Anthropology Times

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I’ve completed a year of self-study in anthropology.  I will likely continue with more of the same for a while.  I will have more to say about that later.  Over the past week, I came across something that I wrote in high school.  I was struck with the sense that it sounded like an angle an anthropologist might have used.  I wrote this during a timed test for which we had the option to free-style an essay in lieu of writing about whatever literature we were reading at the time.  It was popular with the natives back then and it was printed in the school paper unedited.  The quoted material is from the student handbook.  Some of what I wrote then seems useful to me now.

Much love,

S.

Budding Anthropologist?

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.

The Relation of Morphology to Syntax
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 18: 157-175 (Volume publication date October 1989)
Susan Steele
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I read the first few pages of this article and I was drawn in by the fact that Steele defines key, basic terminology and gives clear explanations and examples. However, the laymen-level clarity drops away after the first few pages in a way that left me wondering what the editing of this article had been like. Had an editor removed sentences and paragraphs thought to be redundant and/or unnecessary, I thought.  I also thought it might be that Steele defined the basic terms/concepts more to distinguish her membership in a specific linguistic camp rather than in an effort to make the article more generally accessible. It’s possible that my concentration fell away as the discussion became more esoteric. The Wikipedia article on syntax had definitions for and links to wider explanations of many of the relevant terms for this article – this wiki article has so many links that it seems a good jumping off point for garnering a basic familiarity.

I often wonder how linguists make it through a day of ordinary communication. Are they able to shut off the laboratory thinking once they leave the lab? Even with my limited knowledge, I have often felt overwhelmed by the amount of “stuff” people communicate about themselves in the course of every day speech. (A friend mentioned that this sense of being overwhelmed might be the explanation for why a the character of linguist Henry Higgins in “Pygmalion“/“My Fair Lady” was a confirmed bachelor who avoided the standard social obligations.) I’ve casually observed how people use language differently on social media sites being that they are preparing tidbits for a wider public consumption than in the average daily conversation. Even without benefit of tone of voice and body language, I’ve found that people seem to communicate a lot more about their private lives than they consciously intend… this despite generally taking more care in how they craft their words.  I wonder how much word choices and sentence structure vary with the emotional content of the communication… can we tell a happy story by the structure of the sentences and are we less able to manipulate these variables consciously when sharing stories with others?

Midnight approaches…

Warm regards,

S.

Mining: Anthropological Perspectives
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 14: 199-217 (Volume publication date October 1985)
Ricardo Godoy
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Ricardo Godoy seems a man after my first anthropology professor’s heart. The review reads like one would expect if a mining conglomerate had hired an anthropologist to write such a thing, which is just the type of work my first anthropology professor recommended (she discouraged academia and ethnography). That’s not to say that it reads as if from an industry mouthpiece; there’s objectivity still. Godoy does a good job of presenting a variety of viewpoints; it’s just that the emphasis and de-emphasis seems somewhat more favorable to mining companies as opposed to the people or the state.

Godoy divides the review into three sections: economics, sociopolitical considerations and ideological considerations.  He writes of the financial risks involved in locating mining resources.  The search can be expensive with no guarantee of a payoff.  He points to discussions of how the harsh working conditions, company-favorable legislation, and geographic isolation and so on that come with mining have encouraged worker solidarity and political organization.  He gives a firm nod to the work of Mircea Eliade (The Forge and the Crucible) for those wanting to read more about the  miners’ belief system.  He writes that Eliade “draws the analogy between obstetrics and mining, with ore equated to embryo, mine to uterus, shaft to vagina, and miner to obstetrician.”

Even with the brief overview of issues in anthropological studies of mining, I find myself wanting to rewatch movies with mining components.  Movies like Billy Elliot, in which mining isn’t the main focus, come to mind.  The movie is set during a miners’ strike, but the main story has to do with a boy’s love of dance.  Even without further reading, I might notice more the movies’ commentary on mining towns and mining families and the mining industry.  Is there any language equating the mine to a womb or to hell? Are there any references, no matter how brief or subtle, as to how mining has impacted the area, any hint of what the town was like before mining? In a movie in which mining isn’t the main focus, the commentary is more pointed and selective which is what appeals to me at the moment with this topic.  Billy Elliot is streaming on Netflix (seems I watched it November of last year), so maybe I will give it another watch soon.

With much sweetness,
S.

Chicano Studies, 1970-1984
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 14: 405-427 (Volume publication date October 1985)
R Rosaldo
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Renato Rosaldo summarizes Paredes’ critique of some early Chicano studies stating that ethnographic errors included “mistranslations, failing to see double meanings in speech, taking literally what people meant figuratively and taking seriously what people meant as a joke.” These types of mistakes aren’t surprising given how little time some anthropologists spend in the field with the people they are studying. I have been repeatedly taken aback by the authority and weight given to some anthropological studies that result from seemingly little time spent with the culture and with the language.

I also wonder at the lack of interest in native critiques and self-evaluations. Sometimes it seems as though anthropologists and other social scientists do not believe that the locals participate in any valuable self-examinations or examinations of the particulars of their cultures. In the previous review having to do with ritual, native critiques of a particular ritual were not readily shared with outsiders and there was an assumption that such critiques didn’t exist. It’s nice to see more participation in studies by in-group members who have advanced degrees in anthropology and an increase in attention being paid to the critiques of “regular” people — Rosaldo wrote of this happening more with studies of Chicanos.

In a section titled “The Coming Generation,” Rosaldo wrote that “writings on Chicanos will be significantly shaped by four scholars in their late 30s and early 40s.” Here are some quick links for these scholars mentioned in this review from 1985:

Jose Cuellar
San Francisco State Faculty Page
Bio at DrLoco.com
City College of San Francisco Rate My Professor
San Francisco State University Rate My Professor

Carlos Velez-Ibanez
Faculty Page at UC Riverside
Faculty Page at Arizona State University
University of Arizona Rate My Professor
UC Riverside Rate My Professor

Miriam Wells
UC Davis Faculty Page
UC Davis Rate My Professor

Jose Limon
University of Notre Dame Faculty Page

It has been a busy day and it’s now late, so I will leave you with that.

Until next time,

S.

Ritual As Communication: Order, Meaning, and Secrecy in Melanesian Initiation Rites
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 13: 143-155 (Volume publication date October 1984)
Roy Wagner
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dear, sweet Simone,

This article wasn’t what I expected from the title — it was more and better. In a few pages Wagner touches upon a wide ranges of issues, concerns and questions — various theoretical perspectives, problems with definitions, concerns about information from informants, sufficiency of fieldwork, science in anthropology, and on and on. He introduces a lot of players and their critiques of one another and those who came before. I will have to return to this article and take written notes. I found it difficult to keep the players and ideas straight with just a read.

One of the more exciting things that came out of reading this article was discovering a series of interviews, many of them of anthropologists, on YouTube by user Ayabaya.

I’ve listened to the first part of an interview with Roy Wagner.
Here the link to the second part of that interview.
I also noticed that there is an interview with Fredrik Barth, whom Wagner mentions prominently in his discussion of ritual as communication.

I enjoy hearing stories of how people made their way to the study of anthropology, and I’m excited to view more of these interviews and get a feel for how anthropologists talk and use words and the the types of things they talk about. Wagner asserts that anthropologists love to hear themselves talk. Look at him, he says.

The thing that stuck out to me most in the first half of the interview was Wagner saying that the fact that his high school English teacher required students to stand up and explain what was being communicated in various Shakespearean passages really helped his development in the “art of explanation in anthropology.” He says that explanation is much more important than theory.

I enjoy theory and have some understanding of the usefulness and necessity of it, but I don’t see the necessity for a belief that theory represents some definite and real underlying truth such that it is the be all, end all… particularly in a field such as anthropology.

Warm thoughts,

S.

Anthropology and Alcohol Studies: Current Issues
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 16: 99-120 (Volume publication date October 1987)
Dwight B. Heath
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Dwight Heath writes that unlike many fields that only study alcohol use in the context of alcoholism, anthropologists tend to “deal with alcohol as it is used in the normal course of workaday affairs integral communities.” He also writes that “… alcohol use – like kinship, religion, or sexual division of labor – can provide a useful window on the linkages among many kinds of belief and behavior.”

I often feel left out of conversations as well as some sense of shared cultural experience because I’ve never been much of a drinker and I’ve never been drunk. Since leaving my little Mississippi hamlet, I haven’t found myself in the company of as many non-drinkers (who never drank). The fact that I’ve never built up much of a tolerance for alcohol and that I don’t have even one funny, drunken story to share has left me feeling on the outs many times. When I was studying law in England it seemed many of the larger firms had a pub on the premises and there was an expectation that employees would spend time there. Although Heath writes with high praise regarding Alcoholics Anonymous, the organization was not considered so positively in England. The idea that the answer to excessively drinking was to stop drinking altogether seemed heretical in that culture which meant that in a work situation, feigning alcoholism as an explanation of not joining in on a round of drinks was not going to work. I’ve never used that tactic, but sometimes in the States it seems that people would find it much easier swallow alcoholism as a reason for not drinking than they do that I just never took to it.

Growing up in the Mississippi Delta, there seemed to be an expectation that white teenagers would go through a period of drinking to excess with their friends (male and female). Heath writes that some field studies reveal that kin and others treat short-term excessive drinking as an integral part of the developmental cycle in the lives of young men. There wasn’t that same sense that excessive drinking was a rite of passage in the black community although some black teens did drink. Also, it may have been that excessive drinking as a rite of passage occurred at a later age in the black community in there. I encountered a lot more young, black drinkers in college than in high school.

I wonder whether I should just manufacture one wild, drinking story. I was designated driver enough times to be able to flesh out some realistic scenarios. Would people be able to tell there was something off about my story or my tone in telling it? I’ll have to pay closer attention when people talk about drinking.

With sweet affection,

S.

The Problem of Informant Accuracy: The Validity of Retrospective Data
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 13: 495-517 (Volume publication date October 1984)
H R Bernard, P Killworth, D Kronenfeld, and L Sailer
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

In thinking more about interviewing people this review jumped out at me. I’d like to interview people who work and study in anthropology, people who work on helping people and the planet. I’d also just like to talk to people about their lives and experiences and thoughts about the world. I know from past experiences observing and talking to people, that their can be tons of descrepancies between what people say and what they mean and how they behave and what they believe. This review confirms this casual observation. What I had hoped for and what seems to be here in this review are resources that could help me phrase and shape and present inquiries such that I’m more likely to get the information that I want, particularly when it comes to interviewing people about their lives generally. The authors here note that “minute rewording or restaging of situations radically affects the way people will respond.” People have a long chain of internal mechanisms shaped by culture and experience and they use to evaluate an interviewers questions and frame their responses such that their answers are a result of a “large number of subconscious decisions,” as noted by the authors here.

Previously I had read a review on anthropology and creationism. At that time I can across a poll with a result that 41% of Southern Americans believed the Bible to be literally true. Anecdotally speaking from my experience growing up in the South, I knew very few people who actually believed the Bible to be literally true, but I knew quite a few who would say that they did when asked. Threaded in the culture is a belief and admonition that when people asked questions such as that one, they were really asking you about your faith, and that it was important to give the most hardlined answers lest scholarly sorts might go back to some place like New York City and somehow report that people down South don’t really believe in God or some such. As a teenager I used to talk to people quite a bit about their religious and spiritual beliefs. I think the fact that I was young and had grown up locally made a huge difference in the openness with which people spoke. In my Bible Belt town, there was just a whole different mindset when it came to talking to outsiders about religious topics … the answers skewed conservative.

With sweetness and warm thoughts,

S.

Homo Erectus and Later Middle Pleistocene Humans
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 17: 239-259 (Volume publication date October 1988)
G P Rightmire
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Many of the site names in this review were immediately familiar to me, Olduvai Gorge, Zhoukoudian, the Koobi Fora Formation.  Still, my mind glazed over just a little reading some of the finer details of identifying Homo erectus — I found myself longing for illustrations. With a quick consult of a more recently written textbook, I learned that the discussion of whether sets of individuals found in Africa and Asia that are both commonly referred to as Homo erectus should be grouped together in that fashion or labeled separate species continues.

Reading of Olduvai Gorge, I was put in mind of how the Leakeys were probably the archaeologists/anthropologists who made the biggest impression of me when I was younger.  Mary Leakey stood out to me because she was a woman doing exciting work in exotic locales.  I probably first heard her name in association with the Lucy and with the Laetoli footprints and most likely on some PBS broadcast.  She was just the kind of woman I was encouraged to like — talented, strong, spirited, freedom-loving, adventurous (As a little girl, I watched reruns of “The Big Valley” with my Granny, and I listened to her sing the praises of Victoria Barkley.).  Of the male Leakeys, I remember Richard the most from childhood, again, probably from some PBS special.

I will put a biography of Mary Leakey on my reading list for this year.  I would not of have thought to do so had I not read this article.  Now, I’m looking forward to it.

Yours truly,
S.

Theoretical Issues in Contemporary Soviet Paleolithic Archaeology
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 12: 403-428 (Volume publication date October 1983)
R S Davis
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I was likely drawn to this article because I have been watching early episodes of MacGyver, a TV show that ran from 1985 to 1991. It seems very much to be a Cold War era show. Remember when there used to be talk of defectors left and right? So far I’ve seen a couple episodes that covered finding creative ways to get out of East Berlin, one involving a coffin that transformed into a jet ski. I watched the show during its original airing, but I’m finding that I may remember the pop culture references to the show more than I do the actual show. The show seems an interesting commentary on Americans and our view of our place in the world at the time; it’s not the most flattering view from an anti-imperialist perspective. I’m curious to see how the show develops and how it handles the fall of the Iron Curtain.

And then I come to this article with its talk of paleolithic archaeology in the the good ole USSR with its centralized organizational structure with headquaters in Leningrad, and it takes me back. I hadn’t thought recently of how Cold War era politics may have affected cross-cultural communication in the academic community at the time. Although Davis writes of how ideological differences between the USSR and the West translated into differences in theoretical orientations, he says that the main barrier to information sharing on Paleolithic research had to do with language. He mentions a forthcoming dissertation on Upper Paleolithic research from Olga Soffer-Bobyshev, who also mentions the language barrier. In a 1986 interview with the Mammoth Trumpet, Soffer said, “The data base there is so incredibly rich, and other than Richard Klein’s Ice-Age Hunters of the Ukraine, there was really nothing in the west for our non-Russian reading colleagues.” Soffer talks about her dissertation research in the interview with the Mammoth Trumpet.

The article left me wanting to read more on the concept of archaeological culture. Davis writes that the West was further along than the USSR in its thinking that cultures are the relevant units of analysis in Paleolithic archaeology. He writes that scientists in the USSR spent a long time divesting themselves of the concept that stages of development (Pre-Clan society, Era of Clan Organization, Decomposition of the Clan and Emergence of Class Society) based on Marxists ideology were the relevant unit – this made for an interesting commentary on the conservatism in academia and how it can be difficult to move away from a popular theoretical model even after it has been largely abandoned. Davies writes of how some archaeologists in the USSR took to publishing “basically descriptive, data-oriented excavation reports” in an effort to avoid dealing with the theoretical void created after abandoning a model that held sway for time.

I was about to say, “Enough time travel,” but then thought maybe I’ll take a look at how MacGyver manages to make a quiet exit from Bulgaria.   And this note comes with a theme song… Beatles “Back in the U.S.S.R.”

Ever true,

S.