As the summer winds down...GET OFF MY LAWN!!

At the beginning of the summer, Krystal D'Costa wrote an intriguing piece about The American Obsession with Lawns.

Don't think you're interested in green, gardening? This post has it all with a history of lawn landscaping and culture, considerations of class, design and aesthetic, exclusion and social-indicators of belonging. One might also easily read racial bias into lawn culture and cultural critique. D'Costa's post is somewhat reminiscent of Rotenberg's Landscape and Power in Vienna (1995) where he demonstrates how groups and classes work to align with political movements and inform cultural meanings in everyday (and larger, for example municipal, national, etc.) life.

Below is a snippet of her post:

We are at a moment when the American Dream, inasmuch as it still exists, is changing. The idea of homeownership is untenable or undesirable for many. While green spaces are important, a large area of green grass seems to be a lower priority for many. With a growing movement that embraces a more natural lifestyle, there is a trend toward the return of naturalized lawns that welcome flowering weeds, and subsequently support a more diverse entomological ecosystem.

Old habits die hard, however. And it is hard to also abandon this idea of a manifestation of material success, especially as it is so readily recognized as such. As of 2005, lawns covered an estimated 63,000 square miles of America. That's about the size of Texas. It's the most grown crop in the United States--and it's not one that anyone can eat; it's primary purpose is to make us look and feel good about ourselves.

D'Costa ends with the following statement: Lawns are American. But they're also an anomaly. And they may no longer fit the realities of the world we live in. 

The lawn factor may also translate for some living up here in Canada.

Read more of D'Costa's analysis and about this history of lawn and lawn culture by clicking on the quick links below.

Quick Links:

• Anthropology in Practice: Exploring the human condition Krystal D'Costa at Scientific American 
• Anthropology Blogs for the Affluent Tech-Thusiast? AnthoEverywhere! (July 27 2017)
• The American Obsession with Lawns by Krystal D'Costa at Scientific American (May 3 2017)
• Landscape and Power in Vienna, Robert Rotenberg (1995)

Why We Post: Anthropologists take on Social Media

In response to our posts last week about the presence and role of anthropologists and other academics on social media, I stumbled across the Why We Post, Social Media Through the Eyes of the World website.

From Why We Post website, you can delve deeper into their 15 Discoveries about social media. You can also download their free e-book from UCL Press. These resources are evidence-based, accessible, and use a global perspective to understand social media from various perspectives.

From their publication, How The World Changed Social Media, authors Daniel Miller, Elisabetta Costa, Nell Haynes, Tom McDonald, Razvan Nicolescu, Jolynna Sinanan, Juliano Spyer and Shriram Venkatraman, define social media as follows (2016, x):

Social media should not be seen primarily as the platforms upon which people post, but rather as the contents that are posted on these platforms. These contents vary considerably from region to region, which is why a comparative study is necessary. The way in which we describe social media in one place should not be understood as a general description of social media: it is rather a regional case. Social media is today a place within which we socialise, not just a means of communication.

Their approach to social media is unique as they propose the following collaborating ideas:

• Propose a theory of scalable sociality
• Engage a theory of polymedia
• Reject the notion that online spaces are separate from 'real life', and
• Propose a 'theory of attainment' to describe the new capacities of human communication.

Check out this interesting resource (project started in 2016) in the light of anthro everywhere!'s discussion on social media last week or, as a resource to begin discussions of social media, communication, and global context in the classroom.

Quick Links:

• Anthro Everywhere! Academics and their Social Media Presence (22 June 2017)
• Anthro Everywhere! The Relationship between Social Justice & Anthropology (19 June 2017)
• Anthro Everywhere! Students as Public Intellectuals - Another Push toward Altmetrics? (22 September 2016)
• Why We Post, Social Media Through the Eyes of the World, 15 Discoveries (2016)
• How The World Changed Social Media (2016)

The Anthropology of Trump: turning an ethnographic lens on Trumpland

Way back in March we posted about The Anthropology of Trump: It's getting political in here (16 March 2016). In this earlier post, Jenn reviewed Paul Stoller's analysis of Trump's popularity.

Recently, an ethnographer working for ReD Associates, Morgan Ramsey-Elliot, has provided some nuanced insight into Donald Trump’s support in small-town America. (Perhaps underscoring George Leader's argument that Universities Need Anthropology Now, More Than Ever, Huffington Post Blog, 20 October 2016).

"Trump Towns" (Quartz, 22 September 2016), highlights the incredible value of ethnographic research in making sense of social worlds. The insights that Ramsey-Elliot shares about people in small towns across America -- for instance in Texas and Colorado -- help to illuminate how Trump has gained such a vibrant base. What is striking from a methodological perspective, however, is that Ramsey-Elliot wasn't doing working on a project about political values when he learned these things. He was actually working as "an ethnographer with the consulting group ReD Associates, studying the lives and values of truck owners on behalf of a major US auto manufacturer." But, through his daily immersion in all aspects of his research participants' lives, he was also able to arrive at more complex understanding of why this ongoing American election cycle has taken on the character it has. Unsurprisingly, (to an anthropologist, anyway) this has to do with culture.

For instance, in teasing apart why so many Trump supporters oppose minority rights (e.g. "“homosexual” and “feminist” agendas") as 'selfish', Ramsey-Elliot argues that the answer is actually not as simple as prejudice alone:

It is true that fundamental prejudice plays a role in some conservatives’ attitudes toward minority groups. It is also true that, to Robby’s family and others like them, groups of people who are actually fighting for basic human rights look like individuals who have decided to elevate their own identities and needs and appear to be calling for special privileges. This idea is anathema in communities that value, and in many ways are structured around, subsuming individual needs and desires for the good of the group. For many I met in rural America, “minority” agendas and the individualism they are seen to represent are a manifestation of a larger problem: the vanishing respect for duty and self-sacrifice for the sake of the local community.

Cultural and structural changes in small-town life have deeply affected long-standing relations of mutual-help and community obligation. In this context, the discourse that Trump employs and his cultivated 'authentic' persona (not unlike that of Toronto's former Mayor Rob Ford) -- even when it is riddled with contradictions -- "feels far more authentic than that of more polished political elites."

[Trump's] frequent appeals to loyalty are a great example of how this works. Loyalty is, by definition, a deeply personal and contingent thing, and it’s a trait he has systematically attempted to build into a pillar of his personal brand (his proven track record of disloyalty is beside the point).  ...
The logic of such appeals to loyalty—contingent, personal, experiential—taps into a deeper reality about how many people relate to each other in rural America. 

Ramsey-Elliot, a New Yorker, concludes by arguing that people living on the "coasts" wont be able to understand the appeal of Trump until they gain a more nuanced understanding of everyday life across rural America. In other words, in order to understand these political divisions in America, we need to think like anthropologists about the social divisions.

Quick links and further reading:

• anthro everywhere!'s The Anthropology of Trump: It's getting political in here (16 March 2016)
• "Trump Towns" (Quartz, 22 September 2016) An ethnographer has a new explanation for Donald Trump’s support in small-town America
• Anthropologist Sarah Kendzior's take on how "Our fate was sealed long before November 8 (and not because the election’s rigged)" (De Correspondent, 2016)
• "Universities Need Anthropology Now, More Than Ever" (Huffington Post Blog, 20 October 2016).
• "Why Rob Ford appealed to so many in Toronto" (Toronto Star, 22 March 2016)

How a Teacher's Race Affects their Ability to Teach about Race

I met with someone from the Diversity and Equity Office at the University where I teach part-time yesterday. We've agreed to collaborate on a few classes for my upcoming course on Intercultural Competencies. In the meeting, my colleague asked me 'What do I not feel comfortable teaching?'

In this class, I introduce and discuss a LOT of uncomfortable topics including "race" (in quotation marks here to denote that this concept while very impactful is not based on genetic/biological but social constructs), ethnic identities, gender, sexuality, religion/us identities, structures of racism and oppression, Indigenous peoples relationships with the government, the Canadian structure of English-French-Nation language use, personal biases, whiteness, microaggressions...etc.

At first when I answered her, I listed only one or two of the above topics as being difficult to teach and noted that I included guest speakers where possible.

Throughout our meeting however I came back around to the question when I realized that I only feel truly comfortable (and had the right to speak) around the topic of whiteness, privilege, aspects of gender and sexuality, and microaggressions - and perhaps a few others - because I identify (and am identified by my students) as a majority member of the Canadian community. For all other topics, I am only capable of being able to speak from an outside perspective and thus, questions surface about representation and my right/ability/want/need to speak for others on their behalf.

An interesting article came out about how a teacher's "race" affects their ability to teach about "race". There are many interesting ideas including:

Mr. Lunt: In a strange way, that authority [as a faculty member at the front of the classroom] to assert facts makes the conversation more factual. It puts limits on what’s going to be accepted as evidence. I think it prompts our students to review their assumptions before they enter them into the conversation.

Ms. Ambikar: You may be right. That "authoritative tone" makes a huge difference. But it’s not equally available to all of us, is it? When I make assertions like the one you did, I am likely to be dismissed. For example, one day I quoted the civil-rights activist and legal scholar Michelle Alexander, whose work has shown that there are more black people in prison today than there were slaves in 1850. I was met with complete disbelief until I showed a video of her saying just that. I think the only facts that I am able to use are facts about India or from my own background. My facts are acceptable only if they relate to countries or cultures outside the United States. In all other contexts, not being white myself, even the facts I present are open to being questioned.

Mr. Lunt: Sadly, I have to agree. The authoritative tone matters, but I would be naïve if I pretended that much of my authority didn’t come from my perceived race. I mean, one stereotype of white men is of neutrality, rationality, factuality — the political "clothing" that every instructor needs when they talk about race.

Colonialism & white saviourism in tourism and trade

Travel writer/ editor/ photographer Bani Amor's work in Bitch magazine tackles the question of what it means to decolonize travel culture (tourism) as well as our trade relationships with people in the Global South.

In their article, "Spend & Save: The Narrative of Fair Trade and White Saviorism" (2016, Bitch), Amor takes a critical look at how the Fair Trade movement is embedded in the broader processes of global inequality supported by capitalism. This includes questions of gender, class, poverty, and narratives of white saviorism that have clear connections to colonialism: "The sad state of the savage Other necessitates civilizing via white/Western intervention, which maintains dominion over resources that sometimes trickle down to the needy via acts of charity."

This critique of Fair Trade emerges again in the follow-up interview with Amor: What Does it Mean to Decolonize Travel? (2016, Bitch). In this interview (2016, Bitch), Amor discusses why it is important to critically consider the social, political and historical power relationships that shape contemporary tourism and travel culture. In their work, they ask the kinds of questions that anthropologists are interested in when we think about tourism:

How do we look critically at the business of tourism and its historical relationship and present relationship to imperialism and colonialism? How does that affect people of color who not only travel, but who depend on the tourism industry as workers and laborers, usually cheap labor and menial labor? What is the relationship between these tourist workers—these communities who often experience sort of an occupation of foreigners, of Westerners, of mostly white people coming into their communities and shifting the local economies, the local culture—and how those communities relate to their culture?

Amor also speaks to questions of intersectionality (as queer, non-binary person of colour, an immigrant, with indigenous roots in South America, and a travel writer), positionality and reflexivity in this interview and their writing.

These articles, together or separately (alongside content from Amor's own website), speak to an anthropological perspective and provide an accessible take on the some of the ways in which 'positive' or well-intended relationships between the Global North and South -- through trade (consumption philanthropy) and tourism -- are nonetheless implicated in broader processes of inequality.

Quick links and additional resources:

• Spend & Save: The Narrative of Fair Trade and White Saviorism (2016, Bitch Magazine)
• What Does it Mean to Decolonize Travel? (2016, Bitch)
• Bani Amor's website everywhere all the time: decolonizing travel culture
• Films that speak to issues of colonialism in contemporary tourism: 
• Can't Do It In Europe (2006)
• Life and Debt (2001)

Ghettos

Ghettos. We commonly associate the term today with places like "effective social or ethnic ghettos, from the favelas of Brazil to the mostly black urban neighbourhoods of the United States and the predominantly north African banlieues of Paris."

But this term, as we learn in "Inventing the Ghetto" (2016, 1843 Magazine - The Economist), has its own specific history that dates back 500 years to the establishment of the Jewish ghetto in Venice on March 29th 1516.

I like this piece for the ways in which it connects the history of this ghetto in Venice, with the treatment of its Jewish inhabitants, and the growth of the city, but also with contemporary issues of social inequality and issues of space and place. Instructors might like this piece as background for a lecture on social inequality, space and place, or gentrification. I can also see it being an interesting think piece for upper year students to think about how social contemporary issues have connections to broader historical, political, and economic processes and precedents.

How 'Maintainers,' Not 'Innovators,' Make the World Turn

I have been hearing a lot about 'disrupters' and 'innovators' in tech and marketing industries lately, and something about that language has always irked me.

Lee Vinsel (an assistant professor of science and technology at the Stevens Institute of Technology), and the diverse group of scholars, artists, activists and engineers who attended "The Maintainers" (an interdisciplinary conference that took place April 7-9, 2016) point to some of the reasons why. Presenters "discuss how the human-built world is maintained and sustained—so often by unnamed, unseen, and underpaid labor." Papers explore these issues through a wide range of perspectives, including city infrastructure, the internet, gendered labour, and popular culture -- for example, Vinsel's paper on Mary Poppins as "caregiving hero" in mainstream cinema (available for download).

Quick links:

• How 'Maintainers,' Not 'Innovators,' Make the World Turn (2016, City Lab)
• The Maintainers conference program - with many papers available for download!

The Anthropology of Terrorism: Learning about threat, fear, and community building in times of loss and anguish

I chose today to write about terrorism as another bomb blast rocks the European world, not because it was any more important than the blasts that rocked Ankara just last week but because the media coverage, and backlash, will be much more pronounced here in Canada and North America in general than what came of the former (see Rhiannon's previous post on who and what makes the news to understand why). It is also another event in a series of terrorist threats and actions that seemingly culminates around the terrorist group ISIS.

Let me ask, do any of the words in the above title of this post strike you as odd? While I'm sure the words threat and fear will be used in media coverage over the next week, as well as loss and perhaps anguish, community building might wait to surface until the aftermath of this event. That is, what happens in everyday life in Brussels after the alarm and urgency of this tragic event have passed (and just a note here, I speak for both myself and Rhiannon when I write that we are both deeply saddened by the loss of life and the wounds inflicted by this event - it is not my intention to only use this event as a set of circumstances to discuss anthropology but instead, to write and discuss the very real and pertinent way this event will/has affect(ed) us all, and how an anthropological perspective can help us make sense of such events that connect local lives with global processes).

In January 2015, Scott Atran, an anthropologist who interviews "would-be and convicted terrorists about their extreme commitment to their organizations and ideals," was interviewed for an article in Scientific American in order to help answer questions that juxtapose religion, European culture and influence from terrorist organizations. Atran is noted as one of the few anthropologists studying in this area and uses this article to try and describe what events could lead human beings to decide to carry out a terrorist attack.

Below are some of the highlights from this interview:
1. ISIS cultivates would-be terrorists by appealing to feelings and experiences of social inequality. They tell them: "Look, you're on the outs, nobody cares about you, but look what we can do. We can change the world."
2. Terrorists must be self-motivated - "Even if people buy into the [ISIS or Al Qaeda] ideology, buy into the values, it’s far from a sufficient condition [to carry out an attack]". Instead, these actions are cultivated over time through a network of similarly-minded individuals: "The best predictors turn out to be things like who your friends are and whether you belong to some action group".
3. Mosques are not fertile ground for terrorist plots. Atran states (and was questioned in relation to the Paris attacks): "In the case of the Kouachi brothers [who committed the Charlie Hebdo attack], [they] had the greatest bonding experience - prison [Atran notes earlier in the article that "France has about 7.5% Muslims and [they make] up to 60–75% of the prison population. It’s a very similar situation to black youth in the United States"]. But it could be soccer, it could be whitewater rafting". This follows what Atran stated earlier in the interview: "Plots never occur in mosques: you have to be quiet in a mosque. They occur in fast food places, soccer fields, picnics and barbecues".

There is a lot of emotion surrounding any terrorist attack (I've been using the word 'event' above as a means to think through what is happening in a less emotional manner). As an anthropologist, one might take a step back to look at events holistically: What is happening at this moment in Belgium or the EU that would lead to the culmination of these events? What would lead these attackers, on a societal level, to commit such acts?  

One might also think about the specificity surrounding such an event. In the news articles coming out of Brussels, many of those interviewed noted that they heard 'yelling in Arabic' before the bomb exploded. An anthropologist might make note of the following:

All Arabic speakers are NOT terrorists
All Muslims are NOT Arabic speakers
All terrorists are NOT Muslims
Individuals commit terrorist acts. Full stop.

Thinking about these perpetrators as individuals committing actions on behalf of a small group (even if they act on behalf of ISIS) is important to remember when thinking about the potential fall out this event could have for those living in Brussels and in greater Belgium (including Muslim Belgians).

As Robb Willer has recently argued, terrorist events drive up feelings of nationalism, particularly in presidential elections. Although it likely comes as no surprise, demagogue Donald Trump has already phoned into right-wing news houses to lay blame at Brussels' feet, he has linked these attacks to the recent refugee crisis, and whipped up more terror and fear among the American public. Willer goes on to note that terrorist attacks not only bring national communities together but create a more sharp dividing line between who is and who is not a part of the national community.

It's with an anthropological lens, and other critical social science theories and approaches, that one might think not only of the short term but long term effects of the actions following such an attack.

My heart and thoughts are with those in Brussels today.

Class and the myth of meritocracy in North America

Based on quantitative research, this Washington Post article speaks to how systemic inequality works to maintain the status quo in terms of class mobility and income. As the title says, "Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong" (18 October 2014)

Advantages and disadvantages, in other words, tend to perpetuate themselves. ... Specifically, rich high school dropouts remain in the top about as much as poor college grads stay stuck in the bottom — 14 versus 16 percent, respectively. Not only that, but these low-income strivers are just as likely to end up in the bottom as these wealthy ne'er-do-wells.