Each seminar participant will be expected to take
one or more turns at leading group discussions during the course of the
semester and very early on we will decide together who will lead or facilitate the
discussions of each week. In order to
lead effectively it is expected that the facilitator will not only read the
assignment and take notes as everyone is expected to do, but will also prepare
some questions and/or comments that will stimulate class discussion.
For example, William Ghote (a pseudonym), used the
following notes to spark discussion
when it was his turn to facilitate proceedings.
Food and Social Structures…
-On
cleanliness:
Visser frequently mentions a modern Western
obsession with cleanliness (303, 312, 318, 355, 356). Do rules, taboos, and reactions associated with cleanliness and
pollution have their root in valid health concerns or are they, as Visser (318)
argues, "…modern discoveries, which we now use to strengthen and
rationalize an already existing taboo"?
Can the cleanliness phenomena be linked to notions
born in the industrial/scientific revolutions when "good" science
became associated with clean labs and white lab coats in order to get good
"clean" objectifiable results.
Is the preoccupation with being clean a means to
legitimize the creation of "otherness"? …to dehumanize the unclean so
that it becomes easier to take advantage of them?
-On
culture change:
As Visser (360) notes, "cleanliness (and its
associated rules)…are proofs…that of progress.
This perception of progress fits with an evolutionary vision of culture
which enables linear models of culture and culture change. In light of our discussions and readings
bout the strict rules concerning food and behavior how does change happen. How does change circumvent the enforced
rules of "normal" behavior?
-On
the Levi-Strauss binaries:
A theme of the reading and discussion has been the
use of Levi-Strauss' binary model of oppositions as a means to decipher or
translate structure in cultural systems.
Are the structures found when using such a methodology real, or are they
in themselves constructs…constraints on the interpretation of a situation where
the same code may be read in multiple, and in fact oppositional. ways rather
than an either/or binary.
-On
control:
As Visser (311) notes, "we feel happiest with
what is either hard or soft, either solid or
liquid…we prefer clean forms, firm outlines…" Anything else, "reminds
us how little we are in control."
Does the dominance of the logic of control, now constructed as a modern
Western norm, have links to the scientific/industrial revolution?….the
agricultural revolution.?
-On
Academia:
Is the cultural preoccupation with what is fast,
clean, and simple manifesting itself in current academic research?
How much does anthropological
thought and research conform to these modern logics?
Has academia, coupled with the influences of the
technological revolution, forced an interpretation of the world which is
(con)structurally clean and simple and devoid of human grit and what is
actually a dirty and complex experience?
-On
time:
How linked are the commodification of food and that
of time? In other words, is the logic
which ascribes a specific value to food and time just different manifestations
of the same phenomenon.