[OR_Archaeology] PSU Anth. Dept.'s 1st Thurs Lecture Series begins Jan. 8

[Susan White]

PSU Anthropology Presentation
 
Dr. Michele R. Gamburd  (Portland State University)
Home Wars: Gendered Consumption Struggles over Alcohol and Migrant Remittances
 
4:00 pm, Thursday, January 8, 2009
Cramer Hall 41, Portland State University
 
How are female labor migration and male alcohol use related in Sri  Lanka? Local politicians often assume that migration causes alcohol abuse and myriad other problems. In this presentation, Michele Gamburd  argues for a more nuanced view of the connections between these  
phenomena. In her analysis of qualitative data from the village of  Naeaegama, where she has performed ethnographic fieldwork for the past  15 years, she draws on theories of globalization and the anthropology of food.

Over a million Sri Lankans now work abroad, 2/3 of them women. In  Naeaegama, migrant women and their place-bound spouses struggle over  how to allocate scarce household finances. Gamburd examines Naeaegama  women?s motives for migration, which include earning money to buy  
land, build houses, and educate children. She then explores the  relationship between consumption and identity, focusing in particular  on the relationship between alcohol use and masculinity. People use of  alcohol in constructing social prestige, but at the same time alcohol abuse can lead to poverty. Many women go abroad because their husbands are unable to fulfill their culturally designated role as breadwinner.  Because alcohol is an exclusively male beverage, some men turn to  liquor consumption to reassert their masculinity as they take over female-gendered domestic tasks at home in their wive's absence.
 
Changing global economic circumstances are altering the relationship between the sexes in Naeaegama, giving women more control over money and making wives more skeptical about their husbands? prerogative to drink. These twin trends put men and women on a collision course for disputes over alcohol consumption. Instead of blaming alcohol abuse on women?s migration, Gamburd argues that poverty, financial insecurity, lack of economic opportunities, and international inequality spur both migration and abusive drinking.
 
Immediately following the talk, please join us for a book signing and reception in the Anthropology Department lounge, Cramer 141.  Copies of Dr. Gamburd's book, Breaking the Ashes: The Culture of  Illicit Liquor in Sri Lanka, will be available for purchase for  $22.95.  You will get a chance to talk with the author and have your  book signed while enjoying refreshments.  
 
Book signing and reception immediately following in the Anthropology  Department lounge, Cramer 141.
 
For more information or questions, please contact Kristen A. Fuld at fuldk at pdx.edu 

 
 
 
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