Volume 63, No. 2, Summer 2004
Biotechnology and the Political Ecology of Information in India
Glenn Davis Stone
The move of crop biotechnology into the south raises issues about effects on cultural agricultural practices. The case of recently introduced genetically modified cotton in India is used to explore how crop biotechnology can affect change in processes underlying local practice. The particular focus is agricultural skilling—acquiring information and adopting management practices derived from that information—based on both environmental learning and cultural transmission. Impediments to skilling include inconsistency, unrecognizability, and overly rapid technological change; these processes may lead to agricultural deskilling, which has similarities to and differences from industrial deskilling. India’s first genetically engineered crop, Bt cotton, has recently been released into an unsustainable situation plagued by deskilling, yet biotechnology has brought new disruptions of information flows and thus of the skilling process. The India case shows how susceptible to political manipulation the cultural agricultural practices become when skilling is disrupted.
Key words: political ecology, biotechnology, genetic modification, indigenous knowledge, India
From Indigenismo to Zapatismo: Theory and Practice in Mexican Anthropology
Roberto J. González
This paper reviews the close relationship between theory and practice in Mexican anthropology, comparing and contrasting it to U.S. anthropology. The discipline in Mexico has successfully engaged public policy and politics in different ways, ranging from participation in the construction of nationalist ideologies to development anthropology to cooperation with popular movements. The experience of Mexican anthropology might provide U.S. anthropologists with creative ideas for connecting theory and practice in future projects.
Key words: history of anthropology, theory and practice, indigenismo, Mexico
North Carolina Growers’ and Extension Agents’ Perceptions of Latino Farmworker Pesticide Exposure
Pamela Rao, Thomas A. Arcury, Sara A. Quandt, and Alicia Doran
Pesticide exposure poses a significant health hazard to everyone who works in agriculture. Growers have more control over their own exposure risk than do the farmworkers they employ. While growers are responsible for providing a safe work environment, their perceptions of the health risk of pesticides influence the amount and quality of safety training and protection they offer to workers. This paper analyzes growers’ and cooperative extension agents’ perceptions of farmworker pesticide exposure. Data are from in-depth interviews conducted with growers and extension agents who work in western North Carolina. Both groups indicated that the danger of pesticide exposure is exaggerated by the media and the public. They feel that workers are at little risk of exposure because they have received training and protective equipment as required by law and because they are not in direct contact with chemicals. Their perceptions are at odds with results of other research indicating many farmworkers have not received the required training and do not always utilize protective gear. Linguistic and cultural barriers contribute to this discrepancy in perceptions and must be addressed if measures to reduce farmworker pesticide exposure are to be effective.
Key words: pesticide safety, farmworker health, Worker Protection Standard, North Carolina
“He Has Me Tied with the Blessed and Damned Papers”: Undocumented-Immigrant Battered Women in Phoenix, Arizona
Olivia Salcido and Madelaine Adelman
Undocumented-immigrant battered women in the borderlands have been pushed and pulled across the U.S.-Mexico border seeking socioeconomic advancement, maintenance of sociocultural ties, and physical security for themselves and their children. Legality and illegality play a central role in the lives of these women due to a combination of factors, such as how immigration policies linked to the needs of corporate capitalism have led to the creation of the “undocumented” population in the U.S. Southwest. Based on ethnographic research on battering among immigrants in Phoenix, Arizona, we bring a domestic violence perspective to immigration policy and an immigration perspective to domestic violence research to trace how battering contributes to illegality and how immigration policies contribute to men’s battering. We explore how border crossing and criminality can constitute survival as well as battering strategies and reflect on the place of kin and family in how immigrant women from Mexico struggle simultaneously around being “illegal” and battered. We conclude the analysis with a reflection on the theoretical and policy implications of this study.
Key words: undocumented immigrants, battered women, U.S. immigration policy, U.S.-Mexico border, Phoenix
A Glass Half Empty: Latina Reproduction and Public Discourse
Leo R. Chavez
Latina reproduction and fertility have become ground zero in a political war—not just of words, but of public policies and laws. This article builds on a theoretical framework that includes issues of stratified reproduction, which characterize some women as reproductive threats to society. From an examination of the discourse found in 10 national magazines over a 35-year period, beginning in 1965, emerge three interrelated themes concerning Latina reproductive threat: 1) high fertility and population growth; 2) reconquest; and 3) overuse of medical and other social services. The final section examines data on reproduction and fertility collected from Latinas and Anglo women in Orange County, California, to explore the “truth claims” associated with Latina reproduction and fertility. The findings suggest that Latinas do not begin sexual activities at a relatively early age nor do they have relatively more sexual partners than Anglo women. Most Latinas have used birth control pills at some point in their lives. Latinas generally have fewer than two children per woman. Mexican-origin women born or raised in the Untied States had fewer children than adult immigrants, and their differences from Anglo women were insignificant. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression finds that age, marital status, education, and language acculturation are more important than ethnicity for understanding fertility.
Key words: politics of reproduction, discourse of Latina reproduction, Mexican and Latin American immigrant fertility, California
Conceptions of Primary Forest in a Tzeltal Maya Community: Implications for Conservation
David G. Casagrande
Tzeltal Maya of Chiapas, Mexico, recognize and name different stages of forest succession. Ethnobotanical interviews and analyses of free lists indicated that the Tzeltal Maya of Matsab are knowledgeable about what plants and birds are limited to the primary forest, but they do not appear to rely exclusively on this knowledge to distinguish between habitats. Other features such as tree size, humidity, and soil characteristics appear to take precedence over species composition. Consensus analysis indicated that knowledge of primary-forest plant names and potential uses was no different than for plants from the managed landscape, and knowledge was not correlated with frequency of visits to the forest. Conservation professionals should not assume that knowledge is synonymous with behavior or cultural importance, that indigenous classification is based on the same features as modern, scientific classification, or that indigenous perceptions of habitats are homogeneous.
Key words: ethnoecology, forest conservation, traditional ecological knowledge, Tzeltal Maya, Mexico
Training Refugee Mental Health Providers: Ethnography as a Bridge to Multicultural Practice
Elzbieta M. Gozdziak
As the number of forced migrants increases, so does the number of programs established to provide psychological help to refugees and victims of wartime violence. The expansion of such programs both in the West and in nonwestern countries indicates the prominence of mental health professionals in the refugee field. There is a widespread assumption that armed conflict and civil strife constitute mental health emergencies and all refugees and victims of wartime violence need to have an immediate access to psychological counseling and trauma programs. The role of mental health interventions in addressing refugee suffering begs the question whether existing training programs adequately prepare mental health professionals to serve diverse refugee populations. This article attempts to answer this question by analyzing the tenets of Western training programs for the helping professions. It also explores the contributions that anthropology can make to the field of refugee mental health.
Key words: refugees, mental health, biomedical training
Weaving Wages, Indebtedness, and Remittances in the Nepalese Carpet Industry
Tom O’Neill
The persistence of reports about child labor exploitation in the Nepalese carpet industry, particularly by adults who control their weaving wages, begs an account of how carpet-weaving labor is recruited, remunerated, and reproduced. A study of union and nonunion carpet weavers found that most young weavers were not victims of traditional forms of debt bondage and coercive control, but working conditions often led to high levels of indebtedness. Salary advances (peskii) allowed weavers to compensate for cash shortfalls and meet unusual expenses, but some weavers have been able to remain in control of this salary advance system. Remittances to families have also been associated with weaving wage exploitation, as well as subsidies to the weaver’s parental household. Recently, the collapse of the Nepalese carpet industry—in part due to persistent child labor reports—has meant that wages do not keep up with urban living costs, increasing weaving debt and undermining the ability to make remittances. Young Nepalese carpet weavers were victimized not so much by traditional labor practices as by the capricious cycles of global capitalism.
Key words: child labor, wage exploitation, piecework, remittances, Nepal
The Biosocial Consequences of Life on the Run: A Case Study from Turkana District, Kenya
I. L. Pike
Throughout East Africa, pastoralist populations live in harsh physical environments coupled with constant threats of livestock raiding and generally widespread insecurity. In this uncertain backdrop, pastoralist families must search for safe and secure forage and water for their herds. The Turkana of Kenya, a good example of a pastoralist group facing such threats, dodge insecurity by constant movement into unfriendly and unknown territory. In addition, Turkana herd owners move in very large herding groups with armed guards. As data from a 1998 field season suggest, such strategies have important consequences. These consequences are both social and biological and include modifications in social organization, diet, and the avoidance of health centers. The psychosocial consequences also are notable. As disruptive as the worst drought, insecurity has the potential to threaten not only the social well-being of pastoralists but also their health and survival.
Key words: psychosocial stress, armed conflict, coping strategies, Turkana, Kenya
2002 Peter K. New Prize Recipient
“Hell, I’m An Addict, But I Ain’t No Junkie”: An Ethnographic Analysis of Aging Heroin Users
Miriam Williams Boeri
Although the number of drug users over the age of 35 is growing at a faster rate than other age groups, a gap in knowledge of how people age with drug use remains. This study focuses on heroin users who were born between 1945 and 1965, the baby boom cohort. Based on questionnaires and in-depth interviews with 38 active heroin users in Atlanta, Georgia, variations in their heroin use were explored through modified grounded theory methods, including constant comparison. Numerical and narrative data revealed a typology of active heroin users who are members of the baby boom generation. The two salient dimensions of the typology are the level of control over heroin use and the users’ social roles, specifically the status the users allocated to their social role as a heroin user. The typology includes: 1) controlled occasional users; 2) weekend warriors; 3) habitués; 4) marginal users; 5) problem addicts; 6) using dealers/runners; 7) using hustlers/sex workers; 8) junkies; and 9) relapsing addicts. Increased insight into the heterogeneity among current baby boomer heroin users is relevant when designing comprehensive prevention and intervention programs.
Key words: heroin use, substance abuse, older drug users, baby boomers, drug treatment, drug policy
Commentary
Anthropology: Vital or Irrelevant
Murray Wax and Felix Moos
Key words: anthropological illusions, intellectual betrayal, ecumene, asymmetric warfare
