Anthropology in the Public Sphere, 2008: Emerging Trends and Significant Impacts

The themes, trends, and significant events of 2008 demonstrate that anthropology has established a new foothold in the public sphere—one that makes the most of novel forms of communication to reach far beyond the ivory tower to disseminate knowledge widely and freely. This review focuses on six topical areas of robust anthropological research in 2008 that also addressed some of the year's most pressing problems and issues, including the following: (1) war and peace; (2) climate change; (3) natural, industrial, and development‐induced disaster recovery; (4) human rights; (5) health disparities; and (6) racial understanding, politics, and equity in the United States. It concludes by addressing some emerging issues in 2009 that especially require anthropological attention and insight, if we are to move beyond “business as usual.”[Keywords: practicing anthropology, public anthropology, 2009 trends, anthropological impacts]

In the Line of Fire—21st‐Century Approach to an Ancient War Injury

Authentic black‐powder muzzle‐loader weapons or replicas are used today primarily for re‐enactments of historic battles. A lay actor playing the role of a Prussian infantryman sustained life‐threatening gunshot injuries during a recent re‐enactment of a historic battle of the Sixth Coalition. As only blank historic muzzle‐loading weaponry was used, the origin of the missile causing the wounding was initially unclear. Further investigation revealed a ramrod that had been propelled out of the barrel of another gunner’s smooth‐bore gun as cause of injury. The ramrod was hurled on a trajectory of more than 20 m, breaking the victim’s shouldered barrel and hitting the victim resulting in severe abdominal, thoracic, and upper limb injuries. The critical incidents while handling muzzle‐loading weaponry leading to premature discharge are elucidated. Furthermore, this report demonstrates how actual diagnostics and subsequent surgical treatment enabled this infantryman to survive an injury to which his comrades‐in‐arms would have succumbed 200 years ago.

Evaluation of the Reliability of DNA Typing in the Process of Identification of War Victims in Croatia

Aiming to estimate the frequency of various types of errors that can occur in the large‐scale process of identification, we identified and compared genotypes of 911 parent–child pairs in the database of 3498 relatives of people that disappeared during the 1991/1992 war in Croatia. Genotypes of 891 pairs (97.8%) were matching, while 20 pairs did not match in one or more loci. Reanalysis of these samples revealed that out of 1822 analyzed genotypes, one genotype was completely wrong, and two genotypes had one wrong allele because of human errors. Five genotypes had a single wrong allele due to either polymerase chain reaction or electrophoresis errors. In five genotypes mutations were the cause of mismatch. Genetic inconsistencies with parentage were found in four “fathers” (4.2%) and three “mothers” (0.36%). As the majority of observed single‐locus errors were caused by nonhuman errors, all databases produced with similar technology would probably have comparable level of errors.

Forensic DNA Challenges: Replacing Numbers with Names of Fosse Ardeatine’s Victims *

The Fosse Ardeatine massacre was a mass execution carried out in Rome on March 24, 1944 by Nazi German occupation troops during the Second World War as a reprisal for a partisan attack conducted on the previous day in central Rome. The 335 civilians were taken to the “Cave Ardeatine” and they were shot. Only 323 corpses out of 335 have been identified. The aim of this work is the genetic and anthropological analysis of the remains exhumed from grave number 329 of Fosse Ardeatine’s Shrine to assess their identity. So far, such remains have been supposed to belong to MM but mitochondrial analysis excluded a biological relationship to two living maternal relatives. Our analysis indicated that remains recovered in grave number 329 do not belong to MM. This result suggests that genetic analysis of the remains should be also applied to the other 12 unknown corpses to elucidate their identity.

IN MEMORIAM

Nationalism, Internationalism, and Perceived UN Irrelevance: Mediators of Relationships Between Authoritarianism and Support for Military Aggression as Part of the War on Terror

The present research tests a model of predicted relationships among right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), nationalism, internationalism, perceived United Nations (UN) irrelevance, and support for the use of aggressive military action against countries perceived to support terrorism. In the hypothesized model, nationalism and internationalism were expected to mediate the relationship between authoritarian dispositions and support for aggressive military policies, while internationalism was expected to predict perceived UN irrelevance. Perceived UN irrelevance was also expected to predict support for military aggression directly. Across samples of community adults, hypotheses were largely supported, with only minor changes being made to the proposed model in order to improve model fit.

The Structure of Negotiation: Lessons from El Salvador for Contemporary Conflict Resolution

During more than a decade of violent conflict (1980–1992) involving the military, rebel forces, and paramilitary “death squads,” El Salvador suffered some 75,000 casualties, mostly civilians. After three years of negotiations, the government and the largest rebel group signed a historic comprehensive peace accord that brought an end to the war and instituted wide‐reaching political and social reforms. This agreement, and the peace process that produced it, has been widely hailed as a successful example of a negotiated end to civil war. In order to understand the conditions that led to the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords ending the war, this article tests ripeness theory in the context of the Salvadoran peace process. This article affirms the validity of theories of ripeness and the mutually hurting stalemate as structural explanations for the initiation of dialogue and notes the role of “indicators of ripeness” in forcing the parties to recognize a hurting stalemate that may already exist. It also proposes several hypothesized explanations for the effectiveness of the Salvadoran negotiations themselves. These explanations include the presence of strong, empowered policy entrepreneurs on both sides with the political will and capability to make credible commitments; the combination of internal and external pressure for a negotiated solution that raised the cost of defection; and the active involvement, based on consent of both parties, of a neutral, empowered, and credible mediator who provided both technical assistance and vigilance to move the process forward. After analyzing the Salvadoran case through this theoretical lens, the article applies the same concepts to contemporary conflict cases such as Iraq and Colombia, discussing how the lessons learned in El Salvador do and do not provide instructive guidance for managing civil conflicts today.

The Evolution of International Conflict Resolution: From Cold War to Peacebuilding

Shaped by the changing nature of international conflict, the field of international conflict resolution evolved significantly throughout the latter years of the twentieth century and continues to be redefined. The end of the Cold War created space for a major transformation of the international conflict resolution field. This transformation was marked by three trends: (1) an expansion from a focus on superpower negotiating strategies to a wider peacebuilding agenda, (2) an increase in the role of nongovernmental actors as both disputants and third parties in international conflicts, and (3) a growing concern about human security in addition to state security, creating both tensions and opportunities for collaboration between governmental and nongovernmental bodies. This article presents a brief overview of each trend, as well as some concluding questions to frame the field's further development at this important juncture.

Thomas Pynchon: Gravity’s Rainbow . The Ideas of the Opposite

Thomas Pynchon’s highly complex novel deals with the personal and social difficulty of accepting a new worldview. Set at the end of World War II and in its aftermath, the protagonists find themselves at the crossroads between Newtonian mechanics, epitomized by the V2 rockets, and the foreshadowed atom bomb, which is based on the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. The style of Gravity’s Rainbow resembles the scene of a subatomic world: it is presented as an ever‐changing kaleidoscope of characters, places, events and interactions, which are constantly redetermined in relation to each other in an unpredictable manner. Pynchon manages to create a unifying theme by making all the twists in the plot comprehensible as manifestations of the underlying attempt to reconstruct selfhood. In addition, he refers recurrently to the motif of light, both as a physical entity at the center of modern physics and as a literary symbol of classical stability. In the end, his main protagonist himself turns into a mysterious source of light.

The Vitality of Music in Mann and Joyce. Wagner in “Fullness of Harmony” and “Sirens”

Thomas Mann and James Joyce make music central to The Magic Mountain and Ulysses , and each devotes an episode to music, Mann in “Fullness of Harmony” and Joyce in “Sirens.” Both novelists portray music as a medium of healing from isolation, yet music may also lull the listener into listlessness and induce an unhealthy withdrawal from relationships and community. Though Richard Wagner’s music is absent from the scenes, both authors write in the shadow of Wagner, making their stories epic and mythical, and the Wagnerian theme of redemption through art stands behind their portrayal of music. Joyce and Mann mistrust Wagnerian grandeur, however, Joyce from distaste and Mann from his association of Wagner with decadence and immorality. Yet neither author allows Wagner’s sin of excess to destroy the restorative power of music, and song stimulates recovery from detachment for Hans Castorp and Leopold Bloom. Written just after the First World War in cognizance of the danger of nationalist movements, both novels mark a path between isolation and immoderate group identification, showing that music may instill desire for an appropriate sense of relationship, the basis for the characters’ love of life and redemption.