Today I had one of the most powerful experiences of my life. I went to a small village in the Upper West Region of Ghana named Bakbamba to help conduct research on climate change and social-cultural adaptations to a changing environment. I have been doing this work for a few weeks now, beginning in coastal eastern Ghana and moving north. But what I experienced today was a life-changing experience. I will do my best to convey my feelings here, but no words would ever be ample to describe the emotion, compassion, and appreciation I felt in this community.
The Upper West Region of Ghana is the poorest region in the country. Outside of the regional capital, Wa, there is really nothing else but vast savanna covered with Shea and baobab trees. The people are primarily subsistence farmers and fishers. The farmers plant guinea corn, maize, yams, beans, bambara beans, millet, groundnuts, and some other crops. Fishers set traps and mobilize nets in the black Volta river. Women also gather Shea nuts and sell them to foreign buyers who process them into cosmetics and edibles. Over the past ten years, rainfall has become sporadic, inconsistent, unpredictable, and unreliable. In these Wala communities that have been surviving for centuries, people are beginning to give up and move out. They are suffering from climate change and often becoming climate change refugees.
In the course of doing interviews with rural farmers, fishers, and gatherers I heard many stories about failed crops, declining catches in fish, and even lack of fruit from Shea trees. Their story is a bleak one. Most crops fail and the only food Wala and Lobi people can depend on is maize, which takes three months to grow and can be opportunistically planted, and fish. Though they plant other crops, many of them are failing because rains are becoming increasingly unpredictable and deluges and floods more common. There is no source of potable water, so people in the village drink from stagnant, muddy ponds. There is no other option. Most of the people we were able to interview were only in their 30s and 40s – because that is about as old as they live. In this village of 300 people, 20 have already died this year. One particular woman I interviewed was 30 years old, but she looked like she was 60. Poor nutrition, hard work, and no access to clean water are taking their toll.
At the end of the day, the women in the town gathered in a circle and began a traditional dance. The women around the circle were clapping poly-rhythmically and singing with beautifully sculpted, angelic voices. I watched as, one by one, the women would enter the circle and do an energetic, stomping dance. At the end of the dance they would throw themselves into the surrounding circle and be caught by the other women. This went on for almost 45 minutes. I asked one of our local research assistants what they were singing and he explained that the dance was about a fighting couple, and they were saying that if the husband no longer loved the wife he should leave her. The women who were catching each other represented the community. “We should support each other,” a woman told me via translation. I sat down and watched the dance, how the women were moving around in passionate whirls, heaving themselves into the boundaries of the circle to be caught by other community members. In this poor village of hunger, desperation, and confusion about a changing environment they were finding the energy to remember and celebrate the perseverance of the human spirit. I began crying.
The lessons I learned I cannot put into words, but I will never be the same. Whatever life is about, it has something to do with a feeling beyond the person, beyond the individual. Though many people will never get to see such things, I feel it is important to tell this story. I don’t know, I just can’t put it into words and I never will be able to. Let’s just try to remember that we need each other.
Douglas Joseph La Rose
MA Applied Anthropology (SDSU, 2011)
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
A San Diego Cultural Narrative - By Conor Muirhead
By its very nature, the art of traveling removes tourists from their home culture and places them temporarily in a different cultural milieu, whether in an adjacent city or in a village halfway across the world.
- McKercher and du Cros, Cultural Tourism: The Partnership between Tourism and Cultural Heritage Management 2002
Over the course of my lifetime, I have been interested in travel and tourist activities. With our modern ability to span the globe in a matter of hours, the astounding rates of tourism and its importance to understanding both local and global processes have seemingly become intertwined with our pursuit of daily existence. For the city of San Diego, California, the Visitor Industry is the third largest revenue generator, following manufacturing and military. Because of the industry’s influence and significance to San Diego’s continuing urban development, it is essential to assess tourism’s impact on the spaces and people that serve to attract all of these visitors. Moreover, linkages between tourism, space, history, and commoditization are investigated across locations, but it is within a city setting that anthropologists have a unique opportunity to study the varied activities that shape a dense, multifaceted and peopled environment.
For this discussion, I would like to focus on a place in San Diego where I conducted my thesis research: Old Town San Diego State Historic Park (referred to as Old Town, OTSDSHP, and the Park). OTSDSHP is a historic urban public park that has developed over the years as a popular tourist destination in San Diego. It is a 12-acre California State Park situated in the heart of San Diego and averages over 5 million visitors annually. Old Town is advertised as the “birthplace of California” and is described as a living history site that uses human interpreters, as well as symbolic representations, to bring to life and teach about the past in our current present. The Park is dedicated to public education, but business operations – with pragmatic concerns of visitor attendance rates, stretching limited budgets, and upholding concessionaire guidelines – continue to muddle the effectiveness of education through history and entertainment. The Park’s “historical significance”, its Interpretive Period, encompasses three unique stages that include major, permanent transformations to Southern California’s landscape: the Mexican Period (1821 – 1846), the Transition Period (1846 – 1856), and the American Period (1856 – 1872), as well as displaying a tad bit of American Indian presence throughout the years. OTSDSHP hinges its continuing evolution as a contemporary tourist location, complete with “authentic” buildings, material culture, employee attire, performances, and cuisine, on this 50 year Interpretive Period.
OTSDSHP can be described as a dreamscape produced for visual consumption and is a place in which Park operators inscribe cultural narratives into Old Town’s built environment. These cultural narratives are played out through the Park’s structural layout, period attire clad employees, multiple commercial operations, as well as Park tours and themed special events held throughout the year. What makes OTSDSHP intriguing is that visitors continue to swarm through Old Town’s buildings, engaging with historical interpreters who tell stories about ourselves by talking about what we imagine the past to have been. San Diego history continues to breathe through present tourist activities, and is constructed by our present ideologies and beliefs about who we are today and who we were (or ideally should have been) in the past. This complex array of placed and misplaced histories, narratives, and personalities all coming together in a distinct location is really quite captivating.
Although OTSDSHP is a distinct location, the Park is representative of the city of San Diego, other living history sites across the nation, and urban public spaces abroad, as well as being tied to larger global processes of theming, commoditization, and tourism. This is because physical spaces, structures, and cultural constructions serve as metaphors for larger populations and environment. I also believe that the displayed themes at Old Town symbolize even more because of Old Town’s setting within the large urban area of San Diego. The exotic, fetishized elements are additionally highlighted because Old Town takes visitors away from surrounding busy city life and transports them not only in place, but also through time. Scholars write that many tourists traveling to living history sites are symbolically transported into actually believing that they are a part of an unspoiled and authentic community. Although spaces are obviously updated with functioning toilets, ATM machines, and electronic cash registers, Old Town makes the stage look authentic through buildings and activities of employees in period attire specific to the Old Town Interpretive Period.
As cultural consumers, visitors are attracted to places that portray particular themes and depictions of life. These places are influenced by cultural norms and trends, putting on display to the public modified and favorable versions of reality. The theming of Old Town’s space is not simply to make the place look respectable, but also to display a particular image that embodies something more than itself. It functions in a fluctuating consumer environment, playing off visitor desires and their willingness to accept the stories told through theming as real, meaningful, and authentic. In Old Town San Diego, important connections are made through the commoditization of San Diego history and by unifying ideas and symbols to create a joyful location to visit. Although the actual history can be important, it is not as significant as how history is reshaped and subsequently interpreted by the ephemeral visitors. Even though tourists have not experienced the 1800s westward expansion and settlement themselves, their participation at Old Town provides a sense of place and identity.
Tourism in Southern California has always had a dual nature. It has been part of the development of a physical infrastructure, while also combining goods, settlers, businessmen, and tourists with the exploration of land. Furthermore, close ties between place building and image building endure, creating a close link between the development and continual reinvention of Southern California’s physical landscapes and social environments. It is important to remember that Old Town is not necessarily creating an artificial fantasy (because the area does indeed have an actual history), but rather staging a version of it in the real past, as documented by experts and historians, with modern amenities to ensure visitor comfort and positive visitor experience. The Park plays off visitor desires in order to continue operations and produce an imagined, historical California landscape and social environment considered to be a multi-faceted form of education and recreation to all who visit.
-------------------------------
Originally published in Anthropologies, Issue 2: Anthropologies of Tourism
www.anthropologiesproject.org
- McKercher and du Cros, Cultural Tourism: The Partnership between Tourism and Cultural Heritage Management 2002
Over the course of my lifetime, I have been interested in travel and tourist activities. With our modern ability to span the globe in a matter of hours, the astounding rates of tourism and its importance to understanding both local and global processes have seemingly become intertwined with our pursuit of daily existence. For the city of San Diego, California, the Visitor Industry is the third largest revenue generator, following manufacturing and military. Because of the industry’s influence and significance to San Diego’s continuing urban development, it is essential to assess tourism’s impact on the spaces and people that serve to attract all of these visitors. Moreover, linkages between tourism, space, history, and commoditization are investigated across locations, but it is within a city setting that anthropologists have a unique opportunity to study the varied activities that shape a dense, multifaceted and peopled environment.
For this discussion, I would like to focus on a place in San Diego where I conducted my thesis research: Old Town San Diego State Historic Park (referred to as Old Town, OTSDSHP, and the Park). OTSDSHP is a historic urban public park that has developed over the years as a popular tourist destination in San Diego. It is a 12-acre California State Park situated in the heart of San Diego and averages over 5 million visitors annually. Old Town is advertised as the “birthplace of California” and is described as a living history site that uses human interpreters, as well as symbolic representations, to bring to life and teach about the past in our current present. The Park is dedicated to public education, but business operations – with pragmatic concerns of visitor attendance rates, stretching limited budgets, and upholding concessionaire guidelines – continue to muddle the effectiveness of education through history and entertainment. The Park’s “historical significance”, its Interpretive Period, encompasses three unique stages that include major, permanent transformations to Southern California’s landscape: the Mexican Period (1821 – 1846), the Transition Period (1846 – 1856), and the American Period (1856 – 1872), as well as displaying a tad bit of American Indian presence throughout the years. OTSDSHP hinges its continuing evolution as a contemporary tourist location, complete with “authentic” buildings, material culture, employee attire, performances, and cuisine, on this 50 year Interpretive Period.
OTSDSHP can be described as a dreamscape produced for visual consumption and is a place in which Park operators inscribe cultural narratives into Old Town’s built environment. These cultural narratives are played out through the Park’s structural layout, period attire clad employees, multiple commercial operations, as well as Park tours and themed special events held throughout the year. What makes OTSDSHP intriguing is that visitors continue to swarm through Old Town’s buildings, engaging with historical interpreters who tell stories about ourselves by talking about what we imagine the past to have been. San Diego history continues to breathe through present tourist activities, and is constructed by our present ideologies and beliefs about who we are today and who we were (or ideally should have been) in the past. This complex array of placed and misplaced histories, narratives, and personalities all coming together in a distinct location is really quite captivating.
Although OTSDSHP is a distinct location, the Park is representative of the city of San Diego, other living history sites across the nation, and urban public spaces abroad, as well as being tied to larger global processes of theming, commoditization, and tourism. This is because physical spaces, structures, and cultural constructions serve as metaphors for larger populations and environment. I also believe that the displayed themes at Old Town symbolize even more because of Old Town’s setting within the large urban area of San Diego. The exotic, fetishized elements are additionally highlighted because Old Town takes visitors away from surrounding busy city life and transports them not only in place, but also through time. Scholars write that many tourists traveling to living history sites are symbolically transported into actually believing that they are a part of an unspoiled and authentic community. Although spaces are obviously updated with functioning toilets, ATM machines, and electronic cash registers, Old Town makes the stage look authentic through buildings and activities of employees in period attire specific to the Old Town Interpretive Period.
As cultural consumers, visitors are attracted to places that portray particular themes and depictions of life. These places are influenced by cultural norms and trends, putting on display to the public modified and favorable versions of reality. The theming of Old Town’s space is not simply to make the place look respectable, but also to display a particular image that embodies something more than itself. It functions in a fluctuating consumer environment, playing off visitor desires and their willingness to accept the stories told through theming as real, meaningful, and authentic. In Old Town San Diego, important connections are made through the commoditization of San Diego history and by unifying ideas and symbols to create a joyful location to visit. Although the actual history can be important, it is not as significant as how history is reshaped and subsequently interpreted by the ephemeral visitors. Even though tourists have not experienced the 1800s westward expansion and settlement themselves, their participation at Old Town provides a sense of place and identity.
Tourism in Southern California has always had a dual nature. It has been part of the development of a physical infrastructure, while also combining goods, settlers, businessmen, and tourists with the exploration of land. Furthermore, close ties between place building and image building endure, creating a close link between the development and continual reinvention of Southern California’s physical landscapes and social environments. It is important to remember that Old Town is not necessarily creating an artificial fantasy (because the area does indeed have an actual history), but rather staging a version of it in the real past, as documented by experts and historians, with modern amenities to ensure visitor comfort and positive visitor experience. The Park plays off visitor desires in order to continue operations and produce an imagined, historical California landscape and social environment considered to be a multi-faceted form of education and recreation to all who visit.
-------------------------------
Originally published in Anthropologies, Issue 2: Anthropologies of Tourism
www.anthropologiesproject.org
Friday, March 25, 2011
Why no looting in post-tsunami Japan? - By Barbara Quimby
The catastrophic, heartbreaking events in Japan over the past week have been painful to watch from our side of the Pacific, but a few scenes of cooperation, patience, and kindness have also brought out some interesting questions about how communities react to disaster. The popular press has tried to explain the Japanese reaction with stereotypes of cultural virtues or the power of the state. Really?
While food, fuel, and even water are becoming scarce in areas near the tsunami and earthquake effected areas in northern Japan, there are no reports of looting-- I even heard a report on NPR describe how vending machines remained full of bottled water while men cleaned oil barrels to use for boiling drinking water. Women with children do not push ahead at the grocery store, but patiently wait hours for their turn. The press contrasts this with other scenes of violence, looting, and chaos after the earthquake struck Haiti and hurricane Katrina swept across the Southern US.
So what makes the Japanese reaction so different? Is it social, political-- or is it about our perceptions and expectations?
The press has remarked on the admirable virtues of Japanese society, their honesty, discipline, and ability to put the needs of the group above the individual. A Slate article critiques some of these claims, pointing out that this assumes homogeneity and is even a bit racist, as it seems to suggest that those who loot (earthquake stricken people in Haiti, for example) are not as ‘civilized’. I appreciated this observation, but I did not accept their counter-argument: state control.
The article suggests that laws and policing account for Japan’s honesty; yet, in the rural communities of the north, physically peripheral to the nation’s urban heart, is state power really the reason? Is this the nation-state failing in some crises (Katrina), yet staying strong in Japan? Perhaps a history which includes rebuilding after World War II and other factors have contributed to a common identity, and shared practices and morals; yet why are these processes so resilient in a moment of crisis...or are they?
Interestingly, Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, published just after World War II, dealt with (and may be responsible for inspiring) some essentialized perceptions about Japanese society as a homogenous, rule-following, group-oriented culture. Benedict may have over-emphasized group cooperation and selflessness in Japanese society, but her observations of what made the “patterns of Japanese culture” different from American society were perhaps most revealing about how we perceive our own values. We are struck by acts of cooperation and self-sacrifice; yet if a similar scene played out in rural America, we would attribute it to core small-town values. So is Japanese solidarity a sign of a cohesive nation-community? Or does it indicate a less individualistic social value than the generalized American world view? Or are these just simplistic ways of understanding a reaction to crisis?
While I cannot offer any quick and easy explanations, I am still inspired by how tragedy reminds us of our common humanity. It’s interesting to ask how are we different, but it is more worthwhile to ask, how can I help?
-------------------------------
If you are interested in making a donation to support Japan, please consider the charities listed here.
Help donate to the cause with Japan relief effort T-shirts.
While food, fuel, and even water are becoming scarce in areas near the tsunami and earthquake effected areas in northern Japan, there are no reports of looting-- I even heard a report on NPR describe how vending machines remained full of bottled water while men cleaned oil barrels to use for boiling drinking water. Women with children do not push ahead at the grocery store, but patiently wait hours for their turn. The press contrasts this with other scenes of violence, looting, and chaos after the earthquake struck Haiti and hurricane Katrina swept across the Southern US.
So what makes the Japanese reaction so different? Is it social, political-- or is it about our perceptions and expectations?
The press has remarked on the admirable virtues of Japanese society, their honesty, discipline, and ability to put the needs of the group above the individual. A Slate article critiques some of these claims, pointing out that this assumes homogeneity and is even a bit racist, as it seems to suggest that those who loot (earthquake stricken people in Haiti, for example) are not as ‘civilized’. I appreciated this observation, but I did not accept their counter-argument: state control.
The article suggests that laws and policing account for Japan’s honesty; yet, in the rural communities of the north, physically peripheral to the nation’s urban heart, is state power really the reason? Is this the nation-state failing in some crises (Katrina), yet staying strong in Japan? Perhaps a history which includes rebuilding after World War II and other factors have contributed to a common identity, and shared practices and morals; yet why are these processes so resilient in a moment of crisis...or are they?
Interestingly, Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, published just after World War II, dealt with (and may be responsible for inspiring) some essentialized perceptions about Japanese society as a homogenous, rule-following, group-oriented culture. Benedict may have over-emphasized group cooperation and selflessness in Japanese society, but her observations of what made the “patterns of Japanese culture” different from American society were perhaps most revealing about how we perceive our own values. We are struck by acts of cooperation and self-sacrifice; yet if a similar scene played out in rural America, we would attribute it to core small-town values. So is Japanese solidarity a sign of a cohesive nation-community? Or does it indicate a less individualistic social value than the generalized American world view? Or are these just simplistic ways of understanding a reaction to crisis?
While I cannot offer any quick and easy explanations, I am still inspired by how tragedy reminds us of our common humanity. It’s interesting to ask how are we different, but it is more worthwhile to ask, how can I help?
-------------------------------
If you are interested in making a donation to support Japan, please consider the charities listed here.
Help donate to the cause with Japan relief effort T-shirts.
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