Cultural Questions – Page 2

Battle Ritual Among the Nacirema

Posted on July 7, 2016August 6, 2016 by Tony Waters

By Guest Writer Finn Johansson

Battle ritual among the Nacirema

In anthropological and ethnological research, scientists face new cultural specialties every day. Yet there are some rites, so deeply inherited by the practicing community, that ritual behavior might astonish even the most experienced researchers. Accessing those abnormalities from an empirical point of view in order to simplify cross-cultural communication is one of the main tasks of the rite-specified anthropologist. In order to do so, he often has to overcome his own fears and preserve his open-mindedness, even if every civilized muscle of his body wants to escape a situation so far away from what he is used to.…

We’ve Always Done It This Way

Posted on February 1, 2016February 2, 2016 by Julie Garza-Withers

I wrote the post below during my last semester as an adjunct instructor at a rural community college. I resurrect it here because Warren Waren over at Racism Review just published “Institutional Racism: Comparing Oscar Nominations with Higher Education Faculty.” It’s a must-read, especially for anti-racist White academics serving on hiring committees, as faculty and EEO representatives at PWIs (Predominantly White Institutions). Inspired by the recent hashtag campaigns #OscarsSoWhite and #OscarsStillSoWhite, Waren draws deft comparison between the Oscars academy (94% white) and academe (“15% of the enrolled student population at America’s colleges, but only 5.5% of all full-time faculty are black.”).

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Student Housing and Ethnic Segregation at Chico State

Posted on November 5, 2015November 5, 2015 by Tony Waters

This is a rather odd post for a blog which typically addresses national and international issues. This blog is about my own university, Chico State, in California, which has worked very hard to qualify for federal money to be a “Hispanic Serving Institution.” This is a good thing, as California is rapidly changing ethnic composition as California has always done in the last 200 years. The idea is that Chico State will get extra money if it can attract and serve at least 25% full time “Hispanic” students (in California this typically means students who have a family history in Mexico, or Central America who are typically referred to as Chicano or Latino).…

True Believers and Personality Tests

Posted on October 9, 2015January 31, 2016 by Julie Garza-Withers

I used to be a true believer in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). I can’t remember when I first encountered the 93 question test but it was probably during grad school. I was at my height of believing in it though, when I was part of a two-year leadership development program at my old job. I learned a good deal about leadership and made great friends,but there was also an emphasis on personality types that overshadowed much of the programming.…

Cowboy Nation

Posted on October 6, 2015February 24, 2016 by Julie Garza-Withers

A few nights ago, my husband and I saw the new sci-fi film, The Martian. We arrived early, grabbed our pairs of 3D glasses and set off to find seats, towards the back and on the aisle. I’d felt somewhat nervous as we sat there, paranoid with thoughts about Thursday’s mass shooting in Oregon and because back in August, employees at the theater I was sitting in had called the police to report a suspicious person who was later found to be carrying a loaded .45.…

What Your Teeth Tell Me About Your Social Class

Posted on September 30, 2015October 1, 2015 by Marianne Paiva

A recent sorority recruitment video from the University of Alabama last month was critically received on the internet for what some claimed were racist overtones. The nearly all-white, bikini and lingerie clad sorority sisters portrayed pranced happily throughout the over-5 minute long video, never opening a book, attending a class, or even appearing to be affiliated with a learning environment. As a college instructor, the mother of a young girl, and self-proclaimed feminist, I mentally ripped the video apart when I saw it.…

Globalization and Mlitary Honor: The Dedication of a Statue of the Hmong General Vang Pao in California

Posted on September 14, 2015September 13, 2015 by Tony Waters

I stopped by the dedication of the new statue of the Hmong General Vang Pao at the Chico City Hall near my university on Saturday. General Vang Pao led the Hmong forces which were allied with the United States during the “Secret War” that the CIA conducted in the country of Laos between about 1960 and 1975. Several hundred thousand Lao Hmong were brought to the United States between 1975 and about 1995 in acknowledgment of their status of as American allies during the Secret War.”…

One Year After the Death of Marc Thompson

Posted on September 3, 2015September 12, 2015 by Tony Waters

One year ago today, Marc Thompson, Chico, California area activist, student of sociology, was found murdered in a burning car in a remote area outside the small town of Oroville, California where he had grown up. The murder shocked and saddened the many people who knew and loved Marc in the area. The story is here.

Among the many shocked and saddened was Julie Withers who blogs here.…

Artichokes

Posted on June 15, 2015January 31, 2016 by Julie Garza-Withers

By Guest Writer: N. Jeanne Burns

A friend said recently that one definitive marker of social class is whether you know how to eat an artichoke. This probably isn’t true for migrant farmworkers who toil in or around Castroville, California, the self-proclaimed “Artichoke Capital of the World.” Or even for people who grew up on the Mediterranean, where the plant is native. But M.F.K. Fisher, who herself grew up surrounded by fields of artichokes, recognized the class-climbing rank of the thistle in her essay “The Social Status of the Vegetable.”

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The Three Gifts of Tenure

Posted on May 4, 2015May 17, 2015 by Tony Waters

I will say it up front. Tenure is cool, and the opposite, “contingent” employment, really sucks. I was an adjunct for about two years in the 1990s, and I know from first hand experience that it sucked. Why?

Well there were a couple of reasons. First, was that I was constantly on the job market, since I did not know where my income was coming from the following semester. This is a condition that college teachers share with many workers in the modern economy, on the funny assumption that the more scared you are of catastrophe, the harder you will work.…

Social Class and Food from Around the Web

Posted on April 21, 2015January 31, 2016 by Julie Garza-Withers

I grew up eating what the educated like to call “junk” food and “trash” food, mostly it was “poor food,” that came from boxes and cans. It wasn’t always like this in my family, we had short periods of feast and long periods of famine, and when times were good (my mom “marrying up’) we ate fresh, home cooked food. When times were bad however (going broke after losing the family business), it was hamburger in a five-pound tube and no label, mac and cheese in a box.…

Monetizing Mindfulness

Posted on April 20, 2015February 24, 2016 by Julie Garza-Withers

Maybe the word “mindfulness” is like the Prius emblem, a badge of enlightened and self-satisfied consumerism, and of success and achievement. If so, not deploying mindfulness — taking pills or naps for anxiety, say, or going out to church or cocktails — makes you look sort of backward or classless. Like driving a Hummer.

I came across a good critique of how the Buddhist concept of mindfulness has been co-opted by the PMC (professional middle class) and other groovy types looking to sell stuff to the MBA’s.…