8 Anthropology NewsletterIOctober 1992

i

Unit News With the summcr concludd, lct us

move on to the fall and the upcoming AAA meeting. By way of summary, the v Congrcso Intcrnacional Culturas His- panas de 10s Estados Unidos, held July 6-10, 1992, in Madrid, Spain, was a success. Bringing together social scicn- tists from diverse Iatino backgrounds to present their research and, more impor- tant, interact and become acquainted with one another's work, is productive. This is an instructive example that ALLA welcomes. As 'l'orn Weaver (Ar- izona) finishcs cditing thc volumc. His- panics in the United States: Anrhropo- logical Perspecrives (to be released in 1993), ALLA members can look for- ward to a publication that demonstrates how th is collaboration can benefit all La- tinos in the US. Most of the authors are ALLA members.

The AAA meeting sct for San Fran- cisco should be a turning point for ALLA, as opportunitics for scholarly ex- change and expansion of our niember- ship are expected. Several seminars and pancls arc planned, most notably one on gender organized by Paule C Takash

(UCLA). the poster session coordinatcd by Margaret Vasquez-Geoffrey (New Mexico Highlands) and, of course, the roundtable Tom Weaver put togcthcr to discuss tlie edited book mentioned above. The business meeting will be hcld o n Thursday night, with thc focus on attracting new members and encour- aging more participation by charter memhcrs. To hclp in this, an ALLA- sponsored wine and cheese reception will follow thc meeting. To sejd the fate of this year's meeting, to unite all Lati- nos on the mutually beneficial goals of ALLA as set forth in the unit's bylaws, Saturday night's AAA entertainment will hc providcd hy thc rwcnt Bay area musical rage. tlie Rockin' Jalapefio Band. fronted by Dr Loco (aka Jose Cuellar, an anthropologist at Sail Fran- cisco State).

By the time of this affair, the ALLA directory will be available for all mem- bers, so please send in your one-page biographical sketch, if you want to be in- cluded, to Wego Vigil, U Southern Cal- ifornia, Anthropology, SOS 170, Los Angelcs, CA 90089-032.

As you will see from the following let- ter from APLA President Marc SwartL, with its enclosed report from thc Publi- cations Committcc. our business meet- ing i n San Francisco promises to be nearly as important in its own way to the development of political and legal an- thropology as the scholarly sessions will be in their way. All members are urged to make a special effort to attcnd.

Presidential Message Thc San Francisco meeting is almost

upon us. and we will have to deal with a number of issues that are of considerable importance to our Association and its fu- ture. One of these issues focuses on pub- lications, and 1 will try t o indicate what that involvcs in this column. The other concerns our offices, and 1 will discuss that io the next issue. I want to bring them to your attention now so that we can discuss them in December with evcryonc having had.an opportunity to consider them fully.

The following is the report of' h e Puh- licatioiis Committee conccrniog future

Given the report of' the Publications Committee (below), it will bc obvious that vital decisions nccd to be made about the Association's publications. It

' publications policy.

should also hc clcar that it is important to find a new editor of the APLA Newslet- tcr as part of the effort to produce publi- Cations that will serve our interests. If you wish to serve yourself or if you would like to put somconc else's name in nomination for the position, please send a note to me at this address: Dcpt of Anth, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92093-0101. The new editor will be chosen by the publications committcc, togcthcr with the President and thc President-elect. Publications Committee Report By Robert C Hunt (APLA Board Mcm her) *

The,APLA has a contTdct with Trans- action Publishers whcreby APLA agreed to purchase a minimum of 150 copies of an annual volume in political and legal anthropology. publishcd by Transaction Publishers, for a period of thrcc ycars. APLA Prcsidcnt M Swartz and the Pub- lications Committee (R Hunt, M Aron- off , D Kurtz) had believed that the con- tract was in effect until 1995. However; Swam has learned that the contract was for thrcc ycars, not five as originally thought. and that notice had to be given 180 days bcfore the end of the three-year pi(d if there were to be any changes in thc agreement. .

The publications activities of chc

APLA are at a crossroads. We must find a ncw cditor for thc APLA Newsletter, and that, together with the expiration of our Transaction contract , leads to a prcssiog need for the APLA as a whole to reconsider the naNX of our publica- tions policy.

The reconsideration of that policy has to be carried out in the light of our exi- gent financial situation. Upon reviewing that situatiqn. the committee will submit a set of reconiinendations for the Board meeting in San Francisco, whcrc the matter of publications will be put high on the agenda of the busincss mccting.

New Program Director at Law and Social Science

Readers will be interested to learn that Susan White has rcplaccd Michacl

Mushcno (who has returned to the Uni- versity of Arizona-l'cmpc) as Program Director for Law and Social Science at NSF. A political scientist, White comes to KSF from t h c University of New Hsmpshirc. I hope to be able to inter- view her for the next edition of this col- umn. In thc rncantime some things re- main unchanged: Law and Social Sci- cnce continues to encourage proposals from anthropologists; deadlines are Au- gust I5 and January 15; the Program Of- ficer can be reached at 2OZ357-9567.

I continue to lool, forward to rccciving material for this column. Anything you would like to see printed hcre should bc sent to mc at the following address: Anth Prog, George Mason U, Fairfax, VA 22030 (FAX 7031993- 1446; cmail PBLACK GGMUVAX. GMU. EDU).

How d o we, as seniors, feel about Arncrican anthropology's traditional four-field approach? Is such an approach still viable and valuable? Gcttrude Dole answers that,

'as a uniquely broad and overarching dis- ciplinc, anthropology must specialize in its four (or mom) subficlds. This is inevitable as an aspect of the cvolution of many scienccs, but especially ours. Howcvcr, rhcrc must be some limitations and them arc somc obliga- tions.

Of coursc. thc more specialized infornia- tion, skills and rhcorics that are available. the stronger a science hccomcs. bur at somc point specializatioii tends to lead onc ocit of thc .ficld and into other speciali?.uI fields already establishcd. such as medicine, physics, psy- chology, ctc. At that point the specialist ceases to he an anlhropologist. In ordcr to maintain and develop anthropology as a uni- ficd discipline. i t will he increasingly impor- tnnt for spccialists to "talk" with one an- other-communicatc thcir findings in a lan- guage that can be understood by othcrs, both specialists and nonspecialists.

Many unanswered questions and prob- lems. including those wih a very rcstrictcd focus, arc of interest to thc disciplinc as a whole and can be illuminated by scholars of quite different orientations and knowledge. 1 would suggest that our discipline would bcn- cfit from more panels organized to consider a sin& problcm. and that the participation of a variety of specialists who havc intcrcsts

bcaring on the problem would yield the great. cst rcsults.

Editor's "Vie: I think that Gertrude': suggestion that we would benefit from more panels organized to consider a sin gle problem is an excellent one, an( would like to proposc a topic.for our owr ASA Unit to consider-Where do we gc next? While doing homework in order t( teach "Intro" in summer school thi: year I read two ethnographies that gavc me the willich: Fun City: A n Ethno graphic Study of LI Retirement Cornmrc nity by Jerry Sacobs. and Limbo: A Mern oir obotrr L!fr in u Nursittg Hornc.. by Ca robeth Laird. Briefly, Fun C i p did no sound like much fun to mc; Limbo evci less so. Whilc Limbo is a powcrl'ul an( moving account o f lifc in a nursinl home, the 80-year-old anthropologis who wrote it did not enter the home to di an ethnography and was very happy ti

escape. Wherc do wc go ncxt? Nonc o us looks forward to ending life either sur rounded by bingo-playing tricycle ri dcrs. or hclpless in a wheelchair. Arm there alternatives out there? A home fo old anthropologists, or even old acadern ics? Wc could read our old papers t l

each other and bore each other to death Louana M Lackey, 17 West 29th Street Baltimore, MD 21218; 410/243-6948.

Biological Anthropology.in San Fr-ncisco

Biological anthropology will he well reprcscnted at the upcoming meeting, with thc following sessions:.

Wcdnesday: ",Ecological Perspec- tives on Human Fertility."

Thursday: "Ancient DNA: Genetic Variation in Amerindians."

Friday: "lntcptive Pathways to thc Past: Palcontological Papers in Honor o FClark Howell."

Saturday: "Secular Visions Whilc Dancing with Wolves: Biological An tliropology and Current Native Amen can lssucs." And "Toward a Compara tivc Demography and Cultural Replace mcnt."

Anthropology NewsletterlOctober 1992 9

I

~clovrucrt ON AI~TEKROPOLOGY AND EDUCATION -1

Sunday: “Studies in Human Adapta-

(For complete information, please see bility. ”

Septcmbcr 1992 Ah’.)

The Four-Field Approach Lives-In Somc Departments and among Some Group

Only one biological anthropologist submitted views to this column about the four-field approach-Suc Parker (Son- oma State). In Parker’s department, this approach thrives. Students study all four fields, and the faculty participates in cross-field research and in a “four- fields’’ literame scminar.

Sue writes, “The history of anthropol- ogy suggests thc four-field approach is both anthropology’s major claim to uniqucness and the primary source of its intellectual vigor. Ma,ior areas of inquiry through anthropological liistory havc cut across the fields, including cultural evo- lution, kinship and social organization. socialization. the nature of human men- tality, the nature of language and of race. Of all the disciplines i n thc university, only anthropology studics human beings simultaneously as biological species and culturdl beings, using a broadly compar- ative approach across species, across cultures. through history, through pre- history and through palcohistory. The vigor of anthropology arises first from the fact that comparative approaches are highly productive i n generating new questions, and second from the fact that alliances across the fields and across dis- ciplines provide a rich source of theoret- ical models and mcthodologies for an- thropological research. Hymes’s ethnog- raphy of comrnunicatioii approach i.s a cfasstc example offhis. Coinpararive usc of mitochondria1 1)Nh to \tudy the ori- pin of hurnan races and its implications for language origins is a inorc rcccnt ex- ample of this phenomenon.” Sue Parker also notes that as a biological anthropol- ogist specializing in comparative cogni- tion, shc often collaborates with psy- chologists, but she is able to place pn- inatc and human cognition in evolution- ary f rameworks missing from psychology.

Further Perspectives on the Four Fields-Will Anthropology Self- Destruct and Reincarnate under Another Name?

As a collaborator of Parker’s, 1 natu- rally share many of her views about four- field approaches, but I am less optimistic about the future of thcse approaches in anthropology. Rather, 1 think anthropl- ogy as a discipline is committing a slow suicide and will reernergc under another name.

As an anthropologist whose primary interest focuses on the evolution of the human mind, I constantly intcract with and draw on thc works of cultural and so- cial anthropologists. archcologists, lin- guists, biologists and psychologists, and I find that tlierc are large numbers of scholars actively pursuing similar rnul- tifield approaches. Iridccd, in this “dcc- ade 01’ the brain.” crosx-disciplinary a p proaches to the evolution of the human mind wil l surely explode.

11 scems. howcver. that some onthro- pologists are determined to isolate their discipline from this major intellectual fervor. A numbcr of us working in this area cannot find employment in. anthro- pology departments, and we often con- front obstaclcs set by those who would

define our work as extraneous to the field. On repeated occasions, for in- stance, I have been forced to publish un- der the biology and psychology divisions of major presses. because anthropology editors and referees dctined my work as ‘ ‘not real I y anthropology ’ ‘-even when the works involved collaborations among anthropologists of all four fields! Other “multidisciplinary”-onented an- thropologists have told me of similar cx- clusionary, “nothing to do with anthro- pology” experiences.

Thc result of these practices is that large numbers of biological anthropolo- gists with broad anthropological inter- ests have turned elsewhcre. In the ’ 60s and early ’70s. many behaviorally ori- ented, biological anthropologists allied themsclves with primatology. Later, some joined the movement in sociobiol- ogy. Now thcre is the fledgling, but flourishing, Hunian Bchavior and Evo- lution Society, which addresses, from multidisciplinary perspectives, ques- tions of the biological bases of hnship, culture and human nature that thc four- fields approach to anthropology should have been addrcssing a11 along and, in- deed, did address at an carlier point in our history. My prediction is that unless anthropology opens its eyes and starts welcoming generalists back into its field. i t will lose them entircly to splinter groups with morc allencompassing per- spectives. Indccd. I have heard several scholars scriously considering the pos- sibility o f coining a new disciplinary name for these multidisciplinary ap- proaches to human nature-approaches [hat used to be callcd anthropology.

I don’t undcrstand why so many who contioue 1 0 practice four-field ap- proachez feel pcnpheralized by others who thcn falsely allcgc that the four-field approach IS dead, but 1 do know that this periphcralization bodes ill for anthropol- ogy departments. We havc already seen the thrcatened closurc of the Department of Anthropology at San Diego Statc. How many morc department closures might follow? After all, as notcd by Par- ker, other disciplines can do nearly everything that anthropology d m ex- cept integrate biological, historical and cultural perspectives. That integration is, as Parker states. anthropology’s rea- son for being. If we are not going to in- tegrate, what basis do we have for argu- ing our uniqueness and our importancc with university administrators?

Articles from the Public Media Many anthropological articles havc

appcared in the public literature since last spring. I hope I can remember them all!

The May 29 issue of Science notes the formation of the new “Paleoanthropl- ogy Society” in Pittsburgh. April 7 and 8 (another splinter group unhappy with thc anthropology organizations’!). Ac- cording to Scirnce, a numbcr of interest- ing papcrs were presented at the Pitts- burgh meeting. including one by An- drew Sillen suggesting that Ausrrulupi- rlicccts rohitsriis had a task lor meat, but that the anccstors of thc modern human lineage may have shunned nieat! An- other paper by Alison Brooks and her collcagues involvcd the dating of Afri- can sites by ostrich egg shell remains. Their work is now providing dates for the occupation of Africa, highly compat- ible with the * ‘out-of-Africa” hy- potheses ot’ hunian origins.

Ironically. this ncw support comes

just at the time that h e “Mitochondria1 Eve’ ’ hypothesis has suffercd severe wounds on molccular grounds (Science, August 14), and a new fossil from China questions its validity on skeletal ground.. . SpccificaUy, the August issue of Scientijic American contains a report on a newly excavatcd skull from China dating to about 350.000 years ago. Den- nis Etlcr and Li Tianyuan argue that thc skull contradicts the out-of-Africa theory of human origins. Chris Stringer, how- ever, suggests that the skull reprcscnts an extinct side branch of Homo heidel- bergensis. The June 12 issue Of Science discusses the same skull.

Paleoanthropology was also spot- lighted in the August issue of Scienrific American in an article by Ian Tattersall, demonstrating thc reconstruction of soft tissues from bones using Ncandcrthal finds as examples, and in thc June 17 is- sue of Science, which spotlights a con- fcrence held in Durham: North Carolina. on the origins of the Anthropoidea.

In the July issue of Natural History, Sue Boinski rcpow: on mating strategies among squirrel monkeys. Mating strate- gies were also thc focus of a July 17 ar- ticle in Science, focusing on the work of Meredith Small. Small reports that shc found no evidcnce of female choice among Barbary macaques. Several other articles on the evolution of sex and sex- ual behavior also appeared in the July 17 issue of Science.

Some of our colleagues arc also en- gaging in “practical” public service

works. Thus, the July issue of the H o w ton Chronicle reported a study by Wil- liani Maplcs on the Romanov rcmains. He concludes that all of the skeletons in the grave wcre too tall to be Anastasia, youngcst daughter of the Cmr. or Al- cxei, the Czar’s son. This suggests that the two youngcst children of the Czar arc buried elsewherc and/or, as rumors have persistently suggested, survived the ex- ecution. The July 24 issue of Science notes that an anthropology team led by Clyde Snow and also involving anthro- pologists, Robert Kirchncr and Mary Claire King, is investigating the bony re- mains of Guatcmalans in an effort to identify some of the rnorc than 45,000 persons missing during the recent mili- tary problcms in that country. ’Ihc Au- gust, National Geogruphic rcports the work of anthropologist Robert Maiin, who finds that most shninken heads pur- chased by tourists in South America are not the real thing. (Thank goodness!)

Finally, the August 14 issue of Sci- ence contains a provocative theory that jumping genes may havc played major roles in the origin of species.

Request for News

Please send any news of your sumnier activitics to me at the following address: Dcpt of Anatomical Sciences, U Texas Dental Branch, PO 20068, Houston, TX 77225; 7 131792-4 13 1 ; FAX: 7 131792- 4188.

,?u,v$AMFqtennan, President . , t - ’ * . . I Dear Friends. You are invited to an informal gct-to-

gethcr celebration for the Spindlcrs dur- ing the annual meeting. It will be held on Saturday night, December 5, 8:00-900 pm in the Whitney Room.

Thc Spindler celebration will follow the CAE business meeting and the cash bar. It will be an opportunity to exchangc greetings and celebrate the Spindlers’ glorious careers. 1 look forward to seeing you therc.

Anoual Meeting in Beloit Set for March 19-21

The Central States Anthropological Society will hold its 70th annual meeting in Bcloit. Wisconsin. March 19-21, 1993. The meeting centers on the pre- sentation of volunteered papers and sym- posia focusing on specific topics in any area of anthropology. l h e CSAS meet- ing has traditionally wclcomed the par- ticipation of students, many of whom have presented thcir first professional papers before thc CSAS.

To participate in the program. please scnd your 100-word abstract to Myrdenc Anderson, CSAS Program Chair, Dcpt of Sociolop and Anthropology, 1365 Stone Hall, Pudue U, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1365. by Deccmber I , 1992. Abstracts should bc accompanied by registration fees of $20 for professional anthropologists and $10 for students. Make checks payable to the Central States .4nthropological Society. Ideas for symposia should also be submitted by the due dale according to the guide- lines used for the AAA mccting.

CMA Panels at AAA Meeting

[Please six the Septembcr 1992 AN for details of CMA sessions at the AAA meeting in San Francisco.] Mweiim An- ihrupology in Culifoniia, organized by Margot SchevilI and Ira Jacknis of the Hcarst Museum of Anthropology, will t‘cature papcrs on the history of the dis-

cipline from 1889 to 1939. Contempo- rary Collcctirr~: The Proditction of N e w Cutleeriotis for the Future will examine the collecting currently conducted by museum anthropology programs.

Included in the General Scssion’s in- vited papcrs will be a panel organized by Dolores Root (Massachusetts Founda- tion ior the Humanities). Nancy Mitchell