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Jamon Alex Halvaksz, II
Assistant Professor

U. of Texas at San Antonio

From his site:

Research

My on-going research with Biangai speakers of Papua New Guinea focuses on the historical and contemporary politics of nature in a context of competing resource management regimes. Though grounded in a landscape of long-term gold mining, I interrogate a wide range of practices as they inform a local theoretic of human-environment relations. My work is directed toward interventions in contemporary policy highlighting 1) the role of local imaginaries and epistemologies in the definition and management of ‘nature’ and ‘resources,’ and 2) the competing ideations of indigenous and scientific knowledge.

He’s also done work on the subject of Marijuana cultivation on Papau New Guinea.

He’s a really great and very smart guy. Basically, he found that locals actually liked what the mine brought them, and they want the mines back. The conflict was in the disproportionate share of wealth produced by the mines in the area. So, they want to be able to negotiate with mine owners in the same way that a land owner in the US can. In the movie the Navi honestly didn’t need anything from the humans. They could fly, they has a global bio-computer, etc… On our planet, pre-literate peoples generally wanted things like steel knives, and no one had to push them on them.
So, in the movie the company was willing to give the Navi whatever they wanted, but they didn’t have anything they wanted. On our planet, often it isn’t a matter of the people not wanting anything, rather it is a matter of the company not wanting to give them anything. So, I think that anthros. can help them negotiate the terms of any agreements, to ensure that sacred forest areas are protected, and that local needs are met.

There’s also an interesting story about an anthropologist that works on environmental justice issues, and I can’t remember her name right now, but I’ll find out. Anyway, she had worked for the locals who were effected by the nuclear testing in French Polynesia atolls. She said that in the court case between the government, and the people, the anthropologist what worked for the government (who was the preeminent expert and worked in the islands for 20 years) came to court with very sloppy research. She came to court with something like a 5 page brief. She actually helped the locals by not trying very hard, basically.

This story mirrors the theme of the movie that employees of the company, actually worked against the company.

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What do the anthropologists who work for the oil and mining companies say about the film? I spend a lot of time looking at oil and mining projects in Africa, and there are always anthropologists in the background (or, as in the case of Exxon Mobil’s venture into Chad, the foreground; see http://www.edf.org/documents/4187_mallaby_rebuttal.pdf). They provide an entry ticket, both for reaching the local communities and deflecting international criticism. Every land acquisition program — and every World Bank review — has its anthropologists. The underexplored history of the mining venture in Pandora is that the anthropologists were there from the start — perhaps making it possible to proceed in the first place?. I would love to know more about how this is read from within the discipline.

Peter Rosenblum, Columbia Law School

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“1] it’s a movie people. It’s not a documentary, especially not an ethnographic film. It’s an art form that is intended to be commercially profitable by entertaining a large number of people.”

First of all, movies have to have enough common denominators with the cultural specifics of the audience for it to actually work. Otherwise people wont identify themselves with what they see, which takes me to a second and more potent point, if people dont identify themselves (using empathy, one would say, from a phenomenological perspective) then the different discourses conveyed in the movie wont be internalised in the audience. It’s not “just” for entertainment. It’s meant to convey some kind of meaning. Otherwise everyone could just as well watch Laurel&Hardy or Charlie Chaplin over and over again, even though the audience is Indian or from a different era of time.

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But in Avatar, the natives win.

A better ending would have avoided either total defeat, as in The Mission, or total victory, but would have referenced the Zapatista story. The hero could have become Marcos, and the use of military force would have been combined with savvy use of the media to earn a tenuous ceasefire, with ongoing low intensity violence.

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But in Avatar, the natives win.

A better ending would have avoided either total defeat, as in The Mission, or total victory, but would have referenced the Zapatista story. The hero could have become Marcos, and the use of military force would have been combined with savvy use of the media to earn a tenuous ceasefire, with ongoing low intensity violence.

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http://scifiblock.com/images/avatarpocahontas.htm

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http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2010/01/navi_sex_scene_found_how_they.html

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http://www.slashfood.com/2009/12/11/mcdonalds-big-mac-avatar-meal/

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1] it’s a *movie* people. It’s not a documentary, especially not an ethnographic film. It’s an art form that is intended to be commercially profitable by entertaining a large number of people.

2] For all it’s minutiae of plausibility failings (what did they eat… it’s proximity to a gas giant means it should have more tectonic disruptions), the movie succeeded in getting all of you to talk & think about it, and even pay to go see it.

3] The plot is a fable. A classic Malinowskian Charter for Our Times. Sure, it is, as Nancy Reyes and others have noted, a re-writing of the Rouseauean noble savage plus Western-Man-Goes-Native (and his soul is saved in the process) narratives.

But in the re-writing, the fable is modernized, as happens with all good social charters: The noble savages succeed at ousting the invading imperialist resource-seeking colonialists; the ecosystem is damaged but protected; the social fabric is sustained; the cultural stories are validated (Eywa is a living organism; People can sometimes connect with the mega-fauna & mega-flora). The plot may be predictable, but then so is the plot of all myths. That’s the point: even as the story is told the first time, it seems familiar and therefore validates our current (or desired) status quo. As an artist, Cameron has ‘sampled’ quite eloquently and sensitively, I think. We can point to the fact that he had a linguist create the language, and an ethnographer advise on the rituals, and a choreographer design the dances, etc. (I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from Cirque Du Soleil advised on the acrobatic sequences). But I don’t think that we should take that use of expertise and go away with the expectation that Pandora and it’s People will be real. Authentic as Art, perhaps. As Nancy Lutkehaus said in her discussion on helping to plan the Na’vi: Cameron sees himself as a connoisseur, and her role was “that of a curator whose expertise provides the imprimatur of authenticity.” She wasn’t brought in to make sure Cameron mirrored reality. What Cameron has done is created a movie that taps into the collective imaginings of a lot of people. We can critique the implausibility of the details, but the brush strokes are populist.

In the annals of Hollywood stereotypes and representations, what Cameron did, in creating his Avatar fable has a lot going for it: Think about it: For once, the indigenous people win; the women are good at rescuing instead of being rescued; the women make important decisions; the men are sensitive, even when being macho; the fauna and flora are recognized as actants in their ecosystem; even the capitalist pig-dog miners and the rabid military grunts recognize the horror of their destructive capabilities.

What’s not to applaud about that kind of fable?

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But of course, those who love the primitive life will never face the reality of a life without aspirin or birth control pills…

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Cormac McCarthy as ethnographer. Genuinely frightening.

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