Ethnographic Perspectives on Laxyuup Gitxaala

The following is a paper I presented at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting in Montreal. November 2011.

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The question is easy: What are the changes undergone in archaeology under a collaborative setting, and why is it worth it? Experience speaks for itself in the moment, but the following is a representation of the transformation undergone in archaeology as experiences across time and space collide in the field.

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Part I: Katrena Leslie
Here is Katrena Leslie, our platform upon which we moved and lived across the water in the Gitxaala territory. And the boat floats, it bobs up and down, it rolls and leans. The people on board do as well, some tossed more violently than they expect, others lulled to sleep, and a few lulled to sickness. But Katrena Leslie is not inert, she is not some welded piece of steel propelled by diesel. She takes on as many roles are there are persons on board. She is a table around which planning and meals are shared at once. She is a location, central and mobile, pivotal in her role as mediator between perspectives and goals. And she is our guide, her belly full, like a well-packed backpack, of tools and data, books and food. And with her at our sides we were able to move through the territory, finding and visiting and experiencing disparate sites of knowledge with her as our constant. Katrena Leslie, she helped us see, from top to bottom, accumulated ways of knowing, oral histories beneath the ground, and caked on all our faces, evidence of having been and having done, and having seen.

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Part II: Lach Klan

So now we start moving across the territory. We begin as I did in Lach Klan, the village, the central home of the Gitxaala First Nation. And we, all of us involved, have been here, walked upon the anthropogenic deposits upon which the houses of our hosts and friends sit and have sat for many years. The island landscape is the space we navigate, but no matter how far we wander in kilometres and miles, we are never far from the village. Though physically inhabiting distinct geographic space, we are transported, in moments, far from the active practice of archaeology. The flat leaves of devil’s club are reminders, opaque windows through which the beam of the total station travels in space back to the people who call this home. The leaves and bushes and fallen trees were reminders of our purpose, to supplement a way of knowing. In these moments and otheres we carried Gitxaala in our pockets, as the global positioning handhelds might well have been called Gitxaala Position Systems. Anthropology and Gitxaala are old acquaintances, but now become more and more colleagues as their components are at once and always moving and contributing to what makes up the Laxyuup Gtixaala.

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Part III: Mapping

And we mapped, oh how we mapped. Got it. Yep. Got it. Face the prism toward me. Level? Let’s shoot in the next station. And so on across the sites.

Each laser beam from the total station a vision, each vision a point. The maps are a living, yawning thing, moving point to point across a landscape big or small. I learned on a skiff one evening from my friend Greg, that the people used to navigate their ocean routes moving point to point. Each point a point of reference. And so it is with topography, each point a way of visiting and remembering a place. And each map is a record of visiting, a physical (or digital) memory of a place, and a reference for the future. To map, for us, is to situate ourselves. Like a spider we stretch a web across a landscape, each point drawing us closer and closer to an understanding. Manufacturing an artifcatual world, a base upon which to live our work.

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Part IV: Practice

Let’s move to the real meat of it now. The practice of archaeology. The object of study, the culture area, the regional specialization. Archaeology takes place upon the map, upon the land, upon the anthropogenic evidence of time immemorial. Each percussion core, each ping an intrusion into the past. Archaeologists are time travelers, which is not to be cliché, but rather literal. Far from fiction, the practicing archaeologist, with each scrape of a trowel, passes from the present into the past and back again. It is the hermeneutic. It is the empirical.

But to examine what is empirical, is to get at that experience of discovery, of finding and unearthing. In examining the empirical in collaborative archaeology I find we are never confined solely to a square. We are never so myopic as to see only the silt in the screen. Nor are our practices so confined. Far from specialized we are mappers, and collectors, we are excavators and screeners, we are finders and fishers, explorers in residence, we are the makers of fires and pies. We are the screen tossers and the joke tellers. And some of us are less graceful than others. We are all these things at once, amalgamations, characters inhabiting a plot we write ourselves.

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Part V: Fishing

What better after a long day of swallowing flies than a fresh-boiled crab? Nothing. Except maybe halibut stew. And so we come to fishing. We come to the anecdotal, the fantastical stories of halibuts reeled in by hand. The personal feats of touching live crabs. The unsure looks of a man tasting urchin goo for the first time. Fishing, and stories about fishing, occupied a primary space alongside Katrena Leslie. Indeed it enveloped us from all angles. Each return to the kitchen was the beginning of a rising tide of fishing stories. And once again, as water seeps through the stones of a fish trap, the fishing stories permeate our lives and experience. We are transported in time, suddenly glimpsing and embodying bits of practices ancient. Five more minutes of five thousand years of history played out on Katrena’s decks and with our hands. Not ethnoarchaeology, not experimental archaeology, the collaborative is experiential archaeology. Katrena hosted the sea creatures upon her deck and there we mingled, learning names and gaining insight into character. Names and knowledges we’d carry with us into the excavation units, into the auger’s bucket and into the corer’s tube.

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Part VI: Midden

Fish eaten and bones discarded. Shells picked clean and crushed underfoot. Such is the creation of midden. Midden, the heap upon heap of heaping helpings of human being. The excavation units come alive with it. Shells pouring out of the walls and clacking as they hit the ground. But the fishing allows a new vision. The shells, the shapes, the hues, the sizes are all suddenly familiar. They are not discard but living and slimy and revealing ways of life that have come and gone and stayed. Surely we cannot uncover a salmon bone without tasting tasty sockeye. Same goes for urchins. And as our vision becomes embodied in our tongues, so too does it become refined. Slowly, like eyes adjusting to the dark, a collaborative vision is born in archaeological practice.

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Part VII: Abalone

Enter abalone, iridescent, shimmering and shapely. The shell of value, the shell of controversy. The shell now supplementing understandings of statistical significance. Abalone lives deep in the archaeological and Gitxaala imagination. It crawls upon the wet rocks and hides. But there are those with vision good enough to see. They bring experience, they bring memory and practice and a pinch of good luck to these places normally unseen. In our case the underground. Each fragment of shell that emerged from Ks’waan was another piece of evidence tying together the labour of archaeology, the land we worked on and the fishing practiced. EU NS1 filled to the brim with abalone shells, overflowing and soon filling the house basin. Work slowed and was never the same. We saw, we learned, we experienced and we found. Surely such experience cannot be insignificant.

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Part VIII: Transformation

Archaeology has undergone transformation in Laxyuup Gitxaala. Like salmon running we’ve been pooled and trapped behind the stone walls of an archaeological feature. The Gitxaala have created the world, shaped it and know it intimately. In collaboration we come to inhabit it, swim around and move from border to border. When the tide rises we can drift out and away and come back again. When the tide is out all we know is intersection between ourselves and others. The stories told in collective gatherings, around shared meals follow us into the field where they articulate with the same landscape we ourselves interact with.

And all this upon the platform. The platform its own feature upon which experience is free to transcend the person, the work and the memory.

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My thanks to the Gitxaala Nation for allowing us to visit and work in their traditional, unceded territory. This research made possible by Charles Menzies and the Laxyuup Gitxaala 2011 summer team: Greg, Teddy, Russ, Naomi, Kenzie, Kisha and Andrew. Thank you all for your participation and a fun summer.

Arriving

Welcome to the Northwest, where eagles sing and scream, where sea planes soar over harbors and the greenest greens you've ever seen tower over towns. 

I've arrived here for fieldwork. To head out into remoteness, to dig, to talk and to think. This thing we do, anthropologists, this thing called research is an interesting place to visit. Apart and strange, outside the university the researcher is a baffling presence; hailing from far away places, transient, lonely, with vague purposes even remoter.

Arrival is process, one of making place, making a place. All beginnings are arrivals.Arrival is the beginning of the creation of memories. Memories that come to construct the familiar.

Arrival is experience. Touch and feel and sense; new smells of ocean and the sounds of eagles flapping. Seeing, becoming part of landscape by contributing to it, by taking it in, literally embodying. Arrival is moving and pausing. 

I've arrived here, in the Northwest, ready again to set out anew. To the ocean, to floating scapes of sea and land and group. I'm here to see how archaeology arrives, by boat and plane and skiff. By tool and question and boot. By poetic narrative, perhaps. Tonight archaeology arrives and tomorrow it stays and the day after it leaves again. My job is to see and experience and write it.

Listen:

On the Future of Anthropology

Almost three and a half years ago I wrote an entry on this very blog describing my thoughts on the value of anthropology in the future. This entry, On the Future and Anthropology, is one of the biggest sources of traffic to my blog. Evidently many people around the world search for the terms future and anthropology.

Since then the character of the blog has changed nearly as much as the thoughts and experiences inside me. And I feel obligated to offer some updates with regards to the role and future of anthropology.

My feelings on the state of the world and the values that anthropology has to offer have not changed significantly. Anthropology has precisely the nuanced, worldly perspectives which can give important meaning and insight into contentious issues of human rights, violent conflict, capitalist ethics and the like. The future and anthropology are almost certainly well suited for each other.

However, the future of anthropology is far less certain. I've now been a student of anthropology for nearly six academic years and this past year has made something abundantly clear to me: anthropology spends its days around the world learning things, but sleeps with its head in its ass.

Since the original post I've entered a graduate program and anthropology and I am undergoing the academic and professional training of its future practitioners. I have found that as graduate students we are not taught how to write, how to teach, how to engage, how to listen or even how to speak. We are instead taught how to become effective and tactical academics, working to succeed in an academic system that almost any professor will say is broken.

As students, we learn to write for publication and not for an audience. We learn that presentations are venues to place information in front of an audience, instead of presenting it to them. We learn that teaching is a form of employment and a hassle conflicting with what our truer academic goals should be. And we take these lessons and apply them in classrooms full of young undergraduate students. And we take these lessons and apply them to our own classrooms full of our peers. And we take these lessons to anyone we know who might, for a minute, entertain a masturbatory exposition on the theoretical context of our research.

This is only one experience and it is not intended to reflect on the abilities and motives of my colleagues, professors or mentors. It is also likely that other departments better emphasize the possibilities of contribution in anthropology, or at the very least, the encouragement of innovation. However, I must at once place blame on the individuals as well as the structures. We are agents, each day making decisions to contribute, create or re-create.

Professional anthropologists complain of the stigma attached to writing for popular audiences, but do not confront it. They sit bored to tears in graduate seminars listening to bright students drone on illustrating an astounding ability to retain and comprehend (without contributing to knowledge), but they do not change the format. They endlessly pour over poorly written term papers, but do not teach writing.

They complain and wait for tenure honestly, I think, expecting to change the system when they have the clout. But to change the system whilst sitting atop its structure would place careers and standings in jeopardy. Change will not come from the top, it will not come in time.

There are glimmers of hope, those individuals who would demand that we find a voice before all else. And it is precisely a voice that anthropology needs to find. Not a unified voice necessarily, but one that is spoken clearly. Not an applied voice necessarily, but one that engages. Not a popular voice necessarily, but one that appreciates an audience.

As a musician, an artist and, perhaps, a scholar, I have come to recognize the role that performance plays in every day of life. Writing a term paper is a performance. Writing a journal article is a performance. Presenting a paper is a performance. Teaching is a performance. Celebrating with colleagues is a performance.

Performances do not need to be perfect. In fact, it is the imperfections which make them lively and real. Their value lies in creating a shared space of communication, translation, listening and reflection; what have I heard and seen, what have I learned and taught, what have I created and how have I shared it?

Anthropology needs to learn to perform instead of present. To create instead of write. To engage instead of teach. As students we should demand a change in vocabulary and expectations to follow. If anthropology can do these things, if we can do these things, then the discipline will have a bright future. If we cannot, then anthropology might as well stay where it is.

Scientific Poetry

"I began with physical anthropology. I was taught how to measure the size of the brain of a human being who had been dead a long time, who was all dried out. I bored a hole in his skull, and I filled with grains of polished rice. Then I emptied the rice into a graduated cylinder. I found this tedious.

"I switched to archaeology, and I learned something I already knew: that man had been a maker and smasher of crockery since the dawn of time. And I went to my faculty advisor, and I confessed that science did not charm me, that I longed for poetry instead. I was depressed. I knew my wife and father would want to kill me if I went into poetry.

"My advisor smiled. 'How would you like to study poetry which pretends to be scientific?' he asked me.

"'Is such a thing possible?' I said.

"He shook my hand. 'Welcome to the field of social anthropology,' he said. He told me that Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead were already in it- and some sensitive gentlemen as well."

Kurt Vonnegut recounting anthropology at the University of Chicago

Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons

From the Death Pedestal to Philosophical Fear

In case you were out, the so-called king of pop died last Thursday. And, every day since we have been reminded that, indeed, he is still dead. No more dead than he was Thursday, certainly no less dead, but nevertheless, still dead enough. Then, I had the misfortune of tuning in CNN to get a brief of current events for work on Sunday morning only to be reminded by four, count them, four separate analysts that Jackson was dead. And (get this!), there was an autopsy. Someone died (died I tell you!) and those doctors had the audacity to try and figure out why. Finally, and I hope I read the news reports accurately, it seems that people are planning a funeral for the dead Michael Jackson.

Even this very morning it seems the only thing worthy of public consideration is that Jackson is still dead. Both CNN and MSNBC (The place for politics) are reporting this. If such thorough and reputable media organizations are reporting this, it must be true.

It seems my fears of the zombie apocalypse, at least in the case of Jackson, were, thankfully, unfounded.

In a close second and third recently, two more celebrity deaths. And fourth? That Farrah Fawcett's death was overshadowed by Jackson's.

I'm simply sick of this shit. Let's have a run down of things that actually are happening (other than the recapitulation of Jackson's death): The political situation in Iran dropped off the map as the state approached revolution. We are at war in two countries; though today marks the begining of the pull out in Iraq. The University of Illinois is under investigation for not only admitting unqualified (but well connected) students, but trading admission decisions for job placements (for underqualified candidates). As if two wars weren't enough, there is more war mongering begining to be directed at North Korea. Nevermind all the death and human suffering that never makes the news because we have become accustomed to it; that is, destitution, hunger and exploitation of the "low" classes in the US and around the world.

I think that this is becoming more than a short-sighted, anecdotal and momentary demonstration of priorities. This is an infectious and expanding attitude that will be detrimental to the social and physical state of the world. The continous expansion of celebrity obsession is more than a distraction, it is a deliberate state of ignorance. It is a conscious shrugging of the shoulders to those problems that are too depressing to be profitable. I will go as far as to say that the media storm surrounding the 2008 election, ironically, was a similar calculated means to set aside the mortal, sadistic, corrupt and depressing side of the human condition. I say that because the hoopla that peaked at the inauguration dropped off almost instantly as soon as Obama began facing the problems he campaigned about.

There are few things that I'm truly afraid of (in a philosohpical sense). One is my untimely death at the chaotic hands of an evangelical Christian children's army. Another, a new one, is the long-term effect that this new profit-hungry, mainstream, normative, omnipresent media machine is having. There will a come a point where profit will not be a strong enough forced to demand all our attention. I can only hope that the competing force, at that point, will not be self-preservation.

The Crossroads of Archaeology: Navigating the World Between Disciplines

I was nominated and chosen to deliver the student address at Butler's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences spring awards ceremony. The following is the speech manuscript.

As an aspiring archaeologist I sit at a contested point between endeavors in the humanities and the sciences. A great deal of critical commentary in recent years has concerned the negotiation of the archaeological identity. Are we scientists practicing within the rigors of replicability and objective method? Or, are we humanists, enveloped in a futile struggle between subjectivity and authority?

The professional discourse is still undecided. But, what being in this college has imparted to me in four years is the importance of resisting disciplinary constraints which compel us to choose either or.

In my honors thesis I look at archaeology through an ethnographic lens, examining the culture of the archaeologists themselves. I use perspectives from socio-cultural anthropology, photography and the sociology of science.

Interdisciplinary is what some call a buzz word. But, I think this is more than trendy borrowing from an array of disciplines. In its best form, interdisciplinarity engenders an organic perspective of open-endedness. As liberal artists we’re asking the big questions about identity, authority, and what it means to be a responsible human in an increasingly contested, post-modern world. By being interdisciplinary we need to wander the world between disciplines. There, we not only learn useful tools and perspectives from other worlds, but can begin to see the limits of our own.

We should not be threatened by the so-called intellectual anarchy in the space between disciplines. The separations and borders within the scholarship are by no means natural, predetermined or necessary. They are artifacts protecting our capability of rationalizing the world through a narrow perspective.

When I began to approach archaeology, I was guided by my passion for the field and those practicing in it. In my attempt understand knowledge in this field, I needed to adopt methods from cultural anthropology and photography to understand it. I was guided by my curiosity and not by strict archaeological methods.

It is this way of navigating the world, led by properties of our passions and by adopting a pragmatic method, that we will escape a narrow focus on disciplinary knowledge. In the borderlands, having escaped the comforting net of our discipline, we can see sameness and difference in new ways; a perspective which transcends separations in the academy.

So what is the tangible benefit for liberal artists? Whether we spend our lives in academia, or step out of the ivory tower, I think everyone can benefit from a success bred by seeing the world as full of influences instead of constraints. We learn to critically resist objectivism, dualisms and the status quo; things paramount to making a difference.

This may not translate to the world at large, this so-called professional world. But what more is this common sense professionalism than an excuse to ensure job security and work towards that cushy American dream life? What more is it than an excuse to forget the areas in-between?

Interdisciplinarity and the liberal arts demonstrate that limitless intrigue epitomizes learning; not GPAs, test scores and degrees. It demonstrates that we cannot and should not bound our pursuit of knowledge to the conventional means of evaluation and compensation of the "real" world.

The real world remains blind to the possibilities of the in-betweens, it remains a world of either-ors, of categories. But there can be no end to this learning and investigation as we tear down boundaries one after another. We, as students of LAS, should change definitions of success and professionalism with this in mind. We should take and cherish this lesson through economic highs and lows, begin to challenge the present and mold the boundless potentiality of our futures.

A Cartoonish History of Race

In one of my anthropology classes we referenced this cartoon. We had been looking at a cartoon that depicted two ape-like figures balancing on a scale. As to which one was more ape-like, we went undecided. Beneath one figure was something like, "Black," and on the other, "Irish." Through this cartoon we were able to observe the confusing and amorphous boundary between concepts we know as Race and Ethnicity.

It was fairly easy to see the blatant racism/ethnocentrism at the heart of this matter, for the scale was prefectly balanced. Then, our professor foreshadowed what was to come and said that she had hoped we would be past such things. The next slide was the cartoon depicted above. It has been at the center of much controversy and just today, Rupert Murdock publicly apologized for its appearance.

Our professor said something truly intriguing in conclusion. She said that she could not say anything about intentions. No judgements can be made there. She could however, say something about our reactions. Again, this is not a matter of judging but rather of taking social note. The artists intentions are pointless, what is of more depressing note is the great deal of anxiety that such precarious depictions generate within the United States.

I will say something more of this. The concept of race or nationality or ethnicity has been entwined with notions of belonging and difference. Such a concept would not be so threatening were it not for the nature of power. That is, when a group comes to control resources, suddenly the ability to belong (or condition of being excluded) becomes a matter of life and death.

As the 19th Century turned to the 20th, the importance of race became so critical that those in power went to one of the highest sources of legitimization: Science. Here we come across anthropology's dark side. Social Darwinism, eugenics and race science exploded on the scene. Anthropologists are greatly culpable for creating categories of race and "scientific" means with which to identify them. The result was the presumption that biological causes played into the definition of race.

More contemporary debate has complicated this view. The American Anthropological Association has adopted statements that demean, if not reject, the importance of biology in race. Along with this is the position that race is a social construction, indeed, an "experience". A more relativist claim (as anthropologists are won't to make) suggests that race is not so pure, that is at once derived from an inseparable conception of biology and social experience/expectations.

I propose something different. I think that race is a box in which we arbitrarily store perceptions of slight human variation. That said, the basis for race is indeed purely biological; the biological condition being classification as Homo sapiens. To be human subjects one to the slight variations of our bodily entities, as well as a capacity to interpret them. Such capacity is a result of our shared brain chemistry and preempts social experience.

Think of our biology (that is, our common human condition) as a series of dots. Not unlike this cartoon above, we are presented with an array of dots (this might have implications of recognizing a creator/designer, a view that I do not condone). The intention of the one who arranged these dots is, for all intensive purposes, absent and unknowable. It is the manner in which we arrange these dots into meaningful patterns of words and figures which is knowable. Surely, some parts of our recognition are beyond our control, but many aren't. Ultimately, this interpretation is subject to change, and changes more often that we recognize it. Race, in any sort of reality, is simply an arrangement of dots (one that does not vary considerably). Our interpretation of these dots is what we know popularly as race, and ironically, we perceive it to vary drastically.

Translate this to the cartoon above. We are presented with a series of lines the origins of which we cannot and should not begin to guess. It is not the fact that the artist may have portrayed Obama in a 19th century manner which is saddening. It is the brutal reality that we are still able to see in this series of dots something comprising a dead, bleeding chimp which represents our president. We need not accept this interpretation (of the ape being Obama) for us to play into the current discourse of racism, we simply need recognize the possibility.

As we grasp hold of a postmodern conception of race, we can begin to move beyond deeply embedded historical artifacts which characterize our social experience of race in the United States. It is by recognizing and embracing our subjective and agentative role in the interpretation of biological monoliths that we will move passed this anxiety. We should not be sponges simply absorbing social ideas, but rather something with a more guarded permeability. Not something closed, but something inherently critical and understanding.

Intersection

Here the perpendicular and the similar collide. Streets meet roads and topsy meets turvy. Intersection is at once the collision of the unfamiliar and the recombination of the predestined. Through intersection we gain perspective, as travelers of the perpendicular combine baggage, exchange, affect and move on. They are not so much rare, these intersections, but rather fleeting. So fleeting, in fact, they go unnoticed.

However, to take notice is to undestand the world better. Experience the intersection and you'll see the products of the different paths and how they reflect upon each other and themselves. A one laned approach is not the way to understand the world and its people.

I've often grasped aimlessly at the word to describe the fabric of the anthropological community. I have called it misanthropy before. In the adminstrative circles diversity comes up. I think a more apt word is intersection. Here, where Clarendon meets Clarendon, perspective and exchange and reflection abound. To gain a holistic perspective then, is to live intersection.

On Scholarship

Scholarship is a funny thing. Most academics I know don't hesitate to slip a few complaint about their workload into a conversation, or facebook status. Indeed, chronic procrastination leads to moments like the one I recreated above as I drew painfully close to the end of a 5 hour writing session. And what do we do it for, I mean, I plan to do this sort of thing for the rest of my life. It sure as hell ain't where the money is.

On an unrelated note, I wathced Little Miss Sunshine with my roommate earlier today, before beginging the session represented above. One of the drives of that dark and hilarious film is: do what you love and fuck the rest. Okay, so maybe it wasn't such an unrelated note. Joke's on you.

After finishing my paper today, I realized the burst of joy I got in writing my works cited page. To me there is little more fulfilling than organizing and compiling sources after writing a brilliant conclusion. And for that, its worth it. Fuck the rest.

In the Shade of Robai's House

I spent two six week periods in Kenya over the last two summers. A fair amount of my time there was spent working with and watching a woman named Robai and her family make and sell pots. This is that photo narrative:

It was after a short, but furiously-paced walk from Robai's homestead that we witnessed the first step of the potting process. No clay, no pots. Simple as that. Down one of the many red-orange Kenyan roads and to the left there was (what appeared to be) a run-off ditch. I straddled the small crevasse and watched as Robai skillfully dug into the wall and pulled out the grey and gravelly clay.


Her face stained with clay, Robai looked up for a moment while she rested. In the next instant she beamed with delight seeing my camera focused on her.

Here, Robai's family works over the clay, first beating it with an overturned hoe and then picking out the finer inclusions. Rocky bits within the clay might cause the pot to shatter while firing.


The potters work with rhythmic skill. They mold the clay into long strips and wrap them around a base to produce the shape. The coils are then smoothed with pieces of wood and plastic. When pots shatter during firing or after being buried, they sometimes fracture in ways that show the weaknesses in the coils.


In the shade of Robai's house some 13 of us sat quietly, transfixed by the magic in front of us. With great ease and skill the hands of Robai and her family worked to produce delicate and decorative vessels from the raw clay. Light fell in small patches through the fruit tree where the children played. This soft ambiance created a calm unlike any I've ever felt before. Glowing yellow light bathed the earthy pots. Robai and her co-workers muttered in soft Swahili, foreign to my ears, but nonetheless comforting; it was as if there were no language or cultural barriers.


After the pots dried slowly in Robai's house for over a week, they were to be fired. A large open kiln was constructed from dry wood purchased in town. The floor rests above the ground so that air could feed the heat of the fire. Pots were then stacked atop this floor, covered in the rest of the wood as well as dry grass and then the kiln set alight.


The smoke and heat from this kiln is intense. A cloud rose for tens, if not hundreds, of feet into the sky above. Robai tended carefully to the fire, continually adding more grass. Here she pokes her head above the thick smoke she was walking through.


An hour later the fire dies down. The heat still radiates some 20 feet from the kiln. The pots, now fire-hardened peek through from the ash of the grass. Soon they were removed one by one by Robai and her family. In a stroke of luck, all 102 pots that were made from the clay survived the firing process.


A successful firing means dancing and hugs all around. Maybe she was dancing because all the pots made it through. Maybe it was because she had finished a 3 week long process. Maybe it was because she knew she would be paid in full. Regardless, her mood raised the spirits of even the ill anthropologists.


Here, Robai (far right) and her family stand in front of their product. These fine pots were collected by the director of the project. This man loves his pots and, in a moment of unprecedented generosity, he let the students choose two pots to take with them as keepsakes.


The time I spent in the soft and mesmerizing shade of Robai's house is one of the fondest memories I have of Kenya. Surpasing the grand landscapes of the Rift Valley, the archaeological sites and the rural towns, it is the cool, damp soil behind Robai's house that is Kenya for me. It was this process that caused me, for the first time, to put down my camera (thoughts of photos drifting far from my mind) and simply sit and watch and be.

Contention and the Sickeningly Cute

Photos are a contentious thing. Though they are often considered as true reality because of the raw light and physical presence needed to get images, a great deal goes into their production. Filters and editing are physical ways of altering reality. Choices of subject and composition are others. Where is the focus, what is in the background (and what does it mean for the background to be that way), is there action, which subject is hilighted more, color or black and white. Photojournalism creates specific types of reality. Often, when I'm approaching "mundane" things like speeches I consider the possible placements of the photo on the page when considering my shots.

The shot above is unedited. Oddly, it is this photo more than others that best represents the "Bulldog Beauty Contest" of Butler's homecoming. There is no bulldog in this photo and, save for the sash, no indication of competition. But it is the human-dog relationship that makes this contest meaningful. To find beauty in bulldogs is something particular to a school that has such a fleshy and stocky creature as its mascot. For some, this event celebrates the bulldog, the connection to Butler. To others it is the animal bond.

I made this photo moments before the man tucked that tiny dog back into his coat and sought warmth from that damp, frigid morning. That moment is far from what the contest "actually" is, yet it nonetheless provokes something that all who have and haven't participated in such an event can relate to.

If not, then at least its a pretty damn cute dog.

The Maestro

Rehearsal
Originally uploaded by The Humanihilsocialist

I decided long ago that I could not pursue music as a career. I knew it would kill the magic and meaning that it had held throughout my grade and high school years.

This man, the maestro, has made very clear that I made the right decision.

I've been fortunate to have won a seat in the Butler Symphony Orchestra, even playing principal flute last spring. It was in this orchestra that I was pushed into a new dedication. I was led here by the unyielding dedication of this man, whose devotion to the experiential (as opposed to professional) aspects of performance knows no ends.

He says, ad nauseum, that in the rehearsal room we check everything at the door. Papers and jobs and deadlines fill the halls outside the room. In there, we become organismic as 80 people literally breathing together; our concentration becomes nearly universal as we are entranced by the beats and "gestures" of the work at hand.

In this space, under the charismatic direction and belligerence of the maestro, music is brought into a communal life under the topsy-turvy gaze of liminality.

Misanthropy, Anti-Intellectualism and the State of Things

As this academic year comes to a close in a frenzy of emotion and ideas and worries and hope, few things can prove as therapeutic as some good old fashioned dissenting (that and an hour long run without regards to pace that has left me sore and literally running from a thunderstorm).

Is it ironic to live and breath anthropology, yet abound in misanthropy? Humanity. Ur doin' it wrong! My days, of late, are bipolar swings from hope and camaraderie matched by despair and feeling lost in the deteriorating state of the world. I can't handle the media any longer. From the attitudes towards the church that was raided to the fact that the 2008 campaign is focusing on a man, Wright, who has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Time's 100 came out recently. Is it any surprise that Brad Pit and Angelina Jolie appear on the list alongside the Dali Lama? Is it any wonder that TV and movie celebrities appear on the "Heroes and Pioneers" list and that there is a section devoted to artists and entertainers? Not to say that art and music aren't important things in life, but that we attribute equal levels of influence to Barak Obama, George W. Bush, Lorne Michaels and Bruce Springstien boggles my mind.

Maybe I read too much into these things. But that's what anthropologists do, we treat the media and seemingly insignificant and harmless things as valid artifacts, symbols dependent on hegemonic systems of understanding and value. With the unrelenting presence of mass media and communication it is no surprise that Lorne Michaels wields as much influence if not more than, say, Vladimir Putin. But seeing that these two men operate within (what I would consider) completely separate spheres of reality, I am worried that we form our view of the world with shady boundaries between what we see on TV and what is going on abroad.

Separation of church and state (HA!)? Let's try separation of TV and reality first.

Anthropologists have interesting perspectives, a perspective that seems strangely lost on many (for it is not difficult to obtain). We are no better than anyone else; there are systems of belief and value that I cannot escape which influence how despondent I come off from day to day. However, what I witness from many of my peers all around is saddening.

Anti-intellectualism is very real. This is not an attack on "stupid" people or religious minded folk. Educations vary widely across the nation and I have no problem with religion and faith so long as it is accompanied with as little arrogance as possible. No, this is an attack on actions. Everyday people refuse to open their minds even an inch to explore something new. We are so entrenched in what is American and Moral and Traditional that we are closed to expansion. Now, things that are new (and often confusing) are not seen as opportunities to learn and understand (were they ever?) but are simply seen as threats to our very existence and being. Everyday people refuse to make up their own minds and instead heed the calls of TV anchors, "analysts" and rich celebrities.

I'm having difficulties communicating exactly what I mean; perhaps I have grown weary from my wild run. I'll just say how I came to think of this misanthropy. As I consider my future in archaeology, I must look to graduate school. Much of my looking is dependent on the fact that I want to leave the Midwest. Climate and landscape have driven me to the breaking point. My research into archaeological theory has shown me that archaeology in the US, as with all "American" things, seems to operate in a sort of vacuum. I had an epiphany. I need to get the hell out of this country and work with academics abroad. I am by no means naive and have traveled abroad for brief and extended periods, but leaving the country for grad school brings me to another level.

I have joked about Canada and fleeing there like the hippies of yore, driven out by a draft that never came to be for our generation. But, in my epiphany, Canada became a logical idea. The type of archaeology I want to study is found in this geographic location. This option is very much on the table and appeals to me.

Then I wondered if I really am being driven out. Certainly, my generation shares many things with the flower children of the 60s and 70s. Indeed, I am positive that we are entrenched in the same Cold War ideology. We've got the war, we've got the injustice and we've got the idiots in Washington. We're missing the draft. But, I am realizing now (having found myself in many uncomfortable spots like the Creationist Museum in Kentucky) that I am not welcome in the country.

This world we have created within the United States, one driven by greed and money and religion and self-riteousness has pushed me too far. Here I am, a young man with a great group of friends and a wonderful supportive family (and a hell of a lot of potential?), distrusting humanity. It's not right. Whilst navigating our world as one does nowadays through Facebook and CNN and "the tubes" I am angered and frustrated.

I see hope though, despite my dismal outlooks presented here, deep down inside of me I am an optimist, a humanist that knows there's potential. My hope now is that I can find my higher higher education abroad and flourish in an environment that embraces intellectualism and embraces the opportunities and challenges of the world today.

Will I come back? What will the climate of US philosophy look like in 10 years? Am I abandoning my country in its time of need? I'm not sure. Will I become another statistic of brain drain? I don't know. I probably won't find a way to change the world, I just hope that I will be able to find a place in it.

Acting Out

Hope and change has been the slogan of this political year. Unfortunately, politics has inspired little hope and has instead planted seeds of despondency that the United States is on a one way path to epic failure. All aboard the fail boat!

The immigration debate has inspired such despondency within me of late. It was highlighted by a small news story that slipped under the radar recently. Absolut Vodka ran an ad campaign in Mexico in which (in an attempt to celebrate Mexican heritage) it ran the slogan “In an Absolut World” over an image of 19^th century North American, where all the territory west of the Rocky Mountains was Mexico. Outrage arose, not from within Mexico, but rather from several conservative groups and journalists in the United States that called for a boycott of the brand. Absolut apologized for its campaign and stopped running the ads; A politically correct, profit minded and truly “American” response.

This reaction is representative of the deteriorating status of Mexicans and US/Mexico relations in light of the immigration debate. All politicians are dealing with the influx of illegal immigrants into this country, but the kind of rhetoric and ideas that are being thrown around reveal a dehumanizing of Mexicans.

In this debate Mexicans and Hispanic immigrants coming from the south are referred to as problems and often as “illegals.” Some might argue that terminology is harmless, but I think otherwise. Referring to fellow human beings in such negative ways creates immediate prejudice and devaluing. As a result the identity we project on Hispanic immigrants is one centered on notions of rejection, objectification and immorality. We refer to them, not as people, but rather as amorphous entities that exist in the realm of illegality and encroachment.

The discourse of solution is not a positive one. Illegal immigration (and the millions are human beings associated with it) is referred to as a problem that needs to be rectified. Immigrants are objectified and treated as commodities as we decide their worth in our economy and culture, or as we decide which ones to ship back and how to do so. There is not talk of moving forward, only of creating stasis by cutting off the routes and purging our country of these dirty, illegal and problematic bodies that are corrupting true American values.

Stephen Colbert joked with Mike Huckabee about building a catapult along the border to fire illegals back into Mexico. The idea seems ridiculous, but his satire is not far off. It highlights the dehumanization of Hispanic immigrants. Not only are their identities essentialized to that of “Mexican” but they are considered inherently illegitimate. Whether we agree with it or not, the immigration debate has stolen the status of equality from Hispanic immigrants. We are living in a world where “freedom and justice for all” is a farce and instead, human status is determined by economic worth and genealogy.

To be Freudian for a moment, can we examine the illegal immigration debate, and responses like those to the Absolut ad, as an acting-out of some deep seated problem? I think we can. The crisis we are facing here is not one of population, jobs, culture or globalization. No, what we are facing is an identity crisis of a national sort.

We are facing many problems as a nation, namely our economy and our political reputation. As the European Union and China grow stronger our role as super-power is being contested. We are accused of anti-intellectualism. Culturally we are divided over gay marriage, abortion, religion and wealth. Every day I see hopeless efforts to establish and secure the idea of “America” and a greater number of individuals and ideas that contest such an identity at fundamental levels.

The role of the United States and our future is uncertain and possibly quite bleak. As a result we are acting out and building fences on our borders to keep out those seeking better lives. As we become ever so deeply involved in contentious conflict in the Middle East, we are troubled and take our frustration out on those illegals that indisputably have broken the law and assailed our “American” values.

This debate is not about immigrants, they will continue to come and there’s nothing we can do about it. If we were a healthy nation, we would have confidence that our economics and culture would adjust accordingly. What I see through examples like that of the Absolut campaign, is that these crises we face are more likely unhealthy and counterproductive projections of our own cultural and identity crises.

We are freefalling downward into a pit of cultural crisis and shutdown. We are so insecure with who we are a nation that we are threatened by the Spanish language. Eventually, we will end our descent and hit rock bottom. We will be confronted with tumultuous and violent conflict as we run out things to cover our problems. Shall we focus of catapulting illegals back to Mexico? Shall we continue to obsess ourselves with the lives of celebrities? Shall we fill the voids of our political lives with debates over tiny and insignificant questions and comment? Or, shall we being to look deeper and find those bugs and irks deep within our cultural being and face our problems and the world’s problems head on?

I have not yet completely resigned myself to the bleak outlook I have defined here. I still have confidence that what we need is simple change on our own parts. Instead of breeding dogma, we need to breed understanding. I hope that one day we will be known as the generation of understanding that rose to the great challenges we are facing now and moved forward.

Honesty

A friend, perhaps a co-conspirator, turned me on to an interesting blog written by a Stanely Fish at the NY Times that suggest that the humanities are useless in our world and that they are essentially (in a philosophical sense) useless as they seek not to validate themselves. This is one of the top things that could produce a truly "honest" if not agitated response from me. Here goes...

Contrary to Fish I think that the humanities are one of the only good things left in the world, indeed one of the few things that I see as hopeful, something so hopeful that I plan to devote my life to the uselessness of the humanities. It is easy, (naive?), to see the humanities are existing in their own little world, having locked themselves within the imposing confines of the ivory tower. Indeed, we bicker among ourselves about trivialities, insignificant details of theory, translation and interpretation. Much of our highly theoretical discussion is lost upon the "lay" people mingling at the gates of our towers. But is this not also so for medical jargon, legalese and the highly specific lingo of biochemists and the like? Perhaps our most fatal flaw is that our subject matter tends to me flaky at best, things uninteresting and often highly dependent on intimate familiarity with ivory debate. I have even described my ethnography as "basically a really long diary entry."

Fish makes three main arguments in his entry: 1, that the best chance of relevancy that the humanities has in its abilities to open minds and impart noble lessons and ideas to its participants. 2, that this is utterly false because professors and students of the humanities are often not the epitome of do-gooders. 3, that the humanities do not have inherent in their studies a need to relate or legitimize against other worldly pursuit and therefore have no relevance in their very definition.

I'll save the first point for last. Regarding points 2 and 3, I suggest that perhaps scholars within the humanities have been driven to their sorry state by a need to compete in a money-hungry and humanitarily empty world that rewards competency, specialization and production in lieu of the subtle noble lessons and wisdoms that drew those scholars to pursue the humanities. As a college student I know that the majority of the student population relates to their field of study with regards to their expected salaries upon graduation. We in the humanities tend to focus elsewhere because of the dismal discussion that would ensue upon discussion of our future after graduation in such terms. The humanities have been squeezed into a world that resists their core ideals. They have become jobs, professions. My very survival as an organic being is tied to my ability to compete in a job market, one that is very small for the humanities. I have already begun to specialize in radical ways, to get caught up in frivolous debate (my decisions within which will likely make or break my career). Perhaps scholars in the humanities are bitter, prime examples of the destruction wrought by a world that has all but forgotten is human side. For A Deity's sake, there is actual ardent debate in this country about the benefits and downfalls of using torture, rather specific types of torture. (Torture that is too tortuous?) Yet we have sought legitimization and for what reasons? What do the humanities offer?

Contrary to Fish again I think that the humanities do offer the ability and time to gain noble wisdom and humanitarian (in a humanist sense, not a Peace Corp sense) lessons. There is far more to offer than just insight into perhaps being, if not a better person, than a more insightful one. I think that that the humanities will be the only thing to save the world, that if not in my time then in the time of my future students, the most respected and relevant positions will be within the humanities. Reliance on science and medicine and business will result in the dismal and dark machine-ridden worlds once described by the likes of H.G. Wells, Asimov, Vonnegut and others. Worlds where human worth is fading as our inefficiencies are exposed. War will reign as resources grow scarce and political decisions are based on a bloody, perhaps nuclear, war for hegemony. Social darwinism will re-emerge. Riots will rage and the rich hide in their own steel towers as the power of medicine falls in the light of pandemic flu and radiation poisoning.

The humanities offer what is already inherent in their name. The human element. A connection to ourselves and the abstract. We offer a break in the rapidity of the day, a chance to reflect, a chance to blog. We recognize the beauty of the human condition, of the great works and varieties of humans. This is an abstract thing, it is terribly difficult to describe the humanitarian message in our language. The humanities offer ourselves, not the selves of scholars, but the self within each and everyone of us; something that has been turned over to the likes of medicine and business. We often associate ourselves with our healths. And truly, how many devote their lives to profit, having been told since childhood that arts and crafts are girly, that music is for nerds, having excelled based on tests that reward scientific and math centered thinking. Like it or not, Fish, were it not for the humanities the world would be a sad place; naught but concrete structures, Fox News, a starving working class and ethnic war. We hold the very essence of the human within our frivolous debate and abstract speak. Likely, we will continue to exist as useless, merely a vessel, but projects like Human Terrain System are already showing the bleak brick wall that is hit without the humanities.

We certainly don't fit in a statistic and we certainly don't force our message down the throats of developing minds like business, science and the like, but our importance is not to be seen as futile and fruity in a world run by the ever false and misleading "fact," facts which are as much products of individuals as are the works of DaVinci. Such talk, as Fish's, shakes me to my very core as I see humanity slipping from the world. If I must, I charge myself with raising and unholy army and waging a humanitarian war on capitalism, democracy and conservatism! And as we march gloriously upon the smitten ruins of our first victory we shall sound our Horn of Culture and cry, "For LJ!"

Human Terrain System

I feel a pressing need to weigh in. This is by no means new news to anthropologists, but it is starting to come to light in popular media in a worrisome way.

The United States military has allocated some 40 million dollars to fund what they term, "Human Terrain Systems." Simply put (though it is not a simple thing) the military is using Ph.D level cultural anthropologists to acquire military intelligence at home and abroad in the Iraqi and Afghani fields. This ranges from field research, to translation and to cultural mediation and education. In two recent articles from the New York Times and US News and World Report, this program as been addressed in a way that seems to celebrate is effectiveness. In both these articles they mention, if briefly, the debate that is surrounding this program within University and professional anthropological organizations. However, the program is addressed mostly with regards to its conception, implementation and successes in the field. I feel that the NY Times article does a better job at balancing the two sides, but speaking as an aspiring anthropologist, I can say that for many this program shakes anthropologists and our discipline to the very core.

The benefits of this program are very real and in many cases offer benefits to all parties involved (research for the anthropologists, an alternative to armed force for the military and some cultural understanding for the Iraqis or Afghanis). The problems, unfortunately, are not so easy to see and the benefits will easily overshadow them. Anthropology, for the most part, has come to terms with its history and fundamental association to colonialism. As a result the field walks on a very thin and nebulous ethical boundary. I believe that by applying anthropological techniques to military operations we tread far from an acceptable level of ethical deviance. Regardless of the non-violent success stories told and the military's claims that all information will be public, the ethical use and disclosure of research in the field cannot be assured. The military is using anthropologists to disassemble the enemy so that they might more efficiently establish authority and achieve victory. I am wary of saying that anthropologists are being used, for any well-trained anthropologist will see the dangers of such work, yet they do so anyway. Whatever the case, anthropologists in the combat field are part of a larger cultural domination and overrunning. It is clear that we meant not simply to liberate Iraq from a dictator but to instill US notions of government and lifestyle within Iraqi life. The connections to colonial anthropology which, simply put, meant to understand the savage, not for the sake of the savage or the scholar but for the empire. I personally agree with Professor Gonzales that anthropologists who are involved are naively interpreting the military's goals and unethically applying the discipline to violent armed struggle.

An official American Anthropological Association (AAA) statement takes no definite stance, stating that the situation offers benefits and dangers, and that instead of being absolute in a stance we should instead assure that the most ethical practices triumph and that much much care be taken. However, this seems to come across (in the media, for what its worth) as another example of scholars keeping their discipline sacred and in the ivory tower.

Personally, I think that anthropology has come a long way from its colonial legacy and that modern anthropological thought has absolutely no place in a realm where social science can be subverted, indeed perverted, by military powers. This is a very dangerous line to tread and anthropologists ought not to go there. Here I see that the military is so close to seeing that its run out of options and is not as powerful as it thinks. But manages to find a way to ride to victory on the backs of cultural anthropologists who can provide an easily abused link for resolving conflict; cultural understanding. Perhaps in arrogance I say that anthropology has a lot of power, especially in an increasingly global world. Ought we to associate this power with military force? No.

On the Future and Anthropology

See an update to this entry here...


Whether or not we like it, the world is a shrinking place. I think most would wonder why advances in technology and communication could be disliked, but I say this because there are those of us who don't appreciate and, quite frankly, detest what our world has become. Therefore, it is a shame, for us, to see the world we have come to know and hate slowly creep over all that has potential for good. This is beside the point though, at least for me because I have resigned myself to the fact that the takeover of materialism, capitalism, neo-colonialism and ethnocentrism is inevitable. Simply put, we must wait it out.

This statement, then, coincides with the contradictory nature that thrives within me. While I have resigned myself to this fact, I can't simply let it happen. As a humanist I have hope in humanity and the human condition. It lies in education. Not the type that humanitarians think we should spread across the "third" world (as if this planet allowed some to be fenced off from others!), not the type that Oprah gives to the girls in South Africa, not the type that the Catholics have traditionally offered at home and abroad. No, in my own recognized ethnocentric nature, I suggest a different kind of education; anthropology. I have been embedded in this discipline for three years now and it saddens me that it is such a forgotten discipline. (As I write this, I can't help but wonder if maybe anthropology is one of those few good things left in the world.) Anthropologists are an interesting breed. We're often impossible to describe on an individual basis so let's forget generalizing. The fact is, the more anthropologists I spend time with the more my mind opens, the happier my life gets and the more I hope I have for the future. I think it is the ideas we have, the knowledge we gain and the perspective we take that offers hope for the future.

I was going to offer a case study of my own university, but for fear of becoming to lengthy, I thought better of it. The point is that current "diversity" and cultural education in this country is severely lacking, if not non-existent. As I wrote somewhere once, we unabashedly celebrate difference without sensitivity and thereby alienate ourselves and others. Somehow we think that we can teach students about others without approaches developed by a field which has devoted itself to studying cultures. I've attended few "diversity" events at my university, but I have taken the course that defines our approach to worldly understanding; instead of students learning of others, they learn of otherness. I see current approaches only reinforcing strict "them and us" dichotomies. This leads to a security in thought and action. We believe that our actions can only be good because we understand other people, we have dealt with "diversity" and we are sensitive to other cultures. In fact, while made strikingly aware of cultural differences, our own way is still celebrated, we only discuss others in our own terms. This is a dangerous security.

Anthropology, simple introductory classes, cultivate different and often times new understandings. The most simple concept to an anthropologist in the 21st century is cultural relativism. Cultures can only be understood and should only be considered on their own terms. Reflexivity is massively important, for we must be aware of biases. Why do we feel the way we do about things? Anthropologists are not gods, we cannot overcome our biases, but the very act of recognizing them and considering how they shape what we learn about others is a skill we all (at least those true anthropologists) acquire and seek to master.

We do not have the power to change differences between "us" and "them" and we should not want such power. Difference is something to live joyously alongside with. However, the one way barrier between us and them need not be impenetrable. Simply considerations of biases and how we have come to be who we are break down this barrier, allowing for a two way transfer where all factors are considered. This is what anthropology has to offer to our shrinking world; a world where cultures are clashing and clashing on a daily basis. A world where all that people know falls apart around them forcing them to reckon with unfamiliar and confusing norms. A world where populations of people, internally as diverse as the sun and the moon, are generalized and told that they do not understand our ways, they cannot function in the modern world without our help. It is in this world and the near future that the one-way barriers between us and them must be perforated if not torn down.

I'm not saying that everyone should be an anthropologist, indeed, it is a field suited for very few. But the ideas and approaches that we practice and study should not be kept and secret and left hidden deep within the ivory tower of academia. This is a call, not only to those who could benefit from such education, but also to those who live it every day. Why contradict ourselves and create barriers between the "lay" and ourselves? We must share and make our ideas accessible, we must create programs that share our approaches and allow students (from graduate to elementary) to learn how to break down barriers and reach better understandings around them. I believe that it is in our hands that the impetus for change lies, we cannot change the world by locking ourselves deep within the halls of scholarship. No, we must make available those ideas and theories that lie at our core, that make use who we are. Cultural relativism and reflexivity, the most basic of our tenets, this is where the future of humanity lies.