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Showing papers in "Annual Review of Anthropology in 1995"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, an emergent methodological trend in anthropological research that concerns the adaptation of long-standing modes of ethnographic practices to more complex objects of study is surveyed, in terms of testing the limits of ethnography, attenuating the power of fieldwork, and losing the perspective of the subaltern.
Abstract: This review surveys an emergent methodological trend in anthropological research that concerns the adaptation of long-standing modes of ethnographic practices to more complex objects of study. Ethnography moves from its conventional single-site location, contextualized by macro-constructions of a larger social order, such as the capitalist world system, to multiple sites of observation and participation that cross-cut dichotomies such as the “local” and the “global,” the “lifeworld” and the “system.” Resulting ethnographies are therefore both in and out of the world system. The anxieties to which this methodological shift gives rise are considered in terms of testing the limits of ethnography, attenuating the power of fieldwork, and losing the perspective of the subaltern. The emergence of multi-sited ethnography is located within new spheres of interdisciplinary work, including media studies, science and technology studies, and cultural studies broadly. Several “tracking” strategies that shape multi-site...

4,905 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a critical mapping of the construction-in-progress of refugees and displacement as an anthropological domain of knowledge is presented, and a review of recent work on displacement, diaspora, and deterritorialization in the context of studies of cultural identity, nationalism, transnational cultural forms.
Abstract: This review offers a critical mappingo f the construction-in-progress of refugees and displacement as an anthropological domain of knowledge. It situates the emergence of “the refugee” and of “refugee studies” in two ways: first, historically, by looking at the management of displacement in Europe in the wake of World War II; and second, by tracing an array of different discursive and institutional domains within which “the refugee” and/or “being in exile” have been constituted. These domains include international law, international studies, documentary production by the United Nations and other international refugee agencies, development studies, and literary studies. The last part of the review briefly discusses recent work on displacement, diaspora, and deterritorialization in the context of studies of cultural identity, nationalism, transnational cultural forms—work that helps to conceptualize the anthropological study of displacement in new ways.

1,310 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examines current anthropological literature concerned with migration and other forms of population movement, and with the movement of information, symbols, capital, and commodities in global and transnational spaces.
Abstract: This review examines current anthropological literature concerned with migration and other forms of population movement, and with the movement of information, symbols, capital, and commodities in global and transnational spaces. Special attention is given to the significance of contemporary increases in the volume and velocity of such flows for the dynamics of communities and for the identity of their members. Also examined are innovations in anthropological theory and forms of representation that are responses to such nonlocal contexts and influences.

1,297 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Findings indicate that the shift from food collection to agriculture involved an overall decline in oral and general health, and changes in food composition and preparation technology contributed to craniofacial and dental alterations.
Abstract: Agriculture has long been regarded as an improvement in the human condition: Once Homo sapiens made the transition from foraging to farming in the Neolithic, health and nutrition improved, longevity increased, and work load declined. Recent study of archaeological human remains worldwide by biological anthropologists has shown this characterization of the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture to be incorrect. Contrary to earlier models, the adoption of agriculture involved an overall decline in oral and general health. This decline is indicated by elevated prevalence of various skeletal and dental pathological conditions and alterations in skeletal and dental growth patterns in prehistoric farmers compared with foragers. In addition, changes in food composition and preparation technology contributed to craniofacial and dental alterations, and activity levels and mobility decline resulted in a general decrease in skeletal robusticity. These findings indicate that the shift from food collection to...

679 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a review traces the development of an anthropology of borderlands, tracing the early ethnography and applied anthropology about border regions along with contemporary perspectives on reterritorialized communities and practices illustrated specifically by Mexican migration and transborder processes.
Abstract: This review traces the development of an anthropology of borderlands. The ideas of early ethnography and applied anthropology about border regions are considered along with contemporary perspectives on reterritorialized communities and practices illustrated specifically by Mexican migration and transborder processes. The argument is made that the conceptual parameters of borderlands, borders, and their crossings, stemming from work done on the Mexican-US border, in particular, illustrate the contradiction, paradox, difference, and conflict of power and domination in contemporary global capitalism and the nation-state, especially as manifested in local-level practices. Furthermore, the borderlands genre is a basis upon which to redraw our conceptual frameworks of community and culture area.

383 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the persistence of racism and its invidious impact on local communities, nation-states, and the global system is addressed. But, the singular focus on ethnicity has left unaddressed the persistence and invidious impacts of racism.
Abstract: Historically, anthropology has occupied a central place in the construction and reconstruction of race as both an intellectual device and a social reality. Critiques of the biological concept of race have led many anthropologists to adopt a “no-race” posture and an approach to intergroup difference highlighting ethnicity-based principles of classification and organization. Often, however, the singular focus on ethnicity has left unaddressed the persistence of racism and its invidious impact on local communities, nation-states, and the global system. Within the past decade, anthropologists have revitalized their interest in the complex and often covert structures and dynamics of racial inequality. Recent studies shed light on race’s heightened volatility on contemporary sociocultural landscapes, the racialization of ethno-nationalist conflicts, anthropology’s multiple traditions of antiracism, and intranational as well as international variations in racial constructions, including the conventionally neglec...

352 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A shift from the study of gender to science, the influence of postcolonial critiques of the discipline, and the impact of cultural studies are discussed in terms of their influence upon the cultural analysis of science as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Although controversial, science studies has emerged in the 1990s as a significant culture area within anthropology. Various histories inform the cultural analysis of science, both outside and within anthropology. A shift from the study of gender to the study of science, the influence of postcolonial critiques of the discipline, and the impact of cultural studies are discussed in terms of their influence upon the cultural analysis of science. New ethnographic methods, the question of “ethnosciences” and multiculturalism, and the implosion of informatics and biomedicine all comprise fields of recent scholarship in the anthropology of science. Debates over modernism and postmodernism, globalization and environment, and the status of the natural inform many of these discussions. The work of Escobar, Hess, Haraway, Martin, Rabinow, Rapp, and Strathern are used to highlight new directions within anthropology concerning both cultures of science and science as culture.

284 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argues that the study of consumption and commodities represents a major transformation in the discipline of anthropology and argues that it may come to replace kinship as the core of anthropology, even though the two topics often have been viewed as antithetical.
Abstract: This review contends that the study of consumption and commodities represents a major transformation in the discipline of anthropology. It documents this metamorphosis by examining how the debate on gifts and commodities transcended its original formulation as good versus evil. It then examines the recent growth and maturity of material culture studies and nascent developments that may give rise to a political economy of consumption. It notes, however, that there is still a paucity of ethnographic research specifically devoted to these topics. The review concludes by arguing that the study of consumptiona nd commoditiesis particularly close to traditions established in the study of kinship and it may come to replace kinship as the core of anthropology, even though the two topics often have been viewed as antithetical.

273 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors reconceptualize frontiers as zones of cross-cutting social networks based largely on their research on fur-trade outposts in western North America, and consider the study of diverse and overlapping segmentary or factional groups that cross-cut traditionally perceived colonial-indigenous boundaries on the frontier at different spatial and temporal scales of analysis.
Abstract: Most archaeological studies of frontiers and boundaries are informed by a colonialist perspective of core-periphery relationships. In this review, we identify three problems with colonialist models of territorial expansion, boundary maintenance, and homogeneousc olonial populations. These problems are (a) insular models of culture change that treat frontiers as passive recipients of core innovations, (b) the reliance on macro scales of analysis employed frontier research, and (c) the expectation of sharp frontier boundaries visible material culture. In the final section, we reconceptualize frontiers as zones of cross-cutting social networks based largely on our research on fur-trade outposts in western North America. Our approach considers the study of diverse and overlapping segmentary or factional groups that cross-cut traditionally perceived colonial-indigenous boundaries on the frontier at different spatial and temporal scales of analysis.

262 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a review explores questions of power, epistemology, cultural form, and historical process raised by and developed in studies of literacy, and analyzes the role of literacies in the formation of class, gender, and racial ethnic identities.
Abstract: This review explores questions of power, epistemology, cultural form, and historical process, as they are raised by and developed in studies of literacy. It begins by reviewing arguments for universalist vs situated accounts of literacy and literacies. Having discussed universalist claims and evidence, and having shown that they cannot withstand criticism, the review develops generalizations about the implications of plural literacies. It explores the relationship among modern state formation, educational systems, and official vs popular literacies, by drawingo n poststructuralist argumentsa bout the role of writing in social formations and on recent historical and ethnographic research on literacy. It analyzes the role of literacies in the formation of class, gender, and racial-ethnic identities, by focusing on the role of education in class stratification, the debate about public vs private in gender dynamics, and the volatile relations between oppressed nationalities and official literacies.

246 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider the impact of recent performance theory, especially the theory of gender performativity, on anthropological efforts to theorize sex and gender, and raise questions about the degree to which current versions of performance theory enact rather than critically engage the political ecology.
Abstract: This review considers the impact of recent performance theory, especially the theory of gender performativity, on anthropological efforts to theorize sex and gender. In brief, the theory of performativity defines gender as the effect of discourse, and sex as the effect of gender. The theory is characterized by a concern with the productive force rather than the meaning of discourse and by its privileging of ambiguity and indeterminacy. This review treats recent performance theory as the logical heir, but also the apotheosis, of two anthropological traditions. The first tradition is feminist anti-essentialism, which first distinguished between sex and gender in an effort to denaturalize asymmetry. The second tradition is practice theory, which emphasized habitual forms of embodiment in its effort to overcome the oppositions between individual and society. In concluding, questions are raised about the degree to which current versions of performance theory enact rather than critically engage the political ec...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It now appears that the australopithecines were a substantially primitive grade of hominid with life histories more like apes than humans.
Abstract: Two new developments promise to greatly improve our ability to reconstruct the evolution of the human life cycle: 1. the introduction of the comparative methodology of life history into anthropology and 2. research on bone and dental development that reveals a world of life history preserved in the fossil record. Comparative study suggests that the human strategy depends on rich energy sources and low mortality and that our general rate of growth and aging evolved in parallel with brain size. It now appears that the australopithecines were a substantially primitive grade of hominid with life histories more like apes than humans. The life cycle of early Homo erectus was probably unlike any living hominoid: Evidence suggests that it grew up somewhat faster than living humans, it lacked an adolescent growth spurt, and H. erectus infants were more helpless than those of chimpanzees (but conceivably of more mature body proportion and motor advancement than our own). The appearance of fully modern life historie...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The state of play of kinship studies in late-20th-century anthropology has been examined in this paper, paying close attention to theoretical advances and shifts in methodology and intent that have occurred since the 1970s.
Abstract: This review examines the state of play of kinship studies in late twentieth-century anthropology, paying close attention to theoretical advances and shifts in methodology and intent that have occurred since the 1970s. It highlights developments in Marxist, feminist, and historical approaches, the repatriation of kinship studies, various aspects of lesbian/gay kinship, and issues bearing on the new reproductive technologies. Contemporary kinship studies tend to be historically grounded; tend to focus on everyday experiences, understandings, and representations of gender, power, and difference; and tend to devote considerable analytic attention to themes of contradiction, paradox, and ambivalence.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper reviewed the interpretation of the archaeological record of slavery directed toward the analysis of four themes: living conditions under slavery, status differences within the plantation community, relationships of planter dominance and slave resistance, and formation of African-American cultural identity.
Abstract: Archaeologists began to study slavery more than two decades ago, and since that time this interest has rapidly grown to become one of the most popular research specialties in the archaeology of the post-Columbian period. This essay reviews the interpretation of the archaeological record of slavery directed toward the analysis of four themes: living conditions under slavery, status differences within the plantation community, relationships of planter dominance and slave resistance, and formation of African-American cultural identity. It also discusses the sociopolitical context within which this study has operated and strongly recommends that greater efforts be taken to include African-American perspectives to inform this research.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the actor's viewpoint, border-making elements take on their social reality as "languages,” "accents", "mixing, or "words" in relation to ethnicity, race, and class within the nation and by the politics of ethnic nationalism.
Abstract: Linguistic elements such as phonemes, lexemes, and syntactic or morphological rules cannot be taken for granted as the shape in which border-making elements come. From the actor’s viewpoint, border-making elements take on their social reality as “languages,” “accents,” “mixing,” or “words.” These terms emerge among the people to whom language identities matter, in relations shaped by the politics of ethnicity, race, and class within the nation and by the politics of ethnic nationalism.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors reviewed the political economy of the earliest states in ancient Mesopotamia from ca 3200-1600 B.C. and found that local systems of power and authority coexisted with and often resisted centralized governments and that individuals played multiple and varied roles, reducing risks, cooperating, and competing as political fortunes changed over time.
Abstract: An enormous amount of work has been done in recent years on what can be called the political economy of the earliest states in ancient Mesopotamia. These investigations appraise the organization of the great manorial estates of temples and palaces and show that local systems of power and authority coexisted with and often resisted centralized governments. It is also apparent that social institutions were permeable and that individuals played multiple and varied roles, reducing risks, cooperating, and competing as political fortunes changed over time. The interaction of autonomous city-states within a Mesopotamian cultural sphere has been foregrounded in certain work. Studies of production, trade, and consumption are reviewed from ca 3200-1600 B.C.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Jaw and tooth features that Miocene large-bodied apes share with great apes and humans can now be regarded as conservative retentions from the ancestral condition for living apes, including gibbons.
Abstract: Recent discoveries have greatly clarified the family tree relationships of Miocene apes to modern apes and humans. Contrary to most previous interpretations, new fossil evidence indicates that well-known middle-late Miocene large-bodied apes such as Kenyapithecus, Sivapithecus, and Dryopithecus branched off before the ancestor that gave rise to all living hominoids; therefore, these extinct genera are not members of the great ape and human grouping. Jaw and tooth features that Miocene large-bodied apes share with great apes and humans can now be regarded as conservative retentions from the ancestral condition for living apes, including gibbons. The first appearance of these great ape-like features in the African middle Miocene is correlated with an adaptive shift to consumption of hard fruit and nuts. Although the transition from life in the trees to life on the ground is deeply embedded in models of human evolution as a primary motive force in human origins, among African large-bodied apes this change oc...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The antiquity of the first Americans is one of the most controversial issues in American archaeology, and it must be resolved to understand fully the adaptive radiation of Homo sapiens into the New World.
Abstract: The antiquity of the first Americans is one of the most controversial issues in American archaeology, and it must be resolved to understand fully the adaptive radiation of Homo sapiens into the New World Humans were in the Americas at least by Clovis times 11,200 years ago Accepting that these were the first Americans, however, is complicated by claims of an even earlier presence, by the absence of a Clovis source (ie an Alaskan predecessor is lacking), and by the theoretical demands of explaining how or why Clovis groups apparently migrated rapidly through the hemisphere New models from evolutionary ecology, along with possible changes in the Clovis chronology (resulting from improved radiocarbon calibration), may address some of these anomalies But there still remains the possibility of an earlier (pre-Clovis) entry, supported by some mtDNA and archaeological evidence The mtDNA evidence, however, is complicated by questions about the viability of the presumed founder effect (on which the mtDNA cl

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Divisions over conceptualization and study of sex, gender, and sex or gender differences are partly grounded in misunderstanding or ignorance of current biological understandings of sex differentiation in particular and individual differences in general.
Abstract: Anthropologists study human diversity but are sharply divided over the roles of culture and biology in that diversity. The division is clearly represented in distinctions between sex and gender as biological and cultural categories, respectively. The disciplinary divide is further reflected in the contrast between the study of sex differences and hormones by biological anthropologists and the critique by cultural anthropologists of the value of biological approaches to sex or gender differences. This review considers anthropological ideas and debates about sex, gender, and hormones and about the relationships among them. The rationale for such a review is that divisions over conceptualization and study of sex, gender, and sex or gender differences are partly grounded in misunderstanding or ignorance of current biological understandings of sex differentiation in particular and individual differences in general.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the early 1980s, excavations in limestone caves within wilderness valleys in the southwest of Tasmania have shown that this region was occupied throughout the Last Glacial Maximum, back to 35 kyr B.P as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The past thirty years have seen a transformation of Tasmanian prehistoric research. Analysis of shell middens established a sequence documenting coastal adaptation over the past 8 kyr. Fishing ceased in mid-Holocene times, and explanations for this as being due either to the effects of isolation on Tasmanian Aboriginal society or to a structural reorganization of coastal economic strategies have caused considerable debate. From the early 1980s excavations in limestone caves within wilderness valleys in the southwest have shown that this region was occupied throughout the Last Glacial Maximum, back to 35 kyr B.P. The technological, subsistence, and symbolic systems of these southern Ice Age hunters is linked to paleoenvironmental conditions when Tasmania was joined to the mainland by the low-sea Bassian landbridge. The Aborigines of Tasmania, long constructed as an abstract frozen metaphor for Paleolithic man, are now seen as the inheritors of a deep real past.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Osteoporosis is a condition in which loss of bone density leads to increased risk of fracture, and has become a major cause of medical expenditures in the United States, where it is estimated to cost nearly $10 billion per year.
Abstract: Osteoporosis is a condition in which loss of bone density leads to increased risk of fracture. This condition is increasing in frequency in most parts of the world and has become a major cause of medical expenditures in the United States, where it is estimated to cost nearly $10 billion per year. European countries report similar increases in the proportion of their medical costs attributable to osteoporosis. In most cases, osteoporosis, which occurs earlier and more frequently in women, is associated with age-related endocrine changes, especially the decline in estrogen production occurring at menopause. However, earlier occurrence resulting from factors such as inactivity, low bone peak density in early adulthood, low calcium intake, and a variety of dietary and lifestyle factors can lead to high risk of fracture before menopause. This is because bone is in a continual state of turnover, and the balance between bone formation and resorption can be upset by a number of endogenous and exogenous factors. R...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, the authors examines crosslinguistic research that has increased our understanding of the acquisition process over the past 15 years, focusing on infants' preverbal attention to language and strategies in segmenting language input.
Abstract: This review examines crosslinguistic research that has increased our understanding of the acquisition process over the past 15 years. It begins by outlining different aspects of the study of first language acquisition, for example, infants’ preverbal attention to language and strategies in segmenting language input. A major section of the review stresses the importance of ethnographic studies because acquisition must be considered in relation to language socialization patterns in the particular culture in which the language is acquired. Another section examines crosslinguistic research and the impact of Slobin’s work, as well as factors that seem to influence the child’s mastery of formfunction mappings in spatial, temporal, and gender domains. Examples from diverse languages are used to illustrate that children use different clues, depending on the system being acquired. The final section of the review examines findings of a crosslinguistic research project designed to collect and analyze narrative data;...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the past twenty years, significant progress has been made in determining the nature of the Maya script, the subjects covered in the monumental inscriptions, the grammatical structure of Maya writing, and the astronomical content of hieroglyphic texts on the monuments and in the codices as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: During the past twenty years, significant progress has been made in determining the nature of the Maya script, the subjects covered in the monumental inscriptions, the grammatical structure of Maya writing, and the astronomical content of hieroglyphic texts on the monuments and in the codices. The script is unequivocally logosyllabic in nature, consisting of a mixture of logographic, syllabic, and semantic signs. The monumental texts are primarily concerned with dynastic history, including references to the births, marriages, military exploits, accessions to office, and deaths of rulers and their families, as well as the rituals that they performed. The grammar of hieroglyphic texts corresponds closely in structure to that of the Cholan and Yucatecan languages that were spoken in the region where hieroglyphs occur. And the pre-Columbian Maya were accomplished astronomers who produced complex tables for predicting solar and lunar eclipses, the stations of Venus and Mars, and solstices and equinoxes.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An account, spanning 50 years, of how I became an anthropologist, my graduate education at Columbia University, and my academic positions at Brooklyn and Queens College and at Duke University is given in this article.
Abstract: An account, spanning 50 years, of how I became an anthropologist, my graduate education at Columbia University, and my academic positions at Brooklyn and Queens College and at Duke University. I discuss my fieldwork among the Chippewa of Wisconsin and among modern Greeks in Boetia and Athens. I comment on the new ethnography as it applies to modern Greek studies and discuss how and why I turned to gender studies. I comment on teaching, university administration, and trends in contemporary anthropology and make a recommendation for a future thrust of the field. Reconnecting biology and cultural anthropology is, I believe, a necessary step if anthropology is to continue to be useful for ameliorating the human condition.