Volume 59, No. 1, Spring 2000
The Obstacles to European Union Regional Policy in the Northern Ireland Borderlands
Thomas M. Wilson
The Europeanization of European Union (EU) member states seeks their economic and political integration, if not eventual federal union, within a common market. EU programs and policies have done much to inject capital into Northern Ireland, but little to weaken the hold of nation and state in local political culture. In fact, in the borderlands of Northern Ireland the boundaries between nations and states are more important than any metaphorical "Europe without frontiers." This essay examines a European policy program, INTERREG, which has enjoyed only partial success at the Northern Ireland border, in order to delineate some of the obstacles to the cross-border cooperation which is its goal. It also relates these obstacles to flaws in national and European policy making and implementation to inform wider research both in the anthropology of the EU and in the anthropology of international borders.
Gifts, Bribes, and Development in Post-Soviet Kazakstan
Cynthia Werner
Beginning in the 1990s, development organizations launched a global anticorruption campaign. Throughout the world, including post-Soviet Kazakstan, widespread corruption is generally viewed as a serious threat to economic development and political stability. This article addresses the practical problem of distinguishing gifts from bribes in a society like Kazakstan, where some gifts function in part as bribes. The search for this nonexistent boundary reveals the limitations of categories such as "gifts," "bribes," and "commodities." In addition, by examining local perceptions of morality and corruption, this article provides insights for developing culturally appropriate development programs to fight corruption.
Resisting the Blue Revolution: Contending Coalitions Surrounding Industrial Shrimp Farming
Susan C. Stonich and Conner Bailey
Multinational corporations, national governments, and international development agencies are promoting the expansion of industrial shrimp farming in tropical, coastal zones of Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Support is based on the belief that shrimp farming can contribute to the world's food supply by compensating for declines in capture fisheries, generate significant foreign exchange earnings, and enhance employment opportunities and incomes in poor, coastal communities. However, the explosive growth of the industry is generating mounting criticisms over its social, economic, and environmental consequences. The escalating conflicts between critics and supporters of industrial shrimp farming have transcended local and national arenas. They have catalyzed the formation of global alliances of environmental and peasant-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) opposed to shrimp farming and of industry groups seeking to counter the claims and campaigns of this resistance coalition. This paper uses a political ecology approach to examine the formation of these contending global coalitions and the establishment of a global environmental and political arena around shrimp farming. The paper contributes to our understanding of the dynamic roles of NGOs in transnational advocacy networks and the extent to which transnational networks can transcend traditional sources of weakness of local organizations.
To Fish or Not to Fish: Small-Scale Fishing and Changing Regulations of the Cod Fishery in Northern Norway
Anita Maurstad
Quotas and access limitations were introduced to Norway in 1990 to secure future cod fisheries. Comparison of small-scale fishers' practices before and after 1990 pose interesting questions concerning the models for resource management on which these regulations are based. Prior to the regulations, exploitation and expansion inherent in the small-scale production were curtailed informally. Instead of limiting economic expansion, the introduction of formal bureaucratic regulations provided fishers' incentives to expand. I explain the unforeseen outcomes of the new fisheries policy by reference to small-scale productive capacity in prevailing resource-management theories and practices. In the case of Norwegian small-boat fisheries, defining capacity by technical measures alone overlooks two important factors: 1) variation within that technological category of fisheries; and 2) social incentives and constraints on technology in use. Focusing on small-boat fishing productive logic, the article addresses the need to integrate a more qualitatively oriented concept like "capacity in use," which relates actual fishing behavior to resource-management theories and practices.
Community Transferable Quotas: Internalizing Externalities and Minimizing Social Impacts of Fisheries Management
John D. Wingard
Ongoing changes in world fisheries, including those in the United States, are having dramatic impacts on fishers, their families, and their communities. The key drivers of these changes have been identified as open access and overcapitalization. The prevailing models being considered for addressing these issues are firmly rooted in the tenets of neoclassical economic theory and focus on establishing property rights or privileges in fisheries. The National Research Council has recently recommended that Congress lift the moratorium on the development of individual fishing quota (IFQ) programs established by the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996. In particular, among mainstream managers, a particular form of IFQ, the individual transferable quota (ITQ) has come to be viewed as the management tool of choice. ITQs, quasiprivatized property rights allocated to individual fishers, are expected to "rationalize" the fishery through market forces. Externalities (costs that fall outside the market process) associated with ITQs, however, may preclude them from achieving either their biological or economic goals. Meantime, they may cause significant social impacts. Rather than allocating transferable quotas to individuals, allocating them to communities (CTQs) may capture the benefits of ITQs while minimizing social impacts and internalizing externalities (assuring that those who reap the benefits bear the costs). Recent work on property rights in resource management provides a model for how CTQs could be structured.
Culture and Individual Responsibility: The Touchstones of a Culture Defense
William I. Torry
Disputes over cultural minority groups' rights, anthropologists recognize, belong on the discipline's watch. Curiously, little corresponding interest is expressed in socially problematic relationships between cultural identities and individual responsibilities, despite fierce, ongoing debates waged publicly in the United States and elsewhere over the responsibilities citizens share. This essay builds a foundation for the cultural analysis of individual-responsibility assessment with case studies taken from the "culture defense" literature. A culture defendant blames her culture for an offense she commits in a bid for leniency from the court. Establishing proof of cultural dictation (expressed by the slogan "My culture made me do it"), it happens, is a daunting task, transporting judicial inquiry into barely charted territory. Hence, the culture defense raises challenges for any broader investigation of culture and responsibility: How to understand the mechanisms of cultural dictation. By isolating those mechanisms, this analysis pursues other, related objectives. It combats stubborn misconceptions about the scope of the culture defense, in the process widening the field's boundaries, and toward that end anticipates roles for anthropologists as expert witnesses and consultants in the trials of culture defendants. Since mechanisms of motivation and reasoning underpin culturally dictated action, contributions expected from cognitive anthropology to assessments of individual responsibility in the law are also addressed. In that regard the analysis performs another function. It plots common ground between fields seen to go their separate ways ordinarily, namely the anthropology of law and psychological anthropology.
Pathways to Opportunity: The Role of Race, Social Networks, Institutions, and Neighborhood in Career and Educational Paths for People on Welfare
Jo Anne Schneider
The ongoing struggle over welfare reform hinges on debate over which factors cause joblessness and poverty. Conservative scholars blame lack of work experience and a culture of poverty while liberals focus on lack of skills and structural inequality. Through a synthesis of six interrelated research studies conducted between 1992 and 1996, this paper examines the relationship between macro- and micro-level factors in the career and training paths of welfare recipients. The study illustrates the utility of a holistic, anthropological approach to the study of poverty. The studies found four distinct groups: 1) limited work experience; 2) low-skill workers; 3) displaced workers; and 4) immigrants and refugees. Social networks played a powerful role in the life histories of each group. Using a combination of statistics and ethnography, the article discusses different career and training paths for each group. The relationship between training and work experience for each group shows the nuances among training programs and the way that class, race, and gender work together to influence various ways that each group makes use of training in developing unique pathways to opportunity or continued poverty.
A Culture of Servitude: The Impact of Tourism and Development on South Carolina's Coast
Lisa V. Faulkenberry, John M. Coggeshall, Kenneth Backman, and Sheila Backman
Tourism has become the primary industry of the Low Country of South Carolina. In response, the economic, social, and cultural fabric of the area has changed to accommodate this industry. Using interviews and observations, this study examined issues concerning host-guest interactions from a political ecological perspective. Overall, especially for the local African American residents, tourism has created in effect a "culture of servitude." Proposals to help alleviate these negative impacts are suggested.
Identity Through Stories: Story Structure and Function In Two Environmental Groups
Anne Kitchell, Erin Hannan, and Willett Kempton
Two environmental groups were analyzed in their usage of story telling as a tool for mediating identity formation and facilitating behavioral change of members. The structure and function of their stories are compared with those of a previously documented group, Alcoholics Anonymous. Comparisons of story structure and function in these groups and the resulting entrance into the figured world of the nondrinking alcoholic or that of the active environmentalist illustrate the role stories can play in developing identity and motivating people to action. In one environmental group, members take political actions; in the other, they change their own consumption patterns. The members' self-described identities and the actions taken are consistent with their respective group's goals and stories.
From Kinship to Contract? Production Chains in the Javanese Woodworking Industries
Jennifer Alexander and Paul Alexander
In many newly industrializing regions, locally owned small firms compete successfully with vertically integrated transnational factories. Their success has been attributed to "flexible specialization": localized clusters of very specialized, small-scale producers are linked by contracts into production chains for a particular commodity. In many cases the small firms are constituted by highly corporate, patriarchal households and this combination of "kinship and contract" has often been seen as critical to their success. The rapidly expanding Jepara export furniture industry is a paradigm case of flexible specialization, but Javanese households are neither corporate nor patriarchal. We propose a far more contingent connection between kinship and efficient commercial organizations.
Markets and the Health of Indigenous People: A Methodological Contribution
Ricardo Godoy and Marina C·rdenas
Researchers disagree on whether markets and acculturation hurt, help, or produce ambiguous effects on the health of indigenous people as they become part of market economies. But past researchers have generally not measured the separate effects of markets and acculturation on health, nor have they controlled for the effect of third variables. A multivariate probit model is used to analyze the effects of integration to the market on morbidity among 106 MojeÒo and 63 YuracarÈ Indian male heads of household in the Bolivian rain forest. Regressions were run controlling for acculturation and for many personal, household, and village variables. Irrespective of how one defines integration to the market, markets seemed to exert weak effects on health. The inclusion of third variables probably robs markets of some of their traditional explanatory power. Only the use of chemicals was associated with more self-reported illness, perhaps because its use allows people to take time off when ill. Results cast doubt on the common notion that participation in the market hurts the health of indigenous people and highlights the need for a multivariate approach in estimating the effect of explanatory variables.
Social Components of Migration: Experiences from Southern Province, Zambia
Lisa Cliggett
Common assumptions attribute migration decisions to economic and environmental causes. This paper reveals the importance of local power structures-at community and household levels-in understanding migration. It examines migration processes in Zambia's Southern Province using data collected from two qualitative research projects. Until recently, when droughts and cattle diseases began to plague the area, Southern Province was known for its ideal farming conditions. Since the late 1980s, Southern Province farmers have begun migrating to frontier areas farther north where land and rain are plentiful. While local environmental and economic contexts factor into people's migration decisions, control over farming resources and the ability to mobilize social support networks in home villages also influence people's decision to relocate. Data presented in this paper come from the longitudinal Gwembe Tonga Research Project (GTRP) and a two-year study on employment and labor markets in Southern Province, headed by the Development Studies Center, University of Bath, England.
Commentary on "Cultural Conservation of Medicinal Plant Use in the Ozarks"
Timothy W. Jones
Ethnobotany and Ethnicity in the Ozarks: A Reply to Jones
Justin M. Nolan and Michael C. Robbins
