Dorothy Ayers Counts

Cross-cultural Perspectives on Middle-aged Women [and Comments and Replies]

Several exploratory cross-cultural studies have suggested that positive changes take place in the lives of women in non-Western societies as they age beyond the childbearing years. They are freed from a variety of restrictions. They are given authority over certain specified kinsmen, and they are provided with opportunities for achievement and recognition beyond the household. The fact that such changes are more dramatic in some societies than in others is examined, as well as the reasons for the positive nature of these changes. Psychoanalytic theory, sociobiology, and the works of Goody, Gutmann, and the Whitings all provide useful points of departure for explanations, yet no theory fully accounts for the findings. My own interpretation stresses the relationship of a mother to her adult offspring.

Suicide in Different Ages from a Cross-Cultural Perspective

The advantage of an anthropological approach to understanding suicides that occur at different times in the life cycle and in different cultures is that anthropology offers an analytical perspective that is concerned with understanding the cultural context in which suicides occur. Anthropology seeks to explain suicide as being a culturally constructed act that is performed in the context of a system of meaning. The system of meaning communicates, in a variety of ways as we shall see below, the rules of suicide for those who would kill themselves and a code of understanding for the survivors who must interpret the message that the suicide was attempting to convey. These rules are part of culturally shared understanding about the meaning of death: They identify those who may legitimately commit suicide as well as why and how it is to be done. The rules specify, in effect, that under some circumstances it is appropriate for certain types of persons to commit suicide. They also provide a script that the actor should follow if he intends for his death to communicate an appropriate message to his survivors. This script establishes what steps precede the deed and what method the suicide should use. If he follows the rules, the suicide can expect relatives and friends to respond to his death in predictable ways. The person who is contemplating suicide will refer to these publicly shared understandings in planning his act for, by so doing, he can legitimize and give meaning to his death, both for himself and for others. He may also be able to control the consequences of his suicide and establish an agenda for his friends and kin to follow in response to his death.

Complementarity in Medical Treatment in a West New Britain Society

The Lusi are an Austronesian-speaking, horticultural people living in the Kaliai area of the northwest coast of West New Britain province in Papua New Guinea. Kaliai was contacted and pacified around the turn of this century by German colonial representatives. Despite the fact that small parcels of land were alienated in the early 1900s for a mission station and for a private plantation, the peoples of the northwest coast of New Britain have remained, until very recently, among the most isolated of coastal-dwelling societies anywhere in Papua New Guinea. There is still, in 1984, no government administered office closer than 100 kilometers by sea from the central part of the Kaliai coast. The land bought by the Roman Catholic mission was not occupied by a priest or by sisters until after World War II, and while Iboki Plantation has been in nearly continuous operation from German times until today, its effect on the local population has been small except as an occasional source of casual employment, as the location of a tradestore or, more rarely, as a market for local garden produce.

Symposium†: Infant care and feeding in Kaliai, west new britain, papua new guinea

Modernization often changes infant feeding practices, nursing being abandoned for bottle feeding. This study focusses on the relationship between parenting and nurture in a rural Papua New Guinea community. It examines whether introduced ideas have changed nursing practice, and how the idea that semen contaminates breast milk may affect infant feeding. Observation of the interaction of fifty women and children suggests that, despite changed ideas about sexuality and procreation, little change has occurred in nursing behavior. Ideologies linking nurture and parenthood, and the symbolism of breast milk as the stuff of maternal kinship, override introduced concepts and all infants are normally nursed at least age two. Milk is considered to be potentially contaminated by semen during intercourse due to a supposed link between uterus and breast. Comparative studies suggest that this belief, which affects infant feeding practices, may be widespread.

Aging, health and women in West New Britain.

Modernization has not significantly improved the lives of elderly women in an isolated Melanesian community. While demographic changes may deprive the elderly of the care of co-resident children, modern medical technology has not greatly bettered their health. People who suffer from the degenerative diseases of old age do not travel to the hospital because they believe that Western medicine cannot cure them and because they fear dying far from home, kin and friends. Modernization has, however, eroded the healing role and prestige of elderly female healers, and their skills and medical knowledge are being lost.

Aspects of Dying in Northwest New Britain

Three detailed case studies and more general discussion of aspects of death in northwest New Britain, Papua New Guinea, demonstrate Kaliai concepts of good and bad death. The consequences of both kinds of death for the dying person and for survivors are noted, and we explore why a person might choose a bad death.

Sanctions and Sanctuary: Cultural Perspectives on the Beating of Wives@@@The Presence of the Past: Male Violence in the Family

Patriarchal contributions to the construction of male violence the contributions of the modern family to male violence the contributions of the modern family to male violence the contributions of male gender construction and reproduction to male violence, female target - the low self-esteem and high emotional dependency nexus what can be done to prevent male violence? conclusions.

The Cultural Construction of Aging and Dying in a Melanesian Community.

Contrasts that have been drawn between premodern and modern societies with respect to aging and dying suggest that modern medical technology has introduced profound changes into these processes. Drawing on the anthropological literature and their own research in Papua, New Guinea, the authors argue that in most respects the contrast is spurious. As both the processes of aging and of dying are cultural constructs, they are as likely to be complex phenomena in simple societies as they are in our own.