Next Sunday is the Superbowl in the US, the closest thing we have to a national religious festival. I have no interest in the game itself, but the ritual aspects of it are fascinating.
For example, the name "Superbowl" is trademarked, so while ordinary people call it that, businesses call it "The Big Game" to avoid getting sued. This seems eerily similar to the way substitute names are used when there is a religious taboo against speaking a holy name aloud.
@ncrav aha, I must have missed that seminar in the History of Lagomorph Nations course. Need to catch up! Lucky you have Lua to keep you up to scratch on Floofpeetz custom and culture! 😂🐇 #multispecies#CulturalAnthropology
now listening to "maladies of empire: how colonialism, slavery, and war transformed medicine" by jim downs.
from the intro:
"slavery, colonialism, and war - often treated separately in scholarly studies - had common features from the vantage point of medical professionals.
these episodes produced large, captive populations. slaveships, plantations, and battlefields created social arrangements and built environments that allowed physicians to observe how disease spread, and prompted them to investigate the social conditions that led to the outbreak of disease.
the increased appearance of these settings around the world between 1756 and 1866 gave way to a proliferation of medical studies that contributed to the emergence of epidemiology."
people say "colonialism is over! slavery is over!" but EVEN IF that were true, we still live in the world created by colonialism and slavery. ignoring this fact won't make it go away.
on a personal note, back when i worked at "PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases" (a scholarly journal for neglected tropical diseases), i learned that one of the main institutions for the study of tropical diseases was the london school of hygiene and tropical medicine. "that sounds like a kinda weird school name", one might think. and to this american's ears it certainly sounded strange... but once you know the history it's not so strange.
the school has that name because for physicians in england, they were dealing with soldiers & sailors who were getting stuff like malaria while out conquering the world. so that's why there's a whole field of "tropical medicine."
i absolutely do not mean to disparage anyone who is affiliated with tropical medicine or LSHTM. i worked with scientists who worked there and i deeply respect their work and commitment. my only point is that it's important to remember that almost all of us are still living in the house that colonialism, empire, and slavery built, and to act accordingly.
what do y'all think? : ""The biggest climate issue is a bunch of egotistical men who refuse to change," she says, referring to the heads of multinational corporations." - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-67522279
i'm a cultural anthropologist (amateur), so my interest in her statement has less to do with "is she making an accurate statement" and more to do with: what is it that drives the desire to come up with 'the biggest issue with ___" or "the main problem with ___"? because there definitely is a desire to figure out the "root cause" of this thing (so that it can be "fixed"). but i don't know if that's possible.
i used to have this desire myself! it drove my activism... and my lack of activism - because i "couldn't figure out the root cause". analysis paralysis is a consequence of this kind of "root cause" thinking.
not to say that there aren't root causes (there may even be a root cause yet!), but that the search for a root cause can be a particular kind of activism failure mode. it's one that i think i was stuck in for way too long.
and to be clear, i DO think it's important to look for root causes, i just don't know if there's a SINGLE root cause.
i think that we are trapped in a tangled web that is
a systemic problem (a problem of systems that create outcomes regardless of which individual people are running the systems)
that is also a problem of a specific kind of masculinity (NOT a problem that's like something about men themselves as humans)
AND ALSO a problem of literal individual egotistical human men lol. (as today, kissinger death day, should remind us all.) sometimes it really does make the difference to remove literally 1 egomaniacal human man from a group situation. and sometimes that one man is fucking impossible to get at (especially since you can't get to them with guillotines anymore).
AND THAT ALSO has a bunch of other root causes like colonialism, slavery, human separation from nature, spiritual poverty, devaluing of animal and plant life, devaluing of the land, the concept of 'owning land', racism, heteronormativity, ableism, the legal system that protects corporations, the market system, the belief in and desire for hierarchies, the desire for an ordered and controlled world, "ends justify the means" thinking, and a million other things.
i don't know if there's a way to get free of this web (i certainly feel very wrapped up in it), but i can still use my teeth to bite at the little pieces of web around me & my friends & the little piece of land around me!
this bloomberg article is an excellent example of a common trope in western media: "xyz in human nature means that humans are primed to wreck their habitat." you even see this kind of thinking in policy and scientific writing.
as a cultural anthropologist (amateur), whenever i see "human nature" invoked as an explanation for LITERALLY ANYTHING, i start to get extremely suspicious.
almost always it's used as a reason for why [bad thing in society] cannot ever be solved (with the implication that maybe one shouldn't even bother because it's..."human nature").
"human nature" has been used to justify all kinds of things: men dominating women, anti-trans viewpoints, imperialism & colonialism, slavery, and more.
on the other hand, anyone can cobble together evidence showing that it's "human nature" to do any of a million "good things": care for other people, care for the land, etc.
so it's kind of a wash. it's why i don't think anyone should be making appeals to "human nature" as a reason to support/oppose much of anything.
don't ever let a "human nature" claim badger you into admitting defeat. here are arguments i use to counter just about any "human nature means we can't solve problem x" claim:
so what? even if something IS human nature, the societal problem is still there (and should be resolved, fixed, not condoned, etc.)
last i checked, wiring is not destiny. in addition to human "nature", we have this other thing called "culture" whereby humans transmit important information about how to live gained from the experiences of previous generations and older people to younger people. one can decide that one holds certain values (like: "don't destroy your habitat") and transmit those via culture.
almost all humans have been raised within families & societies that once again, mold how we think. literally no one is out here operating on "wiring" alone.
shame on you for trying to pin x problem on "human nature"! it's a cop out!
(specifically in response to the climate change-related "human nature" argument:) for millenia, many peoples all around the world found ways to live within nature's cycles. they primarily relied on important teachings that conveyed to younger generations the need to care for the land so that future generations can enjoy food/air/water/etc. too. so like, who cares about human nature in this case? people (who did not have fancy written languages or universities or scientific models!) had extremely reliable cultural practices that meant that generations of their people lived without destroying their habitats. so get out of here with this "oh it's human nature for us to destroy the environment."
"Please submit at least five and no more than ten photographs, along with a 1000-word description of the theme of your collection. Submissions can illustrate any topic of anthropological interest and should be compelling visually and intellectually."
Halloween is not an ancient Celtic custom, nor was it invented by the American candy industry.
Celtic pagans celebrated Samhain, a Thanksgiving-like festival to mark the beginning of winter, which starts the evening of 31 October. Meanwhile, the church, which dominated European culture in medieval times, celebrated All Saints' Day on 1 November.
DW explores the unique history of this spooky holiday.
i was researching how breadfruit trees were moved around the world by colonials and came across this quote on the wikipedia entry for william bligh: "In order to win a premium offered by the Royal Society, he first sailed to Tahiti to obtain breadfruit trees"
it's not the first time i've seen references to royal society competitions/prizes/quests and i'd like to learn more about this subject.
but the histories of the royal society that i've come across so far have been in that sort of "heroic colonial"/"great man" mode.
i'm looking for something that's more along the lines of "what role did the royal society have to play in the movement of plants and other organisms?" it seems like they were putting out these "challenges" for "explorers", but that's where my knowledge ends.
i'd also be happy to read a book that's about the role of the royal society in empire-building & colonialism in general.
The Anthropology Department at #MemorialUniversity of Newfoundland and Labrador Canada is searching for a mid-career or senior scholar. The idea is to serve initially as head, with appointment a tenured Professor (permanent). More details here - message with questions!