Edward (Ted) F Fischer | Vanderbilt University (original) (raw)

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Papers by Edward (Ted) F Fischer

Journal of Latin American Anthropology, 2005

… , resistencia y negociación en América Latina, 2003

Latin American Research Review, 2014

Coffee production in Guatemala has undergone a dramatic transformation over the last twenty years... more Coffee production in Guatemala has undergone a dramatic transformation over the last twenty years. Changing tastes among northern consumers have driven new demand for high-quality Strictly Hard Bean coffees that are grown above 4,500 feet. As a result, many of the large, lower-altitude plantations long synonymous with coffee in Guatemala have abandoned production, moving into rubber, African palm, and other crops. At least 50,000 mostly smallholding farmers in the highlands have begun growing coffee to fi ll this market niche. Building on a capabilities approach to development, this article examines how smallholding Guatemalan producers' desires for a better future orient their engagement with this new market. Most of these small producers live in very modest circumstances with limited resources and opportunities. Yet, as they describe it, coffee represents an opportunity in a context of few opportunities, an imperfect means to a marginally better life.

PLoS ONE, 2014

Background: Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon and unidimensional measurements have proven ... more Background: Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon and unidimensional measurements have proven inadequate to the challenge of assessing its dynamics. Dynamics between poverty and public health intervention is among the most difficult yet important problems faced in development. We sought to demonstrate how multidimensional poverty measures can be utilized in the evaluation of public health interventions; and to create geospatial maps of poverty deprivation to aid implementers in prioritizing program planning.

Background: Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) members represent an important and relatively understudied ... more Background: Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) members represent an important and relatively understudied population for improving our understanding of alcohol dependence recovery as over 1 million Americans participate in the program. Further insight into coffee and cigarette use by these individuals is necessary given AA members' apparent widespread consumption and the recognized health consequences and psychopharmacological actions of these substances. Methods: Volunteers were sought from all open-AA meetings in Nashville, TN during the summer of 2007 to complete a questionnaire (n = 289, completion rate = 94.1%) including time-line followback for coffee, cigarette, and alcohol consumption; the Alcoholics Anonymous Affiliation Scale; coffee consumption and effects questions; the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND); and the Smoking Effects Questionnaire. Results: Mean (±SD) age of onset of alcohol consumption was 15.4 ± 4.2 years and mean lifetime alcohol consumption was 1026.0 ± 772.8 kg ethanol. Median declared alcohol abstinence was 2.1 years (range: 0 days to 41.1 years) and median lifetime AA attendance was 1000.0 meetings (range: 4 to 44,209 meetings); average AA affiliation score was 7.6 ± 1.5. Most (88.5%) individuals consumed coffee and approximately 33% of coffee consumers drank more than 4 cups per day (M = 3.9 ± 3.9). The most common self-reported reasons for coffee consumption and coffee-associated behavioral changes were related to stimulatory effects. More than half (56.9%) of individuals in AA smoked cigarettes. Of those who smoked, 78.7% consumed at least half a pack of cigarettes per day (M = 21.8 ± 12.3). Smokers' FTND scores were 5.8 ± 2.4; over 60% of smokers were highly or very highly dependent. Reduced negative affect was the most important subjective effect of smoking. Conclusions: A greater proportion of AA participants drink coffee and smoke cigarettes in larger per capita amounts than observed in general U.S. populations. The effects of these products as described by AA participants suggest significant stimulation and negative affect reduction. Fundamental knowledge of the quantitative and qualitative aspects of coffee and cigarette consumption among AA members will enable future research to discern their impact on alcohol abstinence and recovery.

I am writing to comment on Jonathan Friedman's recent article, "The Past in the Future: History a... more I am writing to comment on Jonathan Friedman's recent article, "The Past in the Future: History and the Politics of Identity" (AA 94:837-859, 1992). In it Friedman sets a fine example of the type of analysis that is needed to understand the growing role identity politics plays in shaping world systems, as well as the role of global processes in shaping expressions of identity. As is the nature of such an endeavor, however, Friedman's conclusions are shaded by his limited sample (Greece and Hawaii). Here I present examples from my fieldwork with Maya cultural activists in Guatemala to make problematic some of Friedman's conclusions, and argue that perhaps Friedman is incorrect in correlating the current move toward global cultural dehomogenization with a decline of Western cultural hegemony. I must preface my comment with a note on the concept of Western culture. Friedman frequently uses the adjective Western (as in "Western identity and history" [p. 837], "the Western-dominated world" [p. 837], "Western hegemonic identity" [p. 840], and "Western social context" [p. 855]), but I am left unclear as to what level of abstraction he has in mind when referring to this arguably overused and ambiguous concept. In both social scientific and popular literature, the concept of Western culture is increasingly invoked to explain how global forces effect change in local contexts. While analyses of global systems require a high level of abstraction, scholars are too often lulled into treating the West as a homogenous entity that (re)acts similarly in situations of contact around the world.

— In the capability approach to poverty, wellbeing is threatened by both deficits of wealth and d... more — In the capability approach to poverty, wellbeing is threatened by both deficits of wealth and deficits of agency. Sen describes that " unfreedom, " or low levels of agency, will suppress the wellbeing effects of higher levels of wealth. We introduce another condition, " frustrated freedom, " in which higher levels of agency belief can heighten the poverty effects of low levels of wealth. Presenting data from a study of female heads of household in rural Mozambique, we find that agency belief moderates the relationship between wealth and wellbeing, uncovering evidence of frustrated freedom.

Often invoked in both academic and popular discourse, the concept of hegemony carries many differ... more Often invoked in both academic and popular discourse, the concept of hegemony carries many different meanings. Most frequently, it serves as a synonym for "political domination," a usage that is at once more precise and more ambiguous than the way it is employed in anthropology and culture studies. Coming from the Greek verb hegeisthai ("to lead"), the concept of hegemony in our tradition goes back through Antonio Gramsci to Karl Marx and his writings on "hidden" or "false consciousness," and further still, if we want to be exhaustive, to Aristotle's wariness of the masses. In essence, the Marxist usage of hegemony refers to a situation in which people are exploited and do not realize it. Marx was clearest on the point in his essay "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," in which he laments the fact that the French peasants were supporting a second coming of Napoleon Bonaparte through his nephew Louis Bonaparte, even though the nephew was selling out their patrimony to an emergent merchant class.' Marx disparages the French peasantry as ignorants duped by Napoleonic rhetoric into acting against their own self-interest: The mortgage debt burdening the soil of France imposes on the French peasantry an amount of interest equal to the annual interest on the entire British national debt. Small-holding property, in this enslavement by capital toward which its development pushes it unavoidably, has transformed the mass of the French nation into troglodytes. Sixteen million peasants (including women and children) dwell in caves, a large number of which have but one opening, others only two and the most favored only three. Windows are to a house what the five senses are to the head. The bourgeois order, which at the beginning of the century set the state to stand guard over the newly emerged small holdings and fertilized them with laurels, has become a vampire that sucks the blood from their hearts and brains and casts them into the alchemist's caldron of capital. The Code Napoldon is now nothing but the codex of distraints, of forced sales and compulsory auctions. 2

This article examines early colonial Kaqchikel Maya notions of the self, souls, and the heart. By... more This article examines early colonial Kaqchikel Maya notions of the self, souls, and the heart. By integrating ethnohistorical data and contemporary ethnographic observations, we show that Kaqchikeles viewed the self as contingent on a dynamic balance of cosmic forces acting on the individual. The ways in which these forces are seen to effect one's state of being are documented through an extensive discussion of Kaqchikel metaphors of the heart and soul. We conclude by noting the importance of understanding processes of continuity (as well as change) in cultural constructions and argue for the continued utility of such approaches in ethnohistorical research. The present article examines Kaqchikel Maya notions of the self (and its physical and metaphysical referents) based on both eth-nohistoric sources and contemporary ethnographic data. We document the semantic categories most closely associated with early Colonial-period Kaqchikel notions of the self, elucidating their significance through comparison with data from other parts of the Mesoamerican culture area and from modern Kaqchikel concepts. From texts recorded on Classic-era (a.d. 250–900) stelae and pottery and from surviving Postclassic (a.d. 900–1550) codices, we know that the pre-Columbian Maya considered earthly existence (both individual and collective) to be closely connected to the cosmic realm; the primordial events which gave life to humankind and set the cosmos in motion were played out both on earth and in the celestial sphere. The animizing force behind Maya creation and life is in turn linked to the eternal cycles of time as measured by the movement of the sun, moon, and stars.

Journal of Latin American Anthropology, 2005

… , resistencia y negociación en América Latina, 2003

Latin American Research Review, 2014

Coffee production in Guatemala has undergone a dramatic transformation over the last twenty years... more Coffee production in Guatemala has undergone a dramatic transformation over the last twenty years. Changing tastes among northern consumers have driven new demand for high-quality Strictly Hard Bean coffees that are grown above 4,500 feet. As a result, many of the large, lower-altitude plantations long synonymous with coffee in Guatemala have abandoned production, moving into rubber, African palm, and other crops. At least 50,000 mostly smallholding farmers in the highlands have begun growing coffee to fi ll this market niche. Building on a capabilities approach to development, this article examines how smallholding Guatemalan producers' desires for a better future orient their engagement with this new market. Most of these small producers live in very modest circumstances with limited resources and opportunities. Yet, as they describe it, coffee represents an opportunity in a context of few opportunities, an imperfect means to a marginally better life.

PLoS ONE, 2014

Background: Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon and unidimensional measurements have proven ... more Background: Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon and unidimensional measurements have proven inadequate to the challenge of assessing its dynamics. Dynamics between poverty and public health intervention is among the most difficult yet important problems faced in development. We sought to demonstrate how multidimensional poverty measures can be utilized in the evaluation of public health interventions; and to create geospatial maps of poverty deprivation to aid implementers in prioritizing program planning.

Background: Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) members represent an important and relatively understudied ... more Background: Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) members represent an important and relatively understudied population for improving our understanding of alcohol dependence recovery as over 1 million Americans participate in the program. Further insight into coffee and cigarette use by these individuals is necessary given AA members' apparent widespread consumption and the recognized health consequences and psychopharmacological actions of these substances. Methods: Volunteers were sought from all open-AA meetings in Nashville, TN during the summer of 2007 to complete a questionnaire (n = 289, completion rate = 94.1%) including time-line followback for coffee, cigarette, and alcohol consumption; the Alcoholics Anonymous Affiliation Scale; coffee consumption and effects questions; the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND); and the Smoking Effects Questionnaire. Results: Mean (±SD) age of onset of alcohol consumption was 15.4 ± 4.2 years and mean lifetime alcohol consumption was 1026.0 ± 772.8 kg ethanol. Median declared alcohol abstinence was 2.1 years (range: 0 days to 41.1 years) and median lifetime AA attendance was 1000.0 meetings (range: 4 to 44,209 meetings); average AA affiliation score was 7.6 ± 1.5. Most (88.5%) individuals consumed coffee and approximately 33% of coffee consumers drank more than 4 cups per day (M = 3.9 ± 3.9). The most common self-reported reasons for coffee consumption and coffee-associated behavioral changes were related to stimulatory effects. More than half (56.9%) of individuals in AA smoked cigarettes. Of those who smoked, 78.7% consumed at least half a pack of cigarettes per day (M = 21.8 ± 12.3). Smokers' FTND scores were 5.8 ± 2.4; over 60% of smokers were highly or very highly dependent. Reduced negative affect was the most important subjective effect of smoking. Conclusions: A greater proportion of AA participants drink coffee and smoke cigarettes in larger per capita amounts than observed in general U.S. populations. The effects of these products as described by AA participants suggest significant stimulation and negative affect reduction. Fundamental knowledge of the quantitative and qualitative aspects of coffee and cigarette consumption among AA members will enable future research to discern their impact on alcohol abstinence and recovery.

I am writing to comment on Jonathan Friedman's recent article, "The Past in the Future: History a... more I am writing to comment on Jonathan Friedman's recent article, "The Past in the Future: History and the Politics of Identity" (AA 94:837-859, 1992). In it Friedman sets a fine example of the type of analysis that is needed to understand the growing role identity politics plays in shaping world systems, as well as the role of global processes in shaping expressions of identity. As is the nature of such an endeavor, however, Friedman's conclusions are shaded by his limited sample (Greece and Hawaii). Here I present examples from my fieldwork with Maya cultural activists in Guatemala to make problematic some of Friedman's conclusions, and argue that perhaps Friedman is incorrect in correlating the current move toward global cultural dehomogenization with a decline of Western cultural hegemony. I must preface my comment with a note on the concept of Western culture. Friedman frequently uses the adjective Western (as in "Western identity and history" [p. 837], "the Western-dominated world" [p. 837], "Western hegemonic identity" [p. 840], and "Western social context" [p. 855]), but I am left unclear as to what level of abstraction he has in mind when referring to this arguably overused and ambiguous concept. In both social scientific and popular literature, the concept of Western culture is increasingly invoked to explain how global forces effect change in local contexts. While analyses of global systems require a high level of abstraction, scholars are too often lulled into treating the West as a homogenous entity that (re)acts similarly in situations of contact around the world.

— In the capability approach to poverty, wellbeing is threatened by both deficits of wealth and d... more — In the capability approach to poverty, wellbeing is threatened by both deficits of wealth and deficits of agency. Sen describes that " unfreedom, " or low levels of agency, will suppress the wellbeing effects of higher levels of wealth. We introduce another condition, " frustrated freedom, " in which higher levels of agency belief can heighten the poverty effects of low levels of wealth. Presenting data from a study of female heads of household in rural Mozambique, we find that agency belief moderates the relationship between wealth and wellbeing, uncovering evidence of frustrated freedom.

Often invoked in both academic and popular discourse, the concept of hegemony carries many differ... more Often invoked in both academic and popular discourse, the concept of hegemony carries many different meanings. Most frequently, it serves as a synonym for "political domination," a usage that is at once more precise and more ambiguous than the way it is employed in anthropology and culture studies. Coming from the Greek verb hegeisthai ("to lead"), the concept of hegemony in our tradition goes back through Antonio Gramsci to Karl Marx and his writings on "hidden" or "false consciousness," and further still, if we want to be exhaustive, to Aristotle's wariness of the masses. In essence, the Marxist usage of hegemony refers to a situation in which people are exploited and do not realize it. Marx was clearest on the point in his essay "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," in which he laments the fact that the French peasants were supporting a second coming of Napoleon Bonaparte through his nephew Louis Bonaparte, even though the nephew was selling out their patrimony to an emergent merchant class.' Marx disparages the French peasantry as ignorants duped by Napoleonic rhetoric into acting against their own self-interest: The mortgage debt burdening the soil of France imposes on the French peasantry an amount of interest equal to the annual interest on the entire British national debt. Small-holding property, in this enslavement by capital toward which its development pushes it unavoidably, has transformed the mass of the French nation into troglodytes. Sixteen million peasants (including women and children) dwell in caves, a large number of which have but one opening, others only two and the most favored only three. Windows are to a house what the five senses are to the head. The bourgeois order, which at the beginning of the century set the state to stand guard over the newly emerged small holdings and fertilized them with laurels, has become a vampire that sucks the blood from their hearts and brains and casts them into the alchemist's caldron of capital. The Code Napoldon is now nothing but the codex of distraints, of forced sales and compulsory auctions. 2

This article examines early colonial Kaqchikel Maya notions of the self, souls, and the heart. By... more This article examines early colonial Kaqchikel Maya notions of the self, souls, and the heart. By integrating ethnohistorical data and contemporary ethnographic observations, we show that Kaqchikeles viewed the self as contingent on a dynamic balance of cosmic forces acting on the individual. The ways in which these forces are seen to effect one's state of being are documented through an extensive discussion of Kaqchikel metaphors of the heart and soul. We conclude by noting the importance of understanding processes of continuity (as well as change) in cultural constructions and argue for the continued utility of such approaches in ethnohistorical research. The present article examines Kaqchikel Maya notions of the self (and its physical and metaphysical referents) based on both eth-nohistoric sources and contemporary ethnographic data. We document the semantic categories most closely associated with early Colonial-period Kaqchikel notions of the self, elucidating their significance through comparison with data from other parts of the Mesoamerican culture area and from modern Kaqchikel concepts. From texts recorded on Classic-era (a.d. 250–900) stelae and pottery and from surviving Postclassic (a.d. 900–1550) codices, we know that the pre-Columbian Maya considered earthly existence (both individual and collective) to be closely connected to the cosmic realm; the primordial events which gave life to humankind and set the cosmos in motion were played out both on earth and in the celestial sphere. The animizing force behind Maya creation and life is in turn linked to the eternal cycles of time as measured by the movement of the sun, moon, and stars.