From Mohawk Interruptus
What is the name of the treaty signed in 1794 that should allow uninhibited mobility across the Canadian-American border for the Iroquois?
The Jay Treaty of 1974
How does Mead define warfare?
“Recognized conflict between two groups as groups, in which each group puts an army(even if the army is only fifteen pygmies) into the field to fight and kill, if possible, some of the members of the army of the other group”(289)
What item did the Sri Lankan woman carry with her while abandoning her other belongings?
What is a watermelon.
What is agency?
The power that individuals or groups with less or no power have to contest established power relationships and structures through political, economic, religious or military means and challenge and change cultural norms, values, symbols, and institutions.
What does blood quantum refer to?
A blood quantum refers to the percentage of ancestry Many tribes require a minimum blood quantum for membership, such as 50% for the Mohawk.
Why does Margaret Mead argue that warfare is an invention?
She points out that warfare isn’t actually universal, and references the Eskimos and Lepchas of Sikkim, examples of socio-cultural groups with no warfare. Without the idea of warfare and its possibilities, groups aren’t able to engage in warfare itself.
What are “shadow networks”
Trade that passes through boundaries of illegality (299)
What is the main issue in this reading?
They are trying to address the environment's relationship to racism.
How did 9/11 affect affect the ease of which Audra Simpson could cross the Canadian-American border?
Status cards issued by Canada and the U.S no longer sufficed; “their traditional ‘red cards” or passports deemed not up to security standard; our bodies, narratives, and arguments then folded into the seemingly newer threat to settler sovereignty and security- the illegal alien, the always possible terrorist- rendering perhaps all bodies with color as border transgressors with the presumed intent to harm” (165)
What reasons does Margaret provide for the prominence of those who believe warfare is natural?
“Whenever a way of doing things is found universally, such as the use of fire or practice of some form of marriage, we tend to think at once that it is not an invention at all but an attribute of humanity itself”(289).
What did the watermelon symbolically represent towards the end of the reading?
“But it was something pure of violence; a present for my family that cost no one their life; something that seemed to represent sanity and succor in a world gone mad. A watermelon carries its own seeds for the future. Perhaps that is what I was trying to do. (302).
What is environmental racism?
Environmental racism includes racial discrimination in environmental policy making, enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting of communities of color for toxic waste disposal and siting of polluting industries. It is racial discrimination in the official sanctioning of the life threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in communities of color. And, it is racial discrimination in the history of excluding people of color from the mainstream environmental groups, decision making board, commission and regulatory bodies. (311)
From Polluted Promises.
Direct Quote: "Pollution. That's right. Poison is another word for it." (305)
Why might Simpson continue to try using her tribal identity passbook as opposed to her birth certificate when attempting to cross the border?
It is a symbol of her membership of a “sovereign” nation and reflects the pride she has for her culture.
According to Mead, what is required for replacing the poor old invention of war with a new invention of conflict control and resolution?
“The people must recognize the defects of the old invention, and some one must make a new one”(293)
“Propaganda against warfare, documentation of its terrible cost in human suffering and social waste, these prepare the ground by teaching people to feel that warfare is a defective social institution”(293)
“method needs to be more congruent with the institutions and feelings of the period”(293)
If our narrator was going to understand the Irish Protestants story, what steps would she have to take in her fieldwork?
She could follow his movements; those of his compatriots, the foreigners he interacts with, the media and movies that shaped his ideas, the war merchants and profiteers from around the world that passed through his life, his country and its war, the various cultures of militarization that move from warzone to warzone around the world; the vast international systems of economic gain that shape political violence. (302)
How do environmental justice activists define environment and how is it different than the ecological definition of environment?
Environment is where we live work and play, and is not just ecological but also includes a host of social factors such as housing, schools, neighborhood safety, and employment. (312)
Direct Quote: "A mere three letters covers a sweep of hundreds of thousands of events across several millenia."
From Shadows of War.
Why was the assertion that Simpson should acquire a green card so offensive?
Green cards allow non-citizens to work and reside permanently in the United States. The possession of a green card undermines the sovereignty the native nations are supposed to have.
Why does Mead think warfare is still prominent?
“Once an invention is known an accepted, men do not easily relinquish it”(292)
“The deeds of warriors are immortalized in the words of our poets; the toys of our children are modeled upon the weapons of the soldier; the frame of reference within which our statesmen and our diplomats work always contains war”(292)
Explain the two understandings of war alluded to in this text.
The first understanding doesn’t exist, because any scholar or specialist would laugh at you for believing there is a way to easily dilute what war is into something simple. (299)
The second would be form non experts and they would say because of our “innate aggressiveness ness, male aggressiveness, imperialism and greed, overpopulation and shortage of resources, a manifestation of unknowable evil” (299). (If they got at least three of the above, it works).
"The Andamans also represent an exceedingly low level of society; they are a hunting and food-gathering people..." (290)