Bless you and a problematic eternity

I'm in Warsaw for a conference.

Walking down one of the main streets in the city I was accosted by a blond woman carrying a book. I had tried to walk around her but there hadn't been enough space and once she said hello to me I knew I was done for, she had reeled me in. Being the friendly sort, I just had to say hello back, and get into the inevitable conversation. She hadn't actually said hello in English, but in Polish. This was within my limited Polish so I replied within the same. When I told her (in Polish) that I didn't understand (this was one of the few phrases I have learned), she asked me if I spoke English. After asking me where I am from, and telling me that she was from the US (which I had already guessed), she asked me what I knew about the Mormons. I was about to reply not much, but thought for a second and replied with what I did know.

"What I know about the Mormons is that they believe that when someone dies they are reunited with all their family members throughout their life..." I paused, and looked at her. She gave me a look that seemed to indicate that she was happy that I had understood a fundamental Mormon belief already.

"...but then I wonder, what happens when a man has had more than one wife and the wives wouldn't get on, say he has divorced one wife, or the first one died... or he just had a bad relationship with his wife and was forced to spend the rest of eternity with her... it seems a bit problematic to me."

She was smiling broadly as she had done since our conversation began. I had stumped her. "Well, I don't have a specific answer to that question," she told me, disappointingly. 

After I had asked her how long she had been in Poland for and why she was here (she's a missionary and they just sent her here... and she seemed pretty happy with the whole situation), I suddenly realised that she hadn't actually told me what Mormonism is about. So I thought I had better ask her.

However, as soon as she started telling me about this guy Joseph Smith, who had had a conversation with God in New York, I sneezed. I sneezed just the once, but found something odd in her reaction. Or lack of it. She just kept on talking. While she was telling me about this Joseph Smith chap, all I could think about what why she hadn't stopped to say "bless you". Is this something that the Mormons don't do, I wondered? Why do they believe that one person should not bless another person? Is it because only God can bless? 

However, to avoid getting myself into a theological quagmire I simply asked her why J.Smith had built the temple out in Salt Lake City, Utah if the vision had occurred on the East Coast. I forget the reply, I was still thinking about why she hadn't blessed me. 

Foreign researchers as fat-stealers

Well, tonight felt awkward. Having arrived in La Paz two days ago I heard through Facebook about the presentation of a book about Kallawaya culture by a woman who works for one of the government ministries and who is from one of the Kallawaya communities.
It felt awkward, because of the references the author made in speech to the foreign authors who came to Kallawaya communities, putting their voice recorders in people's faces, asking questions, and expecting the locals to answer. When she referred to researchers coming from Germany and the United States and writing books and not leaving copies of their research with the Kallawayas I half expected her to point to me sitting halfway up the auditorium - and that Englishman over there. When I entered the auditorium I sat behind a friend of mine from the same community who I had got to know during my year doing fieldwork research. At one point during the speech, he turned around to me and asked me "and when are you going to present your book?". "A good question," was all I could think to reply. The author went on to say that when she, in conjunction with others who had the idea of writing the book, had sat down to look for works they could reference, they didn't have access to the work that had been written on the Kallawayas by foreign researchers. They had had to find those works in libraries in La Paz. She went on to refer to foreign researchers, who she said came to steal their knowledge, as kharisiris. Kharisiris are a type of vampire who is believed in the Andes to steal people's fat, viewed in the Andes as the vital life source.
"Why can't we write for ourselves?", she asked, "this book isn't for others, it is for ourselves, the Kallawayas". I couldn't help but reflect momentarily on the academic work, which is written about people who might never read it, for journals and read only by other academics. She went on to decry the way that Kallawaya communities were written about in terms of governing themselves through "usos y costumbres" (traditional customs). They are not "usos y costumbres", she explained, they are saberes (knowledge).
She related how she had been invited to an event in Germany to represent Bolivia, and while there had been to visit a museum exhibit of Kallawaya culture. Apparently she had asked to be able to take a photo, but had been told that she would have to pay if she wanted to take photos. "But this is my culture, these are my acsu, my clothing", she replied. She also recounted how she had been to Copacabana and had seen a photo of herself on a postcard, taken when she was younger, on sale. She asked the salesperson to give her the postcard, because that was her in the photo. There was a caption describing her as a "poor woman". Naturally, the salewoman wouldn't give her the postcard, telling her that she had had to pay for the postcards herself from the "author" of the photo. "But I am the author", she said, "I am in the photo!" reflecting on the authorial rights of the subject.
After the speech was over, I followed several others to ask the author to sign my copy of the book, and told her it was great that she had written it. She thanks me warmly for coming, and me when I would be visiting her community. Later I asked her if I had sent her a copy of my thesis, and told her I would send her a copy. "No, you still haven't", she replied (though I had given badly translated copies of my thesis to the people who had appeared in or help me the most with the research for my thesis when I visited Bolivia last year).

It was a great speech. I sat there wishing that I had brought my voice recorder with me so that I could have recorded it. It would have made great material for a journal article.    

Seating arrangements #2

As a follow up to the post I wrote in March last year http://jonicito-theowlofminerva.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/seating-arrangements.html, today in the Social Anthropology department seminar I was amused and surprised to notice the gender segregated nature of the seating arrangements in the room. Almost everyone on one side of the room was male (11 our of the 14 people sitting on that side of the room). While almost everyone sitting on the other side of the room was female (12 out of the 13 people on that side of the room). There were two people sitting in the middle at the other end of the table from the speaker, who sat contrary to this pattern, but I am discounting them because they were in the middle.

I tried to analyse why and how this seating arrangement came to be, and couldn't find a good answer. It seemed ironic that the topic of the seminar itself concerned a kind of gender segregation itself as it dealt with female Roman Catholics whose chosen role within the Catholic church had been rejected by the church itself.  

I wondered if it was anything to do with the (male) head of department sitting on what I am now thinking of as the male side of the room, and the rest of the men in the department following. I am assuming that the first men and women to sit on either sides of the room were then followed unconsciously by those that sat down afterwards according to their gender.

A nice day out

Last weekend I made another attempt at market selling. This time with even less success than the previous occasions. I didn't seem to be the only one though. There was a lady from a village the other side of Dundee who was selling wreaths of flowers who didn't seem to have much business all day, though she didn't seem too perturbed by this, and seemed to be having fun knitting despite the lack of custom.
When I went for a wander across the hall to find the bee-cushion lady who I had been placed next to on previous occasions it seemed she was also finding it heavy going. The bee-cushions themselves didn't sell as well as the prints. She told me that this was because people are less willing to pay as much for something which actually has a use.
Some people told me that they often found it difficult getting sales, and I began to wonder why they did it. When a woman from another stall selling wool products came over with her grandson in her arms and told me that she hadn't sold anything either, I asked her whether it was worth coming. Her outlook was quite sunny, much like the weather, which we both bemoaned for our lack of sales: "it's a day out" she told me. She was quite sure that if she took her family (she was with her daughter as well as grandson) on a family day out for the day they would have spent a lot more than the £25 fee for the table. In addition to the weather, she also blamed the venue, telling me that a higher class of clientèle would attend when the market was held in the local theatre.
Another lady selling £2 cards and £3 bags had made about £10 by the end of the day. She told me that when she had first started out a couple of years ago she often made even less! When I asked me why she carried out, her reply was that it was out of "stupidity".
Most of the stall-holders seemed to be in their late 40s and over, and I supposed doing this as a hobby. However, when I asked one woman who by the end of the day had literally only sold a couple of buttons if this was the case, she told me glumly that this was in fact her full time job. We commiserated, and told one another to keep going.
By the end of the day I went having sold nothing (selling wool products in April is perhaps a little optimistic), but having had a few nice chats.

Seating arrangements

Have you ever noticed how gendered seating arrangements are?

Last Thursday evening after we had been watching a film in the department library, I settled back down in my office to procrastinate over some work, when there came a knock at the door. My friend Luz, having missed her bus, asked me if I fancied a drink. As it was late, and I knew I'd be leaving soon anyway, I did the decent thing and agreed.

We popped down to The Central, and although I got the drinks for some reason I was the first to sit down, while Luz was still at the bar. I sat on the bench running alongside the window, which meant that Luz sat on the chair opposite me. For some reason instinctively I felt that I had crossed a line and acted in an ungentlemanly manner by choosing this seat rather than the chair. I asked Luz whether she minded sitting there, and whether she would prefer to sit on the (more comfortable) bench. She was not quite indignant, but told me that it was always the women who sit on the benches and the men and on the chairs, and she saw no reason why this should be the case. I looked around the pub, and realised that she was right. In every arrangement where were a man and woman sitting together, the man was sitting on the chair and the women on the bench. I couldn't stop looking around and noticing this for the rest of the time we were sitting together in the pub.

I was reminded of this when I saw a story about controversy over the seating arrangements on the BBC breakfast sofa recently. For those of you not abreast of the story, the male host is apparently always sat to the left of the female host of viewers see them, and this implies some kind of seniority. This may be partly because the male host is often older, and I guess, more experienced. However, when a young pup of a male co-host replaced the older male presenter recently, he was still sat in the (apparently) more senior position, on the left of the screen. You can read more about that story here: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/16/bbc-breakfast-countryfile-louise-minchin-sofa-dan-walker

The Christmas market

A couple of weeks ago, I attempted, for the second time, to sell alpaca scarves made by alpaca farmers I know in Bolivia, here in St Andrews. The market was a little more successful than the first, partly because it was inside rather than in the rain, so even if no-one bought anything I nonetheless remained dry.

This time I also had company. An American friend of mine, who had previously helped me to advertise by modelling the scarves, came to keep me company. I was also surprised to know that I already knew the woman at the stall next to mine. She had been selling cushions with pictures of bees and the local towns on them at the previous market. Previously her mother had also been with her, but she had found her mother to be lacking in the wiles of market-selling (she had not given the customers enough space to look at the goods) and had let her sit this one out.

The hardest thing was to know to what extent to try to engage with potential customers - whether to allow passers by to simply peruse the stall, or to actively try to sell to them. My friend tried to make chit-chat with those glancing at the stall by asking how they were. "Don't mind her," I told one potential customer, in a vain attempt to engage her in banter. "She's American - she doesn't realise that 'how are you?' is aggressively friendly to British people. Unfortunately the customer paid no attention, and this merely resulted in a lengthy conversation with my friend about transatlantic greetings. An English friend who came to the stall confirmed that she felt 'how are you?' to be a personal question, and one that would cause her to question the motives of any stranger's inquiry into her health.

Most of the people who did engage in conversation with us, told us how nice the scarves were, but without any intention to purchase. The bee-cushion woman told us she would like to implement a compliment box - like a swear box, which people would have to pay money into every time they told her how nice her things were but without buying anything. We did in the end sell some scarves, though mostly to people we already knew at university.

We weren't, in fact, the only ones selling alpaca goods at the market, though I don't think this affected sales, as the other stall only seemed to be selling balls of wool and jewellery (the necklaces were made of alpaca wool). At one point I got talking to the woman from the stall. She was rather snobbish about the quality of her wool (and British alpacas in general) compared to those from the Andes. "It's such a shame that there are people selling alpaca wool from South America over here, when alpacas from the UK are much better quality", she told me. It was difficult to tell how she intended for me to take this. Although she was giving barbed comments in the friendliest of manners, she had the appearance of a snarling cat warning fellow felines to keep out of its territory.

What she meant by British alpacas being of superior quality, she told me, was that British alpacas are bred for purity, whereas in South America, according to her, alpacas were bred with llamas. When I was in Bolivia I had heard that this happened, but my recollection was that it was nevertheless frown upon, and those who were serious about selling the wool of their alpacas tried to ensure purity of stock.

I was reminded of when I helped my friends to skin an alpaca for the first time. When I asked why we had chosen this particular alpaca I was told that it was because it wasn't suitable to have children. Looking back, this clearly seemed an allusion to the purity of its blood, and an attempt to improve the stock, by ensuring that particular alpacas had children and others did not. When I remarked on this to a lecturer in the department at his house over lunch a few days later he pointed out, very logically, that not being suitable to have children may simply have meant that it was too old.