The Main Subjects of Anthropology - Research Paper Example

Introduction As a discipline: Anthropology involves the task of unraveling the complexities of the biological and cultural aspects of life among various world populations. It is a study of humans as complex social entities in relation to their language, culture and thought. Physically, human beings share similar traits, but the environment in which they grow moulds them into what they are and they in turn impact upon their surroundings. Anthropology tries to unravel the reason for these differences as well as the common traits which bind communities and cultures as one. It is a study of the way in which people live as much as a study of their special rituals and beliefs. While anthropology is in many ways similar to other humane sciences, like sociology, psychology and history, it differs in that it “encourages you to have a new kind of consciousness of life…… it is a way of living.”(Pocock, David) Anthropology as a subject appeals to the personal as well as the intellectual side of a person and Sir Edmund Leach the distinguished British anthropologist has called this branch of study his “personal obsession”. Since this stream of study is a way of looking at the world in its multifarious forms, students from any branch of study can take up anthropology as a subject. Anthropologists, who concern themselves with the physical or biological aspect of humans, strive to study how humans and human behavior and beliefs have evolved to their present state. Their interest also encompasses the genetic and behavioral relation with other primates, who may be non-human. Social anthropologists concern themselves with the study of people and their societies, the establishment of stable agricultural production and life within a community. These scholars interest themselves in the religious beliefs, practices, customs, traditions, arts and architecture, way of dressing and living and various social parameters of life that encompasses people living together in society. History of Anthropology When we look at anthropology from a historical angle and as a subject that delves into the lifestyles of various peoples from all over the world, the earliest reference to this subject may be found in the writings of Herodotus, the 5th century Greek Historian. Herodotus has given accurate and insightful details of the life of the peoples who lived in the Greek colonies around the Mediterranean and North Africa. These descriptions of the indigenous populations can be considered as the first ethnographic anthropological studies to have been documented. It was during the 19th century when men began to question themselves about their evolution and adaptation to different geographical and political cultures that anthropology came into the limelight. This was the time during the rapid industrialization in North America and Europe, that saw mass migrations of populations from rural to urban areas which were aided or supported by advanced communication and transport facilities. Industrialized nations were indulging in a frenzied spree of colonization, which led scholars of social sciences to work towards the understanding of these new changes taking place in all spheres of the society. With industrialization came the new socialist ideology, which had been earlier propounded by thinkers such as Rousseau and Henri de Saint Simon (1760-1825), and could be seen in the works of the Neo-Hegelians in Germany. Charles Darwin with his revolutionary theory of natural selection in 1859 set scholars thinking about the reasons behind the success of certain species in the chain of evolution. This theory spawned biological as well as cultural debates on the primacy of man in the given environment. The leading anthropologists at the dawn of this discipline were mostly British, who studied the different cultures of their colonies, or Americans, who had a highly mixed society. These practitioners of anthropology propounded the “psychic unity of mankind”. They followed the principles of Social Darwinism, propagated by Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and believed in the “psychic unity of mankind”. This theory laid emphasis on the fact that humans everywhere had the same potential and that the differences inherited from our ancestors were almost negligible. On the other hand, psychologists on the Continent followed in the footsteps of Kant and Hegel. They based their studies on society as an autonomous being, which needed to be examined on its own terms and not in relation to the methods employed by natural scientists. They concerned themselves with industrialized societies and postulated several sophisticated theories based on the internal dynamics of these societies. The two most important figures of these diverse sciences were Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-81), the American anthropologist and Karl Marx (1818-83), The German sociologist. Lewis Henry Morgan He spent his early life on a farm, growing up to become a lawyer and then towards being an active politician. He was one of the first people to champion the political rights of native Americans and during his stay with the Iroquois tribe, documented their culture and traditions, fearing they would be wiped out because of the influx of Europeans, leading to coining the term “urgent anthropology”, His seminal work “Ancient Society” (1877) classified cultural evolution into these distinct stages-savagery, barbarism and civilization. Morgan’s theories on Kinship were also widely accepted. Karl Marx Born in a wealthy Jewish family in Germany, Marx was a social theorist, who was actively involved in the revolutionary fervor that shook Europe in 1848-49 as well as the Paris Commune in 1870, and was soon established as a leader of the International Labor Movement (ILM) The work of Marx is a combination of social theory, sociology, economics and history which infuses it with a paradoxical and thought provoking character. (Berman, 1982) While Morgan and Marx may be termed first generation social anthropologists, Europe in the 1860’s had scholars studying these problems in a complementary and opposing manner. The German anthropologist, Adolph Bastian (1826-1905) rejected the simplistic notions of the evolutionist theories, instead propagating the idea of a common origin for all cultures and their subsequent branching off in various directions. This theory was further refined by Boas and his disciples, and found echo in the latter day theory of diffusionism. Henry Maine (1822-88), a Scottish lawyer, in his “Ancient Law”, tried to show how social changes are effected through legislative changes. He delineated the traditional status based societies, from the modern ones, based on contract. While a society based on status depends upon rights through relationships, kinships and inherited rank, the contract based society functions on the basis of formal written principles, independent of the respective individuals. The theory of original matriarchy was propounded by the Swiss lawyer Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815-87) and found an echo in the work of the Britisher John Ferguson McLennan (1827-81). E. B. Taylor (1832-1917) shared in Morgan’s theory of primacy of material conditions but stopped short of accepting the theory of kinship. Taylor coined the definition for culture which is to be found on the first page of his major work ‘Primitive Culture’ (1871). Taylor’s student James George Frazer (1854-1941) wrote the masterpiece “The Golden Bough,” a twelve book set, which is a comparative study of myths, history, religion and other “exotic beliefs”, and although not recalled by modern anthropologists, it found admiration with the poet T. S. Eliot and the psychologist Sigmund Freud. An important landmark, is the Torres expedition where Alfred C Haddon (1855-1940), William H R Rivers (1864-1922) and Charles G Seligman (1873-1940) collaborated to study the people of the Torres strait and the various aspects of their life, and it is said that “Through their work, British social anthropology was born” (Hynes, 1999). Diffusionism, the study of the distribution and migration of cultural traits, found willing scholars in Germany, chief among who were, Herder, Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904) Fritz Graebner (1877-1934) Leo Frobenius (1873-1938) and Wilhelm Schmidt (1868-1954). In Russia too, diffusionism was studied by Miklukho-Maklay, and his followers Vladimir Iliac Jochelson (1855-1937) Bogoraz (1865-1936) and Sternberg (1861-1927), who during exile in Eastern Siberia, studied the indigenous people of the region, as well as the people of the Bering Straits, in an expedition organized by Franz Boas. The next generation of anthropologists kept away from both the evolutionist and diffusion theories and propounded Continental sociology. They were Emile Durkheinn (1858-1917), George Simmel (1858-1918) and Marc Weber (1864-1920). Durkheim’s study concerned itself with synchronic and not diachronic explanations and was more interested in the study of institutions and organizations rather than culture, society or symbols. Weber was a forerunner of the “methodological individualism” and believed in hermeneutics to justify motivations which led to certain actions. Cultural Anthropology Culture in its broadest term can be defined as “ learned behavior” and Sir Edward Burnett Taylor (1832–1917) one of the founders of anthropology, defined culture as "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society" (Tylor 1871, p. 1, emphasis added). Cultural anthropology gained impetus in the years following the success of European explorations, when the diversity of humanity began to be experienced first hand. This is a field based science which lays stress on the need to learn about a culture through direct observation and assimilation which are called “ethnographic methods”. While early anthropologists divided nature and culture as two different states of living, now it has become the norm to treat culture as “human nature”. Everyone has experiences which can be classified and encoded and passed on to newer generations. The differences in culture arise due to different geographical locations of different groups of people. Cultural anthropology has a holistic approach to its research, since, for example, religious beliefs of a culture have to be studied in relation to the “complex whole” of the culture and its impact on the day to day activities of the group. Cultural anthropology has a number of subfields, of which the most important is ethnography, which is concerned with the systematic study of cultures. Medical anthropology focuses on diseases in a specific culture, while applied anthropology uses the knowledge gained to solve contemporary problems. Global, urban and national anthropology study about inter relations at these levels and their effect on the social and cultural values of people. Psychological anthropology studies cultural, social and psychological inter relations while linguistic anthropology is the study of language in its social and cultural milieu. In the early 20th century, cultural anthropologists studied either the social structure or symbolic expressions of themselves and society, but today, researchers believe in multi-sited Marcus, George ) and study cultures spatially and temporally. Gender in Anthropology The study of males and females and their position in society, their inter relations and the evolution of both sexes is an important aspect of anthropological research. The movement of society from patriarchal to an era of equality of sexes has been the focus of much research. Kamala Visweswaran in her “Histories of Feminist Ethnography, Annual Review of Anthropology, Oct 1997” has delineated four main periods of change in the conception of gender, especially feminine ethnography. The first period -1880-1920 corresponded to that era, when biological sex was the barometer for social roles and gender and sex were not seen as separate identities. The period from 1920-1960 marks the second period, when sex was perceived as separate from gender and was indeterminative for the roles ascribed to the genders. The third period -1960-1980 saw an elaboration of the sex/gender system where societies were held responsible for gender regimes. The period from 1980-1996, called the contemporary period, saw a critical rethinking of “gender essentialism” , which in turn suggests that a separation of sex and gender is inappropriate and that sex in itself constitutes a social category. Male dominance over women has been studied and may sometimes be deemed as biased in favor of men, since there has generally been a “prevalence of male gaze across cultures” (Kaplan,1997) The early 19th and 20th century ethnographers studied women in greater detail, since these represented the exotic manifestation of the new cultures which was the scope of their study. But it would be misleading to think that it was the women of the “other” cultures who alone were the subject of intense scrutiny. Even at home women were under the watchful eye of anthropologists. Men had certain privileges which they enjoyed without restraint, while women, as seen in Victorian societies, had to have a “respectable femininity….moral, religious, economic and cultural systems applied almost exclusively to middle class women”( Horvath, Aleksandra Djajic) Human Sexuality in relation to Essentialism Modern essentialism consists of a belief that certain criteria or phenomena are not only natural but also inevitable and is biologically determined. The concept of essentialism originated in the work of Plato (428 – 348 B.C.) (Mayr, 1982) He gives us the classic example of a triangle. According to Mayr, no matter what the length of the sides or the angle combination, yet it always had the shape of a triangle which was in sharp contrast to a rectangle or a circle. He called these unchanging forms as cides which was later renamed by the Thomists of the Middle Ages as essences because essences don’t change and each essence is unique in comparison to another. Darwin was one of the first ones to partially reject essentialism because of its consistency. Today, essentialism implies a belief that certain phenomena are natural, inevitable, universal and biologically determined. (Irvine, 1990) Therefore in the Western world during the 20th century, essentialism dominated both philosophical and scientific thought. In relating to human sexuality, we are going to take into consideration two classic issues dealing with sexual attraction and sexual orientation. Today essentialism is referred to as modern essentialism. But ironically, the term essentialism is used more by people who oppose it rather than by those who practice it. This evolutionary theory was first made use of by Donald Symons in his book on sexuality titled “The Evolution of Human Sexuality.” (Donald Symons, 1979) The Evolutionary theory deals with the gradual changes of both genetic endowment of animals and living things that takes place as a result of natural selection, over time from generation to generation. Darwin came up with a second process which he called sexual selection that dealt with sexual differences of the male gender competing with other males for gaining access to the other gender – female for the purpose of mating. Differentiating between short term and long term mating strategies David Buss came out with a complex evolutionary of sexuality, sexual strategies theory. (Buss& Schmitt, 1993) The Unholy Grail of Misguided Faith In her book titled the “New Atheist” Becky Garrison (1972- 75)which is sometimes witty but otherwise quite disturbing, Garrison states a few devastating points which she directs at the New Atheists. She asks pertinent questions like if imposing religion on the young really is child abuse, why do these young people not show the medical symptoms of abuse victims? In her own witty way she also points out that society is being transformed by radical Christianity. In yet another book by Debbie Blue titled “From Stone to Living Word” she introduces a new and disturbing word “bibliolatry” which simply means a description of the Bible instead of a description of God in the Bible. Blue who is also a pastor besides being both a teacher and an author describes such worship as being “idolatry.” Drawing from all her rich experiences in her life and also the stories of some of her parishioners, she explores some of the better known realms of the Bible thus encouraging the reader to find god value in the book. Thomas C Oden in his book on “How Africa shaped the Christian Mind”, traces back the roots of Christianity to Africa and named some of the greatest Christian thinkers like Clement of Alexandria, Augustine, Plotinus and others. Oden draws upon the series of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scriptures explaining that academics, Philosophy, monasticism, ecumenics, dogmatics and other dialects had developed in Africa. Bill Griffith’s book titled “By Faith Alone” speaks of a family narrative by tracing a family tree that spreads over four centuries and is systematically intersected by many great incidents in American history. Griffith, a financial journalist and CNBC’s co- anchor of “Power Lunch” tells us in his narrative of how they had to flee to avoid religious persecution. In a very descriptive style, he speaks of the trials of his ancestors and then how they were executed in 1692 during the infamous Salem with trials. The Mind as a Scientific Object In understanding the Human mind, let us explore some of the contributions made by the brain sciences and also the social and cultural sciences. Some of the pertinent issues that were raised were- What is a “Mind”? Do models and methodologies help in understanding the concept of Mind? When considering the question, “what is mind?” in connection with the cellular, molecular, circuit or systems in our body and if considered synonymous with the functioning of the brain, then it would be thought to be reductionistic. On the other hand, instead of associating it with its neural states, if the mind is defined more by what we think, it is considered to be our culture and not biology. There are two claims related to psychophysical dualism – one is that are brains and minds are ontologically specific substances and the second is that there is no clear explanation as to how our brains compute information and also think. However, the editors argue that neuroscientists uncritically adopt a related Cartesian assumption: “all basic mental or cognitive entities count as individuatable states of mind stuff and, as such, are states of particular brains that belong to particular persons” (p 249). Though both thought and cognition are considered as neural states, yet culture makes a contribution of what is to be computed. Though the thought and language content (semantic) could be culturally contingent, yet how the “language of thought” is processed, stored, organized and made use of when necessary is purely a function of the brain. Therefore, it does not depend on the different analyses of our brain but it depends on how well it is integrated. The Neuroscience of Genius This book by Nancy Andreasen lacks scientific rigor and starts with a discussion about the intelligence quotient. She feels that the IQ of humans is given too much importance and asks if it is worth worshipping it in such a way. According to her, though being smart and achieving goals is good, yet morally, a person’s intelligence is neutral and should be treated in the same manner. She is also of the opinion that “intelligence without morals is a recipe for disaster.” (Nancy Andreasen) speaking on the creative aspect she draws upon the ‘First Creation’ in the book of Genesis and states that , it evokes an aura of wonder, mystery, power, and even divinity” (p 19). Unlike Andreasen expressing that creativity is agonizing and associated with mental illness, on the other hand creativity is very pleasurable besides being useful. It is not necessary that a person who is extremely creative and has a high Intelligence quotient makes a good human being because creativity and IQ can be used for good as well as bad reasons. For example, a criminal with a creative bent of mind would not only be very difficult to nab but also commit more ruthless and ingenious crimes. In fact the words intelligence and creativity are used effectively in different walks of life – Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) creative writing, artificial intelligence, creative defense, creative financing and so on… Biology and the Mind Philosophers of the Western world like Aristotle and Locke made an attempt to give meaning to the subject of essence while trying to portray it as a kind of metaphysical reality. Nevertheless, it was rejected by evolutionary biologists such as Mayr, 1982) Although science does not abide metaphysical essentialism, there is a wide variety of evidence supporting the notion of psychological essentialism (Ahn et al., 2001); Generally, people do not understand about essences, but have a notion that there exists an underlying nature. This idea of an “essence placeholder” (Medin & Ortony, 1989) helps to modify casual essences in the environment. Some of these processes or choices may be more plausible and natural than the others. A good example of a mechanical evidence would be the beating of the heart during blood circulation. Thus, heart and blood may be privileged candidates for the locus of essence, as it has been throughout the history of European societies (Atran, 1990). Even contemporary Americans who undergo heart transplants show evidence of believing that at least some aspects of essence have been transmitted from the donor to the recipient (Sylvia & Novak, 1997). Though it is the innate nature of humans to interact with plant and animal life for their survival, yet identification and categorization of humans and for plants and animals are very much different from each other. There are cognitive mechanisms primarily dedicated to tracking humans as individuals, such as facial recognition (e.g., Carey & Diamond, 1977; Diamond & Carey, 1986), syntactic and semantic structures of pronomilization and proper naming (Arnold, Eisenband, Brown- Schmidt, & Trueswell, 2000; Balogh, Swinney, & Tigue, 1998), social game strategies (Axelrod, 1985; Nowak & Sigmund, 1998) People’s beliefs about personal identity may even survive changes in kindhood or species identity (Blok, Newman, Behr, & Rips, 2001; Blok, Newman, & Rips, in press). Jung in the 17th century In Memories, Dreams and Reflections Jung gives us his mature views on the psyche of people. Jung anticipates his encounter with alchemy where he dreamt that he was on the Italian front in WWI. He narrates how the gates had flew shut as he returned in a horse – drawn carriage, where the peasant coachman exclaims that they are caught in the 17th century. Jung refers to this as alchemy because it had reached its peak during the 17th century. However, the period between the 16th to the 18th centuries is considered to be the period of the origins and grounding of modern science. Jung drew heavily from one of the 17th century’s very prominent philosopher- intellectual Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646- 1716) for his theory of synchronicity. Leibniz is considered by some modern philosophers to have been ‘the most universal genius that there had ever been in Europe’ (Broad 1975, p. 3) ‘Body and soul are so adapted that a resolution in the soul is accompanied by an appropriate movement in the body’; ‘The tendencies of the soul towards new thoughts correspond to the tendencies of the body towards new shapes and motions. As these new motions are capable of causing the body to pass from order to disorder, so their representations in the soul are capable of causing it to pass from pleasure to pain’ (quoted in Broad 1975, p. 124, italics in the original) Several aspects of this are amazingly prescient: first, for Jungians, is the notion of all relations between mind and body being synchronistically determined. (Cambray, J. (2002). There are many significant points of Leibniz and Jung’s thoughts and ideas and ideas that are well articulated and help to bridge the gap between the pre-scientific and modern world to give us a clear perspective of both matter and mind. Though they were buried for centuries together, the 20th century has recovered what had been lost of the different branches of science and have given it a better status. We owe it to C.G Jung for his rich legacy that has finally gained its rightful place within the tradition of Science. REFERENCES Anthropology Matters Journal 2003-2. Aleksandra Djajic Horváth: 'A http://www.anthropologymatters.com/journal/2003-2/horvath2003_tangle.htm Buss, D.M. & Schmitt, D.P. (1993) Sexual Strategies Theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100, 204 – 232. Broad, C. D. (1975). Leibniz: An Introduction, ed. C. Lewy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cambray, J. (2002). ‘Synchronicity and Emergence’. American Imago, 59, 4, 409–34. cultural anthropology: Definition from Answers.com http://www.answers.com/topic/cultural-anthropology Douglas L. Medin (1989) Scott Atran, (1990) The Native Mind: Biological Categorization and Reasoning in development and Across Cultures. Psychological Review (2004) Vol. 111, No. 4, pgs. 960 – 983. HISTORIES OF FEMINIST ETHNOGRAPHY - Annual Review of http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.anthro.26.1.591?cookieSet=1&journalCode=anthro Jung, C. G. (1930). ‘Richard Wilhelm: In Memoriam’. CW 15. Kaplan, E. Ann. 1997. Looking for the Other: Feminism, Film and the Imperial Gaze. London: Routledge. Levine, Philippa. 1990. Feminist Lives in Victorian England: Private Lives and Public Commitment. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers (1963). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Vintage Books. Symons D. (1979) The Evolution of Human Sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press. Thomas Hylland Eriksen & Finn Sivert Nielsen. A History of Anthropology. Chapter 2. Victorians, Germans and a Frenchman http://www.anthrobase.com/Browse/home/hst/ what_anthropology http://www.therai.org.uk/pubs/resguide/1_what_anthropology.html 2007 Publishers Weekly, Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Copyright of publishers Weekly is the property of Reed Business Information and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written permission. 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