Ethnographic Evidence Research Articles

Running in Tarahumara (Rarámuri) Culture

The Tarahumara (Rarámuri) are a Native American people from Chihuahua, Mexico, who have long been famous for running, but there is widespread incredulity about how and why they run such long distances. Some characterizations of Tarahumara running are also based on stereotypical views of athleticism among non-Western peoples, here labeled the “fallacy of the athletic savage.” To place Tarahumara running more appropriately into its larger social and functional contexts, we combined our own observations and ethnographic evidence with interviews of 10 elderly Tarahumara runners about running during hunting as well as during footraces. We detail how running played an integral role in persistence hunting, in which groups of hunters employed a variety of methods to chase animals on foot. Running during hunting, moreover, is linked to men’s and women’s footraces, and both kinds of running are considered powerful forms of prayer. Long-distance running is also related to endurance dances that have important spiritual dimensions. Although the Tarahumara do not train to run in any traditional Western sense, and not all of them are great runners, the Tarahumara, like many Native American peoples, consider running, along with other endurance-based activities, to be important social and spiritual pursuits.

Implicit Standardization in a Minority Language Community: Real-Time Syntactic Change among Hasidic Yiddish Writers.

The recent turn to “big data” from social media corpora has enabled sociolinguists to investigate patterns of language variation and change at unprecedented scales. However, research in this paradigm has been slow to address variable phenomena in minority languages, where data scarcity and the absence of computational tools (e.g., taggers, parsers) often present significant barriers to entry. This article analyzes socio-syntactic variation in one minority language variety, Hasidic Yiddish, focusing on a variable for which tokens can be identified in raw text using purely morphological criteria. In non-finite particle verbs, the overt tense marker tsu (cf. English to, German zu) is variably realized either between the preverbal particle and verb (e.g., oyf-tsu-es-n up-to-eat-INF ‘to eat up’; the conservative variant) or before both elements (tsu oyf-es-n to up-eat-INF; the innovative variant). Nearly 38,000 tokens of non-finite particle verbs were extracted from the popular Hasidic Yiddish discussion forum Kave Shtiebel (the ‘coffee room’; kaveshtiebel.com). A mixed-effects regression analysis reveals that despite a forum-wide favoring effect for the innovative variant, users favor the conservative variant the longer their accounts remain open and active. This process of rapid implicit standardization is supported by ethnographic evidence highlighting the spread of language norms among Hasidic writers on the internet, most of whom did not have the opportunity to express themselves in written Yiddish prior to the advent of social media.

How coloniality shapes the making of Latin American psychologists: ethnographic evidence from Ecuador

This paper provides ethnographic evidence on how coloniality shapes the making of Latin American psychologists. A critical ethnography was conducted at a psychology training institution in Ecuador, consisting of twelve months of participant observation; forty-one semi-structured interviews; and analysis of academic discourse, photos, videos and relevant social media content. The research was guided by the tradition of Critical Psychology – specifically Liberation Psychology – and Critical Discourse Analysis. Findings suggest the pervasiveness of coloniality in the making of Ecuadorian psychologists and, hypothetically, of others in Latin America and the wider Global South. Interpretations also highlight the non-essentialist, non-dichotomist, ‘messy’ nature of such processes, a consideration which may advance current ethical and analytical debates on decolonisation. Echoing ongoing critical arguments, authors suggest that a ‘help-as-war’ metaphor is a category with potential value to contribute to such advancement, an approach that has important theoretical and pragmatic implications for researchers and practitioners.

Growing Up in Ancient Israel: Children in Material Culture and Biblical Texts

Growing Up in Ancient Israel: Children in Material Culture and Biblical Texts

It’s Wrong, but that’s the Way it is. Youth, Violence and Justice in North-Eastern Brazil

This article discusses the vertiginous proliferation of violence suffered and perpetrated by juveniles in the state of Bahia, north-eastern Brazil. Based on documentary and ethnographic evidence, it anatomizes the workings of law enforcement, juvenile justice and juvenile custody. It argues that the strategies of the police, the criminologies put into practice by the judiciary and the functioning of Youth Detention Centres collaborate to foster, rather than curb, youth offending and the violence committed by and against young citizens. Whereas prosecution and the dispensation of justice emphasize juvenile offenders’ responsibility for their ‘decision’ to become a ‘bandit’, juvenile custody, as a result of deep-rooted clientelist practices, is dominated by precarious conditions of incarceration which promote internal violence and the (self)ascription of a deviant juvenile identity. At the same time, the Othering of large sections of youth from the urban periphery has fuelled a vicious cycle of violence and counter-violence between members of drug factions and police forces, resulting in an increasing illegibility of the state at its margins.

Productive Values: Activating Labor and Finding Selves in Norwegian Job‐Seeker Courses

AbstractIn recent decades, activation has become the paradigm of European social policy. This is a move that many scholars have decried as part of the neoliberalization of the continent's once‐robust welfare states. Much of the scholarship on activation, however, has focused on the formal and legal dimensions of policy change, obscuring how activation policies function at the level of everyday life and thus what they actually represent with respect to the broader economic and political shifts remaking contemporary Europe. This article, based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Norway between 2015 and 2016, examines one increasingly common activation scheme, the mandatory job‐seeker course. While confirming that the courses propagate a neoliberal rhetoric of the “sellable self,” ethnographic evidence contests the notion that this rhetoric is itself evidence of a broader ideological shift within Norway. In fact, the opposite is the case. This rhetoric is not only continuous with a longstanding elite understanding of Norway as an “active society” but also potentially beneficial to the country's universal welfare state. Ultimately, this article argues that insofar as neoliberal rhetoric helps Norway’s unemployed overcome feelings of moral abjection and social disorientation to search for formal, tax‐generating employment, it protects rather than undermines the social democratic order.

Digital nomads: freedom, responsibility and the neoliberal order

Digital nomads are individuals who, taking advantage of portable computing technologies and widespread Internet access, can work remotely from any location and use this freedom to explore the world. Using ethnographic and netnographic research, this article outlines this recent phenomenon, framing it into the lens of lifestyle mobilities and individualization theories. It adds to existing research by focusing on the new set of responsibilities and commitments entailed by the individualization process. In research participants’ explanations, disengaging from sedentary life enabled them to express an ethos of freedom, in which minimalism, uncertainty and risk replace material accumulation, stability and comfort. It is important however to pay attention to the structural constraints within which their ethos of freedom operates. The aim of the article is twofold: on one hand, it contrasts digital nomads’ sociocultural imaginaries of (in)mobility with the specific economic strategies they use to sustain their continuous mobility, including geoarbitrage and the commodification of network capital. On the other, it provides fresh ethnographic evidence on how digital nomads’ self-realization project meets the ideology of entrepreneurialism, allowing them to take advantage of privileged nationalities to navigate the global inequalities of the capitalist system. The article argues that, rather than a challenge to the system, digital nomadism is an opportunistic adaptation to neoliberal impacts.

Abstract markings in the rock art of Iran: relative dating and possible function of the markings

ABSTRACT Although large number of rock art sites have been identified in Iran, our knowledge about dating of this art has remained very limited. This paper reviews the previous works on dating rock art of Iran. Moreover, using relative dating approaches, the paper discusses possible dating for abstract markings in the rock art of the country. Some petroglyphs carved on an ancient bas-relief and on the walls of ancient constructions of the known age assist us to put some abstract depictions in a historic, particularly, an ‘Islamic’ context. In addition, using ethnographic evidence, the paper discusses the possible function of abstract motifs in the rock art of Iran.

Ritual landscape and sacred mountains in past and present Mesoamerica

The three books under review are collective monographs that consist of interdisciplinary approaches (archaeology, ethnohistory, cultural anthropology, anthropology of religion) and divided into sections according to discipline or more specific common topic. A leitmotif of all of them is ritual landscape, sacred mountains, the agricultural cycle and rainmaking rituals in Mesoamerica (mostly in its Mexican part) which have been present in this cultural area since pre-Hispanic times until the present day. The authors of particular contributions point out archaeological, historical and ethnographic evidence of these religious beliefs and ritual practices across the centuries and emphasize not only their antiquity but also their uninterrupted continuity. This tradition was incorporated into Christianity, thanks to which it survived missionary activities of the Spaniards as well as pitfalls of modern era and represents the core of popular religion in native Mexican communities.

The politics in/of pain

Pain, pain talk and pain ascriptions seem to be universal features of human experience and to have little to do with politics. It is often assumed that pain is always bad, a sign of a malfunctioning machine, that pain talk describes this malfunction and that the humane thing to do is to seek to ameliorate or excise pain. I argue that this viewpoint is one-sided at best and imperialistic at worst. In section I, I outline what I term the ‘prima facie model of pain’ and adumbrate later Wittgenstein’s criticism of it. In section II, I marshal ethnographic evidence that deepens Wittgenstein’s reimagining of pain and acknowledgment. In section III, I link this to ‘progressive’ politics and its normative understanding of the self. Finally, in section IV, I turn to Martin Luther King’s writing and discuss a use of pain that undermines this normative conception of the self and aligns with Wittgenstein’s account.

Activation and Precarity: The Rewards of Investing in the Vulnerable

ABSTRACT As part of a broader process of transferring of responsibilities to civil society in Spain, including the privatisation of welfare services and resources, the Third Sector plays an increasing role in the provision of care against a backdrop of structural unemployment and low levels of economic growth. With state funding, assistance programmes are intended to target the most vulnerable, excluded and unemployable following the principle of activation, as the way to social integration through the labour market. Ethnographic evidence shows that in a context of neoliberal austerity policies that goal is difficult to accomplish. The employment programme implemented by a local assembly of the Spanish Red Cross ended up assisting the most employable, who had lost their jobs during the economic recession, to re-enter the labour market as a trained, flexible and precarious workforce that suited the needs of the private companies collaborating with the Red Cross.

Disassembling cattle and enskilling subjectivities: Butchering techniques and the emergence of new colonial subjects in Santiago de Guatemala

When they introduced cattle into Guatemala in the 16th century, Europeans also brought a whole new industry involving ranches, slaughterhouses, and new forms of labor. On the one hand, cattle producers had to treat the animals as intact living organisms requiring care and nurture to maintain and increase the herds. Those animals were grown by the ranchers for specific purposes. In the first place, colonial Mesoamerican cattle were raised to produce hides and leather for intercontinental trade with Spain. The regularized disassembling of the bovine bodies created these new products, but it also had some unintended consequences, namely the generation of new subject positions among the indigenous workers of these facilities. New forms of butchering techniques aimed at extracting animal parts were unlike the indigenous practices of animal hunting and exploitation, which aimed at preserving the physical integrity of the animals’ bodies. The newly introduced techniques that involved the compartmentalization of animal bodies also involved an increased compartmentalization of labor, accompanied by new body techniques and gestures. As the butchers and the tanners became enskilled, their bodies changed and so did their hexis. To operationalize these ideas, technological approaches combined with zooarchaeological (butchery marks), ethnographic, and historical evidence are used to investigate how humans and cattle mutually grew each other’s matter and subjectivities.

When private property masquerades as public space: the shifting face of publicness in London’s city squares

"Access to space is fundamentally related to social status and power...changing the allocation of space is inherently related to changing society" (Weisman, 1992)
 
 In contemporary London, a pattern has emerged whereby private corporations create and take ownership of public space, but the type of publicness they promote is conditional. In private-public space, private property masquerades as public land with rules of inhabitation often impenetrable, unknowable until they are broken. International owners activate networks of relations beyond the local; I question how private-public space fits with local communities, and how these networks shift notions of authenticity and inauthenticity in relation to public belonging. There is a specific focus on the public square as a form of private-public space, because the city square has a long-established spatial identity that embodies notions of publicity. The public square stimulates and contains public life, and neoliberal dynamics of ownership and management threaten public assemblages. Private-public squares do not fit into the majority of theories that have been developed on place, public space and private dynamics, but they are exemplative of a type of space increasingly prominent in Britain. I focus on four private-public squares in London to examine what can be learnt when a format of space is reproduced under incompatible conditions. How do these spaces work on a quotidian level and how does this intervention in public life shift urban identities and behavioural paradigms? The basis of my research is to examine concepts of publicness and privateness and how they apply to private-public squares in London, whilst utilising the practice of photography, observation and inhabitation to gain empirical ethnographic evidence. My research intends to assemble a toolkit to facilitate understanding about pseudo-public space, rather than ascribe fixed meanings to a subject which requires specificity.

A raft, a ship and a lighthouse in the desert. Fluvial and maritime graffiti from ancient Palmyra

In this article, we present a new figural graffito from the temple of Bel at Palmyra and place it in context with two recently published examples from Tomb no. 173. They may constitute corroborating figurative visual representations for a segment of the Palmyrene trading cycle that has hitherto rested on epigraphic, ethnographic or other historical indirect evidence.

The Festival of Hermes Kriophoros in Tanagra (Boeotia): an anthropological interpretation

The subject to be considered is the festival of Hermes Kriophoros in Tanagra. A brief Pausanias’ reference (9.22.1) contains very few but remarkable details of the celebration as it was held in Late Antiquity. All indications concerning the procedure and the content of the festival inferred from Pausanias’s description are analyzed in combination with the attested characteristics and attributes of Hermes, as well as with the religious symbolism universally attached to the ram, the divine shepherd, and ritual circular movement. The ethnographic evidence for similar rituals is also adduced. It is concluded that the Tanagran festival originated in an ancestral communal ceremony of annual territorial lustration. That ceremony was linked to the increase of solar activity in midspring and therefore also included the parallel magical stimulation of the sun’s course. Gradually, that primitive magic ritual would have been elaborated in a more complex seasonal ceremony of stimulation of the generative solar power of the Great Mother-Goddess with the help of a young male ram-god and was eventually transformed nto a celebration of the sacred marriage between the Great Mother-Goddess and a young beautiful divine shepherd. In the process of the formation of polis, the festival became a more social celebration, which served to secure the city-state’s secure existence under the protection of Hermes Kriophoros.

ДРЕВНИЕ САКРАЛЬНЫЕ СМЫСЛЫ ОБРАЗА ХВОЙНОГО ДЕРЕВА (ЕЛЬ, СОСНА) В ТВЕРСКОЙ ТРАДИЦИОННОЙ КУЛЬТУРЕ

The article is devoted to comprehension of ritual and magic role of coniferous tree (spruce, pine) in traditional national culture and is based on materials of a long-term (2000–2019) folklore and ethnographic expeditionary survey of villages of Tver region made by teachers and students of the State Academy of Slavic Culture (nowadays — Russian State University named after A. N. Kosygin). In addition to expedition materials, the work includes identified folklore and ethnographic archival records and publications of past years, related to the evidence of the coniferous tree's sacral meanings and reflecting the ritual tradition of not only Tver land, but also of territories associated with it. In Tver folk culture there is often a ritual synonymy of spruce and pine, which manifests itself both in attributive and in verbal terms. The logic of this article is primarily associated with Tver traditional calendar and agrarian complex, in which the spruce (pine) tree acts as a mythopoetically saturated ritual attribute of calendar rites and holidays. In addition, folklore and ethnographic evidence of the ritual and symbolic role of spruce (pine) in family and household rituals (wedding, maternity, recruiting) has been introduced. Thus, the material is built so that the archaic sacral meanings of the image of spruce (pine) in the ritual zone of Tver traditional culture are revealed, first of all, taking into account the North Russian dialect vocabulary connected with words "yel' ", "yelina", "yolka", "sosna" аnd their dialect meanings, аnd secondly, with the involvement of local ethnographical samples of traditional folk architecture and applied arts such as embroidery, weaving, wood carving and painting, which have preserved in a more or less evident form the sacred character of the depicted coniferous tree.

Field evidence for two paths to cross-cultural competence: implications for cultural dynamics.

Interaction between members of culturally distinct (ethnic) groups is an important driver of the evolutionary dynamics of human culture, yet relevant mechanisms remain underexplored. For example, cultural loss resulting from integration with culturally distinct immigrants or colonial majority populations remains a topic whose political salience exceeds our understanding of mechanisms that may drive or impede it. For such dynamics, one mediating factor is the ability to interact successfully across cultural boundaries (cross-cultural competence). However, measurement difficulties often hinder its investigation. Here, simple field methods in a uniquely suited Amazonian population and Bayesian item-response theory models are used to derive the first experience-level measure of cross-cultural competence, as well as evidence for two developmental paths: cross-cultural competence may emerge as a side effect of adopting out-group cultural norms, or it may be acquired while maintaining in-group norms. Ethnographic evidence suggests that the path taken is a likely consequence of power differences in inter- vs intra-group interaction. The former path, paralleling language extinction, may lead to cultural loss; the latter to cultural sustainability. Recognition of such path-dependent effects is vital to theory of cultural dynamics in humans and perhaps other species, and to effective policy promoting cultural diversity and constructive inter-ethnic interaction.

Multiple Vulnerabilities in Medical Settings: Invisible Suffering of Doctors

While there is a substantive amount of literature on vulnerability of different kinds of patients in different settings, medical professionals are usually considered as the ones who possess power and gain a privileged position. In this paper, we aim to demonstrate that in a certain context physicians—a social group which is usually referred to as “powerful”—consider themselves vulnerable, and this positioning may influence patients in turn. This perspective highlights the complexity of interactions within medical organizations and contributes to the studies of sensitive topics and vulnerable groups. We conceptualize vulnerability of doctors and discuss what can be problematic in powerful doctors’ position. We describe some features of the post-Soviet context of Russian healthcare system and maternity care, both of which can be conceptualized as a hybrid of legacy of Soviet paternalism and new neoliberal reforms, managerialism and marketization. Empirical research is based on the ethnographic evidence from the study of a Russian perinatal center. In this article, we explore specific “existential” and “moral” vulnerabilities of medical professionals who routinely have to cope with multiple challenges, such as complicated clinical tasks, rigid control of different state bodies and emotional responses of suffering patients. We argue that there is a bond between the vulnerability of doctors and that of patients, whose position becomes more problematic as professionals become more vulnerable. At the end, we discuss methodological and theoretical implications of our research.

Acculturation of non-native English-speaking teachers in accounting: an ethnographic study

PurposeThis paper aims to examine ethnographic evidence on the acculturation of non-native English-speaking teachers in accounting (ANNESTs) in an Australian university to understand the process, strategies and outcomes of the acculturation process.Design/methodology/approachEthnographies of five ANNESTs representing diverse cultural backgrounds were studied. Data were collected from publicly available sources and informal discussions supplemented by semi-structured interviews.FindingsThe findings show that integration – that is, learning and participating in the Australian host culture while maintaining original cultural values – is the most popular acculturation strategy, followed by assimilation, whereby ANNESTs interact primarily with the host culture and retain loose links with their original culture. ANNESTs covered in this study fall into different stages of the acculturation process depending on their English language competency, the extent of contact with native Australians, cultural proximity and length of residence in Australia.Practical implicationsThis paper concludes that challenges of acculturation confronting ANNESTs concern broader cultural issues than language proficiency alone. Institutional support directed at enhancing teaching effectiveness of ANNESTs should be devised from this perspective.Originality/valueGiven the cultural relevance of accounting systems and the influence of culture on the learning and teaching styles of ANNEST, the study illuminates that ANNEST’s acculturation strategies could facilitate or hinder the ANNEST’s speed of cultural understanding necessary to productively engage in the learning and teaching.

‘Womb for Rent’: Socio-Cultural Implications of Reproductive Tourism in India

Background
 Commercial surrogacy in India has become an increasingly controversial human rights and global health issue. Indian women living in dire poverty are the most vulnerable group in this transnational phenomenon. Reproductive tourism can be defined as the process whereby affluent people predominately from Global North countries (i.e., Canada) seek assisted reproduction in the Global South (in this case, India), to accomplish fertility and kinship formation goals while remaining oblivious to the inevitable social issues associated with this international trade.
 Objective
 This paper investigates how the media and academic anthropological research present current understandings of biotechnology, family, and kinship regarding commercial surrogacy. I argue that reproductive tourism is a multifaceted social issue with significant socio-cultural implications for kinship in India and the Global North, by being rooted in a gendered division of labour, culturally-specific belief systems, technological advancement, race and class stratification, capitalist structures, and globalization.
 Methods
 Although reproductive tourism is indeed interdisciplinary in nature, this project explicitly took an anthropological and global health approach to understanding its impacts on kinship in local and global communities. With regards to researcher positionality, I played an outsider role in understanding Indian women and the cultural context in India. I critically and reflexively analyzed diverse media sources that offered insights on reproductive tourism in India within the domains outlined in my thesis statement. These media sources were found online, and included mainstream media outlets, news articles, articles by journalists and social activists, websites for organizations of interest, corporate sources, blogs, videos, documentaries, and images. I used scholarly articles in anthropology as ethnographic evidence to support, challenge, or extend claims reported by the media. Academic sources included peer-reviewed publications, books, open access materials, grey literature, academic websites, and legal documents. I qualitatively compared and contrasted the presented narratives to conduct a secondary analysis of scholarly literature and media reports, and constructed valid arguments about the current state of reproductive tourism in India.
 Results
 The commodification of reproductive labour has had vast impacts on the cultural meanings of kinship in India and Global North countries. Reproductive tourism in India is evidence that culture influences biological, reproductive, and technological processes and how they are perceived in contemporary times. Technology and globalization were found to be propellers of commercial surrogacy that transcend international borders. Expectations related to family formation and gender within Western contexts, and Western forms of kinship contribute to the commercial surrogacy industry. Reproductive tourism perpetuates hierarchies along the lines of race and class, and Indian women face exploitation and serious health risks despite being paid for their reproductive labour.
 Conclusion
 Transnational surrogacy must be perceived by governments as a public matter rather than a private one, in order to adequately derive holistic solutions to halt the exploitation of vulnerable Indian women while balancing the desire of infertile individuals to utilize surrogacy as a means of kinship formation.
 Update
 This research paper was written in March 2018. As of December 2018, commercial surrogacy is illegal in India. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2018 is an attempt by the Indian government to control the industry and associated issues such as the exploitation of poor women and unprecedented health consequences. This law and policy shift by the Indian government affirms the importance of this research.