Student Resources to accompany Anthropology: What Does It Mean to Be Human? 5e
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The Film: 6 Generations
Directed by Paul Goldsmith, ASC
color, 57 min, 2011
Courtesy of Documentary Educational Resources
Ernestine De Soto is a Chumash Native American whose mother Mary Yee was the last speaker of her native Barbareño language. In 6 Generations, her family reaches back to the days the Spanish arrived in Santa Barbara and made first contact. Ernestine tells this history from the perspective of her female ancestors, making her a unique link with the past
Famous anthropologist John Peabody Harrington, whose work focused on native peoples of California, started research with her family in 1913 and continued with three generations for nearly 50 years. This inspired Ernestine's mother to begin taking notes and, combined with mission records (which survived intact from the late 1700s), they form the heart of this story. Because of these circumstances, her story, possible only in California, is unique in America.
The impact of loss of land, language, culture, and life itself is made all the more clear as this story is told in Native American voices, who describe the events as they experienced them. Ultimately, it is a story of survival and the fierce endurance of Ernestine's ancestors, particularly the women.
Why this clip is important:
Because language is so closely intertwined with social relationships, institutions, and world views, the death of any language has important consequences for any culture. In this clip we are exposed to the consequences of language death through the story of Ernestine, a Chumash woman who was raised in a household where Barbareño (the language of the Santa Barbara Chumash) was spoken. She talks about reviving the language — with the assistance of anthropologists who have also studied the language — which she believes will allow her to pass on the knowledge of her people, knowledge that flowed through women. The Spanish colonizer’s view that the Chumash people were like children and wards of the court contributed to their historical decline, including, on some level, the death of their language. This clip explores how language, social power, gender, and language revitalization efforts — issues of critical concern to linguistic anthropologists — are intertwined.
To think about and discuss:
The Video: "Agustín Fuentes"
Produced by the Boas Network
4:45 min, 2016
The mission of the Boas Network, which produced this short interview with our co-author Agustín Fuentes, is to communicate anthropology in an engaging manner in the public sphere. Their website (http://boasnetwork.com/) is a great resource for videos, news items, and other materials related to all four fields of anthropology. This particular video comes from a series produced in collaboration with the American Association of Physical Anthropology that profiles the ethnic and gender diversity of biological anthropologists.
Why this clip is important:
Fuentes has written extensively on many issues that interest biological anthropologists, including evolutionary theory and the biocultural synthesis. One of his research specialties is the study of primates. He is one of the leading figures in the field of ethnoprimatology, which studies the interface of human and ape communities. In this video clip, Fuentes describes how he got into the study of primates as an anthropology undergraduate, and why ethnoprimatology is important in the current global context. One of the useful aspects of this clip is how he places his research focus in the broader context of the field of biological anthropology, as well as how he describes some of the important background conditions that affect how and why anthropologists study primates. He explains that the field confronts many challenges in the study of human diversity, as well as in diversifying the community of scholars who study biological anthropology.
To think about and discuss:
The Video: "Are We Really 99% Chimp?"
Created by Henry Reich
3:17 min, 2015
Distributed by Minute Earth
Why this clip is important:
The video “Are We Really 99% Chimp?” asks how to make sense of claims about genetic relationship between species, challenging the potential for oversimplification when attempting to establish the quantity of genetic overlap by comparing the genomes. The video asserts that during the past 6-8 million years, chance mutations and natural selection in both human and chimp populations have led to quite different genetic “scrolls” and “text” (chromosomes and genetic sequences). When scientists compare the genomes, it is easier to tally small differences in the specific letters of DNA in the whole genome. Differences between large sequences are more difficult to quantify, leading to their elimination in the attempt to develop a quantification of genetic overlap. This has led to flawed claims about genetic overlap, because, as the video observes, 18% of chimp genome and 25% of human genome are eliminated from the comparison. The video also points out that exploring overlap in genomes doesn’t address the functionality of genes. As the video states, a few mutations may make a big difference in an animal’s traits, while many mutations can make little or no difference. The broader point here is that we must use great caution when making genetic comparisons between species.
To think about and discuss:
The Film: Cheerleader
Directed by Kimberlee Bassford
color, 24 min, 2005
Courtesy of Documentary Educational Resources
Cheerleader explores the quest to be a champion, the experience of being female, and the ins and outs of an All-American pastime, all through the eyes of some of the nation’s youngest cheerleaders. Cheerleading began more than a century ago in the nation’s all-male colleges, and it wasn’t until the 1920s that women became involved. Like most cheerleaders, the Tigers spend their weekends supporting the football team. Their cheers are cute, flirty, and, some would even say, sexy. And while yesterday’s cheerleaders stood on the sidelines, the Tigers want center stage. They dance like Paula Abdul and backflip like Mary Lou Retton. They’re athletic, perky, and polished – a winning combination in the world of competitive cheerleading. Through the Tigers’ story and the unfolding of cheerleading’s own history, Cheerleader looks at the complexity of the sport and shows how cheerleading remains a robust image in our society – one that influences how we see women and how women see themselves.
Why this clip is important:
As with many stereotypes, there are gaps between images of cheerleaders and the more complex realities of the activity and the people who do it. Images of cheerleaders as “good girls,” as hyper-sexualized, or as vapid blondes have circulated for decades. But as young girls have moved into the activity and taken it in new directions, new debates have emerged over whether or not it’s a good thing for girls. Does it teach outmoded sexist ideals, or how to be a good citizen and leader? These debates, which raise very practical questions for parents about how to raise their daughters, are set against a backdrop of shifting ideas about womanhood and gender inequality. As anthropologists have known since the times of Margaret Mead, gender roles and identities always have powerful meanings in any society, and this clip explores how changing relations of gender and sex in contemporary American society are understood and negotiated.
To think about and discuss:
The Film: Darker Side of Fair
Directed by Deepak Leslie
color, 25 min, 2004
Courtesy of Documentary Educational Resources
Shedding new light upon issues of global diversity, this documentary focuses on the extent to which a "fairness fetish" has permeated various levels of Indian society. Today in India fairness is a benchmark for beauty; marriages are decided on the basis of skin color; and fair means "lucky" whereas dark means "ugly." Fair skin as an ideal exists in all facets of Indian life: fashion, marriage, advertising, etc. Although historically women have been burdened with the need to conform to the societal perception of the "light-skinned beauty," increasingly today even young Indian men feel the need to opt for products and processes to enhance their skin tone. While the origins of the fair-skinned ideal can be traced back to the ancient Indian epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, today Western influences and media pressure have resulted in a growing market for fairness products and skin lightening treatments. Fairness is a serious business in India, one with intensely psychological ramifications. With a focus on the emotional and psychological impact, this film addresses the historical and contemporary factors that contribute to the pressures thrust upon Indian women by a society obsessed with fair skin.
Why this clip is important:
This film asserts that Indians have a preference for light skin, or, as the narrator claims, “a fetish for fairness has permeated the Indian psyche.” Parents hope their babies will have fair skin, pregnant mothers take milk and saffron to lighten the skin of their babies, and people claim that a fair-skinned child brings happiness. Speakers in the clip offer several reasons for this preference, among them colonialism, mythical stories in the Mahabarata, and class differences in Indian society. Some people in the clip seem somewhat bemused by it (“it’s a weird colonial hangover”), others resigned (“a sad truth”), and still others hopeful (with the political and economic rise of the southern states, where predominantly dark-skinned people live, attitudes are bound to change). The clip examines one of anthropology’s key interests, which is understanding the relationship between race and culture, and how skin color — an arbitrary and highly variable phenotypic characteristic — organizes people into hierarchies that feel natural but are upheld by beliefs, prejudice, discrimination, and social privilege.
To think about and discuss:
The Film: Fambul Tok
Directed by Sara Terry / Catalyst for Peace
color, 82 min (2012)
Courtesy of Documentary Educational Resources
Seven years after the last bullet was fired, a decade of brutal fighting in Sierra Leone finds resolution as people come together to talk around traditional village bonfires. Some had perpetrated terrible crimes against friends or family. Some had faced horrible losses: loved ones murdered, limbs severed. But as they tell their stories, admit their wrongs, forgive, dance, and sing together, true reconciliation begins. This is the story of Fambul Tok (Krio for "family talk"), and it is a story the world needs to hear.
Why this clip is important:
This clip explores how the acts of violence that took place in Sierra Leone during its civil war continue to affect people’s everyday lives and the prospects for reconciliation after the war has ended. The clip begins with a chilling segment in which a man explains that he feels powerless because in his daily life he has to interact with people who killed his loved ones and burned down his house. It then turns to the efforts of Fambul Tok, an organization dedicated to resolving disputes and promoting reconciliation based on the commitment to, as its founder explains, “find ways—unique ways—to deal with our unique conflict. It’s complex but there are ways within Sierra Leone culture to handle this process.” That process is fambul tok, a traditional form of dispute resolution. The end of the clip focuses on a community meeting where a villager expresses her skepticism about it since so many other efforts to promote reconciliation have failed. This clip emphasizes a major theme that lies at the heart of political anthropology: how violence, power relations, and attempts to resolve disputes are always shaped by and rooted in local social processes and cultural dynamics.
To think about and discuss:
The Film: Fantome Island
Directed by Sean Gilligan and Adrian Strong
color, 82 min, 2011
Courtesy of Documentary Educational Resources
In 1945 seven-year-old Joe Eggmolesse was diagnosed with Leprosy. He was taken from his family under police escort and transported by rail and sea over a thousand kilometres to Fantome Island where he was to be incarcerated for the next ten years.
The isolated tropical island off the North Queensland coast became home to a close-knit community of indigenous “lepers” whose marginalized existence was hidden from white society and has until now remained absent from the mainstream historical record. Cared for by nuns from the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, their isolation was the consequence of apartheid-like policies developed by the Queensland government and medical establishment which espoused a eugenicist philosophy and regarded racial segregation as standard practice.
As one of the few surviving former patients, Joe returns to the island for a long awaited event, the Fantome Island Remembrance Day. As a 73-year-old Elder, he confronts the memory of his childhood on the island to pay tribute to those who lived and died there and to inscribe his own unique story into official Australian history. Drawing on an evocative archive, this film exposes how an ideology of racism and eugenics worked to justify horrific treatment of Australia's Indigenous communities. In uncovering this shameful history, Fantome Island is a testimony of strength and endurance, demonstrating one man's incredible capacity for forgiveness and love.
Why this clip is important:
In Western societies, such as the Australian example explored in this clip, the twentieth century saw the expansion of medical power with the professionalization of medical training and practice. This clip shows how, when they are supported by powerful beliefs and social institutions, medical professionals have cast their net of authority over people with profound consequences. Australian settlers and officials during the early part of the twentieth century used the Lock Hospital on Fantome Island as a prison-hospital for local aboriginal people. But how “sick” were those people, and did their health conditions justify their internment? In Australia’s northern territories, authorities wanted to intensify white settlement. Enmeshing fears of disease with racism, they forced unwell aboriginal individuals into the hospital-prison where, one speaker observes, “they lost their human rights” and white settlers could take their lands. The medical authorities in charge were segregationists and eugenicists who sought to maintain the separation and purity of the white race, and though they were publically referred to as “protectors” of the aboriginal people, they used medical reasons and practices to control and undermine aboriginal communities. This clip demonstrates a key insight of medical anthropology: that cultural assumptions and institutional power are as relevant as physiological or epidemiological concerns in shaping the actions of medical practitioners.
To think about and discuss:
The Film: Framing the Other
Directed by Ilja Kok and Willem Timmers
Color, 25 min, 2011
In English and Mursi with English and French subtitles
Courtesy of Documentary Educational Resources
Framing the Other portrays the complex relationship between tourism and indigenous communities by revealing the intimate and intriguing thoughts of a Mursi woman from Southern Ethiopia and a Dutch tourist as they prepare to meet each other. This humorous yet simultaneously chilling film shows the destructive impact tourism has on traditional communities.
Why this clip is important:
People have always encountered humans, languages, and behaviors that are different from their own. These days opportunities for such encounters have proliferated for many reasons, including media, migration, globalization, and--the theme this film clip treats--international tourism. This clip exposes the complicated expectations and relationships across cultures that exist in touristic encounters in rural Ethiopia, specifically focusing on a Mursi woman’s explanation of how she and her co-villagers prepare for the arrival of European tourists. Touristic encounters like this one raise interesting questions about concerns that are central to the discipline of anthropology, including the status of cultural diversity in the world today; how people make sense of their encounters with cultural others; and the ethics of cross-cultural encounter.
To think about and discuss:
The Film: Funeral Season
Directed by Matthew Lancit
color, 87 min / 60 min, 2011
Courtesy of Documentary Educational Resources
“We pray to our ancestors but we do not worship them. You, you need an intermediary, the priest. But for us, our intermediary is the ancestor who is sitting next to God,” says Poundé, the old Cameroonian ethnologist, to the young Jewish director from Canada. And with this conclusive statement, everything becomes clear: the funerals in memory of “the dead who are not dead,” organized several days or even years following the burial, the chants, brass bands, and traditional dancers who accompany and punctuate the village rituals. The ancestral rites struggle to survive in a continuously westernized society of consumption by parading wealth and excess for all to see — even the dead.
Funeral Season takes the viewer through the red dust of Cameroon's laterite slopes and into the heart of the Bamileke country, where one funeral flows into the next. These death celebrations provide an opportunity to see elaborate costumes and masks, festive songs and dances, and lavish feasts, while illuminating the communal links which bind the Bamileke as an ethnic group and society. Along the way, the director befriends his guides and becomes increasingly haunted by memories of his own ancestors. At times, the dialogues alienate him from the locals; at other times they bring the two closer together. Like the dead and the living, they belong to two different worlds often mirroring each other.
There is a lightness to be found in this subjective ethnographic film which imaginatively and symbolically turns the gazes of two different worlds upon each other.
Why this clip is important:
Culture shapes everything from the most mundane aspects of life, such as the clothing people wear and the meanings they give to it, to a community’s most expressive activities, such as funerals, parades, feasts, and so on. Symbols, traditions, norms, and values lie at the heart of culture, and this film clip explores how they interconnect to create a distinctive approach to, in this case, funerals and mourning rituals among the Bamileke of Cameroon. In placing himself in front of the camera and showing his own attempts to make meaning of Bamileke funerary beliefs and practices, the filmmaker, who is Canadian and Jewish, also demonstrates how the process of understanding another culture is filtered through his own cultural lens. This clip shows the power culture has to make certain meanings and behaviors—which are quite “artificial” or humanly-constructed—feel normal and taken-for-granted. It is the cross-cultural nature of the encounter here, though, that makes those cultural meanings stand out and become recognizable.
To think about and discuss:
The Film: Gods and Kings
Directed by Robin Blotnick and Rachel Lears
color, 87 min, 2012
Courtesy of Documentary Educational Resources
In the muddy market square of Momostenango, Guatemala, where shamans burn offerings in the shadow of the Catholic church, prehispanic gods dance beside horror movie monsters and dictators from the dark days of the Cold War. Unlike the folkloric performances long studied by anthropologists, this new dance won't show up on any postcard. In some villages, it's even been banned for frightening tourists. So how did these fiberglass masks of Xena: Warrior Princess come to be blessed in the smoke of Maya altars?
Presenting a striking case never before documented on film, Gods and Kings illuminates the way creations of mass-culture take on new meanings as they travel around the world. In a town where a Hollywood B-movie villain is a real evil spirit, stories can't be taken lightly and it always matters who's telling them.
Why this clip is important:
Although it feels enduring and stable to its practitioners, religion is a dynamic area of human belief, meaning, and action. This clip explores the ongoing hybridization of traditional Maya devotional dances and folkloric performances, as traditional images and symbols are mixed with images and symbols drawn from contemporary mass media. A man explains that some people claim these dances come from the Devil, are a waste of time, or are meaningless. He disagrees, and observes that their performance brings many blessings after the dancing is over. The dances can be dangerous, and as devotional dances they enact big existential questions about how to conduct one’s life and make sense of it. But these traditional practices morph and take on new forms in a contemporary context. To understand the special significance of a Rugrats costume shown in the clip in such performances it is not enough to see it as a symbol of greater global interconnectedness, although that interconnectedness is clearly important for people’s lives in Momostenango. Just as important to the anthropology of religion is the necessity of understanding how the meaning of a Rugrats costume is reshaped to fit the community’s worldview and the powerful moods and motivations its use in a performative ritual creates for spectators and participants.
To think about and discuss:
The Film: Love Stories: Women, Men, & Romance
Directed by Richard Broadman
color, 85 min, 1987
Courtesy of Documentary Educational Resources
In our grandparents' time, most women and men committed themselves to each other for better or worse. Today, many men and women struggle to redefine relationships in a society where more women are in the workforce, where divorce is common, and where the marriage commitment is rapidly changing. How did this happen? What opportunities and barriers has it created in women's and men's lives? Love Stories: Women, Men, & Romance provides both a history of changing attitudes and expectations and a portrait of today's conflicted society — in which the old and new values clash, fueling debates over lifestyle, sex roles, and birth control.
Why this clip is important:
In every society a gap exists between ideal family relationships and actual relationships. In this clip, American women explain what they expect out of their romantic relationships with men, which tends to be some version of a fairy tale in which a handsome prince swoops in to take his bride and everything is, as one of the speakers on film says, “lovey-dovey.” But as the narrator observes, realizing those dreams remains elusive. The difficulties of finding the right person and high rates of divorce are not the only issues; there are fundamental ambiguities about whether that individual is a friend or a lover, if careers or family should be take precedence, if commitment is more important than freedom. American individualism, the clip seems to suggest, plays a role in complicating our romantic relationships with others. The dynamic complexities of love, sex, and power explored in this clip, as well as the specific ways these issues interact in any particular society, are central to anthropological interest in kinship and marriage.
To think about and discuss:
The Video: "Meet Anthropologist Dr. Jonathan Marks!"
Produced by the Boas Network
5:03 min, 2014
The mission of the Boas Network, which produced this short interview with Jonathan Marks, is to communicate anthropology in an engaging manner in the public sphere. Their website (http://boasnetwork.com/) is a great resource for videos, news items, and other materials related to all four fields of anthropology. This video comes from a series called “Meet the anthropologist of the week…” that profiles prominent individual anthropologists.
Why this clip is important:
Biological anthropologist Jonathan Marks is an innovative thinker who has pushed his subfield to study human biological diversity in more critical ways. He is one of the prominent proponents of the biocultural approaches toward human evolution, and in this clip he explains why the biocultural perspective is so important for differentiating human evolutionary processes from those of other species. His key point is that in biological anthropology the subject-object distinction taken for granted in other scientific fields melts away. From there, he argues that biological anthropology is not a science as we customarily understand the term, but a “different kind of science.” Understanding cultural processes, he argues, has to be at the center of biological anthropology. He also gives a very brief overview of the historical development of biological anthropology and concludes by sharing his thoughts on creationism vs. evolution.
To think about and discuss:
The Video: "Neanderthals Mated with Modern Humans Much Earlier Than Previously Thought"
Produced by the Boas Network
2:11 min; 2015
The mission of the Boas Network, which produced this short interview with Adam Siepel, is to communicate anthropology in an engaging manner in the public sphere. Their website (http://boasnetwork.com/) is a great resource for videos, news items, and other materials related to all four fields of anthropology. This video explains how an international research team, by using several different methods of DNA analysis, has found what they consider to be strong evidence of an interbreeding event between Neanderthals and modern humans that occurred tens of thousands of years earlier than any other such event previously documented.
Why this clip is important:
Dr. Siepel describes how access to the complete genome of archaic humans made this project possible. Thanks to that genome, we know there are bits of archaic human DNA in certain contemporary human populations, and Siepel indicates that some of this interbreeding with modern humans happened after they migrated out of Africa. Along with scientists in Germany, Siepel and his team analyzed and compared full genome sequences of archaic humans, some new partial genome sequences of archaics, as well as those of modern humans. Their findings supported the previously discovered interbreeding, but also something unexpected: an earlier event of interbreeding between archaic humans and modern humans coming out of Africa. That event is earlier than the other interbreeding events, taking place perhaps 100,000 years ago. These findings reinforce the idea that interbreeding was important to the evolution of modern humans and the extinct archaics.
To think about and discuss:
The Video: "Out of Eden," Episode One of Guns, Germs, and Steel documentary series
Lion TV
54:35 min; 2014
Based on Jared Diamond's Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name, Guns, Germs, and Steel traces humanity’s journey over the last 13,000 years – from the dawn of farming at the end of the last Ice Age to the realities of life in the twenty-first century. Inspired by a question put to him on the island of Papua New Guinea more than thirty years ago, Diamond embarks on a world-wide quest to understand the roots of global inequality.
In Episode One of this three-part series, Diamond learns that the act of transplanting a wild plant and placing it under human control totally transforms that plant's DNA. Characteristics that aid survival in the wild disappear in favor of qualities that suit human consumption. The plant becomes domesticated – and wholly dependent on human control for survival.
Only a handful of places in the world played host to this agricultural revolution. In most cases, plant domestication was a precursor to the development of advanced civilizations. Along with the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East, independent domestication of wild plants is believed to have occurred in Ancient China, in Central and Southern America, in sub-Tropical Africa, and in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.
Why this clip is important:
The transition from foraging to agriculture has long been one of the most intriguing puzzles for archaeologists. Although we call it the Neolithic Revolution, it was not a single event and it didn’t affect everybody around the globe in the same ways or at the same time. The first studies of the Neolithic Revolution were conducted in the Middle East, which this film clip also documents. It follows Canadian archaeologist Ian Kuijt, whose research project at Dhra in Jordan has uncovered an 11,000-year old granary, which may be the oldest food storage facility ever discovered. Its significance is that very early on people had figured out how to store food to protect it from pests and humidity. Kuijt describes the importance of domestication of wild plants as a watershed moment in human history, though he suggests that in its early phases, humans may have been driving the processes “unconsciously” and without realizing they were changing the very nature of the plants around them.
To think about and discuss:
The Film: Out of the Maya Tombs
Directed by David Lebrun
color, 96/54 min with 46 min of extras, 2017
in English and Spanish
Courtesy of Documentary Educational Resources
Over the past 50 years, thousands of exquisitely painted Maya vases, almost all looted from royal tombs, have flooded into the world's public and private collections. These amazing works of art, filled with humor and mystery, have opened an extraordinary window on the Maya past. But the race to unearth these treasures has destroyed ancient temples and palaces, culminating in the takeover of entire ancient cities by looter armies.
Out of the Maya Tombs enters the world of the vases to explore the royal life and rich mythology of the Maya, as well as the tangled issues involved in the collection and study of Maya art. The story is told by villagers, looters, archaeologists, scholars, dealers, and curators. For each, these vases have a radically different value and meaning.
On a purely sensual level, Out of the Maya Tombs celebrates the artistry of these vases. It uses visual fascination as the doorway to intellectual and emotional engagement. Dramatic re-enactments and animated graphics created from ancient artwork bring Maya history and culture to life.
Why this clip is important:
Out of the Maya Tombs is a film about the flood of Maya objects into museums and private collections. The fact that the objects came to light because they were looted raises important methodological and ethical questions for archaeologists who are trying to understand their meaning.
The clip begins with how archaeologists study looted Maya vases. The challenge of studying them is that all of the contextual details about an artifact’s provenience that archaeologists record during an excavation is missing. In this clip, we see how scientists can identify very precise details about a vase, including its maker and the workshop it came from, by collecting a sample of clay powder from it and running the sample through machines that bombard it with neutrons and then measure the results through spectrographic analysis. Archaeologists use this method to unlock aspects of the Maya world, specifically the social and geographic dimensions of the vase’s creation. But not all archaeologists approve of working with looted objects, arguing that it produces weak data and encourages more looting. One archaeologist in the clip argues that the useful data is located in its context, not content; another follows up that it is a good point, but that Maya vases, which often have rich imagery and engravings on them, can be full of important information on their own. This clip usefully reveals ongoing debates among archaeologists about the potentials and dilemmas involved in researching the past.
To think about and discuss:
The Film: RACE: Are We So Different?
American Anthropological Association
5:51 min Introduction to multi-part DVD; 2008
The American Anthropological Association produced this video for its public service project, RACE: Are We So Different? This statement describes the project:
We expect people to look different. And why not? Like a fingerprint, each person is unique. Every person represents a one-of-a-kind combination of their parents’, grandparents’, and family’s ancestry. And every person experiences life somewhat differently than others.
Differences… they’re a cause for joy and sorrow. We celebrate differences in personal identity, family background, country, and language. At the same time, differences among people have been the basis for discrimination and oppression.
Yet, are we so different? Current science tells us we share a common ancestry and the differences among people we see are natural variations, results of migration, marriage, and adaptation to different environments. How does this fit with the idea of race?
Looking through the eyes of history, science, and lived experience, the RACE Project explains differences among people and reveals the reality – and unreality – of race. The story of race is complex and may challenge how we think about race and human variation, about the differences and similarities among people. (http://www.understandingrace.org/about/index.html)
Why this clip is important:
This video, which provides a visual introduction to the AAA’s RACE: Are We So Different project, argues that race is a cultural construction that emerged during the period of European colonialism. It begins with the experience of the Virginia colony, where skin color and other physical differences did not initially matter in society. But the growth of slavery and, eventually, the rise of racial science and notions like the “one-drop rule” shaped and reinforced an unequal social order and its maintenance through racism, discrimination, and a worldview that understands that order to be rooted in nature. Today, knowledge about human ancestry demonstrates that race has no biological basis, but the idea persists in a worldview that ranks people on the basis of arbitrarily-chosen physical traits. The clip invites viewers to reexamine their own views on race in light of what anthropology knows about race – that race is a cultural creation.
To think about and discuss:
The Film: Smokin' Fish
Directed by Luke Griswold-Tergis and Cory Mann
color, 80 min, 2011
Courtesy of Documentary Educational Resources
Cory Mann is a quirky Tlingit businessman hustling to make a dollar in Juneau Alaska. He gets hungry for smoked salmon, nostalgic for his childhood, and decides to spend a summer smoking fish at his family's traditional fish camp. The unusual story of his life and the untold history of his people interweave with the process of preparing traditional food as he struggles to pay his bills, keep the IRS off his back, and keep his business afloat. By turns tragic, bizarre, or just plain ridiculous, Smokin' Fish tells the story of one man's attempts to navigate the messy zone of collision between the modern world and an ancient culture.
Why this clip is important:
This clip examines Tlingit salmon fishing, a livelihood that is rapidly disappearing. Cory decides to go fishing for salmon. He stops by the office of Alaska Fish and Wildlife because, he says, he needs a permit to fish on his own people’s land. The office being closed, he is unable to get a permit, but he goes fishing anyway because, he says, “fish don’t wait.” He takes his nephew with him. As they go out in a canoe, Cory gives the inexperienced young man instructions on paddling the canoe and techniques of fishing, suggesting (perhaps) that the fishing way of life is disappearing since young people are not learning the ways of traditional fishing. Cory also shows an old fishing house where family used to gather. This clip is about important themes that anthropologists have studied for a long time, including how foodways change and the difficulties of maintaining a traditional mode of subsistence such as fishing (a version of hunting and gathering) in a rapidly changing world.
To think about and discuss:
The Video: "The Evolution of Bacteria on a “Mega-Plate” Petri Dish"
Created by Michael Baym, Harvard University
1:55 min, 2016
Creative Commons license
Why this clip is important:
“The Evolution of Bacteria on a “Mega-Plate” Petri Dish” relates to dynamics of bacterial evolution and why human attempts to control bacteria with antibiotics contribute to the problem of antibiotic resistant bacteria. This video uses time-lapse video and a special template for microbial growth to monitor how mutations in E. coli bacteria allow them to resist increasingly strong applications of an antibiotic. (For an overview of the process and the creation of the video itself, see this article in The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/stunning-videos-of-evolution-in-action/499136/). One of the things that has long made evolution difficult to study—and also subject to popular disbelief—is that it happens over many generations and is not easily observable in a direct way. In this case, mutation appears to be the key mechanism of evolution. Mutations are generally rare, but because bacteria populations are so large and have fast generation times (typically days, hours, or even minutes), evolution can happen very quickly.
To think about and discuss:
The film:
Visible Silence
Directed by Ruth Gumnit
color, 43 min, 2015
Distributed by Documentary Educational Resources
Visible Silence is a rare glimpse into the unspoken lives of Thai toms, dees, and lesbians striving for recognition, authenticity, and acceptance in a traditional Buddhist society. It is an intimate story of self and family, love and sexuality, and self-determination where conformity is prized. The film highlights the experience of masculine women (toms) who visibly transgress gender norms, yet are bound to remain silent about who they really are. Visible Silence gives voice to their unspoken truths.
Why this clip is important:
Like sexual cultures everywhere, Thailand’s culture of sexuality has certain particularities, expectations, and social categories that are closely related to assumptions about appropriate gender roles and behaviors. There is strong pressure in Thai society for women to conform to ideas about how women should be, and those who don’t conform stand out, which is not what women are “supposed to do.” Lesbian women who do not conform to those expectations—in their looks, behavior, sexual preferences, and so on—are considered to be of lesser value than “normal” women. The clip introduces us to two categories of lesbian: “toms” who are expected to “be a little macho,” have confidence, “take a lead,” and have a girlfriend; and “dees,” who are the “females” in a relationship with a tom. The clip helps us understand how toms and dees define themselves and shape their own identities in a social context in which control over sexuality and gender expectations can be strict.
To think about and discuss:
The Film: Yucatec Maya Deaf Sign
Directed by Hubert Smith
color, 31 min, 1977 / 2015
Courtesy of Documentary Educational Resources
Yucatec Maya Deaf Sign follows linguistic anthropologist Hubert Smith, who in 1976 set out with a group of researchers to visually document Yucatec Maya society within the village of Chican. This project resulted in the 4-part series, “The Living Maya.” During filming, however, it was impossible to ignore the use of sign language in the village. Smith and his team saw a lot of the deaf residents, filmed them often, and went back to have these sign exchanges translated. As Margaret Mead, who served as an advisor to the project before her death, once remarked, “The language is one thing, but what is remarkable is that the entire community uses it!”
Why this clip is important:
The focus of this clip is the attempt to understand a unique Maya sign language. The clip follows linguist Bob Johnson, who is in a Yucatec Maya village where an unexpectedly large number of the population is deaf. Johnson observes that most ethnographers who have studied the Maya completely ignore deaf people, imposing Western ideas about deafness onto another society and missing an opportunity to examine a totally unique system of communication. He explains that deafness is so widespread that a lot of hearing people can sign with their deaf relatives, and that it affects a broader area than this one village. He goes off in search of deaf people in other villages, observing that “nobody knows about them, but everybody knows about them,” and that he needs to “ask the right questions” to find out where they are. The clip shows how a linguistic anthropologist begins to study an unfamiliar system of communication.
To think about and discuss:
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