Paul Stoller

Reflections of older Iranian women Adapting to life in the United States

Abstract Age is an important and often overlooked attribute that influences adjustment to a new cultural context. This paper focuses on the ways in which older Iranian women, who spent their youth and middle adult years in Iran, have adapted to life in the United States. The results are based on extensive interviews with 19 Iranian women over the age of 65 (age range was 65 to 85). Although the majority of women interviewed expressed positive feelings about themselves and a sense of satisfaction with the transitions in their lives, considerable individual differences were identified. These differences focused primarily on the ways in which they attempted to adapt or cope with the new cultural environment in which they were living. Analysis resulted in the identification of three general strategies of adaptation to immigration. These strategies were labeled as withdrawn, insular, and assimilative.

City Life West African Communities in New York

This article focuses on the relevance of the notion of community to contemporary urban studies. The results of a six-year ethnographic study of West African traders in New York City suggest that the notion of community—however problematic—is one worth retaining. Given a conception of community that is refined to confront the complexities of postmodernity, the authors suggest, the social scientist is able to demonstrate how macro-forces (globalization, immigration, informal economies, and state regulation) affect the lives of individuals living in the fragmented transnational spaces that increasingly make up contemporary social worlds. This premise is reinforced through the presentation of ethnographic data that demonstrate how contemporary dispersed communities of West Africans in New York provide economic, social, and cultural resources that enable many, though not all, West African traders to cope with the cultural alienation of “city life.”

Moving out of the Market: Retirement and West African Immigrant Men in the United States

In this paper we explore the later life plans and goals of a group of male West African traders. As the world becomes more socially and culturally integrated, the challenge of understanding the culturally divergent statuses of older men and women becomes paramount. We compare and contrast American and West African views about aging and later adulthood. Data for this research were gathered over an almost 15 year period of ethnographic field work in New York City. We interviewed more than 76 men from Niger who had lived and worked in the United States for between five and 15 years. Analysis of the data revealed similarities and differences in the aging trajectories among our participants as well as between our participants and the results of the record of aging research among Americans. Similarities included concerns about health, a desire to spend time with family and friends, and the importance of spirituality or religion. Primary differences focused on concerns about economic and social entanglements in America as well as the desire for physical activity, independence and autonomy.

Jean Rouch's ethnographic path

This article considers the multiple influences that have shaped Jean Rouchs ethnographic gaze upon the Songhay people of Niger. Marcel Griaule, Rouchs mentor, undoubtedly influenced his students ethnographic approach to Songhay. But Rouch was equally influenced, I am convinced, by his direct and unforgettable confrontation with the mysteries of the Songhay world. After a discussion of the methodological and theoretical orientations of the Griaule school, I analyze Rouchs major ethnographic work, La Religion et la magie Songhay, focusing upon how Griaulian epistemology and Songhay realities molded the textual presentation. I then discuss several of Rouchs major films—Les Magiciens de Wanzerbe, The Lion Hunters, Les Maitres Fous, and Tourou et Bitti, placing them within an ethnographic and epistemological context. This analysis leads to a consideration of Rouchs unrecognized contribution to anthropology.

What Is Literary Anthropology

ways that assumptions about who the Ipili are, how they live and organize their social networks, and who, in different contexts, might be a legitimate personation of the leviathan. The intricacies of Ipili kinship, residence, intermarriage, and claims of descent defy bureaucratic attempts to limit or restrict workable definitions that fit neatly into contractual relations between a mining corporation and a group of “landowners.” Indeed, such are the complexities that “the Porgera case is one in which the ambiguity of the local resource frontier has created a discursive space for descent claims without creating a hegemonic account of what those descent groups are or how they operate” (115). In some respects, the Ipili appear more like another mythical monster—the many-headed hydra. Throughout the book, Golub uses the notion of feasibility as a way of exploring the possibilities and practicalities of the different agents and their projects in Porgera. In the final chapters he shifts his analysis of the problem of feasible identity to the national level, scrutinizing the myths of “the Melanesia Way,” the idealized rural villager, and the “grassroots” communities who live “traditionally.” Here the full force of his argument is expressed, for just as the Ipili pursue dreams of modernity and the transformation of their villagers into modern towns with urban-style housing and amenities, so too do other rural Papua New Guineans who hope that a gold mine might be established on their land. Environmental destruction, social discord, widespread corruption, and new inequalities have been the legacies of every mining project in Papua New Guinea to date. Mining companies don’t want to abandon mines so long as the shareholders are benefiting from the profits; more surprisingly, neither do local people want mines to close. They continue to hope that they will find some feasible way of gaining more of the spoils. Golub pronounces the Porgera experiment a failure and places his hope for the valley in the post-mine era. But after decades of waste dumping in the river, vast areas of land rendered unsuitable for farming, and thousands of migrants now settled in the valley, the prospects seem grim.

More on the Anthropology of Trump

On November 8, 2016, the American people elected Donald J. Trump the 45th president of the United States. How could it be that a man so seemingly ignorant of foreign affairs or, for that matter, the workings of government, could become the most powerful person in the world? How could it be that so many scholars, pundits and big data number crunchers failed to notice Mr. Trump’s undetected groundswell of enthusiastic support — especially in rural America? How could all those millions of Trump supporters take seriously his fact-free assertions about crime, climate change, the economic power of tax cuts or effectiveness of torture? As anthropologists well know, the deceptively simple response to these difficult questions is the central concept of our discipline, culture, which, among other things, shapes our interpretation of reality. In March 2016, I published a Huffington Post blog, “The Anthropology of Trump: Myth, Illusion and Celebrity Culture.” In that piece, I tried to demonstrate how Trump had brilliantly manipulated the fundamentals of celebrity culture — glitz, illusion and fantasy — to create a kind of alternate reality in which shallow perception is more appreciated than profound insight. In the mythic culture of celebrity, as President-elect Trump seems to understand, lies become truth and conspiracies become convincing evidence that our system is “rigged.” In the glitzy world of celebrity culture illusion, as I wrote in March, “you don’t really need to know much about the politics or the world or the US Constitution. In the mythical context of illusion, if you have the right attitude and a high degree of self-confidence, as does Mr. Trump, you can solve any problem.” If you consider the inexperience and incompetence of Mr. Trump’s cabinet picks, this dangerously anti-intellectual attitude makes perfect sense. And yet during the presidential campaign, scholars, pundits, campaign professionals and big data number crunchers overlooked these fundamentally powerful cultural issues. Blinded by their own cultural assumptions, the media and the political establishment disregarded the power of culture to shape an election. How many of them understood the social and psychological dynamics of the disaffected Trump voter? How many of them could understand their social frustrations or their lack of hope or their willingness to immerse themselves in the fantasies of celebrity culture?