Local Energy Transfer Systems (LETS) are localized trade systems that occur outside the mainstream economy. They grow from communities seeking to meet their material needs in a truly equal market exchange based on labor-produced credits rather than money. LETS users trade local units of value for goods and labor/services. A LETS credit's value is determined by the community of people participating in the system. LETS systems will change and grow as the community of users grows - essentially it is a biomimicking economic system. Research on existing LETS has demonstrated that the system works alongside the mainstream economy and actually increases the value of the dollar. However, I am optimistic that LETS has the potential to serve as a bridge between 'islands of sustainability' in the future.
We are now trying to get a LETS rolling here in Birmingham. Zach and Robyn got the facebook page going and we all completed the first round of proselytizing - via 80 or so flyers - this morning at Pepper Place (trial by fire suits us all just fine). The response was pretty positive - people were actually reading the flyers as they headed for the sponsored drum circle!
The U.S. House Energy and Commerce committee has passed a bill stating that greenhouse gases are not pollutants and therefore cannot be regulated by the EPA... this is a huge step backwards in regards to climate change... the bill places the ethical decision in the hands of corporations whose priorities are profit rather than environmental safety... the bill also demonstrates that the majority of our Republican-controlled House of Reps have absolutely no understanding of the nature of anthropogenic climate change (see this also)... as the committee's "Roadmap for America's Energy Future" indicates, Republicans are pushing for more offshore drilling and the construction of nuclear power plants, even though the one year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy looms from the other end of Spring, and Japan is suffering the catastrophic effects of three leaking nuclear power plants and over 15,000 people are dead from the recent earthquake.
On a lighter note, Savage Minds discusses new initiatives to get anthropology information to students and the public, a link to a Kotaku post about a video game about poverty in which players must survive on $1,000/month, and a link to TAPS - an awesome example of what is possible when researchers collaborate online and perhaps a glimpse at the future of research... imagine... multidisciplinary teams working together from global locations via an online catch-all for data, publications, and info for the public and K-12 institutions. Middle Savagery features archival photos from the work and life of archaeologist Dorothy Garrod - the first female professor at Cambridge, and a nifty time lapse excavation video... another fantastic idea for communicating anthropology to the public.
Dr. Hastings posted a pie chart from the War Resisters League documenting how income tax money is spent in the U.S... depressing preview: 48% are used for military spending.
Alabama's own Arizona-style immigration bill, HB 56, has been filed and is now available for viewing on ALISON, the state legislature's online database. You can view the bill by searching HB 56 here.
There will be a public hearing on the bill this Wednesday, March 2 at 9:00am in the Alabama State House.
This Thursday, March 3, the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice will meet to go over the details of this bill and to lay out an action plan for advocating against the bill.
Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice Meeting
Thursday, March 3rd
5:30-7:30pm
Homewood Public Library
1721 Oxmoor Rd.
Birmingham, AL 35209
If you have questions or need talking points, more information, etc. please contact Zayne Smith or Shay Farley at Alabama Appleseed (334-263-0086) or Caitlin Sandley at ¡HICA! (205-942-5505).
The newly formed UAB chapter of ACCR is holding its second meeting this week. The ACCR is a group of citizens united in advocacy for a reformed state constitution. Our allegedly "sweet" home's constitution is thick and sticky with racist, outdated laws, including the foundations of a tax system that regressively and negatively impacts the poor and a stipulation that mandates that statewide votes be counted in order to change legislation. The student film "It's a Thick Book" demonstrates both the structural violence carried out against already marginalized populations because of our constitution and also the irrelevance of our constitution to the reality of our biologically and culturally diverse state. Watch the film for free here, or here with a free teaching guide. Details about the UAB ACCR meeting are below:
Hello everyone!
I hope you are all having a great Spring semester and enjoying this gracious weather. As you will read on the attached flier, we are having our first ACCR event of the semester this Thursday night at 7pm in HHB 106. This meeting is not only for UAB students, but for the surrounding community as well. We want these meetings to provide an open forum for discussion and encourage positive action within our city. Would you mind forwarding the event flier out to friends, students, faculty, staff, and anyone that you think would be interested in actively supporting our struggle for a new state constitution?
We will be viewing a short film, Open Secret, which I had the pleasure of viewing at the American Association of University Women conference this fall. Using the actual transcripts from the 1901 Constitutional Convention as the basis of script, the film very adequately illustrates the cultural, racial, and political biases that comprise the legislative foundation of our great state. We will also be discussing the next step in solidifying ACCR's presence on UAB's campus. Thank you for your support, and I hope to see you all there!
1. The next UAB AnthroClub meeting will be Tuesday, March 1 at 3:30pm in HHB 225. We will discuss the upcoming Earthweek festivities (post coming soon) and other plans for club activities this semester.
2. UAB events:
Should religious leaders be held to a higher moral standard?
The next Free Food for Thought meeting, to be held at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 23 in HUC 412, will focus on the moral standards of our religious leaders. Free Food for Thought is designed to promote the use of dialogue on a diversity of topics. With the variety of cultures, lifestyle, and personalities at UAB, learning from one another through discussion helps us understand the ideas, and opinions of others. In exchange for your opinion, we will provide free food.
Sister Souljah to present Black History Month lecture Feb. 24
Sister Souljah, author of The Coldest Winter Ever, will discuss the rise and decline of African-American leadership at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 24 in Volker Hall Lecture Room A. Free tickets are available. Information about this and other Black History Month events is available from the Office of Student Involvement at 934-8225.
Henry is going the distance for hunger
Six days and 150 miles later, through some of the coldest temperatures yet this winter, UAB employee and alumnus Joe Henry continues his run to Canada to raise awareness for Universities Fighting World Hunger. Learn how Henry prepared for this Hunger 500 journey and why this cause means so much to him in this week's BlazerCast at www.youtube.com/uabnews.
Ask questions and get answers from President Carol Garrison, Provost Eli Capilouto, deans, department chairs and administration from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 24 in Blazer Hall RLC.
The USGA and the Office of the Provost are starting a new program, Commons Chat. Beginning Feb. 28 — and continuing the fourth Monday of every month — there will be an informal lunch with Provost Eli Capilouto, Vice Provost Suzanne Austin and Vice Provost Harlan Sands at noon in the Commons side room.
3. Exciting news: a new Undergraduate Journal for student ethnographers - details below:
We are excited to announce the formation of a new online journal for research conducted by undergraduates. The Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography (JUE) seeks to distribute original student-produced work from a variety of disciplinary areas. Our goal is to bring readers, especially other undergraduates, insights into subcultures, rituals, and social institutions. We expect crossovers with anthropology, sociology, American studies, urban studies as well as programs in education and marketing.
The JUE encourages current undergraduates or those who have graduated within the past twelve months to submit original ethnographic manuscripts for consideration. Manuscripts may include research on any subject. We also encourage faculty to recommend promising student work.
Submissions are now welcomed. The deadline is April 15th, 2011. Please check out our website (undergraduateethnography.org) or our Facebook page for details.
4. Birmingham Archaeological Society Monthly Meeting info:
The next Birmingham Archaeological Society meeting will be held at McWane Science Center on Tuesday, March8th at 7PM.
The evening program will be led by Karen Utz, Curator - Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark and Adjunct History Professor, UAB.
Program topic:“Sloss Furnaces: The History of Birmingham's Iron Plantation"
Birmingham Archaeological Society monthly meetings are held on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at McWane Science Center and are always open to the public. Meeting attendees should park in the deck on "Level C" and enter the doors labeled "Special Events Center." The business meeting begins at 7:00 and is followed by the monthly program. Parking for attendees is free.
Last night the UAB Gay/Straight Student Alliance hosted a showing of the Groundspark film "Straightlaced: How Gender's Got Us All Tied Up" on campus. The film is an amalgam of Southern California high school students of diverse backgrounds, gender identities, and sexual orientations speaking to their experience with and perceptions of the concept of gender. The students consider gender as it is expressed in the media, as society or western culture instructs us to perform gender, and their own identities as they struggle with fitting in to the categories provided to us by our culture. The students' voices are the only bearer of information in this film - with the exception of the documentary's narrative structure derived from the editor's understanding of the interview content - and their articulate young voices are a welcome grabbag of fresh perspectives on a binary that our culture is only recently attempting to move beyond.
Until I saw the film, I was unaware of the label "genderqueer" and its definition. According to the biological female that identified herself as genderqueer in the film, the category encompasses individuals who do not identify as either male or female but rather a kind of third gender space. Genderqueer is not analogous to the sexual orientation of bisexual in the context of the homo-hetero spectrum of sexuality because it is not a combination of male and female gender roles; instead, genderqueer individuals consider themselves as neither male nor female, but something else entirely. This concept is difficult to grasp in a culture whose cognitive framework is so often founded on binary oppositions and language is equally dependent on these contrasts. Much anthropological research exists on gender as it is culturally mandated and performed in other parts of the world, and a glance at this information can sharpen our understanding of gender in our own culture.
Anthropology is useful because it is the attempted scientific study of humans. I emphasize the word attempted because the field's founders and practitioners - though they have certainly strived to proceed ethically - have for the most part failed to be both an objective voice on the reality of human existence and also an advocate for applying that knowledge to real world social and environmental justice problems; in other words, good anthropology is done with and for the people it studies, and it is my understanding that this is a relatively new idea in the discipline. Despite the mistakes of the past, it is because of the diligent research of all previous anthropologists that we have so much data on the diversity of the human experience.
Most anthropologists recognize that gender is a performance because culturally proscribed gender roles are not dependent on biology. In other words, the behavior and mental categories associated with gender roles are arbitrarily determined by culture, not governed by material differences in men and women. The fact that certain gender roles just happen to pertain to biological females and others to biological males is completely socially determined. For example, in traditional Fiji, the female gender role is associated with inshore marine fishing while all gardening activities are associated with men. This division of activities has nothing to do with the physical inability of Fijian women and men to carry out the gendered behavior of the opposite sex, but rather stems from 3,000 year old traditional cultural values. It is important to note that even though gender is considered a performance of cultural standards of behavior and categories of thought that govern that behavior, gender roles are often strident in a way that the term "performance" does not convey. Individuals who express gender in unique ways can be socially punished and in some cases are even considered "deviant" for violating their culture's gender rules.
Margaret Mead and her Samoan collaborators, dressed in traditional barkcloth skirts.
Early work done by Margaret Mead is considered to be the first research in Anthropology to challenge the idea that gender roles are biologically based. In her book Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies, Mead compares gender roles among“the gentle mountain-dwelling Arapesh, the fierce cannibalistic Mundugumor, and the graceful head-hunters of Tchambuli,” and finds that each society expresses female and male gender roles in a different way (1935). Most importantly, the genders and gendered behavior recognized by the societies she studied were different from - and in one case, quite the opposite of - genders and gender roles as they are expressed in American culture. Though this book has since received criticism because of Mead's tendency to generalize data to fit her theory and her sometimes romantic prose, it was nonetheless groundbreaking in its assertion that gender is not innate.
A slightly more recent work by Serena Nanda discusses the third gender class of the Hijras in India. In Neither Man nor Woman, Nanda explores the lives of Hijras, religious groups of men that dress and behave as women, but neither identify nor are identified as women or men (1999). Hijras perform a specific religious role in certain ceremonies in India (mostly weddings and births), and because of their status as individuals of a third gender, are believed to have the power to bless or curse ceremony attendants. However, also because of their status as individuals of a third gender, many Hijras must beg to survive.
18 year old Sonia in Armritsar, India
Photo Credit: Antonio Di Vico, Nazca Pictures
Another frequently cited work by Nanda on the anthropology of gender explores the lives and cultural roles of third genders in indigenous America. Titled "Multiple Genders among North American Indians," the essay discusses how early historical accounts of Native American gender variants referred to them as the Berdache, but that this term stems from the bias of historians because it is derived from the Arabic translation of the phrase "male prostitute." Early misunderstandings of third genders by white anthropologists who could not see beyond their own culture's values have tainted what little evidence we have on the origins and past expressions of these third genders, but studying with existing North American Indians that identify as these genders has improved this. Nanda notes that across American Indian societies, gender variants had these features in common: "transvestism, cross-gender occupation, same sex (but different gender) sexuality, some culturally normative and acknowledged process for recruitment to the role, special language and ritual roles, and associations with spiritual power" (2000:14). More information on Native American gender variants are available here. [shameful plug: Nanda's essay appears in this introduction to cultural anthropology reader].
"Two-Spirit" people of the Crow Indians.
Photo credit: AllyAction
While these are just a few examples of gender roles as they occur cross-culturally, they illustrate that just like sexuality, religion, and table manners, gender is not limited to just our culture's categories of expression, but is more like a spectrum of human diversity and possibility.
I recently read the fantastic book Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman's 2010 update to their 1993 book about members of our culture who bend America's gender rules into something new. Both volumes are composed of original contributions from untraditionally gendered individuals and provide insight to the struggles and triumphs faced by those that choose to create their own gender reality. Like the film "Straightlaced," these books - along with the emergence of Queer Theory as a social science and the increasing portrayal of untraditional genders in the media - demonstrate that the movement to go beyond a dual-gendered cultural system is well underway in America. I think an anthropological perspective remains as salient to our culture's understanding of gender today as it has been in the past and can only lend more context to this movement; I hope to use the perspective provided by the cross-cultural lens to ignite social change through my own activism, teaching, and research.
The glitter rainbow - an appropriate symbol for the gender spectrum?
Exciting news on the freedom of information front: we have launched a website where all of our digital copies of educational materials will be accessible. Everything from encyclopedias to documentaries to copies of lesson plans and class notes will be available on "dolphin ascendant." It will take a few months to get the hyperlinks working properly and a few more to increase our online storage capacity, but we do have a few things up already. Because of fair use laws, access to the site is limited to people who ask us for permission via email. I personally invision a future where access to information is not limited to those who have the money to afford internet access and educational materials. Unfortunately, this utopic notion is not reality, but perhaps "dolphin ascendant" can play a small part in getting us there. Just zoom an email to mydoglikeschz@gmail.com if you are interested in access.
This week UAB celebrates Community and Cultural Diversity with different activities on and off campus. International Bazaar to feature taste of the world
Art, jewelry, crafts and food from more than a dozen countries will be on display at UAB's 10th annual International Bazaar from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 26 in the Hill University Center Great Hall. The free, public event is part of the campus Community Week, a celebration of cultural diversity. Sterne Library to exhibit Tibetan art
The Mervyn H. Sterne Library hosts a photographic exhibition of featuring a wide variety of spectacular Buddhist art and vibrant aspects of traditional culture in the Tibetan regions of Asia. It includes images from many areas of the Tibetan-influenced cultural sphere, including Central Tibet, Bhutan, Darjeeling, Sikkim, Ladakh, and Tibetan communities in India at Dharmsala and Bodh Gaya. The show features some 20+ large-scale photographs on display on all three levels of Sterne Library through February. See matinees at LHL during for Community Week Lister Hill Library will be showing two movies that present different cultural perspectives during UAB Community Week at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 25 and Thursday, Jan. 27 in the Electronic Classroom. Call 975-HUB1 for more information. Foreign Film Series to present “Sunflower” The Foreign Film Series presents "Sunflower," a powerful, touching look at the compelling inner dynamics of one post-Cultural Revolution family in Beijing at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 25 in Hulsey Recital Hall. See their struggle over 30 years to adjust to each other as the fabric, politics and social mores of Chinese society change ever so rapidly. In Mandarin with English subtitles. Outcasts United coach to deliver public lecture Luma Mufleh, the inspirational coach and founder of the Fugees Soccer Team, comprising young refugees from war-torn nations, will speak at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 25 in the HUC Alumni Auditorium. Mufleh's experiences are told in the national bestseller Outcasts United, which is the 2010-11 campus Discussion Book. Mufleh will discuss the importance of community and teamwork in bringing about positive social change and the role of athletics in empowering historically oppressed groups and bringing together people from diverse backgrounds. Fox News commentator Juan Williams to speak during Community Week
American journalist and political commentator Juan Williams will deliver a free public lecture during Community Week, UAB's annual celebration of campus diversity, at 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 27 in the HUC Alumni Auditorium.
