DBHS Social Anthropology 2009-10

Week of April 25

2011-04-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

4/25/11
1. Group work:
Compare & contrast belief systems and practice between two groups in the same society.
2. Promethean Board Amish review
3. collect essays (both drafts)
4. Homework: bring ethnographies for Wednesday & Thursday for independent study and consultation.

4/26/11
Work on ethnographies

4/27-28/11
Work on ethnographies

5/29/11
1. Ethnography report presentation
2. Collect ethnographies
3. Mexican food fiesta

Book Review Rubric

2011-04-06T09:29:00.001-07:00

Content (75)
Summary
Critical Assessment
Personal Recommendation
Writing Mechanics (25)
Grammar
Punctuation
Spelling

Shadowbook

2011-02-15T11:52:00.001-08:00

http://www.shadowlivesusa.org/shadowbook.pdf

Frese, Moore, & Freidl Objectives

2011-01-31T10:10:00.000-08:00

Objectives

1. To connect rituals and symbols to behavior
2. To describe and analyze gender roles in 6 societies
3. To connect rituals & symbols to ideological beliefs
4. To understand how kinship organizes society

Gangs, Modernization, and Globalization

2010-04-30T07:22:00.000-07:00

Gangs, Poverty, Modernization, and Globalization
• Colonial powers (rich and powerful countries of Europe) exploited Africa, South America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, parts of the Far East.
• When colonized countries gained independence, they were left destitute and in debt.
• After World War II, the U.S. will emerge as a major power because of the atomic
bomb and its willingness to use it.
• With much of Europe bombed during WWII, the U.S. also emerges as the
industrialized power of the world. Thus, U.S. factories begin to export to all parts
of the world. (Remember that the nature of capitalization is the constant search
for new markets. The U.S. did not help rebuild Europe and Japan post-WWII for
humanitarian reasons.) In the U.S., jobs become plentiful, the economy booms,
life is good!!
• Other countries will soon begin rebuilding factories and soon compete with the
U.S.
• With competition becoming more intense, U.S. corporations begin to look for
ways to cut costs. One way is for U.S. corporations to build factories in the developing
world, taking advantage of cheap labor, cheap land, and low safety
requirements.
• Companies begin moving out of U.S. While corporation make profits (stock
market prices increase), many lower and middle class Americans begin to lose
their factory jobs. The U.S. is increasingly becoming a service economy rather
than a manufacturing economy. This has created more poverty in the U.S.
• What does all this have to do with gangs? Two things: (1) gangs emerge from
poverty. Some gang members refuse to do deskilled, low pay jobs, when they can
go into the "underground economy" and make big $$ selling drugs. The problem
is that they pay a big price as the underground is full of violent, ruthless
characters where the most violent rule. Individuals don't last long in this type of
environment - they need the gang's support and protection. The police certainly
aren't going to protect anyone in the underground. There is also a racial
component because African-Americans and other people of color have
historically been discriminated against. Remember, the U.S. had slaves for
almost 400 years. There are still vestiges of slavery in the form of segregated
neighborhoods. This was one of Bourgois's arguments in "Crack in Spanish
Harlem,” an article excerpted from In Search of Respect, where gang members refused "to sling a mop for the white man." (2) Because of the ongoing poverty and inequality throughout the world, immigrants try to escape their country's poverty and come to America to pursue "the American Dream," a kind of mythical representation that became popular after WWII when most middle-class Americans became homeowners. This migration of the poor, especially the children of these immigrants, end up in these poor neighborhood—a breeding ground for the "underground economy." This is not to say that poor people join gangs; most do not. This is to say that inequalities both on a global and national level create an environment that is conducive for the formation of gangs.
• How does modernization play into this? As high tech machines further contribute to deskilling jobs, workers become more expendable. McDonalds is a revolving door of employees as it takes a short time to train someone how to push buttons. Therefore, these jobs are able to maintain low wages. Deskilled jobs such as these contribute to the overall poverty rates worldwide.

Week of May 3

2010-04-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

May 3
1. collect essays
2. fill in Friedl cloze on Promethean
3. vocab. bingo
4. Ethno. presentations

May 4
1. Ethno presentations

May 5
Independent study

May 6
IB test

May 7
Food Inc.

Study notes

2010-04-27T13:42:00.000-07:00

Amish vs. UI’s Kinship Structures
Amish
§ Stable Kinship
§ Family is united. They often live in the same house with extended families.
§ Amish avoid socializing with people outside the Amish community.
§ Amish do not want children to receive higher education (not motivated by education= less family fragmentation).
§ Amish children have a closer relationship to parents.
§ Amish must marry within the community.
§ Amish women work at home.
§ Anabaptist
§ Patriarchy not machismo/bravado (violates Gelassenheit)
§ Women not objectified
§ All family lives in same community
UI’s (in Shadowed Lives)
§ Unstable kinship
§ Family is often fragmented with family members living in different countries.
§ UI’s socialize with others. Example: Mexicans often marry Central Americans.
§ UI’s want their children to receive higher education (family fragmentation because of child education- English, US habits, and not as tied to Mexican culture).
§ UI’s have a weaker relationship to parents.
§ UI’s can marry outside their community.
§ UI women typically find work outside the home.
§ Typically Catholic
§ Patriarchy based on machismo/bravado
§ Women objectified
§ Domestic groups (men, women) binational/transnational, etc.
Both
§ Patriarchal
§ Communal
§ Christian
§ Social capital available
§ Family is a priority
§ Women responsible for child rearing
§ Divorces are looked down upon

--------------------------------
Group Work/Presentations:
The Themes of Belief Systems and Practices in Leo Chavez’s Shadowed Lives

I.Compare and contrast the belief systems of undocumented immigrants and San Diegans.

-Similarites
1. Patriarchal Societies

2. Both have inaccurate information about each other. (They are two parallel trains
that never meet.)

3. Both believe in the Protestant Work Ethic, which is when hardwork will provide
For material goods, which shows a sign of favor with God.

-Differences
1. San Diego is a secular society while Mexico is a predominantly Catholic one.
Americans tend to compartementalize religion, while Mexicans incorporate it.

The main religion of Mexico is Catholicism and it is heavily practiced. However,
in the melting pot of America, there are numerous religions even though
Christianity is the dominate one. However, Americans tend to compartmentalize
religion. In Latin American countries religion is a part of everyday life (know this
from experience). Thus, undocumented immigrants make their religion, Catholicism,a priority. For example, even when away from home undocumented immigrants livingat Green Valley attended church services offered by a local Catholic priest at a specific location close by (page 109). Practicing this continuous ritual when found in another country and in extenuating situations demonstrates how important undocumented Mexican immigrants consider their religion to be.

2. San Diegans have a sense of entitlement while undocumented immigrants are cognizant that they have to work for everything.

3. San Diego is less patriarchal than Mexico. Thus this provide for a division of labor between undocumented immigrants as determined by their gender.

As depicted in various instances in the ethnography Mexican men seemed to dominate women. For instance, Chavez stated that single mothers or divorced women in Mexico often migrated to the United States because they were looked down upon in Mexico (page 34). Mexican society made “harsh judgments” on “abandoned women”, so migrating to America would allow these women to escape the pressures of Mexican society. In the United States, single mothers or divorced women are, one can say, are to an extent looked down upon, however society’s pressures concerning aren’t as strong as they are in Latin American countries where the idea of male dominance also known as machismo exists.

4. San Diegans value the nuclear family while undocumented immigrants from Mexico are taught the value of extended family.

5. San Diego is a society that has low context culture causing it to be self-oriented, individualistic, and fragmented. In contrast, undocumented immigrants come from a high cultural context, causing them to be more communal, dependent, and close knit.

II.What myths do San Diegans hold about undocumented immigrants?

The myths that San Diegans hold about undocumented immigrants reflect the negative stereotypes and preconceived notions that arise from a lack of communication with “others”, or marginalized foreigners. San Diegans believe that undocumented immigrants are drunks, killers, thieves etc. who carry deadly diseases, urinate in public, harass women, and diminish the quality of life as a whole. The San Diegan Police Department is particularly concerned about Mexican undocumented immigrants’ violent crimes; and one San Diegan even cited an illegal alien as a reason for his child’s possible rejection from a college due to bilingual requirements. This exaggeration and the San Diegan’s generalizations paint undocumented immigrants in a negative light. They stress the undocumented immigrants’ place on the fringes of San Diegan society, despite some positive views by San Diegan employers, who view illegal workers as hard-working and dependable.

1. Undocumented immigrants are the reason crime rates rise.

As Chavez discusses, in areas where there a heavy populations of undocumented immigrants, crime rates rise because of the crimes committed to them. They are vulnerable targets because they avoid police since they do not have any papers and might get deported. Also, many of them hold large amounts of money in efforts to avoid involvement with the banking system. Knowing this teenagers and cholos, harass and rob undocumented immigrants. As described by Chavez, some teenagers mindset reflects to that of “let’s shoot some aliens.”

2. Undocumented immigrants come to the United States to take advantage of welfare programs.

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible to receive any federal aid. Most avoid ever having to use welfare. Most are determined to live by their own means. Often children born in the United States receive welfare. However, that is generally avoided unless the child has health problems that is too costly to treat. For example, Chavez describes in chapter eight the case of Angelina Ortega who receives government aid for her daughter who is an American citizen and suffers from cerebral palsy. She states that it was a “sacrifice” to receive federal aid because she was not used to getting money given to her, she was always taught to earn it. This reflects the opinion of most Mexicans with regard to receiving welfare benefits. It really is only done if necessary.

3. Undocumented immigrants are uneducated and thus the reason they work in farming or construction or other fields requiring no prior certification.

This is a great misconception. Some undocumented immigrants are educated
in their home countries. Some are even doctors and lawyers. However, their inability to find jobs in Mexico causes them to move to the United States and work illegally on farms or at construction sites. For instance, in chapter eight Chavez how an accountant in Mexico ended up working in construction after he moved to the United States.

III.What myths do undocumented immigrants hold about San Diegans?

1. All San Diegans are rich. Their streets are paved of gold.

This is an incorrect judgment. The San Diegans presented in Chavez’s
ethnography are participants of the middle and high classes. However, because the lower class of San Diegan society isn’t discussed doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. It just hasn’t been acknowledged. All San Diegans are not rich, even though they are for the most part better off than the undocumented immigrants.

-----------------------------------
Belief Systems

Amish
Gelassenheit: acting with humility, simplicity and submission.
Ordnung: ordained unwritten rules that the Amish live by.
Isolation, separation from world to avoid temptations (in the world, not of it, technology).
Community ties and mutual aid: barn raisings.
Meidung: shunning and excommunication.
Protestant worl ethic.
Slow pace of life: buggies.
Limited and controlled use of technology.
Endogamy: allows for close knit communities.
Patriarchal

Undocumented Immigrants
Protestant work ethic.
Patriarchal, machismo.
Work to sustain family.
America:land of dreams, paradise, American dream.
Close kinship ties: bring families over the border.
Work and education: youngsters help to support family and relieve economic pressure.
Core Belief: America will offer better place; job, safety and opportunity.

Rituals, Rites of Passage, and Practices

AMISH→

Rumspringa:
• Choose whether to become Amish or join the mainstream.
• Begins at end of young scholar years. (age 16)
• Marks the beginning of courtship.
• Liminal state-> they aren’t 100% sure of what they want to do.

Baptism:
• Being accepted into Amish(church).
• Acquire new responsibilities- church can hold them accountable for their actions.
• Fully committed to God and his law.
• Classes must be taken in preparation to become baptized.
-They are asked a few questions in front of the congregation.
• It is a life-long commitment and increases status.

Marriage:
• Increases status.
• Can have children and therefore have authority over them.
• Change in appearance:
-Men grow out their beards
-Women wear black aprons in church services.
• Marriages are always held in November, during the harvest. (Tues/Thurs)
• Neighbors in church districts contribute to foods.
-Decorate very sparingly, not lavishly.

Church (rituals):
• Every other Sunday.
• Someone in the congregation preaches; not pre-planned.
• Starts early in the morning
-3 hour service
-afterwards day is spent socializing
• Not a physical church, it changes from house to house.
• No music, except for acapella chants/hymns.
• People are separated by gender.

SHADOWED LIVES→

Rites of Passage:
• Begin work at age of fourteen.
• Quinceañera.
• Incorporation/ assimilation
• Legalization (gain legal status)

Rituals (any activity with high degree of formality):
• Crossing the border.
• Singing songs with the domestic groups.
• Pursuing the American dream. (certain actions take to pursue this dream)
• Searching for jobs

Practices:
• Working everyday.
• Send money back home.
• Learning English.
• Maintaining tradition.
• Looking for work.
• Going to church every Sunday.
• Finding a home.

Cultural Change in the Late 20th Century [of the Amish & UIs]

-Similarities

1) The language has changed for both in that more Amish and UIs are using English rather than their traditional Pennsylvania Dutch and Spanish.

2) Children have become more Americanized.

-Young UIs are becoming more interested in their education than their culture.

-Young Amish are beoming more frivolous during their rumspringa days.

3) Both have turned to work in factories (maquiladoras for UIs) and/or shops instead of the traditional farmwork.

-Differences

1) UI families have become more fragmented since fathers/husbands or mothers/wives move to America to try and make money to send back to their families.

2) In the Amish, a class system is beginning to develop as Amish shop owners gain more wealth. This goes against their value of being equal (egalitarian).

3) The Amish are becoming more technological in that they use electricity in their businesses sometimes (which goes against the Ordnung)

Another example: Cell phone use has become more prominent amongst the Amish teens who are in their rumspringa days.

4) Tourism has developed a lot more among the Amish resulting in increased land prices, which is one factor that leads to their having to migrate elsewhere. The other factor is that their population is growing at an exponential rate, forcing them to have to move as well.

5) For UIs, quincineras are still held traditionally, but have changed slightly in that they have to be celebrated in migrant camps.

Life and Debt, a film on globalization and neocolonialism

2010-04-24T08:57:00.000-07:00

http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/24608532

Ethnographer/Author Review

2010-04-21T10:17:00.000-07:00

Ethnography Review

Pamela Frese-- “The Union of Nature and Culture: Gender Symbolism in the American Wedding Ritual” 1990s

Claire Sterk--"Fieldwork on Prostitution in the Era of AIDS" (from Tricking and Tripping)
1980s

George Gmelch--“Lessons from the Field” 1970s

Jack Weatherford--“Cocaine and the Deterioration of Bolivia” 1980s

Philippe Bourgois--In Search of Respect 1980s

Nancy Scheper-Hughes--Death without Weeping 1980s

Ernestine Friedl--“Society and Sex Roles” 1970s

Donald Kraybill--The Riddle of Amish Culture 1980s-1990s

Leo Chavez--Shadowed Lives 1980s

Michel Foucault--Power produces power

Irving Zola--Medicalization

Week of Apr. 26-30

2010-04-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

Apr. 26
1. Smart board review of authors and ethnographies.
2. Review--Discussion & presentation of group work.

Apr. 27
group presentations

Apr. 28-29
1. Go over paper 2
2. Review historical context of ethnographies.
3. definition of terms
4. using film references
5. Cloze paragraph for Friedl article

Apr. 30
1. Continued review of anthropological concepts and principles.
2. proofread ethnographies
3. ethnography questions

Week of April 19

2010-04-15T10:38:00.000-07:00

April 19
1. Artists presentation (Block 4)
2. Cocaine and the Deterioration of Bolivia seminar
3. Review IB test Criteria
4. Collect Bolivian groups

April 20
1. Film: Coca Mama
2. Film discussion seminar
3. Review IB test Criteria
4. Presentations

Apr. 21
1. Warm-up: Review Amish (2 handouts)
2. Multicultural Fair (Block 4)
3. Block 3--Independent Ethnography Study
4. Seminar "Coca Mama"
5. For tomorrow, bring IB Syllabus

Apr. 22
Amish small group review
Compare the Amish with UIs in terms of

kinship structures
belief systems
gender roles
identity
migration
social class
rituals, rites of passage, marriage practices
cultural change in late 2oth century
rites of passage
social conflict
effects of globalization
effects of urbanization, modernization, and industrialization

Apr. 23
Paper 2 practice test.

Week of April 12

2010-04-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

April 12
1. Discuss Venn-Diagrams (Similarity of reviews)
2. Review Epilogue quiz
3. SL Review questions: b thru e
4. Homework:
a. Type final compilations of SL IB themes.
b. Read half of "Cocaine and the Deterioration of Bolivia"

April 13
1. Finish question presentations
2. Read 2nd half of "Cocaine and the Deterioration of Bolivia"
3. Artists presentation
4. Google Earth Bolivia sites
5. Study for "Cocaine and Deterioration of Bolivia" quiz.

April 14
1. Gamers
2. From article list groups of people and how cocaine demand affected them.
3. Artists presentation
4. Collect place charts.

April 15
1. finish question & class presentations
2. Discussion "Cocaine and the Deterioration of Bolivia"
3. Bolivian Bingo
4. Independent work (Bring ethnographies and directions)
5. Homework: study for quiz

April 16
Independent ethno work

x

Week of April 6

2010-03-25T05:21:00.001-07:00

4/6/10
Relating SL to IB themes
Each group is responsible for sending me a copy of their written presentation.

In groups, address the following:
a. Economic Systems
1. What economic structures encouraged migration to the US?
2. Explain the processes UIs traverse in order to adapt economically to life in San Diego. 3. Address the superstructure that governs their lives.
b. Political Systems and Issues of Power
1. What forms (implicit and explicit) of social control governed UIs living in San Diego?
2. How did national and local legislation affect the lives of UIs?
c. Societies and Cultures in Conflict
1. Explain the areas of conflict between the UIs and San Diegans.
d. Kinship Practices
1. Outline the various ways in which UIs formed kinship groups.
2. How did migration change the way in which UI formed kinship groups?
e. Belief Systems and Practices
1. Compare and contrast belief systems of UIs and San Diegans.
2. What myths do San Diegans hold about UIs?
3. What myths do UI's hold about San Diegans?

4/7/10
Finish group work & proofread

4/8/10
1. Review semester exams
2. Epilogue seminar & quiz
3. Work on group presentations.
4. Homework: Read reviews & Venn diagram similarities & differences.

4/9/10
1. Group presentations of SL IB themes
2. Review Epilogue quiz
3. Finish reading SL reviews and complete Venn Diagrams
4. Homework: finish Venn Diagrams

Ethnography Directions

2010-03-25T04:27:00.000-07:00

Ethnography Directions

INDIVIDUAL ETHNOGRAPHIES
Double space type a 4-5 page report listing the following:

1. Intro. gives name of group, author, when it was written, location, time frame of study, methods, and particular themes studied.

2. Give general summary of study. Determine the author's purpose and what s/he found.

3. Look for themes from you IB syllabus, e.g. what kind of society (agricultural, hunter/gatherer, etc.) What are the rites of passage? Who has the power? What are the gender issues? How are people stratified? What are the social structures (institutions)? Latent and manifest functions of group behavior? What are the symbols? What are the belief systems (religion)? Choose enough of these topics to cover 4-5 pages. Details of themes are below.

4. How can your ethnography relate to themes or groups studied in class?

5. On the last paragraph, provide your personal evaluation and if you would recommend it.

6. These are due the last school day of April.

Ethnography Report
Name and author of ethnography
Ethnographic present (time frame)
Location
Historical Context
Methods
Focus

Analyze the society in terms of the following:

Authority and power
1. power or authority
2. wealth, status, prestige
3. formal and informal political processes
4. social control (formal and informal)
5. stratification in terms of class, caste, ethnicity, age, or gender
6. dominant ideology (What beliefs do people adhere to even though there is little evidence that this is a truth?
7. Who resists domination?
8. How does the society view war and violence?
9. How do they deal with conflict?

Adaptation and Economic Organization
1. How do they adapt to environment in order to survive?
2. Division of labor
3. Who gets what resources? What are systems of reciprocity?
4. What are the systems of production? How do they get food, water, shelter? Are they agrarian, horticultural, pastoral, or industrial?
5. Patterns of consumption?

Kinship and Organizing Principles
1. rules of descent
2. marriage & family practices
3. childrearing practices
4. How is property transferred?

Individuals & Society
1. systems of socialization (enculturation)
2. How do people claim their identity?
3. How do they deal with old age and death?

Belief Systems and Practices
1. religious/spiritual beliefs
2. myths
3. rites of passage
4. rituals

Moral Systems
1. What do they consider good or evil, pure or impure, taboo, honorable or shameful?

Cognitive Systems
1. language
2. symbols
3. art
4. How do they view health and illness?

Processes of Change
1. What causes their culture to change?
2. What effect has modernization and development had?
3. How has globalization affected their society?

2010-03-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

for the power point on the errors on the Internal Assessment.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/1b1a79

1. just go onto this website and scroll down to download the power point

Week of March 22

2010-03-13T07:22:00.000-08:00

3/22/10
1. Block 4 presentation (Justin)
2. Ch. 10 Seminar & quiz
3. Silent Reading: Epilogue
4. Homework: finish Epilogue

3/23/10
1. Review SL

3/24-25/10 EXAMS
Directions for individual ethnographies
Homework: Work on individual ethnographies

Ch. 7 questions

2010-03-08T11:23:00.000-08:00

Ch. 7 Critical Questions

1. Define the following: transnational families; binational families

2. How do actors form social groups? (social organization)

3. Why is migration seen as a social process?

Medicalization

2010-03-05T09:02:00.000-08:00

http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/tsph/health/society/medicalisation.html

Week of Mar. 15

2010-03-05T08:10:00.001-08:00

3/15/10
1. Powerpoint to review IA errors

3/16/10
1. Correcting Internal Assessments

3/17/10
1. Review Ch. 7 quiz
2. Homework: Review Ch. 8
3. Block 1 (Podcast)
4. finish conferences

3/18/10
1. Mexican food
2. Ch. 8 seminar and quiz
3. finish presentations
4. Homework: Read Ch. 9

3/19/10
1. Collect Internal Assessments (must have 3 stapled copies paper clipped together.
Counts as written portion of semester exam.
2. Ch. 8 quiz
3. Ch. 9 seminar
4. Presentation (Block 3) (distribute SL summary)
5. Homework: Read Ch. 10

Week of Mar. 8

2010-03-05T08:09:00.000-08:00

3/8/10
1. Collect Internal Assessments
2. Group presentations
3. Medicalization seminar
4. Homework: Ch. 7 questions

3/9/10
1. Ch. 7 questions & quiz
2. Presentations
3. Homework: Ch. 8 (1/2)

3/10/10
1. Ch. 7 discussion
2. Homework: Ch. 8 (second 1/2)
3. Finish presentations

3/11/10
1. presentations
2. Finish "City of Factories"
3. Homework: Review Ch. 8

3/12/10
1. Ch. 8 discussion & quiz
2. finish presentations
3. websites showing border surveillance
4. podcast
5. Homework: Read Ch. 9

Week of March 1

2010-02-25T08:46:00.000-08:00

3/1/10
1. makeup tests
2. independent group work

3/2/10
1. Make up tests
2. Ch. 5 quiz
3. Review Ch. 6 critical questions
4. Homework: read 1/2 of Chapter 7

3/3/10
1. Outline Final Thoughts Ch. 6
2. Review practice tests
3. Review quiz 5
4. Finish critical questions
5. Social Anthropology notebook check
6. Homework: Ch. 7

3/4/10
1. Ch. 6 quiz
2. Introduce Maquilapolis
3. Homework: finishing touches on IAs

3/5/10
1. Proofread Internal Assessments
2. Review quiz on Zola, Moore, & Foucault
3. Review quiz 6
4. Homework: Print out and read "Medicalisation" web site; prepare group presentations

Week of Feb. 22

2010-02-18T07:35:00.000-08:00

2/22/10
Note: Internal Assessments due March 5th!!
1. Warm-up: List conditions of UI camp life.
2. Powerpoint on migrant living conditions (Researchers)
3. Homework: Read half Ch. 5

2/23/10
1. Group work:
A. Prepare a mock debate between Lou Dobbs (or any anti-immigrant proponent) and Leo Chavez. You may role-play characters and have audience participation by having audience prepare questions for debaters. You will also need a moderator. (5 people= 2 debaters, 1 moderator, and 1 researcher on each side to assist debater with facts.)

B. Prepare a report on current border crossing conditions including death rates. (2 students)

C. Summarize current immigration laws. Focus on how laws have changed since 9/11. (2 students)

D. Research migrant camps in South Florida. Prepare report along with pictures. (2 students)

E. Make a powerpoint pictorial presentation of Mexican migrant camp living conditions. (2 students)

The rest of the class will be reporting on their interviews of UIs.

2. Homework: Finish Ch. 5

2/24/10
1. Ch. 5 quiz
2. Ch. 5 Seminar
3. IA tip on developing paragraphs.
4. Read 1/2 of Ch. 6

*Announce creation of new diversity and tolerance club

2/25/10
1. Paper 1 practice test
2. Finish Ch. 6--pay particular attention to "Final Thoughts."

2/26/10
Substitute=Independent Work
Chapter 6 Critical Questions:
1. Highlight difficulties of culture/class class of San Diegans and Mexicans.
2. How does an affluent complex society create a need for low wage workers?
3. Concerning the clash between San Diegans and UIs, Chavez writes "...they were like two trains passing each other on parallel tracks, completely missing each other's viewpoint." Explain what you think he means.
4. Compare the situation between San Diegans and UIs with another group you have studied.
5. Anthropologist Henrietta L. Moore summarizes that muted groups "...are silenced by the structures of dominance, and if they wish to express themselves they are forced to do so through the dominant modes of expression, the dominant ideologies..." Explain her meaning and give examples.
6. Michel Foucault states, "...power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth." Explain what you think he meant. Give specific examples of how language produces power.
7. What does Irving Zola mean by the term "medicalization"? How did this process encourage the dismantling of Green Valley? Give some examples of other situations/diseases (not mentioned in class) that have become medicalized.

Correcting IA Problems

2010-02-18T07:14:00.000-08:00

Students, below I am going to provide an example of a good paragraph and its flaws.

To begin, the photograph was decontextualized. Without observing movement, vocals, or social interactions, I could only objectively comment on the social actors' appearance. However, I could have mentioned about body language from what appeared in the picture. For example, I could have pointed out how the men generally had their legs more spread out than the women.

This is a solid paragraph in that that writer provides evidence of the methodological problems of viewing photographs. What she doesn't do is explicitly state that this is a methodological problem. The second flaw is that she provides an example, but does not include discussion. Remember in the rubric where it states "There is no/some discussion," OR ". . . has not fully developed the discussion." Below is a much better paragraph:

First, I failed to acknowledge the methodological limitations inherent in observing a photograph, which are decontextualized cultural artifacts. Without observing movement, vocals, or social interactions, I could merely comment on the social actors' appearance. I could have also mentioned the actors' body language. For example, I could have pointed out how the men tend to spread their legs more than women. Here I could have invoked the work of sociologist Barrie Thorne who, in her study of mixed gendered school playgrounds, argued that boys tend to take up more space than boys.

Now I have addressed methodological issues and established an example AND a discussion.

Internal Assessment Critiques

2010-02-16T11:27:00.000-08:00

http://www.2shared.com/file/11433267/3e19f83c/Internal_Assessment_suggestion.html

To upload Internal Assessment Powerpoint scroll down to bottom right corner and click "click here."

Shadowbook

2010-02-12T20:04:00.001-08:00

http://www.shadowlivesusa.org/shadowbook.pdf

Week of Feb. 16

2010-02-12T11:16:00.000-08:00

2/16/10
1. Review problems with critiques
2. Ch. 2 quiz
3. Using a T-Chart distinguish between the following motivations for immigration:
a. male and female
b. Mexicans and Central Americans
4. Homework: Ch. 3

2/17/10
1. pics of border crossings
2. make 2 critical questions for Ch. 3
3. Review Ch. 2 quiz
4. Homework: Finish Ch. 3

2/18/10
1. Guest speaker: Ms. Molano
2. Review Ch. 2 quiz
3. be thinking about interviewing an UI
4. Ch. 3 quiz
5. Homework: Read Ch. 4

2/19/10
1. independent work on Internal Assessments or independent ethnography

Medicalization

2010-02-05T09:17:00.001-08:00

Medicalization
Students, this article explains the processes of the medicalization of society.

http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/tsph/health/society/medicalisation.htm

Shadowed Lives vocabulary and themes

2010-02-05T09:03:00.000-08:00

Vocabulary for Shadowed Lives
acculturation
Antonio Gramsci
assimilation
hegemony
incorporation
liminality (Arnold van Gennep)
maquiladoras
medicalization (Irving Zola)
Michel Foucault (power produces reality, knowledge, & language)
migration
muted groups (Edwin Ardener)
othering
transnationalism
xenophobia

Themes
modernity and globalization
economic systems
migration patterns
global and local
othering
accommodation and resistance
issues of identity
taboos and suffering
ethics and justice
family, household, and fictive kin
stereotypes
adaptation
division of labor
subsistence
colonization and neo-colonization
muted groups

Week of Feb. 8

2010-02-04T09:18:00.000-08:00

2/8/10
1. proofread critiques
2. vocabulary and themes for Shadowed Lives (from web site)
3. Homework: Review Preface and revise essays

2/9/10
1. collect reports and critiques
2. Critical questions:
a. Why do you think Leo Chavez is interested in this topic?
b. Why do you think many Americans have a negative view of Mexican immigrants?
c. Why did Chavez choose San Diego?
e. How does Chavez acknowledge his bias?
3. Homework: Silent Reading, introduction

2/10/10
1. SL quiz 1
2. Seminar to page 14
3. Introduce "The Workers" (pre-film discussion)

2/11/10
1. Make up 3 questions for Ms. Molano
2. Quiz 1 review
3. Introduce "The Workers"
4. Homework: Read Ch. 1
5. Essential question: What is the relationship between San Diegans and UIs?

2/12/10
1. Seminar on "The Workers"
2. "What you think you know" questionnaire
3. Ch. 1 Critical Question: How would you describe the relationship between San Diegans and Mexican UIs?
4. Homework: Ch. 2

Race: http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm

2010-01-30T13:04:00.000-08:00

http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm

Origins of the Family

2010-01-30T09:34:00.000-08:00

Students, here is a link to origins of the family from a Marxian perspective.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch09.htm

Week of Feb. 1

2010-01-27T09:53:00.000-08:00

2/1/10
1. Review Frese quiz
2. Seminar on deconstruction:
a. Summarize the article in one sentence.
b. How can we apply this article to gender roles?
c. What is your critical question?

2/2/10
1. Finish "deconstruction" seminar.

2/3/10
1. Review Friedl (Block 4)
2. Review bingo (Friedl)
3. Identifying race from skin tone.
4. Visit PBS web site
5. KWL on undocumented immigrants
6. Tomorrow bring reports for individual conferences.

2/4/10
1. Review "Practice" Written Reports and Critique
2. Individual Conferences

2/5/10
1. Do analysis of wedding pictures.
2. Finish practice critiques

"Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?"

2010-01-24T08:45:00.000-08:00

http://homepages.uel.ac.uk/C.Knight/Is%20Female%20to%20Male%20as%20nature%20is%20to%20Culture.pdf

Week of Jan. 25

2010-01-21T07:59:00.000-08:00

1/25/10
0. Proofread written reports (peers)
1. Collect critical questions
2. Review written report of wedding picture.
3. Present alternative written description and analysis of wedding picture.
4. Read and highlight areas of description and analysis differentiating between the two.
5. Begin writing critique of report. (Due: Feb 8)

1/26/10
1. Collect practice written reports.
2. Identify descriptive and analytical points in Haley's article.
3. Discussion of language article.
4. Desmond Morris: Passages of Life
5. Homework: Silent Reading and homework: Friedl in Spradley

1/27/10
1. Finish Passages...
2. Silent Reading: Finish Friedl
3. Begin Friedl critical questions
4. Frese quiz on Thurs.

1/28/10
1. Frese quiz
2. Compare bulleted outlines
3. Friedl critical questions
4. New Internal Assessment deadline (Feb. 8)

1/29/10
1. Friedl seminar
2. "Society and Sex Role" quiz
3. The origin of fixed roles--a view from Derrida
4. Homework: read Shadowed Lives preface

Wedding Picture

2010-01-20T09:52:00.000-08:00

Students, visit this site for the wedding picture observation:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Wedding.smallgroup.arp.750pix.jpg

Description and Analysis model

2010-01-15T08:15:00.000-08:00

Description and Analysis model

The following is an excerpt from The Filipina-South Floridian International Internet Marriage Practice: Agency, Culture, and Paradox by Pamela Haley, 2008.

Pamela Frese points out that the symbolism involved in American wedding rituals serves as a potent social reproduction function. Encased in the ideology of romance, the bride is steered toward her future in the domestic sphere (101). This point is illustrated in the previously referenced wedding photographs. Aside from the flowers, the colors, poses, dress style, and props are worth noting as they communicate sharp contrasts between male and female wedding actors.
In Western tradition the whiteness of the bride’s dress has traditionally been associated with chastity in general and virginity in particular. The white gown and veil connect the bride to modesty and purity as well as to the white milk produced by lactating women (Frese 104). Further, a classic bridal gown, where the cut of the dress draws in toward the waist, tends to accentuate the woman’s bosom, hips and buttocks, which are considered the physical sites of fertility. The fabric is typically cut tight around the woman’s waist which draws the spectators’ eyes to the hips and breasts. This focus on women’s sexual anatomy ironically appears to contradict the white veil as a symbol of modesty; instead it emphasizes sensuality and fertility while simultaneously communicating seductiveness and chastity (reminiscent again of the Freudian Madonna-Whore Complex).
Irving Goffman also alerts us to the significance of the wedding gown. He notes that some dresses (and I think a wedding dress aptly fits into this category) function as a kind of costume, something only worn on one occasion which costs an extravagant amount when compared to the tuxedo. The traditional ornate decorations of the typical wedding gown, for example the satin, diamonds, lace, intricate embroidery, underscore the bride’s frivolous function—beautiful maybe, but unnecessary, and a person not to be taken seriously, but something to be passed from one male to the next. The essence of the dress makes for inactivity and forced dependence on others to move the bride from place to place.
Conversely, the tuxedo is more like a business suit, which the groom could conceivably wear again. It projects seriousness, with the padded shoulders, which emphasize authority (Rubinstein 51) brute force, and the pant legs which accentuate the male physique and readiness for running, fighting, and protecting. The groom’s attire, therefore, signifies doing while the bride’s attire signifies being. She is a passive object passed from her father to her husband. She is walked down the aisle by her father, passed to her future husband by her father, led out of the church by her husband, helped into the limousine by her husband, et cetera. Even at the reception, the bride’s function is to follow the lead of her husband onto the dance floor and, of course, during the dance scene. The
daughter is given in marriage and, according to ancient European tradition, will soon be led or carried to her husband’s house (Belmont qtd. in Forster and Ranum 2). Her being has now been ritualistically transferred from her father to her husband.
The blackness of the traditional tuxedo is also significant. Although black symbolizes several statuses, for men it symbolizes seriousness and a “… signature for what they have of standing, goods, mastery” (Harvey 10) and a
negation of the feminine (16). While, at least in American culture, the white dress and veil punctuate female virginity and modesty, the tuxedo signifies civility and worldliness and, thereby perpetuates the woman/nature, man/culturedichotomy. Or, as Frese contends, the groom’s garb associates him with “… public events, reflecting the male control of public time and are distinctly different from the objects used by women in the ritual sphere to symbolize ethereal, sacred nature.” (105-106)
A similar observation can be made of the quintessential ceremonial pose of the bride standing in front of the groom with her shoulder turned slightly inward toward the groom’s chest, a position in which her body is ensconced
within his body. The meaning here suggests that her body becomes engulfed into his as he symbolically assumes ownership and subsequent protection. Reflective of any typical American wedding photograph, the bride is always standing in front of the groom with her shoulder turned inward toward the groom’s chest. This pose corresponds to the typical centripetal female orientations of forces projected inward. For example, the female’s near universal segregation in the division of labor (Ember & Ember 162) is geared to activities that take place inside the home where she serves other family members. The female biological function of bearing offspring positions her role near the nurturing space of her children, the home. Conversely, male roles and activities occur outwardly or are a centrifugal force that orients him outside the home—that is the public or cultural space. For example, in modern industrialized societies the male will be socialized to be worldly, protective, and to work outside the home. In opposition, the female has traditionally been socialized to be domestic, protected, and continue to be largely responsible for most of the household duties. Generally women still cook dinner, raise the children, care for the elderly, and plan the weddings. Although today’s mainstream American women do not strictly follow the June Cleaver housewife model, there remain tenacious vestiges of women’s exclusion from public domains.
In most gendered American cultural practices, the male is expected to project his actions outwardly and the female inwardly. Uhlmann observes that men’s arms and legs tend to spread out over more space whereas women hold their limbs inward towards their bodies (151). Even the masculine way of speaking and inhabiting public space project his masculine “outwardness.” For instance, a woman who speaks loudly is typically scorned more harshly than a loud-speaking man. In the public sphere, a man can comfortably sit alone at a bar, but a woman is more likely to feel uncomfortable in that setting. The public sphere has traditionally been reserved as the masculine space, with female incursion viewed as either suspect or dangerous. Men even tend to take up more public space in sitting positions than do women. Indeed, Barrie Thorne’s 1991 study of young children suggests that males have been socialized to feel more entitled to public spaces than females. These conceptions, although never articulated, are nevertheless robustly symbolized in the picture of the bride and groom. The stance and dress of the bride and groom convey subtle meanings about the expected gendered roles of the future husband and wife.
According to Bourdieu, these systems of male/female bodily oppositions suggested above accentuate difference while muting any similarity. In The Logic of Practice, Bourdieu devotes an entire chapter to bodily oppositions and
explicates their power when he writes about the weight of opposition between the masculine and feminine (78). He expands on this theme in Masculine Domination, where he illustrates how rites of institutions symbolically and
effectively highlight sexual differences which emancipate the male but constrain the female. Through an emphasis on demarcation of the sexes, all dimensions of the female body are in some way dominated by the masculine resulting in a narrative of female inferiority. Commenting on this exaggerated differentiation Bourdieu writes:
The principle of the inferiority and exclusion of women, which the mythico-ritual system ratifies and amplifies, to the point of making it the principle division of the whole universe, is nothing other than
the fundamental dissymmetry, that of subject and object, agent and instrument, which is set up between men and women in the domain of symbolic exchanges, the relations of production and reproduction of symbolic capital, the central device of which is the matrimonial market, and which are the foundation of the whole social order—women can only appear there as objects, or, more precisely, as symbols whose meaning is constituted outside of them and whose function is to contribute to the perpetuation or expansion of the symbolic capital held by men (42-43).
The inflated constructions of oppositions of which Bourdieu writes are clearly present in the traditional American wedding ritual, and the image is reproduced in the typical Internet bride advertisement. The masculine/feminine, inward/ outward, black/white, nature/culture, public/private binary oppositions strongly influence and reflect the heavily gendered human habitus and tend to corral the mind towards a predetermined line of thinking which results in and from fixed ideological conceptions of the world. This habitus, similar to Strauss’s
and Quinn’s cultural schema, is where participants are inclined to unconsciously accept traditional action and a certain state of being as a natural way of behaving. In this situation, actors tend to socially reproduce behaviors by reinforcing and transferring these patterns of experience to the next generation and thus creating a kind of historical durability (Strauss and Quinn 112). The binary oppositions exaggerated by the ad and, indeed, the accompanying photographs perpetuate and reflect the prevailing consensus on gender relations in both the United States and the Philippines.
The stark contrasts between the images of the bride and groom reinforce the asymmetrical pairings of the two actors and, through ritualistic display of the wedding photos, reflect the dichotomous expectations of each gender. The photograph does not produce culture; instead it reflects a symbiotic relationship involved in the cultural reproduction (Jones 5) of patriarchy. In this manner they invoke several cultural codes that emit one message of a traditional American value—women should submit to men. This cultural artifact provides cultural clues as to why a segment of American society finds the traditional wedding so appealing.

Works Cited

Belmont, Nicole. “The Symbolic Function of the Wedding Procession in the
Popular Rituals of Marriage.” In Ritual, Religion, and the Sacred:
Selections from the Annales Economies, Societes, Civilisations. Eds.
Robert Foster and Orest Ranum. Trans. Elborg Forster and Patricia M.
Ranum. London: John Hopkins UP, 1982: 1-7.

Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1984.

---. The Logic of Practice. Trans. Richard Nice. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1990.

---. Masculine Domination. Trans. Richard Nice. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP,
2001.

Ember, Carol R. and Melvin Ember. “Sex, Gender, and Culture.” Cultural Anthropology, 8th ed. NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996. 161-184.

Frese, Pamela R. “The Union of Nature and Culture: Gender Symbolism in the American Wedding Ritual.” Transcending Boundaries: Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to the Study of Gender. Eds. Pamela R. Frese and John M. Coggeshall. NY: Bergin & Garvey, 1991.

Goffman, Erving. Gender Advertisements. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 1979.

Jones, Steve. Antonio Gramsci. Ed. Robert Eaglestone. Routledge Critical Thinkers. London: Routledge, 2006.

Rubinstein, Ruth P. Dress Codes: Meanings and Messages in American Culture.
2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview P, 2001.

Strauss, Claudia and Naomi Quinn. A Cognitive Theory of Cultural Meaning. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1997.

Uhlmann, Allon J. “Incorporating Masculine Domination: Theoretical and Ethnographic Elaborations.” Social Analysis, 44.1. (Apr. 2000): 142-161.

Thorne, Barrie. Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1993.

Internal Assessment Criteria

2010-01-15T07:19:00.000-08:00

Internal Assessment Criteria

A Completion of the Written Report

0 The candidate has not reached level 1.
1 The candidate has completed the written report, but the report is disorganized and
lacks detail.
2 The candidate has completed the written report, and the report is adequately
organized and reasonably detailed.
3 The candidate has completed the written report and it is either well organized or
detailed, but not both.
4 The candidate has completed the written report and it is well organized and detailed.

B Focus of the Observation

0 The candidate has not reached level 1.
1 The candidate has recognized but not discussed the nature of the observation or
the position of the observer and has not provided examples.
2 The candidate has discussed in a superficial way the nature of the observation and
the position of the observer. No examples have been provided. There is no
awareness of subjective or ideological biases.
3 The candidate has discussed the nature of the observation and the position of the
observer, but has not fully developed the discussion. Some examples have been
provided. There is some awareness of subjective or ideological biases.
4 The candidate has fully discussed the nature of the observation and the position of
the observer. Sufficient examples have been provided. There is a clear demonstration
of an awareness of subjective or ideological biases.

C Description and Analysis

0 The candidate has not reached level 1.
1 The candidate has recognized the distinction between description and analysis but
there is no discussion.
2 The candidate has recognized some distinction between description and analysis and
has provided at least one example, but the analytical discussion lacks detail.
3 The candidate has recognized the distinction between description and analysis and
has provided relevant examples, but the analytical discussion is only partially
developed.
4 The candidate has clearly recognized and discussed the distinction between descriptive
inference and sound analysis, and has provided examples in support of a fully developed
analytical discussion.

D Assumptions, Judgments and Bias

0 The candidate has not reached level 1.
1 The candidate has referred to assumptions, value judgments and/or bias but not
provided examples.
2 The candidate has referred to assumptions, value judgments and/or bias and has
provided some examples. There is no discussion.
3 The candidate has referred to assumptions, value judgments and/or bias in the
observation and recognizes that these may be social as well as personal in nature.
There is some discussion and some examples are provided
4 The candidate has clearly recognized and discussed assumptions, value judgments
and/or bias in the observation and recognizes that these are social as well as personal
in nature. The discussion has been fully developed.

E Critical Reflection

0 The candidate has not reached level 1.
1 The candidate has provided limited evidence of an anthropological understanding of
the initial written report but has not recognized methodological issues or evaluated
the written report.
2 The candidate has provided evidence of an anthropological understanding of the
initial written report and has recognized some methodological issues, but has not
critically discussed or evaluated the written report.
3 The candidate has provided evidence of an anthropological understanding of the
initial written report, has referred to methodological issues and has critically discussed
or evaluated the written report.
4 The candidate has shown sound anthropological understanding of the initial written
report, clearly recognized methodological issues and has critically analysed and
evaluated the written report.

Typical Internal Assessment Errors

2010-01-15T07:13:00.000-08:00

Internal Assessment Errors

Internal Assessments Common Errors
1. Failure to see assumptions
o Commercialism
o Consumerist culture
o Media saturated culture
o Race (skin color is not indicative of race or ethnicity)

2. Failure to note significant cultural indicators
o Rituals

Evidence of stratification

o Class issues
o Private versus public
o Inclusiveness versus exclusiveness
o Ethnic separation or integration
o Multicultural or multiethnic society
o Suburban, rural, urban settings
o Gender issues
o Cultural context (high or low)

Was report identified in terms of date, time, and place?
Did you use heading Critique and Observation (Written Report)?
Don’t assume scorers are Americans.
Use paragraphs to address each criterion (description vs. analysis, methodology, bias and assumptions)

American Wedding Rituals

2010-01-14T06:36:00.000-08:00

Visit this link: http://books.google.com/books?id=gLnS_GL81X4C&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=american+wedding+ritual+pamela+frese&source=bl&ots=XvyCcPPbf4&sig=zsRdIFLQp2fuagDAU6n_74-jEFg&hl=en&ei=vytPS4ChCdWUtges-JC5CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=american%20wedding%20ritual%20pamela%20frese&f=false

OR

From google search type in "American Wedding Rituals Pamela Frese". It should be the first link.

Week of Jan. 20

2010-01-13T08:35:00.000-08:00

1/20/10
1. Review Internal Assessment rubric
a. IB rubric
b. Group: practice observation of mundane experience (wedding photo from Internet)
2. Review final exams.

1/21/10
1. a. in top right corner put name, IB ID#, and subject
b. heading is Written Report
c. put a double-space under heading
d. double-space for entire paper
e. insert page numbers on bottom right corner
f. insert word count at bottom (600-700 words)
g. use Ariel 12 font
h. indent each paragraph
i. one-inch margins

2.Critical questions on Frese's article
a. answer questions in groups

1/22/10
1. Frese article seminar critical questions (collect)
2. Frese quiz
3. Finish "The Amish and Us."

Week of Jan. 11

2010-01-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

1/11/10
1. Ch. 13 Seminar (Block 3)
2. Talk Show presentation
3. Review writing exams

1/12/10
1. Finish review of writing exams.
2. Gamers (Block 3)
3. Ch. 13 summary
4. Promethean review of Ch. 13

1/13/10
1. Review Amish objectives
2. Gamers

1/14-15
1. Multiple choice final exams
2. Distribute Shadowed Lives
3. Film: The Amish and Us
4. Homework: Access and read Pamela Frese's article "The American Wedding Ritual"

Week of Jan. 4

2009-12-16T09:24:00.000-08:00

Jan. 4, 2010
1. Researchers presentation
2. Artist presentation
3. Critical questions:
a. The shift from farming to business is the most consequential social change in Amish society in the last century. What evidence exists to support this statement?
b. Explore the unique characteristics of Amish work and show how it differs from work in mainstream society. How does the nature of work shapes the other patterns of social life in a society.
4. Chapter 10 quiz review
5. Review Ch. 11 for quiz tomorrow.

Jan. 5
1. Researchers presentation
2. Critical Questions
a. Summarize the controversies surrounding Witness and recent controversies over child labor and puppy mills.
b. The Amish have a love/hate relationship with tourism. Identify how they benefit from tourism as well as its negative impacts on their life. Why have the Amish become so entangled with tourism rather than migrating to more rural and secluded parts of the country?
c. Are the Amish leeches or contributors to the larger socio-economic system? Support your answer.
d. How does child labor differ for the Amish when compared to a large urban industrial setting?
3. Homework: Review Ch. 12 for quiz tomorrow.

Jan. 6
1. Promethean Board Ch. 11 review
2. Ch. 11 quiz
3. Critical questions mini-test.

Jan. 7
1. Artists presentation
2. Processes of Social Change Powerpoint presentation.
3. Promethean Board Ch. 12 review.

Jan. 8
1. Written final exam.

Week of Dec. 14

2009-12-09T07:45:00.001-08:00

12/14/09
Ch. 10 Critical Questions
1. Identify some of the reasons that Amish businesses have been so successful when they are not using many modes of electricity and computers and their owners do not have high school diplomas or college degrees.
2. Estimate how the movement into business may encourage the development of a three-tier class structure in Amish society. How could this change the Amish in the long run?
3. What are the consequences of Amish-run businesses? What changes may these consequences bring to Amish families life, values, language, childrearing, gender roles, technology, and interaction with the outside world?
4. In many ways the Amish are still a pre-industrial society. Does their shift into small business represent a stage of industrialization or are they still a pre-industrial or post-industrial development?
5. An Amish bishop once described factory work as a "lunch pail threat" which could disrupt Amish society. What did he mean by this and why was he worried?
6. Identify an d discuss the possible reasons why the Lancaster Amish did not migrate to more rural areas in the US where they could continue their traditions of small family farming.

Homework:
1. Search the Internet for Amish products; make a list. Begin with Amish.net.
2. Why does the general public seems to have an intense interest in Amish products? Reflect and write a paragraph.

12/15/09
1. Review questions and homework findings
2. Ch. 10 quiz
3. Silent Reading: Begin Ch. 11

12/16/09
1. Make presentation schedule
2. Amish music
3. Block 3: Facts presentation
4. Finish Ch. 11

12/17/09:
1. Review Ch. 10 quiz
2. Ch. 11 quiz
3. Introduce Witness: Critical Question: How does the movie Witness both exploit and celebrate the Amish?

12/18/09
1. Film: Witness
2. Break homework: Finish Kraybill

Week of Dec. 7

2009-12-04T06:31:00.000-08:00

12/7/09
1. Ch. 5 quiz review
2. Ch. 6 quiz
3. Show personal pics of Amish of Wisconsin
4. Film feedback and presentations of Internet Research

12/8/09
1. Ch. 6 critical questions
a. Discuss the manifest and latent functions of rumspringa.
b. In Ch. 5, the text notes that Amish weddings do not have rehearsals. What does the lack of wedding rehearsals say about ownership and control of ritual in Amish society? What does it say about individualism?
c. Social theorists argue that the transaction costs, both in time and dollars, are much lower in societies with strong networks of social capital. Why?
d. How has modernization changed the rumspringa cultural practice?
2. Ch. 7 readings: p. 174-177 "Solving the Riddle"; p.184-187 "Sowing and Reaping Wild Oats."

12/09/09
0. Finish Tues. crit. questions
1. review critical questions
2. From Hostetler's ethnography, choose your favorite Amish saying.
3. Homework: read introductions to Chs. 8-9

12/10
1. Critical questions for Ch. 8-9
a. The Amish live in a high-context culture where people are embedded in tight social relationships that overlap in many ways. Demonstrate how the use of the telephone decontextualizes interaction by taking speakers out of their social context and thus represents a threat in a high-context culture.
b. How does the use of technology become symbolic?
c. To what extent does technology control and govern our lives? What does the Amish experience say about technological determinism?
d. Do people serve technology or does technology serve people?
e. Interview 3 friends outside of this class. Ask: How often do you use a telephone each day?
f. Review the history of technological change in Amish society (Table 9.2, pg. 236). What pressures and forces led to some of these changes? How might gender issues be related to the acceptance and modification of technology in Amish society?
g. Support or refute: "The Amish should stop trying to control the lives of members and let individuals make their own decisions about technology."

12/11/09
1. Amish achievement test.
2. Silent Reading: Begin Ch. 10
3. Homework: Finish Ch. 10

Week of Nov. 30

2009-11-25T09:54:00.000-08:00

11/30/09
1. Ch. 5 critical questions

3. discuss chapters to skim
4. Homework: Read 1/2 Ch. 6

12/1/09
1. Discussion Ch. 5 critical questions
2. Ch. 5 quiz
3. Homework: Begin reading Ch. 6

12/2/09
1. Review Practice Paper 1
2. Amish research in media center.
a. generics on Rumspringa/article
b. Devil's Playground information and reviews
c. Amish weddings and childbirth
d. Interesting information on Amish

12/3/09
1. Ch. 6 seminar
2. Introduce Devil's Playground
12/4/09
1. Devil's Playground introductions and film

Chapter 5 Questions

2009-11-22T15:35:00.000-08:00

Chapter 5 Questions
1. Discuss the important social functions of the Ordnung in Amish society. How does the Ordnung change and evolve over time?
2. Why do Anabaptist groups like the Amish take baptism so seriously? How does it
contribute to Amish life and vitality?
3. Identify and discuss the values of Amish culture that are ritualized in the Amish worship service.
4. Identify and discuss the key differences between an Amish worship service and
the typical worship service of a non-Amish religious group with which you are
familiar.
5. How do Amish communion services embody different values than the typical
service of Protestant communion or Catholic mass?
6. What reasons might typical Protestants give for objecting to a self-examination service before the communion service and for making public confessions in church for their transgressions?
7. Discuss how the use of “the lot” to select leaders reflects Amish values. How does it provide a powerful legitimation of the authority of Amish leaders?

Choose 1
1. Support or Refute this statement: “Baptism is the most important practice and the most central value in Amish religious life.”
2. Support or Refute this statement: “Excommunication is an inhumane practice that violates Amish values of love and nonviolence.”
3. Support or Refute this statement: “Shunning is a cruel practice that has no place in a Christian church that seeks to practice love and compassion.”

Week of Nov. 23

2009-11-20T08:11:00.000-08:00

11/23/09
1. collect project work
2. Ch. 4 quiz
3. Paper 1 test
4. Homework: begin reading Ch. 5

11/24/09
1. Silent Reading: Ch. 5
2. Discussion of Project findings
Choose your best response and present to class.
3. Homework: Finish Ch. 5

11/25/09
0. finish group presentations
1. Ch. 5 quiz on Monday
2. Seminar Ch. 5
3. Read ahead Ch. 6

Research Sites

2009-11-19T06:28:00.000-08:00

http://books.google.com/
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Info:Main_Page
bing.org

Socratic Seminar guide

2009-11-17T09:39:00.000-08:00

http://www.nwabr.org/education/pdfs/PRIMER/PrimerPieces/SocSem.pdf

Week of Nov. 16

2009-11-10T07:25:00.000-08:00

11/16/09
1. Ask for volunteers to present groups & their symbols.
2. Give homework for 3 days.
3. Review past quizzes.
4. Group work: T-Chart--Role of Amish compared to role of mainstream woman.

11/17/09 (Block 2--For questions, only about 1/2 page is necessary.)
Independent GROUP Work (BAT Testing) Some of these tasks will require research.
1. Explore the differences between pre-industrial, industrial, and contemporary gender roles. Make a chart with the three headings and bullet characteristics. (Hint: for information on gender roles visit credible web sites, and for information on hunter and gatherer sex roles see Ernestine Friedl's Society and Sex Roles in Spradley.) Don't forget to cite your references.
2. What are the sources of happiness for the Amish woman? Compare to the mainstream woman. Use credible web sites and interview three mainstream women. Ask: What do you feel are three sources of your happiness?
3. How does the labor of children in Amish society differ from the labor of children in mainstream society? (1/2 page essay)
4. Do other ethnic-minority groups in American society have similar family structures to the Amish? Which ones and explain how.
5. The text on pages 106-110 summarizes the distinctive features of Amish social structure and social organization. Identify some distinctive features of American social structure. How does the social structure of the two societies differ?
6. In a book called McDonaldization, http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/010/mcdonsoc.html George Ritzer argues that many aspects of contemporary society have been "McDonaldized" -- by an emphasis on rationality, specialization, and predictability. To what extent is Amish society MeDonaldized? In what ways?
7. How do small families in American society support the values of individualism in American culture?
8. The text argues that power accumulates with age in Amish society and that men have more power than women. How does this pattern compare to the power structure of contemporary society? Who has the most power and why in the larger society?
9. The text of Riddle, pages 106-110, lists five characteristics of the social architecture of Amish society. Take each characteristic and compare it to the structure of American society. What difference does each of the five characteristics make in the lives of individuals in both societies?
10. Support or refute this statement: "All things considered, the average Amish woman is happier than the typical woman in American society."

Fieldwork:
1. Develop a profile of your family. List the number of siblings, first cousins, aunts and uncles on both the maternal and paternal side of your family. Also list the number of grandchildren your maternal and paternal grandparents have. How many divorces have occurred among your aunts and uncles? Compare to Amish.

2. The text of Riddle argues that Amish society revolves around the home and that there is relatively little geographical mobility in Amish life. Identify the number of times that your family has moved since your were born. Ask two or three of your friends how often their families have moved since they were born. Compare the number of moves with a typical Amish family which, as most, may be once. Why do Americans move so much? How does the high mobility impact family and community life? How does the immobility of Amish life contribute to its stability and continuity? Is mobility a positive or negative factor in the formation of personality and family life? If your family had never moved since your were born, how would your family ad social connections be different today?
3. Make a list (one for the bride and one for the groom) of the assumptions and expectations for marriage of a newly married couple among your friends. Make a similar list of understandings about marriage for an Amish couple. How do the two understandings in marriage differ? Why do they differ? What difference do these different understandings make?

4. Select an adult woman in your extended family. Ask her: "What are your expectations of your role in your marriage?" How do the expectations and obligations for her role differ from the role expectations of a typical Amish woman?

11/18/09
Independent Work (BAT Testing) See above.

11/19/09
1. Independent Work (BAT Testing) See above.
2. Chapter 4 quiz.

11/20/09
1. Finish project work. All work due on Monday.

Amazing Web Site

2009-11-07T10:16:00.000-08:00

Here is an amazing website on subjects from philosophy to technology. Free podcasts on every subject imaginable.

http://www.openculture.com/2006/11/arts_culture_po.html

Week of Nov. 9

2009-11-05T08:21:00.000-08:00

Nov. 9
1. Warm-up--Amish High & Low cultural context
2. Discussion of fieldwork on 5 values and compare with Amish.
3. Introduce Ch. 3: Dialect, Dress, Horse, and Carriage
4. Homework: Identify 3 groups at DBHS. Describe clothing and symbolic meaning.

Nov. 10
1. Make chart of 4 Amish artifacts and list their symbols
2. Silent Reading: 1/2 Ch. 4
3. Homework: Make a detailed list of clothing in your wardrobe. Estimate how much $ you have spent on clothing in the past12 months. Compare to the Amish. What does this say about the role of clothing in the two societies?

Nov. 12
1. Chapter 3 quiz.
2. Group discussion:
Support or refute one of these statements: Americans are free from social constraints related to dress. OR
Amish identity is dependent on the horse and buggy and without them Amish society would die.
3. Discussion of mainstream closet and implications.

Nov. 13
1. The Amish: People of Preservation
2. Homework: finish Ch. 4

Week of Nov. 2

2009-10-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

11/2/09
1. Make a T-Chart with the headings Gelassenheit and Individualism. Compare the values of each.
2. Review Ch. 1 quiz
3. Chapter 2 Seminar
4. In a random conversation, make a mental tally of 1st person usage.

11/3/09
1. Foster's Amish Values and Mainstream Values
2. Ch. 2 quiz
3. Review Ch. 1 quiz

11/4/09
1. T-Chart of Evangelical vs. Amish
2. Group work: Refute or support these statements:
a. Because the Amish suppress individualism, Amish society is an oppressive one that stifles individualism.
b. Unlike the Amish, other Americans are free from traditions and customs.
3. Homework: Visit an online image of an Amish cemetery and a mainstream one. Describe how individualism and Gelassenheit are symbolized and displayed even after death.
Begin reading Ch. 3

11/5/09-11/6/09
1. Discuss and collect T-Charts
2. Choose one refutation from each group. Collect
3. Assume that you are considering joining the Amish. List 5 things that would be hardest for you to relinquish. Why do you value these things? Why would it be difficult to give them up?
4. Group work: Identify 4 important traditions in American culture. Why do Americans comply with these traditions? What happens to those who violate them? Give examples.
5. Fieldwork: Interview 3 friends not in this class. Ask them to rank order the following values: freedom of choice, obedience, conformity, independence, and entertainment.
6. Distinguish between the following terms: dominant culture, subculture, and counterculture.
7. Homework: read Ch. 3

Amish Videos

2009-10-27T14:39:00.000-07:00

Explaining the Amish Way of Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAgSCTdnrhk

Amish Tour
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=amish&emb=0&aq=f#

Week of Oct. 27

2009-10-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

Oct. 26
Substitute teacher

Blocks 2 (9:00-10:40) and 3 (11:15-12:50)
1. on a sheet of lined paper, correct flawed sentences.
2. Answer Chapter 1 questions in Kraybill. (will be on overhead)
3. Homework: Finish chapter questions.

Oct. 27
1. Sentence corrections
2. Amish Objectives & Introduction
3. Homework: Interview 2 friends who are not enrolled in this class. Ask them: What 5 words come to mind when you hear the word "Amish?"

Oct. 28
1. Review final exam
2. Review common conceptions of Amish
3. Amish group assignment: talk show, researchers, gamers, seminar leaders, artists
4. Homework: watch videos on google video

Oct. 29
1. Discussion of videos
2. Preface and Ch. 1 questions
3. Ch. 1 quiz
4. Homework: Read 1st half of Ch. 2

Oct. 30
1. Collect group questions for Ch. 1
2. Ch. 1 vocab. review
3. Silent Reading Ch. 2
4. Film: "The Amish: Not to be Modern"
5. Homework: Finish reading Ch. 2

Amish Objectives

2009-10-20T04:15:00.000-07:00

Amish Unit Objectives

1. To identify social structures that shape Amish
2. To understand how global factors force cultural change
3. To understand how identity affects behavior
4. To recognize social control mechanisms of Amish culture
5. To demonstrate the connection between tourism, resistance, and cultural change
6. To describe the dynamics of societal interactions between cultures and subcultures
7. To analyze how modernity, industrialization, commercialism, commodification, and urbanization affect culture.
8. To describe and analyze Amish artifacts, symbols, and meaning
9. To distinguish between high and low context cultures.

Amish Introduction

2009-10-20T04:10:00.001-07:00

Amish Children (Hostetler & Huntington, 1970s)

• Rites of passage
• Religious beliefs
• Age sets
• Resistance to mainstream
• Symbolism
• Tourism dynamics
• Subsistence
• Socialization/childrearing practices
• bias
• Vocabulary
o Rumspringa
o High context culture/low context culture
gemienshaft/gesellschaft
o Victor Turner’s liminality
o Subculture
o Ordnung
o Old Order

Anthropological Vocabulary Applicable to Amish

2009-10-20T04:07:00.000-07:00

Agency

Adaptation

Age sets
Agriculture
Artifacts
Collectivist
Cultural contact
Culture of poverty
Diaspora
Egalitarian
Endogamy
Enculturation
Ethos
Exogamy
Gelassenheit
Gemeinschaft
Gesellschaft
High and Low Cultural Context
Hierarchy
Identity
Institution
Liminality
Manifest and latent functions
Modernization
Mores
Noble savage
Norm
Nuclear family
Patriarchy
Pluralism
Reciprocity
Rites of Passage
Social control
Social stratification
Socialization
Status
Structure
Worldview

free online library

2009-10-17T11:31:00.000-07:00

Here is an online library that has over 30 million articles...some great anthropological ones! http://www.accessmylibrary.com

Week of Oct. 19

2009-10-11T05:04:00.000-07:00

Oct. 19
1. Review exams
2. Review quizzes
3. Game review if time

Oct. 20
Game review

Oct. 21
Exam

Oct. 22
Exam

Oct. 23
NO SCHOOL

Week of Oct. 26
1. Review multiple choice portion of exam
2. Correct sentences
3. podcast on football and feminism

Week of Oct. 12

2009-10-07T07:13:00.000-07:00

Oct. 12
1. Finish Dark Days
2. Large group discussion
3. Begin paper review

Oct. 13
1. Review papers with individual conferences.
2. Small group: Students construct answers to exam questions or work independently.
3. Homework: Read "Resistance" piece about Dark Days.

Oct. 14
PSATs
Work on exam questions.

Oct. 15
1. Test criteria
2. Resistance (Dark Days) article.
Oct. 16
Writing portion of mid-term exam.

Internal Assessment Critiques

2009-10-04T13:18:00.000-07:00

Internal Assessments Common Errors

Failure to see assumptions (naïve realism)

o Commercialism

o Consumerist culture

o Media saturated culture

o Race (skin color is not indicative of race or ethnicity)

o Individualism as a given

o Kinship relations

Failure to note significant cultural indicators which could have been analyzed.

o Rituals

o Class issues

§ Evidence of stratification

o Private versus public

§ Inclusiveness versus exclusiveness

o Ethnic separation or integration

o Multicultural or multiethnic society

o Suburban, rural, urban settings

o Gender issues

o Cultural context (high or low)

o Manifest and latent functions

o Power relations, possibly indicated by body language

Problems with methodology such as:

o Observer’s stance—physically and ideologically.

o Was report identified in terms of date, time, and place?

o Were you intrusive in any way?

Formatting Issues:

Did you use heading Critique and Observation (Written Report)?

Did you include page numbers, IB-ID, and name on each page?

Finally, don’t assume scorers are Americans.

Movies about class, wealth, power, and social justice

2009-10-02T07:59:00.000-07:00

www.classism.org/pdf/resources_film.pdf

Class Structure in the United States

2009-10-02T07:37:00.001-07:00

http://www.english.wisc.edu/rfyoung/336/us_class_structure.htm

Week of Oct. 5

2009-09-30T06:31:00.000-07:00

Oct. 5
1. Proofread film reviews
2. finish discussion of film (gray book)
3. Computer games
4. Homework: work on papers
5. Read half of "Work-a Day World"

Oct. 6
1. Silent Reading: read second 1/2 "Work-a-Day World"
2. Seminar on Work-a-Day
3. Homework: Read 1/2 of "Crack in Spanish Harlem" in Haviland.

Objective: To discover the relationship between globalization and gangs.
Oct. 7

1. Collect essays.
2. Essential questions:
a. How and why do "informal economies" get established? Why are inner city youths so attracted to the underground economy?
b. According to Bourgois, what is the root cause of inner-city problems?
c. How does inner city youth's resistance reinforce their marginal status?
d. What is the major quality an employer looks for in the underground economy? (only need one word for this answer.)
3. Homework: Read second 1/2 of Crack in Spanish Harlem and complete discussion guide.

Oct. 8
1. discussion of preparation study guide
2. Finish essential questions.
3. Homework: In preparation of Dark Days, find an insight on line about the film. In search use key words "dark days mark singer."

Oct. 9
1. Bourgois quiz
2. Dark Days research review
3. Dark Days

Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?

2009-09-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

http://homepages.uel.ac.uk/C.Knight/Is%20Female%20to%20Male%20as%20nature%20is%20to%20Culture.pdf

If this link does not work, put key words "Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?" in a google search. It should be the first article

People Like Us: Social Class in America

2009-09-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.pbs.org/peoplelikeus/

Week of Sept. 29

2009-09-25T06:52:00.000-07:00

Sept. 29
1. Large group discussion on Merchants of Cool.
2. Overheads of Multinational Corporations
3. Monaghan: p. 70 (Silent Reading)
4. Introduce Social Class in America

Sept. 30
1. People Like Us: Social Class in America

2. Directions for film review:
After viewing People Like Us, write a film review addressing the following:
a. Why do many Americans deny that class exists?
b. What are the program's most important ideas about class in America?
c. What are the effects of class stratification on Americans?
d. Does growing up in a particular class affect one's self-image and others' perception of them?
e. Do you feel that any of the classes portrayed were favored over the others?
f. Cite examples from the film to support your claims.

Oct. 1
1. Social Class in America

Oct. 2
1. finish Social Class in America
2. large group discussion
3. homework: finish papers

Merchants of Cool

2009-09-24T12:41:00.001-07:00

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=merchants+of+cool&emb=0&aq=3&oq=merchants+of#

OCT. SEMESTER EXAM QUESTIONS

2009-09-21T05:23:00.000-07:00

Semester Exam Questions Oct. 09
P. Haley, Social and Cultural Anthropology
USING CLASS MATERIAL, ADDRESS THE FOLLOWING:

1. TO WHAT EXTENT ARE SOCIETY AND CULTURE REPRODUCED ACROSS THE GENERATIONS THROUGH SOCIALIZATION.

2. DISCUSS HOW TOURISM CAN INTRODUCE SHIFTS IN SOCIAL RELATIONS.

3. IN ALL SOCIETIES THAT PLACE HIGH VALUE ON EGALITARIANISM, FORMS OF HIERARCHY AND INEQUALITY ARE FOUND. DEMONSTRATE THIS CLAIM.

4. HOW DO BELIEF SYSTEMS HELP TO REINFORCE A MORAL ORDER IN SOCIETY?

5. DISCUSS HOW SOCIAL CLASS SHAPES INDIVIUALS.

6. DESCRIBE AND ANALYZE AN OBJECT/SITUATION FROM THE CLASSROOM (tba). BE SURE TO USE ANALYTICAL TOOLS DISCUSSED IN CLASS.

7. EXPLAIN TO A LAYPERSON THE PREPARATION NEEDED TO CONDUCT AN ETHNOGRAPHY. BE SURE TO LIST POSSIBLE PITFALLS.

8. What is the relationship between the globalized economy and the formation of gangs?

Comments on Dog Fighting article

2009-09-18T07:37:00.000-07:00

Week of Sept. 21

2009-09-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

9/21/10

1. Group brainstorm: List steps necessary to conduct an ethnography.
2. Combine lists.
3. Review cultural artifact papers

9/22/09

1. Discussion of Sterk's essential questions.
2. Group activity: choose one or two pics and analyses, add to them, and present to class
3. Collect all "Mundane Social Situation" pics and comments.

9/23/09
1. finish presentations
2. Merton's manifest and latent functions
3. list manifest and latent functions of a school
(Observation paper assignment postponed until later on in semester.)

9/24/09
1. Review latent and manifest function (Monaghan p. 59)
2. Group work: choose social groups/organizations and list manifest and latent functions.
3. Introduce Nancy Scheper-Hughes's Mother's Love
4. Silent Reading: Mother's Love
5. Homework: Finish reading Mother's Love

9/25/09
1. Group questions from Mother's Love. (pop quiz)
2. Homework: Watch "Merchants of Cool." How is this film anthropological? What were the filmmakers' methods for studying teen culture? What did they conclude?

Ethnographic Study of Dog Fighting

2009-09-16T15:03:00.001-07:00

http://www.anthropologymatters.com/journal/2008-1/burley_2008_my.html

Thick Description and Analyses of...

2009-09-13T18:18:00.000-07:00

Chapter 4: THICK DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSES OF INTERNATIONAL INTERNET BRIDE ADS

Advertisements both shape and reflect cultural norms. In 1957 Roland Barthes illustrated how advertisements can be interpreted at two levels: the surface level, which is the actual reading of the text; and the more powerful underlying text which conjures up images in the viewer’s subconscious (Danesi and Perron 282). Although the underlying messages are not definitive, this deeper level reveals the ad’s subtle signifiers that convey meanings beyond the surface and, therefore, provide us with clues to the ad’s effectiveness. Ethnographers have long realized the importance of going beyond the surface message as they search for meanings in everyday life—clues that provide a more intense understanding about relationships among social actors. Reflecting upon some of these latent meanings, this section of my dissertation will explore two international Internet bride web advertisements that are representative of the 30-plus sites that I visited and the five sites that were specifically discussed in my review of scholarly articles. Deep analysis of these advertisements as cultural artifacts provides insights about the underpinnings of mainstream American culture, and therefore contributes to an explanation of how international Internet bride marriages emerged at this particular point in time.
The following discussion provides thick descriptions and analyses of two
international Internet bride advertisements. The two ads are similar in content concerning gendered relationships of power. In other words, a deep analysis suggests that these advertisements covertly display who dominates and who submits. Erving Goffman’s critical analysis of hundreds of photographs provides insight about how gender roles are performed at the most subtle level or the subtext, that is, the latent depictions that target and infiltrate the subconscious. Drawing on Goffman’s insights, I will examine the images of the following ads at
both the surface and sub-textual levels.

The main photo in the upper left corner of the asianation.com ad displays a
clock-like template with head shots of eight women encircling one central photo
with a tropical setting backdrop.7 The center photo stands out because this
woman has her left arm and hand delicately wrapped around her head. Goffman
notes, “Women, more than men, are pictured using their fingers and hands to
trace the outlines of an object or to cradle it or to caress its surface…” (29). In
this pose the woman’s head cants noticeably to the left. Goffman might read this
type of head positioning as a signifier of “…subordination, an expression of
ingratiation, submissiveness, and appeasement” (46). All of the women are
smiling to various degrees except two—the one in the center and the one with dark skin.

Goffman observes that women smile much more than men, an indication of actors who deem themselves inferior (48). The ad also subtly addresses racial differentiation: out of nine photographs, only one woman appears to be dark skinned. While there is an array of hair colors of blonde, reddish blonde, light brunette, dark brunette, and black, only one has short hair. The authors seem to be offering as much variety as possible, while still maintaining the preference for longer hair, smiles, and a definite preference for light skin. Lastly, the tropical background perhaps suggests that the customer is viewing something exotic. Asian women have traditionally been stereotyped as exotic and with heightened sexual proclivities. For example, Said reported in the late that Westerners have long been fascinated with Asian exotic sexuality, which they view as a stark contrast to that of Western women (190). In short, deep analyses of these images uncover traditional American gender and racial expectations.

Next, I analyze the textual elements of the same advertisement for, as Stuart Hall points out, text and images are inextricably bound together to produce meaning and to discover the underlying messages and the myths that they create (226). According to Hall, “Two discourses—the discourse of the written language and the discourse of photography—are required to produce and ‘fix’ the meaning” (228). The following excerpt from asianation.com completes the process of communicating meaning to the viewer.

Our objective is to pair up single men whom are serious and ready to marry with a attractive Asian bride. Our brides to be are mainly from the countryside. They are gentle, attractive, young, devoted to family, faithful, submissive and virgin, their age between 18-30 years old. Asian dating on line offers bachelors, divorcees or widowers a great way to meet and select Asian women of their dreams within days of our Asian singles tour. Our professional matchmaking team will plan, arrange and coordinate every detailed step of the entire process for you. This allows you to spend more time in selecting the most compatible Asian girls of your dreams. The Asian singles tour begins the exciting tour by flying you to Asia. Once there, we will introduce the prospective brides to you. You will short list the prospective oriental brides and invite them for dinner or lunch together. When you have chosen your future asia bride, she will be sent to a local doctor for an examination. You can turn down the marriage if the doctor does not certify her to be a virgin bride or of good health. (http://www.asianation.com/)

The textual elements on this page also link the user to several other “Asian girls” web pages which promote everything from marriage to “swinging.” This broad continuum seems to contradict the assertion that Asian women are “submissive and virgin,” although this type of sexual dichotomy could be reminiscent of the Madonna-Whore Complex, where a man simultaneously desires a wifely saint and a tiger in bed. Promoting marriage, the first sentence states that the matchmaking company’s objective is to “pair up single men whom are serious and ready to marry.” The next sentence indicates the women are from the countryside. Implied in this message, then, is that the women are poor and naïve, and therefore easily controlled. The authors also apply particular and traditional feminine modifiers such as “gentle, attractive, young, devoted to family, faithful, submissive and virgin,” evidently to reinforce that the women will adhere to the conservative patriarchal marriage model. Another interesting outcropping is the viewer’s active positioning and the object’s passive one. He chooses her by “short listing.” She gets sent to the local doctor for an examination; his medical status is ignored.8 The examination notation, therefore, reassures the customer that his bride will not only be virginal but also free of sexually transmitted diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS, a more recent Filipina stereotype (Tan 158). The marriage, therefore, has a medicalized context under which the Filipina becomes even more objectified and her status more tenuous.

The second ad is similar to the first, but it attempts to evoke a more traditional and ethereal narrative, and consequently avoids direct references to virginity or gynecological examinations. This ad appears to be sponsored by Personal Liaisons International, a self-described travel agency that offers tours to the Philippines packaged from $495 to $4,295,9 while supplying additional services such as visa kits and personal consultations. Apparently the matchmaking organization arranges for a group of American men to travel to the Philippines where they will meet a large group of Filipinas at an organized social gathering. Like the first example, this ad situates the target audience as choosers. The hard-copy brochure advertises: “With so many ladies to choose from, you’ll be confident with your decision.”

Personal Liaisons International is organized into two sections—photographs
and text. On the left side of the ad there is a wedding day photograph of two
seemingly mixed-sex couples. Both brides are wearing traditional white wedding
gowns with requisite white veils. Each bride holds a bouquet of white flowers at
her waist. Similar to the first example, the brides look to be in their mid-twenties
or early thirties and of Asian descent, although notably of light skin. The two
grooms are dressed in tuxedos and appear to be middle-aged, Caucasian, and
considerably older than the brides.10 Several international Internet bride scholars
concur with this observation when they analyzed various “mail-order bride”
advertisements.11 Both grooms are standing behind their brides and on both
brides’ left sides with each bride’s shoulder turned slightly inward toward her
groom’s chest. All participants are smiling and standing under a palm tree
amidst a beautiful sunny day. “Do you believe in miracles?” is written at the
bottom of the pictures. On the right side of the ad is the following paragraph:

Congratulations! You have taken the first step towards discovering an eternal treasure! This will happen when you find your number one Asian lady whose main objective in life is to please her husband. The enthusiasm shown and the pleasure they derive in accomplishing this goal is almost embarrassing! The beauty in this unique kind of treasure quest lies in the reality that somewhere in the vastness of Asia’s densely populated continent and thousands of tropical islands, a compatible lady is waiting to meet you. But don’t read another word if you’re completely satisfied with your romantic life. Have you ever dreamed of finding your ideal lady—loving, beautiful and devoted? Well, this is the opportunity you’re
[sic] been waiting for—for so long. (Personal Liaisons International)

The two main points that stand out in the ad are the exclamatory “Congratulations!” and the picture of the seemingly happy couple surrounded by a tropical paradise, a setting widely associated in advertising with romance (Illouz 92). The persuasiveness of this ad is obvious to a particular kind of viewer. Through words and images, presumably older lonely men can easily obtain love, sex, and companionship by the click of a mouse and spending some money. Highlighting that the women emanate from a densely populated area, the ad implies that there are thousands of women from which to choose. More explicitly, the ad offers hope that a miracle could happen to them. The prevalence of this kind of paragraph, which is found throughout Internet bride web pages, suggests evidence of its effectiveness as it has been appropriated by multiple Internet bride agencies over the last 15 years. Through my research I have come across similar versions of this same text used by several different Internet bride companies dating back to 1990s. The ubiquity of this type of ad indicates that a key component of the ad’s success is the oft repeated claim that Asian women are submissive, compliant, and available.

Unlike asianation.com, Personal Liaisons International avoids using the work
submissive explicitly and uses devoted instead. I argue that the word devoted as
in devoted wife implicitly suggests that these women will tend to be, in fact,
submissive toward their American husbands. A devoted wife has traditionally
been one who submits to her husband. The word traditional evokes nostalgic
sentiments about the traditional wife—before feminism, women’s liberation, and
civil rights eked out into the mainstream national consciousness. The traditional
American wife, although never thought of as totally submissive, nevertheless
tends to be subordinate to her husband, as is required from the Biblical
admonishment “Wives, be submissive to your husbands.” This national sentiment has long been ensconced in the traditional patriarchal marriage where the husband dominates, controls, and is deemed more important than his submissive wife who submits to the authority of the husband. Admittedly, the ad’s “submissive Asian woman” claim is probably more a cultural fantasy than a cultural reality. Indeed, these particular ads, as with all advertisements, are trying to sell a fantasy, not a reality. This repetition of the devoted/submissive wife theme is significant because, as Hall theorizes:

…images do not carry meaning or ‘signify’ on their own. They accumulate meanings, or play off their meanings against one another, across a variety of texts and media. Each image carries its own, specific meaning. But at the broader level of how ‘difference’ and ‘otherness’ is being represented in a particular culture at any one moment, we can see similar representational practices and figures being repeated, with variations, from one text or site of representation to another. (235)

Implicit in the advertisement is the suggestion that the Asian wife is more devoted and family-oriented than the American wife. “Asians possess old-fashioned, traditional, family-oriented values that help people create lasting happiness” (Personal Liaisons International). The “old-fashioned” wife is intended to evoke nostalgia for the 1950s American wife who subordinated her own needs and desires to her husband’s as evidenced in the traditional marriage vows that solely require the bride to “love, honor, and obey” her husband.
An example of the 1950s traditional American wife ideal is revealed in a 1953
article from an academic journal, Marriage and Family Living, where the author
found that joke-telling is a mechanism through which societal norms are reinforced, and, subsequently, therefore function as a form of social control. In this article Mildred Perlis found that there were no jokes about dominant husbands or submissive wives, but ample jokes about hen-pecked husbands and bossy wives (50). Her findings indicate that the dominant husband/submissive wife role was the norm in the 1950s (50).

Internal Assessment Criteria

2009-09-13T09:51:00.000-07:00

A Completion of the Written Report

Achievement level
0 The candidate has not reached level 1.
1 The candidate has completed the written report, but the report is disorganized and
lacks detail.
2 The candidate has completed the written report, and the report is adequately
organized and reasonably detailed.
3 The candidate has completed the written report and it is either well organized or
detailed, but not both.
4 The candidate has completed the written report and it is well organized and detailed.

B Focus of the Observation
Achievement level
0 The candidate has not reached level 1.
1 The candidate has recognized but not discussed the nature of the observation or
the position of the observer and has not provided examples.
2 The candidate has discussed in a superficial way the nature of the observation and
the position of the observer. No examples have been provided. There is no
awareness of subjective or ideological biases.
3 The candidate has discussed the nature of the observation and the position of the
observer, but has not fully developed the discussion. Some examples have been
provided. There is some awareness of subjective or ideological biases.
4 The candidate has fully discussed the nature of the observation and the position of
the observer. Sufficient examples have been provided. There is a clear demonstration
of an awareness of subjective or ideological biases.

C Description and Analysis
Achievement level
0 The candidate has not reached level 1.
1 The candidate has recognized the distinction between description and analysis but
there is no discussion.
2 The candidate has recognized some distinction between description and analysis and
has provided at least one example, but the analytical discussion lacks detail.
3 The candidate has recognized the distinction between description and analysis and
has provided relevant examples, but the analytical discussion is only partially
developed.
4 The candidate has clearly recognized and discussed the distinction between descriptive
inference and sound analysis, and has provided examples in support of a fully developed
analytical discussion.

D Assumptions, Judgments and Bias
Achievement level
0 The candidate has not reached level 1.
1 The candidate has referred to assumptions, value judgments and/or bias but not
provided examples.
2 The candidate has referred to assumptions, value judgments and/or bias and has
provided some examples. There is no discussion.
3 The candidate has referred to assumptions, value judgments and/or bias in the
observation and recognizes that these may be social as well as personal in nature.
There is some discussion and some examples are provided
4 The candidate has clearly recognized and discussed assumptions, value judgments
and/or bias in the observation and recognizes that these are social as well as personal
in nature. The discussion has been fully developed.

E Critical Reflection
Achievement level
0 The candidate has not reached level 1.
1 The candidate has provided limited evidence of an anthropological understanding of
the initial written report but has not recognized methodological issues or evaluated
the written report.
2 The candidate has provided evidence of an anthropological understanding of the
initial written report and has recognized some methodological issues, but has not
critically discussed or evaluated the written report.
3 The candidate has provided evidence of an anthropological understanding of the
initial written report, has referred to methodological issues and has critically discussed
or evaluated the written report.
4 The candidate has shown sound anthropological understanding of the initial written
report, clearly recognized methodological issues and has critically analysed and
evaluated the written report.

Clifford Geertz's article

2009-09-13T09:43:00.000-07:00

Questions to pair ponder:
What do you think is the purpose of anthropology?
What is your definition of culture?
Why do you think anthropologists do ethnography?

Excerpts from “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture,” in Clifford Geertz’s The Interpretation of Cultures, (1973).

The Purpose of Anthropology

The aim of anthropology is the enlargement of the universe of human discourse. That is not its only aim—instruction, amusement, practical counsel, moral advance, and the discovery of natural order in human behavior are others.

Anthropology arose from the concept of culture.

Culture

Some definitions of culture:
The total way of life of a people
The social legacy the individual acquires from his group
A way of thinking, feeling, and believing
An abstraction from behavior
A theory on the part of the anthropologist about the way in which a group of people in fact behave
A storehouse of polled learning
Learned behavior
A set of techniques for adjusting both to the external environment and to other men
“A society’s culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members.” Goodenough
informal logic of actual life; flow of behavior; ongoinging pattern of life; symbol systems

Cultural systems must have a minimal degree of coherence or else we could not call them systems.

Believing with Max Weber that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning.

Ethnography

He observes, he records, he analyzes.
The ethnographer “inscribes” social discourse; he writes it down. In doing so, he turns it from a passing event, which exists only in its own moment of occurrence, into an account, which exists in its inscriptions and can be reconsulted.

From one point of view, that of the textbook, doing ethnography is establishing rapport, selecting informants, transcribing texts, taking genealogies, mapping fields, keeping a diary, and so on. But it is not these things, techniques and received procedures that define the enterprise. What defines it is the kind of intellectual effort it is: an elaborate venture in … thick description.

Thick description is THINKING AND REFLECTING and THE THINKING OF THOUGHTS.

In finished anthropological writings … what we call our data are really our own constructions of other people’s constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to. These “facts” however are obscured because most of what we need to comprehend a particular event, ritual, custom, idea, or whatever is insinuated as background information before the thing itself is directly examined.

Ethnography is descriptive, microscopic, interpretative, and analytical.

The notion that one can find the essence of national societies civilizations, great religions, or whatever summed up and simplified in so-called typical small towns and villages is palpable nonsense.

We must first grasp and then render. It is not necessary to know everything to understand something.

Analysis is sorting out the structures of signification.

Analysis penetrates into the very body of the object—that is, we begin with our own interpretations of what our informants are up to, or think they are up to, and then systematize those.

Cultural analysis is guessing at meanings, assessing the guesses, and drawing explanatory conclusions from the better guesses, not discovering the Continent of Meaning and mapping out its bodiless landscape.

Anthropological writings are themselves interpretations, and second and third order ones to boot. They are, thus, fictions; fictions, in the sense that they are “something made,” “something fashioned”—the original meaning of fictio—not that they are false, unfactual.

So, there are three characteristics of ethnographic description: it is interpretive (or misinterpretive); what is interpretive of is the flow of social discourse; and the interpreting involved consists in trying to rescue the “said” of such discourse from its perishing occasions and fix it in perusable terms.
Ethnographies are not priveledged, just particular; another country heard from. To regard them as anything more (or anthing less) distorts both them and their implications.

The important thing about the anthropologist’s findings is their complex specificness, their circumstantiality. It is the kind of material produced by long-term, mainly (though not exclusively) qualitative, highly participative, and almost obsessively fine-com field study in confined contexts that the mega-concepts with which contemporary social science is afflicted—legitimacy, modernization, integration, conflict, charisma, structure,. . .meaning—can be given the sort of sensible actuality that makes it possible to think not only realistically and concretely about them, but , what is more important, creatively and imaginatively with them.

Small facts speak to large issues.

Symbolism

Human behavior is seen as symbolic action, action which signifies.

In anthropology, a semiotic concept of culture is peculiarly well adapted.

The thing to ask is what their significance is: what it is, ridicule or challenge, irony or anger, snobbery or pride, that in their occurrence and through their agency, is getting said.

Anthropology Dictionary

2009-09-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.anthrobase.com/Dic/eng/index.html

Week of Sept. 14

2009-09-11T07:36:00.000-07:00

9/14/09
1. Review internal assessments; final drafts due 9/15.
2. Collect cultural artifact papers
3. Seminar on Geertz
4. Homework: Read Gmelch

9/15/09
1. Large group discussion on Gmelch
2. Essential questions on Gmelch
3. collect IA reports
4. read and print out Thick Description...from web site.

9/16/09
1. Quiz "Lessons from the Field"
2. Thick Description analysis
3. Role play
4. homework: continue reading "Thick Description..."

9/17/09
1. Internet showing of MOB websites
2. discussion of "Thick Description..."
3. Introduce Claire Sterk's piece
4. Find and print a mundane social situation.

9/18/09
1. quiz review
2. continued discussion of hair symbol
3. Group chapter essential questions
4. Homework: bullet analysis of mundane pic

Understanding Society

2009-09-10T16:20:00.000-07:00

The Human Zoo notes

2009-09-07T14:33:00.001-07:00

The Human Animal—The Human Zoo, Part 3

Notes:

Price of urban living.

How has “man the hunter” been transformed into man the city dweller?

What has happened to those primitive urges such as the need for space, hunting grounds when he is now crushed into tiny spaces?

How does he cope?

How do we organize ourselves within the artificial world of the human zoo?

We interlock our movements; however, sometimes violence erupts especially when the hunter feels trapped.

In a short time we’ve evolved from 150 tribal members to sometimes millions crowded into small spaces.

Dogon tribe of West Africa has 150 members; no strangers. This can lead to endlessly repeated greeting ceremonies. Everyone has to be acknowledged as villagers go about their daily routines. They are never solitary. Conversely, in the city we are surrounded by strangers. The gaze is avoided.

All city dwellers cannot be in one tribe, so what does the individual do?

City is a vast network of tribes all interwoven together. Human turns strangers on the street into “trees in a forest.” No wonder humans walk past a collapsed body on the streets. It’s impossible to react to everyone as if they belonged to your tribe. There is, indeed, a reduction of personal cooperative behavior. A vulnerable person is prey for thieves. Crime is a tribal way of life in the cities.

Tribal uniforms are common in the cities, from upper classes to gangs. Tribes exclude non-members and take on an exclusive identity in order to give them security. Their group cohesiveness is reinforced by initiation ceremonies. Members often display subservience to the organization. Tribal members must also display their group’s existence. They establish rituals to reinforce sense of belonging.

Often super tribes are created in urban life, for example sports teams. Massive cheering is the cheerful side, riots are the dangerous side.

Sometimes aggression is displayed on inanimate objects; sometimes on other humans. Stylized aggression is played out by parades, patriotic songs, etc.

It’s remarkable that urban dwellers aren’t more aggressive, considering the stress levels.

How is stress managed? How do people adapt? Morris contends that people organize themselves within groups with people they feel comfortable—people similar to themselves, different levels of “our own kind.” This reduces friction. It’s also the basis of social hierarchy. An example is the Masai tribe who arrange themselves into three rows—higher, middle, and lower.

Each culture has forms of status display with subtle rules. Another example is Japanese boardroom where hierarchy is displayed in sitting positions and who drinks tea first. (Notice that the women are servers, something Morris neglects to mention.) Body language also gives hints of high status, where those lower mimic movements of those higher. Increased size also signals status, for example the Queen of England sits on a throne.

In the US, media have anointed high status people. For example, Bruce Willis is shown in what Morris refers as “mock humble arrogance” because Willis is dressed casually signaling “I don’t need displays, I’m big enough without them.” Masai display low status by wearing excrement on their heads.

Organized religion is an example of the ultimate status strategy because it produces extreme subordination. This also has the effect of making people more cooperative.

Two ways of social organization:

(1) setting up social hierarchy
(2) establishing a territory

We feel compelled to set up territorial symbols indicating this is an occupied area. In this way we reduce need to openly defend our territories. Bodies are usually arranged at intervals; people of higher status are given more space.

Extreme form of territorial possession is gangs. Gangs have stepped outside of mainstream society, but are still bound by rigid rules of their own making. If society doesn’t offer acceptable forms of social organizations, unacceptable ones will explode in their faces.

There are also national territories which can become an emotional connection. Examples are national flags, songs, etc.

So, if city life offers stress and dangerous gangs, why do people choose to live in the city? Morris contends that cities also offer excitement, creativity, and the feeling that anything is possible.

Questions to ponder:
Do we really choose to live in the city?
Morris makes no mention of female subservience as mentioned above.
What happens to the outcaste—one who isn’t accepted in any tribe, even a gang?

Week of Sept. 8

2009-09-04T07:05:00.000-07:00

9/8/09
1. Group work: p. 14 in Spradley, #2
2. Model artifacts activity
3. Group activity:
Choose a cultural artifact in Room 158. Describe and analyze what that artifact tells us about a society.
4. Write up a description and analysis of a cultural artifact from your home. (Due Friday)
5. Obama speech (block 3)

9/9-9/10 Alternative lesson plans for BAT testing.

9/11/09
1. Analysis and quiz of The Human Zoo
2. Proofread Cultural Artifact paper
3. Homework: Read Geertz's piece

Electronic Wasteland

2009-08-30T16:29:00.000-07:00

This is a show on 60 minutes that emphasizes the downside of technology.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4586903n

The Human Animal link

2009-08-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

Desmond Morris film, The Human Animal-The Human Zoo, part 3. http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=desmond%20morris%20videos&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#

If you can't access this go to google video and search with key words.

Manifest and Latent Functions

2009-08-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

Manifest and Latent Functions

Sociologist Robert Merton

Manifest functions are the consequences that people observe or expect. It is explicitly stated and understood by the participants in the relevant action. The manifest function of a rain dance, used as an example by Merton in his 1967 Social Theory and Social Structure Merton, 1957, is to produce rain, and this outcome is intended and desired by people participating in the ritual. This could also be defined as emic with cognized models.M.D. Murphy, 2001

Latent functions are those that are neither recognized nor intended. A latent function of a behavior is not explicitly stated, recognized, or intended by the people involved. Thus, they are identified by observers. Latent functions are associated with etic and operational models. M.D. Murphy, 2001 In the example of rain ceremony, the latent function could be to reinforce the group identity by providing a periodic occasion on which the scattered members of a group assemble to engage in a common activity. Merton, 1957

Peter L. Berger describes a series of examples illustrating the differences between manifest and latent functions Berger, 1963: "...the “manifest” function of antigambling legislation may be to suppress gambling, its “latent” function to create an illegal empire for the gambling syndicates. Or Christian missions in parts of Africa “manifestly” tried to convert Africans to Christianity, “latently” helped to destroy the indigenous tribal cultures and this provided an important impetus towards rapid social transformation. Or the control of the Communist Party over all sectors of social life in Russia “manifestly” was to assure the continued dominance of the revolutionary ethos, “latently” created a new class of comfortable bureaucrats uncannily bourgeois in its aspirations and increasingly disinclined toward the self-denial of Bolshevik dedication (nomenklatura). Or the “manifest” function of many voluntary associations in America is sociability and public service, the “latent” function to attach status indices to those permitted to belong to such associations.” "

While Talcott Parsons tends to emphasize the manifest functions of social behavior, Merton sees attention to latent functions as increasing the understanding of society: the distinction between manifest and latent forces the sociologist to go beyond the reasons individuals give for their actions or for the existence of customs and institutions; it makes them look for other social consequences that allow these practices’ survival and illuminate the way society works.

Notes on Spradley (Culture)

2009-08-30T07:55:00.000-07:00

Main Points Culture (Spradley)

Culture: (old) system of learned beliefs and customs that characterized the total way of life for a particular society. (new) the acquired knowledge that people use to interpret their world and generate social behavior.

History of anthropology
§ Began with Americans and Europeans who became interested in the varied ways of life of non-western people.

§ Americans interested in Indians, British in Africa

§ Wanted first hand knowledge

§ Resulted in fieldwork (ethnography)

§ Today anthros. interested in wide variety of people as it is hard to study isolated peoples

§ Anthros. are finding it difficult to find isolated societies? Why do anthros. like isolated societies?

§ Anthros. have developed unique perspective on culture and have challenged taken for granted beliefs. E.g. why did Iroquois women participate with apparent relish in the gruesome torture of prisoners? Why did Indian widows cast themselves on their husband’s pyre.

§ Children learn culture thru socialization. Taught to a very limited number of behavior patterns.

§ Moving from one culture to another is extremely difficult.

§ Some examples of cultural behaviors the average American might find odd:
o Adolescent Hindu boys walking and holding hands
o Indians chewing with their mouths open

· To morally judge other’s ways as inferior is ethnocentric

· Culture is adaptive: correction—tends to be adaptive.

· Cultures always have a system of values – that are often
beneath systems of rules, norms, and behavior systems.

· A value is an arbitrary conception of what is desirable in
human experience.

· Those who do not conform to the value systems are punished

· Conformity results in the internalization of values.

· Values expressed symbolically – food, clothing, wealth,
language, behavior

Cultural Relavatism:

· Anthros. identify their biases.

· Strong & weak cultural relativism and tensions between the two

· Globalization has made isolated societies almost disappear-- a problem with globalization – read quote on p. 10.

Toward a Multicultural Society

· What is the long range commitment to a “gospel of growth”?
· What are the results of a belief in male superiority?
· How do our values of privacy affect those without homes?
· What is the consequence for minority groups when all students are taught to use “standard English”?

Freud and Marx Quotes

2009-08-30T07:51:00.001-07:00

Sigmund Freud Quotes

The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.
The time comes when each one of us has to give up as illusions the expectations which, in his youth, he pinned upon his fellow-men, and when he may learn how much difficulty and pain has been added to his life by their ill-will.
Children are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them.

Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.

Civilized society is perpetually menaced with disintegration through this primary hostility of men towards one another.

If youth knew; if age could.

It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built upon a renunciation of instinct.

Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.

Men are strong so long as they represent a strong idea they become powerless when they oppose it.

Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.

The goal towards which the pleasure principle impels us - of becoming happy - is not attainable: yet we may not - nay, cannot - give up the efforts to come nearer to realization of it by some means or other.

The impression forces itself upon one that men measure by false standards, that everyone seeks power, success, riches for himself, and admires others who attain them, while undervaluing the truly precious thing in life.

The tendency to aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in man... it constitutes the powerful obstacle to culture.

We must reckon with the possibility that something in the nature of the sexual instinct itself is unfavorable to the realization of complete satisfaction.

What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.

Karl Marx Quotes

Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the labourer.

Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.

The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison. The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.

The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together. The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.
The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.

Excerpts from Edward T. Hall

2009-08-30T07:36:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from The Silent Language by Edward T. Hall, 1981

Culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants. Years of study have convinced me that the real job is not to understand foreign culture but to understand our own. I am also convinced that all that one ever gets from studying foreign culture is a token understanding. The ultimate reason for such study is to learn more about how one’s own system works. The best reason for exposing oneself to foreign ways is to generate a sense of vitality and awareness—an interest in life which can come only when one lives through the shock of contrast and difference.

Simply learning one’s own culture is an achievement of gargantuan proportions for anyone. By the age of twenty-five or thirty most of us have finished school, been married, learned to live with another human being, mastered a job, seen the miracle of human birth, and started a new human being well on his [sic] way to growing up. Suddenly most of what we have to learn is finished. Life begins to settle down.

Yet man’s tremendous brain has endowed him with a drive and a capacity for learning which appear to be as strong as the drive for food or sex. This means that when a middle-aged man stops learning he is often left with a great drive and highly developed capacities. If he goes to live in another culture, the learning process is often reactivated.

The problem which is raised in talking about American culture without reference to other cultures is that an audience tends to take the remarks personally.

The best reason for the layman to spend time studying culture is that he can learn something useful and enlightening about himself. This can be an interesting process, at times harrowing but ultimately rewarding. One of the most effective ways to learn about oneself is by taking seriously the cultures of others. It forces you to pay attention to those details of life which differentiate them from you.

In Iran men are expected to show their emotions…If they don’t, Iranians suspect they are lacking a vital human trait and are not dependable. Iranian men read poetry; they are sensitive and have well-developed intuition and in many cases are not expected to be too logical. They are often seen embracing and holding hands. Women, on the other hand, are considered to be coldly practical. They exhibit many of the characteristics we associate with men in the US.

There is one major point which should be kept in mind about the way different cultures tend to treat religion…Americans have tended to compartmentalize religion and to reduce its social function more than any other people. The Navajo regard many activities, such as medicine, entertainment, sports, and science, as religious activities. In the Middle East, Islam plays a more pervasive role than Christianity does today in Europe. People in the Western world have difficulty grasping the extent to which religion infiltrates all aspects of life in the Arab world.

Internal Assessment Peer Editing Checklist

2009-08-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

Peer Editing Checklist

Presenter: ___________________________ Today’s Date: _________________

Editor: _____________________________

_____ one-inch margins on four sides

_____ paragraph indention

_____ title (Observation)

_____ page numbers (bottom right preferred)

_____ name and date (top right preferred)

_____ correct punctuation (commas, periods, semi-colon, colon, dash, hyphen)

_____ complete sentences

_____ subject-verb agreement

_____ capitalization

_____ correct spacing

_____ spelling

_____ clarity

_____ word count at end

Best parts of this piece of writing:____________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

Areas that need improvement:

____________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

Week of Aug. 31, 2009

2009-08-28T06:16:00.000-07:00

8-31-09
1. Silent reading and discussion of the Nature of Anthropology & the importance of anthropology. (Highlight and address questions.)
2. Review Observation Checklist
3. Homework: Finish Observation Reports
4. Review syllabus quizzes

9-1-09
1. Observation peer editing & checklist
2. Group Work:
Essential Question: What does the quote "People only see what they are prepared to see." mean? (group brainstorming)
3. Overview of IB tests
4. Internal Assessment reports due Thurs., 9/3.

9-2-09
1. Read Hall's Silent Language piece
2. Seminar on Hall's piece
3. Silent Reading & Homework: read Spradley on culture (p. 7-14)
4. Homework: work on IAs.

9/3/09
1. Vocabulary review:
What is included in culture?
Are you a naive realist?
What are emic and etic accounts?
Give examples of "noble savage syndrome."
2. Consequences of technology. Think about what we are doing. Think about our ideological belief: "Technology in the answer to all our problems."
3. Homework: Read Spradley 7-14.

9-4-09
1. Large group discussion on definition of culture. (notes online)
2. Finish large group discussion on Thurs. lessons.
3. Small group: List cultural knowledge one must have to be a part of IB microculture.
4. Homework: Desmond Morris film--The Human Animal: The Human Zoo

Class Syllabus

2009-08-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

Social and Cultural Anthropology Syllabus
"People only see what they are prepared to see."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dr. Haley
Thaley6817@aol.com
Class web page: http://socialandculturalanthropology2009-10.blogspot.com
Office Phone: 754-322-0650, Ext. 2047
Voice Mail: 754-322-5680
Office Directions: Room 264 – proceed through corridor 260 and through corridor doors to the end. Make right.

First door on right is my office. (It’s part of Teachers Planning Area.)

The Nature of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Social and cultural anthropology is the comparative study of culture and human societies. It explores the general principles of social and cultural life, and the characteristics of specific societies and cultures. It operates with local and global perspectives, and is increasingly concerned with urban as well as rural society, regional inequalities and all aspects of modern nation states. Anthropology contributes to an understanding of such contemporary issues as war and conflict, the environment, poverty, problems of injustice, inequality and human rights. A distinctive feature of cultural anthropology is ethnography.
Aims
o Explore the principles of social and cultural life and the characteristics of specific societies and cultures
o Develop knowledge and critical understanding of the cultural diversity and processes of change within and between societies
o Recognize the preconceptions and assumptions of their own social and cultural environments
o Understand the ways in which anthropologists describe, analyze, and explain society and culture
o Learn the techniques and strategies used in the generation of anthropological data and to appreciate the
o methodological issues involved in research
o Use anthropological knowledge to study the relationship between local, global and international processes and issues
o Recognize that the results of anthropological study are open to critical analysis and interpretation

Objectives
o Compare and contrast characteristics of specific societies and cultures
o Identify and examine the principles underlying social and cultural life
o Examine culture as a dynamic process and explore ways in which society and culture change
o Apply and evaluate anthropological approaches and concepts in relation to specific social and cultural materials, both local and global
o Examine how cultural and personal preconceptions and assumptions shape people’s understanding of their own and other societies and cultures
o Demonstrate an understanding of the methodological and ethical issues involved in field research
o Demonstrate specific knowledge and understanding of a range of ethnographic materials, such as ethnographies, case studies and films
o Demonstrate an understanding of a range of ethnographic materials reflect the specific perspectives of an observer and are open to interpretation

Required Reading Material

o Spradley, James and David W. McCurdy. (2000) Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology.
o Hostetler, J.A. & G.E. Huntington. (2001). Amish Children: Education in the Family, School, and Community
o Chavez, Leo R., (1998). Shadowed Lives: Undocumented Immigrants in American Society
o another ethnography of your choosing
o Selected articles to be distributed
Recommended
o Raimes, Ann. (1999) Keys for Writers, A Brief Handbook.
o Howard, V.A. and J.H. Barton (1986). Thinking on Paper.
o Strunk, William Jr. and E.B. White (2000). The Elements of Style
o any collegiate dictionary and collegiate thesaurus

Assessments

Internal Assessment (20%)

• The internal assessment consists of a one-hour observation report (500-600 words), and critique (criticism and analysis) of the initial report of 600-700 words.
• Setting may be school, church, a restaurant, senior citizen facility, a club, train station, shopping mall, playground, etc.
External Assessment (80%)
• Paper 1 (30%)
o A one-hour written exam with three or four compulsory short-answer questions based on an unseen text.
Paper 2 (50%)
o Two one-hour essays answered from a field of six questions of which the candidate will answer one.
Note: See IB Syllabus for more details on IB Assessments.
• Classroom tests will be modeled after the Standard Level IB examination questions. Six to ten questions will be given to students prior to the actual test and will require detailed answers based on readings and discussions. For actual class tests, there will be a random choosing of two questions to answer. Students will then choose one of the two to answer. Expect multiple choice and true/false quizzes on readings.
• Regular semester and final examinations consisting of multiple choice, extended response questions, and essays.
• In cases of emergency, you may submit assignments via email. Please send in Microsoft Word attachment form.
• In addition to the three book ethnographies and two film ethnographies listed above, each student will be responsible for a separate ethnography (student’s choice). After reading this ethnography, students will write a summary/analysis/evaluation that demonstrates detailed knowledge of the society studied in terms of place, author, historical context, approach, social stratification, social control, social status, division of labor, adaptation, institutions, symbols, exchange, gender roles, family and kinship, power, globalization, or any other themes mentioned in IB syllabus.

• All take-home writing assignments should be used in the following format:
o Double spaced
o Size 12, Times New Roman font
o 1-inch margins
o page numbers at bottom right corner
o your name (last name first), course, and date in left corner
o If your writing reflects another’s ideas, you must give that person/s credit.
o Use American Anthropological style for citations.
Grades
• Will follow Broward County School District policy.
• Tests and writing and other assignments (50%), homework, seatwork, and group presentations (20%), and quizzes (25%). You will also be given checks for home/seatwork assignments (5 checks = A, 4 checks = B, etc.). 5% of your overall grade will be for class participation, which includes but is not limited to participation in Socratic seminars, attendance, effort, and behavior.
• Makeup assignments need to be completed within two weeks of missed assignments. Check email or learning partner for missed work.
• Written expression is a vital part of this class as clear writing encourages clear thinking. As Ernest Hemingway said, “Write simply, but do not think simply.” Correct usage of English language is required of all writing assignments. Grammar, usage, and coherency will count toward your evaluation. Please proofread!
• For every school day late in submitting an assignment, your paper will be marked down 5 points for a maximum of 25 points.

• Writing Scale
1. 90-100 (A- to A+) Well-organized and high quality work that shows originality and creativity. Extra steps taken for developing a verbal or visual style.
2. 80-89 (B- to B+) High quality, well organized, needs some revision, and shows some attention to style and visual design.
3. 70-79 (C- to C+) Assignment completed, needs some revision, and has logical structure. Style is straightforward but unremarkable.
4. 60-69 (D- to D+) Assignment completed but poor quality. Needs significant revision. Lacks organization.
5. <60 (F) Little or no effort. Did not do assignment.

Class Discussion
This class will strive to have weekly Socratic seminars, but due to time constraints, this will not always be possible. Because of the occasional volatile nature during these discussions, the following behaviors are expected:
• Students do not need to raise hands to enter a discussion, but they must not interrupt the speaker.
• If one disagrees with the speaker, allow the speaker to finish her/his thought, and say, “I respectfully disagree.”
• All students are expected to participate verbally. However, no individual student will be allowed to dominate discussion. I will call on students who do not participate in discussion. Be ready to provide scholarly evidence for your point of view. Please avoid personal anecdotes such as “I know somebody who . . .” This class is more about group behavior, not individuals. Avoid opinions unless you have support.
• Please do not speak while somebody else is speaking. This is a serious infraction because it distracts the speaker, other students, and the teacher, and in doing so compromises the learning environment. Detentions will be given for this. After two detentions, parents will be called.

Group Work
Group work will usually follow the following model and will rotate with each unit:
o Seminar leaders
o Researchers (avoid .com Internet sites)
o Artists
o Talk show (Avoid Jerry Springer style, but Daily Show format permissible without profanity. This may be video-taped)
o Game reviewers

Classroom Procedures
• Please keep a notebook with a copy of all handouts, graded and checked assignments, the IB and class syllabi, etc. You will need this to review for your IB test. In addition, if a mistake is made on your grade, you have proof of your grade. I recommend a 3-inch binder.
• Each student will be assigned a learning partner. This is the person who you will call or email when you miss an assignment. Assignments should follow the syllabus; however, there might be variations. Your learning partner will also proofread his/her partner’s paper before submission.
• If you are absent, it is your responsibility to get missing assignments. This can be accomplished from: (1) your learning partner, or (2) web page postings. Before asking me, please access these resources. It is your responsibility to arrange for make-ups. If possible, you can make up assignments in class. However, lunch or after school make-ups may be required.
• Be in your seat and ready to begin class by last bell. If you come in late, please take your seat as inconspicuously as possible. Please remain in seat until bell.
• Personal questions or concerns will be dealt with after class, by appointment, or email. If you have a concern with me or classroom procedures, please see me after class.
• Please avoid coming in late for class – even with a pass. Tardiness is a disruption and interrupts class flow.
• Do not ask for passes or to sharpen pencils during the middle of discussion or lecture. Everyone will be given 6 passes per term. You will be given up to 10 extra credit points if you do not use these passes. Student generated pink passes will count as double jeopardy. Unless there is a dire emergency, never interrupt a lecture or presentation. Please wait until lecture, discussion, has been completed.
• Bring a #2 pencil for Scantron quizzes
• Any form of dishonesty will be dealt with severely. This includes copying homework or plagiarism.
• Computer skills are required for this class such as email, Internet research, and word processing for writing assignments. If you do not have access to a home computer, use the ones in the media center.
• Rudeness is unacceptable. Full attention should be given to class topics. At this time, refrain from looking at photographs, doing crossword puzzles, work from other classes, etc.
• If used during class, electronic audio devices will be confiscated. Your parent must see bookkeeper in main office for return of device.
• Any backtalk or other rude behaviors will be noted. If behavior interferes with learning environment, student will be removed from class. (See additional behavior requirements on Hostility handout.)
FAILURE TO ADHERE TO CLASSROOM PROCEDURES WILL INCLUDE BUT NOT BE LIMITED TO: PARENT NOTIFICATION, DETENTIONS, AND REFERRALS.

Note: This syllabus is a guide. Changes may be necessary as course progresses.
Term 1

Weeks 1 & 2
Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology
Internal Assessment Observation
Student-Teacher Reciprocity
Topics
➢ Ethnography
➢ Culture
➢ Ethnocentrism
➢ Naïve Realism
➢ Cultural Relativism
➢ Emic and etic accounts
➢ Noble savage syndrome
• Syllabus presentation
• Assign learning partners
• Web page
• Class procedures
• One-hour observation and report (due last school day of August)
• Distribution of books
• Overview of IB tests
• Conformity and Conflict
o “Culture and the Contemporary World”
o “Ethnography and Culture”
o “Lessons from the Field”

Weeks 3-4
➢ Society
➢ Social Stratification
➢ Hierarchy
➢ Social Reproduction
➢ Manifest and Latent Functions
➢ muted groups

• Conformity and Conflict
o “Mother’s Love: Death without Weeping”
o “Prostitution in the Era of AIDS”
Weeks 5-7
➢ Social Structure vs. Human Agency
➢ Symbolism
➢ Meaning
➢ Institutions
➢ Identity
➢ Power
➢ Globalization
• Mike Carlie: “Into the Abyss: A Personal Journey into the World of Street Gangs” (check web page for URL)
• Bourgois in Haviland
o “Crack in Spanish Harlem”
• Ember
o “Why Do Street Gangs Develop?”
• Conformity and Conflict
o “Workaday World—Crack Economy”
o “Cocaine and the Economic Deterioration of Bolivia”
• Social Learning Theory (check web page)
• Film
o Dark Days
o Coca Mama
o People Like Us: Social Class in America

Week 8-9
Ethnographic methods
• Participant observation
• Collection of data
• Differentiate between description and analysis
Description is a mere retelling of events or detailed descriptive account of a situation or object. Analysis is the systematic examination of the nature, cause, consequences, and implications of a phenomenon. Analysis includes comparisons, critiques (are there holes in the argument?), author’s purpose and biases, identifying manifest and latent functions of a social action, and applying theory to practice. Analyses identifies relationship flows between social actors and with social institutions as well as identifying systemic processes or structural underpinnings of a social phenomenon.
• Ethical issues
• Qualitative and quantitative data
Assignment: Compose 10 interview questions to ask a relative or friend about his/her experience with culture shock. Elicit information that notes body language differences, courtship and marriage rituals, rites of passage, and belief systems. Analyze results.

Term 2

Weeks 1-6
➢ Societies and Cultures in Contact
➢ Modernization, Development, and Urbanization
➢ Commercialization and Commodification
➢ Cultural Change
Full Ethnography #1
• Amish Children: Education in the Family, School, and Community by John Hostetler and Gertrude Enders Huntington
• Group presentations (artists, talk show, school teacher, church service, researchers)
• Films:
o Devil’s Playground
o The Amish & Us
o The Amish: A People of Preservation
• Compare and contrast two of the above anthropological films.
• “American Culture through Amish Eyes: A Christian Anarchist Perspective” Thomas Foster

Week 7 Catch up

Weeks 8-9
• Practice Tests for Papers 1 & 2
• review
Note: final written portion will be a practice critique of various observations.
Term 3
➢ Sex and Marriage
➢ Symbolism
➢ Rites of Passage
➢ Rituals
➢ Liminality
➢ Belief systems
*Internal Assessment Observation and Critique due first Monday in March.
Weeks 1-3
Film Ethnographies (#s 2 & 3)
The Turkana of Kenya and the Meos of India
A comparison of two societies in terms of gender and marriage
• Films:
o A Wife Among Wives (David and Judith MacDougal)
o Keep Her Under Control: Law’s Patriarchy in India (Erin Moore)
o The Maternal Dilemma
• Guest Speaker (Dr. Amena Haq)
• Compare/contrast paper on Turkana and Meos
• Nanda, Serena. “Arranging a Marriage in India” in Haviland.

Weeks 4-5
Gender and Social Inequalities
• Conformity and Conflict
o “Symbolizing Roles: Behind the Veil”
o “Society and Sex Roles”
• Film
o Gender Wars
o Covered Girls
• Gender Violation Project
• Practice Test for Paper 1 & 2

Weeks 6-8
• “American Wedding Rituals” Pamela Frese
• Film:
o The Human Sexes
• Submit name of individual ethnography
• Individual presentation of wedding pictures
• Writing assignment: With learning partner, write a two-page typed “thick description” (description and analysis) of a wedding photograph.

Week 9
• General Review
• IB syllabus review
• Internal Assessment Report and Critique due
____________________________________________________________________________
Term 4
➢ Globalization
➢ Economic Systems
➢ Migration Patterns
➢ Global and Local
➢ Xenophobia
➢ Othering
➢ Transnationalism
➢ Liminality

Week 1-5
• Ethnography #4—Shadowed Lives: Undocumented Immigrants in American Society
• Guest speaker
• Films:
o Los Trabajadores/The Workers
o T-Shirt Travels
o Maquiladoras: Cities of Factories
*Submit paper on your ethnography of your own choosing (due first Monday of May)
*Volunteer ethnography presentations

Week 6-7
• Practice Tests for Papers 1 & 2
Week 8
Review for IB External Assessment

Tips for Paper 2

2009-08-23T10:50:00.000-07:00

Tips for answering IB External Examination essay questions:
• Read question very carefully. (I suggest 3 times.)
• Do pre-writing strategies—jot main ideas and supporting details
• Use erasable pen
• Use your time wisely. I suggest 10 minutes for thinking and pre-writing; 45 minutes for actual writing; 5 minutes for proofreading and corrections.
• state the major point as the first sentence (which declares an immediate focus for your answer and inspires confidence in the grader that you know what you are doing as you answer the question)
• organize supportive or explanatory material to follow the major point (which helps the grader understand your logic and the intent of your answer)
• define your terms
• use specific anthropological terms and careful language (which helps minimize ambiguity so that the grader does not misinterpret the meaning of the answer)
Effective answers need not be long; indeed, long answers are often bad answers. A common flaw in essay answers is the writer's inability to communicate the crucial point or, stated differently, separate the facts from their significance. Social science is not a collection of dusty but a process of critical reasoning, careful analysis, and insightful integration of apparently unrelated information into a synthetic hypothesis to explain cultural phenomena.
Don’t:
• Try to “bs”
• State the obvious
• Be opinionated
• Use personal anecdotes

Writing Checklist

2009-08-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

Writing Checklist for Anthropology Papers

1. Is your thesis clearly stated near the beginning of the paper?
2. Do you have an introduction that tells the reader what you are going to do?
3. Does every paragraph argue your thesis?
4. Have you included enough evidence or proof to persuade someone who disagrees with you?
5. Have you avoided a mere summary or have you included analysis, interpretation, and insight?
6. Have you used quotation with care? (Too many seem like padding. Too few may give the impression that you have done little reading on the subject.)
7. Have you followed the correct style for quotations?
8. Have you used the Chicago Manual of Style?
9. Do you have topic sentences for each paragraph?
10. Do you have one idea per paragraph?
11. Is each paragraph sufficiently detailed? (avoid 1-3 sentence paragraphs)
12. Are your paragraphs transitioned? Sentences and paragraphs need to be linked to one another to have overall coherence and logic of paper.
13. Is your paper logical? Does it take the reader to logical conclusions?
14. Is your grammar and spelling correct? (Using spell-check is insufficient.)
15. Are subject, verbs, and pronouns in agreement?
16. Do you have too many of the verb to be, this is, and any other overly used words such as very, really, like, and a lot.
17. Are your sentences straightforward or too wordy? Can meaning be conveyed by using fewer words?
18. Have you avoided passive voice?
19. Is your punctuation and capitalization correct?
20. Does your conclusion demonstrate final analysis, interpretation, and insight? This is especially an important part of the paper to show your “mind at work.”

Some common errors:
• Numbers 1-10 spelled out?
• 2:00 p.m.
• Et cetera preferable to etc. in formal writing
• Avoid contractions.
• Then and than distinction
• Only abbreviate in parentheses (for example, not e.g.)
• Bride-price
• Bridewealth
• Participant-observation
• Worldview
• Avoid 2nd person (you)
• Name, date, block, class at the top of paper
• Using large font to disguise short paper
• page numbers
• 16 years old; 16-year-old adolescent
• avoid slang
• sentence fragments

In anthropological research papers, you may divide your paper into sections.

Writing Paragraphs

2009-08-23T10:36:00.000-07:00

WRITING THE TOPIC SENTENCE

Just as every paper requires a thesis to assert and control its argument, so does every paragraph require a topic sentence to assert and control its main idea. Without a topic sentence, your paragraphs will seem jumbled, aimless. Your readers will be confused.

Because the topic sentence plays an important role in your paragraph, it must be crafted with care. When you've written a topic sentence, ask yourself the following questions:

Does the topic sentence declare a single point of my argument? Because the reader expects that a paragraph will explore ONE idea in your paper. If your topic sentence points to two or three ideas, perhaps you need to consider developing more paragraphs.

Does the topic sentence further my argument? Give your topic sentences the same "so what?" test that you gave your thesis sentence. If your topic sentence isn't interesting, your paragraph probably won't serve to further the argument.

Is the topic sentence relevant to my thesis? It might seem so to you, but the relevance may not be so clear to your reader. If you find that your topic sentence is taking you into new ground, stop writing and consider your options.

Is there a clear relationship between this topic sentence and the paragraph that came before? If you make a sudden turn in your reasoning, signify that turn to the reader by using the proper transitional phrase - on the other hand, however, etc.

Where have I placed my topic sentence? Most of the time a topic sentence comes at the beginning of a paragraph. A reader expects to see it there, so if you are going to place it elsewhere, you'll need to have a good reason and a bit of skill. You might justify putting the topic sentence in the middle of the paragraph, for example, if you have information that needs to precede it. You might also justify putting the topic sentence at the end of the paragraph, if you want the reader to consider your line of reasoning before you declare your main point.

DEVELOPING YOUR ARGUMENT: EVIDENCE
Students often ask how long a paragraph ought to be. Our response: "As long as it takes." It's possible to make a point quickly. Sometimes it's desirable to keep it short. Notice the above paragraph, for example. We might have hemmed and hawed, talked about short paragraphs and long paragraphs. We might have said that the average paragraph is one-half to two-thirds of a page in length. We might have spent time explaining why the too-short paragraph is too short, and the too-long paragraph too long. Instead, we cut to the chase. After huffing and puffing through this paragraph (which is getting longer and longer all the time) we'll give you the same advice: a good paragraph is as long as it needs to be in order to illustrate, explore, and/or prove its main idea. But length isn't all that matters in paragraph development. What's important is that a paragraph develops its idea fully, and in a manner that a reader can follow with ease.

Let's consider these two issues carefully. First: how do we know when an idea is fully developed? If your topic sentence is well-written, it should tell you what your paragraph needs to do. If my topic sentence declares, for example, that there are two conflicting impulses at work in a particular fictional character, then my reader will expect that I will define and illustrate these two impulses. I might take two paragraphs to do this; I might take one. My decision will depend on how important this matter is to my discussion. If the point is an important one, I take my time. I also (more likely than not) use at least two paragraphs. In this case, a topic sentence might be understood as controlling not only a paragraph, but an entire section of text.

When you've written a paragraph, ask yourself these questions:
• Do I have enough evidence to support this paragraph's idea?
• Do I have too much evidence? (In other words, will the reader be lost in a morass of details, unable to see the argument as a whole?)
• Does this evidence clearly support the assertion I am making in this paragraph, or am I stretching it?
• If I am stretching it, what can I do to persuade the reader that this stretch is worth making?
• Am I repeating myself in this paragraph?
• Have I defined all of the paragraph's important terms?
• Can I say, in a nutshell, what the purpose of this paragraph is?
• Has the paragraph fulfilled that purpose?

DEVELOPING YOUR ARGUMENT: ARRANGEMENT
Equally important to the idea of a paragraph's development is the matter of the paragraph's arrangement. Paragraphs are arranged differently for different purposes. For example, if you are writing a history paper and wish to summarize a sequence of events, you of course will arrange your information chronologically. If you are writing a paper for an art history course in which you want to describe a painting or a building, then you will perhaps choose to arrange your information spatially. If you are writing a paper for a sociology course in which you have been asked to observe the behaviors of shoppers at a supermarket, you might want to arrange your ideas by working from the specific to the general. And so on.

COHERENCE
OK, so you've gotten this far: you have your thesis, your topic sentences, and truckloads of evidence to support the whole lot. You've spent three days writing your paragraphs, making sure that each paragraph argues one point and that this point is well supported with textual evidence. But when you read this essay back to yourself, you feel a profound sense of disappointment. Though you've followed your outline and everything is "in there," the essay just doesn't seem to hold together. It could be that you have a problem with coherence.
A lack of coherence is easy to diagnose, but not so easy to cure. An incoherent essay doesn't seem to flow. Its arguments are hard to understand. The reader has to double back again and again in order to follow the gist of the argument. Something has gone wrong. What?

Look for these problems in your paper:
1. Make sure that the grammatical subject of your sentences reflects the real subject of your paragraph. Go through your paragraph and underline the subjects of all your sentences. Do these subjects match your paragraph's subject in most cases? Or have you stuck the paragraph's subject into some other, less important part of the sentence? Remember: the reader understands an idea's importance according to where you place it. If your main idea is hidden as an object of a preposition in a subordinate clause, do you really think that your reader is going to follow what you are trying to say?
2. Make sure that your grammatical subjects are consistent. Again, look at the grammatical subjects of all your sentences. How many different subjects do you find? If you have too many different sentence subjects, your paragraph will be hard to follow. (Note: For the fun of it, underline the sentence subjects in paragraph one. You'll find three, more or less: you, the subject, and the reader. The relationship between the three is what this paragraph is all about. Accordingly, the paragraph is coherent.)
3. Make sure that your sentences look backward as well as forward. In order for a paragraph to be coherent, each sentence should begin by linking itself firmly to the sentence that came before. If the link between sentences does not seem firm, use an introductory clause or phrase to connect one idea to the other.
4. Use repetition to create a sense of unity. Repeating key words and phrases at appropriate moments will give your reader a sense of coherence in your work. Don't overdo it, however. You'll risk sounding redundant.
5. Use transition markers wisely. Sometimes you'll need to announce to your reader some turn in your argument. Or you'll want to emphasize one of your points. Or you'll want to make clear some relationship in time. In all these cases you'll want to use transition markers.

Conclusions
Conclusions are also difficult to write. How do you manage to make the reader feel persuaded by what you've said? Even if the points of your paper are strong, the overall effect of your argument might fall to pieces if the paper as a whole is badly concluded. Many students end their papers by simply summarizing what has come before. A summary of what the reader has just read is important to the conclusion - particularly if your argument has been complicated or has covered a lot of ground. But a good conclusion will do more. Just as the introduction sought to place the paper in the larger, ongoing conversation about the topic, so should the conclusion insist on returning the reader to that ongoing conversation, but with the feeling that they have learned something more. You don't want your reader to finish your paper and say, "So what?" Admittedly, writing a conclusion isn't easy to do.

Many of the strategies we've listed for improving your introductions can help you to improve your conclusions as well. In your conclusion you might:
Return to the ongoing conversation, emphasizing the importance of your own contribution to it. Consider again the background information with which you began, and illustrate how your argument has shed new light on that information.
Return to the key terms and point out how your essay has added some new dimension to their meanings. Use an anecdote or quotation that summarizes or reflects your main idea. Acknowledge your opponents - if only to emphasize that you've beaten them.

Most importantly -- if you're using another person's ideas, you must give credit to that person by using proper citation.

Written by Karen Gocsik
www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/student/ac_paper/write.shtml

Writing "Dos and Don'ts"

2009-08-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

Jack Lynch says that:
"One of the distinguishing marks of clear and forceful writing is economy of style... Many words and phrases rarely add anything to a sentence. Avoid these whenever you can."

Some wasted words and phrases that he identifies are:
It should continuously be remembered that...
It should be noted that...
It can be seen that...
At the present moment in time...

Words to avoid: quite, very, extremely, as it were, thing, basically, essentially, totally, completely, this shows, really, should, truth, proves, nice, slang, too many verb “to be,” anything in 2nd person (you)...

It is not that such words never serve a useful purpose, but that they are often an indication of padding - filling out an essay with emptiness.

Evaluate:
Evaluate means give a value to something. In an essay title, this has a similar meaning to criticize. The title may be asking you to evaluate a range of things in relation to one another. It can also mean look at the arguments for and against one thing, and come to a reasoned judgment in your conclusion. In both cases, you are being asked for your analysis, but you must back this up with fact, examples, and explanation.

2010 IB Syllabus (abbreviated)

2009-07-18T06:28:00.000-07:00

2010 Social and Cultural Anthropology Syllabus (abbreviated)Group 3 Aims

The aims of all subjects in Group 3, Individuals and Societies, are to:
1.encourage the systematic and critical study of human experience and behaviour; physical, economic and social environments; the history and development of social and cultural institutions

2.develop in the student the capacity to identify, to analyse critically and to evaluate theories, concepts and arguments about the nature and activities of the individual and society

3.enable the student to collect, describe and analyse data used in studies of society, to test hypotheses,and to interpret complex data and source material

4.promote the appreciation of the way in which what has been learned is relevant to both the culture in which the student lives and the culture of other societies

5.develop an awareness in the student that human attitudes and opinions are widely diverse and that a study of society requires an appreciation of such diversity

6.enable the student to recognize that the content and methodologies of the subjects in Group 3 are contestable and that their study requires the toleration of uncertainty.

Social and Cultural Anthropology Aims
The aims of the Social and Cultural Anthropology programme at Higher Level and Standard Level are to enable students to:

7.explore the principles of social and cultural life and the characteristics of societies and cultures

8.develop an understanding of the historical, scientific and social contexts within which social and cultural anthropology has developed

Objectives
Having followed the Social and Cultural Anthropology programme at Higher Level and Standard Level candidates will be expected to:

1. compare and contrast characteristics of specific societies and cultures

2. identify and examine the principles underlying social and cultural life

3. consider ways in which society and culture change

4.apply and evaluate anthropological approaches and concepts in relation to specific social and cultural materials

5.demonstrate an understanding of the methodological, reflexive and ethical issues involved in field research

6. demonstrate an understanding of the ways in which ethnographic materials reflect the specific perspective of an observer and are open to interpretation.

Part 1: What is anthropology?

All students of social and cultural anthropology should be familiar with the set of core terms, the methods used by anthropologists and issues associated with the construction of ethnographic accounts. The teaching of Part 1 should be integrated with the study of ethnography throughout the entire course. Part 1 should help students to better understand Part 2. Students should have an understanding of how the terms, methods, and different approaches to the construction of ethnographic accounts, are connected with the historical context of the discipline.

Core terms and ideas in anthropology
While reading anthropological material, students will encounter core terms and ideas. These terms and ideas are used to describe and analyse individuals and groups in their social contexts. Students should be taught that these terms have theoretical and historical contexts. The meanings of these terms change over time and new terms and ideas are constantly emerging. The following list of core terms and ideas is not exhaustive. They should not be presented and studied as isolated entities.

Agency
Agency is the capacity of human beings to act in meaningful ways that affect their own lives and those of others. Agency may be constrained by class, gender, religion and other social and cultural factors. This term implies that individuals have the capacity to create, change and influence events.

Community
Community is one of the oldest concepts used in anthropological studies. Traditionally, it referred to a geograpically bounded group of people in face to face contact, with a shared system of beliefs and norms operating as a socially functioning whole. Communities exist within a common social structure and government. More recently, communities have also been defined as interest groups accessed through space, as in "internet communities," or "communities of taste." With the advent of globalism and global studies that often question the stability of territories, space and place, community is now highly a contested concept.

Comparative
Anthropologists strive to capture the diversity of social action and its predictability by focusing on the way in which particular aspects of society and culture are organized similarly and differently across groups. While social action is frequently innovative, there are limits to its diversity, and patterns identified in one group resemble patterns identified in another.

Culture
Culture refers to organized systems of symbols, ideas, explanations, beliefs, and material production that humans create and manipulate in the course of their daily lives. Culture includes the customs by which humans organize their physical world and maintain their social structure. While many anthropologists have thought of culture simply as shared systems of experiences and meanings, more recent formulations of the concept recognize that culture may be the subject of disagreement and conflict within and among societies.
Human awareness of culture may be only partly conscious, and humans learn to manipulate cultural categories throughout their lives. It is this ability to manipulate and transform culture that distinguishes humans from other animals.

Cultural Relativism
For anthropologists, cultural relativism is a methodological principle that emphasizes the importance of searching for meaning within the local context. Non-anthropologists often interpret cultural relativism as a moral doctrine, which asserts that the practices of one society cannot be judged according to the moral
precepts and evaluative criteria of another society. In its extreme form this version of cultural relativism can lead to a non-analytical position that is contrary to the critical commitments of the discipline. For anthropologists cultural relativism attempts to recognize and address the problem of ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to evaluate the practices of others in terms of one's own criteria. Generally, ethnocentrism has the effect of giving greater worth to the social or cultural context of the evaluator than to the context being evaluated, and hinders understanding across social boundaries.

Ethnographic
Anthropology places considerable emphasis on its empirical foundation based on a direct engagement with particular people and their social and cultural context. Ethnographic materials are usually gathered through participant observation.
Ethnographically grounded anthropology can be contrasted with nineteenth-century 'armchair' anthropology conducted by scholars with no first-hand acquaintance with the societies they analysed, and with 'commonsense' or journalistic accounts of a particular society.

Habitus
Habitus refers to the totality of contexts including the habitats in which people live and the learned skills and norms by which they operate within specific social frameworks. These social frameworks become habitual and embodied ways of seeing, thinking, speaking and doing. Habitus is dynamic. People are both the creators and the products of habitus. Many anthropologists believe that the term resolves the ambiguity associated with the use of the term "culture," and is more useful in understanding organizing principles of social action.

Meaning
Meaning is both constructed and transmitted through cultural categories. These attribute particular significance to persons, relations, objects, places and events. This enables people to make sense of, and give order to, their experience which may in turn reinforce or change meaning. The analysis of meaning is a principal focus of contemporary anthropological thinking.

Process
Social process is what humans actually do, including human action that may work against social structure. Social process is the dynamic counterpoint of social structure. Anthropologists who focus on processes emphasize the possibility of change over time and the importance of human agency, that is, the ability to challenge existing structures and create new structures.
Process is linked to role, the dynamic counterpart of status, consisting of the behaviour associated with a person's status (for example, a doctor is entitled to prescribe medicine and does not divulge information about the health of the patient).

Qualitative
The data that anthropologists gather during fieldwork comes in many forms because they are trying to capture the complexity and diversity of social life. This may be textual (oral or written), observational, impressionistic, or may take the form of images or sounds. Much of the data cannot be reduced usefully to quantitative forms without losing the essence of the material as perceived from an anthropological viewpoint.

Social reproduction
Social reproduction is the concept that over time groups of people reproduce their social structure and patterns of behaviour. This includes not only the enculturation of individual human beings but also the reproduction of cultural institutions, and material means of production and consumption. Social reproduction may be contested, leading to social change.

Society
Society refers to the way in which humans organize themselves in groups and networks. Society is created and sustained by social relationships among persons and groups. The term 'society' can also be used to refer to a human group that exhibits some internal coherence and distinguishes itself from other such groups.

Assessment OutlineStandard Level
External Assessment 80%
Written Papers 3 hours

Paper 1 1 hour 30%

Three questions based on text.

Paper 2 2 hours
Twelve questions based on Part 2 of the syllabus. Two questions to be answered in essay form.
50%

Internal Assessment (Observation and Critique) 20%
Two compulsory activities to be internally assessed by the teacher and externally moderated by IB.

• A one-hour observation followed by a Written Report of 600-700 words.
• A Critique of the initial report of 700-800 words.
• The descriptors concentrate on positive achievement, although for the lower levels failure to achieve may be included in the description.
• The aim is to find, for each assessment criterion, the descriptor that conveys most adequately the achievement level attained by the candidate's work.

The external assessment consists of two written examination papers at SL (paper 1 and paper 2) and three at HL (paper 1, paper 2 and paper 3), which are externally set and externally marked and are designed to allow candidates to demonstrate what they know and can do. The external components contribute 75% of the marks at Higher Level and 80% at Standard Level.

Paper 1 HL20% SL 30%

Paper 1 is based on an unseen text (500-700 words) that is the same for Higher Level and Standard Level. Three compulsory questions, that may be different for each level, are set on the text.

Critical Reading
The purpose of the unseen text is to assess the candidates' ability to undertake critical reading of ethnographic materials in relation to their general anthropological knowledge. The critical reading requires an ability to recognize the conceptual framework guiding the presentation and analysis, and some degree of anthropological imagination. It also requires careful reading of the precise wording of each question to identify what is required and to recognize where ethnographic material and/or personal experience are appropriate.Candidates must always provide evidence from the text itself in their own words.

Qualities Assessed
The general qualities being assessed are anthropological understanding, insight and imagination. Imagination may refer to an ability to imagine oneself in the situation described in the text. It may also involve the recognition of possible connections and/or different implications of different kinds of data and different levels of analysis.

Questions
Questions cover a number of skills: description, generalization, analysis, interpretation and comparison. The questions on the unseen text can be classified into three types: description and generalization, analysis and interpretation, and comparison. The wording of each question indicates the kind of answer required.
Description and Generalization: Candidates are expected to represent in their own words (rather than quoting directly from the text) the points or examples required by the question and to link these to relevant generalizations. Where material from different parts of the text is required, such references are assessed according to their relevance and the extent to which candidates summarize them succinctly. Material from outside the text is not required for this part of the exercise.
Analysis and Interpretation: Candidates should demonstrate an understanding of the anthropological issues raised by the text, and an ability to apply anthropological terms and concepts to the material. They should be able to examine these terms and concepts critically.

Candidates are expected to recognize that the anthropologist who wrote the text has a viewpoint, and that this viewpoint can be agreed with, questioned, and located in perspective. Explicit, general concepts from anthropology should be employed as relevant to the kind of argument required.

Comparison
Candidates are expected to show an ability to think about the text in relation to other contexts and to draw explicit comparisons. The principles on which such a comparison may be drawn should be made explicit and clearly linked to any anthropological issues raised by the text. Comparative material may have both similarities to and differences from the text. Ethnographic materials used in comparison must be identified and situated in terms of ethnographic present, historical context, geographical location and author.

Mark Allocation
The allocation of marks for each question may vary and will be indicated on the paper. The maximum number of marks for this paper is 20.

Paper 2 SL 50%

Paper 2 is based on the eight themes in part 2 of the syllabus, social and cultural organization. There are twelve free-response questions, which may include either structured questions with several closely related parts or essays. The same questions are set for Higher Level and Standard Level but the assessment criteria are different. Candidates are required to answer two questions.

Knowledge
The purpose of this paper is to assess candidates' knowledge and understanding across the breadth of the syllabus through questions based on part 2, social and cultural organization.

Questions
Each question may include a combination of themes, for example kinship and economics. In order for candidates to be sure of being prepared to answer two questions, they must have studied all eight themes. Candidates will need to plan and to decide on the appropriate balance between description, generalization and specific examples. Whatever form the question takes, candidates must recognize that any ethnographic description is historically and geographically specific, constructed by a particular person under particular circumstances, and answers should reflect these considerations.

Mark Allocation
The maximum number of marks available for each question is 20.The maximum number of marks available for paper 2 is 40.

Ethical guidelines for internal assessment
Social and cultural anthropology students should consider these ethical guidelines before beginning their field research and throughout the whole project.

The following guidelines should be applied to all field research. These apply to candidates preparing internal assessment for the 2010 sessions onwards.

1. Do no harm to the people who participate in field research.
2. Respect the well-being of humans and the environment.
3. Obtain informed consent from the people who are the subjects of the field research in a form appropriate to the context before you begin, providing sufficient information about the aims and procedures of the research. Field research involving children needs the written consent of parent(s) or guardian(s). Candidates must ensure that parents are fully informed about the implications for children who take part in such research. Where field research is conducted with children in a school, the written consent of the teachers concerned must also be obtained.
4. Maintain the anonymity of the people participating in field research, unless participants have given explicit permission to the contrary.
5. Store all data collected securely in order to maintain confidentiality. Be honest
about the limits of your training.
6. Do not falsify or make up field research data. Report on research findings accurately and completely.
7. Report your research findings to the people involved in your field research.
8. Do not use data for any purpose other than the field research for which it was collected.
9. Develop and maintain a working relationship with the people that you study so that other researchers can continue to work with them.
10.Check with your teacher when the right way to behave is not clear.
Participate in reviews of the ethical considerations in the field research proposals of your peers.

Field research that is conducted online is subject to the same guidelines. More detailed ethical guidance can be obtained from professional anthropological organizations.

Observation and Critique Exercise (SI only) 20%
Introduction

The internally assessed Observation and Critique Exercise is designed to give candidates a direct, personal introduction to anthropological methods and understanding. It helps candidates to gain an appreciation of both the problems and possibilities of data collection and to reflect on these critically. Data collection and the evaluation of the data is an essential complement to classroom work.
The purpose of the exercise is to allow candidates to reflect on the processes of observing and reporting. In particular, it should highlight the inevitably selective nature of the activities, and the advantages and disadvantages of specific anthropological methods.

Requirements

In the first year, the candidate is required to:
observe an activity in a context or setting without being given assessment criteria B-D for this exercise. Candidates should be given criterion A before writing the written report produce a Written Report, no more than 700 words, of the one-hour observation.

Undertake this observation and complete the Written Report in the first six weeks, and hand it in to the teacher, who will retain it until the candidate undertakes the second piece of work, the Critique. The Critique is no more than 800 words, and is an analysis and evaluation of the initial Written Report on the observation, approximately six months after writing the report.

The observation may be conducted as a group exercise, but each candidate must undertake individual observations. The Written Report and the Critique must also be the candidate's own work.

Teacher Guidance

Teachers should provide guidance on the candidate's choice of context or setting for the observation and the following examples are suggestions. For their observation, a student may first focus on either a context (such as the school itself, a church, a restaurant, or a club, all of which are the focus of specific activities for defined groups, or more open public spaces with specific functions, for example a train station, a shopping mall, a playground) or an issue (such as gender roles or differences, race, ethnicity, or rites of passage). However, issue based observations must be grounded in concrete settings. Teachers and candidates will need to consider ease of access and opportunity in deciding the context or setting for the research. Ultimately both must be sharply focused.

• Teachers must provide guidance on the ethical problems relevant to the context or setting chosen by
each candidate.
• Teachers should provide criterion A and guidance on writing field notes for the observation.
• Teachers must not provide guidance on any draft of the Written Report of the observation. Teachers must not provide guidance on the methodology of the observation beyond the choice of site.

The Critique

The critique provides an opportunity for candidates to apply their newly acquired knowledge of anthropology to interpret the data in the Written Report. The Critique should include an analysis and evaluation of the written report. The candidate should address the problems of observing and recording, and should draw on knowledge that has been acquired during the course to explain their data. The format of the Critique is not prescribed as it depends on the way in which the observation is conducted and the way the report is written but reference must be made to assessment criteria B-D.

Time Allocation
The fact that internal assessment is an integral component of the Standard Level programme, contributing 20% to the final assessment, should be reflected in the total time allocated to the Observation and Critique Exercise, which should include some time for observations, classwork and homework. It is recommended that the time allocated to the Observation and Critique Exercise should include time for:

1--the teacher to explain to candidates the requirements of the internally assessed work, and to give suggestions for observations (criterion A should be provided)

2--consultation between teacher and candidate on the choice of context or setting for the observation and on ethical issues

3--candidates to undertake the observation

4--candidates to analyse the observation and to produce the Written Report

5--the teacher to explain to candidates the requirements of the Critique (assessment criteria B-D should be provided)

6--candidates to complete the Critique monitoring progress

7--the teacher to check authenticity.

NPR (National Public Radio) Resources

2009-07-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

Introduction to Anthropology
Topic: Human Terrain Team in Iraq and Afghanistan examines anthropologists' role and some concerns.
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/07/10/10.php

Week of Aug. 24, 2009

2009-07-06T13:48:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Social and Cultural Anthropology
OBJECTIVE: INTRODUCE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Aug. 24, 2009
1. Welcome and Introductions (Index cards)
Last name first
email address
cell phone
2. Seating chart
3. Class expectations
4. Class syllabus
5. Homework: Review class syllabus and highlight questions

Aug. 25
1. Questions about syllabus
2. Class rules and task assignments
3. Assign Learning Partner
4. Book distribution (Spradley)
5. Homework: Spradley pp.2-5
6. Anthropology Club

Aug. 26
1. Presentation of Model Internal Exam Report
2. Group activity:
a. list 3 tacit and 3 explicit forms of culture
b. Explain when you experienced culture shock.
c. list 3 microcultures around DBHS and explain why
d. list 3 ways being ethnocentric (personalize if you choose)
3. Large group discussion of above.

Aug. 27
1. Syllabus quiz
2. Brainstorm: Why is anthropology important?

Aug. 28
1. Dictate 10 words for paragraph. (warm-up)
2. Class ethnicity makeup.
3. Examination of anthropologists' role in Iraq and Afghanistan
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/07/10/10.php OR
4. Homework: Complete 1 hour observation. Due Monday.

Fieldwork Project Directions

2009-07-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

Fieldwork Project Guidelines

You will engage in a detached observation; take field notes; analyze and interpret the field materials you have gathered; and produce a written report that is roughly between 500 and 600 words.

The aim of this project is to come up with an ethnographic report and analysis. It is to provide an interpretive description of an event, place, practice, institution, object, or set of verbal expressions and exchanges in their social and cultural context.

Think about where you will be observing. What kinds of things will you wtch out for in particular. Consider the following: What arethe key aspects of the event, practice or object? What are people doing? Why do they do it? How do they do it? How does it provide a sense of meaning and purpose, question or maintain the social order, provide emotional release or security, define or display status, or serve to accumulate power. What symbols or artifacts are involved in the actors' interactions?

Some considerations…

Be sure to note methods you are using.

State your bias up front. There are also some serious ethical considerations involved in collaborating with the people you are studying. Never deceive and never place anyone at risk! You need to be open and honest about your role as a researcher, and you must always place your collaborators' or interviewee's safety, privacy, and interests first. If necessary, tell them you are a student working on a class project, and your instructor will read your findings and discuss it in class. Use pseudonyms to assure confidentiality. Whenever possible, get prior permission to attend your event by contacting group leaders or others in authority. Be safe and remain aware of what is happening around you. Be mindful about what you share with others, and think about the consequences of the research project for you.

Writing Up

Starting to write is always hard. Spend some quiet time thinking about what most excited you about your project and how you could best communicate this to a reader. Try arranging your thoughts in an outline. Give yourself time to write a lousy first draft that you may discard. Most good written projects take several drafts to get right.

Your ethnographic report and analysis will be assessed based on the following elements:

A. Descriptive Introduction: Describe the scene where you went and provide some background on the people with whom you observed. Describe the topic(s)and focus of your project. State your argument (thesis) and original goal/research question and why you were interested in it. Make sure that your introduction draws the reader in. In other words, state the focus of your paper or what you were looking for.

B. Methods: Ethnographic field research relies on observation, interaction, and mutual exchange. (In this case you will only be observing.) Describe your methodology. Your main method for collecting data should be observation and note taking. Some of you may have used photographs, voice recorders, or videos.
How did you go about collecting data? What problems or challenges did you encounter? Did those problems tell you something about the phenomenon you studied, or about your methods?

C. Present or describe relevant data: Provide examples of data you
gathered that are relevant to your argument. Is the example representative of what you studied or is it rather unusual? Does it fit a pattern? Or, does it break a pattern? Note: You can paraphrase or use direct quotations - where you have multiple people who said similar things, do not repeat what they said. You should group them together and either paraphrase their overall sentiments, or use a direct quote from one of them that is representative of the rest. This should be both descriptive and interpretive. In other words, you want to report what people say, and why they say it. If you have other kinds of data, people’s personal histories, economic status, age, et cetera, that you think contribute to why they expressed a certain opinion or idea, then state it.

D. Representation/Reflections: Describe your own personal experience or involvement in shaping what you found out. In other words, state your personal bias and why that may have influenced your interpretation of events. What insight did your experience give you into the problem or topic you studied? For example: What were your ideas about the topic before you went into the project? Did your ideas change? What problems or difficulties arose in your observation?

E. Interpretation: IB Scorers want evidence that you know the difference between description and analysis. Therefore, you need a paragraph in your report that will state where you could have analyzed a situation.

IMPORTANT: PROOFREAD!!! (Spell check is not enough.) Use concepts from the course, remember the course is anthropology, and frame your paper in these terms. It is fine to use “I”. Utilize your skills of description that we practiced in the earlier assignments. Try to be detailed, but always keep your details grounded in a broader framework for the reader to see what you are talking about. Avoid ethnocentrism - try your best not to judge the people about whom you’re writing!! Everyone has some biases, or assumptions that they carry with them. In writing the paper, be open about these assumptions. Do not try to hide them.

---------------------------------------------------------

GRADING
Here is the rubric that will determine your grade:

Organized and detailed ______ (15)

Clear description ______ (25)

Analysis ______ (25)

Reference to bias, assumptions, or value judgment ______ (15)

Recognition of methodological issues ______ (10)

Mechanics (grammar, spelling, etc.) ______ (10)

PLEASE CUT THIS AND ATTACH TO PAPER.

Amish Unit Objectives

2009-07-06T11:13:00.000-07:00

Objectives of Amish Unit
1. To identify social structures that shape Amish
2. To understand how global factors force cultural change
3. To understand how identity affects behavior
4. To recognize social control mechanisms of Amish culture
5. To demonstrate the connection between tourism, resistance, and cultural change
6. To describe the dynamics of societal interactions between cultures and subcultures
7. To analyze how modernity, industrialization, commercialism, commodification, and urbanization affect culture.
8. To describe and analyze Amish artifacts, symbols, and meaning
9. To distinguish between high and low context cultures.

Ethnography Directions

2009-07-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

Ethnography Directions
INDIVIDUAL ETHNOGRAPHIES
Double space type a 5-6 page analytical report addressing the following:

1. Intro. gives name of group, author, when it was written, location, time frame of study, methods, and particular themes studied.

2. Give general summary of study. Determine the author's focus and what s/he found.

3. Look for themes from you IB syllabus, e.g. what kind of society (agricultural, hunter/gatherer, etc.) What are the rites of passage? Who has the power? What are the gender issues? How are people stratified? What are the social structures (institutions)? Latent and manifest functions of group behavior? What are the symbols? What are the belief systems (religion)? Choose enough of these topics to cover 4-5 pages. Details of themes are below these directions.

4. How can your ethnography relate to themes or groups studied in class?

5. On the last paragraph, provide your personal evaluation and if you would recommend it for a class ethnography.

6. These are due the last school day of April.

Ethnography Report
Name and author of ethnography
Ethnographic present (time frame)
Location
Historical Context
Methods
Focus

Analyze the society studied in terms of the following:
(You need only to address three of the eight areas listed below.)
Authority and Power
1. power or authority
2. wealth, status, prestige
3. formal and informal political processes
4. social control (formal and informal)
5. stratification in terms of class, caste, ethnicity, age, or gender
6. dominant ideology (What beliefs do people adhere to even though there is little evidence that this is a truth?
7. Who resists domination?
8. How does the society view war and violence?
9. How do they deal with conflict?

Adaptation and Economic Organization
1. How do they adapt to environment in order to survive?
2. Division of labor
3. Who gets what resources? What are systems of reciprocity?
4. What are the systems of production? How do they get food, water, shelter? Are they agrarian, horticultural, pastoral, or industrial?
5. Patterns of consumption?

Kinship and Organizing Principles
1. rules of descent
2. marriage & family practices
3. childrearing practices
4. How is property transferred?

Individuals & Society
1. systems of socialization (enculturation)
2. How do people claim their identity?
3. How do they deal with old age and death?

Belief Systems and Practices
1. religious/spiritual beliefs
2. myths
3. rites of passage
4. rituals

Moral Systems
1. What do they consider good or evil, pure or impure, taboo, honorable or shameful?

Cognitive Systems
1. language
2. symbols
3. art
4. How do they view health and illness?

Processes of Change
1. What causes their culture to change?
2. What effect has modernization and development had?
3. How has globalization affected their society?