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Conformity and Conflict Readings in Cultural Anthropology

JAMES SPRADLEY

DAVID W. McCURDY Macalester College

P E A R S O N

Boston New York San Francisco Mexico City Montreal Toronto London Madrid Munich Paris

Hong Kong Singapore Tokyo Cape Town Sydney

Volks- & Völkerkunde i ^ J . • 4 . m : i J , r D F G . -

in Zusammenarbeit mit acr u r u

Contents

Preface xiv

World Map and Geographical Placement of Readings xvi

ONE Culture and Ethnography 1

1 Ethnography and Culture 7 James P. Spradley To discover culture, the ethnographer must learn from the informant as a student.

2 Eating Christmas in the Kalahari 15 Richard Borshay Lee The "generous" gift of a Christmas ox involves the anthropologist in a classic case of cross-cultural misunderstanding.

3 Shakespeare in the Bush 23 Laura Bohannan Cross-cultural communication breaks down when the anthropologist attempts to translate the meaning of Hamlet to the Tiv.

4 Fieldwork on Prostitution in the Era of AIDS 33 Claire E. Sterk Fieldwork among urban prostitutes means doing ethnography under difficult but, in the end, manageable circumstances.

5 Lessons from the Field 46 George Gmelch Fieldwork in Barbados gives students a greater understanding of their own culture and personal life.

v i i

V i i i C O N T E N T S

TWO Language and Communication 58

6 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: Worlds Shaped by Words 63 David S. Thomson To what extent does Whorf s hypothesis that language creates reality apply in daily life?

7 H o w to Ask for a Drink 76 James P. Spradley and Brenda J. Mann Actors in a bar use a variety of speech events and speech acts to communicate information beyond the literal meaning of their words.

8 Body Art as Visual Language 85 Enid Schildkrout From tattoos to makeup, body art is used to signal life-changing events, group membership, and social rebellion.

9 Conversation Style: Talking on the Job 93 Deborah Tannen On the job, men and women use distinctive conversation styles to ask for help, leading them to evaluate performance and character differently.

THREE Ecology and Subsistence 102

10 The Hunters: Scarce Resources in the Kalahari 107 Richard Borshay Lee, with an update by Richard Borshay Lee and Megan Biesele !Kung and other foragers traditionally worked less and ate better than many other people with more "advanced" food-producing techniques. Today, however, their survival depends more on drilling wells and keeping cattle than on collecting wild foods.

C O N T E N T S i x

11 Adaptive Failure: Easter's End 122 Jared Diamond Polynesian settlers on Easter Island prospered and multiplied until they eventually destroyed their island habitat and, with it, their civilization. Is this a harbinger of things to come for all humankind?

12 Forest Development the Indian Way 132 Richard K. Reed South American governments could learn much about tropical forest "development" from the Amazonian Indians who live there.

FOUR Economic Systems 142

13 Reciprocity and the Power of Giving 147 Lee Cronk Gifts not only function to tie people together, but they may also be used to "flatten" an opponent and control the behavior of others.

14 Cocaine and the Economic Deterioration of Bolivia 154 Jack Weatherford The world market for cocaine robs Bolivian villages of their men and causes problems for health, nutrition, transportation, and family.

15 Office Work and the Crack Alternative 165 Philippe Bourgois Purteo Rican men living in Spanish Harlem feel that the risks they run selling drugs are preferable to the disrespect they encounter as low-wage employees in New York's financial and service companies.

X C O N T E N T S

FIVE Kinship and Family 178

16 Mother's Love: Death without Weeping 183 Nancy Scheper-Hughes Close mother-child bonds suffer in the presence of high infant mortality in a Brazilian shantytown.

17 Family and Kinship in Village India 193 David W. McCurdy Kinship still organizes the lives of Bhil villagers despite economic opportunities that draw people away from the community and dependence on relatives.

18 Life without Fathers or Husbands 201 Clifford Geertz Members of a matrilineal Chinese tribe create a society that works without marriage.

19 Uterine Families and the Women's Community 210 Margery Wolf To succeed in a traditional patrilineal family, a Chinese woman must form her own informal uterine family inside her husband's household.

SIX Identity, Roles, and Groups 218

20 Symbolizing Roles: Behind the Veil 223 Elizabeth W. Fernea and Robert A. Fernea The women's veil stands for everything from personal protection to female honor in Mediterranean societies.

21 Society and Sex Roles 231 Ernestine Friedl Given access to public resources, women can attain equal or dominant status in any society.

C O N T E N T S Xi

22 A Woman's Curse? 240 Meredith F. Small Why do cultures the world over treat menstruating women as taboo? What accounts for the high rate of menstruation among Western women?

23 Mixed Blood 249 Jeffrey M. Fish A woman can change her race from black to "brunette" by taking a plane from New York to Brazil.

SEVEN Law and Politics 260

24 Cross-Cultural Law: The Case of the Gypsy Offender 265 Anne Sutherland Legal cultures clash when a young Gypsy is convicted of using someone else's social security number to apply for a car loan.

25 Notes from an Expert Witness 274 Barbara Joans Four-fields anthropological training helps an academic anthropologist achieve success as an expert witness in several court cases.

26 Life without Chiefs 284 Marvin Harris Small societies based on reciprocal and redistributive economic exchange can do without officials.

EIGHT Religion, Magic, and Worldview 294

27 Taraka's Ghost 299 Stanley A. Freed and Ruth S. Freed A woman relieves her anxiety and gains family support when she is possessed by a friend's ghost.

C O N T E N T S

28 Baseball Magic 306 George Gmelch American baseball players employ magical practices as they try to deal with the uncertainty of their game.

29 Run for the Wall: An American Pilgrimage 316 Jill Dubisch An annual motorcycle pilgrimage from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., personally transforms those who ride.

30 Cargo Beliefs and Religious Experience 330 Stephen C. Leavitt New Guinea cargo movements serve not only as a strategy to acquire cargo (Western goods) but also as a way to contact ancestors.

NE Globalization 340

31 The Road to Refugee Resettlement 345 Dianna Shandy Nuer refugees must develop the skill and determination to pass through a series of bureaucratic hurdles to reach and adjust to life in the United States.

32 Men's Pleasure, Women's Labor: Tourism for Sex 355 Denise Brennan

Dominican women flock to Sosúa, an attractive Caribbean destination for European men, to act as sex workers. Drawn by the prospect of big money and a possible European visa, they most often experience degradation and disappointment instead.

33 Japanese Hip-Hop and the Globalization of Popular Culture 370 Ian Condry Using the ethnographic approach in hip-hop clubs to understand a transnational trend, an anthropologist discovers that a form of pop culture invented in the United States can be hybridized to take on a Japanese flavor in Tokyo.

C O N T E N T S x i i i

TEN Culture Change and Applied Anthropology 386

34 The Kayapo Resistance 391 Terence Turner Using everything from airplanes to the world environmental movement, the Kayapo Indians of Brazil manage to prevent the building of a dam that would have flooded their Amazonian habitat.

35 Medical Anthropology: Improving Nutrition in Malawi 410 Sonia Patten A medical anthropologist is part of a team that introduces milk goats to Malawi villagers.

36 Using Anthropology 422 David W. McCurdy Professional anthropologists do everything from ethnographies of automobile production lines to famine relief, but even the neophyte may be able to use the idea of culture to understand the workplace.

3T Career Advice for Anthropology Undergraduates 436 John T. Omohundro The ability to translate useful anthropological skills into "résumé speak" is one way for anthropology graduates to find employment.

Glossary 447

Index 453