by

A Conversation with Soo Na Pak

Earlier this week, the writer/ documentary filmmaker Soo Na Pak and I had a conversation about anthropology, which she transcribed and posted on her blog. She emailed me after finding the post I wrote on the loss of my brother titled “Life is Beautiful,” and asked if we could talk about some of these things more in depth on the phone. The discussion was a lengthy one that spanned a variety of topics, but I think the main themes were about how we can find some anchors in science which provide optimism, resilience, and hope under difficult circumstances. We also talked about the evolution of humans as a biocultural species, plasticity, and whether some of our more powerful emotions – like grief and love – can be considered adaptive. There’s also some personal stuff in there too. It was a fun experience. Thank you, Soo Na.

..

Link: http://soonapak.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/were-all-cousins/

.

.

by

Egalitarianism & Arrogance

“When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have then given views to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities.”                            – David Hume

 

Person 1: “There is no ‘I’ in ‘team.’ ”

Person 2: “True, but there is an ‘M’ and an ‘E.’ ” 

…

On occasion, I have been arrogant at times in my life. To be fair to myself, I believe such episodes have been rare, and most people who know me would probably describe me as introverted, possibly even timid. More than once, I have been told that I am “too nice” and overly conciliatory. During my pre-tenure review, one committee member told me that my autobiographical narrative was too modest, and that “in academia you need to toot your own horn because nobody else is going to do it for you.” That’s probably true in most fields, but it often makes me uneasy. And if you spent some time in the cacophony in my head, you’d see there is plenty of self-doubt and insecurity in here (you’re better off not doing that). Still, like everyone else, I am complex, and have had enough instances of arrogance that they irritate me and force me to consider from where they originate.

I bring this up now because I’ve been reading about hunter-gatherer societies, and was reminded of this famous passage from the anthropologist Richard Lee (1979) on egalitarianism in the !Kung of Namibia and Botswana.

Continue reading →

by

Public Outreach 3: Sharing Anthropology with 8th Graders

My 8th grade class. It’s relevant.

…

Last week, I spoke with three 8th-grade science classes at the KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) Academy in Lynn, Massachusetts. It’s my third visit in two years, and I’ve found my time there to be very well-spent. KIPP is a neat place. The teachers are passionate and believe in their students, who in turn are highly enthusiastic and engaged. On its website, the program mentions that its objective is to help students in under-served communities around the United States “climb the mountain to and through college.” This is accomplished through effective teachers, a lengthened school day and week, and by instilling “a strong culture of achievement.”

…

One very admirable aspect to their philosophy is that “demographics do not define destiny.” More than 87 percent of KIPP students nationally come from low-income families, but the school feels that this can be overcome through hard work, and they have the data to back this up. “There are no shortcuts,” is one of their school mottos. Good for them.

.

Some of the fossil casts I brought with me. Except the one on the left. That’s a boy (my son, actually).

..

Continue reading →

by

A Final Middle Finger

I’ve been thinking a lot about adversity and resilience lately, both in a general sense and due to events going on in the lives of my students, friends, and extended family (as well as my own). There’s a lot to say about these things from a theoretical perspective, but that does not fit here. Instead, this one is personal, about my Uncle Jimmy.

 ..

A dear uncle of mine passed away recently. He was a great guy – a jokester and a ballbuster, but also a generous and kind soul, a good father and husband. As a prank, he once clandestinely paged a coworker every day for years, just for fun, to watch him glance down at his pager in confusion. (I don’t think he ever discovered who was behind it).  When I was a boy, he was my Little League coach. As an adult, when I returned home from graduate school in order to be closer to family while I wrote my dissertation, he and my aunt asked their upstairs tenants not to renew their lease so that my wife and I could have their apartment (with rent at a family rate discount). “Blood is thicker than water,” he said.

… Continue reading →

by

Part 6. Humans are (Blank) -ogamous: Many Intimate Relationships

This is the sixth part on the evolution of human mating behavior, comparing evidence for promiscuity and pair-bonding in our species. Please see the Introduction here.

_______________________________________________________________

…

“So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life’s A Great Balancing Act.” – Dr. Seuss

…

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Varieties of Intimate Relationships. Click for larger image. (from Informationisbeautiful.net)

…

David McCandless at “Information Is Beautiful” gave me permission to reproduce the above image. I though it fit well with the series I started months ago titled Humans are (blank)-ogamous, which looked at the evidence for pair-bonding and promiscuity in human evolution. In the first post of the series, I wrote:

…

To begin, let me say that I side with Sapolsky. Individuals may figure out what works best for themselves in terms of balancing sex, love, intimacy, and commitment, but collectively we are a tragically confused species. …

Across the spectrum of human cultures, we can find examples of heterogamy, endogamy, polyandry, polygyny, monogamy, non-monogamy, polyamory, and so on. However, these do not all occur in equal frequencies, so I don’t think we are truly “blank-ogamous.” There is also lots of room for variation within each culture. Being good Popperians committed to the principle of falsifiability, it is probably easier to say what we are not than what we are. One thing is clear: we are not simple.”

Continue reading →

by

Trayvon Martin, Zimmerman & Apology

Amazingly gracious for a mother who lost her son.

…

“If I had an opportunity to talk to George Zimmerman, I would probably give him the opportunity to apologize. I would probably ask him if there was another way he could have helped settle the confrontation that he had with Trayvon, other than the way it ended, with Trayvon being shot.” – Sybrina Fulton, Travyon Martin’s mother. 

…

…

To me, it’s yet another example of the need for reconciliation, or at least understanding, under difficult circumstances. It reminds me of some of the many other instances of apology/forgiveness described on this blog:  Kim Phuc & John Plummer;  Pham Thanh Cong & William Calley; Jack Jacobs & Pham Phi Huang; Poles & Russians; Croatians, Serbs & Bosnians, El Salvador & El Mozote; etc. It can be done.

…

Related Posts

Reconciliation, Biology, and the Second Indochina War 

Reconciliation and the Second Indochina War II

Further Strides Toward Reconciliation

Peace with the ‘Enemy’

Making Peace with the Past

…

by

HBA/AAPA Portland, OR 2012

Next week is the annual joint conference for the Human Biology Association and the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, which I’ve attended fairly regularly since graduate school. This year the conference will be held in Portland, Oregon. My talk is scheduled for the afternoon of Apr 12th, though I’ll be around from the 10th to 13th. Looking forward to seeing old friends, meeting new colleagues, learning, and sightseeing. My abstract:

…

…

“Toward a human biology of war.” Clarkin PF. Department of Anthropology,University of Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts.

 …

Over a decade ago, Leatherman and Goodman (1998) proposed that biological anthropologists and human biologists increase research efforts toward better understanding what they termed the ‘biology of poverty.’ Similarly, we now may be poised toward studying the human biology of war. Historical records demonstrate that war consistently creates an array of physiologically taxing stressors that extend beyond competing military forces into nearby civilian populations. Exposure to such stressors (infection, malnutrition, psychological stress, etc.) may vary in duration, but they result in predictable, though variable, biological outcomes contingent on local circumstances.

…

This paper reviews some of the epidemiological and biology literature related to the various ways that war-related experiences become embedded within human bodies. Additionally, it suggests future potential areas of research, and delineates possible approaches and pitfalls. Epidemiologists and humanitarian organizations have led the way in studying health outcomes in refugees and other groups affected by war. However, human biologists and biological anthropologists – with their intellectual traditions rooted in evolution, variation, and plasticity – may add substantively to the understanding of such patterns that extend beyond physical trauma and mortality into more subtle aspects of biology.

…

Furthermore, such a research agenda seems relevant in applying human biology toward understanding ‘real life’ problems. Rather than viewing examples such as the Dutch Hunger Winter or the Biafra famine as ‘natural experiments’ and opportunities for testing given hypotheses, it seems necessary to maintain a complex perspective which views war as an interaction of human agency and shifting ecological conditions that impact health.

…

by

The Meaningful Life of Manophet

Manophet Lonebuffalo was an amiable, kind-hearted man who lived in the small town of Phonsavanh in northeastern Laos. His primary job entailed working for the Japanese Mine Action Service, a nonprofit organization that helps to clear unexploded ordnance in Laos, among other places. But that was only one of many activities that occupied his time. He was also a tour guide for foreigners, a teacher of English, a football coach and referee, and a single father of three boys, at least one of whom was Hmong and adopted.

Manophet stands at his 'podium' (a damaged relic on the Plain of Jars)

Continue reading →

by

On the Odds of Your Existence

Last week I volunteered to read a story for my older son’s 3rd grade class. The book I selected was Dr. Seuss’ “Oh the Places You’ll Go” because I think it does a nice job of conveying the theme of perseverance in a kid-friendly way, which is the reason I read it often to my boys at home.

Continue reading →