And they all survived...

The Cohort survived our MA presentations on Friday. Jallalla!

James
“Meaning and History Behind Classic Maya Day Signs”

Láura
“Family Ties/Family Maintenance - Transference of Care for the Elderly”

Colin
“Gravestones and Social Order in 17th-century New England."

Caitlin
“A Ceramic Chronology of the El Zotz region, Petén, Guatemala”

Sohini
“From Burra Bazar to Big Bazaar: Selling the New World Order in the Marketplaces of Kolkata”

Stacey
“Image is Everything: Transnational Governance and the Management of Reputation in Nigeria”

Susan
“Replicating" Democracy?: U.S. Foreign Aid and Democracy Promotion in Bolivia

A Month to Conjure the Modern/Pre-Modern Divide

At the risk of you-all becoming sick of me posting....A response to today's New York Times article, "A Month to Conjure Luck With Sacrifices in Fire."

Link to the original piece: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/world/americas/21witch.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Let me know if you think I'm overreacting...


On August 1st, a few days before I returned to the U.S., my co-father and his brother bundled up and headed to the cumbre [mountain top] to perform a misa/mesa [offering] to the Pachamama [mother earth], because she's especially hungry in August; her mouth is open. I met two dear friends for lunch that day -- one of them a dirigente [union leader] for The National Federation of Indigenous and Peasant Women "Bartolina Sisa." Her first question: have you done your Misa/Mesa yet?

Later that night I met friends Cleo, Ely and Anali (Ely’s daughter) to do a Misa/Mesa: pijchar coca (chew coca leaves), ch’allar (offer libations), reflect on our antepasados [ancestors], talk about the various challenges we are facing in our lives, and burn the mix of herbs, purple, yellow and orange–dyed wool, and sweets molded into the shape of animals that represent wisdom and life journeys (our mesa did not include llama fat or a llama fetus as they sometimes do). It was a time to reflect on the year, our shared and individual struggles, and to offer gratitude to Pachamama and the achachilas, awichas, and antepasados in our lives.

I’ve participated in mesas/misas aimed at reconciling Catholic, evangelical and Aymara members of the UMAVIDA network I used to facilitate, and at other ecumenical gatherings; mesas with a group of Aymara women who have organized a cooperative for fair trade export; and I’ve watched friends consult yatiris (wise healer, practitioner of traditional medicine) and do mesas/misas at the Boca del Sapo (mouth of the toad) at Lake Titikaka.

Now the August mesas/misas are getting coverage in the New York Times. But while I’m always glad to see Bolivia getting news coverage, I also worry about what that coverage conveys. For example, I’m not happy with journalist Simon Romero’s emphasis on “luck” in this article. It reduces the mesas to a kind of Bolivian rabbit’s-foot and diminishes the extent to which such community and familial rituals are deeply ingrained in people’s everyday lives and ways of thinking about human and non-human relationships, as well as the social and political critiques that are often implicit in the practice. The article exoticizes the mesa (Llama fetuses! Witches’ market! Oooo!), rather than illuminating the meaning of those practices and the roles they play in peoples’ lives.

While the August and other mesas/misas are important and widespread practices, I’m always a little anxious about what stories like this one do, what kind of representational patterns they perpetuate. In their accounts of conflict in Bolivia, North American policy makers and political commentators frequently fall back on categories like modernity (reason) and pre-modernity (irrationality/emotionality/religion). They have not seen indigenous protests as the stuff of rational actors reflecting on policies they find inimical to their personal or national interests. Instead, indigenous protesters are infantilized and portrayed as hyper-emotional, irrational. On the other hand, Bolivians working to forge alliances with larger social and environmental movements outside of the country have been romanticized, exoticized and spiritualized in ways that may inadvertently reinforce that same rational/irrational divide. The American news media has tended to depict Bolivia’s indigenous and peasant protests as “an expression of mindless passion ” rather than hearing and taking seriously protests as rational and legitimate critiques of unjust policies. One of my professors at Harvard Divinity School, anthropologist Michael Jackson argues

"not only against the false dichotomy of reason and unreason, but the way these terms have been used to distinguish between two different kinds of society, and two classes of humanity, conventionally labeled civilized and savage, or modern and pre-modern. This language game, in which reason is assigned to oneself and unreason to the other (though we are careful now days to euphemize unreason as cosmology, myth, religion, folklore, cultural values, traditionalism, fundamentalism or spirituality) is a strategy for denying coevalness and, when applied to entire societies, has no empirical justification. All human beings think and act rationally and irrationally, depending on circumstance, and to consider oneself intrinsically or wholly reasonable is itself a form of irrationalism" (Jackson, 372-373)

Enganchada

One of my favorite concepts from Feminist – particularly Mujerista and Womanist (black feminist) – theology (yeah, theology) is the “community of accountability”: that those of us working in academia must have communities that hold us accountable for our work and that keep us grounded – that prevent us from floating away on clouds of theory that don’t relate to real people’s lives.

Repeatedly throughout my visit, people I interviewed expressed their frustration and hurt at the number of researchers – especially foreign researchers – who conduct interviews, promise to keep in touch, and then disappear. They are viewed as aprovechando (taking advantage) and as personalista (ego driven by their own careers). People express their suspicion that I will do the same. Anthropologist Silvia Rivera has a scathing critique of Euro and American scholars working in the Americas – whom she views as elitist and co-opting postcolonial knowledge generated by Bolivia’s social movements to advance their careers in academia. As such, scholars are engaged in a kind of colonial enterprise themselves, mining Bolivia for knowledge and escaping off to their own enclaves.

Of course, people make similar critiques of NGO workers and other foreign aid programs that seem short-lived, paternalistic/neo-colonial, and self-interested. Political geographer Juan Arbona, who works in El Alto, recently told me about a project he and other Alteños are developing to try to prevent that pattern from repeating – creating a forum for foreign researchers to present their work back to the communities where they have worked, and demanding of those researchers a kind of compact to translate and return their work to Bolivia, where it can be discussed, critiqued, interpreted, found useful, appropriated or challenged and rejected.

I’ve been thinking about these issues as I find myself increasingly enganchada (hooked in) to friends’ lives through the compadrazgo system I described in an earlier post – particularly as a godmother of baptism now for two children (Mao and Sofia) and a godmother of rutucha (first haircut) for a third.

I’m also thinking about the challenges of maintaining those ties and cumpliendo mis responsabilidades (coming through on my responsibilities) as a godmother, friend and researcher in an era of multi-sited ethnography and as my own research interests may lead me to work in other regions of Bolivia and perhaps even in other countries…

I love Wikis.

I recently posted some preliminary maps and analysis on our project wiki, and I'll repeat it here so you all can enjoy the wonders of El Palmar as part of the Landscape Succession Project. For the preliminary project wiki, visit: The Landscape Succession Project.

Introduction to El Palmar

El Palmar is a large site, located 4 km east of El Zotz and about 17 km west of Tikal, situated on the southwestern edge of a very large cival. PAEZ members visited the site in 2007 and completed a sketch map of one of the main plazas. In 2008, the site was the focus of mapping and excavation by James Doyle and Varinia Matute.

Figure 1. Locations of El Zotz and El Palmar.

Site Layout

Preliminary mapping indicates that the core of El Palmar covers approximately half a square kilometer and includes at least three major plaza groups, several large platforms, and many platforms and structures approaching the edge of the cival. The map was produced with tape, compass, and more than 100 GPS points using a Garmin handheld unit.

Figure 2. Preliminary Map of El Palmar.

Group 1 in the northern area of the site consists of four structures arranged around a large plaza, with a large pyramid to the west and large range structure to the east. Structure 1, a pyramid with a height of 23m and a square base of approximately 60m, is likely a radial pyramid with large masks, typical of the architectural groups that have been categorized as “E-Groups,” after Group E at Uaxactun (Aimers and Rice 2006; Aveni et al. 2003; Estrada-Belli 2006; Guderjan 2006; Hansen 1998; Ricketson 1928).

Figure 3. El Palmar Group 1.

A preliminary contour map of Structure 1 with approximately 1-m resolution was produced from survey with a TopCon total station, resulting in a 3-dimensional view of the eastern and southern faces of the pyramid.

Figure 4. El Palmar Structure 1. Height = 23m.

Test pit excavations EP 6-B-1 and EP 6-B-2, located on the western and eastern edges of the Group 1 plaza, respectively, revealed 2 plaza floors above bedrock and a ceramic chronology suggesting a Late Preclassic occupation, with sherds from the Polvero, Sierra, Sibal and Flor groups. Although unexcavated at present, Structure 3, the range structure to the east of the plaza consists of three elevated structures organized around a sunken patio, to be closer mapped and investigated in 2009.

The significance of the E-Group at El Palmar is potentially great because if its proximity to Tikal and Uaxactun, those groups that have been identified as the earliest of this type of architectural complex (Aimers and Rice 2006). The similarity in dimensions between El Palmar Structure 1 and Structure 5D-54 in the Mundo Perdido complex also suggests similarities in chronology, a hypothesis to be tested in the next season (Laporte and Fialko 1995). Furthermore, the possible abandonment of a site in the Early Classic so close to El Zotz and Bejucal carries wider implications about the transition to the Early Classic in a politically active region of the Maya Lowlands.

Group 2 consists of an elevated platform containing at least five major structures arranged around a small courtyard. A large pyramid (Structure 5) lies on the western edge, with small structures erected on the northern, southern, and eastern edges. A fifth, small mound lies in the center of the platform (Structure 9) and a large staircase descends to the plaza below the northern edge.

Figure 5. El Palmar Group 2.

Test pit excavation EP 6-A-1 was placed in the Group 2 plaza near Structure 5 and Structure 9. The preliminary ceramic analysis from this excavation and from surface finds indicates a Late Preclassic date for the original occupation, including the presence of Usulutan red-over-orange, Polvero Black, and Sierra Red sherds. A Late Classic Chaquiste Impressed sherd and other possible later types may indicate that a Late Classic population may have occupied Group 2.

Test pit excavation EP 6-A-2, located to the north of the large stairway uncovered sherds that possibly indicate occupation in the transitional period between the Late Preclassic and Classic periods, including sherds of the Sierra and Polvero groups in the same levels as Dos Arroyos Polychrome, Aguila Orange, and Triunfo Striated. Furthermore, the presence of obsidian from the highland source of San Martin Jilotepeque is consistent with the Late Preclassic period (Zachary Hruby, personal communication). Architecture exposed by looters at the top of the staircase also contains red-panted stuccoed apron molding, typical of the Late Preclassic and Early Classic periods (Hansen 1998).

A third major group at El Palmar, Group 3, lies to the south of the site and consists of at least 5 structures on a very tall platform rising from the edge of the cival. More investigation is necessary to determine the chronology of this group and its relation to the other public architecture at El Palmar. Preliminary survey indicates possible land modification for water management in the form of maintained arroyos near this group, also a focus of future investigations.

Figure 6. El Palmar Group 3.

A number of small platforms and structures are located in close proximity to the cival, including Structure 12, profiled in 2007 by Juan Carlos Meléndez and Fabiola Quiroa. More investigations into the structures close to the cival will hopefully reveal key information about agriculture or water management practices of the inhabitants of El Palmar.

Figure 7. El Palmar Structure 12. East and South profile of looters’ trench.

Environmental Implications

The cival itself merits attention in coming seasons because of potential information contained in the sediments of the seasonal swamp, including human activity during the Holocene era. El Palmar and its accompanying body of water are an ideal place to test hypotheses set forth on the role of water management and sedimentation in the Late Preclassic period, possibly leading to abandonment of many centers (e.g. Wahl et al. 2006).

Figure 8. View of Cival from El Palmar Structure 12.

Conclusion

Future seasons of archaeological, topographical, and environmental investigations at El Palmar will hopefully yield insights into a Late Preclassic community located very close to Tikal on a large seasonal swamp. More information from El Palmar and the early occupations of Bejucal and El Zotz will shed light on the transitional period from the Late Preclassic to Early Classic in a region that developed to be very important in the Early Classic sociopolitical milieu in the central Peten.

References

Aimers, James J. and Prudence M. Rice
2006 “Astronomy, Ritual, and the Interpretation of Maya ‘E-Group’ Architectural Assemblages.” Ancient Mesoamerica. 17. 79-96.

Aveni, Anthony F., Anne S. Dowd, and Benjamin Vining
2003 “Maya Calendar Reform? Evidence from Orientations of Specialized Architectural Assemblages.” Latin American Antiquity. 14 (2). 159-178

Estrada-Belli, Francisco
2006 “Lightning Sky, Rain, and the Maize God: The Ideology of Preclassic Maya Rulers at Cival, Peten, Guatemala.” Ancient Mesoamerica. 17. 57-78.

Guderjan, Thomas H.
2006 “E-Groups, Pseudo-E-Groups, and the Development of the Classic Maya Identity in the Eastern Peten.” Ancient Mesoamerica. 17. 97-104.

Hansen, Richard D.
1998 “Continuity and Disjunction: The Pre-Classic Antecedents of Classic Maya Architecture.” In Function and Meaning in Classic Maya Architecture. Ed. Stephen Houston. Washington: Dumbarton Oaks. 49-122.

Laporte, Juan Pedro and Vilma Fialko
1995 “Un reencuentro con undo Perdido, Tikal, Guatemala.” Ancient Mesoamerica 6 (1). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 41-94.

Ricketson, Oliver
1928 “Notes on Two Maya Astronomic Observatories.” American Anthropologist. 30 (3). 434-444.

Wahl, David, Roger Byrne, Thomas Schreiner, and Richard Hansen
2006 “Holocene vegetation change in the northern Peten and its implications for Maya prehistory.” Quaternary Research. 65. 380-389.

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Please do not reproduce without author's permission.

Still kicking...

For any out there who may not know, while others are out in the proverbial "field," I stay closer to home, which is to say, I don't really go anywhere -- save the library, historical society, what-have-you. To my fellow cohorters, let's just say, the graveyard research has been proceeding as planned, i.e., lots of silence and alone-time to get my work done.

Here's a puzzle for the more materially inclined: any connection between these two images?

The first is a petroglyph of Native American origin (Western Abenaki?) from Vermont of unknown date. The second is a gravestone from Rowley, Massachusetts carved about 1690. The more I investigate the nature of intra-cultural exchange in seventeenth-century New England, the more I'm tending to think, yes. The problem is, there is little to no evidence to back up a connection.

On a more upbeat note, here is my ethnographic observation of the summer: I was driving through Cranston en route to Greene Farm one morning (I did a little work out there with Krysta, et al.), when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a six?-year-old being walked by a pug. In this strange role-reversal, the child was running from side to side on the sidewalk while this little proud dog strutted along in front, tail up. While I can't necessarily get on board with the painful lack of parental oversight, I wholeheartedly approve of sending rambunctious children to be herded by more intelligent animals.

personal is political

It’s been hard for me to write a new post lately because many of the issues I’m wrestling with feel too…sensitive for such a public venue. The past two weeks of my research have been overshadowed at times with much more personal issues, specifically dealing with close female friends who are in abusive relationships. And dealing with violence in my own (temporary) home…

I’ve come to understand Bolivia’s compadrazgo system (establishing godparents for everything from baptism to the cake at a wedding to a graduating, high school class) as a powerful way for people to enganchar or hook others into permanent reciprocal relationships. I’ve been a madrina de bautizo (godmother of baptism) – which is one of the more powerful forms of compagrazgo -- for nearly 4 years now. And shortly after arriving, my host family made me a madrina de rutucha -- a godmother of the first haircut.

Accordingly, my compadres and I refer to each other as co-mother and co-father of my goddaughter and godson (and I’ll be a co-mother for a third time before I leave). Unfortunately, my co-mothers -- and many other women friends -- are in physically, emotionally and psychologically abusive relationships. One morning, I came into the kitchen to fix breakfast and my co-mother burst in, sobbing. She had just been beaten and told to get out, to leave. For the next couple of hours, she unloaded years of emotional abuse, betrayal and infidelity, her pregnancy at 16 and the loss of that baby, her deepening entrapment in a dependent and abusive relationship with her husband, my co-father.

My other co-mother was, at age six, sent to be a household servant (in a city nearly 17 hours away by bus) in exchange for the family providing her with an education. Ironically, the mother of that household convinced her to drop out before she graduated from high school. After feeling like she had escaped to a new life, she now finds herself back working as an empleada or household servant for the same family, from 8am to 8pm, 6 days a week. Her husband is controlling, monitors our phone calls, refuses to allow her to have friends. Her daughter once indicated to me that the abuse is physical as well…at least for the girls.

Family violence is extremely common in Bolivia and none of these stories are shocking. On an average night at my friends’ house, we sit and listen to the violent screams of brawling families. Spousal abuse is rampant. Yet this time around, it seems to be affecting me more than it did in my previous four years in Bolivia. I’ve been struck with how much I’m absorbing and replicating that violence -- in thought, if not in action.

While historically there is relatively little incidence of street violence or violent robberies, signs of violence and retribution increasingly abound. For example, I’m including here some photos of the warnings against possible thieves that are found on nearly every block of El Alto, often accompanied by a dummy hung in effigy, which communicates the warning “this could be you.” Spray-painted across adobe walls are inscriptions such as "Thief, You will be Lynched." Also common, "Thief, you will be burned alive."*

In an act of extraordinary mimesis (replicating the violence I supposedly reject), I have begun coming up with my own list for possible spray-paint jobs. E.g. "Abusive husband, you will be castrated.” The day I found my co-mother weeping in the kitchen, I was shaking with the urge to totally humiliate and dehumanize my co-father (who has been avoiding me for two weeks since he discovered me hugging her in the kitchen. One night, rather than be in the same room with me, he called his wife from the next room ask if there was more food. Now that's a whole 'nother issue. A north-south power issue...). Supposedly I’m a big believer in strategic nonviolence, but I feel so much anger and a desire for retribution against the men in my friends’ lives (and, because they’re my co-fathers, in my own).

These experiences have me thinking a lot about Begoña Aretxaga’s work on mimetic violence among Basque youth; I’m wondering if my own experience of absorbing and replicating such violence might give me an insight into some dimensions of Bolivia’s current political climate. Now I’m extremely hesitant to make such a leap between my own mimesis and an exceedingly complex, postcolonial setting. But I hear from friends “we’re worried that out of rage and a desire for retribution against the perpetrators of centuries of exclusion and oppression we are starting to take-on some of the characteristics of those we say we hate…” So it has me thinking…

Anyway, these are jumbled and very sketchy/preliminary thoughts and feelings…Sorry I keep posting about such, er…heavy topics….just trying to process things…and all my other stuff is too politically-sensitive to post!!! I promise to only post silly photos from now on…

Susanita

* For one interpretation of lynching in Bolivia as both a critique and result of neoliberal policies, see Daniel Goldstein's The Spectacular City: Violence and Performance in Urban Bolivia

Herman and Shermena.

When in Rome - do as the Romans?

Hello everyone!

My apologies for taking soo long to post. Well, it's been a whirlwind of a stay here in Rome. Let me begin by saying that Rome is HUGE, super hot and muggy - a veritable concrete jungle. I have had the good fortune of getting lost on the massive public transportation system a number of times, but have recovered in one piece ... my feet may say otherwise if asked. Yesterday, there was a national transportation strike, so moving the old fashioned way was rather useful. Since my arrival, I have been overwhelmed with people's (mostly migrants) willingness to talk about ageing, eldercare, and the migrant women who work as caregivers or badanti. Finding Italians - that is, children in their 50s-60s who have either opted to use the services of a badanti, or have chosen to care for their elderly parents, themselves, has been more of a challenge. To quote an Italian priest whose help I sought to try and find some of these Italians, "You want to speak to the children of the elderly? That's going to be very difficult - they are all very busy you know." Things are moving along, though. Through some family contacts here, I am inching in on this community. Not surprisingly, it is mostly women who coordinate the care of their elderly parents. I've asked about the role of Italian men, and the usual response is that Italian men don't think to be coordinators of care - not that they necessarily wouldn't do this job, it is just not something that they expect to do.

Growing older in Italy doesn't appear to be a well-received phenomenon. Most of the functional elderly (late 70s/80s) that I have interviewed have said that they would much rather be on the other side already. A typical response goes something like Really, what am I doing here, except taking up space and costing money. Among younger Italians (50s/60s), there is a hope that they will not live that long, although most expect that they will, given the current phenomenon. The 50s/60s Italians are a busy group with a number of extra-curricular activities that I cannot imagine keeping track of. There are book clubs, choir rehearsals, as well extra gatherings of such groups, just to "get together." Those that are grandparents among this age group like playing the part of grandparent, but also enjoy having their own time.

There is a senior social center near the apartment where I live that I try to frequent at least once a week in the evening when it is most active. A decent number of "seniors" that frequent the center aren't people that I would consider seniors at all, but rather early retirees by American standards. It is a challenge to think of somebody in their late 50s and early 60s as a senior citizen. Most Sunday mornings I frequent a Ukrainian congregation, and then a Latin American congregation in the afternoon. I've also frequented a Filipino congregation Thursdays. Nevertheless, I think that the strongest links that I have built among the migrant communities have been among the Ukrainians, which is fabulous, considering that most of the women who work as badanti are from the Ukraine. Contact with the Romanian community, which is the migrant community that I originally thought would be accessible, has been limited.

Highlights

• I "learned" how to dance the tango at the senior center;
• I've twice been offered jobs as a babysitter and as a badante; it is an interesting time to look ethnic in Italy, since most Latin American women work as caregivers or domestic workers;
• If I had more time, I might have given it a go, although I have to admit that the job of being with an elderly person 24 hours a day, almost seven days a week with only Thursday afternoons and and all of Sunday off seems quite daunting;
  
• Rome is full of migrants from all over the world it seems, and at times, the tension created by the need for migrants, especially caregivers, and the lack of regularization of such migrants, is palpable;
  
• Most migrant women that I spoke with have stated that although the Italians have told them that they are considered family, this is usually only the case until she does something that doesn't fit well with the expectations of the Italian family (i.e. finding a better paying job, and announcing that she is leaving the family);
• The Italians that I have spoken with are split regarding whether they would consider the badante as a member of the famliy; it depends on how family is defined - to paraphrase The line between being considered family is difficult because you are paying somebody to not only meet the physical needs of your parents, but to keep your parent company, which is a family expectation, no?
  

The increasing number of elderly and migration are topics that are frequently touched upon by the Italian media, so the timing for the topic is perfect. The first picture is a celebration held by the ACLI (roughly Association of Christian Labor Workers) to celebrate family and migrants. It was interesting to see the parade of nationalities with the Italian national anthem playing in the background. The second picture, of course, is the Colosseum - typically Roman, and Italian.

Hope everyone is doing well. : D

Sight-scapes

This is one of thousands of cloth vendors in Kano, the oldest city in West Africa and the biggest city in Northern Nigeria.

Kano is under sharia law and these little green signs line the streets with phrases from the Koran written in Arabic and English. Behind the sign you can see a Daidaita Sahu, which I've heard literally translated as "be orderly" and "prepare for prayer", but which is the common term for these little yellow tut-tuts reserved for women so they don't have to share cramped public transportation with men.

And here we are, in all our greasy glory, in a Daidaita Sahu (luckily not during a rainstorm, when that cardboard repair job wouldn't hold out for long).

This is the family compound where we stayed in Kano. Our house is the second to the right.

Finally, here is encouragement that my research interests really are relevant : )

Morales and food prices...

I wanted to respond to Sohini’s blog post about people attributing the hike in food prices to the rains (rather than the rise in oil prices, or other possible reasoning) because it’s on many people’s minds here, where people's views on rising food prices are tied to their critique of – or continued hope in – Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales.

When I first arrived in Bolivia, the steep rise in food prices – particularly bread – was one of the principle topics of conversation. Some blame those increases on the Bolivian elite or President Morales. But more frequently, people talk about the rise in food prices globally -- sometimes attributing it to oil, other times not able to account for the 'source' of the price hike, but aware that it's a global phenomenon. And India is often cited as an example that this problem that is not particularly Bolivian – even if the efficacy of the national response is hotly debated.

I spoke with my friends Luis and Lourdes while sitting in the comedor popular [popular or community soup kitchen] of their church, “Light and Truth.”

Lourdes explained that a quintenal of rice, once under 150 Bs. (about US$21), had risen to over 390Bs. (about US$55) in the past months. Luis said he couldn’t account for what was happening. The dollar was on the decline, yet their family was worse-off economically. “I don’t know how to make sense of it. I can only imagine three possibilities: that what’s happening is a matter of the prices going up world-wide, that the empresarios [business men] are doing something to undermine the government, or Evo is hiding something from us.” Lourdes added, “The people say it’s the business people who are making the prices go up. Others say, like Luis said, that it’s prices at an international level. Others say it’s because of the cost of oil is going up. Others say the United States is doing it. They say the United States is stocking its food reserves because they know the prices will keep going up. Before we received flour from the US, through, what is it? CARITAS? But now they send little food aid….” (the debate over "food security" vs. "food sovereignty," and the accusations that food aid programs for undermine local, small-scale producers is the stuff of another blog).

Luis expressed frustration for the lack of a clear culprit. “This isn’t like ALCA [the Free Trade Area of the Americas], where you could identify the enemy clearly. Now it’s difficult to identify who’s at fault.”

For Luis, Lourdes and others with whom I’ve spoken, the rise in food prices is viewed as a threat to the stability of the Morales Administration, especially as social and political conflicts are on the rise and the President faces a vote of (no)confidence on August 10^th. Morales supporters fear that food prices will cut-short the kinds of structural changes they hoped would come from Bolivia’s first indigenous presidency.

Luis explained, “Evo is making enormous changes, and one supposes that we will enjoy the fruits of those efforts in another 5-10 years. But the opposition doesn’t want to recognize that he’s doing. The observe [critique] the smallest mistake that Evo makes…” Nevertheless, Luis admits that it is becoming more and more difficult for his family to make ends meet by pooling their resources, as the majority of their expenditures go toward foodstuffs. “Sometimes, I think I’m going to have to leave for the United States – maybe I’ll move to the U.S. and sweep the floor of a church there. I ask the brothers [fellow American evangelicals], ‘Is there not work [in your church]?’ So we’ll see the results of the changes Evo is making in another 5-10 years. Excellent! But we are suffering right now.”

Luis, however, remains supportive of Morales even as others grow vocally disillusioned. “We have to give a hand to the government,” Luis explained. “People are asking why the people are not rising up [against the Morales Administration]. If it were a different government, the people would have gone into the streets with their empty pots [ollas] to protest. But if we can endure the needs of the belly, then this government can endure. And that’s why we have to search for a means to survive.”

-- Susanita

How You Dey?

Greetings from Nigeria! I suppose I'll begin with a poor excuse for my delay in blogging. Basically, if the blog is supposed to be about fieldwork, I didn't feel justified to start blogging without starting to do actual work, and although I've been here now for over two weeks, and it seems like much longer than that, my work is only now getting off the ground.

Instead I've spent most of my time just getting used to operating around here, ie following around Katie (the advanced grad student from Brown who has opened up her life, contact book, and everything else to share with me, for those readers beyond the cohort, if you are out there). We spent our first week in Abuja at the home of a top dog from the American Embassy, so, needless to stay, living conditions were far beyond those than my home in Providence, with wireless internet (like I said, my excuse for the delay is poor), a swimming pool, a chef and live-in masseuse /housekeeper. Since then, it's been a gradual shift to life something more like that of most Nigerians, culminating in a week in Kano, where we stayed in the family compound of Katie's good friends/research assistants/everything else.

Like so many other places around Nigeria, the house was clearly a very nice one when it was built during the oil boom in the 1970s, but has since become only a shell--wired for electricity that comes for only a few minutes a day and piped for water that hasn't come in years. So I learned how to most efficiently "flush" toilets with buckets of water kept in barrels throughout the house, and to bathe with buckets as well, appreciating the cool water in the heat of the north. Of course I didn't learn much Hausa at all, but the family was always amused when I could manage a greeting or two, and I did pick up at least Katie's interpretation of Nigerian English, with rhthmic intonations and a few words of pidgin thrown in. Katie also didn't hesitate to introduce me to all her favorite local foods, which most foreigners (and even many Nigerians) balk at, from slimy okra soups eaten by scooping up bland sticky starches like pounded yams with your fingers, to spicy and delicious beef kabobs ("suya") made on make-shift barbecues the side of the road. (As I type I'm having a typical meal of a big pile of carbs, this time the ubiquitous Nigerian version of Ramen, IndoMie, which is virtually identical except for some extra kick common to most Nigerian foods.) Unfortunately my stomach hasn't learned to love these as quickly as my taste buds have, and that can be complicated in a country without public toilets, but this, I like to tell myself, is a rite of passage of its own, and I'll leave that at that.

On the actual fieldwork front, my expat connections through Katie had me well connected at the American Embassy and I'll begin pursuing all those phone numbers and introductions now that we are back in Abuja. I did manage one intense day of work before we left Kano, after a local professor hooked me up with a super determined and well-conntected Nigerian PhD student. Unfortunately, after waiting for hours for his good friend who could probably write my MA paper for me, he turned out to be out of town, making us take the formal bureaucratic route to talk to anyone. This eventually led to a spontaneous "interview" (that felt more like an inquisition) with the big men of the traders' association in the middle of the market as a crowd grew around us. I was completely overwhelmed and had no idea how difficult it would be to try to talk meaningfully at any length through an interpreter, especially one not trained or inclined to give more thorough translations beyond the immediate and summarized answer to my question. I don't know if any of you are having to figure this out (Láura maybe?), but even once I start recording everything to get the details later, it totally hinders any anthropological ideal of interviewing as conversational when you can't catch the interesting details of responses as they arise. But even though they all seemed totally suspicious and unhappy about my interests there, I am assured that I will be welcomed to talk to more people in the future, even on-one-one and with tape recorders, so I have that to look forward to when I return to Kano.

In the meantime, I am back in Abuja for at least a week or two, staying in another palatial expat house with too many rooms to spare. Katie is off to South Africa on Saturday so I will officially be on my own starting then. While I look forward to some more independence, I know even small things will will turn into adventures, from trying to negotiate taxi fares to knowing where to go for different necessities (ie chocolate, internet, and suya). These adventures, of course, should provide good fodder for blogging, which will also be easier here in Abuja given the more reliable electricity that is readily supplemented with the steady hum of generators. That said, I won't let this turn into a one-woman show, so hopefully I'll see some more activity on here soon or I'll even withhold my contributions in protest. I'm sure that threat is stinging, so get to it. I hope all is well out in your respective worlds, and I look forward to hearing about them soon!

PS The wireless connection at this "cafe" is too slow for me to upload my photos, but hopefully I'll find a place to do that soon.

Monsoons, Mangoes and Markets

The day before I was flying into Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) parts of the city was flooded from three days of continuous rainfall. Despite the initial fears of whether I would be able to fly in, things have been pretty smooth since getting here and rains have been frequent enough to keep the temperatures down, without causing too much havoc! In the picture, monsoon clouds are gathering over the city. It had been a hot and sunny morning, so when it started raining, steam rose from the pavement as the water evaporated upon hitting the ground.

Monsoons have been making occasional appearances in my interviews in the marketplaces too, where people have cited the rains as reasons for price fluctuations rather than oil prices, etc. that the newspapers have focused on. So rain is good to think with right now...

In other news, mangoes are delicious as ever and I'm discovering that it takes a lot longer to transcribe interviews in Bengali than I had imagined.

I almost forgot.

Photos of the exodus...

Green and Blue Versions of the Same Person

Now that the internet has finally arrived to Casa Zotz...

The Rainforest? That sounds wet.
Due to a few tropical depressions/storms/hurricanes (one of which was ironically named Arthur), we cut our field season short after five solid days of rain, flooding roads, campsites, and even latrines (don't ask). However, for a first run at excavation and coordinating logistics, everything was largely successful.

!!BATTERY DEAD!!
My foray into surveying with total station was a mix of excitement, frustration, yelling, and an intense desire to destroy expensive optical equipment. I suppose that sounds more negative than positive, but I actually got into a rhythm that worked before the rains washed away my motivation. Here is what I saw 90% of the time for a few weeks:

To E or not to E
Other interesting things came up during our mapping and preliminary excavations. It seems that the site I'm working on is an excellent case study to examine the transition into the Classic Maya Period (ca. AD 250), especially looking at environmental and perhaps sociopolitical changes in the region. Here is a look at the team of excavators:


Although the site is not heavily looted, there are a few places where looters have uncovered some very well-preserved architecture.


Also, it looks as though a solar observational building complex (a.k.a. "E-Group") exists, possibly to observe the sun rise over a large seasonal swamp, visible in Google Earth and shown from ground level below.



And finally, we explored a very large platform complex, with evidence of water management, that merits further attention next season. It rises sharply from the edge of the swamp:


And contains some very well preserved architecture. My adviser noted that the buildings at the sight have a sort of "melted" quality that indicates a depth of time since its last use.


Baatz'.
Overall, it was a very positive first field season. Now we turn attention to preparing reports for the Guatemalan government and presentations for the Symposium of Archaeological Investigations of Guatemala at the end of the summer.

Saludos,

J. o. t. J.

Time for Methods not Theory!

Waiting for my flight to "the field." (Well actually, to Singapore from where I'll be heading to Bangalore and then finally to Calcutta sometime next week...) But still, exciting to finally be heading out rather than sitting around trying to write a final paper while mindlessly staring into space. Having said that I'm trying to shift gears from "theory" to "methods" and feeling overwhelmed... Fieldnotes? Interviews? Participant observation? What??? Oh dear.

Have Survived Jungle, Please Send Beers

Dear Cohort (and anyone else who maybe reads our blog, Hi Mom!):

Sorry for the long radio silence; things were so crazy at the start of our trip that we never saw internet again after leaving Providence and then, obviously, we were in the jungle for a long long time. But we´re back, now with extra bug bites!

We left camp this morning and spent several hours driving/stuck in mud up to the truck´s axels, but now we´re recuperating in the relative luxury of a hotel in the lovely island town of Flores, Guatemala. Showers have been taken, real food eaten, and a few cold beers have even been consumed. I might be a little guilty of tracking mud all over the otherwise clean floors.

We have some gooood jungle stories and retroactive blog posts saved up, but will probably have to keep saving them until we get ourselves organized and back to Guatemala City (sometime in the next couple of days, maybe). Mostly, I just wanted to let you all know that we survived and that our field season was successful. Here are some topics to look forward to in future posts:

-Bugs, bugs, and more bugs
-Other jungle animals
-James´s jungle beard
-The effects of hurricanes on archaeologists
-Stuff We Done Dug Up
-Etc.

I hope you all are doing well, wherever you may be—I miss you all greatly and look forward to many stories of you adventures!

Besos,
Caitlin and James

A Roof with a View

No great insights to share, but I thought I'd post a few photos from the rooftop patio at Braulio and Bacilica's house (where I'm staying). Unfortunately, these photos don't really do the Cordillera de los Andes justice...








El Alto homes are frequently a mix of adobe, brick and plaster...like my neighbors' home.

OMG, I’m “In the Field”

So this “studying-up” thing in D.C. is funny. I find myself sitting rather wide-eyed in some extraordinarily elegant sky-rise government building or multi-floor NGO headquarters. And then I realize, Good Lord, I need to be taking field notes! Not just shoving polished project reports (artfully on display!) in my bag. Not just furiously scribbling my “informant’s” every word.

Quick, note the construction of space (marble entryway, security-locked door or x-ray screening, gleaming hardwood floors in various hues, glossy enlarged photos of Latin American and Caribbean Program Officers peering over the shoulders of grant recipients…). Quick, note the natives’ dress (on the women, black pantsuits with funky, filmy blouses –and muted-gold knit tops seem to be in fashion this year…)...

And by the way, my field notes? Illegible. Seriously. I have to go sit on the curb after each interview and try to decipher my own handwriting before my memory gets too foggy. I have “re-writing field notes” sunburn. Soon to be matched by 14,000-feet-above-sea-level sunburn. Hooray!

-- Susanita

The scattering begins...

By now, James and Caitlin have pitched their tents in the jungle and are settling in. I don't expect that we'll hear from them for another month -- not until they have access to electricity/internet once again. In anticipation of the impending departures of the rest of our crew, I thought I'd post a few photos from our last pre-field evening together (courtesy of Sohini's camera).





I miss you people already.

My New Home

My tent arrived last week and, obviously, I had to practice setting it up in my parents' yard.





If I don't find a new apartment for the fall, maybe I'll just pitch this baby in the courtyard of the Anthro department...

Anyhow, I declare it jungle-worthy. May the tent gods bless me and maintain its waterproofing from May 12 to June 10.

-Caitlin

T Minus...Freakout

I think it's time for me to request a personal assistant fund from the department for my summer.

So. Much. To. Do.

Does anyone want to start playing the lottery daily to fund my fieldwork for the next three years?

Thanks,

Jimmy Boy

La la la MA proposal la...

So, obvi I should be working on my proposal, or any number of other assignments that are due within the next two weeks (ah!) but I keep accidentally looking at tents online? My mom visited this morning and brought some of my (super grimy) field stuff--boots, rain gear, pick/trowel, etc. It is exciting. Going to the field is exciting! Doing homework is not.

Also--who wants to be the first to be essentialized in one descriptive sentence for the "About Us" sidebar? Where are you going and what are you doing there? What other witty or otherwise pertinent information do you want us to know? Let me know, or I will start making things up!

Hope and Power

It's as if The Mad Peck created this postcard for Brown Anthropology. Our department is serendipitously (ironically? ominously?) located at the intersection of Hope and Power. Whether we study hope or power, friendship or benefit, Providence has meant that our anthropological investigations have a street named after it.