Shared Voices: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology PDF

Shared Voices: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology SHARED VOICES: AN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY DEMETRIOS BRELLAS AND VANESSA MARTINEZ KATIE NELSON; LINDA LIGHT; AND SARAH LYON ROTEL (Remixing Open Textbooks with an Equity Lens) Project Shared Voices: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Copyright © 2024 by Vanessa Martinez and Demetrios Brellas is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, 2nd Edition Copyright © 2020 by Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, Laura Tubelle de González is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. CONTENTS Land Acknowledgement Statement for the ROTEL Grant xiii Preface 1 Welcome to Shared Voices: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. 1 About the remixing process 1 What Comes Next? 2 Meet the Authors 3 Chapter 1 1.1 Introduction 7 Vanessa’s Story 7 Demetri’s Story 7 1.2 What is Anthropology? 9 1.3 What is Cultural Anthropology? 10 1.4 Beyond Cultural Anthropology 12 1.4.1 What is Biological Anthropology? 12 1.4.2 What does it mean to be an archaeologist? What is material culture? 13 1.4.3 What is Linguistic Anthropology? 15 1.4.4 Applied Anthropology 16 1.5 How Did Anthropology Come to Be? 18 1.6 Picture of an Anthropologist: Anthony Kwame Harrison 21 1.7 What Makes Anthropology Unique From Other Social Sciences? 24 1.7.1 Holism 24 1.7.2 Cultural Relativism (versus Ethnocentrism) 25 1.7.3 The Comparative Approach 25 1.7.4 Fieldwork 26 1.7.5 Scientific vs Humanistic Approaches 27 1.8 Why is Anthropology Important? 28 Discussion Questions 29 Glossary 30 Bibliography 31 About the Original Authors 32 Chapter 2 2.1 What is Culture? 35 2.2 Characteristics of Culture 36 2.3 Tell Me a Story! Anthropologists as Storytellers 38 2.4 We do it too! Anthropologists as Cultural Participants 40 2.5 The Development of Theories of Culture 42 2.5.1 Anthropology in Europe 42 2.5.2 Anthropology in the United States: Boas, Benedict, Hurston, Mead and Kroeber 43 2.5.3 Ethical Issues in Truth Telling 46 2.5.4 Napoleon Chagnon & The Yanomami 48 2.6 Our Final Reflection on Culture 50 Glossary 51 Bibliography 52 About the Original Authors 53 Chapter 3 3.1 What Exactly Is Anthropological Fieldwork? 57 3.1.2 How can we make the Strange Familiar and the Familiar Strange? 59 3.1.3: Emic versus Etic Perspectives: How are both important to Anthropological 61 Fieldwork? 3.2 Traditional Ethnographic Approaches 64 3.2.1 Early Armchair Anthropology 64 3.2.2 Out of the Armchair: Into the Field 65 3.2.3 Salvage Ethnography 66 3.2.4 A Holistic Approach to Fieldwork 67 3.3 Ethnography Today: Anthropology's Distinctive Research Strategy 69 3.3.1 New Sites for Ethnographic Fieldwork 69 3.3.2 What is Problem-Oriented Research? 70 3.3.3 How do anthropologists use Quantitative Methods in their research? 71 3.3.4 How do anthropologists use Mixed Methods in their research? 72 3.4 Ethnographic Techniques and Perspectives 73 3.4.1 What is Cultural Relativism and Ethnocentrism? 73 3.4.2 Can we really be objective? Objectivity and Activist Anthropology? 74 3.4.3 Is Anthropology a Science, a Social Science or One of the Humanities? 76 3.4.4 What is the difference between Observation and Participant Observation? 76 3.4.5 Let’s Talk: Conversations and Interviews 79 3.4.6 Let’s Take a Walk: Mapping your Space 79 3.4.7 Gathering Life Histories 81 3.4.8 The Genealogical Method 82 3.4.9 Key Informants 82 3.4.10 Field Notes 83 3.5 Ethical Considerations 85 3.5.1 Ethical Guidelines in Anthropological Research 85 3.5.2 Do No Harm 87 3.5.3 Obtain Informed Consent 88 3.5.4 Maintain Anonymity and Privacy 89 3.5.5 Make Results Accessible 89 3.6 Writing Ethnography 90 3.6.1 Analysis and Interpretation of Research Findings 90 3.6.2 Whose Story is it? 90 3.6.3 Polyvocality: Multiple voices are working together to tell the story 90 3.6.4 Reflexivity: Researchers impact on the story 91 Discussion Questions 92 Glossary 93 About the Original Author 95 Bibliography 96 Chapter 4 4.1 What Is Non-Verbal Communication? 99 4.1.1 Kinesics: Body Language 99 4.1.2 Proxemics: Study of Social Use of Space 100 4.1.3 Paralanguage: Speech Beyond Words 100 4.2 How Do We Learn Language? 102 4.3 How Can We Describe Language? 103 4.4 How Do Languages Change? 104 4.5 How Does Cultural Context Shape Language? 107 4.5.1 Gender and Language 107 4.6 What Is the Impact of Globalization on Language? 109 4.7 Cultural Impact of Language Loss 110 4.8 Revitalization of Indigenous Languages 112 4.9 Technology and Language Change 114 Discussion Questions 116 Glossary 117 About the Original Author 119 Chapter 5 5.1 Introduction 123 5.2 Subsistence: How do we get food? 125 5.3 Modes of Subsistence: foraging, pastoralism, horticulture, and agriculture 128 5.3.1 Foraging 129 5.3.2 Pastoralism 134 5.3.3 Horticulture 138 5.3.4 Agriculture 140 5.4 The Global Agriculture System: Feeding Everyone 143 Glossary 146 About the Original Author 148 Bibliography 149 Chapter 6 6.1 Introduction 153 6.2 Modes of Production: Domestic, Tributary, and Capitalist 155 6.2.1 Domestic Production 155 6.2.2 Tributary Production 157 6.2.3 Capitalist Production 158 6.2.4 Fair-Trade Coffee Farmers: 21st Century Peasants 159 6.2.5 Salaula in Zambia: The Informal Economy 162 6.3 Modes of Exchange 165 6.3.1 Reciprocity 165 6.3.2 Generalized Reciprocity 166 6.3.3 Balanced Reciprocity 167 6.3.4 Negative Reciprocity 169 6.3.5 Redistribution 171 6.3.6 Markets 172 6.3.7 Money 174 6.3.8 Tiv Spheres of Exchange 175 6.3.9 Local Currency Systems: Ithaca HOURS 176 6.3.10 Local Currency: A Western Massachusetts Example 178 6.4 Consumption of Global Capitalism 180 6.4.1 Transforming Barbie Dolls 181 6.4.2 Consumption in the Developing World 182 6.4.3 The Children Cry for Bread 183 6.4.4 Consumption, Status, and Recognition among the Elite in China 183 6.4.5 Commodities and Global Capitalism 184 6.4.6 Darjeeling Tea 185 6.5 Political Economy: Understanding Inequality 186 6.5.1 Structural Violence and the Politics of Aid in Haiti 187 6.6 Conclusion 191 Glossary 193 About the Original Author 194 Bibliography 195 Chapter 7 7.1 What Is Political Anthropology? 199 7.2 Levels of Socio-Cultural Integration 203 7.2.1 Egalitarian Societies 204 7.2.2 Band-Level Political Organization 205 7.2.3 Law, Disputes and Warfare in Band Societies 206 7.2.4 Tribal Political Organization 208 7.2.5 Tribal Systems of Social Integration 209 Integration through Marriage 212 Integration Through a Segmentary Lineage 214 7.2.6 Law in Tribal Societies 216 7.2.7 Warfare in Tribal Societies 218 7.3 Ranked Societies and Chiefdoms 220 7.3.1 Integration through Marriage 221 7.3.2 Integration Through Secret Societies 223 7.4 Stratified Societies 225 7.4.1 State Level of Political Organization 227 7.4.2 State and Nation 229 7.4.3 Formation of States 230 7.4.4 Law and Order in States 231 7.4.5 Warfare in States 232 7.4.6 Stability and Duration of States: Why Do States Decline? 233 7.4.7 Stratification and the State: Recent Developments 235 7.5 Conclusion 236 Discussion Questions 237 Glossary 238 About The Original Author 240 Bibliography 241 Grant Information 247 LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT STATEMENT FOR THE ROTEL GRANT | XIII LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT STATEMENT FOR THE ROTEL GRANT As part of ROTEL Grant’s mission to support the creation, management, and dissemination of culturally- relevant textbooks, we must acknowledge Indigenous Peoples as the traditional stewards of the land, and the enduring relationship that exists between them and their traditional territories. We acknowledge that the boundaries that created Massachusetts were arbitrary and a product of the settlers. We honor the land on which the Higher Education Institutions of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are sited as the traditional territory of tribal nations. We acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced removal from their territory, and other atrocities connected with colonization. We honor and respect the many diverse indigenous people connected to this land on which we gather, and our acknowledgement is one action we can take to correct the stories and practices that erase Indigenous People’s history and culture. Identified tribes and/or nations of Massachusetts Historical nations: Mahican Mashpee Massachuset Nauset Nipmuc Pennacook Pocomtuc Stockbridge Wampanoag Present day nations and tribes: Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe Assawompsett-Nemasket Band of Wampanoags Pocasset Wampanoag of the Pokanoket Nation Pacasset Wampanoag Tribe Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe XIV | LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT STATEMENT FOR THE ROTEL GRANT Chappaquiddick Tribe of the Wampanoag Indian Nation Nipmuc Nation (Bands include the Hassanamisco, Natick) Nipmuck Tribal Council of Chaubunagungamaug Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag In the event that we have an incorrect link or are missing an existing band/nation, please let us know so that we may correct our error. Suggested readings Massachusetts Center for Native American Awareness A guide to Indigenous land acknowledgment ‘We are all on Native Land: A conversation about Land Acknowledgements’ YouTube video Native-Land.ca | Our home on native land (mapping of native lands) Beyond territorial acknowledgments – âpihtawikosisân Your Territorial Acknowledgment Is Not Enough PREFACE | 1 PREFACE Welcome to Shared Voices: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. We are excited to share this with you all. We decided to remix a textbook for our Cultural Anthropology courses to address the lack of current, reliable and relevant resources for introductory anthropology courses that center equity and anti-racism. Our goal is to have the final product be a textbook that is culturally responsive and inclusive with an anti-racist and global citizenry perspective. We want to center marginalized voices, stories, and community engagement and organizing. We want to include research stories and ethnographic work by Latinx scholars, and other BIPOC folks. Our hope is to represent the stories of these communities and their voices through the on-going development of this book. Our teaching pedagogy always involves both a historical, and contemporary lens, on the topics covered in the course. This includes, but is not limited to, culture, language, politics, religion, expressive culture, race, gender. Flexibility in modality and timing is built into this course. We work to actively respond to and provide support for student needs while maintaining a high standard of education in our courses. Our approach to cultural anthropology centers equity and focuses on anthropology’s potential to change the world. We see the interconnectedness of humans and their cultural practices is integral to better human communication. In all of the chapters, we emphasize the comparison of cultures, the ways of life of different peoples, and the importance of becoming a truly global citizen by resolving some of the most critical issues facing our world today. In our complicated world of increasing migration, nationalism, and climate challenges, cultural diversity might actually be the source of conflict resolution and provide us with new and old approaches to ensuring a healthier world. This book brings together anthropological stories to inspire the next generation to use anthropological theories and methodologies to improve the lives of people the world over. We need you, as students, to see the possibilities. As instructors, we want to help you easily share anthropological knowledge and understanding. We want all readers to be inspired by the intensely personal writings of the anthropologists who contribute to this volume. About the remixing process The original book which forms the ‘bones’ of this remixing project, Perspectives, an Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, is one that we have both used in our courses. This work is different from other 2 | PREFACE introductory textbooks, in that it is an edited volume with each chapter originally written by a different author and now edited by two other anthropologists. For students, we promise readable and interesting writing on topics that tend to be covered in a first year anthropology course. The chapters contain links and reading questions to support your use and enjoyment of the book. The questions, videos and other links are designed to help you better learn the material. Feel free to use this book, even if it is not your course text, and then ask your instructor the tough questions! Use email to send us questions and/or comments. Dr. Vanessa Martínez ([email protected]) Dr. Demetrios Brellas ([email protected]) For instructors, we invite you to build your own book, the perfect book for your course. We promise a user friendly and adaptable text that provides you with some great conversation possibilities for your class. The available chapters mirror the lecture topics in many first-year courses. The chapters form a whole and they can also stand alone. Choose the ones you need. This new remixed edition furthers the mission of open educational resources while centering equity, culturally responsive pedagogy, and universal design. We are particularly interested in ensuring that the world is made better for our most vulnerable and believe that anthropology has the potential to do just that. What Comes Next? The work to remix this book is an ongoing process. In the current version we present the first phase of this work which encompasses the first seven chapters. We are currently developing the next seven chapters as well as an in-depth instructor’s resources package. One of the greatest challenges in teaching anthropology is coming up with relevant and equity-based activities and resources for instruction. We are in the process of compiling an extensive collection of teaching resources as well as student assessment tools such as journal assignments, activities, and more. PREFACE | 3 Meet the Authors Originally from San Sebastian, Puerto Rico, Vanessa E. Martinez- Renuncio, Ph.D., is an experienced health anthropologist, professor, trainer, non-profit professional and leader in the areas of justice, cultural humility and culturally responsive pedagogy. With over twenty years of experience working in higher education colleges, my focus has been on building campus and community wide equity and inclusion initiatives and programs to support student retention, graduation, and transfer. She works full time at Holyoke Community College as Professor of Anthropology and Honors Program Coordinator. She is also a co-founder of The Women of Color Healthy Equity Collective (The Collective), a movement building non-profit in Western Massachusetts whose mission is to ensure girls and women of color are able to achieve optimal health. She received her Master’s in applied medical anthropology from Georgia State University in 2002 and her PhD in anthropology with a focus in health and medicine from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2014. She currently resides in Holyoke, Massachusetts, with her partner Jamie and her daughter Alejandra. Her favorite activities involve dancing, going on adventures with her family and enjoying time on a beach. Born to Greek immigrant parents in Queens, New York City, Demetrios James Brellas, Ph.D., is an anthropologist, archaeologist, researcher and educator. He received his doctorate in Archaeology from Boston University in 2016. His graduate work focused on the socioeconomic role of wetland environments and their resources in ancient Mesopotamian civilizations. He has conducted archaeological fieldwork throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East including: Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Italy. Most recently, his research takes place in Greece, where he is a part of several ongoing projects, which involve the analysis of animal as well as human remains. He is currently the team zooarchaeologist at the Molyvoti Thrace Archaeological Project (MTAP) in Greece, where he continues to research animal economies and particularly the role of sustainable wetland and marine ecosystem use in ancient complex societies. Before pursuing a graduate level career in archaeology he worked as a K-12 teacher. He also teaches several anthropology courses to high school students in the Boston MetroWest area through the College Planning Collaborative. Everyone learns differently and educators therefore must not take anything for granted when we speak. Therefore, his teaching philosophy focuses on finding the strategy that works for each student by using various teaching tools. Thank you for adopting Shared Voices: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. Demetrios Brellas, Framingham State University 4 | PREFACE Vanessa Martínez, Holyoke Community College Attribution Brellas, D., Martinez, V. (2023). Shared Voices: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. ROTEL. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. Media Attributions Vanessa Martinez © Vanessa Martinez is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike) license Demetrios Brellas © Demetrios Brellas is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike) license CHAPTER 1 | 5 CHAPTER 1 Remix Authors: Vanessa Martínez, Holyoke Community College [email protected] Demetrios Brellas, Framingham State University [email protected] Original Authors: Katie Nelson, Inver Hills Community College [email protected] Lara Braff, Grossmont College [email protected] Learning Objectives Identify the four subfields of anthropology and describe the kinds of research projects associated with each subfield. Describe how anthropology developed from early explorations of the world through the professionalization of the discipline in the 19th century. Discuss ethnocentrism and the role it played in early attempts to understand other cultures. Explain how the perspectives of holism, cultural relativism, comparison, and fieldwork, as well as both scientific and humanistic tendencies make anthropology a unique discipline. Examine the ways in which anthropology can be used to address current social, political, and economic issues. 6 | CHAPTER 1 1.1 INTRODUCTION | 7 1.1 INTRODUCTION Vanessa’s Story I remember the first anthropology class that I took in my second year of college. It was a cultural anthropology class taught by Dr. Sabine Hyland, an American anthropologist and ethnohistorian working in the Andes. It was challenging and exciting, and she was the first real mentor I ever had. Her research and teaching style allowed me to engage with topics and questions that I loved inside the college classroom. The way she taught brought you into the stories and research of the communities she highlighted, giving a rich understanding of our diverse world. A class really can change the trajectory of your life. This class did. I fell in love with anthropology and wanted to merge it with my interest in health and wellbeing. It was this class, and this professor, that made me see that there were many more options for degrees, and that medical anthropology could be my path. I am someone who wants to leave the world better than I found it. I found that with anthropology, a discipline devoted to better understanding of humanity as a whole, I could investigate questions that I was curious about and develop solutions to real world problems by centering humanity as cooperative and creative. Years later, I even wrote a recommendation letter for Dr. Hyland to receive tenure, which she did. One class and one mentor can make a difference in the trajectory of your life. Demetri’s Story I came to the field of anthropology completely by accident. I entered college at Stony Brook University in New York as a biology major and was considering a pre-med pathway. I always had a passion for science but admittedly the push towards medicine was largely because— well, because according to my parents who came from Greece in the late 70s, every “good Greek 8 | 1.1 INTRODUCTION boy” had to become a doctor or lawyer (even though they both grew up in tiny agricultural villages). When I first met my R.A. during freshman orientation, I mentioned needing an elective course. He suggested taking cultural anthropology as the course would be fun and the professor was “a character”. Admittedly at the time, I had very little idea of what anthropology was, but the course description sounded interesting so I registered for it. This ended up being the very first college course I attended on the first day of my life as a college student. The professor, William Arens, was indeed eccentric. Although his somewhat controversial research on cannibalism (or lack thereof) in human societies has been met with almost universal criticism, he was one of the most vibrant and engaging professors I had as an undergraduate. The topics he discussed and the people he introduced us to were eye-opening. The way he casually discussed taboo topics and his use of narrative in the classroom really brought culture to life. Before I knew it, I was taking more anthropology courses on various topics, including: the anthropology of food, medical anthropology, physical anthropology, and many others. When I took my first Archaeology course, and subsequently my archaeological field school in Pompeii, Italy, I knew I wanted to become an archaeologist. Being able to connect with past cultures through their material remains is the closest human beings can get to a time machine. Once I felt that connection, I was in love. Luckily for me, I was able to combine my training in biology with my interest in archaeology, through the interpretation of animal remains, leading to my doctoral research in zooarchaeology. If you are reading this textbook for your cultural anthropology course, you are likely wondering, much like we did, what anthropology is all about. Perhaps the course description appealed to you in some way, but you had a hard time articulating what exactly drove you to enroll. With this book, you are in the right place! Self Reflection: What are you excited to learn about this semester in this class? 1.2 WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY? | 9 1.2 WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY? Anthropology is the study of human beings. Anthropologists investigate everything and anything that makes us human– from culture, to language, to material remains and human evolution. Anthropologists examine every dimension of humanity by asking compelling questions like: How did we come to be human and who are our ancestors? Why do people look and act so differently throughout the world? What do we all have in common? How have we changed culturally and biologically over time? What factors influence diverse human beliefs and behaviors throughout the world? You may notice that these questions are very broad. Indeed, anthropology is an expansive field of study. It comprises four subfields that in the United States include cultural anthropology, archaeology, biological (or physical) anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. Together, the subfields provide a multi-faceted picture of the human condition. It is important to note that in other parts of the world, anthropology is structured differently. For instance, in the United Kingdom and many European countries, the subfield of cultural anthropology is referred to as social (or socio-cultural) anthropology. Archaeology, biological anthropology, and linguistic anthropology are frequently considered to be part of different disciplines. In some countries, like Mexico, anthropology tends to focus on the cultural and indigenous heritage of groups within the country rather than on comparative research. In Canada, some university anthropology departments mirror the British social anthropology model by combining sociology and anthropology. As noted above, in the United States and most commonly in Canada, anthropology is organized as a four-field discipline. You will read more about the development of this four-field approach in the Doing Fieldwork chapter (chapter three). Applied anthropology is another area of specialization within or between the anthropological subfields. It aims to solve specific practical problems in collaboration with governmental, non-profit, and community organizations as well as businesses and corporations. An interactive H5P element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://rotel.pressbooks.pub/culturalanthropology/?p=51#h5p-2 10 | 1.3 WHAT IS CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY? 1.3 WHAT IS CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY? The focus of this textbook is cultural anthropology, the largest of the subfields in the United States as measured by the number of people who graduate with PhDs each year.1 Cultural anthropologists study the similarities and differences among living societies and cultural groups. Through immersive fieldwork, living and working with the people one is studying, cultural anthropologists suspend their own sense of what is “normal” in order to understand other people’s perspectives. Beyond describing another way of life, anthropologists ask broader questions about humankind: Are human emotions universal or culturally specific? Does globalization make us all the same, or do people maintain cultural differences? For cultural anthropologists, no aspect of human life is outside their purview. They study art, religion, healing, natural disasters, and even pet cemeteries. While many anthropologists are at first intrigued by human diversity, they come to realize that people around the world share much in common. Cultural anthropologists often study social groups that differ from their own, based on the view that fresh insights are generated by an outsider trying to understand the insider point of view. For example, beginning in the 1960s Jean Briggs (1929-2016) immersed herself in the life of Inuit people in the central Canadian arctic territory of Nunavut. She arrived knowing only a few words of their language but ready to brave sub- zero temperatures to learn about this remote, rarely studied group of people. In her most famous book, Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family (1970), she argued that anger and strong negative emotions are not expressed among families that live together in small igloos amid harsh environmental conditions for much of the year. In contrast to scholars who see anger as an innate emotion, Briggs’ fieldwork and research shows that all human emotions develop through culturally specific child-rearing practices that foster some emotions and not others. While cultural anthropologists traditionally conduct fieldwork in faraway places, they are increasingly turning their gaze inward to observe their own societies or subgroups within them. For instance, in the 1980s, American anthropologist Philippe Bourgois sought to understand why pockets of extreme poverty persist amid the wealth and overall high quality of life in the United States. To answer this question, he lived with Puerto Rican crack dealers in East Harlem, New York. He contextualized their experiences both historically in terms of their Puerto Rican roots and migration to the U.S., and in the present as they experienced social marginalization and institutional racism. Rather than blame the crack dealers for their poor choices or blame our society for perpetuating inequality, he argued that both individual choices and social structures can trap people in the overlapping worlds of drugs and poverty (Bourgois 2003). 1. See: https://www.americananthro.org/LearnAndTeach/ResourceDetail.aspx?ItemNumber=1499). 1.3 WHAT IS CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY? | 11 An interactive H5P element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://rotel.pressbooks.pub/culturalanthropology/?p=53#h5p-3 12 | 1.4 BEYOND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 1.4 BEYOND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Figure 1.1: Anthropology Subfields 1.4.1 What is Biological Anthropology? Biological anthropology is the study of human origins, evolution, and variation. Some biological anthropologists focus on our closest living relatives, monkeys and apes. They examine the biological and behavioral similarities and differences between nonhuman primates and human primates (us!). For example, Jane Goodall has devoted her life to studying wild chimpanzees (Goodall 1996). When she began her research in Tanzania in the 1960s, Goodall challenged widely held assumptions about the inherent differences between humans and apes. At the time, it was assumed that monkeys and apes lacked the social and emotional traits that made human beings such exceptional creatures. However, Goodall discovered that, like humans, chimpanzees also make tools, socialize their young, have intense emotional lives, and form strong maternal-infant bonds. Her work highlights the value of field-based research in natural settings that can help us understand the complex lives of nonhuman primates. Other biological anthropologists focus on extinct human species, asking questions like: What did our 1.4 BEYOND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY | 13 ancestors look like? What did they eat? When did they start to speak? How did they adapt to new environments? In 2013, a team of women scientists excavated a trove of fossilized bones in the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star Cave system in South Africa. The bones turned out to belong to a previously unknown hominin species that was later named Homo naledi. With over 1,550 specimens from at least fifteen individuals, the site is the largest collection of a single hominin species found in Africa (Berger, 2015). Researchers are still working to determine how the bones were left in the deep, hard to access cave and whether or not they were deliberately placed there. Here is a short National Geographic clip that discusses this. They also want to know what Homo naledi ate, if this species made and used tools, and how they are related to other Homo species. Biological anthropologists who study ancient human relatives are called paleoanthropologists. The field of paleoanthropology changes rapidly as fossil discoveries and refined dating techniques offer new clues into our past. Other biological anthropologists focus on humans in the present including their genetic and phenotypic (observable) variation. For instance, Nina Jablonski has conducted research on human skin tone, asking why dark skin pigmentation is prevalent in places, like Central Africa, where there is high ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight, while light skin pigmentation is prevalent in places, like Nordic countries, where there is low UV radiation. She explains this pattern in terms of the interplay between skin pigmentation, UV radiation, folic acid, and vitamin D. In brief, too much UV radiation can break down folic acid, which is essential to DNA and cell production. Dark skin helps block UV, thereby protecting the body’s folic acid reserves in high- UV contexts. Light skin evolved as humans migrated out of Africa to low-UV con texts, where dark skin would block too much UV radiation, compromising the body’s ability to absorb vitamin D from the sun. Vitamin D is essential to calcium absorption and a healthy skeleton. Jablonski’s research shows that the spectrum of skin pigmentation we see today evolved to balance UV exposure with the body’s need for vitamin D and folic acid (Jablonski 2012). For more information regarding Jablonski’s work please review The Evolution of Skin Color website. Quick Reading Check: What types of questions are biological anthropologists interested in and why? 1.4.2 What does it mean to be an archaeologist? What is material culture? Take a look around you, chances are you are surrounded by “stuff”. From the clothing you are wearing to the screen you are staring at and the vessel from which you are drinking, much of our culture plays out 14 | 1.4 BEYOND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY in the material world in some form. After all, it is this stuff or what anthropologists call material culture which separates us from other living things on earth. Now picture if all that was left of your existence is the stuff surrounding you. This is the situation that archaeologists often face when trying to examine culture. Archaeologists focus on the material past: the tools, food, pottery, art, shelters, seeds, and other objects left behind by people. Prehistoric archaeologists recover and analyze these materials to reconstruct the lifeways of past societies that lacked writing. They ask specific questions like: How did people in a particular area live? What did they eat? Why did their societies change over time? They also ask general questions about humankind: When and why did humans first develop agriculture? How did cities first develop? How did prehistoric people interact with their neighbors? The method that archaeologists use to answer their questions is excavation—the careful digging and removal of dirt and stones to uncover material remains while recording their context. Archaeological research spans millions of years from human origins to the present. For example, British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon (1906-1978), was one of few female archaeologists in the 1940s. She famously studied the city structures and cemeteries of Jericho, an ancient city dating back to the Early Bronze Age (3,200 years before the present) located in what is today the West Bank. Based on her findings, she argued that Jericho is the oldest city in the world and has been continuously occupied by different groups for over 10,000 years (Kenyon 1979). Historical archaeologists study recent societies using material remains to complement the written record. The Garbage Project, which began in the 1970s, is an example of a historic archaeological project based in Tucson, Arizona. It involves excavating a contemporary landfill as if it were a conventional archaeology site. Archaeologists have found discrepancies between what people say they throw out and what is actually in their trash. In fact, many landfills hold large amounts of paper products and construction debris (Rathje and Murphy 1992). This finding has practical implications for creating environmentally sustainable waste disposal practices. In 1991, while working on an office building in New York City, construction workers came across human skeletons buried just 30 feet below the city streets. Archaeologists were called in to investigate. Upon further excavation, they discovered a six-acre burial ground, containing 15,000 skeletons of free and enslaved Africans who helped build the city during the colonial era. The “African Burial Ground,” which dates from 1630 to 1795, contains a trove of information about how free and enslaved Africans lived and died. The site is now a national monument where people can learn about the history of slavery in the U.S.1 1. https://www.nps.gov/afbg/index.htm 1.4 BEYOND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY | 15 Quick Reading Check: What type of research archaeologists do and what aspects of humanity do they study? 1.4.3 What is Linguistic Anthropology? Language is a defining cultural trait of human beings. While other animals have communication systems, only humans have complex, symbolic languages—over 6,000 of them! Human language makes it possible to teach and learn, to plan and think abstractly, to coordinate our efforts, and even to contemplate our own demise. Linguistic anthropologists ask questions like: How did language first emerge? How has it evolved and diversified over time? How has language helped us succeed as a species? How can language convey one’s social identity? How does language influence our views of the world? If you speak two or more languages, you may have experienced how language affects you. For example, in English, we say: “I love you.” But Spanish speakers use different terms—te amo, te adoro, te quiero, and so on—to convey different kinds of love: romantic love, platonic love, maternal love, etc. The Spanish language arguably expresses more nuanced views of love than the English language. One intriguing line of linguistic anthropological research focuses on the relationship between language, thought, and culture. It may seem intuitive that our thoughts come first; after all, we like to say: “Think before you speak.” However, according to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (also known as linguistic relativity), the language you speak allows you to think about some things and not others. When Benjamin Whorf (1897-1941) studied the Hopi language, he found not just word-level differences, but grammatical differences between Hopi and English. He wrote that Hopi has no grammatical tenses to convey the passage of time. Rather, the Hopi language indicates whether or not something has “manifested.” Whorf argued that English grammatical tenses (past, present, future) inspire a linear sense of time, while Hopi language, with its lack of tenses, inspires a cyclical experience of time (Whorf 1956). Some critics, like German-American linguist Ekkehart Malotki, refute Whorf’s theory, arguing that Hopi do have linguistic terms for time and that a linear sense of time is natural and perhaps universal. At the same time, Malotki recognized that English and Hopi tenses differ, albeit in ways less pronounced than Whorf proposed (Malotki 1983). Other linguistic anthropologists track the emergence and diversification of languages, while others focus on language use in today’s social contexts. Still others explore how language is crucial to socialization: children learn their culture and social identity through language and nonverbal forms of communication (Ochs and Schieffelin 2012). 16 | 1.4 BEYOND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Quick Reading Check: What is linguistic anthropology and what elements of communication are they interested in? 1.4.4 Applied Anthropology Applied anthropology involves the application of anthropological theories, methods, and findings to solve practical problems. Applied anthropologists are employed outside of academic settings, in both the public and private sectors, including business or consulting firms, advertising companies, city government, law enforcement, the medical field, non governmental organizations, and even the military. Applied anthropologists span all four of the subfields. An applied archaeologist might work in cultural resource management to assess a potentially significant archaeological site unearthed during a construction project. An applied cultural anthropologist could work at a technology company that seeks to understand the human-technology interface in order to design better tools. Medical anthropology is an example of both an applied and theoretical area of study that draws on all four subdisciplines to understand the interrelationship of health, illness, and culture. Rather than assume that disease resides only within the individual body, medical anthropologists explore the environmental, social, and cultural conditions that impact the experience of illness. For example, in some cultures, people believe illness is caused by an imbalance within the community. Therefore, a communal response, such as a healing ceremony, is necessary to restore both the health of the person and the group. This approach differs from the one used in mainstream U.S. healthcare, whereby people go to a doctor to find the biological cause of an illness and then take medicine to restore the individual body. Trained as both a physician and medical anthropologist, the late Paul Farmer demonstrates the applied potential of anthropology. During his college years in North Carolina, Farmer’s interest in the Haitian migrants working on nearby farms inspired him to visit Haiti. There, he was struck by the poor living conditions and lack of health care facilities. Later, as a physician, he would return to Haiti to treat individuals suffering from diseases like tuberculosis and cholera that were rarely seen in the United States. As an anthropologist, he would contextualize the experiences of his Haitian patients in relation to the historical, social, and political forces that impact Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere (Farmer 2006). He died in February 2022, but his academic writing and his activism in the world live on through the people he has inspired and the work of Partners in Health, a nonprofit organization that he co- founded. He helped open health clinics in many resource-poor countries and trained local staff to administer care. In this way, he applied his medical and anthropological training to improve people’s lives. 1.4 BEYOND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY | 17 Quick Reading Check: How does applied anthropology differ from academic anthropology? Media Attributions Anthropology subfields © Vanessa Martínez is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike) license 18 | 1.5 HOW DID ANTHROPOLOGY COME TO BE? 1.5 HOW DID ANTHROPOLOGY COME TO BE? Imagine you are living several thousand years ago. Maybe you are a parent of three children. Maybe you are a young individual eager to start your own family. Maybe you are a prominent religious leader, or maybe you are a respected healer. Your family has, for as long as people can remember, lived the way you do. You learned to act, eat, hunt, talk, pray, and live the way you do from your parents, your extended family, and your small community. Suddenly, you encounter a new group of people who have a different way of living, speak strangely, and eat in an unusual manner. They have a different way of addressing the supernatural and caring for their sick. What do you make of these differences? These are the questions that have faced people for tens of thousands of years as human groups have moved around and settled in different parts of the world. One of the first examples of someone who attempted to systematically study and document cultural differences is Zhang Qian (164 BC – 113 BC). Born in the second century BCE in Hanzhong, China, Zhang was a military officer who was assigned by Emperor Wu of Han to travel through Central Asia, going as far as what is today Uzbekistan. He spent more than twenty-five years traveling and recording his observations of the peoples and cultures of Central Asia (Wood 2004). The Emperor used this information to establish new relationships and cultural connections with China’s neighbors to the West. Zhang discovered many of the trade routes used in the Silk Road and introduced several new cultural ideas, including Buddhism, into Chinese culture. Another early traveler of note was Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta, known most widely as Ibn Battuta, (1304-1369). Ibn Battuta was an Amazigh (Berber) Moroccan Muslim scholar. During the fourteenth century, he traveled for a period of nearly thirty years, covering almost the whole of the Islamic world, including parts of Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, India, and China. Upon his return to the Kingdom of Morocco, he documented the customs and traditions of the people he encountered in a book called Tuhfat al-anzar fi gharaaib al-amsar wa aja’ib al-asfar (A Gift to those who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Traveling), a book commonly known as Al Rihla, which means “travels” in Arabic (Mackintosh- Smith 2003: ix). This book became part of a genre of Arabic literature that included descriptions of the people and places visited along with commentary about the cultures encountered. Some scholars consider Al Rihla to be among the first examples of early pre-anthropological writing.1 The stories of Zhang Qian and Abu Abdullah Muhammad are particularly important for us to learn about because of the common erasure of non-white, non-European, and non-Greco-Roman peoples in the telling of history and in the development of many of our academic disciplines. Even I (Vanessa Martinez) only recently 1. Lahcen Mourad (Arabic scholar) in discussion with Katie Nelson, December, 2018. 1.5 HOW DID ANTHROPOLOGY COME TO BE? | 19 learned about these two scholars and their importance to anthropological history and I have been a professor of anthropology for over sixteen years. Later, from the 1400s through the1700s, during the so-called “Age of Discovery,” Europeans began to explore the world and then colonize it. Europeans exploited natural resources and human labor in other parts of the world, exerting social and political control over the people they encountered. New trade routes along with the slave trade fueled a growing European empire while forever disrupting previously independent cultures in the Old World. European ethnocentrism—the belief that one’s own culture is better than others—was used to justify the subjugation of non-European societies on the alleged basis that these groups were socially and even biologically inferior. Indeed, the emerging anthropological practices of this time were ethnocentric and often supported colonial projects. As European empires expanded, new ways of understanding the world and its people arose. Beginning in the eighteenth century in Europe, the Age of the Enlightenment was a social and philosophical movement that privileged science, rationality, and experience while critiquing religious authority. This crucial period of intellectual development planted the seeds for many academic disciplines, including anthropology. It gave ordinary people the capacity to learn the “truth” through observation and experience: anyone could ask questions and use rational thought to discover things about the natural and social world. For example, geologist Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875) observed layers of rock and argued that the earth’s surface must have changed gradually over long periods of time. He disputed the Young Earth theory, which was popular at the time and used Biblical information to date the earth as only 6,000 years old, Charles Darwin (1809-1882), a naturalist and biologist, observed similarities between fossils and living specimens, leading him to argue that all life is descended from a common ancestor. Philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) contemplated the origins of society itself, proposing that people historically had lived in relative isolation until they agreed to form a society in which the government would protect their personal property. These radical ideas about the earth, evolution, and society influenced early social scientists into the nineteenth century. Philosopher and anthropologist Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), inspired by scientific principles, used biological evolution as a model to understand social evolution. Just as biological life evolved from simple to complex multicellular organisms, he postulated that societies “evolve” to become larger and more complex. Like Herbert Spencer, anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) was a proponent of social evolution and argued that all societies “progress” through the same stages of development: savagery—barbarism—civilization. Societies were classified into these stages based on their family structure, technologies, and methods for acquiring food. So-called “savage” societies, ones that used stone tools and foraged for food, were said to be stalled in their social, mental, and even moral development. Ethnocentric ideas like Spencer’s and Morgan’s were challenged by anthropologists in the early twentieth century in both Europe and the United States. During World War I, Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), a Polish anthropologist, became stranded on the Trobriand Islands located north of Australia and Papua, New Guinea. While there, he started to develop participant-observation fieldwork: the method of immersive, long- term research that cultural anthropologists use today. By living with and observing the Trobriand Islanders, 20 | 1.5 HOW DID ANTHROPOLOGY COME TO BE? he realized that their culture was not “savage” but was well-suited to fulfill the needs of the people. He developed a theory to explain human cultural diversity: each culture functions to satisfy the specific biological and psychological needs of its people. While this theory has been critiqued as biological reductionism, it was an early attempt to view other cultures in more open-minded ways. Around the same time in the United States, Franz Boas (1858-1942), widely regarded as the founder of American anthropology, developed cultural relativism, the view that while cultures differ, they are not better or worse than one another. In his critique of ethnocentric views, Boas insisted that physical and behavioral differences among racial and ethnic groups in the United States were shaped by environmental and social conditions, not biology. In fact, he argued that culture and biology are distinct realms of experience: human behaviors are socially learned, contextual, and flexible but not innate. Further, Boas worked to transform anthropology into a professional and empirical academic discipline that integrated the four subdisciplines of cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and biological anthropology. 1.6 PICTURE OF AN ANTHROPOLOGIST: ANTHONY KWAME HARRISON | 21 1.6 PICTURE OF AN ANTHROPOLOGIST: ANTHONY KWAME HARRISON I (Kwame) like to tell a story about how, on the last day of my first year at the University of Massachusetts, while sitting alone in my dorm room waiting to be picked up, I decided to figure out what my major would be. So, I opened the course catalog—back then it was a physical book—and started going through it alphabetically. Figure 1.2: Anthony Kwame Harrison, PhD Cultural Anthropologist, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University On days when I am feeling particularly playful, I say that after getting through the A’s, I knew anthropology was for me. In truth, I also considered Zoology. I was initially drawn to anthropology because of its traditional focus on exoticness and difference. I was born in Ghana, West Africa, where my American father had spent several years working with local artisans at the National Cultural Centre in Kumasi. My family moved to the United States when I was still a baby and I had witnessed my Asante mother struggle with adapting to certain aspects of life in America. Studying anthropology, then, gave me a reason to learn more about the unusual artwork that filled my childhood home and to connect with a faraway side of my family that I hardly knew anything about. Looking through that course catalog, I didn’t really know what anthropology was but resolved to test the waters by taking several classes the following year. As I flourished in these courses—two introductory level classes on cultural anthropology and archeology, a class called “Culture through Film,” and another on “Egalitarian Societies”—I envisioned a possible future as an anthropologist working in rural West Africa on 22 | 1.6 PICTURE OF AN ANTHROPOLOGIST: ANTHONY KWAME HARRISON topics like symbolic art and folklore. I never imagined I would earn a Ph.D. researching the mostly middle-class, largely multi-racial, independent hip-hop scene in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through my anthropological training, I have made a career exploring how race influences our perceptions of popular music. I have written several pieces on racial identity and hip hop—most notably my 2009 book, Hip Hop Underground: The Integrity and Ethics of Racial Identification. I have also explored how race impacts people’s senses of belonging in various social spaces—for instance, African American participation in downhill skiing or the experiences of underrepresented students at historically white colleges and universities. In all these efforts, my attention is primarily on understanding the complexities, nuances, and significance of race. I use these other topics—music, recreation, and higher education—as avenues through which to explore race’s multiple meanings and unequal consequences. Figure 1.3: Harrison performing as a participant-observing member of the Forest Fires Collective (the hip hop group he founded during his fieldwork). Photo courtesy of Kwame Harrison. Where a fascination with the exotic initially brought me to anthropology, it is the discipline’s ability to shed light on what many of us see as normal, common, and taken-for-granted that has kept me with it through three degrees (bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D.) and a fifteen-year career as a college professor. I am currently the Gloria D. Smith Professor of Africana Studies at Virginia Tech—a school that, oddly enough, does not have an anthropology program. Being an anthropologist at a major university that doesn’t have an anthropology program, I believe, gives me a unique perspective on the discipline’s key virtues. One of the most important things that anthropology does is create a basis for questioning taken-for granted notions of progress. Does the Gillette Fusion Five Razor, with its five blades, really offer a better shave than the four-bladed Schick Quattro? I cannot say for sure, but as I’ve witnessed the move from twin-blade razors, to Mach 3s, to today (there is even a company offering “the world’s first and only” razor with “seven precision aligned blades)” there appears to be a presumption that more, in this case, razor-blades is better. I’ll admit that the razor-blade example is somewhat crude. Expanding out to the latest model automobile or smartphone, people seem to have a seldom questioned belief in the notion that newer technologies ultimately improve our 1.6 PICTURE OF AN ANTHROPOLOGIST: ANTHONY KWAME HARRISON | 23 lives. Anthropology places such ideas within the broader context of human lifeways, or what anthropologists call culture. What are the most crucial elements of human biological and social existence? What additional developments have brought communities the greatest levels of collective satisfaction, effective organization, and sustainability? Anthropology has taught me to view the contemporary American lifestyle that I grew up think ing was normal through the wider frame of humanity’s long history. How does our perspective change upon learning that for the vast majority of human history—some say as much as ninety nine percent of it—people lived a foraging lifestyle (commonly referred to as “hunting and gathering”)? Although I am not calling for a mass return to foraging, when we consider the significant worldwide issues that humans face today—such things as global warming, the threat of nuclear war, accelerating ethnic conflicts, and a world population that has grown from one billion to nearly eight billion over the past two hundred years—we are left with difficult questions about whether 10,000 years of agriculture and a couple hundred years of industrialization have been in humanity’s best long-term interests. All of this is to say that anthropology offers one of the most biting critiques of modernity, which challenges us to slow down and think about whether the new technologies we are constantly being presented with make sense. Similarly, the anthropological concept of ethnocentrism is incredibly useful when paired with different examples of how people define family, recognize leadership, decide what is and is not edible, and the like.Using my own anthropological biography as an illustration, I want to stress that the discipline does not showcase diverse human lifeways to further exoticize those who live differently from us. In contrast, anthropology showcases cultural variation to illustrate the possibilities and potential for human life, and to demonstrate that the way of doing things we know best is neither normal nor necessarily right. It is just one way among a multitude of others. “Everybody does it but we all do it different”; this is culture. Quick Reading Check: What did you learn about the discipline of anthropology by reading Kwame’s story? Media Attributions Anthony Kwame Harrison © Virginia Tech University is licensed under a All Rights Reserved license Harrison Perform © Kwame Harrison is licensed under a All Rights Reserved license 24 | 1.7 WHAT MAKES ANTHROPOLOGY UNIQUE FROM OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCES? 1.7 WHAT MAKES ANTHROPOLOGY UNIQUE FROM OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCES? Humanity, while central to anthropology, is not only studied in anthropology. Other social sciences, sociology and psychology most notably often discuss similar concepts like the role of culture and ask similar questions about the past, societies, and human nature. Students often ask what is unique about anthropology and how it differs from the other social sciences. Anthropologists across the subfields use unique perspectives to conduct their research that make anthropology distinct from related disciplines — like history, sociology, and psychology. These key anthropological perspectives are holism, relativism, comparison, and fieldwork. Important to all of these perspectives are how different anthropologists might use scientific strategies and humanistic frameworks to better understand the world, and at times, conflict with one another. 1.7.1 Holism Anthropologists are interested in the whole of humanity and how various aspects of life interact. One cannot fully appreciate what it means to be human by studying a single aspect of our complex histories, languages, bodies, or societies. By using a holistic approach, anthropologists ask how different aspects of human life influence one another. For example, a cultural anthropologist studying the meaning of marriage in a small village in India might consider local gender norms, existing family networks, laws regarding marriage, religious rules, and economic factors. A biological anthropologist studying monkeys in South America might consider the species’ physical adaptations, foraging patterns, ecological conditions, and interactions with humans in order to answer questions about their social behaviors. By understanding how nonhuman primates behave, we discover more about ourselves (after all, humans are primates!). By using a holistic approach, anthropologists reveal the complexity of biological, social, or cultural phenomena. Anthropology itself is a holistic discipline, composed in the United States (and in some other nations) of four major subfields: cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology. While anthropologists often specialize in one subfield, their specific research contributes to a broader understanding of the human condition, which is made up of culture, language, biological and social adaptations, as well as human origins and evolution. 1.7 WHAT MAKES ANTHROPOLOGY UNIQUE FROM OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCES? | 25 1.7.2 Cultural Relativism (versus Ethnocentrism) The guiding philosophy of modern anthropology is cultural relativism—the idea that we should seek to understand another person’s beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of their culture rather than our own. Anthropologists do not judge other cultures based on their values nor do they view other ways of doing things as inferior. Instead, anthropologists seek to understand people’s beliefs within the system they have for explaining things. The opposite of cultural relativism is ethnocentrism, the tendency to view one’s own culture as the most important and correct and as a measuring stick by which to evaluate all other cultures that are largely seen as inferior and morally suspect. As it turns out, many people are ethnocentric to some degree; ethnocentrism is a common human experience. Why do we respond the way we do? Why do we behave the way we do? Why do we believe what we believe? Most people find these kinds of questions difficult to answer. Often the answer is simply “because that is how it is done.” But the answer should be expanded to – “that is the way it is done in our culture at this time” – acknowledging both its cultural context and its time-bound nature. People typically believe that their ways of thinking and acting are “normal”; however, at a more extreme level, some believe their ways are better than those of others. Ethnocentrism is not a useful perspective in contexts in which people from different cultural backgrounds come into close contact with one another, as is the case in many cities and communities throughout the world. People increasingly find that they must adopt culturally relativistic perspectives in governing communities and as a guide for their interactions with members of the community. For anthropologists, cultural relativism is especially important. We must set aside our innate ethnocentric views in order to allow cultural relativism to guide our inquiries and interactions so that we can learn from others. 1.7.3 The Comparative Approach Anthropologists of all the subfields use comparison to learn what humans have in common, how we differ, and how we change. Anthropologists ask questions like: How do chimpanzees differ from humans? How do different languages adapt to new technologies? How do countries respond differently to immigration? In cultural anthropology, we compare ideas, morals, practices, and systems within or between cultures. We might compare the roles of men and women in different societies or contrast how different religious groups conflict within a given society. Like other disciplines that use comparative approaches, such as sociology or psychology, anthropologists make comparisons between people in a given society. Unlike these other disciplines, anthropologists also compare across societie and between humans and other primates. In essence, anthropological comparisons span societies, cultures, time, place, and species. It is through comparison that we learn more about the range of possible responses to varying contexts and problems. 26 | 1.7 WHAT MAKES ANTHROPOLOGY UNIQUE FROM OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCES? 1.7.4 Fieldwork Anthropologists conduct their research in the field with the species, civilization, or groups of people they are studying. In cultural anthropology, our fieldwork is referred to as ethnography, which is both the process and result of cultural anthropological research. The Greek term “ethno” refers to people, and “graphy” refers to writing. The ethnographic process involves the research method of participant observation fieldwork: you participate in people’s lives, while observing them and taking field notes that, along with interviews and surveys, constitute the research data. This research is inductive: based on day-to-day observations, the anthropologist asks increasingly specific questions about the group or about the human condition more broadly. Oftentimes, informants actively participate in the research process, helping the anthropologist ask better questions and understand different perspectives. Figure 1.4: Author Katie Nelson conducting ethnographic fieldwork among undocumented Mexican immigrant college students. Photo by Luke Berhow. The word ethnography also refers to the end result of our fieldwork. Cultural anthropologists do not write “novels,” rather they write ethnographies, descriptive accounts of culture that weave detailed observations with theory. After all, anthropologists are social scientists. While we study a particular culture to learn more about it and to answer specific research questions, we are also exploring fundamental questions about human society, behavior, or experiences. In the course of conducting fieldwork with human subjects, anthropologists invariably encounter ethical dilemmas: Who might be harmed by conducting or publishing this research? What are the costs and benefits of identifying individuals involved in this study? How should one resolve competing interests of the funding 1.7 WHAT MAKES ANTHROPOLOGY UNIQUE FROM OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCES? | 27 agency and the community? To address these questions, anthropologists are obligated to follow a professional code of ethics that guide us through ethical considerations in our research.1 Quick Reading Check: What are the four anthropological perspectives that are used to distinguish anthropology from other social sciences? 1.7.5 Scientific vs Humanistic Approaches As you may have noticed from the above discussion of the anthropological sub-disciplines, anthropologists are not unified in what they study or how they conduct research. Some sub-disciplines, like biological anthropology and archaeology, use a deductive, scientific approach. Through hypothesis testing, they collect and analyze material data (e.g. bones, tools, seeds, etc.) to answer questions about human origins and evolution. Other subdisciplines, like cultural anthropology and linguistic anthropology, use humanistic and/ or inductive approaches to their collection and analysis of nonmaterial data, such as observations of everyday life or language in use. At times, tension has arisen between the scientific subfields and the humanistic ones. For example, in 2010, some cultural anthropologists critiqued the American Anthropological Association’s mission statement, which stated that the discipline’s goal was “to advance anthropology as the science that studies humankind in all its aspects.”2 These scholars wanted to replace the word “science” with “public understanding.” They argued that some anthropologists do not use the scientific method of inquiry; instead, they rely more on narratives and interpretations of meaning. After much debate, the word “science” remains in the mission statement and, throughout the United States, anthropology is predominantly categorized as a social science. Media Attributions Katie Nelson fieldwork © Katie Nelson is licensed under a CC BY-NC (Attribution NonCommercial) license 1. See the American Anthropological Association’s Code of Ethics: http://ethics.americananthro.org/category/statement/ 2. See: American Anthropological Association Statement of Purpose: https://www.americananthro.org/Con nectWithAAA/ Content.aspx?ItemNumber=1650 28 | 1.8 WHY IS ANTHROPOLOGY IMPORTANT? 1.8 WHY IS ANTHROPOLOGY IMPORTANT? As we hope you have learned thus far, anthropology is an exciting and multifaceted field of study. Because of its breadth, students who study anthropology go on to work in a wide variety of careers in medicine, museums, field archaeology, historical preservation, education, international business, documentary filmmaking, management, foreign service, law, and many more. Beyond preparing students for a particular career, anthropology helps people develop essential skills that are transferable to many career choices, life paths, and interpersonal relationships. Studying anthropology fosters broad knowledge of other cultures, skills in observation and analysis, critical thinking, clear communication, and applied problem-solving. Anthropology encourages us to extend our perspectives beyond familiar social contexts to view things from the perspectives of others. As one former cultural anthropology student observed, “I believe an anthropology course has one basic goal: to eliminate ethnocentrism. A lot of issues we have today (racism, xenophobia, etc.) stem from the toxic idea that people are ‘other’. We must put that idea aside and learn to value different cultures.”1 This anthropological perspective is an essential skill for nearly any career in today’s globalized world. 1. This quote is taken from a survey of students in an Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course at the Community College of Baltimore County, 2018. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS | 29 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. This chapter emphasizes how broad the discipline of anthropology is and how many different kinds of research questions anthropologists in the four subdisciplines pursue. What do you think are the strengths or unique opportunities of being such a broad discipline? What are some challenges or difficulties that could develop in a discipline that studies so many different things? 2. Cultural anthropologists focus on the way beliefs, practices, and symbols bind groups of people together and shape their worldview and lifeways. Thinking about your own culture, what is an example of a belief, practice, or symbol that would be interesting to study anthropologically? What do you think could be learned by studying the example you have selected? 3. Discuss the definition of culture proposed in this chapter. How is it similar or different from other ideas about culture that you have encountered in other classes or in everyday life? 4. In this chapter, Anthony Kwame Harrison describes how he first became interested in anthropology and how he has used his training in anthropology to conduct research in different parts of the world. How do you think the participant-observation fieldwork he described leads to information that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to learn? 5. In this chapter, [blank] and [blank], former anthropology students, discuss the lifelong lessons learned in their anthropology courses and the “pay it forward” effect it has had in their communities. Whose story resonated with you and why? Are you open to letting a course change your life? 30 | GLOSSARY GLOSSARY Cultural relativism: the idea that we should seek to understand another person’s beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of their own culture and not our own. Deductive: reasoning from the general to the specific; the inverse of inductive reasoning. Deductive research is more common in the natural sciences than in anthropology. In a deductive approach, the researcher creates a hypothesis and then designs a study to prove or disprove the hypothesis. The results of deductive research can be generalizable to other settings. Enculturation: the process of learning the characteristics and expectations of a culture or group. Ethnocentrism: the tendency to view one’s own culture as most important and correct and as the ruler by which to measure all other cultures. Ethnography: the in-depth study of the everyday practices and lives of a people. Hominin: Humans (Homo sapiens) and their close relatives and immediate ancestors. Inductive: a type of reasoning that uses specific information to draw general conclusions. In an inductive approach, the researcher seeks to collect evidence without trying to definitively prove or disprove a hypothesis. The researcher usually first spends time in the field to become familiar with the people before identifying a hypothesis or research question. Inductive research usually is not generalizable to other settings. Paleoanthropologist: biological anthropologists who study ancient human relatives. Participant- observation: a type of observation in which the anthropologist observes while participating in the same activities in which her informants are engaged. BIBLIOGRAPHY | 31 BIBLIOGRAPHY Berger, Lee R., Hawks, John, de Ruiter, Darryl J., Churchill, Steven E., Schmid, Peter, Delezene, Lucas K., Kivell, Tracy L., Garvin, Heather M., and Scott A. Williams. 2015. “Homo naledi, A New Species of the Genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa.” eLife 4:e09560. doi: 10.7554/eLife.09560. Bourgois, Philippe. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Briggs, Jean. Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family. Cambridge: President and Fellows of Harvard College, 1970. Farmer, Paul. AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Goodall, Jane. My Life with the Chimpanzees. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, 1996. Harrison, Anthony Kwame. Hip Hop Underground: The Integrity and Ethics of Racial Identification. Philadel phia: Temple University Press, 2009. Jablonski, Nina. Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color. Berkeley: University of Cal ifornia Press, 2012. Kenyon, Kathleen. Excavations at Jericho – Volume II Tombs Excavated in 1955-8, London: British School of Archaeology, 1965. Kwiatkowski, Lynn. Struggling with Development: The Politics of Hunger and Gender in the Philippines. Boulder: Westview Press, 1998. Mackintosh-Smith, Tim, ed. The Travels of Ibn Battutah. London: Picador, 2003. Malotki, Ekkehart. Hopi Time: A Linguistic Analysis of the Temporal Concepts in the Hopi Language. Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs. 20. New York: Mouton Publishers, 1983. Mackintosh- Smith, Tim, ed. The Travels of Ibn Battutah. London: Picador, 2003. Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi B. Schieffelin. 2012. “The Theory of Language Socialization.” In The Handbook of Language Socialization edited by Alessandro Duranti, Elinor Ochs, and Bambi Schieffelin, 1–21. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Rathje, William and Cullen Murphy. Rubbish: The Archaeology of Garbage. New York: HarperCollins Pub lishers, 1992. Whorf, Benjamin Lee. Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Edited by J.B. Carroll. Cambridge: M.I.T Press, 1956. Wood, Frances. The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 32 | ABOUT THE ORIGINAL AUTHORS ABOUT THE ORIGINAL AUTHORS Katie Nelson is an instructor of anthropology at Inver Hills Community College. Her research focuses on migration, identity, belonging, and citizenship(s) in human history and in the contemporary United States, Mexico, and Morocco. She received her B.A. in anthropology and Latin American studies from Macalester College, her M.A. in anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, an M.A. in education and instructional technology from the University of Saint Thomas, and her Ph.D. from CIESAS Occidente (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologia Social –Center for Research and Higher Education in Social Anthropology), based in Guadalajara, Mexico. Katie views teaching and learning as central to her practice as an anthropologist and as mutually reinforcing elements of her professional life. She is the former chair of the Teaching Anthropology Interest Group (2016–2018) of the General Anthropology Division of the American Anthropological Association and currently serves as the online content editor for the Teaching and Learning Anthropology Journal. She has contributed to several open access textbook projects, both as an author and an editor, and views the affordability of quality learning materials as an important piece of the equity and inclusion puzzle in higher education.10 Lara Braff is an instructor of anthropology at Grossmont College, where she teaches cultural and biological anthropology courses. She received her B.A. in anthropology and Spanish from the University of California at Berkeley and both her M.A. and Ph.D. in comparative human development from the University of Chicago, where she specialized in cultural and medical anthropology. Her research has focused on social identities and disparities in the context of reproduction and medicine in both Mexico and the U.S. Lara’s concern about social inequality has guided her research projects, teaching practices, and involvement in open access projects like this textbook. In an effort to make college more accessible to all students, she serves as co-coordinator of Grossmont College’s Open Educational Resources (OER) and Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) initiatives. Media Attributions Katie Nelson © Katie Nelson is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike) license CHAPTER 2 | 33 CHAPTER 2 Remix Authors: Vanessa Martínez, Holyoke Community College [email protected] Demetrios Brellas, Framingham State University [email protected] Original Authors Priscilla Medeiros, Women’s College Hospital [email protected] Emily Cowall, McMaster University [email protected] Learning Objectives Describe how anthropologists define culture. Compare and contrast the ideas of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism. Describe how the anthropological concept of culture came to be. Identify the differences between armchair anthropology and participant-observer fieldwork. Assess some of the ethical issues that can arise from anthropological research. 34 | CHAPTER 2 2.1 WHAT IS CULTURE? | 35 2.1 WHAT IS CULTURE? Cultural anthropologists study all aspects of culture, but what exactly is “culture”? When we first ask students in our introductory cultural anthropology courses what culture means to them, our students typically say that culture is food, clothing, religion, language, traditions, art, music, and so forth. Indeed, culture includes many of these observable characteristics, but culture is also something deeper. Culture is a powerful defining characteristic of human groups that shapes our perceptions, behaviors, and relationships. Culture is a set of beliefs, practices, materials, and symbols that are learned and shared. In this definition, belief refers not just to what we “believe” to be right or wrong, true or false. Belief also refers to all the mental aspects of culture including values, norms, philosophies, worldview, knowledge, and so forth. Practices refers to behaviors and actions that may be motivated by belief or performed without reflection as part of everyday routines. This definition of culture – both shared and learned beliefs, practices, and symbols – allows us to understand that people everywhere are thinkers and actors shaped by their social contexts. As we will see throughout this book, these contexts are incredibly diverse, comprising the human cultural diversity that drew many of us to become anthropologists in the first place. Together, they form an all-encompassing, integrated whole that binds groups of people together and shapes their worldview and lifeways. In defining culture, some anthropologists emphasize material life and objects (e.g. tools, clothing, and technologies); others emphasize culture as a system of intangible beliefs; and still others focus on practices or customs of daily life. 36 | 2.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE 2.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE So how can we Define culture?: Culture is Performed or Enacted as Part of our daily lives. In other words culture is something that we do. It sustains and comprises us, yet we largely take it for granted. We are not always consciously aware of our own culture which is one reason that culture is sometimes difficult to define. Culture is Shared: To say that a group of people shares a culture does not mean all individuals think or act in identical ways. One’s beliefs and practices can vary within a culture depending on age, gender, social status, and other characteristics. However, members of a culture share many things in common. Culture is Learned. While we are not born with a particular culture, we are born with the capacity to learn any culture. Through the process of enculturation, we learn to become members of our group both directly, through instruction from our parents and peers, and indirectly, by observing and imitating those around us. Culture Changes: Culture is dynamic. It constantly changes in response to both internal and external factors. Some parts of culture change more quickly than others. For instance, in dominant American culture, technology changes rapidly while deep seated values such as individualism, freedom, and self- determination change very little over time. Yet, inevitably, when one part of culture changes, so do other parts because nearly all parts of a culture are integrated and interrelated. As powerful as culture is, humans are not necessarily bound by culture; they have the capacity to conform to it or not and even transform it. Culture is Symbolic: Much like art and language, culture is also symbolic. A symbol is something that stands for something else, often without a natural connection. Individuals create, interpret, and share the meanings of symbols within their group or the larger society. For example, in U.S. society everyone recognizes a red octagonal sign as signifying “stop.” In other cases, groups within American society interpret the same symbol in different ways. Take the Confederate flag: Some people see it as a symbol of pride in a southern heritage. Many others see it as a symbol of the long legacy of slavery, segregation, and racial oppression. Thus, displaying the Confederate flag could have positive or, more often, negative connotations. Cultural symbols powerfully convey either shared or conflicting meanings across space and time. Culture and biology are connected: While culture is central to making us human, we are still biological beings with natural needs and urges that we share with other animals: hunger, thirst, sex, elimination, etc. Human culture uniquely channels these urges in particular ways and cultural practices can then impact our biology, growth, and development. Humans are one of the most dynamic species 2.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE | 37 on Earth. Our ability to change both culturally and biologically has enabled us to persist for millions of years and to thrive in diverse environments. 38 | 2.3 TELL ME A STORY! ANTHROPOLOGISTS AS STORYTELLERS 2.3 TELL ME A STORY! ANTHROPOLOGISTS AS STORYTELLERS People throughout recorded history have relied on storytelling as a way to share cultural details. When early anthropologists studied people from other civilizations, they relied on the written accounts and opinions of others; they presented facts and developed their “stories” about other cultures based solely on information gathered by others. These scholars did not have any direct contact with the people they were studying. This approach has come to be known as armchair anthropology. Simply put, if a culture is viewed from a distance (as from an armchair), the anthropologist tends to measure that culture from his or her own vantage point and to draw comparisons that place the anthropologist’s culture as superior to the one being studied. This point of view is also called ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is an attitude based on the idea that one’s own group or culture is better than any other. Early anthropological studies often presented a biased ethnocentric interpretation of the human condition. For example, ideas about racial superiority emerged as a result of studying the cultures that were encountered during the colonial era. During the colonial era from the sixteenth century to the mid–twentieth century, European countries (Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, the Dutch Republic, Spain, Portugal) asserted control over land (Asia, Africa, the Americas) and the people of color on those lands. European ideas of wrong and right were used as a measuring stick to judge the way that people in different cultures lived. These other cultures were considered primitive, which was an ethnocentric term for people who were non-European. It is also a negative term suggesting that indigenous cultures had a lack of technological advancement. Colonizers thought that they were superior to the Other in every way, thereby ushering in white supremacy as a long lasting idea that has changed the world. Armchair anthropologists were unlikely to be aware of their ethnocentric ideas because they did not visit the cultures they studied. Scottish social anthropologist Sir James Frazer is well-known for his 1890 work The Golden Bough: A Study of Comparative Religions. Its title was later changed to A Study in Magic and Religion, and it was one of the first books to describe and record magical and religious beliefs of different culture groups around the world. However, this book was not the outcome of extensive study in the field. Instead, Frazer relied on the accounts of others who had traveled, such as scholars, missionaries, and government officials, to formulate his study. Another example of anthropological writing without the use of fieldwork is Sir E. B. Tylor’s 1871 work Primitive Culture. Tylor, who went on to become the first professor of anthropology at Oxford University in 1896, was an important influence in the development of sociocultural anthropology as a separate discipline. Tylor defined culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and 2.3 TELL ME A STORY! ANTHROPOLOGISTS AS STORYTELLERS | 39 any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”1 His definition of culture is still used frequently today and remains the foundation of the culture concept in anthropology. Tylor’s definition of culture was influenced by the popular theories and philosophies of his time, including the work of Charles Darwin. Darwin formulated the theory of evolution by natural selection in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species. Scholars of the time period, including Tylor, believed that cultures were subject to evolution just like plants and animals and thought that cultures developed over time from simple to complex. Many nineteenth century anthropologists believed that cultures evolved through distinct stages. They labeled these stages with terms such as savagery, barbarism, and civilization.2 These theories of cultural evolutionism would later be successfully refuted, but conflicting views about cultural evolutionism in the nineteenth century highlight an ongoing nature versus nurture debate about whether biology shapes behavior more than culture. Both Frazer and Tylor contributed important and foundational studies even though they never went into the field to gather their information. Armchair anthropologists were important in the development of anthropology as a discipline in the late nineteenth century because although these early scholars were not directly experiencing the cultures they were studying, their work did ask important questions—questions that could ultimately only be answered by going into the field. Quick Reading Check: What is armchair anthropology and why did the discipline move away from this type of analysis? 1. Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Customs (London: Cambridge University Press, 1871), preface. 2. Lewis Henry Morgan was one anthropologist who proposed an evolutionary framework based on these terms in his book Ancient Society (New York: Henry Holt, 1877). 40 | 2.4 WE DO IT TOO! ANTHROPOLOGISTS AS CULTURAL PARTICIPANTS 2.4 WE DO IT TOO! ANTHROPOLOGISTS AS CULTURAL PARTICIPANTS The armchair approach as a way to study culture changed when scholars such as Bronislaw Malinowski, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, Franz Boas, and Margaret Mead took to the field and studied by being participants and observers. As they did, fieldwork became the most important tool anthropologists used to understand the “complex whole” of culture. Bronislaw Malinowski, a Polish anthropologist, was greatly influenced by the work of Frazer. However, unlike the armchair anthropology approach Frazer used in writing The Golden Bough, Malinowski used more innovative ethnographic techniques, and his fieldwork took him off the veranda to study different cultures. The off-the-veranda approach is different from armchair anthropology because it includes active participant- observation: traveling to a location, living among people, and observing their day-to-day lives. What happened when Malinowski came off the veranda? The Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) was considered the first modern ethnography and redefined the approach to fieldwork. This book is part of Malinowski’s trilogy on the Trobriand Islanders. Malinowski lived with them and observed life in their villages. By living among the islanders, Malinowski was able to learn about their social life, food and shelter, sexual behaviors, community economics, patterns of kinship, and family.1 Malinowski went “native” to some extent during his fieldwork with the Trobriand Islanders. Going native means to become fully integrated into a cultural group: taking leadership positions and assuming key roles in society; entering into a marriage or spousal contract; exploring sexuality or fully participating i

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