I don't know if this map will totally answer the question, but it goes a long way. It's a geographical tag cloud of last names, color-coded by ethnic origin. Pretty cool.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Diamous
In the "Give & Take" post, I went into a small part of the importance of diamou, or tribal names, in Mali. I would often get asked if/how many diamous are in America, and I always struggled with the answer. There are of course the Native American tribes, but I don't think there is the same kind of joking relationships that Malian tribes enjoy, and lumping all the anglos together doesn't do justice to the variety therein. Last names, on the other hand, seem too numerous to really create the same kind of team mentality that seems to be inherent to the diamou.
I don't know if this map will totally answer the question, but it goes a long way. It's a geographical tag cloud of last names, color-coded by ethnic origin. Pretty cool.
I don't know if this map will totally answer the question, but it goes a long way. It's a geographical tag cloud of last names, color-coded by ethnic origin. Pretty cool.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The 20/20 Peace Corps report
I was horrified by the terrible crimes reported by ABC News last week. What happened to those women is a tragedy and they are incredibly brave for sharing their stories. I am troubled, too, by the apparently apathetic and negligent treatment of the incident by the Peace Corps staff in the countries concerned. While the official statement addresses some of these concerns, I'll be looking forward to further action in response to those allegations.
In the meantime, I've gathered from various comment threads and personal conversations that the general reaction to these reports includes a tendency to presume that Peace Corps service inherently carries greater risk for sexual assault and rape relative to life here in the United States. I don't believe this is the case.
According to the ABC report, there have been about 1,000 cases of sexual assault and rape reported by Peace Corps volunteers over the last decade. About 3,500-4,000 Peace Corps trainees go abroad every year. For the sake of argument, let's make the conservative assumption that only half of these 3,500 trainees are women. (In reality, 60% all volunteers are women - most, but not all of which are recent college graduates.) 1,000 incidents over a ten year period among 17,500 women over comes to a 5.7% rate of incidence. Compare this to the United States, where up to 25% of college age women report surviving rape or attempted rape since their 14th birthday. (14-22 is only 8 years, but it's been a while since I took stats, so I'm not sure how to correct for this. Regardless, the absolutely correct value would never approach 5.7%.) I've been told that the statistics for murder and assault are similarly lopsided.
So let us not confuse the issue. As I said, the reported unresponsiveness and victim-blaming of the local staff is of great concern and deserves scrutiny. But there is nothing inherently unsafe about being abroad or working as a Peace Corps volunteer. The same terrible things can and do happen here, and it's just as tragic.
In the meantime, I've gathered from various comment threads and personal conversations that the general reaction to these reports includes a tendency to presume that Peace Corps service inherently carries greater risk for sexual assault and rape relative to life here in the United States. I don't believe this is the case.
According to the ABC report, there have been about 1,000 cases of sexual assault and rape reported by Peace Corps volunteers over the last decade. About 3,500-4,000 Peace Corps trainees go abroad every year. For the sake of argument, let's make the conservative assumption that only half of these 3,500 trainees are women. (In reality, 60% all volunteers are women - most, but not all of which are recent college graduates.) 1,000 incidents over a ten year period among 17,500 women over comes to a 5.7% rate of incidence. Compare this to the United States, where up to 25% of college age women report surviving rape or attempted rape since their 14th birthday. (14-22 is only 8 years, but it's been a while since I took stats, so I'm not sure how to correct for this. Regardless, the absolutely correct value would never approach 5.7%.) I've been told that the statistics for murder and assault are similarly lopsided.
So let us not confuse the issue. As I said, the reported unresponsiveness and victim-blaming of the local staff is of great concern and deserves scrutiny. But there is nothing inherently unsafe about being abroad or working as a Peace Corps volunteer. The same terrible things can and do happen here, and it's just as tragic.
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