Anthropology Newsletter

Our congratulations to Prof. George Gmelch on his new book, Behind the Smile: The Working Lives of Caribbean Tourism, published this summer by Indiana University Press. The book is an inside look at the world of Caribbean tourism as seen through the working lives of twenty-one men and women in the tourist industry in Barbados. The workers come from every level of tourism, from maid to hotel manager, beach gigolo to taxi driver, red cap to diving instructor. Moving through the various sites in which ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’ meet - airport, hotel, beach, and tourist attractions – these highly personal accounts offer insight into complex questions surrounding tourism. The narratives touch on issues such as how race shapes interactions between tourists and workers, how tourists may become agents of cultural change, the meaning of sexual encounters between locals and tourists, and the real economic and ecological costs of development through tourism.

Prof. Gmelch comments on recent research on tourism, neo-colonialism, and cross-cultural communication. This book will interest students, scholars and all readers interested in the social and cultural aspects of travel.

Faculty Activities

We asked people in the department to let us know what they did over the summer. Here’s what they wrote:

Prof. Karen Brison: “I had a very pleasant and productive summer. I returned to Rakiraki, Fiji, for 8 weeks in July and August with two anthropology seniors, Amanda Haag and Peter Devine. Together we worked on my continuing project of studying play among Rakiraki children. We videotaped children at play and analyzed their language use. This turned out to be quite challenging at times since Fijian children had visions of becoming TV stars and regularly hammed it up for our cameras. One group of boys even decided to stage their rugby match in “slow motion” for my benefit just so it would come out better on film! We managed, however, to find out many interesting things including that Rakiraki children prefer an urban, educated Fijian dialect to the rural dialect that their parents use most of the time. These patterns indicate a shift in Fijian identity with more and more children aspiring to an urban, cosmopolitan lifestyle despite having parents who are very proud of their rural, region-specific culture. We also had a good time traveling around Fiji and enjoyed rest and recreation in the capital, Suva, and at a local beach resort.”

Prof. Linda Cool: “I have continued to work on what I have come to think of as THE PROJECT - an effort to create a national consortium of higher education institutions and related non-profits to prefund retiree medical insurance in a tax-advantaged way (during the working years) and then use those funds to purchase better health insurance in retirement than is currently available on the market today (including prescription drug coverage and catastrophic protection from long-term illness). The good news is that we are now a legal entity (EMERITI, Retirement Health Solutions) and over 170 colleges, universities, and non-profit organizations have expressed interest in the concept and in possibly joining the consortium. I am delighted that this piece of applied anthropology (it all began with a research project on faculty perspectives on retirement) is working so well and I hope that through it I can make a difference for retirees.”

Prof. Steve Jones writes, “Summer is usually the prime activity time for academic archaeologists. Much of my summer was devoted to the Flint House in Scotia. Since we lacked student helpers, there were just a half-dozen or so days of digging. This left us much-needed time for processing the information we had already uncovered, and particularly for putting it onto computer. The latter was largely the responsibility of my summer research assistant, Theresa Rourk, who designed spreadsheet programs for contexts, plans (maps), and particularly photos, which were in a jumble. There was also intensive archival research, attempting (with limited success) to find out what was going on at the Flint House at various times, and a bit of survey work in the Reist Sanctuary, locating and describing possible archaeological features on an old farm that is now completely wooded.”

Jones and Rourk also ran a STEP workshop with Union College and participated in another workshop for SCCC, both of which aimed to involve local middle-school students in archaeological fieldwork (at the Flint House and Mabee Farm respectively).

Prof. George Gmelch: “I gave several talks on baseball to alumni groups on the West Coast, and worked on a new book about fieldwork in anthropology. Prof. Gmelch also wrote an article on baseball crowds with his summer research assistant, Kaitlyn Richards.

Prof. Sharon Gmelch: “During the summer I finished the final editing and proof reading galleys on my edited book, Tourists and Tourism, which will be published this November. I also completed a chapter for a second book on the experience of doing anthropological fieldwork which I am writing jointly with George Gmelch. Strictly for fun, I visited my family in Washington State and hiked in the Olympic Mountains and spent time with friends at Middle Saranac Lake and the Jersey shore -- swimming, talking, and reading novels.”

Prof. Steve Leavitt writes, “I spent part of the summer taking care of Jeffrey (age 8) while Karen was in Fiji doing research. Jeffrey and I traveled to Canada and New Mexico, including Carlsbad Caverns. During the month of August I was doing on-the-job training in the Dean of Students office.” Steve is spending this year as acting Dean of Students in the Dean’s office in Reamer Campus Center. He can be reached at 518-388-6116 or by email at leavitts@union.edu.

New Faces in the Anthropology Department

Anthropology major Amanda Haag ’04 has been with us since her freshman year. Joining the staff this year is Sandra Vega ‘05. Sandra, also an anthropology major who tells us she chose Union over other colleges because Union was a school which offered an anthropology program.

News from Anthropology Major Graduates

Andrea Tehan ’03 wrote from Jamaica, “I am doing great! I am at the Peace Corps office in Kingston for the weekend for meetings. I am living on my own in rural St. Ann in a town called Inverness . I am living in a nice cool mountain climate in the Dry Harbour Mountains working at a primary school teaching computers and working with the environmental club, and girl guides. My secondary project is going to be working with community tourism.” Andrea’s address is Inverness PO, St. Ann, Jamaica, WI.

Anthropology Field School in Tasmania, Winter 2004 Term

This winter the Department's Anthropology Field School will be held in Tasmania, the southern-most island state of Australia. Eleven students: Chris Berk, Mike Carey, Rose Chowallur, Morgan Gmelch, Cara Kantrowitz, Andrew McCord, Chris Neal, Mike Pascucci, Kaitlyn Richards, Kyla Rudnick, and Sarah Tidman will be accompanying faculty members George and Sharon Gmelch. The group will be joined in Australia by anthropologist and nature writer Richard Nelson.
The first two weeks of the term will be spent exploring the southern area of mainland Australia, visiting the cities of Sydney and Melbourne and camping in National Parks and wilderness areas and on a sheep ranch. During this time the group will begin learning about Australian society and nature. Once in Tasmania, the field school will be based near Hobart. Students will live with local families while conducting independent research. They will also attend weekly group seminars and go on several weekend trips to different parts of the island. Students will be using anthropological research methods to learn about the community they live in as well as applying them to a research topic of their own choosing. In addition to the papers students will be writing, they will each have the opportunity to produce a short program for radio broadcast.
Tasmania's remote beauty and many protected parks and reserves have made it a premier eco-tourism destination. Given this, a special focus of the term will be on cultural ecology (i.e., the human-nature relationship) and on eco-tourism. Two students, Kaitlyn Richards and Sarah Tidman, plan to conduct their senior thesis research on tourism while in Tasmania.

Prof. Matsue to Teach Course on Japanese Culture

Jennifer Milioto Matsue is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Performing Arts, and is also teaching in the East Asian Studies Program and Anthropology Department. Her research ranges from ethnographic work on underground popular music to traditional art music of Japan, with a focus on the role of women, the production of meaning through musical practice, and approaches to ethnography itself.

She is currently preparing several articles for publication on the underground hardcore scene in Tokyo as well as co-editing a volume on Japanese popular music, which will include her own article on the ephemeral nature of rave culture in contemporary Japan. She is also beginning work on a book manuscript, which will explore broader underground music-making practices in Japan.

Her teaching interests include topics in East Asian performing arts and culture, western art music, global popular music, world music, gender issues, cultural anthropology, and ethnographic methods.

Union Students Dig up Schenectady

This fall anthropology students are once again getting involved in local archaeology projects. The Introduction to Archaeology course requires at least one day of fieldwork, and Union College has projects each weekend during the term at the Flint House in Scotia (Steve Jones, project director) and on the Erie Canal in Albany (Denis Foley and Andrew Wolfe, project directors). The Flint House digs will run through mid October, when the Erie Canal digs will begin. Both projects are under the auspices of the Lewis Henry Morgan Institute, which Foley and Wolfe founded several years ago to initiate and promote archaeology and anthropology projects.

Students and volunteers have other fieldwork opportunities this fall, including several digs in Schenectady’s historic Stockade and at the 17^th-century Mabee Farm in Rotterdam Junction. Anyone interested in getting down and dirty (i.e., volunteering) can call Steve Jones at 381-1826, or email doniphin@earthlink.net .

October is Archaeology Month, and the historic Flint House in Scotia marked it with an open house and presentation by Union anthropology professor Steve Jones on Oct. 5th. The presentation described the attempt to track down the history of the property — particularly its heyday in the 1800s when it was the home and (presumably) headquarters of the Reese Family, who ran a major broomcorn business and owned much of the area. The historic deeds are a muddle and the Reeses, despite their prominence (the local village was named “Reeseville” at the time), are mysteriously missing from historical records. This means that the history of the place is even harder to piece together than the archaeology. The presentation covered excavations by Union students over the past year and a half, and detailed what all we’ve learned — as well as what remains to be discovered. The Flint House is In Scotia, across the Mohawk River.

On October 11, professors Steve Jones and Denis Foley of Union’s Anthropology Department were joined by Louise Basa and Ronald Kingsley of Schenectady County Community College (SCCC) at SCCC to discuss local archaeology fieldwork that has taken placed in the Schenectady area. The event included a PowerPoint presentation along with more informal discussion.

Winter 2004 Course Schedule

Notes from the Chair

By Karen Brison

It looks like it will be an interesting year for the anthropology department. Steve Leavitt is serving as acting Dean of Students for the year. Linda Cool will be on leave for fall and winter terms in order to work on her Mellon retirement project. On the positive side, Steve Jones has agreed to join us for another year and will be offering courses in archeology and biological anthropology, as well as conducting archeological digs on such local sites as the Mabee Farm. We also welcome Jennifer Matsue, an ethnomusicologist who started as an assistant professor in the Union music department this fall. Jennifer did research on hip-hop in Japan and will teach Contemporary Japanese Society for us in the winter term. I will be serving as chair for this year as well as director of the Union Scholars Program. George and Sharon Gmelch both have new books coming out and will be conducting a new Term Abroad in Tasmania this winter, with the help of an old friend, anthropologist Richard Nelson.

Fall 2003

Prof. Gmelch Publishes
Book on Carribbean Tourism