Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons^™

Organizing Against The Neo-Liberal Privatization Of Education In South Los Angeles: Reflections On The Transformative Potential Of Grassroots Research, Miguel Zavala

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This auto/ethnographic study narrates how members of the Association of Raza Educators (ARE), a grassroots teacher-led organization, came together in undertaking action-research within what eventually became a stalled campaign to defend South Los Angeles Elementary from corporate takeover. Most of the work within the campaign involved action-research, including what I term organic popular education. In this paper I analyze the ways in which action-research functions as public pedagogy, further arguing for studies conducted from the vantage point of people immersed in grassroots organizations.

Review Of Collecting Across Cultures: Material Exchanges In The Early Modern Atlantic World, Amy Buono

Art Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Collecting Across Cultures: Material Exchanges in the Early Modern Atlantic World, edited by Daniela Bleichmar and Peter C. Mancall.

How Universal Is The Big Five? Testing The Five-Factor Model Of Personality Variation Among Forager-Farmers In The Bolivian Amazon, Michael Gurven, Christopher Von Rueden, Maxim Massenkoff, Hillard Kaplan, Marino Lero Vie

ESI Publications

The five-factor model (FFM) of personality variation has been replicated across a range of human societies, suggesting the FFM is a human universal. However, most studies of the FFM have been restricted to literate, urban populations, which are uncharacteristic of the majority of human evolutionary history. We present the first test of the FFM in a largely illiterate, indigenous society. Tsimane forager–horticulturalist men and women of Bolivia (n = 632) completed a translation of the 44-item Big Five Inventory (Benet-Martínez & John, 1998), a widely used metric of the FFM. We failed to find robust support for the FFM, based …

Modernization, Sexual Risk-Taking, And Gynecological Morbidity Among Bolivian Forager-Horticulturalists, Jonathan Stieglitz, Aaron D. Blackwell, Raúl Quispe Gutierrez, Edhitt Cortez Linares, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

Sexual risk-taking and reproductive morbidity are common among rapidly modernizing populations with little material wealth, limited schooling, minimal access to modern contraception and healthcare, and gendered inequalities in resource access that limit female autonomy in cohabiting relationships. Few studies have examined how modernization influences sexual risk-taking and reproductive health early in demographic transition. Tsimane are a natural fertility population of Bolivian forager-farmers; they are not urbanized, reside in small-scale villages, and lack public health infrastructure. We test whether modernization is associated with greater sexual risk-taking, report prevalence of gynecological morbidity (GM), and test whether modernization, sexual risk-taking and parity are …

Why Do Women Have More Children Than They Want? Understanding Differences In Women's Ideal And Actual Family Size In A Natural Fertility Population, Lisa Mcallister, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jonathan Stieglitz

ESI Publications

Objectives—We develop and test a conceptual model of factors influencing women’s ideal family size (IFS) in a natural fertility population, the Tsimane of Bolivia. The model posits affects of socioecology, reproductive history, maternal condition, and men’s IFS. We test three hypotheses for why women may exceed their IFS despite experiencing socioeconomic development: (H1) limited autonomy; (H2) improved maternal condition; and (H3) low returns on investments in embodied capital.

Methods—Women’s reproductive histories and prospective fertility data were collected from 2002 to 2008 (n = 305 women). Semistructured interviews were conducted with Tsimane women to study the perceived value of …

Fatty Acid Composition In The Mature Milk Of Bolivian Forager-Horticulturalists: Controlled Comparisons With A Us Sample, Melanie A. Martin, William D. Lassek, Steven J. C. Gaulin, Rhobert W. Evans, Sheela S. Geraghty, Barbara S. Davidson, Ardythe L. Morrow, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

Breast milk fatty acid (FA) composition varies greatly among individual women, including in percentages of the long-chain polyunsaturated FAs (LCPUFA) 20:4n-6 (arachidonic acid, AA) and 22:6n-3 (docosahexaenoic acid, DHA), which are important for infant neurological development. It has been suggested that owing to wide variation in milk LCPUFA and low DHA in Western diets, standards of milk FA composition should be derived from populations consuming traditional diets. We collected breast milk samples from Tsimane women at varying lactational stages (6–82 weeks). The Tsimane are an indigenous, natural fertility, subsistence-level population living in Amazonia Bolivia. Tsimane samples were matched by lactational …

From The Womb To The Tomb: The Role Of Transfers In Shaping The Evolved Human Life History, Michael Gurven, Jonathan Stieglitz, Paul L. Hooper, Cristina Gomes, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

Humans are the longest living and slowest growing of all primates. Although most primates are social, humans are highly cooperative and social in ways that likely co-evolved with the slow human life history. In this paper we highlight the role of resource transfers and non-material assistance within and across generations in shaping low human mortality rates. The use of complex cooperative strategies to minimize risk is a necessary precursor for selecting further reductions in mortality rate in late adulthood. In conjunction with changes in the age-profile of production, the impacts of resource transfers and other forms of cooperation on reducing …

Infidelity, Jealousy, And Wife Abuse Among Tsimane Forager-Farmers: Testing Evolutionary Hypotheses Of Marital Conflict, Jonathan Stieglitz, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jeffrey Winking

ESI Publications

What causes marital conflict, and which marital conflicts are more likely to result in men’s violence against their wives? It has long been argued that men’s jealousy over women’s infidelity is the strongest impetus to men’s lethal and non-lethal violence against female partners. Less is known about the extent to which women’s jealousy over men’s infidelity precipitates men’s violence against female partners. Husbands are more likely than wives to commit infidelity, and men and women report a similar frequency and intensity of jealous emotions during recalls of potential infidelity. If men are likely to use time and resources for pursuit …

Photographs And Stories: Ethics, Benefits And Dilemmas Of Using Participant Photography With Black Middle-Class Male Youth, Quaylan Allen

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Drawing upon research conducted with Black American middle-class youth in a secondary school, this article highlights the use of participant photography with Black male youth. Participant photography is a visual method that places the power of photo documentation in the hands of research subjects, empowering them to document and reflect on social issues and cultural phenomena important to them. This article highlights the significance of the method when exploring the understudied lives of Black middle-class males, ethical considerations of using visual methods with youth populations, as well as the benefits and dilemmas of engaging Black male youth in participant photography. …

One State Or Two In Israel/Palestine: The Stress On Gender And Citizenship, Gordon Babst, Nicole M. Tellier

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

As is the case with any of the three great Abrahamic religions, there is considerable ambiguity regarding the status and role of women both within doctrinal interpretations, and between religious and other cultural traditions in the community. These ambiguities are reflected in political practice and condition women's aspirations regarding what is possible for them to achieve. Nowhere is it more true that understandings of religious imperatives permeate politics and work to make other lines of division all the more intractable than in Israel/Palestine. The proclivity to violence between the two peoples not only victimizes women, but foreshortens attention to their …

"Spectacular Opacities": The Hyers Sisters' Performances Of Respectability And Resistance, Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

This essay analyzes the Hyers Sisters, a Reconstruction-era African American sister act, and their radical efforts to transcend social limits of gender, class, and race in their early concert careers and three major productions, Out of Bondage and Peculiar Sam, or The Underground Railroad, two slavery-to-freedom epics, and Urlina, the African Princess, the first known African American play set in Africa. At a time when serious, realistic roles and romantic plotlines featuring black actors were nearly nonexistent due to the country’s appetite for stereotypical caricatures, the Hyers Sisters used gender passing to perform opposite one another as heterosexual lovers in …

Crafts Of Color: Tupi Tapirage In Early Colonial Brazil, Amy Buono

Art Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"Tyrian purple. Lamp black. Lead white. Cadmium yellow. Ultramarine blue. The materiality of color, as it is often discussed, has a fixed quality. Pigments and dyes derived from many natural substances-minerals, earths, plants, and animals-have stable optic qualities. Lapis lazuli can be reliably counted upon to be blue. Dyes made from cochineal consistently fall within a certain range at the red end of the spectrum. Similarly, we might expect that the green feathers of a bird such as the Festive Parrot (Amazona festiva), after molting, would be replaced by equally green plumes. As the excerpt above suggests, from …

Review Of "Brothers To The Buffalo Soldiers: Perspectives On The African American Militia And Volunteers, 1865-1917" By Bruce Glasrud, Jennifer D. Keene

History Faculty Articles and Research

This is a review of Bruce Glasrud's "Brothers to the Buffalo Soldiers: Perspectives on the African American Militia and Volunteers."

Evidence For A Peak Shift In A Humoral Response To Helminths: Age Profiles Of Ige In The Shuar Of Ecuador, The Tsimane Of Bolivia, And The U.S. Nhanes, Aaron D. Blackwell, Michael D. Gurven, Lawrence S. Sugiyama, Felicia C. Madimenos, Melissa A. Liebert, Melanie A. Martin, Hillard Kaplan, J. Josh Snodgrass

ESI Publications

Background: The peak shift model predicts that the age-profile of a pathogen’s prevalence depends upon its transmission rate, peaking earlier in populations with higher transmission and declining as partial immunity is acquired. Helminth infections are associated with increased immunoglobulin E (IgE), which may convey partial immunity and influence the peak shift. Although studies have noted peak shifts in helminths, corresponding peak shifts in total IgE have not been investigated, nor has the age-patterning been carefully examined across populations. We test for differences in the agepatterning of IgE between two South American forager-horticulturalist populations and the United States: the Tsimane …

Inflammatory Gene Variants In The Tsimane, An Indigenous Bolivian Population With A High Infectious Load, Sarinnapha Vasunilashorn, Caleb E. Finch, Eileen M. Crimmins, Suvi A. Vikman, Jonathan Stieglitz, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Hooman Allayee

ESI Publications

The Tsimane of lowland Bolivia are an indigenous forager-farmer population living under conditions resembling pre-industrial European populations, with high infectious morbidity, high infection and inflammation, and shortened life expectancy. Analysis of 917 persons ages 5 to 60+ showed that allele frequencies of 9 SNPs examined in the apolipoprotein E (apoE), C-reactive protein (CRP), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) genes differed from some European, African, and north Asian-derived populations. The apoE2 allele was absent, whereas four SNPs related to CRP and IL-6 were monomorphic: CRP (rs1800947, rs3093061, and rs3093062) and IL-6 (rs1800795). No significant differences in apoE, CRP, and IL-6 variants across age …

Father Death And Adult Success Among The Tsimane: Implications For Marriage And Divorce, Jeffrey Winking, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

Human fathers are heavily involved in the rearing of children around the world. While there is great cross-cultural variation, the father is a recognizable role in all populations. This deviates from the standard mammalian pattern of little paternal investment. A logical explanation offered early by evolutionary theorists is that human fathers evolved the capacity for paternal concern because human children are remarkably needy and impose a great encumbrance on the mother (Lancaster & Lancaster, 1983; Lovejoy, 1981). Thus, fathers have greater opportunity to enhance the wellbeing of child and mother, as there is a deeper well of need to fill. …

A Museum In A Book: Analyzing Culture Through Decolonizing Arts-Based Methodologies, Sharon Verner Chappell, Drew Chappell

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

This paper explores the positivist, museum-based, and touristic constructions of indigenous cultures in the Americas, as represented in the DK Eyewitness series, and then overturns these constructions using an artist book created by the authors. In our analysis of the nonfiction series, we identified three trajectories: cataloguing, consignment to the past, and pleasurable display. Using techniques borrowed from "new historiography" and the decolonizing methodologies of Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999), we suggest ways in which adults and young people might "speak back" to these positivist paradigms.

The Angel And The Imp: The Duncan Sisters’ Performances Of Race And Gender, Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

From 1923 to 1959 Vivian and Rosetta Duncan performed the show Topsy and Eva in front of thousands of audiences in the United States and abroad. This essay examines how the Duncan Sisters’ appropriation of blackness through a yin and yang performance of black and white womanhood, their sexualized but ultimately infantilizing routine as young girls, and their take on anarchistic comedy resulted in a particular spin on age, gender, race, and sexuality that reinforced their privilege as white women even while it pushed the boundaries of acceptable femininity in the swiftly shifting American culture of the first half of …

Blood Lipids, Infection, And Inflammatory Markers In The Tsimane Of Bolivia, Sarinnapha Vasunilashorn, Eileen M. Crimmins, Jung Ki Kim, Jeff Winking, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Caleb Finch

ESI Publications

Objectives—Little is known about blood cholesterol (blood-C) levels under conditions of infection and limited diet. This study examines blood-C and markers of infection and inflammation in the Tsimane of the Bolivian Amazon, indigenous forager farmers living in conditions that model preindustrial European populations by their short life expectancy, high load of infections and inflammation, and limited diets.

Methods—We use multivariate models to determine the relationships between lipid levels and markers of infection and inflammation. Adult Tsimane (N = 418, age 20–84) were characterized for blood lipids, cells, and inflammatory markers in relation to individual loads of parasites and …

The Social Strategy Game: Resource Competition Within Female Social Networks Among Small-Scale Forager-Horticulturalists, Stacey L. Rukas, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jeffrey Winking

ESI Publications

This paper examines social determinants of resource competition among Tsimane Amerindian women of Bolivia. We introduce a semi-anonymous experiment (the Social Strategy Game) designed to simulate resource competition among women. Information concerning dyadic social relationships and demographic data were collected to identify variables influencing resource competition intensity, as measured by the number of beads one woman took from another. Relationship variables are used to test how the affiliative or competitive aspects of dyads affect the extent of prosociality in the game. Using a mixed-modeling procedure, we find that women compete with those with whom they are quarreling over accusations of …

An Examination Of The Relationship Between Family And U.S. Latinos’ Physical Health, Georgiana Bostean

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Latinos, especially immigrant Latinos, have lower mortality rates and some better health outcomes than U.S.-born Latinos and whites, a situation called the Latino Paradox. One explanation for the advantage is that Latinos’ family orientation protects health. However, because few large-scale studies examine Latinos’ family relationships by nativity, the extent to which family factors contribute to Latinos’ health outcomes is unclear. Additionally, while a large literature focuses on family cohesion, fewer studies address both cohesion and conflict, which may be particularly important among immigrants, whose migration and adaptation experiences can strain family relations. This study examines the relationship between family context …

Inflammation And Infection Do Not Promote Arterial Aging And Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors Among Lean Horticulturalists, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jeffrey Winking, Daniel Eid Rodriguez, Sarinnapha Vasunilashorn, Jung Ki Kim, Caleb Finch, Eileen M. Crimmins

ESI Publications

Background: Arterial aging is well characterized in industrial populations, but scantly described in populations with little access to modern medicine. Here we characterize health and aging among the Tsimane, Amazonian forager-horticulturalists with short life expectancy, high infectious loads and inflammation, but low adiposity and robust physical fitness. Inflammation has been implicated in all stages of arterial aging, atherogenesis and hypertension, and so we test whether greater inflammation associates with atherosclerosis and CVD risk. In contrast, moderate to vigorous daily activity, minimal obesity, and low fat intake predict minimal CVD risk among older Tsimane.

Methods and Findings: Peripheral arterial …

A Bioeconomic Approach To Marriage And The Sexual Division Of Labor, Michael Gurven, Jeffrey Winking, Hillard Kaplan, Christopher Von Rueden, Lisa Mcallister

ESI Publications

Children may be viewed as public goods whereby both parents receive equal genetic benefits yet one parent often invests more heavily than the other.We introduce a microeconomic framework for understanding household investment decisions to address questions concerning conflicts of interest over types and amount of work effort among married men and women. Although gains and costs of marriage may not be spread equally among marriage partners, marriage is still a favorable, efficient outcome under a wide range of conditions. This bioeconomic framework subsumes both cooperative and conflictive views on the sexual division of labor. We test hypotheses concerning marriage markets, …

Tupi Featherwork And The Dynamics Of Intercultural Exchange In Early Modern Brazil, Amy J. Buono

Art Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"The Tupi of sixteenth- and seventeenth century coastal Brazil were renowned as fiercely warlike and, more sensationally, as cannibals. They were also famed for their ritual featherwork capes made from scarlet ibis feathers, which were closely associated with both war and anthropophagic rituals (see figure). For the semi-nomadic Tupi, featherwork was highly valued, the capes being among the only things that they carefully preserved and carried with them as they moved from site to site."

The Multiple Dimensions Of Male Social Status In An Amazonian Society, Christopher Von Rueden, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

"In all human societies, individuals differ in social status depending upon their age and personal ability (Sahlins, 1958; Service, 1971). In laboratory-based small group studies, status hierarchies emerge spontaneously (Bass, 1954; Campbell et al., 2002; Kalma, 1991). Even among “egalitarian” foragers, who are characterized by widespread resource sharing (Kaplan & Gurven, 2005; Winterhalder, 1986) and some degree of status-leveling (Cashdan, 1980), certain individuals consume more resources, get the best pick of mates, and take a more central role in group decision-making (Boehm, 1999; Trigger, 1985; Wiessner, 1996). Whether implicit or overt, classification by social status is a human universal. While …

Aging And Inflammation In Two Epidemiological Worlds, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jeffrey Winking, Caleb Finch, Eileen M. Crimmins

ESI Publications

Humans evolved in a world with high levels of infection resulting in high mortality across the life span and few survivors to advanced ages. Under such conditions, a strong acute-phase inflammatory response was required for survival; however, inflammatory responses can also promote chronic diseases of aging. We hypothesize that global historical increases in life span at older ages are partly explained by reduced lifetime exposure to infection and subsequent inflammation. To begin a test of this hypothesis, we compare C-reactive protein (CRP); levels in two populations with different epidemiological environments: the Tsimane of Bolivia and persons in the United States. …

Jean-Baptiste Debret’S Return Of The Negro Hunters, The Brazilian Roça, And The Interstices Of Empire, Amy J. Buono

Art Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"Despite the range of subjects that Debret illustrates, historians of Brazil have usually only reproduced his images of Afro-Brazilian slaves. This is understandable, given the political, social and economic interest in the topic and the fact that Debret is one of the few artists who portrayed the horrors of slavery in Brazil at so early date.³ The keen interest in slavery as an historical topic has also led some scholars to assume that all Afro-Brazilians depicted in Debret's volumes are slaves, when many individuals may in fact have been free.⁴ While acknowledging the importance of examining Debret's images …

Review Of "Harlem's Hell Fighters: The African-American 369th Infantry In World War I" By Stephen L. Harris, Jennifer D. Keene

History Faculty Articles and Research

This is a review of Stephen L. Harris' "Harlem's Hell Fighters: The African-American 369th Infantry in World War I."

The Evolution Of Human Life Expectancy And Intelligence In Hunter-Gatherer Economies, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

The economics of hunting and gathering must have driven the biological evolution of human characteristics, since hunter-gatherer societies prevailed for the two million years of human history. These societies feature huge intergenerational resource flows, suggesting that these resource flows should replace fertility as the key demographic consideration. It is then theoretically expected that life expectancy and brain size would increase simultaneously, as apparently occurred during our evolutionary history. The brain here is considered as a direct form of bodily investment, but also crucially as facilitating further indirect investment by means of learning-by-doing.

Gunther Gerzso: Chronology; Bibliography; Exhibitions; Filmography; And Scenography, Amy J. Buono

Art Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Dr. Buono wrote the Chronology and Bibliography, Exhibitions, Filmography, and Scenography sections for the catalogue for the "Risking the Abstract: Mexican Modernism and the Art of Gunther Gerzso" exhibition at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.