ABOUT THE COLLECTION

The Arizona Anthropologist is a competitive high-quality annual journal designed, reviewed and published by an editorial board of graduate students in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Arizona. The open access archives are made available as a collaboration between the Arizona Anthropologist and the University of Arizona Libraries.

QUESTIONS?

Visit https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/arizanthro for more information about this journal, or contact the editors at arizonaanthropologist@gmail.com.

Recent Submissions

  • Arizona Anthropologist Number 10, Spring 1993

    University of Arizona, Department of Anthropology, 1993
  • Potlatch and Potluck: Potshots at Recent Writings on Archaeological Ceramic Technology

    Senior, Louise M. (University of Arizona, Department of Anthropology, 1993)
    Two anthologies of archaeological ceramic-technology studies are discussed regarding their relative contributions to anthropological archaeology. Although the texts by Kolb and Lackey (1988) and Bronitsky (1989) are important reading for ceramic specialists, the latter volume is riddled with flaws and contains studies that rarely articulate well to socioeconomic or sociopolitical questions of archaeological relevance.
  • Rewriting the Past to Save the Future: A Review of "The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future"

    Grindell, Beth (University of Arizona, Department of Anthropology, 1993)
    The revival of a prehistoric religion of the "mother-goddess" has been championed as the solution to many modem ills. The archaeological evidence for the existence of such a goddess is examined and found wanting. It is suggested that this revival is predicated on ideas about the nature of women that differ little from 1 9th-century ideals that saw women as purer and nobler than men. The role of archaeological interpretations of data in promulgating such ideas is discussed.
  • Gendered Categories in Presidential Rhetoric: Legitimation and the Gulf War

    London, Scott (University of Arizona, Department of Anthropology, 1993)
    Presidential rhetoric in the United States provides a window into the ideological legitimation of the state, including its military activities abroad. An analysis of rhetorical strategies in George Bush's public speech at the time of the Persian Gulf War reveals how gendered categories are employed to justify the war to the American public. Drawing on a dualistic conceptualization of "good" (hegemonic) versus "bad" (subordinate) masculinities, the President's war narrative describes a "noble" American military pitted against a "bestial" enemy. This process of legitimation is inseparable from a broader "moral regulation" of American society in which gendered identities are selectively cultivated and marginalized. Presidential rhetoric helps to reify these identities, which become, in turn, indispensable to the war effort.
  • A Cutting-Date Estimation Method for Two Archaeologically Important Tree Species

    Nash, Stephen E. (University of Arizona, Department of Anthropology, 1993)
    Regression equations are developed to describe the relationship between heartwood, sapwood, and tree age in ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and Douglas fir (Pseudotruga menziesii), two archaeologically important Southwestern tree species.These equations are used to estimate cutting dates for dendrochronological specimens that otherwise offer only noncutting dates. Three case studies are presented that test the efficacy and interpretive utility of the method: Cutting date estimates on living-tree cores allow an analysis of the statistical behavior of the cutting date estimates; and archaeological case studies at Zuni Pueblo and Walpi Pueblo allow consideration of local provenience and site-level interpretations of the cutting-date estimates. It is concluded that archaeological contextual information and simple logic must be considered before a cutting-date estimate is accepted at face value. In addition, the disparate nature of the methods and data suggest that statistical estimation techniques and archaeological dendrochronology should be considered together only with great caution.
  • Cultural Values as Instruments for Economic Modernization: Nationalism and Ideology in Taiwan

    Coffey, Courtney (University of Arizona, Department of Anthropology, 1993)
    Native commentators on Taiwan's recent industrialization consider culture to be a key factor in the nation's modernization drive. Indigenous writers present Chinese culture as not only economically fit but also morally superior to other nations. Such presentations are based on an idealized view of a Confucian society, which includes assumptions about the state as cultural guide and model. In presenting Chinese culture as a key to modernization, the writers also contribute to certain ideological projects. Legitimation of the government, paternalistic claims on citizens and workers by the state and employers, and the rhetorical war against communism arc some of the tacit agendas I discuss.
  • The Reliability of 16th-Century European Claims about Pueblo Lifestyles: An Archaeological Test

    Chase, Carol A. (University of Arizona, Department of Anthropology, 1993)
    Sixteenth-century Europeans explored the New World to expand their sponsors' territories, to acquire wealth, and to convert souls. Today, archaeologists research the peoples about whom the explorers wrote. Although sometimes inaccurate, the explorers' accounts can provide insights into daily life that the archaeological record cannot. On the other hand, archaeological data fills in many gaps about Pueblo lifeways that the explorers failed to mention. However, both sources must be used with caution, since both are prone to biases.. This paper compares the archaeological and the narrative information on precontact- and contact- period Pueblo religion, material resources, and diet and points to the pitfalls of excluding either of these two information sources. It concludes that a more accurate reconstruction of the lifeways of the Pueblo people will combine, among other sources, both the 16th-century explorers' narratives and the archaeological record.
  • Kickin' Some Knowledge: Rap and the Construction of Identity in the African-American Ghetto

    Saunders, Ralph H. (University of Arizona, Department of Anthropology, 1993)
    Rap music and videos provide a potentially powerful lens through which to view inner-city neighborhoods and their residents. Rap also provides ghetto residents with a potentially powerful means with which to write their histories and forge their own identities. The dominant discourse on African Americans relegates them to the margins of historical action. Rap is explored as a kind of alternative public sphere, one in which blacks are reflecting on and challenging that discourse. This paper challenges the wholesale categorization of certain populations or groups as "other," and reaffirms the power of individuals and collectivities to make their own histories.
  • Forward vs. Reverse Gear: The Politics of Proliferation and Resistance in the Italian Fascist State

    Krause, Elizabeth L. (University of Arizona, Department of Anthropology, 1993)
    Gender serves as a useful category for historical analysis of the project of Italian fascist state-building, how it proceeded and how it became trapped in its own paradox. Fascist policies played upon nonnative and limited gender stereotypes of women as mothers and prolific bearers of children, yet in the process the dictatorship constructed women as political subjects for the first time in the history of the Italian state. This paper focuses on the fascists' demographics campaign-the Duce's politics of proliferation-and identifies the places in which subjects of fascism consciously chose to. act in opposition to fascist ideologies. Resistance is discussed in terms of everyday acts of noncompliance with fascist directives regarding reproduction. The strategies of legitimation that the fascists used are explored.