Volume 61, No. 1, Spring 2002
Keeping the Game Close: "Fair Play" Among Men's College Basketball Referees
Kendall M. Thu, Kelly Hattman, Vance Hutchinson, Scott Lueken, Nathan Davis, and Elmer Linboom
As a cross-cultural universal, sports are frequently examined by anthropologists in terms of how sporting behavior embodies and expresses the cultural logic of societal norms and expectations. In contemporary Western society, sports are often premised on cultural precepts of “fair play” expressed through gaming rules that ostensibly control factors that allow for the expression and comparison of competing skills. We examine the behavior of men’s college basketball referees as choreographers of staged fair play and suspense versus objective enforcers of rules. To this end, we test the hypothesis that when games are televised on national television, referees in men’s Division I college basketball call a disproportionate number of fouls against teams that are ahead in the score of their respective games, resulting in more competitive games which maintain an edge of suspense for viewers. We suspect this to be true even though trailing teams typically exhibit more aggressive play to remain competitive or get back in the game. We observed the behavior of referees involved in a total of 2,441 foul call events in 67 randomly selected Division I college basketball games during the 2000 basketball season. Results demonstrate that college basketball referees call a significantly higher number of fouls against a team that is leading a game when the game is televised on national television. This pattern does not hold when games are televised regionally. We suspect that “fair play” behavior on the part of referees helps promote dramatic suspense to attract and maintain television viewers.
Key words: sports, social performance, commercialization, United States
Co-opting Cooperation in Sri Lanka
Deborah Winslow
For almost a century, there have been officially recognized cooperative institutions--consumer societies, industrial cooperatives, credit unions, and more--in Sri Lanka. These institutions are referred to collectively as the “cooperative movement,” although, paradoxically, they usually are extensions of government programs and subject to supervision by government officials. This paper examines the local-level effects of that paradox by briefly reviewing the history of the Sri Lankan state’s use of cooperatives since independence in 1948 and by looking at the rise and fall of one particular pottery production and marketing cooperative over that same 50-year period. In the process, we see that the effects of state economic policies are not determinative but, rather, inherently uncertain because: 1) the ideological apparatus of which the policies are a part shifts over time; and 2) center policies interact in unpredictable ways with local agents, discourses, and agendas. These findings help us to better understand the complex and contradictory nature of relations between "state" and "village."
Key words: producer cooperatives, state-village articulation, potters, Sri Lanka
Mobility Patterns of Migrant Farmworkers in North Carolina: Implications for Occupational Health Research and Policy
Sara A. Quandt, John S. Preisser, and Thomas A. Arcury
Occupational health research often relies on longitudinal data to link exposures and health outcomes. Studies of migrant and seasonal farmworker health face special challenges. Farmworkers are difficult to track, and many occupational health outcomes require considerable time to develop. Using data from two longitudinal studies of farmworker health in North Carolina, we: 1) describe migration during one summer (amount, reasons, destinations); and 2) discuss the implications of these patterns for conducting different types of environmental and occupational health research. Approximately 30 percent of farmworkers migrated over the course of the summer. Analysis of specific work sites revealed both in- and out-migration. Work availability and work-related illness were major causes of out-migration. These data suggest that failing to document reasons for migration may result in underestimation of the occupational illnesses and injuries under study. If research on migrant farmworkers is to be used to establish worksite health and safety policies, traditional research designs and data analysis techniques must be adapted to the realities of worker migration.
Key words: farmworkers, immigrants, medical anthropology, research design, North Carolina
Microcredit and Women Moneylenders: The Shifting Terrain of Credit in Rural Senegal
Donna Perry
This paper analyzes the new role rural Senegalese women play as moneylenders in their agrarian communities. The shifting terrain of local credit institutions parallels contemporary trends in rural development: state-led agricultural cooperatives, which were introduced in 1960, formerly bolstered the position of elite farmers who lent out cash and grain to poor farmers during the dry-season months of scarcity. Agricultural cooperatives were abolished in the mid-1980s as a result of structural adjustment, and elite farmers have now shifted to market-based activities, no longer offering credit to neighbors and kin. During the same period, nongovernmental organizations, adopting a neoliberalist ideology, created a number of village banks that target women as the principal recipients of cash loans to be invested in income-generating activities. A significant number of these women choose not to invest this money in trade activities but to recycle the cash as high-interest loans to other farmers--emulating in new guise the earlier credit strategies of elite farmers. This paper examines the institutional changes unraveling in rural Senegal that contribute to the rise of a new class of female moneylenders during the contemporary epoch of neoliberal reform and offers ethnographic descriptions of women's moneylending practices.
Key words: microcredit, moneylenders, women in development, neoliberal reform, agrarian social relations, social change
Compensating for Health: The Acts and Outcome of Atomic Testing
Maire I. Boutté
Thousands of individuals were exposed to nuclear fallout from atmospheric testing at the Nevada Test Site in the 1950s and 1960s. Many of these individuals and their families have sought various forms of redress for health problems perceived to be associated with this exposure. This paper focuses on the efforts of “downwinders” to obtain redress, primarily under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). It is meant to be a first look at problems and issues associated with this particular act and the ensuing compensation program. Using the conceptual template developed by Brooks (1999), the paper questions whether RECA serves as a form of reparation, as it was intended, or is simply a flawed form of settlement. The paper suggests that rehabilitative redress should be included along with compensatory responses.
Key words: compensation, radiation exposure, atomic testing, downwinders, health, Nevada
The Influence of Sex of Interviewer on the Results of an AIDS Survey in Ghana
Susan C. McCombie and John K. Anarfi
Researchers often assume respondents will give more accurate information about sexual behavior to interviewers of the same sex. The influence of sex of interviewer was examined in Ghana at a very early stage of the AIDS epidemic. No substantial discrepancies in reported sexual behavior by sex of interviewer were found for male respondents. For female respondents, very young women (15-18) were more likely to tell male interviewers they had had prior sexual activity. Unexpectedly, substantial differences in responses to knowledge and attitude questions were found. Female interviewers were more likely to be told that most people didn’t need to worry about AIDS and that there was a cure for AIDS. Similar differences were found for attitudes to condoms: both sexes were more likely to report their friends were using condoms and condoms spoil sex if the interviewer was female. It is unwise to assume respondents will give more accurate information to interviewers of the same sex and impossible to determine a priori what type of response bias might occur. Systematic study of the potential influence of sex of interviewer is needed in every new field situation.
Key words: sexual behavior, survey methodology, AIDS, Africa, Ghana
Learning About Tree Management in Rural Central India: A Local-Global Continuum
Sonja Brodt
Earlier writings on indigenous environmental knowledge have promoted a dichotomous view of knowledge and culture as being either "local" (indigenous) or "global" (scientific). Utilizing case studies drawn from a study of village tree management in Madhya Pradesh, India, this paper argues that the local and the global actually comprise a continuum of knowledge systems that hybridize at multiple levels, from the abstract conceptual level down to the level of concrete practices. Where individuals fall along this knowledge continuum depends upon a number of historical and socioeconomic factors as well as personal initiative, which together determine how much of which types of knowledge sources a person can access. Finally, this paper illustrates that personal knowledge environmental management is continually under construction at a local scale, contingent upon local opportunities for hands-on experience and observation, an understanding that holds important implications for development.
Key words: globalization, indigenous knowledge, learning, development, cultural change, India
Defending Food Security in a Free-Market Economy: The Gendered Dimensions of Restructuring in Rural Mexico
Kerry L. Preibisch, Gladys Rivera Herrejón, and Steve L. Wiggins
Since 1988, Mexican agricultural policy has undergone significant revisions designed to further align the sector with a model of globally organized growth. This paper examines how maize-producing households in an indigenous community of Mexico's central highlands have negotiated major changes to agricultural policy. Despite strong disincentives to maize production, surface area planted with maize did not decrease. Although farmers adjusted their cash and labor investments in the crop and increased their participation in nonfarm livelihoods, they continued to plant maize. In exploring this community’s determination to grow its own grain rather than purchase it on the global market, this paper highlights the links between food security and gender and emphasizes the gendered nature of social change. Furthermore, our findings show that the feminization of agriculture is deepening in this community and taking on new dimensions.
Key words: food security, gender, economic restructuring, livelihoods, Mexico
Rapid Ethnographic Assessment in Urban Parks: A Case Study of Independence National Historical Park
Dana H. Taplin, Suzanne Scheld, and Setha M. Low
This article presents a case study of the use of rapid ethnographic assessment procedures (REAP) to study an urban heritage park and its relationships with some of the cultural groups living in that city. The literature on REAP and rapid assessment, and on applied ethnographic research on parks, is surveyed. The context of the study is discussed at length: Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia and its historic relationship to the city, the park’s proposed improvements that necessitated the study, and the communities that were consulted. Emphasis is given to the difficulties involved in selecting, reaching, and fairly representing particular communities for study. The article reviews the different methods used in this case and how well they worked in relation to one another. The findings of the study are summarized, giving attention to how the various methods produced particular findings. The article concludes with some observations about the study’s usefulness to park management in this case and on the value of such rapid ethnographic research as a basis for park planning and programming in general.
Key words: rapid ethnographic assessment, heritage park, historic preservation, Philadelphia
1999 Peter K. New Prize Recipient
"It's In the Air": Redefining the Environment as a New Metaphor for Old Social Justice Struggles
Melissa A. Checker
Recently, minority activists have formed a new grassroots movement, known as environmental justice, to address toxic waste in their neighborhoods. By comparing and contrasting two environmental justice groups, this paper explores how adapting environmental discourse to traditional struggles for social justice affected grassroots minority activism. As they came to view their air, water, and soil as another aspect of life subject to institutional discrimination, the activists described in this paper constructed ambiguous environmental narratives that served as contexts for multiple organizing strategies. These strategies were not limited to ecological concerns, but included the social justice issues that each group had historically prioritized. In addition, the ambiguity of the environmental narratives activists created facilitated alliances with new organizational partners. Although the specific needs, goals, and outcomes of each case differed, both examples illustrate how "the environment" served as a flexible but powerful organizing narrative. Thus, including the environment on their agendas for social change enabled minority activists to develop and sustain new strategies and alliances that strengthened their struggles.
Key words: environment, urban social movements, minority activism, social justice, United States
