The 2011 AAA Photo Contest is a showcase of anthropology at its best. Of the 93 photos submitted, AAA members selected their favorites in each of the four categories: Practice, People, Place and Process. You can view the top 20 photos in Anthropology News. Here on the AAA blog, we will feature several of the photos in a blog series, Photo Friday.
Title: Mortification
Photo Courtesy of Brian Brazeal
Contest Category: People
Caption: This man is an educated, successful and established gemstone trader. The last time I saw him he was singing, sweating and bleeding as a large gentleman pulled out his beard and mustache, grabbing large hanks of hair, yanking them free from his face and rubbing ash on the affected roots. Why? A religious reputation is crucial to success because the emerald business is conducted in cash. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are committed among traders without even a handshake. You can only get this kind of credit if you are recognized as devout. Self-mortification is vivid proof of piety. People are happy to entrust thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of gems and debts to this man’s care.
Look for details on the 2012 AAA Photo Contest in late April!
Missed last week’s photo? Click here.
Filed under: Career/Funding/Awards, Publications | Tagged: AAA 2011 Photo Contest, Brazil, Brian Brazeal, Chico State, emerald trade, gemstone trader, self-mortification | 1 Comment »
Judge’s ruling halts construction of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Dam
Photo by BBC News
The Belo Monte Hydroelectric dam has been causing controversy in Brazil since the initial plan inception in the 1990’s. The Brazilian government believes the dam to be critical for economic development. The dam would be built on the Xingu River in the Eastern Amazon. In 2010, federal judges halted bidding on the construction of the dam for the third time. The injunction was overturned, plans progressed and construction began.
Last week, a federal judge again ordered work to be halted on the dam, as the project standards of the approving environmental agency were not upheld. The judge also stopped the release of project funding from the national development bank.
“All work on the site must be halted,” the judge said, according this report by Globo News. Among other environmental objections, the judge said the project failed to provide a sufficient contingency plan to ensure transportation along sections of river where water levels are expected to drop drastically.
The project has attracted worldwide attention. AAA’s Committee on Human Rights released letters to Brazilian officials in August of 2010 requesting the dam project to cease, as it would displace more than twenty-four indigenous tribes that have “original” status in the Brazilian national constitution. Such status was created to ensure protection of encroachment and harm. More recently the music artist, Sting and the director of the movie “Avatar”, James Cameron, have joined environmentalists in protest of the project.
Filed under: Advocacy, Anthro in the Media, Commentary | Tagged: Avatar, BBC, Belo Monte Hydroelectric Dam, Bloomberg News, Brazil, Committee on Human Rights, eastern Amazon, Globo News, James Cameron, national constitution, Para Brazil, Sting, Xingu River | Comments Off