Body Ritual among the NaciremaHORACE MINERSummary Miners classic satirical article describes the - FinalQuiz

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Body Ritual among the Nacirema
HORACE MINER
Summary Miner's classic, satirical article describes the body ritual of a North American people called the Nacirema. Driven by a cultural value of the fragility and importance of their bodies, they engage in a series of daily rituals designed to make their bodies more presentable and long lasting. Underlying body ritual is a cultural perception that the human body is ugly with a tendency toward debility and disease. The Nacirema engage in complex rituals to cover up bodily imperfections and slow the body's deterioration. They have a household shrine with a chest full of magical charms, and a holy font located below the charm box. Charms come in many forms and are used for many specific purposes.
There are medicine men to guide the Nacirema in the use of charms, and "holy-mouth-men" that use various tools to purify and maintain the mouth; this in addition to the twice-daily mouth rite done at home that involves the use of a special brush.
More elaborate ceremonies are performed in a local temple, the latipsoalthough that is often viewed as a place to die. Those entering the latipso are often stripped of their clothing, handled by vestal virgins, and made to do their bodily functions in a sacred vessel and in public. Normally, however, excretory functions are ritualized and relegated to secrecy, as are natural reproductive functions.
There is also another practitioner, called a "listener," who has the power to exorcise the devils that lodge in the heads of people who have been bewitched. Parents, especially mothers, are often suspected of putting a curse on their children. For a large gift, a witch doctor will conduct exorcism sessions, when he or she listens to the other's troubles and fears from childhood.
Miner concludes that from the evidence above, the Nacirema are a magic-ridden people.
According to Miner in "Body Ritual among the Nacirema," men engage in a daily ritual that involves scraping and lacerating the face with a sharp object.

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Q: Medical Anthropology: Improving Nutrition in Malawi SONIA PATTEN Summary In this article, anthropologist Sonia Patten describes her experience as an anthropologist on a team of researchers working to improve infant and child nutrition in rural Malawi, a small nation in Africa. She and colleagues from two American universities, under the auspices of the University Development Linkages Program, worked with faculty from a college in the University of Malawi system to develop and implement a program addressing the mortality rate for children, a rate that at the time was very nearly one in four. Patten and her team members developed a plan to provide milk-producing goats to the women of the villages, teach them how to care for and raise the animals, and show them how to incorporate the protein- and calorie-rich milk into recipes that they could feed their malnourished children. The team met with village leaders and elders to convince them to allow women to own the goats, explain how the plan would work, and ensure them that this was a worthwhile effort to help combat the malnutrition their children faced. Once convinced, researchers identified villages that would be the best candidates for this social researchthose with an animal-theft problem were considered too problematic to include in the project. A baseline survey of households that included children under five was conducted, while scientists from the research team crossbred goats with the necessary characteristics on a local Malawi farm. Eventually women were provided with a goat and the basic toolsa bucket, a measuring cup, and a panto get started. Local members of the research team taught the women how to incorporate the goat's milk into their children's food and made weekly visits to villages to weigh and measure the children. The children, even those who were receiving even small amounts of goat's milk, all showed steady height and weight gains, at least for a time. The project continued to address food insecurity problems and issues that arose from the goat-raising efforts. The researchers taught the women how to plant, grow, and process soybeans into flour that they could use when no goat's milk was available. All of their efforts were sustainablewomen were asked to return their first baby goat to the researchers and 5 kg of seed after the first harvest. The research team's efforts worked within the culture of the Malawi, incorporated indigenous resources, and were conducted in the native language of the villagers. The author concludes that the project was highly valued by rural women, as evidenced by the number who wanted to participate. It proved that the addition of goat's milk to a child's diet was valuable, and the success of the project is noted by similar projects that were introduced by Malawi nongovernmental organizations. Additionally, Patten elaborates on the importance of having an anthropologist on a research team, and identifies her role and responsibilities. Her expertise proved valuable to the acceptance of the project and the high level of participation by the Malawian villagers. According to Patten in "Medical Anthropology: Improving Nutrition in Malawi," the UDLP team undertook a plan to try teaching Malawi women how to incorporate cow's milk into the gruel fed to babies and children, to get more protein and calories into their diet.

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Q: Global Women in the New Economy BARBARA EHRENREICH AND ARLIE RUSSELL HOCHSCHILD Summary In this selection, Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hochschild look at an important aspect of globalization: the movement of poor women from Third World societies to wealthier nations. Published as the introduction to Global Women: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, the piece begins with the story of a Sri Lankan woman serving as a nanny to a two-year-old child in Greece. The subject of a documentary film, When Mother Comes Home for Christmas, Josephene Perera has been a migrant worker for 10 years. She earns enough to support her three children at home, but only gets to see them once a year. Over time two of her children show signs of distress. Despite this, she returns once again to her job in Greece, trading a life of poverty at home for money in a distant land. Put another way, she gives up her family life to make one for parents who work full time in a wealthy nation. The authors stress several points about the flow of immigrant workers over the last few years. Movement has occurred between poor and rich countries. The international workforce, once largely consisting of men, now includes a substantial number of women, laboring as domestics, nannies, and sex-for-hire workers. The change marks a different relationship between rich and poor nations. Once rich nations mined poor ones for their natural resources; now they mine them for people. Four migration patterns stand out: one is the flow of workers from Southeast Asia to the Middle and Far East; a second from Eastern to Western Europe; a third from South and Central America to North America; and a fourth from Africa to Europe. In many of these places, foreign workers have taken domestic jobs once held by local people. For example, in America maids and nannies were once largely the domain of black women. These jobs are now largely filled by Latinas. Poor countries have come to value the money sent home by their citizens working abroad, and some have programs to prepare female citizens for foreign service and to find jobs abroad. There are a number of factors that attract poor women to do overseas work. There are plenty of jobs for domestics in wealthier countries because so many women there have gone to work in what was once a largely male economy. Job opportunities are even greater in First World countries, because governments have not instituted programs to help their working women with child care and other domestic needs; men have not stepped in to fill the gap at home; and men have created a demand for sex-for-hire workers. In addition, as the wealth gap between rich and poor countries grows, women from poor countries can make many times the amount of money they could earn at home by taking jobs abroad. Women may also be "pushed" to leave their countries in order to work abroad. Some leave to escape abuse at home. Many women who leave are well educated but had found no reasonably paid opportunities. As Ehrenreich and Hochschild observe in "Global Women in the New Economy," one reason First World women hire Third World women as domestics and nannies is that First World governments have not instituted programs to help them with child care.

Q: Nuer Refugees in America DIANNA SHANDY Summary In this article updated in 2015, Dianna Shandy, who has conducted ethnographic research among Nuer refugees in the upper Midwest since 1997, looks at what their status as refugees means, how they managed to come to the United States, why they were located in more than 30 different U.S. states, how a people raised as cattle herders survive and adapt to life in a U.S. urban setting, and what this tells us about "the interconnectedness of a globalizing world and anthropology's role in it." Although no special categories were assigned to people who first migrated to the United States (they were all simply called immigrants), today there are at least two categories , migrants and refugees based on their reasons for coming here. The United Nations (UN) defines refugees as people who have left a country because of a well-founded fear of persecution based on race; religion; nationality; membership in a particular social group; or political opinion. They are not merely IDPs (internally displaced persons) who have left home but are willing to return. To manage the refugee "problem" (by 2014 there were 60 million refugees in the world), there is a UN agency headed by a high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR). The UN and many countries see three solutions for refugee placement: voluntary repatriation, integration into a country of asylum, or rarely, third-country resettlement. Typically, refugees are first housed in camps, and then certified for resettlement. The United States takes in a limited number of refugees and employs the UN criteria for refugee certification. But decisions about who is eligible vary, based on officials' interpretations of the criteria and ever shifting resettlement policies. Officials also must deal with cross-cultural differences and language barriers as they decide who is a refugee and who is an "economic refugee" (someone whose main motive to move is for economic advantage). The Nuer who live in the United States have made it through this bureaucratic process. Thok Ding, who is mentioned in the article, was brought up herding cattle in a Nuer pastoral village, experienced the death of his father when northerners attacked his village, moved with his family to a camp in Ethiopia, attended and excelled at a Christian mission school there, moved to another camp for further schooling, moved back to the Sudan with his family when fighting broke out in Ethiopia, traveled back to Addis Ababa where he joined friends, moved to a camp in Kenya, applied for refugee status with the UN there, and was eventually accepted for refugee resettlement by the United States. His arrival and settlement in the United States was facilitated by Lutheran Social Services, a volunteer organization ("volag" to insiders) contracted by the United States. Helped by the organization, he was placed in Minneapolis, settled in an apartment, and guided toward a job. Later he left Minneapolis for Des Moines and a job in the meat packing industry, where he hopes to continue his education, save money, marry a woman from the South Sudan, and bring his family, with whom he corresponds frequently and to whom he sends money, to the United States. The case illustrates several points. Refugee issues are complex and varied, and involve endless bureaucratic hurdles. Refugees who manage to gain resettlement (many do not) must be tenacious, ambitious, clever, and opportunistic. The Nuer make successful refugees because many possess these characteristics. According to Shandy in "Nuer Refugees in America," the UN looks at three possible solutions to the refugee problem: voluntary repatriation to the country of origin, integration into a country of asylum, or third-country resettlement.

Q: Poverty at Work: Office Employment and the Crack Alternative PHILIPPE BOURGOIS Summary The transition from a manufacturing economy to one based on office work is more culturally disruptive to poorly educated working class city dwellers than one might suspect. This is the conclusion drawn by Philippe Bourgois based on his three and one-half year ethnographic study of Puerto-Rican crack cocaine dealers in New Your City's Spanish Harlem. When Puerto Ricans first moved to New York City, men with little education were able to find factory work that enabled them to support their families with dignity. As time went by, sons followed in their fathers' footsteps, quitting school in their middle teens to take manufacturing jobs that required little formal education but provided a decent living and a respected place in surrounding Puerto Rican working class society. Protected by unions, their macho urban street culture could be openly expressed on the production line without serious consequences. All this changed, however, between 1963 and 1983 when over half the factories in New York City either closed or moved to less expensive areas. Toughness and male swagger that worked well on the factory production line now intimidated the better-educated largely Anglo people who worked above them. The poor workers were often unable to read even the simplest directions. Worse, they often found themselves supervised by women, a rare occurrence in Puerto Rican society. Even the way they walked and looked intimidated Anglo co-workers. Above all, they felt "dissed" (disrespected) by office Anglos, who would often comment openly about their lack of education and ability. Working at the minimum wage, most lasted on the job for only a few days. Unemployed once again, many turned to selling crack in a lucrative underground economy, which placed them on a self-destructive track of drug addiction, violence, and arrest. Even becoming bicultural, adopting Anglo office culture at work and street culture at home, did not work well. Friends and family members accused them of selling out their heritage. In an epilogue, Bourgois notes that four things changed this bleak underground work environment in Spanish Harlem during the late 1990s: the economy grew at a high and sustained rate providing more jobs even for the poor; the size of the Mexican immigrant population increased significantly in Spanish Harlem; the war on drugs criminalized many of the poor; and marijuana, not crack, became the drug of choice. As a result, more men found work in the regular economy. But despite this turn of events, Bourgois concludes that there is little hope in the long run for New York's inner city poor. In "Poverty at Work: Office Work and the Crack Alternative," Bourgois notes in an addendum to his article that prosperity in the 1990s increased the number of Puerto Rican men who sold crack as the price of the drug escalated.

Q: Poverty at Work: Office Employment and the Crack Alternative PHILIPPE BOURGOIS Summary The transition from a manufacturing economy to one based on office work is more culturally disruptive to poorly educated working class city dwellers than one might suspect. This is the conclusion drawn by Philippe Bourgois based on his three and one-half year ethnographic study of Puerto-Rican crack cocaine dealers in New Your City's Spanish Harlem. When Puerto Ricans first moved to New York City, men with little education were able to find factory work that enabled them to support their families with dignity. As time went by, sons followed in their fathers' footsteps, quitting school in their middle teens to take manufacturing jobs that required little formal education but provided a decent living and a respected place in surrounding Puerto Rican working class society. Protected by unions, their macho urban street culture could be openly expressed on the production line without serious consequences. All this changed, however, between 1963 and 1983 when over half the factories in New York City either closed or moved to less expensive areas. Toughness and male swagger that worked well on the factory production line now intimidated the better-educated largely Anglo people who worked above them. The poor workers were often unable to read even the simplest directions. Worse, they often found themselves supervised by women, a rare occurrence in Puerto Rican society. Even the way they walked and looked intimidated Anglo co-workers. Above all, they felt "dissed" (disrespected) by office Anglos, who would often comment openly about their lack of education and ability. Working at the minimum wage, most lasted on the job for only a few days. Unemployed once again, many turned to selling crack in a lucrative underground economy, which placed them on a self-destructive track of drug addiction, violence, and arrest. Even becoming bicultural, adopting Anglo office culture at work and street culture at home, did not work well. Friends and family members accused them of selling out their heritage. In an epilogue, Bourgois notes that four things changed this bleak underground work environment in Spanish Harlem during the late 1990s: the economy grew at a high and sustained rate providing more jobs even for the poor; the size of the Mexican immigrant population increased significantly in Spanish Harlem; the war on drugs criminalized many of the poor; and marijuana, not crack, became the drug of choice. As a result, more men found work in the regular economy. But despite this turn of events, Bourgois concludes that there is little hope in the long run for New York's inner city poor. In "Poverty at Work: Office Work and the Crack Alternative," Bourgois argues that Puerto Rican men feel degraded and disrespected in the entry-level service jobs found in New York's office-bound economy.

Q: Poverty at Work: Office Employment and the Crack Alternative PHILIPPE BOURGOIS Summary The transition from a manufacturing economy to one based on office work is more culturally disruptive to poorly educated working class city dwellers than one might suspect. This is the conclusion drawn by Philippe Bourgois based on his three and one-half year ethnographic study of Puerto-Rican crack cocaine dealers in New Your City's Spanish Harlem. When Puerto Ricans first moved to New York City, men with little education were able to find factory work that enabled them to support their families with dignity. As time went by, sons followed in their fathers' footsteps, quitting school in their middle teens to take manufacturing jobs that required little formal education but provided a decent living and a respected place in surrounding Puerto Rican working class society. Protected by unions, their macho urban street culture could be openly expressed on the production line without serious consequences. All this changed, however, between 1963 and 1983 when over half the factories in New York City either closed or moved to less expensive areas. Toughness and male swagger that worked well on the factory production line now intimidated the better-educated largely Anglo people who worked above them. The poor workers were often unable to read even the simplest directions. Worse, they often found themselves supervised by women, a rare occurrence in Puerto Rican society. Even the way they walked and looked intimidated Anglo co-workers. Above all, they felt "dissed" (disrespected) by office Anglos, who would often comment openly about their lack of education and ability. Working at the minimum wage, most lasted on the job for only a few days. Unemployed once again, many turned to selling crack in a lucrative underground economy, which placed them on a self-destructive track of drug addiction, violence, and arrest. Even becoming bicultural, adopting Anglo office culture at work and street culture at home, did not work well. Friends and family members accused them of selling out their heritage. In an epilogue, Bourgois notes that four things changed this bleak underground work environment in Spanish Harlem during the late 1990s: the economy grew at a high and sustained rate providing more jobs even for the poor; the size of the Mexican immigrant population increased significantly in Spanish Harlem; the war on drugs criminalized many of the poor; and marijuana, not crack, became the drug of choice. As a result, more men found work in the regular economy. But despite this turn of events, Bourgois concludes that there is little hope in the long run for New York's inner city poor. In "Poverty at Work: Office Work and the Crack Alternative," Bourgois notes that many Puerto Rican men living in Spanish Harlem have at one time or another held normal (not underground) jobs in New York City's service economy.

Q: Reciprocity and the Power of Giving LEE CRONK Summary Cronk argues that everywhere in the world, gifts are used positively to establish and maintain social relationships, but also negatively to intimidate and fight others. These characteristics apply just as fully to gift exchange in industrial societies as they do for other peoples. Anthropologists learned about the complexities of gift giving through first-hand experience during fieldwork. Richard Lee's !Kung informants criticized his gift of an ox, saying the ox was thin and inadequate when clearly it was not. (See article 2 in Conformity and Conflict). Rada Dyson-Hudson met with a similar reaction when she attempted to give pots to her Turkana informants. Cronk also experienced the same reaction when he gave clothing to the Mukogodo, who elaborate the act of gift exchange more than do most people. In every case, informants attached different meanings to gift giving than did the anthropologists.. Gift giving has several dimensions, including how the gift is received and how it is reciprocated. Often "to reciprocate at once indicates a desire to end the relationship," Cronk points out. He also notes that some gift giving arrangements, such as hxaro among the !Kung, are designed solely to maintain a friendly relationship. In addition, the worth of gifts may not be taken into account. The Trobriand kula ring, involving shell necklaces and armbands, represents one of the most elaborate gift exchanges ever described by anthropologists. Gift giving may not always be benevolent. The Kwakiutl potlatch, where rivals tried to "flatten" each other with gifts, is a good example. Potlatching actually became a substitute for war after the Canadian government suppressed real fighting. Reciprocal gift giving is also important in U.S. society. Examples include a form of benevolent gift giving, called swapping among African Americans living in an area of Illinois called the flats. Scientific papers, usually referred to as contributions, are really gifts and have higher value than those papers written for money. Even the citations of other people's work so liberally scattered throughout academic papers may be viewed as a form of gift exchange. Gifts may also be used to manipulate people, as Grace Goodell documents for a World Bank-funded project in Iran. The gift of an irrigation project crushed local level political organizations and shifted control to the central government. International relations often involve gift giving. The "concessions" made between the U.S. and Soviet governments during disarmament negotiations several years ago are a good example. Cronk concludes by pointing out that American Indians understood the gift's power to unify, antagonize, or subjugate and that all of us would do well to learn the same lesson. According to Cronk in "Reciprocity and the Power of Giving," the phrase "Indian giver" arose because North American Indians misunderstood European customs and wanted gifts they gave to colonists to be returned promptly and with interest.

Q: Reciprocity and the Power of Giving LEE CRONK Summary Cronk argues that everywhere in the world, gifts are used positively to establish and maintain social relationships, but also negatively to intimidate and fight others. These characteristics apply just as fully to gift exchange in industrial societies as they do for other peoples. Anthropologists learned about the complexities of gift giving through first-hand experience during fieldwork. Richard Lee's !Kung informants criticized his gift of an ox, saying the ox was thin and inadequate when clearly it was not. (See article 2 in Conformity and Conflict). Rada Dyson-Hudson met with a similar reaction when she attempted to give pots to her Turkana informants. Cronk also experienced the same reaction when he gave clothing to the Mukogodo, who elaborate the act of gift exchange more than do most people. In every case, informants attached different meanings to gift giving than did the anthropologists.. Gift giving has several dimensions, including how the gift is received and how it is reciprocated. Often "to reciprocate at once indicates a desire to end the relationship," Cronk points out. He also notes that some gift giving arrangements, such as hxaro among the !Kung, are designed solely to maintain a friendly relationship. In addition, the worth of gifts may not be taken into account. The Trobriand kula ring, involving shell necklaces and armbands, represents one of the most elaborate gift exchanges ever described by anthropologists. Gift giving may not always be benevolent. The Kwakiutl potlatch, where rivals tried to "flatten" each other with gifts, is a good example. Potlatching actually became a substitute for war after the Canadian government suppressed real fighting. Reciprocal gift giving is also important in U.S. society. Examples include a form of benevolent gift giving, called swapping among African Americans living in an area of Illinois called the flats. Scientific papers, usually referred to as contributions, are really gifts and have higher value than those papers written for money. Even the citations of other people's work so liberally scattered throughout academic papers may be viewed as a form of gift exchange. Gifts may also be used to manipulate people, as Grace Goodell documents for a World Bank-funded project in Iran. The gift of an irrigation project crushed local level political organizations and shifted control to the central government. International relations often involve gift giving. The "concessions" made between the U.S. and Soviet governments during disarmament negotiations several years ago are a good example. Cronk concludes by pointing out that American Indians understood the gift's power to unify, antagonize, or subjugate and that all of us would do well to learn the same lesson. In "Reciprocity and the Power of Giving," Cronk argues that in most instances of gift giving, donors expect those who have received the gift to reciprocate promptly.

Q: Forest Development the Indian WayRICHARD K. REEDSummary When Richard Reed first entered the Guaran village of Itanaram over 20 years ago, he had to make an arduous journey, first on rugged dirt roads by car, then for two days on foot along a tropical forest trail. Only rivers and swampy areas broke the forest canopy. The village itself was buried in the forest, with houses scattered along a trail next to a small river. Reed's subsequent study revealed a tightly knit community whose members were tied together by kinship and values on sharing and cooperation. Political structure was informal; a village leader (tamoi) mediated disputes. Although villagers exploited their tropical forest environment, they did so in a way that permitted its renewal. Men cleared garden plots in the forest. Women burned the brush and planted the fields with beans, manioc, and orange trees. As fields became exhausted after two or three years, new plots were cleared and old ones permitted to lie fallow for 10 to 20 years so they could be reclaimed by the forest. Hunting and fishing provided a significant portion of people's food and, though seemingly isolated, villagers traded some forest products especially yerba-mate leaves, for hooks, machetes, soap, and salt with outsiders. Results of his study were described in "Cultivating the Tropical Forest," an article included in earlier editions of Conformity and Conflict.Subsequent visits to Itanaram over the intervening years reveal changes commonly found in many areas of the Amazon drainage. Roads now bisect the forest, bringing an influx of ranchers, farmers, traders, frontier towns, and truck traffic. Clear cutting for farms and ranches has devastated Guaran life and its sustainable economy. Settlements stand isolated and devoid of resources. Villagers can no longer practice slash-and-burn agriculture; there are no animals to hunt or fish to catch. Without renewable resources, many Indians have joined the legions of unemployed or underemployed in frontier towns, and suicide rates, especially among young men, have skyrocketed.Shouldn"t the Guaran simply accept the pain that accompanies modern development and look forward to a brighter future? No, argues Reed, because the use of forestland for ranches and farming is unsustainable. Cleared land quickly ceases to produce and is left vacant without a surrounding forest to reclaim it, leaving a red desert. Instead, the Guaran model for forest exploitation, even when it involves the extraction of forest products for sale to outsiders, is more economical because it is sustainable. Persuaded by this argument, the Nature Conservancy has recently bought and set aside 280 square miles of forest for sustainable development using the Guaran model.The Guaran, according to Reed, have exploited the forest commercially as well as for subsistence for nearly 500 years.

Q: We Are Going Underwater SUSAN A. CRATE Summary The Viliui Sakha, a horse- and cattle-breeding people of northeastern Siberia, live in an extreme, subarctic climate that has continuous permafrost and annual temperature swings of 180 degrees Fahrenheit. This place-based community has adapted to many different changes over hundreds of yearsbeginning with Russian imperial expansion in the 1600s and as recently as a result of the breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. More recently, their adaptations have been in response to local, physical changes brought about by global climate change. In her essay, Susan Crate outlines the most notable ways global climate change has impacted life for the Sakha, and details their remarkable capacity to adapt to these changes. Crate conducted surveys and interviewed elders of the community who had the advantage of witnessing many decades of change, offering a perspective that not many other community members could. Crate's research identified nine ways in which global climate change has impacted the Sakha, including increased water on the land, late and lagging seasons, a decline in certain game species, and temperature fluctuations. These changes cannot be attributed solely to climate change; many of them have multiple stressors. Regardless, the Sakha have had to make psychological, social, and physical adaptations to accommodate the new reality of their physical world. Interestingly, very few of the Sakha attribute the changes to global climate change, and instead point to other local causes such as a hydroelectric reservoir or the overabundance of technology and mechanization. Despite this, the Sakha will continue to adapt as they have for hundreds of years, figuring out how to negotiate the additional water on their land, learning how to adjust their practices to have enough hay for their cows and horses, and purchasing electric freezers to replace the traditional buluus (underground freezers) that are now increasingly flooded out. The Sakha and their adaptations are offered by Crate as an example of how communities and scientists might benefit from sharing information. Scientists have much to learn about how climate change is affecting local environments and culture, and communities can learn from scientists how to adapt in ways to address these local changes. While many think of geologists and chemists as those best equipped to help the world adapt to the effects of global climate change, Crate believes that anthropologists can help communities weather these changes by fostering a greater understanding of how people like the Sakha have adapted and continue to do so successfully. By identifying and learning about those communities that are the most flexible in their responses to local changes, communities will have a model to follow when global climate change begins to have a greater impact on the more temperate zones of the planet. According to Crate, her research with the Sakha clarified her belief that global climate change was affecting not only the villagers' physical environment, but also their adaptations to that environment.

Q: We Are Going Underwater SUSAN A. CRATE Summary The Viliui Sakha, a horse- and cattle-breeding people of northeastern Siberia, live in an extreme, subarctic climate that has continuous permafrost and annual temperature swings of 180 degrees Fahrenheit. This place-based community has adapted to many different changes over hundreds of yearsbeginning with Russian imperial expansion in the 1600s and as recently as a result of the breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. More recently, their adaptations have been in response to local, physical changes brought about by global climate change. In her essay, Susan Crate outlines the most notable ways global climate change has impacted life for the Sakha, and details their remarkable capacity to adapt to these changes. Crate conducted surveys and interviewed elders of the community who had the advantage of witnessing many decades of change, offering a perspective that not many other community members could. Crate's research identified nine ways in which global climate change has impacted the Sakha, including increased water on the land, late and lagging seasons, a decline in certain game species, and temperature fluctuations. These changes cannot be attributed solely to climate change; many of them have multiple stressors. Regardless, the Sakha have had to make psychological, social, and physical adaptations to accommodate the new reality of their physical world. Interestingly, very few of the Sakha attribute the changes to global climate change, and instead point to other local causes such as a hydroelectric reservoir or the overabundance of technology and mechanization. Despite this, the Sakha will continue to adapt as they have for hundreds of years, figuring out how to negotiate the additional water on their land, learning how to adjust their practices to have enough hay for their cows and horses, and purchasing electric freezers to replace the traditional buluus (underground freezers) that are now increasingly flooded out. The Sakha and their adaptations are offered by Crate as an example of how communities and scientists might benefit from sharing information. Scientists have much to learn about how climate change is affecting local environments and culture, and communities can learn from scientists how to adapt in ways to address these local changes. While many think of geologists and chemists as those best equipped to help the world adapt to the effects of global climate change, Crate believes that anthropologists can help communities weather these changes by fostering a greater understanding of how people like the Sakha have adapted and continue to do so successfully. By identifying and learning about those communities that are the most flexible in their responses to local changes, communities will have a model to follow when global climate change begins to have a greater impact on the more temperate zones of the planet. In the world of the Viliui Sakha, black shamans travel from the middle world where humans live to interact with sky spirits during the Sakha summer festival, thereby ensuring a plentiful harvest.