Anthropology: The Basics

Peter Metcalf, Peter Metcalf

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9781134329038
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

The ultimate guide for the student encountering anthropology for the first time, Anthropology: The Basics explains and explores key anthropological concepts including:

• what is anthropology?
• how can we distinguish cultural differences from physical ones?
• what is culture, anyway?
• how do anthropologists study culture?
• what are the key theories and approaches used today?
• How has the discipline changed over time?

This student-friendly text provides an overview of the fundamental principles of anthropology and is an invaluable guide for anyone wanting to learn more about this fascinating subject.

1
ENCOUNTERING CULTURAL DIFFERENCE

Anthropology is an adventure. It offers you the opportunity to explore other worlds, where lives unfold according to different understandings of the natural order of things. Different, that is, from those that you take for granted. It allows you to escape the claustrophobia of your everyday life, but anthropology is not mere escapism. On the contrary, it will demand your best efforts at understanding.

FAR FROM HOME, CLOSE TO HOME

Anthropologists travel to every corner of the globe to conduct their research. The first generation of them in the late nineteenth century relied on the reports of travelers and explorers for their information. Consequently, anthropology can be seen as an outgrowth of the vast travel literature that accumulated in European languages following the great voyages of discovery of the fifteenth century. In the twentieth century, anthropologists decided that such reports were not enough, and that they needed to go and see for themselves. The modes of research that they initiated, designed to avoid as far as possible the pitfalls of prejudice, provide the basis of the modern discipline.

For most people in the contemporary world, however, it is not necessary to travel far from home to cross cultural boundaries. On the contrary, subtle cultural shifts go on all about us, and the more you know about anthropology, the more you will be able to detect them and assess their significance. Increasingly, anthropologists are convinced that there never was a time when humans lived in such isolation as to know nothing of others, and human history is above all a story of cultural collisions and accommodations. But there is so much mobility in the modern world that such interactions are for many people a part of daily life. Consequently, the issues of anthropology need not be abstract or remote; often we encounter them as soon as we cross our own doorsteps.

BOX 1.1 CULTURE

Culture is a key word in anthropology, but theorists emphasize different aspects. In general terms, we can define culture as all those things that are instilled in a child by elders and peers as he or she grows up, everything from table manners to religion. There are several important things to note about this definition. First, it excludes traits that are genetically transmitted, about which more in the next chapter. Second, it is very different to the common usage of the word to mean “high culture,” such as elite art forms. Instead, it refers equally to mundane things such as how to make a farm or go shopping, as well as learning right from wrong, or how to behave towards others. Third, as these examples show, it covers an enormous range of things that people need to learn in each different culture, giving anthropologists an equally wide range of things to study.

AWARENESS OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCE

Meanwhile, the adventure has its hazards. In the 1970's the term “culture shock” came into circulation. As originally used by anthropologists, it described the disorientation that often overtakes a fieldworker when returning home from a prolonged period of immersion in another culture. All kinds of things that had once been totally familiar suddenly seem odd, as if one were seeing them for the first time. Consequently, everything becomes questionable: why have I always done this or assumed that? This questioning attitude is perhaps the most basic feature of anthropology. Most people most of the time simply get on with their lives. It could hardly be otherwise, given all that there is to do. It is only under special circumstances that we stop to reflect, and the experience of another culture is a common stimulus.

When journalists started using the term, however, they left out the reflexive angle. Culture shock came to mean simply the reaction to entering another culture, and that can be disorienting enough. Imagine yourself meeting for the first time a whole group of new people. Even if you are an outgoing person, you are likely to feel self-conscious, that is conscious of yourself. You start thinking about things that are normally automatic: how to walk, where to put your hands. The effort makes your movements stiff. For many people, it takes practice and an effort of will to behave “naturally” under these conditions. Being coached by a friend to relax only makes things worse. Culture shock is like this, except extended over a longer period. The momentary nervousness of walking into a room may be overcome in a few minutes of conversation, but culture shock may last for days or weeks at a time.

EMOTIONAL RESPONSES

Now add to this the complications of language. Even unfamiliar slang or a different dialect is enough to signal your status as an outsider. How much worse if you are only beginning to learn the language of those around you. When people are kind enough to talk to you, you are painfully aware of being a conversation liability, stumbling along and making clumsy errors. If your hosts talk slowly for your benefit, you know you are being talked down to, like a child. When you can't follow simple instructions you are liable to be taken by the hand and led. Such treatment can be hard to bear and you may feel a surge of resentment, even though you understand perfectly well that everyone is trying to be helpful. Such are the contradictory emotions of culture shock.

Emotions are not only confused, but also intense. Unable to follow everything that is going on, you do not know what expression to wear on your face. To avoid looking bored, you try to smile encouragingly at everyone. Soon the smile freezes into an insane grin, and before you know where you are you are close to tears. The problem of your own emotions is made worse by not being sure what the people around you are feeling. If they raise their voices, you wonder if they are angry, but if they are silent you ask yourself the same question. Moreover, cultural differences do not only express themselves in words. There is also what is commonly called “body language.” If people stand closer than you are accustomed to you may feel overwhelmed, but if they stand further back you may feel isolated. Some people insist on making eye-contact to an unnerving degree. Others avert their gaze politely so as to avoid staring, making you feel even more that you do not know what is going on. At this stage, paranoia is not far away.

THE REALITY OF CULTURE

After an experience like this, you are never again likely to doubt the reality of culture. An alien culture seems to surround you, so that you can almost touch it. You seem to exist inside a tiny bubble that moves with you through a different medium. Moreover, having experienced it yourself, you can see it happening to others. Back in your own environment you can spot strangers moving around uncertainly inside their little bubbles.

Anthropologists are not immune to these reactions. The best that their training can do is to teach them what to expect. They understand that they have to allow themselves to be partly “re-socialized” (see Box 1.2). That is to say, they must unlearn all kinds of small things acquired in childhood, such as basic manners, conversational styles, and body postures, and relearn them in the new culture. That process accounts for the odd feeling of regressing to childhood, with all its vulnerabilities and frustrations. Anthropologists sometimes describe this as “full immersion” fieldwork, meaning that they jump right in to the new culture and stay put until they have managed to become reasonably comfortable there. They do it with trepidation, but they do it willingly, because they know what they want to achieve in the process.

BOX 1.2 SOCIALIZATION

We defined culture in terms of “instilling” learning in the young person. The proper word for this process is socialization, and it covers both formal schooling — where such a thing exists — and also all those ways in which children are coaxed and prodded into behaving as their families think they should, and learning what the members of their communities think they need to know. Almost invariably, mothers play a central role in socializing young children, but as they grow more people become involved. Grandparents and elders often teach by telling stories. Brothers, sisters and friends are also important, since most young people are anxious to be popular with their peers. Young adults may also want to learn particular skills or join particular groups, and so may seek out specialized teachers.

WHAT IS TO BE GAINED?

The notion of “culture shock” emphasizes the unpleasant aspects of crossing cultural boundaries. But having done your best to overcome them, there follows all the excitement of discovery. Even if interaction is limited, any real attempt at communication soon yields results. Some detail catches your attention, and you need to know more. That curiosity is the wellspring of anthropology, and what it promotes is an intellectual drive. Putting that another way, travel on its own is not enough. International tourism is now one of the largest industries worldwide, but most tourists have only the most superficial interaction with local people. Where the “exotic” is thought to exist, most want it neatly packaged for easy consumption, in guided tours or “culture shows.” For tourism, the exotic is something you can photograph. For anthropology, it is not.

Not only is travel not enough, it may be unnecessary. There are often other cultures to be explored within a single community, and they are certain to exist in major cities. Some anthropologists conduct research a mere bus journey away from home, and that can be just as demanding as fieldwork overseas. Culture shock must be negotiated anew on every visit, and it is a rare person who can move back and forth gracefully.

However it occurs, what follows is an expanded world in which to find interest and enjoyment. Nor need you give up anything in the process. You are no more at risk of losing your own cultural heritage than you would be if you learned another language. On the contrary, you can appreciate it in a deeper sense. Anthropologists are unstinting in their admiration of what we might call cultural fluency. Wherever it is found, it constitutes a unique expression of the human spirit. It is doubly admirable to have access to more than one.

ETHNOCENTRISM

Not surprisingly, throughout history many people have refused the adventure, finding in it only something disturbing and threatening. Their urge is to huddle down in the familiar, and turn their backs on other people. This reaction is called ethnocentrism, literally, being centered in one's own ethnicity or culture. In itself, ethnocentrism is neither unusual nor immoral. Most people most of the time need some clear sense of identity to lean on, and there is no reason why they should not value what their parents taught them. The danger is that ethnocentrism will harden into chauvinism, that is, the conviction that everything they do or think is right, and everything everyone else does or thinks is wrong, unreasonable, or even wicked. Anthropology cannot operate in the face of chauvinism, and normal ethnocentrisms must be set aside if there is to be any chance of entering, even partially, into the worlds of other people.

ANTHROPOLOGY'S PIONEERS

Travel writers are often drearily chauvinist, but there have always been a few whose curiosity overcomes their chauvinism. In the fifth century bc, Herodotus journeyed from Greece, through the Aegean and eastern Asia as far as Egypt. In his famous Histories, he gives lively accounts of the customs of the people he meets along the way. He does not, however, disguise his opinions. He finds it perverse, for instance, that Egyptians shave their heads as a sign of mourning. As a Greek, he knows that the proper thing to do is not cut the hair at all, but let it grow unkempt. If you find his reaction naïve, you might ask yourself what hair length, styling, and display signal in your own culture, and note how easy it is to have exactly Herodotus' reaction to the habits of others.

What the first generation of anthropologists did was to collect and compare all the travel literature they could lay their hands on, everything from Herodotus to the reports just then arriving from explorers in Africa. This included three centuries of writing on the peoples of the Americas, some fanciful, some observant. For example, in his seventeenth-century Grands Voyages, de Vrys gives a description of the Tupi Namba of the Brazilian coastline that remains invaluable because these tribes were so soon wiped out by disease and conquest. For scholars back in Europe, such accounts of what was literally the New World filled their imaginations. As far back as the late sixteenth century, the French essayist Michel de Montaigne insisted on the morality of exotic customs, even when they run counter to one's own moral code. His examples were taken from American Indian societies. In the late eighteenth century, voyagers in the South Seas caused yet more sensations. The expeditions of Captain Cook to Hawai'i and Tahiti were carefully documented by scholars who accompanied them. But such was the demand for information back in England that unofficial versions were rapidly put into circulation, based on the anecdotes of the ordinary seamen.

In the nineteenth century, theorizing on the basis of travel accounts jelled into a distinct field of study, and its exponents began to refer to themselves as anthropologists. Their material was increased by a wave of interest in the customs of European peasants, related to the rise of new nationalisms all over the continent. The trouble with all of this data was of course that it varied enormously in reliability. Moreover, at a time when amazing new discoveries were being made, it was hard to tell sober reportage even from pure fantasy. In 1875, for example, a French sailor claimed to have spent nine years in captivity in an undiscovered kingdom in the interior of New Guinea. His sensational account describes golden palaces and fantastic cities — all needless to say totally spurious. Even in less extreme cases, such was the thirst for information that uncorroborated sources were freely cited. The influential English anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor used all kinds of sources in his global survey of “primitive” culture. One snippet was apparently obtained from a man he met on a train, who had traveled in Africa as a salesman of whisky.

FIRST EXPERIMENTS WITH FIELDWORK

At the same time, however, efforts were under way, particularly in the USA, to produce more consistent data on which to base anthropological theorizing. Lewis Henry Morgan, whose influence was equal to Tylor's, based his 1851 description of the League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois on information that he got directly from Iroquois informants in upstate New York. Frank Hamilton Cushing went further, moving into the pueblo, or mountain-top village, of the Zuni people of New Mexico, and learning their language. Interestingly, his colleagues from the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC were initially shocked that he should do such a thing. It was only later that the director of the Museum saw the value of Cushing's work, and became his sponsor.

Men such as Cushing slowly moved the discipline beyond the “arm chair anthropology” of the nineteenth century and towards its modern form. The techniques of fieldwork are often associated, however, with the work of Bronislaw Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands, at the eastern tip of New Guinea. Malinowski liked to imply that his discoveries resulted from unique circumstances, so increasing his own originality. It was said for instance that he was interned in New Guinea during World War One because, as an Austrian citizen of Polish descent, he was classified as an enemy alien. In fact, the Australian administration placed no restraints on him, and the suggestion for more intense, long-term research had already come from his teachers W.H.R. Rivers and Alfred Cort Haddon. These two had earlier participated in a scientific “expedition” to the Torres Straits, an island-dotted channel lying between New Guinea and the northern tip of Australia. What that in practice meant was that a team of researchers had traveled through the region, stopping here and there to collect artifacts and administer various psychological tests on local people. From that experience, Haddon and Rivers concluded that progress in the discipline required better fieldwork.

THE TECHNIQUES OF FIELDWORK

There is no great mystery about the techniques of fieldwork. One way of thinking of them is as a controlled experience of culture shock. That is to say, the predictable feelings of disorientation are harnessed to focus attention on what exactly is different. For example, whenever a sensation of clumsiness occurs, it reminds you to pay close attention to how your hosts stand, move, and position themselves while talking. That in itself is a worthwhile study, and one that will rapidly allow you to fit in better.

In short, the three basic elements of fieldwork are:

(1) Long-term residence. Malinowski famously pitched his tent in the middle of the village of Kiriwina in the Trobriand Islands. But residential arrangements vary so much around the world that there can be no one way of doing things. In many places it would be impossible, or at least highly eccentric, to live in a tent. Sometimes there are clear rules of hospitality, which make things easier. There can be disadvantages even to such a convenient arrangement, however. If, for instance, custom requires that you stay with a community leader, you may be seen as his ally or client, so impeding communication with other factions. Alternatively, people may live in dispersed homesteads and you need to find a host family. This can be difficult. After all, it is no small thing to ask of people that they take in a total stranger for months at a time. In some places, it is improper for anyone not a close relative to enter the house at all, and the anthropologist must find an empty house to live in and interact as much as possible with people outside their homes. When the famous British anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard carried out fieldwork in the Sudan in the 1920's and 1930's his reception varied greatly from one people to another. “Among Azande,” he reports, “I was compelled to live outside the community; among Nuer I was compelled to be a member of it. Azande t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Anthropology The Basics
• You May Also be Interested in the Following Routledge Student Reference Titles:
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Illustrations
• 1 Encountering Cultural Difference
• 2 Misunderstanding Cultural Difference
• 3 Social Do's and Don'ts
• 4 African Political Systems
• 5 Anthropology, History and Imperialism
• 6 Culture and Language
• 7 Culture and Nature
• 8 The End of the Tribes
• 9 Culture and the Individual
• 10 Critical Anthropology
• Bibliography
• Index