S E C T I O N N E W S May 2000 Anthropology News

How important nt is, he states (p 726), that “the next generation know of the value of the great corpus of anthropological work that is available to them” when they start to rediscover the for- gotten issues, problems (and approaches once again. In this regard then, ASA hopes to make a contribiition to help “less mature” anthropolo- gists of all ages to confront such dilemmas. Maybe we can’t program the new anthropologi- cal VCR to record future events, but we can replay the tapes of classic experience and insight, appre- ciate the “Oscar-winning” performances and tie them into contemporary isues.

New Officers Chosen In pursuit of these goal:;, the Association is pleased that Harry Wolcott andl Mary Lindsay Elmendorf have agreed to serve on the ASA Board beginning in the Fall, and, Paul Kutsche will fill the vacancy left by Molly Schuchat who finished her temi as Secretary Treasurer in Nov 1999. Representing a broad spectrum of professional and regional interests, they will bring to ASA new perspectives and interests that will aid us as we develop .4SA’s role in making sense of the past for the future.

Harry Wolcott joined anthropolclgy to his career as an educator while pursuing doctoral studies at Stanford U. That was some 40 years ago, and he has been exploring the liaison between anthro- pology and education ever since. He completed his doctoral studies in 1964., the year a national network of educational re:search and develop- ment centers was established and he accepted a position iis a Research Associate in the new R&D Center at the U of Oregon. He is still at Oregon, where he has served on the faculties of education and anthropology. He is presently Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropolo&y. Field research following his initial work among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia took him as far afield as Zimbabwe, Malaysia and Thailand, where he served two Fulbright assign- ments, and as close as an elementary school across town. His major effort during the past decade hiis been devoted t’D writing what has resulted in a quartet on field research: Writing Up Qualitative Research (1990), Transforming Qualita- tive Data (1994), The Art of Fieldwork (1995), and, most recently, Ethnography: A Way ofseeing (1999). Harry is retired from active teaching but not research, and lives in Portlan’d, OR.

Paul Kutsche received his doctorate at the U of Pennsylvania in 1961 upon completing his dis- sertation work on Cherokee and white peoples in the Appalachian reheon. He subsequently took a position at Colorado C, where he founded the Anthropology Department and spent his aca- demic career. Once in the western milieu, Kutsche developed and pursued research among the Hispanic towns of the southwest, focusing on their cultural continuity and 20th century pro- tests, resulting in his co-authored work, Cariones: Values, Crisis and Survival in a Northern Mexican Village (1981). Subsequently he worked in Costa Rca, researching migration issues, leading to his book, Voices of Migrunts (1994). He has also

harked back to his first studies to compile a col- lection of Cherokee documents from the north- eastern US. Upon being promoted to Emeritus Professor in 1994, Paul returned to his hometown of Grand Rapids to “reconnect with his roots” and to subsequently publish a textbook, Field Ethnography (1998).

Mary Lindsay Elmendorfearned a BA in psy- chology from the U of North Carolina in 1937, and intermittently pursued graduate study while engaged in numerous international education and development programs. She was a member of the American Friends Service Committee team that received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 for its work in Europe. She began work in Mexico in the mid-1940s and was director of CARE activities in Mexico from 1950-60. She returned to the US in 1961 and continued to pursue her interest in Mexico, international development and the role of women in the post W W I I world. She earned her PhD in 1972 at Union Graduate School. This lead her to a “restudy” of Chan Kom following up the work of Robert Redfield and Alfonso Villa Rojas from a woman’s perspective, breaking new ground with her book, Nine Maya Women (1978). She continues to pursue her long and active career as an international consultant on women’s needs, socioeconomic development and environ- ment, water and sanitation issues with the World Bank, the Pan American Health Organization, USAID, several NGOs and United Nations agen- cies. In 1982 she was recipient of the Margaret Mead Award given by the AAA and the Society for Applied Anthropology. Mary migrates between homes in San Miguel Allende in Mexico and Sarasota, FL.

Keep your eyes on this column for upcoming ASA events in the fall, and in the interim, have a good summer: look up old fnends, go back to those places you studied and get ready for the AAA meetings in Sun Francisco. For more information about ASA, comments, feedback, ideas and contributions, contact the column editor at the Dept of Anthropolou, U of Floriah, Gainesville, FL 32603; tel 352/376-2250, fau 352/375-5576, doughty@gator.net.

Central States Anthropological Society MARKO ~ K O V I C , CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

New Officers By the time you read this, CSAS’ new officers will be in place. The transition was made on April 22, at the general business meeting in Bloomington. New officers and their contact information is as follows:

President: Alan Sandstrom, Anthropology Dept, Indiana U-Purdue U Fort Wayne, 2101 Coliseum Boulevard, East, Fort Wayne, IN 46805; tel 2191 481-6675, sandstro@ipfw.edu.

First Vice President: Phyllis Passariello, Anthro- pology Dept, Centre C, 600 West Walnut, Dandle, KY 40422; tel 6061238-8790, passarie@centre. edU.

Second Vice President: Ka t h 1 een Adams, Dept of Anthropology and Sociology, Loyola U of Chicago, 6525 North Sheridari Road, Chicago, IL 60626; tel 7731243-7660, fax 7731508-7099, kadams@orion.it.luc.edu.

SecretayTreasurer: Joyce Lucke, Indiana U-l’urdue U Indianapolis, Office of Professional Develop- ment, UL 1140, 755 W Michigan St, Indianapolis, IN 462024195; tel 317/278-4604, ]luck&upui. edU.

Past President: Anne Terry Straus, MAPSS/U of Chicago, Pick Hall, 301, 5828 S University Ave, Chicago, IL 60637; tel 773/702-4011, fax 773/ 702-5 140, atstrau<@midway.uchicago.tdu, aterisXi aol.com.

Retiring Past I’resident: Harriet Joseph Otten- heimer, Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, 204 Waters Hall, Kansas State U, Man- hattan, KS 66506-4003; tel 785/532-4981, fax 7851532-6978, niahafan(rL‘ksu.edu, ww-personal. ksu.edu/-mahafan.

A Day in the Life . . . By Phyllis I’assariello CSAS column brings you a day in the life of a typ- ical anthropoloky professor from a “central state,“ who had agreed to supervise 18 under- graduates for five months in South America. Here are two random entries from Phyllis Passariello’s field journal:

1. We visited, the students and I, an indigenous shaman in the “Oriente” of Ecuador, the Ama- zonian jungle. We crossd the big river in a motorized canoe, then we crossed the little river two by two, taking turns, in a smaller, dug-out canoe with Jose’s (the Quechua shaman) help as pole-user. We walked for several minutes through some primary rainforest and some erratically cul- tivated secondary rainforest to Jose’s house, a house of palm poles and thatch, set on stilts. He took us to a pulapa (thatch-covered patio), sat us in a circle, and “did” a group cleansing for us, in which we were individually cleansed. (Later, stu- dents were alerted by their on-the-ball professora to interesting, anthropological issues of “staged authenticity,” ethnomedicine, shamanism, psy- chotropic plants, the anthropology of tourism and, of course, the performance of culture). Jose slowly, clearly and sweetly described in Spanish the cleansing ceremony as he performed it. Jose, who is a small, slight man, a Quechua “Indian,” who speaks both Quechua and Spanish, in his ~ O S , was dressed in a faded T-shirt, old boxer shorts, bare feet and his shaman’s feathercrown, made of beautiful toucan, parrot and macaw feathers. He explained that the cleansing had three major components: fire, a bouquet of large, aromatic leaves and a giant cigarette of indige- nous, wild tobacco (which looks like what some might call a “spliff”). Each person in turn was asked to sit on a little stump in the middle of our circle, where a little fire was burning; Jose re- moved any head gear from the person, then swished the bouquet of leaves around in the smoke, then around and around, slowly and carefully, the person’s body, in total silence. Then

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Anthropology News May 2000 S E C T I O N N E W S

he lit the spliff in the fire, took several puffs, and then passed it to the cleansee, who took a puff or two. Jose and the cleansee then peacefully exchanged deep looks, and that was the end, and another person took the stump seat. The experi- ence was both peaceful and exhilarating, and nearly everyone had an individual photo taken by a friend of their own cleansing. I loved it.

2. Another day, we visited the giant indigenous market of Otavalo in the Andean highlands of Ecuador. On the long bus ride home, I negotiated with our bus driver to make a stop in a village, Illuman, that was known (according to several of my guide-book bibles) as a place full of indige- nous Mestizo healers. Of course, our driver was aware of a specific healer there, and we arrived. The healer had a typical cement house on a typi- cal paved road of a small, highland town. The healer, who was a middle-aged man with a gold front tooth, dressed in a dirty pair of old pants and what some would say was a tacky, nylon short-sleeved, buttoned (mostly) shirt, led us into a back room, his office. We negotiated a price for a demonstration healing; he said it would be a “real” healing and he needed a volunteer. None of the students, nor my 13 year old daughter vol- unteered, after glancing around the dirty office with its wall decorations of girly pin-ups along with a big picture of Jesus, and various unidenti- fiable bottles and little statues. Gamely, of course, the professora agreed to be the volunteer. Im- mediately, the healer asked me in Spanish (none of the others seemed to hear) to take off all of my clothes. I said no rather quickly, trying to explain that I would have except that my students were there and it would be inappropriate, blah, blah, blah. . . . He looked at me and said that he couldn’t do the cleansing any other way. I said then that we would have to leave and then would not pay him. He said, OK, but I should realize then that he was merely cleansing my clothes.

After agreeing to take off my socks, I said fine, and we got started. He asked me to stand in the crucifix position. He took a big bouquet of aro- matic leaves, blew his cigarette smoke on them repeatedly, and swished them roughly around and actually on my body. Second time around, he actually began beating different places oi my body, and I mean every place. with the aromatic bouquet. This went on for several minutes. Students were clickng away on their cameras; this event is one of the rnost documented of our field semester. Then, he carried over a container of strange liquid which I surmised after a while to be a mixture of cheap aftershave and aguardiente (white lightening here in KY) and started sipping it and then spitting and spraying (and braying. . .) it with his mouth all over my body and then beating me again with the giant bouquet. This went on for several minutes. Next, he carried over a very little Buddha-like statue (Chinatown vari- ety) which he instructed me to kiss. I did. He prayed and kissed it, and I did. l h e next phase required me to recline on his sofa; he asked me to roll up my pants and if he could put his hands under my shirt; my stamina was waning and I

said, fine, fine. He brought over some ordinary vegetable oil and began rubbing it with a very firm touch liberally on all the parts of my body which he could reach. This lasted several min- utes. I had to turn over so that he could get at both sides. Actually, I am a little fuzzy on the exact ending of the cleansing ordeal, I was a little punchy, but I believe that I was asked again to stand up, he did a final little beating with the leaves, and that was that. Fortunately, it was rain- ing, and I was able to get soaking wet and wash off a bit of the spit and oil before getting back in the bus. I was exhausted, and the students were extremely jovial. I mentally shrugged and thought, experiential learning. (Later, the intrepid profes- sora suggested that the students think about anthropological issues such as syncretism, the conflation of the sacred and the profane, the ideal versus the real, fieldwork as an on-going, never-ending rite of passage, the globalization of popular culture, how everything is “natural,” how any little behavior practiced by a single human being has relevance for the whole species, and . . . oh, what we do for love and professonal- ism.)

I f you have anything relating to CSAS you want pub- lished in this column please contact me at zivk@nid- way.uchicago.edu, or U Chicago Anthropology Dept, 1126 E 59th St, Chicago LL 60637; tel (0) 7731702- 9230, (h) 773/761-7725.

Council on Anthropology

BRADLEY A U LEVINSON, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR As I write these lines, spring is in full bloom! And by the time you read this, you should be well on your way to realizing your plans for the summer season. Don’t forget to think about how you d g h t contribute a short piece for my columns in Sep and Oct. Those of you who subscribe to the Ilstserv know that I have invited CAE members to submit to me for publication short reflections on the following theme: “The Relation between Anthropoloby and Education: Whither CAE?” How has CAE changed over the years, and where is it headed? To what degree, and in what man- ner, has our work remained rooted i n the disci- pline of anthropolog?.? What is our obligation to the discipline, and what is our obligation to the field of educational research and practice? Feel free to send me your reflections, between 2(X) and 500 words, for consideration. You may also de- cide to compose a little fieldwork reverie. In any case, my deadline for the Sep issue comes v e q early-jul 17-and I will be in Mexico at the time. Therefore, make sure you send anything to me elcstronically by that date, as that will be the only medium I can effectively use to prepare the column.

N e w AAA Commission on K-12 Outreach Rosemary Henze reports the following: The AAA’s Long Kange Planning Committee formed a new group in Nov 1999 to develop plans for improv-

ing anthropology’s outreach to schools, part of the larger goal of developing a more public face for anthropology. As recent articles in AN suggest, the stereotype persists of anthropologists as older, bearded white males who are largely concerned with bones and stones. Anthropology needs to have a more relevant and public presence, and one avenue for pursuing this is in K-12 educa- tion.

The Commission on I;-12 outreach consists of seven members who will meet twice a year over the next three years. l h e members are: Rosemary Henze, Chair; Meg Conkey; Paul Erickson; Marby McClain; Man Lyn Salvador; Ruth Selig; and Elsa Statzner Ruggiero. Both Rosemary and Elsa are CAE members, so CAE will definitely have a pres- ence. Other commission members have worked with schools to communicate scholarly knowl- edge from archaeology, biolobical anthropology; folklore, general anthropology and museum anthropology. Our first hull meeting will take place in Philadelphia, Apr 7-8.

Part of the work of this group involves review- ing the history of past outreach efforts so that we don’t reinvent the wheel, and so that future out- reach can be planned with the wisdom of histo- ry. With this in mind, we would like your input. Do you have experiences in which you believe anthropological concepts and processes were suc- cessfully communicated in schools? How would you define “successful outreach” to schools? How do you think anthropology as a discipline can improve its outreach to schools? We would ap- preciate any thoughts and experiences you’d like to share as we begin to chart this very nebulous territory. For those of you who asked earlier about extending the group‘s charge to include commu- nity college and pre-K, this is still under discus- sion and will be taken up at the Apr meeting.

Meg Conkey and I have proposed a panel dis- cussion on K-12 outreach at the next AAA An- nual Meeting, to which several local teachers and a principal have been invited. We hope this ses- sion, if accepted, will bring more people into the discussion about the purposes, meanings, and forms of anthropology’s “outreach” to schools. If you have comments about any of the above, please eniail me at: henze(0 arcoakland.org.

A Valuable Resource Roseman has been active 011 a rclated front, as well. She and CAE member h4ary Hauser have published Pcnoridiziri~y Culhiw r/iroq/i A/it/iropo- lo‘yii-al (11 id Ediiiat ior i d 1 ’c,r.pcti i ,c~s, a i n o n o p a p h that distills the ideas and strategies shared at a two-day conference for teachers and anthropolo- gists held in San 1:rancisco in 1996. The report is designed for teachers and teacher educators who, in their teaching, curricula and relationships with students, are struggling with fundamental cultur- al questions: Who are my students? What kinds of cultural influences shape their lives? How do they and I, as their teacher, shape and construct this culture on an ongoing basis? What are my own cultural assumptions and how do they influ- ence my teaching? The report hopes to provide suggestions that will assist teachers in personaliz-