Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons^™

Archaeology Under The Blinding Light Of Race, Michael L. Blakey

Arts & Sciences Articles

Racism is defined as a modern system of inequity emergent in Atlantic slavery in which “Whiteness” is born and embedded. This essay describes its transformation. The operation of racist Whiteness in current archaeology and related anthropological practices is demonstrated in the denigration and exclusion of Black voices and the denial of racism and its diverse appropriations afforded the White authorial voice. The story of New York’s African Burial Ground offers a case in point.

The W&M Anglo-Saxon Club, Terry L. Meyers

Arts & Sciences Articles

"In my 2008 article “A First Look at the Worst,” I mentioned (p. 1158) the apparent existence at William and Mary of an Anglo-Saxon Club, a unit of a white supremacist organization, the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America. That outfit had been established in Richmond in 1922 with the aid of John Powell, at once a distinguished musician and a deep racist (he managed to include his racist views in his compositions). Among his accomplishments was help in drafting and passing Virginia’s notorious Racial Integrity Act of 1924; the Anglo-Saxon Clubs were accessories to that effort..."

Revised June 3, 2023

Eating Ursula, Brad Weiss

Arts & Sciences Articles

This paper examines issues surrounding the values of farmers, consumers, chefs, and other food activists who are working to expand the production and consumption of pastured pork in central North Carolina (a region known as the Piedmont). What I try to demonstrate in this paper are the ways that an ‘‘ethics of care’’ (Heath and Meneley 2010) is often articulated in terms of the cultural categories of ‘‘connection’’ and ‘‘authenticity.’’ These consciously expressed categories are shown to undergird a range of commitments, from concerns about animal welfare, to support for ‘‘local’’ economies, to parental care for children. My discussion considers …

On The Evanescent And Reminiscent, Brad Weiss

Arts & Sciences Articles

In classic accounts, taste is dismissed as a “proximal sense,” too brutish to admit of refinement; and yet the term “taste” is also a synecdoche of aesthetic judgment itself. These contrasts inform this paper, which illustrates their expression in ethnographic particulars drawn from my research on pasture-raised pork in North Carolina. My intention is not to demonstrate what taste really is, but to ask how the multidimensionality of taste is realized in practice. This inquiry might further illuminate the connection between human perception and systems of value.

Making Pigs Local: Discerning The Sensory Character Of Place, Brad Weiss

Arts & Sciences Articles

This article offers an attempt to characterize the relationship between “taste” and “place” as cultivated and embodied in the production, circulation, and consumption of pasture‐raised pork. I focus on the Piedmont region of North Carolina, and offer ethnographic evidence drawn from working with farmers, chefs and restaurant workers, as well as consumers at farmers’ markets to give substance to these discussions. The argument problematizes the category of “local food,” to interrogate the very notion of “place” and its many “tastes” (and other experiential qualities) with respect to the remaking and remapping of food production in the Piedmont. “Local food” is …

Northwestern Tanzania On A Single Shilling: Sociality, Embodiment, Valuation, Brad Weiss

Arts & Sciences Articles

The process of fermenting banana juice and ground millet into banana beer is an elaborate craft, practiced and appreciated by Haya men. As is the case in many African communities where the plenitude and desirability of beer is intimately connected with, if not indistinguishable from, the establishment and vigor of sociality itself, Haya brewers and drinkers are scrupulously attentive to the details of this often lengthy procedure (Carlson 1989; Karp 1980; Taylor 1991).' Many told me of their concern that jealous neighbors or sorcerers (often one and the same in Haya neighborhoods) would spoil their efforts by pouring kerosene into …