Who Are You? Social markers of identity in Mumbai

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to visit Mumbai, India as part of a sabbatical project this past January for three weeks. While there, I wrote a daily blog of my experiences and perceptions. Here are some thoughts on public identity markers from February 1, 2013. I invite your comments!

Walking down the street or in a mall in San Diego, I have little idea who is walking beside me. Of course, there are some markers of socio-economic status based on clothes, shoes or handbags, but the rest is mostly style. Style only can tell you so much about a person. In India, it is much different. What you wear, and how you wear it, may announce to the world your ethnic heritage, state of origin, and religion.

Sari styles from Wikipedia;
I don't know know why they
draw such masculine women.
Hijras?

I can't claim to know much about the varying identity markers, but here are some of the interesting things I've picked up on since I've been here. For women, a sari generally means you are more traditional (of the 'Old India' as they say) or dressed up for a special event. Saris are most often worn as everyday dress by women over 30 or so. Of course, you know it as a long piece of colorful fabric, about 3 meters/9 feet long, wrapped around the waist and draped over the shoulder. A tightly-fitted cutoff shirt, the choli, is worn underneath, and often the midriff is bared from the sides. The design of the fabric and the way you wrap your sari denotes your region of origin (for a very basic outline of some of these wrapping styles in Wikipedia click here.) Saris are most common for Hindu women. A Catholic woman, on the other hand, wears a Western "house dress" to distinguish herself from a Hindu.

If you are a Muslim woman, you may cover your clothing with a black garment when you go out in public, called hijab. The choice of hijab may be dictated by a woman's particular sect of Islam, her age and marital status, or may be imposed upon her by her husband who has the right to ask her to wear it. She may wear a chador, allowing her face to be uncovered, a burka which allows only a slit for the eyes, or varying types of head scarves and face coverings. I've seen scarves and face coverings (not exactly veils, but more like bandit masks) in all colors and white, aside from the traditional black. Colorful ones are most usually worn by younger women.

Behind a Bohra Muslim woman, Chor Bazaar

One sect of Islam, called Bohra, allows women to wear a colorful garment that covers the body like a burka and a matching head piece that frames the face. To an outsider, the Bohra Muslim women look like colorful Quakers. To give you an idea of how much can be "read" by a Mumbaikar based on clothing alone, the garments not only say Bohra Muslim, they say specifically the Shia sect of Islam, Gujarati speaker, vegetarian, likely in business, moderate to progressive values.

Sharanam girls in salwar kameez

While Western dress is worn most often by high school and college aged kids, a secular middle ground is occupied by the salwar kameez. This is a three piece set, a tunic, pants, and scarf. The salwar is ubiquitous, worn by all ages, and does not denote religion or ethnicity. It is fashion. Like the sari, the salwar kameez is colorful and feminine, and can be casual or quite formal. Karen, Camille and I - and all the Sharanam girls - wore salwar kameez to the Child Reach Annual Day dance show, where more formal dress was requested. (Note: These are friends who care for abandoned girls at a family shelter home called Sharanam.)

For men and children, there are also identity markers. Men mostly wear Western dress in Mumbai, but it is also very common to see Muslim men in tunics and caps. If a Muslim man is wearing white, it is prayer day (Friday). If a man has a large red bindi (dot made with red pigment) on his forehead, he is Hindu and has gone to temple that day. Punjabi Sikhs are identified by their turbans, wrapped in a specific style. A taxi driver owns the taxi if he is wearing a white uniform; works for someone else if he is wearing khaki.

Muslim school boys at the park

School children can be identified immediately by their uniforms: Urdu schools, government schools, private schools and Catholic (or "Convent") schools each have a different uniform. Just looking at the child can tell a person what your resources are: do you have enough money or a good enough family to send your child to a private or Catholic school?

It strikes me that in a highly stratified society, it helps to know who you're dealing with immediately. A person can temper his level of language (formal or informal) and mode of interacting very quickly based on his perception of the other person. In a place where women have many restrictions, clothing and other outward manifestations of identity can pinpoint, basically, what you should and shouldn't be doing. In the U.S., where we are bred to be independent and individualistic, we tend to care less about who you are and where you come from than where are you going and how you will get there. Our clothes do not reflect history, beliefs and social roles, but our choice of how we wish to represent ourselves. You can be an Anglo girl wearing kente cloth or an Asian woman wearing an embroidered huipil from the Yucatan, and it has nothing to do with your family background. I imagine that without these markers, Indian people without much exposure to Western dress must be fairly lost when they first arrive in the U.S.

Three of the "Five Ks" in Sikhism

In an interesting example of Indian identity markers, practicing Sikhs (from Punjab) are required to wear five "articles of faith"at all times. If they do not possess all of these items, they are not considered to be "practicing." The five articles are also known as the "Five Ks," for each begins with the letter K in Punjabi. They each have symbolic resonance for a practitioner. A Sikh must have with him (or her) at all times: uncut hair (men tie theirs in a turban daily); a wooden comb; an iron bangle (with a silver tone, uncommon for Indians who prefer gold); Sikh boxer shorts (making the wearer ready for battle at any time); and a kirpan, or ceremonial dagger of 4"- 6". Sikhs are recognized throughout history for their fierceness and willingness to put themselves in harm's way. This is lost on Americans, generally, who don't associate turbans with strength, power and the struggle against evil. Karen says that they employ plastic daggers for getting through security at airports, to maintain their identity while also being able to board a plane. It's hard enough nowadays to board a plane in a turban; they know the dagger wouldn't be a good thing to argue over with security agents.

Carrying clean laundry
out of dhobi ghats

Another way to identify people is based on what they carry. It seems everyone is carrying something here, especially if they work for someone else. Women and men carry bulging bags of laundry on their heads; children carry backpacks and schoolbooks if they are lucky, cheap barrettes or earrings to sell if they are not; men carry all shapes and sizes of boxes, bags, and trunks in addition to metal racks, sugar cane, chairs, bamboo scaffolding, etc. on their shoulders, backs and heads. If you are a tiffin-wallah, you carry a six foot metal rack piled high with lunch boxes on your shoulders. If you are a "coolie" (yes, they use that word) in Crawford Market, you carry a large, shallow basket on our shoulders in which to place all the wholesale items that a customer wants to buy.

On occasions where it is hard to determine your identity, Indians can get flummoxed. For instance, Karen (my friend, and the Executive Director of the Aasha Foundation) and I accompanied B (one of the Sharanam girls) to an art school, where she may enroll in a certification course in photography. We spoke to a very friendly and kind faculty member who stepped out of his class to answer our questions and take us on a tour of the school. (Karen said this probably would not have happened had we been Indian.) But before he warmed up to us, he was very hesitant to give us information until he understood just what our relationship to B was. Faculty member: "So, you are from where?" Karen: "I live here in Mumbai, in Bandra.""And she (B) is from...?" "Also Mumbai." (Look of puzzlement. Chat about something else.) "So, you do what exactly in Mumbai...?" "I consult on projects (purposefully vague answer)." (Look of puzzlement doesn't abate.) "So, you are her...?" Karen: "I'm family." Finally, he seemed to get it, that Karen was ultimately responsible for B and would provide the financial and academic support she needed to succeed in the program. After that, he relaxed and invited us to see the school. Making that connection clear is always important, Karen says. Without family and the kind of support children need to complete educational programs, schools of all kinds are less likely to accept a student. If Karen and B had worn the same type of sari, it might have been a little easier for him.

Every basic textbook in physical anthropology and, I suspect, just about every course outline contains a major section on Mendelian genetics. Now don’t get me wrong—I love genetics. (My undergraduate degree is in Zoology and I’ve taught courses in biology and genetics.) But I find the teaching of Mendelian genetics in introductory physical anthropology courses to be very frustrating. First, it’s been almost 150 years since Gregor Mendel published the results of his experiences, and genetics has moved on—an understatement if there ever was one. Today is the age of genomics and epigenetics and I suspect that introductory courses in genetics barely mention classical Mendelian genetics outside of its inclusion in a historical introduction. Much of Mendelian genetics is overly simplistic and, in many cases, simply wrong. I recently read that only 2 percent of all human genetic traits, including abnormalities, are inherited in a classic Mendelian fashion, yet our students leave us thinking that 3:1 ratios explain everything, from skin colors to cancers. Second, the weeks that we spend on genetics means weeks that we cannot devote to important topics that are central to anthropology. I want anthropology students to learn about primates and fossils and not how to work Punnet squares. And finally I am not convinced that detailed knowledge of Mendelian genetics is really necessary to the understanding of evolutionary theory.

As a result of thoughts my unit in genetics has slowly been reduced. This semester I spent about a half hour on Mendel as a part of the unit on the history of evolutionary theory, and another half hour at the midpoint of the course on DNA and genomics in preparation for discussions of comparative molecular biology and comparative genomics, including Neandertal genomes and all that good stuff.

Needless I feel guilty with the evisceration of my genetics unit. However, this past summer an opinion piece appeared in PLoS  Biology by Rosemary J. Redfield of the University of British Columbia titled “‘Why Do We Have to Learn This Stuff?’—A New Genetics for 21st Century Students.” Redfield is a bacterial geneticist and she is talking about the lower division major’s course in genetics within their Biology Department. She writes (bold mine):

"…geneticists need to step back from the current curriculum and decide what 21st century students really need to know about genes and inheritance. These decisions should be based on how students will use what they learn, and not on what we as geneticists value. Then we can develop specific learning goals—lists of skills we want students to gain from our teaching. Only then will we be ready to develop a syllabus, and to create the textbooks, assessment tools, and validation tools we’ll need. At the same time, we should be promoting parallel changes at earlier levels; the brief time high school and first-year university students devote to genetics shouldn’t be wasted on Mendel’s laws and Punnett squares."

 Shortly after this article was published, an editorial piece appeared in Scientific American titled “Hidden Meanings in Our Genomes—and What to Do with Mendel.” The author was Ricki Lewis, the author of Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications, a well-known textbook in introductory genetics. She writes:

"And so the story of the monk and the beautiful illustrations of the tall and short pea plants with their wrinkled and round, green and yellow peas that have festooned chapter 4 in my textbook for 10 editions will probably be buried in an appendix in the 11th. For in this post-genomic age, there’s simply too much else to discover, in both the obvious and no-so-obvious terrain of our genomes."

I am now engaged in rethinking my genetics presentation in introductory physical anthropology along with colleagues from our neighboring college, Rebecca Stein and Rebecca Frank. I presented some of this as the Austin SACCFest and Laura Gonzalez suggested that I post the topic on the SACC blog in hopes that we can get a good discussion going.

Update on Filtered Twitter Streams

Some time ago we had a discussion on this blog and elsewhere about the (valuable) uses of Twitter. Since then I've noticed where people have used it for things like commenting on sessions at annual meetings, and more. In my earlier posts I shared an example of how one could embed a widget in their blog/web page that provides a re-sizable window showing tweets that are filtered by user, by hashtag, or by group. One third-party service that provided the ability to create this feature was Hootsuite; because of a change at Twitter, this Hootsuite service no longer works. But you can at least create such widgets via Twitter itself. And here is a relevant example, filtering tweets by user @bobmuckle (Yay! Bob!) whose tweets are always well worth following. I've used Bob's feed, along with several others (including #sacc_l, #bdlant) in my anthro and soc courses. If you have questions, please ask them! If you have suggestions... please share! Thanks! Brian Tweets by @bobmuckle

The New Connecticut ConnSCU System of Higher Education

The Community College system in Connecticut is now under significant change at the state level.  Since Jan. 1, 2012 we have been merged with the University System under a new entity known as ConnSCU (following the example of Minnesota's system, MNSCU.  We will now begin a process, mandated by the legislature, and under the actions of the new Board of Regents, to develop a set of common core standards for general education, to put in place a guaranteed system of transfer and articulation between two and four year institutions in our new State system.  

In the midst of this, disciplines such as anthropology may not fare well, as the new standards put the focus on "outcomes" irrespective of the disciplines within which they might have traditionally been expected to show up.  One program example has already come to my attention based on such principles and standards, in which there were no general education requirements (or suggested electives) to be taken as classes in sociology or anthropology!  I was told that these are "second tier" courses, and they would be taken after the associate degree level, at the four year instituion.  

I will be watching (and participating in) this process very carefully as it makes me more than nervous to think that anthropology (and sociology) may have a diminished place at the associate degree level.  It also challenges me to think about how to become more publicly articulate at the institutional level around the intrinsic value of our discipline for the "core" of general education.

See: Eastern Connecticut State University's Liberal Arts Core as a recent example of an insitution's work, prior to the ConnSCU merger, to develop this outcomes/core approach. 

See: Southern Connecticut State University's up-coming workshop to address this process as it also leads to articulation between high schools and higher education.

Thought I would share a link that I have also tweeted with the #SACC_L hashtag.  Inaugural blog from Anthropology Now online.  http://anthronow.com/featured/the-inaugural-post-of-betwixt-and-between-anthropology-nows-guest-blogger-venue   Raises the question about current relevance of anthropology. 

Palm oil plantations "built on the bones of orangutans"

At the SACC annual meeting, our keynote speaker Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas urged us to spread the word about the sheer destruction of orangutan habitat by palm oil plantations in Indonesia. In addition, orangutans are routinely shot and
killed to keep them off plantation land. This is a dire situation for the continuing existence of orangutans in the wild.

We promised to send out a list of palm oil-derived ingredients to help our members avoid it in our purchases.

Here is a list from Bornean Orangutan Survival (BOS) Australia:

-- As a rule of thumb, if the saturated fat content is about 50%, there is a good chance that the vegetable oil will in fact be palm oil.

-- If the product contains margarine, it is highly likely that the margarine will have been derived from palm oil.

-- Additives and agents such as emulsifiers (E471 is a common one), while a
small component of the overall product, can also be derived from palm oil.

-- Other names to keep an eye out for that could be or be derived from palm oil
are cocoa butter equivalent (CBE), cocoa butter substitute (CBS), palm olein and
palm stearine.

-- In non-food products like soaps and detergents, the list includes elaeis
guineensis, sodium lauryl sulphate, cetyl alcohol, stearic acid, isopropyl and
other palmitates, steareth-2, steareth-20 and fatty alcohol sulphates – all of
which may be derived from palm oil.

Daily Update: Tuesday October 4, 2011

 

 

A soybean field on U.S. Highway 150 east of Washington, Indiana.

Walk: Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Yesterday I took the day off to catch up which as always I did to some extent, but didn't get fully caught up. Today I began walking east from our motel on East National Highway in Washington. Loret suggested I find out more about this topic in an e-mail. She said every drought year corn prices are predicted to be high, but when the harvest actually comes in they fall. Farmers don't know what they are getting until the harvest actually occurs. I have given this some thought on and off for some time. It does not seem different than the situation my father faced growing wine grapes in the 1940s-1960s. He never knew the price before hand, and occasionally even after they were delivered to the winery he didn't know the price he would receive. If the wineries really needed grapes, they would pay the price of transporting them from the vineyard; if not Dad, paid for that, too. Although San Joaquin Valley grapes were not as good wine grapes as ours, Dad would read the price for them since the harvest started earlier in the San Joaquin Valley. They harvested perhaps a month or so before we harvested in October in Sonoma County, California. There was the issue of quality. If the grapes didn't reach a certain sugar content, the price was dropped. If it rained during harvest a mold developed on the skins of the grapes and the skins ruptured, allowing the juice to run out. The juice gave the grapes weight which is what the wineries were paying us for. I remember one year helping pick up lug boxes of grapes to load on our wagon and having a stream of juice flow from each end no matter how level I lifted the box. I think Dad had my brother and me pick those boxes up so he wouldn't have to watch his potential income soak into the soil. In large measure any business venture in a capitalistic society is fraught with risk. Perhaps farmers are a bit more vulnerable in that they tend to have a limited number of items to sell. In my father's case it was wine grapes and beef cattle. Some farmers may only market one crop. Marketing the beef cattle provided some choice. Buyers would visit Dad and offer him a price per pound; always, of course a bit below the market price. If Dad had accepted it, which I don't believe he ever did, or perhaps only once, they shipped the cattle. Dad usually paid to have them shipped to the stock yards in South San Francisco and have a commission man sell them. Selling them at a local auction yard would have been another option Dad never utilized.

After walking about 1½ miles I reached U.S. Highway 150 and continued east on it. Immediately to my left was a Case farm equipment dealership. It didn't look too busy so I decided to ask if anyone there knew about the price of corn and soybeans. I talked briefly with Jason Witchman. He commented the price a farmer receives is typically 20¢ to 30¢ lower than the futures for both corn and soybeans. He did say farmers may forward contract, sell their crop ahead in the spring or summer. They can also sell at today's price when they harvest. I thought of the situation with grapes and their sugar content, so I also asked if farmers received a lower price if the corn or beans didn't meet certain standards. He said yes, variables being moisture content, test weight, and foreign matter.

Several miles further east I saw Sherry Edwards working in her garden. The sign on the highway said Edwards Family Farm. I asked her take on prices of soybeans and corn. She reiterated what Jason had said, a crop can be sold ahead or a portion can be. She added another option is for the farmer to store a part of their crop. She, too, said as the harvest approaches, the price drops. She said farmers have to be good at marketing. She and her husband farm 2,000 to 3,000 acres. She did mention a problem with soybeans being if the moisture content of the seeds fall below 12% or 11% the seeds will fall out of the pods. She said yesterday they were down to nine percent. While I was talking to Sherry her mother came out and the three of us talked briefly. Sherry's mother is a widow, and her husband had been a farmer, too. She said there is no comparison between the situation when she and her husband began farming and the situation today. Now her mother leases her land to a large farming operation. She said when they come in to harvest the corn in the field next to where we were talking, they will come in with 11 to 13 combines and a fleet of trucks.

I mentioned last year at harvest time I was in Eastern Colorado and Western Kansas where the crops were wheat, corn, milo maize and sunflowers. Sherry said her husband planted milo maize once when it was too late to get in soybeans, but he didn't like the crop. I guess he isn't the only one. I don't think I have walked past a field of it since Kansas. Again it would have been interesting to have asked some more questions, but Sherry received a phone call, so I left. It would have been interesting to talk to her mother about all the changes she remembered.

It would have been nice to have had a longer conversation with Jason, Sherry and her mother and probed these issues more deeply. However, as I walk, it is difficult to know where I will be or when I will be there. People are busy and so I hate to take too much of their time. However, probing this would be a fruitful project for anthropologists much younger than me. As beef and wine grapes are different but fraught with uncertainty, so are corn and soybean prices.

In addition to Loret's comments on my Update on soybeans and corn I received this one from Mary Gresham who sent it on to her cousin in Nebraska who replied to her which she forwarded to me focusing on the uses of soybean.

The uses are all correct for the soy products, a few comments tho...the oils are

also made into bio-diesel which has a natural lubricant that replaces the sulfur

additives in regular diesel fuel. One of the biggest new uses for the meal is in

aquaculture. The ocean fisheries are declining and the soy meal is a main

ingredient in the pelleted food the industry feeds the "farmed fish", Old

McDonald had a fish....

As I observed in Morro and Tomales Bays, the commercial fishing industry is in a state of collapse on the California Coast. Another of the nation's natural resources, and a renewable one at that, rapidly going, if not gone. Interesting in the middle of our nation soybeans are being grown to maintain the farmed fish industry on our coasts.

Today's walk was easy, perhaps too easy. Just east of Washington I stopped at an Amish Country Store for a cup of coffee and a root beer float. I stopped again for coffee in Montgomery. The shoulder of the road was narrow in places and traffic pretty heavy so often I had to step off the shoulder and wait for traffic to pass. Just as I started walking east on 150 they are constructing an overpass. Traffic going east was stopped and no traffic was coming toward me. A truck driver asked me to slow down because I was making them look bad. The backup was caused by a truck delivering a long cement beam backing into the work area and blocking traffic going in both directions. Just before I reached it, he finished backing off the road. Then I had to wait a long time for the backed up traffic coming toward me to clear.

All in all, another very good day. Beautiful Fall weather, the temperature was in the high 70s. I had some good conversations, found restaurants at the right interval along my route. I reached Montgomery and continued east Carole picked me up at the juncture of 150 and 900 East Road. I calculate I walked 11¾ miles today.

Bill and Carole