Anthropology Appreciating Human Diversity Fifteenth Edition Conrad Phillip

Anthropology Appreciating Human Diversity Fifteenth Edition Conrad Phillip Kottak University of Michigan Mc. Graw-Hill © 2013 Mc. Graw-Hill Companies. All Rights Reserved.

C H A P T E R METHOD AND THEORY IN CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 13 -2

METHODS AND THEORY IN CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY • Ethnography: Anthropology’s Distinctive Strategy • Ethnographic Techniques • Survey Research • Doing Anthropology Right and Wrong: Ethical Issues • Theory in Anthropology Over Time • Anthropology Today 13 -3

METHODS AND THEORY IN CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY • Where and how do anthropologists do fieldwork? • What are some ways of studying modern societies? • What theories have guided anthropologists over the years? 13 -4

ETHNOGRAPHY: ANTHROPOLOGY’S DISTINCTIVE STRATEGY • Traditionally, process of becoming cultural anthropologist required field experience in another society • Ethnography emerged as a research strategy in societies with greater cultural uniformity and less social differentiation than modern industrial nations • Try to understand the whole culture 13 -5

ETHNOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES • • • Direct, firsthand observation Conversation The genealogical method Detailed work with key consultants In-depth interviewing 13 -6

ETHNOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES • • Discovery of local beliefs and perceptions Problem-oriented research Longitudinal research Team research 13 -7

OBSERVATION AND PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION • Ethnographers pay attention to and record the details of daily life • Keep personal diary • Strive to establish rapport • Ethnographer cannot be totally impartial and detached 13 -8

CONVERSATION, INTERVIEWING, AND INTERVIEW SCHEDULES • Participating in local life means constantly talking to people and asking questions • Naming phase • Ethnographic survey • Interview schedule: form used to structure a formal, but personal, interview • Questionnaire: form used by sociologists to obtain comparable information from respondents 13 -9

THE GENEALOGICAL METHOD • Genealogical method: using diagrams and symbols to record kin connections • Prominent building block in nonindustrial societies • In many nonindustrial societies, kin links are basic to social life 13 -10

KEY CULTURAL CONSULTANTS • Key cultural consultant: expert on a particular aspect of local life • Every community has people who can provide most complete or useful information about particular aspects of life 13 -11

LIFE HISTORIES • Life history: a personal portrait of someone’s life in a culture • Reveals how specific people perceive, react to, and contribute to changes that affect their lives • Many ethnographers include collection of life histories as part of their research strategy 13 -12

LOCAL BELIEFS AND PERCEPTIONS • Emic (native oriented) approach: investigates how natives think, categorize the world, express thoughts, and interpret stimuli • Cultural consultant: individual ethnographer gets to know, in the field, people who teach him or her about their culture • Etic (science oriented) approach: emphasizes categories, interpretations, and features that the anthropologist considers important 13 -13

PROBLEM-ORIENTED ETHNOGRAPHY • Most ethnographers enter the field with a specific problem to investigate • Researchers gather information on factors such as population density, environmental quality, climate, physical geography, diet, and land use • Local people may lack knowledge about many factors that affect their lives 13 -14

LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH • Longitudinal research: long-term study of a community, region, society, culture, or other unit, usually based on repeat visits 13 -15

TEAM RESEARCH • Team research often used in longitudinal research • Gwembe District, Zambia 13 -16

Figure 13. 2 Location of Gwembe in Zambia 13 -17

CULTURE, SPACE, AND SCALE • Traditional ethnographic research focused on single community or culture • Isolated and unique in time and space • Ethnography increasingly multitimed and multisited • Kluckhohn: anthropology could provide “scientific basis for dealing with the crucial dilemma of the world today” • Mass media oddities in culture and space 13 -18

SURVEY RESEARCH • Survey research design: sampling, collecting impersonal data, and statistical analysis • Sample: smaller study group chosen to represent a larger population • Random sample: all members of the population have equal statistical chance of being chosen for inclusion • Variables: attributes that differ from one person or case to the next 13 -19

SURVEY RESEARCH • The combination of survey research and ethnography can provide new perspectives on life in complex societies: large, populous societies with social stratification and central governments • In best studies, the hallmark of ethnography is that anthropologists enter the community and get to know the people 13 -20

RECAP 13. 1: Ethnography and Survey Research Contrasted 13 -21

DOING ANTHROPOLOGY RIGHT AND WRONG: ETHICAL ISSUES • Anthropologists must be sensitive to cultural differences and aware of procedures and standards in host country • Include host country colleagues in planning • Establish collaborative relationships with host • Include host country colleagues in dissemination of research results • Ensure something is “given back” to host country 13 -22

THE CODE OF ETHICS • Code of Ethics of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) recognizes anthropologists have obligations to their scholarly field, to the wider society, and to the human species, other species, and the environment • Informed consent: agreement to take part in research—after having been informed about its nature, procedures, and possible impacts 13 -23

ANTHROPOLOGISTS AND TERRORISM • AAA deemed study of the roots of terrorism and violence of “paramount importance” • May be impossible for anthropologists in war zones to identify themselves as anthropologists • Anthropologists are asked to negotiate relations among several groups • Difficult for local people to give informed consent • Information could help target specific groups • Military may indirectly endanger research and researcher 13 -24

THEORY IN ANTHROPOLOGY OVER TIME • • • Evolutionary perspectives (Morgan and Tylor) Functionalists (Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown) Historical (Boas) Symbolic and interpretive approaches Relation between culture and individual Contemporary marked by specialization 13 -25

EVOLUTIONISM • Tylor (1871– 1958): offered definition of culture and proposed it as a topic that could be studied scientifically • Morgan (1870– 1997): Ancient Society, The League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee or Iroquois, and Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family • The League of the Iroquois is anthropology’s earliest ethnography 13 -26

EVOLUTIONISM • Morgan: human society has evolved through savagery, barbarism, and civilization (unilinear evolutionism) • Subdivided savagery and barbarism into three substages each: lower, middle, upper • Tylor proposed a unilinear path: animism, polytheism, monotheism, and science 13 -27

THE BOASIANS • Four-field anthropology • Franz Boas was father of four-field U. S. anthropology • Contributed to cultural, biological, and linguistic anthropology • Showed that human biology was plastic • Ruth Benedict: civilization is the achievement of no single race 13 -28

HISTORIC PARTICULARISM • Historical particularism (Boas): histories are not compatible; diverse paths can lead to same cultural result • Rejected comparative method 13 -29

INDEPENDENT INVENTION VERSUS DIFFUSION • Evolutionists stressed independent invention to explain cultural generalities • Boasians stressed diffusion • Culture trait • Trait complexes • Culture area • Historical particularism and diffusion were complementary 13 -30

FUNCTIONALISM • Functionalism: an approach focusing on the role of sociocultural practices in social systems • Malinowski • Customs and institutions in society are integrated and interrelated • Needs functionalism: based on belief that humans have a set of universal biological needs 13 -31

CONJECTURAL HISTORY • Radcliffe-Brown: social anthropology could never discover histories of people without writing • Advocated that social anthropology be synchronic (studying societies as they exist today) rather than diachronic (studying societies across time) 13 -32

STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM • Associated with Radcliffe-Brown and Evans-Pritchard • Customs (social practices) function to preserve the social structure • Radcliffe-Brown: social systems are comparable to anatomical and physiological process 13 -33

DR. PANGLOSS VERSUS CONFLICT • Panglossian functionalism: the tendency to see things as functioning to maintain system in the most optimal way possible • Manchester school: examined how rebellion and conflict were regulated and dissipated, thus maintaining the system 13 -34

FUNCTIONALISM PERSISTS • Functionalism persists in views that: • Elements of social and cultural systems are functionally related so that they covary • When one part changes, others also change • Some elements more important than others 13 -35

CONFIGURATIONALISM • Configurationalism: the view of culture as integrated and patterned • Benedict and Mead • Traits might not spread if they met environmental barriers or were not accepted by a culture • More interested in describing how cultures are uniquely patterned or configured than in explaining how they got that way 13 -36

NEOEVOLUTIONISM • White and Steward (1950) reintroduced evolution with the study of culture • White: general evolution—energy capture is the main measure and cause of cultural advance • Steward: In multilinear evolution, culture evolved along different lines • Also a pioneer in cultural ecology, known as ecological anthropology 13 -37

CULTURAL MATERIALISM • Cultural materialism: cultural infrastructure determines both structure and superstructure • Harris adapted multilayered model • All societies have infrastructure • Structure: social relations grow out of the society’s infrastructure • Superstructure: religion, ideology, and play are all determined by structure and infrastructure 13 -38

SCIENCE AND DETERMINISM • Mead: cultural determinism • Human nature blank slate • Culture powerful; can change expression of biological stages 13 -39

CULTURE AND THE INDIVIDUAL • Culturology • Cultural forces have been so powerful that individuals have made little difference • The superorganic: cultural realm, whose origin converted an ape into an early hominin (Kroeber) • Culture as basis of new science of cultural anthropology 13 -40

DURKHEIM • Durkheim called for new social science to be based in the conscience collectif • Durkheim is a common father of anthropology and sociology 13 -41

SYMBOLIC AND INTERPRETIVE ANTHROPOLOGY • Turner: recognized links between symbolic anthropology (the study of symbols in their social and cultural context) and social psychology, and psychoanalysis • Geertz: interpretive anthropology defines culture as ideas based on cultural learning and symbols 13 -42

STRUCTURALISM • Lévi-Strauss: human minds have certain universal characteristics originating in common features of Homo sapiens’ brain • One tale can be converted into another: • • Convert a positive element into a negative Reverse the order of elements Replace a male hero with a female one Preserve key elements 13 -43

PROCESSUAL APPROACHES • Agency: actions that individuals take, both alone and in groups, in forming and transforming cultural identities • Practice theory: individuals in a society or culture have diverse motives and intentions and different degrees of power and influence • Leach: focused on how individuals work to achieve power and how their actions can transform society 13 -44

WORLD SYSTEM THEORY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY • Emphasizes economics, politics, and history • Wolf: Europe and the People without History focuses on Native Americans in the context of world-system events 13 -45

WORLD SYSTEM THEORY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY • Mintz: Sweetness and Power focuses on political economy, the web of interrelated economic and power relations • Political economy: web of interrelated economic and power relations in society • Wallerstein: world-system theory • Criticized in anthropology for overstressing the influence of outsiders 13 -46

CULTURE, HISTORY, POWER • Theorists have focused more on local agency, transformative actions, and groups within colonized societies • Gramsci: hegemony (a stratified social order in which subordinates internalize their rulers’ values) • Bourdieu and Foucault: easier to dominate people’s minds than control their bodies • Stoler: systems of power, domination, accommodation, and resistance 13 -47

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY • Increasing specialization • Cultural anthropologists now head for the field with a specific problem in mind, rather than with goal of producing a holistic ethnography • Ethnography has expanded to include regional and national systems and the movement of people 13 -48

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY • Witnessed crisis in representation—questions about the role of the ethnographer and the nature of ethnographic authority • Must stay aware of our biases and our inability to totally escape them 13 -49

RECAP 13. 2: Timeline and Key Works in Anthropological Theory 13 -50