|
AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF Volume 39, no. 3 (Summer 2000) |
|
STORIES FROM THE FIELD, HANDICRAFT PRODUCTION, AND MEXICAN NATIONAL PATRIMONY: A LESSON IN TRANSLOCALITY FROM B. TRAVEN W. Warner Wood
The well-known woolen textiles sold at vacation spots throughout Mexico and the American Southwest are commonly described as being made by Zapotec artisans in the home workshops of Teotitlán del Valle, a community located in the central valley of Oaxaca, one of Mexico's southernmost states. Such a characterization of the location of Zapotec textile production, however, limits our understanding of how this community (and Zapotec weavers) are immersed in transnational articulations and flows. This essay explores the translocal nature of Zapotec textile production by examining multiple versions of a tale about an elderly artisan's interaction with a tourist from the United States, introducing the people, places, and institutions involved in making Zapotec textiles beyond the bounds of Teotitlán del Valle. The multiple tellings of the story also serve to show how one moves through and articulates the translocal, blurring global/local distinctions to create a more nuanced account of Zapotec textile production. (Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico, Zapotec textiles, B. Traven, “Canastitas en Serie,” multisited ethnography, translocality) |
|
THE USE OF HUMAN IMAGES IN YORUBA MEDICINES Norma H. Wolff
Indigenous healers among the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria regularly utilize small carved and molded three-dimensional human figures in their medicines. These figures are used by individuals in purposeful acts of magical mimesis to manipulate the social world. Four major types of Yoruba medicine figures act as surrogates, messengers, and the Yoruba everyman/woman to activate forces affecting individual lives. (Nigeria, Yoruba, medicine, art, magic) |
|
THE EVOLUTION OF MARKET NICHES IN OAXACAN WOODCARVING Michael Chibnik
Economic anthropologists studying craft commercialization have typically focused on changes in work organization associated with new international commodity chains linking artisans, development organizations, wholesalers, and store owners. Few researchers, however, have carefully examined the product differentiation that ordinarily accompanies increased craft sales. Artisans in such circumstances typically innovate and develop specialties in an attempt to establish a niche for themselves in a complex economic environment. Such market segmentation resembles the later stages of product life cycles described in the business literature and is somewhat analogous to the proliferation of equilibrium species in mature or climax stages of ecological successions. This article examines the evolution of market niches in commercial woodcarvings in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Specialization is the result of both market demands and the initiative of artisans. The artisans do not have total freedom in their attempts to create market niches. They are restricted by their abilities and the labor and capital they can mobilize. (Craft commercialization, specialization, woodcarving, Mexico) |
|
POETICS AND POLITICS OF NEWLY INVENTED TRADITIONS IN THE GULF: CAMEL RACING IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES Sulayman Khalaf
This article provides ethnographic documentation and analysis of the poetry and politics of heritage revival displayed in the invented tradition of camel racing in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, viewed here as a representative case study of the wider Gulf. Preserving UAE heritage and maintaining national identity in the context of threatening forces of modernization constitute the dynamics of inventing this tradition, giving meaning to Badu (Bedouin) poetic voice and its politico-cultural discourse. The annual celebrations and activities surrounding the glorification of the thoroughbred camel as a cultural icon are given new meaning, rhetoric, and direction for a community reconstructing itself as a modern nation-state within shifting global contexts. (The Arab Gulf, United Arab Emirates, heritage revival, invented traditions, camel racing, cultural change) |
|
NEW MYTHS AND MEANINGS IN JEWISH NEW MOON RITUALS David M. Rosen
Victoria P. Rosen
In recent years new rituals linking women to the traditional festival of the new moon, Rosh Chodesh, have become an important part of Jewish life. A central element of these rituals is the recasting of traditional Jewish origin myths about the moon. An examination of this process reveals a tension between gendered and nongendered readings and versions of these myths. Despite this, all new versions attempt to root new myths in the authentic soil of Jewish tradition. (Moon, myth, women, Rosh Chodesh, Judaism |
<- PREVIOUS ABSTRACT | NEXT ABSTRACT -> ABSTRACTS |