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Monday, December 3, 2012

Is there a culture of negotiation?

The first time I went to Morocco, I was 22 years old. It was spring, I had been living in New York for about six months, and I was itching for some sun and the promise of a new life (i.e., one that didn't involve an hour-long commute to three part time jobs just to scrape by while living in a condemned building). Morocco had been suggested to me as a possible graduate research destination so I decided to check it out. That first trip to Morocco lasted only a week but changed my life forever and set me on an entirely new path that meandered but ultimately led to my current circumstances.

One of element of Moroccan culture that dominates daily life - whether one is a tourist, a foreign/exchange student, or a Moroccan - is the art of negotiation, or bargaining. The extent and meaning of this process clearly differs according to one's position in the culture, but is one that all must navigate at some point.

My most memorable experience of bargaining (until recently days) came on that first visit to Morocco. I really wanted to buy a carpet but I had no guide book and no clue what one was worth. Furthermore, I didn't know how to judge quality. So, after a day of wandering the Medina in Marrakech, I wandered into one of the many shops determined to bargain and find myself a good deal on a reasonable carpet.






In my experience, bargaining over tourist goods in Morocco typically takes place over lovely tea (aka Moroccan Whiskey - this China green tea, mint and sugar keeps one hydrated and happy and is one of my favorite smells ever!). Buyer and seller chat, smoke cigarettes, and to a certain extent, size one another up. The bargaining is sometimes entirely verbal, other times written (I've heard this referred to as the "Berber way") and there is a general expectation from the perspective of each party that an item will in fact be purchased. I learned this the hard way that first time I tried to buy a run in Morocco. My ignorance put me in the position of offering such a low price that I offended my (seedy) carpet salesman, yet he had nothing available within my meagre budget. In fact, this expectation that a transaction would take place led the salesman, presumably prompted by my solo status and lack of a wedding ring, to (think it was appropriate to) suggest I provide sexual favors in exchange for the carpet I liked. So, I did the unthinkable - I left the store without buying a thing.

During this particular transaction (odd and anticlimactic as it was) and many more successful ones over the years, I developed my own bargaining style. It's no-frills and seems well-suited in less touristy parts of Morocco than those places where the actual process of bargaining is as important as the ultimate purchase. I won't bargain excessively and I don't try to rip people off. I identify what I think is a fair price (range?) and work within this.

Living in a country where bargaining is simply not part of my normal day-to-day existence, I have been a bit taken aback by the expectation, bordering on mandate, that one will bargain over a house. It seems to me it is potentially to the detriment of the entire transaction. Just the other day, my partner and I made an offer on our first home purchase. This process has involved extensive searching - of neighborhoods and of our own souls and priorities. While we wanted to make just one offer on our prospective home, because that offer was below the asking price, we were advised to go a bit lower, making room for the bargaining process. So, we offered less than we are willing to spend simply for the purpose of giving the sellers a chance to counter, and hoping that the counter will fall within our pre-determined limits. We will have to be willing to walk away if it doesn't, like I did that first time I bargained in Morocco, or the many times since.

All of this has me thinking about the process of bargaining and its cultural meaning in context. I'm not certain if there is an inherent significance of bargaining in Morocco outside of the strange tourist economy where it dominates. But I do find it very culturally interesting in the context of the process of purchasing a home in the US.

Buying a home, as I have learned in recent weeks, is an extremely emotional and taxing process, certainly for the buyer and I can only imagine for the seller. Bargaining only adds to this. Buyers must commit emotionally to calling a place home just to make the offer, yet their offer must be one that is acceptable to the seller. If it's not, they will have to find another place to call home. Sellers, in turn, may take offer amounts personally, becoming genuinely offended if buyers point out needed or desired changes to the home as purchase conditions or simply offer less than what the sellers believe the home is worth. It is this emotion that makes bargaining about home prices possible (after all, why not just average three appraisals and make that the set, fixed price?). Perhaps this emotion and the subsequent bargaining even allow home prices to keep increasing.

Interestingly, while bargaining emphasizes the emotionality and subjectivity of the home buying process, efforts are made to minimize direct emotional connection (or any contact at all) between the buyers and sellers. Although I think the transaction would go much faster were my partner and I able to sit down with our prospective sellers, we will likely never meet, never even speak to, the couple who currently own the home we are hoping to purchase. Rather, we deal with an army of realtors, brokers, and other professionals who stand between us, ensuring that this separation is maintained.

I'd love to hear from folks who have purchased homes in the US or other countries - What do you think of the process? Is bargaining/negotiation part of the process in other places? Are buyer and seller separated? Is all of this hoopla just about creating and supporting an industry (as I'm beginning to suspect)?

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Putting a roof over one's head

I have finally reached the point in my life when I have surrendered to the idea of home ownership. The purchase hasn't happened yet, but the process and the search have begun. In America in particular, there is a very powerful significance to purchasing a home. It symbolizes adulthood, domestication, and success. The idea that one has not truly done well in life unless one owns a home is by no means unique to the US, but it is certainly very deep-seated here. In much of continental Europe, for example, one can be considered a respectable, successful adult and still rent the roof over her head. In the US, renting has often been left to the young, the transient, the very urban, and the poor or otherwise socially marginalized. Some have gone as far as to say that the attempt to extend the "American Dream" of homeownership to folks of limited economic means contributed to the housing crisis we saw several years ago. (More likely, it's to do with lending to people based on their projected rather than actual incomes, but that's another discussion altogether!). What we do know is that, in the US, it is the cultural norm for an "adult", especially one living outside of the major cities, to aspire to homeownership.

As I go through this rite of passage myself, my research actively reminds me of the fact that, in the US, despite our cultural preference for homeownership, this is simply not a reality for many. Most of the participants in my current research rent their homes, if they have one. Many, at some point during the study, have become (or been to start with) homeless. For most, this means they couchsurf, staying for several weeks or nights with friends who do, for now, have a roof. Several, however, are on the streets, which means that most nights they must fend for themselves to find a place to sleep. This may be in a tent along the river or in a hidden field, on an acquaintance's front porch, or in a shelter. On really cold nights, it often just means walking walking walking.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend and research participant died. She died in a park, maybe because of the cold, maybe because of a medical condition, but she went that night because for some reason, she didn't have a place to stay. It broke my heart, and continues to do so every time I think of her or the very many and very sad friends she left behind. I know for many of the homeless (I'm talking about those who are homeless involuntarily, not the Travelers who pass through town every summer) in my community, especially if they have lost cars or friends with homes, one of the top goals of a day's hustle is often to scrounge up enough for a hotel room for the night. This is especially true when shelters don't have enough beds, winters are cold, and local authorities have been giving out lots of tickets for camping.

Much of the social science literature on homelessness in the US looks at major urban environments, where people rely on (semi)permanent camps. Whether people's roofs are campers or cars or tents or boxes or just the underpass, these camps provide a sense of stability that is blatantly absent from so many other areas of their lives. These settings provide the backdrop to well established systems of reciprocity, mutual assistance to facilitate daily survival, safety in numbers, familiarity and social support. I can't help but wonder how the lack of permanent camp in my town undermines these social needs. The world is home to many many nomadic people, to people who wander by choice, out of need, and because it is simply what they do. But, most of these cultural groups move together - home moves with them. In my little community, many of the folks who don't have their own homes come together during the day but they must scatter at night. Sometimes, I hear about couples who camp together - for the safety and companionship - but rarely any other groups or pairings. "Home" for these folks changes nightly and is for a single occupant.

I can't help but wonder, if people hadn't had to go their separate ways that night, whether our friend might have lived. Maybe someone - other than her loyal and now heartbroken dog - would have been looking out for her. I can't help but wonder what we are saying, as a culture and a society, when we ticket a person for not having a home.

Last spring, I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Dr. Miriam Boeri at a conference. Another drug researcher, we had great talks about controlled use, addiction, and options for treatment. Dr. Boeri talked extensively and enthusiastically about the potential benefits of a Housing First model in reducing the consequences of addiction (and often in reducing addiction itself). In this country, we so often think of homelessness as the consequence of something - addiction, criminality - that we forget that it is often the cause of something - addiction (one friend told me she never drank until she became homeless, but she needs something to kill the time; another told me that as long as she uses drugs she'll always have a place to crash off the streets), criminality (after all, it's a crime to be homeless in many communities!). According to most of the local models for ending homelessness that I've seen, we work backwards, trying to make people "worthy" of having a home - we clean them up or find them jobs and encourage them to pull themselves up, save money, and move into a place with a permanent roof. This model certainly works for some, but many are left out in the cold so to speak. The Housing First model suggests that if we offer housing first, other things are more likely to fall into place - for example, substance use treatment is more effective.

And this is when the anthropologist in me kicks in again, wondering whether having housing is simply a structural benefit. Does a roof of one's own simply make a person less dependent on systems of reciprocity that keep them embedded in what epidemiologists would call "risk" networks? I think there is something to this, but it is incomplet. Many of the folks I know who have housing use it to give back to individuals within those very "risk" networks who have helped them out in the past. So, while I think there is a pragmatic structural benefit to providing housing first, I think there may be more to it than that. I wonder if it isn't also about subjectivity. Perhaps the very demoralization - both imposed and internalized stigma - associated with being homeless in the US has such a profound impact as to undermine agency to make changes in other aspects of life. Perhaps the home has become so central to our own sense of self-worth that, regardless of one's other attributes, to be homeless is the most severe cultural abomination.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

The anthropologist who didn't want to change

When I act as an anthropologist, that is, when I do my job, I go into the field as a child. Even though my research participants are mostly American-born and living in America, I must be willing to ask what may feel like stupid questions to clarify things I don't understand. This means I spend a lot of time watching so I can learn the rules before interacting. It means I may make lots of mistakes and it means I am seeking to experience and understand a different way of living, a different way of experiencing the ever-elusive "normal".

Interestingly, in research, this outsider status (however precarious as a researcher in my own "back yard") gives me the latitude to make mistakes without offending and to ask questions without ego. This leniency toward the ignorant outsider has been confirmed for me in casual travels abroad, where if I made a mistake, it was often chalked up as harmless and the rule I had violated was clearly explained. In our work, anthropologists are excellent at being quiet observers and inquisitive children. We are by necessity chameleons and must be willing to operate frequently outside our comfort zones. This perspective of being an outsider trying to experience the world as an insider is what gives our research its richness. But I wonder if am I the only one who struggles with this in real life.

In recent years, I have dealt very very personally with walking this line. I have sought to maintain my own personal space and identity and to live according to the cultural rules that have defined much of my life. However, when I (ad)ventured into a situation in which personal cultures clashed, cultural relativism was suddenly worthless. It didn't matter that, after a while, I could map the differences between respective backgrounds (and subsequent expectations) or that I had been able to turn a reflexive eye upon my own culture, had come to think critically about my own rules. I found myself not wanting to change; at times, in fact, I was aggressively resistant to it.

I hesitate (perhaps because of ego?) to say this was quite ethnocentric. I didn't, and still don't, think my way is better, but it became a symbol of me, a scrap that I felt I could hold on to in the face of a life that was swirling around me, often feeling out of my own control. Ironically, central to this very identity - that of an anthropologist - is a view of myself as adaptable and open minded.

All of this has made me wonder: Is this a struggle faced by all anthropologists? As anthropologists, is it fair to expect ourselves to be as accepting and as flexible in reality as we are in work? In fact, do we spend so much time changing, adapting, accepting, in our professional lives that change becomes overwhelming in our personal ones? Do we spend so much time distancing ourselves from judging the differences between cultures that we fail to truly empathize with, or even understand, people's personal connections to their cultural "truths"?

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Constructions of Family Bonds

Last fall I taught Introduction to Cultural Anthropology for the first time and it was enlightening. Granted, I'm quite glad to be done with teaching, at least for the time being, but this return to basics was both academically and personally cathartic, transforming, inspiring.

One of the most profound lessons we learn in early courses in cultural anthropology derives from the analysis of family structure across cultures around the world. On a personal level this is an element of cultural difference that I have always struggled with, although I adore the diversity academically. I bet most of us are good at seeing the "faults" in our own family, but may be better at pointing them out in others. For example, cultures have varied ways of defining who can and cannot marry (and I'm not talking about just gender variations or status categories, I'm talking about who is defined as what type of family before a wedding). Patrilineal versus matrilineal societies trace inheritance as well as authority according to different family lines (though almost exclusively, the power still tends to reside with males). In some societies, an individual's ties to his or her blood relatives are viewed as the most important; in others, ties to one's significant other and subsequent nuclear family are expected to take priority. When there is a clash in cultural ideologies around these fundamental expectations and cultural norms, as I imagine is rather common in countries with great cultural diversity, there is plenty of space and plenty of fuel for conflict and heartache.

This Huffington Post story tells of a mother's wedding gift for her son. She essentially collected trinkets from his childhood, put them into the giftable form of a lamp base, and gave him the lamp at his rehearsal dinner. I first read this story on facebook and my personal response was something along the lines of "ICK! What must the poor wife think? Where are the boundaries in this family? How inappropriate for a wedding!" I then of course read the comments (because usually that's the most entertaining, though sometimes frustrating, part of having most of my non-radio news sources posting on my facebook page) and found that there were very few neutral or, "I can see how it would be a great gift, but it's not for me", comments. Nope, people either loved it or hated it. And this, of course, speaks on some level to our expectations not just about weddings, but more importantly, about what they represent.

If we borrow from Victor Turner and others and view the wedding as a rite of passage in which the individual moves through a series of social statuses - separating from the role as single person/son/daughter, standing in a liminal space of almost married, reintegrating with society as a married person - it is clear that one's social status changes. We don't really need this model for this to make sense as there are all kinds of rituals that remind us to varying degrees every time we attend a wedding. I would say most people recognize this in similar ways, but the ways that one's status changes and what it means for other family relationships is going to vary from one culture (and, arguably, one family) to another.

This gift thus represented (perhaps unintentionally) a particular interaction with these cultural expectations, and of course the meaning of this is as subject to interpretation as the rest of it. I'm going to venture a guess that, to the mother giving the gift and perhaps to her son, this gift was meant to celebrate his childhood, a phase of life which marriage officially ends. Perhaps she also saw it as a way of sharing that childhood with his new wife, though obviously I can't be sure. But here is what my response told me about my own worldview and view of weddings and families. I see a wedding as a time to celebrate the new social role and the embarkment on a new life. I see the focus of a wedding as the bond between the individuals getting married, not the bonds with other family members. This does not mean I think family and friends aren't part of that, but that I view the bond between the couple as the primary bond and all the others as secondary. Therefore, I found the mother's gift unnerving, and if I had been the bride, I probably would have found it offensive. It highlighted the bond between mother and son rather than the bond between husband and wife. As such, while it may have been a thoughtful graduation gift or appropriate for some other milestone, it seemed highly inappropriate as a wed
ding gift.

Now keep in mind, this is not a judgment of the gift or the family structure itself, but a reflection on what my own response to that family structure teaches me about myself. My own family history as well as my cultural background, as a white, middle-class American, emphasizes the significant-other bond. This doesn't mean it neglects the parent-child bond, but that it expects it to change when the child reaches adulthood - what's that term, cut the apron strings?

The funny thing is, we all, to some extent or another, expect each other to follow similar rules about these relationships but because culture is something we often don't explicitly recognize as such (that's kind of the point, after all!), they may lead to awkward situations, hurt feelings, and even conflict. I was recently at a wedding where the couple was staying with the bride's family before and after the wedding. They had traveled far, were on a budget, and enjoyed the family time that was often limited to other times of the year. But a friend was appalled that their wedding night would be spent with parents/in-laws so got them a room at a hotel in town. The gesture was based in love, but also in culture.

I've found all these events a great reminder that when I feel baffled, offended, put off, or overwhelmed by someone else's actions and decisions (including but obviously not limited to those that are family-based), it is a good opportunity to reflect on my own culture, both personal and societal, and how it has influenced my response. I hope that by doing this, by trying to write it down and share my anthropology of the familiar with others, I will grow as an anthropologist and, perhaps more importantly, as a person.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Ritual, Anonymity, and Coping with Loss

One of the few cultural practices that is likely to be a human universal is the ritual coping with death. When I was an undergraduate in Anthropology at UCLA, I was struck by Renato Rosaldo's description of grief and ritual headhunting among the Ilongot, a tribe in the Philippines. Headhunting offered a ritualized and, up until the 1970s, socially permissible means of coping with grief over the death of a loved one. Rosaldo spoke at length in his writings of his struggles to get a truly "emic"perspective on headhunting and the particular emotion that the ritual was intended to cope with. He noted that it was not until his wife, Michelle, died in the field that he truly understood, experienced, this emotion. Other anthropologists write of rituals and emotional norms relating to death, from rites that celebrate the life to those that help the lost person carry on in the bodies and spirits of those who survive, to cultural rules for mourning. While there is vast diversity in the ways humans employ culture to cope with death, we all seem to turn to ritual.

Yesterday was one of the saddest days I have faced in a very long time. It was the first time that, as an adult, I said a permanent goodbye to someone I knew and it was the first time in my life I said this permanent goodbye to someone young, healthy, and happy. Paul was probably one of the kindest people I've ever met. I didn't know him well, but his energy was contagious. The first time I met him, at my partner's first station out of the fire academy, I remember him talking about his wife. And when he talked about his wife, he lit up the room, even though it was something simple, something probably even mundane. He was just one of those people who inspired the people around him to make the most of life and to appreciate every moment. Because that is how he lived his life. Thus, even though I didn't know him well, I find myself more affected by his death than I have been by the loss of any person in my past. This is the first time I was able to experience my own culture's death rites - the funeral, the burial - from a truly emic perspective, and I must admit that I was grateful for the rhythms and structure of ritual.

Although I'm an anthropologist and I love thinking about and analyzing ritual, I often whine about it when I encounter it in my own life. I don't usually like the relative anonymity of it, the fact that ritual often depersonalizes an entire experience. This is probably why the weddings I find the most moving are those in which people add pieces of themselves. But, in this case, the personal quickly became too much. The hymns, the incense, the readings, those were the things that helped me cope while still providing a way to say goodbye. Yes, these things depersonalized much of the ceremony, but they also made it possible to get through. They allowed us to catch our breath, to mourn together, and to acknowledge the permanence of this passing without collapsing into the grief of the individual and the family he left behind. The eulogies were beautiful, each of them from the heart, each of them honoring the wonderful man while expressing their sadness. But the eulogies were also exhausting, emotional enough that had they been the bulk of the ceremony, it would have overwhelmed.

I have never appreciated ritual quite like I did yesterday. I have always turned to my intellectualization of it, picked it apart, fussed over the idea that we so often participate in it without knowing or caring why, letting it take away that cherished notion of the individual that my American heart holds in such high regard. But it is perhaps the very anonymity of ritual allows us to cope with loss in a shared way, as a community. Mind you, it doesn't take the place of private, emotion-filled mourning and it doesn't completely remove the heartache from the ceremony. Rather, it helps keep things manageable while people come together to say goodbye. I can only hope it made room for us to move forward, taking inspiration from his life, standing by his family, celebrating who he was, without getting entirely lost in the void he left behind.

RIP Paul, you will be missed and you will always be loved.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

You are what you eat: Food & Identity

If you grew up in the US, the expression "you are what you eat" probably has specific connotations for you, most of which relate to the physical and health related "consequences" or "benefits" of following a certain diet. Namely, if you eat cupcakes and french fries, you are likely pudgy if not downright obese; if you eat salads and grilled (insert lean protein here), you are svelte and (thus) "desirable". I am certain I heard the expression as well as other wonders like "a moment at the lips, a lifetime on the hips" from my grandmother or my father when I made the grievous error of becoming chubby in my pre-pre-teens. But as I grow older I am learning that my home country and I have a much more complex relationship with food than this basic interpretation of the common phrase "you are what you eat" would suggest.

The idea that food (and consumption more generally) is closely linked to cultural and psychological constructs such as identity is nothing new or novel on my part (in fact, an entire chapter of my dissertation centers around the idea that being a user of a particular type of drug is an identity option). However, the extent to which Americans seem to seek out a unique identity through consumption, including food choices and diet, has become especially interesting to me lately. It all started a couple of years ago when, on my very American 70 mile commute to class I was listening to Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma. Early in the book, Pollan introduces what he sees as a phenomenon unique to the US - an obsession, not with a national cuisine, but with diets, with ways of eating, many (but not all) of which are passing fads. He goes on to argue that diets would not be so successful in countries with a stronger national food identity - in France, for example, the Atkins diet would never take root because what type of French person would give up croissants or a proper baguette? But, he argues, in the US, because of the fact that we lack a food identity, such diets thrive (perhaps one could test this by looking at their prevalence in regions of the country with strong regional food identities, though it seems difficult to separate other regional differences from cuisine...).

For example, though I'm not a "dieter" per se, throughout my life, I have moved through various dietary categories, spending significant time as a vegan (a little over a year), vegetarian (many years on and off, beginning in my early teens), pescetarian (the past six years until recently), and struggling-to-be-responsible/conscientious-omnivore (the latest). A number of things happened in the past six months or so that drove me to this latest, which means I have begun to eat certain (i.e., 100% grass fed/pasture raised, local-when-possible) non-fish meats for the first time in almost a decade. And funny enough, although my body has dealt wonderfully with the transition, my mind and my heart have found it to be a bumpier road.

First, much of my identity over the past many years has related to my status as a vege- or pesce-tarian. Many (and for a while the majority) of my friends had similar eating habits. It often made travel (especially if I wanted to be a "good anthropologist" and experience local foods) difficult, and actually, this was what originally brought me back to fish after years without any meat. But it was a part of who I was, and although I didn't think of myself as an animal rights vegetarian (I do after all wear leather), since starting to eat poultry and grazing animals again I have begun to feel a certain type of guilt.

I have though long and hard (perhaps excessively) about this decision and it was ultimately my desire (stated so eloquently by Ted Kerasote in his book Blood Ties) to do as little harm as possible with my diet that actually led me back to meat. I began to rethink what I meant by harm (which I had once only conceptualized in terms of the specific animals I would or would not eat) and, living in the wide open spaces (grazing lands) of the American West, consuming ethically and humanely raised local animal products began to seem more responsible than stuffing my body with processed soy, which had become one of my only major protein sources.

So, intellectually, I feel ok about my newfound consumption patterns. But emotionally, I'm not quite there yet. I don't know if I am truly mourning the creatures I am about to eat when I tearfully thank them during preparation (this really does keep happening, especially with whole poultry), or if I am mourning the person I was for so many years. I don't know if I am feeling guilty and full of self-loathing or if I am truly appreciating the fact that I am taking a life to feed myself. And why is that life less valuable than my own or my dog's? In my brain, I know it's culture that has taught me what animals are acceptable to eat or not (after all, in some countries, my dog could be the meal), but that doesn't mean I haven't internalized it.

I'm still grappling with this and quite possibly will be for some time, as it seems harder and harder to feel truly good about anything I eat. Perhaps this is in itself a reflection of the state of a culture, of the idea that American society has come to a point where we have so little core cultural identity, we are so divided, that all of our choices, especially those relative to consumption patterns, become markers of various subgroups.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Curaçao 2: Stop f-ing staring at me! Traveling (and living) under the male gaze

The island of Curaçao is really rather fascinating and, of course, full of contradictions. It is one of the three islands of the Dutch Caribbean so in many ways the Dutch-influenced foods don't make much sense in the steady 80 degree+ weather. But due to rocky soil and low rainfall, the local cuisine is lacking in the standard tropical fruits one often thinks of when imaging island dining. The little country has its own economic base, sort of, in the Venezuelan oil refineries, making tourism a secondary economy. This means that, while there is certainly a strong tourist infrastructure in the form of beachside bars/restaurants, dive schools & resorts and lovely hotels set in renovated colonial buildings, it is easy to walk the streets - even the markets - in peace. Even the process of buying fruit and veggies at the floating market was straightforward. As a woman traveling alone, I always appreciate a place where I can walk without being hollered at or followed (as much as I love Morocco, this was something that was endlessly annoying, even after months and especially in towns with more tourists). I've always envied the ease with which my male travel friends can move about a new place, never feeling dissected or undressed just for existing in their own bodies. Unfortunately, despite initial appearances, Curaçao proved no better (or worse, I suppose) for the self-conscious female traveler than any other destination.

I honed my international travel wardrobe sensibilities in Morocco in my early twenties, trying on cultural relativism as a way of life and appreciating the skin-covering, flowing clothes for their considerable comfort combined with sun-protection. So, when I travel outside of the United States now (outside of winter, of course!), I typically pack the following - jeans or pants; t-shirts; knee-length or longer skirts or dresses; light-weight long-sleeved shoulder coverings - and mix and match as needed. There persists an element of the issue of cultural relativism, of respecting local dress codes and culture, including more recently, beliefs about tattoos (which I often try to cover when outside of the US or Europe). In parts of western Europe - I'm mostly thinking of a particular summer in Paris - I find that the increased coverage is helpful, but not foolproof, in preventing obnoxious men from yelling from their vehicles. This has served me well in multiple countries and is not too far off from how I normally dress anyway so it's generally easy. 

And at first, Curaçao seemed like it would be an easy place to wear tank tops and t-shirts without the shoulder coverings. After all, local women were dressed in tighter clothing than I and the other tourists (mostly Dutch) I encountered were often sunburned in their post-beach minidresses or swimsuit coverups. So, my first evening on the island, I headed from my hotel across the bridge to wander around one of the historic parts of Willemstad and find a waterfront spot to grab some food and a cocktail. I still don't know who the stares came from - whether they were other tourists or locals - or what motivated them - was it my half-sleeve of vegetables or the fact that I was maybe the only tourist in long pants or was it my being female? I will never know, but the stares were predatory and unapologetic and they were many. The thing is, I hate being stared at regardless of the motivation and it makes me slouch, cover up, and avoid eye contact (all highly effective in every country I've been in). So, I found myself for the duration of my short trip, especially in certain parts of town (none of this was an issue near the beaches and, while uncomfortable, I should make it clear that I never felt unsafe) reverting to this way of walking around. I carried my little linen long-sleeved shirt to throw on while walking around and only wore my shorts when on a tour. 

This experience, while relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things that could harm a person, is one that I can never quite reconcile with the type of woman, the type of feminist, and the type of anthropologist I'd like to be. I want to visit other places and respect other people and what they consider normal. When I lived in Austria, I remember being repeatedly taken aback by the fact people would stare unashamedly at you, especially on the U-bahn, but there was never anything behind it but perhaps curiosity and sometimes an assessment of the coolness (or lack thereof) of my footwear. But, after talking to a couple of Austrians and long-term expats, I quickly learned not to be self-conscious, that this was normal behavior and I wasn't being singled out. I imagine that when I find myself stared at in many of the ways that make me uncomfortable, it is similarly innocuous, and I am reacting from my American sensibility of "It's rude to stare", "Don't stare at people, that's rude". 

But there is something about a predatory male gaze - one that no woman alive can say she's never felt - that I find completely unnerving, completely terrifying. It's why, despite the relative safety of my quaint little town, I detest walking by groups of men. It is not flattering (though I am aware some women would say it is), it feels degrading and while my ability to cope with it varies from place to place, its occurrence seems to be pretty darn consistent, especially in the West (I don't recall ever feeling this way in Japan or Cambodia) and it is something that undermines my ability to fully enjoy my travels, especially in places where the "cultural norm" is to be scantily clad. That's part of what I find so interesting; in Morocco, I found that if I dressed appropriately, while I may get called after or stared at for being an obvious foreigner, there was no predation in it when I was dressed appropriately (had I not been, it may have been a different matter, but I can't speak to this). When I was in Paris a few summers later, however, I felt the need to cover myself nose to toes to feel comfortable.

I remember, shortly after that summer, I moved to Montreal. One evening I was walking with my new roommate and I was explaining how I'd come to almost always dress as I would have in Morocco, finding that, while I didn't always want to be so modest, it made me feel less of a target for the type of male attention that makes my skin crawl. We were talking about the idea that in so many cultures, including in the US and Canada, it is the responsibility of women to be covered if they don't want to be degraded by the male gaze, a fact that persists and still nags me as highly problematic. I can cope on some level with applying the type of cultural relativism that allows me to cover up in another country, but in my own country I feel entitled to challenge the norms. I should be able to walk around naked if I want to and not be the subject of sexualizing, predatory stares, but I'm not. In fact, we live in a world where women are taught that it is their responsibility to avoid rape (it's evident in policies designed to "protect" women as well as when women are repeatedly blamed for their own victimization). I live in a country where my research participants (active drug users) have often done more time for possession than their rapists and abusers for their crimes. 

Mind you, the fact that this same stare coming from someone who identifies as female has never bothered me serves as a reminder that the discomfort that accompanies the male gaze goes well beyond the experience of being sexualized - it's about power and it's about the violence against women (physical, structural, emotional) that is embedded in our everyday lives. Perhaps if we could eliminate the power gap this gaze would take on new meaning and cease to be another tool of violence. Plenty of others have engaged this conversation and have done so more eloquently, more forcefully, and with more biting humor than I, yet we seem incapable of actually changing the culture in any tangible or sustainable way. Perhaps if we continue the conversation insistently, pushing back whenever these dress code policies arise, encouraging young women to view themselves not as asexual but as more than sexual, encouraging young men to do the same. Meanwhile, I'll keep traveling and when I do so, will abide by local dress codes and do my best to be respectful of cultural norms. But maybe when I'm home I'll be the unapologetic one, I won't look down or slouch or cover up because I'm passing a group of boys or men. Maybe that's one step I can take?

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Curaçao 1: Growing Into My Grown-Up Travel Shoes

My recent, very very short trip to a little island in the southern Caribbean (Curaçao), inspired a number of personal and anthropological thoughts that I will try to cover over my next few blog posts. First, and the one that hit me hardest toward the end of my 5-day (2 of which were spent travelling) excursion, is the idea of growing into a new identity as an "adult" traveler and thinking about what this means for travel and cultural experience in general.

When I was a kid, I had the fortune of riding my parents' coattails when it came to travel. I took my first steps on a boat off the island of Capri, was kicked unceremoniously out of London's pubs while still in a stroller, and lived in Strasbourg, France for a year as a toddler. In the years that followed, thanks to my father's francophilia and my mother's love for movement, I travelled repeatedly to Europe as well as travelling and eventually living all over the United States. When I hit my early twenties, I began to cultivate my own preferred style of travel. It involved working, sort of saving money, quitting my job and impulsively "moving" somewhere (to another state, another country, whatever made most sense at the time) for anywhere from 3-15 months but never more. In this vein, between the ages of 21 and 27 years (when I moved to Colorado), I lived in six states within the US, three countries outside it, and on three continents in total:

* New York City
* Charlottesville, VA
* Fes & Essaouira, Morocco
* Tempe, AZ
* Streitdorf, Austria
* Montreal, QC, Canada
* Rawlins, WY
* Cleveland, OH
* and finally, Fort Collins, CO.

While this movement was eventually exhausting, it was also exciting and enabled me to really get to know places and their people. It was my recreational release for my inner-anthropologist. I used travel as an occasion to get to know a culture on some level.

Since coming to Colorado, I have lived in one city. I have now been here for longer than I remember living anywhere in my entire life, and for personal reasons, I suspect I will live here for at least the next twenty or thirty years. But my feet still get itchy, as in, I still get intense urges to "get out of here". Which is where this trip to Curaçao came in - I needed to celebrate my successful dissertation defense and I needed to do it away

Unfortunately, in the past five years of rootedness, I've learned that I don't particularly enjoy this type of travel that many of us participate in for vacation and relaxation. After three days on this beautiful little island, I felt like I was just starting to hit my stride and get a sense of the island's own personality and pace. I felt that I knew more about what the tourist agencies wanted me to know and nearly nothing about what real life looked like. A couple of years ago, I visited Costa Rica with a good friend and had a similar experience. It was a great trip and the scenery was mindblowingly beautiful, but it was impossible to get into the rhythm of the country - which is the main reason I love public transit! - and still see what we wanted to see. We just didn't have enough time for both, a problem that was in part due to the fact that we only visited for a week but that was exacerbated by the fact that I am a poor planner and a horrible rusher. Apparently, I prefer to just move somewhere, hang out for three months, and call that my vacation. But as an adult, in my current life, that kind of travel doesn't seem realistic. So, I am searching the landscape of less lengthy travel patterns to find something I like, that perhaps I can learn from if not emulate. But I'm struggling as most of what I've seen simply does not fit with what I want to get out of a "vacation".

I remember being shocked while visiting a dear friend in Egypt. When we went to one of many of the amazing historical/tourist sites, a bus full of Italian tourists had stopped as well. Many of the women wore only short-shorts, flip flops and bikini/bra tops. None of this was culturally appropriate, but more importantly, it was explicitly disrespectful. There is certainly room for critiquing cultural relativism when over-simplified and over-applied, but it seems to me that if you have the choice to visit a country on vacation, you should select a country whose culture you are capable of respecting, at least outwardly. After all, you are funneling your money into their economy so it may as well be something you support on some level or at a minimum can live with. Many people I know travel exclusively for the very reason I went to Curaçao - relaxation & escape - and so they plant themselves at (all-inclusive) resorts or get with a professional tour company that arranges everything and whisks them from site to site providing carefully selected historical and cultural "context" (I'll talk more about this in a later blog). And, while it's not particularly my preferred way to travel and I am sure there are myriad culture and economic issues associated with traveling this way, it may not be all bad either. At least the people on tours are attempting to learn about their context even if it's typically done in a highly sanitized, voyeuristic way. And those who are going to all-inclusive resorts or refusing to leave the tourist zone are being honest with themselves and what their travel intentions are and may have set themselves in an environment where they won't offend local sensibilities. 

But the lurking question persists: Are we doing ourselves, our home cultures, and those we visit a diservice when we insist on traveling at the constant rushed pace of an American or with the cultural ideals regarding modesty of a "Westerner" (whatever that means)?   

I know that what I love about travel is slowly learning the rhythms of a new place, whether it's in the US or further afield. I find that it fosters the kind of experience that is life-changing even if it's not always as photogenic or as impressive on facebook. Unfortunately, my current life doesn't facilitate this kind of travel. In order to sit peacefully in one place for the next thirty years of my life, I had to settle down. I have a partner, a dog, a horse, all of whom make it difficult (emotionally, as in I would miss them all terribly,  more than logistically) to just pick up and leave for months on end. I have a job that is flexible, but, at least at this point, perhaps not that flexible. So I resign myself to movement-packed travel that often feels like it is more about the principle than about the experience, and I have not yet figured out how to mix my need for cultural immersion with my reality. What I fear is that this new way of travel is simply my new normal, and that a tender part of my soul will just have to wait until I'm retired.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Drugs in the Media - What's up with the romance of heroin?

Last night, Mike and I went to see my awesome friend Chelsea in a production of Rent. This was great for a number of reasons, some of which hadn't occurred to me until I read the director's note in the program. First, it was great because I adore supporting friends' engagement in this kind of stuff - how can you not want to watch a friend thrive in a context totally separate from the one you typically see them in?! And this one was a special treat because Chelsea is talented. A friend from the barn, we usually see one another in a context of hay, sweat, slobber and dirt; but last night she danced in heels and revealed an enviable singing voice as well as a gift for performance overall. SOOOO much fun to watch! Ok, so in addition to that, this production of Rent was great because it was really well done, and because I will just always love the play, and I will always go home humming "There's only us, there's only this, . . .", and I will always cry because I am enough of a romantic that I will always root for the characters even when I know their fates. I want to mention one last (and unanticipated) awesomeness of this production, and that is the one pointed out by the director: the importance of showing this play in a community theater in Loveland, CO. Yes, it's great that Rent has been adopted by other countries and that it has shown on probably every major stage in the US, but that it can reach (even though it's almost 20 years after it first opened) these smaller sub-rural (is that even a term?) communities is just as important.

But all of this is beside the point because, as much as I love Rent, I apparently cannot quite remove my "I research drug use & addiction and its portrayal in the media" hat even for an evening. So, of course, I came home wondering, would the play's many current and former injection drug users be sympathetic, likable, even relatable if they were meth users?

This question came to me in part because, two summers ago, I spent the majority of my time watching, reading and analyzing popular entertainment media that featured methamphetamine and off-hand, I can't think of a single example of a meth user who was portrayed sympathetically, let alone romantically. Yet, back during my undergrad years in the late 1990s/early 2000s, I went through a phase of watching heroin movies. While heroin is not necessarily glamorized in popular entertainment media (think Requiem for a Dream), my not at all systematic observation suggests that addiction to this drug is often portrayed as something that a general audience can sympathize with if not relate to . . . think about the tragic romanticism of movies like High Art and Gia, for example. Even Basketball Diaries and Permanent Midnight (both of which are based on true-life stories) have characters you root for. Most meth users in popular media are horrible people, far too "folk-devilish" to drive a film in such a way. Rather, the meth users in these media tend to drive stories entirely through their scandalous antics with very little humanity (though there is a scene toward the end of Spun when Brittany Murphy and Jason Schwartzman share a spun out bonding session).

Now, I'm not saying that the romanticized portrayals of heroin addiction in the media are preferable to the portrayal of the scandalous meth addict. Rather, I'm curious what it is about the respective substances and their histories and patterns of use that makes them take on their respective roles in entertainment. Any suggestions? I'd love to hear them!

Part of me wonders - thanks in part to questions asked by many a research participant over the past couple of years - whether it could have something to do with the lack of visible dopesickness experienced by meth, cocaine, crack and other non-opiate drug users. Does the fact that heroin makes people go through well-known physical withdrawals make addiction to it something worthy of sympathy rather than scorn? The women I've interviewed in my own research are predominately meth users and several have told me that they feel judged even by other drug users. While popular entertainment media certainly does portray the heroin addicted person as scandalous at times, they also portray her as struggling with something that would clearly be difficult for anybody.

But romantic? What on earth is romantic about dopesickness? Or the drastic loss of libido experienced by so many long-term drug (especially heroin) addicts? I still just can't quite figure out what it is that makes heroin take this role but it certainly does in Rent. Of the characters we learn anything about, most have HIV and for some of them (Roger and Mimi in particular), it's strongly suggested that they got their disease from injecting heroin. But they are wonderfully drawn characters (especially for a musical) whose addictions (present and past) and daily struggles are still made relatable. And their tragic love story is only strengthened by Roger's barbs about Mimi's continued heroin use.

I think this is an issue I may need to explore academically at some point, systematically. I wonder if my impressions are simply the result of having spent so much time turning a critical lens on meth but not on heroin...all the same, a lay impression is important when thinking about the role of these types of media in constructing the meaning of drugs in our society, leading me to ask for future literature reviews if not studies, how do the meanings of meth and heroin diverge from one another and where do they overlap? And, of course, what do these meanings in context tell us about our society & culture?

Sunday, June 3, 2012

The dog day

So, late last week, we moved into a new house in a new neighborhood and so far, Bagel the dog is beyond in love with her new (bigger and less landscaped) back yard. Since the house didn't yet have a dog door into said back yard, Mike and I went to the hardware store to get the necessary door along with other just-moved-in items like paint and potting soil. Because we have a great dog and are eternally trusting optimists regarding human character, we simply left the back door open so Bagel could come and go as she pleased.

As I was getting out of the car upon our return home, I heard Mike say, "There's a dog in here. There's a dog in the house other than Bagel . . . " Huh? Note, Bagel does not particularly like other dogs, so while my first reaction was amused surprise, my second was one of minor concern (were they getting along? was Bagel ok?). We walked into the house's front room to a happy, tail-wagging Bagel and a nervous, barking heeler/pit mix who was backing his way through the house toward the back yard. Because he had a collar with tags, we assumed he was just nervous/scared at having maybe gotten lost and somehow landing in our yard/house. But after spending about a half hour trying to coax the very wary dog with treats, we were never able to grab his collar to get the necessary information to call his parents. So, we called the humane society (nobody had reported a dog like him missing) and decided to try one last ditch effort at catching him before having them come pick him up. This last ditch effort was to somehow get a leash around his neck, so we again coaxed him with treats, dropping one in the middle of the leash's circle, and when he went to eat it, Mike tried to slip the leash on him. This failed miserably and the dog simply backed up, glowered disdainfully at us, walked to the back of the yard, and ably climbed the chain-link fence to let himself out. This dog was clearly a pro, and he made it clear that he would rather have his freedom than food or treats or praise. Bagel, meanwhile, wiggled and nudged the treat bag at my hip, and licked my hand, making her own preferences known - she loves having a home with her humans and she was pleased that other dog had left. For me, however, the dog's departure was upsetting for a couple of reasons. First, struck by his wariness of people, I worried the dog would return (or be returned) to his own less-than-loving humans. Second, despite my own cerebral questioning of the way we tend to keep dogs (and, arguably, ourselves) leashed, fenced, etc., I found the idea of this dog as lost or homeless unsettling as well.

Lately, Mike has been pointing out that the very idea of having this little (50lb) animal live with us is really kind of strange. But, it seems that what is unusual about it is less that we share a life with her and more that she helps herself to the bed/love seat/couch/papasan chair, etc. She also eats pretty much whatever we will give her - appropriate veggies and fruits included - and would rather hang out with us than other dogs or non-human animals in general. Perhaps the strangest, especially given her affinity for camping, backpacking, hiking and the like, is that she simply does not like to sleep outside. When it's bed-time, she wants to be in a bed, in a car/house/camper/tent. When we go on climbing trips, she does not spend evenings curled up beside us by the fire; at home, when we are up late, she grumpily makes her way to our bedroom on her own. So, perhaps, what seems odd on the surface is that we seem to have a dog who has adapted quite well to the trappings of human luxury.

But, is her attachment to these things really so strange? After all, at 32 I might be hesitant to spend a spontaneous night wrapped in a stray blanket on a beach though I was happy to do so nearly a decade ago in Morocco. Mike and I also transitioned recently from spending our climbing trip nights sleeping in the back of his truck to spending them in a camper (a slip-in, but a camper nonetheless). As I trepidatiously leave my youth and veer toward middle age, I have come to appreciate comforts, and as a species, humans have done the same, becoming increasingly sedentary and dependent on things that facilitate . . . (eating, commuting, communicating, etc.). All of these markers of "culture" have come, in turn, to serve as symbols of our humanity, as ways that we differ from or control nature, including animals.

Anthropologists have spent the last century plus studying what it means to be human, and this has meant first and foremost constructing a category of "human" that is delimited by factors beyond biology, factors such as language and culture. Yet, from an anthropological perspective, the dog (perhaps the animal with whom humans seem to have most closely evolved) becomes a problematic because it challenges our presumed relationship with nature in two ways. Our society's concern about and fear of/for the independent wanderers and "stray" dogs like the one found in my back yard this afternoon may reflect a fear that culture really cannot contain nature. After all, the very premise of modern American society is based on this idea - some striking individual and community-level exceptions aside, we have not shown ourselves to be a culture that seeks or even recognizes an interdependent relationship with nature. On the other hand, our view of Bagel's behavior as "strange" could represent a concern that dogs and humans are less inherently distinct than we would like to believe. Both of these examples blur the lines and presumed relationship between culture and nature, human and non-human. In doing this, they also illuminate the ways we define ourselves.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Anthropologist as patient: An ER Encounter

I hadn't been back from x-ray long and was starting to feel the all-encompassing drain that results from the shock and pain associated with physical trauma and the uneasy rhythms of the emergency department when the MD entered room #16 (easy to remember since it I was born on a 16th). His expression said it all, or maybe he was just reflecting my own fear back to me:

"So, the good news is, your cervical x-rays look great, so we can get you out of that neck brace. But, it looks like you may have fractured one of your thoracic vertebrae . . . "

This statement was followed by a (seemingly) long silence, and I nervously shifted my eyes from Mike back to the doctor, doing my very best not to show my total terror and ignorance about the potential meaning of such a tentative diagnosis. Finally, I spat questions at him . . . what does that mean, like long-term? what does it mean right now? what do we do now, next?

He remained clinically distant but his eyes still belied sufficient humanity to show he does not enjoy this part of his job. "It means we need to do more tests - an MRI or a CT scan - to see how bad it is. If it's an unstable fracture, it means surgery. If it's a complete break, it means surgery." There really was no best case scenario discussed, at least not in my recollection. Our memories must automatically block out all hope when offered worst case first.

Since it had been a central theme of my encounters with everybody since the fall, from my fellow riders to the first responders to the nurses in the ER, I finally just decided to ask the question I had been avoiding . . . so, right now, I still have feeling and mobility in all my limbs, in my fingers and toes; could that . . . go away?

I can't remember the specifics of his response, but the gist of it was, yes, in reality, there could still be spinal cord damage, and while it was unlikely, it was still possible that this could lead to some degree of paralysis. I just nodded and looked at Mike, hoping he retained the energy I lacked. The energy to ask any other questions, grateful I had my own personal, knowledgeable, wonderful advocate there to comfort and stand up for me. As soon as the doctor left, I collapsed into tears. A new nurse (I think?) came in, said I seemed out of sorts, offered morphine. Eventually, we headed up to radiology to do the MRI - which was much less frightening once I worked up the nerve to request some anti-anxiety meds. All in all, what on an x-ray appeared to be a new compression fracture of my T12 vertebra was an old injury, a broken back I never even knew about, never knowingly suffered the consequences of. I was discharged, given more information about what wasn't wrong with me than what was. The absence of x did not mean I was well, but well enough.

My anxiety lingered until the next morning, when my inner anthropologist kicked in and I began to think more as an observer than simply a participant. I have been studying health and anthropology for at least twelve years now and recently defended my dissertation in an interdisciplinary social sciences of health program. While in my research I focus on illicit substance use, my personal experience in the ER reminded me of the critical importance of turning an anthropological lens on the most familiar, perhaps the most mundane, areas of human experience.

The strangeness of my ER experience was highlighted when, the day after my visit, I saw my chiropractor for follow-up care and confirmation of the diagnosis. On his examination, Dr. H found that, well above the vertebra that had caused so much trouble the night before (T12), I actually had significant pain, most likely a sprain from the trauma of being bucked off a horse, hurtling six feet to the ground and twisting severely on landing. Dr. H asked, "Did they even touch your spine the whole time you were at the ER?"

Nope. Not once. The first responders did, but they were only looking for major deformities or obvious abnormalities. In fact, the MD I saw in the ER never actually touched me. It was all about nurses (who moved me on and off the backboard, who did minor palpations on either side of my spine, and who administered drugs and asked endless questions but did not always seem to wait for the answer, some responses that were recorded in my medical records I don't even remember answering). It was all about the techs who ran intensive tests with expensive equipment. In fact, my ultimate clearance was given by a radiologist whom I never even met, although he saw my insides when he read my images.

This type of experience - technology-focused, rather than human-focused - is increasingly commonplace, even characteristic, of today's typical encounter with biomedicine, not just in the ER. In fact, I have friends who hesitated to even enter a hospital to deliver their babies, for fear that the biomedical system would take on a life of its own, regardless of their wishes. Several months ago, my husband was diagnosed with viral arthritis, but this was only after seeing four physicians - the first three did not seem to get a sufficient sense of who he was to make an accurate diagnosis for this clinical anomaly.

What is lost when the context and culture of biomedicine so entirely remove the patient from the trauma/disease/injury? Like these friends and family, I was entirely disembodied from the subjectivity of my experience - my pain was a number on a scale from 1 to 10 (with 10 being the worst pain I'd ever experienced...but they never asked what I would consider a 10); my identity was "32 year old female, relatively healthy"; my diagnosis was written in body parts - in ways that may have diminished the diagnostic capacities of the team of highly technologically skilled care providers working on and handling my body.

While the high-tech field of biomedicine is probably better equipped to deal with acute trauma than any other ethnomedical system I know of, and I am endlessly grateful that I was able to reep its fruits, I am also wary of any system that treats the body as so disconnected from its wearer. Yet, at the time, as a patient, I did little to fill that gap. I was only able to identify my most severe, most "present" pain and by the end of the visit, I had become my spasming, sprained, possibly broken back. I had begun to envision my entire future in terms of that specific physical change and its potential consequences.