This ethnography could be simply described as a book of recorded observations. Her style is somewhat unique in that there are very few statistics and formal interviews included and thus her account relies heavily on observations and retold anecdotes. This approach differs from many case studies we’ve looked at in class such as “The Case of the Cannibals’ Curse”, and the study on schizophrenia done in south India, which rely on statistics, formal interviews and observations to assist the anthropologist in an in-depth analysis of the culture or issue at hand. While Friedl does an excellent job of giving the reader a very intimate view into the personal lives of the villagers, she aims to keep her own analysis from tainting the information and thus leaves the reader alone to interpret her observations. As an inexperienced reader of case studies, I enjoyed the approachable style of this book and I appreciated the personal lens with which she approached her study. This allowed me to draw connections between what I gathered from these observations and concepts we discussed in class. However, I felt that I could have learned more from the study if she had more openly accepted the inherent bias bound to occur in an ethnographic study, and provided her analysis of the information she shared. Having said that, I was moved by the struggles of the people in this village and inspired to learn more about women’s health.
Friedl organizes this book so that it generally outlines the development of a child within the society of Deh Koh. However, she focuses less on physical factors of their environment that have changed over the years, such as housing, diet, etc., but more on the “assumptions and rationalizations” (Friedl 1997:xv) they grow up hearing and emulating, that shape them. She assumes that, “early in a child’s life, habituation establishes concepts as well as patterns for the expression of feelings, even for feelings themselves; for expectations of reactions from others to one’s own bodily or verbal utterances; for the courses of interactional encounters; for the logic of common sense.”(Friedl 1997:xv) She approaches the study of childhood, by studying how they’re society influences and shapes them, asserting that she aims to answer the central question, “What do children learn from it all?” (Friedl 1997:xvi)
Friedl begins the book by describing Deh Koh, so that we have some context for what the village is like. Since around 1900, the village has grown from a few dozen to about four thousand people. The village is struggling to keep up with this large expansion and therefore the infrastructure is in a state somewhere between developed and undeveloped. There are urban houses next to huts and telephone lines but no sewers. In the context of the village, Friedl describes children’s sphere of action. While boys are free to roam around and spend their time wherever they want in the village, it is socially unacceptable for girls to be out and about, especially the older they get. Gender inequality is a major theme in this study and Friedl shows us through the observations and stories she chooses, how its implications affect children and life in Deh Koh.
She dedicates a significant section of the book to describing sex, pregnancy and childbirth, in a male dominant society and thus allowing the reader to see how the nature of reproduction in Deh Koh, affects the children. Because men are allowed to demand sex and contraception is somewhat new and unfamiliar in their culture, women are overburdened with children and are almost constantly pregnant. These cultural practices affect the health of many women and children; Friedl discloses many horror stories of infant and maternal mortalities that occur often. Friedl quotes a women physician who treated patients in Deh Koh, “From a medical point of view, pregnancies in the whole area ought to be treated as health crises.” (Friedl 1997:73) Although biomedicine is practiced there, cultural superstitions and healing practices are often sought first or interrupt biomedical treatment, resulting in a lack of effective treatment.
However, not only do these practices affect children’s health, but it affects how children are raised in many ways. One, children are taught from a very young age what their roles and worth are according to their sex. Two, mothers are unable to pay very much attention to their children, because they are preoccupied with the tasks of having such a large family, or with taking care of the youngest children. Consequently, children must take on a large amount of responsibility early on, in order for them and their siblings to survive. Third, since children are considered the “property” of their father, they are often left feeling unwanted or literally abandoned by their mother on the occasion that she walks out or threatens to walk out on them when angry with her husband. And lastly, children are shaped by the comments they hear their mothers and fathers make regarding the roles of males and females and reproduction.
The notion that children are shaped by what they hear, is another central theme of Friedl’s work. She has a whole chapter dedicated to sharing various lullabies that are sang to children and another dedicated to short stories children grow up hearing. However, there is yet one more profound theme in Friedl’s study and that is the common hypocrisy in society between what children are taught in principle and what they know they should do. Since they are often ignored, children learn early on how to get what they need and often times their resourcefulness, even if somewhat ill-mannered, is rewarded. For example, even though children are taught not lie, parents are sometimes concerned about their child’s wit if they haven’t figured out that lying can benefit them. Also, although children are shy around adults and taught not to speak to them, they are often horribly behaved around their parents, in order to get what they need.
I could continue on summarizing Friedl’s observations, because they are numerous, but I’ve done my best here to extract the main ideas from the study. Friedl has purposely made it difficult to know her own personal ideas about what she’s studied and instead she’s only applied the tool of participant-observation to this study, applying very little context and no comparison. (Borofsky 2011:3) I liked how this approach allowed me to be completely absorbed in learning about the realities of the people of Deh Koh, without having to try to understand a complicated case study. However, it forced me to analyze the information myself.
As I was reading the stories of women who had lost, friends, sisters, mothers and children to birth complications, I thought of the article we read in class on maternal mortality in Mozambique. In both cases, “woman reported high maternal reproductive morbidity, frequent pregnancy wastage, and immense pressure to bear children throughout their reproductive years.” (Chapman 2003:1) I thought it was interesting that even though both societies have the capabilities to practice biomedicine, it is of little use in the face of the cultural restraints these women feel. These women are trapped by their role in their society to produce children and consequently their health is suffering. I connected this to the statement made by Professor Ceron in lecture that, “power is the determinant of health,” because in this case, men hold the power. Previously, I had only understood this statement to mean financial, economic and governmental power, but now I understand that this power can be exercised between one another, as a result of inequalities.
In addition to being affected by their cultural obligation to bear children, women of both cultures still believe in various traditional superstitions, that sometimes prevent them from seeking out biomedical care. In Mozambique, “vulnerability heightens women’s perceptions that they and their unborn infants will be targets of witchcraft or sorcery by jealous neighbors and kin.” (Chapman 2003:1) Similarly, women in Iran believe that their children could be subject to “evil eye” by others. (Friedl 1997:71) These showed me how, though we’ve discussed the possible benefits of medical pluralism such as the availability of multiple types of treatment, there are also great obstacles. The two differing explanatory models won’t always work side by side, and one is bound to stand in the way of the other every so often. By comparing these two situations, I think we can see that the challenges of medical pluralism we see in this study are not isolated to Deh Koh alone, but are common around the world. Thus it is a global health issue that biomedicine professionals and local practitioners must work together to solve.
While I can make these connections between certain aspects of this study and my class, I haven’t addressed the point of the study which is how these issues affect children. I very much agree with Fiedl that children are shaped by what they hear and what they experience. I thought it was interesting how she highlighted the paradoxes that children learn to navigate. However, because her observations about children are spread across the board, with little context given and almost no comparison, it is hard for me to start analyzing the work, because it’s almost too broad. While I think she intends for her work to be purely informative, it inherently has biases. For example, there are very few stories recounted that are told by men, almost all are told by woman, causing me to think that she is biased towards the woman’s viewpoint. I feel that instead of trying to remain completely neutral, she could offer some of her own analysis, so that the reader can get the full worth of her work. The reader is in no way forced to accept her analysis, it is merely her interpretation.
In conclusion, I think that Fiedl provided a unique look into the lives of children, rightfully citing what influences them most, while drawing our attention to health issues and ideological hypocrisies within the society. Fiedl’s style of ethnography could be very useful or not, depending on the reader and what their objective is. I’m not sure if Fiedl intended for this book to be used for anything in particular other than just obtaining knowledge. If one was looking for information with which they could make their own connections and draw their own analysis, this type of ethnography would be very useful. However, if someone wanted to use this study to compare to another, it would be hard given the lack of concrete data and analysis provided by the ethnographer. Having said that, I found this ethnography refreshingly genuine and while it left me wishing I had more guidance, it forced me to make some of my own connections and allowed me to feel like I was learning about this village on a personal level, which is the technically the job of an anthropologist after all, to share culture. In fact, unlike any of the other case studies we’ve read, this inspired me to further study women’s health.
Works Cited
Borofsky, Rob
2011 Why Public
Anthropology?. Hawaii Pacific University: Center for a Public Anthropology.
Chapman, R. Rachel2003 Endangering safe motherhood in Mozambique: prenatal care as pregnancy risk. Social Science and Medicine 57:355-374
Friedl, Erika
1997 Children of Deh Koh. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press.
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