KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE

September 2007 Anthropology News

Lost Girls of Sudan in Colorado dancing at a cultural event in October 2006. Photo by Lindsay Eppich

(The conict in Darfur, Western Sudan, was already raging at the time of the CPA signing causing many to question the comprehensiveness of the 2005 peace agreement.) A central challenge of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement is to decide whether Sudan should remain a unied state or whether to create a separate South. According to the CPA, this will be decided in a referendum in 2011. Many Southerners want separation while the government prefers unication, partly because oil and other resources are located in the South. The whole CPA implementation process was further complicated by former SPLA leader John Garangs untimely death in a helicopter crash in 2005 shortly after being sworn in as vice president of Sudan. When I participated in the Sudan Field School in July 2005 in Rumbek, the temporary capital of South Sudan, numerous authorities argued for the need to include more womens voices in the peace process. How can Sudanese women abroad contribute to conflict resolution? Helen Achol Abyei of Denver

and founder of the Childrens Ark of the New Sudan offers her insights on how: [W]e have to try as best as we could to eliminate tribalism which is the biggest obstacle. We must liberate ourselves, and break all the boundaries of tribalism, for this is one of the reasons why our problem in Sudan, and specially (sic) in the South is never coming to an end. We, the women, can start with our children, tell them the real history of Sudan, talk to them about our heroes, teach them our culture, ask them to be of help to the other children back home. Encourage them to study hard for the land is waiting for them. For without education nobody can just give you your rights, and show them the damage war has caused to us. Tell them that we have forgiven the people who have uprooted us, and that they too must also forgive, for in not forgiving, we are not harming anyone else but ourselves, and instead of wasting time in paying back, we better concentrate on development. Educate Future Leaders In this passage, Helen Achol Abyei discusses many ways women can contribute to peace. We nd her focus on educationespecially for Southern Sudanese womenin Sudanese conict resolution especially intriguing because this resonates with one of the themes that emerged in our research on Sudanese refugee women in Colorado: the desire for education especially on the part of the so called Lost Girlsmostly young women from 18 to 30. The goal of education often directly conicts with resettlement agency policy that emphasizes economic self sufciencyworking long hours at minimum wage jobs such as bagging groceries at a grocery store sometimes at the expense of further studies.

The building of social networks is emphasized in CSAW through its philosophy of Two Hands Clapping Together. For refugee women, like the Lost Girls, who have lived in Sudan, Kenya and now the US, the concept of home is transitory. Organizations such as CSAW provide an opportunity to inject East African notions of community and collaboration into the resettlement process. CSAWs approach challenges the more individualistic, neoliberal approach employed by US-based refugee resettlement agencies. The group of Lost Girls being resettled in the US may have little effect on the immediate implementation of Sudans Comprehensive Peace Agreement; however this growing group of women has the potential to influence future conflict resolution. The currency of an education in the US may enhance the Lost Girls ability to become leaders in a future Sudanwhether there is a New Sudan meaning that the South secedes from the North or a unified Sudan in which South Sudan attempts to gain a stronger voice in national issues. Resettling young Sudanese women in the US and furthering their educational opportunities will help groom a group of potential female leaders that will be vital not only to long-term conflict resolution but also to sustainable governance that includes the voices of women from the South of Sudan.
Laura DeLuca teaches anthropology at the University of Colorado-Boulder where she works closely with the Smith Hall International Program (SHIP). She is writing a book about the Lost Girls of Sudan in Colorado. Lindsay Eppich is an undergraduate research assistant funded by the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program.

The Anthropology of Global English

ERIC HENRY CORNELL U English has long invaded the speech of informants who ostensibly speak another language. This can seem a dangerous rst step along the road to language loss, the eventual extinction of a unique linguistic heritage. But we can also see in such instances the choices of informants who are struggling with their own issues of place and identity in the global medium. In the course of her research on a Nepali ethnic minority group, a colleague of mine recorded an interview she conducted with a local guru. While describing his initiation into shamanic practice, the guru switched suddenly into English and provided the term training to describe the instruction he received from the deities in his dreams. Used in this sense, the English term derives from the vocabulary of international development projects but has here migrated into the speech of shamans who view their own activities to be just as creditable as those of NGO workers. Moreover, the contexts in which English is now used in communication worldwide are increasing, whether it be in international meetings of indigenous peoples or in the dealings between NGO workers and government ministries. The now mundane nature of talk between individuals from different countries, requiring a common set of linguistic resources among all speakers, has led to expanded state-sponsored language learning programs which are in turn supported by a host of new technologies. A reorganization of the ways people learn and use English in non-native speaking contexts is occurring before our eyes. The View from Linguistics Since the 1960s there has been an interest in linguistic circles in tracking and describing the use of English in different parts of the world. As would be expected, wherever English takes root it grows into new and distinctive forms, often described by the plural coinage New Englishes. As academic journals like World Englishes, English World-Wide and English Today are founded to publish such studies, the focus of research has tended towards a host of questions at the level of language itself. What language policies should developing countries adopt in teaching English? Which kind of English should be taught in schools? The local variety or standard British? Does English exemplify a liberating potentialallowing individuals to participate as global citizensor a hegemonic oneextending in a sense the effects of colonialism into the realm of language? An Anthropological Perspective On the other hand, anthropologists are ideally positioned to approach this problem from the ground up, through ethnography of the people actually learning and speaking English. Consequently, the research questions descend from the level of prescriptive national policies to a more nuanced description of how power, ideology and discourses about language are deployed See Global English on page 40

Children at a bilingual kindergarten learn to sing an English song. Photo courtesy Eric Henry

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Anthropology News September 2007

KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE

Global English
Continued from page 39
and interpreted in language classrooms. My own research on English schools in China hints at both why English has become so popular and also at the place of English in wider discourses of modernity and development. At a large English school in the northeastern city of Shenyang, a teacher gave a lecture to 50 students one night on the topic of Effective Ways to Learn English. He told the students that the key problem for most Chinese learning English is a concern with face.
I cant lose my face. I can lose my blood but not my face. But you always be so modest, you cant improve your language. So feel free to make a lot of mistakes. In the beginning, feel free to lose your face. Nobody will laugh at you. Learning English is like many times losing small faces, you just need to be confident.

OFF THE SHELF

Anthropology of Cross-Disciplinary Theoretical Fertilization

Cinema & Semiotic: Pierce and Film Aesthetics, Narration and Representation. Johannes Ehrat. Toronto: U Toronto Press. 2005. 670 pp. Social Solidarity and the Gift. Aafke E Komter. Cambridge: Cambridge U Press. 2004. 246 pp.

GORDON GRAY TEMPLE U Incorporating theories and theoretical models from other disciplines, such as linguistics or sociology, is something that anthropologists have been doing for a long time. Reading anthropology through new theories can lead to new theoretical perspectives on previous work or eld sites. It can open new discourses and possibilities and enliven old theories. In the current, somewhat moribund, period for anthropological theory, it is particularly appropriate for anthropologists to delve outside the discipline for new and invigorating theoretical models. The two works that I will be discussing both offer new theories for conceptualizing human activity. Social Solidarity and the Gift Aafke Komter, author of Social Solidarity and the Gift, does not apply new theories so much as redeploy some classic anthropological theories on the gift to help reconceptualize ideas of social solidarity within sociology. What makes her work interesting for contemporary anthropologists is that she is employing ideas of the gift for studies within urban, capitalist-based societies. In particular, Komter argues that by reviewing the classic work on the gift, sociologists can gain new insight into four key arenas: recognition of otherness, social distance, motives for solidarity and reciprocity. These new insights not only provide new ways to conceptualize important issues within contemporary capitalist society, but may also point to new models for social activism (although she herself does not pursue this). Komter provides a concise overview of the anthropological literature and theories of the gift, extending the analysis to incorporate fairly contemporary ideas. Her overview of sociological ideas of social solidarity is not as extensive, though this may be because the book is aimed at a sociological readership. Komter also uses a heuristic definition of solidarity, and there are instances of slippage between the ideas of solidarity and social solidarity. Komter does perhaps make more of how novel the idea of using the gift to understand social solidarity than might be justified within the anthropological tradition. The above sounds quite critical of Social Solidarity and the Gift. However, my overall opinion of the book is actually not so bleak. I feel that this is a very useful book not only for its intended socio-

logical audience, but also for anthropologists particularly those dealing with urban settings. Cinema and Semiotic Johannes Ehrat pursues a more ambitious project in his book Cinema and Semiotics. Ehrat argues that lm theory needs greater philosophical reection, especially on the construction of meaning in the cinema. Rather than relying on the interpretations of interpretations of philosophical enquiry, we need to begin from understanding the fundamental (philosophical) problems of cinema. For Ehrat, the use of Peircean semiotic theory can provide new answers to those fundamental problems and open new vistas for further understanding of the cinema. Specifically, Ehrat argues that semiotic analysis can lead to new approaches to understanding three major issues within film theory: the question of truth; the question of the construction of narrative and narrative time; and the question of discovery of means of producing meaning beyond that of representation. To give one example from this text, Ehrat argues that a Peircean semiotic understanding of the sign is not a case of something that stands for something elserather anything that is something is a sign. Understanding this frees semiotics from a game of definition and classification, instead lending its explanatory power to understanding deeper levels of meaning. The cinema is not made up of signs to be classified and categorizedcinema is a sign. There is much for anthropologists to take from this book even aside from its usefulness in providing a thorough discussion of an often misunderstood thinker. For anthropologists in general, discussing the question of meaning is very useful in expanding our ways of conceptualizing that construction. For anthropologists who work within the visual or material fields, this book opens up numerous avenues for exploration outside of that of the cinema per se. However, the book is very densely writtensome background in philosophy would be extremely helpful. The book is also huge and while the breadth of discussion probably merits the 782 pages, I doubt many outside of the philosophy/ semiotic fields will digest the entire book. These two books offer much to anthropologists. They both eloquently illustrate the potential benefits to anthropology of cross-disciplinary theoretical fertilization. And while both have their faults, they also provide interested readers with new theoretical models. Though, as both authors would argue, we can not take the epistemology and ontology of those ideas for granted.

The teacher then went on to talk about the reasons one needs to be confident. He listed the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Chinas accession to the WTO. It is time, he urged, to take the opportunities presented. China is in WTO and in dire need of people who have communication skills. You have to travel around China. You have to travel around the world and have these communication skills, and English is the basic. Here the inevitable link is made between English and success: learn English because its the language of the future. But the teacher also importantly ties the process of learning English to a necessary breach with Chinese custom. Learning English is a process of self-transformation linked to the wider modernizing transformations of Chinese society. Why English? The desire to speak English doubles and reects linked desires to be cosmopolitan and to be internationally mobile. It allows a feeling of connection to what would otherwise be alien and alienating global structures of power and capital. In the spirit of Geertzs notion of ideology as both a model of and for, English is a product of international communication, but also outlines for learners the path to future success: if I learn English too, Ill be able to buy those things, talk to those people, travel to those places. Studying the people who study English offers great opportunities for anthropologists to examine the global flows of representations and strategies for dealing with them. But in another sense, turn around is also fair play. Anthropologists have traditionally tried to attain fluency in the languages of communities they study, not only to communicate but also to be free of the stigma attached to the ambivalent position of the outsider. Small wonder then that our informants, like Chinese English students or a Nepali guru, should want to do the same on the world stage.
Eric Henry is a PhD candidate in anthropology at Cornell University. His dissertation research focuses on the confluence between narratives of modernity and English teaching in northern China.

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