Reflections of Richard Leakey

It seems that the past several weeks have featured more than the usual number of notable deaths, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, E.O. Wilson, and Betty White. Just after the passing of these nonagenarians came news of the death at age 77 of a slightly younger fellow whose work I knew less well.

Word Art from the Ngaren Museum 

My favorite librarian and I both recall hearing anthropologist Richard Leakey in a lecture hall when we were students, though we cannot recall for certain when or where this was. I remember only that he was part of a noted family of anthropologists and that he had rather a cantankerous personality. As with many notables, I seem to have learned more about him after his death than I did when he was alive.

Vivienne Nunis interviewed Leakey for the BBC program Business Daily, in the context of a career changer. In just 18 minutes, they discuss several very different phases of his professional life, which really began when he was a child tagging along on archeological digs with his parents, anthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey. He lived his entire life in the English colonial territory that would become the country of Kenya.

In the first phase of his adult life, he reached into the distant past, literally uncovering the lives of humans who had lived in the Rift Valley 1.6 million years ago. He then became a noted conservationist whose audacious protests led to protection of elephants through restrictions on the trade in ivory (this benefited whales as well). His work as a conservationist was linked in complicated ways to his political life and other government service.

The most important part of the interview is the discussion of the work of what has turned out to be his sunset years. His understanding of humans across eons led him to fervent work on the problem of climate change. He sees the arc of human experience from deep prehistory to a precarious future from his lifetime in the Rift Valley, where we began and where our fate is clearly undecided. He and his colleagues have been working to capture that entire arc in the Ngaren Museum, where ground will be breaking soon on a project animated by this view of time.

Leakey was also profiled in a 2010 issue of Sierra, the magazine of the U.S.-based environmental organization. In Elephant Man, journalist Susan Zakin begins the story at the Peponi Hotel on the island of Lamu, where they were supposed to meet. His refusal to come ashore at the hotel becomes a metaphor for his uneasy status with fellow colonials. The profile she writes provides important details about the first two phases of the life Leakey discussed with Nunis last month, especially his work in environmental policy. 

Note: Their meeting took place at a time when many tourists were avoiding Kenya because of violence surrounding national elections. This coincided with my owned planned visit to the country. I had plane tickets and plans to meet a student and her family near Mount Kenya -- where both tea and coffee are produced. Just before the trip, she completely disappeared. I was never certain whether something had happened directly to her and her family or if she cut off contact to protect me.

Lagniappe 

Leakey's transition from renowned anthropologist to avid climate-change activist reminds me of a similar transition on the part of Jane Goodall, a protegée of Louis Leakey who thankfully is still with us. I point to some of her work in my 2020 post Jane Goodall: Climate, Community, Coffee. I have updated that post to include her January 2022 BBC interview, which pairs nicely with the Leakey interview above.

Crossing the Chaco

The Amazon rainforest is the largest ecosystem in South America; it is the one that drew me into the study of geography. I know quite a lot about it, though I still have plenty to learn. 

Three-banded armadillo is one of 150 mammal species
in the Gran Chaco. Image: WWF

I know very little, however, about the second-largest ecosystem of South America: the Gran Chaco of Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia. It is also second in biodiversity, with over 500 species of birds alone. 

Map: Wikipedia. Chaqu is a Quechua word meaning 
"hunting land" and hinting at the region's diverse fauna.

I have even more to learn about it, especially as both the land and the people of the Gran Chaco are threatened by rapid changes related to the opening of a bioceanic transportation corridor. The Amazon experience is, sadly, instructive -- rapid expansion of roads is bringing all manner of peril. In both cases, heretofore uncontacted civilizations are at greatest risk. 

Detail from an interactive map at Corredor Bioceanico, a website promoting the project.
The Gran Chaco is being traversed by road, rail, and river. 

 

Mexico Contrasts, In Black & White

“Mujer Ángel, Desierto de Sonora, México (Angel Woman, Sonora Desert, Mexico),”
1979. Graciela Iturbide / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston & New York Times

In her recent article Graciela Iturbide's Photos of Mexico Make 'Visible What, To Many, Is Invisible' is an treasure in the form of a very unusual photo essay. All of the images are by a renowned photographer who continues to interpret her cultural landscape five decades after taking up her profession. All of the text is by Evelyn Nieves, a journalist who clearly delights in introducing Iturbide's work to (mostly) new viewers.

That work informs viewers of a rich tapestry of unexpected contrasts captured in many places throughout Mexico. Those of us in the Boston area are -- for now -- very fortunate that we can begin our exploration in this Times article and continue it in an exhibition of Iturbide's work at the Museum of Fine Arts this January 19 to May 12. Some of the work -- including the arresting image of a prosthetic leg and boot -- will be part of a separate exhibition of works about the great artist Frida Kahlo, February 27 to June 16. I will be visiting some time in the overlap between the two.

Lagniappe

I look forward to exploring more work under the byline of Evelyn Nieves, much of which celebrates the work of photographers.

Political Geography of Coffee Shoppes: Tel Aviv

We recently watched the 2006 Israeli film The Bubble, in which one of the main characters is a coffee shop. From the essential "making of" feature on the DVD, I learned that Orna and Ella on Sheinkin Street was not created for the film -- it actually was a gathering spot for the modern young adults of this seaside city. (2021 update: sadly, the restaurant closed in 2018.) The title of the film refers to the relative isolation that Tel Aviv -- in particular that street and even more in particular its cafes and clubs -- has enjoyed from the strife that grips much of Israel.

In the "making of" piece, the role of coffee in defining this space is described clearly:

"Politics in Tel Aviv are a little confused. There is poitical awareness, usually left-winged, but not much action is taken between one espresso to the next."

As the film unfolds, of course, we find that reality does have ways of intruding on the most hip and detached communities. The intersecting geographies of homophobia and Israel-Palestine strife dominate this film. The "bubble" is a space between xenophobia and homophobia that Director Eytan Fox masterfully compresses throughout the film. The film's conclusion is the ultimate collapse of that space.

The trailer above and the NY Times review by Jeannette Catsoulis are good introductions to the film. After the film, I highly recommend seeing the "making-of" extra on the DVD, which provides valuable insights  on the variety of contested social and political spaces in which the filming itself took place. After that, I recommend reading a few of the critical reviews, in particular John Esther's interview with Eytan Fox, Brandon Judell's Blowing Up Middle-Eastern Rancor with Copulation, and especially Michael Bronski's analysis for Z magazine.

Finally, if any readers of this blog end up at Orna and Ella in Tel Aviv, please let me know how the coffee is!