Thomas F. O’Dea, the Harvard Values Project, and the Mormons: Early Lessons on Ethnography among the Literate
Howard M. Bahr
The Harvard Comparative Values Project (1949-1955) was an innovative interdisciplinary study of five ethnic communities living in close contact in the vicinity of Ramah, New Mexico. In 1950, Thomas F. O’Dea was the project’s Mormon specialist, responsible for conducting a thorough ethnography of the Mormon community of Ramah. There the Values Project encountered some of the challenges of research among literate subjects that would occupy American anthropologists a generation later. Facing problems of entrée and deteriorating rapport in a community suspicious about recent increases in the number of resident researchers, O’Dea managed through a mixture of authoritative testimonial, in-depth personal participation, and gradual disclosure to win almost total cooperation. In the present paper we draw upon O’Dea’s field notes and Values Project correspondence to illustrate the project policies of information control and some of the consequences of those policies. The tendency of Values Project leadership to practice tight information control and at least partial deception is contrasted with O’Dea’s experience showing that increased disclosure to his Mormon subjects increased their willingness to cooperate. At the end of his fieldwork, O’Dea concluded that project efforts at information control had been counter-productive, and urged instead a policy of openness and “genuine humanism.”
Key words: Harvard Values Project, ethnography, Mormons, rapport, information control, community research, Ramah
Racial Triangulation of Latino/a Workers by Agricultural Employers
Marta María Maldonado
Tree-fruit production in the US Northwest relies heavily on seasonal workers who for many years have come primarily from Mexico and Central America. Racialization of that worker population on the part of employers and communities maintains a markedly stratified labor force. This paper examines racial triangulation, or the valuation and placement of racial groups in a field of racial positions relative to one another and along two axes: superior/inferior and insider/outsider, as one key dimension of the racialization of workers by employers. Specifically, employers valorize Latino/a workers relative to White workers. Significantly also, employers make distinctions between recent and settled immigrants and consistently articulate a preference for recently-arrived immigrants, citing their good work ethic, lack of complaining, and a lack of shame in doing manual work. Further, employers claim that the longer Latino/a workers are in the United States, the more these virtues recede, thus effectively justifying and privileging the hiring of new or recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America over settled workers from those areas. Employers argue that those workers who have become settled in the United States become “Americanized” and “lazy,” do not want to work as hard, and want more money and time off. Finally, employers mobilize notions of immutable cultural difference to explain the division of labor and the channeling of ethnoracial groups into different kinds of jobs. Implications of the racial triangulation framework for race theory and practical implications for immigrant workers and community building are examined.
Key words: racialization, racial triangulation, relative valorization, civic ostracism, agricultural work, Latino/a labor
On the Periphery of Midwifery: A Critical Analysis of a Community-Based Cancer Screening Program in Mexico
Suzanne D. Schneider
The incidence of invasive cervical cancer in Mexico is believed to be among the highest in the world even though a national screening program has been in effect for over 30 years. As the Mexican government struggles to overcome obstacles in delivering cancer screening services, civil society groups are working towards increasing the acceptability and accessibility of Pap exams among marginal populations. This paper examines a community-based program initiated by the Morelos Women’s Center (CMM), which trains traditional midwives to conduct Pap exams in rural communities. The study considers how the CMM seeks to address the cultural and structural obstacles that women face in public clinics as the national government retracts health services under neoliberal reforms. Drawing attention to the disjunctures that emerge as traditional midwives with little formal education are trained to carry out a biomedical program, the paper raises questions regarding how effectively community organizations can fill in the gaps left by a declining health system. The case suggests that micro-analyses of community health efforts are essential for identifying the potentials and limitations of civil society organizations as they increasingly take on responsibilities in health care planning, promotion, and distribution.
Key words: Cervical cancer, Pap screening, Midwifery, Civil Society Organizations, Neoliberal Health Reform
Negotiating the Grassland: The Policy of Pasture Enclosures and Contested Resource Use in Inner Mongolia
James L. Taylor
The recent policy trend in Inner Mongolia toward privatized household enclosures, on what was until recently regarded as common grazing land, is increasing social inequalities and contributing to the decline of the natural resource-base. The move towards household enclosures incorporates the neoliberal influenced discourse on conventional grassland science incorporating carrying capacity and succession theories. In addition, parallel moves by the state towards modernity and development more generally have down played the cultural knowledge base of these pastoral minorities. The paper discusses some preliminary results from a community-based grassland management project in Inner Mongolia and recent anthropological research in the region. This shows that a more serious concern should be given to incorporating multiple stakeholder perspectives and that a more critical position is required in order to understand the impact of enclosures in non-equilibrium contexts. In line with these findings, it is suggested that adapted community-based grazing practices and vernacular Agro-Ecological knowledge should be included in the formulation of new grassland management policy. This suggest that those involved in development interventions should work with supra-local supportive state mechanisms to incorporate the local community more fully in policy planning -- an approach that emphasizes local experiences, viewpoints, and sentiments in the management of common property resources. In this way, social factors in ecosystem dynamics will gain deserved attention in policy-making and new synergies formed among various stakeholders.
Key words: grassland, Agro-Ecology, privatization, policy, participation
A Rapid Anthropological Assessment of Tuberculosis in a Remote Aboriginal Community in Northern Australia
Jocelyn Grace and Richard Chenhall
In the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia, the rate of active tuberculosis (TB) is thirty four times higher in the Indigenous than the non-Indigenous Australian-born population. In 2000, of the 38 notified cases, 14 (37 percent) were associated with one of a number of Aboriginal communities where TB is endemic. Despite effective treatment of patients with active TB over the past decade, compliance with latent TB infection (LTBI)1 has remained low. In 2003-04 a qualitative study was conducted in order to assess the level of awareness and understanding of TB and latent TB infection (LTBI) in this community, and identify the factors that militate against early presentation with active TB, and acceptance and/or compliance with treatment for LTBI. We found there to be a low level of knowledge about TB, and even less of LTBI. While the seriously ill usually seek treatment at the local health clinic, early presentation is not the norm. Late or non-presentation with active TB appears to be due to a combination of Indigenous attitudes toward illness and a reluctance to seek attention at the local clinic unless absolutely necessary. Many residents are said to feel uncomfortable discussing their physical problems with the clinic’s non-Indigenous medical staff, and in some cases communication is difficult as the level of English literacy varies, being low among some groups resident there. Local Council and Health Board members interviewed believe the best way to deal with this problem is to have more local people working in the clinic and engaged in outreach activities informing those most at risk about the symptoms of active TB. Unfortunately there is no point at present in encouraging those with LTBI to accept treatment, as there are insufficient resources available at the clinic to offer it to those at risk. The local clinic has a range of chronic and acute case loads to manage with limited staff, and preventative programs are time consuming, and not of immediate, critical concern. At the same time, local council and health board members have little power to influence policy and/or funding decisions that are made at the Territory level and determine what medical services are offered, nor how they are delivered in their “community.”
Key words: tuberculosis, remote Indigenous Australian community, qualitative research
The Envios of San Pablo Huixtepec, Oaxaca: Food, Home, and Transnationalism
James I. Grieshop
Transnationalism has been a major organizing theme for hundreds of immigration related studies, many of which have targeted Mexican migration to the United States economic remittances, and entrepreneurism. This case study is based on research carried out in Oaxaca with immigrants from the community of San Pablo Huixtepec and the flow of “remittance” from South to North. This study focuses on home to California sociocultural activities that serve to maintain family, community and cultural connections between the two. The major focus is on the business/entrepreneurial practice of envios, or family scale package services that move food and other cultural remittances from South to North. The system is not only economic but reflects transnational sociocultural activities that directly impact the immigrants’ ties back to home and life in California. This case study of the system of envios illustrates a unique dimension of transnational migration and living.
Key words: Migration, transnational migration, entrepreneurship, cultural remittances, cultural capital, Oaxaca, Mexico, food, envios
Botánicas in America’s Backyard: Uncovering the World of Latino Healers’ Herb-healing Practices in New York City
Anahí Viladrich
This article examines Latino healers’ use and prescription of herbs and plants in New York City (NYC), focusing on botánicas (ethnic healing-religious stores) as main healing outlets serving a pan-ethnic population of Latino immigrants in the city. Botánicas provide a physical and a social space for the exchange of information and resources, as well as for the support of informal faith-healing networks on the basis of religious belonging (e.g., Santeria and Spiritism). Rather than conforming to discrete categories, plants and herbs reveal a poli-functionality in how they impact different aspects of clients’ lives, ranging from getting back a loved one to recovering from a serious health condition. Healers’ treatments, based on ritualistic cleansing, are pivotal to resolving Latinos’ ailments rooted in sociosoma modes of causation that imply social relationships severed by sorcery, spirit intrusion, and stressful living circumstances. Most of the plants, herbs, and roots found at botánicas are believed to have both natural and supernatural healing properties, able to deal with the multi-dimensional aspects of disease and well-being. The article will finally discuss the implications of these findings from a research and policy perspective, particularly regarding the need for research models able to account for the role of spirituality and religiosity in Latinos’ integrative systems of healing.
Key words: folk healers, immigrant health, alternative medicine, Latinos, botánicas, ethnomedicine, New York City
Social Support: A Cultural Model
Ivonne-Marie Berges, Florence Dallo, Anthony DiNuzzo, Nuha Lackan, and Susan C. Weller
This study explores community beliefs regarding the hierarchy of resort for social support across different contexts. A sample of community members (n=60) in a small southwestern city was asked to rank-order their preferences for assistance for eight specific scenarios. Six of the scenarios came from the General Social Survey (GSS) and two were added after open-ended interviews with community members indicated that “caring for a loved one” and “having problems at work” were also relevant for this population. Analysis of the ranked responses with the cultural consensus model (Romney, Batchelder, and Weller 1987) indicated that there was a single, shared model among community members about the desired ordering of resort for each scenario. Some variation was found between minority and non-minority respondents, with minorities tending to prefer kin sources over non-kin sources of support. Also, a comparison of the community preferred order to aggregate GSS responses on available support (n=1,428) for six of the scenarios indicated a strong similarity between community preferences and U.S. national patterns for available social support. Results are discussed in terms of the “convoy,” hierarchical compensatory, and task-specific models of social support.
Key words: social support, cultural models, cultural consensus models, U.S. culture
Who Knows Your HIV Status II?: Information Propagation Within Social Networks of Seropositive People
Gene A. Shelley, Peter D. Killworth, H. Russell Bernard, Christopher McCarty,
Eugene C. Johnsen, and Ronald E. Rice
We seek to explain on what basis people choose to tell stigmatizing information about themselves to others. In particular, are there any rules governing how such decisions are made? We asked 70 HIV-positive individuals whether they knew various items of knowledge about their network members, and vice versa. These items range from things which might be known easily (e.g., marital status), things which are more difficult to know (e.g., blood type), to potentially stigmatizing information such as criminal record and HIV status. The information that one person knows about another may predict whether the latter’s HIV status is also known. We examine this question using a combination of ethnography and decision trees. Even an apparently simple decision – whether or not to tell someone that you are seropositive – turns out to be complicated; yet the complexity can be extracted from open-ended interviews.
Key words: HIV/AIDS disclosure, decision modeling, ethnography, people with HIV/AIDS
