Introduction

Status is the posturing we do in order to be a member of a desirable group. Status in turn has implications for how valued resources such as money, prestige, power, and honor are distributed. In an ideal world, labor economists tell us that the more productive labor is, the more money, prestige, power, and honor will be acquired via the blind mechanisms of a marketplace that knows only productivity. But this ideology belies what many of us intuitively know. Status is not only dependent on productivity, but is obtained through who you associate with. These associations may be through family connections, club memberships, school networks, fraternity membership, or what college you attend. None of these connections are blindly entered into, irrespective of their utility in the marketplace.

Universities are at the intersection of this status paradox, between a market which sees only productivity, and a social world tuned into status distinctions based on relationships. As labor economists (and university administrators) assure us, what is learned at the university makes labor more productive in the marketplace. But, this is not the whole story. Because, universities are not only about the acquisition of skills valued in the marketplace. Attendance at a particular university is as a status marker determining how money, prestige, power, and honor are distributed irrespective of what skills an individual acquires. Were this not the case, no university administrator, parent, high school student, college counselor, or anyone else would pay any attention to the college status rankings published by US News and World Report. And for this reason, it is interesting to think of what implications this annual ritual has on how we inside America’s colleges and universities view each other. For example, people teaching and learning at dominant universities like UC Berkeley view their privileges and advantages as being the just reward in a blind competition in which their true honor is recognized. Those of us who teach at lower-ranked universities (in my case Chico State) disagree. We think our own honor is unjustly hidden.

Why Chico State Is Better than UC Berkeley: A Brief Rant
I will be blunt. When it comes to undergraduate education I think Chico State does a better job than UC Berkeley. Berkeley’s classroom teachers or what they call “discussion leaders” are often inexperienced graduate students, and not the big name (and well-paid) research professors who may be famous, but often are poor undergraduate teachers. Berkeley also asks less class attendance of students. For example, Berkeley’s Introductory Sociology course in Spring 2007 had 286 students who were lectured to for two hours per week, and a smaller graduate student-led discussion section which was one hour per week. Students received four hours credit for these three hours of instruction In contrast, Chico’s Introductory Sociology classes were three hours per week of lecture with 40 students, and Chico students received only three hours credit for this. As for Berkeley’s undergraduate students, they themselves are among the smartest and hardest working high school students in California. And, at the end of four years at (continued on Page 2)

Ah, the days go by and even I cool down. While I am very critical of the wording the Executive Board chose for its statement on the HTS, I am not sure I would have wanted to be on the “AAA Ad Hoc Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology With the US Security and Intelligence Community”. They were in what has to be a lose-lose position. No matter what they said, some large group of people were going to be really ticked off. So, let me precede my high-end rant by saying that I recognize that the Ad Hoc Commission was given a job that assured maximum heat.

The Human Terrain System is a highly controversial topic within the anthropology community. I understand that, and it is something that deserves a lively, vigorous and reasoned debate. Unfortunately the reasoned part is an element that seems sadly lacking. The statement issued by the AAA board reflects this. The second paragraph starts with these disturbing sentences:

“The Commission’s work did not include systematic study of the HTS project. The Executive Board of the Association has, however, concluded that the HTS project raises sufficiently troubling and urgent ethical issues to warrant a statement from the Executive Board at this time.”

In a larger frame, it shows how the governing body of the AAA is moving the discipline farther away from anything resembling a science and to more of an ideology. How can any organization that purports to represent a scientific discipline issue a statement that says they have not actually studied the group that is the topic of the controversy to start with? I know that all of the people on the Executive Board are anthropologists of some stripe. How serious can someone take such a statement when its board openly admits they have not completed the basic research? Did they even talk to anyone connected to the HTS?

The HTS is not a covert activity. It’s widely written about; there are at least two anthropologists in Iraq that blog about their work. In short, contacting them and or the even the creators of the program is pretty easy.

Are there problems with the program? Of course. But to issue a statement apparently without actually going to the source material or speaking with those actually involved (how I am interpreting what is meant by no systematic study) does not build credibility for the EB’s position.

I went to a workshop Friday in which anthropological involvement with the German military in Afghanistan was described. The German army is participating in the NATO operation in northern Afghanistan, which is in one of the more peaceful areas of that country. An ethnologist, Dr. Monika Lanik reported on the difficulties in developing inter-cultural competence in the context of deployments. Ethnographic competence is considered important because the German military is taking on a new international character as a result of peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan, and the former Yugoslavia. Dr. Lanik pointed out that this is as much a diplomatic function as a military one. As a result, this new type of military operation requires diplomatic skills which in turn implies ethnography.

In the case of Afghanistan, German military have provincial reconstruction teams. This context requires soldiers to be aware of patronage relationship, the context of the drug trade, and modern versus traditional values. Dr. Lanik noted that awareness of such “deep play” goes well beyond the simpler tasks involving the recognition of ethnic symbols, or actions likely to accidentally give offense. Rather it reflects a need to focus on the deeper context that culture provides for not only a peacekeeping, but economic development.

The ethnographic training of German military personnel asks them to recognize the context that their own culture provides in what they are trying to accomplish. As in any military, both military and national culture is inter-twined and taken for granted by the soldiers. In such a context, a job for the ethnographer is to ask soldiers what part of their world view is a consequence of their military training, what part is a result of German culture, what emerges out of their personal biography, and finally what is brought by the local culture? As in any culture, there are naïve assumptions that home culture is universal, and can be imputed to the people with whom they will negotiate. The job of the ethnologist is much the same as it is with any institution—train and teach for inter-cultural competence.

There is controversy associated with the German mission in Afghanistan. The German mission in Afghanistan is itself politically controversial in a country which sees its military as strictly for domestic defensive purposes. How long the German forces should stay in Afghanistan is an on-going political question raised frequently in the German Parliament.

Some German anthropologists also raise the issue of whether anthropologists should be involved with the military at all, even though the German military is focused strictly on defensive purposes. As in the United States, it is framed as a question of professional ethics—and the question is asked whether providing ethnographic advice is appropriate at all.

So now that Halloween is over, and a good time was had by my family, I can muse aloud (or ablog) about the slow creep of Halloween from a good time for kids, to a mandatory RAGING PARTY for the adults, and how that plays out in Homeowner Associations, and other community organizations.

This is the first time in my life I’ve ever lived within the influence of an HOA, and I have to say, it’s quite a learning experience. We picked where we are living at least in part because we perceived our future (and present) HOA to be a relatively casual one, lenient about yard art, not concerned about what you put in your back yard (like, laundry to dry), etc. I was not expecting a rescheduling of a major holiday.

But Halloween was “scheduled” for the Saturday before Oct 31st this year. Just in my neighborhood. Two streets over? Oct 31st. The swanky neighborhood known for sending evil letters about dandelions in neighbors yards? Oct 31st. My neighborhood? There they are, scheduling festival. And so all of my Anthro Buttons were pushed.

It’s one thing (I said to the HOA) to have extra! fun! things for Halloween. It’s another to get all fascist about it (um, I may feel strongly about this) and dictate (ha) when your neighbors can go trick-or-treating. Be laissez-faire (I encouraged)! This is not your job (I coaxed)!

Of course, I was speaking about future years, because this year was a done deal. And next year, Halloween falls on Friday. But the next time Halloween is not on a weekend, things are sure to be in dispute again.

The argument for Halloween on the Weekend appears to be three-pronged: 1) it’s too hard to deal with sugared-up kids on a weekday, when they have to go to school the next morning, 2) the adults don’t get to tie one on on Halloween night if they have to go to work the next day, and 3) local churches have activities on Halloween night (Oct 31st).

The perception appears to be that the neighborhood should make a blanket policy, and schedule the holiday so that it is more convenient (for some). But (straightening my now-askew anthropology hat) festival is time-out-of-time. Festivals are organic (high-frutcose corn syrup in the candy notwithstanding) expressions of community, they are collective and grass-roots. Top-down meddling with festival creates (as it has in my neighborhood) factions (Weekend Halloween vs. Leave it Alone and Make Your Own Choices, Already).

So what should an anthropologist counsel these neighbors? This anthropologist counseled non-intervention. In a letter I sent to my HOA board, I said:

“The HOA should, above all, do no harm. Leaving Halloween alone, but providing ways that we as a community can do extra celebrations (as neighborhoods all over our city, and indeed the U.S. do) on those years when Halloween is not a weekend-day, seems to be the way to go. It doesn’t take anything away from anyone. It provides for our neighborhood to remain connected to surrounding communities (who are also celebrating Halloween), while also allowing for extra fun, for those who want it. Having Halloween block parties, parades, or cookouts on the weekend days would never be precluded. But moving trick or treating around does leave people out. It did last year, and it did this year.

That’s just not very neighborly.”