Tag: Globalization

Heritage Management in the Marquesas Islands

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“The UNESCO WHL is intended to help identify, protect, and preserve certain heritage for the benefit of all humanity (UNESCO 2018). Yet, both in reality and in the future imagined by Marquesans, this includes a commoditization of heritage that prioritizes material preservation over attention to ancestral meanings or respect…. Despite intentions to respect local culture and meaning, the recognition of world heritage thus becomes an exercise of power and, ultimately, governance by the state and the global market” (Donaldson 2019, 117).

Working with the Ancestors is a beautiful depiction of the way different groups interact with heritage in the Marquesas Islands, a place close to my heart. Emily Donaldson’s book describes heritage in the Marquesas and the problems Marquesans face in the twenty-first century. One of the issues at the forefront of heritage studies is the way in which UNESCO and other preservationist organizations follow standardized rules of heritage listing and management, which leads to at best an ignoring of local values and at worst a complete dispossession. Donaldson writes, “The UNESCO project has relied primarily on an authorized understanding of heritage fed by nonlocal funding, political influence, and the globally dominant heritage discourse. As with similar cases in nature conservation, the result is an ongoing negotiation between the elite, often global ‘eco-discourses’ of powerful outsiders and local, emplaced knowledge of the land (Campbell 2005, 311). In the process, imposed political, economic, and intellectual influences are driving indigenous peoples to question their own superior knowledge of their surroundings in favor of foreign ‘expert’ opinions” (Donaldson 2019, 127).

As Donaldson points out, the silencing of local and indigenous voices is a problem in both heritage and conservation management. People working in these fields should find ways to uplift indigenous values, instead of subsuming them in the name of global visions (a great book on the clash of indigenous groups and conservation visions is Wild Sardinia: Indigeneity and the Global Dreamtimes of Environmentalism by Tracey Heatherington). This book would be a great read for anybody going into the field of heritage management. “A true commitment to the future of Marquesan culture and the land instead requires an acknowledgement of islanders’ rich social and spiritual relationships with the bush, and the recasting of Marquesan understandings of respect, ownership, and time as a potential asset, not a hindrance, to the preservation of ‘heritage’” (Donaldson 2019, 143).

References:

Campbell, Ben. 2005. “Changing Protection Policies and Ethnographies of Environmental Engagement.” Conservation and Society 3 (2): 280-322.
Donaldson, E. 2019. Working with the Ancestors: Mana and Place in the Marquesas Islands. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
Heatherington, T. 2010. Wild Sardinia: Indigeneity and the Global Dreamtimes of Environmentalism. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
UNESCO 2018. “World Heritage.” http://whc.unesco.org/en/about.

Living and Enmeshed Societies

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“The processes that I have explored in this article, with Iraqw culture and society as my vantage point, may, I suggest, indicate that a certain not uncommon way of representing so-called ‘traditional’ or ‘tribal’ societies ought to be adjusted. These societies are not, and have never been, simply the passive victims of external modern forces ‘having an impact’ on them in more or less predictable ways. We are talking about living societies that consist of living and creative human beings, and which, like all societies, have mechanisms and procedures for coping with change in a manner which ensures cultural continuity” (Rekdal 1996: 382).

Thoughts on globalization, tradition, and modernity in Rekdal’s article on the Iraqw’s cultural ties to “Money, Milk, and Sorghum Beer.” How many times do we anthropologists have to remind ourselves that cultures are malleable? How many times do we anthropologists have to remind ourselves that everybody has agency? That being said, in cases where we anthropologists go out of their way to say that people are the makers of their own culture, we must also not forget the power dynamics at play that actually do move people against their will, or bind them to situations they cannot escape. These powers could be colonial, imperialist, oppressive forces, or even just acts of nature such as unforeseen natural disasters. Through small acts of resistance against these powers-that-be, culture is shaped, but that means that without these forces the culture afflicted would undoubtedly have found itself on a different path. We are all enmeshed in complex webs of interaction and while some communities may have coping strategies for change that “ensures cultural continuity,” these cultures are never isolated, and therefore they are not completely in charge of how their culture takes form. My conclusion for almost everything: humans are damn complicated.

References:
Rekdal, O.B. 1996. Money, Milk, and Sorghum Beer: Change and Continuity Among the Iraqw of Tanzania. Africa 66 (3), 367-385.

Neologisms and The Power of Language

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“I have come to understand that although place-words are being lost, they are also being created. Nature is dynamic, and so is language. Loanwords from Chinese, Urdu, Korean, Portuguese and Yiddish are right now being used to describe the landscapes of Britain and Ireland; portmanteaus and neologisms are constantly in manufacture. As I travelled I met new words as well as salvaging old ones: a painter in the Hebrides who used landskein to refer to the braid of blue horizon lines in hill country on a hazy day; a five-year-old girl who concocted honeyfur to describe the soft seeds of grassed held in the fingers” (Macfarlane 2015: 13-14).

Language, like nature and like culture, is part of a vast web. In this web, interconnected signs, indices and symbols interact to create a form of communication unique to our species. In a time where languages are constantly being lost due to processes of globalization, colonialism, environmental degradation, and simply the passing of time, it is important to realize that there are ways to create and honor the dynamic fluidity of language as well. Robert Macfarlane’s book Landmarks celebrates the collision of nature and language, and how these two aspects inform culture in the past, present and future.

The Bureau of Linguistical Reality also acknowledges the power of language. They invite people to create new words (neologisms) that define what it feels like to live in the present day. Change is all around us, with advancements in technology, changing climates, politics, economics, etc., and again, simply the passing of time, and as humans we are sometimes left with feelings that cannot be defined by our current vocabulary. Through the sometimes serious, sometimes playful act of creating new words, creators of the Bureau of Linguistical Reality, Heidi Quante and Alicia Escott, hope to facilitate conversations around climate change and a greater cultural shift taking place in our everyday lives.

References:

Macfarlane, R. 2015. Landmarks. London: Penguin Books.

Vine Deloria Jr. on the Old Ways

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“Even on the most traditional reservations, the erosion of the old ways is so profound that many people are willing to cast aside ceremonies that stood them in good stead for thousands of years and live in increasing and meaningless secularity. The consumer society is indeed consuming everything in its path. It is fair to say that the overwhelming majority of Indian people today have little understanding or remembrance of the powers once possessed by the spiritual leaders of their communities. What we do today is often simply a ‘walk-through’ of a once-potent ceremony that now has little visible effect on the participants” (Deloria 20016: xvii-xviii).

Vine Deloria was an advocate for Native American spirituality, and in his final book, The World We Used to Live In, he compiles stories that aim to show the power of the spiritual world and our human connection to it. Change in the form of colonialism, globalization, modernity and climate change have affected all societies on the globe, for good or bad, and here in this quote and the rest of his book, Deloria aims to present the past in order that we might understand what we are in danger of losing, or have already lost. He explores stories from a world different from Western society to illustrate the importance of accepting and valuing alternative ways of life.

References:

Deloria, V. Jr. 2006. The World We Used to Live In: Remembering the Powers of the Medicine Man. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing.

Syndassko, Russia

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“Snowmobile trips to the tundra are a usual practice for most Syndassko residents. Such trips are required for basic household needs, such as getting coal and water, as well as hunting, fishing, and gathering. Almost every adult male in the village hunts wild reindeer, ptarmigan, ducks, geese and other game; in addition to that, they usually fish in tundra lakes and in the gulf. Such trips can last one day or a longer time when people go ‘to the spot’ (na tochku)–that is, to their own hunting huts in the tundra, where they can spend up to several weeks. Similarly, reindeer herders do not spend their entire time in the tundra but travel constantly between the camp and the village, while the village residents often visit these camps or just stop by on their way.

Furthermore, many people, espcailly youth, often go to the tundra for entertainment. They call it ‘going hiking,’ or ‘having a picnic,’ meaning a one-day barbecue trip, sometimes including drinks…. Walking outside the village on foot when the weather is mild is also a common practice, usually with no economic reason at all. For instance, picking mushrooms and berries is often not a household need but rather a motivation to get ‘outside.'” (Bolotova, Karaseva, & Vasilyeva 2017: 109)

What originally drew me to anthropology were images of distant cultures where people much like myself had a different way of living their lives. Here is a snippet of life from the Russian village of Syndassko, located in the far north of Russia in Krasnoyarsk Krai.

The article this quote is taken from looks at motility (the capacity for mobility) among three different ‘remote’ Russian cities. The authors explore what it means for a place to be remote and how this is affected by transportation infrastructure which in turn affects peoples’ mobility. They also explore sense of place, and note that in Syndassko, although life is hard living on the tundra, people have a strong emotional attachment to the place in which they live.

I love this quote because it brings the everyday lives of these seemingly remote people closer to me, and therefore further challenges the concept of remoteness. Is anything truly ‘remote’ in our global world? Although I haven’t been there, this article allows me to imagine taking a snowmobile for a picnic on the tundra, something I have never imagined before. It makes me ponder what these people’s lives are like, and how they are different from my own. A lovely portrayal of another world, and one of the many reasons I love anthropology.

References:

Bolotova, A., Karaseva, A. & Vasilyeva, V. 2017. Mobility and Sense of Place among Youth in the Russian Arctic. Sibirica 16(3), pp. 77-123.

Migration Spurred by Clothes – Griaule et Ogotemmêli (2/3)

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“[Koguem] described how the desire for clothes was causing a number of young people to leave the country. Every year, he said, the Government deplores, here in the cliffs just as elsewhere, the mass emigration of workers in the prime of life, who go to the Gold Coast to earn money and often live there for years and sometimes die there.
These young people, he said, who go off to the Gold Coast or Bamako or elsewhere, go mainly for clothes. They make money there and spend it all, the day before they come back, on gewgaws, turbans or umbrellas, and peacock about in them on market days or at funerals. Dress helps them to get married. The more clothes a man has, the more elegant he is, and the more women go after him” (Griaule 1965:82).

In the 60s, young Dogon workers from Sudan headed to foreign lands to work hard, earn money, and buy clothes. They did this, because in their culture, clothes are valuable and will help them gain a wife. This goes to show that although many cultures across the world pursue money, this does not mean that everybody spends it in the same way. Globalization and the cash economy has allowed many people to access new commodities, but how they spend their money and what they do with purchased commodities often depends on their cultural backgrounds. In this example of the Dogon, we see consumer choices that are fueled by a strong cultural value – well dressed men are prestigious and catch the eyes of more women. Interested in this idea? I suggest reading works by Richard Wilk (see references for two articles), or perhaps Marshall Sahlins’s (1992) “The Economics of Develop-Man in the Pacific.”

References:

Griaule, M. 1965. Conversations with Ogotemmêli: An Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas. Oxford, UK: Oxford University press.

Sahlins, M. 1992. The Economics of Develop-Man in the Pacific. Anthropology and Aesthetics, 21, pp. 12-25.

Wilk, R. (2006). ‘But the Young Men Don’t Want to Farm Any More’: Political Ecology and Consumer Culture in Belize. In Biersack, A & J.B. Greenberg, Reimagining political ecology (pp. 149-170). Durham: Duke Univ. Press.

Wilk, R. (2002). “It’s Destroying a Whole Generation”: Television and Moral Discourse in Belize. In K. Askew & R.R. Wilk (eds.), The Anthropology of Media: A reader (pp. 286-298). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Tree vs. Rhizome, a Discussion of Networks

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“Networks are not just an omnipresent structure but also a symbol of autonomy, flexibility, collaboration, diversity, and multiplicity. As nonhierarchical models, networks are embedded with processes of democratization that stimulate individuality and our appetites for learning, evolving, and communication. They are, in essence, the fabric of life” (Lima 2011, p. 69).

Trees have been common and potent symbols across cultures and across time. They represent life, well-being and knowledge. However, as some modern day theorists have argued, they also represent centralization, finalism and essentialism (Lima 2011). Their hierarchical structure leaves little room for the complexities of modern day relationships – between species, between ideas, between people and the spaces they occupy. Thus, the philosophers Deleuze and Guatarri (1972) suggest instead the concept of the rhizome. In sticking with a natural theme, rhizomes are the underground stems of plants. They grow multiple shoots that can reach off in many directions, connecting them to other parts of ecosystem. “There are no points or positions in a rhizome, such as those found in a structure, tree or root. There are only lines” (Deleuze & Guatarri 1987, p. 9). In seeing today’s complex world as a rhizome, we understand the multiple networks in which everything is dynamically connected, as opposed to the hierarchical structure in which everything has its due place.

This conversation of networks, while very philosophical, can be useful to anthropologists. In looking at our world as a complex and interconnected network, as opposed to a rigid and pre-determined structure, we can understand the diversity of ways people (and other species) act and inhabit the world. In today’s world of increasing globalization we must think of life as a democratic network and not a hierarchical structure.

If you are interested in these ideas, I suggest watching Manuel Lima’s youtube video “The Power of Networks.”

References:

Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus. B. Massumi (trans.). Minneapolis, MN: Univ. of Minnesota Press.

Lima, M. 2011. Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press.

Fishing vs. Drinking

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“Here, there are many young people that practice fishing. Over in Vaitahu, they practice drinking!”

I’m visiting the village of small Hapatoni, one of four villages on the island of Tahuata, when Tehei makes this joke about the drinking problems of the people in his village. We are sitting around an outdoor work bench with three women whom I am interviewing for my research on Marquesan fishing practices. Rose is the mother of Franceline and Myrna, both in their thirties. While Myrna has answered most of my questions throughout the interview, Franceline and Rose have chimed in as well, and do so more towards the end. We have been discussing differences between Hapatoni and Vaitahu in terms of fishing practices. Vaitahu is a bigger village, and the main port of the island of Tahuata. It is a twenty minute drive from Vaitahu to Hapatoni. Tehei begins discussing the differences between the two villages with this joke about beer: Although Tehei jokes, making the others laugh, I can’t help to notice the satirical truth in his words.

Rose continues to explain how important fishing is in her village:

“Even the children [fish] here, eh? Sometimes, they take the fishing cane and they go to the beach. Afterwards, they return home with their fish and say, ‘Voila, here’s my fish, it’s 500 francs!”

Here, Rose also deliberately jokes about social novelties: the new prevalence of the cash economy in today’s society. Earlier in the interview, when asked about changes that have occurred to the village, Myrna doesn’t give specifics but rather says,

“We prefer our lives from before rather than our lives today.”

They tell me of new structures such as paved roads and a new port, which makes everything feels less natural. Franceline tells me this is due to ‘la modernisé,’ or modernization, and when I ask what modernization means to them Myrna responds,

“There are new goods that have arrived. For example, before there were no telephones or iPads, but nowadays there are.”

Although they never say it directly, they speak subconsciously about new levels of consumerism and capitalism that have reached their society, due to processes of modernization and globalization. Beer and cash are an important part of this global island. Knowledge transmission is changing too, as Tehei tells me in answer to my next question: “Why do you think that more young people fish here than in Vaitahu,” I ask.

“Because [in Hapatoni] the parents transmit [the knowledge to their children]” he says, as if it were obvious. But I am still wondering about the differences between Hapatoni and Vaitahu.

“But why don’t they do this in Vaitahu?”

“I don’t know,” says Tehei, and Rose instantly agrees, “We don’t know…” Today, Tehei, Myrna, Franceline and Rose are at the pinnacle of change within their society. They prefer life before, but they can’t quite name why it is changing.

Tehei corrects his answer from before and says,

“Yes, yes the parents [in Vaitahu] do transmit [knowledge], but their children don’t listen. They prefer to drink beer rather than to fish.”

It’s not a joke this time, it’s the truth and nobody laughs. Rose accepts his statement by saying, “Voila!” as if we had cracked the code, but questions still remain for me. Why have young people stopped caring about their cultural knowledge systems? How has globalization, capitalism and consumption changed the livelihoods, hopes and desires of modern day Marquesans? And how can it be different from one village to another? The constant beer jokes seemed pointed. Do people see beer as a blockade to the continued transmission of important cultural customs? And if they do, they don’t entirely understand why, nor how to do anything about it.

Myrna finished this discussion and our interview by adding her own joke on beer, again displaying the differences between the mindsets of those from Hapatoni and those from Vaitahu:

“First we fish, then we drink! It’s better this way.”

(This interview taken in May 2018)

Chantal T. Spitz – Island of Shattered Dreams

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“In twenty years Ruahine has gone through the kinds of changes that took place over two millennia in Metropolitan France. The white man’s craziness has once again struck this quiet island, maddening its inhabitants who haven’t been able to protect themselves against the devastating torrent of western modernity. How could they have protected themselves, swept away by time suddenly rushing on, drowned in values so different from their own, in a world where profit and corruption rule people’s minds?”

I highly recommend Chantal T. Spitz’s novel Island of Shattered Dreams to anybody interested in indigenous peoples, the Pacific Islands, nuclear warfare, environmental justice, modernity, globalization, and intercultural relationships. This book is magical. Beautifully written love stories enmeshed with the pain of clashing cultural ideals and needs. A story of injustice and hardship, holding so much truth between the pages, this book spoke to me on some deeper level that I wish I could fully understand. This is one of those books that I will read again and again, the words always the same, but the meaning cutting just as deep each time. I’m not sure if I would call it ethnofiction, as I don’t really know enough about the category, but it is written by an indigenous Tahitian woman. Very happy an English version is available, can’t wait to get my hands on a French copy as well.