The Oculus, The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research. Vol. 14

The

Oculus

The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research 2015–2016 | Volume 14

The Oculus

The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research 2015 – 2016 | Volume 14

The Oculus is published by the Undergraduate Research Network (URN) in conjunction with the Center for Undergraduate Excellence (CUE). All copyrights are retained by the authors; URN holds the rights to non-exclusive use in print and electronic formats for all pieces submitted for publication in The Oculus.

Letter from the Editor Dear readers, It is the goal of The Oculus to provide a chance for our fellow students to showcase the results of their hard work in their fields of research. Furthermore, we hope to increase the scope of the ever-growing research community on our Grounds. The papers we receive are proof that interesting, cutting-edge research is happening in every department at UVa. It is our hope that this journal will inspire students to seek opportunities to be a part of this research effort, both at UVa and the world beyond.

This year, we received over 45 submissions, and we were thoroughly impressed with the quality of the work that was presented to us by the student community. I was particularly impressed by the range of disciplines from which we received submissions; from psychology to religious studies, the papers we received microcosmically captured the academic diversity of the university.

The Oculus could not have been possible without the efforts of many people. I would like to extend my gratitude to the editors on the editorial board.

The students that make up this board have worked countless hours to review each paper that was submitted to us. In particular, I would like to thank my executive board, composed of Kara Anderson, Peyton Randolph, and Conner Pike.

These members put in extra time for administrative tasks outside of their jobs as editors, and their work was crucial to the timeliness and quality of the journal. I greatly thank the design team, led by Conner Pike, for assembling this edition of The Oculus. Finally, I would like to thank the Center for Undergraduate Excellence (CUE) for their continued support.

I hope that you enjoy reading the incredible works that we present to you in this issue of The Oculus.

Kind regards,

Shariq Hashmi Editor-in-Chief

Guest Letter Dear Oculus Authors and Readers, It is my sincere honor and pleasure to address you as you embark upon reading this compilation of research contributions made by undergraduate students at the University of Virginia. The publication of research in this journal is the final step of a long learning journey for each of the contributors to this scholarly work. While readers of this journal will appreciate the innovation and application of scholarly thought and new approaches to problem solving, these are merely summaries of the contributions that the researchers who have produced these manuscripts have made to their respective disciplines. Basic scholarly and applied research within the university setting forms the backbone of innovation and advancement that extends well beyond the reach of the university, impacting the world in which we live.

As a lifelong researcher, I congratulate the editors and authors for recognizing the important role that publication plays in true academic discourse, no matter what the subject. It is more than just a line on a resume; please consider the contributions in here as an investment in innovation and the future, whether through technical achievement, theoretical exploration, or social understanding.

The authors of the papers contained herein have not only chosen to work on complex questions and problems, explore new areas and the boundaries of scientific understanding, and test their knowledge and limits, they have also chosen to publish the results of these forays into unknown and uncharted research territory. To do so not only invites discussion and enlightenment, but also provides an opportunity for criticism and defense of their scholarly work. I applaud the bold steps they have taken to open their work to public scrutiny and discourse.

It is my sincere hope that all readers of this publication will enjoy getting a small glimpse into the research enterprise at the University of Virginia – one that is complex and comprehensive and one in which undergraduate research plays a pivotal role in advancing progress and providing deep educational benefits to those who challenge themselves to get involved.

Sincerely,

Joan Bienvenue, PhD Director, Applied Research Institute University of Virginia

ediTOrial sTaff (Top) Peyton Randolph, Clara Carlson, Marc Blatt, Eric Culbertson, Adam Antoszewski (Middle) John Fry, Caitlin Flanagan, Alexander Mink, Shariq Hashmi, Conner Pike, Tarun Ganesh, Benjamin Winter (Bottom) Riya Simon, Leah Reichle, Rachel Dick, Nivedha Kannapadi, Kara Anderson (Not Pictured) Abigail Moats ediTOr-in-cheif Shariq Hashmi seniOr ediTOr Conner Pike execuTive ediTOr Kara Anderson Managing ediTOr Peyton Randolph PhOTOgraPhers Adam Antoszewski Claire Poumerol PrinTed aT Charlottesville Press, Inc.

The Oculus

The Virginia Journal of undergraduaTe research 2015 – 2016 | Volume 14 cOnTenTs 8

“Do I Need to Say I’m Sorry?”; Children’s Evaluations of the Need to Apologize Following Ambiguous Transgressions Shannon Savell

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An Examination of a Transgender Candidate’s Interactions with Media: The Wymore Case Abraham Axler

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Heaven or Las Vegas: A Research Report on Water Policies and Sustainability Issues In Las Vegas and the the Las Vegas Valley Stefano Rumi

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On the Coherency of “Degenerate” Activities in Tokugawa Buddhism Joshua Whitwell

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Eating Exclusion: Social Barriers at Farmers Markets Love Jonson

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Improving Health, Wellbeing and Livelihood via Water Loans for the Peri-Urban in Bangalore, India Jeremy Jones, Sumedha Deshmukh, Virginia Dittmar

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The Getty Kouros: Failures of Stylistic and Scientific Analysis in Determination of Authenticity Claire Councill

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HIV & Masculinity in Gugulethu, South Africa Sasheenie Moodley

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Exploring Associations Among Peer Support, Psychological Well-Being, and Problematic Drinking Behaviors Among Underrepresented College Students Yekaterina Davydova

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Research Around Grounds Kara Anderson

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Submission Guidelines for The Oculus

“Do I NeeD to Say I’m Sorry?”

ChIlDreN’S evaluatIoNS of the NeeD to apologIze followINg ambIguouS traNSgreSSIoNS Shannon Savell

Shannon graduated from the University of Virginia in May 2015 with a Distinguished Major in Psychology.

She hopes to attend graduate school in clinical psychology and pursue a career in psychological research. Her research interests include social and moral development, promotion of positive youth development, effects of peer relationships and parenting on psychological distress, academic achievement, and health-risk behaviors. She hopes to continue her research and make a meaningful contribution to research on youth development.

AbstrAct Previous research with adults supports the common conception that women apologize more than men. However, the development of this phenomenon has yet to be investigated. This study examined whether there are gender and age differences between how seriously children perceive transgressions and how necessary it is to apologize for them. Five-, 7-, and 10-year-olds (N = 48) imagined themselves as the protagonist in 12 vignettes involving a transgression that was caused by both parties (e.g., accidentally bumping into someone whose legs were in the bus aisle).

We hypothesized that girls would report that the transgressions were more severe than boys and that girls would report that it was more important to apologize than boys. This prediction was based on published research with adults (e.g., Schumann & Ross, 2010), and on a pilot study we conducted in which adult women reported that it was more important to apologize than men. Contrary to our predictions, younger children rated the transgressions as more serious than older children, but there were no gender differences: Boys and girls rated them as equally serious. It is likely that the older children could better detect the lack of seriousness in the transgressions and recognize the accidental nature of the transgressions. Interestingly, when judging how important it would be to apologize after a transgression, children reported that it was equally important to apologize regardless of age and gender. Thus, irrespective of how severe a transgression is, children learn from an early age that they should employ the apology script as a means of maintaining positive interactions between individuals.

H

ave you ever said, “I’m sorry” when you didn’t know who was to blame? Perhaps it was after an ambiguous transgression in which it was unclear who was at fault, but you still felt compelled to provide an apology. Maybe you accidently bumped into someone on a crowded bus or stepped on someone’s bag when trying to get to your seat in a crowded lecture hall. One common intuition, for which there is some supporting evidence from the adult literature (Schumann & Ross, 2010), is that women are more likely to apologize than men. The study here investigates when in development this gender difference emerges.

One study has directly addressed whether and why women are more likely to apologize than men. In Schumann and Ross (2010, Study 1), participants reported in daily diaries all offenses they committed and whether they had offered apologies. Women reported committing

more offenses than men (267 vs. 196) and apologizing more than men (217 vs.

158), but the likelihood of offering an apology given an offense was the same across both genders. This suggested to Schumann and Ross that the reason women apologize more than men is that women have a lower threshold than men for what constitutes an offense. In Study 2, Schumann and Ross tested this threshold hypothesis by asking undergraduates to imagine a series of offenses (e.g., “You snapped at your friend after returning home grumpy from school”) and to evaluate the severity of the offense, how much the victim deserved an apology, and how likely they would be to apologize. As predicted, women rated the offenses as more severe than men and these severity ratings predicted how much participants said a victim deserved an apology and whether they would apologize themselves in that scenario.

There is some reason to think that

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from an early age, boys and girls may have different expectations about how important it is to apologize after a transgression. There is evidence, for example, that young girls show more concern for victims than boys (Zahn-Waxler, Kochanska, Krupnick & McKnew, 1990).

Zahn-Waxler et al. (1990) presented 5- to 9-year-olds with stories about transgressions (e.g. two children fighting over a bicycle and one child hurting the other), and asked them questions designed to elicit themes of responsibility and emotional involvement. Compared to boys, girls showed more signs of empathy, fear, sadness, and concern about how the altercation might impact the relationship between the two children. Additionally, girls were more likely than boys to demonstrate prosocial concern by suggesting that the transgressor should try to help the victim feel better.

When they have committed a transgression themselves, girls also appear to be more sensitive than boys to the harm they inflict (e.g., Kochanska, DeVet, Goldman, Murray, & Putnam, 2008; Sears, Raus & Alpert, 1965). For example, Sears et al. (1965) found that preschool girls showed more signs of distress (e.g. guilt or fear of social consequence) than boys after they had pushed someone or damaged a doll. This line of work suggests that young girls may be more sensitive than boys to the effect that transgressions have on victims. If girls are more likely to recognize that an apology can begin to mend the relationship between victims and transgressors, they may also be more likely than boys to expect transgressors to offer an apology. Indeed, Banerjee, Bennett and Luke (2010) found that when 4- to 9-yearolds heard stories about violations in which the transgressor either apologized or made an excuse, girls reported liking apologetic transgressors more than transgressors who made excuses, while 10

boys liked them equally. Given that girls liked apologetic transgressors more than ones who made excuses but boys liked them equally, this suggests that girls expect transgressors to apologize whereas boys do not. Therefore, it is possible that when girls are the transgressors themselves they may be more likely to apologize because of their expectation that others should apologize.

Gender differences in children’s general beliefs about prosocial behavior might also contribute to differences in their expectations about whether an apology is warranted (e.g., Sebanc, Pierce, Cheatham & Gunnar, 2003; Weller & Lagattuta, 2014; Wentzel & Erdley, 1993; Zimmerman & Levy, 2000). There are several studies that suggest that girls expect people to act prosocially more than boys. For example, 11- to 13-year-old girls were more likely than boys to report that helping another person was a good way of making friends, (Wentzel and Erdley, 1993) and 5- to 13-year-old girls were more likely than boys to expect that an individual would help someone who needed it, even if it came at a personal cost (Weller and Lagattuta, 2013). Interestingly, an apology could be considered a prosocial act—one that is intended to help another person (feel better) and which comes at a cost to the person offering it (i.e., admitting guilt). Given that girls seem to expect prosocial acts more often than boys, to the extent that they recognize apologies as a prosocial act, they might be more likely than boys to expect transgressors to apologize.

A natural question, of course, is where these gender differences in prosocial behavior come from. One factor almost certainly involves differences in socialization practices for boys and girls.

Specifically, parents tend to encourage prosocial behavior in their daughters more than in their sons (Eisenberg, Cumberland & Spinrad, 1998; Eisenberg,

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Fabes, & Spinrad, 1998; Grusec, Maayan, & Lundell, 2002). For example, Hoffman (1975) observed that girls are encouraged to engage in acts of social support and concern for the well-being of others. Additionally, females are socialized to be reactive to the feelings and needs of others (Hoffman, 1975).

One observational study failed to detect any differences between boys and girls in terms of the frequency of apologies or the likelihood that one would be offered given a transgression.

Schleien, Ross, and Ross (2010) observed nine hours of interaction between 2- to 6-year-old sibling dyads, coding for how often transgressions were followed by apologies and the effect apologies had on subsequent behavior. There were no gender differences at this young age, which could reflect the fact that they have not yet developed gender stereotyped apology behaviors and that the nature of sibling relationships does not lead to gender differences in apology behavior.

Perhaps siblings feel as though they do not need to apologize to maintain the relationship. However, when transgressions occur between friends or unrelated persons, an apology may be needed to maintain positive interactions and repair the relationship.

In the current study, children heard 12 vignettes that described transgressions between unrelated individuals that were ambiguous as to whom was at fault. An example of a vignette that children heard was, “On the bus, someone’s foot was in the aisle. When you were getting off, you stepped on it.”

Children were told to imagine themselves as the protagonist in the vignette, and then to rate how bad transgressions were and how important it would be to apologize in that scenario. Ambiguous transgressions were used so that there would be uncertainty regarding whether an apology was necessary. We included

some transgressions involving physical harm and others involving property damage because past research suggests that they both are common and readily understood by children as moral violations (e.g., Tisak & Block, 1990; Tisak & Turiel, 1984). For example, in a study by Tisak and Block (1990), 3-, 4-, and 5-yearolds who were asked to generate “bad” actions described physical harm, property violations, and inter-personal trust violations.

Of interest was when gender differences would emerge in the reported severity of a transgression and/or the importance of apologizing given a transgression. Before beginning the study described below, we conducted a pilot study with 16 undergraduate students (mean age = 19 years; range = 18 – 20; 8 females), using the same stimuli and procedure that will be used in the main study. Consistent with the findings of Schumann and Ross (2010), women rated our transgressions as more serious than men, and were more likely to think it was important to apologize.

Method Participants Forty-eight children participated in a single 15 minute session: sixteen 5-yearolds (mean age = 5 years, 7 months; range = 5 years, 0 months - 5 years, 11 months; 8 girls), sixteen 7-year-olds (mean age = 7 years, 7 months; range = 7 years, 0 months - 7 years, 11 months; 8 girls), and sixteen 10-year-olds (mean age = 10 years, 5 months; range = 10 years, 0 months - 10 years, 11 months; 8 girls). Participants were recruited from a database of families who had expressed an interest in participating in research.

Eight additional children participated, but were excluded because they did not pass the catch trials (6; described below), or because of experimenter error (2).

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Materials Materials included 16 drawings depicting characters involved in ambiguous transgressions. For example, as Figure 1 shows, in one drawing, someone left his or her leg in the middle of the bus aisle and the protagonist stumbled over it. Table 1 lists all 16 scenarios, half of which involved physical harm and half of which involved property harm. The characters in the drawings were drawn without faces or hair so that they could represent either boys or girls.

In addition to the drawings, materials also included one rating scale consisting of 5 circles of increasing size oriented horizontally from smallest on the left to largest on the right, and another rating scale of 5 squares of increasing size oriented vertically from smallest on the bottom to largest on the top. Drawings and rating scales were presented on an iPad 2.

Procedure Children were first trained to use the two rating scales. The experimenter showed the horizontal scale of dots of increasing size, and explained, “This dot (pointing to smallest dot) shows that something is not bad at all, this (pointing to next dot) is a tiny bit bad, ... and this (pointing to the largest dot) shows that something is really bad, as bad as it could possibly be.” She explained that lying to your mom would be an example of something that would be as bad as it could possibly be, and pointed to the largest dot. She explained that taking a nap would be an example of something that would not be bad at all and pointed to the smallest dot. She invited the child to choose the appropriate dots that matched various degrees of “badness” (e.g., “So which dot would you choose if something was really bad, as bad as it could possibly be?”).

Figure 1. Example of a drawing used to depict the transgressions. This drawing shows the transgression: “Someone left their backpack in the middle of the bus aisle and you stumbled over it.”

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Property Transgressions Someone left their block tower in the middle of the classroom and you bumped into it.

Someone left their book in the middle of the floor and you stepped on it.

Someone left their backpack in the middle of the bus aisle and you stumbled over it.

You squeezed by someone to get to the end of the lunch line, and you elbowed someone’s lunch tray.

Someone left their stuffed animal on the sidewalk. While you were skating, you rolled over it.

Someone’s crayons rolled to your side of the table and as you were coloring, you knocked them off the table.

Physical Transgressions You were trying to squeeze by someone in a crowded movie theater and you bumped into their knee.

On the bus, someone’s foot was in the aisle. When you were getting off, you stepped on it.

Someone wasn’t sitting criss-cross at the puppet show, and when you were finding your seat, you stumbled over their legs.

When you were sitting down in a crowded circle for storytime, you elbowed someone’s arm At the ice rink, you rolled into someone skating the wrong way.

When you were doing jumping jacks in gym class, you knocked someone’s hand.

Table 1. A list of all 12 of the transgressions used in this study.

Next, the experimenter showed the vertical scale of squares of increasing size, and explained that the scale could be used to show how important something was: “If something is important to do then it means you should definitely do it.

This square (pointing to smallest square) shows that something is not important at all, this (pointing to next square) is a tiny bit important, … and this (pointing to the largest square) shows that something is really important, as important as it could possibly be.” Finally, she invited the child to choose the appropriate squares that represented various degrees of importance (e.g., “So which square would you choose if something was very important to do, as important as it could possibly be?”).

The experimenter then explained that she was going to tell the children some stories, and that they should listen very carefully and imagine themselves as the protagonist. The experimenter showed the first drawing and read the corresponding vignette. For example, “You were trying to squeeze by someone in a crowded movie theater and you bumped into their knee.” She displayed the dot rating scale and said, “OK, now I want you to show me (using these dots) how bad was that?” Next, she showed the vertical square rating scale and said, “OK, now I want you to show me (using these squares) how important would it be to say ‘I’m sorry’ if you did that?

Remember if it is important to do something that means you should definitely

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do it.” Children were presented with 12 vignettes, six involving physical transgressions and six involving property transgressions (see Table 1). Physical and property transgressions were presented in blocks and whether the physical or property block came first was counterbalanced across children.

There were also four catch trials designed to ensure children were using the rating scale appropriately. Two catch trials presented scenarios that, from an adult perspective, were clearly not bad and for which an apology would not be important. For example, “You ate all your vegetables at dinner.” The other two catch trials presented scenarios that, from an adult perspective, were clearly bad and for which an apology would be important. For example, “Your teacher asked you to clean the fish bowl and as you were washing it, you broke the bowl.” One of each type of catch trial occurred in the block of trials involving physical transgressions and one of each type occurred in the block of trials involving property transgressions. To be included in the final dataset, children had to use the appropriate end of the seriousness and importance scales for at least one of the two catch trials of each type.

Results Our primary interest was whether there are gender differences in childhood between the reported severity of a transgression and importance of apologizing.

Figure 2 shows how serious participants rated the transgressions as a function of age and gender. As the figure shows and contrary to our predictions, boys and girls did not differ in how serious they rated the transgressions at any of the three age groups. However, younger children rated the transgressions as more serious than the older children. A 2-way 14

ANOVA on the seriousness ratings in Figure 2 confirmed that the only significant difference was of age, F(2, 42) = 13.34, p < .001 and not of gender, F(1, 42) = .06, p = .81. Bonferroni corrected pairwise comparisons showed that 5-yearolds rated transgressions as more serious than 7-year-olds (M = 3.88 vs. 3.19), p = .02, and that 7-year-olds rated transgressions as marginally more serious than 10-year-olds (M = 3.19 vs. 2.65), p = .089.

This main effect of age must be interpreted in light of a significant interaction between age group and transgression type, F(2, 42) = 5.02, p = .011.

As Figure 3 shows, 5-year-olds rated physical transgressions as more serious than property transgressions, (M = 4.15 vs. 3.62), t(15) = -2.26, p = .04, 7-yearolds reported that property and physical transgressions were equally serious (M = 3.16 vs. 3.21), t(15) = -.37, p = .72, and 10-year-olds reported that property transgressions were more serious than physical ones, (M = 2.78 vs. 2.51), t(15) = 2.28, p = .04.

Based on past research in which girls exhibited more prosocial behavior and empathy than boys (e.g., Sebanc et al., 2003; Weller & Lagattuta, 2013; Wentzel & Erdley, 1993; Zimmerman & Levy, 2000), and were more likely to favor apologetic transgressors than ones who made excuses (Banerjee et al., 2010), we predicted that girls would report that it was more important to apologize for the same transgressions than boys. As Figure 4 shows, however, there were no overall differences in how important children said it was to apologize across gender or age. Five-, 7-, and 10-year-olds believed that it was equally important to apologize for transgressions. A 2-way ANOVA on the importance data in Figure 4 showed no main effects of gender, F(1, 42) = .003, p = .95 or age, F(2, 42) = 1.25, p = .30, and no interactions between the two, F(2, 42) = .75, p = .48. Even though

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Figure 2. Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s average seriousness ratings for property and physical transgressions as a function of age and gender (1= not bad at all; 5 = very bad, as bad as it could possibly be).

Figure 3. Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s average seriousness ratings for property and physical transgressions as a function of age (1= not bad at all; 5 = very bad, as bad as it could possibly be).

Figure 4. Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s average ratings for how important it would be to apologize for a transgression as a function of age and gender (1= not important at all; 5 = very important, as important as it could possibly be).

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older children report that the transgressions are less serious, they still think that it is just as important to apologize as the younger children.

Based on past research in which children reported that physical harm was worse than property damage (e.g., Tisak & Block, 1990; Tisak & Turiel, 1984), we predicted that children would report that it was more important to apologize for physical transgressions than for property transgressions. Overall, children reported that it was equally important to apologize regardless of transgression type, F(1, 42) = 1.39, p = .25. However, specifically for 5-year-olds, there was a marginal effect of transgression type on importance of apology ratings, F(1, 14) = 3.58, p = .08, suggesting that 5-year-olds may consider physical transgressions to deserve an apology more than property transgressions (M = 4.28 vs. 3.84). 7-yearolds thought it was equally important to apologize regardless of transgression type, F(1, 14) = .18, p = .68. Similarly, 10-year-olds also reported that property and physical transgressions were equally important to apologize for, F(1, 14) = .03, p = .86. This was contrary to the results from the severity ratings in which an age-by-transgression type interaction occurred such that 5-year-olds reported that physical transgressions were worse than property transgressions and 10-year-olds reported that property transgressions were worse than physical transgressions.

Discussion We hypothesized that girls would report that the transgressions were more severe than boys and that girls would report that it was more important to apologize than boys. This prediction was based on published research with adults (e.g., Schumann & Ross, 2010), and by a pilot study we conducted in which adult 16

women reported that it was more important to apologize than men.

In the current study, there were four important findings. First, girls and boys did not differ in how serious they thought the transgressions used in our study were. This finding is contrary to the results from research with adults (e.g., Schumann & Ross, 2010), in which women rated the same transgressions as more serious than men. Although we did not find a gender difference in children’s seriousness ratings, it is possible that the phenomenon emerges in adolescence. Future research should explore whether adolescent girls rate transgressions as more serious than adolescent boys and what factors might contribute to the emergence of this phenomenon in adulthood.

Second, younger children reported that the transgressions were more serious than older children. This is consistent with previous developmental research.

In a study by Banerjee, Bennett and Luke (2010), 4- to 5-year-old boys thought transgressions were more serious than 8- to 9-year-old boys. Compared to younger children who tend to interpret scenarios in black and white (e.g., “bad” or “good”), older children are better able to consider how bad a transgression is relative to the extremes. Additionally, older children begin to incorporate a variety of contextual cues—such as intentionality— into their seriousness judgments (Malle, Moses & Baldwin, 2001).

Given that the ambiguous transgressions in our study were very minor, older children were likely better able to both detect their lack of seriousness compared to the “very bad” extreme and incorporate the fact that the transgressions were accidental.

Third, children’s seriousness ratings were influenced both by age and transgression type. Whereas, 5-year-olds reported that physical transgressions

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were worse than property transgressions, 10-year-olds reported that property transgressions were worse than physical transgressions. This interaction is consistent with previous research with children in which 3- to 6-year-olds reported that a violation involving physical harm was always worse than a violation of a rule involving property loss and reported that physical harm was referenced significantly more often than property damage (e.g., Tisak & Block, 1990; Tisak & Turiel, 1984). Perhaps one reason for this interaction is that children around the age of five are frequently reminded about the proper times for physical contact. Another possible explanation could be that older children were able to understand that the consequences of the physical transgressions used in this study were very temporary whereas the property transgressions were slightly more disruptive. For example, the pain from bumping into someone will fade quickly but having to re-build a tower that was bumped into may take longer.

The fourth important finding was that children do not differ across age or gender in the reported importance to apologize. Previous developmental research suggests that girls have more concern about maintaining relationships than boys do (Hoffman, 1975). But, given that the child’s relationship with the victim was left ambiguous, when girls imagined themselves as transgressors they may not have felt an apology was necessary to maintain the relationship. If the transgression had instead involved someone with whom girls had an established relationship, perhaps girls would have felt compelled to apologize and a gender difference would have emerged.

Additionally, it is possible that in the current study, the children may have reported what they believed were the correct responses to the transgressions instead of what they actually would do

in those situations. There may have been an unintended influence on the child’s response because the experimenter was an adult. This factor may have increased the boys’ perceived importance to apologize. In an observational study in which children were not influenced by the presence of an adult, it is possible that 5-,7-, and 10-year-old girls would apologize more than the boys. An observational study would also allow for relationships between victims and transgressors and authentic transgressions. The presence of a relationship between victim and transgressor and authentic transgressions might increase the girls’ perceived importance to apologize. These limitations to the current study could be addressed in a future observational study in which an adult is not present or by having primary caretakers record in daily diaries all the transgressions their children make and whether or not an apology is given.

Another reason that girls and boys did not differ in reported importance to apologize might be differences in socialization practices by the participants’ caretakers. Previous research suggests that caretakers tend to encourage girls to engage in prosocial acts more than boys (Grusec, Maayan, & Lundell, 2002), and they socialize girls to be more concerned about the needs of others (Hoffman, 1975). However, it is possible that the families who are in our database and part of the university community are less likely to treat their children differently based on gender and encourage both boys and girls to employ the apology script equally. Furthermore, participants’ caretakers might have been aware of the gender stereotype that women apologize more than men and tried to combat this by teaching their sons to be just as empathetic as their daughters. Future research could include a primary caretaker survey to assess whether primary caretaker socialization practices and knowledge of

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gender stereotypes influence how serious children rate transgressions and how important they believe it is to apologize following transgressions.

Perhaps another reason why there were no gender differences among young children regarding the need to apologize was merely that children under the age of 10 are not aware that women are stereotypically expected to apologize more than men. Interestingly, when we asked the children after the study whether girls or boys apologized more often, we found that children were not aware of the gender stereotype that girls apologize more frequently. The answers from the children showed an in-group bias towards their own gender; girls reported that girls apologize more and vice versa.

When undergraduates were asked the same question, both men and women reported that women apologize more than men. This suggests that a stereotype that women apologize more than men appears between 10 years of age and adolescence. Future research is necessary to investigate not only when this phenomenon emerges but more importantly why it emerges.

By examining when this gender stereotyped apology behavior emerges, we can begin to discover why it emerges.

It is important to investigate why women apologize more than men because it will widen the understanding of mixedgender conflicts (Schumann & Ross, 2010). Understanding why men and women differ in their apology behavior may help the two genders relate to one another and decrease misperceptions about their apologies. Schumann and Ross (2010) suggested that women have a lower threshold for what constitutes an offense, and thus men do not apologize as frequently as women do. However, when men believe the offense is worthy of an apology they are just as likely as women to apologize (Schumann & Ross, 18

2010). The implication is that women are more sensitive to the severity of transgressions than men. Thus, in a mixedgender conflict, when a man does not apologize for an offense, it is possible that a woman would perceive the absence of an apology as indifference to her feelings or as maliciousness. Conversely, when a woman apologizes to a man for an offense and he considers an apology to be unwarranted, the man might imply that the woman is overly emotional or less confident. These two misperceptions can be problematic in the workplace, within friendships or in romantic relationships.

Therefore, it is important to investigate when in development this gender stereotyped apology behavior first emerges so that we can prevent these misperceptions about what an apology implies from developing. This will allow both genders to understand each other better and to repair relationships after transgressions occur more efficiently.

Conclusion The results from the current study suggest that gender differences in the threshold for what constitutes an offense and reported importance to apologize do not emerge before age 10. Since girls and boys reported that the transgressions were equally serious, it is possible that the girls and boys were equally empathetic about the outcome of each transgression in the vignettes and thus thought it was equally important to apologize. Despite reporting that the transgressions are less severe, older children still believe that it is just as important to apologize. Irrespective of how severe a transgression is, children learn from an early age that they should employ the apology script as a means of maintaining positive interactions between individuals.

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aN examINatIoN of a traNSgeNDer CaNDIDateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S INteraCtIoNS wIth meDIa: the wymore CaSe Abraham Axler

Abraham Axler is a third-year student from New York City. He majors in Politics Honors and intends to write his thesis about transgender politicians. He dabbles in many other course areas and is currently undertaking a project about the articulation of how food tastes. In his spare time he enjoys walks, ideally without the risk of sunburn, NPR, and smoking cigars with friends.

AbstrAct This paper addresses the following questions: how do political and media consultants manage and present transgender identity to a voting public? How is the transgender politician framed in the popular press? In other words, how is transgender identity ‘encoded’ by professionals (in the form of marketing and promotional materials) and ‘decoded’ by the popular press (in the form of articles and commentaries)?

It was found that in Mel Wymore’s case, his overall campaign was hampered by two major factors: the lack of cohesive senior leadership and a wavering strategy about the articulation of his gender identity. The impact of the discussion of gender identity in political campaigns remains to be seen. While there is an abundance of evidence that suggests trans candidates receive far more media attention, it is unclear whether this attention can be converted into votes. Much of Wymore’s interviews in this media appeared to veer far off track of issues local voters are thought to care about. The open question is whether the personal richness his interviews provided made him more compelling.

Introduction

T

he summer of 2013 was a chaotic time in New York City politics.

The sixth City Council district had its first open seat in twelve years, and the seven Democrats running had similar records of public service and nearly identical stances on the issues. One candidate, however, was different: he was born a woman. In 2009, Mel Wymore began to transition his physical appearance through hormonal treatment and a mastectomy to correspond with his gender identity. By the time the race began, he was easily recognized as transgender, or an individual whose gender identity does not conform with his or her biological sex. Notwithstanding his gender identity, Wymore was a typical competitive candidate in a City Council race: a former Chair of the Community board with extensive involvement in local schools and a strong record on public housing. Wymore, however, received disproportionate media attention.

Unlike his peers, Wymore received attention in the national, mainstream media, typified by a lengthy article written by the Associated Press, a full New York Times profile, two appearances on Me-

lissa Harris Perry’s MSNBC talk show, and an invitation to the GLAAD awards.

Media coverage of political candidates is of particularly importance in this case because of New York City’s unusual campaign finance program. Participants in the program receive a six-to-one match for every dollar a New York City resident donates, up to a maximum of $1,050 in public funds-per-contributor. Candidates are, however, limited to spending $168,000 for the election . These limitations eliminate a campaign’s ability to pay for media placements, making earned media critically important to gaining a voter’s attention—and the national media were very interested in covering Wymore. Paradoxically, while transgender candidates might logically seek media attention as a way to spread their campaigns’ message, when this attention focuses on their gender identities, it is no longer as valuable as campaign messaging. These circumstances presented a challenge to marketing Wymore as the most qualified candidate.

Using Wymore’s candidacy as a case study that speaks to issues of media representation, transgender visibility, and politics, my primary research questions include: How do political and

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media consultants manage and present transgender identity to a voting public?

How is the transgender politician framed in the popular press? How is transgender identity “encoded” by professionals in the form of marketing and promotional materials and “decoded” by the popular press in the form of articles and commentaries? As my preliminary findings demonstrate, Wymore’s advisors tended to fall into one of two schools of thought.

The first encouraged absolute transparency on all facets of a candidate’s identity, including gender identity; the thinking was that such candor demonstrates a compelling level of authenticity.

The second school of thought refused to acknowledge any facet of a candidate’s identity that was not explicitly a qualification for office; this practiced exclusion of issues like gender identity and sexuality in an effort to keep the campaign focused on “the issues.” In regard to a candidate speaking openly about their gender identity, these consultants feared that a candidate who is trans and speaks about it at length invariably and inescapably would become “the trans candidate.” Neither school of thought in any way endorsed a closeted approach, one in which the candidate attempts to hide that he is transgender.

Mel Wymore, Candidate: Our interviews were exceptionally thorough and covered topics ranging from the development of Mel’s trans identity to what informed his political philosophy.

Methods

Martin Garcia, Account Manager the Campaign Workshop: Martin was responsible for developing Mel’s campaign materials and mailers, as well as providing general campaign advice.

Our interview explored the design and content decisions he made in mailers and campaign materials.

Interview Subjects My research consisted of a qualitative analysis of approximately fifteen major newspaper articles, two appearances on national television, and a number of blog posts, in concert with focused interviewing of Mel’s senior campaign staff. I conducted five 90-minute interviews with Mel’s senior staff and approximately six 90-minute interviews with the candidate himself. A brief description of interviewees and subjects discussed follows.

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George Arzt, Press Secretary, Mayor Ed Koch; New York Times Endorsement consultant: Our interview focused on Mr. Arzt’s strategy for achieving the New York Times Endorsement and his reasons for supporting Wymore in such a crowded field.

Mike McCall, Victory Fund Political Director: Our interview focused on McCall’s experience supporting Mel’s campaign and the structural challenges he felt the campaign faced.

Jordan Jacobs, Campaign Manager: Our interview focused on Jacob’s feelings about why the campaign was ultimately unsuccessful and his frustrations with the media’s coverage of the campaign.

Nancy Leeds, Victory Fund Deputy, Political Director: Our conversations centered around the Victory Fund’s candidate development program for potential trans candidates.

Interview Questions The following questions are broadly representative of those asked to all interviewees: 1. What have your interactions with

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2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Mel been like?

Why did you perceive Mel as a viable candidate?

Does Mel’s political philosophy greatly differ from other trans candidates you’ve worked with?

Do politicians identifying as trans have to construct their public persona in an exceptional way?

How do trans politicians typically describe their gender identity?

Was Mel’s treatment in the media problematic?

In what way did Mel’s gender identity influence the advice you gave him as a consultant?

Why do you think Mel lost?

Do trans politicians have a duty to serve as representatives of those identifying as trans?

Wymore in the Context of Trans Media Representations The period of Mel’s campaign from 2011 to 2013 coincided with a realignment of journalistic style guidelines regarding the discussion of transgender individuals.

The Associated Press had long stated that subjects should be referred to by the gender with which they commonly presented themselves. Although the Associated Press is considered by many to set the standard for style guidelines, it took journalists many years to break their habit of including harmful but commonly used terms for transgender individuals, like “crossdresser” or “tranny.”

This shift can be demonstrated by the extremes of Mel’s coverage, particularly how he was referred to in headlines.

The most harmful headline was the New York Observer’s December 20th 2011 article “Madame Chairperson Now Mister Candidate: Transgender Wymore Runs for UWS Council Seat.” This headline egregiously and sensationally draws attention to Wymore’s gender iden-

tity. Furthermore, the title evokes the common stereotype of a trans individual’s shift in gender identity being abrupt and deceptive. Such a headline is plainly informed by the novelty of a transgender candidate, not Wymore’s qualities as a leader or citizen. This article exemplifies media coverage of Wymore that was at best superfluous and at worst detrimental. The other extreme was the Wall Street Journal’s September 8th 2013 article, “Hopeful Makes Historic Run.” This headline makes no explicit mention of Wymore’s trans identity and accurately frames him as an able, ambitious political newcomer.

This limited discussion of these diametrically opposed headlines is included to demonstrate the broad spectrum of coverage Wymore received. A more thorough analysis of all headlines regarding transfigures from 2011-2013 would be necessary to definitively conclude whether this was a result of broader journalistic trends or a result of the decreasing novelty of Wymore’s campaign as the race progressed. Such a dramatic shift over such a short time period more strongly supports the latter theory. The New York Observer’s article was written when Wymore’s campaign was near-embryonic; he had just declared his candidacy and begun to fundraise. Though Wymore was a respected community leader, he was largely unknown in political and public arenas typically covered by the press.

During the course of the campaign, Wymore was able to demonstrate the viability of his campaign through his performance at public forums and his success with endorsements. This raises the question: are transgender candidates inherently disadvantaged at the outset of their campaigns? No other candidates must prove themselves before they receive objective coverage. The converse of this is that no other candidate received

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such a large quantity of coverage. It remains to be seen whether this type of novel coverage is persuasive to voters.

Wymore’s initial coverage served as his introduction as a transpolitician to the community. Wymore never ran for office before he began to identify as transgender, and thus every article about his accomplishments or political philosophy was written at a time in which he publicly performed his trans identity.

His advisors would later make a clear decision to pitch human interest articles that explore his gender identity and how it influenced his leadership in the community. This may have had little to do with the advisors’ wishes, and instead may have been entirely Wymore’s preference. This theory is supported by the first article about Wymore as a politician, Levin’s “CB7 Chair welcomes new transition”. Although Wymore wasn’t yet officially running for City Council, his election as chair of the board was his coming out as a politician. The same evening he was elected, he revealed that he would be transitioning: “Wymore said she is also very open to sharing the experience of her transformations. She said her willingness to publicly discuss her personal life—for example, immediately announcing her gender transition her first full board meeting—makes a difference. ‘By being open and vulnerable, there is a lot of freedom and power, even if it is scary,’ she said.”

It does not appear accidental that Wymore’s coming out as trans occurred at the same moment as he officially became a politician. The narrative of his campaign from the beginning was about how openness and vulnerability can be distinguishing leadership features.

In this early article, Wymore is operating largely without advisement.

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He is beginning to publicly articulate his gender identity and political idea precisely as he sees fit, free from any coaching or packaging by staff or advisors. The rawness of these early articles demonstrates clearly that it was Wymore’s decision from the beginning to publicly explore his gender identity. As will be later demonstrated, there was little shift throughout the campaign in the rhetoric Wymore used to comment on his gender identity; this may indicate that Wymore ignored counsel regarding the articulation of his gender identity.

Articulating the Utility of a Trans Identity In nearly every article, Wymore attempts to demonstrate the political utility of his trans identity on the basis of three major facets: as a mark of openness to different viewpoints, as a demonstration of his authenticity, and as a way to advocate for the marginalized. Over the eight major articles I examined, Wymore consistently frames these three facets, using words like “perspective,” “angle,” and “approach” to discuss how his gender identity influences his notion of leadership. It is important to note here the distinction between Mel’s words in articles versus his words from interviews. Quotations in articles are often the result of a negotiation between a politician’s staff and the news organization, whereas interviews often have somewhat less polish. This not only gives magazine and newspaper quotations a certain polished quality, but also can provide insight into the strategy sentiments of a campaign.

Wymore’s openness to others’ viewpoints is often simplified in articles as a strong sentiment towards inclusivity.

This is demonstrated by Wymore’s quote to Gay City News: “I’m running because I believe it is possible to build vibrant, inclusive, sustainable community. That

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is informed by my story and my experience.” Wymore is fully capable of stating his position on inclusion without drawing attention to his experiences as a transman. This demonstrates a conscious effort on the part of Wymore and of Gay City News to highlight the connection between Mel’s gender identity and his posture as a leader. It could be argued that Gay City News is a niche LGBTQ publication catering to its readership by drawing explicit connections to Wymore’s gender identity. This explicit framing of Wymore’s gender identity as a contributing factor to his leadership style is seen in the vast majority of articles featuring Wymore. The connection between inclusivity and gender identity is drawn in nearly identical terms by Wymore in his interview with The Nation: “‘It’s very important to me to highlight that the fact of being transgender is an expression of a lot of different skills and qualities that are consistent with being a good leader,’ says Wymore, ‘like being courageous, being inclusive, being able to manage change and balance, and seeing people for who they are—all these things are assets to leadership.’”

The Nation is a mainstream liberal publication, yet Wymore draws an even more explicit connection to his trans identity and his feelings on inclusion. In a mainstream publication, a trans candidate may be forced to lay out precisely what aspects of his gender identity inform his feelings on inclusion, as most readers lack any schema to interpret trans identity. It should be noted that with the rising popularity of nationally famous transgender figures like Laverne Cox and Janet Mock, this may be less true now than it was during Wymore’s campaign.

Authenticity as it relates to trans identity was another major avenue for

articulation. Wymore attempted to make the singular experience of being trans relatable by framing the conversation as truly about how everyone could be a little truer to themselves. His interview with Buzzfeed is one of the very few times Wymore uses the second person singular, directly engaging the reader with his trans identity. He states: “I think a lot of my willingness to be as expressive as I am and run for office and put myself out there comes out of the fact that I have found authenticity, I have found being comfortable in my own skin for the first time in my life. You can do almost anything if you feel comfortable in your own skin — which is also the other piece of this. People think oftentimes, ‘It’s only about you. Why would you pursue your own selfish interests because it gives everyone else all this pain?’

What people don’t understand is it’s not just about self-expression because you’re dying when you’re not able to be yourself. People who are not able to be themselves, it’s not that they’re not living, they’re actually dying. And when you’re a person that’s living in a family or living in a community actively dying, it doesn’t contribute to anyone.”

The context of this quotation is that Wymore made the decision to transition from his otherwise uncontroversial life as a lesbian. This decision was emotionally complicated for his young children.

At the time this quote was given, Mel’s children appeared entirely comfortable with his transition. Taken out of the context, the quote reads as a call to action to anyone who is being inauthentic. It highlights the extraordinary communal cost of inauthenticity. This frames Wymore’s transition, which often confounds the uninformed, as heroic. It vividly describes the power of authenticity as a savior from anguish and self-doubt.

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This subverts one major way in which the transition of transgender individuals is often contextualized: through a sexual frame. The procedure which used to be referred to as a “sex change” has recently been re-termed to the more accurate term “gender confirmation surgery.” This takes away the insinuation that being transgender is a choice. Not every trans identity individual decides to undergo surgical procedures, but for those who do, it is in an effort to have their physical features conform with their overall gender expression.

This distinction is implicit in Wymore’s discussion of his transition not as a switch but as an elimination from repression. He often used the metaphor of a gorilla suit, as he did with The New York Times, stating “[my transition was] an opportunity to take off the gorilla suit I felt I’d been wearing all my life and really be myself.” Few voters would state that they desire an inauthentic politician.

Wymore developed a construct in which his trans self was his authentic self, transitively making his trans identity appealing to voters.

Wymore found a major talking point regarding the utility of his trans identity as a wellspring for advocacy for marginalized communities and trans issues. This is the most obvious of the three as it is intuitive that a trans-identified candidate might also be interested in trans issues. Wymore stated the positive effect a trans elected official might have not only on the trans community, but marginalized communities more broadly in his interview with Buzzfeed. He notes: “I think that there’s an opportunity to really give voice to a community that’s really invisible in our society and is just starting to become a known community.

And, secondly, because I feel that my perspective actually informs the way we can bring policy to a different level.

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I’m someone who really has seen many sides of life, and I think I can take on a lot of different perspectives and not just only representing a trans community, but really the whole continuum of what it means to be a human being, from a gender perspective certainly, but also from a perspective of what it means to be mainstream versus what it means to feel marginalized, what it means to feel that you are an activist versus someone who is in the privileged roles. It’s probably good to have someone like that on the City Council.”

Wymore attempts to generalize the trans experience as one that is applicable to many viewpoints. This idea of inclusivity is far better articulated when he leaves out any discussion of the importance of trans representation. The above quote is unintentionally colored by sentiments of being trans-identified and how that in and of itself is a novel qualification for City Council.

His argument here is too nuanced for the casual reader to understand; Wymore thinks that someone with an open perspective would be good on City Council, not just a transgender person.

The conflation of Wymore’s superficial trans identity with the philosophical implications of his trans identity is one that would plague the campaign. In his interview with the Wall Street Journal, Wymore makes a similar statement: “I’ve gone through a journey of being someone who felt like the world wasn’t designed for me to discovering my authentic self, and I think everyone relates to that in some way, just not necessarily about gender.” This quotation is far easier to interpret and may have been the result of a campaign’s fine-tuning of his earlier quotation to Buzzfeed.

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A Struggle for Clarity May Be the Implications There was a clear effort made by the Wymore campaign to ensure that Wymore wasn’t considered “the transgender candidate.” Wymore’s campaign, however consciously diverged from an approach that refused to incorporate his trans identity. Kim Coco, the former Secretary of Education for Hawaii and likely the most successful of American trans politicians, famously wouldn’t answer any questions that weren’t asked of all of the candidates. Instead, Wymore attempted to hedge in an effort to explore his trans identity as a feature of his political identity. There was a clear anxiety that Wymore may be have been interpreted as simply a novelty. Wymore said so almost explicitly, “My challenge [is that] being transgender…has the potential to become a distraction from my actual qualities as a leader.” In an effort to dispel this claim, his campaign may have over compensated and drew attention to the fact that he was trans. The following quotations demonstrate how Wymore frequently commented on his trans identity only to emphasis that it wasn’t really relevant. When the quotations are read in sequence its appears that Wymore’s trans identity was a point of anxiety.

“It’s not like I don’t care,” said Mr. Wymore, who is running to replace Council Member Gale Brewer for the Sixth District council seat. “We just put that into perspective on the ladder of accomplishment. And I think New York’s about getting things done.”

-Hopeful Makes Historic Run”, Wall Street Journal Though Mr. Wymore doesn’t shy away from discussing his gender identity, he doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as a “novelty candidate.” “Look, I’m the qualified candidate here, but I happen to be transgender,” Mr. Wymore explained. “I do realize, how-

ever, that I’m an exemplar of a certain kind of difference that’s in a very small minority, so recognizing that, I have a particular responsibility and a voice to speak about difference and inclusion.” “Madame Chairperson Now Mister Candidate: Transgender Wymore Runs for UWS,” The New York Observer “I’m not running because I’m transgender,” said Mr. Wymore, 50, who was born female but now, after testosterone therapy and top surgery, identifies as transgender.

But, he said, that “doesn’t mean that being transgender doesn’t bring a certain perspective. “A Transgender Candidate is Hoping to Make History,” The New York Times “But, in a recent interview with Gay City News, Mel Wymore did not make the argument that he is a candidate who just happens to be transgender.” “Mel Wymore: Community Activist and Trans Man Looking for Authentic Solutions” Gay City News Wymore: I believe there are real conversations happening in the community, grappling with itself essentially, about my viability as a candidate. Now, I am 100 percent sure that I am a viable candidate, or I wouldn’t be running. But, I still think it’s always a question for people, when you are the first, they gotta, “Wow, is he really gonna make that? Is it really possible? Can we really do that?” And there’s going to be an inflection point where that question is answered. And, you can feel it happening, you can feel people say, “Yeah, this is my favorite candidate, and I’m going to go ahead and say so.” It takes courage. There’s no question. It’s not just me.

The community is growing, and it’s really fun to watch.” “Mel Wymore Wants to Change The Way New Yorkers Think About Gender,” Buzzfeed Although he said his transition shaped his political views, most of his time is spent addressing things like affordable housing and safety. “On The Campaign Trail With Mel Wymore, The Man Who Could Become New York’s First Openly Trans Politician,” The Associated Press

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The above quotations demonstrate the extraordinary level of media interest in Wymore’s gender identity. It remains to be seen, however, whether this kind of earned media actually advances a candidate. Each of these quotations shows the candidate on the defensive about his gender identity as merely a relatively minor factor within a myriad of other qualifications. It raises the question of how a trans candidate can use the media’s interest in their trans identity in ways that raise their profile among local voters. Wymore attempted to emphasize the values of authenticity and a different perspective, but the above quotations demonstrate that he still had to defend himself against the novelty candidate critique.

Considering Campaign Materials The campaign’s own materials never mentioned Wymore’s gender identity.

The only mention of it were a few “Make History” palm cards to be passed out at New York City’s Pride Parade. The overarching messaging of Wymore’s campaign in its published materials was “Mel Gets It Done.” The whole campaign emphasized Wymore’s results during his twenty years of experience in the community. The campaign’s comprehensive internal messaging documents messaging memo spans more than 2000 words, but lacks a single mention of Wymore’s transition or gender identity.

This is an interesting contrast to how Wymore articulated his message in major media interviews. Under the inclusivity header of his internal messaging document, it includes language like “Mel is committed to building an inclusive community where we all work together to get things done” and “Mel has a record of bringing everyone to the table and working together to solve community problems.” These phrases 28

are nearly identical to the ones he used as quotations for his interviews with The Nation and Gay City News, yet he purposely omits any discussion of his gender identity or life experience. In the situation in which Wymore had the most control, he chose to focus on his perspective without any of the context.

This may indicate that reporters pushed him to speak about his gender identity, but when forced to comment, he framed it within the context of what he felt was his true message: results for the community. This may have provided a confusing and unclear message to voters about who Wymore was. The campaign may have naively assumed that the extraordinary media attention about Wymore’s gender identity provided enough context to voters that they could merely articulate his accomplishments. However, this may have been a naive assumption of the Wymore campaign that because national media organizations were providing the context, they didn’t have to.

The most obvious opportunity for the campaign to explore Wymore’s gender identity would be on the “Meet Mel” tab of the candidate’s website. The blurb vividly describes Wymore’s many accomplishments in the community, from his safeguarding 600,000 square feet of permanently affordable housing to a new 800 seat public school, $20 million of funding for parks, and championing the reconstruction of the 59th street recreation center. The language wholly focuses on Mel’s qualifications for office and his record.

Taken in isolation, this introductory page seems to illustrate the campaign’s anxieties about being perceived as a novelty or niched race. The consequence of this results-oriented approach is that it reads as robotic, and, given the widely known context of Wymore’s life experience, it appears to be, at worst, deceptive. These feelings were held by

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many on the campaign. One informal advisor noted in a private email, “It is impossible to separate Mel’s existential story from his community work or political life. It’s not a question of hiding or using but being.”

The Wymore campaign attempted to present Wymore, in their own materials, as a strategic thinker who gets results, largely ignoring his personal story.

What greatly complicated this approach was Wymore’s vivid descriptions of his personal history in the media. This dissection of his persona led to a muddied projection of Wymore. It is certainly appropriate for a campaign to modify its messaging based on the audience, but such a wild divergence may have confused voters.

Strategy Clearly, Wymore’s transness was a salient component of his campaign, but he would argue that this was unintentional. Wymore would doggedly insist that it was merely the media’s fixation on his gender identity, not his presentation.

The following exchange is re-

garding a joke that in The New York Times’ grammar section on April 10th 2012. That week’s theme was a critique of clichés. The joke read: “These are just a few of the subjects that Mel Wymore, a candidate for City Council on the Upper West Side, brought up in an interview before addressing the elephant in the room: that, if elected, he would be the first transgender member of the Council. Wait! There was an elephant in the room? No, just a cliché.”

I insisted to Wymore that the joke was likely a commentary about how he entirely seemed to ignore his trans identity, with the exception of media interviews. This exchange came right after Wymore read the grammar joke for the first time (see below)19.

Throughout this article I have raised the question of whether trans candidates can articulate their identity in a manner that is compelling to voters.

Wymore seemed to attempt to articulate his trans identity in a compelling way in interviews, but, as has been demonstrated, militantly avoided a discussion

Axler: You’ve never brought it [Wymore’s trans identity] up.

Wymore: I’ve rarely brought it up.

Axler: What does this joke mean because you’re this character of otherness still?

Wymore: See, I’m still not getting it, because I see this as more of a joke on highlight of the cliché. I don’t see it as a joke of – is this something I was supposed to have said?

Axler: I think that’s the question.

Wymore: I don’t know.

Axler: We don’t know, it’s so odd.

Wymore: It is.

Axler: In some ways you became a celebrity because of your transness plus you were other in this other way.

Wymore: But I never talked about it.

Axler: You never talked about it but did you…

Wymore: I always spoke about it specifically when asked of me to talk about it but rarely did I bring it up. I did bring it up from time to time but it wasn’t part of the campaign strategy to bring it up.

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of his trans identity in his own campaign materials. Later in this exchange, he acknowledges that his transness was not part of the campaign strategy. This was not necessarily a consensus among the Wymore campaign; there was almost a constant conversation about how to approach his gender identity, but never any resolution. This may have been due to Wymore’s staff and his advisor’s naivety around running as a trans candidate. No single advisor could convincingly make the argument or demonstrate through their record that they understood the best way to run a trans candidate. Each member of Wymore’s team was highly qualified, but none had experience running a transgender candidate in an election of this magnitude. The Victory Fund director, Mike McCall, did have some limited experience with transgender candidates, but running as a transman was, and largely remains, uncharted territory.

Wymore employed two broad categories of consultants: LGBTQ oriented consultants and conventional political consultants. His LGBTQ consultants included: The Campaign Workshop (campaign materials and mailers as well as general advice), The Victory Fund (general support, fundraising advice, LGBTQ outreach), and a cadre of informal LGBTQ activists. His primary conventional political consultant was George Arzt, who served as Mayor Koch’s press secretary. I discovered that Mel’s LGBTQ consultants sought to run him like a gay candidate, acting as if the issue were entirely irrelevant. This strategy had been employed by many successful clients of The Campaign Workshop including Senator Tammy Baldwin, the first openly gay senator ever elected.

The Campaign Workshop encouraged Wymore to emphasize the normalcy of his life in his campaign materials. This advice was clearly adopted, as nearly all of Wymore’s campaign mate30

rials showed him in idyllic scenes with his dog or his children. This intentional emphasis on family life, however, may have been a conventional family strategy, as Arzt also harped on the importance of showing candidates with their families.

Gay candidates, particularly in New York City, have become unremarkable. Much of this is due to more than 75% of Americans personally knowing someone who identifies as lesbian, gay or bisexual. A gay politician is no longer fantastic. The public has a very clear understanding of what it means to be gay and how little that relates to governing.

In contrast, only about 10% of Americans have ever met a trans-identified person. Although this number is likely slightly higher in New York City, it demonstrates that the majority of voters likely have no conception of what trans people are really like. The conventional LGBTQ strategy of promoting the irrelevance of a candidate’s sexual orientation may not work with trans-identified candidates, as so few voters have the framework to understand trans identity. Furthermore, in 2011, there were extremely few representations of trans people in the media and even fewer positive representations. The most famous trans person at that time was likely Chaz Bono. Wymore’s advisors may have greatly underestimated the level of interest in Wymore’s gender identity.

Nancy Leeds, who did not work directly with the Wymore campaign, talked at length about how transgender candidates do not have a responsibility to do what is commonly termed “trans 101.” This is a powerful argument that minorities don’t have a responsibility to educate the majority. While this is a noble argument, it may be detrimental to transgender candidates’ ability to pursue voters if voters are truly confused by the candidates’ gender identity. Perhaps atypically, Wymore felt a compulsion

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to educate those around him. Wymore saw it as an opportunity to empower others; in conversation, he noted, “I saw my experience as something that could be a basis for education or communication or broadening of awareness or even better yet, an experience that would lend itself to emancipating others and not only around gender but around race or around other differences, that if I could expand my experience such that it would be a platform for connection rather than isolation, it was easier for me too.”

Wymore’s philosophy greatly frustrated his LGBTQ consultants, because it was as if he was only following half of their advice: he left out the discussion of his gender identity in his official materials but proclaimed it in nearly every interview. Wymore’s consultants were not attempting to censor Wymore or soften his philosophy, but they theorized that any mention of his transness “would ring a bell that could not be unrung.” In essence, once Wymore began to talk about his trans identity, he was irrevocably the transgender candidate. Such a classification would have been antithetical to Wymore’s goals if it came at the expense of the recognition of his community accomplishments. It remains unclear to what extent Wymore’s LGBTQ consultants were correct in this theory. Certainly, the vast majority of the articles regarding Wymore focused disproportionately on his trans identity, but this may have been adequately counteracted by his strict omission in his own campaign materials.

George Arzt thought that Wymore’s gender identity could be thoroughly discussed in a couple of robust and well-placed articles. After that, the story would have been told. To this end, Arzt pitched The Nation’s November 5th 2012 article, “People Over Politics” and the New York Times’ March 22nd 2012 article, “A Transgender Candidate is Hoping to Make History.” These long

and splashy articles vividly described Wymore’s gender identity and his political goals. They were by all accounts masterful portrayals of Wymore as a parent, a citizen, and a leader. These articles, however, did not get the issue of Wymore’s gender identity off of the table. Just as Wymore’s LGBTQ advisors feared, they may have highlighted his gender identity as a fascinating topic. Unlike LBG candidates, transness remains so novel that candidates are nearly forced to acknowledge their trans identity. This need not be a disadvantage, however, if they are able to articulate their trans identity as a positive facet of their persona.

Opportunities for Expansion My research begs the question “How does trans identity impact voters’ perceptions of a candidate?” I would argue that the process of transitioning is incredibly difficult and belies an extraordinary sense of introspection and resiliency in a candidate for office. It would appear that the qualities of transgender individuals (determination, conviction, ability to appreciate multiple points of view) align well with many voters’ ideal conception of a politician. This study of Wymore’s campaign reveals that no professional has a strong understanding of how voters perceive transgender candidates and whether trans identity can be articulated in a manner that is appealing to voters.

In order to further research trans identities in the political scene, one can take inspiration from the scholarship available on female politicians. Unlike the paucity of scholarship on transgender politicians, the scholarship on women candidates is robust. Notably, in Deborah Brooks’ He Runs, She Runs: Why Gender Stereotypes Don’t Harm Women, two otherwise identical congressional candidates Kevin and Karen Bailey were pre-

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sented in a series of fictional newspaper articles. The only difference between the candidates was their gender. From this, Brooks’ found that women faced no disadvantages, and, in the case of new candidates, were perceived as more honest.

My experiment to explore voters’ perceptions of transgender candidates, borrowing from Brook’s model , would present two newspaper profile pieces describing a trans candidate with equal qualifications and policy proposals. In Article One, the candidate would discuss how his personal experiences as a transman have informed his political philosophy. Article Two would describe a candidate who, while cursorily identified as trans, was profiled only in terms of his professional experiences and policy ideas. Participants would then complete a survey about why they found each candidate more or less compelling based on the following factors: experience, electability, competence, earnestness, and “shares my values.” Additionally, the researchers would facilitate small recorded discussions with the respondents to generate qualitative data.

The data I would collect would center around how a rigorous discussion of gender might impact factors that are wholly unrelated. In this experiment, the candidates would be running for city council, as the nature of being a city councilperson is inherently intimate, requiring a far greater level of personal contact than most elected positions. If voters were to be swayed by personal experiences that develop character, it would be most likely in an election where the personality of the candidate matters the most.

The two candidates would have the same levels of experience, each serving a term on the local community board, as Parent Teacher Association Presidents, and both having started local non-profits. Voters would read a profile 32

piece that contained a discussion of their policy ideas and experiences. Candidate One would also include a paragraph about how their gender transition informed their political philosophy. Candidate Two’s article would include a paragraph of similar length describing pleasant and uncontroversial elements of their persona, like the kind of dog they have and what their first car was. This would allow a comparison of the role a vigorous discussion of gender plays in voter’s perception of a candidate. The respondents would rate the candidates on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most likeable and 1 being the least.

This data could reveal whether the factors that should remain constant, like experience and competency, change based on whether or not the candidate discusses gender. If there were indications of a correlation, the experiment could be expanded to demonstrate varying degrees of gender discussion.

These degrees could include the length of discussion of a candidate’s gender identity and how it correlates to the change in voter’s perception of a candidate’s experience and competency. Additionally, the results for the more subjective qualities of earnestness and “shares my values” might demonstrate how discussion of gender changes voter’s perceptions of the candidates’ personalities.

Researchers would also conduct interviews to ask respondents questions like “Who would you rather spend time with and why?” and “Who would you rather have babysit your kids?” These questions may help determine the extent to which candidates’ gender identity influences voters’ perceptions of their character and likeability. This data could then be then coded to reveal trends between the participants’ responses and the degree of exploration of the candidates/ trans identities; in particular, researchers would analyze word frequency and

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whether respondents fell into an implicit characterization of the stereotypes of transgender individuals, which include a sense of internal delusion and sexual deviancy.

Brooks offers an excellent discussion of whether the positive stereotypes for women, particularly of being more caring and compassionate than men, are to their advantage. In a similar vein, this study attempts to essentially construct a stereotype of transgender individuals who authentically discuss their gender as inherently more introspective and open minded than those who do not.

Brooks does conclude that “female candidates have been found to have a significant advantage over male candidates on communal traits such as “caring,” “compassionate,” and “honest.” In this experiment, one transgender candidate would attempt to accentuate similarly positive personality traits. It is unclear, however, whether an explicit discussion of these traits would be as compelling as voters’ implicit understanding of women’s personalities. Brooks mentions that this data may no longer be accurate, as women politicians have reached a significant degree of prominence. Transgender candidates, as previously discussed, are still fundamentally unknown, providing a unique opportunity to benefit from the construction of positive stereotypes. A significant correlation, however, between a voter’s understanding of a candidate’s tangible qualifications and their level of discussion of gender may demonstrate that gender can play a profound role in campaigns.

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References and Footnotes

“Program Overview.” - New York City Campaign Finance Board Rules. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.

“GLAAD Media Reference Guide - AP & New York Times Style.” GLAAD. N.p., 11 Sept. 2011. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.

Arzt, George. “Interview with George Arzt.” Personal interview. 24 July 2014.

Levin, Sam. “CB7 Chair Welcomes New Transition.”

Columbia Daily Spectator. N.p., 20 Nov. 2009. Web. 02 Apr. 2015.

At the time Wymore used female pronouns for “practical purposes.”

“Mel Wymore: Community Activist and Trans Man Looking for Authentic Solutions.” Gaycitynews.com.

N.p., 07 Aug. 2013. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

McKeon, Lucy. “Mel Wymore Chooses People Over Politics.” The Nation, 5 Nov. 2012. Web. 02 Apr. 2015.

Geidner, Chris. “Mel Wymore Wants To Change The Way New Yorkers Think About Gender.” BuzzFeed.

BuzzFeed, 1 Aug. 2013. Web. 02 Apr. 2015.

F.A.C.S., Loren S. Schechter M.D. “’Gender Confirmation Surgery’: What’s in a Name?” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 July 2012. Web. 02 May 2015.

Taylor, Kate. “A Transgender Candidate Is Hoping to Make History.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 22 Mar. 2012. Web. 02 May 2015.

Geidner Leeds, Nancy. “Interview with Nancy Leeds.” Personal interview. 11 July 2014.

McKeon See Appendix II Ibid.

“Mel Wymore - Community Matters.” About Mel Wymore -. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May 2015.

Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 10:43 AM private email to Mel Wymore Corbett, Phillip. “More Words We Love Too Much.” After Deadline More Words We Love Too Much Comments.

The New York Times, 10 Apr. 2012. Web. 02 May 2015.

Wymore, Mel. “Interview with Mel Wymore.” Personal interview. 12 July 2014.

Mcall, Mike. “Interview Mike Mcall.” Telephone interview. 12 July 2014.

Halloran, Liz. “What If A Congressman Comes Out And Nobody Cares?” NPR. NPR, 4 Nov. 2013. Web. 02 Apr. 2015.

“Update: The New York Times Meets with GLAAD, Trans Community to Address Coverage of Trans Lives.”

GLAAD. N.p., 28 Sept. 2012. Web. 02 May 2015.

Leeds Wymore, Mel. “Interview with Mel Wymore.” Personal interview. 31 July 2014.

Brooks, Deborah Jordan. He Runs, She Runs: Why Gender Stereotypes Do Not Harm Women Candidates.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2013. Print.

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heaveN or laS vegaS: a reSearCh report oN water polICIeS aND SuStaINabIlIty ISSueS IN laS vegaS aND the laS vegaS valley Stefano Rumi

Stefano Rumi is a second-year student from Los Angeles studying Sociology and Social Entrepreneurship, and will be a candidate for a Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in Public Policy at the Batten School next year. In addition to his interest in environmentally sustainable policy initiatives, Stefano conducts research on third sector workforce development and private-public entrepreneurial partnerships; specifically, he explores the potential for Pay for Success bonds to solve social problems overlooked by traditional public policy. The following piece on urban environmental policy in Las Vegas was written in the spring of 2015. Special thanks to Professor Leif Fredrickson for his advisory assistance.

AbstrAct This paper is an analysis of Las Vegas and the surrounding county’s water policies throughout the past seven decades, as well as a policy recommendation for sustainable practices in the coming years. Las Vegas currently faces steady drops in the water levels of Lake Mead, its primary source of water; without significant and meaningful policy initiatives, Las Vegas will face an unprecedented resource crisis in the next twenty years.

The first section of the text explores the history and background of Las Vegas, beginning with an overview of the city’s development into a gambling oasis from the 1950s and continuing to a present-day review of the major industries operating in the region. In addition, the text reviews the regional Southwest climate and explores Las Vegas’ current water resources.

Additionally, the text conducts a decade-by-decade study of the evolution of water management policies and its shortcomings; then, the text outlines and analyzes current regulatory practices and pricing strategies. The author recommends a tiered pricing strategy similar to California’s; the text focuses on the opportunities a better pricing system would provide, as well as the forecasted effects of continuing current strategies. The text specifically criticizes current $817 million initiatives to further drain Lake Mead, a policy initiative the author claims is “…environmentally catastrophic… and a waste of taxpayer money.”

The text also argues that consumer re-education programs would need to be supplemented with tangible policy regulation to prevent water waste; specifically, the text supports encouraging replacement of lawn turf with natural flora by “pricing out” unsustainable lawns through raised utility fees. The final section wraps up the discussion with an analysis of the unintended consequences of current and proposed policies, and stresses the need for policymakers to take immediate action on sustainability initiatives.

Introduction

E

merging suddenly from the depths of the Nevada desert and trailing off just as abruptly, Las Vegas is the paradoxical looking glass of America.

An oasis built in an otherwise barren and inhospitable landscape, the City of Sin has epitomized the best and worst of every decade, from the somber military bases of the wartime 1940s to the mobsters and Hollywood glitz of the postwar 1950s to the unrestrained lavishness of the 1980s. Today, the reflection in the glass is much more alarming. Chief among Las Vegas’ problems is its dwindling water supply, with officials scrambling to maintain the 90 billion gallons of water the desert city consumes every

year through costly short-term solutions as groundwater diversion and deeper extraction pipes. Meanwhile Lake Mead, southern Nevada’s prime water supply, dries up steadily; with studies indicating a complete depletion of all water sources in the Las Vegas Valley by 2024, officials are under increased pressure to institute sustainability models without stirring public discontent. Ultimately, the question that looms before Las Vegas, and to some degree the Southwest, is how can water usage be improved upon to promote sustainable socioeconomic growth in the region?

In order to understand and answer this question, we must first explore the paradoxical history of Las Vegas’ development. The past and current methods

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of water usage and regulation reflect a shortsighted and unrestrained approach to policymaking focused on solving shortages rather than avoiding them. In addition, we must refer to sustainability solutions that have been proposed in regions like Southern California, such as tiered pricing systems, rebate programs, and other financial incentives for water conservation through voluntary adjustments in lifestyle habits. Although Las Vegas officials are taking steps towards plausible solutions, current policy initiatives are misguided because there is excessive focus on short-term increases in water supply from unsustainable sources rather than management of high demand. To limit consumption, Las Vegas must pursue a consumer re-education program, coupled with restrictions on individual domestic water usage. In the long term, Las Vegas must follow Southern California’s sustainability models and halt ground-water tapping and other destructive activities.

History and Background How Las Vegas Came to Be Though humans have inhabited the Las Vegas area since 8000 BCE, modern Vegas as we know it did not emerge until the 1950s, when iconic hotels like the Tropicana and Stardust opened their doors on what is now known as the Strip.

Designed as a weekend tourist destination to attract visitors from around the globe, Las Vegas, NV is centered in a 600 square mile region of desert named the Las Vegas Valley, bordered by the Sierra Nevada and Spring Mountains. With only an average of 4.16 inches of rainfall per year, the largest city in Nevada relies on nearby Lake Mead for 90 percent of its water supply (City of Las Vegas Online Report).

Las Vegas’ casinos attract more than five million visitors annually, 36

amounting to a $4 billion industry that supports a sizable chunk of the area’s 600,000 residents (City of Las Vegas). In addition, the business-friendly laws of Nevada encourage manufacturing and logistical industries to set up shop in the Reno area. Based on projections by Nevada State Demographer Jeff Hardcastle, Las Vegas and Clark County will be experiencing a steady annual population growth of 1.9% over the next twenty years as housing prices stabilize and jobs open up, which puts water usage and sustainability at the top of the region’s concerns.

Climate of the Southwest and Las Vegas’ Water Systems Las Vegas has a subtropical desert climate like the surrounding Mojave Desert. Soil in the region is composed mostly of gravel, sand, and clay (Ranatunga, 2014). According to Morris et al., the most prominent water sources for residents are groundwater reserves and an apportionment of the Colorado River through the Lake Mead reservoir.

The groundwater basin, consisting of a near-surface system and a deeper artesian system, is recharged by precipitation runoff. A 1971 study found that the near-surface water system is not potable due to secondary runoff contamination, but may be used for irrigation, etc. (“Water” 1971).

Underground water systems are not a stable or reliable source of water.

The Nevada State Engineer estimates that the artesian system is capable of supplying Las Vegas Valley with 50,000 acre-ft./year of water. Although historically the system has been overdrawn by around 15-20,000 acre-ft./year, with a high of 86,000 acre-ft. in 1968, recent efforts have brought down consumption to a relatively stable and rechargeable rate.

The 91m water level deficit created by the overdrawing of water has been steadily

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replenished since 1988 with water from the Colorado River through an initiative of the Las Vegas Valley Water District (Brothers and Katzer 1990). Though this solution has replenished consumed water, thereby deterring short-term consequences such as warping of the valley floor, any increase in groundwater consumption to cope with shortages from Lake Mead (as proposed by the Southern Nevada Water Authority in 2006) will result in serious long-term repercussions for the environment and ecosystems of the Las Vegas Valley and therefore should be avoided in favor of environmentally friendly solutions.

Water Management and Regulation in Las Vegas Water Regulation From its beginnings, Las Vegas has emphasized development and expansion at the expense of sustainable and responsible water consumption based on the false belief that the underground water supply was inexhaustible (Morris et al. 1998). Regulation and policy oversight have focused mainly on averting impending crises instead of actively avoiding them. This short-term attitude of â&#x20AC;&#x153;dodging the bulletâ&#x20AC;? has made Las Vegasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; water situation increasingly drastic, and must be abandoned by policymakers in favor of a proactive and long-term sustainable model that focuses on reducing consumption through a tiered cost pricing strategy, similar to models in Los Angeles and the Southwest. Examination of the first two crises provides compelling evidence for a new approach to the third. However, recent developments at Lake Mead darken prospects for a sustainability-based future in Las Vegas.

The 1940s and Groundwater Usage Today The first water crisis in Las Vegas

occurred in the 1940s, when decades of irrigation and superfluous development, combated by only three largely-ignored regulatory laws, led to a severe shortage.

Policymakers responded by overdrafting the aquifers. As mentioned in the previous section, this overdraft policy was maintained until the 1980s and effects of unsustainable pumping are still felt today. In addition to significant structural damages to wells and other constructions due to warping of the valley surface, decreasing water levels have made pumping water more and more costly each year; scientists estimate a $45 cost increase in acre/ft. water pumped from 1980 to 2000 (Morgan and Dettinger 1996). Land subsidence directly resulting from overdrafting has damaged and destabilized thousands of acres of land, making them unfit for development (US Geological Survey, 1982). The effects of 1940s regulatory oversight are a clear demonstration of the law of unintended consequences in addition to still being a prescient issue today; as Las Vegas authorities face yet another water shortage challenge, policymakers must keep in mind the far-reaching gravity of every decision made. Though in retrospect the choice to overdraft delicate aquifers may seem incredibly irresponsible, there have been similar proposals by the Southern Nevada Valley Authority as recent as 2011. Policymakers must reflect upon past decisions and avoid perpetuating a cycle of short-sighted mistakes.

The 1970s and Colorado River Water Usage Today Amidst the cocaine-fueled disco craze of 1970s Las Vegas, yet another water crisis was patched up by increasing resident access to the Colorado River and Lake Mead reservoir. Like the shortsighted solutions of the 1940s, increasing surface water usage has led to serious long-term consequences. As of

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late April 2015, water levels in the lake have dipped below 1080 feet (just 38% of its water left), the lowest point in history (Griggs 2015). Beyond triggering automatic reductions in water distribution, low water levels make it more difficult for the Hoover Dam’s turbines to produce electricity for the millions of residents it serves. Moreover, policymakers are pushing for construction of deeper pipes to continue usage of Lake Mead.

Like recent policy initiatives to pump groundwater, this trend towards temporarily continuing unsustainable practices is harmful to the environment, incredibly expensive to taxpayers, and must be abandoned in favor of reliable long-term solutions.

Liquid Gold – Current Regulatory Practices Water pricing strategies in Las Vegas do not encourage conservation and must be adjusted to create a larger incentive for sustainable practices in major cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix. Traditionally, the basic laws of economics have governed water policies.

Water, when consumed directly through drinking, cooking, etc. is considered an inelastic good because it is a necessity; on the other hand, indirect consumption of water through washing a car, etc. is very elastic. Policymakers deliberately price municipal water at below marginal cost, so water utility entities bear the cost of delivering clean water to the everyday citizen (Hanemann, 2005). In areas like Las Vegas and other cities in the Southwest, the marginal cost of treating and transporting water to users across hundreds of miles, is very high, making the true cost of water in these regions more expensive (Pierce, 2011).

However, water is in many ways an atypical good, and thus some actions are taken that may seem contrary to market recommendations and conservation efforts. The marginal cost of potable 38

(drinkable) water is artificially deflated by a monopoly entity that is usually a government-operated utility company, which leads to a disconnect between pricing and supply. This is where conservationists encounter their first major hurdle; there is no market incentive that reflects decreasing supplies of water, resulting in a blind positive feedback loop that drains resources. Advocating for higher water rates is a risky and unpopular opinion. In addition to marginalizing lower income residents and heavily taxing their standard of living, simple flat rate increases will lead to a significant decrease in water usage by consumers and severe revenue loss to the local government (Pierce, 2011). This reduction in usage would trigger even higher water prices to compensate for lack of revenue, resulting in a “death spiral” that further discourages conservation as users feel “entitled” to use their expensive water as they see fit (Walton, 2010).

Re-evaluating the Economics of Water – Supply and Demand Despite the complexity of market forces, policymakers must change their stance on the economics of water. Instead of increasing supply as Vegas policymakers have been doing for the past seventy years, they must actively work to reduce demand. According to Heather Cooley and her team of researchers at the Pacific Institute, “…customers respond to properly designed and implemented price signals by reducing their water use, particularly outdoor and non-residential uses.” (Cooley 21). The Institute identified Las Vegas’ high fixed rates and small unit cost increases as discouraging towards conservation efforts. These fixed rates, which only covered 18% of the cost of water production including pumping, filtering, and delivery (Pierce, 2011), made infrastructure maintenance difficult and did not take into account the

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nuances of the water market in pricing strategy.

Las Vegas must implement a tiered cost pricing strategy like Los Angeles and other Southwestern cities, which imposes different costs for different consumption rates. Pierce advocates for “… very low flat rates and sharply increasing rates for higher levels of consumption” (Pierce 36), which is particularly effective and balances low costs with conservation incentives. However, Las Vegas’ rate schedules should only incorporate two price blocks. As Hanemann’s (1993) research demonstrates, schedules with more rate blocks may appear to target more market nuances and serve as a “tailored” water distribution system, but actually weaken the incentive to conserve water usage because these blocks blur the increased pricing of water. This makes the costs less apparent and discourages conservation efforts by consumers. Having a sudden and jarring price increase encourages users to stay behold the threshold. If the market entity (in this case the Southern Nevada Water Authority) prices the threshold point at a conservation-inducing level, water usage is curbed dramatically and effectively with little public backlash over uniform rate increases. Hanemann refers to this threshold point as a “switchpoint”, and advocates that this switchpoint be adjusted seasonally and in times of drought. Las Vegas should model its own switchpoint upon those of Los Angeles, another large city in the Southwest area with many shared water sources (575 gal/acct/day in the winter and 725” in the summer). However, because its water source, climate, and population are different from those of LA, Las Vegas policymakers should commission extensive studies by experts to find its own ideal intersection of price and consumption that encourages voluntary conservation.

Las Vegas policymakers have re-

peatedly targeted supply increases by seeking other sources of water instead of searching for demand decrease methods like the tier system. This “greedy” mentality is a perpetuation of decades of narrow, shortsighted approaches emphasizing expansion over sustainable development. The Southern Nevada Water Authority’s recent groundwater pumping and pipeline proposal is ominously reminiscent of 1940s solutions and must be avoided because it is a supply-based solution with clear detrimental environmental effects that have been exhibited in the past. The proposal would call for pumping 200,000 acre/ft. annually from parts of eastern Nevada and piping it 300 miles to the Las Vegas Valley, providing 65 billion gallons of water for the region (Goshute Tribe Website). Though a February 2015 article indicates the Nevada Supreme Court has effectively shut down this proposal, such radical solutions have been a trend since 1989. Las Vegas officials have pushed repeatedly to import water into the region from places as far north as Great Basin National Park (Las Vegas Review-Journal).

At the writing of this report, officials were nearing completion of the “Third Straw,” an $817 million project aimed at tapping the bottom of Lake Mead in the (inevitable) event that the current pipes end up above water level. Though this strategy will maintain Las Vegas’ water supply for at least the coming decade and thereby further reduce the urgency of conservation methods, it is by no means a long-term solution. Once Lake Mead is completely tapped, Las Vegas will have to find a new source for 90% of its water. A comprehensive water management analysis by Ranatunga (2014) and fellow scientists projects that, after factoring in population growth, the Las Vegas Valley system will have enough water to sustain itself until early 2024.; by 2050, the total water deficit will reach

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Figure 1. A visual representation of water supply and demand in the Las Vegas Valley (figure reproduced from a study

by Ranatunga et. al., 2014)

2.46 x 108 m3 per year (Figure 1). Thus, in less than ten years’ time, Las Vegas’ $817 million short-term investment will be rendered completely useless. In addition to being unsustainable and environmentally catastrophic, short-term solutions are also a huge waste of taxpayer money.

This supply-based approach is reflective of policymakers’ avoidance of long-term sustainability models and reliance upon short-term lifelines that allow continued usage of water. In the coming years, Las Vegas’ leaders must make serious cuts to water demand by re-pricing water.

Understanding the Las Vegas Consumer in Introducing Policy Consumption Breakdown Policymakers understand that a good policy cannot be crafted without an understanding of the everyday citizen.

In evaluating water policy, an understanding of Las Vegas’ water usage is the 40

first step. This begs the question: where does all the water go?

Contrary to popular belief, casinos only consume 7% of Las Vegas’ annual 90-billion-gallon water intake. Residential areas and homes in the Valley consume over 65%, which exceeds the next highest user, commercial entities, by over 45 billion gallons (Center for Urban Water Conservation, 2013). Of this 65%, around 40% of residential water is used indoors and 60% outdoors, making Las Vegas’ per capita water use one of the highest in the nation (Stave, 2003). Outdoor usage includes watering green landscapes foreign to the desert landscape and other “cosmetic” maintenance. As the Stave article bluntly puts it, “…39% of all water used in Las Vegas is used… [to] water lawns” (Stave 307). Every day, the average Las Vegas individual consumes 100 gallons of water outdoors and 65 gallons indoors. These high numbers are due to excessive areas of turf in resi-

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dential areas, as well as outdated indoor appliances that do not exhibit water efficiency. Policy initiatives geared at reducing demand must address these lifestyle choices through consumer outreach and re-education programs, as well as various incentives and ordinances to encourage efficient appliance usage in residential homes.

Consumer Perceptions and Beliefs The average Las Vegas consumer has some idea of what effective conservation methods should be undertaken, but little idea of the scale or impact of these methods or the problem at large.

Hesitant conservation efforts can be attributed to a dominant culture largely aloof to the magnitude of water concerns.

A policy initiative/social psychology experiment conducted by Krystyna Stave reached out to 83 diverse members of the Las Vegas community, presented them with a model of water consumption in the region and discussed potential policy initiatives that residents thought would be most effective in combating water usage.

Participants felt that increasing Las Vegas’ supply of water was important, despite significant costs. This emphasis on increasing supply instead of decreasing demand permeates the Vegas mindset and may even serve as an unfortunate force in persuading elected officials to pass supply-oriented laws in order to please constituents. Residents also believed hotels and casinos should be made to conserve water, even though they were made aware that the Valley’s most lucrative industry only consumed 7% of the water supply. Participants also advocated for reduction of residential indoor water use through efficient appliances, as well as outdoor water use through landscape conversion. Finally, residents supported reduction of population increases by about 2000 people a

month from the current 7000.

The beliefs exhibited by residents above indicate that a strong consumer re-education program would be an effective method for voluntary water usage reduction, but would have to be coupled with increasingly strict ordinances to encourage sustainable practices. Las Vegas residents are relatively aware that some of their domestic practices are not entirely efficient, but do not seem to grasp the gravity of the situation or the profound effects that small changes can have on sustainability efforts. Participants were “…surprised to see that small changes in per capita use could be as effective as larger increases in supply and that reducing outdoor use was more effective than reducing indoor use.” (Stave 311) Through this two-hour community engagement, Stave was able to educate consumers on the importance of their actions in protecting the future of Las Vegas. Because supply-side policy is so deeply engrained in the Vegas mindset, re-education initiatives similar to Stave’s study are crucial in explaining misperceptions to residents and outlining, if not encouraging, important changes in behavior.

City Ordinances for Residential Areas in Las Vegas It would be a foolhardy oversight to assume that re-education would be sufficient to spur a mass wave of appliance upgrades and landscape reshaping.

Current ordinances are a step in the right direction, but they are too sparse and introduced slowly for meaningful change to occur in the immediate future.

The Las Vegas Valley Water District has instituted laws such as turf limitations and surface washing restrictions, but too many areas such as watering schedules, building codes, etc. are left without any oversight. Las Vegas should emulate Los Angeles’s city ordinances, which have

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been introduced consistently since 1988 and range from plumbing guidelines to the complete retrofitting of over 57% of government DWP buildings (LA Department of Water and Power Sustainability Report, 2014). Laws that regulate small behaviors, such as toilets that use less than 3.5 gallons per flush or rebate programs for water-efficient showerheads are small and easily enforceable but encourage shifts in behavior with large consequences for the sustainable future of Las Vegas.

Las Vegas and the Southern Nevada Water Authority must actively introduce meaningful incentives modeled on successful programs from other cities in the Southwest. The SNWA’s indoor water conservation program provides few rebates for single-family homes, and “regulatory” sustainable building codes are voluntary, meaning only one in six homes are built equipped with efficient technology (Cooley, 2007). Agencies in Las Vegas should study the rebate and incentive programs of Los Angeles, Irvine County, and Phoenix to design an effective program that encourages conservation in residential areas through financial incentives such as cash back for certain quantities of water conserved, and subsidization of modern appliances.

Introduction of current efficient technology can decrease indoor residential demand from 25 to 40% in Las Vegas, resulting in significant reductions (Cooley 2007; Gleick et al. 2003; Pollution Prevention International 2004).

Though most of Las Vegas’ policy initiatives have focused on reduction of outdoor residential usage, these efforts are not radical enough. Full elimination of wasteful and superfluous water usage, specifically for maintaining turf on lawns, should be introduced to drastically cut back on consumption. The average Las Vegas resident uses more water outdoors than any other resident 42

in surrounding areas with similar climate (Cooley, 2007). Though the SNWA has been heralded as an innovator in the introduction of turf regulation through incentives, it should switch to a policy of mandatory landscaping to virtually eradicate lawn turf in Las Vegas. Opponents of such a policy and lawn bowling aficionados alike may consider this to be radical, but it is ludicrous that hundreds of millions of dollars are invested into environmentally harmful projects to keep people’s lawns green. Sustainable development is marked by a conscious awareness and affinity towards local environmental differences. Las Vegas should follow the sustainable practices of surrounding communities, such as adoption of local flora and the natural beauty of the desert into homes, and abandon environmentally ignorant actions.

In spite of this, policies are only as good as the effort put forth to enact and enforce them. Recent trends indicate that voluntary incentives will not be enough to eliminate turf in Las Vegas.

Despite generous increases in financial incentives, annual participation in landscape conversion programs has been in steady decline since 2004 (Cooley, 2007).

In response, the SNWA has doubled rebate payouts from $1/ft2 to $2. While increasing monetary incentives would undoubtedly attract more participants, it would be financially impossible to “pay off” a significant amount of homeowners in Las Vegas. Though the environmentally and logically sound solution is the introduction of undoubtedly unpopular mandatory conversion programs, that is much easier said than done. It would be political suicide for a policymaker to introduce such provisions as part of his campaign. The solution would be to price out Las Vegas residents by dramatically increasing utility fees over a set period of time for outdoor water usage, thereby making turf unaffordable, while

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simultaneously introducing more appealing conversion programs to facilitate the switch towards financially sound and environmentally friendly lawns. Las Vegas policymakers must embrace a culture of building with the local landscape, instead of superimposing unsustainable trends as the first important step towards sustainable living in the region.

Unintended Consequences of Current and Proposed Policy Initiatives Detrimental environmental effects have been alluded to throughout this report when discussing consequences of Las Vegas’ shortsighted supply-oriented solutions. However, no environmental public policy report would be complete without an in-depth examination of the unintended consequences of past policies such as groundwater withdrawal and excessive lake pumping.

Groundwater Withdrawal and Regional Biodiversity Policymakers have generally always prioritized economic development over environmental protection and safety when distributing rights to common resources such as water (Deacon, 2007). In the coming years, environmental priorities must be considered before economic development in order to encourage sustainable growth in regions such as Las Vegas, where resources are scarce and ecosystems are incredibly delicate.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority should abandon persistent attempts to access groundwater in the Las Vegas Valley and surrounding regions because multiple studies have found that environmentally insensitive expansion will continue a sixty-year trend of species extinction, thereby upsetting ecological cycles. The SNWA has filed 147 applications for rights to groundwater from a third of all basins in the region (Deacon,

2007; SNWA, 2004). If approved, 180,800 acre-ft. of groundwater would be extracted annually. All research models (except the SNWA model) demonstrate groundwater level declines of up to 488 m across the basins, which in turn would trigger greater evapo-transpiration and runoff (Schaefer and Harrill, 1995).

The net effect of these changes is the drying of springs and the extinction of all phreatophytes, plants that are heavily reliant on moisture to survive.

This in turn would begin a chain reaction that would harm biodiversity in the region (Deacon, 2007). Such detrimental effects on biodiversity have been exhibited in the past; for example, unregulated groundwater pumping beginning in the early 1900s resulted in regional springs failing due to a lack of recharge around 1957, which caused the extinction of the Las Vegas dace soon after (Deacon, 2007; Harrill, 1976). Furthermore, the unintended effects of water level shifts on recharge rates are unknown. Permitting access to groundwater without thorough knowledge of the repercussions is an irresponsible oversight on the part of policymakers and an unwise focus on short-term gain over long-term sustainability, which has proven time and time again to be an unwise decision. Demand reduction-based policy initiatives do not carry harmful unintended consequences; in fact, reducing water consumption would help restore balance to the Las Vegas region and promote biodiversity and sustainability.

Conclusion – Heaven or Las Vegas The lesser-known introductory lines of The Weeknd’s Heaven or Las Vegas state “I’m paying for my father’s sins / so I will thank him for you.” Las Vegas looms before a crossroads in its development.

Faced with the option of continuing an unsustainable lifestyle through increas-

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ingly expensive and short-term measures or making drastic changes to consumption and starting a path to sustainable development that will last for decades to come, policymakers must choose if their children will praise them or pay for them.

So far, Las Vegas has chosen the former, investing hundreds of millions of dollars into projects aimed at extracting every drop of water possible from Lake Mead.

As water levels continue their decline, officials will undoubtedly lobby harder and harder for more access to groundwater, decimating local ecosystems and extending Las Vegasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; lifeline for a few more years before the inevitable, dry, rock-bottom future hits.

Las Vegas should abandon its supply-oriented approach to water.

Studies by Pierce, Deacon, and countless others have demonstrated the futility in pouring more and more water into a bucket filled with holes. Policymakers must reduce excess demand by plugging these holes, and extensive consumer re-education programs must be coupled with strict, meaningful ordinances aimed at sharply cutting superfluous usage of water in outdoor residential areas. Policymakers should also look to Southern California and Arizona and follow their tiered water-pricing model, in order to encourage voluntary reductions in water usage. Furthermore, Las Vegas should implement meaningful incentive programs that target inefficient appliances and indoor water usage through rebate programs and building codes similar to those implemented in Los Angeles and across Southern California. Although these ideas do not take into full account feasibility of implementation and are by no means a fill-all solution to Las Vegasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; water crisis (years of policy research are needed to craft a comprehensive solution), they are a start in the right direction, encompassing a new and potentially better way of resolving problems 44

before they arise. In the long-term, these seemingly small efforts will have an incredible impact on the sustainable future of Las Vegas, ensuring that the City of Sin stays open as a desert oasis for millions of visitors across the world seeking an unforgettable (or at least a blurred and slightly regrettable) weekend.

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Brothers, K., and Katzer, T. (1990). “Water banking through artificial recharge, Las Vegas Valley, Clark County, Nevada.” J. Hydro., 115, 77-103 Cooley, Heather. Hidden Oasis: Water Conservation and Efficiency in Las Vegas. Oakland, CA: Pacific Institute, 2007. Web. <http://www.pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2013/02/hidden_oasis3.pdf> Cooper, Arnie. “A Relentless Drought Is Forcing Las Vegas To Take Drastic Measures.”Newsweek. N.p., July 10, 2014. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. <http://www.newsweek. com/2014/07/18/relentless-drought-forcing-las-vegastake-extreme-measures-258092.html>.

Deacon, James E., Williams, Austin E., Deacon-Williams, Cindy, and Williams, Jack E. Fueling Population Growth in Las Vegas: How Largescale Groundwater Withdrawal Could Burn Regional Biodiversity. BioScience 2007 57: 688-698.

Durham, Bruce, Guendert, Dawn. Integrated Water Resource Management — Through Reuse and Aquifer Recharge. Desalination, Vol 152, Issues 1-3, 10 February 2003, Pages 333–338 Hanemann, W. Michael. (1993). Marginal Cost Pricing and the New LADWP Water Rates. Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UCB. UC Berkeley: Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UCB. Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/ item/936653cp Jenkins, M., Lund, J., Howitt, R., Draper, A., Msangi, S., Tanaka, S., Ritzema, R., and Marques, G. (2004). ”Optimization of California’s Water Supply System: Results and Insights.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 130(4), 271–280.

Morgan, David S., and M. D. Dettinger. Groundwater Conditions in Las Vegas Valley, Clark County, Nevada. Carson City, NV: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, 1994. Web. <http://pubs.usgs.gov/ wsp/2320b/report.pdf>.

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Smith, John L. “Report Warns of Damages from Pumping Aquifer Water to LV.” Las Vegas Review-Journal. N.p., 03 Oct. 2014.

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Stave, Krystyna A. “A System Dynamics Model To Facilitate Public Understanding of Water Management Options in Las Vegas, Nevada” Journal of Environmental Management, Vol 63 Issue 4.

Sun, Y., Tong, S., Fang, M., and Yang, Y. (2013). “Exploring the Effects of Population Growth on Future Land Use Change in the Las Vegas Wash Watershed: An Integrated Approach of Geospatial Modeling and Analytics.” Environment, Development and Sustainability,

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Venkatesan, Arjun K. “Systems Dynamic Model to Forecast Salinity Load to the Colorado River Due To Urbanization Within the Las Vegas Valley.” Journal of Environmental Management, Vol 409 Issue 13.

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Whittington, Dale, and W. H. Hanemann. “The Economic Costs and Benefits of Investments in Municipal Water and Sanitation Infrastructure: A Global Perspective.” Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UCB (n.d.): n. pag. Web. Wren, Kathy “AAAS Pacific Division Annual Meeting: Conservation Alone Can’t Solve Las Vegas’ Water Problem.” AAAS Pacific Division Annual Meeting: Conservation Alone Can’t Solve Las Vegas’ Water Problem.

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Title Image: “Las Vegas Has Come a Long Way since Its Humble Beginnings (42 Photos).” TheCHIVE RSS. N.p., 12 Sept. 2012. Web. 01 Apr. 2016.

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oN the CohereNCy of “DegeNerate” aCtIvItIeS IN tokugawa buDDhISm Joshua Whitwell Joshua Whitwell is a fourth-year from Washington, D.C., majoring in Religious Studies and East Asian Studies. Currently his research focuses on the modernization of contemplative practices in the West, especially the role that traditional Buddhist doctrine plays in secular usages of mindfulnessbased meditation techniques. During his time at the University he has served as founding member of the Students for a Free Tibet UVa chapter, as well as reoccurring teaching assistant for the experientially-based nursing seminar on integrating mindfulness and compassion into our personal and professional lives. Post-graduation, he will be matriculating as a master’s student at the University of California, Berkeley, where he will continue to study the doctrinal context of mindfulness and meditation in Chinese Buddhism.

AbstrAct This study seeks to illustrate the ways in which traditional evaluations of Tendai Buddhism during the Tokugawa period of Japan are one-sided and overly reproachful due to their narrow fixation on the outwardly immoral behaviors of “play culture” occurring in religious contexts. By exposing three factors contributing to the expression of Buddhism at the time, those being a) the socio-political milieu of the Tokugawa realm, b) the preeminence of particular teachings in the Lotus Sutra, and c) the influence of contemporaneous Shinto and Neo-Confucian thought, it is demonstrated that not only is the evaluation that Buddhism at the time was “degenerative” a dismissive treatment of the subject, but that moreover the assumed contradictory relationship between “prayer and play” in Tokugawa Buddhism is shown to be coherent. The paper begins by showing that the ideological organization of society during the Tokugawa period in name prohibited the mixing of religious activity and “play culture,” but in practice the physical sites of religion and entertainment occasioned that very thing. From there it is shown that this physical proximity, though contradictory to the named ideology of the ruling class, has philosophical coherency in this form of Buddhism as shown through a discussion of the function of “expedient means,” or the diverse salvific methods of enlightened beings. Finally, it is shown how the pressures of a strict Neo-Confucian societal hierarchy, combined with the pre-existing history of mixing “prayer and play” in the Shinto tradition prompted the adoption of play culture into expressions of Buddhist activity during this time in the first place. The paper concludes by suggesting that in light of these factors, Tokugawa Tendai Buddhism is best not understand as a deficient form of religious expression as has been done historically.

I

n the twelfth verse of the second section of the third chapter of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, the Brahmin priest, Jāratkārava Ārtabhāga asks the protagonist of the chapter, Yājñavalkya, “what does not abandon this person when he dies?” In response to this loaded, philosophical question, Yājñavalkya simply replies, “Name, because name is eternal.” Perhaps if one is expecting the Brahmin priest to say that it is the soul, one’s immaterial, true self, which does not abandon a person when he or she dies, one may not find this answer to be particularly satisfying, especially because of what it seems to imply about the prospects of an afterlife. After all, who would agree that one’s name alone contains the wholeness of one’s self? How can the entirety of a person live on in a word or two? And yet, as uncomforting as it may be, the idea that

name is the only truly lasting attribute of a person is one that is echoed elsewhere.

The epic King Gilgamesh, for instance, tries and fails to acquire the secret plant of immortality foretold to him by the sage, Uta-Napishti, and seeing that only his name, and not his being, would live on, he cries out, “for whom ran dry the blood of my heart? Not for myself did I find a bounty!”

Now, leaving aside whether or not it is ultimately true that names are the only lasting component of a person, for the purpose of this study it will at least be assumed that names do not entirely contain the sum of one’s being. Supposing this is true for a person, who is at least a single, contained entity, then this is no less true, perhaps even more so, concerning ideas and concepts, which often have no singular, material referent but rather designate complicated rela-

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tionships between people, places, and even other ideas. Religions, for instance, are usually referred to monolithically (“Christianity,” “Buddhism,” “Islam”), even though the referents of these terms are extremely varied and many. It is no doubt that these names are convenient and necessary for communication, but the tendency to reify them as subjects, even agents in thought and speech (“Buddhism traveled to China in the 2nd century”) can lead to the consequence of mistaking a name for the entirety, which itself can become the very basis of stereotypes, prejudice, and ultimately conflict.

Consider a scenario in which five people who have no idea of an elephant are blindfolded and made to touch an elephant in different parts. They will all experience the encounter differently, describe that experience differently, and ultimately come to different conceptions of what an elephant is, possibly even condemning the conceptions of the others because it is contrary to what they “know.” Yet, none will really know the entirety of that elephant. Even if they touched the other parts they would not know, they would only be more likely to come to a consensual, yet still limited view. In fact, even if they sensed every part of the elephant using every sense organ of theirs they would not know the entirety of what an elephant is, because they would still be constrained by the conditions unique to being human and unique to their individual lives. Following this kind of reasoning, the Jains posited a theory called anekāntavāda (literally “doctrine of non-onesidedness”), which is the idea that there is no thing or situation that does not have multiple perspectives from which to be viewed. In another sense this means that the entirety of a given reality is never fully contained, or even communicated in the ideological name of that reality, and this is the premise on which the rest 48

of this study will be based.

For example, if one were to craft one’s own perfect, ideological idea of Buddhism in one’s mind and go looking for it, one would never find it because on the ground Buddhism is a non-thing.

It is susceptible to the same philosophical reduction that Vimalakīrti offers to Mañjuśrī about all sentient beings: that it should be regarded as “water in a mirage,” which is to say that it is real, but also illusory, it exists, but also lacks intrinsic reality independent of the conditions that create it. The purpose of applying this logic to Buddhism, then, is not to suggest that Buddhism does not exist, but to appeal to place this vast idea historically rather than cosmologically, to de-reify the concept from its monolithic status and relinquish the commitment to the idea that all things “Buddhist” must refer to the same, immutable “Buddhism.” In doing this, it becomes much clearer that there is more coherency than might be presumed at face value to the contradictions within “Buddhism” when these contradictions are understood in their respective milieus.

I would like to bring this theory into full focus by looking at the religious climate of the Tokugawa period (1600-1868) of Japan. This was a time when certain Buddhist movements (especially Tendai Buddhism ) came to be associated (physically and abstractly) with traditionally immoral activities of “play culture,” that is to say all the aspects of society that are generally considered to be a-religious or at least profane, such as gambling, prostitution, even the playing of games (such as archery) in certain cases. This overall trend elicited the broad categorization of Buddhism during this time as “Degenerate Buddhism” (daraku Bukkyō).

The label arose out of the leadership of the Tokugawa Shogunate, playing on the idea within traditional Buddhist thought there are three periods of Bud-

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dhist law after the passing of the historical Buddha: the former, middle, and latter day of law. The latter day mappō ( 末法 mòfǎ) is the time when the doctrine of the Buddha would be in degeneration and beings would no longer be capable of following the path or attainting liberation. The Tokugawa Shogunate took the association of the clergy during this time with “play culture” to be an indication that the Buddhist law was in decline, and thus labeled the contemporaneous expression of Buddhism as “Degenerate.”

This could be a settled matter if one accepts this category for its named value.

On the other hand, it could be seen that the prevalent expressions of Buddhism during this time period were not so much a degeneration of “essential” Buddhism (such a thing has already been rejected in the first place), but were rather more a flourishing of a popular chōnin (commoner) tradition of spirituality. And when judged alongside historical factors such as the socio-political state of the Tokugawa realm, the importance of the expedient-means teachings of the Lotus Sūtra (Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra) in Tendai Buddhism, and the influence of contemporaneous Shintō and Neo-Confucian thought, it becomes clear that it would be dismissive to write off this expression of Buddhism as somehow deficient in being religiously meaningful simply due to its fixation on the “profane.”

Before getting into the details of this, though, a brief survey of the general characteristics of the Tokugawa Shogunate would be useful. The period began, according to most, when Tokugawa Ieyasu came out victorious at the battle of Sekigahara (1600), which constituted the end of Sengoku (the Warring States period), and was declared seii tai shōgun (barbarian quelling generalissimo) by the emperor three years later. This made Ieyasu the de facto supreme ruler of the

realm (the emperor was all but a figurehead at that point), and his legacy would be the ushering in of a single Shogunate (alternatively bakufu, a later Meiji polemical term meaning “tent government”) that would last 268 years and would be known as the “Great Peace” in contrast to the chaos of the Warring States. In name, this peace was established on the basis of an ideology disseminated by the Shogunate that societal status was simply a natural consequence of the universe, and the relationship of ruler and ruled was cosmologically designated; I will return to this shortly. However, on the ground, the actual mechanisms of power that sustained the Tokugawa rule came in the form of tight regulations on what individual statuses in this ideology were able to and required to do. Some of these mechanisms were as large-scale as the strict regulation on all communication by the entire realm with the outside world (sakoku, literally “closed country”), and the requirement of all feudal lords (daimyō) to spend half of their time in Edo under the careful eye of the Shōgun (sankin kotai, alternate attendance). Others were as ridiculously specific of sumptuary laws as to what a particular chōnin could eat at a wedding, which was to be to be limited “to one soup, one viand, and one hors d’oeuvre, and to be concluded before dark.”

This brings me back to the actual details of the Tokugawa ideology, which in theory not only enabled these strict laws, but also proved their necessary connection with “the way things were.” The ideology was based on a Neo-Confucian understanding of the relationship between “principle” (理 lǐ), and “things” (物 wù). Regarding this, Hayashi Razan (c. 1605), a scholar in the service of Ieyasu, explained, “What is the reason that heaven and earth are heaven and earth?…Principle is what makes them such…Things and princi-

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ples are naturally one; the Way and the phenomenal world in which the principles are embedded are not two.” Thus, a crucial part of Neo-Confucian scholarship at the time was Shingaku “MindHeart Studies” (心學 xīnxué) characterized by the “investigation of things” (格物窮理 géwùqiónglǐ). The goal of this form of scholarship was the discovery of principles, the only means to understand cosmological truths. Moreover, this sort of scholarship was also important regarding ethics and morality, since such traditional categories as righteousness, loyalty, truthfulness, et cetera, could only be rightly acted upon with knowledge of principles.

With this understanding, there was a natural basis on which the bakufu could assert its authority, since it could argue that those in power were closer in essence to principle (formless mind), while those beneath were closer in essence to things (the gross form of body).

This resulted in the implementation of a fourfold status hierarchy defined as shi-no-kō-shō (士農工商 shìnónggōngshàng), which divided the majority of citizens of the realm into samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants in that order. The order was based upon the rationale that moral worth and humanity were only accredited to a person to the extent that his body was productive materially to the sustainment of the higher order (mind, i.e. the ruling class). Thus, it becomes less surprising that the farming peasantry is the second highest status in this system since the entire ideology sought to perpetuate the idea that “the body was valuable only as an instrument satisfying through its productive function the moral imperative to preserve social unity.” In this way farmers who produced rice and consumed very little were lauded, whereas merchants, who produced nothing but merely acted as middlemen for the goods of others’ and 50

yet accumulated wealth and consumed liberally with that wealth, were vilified.

I would like to reemphasize that the shi-no-kō-shō system just described included nearly all of the citizens of the realm. However, citizens whose livelihood existed outside of the traditional Neo-Confucian model of ethical productivity were not included, meaning itinerant and stationary entertainers, prostitutes, vagrants, beggars, and even priests. This is particularly interesting because to be outside of the system was technically to be hinin (非人, fēirén, nonhuman), and yet it would not be valid to argue that Buddhist priests were debased to the level of the common vagrant simply because of the fact that they were neither samurai, farmer, artisan, or merchant. In theory the Buddhist clergy during this time period provided a service to the bakufu that could not be materially valued, namely the service of divine protection, and so they were afforded a special status outside the hierarchy. How then, if the clergy had become implicated with the Shogunate as a protective force, is it the case that the idea of “Degenerative Buddhism,” a label arisen from the Shogunate itself, exists at all? This is because even though originally Tendai Buddhism was brought under the patronage of Tokugawa Ieyasu, nevertheless especially towards the middle and end of Tokugawa rule, the overwhelming financial income for Tendai temples had veered away from Tokugawa donation and towards donations of commoners. These people were attracted to the temples due to their proximity to the pleasure quarters and their association with deity cults that addressed worldly sufferings and benefits as opposed to “unreliable” or burdensome soteriological teachings. Both of these motivations (the pleasure quarter and the obsession with worldly boons) were considered destructive to the unity

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of the realm because of their fixation on consumption (an ideological evil), and hence the eventual casting aside of official (although it is clear that even the Shōguns themselves still partook of the pleasure quarter’s play culture) Shogunate support for the practices occurring at those temples.

But there was a certain socio-political coherency to the fact that Tendai Buddhism during the Tokugawa period eventually becoming “déclassé”. From the beginning Tendai Buddhism had been used by Ieyasu for material benefit, that being the enhancement of his military strength during the Warring States period. He had been told by a Tendai advisor that association with an institution would ensure the prosperity of his family, and he chose to support the temple in northeastern Edo, Sensōji. At the time Sensōji was actually in disarray and its affiliate monks “ignored even the most basic precepts of their sectarian tradition, ‘mingled with women,’ and adulterated Tendai Buddhist rituals and ceremonies by adding to them Shugendō and shamanic elements.” On all accounts it is ironic that a regime, which would later try to assert an ideology based on the deplorable nature of material gain, would choose to associate itself with an institution based on esoteric rituals for the sake of military might, especially with one that was known for performing those rituals poorly!

Despite this, later evaluations by chroniclers of the time would paint the picture that this temple was a most obvious choice due to its age, its reminiscence of Enryakuji in Kyoto (the most prominent Tendai temple in Japan until 1571 when it was burnt by another warlord, Oda Nobunaga, out of political maneuvering), and its auspiciousness.

The temple was located in the northeast, which according to cosmology based on the Yin-Yang was the site most likely

for a demon invasion, and thus it could serve as a protective kimon (demon gate). Moreover, after the reconstruction of the temple’s five-story pagoda with a demonic gargoyle on the third roof, the temple was a formidable spiritual defense indeed. What all this is to say is that, as is evidenced by the fact that the Tokugawa Shogunate initially supported Tendai Buddhism, the label of “Degenerate” Buddhism arose less from the Shogunate’s own disapproval of the current state of Buddhist law (it was perfectly willing to associate with the religion and take advantage of that state of law in order to advance its own ambitions through protection and boons when convenient), and more from the fact that as Buddhism became more implicated with “play culture,” and commoners found more reasons to consume through this implication, the ideological system of restraint and production, on which Shogunal authority was based, became more threatened. In other words, the dismissal of this type of Buddhism was not based on its meaningfulness in individual’s lives, or even its popularity, but on its potential to undermine the socio-political, Neo-Confucian ideology of the Shogunate.

The initial takeoff of Sensōji was clearly heavily dependent on its affiliation with the bakufu, which after witnessing the temple’s protective efficacy in the form of Ieyasu’s victory at Sekigahara, allotted it a tract of land capable in production of 500 koku of rice (this was only about half of the allotment of an imperial abbacy temple, though it was still an incredibly unwonted size for a local temple). Yet at the same time, Sensōji may never have become a truly notable institution, especially since it lost shōgunal support in favor of Kan’eiji on Mt. Tōei in 1625, if not for its association with the Asakusa Kannon (a statue of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (the bodhisattva

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of compassion)). The statue was sacred as a yorishiro (lodging place), in which the true bodhisattva would sometimes reside. Regarding this yorishiro, legend has it that two brothers were fishing with no luck one day in 628. They tried fishing in seven locations but never caught fish, only the same small statue. Finally, they examined the statue more closely and realized it glimmered unusually. They then established the statue under a tree and prostrated, and thereafter for the rest of the day they caught full nets of fish easily with every throw. The strange incident was reported to the village elder, Haji no Nakatomo, who recognized the statue immediately as Avalokiteśvara’s incarnation. He soon converted his house into the first “temple” for the yorishiro, and self-ordaining himself, spent the rest of his life in devotion to the statue.

Through the centuries leading up to the 1600s, the statue was associated with other fantastic stories that displayed its epiphanic ability. Most notably was a worshipper who went blind while praying to the statue, later Avalokiteśvara appeared to the man and revealed that the yorishiro’s face was not for public gaze. Afterwards the man’s eyesight returned and he enshrined the statue permanently in a wooden receptacle, creating a hi-Butsu (secret deity).

Eventually even this receptacle was hidden behind another, which housed a wooden copy, crafted by the Tendai monk, Ennin (796-864), of the original gold statue. This wooden replica was crafted on the basis of protecting the gold from corrosion and from then on only the wooden statue was shown during occasions of kaichō (exhibition of a secret deity), and the original was swallowed up in myth. It should be noted that despite heavy popularization of the mystique surrounding the Asakusa Kannon

by Sensōji officials, the main temple was not a popular destination itself among 52

chōnin until well into the Tokugawa period (c. 1800). Due to the affiliation of the deity with the Tokugawa family as an exclusive recipient of its protection, commoners were hesitant to worship directly in the main hall until well after the Shogunate had moved its patronage to Kan’eiji. Nevertheless, the huge outer complex of Sensōji, with a vast array of smaller Shintō and Buddhist shrines, and a growing business population of leisure activities (storytelling halls, vendor stalls, teahouses, archery halls, brothels, circuses…) that were drawn to the indirect influence of the Asakusa Kannon’s close proximity, continued to develop as one of the most frequented centers of both pleasure and prayer for common Edoites.

Those familiar with the Pāḷi Buddhist canon here may begin to sympathize with the critical evaluations of these developments as “Degenerate Buddhism.” In the Mahātaṇhāsankhaya (The Greater Discourse on the Destruction of Craving) of the Majjhima Nikāya (1.256271), the Buddha teaches: For one who delights in the feeling, who welcomes it and remains attached to it, there arises pleasure. What pleasure there is in the feeling––that is attachment. Dependent on attachment, there is becoming. Dependent on becoming, there is birth. And dependent on birth there are old age, death, grief, sorrow, suffering, lamentation, and despair.

Thus there is arising of this whole mass of suffering.

By all rights it seems safe to assert that the frequenters of Sensōji, entirely caught up with the alluring pleasures of the sakariba (amusement park) culture, for whom religious matters were at best a shallow form of repentance for their worldly exploits, were entirely contributing to their own “mass of suffering.”

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Therefore, from one perspective it could be said that they were also contributing to the overall degeneration of the Buddhadharma and speeding along the age of mappō (末法 mòfǎ). While it may be true that these commoners were not pursuing saṃsāric release by their own disciplined efforts, nor were they concerned with hearing Buddhist doctrine per se, in another sense one could argue that their activities were contributing to an overall increase in Buddhist faith. Having been attracted to the temples for fun, they then proceeded to seek relief from life’s vulnerabilities and insecurities by total investment in the “other power” (他力 tālì, a confident trust in the salvific power of another) of the Asakusa Kannon, among others, who used expedient means (upāya, that is various kinds of convenient religious teachings or “shortcuts”) to save them.

The notion of other power and expedient means did a lot of work for the Tendai School, and it represents one of the main ways in which the immoral activities occurring at Sensōji on a daily basis were not so contradictory. The use of expedient means in Tendai goes back to the foundation of the school in China, about a century earlier than Fazang (c. mid sixth century) of the Huayan School, with Zhiyi, who stressed that the ultimate purpose of Śākyamuni’s (the historical Buddha Siddārtha Gautama) presence on Earth was to preach the Lotus Sūtra. Because the Lotus Sūtra was purportedly the Buddha’s last teaching before his disappearance from view, it stood in contradiction to another highly popular East Asian text, the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, which by definition, the title meaning “great, total blowing out,” also stressed the Buddha’s final days.

Thus a schema of ranking sūtras by the expediency of their doctrines had to be created. This “judging of teachings” (判 教 pànjiào) was unsurprisingly used by

the Tendai tradition to assert that, “the final teaching is that of the Lotus Sūtra, but the Buddha preached the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra in order to stress his permanence for those who were too slow to grasp sufficiently the teaching of the Lotus Sūtra.”

Of particular note, is that the twenty fifth chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, which had assumed just as high of eminence in Japan by the time of the Tokugawa Shogunate thanks to the introduction of Tendai there by Saichō (767-822), stresses the inexhaustible salvific prowess of Avalokiteśvara through whatever means are appropriate. This chapter was so celebrated that it became a widely circulated text in its own right, popularizing the other power of Avalokiteśvara, indirectly including his manifestation in the Asakusa Kannon at Sensōji. So for this reason it seems much less problematic that the frequenters of the Sensōji temple were engaged in the immoral exploits of gambling, prostitution, and other forms of debauchery, since according to the sūtra the salvific power of the Kannon was accessible by “single-mindedly calling on its name, by being constantly mindful and humbly respectful of it, and by making offerings to it.” Moreover, because of the sūtra’s reassurance that even the most deplorable of sinners can be saved, commoners could enjoy all the benefits of the pleasure district without compromising their religious zeal. For instance, one short verse (senryū) describing the relationship of prayer and play at Sensōji muses: Entering Kaminari [Gate], [one] passes through [to Yoshiwara] like kaminari (lightning) Dangling to [Asakusa] Kannon, [Yoshiwara] stands out conspicuous.

What fun to fool around [Asakusa] Kannon on the way [to Yoshiwara].

[Asakusa] Kannon is a Buddha who is of

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long-lasting use [for Yoshiwara].

Inside the venerable [Sensōji] temple, [one] cuts a crossroads [to Yoshiwara].

Yoshiwara was essentially the “redlight” district of Edo during this time period, and the fact that this poem unabashedly associates the center of prostitution with the Buddhist manifestation of compassion clearly indicates that the relationship of prayer and play was unproblematic. But, then, just how exactly did the powers of the Asakusa Kannon unfold, and what sorts of expedient means were being manifested at Sensōji?

Although the concern there was heavily focused on the profane, the power of the Kannon was not entirely untraditional.

The Lotus Sūtra typically implicates profane expedient means with soteriological concerns, for instance the parable of the burning house (perhaps the most famous parable on the subject) relates a father’s saving of his children from a fire by worldly promises of toys to the compassionate acts of a Buddha: “The Buddha offers various vehicles (yānas) as bribes, according to the tastes of sentient beings, but when they have taken up the practices and are (becoming) saved from saṃsāra…he gives them [One Vehicle of Buddhahood].” This is coherent with the occurrences at Sensōji where people were unconcerned with soteriology and instead religion for them became meaningful only to the extent that they prayed at the temples for genze riyaku (this worldly-benefits). This parallels the children of the burning house parable, who, though saved from the fire ultimately, were only concerned with the father’s gifts.

Hence why the expedient means at Sensōji unfolded first and foremost in the form of blessings that provided prosperity, wealth, medicinal efficacy, fertility, and even relief from toothache.

It seems that the only times people were 54

concerned with other worldly benefits at all, that is merit making and hope for a rebirth in the Pure Land (the paradise of the Buddha Amitābha where a being could reach final enlightenment without saṃsāric suffering and obstacles), were on special occasions of kaichō (exhibition) and near their deaths. The priesthood, who convinced the public that merit making was most efficacious on “connection days” when the deity was invited to its lodging place, facilitated these exhibitions. These days, as we can see from a table of merit-making potential (Sensōji shidan shō), were so unbelievably auspicious that Edoites simply did not need to concern themselves with merit on a regular basis. One day in particular for instance (the day the statue was discovered in 628 supposedly), claimed a merit-making exponent of 46000 times the normal worship gained on another day!

Again, the only other time that this sort of activity was a concern for the public was near death when citizens hoped to receive the Asakusa Kannon’s compassion in transporting them to a Pure Land. Similar to how it turns out to not be entirely appropriate to label these activities as degenerate due to the validation by the Lotus Sūtra of initially world-centric paths, in the same way it would be overly critical to say that these commoners were undermining the Buddhist faith for only seeking out the Kannon in their times of near death.

After all the idea of Dharmakara’s original forty-eight vows before becoming Amitābha was aimed to just this effect, especially vow 18, in which he states, “Blessed One, may I not awaken to unsurpassable, perfect, full awakening if, after I attain awakening, those living beings [who]…remember me with serene trust, will not be met by me at the moment of death.” And so countless people who were terminally ill or simply

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near death in general made their way to Sensōji in the hope that the Kannon might bring them to Amitābha’s Pure Land. The coherency becomes most obvious in light of the fact that many sūtras even describe Avalokiteśvara as one of the bodhisattvas who conducted the dead to the presence of Amitābha.

One could still wonder, though, even if the Asakusa Kannon possessed infinite compassion and skill in means to save those sinners who generated sincere faith, what drove the Edoites, and especially the monastics, of this time period to engage in these unwholesome activities to such an astonishing degree? After all, in the Kālāma Sutta, the Buddha wisely points out that regardless of tradition, scripture, mere report, fondness for a theory, et cetera, a person should still abide in wholesome, blameless, and commendable actions for no other reason than because they are “to one’s benefit and happiness for a long time.”

On the one hand, one could argue that because of the doctrine of emptiness (that all things lack intrinsic essence), there is no critical distinction between sin and pious activity. And in fact, in the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra, there is a Goddess who makes a strikingly similar claim in saying, “those who are not self-conceited, of them the nature of attachment, aversion, and ignorance are themselves liberation.” But on the other hand, this is clearly an extremely subtle understanding, and as is known from accounts of Buddhist storytellers of the time, doctrine was hardly taken this seriously.

One instance of this in particular, comes from the writings of a certain Hiraga Gennai (1728-1779) who liked to invert the authority of the dangi (談義 tányì), a sort of sermon designed for understanding by the general populace. By mocking the mastery of the unconventional wisdom of sages, in the upcoming

example a fictitious master Shidōken, he characterizes the opinion that even the most vulgar storytelling offered more insight than the philosophies of the time: “His lectures are a philosophical minestrone of Shintoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, poisson cru vinegared with Lao Tzu and spiced with Chuang Tzu, served with hot ice soup and deep-fried tōfu with lightening, none left over, not a trace.” The content of this sentence is meant to be incoherent, and in being so meaningless it is meant to communicate the sense in which the philosophies of the time were largely irrelevant and unhelpful to the concerns of commoners.

Furthermore, to understand this sort of dialectic in the public imagination, it will again be helpful to remember the earlier description of Neo-Confucian hierarchies. The ideology in place by the pressure of the Tokugawa Shogunate was extremely repressive of chōnin morale because consumption was vilified at all levels. So in the subtlest ways possible, citizens tried to invert the ideology’s authority using strategies of comic realism, in other words methods of exposing the paradoxes and inconsistencies of the Shogunate that were playful enough to seem harmless, yet somehow also served as a sharp social commentary, as with the quote above. Moreover, consumption was a powerful way in which commoners could go against the authority of the Shogunate, and so even if sumptuary laws tried to curtail the play culture of Edo, especially around districts like Sensōji, commoners and nobility alike flocked to the scene hoping for some release from the unbearably tight decorum of the shi-no-kō-shō system. Katsuya Hirano has called this Edo’s “safety valve.”

Therefore, it is entirely easier to understand why Edoites at the time were not flocking instead to a restrained, pious form of Buddhist or otherwise religious expression, because to the ex-

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tent that restraint was their life outside of the prayer-play culture of Sensōji, the Edoite’s reason for going there in the first place was to temporarily suspend the hardships of the system. And to reemphasize how this is not a degenerate form of religious practice, I would assert that this is not contradictory to even the most traditional definitions of religion, for instance that of Émile Durkheim who wrote, “Religious beliefs are the representations which express the nature of sacred things and the relations which they sustain, either with each other or with profane things.” So in Tokugawa Buddhism although it is the case that the representations were seemingly more expressive of the profane than of the sacred, nevertheless play culture and prayer culture were intertwined at such an ideological level that a person could not talk about the one without the other in the first place, whether this be with regards to the laity or otherwise. To this point I will now turn to how traditional Japanese religion occasioned prayer and play to be complementary.

To understand the presence of play culture within the Japanese religious imaginaire, one has to understand the fact that tales of playful deity relationships go back to the epoch of legend on the Japanese (although even the concept of “Japan” as it is known it does not go back this far) archipelago. This epoch is glorified in Japan’s oldest extant annals, The Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters, 712 C.E.), and despite the fact that this work came into being relatively recently in comparison to some literatures of the ancient world, all the same it provides the authoritative account of the mythological “Age of the Gods.” Important to this study is a scene in which the legendary Sun Goddess, Amaterasu or “Heaven Shining,” having been frightened by the father of her children, “Reckless Rushing Raging Man,” flees into 56

Heaven’s Boulder Cavern. This plunges the world into darkness, and she is only coaxed out in order to return the world to light through the enticing kami asobi (kami meaning divine, asobi being a comprehensive term for play in Japanese that includes amusement, debauchery, music, sensuality, sport, et cetera) of the other deities. Thus in the “Amaterasu and Susa-No-O” chapter of Book One, one finds an account that epitomizes not only the coherency, but necessity of profane uses of play in sacred matters: The mighty one Wreathed Woman of Heaven hung from her sleeves sunshadow vines of heaven from Mount Gleaming in heaven…Overturning a bucket before the entrance to Heaven’s Boulder Cavern, she stamped loudly on it and became possessed, showing her breasts and pushing the girdle of her skirt down past her privates. And so the high plains of heaven shook with the laughter of all the many spirits in their multitudes.

Naturally, this immediately incites the curiosity of Amaterasu who peeks out and is grabbed by “StrongArmed Man of Heaven.” This having been a successful effort of prayer-play communication by the other deities, she then grants the world its well-deserved boon: the renewal of her radiance over the plains of heaven. To transport this into the Tokugawa period of “Degenerate Buddhism,” Nam-Lin Hur has suggested that the Japanese (although again this category is anachronistic even in the Tokugawa period) “believed that they could achieve intimacy with a deity if they were able to ‘play with it’.” Many places elsewhere one finds evidence of this connection between prayer and play in traditional Japanese religion: sumō evolved from a pastime of “dancing with the deity” for its pleasure, archery on

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horseback (yabusame) had divination uses, and even prostitution found associations to religious practice in ancient times by representing the incarnation of a deity, relations with whom constituted a divine communication. So it is no wonder that the Asakusa Kannon and its proximity were considered perfectly acceptable sites of asobi (debauchery), since it was a generally accepted view within Shinto (which has already been mentioned to be an influence on Japanese Tendai) that play culture was not only a traditional method of interacting with the sacred world, but an effective one.

In light of all of this it hardly seems accurate to assert that Tokugawa Tendai Buddhism, especially at the Sensōji temple, was necessarily degenerative because of its outward appearance of nonconformity with Buddhist law. Even if this is the case, which it is only if one ignores the blatant teachings of expedient means in the Lotus Sūtra, it does not change the fact that play was built into the milieu of religious expression

in which Tokugawa Buddhism was growing. Moreover, all of these practices were especially geared towards releasing the pressure and suffering that were the result of the status system of the realm.

And to the extent that Sensōji’s prayerplay culture was relatively successful in doing this, it then seems hardly in the spirit of respecting a common humanity to say that their practices were inferior.

One must remember that this was a time characterized as the “floating world” (ukiyo), a time of in-between-ness when there was a palpably felt societal consciousness of disharmony, contradiction, and dissatisfaction with the purported way things were, and the actual playing out of daily life, and so then more than ever there was a need for accessible, immediate religious benefit. Perhaps these benefits came in externally impure ways, but on the other hand, maybe there is something to be learned from Ryōkan, a contemporary of this chaotic time (17581831), pertaining to the primacy of the heart in religious practice:

The rain has stopped, the clouds have drifted away, and the weather is clear again.

If your heart is pure, then all things in your world are pure.

Abandon this fleeting world, abandon yourself, Then the moon and flowers will guide you along the Way.

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Footnotes and References

Footnotes 1.

The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (literally “Great Forest Upaniṣad”) is a philosophical treatise contained in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa of the Śukla Yajurveda (one of the four books comprising what is otherwise simply called “The Vedas”). It is known as one of the oldest Upaniṣads as well as one of the most influential for its foundational theories regarding (ātman (the self), brahman (the universal self), karma, and mukti (liberation), among other ideas). For a full translation and explanation see Olivelle, The Early Upaniṣads, 1998.

2.

Ten Principal Upaniṣads, 795. nāmetyanantaṃ vai nāma. All Sanskrit translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.

3.

George, 99.

4.

For a more complete discussion of this term see Long, Jainism: An Introduction, 2009.

5.

Vimalakīrti is the protagonist of the famous Mahāyāna Buddhist discourse known as the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra (literally The Discourse on Vimalakīrti’s Instruction). The discourse maintains that he is the ideal Buddhist upāsaka (lay person), which is supported by the fact that he is the one lecturing Mañjuśrī (the bodhisattva (enlightenment being) generally considered to be the embodiment of wisdom) and not the other way around.

6.

Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra, 2013. tadyathā mañjuśrīḥ marīcikāyām udakam, evaṃ bodhisatvena sarvasatvā avekṣitavyāḥ. “Therefore, oh Mañjuśrī, just like water in a mirage, in that way all beings should be regarded by the Bodhisattva.”

7.

Bellah, 1.

8.

Tendai Buddhism is the Japanese descendant of the Chinese school of Buddhism known as Tiantai (天 台tiāntái). The school is widely considered to have been truly founded by Zhiyi (智顗 zhìyǐ) (538-597 CE) because he was the first to completely systematize a classification of other Buddhist teachings, with the notable innovation that the Lotus Sūtra communicates the supreme synthesis of Buddhist doctrine. Alongside the preeminence of the Lotus Sūtra within its system, the school’s distinguishing characteristics are the position of the tathāgatagarbha (literally “seed of the Buddha”) or the idea that all beings are intrinsically enlightened and capable of Buddhahood, the idea of ekayāna (literally “one path” or “direct path”), which holds that different paths are taught to different individuals according to their needs, but that all paths are ultimately the one path to Buddhahood, and that all things interpenetrate all other things (doctrine of interpenetration). The transmission of Tiantai to Japan did not result in many differentiations with regards to the basic philosophical tenets, yet the Japanese counterpart ultimately was marked by a greater allowance of other teachings into the system, including those of the Zen tradition, Shinto tradition, and Esoteric tradition. This became most obvious in the inclusion of ritualistic practices such as the reciting of powerful utterances, the performance of symbolic gestures and bodily positioning, and various meditations. For a more detailed account of the innovations of Japanese Tendai see Groner, Saichō: The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School, 1984.

9.

Hur, 27.

10.

Durkheim, 52. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, the sociologist Émile Durkheim posited the influential theory that an essential feature of religion is the distinguishing of the “sacred” and the “profane” in a given system. My purpose of forwarding Durkheim’s usage of the term here is to attempt to counter the notion that a form of religious activity need be “sacred” to be meaningful, a point which I think Durkheim would agree upon. I treat this again on page 19.

58

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

Bellah, 11.

Koschmann, 221.

Hirano, location 5053.

Ibid., 951. de Bary, 46-48.

Bellah, 227.

Hirano, location 150.

Ibid., location 693.

Hur, 77.

This is a syncretic religion of Japan, the overarching principle of which is the equation of enlightenment with oneness with a Shinto spirit.

Hur, 3.

Williams, 163.

Hur, 4.

Ibid., 11.

Ibid., Introduction.

Hirano, location 458.

Holder, 69.

Bellah, 224.

Saṃsāra is the inevitable cycle of rebirth through the six realms of beings (Gods, Demigods, Hell-beings, Hungry Ghosts, Animals and Humans) in Buddhist and other systems of Indian cosmology. All beings travel endlessly through Saṃsāra lifetime after lifetime unless they are able to overcome the bonds of saṃsāra (usually through religious effort of some kind) and achieve various degrees of religious liberation. In Buddhism this release is known as nirvāṇa.

Williams, 247.

The definition of what constitutes an expedient means in Buddhism could be controversial for different sects, but in the context of the Tendai school of Buddhism, the expediency of a teaching relates to how supreme or helpful it is with regards to one’s spiritual fulfillment.

As noted before, in the case of this school, the Lotus Sūtra is held to be the most expedient and comprehensive teaching.

Ibid., 151.

Ibid., 162.

Hur, 210.

Ibid., 98.

Williams, 155.

Hur, 205.

Ibid., 213.

Dharmakara was the name of a bodhisattva who made forty-eight vows to be accomplished after his full enlightenment. The crux of his ambition was the creation of a Pure Land in the uttermost Western portion of space known as Sukhāvatī (literally “possessing happiness”) where all beings who would be born there would expeditiously achieve liberation from suffering. Because tradition holds that Dharmakara did in fact become Amitābha Buddha (literally “Buddha of Infinite Light”), signifying his achievement of perfect enlightenment, and because these vows were stipulations of his enlightenment, then it must also be true that his vows have been realized as well. Therefore a major practice in East Asian Buddhism has become the recitation and “recollection” of Amitābha Buddha’s name and qualities, since according to vow eighteen, beings who serenely trust him are met with him at death in his Pure Land.

Gómez, 71.

Hur, 93.

Williams, 223.

Holder, 23.

Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra. ye nirabhimānikāḥ, teṣāṃ rāgadoṣamohaprakṛtir eva vimuktiḥ.

Hirano, location 2549.

Ibid., location 1220.

Durkheim, 52. de Bary, 3.

Hur, 24.

Heldt, 24.

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51.

52.

53.

54.

Hur, 83.

Ibid.., 89.

Hirano, location 2983.

Stevens, 23.

Bibliography 1. Ariew, Roger, and Eric Watkins, eds. Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Pub., 1998. 676.

2. Bellah, Robert N. Tokugawa Religion: The Cultural Roots of Modern Japan. New York, New York: Free Press, 1957.

1, 11, 224, 227.

3. Carpenter, Amber D. Indian Buddhist Philosophy. New York, New York: Routledge, 2014. 15.

4. de Bary, William Theodore. “The Tokugawa Peace: Confucianism in the Early Tokugawa Period.” In Sources of Japanese Tradition, 3, 46-48. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. New York, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.

5. Durkheim, Émile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York, New York: Free Press, 1965. 52.

6. George, Andrew. The Epic of Gilgamesh The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkaidan and Sumerian.

London: Penguin Books, 2000. 99.

7. Gómez, Luis O. Land of Bliss: The Paradise of the Buddha of Measureless Light : Sanskrit and Chinese Versions of the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sutras. Honolulu, Hawai’i: University of Hawaii Press, 1996. 71.

8. Groner, Paul. Saichō : the Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School. Berkeley [Calif.]: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California , 1984.

9. Heldt, Gustav. An Account of Ancient Matters: The Kojiki. New York, New York: Columbia University Press. 24 10. Hirano, Katsuya. The Politics of Dialogic Imagination: Power and Popular Culture in Early Modern Japan.

Kindle ed. London: University of Chicago Press, 2014.

Locations: 150, 458, 693, 951, 1220, 2549, 2883, 5053,.

11. Holder, John, ed. Early Buddhist Discourses. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 2006. 23, 69.

12. Hur, Nam. Prayer and Play in Late Tokugawa Japan: Asakusa Sensōji and Edo Society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000. Introduction, 3, 4, 11, 24, 27, 77, 83, 89, 93, 98, 205, 213.

13. Koschmann, J. Victor. “Shinron: Kokutai.” In Nihon No Meicho, 221. Vol. 29. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1974.

14. Long, Jeffery D. Jainism an Introduction. London: I.B. Tauris, 2009. 117.

15. Ten Principle Upaniṣads with Sankarabhāṣya. Vol. 1. New Delhi: Narendra Prakash Jain, 1964. 795.

16. “Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtram.” Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon. January 1, 2013. Accessed April 28, 2015. http://www.dsbcproject.org/canon-text/titles/ 17. Williams, Paul. Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1989. 151, 155, 162, 163, 223, 247.

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eatINg exCluSIoN: SoCIal barrIerS at farmerS marketS explICatIoNS, poteNtIal SolutIoNS, aND CaSe StuDIeS Love Jonson

Love Jonson is a fourth-year Urban and Environmental Planning student with a minor in Global Sustainability.

Much of her academic coursework has focused on community food systems, and she has worked on programs connecting local producers with populations lacking access to nutritious food in Portland, Oregon and Richmond, Virginia. Love manages the University of Virginia Community Garden, co-chairs the University Committee on Sustainabilityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Materials Working Group, and works for a local land use and transportation planning firm.

AbstrAct Inspired by a grandmother’s childhood memory of the inclusive nature of the 17th Street Farmers Market in Richmond, Virginia, this paper will begin by examining the historical origins of farmers markets as a place for consumers of various socioeconomic statuses before World War II. Though farmers markets mostly disappeared in the mid-20th century, due to urban sprawl and government regulations that favored industrial agriculture, they resurged in the 1970s with the goal of increasing food access in low-income populations. However, farmers markets quickly became a trend primarily popular among the upper-class white, effectively shutting out food-insecure populations who lacked access to fresh produce and other healthy foods. Though farmers markets often provide a viable solution to so-called food deserts, they are plagued by an aura of affluence and whiteness that discourages participation by people of other races and income levels. While there exist numerous structural and practical barriers, this paper will focus on the social norms that prevent people of low-income and minority status from visiting farmers markets. It will detail the reasons for the creation of the culture of whiteness and affluence, as well as ways to make the farmers market environment more inclusive once again. These reasons include urban sprawl and the rise of industrial agriculture, ignorance of the racial past and present of agriculture, and the importance of the counter-cultural ideology over the goal of eliminating food deserts. Potential solutions include representing more minorities as vendors, locating markets in neighborhoods of various income levels, catering to the cultural preferences of minorities in the market’s product mix, and increasing minority and low-income participation in organizational boards. In addition, this paper will compare two farmers markets in Virginia that have both eliminated barriers, such as transportation and cost, but that differ in their success at dissipating the typical upper-class white ambience of farmers markets. The La Plaza Latino Market, in Richmond has successfully broken down the social barriers described above to attract the food-insecure, while the Charlottesville City Market has failed in attracting a racially and socioeconomically diverse population.

History of Farmers Markets in the United States

E

ighty-five year old Love Velitjelos recalled childhood memories of visiting the 17th Street Farmers Market in Richmond, Virginia. As a resident of the downtown area in which the market stands, she spoke about its inclusive nature in the early years of the Great Depression. “It was the place to be,” she remembered. She came across people from all walks of life, because everyone mostly lived downtown in the heart of the city. The market was always abuzz with business and overflowing

with purveyors of meats, vegetables, and fish. Love, one of seven children born to Greek immigrant parents, belonged to a poor family, but they still visited the market each week to purchase the few groceries they could afford. In fact, the 17th Street Farmers Market proves to be one of the country’s oldest farmers markets. It began as a public gathering space in 1737. In its early days it boomed with success due to its proximity to the James River, which allowed fishermen to sell daily catches of shellfish to their customers, and its location on the main road that linked Richmond and Williamsburg. In the 19th century, the 17th

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Street Farmers Market became a space for religious meetings, political rallies, and thriving commerce.

The history of the 17th Street Farmers Market, in Richmond, mirrors that of most farmers markets in the United States before World War II. Farmers often sold their excess produce to city-dwellers through direct marketing channels. They created rudimentary markets by lining up on main thoroughfares as early as the 17th century. In the early 1900s, fullfledged farmers markets often coincided with seasonal celebrations and fairs, offering farmers a venue to exhibit their produce and livestock to families. By the 1940s, each state in the country laid claim to at least one farmers market. Even if they lacked bricks-and-mortar establishments, farmers would congregate in an empty lot and sell produce directly from their trucks. Across the country, markets composed a primary source of farmers’ income up until World War II. However, the 1950s-era construction of the interstate highway system marked the genesis of urban sprawl, which would engender land use and transportation policies that dissipated urban communities in favor of new suburbs. Farmers markets disappeared as urban town squares diminished in prominence and shopping centers followed families to the suburbs. Furthermore, government regulations in the 1950s and 1960s thwarted farmers’ attempts to sell directly to consumers. Policies required standardization of the size, quality, and packaging of fresh produce.

Small farmers lacked the infrastructure necessary to comply with the “pack and grade” standards, and the rules vastly diminished the ability of farmers to sell directly to consumers at any possible remaining markets. Industrial agriculture quickly overtook more traditional farmer-to-consumer marketing channels.

Nonetheless, the 1960s and 1970s 62

ushered in a resurgence of farmers markets, beginning in California and spreading across the country. The lackluster quality of the produce imported from around the world in an increasingly globalized food system once more opened opportunities for direct farmer-to-consumer marketing. The organics movement and the counter-cultural ideology that embraced the small farmer gained steam and created new demand for farmer-to-consumer markets. Government policies that sought to ease direct marketing restrictions soon followed. Congress passed the Farmer-to-Consumer Direct Marketing Act in 1976, which legislated that an unenthusiastic United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) support the development of roadside stands, pick-your-own farms, and farmers markets.

In the early days of the farmers’ market renaissance, food justice advocates established markets specifically with the goal of increasing access to produce of high caliber and affordable price in underserved communities. They recognized that farmers markets offered an opportunity to address the dearth of produce in food deserts, or primarily low-income areas that lack access to healthful foods such as fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins. Grocery stores often shy away from low-income neighborhoods, so residents in food deserts must shop at corner convenience stores loaded with highly processed, calorically dense, low-nutrient foods. During the growing season, locally grown produce often proves cost price-competitive with grocery stores and definitely less expensive than corner stores, which rarely offer fresh produce at all. Families who shop at farmers markets can purchase fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins that will allow them to cook healthier meals at a lower cost than eating out, even at the cheap fast food restaurants that proliferate in food des-

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erts. Pioneering groups such as the Interfaith Hunger Coalition and The Food Trust created markets in Los Angeles, and other anti-hunger organizations such as the Nutritional Development Services of the Archdiocese in Philadelphia opened their own farmers markets across the country in the late 1970s.

Explications for an Aura of Affluence and Whiteness Though the return of farmers markets brought auspicious possibilities for the food justice movement, by the mid1980s, their “locations, demographics, and reputations had begun to change,” as Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi note. By the late 1990s, the average household income of farmers market patrons ranged from $40,000 to $65,000, according to the USDA: clearly not a low-income demographic. Today, minorities, especially African Americans, do not participate in farmers markets at a level proportionate to the population.

While there exists considerable overlap between minority and low-income populations, race cannot and should not serve as a proxy for socioeconomic status. Indeed, much of the minority population falls into high-income brackets, while a significant number of white citizens are poor. Though race and class must not be conflated, farmers markets have shifted from serving middle- and low-income populations with a variety of races and ethnicities to a primarily affluent white demographic. A number of factors have contributed to this transformation.

The recently reborn farmer-to-consumer movement developed and grew in popularity, and demand for farmers’ markets followed. Markets became an increasingly important stream of income for farmers, providing 50 percent or more of their revenues. However, the urban sprawl that had begun in the

1950s continued and picked up speed in the 1970s and 1980s, threatening the remaining small local farmers that relied so heavily on markets. Farmers then had to focus their efforts on markets where they could fetch a high premium for their products, shifting the focus away from the original goal of using farmers markets to increase food access for vulnerable populations. The economic need to focus on profits rather than address food insecurity created a chasm between successful markets that served higher-income populations and fledgling markets that served low-income populations.

Farmers flocked toward the more successful markets, initiating a cycle that eventually left markets in low-income neighborhoods unviable. These markets saw fewer farmers and a smaller selection of products, which led to less consumer patronage. The remaining farmers then gained even less income from these markets and stopped vending, at which point the cycle began again. Fewer farmers meant less selection and less income from shoppers, leading to the demise of virtually all markets in low-income neighborhoods.

Indeed, the primarily affluent white customers who could then afford to support small farmers at farmers markets assumed what Alison Alkon deems a “complimentary community imaginary,” in which they justified the cost barriers that kept low-income groups from the markets by considering themselves morally valiant champions of the small-family farmers in their community.

In sum, the need for farmers to gather premium prices from affluent customers led to difficulty in establishing markets in low-income neighborhoods. The subsequent moral high ground that the remaining customers assumed as they supported their local farmers built upon the stereotype of farmers markets as elitist and upper-class.

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The stereotype of markets as a place for the upper class grew more engrained.

The perception of higher prices and the idea of the farmers market as a niche experience meant that the goal of establishing farmers markets in underserved areas became ignored. Even today, most farmers markets attract primarily white, affluent people, while minorities and low-income populations remain underrepresented. Indeed, because farmers markets are often located in “high-end” areas, relatively few can be found in minority communities, especially neighborhoods with a high concentration of African Americans. The markets that do manage to sprout in African-American neighborhoods are exceptionally smaller than average.

Even when farmers markets are located in neighborhoods that house a variety of races and income levels, the customer base of farmers markets proves disproportionately white. The physical clustering of white bodies discourages non-whites from participating in farmers markets and hinders the ability of farmers markets to address inequity in food access. The gathering of white bodies around areas of affluence and privilege code these spaces as white, “racialize” the space, and discourage others from attending. According to Alkon, such whiteness persists in the minds of people of all races not as an explicitly racial quality, but as a marker of “American” or “normal” characteristics, relegating those who do not share those characteristics as “other” or “abnormal.” This phenomenon occurs even as proponents of farmers markets commend them as a culturally and racially neutral space in an attempt to avoid seeming racist, conscious as they are of the overwhelming whiteness of the practice. In this way, white farmers market advocates reveal their tendency towards colorblindness, or the assertion that practices such as 64

farmers markets are neutral on the issue of race and do not seek to attract or exclude any one race over the other. In fact, Julie Guthman found direct evidence of colorblindness when she interviewed several white vendors and managers of farmers markets. When asked about attempts to increase diversity in the market, most embraced language of neutrality and attempts at anti-racism. Many echoed sentiments that targeting minorities or low-income populations would show prejudice, and that farmers markets should be spaces for all that do not attempt to attract those of a certain race.

However, no place or practice can be entirely devoid of racial characteristics. Both the physical overrepresentation of white shoppers at farmers markets and participants’ tendency toward colorblindness ignores the racial disparity of these markets. Colorblindness most evidently manifests in the ignorance of the racial past and present of agriculture (267). Primarily white farmers market participants tend to romanticize agriculture from a white perspective and ignore the realities that people of color face in agriculture, both historically and presently. In the past, only whites could fulfill the ideal of small-scale sustainable farmer that today’s supporters of local agriculture uphold, while other races were marginalized in agricultural processes. As white settlers colonized America, Native Americans were forcefully displaced from their land, mistreated, and prevented from cultivating the food on which they subsisted. When Chinese and Japanese immigrants entered the country, they were excluded from land ownership as whites acquired land virtually for free, and underpaid Asian immigrants held the dirtiest jobs inside California’s first factory farms.

In addition, Nazi conspirators favored organic farming methods in the World War II era. During Hitler’s regime, or-

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ganic soil conjured notions of national vigor, purity, and home soil. The word “organic” has not completely washed clean of those connotations, potentially alienating Jews from the farmers markets that espouse organic produce.

Many people ignore the contributions of the vast Latino labor force that carries out much of the backbreaking work on American farms today. Interestingly, when Latino farmers do sell at farmers markets, patrons often assume that they are not “real” farmers and that they have purchased their produce wholesale, intending to furtively resell it as their own.

However, the strongest resistance to the whitewashed ideal of agriculture comes from African Americans who were oppressed for decades by white slaveholders. The desire of sustainable agriculture advocates to “get their hands dirty” by working in the garden or small farm does not resonate with black people, who associate such proclamations with working as slaves for white masters. Indeed, the very phrase tends to invoke images of slave labor and injustice at the hands of slaveholders, not nostalgia. In addition, white adulation of agricultural work ignores African Americans’ long post-slavery struggle to become fully integrated into the country’s modernity and progress, as many became tenant farmers after the Civil War, and all struggled to gain full civil rights for decades afterwards. Today, some farmers markets themselves reflect racialized histories.

The 17th Street Farmers Market in Richmond, Virginia flourished throughout the 1800s as a vibrant slave-trading network. During the Civil War, it served as a meeting space for Confederate soldiers.

Other historical farmers markets that thrived in the antebellum era most likely relied on slave commerce, though the passage of time has buried such realities from the minds of most patrons. In sum, people of color do not resonate with the

call to support their local farmer because they realize the struggles that non-whites faced in the past and still confront today in growing food.

In addition to the clustering of physical whiteness at farmers markets and the coded space that results, whiteness and affluence became closely associated with farmers markets when the counter-cultural ideology that praised small farmers over the industrial food system took precedence over the original goal of markets to eliminate food deserts.

The counter-culture of the 1960s and 1970s bore a counter-cuisine that touted the benefits of unprocessed food, which proved too expensive for the country’s poorest to acquire. At the same time, the focus on organic, fresh food and the dichotomy of access between people of different income levels meant that where one went to eat and what one ate there became important indicators of class.

These class differences played out not only in ingredient-focused, farm-to-table restaurants, but in farmers markets as well. In addition, the back-to-the-farm movements and agricultural communes that cropped up among the 1960s counter-culture remained primarily white activities. These practices hailed the production of organic and sustainable produce, the very foundation upon which modern farmers markets are predicated.

The historical affluent whiteness of the counter-cultural food movement has left a footprint that contributes to the exclusion of minorities and low-income populations from farmers markets today.

The association of farmers markets with the Slow Food movement also speaks to their reputation of spaces for affluent white people. Slow Food, an organization created by European whites, seeks to counteract a conventional food system that prizes cost, efficiency, and convenience over quality. Its Italian origins and mostly white membership car-

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ries an obvious racial denotation that can discourage non-whites from involvement. Its call to pay the full cost of one’s food and savor one’s meals ignores some of the realities that low-income people face, as they often find themselves forced to acquire low-cost, quick food from the industrial food system. In fact, the urban poor already spend a greater amount of their income on food than the middle class. The idea that people should pay more for higher-quality food, supported

by Slow Food as well as other farmers market advocates, excludes those who make food choices based solely on need.

Primarily white farmers market advocates and others that subscribe to the Slow Food worldview assume that their food-related values reign morally superior and that their values should be held universally, regardless of an individual’s personal experiences or struggles. They often assume that those who do not frequent farmers markets stay away solely because they have different, and inferior, food-related values. In fact, Guthman found that farmers market vendors attributed the lack of diversity in race and income levels to a difference in personal tastes, characteristics, and values, rather than issues of cost or access. They assumed that those who shop at farmers markets are better educated, more concerned about the quality of their food and health, and more interested in the political aspect of supporting local farmers.

One even directly attributed such differences to race, suggesting that Hispanics as a whole simply do not like fresh, local, organic produce. When market participants assume that those who do not shop at farmers markets do not share their morally superior, universal food-related values, they relegate those who do not or cannot shop at farmers markets into a separate category of “others.” This fosters an idea about the “moral inferiority of the poor,” in which farmers market 66

advocates cast those who do not shop at farmers markets aside as a morally subordinate group of people. Perceptions of differing degrees of food-related morality make farmers market advocates even less likely to support the need to access healthy food.

Potential Solutions to Increase Patronage by Food-Insecure Populations Despite the deep-rooted causes of the ambience of affluent whiteness at farmers’ markets, there exist various solutions that managers and vendors can enact to attract the food-insecure. For one, organizers can locate their farmers markets where people of a variety of income levels have access. Locating markets in an area that serves both high- and low-income neighborhoods can help balance the tradeoff between farmers’ need for profits and low-income populations’ need for fresh produce. For example, a “bridge market” in Pico, California remains operable by serving multiple consumer demographics. In such markets, customers with more disposable income can afford value-added products such as bread and jam. These products bring greater returns to vendors, so they can afford to sell produce to customers with lower incomes at accessible prices. The Waverly Farmers Market in Baltimore, Maryland found success by locating near neighborhoods that house middle-income African Americans, low-income Koreans, affluent residents, and Johns Hopkins University students. It offers both lower-priced basic goods such as fresh fruits and vegetables as well as value-added products like goat cheese and artisan breads.

Once farmers’ markets have located in an area accessible to minority and low-income populations, they can increase patronage by catering to the cultural preferences of minorities in their

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product mix. Offering culturally appropriate produce can give minority groups incentive to shop at the market. For example, the Richmond Certified Farmers Market in California attracted Asian customers through its selection of Asian vegetables and fish. It also offered items such as black-eyed peas, which many African Americans who had migrated from the South could not find anywhere else.

Indeed, extending access to produce by catering to the preferences of minority and low-income shoppers may require some controversial shifts that stray from the typical counter-cultural intention of farmers markets to provide organic, locally grown food. Because the growing methods used to cultivate organic produce often result in higher prices than conventional produce, low-income customers sometimes cannot or do not wish to furnish the extra funds. In order to attract low-income populations, it may prove necessary to include vendors that farm using conventional methods. In addition, most farmers markets prohibit the resale of produce purchased from the grocery store or warehouse. However, the Waverly Farmers Market provides a convenient option for shoppers by allowing the resale of basic items that are hard to grow in the Baltimore area, such as potatoes, carrots, and onions. The ability to purchase all oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s produce in a single trip offers an incentive to shoppers pressed for time and money. Indeed, farmersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; market managers must strike a balance between maintaining the dual goals of supporting local, organic farmers and providing healthy food to vulnerable populations.

Beyond offering goods that attract minority populations, markets can counter the appearance of affluent whiteness by representing more minorities as vendors. Markets that serve low-income populations successfully often have a diverse mix of farmers, including Latino

and Asian farmers, and an accordingly diverse mix of customers. From a functional standpoint, hiring Latino vendors and workers can break down language barriers that prevent monolingual Spanish-speaking customers from coming to the market. However, representing more minority farmers may more importantly combat the whitewashed, romanticized image of sustainable agriculture that surrounds many markets today. The prevalence of white faces as vendors, despite the fact that people of color do much of the labor even on local farms, reinforces the assumption that only whites participate in local, small-scale agriculture. By also heralding and focusing on the efforts of farm workers in addition to farm owners, farmers market participants can recognize the racial realities of farm work. Vendors, farm owners, and farm workers of color can spread alternative agrarian narratives and dismantle the ideal of the white small family farm.

The North Berkeley Farmers Market incorporates vendors of color in a novel way by employing low-income youth of color to sell organic produce, combatting the whitewashed agricultural ideal and showing low-income minorities that organic produce relates to them. Other markets have incorporated minority vendors as part of a broader strategy to establish the market as a space for minority populations. For example, the West Oakland Farmers Market focuses on black farmers as part of an effort to identify the market as a place for African Americans. Also called the Mandela Market, it showcases the few black farmers in California and calls attention to the deficit of African American-owned farms as an issue of racial justice. It also promotes food justice by seeking to offer an alternative to the supermarkets that have abandoned the area. Other markets have self-identified as minority-focused as well. In contrast to the â&#x20AC;&#x153;get your

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hands dirty” mentality of some farmers market advocates, which ignores the racial past of black participation in agriculture, Mo’ Better Foods frames its work as redressing the historical inequities that blacks experienced at the hands of whites who stripped them of their right to own land.

In addition to increasing minority representation in vendors, farmers markets can give low-income and minority populations a sense of ownership by incorporating them in organizational boards. Such inclusion would give these groups a personal stake in the market and allow them to feel as though it is their market. Representing minorities in organizational capacities could also engender cultural events that further attract minorities to the market. Holidays that fall around key harvest times offer opportunities for cross-cultural celebrations. For example, Día de los Muertos occurs around peak marigold season, and the Chinese New Year overlaps with mandarin harvest. These festivities offer a key opportunity to attract Mexican and Chinese customers, counteracting the overwhelming whiteness of markets.

Case Studies: La Plaza Latino Market and Charlottesville City Market Two farmers markets in Virginia have varied in their success in extending access to healthy food to low-income populations in food deserts. Both markets have addressed issues of transportation and cost that often keep vulnerable populations from purchasing food at farmers markets, so they both show vast potential in addressing food insecurity. However, La Plaza Latino Market in Richmond has attracted low-income and minority shoppers, while the Charlottesville City Market has failed to dissipate the affluent whiteness of the typical farmers market.

May 2013 marked the birth of La 68

Plaza Latino Market, a farmers market intentionally located in a low-income, primarily Latino neighborhood in the South Side of Richmond. The Club de Comerciantes de Virginia, a Hispanic merchant’s club, created the market specifically to provide access to fresh, healthy foods to the multiple low- and middle-income neighborhoods within walking distance of the market. Because the market provides a geographically accessible option for the food insecure, the creators of the market sought to ensure that they could afford the products offered there. The Club de Comerciantes de Virginia and other private donors furnished a program in which residents on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, could purchase tokens worth twice the amount of their SNAP benefits to redeem at the market’s stands. The SNAP doubling program received $2,000 of funding over the market’s inaugural season from May to August.

La Plaza proved unique in the variety of vendors and activities it offered to its shoppers. Indeed, it fulfilled its goal to extend fresh fruits and vegetables to those in need. The market offered both the organic, locally grown produce typical of most farmers markets, as well as conventional, traditional produce often used in Latino cooking. Two vendors offered locally grown produce such as watermelons, collard greens, tomatoes, onions, and multiple varieties of squash.

Shalom Farms, a nonprofit community farm project that seeks to increase access to fresh produce in inner-city Richmond, sold at the market each week. Their food justice-focused mission enabled them to change the food environment at La Plaza in a variety of ways. Through a youth-run farm stand program, children of color aged nine to fourteen sold produce from Shalom Farms’ five-acre organic vegetable farm in Goochland County. The

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program not only taught youth the commercial knowledge needed to run the stand at the market, but also included a weekly curriculum about sustainable agriculture and healthy eating habits. In addition, the presence of minority youth selling produce at the farmers market piqued shoppersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; interest and showed minorities that organic fruits and vegetables could be important to them. Shalom Farmsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; nonprofit structure allowed for prices low enough for food-insecure customers to afford. However, Shalom Farms kept its prices above those of the other local farm so that shoppers would be encouraged to buy from the latter.

The for-profit farm could then remain economically viable at the market in the long-term, which would benefit both the local farmer and the food-insecure consumers.

In addition to locally grown, organic produce at affordable prices, La Plaza offered conventional varieties often used in Latin cooking. Imported from Mexico and resold, such produce may not be permitted at many markets.

However, the customers in the Latino neighborhood thoroughly enjoyed the availability of avocadoes, tomatillos, cacti, plantains, and other ethnic fruits and vegetables. The combination of traditional Latino produce and local, organic produce made for a convenient shopping experience. Aside from produce, other options for Latino products abounded at the market. An authentic Mexican restaurant sold tacos from a truck, while another stand sold traditional Mexican shaved-ice drinks. Yet another booth sold Mexican flan-style desserts and coffee drinks, offering consumers a snack while they did their grocery shopping. Finally, vendors purveyed traditional Mexican childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s toys as well as jewelry and purses. The market also sought to attract families from the surrounding neighborhoods with a va-

riety of activities. The taco truck doubled as a venue for weekly cooking demonstrations, and a tent complete with soft carpets and stocked bookcases allowed parents an opportunity to read to their children. The Virginia Center for Latin American Art parked a mobile art bus at the market, where kids could create a traditional mosaic made with beans alongside a life-sized Frida Kahlo sculpture made from paper mache.

Finally, La Plaza benefitted from a group of creators and an organizational board that represented the Latino neighborhoods the market served. Most managers and prominent faces at the market were Latino, and all spoke Spanish.

They cared deeply about the ability of the market to increase access to low-income and minority populations, and their efforts bore much success. Each week at the market, the consumer demographic proportionately represented the surrounding neighborhood. People of all races visited the market, though the plurality was indeed Latino. Many of the customers benefitted from the SNAP doubling program, often returning each week to buy as much produce as they could carry. Monolingual customers met Spanish-speaking vendors at virtually every booth, and children occupied themselves as their parents shopped for groceries. Overall, the cultural focus of La Plaza Latino Market certainly counteracted the stereotype of affluent whiteness that often surrounds farmers markets and remedied the cavernous produce gap that the food desert neighborhood experienced. The market will return this summer, and it has expanded to other locations as well.

In contrast, the City Market in Charlottesville, Virginia brims with white faces on a typical Saturday, despite solving transportation and cost barriers. Indeed, the market runs near several low-income and minority neigh-

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borhoods, such as the primarily African-American 10th and Page neighborhood, as well as public housing projects like Friendship Court located one block south. Less than a mile away, residents of these neighborhoods can access the market by foot or on a free trolley offered by the Charlottesville Area Transit system. In addition, the market accepts SNAP benefits and matches purchases made with SNAP worth up to ten dollars through a coupon program funded by the Wholesome Wave Foundation.

However, market visitors still do not proportionately represent the City of Charlottesville. According to a recent study, 80 percent of shoppers are white, and 75 percent hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. While 37 percent of Charlottesville residents earn less than $25,000 per year, only 11 percent of market shoppers do. In addition, a prominent community of immigrants from African countries and Burma generally does not attend the market.

The disparity in demographics between the market population and the surrounding city population means that the SNAP matching program remains underutilized. Kyle Gardiner, the SNAP and Financial Coordinator for the nonprofit Market Central that administers the programs for SNAP and debit card purchases, provided insight. Most SNAP users attend sparingly, and they prove disproportionately responsive to bad weather. In cold temperatures or rain, the relative drop in SNAP customers proves much higher than the drop in debit customers. He observed that a plurality of SNAP users fit the cultural expectations of customers who would visit the market without the matching program. Therefore, the program benefits young counter-cultural mothers and “hippie” types that are already conscious of the benefits of farmers markets but fails to reach out to a large, low-income population that 70

does not attend the market.

The majority of white faces and the failure of the SNAP program to reach out to low-income populations have roots in a variety of factors. For one, many people perceive that shopping at the City Market is more expensive than shopping at the grocery store. For the most part, and especially in terms of fresh produce, this perception proves unfounded. Farmers market prices can often compete with grocery store prices for most products, except those with high-intensity production methods, such as berries and meats.

Shoppers can often purchase in-season produce at prices near or lower than those at the grocery store. For example, a conventional vendor called Potluck Farms sells tomatoes for $1.50 per pound at the peak of the season, compared to two dollars a pound at Food Lion, and organic tomatoes fetch a slightly higher price.

In addition, the format of shopping at the City Market often proves radically different than that which low-income populations are accustomed. For example, they must choose between four or five stands that sell exactly the same product, often for the same price. In general, consumers do not respond well to a vast amount of choice, so shopping at the farmers market can overwhelm low-income or minority populations if they are not assimilated in a smooth manner. Purchasing directly from the producer provides a stark contrast from the anonymity of the supermarket, and most seasoned shoppers at the City Market appear to know exactly how to interact with farmers and each other. The high-energy, high-volume environment can intimidate new customers. Finally, the market provides very little compatibility for non-native English speakers, save a few Latino farmers spread across the grounds.

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has neglected to embrace several potential solutions that could attract low-income and minority populations from the market. For example, the market’s dearth of minority farmers can discourage minority populations from entering. Only four Latino vendors sell produce at the market, compared to about 45 white produce vendors. The market does purvey a variety of ethnic prepared foods, such as Filipino fare, Chinese dumplings, and Mexican tacos. However, the orientation towards cultural food attracts a mostly white, ethnically vacuous population that sees the dishes as an exotic luxury.

Low-income people do not come to the market for prepared food and cannot purchase prepared food with SNAP benefits. African Americans run two of the staple baked goods booths, but the presence of minority baked goods vendors does not increase access to healthy foods. While minorities are better represented among prepared food vendors, the whiteness of produce vendors can discourage SNAP users from coming to the market to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables.

Clearly, the presence of ethnic prepared food stands provides evidence of the market’s attempts to cater to the tastes of affluent white customers. However, the market has made very few attempts to cater to the cultural preferences of minorities in its product mix. Instead, the market primarily offers produce perceived as “high-class.” The difference between the types of produce sold in the grocery store and the City Market provides a real barrier to minority populations who may not be used to greens like kale or arugula. For example, Radical Roots, one of the most prominent vendors at the market, sells five different types of lettuce, none of which are iceberg and all of which are unfamiliar to food-insecure populations new to the market. In contrast, all of the Latino

farmers sell conventionally grown produce. While low-income populations do have the option to purchase conventional produce at lower prices than organic, it may prove difficult to find the four conventional farmers surrounded by ten times as many non-conventional vendors.

Perhaps real change in minority vendor representation and culturally appropriate product mix would stem from minority and low-income participation in organizational boards. However, such a solution proves infeasible because the market’s organizational resources remain exceedingly weak. The market’s two managers work part-time and lack the resources to build a greater vision for the market that includes outreach to low-income and minority populations.

In reality, the organizational infrastructure necessary to include minorities and low-income community members does not exist.

The market does have a board of vendors, but it faces several structural problems that preclude the inclusion of minority vendors. First, the board does not have much power and is rarely convened or consulted when decisions about the market are made. Second, the very nature of the market’s farmers results in a board that does not proportionately represent the vendors. Most of the vendors are younger environmentalist “hippie” types driven by the desire to challenge industrial food pathways. They recognize the value of organizational boards in community efforts. Therefore, the vendor board tends to over-represent the left-leaning young counter-cultural farmers that are indeed most likely to be white and more affluent than vendors on average. In contrast, all four of the Latino farmers run conventional farms.

As conventional farmers, they typically run much larger operations that serve a number of markets, so they often cannot

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devote their time towards developing the City Market in particular. For these reasons, minority representation in managerial boards or vendor boards remains unlikely at the City Market.

Though the Charlottesville City Market has addressed transportation and cost barriers that exclude food-insecure populations from the market, it has not managed to address the more formidable aura of affluent whiteness that discourages low-income and minority populations from participating. The culture of the City Market, like many other farmers markets around the country, results from the rise of urban sprawl and industrial agriculture, ignorance of the racial realities of agriculture, and the importance of counter-cultural ideology. However, farmers markets can still return to their historically inclusive nature and further their goal of increasing access to healthy foods in food desert neighborhoods.

Markets such as La Plaza Latino Market in Richmond, Virginia have embraced solutions such as choosing locations that service multiple demographics, catering to various cultural preferences in their product mix, representing minorities as vendors, and incorporating low-income and minority groups in organizational capacities. Making such changes may challenge farmers market managers to strike a balance between the dual goals of supporting local farmers and increasing access to fresh fruits and vegetables, but in doing so, they could create vast new opportunities for food justice movements that address serious inequities in the food environment.

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References Explications, Potential Solutions, and Case Studies 1.

Love Velitjelos, interview with author, Richmond, Virginia, November 10, 2013.

2.

“Farmers Market History,” City of Richmond, accessed December 2, 2013, http://www.richmondgov.com/ FarmersMarket/History.aspx.

3.

Marisol Dayton, “History of Farmers Markets in the U.S.,” last modified February 5, 2010, http://www.culinaryarts360.com/index.php/ history-of-farmers-markets-in-us-13357/.

4.

Robert Gottlieb, Environmentalism Unbound: Exploring New Pathways for Change (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001), 255.

5.

Gottlieb, Environmentalism Unbound, 255.

6.

Gottlieb, Environmentalism Unbound, 256.

7.

Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi, Food Justice (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010), 165.

8.

Gottlieb and Joshi, Food Justice, 166.

9.

Gottlieb and Joshi, Food Justice, 165.

10.

Gottlieb, Environmentalism Unbound, 256.

11.

Gottlieb and Joshi, Food Justice, 165.

12.

Gottlieb, Environmentalism Unbound, 257.

13.

Julie Guthman, “’If They Only Knew:’ The Unbearable Whiteness of Alternative Food,” ed. Alison Hope Alkon (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011), 265.

14.

Gottlieb and Joshi, Food Justice, 165.

15.

Andy Fisher, “Hot Peppers and Parking Lot Peaches: Evaluating Farmers’ Markets in Low Income Communities” (report presented to the Community Food Security Coalition, Venice, California, January 1999), 16.

16.

Gottlieb and Joshi, Food Justice, 165.

17.

Alison Hope Alkin and Christie Grace McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets: Constructions, Perpetuations, Contestations?” Antipode 43: 4 (2011): 939.

18.

Gottlieb and Joshi, Food Justice, 165.

19.

Gottlieb and Joshi, Food Justice, 166.

20.

Guthman, “’If They Only Knew,’” 269.

21.

Guthman, “’If They Only Knew,’” 269.

22.

Alkin and McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets,” 938.

23.

Alkin and McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets,” 940.

24.

Guthman, “’If They Only Knew,’” 269.

25.

Guthman, “’If They Only Knew,’” 270.

26.

Guthman, “’If They Only Knew,’” 267.

27.

Alkin and McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets,” 945.

28.

Guthman, “’If They Only Knew,’” 273.

29.

Alkin and McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets,” 945.

30.

Julie Guthman, “Bringing Good Food to Others: Investigating the Subjects of Alternative Food Practice,” Cultural Geographies 15: 431 (2008): 435.

31.

Alkin and McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets,” 945.

32.

Kyle Gardiner, interview with author, Charlottesville, Virginia, December 8, 2013.

33.

Guthman, “’If They Only Knew,’” 273.

34.

Guthman, “’If They Only Knew,’” 276.

35.

Guthman, “Bringing Good Food to Others,” 436.

36.

Drew Pautenade, “17th Street: First Market Square,” last modified April 19, 2011, http://urmappingamericanhistory.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/17th-streetone-ofamericas-first-public-markets/.

37.

“Farmers Market History.”

38.

Alkin and McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets,” 945.

39.

Alkin and McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets,” 944.

40.

Julie Guthman, “Fast Food/Organic Food: Reflexive Tastes and the Making of ‘Yuppie Chow,’” ed. Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik (New York: Rout-

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41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

ledge, 2013), 504.

Julie Guthman, “Fast Food/Organic Food: Reflexive Tastes and the Making of ‘Yuppie Chow,’” ed. Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik (New York: Routledge, 2013), 503.

Guthman, “Bringing Good Food to Others,” 435.

Alkin and McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets,” 949.

Alkin and McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets,” 950.

Guthman, “’If They Only Knew,’” 267.

Guthman, “’If They Only Knew,’” 270.

Alkin and McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets,” 950.

Gottlieb and Joshi, Food Justice, 164.

Fisher, “Hot Peppers,” 28.

Fisher, “Hot Peppers,” 19.

Fisher, “Hot Peppers,” 19.

Fisher, “Hot Peppers,” 29.

Gottlieb and Joshi, Food Justice, 164.

Fisher, “Hot Peppers,” 20.

Alkin and McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets,” 945.

Alkin and McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets,” 946.

Alkin and McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets,” 952.

Guthman, “’If They Only Knew,’” 274.

Fisher, “Hot Peppers,” 40.

Alkin and McCullen, “Whiteness in Farmers Markets,” 952.

Nick Feucht, interview with author, Charlottesville, Virginia, November 21, 2013.

Anne de Chastonay, Carla Jones, Natalie Roper, and Erica Stratton, “Have a Stake in the Market: Collecting, Analyzing, and Sharing Data in Support of the Charlottesville City Market” (JPC Report, University of Virginia, 2011).

Gardiner, interview, 2013.

Gardiner, interview, 2013.

Gardiner, interview, 2013.

Gardiner, interview, 2013.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Guthman, Julie. “Bringing Good Food to Others: Investigating the Subjects of Alternative Food Practice.”

Cultural Geographies 15: 431 (2008): 431-447.

Guthman, Julie. “Fast Food/Organic Food: Reflexive Tastes and the Making of ‘Yuppie Chow.’” In Food and Culture, edited by Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, 496-509. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Guthman, Julie. “’If They Only Knew:’ The Unbearable Whiteness of Alternative Food.” In Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability, edited by Alison Hope Alkon, 263-281. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011.

Pautenade, Drew. “17th Street: First Market Square.”

Last modified April 19, 2011. http://urmappingamericanhistory.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/17th-streetoneof-americas-first-public-markets/.

Velitjelos, Love. Interviewed by author. Personal communication. Richmond, Virginia, November 10, 2013.

Bibliography 1.

Alkon, Alison Hope and Christie Grace McCullen.

“Whiteness in Farmers Markets: 2.

Constructions, Perpetuations, Contestations?” Antipode 43: 4 (2011): 937-959.

3.

City of Richmond. “Farmers Market History.” Accessed December 2, 2013. http://www.richmondgov.com/ FarmersMarket/History.aspx.

4.

Dayton, Marisol. “History of Farmers Markets in the U.S.” Last modified February 5, 2010. http://www.culinaryarts360.com/index.php/ history-of-farmers-markets-in-us-13357/.

5.

De Chastonay, Anne; Carla Jones; Natalie Roper; and Erica Stratton. “Have a Stake in the Market: Collecting, Analyzing, and Sharing Data in Support of the Charlottesville City Market.” JPC Report, University of Virginia, 2011.

6.

Feucht, Nick. Interviewed by author. Telephone communication. Charlottesville, Virginia, November 21, 2013.

7.

Fisher, Andy. “Hot Peppers and Parking Lot Peaches: Evaluating Farmers’ Markets in Low Income Communities.” Report presented to the Community Food Security Coalition, Venice, California, January 1999.

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Gardiner, Kyle. Interviewed by author. Personal communication. Charlottesville, Virginia, December 8, 2013.

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Gottlieb, Robert and Anupama Joshi. Food Justice.

Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010.

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Gottlieb, Robert. Environmentalism Unbound: Exploring New Pathways for Change. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001.

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ImprovINg health, wellbeINg aND lIvelIhooD vIa water loaNS for the perI-urbaN IN baNgalore, INDIa Jeremy Jones, Sumedha Deshmukh, Virginia Dittmar

Sumedha (left) is a third-year from Virginia Beach, VA. She is studying Economics in the College of Arts & Sciences and is in the Accelerated Master of Public Policy program in the Frank Batten School.

Jeremy (center) is a third-year from Tallahassee, Florida in the Frank Batten School studying Public Policy & Leadership and Biology in the College of Arts & Sciences. Virginia (right) is a third year from Charlottesville, Virginia in the College of Arts & Sciences double majoring in Economics with a concentration in Finance and Spanish. They spent July of 2015 in Bangalore, India working with Navya Disha collecting data for this study.

AbstrAct This study analyzed the impacts of Water Credit, a microfinance model that supports the construction of water, sanitation, and hygiene projects by providing low interest capital. It was established in 2003 by Water.org CEO Gary White in response to crippling interest rates charged to lower-income families in India. This multi-step research project explored the impacts of Water Credit on the health, wellbeing, and economic situations of peri-urban slum-dwellers in Bangalore, India, as well as possible barriers to its utilization. The team used Rapid Appraisal techniques and conducted in-depth interviews with 11 local key informants, led small focus groups with 76 clients total, and analyzed data from 1,555 household surveys conducted by a community partner, Navya Disha, to assess the implications of water connections and toilets. The team observed a large gap between the growth of Bangalore and the area adequately covered by the Bangalore Water and Sanitation Supply Board, indicating a pressing need for additional outside support. Toilet possession was correlated with increased economic welfare. Furthermore, a majority of women cited benefits due to their participation in Water Credit, including increased disposable time, social benefits, and greater involvement in financial matters. As a result of statistical analysis and the needs expressed by participants, the team’s recommendations center around increasing interaction with governmental services in an effort to bridge current reimbursement shortcomings, continuing and expanding current educational programs to underscore the long term economic benefits of toilet construction, and expanding the scope of Navya Disha’s loan program to include income-generating assets. These findings are being presented to Navya Disha for advisement as they plan their future programs.

Introduction

W

ater is essential to life, yet UNICEF’s most recent assessment shows only 25% of Indian homes have clean drinking water on their premises and only 33% have toilets (UNICEF 2008; Snyder 2014). Over half of India’s population practices open defecation (~590 million people), and unsafe drinking water and sanitation contribute to 88% of deaths from diarrheal diseases and 21% of all cases of communicable diseases (CDC; World Bank). Further, the World Bank estimates that India loses 6.4% of its GDP due to inadequate sanitation facilities (World Bank 2006).

However, even these statistics fail to encapsulate the emotional component of the lack of water and sanitation. Females experience harassment, sexual violence, and extreme shame in practicing open

defecation. They travel large distances and wait until dawn or dusk to use the restroom, putting their health and safety at risk (Fredby 2012).

The Indian government has attempted to create a cultural change through legal policies and distribution of grants to cover the cost of toilets, but has had limited success. An innovative approach to address this issue comes from Water Credit, a program championed by Water.org. It leverages the microfinance model of the original Grameen Bank established by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus to enable low-income families to take ownership of their own water and sanitation conditions.

This is the strategy used by Navya Disha, a charitable trust in Bangalore, India. It was founded in 2005 and is managed by the a microfinance institution Grameen Koota Financial Services

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Pvt Ltd as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility mandated by Indian law (Ministry of Corporate Affairs 2013).

Through Navya Disha, 5% of Grameen Koota’s profits go towards addressing pressing local needs. In 2009, they partnered with Water.org to improve water and sanitation in the area through Water Credit.

Women are organized into groups called kendras where they share joint liability for the loans taken out by fellow members. Water Credit loans typically range from 1000-15000 rupees (74-221 USD) and are used to construct individual piped water connections and sanitation facilities. Navya Disha uses educational campaigns highlighting the importance of water and sanitation to generate demand for these loans, which is their main responsibility according to a Water.org auditor. Afterwards, they follow up with loan utility checks, ensuring construction was completed, investigating whether it was working and being used.

However, this approach seemed to understate the potential benefits of Water Credit. Navya Disha welcomed us to perform a Rapid Appraisal Assessment analyzing the effects of Water Credit in terms of health, wellbeing, and economic situation of peri-urban residents in Bangalore and the surrounding regions for a holistic view of benefits. This study also analyzed factors that could both encourage and preclude participation in the program. This knowledge is important for Navya Disha as it continues to improve and modify its existing systems to maximize the benefits of Water Credit Loans.

Methodology Both qualitative and quantitative tools were used to assess Nayva Disha clients’ health, social, and economic well-being 76

after receiving microfinance loans.

Our primary qualitative data collection was achieved through Rapid Appraisal, a technique that employs “triangulation” (Beebe 1995). Tightly honed lists of variables are obtained by at least two data sources, preferably from different methodological techniques.

First, we interviewed key informants who provided us with greater insight into the work already being done in the area. Key informants included members of the NGO at all levels, a Water.org auditor, and relevant government officials, such as the Chairman of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) and BWSSB engineers. The interviews were in-depth yet conversational, and were driven by a predetermined topic list. They provided us with a broader picture of the health, social, and economic climate in Bangalore.

Following the key informant interviews, we ran small, homogeneous focus groups of Nayva Disha clients from five subareas, studying 76 clients total. The focus groups also followed a pre-set topic list, adaptable to the direction of the clients’ conversations. Water Credit clients with particularly insightful perspectives were interviewed in greater depth to use as case studies.

We supplemented these qualitative findings with quantitative data from 1,555 household surveys provided by Navya Disha and secondary analyses of project documents. These numbers were analyzed using difference-in-means hypothesis, testing to decipher factors that contributed to the presence or absence of a toilet at a statistically significant level. We used the 99% confidence level (p-value<0.01) as the statistical benchmark. We then compared these results to the results obtained from the key informant interviews and focus groups.

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Kendra Meeting

Results Benefits Initial findings supported pre-site research highlighting the necessity of on-site toilet connections. Women cited reduced shame and fear as the greatest benefit of having a toilet, as they no longer had to use the restroom in open spaces under the cover of night. They previously restricted their diets, dehydrating themselves and skipping meals to avoid using the restroom. Clients also reported fewer doctorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s visits after obtaining water connections and sanitation facilities. The head of the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene program estimated that medical expenses dropped from 2000-3000 rupees (29-45 USD) to 500-1000 rupees (7-15 USD) on average, leaving more disposable income for savings.

Focus groups also revealed increased potential for income-generation.

Water collection could take the majority of a day and walking to defecate, close to an hour. Reduced distances saved the women several hours per day, which was an opportunity to earn supplementary income. For example, clients made approx-

imately 100 beedis (Indian cigarettes) in an hour, a potential income increase of approximately 200 rupees (3 USD).

Others reported that they had more time for tailoring, or could charge neighbors a small fee for access to the water taps.

Further, concerns about the time cost and economic burden associated with loans and kendra meetings were dispelled as the women unanimously found the loan payments manageable and preferred the weekly model due to the social benefits, ease, and size of payments.

It is likely that this combination of benefits and personal ownership contributes to the utilization of the constructed toilets. A criticism of development work is that projects are constructed and then not used. For example, a Rice Institute study of sanitation in India found that 40% of families in rural north India with a working latrine had at least one member of the family that continued to defecate in the open for cultural reasons (Coffey 2014). However, Navya Dishaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s survey results provided refreshing support, as only 6.4% of households who constructed toilets through Water Credit had members that did not use the toilets.

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This highlights the value of Navya Disha’s education programs being included in tandem with raw capital. Caution must be taken in interpretation, however, as respondents may have been hesitant to report disuse to Navya Disha.

Further, while proximity to water and sanitation facilities reduced workloads, water collection was still fairly time consuming. Water taps only worked at certain times during the week, meaning women had to structure their schedules around water collection. Additionally, water from constructed taps was from bore wells and was not potable. So, in addition to the water collection itself, women needed to boil the water before drinking. While all boiled water for their children, very few boiled it for themselves, citing taste as the reason. This is worrisome, as there are many contagions in bore well water. This aligned with the self-reported rise in health expenditures during the monsoon season, when wells had more contamination from runoff.

Because of this, some households had to purchase drinking water. Private suppliers charged high prices, while BWSSB suppliers were regulated at six rupees per 1000 liters, causing a disproportionate strain in some areas.

Barriers Through focus groups and survey data, we identified several key factors correlated with the presence or absence of toilets. For example, households with toilets made approximately 1,081.27 rupees ($16 USD) more each month than those that did not, on average. As shown in Figure 1, as the monthly income increased, the percentage of households with toilets also increased.

Housing material was another important factor. There were two categories of surveyed houses—kaccha, made of natural materials such as mud, and pakka, made of stronger materials 78

such as bricks and concrete. There was a large, statistically significant difference between these two materials. 64.2% of pakka (stronger) houses had toilets, while only 29.5% of kaccha (natural) houses had toilets. Housing material is likely linked to household incomes, which may explain some of the variance.

Beyond that, kaccha houses have higher upkeep costs, making toilets a lower priority.

The size of the family was also relevant. Families with toilets were larger than families without, at a statistically significant level. Table 1 summarizes the correlation between family size and toilets. In addition to greater demand for a toilet, larger households likely include elder members of the family, making the toilet more necessary.

There were also important geographical distinctions within Bangalore’s 800 square kilometers. The level of development varies drastically across this area, unsurprisingly affecting the presence— or lack thereof—of water and sanitation.

This is due in part to resources, but also largely to the relative amount of social pressure regarding sanitation. In densely populated areas, open defecation is more difficult and embarrassing, as individuals must walk relatively large distances to defecate. This elevates the importance of toilets in densely populated areas.

Less developed areas, however, do not feel this pressure, and are thus less likely to view toilets as a priority. Additionally, traditional beliefs were more pervasive in rural communities due to lower levels of education, in general. For example, ancestry and religion were cited as reasons for not constructing a toilet, reflecting the impact of traditional beliefs on sanitation. Finally, rural areas often had terrain that made construction more difficult and costly.

Surprisingly, owners of residential houses were less likely to have toilets

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Figure 1. Percentage of Households with Toilets based on Household Monthly Income

Family Size

% of Households with a Toilet

Single

48.3%

Four Members (Excluding Single Individuals)

55.3%

Four Members

65.0%

Table 1. The Effect of Family Size on Presence of Toilet

Figure 2. Reasons for Not Constructing a Toilet

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than landlords. Though higher incomes were generally associated with the presence of a toilet and home ownership, landlords had greater incentive to have toilets on their property because of the high supply of rental properties. On the other hand, most homeowners constructed their houses themselves, giving them the option to not prioritize toilets.

This was also linked to geography— renting was common in relatively urban areas and owning in relatively rural areas.

Furthermore, there was less cultural impetus for toilet construction in more rural regions, partially due to misconceptions regarding sanitation.

According to the Executive Director of Navya Disha, people often thought toilet construction could cost as much as three times the actual cost, and assumed it would have a foul odor, leading to a negative prejudice towards toilet construction. (See Figure 2) Outcomes Sustainability Interactions with both NGO and government employees revealed there was little to no collaboration between the two, making Water Credit more temporary than anticipated. The Chairman of the BWSSB said that though only 550 square kilometers of the 800 covered by the BWSSB are currently being served, they hope to cover Bangalore fully with 4 years. This will greatly affect the water and sanitation landscape in the area.

Toilets funded by Water Credit have two alternating pits, with each pit being emptied every five months, on average. Once sewerage connections to the mainline are available, these toilets will become obsolete and must be reconstructed. In the short-term, if not properly emptied, the toilets would become dirty and unusable.

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Water connections were also fairly problematic. Bangalore’s rapid expansion has put a considerable strain on the water supply. In peri-urban areas, the water table dropped from 200 feet to 1000 feet over 10 years. This water is no longer potable and is clearly not a longterm viable source. Like toilets, if households want consistent access to potable water, they will have to connect to the main government line.

Therefore, greater cooperation between Navya Disha and the government is vital in making sustainable improvements to water and sanitation. A staff member could act as a liaison between the two entities, in order to coordinate efforts and construction with the BWSSB. This grassroots connection could also help the BWSSB in obtaining funding from sources like the World Bank.

Another way to increase sustainability is promoting efficient water usage.

Rainwater harvesting, for example, would reduce consumption in a water-scarce region. Such harvesting is also strongly tied to having a toilet—79.9% of households that harvest rainwater have toilets, compared to 56.9% who do not harvest rainwater, a statistically significant difference. This appears to be an effective way of collecting the additional water required to maintain a toilet.

Education Education is key to creating cultural change. Navya Disha’s Sushikshina program uses games, videos, and interactive activities to shift cultural attitudes and teach ninth grade students about water, sanitation, and hygiene. These students then make immediate changes not only in their own habits, but also in those of their parents. This education will help create systemic change, like promoting hand-washing, that will last for generations. Additionally, it can address many of the cultural barriers such

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as misconceptions about prices and odor associated with toilets.

The education of the area’s children also provides a potential opportunity, as parents understand the value of boiling water for their children. Educated children can then encourage parents to boil water for themselves as well, helping to reduce the incidence of preventable disease. They can also emphasize the economic benefits of in-home water and sanitation, allowing for a multidimensional approach to demand generation and intergenerational cultural change.

More Indian households have cellphones than toilets, likely because its economic and social value is readily apparent (Sunderarajan 2012). If Sushikshina’s programs emphasize ways water and sanitation are similarly valuable, then they can capitalize on the sentiments that led to widespread cell phone usage.

Efficiency & Value Another way to maximize the efficacy of the loans is to hire a staff member who specializes in government grant reimbursement. As part of India’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan initiative, families that build toilets can be reimbursed for the cost of the toilet, reducing risk assumed by the household (Prime Minister’s Office 2014). In fact, one woman we interviewed was able to make a profit off of this reimbursement by completing some of the labor for the toilet herself and lowering the cost of construction.

According to the household surveys, though, only 39.9% of houses that constructed toilets received the grant reimbursement from the government.

This is important because 356 of the 632 households (56.3%) that did not have toilets listed economic hardships as the reason. We believe Navya Disha could benefit from hiring someone who helps families obtain their government grant in order to alleviate the perceived

risk and economically incentivize toilet investment.

Astoundingly, zero of the 76 women interviewed in focus groups thought of the loan payments as a burden. When asked if they would prefer a different payment model, the women unanimously preferred the weekly model due to the social benefits and the increased ease and size of the payments. They also noted improvements in their well-being, alluded to upward social mobility, and said they felt more empowered in their households.

There were some shortcomings, though. Microfinance aims to catalyze self-sufficiency, yet many were clients of 10 years or more. They lamented the small size of the loans, despite their proven credibility, saying they were unable buy capital for their family business (as opposed to renting it) or lease a house.

The women proposed that Navya Disha provide assets that could be used for income-generation, which they could pay off using a similar model. They felt this would prevent husbands from misusing funds and allow them to acquire larger scale resources.

Since there is a 100,000-rupee microfinance loan cap set by the Reserve Bank of India, there should be a program to assist in accessing traditional financial institutions to take out larger loans for leasing homes. Creating credit history through loan repayment and having a transition program into banks would help them escape landlords, who were known to suddenly hike rental rates, allowing for greater financial stability.

Implications & Limitations Despite the speed of Rapid Appraisal Assessment techniques, we found time to be a major limitation in research.

Building a relationship with the Navya Disha staff, community members, and

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scheduling key informant interviews required time and we wanted to reach more participants. Furthermore, we intended to conduct last-step surveys for quantitative data, but did not have adequate time to do so. The focus groups were not fully conversational in tone due to language barriers. There were also instances where the focus groups became slightly larger than desired because there were many women eager to participate.

Furthermore, we are unsure of the implications of using male translator and whether or not that impeded organic conversation. Despite our best efforts, we remain outsiders, and our translator was male. These women likely were less willing to open up to us on some topics due to this, and even more so with a male translator. It would have also been interesting for us to speak to men and compare their responses to the women’s.

This project provided significant insight on the perspectives of women in the peri-urban areas and generated potential areas of development for Navya Disha. Currently, we are preparing a report that will illustrate all that we learned and offer up suggestions for some of Grameen Koota and Navya Disha’s existing programs. We intend to maintain a relationship with our community partner and follow their program as it continues to develop.

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2.

3.

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5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

References

Beebe, James. Basic Concepts and Techniques of Rapid Rural Appraisal. Spokane, WA: Gonzaga University, 1995. Print.

Fredby, J. (2012). Nowhere to go: How a lack of safe toilets threatens to increase violence against women in slums. Water Aid. India. (2015). Retrieved February 07, 2016, from http:// data.worldbank.org/country/india Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Corporate Social Responsibility. (2013). Retrieved February 6, 2016, from http:// www.mca.gov.in/SearchableActs/Section135.htm Modi, Narendra. Towards a Swachh Bharat. (2014).

Retrieved February 05, 2016, from http://pmindia.gov. in/en/government_tr_rec/swachh-bharat-abhiyan-2/ Pierce, J. (2015, May 12). MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Easing Regulations to Allow Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) to Loan up to $1,600 to Borrowers Earning up to $2,500. Retrieved February 06, 2016, from http://www.microcapital.org/ microcapital-brief-reserve-bank-of-india-rbi-easing-regulations-to-allow-microfinance-institutions-mfis-to-loan -up-to-1600-to-borrowers-earning-up-to-2500/ Snyder, Shannyn. “Water in Crisis - India.” The Water Project. http://thewaterproject.org/water-in-crisisindia. 30 Nov 2014.

Sunderajan, P. (2012, March 14). Half of India’s homes have cellphones, but not toilets. Retrieved February 08, 2016, from http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ half-of-indias-homes-have-cellphones-but-not-toilets/ article2992061.ece Tyagi, Anupam. Economic Impacts of Inadequate Sanitation in India. Water and Sanitation Program, 2001.

Print.

“Water, Environment, and Sanitation.” UNICEF India.

1 Jan. 2008. http://www.unicef.org/india/wes.html. 15 Nov. 2014.

Coffey, D., Gupta, A., Hathi, P., Khurana, N., Spears, D., Srivastav, N., & Vyas, S. (2014, June 26). Revealed Preference for Open Defecation: Evidence from a new survey in rural north India (Working paper). Retrieved February 10, 2016, from Research Institute for Compassionate Economics website: http://riceinstitute.org/ research/revealed-preference-for-open-defecation-evidence-from-a-new-survey-in-rural-north-india-longerworking-paper/

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the getty kouroS: faIlureS of StylIStIC aND SCIeNtIfIC aNalySIS IN DetermINatIoN of autheNtICIty Claire Councill

Claire Councill is a third-year student from High Point, North Carolina studying Art History and Economics.

She is particularly interested in how these two disciplines intersect in the art market, and her research is focused on issues regarding the commodification, valuation, and restitution of art. This thesis was written in the spring of 2015 for Professor Anastasia DakouriHildâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Art History seminar on the cultural politics involving antiquities.

AbstrAct The Getty Kouros entered the public consciousness when it was presented to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, California for acquisition in 1983. The emergence of this well-preserved Archaic Greek youth, seemingly out of thin air, has sparked a decades-long debate about its authenticity that has produced stylistic analysis from many of the brightest scholarly minds in the field and a range of scientific testing.

The inconclusive nature of these studies, even to this day, has forced scholars to reconsider seemingly fool-proof methods of authentication and to acknowledge the limits of our collective knowledge about this period in Greek sculptural art history.

Additionally, the wealth of knowledge produced and pooled together in this debate has provided a rare opportunity to investigate the methods of stylistic and scientific analysis employed in the efforts to prove or disprove the authenticity of an ancient work.

My paper will first explore the multiple attempts to determine the Getty Kourosâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; authenticity through stylistic analysis and scientific analysis, including the influence of the emergence of an obviously fake, but strikingly similar, kouros forgery introduced to the scholarly community by Dr. Jeffrey Spier. After presenting the arguments, I will use the relative success of both scientific and stylistic analysis as a jumping off point to consider the importance of determining authenticity and exploring its effect on the perception, understanding, and value of a cultural artifact or work of art.

Introduction and Emergence in the Market

T

he appearance of an ancient Greek Archaic Kouros, dated to around 530 BC, in Malibu, California on September 18, 1983 captured the attention of scholars, collectors, and curators not only due to its lack of an exhibition history but also for its extraordinary rarity as a relatively undamaged work of monumental Archaic sculpture. The Getty Kouros, pictured in Figure One, was imported from Switzerland, where it was once believed to have been held in the collection of Dr. Jean Lauffenburger for fifty years. Documentary evidence in the form of photocopied letters suggested that the Kouros had been viewed by some of the most well-respected ancient Greek scholars, curators, and collectors, including the great scholar Professor Ernst Langoltz (True 1987: 13). However, the letters were quickly declared to be forgeries, and any association with the

Lauffenburger Collection has since been dismissed; to this day, we know nothing about the statue prior to the year 1983.

After news of the Getty Kourosâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; appearance in the United States was made public, several scholars endorsed its authenticity, while many others publicly disagreed on grounds of unsound provenance, stylistic peculiarities, incongruities with the chronological record, and the odd surface appearance of the marble. However, after extensive stylistic analyses and scientific testing, the J. Paul Getty Museum decided to purchase the Kouros in 1985 for nine million dollars. Marion True, former Curator of Antiquities at the Getty Museum, published a piece in the January 1987 edition of Burlington Magazine explaining the reasoning behind the acquisition of the Getty Kouros. Here, she also expressed her doubts about the eclectic combination of the Kourosâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; stylistic details and its inability to fit comfortably into the style of any specific regional workshop. My

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paper will consider the following questions: how Marion True and the Getty Museum determined the Getty Kouros to be worthy of purchase, why the efforts to authenticate the Getty Kouros have been unsuccessful, and why the question of authenticity is crucial to our understanding of history.

Connoisseurship Connoisseurship has been the traditionally accepted method of determining authenticity and attribution of artifacts since the dawn of archaeology and art history. The achievement of expertise and connoisseurship is earned through first-hand familiarity with genuine objects and surviving material, intense study of the chronological, stylistic, and geographical categorizations of artifacts, and timely reading of current scholarly works. With respect to forgery detection and artifact authentication, this remarkable level of art historical or archaeological knowledge will, in theory, train a connoisseur’s intuition to discern incongruities in style, iconography, or material of an object that prevent it from fitting properly into an accepted category.

Perhaps the best known example of twentieth century connoisseurship, J. D. Beazley’s work with Athenian and Etruscan black and red figure vases, shows the ability of ‘a lifetime of careful study aided by a solid training in classics, an extraordinary memory, and an unfailing eye’ to detect and assign works to individual artists and workshops (Spier 1990: 623). However, this method of attribution is reliant on art historical chronological and regional categories.

Without categories developed through experience with genuine objects, art historians cannot detect forgeries as breaks in the established criteria. This is especially apparent when dealing with portions of the art historical canon that 86

lack an abundance of genuine examples, such as Archaic monumental sculpture.

Without a collection of genuine examples with which to compare an object in question, connoisseurs are left unable to accurately place it within chronological or regional parameters.

However, even without an abundance of genuine examples, connoisseurship cannot be dismissed entirely, as evidenced by Adolf Furtwängler’s detection of a forged Archaic Greek marble head through his ‘understanding of objects in terms of style, date, workshop, and iconography’ (Spier 1990: 623). The existence of fragments of at least two-hundred kouroi have allowed connoisseurs to better understand the aesthetics of ancient Greek Archaic monumental sculpture and to develop methods of stylistic analysis to be employed in the detection of forgeries.

Looking at the Getty Kouros, the majority of the first and most extensive debates over the question of its authenticity have focused on the use of stylistic analysis. Many of the arguments by both supporters and opponents of the Getty Kouros’ authenticity are expressed in the Getty Kouros Colloquium of 1987. Although the outcome of the colloquium was inconclusive in determining the authenticity of the Getty Kouros, scholars’ analyses illustrate the major stylistic issues relevant to the construction of arguments over attribution.

As Marion True posits in her article, “A Kouros at the Getty Museum” in Burlington Magazine in 1987, the reason the Getty Kouros cannot be comfortably attributed to a single regional workshop is that it exhibits the characteristics of three regions: Attica, Corinth or the Peloponnese, and Boeotia. According to True, ‘the coherent sense of underlying anatomical structure is commonly associated with Attica; the combination of elegant slenderness with muscular thighs

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and compressed buttocks recalls the Tenea kouros, usually taken to represent a Corinthian, or at least a Peloponnesian workshop; and the feet and base are closest to those of Figure no. 12 from the Ptoon sanctuary in Boeotia’ (True 1987: 48). The problem of assigning the Getty Kouros to a specific workshop, due to its issues with proportions, seemingly confused style, and unusual marble type can be attributed to the ‘sculptor’s inability to gather in one work all of the advances of the moment’ (True 1987: 47).

When assigning a piece to a workshop, we must consider the visual language and the resources that an artist in a particular location and time period would have followed and have had access to. The style of the Getty Kouros reveals a combination of individual features whose comparisons with other kouroi span almost an entire century.

This anomalous mixture, although problematic, is not impossible for Archaic art, especially considering the small sample size that historians of Archaic Greek sculpture have to work with. In determining the proper time period of an Archaic sculpture, scholars often turn to Gisela Richter’s widely accepted chronological placement system. However, according to Marion True, the Getty Kouros seems to diminish in date from its head to its feet, posing an issue for proper categorization.

If we examine the Getty Kouros from top to bottom, we are quickly made aware of the variety of influences acting upon it. We can see a visual comparison of the Getty Kouros in Figure Two to several previously authenticated Greek Kouroi in Figure Three. The curls of hair resting on the Getty Kouros’ forehead are seen as ‘unpleasantly doughy’ and show evidence of the artist’s intentional avoidance of a flaw in the marble (Harrison 1993: 22). According to Vassilis Lambrinoudakis, this deliberate use of a flawed

material would be atypical for an Archaic sculptor (Lambrinoudakis 1993: 33). The Kouros’ fourteen strands of long hair resemble the New York Kouros, dated to 580-590 BCE. However, the intersection of its rigid mass of hanging hair with the flesh of the back is reminiscent of trends more common in twentieth century sculpture (when a modern forgery would have been produced). While the facial expression of the Kouros appears forced, its smile is definitively Archaic. The flatness of the Getty Kouros’ upper torso, with its ‘boringly understated’ collarbones and almost inorganic pectorals, stands in direct contrast to the clearly defined abdominal region below it (Harrison 1993: 22). The curved depression under the Kouros’ abdominals bears resemblance to the Anavyssos Kouros of 540515 BCE, but its ‘harmonious symmetry of somatic outlines above and below the waist’ is reminiscent of the Tenea Kouros of 560 BCE (Marcadé 1993: 36). The Getty Kouros, like the Anavyssos Kouros and a Delian Kouros from the late 7th to early 6th century BCE, shows a negative reflection of the inner outline of the forearm in the outer contour of its adjacent thigh.

The Getty Kouros’ corporal vigor emanates solely from its thighs, unlike in the Anavyssos Kouros, where the vital axis creates a feeling of allover vigor.

The knee structure of the Getty Kouros, considered an anomaly by Brunilde Sismondo-Ridgeway, features a continuous curve all the way to the muscle above the patella instead of the two separate sections typical of kouroi knees. However, the Getty Kouros’ stiff and ‘almost ugly’ knees transition into realistic, fleshy feet characteristic of much later times. We know the sculptor had a deep understanding of late Archaic foot forms by the inward turn of the smallest toe. The long axis of the body is balanced by the widening foot, and its naturalistic step is also reminiscent of later works. Finally,

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the unusual nature of the Getty Kouros’ plinth reminds us of the Ptoon 12 or Akropolis 665 kouroi, and it leaves us questioning whether or not kouroi of the time would have to have been set into a base.

The plinth of the Getty Kouros, like the Phrasikleia, retains its plinth intact. This means that it would not have been embedded in a pedimental floor but rather would’ve been put on the surface. While this is not impossible, it would have been an unusual practice for the time.

As a whole, the Getty Kouros exhibits isolated insular features, an overall graphic style, and appears to be generally Attic. Suspicion has been aroused, however, concerning several weak details of the Getty Kouros, including the flatness of the torso, the schematic finger outline, and the rectilinear gluteal cleavage. Nevertheless, disparities in date, style, and execution are not sufficient to challenge the authenticity of an ancient statue such as this one. New discoveries are constantly bringing what we once believed to be established fact into question, and this is especially true in a field with as small a sample size as this one. Additionally, the subjective nature of connoisseurship forces us to be wary of making judgments based on a few or a single academics’ observations.

Because sculptors of ancient kouroi were not tied to a single workshop with daily production, Greek kouroi are far more personal and unpredictable than more commonly produced products such as pottery. Sculptors of statuary of this caliber had mobile productions in the sixth century, the posited period of the Getty Kouros’ construction. But, they could only learn and exercise their crafts on the islands where marble was quarried, causing them to be isolated from greater trends in Greek aesthetics of the time and thus more likely to produce works that seem disorganized stylistically. In stylistic analysis of other kouroi, 88

we find similar internal inconsistencies (Boardman 1993: 28), so we cannot condemn the Getty Kouros for its eclectic nature unless its individual details’ wide chronological range are deemed impossible to explain.

The Getty Kouros’ construction from Thasian dolomitic marble was not entirely uncommon during the Archaic period, but its use on this particular statue presents us with several perplexing issues to consider. According to Evelyn B. Harrison, this type of marble is ‘unfriendly to soft modulation and fine detail’, so its export was extraordinarily rare (Harrison 1993: 22). Athens was on the receiving end of the sixth century sculptural trade, and it is unlikely that an Athenian worker would go to work on the island of Thasos, where the Getty Kouros marble was quarried.

There is a chance that when Roman taste found popularity in Greece, Athenians accepted this marble for statuary production. Had this been the case, we would expect sculptures of this nature to be of the Northern Aegean style, but the Getty Kouros shows no evidence of this influence. No stylistic relationship has been found between existing fragmentary Thasian kouroi (which show Cycladic and Aeonian influences) and the Getty Kouros. However, because we have not fully explored the diffusion of marble during the Archaic period, the discontinuity between the marble and style of the Getty Kouros does not prove it to be a forgery.

The elegant, slender, and balanced proportions of the Getty Kouros make it perhaps the most appealing kouros to modern taste, and the piecing together, rather than the blending, of female and male elements is characteristic of modern artists’ interpretations of ancient ideals, as seen in the Athena Parthenos in Nashville, Tennessee. Additionally, the significance of its design and draughtsmanship

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of its head reveal a preference of design values to sculptural values. The studied nature of the Getty Kouros appears more modern than the Archaic sculptors’ emphasis on modeling. Like all kouroi, the Getty Kouros was created as an embodiment of the aristocratic ideal of physical and moral beauty (Stewart 1986: 54). However, Jean Marcadé argues that the iconography and style of the Getty Kouros may have been made to please a wealthy modern client rather than an ancient one.

The stylistic arguments, both in favor of and against the authenticity of the Getty Kouros, have left much to be clarified. The Getty Kouros poses important problems of confidence in our aging criteria, and the stylistic analyses performed on it reveal universal flaws in the practice of authentication through connoisseurship. In the construction of an argument either for or against the Kouros’ authenticity, each of the colloquium contributing scholars faced a similar dilemma, perhaps best articulated

by Sir John Boardman when he states that his stylistic judgements ‘depended both on my knowledge of other kouroi, which was incomplete, but perhaps more importantly on my interpretation of my knowledge of other kouroi’ (Boardman 1992 :28). The work of art historians and archaeologists depends on subjective, intuitive interpretation of artifacts based on the prior interpretation of similar, definitively genuine artifacts. Without a significant sample size and proper categorization of similar statuary, these scholars are left without a proper context to work within.

Scientific Analysis While the forgery of statuary has occurred since Roman times, the identification of fakes through scientific investigation is relatively recent. Until 1950, style,

form, workshops, and iconography were the sole criteria used by art historians and archaeologists in the determination of an artifact’s authenticity. However, from 1960 to the present day, scientific results have dominated aesthetic judgements in the process of authenticating marble statuary. The rapid technological developments since the 1950’s have allowed for more ‘detective-like’ investigations of objects of questionable provenance such as the Getty Kouros (Polikreti 2007: 603). The most notable of these developments include optical microscopy, ultra-violet fluorescence, patina analysis, provenance determination techniques, and thermoluminescence methodology.

Although scholars and scientists are now privileged with a host of techniques to use in the investigation of authenticity, the dating of marble has proven problematic. Because the bulk of a marble statue such as the Getty Kouros is made of geological material, attempts at determining the age of the statue would give us its geological age. Thus, there exists no single physicochemical technique to reliably solve problems with marble dating. The history of the statuary as an object born of human hands is recorded only through the patina, or the altered outer layer of a work made from marble. Statues’ outer layers can be affected by marble type, porosity, grain size, humidity, temperature, burial conditions, soil water composition, and past conservation techniques (Polikreti 2007: 604). Therefore, each statue has its own set of characteristics based on its material composition and history.

Investigations into the authenticity of a work such as the Getty Kouros typically begin with a visual examination of its surface features. Root-marks and toolmarks discovered on the statue’s surface can serve as great aids in the detection of a modern forgery, especially because they are very difficult to replicate in a lab-

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oratory. The visual examination of toolmarks on the Getty Kouros has proven especially helpful to scientific analysis.

Because the original carver’s tool marks are often preserved over time, we can sometimes identify the type of drill used to carve the statue and compare its invention and periods of use to the time period being considered as the statue’s construction date. Sharp edges are normally easy indicators of modern production. Additionally, many modern forgers will use an acid bath to give a statue the appearance of being aged or weathered over time. The surface of an acid-treated statue can be identified under a microscope because it will not show the layers of alteration expect of an old statue, and its overall appearance will be ‘dull and jelly-like’ (Polikreti 2007: 606). The Kouros torso (not to be confused with the Getty Kouros itself) purchased in 1990 by the Getty Museum was determined to be a forgery through the detection of this acid treatment. Its dull surface and evidence of modern burial (another popular stage in forgers’ attempts at artificial aging) were inconsistent with the patina characteristics of an ancient statue.

However, the Getty Kouros also shows evidence of acid treatment. While this may suggest it is a forgery, we must also remember that hydrochloric acid baths were used to clean statuary by past conservators (Von Bothmer 1964).

This issue of multiple plausible explanations for a single change in a sculpture’s patina necessitates multiple forms of scientific testing in order to draw any sort of conclusion about a statue’s past.

We must not be satisfied with visual examination of the patina; instead, we must further our scientific analysis by comparing its chemical composition, mineralogical composition, and morphology. During sculptural production, the sculptor’s chisel or drill fractures a thin layer of the surface of the marble, 90

leaving the patina vulnerable to water damage (Polikreti 2007: 610). Over time, “soil-water clays and suspended iron oxides” penetrate the surface damage and leave lasting effects in the healthier interior of the marble. The damaged layers of marble can be up to ten millimeters thick, depending on the statue’s marble type, age, and environment. Because natural patina creation occurs over time, an artificially aged statue can be detected by the uniform transition from marble to patina and by a lack of intra-layer weathering material expected given the conditions where it was discovered.

Even if a statue shows the existence and gradual decrease of weathering material suggestive of natural patina, the mineral content of this patina can also prove beneficial in authentication. In the patina of the Getty Kouros, ‘no organic material, lichen acids, spores, hyphae or polysaccharide compounds’ were found (Polikreti 2007: 612). Additionally, the calcium oxalates that make up the Getty Kouros’ patina are much more uniform than the complex make-up and morphology of biological calcium oxalate patinas that have been studied previously.

While both of these findings would suggest the recent application of a patina treatment, we are again confronted with a plausible counter-argument. Because the Thasian dolomitic marble of the Getty Kouros is more resistant to weathering than a calcitic type of marble, we can perhaps expect it to show less complex patination than other marbles that have been studied.

A d d i t i o n a l l y, this type of marble undergoes a process of dedolomitization, where contact between ground water and the marble’s surface causes magnesium ions to slowly be replaced by calcium ions. Identification of the calcium ions and not magnesium ions in the chemical composition of the Getty Kouros’ patina was at first believed to be evidence of dedolomitization

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and thus proof of its authenticity. In fact, the scientific analysis of the dedolomitization of the surface of the Getty Kouros

by Stanley Margolis, professor of geology at the University of California at Davis, was seen as significant enough to warrant the Getty’s purchase of the Kouros (Spier 1990: 629). However, another type of scientific analysis, X-Ray diffraction, showed that the surface layers were actually made up of calcium oxalate monohydrate (Doehne 1992: 174). This may suggest artificially stimulated dedolomitization, but no laboratory attempts to prove the possibility of initiating artificial dedolomitization have ever been successful. Again, scientific analysis of a single characteristic of a single statue has left us empty-handed. As with the acid treatment study, our level of scientific knowledge has failed us. Tests have reasonably proven a characteristic of the Getty Kouros’ patina, a sensible counter explanation for its existence (other than forgery) has been given, and further scientific testing has proven insufficient in validating either the claim of authenticity or artificial production.

We see the same phenomenon in two other instances as well: ultraviolet-induced fluorescence photography and radiocarbon dating. The use of ultraviolet light to identify a newly-worked piece of marble dates back to the 1920’s, when J. Rorimer discovered that observation under UV light causes ancient sculptures to appear bluish white and newly worked sculptures to appear reddish-violet, as shown in Figure Four (Polikreti 612-613). While this technique is popular for its relatively low cost and non-destructive procedure, we do not know much about how the colors relate to the specific marble properties or to the composition of the surface. Therefore, while the Getty Kouros is purple under UV light (an indicator of a newly-worked surface), the light is produced by the cal-

cium oxalate layer on its surface and not by the weathered marble itself (Doehne 1992). Again, the scientific conclusion is not useful in determining authenticity. A similar issue occurred in the radiocarbon dating of the Getty Kouros. While it dated the Getty Kouros to a few thousand years ago, it accounts for all of the 14C present in the patina of the Kouros, even though it could have originated ‘from different sources: recently precipitated calcite, the marble itself, lichens and other micro-organisms, or oxalic acid used for artificial patination’ (Polikreti 2007: 615). As we have seen with scientific analysis before, our objective process has left us with results that are nearly impossible to interpret given our current knowledge.

While the proper utilization of scientific analysis should not be overlooked in the determination of the authenticity of an artifact, we must also keep in mind the extent of our current scientific knowledge. Just in the case of the Getty Kouros, we have seen four examples of properly performed, ‘objective’ scientific tests leading to inconclusive results due to the limits of our knowledge about marble dating and the field of ancient Greek statuary as a whole. Although ‘sweeping generalizations made from insufficient samples’ sometimes cause illogical or inconclusive conclusions to be made, we must not forget that the only way to better our understanding is to continue building upon our sample size and knowledge base through experimentation (Spier 1990: 630).

Jeffrey Spier’s Introduction of a Fake Kouros Jeffrey Spier’s presentation of a fake kouros (depicted in Figure Five), likely made in Rome by Fernando Onore between 1984 and 1985, has further complicated the discussion of the authenticity of the Getty Kouros. There undoubt-

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edly exist multiple similarities between the forgery and the Getty Kouros: the rounded, sloping shoulder and upper arm treatment; the volume of the chest; the schematic rendering of the hands; and the size and shape of the genitals. Additionally, the two kouroi are both created from Thasian dolomitic marble, originally believed to be from the same quarry.

However, Norman Herz of the University of Georgia has since used a comparison of oxygen and carbon isotopes to determine that while the two statues are both made of Thasian dolomitic marble, they are produced from different veins.

Although it provided the evidence to differentiate the sources of the two statues’ materials, scientific proof has not provided conclusive evidence against a connection between the forgery and the Getty Kouros. However, the Getty’s purchase of the forgery in 1990 shows its perceived utility in determining the authenticity of the Getty Kouros. Turning back to stylistic analysis, we can look to the production methods of the forgery as evidence of its modern manufacture.

While the fake shows evidence of power tools, the Getty Kouros reveals no marks inconsistent with ancient Greek Archaic sculpture. Additionally, the Getty’s acid bath treatment is far more complex than the one given to the modern forgery.

Perhaps most interestingly, Dr. Jeffrey Spier, the man credited with bringing the forgery into the Getty Kouros discussion in the first place, announced to the scholarly community in 1990 that he had proof that the Getty Kouros and the modern forgery were both patinated by the same craftsman: the recipe for the patina. This interesting assertion allows us to approach its credibility from both a scientific and stylistic perspective. While Dr. Spier’s precise recipe for the patina lends itself well to technical research, it also requires scholarly expertise to determine whether or not it recreates a 92

surface appearance appropriate enough for the period and close enough to the Getty Kouros to properly identify it as a match. Whereas the attempts at aging the fake were made with identifiable agents, specifically iron oxide, the patina on the Getty Kouros has not been recreated in a lab in a way that scholars have deemed acceptable.

However, the existence of this fake Kouros has provided some scholars, especially Vassislis Lambrinoudakis, with reasonable evidence to suggest that the Getty Kouros is a modern reproduction as well (Lambrinoudakis 1993: 33). Both kouroi are analogous in their eclecticism and apparent disregard of the geographic and chronological categories of monumental Archaic Greek sculpture as well as their unusual Thasian dolomitic marble, especially given the lack of details suggestive of any Thasian influence.

Although the Getty Kouros and the modern forgery discovered by Dr. Jeffrey Spier show an obvious resemblance to one another, it is most likely that the forger of the fake saw photographs of the Getty Kouros or even gained access to it for a period of time. The different veins of Thasian marble, clearly identifiable agents of the forgery’s faux-aging, and different anatomical treatment of the modern forgery have revealed an obvious disparity in the knowledge of the Getty Kouros and forgery’s creators.

While studies on the modern forgery has not necessarily provided evidence in favor of the Getty Kouros’ authenticity, they have, through both scientific and stylistic analyses, determined that the works were created by two different sets of hands.

Conclusion Despite the countless scholarly discussions and scientific tests intended to determine the authenticity of the Getty

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Kouros, we are left empty-handed. In fact, even at its current home at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, California, the Getty Kouros is labelled as ‘Greek, about 530 B.C., or modern forgery’. The very inclusion and display of an unauthenticated work at a museum as prestigious as the Getty begs the question: does authentication matter? If so, why? For Sir John Boardman, proof, whether scientific or aesthetic, of the Getty Kouros’s authenticity matters to those who own the Kouros, to those who own the archaeological context, and to those who put their reputation on the line to either condemn or support the Kouros (Boardman 1993: 29).

With the exception of those with a reputation or money at stake, Boardman argues that a definitive answer about the Kouros does not matter because the statue does not greatly influence our judgement of Archaic Greek kouroi-making in a meaningful way. However, many scholars disagree. His fame has unconsciously affected our understanding of the kouros type, and if he turns out to be a fake, our perception of Archaic Greece may be forever altered.

Although far from any formal conclusion, the debate over the proper reconcil-

iation of stylistic and scientific methods has been furthered by the challenges presented by the Getty Kouros’ appearance and the extensive efforts devoted to understanding its origins. It has forced us to consider why the authentication of an artifact matters to our understanding of history, and how our understanding of history in turn shapes our modern life.

These physical reminders of our past are windows into an age that we would otherwise only be able to understand conceptually, and the addition or subtraction of even a single artifact from our history causes us to reconsider our perception of it. The addition of the Getty Kouros to the canon of art history would force us to reconsider our previous understanding of communication and information dissemination during the Archaic Period.

However, acknowledging that the Getty Kouros was a forgery could have more severe repercussions in the fields of art history and archaeology. The recognition of a forged artifact would call into question the practices used to authenticate all other cultural artifacts and would precipitate doubt and mistrust of the methods of constructing that most critical aspect of our identity: our history.

Images

Figure 1. Statue of a Kouros-Greek, about 530 B.C.

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Figure 2. (Left) The Getty Kouros. Greek Statue of the Sixth Century B.c.e., or Modern Forgery Figure 3. (Right) Comparison of Archaic Greek Kouroi

Figure 4. Images of bone figurine (KM 16187) with pink paint captured under visible (left) and UV (right) illumination

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Figure 5. Fragmentary Kouros, Italian Forgery

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References

Text References 1.

Chippindale, C, 1990. Reviewed Work: The Getty Kouros Colloquium: Athens, 25-27 May 1992. American Journal of Archaeology, [Online]. Volume 100, No. 1, 195. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/506317 [Accessed 24 March 2015].

2.

Derrick, Eric F. Doehne, Andrew E. Parker and Dusan C. Stulik, M, 1994. Some New Analytical Techniques for Use in Conservation. Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, [Online]. Volume 33, No. 2, 171-184.

Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3179425 [Accessed 01 April 2015].

3.

Glassberg, David, 1987. Reviewed Work: The Past is a Foreign Country by David Lowenthal.

The Public Historian. Vol. 9, No. 3, The Field of Public History: Planning the Curriculum (Summer, 1987), pp. 185-187 4.

Polikreti, K, 2007. Detection of Ancient Marble Forgery: Techniques and Limitations.

Archaeometry, [Online]. Volume 49, No. 4, 603619. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ doi/10.1111/j.1475-4754.2007.00325.x/abstract [Accessed 01 April 2015].

5.

Proceedings, 1993. The Getty Kouros Colloquium. 1 Edition. Eds. J. Paul Getty Museum, Hidryma Nikolaou P. Goulandrē, Mouseio Kykladikēs Technēs. Getty Trust Publications.

6.

Spier, J, 1990. Blinded with Science: The Abuse of Science in the Detection of False Antiquities.

The Burlington Magazine, [Online]. Volume 132, No. 1050, 623-631. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/ stable/884431 [Accessed 27 March 2015].

7.

Stewart, Andrew, 1986. When is a Kouros Not an Apollo? The Tenea “Apollo” Revisited. Corinthiaca: Studies in Honor of Darrell A. Amyx, University of Missouri Press, [Online].

8.

True, M, 1987. A Kouros at the Getty Museum. The Burlington Magazine, [Online]. Volume 129, No. 1006, 3-11. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/ stable/882884 [Accessed 27 March 2015].

9.

Von Bothmer, D, 1964. The Head of an Archaic Greek Kouros. 1st ed. Archäologischer Anzeiger.

Image References Figure 1: Digital image. Pbase Galleries. Isopix, 14 July 2006.

Web. <http://www.pbase.com/image/63534401>.

Figure 2: J. Paul Getty Museum. Digital image. ORDINARY LANGUAGE PHILOSOPHY & LITERARY STUDIES. N.p., 16 May 2010. <http://olponline.org/2010/05/16/ richard-neer-connoisseurship-and-the-stakes-of-style/>.

Figure 3: Bowen, Monica. Comparison of Archaic Greek Kouroi. Digital image. Alberti’s Window. N.p., 13 Jan. 2015. Web. <http://albertis-window.com/category/ greek-and-roman/>.

Figure 4: Digital image. Kelsey Museum of Archaeology.

University of Michigan, 9 Dec. 2014. Web. <https:// kelseymuseum.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/ using-uv-light-to-examine-ancient-paint/>.

Figure 5: Spier, J, 1990. Blinded with Science: The Abuse of Science in the Detection of False Antiquities. The Burlington Magazine, [Online]. Volume 132, No. 1050, 630. http://www.jstor.org/stable/884431

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hIv & maSCulINIty IN gugulethu, South afrICa Sasheenie Moodley

Born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sasheenie spent her formative years as a peer mentor and teen volunteer, interacting with individuals who were HIV positive. Dedicated to her mentorship commitments and HIV work (now, through correspondence in the USA), she is passionate about citizenship and sustainable community involvement.

Sasheenie is a Center for Global Health Scholar, Echols Scholar, and Jefferson Scholar. She is currently completing her Interdisciplinary B.A. Degree in Global Development Studies, and will continue working on her Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in Public Health next year. She hopes to encourage her audience to critically analyze her research experiences, as well as their own.

AbstrAct This paper initially examines masculinity and HIV occurrence in South Africa, before reporting independent research that explores the relationship between men and health care services in Gugulethu, South Africa. Research presented in this paper investigates the extent to which masculine gender norms limit men’s awareness of and access to local HIV interventions. To explore HIV occurrence in South Africa, ethnographic research was conducted in the summer of 2015 in Gugulethu, a small township on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, in collaboration with local gender-activist NGO Sonke Gender Justice, Sonke’s One Man Can (OMC) men’s clinic, and the University of Cape Town. Sixty-minute, informal interviews were conducted with twenty men who self-identified as HIV positive or negative.

Men were recruited if they were not associated with the men’s clinic or Sonke. Research revealed that: 1)Nearly all of the men did not know about the OMC men’s clinic in Gugulethu; 2) None of the men knew about the OMC campaign; 3) Masculine norms encouraged pride and contributed to sexual prowess; 4) Masculine gender norms encouraged independence and thus traditional treatments; 5) For men, privacy and confidentiality were paramount to masculine lifestyles; 6) The presence of female medical professionals precluded men from accessing treatment; and 7) Gender norms limited HIV interventions, sometimes even until death. The overwhelming consensus of the research was that men in Gugulethu were aware of the complexities of HIV, of the treatment options available, and how to prevent HIV transmission. Most men, however, were not aware of where to access HIV treatment. Alternatively, men who were aware of available treatments were hesitant to access them because of cultural and/or gender norms. In this way, masculine gender norms exacerbated men’s resistance to HIV treatments. To counteract this, many local campaigns (including the OMC) targeted and promoted positive male sexual behavior. Unfortunately, the reach and impact of these campaigns was narrow, as campaign programs addressed the result of masculine norms (male behavior in the community, for example) rather than the norms themselves. Thus, possible recommendations to consider include: increase community awareness of masculine norms, promote the availability of health care resources for men, augment privacy and confidentiality in community health centers/clinics, and bolster gender transformation efforts within the community.

Introduction & Overview: What Is The Problem?

S

ub-Saharan Africa carries 71% of the global HIV/AIDS burden, including the 6.3 million people living with HIV in South Africa (“HIV and AIDS in SA” 1). Even though the Sub-Saharan region, located south of the Saharan Desert, comprises twenty-eight African countries, a significant portion of the global HIV burden rests on the shoulders of people living in South Africa. In

an effort to decrease HIV prevalence, the South African government has prioritized HIV awareness and subsidized antiretroviral (ARV) treatments. This is possible because the South African Department of Health pays the “lowest prices in the world” for ARVs (Kahn 1).

Seeing as access to HIV treatments is provided in South Africa, the reasoning behind why men are not receiving ARV treatments remains a mystery. Masculine gender norms fed by historical and cultural gender orders are increasingly

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appearing as contributing factors to the high HIV occurrence in South Africa, as men refuse treatment or fail to adhere to complete ARV regimens. HIV continues to burden the health care system, and affects socio-economic productivity as heads of households (men) reject HIV treatments - especially in South African urban townships such as Gugulethu.

Currently in South Africa, gender norms surrounding masculinity can prevent many men from accessing treatment or living healthily with HIV. Research highlights masculine gender norms as one of the root causes of heterosexual men’s promiscuity and sexual violence that heightens risk for HIV transmission.

Men living in Gugulethu under-demand and underutilize HIV prevention, testing, and treatment. The idea of a complete ARV regimen runs contrary to many local ideals of masculinity and strength (Colvin, 2012). Because of values such as these, men either choose not to treat HIV or they do not correctly administer and adhere to a complete ARV treatment regimen. This in turn means that fewer men are being tested for HIV or are less likely to seek out HIV interventions.

Hansjorg Dilger at the Free University of Berlin published research that explored masculinity and HIV in Cape Town, specifically in the Southern Suburbs, Mitchell’s Plain, and Khayelitsha.

His research aimed to explore the position of men within the family and the “conceptualization of gender relations,” as well as the practice of “male sexuality” and the role of NGOs in the “transformation of masculinities including conflicts between divergent ideas of gender, sexuality, and HIV/AIDS” (Dilger 3). According to Dilger’s findings, “the impact of campaigns to change male sexual behavior seems to be limited” (Dilger 1). In a similar vein, Christopher Colvin from the University of Cape Town conducted research on HIV and masculinity through 98

the lens of Sonke’s OMC campaign. Regarding individual attitudes, Colvin emphasized that men felt uncertain about masculinity, felt ignored, and felt “frustrated about women’s perceived gains” during a period when the South African government was making special efforts to promote women’s rights and health care policies tailored to women (“Men’s Perceptions of Women’s Rights” 100).

As a result, men’s conceptions of gender identity changed in a way that began “shifting gender relations” in community settings (“Impact of a Gender-Transformative HIV” 17). Colvin’s findings revealed that men had “reconfigured notions of hegemonic masculinity both in terms of beliefs and practices in relationships and households” (“Impact of a Gender-Transformative HIV” 3).

Male gender norms that encourage strength and male independence not only affect HIV positive men in the community, but also affect their partners and families. This increases the existing burden on the public health system as more and more people are infected with HIV. In Gugulethu, as well as most other urban townships in South Africa, men hold the decision-making power in domestic relationships when it comes to contraception and intimate relationship fidelity. As a result, male gender norms can make the other partner in a relationship more vulnerable to HIV transmission (Colvin 2012). In this realm, activists are calling for the removal of oppressive social expectations for men regarding what it means to be masculine and/or what it means to be a man.

Today, public health professionals are more and more focused on overcoming the conventional ideas of hegemonic masculinity, in an effort to preserve and protect community health and a shared high quality of life through ‘gender transformation’: the modification of existing gender norms to include

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gender equality and codependence.

Scholars and theorists have called for such transformation efforts in regions such as Gugulethu in an effort to reconfigure harmful gender norms that preclude individuals from gender fairness and collaboration. In an effort to reduce HIV prevalence and increase ARV adherence in South Africa, there is a clear need to explore why men reject and resist HIV interventions and the potential opportunities offered by NGOs and other local organizations to emphasize and strengthen HIV intervention programs.

gion, kinship, class, ethnicity, and race.

The research project hoped to engage men with gender norms and masculinity surrounding issues, including their health-related HIV information, Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) situations, and quality of health of individual men, their partners and families. Thus, the primary research question presented itself through an anthropological lens: To what extent do masculine gender norms limit men’s awareness of and the effectiveness of HIV interventions in the community?

Research Question

Methodology

This research project investigates the relationship between men and health systems in Gugulethu, specifically Sonke’s OMC men’s clinic. In 2006, Sonke established a male-staffed men’s clinic in Gugulethu as part of the OMC campaign.

The OMC campaign was designed to motivate men to take initiative and actively participate in gender equality in the community realm, prevent and speak out against gender-based violence, and respond to HIV/AIDS. Men living in Gugulethu have access to the OMC men’s clinic, as it is centrally located and offers government-subsidized medical care, including HIV treatment. The clinic 1) houses current medical resources, 2) allocates funding for hiring male nurses, and male staff members in an effort to attract male patients to the clinic, and 3) employs young male and female adults as Community Action Trainers (CATs) who are trained to go into the community and increase awareness about HIV transmission, HIV treatment, and gender-based violence.

Student researchers at the University of Virginia aimed to explore the factors spurring male attitudes, behaviors and health-seeking initiatives, and the intersection of these factors with reli-

In order to more fully understand how gender norms interact with HIV interventions in Gugulethu, researchers conducted twenty informal interviews with local men living in Gugulethu. Qualitative, ethnographic research aimed to elucidate the nature of masculinity in the township community, to gain a better understanding of the cultural traditions that perpetuate the transmission of HIV, and to highlight men’s use of and access to health services.

All participants were black, South African men because this portion of the national population is “disproportionately affected by HIV and is the target population of the OMC campaign” (“Men’s Perceptions” 7). Men ages 18 or older were recruited informally if they were not employed by the men’s clinic or gender-activist NGO Sonke Gender Justice. Men were not compensated.

There were two points of inquiry during the interviews: 1) the evolving position of men within the home and their perception of the male gender, and 2) the practice of male sexuality as relating to masculinity and relationships. Additionally, cultural and gender norms constituted a point of inquiry. Sixty-minute interviews explored the nature of mascu-

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linity in the community to give a better understanding of the cultural traditions that perpetuate the transmission of HIV. Researchers also explored men’s access to local organizations dedicated to HIV interventions such as J.L Zweni Community Center and Sonke Gender Justice. Interview questions included: What motivates men to look after their own health?

How and when do men use and access health services? What challenges do men face in disclosing their HIV status?

What influences men to test or treat HIV? For what reasons do men access public health resources/services? For what reasons do men access traditional healers/ medicine?

Results & Outcomes Access to health care services Results highlighted that the majority of men did not know about Sonke’s OMC men’s clinic in the township, or the pro-treatment/anti-abuse OMC campaign funded and run by Sonke. Data revealed the following: 1. Nearly all of the men did not know there was a men’s clinic in Gugulethu, and offered directions to the nearest community hospital instead of the men’s clinic 2. Only a few of the men had heard of the men’s clinic 3. Almost none of the men gave accurate directions to the clinic when asked to point it out 4. None of the men knew about the clinic’s OMC campaign Gender norms and masculinity Qualitative research explored the significance of gendered power structures that inhibit HIV treatment or ARV adherence in the urban township. Verbal, informal interviews with local men in community centers and with local shebeens (taverns) constituted ethnographic 100

data. The interviews were conversations with men about men’s access to health care resources and men’s willingness to approach medical professionals should such men require treatment for HIV or Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs).

Results elucidated men’s views on gender and masculinity in a way that emphasized social and/or health-related outcomes as seen through an HIV lens: 1. Masculine norms encouraged pride and contributed to sexual prowess.

Male pride, born from appearing as the dominant partner in intimate relationships, was valued above most other masculine traits for local men.

A man would not disclose an STI infection or his HIV status in a clinic because he feared being seen as sexually inept or being emasculated, for a man would be seen as less masculine if he could not maintain his manhood in romantic relationships.

The risk of potential emasculation would prevent men from visiting community clinics, disclosing health concerns in clinics, or signing up for HIV and/or STI treatments.

2. Gender norms fortified male independence, often leading to traditional medicine. Many men in Gugulethu first turned to traditional medicines and healers known as sangomas to heal ailments including HIV, because 1) all sangomas are male, and 2) all sangomas practice medicine and live in remote (private) locations outside rural areas.

If traditional HIV medicines fail, men would resort to Western treatments such as ARVs at community clinics. As an alternative, however, ARVs often proved ineffective either because men did not adhere to the strict ARV regimen, or because the HI virus had often progressed or proliferated to a fatal degree. When a man died after adopting an ARV

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3.

4.

regimen, the community blamed Western ARVs for his death. Few community members realized that no medication, neither traditional nor Western, could have interrupted the rapidly multiplying HI virus and saved the individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life.

For men, privacy and confidentiality were paramount to masculine lifestyles. If the word spread that a man visited the clinic for HIV medication, then his HIV status could become general knowledge in the community, his sexual prowess would be questioned, and he would not be viewed as the dominant partner in his relationship. In a community health center, a manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s HIV status could be guessed by individuals in a waiting room depending on which examination room said man entered (Nywagi). This level of transparency compromised individual privacy regarding health-related information.

In essence, community knowledge of individuals with HIV and STI infections could hurt male pride by excluding said individuals from the dominant gender.

The presence of female medical professionals precluded men from accessing treatment. Men did not visit clinics, access health care services, or confide in professional medical physicians because the majority of clinic staff was female. The research highlights that men did not feel comfortable being examined by a female nurse. In fact, men would rather avoid a clinic visit than disclose sexual health-related information to a female nurse. Even though female nurses were professionally qualified, gender norms ultimately trumped medical experience and knowledge. For all seven community health clinics in Gugulethu, there were only three male nurses in

5.

the district.

Gender norms limited HIV interventions even until death. The majority of men were aware of HIV treatment options, but chose not to sign up for treatment due to cultural norms. It became more and more apparent during the project that men would rather suffer in silence, in some instances even until death, instead of start a treatment regime that could diminish sexual prowess or portray men as weak to the community.

Suggestions - Not Recommendations It is a respected research practice, and perhaps even the sign of good research grooming, that a student present a list of recommendations after conducting their research project in a country that is not their own. As a researcher, therefore, I was tempted to offer recommendations to the individuals I interacted with in Gugulethu in the hopes that they could implement community solutions - solutions to encourage men to access healthcare services. In hindsight, however, I feel strongly that I am not qualified to issue a list of recommendations to the Gugulethu community â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and especially not the whole of South Africa where challenges with HIV and masculinity may not be omnipresent. While I can perhaps share my experiences and observations during my time in Gugulethu, I cannot promulgate any conclusive recommendations for improving the relationship between men and their healthcare practices. This is largely because I have no conclusive evidence to claim that community relationships need improving, and I do not know for certain that the correlation between male gender norms and high HIV prevalence rates is causative. In truth, I do know enough to recommend anything. That said, I recognize

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the value of reflection, especially when considering ethnographic and qualitative research, which may unlock greater understanding and uncover deeper challenges than the ones known before. It is within this context, and with these aims in mind that I offer my suggestions.

Awareness and access My observations highlighted that the onus lies with clinic staff, its stakeholders, and local organizations such as Sonke Gender Justice to increase awareness around the availability of health care services for men. These services include: Sonke’s OMC men’s clinic and provision of resources such as HIV treatments. Increased awareness may be bolstered by the work of local agents who promote gender transformation through collaboration with other local partners and NGOs, continue community education programs about gender equality and collaboration, and augment awareness around codependence between men and women in Gugulethu.

Additionally, the Gugulethu community could perhaps consider education and awareness regarding the advantages of early and timely (Western) ARV treatments. Perhaps ARV treatments can be administered in addition to traditional treatments in order to preserve cultural beliefs and traditional practices.

Pride, privacy and confidentiality In an effort to supplement healthcare services in the township, local agents and NGO’s like could perhaps consider hiring more male staff (male nurses and male medical personnel), or reassessing hospital infrastructure to prioritize privacy. For example: renovating existing waiting rooms to create private spaces out of earshot from examination room entrances. These changes may make male patients more amenable to clinic visits, and improve private interac102

tions between males and females in community health centers/clinics. Before carrying these changes out, however, it is crucial that the community critically analyze their resources and purpose as a whole in order to make the best decision for community members by community members. After all, it can be argued that there are too few resources in township health care facilities to staff clinics with adequate male personnel or to make major structural modifications.

In another vein, there is much to be done regarding health care policy and practice in order to boost clinic confidentiality. To aid in making men feel more comfortable in a clinic setting, it is suggested that both male patients and female medical personnel are made aware of confidential health care policies including the fact that female medical personnel are trained to uphold patient confidentiality.

From a medical provider’s perspective, increased awareness around health care policies and confidentiality may serve as a reminder to bolster current confidential practices. From a patient’s perspective, awareness and information on this topic may aid in reducing men’s apprehensions when they have female personnel attending to them. Additionally, promoting clinic education programs may further inform men and women in the community about the training that female medical professionals undergo to qualify in their positions.

Navigating Masculine Culture Given that HIV is a sexually transmitted disease, it was difficult to engage local men during informal interviews, as the research questions alluded to relationship intimacy and sexual behavior. This posed a significant challenge considering that the primary student researcher was a woman operating in a hegemonic, masculine community.

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The reality is that men living in South Africa do not discuss intimate health-related information with their male friends, peers, or wives – and especially not with the inquisitive American-educated, female student researcher on this project. To maintain cultural sensitivity and respect gender norms, there was a need to work around men’s disdain for communicating directly with the primary student researcher.

For this reason, the researcher worked closely with gender activist and knowledge-broker Mr. Phumzile Nywagi.

Born and raised in Gugulethu, Nywagi is an active member of his community.

In 2001, Nywagi visited a doctor because “he was very sick” (Nywagi).

The doctor suggested that Nywagi test for HIV, but Nywagi resisted the idea initially. A few months later, Nywagi returned and did the test - he was HIV positive. His CD4 count was severely low, and his viral load was dangerously high.

After extensive counseling and learning more about ARV treatments, Nywagi began an ARV regimen in 2001. After two years, in 2003, Nywagi contracted meningitis. He could not look after himself, and could not walk. He was admitted to the hospital while his family made preparations for his funeral: “They were sure I was going to die” (Nywagi). When he was discharged from the hospital, the mother of his six children insisted that he stay at her house so that he could spend his last days amongst his beloved children. Each day Nywagi’s children would bring him his ARV medications and other drugs religiously. After a while, Nywagi made a miraculous recovery. “It seemed I got a second chance,” he says. His family was overjoyed with his recovery - his children were the happiest. Reflecting on his severe illness, Nywagi mused that he “would never get that sick again.”

Fast-forward through the recovery phase to 2005 when Nywagi started his

own NGO, Khululeka, as a network of support for men living with HIV in the area. Members did community outreach, offered HIV support groups, and increased awareness surrounding men’s health through education in the community. The group was “a community-based men’s HIV support group in Gugulethu. Meaning ‘to be free,’ Khululeka was formed to create a space where men could speak freely about their HIV status, cope with issues like stigma and discrimination, and be empowered to make a difference in their own lives and in the community. Khululeka’s broader goal was to break the silence in communities around the issue of HIV/AIDS, by first educating itself and then others” (“Khululeka Men’s Support Group” 5).

Unfortunately, Khululeka dissolved a few years later due to administrative complications, while the need for peer support in the community only seemed to intensify. Even though Khululeka’s journey came to a close, Nywagi’s adventures were just beginning.

Today, Nywagi is fit and healthy.

He has maintained the same ARV regimen for the past fifteen years. Nywagi has steady employment, exercises his body and mind regularly, and is an active member of his community. Thanks to his many connections in the community, Nywagi was able to introduce potential participants to the researcher. In this way, he was instrumental in facilitating informal interviews that provided great insight into gender norms and masculinity.

Challenges and Limitations During the interviews, most of the men were uncomfortable with disclosing their HIV status to the female student researcher. This discomfort could be attributed to the gender barrier and/or traditional masculine norms that discourage men from sharing personal

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health-related information with women.

As a result of this, and because STIs are closely related to HIV transmission, men would talk about STIs as a way of discussing HIV. This was initially confusing for the researcher, who ultimately adjusted to recognizing HIV-related information when men mentioned STIs. Having a knowledge-broker present during these conversations was paramount for cohesion and successful comprehension across cultures.

The differences in socio-economic status, gender, race, and ethnicity between the female researcher and the local men who were interviewed posed a significant challenge. The female researcher stood out in while she and Nywagi walked around Gugulethu talking to local men. Thus, in an effort to draw less attention to herself, the student researcher dressed modestly and always wore a baseball cap to hide her face and hair – indications of her racial background. Additionally, the researcher did not take notes during interviews or use her phone for pictures or recording. It was considered impolite to write during interviews, and a phone could not be used in most regions of Gugulethu for safety reasons.

Given time constraints, and limited availability with a knowledge-broker, it was only possible to interview twenty local men in Gugulethu. In turn, considering the small sample size for this research project, the data should only be used to imply a social trend instead of indicating and/or confirming a causal relationship between high HIV prevalence and gender norms. Further research is imperative in order to gather more information on gender norms and traditional medical practice in township areas.

Final Thoughts While local campaigns, such as Sonke’s 104

OMC campaign, target HIV-related challenges in relationships and encourage gender equality, it seems that the reach and impact of these campaigns was narrow due to lack of advertising and effective publicity. As a result, there were very few men in the community who were aware of local campaigns or local health care resources. To emphasize this further, the research outcomes highlighted that some men were aware of HIV treatment options available in Gugulethu. However, nearly all men were not aware of where to access treatment options. In other words, nearly all men did not know there was a men’s clinic in Gugulethu. This could be attributed to poor advertising and minimal publicity around Sonke’s male-staffed OMC clinic in Gugulethu. Thus, the lack of publicity surrounding Sonke’s men’s clinic may inhibit access to health care services and access to HIV treatments.

The emphasis on masculinity and male strength in the community seemingly prohibits men from appearing weak or admitting to being infected with HIV. Thus, men do not communicate with each other about health issues or seek out help within their social networks. These masculine norms are likely the cause of men who under-demand, underutilize, and have less access to HIV prevention, testing, and treatment. The results show that, according to men, public health facilities (clinics) do not value privacy or confidentiality regarding HIV status and treatment. Thus, some men do not visit commonly female-staffed clinics, which precludes them from HIV treatments and contraception. In this way, qualitative data highlights that male pride may inhibit any willingness to take advantage of HIV interventions, which in turn increases male preferences for traditional medicines.

Considering the small sample size, it cannot be emphasized enough that

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further research is imperative in order to gain a deeper understanding of why men resist and reject HIV treatments in Gugulethu. Thus, it is important to note that the results and outcomes highlighted in this paper represent the opinions and personal sentiments of a group of twenty men. After all, “men’s understanding of their own gender identity and relationships are changing” (“Men’s Perceptions of Women’s Rights” 99).

Additionally, we must realize that hegemonic masculinity often cannot be reduced to one definition as described by a few members of a community. Instead, masculinity and masculine gender norms are seemingly fluid and constantly vacillating between tradition and expectation. Although the valiant strides that many men have made in the journey toward gender transformation were not represented in this research, they should not be discounted. Most South African literature emphasizes the reality that some men have willingly accepted changes in social structure and gender transformation. These men have made shifts in masculine thinking “by building gender-equitable responses and participation in broader social movements for HIV/AIDS prevention” (“Men’s Perceptions of Women’s Rights” 100). Further research should include masculine men who have taken a step toward being involved in gender transformation not only to promote objectivity in the realm of health care development, but also to validate individual strides toward social change during one of the most pressing pandemics of our lifetime.

Personal Reflection As a South African, I felt accustomed to the rich culture and diversity within the country. Much to my surprise, however, I experienced a culture ‘shock’ as if I had never before been in the country. While

I cannot offer any conclusive explanations for this culture shock, I can offer that this ‘shock’ could be attributed to spending time in different regions within the country. I grew up in the urban area of Sandton, a suburb in the hustle and bustle of Johannesburg. In contrast, my research was conducted in Gugulethu, a township on the outskirts of Cape Town.

Both regions, despite being in the same country, exhibited exceedingly diverse cultures therein…A subtle reminder of the nuances of ethnographic experiences.

I was born and raised in the Rainbow Nation that is South Africa.

Growing up, I had the privilege of spending time with individuals and peers from a range of socioeconomic classes, individuals who conceptualized public health and healthcare services differently than myself and my middle-class family did. Through these interactions and my volunteering in HIV orphanages and clinics, I was able to glimpse what healthcare access and HIV stigma looked like in different regions in the country.

When my family relocated to the United States in 2011, I held onto my experiences with HIV, granted by individuals who were HIV positive, throughout my transition to a new high school and college in a foreign country. Last year, through the Center for Global Health and the University of Virginia, I had the opportunity to return to South Africa and continue my exploration of HIV and its stigma through the lens of masculinity and public health. With my new exposure to the US healthcare system, I was able to consider healthcare access and HIV stigma from another perspective.

This exposure, coupled with my research in Gugulethu, spanned the gamut of experiences: from exploration of public healthcare and traditional medicines, to in-depth reflections of cultural sensitivity and intercultural understanding.

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References

Electronic References 1.

Dilger, H. “DFG-Research Project Masculinities and AIDS in Cape Town, South Africa.” Masculinities and AIDS in Cape Town, South Africa. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). 2012. Web. 16 Jan 2015. <http://www.polsoz.fu-berlin.de/ethnologie/mitarbeiterliste/dilger/arbeitsbereich_dilger/forschungsprojekte/dfg_southafrica1.html>.

2.

“Gap Report.” Gap Report. UNAIDS. 2014. Web. 5 Jan 2016. < http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/ documents/2014> 3.

“Global Statistics.” Global Statistics. Aids.gov. 2014.

Web. 31 Aug 2015. <https://aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/ hiv-aids-101/global-statistics/>.

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“HIV and AIDS in SA, South Africa.” AVERTing HIV and AIDS, n.p. 2015. Web. 5 Jan 2016. < https:// www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-around-world/ sub-saharan-africa/south-africa> 5.

Kahn, T. “SA secures ‘world’s lowest prices’ for HIV drugs.” Business Day. Business Day Live. 2015. Web. 6 Jan 2016. <http://www. bdlive.co.za/national/health/2015/01/06/ sa-secures-worlds-lowest-prices-for-hiv-drugs> 6.

“One Man Can.” Sonke Gender Justice. Sonke Gender Justice. 2006. Web. 5 Jan 2016. < http://www.genderjustice.org.za/community-education-mobilisation/ one-man-can/> 7.

“Risk factors for HIV/AIDS among youth in Cape Town.” AIDS Behaviors. PubMed.gov. 2005. Web. 31 Aug. 2015. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/15812613> 8.

“Sonke Gender Justice.” Sonke Gender Justice. Sonke Gender Justice. 2006. Web. 31 Aug 2015. <http://www. genderjustice.org.za/> 9.

“Treatment and Care.” World Health Organization.

World Health Organization. 2016. Web. 5 Jan 2016. <http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/treatment/en/> Other References 1.

Colvin, C.J. et al. “Grounding ‘Responsibilization Talk’: Masculinities, Citizenship and HIV in Cape Town, South Africa.” Journal of Development Studies, 2010: 1179 – 1195. Print.

2.

Dworkin, S.L. et al. “Impact of a Gender-Transformative HIV and Antiviolence Program on Gender Ideologies and Masculinities in Two Rural, South African Communities.” Men and Masculinities Journal, 2013: 1- 22. Print.

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Dworkin, S.L. et al. “Men’s Perceptions of Women’s Rights and Changing Gender Relations in South Africa: Lessons for Working Men and Boys in HIV and Antiviolence Programs.” Gender and Society Journal, 2012: 26 – 97. Print.

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Colvin, C.J. et al. “Khululeka Men’s Support Group: A Case Study in Political Improvization. Final Report for the ‘Middle Spaces’ Project.” 2007: 1 – 30. Print.

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Moodley, Sasheenie. “HIV and Learning Experiences in Gugulethu, South Africa.” 2016: 1-5. Print.

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Nagar, Richa. “Storytelling and co-authorship in feminist alliance work: reflections from a journey.” 2012: 1-10. Print.

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Nywagi, Phumzile. Personal interview. 10 Jul 2015.

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explorINg aSSoCIatIoNS amoNg peer Support, pSyChologICal well-beINg, aND problematIC DrINkINg behavIorS amoNg uNDerrepreSeNteD College StuDeNtS Yekaterina Davydova

Katya Davydova studied psychology, cognitive science, and Russian during her time at UVa. Ever-curious about what makes people tick and how to best foster positive connections with others, she pursued her thesis under the guidance of Dr. Noelle Hurd after gaining experience in the Promoting Healthy Adolescent Development Lab and other avenues. When not investigating the intersection of well-being and salient peer relationships in the context of college drinking, Katya enjoys running and hiking outside, going to local shows, and learning about individuals through conversations. She currently works in healthcare consulting and wants to pursue a future in talent management.

AbstrAct During the transition to college, peer support has been shown to impact students’ substance use and well-being, but the constructs have not been evaluated among the underrepresented student populations. Given the importance of addressing the additional challenges and stressors that underrepresented students face, the current study examined the role of peer support on problematic drinking behaviors via psychological well-being (PWB). Participants were 340 first-year ethnic minority, low socioeconomic status, or first-generation college students (ages 17-20, M = 18.11 years), who completed questionnaires assessing their drinking habits and negative outcomes, life quality perceptions, and relationships with close friends.

PWB is hypothesized to be a mediator in the inverse relationship between peer support and detrimental drinking outcomes. Hierarchical regression analyses suggested a significant association between peer support and psychological wellbeing, after controlling for gender, race, SES, and depressive symptoms. Implications for underrepresented students’ mental health and college adjustment are discussed.

T

he transition to a university setting may be a challenging time for first-year students who face novel experiences, new social and academic pressures, and adjustment challenges.

The distinct period of development between adolescence and young adulthood is known as “emerging adulthood” and occurs between the ages of 18-25 years (Arnett, 2000). During this volatile time, individuals often seek new, risky, or exploratory behavior, because they are less constrained by parental rules, though they may not yet take on the full-fledged adulthood roles and responsibilities (Arnett, 2000). Throughout this developmental period, some emerging adults attend university, where they are faced with a multitude of challenges.

A number of acute stressors may impact college students in particular, and they are likely to report feelings of being overwhelmed, decreased social and familial support, and negative self-concepts (Gall, Evans, & Bellerose, 2000). Key issues such as academic rigor, peer group selection or isolation, and coping with physical and psychological stressors affect university students, particularly so during the first year (Hicks

& Heastie, 2008). Often, more serious concerns also arise. Clinical depression and anxiety disorders are found in approximately 16% of undergraduates (Eisenberg, Gollust, Goldberstein, & Hefner, 2007). Furthermore, university counseling centers report increased incidence of psychological problems referrals compared to past rates (Kitzrow, 2009). Students’ mental health problems, including eating disorders and drug and alcohol use and abuse, have been on the rise by 30-50 percent in the past several years, as marked by increases in visits to counseling centers (Kitzrow, 2009).

Historically underrepresented students—defined as members of minority racial/ethnic groups, those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and first-generation students—experience significant additional stressors during the college transition that negatively affect their general well-being (Hurtado, Han, Saenz, Espinoza, Cabrera, & Cerna, 2007). The additional stress of being an underrepresented student is reflected in graduation rates. There remains a staggering disparity between White students from middle- or high-income backgrounds and low income, first-genera-

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tion, and historically underrepresented racial/ethnic minority students. The sixyear graduation rate at traditional fouryear institutions is around 60-75 percent for the former group, compared to 25-40 percent for the latter (Rooney et al., 2006).

Stressors such as socioeconomic pressures and racial dynamics seem to explain much of this disparity. Once in the university environment itself, outcomes like academic achievement, engagement, and sense of belonging are often poorer in underrepresented students (Hurtado, et al., 2007). Difficulties adjusting to the cultural differences of a predominantly White, middle-class college environment between lower-income or racial/ ethnic minority students and others are viewed as prime reasons for attrition and other heightened adjustment difficulties (Goodman & West-Olatunji, 2010; Okazaki, 2009). As a consequence of experiences of marginalization associated with membership in an underrepresented group, the typical issues experienced by middle- or high-socioeconomic status White undergraduates may be amplified among underrepresented college students.

Problematic Drinking Behaviors As new students become acclimated to their college surroundings, many find that the environment lends itself to exploration of novel experiences. Some students may take part in risky behaviors such as substance use or abuse for the first time, while others may show elevated usage corresponding with increased opportunities and reduced supervision. The easier access to drugs and alcohol is concerning, since both are associated with poorer mental health and academic outcomes (Weitzman, 2004).

Although surveys point to an overall decreasing trend in under-21 drinking habits, some research on underage al110

cohol use demonstrates an increase in binge drinking. Binge drinking is typically defined as the “consumption of five or more alcoholic drinks in a single episode” (Goode, 2014, p. 222). The high prevalence of binge drinking is a troublesome and very real issue especially on college campuses (Goode, 2014). In fact, the percentage of students who have engaged in binge drinking at university hovers around 53-64 percent, up from 41-44 percent two decades ago (Larimer, 2013; Cranford, McCabe, & Boyd, 2006; Wechsler, Davenport, Dowdall, Moeykens, & Castillo, 1994). A massive 140-college national student survey indicated that university leaders believe alcohol abuse is the number one problem on their campuses (Wechsler et al., 1994), and current market research places alcohol use/abuse as one of the top three concerns among college students (Student Monitor, 2014).

Consequences of binge drinking may greatly affect undergraduates— the association between alcohol and unplanned/risky sexual behavior or assault, injuries, criminal behavior, interpersonal problems, cognitive impairment, and poor academic performance are well documented (e.g., Courtey & Polich, 2009; Wechsler et al., 1994). Other researchers have described significant acute and chronic physical, legal, and social problems that stem from alcohol consumption and binge drinking (Winograd & Sher, 2015). However, most research has focused on nationally representative yet predominantly White college populations, and much less is known about historically underrepresented students.

Thus, it is vital to understand the experiences of alcohol use and subsequent problems among underrepresented college students to add to the knowledge base and assess implications.

The sparse extant literature does provide some description of substance

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use in racial/ethnic minority adolescent populations, though this research more heavily focuses on non-college students or pre-college adolescents. A comprehensive review by Strada and Donohue (2004) investigated drug use rates, including alcohol consumption, for several racial/ethnic groups as compared to their White adolescent counterparts during the teenage years (12-17 years).

Findings indicated that Hispanic/Latino youth consumed alcohol at slightly higher rates than Whites, and experienced increases in substance use prevalence rates throughout adolescence.

On the other hand, Black and African American youth’s alcohol prevalence rates were lower than those of White students, and have remained relatively stable (Strada & Donohue, 2004). Asian American and Pacific Islander youth exhibited prevalence rates at or below the rates of Whites. Across these racial/ ethnic groups, Strada and Donohue (2004) found that acculturative stress and discrimination may contribute to increases in adolescents’ substance use and prevalence rates, but concluded that further research is needed, especially among underrepresented minority college students.

In regards to another group within underrepresented student populations—students from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds who are also often first generation college students— there are conflicting research findings about the relationship between SES and drinking. While some authors hypothesize that lower SES is a risk factor for young adolescent substance use (Redonnet, Chollet, Fombonne, Bowes, & Melchior, 2012), others find greater substance use rates among adolescents with higher SES (Hansen & Chen, 2007; Humensky, 2010). Overall, it appears that a bimodal relationship seems to exist between socioeconomic status and

using drugs/alcohol, wherein high use is found among both opposing ends of the SES spectrum, but the nature of the relationship is not consistent across current studies (Goodman & Huang, 2002).

Thus, more research is needed to clarify the connection, as well as focus on the college-age population.

Several theories have been proposed to explain why students choose to engage in deleterious drinking and drug use. While some researchers focus on peer influences and pressures leading to risky behavior (Walter, Vaughan, & Cohall, 1993), others posit that students may use drinking to cope with stressful events when they believe healthier alternatives are not available (Catanzaro & Laurent, 2004). Yet another theory emphasizes that social connectedness may help to protect adolescents from drinking and drugs (Hall, 2012). Peers seem to play a major role in substance use, although findings are mixed about the nature and directionality of the relationship. More connected peer networks could lead to greater pressures and more opportunities to drink; while in weak networks, students could turn to drinking to cope with their problems. Even less is known about how different levels of peer support affect drinking habits of underrepresented students, necessitating further research to fill the gap in literature.

Peer Support During this time of transition from high school to college, students may look to peers for support. Research on social relations in adolescence (e.g., Armsden & Greenberg, 1987; Blyth & Traeger, 1988; Cauce, 1988; Cauce, Felner, & Primavera, 1982; Dunn, Putallaz, Sheppard, & Lindstrom, 1987; Offer, Ostrov, & Howard, 1981, in Cotterell, 1992) suggests that adolescents establish emotionally supportive relationships in three major con-

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texts: family, school, and the world of neighborhood peers. As first-year college students, adolescents shift from having parental support at home to moving away to attend university, and thus now lack the more proximal, immediate familial support (Li, Albert, & Dwelle, 2014). Since college students are away from their parents during this time of transition, there is great importance in investigating the role of peer support as it relates to adjustment to college, risky behaviors, and the associated well-being.

Although findings are mixed about which supportive relationships are most important for well-being (Cotterell, 1992; Raja, McGee, & Stanton, 1992), some research has demonstrated that high scores on both parental and peer support indicated higher psychological well-being (PWB) (Armsden, 1987). For example, in a study of older middle and high school adolescents, those high on both peer and parent attachment were the best adjusted (i.e., least aggressive and depressed, and most sympathetic) (Laible, Carlo, & Raffaelli, 2000). However, the research points to the fact that peer support is crucial for positive psychosocial outcomes for young adults. Those same adolescents who scored high on peer but low on parent attachment were better adjusted than those high on parent but low on peer attachment. This suggests that peer attachment may play a compensatory role for adolescent adjustment in the context of poorer parental relationships (Laible, et al., 2000). Increasingly, researchers are beginning to understand and emphasize the importance of peer support during the transition to adulthood.

For college students, the ability to find a close social circle or niche that provides a sense of belonging is associated with their mental health and can play an important role in their decision to either drop out or continue with their educa112

tion (see Azmitia, Syed, & Radmacher, 2013). However, historically underrepresented college students often lack peers who share their background and may best support adjustment to the college environment (see Azmitia et al., 2013).

Thus, among all the challenges that underrepresented students face, peers are a potentially vital source of support for psychosocial outcomes. In one study, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse emerging adults were surveyed and interviewed during their first year in college, and results indicated that emotional support from friends was especially important for adjustment. That is, stronger perceptions of support from friends indicated higher mental health scores. Thus, emerging adultsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; perception of a successful transition to a university setting appears to involve constructing their own identity specifically within the context of close relationships (Azmitia et al., 2013).

For many historically underrepresented students, race becomes a salient aspect of their social experience. One longitudinal study examined minority status stress and sociocultural orientation among Latino college first-years as they entered a predominantly White, elite, private institution. Results indicated that the Latino students reported experiencing racism, and the resulting outcome was the development of an alienated sociocultural orientation: students felt isolated within their hostile campus racial climate. In order to mitigate such a negative orientation, these ethnic-minority students turned to their Latino peers as sources of support (Lopez, 2005). With the presence of such peer support, other researchers documented lower distress ratings among Hispanic college students (Solberg & Viliarreal, 1997). Evidently, for emerging adults and minority groups especially, peer support is likely a protective factor against cultural stressors.

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Overall, emerging adults’ perception of a successful transition to a university setting appears to involve the development of a support network comprising of close connections and interactions (Azmitia, Syed, & Radmacher, 2013).

The importance of peer support is well-researched in the context of wellbeing. Theory suggests that the main reason attachment security gained from support relates to overall well-being is that individuals are able to satisfy their basic psychological needs within those secure relationships (La Guardia, Ryan, Couchman, & Deci, 2000). However, peer influences can be negative, and may contribute to risky behavior among emerging adults. Researchers argue that peers tend to directly or indirectly encourage (or at least not discourage) substance use within their groups, emphasizing the powerful influence of peer support and attachment (Wills, Resko, Ainette, & Mendoza, 2004). Data from both representative and multiethnic samples of adolescents suggest direct, positive correlations between peer support and substance use, in terms of cigarette and alcohol use (Wills & Vaughan, 1989; Wills et al., 2004). In college students particularly, there is a connection between quality of peer relationships and drinking; however, the effects are often contradictory (Borsari & Carey, 2006).

College drinking has been reported in group as well as solitary environments, and in the presence or absence of social support in students’ lives (see Borsari & Carey, 2006). In an expansive review of literature, Borsari and Carey (2006) proposed that stable, intimate, and supportive peer support protects against excessive drinking. More specifically, in a study of college undergraduates, students with risky social networks had a 10-fold increase in hazardous drinking, as defined by high scores on The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test

(AUDIT) (Mason, Zaharakis, & Benotsch, 2014). That is, students with lower perceived peer closeness tended to drink more.

A few studies do point to ethnic minorities—Hispanic college students, in this case—to be negatively affected by poor social support in terms of their physical and psychological distress (Solberg & Viliarreal, 1997), but there is a surprising lack of mention of potential influences on drinking. Despite advancements in research regarding peer support and problematic alcohol consumption, virtually no research depicts this relationship among underrepresented students.

In discussing alcohol’s deleterious effects on students, and the scant research on peer support among underrepresented students, it is necessary to consider how these factors affect one’s state of being. The compounded effects of a new environment, risky behaviors, and questionable peer support on non-traditional students may influence their psychological well-being.

Psychological Well-Being A lack of social support, particularly in the context of college peers, has both a negative impact on mental health and also generally poorer outcomes in overall psychological well-being. For historically underrepresented students, typical university stressors are compounded, and psychological well-being (PWB) may be compromised.

A prime model of PWB encompasses six areas of “being well”: “autonomous functioning and decision making, mastery of one’s environment, seeking opportunities for personal growth, maintaining positive relations with others, having a sense of purpose in life, and accepting and thinking positively about oneself” (Ryff, 1989, in Bowman,

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2010, p. 180). Unsurprisingly, these factors, individually and collectively, have been studied in numerous contexts and among various populations. Recently, more attention has been paid to dimensions of well-being among racial/ethnic minority students, particularly those of college age. For instance, Asian/Pacific Islanders appear to have lower PWB on all six dimensions than their White counterparts (Bowman, 2010; Baker, Soto, Perez, & Lee, 2012). Other groups, like incoming Hispanic college freshmen, also report poorer PWB compared to their White peers (Bowman, 2010). More specifically, negative race-related interactions between minority and non-minority students were found to contribute to lower PWB in the minority populations. Interestingly, alcohol consumption was also negatively associated with PWB, perhaps because of the underlying factor of lessened peer support (Bowman, 2010). Because psychological well-being can be a gauge of general well-being in various other aspects of life, it is evident that underrepresented students may be negatively affected because of factors related to their minority status.

Culturally-bound differences in college experiences such as those between Whites and non-Whites in the academic setting play a role in academic outcome disparities. The racial/ethnic discontinuity between minority and majority groups results in psychological distress among students, impacting their schoolwork, which in turn influences psychological well-being (Cholewa & West-Olatunji, 2008). Beyond academic outcomes, challenges that arise from racial/ethnic identity—such as the process of acculturating to a new, often very different environment—can also result in decreased PWB. For instance, difficulties with acculturation were linked to higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms in Mexican American college stu114

dents (Crockett, Iturbide, Torres-Stone, McGinley, Raffaelli, & Carlo, 2007). Interestingly, peer support moderated the relationship between such stressors and anxiety outcomes, a finding similar to past studies (see Solberg & Viliarreal, 1997).

Reflecting upon the drinking problem that plagues adolescents and college students, research has demonstrated a direct relationship between subjective well-being and drug use itself.

When life satisfaction was used as an indicator of positive youth development, researchers concluded that lower scores on life satisfaction measures were linked to detrimental behaviors such as drug use. In other words, high schoolers who perceived their overall lives as satisfying and favorable showed decreased tendencies to smoke, drink alcohol, use marijuana and other illegal drugs (Zullig et. al, 2001, in Park, 2004).

In college students, where alcohol is the most ubiquitous drug, frequent binge drinking was shown to be positively associated with generalized anxiety, thus compromising students’ mental health and rendering them cognizant of the need of help with their well-being (Cranford, Eisenberg, & Serras, 2009).

Because of the value of investigating young adults’ challenges in growing up and the decisions they make—such as using drugs or alcohol—it is vital to elucidate the relationship between their well-being and such substance use. In particular, analyzing the under-studied minority population helps to augment the scant extant literature and attempts to create solutions to the challenges these underrepresented students may face.

Overall, there exists a large gap in the literature depicting the relation between peer support, psychological wellbeing, and problematic drinking, specifically among underrepresented students.

Past literature either focuses on two out

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of the three constructs, or, if all three are discussed, the demographic sample does not encompass the desired population of underrepresented students.

The Present Study It is evident that each of the three described constructsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;psychological well-being, problematic drinking behaviors, and peer supportâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;is linked to one another. Most studies have investigated such relationships among middle- to high-income, predominantly White adolescent or adult populations. A significant gap in the knowledge base remains regarding historically underrepresented college students. Since education level is a predictor of social mobility and general health (Ross & Wu, 1995), understanding and supporting college studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; mental health, especially as rooted among peer support and relevant campus issues like drinking, is crucial for future success in education and in life. Additionally, it is evident that psychological well-being is closely tied to present and future psychiatric problems, physical illness, and substance use. Especially in the context of social support and problematic drinking, this construct of PWB encompasses many of the key features of a successful, positive college experience that researchers and professionals alike are working to promote among emerging adults. Thus, it is arguably a vital topic of study for learning how to best support historically underrepresented students, and would shed light on the flourishing aspect of life quality and relationships.

In sum, the first year of college is a crucial time of transition, and underrepresented students may experience even greater stressors than their non-minority counterparts. Having strong peer support may impact their psychological well-being, which in turn could affect the ubiquitous problem of excessive

drinking. If students, particularly those more so at risk, are able to cultivate solid friendships in their first year of college, positive implications may follow for the protective role of peer support on PWB and future problematic drinking and substance use.

In light of past literature, I hypothesized that peer support would positively influence psychological wellbeing, which would, in turn, negatively influence problematic drinking. That is, having stronger peer support networks would be correlated with greater PWB, and higher PWB would indicate decreased instances of substance use and problematic drinking behaviors. Furthermore, I hypothesized that peer support would be indirectly associated with problematic drinking though psychological well-being. To mitigate possibly confounding effects on results, I controlled for the research-corroborated variables of gender, race, socioeconomic status, and depressive symptoms in my analyses.

A vast overview of research on alcohol misuse in college populations conducted

by Perkins (2002) indicated that significant differences exist in the drinking behaviors of men versus women, as well as among various ethnic minority groups.

Additionally, variability in socioeconomic status affected alcohol consumption bimodally as referenced above, and has been linked with psychological well-being as well (Redonnet, Chollet, Fombonne, Bowes, & Melchior, 2012; Hansen & Chen, 2007; Humensky, 2010; Luo & Waite, 2005). Finally, depressive symptoms have been found to be negatively associated with psychological well-being, peer support, and positively associated with drinking (Li, Albert, & Dwelle, 2014; Weitzman, 2004). Thus, it is necessary to investigate effects of peer support, PWB, and problematic drinking above and beyond these four control variables.

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Method Participants Participants in the current study included 340 first year students (68.5% women) from a large public university in southeastern United States. Participants’ ages ranged from 17 to 20 years (M = 18.11, SD = .37). Eligible participants were members of groups underrepresented in four-year colleges and universities who had just begun studying at the university as freshmen. In particular, underrepresented students included members of the following demographic groups: racial/ethnic minority status, low socioeconomic or economically-disadvantaged status, or first-generation college student status.

University records were used to determine whether students were eligible to participate in the study. Students were eligible if they belonged to one or more of the following groups: a first-generation college student, a member of the following underrepresented racial/ ethnic minority groups: Black/African American (29.1%), Multiracial (20.0%), Asian (16.2%), Hispanic/Latino (10.0%), American Indian/Alaskan Native (.3%); or a lower-socioeconomic status student. A significant minority of participants (23.5%) identified themselves as White or European American. To meet the low-socioeconomic or economically disadvantaged status condition, entering first-year students who qualified for the full amount of the Federal Pell Grant ($5,645) were recruited for the present study. Table 1 presents a summary of demographic variables.

Procedure Selected students received a recruitment email detailing the study and its purpose. Out of the 775 eligible participants, 340 participated (43.9% response rate). Each student provided written consent in person after a trained research as116

Table 1. Participants’ Demographic Variables

sistant detailed any potential risks, benefits, confidentiality, and voluntary participation, and was offered the opportunity to ask any pertinent questions.

After providing informed consent, participants were given a survey to complete on an iPad. The larger study aimed to understand experiences of underrepresented students and the role of supportive non-parental adults in students’ academic, psychological, and emotional functioning. Numerous questionnaires pertaining to other constructs were included, but the current study analyzed those pertaining to peer support, psychological well-being, and problematic drinking outcomes. The survey took approximately one hour to complete, and participants were compensated with a $20 Visa gift card. There were two waves of data collection, once during the students’ first semester of their first year of college, and once during their second semester.

Measures Peer support: Questions regarding peers’ social support were adapted from the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987). The 25item questionnaire measured participants’ feelings about their relationships with their close friends. Sample items

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included “My friends accept me as I am” and “I can count on my friends when I need to get something off my chest.”

Responses were based on a five-point Likert scale ranging from “almost never or never true” to “almost always or always true.” Peer support was assessed during Wave 1 of the study, with a Cronbach’s alpha = .81.

Psychological well-being: The Flourishing Scale was a measure of well-being and assessed participants’ positive and negative feelings about their life and the positive impact they have on others (Diener, Wirtz, Tov, Kim-Prieto, Choi, Oishi, & Biswas-Diener, 2010). A sample item included “I am competent and capable in the activities that are important to me.”

Responses were based on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” The possible total range of summed scores was from 8 (lowest PWB possible) to 56 (highest PWB possible). A high score represented a person with many psychological strengths and resources. Psychological well-being was assessed during Wave 1 of the study, with a Cronbach’s alpha = .91.

Problematic drinking behaviors: Use of alcohol and other drugs was assessed with the Alcohol and Drug Questionnaire (Johnston, O’Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2006), and adapted from the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey (Presley, Meilman, & Lyerla, 1994). In keeping with previous definitions of binge drinking, the questionnaire assessed the number of times participants consumed five or more drinks on one occasion in the past month. It also asked participants to note how many of the 20 various problematic occurrences happened due to being under the influence of drugs and alcohol during the last 12 months. Sample items included having memory loss or a hangover, doing some-

thing participants later regretted, or being in trouble with the police. Individual events were summed, and high scores indicated more problematic alcohol/drug use. Problematic drinking behaviors were assessed at Wave 2 of the study, with a Cronbach’s alpha = .82 Control variables: The four controls were assessed during Wave 1 of the study.

Gender was a dichotomized variable, and was coded as 0 = “female/other” and 1 = “male.” Race was a dichotomized variable, and was coded as 0 = “non-white” and 1 = “white.” Socioeconomic status was a question asking the participants’ best estimate of the total income from all persons and sources in the household and coded on a 12-point Likert scale as 1 = “below $4,999” and 12 = “$105,000 and above.” Depressive symptoms were assessed using the 20item Beck Depression Inventory, which was a self-report rating inventory that measured characteristics attitudes and symptoms of depression. Questions included a four-point Likert scale, and a sample item included: “During the past two weeks, including today: 1 = I do not feel sad; 2 = I feel sad much of the time; 3 = I am sad all the time; 4 = I am so sad that I can’t stand it.”

Results SPSS 22.0 was used for hierarchical regression analyses. Out of the entire population (N = 340), there was a subset of participants who reported never having had an alcoholic drink. These non-drinkers (N = 103 participants) were coded as “0” for the measure of problematic drinking behaviors in the analyses that assessed full sample outcomes, since those who did not drink could not have problematic drinking outcomes. These non-drinkers were then excluded in the second analyses and consequently only drinkers

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were included (N = 237 participants).

Thus, the two analyses included the full sample (N = 340) and the drinkers only (N = 237). Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations, and skewness of the three substantive variables for all participants and drinkers only; Table 3 presents the intercorrelations of the main substantive variables.

Hypothesis 1: Students with stronger peer support at Wave 1 as measured by the IPPA will have higher psychological well-being at Wave 1.

To address this hypothesis, a hierarchical regression analysis was conducted. Analyses tested whether higher levels of psychological well-being (as measured by the Flourishing Scale) were predicted by participants with higher peer support (peer component of IPPA).

Participants’ gender, race, SES, and Beck Depression Inventory scores were entered first as controls, followed by peer support. Table 4 presents results indicating that peer support positively predicted psychological well-vbeing (B = .27, p < .001), after accounting for gender, race, SES, and depressive symptoms.

Because the outcome of interest for Hypothesis 2 was problematic drinking behaviors at Wave 2, the subset of the drinkers-only population (N = 237)—removing participants who had never had a drink (N = 103)—was also analyzed using identical methods. No differences in the total sample and this subset were detected in the analysis testing the relationship between peer support and psychological well-being (B =.30, p <.001); both samples had a similar, positive relationship between peer support and PWB. Hypothesis 2: Students with higher psychological well-being at Wave 1 will experience fewer problematic drinking behavioral consequences at Wave 2.

To address this hypothesis, a hi118

Table 2. Means, Standard Deviations, and Skewness of Substantive Variables

Table 3. Intercorrelations of Substantive Variables

Table 4. Predicting PWB from Peer Support

erarchical regression analysis was performed to determine whether psychological well-being (PWB) scores on the Flourishing Scale predicted problematic drinking behaviors on the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey. Participants’ gender, race, SES, and Beck Depression Inventory scores were entered first as controls,

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followed by PWB. Table 5 presents results indicating that psychological wellbeing was not associated with problematic drinking behaviors (B = .10, p = .13), after accounting for gender, race, SES, and depressive symptoms. A similar outcome was evident in the subset of the population who were drinkers only, in that PWB was not significantly associated with negative drinking behavior consequences (B = .10, p = .20), after accounting for gender, race, SES, and depressive symptoms.

Hypothesis 3: Students with stronger peer support at Wave 1 will experience fewer problematic drinking behavioral consequences at Wave 2.

To address this hypothesis, a hierarchical regression was conducted to determine whether higher IPPA peer support scores were associated with fewer problematic drinking behaviors on the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey. Participants’ gender, race, SES, and Beck Depression Inventory scores were entered first, followed by peer support. Table 6 presents results in which higher peer support at Wave 1 was not associated with problematic drinking behaviors at Wave 2 (B = .06, p = .33), after accounting for gender, race, SES, and depressive symptoms. A similar outcome was evident in the subset of the population who were drinkers only (B = .10, p = .13).

Hypothesis 4: Peer support is indirectly associated with fewer problematic drinking behavioral consequences through psychological well-being.

Since only the first piece of the mediation model (Hypothesis 1)—where better peer support predicted higher psychological well-being—was significant, and since no association was found between PWB and problematic drinking behaviors (Hypothesis 2), nor between peer support and problematic drinking

Table 5. Predicting Problematic Drinking Behaviors from PWB

Table 6. Predicting Problematic Drinking Behaviors from Peer Support

behaviors directly (Hypothesis 3), there was no support for the indirect association between peer support and negative drinking behaviors through PWB. Discussion Overall, findings do not support the general hypothesis that psychological wellbeing mediates the relationship between peer support and problematic drinking outcomes. However, I found support for the hypothesized association between peer support and PWB. Having better peer support was directly associated

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with higher psychological well-being, but no direct associations between PWB and problematic drinking behaviors, or between peer support and problematic drinking behaviors were found. Each of these findings and their subsequent implications will be addressed in turn below.

The significant relationship between peer support and PWB suggests that having closer and better social networks positively predicts psychological well-being. Past research strongly corroborates this, in demonstrating that a tightly-knit social circle or distinct niche has a positive effect on mental health (Azmitia, Syed, & Radmacher, 2013). In tandem with the specific population at hand—underrepresented students who may experience unique stressors in part due to their status—the present study further supports that peer support may mitigate the negative effects of such challenges as acclimating to a new and potentially unwelcoming environment, thus in turn improving well-being (Lopez, 2005; Crockett, Iturbide, Torres-Stone, McGinley, Raffaelli, & Carlo, 2007). In fact, Jackson (2012) conducted a study on African American males in a predominantly-White institution demonstrating the power of group bonds on mental health: several Black college men formed a brotherhood, thus creating strong peer support, and by discussing relevant issues, they were able to mutually cope with being marginalized students, consequently increasing their well-being. The present study underscores the notion of the importance of coherent social networks among the underrepresented student population, and its potential beneficial role in mental health.

Regarding the unsupported hypotheses, several reasons may explain the lack of statistically significant associations between the other parts of the model. First, to address the null relation120

ship between psychological well-being and problematic drinking behaviors, it is necessary to consider the conceivably conflicting roles of well-being on drinking outcomes. As suggested by a longitudinal study by Pitkäned (1999) and further augmented by Catanzaro and Laurent (2004), it is possible that lower psychological well-being could encourage students to drink more heavily, and also in social situations as a way to cope with stressors, especially during emerging adulthood. On the other hand, lower PWB from students’ unique stressors could serve as a protective role against drinking wherein students may isolate themselves from groups of peers who may engage in heavy drinking (Constantine, Anderson, Berkel, Caldwell, & Utsey, 2005). Alternatively, they may find healthier avenues to deal with stress that do not involve alcohol consumption (Pierceall & Keim, 2007). In turn, students may try to mitigate their psychological well-being by either engaging in drinking to cope, or by avoiding contexts that promote heavy consumption and turning to other means. Thus, these opposing possibilities could have yielded the overall null effect between PWB and problematic drinking behaviors.

The lack of association between peer support and problematic drinking behaviors may be explained by several factors involving social groups and motivations to consume alcohol. As past research has indicated that drinking can occur in contradictory environments (solitary or group settings, for example) (Borsari & Carey, 2006), it is important to consider the role of friends in drinking instances. Some social groups may pressure their peers to drink, while others may protect against possible deleterious behaviors (Clapp, Shillington, & Segars, 2000). The opposing differences in peer groups and their social goals of the this study’s student population may con-

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tribute to a non-uniform relationship with subsequent drinking outcomes.

Additionally, personal motivations to drink may influence variations in the association between peer support and drinking behaviors. It is possible that the current study’s students may drink to cope with alienation, acculturation, or their specific status stressors, as suggested by past research (Gonzalez, Collins, & Bradizza, 2009; Blume, Lovato, Thyken, & Denny, 2012). The presence or absence of a positive peer group could in turn fuel these motivations. On the other hand, it is possible that underrepresented students may be more cognizant of the specific challenges they may face and thus may exhibit stronger resilience when faced with adverse situations. For example, in research by Stuber (2011), about a quarter of the sample of underrepresented first-generation college students reported being able to overcome their feelings of being marginalized and chose to engage in the academic and social atmosphere. Consequently, students in general could turn to different, more positive, socially supportive avenues to cope with stress other than engaging in drinking, such as talking to a faculty member or reaching out to their family (Ong, Phinney, & Dennis, 2006).

Finally, the volatile and stressful nature of the college environment itself, especially during the tumultuous time of the transition to emerging adulthood, could contribute to increased or decreased drinking rates (Arnett, 2000). As noted in past research, the transition from seeking parental support to seeking peer support may lead students to engage in relationships which could promote either pro-social or anti-social behaviors or outcomes (Cooper, Shaver, & Collins, 1998). Thus, motivations to either reach out to peers to engage in or protect against drinking could result in these drinking outcomes fluctuations.

While the results and possible explanations are compelling, this study does have several limitations. First, data were self-report in collecting information about students’ perceptions of peer closeness, own psychological well-being, and the number of problematic drinking outcomes within the past year. This is inherent in the nature of the variables, as students themselves are best able to convey data regarding these three constructs. However, concerns about the social desirability bias of these self-report measures, especially in reporting problematic drinking outcomes and closeness of friend groups, still exist.

Additionally, the study time frame was relatively short, with data collection occurring during the students’ first and second semesters of their first year of college. Since this is a transition period for beginning college students, the study was only able to capture the experiences of students specifically in their first year. Furthermore, since the sample was comprised only of such freshmen students, all of whom were underage and not able to consume alcohol legally, results indicated lower overall base rates of drinking and subsequent problematic outcomes. A broader temporal analysis could yield greater information about drinking behaviors in the later years of university.

Despite these limitations, there are important implications of the results and analyses. It is suggested by the current study and supported by past research that peer support may positively influence underrepresented students’ psychological well-being. Because of this population’s specific status as underrepresented students, it may be worthwhile to foster groups of similar peers to help them overcome their specific stressors and challenges, together, in the college environment. Besides dealing with problematic drinking, underrepresented stu-

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dents may battle acculturation, racial tensions, and other distress due to their minority, low-SES, or first-generation status. Building circles of support—such as within residence halls or learning communities in which peers are experiencing similar pressures—could help to create an outlet to share those concerns and have a listening ear (Astin, 1993; Berger, 2000; Tinto, 1993 in Carter, 2006; Mason, Zaharakis, & Benotsch, 2014).

Furthermore, a more policy-based approach regarding peer support may be prudent. Current and past research may help to inform university policies about the importance of social support among underrepresented first-year college students, especially in the time of transition to college and away from parental support. Prior studies have proposed intervention techniques to help underrepresented students acculturate to the college environment by recognizing their specific needs and creating communities to promote bonding and overcome challenges unique to their status (Perez, 1998; Schwitzer, Griffin, Ancis, & Thomas, 1999). By addressing these concerns in tandem with problematic binge drinking, university administrators may get a clearer picture of the stressors of their underrepresented students, and in turn, begin to shape policy to mitigate their particular concerns (Kitzrow, 2003).

The knowledge of peer support and possible contradictory drinking motivations as rooted in social networks would provide the first step in helping to shape progress as to how to better resolve these ever-present and vital issues.

Looking ahead, it would be prudent to further investigate how peer support operates in the context of drinking and being well. To improve upon the current study’s questionnaire of perceptions of peer closeness, it may be beneficial to analyze the specific behaviors that peers operationalize to either encourage or dis122

courage drinking, or to promote or lower psychological well-being. Additionally, since the study assessed students’ experiences during their first year of college, focusing on a longitudinal approach on peer support and prevention of problematic drinking outcomes could shed more light on this pertinent topic.

Overall, the current study explored the relationship between peer support, psychological well-being, and problematic drinking behaviors among an under-researched demographic student population. Since ethnic/minority, low-SES, or first-generation college students are at greater risk for facing additional stressors than their mainstream peers, the study significantly contributes to the body of knowledge of understanding their unique experiences. That peer support may play a meaningful role in the well-being of these students is a springboard for future exploration.

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Research Around Grounds Kara Anderson

R

esearch may appear to be a common facet of student life at UVa. Getting there, however, wasn’t easy. If your experience was anything like mine, you spent hours carefully crafting the perfect email to a professor you had spent more precious time researching, all culminating in somewhat of a desperate plea for their guidance, wisdom, and bestowment of brilliance.

In the Fall of 2014, I sent a similar email to Professor Philip Potter, and was surprised to receive an enthusiastic response in return. Mr. Potter was relatively new on Grounds, fresh from the University of Michigan where he spent five years as a professor. But as a native of Northern Virginia, he was returning to his Virginian roots. I was lucky enough to grab a seat in his Political Violence and Terrorism course, a class that sparked my own research in the field of terrorism. By the time I finish here at the University, I 126

will likely consider it to be one of my favorite courses.

You could call Mr. Potter a “dynamic researcher” of sorts: on top of exploring the influence of domestic politics on foreign policy and international relations, he recently published a book, War and Democratic Constraint. Most importantly for students, however, he acts as a principle investigator on a Department of Defense Minerva Initiative Project.

The Secretary of Defense launched the Minerva Initiative in 2008 in order to focus on areas of strategic importance to U.S. national security. These projects seek to arm the Department of Defense with an understanding of the various forces that shape the world America operates in–from the political and behavioral to the social and cultural. As part of this initiative, Mr. Potter was awarded a grant, worth approximately $500,000, for a three year period to conduct research

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on terrorism.

His Minerva Initiative project seeks to understand the relationship between terrorist groups and to characterize those relationships. The project functions on the belief that non-state violent actors often do not operate alone, and that the relationships they develop with other groups can enhance their operational capability. By understanding the networks that terrorist organizations conduct their activities in, foreign policy and counterterrorism officials can disrupt those networks that are often used to recruit and gain legitimacy. Utilizing open-source media, researchers capture the relationship between two organizations over its entire duration. They seek to understand the type of support that exists in the relationship, whether territorial, operational, financial, or training. Additionally, researchers discern the nature of the organizations in question, particularly if they are motivated by nationalistic or religious reasons, for instance, or if they are indeed a violent organization.

The project is rather extensive. Despite my full year on the project, I had little knowledge of its scope. In an effort to further my understanding, I sat down with Mr. Potter on a Wednesday afternoon. Upon walking into his office situated in the depths of Gibson Hall, I am greeted by a sizable bicycle (a stark reminder of how tall Mr. Potter is). We exchange informalities and discuss both of our familiarities with the University of Michigan, counting our blessings that Virginia affords us much warmer weather than Michigan. We delve into discussion concerning the origins of the project: Professor Potter started the project while at the University of Michigan, and subsequently brought it to the University of Virginia, creating a dynamic that spans these two schools. A few of the researchers on the project started as students at the University of Michigan,

where they gradually progressed to research positions that afforded them more autonomy, even writing analysis alongside professors. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve worked on papers detailing state-sponsored terrorism or exploring principle-agent control.

He tells me that some of those students now pursue Ph.D. programs in terrorism studies or work for the State Department. He brought the project to UVa as well and assembled a team of student researchers hereâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;I count myself lucky to be among them.

I think this student involvement and progression captures why this Minerva Initiative Project is unique: it affords unusual autonomy to students on a rather large project spearheaded by an accomplished professor. There are no step-by-step instructions, no robotic and repetitive movements; students, after undergoing training, are given a framework within which they work independently, collecting data on organizations in nearly every country.

These students make up the steam of the project. At any given time, 20 to 30 undergraduate researchers work on the project, with three to five graduate students working as coordinators. These researchers have tallied approximately 15,000 years of relationships in data. The professors spearheading the project set a hefty goal of documenting every terrorist organization in the world (at least those that could be found), amounting to a total of 2,000 organizations. Indeed, reaching such a goal required thousands of documents, articles, and essays in addition to thousands of hours of work.

Professor Potterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Minerva Initiative is stepping stone for students in pursuing their academic passions and proves to be a testament to the power of undergraduates pursuing research in the fields where they find their passions.

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Submission Guidelines for The Oculus Eligibility Papers of all fields are eligible for publication, provided the research was conducted and the paper written while the contributor was an undergraduate student at UVa. Papers must be in English. Alumni may submit work within one year of graduation.

Copyright and Double Publication Submissions must not have been previously published elsewhere; however, contributors retain all copyrights to published work and may publish their work elsewhere after publication in The Oculus.

Image Rights For submissions that include images or other media from external sources, it is the author’s obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions.

Honor Code and Citations The Oculus is committed to upholding the UVa honor code and expects all submissions to cite sources when appropriate. Contributors are asked to use citation standards common to their field.

Length There is no required length; past articles have commonly ranged between 7 and 35 pages.

Abstract You must include a 250-300 word abstract at the beginning of your paper.

Format Submissions must be made in MS Word (.doc or .docx) format. Please remove all identifiers (names, classes, acknowledgments) from the document prior to submission.

Please name the file “Paper title.docx”. All supporting media (images, charts, tables, figures) must be supplied in either .png or .tif file format. Please name the supporting media files “(Paper title)_1.png,” “(Paper title)_2.tif,” etc., in the order in which they appear in the paper.

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Submission Please send your submission as an e-mail attachment to oculus@virginia.edu. The subject line should read “(your name) Oculus Submission.” In the text of the e-mail please provide: • Your name, year, and major • The title of your paper and what class (if applicable) the paper was written for • When and where the research was conducted (if applicable) • The name of your faculty advisor(s) and coauthor(s) (if applicable) • Where you heard about The Oculus solicitations If the paper has coauthors, they must e-mail oculus@virginia.edu a statement consenting to the publication of the work in The Oculus. If the research was conducted in a lab, your faculty advisor(s) must e-mail oculus@virginia.edu a statement consenting to the publication of the work in The Oculus. They must also confirm that the research has not been previously published elsewhere.

Selection Process The Oculus editors evaluate both the quality of research and the quality of writing. The paper must contain original research and make a reasonable contribution to the body of scholarly work in the field. In addition, the paper must be free from grammatical errors and written in a lucid, professional style. The submissions are carefully selected by undergraduate editors who review the papers over the course of 8-10 weeks. Each submission is read and discussed by multiple editors from different fields to decide if the paper deserves another read. After several rounds of eliminations, the final selections are made and authors are notified.

Target Audience The target audience for papers published in The Oculus is curious undergraduates of the university. The published works are expected to be generally understood by educated students both in and out of your paper’s field.

Notification of Selection for Publication Typically, The Oculus is open for submissions during the first three weeks of the semester. The selection process takes several weeks and authors are notified around ten weeks after submission. If submitted during the Fall semester, authors will be offered feedback on their papers if they are being considered for publication. Both papers submitted in the Fall and Spring semesters are considered for the annual Spring publication.

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The Center for Undergraduate Excellence The Center for Undergraduate Excellence advises students regarding undergraduate research opportunities and national scholarships and fellowships. Students are encouraged to visit the Center throughout their undergraduate careers. For more information about the Center, please visit its website at www.virginia.edu/cue or its office at 305 Harrison Institute/Small Special Collections Library.

The Undergraduate Research Network The Undergraduate Research Network (URN) was formed in 2001 to foster an undergraduate research community at the University of Virginia. URN encourages students to initiate research projects and also offers guidance and mentorship to those interested in research.

To achieve this goal, URN presents information about current research opportunities and publicizes funding availabilities and research-related events. Each semester, URN puts on a series of workshops on topics ranging from finding funding for research to giving an effective research presentation, as well as an undergraduate research symposium where students who have completed significant research projects can present their findings. If you are interested in learning more about URN or becoming a part of the organization, please visit www.uvaurn.org.

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