The town of Campagnatico in Tuscany, Italy, is a wonderful and harmonious collection of medieval historic buildings. As a Dutch tourist described it to me, "If you want to see a real typical Italian village, then you have to go to Campagnatico. It’s really Italian, you only see Italian people here, small streets...and there’s nothing written about it, it’s really Italian." The town was built about 1,000 years ago in the coastal plain of southern Tuscany, or Maremma, a region of rolling hills still dotted with farm houses. "What I like the most about this area," a Norwegian tourist told me, "is that you can climb these hills, turn around 360 degrees, and see the whole world," a world that to many of the tourists I interviewed during the summer means "peacefulness," "tranquility," and "relaxation."

Tourists often romanticize what has not changed. What they probably do not know is that historic preservation in rural towns like Campagnatico is linked to the collapse of local economies in the postwar period, when half the population left and nobody was interested in building new houses. Despite lingering images of tranquility and stability, southern Tuscany, like many rural districts in other industrialized countries, has undergone a series of profound and often disruptive changes in the last 50 years. Following Jeff Pratt (1996), the first farms regulated by the mezzadria contract were created in the Maremma hills a thousand years ago. The mezzadria was a sharecropping system which established a stable farm population in the countryside, with half the produce going to an urban landlord class. In 1950 the mezzadria was at the center of a bitter political struggle. Its subsequent collapse created major fractures in central Italian rural society and ultimately prompted a rural exodus. Land reform implemented in Maremma in 1952 turned the sharecroppers into small land-owning farmers who, over the following decades, have experienced all the difficulties of market production in agriculture. Their farms were too small for modern forms of mechanization and for employing all the labor that mechanization had made available. Farmers in this area abandoned the original pattern of mixed cultivation in the 1980s and opted for a cereals monoculture that made the local economy even more vulnerable. A slump following the peak grain prices of the early 1980s made local agriculture almost completely unprofitable.

In the mid-1980s, as it became obvious that global economic conditions were threatening the viability of rural cultures and the farm sector, many European countries began to look for alternative and more "sustainable" development strategies to revitalize the countryside and its associated rural communities. In this context, "agritourism" has become a prominent development tool to diversify and complement the "traditional" economic activities of individual farms. To make sense of this complex interrelationship among tourism, agriculture, and "sustainable development," I began doing fieldwork in Campagnatico.

"Sustainable" Tourism Development: The Research Problem
Broadly speaking, "sustainable" tourism is responsive to the needs of host communities and their natural, cultural, and built environments. Specifically, a "sustainable" model of tourism development improves living standards and quality of life of the hosts, it results in an equitable socioeconomic distribution of benefits at the local level, it respects the natural and cultural integrity of destination areas, and it promotes an educational and cultural exchange between hosts and guests (Komilis 1994; France 1997; Goodall and Stabler 1997).

So far, these principles have been discussed primarily at a theoretical level. As a consequence, there has been a proliferation of overabstract theories that are increasingly widening the gap between rhetoric and reality and between policy and implementation of "sustainable" tourism development. Unless we start testing our ethical and theoretical reflections against concrete situations, the debate on "sustainability" will ultimately lose touch with the actors and the actions it is intended to guide (Hadsell 1995).

Italian agritourism provides an ideal context to operationalize "sustainability." Its stated objectives include development of agricultural areas, improved utilization of rural resources, enhancement of environmental conservation and management, and enhancement of the relationship between city and countryside (Legge Quadro Nazionale 1985:4). Ideally, Italian agritourism is then a "sustainable" kind of tourism development: it attempts to balance rural economic growth with resource conservation.

Doing Fieldwork in Southern Tuscany
The purpose of my research was to understand how the "sustainability" of agritourism development has been interpreted and implemented by local participants in a specific destination area. I selected Campagnatico as my field site for two main reasons. First, it is located in Tuscany, the Italian region with the highest concentration of farms that practice agritourism: in 1997, these numbered 1,226, representing 16.3% of national agritourism. Second, Campagnatico is located in one of the poorest areas of Tuscany, where major problems of agricultural decline and rural outmigration have prompted a search for "sustainable" rural development strategies.

I lived and worked at "Villa Bellaria," the biggest agritouristic farm of the area and my main case study, over a period of about 10 weeks. My host, Luisella Querci, and I developed a relationship of friendship and mutual trust that enabled me to emphasize the "participational" side of traditional anthropological methodology. My job responsibilities included answering the phone, receiving tourists at the farm, providing them with information on services, attractions, and itineraries of the area, and watering the plants in the park that surrounds the villa. At the farm, I formally and informally interviewed tourists, visiting tour operators, and employees. In Campagnatico, I spent a great deal of time hanging out at the local bar — the focal point of the town’s social life — and visiting with local business owners and members of the "Pro Loco," a non-profit local organization devoted to the touristic promotion of the town. I also did archival research in the area and conducted in-depth interviews with political authorities, industry representatives, and farmers. My research sample included two farms that do not practice agritourism and four agritouristic farms. Major differences among these farms in terms of location, size of the agricultural land, style of buildings, types of accommodation offered, types of resources managed, and the socioeconomic status of their owners made this sample especially interesting for the purpose of my research, because this provided an opportunity to understand different local interpretations of "sustainability."

Lessons from the Field
A common ambition for scholars writing about "sustainable" tourism development, as well as for planners attempting to implement it, is "conservation": to be "sustainable," tourism should integrate, rather than replace, the preexisting natural and cultural assets of destination areas.

Tuscany is famed for a landscape that has been shaped by human endeavor over a millennia, and selling an aestheticized version of this past has long been Tuscany’s most profitable industry. In Maremma, the mezzadria created a landscape that is particularly attractive to tourists: a sharp division between town and country, a rural population resident in "typical" stone farmhouses, and a mixed and intensive pattern of land use.

All the farmers I interviewed consider "conservation" of traditional agricultural activities and of old buildings as the greatest achievement of agritourism development. By contrast, local political authorities do not find much room for "conservation" in their development agenda. As the mayor of Campagnatico explained to me, "plastering" the environment through restrictions and regulations does not attract foreign tourists to the area; investing money to build swimming pools and other resorts does.

To further complicate the meaning of "conservation" in Maremma, it is also important to keep in mind that the cultural landscape in this area has been molded by the inherently unequal socioeconomic system of the mezzadria. As a development strategy that capitalizes on preexisting resources, agritourism brings the hierarchy of that past history back to life. A brief comparison of the agritouristic farms I included in my research sample will prove the point. "Villa Bellaria" is an old villa of former sharecropping landlords that comprises three large buildings, an 11–acre park, and 330 hectares of cultivated land, offering a total of 11 apartments for tourist accommodation. In contrast, "Poggio Caiano" and "Fontepietri" are two former sharecropping farms, comprising respectively 50 and 21 hectares of cultivated land and offering respectively 7 rooms and 3 apartments for tourist accommodation. Finally, "Manzinello" is a newer land-reform farm that comprises 27 hectares of cultivated land and offers just 1 apartment for tourist accommodation. It is therefore evident that, while conserving an amenable environment for tourist consumption, agritourism in Maremma is also contributing to "freeze" the socioeconomic inequalities that shaped that environment over centuries and, in this process, it is perpetuating them.

The legacy of the past also bears on development prospects, goals, and expectations of the larger Campagnatico community. Ideally, to be "sustainable," agritourism should equitably distribute socioeconomic benefits within the host community. However, unlike other nearby Tuscan towns, Campagnatico offers very few opportunities to entertain tourists and attract their money. It only has one restaurant, one hotel, one bar, one pastry shop, one bakery, one tobacco shop, three small grocery stores, one flower shop, one bank, one pharmacy, and two hardware stores. Many local informants explained to me that people in Campagnatico lack the energy, the capital, and, perhaps more importantly, the "mentality" to invest in tourist-related services and businesses. As the City Officer for Public Works put it, "our countryside is still in the hands of old peasants who aim at saving money, rather than at investing it. For them to invest means to spend, do you understand? Their only concern is to build a house for their children in the hope that they will continue to cultivate the land.... In reality many youths find different jobs and work as farmers only during the weekend." In an area shaped by the mezzadria system, tourism as an economic activity is not necessarily compatible with the values and way of life of those segments of the local population who for centuries organized production primarily around consumption needs.

As for those farmers who have invested in agritourism, they all agree that low grain prices, coupled with heavy taxation, make it extremely difficult for them to reinvest in their farms. As a result, they feel more immediately rewarded by the socialization aspect of the agritouristic experience than by the economic aspect: by hosting tourists, they make new friends and they even learn to appreciate more the beauty of the countryside. Fabio, one of the farmers I interviewed, after observing tourists taking pictures of his sheep, his horses, and even of an old oak struck by lightning, has come to the conclusion that "it is a mistake to take these things for granted just because we have always had them around here."

However, once again the kind of socialization agritourism promotes does not have much to do with the ideal of cultural exchange between hosts and guests advocated under the principles of "sustainable" tourism development. Farmers often do not find time and opportunities to educate urban tourists about the countryside. "Tourists don’t come here to work, so how can they understand our way of life?," an old farmer woman asked me. Tourists, on the other side, select only a few aspects of the countryside for their consumption. They like to show their children what a chicken looks like before it is packed, but they are annoyed by the love cry of the peacocks early in the morning. They enjoy the "silence" of the countryside during the day, but they want a television to help them fall asleep at night. It is wonderful to sunbathe in the famous Tuscan sun in the morning, but in the evening it is better to dine with the air conditioning on.

Conclusions
To the extent that "sustainable" development engenders a bottom-up perspective, fosters notions of equity, and facilitates a dialogue between different stakeholders, it is a useful catalyst in the search for more benign forms of tourism that contribute to long-term development. In this general sense, however, "sustainability" remains an ideological term, a political slogan (Wall 1997:33).

When employed as a tool for social betterment, "sustainable" development is not reducible to a series of absolute principles. The Campagnatico case study shows that the abstract criteria of "sustainability" mean very little when tested against the varying perceptions, values, and needs of those who interpret and apply them. It follows that the implementation of "sustainable" development is relative to local contexts and a matter of negotiation. I believe anthropology has both a theoretical and a practical contribution to offer here. Theoretically, it advances a contextual understanding of "sustainability." Decades of fieldwork have shown that communities always shape development in unique ways. The environment always has a relative dimension, tied to local history and culture. It means different things to those who use it (Redclift 1987). Therefore, the optimum "sustainable" solutions are always highly contingent and dependent on local views of what is to be sustained and/or developed, at what level, and for whose benefit. At a practical level, as my research in Campagnatico shows, anthropological methodology and actor-oriented approaches are invaluable means to uncover different meanings that different segments of local populations attach to their environment and to understand how these meanings inform differing representations of the past and views of the future. In theory and in practice, this is what we most need to provide "sustainability" with tangible and unequivocal meanings and to make "sustainable development" a reality.

Roberta Sonnino is a Ph.D. candidate in cultural anthropology at the University of Kansas.

References Cited
France, L. (ed.) 1997.   The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Tourism. Earthscan Publications.

Goodall, B., and M. J. Stabler 1997.   Principles Influencing the Determination of Environmental Standards for Sustainable Tourism. In Tourism and Sustainability. Stabler, M. J., ed. Wallingford: Cab International.

Hadsell, H. 1995.   Profits, Parrots, Peons: Ethical Perplexities in the Amazon. In Ecological Resistance Movements: The Global Emergence of Radical and Popular Environmentalism. Taylor, B. R., ed. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Komilis, P. 1994.   Tourism and Sustainable Regional Development. In Tourism: The State of the Art. Seaton, A. V. et al., eds. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Legge Quadro Nazionale 1985.   Legge Quadro Statale, 5 dicembre, n. 730.

Pratt, J. 1996.   The Rationality of Rural Life: Economic and Cultural Change in Tuscany. Chur: Hardwood Academic Publishers.

Redclift, M. 1987.   Sustainable Development: Exploring the Contradictions. London: Routledge.

Wall, G. 1997.   Sustainable Tourism—Unsustainable Development. In Tourism, Development and Growth: The Challenge of Sustainability. Wahab, S. and J. J. Pigram, eds. London: Routledge.
 
 

Thanks to publicity surrounding the Kansas Board of Education (KBOE) vote to exclude much of evolutionary theory from the state K–12 teaching standards, the world now identifies Kansas as hostile to Darwin’s legacy. While reinforcing the stereotype of Kansans as hicks and hayseeds, this parallels similar creationist influences in other states. In Kentucky, for example, evolution is taught but without using the offensive "e" word! Many political cartoons mock the KBOE decision. Our favorite is one where a line of fossil hominids trails a KBOE member, who turns and shouts "Will you quit following me!" However, these spoofs should not diminish the seriousness of the issue for Kansans. A Scientific American editorial recently suggested that Kansas high school diplomas are inferior to those from other states, making Kansas students less worthy applicants to major universities. In his Convocation address this year, KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway called for a university-wide emphasis on scientific literacy, improving students’ abilities to evaluate empirical evidence and the results of scientific inquiry. His article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (October 29, 1999) outlines a history of the controversy with suggestions for the future. So, rather than precipitating the extinction of evolution, the KBOE decision has made many of us more aware of the importance of covering evolution in our courses.

Our department plays a critical role in the teaching of evolution in Kansas. We estimate that each semester about half our courses have evolution as a central focus. Discussions of evolutionary forces and their effects, human origins and diversification, and cultural evolution are already staple components of General Anthropology (ANTH 100), Introduction to Archaeology (ANTH 110/310) and Fundamentals of Physical Anthropology (ANTH 104/304). Since these principal courses fulfill college distribution requirements, the anthropology faculty teach basic evolutionary theory to over 500 KU undergraduates each semester in the introductory courses alone. Furthermore, the influence of Darwinian theory on the emergence of anthropology as a discipline has been a principal theme in graduate education, serving as a dominant thread in the History of Anthropology (ANTH 701), a seminar required of all M.A. students. In the spring semester, a variety of upper-level courses in the undergraduate and graduate programs have evolutionary principles and mechanisms as the basic paradigm. These include Introduction to Human Nutrition (ANTH 342), The Ancient Maya (ANTH 507), Physical Anthropology of American Indians (ANTH 544), and Human Growth and Development (ANTH 762).

Evolution is the principal "fundamental" in Fundamentals of Physical Anthropology (ANTH 104/304) and Jim Mielke, who teaches ANTH 104/304 this academic year, has placed an extra emphasis on contrasting evolutionary theory with creationist pseudoscience. Darcy Morey offered a graduate seminar entitled "Evolutionary Archaeology" in Fall 1998 and has also expanded his coverage of evolution in ANTH 110/310. Furthermore, although curriculum planning preceded the KBOE decision, at least two courses in the Fall 1999 semester tackle the "creation vs. evolution" debate head-on. David Frayer’s Controversies of the Living and the Dead (ANTH 352) and John Hoopes’s Archaeological Myths and Realities (ANTH 410) each devote significant attention to the perceived conflict between science and religion, the links between Judeo-Christian belief systems and the scientific method, and the fallacies and shortcomings of "creation science."

Human evolution is the most contentious issue in the evolution vs. creation debate. Classroom coverage of "macro-evolution" was deleted by the KBOE, and creationists often resort to truly bizarre explanations when attempting to account for human fossils. For example, some creationists from the radical religious right are opposed to any serious consideration of human ancestors that leaves out the divine creation of Adam (and Eve) as a modern Homo sapiens. Others, like Tom Willis of the Creation Science Association for Mid-America (an advisor to KBOE member Steve Abrams), explain Neandertal morphology by arguing, "The Bible clearly teaches that early man lived many hundreds of years. Neandertal was not ‘apelike,’ he was simply old!" We hope an upcoming exhibit (Dec 2–Feb 6) at KU’s Museum of Anthropology, "Neandertals in Kansas!" will help educate the public on current scientific thinking about the lives and times of these enigmatic European and Middle Eastern fossils. Curated by David Frayer and Anta Montet-White, the exhibit will present current interpretations of both the fossil and archaeological evidence for Neandertals and Mousterian culture.
 
 

What is "work"? What are "works"? According to Sandra Gray, associate professor of anthropology at KU, in the distinction between the two lies culture—and the philosophy for Women’s Works 2000: from our past to the future, an innovative exhibit opening on February 26 at the KU Museum of Anthropology.

When contemplating women’s "work," most of us will think of the everyday tasks that most often fall to women: cleaning, cooking, raising children. But when we look at those duties as "works," we can contemplate two shades of meaning: "works" can refer to the mechanisms or workings of something, and we can also contemplate "works" in the sense of an opus, a creative process (e.g., the "works of Picasso"). The exhibit was designed to draw together these shades of meaning and provide the visitor with the opportunity to see that the diversity and creativity that women apply in their lives result in diverse and creative cultures—and that, despite that diversity, there is something universal, something "quintessentially human about all of it."

According to Gray, the activities at the core of any culture—those basic things that have to be done for human survival—often fall to women. Although some of these activities may seem mundane and universal, women do these tasks in "incredibly resourceful, resilient, and creative ways." Because cultural diversity starts at this core of how one solves fundamental problems, and it’s often women who solve those problems in an immediate way, women are critical in creating and shaping cultural diversity. In addition to helping shape the culture by their activities, women are also instrumental in the transmittal of culture via their roles as teachers and nurturers of children. Ultimately, as developing technologies present challenges to these cultural cores and women adapt their approaches to these activities, women play a critical role in culture change.

The varied approaches women take to their activities are works, not work: they are developing the mechanisms to accomplish a task, and, through the creativity and diversity they bring to those tasks, they are creating works. And that "everyday work" and creativity is the development, performance, and transmittal of culture. Culture is a creative process, enacted and performed in our everyday lives. The exhibit will focus on both the works themselves—through an exhibit of narratives and artifacts featuring specific women from around the globe—and this performance aspect of culture, via a series of lectures, performances, and workshops. The goal is to encourage visitors to see both the diverse, creative approaches women take to culture and the commonalties among us all: "We’re looking at women, we’re looking at culture, but we’re looking at ourselves."

"Out of the Department and Down Off the Hill"
Just as women use a diversity of approaches to their work, just as their creativity creates a performance of culture, the organizers of the exhibit have developed an unprecedented interdisciplinary, intercommunity, and intercollegiate approach to the creation of the exhibit. Planning began in 1995, and the following four years were, for Gray, "sort of the way I do my fieldwork—connections here, connections there" grew into a large consortium of people, some approached for their participation and many volunteering their expertise upon hearing of the project.

Gray has worked closely with Reinhild Janzen and Norma Larzalere for the past four years in developing the exhibit. Janzen was formerly at the KU Museum of Anthropology and is now a professor of art history at Washburn University in Topeka; Norma is a Ph.D. candidate in KU’s Department of Anthropology. The long planning process meant that other people came and went through the years, but it has always involved representatives from the Museum of Anthropology, KU’s East Asian Studies and Women’s Studies departments, and Friends of Women’s Studies in Lawrence. Soren Larsen serves as the graduate assistant curator, and Rachael Campbell is the undergraduate assistant curator.

As planning for the exhibit proceeded and people approached Gray to become involved, the project grew into something that is "interdisciplinary in a way that very few things ever are." From Washburn University come faculty members Janzen and Penny Weiner, a Lawrence playwright and director who is serving as performance curator for the exhibit. KU faculty from many departments have become involved: Roger Shimomura of the Art Department will give a public lecture in March; Chico Herbison of the African/African-American Studies Department will be presenting "Quiet Passages: The Japanese American Warbride Experience," a film he coproduced with Jerry Schultz, a graduate of the KU Anthropology Department’s doctoral program; Joan Stone, director of the Division of Dance in the School of Fine Arts, will be developing a dance performance; and Lee Mann of the Art and Design program will be exhibiting her artwork. The East Asian Studies Department is linking a series of conferences to the exhibit, and the English Alternative Theater will jointly produce A Raisin in the Sun with the Lawrence Community Theater.

Women’s Works 2000 is unique in that it also features the significant involvement of the Lawrence community: local artists, musicians, poets, thespians, and playwrights will participate in the performance series, and an effort is being launched to involve the local schools in the program, perhaps by designing class projects relating to the exhibit and participation in the performance series.

Guest lecturers and exhibitors include Pok-Chi Lau, whose photographs of Chinatowns around the world will be an integral part of the exhibit, and Native American poet Ophelia Zepeda, who will be doing a reading in April. More are expected to be added as the exhibit progresses.

A Museum Transformed
The exhibition forms the core of Women’s Works 2000. Based on a collection of narratives about women living, teaching, and creating in societies around the world, the design of the exhibition will emphasize culture as an active process. The goal, according to Gray, is to "transform the museum," so that "people will walk in and wonder where they are." Dennis Christilles, of KU’s Department of Theatre and Film, is designing and building the "set" for the exhibit, and Kim Taylor, of the Museum of Anthropology, is the curator and exhibition designer. A labyrinth-type set is being developed, "a maze that people can wander through as they want," walking into and experiencing the spaces of the women’s lives. While "looking at culture" in the set pieces, the visitor will also see the universality—as, for example, while standing in a kitchen from 1940s Vermont, we look at photos of Chinatowns from all over the world, where women are doing the same thing. We also will see ourselves in this universality, as the imaginative set design allows us to view other visitors through windows in the maze.

The set will be designed with the "performance" aspect of culture in mind—visitors will enter the museum as though from "backstage" and then progress into the exhibits, where the culture is being performed and we, in our daily lives, are performing culture as well. A performance space will also be erected in one section of the museum, where many of the lectures and performances associated with the series will take place.

In the end, the organizers hope, the result will be an evocative experience, one that involves the community in an experiencing of culture like nothing the Museum has done before.
 

A Sampling of the Narratives:
Lamp—an Inuit woman
Nights beyond number, I lit this lamp. In the darkness, it was the light by which I could sew the skins of animals into boots so beautiful the seal and the fox and the caribou would be honored. The flame on this lamp was the warmth that would melt ice into drinking water and bless the blood of the seal as I cooked its organs for my family to eat. Like the women who came before me and the women who will follow me, everyday I took what was given to me and worked to make it better. Whoever we are, wherever we are, we feed, clothe, house, and teach in many ways. We have lit a thousand lamps in places far away and as near as where you are right now.

Diaries of Change—a Japanese diarist and midwife
Toku Shimomura was a Japanese-born midwife and registered nurse who worked in the Seattle Japanese community for over 30 years and delivered over 1,000 babies. She also served in the Russo-Japanese War as a Japanese Navy nurse and was decorated by the emperor for valor in action. Working even for Japanese families who couldn’t afford the midwifery fee, she provided some babies with clothing and diapers. "The babies I delivered and took care of have grown up and become doctors, officials, and professors. I wonder if any of them have ever thought of their old midwife who has watched them growing and prospering with tears of joy, as if they were her own children."

Walking Home—walking the Bella Coola trail
In British Columbia, the Cheslatta T’en travel from their homes in the interior across the Coast Range mountains to visit the Bella Coola, another native people living on the coast. While the men spent long cycles of weeks out on their traplines, the women often made the arduous 60-mile trek on the Bella Coola trail to meet their Pacific trading partners. Cheslatta women brought more than just trading goods over the Bella Coola trail: over the years they carried new ideas, honorary gifts, and even marriage proposals across the mountains, establishing strong social relationships between very different societies. Mary Quaw invites you to walk the same trail she and so many of her ancestors walked in the past, crossing the mountains to carry the necessities of life to the people living in the villages.

The Soul Has No Gender—a Hausa Muslim poetess
Like many women in periods of war, Nana Asmau worked creatively to repair damage wreaked by the fighting. She trained women as teachers, wrote eyewitness accounts of jihad battles, and directed reeducation projects for women refugees, many of whom were war widows. She also oversaw the production of foods and supplies for troops on the field and their families on the run from the enemy. Through all this she studied, taught, and wrote more than 65 long poetic works that described the times and guided newly converted Muslims. Nana Asmau remains a living legend among women in northern Nigeria.

Women’s Works 2000: from our past to the future runs from February 26-August 6, 2000, at the KU Museum of Anthropology.

The Narratives and the Women Whose Stories They Tell Include:
The Soul Has No Gender, a Hausa Muslim poetess
Through a Doll’s Eyes, a Japanese orchard farmer
The Glue, a secretary in an American university
Creation, a Kansas Mennonite mother
Starquilter, a Sioux quiltmaker
Lamp, an Inuit woman
Aurelia’s Family, three generations of Mexican potters
Clothesline, a Vermont grandmother
Skins, a Karimojong woman displaced by war
Diaries of Change, a Japanese diarist and midwife
Innovative Traditions, a Nigerian banker-turned-textile artist
Walking Home, walking the Bella Coola trail with Mary Quaw

Lectures and Performances Include:
February 26: Opening: Performance of a new piece by Lawrence playright/director Penny Weiner.
March: A public lecture by Roger Shimomura; poetry, music, and dance series with pieces by Robert Baker and Folabo Ajayi-Soyinka.
April: A Raisin in the Sun, a joint production of the Lawrence Community Theater and the English Alternative Theater followed by post-performance discussions on select nights. Poetry reading by Ophelia Zepeda.
May: Young people’s performance series, poetry readings by select performers
In Addition, a series of weekend workshops will be hosted through the run of the show as well as an exhibition of photographs by Pok-Chi Lau and many other events.

For more information on events and activities, call (785) 864-4245 or visit the web site: www.cc.ukans.edu/~women2k.

**If you are interested in participating in the performance series or in bringing the exhibit to your organization or school, contact Celia Daniels, outreach coordinator: cadaniel@ukans.edu.

**Major funding for Women’s Works 2000 is provided by the Kansas Arts Commission and the Kansas Humanities Council. Funding also provided by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; the Departments of Anthropology, English, and Women’s Studies; the Office of the Chancellor; the Hall Center for the Humanities; Friends of Women’s Studies; and the Women’s Arts Group.

**Volunteers are needed! Please contact Sandra Gray (sgray@ukans.edu) or Rachael Campbell (rcampbell@ukans.edu) if you would like to be involved in Women’s Works 2000.
 
 

Back in 1899
When everybody sang Auld Lang Syne
A hundred years took a long, long time . . . .
Now there’s only one thing that I’d like to know,
Where did the 20th century go?
I swear it was here just a minute ago . . . .
                                                    Steve Goodman

Recapping the century is a bit more than I care to tackle in this column, but a brief look back at what has happened in our department over the last decade does seem in order. The 1990s have witnessed steady, and in my memory, unprecedented, growth for the Department of Anthropology at KU. In 1989, John Hoopes became the first new faculty member to join our department in more than a decade. Since then, we have added five more colleagues: Jack Hofman (1991), Jane Gibson (1992), Sandra Gray (1992), Bart Dean (1995), and Darcy Morey (1998). We are presently conducting a joint search with the Women’s Studies Program, and by this time next year we hope to have added a new assistant professor to our membership.

The popularity of anthropology at KU has grown steadily over the past decade. Our department’s student credit hour production (SCH) increased by 17 percent from FY 1991 to FY 1998 (from 9,741 to 11,367). In contrast, over the same period SCH in the social sciences fell by 14 percent and in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences they declined by 10 percent.

Accompanying rising enrollments has been a dramatic increase in students who choose anthropology as a major. The number of juniors and seniors who declared anthropology as their major almost doubled (+82%) from 71 in Fall 1990 to 129 in Fall 1997. If we combine undergraduate majors and graduate students, majors in anthropology grew by two-thirds (66%) during this time. This dramatic growth is in stark contrast to trends in the social sciences as well as in the College. Looking at all the social sciences, we see a 21 percent drop in undergraduate majors and a 16 percent decline when we add graduate students. In the College overall, junior/senior majors fell by 3 percent, and when we add graduate students the decline increases to 5 percent.

From FY 1990 through FY 1997, the Department of Anthropology awarded 262 bachelor’s degrees. For the entire decade, we granted 69 graduate degrees: 48 master’s degrees and 21 doctorates.

Our department can look back on the past decade with a sense of accomplishment, and we can look ahead with anticipation. In this vein, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Akira Yamamoto, who steps down as graduate coordinator at the end of this semester to take a well-deserved sabbatical in the spring. He has done a remarkable job. Professor Jim Mielke has kindly agreed to take his place for the remainder of the year.

In On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God, Simone Weil said that "The future is made of the same stuff as the present." If that is the case, then we have much to look forward to.
 

In May I traveled to Finland to serve as external examiner—the "opponent"—for the doctoral defense of Ph.D. candidate Tapio Nisula at the University of Tampere, about three hours northwest of Helsinki. Nisula is among that small but highly qualified group of Finnish scholars and professionals who serve international agencies in Third World development, for which the Finns as well as other Scandinavians are well known. His region of expertise is East Africa, Tanzania in general, and Zanzibar in particular. His field research had been on the dynamic relationship between spirit possession healing—ngoma—and state-sponsored socialized biomedicine on the island of Zanzibar. His dissertation was entitled Everyday Spirits and Medical Interventions: Ethnographic and Historical Notes on Therapeutic Conventions in Zanzibar Town.

Although I had been to Sweden and to Russia, this was my first trip to Finland. I was going as an expert on African healing and medicine, but my real adventure would be the beautiful blend of arcane tradition and ultra-modern living that is Scandinavia: e.g., saunas with attitude in the deep forests and cell phones everywhere. This special Finnish blend of modern life was in part due to the recent success of the Finnish telecommunications industry and firms like Nokia. Just last year, a seat partner told me on the flight from Frankfurt Germany to Helsinki, Finnish high-tech exports had surpassed forest products such as lumber and paper pulp in revenue. Tampere, as the "Manchester of Finland," was remarkable for its successful post-industrial economy.

I had been in correspondence with Tapio for over a year because he needed to secure the external examiner himself. British, some Canadian, and Scandinavian universities follow the practice of an external examiner who is chosen because of his or her reputation in the field at large. The Scandinavian system is the most rigorous of all of these in that the Ph.D. candidate really has two exams: the first is by the candidate’s local committee. After they have read, critiqued, and approved the work, the student is ready for the public defense and the interrogation by the outside "opponent." The dissertation must at this stage be published as a book in several hundred copies, at the cost of the candidate. The actual defense and the "book" are then graded by the "opponent," who writes a report and recommends the grade to the Faculty.

In early 1999, after Tapio and his supervisor had contacted me and I had agreed to be his "opponent," I received the official protocol of my responsibilities from the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Tampere, a document entitled "The Conduct of the Public Examination of a Doctoral Dissertation." Although the University of Tampere is a new university, with international—i.e., English language courses and writing—instruction, this document reflected more ancient academic customs with Latin phrases seeping through the English. Excerpts will convey its flavor.

1. The participants in the public examination enter the auditorium in the following order: the doctoral candidate first, followed by the Master of Ceremonies (Custos), and last the opponent.

2. The candidate, the Custos, and the opponent usually wear a tailcoat and black waistcoat, ladies a black dress without a hat. Alternatively the gown of the University of Tampere or the academic dress of other countries. If the participants intend to wear a dark suit, they are to agree on this among themselves. If the Custos and the opponent have the Doctor’s degree, they keep their Doctor’s hats in their hands when entering and leaving the auditorium.

4. The candidate remains standing to deliver his introductory lecture (lectio praecursoria), which may not last more than 20 minutes....

6. After he/she has finished his/her lectio praecursoria, the candidate says: "I ask you, Professor (Doctor, etc.), as my opponent appointed by the Faculty of Social Sciences, to make the remarks concerning my dissertation which you consider pertinent."

7. The opponent stands up to give a short talk on the position and significance of the subject matter of the dissertation, as well as other matters of such a general nature. After the talk, both the opponent and the candidate seat themselves.

8. The opponent generally begins the actual examination by focusing his/her attention on methodological and general questions, after which there follows an examination of details.

9. The opponent may not spend more than four hours on his examination....

10. The opponent finishes the examination by standing up to give his/her final summary, and the candidate stands to hear it.

11. The candidate remains standing to thank the opponent.

14. The Custos stands up to announce the discussion finished: "I declare this discussion closed." The whole procedure may not last more than six hours.

When I received this I understood what Tapio had meant by "old-fashioned ceremony," and I also wondered how much of it needed to be followed literally. I was relieved to learn that the "whole procedure" normally lasts only two hours nowadays, not six. In March Tapio sent me a rough draft of his dissertation and I told him I thought it was more or less ready for defense. The published version of the dissertation came several days before my departure for Finland.

Since the defense was scheduled for the week after the end of our Kansas semester, I had not spent much time preparing my questions. I knew I could always do that on the long flight. The closer I got to Finland, the more nervous —and incredibly jet lagged— I became. I had been very busy the weeks before this trip with finals and exams and wrapping up the academic year. Here I was to preside over a doctoral defense and following that by several days a seminar in Helsinki. What had I gotten myself into? Fortunately I got a good sleep the night before the defense. I received some friendly coaching from Nisula’s committee on how much time to spend on the various parts of the exam.

After we had assembled and put on our costumes that reminded me of Halloween time—Tapio his coat and tails, his top hat in his hand, I my Chicago gown and hat, the Custos her top hat and black dress—Tapio looked at me and this otherwise buoyant adult scholar said to me with a look of a child about to be spanked, "I hope you don’t kill me." My God, I thought, he really is scared. His opening statement was delivered with a severe case of dry mouth, during which he needed to stop several times to drink water. I made my opening statement, sketching the general significance of the research. I thought we would both relax after we sat down for the general examination of details. But I noticed that Tapio broke out in a sweat and needed to wipe his forehead and face from time to time. His dry mouth persisted. I pursued several lines of questioning which seemed appropriate. One was the entire linguistic and conceptual dimension of African healing and related culture. But Tapio had not known the vocabulary of African healing beyond its Swahili context, so he sweated even more as I tried to draw him out to wider cultural systems. Then I followed the matter of his understanding of the fate of the Zanzibari Revolution upon the health care reforms, and the political analysis of state-sponsored medical institutions. He did not have much to say about this, and I thought his writing and his verbal answers were very hesitant. Later I would learn that he did not want to offend the Zanzibari officials and needed to protect his good rapport for an eventual return trip. Privately he held to the view that the government health care had failed because the Revolution had collapsed, and this is why spirit healing was so vigorous, but this was not stated explicitly in his book.

I had determined beforehand that I would pass him because his work was really a very thorough ethnography and review of the literature on African spirit healing, although the pieces of the analysis did not quite seem coherent for reasons suggested above. Tapio seemed greatly relieved by my closing remarks, as if he really had thought he might fail. Of course, the consequences would be disastrous for him. I realized how enormously much power I had in my position of outside opponent. I still needed to write the official review and give him his grade. During the after-exam lunch with Tapio and his committee head, I was told I needed to select the grade from the Medieval Latin scale, which I finally learned included these nine ranks, from top to bottom: Laudatur cum laude approbatur, Eximia cum laude approbatur, Eximia cum laude..., Summa cum laude..., Magna cum laude..., Cum laude..., Non sine laude ..., Lubender approbatur, and Approbatur. I had never even heard of some of these terms, not to mention knowing which were appropriate in this case. Fortunately, another committee member who had read the dissertation and attended the defense unscrambled the code of actual use, as distinguished from the literal translation. The top score, Laudatur cum laude approbatur, would mean an automatic academic appointment for the candidate. No one had ever in her memory received this. Nor had anyone ever received Eximia cum laude approbatur. Only very rarely, in most exceptional cases, had she heard of Summa cum laude being given. Most Ph.D.s in Finland received the Magna cum laude, she said. So this is what Tapio received. A grade of Cum laude would be a cause for concern, and anything below that would not be acceptable. How was I to have known this?

The remainder of my six-day stay in Finland was spent in Helsinki. Tapio’s graduation party was a big affair and was attended by his colleagues, anthropologists from all over Finland, his wife, daughter, parents and other relatives, and student peers. I was able to do some sightseeing in Helsinki, and I was invited to the country home of Dr. Maria-Liisa Honkasalo, a well-known physician and medical anthropologist who was currently doing a project on chronic pain with several graduate students. One day was spent in the special seminar that Tapio had organized at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Helsinki for me. I received these papers on my arrival and was now asked to serve as the "discussant" of this all-day seminar. Tapio critiqued my paper on trauma healing in Rwanda, something he enjoyed immensely. He trashed one of my favorite ideas. We agreed that this was his sweet revenge for the big exam of a few days earlier.

My week in Finland in May was an enjoyable eye-opener. I gained a great respect for anthropologists and anthropology in this small country at the top of Europe and at the lead of postindustrial electronic communications and in global anthropology!
 

Visitors to the LBA:
Dr. Arantza Gonzalez Apraiz, Ph.D. from the Basque University of Bilbao, Spain, has started a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Laboratory of Biological Anthropology. She is initiating a multiyear research program on the "Basque Diaspora," i.e., following the transplanted Basques from the Pyrenees of Spain and France to enclaves in Nevada, Wyoming, Idaho, and California. Eventually, she hopes to expand this research to include Basque populations of Uruguay, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand. This traditional migrant model for the study of genetic/environmental interactions should shed light on complex phenotypes and the microdifferentiation of small populations living under different environments.

Research:
A three-year collaborative research grant (8/1999–7/2002) was awarded by the National Science Foundation for a project entitled "Origins of the Aleuts: Molecular Perspectives." The PI of this project is Professor M.H. Crawford, with Drs. Dixie West and Dennis O’Rourke serving as the co-PIs. This project compares the ancient DNA extracted from skeletal excavations and collections from the Aleutian Islands with mtDNA analyzed from contemporary populations.

Last summer, the investigators obtained the necessary permissions from the Aleut Corporation and initiated field research in the Aleutian Islands. Rohina Rubicz, a second-year graduate student, accompanied Professor Crawford to Atka Island and Anchorage, Alaska. Rohina is currently analyzing some of the DNA collected during these field investigations.

Presentations:
On December 2, Professor Crawford will be giving a presentation to the Aleut/Priblof Island Tribal Council Meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.

American Anthropological Association Meetings, Chicago:
Professor Crawford is presenting a paper entitled "Biology and Molecular Genetics: The Second Revolution," at a Presidential Symposium on Biological Anthropology. In addition, he is a discussant in a symposium on Biological Aging organized by Gillian Harper and Douglas Crews.

On November 19, while in the Chicago area, Professor Crawford will be giving a colloquium at Northwestern University, entitled "Peopling of the Americas: Molecular Perspective."

American Society of Human Genetics Meetings, San Francisco:
The American Society of Human Genetics meetings in San Francisco, California, had considerable representation from LBA researchers and former students:

The paper by Rector Arya and Ravi Duggirala (U of Texas Med. Center-San Antonio), "Strong Evidence for Linkage of High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (HDL-C) Concentrations to a Genetic Location on Chromosome 9p in Mexican Americans," was selected for presentation at the Plenary Session.

A poster by Joe McComb, Alexa Pfeffer, M.H. Crawford, and James Knowles, entitled "Examination of Phylogenetic Relationships among Siberian and Native American Populations Using Pooled DNA," was presented at the poster session.

Similarly, Tony Comuzzie (SWFBR) presented a poster entitled "A Quantitative Trait Locus Influencing Variation in ACTH Precursor Levels Maps to Chromosome 13 in Mexican Americans."

Jeff Williams (SWFBR) presented a poster, "Power of Variance Component Linkage Analysis to Detect Quantitative Trait Loci."

Dennis O’Rourke and his graduate students (Utah) presented a poster, "Concordance in Geographic Patterning of Ancient and Modern Amerindian mtDNA Variation."

Ph.D. Dissertation Defenses:
Two graduate students from the LBA successfully defended their dissertations during fall semester:

On September 24 Rector Arya defended a dissertation on the caste system of Andhra Pradesh. He is currently on a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas Medical Center in San Antonio.

On November 2, Lisa Martin successfully defended her dissertation on the gene mapping of reproduction proteins activin and inhibin in a baboon sibship. She was awarded a rare pass with honors. She began a postdoctoral fellowship at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SWFBR) in San Antonio. Former LBA member Dr. Tony Comuzzie, who helped supervise Lisa’s research on the baboon colony of the SWFBR, returned to Lawrence and served on Lisa Martin’s Ph.D. committee.

Accolades:
Dr. Jeff Williams, a Ph.D. in archaeology from KU and a former LBA member, has found his academic niche in the Department of Genetics, the SWFBR. The last issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, 65 (4), contained two highly significant articles by Jeff: "Joint Multipoint Linkage Analysis of Multivariate Qualitative and Quantitative Traits. I. Likelihood Formulation and Simulation Results," (1134–1147); and "Joint Multipoint Linkage Analysis of Multivariate Qualitative and Quantitative Traits. II. Alcoholism and Event-Related Potentials," (1148–1160).

Dr. Lorena Madrigal, a Ph.D. in biological anthropology from KU in the late 1980s and associate professor at South Florida University, has published an article in the December issue of Human Biology, 71 (6): 963–976, entitled "Mating Pattern and Population Structure in Escazu, Costa Rica: A Study Using Marriage Records."

Publications:
The December issue of the German journal Homo 50 (3): 201–210, contains an article, "The Effects of a New Political Border on the Migration Patterns and Predicted Kinship (Phi) in a Subdivided Hungarian Agricultural Population: Tiszahat," authored by Professor Crawford with Tibor Koertvelyessy, Miklos Pap, K. Szilagyi, and Ravi Duggirala.

The December issue of Human Biology contains two articles coauthored by M.H. Crawford:

"Deletion Polymorphism in Human COL1A2 Gene: Genetic Evidence of a Non-African Population Whose Descendants Spread to All Continents," 71: 901–914.

"Apolipoprotein B Signal Peptide Polymorphism Distribution Among South Amerindian Populations," with Dario Demarche, F.M. Salzano, et al., 71: 995–1000.
 
 

John Janzen
John M. Janzen is principal co-editor of the April 1999 special issue of the Mennonite Quarterly Review, devoted to the architecture of historic Anabaptist-Mennonite meeting places. He is the author of the introduction, "Anabaptist-Mennonite Spaces and Places of Worship," pp. 151–165, and another chapter in the volume, "Form and Meaning in Central Kansas Mennonite Buildings for Worship," pp. 323–353. This publication grew out of a 1997 conference on restoration planning of the 1770 Germantown Mennonite Meetinghouse, the oldest extant Mennonite worship building in North America. Professor Janzen is a trustee of the Germantown Mennonite Historic Trust, which oversees the meetinghouse and related historic sites in Germantown, Pennsylvania.

Janzen also wrote the "Afterword" to The Quest for Fruition Through Ngoma : Political Aspects of Healing in Southern Africa, edited by Rijk Van Dijk, Ria Reis, and Marja Spierenburg, published in November 1999 by James Currey (Oxford) and The Ohio State University Press. This volume grows out of a Dutch seminar organized several years ago by Professor Matthew Schofeleers of the African Studies Center in Leiden that studied Janzen’s 1992 book Ngoma: Discourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa. The new volume includes the ethnographies of the participants’ own work as critique and complement of Professor Janzen’s approach to ngoma, a major African ritual form.

Professor Janzen also is the author of a chapter entitled "Theories of Music in African ‘Ngoma’ Healing," pp 46–66 in Musical Healing in Cultural Context (London: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.), in press, edited by Penelope Gouk of the Wellcome History of Medicine Unit of Manchester University.

"Mennonite Domestic Furnishings in the Ukraine: the Floresence of a Migratory Tradition" is the title of a segment co-curated by Professor Janzen and Reinhild Kauenhoven Janzen for the exhibition The Mennonite Commonwealth in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union, which opened in May in the Zaporozhe Regional History Museum, Zaporozhe, Ukraine. This exhibition was assembled by the joint efforts of Ukrainian scholars and curators, and the Program for Russian and Soviet Mennonite Studies of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies of the University of Toronto. The exhibition was organized alongside the conference "Khortitsa ’99: Sources and Perspectives on Mennonites in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union," which brought Mennonite scholars and their Ukrainian and international counterparts to review the Mennonite experience in this region. Artifacts for the Janzens’ exhibit segment were either shipped from North America or were collected by University of Toronto historian Harvey Dyck and Ukrainian colleagues Svetlana Bobyleva, Olga Shmakina, and Aleksandr Tedeev from villages of the region where they had been abandoned when Mennonites fled Soviet collectivization in the 1920s and 1930s and later the battlefronts of World War II, and continued to be used in households of remaining—usually Ukrainian—residents.

Janzen is also the author of "Text and Context in the Anthropology of War Trauma: The African Great Lakes Region, 1993–1995," in the Journal of the Finnish Anthropology Society 4, December 1999.
 

Jim Mielke
Jim Mielke presented the paper "Warfare and Population Structure" at a symposium on "Human Biology and History" at Durham Castle, England, in April 1999, sponsored by the Society of the Study of Human Biology.

He also gave a paper, "War and Population Change in Finland," in a symposium on "Human Biology in the Archives: Demography, Health, Nutrition, and Genetics in Historical Populations" at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists’ annual meeting in April 1999.
 

Sandra Gray
Recent publications include:
1999 Gerber, L., Williams, G.C., and Gray, S.J.   The Nutrient-Toxin Continuum in Human Evolution. Quarterly Review of Biology 74:273–89.

1999 Gray, S.J.   Infant Care and Feeding. In Turkana Herders of the Dry Savanna. Ecology and Biobehavioural Response of Nomads to an Uncertain Environment (ed. M.A. Little and P.W. Leslie), pp. 165–85, Oxford University Press, Science and Medical Division.

1999 Little, M.A., Gray, S.J., Pike, I.L., Mugambe, M.   Infant, Child and Adolescent Growth and Adult Status. In Turkana Herders of the Dry Savanna. Ecology and Biobehavioural Response of Nomads to an Uncertain Environment (ed. M.A. Little and P.W. Leslie), pp.187–204 Oxford University Press, Science and Medical Division.

1998 Gray, S.J.   Butterfat Feeding in Early Infancy in African Populations: New Hypotheses. American Journal of Human Biology 10(2): 163–78.

1999 Gray, S.J.   Child Growth and Nutrition in Developing Countries: Priorities for Action. Book review, Culture & Agriculture 21: 44–46.

Papers presented in 1998–99 included:
1999 Gray, S. J.   Chairmen, Guns, and Elders: Karimojong Politics Revisited. Paper originally presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mid-America Alliance for African Studies, University of Kansas, September 23–25, 1999.

1998 Gray, S.J., and Pike, I.L.   Morbidity, Pregnancy Outcomes and Fitness Costs of Sedentarization Among Pastoralist Women in Uganda. Paper delivered at The Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Salt Lake City, April.

1998 Corbett, S., Gray, S.J., Campbell, B., Leslie, P. W.   Comparison of Body Composition Among Settled and Nomadic Turkana. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Salt Lake City, April.

1998 Devlin, H. and Gray, S.J.   Morbidity in Karamoja, Uganda, 1992–1996. Poster Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Salt Lake City, April.

Invited presentations:
1998 Gray, S.J.   Infant Outcomes in Karamoja, Uganda. Talk presented at Institute of Biological Anthropology, Oxford University, 12 June, 1998.

Don Stull
With the help of an exceptionally dedicated and able staff, Don Stull has survived his first year as editor of Human Organization, managing to put four issues to bed and get them out the door on schedule. In between, he was commissioned by the Texas County, Oklahoma, Turning Point Partnership and the City of Guymon to conduct short-term research and prepare "An Assessment of Seaboard’s Impact on Guymon and Texas County, Oklahoma, with Recommendations," a 23-page document that he submitted on July 1, 1999. Under the aegis of the Kansas Humanities Council, he has spoken to a number of groups around the state on "Building Rural Communities for the 21st Century," including the Kansas League of Municipalities, Leadership Lawrence, and community groups in Garnett, Salina, and Beloit. On October 28–31, he traveled to Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, where he presented invited testimony on "The Impact of Seaboard’s Pork Plant on Guymon, Oklahoma," to the Citizen’s Hearing on Pork Production and the Environment, a joint Canadian-U.S. forum funded by the North American Fund for Environmental Cooperation and the Sierra Club. With Michael Broadway (Northern Michigan), he also presented a keynote address, "Meatpacking and Community Change."
 

Jill Brush has accepted the position of Curator at the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka, Kansas. She is a graduate of the University of Kansas Master of Historical Administration and Museum Studies program and is finishing up coursework in the master’s in cultural anthropology program.

In August, George Gotto, IV, and Li ("Lee") Jian joined Norma Larzalere as editorial assistants of Human Organization, replacing Karla Kral, who is conducting doctoral fieldwork in Chihuahua, Mexico, on a Fulbright Fellowship. Kristin Lundberg is also assisting the HO staff on a regular basis. Currently, Lee and Kristin are developing separate databases for both authors and reviewers, which will allow the editorial staff to efficiently and accurately monitor acceptance rates for manuscripts, time from receipt of manuscript to decision and publication, authors’ gender and residence (state/country), as well as reviewer response rates.

Jeff Longhofer (Ph.D. 1986), associate editor of Human Organization, is developing the journal’s Web site <http://www.cwru.edu/affil/human/. The Web site includes the contents and abstracts of current forthcoming articles; a precis on selected articles of special interest; a Methods Forum with links to all articles on methods appearing in the journal since 1990; a HoTopics column in the index that links abstracts on selected topics, which are in turn registered with search engines; a link to the Social Sciences Citation Index so HO can be searched for topics appearing since 1990; Guidelines for Preparing and Submitting Manuscripts; and Comments from the Editor. In September, the HO Web site recorded 1,800 hits. Jeff has now relocated from the University of North Texas to Case Western Reserve University.

Brent Buenger presented a paper at the 57th Annual Plains Anthropological Conference in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on October 23, 1999, entitled "Taxonomic Classification of Canid Mandibles from the Talking Crow Site: A Multivariate Approach."

Will Banks recently prepared two articles for publication and presented a paper on his recent microwear analyses and associated casting methodology on the lithic assemblages from the Upper Paleolithic site of Solutre, which form the core of his doctoral research.

Banks, William E.  1999.   Analyse des Traces d’Usure de l’Assemblage Lithique Aurignacien de Solutre, Secteur M12. Paper presented at the Seance de la Societe Prehistorique Francaise: Le Peuplement Prehistorique du Maconnais. June 5, Macon, France. This paper will be published in the monograph of papers presented at this conference, which is currently in press.

Banks, William E.  1999.   A Casting Technique Suitable for High-Power Microwear Analysis. Current Research in the Pleistocene, Volume 16, in press.

Banks, William E., and Marvin Kay.  1999.   High Resolution Casts for Lithic Use-Wear Analysis. Paper submitted to Journal of Archaeological Science.

Jennifer Macy presented "Extreme Archaeology: A Video Presentation of Cliff Excavations at Medicine Creek Reservoir, Nebraska" at the 57th Annual Plains Anthropological Conference held in October in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
 
 

Let me take this opportunity to welcome everyone back to KU, and to welcome our new students. It seems that most of us had a very educational summer, with our various jobs and field work opportunities. Congratulations are due to George Gotto and Lisa Kirk on the June birth of their son, Benjamin. Way to go, George and Lisa! Fall semester has kept most of us busy with our school work, jobs, and families. I’d like to thank the graduate students for giving me this opportunity to become more involved in our student organization. This year should be exciting! By the end of the school year, the GSA should have new bylaws to clarify who we are and what our function is. With everyone in the GSA doing their part, together we can have a productive and hopefully entertaining year! Now come the thanks: thanks so much, Wendy Eliason, for taking over the KU Anthropologist and giving our very hardworking TA and new father George a much needed break! And thanks, George, for going above and beyond what’s expected of a grad student all last year. You don’t get enough credit. Thanks to the Brown Bag Committee, John Tomasic, Brandi Wiebusch, and Mary Sundal. They lined up a speaker for nearly every week of the semester, most from our own department. It’s always great to hear what our faculty and students have been up to! I can’t wait to see what they have lined up for us next semester! I would also like to thank Kristen Lundberg for taking such an active part in the GSO and in the GSA as our treasurer. Your experience and input have been a great help. Thanks go to Mary Sundal for rising to the occasion when the secretary position came open. The Professional Growth Seminar held in September was very successful, thanks to the efforts of Thuy Pham, Gavin Johnston, and Wendy Eliason, who organized the event, and to the faculty who led the sessions. Brent Buenger and I were proud to represent KU at the 57th Annual Plains Anthropological Conference, where we both presented papers. Good luck to all those attending spring conferences, and good luck to everyone in their classes and work! I’m sure we’ll all have a productive spring semester!
 
 

Friends, Kansans, Anthropologists: First, my name is Jared Stone. I am the current president of the Undergraduate Anthropology Association, and just wanted to scrawl a few lines to let everyone know what exactly is going on with our little organization.

Things have gotten off to a good start. We met at the Free State Brewery to elect officers and decide the course our club should take in the coming year. Professor Hanson advised us on some changes that have taken place in the Anthropology Department and how they affect us as undergraduates.

We have plans to take a day trip to Kanopolis Lake to examine rock art. The camping season is closed, but I’ve heard that the site is very pretty this time of year, and would be worth a visit. There is also talk of a trip to the Cahokia Mound site in East St. Louis, before our Midwestern winter forces us into mittens and boots. We are working on arranging screenings of several ethnographic films, to be shown when it is too cold to comfortably spend much time outdoors. Finally, we have arranged to accompany Dr. Frayer’s "Primates" class to the Kansas City Zoo next spring, for a lecture and a small soiree.

It looks to be an exciting year for the UAA. Other events will be posted on the UAA board outside 633 Fraser as they come up. Those interested in should contact me at caliban@falcon.cc.ukans.edu, or Vice-President Peter Smiley at fairyspeak@hotmail.com.

Best wishes on the rest of the semester.
 
 

Brent Buenger
My fieldwork during the 1999 archaeological field season was spent between sites in northeastern New Mexico and southwestern Wyoming. I had the opportunity to work at the Folsom site (Folsom, New Mexico) again this season. The project was headed by David Meltzer from Southern Methodist University. The focus of this season’s work at the site was to complete excavations in the bonebed area as well as to do some testing to locate possible campsite locations. The excavations in the bonebed went well; however, evidence of a campsite was not evident as a result of the testing. Overall, the season at Folsom was successful and productive.

The fieldwork in southwest Wyoming was part of a CRM mitigation project under the direction of Western Wyoming College. The site (near Green River, Wyoming) was a multicomponent Late Paleoindian/Early Archaic/Archaic site. We excavated several features (probable hearths and roasting pits); however, cultural and faunal material were limited. The site’s importance lies in the fact that Late Paleoindian/Early Archaic sites are very rare in the Wyoming Basin. Laboratory analyses of this season’s materials and future work at the site should be productive in contributing to a better understanding of this time period in the area.

Sandra Gray
Between July 1998, and March 1999, I carried out a preliminary study of female fertility and child mortality among nomadic Karimojong agropastoralists in northern Uganda (Moroto District). The study was funded by National Geographic Society, Wenner-Gren, and the General Research Fund of the University of Kansas. As part of that study, I also undertook assessment of maternal and child health and nutritional status and child growth and development. Things were somewhat insecure in northern Uganda, but I managed to obtain reproductive data for more than 1,000 women and complete anthropometric examinations for 900 individuals. I am currently in the process of analyzing those data. Preliminary results will be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Physical Anthropologists in San Antonio in April.

During fall and spring, 1999–2000, I am directing a cross-disciplinary exhibition at the Museum of Anthropology, entitled Women’s Works 2000. The exhibit involves a number of artists and scholars, both male and female, from across the university and Lawrence communities.

Jen Macy
I have been working for four summers now at Medicine Creek Reservoir in southwest Nebraska. The sites I’ve worked on are Upper Republican, dating from 1100 to 1350 AD. A large number of Upper Republican houses have been tested and/or excavated in the last 60 years, most of which are gone now due to inundation when the reservoir was created in 1947. Sites frequently consist of a small number of houses clustered together, which have traditionally been interpreted as a village. The work that my boss, Dr. Donna Roper of K-State, and I have been doing has led us to believe that these house clusters do not represent villages, but are instead a group of noncontemporaneous homes, one replacing the next as these houses became unlivable. Our work at the lake has focused on site structure, trying to demonstrate that houses and middens are not the only types of space utilized by Upper Republicans. Our work this summer began as an attempt to excavate a house that was tested in 1989. Unfortunately, the house has been plowed through over the last century, leaving the context too badly damaged to justify excavation. Because the cliffs around the lake erode so badly, we took a canoe trip to survey for exposed cultural material. We found two pit features, both at sites that Dr. Roper and I have worked on over the past few summers. These sites have ongoing research interest, so we felt the need to salvage what we could of these pits. We spent much of the summer excavating these pits, with great success. The material recovered from one pit was particularly exciting and raised entirely new questions as to the function and structure of the site. Recent ceramic analysis indicates that pottery recovered from that same site is not of local clay, and we know that a large percentage of the lithic material was imported from eastern Colorado. This site has become increasingly interesting and warrants future excavation next summer. Analysis has not yet been done on the materials recovered, but a new grant from the Bureau of Reclamation, which has funded much of our work at the reservoir, will allow analysis during the school year. I will be able to work on much of this analysis, and will incorporate this work into my thesis project.

John Tomasic
This summer I was a member of Harvard University’s field school at Copán, Honduras. The project was led by archaeologist William Fash and assisted by Barbara Fash, artist and archaeologist, and David Stuart, epigrapher. Our project’s excavations focused on an unexcavated structure within the principal group of ruins. While this structure was known to have been occupied during Classic (250–900 AD) times, our excavations revealed even earlier, Preclassic construction phases, as well as a Preclassic altar. These excavations were filmed by a crew from the television program NOVA, and the program is scheduled to air in the summer of 2000.

In spring 2000, I will carry out my dissertation fieldwork in Tsukuba Science City, Japan, a new town with a population of approximately 160,000. Tsukuba was developed by the Japanese government, with construction starting in 1968, to facilitate scientific research in Japan and to solve the problem of the burgeoning research institutes and crowded conditions of the educational facilities in Tokyo. Tsukuba Science City, located 30 miles northeast of Tokyo, was built in an isolated rural area of a national pine forest, surrounded by rice fields; it is the only major urban center in Japan without a train station. The city has become an American-like automobile community, with a new kind of Japanese elite. Many highly educated researchers and their families with overseas experience have formed a "community" in spite of the government planners’ lack of concern for community development.

My goal is to find out how a new town, without the historic and usual nostalgic trappings, built from scratch by the Japanese government, can be seen as a hometown by the residents. My previous research and interviews with the housewives of researchers in Tsukuba indicate that it is through the women that a community and sense of homeplace (furusato) has developed along with the planned science city.

My study of Tsukuba began in 1987, with a scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Education (Monbusho) enabling me to stay there until 1989. I conducted a follow-up study in the summer of 1992. This research formed the basis for my master’s thesis, an ethnography on post-World War II new-town Japanese women and their families who had lived abroad and returned to Tsukuba. The women who were the subjects of my study had children at home and lived in government-provided housing, with some of them planning to build their homes in Tsukuba.

My current dissertation research, funded by a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS), will look at the changes in the women’s lives in the decade since my initial research. It seems timely for me to return to Japan as the women advance to the empty nest stage. Many of the womens’ children are now away from home and in college. Other children who were the first generation born and raised in Tsukuba have migrated back to Tokyo to work and raise their own families. Some housewives and their husbands have lost their elderly parents. How have changes affected the women’s lives? What kind of community has further evolved in the new town of Tsukuba? I look forward to returning to Tsukuba, to meet the residents again, and to see if and how they have developed a sense of furusato in their city.
 
 

John Ertl is a first-year master’s student in sociocultural anthropology. He graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1997 with a degree in Japanese Studies. He lived and worked in Japan for two years before attending KU. His current research interests are in Japanese village studies.

Chris Garst is a first-year graduate student in archaeology. She received her B.S. degree in anthropology and history at Kansas State University in May 1999. Currently she is most interested in petroglyphs (specifically of Kansas) and historic Native American tribes, particularily the Pawnee and Oneota. She will most likely keep her emphasis in the Central Plains, but has not yet narrowed her focus anymore than this. She was originally a native of North Central Kansas and is the mother of four children (don’t ask how old).

Kristin Lundberg is a first-year Ph.D. student with a focus in medical anthropology. She moved here from Northern California, where she most recently worked in a state-funded education and outreach breast and cervical cancer program for high-risk populations. Her education in the field of anthropology has been stretched over quite a few years. While initially an archaeologist, her life experiences now position her more firmly in the biological and cultural end of the discipline. Special interests and research to date include herbalogy, healers, Hmong, Mienh, Lao peoples, and breast cancer. She is still contemplating her dissertation research!

Dave Schrag is a native Kansan. He graduated from Bethel College in Newton, Kansas and then went on to earn an M.S. in cognitive psychology at Kansas State University in 1996. His academic career has been punctuated by several sojourns in Taiwan and Germany. Dave has no regrets so far about switching from psychology to cultural anthropology. Dave’s research interests are German reunification, postsocialism, late capitalism, and semiotics.

Mary Sundal is originally from West Chester, Ohio. She did her undergraduate work and received her B.A. in anthropology from Ohio Sate University in the spring of 1999. Mary is interested in biological anthropology and hopes to earn her master’s here at KU.

Kara Van Cleaf is originally from Lincoln, Nebraska, but grew up in Arlington, Texas, and Topeka, Kansas. She graduated from the University of Kansas with a B.A. in psychology and anthropology. She decided to pursue anthropology in graduate school, and is a first-year sociocultural student. Some of her interests are gender constructions, identity formations, social inequality, and psychological anthropology.

Brandi Wiebusch is a first-year biological anthropology student originally from Lincoln, Nebraska. She completed her B.A. in anthropology at Colorado State University in 1998. After summer field experiences with archaeology in southwest Utah and ethnography in Quepos, Costa Rica, she came to KU to study human adaptation. Research in nutrition and growth and development in East Africa is the plan.

Nancy Wildman, a.k.a. Wildwoman, was raised in the K.C./Overland Park areas; eventually landing in San Antonio where she completed her B.S.N. at the U. of Texas School of Nursing in 1977. After surviving state boards, she moved to Augsburg, Germany, where she lived for three years, worked as an obstetrical nurse and traveled all over Europe "every chance (she) got." Shortly after returning to Texas, Nancy started work on her M.S.N. at the U. of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, graduating as a psychiatric clinical nurse specialist in 1984. She has worked primarily as a therapist and advanced nurse practitioner. She has many interests and is an inveterate backpacker. The "w"holism of anthropology holds much appeal for Nancy, and she plans to pursue a Ph.D. in (medical) anthropology.

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