golden Medal for Excellence in Research “Comparative Study of Tech Work: An Anthropological Renjie Wong Investigation of Millennial Tech Workers’ and Working Department Award of Merit Class Service Workers’ Experiences of Identity, Agency, Margaret Tomaszczuk and Community in the Tech Industry”

Kennedy Thesis Prize for the Social Sciences Renjie Wong 2015 Undergraduate Honor Papers Nicole Bennett-Fite The Michelle Z. Rosaldo Mariam Kyarunts Phuong (Vy) Le Summer Field Research Grant Meredith Pelrine Kylie Fischer Margaret Tomaszczuk “Remembering Pinochet in Chilean Universities” Renjie Wong

Sera Park “Culture of Foretelling in Korea” Distinction List Mariam Kyarunts Tambopata Summer Research Meredith Pelrine Scholars Emily Santhanam Renjie Wong Madelyn Boslough “Implementing Solar Power in Tambopata: A Sustain- Phi Beta Kappa able Plan for Ecolodges in the Peruvian Amazon” Isabelle Barnard Maddy Belin and Daela Tipton Meredith Pelrine “Visual and Auditory Analysis of Multi-Species Flocks in Emily Santhanam the Peruvian Amazon” Renjie Wong

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 47 Achievements

2016 Graduate Awards New Job Placements The Bernard J. Siegel Award for Outstanding Achievement Patrick Michael Gallagher Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Department student in Written Expression by a Ph.D. Student in Anthropology Dean Chahim of Anthropology, University of Texas at San Antonio

The Robert Bayard Textor Award for Outstanding Creativity María Fernanda Escallón in Anthropology University of Oregon for a tenure-track position in the Department of Anthropology. Jacob Doherty Jacob Doherty The Anthropology Prize for Academic Performance Visiting assistant professor at Wesleyan University in Damien Droney Connecticut

The Anthropology Prize for Outstanding Graduate Anna West Research and Publication Assistant Professor William Paterson University Maria Escallón Francesca Fernandini The Annual Review Prize for Service to the Department Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru Allison Kendra Alana Springer Michael Price Postdoctoral Scholar, Pennsylvania State University The Anthropology Prize for Academic Performance by a Masters Student Mark Gardiner Briana Evans Lecturer in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric, Stanford University

Allison Mickel two-year lecturer position in Program in Writing and Rhetoric, Stanford University

State of Divorce [Continued from page 15] could receive Jordanian citizenship through their mothers. The four families with whom I worked, and many others That amounts to 20% of the sample. This is not an easy I encountered informally, maintain that “divorce is just path to take. In Jordan, like elsewhere, having children another phase in [their] marriage.” out of wedlock and not knowing the identity of the father exposes both the women and the children to significant But Jordan is not unique. There are over 15 million state- social stigma. But these families made the difficult calcu- less people around the world. Today, most people become lation that Jordanian citizenship would be worth it. Anis stateless not by moving around but by getting married. 60 explained that he and Nadia felt there was no other way: countries have dependent nationality laws that determine a woman’s citizenship first through her father then, upon "We see the difficulties with Layth. We are not rich. He marriage, through her husband. 27 countries deny women can’t have free healthcare. He can’t get a job that’s not ‘off the right to confer their nationality to their own children. the books’. His life will be hard, and he knows it. People Almost all of them cite sovereignty concerns for why they know about this issue today. No sane parent would marry must preserve these laws. Political and economic prob- off their daughter to someone like Layth. Their children lems around the world are increasingly managed through would be doomed. Even if their own daughter is stateless, families, and in relation to existing inequality and global why marry her off to Layth and continue the cycle? She exclusion. So when we consider the precarity that depen- can marry a Jordanian man and become a citizen herself. dent nationality triggers for the children and spouses of Our son will die alone." these stateless people, the 15-million number increases exponentially.

48 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9 Faculty

Andrew Bauer (Assistant Professor; Ph.D. University of Chi- Richard Klein (Professor; Ph.D. Chicago, 1966) Paleoan- cago, 2010) Intersections of social inequalities, landscape thropology; Africa, Europe. histories, and modern framings of nature in South India. Matthew Kohrman (Associate Professor; Ph.D. Harvard, Lisa Curran (Professor; Ph.D. Princeton, 1994) Political ecol- 1999) Medical anthropology, governmentality, illness ex- ogy of land use; governmental policies/transnational firms; perience, gender, China. natural resource sector; ecological dynamics; land rights/ rural livelihoods; NGOs/protected areas/donor agencies; Tanya Luhrmann (Professor; Ph.D. Cambridge, 1986)

anthropology REDD carbon payments; corruption; Asia/Latin America. The social construction of psychological experience, social practice and the way people experience their world, the William H. Durham (Professor; Ph.D. Michigan, 1977) Bio- domain of what some would term the "irrational." logical anthropology, ecological and evolutionary anthro- pology, cultural evolution, conservation and community Liisa Malkki (Professor; Ph.D. Harvard, 1989) Historical an- development, resource management, environmental is- thropology; historical consciousness and memory; mass sues; Central and South America. displacement and exile; racial essentialism and mass vio- lence; nationalism and internationalism; the ethics and Paulla A. Ebron (Associate Professor; Ph.D. Massachusetts politics of humanitarianism; religion and contemporary at Amherst 1993) Comparative cultural studies, national- missions in Africa; religion and globalization; social uses of ism, gender, discourses of identity; Africa, African-America. the category, art, and the politics of visuality.

James Ferguson (Professor; Ph.D. Harvard, 1985) Political Lynn Meskell (Professor; Ph.D. Cambridge, 1997) Archaeo- economy, development, migration and culture; neoliberal- logical theory, ethnography, South Africa, Egypt, Mediter- ism and social assistance, Southern Africa. ranean, Middle East, heritage, identity, politics, embodi- ment, postcolonial and feminist theory, ethics, tourism. James A. Fox (Associate Professor; Ph.D. Chicago, 1978) Linguistic anthropology, historical linguistics, biology John W. Rick (Associate Professor; Ph.D. Michigan, 1978) and evolution of language, archaeological decipherment, Prehistoric archaeology and anthropology of band-level settlement of the New World, mythology, computational hunter-gatherers, stone tool studies, analytical methodol- methods; Mesoamerica, Americas. ogy, animal domestication; Latin America, Southwest U.S.

Duana Fullwiley (Associate Professor; Ph.D. UC Berkeley Krish Seeta (Assistant Professor; Ph.D. University of Cam- and UC San Francisco, 2002) The Anthropology of science; bridge, 2006) Zooarchaeology, human-animal relation- Medical anthropology; Genetics and identity; Economic an- ships, colonialsm, Indian Ocean World. thropology; Global health politics; Africanist anthropology; Race; Health disparities; Environmental resource scarcity Kabir Tambar (Assistant Professor; Ph.D. University of Chi- as a source of ethnic conflict, Senegal, West Africa, France, cago, 2009) Religion and secularism, pluralism and nation- and the United States. alism, the politics of affect, Islam, Middle East, Turkey.

Angela Garcia (Assistant Professor; Ph.D. Harvard, 2007) Sharika Thiranagama (Assistant Professor; Ph.D. University Medical and psychological anthropology; violence, suffer- of Edinburgh, 2006) Ethnicity, Violence, Gender, Kinship, ing and care; addiction, morality and science; subjectivity; Displacement, Political Anthropology and Political Theory, ethnographic writing; Unites States, Mexico. Sri Lanka, South Asia.

Thomas Blom Hansen (Professor; Ph.D.) South Asia and Barbara Voss (Associate Professor; Ph.D. UC Berkeley, Southern Africa. Multiple theoretical and disciplinary in- 2002) historical archaeology, archaeology of colonialism, terests from political theory and continental philosophy culture contact, Spanish-colonial archaeology, overseas to psychoanalysis, comparative religion and contemporary Chinese archaeology, postcolonial theory, gender and urbanism. sexuality studies, queer theory, cultural resource manage- ment, public archaeology, community-based research, Ian Hodder (Professor; Ph.D. Cambridge, 1974) Achaeo- California archaeology. logical theory, the archaeology and cultural heritage of Eu- rope and the Middle East, excavations in Turkey, material Michael Wilcox (Associate Professor [teaching]; Ph.D. culture. Harvard, 2001) postcolonial approaches to archaeology; ethnic identity and conflict; political and historical relation- Miyako Inoue (Associate Professor; Ph.D. Washington ships between Native Americans and anthropologists and University, 1996) linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, archaeologists. semiotics, linguistic modernity, anthropology of writing, inscription devices, materialities of language, social orga- Sylvia J. Yanagisako (Professor; Ph.D. University of Wash- nizations of documents (filing systems, index cards, cop- ington, 1975) Kinship, gender, feminist theory, capitalism, ies, archives, paperwork), voice/sound/noise, soundscape, ethnicity; U.S., Italy. technologies of liberalism, gender, urban studies, Japan, East Asia. EMERITI S. Lochlann Jain (Associate Professor; Ph.D. U.C. Santa Harumi Befu, George A. Collier, Jane F. Collier, Carol L. Del- Cruz, 1999) Extra-legal forms of communications, such as aney, Charles O. Frake, James L. Gibbs, Jr., Renato Rosaldo. warning signs and medical apologies; queer studies; art and design.

VOLUME 9 | 2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER 49 Department of Anthropology Bldg. 50, Main Quad, 450 Serra Mall Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-2034

2015-2016 Newsletter Volume IX Department of Anthropology Stanford University

Editors: Ellen Christensen, Emily Bishop, Elizabeth Bishop, Jennifer Hsieh, Vivian Lu, Sylvia Yanagisako

Newsletter Design & Layout: Emily Bishop Stanford will be With special thanks to all of our hosting the 2017 AES contributors Spring Conference from for more information on department March 30 to April 1. See programs and events, contact us at: page 23 for more detail. Tel: 650-723-3421 Fax: 650-725-0605 E-mail: [email protected] Web: http://anthropology.stanford.edu