To Governor Rick Scott: What Anthropologists Can Do for Florida

-by Rachel Newcomb

( Professor of Anthropology, Rollins College; Author, 'Fes: Ambiguities of Urban Life in Morocco')

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-newcomb/to-governor-rick-scott-wh_b_1008964.html

Florida governor Rick Scott recently lashed outagainst anthropologists, the latest whipping boy of the social sciences. "If I'm going to take money from a citizen to put into education then I'm going to take money to create jobs," Scott said. "So I want that money to go to degree where people can get jobs in this state. Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists? I don't think so." Later, in a radio interview, Scott reaffirmed his beef with anthropologists, stating: "It's a great degree if people want to get it. But we don't need them here." Setting aside the fact that his own daughter was an anthropology major, perhaps Scott needs to be schooled on what modern-day anthropologists actually do. In many cases, our research involves not only understanding other cultures but also enhancing productivity, improving efficiency, and yes, strengthening the economy as well.

Students at the University of South Florida, which has one of the strongest applied anthropology programs in the country, created a presentation designed to show Scott what they are already doing to improve life in Florida, most of them even before finishing their degrees. In just a few of the examples shown, they are helping to increase state park revenues, to aide in crime scene reconstruction, and to create preventive health care programs that save taxpayers money by reducing the number of emergency room visits.

As a professor of anthropology at Rollins College, a liberal arts college in Florida, I spend a lot of time talking to students who need to offer their parents concrete evidence of how anthropology can help them get a job someday. Many parents still seem to hold the stereotype that the only career options for anthropologists involve traipsing around remote jungles taking peyote with the natives, or perhaps following the Grateful Dead. But to them, and to Rick Scott, I point out that our department's recent graduates have gone on to hold prestigious Fulbright fellowships, go to Columbia law school, open successful local businesses, and attend graduate programs in business, public health, human resources and, of course, anthropology.

Rather than suggesting that we don't need any more anthropologists here in Florida, we could look at how some highly successful corporations have utilized anthropologists to make more money. Intel, for instance, hired anthropologist Genevieve Bell to study how people around the world use technology, helping Intel snag access to coveted but previously untapped markets. Microsoft, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Xerox have also hired anthropologists for similar reasons. The anthropology major teaches not only rigorous critical thinking but also how people adapt to uncertainty, skills that should be valued in our current economic situation, with a state unemployment rate of 10.7%, 1.6% higher than the nationwide average.

It seems like the larger issue, though, is not just with anthropology majors but with the liberal arts more generally. Scott, like a state senator who recently attacked political science and psychology, seems to believe that only business, science, and technology can bring jobs to the state. As America scrambles to cling to its number one position in the midst of an economic slump, we've heard the call from many quarters to dismantle liberal arts educations in favor of science and technology. This is ironic in an era in which China and India are seeking to enhance their more technical educational systems with a liberal arts perspective. And it is also short sighted. Despite China's current world economic dominance, its own leaders have complained that the Chinese educational system fails to produce innovative, creative thinkers. One third of its recent graduates are unemployed, a fact many attribute to the lack of creativity and critical thinking that a purely rote, technological education fails to foster. To remedy this, China has begun adopting a liberal arts model in its newer universities. In India, for similar reasons, industrialists are investing millions of dollars into private liberal arts educations. G.V Suresh, a former anthropology major and head of HR and India operations for SonicWALL, a global Internet security company, calls the future for anthropology majors bright, saying in a major Indian newspaper that "sometimes candidates with [an] Anthropology background are preferred over MBAs." So, if Governor Scott wants to send the anthropologists out of state, along with other liberal arts majors, India and China may have a place for them.

There is another sky (by Emily Dickinson)

There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields -
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!

Boredom

This is strange. For the first time in my life I had a very slight feeling of ending it all: the monotonic existence of my mind. It is not that I am depressed, or I have some big heart-broken crap to tell or the no-quarter excuse to make. But sometimes I just see no point in it at all. What is the meaning of existence if all that it culminates to are the few material remains to excavate for the future archaeologists? Or at the most some intellectual echoes of the mind that last for may be a few millennia? What is there in living the boredom of robotic life with the never ending rhythm of commonplace monotony manifested in the irritating regularity of breathing in, and then out? What pleasure can be found in the never ending cycles of seasons that play again and again with similar bucolic scenes of stagnation? What novelty can be expected in the daily patterns of light and darkness? What excitement can learning new things bring forth if all knowledge is decadent and irrelevant to the mechanical dullness of the universe?

In short, I am simply bored of life. And tonight as I go to bed I only wish I would forget to repeat the monotony of my breathing. Wait! The real question is who is this I that is feeling this boredom?...

3 Thoughts on a Lazy Day

A lonely squirrel

On carpet of autumn leaves

Latent dead and cold.

Sleeping on the floor

Cold winter in the city

A shivering child

Lazy summer day

I hear the Sunday prayer

Sleeping in the Church

Shakespeare in the Bush: Bohannan's view of cultural interpretations

Are all cultures basically same or can humans be so different that there is no point of comprehension among them? Perhaps Laura Bohannan’s essay Shakespeare in the Bush might be helpful to answer this intriguing question. The essay is an intriguing account of an experience of the author with the Tiv tribesmen of Nigeria which confirms that different sophisticated cultures can comprehend the stories of the other though their interpretations might be completely different.

Before the incident in the bush, Bohannan was convinced that there could be only one interpretation of a classic story like Hamlet. She refused to agree to a friend who believed that different cultures are prone to re and easily misinterpret universal by misinterpreting the particular. However once she started telling the story of Hamlet to the Tiv tribesmen, it was clear they had a completely different way of thinking and interpreting the story.

’While studying Hamlet in the West African bush where as anthropologist was studying the culture and beliefs of the Tiv, Bohannan was invited to drink beer and share a story with a small group of elders of a homestead. Convinced that there could only be one interpretation of the classic tragedy, Bohannan started telling the story by changing the characters and settings so that the Tiv could more relate to it. The kingdom of Denmark became a homestead and the king became a chief. Horatio became a man “who knew things”, and the school mates became the “age mates”.

Despite all these modifications, the cognition of the story was completely altered by the interpretation of the culturally unique listeners. Throughout her narration she was continuously interrupted by the elders who interpreted the story in terms of the prejudices and traditions which their cultural upbringing projected unconsciously. Hamlet, considered by the Hellenistic world as a classic example of confused heroism, is refuted and its themes questioned by the Tiv.

The essay shows how some thing which might be considered unaccepted in one culture might be the norm in the other. Tiv found nothing wrong in Claudius marrying his dead brother’s wife. Whereas in the west, where individualism is prioritized and avenging father’s murder is considered sole responsibility of the hero, Tiv who give more priority to the group than the individual consider it the matter of the elders of the society to decide how to punish the criminal. Another interesting example is how the Tiv find nothing wrong in Hamlet, as a future chief, marrying Ophelia, for the west the complex nature of marrying an authority was obvious.

However, there were points of similarities as well. Tivs like a modern western reader, seem to alternate in their conclusions on the matter of Hamlet’s heroism. On occasion they think Hamlet to be crude and villainous. They find it unacceptable of him to brew hatred for his new father. For them Hamlet’s mother marrying so “quick” was natural, and the two-year-mourning was too long. However, as the story of the play progresses, their disdain for the character seems to lessen and they decide that he is not as bad as they initially believed, but that he has instead been afflicted with some form of madness.

The Tiv also sometimes show astute thinking while interpreting the story. Near the end of the story, the poison, they argue was not for the consumption by the Hamlet in case he won, but for the consumption by whoever the winner is. This appears logically possible, and makes Bohanan ponder at this very plausible interpretation.

It is very interesting to note that their radical interpretation does not mean that the Tiv are in any way inferior to the English culture, and they have no caliber to understand the events. They find the story full of flaws, but they agree that the story was very good indeed. Bohannan is told several times to check with her elders at home to get the real meaning of Hamlet. They feel that she probably misunderstood the essence of the story. They even at a point tell that they found the story very relatable. “I told you that if we knew more about Europeans, we would find they really were very like us”, one of the elder says during the course of the event. The interpretation is different only because the Tiv due to the simple nature of their culture comprehend the story set in a complex and power hungry society in a radically different way.

This is not to mean that the Tiv are the paradigm of idealism, and they have no jealousy, war, reveng and selfishness that contaminates our society. They still can relate to the fact that Hamlet feared to tell what he heard to the elders probably because the chief was too powerful for the elders to judge without prejudice. They even acknowledge the criminal’s tendency to erase all the proofs as evidenced by their suggestion that the King would kill whoever wins between Laertus and Hamlet by poisoning him.

The essay also shades light on some interesting beliefs and culture of the Tiv. The Tiv like the people of medieval England, believe in witches and sorcery. But they do not believe in afterlife and reject the suggestion that dead could speak. They believe that mental diseases are caused by the witchcraft, and that the mad men are not accountable for the crimes they do. This idea of unaccountability is very much similar to the modern idea of insanity. Their chief usually has many wives, but this is not because of lack of morality in their society, but because of the necessity of the chief to have a large working force to feed people of his homestead. One interesting aspect of their politics is that they believe that a good chief gives much more to his people than take from him, and therefore they hate the western concept of taxation. Contrary to the assumption of many people in the west, these simple people have complex social and political theories and hierarchy.

Of course all these uniqueness of their culture impacted in the way they interpreted story. The essay makes a good point that often what are generally thought of as universal truths are nothing more than a variable perspective of the observer’s psychology. Bohannan finally realized that different cultures are prone to and easily misinterpret universal by misinterpreting the particular. However their misinterpretations can not be rejected as wrong, but can be equally right in their own ways.

Peeling the Banana on the top of a tree

The strangest thing about ideas is that the best of them pops up at the most strangest of the places and situations.

It was past three hours after midnight, and I was lying flat on my bed trying to daze to sleep. As my mind was slowly starting to doze off, however, a sincere idea floated out of it. And behold my sleep was gone. I woke up from the bed, got a laptop, and started writing these words.

Well, I started this blog quite long ago, but to be honest to try my hand at new stuffs, and this opportunity to do something good through it, though a little, never even sprouted from my head. But then I figured out I would put all my assignments once they are done on my banana tree. If that way, even a few, I mean, even a single of all those rocking guys and girls could be helped, that means I would be grinning with happiness.

Shouting out Peace.