Popularizing Anthropology

Jeremy McClancy, Christian McDonaugh, Jeremy McClancy, Christian McDonaugh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• eBook ISBN: 9781134777945
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Anthropology written for a popular audience is the most neglected branch of the discipline. In the 1980s postmodernist anthropologists began to explore the literary and reflective aspects of their work. Popularizing Anthropology advances that trend by looking at a key but previously marginalized genre of anthropology.
The contributors, who are well known anthropologists, explore such themes as: why so many anthropologists are women; how the Japanese have reacted to Ruth Benedict; why Margaret Mead became so successful; how the French media promote Levi-Strauss and Louis Dumont; Why Bruce Chatwin tells us more about Aboriginals than many anthropologists in Australia; how personal accounts of fieldwork have evolved since the 1950s; how to write a personal account of fieldwork.
Popularizing Anthropology unearths a submerged tradition within anthropology and reveals that, from the beginning, anthropologists have looked beyond the boundaries of the academy for their listeners. It aims to establish the popularization of the discipline as an illuminating topic of investigation in its own right, arguing that it is not an irrelevant appendage to the main body of the subject but has always been an integral part of it.

Chapter 1
Popularizing anthropology

Jeremy MacClancy

It is a perfect summer’s day. The view across Idle Valley is marvellous. The house is impressive and, above all, expensive, befitting its owner, a writer of best-selling historical romances.

But Christopher Marlowe is bored. His suspect, the writer, is drunk, but not drunk enough to confess all. Instead, he ruminates out loud. Two paragraphs into his ponderings he turns anthropological. ‘Ever read The Golden Bough? No, too long for you. Shorter version though. Ought to read it. Proves our sexual habits are pure convention—like wearing a black tie with a dinner jacket.’

(Chandler 1953:212–13)

The terse comment exposes the worst fears of industrious, committed academics. Decades of work by a distinguished intellectual who painstakingly puts together an encyclopaedic series of tomes are smartly reduced to a single, misrepresentative phrase: ‘proves our sexual habits are pure convention’. Any sense of subtlety or of shades of opinion is lost for the sake of a throwaway line, uttered by a drunk.

Not surprising, then, that so many anthropologists have been wary of attempts to popularize their discipline. They do not want to see their laborious efforts misused in a way which brings little credit to themselves, to their collective endeavour, or to the people they study. They have no desire to observe the crude ways their finely wrought concepts, generated in an academic environment, are transmitted to an alien audience. Not for them the populace applauding their ideas for non-scholastic reasons.

There is an additional reason, however, for this wariness towards the popular: career prospects. Kudos—and prestigious professorships— are won by those who make theoretical advances, not by those who play to the gallery. And for those budding lecturers who are not aiming so high, but merely for tenure, it is safer to confer quietly with colleagues and to produce learned volumes which can only be appreciated by the few than to run the risks of pandering to the public. Lévi-Strauss only wrote Tristes Tropiques because he thought he had failed as an academic. Though he had spent ten years working on the material for Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté, there had been little reaction to the book in Parisian circles. As he feared, when his travelogue was published, some of his peers were not pleased; among others, Paul Rivet, director of the Musée de l’Homme, refused to receive him.

The assumption underlying this sort of culturally snobbish behaviour is that academics should restrict themselves to academic work, and not concern themselves with ‘lesser’ matters (Grillo 1985:15). Learned research is ‘pure’ and worthy of respect. Work on themes with popular appeal is considered close to sullying oneself, rarely deserving more than contempt. Better to remain within the cloisters than to go forth and dirty one’s fingers, unless of course one is going to fashionably exotic settings. This attitude is not new. Andrew Lang (1936 [1907]:12, 14) was able to praise Tylor’s Primitive Culture—‘never sinking to the popular…[it] never ceases to be interesting’—but could only manage to speak of his peer’s successful introduction to the discipline, Anthropology, by calling it ‘a piece of vulgarization’ (original emphasis). A similar attitude is evinced in the (most likely) apocryphal reply made by Marrett in response to a junior don’s comment that he had committed a factual blunder in his popular work, Anthropology: ‘Uhh!’ the distinguished academic replied, ‘Can’t expect truth for a shilling!’

One consequence of these condescending attitudes is that the very topic of popularization has been ignored as much as the activity is looked down upon. Yet just because putting the word across to a non-academic audience may not be considered ‘the done thing’ by many does not, under any circumstances, mean that we should scorn it, either as an anthropological practice or as a subject of investigation. In fact, precisely because it may not be ‘the done thing’ may well be the best reason for doing it. Anthropologists are supposed to examine ideologies rather than reproduce them. This issue of popularization is especially pertinent today because of the postmodernist challenge to the traditional structure of the discipline (Clifford and Marcus 1986; Clifford 1988). These critics of the conventionally accepted question ethnographic authority and underline the irreducibly literary nature of ethnography. They call, among other things, for the creation of plural texts, the recognition of the need for reflexivity, the realization of the subversive potential of anthropology. According to their interpretation, the boundary between art and science is blurred, ethnography is an interdisciplinary product, and the production of ethnographic texts is a problematic enterprise.

What is so surprising, however, about their work is their focus on canonical texts to the exclusion of anything which smacks of the popular. Though keen to expose, and so help to undermine, the hegemonic strategies of the anthropological elites, they have overlooked the renowned texts by which the discipline is known beyond its boundaries. Popular texts might be popular, but they are still constructed texts and ones, moreover, which test the relation between anthropology and literature in ways the exclusively scholastic refuse to consider. The postmodernists’ disregard of this corpus is curious because, for those who wish to heed their clarion call for the blurring of genres and the democratization of our subject, it is necessary to point out that a plenitude of examples already exists, as we shall see. Ironically, postmodernists, in bypassing popular works of anthropology, have reinforced some of the very attitudes which they take such pains to question. By neglecting these works, they have failed to challenge radically the reigning hegemonies. Instead, they have helped to perpetuate them; or rather, they attempt to replace them with another—their own.

The rapidly changing nature and ever-increasing degree of contact between peoples around the world would have forced a rethinking of the discipline, whether or not certain anthropologists had collectively constructed postmodernism. The concept of a culture as a clearly bounded entity is by now too patent a fiction to be maintained. No present-day fieldworkers can write about peoples without knowing that their words will be read by the indigenes, if not today then in the near future. As the number of graduates continues to rise in both the developed and the developing worlds, the once-privileged status of the intellectual (a status partly based on rarity) declines, as does the authority that went with the position. This increase in numbers broadens the ethnic and sexual base of the anthropological constituency, transforming it in the process. The old clubbishness is going. Members of previously under-represented groups increasingly speak up. In this context of constant flux and self-questioning, reflexivity and the search for appropriate modes of expressing contemporary realities do not appear as options. They are perceived as necessities.

At the same time, anthropologists are also being challenged by changes within academe: the rise of new technologies, cutbacks in funding and faculty budgets, an increase in student loads, and, in the United States, the introduction of computerized exams with a consequent reduction of the discipline to memorized lists of exotica. A shift in students’ interests heightens this sense of flux. Kinship loses its place as a central subject of great theoretical import. Fieldwork away from ‘home’ becomes not the rule but tends towards the exceptional. In North America, some departments of anthropology shrink or disappear. ‘Cultural studies’, drawing acknowledged inspiration from the discipline, continues to rise and rise, without apparent limit. Its sustained success comes to be seen as a threat to the very existence of anthropology.

These changes, both global and parochial, force anthropologists to consider how the knowledge they produce can be made accessible to a wider and perhaps different group of listeners. In the process they come to realize that the space between the academic and the popular is not a one-way street but an arena of voices where each may inspire the others. As the example of Ruth Benedict’s Chrysanthemum and the Sword shows, that space is potentially one of productive dialogue rather than patronizing monologue. Popular anthropology need not be a downmarket derivative of ‘the real stuff’. It is not a cheapened version of a high-quality product which has been allowed to ‘trickle down’ (a patronizing metaphor of treacly hierarchy). It is an integral, contributory part of the discipline, broadly conceived. It may be as serious-minded as academic anthropology. Indeed, at times, it may have loftier aims, a successful popular book helping to influence the attitudes of many while a run-of-the-mill ethnography may solely add to the lengthening bookshelf on ‘the X’. This is not to devalue expertise but to recognize its different types, and the particular contribution each can make. The overly scholastic, who sneer at popular style, fail to appreciate that their own discourse is merely one variant, and that each has integrity within its own frame. The unattractive consequence of all this is that anthropologists who stubbornly resist the issue and the lessons of popularization face the prospect of marginalizing themselves, ultimately to their own detriment. Unless we are prepared to take seriously the power, place and meaning of popular anthropology, we may lose the ability to negotiate our intellectual position in the world at large. On all these grounds, the study of popular anthropology is not peripheral but focal. For exactly who and what has become popular when, how, in what ways, for what reasons, and to what effect, are all themes which starkly illuminate the nature of the anthropological enterprise, its reception, its institutional development, and its possible futures. Hence this book.

We chose not to strait-jacket the discussion by imposing a singular definition of popularization. The ‘academic’ and the ‘popular’ are not rigid categories. They are fluid, multifarious terms whose meanings have changed as the discipline has evolved. They are only presented as a dichotomy in the rhetoric of self-interested players who wish to stake out their own position and polarize the opposition. (For examples of this strategy in other disciplines, see Dolby 1982; Gieryn 1983.) Our object is not to further binarism but to promote plurality. Instead of prescriptively confining the object of our interest, we wished contributors to explore the diversity of the topic and give some idea of the terrain that might be covered: its audiences, its foci, its styles, its varieties, its publishing contexts, its possible perils.

In a broad sense, there are as many different ways to ‘popularize’ anthropology as there are audiences for it. Besides the general book-reading public, we might list policy-makers (Hinshaw 1980), development consultants, management trainers (Chapman 1994), impresarios of corporate initiation ritual (e.g. Rae 1995), academics in other disciplines who wish to adopt ethnographic techniques (Chambers 1987:313), artists whose knowledge of anthropology informs the vision of the world they project (Cowling 1989; Rhodes 1994:177–92; Weiss 1995), viewers of television (Singer 1992; Banks 1994), nationalist politicians (MacClancy 1993; Efron 1994; Dubow 1995), advocates of sexual plurality (e.g. Bornstein 1995; Spencer 1995), folklore revivalists (Chandler 1993:9, pers. comm.), socialist theorists (Trautmann 1987:251–55), Neopagans, New Agers and Modern Primitives (Jencson 1989; Vale and Juno 1989; Grant 1995), Neoshamans (Atkinson 1993:322–33; Vitebsky 1995), first-year students (James, in this volume), style analysts (e.g. York 1994), novelists (e.g. Huxley 1936; Cartwright 1993; Dooling 1995), nutritionists (Easton, Shostak and Konner 1989), and teachers of modern languages who want their students to do some ‘fieldwork’ during their study year abroad (Street 1992b). Furthermore, different styles of anthropology practised by the anthropologists of different nations may well produce variant ways of popularizing the discipline.

We have tried to represent some of these diversities within this volume but, like the editors of any collection, we were limited by the people we knew, the people we heard of, and the people we were able to contact and who responded positively. One restriction we felt forced to impose from the very beginning, in order to ensure that speakers might address overlapping issues, was a concern with literary forms of popularization. This is not to imply that we think the popularization of the discipline via other established media— such as museums (Karp, Kreamer and Lavine 1992) and television (Jenkins 1986; Ginsburg 1992; Turton 1992), multimedia, or new computer technologies less important or revelatory—but simply that the study of these modes of disseminating knowledge deserves books in its own right. There was not space in the original seminar series and conference to investigate adequately the issues they raised, so we excluded them. Though the resulting book does not represent in a comprehensive manner the diversities of popularization, the range of papers published still gives some idea of the potential breadth of the topic. Our aim, after all, was not to compile a definitive volume but to stimulate an overdue debate.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF POPULARIZATION

From the very beginning of an anthropology recognizable as such to modern anthropologists, its practitioners were concerned with popularization. But the chronicles of its evolution in the three main centres of modern anthropology—Britain, the United States, France— are revealingly different. For that reason, I trace each separately.

The Ethnological Society of London, founded in 1844, made its sole object the promotion and diffusion of ethnological knowledge. It held both special meetings, where ‘popular’ topics were discussed, and ordinary meetings, at which ‘scientific’ subjects were debated in more technical terms and to which women were not admitted. John Lubbock, president of the Society in the mid-1860s, wrote both of his books, Pre-historic Times (1865) and The Origin of Civilization (1870), in such a clear, engaging prose that they were extremely successful and reached a remarkably wide audience (Riviere 1978: xiv–xvi). A breakaway organization, the Anthropologi...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• DEDICATION
• NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
• PREFACE
• CHAPTER 1: POPULARIZING ANTHROPOLOGY
• CHAPTER 2: TRICKY TROPES: STYLES OF THE POPULAR AND THE POMPOUS
• CHAPTER 3: TYPECASTING: ANTHROPOLOGY’S DRAMATIS PERSONAE
• CHAPTER 4: THE CHRYSANTHEMUM CONTINUES TO FLOWER: RUTH BENEDICT AND SOME PERILS OF POPULAR ANTHROPOLOGY
• CHAPTER 5: COMMUNICATING CULTURE: MARGARET MEAD AND THE PRACTICE OF POPULAR ANTHROPOLOGY
• CHAPTER 6: ENLARGING THE CONTEXT OF ANTHROPOLOGY: THE CASE OF ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY
• CHAPTER 7: CLAUDE LÉVI-STRAUSS AND LOUIS DUMONT: MEDIA PORTRAITS
• CHAPTER 8: PROXIMITY AND DISTANCE: REPRESENTATIONS OF ABORIGINAL SOCIETY IN THE WRITINGS OF BILL HARNEY AND BRUCE CHATWIN
• CHAPTER 9: WOMEN READERS: OTHER UTOPIAS AND OWN BODILY KNOWLEDGE
• CHAPTER 10: A BRICOLEUR’S WORKSHOP: WRITING LES LANCES DU CRÉPUSCULE
• CHAPTER 11: FIELDWORK STYLES: BOHANNAN, BARLEY, AND GARDNER