Development of Primatology and Primate Conservation in Vietnam Challenges and Prospects

Development of Primatology and Primate Conservation in Vietnam Challenges and Prospects tài liệu, giáo án, bài giảng , l...

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST WORLD ANTHROPOLOGY Article Development of Primatology and Primate Conservation in Vietnam: Challenges and Prospects ` Tha.ch Mai Hoang Vietnam National University WHO IS A VIETNAMESE PRIMATOLOGIST? Many introductory textbooks for biological or physical anthropology include primatology as a branch of biological anthropology, and in higher education programs in anthropology in many countries, including the United States, primatology is taught as such In Vietnam, there is no formal training program in primatology or biological anthropology, and many scientists question why primatology should be taught in an anthropology department, having been trained instead in a vertebrate zoology or biology department To gain a broader understanding among Vietnamese scholars about the definition of a primatologist in Vietnam and whether there might be a need for specific training programs related to primatology, I interviewed and reviewed the work of several Vietnamese scholars who research on primates or were former primate conservation workshop trainees Nguye˜ˆ n Xuˆan D˘ ¯ a.ng (e-mail, July 3, 2015), a senior mammal researcher working at the Department of Zoology at the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources (IEBR) who considers himself a Vietnamese primatologist, defines primatology “simply as science of biology, ecology and conservation of primates.” According to Nguye˜ˆ n Xuˆan D˘ ¯ a.ng, whoever studies primates should be considered a primatologist In particular, he stated that Vietnamese primatologists are researchers who publish about the biology, ecology, or conservation of primates in both national and international journals His view favors research output as the primary measure in defining a primatologist in Vietnam rather than formal or informal education in primatology Indeed, most primatologists in Vietnam lack formal training in primatology, and primate research combines diverse methods beyond those with a solely primate focus, such as comprehensive biodiversity surveys, applied biological research, environmental impact assessments, ecological planning for the establishment of a protected area, and so on Vietnamese primatologists have formal training in mammalogy or zoology, ecology, archaeology, or environmental science This phenomenon is not necessarily unique to Vietnam and may relate to contemporary discussions in the international literature about the multidisciplinary parentage of primatology (Riley 2013) Ho`ang Minh D ¯ u´ c, a senior Vietnamese primatologist, reviewed the history of primatology in Vietnam since the early 20th century in his keynote presentation “Primatology and the Conservation of Non-Human Primates in Vietnam” at the International Primatological Congress in Hanoi, Vietnam, in August 2014 In his presentation, he defined primatologists as those who are “doing primatology,” meaning doing research on or surveys of primate populations His terminology ignored the constitution of the term primatology as a school or area of study (“-ology”), instead considering “doing primatology” as an action—the action of doing research on primates This use of primatology reflects and shapes how Vietnamese scholars understand the concept in the context of Vietnam, and it may also open a forum of debate about “doing primatology” versus “primatology” versus primate research that is beyond the scope of this article The perspectives of many mid-career and senior Vietnamese scholars I interviewed also follow this way of thinking They note that a primatologist in Vietnam must be someone undertaking primate studies for at least five to ten years with authentic scholarly publications Someone who joined a primatology training program in the past and is no longer doing primate research is not a primatologist To illustrate their point of view, they gave some specific examples of “real” Vietnamese primatologists (including ` Ho`ang Minh D ¯ u´ c, Nguye˜ˆ n Ma.nh H`a, D ¯ oˆ ng Thanh Hai, H`a ´ ´ Th˘ang Long, Lˆe Kha˘c Quyeˆ t, and V˘an Ngo.c Thi.nh, among others) In the opinion of one such primatologist, Ho`ang Minh D ¯ u´ c, someone who used to be involved in research on primates but is no longer involved, would not be considered a primatologist (unpublished interview, July 20, 2015) The clearest metrics that emerged when Vietnamese primatologists defined themselves were ongoing research related to primate populations and scholarly publications on primate research Although I agree that scholarly production is important, I argue that quality should outweigh quantity, and quality may be the more pressing issue at the moment as there is a lack of strong training in Vietnam in the theoretical foundations and methodological approaches related to primatology and conservation biology It may be unnecessary to recognize someone as a “real” primatologist AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol 118, No 1, pp 130–158, ISSN 0002-7294, online ISSN 1548-1433 Association All rights reserved DOI: 10.1111/aman.12515 C 2016 by the American Anthropological World Anthropology or not, but the importance of more formal training opportunities related to primatology and conservation biology in a primate habitat country like Vietnam cannot be understated Practitioners or managers cannot conserve primates without rigorous scientific input and robust contextualization to fill the numerous knowledge gaps that exist about Vietnam’s remaining, and globally important, primate populations A SHORT HISTORY OF PRIMATE RESEARCH IN VIETNAM Ho`ang Minh D ¯ u´ c 2014 distinguished three stages of primate research in Vietnam: (1) the initial period, prior to 1954; (2) 1954–1986; and (3) 1986 to the present The separation of the stages matches with the history of the country, which experienced two wars against France and the United States during the second stage, followed by an embargo period The third stage begins with the start of the new open door “D ¯ oˆ i mo´ i” policy in Vietnam in 1986 In the initial period (before 1954), research on the primates of Vietnam was dominated by morphologically based taxonomic descriptions from Western scientists based on colonial collections in Western institutions Those specimens were preserved in museums in London, Paris, and Chicago Some remarkable works in this period belong to Auguste Pavie (1904; list of primate species in Vietnam), Ren´e Bourret (1942; list of species of primates), and Winfred Hudson Osgood (1932; list of 17 primate taxa in Vietnam) The period of 1954–1986 marks the first generation of Vietnamese primatologists Most work continued to focus on morphologically based taxonomic descriptions of new ´ species (D` ¯ ao V˘an Tieˆ n 1960) and primate fauna (D` ¯ ao V˘an ´ ` Tieˆ n 1985; Lˆe Hieˆ n H`ao 1973; Van Peenan et al 1969), ´ in particular gibbons (D` ¯ ao V˘an Tieˆ n 1983) The cumulative research effort recorded 21 primate taxa (Eudey 1987) A particularly important contribution to primate research in ´ this period stems from the late Professor D` ¯ ao V˘an Tieˆ n, the Vietnamese founder of primate and mammal research at the Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Hanoi University ´ of Science, Vietnam National University D` ¯ ao V˘an Tieˆ n collaborated with Professor Colin Groves of the Australian National University to study the morphology, taxonomy, and biogeography of Vietnam’s primates, mammals, and other vertebrates (e.g., the adaptive radiation of northern limestone langurs and the systematics of gibbons and lorises; ´ see D` ¯ ao V˘an Tieˆ n 1960, 1983, 1985, 1989) Many primates and other mammals were collected as specimens during this period to contribute to national Vietnamese collections at the Hanoi Zoological Museum, Hanoi University of Science, and at IEBR None of the research conducted during two first periods focused on or mentioned the issue of primate conservation By contrast, primates and other wildlife were considered natural resources for economic development (Lˆe Hie`ˆ n H`ao 1973) Primates and other wildlife were hunted for wild 131 meat and for use as subjects in medical research Indeed, the mission of the Institute of Ecological and Biological Resources (IEBR), established in the 1960s, and the Forest Institute of Planning and Inventory (FIPI) was to survey the status of natural resources to advance Vietnam’s economic development Also, it is important to note that, during the first two periods, primates were not typically separated out as a target group for surveys by Vietnamese biologists Rather, primates were included in overall biodiversity surveys of fauna or mammals Thus, there were very few specialized studies on primates in Vietnam during the first two periods except ´ those mentioned above by D` ¯ ao V˘an Tieˆ n in collaboration with Colin Groves Ho`ang Minh D ¯ u´ c’s “contemporary period” of primate research in Vietnam (1987 to the present) is marked by the open-door policy in 1986 and the lifting of the embargo by the U.S government in the 1990s More Western scientists and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were able to come to Vietnam to conduct field surveys for wildlife and primates and introduce conservation ideas, opening new cooperative spaces for Vietnamese biologists and forestry engineers Many new field surveys of primate conservation status, distributions, and species compositions were conducted during this time Academic expertise and training were more concentrated in Northern Vietnam at this time, so northern institutions and organizations dominated these surveys As new northern institutions and collaborations were established, Vietnamese expertise on primate research expanded from Hanoi University of Science (H`a D` ¯ ınh D ¯ u´ c, Lˆe V˜u Khˆoi, V˜u Ngo.c Th`anh, and their fellows) out to the Institute of Ecological and Biological Resources (IEBR) (Pha.m Tro.ng Anh, Lˆe Xuˆan Canh, Nguye˜ˆ n Xuˆan D˘ ¯ a.ng, and their fellows), Vietnam Forestry University (VFU) (Pha.m Nhˆa.t, D ¯ o˜ˆ Quang Huy, and ` Doˆ ng Thanh Hai), the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies (CRES) (Nguye˜ˆ n Ma.nh H`a), the Forest Institute of Planning and Inventory (FIPI) (D ¯ o˜ˆ Tuo´ c), ´ and Fauna and Flora International (FFI) (Lˆe Kha˘c Quye´ˆ t) The World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) was the first conservation NGO to settle in Vietnam in 1995 Many surveys for the conservation status and distribution of primates were initiated by this organization in the 1990s Also, from the early 2000s to today, Fauna and Flora International (FFI) has led a long-running primate conservation program that continues to focus on surveys and monitoring of the status and distribution of primates in Vietnam Several notable and successful species-based primate projects were initiated by these international NGOs and others, including, for example, one for Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus avunculus) in Ha Giang Province in early 2004 and for Cat Ba langurs (Trachypithecus poliocephalus) on Cat Ba Island in 2001 Most of the primate-related work conducted by Vietnamese primatologists before 2003 focused narrowly on primate rescue or surveys of presence or absence rather than hypothesis-driven approaches Exceptions are the work of 132 American Anthropologist • Vol 118, No • March 2016 the second generation of Vietnamese primatologists such as Lˆe Xuˆan Canh, Nguye˜ˆ n Xuˆan D˘ ¯ a.ng (IEBR), and Pha.m Nhˆa.t (VFU), who were trained in vertebrate zoology in Russia and Vietnam Again, because of their training in vertebrate zoology or ecology, most primate researchers of this generation focused on questions of ecosystem structure (following the ecology school of Eugene Pleasants Odum), and few projects were designed specifically for primates Rather, primates were included in broader projects An exception is the collaboration between Lˆe Xuˆan Canh and Ramesh “Zimbo” Boonratana in 1991–1992, which focused on the feeding ecology and social structure of groups of Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus avunculus) in Na Hang Nature Reserve, Tuyen Quang Province (Boonratana and Lˆe Xuˆan Canh 1998a, 1998b) An influx of primatological research and ideas came to Vietnam from world primatologists, most of them from Western countries, in the early 2000s This influx of knowledge and related training programs and workshops in Vietnam initiated more in-depth, hypothesis-driven research on behavioral ecology and taxonomy of Vietnam primates Indeed, I would expand on Ho`ang Minh D ¯ u´ c’s 2014 stages to include a fourth stage of primate research in Vietnam, post 2003, which represents a new phase in the contemporary state of primate research in Vietnam and is characterized by an increase in the number of Vietnamese and other primatologists who focus specifically on hypothesis-driven primate research in Vietnam The greatest contribution during this period derives from Professor Herbert H Covert at the Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Boulder After an earlier research focus on primate paleontology in the 1990s in Vietnam, in the early 2000s Covert shifted to work on living primates in Southeast Asia, specifically in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) Covert’s presentation in 2003 on primate taxonomy and conservation at Vietnam National University’s Hanoi University of Science helped to trigger the further development of primate research in Vietnam through its impact on a number of young Vietnamese scientists; in fact, it triggered my own career shift into primatology and biological anthropology from vertebrate zoology Weak capacity and a lack of information exchange were identified as major challenges for the development of primate conservation and primate research in Vietnam, and some training courses on primate conservation and primatology were successfully developed and taught in Hanoi in this recent period (2006 and 2007) and in Ho Chi Minh City (late 2010s) through the efforts of Professor Covert, Conservation International (CI), and his Vietnamese colleagues Nowadays, we know more about behavioral ecology, locomotion, and vocalizations of many primates in Vietnam, especially colobine monkeys (e.g., Tonkin snub-nosed monkey) (Lˆe Kha´˘c Quye´ˆ t 2006, 2014), Delacour’s langur (Workman 2010), red-shanked douc (Ulibarri 2013), and black-shanked douc (Ho`ang Minh D ¯ u´ c 2007; O’Brien 2014) In general, higher-profile primate species in Viet- nam, namely the gibbons, critically endangered colobines, and the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, have received the most research, conservation attention, and especially funder interest Also during this period, a new species of gibbon was described in Vietnam (Nomascus annamensis) (V˘an Ngo.c Thi.nh et al 2010) By the year 2015, 26 primate taxa have been classified and recognized by international primatologists in Vietnam (Blair et al 2011; Roos et al 2014) However, it is important to note that most of the emerging Vietnamese primatologists in this contemporary period received their formal graduate training in primatology or biological anthropology abroad in Europe, Australia, or the United States—not in Vietnam PRIMATE CONSERVATION IN VIETNAM: A DRIVING FORCE FOR ENGAGED PRIMATOLOGY? For more than ten years, Vietnam has been well known as a globally important country for primate conservation (Nadler and Streicher 2004; Nguye˜ˆ n 2004) Vietnam has the highest number of overall primate taxa and endemic primate taxa in Mainland Southeast Asia and the highest number of globally threatened primate taxa in the region (IUCN 2015) Vietnam is also home to the second-highest number of species on the List of the 25 Top Most Endangered Primates in the World (Schwitzer et al 2015) How does the pressure to conserve these species influence primate research in Vietnam? Following the perspective of Russell Mittermeier 1978 in the Global Strategy for Primate Conservation—“to ensure the survival of endangered and vulnerable species wherever they occur”—five critically endangered primate taxa in Vietnam became the focus of many sponsors as flagship species in primate conservation Sponsors’ attraction to these species was inspired not by field research but by their work at the first primate rescue center in Vietnam, located in Cuc Phuong National Park Establishment of the rescue center in 1993 by Tilo Nadler, representative of the Frankfurt Zoology Society, Germany, represented one of the first major acts of primate conservation in Vietnam, and the center remains a key force for primate conservation in Vietnam today Named the Endangered Primate Rescue Center (EPRC), the rescue center followed the conservation model of communist countries like Vietnam and China of the early 1960s In 2005, a reintroduction program for the Hatinh langur (Trachypithecus hatinhensis) and red-shanked douc langur (Pygathrix nemaeus), funded by the Frankfurt Zoological Society and the Cologne Zoo, was launched in the Phong Nha–Ke Bang National Park in central Vietnam with a semiwild enclosure for reintroduction Two groups of Hatinh langurs were translocated in 2007, and they were released in 2012 (Nadler 2007, 2013) However, the function of the center goes beyond rehabilitation and release, as release is not often possible and capacity is limited The function of the center thus also includes conservation education, captive breeding, and scientific research on the primates of Vietnam (Nadler 2007, 2012, 2013, 2015) In addition, the EPRC plays an important role in attracting the attention of the World Anthropology media and of Vietnamese authorities to raise awareness about primate conservation in Vietnam (Nadler 2013, 2015) To further the movement of saving endangered primates in Vietnam, a second endangered primate rescue center was established in 2008 in Cat Tien National Park by Jim Cronin, the founder of Monkey World–Ape Rescue Centre, United Kingdom This center also works to rescue, rehabilitate, and reintroduce endangered primates, especially pygmy lorises (Nycticebus pygmaeus) and gibbons (Nomascus gabriellae), in Southern Vietnam Like EPRC in the north, the capacity and management of this center remain largely in the hands of foreign practitioners, although there are plans to hand management over to Vietnamese practitioners in the future Another two animal rescue centers in southern Vietnam are led by Wildlife At Risk (WAR) and are managed by Vietnamese experts These centers, established in 2006, aim to rescue and rehabilitate a wide variety of animals, including primates Like the other rescue centers, the WAR centers also maintain functions of conservation education and species identification training to sustain the operation of the center (B`ui Hu˜ u Ma.nh, unpublished interview, July 28, 2015) Many research projects on primate behavior, ecology, and biology have been conducted at rescue centers in Vietnam, mostly by foreign scholars and students (Nadler 2007, 2012, 2013, 2015) Much of this work has been published in the Vietnamese Journal of Primatology, which was founded in 2007 at EPRC, and in the proceedings of symposia on primate conservation held once every two years, also at EPRC This important research conducted at rescue centers has informed international primatologists and practitioners about the diversity and conservation status of Vietnam’s primate fauna Here I highlight the importance of rescue centers as key nodes for primate conservation activities in Vietnam because doing so is key to understanding the placement of primate conservation in the broader context of biodiversity conservation in Vietnam Vietnamese biologists and ecologists prefer not to separate out any special groups of organisms from national conservation projects They prefer landscape-level projects that focus on broad biodiversity conservation rather than species-based approaches that target threatened taxa Indeed, few biological or ecological research projects funded by the Vietnamese government over the last four decades focus on long-term, species-based conservation Most funded projects are short term and target evaluations and inventories of wildlife as natural–biological resources of a given area rather than the collection of detailed ecological or genetic information of targeted species groups Furthermore, as the global conservation community moves from protection-based to community-based approaches, the capacity gap widens even further for Vietnamese primatologists and conservation practitioners, who are not well trained in the anthropology of conservation In 133 2010, the government of Vietnam issued Decree number 117 Although a discussion about legal frameworks for conservation in Vietnam is beyond the scope of this article, Decree number 117 reflects a new mechanism to manage protected areas that is more biodiversity oriented and also more community oriented than the former strict protection of timber Although this decree opens the door to the potential to address important issues linked to primate conservation such as social justice and equity (Riley 2013), as discussed above, most Vietnamese primatologists and practitioners are trained as ecologists, foresters, zoologists, or biologists and not have backgrounds in anthropology, social science, or humanities that might aid them in this pursuit The trend toward community-based conservation also relates to the funding policies of international sponsors who fund primate conservation In terms of international sponsors’ interests, primate conservation projects generally fall into two lines of approach in Vietnam: (1) flagship or endangered species conservation projects and (2) landscapeor ecosystem-focused conservation projects Flagship species conservation projects in Vietnam are usually small budget while landscape projects are larger budget and larger scale Therefore, big conservation organizations such as WWF in Vietnam rarely focus on small-scale species conservation projects and instead conduct sustainable development projects with discourse toward global issues such as climate change, carbon markets, community development, and so on FFI and EPRC comparatively more species-based projects at smaller scales, such as in situ conservation of the Delacour’s langur (Trachypithecus delacouri) in Ninh Binh Province, Tonkin snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus) in Ha Giang Province, and Cao Vit or eastern black-crested gibbon (Nomascus nasutus) in Cao Bang Province Their success has fostered the integration and leadership of Vietnamese field primatologists (e.g., Lˆe Kha´˘c Quye´ˆ t) combining participatory conservation with local authorities and indigenous people through mutually beneficial partnerships This recent work is part of a process of empowerment of Vietnamese primatologists More and more Vietnamese primatologists have been starting their own small NGOs, raising funds, and managing primate conservation projects, such as Dr H`a Th˘ang Long and V˜u Ngo.c Th`anh’s conservation of grey-shanked douc (Pygathrix cinerea) and red-shanked douc (Pygathrix nemaeus) in Central Vietnam However, the challenge for Vietnamese primatologists remains how to practice primatology in the broader funding and academic landscape of Vietnam while earning a living Continued funding from species-focused sponsors is difficult to sustain, and as discussed throughout this article, dominant institutional frameworks in Vietnam preclude separation of primate (or any species-based) conservation from broader biodiversity conservation or conservation-related funding at the national level Again, I ask: Because many Vietnamese primatologists 134 American Anthropologist • Vol 118, No • March 2016 must work in and affiliate with this broader field to maintain their careers, what does it mean to be a primatologist in Vietnam? In addition to the above-mentioned challenges, Vietnam lacks a primate action plan to guide long-term conservation The Society of Vietnamese Primatologists was established as a branch of the Society of Vietnamese Zoologists in the 1990s to assess primate status and distribution for the Vietnam Red Data Book of threatened species In 1998, the society presented a proposal, which reviewed the distribution and conservation status of 25 taxa of primates in Vietnam, to create a primate action plan for the country (Pha.m Nhˆa.t et al 1998) This action plan has never been implemented due to numerous reasons that are beyond the scope of this article, and the society is no longer active Despite a loose link between the Society of Vietnamese Primatologists and the International Primatological Society (IPS), very few Vietnamese primatologists became members of IPS, and few attend the biennial IPS Congresses However, after the IPS Congress in 2014, which was held in Hanoi, there was momentum for a reinvigoration of the Society of Vietnamese Primatologists or a National Primate Specialist Group to develop an updated National Primate Action Plan and provide scientific consultancy for primate conservation projects nationwide Discussions are ongoing Without a strong primate action plan, political will for conservation may be hindered and fundraising will continue to be difficult, which will affect both primate conservation and primatologists themselves The fates of Vietnam’s primates and its primatologists are inextricably linked THE FUTURE OF PRIMATOLOGY IN VIETNAM I argue here that primatology in Vietnam has several key characteristics that shape its current and future development trajectories: Primate research in Vietnam is driven by the need for primate conservation At the same time, primate conservation in Vietnam is founded on many imported models for what conservation is, both from other communist countries and more recently from Western scholars and NGOs This in part has led to comparatively more engagement of foreign scholars than Vietnamese scholars in primate conservation in Vietnam What would a Vietnamese-generated model for primate conservation look like, and how might it incorporate indigenous knowledge better than these imported models? The challenges inherent in exploring these questions are compounded by Vietnamese institutional funding frameworks (both academic and national) that not recognize primate-specific focuses Greater engagement of foreign scholars in primate conservation has led to a larger role for foreign scholars in shaping the study of and training in primatology in Vietnam, with comparatively less engagement of local scholars This has led, in the long term, to a lack of formal or sustained training opportunities in primatology, especially opportunities that feature a leading role for Vietnamese scholars Most Vietnamese primate researchers are trained in biology, zoology, ecology, or forestry They lack training in the anthropology of conservation and cross-disciplinary skills, which limits their ability to practice conservation or apply for new crossdisciplinary funding mechanisms Overall, these characteristics indicate that we need at least some opportunities for formal training in primatology at Vietnamese academic institutions in the long run and also multidisciplinary training opportunities A program (e.g., a master’s program in primate conservation) could train students in the fundamentals of primatology and conservation biology and provide training in the cross-disciplinary skills needed to pursue professional work in primate research and conservation in Vietnam The challenge in establishing such a program is the present context of Vietnam’s academic institutions The Ministry of Education will open a new program only after demonstration of need and would require at least three Vietnamese primatologists holding doctorates at the proposed institution There is no institution in Vietnam with so many primatologists in one place To resolve the problem, some senior Vietnamese primatologists propose a simple model with a course on primate conservation at both undergraduate and graduate levels rather than a full program This suggestion recognizes that it is important for Vietnamese primatologists to have broader training to be able to earn a living working on biodiversity conservation issues Also, such a program might still lack multidisciplinary training opportunities for students because of the broader context of academic institutions in Vietnam For example, the subfields of biological anthropology and environmental anthropology in Vietnam are brand new, in part because they represent multidisciplinary fields of research I taught the first-ever courses in environmental anthropology and biological anthropology in 2015 and 2013 (respectively) in the Department of Anthropology at Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanities These courses took place after many years preparing for a move to this department from my former department, the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at Hanoi University of Sciences Before 1994, these two universities belonged to the same central university, the School of Arts and Sciences But today, classes and students are not shared between these two universities despite their location on the same campus Links between natural and social science schools and other research institutions are weak in Vietnam, such that cross-disciplinary cooperation in research and training seems an all-but-impossible mission World Anthropology The issue of cross- or multidisciplinary training also relates to why Vietnam should but does not yet follow the shifting trend in conservation from conservation biology toward a broader view of biodiversity conservation, or conservation anthropology, that requires a multidisciplinary panel of approaches, skills, and paradigms Vietnam cannot easily follow this trend because of inefficient capacity and institutional boundaries, which is a shame because Vietnam is an ideal research landscape to explore emerging multidisciplinary topics in primatology such as ethnoprimatology and human primate interaction (Fuentes 2002, 2012; Riley 2013; Workman 2004), ethical issues in vaccination and laboratory primates, wildlife trade, genetics of primate conservation, and so on In particular, the development of ethnoprimatology in Vietnam might be very important The 54 different ethnic groups in Vietnam have diverse cultural values and connections to their nonhuman primate relatives, and Vietnam would be a ripe landscape for both theoretical and engaged research on ethnoprimatological questions For the most part, these questions are left unexplored in Vietnam, with the exception of some ongoing niche overlap research by Western scientists Another option to support continued development of primatology and primate conservation in Vietnam would be to further harness the power of professional society networks such as the International Primatological Society (IPS) For example, IPS could help support the reestablishment of the Society of Vietnamese Primatologists or a Vietnam Primate Specialist Group toward the development of an updated action plan In relation to this, they could help support a series of Vietnamese-organized academic training programs in primatology, capitalizing on international expertise but designed and led by Vietnamese researchers to empower “habitat country” (Oates 2013:243) scholars and recruit more IPS members In addition, IPS could consider more sustainable funding beyond the short-term grants available for “habitat-country nationals,” as has already been suggested by John Oates (2013:243) IPS has already taken a step in this direction with the new Sabin Prize for Excellence in Primate Conservation, which was awarded to Lˆe Kha´˘c Quye´ˆ t of Vietnam in 2015 for his work on the conservation of Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys in Ha Giang Province Other anthropological societies such as the American Anthropological Association might also seek to support greater four-field training opportunities in Vietnam Primate rescue centers in Vietnam should continue to serve their key role in primate conservation, due to their convening power and history of important actions Perhaps this ongoing work could include incorporation into a curriculum of academic training as an outdoor classroom for Vietnamese fellows However we move forward, the need for more formal training opportunities related to primatology and conservation biology in a primate habitat country like Vietnam is clear Although primate conservation enthusiasts may pre- 135 fer immediate actions rather than taking the time for formal academic training that includes theory, I question whether we can conserve primates without rigorous knowledge to inform our actions Even as I argue for the importance of formal training in primatology, I end with a series of important queries for Vietnamese primatologists and the world anthropology community: What is primatology in Vietnam without the need for primate conservation? In other words, in the complex institutional landscape of my home country, is primatology relevant for Vietnam without engagement, or even with it? When we think about the future of primatology in Vietnam and the development of formal training opportunities, we must also recognize what Vietnamese students can and cannot with the skills they learn as they pursue diverse career trajectories Is it responsible to train more Vietnamese primatologists without also providing more sustainable funding opportunities for careers in primatology or primate conservation for Vietnamese practitioners? NOTES Acknowledgments I am grateful to acknowledge Virginia Dominguez for inviting me to write this article I am in debt to Mary E Blair, Mayumi Shimose, and Emily Metzner for edits to my English Thanks also to the many Vietnamese scholars who responded to my questions about the development of primatology in Vietnam REFERENCES CITED Blair, Mary E., Eleanor J Sterling, and Martha M Hurley 2011 Taxonomy and Conservation of Vietnam’s Primates: A Review American Journal of Primatology 73(11):1093– 1106 Boonratana, Ramesh, and Lˆe Xuˆan Canh 1998a Preliminary Observations of the Ecology and Behavior of the Tonkin Snub-Nosed Monkey (Rhinopithecus [Presbytiscus] avunculus) in Northern Vietnam In The Natural History of the Doucs and Snub-Nosed Monkeys Nina G Jablonski, ed pp 207–215 Singapore: World Scientific 1998b Conservation of Tonkin Snub-Nosed Monkeys (Rhinopithecus [Presbytiscus] avunculus) in Vietnam In The Natural History of the Doucs and Snub-Nosed Monkeys Nina G Jablonski, ed pp 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SSC Primate Specialist Group Fuentes, Agust´ın 2002 Monkeys, Humans, and Politics in the Mentawai Islands: No Simple Solutions in a Complex World In Primates Face to Face: The Conservation Implications of Human-Nonhuman Primate Interconnections Agust´ın Fuentes and Linda Wolfe, eds pp 187–207 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2012 Ethnoprimatology and the Anthropology of the Human– Primate Interface Annual Review of Anthropology 41:101– 117 Ho`ang Minh D ¯ u´ c 2007 Ecology and Conservation Status of the Black-Shanked Douc (Pygathrix nigripes) in Nui Chua and Phuoc Binh National Park, Ninh Thuan Province, Vietnam PhD dissertation, School of Natural and Rural Systems Management, University of Queensland 2014 Primatology and the Conservation of Non-Human Primates in Vietnam Keynote Presentation at the International Primatological Congress, Hanoi, Vietnam, August 11–17 IUCN [International Union for the Conservation of Nature] 2015 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species http:// www.iucnredlist.org, accessed December 19, 2015 Lˆe Hie`ˆ n H`ao 1973 Th´u kinh te´ˆ mie`ˆ n ba´˘c Viˆe.t Nam, Tˆa.p [Economic value of mammals of Northern Vietnam, vol 1] (Vietnamese hardcopy) Hanoi: Scientific and Technical Lˆe Kha´˘c, Quye´ˆ t 2006 Nghiˆen cu´ u mˆo.t so´ˆ d˘ ¯a.c di ¯ eˆ m sinh th´ai cua Voo.c m˜ui he´ˆ ch (Rhinopithecus avunculus Dollman, 1912) o khu vu.c Khau Ca, tınh H`a Giang [Research on some ecological features of the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus Dollman, 1912) in Khau Ca area, Ha Giang] MS thesis (Vietnamese hardcopy), Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Hanoi University of Science 2014 Positional Behavior and Support Use of the Tonkin SnubNosed Monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus) in Khau Ca Forest, Ha Giang Province, Vietnam PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Boulder Mittermeier, Russell A 1978 Global Strategy for Primate Conservation New York: IUCN-SSC Primate Specialist Group and the New York Zoological Society Nadler, Tilo 2007 Endangered Primate Rescue Center, Vietnam—Report 2004 to 2006 Vietnamese Journal of Primatology 1(1):89– 103 2012 Frankfurt Zoological Society: “Vietnam Primate Conservation Program” and the Endangered Primate Rescue Center, Vietnam—Report 2011 Vietnamese Journal of Primatology 2(1):85–94 2013 Twenty Years Endangered Primate Rescue Center, Vietnam—Retrospect and Outlook—Report 2012 Vietnamese Journal of Primatology 2(2):1–12 2015 Endangered Primate Rescue Center, Vietnam–Report 2013/2014 Vietnamese Journal of Primatology 2(3): 57–72 Nadler, Tilo, and Ulrike Streicher 2004 The Primates of Vietnam—An Overview In Conservation of Primates in Vietnam Tilo Nadler, Ulrike Streicher, and Ha Thang Long, eds pp 5–11 Hanoi: Frankfurt Zoological Society Nguye˜ˆ n, B T 2004 Conservation of Primates in Vietnam In Conservation of Primates in Vietnam Tilo Nadler, Ulrike Streicher, and Ha Thang Long, eds pp 3–4 Hanoi: Frankfurt Zoological Society Oates, John 2013 Primate Conservation: Unmet Challenges and the Role of the International Primatological Society International Journal of Primatology 34(2):235–245 O’Brien, Jonathan A 2014 The Ecology and Conservation of Black-Shanked Douc (Pygathrix nigripes) in Cat Tien National Park PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Boulder Osgood, Winfred Hudson 1932 Mammals of Kelly-Roosevelts and Delacour Asiatic Expedition Field Museum of Natural History (Zoology) 18(10):191– 339 Pavie, Auguste 1904 Recherches sur l’histoire naturelle de l’Indo-Chine orientale [Research on the natural history of Eastern Indochina] Paris: Publi´ees avec le concours de professeurs, de naturalists et de collaborateurs du Museum d’histoire naturelle de Paris ` ´ Pha.m Nhˆa.t, D ¯ o˜ˆ , Tuo´ c, Traˆn Quoˆ c Bao, Pha.m Mˆo.ng Giao, V˜u, Ngo.c Th`anh, and Lˆe Xuˆan Canh 1998 Distribution and Status of Vietnamese Primates Unpublished Proceedings Workshop on a Conservation Action Plan for the Primates of Vietnam Hanoi: Vietnamese Primate Specialist Group Riley, Erin P 2013 Contemporary Primatology in Anthropology: Beyond the Epistemological Abyss American Anthropologist 115(3):411– 422 Roos, Christian, Ramesh Boonratana, Jatna Supriatna, et al 2014 An Updated Taxonomy and Conservation Status Review of Asian Primates Asian Primates Journal 4(1):2–38 Schwitzer, Christoph, Russell A Mittermeier, Anthony B Rylands, Frederica Chiozza, Elizabeth A Williamson, Janette Wallis, and Alison Cotton 2015 Primates in Peril: The World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates, 2014–2016 Arlington: IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group, International Primatological Society, Conservation International, and Bristol Zoological Society World Anthropology Ulibarri, Larry Ray 2013 The Socioecology of Red-Shanked Doucs (Pygathrix nemaeus) in Son Tra Nature Reserve, Vietnam PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Boulder V˘an Ngo.c Thi.nh, A R Mootnick, V˜u Ngo.c Th`anh, Tilo Nadler, and Christian Roos 2010 A New Species of Crested Gibbon, from the Central Annamite Mountain Range Vietnamese Journal of Primatology 4:1–12 Van Peenen, Peter F D., Paul F Ryan, and Rudolph H Light 137 1969 Preliminary Identification Manual for Mammals of South Vietnam Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Workman, Catherine 2004 Primate Conservation in Vietnam: Toward a Holistic Environmental Narrative American Anthropologist 106(2):346– 352 Workman, Catherine 2010 The Foraging Ecology of the Delacour’s Langur (Trachypithecus delacouri) in Van Long Nature Reserve, Vietnam PhD dissertation, Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University Comment Primatology in Vietnam and Other Habitat Countries: An Applied Perspective from India Kashmira Kakati Wildlife Biologist, India Tha.ch Mai Ho`ang provides a comprehensive overview of primate studies in Vietnam and offers suggestions on how primatology in Vietnam may be improved His initial deliberations on who can be defined as a primatologist not seem to me as important as the issues he raises about the quality and relevance of primate research and conservation in Vietnam He cites weak capacity, lack of information exchange, funding problems, the government’s and international NGOs’ focus on landscape-level versus species-level conservation, and the lack of training of primatologists in the social sciences or anthropology He also points out that imported models of conservation and a preponderance of foreign scholars have shaped primatology in Vietnam at the cost of inclusion of Vietnamese scholars and indigenous knowledge Many of the issues in Vietnam are common to other South and Southeast Asian countries I discuss some of Tha.ch’s points in light of my experience working in India, where I have done both species-focused research on primate ecology and wider landscape-level wildlife studies, addressing ecological hypotheses as well as hoping that my findings would be used toward conservation of species and habitats Tha.ch laments that “dominant institutional frameworks in Vietnam preclude separation of primate (or any speciesbased) conservation from broader biodiversity conservation or conservation-related funding at the national level.” I question whether primate conservation should be separated from biodiversity conservation at all It is true that big donors tend toward landscape-level rather than species-level conservation, but many landscapes are selected for conservation due to the presence of wide-ranging and charismatic species such as elephant, rhino, or tiger In Vietnam, it was the discovery of a small population of the Javan rhino that influenced the creation of the Cat Tien National Park in 1998 and there- after drew government and international funding for the site Despite this, the Javan rhino went locally extinct there It is often difficult to use primate species alone to garner that level of attention, and therefore funding, although it has been achieved for certain great ape populations in Africa As Tha.ch notes, in fact, there is an attributed hierarchy among the primates themselves in terms of their appeal, with “gibbons, critically endangered colobines, and the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey” in Vietnam receiving the lion’s share of attention Given the realities, landscape focus is a good strategy in conservation and does not have to be exclusive of species-focus studies In fact, detailed and long-term studies on populations and ecology of species can, and should, effectively inform their conservation at the landscape level The critically endangered Hainan gibbon in China, just across the Gulf of Tonkin from Vietnam, serves as a cautionary tale not to put off species studies and monitoring until it is too late Tha.ch acknowledges the role of Vietnam’s rescue centers in primate conservation, especially in achieving the goals of scientific research, captive breeding, and awareness From what I understand, however, it seems that primate rehabilitation into the wild, which should be a primary goal, is perhaps not as successful due to a variety of reasons This is a problem that might be addressed by taking a wider view, investing in protection, and involving communities in order to repopulate forests with primates that have been decimated by hunting The wild populations of Vietnam’s 26 primate taxa are threatened by hunting and habitat loss They need research attention On the one hand, hypothesis-driven research on Vietnam’s primates does not have to preclude conservation On the other hand, wild primate research does not always have to include a conservation goal at the outset Tha.ch dwells at length on training and capacity lacunae for Vietnamese primatologists While acknowledging the contributions of foreigners and foreign collaborations to primatology in Vietnam, he also suggests that these might be 138 American Anthropologist • Vol 118, No • March 2016 preventing Vietnamese scholars from having leading roles From the perspective of my experience in India, within the last two to three decades, high-quality institutions—namely, universities, government institutes, and conservation organizations—have produced a capable cadre of in-country wildlife biologists, among them primatologists Several scholars have benefited, as no doubt Vietnamese scholars have, from further training at Western universities I would expect that having foreign scholars in Vietnam should result in a similar productive exchange of ideas and collaborations with Vietnamese scholars It is important that Vietnamese researchers develop good funding proposals that will enable them to tap the same sources of funding that foreign scientists Many international conservation organizations now prioritize funding to range-country institutions and individuals Vietnam is one of the fastest-growing economies in the region In this context, the Vietnam government must improve the education and training of biologists within the country and fund most of the research and conservation of the country’s biological assets At another level, perhaps it is a matter of the Vietnamese scholars shaping their own roles in primatology and stepping up to assume the leadership positions in which Tha.ch desires to see them instead of merely foreign scholars stepping down Science should have no boundaries in the form of race or nationality In preceding decades, Western scientists such as David Chivers of the University of Cambridge, UK, and Warren Brockelman at Mahidol University, Thailand, were pioneers for South and Southeast Asian primatology, having actively encouraged and trained range-country primatologists It was with the help of Western scientists like Alan Rodgers and John Sale that the Indian government set up the Wildlife Institute of India in 1982, which produced the first generations of trained Indian field biologists, many of whom now have influential roles in conservation across the country I see, however, Tha.ch’s point that the knowledge, skill sets, and resources that foreign scientists bring to the country may not fully benefit the Vietnamese To remedy this, Vietnamese government policy can create conditions in which externally funded projects are mandated to build in-country capacity as Bhutan, for example, has done Tha.ch calls for the formation of an action plan for primates in Vietnam—an excellent suggestion While such an action plan could be facilitated by the International Primatological Society (IPS) and international donors, it is vital that the Vietnam government owns, funds, and implements it to make it sustainable in the long term The action plan should not only prioritize species and landscapes for research and conservation action but also detail how Vietnamese researchers will be trained, employed, and sustained in a multidisciplinary framework, as Tha.ch recommends Tha.ch flags the issue of biologists’ lack of social sciences training This is a drawback that afflicts conservation programs in the region and has been discussed incisively by Freya St John et al (2014) Although desirable, in field biology research or conservation teams it may not always be feasible to have a social scientist, and cross-disciplinary training of biologists may indeed be a solution REFERENCE CITED St John, Freya A V., Keane, Aidan M., Jones, Julia P G., and Milner-Gulland, E J 2014 Robust Study Design Is as Important on the Social as It Is on the Ecological Side of Applied Ecological Research Journal of Applied Ecology 51(6):1479–1485 Comment Primatology, Integration, and World Anthropologies Agust´ın Fuentes University of Notre Dame Whether applying a comparative approach contrasting humans as primates to other primates, navigating the multifarious web of social and ecological interconnections between people and other primates, or examining the mutual mutability of our bodies and biomes via the bidirectional exchange of pathogens, primatology is a key arena for anthropological engagement From its inception as a field of study in the early quarter of the 20th century to its core inclusion into North American anthropology via Sherwood Washburn’s “New Physical Anthropology” (1951) to its current status as a locus for integrative approaches across anthropological subfields (via ethnoprimatology, see Fuentes 2012; Riley 2013), primate studies remains an area that draws on diverse toolkits, stakeholders, and methodologies But primatology has never been exclusively rooted in one locale, one cultural paradigm, or even one language From the 1950s, distinct schools emerged in Japan, the United States and Canada, and various nations in Europe (particularly Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) All developed their own particular approaches, intermingling with one another but never fully fusing In the last decades of the 20th century, the historical (or, better put, “colonial”) centers of power assisted and accepted the training and inclusion of primatologists from the “source countries”—those areas in the Global South where nonhuman primates range and where the bulk of primatological fieldwork is conducted.1 India, Indonesia, South World Anthropology Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Madagascar, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica, Thailand, China, and Vietnam all began to develop primate research programs relying on both internal and external expertise The bulk of these programs had conservation as a central focus, and very few of them were housed in, or had explicit connections to, departments of anthropology This is exactly what makes the current state of primatology in Vietnam so interesting Tha.ch Mai Ho`ang introduces us to the history of primate studies in the country and draws a map of the focus on conservation and the myriad of disciplinary backgrounds Vietnamese primatologists bring to bear Even more so than in most other countries, the emergence of primatology in Vietnam is extensively intertwined with conservation actions and conservation funding Tha.ch argues that primatology in Vietnam is an activity, a perspective, and not necessarily a cohesive discipline It is the process of doing primatology that makes one a primatologist in Vietnam not the particulars of the degree or training one holds Given his overview of the central role of conservation, of all stripes, in the development of primate studies in Vietnam, it is not surprising that the act of primatology has developed as an organic response to the local contexts and national perspectives, ideologies, and realities of Vietnam, as opposed to an imposed and formalized school This makes the World Anthropology section a good venue in which to contemplate Tha.ch’s call for a multidisciplinary entanglement in Vietnamese primatology centered in and around anthropology Tha.ch proposes that “Vietnam is an ideal research landscape to explore emerging multidisciplinary topics in primatology such as ethnoprimatology and human primate interaction, ethical issues in vaccination and laboratory primates, wildlife trade, genetics of primate conservation, and so on” (this issue) and also points out that “the 54 different ethnic groups in Vietnam have diverse cultural values and connections to their nonhuman primate relatives” (this issue), concluding that Vietnam is a ripe landscape for theoretical and engaged anthropological primatological research He also points out that integrated approaches, and training, are required to most effectively navigate this landscape and produce the kinds of outcomes that matter to the people and other primates of Vietnam Herein lies the rub: in Vietnam, there is no precedent for this kind of integration.2 Due to his experiences in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Tha.ch is currently attempting to construct, under the tent of anthropology, the kinds of multidisciplinary and integrative training and research programs for which the diversity and complexity of the Vietnamese primatological landscape call But this is no easy task With no historical precedent, little familiarity with a multifield North American–style anthropology in the government and academic structures, and only a handful of established professional positions available, the uphill trajectory for this project is steep 139 Tha.ch notes in this issue, When we think about the future of primatology in Vietnam and the development of formal training opportunities, we must also recognize what Vietnamese students can and cannot with the skills they learn as they pursue diverse career trajectories Is it responsible to train more Vietnamese primatologists without also providing more sustainable funding opportunities for careers in primatology or primate conservation for Vietnamese practitioners? This is a common crisis globally for anthropology There is great intrinsic value in developing a core of researchers and scholars in countries outside of the current centers of academic training (the colonial academies noted above), but there is also an ethical dilemma: What is the future for such scholars? What are the opportunities for anthropologists and primatologists who are trained in this 21st-century intellectual ideal but whose job opportunities and livelihoods are enmeshed in economic, political, and academic grids of continuing inequality and limited infrastructure and support? It is, as Tha.ch details, necessary to engage in a collaborative project between Vietnamese scholars and those from outside to co-develop the funding infrastructures that can facilitate the emergence of his integrative program One can see this as a call for anthropologists who are situated in, and have the support of, the traditional centers of anthropology and primatology to assist as best we can to destabilize the juggernaut of colonial legacies and make anthropology and primatology truly world disciplines Tha.ch Mai Ho`ang and his national and international collaborators are working on this in Vietnam I wish them great success and hope that a myriad of others will be inspired to join this project NOTES The one exception is Japan, where free-ranging primates (macaque monkeys) exist and long-term field studies on social behavior were pioneered Japan maintained its very strong local focus and established research and training connections with all other major primate areas (Neotropics, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia) Nor is there in most other places REFERENCES CITED Fuentes, Agust´ın 2012 Ethnoprimatology and the Anthropology of the Human– Primate Interface Annual Review of Anthropology 41:101– 117 Riley, Erin P 2013 Contemporary Primatology in Anthropology: Beyond the Epistemological Abyss American Anthropologist 115(3):411– 422 Washburn, Sherwood L 1951 The New Physical Anthropology Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences 13:298–304 144 American Anthropologist • Vol 118, No • March 2016 Heads (chairs or presidents) of the IAA Dates of their terms Marcus Goldstein (deceased) 1973–75 Phyllis Palgi (deceased) Alex Weingrod* Harvey Goldberg* 1975–77 1977–79 1979–81 Henry Rosenfeld (deceased) Shlomo Deshen Patricia Smith Moshe Shokeid* Yoram Bilu 1981–83 1983–85 1985–87 1987–89 1989–91 Sam (Shimon) Cooper Henry Abramovitch* Eyal Ben-Ari 1991–93 1993–95 1995–98 Dan Rabinowitz* Meira Weiss* 1998–2001 2001–03 Andr´e Levy* Orit Abuhav Nurit Bird-David* Efrat Ben-Ze’ev Amalia Sa’ar* Harvey Goldberg 2003–07 2007–10 2010–12 2012–14 2014 2014–16 Professional affiliation or location Department of Anatomy and Anthropology, School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University Department of Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University Department of Behavioral Sciences, Ben Gurion University Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Haifa University Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University School of Medicine, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Bar-Ilan University Department of Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Department of Behavioral Sciences, Ben Gurion University Beit Berl College Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Haifa University Ruppin Academic Center Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Haifa University Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Q&A Responses Henry Abramovitch Tel Aviv University WHAT KIND OF WORK DO YOU ASSOCIATE WITH ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY—NOW? TWENTY TO THIRTY YEARS AGO? FIFTY TO SIXTY YEARS AGO? In the early years of the state of Israel, the development of anthropology was impeded by government policy that viewed the integration of new immigrants from a sociological perspective of desocializing new immigrants from their traditional culture and resocializing them as “Israelis.” From this perspective, anthropology that saw value in culture and tradition was an ideological threat Until very recently, there was no Department of Anthropology in any Israeli university, and the discipline was forced into the role of the “little sister” of sociology The initiative of the Bernstein Trust, and Max Gluckman in particular, gave an enormous boost to social anthropology in Israel, with a strong bent toward the functionalist theoretical perspective Ethnographers using a community focus explored uniquely Israeli forms of life such as the moshav, the kibbutz, and the development town but also Bedouins, Palestinian villagers, urban slums, and Jews originating from North Africa, India, and Ethiopia Alex Weingrod’s classic study of new arrivals from Morocco, Reluctant Pioneers (1966), summed up the ethos of the time Victor Turner had an enormous influence and not just through his books Few great writers are even more eloquent in person, but Victor Turner was certainly one of them He spent his last sabbatical in Israel, and through the force of his character he constellated an ethos and cooperative World Anthropology enthusiasm among local anthropologists, especially around the topic of pilgrimages—specifically the mass pilgrimage to the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on Mt Meron in the Galilee Had his untimely death not intervened, I am certain that Israeli anthropology would be more creative and collaborative today, with joint field projects, which were not otherwise part of the local ethnographic tradition When I did my early fieldwork in the anthropology of death and funerals in Jerusalem, I had no local colleagues with whom to discuss my “dirty work”; indeed, despite the great importance of the anthropology of death in the formation of the field, it was seen as a marginal, even stigmatized, area of thought For the past few years, I have participated in an interdisciplinary research working group at Tel Aviv University’s Minerva Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of the End of Life, led by Haim Hazan and Shai Lavi, which has provided a most fruitful forum In more recent decades, Israeli anthropology has shifted away from previous emphases on family, kinship, conflict, and the peace in the feud (subjects not even taught anymore) toward postmodernism, the impact of the local on the global, material culture, Internet culture, gendered identity, cultural hegemony, and so on WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST CHALLENGING IN ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY OR AS AN ANTHROPOLOGIST IN ISRAEL? I believe the greatest challenges Israelis face are ethical The first concern is how to deal with ethical dilemmas in fieldwork The traditional approach to ethics based on Western philosophical tradition is to try to formulate abstract principles from the basis of a professional code of ethics However, such a rule-based approach is too idealized and does not anticipate unexpected situations, nor does it provide practical help in the nitty-gritty of actual ethnographic reality I have drawn on the Talmudic approach that begins with analyzing specific dilemmas and only then trying to formulate guidelines based on practical experience I have led series of workshops in which people share their actual dilemmas for discussion in a safe environment I believe this approach is useful in stimulating ethical awareness, which then prepares the anthropologist for the unexpected ethical realities that are inevitable in fieldwork A second difficulty concerns doing anthropology at home, where the field never closes and there is no formal ending to fieldwork Obligations can continue indefinitely In the age of the Internet, even the most exotic fieldwork now also has this quality of anthropology at home, because informants and researchers remain interconnected online and thus mutually obligated Anthropology at home inevitably does force the anthropologist to develop cultural self-awareness in a manner analogous to personal psychoanalysis Finally, there is the boycott of Israeli universities, signed by over 1,000 international colleagues While I recognize the right to political protest (and I actively oppose the occupation), I feel the statement is devoid of any anthropological content and intended not for meaningful change but rather 145 for the delegitimization of Israel Even if I were to organize a conference with my Palestinian counterparts on the anthropology of peacemaking and ending the occupation, these signatories have pledged not to attend It is especially disappointing to read that my fellow anthropologists can nothing more to change this unjust situation than to sign a statement The contrast with the AAA Task Force on Engagement with Israel/Palestine is striking The task force interviewed over 80 people, including Israeli and Palestinian anthropologists and other academics WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST PRAISEWORTHY AND PRODUCTIVE IN (THE PRACTICE OF) ANTHROPOLOGY IN ISRAEL? When I was president, the practice of anthropology was fragmented Social anthropologists were in one department; physical anthropologists, archaeologists, linguists, and folklorists in others, with little professional contact By establishing a National Seminar in Anthropology, I created a new space for unusual dialogue across subdisciplines—for example, debate between biological anthropologists and experts on the culture of contemporary hunter-gatherers Another innovative tradition I started was having annual meetings of the Israel Anthropological Association away from academic settings and in a place that offered a literal or symbolic fieldwork experience It provided a significant opportunity to enter into the fieldwork of colleagues Another important event marking the renaissance of the field is the now-annual Anthropological Film Festival, bringing films and filmmakers from many countries, spearheaded by Professor Tamar El Or In recent public recognition of anthropology, Yoram Bilu was awarded the Israel Prize for his enormous contribution It was the very first time that the Israel Prize was awarded in anthropology Besides the impressive work of Bilu in psychological anthropology, there are many other innovative and influential researchers A small sample of the many includes Haim Hazan on the anthropology of aging; Moshe Shokeid on fieldwork and Israelis abroad; Don Handelman on bureaucracy and ritual; Tamar Elor on ultraorthodox women; and the outstanding work of biological anthropologists such as Yoel Rak and many others on evolution, Neanderthals, and the development of agriculture Not to be forgotten is the grandmother of Israeli anthropology, Phyllis Palgi, student of Margaret Mead, who was an early leader in both applied and medical anthropology Finally, I should add that Orit Abuhav’s monograph, In the Company of Others: The Development of Anthropology in Israel (2015), is now available in English REFERENCES CITED Abuhav, Orit 2015 In the Company of Others: The Development of Anthropology in Israel Detroit: Wayne State University Press Weingrod, Alex 1966 Reluctant Pioneers: Village Development in Israel Ithaca: Cornell University Press 146 American Anthropologist • Vol 118, No • March 2016 Q&A Responses Nurit Bird-David University of Haifa WHAT KIND OF WORK DO YOU ASSOCIATE WITH ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY—NOW? TWENTY TO THIRTY YEARS AGO? FIFTY TO SIXTY YEARS AGO? “Israeli anthropology,” “anthropology in Israel,” and “Israeli anthropologists” are designations with different meanings for me, each one implying something distinctive in the context of the three questions posed by Virginia Dominguez, associate editor for the World Anthropology section of AA Yet a common assumption informs them, an assumption that contemporary anthropologists might regard as ontological (or cosmological) At this particular historical moment, the “nation” and the “nation-state” are normally viewed as prime sources of an individual’s identity and key modes of social identification; indeed, it is practically impossible to envision a world that is not constituted by nations as the determinant grid However, a “nation” is just one mode of perceiving plural life, one mode of looking at plural entities and identities Anthropologists more than others recognize this; my own long-term study of hunter-gatherers has led me to be particularly conscious of alternative options Characterizing “Israeli” (or any other nationally defined) anthropology is as important as it is problematic if we are to progress beyond a Euro-American-centered anthropology More so than “anthropology in Israel” (the field as practiced in the Israeli state) or “Israeli anthropologists” (anthropologists working in Israel or Israeli citizens working elsewhere as anthropologists), “Israeli anthropology,” for me, presumes two collective bodies: “anthropology” and “Israel.” Each, however, is the historical product of a great diversity of creative contributions and semiotic-political claims In replying to the questions that have been posed, I ask myself whether “Israeli anthropology” constitutes a distinct school or style of doing anthropology and whether it has a range of distinct key topics responding to the state’s history and predicaments Certainly, some anthropologists working in Israel deal with “Israeli” issues, among them, the absorption and settlement of migrants; Holocaust trauma and heritage; Jewish folklore, tradition, and religion; Zionism; the military; the Palestinian communities in Israel; and the Israeli– Palestinian conflict However, what I find most striking as I reflect on the research my colleagues and I conduct is the great diversity in our work One reason for this diversity is relational-structural in nature, and it is something that Israeli anthropology shares with some other nationally defined anthropologies outside the United States Israeli anthropology constitutes a small field of practice compared with U.S anthropology, a fact that deserves elab- oration because it easily falls through the sieve of scale-blind national terms Anthropology began in Israel with students of sociology who, in the 1960s, did Ph.D work in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Manchester under the auspices of Max Gluckman’s project on immigrants’ absorption and social development in Israel (see Shokeid 2004) As part of the project, they did fieldwork at ten sites in Israel Several of those students became the first tenured anthropologists in Israeli universities (leading to departments changing their names from “sociology” to “sociology and anthropology”) Other anthropologists from U.S and European universities joined these departments, and some of their students pursued their Ph.D studies abroad (a recommended course for one who wants to obtain an academic job in Israel and a reasonable one given the small size of the local professional community) WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST CHALLENGING IN ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY OR AS AN ANTHROPOLOGIST IN ISRAEL? Although not unique in this respect, national anthropologies of this scale generate and are affected by particular conditions of growth and development Particularly significant in this respect is their inextricable link to Euro-American anthropology Not only are our faculty for the most part professionally trained abroad, but also they publish in international journals to secure jobs and promotions, are evaluated by Euro-American anthropologists, attend conferences abroad, and belong to international professional communities of interest In one popular joke (triggered by the growth of Israeli backpack tourism to India), an Indian asks an Israeli, “How many Israelis are there?” The Israeli replies, “Seven million.” “Not in India,” the Indian hurriedly clarifies, “I mean in Israel.” The presence of Israeli anthropologists at conferences abroad—necessary for their own careers at the same time that it supports large-scale North American and European associations financially as well as intellectually—might suggest that they are numerous, especially to observers who are used to and who implicitly assume large organizational memberships in the hundreds or even thousands Membership in the Israeli Anthropological Association (IAA) has in recent years surpassed 100 (including students and interested persons); members with jobs that support continuous engagement in research number several dozen The community is small yet heterogeneous The diversity of anthropologists in Israel is spectacular given their small number, and it is also a product of their fewness Their diversity is something they themselves are well aware of given that each can personally know most of the others; recognition of this diversity makes it difficult to semiotically and politically claim one field and style as “Israeli World Anthropology anthropology.” For example, in my own department at the University of Haifa (one of five universities teaching anthropology and the only one with an autonomous anthropology department), three of our four full-time faculty conduct fieldwork both in and outside Israel (external research topics include pregnancy in Japan, genocide in Cambodia, and forager forest people in India) From the start, then, Israeli anthropology has been diverse, and it has only grown more diverse, despite and perhaps because of its small scale and its scale-determined relation to world anthropology WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST PRAISEWORTHY AND PRODUCTIVE IN (THE PRACTICE OF) ANTHROPOLOGY IN ISRAEL? My reply to all three questions for the World Anthropology section of AA—a timely project, the importance of which, in my view, cannot be overstated—derives from the above perspective on Israeli anthropology as unfolding within a global field as much as, if not more than, it has been shaped by a national-cultural character As I reflect on the work of anthropologists in Israel, it is, above all, diversity that I most associate with that work Its creativity at the margins and, yet, as part of international anthropology is what I find most praiseworthy and productive Our work as 147 part of, yet far from, our respective communities of interest is what I find most challenging—this and the worsening political context in which we work and that no comment on Israeli anthropology can afford to ignore I so here, on a personal note as well as past president of the IAA and a current member of the advisory board of the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA) It simply cannot be overstated that “Israeli anthropology” is a reified construct that conceals a very small number of scholars Anthropologists of all scholars should recognize the complexity of plural identities in Israel as elsewhere (for example, in my university, more than 25 percent of the students are Israelis of Palestinian/Arab origin, and in some of my anthropology classes nearly 50 percent are) Contrary to the cobbler going barefoot, ethnographers of all scholars could help reveal the subtle cultural roots of political conflicts including divergent senses of key symbols (if not ontologies) of “nation,” “land,” and “home.” REFERENCE CITED Shokeid, Moshe 2004 Max Gluckman and the Making of Israeli Anthropology Ethnos 69(3):387–410 Q&A Responses Harvey E Goldberg Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Emeritus WHAT KIND OF WORK DO YOU ASSOCIATE WITH ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY—NOW? TWENTY TO THIRTY YEARS AGO? FIFTY TO SIXTY YEARS AGO? Around the 1950s, anthropology was taking its first steps in Israel A few anthropologists immigrated from abroad, and a few came to fieldwork here A sociology department had been established in the late 1940s that included some researchers who had studied social anthropology in England, but the department did not recognize anthropology in its own right Both anthropologists and Israeli sociologists gathered data through fieldwork in local settings In the early days of Israeli anthropology, the kibbutzim were widely researched, and the work of Mel Spiro became known abroad A second research direction concerned Jewish immigrants from post–World War II Europe and the Middle East, especially those settling in agricultural communities A third looked at Arab communities, emphasizing villagers and Bedouin Israeli anthropology was “traditional” in the sense of being centered in defined locales but also attended to the state and other broader factors For instance, anthropologists approached the study of kib- butz ideology as one evolved from a European socialist milieu; immigrant cooperative agricultural villages were seen to be outcomes of central planning; and, as highlighted by Henry Rosenfeld, Arab villagers were found to be contending with new economic and political pressures in the Israeli state Twenty to thirty years later, new emphases emerged Anthropology had gained official standing in 1963 in Tel Aviv University’s new Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and other institutions soon followed this example Additional immigrant populations arrived, from the Soviet Union beginning in the late 1960s and from Ethiopia starting in the 1980s The concept of ethnicity emerged as an important lens after it was recognized that many immigrants did not become “Israeli” rapidly Some research themes, such as the role of bureaucracies, continued, while others evolved, like the study of religion and ritual events Anthropologists in Israel delved into feminist issues, began paying attention to the middle class, developed modes of research in urban settings, interrogated major institutions such as the military, and asked probing cultural questions on issues ranging from the style and content of everyday interactions to the role of the Holocaust in national narratives The trend of an expanding scope and increasing diversification in anthropological research continues today 148 American Anthropologist • Vol 118, No • March 2016 While the total number of full-time anthropologists in Israel’s universities has not grown in the past couple decades—it is somewhat over twenty—the discipline has gained a foothold and has made some impact In my own department, in the 1970s, some of the sociologists began calling aspects of their work anthropological, which I took to mean they thought the field worthy of emulation At the same time, there emerged a strand of critical sociology in Israel that challenged the existing sociological school for too closely reflecting hegemonic forces and thinking It depicted early anthropological work in these terms as well, an account not borne out by close examination From the beginning, Israeli anthropologists described processes from the ground up in ways that differed from reigning sociological notions, bureaucratic categories, or ideological rhetoric Ethnographers who came after them absorbed some insights from the local critical sociology but did not express a need to construct an oppositional critical anthropology WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST CHALLENGING IN ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY OR AS AN ANTHROPOLOGIST IN ISRAEL? While I have addressed some of the challenges that Israeli anthropology has met in my answer to your first question, the 2013–15 discussion within the American Anthropological Association of a possible boycott of Israeli academic institutions that would affect anthropology here comes to mind That anthropology has had to struggle for a place in higher education in Israel leads me to feel that such a boycott would be deeply ironic and misguided Anthropologists here—a very small group—have striven to insert our discipline into the local cacophony of discourse and academic presence, and now there are colleagues in the AAA who seek to silence us Three members of the AAA Task Force on Engagement with Israel/Palestine visited Israel in May 2015 At an opening gathering, I asked one of them how many Israeli anthropologists there were (i.e., members of the Israeli Anthropological Association) The immediate answer was, “I don’t know,” and then an estimation of “over 200” was offered We informed the AAA representative that the thencurrent membership was just over 60 (this figure was down from previous years and rose again in 2015) To me, this indicated that the whole idea of a task force targeting anthropology was based on a misunderstanding of what broader influence our association might possibly have The idea that boycotting us would be helpful to Palestinian society is quite far fetched, if not counterproductive WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST PRAISEWORTHY AND PRODUCTIVE IN (THE PRACTICE OF) ANTHROPOLOGY IN ISRAEL? Your final question is what I consider praiseworthy in anthropology in Israel There is a Hebrew saying that the baker should not testify regarding his own dough, which I consider sound advice To me it is an accomplishment that anthropology, against resistance, was able to stake out a claim within the academic landscape and to maintain it By now, my first doctoral student has mentored students who are active and productive in the field Outside the research universities, some Israeli anthropologists teach in BA-level colleges Sometimes these are part-time positions, and often they are in interdisciplinary departments or departments in other disciplines But an impact has been made that occasionally resonates beyond the academy Recently, together with a colleague, Chen Bram, I coordinated a workshop on the relevance of anthropology Participants included both anthropologists and professionals from other fields who found that anthropology contributed to their work Here are three examples: four people dealing with the material world (two architects and two instructors of design); two anthropologists trying to find a meeting point between government policies regarding the dispersed Bedouin in Israel’s Negev region and the demands of the Bedouin themselves; and a lawyer who was brought up in an ultraOrthodox Jewish family and, while no longer identifying with that way of life, works with these communities, encouraging them to introduce secular studies (math and English) into their basic curriculum by articulating an approach in which taking that educational step makes sense in terms of their own internal values I will let history assess whether these anthropologically informed efforts are praiseworthy and productive World Anthropology 149 Q&A Responses Andre´ Levy Ben-Gurion University (Translated from Hebrew by Amit Habib) WHAT KIND OF WORK DO YOU ASSOCIATE WITH ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY—NOW? TWENTY TO THIRTY YEARS AGO? FIFTY TO SIXTY YEARS AGO? Over its nearly 70 years, Israeli anthropology has undergone significant changes In the early years, most anthropologists worked on two population groups, asking basically separate questions of them This split was fundamentally derived from two key historical occurrences connected with the establishment of Israel as a state and its definition as Jewish: the expulsion and departure of a large proportion of the Palestinian population from the places where they lived and the arrival of waves of immigrant Jews Following the anthropological inclination at the time to underscore cultural differences, researchers (who were all of European or North American origins) focused on groups they deemed relevant in their cultural otherness: the Palestinians who stayed in Israel (who were called Israeli Arabs) and the migrants from Arab and Muslim countries (who were eventually called Mizrahim) Research questions about Palestinians reflected the exclusion of Palestinians, even if implicitly In contrast, Jewish migrants from Arab and Muslim countries were mainly tested for their ability to fit into, and adapt to, a modern society In other words, just as Palestinians were seen from the start as completely separated from the Jewish state, Jews from Muslim countries were seen as having the potential to integrate Therefore, it is not surprising that anthropological research failed to examine the “Arabness” (or Muslim influence) that could potentially connect Jews from Muslim countries with Palestinians in Israel It was ideologically imperative to establish the difference between the two groups, and this difference received special attention in the flourishing research on ethnicity: use of a unique Hebrew concept, adatiyout (Jewish ethnicity), enabled research on and about Jews themselves and at the same time excluded Palestinians from such a discussion Indeed, the languages that anthropologists use are critical At first, the acceptance of English as the “natural” language reflected the influence of British colonialism, but soon after it has been due to a general dependence on the United States For Israel (including Israeli anthropology), globalization has really been a one-sided process that almost exclusively entails U.S influence As a result, changes in Israeli anthropology over the last three decades have tended to follow changes in U.S anthropology This includes changes in the selection of research topics, theoretical approaches, the positionality of anthropologists, and their choices of field site Hence, the discipline in Israel is becoming more varied as it focuses more on topics such as gender, the environment, queer studies, and whiteness studies Theoretical emphases have expanded, too We now find poststructural, postcolonial, and postmodernist approaches in Israeli anthropology Colleagues have not neglected those subjects and populations of past interest to anthropologists, but the attitude toward them has become more critical But the positioning of researchers has not changed enough The percentage of women in the discipline is rising, but the ethnic profile of the researchers has changed little There are still practically no representatives of Palestinians and Jews from Arab and Muslim countries—the groups that were traditionally researched Members of groups newer to Israel, such as Ethiopians, have not joined the discipline either However, field sites have changed significantly In the past, most of the research focused only on happenings within Israel As in many small countries, there simply has not been a budget, or even the will, to finance research beyond the borders of the state Hence, until my own work in Morocco in the early 1990s, not one Israeli university anthropology student had conducted fieldwork outside Israel’s borders Yet, in the last two decades, many more Israeli anthropologists have chosen to conduct fieldwork outside Israel Despite the colonial roots of this practice, I assume there is no need to stress the importance of going abroad in order to revitalize one’s theoretical and practical thinking As for the future, I sadly not foresee positive change The wider political contexts seem unchanging The dependence on U.S anthropology and the potential threat of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement might make Israeli anthropology even less relevant After all, domestically, Israeli anthropology operates under the complete domination of sociology Sociologists have actively promoted the weakening of the discipline or at least the weakening of its distinctiveness I am, therefore, pessimistic The number of positions for anthropologists is small, and it is not going to grow WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST CHALLENGING IN ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY OR AS AN ANTHROPOLOGIST IN ISRAEL? The academic-institutional vulnerability of anthropology does not necessarily lead to a total collapse Change from within is paramount We could, for example, use anthropological understandings to retool Israeli anthropology in relation to the practices of different ethnic and political minorities I think about this in terms of my own 150 American Anthropologist • Vol 118, No • March 2016 research on Jews in Morocco (who are at the margin of marginalized minorities there) Clearly marginality can be a source of creative solutions, strengthening the existence of any small group If we anthropologists were to use our own theoretical insights, we could turn our institutional weaknesses into strengths The marginality of anthropology could be interpreted as a critical practice Anthropology in Israel could pursue what Victor Turner named “the mystical powers of the weak” (Turner 1969:109) or, to use the approach advocated by Daniel Boyarin and Jonathan Boyarin (2002) with respect to diasporas, it could turn its imminent weakness into a moral force—sure of itself and strong in its values But creativity has its limits, and as long as anthropology works within the bureaucratic makeup of universities, those limits will loom large For example, the fact that the promotion of university faculty requires letters of evaluation from outside Israel prohibits personal and collective advancement in the context of the BDS Movement WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST PRAISEWORTHY AND PRODUCTIVE IN (THE PRACTICE OF) ANTHROPOLOGY IN ISRAEL? Despite everything I have said so far, it is important to stress that Israeli anthropology has strengths worth mentioning The fields in which Israeli anthropologists work bring about meaningful local understandings Because most of the fieldwork is done within Israel, the work is unarguably interesting The place is loaded with conflicts and paradoxes, including tensions among and between Jews, as well as with Palestinians, and cultural and political storms that challenge the researcher It is, therefore, an especially rich location for research This matters because most of the research that anthropologists in Israel today is done within the Green Line, meaning within Israel’s pre–1967 war borders The place makes it necessary to ask questions about politics, gender, ethnicity, borders, movement, center and periphery, war and peace, religion, and history The small size of the profession in Israel obliges anthropologists to grapple with epistemic questions that concern the viability of theory and knowledge Israeli anthropologists grapple with (1) the extent to which our anthropology provides universal tools, (2) the distance between the desire to transcend localism and the tendency to protect local knowledge, and (3) how to interest the non-Israeli reader in our work The vigilance of Israeli anthropologists participating in international arenas and the extent of our publications—or, even more, our ability to publish our papers in international (mostly in English and mostly U.S.-based) journals—attest to the fact that we have succeeded in finding a good balance for the meantime REFERENCES CITED Boyarin, Jonathan, and Daniel Boyarin 2002 Powers of Diaspora: Two Essays on the Relevance of Jewish Culture Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press Turner, Victor 1969 The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure Piscataway: Aldine Q&A Responses Dan Rabinowitz Tel-Aviv University WHAT KIND OF WORK DO YOU ASSOCIATE WITH ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY—NOW? TWENTY TO THIRTY YEARS AGO? FIFTY TO SIXTY YEARS AGO? “Israeli anthropology” is as awkward—and as stubborn—a notion as any other “anthropology” prefixed by an adjective denoting a name of a place or a state or even a culture For me anthropology is, first and foremost, an individual endeavor It is a passion that grows in solitude, sometimes idiosyncratically, from preoccupations, curiosities, and capabilities coming from within My academic career, like that of every other Israeli anthropologist, is spent in joint sociology and anthropology departments in which sociologists tend to outnumber anthropologists They, like us, write and publish primarily in English, treating their few articles and books in Hebrew as appendixes and footnotes rather than the mainstay of their professional and intellectual efforts The conventional truth about Israeli anthropologists is that they tend to their ethnographic work in communities within Israel itself I certainly do, having been interested for many years in Bedouins and Palestinian citizens of Israel and, more recently, in environmental justice But Shmuel BenDor (now deceased), Eric Cohen, Moshe Shokeid, Nurit Bird-David, and a host of younger Israeli anthropologists— including Fran Markowitz, Andre Levy, Jackie Feldman, Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni, Nir Avieli, and Julia Lerner, among others—have traveled far and wide across the globe in search of field locations Are we all part of “Israeli” anthropology then? Yes, inasmuch as we all live in an area smaller than Rhode Island, with distances between our respective places of residence that are never over a hundred miles; yes, inasmuch as we share a language; yes, inasmuch as we have various degrees of identification with, belief in, and hope for the clumsy, World Anthropology vibrant, self-obsessed project called Israel; and yes, inasmuch as all of us, like most people everywhere, manage most of the time to overlook the weaknesses, discrepancies, and contradictions inherent in our own society and culture No, in my case at least, if being part of “Israeli anthropology” slots me into a category I am hardly convinced exists No, if accepting that problematic label might mean that Khaled Furani, a colleague at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University and a friend, born within a mile from where I was, a citizen of Israel but someone who otherwise would never see himself as “Israeli,” let alone consider his work as part of “Israeli anthropology,” might feel excluded from the professional and intellectual community in which he lives and works WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST CHALLENGING IN ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY OR AS AN ANTHROPOLOGIST IN ISRAEL? Using “challenge” in its literal meaning—a test, an obstacle with which to be contended (rather than a deficiency, as it is often euphemistically deployed)—I can identify three issues that anthropologists in Israel have yet to coherently unlock One is the relationship between the Israeli project and what, for want of better words, I label “Jewish life” or “Jewish culture.” The Jewish diaspora is an extraordinary phenomenon in world history A powerhouse of intellectual energy, often a harbinger of groundbreaking ideas that had an impact on science, philosophy, morality, technology, economy, and politics, it has been largely absent from Israeli life so far In this regard, Israeli anthropologists reflect that very blind spot: their impact on the quest to better understand the relationship between Israel and the Jewish diaspora and to place modern Israel in a Jewish historical context is yet to be felt Second is the Palestinian experience, not least of those Palestinians who in the wake of 1948 were trapped within Israel—a state they never wanted or anticipated (Furani and Rabinowitz 2011; Rabinowitz 2001) The founding generation of Israeli anthropologists, researchers who were active since the 1960s (some of them still are), looked at Palestinians and at Bedouins with empathy, using “culture” to forge a liberal framework of analysis But few, if any, Israeli anthropologists from that generation but also from subsequent ones have successfully unpacked the power hold in which the Palestinians have found themselves in Israel since 1948 The third issue is that concerning Arab Jews, known also as Mizrahim While many ethnographic projects since the 1950s took Jewish immigrants from Arab countries, particularly from the Maghreb, Kurdistan, and Yemen, as their object of inquiry, few, if any—Pnina Motzafi-Haller is an exception here, perhaps—were able to use ethnography as a means for radical new insights yielding meaningful theoretical and political traction 151 WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST PRAISEWORTHY AND PRODUCTIVE IN (THE PRACTICE OF) ANTHROPOLOGY IN ISRAEL? I hesitate on this question for two reasons One is that anthropology in particular and intellectual work in general are at their best when they assume a critical perspective Offering praise, particularly for a milieu of which one is an active part, defeats that purpose a priori The other is that the praise I offer next is qualified: it refers to efforts that are far from adequate and nowhere near completion Anthropology in Israel has been and still remains the only professional and academic association to formally and publicly come out with declarations, actions, and positions that critique erstwhile government policies and challenge public consensus on the most controversial and painful issue faced by Israel since its inception: the conflict with the Palestinians A few instances over the last 25 years are worth mentioning here In 1988, when the first Palestinian Intifada broke out, the Israeli Defense Forces responded with massive, indiscriminate force against Palestinian teenagers armed with stones, killing and maiming dozens This policy was backed by a consensus in the Israeli mainstream that the crisis in the West Bank and in Gaza was a matter of “unrest” and “public disorder” and that the government, through its military forces, had a right and a duty to restore law and order The Israeli Anthropological Association (IAA), in an unorthodox move, passed a formal resolution later that year that not only condemned excessive use of force against civilians but also, more significantly, identified the conflict as one between two competing, equally legitimate, national movements In 1999, as president of the IAA, I invited Edward Said, a personal friend, to be the keynote speaker at the association’s annual meeting, held in Nazareth That was the first time the IAA’s annual meeting took place in a Palestinian community It was also the first time in which the keynote speaker of the annual meeting was not an anthropologist Not least, Edward’s address, appropriately titled “The Consequences of 1948,” remains the only public appearance that Said, one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century, ever held in front of a formal Israeli association It was also the best-attended session in IAA history On June 11, 2015, the business meeting of the IAA passed a formal resolution, worded and proposed by Yehuda Goodman, Amalia Sa’ar, Nir Avieli, Michele Rivkin-Fish, and myself, which called on the Israeli government to (1) withdraw from all the territories Israel captured in 1967; (2) secure the right of Palestinian and Bedouin citizens of Israel to full equality; (3) seek a spectrum of just, honorable, and viable solutions to the tragedy of Palestinian refugees; and (4) its share in the reconstruction of Gaza, following the destruction it inflicted there during the armed conflict with Hamas in 2014 A separate part of the resolution called anthropologists around the world to resist the call to boycott Israeli universities and to mobilize their capabilities, prestige, and resources in the complex effort to attain peace and justice 152 American Anthropologist • Vol 118, No • March 2016 in the Middle East The resolution had 75 percent of the votes for it and 15 percent against; 10 percent abstained The 1988, 1999, and 2015 moves by the IAA did not change the violent reality of the Middle East Some might trivialize them, claiming they came too late and are too little But seen as they are—singular signals from a small group of researchers (the IAA, currently at one of its highest peaks ever, has 106 members) who oppose the political and social zeitgeist—they can at least remain sources of hope If nothing else, anthropologists in Israel emerge as worthy members of an international community that maintains a steadfast sense of morality, encouraging its members to operate outside their comfort zones, even as neoliberalism, neocolonialism, and neoconservatism tighten their strongholds on world affairs REFERENCES CITED Furani, Khaled, and Rabinowitz, Dan 2011 The Ethnographic Arriving of Palestine Annual Review of Anthropology 40:474–491 Rabinowitz, Dan 2001 The Palestinian Citizens of Israel, the Concept of Trapped Minority and the Discourse of Transnationalism in Anthropology Ethnic and Racial Studies 24(1):64–85 Q&A Responses Amalia Sa’ar Department of Anthropology (in the making), University of Haifa WHAT KIND OF WORK DO YOU ASSOCIATE WITH ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY—NOW? TWENTY TO THIRTY YEARS AGO? FIFTY TO SIXTY YEARS AGO? Over the course of the past sixty-odd years, Israeli anthropology has undergone intense growth and diversification In the first decades of the state, Israeli anthropologists were by and large Jews, primarily Anglophones, who identified with the Zionist project Typically trained at the interface of social anthropology and sociology and firmly grounded in the modernization paradigm, most of them sought to study groups that were marked as traditional They usually had a dual agenda As agents of the nation-building project, they aimed to help the new state absorb the massive waves of immigrants They considered it their mission to educate state officials in cultural relativism while acting as mediators and cultural translators on behalf of the immigrants As scholars, they aspired to contribute to the English-speaking anthropological community, of which they were part, ethnographic knowledge about the challenges of a modern society in formation Closer to the turn of the millennium, the discourse in the discipline changed dramatically Already part of the academic establishment—by the 1980s, all five research universities had joint sociology and anthropology departments—anthropologists became increasingly reflexive regarding their positionality and political agency The topics of study diversified Alongside marked groups, who came to be explored through the lenses of marginality and racialization rather than traditionalism, local anthropologists shifted their gaze also to bearers of cultural hegemony, including the state, and to the structure of ethnic inequalities Israeli anthropologists today are primarily native Hebrew speakers, including a handful of Palestinians, and their dis- course is typically very critical; in fact, anthropology has become a hub of critical research in Israeli social sciences In contrast to the loneliness of Henry Rosenfeld’s Marxist anthropology during the early decades (e.g., Rosenfeld 1964), from the 1990s onward, political economy, feminism, and postcolonialism have become integral components in syllabuses and scholarly production WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST CHALLENGING IN ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY OR AS AN ANTHROPOLOGIST IN ISRAEL? I see three main challenges First among them is the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem While many Israeli anthropologists, an overwhelming majority in my estimate, are part of the anti-occupation camp, for years the Israeli Anthropological Association (IAA) avoided taking an official stand on the matter Since 1999, which is when I started attending the IAA conferences, I recall political discussions at almost every annual meeting, repeatedly ending in a decision to avoid an official political declaration I personally supported this position, albeit with great ambivalence, for the following reasons Because I was well aware that not all Israeli anthropologists are on the political left, I felt that using the majority to impose a pro-Palestinian declaration would have created a rupture in the association, which would have impaired its capacity to function as a platform for professional exchange for a community that is initially small and institutionally vulnerable Also, despite my personal antioccupation stance and my growing despair at Israel’s human rights violations and ravaging institutional racism, I worried that an official anti-occupation declaration would antagonize not only some fellow anthropologists but also many of those within Israel with whom I wish to engage as part of doing anthropology Recently, however, I changed my position At the June 2015 IAA annual meeting, I joined other members in voting for a resolution against the occupation—and also against the boycott of universities in Israel—because I World Anthropology realized that the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement against the Israeli occupation and the dramatic escalation of the racist policies of the state have rendered the wish for a politically neutral association obsolete A second main challenge is the impact of economic liberalization on the academic system With the spread of what Marilyn Strathern (2000) has called audit culture, departments are now required to show that they have “enough” students and that their faculty have “enough” grants and “enough” academic publications of one particular type— articles in refereed journals in English While this is not new, the aggression with which such rules are imposed has escalated exponentially In the particular case of anthropologists, the emphasis on journal articles creates pressure to avoid writing ethnographies; it also entails disregard of texts written for popular readership in Hebrew or Arabic Anthropologists within the academic system are unabashedly pressured to minimize the time dedicated to such writings or forego them entirely, lest they aggravate their initial stigma of not being properly scientific Many subsequently publish very little in local languages, thus effectively not speaking to Israeli society Many also postpone publishing ethnographies until they are tenured Ironically, though, privatization also yields a counterpressure to attract students, and to this anthropologists need to increase their visibility by producing accessible texts and by giving popular interviews Third, and directly connected to the former challenge, is the dilemma of doing applied anthropology For years, anthropologists in Israeli academia have been very precise in prioritizing their international connections by developing proficiency in theoretical English jargon The IAA has no section of applied anthropology Such a group exists but receives no institutional embrace from the association Yet with privatization, the spread of anthropology to community colleges in the periphery, and students’ growing concerns with the relevance of their education, pressures are mounting to cultivate the applied aspects of anthropology Some young PhDs who have not found a place in academia are creating new niches in institutional spheres such as education, healthcare, town planning, or marketing, and they are demanding acknowledgment from and participation in the circles of academic anthropology A parallel development has been the growing engagement of anthropologists in action research with social change organizations My department at the University of Haifa has already announced the launching of two semi-applied masters programs in the anthropology of medicine and mental health and in engaged anthropology These developments have instigated debates—for example, at the 2015 IAA annual meeting—about the desirability of 153 institutionalizing applied anthropology and the implications of such a move on retaining the high academic level of anthropological research WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST PRAISEWORTHY AND PRODUCTIVE IN THE PRACTICE OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN ISRAEL? This is probably not unique to Israel; nevertheless, what I find praiseworthy and productive in practicing anthropology in Israel is the ongoing opportunity to discover complexity and cultivate tolerance in the midst of social and political antagonism Admittedly, there is a price attached: I feel that anthropology has somehow toned down my political passion When I participate in demonstrations, I lift signs with clear, unambiguous slogans and engage in directly confrontational politics When I write action-oriented reports, I stress injustices and resistance Yet when I practice anthropology, the commitment to consider people as historically embedded subjects invariably shifts my attention away from clear truths and directs it, instead, to contradictions, odd juxtapositions, and the humoristic side of imperfect lives Moreover, the commitment to suspend judgment creates within me emotional room for a wide range of attitudes and opinions, including ones that I would normally deem grossly intolerable Emphatically, my reading of the Israeli–Palestinian military-patriarchal-capitalist complex has not become less critical—quite the contrary In my new book (Sa’ar in press), I dwell on the detrimental effects of this complex on the lives of women in Israel’s periphery Yet producing political texts now feels completely futile to me Ethnographic texts, by contrast, allow me to explore the concrete and ultimately inconclusive ways in which power and structural violence affect the lives of actual people and the myriad tiny channels through which actual people manage to forge meaningful lives within such constraints REFERENCES CITED Rosenfeld, Henry 1964 From Peasantry to Wage Labour and Residual Peasantry: The Transformation of an Arab Village In Process and Pattern in Culture: Essays in Honor of Julian H Steward Robert A Manners, ed Pp 211–234 Chicago: Aldine Sa’ar, Amalia In press Economic Citizenship: Neoliberal Paradoxes of Empowerment New York: Berghahn Books Strathern, Marilyn 2000 Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics, and the Academy London: Routledge 154 American Anthropologist • Vol 118, No • March 2016 Q&A Responses Moshe Shokeid Tel Aviv University WHAT KIND OF WORK DO YOU ASSOCIATE WITH ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY—NOW? TWENTY TO THIRTY YEARS AGO? FIFTY TO SIXTY YEARS AGO? Israeli anthropology owes both its beginning and its major impetus to the recruitment of a cohort of young students, mostly Israeli and North American, who were enticed to conduct ethnographic research in Israel following the historical phenomenon of the post-1948 mass immigration of Jews from Europe and the Middle East to the newly founded state of Israel Following the 1948 war, the emergence of an Arab minority within the borders of Israel also attracted ethnographic research These pioneers conducted their research in a variety of Jewish immigrant and Arab communities as members of a team (e.g., the Manchester Project) or as individuals Their ethnographies, published from the mid-1960s through the 1970s, introduced a new field site—Israel— outside the classical anthropological destinations (Africa, India, the Far East, etc.) and represented a massive trove of scholarly work that has left its mark on world anthropology They thus also pioneered in the emerging trend of “anthropology at home.” Only a few among the veteran and the younger Israeli anthropologists left Israel to conduct ethnographic research elsewhere, in the United States, Thailand, and Japan in particular Two gradually expanding constituencies in Israeli society remained outside the framework of ethnographic work among both the veteran and the younger members of the profession as well, although for different reasons: the Haredim, the growing ultra-Orthodox enclaves concentrated in major urban sites (in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak in particular), and the Mitnahlim, the settlers’ communities continually spreading out in rural and urban sites in the West Bank—the territories that Israel has occupied since the 1967 war The Haredim were left out mostly because of the assumed difficulty of penetrating these extremely religious and isolated groups The settlers, however, were left out because of leftist political convictions that held back the majority of anthropologists from any association with the project of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories These post-1967 settlements founded under the Messianic agenda of the “Promised Land” seem to obliterate the prospects of a consensual peace agreement with the Palestinians The majority of the first cohort stayed in Israel and joined the departments of sociology that were renamed as joint departments of sociology and anthropology However, anthropologists remained the minority in these departments, and there are presently only about 35 positions for anthropologists in all Israeli academic institutions The work of that founding generation and their students, who later extended their research to other groups and institutions in Israeli society, was distinguished for its commitment to the classical Malinowskian methodology of longterm participant-observation Israeli anthropologists during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s conducted mostly community studies, staying one to two years at their field sites However, beginning around the late 1980s, the postmodern orientation in U.S anthropology seemed to influence the choice of subjects and the research methods among a younger generation, encouraging a greater investment in theoretical complexity and textual refinement The more varied research questions and methodologies of recent years are reminiscent of the emerging “cultural studies” in U.S academia Not many among the younger cohort of practitioners have undertaken long-term participant-observation projects in one fieldwork site Also, the early drive to study and document the processes of immigrant absorption and social and national integration lost its momentum (except for interest in these processes spurred by the Ethiopian Jews’ later arrival) to a search for more “neutral” contemporary sociocultural subjects However, a few among the veteran generation developed new interests and adopted novel genres of research for their later work, such as observing urban organizations or engaging in multisited fieldwork projects WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST CHALLENGING IN ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY OR AS AN ANTHROPOLOGIST IN ISRAEL? In retrospect, I regret the unwritten taboo against research among the West Bank settlements Descriptive and analytical reports about the Haredim society (that in Israel as well as similar communities in the U.S.) by religious sociologists and other writers are plentiful But the personal and social roots as well as the communal life of the settlers—whose impact on the lives, present and future, of both Israelis and Palestinians is of the utmost socioeconomic and political consequence—remain unexplored entities in sociological and anthropological terms Naturally, one confronts an old anthropological ethical dilemma: Can the anthropologist study people she or he deeply resents? As an Israeli anthropologist, coming from the periphery of the professional international map and its major stages in Europe and the U.S., one had always to withstand the difficulty of playing a significant role in the central forums and academic records of world anthropology But more recently, that notion of marginality has been glaringly accentuated by the BDS agenda and the pending AAA decision to boycott Israeli academic institutions as punishment for the continuing World Anthropology Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands That boycott would inevitably affect the position of Israeli members of the AAA One cannot escape the stigma (and treatment) associated with his or her home institutions This repudiation of our academic home environment leaves us wondering: Do we still retain the status of legitimate citizens in the society of world anthropologists? WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST PRAISEWORTHY AND PRODUCTIVE IN (THE PRACTICE OF) ANTHROPOLOGY IN ISRAEL? Israeli anthropology has produced knowledge that has made a difference on the world stage as well as in the lived experiences of Israelis themselves Early studies of kibbutzim in Israel contributed to the popularity of that social experiment in the world imagination Studies of Middle Eastern immigrants in the new villages (moshavim) and in the new development towns (ayarot ha’pituach) helped the Israeli pub- 155 lic comprehend the magnitude of the immigrants’ trials and tribulations (such as adopting to new economic constraints, to new modes of organization, and to “local Israeli culture”) As later studies of Ethiopian Jews have done, these studies revealed the complexities of Oriental Jewry cultures, such as the cult of saints The studies of Israeli Arabs helped comprehend their unique position in the Israeli multiethnic social-cultural texture Despite the challenges posed by international disdain for the actions of the Israeli government and its supporters at home, Israeli anthropologists have remained closely allied with major professional trends and textual genres in EuroAmerican anthropology, taking active part in international meetings and publishing articles in major professional journals and books with leading academic presses That is indeed a noteworthy achievement for a small group of professionals situated far away from the major professional scenes in Europe and the United States Q&A Responses Alex Weingrod Ben-Gurion University WHAT KIND OF WORK DO YOU ASSOCIATE WITH ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY—NOW? TWENTY TO THIRTY YEARS AGO? FIFTY TO SIXTY YEARS AGO? I reply to this question historically Israeli anthropology 60 years ago was in its prehistoric age Between 1950 and 1960, there was a tiny band of anthropologists, all quite young and themselves mainly recent immigrants from the United States and South Africa, all doing research on the new Jewish immigrants then arriving in very large numbers Much of the work was applied and outside of university frameworks, and the anthropologists worked for or were attached to government agencies Issues connected with immigrant absorption were the major focus of research, and the anthropologists’ “others” were primarily immigrants from North Africa, Yemen, Iraq, and central Europe Studying Palestinian villagers was a minor theme Conceptually, community studies were then in vogue, and acculturation and Westernization served as primary theoretical anchors The historic age began in the 1970s to 1980s Anthropologists entered previously established university departments of sociology that were then renamed sociology and anthropology Anthropologists were the junior partners, lesser in number, and this academic balance continues to the present University lecturers and their MA and PhD students continued studies of North African and other immigrant groups, and new research topics such as ethnic conflict, bureaucracies, religious organization and belief, urban communities, and psychological adaptation and healing were selected fields of study Research on Israeli Palestinians also expanded, emphasizing minority status, inequality, and structural subordination In the present, anthropological work in Israel covers a broad spectrum of topics Research on recent immigrant groups continues (especially Russian and Ethiopian Jewish immigrants), and African migrant workers and asylum seekers are also studied Topics of study, or frames of analysis, are similar to anthropological work elsewhere, and they include gender, diasporas and transnational systems, tourism, nationalism, citizenship, music and performance, religious organization and transformations, medical issues such as reproductive techniques and family organization, and much more Studies of Palestinian Israelis range over a variety of topics, mainly but not exclusively politically oriented In addition, a growing number of younger anthropologists undertake fieldwork outside of Israel in Europe, the United States, Japan, India, Central America, and China There does not seem to be a dominant theory guiding present-day fieldwork, although a “critical perspective” is often emphasized WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST CHALLENGING IN ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY OR AS AN ANTHROPOLOGIST IN ISRAEL? Two parts to this query Being an anthropologist in Israel means working in a small society that constantly changes, where complex new events endlessly explode all around you, where the field is just next door, and where one is challenged to unravel and explain or interpret what is going on and why I have often been amazed at the 156 American Anthropologist • Vol 118, No • March 2016 relative ease with which one can contact people, find informants, and appear to get close to complicated situations Being close to the action is stimulating and challenging— although sometimes depressing and frustrating, too The field may be murky and quite ugly or the entry doors may be closed That is one sense of “challenge,” perhaps a positive sense Another is the challenge to resist becoming drawn into the nation’s ideology and to instead stand outside of the Israeli consensus This was especially challenging at an earlier time, in a different Israel when the regime appeared to be more humane and less nationalist The challenge then was to resist the Zionist drama and to coolly examine what was actually happening The present regime has been in power for the last several decades, and because I oppose it, resistance is not a challenge but, rather, a way of life! I suppose that the anthropological challenge is to be critical and also sensitive to other interpretations and policies As citizens, our challenge is to find ways out of the deeply problematic situations that we presently confront WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST PRAISEWORTHY AND PRODUCTIVE IN (THE PRACTICE OF) ANTHROPOLOGY IN ISRAEL? What I find most praiseworthy and productive in Israeli anthropology is its continuing vitality With all of the problems in and around our academic field, there is no local sense of ennui or intellectual tiredness—to the contrary, anthropology is a relatively small but very lively field of study, and there is a feeling of freshness and creativity among new generations of scholars and researchers The numbers are small—perhaps 100 to 125 anthropologists, mainly graduate students, attend the yearly meetings—but their intellectual output is of good quality and much more than substantial Books and articles by anthropologists are increasingly being published in Hebrew, and anthropologists are thereby engaged in a variety of Israeli social and political issues Anthropology as a field of study has become better established, and its vitality, perseverance, and creativity hold promise for the years ahead My previous remarks were written before the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement resolution to boycott Israeli anthropologists was adopted at the 2015 meeting The boycott essentially seeks to ostracize Israeli anthropologists from the wider anthropological community What would be the probable results should the AAA membership vote to boycott Israeli anthropologists and Israeli anthropology? In the past, Israeli anthropologists have had close academic contacts with fellow anthropologists in many countries A boycott would limit these contacts and also make it difficult to process basic academic tasks such as promotions, publications, thesis reviews, and other normal scholarly activities More important, it would also create a hostile political environment (it has already done so) within which it would be difficult if not impossible to maintain scholarly relations Such negative developments would raise problems, and yet, my sense is that Israeli anthropology is resilient and strong enough to endure a boycott But how would a boycott affect the AAA and World Anthropology? What will be the consequences should the AAA membership support a boycott based on the fraudulent premise that Israeli anthropologists are complicit with the policies of their government? It would certainly divide the AAA in serious ways and lead some members to conclude that political interests have far overtaken scholarly activities I certainly would resign my AAA membership Q&A Responses Meira Weiss Hebrew University WHAT KIND OF WORK DO YOU ASSOCIATE WITH ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY—NOW? TWENTY TO THIRTY YEARS AGO? FIFTY TO SIXTY YEARS AGO? The 1960s saw the beginning of a great transformation in Israeli anthropology, when Max Gluckman, who can rightly be called the father of Israeli anthropology, coached a large number of doctoral students of social anthropology from the University of Manchester who conducted their research in Israel After graduating, they established the discipline in Israel in the spirit of their mentor Due to the influence of Gluckman and his students, social anthropology gained a foothold in Israel North American anthropologists’ immigration to Israel and their assimilation into the Israeli academy spurred the integration of U.S cultural anthropology with the British social anthropology that was prevalent here But the process of Americanization also stemmed from the United States’ increasing attractiveness to Israeli investigators as a destination for sabbaticals Additionally, the hiring and promotion process in Israeli universities gave increasing value to publication in prominent U.S journals However, social anthropology is still dominant in Israel Since the birth of Israeli anthropology in the 1960s, the discipline has served and supported the existing establishment The early researchers (students of Gluckman) and the research that they conducted helped to weaken and control “the others”—at first Mizrahi Jews (that is, Jews from African and Asian places), subsequently Palestinian Arabs, and later women Researchers were World Anthropology conscripted to the task of building the nation This was evident not only in the subjects of their research (immigrant communities) but also in their lack of awareness of the colonial nature of the selection of study subjects—white researchers investigating brown populations Additionally, they also embraced Zionist discourse (i.e., using the term emigration or, in Hebrew, yerida to describe leaving Israel in comparison with immigration or aliya to describe the phenomenon of Jewish newcomers moving to Israel) They de-emphasized the conflict against eastern Jews (Mizrahim), the Palestinian point of view, and so forth Even the Israeli Anthropological Association (IAA) itself, founded in 1973, suffers from similar failures in addition to its marginalization and disavowal of the perspectives of “others.” For example, almost all of the chairpersons of the association have been of Ashkenazi origin, and most were men, especially in the early years Jewish Mizrahi or eastern women and Arab women have been excluded from most of the leading roles not only in the universities but also within the IAA Happily, Israeli anthropology tries to overcome the failures that characterized it in the past, and our younger generation is much more aware of issues of representation, reflexivity, and gender WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST CHALLENGING IN ISRAELI ANTHROPOLOGY OR AS AN ANTHROPOLOGIST IN ISRAEL? I perceive anthropology to be a subversive practice and philosophy It is, therefore, my belief that we should allow and, in fact, encourage our students to penetrate and explore the power centers that regulate and determine the basic set of values of Israeli society For example, in 2017, it will be 50 years since Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank It is my opinion that we should encourage Israeli anthropologists to perform thorough and in-depth research about various aspects of this issue At the same time, we should keep in mind that censorship in Israel grows stricter as time goes on Subject to this censorship, even researchers who perform in-depth analysis will face problems publishing their findings I personally know researchers whose manuscript, once submitted to the censor, was returned to them after six long years and only after repeated requests and demands Despite these facts, I not recommend giving up People should dare to try to overcome the Iron Wall of censorship and publish their work I would also like to respond to your question on a more personal level In my last book (Weiss 2014), published in Hebrew, I brought to light the Israel Institute of Forensic Medicine’s fraudulent information on the causes of death of a group of Palestinians It is, by the way, the only such institute in Israel The army claimed that these dead Palestinians were terrorists killed in combat with Israeli security forces I was present at the autopsy conducted on the bodies of these Palestinians, and it was very clear from the evidence that 157 they were shot in the back by security forces after they were captured alive The institute did not report these findings, and both the autopsy and army reports were classified as top secret To avoid the need to submit my book to the censor, I camouflaged my telling of the story without using specific quotes from the source Sometimes daring pays off After I wrote about organ harvesting from the bodies of the Palestinians and not from the bodies of the Israeli soldiers, I was severely reprimanded, and my findings and story were denied by various factions In one of the discussions on television about my book (Weiss 2014), the heads of the health departments confessed for the first time to harvesting organs from enemy bodies They promised that this practice would stop Thus, in addition to supporting my thesis in The Chosen Body (Weiss 2002) about the existence of a hierarchy of bodies (with Palestinian bodies at the bottom and Israeli Jewish soldiers’ bodies at the very top), publishing this evidence eventually led to a radical change in one of the practices of the occupation Another strategy I used was the publication of a novel about the top-secret materials I discovered in my MA research on the 1973 war In my research I found incriminating material against some politicians and some military commanders, including Ariel Sharon For years I approached the military authorities, requesting them to release this confidential material When even after 39 years this material was not released, I wrote a novel (Weiss 2013) in which the names were disguised with the exception of Ariel Sharon’s and my name My novel was published in 2013 on the 40th anniversary of that war In it I also discuss the various dilemmas regarding disclosure of confidential information and the diary of my fieldwork Immediately upon publication of the novel, major newspapers and all the major television networks and radio stations asked to interview me The book received excellent reviews and instigated important debates My novel has been included in the bibliographies of a number of courses in anthropology in Israel, even though the universities in Israel still not recognize novels as a legitimate genre for the advancement of scientific knowledge, and an English translation under the title Semblance of Absence was published in January (Weiss 2016) WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST PRAISEWORTHY AND PRODUCTIVE IN (THE PRACTICE OF) ANTHROPOLOGY IN ISRAEL? I believe that Israeli anthropology has recently produced a generation of very good anthropologists, doing the hard work of writing about Israel, their burning home I am proud of my students for their passion Despite the low point that Israeli anthropology has experienced over the last few years, which I not intend to discuss now, I sincerely hope that anthropology will recover in the near future and continue producing bold, breakthrough studies 158 American Anthropologist • Vol 118, No • March 2016 REFERENCES CITED Weiss, Meira 2002 The Chosen Body: The Politics of the Body in Israeli Society Stanford: Stanford University Press 2013 Lemari’t aye’e’n [Semblance of absence] Givataeem: Rimonim 2014 Al gufatam hameta: Koach, yeda, Vehamachon Lerefuah Mishpatit be’Israel [Over their dead body: Power, knowledge, and the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Israel] Tel Aviv: Resling 2016 Semblance of Absence Via Amazon http://www.amazon com/Sight-Absence-Meira-Weiss-ebook/dp/B01B08TYLG ... conservation and primate research in Vietnam, and some training courses on primate conservation and primatology were successfully developed and taught in Hanoi in this recent period (2006 and 2007) and in. .. issue) offers an insightful contextualization of the challenges facing the discipline of primatology, and primate conservation in Vietnam It commences with a brief history of primatology in Vietnam. .. for primate conservation activities in Vietnam because doing so is key to understanding the placement of primate conservation in the broader context of biodiversity conservation in Vietnam Vietnamese