Past Events

A Seminar at Dartmouth College
Friday April 16th, 2010 - Saturday, April 17th, 2010

DESCRIPTION

Around the world and throughout history an individual's power and capacity to heal has been connected, more or less directly, to spirituality. This is true not only where "traditional" medicine is practiced; it can also inform the ways contemporary doctors in conventional settings interact with their patients.

This seminar explores a Buddhist perspective on health, illness and the healing arts with Tibetan physician, Buddhist monk and Public Health Ph.D (UCLA) Kunchok Gyaltsen. Other presenters include anthropologists engaged in cross cultural study of health and illness and local practitioners of medicine and Buddhism. The format includes lectures, invited response, audience comment and opportunity to engage in Buddhist meditation practice.

PRESENTERS

• Dr. Kunchok Gyaltsen, Ph.D. UCLA School of Public Health, Kumbum Tibetan Medical Hospital, Quinghai Tibetan Medical College
• Eric Jacobsen, Ph.D. Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
• Theresia Hofer, Ph.D. (ABD) University College, London; Welcome Trust for the History of Medicine
• Barbara Gerke, Ph.D. University of Oxford; Visiting Professor, Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College; International Trust for Traditional Medicine, India (1994 to 2008).
• Local Practitioner Panel. Charles Meyers, acupuncturist and lay ordained Zen monk; Dr. Richard White, Family Practice Physician; Dr.Lori Alvord, surgeon and member, Navajo tribe

SPONSORS

• Dartmouth Himalayan Initiative - Shelly and Donald Rubin Foundation
• Zen Practice Group at Dartmouth
• The Robert A. 1925 and Catherine L.McKennan fund for Anthropology, Anthropology Department, Dartmouth College
• Upper Valley Zen Center
• Tucker Foundation
• Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences - Classroom Enhancement Grants

Mark Arnoldy, Executive Director, Nyaya Health

Mark Arnoldy is the Executive Director of Nyaya Health, an organization that is realizing the right to health by delivering transparent, data-driven health care for Nepal's rural poor. In addition to his nut allergy, Mark is allergic to small thinking. Learn more about the thinking that makes up Nyaya Health's Cultural DNA at http://www.nyayahealth.org/aboutus/.

After nearly dying on his first trip to Nepal from a lack of access to health care following a severe allergic reaction, Mark was afforded a rare glimpse of empathy with the millions of Nepalis without care. That incident was the reason he committed himself to a life of building health systems for the world's poorest. Prior to Nyaya Health, Mark founded NepalNUTrition to treat malnourished children and advised the creation of two blended value businesses in the United States that fund nutrition programs in Nepal. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Colorado at Boulder, completed Harvard's Global Health Effectiveness Program, and was a Fulbright Scholar to Nepal. Mark is a Cordes Fellow, Bluhm/Helfand Social Innovation Fellow, and Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar.

Co-sponsored by the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Program, the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine, The Rubin Foundation, The Nelson A. Rockefeller Center, and the Dickey Center for International Understanding

May 13

The Claire Garber Goodman Fund for the Anthropological Study of Human Culture Student Presentations

Selling Salem's Witches: An Ethnography of a New England Tourist Town

This thesis looks at resident reactions to tourism in the city of Salem, Massachusetts, widely recognized as "Witch City, USA." My analysis will be based on original fieldwork conducted in Salem during two months of the summer and a weekend in October of 2012, as well as  primary resources obtained from local archives and media. The focus of this project will be on the transformation of the city as a tourist town between the mid-nineteenth century and the present, the opinions of the population about their city's commercialized and stereotyped image, and the impact of the "legacy of witchcraft" on their respective social identities. In this thesis, by focusing on the recent local debate about "re-branding" the city, I hope to explore the sociocultural, rather than simply economic, impact of tourism on Salem's residents. I will also relate my findings to a broader discussion of American culture, and, more specifically, the impact of the image of the witch perpetuated by the popular culture/entertainment industry and the commercialized holiday of Halloween. Advisor: Sergei Kan

High Facial Mobility in a Solitary Primate

Previous studies have shown that facial mobility is correlated with social group size and other indices of sociality in diurnal anthropoid primates (Dobson 2009, Dobson and Sherwood 2011). Two different indices of facial mobility, facial motor nucleus volume and facial movement repelioire, indicate that orangutans exhibit high levels of facial motor control (Sherwood 2005, personal observation). However, orangutans are essentially solitary in the wild, making them a significant outlier in the facial mobility/sociality data set. In this thesis I will explore other possible explanations for the high degree of facial motor control in orangutans, including body size, evolutionary lag, the corti co-facial coevolution hypothesis, and object manipulation. I will review the pertinent literature as well as perform new comparative analyses of previously published data to test which hypothesis, if any, best explains the high degree of facial mobility in orangutans. Advisor: Seth DobsonPrevious studies have shown that facial mobility is correlated with social group size and other indices of sociality in diurnal anthropoid primates (Dobson 2009, Dobson and Sherwood 2011). Two different indices of facial mobility, facial motor nucleus volume and facial movement repelioire, indicate that orangutans exhibit high levels of facial motor control (Sherwood 2005, personal observation). However, orangutans are essentially solitary in the wild, making them a significant outlier in the facial mobility/sociality data set. In this thesis I will explore other possible explanations for the high degree of facial motor control in orangutans, including body size, evolutionary lag, the corti co-facial coevolution hypothesis, and object manipulation. I will review the pertinent literature as well as perform new comparative analyses of previously published data to test which hypothesis, if any, best explains the high degree of facial mobility in orangutans. Advisor: Seth Dobson

Representation and Translation of Human-Centered Design: From San Francisco to Myanmar, Nepal, and Cambodia

HCD is a process and design philosophy used to create new solutions for the world in the form of products, services, organizations, and systems. Drawing on business practices with a focus on designing with the user in mind, organizational capacity, and financial sustainability, it examines potential solutions to different kinds of design challenges through three lenses: desirability, feasibility, and viability. My research explores how HCD is practically employed, represented, translated, or challenged in specific contexts: through the work of IDEO and IDEO.org in San Francisco, Proximity Designs in Myanmar, iDE Nepal, and iDE Cambodia. In this thesis, based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in each of these locations during the spring and summer of 2012, I describe and analyze the examples I witnessed of HCD as it manifests in Myanmar, Nepal, and Cambodia and ask if these interventions are actually desirable, feasible, and viable models for a new kind of development and way of working in the Global South, as the HCD philosophy claims. In order to answer this question, I first describe the theory and cultural assumptions behind HCD, consider its role in development and anthropology of development, and then discuss how the people with whom I interacted – mostly practitioners of HCD – framed their understandings and expectations of HCD. I then explore the lived experience of HCD in the context of these organizations. I hope this thesis will add to the critical anthropology literature on development, business and design, particularly work related to concepts of 'human-centered development' and 'social enterprise'. Advisor: Sienna Craig

Impacts of Social Identity & Multilingualism on Health and Illness: Khar and Nallasopara Communities in Mumbai

This thesis project seeks to better understand social suffering, specifically in the context of health and illness in the multilingual setting of Mumbai, India. I have conducted ethnographic research both within the setting of this Canadian NGO operating programs in the "slums" of Mumbai, and through relationships I established with individuals and families that belong to the Khar and Nallasopara communities. Theoretically, my intent in this thesis is two-fold: 1) to describe how social identity and multilingualism played a role in local understandings of health and illness as well as health-seeking strategies; and 2) to analyze how both the social and physical spaces occupied by One! International within the context of these particular places in Mumbai at once mitigate and respond to forms of social suffering – specifically lack of education and healthcare – and, at the same time, complicate social relations and "expectations of modernity." In addition to this focus on social suffering, I analyze multilingual conversations and code switching at the Khar and Nallasopara research sites to better understand how the NGO's mission of poverty alleviation gets actualized on the ground and how that compares and contrasts with the NGO's intentionality. Specifically, I seek to understand how the NGO conceives their messages, how the recipients of the NGO messages receive such information, and the practical and abstract outcomes of such messages as they are experienced by the larger communities in which One! education and health programs are located. Advisor: Sienna Craig

The Way of the True Pilgrim: Finding Meaning on the Camino de Santiago in a Secularized World

The Camino de Santiago, commonly known as the Way of St. James, is a historically medieval Roman Catholic pilgrimage road that stretches from southwestern France and across northern Spain. Today, hundreds of thousands of people with different cultural and personal backgrounds, nationalities, sex, age, and religion, choose to make the 478 mile-long journey on foot.  My two-month long research was conducted to answer why highly varied, internationally diverse travelers walk the pilgrimage.  I systematize the walkers into continua by relative levels of religiosity/spirituality and commitment/devotion.  After walking the pilgrimage for a total of three times from three different entry-points, I assert the existence of a cultural system of meaning that transforms and solidifies shared cultures, leaving a lasting impression, change, or understanding in individuals. Advisor: John Watanabe

Pregnancy and Motherhood as Identity Negotiation: Hispanic Youth in Doña Ana County, New Mexico

Teen pregnancy has been an issue of central concern among activists, policy-makers, and the general public in the United States for decades. Anthropologists studying teen pregnancy critique its public characterization as inherently pathological and recognize the importance of studying teen reproductive practices – including sex, contraception use, pregnancy, and motherhood – from a cultural lens. This thesis builds upon existing theories of identity construction to examine how intersections of ethnicity, gender, and class shape the identities of Hispanic teenage mothers and, in turn, position them to use reproductive practices to embrace and/or challenge the power dynamics that structure their identities. The ethnographic research informing this thesis was carried out in Doña Ana County, New Mexico from June to August 2012.Advisors: Lauren Gulbas and Dale F. Eickelman

May 14, 2013

Fear, Isolation, and Resistance: The Impact of Local Immigration Enforcement on the Everyday Life of a Latina Migrant in Alamance County, North Carolina

Over the last two decades, Southern towns, cities, and states have experienced great demographic change with the arrival and rapid population growth of Latino migrants in areas that previously had little to no Latino settlement. Among those places is Alamance County, North Carolina, whose Latino population increased from 736 people in 1990 to 15,356 people in 2010. In 2007, as a result of rising concerns over the social and economic impacts of migrants, the county adopted Immigration and Custom Enforcement's (ICE) 287(g) program, in which local law enforcement agents are trained and authorized to check the immigration status of people they arrest. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Alamance County during the summer of 2012, my research explores the impact of 287(g) and other surveillance practices on the everyday lives of Alamance County's Latino migrant population. I present an ethnographic case study of one female migrant to demonstrate how surveillance of migrants can intertwine with gendered practices in the home to exacerbate fear and isolation in the lives of migrant women. To conclude, I examine the strategies employed by migrants and others in Alamance County to resist the imposed surveillance. Advisor: Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera

Lenses of Truth: Iranian Mystical Poetry as Description and Creation of a Nation

I will sketch of broad cultural history of the intersecting traditions of poetry, Sufism and nationalism in Iran and analyze the work of both ancient and contemporary Iranian poets as artists operating both within and against other dominant discourses in Iran regarding Islam, Zoroastrianism, the Persian language and the politics of gender. I will discuss the possibilities of nation and knowledge reproduced and transformed by Iranian poetry over the last millenia, as well as the broader potential of the poetic form as a personal and ethnographic tool today.  I will reflexively discuss my knowledge of and investment in these traditions.  Finally, I will consider the larger implications of a new anthropological orientation towards poetry and propose steps to its realization. Advisor: John Watanabe

The Energetics and Ecology of Vertical Climbing in Humans

My research investigates the energetic cost of vertical climbing in humans. Current and past hunter-gatherer populations around the world climb trees for resources. Therefore, it is valuable to examine the energetic cost of arboreal locomotion as a contributing factor to human phenotypes. At the 2011 Lumberjack World Championships in Hayward, WI, I collected respiratory data on pole climbers using an Oxycon Mobile device. I regressed oxygen intake from the Oxycon with climbing efficiency to determine the usefulness of respiratory data in determining the cost of climbing, an aerobic and anaerobic activity. Using pole climbing as a simple means to study tree climbing, I analyzed the energetic cost and efficiency of this activity in comparison to walking and jogging.. Advisor: Nathaniel Dominy

Emotional Wellbeing Among Schoolchildren in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

My Goodman project was an examination of psychosocial wellbeing among children living in Mbagala, an impoverished, AIDS-affected community on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The project was based on anthropological research conducted during the fall term of 2011 and the summer term of 2012 at the Bibi Jann Primary and Nursery School, a non-profit school for orphaned and vulnerable children. Within the context of this study, psychosocial wellbeing was defined by participants' own understandings of wellbeing, which often emphasized the ability to fulfill a particular social role (e.g. student, son, daughter, friend, etc..). Nonetheless, the construct of psychosocial wellbeing, with its origins in Western perspectives on psychology and social order, is not unproblematic. This study sought to provide a culturally grounded and culturally specific understanding of psychosocial wellbeing within a particular local context. The research focused on the lived experiences of the students at the school, engaging the children's perspectives through multiple methods of data collection. These methods included participant observation, prompt-based dialogue, and other participatory techniques, such as arts and crafts activities. Through the children's participation in these research activities, I gained a detailed understanding of the circumstances and relationships that shape the psychosocial wellbeing of the students who attend the school. Advisor: Elizabeth Carpenter-Song

Chronic Illness and Identity Formation

This study examines identity formation in individuals with less-visible chronic illnesses. It seeks to understand how the patient's social (patient—peer) and medical (patient—physician) relationships influence their personal understanding of their own health and of their perceived place in their society. Research involved participant-observation at Children's Hospital Boston in both an In-Patient and Out-Patient clinic for individuals with Cystic Fibrosis, interviews with both patients and their physicians, and meetings with patients outside of the clinical setting. Due to many of its inherent characteristics, the CF population provides an opportunity to explore how health as a cultural symbol informs the personal and collective identity of chronically ill individuals. This thesis aims to analyze significant cultural practices surrounding cystic fibrosis treatment and lifestyle to isolate the most significant symbolic forms or processes of identity formation that integrate a CF patient's sense of self. Through a more thorough understanding of identity formation in individuals with life-altering, "unfixable" diseases, this research will hopefully illuminate how best to create empowering, as opposed to disenabling, medical and social environments for the patient. Advisor: John Watanabe

Female Participation in Civil Society in Tajikistan

Voluntary forms of civic organization have become increasingly important in Tajikistan since the late 1980s. Women in particular are increasingly taking active roles in civil society organizations that address a variety of issues, despite maintaining their primary socially designated role in the domestic sphere. In conducting this research, I seek to understand conceptions of the "appropriate" role for women in society, how female participation in civil society may or may not conflict with these conceptions, and what impact increasing female participation in Tajik civil organizations may have on the continuously changing face of the country's broader civil society. To accomplish this, I will interview several women and men located throughout the country who are involved in civil society organizations addressing a variety of issues. These interviews will consist of accounts of personal experiences leading individuals to involve themselves in their respective organization(s), perceived reactions to their decisions by others, and their predictions about future development(s) of Tajikistan's civil society. Despite the potentially significant implications of this trend, I do not expect women to regard this as a particularly important development. I will use the data gathered to make limited predictions about the broader social implications of this trend for women and for civil society at large. Advisor: Dale F. Eickelman

May 21, 2013

Kriye Bode [Come Move!]: Drum, Dance, and the Gods in Haiti

Peniel Guerrier is a master dancer and drummer of Haiti. He composes and performs politically engaged works that are deeply rooted in Haiti's spiritual and cultural history. Trained at L'Ecole Nationale des Arts (ENARTS) in Haiti, he runs Ballet Folklorique Tamboula D'Haiti, which performs in Haiti and the US. He will offer a drum and dance demonstration and will address the politics at stake in Haitian  expressive culture.

Haitian folkloric dance and drumming is rooted in the vodou rites established by African peoples brought to the island as slaves during the colonial period. Key sites of entertainment, worship, organizing, and resistance, the ritual "dances" of enslaved peoples enabled the revolution that ended slavery and founded the republic of Haiti in 1804. The mid-century negritude movements revitalized Haitian expressive culture as a national treasure and attracted international attention. Katherine Dunham, the black American scholar, dancer, and choreographer became an expert in Haitian dance and transformed the genre for a global audience. Peniel Guerrier follows in this legacy. Trained as a master drummer and dancer at L'Ecole Nationale des Arts (ENARTS) in Haiti, he now runs the NY-based Ballet Folklorique Tamboula D'Haiti, which performs worldwide. From 2-3:30 pm, he will offer a drum and dance demonstration during which he will address the ritual significance and political possibilities at stake in Haitian expressive culture. At 4 pm, he will present a short dance performance, followed by a reception.

April 26, 2013

Glenn Stone
Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Studies
Washington University, St. Louis

Sustainability and the Information Divide: GM Crops and Local Farms

Following eras in which machinery and chemicals were primary drivers of change in agricultural systems, information has become a vital input into agriculture. However the roles and effects of information in different forms of production vary dramatically.  This talk examines contradictory roles of information in two of the most salient trends in agricultural change in recent decades: genetically modified (GM) crops and the rise of locally-oriented small farms.  GM crops are located in a set of relationships between institutions and farmers that are exceedingly rich in commodified information.  Meanwhile local small farms, popular in part because of backlash against industrial agriculture, struggle with a range on information deficits and costly learning curves.   The two trajectories face very different challenges of sustainability.

For more information about the speaker please go to http://artsci.wustl.edu/~stone/