Anthropology Times

Psychoanalytic Anthropology
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 18: 177-202 (Volume publication date October 1989)
Robert A Paul
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Robert Paul’s descriptions of psychoanalytic anthropologists show them as people who understand that insights into another’s culture take time and may require a certain amount of unguided observation and immersion. And I appreciate the perspective some have as far as the information that results from cross-cultural (or even within culture) interactions/studies: “… Crapanzano argues, the ethnographic interview, like the psychoanalytic process, is an ongoing act of mutual creativity in which interviewer and interviewee dialectically constitute – rather than unearth and comment on – the reality being sought.” Sometimes it seems that social “scientists” get too caught up into thinking that they are unearthing real truths about the world and it peoples, and that armed with the right theory and specific toolkit they can clearly knock out all the broad strokes of a culture in no time or some such.

I was reminded of Roy Wagner’s comments from a 2008 interview. He says that the stuff that anthropologists talk about and study isn’t really the kind of stuff we can talk about and know, but because he and others have earned a certain qualification they are recognized as being able to talk about these things. I believed that he believed this and not that it was just something cute to say which made me all the more fascinated by his continued ability to talk about that stuff with passion and excitement and interest. And yes, I understand that this talk about stuff can have practical applications within whatever framework one chooses to help give shape to and make sense of the world, but still, it can be difficult to remain attached to such a framework and understanding with passion as opposed to apathy. I suppose we all cycle back and forth between those two.

This is one of the reviews that I would like to revisit; I find the type of thinking interesting. Paul writes that “those who practice psychoanalytic anthropology assume that human life is meaningfully influenced by unconscious thoughts, affects, and motives and that anthropological understanding is deepened by investigating them.” Here’s a link to the Wikipedia article on psychoanalytic anthropology and other areas of psychological anthropology.  Read here about Robert Paul’s participation in the Robert A. Paul Emory-Tibet Science Initiative, “A Landmark Undertaking for the Convergence of Science and Spirituality,” at Emory University.

Many warm thoughts,
S.