Malinowski Award Lecture, 2008
The Application of the Social Sciences’ Contemporary Issues to Work on Participatory Action Research
Orlando Fals Borda
No one could have been more surprised than I when at the closing session of the 12th International Symposium on Action Research for Education, held at my home city of Bogotá, Colombia May 14-18, 2007 a number of delegates from Australia, Great Britain and the United States went to the podium to announce that I was the new recipient of the prestigious Bronislaw Malinowski Award of the Society for Applied Anthropology. I should travel to Memphis for this purpose.
Advertising Oaxacan Woodcarvings
Michael Chibnik
Most analyses of the appeal of ethnic and tourist art emphasize buyers’ romantic and nostalgic desires to connect with lost, simpler worlds through their purchase of handmade artifacts. Anthropologists discussing the marketing of these handicrafts therefore ordinarily focus on how ethnic and tourist art works and their makers are represented by merchants attempting to convey the “authenticity” of their products. This paper examines how brightly-painted wood carvings from the Mexican state of Oaxaca are advertised on the internet, a medium that encourages the use of visual images and detailed text. The origins of the trade in Oaxacan wood carvings can be traced to the activities of merchants and entrepreneurial artisans in the mid-twentieth century. Although many carvers had grandparents who spoke an indigenous language, the artisans are almost all monolingual in Spanish and almost never describe themselves as “Indians” (indígenas). In their attempts to convince potential buyers of the authenticity of the craft, some internet advertisers are evasive or misleading about the history of Oaxacan wood carving and the ethnic identity of the artisans. Most, however, avoid rhetoric about authenticity and focus instead on the pieces’ craftmanship, artistic quality, and emotional appeal.
Key words: Oaxaca, woodcarvings, marketing, Internet, representations
Misreading the Arizona Landscape: Reframing Analyses of Environmental Degradation in Southeastern Arizona
Colin Thor West and Marcela Vásquez-León
Landscape change in southeastern Arizona represents one of the most thoroughly studied examples of long-term ecological and hydrological change in the American West. Researchers have documented the diminution of grassland and alteration of rivers using historical texts, matched photographs, transects, aerial photographs, and satellite imagery. Their results generally paint a picture of widespread and irreversible ecological decline. In many cases, ranchers and farmers are identified as the primary agents of this destruction, but their views are rarely consulted within these analyses. This gives rise to measures that restrict their access to the land and water upon which these livelihoods are based, engendering local resentment toward environmental protection policies. This paper reframes the landscape history of grasslands and rivers around the local perspectives of contemporary farmers and ranchers. We compare perceptions held by farmers and ranchers regarding environmental change with more recent spatial data on vegetation and temporal data on seasonal precipitation. Analyses of these data corroborate local perceptions. Reading the landscape from the viewpoint of today’s natural resource-based operators highlights the significance of climate variability as a driver, the need for policy-making to incorporate local views, and the positive role today’s ranchers and farmers play in ecological stewardship.
Key words: Southeast Arizona, environmental change, local perceptions, climate variability
Cash Cropping, Farm Technologies, and Deforestation: What are the Connections? A Model with Empirical Data from the Bolivian Amazon
Vincent Vadez, Victoria Reyes-García, Tomás Huanca, William R. Leonard
Research suggests that cash cropping is positively associated with deforestation. We use three-year data (2000-2002, inclusive) from 493 households to estimate the association between cash cropping rice and deforestation. Doubling the area sown with rice is associated with a 26-30 percent increase in the area of forest cleared during the next cropping season. We simulate the changes in rice cultivation to reach a daily income level of $1/person from cash cropping rice. We find that within 10 years: (1) the amount of deforestation would triple, (2) work requirements would exceed household’s labor availability, and (3) fallows duration would decrease two-fold. To avoid the increase of deforestation from cash cropping requires increasing productivity, diversification of income sources, or both.
Key words: Latin America, Bolivia, deforestation, cash crop, poverty alleviation, farm technology
Attitudes towards Doula Support during Pregnancy by Clients, Doulas, and Labor-and-Delivery Nurses: A Case Study from Tampa, Florida
Lynn M. Deitrick and Patrick R. Draves
Introduction: This study evaluated the supportive role of doulas provided by The Central Hillsborough Healthy Start (CHHS) Program to inner city women during pregnancy and delivery and assessed the reaction of labor and delivery (L&D) nurses to the presence of the doulas. The personal benefits of being a doula are also reported. Through surveys with 142 doula clients at the two participating hospitals and interviews with 18 doula clients, 9 doulas, and 10 L&D nurses from both hospitals, the authors found that 91 percent of women credited doulas with enhancing their birth experience and 87 percent reported that they would use a doula again. Women found the doula experience positive, although lack of doula continuity reduced the level of satisfaction. Doulas themselves reported both increased personal self-esteem and confidence as parents. L&D nurses reported that doulas were competent, helpful, and able to fit into the hospital environment. Doulas were found to provide four kinds of support including physical comfort, physical assistance, socioemotional support, and verbal support.
Key words: Doula, at-risk women, labor, delivery
Traditional Roles, Modern Behavior: Intergenerational Intervention and Contraception in Rural Bangladesh
Akiko Nosaka and Radheshyam Bairagi
Although rural Bangladesh retains many traditional socioeconomic characteristics, the use of contraceptives has increased over the past three decades. This paper examines the influence a mother-in-law has on her young daughter-in-law’s use of contraceptives in the rural community of Matlab, Bangladesh. The study uses data from 413 interviews conducted in two areas of the community with different family planning programs, which have affected differing levels of contraceptive prevalence. Results demonstrate that the mother-in-law does influence the daughter-in-law’s use of contraceptives, particularly in social contexts where they are relatively limited in availability. This finding has important implications for enhancing the effectiveness of family planning programs in many areas of the developing world.
Key words: South Asia, Bangladesh, intergenerational relationship, women, fertility, contraception
Life at the Crossroads of Social Change: Invigorating Romani Women’s Empowerment in Post-Socialist Croatia
Nila Ginger Hofman
This paper describes the challenges of Romani women’s empowerment in the context of Croatia’s rapidly changing political economy. Romani women—for the first time in Croatia’s history—are positioned to reap substantial benefits from state largesse, including minority rights legislation, which promises, among other things, unprecedented educational opportunities, political participation, and greater access to the labor market. I discuss how Romani women negotiate their newfound status as beneficiaries of these social goods vis-á-vis the changing Croatian political economy. Analyzing their needs, assets and cultural capital, I offer recommendations to three different stakeholders: the Romani leadership, Croatian policymakers and legislators, and the Croatian Employment Service.
Key words: Romani women, economic empowerment, women’s labor, action-based gender analysis, post-socialist Croatia
The Tule River Tribal History Project: Evaluating a California Tribal Government’s Collaboration with Anthropology and Occupational Therapy to Preserve Indigenous History and Promote Tribal Goals
Gelya Frank, Sheila Murphy, Heather J. Kitching, Duane M. Garfield, Sr., and Nancy McDarment
Postcolonial and indigenous scholars suggest that creating alternative histories is a necessary activity for Native peoples in their recovery from the destructive emotional, behavioral, and political effects of colonial domination. The literature on history-making as a restorative process has focused on mental health, reversing negative representations of indigenous people in mainstream histories, and using Native histories to reclaim land and rights. In 2004, the Tule River Indian Tribe of Central California initiated an innovative history project to engage tribal elders in contributing historical information about themselves and their families for preservation by the Tribe. Theories and methods from postcolonial scholarship, anthropology, and occupational therapy (and its academic discipline occupational science) focused the Tule River Tribal History Project on providing meaningful and enjoyable activities—creating family trees, a tribal photo archive, interviews with elders, social gatherings and community discussions, and a website. The products were made available to participants in digital and printed formats. Copies have since been archived by the Tribal Council and also made available for tribal use at the Towanits Education Center on the Tule River Reservation. Pre-test and post-test survey data indicate: (1) the tribal elders’ high valuation of the history-making activities; and (2) the positive impact of the program on social integration and spiritual well-being.
Key words: Native Americans, postcolonialism, indigenous, aging, intergenerational trauma, historical trauma
Enhancing Organizational Change and Improvement Prospects: Lessons from an HIV Testing Intervention for Veterans
Elisa J. Sobo, Candice Bowman, Gregory A. Aarons, Steven Asch, and Allen L. Gifford
Most research on why health care quality improvement implementation succeeds or fails focuses on front-line or provider-based factors. However, background factors related to the structures and processes of projects themselves also pose challenges. Using a focused ethnographic assessment approach, we undertook a case study to characterize particularly challenging background factors in an ongoing implementation effort. We found that the organizational structure of the project under study sustained several key “cultural” differences in stakeholder agendas. Moreover, it fostered the emergence of strategic communication processes that, despite their immediate utility, sometimes undermined progress and threatened long-term relations by distorting information flow in particularly patterned ways. These included a “focus on the local” and “information reconfigurations” or “partiality” that sometimes led to miscommunication or interpretive disjunctions between various stakeholders. Successful cross-organizational communication is in certain ways a cross-cultural achievement, and several guidelines were devised to facilitate this. Our experience with other health care systems and with health services research in general suggests that our findings and recommendations are broadly applicable. Because the main barriers identified were generated by complex organizational arrangements, lessons learned may also be transferable to other complex organizational contexts.
Key words: implementation science, quality improvement, organizational culture, health services research and delivery, collaboration, HIV/AIDS
Evaluating Appreciative Inquiry as an Organizational Transformation Tool: An Assessment from Nepal
Don Messerschmidt
Two women’s health projects in Nepal are examined for impacts from using Appreciative Inquiry (AI) as an organizational transformation and team building tool. This paper describes AI, and then looks at its use in Nepal to help improve access, quality of care, and utilization of essential obstetric care (EOC) by pregnant women. AI is ostensibly designed to assist hospital, health post, and health project staff improve their attitudes towards work and their service to clients. Typical accounts of AI impacts are told in “success stories,” analogous to storytelling and mini-case studies in anthropology. The focus here, however, is on issues of evaluating AI, itself. Some AI practitioners eschew attempts at “rigorous” evaluation of their own work and maintain that AI is fundamentally “different” and not amenable to objective (especially quantitative) measurement. The results of the AI assessment on the two health projects are discussed in light of the ongoing debate about the nature of development in general, and the place of AI, the issue of evaluating AI, the use of logical frameworks (“log-frames”), “problem solving” approaches, and both quantitative and qualitative measures. The evaluation-of-AI literature (very scant) is reviewed, and one promising new methodology that combines AI with log-frame indicators is described.
Key words: appreciative inquiry, project evaluation, women’s health, obstetric care, Nepal
