Re: Conditioned Assumptions

Jamon A Halvaksz (halv0111@MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU)
Sat, 4 May 1996 16:57:54 -0500

When you say "honors Luncheon" I would assume that you mean undergrads-
or do you refer to high schools. A fellow grad student and I have been
volunteering at area high schools (through a program started by the grad
students in our department-more on that later). These presentations have
involved challenging high school students to think about the assumptions
of the market, getting them to explore the social relationships involved
(or rather- not involved) and then contrasting those perspectives with a
reciprocal economy- and the social relationships that are assumed. Of
course the latter is the more difficult to express, but we use timber
rights purchases from PNG landowners to illustrate the differences
between market and reciprocal assumptions.
Even if this does not meet Judy Pederson's needs, I would like to
throw out the idea of outreach programs to the members of this list. This
year we expanded an archeology speakers program to include cultural
anthropology, and have been well received in the area high schools. One
school district has even hired us to teach a summer program. I would be
interested in knowing if other departments are currently offering such
services, and if so- would you be interested in participating in an AAA
session on the potentials and problems faced sometime in the future? (or is
there one currently planned for the 1996 session?) I sort of imagine an
informal workshop where current programs could be discussed and
participants could be engaged in discussion by others interested in
developing a community outreach program.

Jamon Halvaksz
Department of Anthropology
University of Minnesota

On Sat, 4 May 1996, Judith Pederson wrote:

> I'm giving a talk at an honors luncheon on the topic "culturally conditioned
> assumptions." I will be taking American cultural assumptions and
> comparing/contrasting them to other culturals.
>
> I'm doing this on short notice & have only a couple days to prepare. Anybody
> have some ideas?
>
> Thx in advance!
>
> Judy Pederson
> JudyPdrsn@aol.com
>