So What? Now What? The Anthropology of Consciousness Responds to a World in Crisis

30 Pages·2012·0.27 MB·English

So What? Now What?
The Anthropology of Consciousness Responds
to a World in Crisis

So What? Now What?
The Anthropology of Consciousness Responds
to a World in Crisis

Edited by

Matthew C. Bronson and Tina R. Fields
So What? Now What? The Anthropology of Consciousness Responds to a World in Crisis,

Edited by Matthew C. Bronson and Tina R. Fields

This book first published 2009

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2009 by Matthew C. Bronson and Tina R. Fields and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-0977-2, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-0977-1
We dedicate this volume to our noble ancestors in the Society for the
Anthropology of Consciousness who have given us the gift of their
wisdom and moved on to a higher calling. We walk in the light of Joseph
Long, anthropologist and professor, a founder of the Society; Kay
Rawlings, coal baroness, filmmaker, and founding member of KQED
Public Television; Priscilla Lee, gifted educator and anthropologist; Galina
Lindquist, whose research on shamanism in the former Soviet Union
crossed so many lines; and Dan Moonhawk Alford, who walked the lonely
intersection of consciousness studies, Native American language, physics,
and linguistics, and came back to tell us about it. We honor all of you for
your sacrifice and commitment, and we thank you for making our work
possible.
We dedicate this book also to the new generation of scholars and
advocates who will likely face even greater crises in the years to come.
May you never waver in your steps toward a more humane, just, sacred,
and sustainable world.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations.....................................................................................ix
Foreword
Of What Good is Knowledge if it is Not Employed?
John Baker, SAC President........................................................................xi
Acknowledgments....................................................................................xiii
Introduction
Matthew C. Bronson and Tina R. Fields.....................................................1
Part I: Building and Connecting Communities
Chapter One
Finding a Path Through Silver Rain: Steps Toward
an Anthropology of Conscience
Karen Ann Watson-Gegeo.........................................................................30
Chapter Two
Incorporating an Anthropological Consciousness as a Model for
Development Practice
Margaret Willson.......................................................................................54
Chapter Three
The Old is Now: Creating a Shift Toward Wholeness through Dialogue
Phillip H. Duran and Glenn Aparicio Parry...............................................75
Chapter Four
Constructing Knowledge One Grant at a Time
Jeffery L. MacDonald..............................................................................106
Part II: Healing and Medicine
Chapter Five
Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
Stanley Krippner and Stefan J. Kasian....................................................136
viii Table of Contents

Chapter Six
The Color of Sickness: A Postcolonial and Postmodern Anthropology
Engages Disparities in Health-Care Outcomes
Avram Rubin...........................................................................................164
Chapter Seven
Shamanism: Ancient and Future Survival
Michael Winkelman................................................................................204
Part III: Language and Learning
Chapter Eight
The Grammar of Transformation: What ESL Graduate Students
Can Teach the Anthropology of Consciousness
Matthew C. Bronson................................................................................232
Chapter Nine
Tracking the Mother-Tongue: Tamazight from the Middle Atlas
to the Amazigh Diaspora
Mira Z. Amiras........................................................................................254
Chapter Ten
Manifesting Worldviews in Language
Dan Moonhawk Alford............................................................................288
Part IV: Re-Animating the World
Chapter Eleven
The Reality of Spirits: A Tabooed or Permitted Field of Study?
Edith L. B. Turner...................................................................................308
Chapter Twelve
Kumu Pohaku (Stones as Teachers): Awakening to the Spiritual
Dimension of Ecosystems
Tina R. Fields..........................................................................................317
Contributors.............................................................................................360
Index........................................................................................................367
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 1-1. Mala'ita: David’s village is located northwest of Auki..............40

Fig. 1-2. A mother and her 3-year-old daughter carry heavy
loads of firewood back from the forest, caught in surprise
by Watson-Gegeo just as they entered the village, in 1981..............48

Fig. 3-1. Participants in a talking circle, where conversation leads
to a deep flow of meaning rather than a ping-pong exchange..........78

Fig. 3-2. Some dominant values among Western and Indigenous
cultures in relationship to the natural world.....................................98

Fig. 9-1. Azouza, Fes..............................................................................256

Fig. 9-2. Azouza and the Author............................................................257

Fig. 9-3. Ibn Khaldûn’s Model of Oscillating Elites..............................261

Fig. 9-4. “Amazigh Summer” Demonstration, Aïn Leuh, Morocco.......270

Fig. 12-1. Mauna Kea observatories in the background; heiau (temple)
in the foreground............................................................................347

Cover image: This collage by Tina R. Fields centers on a portrait of
Nelson ‘Atu of Dada‘esalu village, West Kwara‘ae district, Mala‘ita
island, Solomon Islands. It was taken by Karen Ann Watson-Gegeo in
1984, and restored by Daniel Ryman. ‘Atu, who died in 1994, was ara‘i
(head) of the Ragito Kuarafi sub-clan. Born into a senior kin line, he
studied traditional cultural knowledge from early childhood. Watson-
Gegeo’s research with, and for, the Kwara‘ae people is described in the
first chapter of this book. The earth as halo signifies a recognition of the
immanent as sacred, and the sort of expanded conscience and consciousness
this book hopes to foster.