Dr. Tom Fricke
(University of Michigan, Associate Professor of Anthropology
and Director, Center for the Ethnography of Everyday Life)
"The Geography of Moral Sentiment: Placing
Work and Family in Western North Dakota"
Wednesday, March 7th, 2001, 3:00 p.m.
Based on preliminary analysis of materials from ethnographic
fieldwork in West River, North Dakota, this talk explores the
expression of moral sentiments and tensions as they emerge in
the everyday life of its people. West River, a community of
just over 600 people and a surrounding countryside of farms
and ranches, stands in for all those northern plains towns founded
in the last years of the 19th century with hopes of robust futures.
Overwhelmingly German and Catholic, West River suffers the same
lineaments of decline as these other communities: fewer farms,
shrinking population, the closings of schools, stores, and clinics.
This presentation focuses on the uses of place and landscape
as a way to oppose local identity and senses of self against
the intrusions of the outside world and the loss of children
to the bright lights and big cities that lure them. Contemporary
expressions of that identity occur in the context of decline,
marginalization, and the reconfiguration of what counts as success.
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Tom Fricke is Director of the University of Michigan's
Center for the Ethnography of Everyday Life, an Alfred P. Sloan
Center for the Study of Working Families. He is Associate Professor
of Anthropology at the university and is best known for his
publications on demographic anthropology and the social contexts
of family and work transitions in Nepal, Taiwan, and Pakistan.
His publications include Himalayan Households (1994,
Columbia University Press), Anthropological Demography
(1997, University of Chicago Press) co-edited with David Kertzer,
and numerous articles and chapters. A native of the northern
plains, his most recent ethnographic work in North Dakota brings
his research interests back home.
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The MARIAL Center
Emory West, 4th Floor, Room 415E
Open to the public
Refreshments will be served
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DIRECTIONS TO THE MARIAL CENTER
The MARIAL Center is located on the 4th floor
of the main building of Emory West, 1256 Briarcliff Rd. There
is ample parking close to the building. Alternatively, you may
take the Emory shuttle (Route W). The shuttle leaves every half
hour from the main campus and is a 10-minute ride. Route W shuttle
stops are located at the corner of Asbury Circle and Pierce
Drive, along Pierce Drive, and in front of the Administration
Building.
Please tell the receptionist at the front window
that you are here for the MARIAL Center lecture.
