THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CRISIS OF THE MID-TWENTIETH
from violence through other conflicting allegiances which are also enjoined on them by custom” (1956: 2). The simple view of primitive order was forever dashed.
These reports from the field heralded an identity crisis within anthropology that was expressed in such subsequent titles as The Invention of Culture(Wagner 1975), The Invention of Tradition(Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983), The Invention of Primitive Society (Kuper 1988), and first and perhaps most dramatically Reinventing Anthropology(Hymes 1972). These books and others like them shone the spotlight directly on cultural anthropology itself, identifying clearly anthropology’s own
“culture” and how its methods, concepts, and assumptions had influenced its findings and conclusions. Anthropology would subsequently become more self- reflective as it discovered that it was at least in a sense not only science but also literature – that is, a tradition of writing – as in James Clifford and George Marcus’
(1986) Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography.
Along the way, cultural anthropology split into more schools and theoretical camps than ever, as some practitioners returned to the roots of the discipline to reform them while others took inspiration from fields and advances outside of anthropology. Among these elaborations of anthropology are the following.
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1.. NNeeoo--eevvoolluuttiioonniissmm. Leslie White (1949, 1959a, 1959b) and Julian Steward (1950, 1953) are considered the most prominent thinkers to reintroduce a more sophisticated version of cultural evolution. White suggested a principle behind the evolutionary progress of societies, namely the amount and kind of energy it could harness and exploit. As societies developed newer and greater sources of energy (from domesticated animals to electricity and nuclear power), not only their economic but also their other social characteristics would change in correspondence. Steward contributed the notion of “multilinear” evolution to combat the impression that all societies evolved in the same manner or that all societies were part of some grand cultural evolution. In this view, each particular culture pursued its own developmental course, and societies at similar points in their evolution (perhaps due to their similar environments) would exhibit similar cultures.
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2.. SSttrruuccttuurraalliissmm. Instead of looking back into the heritage of anthropology, Claude Lévi-Strauss looked across at the developing discipline of linguistics for a new approach to vexing problems like kinship and religion (e.g., the analysis of myth).
Drawing on the work of Ferdinand de Saussure in particular, Lévi-Strauss took the notion of culture as a language seriously: language has “bits” or elements (sounds, words, and so on) in structural relationships with each other (that is, “grammar”).
The grammatical relations between linguistic elements determine their meaning more than the individual elements themselves. Therefore, he proposed that we might approach anthropological problems in the same way. Rather than looking for the
“meaning” of some cultural element – totemism, mother-in-law avoidance, a particular theme in a myth – in the thing itself, he proposed that we look for it in the relations between the elements. In other words, if a society has the crocodile for a totem animal, the meaning of that totem is not to be found in the properties of the crocodile but in the system of relationships between the various totem animals and,
Wagner, Roy. 1975. The Invention of Culture.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Hobsbawm, Eric and Terence Ranger, eds.
1983. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Hymes, Dell, ed. 1972 [1969]. Reinventing Anthropology. New York:
Random House, Inc.
Neo-evolutionism The mid-twentieth-century revival of focus on the historical development of cultures and societies, as in the work of Leslie White and Julian Steward, which generally sought to repair the failings of nineteenth- century evolutionism by proposing specific processes and a “multilinear” path of change.
Structuralism The theory (associated most closely with Claude Lévi-Strauss) that the significance of an item (word, role, practice, belief) is not so much in the particular item but in its relationship to others. In other words, the “structure”
of multiple items and the location of any one in relation to others is most important.
more importantly, the system of relationships between the social groupings associated with those species.
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3.. EEtthhnnoosscciieennccee. Combining two interests of American anthropology in particular – personality or cognition and classification – ethnoscience, also known as cognitive anthropology, sought to examine and expose the mental classification systems that shaped local people’s experiences and actions. As formulated by Goodenough (1956), Frake (1962), and Tyler (1969) among others, ethnoscience aimed to be more scientific while also pursuing the psychological side of culture, which had always been a focus in American cultural anthropology. The point was to bring to light the intellectual models of reality that humans have in their heads (often if not usually implicitly) that organize their world in specific ways. Thus, the scientific anthropologist would reconstruct the “folk taxonomy” or the “knowledge structure”
of a society, which was the skeleton and structure of its entire meaning and action system.
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4.. SSyymmbboolliicc//iinntteerrpprreettiivvee aanntthhrrooppoollooggyy. In some ways moving in the opposite direction and in other ways very comparable, symbolic anthropology also sought to gain access to the deeper meanings of other societies, but it tended to do this through
“symbols” rather than through taxonomies. Influenced heavily by the philosophies of Suzanne Langer (1942) and Ernst Cassirer (1954) who saw all human thought and action as mediated by symbols, the meanings of which could not always be described rationally, anthropologists like Victor Turner (1967, 1981 [1968]), Clifford Geertz (1973), and Sherry Ortner (1973) attempted to identify the “key symbols” that functioned as lenses through which people perceived their worlds. It was at least in part a reaction against Lévi-Straussian structuralism, which posited a single mental structure for all human beings and stripped away all of the particulars and context from anthropological analysis. Geertz coined the phrase “thick description” for the practice of trying to penetrate to the deep meaning of people’s realities and to present that meaning in all of its richness and complexity. Anthropological analysis and description thus became an interpretive or “hermeneutic” exercise, aiming to “read”
a culture and to render its symbols and meanings understandable to us without washing out all of the uniqueness and particularity of the society in question.
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5.. MMaarrxxiisstt//ccrriittiiccaall aanntthhrrooppoollooggyy. In the second half of the twentieth century espe- cially, Marxist or “critical” theory exerted a strong pull on cultural anthropology. In the works of Maurice Bloch (1983), Maurice Godelier (1978), and many others, there was a new concern for issues of economics, class, power, and domination. Working from the Marxian claim that the culture of a society is the culture of the dominant class of that society, they looked for practical and material relationships that shaped the ideologies and institutions of any social group. A key concept was “mode of production,” the means and relationships of the production of goods and wealth, which led to and shaped the “relations of production,” that is, the actual social relationships between individuals and groups like ownership and property relations, kinship and gender relations, and so on. This perspective emphasized and actively looked for competitive or conflictual relations in society in a way that early
Ethnoscience
The anthropological theory or approach that
investigates the native classification systems of societies to discover the concepts, terms, and categories by which they understand their world.
Symbolic anthropology The school of thought (often associated with Clifford Geertz and Victor Turner) that the main goal of anthropology is to elucidate the meanings within which humans live and behave. Rather than focusing on institutions and rules, it focuses on symbols and how symbols shape our experience and are manipulated by people in social situations.
Turner, Victor W. 1967.
The Forest of Symbols:
Aspects of Ndembu Ritual.
Ithaca and London:
Cornell University Press.
Marxist/critical anthropology The theory, based on the work of Karl Marx, which emphasizes the material and economic forces that underlie society, relying on notions of power and inequality, modes of production, and class relations and conflicts.
See Chapter 7
anthropology did not and perhaps could not, with its perspective of integration and homogeneity. While it claimed to be scientific and practical, it also tended to be abstract and “theoretical” (even inventing a new word for practice – “praxis”) and often openly partisan and critical of existing values and institutions.
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6.. CCuullttuurraall mmaatteerriiaalliissmm. Championed especially by Marvin Harris in popular writings like Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches (1974) and technical books like The Rise of Anthropological Theory(1968) and Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture(1979), this perspective extended the ecological views of White and Steward as well as the Marxist view, basing cultural behaviors firmly on “the practical problems of earthly existence” posed by the encounter between “womb and belly” on one hand and the material world of food, climate, and competition for territory or offspring on the other (Harris 1979). Like ethnoscience it aimed at a more scientific anthropology, exposing the “causes” of human action.
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7.. FFeemmiinniisstt aanntthhrrooppoollooggyy. A feminist approach to anthropology also appeared in the 1970s as a reaction to male-centered perceptions of the field and its literature (“man the hunter” type approaches, and so on). Happily, from early in its history women have played a prominent role in cultural anthropology (as evidenced by Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Cora Dubois, to name a few), but a literature on women and their activities across cultures had been lacking, partly because many cultures have sex-segregated knowledge which male anthropologists could not access. Michelle Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (1974) and Rayna Reiter (1975b) were three of the early founders of the movement to explore gender relationships, gender inequalities, and the participation of women in cultures where that partici- pation had been overlooked or minimized. Feminist anthropology does not focus exclusively on women but rather on gender diversity and gender issues broadly conceived.
Finally, one of the most exciting and promising new directions is the emergence of a wwoorrlldd aanntthhrrooppoollooggiieess perspective, the recognition that, just as there are many diverse cultures in the world, there are many diverse ways to do anthropology. The fact is, as the editors of the recent volume entitled World Anthropologiesexplain, the existence and practices of various local anthropologies, especially in the non-Western world, means that “the idea of a single or general anthropology is called into question”
(Ribeiro and Escobar 2006: 1). Indeed, anthropology as it has been traditionally known and done has, it turns out, been distinctly Western, and world anthropologies promises to expand anthropology while “provincializing Europe” – not denying or denigrating the Western perspective but showing conclusively that Western thought, and with it anthropological thought as it has so far existed, “are particular and historically located, not universal as is generally assumed” (3–4). Happily, organizations like the World Council of Anthropological Associations, representing anthropologists from Africa, Latin America, Europe, North America, and Asia, embody and advance just such a global prospect.
Cultural materialism The theory that practical/
material/economic factors can explain some or all cultural phenomena.
Harris, Marvin. 1974. Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches:
The Riddles of Culture.
New York: Random House.
Feminist anthropology The anthropological theory or approach that focuses on how gender relations are constructed in society and how those relations subsequently shape the society. Also examines how gender concepts have affected the science of anthropology itself – the questions it asks and the issues it emphasizes.
World anthropologies The perspective that anthropology as developed and practiced in the West is not the only form of anthropology, and that other societies may develop and practice other types of anthropology based on their specific experiences and interests.
Rosaldo, Michelle and Louise Lamphere, eds.
1974. Women, Culture, and Society. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Reiter, Rayna, ed. 1975b.
Toward an Anthropology of Women. New York:
Monthly Review Press.
www.wcaanet.org
The U.S. Declaration of Independence states that humans are born with certain rights; that “to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”; and that “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” These words may be seen as asserting that government and perhaps society in general is a contract – political and other institutions are not natural or divinely inspired but made by humans.
So, if a prior contract becomes unsatisfactory, or if it is abused and usurped by those in power, it can be modified or even replaced. Some people respond that at least certain institutions (like marriage or family) are too important or “real” to tamper with, while others think that the whole notion of the human construction of culture undermines the authority of society and tradition. What do you think?
BOX 3.3 CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL CONTROVERSIES: THE AMERICAN “SOCIAL CONTRACT”
SUMMARY
Anthropology is a new science and an unlikely science, and it is new because it is unlikely. If people had thought to do anthropology – that is, the study of human diversity – as easily as they thought to do history or algebra, then they would have done it long ago. The two main barriers to an “anthropological perspective” were always, and continue to be:
■ certainty in one’s own correctness and goodness
■ no information or poor information about others.
Western civilization like all others suffered from these two limitations, although there had always been a somewhat dissatisfied and self-critical tendency in it. However, a series of experiences around the early 1500s shattered forever that certainty while providing a new quantity and quality of experience of the Other. These included:
■ voyages of discovery to new lands
■ encounters with other “advanced” civilizations
■ the Renaissance
■ the Protestant Reformation
■ the scientific revolution.
While European societies first struggled with and tried to assimilate these new cultures, they also began to use them for purposes of their own imagination – in particular, to imagine alternatives (whether positive or negative) to their
own contemporary social and cultural realities. Hobbes and Rousseau were two of the first to do so, with diametrically opposed results. Even so, the first steps toward taking other cultures seriously were taken.
Early “anthropological” thinkers typically came from a historical and
“progressivist” direction, interested in the origins of culture (or Culture) and the stepwise “progress” of culture from “primitive” to “modern.” However, the first modern anthropologists, like Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski, rejected this approach and adopted a more empirical, relativistic, holistic, and humanistic stance. The main thing was to collect good data and use those data to understand cultures as we found them – not as they (allegedly) once were or as we would like them to be. Since those early days, anthropology has altered as its subjects have altered, referring back to its origins, looking for models from other fields, and studying itself with the same tools and the same intensity as it studies other cultures. Anthropology will continue to grow and change for these same reasons. What the anthropology of the future will look like is as hard to predict as – and will depend critically upon – the cultures of the future.
Key Terms
Cultural evolutionism Cultural materialism Diffusion
Ethnoscience Feminist anthropology Marxist/critical anthropology
Neo-evolutionism Noble savage Structuralism
Symbolic anthropology World anthropologies
L
La an ng gu ua ag ge e a an nd d S
So occiia all R Re ella attiio on nss
In Malagasy, a language spoken on the island of Madagascar, there are three styles or “voices” in which to phrase a sentence. Two of these correspond to the active and passive voices in English, but the third is known as the circumstantial voice and has no precise English equivalent. The circumstantial voice shifts the subject of the sentence from the person being addressed to the object that will be used to perform an action. The difference between the three speech forms appears in the various ways to give an order:
Active: Manasa ny lamba amin’ny savonyor “Wash the clothes with soap.”
Passive: Sasaa ny lamba anim’ny savonyor “Have the clothes washed with the soap.”
Circumstantial: Anasao lamb any savonyor “The soap is to be used to wash clothes.”
(Ochs 1996: 105–6) The question for a speaker is, when do you use each particular form, and what difference does it make? In simple declarative sentences as well as imperatives, it is always preferable to use the circumstantial voice if possible. According to Ochs, Namaizamanga village in central Madagascar was an egalitarian and non-violent place, with no formal leaders and few differentiated statuses, where it was regarded
75 HUMAN LANGUAGE AS A
COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
77 THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE
84 MAKING SOCIETY THROUGH LANGUAGE:
LANGUAGE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL REALITY
92 LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND THE LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY HYPOTHESIS 96 SUMMARY
4 4
as impolite to express direct anger, disagreement, or criticism. So the active voice was considered to be “harsh and abrupt, without respect” (106). Indirect speech was regarded as appropriate as well as sophisticated – a quality of the formal and stylized speech style known as kabary.
One of the most conspicuous areas of difference between human groups is their language. Sometimes language difference has been taken as the defining feature of a distinct society, although not always: two or more societies can speak the same language (e.g., the U.K. and the U.S.A.), and one society can speak two or more languages (e.g., Flemish and Walloon in Belgium). The overt qualities of language – the specific sounds, words, and grammars of each – are easy to observe and clearly fall within the prerogative of anthropology. In fact, language is such a vast subject that anthropology has developed a specialized subdiscipline to investigate it, namely linguistic anthropology. However, linguistic anthropology is interested in more than the sounds and grammar of languages. It is also concerned with what kinds of variations and choices exist within a language, how people use those variations and choices to convey social information and to express and maintain social relations, and how the concepts and values in a language shape the experience of its speakers.
That is, linguistic anthropology holistically relates language to other aspects of society and culture.
PLATE 4.1 Linguistic anthropologists began collecting language in the field in the late 1800s