Put yourself in the shoes of the professional climbers in Patagonia when the Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures and the International Institute at Mississippi State welcome Marcos Mendoza from the University of Mississippi for a brown bag lunch at noon on Thursday [April 17] in Room 210 of the Lloyd Ricks Watson building. He will give a talk about his anthropological research with mountain climbers and conservation organizations in Patagonia. (Learn more at http://socanth.olemiss.edu/2013/08/marcos-mendoza.)
Please bring your own lunch, and refreshments will be provided.
Mendoza's talk, "Patagonian Alpinism: Style, Status, and Resolve in the Alta Montana," will examine the high-risk world of Patagonian mountaineering with close attention to the social practices mobilized by climbers within the Andean alta montana -- the high mountain zone.
The presentation focuses on the ethics of style and the status hierarchies shaping the performance of existential resolve by alpinists, particularly as they face commoditization pressures from the global outdoor industry. Indeed, the social imagination of injury and death plays a key role not only in shaping the ethical performance of resolve, but also in culturally distantiating alpinism from the corporate regime of value to which the discipline is productively linked.
For further information, please contact David Hoffman at dhoffman@anthro.msstate.edu or 662-325-7524.