- Sep 2021
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neuroanthropology.net neuroanthropology.net
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Given a choice, it seems human babies strongly prefer their mother’s body to solitary contact with inert cotton-lined mattresses. In turn, mothers seem to notice and succumb to their infant’s preferences.
This is a valuable clarification for two reasons: 1) it may be that babies have less biological flexibility than adults (although, they are also clearly plenty flexible) 2) parents' responses to their children are clearly assessed within a larger social context.
His point is that medical providers should not ignore the evidence that parents will prioritize babies' signals over doctor's abstractions. But I want anthro students to pay attention to the reminder that there are, in fact, significant other contextual factors that are weighed, and that we are biologically constrained to consider, not ignore, them.
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mothers body proves still to be the only environment to which the infant is truly adapted
This conflation of "breastfeeding mothers"with the massive diversity of bodies that might be sharing a bed leaves room for a reader to doubt the relevance of these findings to their situation.
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requires frequent nighttime feeds
starting with the language of what is "biologically appropriate," and hear again the idea that the biological "reality" is responsible for a "cultural shift" reflects an idea of the biological as substrate. The idea below that it "makes babies happy" reflects the same thing.
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Room sharing is a form of cosleeping, always considered safe and always considered protective. But it is not the room itself that it is protective. It is what goes on between the mother (or father) and the infant that is.
At the heart of this is a dichotomy of "protective" vs "dangerous," and the material context changes how protective the material arrangement of child and parents is. They not only emphasize evidence that points out the importance of that context, they also critique the dominant (medical and popular) narratives that treat rooms and human bodies as the only relevant elements of context.
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- May 2019
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www.npr.org www.npr.org
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culturally or anthropologically sensitive than they were at that time
what does "culturally or anthropologically sensitive" mean? Her continued explanation sounds like it means using interpreters, local guides, learning the language. It does not sound at all like it means respecting local sovereignty or valuing local knowledge. This seems like a SUPER exploitative vision of anthropology, which likely is depressingly realistic for how it is used by the majority of people who claim to be "trained" in cultural anthropology.
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Xian missionary epistemology: salvation as the telos of culture
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- Aug 2018
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wendynorris.com wendynorris.com
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time compression,
have you seen anything connecting time compression to experiences of aging in adulthood specifically?
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