Households: Changing Form and Function

Author(s): Eric J. Arnould and Robert McC. Netting

Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 23, No. 5 (Oct., 1982), pp. 571-575
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for
Anthropological Research
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2742397
Accessed: 07-08-2019 18:02 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, The University of Chicago

Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current
Anthropology

This content downloaded from 201.103.67.202 on Wed, 07 Aug 2019 18:02:48 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
This content downloaded from 201.103.67.202 on Wed, 07 Aug 2019 18:02:48 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Orvar Lofgren (Institute of European Ethnology, University The household does, however, seem to be a useful unit of
of Lund): Family and household: Images and realities analysis recognizably and regularly occurring somewhere be-
Robert S. Merrill (University of Rochester) tween the individual and the larger community (Hammel).
Arthur D. Murphy (University of Georgia), with Robert Our participants were therefore willing to retain the 1972
Hackenberg and Henry A. Selby: The household in the Hammel-Laslett household typology as a heuristic device for
secondary cities of the Third World consistent reporting and comparison of data. They were none-
Robert McC. Netting, co-organizer (University of Arizona), theless aware of the problematic genealogical and coresidential
with Richard Wilk: Households: Changing forms and func- criteria this typology employs (Yanagisako 1979, Carter). The
tions compromise position adopted towards household typologies
Andrejs Plakans (Iowa State University): Serf emancipation serves to guard against the twin pitfalls to be avoided if the
and the changing structure of rural domestic groups in the household is not to become another "odd-job" word in social
Russian Baltic provinces: A preliminary survey of relevant science: reification, on the one hand, and irreplicability of
factors in nineteenth-century sources results, on the other.
Martine Segalen (Centre d'Ethnologie Frangaise): Nuclear is Many definitional issues were raised by conferees. The
not independent: Organization of the household in present- critique of the coresidence criterion was perhaps the most
day Bigouden country thoroughgoing. This critique parallels Yanagisako's (1979) ob-
Henry A. Selby (University of Texas), with Arthur D. Murphy,jection to the genealogical bias in family studies. Hammel
Ignacio Cabrera, and Aida Castaneda: Battling poverty from illustrated a number of problems with this criterion for users
below: A profile of the poor in two Mexican cities of archival census materials. For medieval Balkan tax lists, for
Richard R. Wilk, co-organizer (University of California, Santa example, household boundaries must be inferred from minimal
Cruz): Households in process: Domestic organization, land indications of male kinship ties. Slight changes in assumptions
pressure, and cash crops among the Kekchi Maya of Belize about boundary placement produce massive variation in the
Arthur P. Wolf (Stanford University): Family and life cycle inferred incidence of zadruga-type joint households. Douglass,
in rural China in remarks about Basque and Sicilian censuses, added evidence
Sylvia Yanagasiko (Stanford University): Explicating resi- showing how secular and ecclesiastical authorities employed
dence: A cultural analysis of changing households among different criteria of coresidence in counting long-term migrants.
Japanese-Americans It became obvious that historians, who are necessarily limited
Eric J. Arnould, rapporteur (University of Arizona): Market to the coresidents listed in census documents, may reach dif-
development and changing relations of reproduction in ferent conclusions on household structure than do anthro-
Zinder, Niger Republic pologists, who can take into account migrants whose economic
Conference participants accepted an approach that dis- contributions and eventual return maintain a household in
tinguished households as culturally defined, task-oriented their absence.
residence units from families conceived as kinship units that Hammel also noted that there are no methods for deciding
need not be localized. Nonrelatives who live together, servants, how large a proportion of a sample of households, taken at an
and lodgers who cooperate in some common activities are undefined point in the domestic cycle of each from a population
household members, whereas nonresident kin are usually whose (but size is unknown, is enough to conclude that the popu-
not always) affiliated principally with other households. Both lation as a whole conforms to a certain household system. A
historians, whose field was conventionally concerned with 15% difference in the proportions of one household type at two
states, political leaders, and social classes, and anthropologists, points in time might be due merely to chance. Wolf pointed
whose discipline had concentrated on tribes, descent groups, out that sampling household size in China after the great
and communities, agreed that the household as a significant periodic natural disasters would produce very different pic-
social unit had been neglected. Family history (Stone 1977, tures of the household system from the multiple-family system
Shorter 1975) has too often concentrated on literary evidence which in fact prevailed there. Merrill added that chance demo-
for the psychological interactions of family members rather graphic fluctuations will compromise any household system
than the more objective, quantitatively verifiable facts of at some point unless multiple strategies of recruitment are
household membership. The flexibility of the household group, brought into play. African ethnographic data provide particu-
its multitude of roles and tasks encompassed within a relatively larly rich examples of the variety of recruitment strategies
limited repertoire of shapes and sizes, make it an effective focus available which are not necessarily revealed in census data.
for interdisciplinary research in a wide variety of social settings.These factors and others compound sampling error in census
The conferees wanted to test the extent to which household data, usually in various unpredictable ways. Resolution of the
organization responded to changes in the socioeconomic en- sampling problem requires collection of a large number of
vironment as well as the degree to which rules and ideals of cases at several points in time, a solution not often available to
household formation preserve certain formal similarities for either historians or anthropologists. Merrill and Hammel were
long periods in particular ethnic or regional contents. In addi- hopeful that computer simulation would provide a partial reso-
tion to the search for a common ground on definitional and lution of this sort of problem. Our approximations of household
methodological issues (Hammel, Wilk and Netting, Carter, form and function are, like the blind men's conflicting descrip-
Foster), four major orientations in household research emergedtions of an elephant, very much dependent on our limited
from the conference. These concerns are illustrated in the temporal and observational perspectives. Nevertheless, the
papers and the discussions and debates they precipitated. household is a more salient, serviceable, and readily comparable
Classification and method. Criticisms of empirical and posi- social unit than others customarily chosen for analysis.
tivist approaches to the household led scholars to abandon any Carter, Douglass, Wilk, Kunstadter, and Segalen provided
restrictive, unitary definition of the household. There is no ethnographic examples of the inappropriateness of coresidence
criterion or set of criteria by which the household might be alone as the criterion for household membership. In India,
defined. Instead, students of household systems must recognize North America, Belize, Thailand, and France, long-term or
that even single societies are likely to contain varying fre- temporary migrants continue to participate in pooling, distri-
quencies of a range of household organizations, and scholars bution, reproduction, and inheritance. Their migrant status is
will have to explicate the precise meaning of the social units not often accurately reflected in census records, nor are the
they are calling households in the elucidation of particular other tasks they perform as members of households. These
problems. authors and Wilk, in particular, point out that regional avail-

572 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY

This content downloaded from 201.103.67.202 on Wed, 07 Aug 2019 18:02:48 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 ability of valued resources is an important variable determining
local residence choices.
In his paper, Arnould showed that Hausa employ a multi-
variate definition of household membership in which the tasks
of social reproduction are the most fundamental elements.
Only when junior household members cease contributing to the
marriage, birth, and tax payments of the multiple-family
household are these individuals, including migrants, considered
to have a domestic unit separate from the parental household.
Although there is considerable variation in the degree of co-
operation among agnatically related family clusters in the
performance of household tasks, the ideology of the traditional
multiple-family gida is maintained unless cooperation in repro-
ductive tasks is broken off. A somewhat different definitional
issue was taken up by Foster. Drawing on graph-theoretical
models and recent network research, he constructed supra-
household structures from household units by representing aid
relationship in graph form. This mode of analysis of Thai
village society also throws light on the division of labor in the
performance of household tasks by several related households.
Anthropological analysis by synchronic, cross-sectional
methods is not, however, an adequate substitute for a detailed
longitudinal reconstruction of household change, a method
used successfully by historians where annual censuses exist
(Mitterauer and Sieder 1979). Carter advocated the formula-
tion of specific household histories including the temporal
movements of people in and out of residence, household posi-
tions, and kinship statuses. Such a chronology would also con-
tain information on the changing size of the household, its
access to resources, and changing producer/consumer ratios.
Yanagisako warned that use of the coresidence criterion tends
to draw a functional boundary around groups of people which
in the case of Japanese Americans is not confirmed by emic
concepts of household organization. Mutual help and authority
patterns persisted beyond the breakup of stem families. She
argued that empirical study of households must be supple-
mented by cultural analysis where possible. As Hammel sug-
gested, households may in some instances be statistical out-
comes of the action of other powerful cultural values such as
gender constructs.
In Yanagisako's view and that of Plakans and Herlihy, his-
torians must supplement enumerations with other sorts of
records if they are to reconstruct kinship and other cultural
systems. Herlihy, for example, has used the lives of Irish saints
as a source concerning early medieval household relationships
and mentioned that philosophical tracts treating the family as
a cultural ideal are available in the West from an early date.
Cross-sectional studies and cultural traditions. The first of the
four substantive orientations in household research is that of
cross-sectional and comparative studies in which explanatory
weight is placed upon long-standing cultural traditions to ex-
plicate macro-level patterns of household organization and
process. This approach tends to view household form as an
independent rather than a dependent variable. Most conferees
were willing to grant that there are long-term regional regu-
larities in household organization which seem to some degree
independent of ecological circumstance. Laslett and Hammel
went farther than most in extending Hajnal's (1965) observa-
tions on marriage patterns to hypothesize that Eastern and
Western European household systems are distinguished along
a range of covariant criteria. These axes include an intergrading
of simple, stem, and multiple-family households as one moves
from Western to Eastern Europe, with accompanying changes
from late marriage and frequent celibacy to early and universal
marriage. Wolf proposed that a similar contrast could be drawn
between the traditional Chinese multiple- or grand-family
household system and the Japanese stem household system.
Kunstadter provided data from Thailand positing similar long-
standing differences in household systems between groups
Vol. 23 N No. 5 *
This content downloaded from 201.103.67.202 on Wed, 07 Aug 2019 18:02:48 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
which live in close proximity and practice similar productive
strategies. Recent modernization and urbanization have not
eliminated distinctive household traits of different ethnic
groups. Plakans and Segalen objected to the overgeneralized
character of the Laslett/Wolf formulations. The former re-
minded conferees of the paucity of data available from Eastern
Europe and the scope of change following collectivization, and
the latter emphasized the diversity of local systems in France.
However, it may be useful, as Wolf suggests, to employ a postu-
lation of stable, long-term cultural preferences in household
patterning to explore the effects of family household systems
upon individual life-course decisions.
Historical studies and cultural continuities. A second approach
which tends to overlap with the first is that of longitudinal
studies which emphasize cultural conservatism in household
organization. This approach is characteristic of Laslett's evi-
dence for the persistence of simple-family dominance through-
out the recorded historical demography of England. His recent
discussion of "noumenal norms" and the autonomy of rules
governing ideal residence decisions which are imbedded during
early socialization (Laslett 1981) makes the same point. Pat-
terns of authority within the household and locally distinctive
customs resulting in historically consistent rates of bastardy
show similar cultural continuity that is little influenced by
exogenous variables. Models of modernization which predict a
necessary movement from multiple extended forms of family
household organization to a simple nuclear type often lack
explanatory power. In cases such as that of a rural Taiwan area
between 1906 and 1946, there was a remarkable stability of
family type, with 50-60% representing stem or grand forms
the multiple-family household. Wolf gave evidence of both the
persistence of a domestic cycle based on strong cultural values
and the differences in residential histories of sons born either
early or late into their families of origin.
Taking a symbolic perspective, Yanagisako showed how co-
residence has become disaggregated from other household tasks
among second-generation Japanese-Americans. At the same
time, the values associated with the concept of kazuko (family),
loyalty and general support, have not been diluted. Shared
meanings characterize a distinctive set of family relationships,
while decisions as to coresidence are responsive to more im-
mediate economic conditions. Such studies provide an antidote
for overly deterministic and mechanical models of household
change.
Cross-sectional and processual studies. The third and by far
the most popular current line of research is particularistic
studies of adaptation and covariation among households within
a given culture or historical period. As Lofgren pointed out, this
approach aims to generalize at the level of process, rather than
at the level of forms, and to provide a generative approach to
household dynamics in which systems potentialities rather than
systems types are explored. Merrill emphasized the adaptive
potential of the household in the face of demographic vari-
ability. Eclectic in theory and method, such studies range from
Wilk's analysis of the relationships among crops, man/land
ratio, labor scheduling and diversity, and household size and
structures among Kekchi Maya shifting cultivators to Murphy
and Selby's analyses of survival strategies of thousands of
marginal, poor, and middle-class Mexican households partici-
pating in urban cash economies.
Among the many themes touched upon by conferees is the
dimension of household processes defined by the creation and
negotiation of power and social inequality within and between
households. It is a dimension of household dynamics which links
households to wider systems of social stratification, and one
which comes into play most prominently when the old "moral
economy"~ is breaking down and some households become more
successful at taking advantage of new resources and oppor-
tunities than others.
October 1982 573
 At the intrahousehold level, a number of participants focused and sugarcane growers may reflect in part a cultural commit-
upon the three-way relationship between age and gender con- ment to an Old World pattern, but it is also adaptive to par-
structs and power. Carter showed that the value placed upon ticular economic conditions in very different host societies.
seniority in Maharashtra joint-family households is oper- Transferring the patrimony within a stem family was not seen
ationalized in the formation of marriage queues and plays a key by the migrant Basques themselves as intentionally conforming
role in generating the diversity of partition strategies and to a Basque cultural ideal. Douglass pointed out that a house-
actual decisions. Wilk demonstrated that a similar value allows hold type may persist without being institutionalized and may
senior men in Kekchi household clusters, but not in single- serve very different purposes in its original and immigrant
family households, to benefit disproportionately from junior- settings.
male labor despite a competing value of egalitarian labor ex- L6fgren's work documents the declining status of the ubiq-
change among men. Linares argued from her extensive data on uitous lodgers and servants in peasant households and the
the Diola of Senegal that Islamic gender constructs, which have increasing social distance which is negotiated between coresident
recently been introduced to the Diola, have led to differential kin and nonkin as an overall system of social stratification
access of men and women to new plow technologies and cash develops in the Swedish countryside with the growth of land
crop opportunities in Islamicized communities. Access to land scarcity and commercial agriculture in the t9th and 20th
and labor resources in pagan communities is more egalitarian centuries. Though the farm household had much the same size
and intergender cooperation more extensive. Selby's Zapotec and composition in 1800 and in 1890, its internal structure had
case material concerning the norms of postmarital residence been altered from a single well-integrated unit to one in which
indicates that although men make rules in Zapotec society, the nuclear family of the farmer was segregated and socially
women are often very successful at making decisions which differentiated from the group of servants. The same cleavage
violate the rules in the interest of interhousehold power advan- had earlier affected the urban bourgeoisie, and the Victorian
tages. In short, these participants argued that there is disagree- family ideals of privacy, propriety, and home-centered emo-
ment and ongoing conflict in communities and within house- tional warmth created powerful new symbols of domestic life
holds over the definition of appropriate pooling and transmission that continued to affect household behavior.
behaviors. Such struggles are the stuff of household processes. Segalen demonstrated how wage employment opportunities
Arguing at a more general level, Herlihy, Selby, Murphy, and and nuclear family norms have generated new neolocal resi-
Netting contended that there is a regular cross-cultural asso- dence patterns among rural Bretons who were formerly
ciation of household size, control of resources, and power, al- peasants. She also showed how gardening has been transformed
though the causal connections among these factors are dialec- from a cash-producing to a redistributive resource amongst
tical rather than unidirectional. Production, recruitment, and households which send out wage earners. Though younger
transmission strategies may be quite variable and provide an families subscribe to modern French standards by building
arena of competition among households in the same community.separate modern houses, they continue to spend a great deal
Adoption, fosterage, and incorporation of lodgers and servants of time eating, working, and socializing in the neighboring
are common methods of recruitment both in 14th-century dwellings of their parents. The new residential and productive
Tuscany and in 20th-century Taiwan. Murphy indicated that strategies may even strengthen long-standing patterns of
high fertility is a more commonly employed strategy among intergenerational cooperation and distribution.
upwardly mobile households of urban Mexico,. while Filipino Longitudinal and comparative studies of household processes
households restrain fertility and add adult workers. Exceptions hold promise in clarifying the problems encountered in dis-
to the widespread association between wealth and household tinguishing between the task and kin components of households
size can be found, but Herlihy explained cases such as the large and the dangers in too readily assuming cultural significance
families of poor Tuscan sharecroppers in terms of specific labor from demonstrable genealogical connection. Plakans is pursuing
needs and the requirements of estate managers. the novel problem of working out a kinship system from long-
Wolf's data on modern mainland China drew attention to the term Baltic census materials which contain relatively complete
relationship between state power and household processes. genealogical information about Latvian serf and freed serf
Some might agree with Hammel that the sphere of autonomous householders on the great German estates. His data, like those
household action has eroded before the onslaught of state power of many historians, pose special problems because there is no
in the last two centuries. Postrevolutionary China provides a contemporary ethnographic population from which to derive
test case from which more sanguine conclusions can be drawn. clues about the meaning of genealogical data. It seems, for
Chinese family reform has resulted in legalized divorce, monog- example, that non-kin were filling spots formerly occupied by
amy, a one-child-per-couple rule, drastically later age at mar- coresident kin of the head in these households after serf eman-
riage, official abolition of ancestor worship, and an almost cipation in 1817. There is also some indication of exchange of
complete loss of control over production decisions at the house- junior agnatic relatives between households. Perhaps because
hold level. Other traditional Chinese patterns persist in andro- of outmigration, the proportion of multiple families per farm-
centrism, partible inheritance, surname exogamy, nepotism, stead declined and the proportion of simple families increased.
mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflict, and aversion to di- Other links such as these can also be drawn, but Plakans
vorce. The traditional obligation of the youngest children to believes the question of their cultural significance may only be
answered with supplementary sources such as parish registries,
support aged parents has even been reinforced by the state.
diaries, and the like. Successful studies of this type are the
Historical processual studies. Longitudinal studies of house-
most likely to provide generalizations at the level of process
holds as processes have been undertaken by a few scholars with
about system potentialities, but careful control of covariation
exceptionally good data, both archival and ethnographic, among
between communities at each point in time is necessary to avoid
them Douglass, L6fgren, Segalen, and Plakans. This line of
attributing preexistent ecological and historical variability to
inquiry endeavors to deal with two kinds of processes-covari-new exogenous influences for change affecting all communities
ation and diversity at a point or points in time and gradual, in a sample.
cumulative change in household form and organization through Conclusion. The conference provided a forum in which a
time. Douglass showed how new production strategies in North great many topics in contemporary household research, only a
America and Australia have led Basque immigrants to create few of which are mentioned in this report, were addressed. A
multiple-family households although stem families are the volume which provides ample scope for the exploration of the
Basque norm in Europe. The prevalence of patrilineally ex- state of the art of household studies covered in the conference
tended family households among Basque emigre sheep ranchers papers will appear in 1983.

574 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY

This content downloaded from 201.103.67.202 on Wed, 07 Aug 2019 18:02:48 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Conferees addressed many of the themes outlined in
Yanagisako's (1979) earlier review article. Above all, the meet- household processes have upon the life courses of individuals.
ing provided new impetus for the study of households as process
and provided a corrective to the typological bias in much earlier
work. Actions which define the household are as changeable as
the units themselves. Households may adapt, accommodate,
defend, or revolutionize their strategies in response to changing in Population in history. Edited by D. V. Glass and D. E. C.
ecological and political conditions. Forms may persist while new
meanings are attached to them, and old meanings may cling
to new forms of household organization. It is never possible to
predict a priori what is negotiable, what is normative, or what
is accepted as given and natural by actors. Studies of house-
holds as loci of decision making, and studies that take cogni-
zance of their particular histories wherever possible, hold out
great promise in assessing the causes and consequences of ex-
change and negotiation which are at the heart of every social
system. Social scientists may then be in a better position to
look outward and see how household dynamics structure the
larger social field, and to look inward and see what effect
References Cited
HAJNAL, JOHN. 1965. "European marriage patterns in perspective,"
Eversley, pp. 101-40. Chicago: Aldine.
LASLETT, PETER. Editor. 1972. Houtsehold and family in past time.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
--. 1981. Typologies of the family. MS.
MITTERAUER, MICHAEL, and REINHARD SIEDER. 1979. The develop-
mental process of domestic groups: Problems of reconstruction
and possibilities of interpretation. Journal of Family History
4:257-84.
SHORTER, E. 1975. The making of the modern family. New York:
Basic Books.
STONE, LAWRENCE. 1977. The family, sex, and marriage in England
1500-1800. New York: Harper and Row.
YANAGISAKO, SYLVIA. 1979. Family and household: The analysis of
domestic groups. Annual Review of Anthropology 8:161-206.

corresponding with any Brazilian agency, always use registered

Our Readers Write
or insured mail, never send the originals without keeping
copies, and ask for the nu'meros de protocolo when sending
In view of the constant difficulties encountered by Brazilian
the completed forms (these are the numbers which identify
and foreign anthropologists, linguists, and other scientists in
the files).
obtaining authorization from the Fundacao Nacional do Indio All enquiries to the FUNAI should be addressed to Pres-
(FUNAI) to undertake research among the Brazilian Indians, idente, Fundacao Nacional do Indio, Setor de Indu'stria-Lote
we believe the time has come to communicate to the scientific
750 Quadra 4, 71.200 Brasilia, D.F., Brasil.
community at large the nature of the problem and the best
All enquiries to the CNPq should be addressed to Presidente,
way to obtain the needed authorizations. The present situation,
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnolo-
which has caused serious delays in reaching the field and writ-
gico, Edificio CNPq, Av. W3 Norte, Quadra 507/B, 70.740
ing dissertations, resulting in tremendous financial and emo-
Brasilia, D.F., Brasil.
tional costs to fellowship holders and in some cases in the
The CNPq forms are fairly straightforward but require the
abandonment of the discipline, was criticized in a resolution
establishment of some tie with a Brazilian research institution.
of the business meeting of the American Anthropological As-
The institution desirable will vary according to the geograph-
sociation in 1980. Although bureaucratic difficulties are not
ical and theoretical area of the applicant and should be nego-
new, the nature of these difficulties has become more serious
tiated as early as possible. The FUNAI forms require in addi-
and has involved forced modification of projects, surveillance
tion a statement of sound mental and physical health from a
of anthropologists in the field, accusations against scientists
physician and proof of vaccination against smallpox, typhus,
and institutions without the right of appeal, and the refusal
tetanus, yellow fever, and a negative skin test or X-ray indi-
to renew certain authorizations granted for short periods-
cating an absence of tuberculosis. All applicant documents
without which fieldwork of the sort traditional in and essen-
should be sent to the CNPq, with a copy to the FUNAI.
tial to good anthropology is impossible.
One month after sending the completed forms, and again five
Authorizations and renewals are still possible to obtain. Con-
months after, another letter should be sent to enquire if any
siderable advanced planning and tact are absolutely necessary,
additional information is required. Six months after sub-
however. It is essential that graduate students intending to
mitting the forms and receiving a receipt, it is sometimes
work in Brazil be quite competent in Portuguese, that they
advisable to come to Brazil, specifically to Brasilia, to nego-
establish good contacts with the Brazilian scientific community,
tiate the final stages of the authorization. Scientists may find
and that they exercise more than the usual tact with the cen-
that they have to change geographic areas or societies, but
tral administration of the FUNAI and local functionaries. The
these are best discussed in person. The delays in these cases
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecno-
should not exceed two or three months in Brazil, months
logico (CNPq) appoints a supervisor for every foreign re-
which should be spent visiting Brazilian institutions, consult-
searcher in Brazil. We recommend that the researcher visit
ing the rapidly increasing Brazilian bibliography, and attending
this advisor and maintain regular contact with him through
scientific meetings.
every stage of the work. The researcher should also advise the
Finally, it should be emphasized that the National Museum
Commission on Indigenous Affairs (Comissao de Assuntos In-
and the Brazilian Anthropological Association are strongly op-
digenas) of the Brazilian Anthropological Association of any
posed to the policies which have resulted in the difficulties re-
problems he or she may be having.
searchers face. Over a period of years we have been pressuring,
Authorization for foreigners to do research in the Brazilian
negotiating, and openly fighting against them, but without any
interior in Indian areas must be conceded both by the CNPq
and by the FUNAI. Each agency requires that all papers and significant change in the overall picture. Our dismay, chagrin,
supporting documents be submitted to it at least six months and occasional despair have led us to believe that the prepara-
before the intended date of the fieldwork. It is advisable, tion of anthropologists to work with Brazilian Indians will
therefore, for the student to begin his paperwork for author- have to include more serious attention to the bureaucratic pro-
ization approximately one year before he plans to begin the cedures which have been established and to a careful prepara-
actual field research. The applicant should write to the agen- tion of students to confront the extremely complex and del-
cies for information on the most recent regulations and ask icate social arenas in this field.
for copies of regulations and forms. Self-addressed envelopes ANTHONY SEEGER and EUNICE DURHAM
and international postal vouchers will help speed a reply. In Museu Nacional. Rio de Janeiro. Brazil. 17 ii 82

Vol. 23 * No. 5 * October 1982 575

This content downloaded from 201.103.67.202 on Wed, 07 Aug 2019 18:02:48 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms