Download Annotation 1 Bucholtz, M. (2002). Youth and Cultural Practice

Annotation 1
Bucholtz, M. (2002). Youth and Cultural Practice. Annual Review of Anthropology, 31, 525–552.
doi:10.2307/4132891
1. What three quotes capture the critical import of the text?
“To be sure, foundational ethnographies by Mead (1928) and Malinowski ([1929] 1987) established
adolescence early on as a crucial topic of anthropological investigation, and as a result, issues closely
associated with this life stage—initiation ceremonies, sexual practices, courtship and marital customs,
intergenerational relations—have long been a focus of anthropological inquiry. But such research has
usually approached adolescence from the perspective of adulthood, downplaying youth-centered
interaction and cultural production in favor of an emphasis on the transition to adulthood.” (525)
“The emphasis on adolescence as a universal stage in the biological and psychological development of
the individual usefully highlights selfhood as a process rather than a state, but it also inevitably frames
young people primarily as not-yet- finished human beings. Indeed, for many years anthropologists
studied adolescence almost exclusively as a liminal position between childhood and adulthood that is
marked in many (but not most) cultures through some type of initiation ceremony (Schlegel & Barry
1979). Such ceremonies are means of socially managing, and indeed defining, this life stage in adult
terms. While some coming-of-age rituals, like the Mexican American quinceanera (Watters 1988) and
the U.S. high school prom (Best 2000), are shaped in part by youth themselves, most rites of passage
that have been studied by anthropologists are in the hands of adult members of the community. The
role of adults in the process of socialization is unquestionably a central element in the understanding of
youth, yet the study of how adults guide adolescents into full cultural membership obscures the more
informal ways in which young people socialize themselves and one another as they enter adolescence
(e.g., Merten 1999).” (529)
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2. What is the main argument of the text?
The study of youth has not been a focus of anthropology much. The study of the transition to adulthood
has been a focus, however.
3. Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported.
The article describes how youth have not been studied anthropologically, though they have been
studied sociologically. Categories of what age is considered a child vs. adolescent vs. adult have
changed over the years—what effects has this had?
Some of the types of studies that have been done related to youth and mentioned in the article either as
common practice or a phenomenon that needs to be studied more include psychological stress through
education, suicide rates and reasons in youth, intergenerational tensions, youth gangs, youth sexuality,
body image,
The author discusses the rationale of studying youth as opposed to adolescence
4. Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.
The text draws on and contributes to anthropology and youth culture studies.
5. Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports, challenges or otherwise relates to the
argument or narrative that you imagine developing.
6. List of at least three details or examples from the text that you can use to support the argument or
narrative that you are developing.
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Why and how youth (including college students) should be studied
The importance of studying youth culture
Problems related to youth that should be studied
Annotation 2
Little, P. (1999). Environments and Environmentalisms in Anthropological Research: Facing a New
Millennium. Annual Review of Anthropology, 28, 253–284.
1. What three quotes capture the critical import of the text?
Three paragraph quote from the introduction that I feel is important: “In common usage, the term
environment is often used as a synonym for nature (i.e. the biophysical or nonhuman environment), but
this usage creates great conceptual confusion because the environment of a particular human group
includes both cultural and biophysical elements (Rappaport 1979). By extension, the
organism/environment dynamic, which is relational (Levins & Lewontin 1985) and perspectivist (Viveiros
de Castro 1996), is often erroneously fused with the nature/culture dualism, which is essentialist and
substantive. The concept of environment as a research tool allows for the delimitation of a wide range
of socionatural units of analysis (Smith & Reeves 1989) that transect the nature/culture division
orthogonally.
“In this context, the term environmentalism refers to an explicit, active concern with the relationship
between human groups and their respective environments. Although environmentalist usually refers to
political activists, the term can reasonably include persons and groups that are directly involved with
understanding and/or mediating this relationship. Thus, anthropologists and other social scientists who
are involved in environmental research can be considered as representing the environmental wing of
their respective disciplines.
“Current environmental research in anthropology falls into two major areas that have distinct
methodologies and objects of study. The first, called ecological anthropology, uses ecological
methodologies to study the interrelations between human groups and their environment. The second,
called the anthropology of environmentalism, uses ethnographic methodologies to study
environmentalism as a type of human action. These two areas provide the organizing motif for this
review. It concludes with a prospective look at new environments and their corresponding new
environmentalisms that are gaining importance in the world.” (254)
On the nature/culture issue: “The nature/culture dualism has provided the baseline for the greater part
of scientific thinking throughout this century and has strong, often unrecognized, methodological and
epistemological implications for research, including the separation of the natural from the social
sciences, both institutionally and intellectually. New ecological research is engaged in the difficult,
challenging process of finding practical ways of bridging this divide, and anthropology, which has always
worked on both sides of the nature/culture fence, is strategically situated to contribute to this effort.
Unfortunately, the radicalization of the nature/culture dualism during the 1990s has unduly
compromised this strategic position by provoking the so-called science wars, which have involved a
great deal of conceptual mudslinging and which have even led to formal splits in university anthropology
departments. As a result, the development of an ecological theory that incorporates natural and cultural
dimensions within a single, broad paradigmatic framework is more urgent than ever. It is, in fact, being
hammered out far from the battlefield of the science wars by anthropologists from many countries
working with peoples and their environmental problems throughout the world.” (257)
“Global-level phenomena have become increasingly important in political ecology research because of
the planetary dimension of many environmental problems and issues and the recent intensification
(Harvey 1989) of long-term processes of globalization (Wolf 1982).” (260)
“The discursive appropriation of indigenous peoples as natural conservationists and tropical forests as
pristine habitats by northern environmental movements has created an arena of heated anthropological
debate (see Headland 1997). Redford (1990:27) critiques the notion of the ‘ecologically noble savage’”
and argues that as indigenous peoples enter into contact with the Western world, they reveal ‘the same
capacities, desires, and perhaps, needs to overexploit their environment as did our European
ancestors’” (for a modified position see Redford & Mansour 1996). Edgerton (1992) also ‘challenges the
myth of primitive harmony’ by documenting a host of ‘sick societies’ that have made maladaptive
decisions in the past and then maintained them, sometimes driving themselves into extinction. Sponsel
(1995:283) rebuts this position with the forceful argument that ‘for millennia, these [Amazonian
indigenous] people have developed the land, generally in ways that used land and resources on a
sustained basis without major, irreversible environmental degradation and destruction.’” Bodley
(1997:612) takes up what can perhaps be taken as an intermediate position and affirms that ‘when a
group has no politically or commercially driven cultural incentive for expanding its population,
production, and consumption, its members do not need to be self-conscious conservationists.’” (271)
2. What is the main argument of the text?
Anthropologists need to study environmentalism and the environmentalist movement. The
environmental movement has many facets, as well as many angles from which it can be studied.
3. Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported.
The article discusses many themes of environmentalism that need to be studied. Examples include
people’s relationship with the environment; New Ecology and the paradigm shift; studying the world
and its people as a whole; studying activism and how it comes about, especially in marginalized
communities; environmentalism in less-developed versus more-developed countries; studying
environmental organizations; discourse analysis of environmentalism; and others. By briefly explaining
the context and the need for further research on the topic, this article identifies the areas which
researchers should focus on.
4. Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.
The text draws on anthropological literature, particularly anthropological literature relating to political
ecology and human ecology. It contributes to both of those literatures as well as to ecological and
environmental anthropology.
5. Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports, challenges or otherwise relates to the
argument or narrative that you imagine developing.
This article explores many themes of environmentalism, some of which will be relevant to my thesis. It
provides both a brief explanation and references to further my research.
6. List of at least three details or examples from the text that you can use to support the argument or
narrative that you are developing.
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People’s relationship with the environment needs to be studied
Environmental activism needs to be studied
Environmental activism has many facets and has changed over time
What “environment” can be defined as and why
Annotation 3
Walder, A. G. (2009). Political Sociology and Social Movements. Annual Review of Sociology, 35, 393–
412.
1. What three quotes capture the critical import of the text?
“Today the problem of mobilization is so central to the study of contentious politics and social
movements that few appear able to conceive of a different question or ask why the field took the shape
it did. Before the rise of current approaches, research on political movements was driven by three broad
traditions, all of which were deeply curious about the relationship between social structure and politics.
The oldest tradition was class analysis, ultimately Marxist in origin, and was committed to understanding
the roots of radical politics in class conflicts inherent in different modes of production. A second
tradition was based on the variety of role theory exemplified by Robert Merton and others, which
usually took the form of explanations based on role strain, status inconsistency, and relative deprivation.
A third tradition, ultimately Durkheimian in origin, was rooted in the structural-functionalism of Talcott
Parsons and his students.” (394)
2. What is the main argument of the text?
3. Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported.
4. Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.
5. Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports, challenges or otherwise relates to the
argument or narrative that you imagine developing.
6. List of at least three details or examples from the text that you can use to support the argument or
narrative that you are developing.
Annotation 4
1. What three quotes capture the critical import of the text?
2. What is the main argument of the text?
3. Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported.
4. Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.
5. Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports, challenges or otherwise relates to the
argument or narrative that you imagine developing.
6. List of at least three details or examples from the text that you can use to support the argument or
narrative that you are developing.
Annotation 5
1. What three quotes capture the critical import of the text?
2. What is the main argument of the text?
3. Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported.
4. Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.
5. Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports, challenges or otherwise relates to the
argument or narrative that you imagine developing.
6. List of at least three details or examples from the text that you can use to support the argument or
narrative that you are developing.
Annotation 6
1. What three quotes capture the critical import of the text?
2. What is the main argument of the text?
3. Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported.
4. Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.
5. Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports, challenges or otherwise relates to the
argument or narrative that you imagine developing.
6. List of at least three details or examples from the text that you can use to support the argument or
narrative that you are developing.