AN    INTERNATIONAL     JOURNAL     OF
CULTURAL  AND SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 47, no. 4 (Fall 2008)

POLITICS OF CONFORMITY: POWER FOR CREATING CHANGE

Sarab Abu-Rabia-Queder
Ben-Gurion University

A common theme in feminist Middle Eastern literature is the use of conformist behavior (e.g., veiling) to survive and create social change. This article goes further to suggest that giving up the chance to change one social norm promotes creating another. It examines this argument through the life stories of Palestinian Bedouin women who were the first of their tribes to study in institutions of higher learning. These women accepted endogamous prescriptions, sacrificing their emotional lives and personal choices, in order to pave the way for future generations of educated Bedouin women. They helped create social change in three categories: conformity through personal behavior, conformity through patriarchy, and conformity of emotions. The women's conformist behavior adopted a culturally accepted feminine self (relational and connective), which is crucial for their agency. Bedouin social structure is enacted though the women's agency, as their selves are formed through agency and affected by structure. (Agency, power, social change, Bedouin women).

FORCED MIGRATION, ADAT, AND A PURIFIED PRESENT IN AMBON, INDONESIA

Jeroen Adam
Ghent University

On the Indonesian island of Ambon, the revitalization of adat (customary land tenure) is shaped by a post-conflict dynamic aiming to induce a reconciliation between distrustful Christians and Muslims. This resurgence of adat reflects how indigenous communities cope with spatial relocation resulting from interreligious violence. Resettled indigenous communities in Ambon can be termed "communities in exile," as people express feelings of territorial alienation and wish to return to the home village where they possess genealogical ties to the land. The desire to return expresses an urge to instate a renewed and purified adat order, where segregation by religion has been overcome. (Resettlement, adat, Indonesia, communities in exile).

INUIT IDENTITY IN THE CANADIAN ARCTIC

Edmund (Ned) Searles
Bucknell University

Contemporary Nunavut Inuit perceive their identity to be a combination of inherited substances as well as knowledge, skills, and values that one must learn in order to be considered authentically Inuit. Inuit understand the latter part of their identity as examples of inuktitut, which is learning how to act in the Inuit way. Equally important for the expression of Inuit identity is knowledge of qallunaatitut, the way of "white people." This is why Inuit identity is best understood as an ethnic identity that influences how Inuit perceive themselves, their culture, and their relations to non-Inuit. The dominant discourse of Inuit identity rests on a reified notion of culture as well as a logic that equates the boundary between Inuit culture and Qallunaat culture as primordial and permanent. As such, Inuit identity is experienced as a set of primordial ties to specific places and persons and as a way of life that must be protected from the incursion of non-Inuit culture. (Ethnic identity, Nunavut Inuit, Canadian Arctic).

RE/PRODUCING MOTHERS: STRUCTURE AND AGENCY IN GAMBIAN KANYALENG PERFORMANCES

Carolyn A. Hough
Augustana College

Kanyalengs are women united by problems with fertility and/or child mortality. Their collective performances invert traditional female roles and are intended to ameliorate the hardships associated with the inability to meet expectations for a large family. Kanyaleng membership can be beneficial as it allows women to temporarily flout the conventions that give their lives structure and meaning while also confining and limiting them. However, kanyalengs' experiences also underscore the limits of Gambian women's ability to access social and economic power outside of motherhood. The use of food in kanyalengs' performances calls attention to women's roles as producers of food and reproducers of children. (Reproduction, childlessness, infertility, performance, Gambia).

FAITH AT WORK: MENNONITE BELIEFS AND OCCUPATIONS

Tomomi Naka
University of Iowa

Mennonites in the United States regarded farming as an ideal occupation, but economic difficulties with agriculture have led many Mennonites to participate in new economic activities. Ethnographic research in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, examined how religious beliefs influence occupational decisions among members of two Mennonite subgroups. Divergent interpretations of a Mennonite tenet -separation from the secular world- play a large part in church members' occupational decisions. (Mennonites, occupations, ethos, intra-denominational diversity).