Anthropology News May 2003 SECTION NEWS

National Association of Student Apthropologists TARA HEEFERAN, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

My Excursion to the Nepalese Village of Bhorle

By Sarah Valm’o (U of Illinois at Chicago) When I used to watch TLC and Discovery Chan- nel specials about indigenous cultures subsisting on agriculture and living in houses built of earth and tin, I almost found it difficult to believe places like that still existed. For me, living with- out amenities like electricity, hot water and plumbing never went beyond weekend camping with some friends. Even as an aspiring cultural anthropologist, I never fathomed I would have an opportunity as an undergraduate to live in Nepal, a place that contrasts sharply with my experience of the US. I got the chance, however, when I volunteered for the Rural Community Development Program to assist in building a school for children. I could write endlessly about my fond memories of Nepal, and I find it a true honor to share parts of my experience here. I think others should learn about what a phenom- enal place it is, so unique in culture from other Southeast Asian areas. I hope readers will get just a taste of how blessed I felt to have gone there.

No term other than “culture shock” would describe my immediate emotions after landing in Katmandu. I was picked up at the airport by a rep- resentative from the volunteer group and taken to a five-dollar-a-night hotel called Mount Holiday. I sat looking out the cramped backseat window while cows, people, dogs and chickens paraded the unmarked streets and hundreds of barely running cars maneuvered around them. My eyes could not focus on one person or place before something even more intriguing and novel appeared. In my first hour wandering the streets, I had dodged several pieces of garbage thrown from high-rise windows and almost had vomited at the sight of raw meat covered with flies being sold on the street. For the first time in my life I can say I felt like an outsider. I felt a loss of control as people stared at me, making me feel like a lost child seeking guidance.

My volunteer work was done in a Buddhist vil- lage named Bhorle, nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas. Throughout my stay, my emotions were frequently overwhelming, sometimes inde- scribable and always exhilarating. I felt as though I had reverted to a child-like state where every- thing around me was new, something I had never seen. But, experiences like going to the bathroom in a hole in the ground, taking a 10 minute mountainous hike to bathe in a fresh, cool stream and tasting goat during a ritualistic gath- ering made me see many aspects of my life dif- ferently.

One of my fondest memories was being a guest at a festival where men from a nearby village were treated like kings as women served them

food and alcohol for two days straight. Eligible daughters danced for hours and if marriage agree- ments were negotiated, they would leave their family and move to their new husbands’ homes. Those two days captivated me with live music, chanting and a sense of community. I began to ponder how different my life would be if I never had worn a watch and instead gone to bed with the sun, or never had to phone my relatives because they all lived beside me. I had a few sleepless nights as I struggled to grasp how stressed, time oriented and materialistic my life in America appeared compared to daily life in Bhorle, which seemed more tranquil and at ease, though not necessarily less complex.

From this experience, I learned what I am sure many people do when they live in the Third World-material things are not half as important as many think. I honestly thank God everyday that I have all the bare necessities and had a chance to see how daily life is carried out without a W, computer, phone, electricity and even run- ning water. Recognition of this diversity in living patterns fuels my ambition to study sociocultural anthropology now more than ever. My experi- ence in Bhorle was so beautiful; I encourage everyone-and particularly undergraduates-to spend some time in a culture with traditions not their own; it will help them know if they would want to do long-term fieldwork in a place like Nepal, but more importantly, it will make them an enriched. better individual.

Interested in contribiiting to NASA’s Section News? Contact Tara Hefferan at heffera2Ctnai.edu.

Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges LLOYD MILLER, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Five-Fields Lineup SACC‘s Annual Current Issues in Anthropology: Five- Fiela3 Update Symposium at the AAA Annual Meeting in Chicago this fall will feature Cynthia Clarke (Everett CC), human biology; Karl Heider (U of South Carolina), cultural; Chap Kusimba (Field Museum, Chicago), archaeology; James Stanlaw (U of North Illinois), linguistics; and Amy Wolfe (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), a p plied.

And After the War? As I write this, we are on the verge of going to war with Iraq. I cannot find anyone who admits to wanting to go to war. Everyone I talk to, every- thing I read or see on TV supports one of three positions: 1) We must disarm Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein with or without UN support (Resident Bush’s assertion); 2) We must not pre- emptively attack Iraq without backing from the UN Security Council; or 3) We must not preemp tively attack Iraq at all because it is not an immi- nent threat to the US.

Surrounding the discussions of war are condi- tions that would have seemed unimaginable prior to Bush’s inauguration. In less than three years, the US has moved from a budget surplus of billions to a deficit of billions. Over 300,000 US jobs have been lost. Over a trillion dollars in investments have disappeared and the market continues to decline. Our country’s health sys- tem is in crisis; our social security fund surplus is predicted to disappear in 17 years. Both produc- tion and consumption are down, yet the Presi- dent insists on permanent tax cuts. North Korea openly challenges us with nuclear weapon-mak- ing capabilities. The expressed opinion of most of the world, including many of our time-honored European allies, is opposition to our foreign poli- cy. Increasing numbers of Americans from all walks of life are voicing opposition to war.

What is it about American culture that has allowed us to arrive at and seemingly accept our current situation? In his book, Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There (2000), David Brooks describes the kinds of peo- ple who occupy positions of power and intluence in our society today. “Bobos” (Bourgeois Bohe- mians) is the term Brooks coins for America’s contemporary upper and upper middle class establishment.

According to Brooks, Bobo politics combine the 1960s bohemian value of individualism with the 1980s bourgeois value ot control to produce a style that Brooks calls “intimate authority.” Skeptical of large-scale national movements (like the War on Poverty), Bobos prefer to act locally “where communication can be face-to-face and where debate tends to be less ideological.“ They are into creating local communities and refur- bishing traditional urban neighborhoods. They combine long hours of work and strenuous play with life-long commitments to personal growth and self-actualization. “They think of establish- ing moral relationships with those close to them but do not worry about formal moral rules for all mankind.. . . They have an ability not to react; to accept what doesn’t directly concern them.” They also tend to avoid confrontation.

Blessed with education, status, wealth and comfort (note that the book was published at the height of the dot.com economic bubble and before the 9/11 tragedy), Bobo self-interest has become self-absorption, “detached from larger national and universal ideals.” Brooks believes Bobos are a young elite still in the making, with much potential but lacking a commitment to national service-”They are largely irnscarred by economic depression and war” (italics added).

In short, we have become self-satisfied and complacent with our wealth and comfort, smug and arrogant that our military power will get us whatever we want. We cannot imagine the US engaging in the endless and detailed process of diplomacy alongside the rest of the world’s nations. We have become accepting; we refrain from asking the hard questions of our elected leaders and we do not demand that they ask them. We do not show outrage at what is about to happen. We believe naively that killing Iraqi

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SECTION NEWS May 2003 Anthropology News

citizens and American soldiers will lessen threats of terrorism against us. We accept uncritically the contradictions between cutting taxes and build- ing bigger bombs, between choosing to deal diplomatically with North Korea and refusing to talk with them directly. We scoff at world opinion and respond by decommissioning the “French” in fries.

How will the Bobos, and Americans in general, handle the scars of economic depression and war? How will we react when the national deficit exceeds our capacity to imagine it, or when the child asks why the emperor has no clothes?

Send contributions and communications to Lloyd Miller at lloyd.miller@mchsi.com.

Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness CONSTANTINE HRISKOS, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

What are the Parameters of a Science of Consciousness: Part II

Fundamental Properties of Consciousness: An Interdisciplinary Epistemological Approach

By Michael Winkelman (Arizona State U) The diverse definitions, types, meanings and models that characterize consciousness have resulted in the lack of a unifying paradigm. The commonalities underlying diverse conceptualiza- tions of consciousness are illustrated through lin- guistic, epistemological and neurophenomeno- logical perspectives that reveal consciousness to be concerned with different forms of knowing these uncover the underlying communality to the different types of consciousness.

Linguistic analyses illustrate that consciousness has a wide range of meanings: conditions of being awake and having awareness; feelings and thoughts; self-awareness; internal knowledge and conviction; communal knowledge and sodal awareness; conscience; the ability to know and learn; skills and capacities; and the ability to teach and share knowledge and understanding. An etymological approach identifies common characteristics of consciousness by showing the different meanings to be all concerned with forms of knowing. Consciousness is a self-refer- enced informational relationship of an organism with something known. Consciousness ranges from biologically based interaction potentials for processing information, and learning through special forms of social awareness produced in relationships with others (eg, conscience).

The etymological analysis illustrates that con- sciousness is concerned with the nature of know- ing, pointing to the necessity of an epistemolog- ical approach in the study of consciousness. Epis- temology is concerned with the nature of know-

ing and the processes that produce knowing. Epistemology indicates that consciousness is pro- duced by systems of relations and structures mediating interaction between knower and known. Human consciousness and knowing encompass a broad spectrum of capabilities based on the interaction of biological capacities and symbolic representations created through learn- ing. This illustrates the necessity of integrating sci-

ence’s biological findings regarding knowing with the epistemological assessments regarding evidence, justification and explanation. This epis- temological assessmentaf consciousness suggests different approaches to consciousness apparently conflict because of different levels of analysis and explanation and the partiality of their considera- tions. A central problem is the general failure of consciousness researchers to be explicit about their epistemology, concerns with the nature of

Consciousness involves epistemological pro- cesses produced within a system in which rela- tionships between the knower and that which is known are mediated by assumptions, selfquali- ties, the environment and information. The sys- temic relationships that produce consciousness and knowing involve interactions among a range of components includmg awareness, self-refer- ence, emotions, memory, assessment, meaning and goals. Different forms of consciousness can be characterized in terms of different forms of awareness, self-reference, etc. Differences in t h s ries of consciousness may be reconciled in a glob- al framework that characterizes consciousness in terms of common structural elements and processes that take varying forms.

This approach is illustrated in contemporary theories of consciousness that characterize it as being produced by the interacting components of a system. Their common elements suggest the fundamental primitives and structures of systems that produce consciousness include:

0 attention/awareness, a self-referenced informa-

0 phenomenal sensory and bodily experiences; 0 forms of self reference;

action/behavior, includmg internal representa- tions (mind), storage of information (learning) and motor activity;

0 use of information to assess situation/environ- ment, an evaluation or judgment; assessment of multiple inputs for interpreta- tion of information (meaning); initiation of goal directed behavior (intention- al action); and

0 systems of social relations which provide refer- ence for goals, meaning, motivation and self.

Systems that produce consciousness have their foundation in the physical properties of the brain and the development of its characteristics, func- tions and features in interaction with the social environment. Delineating which of these system components are necessary features of conscious- ness may be approached by cross-cultural and interdisciplinary methodologies. Necessary fea-

knowing.

tional capacity;

tures of consciousness reflecting bio- logical principles may be revealed by universal representations in language primitives. Analysis of the linguistic roots of the components of systems that produce consciousness reveal their interrelated origins. These approaches are complemented by a bio- genetic structuralist approach, reflecting the prin- ciples of genetic epistemology, and seeking expla- nations of the evolution of consciousness in cross-culturql and interdisciplinary data on the interaction of biological and social systems. Both linguistic and neurophenomenological approach- es reveal the intrinsic nature of consciousness in human universals and homologies between biol- ogy and culture.

The application of this linguistic and neuro- phenomenological approach to the study of con- sciousness is illustrated in Winkelman’s (2000) analysis of shamanism. This approach reveals the cross-cultural distribution of shamanism and the direct relationships of shamanic universals to brain structures and processes. These findings suggest shamanism constitutes a paradigm for articulation of the nature of consciousness and can be used to understand the evolution of hu- man consciousness and cognition.

Send contributim to this column to Constantine Hriskos at c-hriskos@yahoo.com.

Society for the Anthropology of Europe LYNN MANERS AND KATE DONAHUE, CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

SAE Roundtables As an encouragement to SAE members to attend our luncheon roundtables, and as a way of hav- ing some record of what was discussed at them, we asked someone at each of the roundtables held during the Annual Meeting in New Orleans to provide a brief commentary/review of the presentation and discussion at that table for this column. We will be printing them in future columns, as space permits. This contribution comes from Sascha Goluboff.

Alternative European Modernities Carol Silverman (U of Oregon) organized a roundtable on “Alterative European Modemi- ties.” In attendance were Sascha Goluboff (Wash- ington and Lee U), Jennifer Cash (Indiana LJ) and Margaret Steiner (Indiana U). Carol began by telling us that she wanted to problematize the notions of “alternative“ and “identities,” espe- cially in reference to a new work by Aiwah Ong that discusses how alternative realities can be found locally. In other words, globalization and the media are not the only sources for new ideas. Carol is working with this concept in her own research on Balkan and Roma music and culture in Bulgaria and Macedonia. The participants then decided to problematize the category of Europe as

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