ANTHROPOLOGY AND MIDDLE CLASS

WORKING FAMILIES:

A RESEARCH AGENDA

Edited By

Mary Margaret Overbey and Kathryn Marie Dudley

Contributors

Steven AlbertEric Arnould

Judith AuerbachGarrick Bailey

Kathleen ChristensenCarolyn CurasiCharles Darrah

Kathryn Marie DudleyPaul Durrenberger

Lisa GrogerJan English-LueckJames FreemanThomas FrickeEleanor Gerber

Walter GoldschmidtDavid GoldstonJudith Goode

Mara GreengrassSara Harkness

Dorothy HollandMadelyn Iris

Michael JindraLouise LamphereCatherine LutzEmily Martin

Katherine NewmanDon Nonini

Karen Fog OlwigSherry Ortner

Mary Margaret OverbeyStuart Plattner

Linda PriceAlicia Schoua-Glusberg

John SherrySusan SkomalKendall Thu

Nicholas TownsendJoel SavishinskyThomas Weisner

Richard WilkMelvin Williams

CONTENTS

PREFACE i

INTRODUCTION 1

HISTORY, TRADITION, AND METHODS 2

CURRENT RESEARCH 6 Work, 6 Family, 7 Material Culture, 8 Technology, 9

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS 9 The Life Course, 10 Public Life, 11 Personhood, 12

INFRASTRUCTURE AND RESOURCES 12

POTENTIAL FUNDING SOURCES 21

CONCLUSION 24

BIBLIOGRAPHY 26

APPENDIXES A. ANTHROPOLOGY NEWSLETTER ARTICLES 34

Anthropology of Everyday Competence (S Albert), 34Cherished Possessions (E Arnould, L Price,

C Folkman Curasi), 37Living With Technology (CN Darrah, J English-Lueck,

J Freeman), 40(Dis)locating the Middle Class (KM Dudley), 44Coming in from the Margins (EP Durrenberger,

K Thu), 48Home Work (TE Fricke), 52Relevance through Surveys (E Gerber), 57Dynamics of Status In America (W Goldschmidt), 61Relinquishing Care (L Groger), 65Time for Families (S Harkness), 67

Public Life, Public Good (D Holland, C Lutz,D Nonini), 72

Pillars of the Middle Class Community (M Iris), 76“Others” Among Us (M Jindra), 79Let’s Set the Agenda (L Lamphere), 82Flexible Survivors (E Martin), 86The Mobile Middle Class (K Fog Olwig), 90Mastering the Art of Retirement (J Savishinsky), 92Real Work (J Sherry), 95Housing the Good Life (N Townsend), 97Values That Matter (TS Weisner), 101Consuming America (R Wilk), 106

B. LIST OF ANTHROPOLOGY NEWSLETTER ARTICLES 110

C. CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS 113

D. PUBLIC POLICY FORUM PARTICIPANTS 115

PREFACE

Anthropology and Middle Class Working Families: A ResearchAgenda serves as a guide to assist anthropologists in undertaking research onmiddle class working families. The Research Agenda marks the final step of aproject spearheaded by the American Anthropological Association (AAA) tostimulate interest and inquiry among anthropologists in middle class workingfamilies and to strengthen this area of research within anthropology. Theending of the project we see as a new beginning and resurgence ofanthropological studies on the conditions and concerns of middle classworking families.

Kathleen Christensen, program director of the Alfred P. SloanFoundation’s “Family and Workplace: Understanding Working Families,”first approached us in 1998 to discuss ways to enhance anthropology’spresence among research disciplines engaged in studying middle classworking families. After meeting with Kathleen and Stuart Plattner, director ofthe cultural anthropology program at the National Science Foundation (NSF),we developed a proposal, “Anthropological Approaches to Middle ClassWorking Families,” for a multi-phase project. With funding from the AlfredP. Sloan Foundation and NSF, a series of activities were carried out.

An initial conference, convening anthropologists to determine currentand future contributions of anthropology to the study of middle class workingfamilies, was held May 31-June 2, 1998 at the Morrison House in Alexandria,Virginia. Twelve anthropologists who study middle class working familiesmet to define the parameters for anthropology, identify significant gaps inknowledge, identify anthropologists working in this area, and to assist indeveloping an outline for the Research Agenda.

Anthropologists identified by the conference participants were askedto write articles for the AAA’s Anthropology Newsletter. From September1998 through September 1999, 10 commentaries on middle class workingfamilies were commissioned and published. An additional 32 articles onissues related to middle class working families were received and published inthe Anthropology Newsletter.

A public policy forum, “Anthropology and Middle Class WorkingFamilies: Knowledge and Policy,” was held on December 4 at AAA’s 1998Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. Approximately 200 people attended theforum. Attendance and enthusiastic discussion at the forum indicated that thelevel of interest and reported activity in issues related to middle class workingfamilies was high among anthropologists.

The Research Agenda is intended as a manual to identify areas ofpotential research, existing literature, resources for data and funding, andanthropologists who are studying middle class working families. It by nomeans represents a complete picture of anthropology’s past, current, andfuture research directions on middle class working families. The volumeeditors, Mary Margaret Overbey and Kathryn Marie Dudley, have relied onthe knowledge and contributions of many others in the course of itsproduction.

We thank our many contributors for the time and expertise that theyhave donated to the project. We recognize our conference participants:Garrick Bailey, Charles Darrah, Kathryn Marie Dudley, Thomas Fricke,Eleanor Gerber, Dorothy Holland, Emily Martin, Katherine Newman, AliciaShoua-Glusberg, Nicholas Townsend, Thomas Weisner, and MelvinWilliams. We recognize our public policy forum participants: JudithAuerbach, Kathryn Marie Dudley, Jan English-Lueck, Thomas Fricke, DavidGoldston, Judith Goode, Louise Lamphere, and Sherry Ortner. We recognizeour Anthropology Newsletter commentators and authors, among them: StevenAlbert, Eric Arnould, Carolyn Curasi, Charles Darrah, Kathryn Marie Dudley,Paul Durrenberger, Jan English-Lueck, James Freeman, Thomas Fricke,Walter Goldschmidt, Lisa Groger, Sara Harkness, Dorothy Holland, MadelynIris, Michael Jindra, Louise Lamphere, Catherine Lutz, Emily Martin, DonNonini, Linda Price, Karen Fog Olwig, Joel Savishinsky, John Sherry,Kendall Thu, Nicholas Townsend, Thomas Weisner, and Richard Wilk. Wethank our program assistant Mara Greengrass for, among other things,compiling the infrastructure and resources and appendices of the ResearchAgenda. We thank Kathryn Marie Dudley for her many contributions toproject, and particularly, for helping to edit the Research Agenda, writing thehistory, tradition and methods section, and preparing the extensivebibliography.

Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the AlfredP. Sloan Foundation and NSF. Kathleen Christensen has been instrumental inencouraging and guiding anthropologists in the study middle class workingfamilies. Stuart Plattner has contributed additionally to the project byidentifying the funding sources for research on middle class working familiesin the Research Agenda.

Limited print copies of the Research Agenda are available through theAAA, 4350 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 640, Arlington, VA 22203-1620. TheResearch Agenda is posted online at AAA’s website: http://www.aaanet.org.

Mary Margaret Overbey, Co-Principal InvestigatorSusan Skomal, Co-Principal Investigator

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INTRODUCTION

Over the last thirty years, American society has changed rapidly.Since 1969, women have entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers,changing the workplace and home place in the process. At the same time,industrial restructuring, stagnant household incomes, labor market uncertainty,and the desire for economic security have resulted in dual income households,where both men and women must balance the needs of work with those ofhome and family. Meanwhile, technological innovation has transformed therelationship between the workplace and the domestic sphere, placing newdemands on workers and families. Computers, Internet access, and e-mailhave revolutionized sources of information and entertainment, altering thenature and speed of communication at work and at home. “Informationoverload” and a “harried pace of life” have come to define American life atthe beginning of the 21st century.

While all Americans have been affected by these changes, the impactis especially pronounced in middle class working families. Over the past 20years, working hours have increased for women of all ages, and for both menand women during their prime working years. Parents put in longer hours onthe job just to “stay in place” economically, leaving little time to be with theirchildren and each other (Schor 1991). The resulting “time bind” (Hochschild1997) creates potential conflicts between work and home responsibilities, andthe distinction between home and work has become increasingly blurred.Importantly, the “main victims” of “time famine” are “married couple familiesand single parents who combine full-time jobs with childrearing” (Burtless1999: 22). Indeed, observing that the “time crunch” falls most heavily onworking women, the White House Council of Economic Advisers (1999) hasrecently concluded that there is a pressing need for public policies to helpworking families.

Yet, as policy makers, government analysts, and journalists attempt toaddress the challenges facing middle class working families, they do sowithout a clear conception of the social bounds and cultural reach of thisamorphous population. While social scientists have always taken an interestin Americans of “middling conditions,” only rarely have they beenencouraged to grapple directly with the problems and dilemmas that besetthose who claim to constitute the “moral center” of U.S. society, the middleclass. For instance, American anthropologists’ long tradition of studiesfocused on U.S. society has been overshadowed by an interest ingeographically distant and culturally “exotic” peoples. Although influentialhistorically and currently, anthropologists working on the near and “ordinary”

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have been outnumbered by sociologists, psychologists, economists, andpolitical scientists. As a result, policy makers, journalists, and disciplinesother than anthropology have largely shaped the national conversation aboutwork and family issues.

The contributors to this Research Agenda believe that anthropologyhas much to offer - and much to gain from - the study of middle class workingfamilies in the contemporary United States. However the “middle class” isdefined - as an income category, demographic group, or set of cultural values- it is a force to be reckoned with by any student of American society.Anthropology’s strengths in long-term ethnographic study, combined withqualitative and quantitative approaches, and its comparative and cross-culturalperspective make it particularly well suited to understanding the content,character, and contours of the middle class today. For anthropologists whoseek to understand American life, affect public policy, shape national debate,and educate the public on what anthropology is all about, the study of middleclass working families offers a perfect point of entry.

HISTORY, TRADITION, AND METHODS

Interest in Americans of “middling conditions” can be dated to thedawn of the republic, when French observers J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur(1792) and Alexis de Tocqueville (1835, 1840) took stock of the newdemocracy’s cultural character, documenting such definitive traits as“individualism” and the “entrepreneurial sprit.” As impressionistic as theseearly sketches of national life were, they embodied what would become thehallmark of qualitative social science in the United States: the effort tounderstand critical issues of the day through participant observation and theanalysis of representative people, places, and everyday practices.

With the pioneering work of sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd(1929, 1937) and anthropologist W. Lloyd Warner (1941, 1942, 1949), theethnographic tradition of domestic “community studies” was born. Thisresearch was based on the idea that the experiences of “average” familiesliving in “ordinary” cities or towns could reveal larger truths about Americansociety as a whole. Thus, the Lynds’ depression-era studies of “Middletown”(Muncie, Indiana) took the country’s pulse in the Midwest, while Warnersearched for its underlying social structure in “Yankee City” (Newburyport,Massachusetts). Anthropologists, including several African-Americananthropologists, were particularly important in studying communities in theSouth (Davis, Gardner and Gardner 1941, Hurston 1935, and Powdermaker1939), and pioneered research on urban African-American populations,including the middle class (Drake and Clayton 1945). An importantcorrective to the assumption that communities were self-contained

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microcosms of the nation-state came with Walter Goldschmidt’s (1947, 1978,1999, see p. 61, this volume) comparative study of three towns in ruralCalifornia, each of which intersected with the agricultural industry in differentways.

The period after World War II brought renewed focus on the Americancharacter, particularly as it appeared to be changing among the presumptivestandard-bearers of democracy: the newly emergent white collar middle class.Influential sociologists such as David Riesman (1950), C. Wright Mills(1951), and William H. White (1956) gave voice to cold war concerns aboutthe increasingly regimented, “conformist” nature of work and family life. Adecade later, through a community study of a “Levittown” built for returningGI’s and their families, sociologist Herbert Gans (1967) challenged theconformity thesis by demonstrating that a range of beliefs and practices couldexist under a veneer of outward similarity. Along related lines,anthropologists of the period sought to articulate cultural principles thatstructured social differences. Important contributions to structuralanthropology were made by David Schneider’s (1968) analysis of Americankinship and Herve Varenne’s (1977) study of the tension betweenindividualism and community in a Midwestern town.

A growing generational divide during the Vietnam War attracted theattention of no less a figure than Margaret Mead (1978). Mead had turned hergaze homeward before (see, for example, Mead 1942), but her commentary onthe 1970’s signaled a new awareness of potential conflict in theintergenerational transmission of cultural values. Sociologists were also alertto the contradictions inherent in a culture that encourages each generation todo better than the one before (see Sennett and Cobb 1972). However, it wasnot until anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff’s (1978) now classic study ofelderly Jewish immigrants that the ethnographic method and the communitystudies tradition came together with particular force. Through the methods ofparticipant observation and in-depth life history interviews, Myerhoff borewitness to the strength of a cultural heritage that had survived the Holocaust,yet appeared to be fading in the lives of her informants’ American-bornchildren.

Questions of intergenerational culture change gave rise to severalethnographic studies in the 1980’s, particularly among anthropologistsinterested in exploring their own ethnic roots. Micaela di Leonardo’s (1984)study of Italian-Americans and Sylvia Yanagisako’s (1985) study of Japanese-Americans made it clear that gender and class differences significantly affectthe transmission of ethnic identities, while Virginia Dominguez’s (1986) studyof Creole groups in Louisiana offered compelling evidence of the socially-constructed nature of racial identities. Combining archival and ethnographic

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research, Louise Lamphere (1987) traced the history of industrial work amongsuccessive generations of immigrant women in the New England textileindustry. And, in an effort to account for ethnic and class-based variation infamily forms, David Schneider (1984) revised and extended his earlier studyof American kinship.

At the same time, the political climate of the 1980’s raised newquestions about the situation of the “average” American. How was theaverage American faring? In an influential study of national values,sociologists Robert Bellah, Richard Madsen, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler,and Stephen Tipton (1985) argued that the prevailing language ofindividualism made it difficult for middle class Americans to conceive of, letalone participate in, meaningful forms of community or civic engagement. Itrequired the insights of innovative community studies to reveal thesocioeconomic anxieties underlying the conservative shift in U.S. politics.Sociologist Jonathan Reider’s (1985) study of white resistance to racialintegration in Brooklyn, New York, showed how economic insecuritytranslated into white ethnic protest against the political agenda of liberal elites.Likewise, anthropologist Faye Ginsburg’s (1989) study of pro-choice and pro-life abortion activists in Fargo, North Dakota, showed how women’s increasedparticipation in the labor force turned the abortion debate into a referendum onchanging gender roles.

Indeed, by the late 1980’s, social scientists were well aware thatAmerica’s middle class working families were in trouble. Sociologist ArlieHochschild (1989) drew attention to the toll taken on women in dual-careercouples who put in a “second shift” of housework and childcare after a fullday on the job. Anthropologists Katherine Newman (1988) and June Nash(1989) documented the devastating impact of de-industrialization andcorporate downsizing on workers, families, and communities.Anthropologists Peggy Barlett (1993) and Caroline Tauxe (1993) found thatthe social consequences of the farm crisis in rural America were no less severe(see also Salamon 1992 and Adams 1994).

Significantly, anthropologists who study economic dislocation in themiddle class draw upon the quantitative methods of economists anddemographers to frame their analysis of sociocultural issues. Newman’s(1993) ethnography of downward or “blocked” mobility in suburbanAmerican serves as a prime example. Here, she documents the struggle tomaintain a middle class standard of living against the backdrop of decliningincomes and rising property values that lead to generational conflicts oversuch matters as home ownership, the use of day care, and the government’srole in ensuring social security.

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The economic insecurity of the middle class has been accompanied byan upheaval in the nature and definition of the family itself. Althoughsociologist Alan Wolfe’s (1998) recent survey of mainstream values suggeststhat most Americans remain largely antagonistic toward non-traditional familyforms, the normative contours of the family are changing nonetheless (Stacey1990, 1996; Coontz 1992, 1997). Stepfamilies, blended families, and single-parent families have become familiar forms of family in the U.S. Inter-racialmarriage and adoption are more common, and same-sex partnerships are morevisible as evident in a growing body of ethnographic research on lesbian andgay kinship (Weston 1991), community (Newton 1993), and marriage (Lewin1998). Providing a model for scholarship on gender, sexuality, andreproduction in middle class families, Emily Martin’s studies of childbirth(1987) and the AIDS epidemic (1994) combine anthropology’s long-standinginterest in the symbolic power of the body with a new emphasis on howbiological metaphors are ritually enacted and embodied.

Anthropologists who conduct fieldwork in America today havebecome especially sensitive to their discipline’s less than admirable historyhere “at home,” particularly where the scientific treatment of the foreign anddomestic “Other” was concerned (Di Leonardo 1998). One importantcomponent of overcoming this legacy has been the effort to counter moves to“exoticize” ethnic and minority groups in the U.S. Thus, Steven Gregory’s(1998) study of political activism in an African American community focuseson the culture of the black middle class in a deliberate effort to go beyond thestereotype of “disorganized” urban black life (see also Williams 1992,Mullings 1997, and Sanjek 1996). A second strategy has been to train acritical eye on a principal “gate-keeping” institution of membership in themiddle class, the network of public and private schools that comprise thenation’s educational system (Moffatt 1989, Foley 1990, Holland and Eisenhart1990). In contrast to earlier research on the “average” American character orcommunity, contemporary studies of the middle class seek to identify thenormative values and expectations in terms of which - and against which -citizens in all walks of life give meaning to their experience.

As history demonstrates, anthropologists’ interest in middle classworking families in the US is not new. From early contributions tocommunity studies, to portrayals of racial and ethnic neighborhoods, tostudies of national character, to recent concerns about the representationalpractices of anthropologists themselves, anthropology has always had onefoot, so to speak, in its own backyard. Today, the Society for theAnthropology of North America, a section of the American AnthropologicalAssociation, includes many anthropologists whose main research interests arein the study of the U.S. and Canada.

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Methodologically, anthropological fieldwork in the U.S. is no differentthan fieldwork elsewhere in the world: participant observation, life historyinterviews, and the community study remain the foundation of theethnographic imagination. However, working in close proximity withscholars of other disciplines on similar problems and populations has givenanthropologists of the domestic scene a vested interest in making theirfindings accessible to a broad audience. This interdisciplinary vocabulary hasbeen indispensable to anthropology’s tradition of “engagement” (Forman1994) here in the U.S., as we strive, through the study of the culturallyfamiliar, to address current issues, educate the general public, and inform thepolicy making process.

CURRENT RESEARCH

While not necessarily cast as such, a significant amount ofanthropological research deals with middle class working families. Forexample, William Dressler’s (1998) work among African-Americans in theAmerican South has focused on factors that contribute to hypertension (orhigh blood pressure). Dressler has identified a direct association between“cultural consonance in lifestyle” and hypertension. African-Americanswhose lifestyles accord most closely with the core set of values defined bycommunity members as making up a “valued lifestyle” - home ownership andchurch leadership, among others - have lower hypertension rates than thosewith inconsonant lifestyles. Dressler observes that the community’s commonvalues, and the better health associated with them, reflect a middle classlifestyle.

Given adequate preparation, there are many ways in whichanthropologists may be able to recast current research projects to focusdirectly on middle class working families. As recent work in this area attests,the range of possible topics and approaches is wide and continues to expand.

WORK

Among middle class working families, work is an important andprimary activity. Many Americans define themselves by the work they do.Not surprisingly, many anthropologists who study the middle class focus onwork. Louise Lamphere’s (1993, 1994) examination of the relationshipbetween work and home life is a case in point. Looking at the experience ofdual income families in New Mexico and Rhode Island, she has studied theimpact of women’s participation in the labor force on the household divisionof labor, childcare strategies, and the importance of support networks. In NewMexico, in particular, she has looked at the structure of the workplace andhow management policies such as flextime, job sharing, health benefits, and

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maternity leave affect women’s commitment to their jobs. With an explicitfocus on African-American, Spanish surnamed, and Asian-American families,Lamphere’s work underscores the importance of a comparative frameworkand attention to racial and ethnic differences within the middle class (1999,see p. 82, this volume).

Kathryn Dudley’s (1994, 2000) research among Midwesternautoworkers and farmers examines economic dislocation within the middleclass due to job or farm loss. In both cases, dislocation was the result of largereconomic forces. For the autoworkers, it was the shutdown of an automobilemanufacturing plant. For the farmers, it was the impact of the agriculturalcrisis in the 1980’s. Following Newman (1999), Dudley studies “tribes of thedownwardly mobile,” those “refugees from a downsizing, de-industrializing,credit-dependent middle class who nonetheless continue to identify with itsvalues and expectations” (1999, see p. 44, this volume). Importantly, she hasfound that the values of the middle class are as strong, if not stronger thaneconomic realities of class identity. Membership in the middle class, sheargues, “requires the unremitting performance of a distinctive moral character- one which, in every community, is as much culturally-defined as it iseconomically-based” (ibid.). As a result, middle class notions of merit andpersonal accountability lead many dislocated workers to blame themselves orto be blamed by others for their economic failure.

FAMILY

Some anthropologists are looking at parenting issues. Sara Harkness’(1996, 1998) work among families in the U.S. and the Netherlands is anexample. Harkness observes the daily activities of families and reviews howthey structure their day. This “organization of life” reflects cultural beliefsystems, or “parental ethnotheories,” (1998, see p. 67, this volume) and thedifferences between Dutch and American families are marked. For example,in the case of infant sleep, American parents make “tough calls” on whether orwhen to take the baby into the parents’ bed when upset, while among Swedishand Dutch parents such decisions are taken in stride. Similarly, in the effort to“spend quality time” with children, American parents tend to over stimulatebabies and keep young children up late at night. These actions, she believes,result in stress, sleep problems for babies, and not enough sleep for youngchildren. Dutch parents, on the other hand, follow a child-rearing philosophythat emphasizes a quiet flow of activities and plenty of rest and sleep,resulting in fewer sleep problems and less stress for both children and parents.

Thomas Weisner and colleagues (1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999) haveconducted research over 24 years following the life course of middle classyouth of the 1960’s and early 1970’s. The sample includes 50 “conventional,”

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two-parent married couples and 150 “nonconventional, counterculturefamilies” and their children. Weisner’s work points out that many of thevalues and behaviors that were “nonconventional” in the 1960’s and 1970’sare now “normative” for middle class families today (1999, see p. 101, thisvolume). He has identified two characteristics that conventional andnonconventional parents share: a “pedagogical developmental model” thatfocuses on developing the child’s literacy, verbal, and social skills; and anemphasis on cultural values such as individualism, autonomy, self-reliance,self expression, self esteem, trust, attachment, and security. While thelifestyle and values orientation of conventional and nonconventional familiesmay have been different, Weisner has found that the children ofnonconventional parents, who are now entering college, do as well or better inschool than the children of conventional parents. What matters most, heconcludes, is adherence to a coherent set of values within the family.

MATERIAL CULTURE

Home ownership is one of the valued material characteristics of themiddle class, and an important part of the American Dream. NicholasTownsend’s study of home ownership has looked at this norm of membershipin the middle class as a means of tying Americans to a “system ofemployment and consumption that has profound contradictions” (1999, seep. 97, this volume). In studies of fathers in California, he has found that menview home ownership as a sign of “safety, success and social standing” aswell as a means of “tax benefits and financial saving.” Yet, buying a home iscostly, and many families assume large debts to purchase one. Ironically,while home ownership is thought to epitomize the cultural values ofindependence and self-sufficiency, Townsend observes, the debt incurred tobe a homeowner creates dependency on a stable job and a certain level ofincome.

The study of American consumption patterns and the cultural meaningof consumer goods is an emerging field of interest for anthropologists (Olsen1995; Arnould, Price, and Curasi 1999, see p. 37, this volume). RichardWilk, for example, has focused on the social history of consumer goods thatdefine middle class material culture. Among the items he has looked at is theadoption and evolution of the reclining chair, and specifically the La-Z-Boyrecliner, as the “symbol of working class domesticity and respectability”(1999, see p. 106, this volume).

The La-Z-Boy fits with Americans’ idea of “comfort” and “leisure.”The notion that the reclining chair provides a means of relaxing after astressful day of work represents a cultural change from a work-centered life toa leisure-centered life. Following an initial association in the 1950’s with

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father as a family breadwinner, where Dad’s recliner was placed in the “bestspot” in front the television - the “electronic hearth” - the recliner has nowbeen adopted by Mom as well. With two working parents as the norm in the1990’s, La-Z-Boy advertisements have featured couples arguing over whomgets to sit in this place of honor. Wilk points out that the study of materialculture can tell us much about middle class Americans, yet less is known toanthropologists about this area of American life than Trobriand jewelry.

TECHNOLOGY

Recent studies of the creation, adoption, and adaptation of computershave reinvigorated anthropology’s traditional interest in technology and socialchange, and high-speed communication tools (Sherry 1999, see p. 95, thisvolume). Chuck Darrah, Jan English-Lueck, and James Freeman’s long-termresearch on Silicon Valley is a prime example of current research on thedevelopment and use of new technologies (1998, see p. 40, this volume).Originally an agricultural area, Silicon Valley has evolved into a high-techcommunity whose residents are the well-educated, computer-literateemployees of major technology firms.

Since 1991, through the Silicon Valley Cultures Project, Darrah,English-Lueck, and Freeman have been examining the interaction of familieswith information technologies. Although few families fit the stereotype oftechnical expert or computer-nerd, the research team has found thatinformation technologies are an important part of everyday life in SiliconValley. In these households, information devices constitute a “complexecosystem” that is interwoven into family life.

Although most families are not aware of the number of technologicaldevices they own and use, computers, cellular and digital phones, camcorders,VCRs, and television shape their lives in a variety of ways. For instance,technology often blurs the boundaries between work and home relationships,with the result that a parent may conduct a business transaction on the cellphone while attending a child’s soccer game.

Technology may also assist in family management, allowing familymembers to coordinate daily, disparate schedules. And it may function tobind the family, as members watch television or play video games together.Importantly, Darrah, English-Lueck, and Freeman are finding that, contrary topopular belief, technology is not transforming family behaviors; families areadapting technologies by putting old behaviors into a new context.

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FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

The future of research on middle class working families is bright. TheAlfred P. Sloan Foundation has set aside $20 million for research on middleclass working families. An important part of the effort to increaseunderstanding of middle class working families has been the Foundation’ssupport of centers across the country to undertake such research. Amongthese is the Center for Ethnography of Everyday Life, directed by Tom Fricke,at the University of Michigan (1998, see p. 52, this volume). Fricke’s Centeris designed to provide training for students of anthropology and assistanthropologists in the study of middle class working families.

Fricke’s own research among residents of rural community in NorthDakota exemplifies the kind of research - the “ethnography of everyday life” -that the Center will support. In his study, Fricke is shadowing, or following,various residents as they go about the business of living. He “hangs out” withlocal farmers, business executives, and even monks at the nearby monastery inorder to get a sense of residents’ concerns within the community. He isdocumenting lifeways in a rural community that is experiencing a decline inyoung people who leave for better employment opportunities. Fricke sees hiswork as an “elegy for a way of life,” and views the Center as a base fromwhich social scientists will be able to conduct similar studies in theworkplace, home, school, and other sectors of social life across the Midwest(Wheeler 1999: B2).

As this Research Agenda was being prepared, the Alfred P. SloanFoundation approved a grant for a fifth center on middle class workingfamilies at Emory University. The Center for Myth and Ritual in AmericanLife (the MARIAL Center), led by Bradd Shore, will focus research andtraining on the study of rituals and myths among middle class workingfamilies in the American South. Like the Center at Michigan, the MARIALCenter will fund research and provide postdoctoral and graduate fellowships.It will be first of the five centers to offer undergraduate fellowships.

As the foregoing illustrates, the opportunities for future research onmiddle class working families are extensive. In addition to the study of work,family, material culture, and technology, promising areas of futureinvestigation include aging and the life course, concepts of personhood, andnotions of public life and the common good.

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THE LIFE COURSE

The predicament of the “sandwich generation” - baby boomers at mid-life who find themselves caught between financial obligations to aging parentsand college-age children, even as they must plan for their own retirement -poses significant questions and research possibilities for anthropologists.Moreover, the rise of dual-career families has altered roles and responsibilitieswithin the family, especially those structured by age. Understanding howthese new relationships are negotiated, and how potential conflicts of interestwithin the family are handled, requires the kind of sociocultural analysis atwhich anthropologists are particularly adept.

Along similar lines, there is need for ethnographic study of thechanging nature of childhood in America. In many families, children aregiven more responsibility as they become school-aged. Latchkey children areincreasingly common in many middle class working families, and, in somecases children are watching children at home while both parents work. Anethnographic approach to the life course can tell us much about the impact ofdual income households on the young.

Focused research by anthropologists on elderly, retired middle classworking families is important, also. Whether the project involves the study ofa particular institution such as a nursing home (Savishinsky 1999, see p. 92,this volume; Groger 1999, see p. 65, this volume), a community like that ofelderly retirees who travel the country in their RVs (Counts and Counts 1996),the physical challenges of aging (Albert 1998, see p. 34, this volume), or therole of the elderly in child care (Slorah 1998), the study of aging middle classworking families presents an opportunity for growth.

PUBLIC LIFE

The lives of middle class working families crosscut many sectors,including work, schools, church, voluntary organizations, and children’ssporting activities, among others. When the demands of the workplace leavelittle time for family life, or when family networks span more than onecountry or locale (Olwig 1998, see p. 90, this volume), what constitutes“public life” for middle class working families and how do these familiescreate “community?” To what extent are Americans today able to act uponvalues typically associated with middle class notions of the “good citizen,”such as volunteerism, political activity, and other civic virtues?

In contrast to the perception that these values have declined in recentyears, anthropologists Dorothy Holland, Catherine Lutz, and Don Nonini

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(1999, see p. 72, this volume) have found a strong public life among middleclass families in North Carolina. Middle class residents have been successfulin halting changes that would adversely affect the environment and havehelped to economically revitalize their communities.

Whether this level of civic engagement is true of other middle classcommunities or extended to other political issues remains an open question.For example, anthropologists who have looked at industrial restructuring inrural America raise doubts about the organizing capacities of middle classworking families in these communities (Durrenberger and Thu 1992, 1998,see p. 48, this volume; Fink 1998). In addition, as Madelyn Iris’s (1999, seep. 76, this volume) fieldwork among elderly African-American residents ofChicago suggests, certain segments of a community - in this case, the elderly -may be more important than others in maintaining its middle class character.Far more anthropological research will need to be conducted beforegeneralizations can be made about middle class public life.

PERSONHOOD

Current changes experienced by middle class working families havefar-reaching implications for cultural conceptions of mental health and the“ideal” person. Anthropologists have always had a special interest inexploring cross-cultural notions of personhood, and the requirements of workin contemporary America have altered the nature of the demands placed uponthe individual. Workers are now expected to adapt to frequent job andoccupational changes, endure high levels of uncertainty, and pull themselvesout of the economic free fall that follows periods of unemployment.Evolutionary metaphors such as the “survival of the fittest” are increasinglyused to express the idea that some individuals are constitutionally suited tothis brave new world, whereas others are not.

Interrogating notions of adaptation and survival opens up a wide rangeof research possibilities. As Emily Martin (1999, see p. 86, this volume)observes, “an anthropological approach to changes in the kind of person onemust become to survive … promises to shed light on changes in the valuationof mental conditions and even rationality itself,” and may well advance “ourunderstanding of ideals being sought in many cultural domains, such asmodels of childhood development, education, work, personality andintelligence.” Thus, Martin’s study of manic-depression and Attention DeficitHyperactivity Disorder has called attention to the increasing acceptance andeven celebration of the “manic style” in corporate America. Likewise,Michael Jinda’s (1998, see p. 79, this volume) study of Star Trek fans pointsto the increasingly influential role of popular culture in shaping moralnarratives and a middle class sense of self. In these and other ways,

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anthropology is poised to make a unique contribution to study of mainstreamAmerican culture and its significance in the lives of middle class workingfamilies.

INFRASTRUCTURE AND RESOURCES

The methods used by anthropologists in studies of middle classworking families will vary. Ethnography, however, will continue to be asignificant methodology. Yet, Eleanor Gerber (1998, 1999) notes that thepower of the ethnographic method is best realized when anthropologists placethe details of daily life within the broader context of quantitative dataprovided by national surveys (see p. 57, this volume). She argues that such anapproach would help anthropologists influence policy makers, who rely on theresults of surveys as part of the policy process. By framing their ethnographicresearch within existing national surveys, anthropologists would strengthenand make more useful those surveys for everyone and affect policy at thesame time.

Existing infrastructure and resources that that may assistanthropologists in their research on middle class working families are thefollowing.

Henry A. Murray Research CenterA Center for the Study of Lives10 Garden StreetCambridge, MA 02138phone: 617-495-8140fax: 617-496-3993e-mail: mrc@radcliffe.eduwebsite: http://www.radcliffe.edu/murray

The “center’s primary purpose is to promote the use of existing socialscience data to explore human development and social change.” Search theGuide to the Data Resources online or purchase it. The Guide gives limitedinformation about research projects, including a description of the project,whether the data is qualitative or quantitative, if follow-up with participants ispossible and whether the data are available on computer.

Boston College Center for Work and Familywebsite: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/csom/cwf/center/overview.html

“The Boston College Center for Work and Family, located within theWallace E. Carroll School of Management, is a research organizationdedicated to increasing the quality of life of working families by promoting

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the responsiveness of workplaces and communities to their needs. The Centeruses three core strategies to pursue its mission: research, workplacepartnerships, and communication & information services.” You may orderpolicy papers and books from their website.

“The Center has created a resource library of practitioner and researchliterature on a wide range of work/life topics. The Center has also madetremendous progress in building its electronic database, tied initially to itsSloan Researchers Network. The Center is currently working to build on thiscapacity to house an in-depth practitioner benchmarking database.”

Sloan Electronic Network for Work/Family Researcherswebsite: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/csom/cwf/wfnetwork.html

This service is free, and requires that you register to gain access tosome of its resources. The site includes a list of work-family resources,forums, syllabi, and a literature database. The database is “a collection ofapproximately 2000 entries providing bibliographic information with selectedannotations for journal articles, books, chapters in books, reports, papers, anddissertations that present information about work and family research.”

Silicon Valley Cultures ProjectCharles Darrah, Jan English-Lueck, and James FreemanDepartment of AnthropologySan Jose State UniversitySan Jose, CA 95192-0113website: http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/anthropology/svcp/

“The Silicon Valley Cultures Project is the guiding theoreticalframework which joins several ethnographic research projects studyingdiverse aspects of life in Silicon Valley. In addition to the in-depth interviewsdone by the Principal Investigators during the Work, Identity, and Communityin Silicon Valley project, hundreds of San Jose State student researchers havebeen employed in earlier projects.” The website contains the text of severalpapers from the project, as well as references for other articles on relatedtopics. It also includes general information on work conducted so far.

Center for the Ethnography of Everyday LifeTom Fricke426 Thompson StreetUniversity of MichiganP.O. Box 1248Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248website: http://www.ethno.isr.umich.edu/

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“CEEL's research and training focus takes off from the welldocumented changes in family and work life among Middle Class Americans.Dramatic increases in married women's labor force participation, the risingnumber of dual career and income families, steep increases in the percentageof children under 5 years old in day care... these are just some of thetransformations in American life that survey research has documented.” TheCenter offers fellowships and internships and the website has links to relatedsites and working papers published by the project.

Center for Myth and Ritual in American LifeContact person: Bradd ShoreDepartment of AnthropologyEmory University1557 Pierce DriveAtlanta, GA 30322e-mail: antbs@emory.edu

Most recent of the five centers funded by the Alfred P. SloanFoundation to study middle class working families, the MARIAL Center willfund research and provide postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduatefellowships. The focus of the Center is the contemporary American South.At this writing, a website is under development.

Families and Work Institute330 Seventh Avenue, 14th FloorNew York, NY 10001phone: (212) 465-2044fax: (212) 465-8637e-mail: Afarber@familiesandwork.orgwebsite: http://www.familiesandwork.org/

“Families and Work Institute is a non-profit organization thataddresses the changing nature of work and family life…We identify emergingwork-life issues, considering the entire life cycle, from prenatal and child careto elder care, and all levels of employees, from managers to assembly lineworkers, at all types of organizations, benchmark solutions to work-lifeproblems across all sectors of society—business, education, community, andgovernment—and serve as a broker to build connections among these sectors[and] evaluate the impact of solutions on employees, their families, theircommunities, and on the productivity of employers.”

Contextual Data Archive: A Data Resource for Contextual ResearchSociometrics Corporation

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170 State Street, Suite 260Los Altos, CA 94022-2812phone: (650) 949-3282 x 206fax: (650) 949-3299e-mail: shobana@socio.comwebsite: http://www.socio.com.

“The Contextual Data Archive brings together variables from morethan 15 different data sets that contain contextual data at various geographiclevels, such as Census tracts, counties, and school districts. The goal of theContextual Data Archive is to organize the data into a series of data files eachat a different level of geography, and to distribute the data to researchers andothers for research, and program and policy analyses. The variables includedcover a wide range of subjects relevant to the social sciences, including basicdemographic and socioeconomic data, household data, education and laborstatistics, family planning and health data, information on ethnic and religiouscharacteristics, and policy variables (e.g., percent receiving various forms ofpublic assistance, and expenditures on social services). The Archive is onlycontextual; no individual-level data are included.”

National Survey of Family Growth 1995Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,National Center for Health Statistics, Reproductive Statistics Branch6525 Belcrest Road, Room 840Hyattsville, MD 20782phone: (301) 436-8731 ext. 122fax: (301) 436-5830e-mail: ljp2@cdc.govwebsite: http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/nchshome.htm.

“The National Survey of Family Growth, Cycle 5, is a comprehensivedata set of women’s fertility in the United States, now publicly available. Newfeatures in Cycle 5 include event histories and an array of contextual data atthree points in time. Computer-assisted personal interviews with 10,847women ages 15-44 contain supplemental information collected using Audio-CASI technology.”

Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (MCSUI)Irene Browne Department of SociologyEmory UniversityAtlanta, GA 30322phone: (404) 727-7508fax: (404) 727-7532

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e-mail: ibrown@soc.emory.edu.

“The Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (MCSUI) is a data setconsisting of household and employer surveys conducted between 1992 and1994 in four cities: Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles. A large area-probability-based sample of households, with over-sampling of raciallysegregated and poorer neighborhoods, was selected in each city. Randomlyselected adults from each household were interviewed about their labormarket experiences, residential preferences, and perceptions of their own andother racial groups. Respondents with recent labor force experience providedinterviewers with information about their employer and work location,forming an employment-based sample of employers that was combined withan establishment-based sample. These employers were contacted andinterviewed by telephone, supplying information on hiring and pay practices,skill requirements, and the racial and ethnic composition of the labor force.There are 8,916 households and 3,497 employers in the data set. Householdand employer data sets are available through the ICPSR.”

General Social SurveyTom W. Smith, National Opinion Research CenterUniversity of Chicago1155 East 60th StreetChicago, IL 60637phone: (773) 256-6288fax: (773) 753-7886e-mail: smitht@norcmail.uchicago.eduwebsite: http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/

“The Directorate for the General Social Survey (GSS) of the NationalOpinion Research Center, University of Chicago, monitors social change inthe United States. Since 1972, the GSS has gathered data on contemporaryAmerican society in order to monitor and explain trends and constants inattitudes, behaviors, and attributes of the adult population. These high qualitydata are easily accessible to a broad-based user community, includingresearchers, teachers in colleges and universities, students at undergraduateand graduate levels, business and corporate planners, journalists, and publicofficials who need to understand the pulse of our country in their work. The22 national probability samples include interviews of 32,380 respondents. Ofthe 3,400 items that have been asked, there are time trends for over 1,000items.”

Wisconsin Longitudinal StudyContact persons: Robert M. Hauser and Taissa S. HauserCenter for Demography and Ecology

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University of Wisconsin-Madison1180 Observatory DriveMadison, WI 53706phone: (608) 262-2182fax: (608) 262-8400e-mail: wls@ssc.wisc.eduwebsite: http://dpls.dacc.wisc.edu/wls/wlsarch.htm/

“The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) is a 35-year study of thesocial and economic life course among 10,000 men and women whograduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957, and who have been followedup at ages 25, 36, and 53-54. Data from the original respondents or theirparents from 1957 to 1975 cover social background, youthful and adultaspirations, schooling, military service, family formation, labor marketexperience, and social participation. The 1992-93 surveys cover occupationalhistories; income, assets, and economic transfers; social and economiccharacteristics of parents, siblings, and children; and mental and physicalhealth and well being. Parallel interviews have been carried out with siblingsin 1977 and 1993-94. WLS data and documentation are available on theWorld Wide Web.”

Panel Study of Income DynamicsContact persons: Sandra Hofferth and Bill ShayInstitute for Social ResearchUniversity of MichiganAnn Arbor, MI 48106-1248phone: (734) 763-5131 or (734) 963-1773fax: (734) 647-4575e-mail: psid_staff@umich.eduwebsite: http://www.umich.edu/~psid/.

“Now in its thirtieth year of data collection, the Panel Study of IncomeDynamics (PSID) is a longitudinal survey of a representative sample of U.S.men, women, and children and the families in which they reside. Data onemployment, income, wealth, health, housing, and food expenditures, transferincome, and marital and fertility behavior have been collected annually since1968. From 5,000 families in 1968, the study has grown to include over10,000 families, including more than 2,000 families of Cuban, Puerto Rican,and Mexican descent, interviewed from 1990 through 1995. The study hascollected high quality intergenerational data on economic capacity, income,and the transmission of wealth, as well as information on such issues as thelong-term effects of life events (early childbearing, divorce, illness) onworkers and their families, the relationship of business cycles to economicwell-being, and the interaction of labor mobility and geographic mobility.”

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National Longitudinal SurveysContact person: Julie YatesU.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsSuite 4945, 2 Massachusetts Avenue N.E.Washington, DC 20212phone: (202) 606-7388fax: (202) 606-6425e-mail: yates_j@bls.govwebsite: http://stats.bls.gov/nlshome.htm

“The National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) gather detailedinformation about labor market experiences and other aspects of the lives ofsix groups of American men and women. Many NLS survey members havebeen followed for many years, some for decades, allowing researchers tostudy large panels of men, women and children over significant segments oftheir lives. The surveys include data about a wide range of events such asschooling and career transitions, marriage and fertility, training investments,welfare recipiency, child-care usage, and drug and alcohol use.”

National Survey of Families and HouseholdsContact person: James A. SweetCenter for DemographyUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison4412 Social Science BuildingMadison, WI 53706phone: (608) 262-2182fax: (608) 262-8400e-mail: nsfhhelp@ssc.wisc.edu

“In 1987-88 a national sample of 13,002 respondents were interviewedabout numerous aspects of family life. Members of the original sample, alongwith their current and ex-spouse/partners, were reinterviewed in 1992-94. Inaddition interviews were completed with a son or daughter age 10-23 and witha parent of the respondent. The resulting dataset, the National Survey ofFamilies and Households (NSFH), includes information on familycomposition and history, relationship with spouse/partner, parenting practices,relationships with parents and kin, help given to and received from others,work and income, division of household labor, involvement with childrenliving elsewhere, well-being, family attitudes and opinions, and a variety ofother topics. Data are available from the Center for Demography at theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison. (The 1987-88 data are also available fromICPSR and other sources.)”

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National Center for Health Statistics,Natality, Marriage, and Divorce Statistics Branch6525 Belcrest Road, Room 840Hyattsville, MD 20782phone: (301) 436-8954, ext. 131fax: (301) 436-7066e-mail: sjv1@nch08a.em.cdc.gov

“The National Center for Health Statistics collects and publishesinformation on a wide variety of demographic and health characteristicsreported on the birth certificate for all births occurring in the United States.Demographic characteristics include age, race, Hispanic origin, education,birthplace, marital status, residence, live-birth order, sex, and month and dayof birth. Health information includes month prenatal care began, number ofprenatal visits, medical risk factors, tobacco use, alcohol use, obstetricprocedures, attendant at birth, place of delivery, method of delivery,complications of labor and/or delivery, period of gestation, birthweight, Apgarscore, abnormal conditions of the newborn, congenital anomalies, andplurality.”

Current Population SurveyBureau of the Censuse-mail: cpshelp@info.census.govwebsite: http://www.bls.census.gov/cps/cpsmain.htm

This program is the primary source of information about the laborforce characteristics of the U.S. population. It is a monthly survey of about50,000 households, asking questions about employment, unemployment,earnings, hours of work and other indicators. Results are available sorted byfactors including age, sex, race, marital status, educational attainment,occupation, industry, and class of worker. Data are available through webaccess.

Survey of Income and Program ParticipationBureau of the Censuse-mail: income_surveys_branch@ccmail.census.govwebsite: http://www.sipp.census.gov/sipp/

This survey exists to “collect source and amount of income, laborforce information, program participation and eligibility data, and generaldemographic characteristics to measure the effectiveness of existing federal,state, and local programs; to estimate future costs and coverage forgovernment programs, such as food stamps; and to provide improved statistics

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on the distribution of income in the country.” Data are available through webaccess.

Survey of Program DynamicsBureau of the Censuse-mail: income_surveys_branch@ccmail.census.govwebsite: http://www.sipp.census.gov/spd/spdmain.htm

The Survey of Program Dynamics is a subset of the Survey of Incomeand Program Participation, and was instituted with the primary aim ofproviding data to evaluate the effects of welfare reform legislation. Data areavailable through the web.

American Housing SurveyBureau of the Censuse-mail: hhes-info@census.govwebsite: http://blue.census.gov/hhes/www/ahs.html

“The American Housing Survey (AHS) collects data on the Nation'shousing, including apartments, single-family homes, mobile homes, vacanthousing units, household characteristics, income, housing and neighborhoodquality, housing costs, equipment and fuels, size of housing unit, and recentmovers. National data are collected every other year, and data for each of 46selected Metropolitan Areas are collected about every four years, with anaverage of 12 Metropolitan Areas included each year. The national samplecovers on average 55,000 homes.”

National Health Interview SurveyDivision of Health Interview StatisticsNational Center for Health StatisticsCenters for Disease Control and Prevention6525 Belcrest Road, Room 850Hyattsville, Maryland 20782-2003phone: (301) 436-7089website: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis.htm

This survey provides general health statistics, including information ondoctor visits and hospitalization. It is “used widely to monitor trends in illnessand disability and to track progress toward achieving national healthobjectives. The data are also used by the public health research community forepidemiological and policy analysis of such timely issues as characterizingthose with various health problems, determining barriers to accessing andusing appropriate health care, and evaluating Federal health programs.”

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POTENTIAL FUNDING SOURCES

Research on middle class working families is supported by many of theorganizations that support anthropological research in general. In the newworld of information, organizations rely on the World Wide Web as a mainmeans of communication with interested applicants. Therefore, webaddresses for each organization are provided, and researchers are encouragedto actively search these sites for programs for interest.

Before contacting potential funding sources, it may be useful to reviewsome grant-getting basics, or “golden rules of grantsmanship”:

• First, last, and always, contact the program officer to discuss your project,to make sure that your specific interests fall within the purview of theprogram. This means that you should contact the program officer byemail or telephone to discuss such issues as suitability, submission dates,review schedules, the appropriateness or desirability of pre-proposals,budget guidelines, including average and extreme grant sizes, andoverhead or indirect costs.

• Match your proposal to the specific interest areas of the program. Somecompetitions, such as the National Science Foundation’s CulturalAnthropology program, support all areas of research that advance sciencein the field. Other competitions, such as National Institute of Healthinstitutes - the National Institute on Aging (NIA), Child Health andHuman Development (NICHD) - have special focused mandates.However these organizations support much basic research that hasimplications for or advances understanding of fundamental issues relatingto their interest area. For example, the NIA supports basic research thatmay not at first glance appear to be relevant to aging, but because theappropriate connections are made to aging, it is.

• Maintain a positive and open attitude about possible funding sources andopportunities. Talk with the program officer to determine if your researchinterests coincide with the mission of the funding agency or organization.Remember that funding agencies and organizations need your research tojustify their existence. It is in their interest to identify and support the bestquality research. You do your part by informing them and asking if yourresearch interests are congruent with their funding interests.

• Make sure your project has the necessary expertise. If you plan to study asample of people, make sure your proposal is clear on the appropriateness

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of the sample to the relevant population. While you don’t have to be anexpert statistician, your proposal should reflect your ability to get the beststatistical and research design advice available. Involve appropriateconsultants on your project and benefit from their advice for designing,carrying out, and analyzing the results of the project.

• First, last and always, contact the program officer to discuss your project.

The Sloan Foundation (http://www.sloan.org) has a program targeted tothe support of research on middle class working families. The ProgramDirector is Kathleen Christensen, telephone: (212) 649-1695, fax: (212) 757-5117, e-mail: christensen@sloan.org, address: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,Suite 2550, 630 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10111-0242.

The National Science Foundation (http://www.nsf.gov) has a variety ofdisciplinary and multidisciplinary programs that could support research onthis topic. The Cultural Anthropology Program(http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/sber/anthro) is the home base for anthropologistsconsidering research on middle class working families. In addition to fundingresearch, the Program has supported investigator-initiated short-term, traininginstitutes in research design, methods and analysis for Ph.D. students, new andsenior investigators. The Program Director is Stuart Plattner, telephone: (703)306-1758, e-mail: splattne@nsf.gov, address: National Science Foundation,4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22230.

The National Institutes of Health website (http://www.nih.gov/icd/) hasthe full list of institutes to start you on your search in this Mother of allfunding sources. For research on middle class working families, two institutesmay be relevant, depending on your specific research questions. The NationalInstitute of Aging (http://www.nih.gov/nia/) and the National Institute ofChild Health and Human Development (http://www.nih.gov/nichd/) supportresearch on population, family and household issues. While one doesn’tusually think of middle class working families and drug abuse in the samethought, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (http://www.nida.nih.gov/)supports ethnographic research. If your research question addresses NIDA’sareas of interest, the agency should be contacted.

The Social Science Research Council (http://www.ssrc.org/index.htm)supports research on a diverse range of topics in a wide range of countries andresearch on middle class working families could fit into many of theirprograms.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation(http://www.macfdn.org/index.htm) generally does not accept unsolicited

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research proposals for small-scale studies or from individual investigators.However, it does accept proposals for large-scale, collaborative researchprojects that are closely related to the program goals. The staff welcomescommunications that would help the Foundation become aware of areas ofpotentially fruitful work. The Foundation welcomes general questions onemail to 4answers@macfdn.org. Probably the most appropriate program forresearch on middle class working families is on Child and YouthDevelopment, Paul D. Goren, Director, telephone (Chicago): 312/726-8000,fax: 312/920-6258.

The Spencer Foundation (http://www.spencer.org/index.html) focuses oneducation, and has different rules depending on the size of the grant. Largegrants (over $35,000) require pre-proposals, and the staff must solicit fullproposals. The contact person is John B.Williams, Vice-President, TheSpencer Foundation, 900 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 2800, Chicago,Illinois 60611-1542. The Spencer Foundation also funds small grants (up to$35,000), in which no overhead is allowed and unsolicited proposals areaccepted. The address for information is: Small Research Grants Program,The Spencer Foundation, 900 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 2800, Chicago,Illinois 60611-1542.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (http://www.mellon.org/awmf.html)at 140 East 62nd Street, New York, NY 10021, (212)838-8400 does notnormally support individual investigator projects, but supports populationresearch through its centers.

The John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation(http://www.haynesfoundation.org/) supports study and research in publicpolicy and the social sciences, especially those in California and Los Angeles.All support is made directly to institutions; no grants are awarded toindividuals. A searchable bibliography of publications resulting fromFoundation projects is available at the website, along with detailed programinformation and application guidelines. Contact the Haynes Foundation at 888West Sixth Street, Suite 1150, Los Angeles, California 90017-2737,telephone: (213) 623-9151; fax: (213) 623-3951; e-mail:info@haynesfoundation.org.

The Foundation Center (http://fdncenter.org/) provides an on-linedatabase version of their book of foundations to search for other possiblefunding sources. You can search by name, keyword or category (i.e., private,corporate). The “Grantmaker Information directory comprises three broadcategories: links, both direct and annotated, to nearly 900 grantmaker Websites; highlights and excerpts from the Center's research on foundation giving;and a range of informational materials produced by individual foundations and

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hosted by the Center as part of its ‘Foundation Folder’ program.” Contact theCenter at 79 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003; telephone: (212) 620-4230;fax: (212) 691-1828.

CONCLUSION

Over the past 30 years, American society has changed dramatically.Economic, social, and political forces have contributed to an increase in dualincome households in the U.S., particularly among the middle class.Although often discussed by policy makers and the media as an importantsegment of the population, more is assumed and less is well known aboutmiddle class working families.

While anthropologists have studied the middle class and workingfamilies, much work remains to be done to fully understand the everyday lifeof middle class working families. As we have seen, the opportunities foranthropological study of middle class working families are extensive. Thecontributors to this Research Agenda have sought to encourageanthropologists in the study of middle class working families by identifyingpromising areas of study, existing sources of data, and potential sources offunding to prepare successful research proposals and projects.

In addition to research opportunities, studies of middle class workingfamilies present anthropologists with ready entrée to the public. Americanswant to know more about themselves and the interest of the media in coveringresearch that provides that knowledge is great. For example, over the courseof AAA’s project on middle class working families, media from ScientificAmerican, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Current Science, Pathfinder,and London Weekend Television sought anthropological input on middle classworking family issues from the AAA. During the same time, media coverageof the Darrah, English-Lueck, and Freeman’s Silicon Valley Cultures Projectand Fricke’s work in North Dakota included National Public Radio, USAToday, Newsweek, New Scientist, and Jim Lehrer NewsHour, among others.

An engaged anthropology calls for the application of anthropologicalknowledge and expertise to understanding the human conditions at hand. Aswe enter the 21st century, the time is right to focus the eyes and expertise ofanthropology on the issues, concerns, and life conditions facing middle classworking families in the U.S. Anthropologists’ study of middle class workingfamilies will enhance the understanding of this little-understood, majoritypopulation. Subsequently, with a substantive grasp of middle class workingfamilies, anthropologists will help shape the national conversations aboutwork and family issues in the U.S.

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APPENDIX A:

Anthropology of Everyday Competence

By Steven M Albert (Columbia U)Anthropology Newsletter, December 1998 (p 10)

Old age, with its greater prevalence ofchronic disease, offers an interestingvantage for the anthropology of everydaycompetence. Because the aged--inparticular, those over age 85--representthe fastest growing segment of the USpopulation and because minority eldersare the fastest growing segment within theaged population, there is an acute need tounderstand the ways daily competence isdefined and executed in varying socialcontexts.

To assess a person’s ability toperform the broad array of activitiesrequired for independent living, we mustnot only be able to measure ability, but toknow something about the social andenvironmental contexts in which theindividual uses these abilities. Somepeople, for example, are able to perform atask; others do so only by altering thetask, reducing its frequency or receivinghelp. Still others are able to perform thetask but do not, perhaps because they lackthe opportunity. Finally, there are thosewho are simply unable to perform dailytasks due to a cognitive deficit or anotherhealth condition. These considerationsform the basis of two research projects inwhich I am involved that examine issuesof everyday competence experienced bymiddle-and lower-class families facingchronic health decline.

Ethnography of Function

Daily competence in older peopleinvolves both self-care (eating, bathing,dressing, using the toilet) and householdmanagement (using the telephone,handling money, preparing a meal, goingoutside, shopping). Loss of thesecompetencies makes an elder dependent

on family and paraprofessionals forquality of life and, indeed, survival.

In a study conducted in WashingtonHeights, New York City, we used anethnographic protocol to examine theways elders interpret questions about theircompetence. To date, we have conductedover 50 interviews in a multiculturalsample drawn from Medicarebeneficiaries, with a mean age of 78 and arange of chronic disease conditions. Usinga series of structured probes to elicitdescriptions of the ways elders actuallyperform basic tasks, we have found thatreports of “difficulty” are colored by avariety of considerations. Some responsesrelate to the complexity of tasks; forexample, elders may be competent with“indoor” or “lobby” clothing (bathrobes,slippers, sweaters), but not with clothingused outside apartments. Those who arecompetent only with indoor clothing mayoverestimate their abilities and report nodifficulty. The same tendency tooverestimate applies to “getting outside”;many of these elders take elevators tolobbies but rarely leave their buildings.

Another factor involved in people’sjudgements of their own competence isperceived skill. Elders may reportdifficulty with a task when they areunsatisfied with how well they do it orhow long it takes, as in the case of lighthousework. By underestimating theircompetence, they risk limiting theiractivities unnecessarily.

A further consideration is perceivedcontrol. An elder who admits she is nolonger competent to write a check(perhaps because of tremor or low vision)may not report difficulty if she hasanother way to complete the task, such as

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delegating this responsibility to anotherfamily member with whom she sits whenit is time to pay bills.

Getting at Validity

Ethnography of function teaches agreat deal about the way competenciesmatch up against the tasks of daily life,and also how people evaluate and reporton their own functional ability in healthsurveys. This is an especially importanteffort for anthropology, since surveyresearchers are increasingly concernedthat survey items have appropriate contentvalidity. Functional assessment itemsdrawn from this ethnographic effort mayallow us to better predict those morelikely to decline over follow-up, and thushelp us identify appropriate targets forintervention. For example, elders proneto overestimate functional ability arelikely to be at greater risk for falls,injuries or other acute medical events andshould be targeted for health promotionefforts.

To help identify targets forintervention, we have added an additionalcomponent to the study to examine factorsinvolved in proxy reports: factors at workwhen family members under- oroverestimate the competence of those intheir care. We have found, for example,that the more protective family caregiverstend to describe their elders as lesscapable overall. Moreover, the fact thatSpanish speakers report greaterprotectiveness than English speakerssuggests that we consider culturaldifferences and context when evaluatingelder competency.

“Fair” or “Poor” Health

To understand the effect ofenvironmental and social contexts onperceived health, we are looking at theways middle- and low-income minoritymen report their health. Interviews with asample of 200 African-American men inHarlem, NYC (aged 50-74, ascertainedthrough a random digit-dial telephone

survey, using survey items from theBehavioral Risk Factors Survey, Centersfor Disease Control), found that nearly aquarter reported their current health to be“fair” or “poor”, despite the fact that theyexperienced no days with symptoms (“badhealth” days) during the past month. Innational samples of men of similar age,only 10.6% fall into this category; and innational samples of African-Americanmen, only 13% do so. These differencesare striking and suggest that there is eithergreater prevalence of ill health in Harlemor that features of daily life in Harlemlead these men to report poor or fairhealth more frequently than men in othersamples.

Our working hypothesis to explainthis discrepancy, is that the Harlem menfall into a group that Patricia Draper, in avery different context, called “theobligatorily active” (“Work and aging intwo African societies: !Kung and Herero,”in B Bonder, Occupational performancein the elderly, 1994). If these men havemedical conditions that affect perceivedhealth without affecting the number ofdays they recognize as “bad,” it may bebecause they are forced to be active. In adifferent social context—where healthcareis more accessible, for example--suchhealth problems might lead them to limitactivity and report bad health days. Wesuspect that this may be a particularfeature of the middle- and low-incomeexperience of health.

Future Directions

Anthropology has much to teachabout the assessment of everydaycompetency and the effect of disease onsuch competency. As our experienceshows, policy-makers and funderswelcome this perspective, especially whenit can be used to refine current approachesto measurement. This effort will beimportant for elder citizens and thefamilies responsible for their care.Steven M Albert is Assistant Professor ofNeuropsychology (Gertrude H SergievskyCenter and Neurology) and Public Health

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(Sociomedical Sciences) at Columbia U.This research is supported by the NationalInstitute of Aging and Centers for DiseaseControl.. Albert’s recent publicationsaddress measurement of quality of life inpeople with dementia, medicationcompetencies in people with HIV, andtime use as an indicator of disability. Hecan be reached at sma10@columbia.edu.

Arnould, Price, and Folkman Curasi, February 1999

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Cherished Possessions

By Eric J Arnould, Linda L Price (U Neb - Lincoln) and Carolyn Folkman Curasi(Berry C)

Anthropology Newsletter, February 1999 (pp 17-18)

“Tell you what, I go to estate sales allthe time. And when I go, every time I go, Irealize that I have to do something. Imust get rid of what I have. It is so sad[stresses the word sad] and there arethese beautiful items that are beingsold...And I think of these people, and ofhow they must have felt. They had all ofthis, and it meant so much to them. So,every time I go, I think that’s not going tohappen to me.” --Iris (78, married)

* * *The wealthiest generation of older

Americans ever, those now aged 60 andover, will pass on their great wealthwithin the next few decades. This wealthincludes not only financial assets, but alsothe innumerable possessions olderAmericans have accumulated over theirlifetimes. Many of these possessions havebecome dense with cultural, personal andfamilial meanings.

We have studied the emotions anddecisions that surround the disposition ortransfer of older middle class Americans’cherished possessions at life’s end. Weconducted semi-structured interviews with80 older persons complemented by 7individual depth interviews, andinterviews with 28 paired dyads in 10family units. We used photos to stimulateinformant commentary, and conductedinterviews in people’s homes that werethus informed by their everyday lifesurroundings.

Our research asks what triggersstimulate older Americans’ concern withdisposition. We asked what they hope toaccomplish with the transfer and whatstrategies they employ to accomplish theirdisposition goals.

Older persons display a narrativesense of identity bound up with theircherished possessions:

“Well, I have a lot of love for myfamily, I guess you can tell that. And tome, everything in this house has been herefor years and years and years. And I canlook at anything and remember specialoccasions. It’s almost like a history of ourlife, you know.” (Diane, 70, recentlywidowed)

Cherished possession transfers arefraught with powerful, ambivalentemotions associated with life review,thoughts of death, and desires to controlthe future:

“I want all this planned out beforeanything should happen because I wouldprobably be devastated, devastatedalready and I wouldn’t want to deal withboth problems at the same time. When Istart thinking about this I get somesadness and emotional trauma.” (Valerie,65, divorced)

To achieve symbolic immortality,extend the identities of previousgenerations and preserve the life oftreasured objects, older Americans seek totransfer the meanings bundled withcherished objects. Informants experienceconcern about “whom,” “when” and“how” to transfer their cherishedpossessions. The outcomes are co-determined. For example, Becky plans togive her china to the first granddaughter toget married—how determines whom andwhen. Aaron plans to transfer the antiquefamily clock to his son who has a son“whenever he gets settled enough. Whenhe has a good spot”—whom determineswhen and how. Grandpa Louiespontaneously gives his son a watchbecause they got to talking about it—how(stories about the watch) determines whenand whom. Iris and Herbert try to loadthe kids up with things whenever they are

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home for a visit—when determines whoand how.

Story Telling

We identified specific tactics olderAmericans use to transfer possessions andtheir meanings. For example, how aremeanings bundled with cherishedpossessions, rehearsed, and transferred?One way is to use story telling:

“With things like jewelry, things thatbelonged to my mom and dad, musicalinstruments, that sort of thing, I’ve maderoom for them and I’ve seen to it that theyhave proper storage, so that they will bepassed on to my daughter… The storieshave been passed on to my daughter. Ihave told her some of the stories. Mymother told her some of the stories. Ofcourse she knows about my weddinggown.” --Sharlene (56, married, workingfull-time, living in own home)

Reciprocity Generalized

Older consumer’s disposition tacticsalso provide examples of generalizedreciprocity. Older givers hope, andrecipients confirm that elements of thegiver’s identity are bundled with the gift,and the gift is returned in the form ofremembrances. For example,

“Many of the pieces have all sorts ofmemories attached to them from mychildhood as they have been in the familysince before I was born. But to me thebest part of having antiques is being ableto pass them down to your parents andyour Uncle Derrick and his family andknowing that when I go to their housesthat they are well taken care of and lovedas much as I loved them.” --Debbie (70s,married)

Matching Meanings

How do older consumers determineto whom to give their cherishedpossessions? One way is to match themeanings of their gifts to the identities ofrecipients. They use gender, kinship

distance and lifestyle criteria to matchrecipients, objects, and meanings. Forexample,

“My mother had given me a lot of herlinens before she died cause I was theonly girl in the family, so she had givenme those.” --Margit (77, married)

And, “I’m the last (family name), andthen my sons, I finally had a son, and henow has a son. And that clock has to gothrough that family, because it has been inthe family for about 150 years.”

Rituals of Giving

How do older persons decide when totransfer their special possessions? Theysometimes use other ritual occasions likeweddings, birthdays, and residencechanges to transfer special possessions.The affective charge of these rituals helpsto reinforce the unique qualities ofcherished possessions for recipients. Forexample, a Hispanic woman uses aquinceaño celebration as a possessiontransfer occasion,

“I gave my granddaughter somejewelry for her 15th birthday last year.That was special for me. The jewelry thatI gave to my granddaughter wassomething that my husband had given tome before he died. It was very close tome, but I really wanted my granddaughterto have it.” --Luisa (76, widowed)

Possession transfer timing isproblematic. Holding possessions untilthe end because of the personal value oftheir singular meanings, the desire tocontrol the meanings of these objectsfollowing death and, at the same time, toavoid family conflict presents many olderAmericans with a dilemma:

“I don’t know quite when to give upthese items. If I wait, thinking that Ishould enjoy them for myself a whilelonger, then it might be too late someday.I want to have control over my owndecisions.” --Gloria (72, widowed)

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Insights

This research brought us face to facewith life cycle challenges that confrontmany Baby Boomers and their Depressiongeneration parents. Conducting it raisespowerful emotions and sometimesprovides catharsis for participants. Fromit, we have derived insights boththeoretical and pragmatic. Our research:

• Shows the general theoreticalrelevance of anthropology tounderstanding the behavior not of the“other” but of “us.” To explain olderAmericans’ disposition behavior, weextended a number of classicanthropological theories. Ourfindings reaffirm the relevance ofMauss and Sahlins’ theories ofgeneralized gift giving. Cherishedpossessions exhibit totemic propertiesconsistent with Lévi-Strauss’theories. Our work develops MaryDouglas’ theory of thecommunicative function of goods in aspecific context. Our research alsoelaborates Igor Kopytoff’s ideasabout the biography of things.Discovery of the generational andclass-distributed meanings ofcherished possessions contributes toBourdieu’s ideas about culturalcapital. Finally, elaborating onAnnette Weiner’s theories, weexplore how cherished possessionsbecome inalienable as they are passedbetween generations.

• Has been well received by estateplanners. Provision for cherishedthings is a frequent omission in estateplanning that provokes familyconflict. Special possessions aretypically few and yet ofimmeasurable worth to givers andrecipients. Yet equal distribution oftangible property is not possible. Wecounsel estate planners to encouragepeople to provide for the distributionof cherished possessions in advanceof their deaths.

• Is of practical value to social workerswho deal with the elderly. Oftenolder Americans are geographically

distanced from kin and ambivalentabout the transfer of specialpossessions. Consequently,disposition decisions are often leftunmade or imposed prematurely.Older Americans feel threatened byloss, yet also fear that failing todispose can result in the loss ofmeanings embodied in possessions.Sharing family stories embodied inpossessions reassures the elderly andstrengthens family ties. Weencourage elder caregivers tofacilitate greater inter-familycommunication about disposition.

• Is of interest to new productresearchers. We have suggested thatthey may wish to develop what wecall “ultra-durable” products,consumer goods with heirloompotential or software to enable peopleto combine photos and specialpossession narratives.

Eric Arnould is a social anthropologistwho spent 10 years working ondevelopment in West Africa. Linda Pricehas a PhD in marketing. Her early workidentified the “market maven” (avolunteer consumer advocate) andexamined the role of imagery and creativeagency in consumer behavior. Together,their recent research examines magicalexperiences in the context of white waterriver rafting and the emergence ofcommercial friendships in servicebusinesses. Carolyn Curasi’s recentdissertation in marketing examines olderAmericans’ disposition of cherishedpossessions as a special form of giftgiving.

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Living With Technology

By C N Darrah, J A English-Lueck and J M Freeman (San José State U)Anthropology Newsletter, December 1998 (pp 1, 4)

Consider Susan’s day. She walksfrom the detached garage that she andJames have converted into their bedroom,leaving behind his three computers. Shewalks through the house and enters thesmall bedroom that is now her office. Theobjects in it are carefully organized toreflect her separate careers as graphicdesigner and massage therapist. She isworking at home today to avoid theconstant interruptions at her employer’s.To do so she must manually connect hercomputer to the local area network Jamescreated to connect the garage/bedroomcomputers with his son’s computer inanother bedroom. Susan and Scott try toschedule their Internet use so they do notconflict, but this morning there are soundsfrom her stepson’s room and Susan needsto check his plans. “What if he’s usingit?” asks the anthropologist. “Then he’soff it,” replies Susan. “One rule is that ifyou’re bringing in the money then youhave priority.”

Susan says her household is ordinaryand uninteresting, although she suspectsthat its penetration by informationtechnologies makes it exotic to somepeople. Yet Susan’s family exemplifiesone way that information technologies arebeing integrated into the daily lives ofmiddle class working families. Thesepatterns of technology use provide awindow through which to examine bothhow changes in work and technology areaffecting families, and how families usetechnology to manage hectic lives.

Silicon Ethnology

We have been exploring theseinteractions since 1991 through a series ofstudies conducted in California’s “SiliconValley.” In one study, we focused on howfamilies incorporate consumer electronicssuch as pagers, mobile telephones and

personal computers into daily life. Weelicited histories of each device thatextended from when someone first heardof it and discussed it with the family, to itsacquisition and ultimate use by differentfamily members. Our focus was on howthe device affected and was affected bythe family. Other studies have focusedmore on broader assumptions and valuesabout living in a region characterized byhigh technology industry, and saturated bytechnological imagery and metaphor. Forthe past three years we have interviewedindividuals drawn from both public andprivate sectors. The people we interviewrepresent a variety of technical andnon-technical jobs at all levels of theirrespective organizations.

We attempt to elicit the culturaldomains salient to our informants,especially issues of work and itsrelationship to a person’s “other” lives areparamount. This research provides abroader context for more narrowlyfocused studies of technology use. Likethem, it reveals how people try usetechnology to solve the problems of dailyliving.

Technological Saturation

Few of the families we study arecomprised of stereotypical “techies” or“nerds,” but still they are saturated withinformation devices and services. Familymembers are often oblivious to theseitems, and tours of homes always revealmore items than are reported. “Yes, wehave a VCR,” may actually refer to foursuch devices in various states of disrepairthat are placed in different rooms andclosets. Such devices seldom disappear,but rather they are saved “Just in case” –for unspecified future purposes.Alternatively, they are given to children ormembers of other households.

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Devices and services do not typicallystand in isolation, but are embedded incomplex ecosystems. Some families, forexample, begin with a limited functionanswering machine, but due to the rhythmof their daily lives they soon seek a newmachine with remote access. A mobilephone is later purchased so messages canbe easily retrieved. The cost of access isborn by the receiver of a call, however,and a large initial phone bill oftenprovides a rude awakening. The mobilephone is soon used only to make calls, andthe phone number is restricted for use bycertain people for specific purposes. Theanswering machine retains its importanceas a collector of messages, a pager may beadded to the inventory, leading todeceptively profound discussions aboutwhat constitutes a crisis, an emergency orlegitimate “access.” Family memberssimultaneously encounter people who arepart of different ecosystems, therebyincreasing the complexity of their owncommunications.

We find ecosystems to be anappropriate metaphor for these networksof actions and devices since they growincrementally, changing to reflect thework people do on specific issues.Telephones, for example, are not justsingle devices, but reflect a variety offeatures and communicative constraintstied to the availability of related devicessuch as fax, cell phone, pager, preferencesof various actors and the powerdifferences reflected in those preferences.Striking to us is the faith that solutions tothese issues of daily life can be providedby assembling just the right inventory ofdevices.

Work and Home

Despite the idiosyncratic situations ofdifferent families, certain patterns ofissues emerge. First, many intervieweesspeak of their relative lack of time due tothe lengthy hours they work. The natureof that work, too, often places conflictingdemands on them to be constantlyavailable to other people and perform

tasks requiring concentration, reflectionand planning. The quest for efficient timemanagement relentlessly drives many toseek devices that buy just a few extraminutes, such as the car phone that can beused to respond to voicemails during thedrive to work.

Maintaining the security of theindividual and family is another recurringissue. With incompatible working hours,“keeping in touch” drives ecosystems.Car phones, for example, are oftenpurchased for this reason: “I can’t imagineher (or him) driving alone without one,” isa common sentiment.

Establishing control is a closelyrelated issue: Given the dispersion offamily members, how can the behavior ofothers be controlled? Control is imposedin ways that range from using prizeddevices as rewards for good behavior, toremotely monitoring the actions of friendsand relatives. The young daughter of asingle parent, for example, is required topage her father the minute she returnsfrom school to their empty house.Alternatively, one interviewee equippedhis family members and employees withpagers so he could summon them at will.

Efficiency, security and controlare, however, often chimerical and peopleare often betrayed by the systems theycreate. One marriage ended when a pagerdisplayed the telephone number of asecret lover during a family vacation.Ironically, family members often discoverthat the same systems they construct tobind the family together are just as easilyused to avoid one another.

Productive Families

Provisioning the family with devicesprovides the infrastructure for it to be aproductive unit. Indeed, this is often quiteintentional, as devices are selected to becompatible with those in the workplace.Often employers “loan” laptop computers,software and fax machines. Faced withheavy workloads, lengthy commutes and

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ubiquitous interruptions, working at homebecomes desirable. The goal is often tokeep up with or get ahead of the burdensof work, but most interviewees report thatthese efforts are doomed since most oftheir coworkers are doing the same thing.

While provisioning the familywith devices is undertaken to keep thedemands of work at bay, it ironicallyconfigures family life around the demandsof work. Parents and children maycompete for scarce productive resourcessuch as the PC, forcing discussions of therelative priorities of different activities.Many families articulate explicit rulesabout technology use, and the conditionsunder which work may intrude into familylife.

The effects of this technologicalpenetration are not limited to managinginterruptions or deciding access to scarceequipment. As the home becomes morelike the workplace, other facets of familylife are subject to the logic of efficiency.Children are sometimes viewed asobstacles to efficiency. We often hear atone of exasperation or frustration whenpeople tell us how they work only afterthe children are in bed or when they arehome alone or when their partners canentertain the kids. In other cases childrenare sources of unpaid labor who cancollate handouts for presentations, sendfaxes or run errands. These duties aretypically justified as teaching childrenvaluable work skills.

Talk about technology becomes talkabout work and broader techniqueslearned at work to manage the complexityof hectic lives. One intervieweecommented that he anticipated a fightwith his wife but was not worried: “SinceI took the company’s course in managinginterpersonal conflict I can handle her.”Another woman interviewed explicitlyuses her skills as a software projectmanager to organize the lives of herpreschoolers.

Consuming Devices and More

The families we study consume anarray of devices and services ranging fromPCs to karaoke machines. Some of thistechnology may be explicitly obtained tomanage the flow of work; as such itspurchase is justified as rational andresponsible. Other technologies areexplicitly obtained for entertainment. Yeta clear distinction here is misleading.Many personal computers that are boughtfor a child’s education or to allowtelecommuting are eventually used forgames. Devices purchased forentertainment, such as videocameras andkaraoke machines, are used to work on thefamily itself. Some families videotapeactivities and send weekly tapes torelatives elsewhere. One personcommented that his family knows moreabout the activities of distant relativesthan about those in their own household.The karaoke machine can be the magnetthat draws together the dispersed familyfor regular weekend celebrations.

The way devices and servicesenter the family also differs. While usersbuy some, much is purchased as gifts tobe presented to family members. Devicesmay be requested as gifts, but often it isthe giver’s needs that are being met. Palmpilots and laptops are given to parents as away of explaining the adult child’s workwhen words fail. Alternatively, they maybe given to make the recipient conform tothe giver’s needs. Pagers and mobilephones often seem to fulfill the giver’sneeds. Regardless of reasons, theexchange of devices serves to bindfamilies in networks of assistance. Wheninstruction manuals are incomprehensibleor devices fail the recipient usually turnsto the giver for help.

Global Connections

Devices and services also allowglobal intrusions into the daily lives offamilies. We are not speaking of awholesale transformation of familymembers into global citizens. The

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connections we find are episodic andunexpected, but they are nonethelessimportant. Sometimes the connection isdirect, such as phone calls that are drivenby the realities of working across timezones. For adults, this is a logicalextension of the work day, but childrenask, “Who are these strangers and why arethey calling us at home?”

Other times the connectionoccurs in the workplace, as when peoplework on teams that are globally dispersed.Our interviewees routinely encountervastly different styles of communication,and expectations of males and females.They speak of an exotic world “out there,”yet they also speak of basic similaritiesamong people. Important here is thatcommunications at work are oftenstripped of nuance, and occur amongpeople who share middle class status,similar educations and even identicalpositions. Thus, the globalism ourfamilies encounter does not completelytransform their lives, nor does it haveuniform effects. Just as videotapes maylink extended families, email can facilitatefamily connections from Silicon Valley toTaiwan and Japan in a seamless network.At the same time email can be vehementlyrejected as inappropriate for familycommunications. The globalism we findmay be exciting or just another unwantedintrusion into already stressed families. Itmay cause people to reexamine their ownassumptions, or it may confirm that theglobal is just their own local writ large.

Changes Large and Small

Inasmuch as the nature of workthat engages many middle class workingfamilies is changing, we may expecteveryday lives to be affected in ways largeand small. How such families areenmeshed in the technological ecosystemsthat we have discussed varies, butexploring such systems provides a way tounderstand the issues salient to families.We suggest a research agenda thatexplores the minutiae of daily life, for inour experience those details are

significant. Families are affected by veryspecific characteristics of work. Whetherit is the number of hours worked, rhythmsof project-based work, nature of tasks,need to work across time zones orprevalence of workplace crises, these arethe conditions affecting the daily lives offamilies. The vast array of informationdevices and services only add to thecomplexity of the ecosystems withinwhich families exist.

Such an agenda can also beapplied cross-culturally, as work changesglobally and technologies proliferate. Ourown recent exploration of these issues inIndia and Taiwan suggest both familiarand unfamiliar themes. Theanthropological gaze can contribute muchto understanding the profound changes inthe everyday lives of middle classworking families, and their use oftechnology provides a fruitful entrée intothe field.

Chuck Darrah, Jan English-Lueck andJames Freeman are culturalanthropologists in the Department ofAnthropology, San José State U. Theyhave conducted ethnographic research inSilicon Valley since 1991, focusing onissues of work, family and community in ahigh technology industrial region. Their“Work, Identity and Community in SiliconValley Project” was partially funded by aNational Science Foundation grant. Theyalso conduct student-based research incollaboration with The Tech Museum ofInnovation and comparative fieldworkwith the Institute for the Future. Theircurrent fieldwork with dual career middleclass families is supported by a grant fromthe Alfred P Sloan Foundation. Moreinformation about the Silicon ValleyCultures Project can be found atwww.sjsu.edu/depts/anthropology/svcp/.

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(Dis)locating the Middle Class

By Kathryn Marie Dudley (Yale U)Anthropology Newsletter, April 1999 (pp 1, 4)

America is not the only nation toimagine itself a “middle class society,”but it is arguably one of the few in whichsuch imaginings persist even as thematerial infrastructure supporting thatclaim steadily erodes. No matter howpersuasively economists may declare thatthe postwar middle class is now “dead,”“declining” or “disappeared,” ordinarycitizens--many of significantly reducedmeans--continue to consider themselvesand their lifestyles “middle class.” Forthe anthropologist, this presentssomething of a conundrum: if thecontours of the middle class are shiftingand in flux, where do we locate thedislocated subjects of our analysis? Is thelaid-off, unemployed worker still amember of the middle class? Is a lifestylemaintained by continual infusions ofcredit still middle class? If a criticalmarker of “middle-classness” is a centralposition in the national incomedistribution, what does it mean to knowthat this sign is free-floating, tied looselyand often fleetingly, to those whosefortunes it purports to measure?

It has become commonplace toattribute the current predicament of themiddle class to structural changes in thelabor market. Acute job insecurity,volatile incomes and the expansion ofhousehold debt are taken as symptoms ofa social transformation that ultimatelyreflects the natural and inevitable“evolution” of an advanced capitalisteconomy. If Americans are anxious aboutthe fact that this new “casino society”offers no guarantee of steady earnings,medical insurance or retirement savings,we are told, it is because we have yet toretrofit ourselves to meet the demands of ahigh-tech, high-risk, global economy.Darwinian rhetoric abounds, and as EmilyMartin (Flexible Bodies, 1994) observes,vulnerability to the vagaries of the market

is perceived as a deficiency of theindividual or corporate “immune system,”a failure to evolve by dint of "flexible"adaptations. On this deployment ofevolutionary discourse, anthropologistshave largely remained silent. Yet it isimperative to ask how our tradition ofholistic inquiry can contribute to a moresatisfying, politically progressiveunderstanding of contemporary socialchange.

Culture of the Mind

Over the past decade, I have beenengaged in the study of what KatherineNewman (Falling From Grace, 1999[1988]) has called the “tribe of thedownwardly mobile,” those refugees froma downsizing, deindustrializing, credit-dependent middle class who nonethelesscontinue to identify with its values andexpectations. Most remarkable to me, asan anthropologist of economic dislocationin urban as well as rural communities, isthe tenacity with which most workingAmericans hold to the belief that they, assovereign individuals, are the masters oftheir own destiny. Regardless of thecircumstances--industry-wide slumps,foreign competition or soaring interestrates--the loss of jobs and farms, homesand neighborhoods, dreams andopportunities is routinely chalked up, notto the vicissitudes of a late capitalisteconomy, but to the moral character of thevictims themselves. Dislocated workerswith only a high school diploma areblamed--and blame themselves--forfailing to acquire the “good education”that would ostensibly qualify them forwork in a new postindustrial society.Bankrupt farmers who took out loans tosave the family legacy are blamed--andblame themselves--for failing to be “goodbusiness managers” in a newlycompetitive era of corporate agriculture.

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Membership in the middle class is thusnot just a matter of achieving a certainstandard of material success and, oncehaving done so, resting back on one'slaurels: it requires the unremittingperformance of a distinctive moralcharacter--one which, in everycommunity, is as much culturally-definedas it is economically-based.

I first became aware of theperformative quality of class identitieswhen I undertook my ethnography of aChrysler assembly plant closing in apredominately blue-collar town (The Endof the Line, 1994). To my dismay, Idiscovered that the ritual of the plantclosing became an occasion for businessmanagers and white-collar professionalsto declare themselves the true--and only--representatives of “middle-classness” in apostindustrial society. In this socialcontext, the fact that most autoworkerscould not hope to recoup their middleclass standard of living with new jobs inother factories or industries becameevidence that they had never deserved tobe paid middle-income wages in the firstplace. Union feather-bedding and graft,inflated wage rates, make-work laborcontracts and a poor “business climate”were all cited as factors leading to thedownfall of the American automobileindustry in general, and to the demise ofthis plant in particular. But anti-unionpolitics were not, as it happened, the cruxof the matter. Of greater concern was theuncomfortable fact that autoworkers hadbeen able to earn a middle class incomeright out of high school. Educatorslamented the precedent this set forstudents who might otherwise beencouraged to take their studies seriouslyand join the college-bound. When theplant closed, teachers and administratorswere unapologetic in their relief: at longlast, the culture of the mind had triumphedover the old blue-collar culture of thehands.

Needless to say, dislocatedautoworkers did not respond to the plantclosing in the same way. For them, it was

a numbing example of corporate greedand government complicity in an eliteinternational scheme to “make everyone aminority” by forcing unionized Americanworkers to compete with--and accept thewages of--workers in Third Worldcountries. Yet the culture of the mindeventually took its toll on everyautoworker's self-esteem. Despite a showof solidarity in the union's effort to savethe plant, workers were thrown back upontheir own resources when that fight waslost. Many accepted their lot as lowly-paid operatives or service-sectoremployees in local factories andbusinesses; some pulled up roots andfollowed the siren song of employment atother plants in the Chrysler system; andsome went back to school. But fewescaped the community's searingjudgment that they should have donesomething, much earlier in their lives toavoid this ignominious fate. Theperformance of moral worth andcollective self-affirmation that sprang ofcooperative labor on the assembly linesimply could not be transferred to otherjobs and places. What workers lost wasnot just a claim to be middle class, but anexperience of community that supportedand validated an alternative measure ofsuccess and vision of economic justice.

Cultural Credit

If the ability to claim a middle classidentity does not rest on income or assetsalone, then by what criteria are suchclaims are evaluated? Has the acquisitionof a college degree become a universalmarker of middle-classness and the moralcharacter required to sustain it? These aresome of the questions I had in mind whenI began my ethnographic fieldwork on thefarm crisis of the mid-1980s (FragileCommunity, in press). Unlike most urbanprofessionals and industrial workers,farmers resolutely link the performance ofa middle class identity to the experienceof “being their own boss.” In this socialcontext, neither academic credentials norworkplace solidarity provide a gauge forwho will be judged a good manager.

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Rather, in the fashion of rural villagelifeways, kinship and the luster of a “goodfamily name” lay the groundwork for anagricultural credit system that endowssecond- and third-generation farmers witha decisive home-town advantage.

Native sons and daughters are thefavored recipients of loans issued byrelatives, neighbors and communitybanks, while “newcomers”--and less“collateralized” progeny--must apply forsocially-distant forms of credit, such asthat offered by insurance companies,national Farm Credit System, or the(erstwhile) federal Farmers HomeAdministration. In prosperous times, suchas the 1970s “boom” triggered by theRussian grain deal, the distinctionbetween these forms of credit matteredlittle. Farm incomes were up, interestrates were low and even family farmers ofmodest means could enjoy a laugh ontheir way to the bank. But the 1980s“bust”--ushered in by Carter's grainembargo and the new monetary policyadopted by the Federal Reserve Board--told a different story. As commodityprices fell, interest rates rose, propertyvalues crashed and farm loans wererecalled, hard-pressed farmers who had achance of survival could be distinguishedfrom those who failed--not, I discovered,by the amount of debt they had incurred,but by the kind of credit they hadreceived.

Pierre Bourdieu (1972) has drawn ourattention to the multi-faceted nature ofcapital, arguing that “economic” resourcesare only one component of personalwealth and the accumulation process. Ofequal, if not greater, importance are thesocial and cultural forms of capital thatindividuals acquire by virtue of theirparticipation in social networks and their"schooling" in particular culturalorientations. Although Bourdieu rightlyobserves that social and cultural capitalcannot be directly transformed into the“exchange” value of economic capital, henever systematically considers the rolethat credit can play in effecting this

transformation. Yet, as my study of thefarm crisis made clear, there are two verydifferent kinds of credit: the “economiccredit” farmers receive for the marketvalue of their assets, and the “culturalcredit” they receive for being theoffspring of respected farmers within thecommunity, and as such, for having themoral character it takes to be successful.

Agricultural loans made by nationaland federal institutions were based almostentirely on the economic credit thatfarmers became eligible for as the value oftheir assets rose during the inflationary1970s. Community banks and neighborsalso took risks during this period, but thecredit they extended was primarilycultural in nature, as their over-ridingconcern was with the long-term viabilityof the farming operation. When the farmcrisis hit, national lenders were quick toforeclose, often with complete disregardfor plight of individual farm families. Byand large, only local forms of debt offeredhope of compassion and financialrestructuring, for in an uncertaineconomy, only they were based on thefirmer stuff of shared cultural meanings.

Anthropological Economics

What, then, can anthropologists sayabout the middle class in thecontemporary US and elsewhere? Myown work leads me to suggest that we areat our best when we attend to, andanalytically privilege, the voice of “livedexperience”--in this case, the voices ofAmericans who claim to be middle class.Locating the middle class, in this sense, isless a matter of surveying paychecks andbank accounts than it is a question ofcommunity and moral character: who, inthe judgment of the relevant social group,deserves to be middle class? Wheneconomic change puts traditional wisdomto the test and the old rules no longerapply, who--in the judgment of thecommunity--is thought to be worthy of thegood fortune that has come their way?And perhaps most importantly: wheneconomic misfortune strikes, who, in the

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end, is held accountable for their ownfate?

Anthropologists interested inunderstanding the experience of themiddle class(es) in America today mustadopt a healthy suspicion toward thepronouncements of the so-called “experts”who are adept at telling us what “theeconomy” is and how it works.Economics, as Marshall Sahlins (1972)reminds us, is a “component of culture,”not a “need-satisfying process” ofindividual behavior. As such, it does notstand outside the cultural system thatinvents it, nor is it the private intellectualproperty of university-trained economists.Our nation now teems with the dissidentvoices of a diasporic middle class. Tohear these voices, we must "dislocate" themiddle class in mainstream economicdiscourse and “locate” it in the everydaylives of those who struggle to claim aplace within it.

Kathryn Marie Dudley is associateprofessor of American studies andanthropology at Yale U. She is the authorof The End of the Line: Lost Jobs, NewLives in Postindustrial America (1994)and Fragile Community: Debt andDispossession in America's Heartland(forthcoming).

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Coming in from the Margins

By E Paul Durrenberger (Pennsylvania State U) and Kendall Thu (U Iowa)Anthropology Newsletter, October 1998 (pp 60, 58)

Those anthropologists who questionthe relevance of anthropology tocontemporary issues have not learned theprinciple lessons of anthropology:cultures are rooted in the materialconditions of human adaptation, shapedby the social relations people develop tomanage those conditions, and driven asmuch by the ways that those material andsocial systems don’t work as by the waysthat they do. The reason the question issalient is that by their topics andapproaches many anthropologists haveelected not to contribute to thedevelopment of these understandings.Many anthropologists have taken the leapfrom the little community of rural life tothe transnational without stopping tofigure out what is going on in between.The agonies and ambiguities of personalidentity formation in an age of dissolvingethnicities, irrelevant nationalities andblurred genders and genres is nothing neweven to the 20th Century. We shouldinstead focus our attention on the relevantstructures of the political economies thatcreate the conditions to which individualsmust adapt.

Challenges to HegemonicAssumptions

We have learned much from ourresearch on the peripheral in theborderlands of the world’s nations, but wehave much to learn about the centers. Aslong as we insist on holding fast to themargins, so long will our discipline bemarginal. It will do us no good to bemoanthe fact that we are not economists whosediscourse enjoys hegemony. LikeMoliere’s character who discovers he isspeaking in prose, economists discoveranthropology as they recognize that socialrelations make a difference in patterns ofeconomic behavior, a notion they help

popularize with inaccurate concepts suchas social capital. It is up toanthropologists to demonstrateethnographically and cross culturally thateconomics itself is a cultural form and toshow its relationship to the materialfactors that underlie this ideology.

Ethnographic work has shown thatwhile assumptions of the tragedy of thecommons make sense to economists,fishers, herders and other food producerswith their feet on the ground or the decksof their boats don't follow suit. Othershave shown that assumptions of fisheriesmanagement models are as fallacious asany concept of witchcraft articulated byEvans-Pritchard. It is up to us to useethnographic and crosscultural data tocritically assess economists’ assumptionsabout the existence and behavior ofmarkets. Economists cannot supposethere are no markets any more than adevout Christian can suppose there is nogod. Everything depends on theassumption. But we can be empirical andset ourselves the goal of finding whethermarkets exist.

Where’s the Beef?

And when we don’t find themarket postulated by economists? This isnot just a theoretical or utopian argumentabout economics and anthropology.Think of meat. There exists an entiregovernment bureaucracy to identify meatmarkets. If markets existed, such anagency wouldn’t have to define them.The very existence of this agency shouldbe enough to raise suspicion.

“What is the alternative?” aneconomist once asked. What is thealternative to the assumption ofmethodological individualism, that second

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pillar of economic thought? That one iseasy for us: the alternative is some varietyof Durkheimian social fact that transcendsindividuals, but remains rooted in thefundamentals of human adaptation andsurvival.

What choices face that unfortunatepair of prisoners who get nabbed in thefamous dilemma? Do they have a choicenot to be prisoners? No, that is the natureof the dilemma. They cannot elect not toplay. The interesting questions, however,are: Who caught them? Why? Whatsocial and economic categories do thecaptors and prisoners represent? Whobuilt the jail and why? Who paid for theircapture and why? Who cares whetherthey defect and why? What kind ofsystem has suspects, criminals, jails, copsand defectors? To advocate the study ofindividual choices without understandingthe structures that bring the choices intobeing is to sidestep the important issuesand at the same time insure irrelevance.

Ethnography of the Centers

A relevant anthropology takesseriously the questions and lessons ofunderstanding cultural similarities anddifferences--not as things of themselves,or freefloating mysterious things given todifferent peoples as so many randomlyassigned cups the gods handed out, to useRuth Benedict’s metaphor--but asconsequences of the realities of humanadaptation that we can understand byasking how material systems work andhow they got that way. If we continue ourretreat into the exotica of culture for itsown sake--the kind of hyperrelativism thatisolates people--we exclude ourselvesfrom anything relevant to say.

Anthropology at the Center

A relevant anthropology asks whereour food comes from; and how it getsfrom the fields to the factories to thetables. It asks about the consequences ofthese systems of production for othermatters and brings our holistic,

ethnographic and comparative methods tobear on the center of contemporary states.Start anywhere. Why is your sodapopsweetened with corn sweetener? There's ahigh tariff on sugar. Does it have to dowith ADM’s domination of the cornsweetener market? Is there anyrelationship with anti-Cuba policies? Ortrace the connections between the corn,fertilizers, fuel and bacon that urbanpeople bring home. Where do those pigscome from? Specify the relationshipsamong state governments and governors,land grant universities and industrialswine producers, throw in the Departmentof Agriculture and we’re half way tomaking conspiracy theory a respectablealternative to the religion of the marketand providing a ballast of politicaleconomic relevance for anthropology thatis a welcome antidote to marginaldiscussions of identity.

How do we understand class? Shallwe debate with sociologists whether thereare 6, 9 or a dozen based on father’soccupation, income, education, mother’sproclivities and your own job? Or shallwe recognize what anthropologists havelearned about the evolution of politicalsystems: that some people have access toresources through a social system theycontrol and some do not. Two classes isso simplistic. What about the middleclass--the managerial middle class, assome call it--those who do not controlresources, but manage the resources ofthose who do? What have anthropologistshad to say about it, aside from thetrivialities of personal struggles ofindividual identity?

For some, the middle class are thosewho own sufficient means to producetheir own livings, mom-and-popoperations exemplified by neighborhoodgrocery stores in towns and cities andfamily farms in rural areas. In the wordsof a family farmer from Iowa: “Forgenerations, tens of thousands of usfarmers relied on pork production to putfood on our tables, pay for our land, andhelp pass our land on to our children. For

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generations, we pork producers went totown to worship, to educate our children,to buy supplies, and to entertain ourselves.Rural communities thrived as farmersthrived. I worked to provide the sameopportunities for my children that myparents and grandparents worked toprovide for me.”

Like his father and grandfather beforehim, Jim Braun planned to stay home andtake care of his business as bad timescame and went, pouring himself intodoing the best possible job of raisingcrops and hogs. He counted on the samesuccess his forebears enjoyed by dint ofhis own knowledge, expertise and hardwork, ?But everything I was learningabout the changes in the hog industry inIowa and the nation led me to believe thatgood management, excellent genetics, andthe use of current methods and technologyalone would not lead to profitability forindependent farmers such as myself. Itwas time to take action outside theconfines of the combine, hog buildings,and computer printouts? (Pigs, Profitsand Rural Communities, K Thu and E PDurrenberger, eds. 1998, p 44).Jim and Pam Braun began to understandthe wider structural dimensions of thetransformation of American agriculture,not because they are anthropologists, butbecause they were trying to survive asfamily farmers. Walter Goldschmidt hadseen the writing on the wall in his studiesof industrial and family farm agriculturein California in the early 1940s, studies sosalient that his whole division within theDepartment of Agriculture was abolishedbecause his findings struck at the core ofsocial maladies and the associatedpolitical economic structure in the US.Touring Iowa with us, Goldschmidt wastold by a farmer that farmers were 5 yearstoo late in identifying the economic andpolitical patterns that were putting themout of business. Goldschmidt respondedthat they were 50 years too late.

Back from the Margins

Some anthropologists do addressthese issues. Maritime anthropologistshave explained why owner-operators havenot disappeared from the fishing industrydespite expectations of both Marxian andneoclassical economists. They haveshown how and why the ideology of thetragedy of the commons, enacted aspolicy, results in tragedies ofmismanagement. Others have worked onmeat packing, low wage labor in industrialand service sectors, labor recruitmentpractices, labor unions and industrialpractices. It is not that all relevant workneeds to be applied. But most appliedwork, by its very nature, is relevantbecause it must consider causal factors.Otherwise individual responses, identities,texts, dramas and stories become musingsof a scholastic elite that bandies textualcritique back and forth like tennis playerswho share the gaze of an enrapturedaudience with no attention to material lifebeyond the court which makes theirsymbolic game possible.

It isn't just the locales of our work,but our approaches that marginalize us. Ifbeing anti-scientific removes us fromrelevance by making us undistinguishedcritics of a mediocre literature, pretendscience makes us unconvincing claimantsto scientific knowledge and gives the anti-science folks credibility. Counting thingswith all the gusto and no more reason thansome caped crusader of quantificationfrom Sesame Street is no means toscientific enlightenment. No moreenlightening is the study of the individualchoices of meat, crop or mate withoutunderstanding the structures thatdetermine the choices and their dynamics.To anti-science and pretend science wecan add political agendas as means to ourown irrelevance.

The purpose of scientific research isto dispel prejudice and preconceptions byappeal to observable conditions. But tocomprehend the economic and politicalsystems of modern states we do have to

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understand power and inequality--whogets what and how. That’s no morepolitical than understanding therelationships among the sacrificed and thesacrificors among Aztec. It is necessaryto understand how the systems work.Shirking such issues in favor of marginallocales, marginal questions or inappositeapproaches makes us irrelevant.

Other people don’t make us irrelevantwe do a good job of it ourselves. Arelevant anthropology doesn’t stay in theborderlands; it brings the lessons we havelearned about human adaptation to bear onevolving human conditions. If we arecomfortable with the periphery, then weshould be comfortable with ourirrelevance. If we are comfortable withanti-science, pretend-science and politicalagendas, we should be comfortable withirrelevance. If, however, we approachcentral material conditions and politicaleconomies of contemporary states withthe same sense of adventure andethnographic rigor that our predecessorsapplied in New Guinea, Africa, Asia andthe Americas, then our understanding ofthe human condition will prosper and therelevance of our discipline will take careof itself.

E Paul Durrenberger is professor ofanthropology at Penn State U and hasserved on the executive board of the AAA,and President of AAA’ s Culture andAgriculture section, the Society forEconomic Anthropology and Council ofThai Studies. He has done ethnographicfieldwork in highland Southeast Asia,lowland Southeast Asia, Iceland,Mississippi, Alabama, Iowa and Chicago.Relevant books include: Gulf CoastSoundings (1996), It's All Politics (1992),Pigs, Profits and Rural Communities (withKendall Thu, 1998). With Suzan Erem herecently published ethnographic work ona union local in Chicago in variousanthropological journals, including AA.

Kendall Thu is Associate Director forIowa's Center for Agricultural Safety andHealth and an Adjunct faculty member in

the Department of Anthropology at the Uof Iowa. His two current areas of researchare the industrialization of agricultureand state policy, and agricultural changeand farm-related health problems. He iscurrently working with a team ofresearchers in Iowa to examine theconsequences of different forms oflivestock production on rural Iowacommunities.

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Home Work

By Thomas E Fricke (U Michigan, Ann Arbor)Anthropology Newsletter, October 1998 (pp 1, 4-5)

It's time for anthropologists toget serious about Americanist research, tobring their tools back home, to go beyondthe defensive postures of “studying up” orlooking for the exotic to justify an interestin our own society. It's time foranthropology to bring the ethnography ofeveryday life to the US where it promisesto add desperately needed concreteness topublic debates around the changes incultures of work and family.

Missed Opportunities

A peculiar feature ofanthropology's status among the socialsciences is its strangely two-tieredapproach to social research. The first tieris that of the other--the foreign, exotic,marginal. The second tier is home--theunmarked, less regarded, category thatimplicitly defines what the other must be.As anthropologists, we conspire in adivision of the world that excludes usfrom entering the conversation ontransformations in our own backyard. Aresulting gap is our scarce presence in thediscussions of American work and familylife that occupy so much of the literaturein other social sciences. Where some,such as family historian John Gillis, seethe late 20th century as one of those raretimes when social practices lead to ashake-up and reconfiguration of culturalunderstandings of who we are as familymembers and workers, the ingredients ofthat shake-up appear too mundane foranthropological notice.

As an anthropologist whoseinterests converge on the connectionsamong individual lives, family relations,work, and culture, I am struck by the scaleof change in the US and by the richpossibilities my own discipline offers toits understanding. Because my interest isin exploring these transitions here, I am

further struck by anthropology's muffledvoice in Americanist research. Scholarlywork into family and work issues in thiscountry has strong representation fromsociology, economics, psychology, historyand even political science. Anthropology,as a discipline, and ethnography, as theresearch approach of that discipline, arenotably under-represented. Yet, thesevery same themes constitute large portionsof the anthropological work in every otherethnographic landscape.

Big Changes

Even the briefest look at censusstatistics suggests the scope of change.We know, for example, that where onlyabout a quarter of all women aged 16 andabove were in the labor force in 1940, thatpercentage had increased to over 59% by1996. Most of that increase in women'slabor force participation was for marriedwomen, among whom only 14% were inthe 1940 labor force compared to 61% in1996. A good deal of that change wasamong married women with childrenunder 6 years old in their households.

We might expect these increasesin labor force participation by mothers ofyoung children to have implications forchild care and the statistics show this to beso. Family sociologist Andrew Cherlinreports that the percentage of childrenunder 5 in day care centers has increasedfrom 6% in 1965, to 30% today. Cherlingoes on to document the implications forattitudes of these changes in behavior:between 1977 and 1996, the percentage ofadults agreeing that men should work asachievers outside the home while womentake care of home and family fell from66% to 38%. And where in 1977, 42% ofworking mothers with preschool-agedchildren agreed that young children were

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likely to suffer if their mothers worked,that percentage fell to 23% in 1996.

It would be possible to go on withsimilar trends in cohabitation andmarriage, the incidence of divorce and themany other factors attracting the attentionof family researchers and demographers inthe US. But these examples are enough todraw the conclusion of a watershedtransformation in which the highlycharged categories of “work” and“family” have begun to overlap andinterpenetrate in ways that violate anearlier cultural imagery. They point, too,to the gendered nature of much of thattransition, as well as to the tensionsinherent in it (statistics in the lastparagraph suggest that a fairly big chunkof mothers who themselves work do soeven though they think it harms theirchildren!).

My own research has until now beenamong people in Nepal undergoingprecisely these general shifts. In Nepal,changes in the economic life of familieshave led to changes in the relationshipswithin families, in relationships betweenfamilies, and ultimately to emergingredefinitions of the family itself. Parentshave increasingly less control over thechoices of their children; old cooperationnetworks between families have becomebrittle; and the cultural models for theextended family are in flux. Thesechanges are contoured by contemporarypolitical economies, themselves rooted inthe history of local and state relations.My concern has been to link changes inmaterial conditions and behavior with themotivating ethos of this particular cultureand history.

Granted the very different cultural,political and material worlds in Nepal andUS, there is no reason that this generalapproach couldn't be turned towardresearch in this country. Instead, scarcework by anthropologists has led to asituation where we know a lot aboutchanges in behavior, attitudes andorganizational structures, but very little

about how individual lives tie into largerstructures of meaning. If we thinkprovisionally of culture as the underlyingframeworks that define our world andmotivate us to act in that world, and if weagree that those frameworks varyconsiderably throughout the world andcan vary in one setting across time, thenlack of attention to them in 20th centuryAmerica is a serious oversight.

Resisting the Obvious

Of course, there are anthropologistsworking in America. And of course,they've been here for a long time. Weeasily tick off the names of those whosework has been in the US from the start orwho have turned to American themes afterfirst fieldwork elsewhere. Yet, it is inspite of these names that most currentanthropological work consigns its effortsin North America to the eddies andmargins where an identifiable "other"exists or can be manufactured.Anthropological study of the homeless,drug use culture--the outsider defined interms of location away from themainstream--is a growth industry. Arcaneover-theorization grows like weeds. Eachof these areas, including the theory, bearsextraordinary importance for ourunderstanding of social and cultural life inthe US, but they are justifiable as anextension of anthropology's traditionalconcern with the exotic. What gets elidedis attention to the everyday (maybe evenmainstream?) that is a legitimate target ofstudy in any other setting.

A colleague's response to my plans toencourage more research and training inAmerican ethnography eerily recapitulatesthe more general prejudice. He objectedthat American ethnography is second rate,that its students wouldn't be takenseriously. I pressed on with my plans andhe came around, but only this far: maybethis would be a good thing; students couldgain some experience as fieldworkersbefore doing their “real” dissertation workelsewhere.

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These comments are part of the largerorientation away from work at home. In1989 Orvar Löfgren described thedistinctly second class place of such workin American anthropology, the perceptionof its being fit only for student training orthe amusement of aging scholars retiredfrom the real thing. And Micaela diLeonardo suggests that not much haschanged in the ensuing decade.Fascination with the exotic holds us in itsgrip with the outcome that our studentsare embarrassingly unprepared to considerAmerican subjects and all too ready tomake huge generalizations with thethinnest knowledge of Americanhistorical, sociological, political andeconomic literatures.

The paradox is that even partialborrowing of conceptual tools fromanthropology has drastically transformedother disciplinary approaches to theculture of American family and work life.John Gillis's work is only one example.At the same time anthropologists have notshied away from examining these samethemes with full attention to local historyand politics in similarly complex settings.And others outside the US have beenrichly active in applying the ethnographyof daily life to their own societies. Takentogether, this work points to thepossibilities for a wider research agenda athome. Ignoring it, we run the risk ofceding legitimate anthropologicalinvestigation to disciplines lacking ourown unique history of engagement withdaily life.

Entering the Debate

The promise of anthropology is bestrealized in its attention to culture, its focuson morally charged categories andpractices, and the methodologicalorientation best designed to uncover theseis found in the ethnography of everydaylife. But this methodological focus on theconcrete and local is both weakness andstrength. Can we enter the general debateon work and family transitions withoutsounding parochial? At U Michigan, we

have begun to develop one of the manypossible models for bringing anthropologyinto this discourse.

With the help of the Alfred P SloanFoundation, my Michigan colleagues andI are collaborating on a research programdesigned to link ethnography to thatbigger picture. Where too much of thediscourse on family and work transitionsis couched in the language of socialsurvey and census, these same materialscan anchor ethnography and help toinitiate its inquiry. At Michigan, we havejoined research and training within asingle agenda that includes establishedanthropologists, post-doctoral fellows andnew graduate students in a way that willproduce a series of related, yetautonomous, ethnographies spanning arange of issues in American work andfamily transitions.

One aim is to encourage a newgeneration of scholars to take upAmerican themes where theanthropological voice is least heard.Another is to go beyond the limitations ofthe isolated anthropologist. Eachethnography, although related to theothers, takes a slightly different angle onthe work-family connection by, forexample, beginning with differentdimensions of “family” such as kinbeyond the nuclear unit, partner relations,parent and child obligations. Although nosingle anthropologist can do everything,several at work on related issues can makea larger contribution.

Our research problem has to do withthe changing meanings of work andfamily in American life. In order to speakto a broad region without spreadingourselves too thin, we are locating ourfirst ethnographic projects in communitiesand work settings throughout theAmerican Midwest. Some will be locatedin rural communities deeply affected bygeographic dislocations related to work.Others will begin in new suburbancommunities and urban neighborhoods.Others will start within various kinds of

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workplace. Their common focus will beon the places where work and family lifeintersect. Rural communities losing theiryoung people to distant jobs are ideal forstudying the conflicting pulls of worklifeand relations between generations,suburbs and urban neighborhoods forstudying the problems of work andchildren or the negotiation of obligationsbetween working partners. And theworkplaces themselves allow a focus onthe mutual accommodations arising ineveryday company and family life.

As anchoring devices, we usenational surveys and census materials tolocate ethnographic sites that typifyaverage conditions for urban, suburbanand rural settings along broad categoriesof age structure, income and ethniccomposition. But we go further still.Subsamples from representative surveysby sociologists and economists help frameopening research questions that use thevery terms and data parlayed in thenational discourse on work and familyissues.

These locations and openingquestions are orienting devices. Theyopen up and situate our research ratherthan constrain it. The beauty ofethnography is that wherever it begins, theanthropologist follows people acrossdomains. Research beginning in ruralareas will inevitably link up with urbanareas through the very family connectionsgrounding the study. In the same way,workplace sites will quickly move tohome sites, and questions grounded in thesurveys we use for context will lead us tothe wider themes left untouched by theoriginal survey.

A Final Note

As social scientists go, culturalanthropologists justly hold the reputationof knowing more about the everyday livesof the people they study than practitionersof any other discipline. Who does thejournalist under deadline call for themeaty anecdote to flesh out a story?

Whose lectures in undergraduate classesare renowned for the quality of story,reference to real people, real names, realevents in concrete lives? Why doaudiences at interdisciplinary professionalmeetings of demographers ordevelopment groups suddenly perk upfrom the dopey stupor created by endlessstatistical tables and causal models whenthe anthropologist takes the microphone?The anthropologist knows best becauseshe was there.

But authority and concreteness derivefrom much more than the “being there.”Anthropology contributes more thananecdote. Its contribution derives fromhard preparation for those exoticfieldsites--learning language, readinghistory, reading literature. Refusal toclose boundaries is more than a trick offieldwork. It should animate our researchand engage us in the wider social scienceand public communities. Anthropologistsoutside the US often lampoon thecarpetbagging character of those socialscientists who enter a setting without suchpreparation. Overseas we freely talk toeconomists and demographers. And fewgraduate committees in most departmentswould consider approving research inanother setting without specialcoursework in area studies that exposesthe student to this whole range.Americanist research requires no lesspreparation and no less engagement.

Tom Fricke is a cultural anthropologistholding appointments at U Michigan'sDepartment of Anthropology and Institutefor Social Research. His ethnographicwork has largely involved issues relatingto family, moral and demographictransitions in Nepal. He also collaborateswith sociologists and demographers onresearch into these themes in Pakistan,Taiwan and the US. Fricke currentlydirects the Michigan Center for theEthnography of Everyday Life, a researchand training center funded by the SloanFoundation for research into work andfamily issues in the US. Recentpublications by Fricke include

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Anthropological Demography: Toward aNew Synthesis (with David I Kertzer,1997) and "Marriage Change as MoralChange: Culture, Virtue, andDemographic Transition" (in GW Jones,et al, The Continuing DemographicTransition, 1997). For an elaboration ofsome of the themes addressed in hiscomment, Fricke recommends a look at:John Gillis, A World of Their OwnMaking: Myth, Ritual, and the Quest forFamily Values, 1996; Micaela diLeonardo, Exotics at Home:Anthropologies, Others, AmericanModernity, 1998; Marianne Gullestad,The Art of Social Relations, 1992.

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Relevance through SurveysBy Eleanor Gerber (US Bureau of the Census)

Anthropology News, December 1998 (pp 16-17)

At a holiday party several years ago, Ihad a chance to describe my research to aprofessor from graduate school, whom Ihad not seen since starting to work at theCensus Bureau in 1992. I described myqualitative research on residence conceptsand the revision of the race and Hispanicorigin questions for the Year 2000Census. The professor broke into myaccount and said, with great surprise,“What you do is actually interesting!” Iwas less surprised than he. In fact, it hasbeen my experience that manyanthropologists have little respect forsurveys. Working on surveys, or withsurvey data, seems to some in ourprofession to be unanthropological orworse, hopelessly dull.

One does not have to search far forthe origins of this attitude. Survey dataclearly do not carry the richness of detailavailable though qualitative techniques.Standardized survey questions occur in acommunicative context that does notallow for the negotiation of meaning. Inaddition, surveys with national samplesmay not reveal the specific situation ofsubgroups of particular interest to aresearcher. These reasons are all quitevalid. Survey researchers will generallyagree with these points, although they donot see them as invalidating the usefulnessof survey data.

Combining Techniques

These factors may explain the factthat surveys are used mainly inspecialized contexts within anthropology.I recently did a literature review of journalarticles to evaluate the extent to whichethnography and surveys are used in thesame research. (It was necessary to define“survey” relatively broadly in this context.I counted any data collection which askedrelatively standardized questions in prettymuch the same order as a “survey.”) 126

studies were identified which had usedsome mix of ethnographic and surveytechniques between 1987-96. Of these, 99were in medical or educationalanthropology. This pattern was also trueof the 77 studies conducted within the US,where 56 were concentrated in the twoareas. Since the mixed technique studiesare concentrated in medical andeducational anthropology, thecombination occurs mostly withinanthropology. However, it is clearlyassociated primarily with the two well-established applied fields. It is arguablethat surveys are accepted practice inmedical and educational anthropologybecause education and medical researchare interdisciplinary endeavors.

Survey researchers from other fieldsalso make some use of ethnography. Itserves best as background research,informing the development of surveyquestions which are understandable torespondents and (relatively) congruentwith their concepts. It seems that much ofthe research done in this context,however, never finds publication in juriedjournals. My own agency has sponsoredquite a bit of ethnographic research,particularly prior to the 1990 census.These ethnographies examined groupswhich were at risk of undercounting in thedecennial census, such as migrant workersand residents of inner city ghettos.Another use to which ethnography is putis to identify and interview otherwisedifficult to reach populations, such asillegal immigrants or intravenous drugusers.

Most US studies included in theliterature review were focused on minoritygroups (especially Hispanics) andpopulations considered difficult to reachor at risk in some way. Of the 77identified studies conducted in the US, 34were concerned with racial and ethnic

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minorities, and an additional 22 wereconcentrated on the disabled, homeless orpoor populations, immigrants and drugusers. Thus, it seems clear thatanthropologists concerned withmainstream American groups--such asmiddle class working families--seldomuse survey techniques.

Why Use Survey Data

Anthropologists should make use ofsurveys or survey data in studying thecore of American society, not onlyminority or disadvantaged populations.The underlying reason for this is that avast amount of survey-derived datadescribing this society exists.Anthropological work on this societyneeds to be placed in the context of whatis already known, or it will not receive thehearing it deserves.

Anthropologists are relatively used toarguments narrowly framed in terms of“my people”--our small pool ofinformants. But researchers from otherdisciplines may not know how to evaluatean anthropological study which focuses ononly a small locality or specific group ofinformants. In my experience, suchresearchers do not know what to make offindings framed in this way. Theirunderlying question is whether or not topay attention to a narrowly focusedqualitative description. To decide this,they want to understand howrepresentative a small segment of societyis of the wider society or some group in it.Do the described phenomena only affectthe people interviewed, or are thereothers? Is this phenomenon only oneaspect of a wider set of events that affectvaried people differently? Is it new or is itpart of an established historical trend? Ihave found that the “problem” somepractitioners of more statistically-orienteddisciplines have with qualitative data isnot that they are suspicious of thefindings, but that they cannot assimilatedata whose representativeness isunknown, and whose generality theycannot judge.

One way to frame therepresentativeness of anthropologicalresearch is to forge connections betweenthe vast body of survey data which existsand the particular description theanthropologist wishes to make. Whereanthropological findings are placed incontext using survey data based on largenational samples, statistically-mindedreaders can readily see how the qualitativedata enhances their understanding.Causes become more clearly rooted inhuman behavior, and consequences takeon a human face. Under thesecircumstances, anthropological work canget an enthusiastic reception. KathrynNewman’s work on the American middleclass is a good example.

Mastering Stat-Speak

Anthropologists often say that theydo not understand why their works are notmore influential in public spheres. Ifinfluencing policy is the issue, then it iseven more critical to be aware of existingstatistical descriptions of the US. Publicissues tend to be framed in terms of theexisting body of survey-derivedknowledge, and that is the language inwhich policy debates are often framed.To policy makers, anthropologists mayseem to be using a foreign language ifthey use untranslated analytical categoriesand terms derived from their own field. Ifanthropologists want to be effective incommunicating with the policy natives,their own methods advise learning thelocal dialect. It is probably a vain hope toexpect native speakers of stat-speak tolearn anthopologese.

There is another reason that surveysare important in policy making: thesurveys themselves are part of the policyprocess. Our society is in many waysdriven by numbers, and numbers arederived from large governmental datacollections. The official unemploymentand poverty rates, for example, are takendirectly from the Current PopulationSurvey. A researcher who wants to enter

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the debate on these issues should knowhow they are derived, their history and theuses to which they are put. Researchersfrom other disciplines are sometimes ableto take this one step further: they becomepart of the panels of experts and advisorygroups which help to frame, revise andoversee the data collections themselves.They are therefore in a position toinfluence collection of data which mayaffect future policy making. Very fewanthropologists seem to be included onthese panels. This is probably a measureof how little anthropological research isframed in terms of these data or thedebates that surround them.

Available Sources

American society may be uniquelyself-studying. There are a vast number ofsurveys conducted by all levels ofgovernment, research firms, academicinstitutions and pollsters. There wouldnot be enough space to review thesethoroughly. Since I am familiar withFederal surveys, I will concentrate onthose.

The federal government conducts alarge number of surveys on a wide varietyof topics. It would be impossible tomention all the surveys that the federalgovernment conducts. The CurrentPopulation Survey (CPS) is the primarysource of information about labor forcecharacteristics of the US population.Additional surveys of potential interest toanthropologists studying Americansociety include:

C Survey of Income and ProgramParticipation (SIPP) focuses onthe economic situation ofhouseholds, and provides dataabout income sources andparticipation in the socialprograms by these households.

C Survey of Program Dynamics(SPD) was recently institutedwith the primary aim ofproviding data to evaluate theeffects of welfare reform

legislation.C American Housing Survey

(AHS) provides data abouthousing characteristics, includinghousing and neighborhoodquality.

C National Crime VictimizationSurvey (NCVS) provides dataabout the nature and prevalenceof crime victimization.

C National Health InterviewSurvey (NHIS) provides generalhealth statistics, includinginformation on doctor visits andhospitalization.

These surveys are carried out by theCensus Bureau, Bureau of LaborStatistics, Bureau of Justice Statistics andNational Center for Health Statistics.These agencies, and others conductingresearch, have websites that provide moreinformation about their surveys anddescribe the specific availability of thedata.

Basic data available from the surveysare often supplemented by “topicalmodules.” Topical modules are specialsurveys designed to be added to the mainsurvey instrument, on topics considered tobe of special interest. For example, CPShas fielded topical modules on such topicsas displaced workers, job tenure andoccupational mobility, school enrollmentand work experience. SIPP has fieldedtopical modules on subjects such as workhistory, health characteristics (includingdisability), child care and child supportagreements. NHIS has included “currenthealth topics” such as AIDS knowledgeand attitudes, health insurance and aging.The availability of these topical modulesis usually also described in the survey�sor sponsoring agency’s website.

Using Survey Data

There are some basic points to beaware of when using these data.First, it is necessary to understand thenature of the sample. These surveys aredesigned to capture data to fit particular

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legislative or program needs, and thesample may reflect that. For example,CPS is primarily an employment survey.As a result, the sample represents the“civilian non-institutional population.”Statistics derived from it therefore do notinclude anyone in the military or prison.

Second, it is important to be aware ofthe particular definitions which the surveyis using. These definitions may not matchother common sense uses of a concept.Good examples are the employmentconcepts derived from CPS. Employmentis defined as having done any work at allfor pay or profit, and even a singlereported hour of work classifies therespondent as “employed.” To rate as“unemployed,” a respondent who has nojob also has to report looking for workduring the survey’s one week referenceperiod. As a result the employment rateand unemployment rate are not reciprocalnumbers. Data on “discouraged workers”and underemployment exist in the survey,but to find it, it is necessary to look at dataderived from responses to other questions.This could be confusing, unless theparticular definitions are known.

Third, be aware of the time frame ofthe data collection. The basic informationnecessary here is the “reference period” towhich the survey directs respondents.Thus, NCVS asks questions about crimescommitted against the respondent in thepast 6 months. Many of the surveys alsocontain longitudinal data. They aredesigned as “panel” surveys, in which thesame household or individual is revisitedand asked similar questions over a periodof months. SIPP households, for example,are visited at 4-month intervals over aperiod of three years. Thus, changes incircumstances for particular householdsmay become evident over time. Inaddition, many of these surveys have along history, and provide data onhistorical trends. CPS has been conductedfor more than 50 years, for example.

It is also necessary to be aware ofchanges in the data over time. Surveys

are revised from time to time, andsomewhat different questions will beasked to provide the same data or createthe same measure. For example,questions about race have been asked inthe decennial census since 1790, and thequestion was the same only in twoconsecutive censuses. Thus, a group inwhich a researcher is interested may nothave been counted in earlier censuses, ormay have been aggregated differently inthe past. When modern surveys changequestions, they sometimes provide what iscalled a “crosswalk.” That is, the new andold questions are fielded with similarsamples at one time, so that statisticaldifferences between them can bediscovered.

This article represents the opinion of theauthor and should not be taken as officialCensus Bureau Policy. Eleanor Gerberhas conducted research for the CensusBureau since 1992. She has conductedqualitative research on residenceconcepts, racial and ethnic identification,and enumeration of homeless persons inshelters and soup kitchens. In addition,she pretests questionnaires usingcognitive interviewing techniques andserves as a trainer for cognitiveinterviewers.

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Dynamics of Status In America

By Walter Goldschmidt (UC Los Angeles)Anthropology Newsletter, May 1999 (pp 64, 62)

We are all “middle class” so there isno class system. Oh, there are a fewpatricians in the older parts of the countrywho make claim to being upper class butthey are without power and the scionsseem more embarrassed by theircircumstance than reveling in it. Themarkers of a nobility have been erased bymass production. What can “carriagetrade” mean in a society where the Rollshas become a symbol of the nouveauriche? There are also many poor,desperate, hopeless people who constitutean underclass. They are largely unseenuntil they commit some visible crime orrise phoenix-like into public prominencethrough special talent or sheer hard workand doggedness. Then they become partof the so-called middle class. Americansare probably as status-conscious as anypeople in the world, but social classes donot exist in America. This seemingparadox is no paradox; the lack ofstructure is disorienting.

American Dynamics

It is a mistake to examine our societyin terms of the static concept of class andthe equilibrium of social structure. Theessence of the American scene has alwaysbeen the dynamics of growth and changeexpressed as individual mobility.

I set forth a dynamic view of societyin The Human Career (1990), givingprocess precedence over structure,dynamics over stasis. Culture and thesocial system are contexts for the growthand development of the individual, whosebasic social motivation is for the affectiveresponse from others, out of which can beformulated a gratifying sense of self. Inthe process of enculturation--to use a termthat has unfortunately grown out of favor--the infantile desire for love is translated

into the wish to conform to social normsand perform to community expectations.

These expectations, of course, differfrom one culture to another. One waythey differ is whether people aresocialized to give primacy to their ownself-interest or to the needs of the group.Our culture comes down heavily on theside of self-interest. Both our socialinstitutions and our cultural attitudes areattuned to individuation and this mitigatesagainst strong commitments to institutionslike unions and classes--and even family.

Historical Perspectives

Prior to the French, American andIndustrial Revolutions, there were socialclasses in Europe, often called “estates,”that defined each person’s social position.They were cultural categories, emicentities. They were units with clearboundaries, which--like all culturalboundaries--could be breached. Remnantsof this old system remain in Europe, butnot in America. Class was denied in theDeclaration of Independence: “We holdthese Truths to be self-evident, that allMen are created equal . . .” We did have acaste system in the form of slavery,heavily enforced by law, remnants ofwhich remain despite both the Civil WarProclamation and civil rights marches.

Holy writ was supported, as it mustbe, by ecological conditions. In thisinstance, by the vast frontier that offeredgreat opportunity to all and made itdifficult to keep people in servitude.Except, of course, for the slaves whosevisibility, along with draconian measures,deprived most of such opportunity.

With the industrial revolution, classtook on new meaning; it shifted from theemics of medieval tradition to the etics of

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Marxian analysis. Classes changed frombeing cultural reality to being structures insocial theory; categories in the conflictover power in the newly emergingtechnological economy. System followstheory as nature copies art and in Europethe estates became Marxian classes. Asmanufacturing grew in mid-19th centuryAmerica, workers (largely recruited fromEurope) began to form unions and seethemselves as a laboring class. Ownersalso discovered their unity, and conflictbetween labor and capital became openand often bloody. Owners had thepowerful tool of preventing and breakingstrikes with imported immigrant workers--a pattern that has had deep consequencesfor the nature of American society.Abetted by socialist intellectuals fromEastern Europe, the labor movement(which had earlier been elitist tradeunions) began to take on a class characterculminating when the AFL and CIOmerged during the Great Depression. Theunity inspired by World War II and theera of great prosperity that followeddissipated this confrontation and it wasthen that everybody became "middleclass" thereby making class irrelevant.

“Class” in Community Studies

This country’s incipient class societyexisted when anthropology began to payattention to American social life in the1930s and a spate of community studieswas made. I summarized this developmentin, “Social Class in America—A CriticalReview,” (AA 1950), complete with arelevant bibliography. In addition, a 1955special issue of AA edited by MargaretLantis was devoted to an anthropologicalexamination of American culture, “TheUSA As Anthropologists See It.” Impetusfor this research program came from theLynds' sociological study of Muncie, IN,from the “Chicago School” of sociologyand from Elton Mayo's studies at theHawthorne Plant of General Electric. WLloyd Warner, returning from study of theMurngin, joined Mayo and laterinaugurated the most detailed American

community study ever undertaken inNewburyport, MA.

The studies that followed--someunder Warner's aegis, some sponsored bythe USDA, and others independent ofboth--focused on values and social class.There are two interesting paradoxes inthese studies: first, all describe socialclasses in the towns, but no two classsystems were defined in the same way(the number of classes ranged from two to9); and second, though all saw classes andmost surely had read some Marx, nonegave a Marxian spin to their studies.Towns were treated like tribes, self-contained entities representative ofregional (“Yankee City”) or Americanculture (“Middletown”), and not asstructurally integrated elements of ournational society.

I was part of that movement, studyingthe town of Wasco, CA, in 1940-41. I didnot make the “tribal” assumptions—nordid I make a cute fictional name—but sawWasco as integrated into (and subordinateto) the financial and industrial structure ofCalifornia and the nation. Later, Icompared two California towns to findhow large scale operations affected thequality of rural life. An attack on thisstudy from the California power elite gaveme my 15 minutes of fame, and in theprocess validated my thesis of localsubordination to the centers of power.

Wasco was a community with localexpression of status like those describedby others, but attached to it was a laborsector of "Okies," who remained outsideWasco culture and hardly partook of itsinstitutions. This was a social distinctionbetween labor and capital of Marxianclass proportions that even had seenbloody strife between them a few yearsearlier. Yet, I did not see Marxian classesin Wasco because the people did notidentify themselves in these terms. It mayhave been “social reality” but it was not“cultural reality.” The Okies were treatedas an ethnic minority, complete with“racial” epithets against these blond and

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blue-eyed workers. They saw themselves,however poor and badly treated, as apeople with their own cultural values.With war-borne prosperity, theysuccessfully strove to advance themselves.Thirty years later, I returned toBakersfield with Carey McWilliams--whose Factories in the Field had firstopened my eyes to the plight of farm laborin California—to an NEH-sponsoredsession on “Okie culture,” an affirmationof their status as a folk group and not aclass.

Ethnic Layering

The “Okies” were re-enacting thecentral drama of American culture: thedynamics of status advancement.America is an immigrant land. Most ofour ancestry came as impoverishedworkers seeking opportunity and enteredthe labor market at the bottom. A 1930sstudy of a New England town describes itsethnic make-up as a kind of layer cakebuilt from the bottom, each group movingup the social ladder as a newimpoverished cohort came to do themenial work. This has taken placeeverywhere throughout the US, includingthe fields of California.

This in-migration has not been left tochance. Factory owners advertise andinduce migration to the US to keep wageslow or break strikes. In California, asuccession of such carefully nurturedimmigrations has followed one another,starting with the Chinese brought in tobuild the railroads, followed by Japanese,Filipinos, Indians, Mexicans and Okiesand back to Mexican braceros, CentralAmericans and now illegal immigrants.Each in succession has moved out of thelow-pay, low-status work.

This upward flow, this expectation torise, this sense of mobility, are all centralto the American culture, following theHoly Writ of our origins. It appears in ourethics; in the assumption that “you can bewhat you want to be,” that “anybody canbe president,” that hard work and a proper

attitude will take you to the top. Itappeared early in our literature,exemplified by the Horatio Alger stories,eagerly read by immigrants not only fortheir optimistic uplift, but for their recipesfor success.

Social mobility based on characterand hard work is written into ourinstitutions as well as our Constitution,our popular sayings and our myths. It layin the laws favoring settlement on theland, culminating in the Homestead Actand the acreage-limitation law. Althoughthe railroads took great swathes of frontierland, enough remained to set a pattern ofsmall farms across the land--now sadlydisappearing. Universal public educationwas a revolutionary concept that gave thepoor newcomers a chance to get a start,while Land Grant Colleges democratizedthe professions. The highway to successran through the schoolyards. Education isa ritual affirmation of American socialmobility just as surely as Maasaiinitiations are ritual support for age-sets.Less known is the fact that Rural FreeDelivery gave a boost to Sears andMontgomery Ward and began to bring thefarmer and villager into the mainstream ofour consumer society. The AgriculturalExtension Service finished that job.

Any social scenario needs properecological conditions; for a society ofachievers it needed available opportunity.This was originally provided by the vastfrontier that could absorb millions ofimmigrants. The physical frontier--officially closed a century ago--has beenreplaced by a technological frontier withan ever-increasing productivity. Thiseconomic growth is so deeply ingrained inour culture that the high priests of ourfiscal system manipulate the economy soas to preserve a 2-3% annual growth inproductivity to preserve our socialmobility. The current fear that the cominggeneration will have a lower standard ofliving than that of their parents is like theHopi anxiety when the rains fail despitethe Kachina Dances: Who sinned? Havethe priests failed us?

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Status Anxiety

We cannot understand the domesticménage without seeing it in relation to thedemands of status advancement. It is atbase supported by a salary, and nowadaysby two salaries. A salary is measure ofstanding, a finely calibrated status ladder.This income is less and less for thenecessities of life and increasingly for themyriad of status markers defining bothcultural taste and social standing. Asevery parent knows, avid merchandisinghas drawn our children into theseexpressions of belonging and prestige.

The absence of class evokes statusanxiety and this anxiety is passed on tothe children. The universal immigrants’hope for their children is that they will nothave to suffer the same hardships; willhave it better. This wish is often raised tothe more specific desire for the child tobecome what the parent had dreamt to be.So the child is pressured to perform--academics, sports, looks, whatever--intensifying his anxiety over performanceand feeling of rivalry with siblings andclassmates. Schools are arenas for suchperformance and competition, handing outgrades and honors to distinguish the(culturally defined) virtuous from theordinary, making comparison a way oflife. Children who have internalized thesevalues find they have high status inschool; those who have not often becomedisillusioned and alienated.

This is the motor that drives theAmerican pattern of status dynamics.Some ethnic groups are pre-adapted tothis competitive spirit and individuatedbehavior better than others and thereforeare more “successful.” The establishmentoften condemns the successful ones “forbeing too pushy” and the others “for justnot trying!” But never mind, when theirchildren succeed, they will make similarremarks about those who follow.

As anthropologists, however, westay above such judgmental attitudes andso note that this competitiveness has its

down side. The conflict over the demandfor success expressed in the novels ofthird-generation Jewish authors isreflected by the third-generation Chinesenovelist Amy Tan. So also is the sense ofloss of family solidarity that follows fromemphasis on personal advancement.

Many sociological and psychologicalstudies have shown the social costs of ourvaunted achievement orientation, but I’llsettle for a front page story in the LosAngeles Times (September 15, 1998)citing a report in the Archives of GeneralPsychiatry. Newly-immigrated Mexicanshave about half as many psychiatricdisorders as US-born Mexican Americans,it reported, explaining the phenomenon as“clearly a social effect, not a biologicalone.” One interviewee said that America“is the land of opportunity, but it's notgood for children.”

These remarks are intended to showhow a dynamic view of social life--a viewthat considers growth, change, action andprocess--illuminates the nature of theAmerican scene far better than one thatplaces its emphasis on structure and stasis,especially when the structure is analyticaland not in the culture. That is why I findit counter-productive to focus discussionthe American “middle class.”

Walter Goldschmidt is Professor Emeritusof Anthropology at UCLA. Forbackground on his California studies, seethe reissue of, As You Sow: Three Studiesin the Social Consequences ofAgribusiness, 1978.

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Relinquishing Care

By Lisa Groger (Miami U)Anthropology Newsletter, March 1999 (pp )

The good news is that more peoplelive longer than ever before. The oldest-old are the fastest growing segment of theolder population. And herein lies the lessgood news: the longer one lives, the morelikely one is to experience physicalimpairments. In 1989, 58% of those age85 and older had some difficulty withactivities of daily living; 87% of themactually received help. Most of theseelders live in the community, supportedby unpaid family care.

What About Race?

Life expectancies, disability trendsand caregiving patterns vary by gender,race and social class. Until recently, muchof the gerontological literature devoted todisentangling the effects of these“independent variables” was based onlarge-scale quantitative racial comparisonsthat ignored intra-group variations. Theresult was a largely stereotypical depictionof the African American family as morenurturing, more willing to bear the burdenof caregiving, and more reluctant to seekformal care than their white counterpart.The myth of African Americans'avoidance of nursing homes has persisteddespite growing evidence that AfricanAmerican families are as heterogeneous intheir ability to provide care as are otherracial groups. African American workingand middle class families face the samechallenges as do white families. All aresubject to the same demographic andeconomic realities which set limits to kincare, and eventually make nursing homeplacement an appropriate and acceptableoption when the need for care exceeds theability of families to provide adequatecare at home.

Our examination of state-wide datareveals that in Ohio African American

elders are actually more likely than whitesto use nursing homes.

Tell Us Your Story

I was Principal Investigator of a studythat explored African Americans' ideasabout filial obligations and theirpreferences and choices for long-termcare. We conducted 8 focus groups withdifferent age groups, and collectedethnographic interviews from 60 carerecipients and caregivers, in three caresettings (kin care, in-home-services andnursing home care) about theirexperiences receiving and providing care.Elders varied greatly in their availabilityof informal support, which ranged fromunwavering and total support from manychildren, or no support whatsoever, toexploitation by their own children. Thefollowing story echoes the struggle ofmany of our participants to avoid orpostpone nursing home placement, andtheir acceptance of it as a last resort.

Pain of Relinquishing Care

Sylvia, age 50, has worked for theIRS for 29 years and expects to retire in 5years. She intends to go back to school,cashing in on a deal she made with herson who agreed that he would help herfinish college because she helped himbecome an electrical engineer. In themeantime, Sylvia has a second full-timejob which is much more taxing than herwork for the IRS: she takes care of her 79-year old mother who suffers fromAlzheimer's disease. Sylvia checks on hermother by phone several times during theday; runs by in the evening to do choresfor her; takes her to stores, medical visitsand visits with friends. To do all this,Sylvia gave up two part-time jobs she hadtaken to save money for a down-paymenton a house.

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Sylvia has taken care of her motherfor three years. She has visited a numberof nursing homes, interviewed staff andchosen two facilities where her mother ison a waiting list. She feels that a nursinghome would be the only place her motherwould be completely safe. But her motherrefuses to sign the papers. Sylvia is tornabout the decision: she has already turneddown one opportunity, and she thinks thatwhen the next bed becomes available, shemay well turn it down again because shebelieves one should take care of one'selders. In the meantime she lives thenightmare of imagining what mighthappen to her mother.

Trajectories to the Nursing Home

Cultural preferences notwithstanding,nursing home residents in our study hadreached “that place” where their needsexceeded the capacity of kin care or in-home services. Their realistic choices hadnarrowed to a point that preferences hadbecome irrelevant or inoperable. Althoughnursing home residents as a group wereolder, more impaired and had thinnerinformal support than elders in the othertwo settings, and in that sense resembledeach other, they differed in their reasonsand pathways for reaching “that place”and in their reaction to living in a nursinghome. Initially, most residents dislikedbeing in the nursing home, but theyeventually accepted and adapted toinstitutional living. For some residentsand their families, the nursing homebecame a “partner in caring” and allowedfamily members to step up their efforts toprovide care. After prolonged andescalating struggles to provide kin care,timely and appropriate institutionalizationrestored care givers' peace of mind. Itimproved elders' sense of security,competence and well-being; and for some,it was a refuge from unsatisfactory kincare.

Through ethnographic interviews wediscovered processes not captured bysurveys that are the mainstay ofgerontological research: families’

struggle with--and adaptation to--thedeclining health of elders; theirunrelenting care-giving efforts; theirultimate failure to continue as primarycare givers; their feelings of guilt abouthaving failed in their filial obligation; andtheir acceptance of institutionalization as alast resort.

The assumption that AfricanAmericans reject nursing homes isinaccurate and counterproductive toworking and middle class families' searchfor appropriate care settings for elderswhose care needs could best be met in anursing home. African American familiesneed not be reminded of their filialobligations; they need not be told that, asa group, they appear to reject nursinghomes. What they need is assistance withexploring all possible options, guidance inanticipating scenarios that are likely tolead to nursing home placement, help withplanning for increasing care needs andreferral to such programs.

Lisa Groger is Associate Professor atMiami U, Oxford, OH, where she teachesin the Department of Sociology,Gerontology and Anthropology. She is aFellow of the Scripps Gerontology Centerand an Affiliate of Black World Studies,Miami U. This article is based onresearch funded by a grant (90-AR-2034)from the Administration on Aging. Otheraspects of this project are described in“Scrutinizing Accepted Wisdom: A RacialComparison of Utilization Rates andSelected Characteristics of Ohio’s OlderNursing Home Population” (with SMehdizadeh), forthcoming in the Journalof Aging and Ethnicity; “What We Didn’tLearn Because of Who Wouldn’t TalkWith Us” forthcoming in QualitativeHealth Research, and “Caring Too Much:Cultural Lag in African-AmericanPerceptions of Filial Responsibilities”(both with P Mayberry & J. Straker),forthcoming in Journal of Cross-CulturalGerontology.

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Time for Families

By Sara Harkness (U Connecticut, Storrs)Anthropology Newsletter, November 1998, (pp 1, 4)

It’s 7:30 AM, and Jane, a three-year-old girl living with her family in a suburbof Boston, gets up to have breakfast withher mother and little brother. Daddy hasalready left for work, but her mother, apart-time social worker, has planned aspecial day to make the most of her timeat home with the children. Afterbreakfast, they pile in the car and driveinto town, where, after dropping littlebrother at his babysitter’s, they meetanother mother and her three-year-old at atheater to watch a performance ofPinocchio. After the show, the twomothers and daughters go to McDonald’sfor lunch, they then part company andJane goes with her mother to do someshopping at Sears. After picking upJane’s little brother, it’s home again,where Jane plays by herself in the backyard while her mother does housework.Then it’s time to leave again, this time fora swimming class at the town pool. Aftercoming home at the end of the afternoon,Jane watches Sesame Street on TV, theneats supper in her parents’ bedroom whilewatching her mother fold laundry. Daddygets home at 7:30, in time to read Jane astory and tuck her into bed at 8:15.

On the other side of the Atlantic, inthe Dutch town of “Bloemenheim,”another three-year-old girl has also gottenup. Marja’s day begins with a showerwith Daddy at 7:00, followed by familybreakfast with mother, father and herolder sister (age 7) and brother (5). By8:15, Marja’s sister has left for school.It’s just a 5-minute bicycle ride away, buttoday Mother will take the car rather thanhaul the two younger children along, asMarja’s brother is staying home with acold. Marja plays at counting pennies inher savings bank in the living-room andthen goes out a bit to ride her bike in thechild-safe streets of the neighborhood.The morning ends, and it’s time to go

back to the school to pick up Marja’s bigsister, along with a neighbor child whowill spend the afternoon at their home.After lunch with Mother, siblings and theneighbor child, Mother takes Marja at1:00 to the “Children’s Playroom,” anursery school where young children gofor a couple hours twice a week to getused to being in a group outside home.Mother comes back at 3:00 to pick upMarja from her play school and her sisterfrom school, then it’s time for a snacktogether at home. By 4:00, Marja isoutside riding her bike with other childrenin the neighborhood. At 5:30, Daddyarrives home on his bike from his job as achemist at a nearby paint factory, and thechildren play together in the living roomwhile the parents prepare dinner. At 6:00the family sits down to eat together, thenDaddy gets Marja ready for bed. By 6:50,Marja is tucked in and off to sleep.

Child’s Developmental Niche

These chronicles of two middle-classchildren’s days, taken from actual diarieskept by their parents, tell stories richlyladen with cultural meanings. In eachsetting, the culturally structured“developmental niche” of the child isorganized to help the child learn to be acompetent member of her culture. In thetheoretical approach learned as a graduatestudent from the Whitings, the child’senvironment is shaped primarily by the“maintenance systems” of the culture,including such things as parentalemployment, settlement patterns, andmost immediately, mother’s workload.Applying that approach to the analysis ofJane and Marja’s days, however, wouldleave some questions unanswered. Whydoes Jane’s mother take her to two specialevents away from home, while Marja’sday is spent entirely in the familiarsettings of home, neighborhood and pre-

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school? Why does Marja’s family eatthree meals plus a snack together, whereasJane’s family has no meals together as afamily? Why does Marja go to bed somuch earlier than Jane? To address suchquestions, we need to consider not onlythe external constraints of the social andphysical worlds that families inhabit, butalso the culturally shared ideas that directparents’ interactions with their childrenand organize their daily lives. Thesecultural belief systems--or parentalethnotheories--are the focus of our cross-cultural research with middle-classfamilies with young children in the USand 6 other Western societies: TheNetherlands, Sweden, Poland, Spain, Italyand Australia. Funded by the SpencerFoundation, the research is a collaborativeproject with co-investigator Charles Superand an international team of researchersincluding Barbara Welles-Nystrom,Andrzej Eliasz, Jesus Palacios, GiovannaAxia and the late Harry McGurk.

The Case Of Infant Sleep

As we have learned more aboutparents, their perceptions of their children,their hopes and concerns, it is becomingincreasingly apparent that much of familylife in any cultural setting can beunderstood with reference to a rathersmall number of cultural models. Thesecultural models are largely implicitrepresentations of the nature of the child,and are related to more general culturalmodels of the family and the self. Theirinfluence is pervasive across a wide rangeof issues that challenge parents of youngchildren. Interpretation and managementof infant sleep is a case in point. Fromour research with a sample of middle-class parents in the Boston area in the1980s, we learned that getting babies andyoung children to go to sleep withoutdifficulty and to match their sleep routinesto the needs of their parents was a difficultissue - in fact, our interviews showed thatit was the topic on which parents mostfrequently sought advice frompediatricians, relatives, friends and books.Parents would often describe problems

with their child’s sleep in vivid terms, asin the following example taken from aninterview with parents of a one-year-oldboy:

Mother: He wakes up a coupletimes a night, did it right fromthe start. I kept waiting for himto start sleeping through thenight. Ever since he was born,he was up most of the night as abrand new baby, and then hewas up like 4 times a night,going to bed at 7:30 and he’d beup at 11:00 and he’d be up at1:00, 3:00, 5:00. So the doctorsaid to let him cry. That waseffective when we could standit, but both of us - it drives uscrazy. He could cry for 45minutes. There were nightswhen he would not cry, butscream and shriek for 45minutes.Father: I know that youshould just wait it out, but it’s3:00 in the morning and youknow you’ve got to get up at6:15.Mother: And to know that hewould go right back to sleeplike that [snaps fingers] in ourbed.Father: It’s a tough call.Mother: Now usually hewakes up around 4:30 and he’shanging onto the headboard,jumping up and down. Sofinally at 5:00 I get up.Interviewer: What do you dowith him?Father: We both havedifferent strategies. She’ll puthim in the walker down hereand I generally put him in theplaypen and try to keep himsomewhat entertained, eitherby the TV or he loves thestereo. He loves music. Ifhe’s crying and he sees megoing for the stereo, he’ll stopcrying and start to laugh inanticipation of the music.

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Even when he was a tiny baby,one night at 3:30 wediscovered a particular songthat would calm him down.Mother: It was a psalm. Wewondered if it was some divineintervention.

Several themes in these parents’ talkabout their child’s sleep are ones that weheard frequently from American parents:the idea of innate characteristics asproducers of sleep problems and theexpectation that the child would outgrowit in the near future, the search for short-term solutions, problems with the standardadvice given by the pediatrician, and thestress that the child’s sleep patternscreated in the parents’ own lives. Allthese themes would probably seem naturalto most American parents: after all, howcould one think and respond otherwise?

For parents in some of our othercultural samples, however, these parents’problems would seem unnecessary, evenpuzzling. In our middle-class Swedishsample, for example, having the childsleep in the parents’ bed was a normativepractice that was carried on to much olderages than many American parents wouldbe willing to consider. For these parents,it would not be “a tough call” what to dowhen a young child cried in the middle ofthe night. For the Dutch parents westudied, there also seemed to be few“tough calls” because the whole issue ofinfant sleep was managed quitedifferently. As the Bloemenheim parentsexplained to us, establishing a regular,restful daytime schedule and ensuring thatthe child got plenty of sleep was really atthe core of good parenting. Thisphilosophy, known as the “three R’s” ofchild rearing (for Rust, Regelmaat andReinheid, or Rest, Regularity andCleanliness), was evident in parents’behavior with their children anddevelopment of sleep patterns from earlyinfancy.

Diaries parents kept on theirchildren’s daily schedules show that at 6

months of age, Bloemenheim babies weresleeping on average 2 hours more duringeach 24-hour daily cycle, and theirnighttime sleep was 1 hour longer than theAmerican sample. Bedtime was alsoearlier and more consistent, both forindividual children and across the sample.Differences between the samples becamesomewhat smaller with age, but were stillstatistically significant for children 4-5years old.

When I presented these findingsat the 1995 meeting of the AmericanAssociation for Advancement of Science(in a session on “Ethnopediatrics”), theensuing publicity made it immediatelyclear that sleep issues are a “hot topic” forparents in the US and worldwide.Suddenly, our research was being reportedby newspapers, radio ,TV and even in thecomic strips. What seemed to generate themost interest was the cross-cultural insightthat perhaps American middle-classparents contribute to this problem bycreating over-stimulating, irregulardaytime schedules that leave babies andyoung children so “jazzed up” that theyhave a hard time getting to sleep andsleeping through the night. Insight fromour cross-cultural research resonated withan increasing chorus of testimony aboutthe excessive demands of today’slifestyles in America, a problem thatparticularly affects middle-class workingfamilies because they are trying to carryout many agendas at the same time.

Cultural Models and Stress

So, what are these multiple agendasof American middle-class workingfamilies? From an anthropologicalperspective, they are cultural modelsrelating to children and the family, thebuilding blocks of parental ethnotheories.Such cultural models are not justrepresentations of the way things are, butmore importantly, what they ought to be.In other words, cultural models relating tothe self--of which parental ethnotheoriesare a prime example--have strongmotivating properties, both in instigating

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one’s own actions and in evaluating theresults. For American families facingmultiple demands from the externalenvironment and attempting to fulfill avariety of culturally shared cultural idealsof child rearing and the family, parentalethnotheories play a central role in thegeneration of stress.

Our research suggests that this canhappen in several ways. First, a culturalmodel may be difficult to instantiatesatisfactorily because of conflicts withparents’ other non-family obligations.The rise of the American concept of“special time,” for example, represents anattempt to deal with the conflict betweenthe cultural idea that parents should beavailable and responsive to the needs oftheir young children, and the reality oftime constraints for working parents.Ironically, the idea of special time seemsto have become so dominant that someparents seem to feel that all time withtheir children should be special, thuscreating even more stress.

Secondly, families may experiencestress when time constraints force achoice between two cultural models. Forexample, we have found Americanparents to be much more concerned withtheir children’s intelligence and thedevelopment of individual potential thanare the European and Australian parents.

American families are also concernedabout the quality of family life together,however. Given the time constraints ofworking middle-class families, manyactivities designed to promote children’sindividual development and achievementnow come into direct conflict with familytime. The result, as we have seen fromdiaries kept by the parents in our USsamples, is that family time must oftentake second place, while the parentsorganize themselves around taking theirchildren to various.

In a third cause of stress, parents mayalso instantiate a cultural model but at theexpense of the child’s well-being, as whenyoung children are kept up late for their

parents to have a chance to spend qualitytime with them after returning home fromthe day’s activities. Finally, there may bean inherent conflict between theinstantiation of various important culturalmodels, in the sense that their instantiationproduces contradictory developmentaleffects. We suggest, for example, thatAmerican babies’ sleep problems arecaused in part by a conflict betweenparents’ beliefs that children should beentertained with novelty and excitementduring the day, and the expectation thatthey should be self-regulated and calm atnight.

Transition To School

Parental ethnotheories play a key rolenot only in the organization of life athome, but also in such areas as school. Inall samples of our international study,parental ethnotheories of children’sbehavior and development areinstrumental in building parent-childroutines that contribute to the child’ssuccessful transition to school. Ourresearch also suggests that there is a highlevel of agreement between middle-classparents and teachers in each sample -higher, for example, than among teachersin the different cultural groups. Thisfinding is interesting given theconsiderable cross-cultural variation inparental beliefs and practices. There areapparently various routes to successfuldevelopment at home and school forchildren, although each has its trade-offs.The American focus on stimulation ofintellectual development and individualachievement, for example, can generate aculturally valued sense of excitement andmastery, but it may also provide a reasonfor American parents and teachers toworry more about children’s self-esteemthan is the case in other cultural samples.

As the cultural core of Americansociety today, middle-class workingfamilies are the leading creators ofparental ethnotheories that motivate,shape and evaluate parenting practices. Across-cultural anthropological approach,

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including multiple methods for studyingideas and behavior, is essential forunderstanding these cultural models andin so doing, achieving one ofanthropology’s central missions: tounderstand ourselves better.

Sara Harkness is Professor in the Schoolof Family Studies at the U of Connecticut,Storrs. Her current research involvesdirecting a 7-country study of parentalethnotheories, cultural practices andchildren’s transition to school. She iseditor, with Charles M Super, of Parents’Cultural Belief Systems: Their Origins,Expressions and Consequences (1996).

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Public Life, Public Good

By Dorothy Holland, Catherine Lutz and Don Nonini (UNC Chapel Hill)Anthropology Newsletter, March 1999 (pp 1, 4)

For the past 30 years, the US hasbeen undergoing considerable socialchange due to economic restructuringassociated with the rise of globalizationand post-Fordism. These changes havedislodged familiar material and symbolicconditions for American middle class lifeand have tested middle class commitmentsto the public good. With economicrestructuring, middle class families haveseen the wife and mother of the familyenter the labor force in greater numbers;they have participated in new forms ofwork--especially contingency or “temp”work--that make underemployment andoften unemployment an enduring realityfor many; and they have become sosuburbanized that long commutes are therule. At the same time, divorce, changingforms of relationship (such ascohabitation) and structures of intimacyand authority have reshaped manyfamilies.

Downsizing government has resultedin the “rollback” of public services andprivatization of governmentresponsibilities, and led to a shrinking“social safety net” with widespreadimpact on members of the middle classwith disabilities or without medicalinsurance. Changing models of howpublic and private institutions should“partner” have drastically changed healthcare institutions and even threaten toreshape public schools. The dividebetween the haves and have-nots isgrowing, leaving many middle classpeople anxious lest they or their childrenfall on the losing side of the divide. Forsome, increasing diversity has challengedthe white middle class sense ofentitlement to a certain set of race andethnic groups.

We discovered some of the effects ofthis restructuring on the middle class and

its approach to the public sphere whileworking on a comparative, collaborativestudy in North Carolina. Funded by theNational Science Foundation, we workedwith Enrique Murillo, Lesley Bartlett,Thad Guldbrandsen, Marla Frederick andKim Allen on five sites to compare theimpact of restructuring on communities,changing conceptions of the public goodand participation in public spheres.

Labyrinth of Images

Members of the American middleclass are trapped inside a labyrinth ofimages of what the “middle class” is--images of their own making and imagescirculated and shaped by the mass media.There is the “comfortable” middle classformed by the mutual fund shareholdersof booming 1990s Wall Street, butsupposedly ready to look out only afterNumber One, plus kith and kin. There isthe garrisoned middle class, fearful of“crime”--though putatively not itsperpetrators--and supportive of policiesthat have skyrocketed incarceration rates.There is the small entrepreneurial middleclass, celebrated as the “backbone” of theAmerican economy--shoe repairshopowners, owners of corner drug storesand Mom-and-Pop home-based Internetenterprises. There is the consumingmiddle class defined by advertisers whotarget it for its capacity to consume SportsUtility Vehicles, Walt Disney vacationsand Nike shoes. There is the middle classrepresented by the self-abnegating soccerMom, who fortifies the family internallyby her self-sacrifice. There is the imageof the middle-level manager of a Fortune500 corporation--whose stock is shootingskyward as thousands of its employees arelaid off--who wonders publicly whetherhe's next. And, from a distinctive mediasector, there is the middle class disgustedby the “immorality” of the President.

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Consistent with the mythic view ofthe nation as one epitomized by “ordinarycitizens,” the category middle class oftenhas more moral than economicconnotations. The middle class consists inthose who live a “normal” life inheterosexual families with one or twochildren, one or two cars, and one or twopets. North Carolinians who spoke with ususe “middle class” to talk about those whoare the core of a community's stable socialand economic life (the rich and poor comeand go), or to talk about those who are notin more exotic or suspect categories: forexample, good old boys, on the one hand,or university people, on the other. Thecategory also sometimes repels people ormakes them angry when it is misused.Thus, those who are one dollar beyondpoor but call themselves middle classangered one man (identifying with theworking class) who said he wished thatthey would retain a common identity andcause with other suffering people at thebottom of the heap.

Given this variety of cultural imagesof the middle class, many find themselvesin a state of anxiety over their ownrepresentation. The class's identity can becalled into question in another way aswell. Whereas the vast majority ofAmericans claim to be middle class, manyare aware of the downward mobilitydescribed by analysts as a statistically“shrinking middle class” in an “hourglass”squeeze. Those doing well in hi tech and“knowledge worker” fields may not be asconcerned about income and perceivedjob security. They may have little anxietyabout maintaining a middle class lifestyleand passing it on to their children. Yet,even the well-off pay a price for the risinglevel of consumption that defines beingmiddle class: long work hours,geographical uprooting, childcaredifficulties with two wage-earner parentsand sacrificing “home” time to longcommutes. Whether they see themselvesas better off, most are aware of others likethem who have been adversely affected bythe capricious processes of economicrestructuring. Who's in and who's out of

the middle class, therefore, becomes amajor source of anxiety.

Fate of the Public Good

These economic challenges andvaried uses of the term middle classintersect with politics in several ways.First, the norm of the middle class alsoincludes the idea that these people aremore central than most to the enactmentof civic virtue, or the making of acommon good or the public sphere. Theypossess the key elements believed to gointo that work--an education that allowsthem to think and speak well, a moralcompass that can stand in for that of thewhole society, and both time and money.The middle class, unmarked, is alsoracially specific in much discourse, likethe category American, as BracketteWilliams has pointed out; one mustspecify "the black middle class" to signifyotherwise.

Somewhat paradoxically, the middleclass in recent years has been decried aspolitically apathetic. Contests over publicresources--particularly environmentalresources, land uses and education—however, run counter to these attributionsof political apathy. We observed thatmany citizens and groups have worked tosecure their versions of the public good.In the case of “Citizens Unite,” residentsof a local valley designated as the futuresite of an asphalt plant devotedtremendous energy and time to organizingagainst the plant and for tougherregulations to protect their county’s airquality. In the “Durham Inner Village”case, a group of well-heeled citizensworked through public/privatepartnerships to renovate a section ofdowntown Durham. They envisioned howthe area might be converted from anunsafe, useless hangout for alcoholics,into an inner village--a park, ringed bynew homes and chic shops busy withstrolling consumers and resident families.Although they do not stand to profitfinancially from the development project,members of this group were excited to be

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movers in the “revitalization” of Durham.They were enthused by their own vision--nurtured by the new urbanism movement--of what the city could be.

Barriers to Participation

Constructions of the public-mindedcitizen leave out the probability thatconcepts of appropriate citizenship andthe public good are class- and race-marked. The active groups we studieddiffered by the class, race and other sociallocations that shaped the imaginations oftheir members. “New social movements”that inspired Citizens Unite and DurhamInner Village provide decidedly middleclass and white views of the public good.Mainstream environmentalism and newurbanism scarcely acknowledge fellowcitizens of lesser means and the groups westudied made few or relatively futilegestures to include racially diversemembers. Unlike working class groups,their visions leave to their own devicesthose who stand first in line to lose theirjobs, fall below the poverty line, lose theirhealth insurance, or find a landfill orasphalt plant located next door.

Many observers of American lifehave noted that Americans mobilizethemselves to go beyond their privatelives only under special circumstances--habitual "activists" are a small percentageof the American public. Compared withother nations, Americans are less likely tomake connections between their privateworlds and public ones. They are morelikely, for example, to see their personalwell-being changing independently fromsocietal well-being. They can argue thatthe country is sliding rapidly downhillwhile still seeing their own life on theupswing, or they can ignore the role of theGI Bill or other public subsidies--themortgage interest tax deduction, forexample-—as a factor which hasfacilitated their move into the middleclass.

Constructions of the middle class andpolitics also ignore barriers to democratic

participation. Our interviews withcitizens across our research sites turned upsuch obstacles. Active or not, everyonespoke of obstacles to living the ideals ofdemocratic life. Things that discouragethem from trying to effect change werequite predictable: Not enough time; notenough money; boring meetings; fear ofoffending others or simply being theobject of others' gaze; and the “dirty” oreven repulsive reputation of politics,which includes the perception that the fixis already in by the time “the public” isconsulted. More serious are the silencingeffects of the social distinctions of classand race. One woman never went to townmeetings because “when you get in there,and whenever you say something, theylook at you like ‘What are you doing?You ain't supposed to say nothing. Don'tsay nothing.’”

Some of the barriers to entering andremaking the public sphere relate toeconomic restructuring in ways thatpeople recognize. On an impassioned roll,one woman commented:

“I think that the past 20 years ofincome stagnation, which is, for me, andfor us, really led to a situation where bothmy spouse and myself have to work fulltime in order to have a reasonablestandard of living. I think that that veryfact has seriously served to squelch thekind of the level of communityinvolvement that's possible for people.And in paranoid moments, I wonder ifthat was intentional, that that was the planall along, to make sure that we're allworking like dogs so that nobody has thetime or the energy to translate their visioninto reality, except the people with a lotmore money than most of us have.”

Why Choices Matter

Relatively new conditions of jobs andwork define the day-to-day context inwhich middle class families are bothremaking what it means to be middle classand shaping American society for the 21stcentury. It is yet unclear which sources of

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identity and meaning middle class peoplewill choose to relate their family to thepublic good. Familiar cultural models andvalues of the middle class--the AmericanDream, forms of femininity andmasculinity, (putative) comfort withdifference, self-definition by work--haveno guarantee of durability at the turn ofthe century. Greater absorption inconsumer culture--self-definition bythings--is a possibility for the “new”middle class; so, too, is a preoccupationwith reproducing class standing or whiteprivilege and thwarting perceived threatsto middle class cultural capital. Howevermuch at odds it may seem to theinvestments of “class privilege,” there issubstantial middle class involvement inone or more of the new social movements.

Whatever source of identity andmeaning will predominate, middle classfamilies are developing personal andcollective political orientations that areshaping the course of the country. Itmatters to the social texture of Americansociety whether these families respond torecent social change by retreating intowalled communities or to a narrowersense of their community of reference. Itmatters to the environment whether thesefamilies remain enmeshed in a growingspiral of consumption. It matters tochildren whether their parents can managework, nurture them and at the same timeconnect them to a broader community. Asthe principal public of concern topoliticians and corporations, the middleclass will figure prominently--andsometimes loudly--in debates overimmigration, interpretations of, andremedies for, social inequality and thepossible demise of America's publicschool tradition.

Rather than resorting to conventionalmethods of survey research andqualitative analyses which constitute thebulk of studies on the middle class, wethink that these issues of the futuredemand more ethnography and moreinnovative ethnography.

Dorothy Holland, Catherine Lutz andDonald Nonini teach at UNC-Chapel Hill.Along with graduate students funded bythe NSF grant, “Estrangement from thePublic Sphere: Economic Change,Democracy and Social Division in NorthCarolina,” they are writing a booktentatively entitled, “DownsizingDemocracy.” Nonini is the author ofBritish Colonial Rule and Malay PeasantResistance, 1900-1957 (1992) and co-editor (with Aihwa Ong) of UngroundedEmpires: The Cultural Politics of ModernChinese Transnationalism (1997). Lutz isauthor of Unnatural Emotions (1988), co-author (with Jane Collins) of ReadingNational Geographic (1993) and author ofa work in progress entitled “War’sWages.” Holland is Chair of theDepartment of Anthropology at UNC-CH.Along with co-authors, she has justpublished Identity and Agency in CulturalWorlds (1999), and is completing asecond NSF-funded project, “Identity andEnvironmental Action: The USEnvironmental Movement.”

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Pillars of the Middle Class Community

By Madelyn Iris (Northwestern)Anthropology Newsletter, February 1999 (p 18)

Joseph Ragsdell Sr, 83, an appliancerepairman who worked two full-time jobsmuch of his life so he could support hischildren as well as the nieces and nephewshe raised for a sister died Sunday….[He]taught Sunday School for more than 40years. Mr. Ragsdell cared for his parentswhen they were alive and when a sisterdied, raised her 9 children along with hisown 9, said a daughter….’ He would walk3 or 4 miles to work so he could take hisbus fare and buy his children candy.

Though brief, Mr Ragsdell’s obituaryhinted at a life rich with relationships,filled with contribution and indicative ofthe sustaining role African Americanelders have played in the evolving life ofthe family. I didn’t know him, but his lifeexemplifies the values and characteristicsof a lifestyle repeatedly encountered inlife stories of the older adults whoparticipated in my study of aging inChicago.

Historical and Cultural Artifacts

In a city like Chicago, which hasundergone profound demographic shiftsover the last half century, the older adultpopulation represents an historical andcultural artifact of middle class workinglife. Although older adults representedless that 10% of the population only 20-30years ago, conservative estimates predictthat by 2050 more than 20% of the USpopulation will be over age 65. In urbancenters, the greatest growth will likely beamong African American and Spanish-speaking elders. Although impressive,these numbers mask the extreme diversityfound within the older population, andobscure the rich complexity of life andexperience elders embody. As parents andgrandparents, American elders havehelped shape the values and lifestyles oftoday’s middle class working families,

and in many instances still make directand important contributions to themaintenance and functioning of thesefamilies.

In 1990 the Chicago CommunityTrust, a major philanthropy, examined itsfunding priorities for older adultprograms. The Qualitative Study of Agingin Chicago, part of the multi-disciplinaryAging in Chicago Project, was anethnographic study of older adults livingin 5 distinct communities in the greaterChicago area. As project director, Iworked with a team of interviewers tocollect 256 interviews from 50participants (aged 55-91), exploring theirlife histories, social and family networks,health histories and beliefs about healthand aging, and their unique philosophiesabout aging. We focused on changeacross time in each of these domains, andespecially on the reciprocal relationshipslinking older adults to their communities.

Urban Pioneers

A remarkable picture of how olderfamily members continue to thrive withintheir communities emerged from ourstudy, illuminating the many ways eldersprovide a “buffer” of stability for theirchildren and grandchildren, theirneighborhoods and larger communityinstitutions, such as schools and churches.Stories told by 10 of our AfricanAmerican consultants were especiallyenlightening. These narratives not onlygave life and reality to the statisticsdocumenting demographic shifts, theyprovided in depth understanding of howfamily life has developed and changed ininner city environments. While most ofthese men and women were not what wewould call “middle class” in terms ofoccupations or incomes, their values,lifestyles and attitudes place them solidly

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within a middle class zone of aspirations.Almost all owned their own homes andover half had sent their children throughcollege, although they themselvesgenerally had only 8-12 years ofeducation.

As William Julius Wilson points out(The Truly Disadvantaged, 1987), untilrecently, distinctions between middle andworking class African Americans in innercity settings were blurred: professionalsand factory workers lived side by side,restricted to particular neighborhoods andoccupations by covertly institutionalizedracial discrimination. Many of the AfricanAmerican men and women weinterviewed illustrate this experience.Most lived in a south-side community inChicago notorious for its high levels ofpoverty, crime and family instability. Wechose this community specifically tointerview lower and poverty level incomeelderly. Thus we were surprised by ourparticipants’ stories about lives filled withwork, family and service to community.Almost all represented two-parentworking families, who balanced work andfamily responsibilities long before such alife-style became popularized as adistinctly middle class phenomenon.

While some worked to meet basicneeds, many whom we interviewed soughtto enhance their incomes to achieve ahigher standard of living--particularlyhome ownership--educationalopportunities for their children andrecreational outlets such as travel. Theyrelated their experiences as “urbanpioneers,” for these elderly African-Americans were among those residentswho moved to this community in the late1950s through the 1960s, when it was stilllargely populated by white, working andmiddle class families. Despite theprejudice and harassment manyencountered, they sought a more stableneighborhood in which to buy their homesand raise their families. They wereattracted by the tree-lined streets, solidbrick bungalows and two-flats, and the

neighborhood’s safe streets, parks,schools and churches.

Little of this stable neighborhoodremained at the time of our interviews.Many neighborhood streets were linedwith abandoned properties, claimed bydrug dealers and gangs, and parks weretoo dangerous to visit. Their own college-educated children had relocated to betterneighborhoods, often in the suburbs, inkeeping with their rising status as middleclass professionals and white-collarworkers. The elders we interviewed toldus of feeling “stuck” in theircommunities--yet still committed to them--and described their participation in blockclubs, local school councils and policedistrict advisory committees, andchurches.

Assets to Community Life

Contrary to persistent mythology,many middle class, working families arenot “stand alone” systems. Parents andgrandparents are considered importantfamily members and are often directcontributors to family resources. Theyrepresent assets, not drains, on communitylife. The African American elders weinterviewed fulfill important roles withintheir family systems, providing materialand non-material support: they maysupport their children’s financial andfamily stability, contribute to theeducation of grandchildren and assist withchildcare. They also strive to maintaintheir own financial stability andindependence, to ensure they will notbecome burdens to their children.Without them, their families andcommunities would lack the foundationalbedrock on which they stand. These eldersare indispensable to their social networksand life-styles they have engendered. Totruly understand the issues and challengesnow facing middle class working familiesin America, we cannot ignore theirextended connections with older familymembers who created the very networksand webs of relationships from whichthese younger individuals have emerged.

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Anthropology’s focus on changing socialstructures, household and kin relationsand functions, and particularly on themeanings of these across time and space,should not neglect the place of elders intheir family networks. The elderly do notconstitute a disjunctive, non-productive ornon-functional sector of American life:rather, they are important players in theevolving dynamic of a multiculturalsociety.

Madelyn Iris is an Associate Director atthe Buehler Center on Aging, AssistantProfessor in the Department of Medicineat Northwestern U Medical School, andAdjunct Assistant Professor in theDepartment of Anthropology. She is alsoDirector of Northwestern U EthnographicField School. Her work focuses onqualitative methods in evaluation of socialservice programs for the elderly, andproblem-based research in the clinicalsetting. The Qualitative Study of Aging inChicago was completed in 1995. Co-project director was Rebecca L HBerman. Iris’ most recent researchincludes an investigation of the long-termeffects of childhood sexual abuse on theelderly, and a study of how familiesdecide to seek early diagnosis ofAlzheimer’s Disease, using qualitativedecision modeling techniques. Relevantpublications include: “Berman and Iris,“Approaches to Self-Care in Later Life”(Qualitative Health Research, 1998); andIris and Berman, “Developing An AgingServices Agenda: Applied Anthropology’sContribution to Planning andDevelopment in a CommunityFoundation” (Practicing Anthropology,1998).

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“Others” Among Us

By Michael Jindra (Bethany Lutheran C)Anthropology Newsletter, December 1998 (pp 56, 54)

Why have anthropologists virtuallyoverlooked the influences of such majorsocial phenomena as the middle class andworking families? I am convinced thatpart of the reason is the social and culturaldistance between anthropologists andmiddle class culture. Whereas most of uswould put ourselves in the middle class,our values, ideas and lifestyles tend to besignificantly different from most of themiddle class. There is a major gapbetween our own social position and thatof the American public.

Few anthropologists seem to be ableto comment on middle class Americanswithout being flippant, dismissive andarrogant, an attitude that simply does notpass for legitimate engagement in thepublic sphere. Because anthropologiststend to be alienated from much of middleand working class cultures, these groupsare an “other” for us and deserve to betreated with the same respect that we givethe far-flung subjects of conventionalanthropological study. There is asignificant gap between traditionalpeoples worldwide, who tend to besocially conservative and religious, andanthropologists, who tend to be secularand individualist. While appreciating“traditional knowledge” in other cultures,we tend to deride it in our own. As aresult, we are most distanced andalienated from our own culture. Anyoneviewing this situation from afar wouldhave to conclude that it is theanthropologists who should be studied,since it is their beliefs and practices thatare most puzzling!

Dearth of Centrists

In a recent Newsweek column, GeorgeWill accused Richard Rorty of “loathingfor the real America” (May 25, 1998).Whatever the accuracy of Will’s

statement, it does indicate a publicrelations problem for the left. Most of the“public” scholars who have been takenseriously by the media (Robert Bellah andAmitai Etzioni, for example) come from aposition closer to the political center thanmost academics. Anthropology’sirrelevance comes about largely becauseof our failure to produce centrist scholarswho can write critically about and for thepublic.

Many of us are probably puzzled bysuch huge middle class cultures andphenomena as country music and stockcar racing, or the popularity of evangelicalChristian media, music and literature. Butit is to these cultures that we should turn,without bias, but as sympathetically as wewould approach any foreign culture.

Scholars who can get the public tolook at and rethink itself needencouragement, not consignment to themargins of the discipline. Much as wehave learned to establish “ethnographicauthority” by evoking sympathy andunderstanding for the “others” whom westudy, anthropologists will gain morecredibility with a skeptical audience whencriticizing other aspects of American lifeby pointing out the admirable aspects ofour own culture.

Formative Moral Narratives

There is no shortage of relevant,important issues for anthropologists tostudy in North America. The significantchanges in social structure that TomFricke pointed out in the articleinaugurating this year’s theme (“HomeWork,” October 1998 AN, p 1) have beenmatched by changes in the cultural lifeand ethos of the country. One way ofexamining this is to look at the narrativesand mythology that have formed our

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culture. For most of our country’s history,such biblical narratives as Abraham andIsaac, Saul and David, Jesus’ parables andthe Gospel narratives formed the moralframework for a majority of Americans.These stories gave meaning, showedexamples and were the almost-officialguiding principles of a nation intent ongreatness.

As the economic and technologicalpower of the country has grown, newnarratives have now begun to competewith and even replace the biblical lessons.The Wizard of Oz, Star Trek and StarWars, family sitcoms such as FatherKnows Best and Home Improvement, andthe Disney empire have become the newstorytellers witnessed by children andadults alike. The transition from biblicalto secular narratives is expressed by howthe big screen biblical epics of the 1950sand 1960s have been superceded byHollywood blockbusters like ET andTitanic, most of which likewise carrymoral messages which are sometimes atodds with the biblical epics.

My research focuses attention on theway the media now contribute to theconstruction of our worldviews.Specifically, I consider how averageAmericans understand the various StarTrek productions, how they reveal ourdominant, scientific and progress-orientedideology, and even more interestingly,how they point to new kinds of “quasi-religions” based in popular culture, andused by fans to give meaning to theirlives. Fan clubs, conventions, role-playand the Internet provide plenty ofopportunities for thick and thindescription.

Sense of Community

The electronic media have helpedindividuals form a sense of community inrecent decades. Countless stories tell ofstrangers finding a sense of commonalityin popular culture, especially throughshows like Star Trek, whose fans I havestudied since 1992. Cultural studies

scholars delight in pointing out howdifferent fan groups “poach” meaningsfrom the show, reinterpreting them to givemeaning to their own lives and issues.While this research is certainly credible, itsays little about the vast numbers ofAmericans who have made the variousStar Trek series among the most popularshows ever shown on television.

We can escape to alternativeuniverses like Star Trek and Disney—where we find release from the corporate,bureaucratic world dominating our lives—but, many of us are also looking formeaning. Although many still findmeaning through traditional organizationssuch as churches and volunteer or smallgroups, there are others who find itthrough media such as television andmovies. Disney and Star Trek offer viewsof the “good life,” a sense of ethics and avision of rights and responsibilities. Fanclubs exhibit this vision by specificallyadopting Star Trek philosophies such asIDIC (Infinite Diversity in InfinitiveCombinations) and the Prime Directive(non-interference in other societies).Americans have developed anindividualistic moral language based onmedia-influenced notions of what "seemsright" rather than on any institutional orlong-standing traditions. We pick andchoose, like good consumers, fromwhatever values appeal to our senses.

Although Americans are known fortheir individualism, Star Trek reinforcesthe American tradition of formingvolunteer organizations. One way forAmericans to meet their need to be bothautonomous and connected is through amedia-derived cultural production likeStar Trek. The experience can be enjoyedand discussed with other people, butviewers can still maintain their privatelives, "living" Star Trek at select,bracketed times. Fans “enter” the StarTrek universe (kept in videotapedcollections) whenever they watch theseries or role-play, and take thisexperience into the real world through fanclub charitable activities, thereby

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attempting to bring about the future thatStar Trek displays. Such mediaproductions/mythologies like Star Trek,which are freely available over theairwaves, allow us to find meaningfulnarratives to fulfill our lives as well asconnect, however superficially, with otherpeople.

Researchers have documented thatmodern consumers often have strongerattachments to media productions than tokin or local community networks. It isaround these media productions that manyconsumers devote large portions of theirlives. Meaning, commitment andsymbolism become centered onconsumption, play and leisure.Spirituality is sought through popularculture, which is dominated by visualmedia. In phenomena such as Star Trek,the cultural codes and meanings come notfrom practices, rituals or stories intendedfor particular localized audiences, butover the airwaves and across thousands ofmiles, to people from many places andcultures. What are the implications ofsuch momentous changes?

Reverse Tradition

Through our forays into other cultureswe can gain a perspective into theuniqueness of American middle classculture. The tremendous change oursociety has undergone is culturally,socially and economically unique, evenbizarre by the standards of many othercultures. Highlighting these changes andshowing their originality are among themost important things anthropologists cando. Because anthropology combines a“literary” focus on symbolism with asocial science methodology, it is betterplaced than either cultural studies orsociology to understand the tremendousshifts in contemporary middle class ethos.Moreover, anthropology allows to“bounce” the lessons of one culture offanother.

I submit that the traditionalanthropological wisdom of practicing

anthropology at home only to prepare forthe “real” thing overseas can be reversed.By studying overseas, we come tounderstand our own culture, and canreturn to do the “real” work here,involving ourselves in the public sphere ina way that we cannot do overseas. It isold news that it is the “natives” who arenow anthropologists.

Whereas studying death celebrationsin Cameroon was fascinating, outsiderstatus limited my ability and responsibilityto make recommendations for change.Continual cross-cultural juxtaposition isthe heart of our discipline, and essential toour future success and existence. But justas essential should be the study of ourown communities--especially middle andworking-class cultures--and theresponsibility to help cope with thetremendous changes occurring on our owndoorstep.

Mike Jindra is a cultural anthropologistat Bethany Lutheran C in Mankato, MN.He conducted his dissertation research inCameroon, on the key ritual festival calledthe “death celebration.” His research onStar Trek fans was originally published inSociology of Religion, 1994, 55(1):27-55.A revised version will appear in Religionand Popular Culture in America, J Mahanand B Forbes, eds. Jindra’s research hasbeen reported in such national forums asthe Washington Post and National PublicRadio. Jindra may be reached atmjindra@blc.edu.

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Let's Set the Agenda

By Louise Lamphere (U New Mexico)Anthropology Newsletter, February 1999 (pp 7-8)

The Alfred P Sloan Foundation hasfunded the AAA to develop a researchagenda for future investigation on themiddle class and working families. TheAAA held a conference in May 1998 anda policy forum at the Philadelphia annualmeeting to assess the state ofanthropological knowledge on workingfamilies and to begin thinking aboutfruitful areas for research. The next step isto set an agenda that squarely focuses onthe work/family nexus and develops aframework in which middle class workingfamilies are viewed in comparison withworking families in other class contexts.

Working families are distributedup and down the class structure, fromformer welfare mothers entering the workforce to well-off couples who may becorporate executives, lawyers and medicaldoctors. Working families are not allwhite. There are important segments, evenin the middle class, that need to bestudied: African American families,Spanish-surnamed families from PuertoRican, Cuban Mexican andHispano/Chicano backgrounds, and recentimmigrant families from Taiwan, Korea,India, the Philippines and a variety ofCentral and Latin American countries.

Anthropologists with theircommitment to comparison and the role ofculture in shaping family life, as well astheir expertise of US immigrantpopulations are in a unique position tomake contributions. Research by PatriciaZavella on Chicana cannery families,Sherrie Grassmuck and Patricia Pessar onDominican immigrants, and Nancy Foneron Jamaican nursing home attendants arejust three of a number of anthropologicalstudies that provide a beginning on whichto build an agenda that emphasizesdiversity, not homogeneity.

Transformation of Work

One of the most profound changes ofthe 20th century in the US has been theincreased labor force participation ofwomen. Women's employment is at anall-time high. Sixty percent of the 105million women in the US over the age of16 have a paid job, and 45% of allworkers are women. This trend, whichhas been on-going since the 1920s, plusthe decline in fertility and the increaseddivorce rate, has transformed the nature ofthe American family. Two job couples arethe most common family form, and thereare now a substantial number of workingfamilies headed by single mothers, as wellas some two-income families composed oflesbian or gay couples and their children.

For the past 20 years,Anthropologists, along with ourcolleagues in sociology and social history,have been at the forefront of studyingwomen's work and the increasing trend todual-income families in the US. Importantearly research on women's work inindustrial, clerical and service jobs hasbeen pioneered by Karen Sacks, SandraMorgen, Maria-Patricia Fernandez Kelly,Naomi Katz and Laura Lein. My ownteam research in Rhode Island andNew Mexico has focused on dual-incomefamilies, examining the impact ofwomen's labor force participation on thehousehold division of labor, childcarestrategies and the importance of kin andfriendship networks in supportingworking families.

The New Mexico research alsoexamined how the structure of workplacesand management policies--flex-time,rotating shift structures, health benefits,maternity leave rules--shape both familystrategies and women’s commitment totheir jobs. Our conclusion emphasized the

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amount of variability among families evenwithin ethnic groups and within theworking class. Although we found thatsome husbands are doing substantialamounts of housework or childcare, andsome plants instituted policies likeflex-time for a short period, there is stillwhat Arlie Hochschild called a “stalledrevolution” both at home and in the workplace.

To get a push forward, we needimportant policy changes in both publicand private domains: from higher qualitychild care, to increased job sharing foryoung parents, to a national paid familyleave policy.

A Process, Not a Thing

Although written 20 years ago, RaynaRapp's, “Family and Class inContemporary America: Notes towards anUnderstanding of Ideology” (Science andSociety 42, 1978) offers importanthistorical and theoretical insights.First, Rapp reminds us that “social class isshorthand for a process not a thing.” Weneed to understand the development ofclass positions in the US and look at theeconomic forces that shape the final yearsof the 20th century.

A second point made by Rapp isthat class formation is always in flux.Shifting frontiers separate poverty, stablewage earning, affluent salaries andinherited wealth. Using some vividimages, Rapp says that categories ofpeople get swept up at different times andplaces and deposited into differentrelations to the means of production andto one another. Then they get labeled bluecollar or white collar, as members ofethnic groups or races, as men or aswomen. Yet all these categories of peopleneed to be viewed in terms of theirspecific place in the history of capitalistaccumulation as it developed in the US.

From this perspective the nature ofthe middle class has always been achanging one. By the end of World War

II, independent artisans, shopkeepers andindependent professionals--the 19thcentury petty bourgeoisie--had vanished.Now the term middle class applies best toseveral different class segments. Onegroup includes employees who earnsteady, very high levels of income, andhave some form of accumulated wealth.In this group are corporate managers,upper-level government andorganizational bureaucrats, andprofessionals with PhDs, law, medical andbusiness degrees. Almost all work for bigbusiness, the state or semipublicinstitutions.

These well-paid and “upper-middleclass” employees contrast with anothersegment: middle managers, better-paidwhite collar workers and middle-incomeprofessionals such as, teachers, socialworkers, nurses, accountants. Clearly bothgroups earn salaries and benefits, but havedifferent abilities to build what Rapp callsa stable resource base that allows for someamount of luxury and discretionaryspending. Two used cars and a threebedroom house in a modest suburbconstitute a different class position from afamily that owns a house in the BerkeleyHills and vacation home at Lake Tahoe,has two children in private schools andtwo Lexus sedans in the garage.

Ideologically, the term “middle class”is loaded with positive rather thannegative value. There is a tendency in theUS to make the terms as inclusive aspossible. Most Americans identifythemselves as middle class, includingmany in a third segment: those who havehigh school or community collegeeducations, rent an apartment, own onecar and work in settings that might beconsidered blue collar, entry-level whitecollar or pink collar. I prefer to think ofthese Americans as working class, butcertainly their experience as dual-incomefamilies are important to study.Furthermore, there are ethnic and regionalvariations in class structure, and we needto keep in mind the differing ways thatgroups have entered the US--such as

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slaves, immigrants, refugees orpopulations incorporated throughterritorial conquest--and the evolution ofeach population through the 20th century.To signal this historical, regional andethnic complexity it is crucial to think interms of the “middle classes” rather than“the” middle class.

Agenda for Anthropology

This year I am affiliated with the U ofCalifornia, Berkeley Center for WorkingFamilies, directed by Arlie Hochschildand funded by the Alfred P SloanFoundation. The Center's focus is“Cultures of Care,” and the multi-class,comparative method being used byresearchers and pre-doctoral students is amodel for the kinds of researchanthropologists can do. Research fundedby this center range from studies onafter-school care for grade-schoolers in alocal multi-ethnic community, and nursesand their husbands from Kerala, India, toMexican immigrant families who worktogether in fast food restaurants.

Five issues should command theattention of anthropologists as weconstruct a research agenda: (1) the crisisin child care and after school care, (2) thetime-bind and advent of the overworkedAmerican, (3) the lack of substantialstructural changes in the work place toaccommodate working families, (4) theimpact of increasing class differentiationin the US and the growing downwardmobility of many middle classhouseholds, and (5) the impact oftechnology of the work/home nexus.

Child Care Crisis

Recent welfare reform has pushedmany mothers into the labor force creatinga huge new demand for child care at thesame time that low-paid child careworkers are leaving centers and home daycare because of burn-out and other jobopportunities. Despite the vast literatureon child care, there are fewparticipant-observation studies of child

care centers and home day care sites andlittle research on the lives of day careworkers and their own social movementsto improve working conditions.Anthropologists with their commitment toparticipant observation and intensiveinterviewing can fill in the gap andespecially look at the importantrelationships between womenprofessionals and less-highly paidemployees, on the one hand and femaleday care workers, on the other. The pointwould be to examine day care for familiesin a wide variety of ethnic populations aswell as for high income versus mediumincome families.

Time Bind and Work Place

Juliet Schor's The OverworkedAmerican (1991) tells us that men work49 hours a week and women 42, leavinglittle time for children. Arlie Hochschildsuggests some of the ways families handlethis stress (The Time Bind, 1997), but weneed to examine families who have hadsome success changing their workplace’sdemands on their time. We need morestudies of job sharing, part-timepossibilities and facilitated leave patterns.We need to know why companies give upon these policies as much as why someare successful. Examining both theobstacles and successes (probably takingshape at the local rather than nationallevel) could suggest ways of expandingour minimal family leave policy.

Downward Mobility

Even in this era of economicexpansion, two-income families areexperiencing corporate downsizing andrising educational costs which threatentheir children's ability to attain the sameclass position as their parents. As the “richget richer and the poor get poorer” weneeds more attention to what workingfamilies “squarely in the middle” aredoing to cope with rising housing costs,issues of care for their children and agingparents, and fading educationalopportunities for the next generation.

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Minority and immigrant families areparticularly important to consider as theydevelop culturally specific ways of copingwith this crisis, yet may be denied accessto standard sources of private andgovernmental support.

Technology Impact

Finally, there is increasing interestamong anthropologists to understand theimpact of technology on dual-incomefamilies. We need focus on technology asit relates to the work/family nexus. Acareful study of computer-aided work athome that contrasts women's and men'swork and family situations and examinesthe difference between insurance agentsand mail-order workers, for example,would get at the important variabilitybeing forged as more Americans use theirhomes as work places. An examination ofthe historical and anthropological researchon the history of homework would add animportant perspective as well.

Anthropologists have a long historyof research on women's work anddual-income families, and are now poisedto make more significant impact in thiscritical area of American life. With ourinterest in immigrant and minoritypopulations as well as our commitment toparticipant observation and intensiveinterviewing we can provide insights intothe dynamics of this changing arena offamily life as well as make concretepolicy recommendations.

Louise Lamphere is currently a VisitingSenior Researcher at the CenterforWorking Families (UC Berkeley). She is aprofessor of anthropology at the U of NewMexico and President-Elect of the AAA.She has published From WorkingDaughters to Working Mothers (1987)and Sunbelt Working Mothers, withPatricia Zavella, Felipe Gonzales andPeter Evans (1992).

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Flexible Survivors

By Emily Martin (Princeton U)Anthropology News, September 1999 (pp 5-7)

There are signs that mental conditionsinvolving constant shifting in time andspace, emotionally or cognitively--namelymanic-depression and Attention DeficitHyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)--havebeen undergoing a dramatic revision inAmerican middle class culture, frombeing simply dreaded liabilities, to beingespecially valuable assets that canpotentially enhance one's life in theparticular social and cultural world nowinhabited by many middle classAmericans. To understand this change, Iturn to the social concept of the “person,”long a mainstay of anthropologicalanalysis, a concept that is central to theearth-shaking changes many middle classAmericans are now undergoing. AsMarcel Mauss made clear, what it meansto be a person is deeply embedded in itssocial context, and highly various overtime and space. A particular kind ofperson, the “individual,” seen as owner ofhimself and his capacities, rather than aspart of a social whole, has been prominentin Euro-American culture since 17thcentury liberal democratic theory.

The Disciplined Person

What it means to be owner of oneself,however, has involved very differentdegrees of control over the boundariesaround the self in different historicalperiods. In the first half of the 20thcentury, for example, a premium wasplaced on discipline and control becauseof the requirements of work in industrialsettings. The moving assembly line withits dedicated machinery was oriented toefficient mass production and, eventually,to profitable mass marketing. Corporateorganizations were hierarchicallystructured bureaucracies whose idealemployee was passive, stable, consistentand acquiescent. The stress was placed onstability and solidity: Sherry Turkle

observes that, “earlier in this century wespoke of identity as ‘forged.’ Themetaphor of iron-like solidity captured thecentral value of a core identity” (1995).

The Adapting Person

Since the 1970s, rending political andeconomic changes have begun to makethemselves felt in the US. These changeshave important implications forunderstanding contemporary concepts ofthe person. The internationalization oflabor and markets, growth of the serviceeconomy and abrupt decline ofredistributive state services have meantthat the fabric of the world has becomesubstantially rewoven. In the US,concentration of wealth and income at thetop of the social order is more extremethan at any time since the depression,while poverty has grown correspondinglydeeper. Successive waves of downsizinghave picked off, in addition to thedisadvantaged, significant numbers ofpeople from occupations and classesunaccustomed to a dramatic fall in theirprospects and standard of living. Theimperative to become the kind of workerwho can succeed in extremely competitivecircumstances has intensified, while thestakes at risk for failing have greatlyincreased. As one sign of the unforgivingnature of the way increased competition isexperienced, references to the “survival ofthe fittest” have increased exponentially inthe news media every year since 1970.

The factory which has often served asboth a laboratory and a conceptual guidefor understandings of human behavior, isalso changing. The hierarchical factory ofthe mass production era, with its workerdrones, is being replaced (mostly in theelite sectors of the global economy) withnew forms: machines that processinformation and communicate with self-

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managed workers, who are in turninvested with greater decision makingpowers. Corporations are flatteninghierarchies, downsizing bureaucracies,enhancing their corporate “culture,”becoming nimble and agile to survive inrapidly changing markets. They seekorganization in the form of fluid networksof alliances, a highly decoupled anddynamic form with great organizationalflexibility. Workers and managers are“evolving” with the aid of self-study,corporate training sessions and aninsistence on self-management when theyare lucky enough to be employed inside acorporation, and then aggressiveentrepreneurialism during the frequentperiods they are now expected to spendoutside. The individual is still owner ofhimself, but the stakes have risen and theyare ever changing.

Given this procession of dramaticchanges on many social, cultural,economic and political fronts, whatconcepts of the ideal person will beenabled by and enable these conditions?As the mechanical regularity avidlysought from the assembly line workergives way to the ideal of a flexible andconstantly changing worker, what willhappen to the value previously placed onstability and conformity? Some answers tothese questions have been suggested byJaques Donzelot. What Donzelot calls“changing people's attitudes towardchange” has made its appearance inFrance through the legal right of everyworker to “continued retraining”: peopleare thought to require an active attitudetoward change, from childhood to old age.The individual consists in potentials to berealized and capacities to be fulfilled.Since these potentials and capacities taketheir shape in relation to the requirementsof a continuously changing environment,their content--and even the terms in whichthey are understood--are also in constantchange. The person is made up of aflexible collection of assets; a person isproprietor of his or her self as a portfolio.In the 1990s, there has been an increase in“home based work,” based on

telecommuting or the “You, Inc”phenomenon. People with the resources todo so think of themselves as mini-corporations, collections of assets that onemust continually invest in, nurture,manage and develop. There is a sense asthe nation-state yields its prominence inworld affairs to the multi-nationalcorporation, that the individual movesfrom being a citizen, oriented to theinterests of the nation, to being a mini-corporation, oriented primarily to itsinterests in global flows of capital.

Manic Style

It might seem a long reach fromworkers in constant change topathological mental conditions involvingconstant change, such as manic depressionor ADHD. But an anthropological conceptof culture encourages us to look acrosscultural domains as well as within formeaningful comparisons and contrasts.The lability associated with these mentalconditions has often been linked withcreativity and perhaps for this reason, theyare becoming highly fascinating inbusiness, educational and popular culture.For example, ADHD has begun to appearas an asset in books for businessentrepreneurs; manic-depression,frequently loosely associated withtormented geniuses, has begun to occupythe best seller list in the form of memoirsand novels. Personal confessions by therich and famous, especially in Hollywoodand on Wall Street, who reveal theirADHD or manic-depression, abound.Both conditions have recently beenflooding the press, best seller list andairwaves.

In popular culture, representations ofthese two conditions appear to be in theprocess of redefinition from being adisability to a strength. In each case, thequalities praised fit perfectly with the kindof emergent self Donzelot described:always changing, scanning theenvironment, dealing with all aspects ofthe interface with the outside in creativeand innovative ways. For ADHD, praise

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for the continuously changing person canbe seen in the books, newsletter andInternet organizing of Thomas Hartmann.One of Hartmann’s books on ADHD,Focus Your Energy: Hunting for Successin Business with Attention DeficitDisorder (1993), is usually shelved withthe business books. A hunter's “strongsense of individualism, high creativity,and the ability to be a self-starter” makesuch a person far more able to start his orher own company than non-ADHD people(p 56).

In manic-depression, redefinitionfrom a liability to an asset can be seen inthe writings of a psychiatrist Kay Jamison,who with her recent memoir, An UnquietMind (1995), “came out” as manic-depressive herself. In her previous andcurrent writing Jamison takes great painsto describe the positive aspects of manic-depression alongside the negative:echoing the good traits of ADHD, manic-depression entails a “finely wired,exquisitely alert nervous system.” Thesethought processes are characteristic of themanic phase: “fluency, rapidity, andflexibility of thought on the one hand, andthe ability to combine ideas or categoriesof thought to form new and originalconnections on the other...rapid, fluid, anddivergent thought” (p 105). Beyond theseexamples, what might be called “manic(or hyper) style,” a style that draws on the“mania” in manic-depression and the“hyper” in ADHD, is appearing on allsides, from Jim Carey and Ted Turner,who are self-acknowledged manic-depressives, to “Seinfeld's” CosmoKramer and Virgin Inc's Richard Branson,who are not. A Rockport ad featuresmonolinguist Spaulding Gray sprawled ina chair, hair standing out electrically,claiming “I'm comfortable with mymadness.” Ted Turner appears in theSaturday Evening Post in a pair ofphotographs. In one he is a business man,lecturing soberly behind a podium with acorporate logo, and in the other he is awild-eyed ship's captain, fiercely grippingthe wheel at the helm of his yacht. Thecaption notes that Turner's competition

should be warned: he has stopped takinghis Lithium (and so might well be about tolaunch a manic--and profitable--newventure).

In general, the qualities of the “manicstyle” fit well with the kind of personfrequently described as highly desirable incorporate America: always adapting byscanning the environment for signs ofchange, flying from one thing to another,while pushing the limits of everything,and doing it all with an intense level ofenergy focused totally on the future. Anad campaign currently running for Unisyscaptures both the multiple tasking and theunremitting energy of the manic style inits images of a computer monitor-headedman who designs a system to reportelection results for the city of Rome whilehe golfs, another who fixes problems withAmadeus, the leading global travelreservation system, while ski jumping,and a woman who reduces the timeneeded to process welfare applications inCalifornia while lounging companionablyon the couch with her husband. In eachcase, the Unisys employees have acomputer monitor instead of a head, andon the screen flash changing scenesrelated to the work that preoccupies themwhile they are golfing, skiing or relaxing.

Are certain forms of irrationality,which are in fact an intrinsic part of dailylife in late capitalism, emerging intovisibility in popular culture? Perhaps theirrationality of the market (and what youhave to do and be to succeed in it) is beingmore openly recognized and “rationalchoice” is being seen as dependant on“irrational” impulses and desires. Theexcess in Ted Turner as capitalist andyacht captain (depicted and experiencedas talent) would then contain signs ofapprehension: greater knowledge of whatcapitalism entails and greater fear of whatit may require of people. The captionunder the two photographs of Turner inthe Saturday Evening Post ends on afearful note: Turner's father, likeHemingway's, committed suicide - raisingthe implied question: will Turner end his

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life by suicide as did Hemingway? A newanalysis of the workings of late capital iseven called One World Ready or Not: theManic Logic of Global Capitalism(William Greider, 1997). It is filled withreferences to “manic capital,” oscillatingwith depression, and the calamitousconsequences of both. The recent dropand rapid recovery of the stock exchangein October 1997 inspired a flurry ofdomain crossing remarks, in newspapers,such as: “If Wall Street were a personwe'd think he was mentally ill.”

It remains to be seen what kinds ofdistinctions will be made as the discursivespace around the categories “mania andhyper-activity” open up. Will two kindsof mania and hyper-activity emerge: a“good” kind, harnessed by RobinWilliams, Ted Turner and the successfulworkers at Unisys; and a “bad” kind towhich most sufferers of manic-depressionand ADHD are relegated? In this case,even if the value given to the “irrational”experience of mania and hyper-activityincreases, validity would yet again bedenied to the mentally ill, and in fact theirstigmatization might increase. After all, ifthey have, by definition, the ability to bemanic or hyper-active, and if that abilitycomes to be seen as an important key tosuccess, then why are they so often socialand economic failures? Or, will thepresence of a “manic style” in popularculture reduce the stigmatization of manicdepression and ADHD? Now that he is anacknowledged manic-depressive, couldRobin Williams' performances as a standup comic contribute to moving thecategories mania and hyper-activity awayfrom being wholly stigmatized, becausehis performances give pleasure, bringrewards and in their inventiveness,produce forms of value? Do his funny,madcap antics present mania and hyper-activity to us as valuable intellectualproperty?

An anthropological approach tounderstanding changes in the concept ofthe kind of person one must become tosurvive as we approach the millennium

promises to shed light on changes in thevaluation of mental conditions and evenrationality itself. In turn, these insightsmay well have implications for ourunderstanding of ideals being sought inmany cultural domains, such as models ofchildhood development, education, work,personality and intelligence.

Emily Martin is professor of anthropologyat Princeton U. She is author of TheWoman in the Body: A Cultural Analysisof Reproduction (1986) and FlexibleBodies: Tracking Immunity in AmericanCulture from the Days of Polio to the Ageof AIDS (1994).

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The Mobile Middle Class

By Karen Fog Olwig (U of Copenhagen)Anthropology Newsletter, November 1998

Life trajectories amongst the middleclasses often involve a great deal ofphysical mobility. Indeed, if migration isdefined as the act of moving “from onecountry, place or locale to another,” themiddle classes are among the most activemigrants in the modern world. In myresearch on two family networks ofmiddle class Caribbean background I havemade such mobility, and the extensivefamily networks to which it gives rise, theorganizing framework of my study. Thishas led to interesting new theoretical andmethodological approaches to studies ofthe working middle class.

Migration is an inherentlygeographical phenomenon and thus itseems natural to study it in terms ofmovement from one place--usually in theperiphery of metropolitan societies--toanother, usually in a metropole. In thecase of the Caribbean this form ofmigration study has typically beenconcerned with movement from aparticular island to a Caribbean ghetto in ametropolitan city. This approach,however, has a way of privileging thestudy of social groups who, for economicreasons, tend to be forced to live in suchghetto areas, or who actively seek thecultural security provided by ghettoenvironments as a means of reconstitutinglocalized home communities abroad.Such an approach means, that one tends tofocus on people who form the lowerclasses in the metropole, and the “folk” inthe places from which they haveemigrated.

Complexity of MigratoryMovements

Migration of Caribbean people doesnot necessarily stop when they reach theirfirst migration destination. As migrantsbecome established in the receiving

society they move to more attractivehousing areas and job opportunitieslocated outside the immigrantenvironment. Such mobility occurs mostrapidly among migrants of middle classbackground, because they have had abetter social, economic and educationalbasis for making such moves.

Interviews with more than 50 adultsin two middle class family networks -approximately half born in the Caribbean- reveal varied patterns of mobility, bothout of the Caribbean, within the receivingsocieties and back to the Caribbean. Allthose born in the Caribbean have spentextended periods of time outside theirnative island society, some having settledabroad permanently. Initially most movedto major migration destinations such asLondon, New York City and Toronto.Today, however, they and their grownchildren born abroad, have moved to moreup-scale mixed, or mainly whiteneighborhoods, if they have not left theurban centers entirely. New York City, forexample, which was an importantmigration destination during the 1950sand 1960s, was virtually abandoned by the1990s. The one person who remained in1997 was in the process of moving to herdaughter in Nova Scotia. Those whostayed in the US now live in a number ofdifferent states, including Florida, NorthCarolina, Texas, California and NewJersey, as well as up-state New York.

Life Stories

As a result of these movements, thetwo family networks comprise vast socialfields of relations, which are maintainedprimarily by such means as telephonecalls, the internet and Christmas cards.Certain relatives also visit each otherperiodically, and many relatives arebrought together on special occasions

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such as weddings or funerals. Widerfamily relations therefore are notsustained by daily social interaction, butthrough various forms of long-distancecommunication which may range fromchats about everyday occurrences andgossip about the whereabouts of particularrelatives, to mutual recollections of pastfamily events. Since family relationswere, to a great extent, based on verbalexchanges it was rather natural forindividuals to talk about the family, whenI arrived to do my interviews.

As a primary fieldwork method, Iused life story interviews whereindividuals were first asked to relate theirlife story and then, during follow-upquestions, to elaborate on certain aspectsin this life story as well as other pertinenttopics. Life stories provide usefulinformation on the welter of occurrencesand relationships which characterize mostpeople's lives. More importantly,however, they are cultural constructionswhich follow certain established normsconcerning what kind of a life thenarrators deem credible and sociallyacceptable. When people relate their lifestories, I therefore obtain data on the sortof movements they have undertaken in thecourse of their lives, the socio-culturalorder which they established in their lifestories and their understanding ofthemselves in this order. Because lifestories are related in social fields of familyrelations, it is possible to let the stories,shed light on one another--both in termsof the information provided and thesignificance which the wider, non-localframework of relations may have had forthe narrators.

Mobility and Family Life

Anthropologists have questioned theviability of “traditional” anthropologicalresearch methods, such as participantobservation, when studying middle orupper class families who regard the homeas a private domain to which thefieldworker does not gain easy access.My research suggests that the privacy of

the middle class home may be mostclearly demarcated in relation to the localneighborhood which is primarilyinhabited by "strangers", and lessintensely guarded when the researcherenters via the wider, non-local familysphere. Thus I have been welcomed inmiddle class homes in ways that wouldnot have been possible had I been a localresident. I have, for example, beeninvited to stay in a number of familyhomes during my research journeys.

Non-local social fields of relations,such as family networks, constituteimportant social and cultural contexts oflife for the working middle classes, andthey therefore need to be explored. Bysituating fieldwork in such networks it ispossible to delineate the variegatedmovements which are an integral part ofmiddle class life today. It may also bepossible to gain access to more privatecontext of life such as the home whichoften guards against intrusions from thelocal community.

Karen Olwig's research is part of a largerresearch program "Livelihood, Identityand Organisation in Situations ofInstability" which is supported by theDanish Council of Development Research.

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Mastering the Art of Retirement

By Joel Savishinsky (Ithaca College)Anthropology Newsletter, October 1999 (p 15)

Being contradictory in modernAmerica is no longer a monopoly of theyoung. While older people commonly liketo be thought of as wise, for example,some take a perverse pride in openlyquestioning their own wisdom. AlanFreudenberg liked to tease himself, andothers, with this kind of humor. He hadspent much of his adult life teachinggovernment and civics at the local high-school, and devoted years of after-schoolhours to the planning board of hisvillage’s Common Council. He advocatedlearning from the past, assessing thepresent and managing the future. Butwhen it came to preparing for his ownretirement, he reflected on what he called“the fallacy of mis-placed prudence,”proclaiming that “life is what happenswhile you’re out making plans.”

Novel “Stage” of Life

At the age of 63, Alan became one of26 participants in a longitudinal study ofretirement that my students and I havebeen conducting in Shelby, a ruralcommunity in upstate New York. Usingmethods of participant-observation,semi-structured interviews and life-storyanalysis, we are following a group of 13women and 13 men as they anticipate andexperience the early stages of this periodof life. We began to work with thesepeople 6 to 8 months before their formalretirement, first interviewing them aboutwhat they expected their lives to be likeafter leaving full-time work, thenparticipating in and observing theirretirement rituals. We now meetperiodically to follow the changes in theirlives.

Underlying this research is a view ofretirement as a process rather than singleevent. The magnitude of this humanexperience is also rooted in the fact that

retirement itself--as a novel “stage oflife”--has created a new American modelof the life course. Furthermore, becauseour society lacks norms for structuring thetransition into this later phase of maturity,people end up making the passage indifferent ways. One critical variable is theextent to which individuals plan, orbelieve in planning for, their transition outof the work force. We found contrastingapproaches to this process. Some retirees,the “Zen Masters,” emphasize an attitudeof unscheduled openness andunformulated expectations to what thefuture might bring; while others, the“Master Planners,” stress a carefullythought-out agenda of activities, resourcesand priorities around which to organizeretired life.

Master Planners

The first time I met Ed Trayvor wasin the comfort of his study. As his wifeHarriet served tea, Ed tried to serve upanswers to my questions about what heexpected from his forthcoming retirement.He started several answers, but droppedeach in mid-sentence, and then said,“Wait. I’ll show you.” He left the room,and returned with a long legal pad, whichhe placed in my lap. On it were 4 pages ofneat, densely packed handwritten notesthat comprised a detailed list of all thethings Ed did (and did not) want to dowhen he left work the following month.Intending to avoid boring meetings andequally boring people, and abjuring thedry professional literature from his careeras a lawyer and fund-raiser, the positivepart of Ed’s ledger mentioned: devotingmore energy to public service, gettinginvolved in community education,spending more time with grandchildren,and refitting the sailboat. “You need tohave a plan,” he emphasized, using thesame word that other retirees have

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invoked, “otherwise life gets away fromyou. You wake up, and hours, days, awhole week is gone. . . and you don’tknow what happened to them. I’ve waitedtoo long to do too many things to let thathappen.”

This proclamation was not couched inthe form of a complaint. At 64, Edacknowledged a good life so far, butbecause he felt he had deferred a numberof gratifications, he had taken greatpleasure compiling a list of what he hopedto enjoy next. It had made the last 12months of work go quickly.

A year later, when we took stock ofthe first phase of retired life, Ed took pridein his progress report. Pulling out the padagain, he spoke about his recent electionto the local school board, the tedious (andindecisive) people he no longer had to sitacross from in professional meetings, andthe summer weekends spent on the lake.“Look,” he confessed, “there are still lotsof things I haven’t gotten to, I know. Butit’s a start. We’re under way.” What madeEd happy was not some claim that the listhad been completed, but that the planitself was working.

Zen Masters

For other people, the prospect ofretirement yields a radically differentpicture, one that is clear but empty,list-less but not pointless. Close tofinishing a long phase of adult lifecharacterized by work, schedules, familycommitments or other domestic andcommunity responsibilities, theseindividuals do not want retirement to befilled in--before it has barely begun--withscripts, agendas or padfulls of prioritiescrowded with other people’s figures anddutiful details. They have decided to plannot to plan.

One who embraced this approach wasSandra Golecki, a retired 68 year-oldmusic educator who spoke of “theexcitement of emptiness.” Settled into thecomfort of a Bach cantata and her living

room couch one morning, Sandra reachedto a shelf behind her, and pulled down alarge artist’s sketchbook. Instead ofanother detailed list, she turned back thecover and proudly displayed a completelywhite surface. Fanning her fingers overthe vacant paper she said, “retiring was anunexpected invitation, something akin tothe childhood dream of walking through ahidden door and stepping into. . . what?. . .some strange, magical land.”

Sandra did not have a lot of supportfor taking the step into retirement in thatspirit of wonderment. Her co-workers didnot question her decision to retire, butthey were puzzled--some to the point ofdisbelief--that in leaving work she wasalso effectively leaving music. It was notthat she disliked music, but she was tiredof building her life around it. In recentyears, teaching had turned predictable andrepetitious, the educational bureaucracyincreasingly petty and irritating, and toomany of her colleagues wrapped up incommittees, gossip and their smalltriumphs and defeats. As she approachedthe decision to retire, Sandra recallssaying to herself: “Yes. Music iswonderful. But there has to be more to lifethan this.”

The thoroughly unmusical andunacademic nature of what Sandra gotengrossed in surprised even her: instead ofcreativity, pedagogy and performance, shegot hooked on polo and politics. Bothdevelopments emerged within the firstfew months. A neighbor invited her to apolo match, where Sandra quickly becamefascinated and soon found herselfengrossed and engaged in a part of life,and a social circle, she had never dreamedof stepping foot in before.

Politics surfaced when she suddenlyremembered a promise she had oncemade, that when the time and opportunitycame, she would try to understand herown political past. By the one-year markof her retirement, she had attended aconvention and was giving seriousthought to getting involved in the next

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year’s election. “If you’re open to life,”she reflected, “this is the kind of thing thathappens.”

Method in the Madness

The point of these two tales is not somuch the merit or purpose of polo orpolitics, community service or sailing, orwhether people’s pursuits are new,resurrected, deferred or newly discoveredforms of gratification. Rather, it is therealization that the “method in themadness” for some people lies in notplanning, whereas for others thesatisfaction lies in knowing that the routeand itinerary are clearly laid out, that thereare known and worthwhile goals to bepursued.

The distinct strategies that Sandra andEd represent are, admittedly, those ofmiddle-class people who have givenretirement a good deal of thought. Theyhave made conscious, albeit differentdecisions, about how to handle it. Buttheir positive experiences indicate thatthese alternative approaches work equallywell for different people, given thedistinct kinds of values, work histories,role models and family circumstances thatthey bring to this new stage of life. As asizable body of research has now shown,most Americans do not engage inextensive preparations for retirement, andyet they find this transition to be relativelyuntraumatic. As the retirees of Shelbysuggest, all roads may or may not lead toRome, but there are several that lead intoretirement.

Joel Savishinsky is the Charles A DanaProfessor in the Social Sciences at IthacaCollege, where he teaches in theDepartment of Anthropology and theGerontology Institute. His most recentbook, The Ends of Time: Life and Workin A Nursing Home (1991), won theGerontological Society of America’sKalish Award for Innovative Publishing.This article is based on research fundedby a grant to the Gerontology Institute atIthaca College and by a Fellowship from

the National Endowment for theHumanities. Other aspects of this projecthave been described in his publications:“The Unbearable Lightness ofRetirement: Ritual and Support in AModern Life Passage,” Research onAging (17,3,1995); and “At Work, AtHome, At Large: The Sense of Person andPlace in Retirement,” North AmericanDialogue (3,1,1998).

Sherry, March 1999

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Real Work

By John Sherry (Intel Architecture Labs)Anthropology Newsletter, March 1999 (pp 19-20)

As new technologies invade all ourlives – from inside our own homes to themost remote and exotic locales –anthropology is uniquely suited to helpprovide a better understanding of theeffects. Consider, for instance, thefrequent assertions that computers and theInternet are tools for “access toinformation” and inherent forces fordemocratization. How are we to assesssuch claims?

I am a member of an interdisciplinaryteam—which includes twoanthropologists--engaged by IntelCorporation, the company that makesmicroprocessors found in most personalcomputers (PCs). We are ostensiblyemployed to identify “new uses and newusers” of computing power, but ourresearch is almost inherently a criticalprocess – we find ourselves constantlychallenging the assumptions andperspectives of technology designers. Weventure out to homes, businesses,playgrounds, shop floors, public spacesand anywhere else where we can gatherthe insights that lead to a betterunderstanding of people and technology.

Production vs Access

Research among American smallbusinesses, for example, highlighted asurprisingly different situation than the“access to information” mantra suggests.We have found that PCs are mostcommonly used not to access information,but to produce information–informationrequired by powerful outsiders (bank loanofficers, government regulators, industrystandards bodies). As such, PC usetypically falls into the class of what morethan one small business operator called“shit work.” This is opposed to the “realwork,” which involves satisfyingcustomers, creating products or providing

the services that are considered the heartof the organizational mission.

When I first encountered thisideological construction of “realwork”/“shit work” and the relations ofpower implicated in the use of computingtechnology, I was struck by its similarityto what I had encountered in my ownresearch with a community-based Navajoorganization. There, too, computer usewas implicated in acceding to thedemands of powerful, non-localinstitutions. The ideology of what countsas “real work” stands as an issue to befurther explored cross-culturally. Fromthe perspective of technological design, itopens a whole range of discussions abouthow to better support what people valuemost in the practice of work.

Technology and Aesthetics

Perhaps even more than personalcomputers, the Internet has become thefocus of intense ideological posturing andgreat controversy. It is clear that, fromthe point of view of the people whocontribute to this vast electronicjuggernaut, there is no single “Internet.”The Internet is a product of the multipleorientations, agendas, goals and behaviorsthat people bring to Web pages, Usenetnewsgroups and list servers (to name butthree examples). These worlds are whatwe make of them to a degree that is fareasier to recognize than with physicalenvironments. This fact alone isinteresting for enhancing culturalecologists’ understanding of commonproperties.

Yet, the Internet is not quite as “freeof space and time” as popular discourseoften asserts. It is grounded inunexpected ways. We recently conducteda short study of workers in New York’s

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“Silicon Alley,” San Francisco’s“Multimedia Gulch” and the “DigitalCoast” of Los Angeles. The hip, creativeand technologically savvy young peoplewe encountered in each of these areasfrequently saw themselves--explicitly orinexplicitly--as engaged in a kind ofmarriage of technology and aestheticdesign that harkens back to the artistengineers of the Renaissance. More thanthat, however, we were struck by howimportant local communities of practicewere in shaping professional identities anddesign sensibilities. Web developersparticipated in local listservs, membershiporganizations and various events at whichthey swapped information about design ortechnology, forged collaborativearrangements and negotiated intenselytheir personal and collective identities as“new media professionals.” Theirencounters and relationships in physicalspace frequently spilled over into theirdesign work in cyberspace.

Real Value to Real People

As these examples suggest, our workat Intel often involves adopting a criticalperspective. Technological design alwayscarries assumptions about potential endusers. Our work thus includes sensitizingengineers to the values, activities andperspectives of the people for whom theyare designing, so that our products mightactually provide real value to real people.Part of the fun of this is communicatingour research to non-specialists, who aresurprisingly receptive and appreciative.

Some may see this endeavor as“straining the gnat and swallowing thecamel”–that is, engaging in pointedcritiques of particular technologicaldesigns while failing to critically engagethe broader goals of the corporation orcapitalist system as a whole. Our work isthus not without some dilemmas andanxieties, such as balancing the desire tobe relevant with the desire to be true toour personal and professional values. Wetake some cold comfort in hearing from

academic colleagues that these dilemmasare not unique to our situation.

As academic job markets tighten, it isinevitable that many qualityanthropologists will be forced to lookelsewhere for work. For those willing toexert a little extra effort in translatingethnographic research into various “localvernaculars,” there are many alternatives.The high tech industry is one suchalternative, where an audience is alreadycalling for a more thorough ethnographicunderstanding of how new technologiesare affecting our lives.

John Sherry is a member of the End UserResearch Group in Intel ArchitectureLabs, Hillsboro, OR. His article“Ethnography in Internet Time” willappear in an upcoming issue ofAnthropology of Work Review. He maybe reached at john.sherry@intel.com.

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Housing the Good Life

By Nicholas Townsend (Brown University)Anthropology Newsletter, January 1999 (pp 1, 4)

Home ownership is the definingaspiration and sign of membership for themiddle class in the United States. Homesare worked for and worked on--they areboth valuable and valued--but homeownership also ties the middle class into asystem of employment and consumptionthat has profound contradictions. Homes,the sites of class reproduction as well asindividual reproduction, are the placeswhere people’s aspirations and desirescome face-to-face with circumstances.The tensions and complexities of middleclass family life are there revealed.

The archetypal habitat of theAmerican middle class working family isthe single family home in the suburbs.The lives of suburban home owners haveoften been characterized as boring,complacent, mediocre, alienated andfrightened. The suburbs themselves assprawling, ugly, environmentallydisastrous, rows and rows of “little boxesmade of ticky tacky.” But ananthropological position recognizes thatthe intersection of home with class andfamily deserves serious analytic attentionand that the values of millions ofAmericans should be approached withempathy and attention rather thanderision.

Meanings of Home

Researching the meaning offatherhood in the lives of men from acommunity in northern California I wasstruck by how often the subject of homeownership came up and by how buying ahome was crucial to men’s life stories andtheir definitions of success. Being afamily man involved marriage andchildren and work and home in aconstellation or “package deal” that mendid not dis-assemble. The point ofmarriage is to have children, the point of

work is to provide a home for thosechildren, the point of having children is togive purpose to work. Men described anarray of shifts and sacrifices that they hadmade to buy a first home. Some hadworked out arrangements with kin to co-sign, share equity, rent to buy, or providea place for older family members to livein old age. Others had lived in mobilehomes or rented rooms to save money. Orthey had worked multiple jobs and thenscrimped and saved to renovate, remodelor enlarge the first small houses theycould afford. After the first house, theytalked about moves to follow jobs, or forbetter schools, larger houses or betterneighborhoods.

In their accounts, these menrepeatedly expressed the values of homeownership in terms of safety, success andsocial standing, as well as in terms of taxbenefits and financial savings. One man’swords encapsulated the normativeconnections between home and family:“Home ownership has helped my wife andmy family and I understand the meaningof family and commitment. It is aunifying event in a person’s life.Marriages and families cannot survivewithout it. They may get by without ahouse, but they never get the most out ofthe loving bonds a family can find.”

Meanings of home ownership assecurity and support for family life havechanged over the last two generations.Raising children while living in a rentedapartment is no longer seen as anacceptable middle class norm. Materialdecline in cities in the US has beenaccompanied by changes in the meaningsand use of public spaces. The men Italked to, for instance, described their ownchildhood enjoyment of public parks asplaces for unsupervised play, but theydescribed parks today as dangerous for

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their children who were escorted to thepark and watched while there. Homeownership, in its normative sense, meansownership of a home in a neighborhood ofowner-occupied houses. The ownershipof one’s own home therefore means livingin a particular kind of neighborhood andleading a particular kind of life.

Time and Distance

Owning a home in a neighborhood ofowner-occupied homes is more thanproviding oneself with suitable shelter, itis expressive of social location. Suburbsbuilt since the 1950s are built around theautomobile in the same way that an earliergeneration of suburbs and new towns wasbuilt around the street car and railroad.They mark a sharp geographic separationof work and home which is made manifestin the particularly middle class institutionof the commute. Although many serviceworkers are too poorly paid to live neartheir employment and spend long hourstraveling to and from work, thecombination of suburban home-ownershipand commuting comes out of a morevolitional separation of work and home –a separation that is moral as well asphysical.

To live in the suburbs is to usephysical distance to express moraldifference from the city, which wasdescribed to me as full of crime, violence,dirt, rudeness and laziness. At the sametime that suburban developments distancethemselves from the city, they appropriatethe values of the countryside. Manydevelopments, for instance, include intheir names the “oaks,” “meadows” and“woods,” that were destroyed in theirconstruction. But suburban communitiesare not simply denials of the urban anddestroyers of the rural, they are distincttypes of communities in their own right.This new type of community has beennoticed, criticized and taken as the basefor improvement since its inception bysuch diverse figures as Ebenezer Howard(the “garden city” movement), LewisMumford and Herbert Gans.

The men I have talked to are preparedto pay a high price for the separation ofwork and home, and for providing asecure home for their families. They paythis price in money, of course, but also intime--time at work and time on the roadIt was almost a mantra for these men thatthey wanted to “be there” for theirchildren in a way that their fathers had notbeen there for them, and that they wantedto work fewer hours so that they couldspend time with their families. But asoften as they said that, they also told meabout the hours they did work and theforced contradiction between work andfamily became apparent. “I usually get inabout 6:00 in the morning and I try to getout of there by 4:00 or 5:00 at night,” saidone man. “I try not to work too manyhours.” I wondered how many would betoo many for a man who is working 10 or11-hour days and then commuting.

And the commuting required torealize values of suburban homeownership is indeed onerous. In thecentral valley of California, house pricesdecreased by $1000 for every mile awayfrom the employment centers of the SanFrancisco Bay Area. The cost of thistrade-off between time and money comesin the impact on daily life and parenting.One man’s account brings out the bind heis put in as he tries to provide a life hecannot afford and suffers the conflictbetween succeeding as a father and aprovider. In this comment he describesthe relation between where he lives, wherehe works and the kind of life his familyhas.

In fact, this neighborhood,this whole tract, this wholetown works in the Bay area,believe it or not. I haven’tmet one person in all theseneighbors right here [laughs]that does not work in theBay area. Four o’clock--allthose garage doors go openand right down [thehighway]. Four-fifteen youkind of beat most of the

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crazies out there, so it takesabout an hour and 15minutes, an hour and a half,depending on no accidents.

Our babysitter laid down thelaw. We took our vacationwhen she says we take ourvacation because she gets upat 4:00 in the morning. Youdon’t find too many baby-sitters who do that. Ofcourse, our kids are carriedin [asleep]. Laid on the bedthat she has and she goesback to bed. But still, shehas to get up and let us in.We get on the road [home]about 3:15 and we get homeabout quarter to 5. Barringyou know--not Fridays[laughs]. It’s anywhere from5:00 to 5:30.

I’d like to be a better parent,spend more time with them,get them lots of stuff that wecan do, but, you know, it’snot enough. Especially sincewe moved out here. It’s notenough and that reallybothers me. So weekends,we try and really make itworth their while cause itseems like all the other timeswe’re dumping them off atsome babysitter and going tobed, and it’s like you onlyhave so many hours whenyou’re home.

You know what reallybothers me. I feel like I say,“Hurry up!” all the time.“Hurry up. We gotta do this.We gotta do that.” And nowthey use that a lot in theirlanguage: “Hurry up.” Icould hear the other onesaying, “Hurry up! Hurryup!” You know, that bothersme cause, I don’t rememberthat when I was a kid.

Higher Prices, Higher Stakes

Housing, and especially owner-occupied housing, has not only becomemore expensive over the last twogenerations, it has gone up in price fasterthan real earnings. At the same time,owner occupancy has become morecommon. Before World War II, less thanhalf the housing units in the US wereowner-occupied, currently two thirds are,and the level is higher for whites andmarried couples. American home buyersare paying a higher percentage of theirincomes for housing at the same time thathome ownership has become more andmore the behavioral pattern and thecultural norm. One consequence has beenan increasing desperation in the housingmarket. While rapid inflation of housingprices has brought unprecedented wealthto some sectors of the middle class it hasput most in a financial, moral and timesqueeze.

Home ownership is widelyrepresented as independence and self-sufficiency, but almost all home ownersactually owe more than they own. Threeand three quarter trillion dollars wereowed on homes in 1995 (to which couldbe added $255 billion in home equityloans and lines of credit). Rather thangiving people freedom to confront theircircumstances, very high levels of debt forsomething which is so culturally valued,so meaningful as a marker of position andindividual wealth, makes them hostages tothe demands of their employers,committed to selling their time and laborin a situation where not having a jobmeans losing not only income, but home,social position and individual identity.When the national, regional or localeconomy declines because jobs areexported or speculative bubbles burst,home ownership rapidly becomes aliability as payments take up more ofsmaller incomes, values decline andfamilies sell at a loss or have their homesforeclosed.

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Homes are deeply gendered as thesites of reproduction and the location ofgendered divisions of labor. Homeownership is also gendered, even though itis often discussed as a family strategy andeven though two incomes are nowrequired for most couples to pay for thehousing they want. After divorce, womenare frequently left without the resources ofcredit, down payment or income to buy ahome, or with homes that they do not havethe resources to keep. For men, a norm ofhome ownership has increased pressure tofill the good provider role. Stepping outof the rat race to be close and nurturingfathers is urged on men at the same timeas the circumstances of their lives and theinsecurity of a global economy demandever greater devotion to their jobs.

Contradictions of Middle ClassLife

Distinction is frequently madebetween the home as social space forfamily life and the house as a physicalstructure. My own research suggests thatmany middle class men do not make thisdistinction. For them, providing a houseis part of contributing to family life andbuying a house is a sign of personalstability and independence. Homeownership and community membershipare intimately connected--house, familyand work are not distinct elements butinterdependent aspects of a value systemand a life course. Home ownership doesnot simply provide the physical setting, itis an integral part of the fabric andstrategy of American middle class familylife.

Nicholas Townsend is working on ThePackage Deal, a book about the patterningof fatherhood, marriage, work and homein the lives of a group of men in the US.Herbert Gans’ The Levittowners remainsa classic recognition and description ofcommunity in the suburbs. Gans� MiddleAmerican Individualism is a discussion ofindividualism and community in Americanlife and is a rock of balancedunderstanding in a flood of lesser works

of hand-wringing and complacency.Katherine Newman’s Falling From Graceis a study of the moral and physicalimpact of destroyed middle class dreams.The values of home ownership arecertainly not restricted to suburbandetached houses or the white professionalclass. Brett Williams, for example, talksabout the meanings of, and constraints on,ownership of urban row houses inWashington, DC in Upscaling Downtown.

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Values That Matter

By Thomas S Weisner (UC Los Angeles)Anthropology Newsletter, May 1999 (pp 1, 4-5)

At the end of each year, Timemagazine publishes an annual issue inwhich the editors select the significantnews figure(s) who had the most impacton the nation and the world that year.President Clinton and Ken Starr sharedthe cover for 1998. In contrast, the“Youth of America” were given thathonor in 1967. The youth of Americawere presented in the magazine as thehope of the future. They were depicted asan eager, exploring, energetic, valuedgeneration. Some were serving theircountry in Vietnam; some werevigorously protesting that war. They weregoing to colleges in unprecedentednumbers and doing well. They werebringing new political ideas, new forms ofintimacy and sexuality, new music andaesthetics, and a concern for racial justiceand tolerance to the country. The youth ofthe Sixties and early Seventies had then--and still have--an enduring generationalidentity crystallized in political, culturaland personal life experiences. But whathappened when they themselves becameparents and had children? Ourlongitudinal research suggests that theseyouth diffused many of their new valuesand practices into middle class life; thattheir children often did carry on many oftheir parents’ values; and that the parentsby and large also continued middle classmodels emphasizing child stimulation andindependence.

Children of the Counterculture

For the past 24 years, my colleaguesand I have been following a group of 50middle class, two-parent married couples,and 150 nonconventional, counterculturalfamilies and their children who were bornin 1975, in the Family Lifestyles Project(FLS) at UCLA. Attrition has only been2-4%. The nonconventional families in1975 were divided between 50 single

unmarried mothers by choice (that is, notsingle due to widowhood or divorce), 50unmarried couples having a childtogether, and 50 women and their partnersliving in a commune or non-kin livinggroup. All parents are Euro-American,and were living throughout Californiawhen the study began. We began visitswith the parents when the mothers were intheir third trimester of pregnancy. Overthe course of the study, we have hadcontact some 13 times. We interviewedthe parents, tested and then talked withtheir children, contacted their teachers forschool records, and did fieldwork andethnographic studies.

By 1993, about 60% of the families inthis study were two-parent couplehouseholds, another quarter were singleparents, with the remainder in changing,less stable family lifestyles and a few (4%or so) still in communal living situations.At that point, about 80% of all familieswere middle class with regard to theirincomes and occupations, although asubgroup of mostly nonconventionalfamilies were in working class, service orartisan jobs, or were at the poverty level.

We have tracked the schoolachievement, peer relations, behaviorproblems, drug use, as well as values andsocial attitude of all the sample children.Contrary to some who had direpredictions regarding the children of thenonconventional or “hippie” families, forthe most part they seem to be doing aswell or better than our comparison groupon these assessments, as well as whencompared with other national samples ofyouth of their generation. Furthermore,some of the nonconventional families’experiments regarding family life andchild rearing have diffused into normativemiddle class life and these practices andideals are now accepted as “middle class.”

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Our studies also show that there isconsiderable intergenerational continuityof values among many families, thatnonconventional families can and do havechildren doing well by standard measuresof school achievement, and that they havereduced the likelihood of significantbehavior problems at adolescence. Sometwo-thirds of the nonconventional sampleparents show considerable continuity intheir progressive values, although manyothers feel ambivalent about or have lostthat values commitment.

Successful Experiments

What is normative for middle classfamilies today is in part the result ofsuccessful experiments from the past thathave diffused widely and becomeaccepted. Middle class fathers are nowcommonly involved in the birth of theirchild and in infant and child care;breastfeeding and the use of natural foodsare common; employer family leavepolicies exist, as well as more awarenessof the need to integrate day care andwomen’s work. There is increasedtolerance for a diversity of familylifestyles and parenting roles. Newreligious movements, drawing from worldreligious traditions as well as “New Age”beliefs, are today a recognized part ofmiddle class spiritual life. And, girls andboys have a less gender-specific range oftoys and media images from which tochoose. Although certainly notuniversally accepted or available to allincome levels, these new practices are farmore prevalent than when the families inour study chose to try them in the 1970s,and struggled to make them possible.

We found significantintergenerational continuity in thetransmission of coherent clusters of valuesof parents to their adolescent children.We examined 8 sets of values orientationsof mothers in 1975, and asked both thesemothers and their children about the samevalues some 17 years later. These valuesincluded: Gender egalitarianism;materialism; future orientation;

conventional achievement goals;pronaturalism (importance of beingexpressive, using natural foods, care forthe environment); humanism andtolerance; and commitment toexperimentation and innovation as a goalin family and personal life.Nonconventional and counterculturalparents had higher scores on and moresustained commitment over time to valuessuch as egalitarianism, nonmaterialism,pronaturalism and innovation.

The overall canonical correlation ofmothers’ and teens’ values orientationswas .54 ; correlations between particularparental values and their teen’s rangedfrom .13 to . 45; 6 of 8 correlations werestatistically significant; in fact, 5 of 8values correlations between the mother’svalues at the third trimester and theirteen’s values 17 years later, weresignificant. (We also interviewed fatherswith a similar basic pattern.) In addition,we asked the teens to respond to the Astinquestionnaire, given to hundreds ofthousands of college freshmen in the USeach year. The teens in our study fromnonconventional families weresignificantly more likely to report thatthey believed in liberal social values,compared to teens in the FLSconventional comparison sample, and thenational sample of entering collegestudents. At the same time, they were nodifferent in their college aspirations andplans.

Solid Foundation for Most

The families in our sampleinstantiated their values in various wayswhich they reported to us, includingorganized joint activities with theirchildren reflecting their values (such asattending political events or using genderegalitarian toys and selecting media),developing a family charter or story aboutthe kind of family they were whichreflected their values (eg, we are a familythat has always thrived on change andquestioning convention), and using theirlifestyle orientations to account for

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troubling events and changes in their livesto their children by emphasizing theirefforts to fit their family life to theirvalues (a proactive account focused ontheir own choices or societal forces, asopposed to blaming others or themselves).In these ways, families provided avariation on the middle classdevelopmental pathway of everydaybeliefs and practices. Such activities,stories and accounts, if at least selectivelyinstantiated in practices, and consistentlyused over time, may have offered teens ashared, available framework fornegotiating with parents and peers duringperiods of personal and familial conflict,and an initial core ideology to assist themas they began forming their own.

The youth in our nonconventionalsample were doing as well or better inschool than our comparison sample at theend of sixth grade and in high school, andsustained commitment to a set of valueswas among the significant predictors(along with socioeconomic status and thechild’s early tested ability levels). Theyouth who took the SAT did as well orbetter than both national College Boardaverages and our own comparison sample.A subset of nonconventional parents,however, struggled with jobs, personalproblems, and in other ways, and theirteens were more likely to be havingproblems.

Helen Garnier and Judith Stein atUCLA found that a sustained commitmentto humanistic/egalitarian values amongthe nonconventional family sample had apositive effect on reducing the likelihoodof adolescents having behavior problems.Commitment to a cluster of valuesincluding conventional achievement,future orientation and acceptance ofconventional authority, was likewiseassociated with fewer behavior problems.

A related finding is that mostnonconventional, as well as two-parentcomparison group families, were quitesimilar in the high rates of verbalizations,frequent positive and encouraginginteractions, stimulation of the child, and

other characteristic “middle class” parent-child behavioral patterns. Exchanges ofquestions between parents and children, aswell as offering children choices andparental play with children were verycommon in both conventional andnonconventional family groups. Parentsalso emphasized the importance ofdeveloping self-esteem and independencein their children. (Of course there was alsoconsiderable individual variation amongfamilies.) In these respects, these parentsreproduced and even exaggerated somecore middle class parental goals andpractices, while they challenged others.

Shared Middle Class Goals

Although what is defined as middleclass changes constantly, there are twogeneral characteristics of middle classparenting and child development that havepersisted for the last three generations andlonger, and which most families in oursample (nonconventional and comparisonsample alike) by and large reproduced.

First is the “pedagogical” culturalmodel for child development described byRobert LeVine and colleagues (ChildCare and Culture: Lessons from Africa,1994). A pedagogical developmentalmodel is characterized by a concern withthe achievement of literacy, emphasis onindividual child stimulation and activeengagement of the child with others,exploratory behavior, cognitive and verbalsigns of intelligence, verbalcommunication (such as treating the childas a presumptive co-equal interlocutor),and question-response exchanges.

Second, middle class parents--certainly compared to parents in othercultures--place an emphasis onindividualism, autonomy, self-relianceand self expression in their children, alongwith concerns over sufficient basic trust,attachment and the security and esteem ofthe self, and use of praise andencouragement.

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By and large, both nonconventionaland more conventional families andchildren reflected the pedagogical andautonomy emphases of the middle class intheir behaviors, although they questionedmiddle class emphases in other ways.Conventional and nonconventionalfamilies, middle class or not, were moresimilar to each other in their relativelyhigh rates of stimulating behaviors, orautonomy-encouraging practices,compared to much lower rates for thoseparental and child behaviors found inmany cultures around the world.

Parents’ values in thenonconventional family sample moreoften differed from the comparisonsample in other ways--usually selectivelysupporting, challenging or offeringmodifications to some of these othermiddle class American developmentalgoals and practices. Nonconventionalfamilies were more likely to differ fromour comparison sample in their familyarrangements, values orientations(nonconventional families emphasizedmore progressive, tolerant values, lessmaterialistic, more gender egalitarian,more questioning of conventionalauthority), and in other specific culturalpractices (spirituality, political activities,diet and nutrition, and others).

Experience, Behavior andAmbivalence

Countercultural families experiencedwhat they tried out in their lifestyleexperiments as very different because itvaried from the unmarked middle classnorms of the time, and their innovationswere perceived that way by the largersociety–even as dangerous andrevolutionary at times. But parents’experience as they talked to us about themdid not necessarily match their actualbehavioral practices as we observed them.In cross-cultural perspective, theseinnovations, however important to parentsand difficult to do, often were relativelymodest in magnitude. For example,parents with pronatural goals breastfed

their infants past 12 months—a long timefor middle class parents in 1975, whereasmany parents around the world beginweaning gradually only after 18 months.

Furthermore, new values andpractices, like more normative middleclass child rearing and cultural models ofparenting are experienced and expressedin practice with conflict and ambivalence.Beatrice Whiting, for example, has calledthe middle class push for autonomy andself-expression the “dependency hang-up,” in which middle class parentsemphasize the values of independence andself reliance, while at the same timeworrying and feeling anxious about theirown need for and fears of the loss of closeand dependent relationships with theirchildren, as well as the loss of control anddominance over children.

Real Middle Class Concerns

There are many circumstancesresponsible for the generally moretroubled, less optimistic view of thechildren and youth of the US today,compared to the very hopeful, excitedview of youth of 1967. Concerns aboutmiddle class families and their childrenare to a significant extent due to concernsabout stagnating incomes, and workpressures facing dual-earning families andsingle parent households, but often theseare presented as concerns exclusivelyabout values or lifestyles. KatherineNewman has richly documented thepersonal experiences and struggles offamilies facing downward mobility inincome, insecure jobs and work pressures,in Declining Fortunes (1993) and FallingFrom Grace (1988). The point is thattime use pressures, providing child care,decent schools, children born out ofwedlock, alternative family forms, drugsand alcohol and sexual experimentationhave become middle class concerns, nolonger problems ostensibly only of thepoor, minorities or marginal. In ourstudy, nonconventional and conventionalfamilies alike–both parents and children–did better with sufficient basic economic

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resources and relative stability of familylife and caregivers over time.

Successful Hybrids

Those who point to “family values”(the goals, meanings and purposes offamily life and human development) asimportant in parenting and children’sdevelopment are right. Of course, valuesand goals do matter. They can positivelyaffect the well being of children alongwith basic levels of family stability andthe adequate resources that all familiesneed. Our work with both conventionaland more nonconventional families in thebroad middle class suggests, however, thatmore than one kind of values orientationcan provide that kind of positivedevelopmental environment for children,and that more than one kind of familylifestyle (single parents, unmarriedcouples, changing family situations) canprovide the context for relativelysuccessful development and well-being bythe standards of American society.Nonconventional families who selectivelyblended alternative choices, with more“middle class” values and practices,seemed to have teens who were doingwell by both middle class standards andaccording to their own parental goals.

Thomas S Weisner is Professor in theDepartment of Psychiatry andDepartment of Anthropology at UCLA.His interests are in culture, humandevelopment and family. He also hasdone fieldwork in Kenya, amongCalifornia families with children withdevelopmental disabilities, and witheconomically poor families during welfarereform. FLS has been generouslysupported by grants from the CarnegieCorporation, NIH and W T GrantFoundation. The Center for Culture &Health, Department of Psychiatry andBiobehavioral Sciences at UCLA providedimportant support. Weisner especiallythanks Helen Garnier for innovativestatistical analyses and project direction.Maurine Bernstein, Chemba Raghavan,Rebecca Stein, Jennifer Jacobs, Jennifer

Furin and Anne Staunton undertookinterviews and fieldwork with theadolescents and parents. Most of all, wethank the 200 families who participate inthe FLS. Some of the work reported wascompleted while Weisner was at theCenter for Advanced Study in theBehavioral Sciences, with supportprovided by NSF and the William T GrantFoundation. A recent FLS reference is inT S Weisner & L Bernheimer (1998),“Children of the 1960s at Midlife:Generational Identity and the FamilyAdaptive Project,” Welcome to MiddleAge! and Other Cultural Fictions,Richard Shweder, Ed.

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Consuming America

By Richard Wilk (Indiana U)Anthropology Newsletter, February 1999 (pp 1, 4-5)

The hardest thing to see, according toGeorge Orwell, is something right in frontof your nose. Anthropologists havealways had an easier time focussing on thedistant and exotic. We have been lesssuccessful finding the exotic close tohome, especially in those mundane andvulgar symbols of the middle class thatsurround and frame everyday life, whichmillions take for granted. But the thingsAmerican middle class consume in suchabundance, which they also take verymuch for granted, have fascinating socialhistories. Finding out how they became soordinary can be an engrossing intellectualjourney. It may also be one of the mostimportant contributions thatanthropologists can make to help solve theglobal environmental crisis.

The Comforts of Home

The North American middle classway of life is centered on the home. Inhouses which are growing in size everygeneration, Americans now consumemore resources per capita than any otherpeople in the history of the planet. Butinstead of seeing themselves as living alife of almost unimaginable luxury, theword Americans use to describe theirstandard of living is “comfortable.”Where did this notion of comfort comefrom? And how did it become so focussedon material culture, the basis of constantlyrising levels of consumption?

One way to answer thesequestions is to learn the social histories ofthe peculiar things that have come tofurnish the American dream. Followingthe theme Ralph Linton pioneered in hisfamous essay on the American breakfast,we can disclose the cultural nature ofconsumption in the average home bytracing the origins of mundane items to

their exotic origins. Take, for example, thereclining chair.

The Seat of Power

In 1996 La-Z-Boy Company was thethird-ranked manufacturer of furniture inthe US, with $947 million in sales.Introduced as “novelty furniture” in 1927,intended for outdoor use in the back yard,the La-Z-Boy® recliner did not find amarket niche until it became a symbol ofworking class domesticity andrespectability. It was advertised as a wayto lure a man home after work; furnishingthe nest where the upwardly mobile malerelaxed from his daily struggle. Sales tookoff after WW II, when the “reclinerlounge chair” became part of the domesticdream of single-family suburban homesfull of nuclear families. When television--the electronic hearth--took over thedomestic evening, Dad’s recliner oftenlanded the best spot.

There were no clear culturalantecedents for the recliner chair; earlyAmerican furniture was known for itsspare simplicity. From the perspective ofsymbolic boundaries, the big soft chaircould be seen as dangerous andtransgressive. It is after all furniture forthe public part of the house, whichtransforms into something very much likethat most private of places, the bed. In aculture that values hard work andconviviality, the recliner encouragesdozing and sleep, even while others in theroom stay awake. Elite social criticsfastened on the recliner as a symbol of anoverstuffed, morally lax working class,the “couch potatoes” who actually usedtheir leisure time in a leisurely way,instead of uplifting themselves inmuseums or other cultural pursuits. In the1960s the middle class was exhorted bythe New Yorker magazine to “get out of

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your La-Z-Boy® long enough to dosomething!”

The La-Z-Boy® was accepted, despiteits ambiguity, when it became part of aradical reformulation of American leisure,attitudes towards work, and engagementin the home and family as a culturalproject. It was enmeshed in a movementthat built a country around the polaritiesof work and home, undercutting all thecivil spaces and social groups in between.

Together But Separate

In the 18th and 19th centuries, middleclass family life was not built aroundshared leisure. Working days were long,and even on the farm there were separatemale and female work groups. When workwas over, people wanted to party, talk,drink, ride, do something active, usuallyin all-male and all-female groups in suchsettings as bars, sewing circles, socialclubs, sports, churches and lodges.Despite today's nostalgic images ofVictorian parlor conviviality, familiesrarely spent their evenings sitting togetheraround the fireplace, except perhaps onholidays and other special occasions.

Until the 20th century, Americansnever imagined that the reward for hardwork was lying still and passive on anoverstuffed chair for hours, surrounded bythe nuclear family. When at home theywere always doing something--knitting,playing cards, crafts, or some kind ofassembly work. The idea that work andstress require long evenings of passiverelaxation, is a recently invented tradition--part of a program of nuclear familytogetherness and shared leisure pushed onthe rest of the country. Twentieth centurysocial reformers waged war on what theysaw as the unruly and destructiveentertainment, and the informally mixed-up family arrangements of the “lowerclasses.” As with so many dramaticchanges in American life, the “wedge”issue was health. Extended families andsex-segregated raucous publicamusements were labeled unhealthy and

pathological. A healthy society of thrivingindividuals could only be built in aconjugal setting where the nuclear familyrested daily from the rigors of disciplinedwork.

The Good Life?

The reclining chair, like any otherpiece of material culture, is not just apassive reflection or indicator of socialchange. Major advances in theanthropology of consumption, in thehands of theorists like Appadurai andBourdieu, have shown us that objects aremuch more deeply embedded in socialprocess. Material culture has been part ofa major transformation of middle classfamily life over the last 30 years.

Leisure is now a project for the wholefamily, engaging more and more time andenergy. Home furnishings are tools oftransformation, and manufacturers haveresponded with new images and designs.In the 1980s and 1990s recliner makersembraced the new label, “motionfurniture.” Gliding across increasinglyblurred class distinctions, the overstuffedchairs were no longer exiled to the den,TV room or rec room. “Motion ModularFurniture Groupings,” where severalsections of a sofa-group reclineseparately, now include fold-down trays,pull-out drawers, phones and a “multiplemotor massage system” with optionalheater. Advertising and marketing, oncefocussed on dad after a hard day at theoffice, now puts mom and the babiestogether in a chair, and a whole happyfamily reclining together in their living-room module. Popular kid-size reclinerspromote true family democracy and“personalized comfort.” There are specialchairs for fat and thin, and units can be“customized to match any décor, familysize or lifestyle.” With all this diversity,Consumer's Digest reports that one in fourAmerican homes has at least one recliningchair.

In a world where so many fashionsbegin with the elite and then trickle down

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the social scale, recliners stubbornly swimagainst the flow. At the high end of thescale, better chairs cost $800 or more, andthe owners of La-Z-Boy® “Galleries”report that expensive fabrics includingcashmere and leather are extremelypopular. There is even a market for anexotic imported Norwegian “stressless”recliner, which offers an “infinite numberof positions” starting at more than $1000.

The transformation of middle classdomesticity has been anything butpeaceful. Behind the happy advertisingimages that show harmonized livingrooms, happy families and the joy oftogetherness are millions of divorces,incidents of domestic violence and otherkinds of conflict. Some sociologists thinkthat the allocation and spending of moneyin middle class households has become afocus for highly charged issues ofentitlement and authority raised bydramatic changes in work and genderroles. Consumer goods usually becomeemotionally and socially important asgifts, tools and even weapons innegotiating and renegotiating domesticlife.

Even La-Z-Boy advertisementsacknowledge the problem of couples whoare always “arguing about who gets theLa-Z-Boy®.” In the working class family,the recliner was “dad's chair;” after all hewas the breadwinner and he deserved hisrelaxation. Advertisements in the 1940sshowed mom guiltily enjoying a rest inthe chair while dad was at work. Mom andthe children may now have their ownrecliners, but this doesn't mean that dadhas given up his position. Men still tend tohave the most elaborate models, and as atrade journal puts it “These custom-built‘cocoons’ become the director's chair inhome theater ensembles.” From his self-contained throne, dad now rules by remotecontrol.

Just Rewards?

Most Americans who own reclinersdon't see them as badges of potato-hood,

sloth or passivity. Instead, the theme wordfor reclining motion furniture is“relaxation.” The folklore of the middleclass is that life is hard, and everyoneneeds compensation, times when they can“lie back and take it easy.” That time inthe chair becomes a virtue, a necessity forhealth in a world of business, stress, andthe continuing drain of work andresponsibility. La-Z-Boy imagines theircustomers as “people who have made itthrough the lean years and have earned theright to enjoy their success.” They deservea reclining chair, their “Grand Snuggler”and “Dreamland,” or even their“Avenger.” Motion furniture is sold asjust compensation for the toils of “all thehard-working people who make Americahum.” But are there limits to how muchmaterial compensation Americans“deserve” for their hard labor? And ismaterial abundance, an overflowingcornucopia of consumer goods reallyproviding Americans with the happinessthey expect?

Repeated surveys find, on thecontrary, a negative relationship betweenwealth and self-reported happiness.According to Juliet Schor (The OverspentAmerican), many people feel trapped in awork and spend cycle, frustrated withtechnology, drowning in abundance.Voluntary simplicity groups and“simplicity circles,” are spreading andexpanding, while foundations like theCenter for a New American Dream try toenvision a less materialistic society.

American family consumerism is notjust a moral or intellectual issue, it is oneof the world's most pressingenvironmental problems, one of the mostimportant fundamental causes of globalwarming and climate change. The averageAmerican, according to recent estimatesby the Worldwatch Institute, annuallyconsumes 50 to 60 times more resourcesthan does an average resident of Sub-Saharan Africa. Americans consumeenergy and materials at a profligate rateunmatched by any other country, and asthe energy crisis recedes into the past, our

Wilk, February 1999

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cars, houses and bodies are once againgetting more bloated every year. Yet thematerial lives of the American middleclass are less known to anthropology thanTrobriand jewelry.

Take a Chair

My example of the recliner chair ismeant to make a simple point; theconsuming world of middle classAmericans is rich in meaning, and bearsmuch closer scrutiny by anthropologists.When Harold Wilhite and I beganresearch on energy consumption andhousehold decision-making of the middleclass of northern California in 1981, wefound only one other anthropologist(Willett Kempton) doing consumption-related work in the US. While fewanthropologists seemed interested, manyin the energy conservation communityfound our ethnographic approachinnovative and useful.

In Europe, particularly in England,anthropologists are key players in arenewed field of “material culture studies”that takes the consumer world of themiddle class seriously. They haveprovided rich ethnographies of shopping,housing and everyday material culturefrom the Sony Walkman to woolencarpets. There is nothing like it in the US,where few anthropologists work onmiddle class consumer culture, and thosewho do find a much more receptiveaudience in the Association for ConsumerResearch than the AAA. Monographssuch as archaeologist Michael Schiffer'sThe Portable Radio in American Life arefew and far between. Ironically, the keysocial theorists of American consumerculture are Europeans like Baudrillard andBarthes.

It’s hard to explain this peculiarindifference to an important issue that isliterally right in our faces (or perhapsunder our buttocks). Isn’t it striking thatthe very element that most definesAmerican culture--a love of technologyand material abundance--is the thing we

most stridently ignore? Over the yearsgraduate students in my seminars onconsumer culture have producedfascinating, ethnographically rich work ontopics like fishing tackle, lawn ornaments,ketchup and mountain bikes. But then,facing the reality of the job market, theyhead off to do their dissertations onsomething more “exotic.” Perhaps it istime for us to sit down, lean back and paysome more attention to what is happeningat home.

Richard Wilk is Professor ofAnthropology at Indiana U. His researchin Belize and the US has focussed onhousehold decision-making, consumerculture, research ethics, transnationalismand development issues. He has recentlypublished a textbook in economicanthropology (Economies and Cultures),and is currently writing aboutglobalization and consumer culture.

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APPENDIX B:

List of Anthropology Newsletter Articles

Articles Commissioned for the Anthropology Newsletter on MiddleClass Working Families

Darrah, Charles, Jan English-Lueck and James Freeman 1998 “Living With Technology,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(9): 1, 4.Dudley, Katherine M 1999 “(Dis)locating the Middle Class,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(4): 1, 4.Fricke, Tom 1998 “Home Work,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(7): 1, 4, 5.Goldschmidt, Walter 1999 “Dynamics of Status in America,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(5): 62, 64.Harkness, Sara 1998 “Time for Families,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(8): 1, 4.Holland, Dorothy, Catherine Lutz, Don Nonini 1999 “Public Life, Public Good,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(3): 1, 4.Martin, Emily 1999 “Flexible Survivors,” Anthropology News 40(6): 5-7.Townsend, Nicholas 1999 “Housing the Good Life,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(1): 1, 4.Weisner, Thomas S 1999 “Values That Matter,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(5): 1, 4, 5.Wilk, Richard 1999 “Consuming America,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(2): 1, 4, 5.

Other Articles Appearing in the Anthropology Newsletter on MiddleClass Working Families

Adams, Jane 1999 “Many Sides to Relevance,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(4): 14.Albert, Steven 1998 “Anthropoloyg of Everyday Competence,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(9): 10.Arnould, Eric, Linda Price, Carolyn Folkman 1999 “Cherished Possessions,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(2): 17.Cassell, Joan 1998 “Are Women Surgeons Different?” Anthropology Newsletter 39(9): 10-11.Counts, Dorothy and David 1998 “Home is Where They Park It?” Anthropology Newsletter 39(8): 9-10.Descartes, Lara 1999 “Surveying the Big City,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(3): 26.Durrenberger, E Paul and Kendall Thu 1998 “Coming in from the Margins,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(7): 58, 60.

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Eisenhart, Margaret 1998 “Success in Science,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(8): 10-11.Erickson, Ken 1999 “Postal Modernism,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(3): 17-18.Fink, Deborah 1998 “Things Fall Apart,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(7): 17.Gerber, Eleanor 1998 “Relevance Through Surveys,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(9): 16-17.Greengrass, Mara R 1998 “How Did You Do It?” Anthropology Newsletter 39(7): 19.Groger, Lisa 1999 “Relinquishing Care,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(3): 19.Gullestad, Marianne 1998 “Studying the Self-Evident,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(8): 3, 6.Iris, Madelyn 1999 “Pillars of the Middle Class Community,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(2): 18.Jackson, J L Jr. 1999 “Party Politics-The Two Party System,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(5): 19-20.Jindra, Michael 1998 “‘Others’ Among Us,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(9): 54, 56.Lackey, J F 1999 “Confronting the Other in PA Dutch Country,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(5): 18-19.Lamphere, Louise 1999 “Let’s Set the Agenda,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(2): 7-8.Maxwell, Andrew H 1999 “‘Bikers’ and Motorcyclists,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(3): 18-19.McCreery, John 1999 “Expanding Our Horizons,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(3): 7.Nardi, Bonnie 1998 “Relevant Anthropology Viewed from Technology Studies,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(8): 22, 24.Olsen, Barbara 1999 “Relevance in Our Cupboard,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(2): 16, 17.Olwig, Karen F 1998 “The Mobile Middle Class,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(8): 11-12.Overbey, Mary Margaret 1998 “Relevance of Middle-Class Working Families,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(7): 3.Savishinski, Joel 1998 “Mastering the Art of Retirement,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(7): 15.Sherry, John 1999 “Real Work,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(3): 20-21.Sibley, Will 1998 “Long History of ‘Home’ Work,” Anthropology Newsletter 39(9): 2.

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Slorah, Patricia 1999 “Evolution of Family and Work,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(1): 14.Strauss, C 1999 “Meanings of Welfare Reform,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(5): 18.Townsend, Nicholas 1999 “To Be A Father,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(4): 18.Varenne, Herve 1999 “Neither Here Nor There,” Anthropology Newsletter 40(4): 2.

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APPENDIX C:

Conference Participants

Dr. Garrick A BaileyDepartment of AnthropologyUniversity of TulsaTulsa, OK 74104garrick-bailey@utulsa.edu918-631-3026

Dr. Kathleen ChristensenAlfred P. Sloan Foundation630 Fifth Ave, Ste 2550New York, NY 10111christensen@sloan.org212-649-1649

Dr. Charles N. DarrahDepartment of AnthropologySan Jose State UniversitySan Jose, CA 95192-0113darrah@email.sjsu.edu408-924-5314

Dr. Kathryn M. DudleyAmerican Studies ProgramPO Box 208236Yale UniversityNew Haven, CT 06520kdudley@minerva.cis.yale.edu

Dr. Thomas E. FrickeCenter for the Ethnography ofEveryday LifeP.O. Box 1248,Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248tomf@isr.umich.edu734-763-1500

Dr. Eleanor R. GerberCtr for Survey Methods & ResearchSRD Room 3113, Bldg 4US Bureau of the CensusWashington, DC 20233-4700egerber@ccmail.census.gov301-457-5930

Dr. Dorothy C. HollandDepartment of AnthropologyUniversity of North Carolina-ChapelHill301 Alumni Building, CB3115Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3115dholland@unc.edu919-962-1243

Dr. Emily MartinDepartment of AnthropologyPrinceton University100 Aaron Burr HallPrinceton, NJ 08544emartin@princeton.edu609-258-2379

Dr. Katherine S. NewmanDepartment of Urban StudiesKennedy School of Government79 John F. Kennedy StHarvard UniversityCambridge, MA 02138katherine_newman@harvard.edu619-459-4844

Dr. Mary Margaret OverbeyDirector, Government RelationsAmerican AnthropologicalAssociation4350 N Fairfax Dr, Suite 640Arlington, VA 22203poverbey@aaanet.org703-528-1902 x 3006

Dr. Stuart PlattnerSBE, National Science Foundation4201 Wilson BlvdArlington, VA 22230-0001splattner@nsf.gov703-306-1758

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Dr. Alicia S. Schoua-GlusbergResearch Support Services906 Ridge Ave.Evanston, IL 60202alisu@compuserve.com847-864-5677

Dr. Susan SkomalEditor, Anthropology NewsAmerican AnthropologicalAssociation4350 N Fairfax Dr, Suite 640Arlington, VA 22203sskomal@aaanet.org703-528-1902 x3005

Dr. Nicholas W. TownsendDepartment of AnthropologyBrown University, Box 1921Providence, RI 02912nicholas_townsend@brown.edu401-863-9343

Dr. Thomas S. WeisnerDepartment of AnthropologyUniversity of California, Los AngelesLos Angeles, CA 90095-1553tweisner@ucla.edu310-825-0040

Dr. Melvin D. WilliamsDepartment of AnthropologyUniversity of Michigan, Ann Arbor1020 LSA, Room 2040AAnn Arbor, MI 48109mddoublu@umich.edu313-764-7154

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APPENDIX D:

Public Policy Forum Participants

Dr. Judith AuerbachBehavioral and Social SciencesCoordinating ChairOffice of AIDS ResearchNIH Bldg 31, Room 4C06Bethesda, MD 20892judith_auerbach@nih.gov301-402-3555

Dr. Kathryn DudleyAmerican Studies ProgramPO Box 208236Yale UniversityNew Haven, CT 06520kdudley@minerva.cis.yale.edu203-432-7664

Dr. Jan English-LueckDepartment of Anthropology1 Washington SquareSan Jose State UniversitySan Jose, CA 95112-3613jenglish@email.sjsu.edu408-924-5347

Dr. Thomas FrickeCenter for the Ethnography ofEveryday LifeP.O. Box 1248,Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248tomf@isr.umich.edu734-763-1500

David GoldstonLegislative DirectorRepresentative Sherwood Boehlert2246 Rayburn House Office BuildingWashington, DC 20515-3223202-225-3665

Dr. Judith GoodeDepartment of AnthropologyTemple UniversityPhiladelphia, PA 19122j-goode@vm.temple.edu215-204-7773

Dr. Louise LamphereDepartment of AnthropologyUniversity of New MexicoAlbuquerque, NM 87131-1086lamphere@unm.edu505-277-2550

Dr. Sherry OrtnerDepartment of AnthropologyColumbia University1200 Amsterdam Ave, Mail Code5531New York, NY 10027sbo3@columbia.edu212-854-4560