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)

Indigenous fire management

Indigenous knowledge and practices are increasingly recognized and incorporated by non-Indigenous governments, businesses, and others into their own projects. While these engagements may often take the form of cultural appropriation or theft, we also see collaborations that generate benefits for all, produce new shared knowledge and opportunities, as well as new questions and tensions.

Prescribed Burn in High Park, Toronto, Canada

In the news recently we read about local governments in Australia and Toronto, Canada incorporating Indigenous fire-management into forestry management. Known in forestry management as "asset burns" or "prescribed burns," these selective and controlled burns of dried vegetation in savannah ecosystems help to reduce dry-season wildfires. In Australia, "Indigenous rangers are collaborating with Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife rangers in Nitmiluk National Park to manage its savanna burning program, in an Australian-first agreement." This collaboration helps park and Indigenous rangers protect cultural artefacts like rock art in these areas, as well as creating carbon credits.

Historically, in the area that is today the City of Toronto's High Park, "Indigenous groups maintained fires when hunting and clearing riparian areas. European settlers suppressed the fires from the 1870s to 2000 due to safety concerns as houses were built in closer proximity to the park." In recent years, prescribed burns have been reincorporated into the human-plant relationship in this park, opening up space for anthropological interrogations of these relationships.

Anthropologist Natasha Myers's current project with Ayelen Liberona, "Becoming Sensor in Sentient Worlds" explores the possibilities of decolonizing ecology in urban park sites like Toronto's High Park. They write

Fire is of course not just a “natural” force; people all over the world use fire to sculpt lands. Oak savannahs depend on people with knowledge of fire and the skills to care for the lands. Toronto’s remnant black oak savannahas, including those in High Park, are millennia in-the-making.  These lands are the traditional territories of the Wendat, the Haudenosaunee and Anishnaabe Nations. Toronto stands on the lands of the Mississauga’s of the Credit River. Indigenous peoples cared for this land with fire for millennia before colonization. Many thousands of Indigenous and Métis peoples live and move through this region today.
Oak savannahs do not survive without people. After years of settlers’ grazing sheep and lawn mowers, Toronto’s Urban Forestry team have brought back the fires in an effort to save the oak savannahs.  Here “nature” is valued more than the Indigenous cultures that gave this land its contours and significance. In this sense, restoration efforts participate in an ongoing colonial project that continues to enforce the dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their lands. Can we do ecology otherwise?

How do these examples of Indigenous ways of caring for the plant-people relationship suggest other ways for thinking about "nature" and "natural environments"? How might these examples contribute to or provoke classroom discussions about systemic inequality, epistemology, and decolonization?

Quick links and further reading:

• Appropriating Indigenous Knowledge: Biopiracy or Scientific Colonialism (14 March 2016, anthro everywhere!)
• Valuing Aboriginal cultural knowledge in Western science (2 June 2016, anthro everywhere!)
• Reviving food diversity through Indigenous knowledge (1 September 2016, anthro everywhere!)
• All About High Park’s Controlled Burns (2016)
• Becoming Sensor in Sentient Worlds project page
• High Park's Oak Savannahs
• Johnson, Jon. 2013. The Indigenous Environmental History of Toronto, “The Meeting Place”. In L. A. Sandberg, S. Bocking, & K. Cruikshank (Eds.), Urban Explorations: Environmental Histories of the Toronto Region (pp. 59–71). Ontario: Wilson Institute for Canadian History.
• Update 29 May 2017: A link to Myer's longer paper Becoming Sensor in Sentient Worlds: A More-than-natural History of a Black Oak Savannah via her academia.edu page

Water Politics Syllabus & Resources

We have been seeing some very interesting discussions and resources emerging around water politics recently.

Image from "The Rights of the Whanganui River" (Peeps)

In addition to the many discussions happening in relation to #NODAPL and the importance of water to indigenous communities and ways of life in North America, the struggles for access to clean and safe drinking water in places like Flint, Michigan and across reserves in Canada, in March, you may have read the news that a Māori community has been successful in their battle to have New Zealand grant the Whanganui River the legal rights of a person. (The anthropological magazine Peeps published a beautiful photo essay on "The Rights of the Whanganui River" in their second issue earlier this year -- unfortunately, not available online.)

In response to these shifts and public spotlights, we offer readers a couple of interesting resources for thinking and teaching about water politics.

First, we'd like to draw attention to the thematic issue of the Canadian journal of anthropology, Anthropologica, published this past fall (Volume 58, Issue 2): An Amphibious Anthropology: The Production of Place at the Confluence of Land and Water, guest edited by Karine Gagné and Mattias Borg Rasmussen. Contributors to this issue draw on their ethnographic research to share insights into water politics and issues in the Himalayas, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Peru, and North America.

Each of these articles from Anthropologica would be a valuable addition and anthropological contribution to this already well-rounded (anthropology, geography, environmental studies) syllabus: "Water Rights and Social Protest: Politics, Governance, and the Meanings of Access" designed by Jake Blanc and Stepha Velednitsky (graduate students at the Center for Culture, History, and Environment (CHE), Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison). 

Quick links and further reading:

• A New Zealand River Now Has The Legal Rights Of A Human (16 March 2017, NPR)
• Peeps magazine
• Karine Gagné and Mattias Borg Rasmussen (eds.). 2016. Anthropologica. Thematic Section: An Amphibious Anthropology: The Production of Place at the Confluence of Land and Water. 58(2). 
• The "Water Rights and Social Protest: Politics, Governance, and the Meanings of Access" syllabus
• This Cultures of Energy podcast episode featuring anthropologist Jessica Barnes (winner of a Wenner-Gren engaged anthropology grant) on water politics in Egypt
• anthro everywhere!'s page on Reading Lists & Syllabi Resources

An Anthropologist, a Climate Scientist, and a Geographer walk into NASA...

The joke introduces a recent news article describing a new project that brings together various scientists to study changing patterns of urbanization and land use in the Himalayan region. This project will combine satellite imaging data with other qualitative data including census information, data concerning flow of remittances and land use, as well as the results of new ethnographic studies. These latter projects will take place in India, Nepal, and Bhutan for the purpose of understanding 'why' and 'how' different economic, political and social forces influence urbanization.

This overview of the research reads like a well-crafted SSHRC proposal, outlining the knowledge mobilization: Turin and Shneiderman (two Canadian UBC Anthropologists) hope to create conduits for effective information transferring between the researchers and local communities, national governments and development organizations. Such channels will help ensure that the results of the study can be broadly disseminated, but also that the needs and concerns of those in the communities being studied can be communicated back to the team to further inform the direction of the research.

The article ends with Turin describing how he will leverage the partnerships he and his wife (Dr. Shneiderman) have built over the last 25 years to connect with local need and take the results back to communities at all levels. 

This quick article in the Ubussey highlights some really interesting research collaborations for anthropologists and highlights some of the unique attributes they bring to such an endeavor.

Climate Change Resource for the Classroom

Leonardo Di Caprio has given open access to his environmental documentary on climate change. Entitled Before the Flood, Di Caprio wants to engender a sense of urgency regarding climate change and to show us the role we can play.

Important to note is that there may be a time limit in which this documentary is available for free (perhaps this is just its availability on cable); however, according to EcoWatch.com: from Oct. 30 through Nov. 6, you can also watch it on just about any website or device where you regularly stream online videos. The exhaustive list includes: Natgeotv.com, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, iTunes, Hulu, Sony PlayStation, GooglePlay, VOD/Video On Demand (through MVPD set-top boxes), MVPD Sites and Apps, Nat Geo TV Apps (iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, Roku, Android phones, Xbox One and 360, Samsung Connected TVs) and more.
You can watch it right here.

Check it out with your classes for those in need of something timely and important.

Reviving food diversity through Indigenous knowledge

This NPR piece -- How Native American Tribes Saved A Giant, Ancient Squash From Oblivion -- offers an interesting example for thinking about the everyday impacts of colonization through changing eating habits and the cultivation of food. For many of the indigenous peoples in this story, the revival of 'lost' ancient foods like the giant Gete Okosman squash also represents cultural healing and revival in their communities.

The seed library maintained by the Jijak Foundation contains dozens of native varieties of corn, beans, tobacco, watermelon and ancient squash.  |  Rebecca Williams/Michigan Radio

Through the creation of a native seed library, the Jijak Foundation in Michigan is sharing the oral history of the seeds, reviving these 'lost' foods, and traditional farming techniques.

Decolonial Atlas

This blog -- The Decolonial Atlas -- is a really interesting tool for discussions of representation. As the authors explain,

The Decolonial Atlas, started in 2014, is an attempt to bring together maps which, in some way, challenge our relationships with the land, people, and state. It is based on the premise that there is no such thing as “truth” in cartography. Only interpretation. The orientation of a map, its projection, the presence of political borders, which features are included or excluded, and the language used to label a map are all subject to the map-maker’s agenda. Because most maps in use today serve to reinforce colonial understandings of the Earth, we are consciously creating maps which help us to re-imagine the world – to decolonize.

Maps are categorized by region, but also by subject (e.g. languages, biocultural diversity, historical maps, non-North orientations...). I could see this blog, or specific maps, being incorporated into an in-class discussion or short assignment.

One person's trash...

One person's trash is another's treasure... or data, if you are an archaeologist or anthropologist working in a landfill.

Places where trash builds up can provide archaeologists important clues into past lives. For instance, in Toronto, Canada, when the Major League Baseball stadium was first built, archaeologists surveying the site found many interesting artifacts from what was then the lake shore in the early city. Most items had either been lost in the lake, or were part of the landfill extending the reaches of the city into the lake.

Archaeological teams have also dug into our more recent past. For instance William Rathje's Garbage Project, which "explores modern waste disposal, consumption, and recycling patterns" across North America. Or, the recent dig for Atari in a New Mexico landfill, which became a much publicized spectacle that "provided the necessary means to directly access the contemporary past for purposes of archaeological and historical research."

But, sociocultural anthropologists -- like Joshua Reno -- are also beginning to turn their attention to landfills and the people that work in this "secret world of activity that [is] utterly necessary to all of us, but completely hidden from most of us." In this interview, Reno digs into our social relationship with garbage.

What does trash, as material culture, tell us about our social worlds?

Quick links:

• "8 things they found when they dug under the Rogers Centre" (2015, Toronto Star)
• "Seeking the Truth in Refuse" (1992, New York Times)
• "Museums: The Truth is in Our Trash" (2002, Archaeology)
• "The Garbage Project & "The Archaeology of Us"" (by William Rathje, 1996, Symmetrical Archaeology)
• "Why We Dug Atari" (2014, The Atlantic)
• "The Anthropologist in the Landfill" (2016, the Atlantic)

Why aren't millennials buying diamonds?

link to original tweet @TheEconomist

Earlier this week, The Economist magazine asked the Twittersphere a question: Why aren't millennials buying diamonds?

Unsurprisingly, this question generated a lot of (angry) feedback.

If you actually follow the links to the different articles that The Economist has published, it becomes clear that the authors have a few answers to why "the diamond industry is being upended," as a later tweet explained. In one link, the threat to the diamond industry comes from the production of new synthetic and conflict-free diamonds. According to a similar story,

In 2003 the diamond industry responded to concerns that sales of illicit stones were being used to finance warfare in Africa by launching the Kimberley Process certification scheme. This was designed to make diamonds traceable, but focuses only on the ones that pay for rebel armies. Man-made diamonds spare millennials and others the headache of worrying that they are supporting human-rights abuses under repressive regimes such as Zimbabwe’s. Adding Hollywood glamour to the moral appeal is Leonardo DiCaprio, an investor in a synthetic-diamonds startup.

Yes, ethical consumption practices do play an important role in why millennials aren't buying diamonds. But, to think that ethical consumerism (and the new choice to purchase ethical synthetic stones) is the only reason, certainly does not provide a holistic answer. It also completely bypasses the question of 'value' that anthropologist Andrew Walsh has written about in relation to 'authentic' versus 'synthetic' sapphires...

What is interesting is that neither of The Economist's stories pick up on the threads that irate millennial tweeters rightly drew into the conversation. Such threads are picked up by an article for The Daily Beast (Lacking Sparkle: Why Have Millennials Fallen Out of Love With Diamonds?): Russell Shor, senior industry analyst at the Gemological Institute of America, said that the decline of diamond sales in the US

"is because of the different priorities of twentysomethings. “People in the millennial generation need to save more. If you’re a young person trying to buy a house in this market where housing prices have risen and wages still haven’t caught up, obviously you aren’t thinking about buying really expensive diamonds.”"

In the classroom, posing The Economist's question: "why aren't millennials buying diamonds?" might be a useful discussion question to open broader conversation about a number of important topics, such as: ethical consumerism, the idea of authenticity and value, or how the relative poverty of millennials compared to their parents is actually part of the same global economic system that has lead to the production of conflict diamonds.

Quick links and further reading:

• The Economist: Shine On (2016); In the Rough (2016)
• The Economist's provocative tweet and responses (via Twitter)
• Lacking Sparkle: Why Have Millennials Fallen Out of Love With Diamonds? (2016, The Daily Beast)
• Anthropologist Andrew Walsh's website and Academia.edu pages. Recommended reading: 
• 2010  The Commoditization of Fetishes: Telling the Difference between Natural and Synthetic Sapphires.  American Ethnologist, 37(1): 97-113.
• 2012  Made in Madagascar: Sapphires, Ecotourism, and the Global Bazaar. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Valuing Aboriginal cultural knowledge in Western science

The relationship between Western science (scientists, government officials, etc.) and Aboriginal knowledge has often been rocky, with Westerners often only acknowledging the value of local indigenous knowledge when it corroborates their scientific findings, or when it can be exploited for profit. The negative effects of this habitual dismissal of local indigenous knowledge was highlighted in Canadian media in 2014. To much fanfare and after considerable expense to Canadian taxpayers, the federal government announced that they had 'found' the long lost wreck of the Franklin expedition. Immediately after the announcement, a flurry of news articles followed indicating that local Inuit groups had known where the ship had wrecked all along:

Inuit oral tradition said the two ships appeared on the northwest side of King William Island, said Kamookak. One was crushed in ice and the other drifted further south.

It was afloat for two winters before it sank. Elders said there may have been people living on it during the first winter, but there were no signs of people during the second winter. 

"For us Inuit it means that oral history is very strong in knowledge, not only for searching for Franklin's ships but also for environment and other issues," Kamookak said. (Franklin find proves 'Inuit oral history is strong:' Louie Kamookak, CBC, 2014)

Unlike the ill-fated Franklin expedition, or the government's ill-considered hunt for these artifacts, new scientific studies and conservation projects are increasingly underscoring the mutual benefit of valuing indigenous knowledge and practices. This is the discussion in Researchers around the world are learning from Indigenous Communities. Here's why that's a good thing (Ensia, 2016)

“The hardest thing is to sit in a room with scientists who think they’ve discovered something, but their scientific discovery just confirms what our oral histories have talked about forever,” says William Housty, a member of British Columbia’s Heiltsuk First Nation and director of Coastwatch, a science and conservation program. “That’s been the biggest hump for us to overcome, to get people to think about our culture on the same level as Western science.”

The article covers many interesting cases from Canada’s Far North to Australia showing how working together can create better shared knowledge, and relationships that are more respectful of indigenous lifeworlds and the natural environment.

Quick links:

• Researchers around the world are learning from Indigenous Communities. Here's why that's a good thing (Ensia, 2016)
• Franklin find proves 'Inuit oral history is strong:' Louie Kamookak (CBC, 2014)
• Franklin Expedition search cost twice as much as Harper government claimed (iPolitics, 2015)
• Leading Inuit historian discusses the Franklin ships (Canadian Geographic, 2014)