Volume 53, No. 3, Fall 1994
On the Edge of Regionalizaton: Management Style and the Construction of Conflict in Organizational Change
Constance P. deRoche
Key words: formal organizations, institutional amalgamation, worker-management relations, Maritime Canada
When regional amalgamation--a means of dealing with the fiscal crisis of the state--"rationalizes" services, it not only reduces resources available to workers but brings pressure to homogenize that can exacerbate inevitable concerns and produce conflict. Such reorderings disrupt processes and properties of microsystems, especially where unacknowledged by the formal hierarchy. This paper examines a case in point. It attempts to explain differential responses to impending amalgamation in two hospital-based nursing schools in Maritime Canada by analyzing pre-existing management styles and practices, as well as staff perceptions of them. In so doing, it invokes a critique of the role of leadership in the organizational culture literature. The case argues for the value of grounded, ethnographic analysis to non-alienating organizational change.
Megadevelopment, Environmentalism, and Resistance: The Institutional Context of Kayapó Indigenous Politics in Central Brazil
William H. Fisher
Key words:Evironmentalism, Kayapó Indians, social movements; Amazon region
The role of the indigenous Kayapó in environmentalist movements that oppose large-scale development projects in the Amazon is described. The analytic focus is on the construction of environmentalism within the context of opposition to hydroelectric dams along the Xingu River. The changing pressures on the Kayapó and the effectiveness of their responses are shown to be related to successive changes in dominant political-economic relations within the Kayapó region comprised by the extractive period, the bureaucratic period, and the multinational period. Based on historical experiences, I contend that Kayapó successes have been tied to their ability to cause or threaten political disruptions. Their current adeptness in producing media images as natural ecologists to marshal international financing is central to economic prospects within the Amazon. How a relatively marginalized people with few resources can cause political disruptions becomes a central question. Explanations proposing "culture" as a basis for resistance are limited if not placed in a broader political framework. An understanding of the Kayapó case has implications for the kind of proposals anthropologists make concerning development alternatives involving indigenous peoples.
The Effects of Rural Education on the Use of the Tropical Rain Forest by the Sumu Indians of Nicaragua: Possible Pathways, Qualitative Findings, and Policy Options
Ricardo Godoy
Key words: conservation, education, Sumu, tropical rain forest; Nicaragua
This article contains a discussion of the effects of rural education on indigenous people's use of the forest. In the short run, education probably enhances conservation by increasing the political leverage of communities to defend their rights. In the long run, education should reduce dependence on the forest by increasing rural income through the adoption of better agricultural technologies and off-farm rural work and by reducing population pressure through migration and lower fertility. I test these ideas through a qualitative discussion of education among the Sumu Indians of the tropical rain forest of Nicaragua. In the conclusion I suggest that estimates of social rates of return to rural schooling may be too low because they leave out the positive environmental externalities of schooling. Several policies are discussed at the end of the article.
Health Care Decisions of Households in Economic Crisis: An Example from the Peruvian Highlands
Kathryn S. Oths
Key words: health care costs, illness severity, medical anthropology, treatment choice, Peru, Andean region
In the study of medical decision-making, health care costs have perhaps received the greatest share of attention by researchers. This article illustrates an Andean pattern of medical treatment choice and how it changed when household resources suddenly became scarce during an economic crisis. With the economic downturn, highlanders did not revert from biomedical to traditional care, but continued to use each in lesser quantities, focusing their resources on the most serious cases of illness. In an effort to maximize their health satisfaction when cash flow was restricted, Andean households conserved their resources for the gravest of illnesses, foregoing treatment for mild and moderate problems. Use of traditional care diminished more than either lay biomedical or biomedical care at Time 2, despite it being the cheapest option. The quantitative analysis integrates several monetary measures, cost of treatments, and change in cost over time.
Changing Ideology in a Transnational Market: Chile and Chileros in Mexico and the US
Robert R. Alvarez
Key words: commodity distribution, North American Free Trade Agreement, patron-client relationships, transnational markets; US, Los Angeles, Mexico, Tijuana
The role of entrepreneurs in transnational markets is an important but neglected topic in market and entrepreneurial studies. This paper addresses the social organization of a specific commodity market, that of chile, used by Mexican entrepreneurs engaged in distributing product in the Los Angeles Wholesale Market Terminal. In addition to describing the primary activity for chile buyers for the markets of Los Angeles and Tijuana, Mexico, this paper discusses the ideology of chileros, chile entrepreneurs, that revolves around both the commodity and the Mexican construct of equipos based on confianza, and the patron-client type relationships. With an emerging capitalism and competition for product in production regions throughout Mexico, the chilero system of distribution and its accompanying ideology is breaking down. The importance of this cultural behavior is contextualized in the ongoing debate about the North American Free Trade Act and emerging ethnic markets resulting from new configurations of immigrant settlements impacting North America.
Hindrances to the Development of an Ethnic Economy among Mexican Migrants
Maria de Lourdes Villar
Key words: entrepreneurs, ethnic economy, Mexican Americans; US, Chicago
To immigrants who cherish the goal of building an ethnic economy, a community divided by differences in legal status and class backgrounds can be an impediment. Mexicans, the largest Hispanic group and major contributor of unauthorized labor flows to the United States, face difficulties in Chicago because migratory processes and larger politicoo-economic forces foster cleavages within their entrepreneurial sector. Despite their long-term presence, Mexican-owned firms in Chicago are small and lack integration with regional markets. While low educational levels and lack of skills contribute to their limited growth, conflicts of interests among local business-owners regarding the presence of undocumented workers also impede their development. By focusing on the issues that divide an immigrant business class, we can better understand the success or lack of success of different immigrant groups.
What Determines Where Transnational Labor Migrants Go? Modifications in Migration Theories
Tamar Diana Wilson
Key words: network-mediated migration, rural Mexico, social networks, transnational migration, wage-labor migration, US
Three theories that purport to explain where migrants go are set forth, then examined for explanatory validity using data acquired from a study of a relatively affluent rancho in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. The theories include the immigration market, the stage migration, and the network-mediated chain migration theories. It is found that the network-mediated migration theory, with modifications including a movement from bilocational to multilocational conceptualizations, has the greatest value in explaining transnational wage labor migration from the rancho to multiple destination points in the US. Migrants may choose to join friends and/or kin in a variety of locations upon their first crossing, and may work in several towns and/or cities in the United States over their migratory careers.
An Ethnographic Approach to Targeted Sampling: Problems and Solutions in AIDS Prevention Research among Injection Drug and Crack-Cocaine Users
Robert B. Carlson, Jichuan Wang, Harvey A. Siegal, Russel S. Falck, and Jie Guo
Key words: AIDS prevention research, crack-cocaine use, ethnography, injection drug use, targeted sampling
Recruiting large samples from "hidden population" of injection drug and crack-cocaine users who are not in drug treatment has been a troubling methodological problem that has increased in significance in the face of the AIDS pandemic. This article describes a sampling strategy developed for AIDS prevention research in Montgomery County (Dayton) Ohio that combines targeted sampling with the systematic derivation of proportional sampling quotas. The ethnographic mapping of drug use indicators by outreach workers plays a key role in the sampling design. The triangulation of independent drug use indicators enables us to estimate the relative density of drug users throughout the county and generate proportional sampling quotas for three sampling zones. The sampling strategy has a rang of potential applications.
Copping, Running, and Paraphernalia Laws: Contextual Variables and Needle Risk Behavior among Injection Drug Users in Denver
Stephen K. Koester
Key words: drug injectors, HIV, hustling strategies, needle sharing, paraphernalia laws, US, Denver
This paper addresses syringe sharing, the primary method of HIV transmission among drug injectors. It argues that this high risk drug injection behavior cannot be adequately understood by relying on psychological and cultural explanations alone. Rather, this ethnographic study contends that, among drug injectors in Denver, syringes are shared because they are scarce, and they are scarce because they are illegal to possess without medical justification. A legal mandate combines with other aspects of law enforcement to discourage street-based drug users from carrying syringes, particularly when they are in the process of obtaining drugs. The result is that drug injectors are least likely to have syringes when they need them most. This study concludes by suggesting that the paraphernalia laws currently in place in approximately 44 states and numerous municipalities may no longer be serving the public interest.
Commentary: Conservation through Self-Determination: Promoting the Interdependence of Cultural and Biological Diversity
David Hyndman
Commentary: The Life of a Culture Broker
Philip A. Dennis
