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It is a great honor to receive the Malinowski Award from the Society for Applied Anthropology. I do so with gratitude for your kindness as members of the society and in recognition of so many people who throughout my student life and professional career have provided the support necessary to make this occasion possible. Since I cannot name them all, I am selecting two among them: Dr. Carole E. Hill for her commitment to applied anthropology and her service to my country, Costa Rica; and the late Dr. Carlyle S. Smith of the University of Kansas for welcoming me into the field of anthropology and for sharing with me its wide-reaching perspectives on human, and humane, issues. I have learned from all my professors, colleagues, and students at the University of Kansas, the University of Georgia, the University of Costa Rica, and other institutions where I have worked. My professors made me read the works of those who were considered the greats of anthropology; some had been their professors, or professors of their professors, so I can claim descent from those lineages as well.
The Trobriand Islanders were always among the case studies we had to read to understand what ethnography is all about (Malinowski 1922,1958). I often thought of Dr. Malinowski while trying to understand the matrilineal Bribri people of Costa Rica, who, like the Trobrianders, have charter myths, rivalry between mother's son and mother's brother, and brother-sister avoidance. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Dr. Malinowski was often on my mind because Marxist-oriented Central American sociologists and anthropologists blamed functionalism for studies of Central American indigeneous peoples that neglected to stress the influence of colonial history on their contemporary oppression. Dr. Margarita Bolanos, my colleague and former student, dealt with this difficult chapter of the history of anthropology in Central America in her Ph.D. dissertation (1999:15-16, 99105). Today's chapter in the history of Central American anthropology is marked by more openness to the study of the different paradigms that have shaped anthropology, and the present context in which our students are learning Dr. Malinowski's ethnographic methods is less conflictual. One of those paradigms now guiding applied anthropological work is sustainable development.
In Costa Rica sustainable development has addressed more than nature conservation and...