Volume 59, No. 4, Winter 2000
Ethnography in the Field of Design
Christina Wasson
Members of the design profession help develop new products and services of many kinds, and they are centrally concerned with satisfying the needs of users of their products. Ethnography appeals to designers because it provides a window onto the ways consumers interact with products in their everyday lives. The paper provides an overview of this extension of applied anthropology to a new domain. It traces how ethnography became known to designers and the transmission of particular research traditions that have shaped the practice of "ethnography" in the design field. Ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, and activity theory have been prominent theoretical influences. Most data-gathering methods are characterized by the use of videotape, and computer-supported cooperative work played a mediating role. As an example, I describe the research practices of one design firm, formerly known as E-Lab LLC, now part of Sapient Corporation.
Key words: design, consumption, video ethnography, conversation analysis, activity theory, research methods
Am I My Brother's Keeper?: A Case Study of the Responsibilities of Research
Merrill Singer, Elsa Hertas, and Glenn Scott
As a result of the AIDS epidemic, there has been considerable expansion in research targeted at inner-city drug-using populations. Anthropology has played an important role in the effort to better understand HIV risk behaviors among drug users and to develop empirically grounded interventions. However, the study of highly vulnerable and social stigmatized populations raises important ethical issues, including the full extent of researcher responsibility to the subjects of research. This paper uses a case study approach to explore these issues. The case in question is a research participant who was killed by police in what they describe as a "police-assisted suicide" not long after his last interaction with research staff. The paper seeks to initiate discussion among researchers, funders, providers, and policy makers concerning key ethical and responsibility issues in HIV/AIDS research.
Key words: research ethics, researcher responsibility, HIV/AIDS, drug users, vulnerable populations
A Memory of Loss: Ecological Politics, Local History, and the Evolution of Karimojong Violence
Sandra J. Gray
Since early March 1999, deadly confrontations among pastoralists and government forces in northeastern Uganda's Karamoja region have escalated. Raiding and banditry are long-established features of intertribal relations in this region, and government reprisals against such operations date from the colonial period. However, present-day violence has assumed a singular form among the Karimojong, often involving them in the murder and raiding of other Karimojong as well as people from neighboring ethnic groups. It has been argued that ongoing violence in Karamoja is the result of the acquisition of automatic weapons by the Karimojong and their neighbors. While this might explain the increased virulence of intertribal conflict since the end of the colonial era, the direction of aggression by the Karimojong against members of their own ethnic group suggests that there are other factors to be considered. In this paper, I examine the sequence of ecological, political, and historical events leading to widespread intratribal violence in Karamoja. On the one hand, the modern manifestation of violence in Karamoja is a logical outcome of an interplay of environmental catastrophes and political mismanagement dating from the colonial era. In this sense, the Karimojong sequence is continuous with events taking place in the 20th century throughout the pastoralist zone of northeastern Africa. On the other hand, the present configuration of Karimojong society represents a discrete, localized response to regional events. Specifically, serendipitous acquisition of automatic rifles provided opportunistic pastoralists with a new stratagem at a time when a shift in intratribal politics already was under way. To be sure, easy access to guns altered relationships among the Karimojong, neighboring groups, and the changeable Ugandan state, but more significantly, modern weaponry supported the transformation of fluid structural relations within Karimojong society into increasingly inflexible internal divisions. The analysis underscores the complexities of conflict resolution among pastoralist groups in northeastern Africa.
Key words: pastoralists, cattle raiding, ethnicity, Karimojong, Uganda
Land Tenure Delegitimation and Social Mobility in Tropical PetÈn, Guatemala
Charles Clark
Lack of legitimacy of land tenure institutions in the tropical PetÈn, Guatemala, contributes to tenure insecurity that encourages rapid colonization, deforestation, and forest conversion to agriculture. The author identifies social, political, and property rights trends that reduced the effectiveness of property rights in the PetÈn. Three case studies present the complexities of land tenure institutions. The first analyzes unregulated land invasions by small farmers, the second discusses land tenure barriers to protection of indigenous cooperatives, and the third analyzes attempts by the government and nongovernmental organizations to restrict settlements within the Maya Biosphere Reserve through negotiations. In the absence of operative legal land institutions, campesinos create land law by their invasions, presence, and practices. Unless campesinos are given a role within policy?making management decisions, there may be no means to restore legitimacy to land tenure in the PetÈn.
Key words: tropical deforestation, land tenure insecurity, colonization, cooperatives, nongovernmental organizations, Guatemala
The Potential for sustainable Harvests by Traditional Wana Hunters in Morowali Nature Reserve, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia
Michael S.Alvard
Conflicts arise between subsistence hunters and those who wish to conserve the animals they hunt. Solutions require measures of sustainability. Data are presented on the sustainability for the Wana hunters living in the highlands of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Pigs (Sus celebensis) and dwarf buffalo (Bubalus spp.) account for 58 percent and 40 percent of the large game harvest by weight. Primates (Macaca tonkeana) are occasionally killed. Data suggest pig hunting is sustainable, primates may have been overhunted in the past, and that dwarf buffalo are vulnerable. Using GPS, the area encompassing all of fields, traps, and house locations for the sample of 153 Wana was measured to be only 18.1 km2. To sustain their current harvest of pigs, however, the Wana need access to at least 290km2 of catchment. Their harvest of 0.30 pigs per person per year can be sustained if the Wana population density is no greater than 0.53 persons per km2. Pigs are the most sustainable of the Wana's prey options. Removing primates from the Wana's diet would have a negligible nutritional effect. Persuading Wana hunters not to pursue dwarf buffalo will be the most difficult challenge for Morowali's managers.
Key words: human ecology, hunting, sustainable use, Wana, Indonesia
Negotiating Contract Farming in the Dominican Republic
Laura T. Raynolds
This study analyzes the political and economic conditions that have fueled the rise of contract farming between peasant smallholders and agroindustrial firms in the Dominican Republic. Through a case study of tomato production, I illuminate the nature of contracting from the perspective of processing-firm officials and growers. I find that while processing firms pursue contracts to access peasant household land and labor, marginal producers turn to agroindustrial contracting to acquire credit and secure markets. My longitudinal analysis reveals how the ideological and material facets of the contract are continuously renegotiated in the context of changing production and market conditions. Ideological struggles revolve around the position of growers, who identify themselves as independent producers but who are viewed by firm officials as dependent employees, irrelevant landlords, and even idle tourists. Recent material struggles have centered on the distribution of pest-induced production losses, which have largely been absorbed by peasant growers, forcing them deep into debt. My findings illustrate the potentially critical role of the state in mediating contract relations between unequal parties and thwarting the potential expropriation of peasant land.
Key words: contract farming, nontraditional agriculture, Caribbean, Dominican Republic
Mexican Immigrant Women and the New Domestic Labor
MarÌa de la Luz Ibarra
Since the 1970s global and national economic processes have reshaped production and the organization of social reproduction in U.S. households. As part of the change in the organization of social reproduction, there is an increased demand for domestic workers. The focus of this article is on Mexican immigrant women who fulfill that demand and who form part of a "new" domestic labor in Santa Barbara, California. Two themes emerge: at the local level the domestic labor market is more heterogeneous than previously described, consisting of a multiplicity of forms. The domestic labor market is, in turn, polarized. Two case studies--one of a "labor contractor" and the other of an "elderly care provider"--illustrate some of what the emerging, polarized categories are, the qualitatively distinct labor process associated with each, and some of the differences and similarities between the Mexicanas who undertake domestic employment.
Key words: migration, domestic employment, labor process, Mexican immigrant women
