Document 1757920

Department of Social Anthropology SA1002 Handbook 2015/16
3.2.16
SA1002 WAYS OF THINKING This module concerns the ways in which human beings think about their worlds. Do we all think of the world in the same way or do we think of the world in many different ways? What are the consequences of even making such a distinction? Is one way of thinking more rational than another? This dualism between a universal worldview and a multiplicity of different perspectives is crucial to the anthropological approach and it forms the framework for the different sections in this module. Covering a range of ethnographic areas of study, both classical and contemporary, the module aims to stimulate new ways of thinking anthropologically about human being and becoming. The topics we will be covering this semester are: • A look at the classic anthropological idea of the ‘primitive’ and how that has shaped contemporary notions of indigeneity. • Different ways of ordering and classifying the world and the social consequences that emerge from these differences. • A cross-­‐cultural perspective on issues of orality and literacy as well as alternative forms of communication. • An in depth exploration of the importance of children to anthropological studies. • An introduction to economic anthropology with a focus on cross-­‐cultural variations and shared human predicaments. Module Convener: Dr Stan Frankland (mcf1) Lecturers: Professor Roy Dilley (rmd), Dr Stan Frankland (mcf1), Dr Mette High (mmh20), Dr Sabine Hyland (sph), Professor Christina Toren (ct51) Credits: Teaching: Lecture Hour: Tutorials: 20 Lectures, weekly tutorials 4pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in the Buchanan Lecture Theatre These are held weekly in the Departmental Seminar Room, Room 50 Quad, or Arts Seminar Rooms. Course Assessment: TWO assessed essays = each 30% of the final mark Two hour examination = 40% of the final mark An online reading list is available for this module. http://resourcelists.st-­‐andrews.ac.uk/index.html It contains key readings for the course including all those necessary for the tutorials. Other readings are available in Short Loan and, in some cases, via MMS. 2
AIMS AND OUTCOMES OF STUDY IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY The Sub-­‐Honours modules are primarily designed to lay the foundations for further study at Honours level in Anthropology. While the grades earned at Sub-­‐Honours level are not factored into your overall degree classification, they do appear on your official University transcript, which will be seen by any future employers or institutions to which you apply. The Honours modules are designed to build on the foundations laid by Sub-­‐Honours modules in Anthropology, and give students the opportunity to develop and broaden their understanding of Anthropology. In addition, Honours modules are designed to equip students with a broad range of personal and intellectual skills which will not only enable students to successfully complete their degree but will provide a foundation for further training and prepare them fully for their future careers. DISCIPLINARY OUTLOOK Our programme aims at enabling students to learn to think anthropologically, acquiring a distinctive disciplinary outlook. To this end, the programme aims to enable learners to develop the following: 1. an understanding of social anthropology as the comparative study of human societies and cultures. 2. an appreciation of the importance of empirical fieldwork as the primary method of gathering data and as a basis for the generation of anthropological theory. 3. a detailed knowledge of specific themes in social anthropology and the intellectual debates concerning them, such as gender, religion, kinship, nationalism, exchange or material culture. 4. a realisation that knowledge is contested; that anthropology by its nature is dynamic, constantly generating new priorities and theories; and that the peoples with whom anthropologists have traditionally worked may have studies of themselves from which we might also learn. 5. an informed awareness of, and sensitivity to, human diversity, an appreciation of its scope and complexity, and recognition of the richness of experience and potential that it provides. 6. self-­‐reflection regarding both the nature of our knowledge of the social and of the role of the anthropologist or ethnographer in the collection and presentation of data. THEORETICAL AND THEMATIC COMPETENCE The learners’ achievement of an anthropological outlook has to be grounded on an understanding of the development of the theoretical and thematic scope of the discipline. Our programme is designed to enable learners to achieve the following: 1. an acquaintance with the theory and history of anthropology. 2. an ability to recognise, assess and make use of different theoretical approaches within the discipline, and an awareness of links to cognate bodies of theory, such as philosophy, history, linguistics and feminist theory. 3. a detailed knowledge of anthropological work on particular areas of the world presented as regional courses (such as South America and the Caribbean, Europe, Central Asia, the Pacific and Africa). 4. a familiarity with a range of anthropological methods of representing data, including primary and secondary texts, film and other visual media, and oral sources. 5. an awareness of ethical issues concerned with the study and representation of others. 6. an awareness of the ways in which anthropological knowledge can be applied (and misapplied) in a range of practical situations. 3
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an awareness of social and historical change, and knowledge of some paradigms and modes (including indigenous ones) for explaining it. an ability to recognise and analyse contexts in which relations of power, subordination and resistance affect the forms taken by human communities. an appreciation of the interconnections between various aspects of social and cultural life, belief systems, global forces, individual behaviour and the physical environment. SUBJECT-­‐SPECIFIC SKILLS Depending upon the proportion of social anthropology within their degree programme, students will be able to demonstrate the following: 1. an ability to understand how human beings interact with their social, cultural and physical environments, and an appreciation of their social and cultural diversity. 2. the ability to formulate, investigate and discuss anthropologically informed questions. 3. a competence in using major theoretical perspectives and concepts in anthropology. 4. the ability to engage with cultures, populations and groups different from their own, without forgoing a sense of personal judgment. An awareness of cultural assumptions, including their own, and the ways in which these impact on an interpretation of others. 5. a recognition of the politics of language, indirect forms of communication, forms of power, theoretical statements and claims of authority, and an ability to analyse them. 6. the ability to apply anthropological knowledge to a variety of practical situations, personal and professional. 7. the ability to plan, undertake and present scholarly work that demonstrates an understanding of anthropological aims, methods and theoretical considerations. GENERIC SKILLS Depending upon the nature and focus of their degree programme, student attainment will include some or all of the following: 1. an ability to understand their strengths and weaknesses in learning and study skills and to take action to improve their capacity to learn. 2. the capacity to express their own ideas in writing, to summarise the arguments of others, and to distinguish between the two. 3. independence of thought and analytical, critical and synoptic skills. 4. information retrieval skills in relation to primary and secondary source of information. 5. communication and presentation skills (using oral and written materials and information technology). 6. scholarly skills, such as the ability to make a structured argument, reference the works of others, and assess evidence. 7. time planning and management skills. 8. the ability to engage, where appropriate, in constructive discussion in group situations and group-­‐
work skills. 9. computing techniques. 4
SECTION 1
WAYS OF THINKING WEEK 1 Dr Stan Frankland, mcf1@st-­‐andrews.ac.uk 1st Floor, 71 North Street LECTURE 1: INTRODUCTION In this first lecture the module coordinator will introduce the general themes of the course and outline what is expected from the students. LECTURE 2: ANTHROPOLOGY AND A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE Anthropology has a preoccupation with the positive power of difference. For most anthropologists, an awareness of difference makes life richer as does the recognition that the story is always more complicated and ambivalent than it first appears. In this lecture, we will explore ideas of difference in relation to ideas of witchcraft and gender. LECTURE 3: ETHNOGRAPHY AND OTHER WAYS OF THINKING This lecture considers the significance of long-­‐term participatory fieldwork to the discipline of social anthropology. It explores the different ways in which anthropologists approach and learn about other ways of thinking and how they communicate another way of seeing the world. What does fieldwork really consist of? What are the challenges of doing fieldwork in the second decade of the twenty first century? FILM: NOSE, IRANIAN STYLE (MEHRDAD OSKOUEI, 2006) Documentary filmmaker Mehrdad Oskouei considers the epidemic of nose jobs in contemporary Iran, the world leader in rhinoplasty with an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 operations each year. This film provides a fascinating insight into what drives both men and women in Iran to go under the surgeon’s knife. In a country that discourages personal expression and disdains Western culture, young Iranians eagerly change their noses to model images in European and American fashion magazines. With a light touch, Oskouei listens to patients and surgeons comment on this enigmatic phenomenon. This is a compulsively watchable documentary. 5
SECTION 2
HUNTER-­‐GATHERERS WEEKS 2 & 3 Dr Stan Frankland, mcf1@st-­‐andrews.ac.uk 1st Floor, 71 North Street At the heart of anthropological thought lies the basic question, what does it mean to be human? In this part of the course, we look at how that question has been answered by Anthropology in relation to the many peoples across the globe that use hunting and gathering as their mode of subsistence. With a particular focus on the Pygmies of Central Africa, we will analyse a number of critical questions: Are such people ‘primitive’ relics of a pre-­‐industrial past that tells us the story of our own origins and evolution? Is war or peace the ‘natural’ condition of humankind? Are there moral and material differences that distinguish hunter-­‐gatherers from the rest of humanity? To what extent can hunting and gathering lifestyles continue in the world today? What role do globalizing forces play in the lives of contemporary hunter-­‐gatherers? KEY READING • Lee, R. & Daly, R. (eds), 1999. The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Hunters and Gatherers. Cambridge: CUP. (Short Loan) LECTURE 1: INVENTING THE PRIMITIVE In this opening lecture, we will explore how ideas of the ‘savage’ and the ‘primitive’ have developed within European and American thought. Within this context, we will also look back at the emergence of the notion of hunting and gathering socialities and how this has framed the development of both anthropological and popular understandings of human difference. Certain key strands of thought will be examined as will the way they continue to shape our perceptions of the world. •
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Barnard, A., 2000. History and Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge: CUP. (Chap 2) (Short loan) Blanchard P. et al (eds.), 2008. Human Zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Colonial Empires. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Ellingson T-­‐J., 2001. The Myth of the Noble Savage. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jahoda G., 1999. Images of Savages: Ancient Roots of Modern Prejudice in Western Culture. London & N.Y.: Routledge. Kuper A., 1988. The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion. London & N.Y.: Routledge. Kuper A., 2005. The Reinvention of Primitive Society: Transformations of a Myth. London & N.Y.: Routledge. Lindfors B. (ed.), 1999. Africans on Stage: Studies in Ethnological Show Business. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Schrire, C. (ed.), 1984. Past and Present in Hunter-­‐Gatherer Studies. Orlando, Fla: Academic Press. (Chapter by Schrire) (Short loan) 6
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Trouillot M-­‐R., 2003. Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World. NY: Palgrave Macmillan. LECTURE 2: THE STATE OF NATURE: WAR OR PEACE? What is ‘man’s’ place in the state of nature? Are we inherently peaceful or are we naturally warlike? Can we or should we think of contemporary hunter-­‐gatherers as living embodiments of ‘our’ own past? In answering these questions, comparisons and contrasts will be drawn between the‘peaceful’ Mbuti Pygmies of Central Africa and the ‘warlike’ Yanomamö of the Amazonian rainforest. •
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Biesbrouk, K. et al (eds.), 1999. Central African Hunter-­‐Gatherers in a Multidisciplinary Perspective. Challenging Elusiveness, Universiteit Leiden: CNWS. (Chapter by Frankland) (Short loan) Chagnon, N.A., 1977. Yanomamö: the fierce people. New York, Holt Reinhart and Wilson. (Short loan) Ferguson, R.B., 1992. “A Savage Encounter. Western Contact and the Yanomami War Complex”. In: Ferguson, R.B. & Whitehead N.L. (eds.), War in the Tribal Zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. (Short loan) Ferguson, R.B., 1992. Yanomami Warfare: A Political History. Sante Fe, N.M.: School of American Research Press. Kelly, R.C., 2000. Warless Societies and the Origin of War. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. (Chapter 1 & 2) (Short loan) Klieman K.A."The Pygmies were our compass": Bantu and Batwa in the history of west central Africa, early times to c. 1900 C.E. Portsmouth, NH : Heinemann. Lizot J., 1991. Tales of the Yanomami: Daily Life in the Venuzuelan Forest. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Turnbull, C., 1961. The Forest People. London: Chatto and Windus. (Short loan) Turnbull, C., 1982. “The Ritualization of Potential Conflict between the Sexes among the Mbuti”. In: Leacock, E. & Lee, R. (eds.). Politics and History in Band Societies. Cambridge: CUP. LECTURE 3: THE COSMIC ECONOMY OF SHARING In this lecture, we explore the social organization of band societies. Many anthropologists have claimed that such societies are egalitarian and without forms of social hierarchy. To what extent are these claims matched by the ethnographic realities on the ground? What roles do women play within such societies? How are ideas of egalitarianism reflected within the economic sphere? Certain key concepts, such as immediacy and sharing, will be analysed within this context. •
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Bird-­‐David N. 1992. Beyond “The Original Affluent Society”: A Culturalist Reformulation. In: Current Anthropology, 33:1, pp. 25-­‐47. Gowdy, J.,(ed.), 1998. Limited Wants, Unlimited Means: A Reader in Hunter-­‐Gatherer Economics and the Environment. Washington D.C.: Island Press. (Chapters by Bird-­‐David and Lee) (Short loan) Ingold T, 2000. The perception of the environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling & skill. London: Routledge. Available as an ebook via the Library website. (Chapter 3, Hunting and gathering as ways of perceiving the environment) Leacock, E. & Lee, R. (eds.), 1982. Politics and History in Band Societies. Cambridge: CUP. (Chapters 1, 2 & 6) (Short loan) Lee R.B., 1979. The !Kung San: men, women and work in a foraging society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 7
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Lee, R. & Daly, R. (eds), 1999. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers. Cambridge: CUP. (Chapter by Gowdy) (Short Loan) Sahlins, M., 1968. “Notes on the original affluent society”. In: Lee, R. & DeVore, I. (eds.), Man the Hunter, pp. 85-­‐89. Chicago: Aldine. (Short loan) Sahlins, M., 1974. Stone Age Economics. London: Tavistock Publications. (Chapters 1 & 3) (short loan) Turnbull, C., 1965. Wayward Servants. The Two Worlds of the African Pygmies. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. (Short loan) Woodburn. J.C., 1980 Hunters and gatherers today and reconstruction of the past. In: Gellner, E. (ed.), Soviet and western anthropology. London: Duckworth, pp. 95-­‐117. (Short loan) Woodburn, J., 1998. “Egalitarian Societies”. In: Gowdy, J.,(ed.). Limited Wants, Unlimited Means: A Reader in Hunter-­‐Gatherer Economics and the Environment, pp. 87-­‐110. Washington D.C.: Island Press. Woodburn, J., 2005. Egalitarian Societies Revisited. In: Widlock, T. & Tadese. W.G. (eds.), Property and Equality Volume I: Ritualisation, Sharing, Egalitarianism, pp. 18-­‐31. New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books. ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM -­‐ THE BAGYELI PYGMIES AT THE FRINGES OF THE WORLD (DIR. FRANÇOIS-­‐
PHILIPPE GALLOIS 2009) When the World Bank supported Exxon pipeline arrived in the tropical forests of South Cameroon, the lives of the Bagyeli were profoundly changed. With remarkable access, the filmmakers watch the Bagyeli people as they hunt, learn, sing, start businesses, manage conflicts with neighbouring tribes, and deal with the changes in their environment. Seen through the eyes of 3 individual Bagyeli, this is an urgent and compelling documentary on a unique culture in crisis. LECTURE 4: THE KALAHARI DEBATE One of the key areas of debate regarding hunter-­‐gatherers is the extent to which we can say that they have been isolated from the wider world or whether they are ‘victims’ a range of external forces. In this lecture, we will assess the relative merits of the positions taken up within the so called Kalahari debate. What happens when hunting and gathering is no longer the primary mode of subsistence? How is the foraging mode of thought sustained in the face of both internal and external impetuses for change? The key topics discussed will be encapsulation, commercialisation and discrimination. THE DEBATE • Barnard, A. 2000. The Hunter-­‐Gatherer Mode of Thought. Anales de La Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Buenos Aires. (Reading pack) • Gowdy, J. (ed.), 1998. Limited Wants, Unlimited Means: A Reader in Hunter-­‐Gatherer Economics and the Environment,. Washington D.C.: Island Press. (Chapters by Burch and Lee) (Short loan) • Lee R.B., 1984. The Dobe !Kung. NY: Holt, Rinehart & Wilson. • Lee R.B., 2006. Twenty-­‐first century indigenism. In: Anthropological Theory, 6(4), pp.455-­‐479. • Wilmsen, E.N., 1989. Land Filled with Flies: A Political Economy of the Kalahari. Chicago: CUP. (Chapter 1). (Short loan) • Wilmsen E.N., 2009. To see ourselves as we need to see us: Ethnography’s primitive turn in the early Cold War years. In: Critical African Studies, 1, pp.1-­‐73. 8
CONTEMPORARY ‘BUSHMEN’ • Becker, H., 2003. “The least sexist society? Perspectives on Gender, Change and Violence among southern African San”. In: Journal of Sothern African Studies, 29:1, pp. 5-­‐23. Available through library website. • Garland E. and Gordon R.J., 1999. The Authentic (In)Authentic: Bushman Anthro-­‐Tourism. In: Visual Anthropology, 12, pp.267-­‐287 • Kent, S. (ed.), 2002. Ethnicity, Hunter-­‐Gatherers and the ‘Other’: Association or Assimilation in Africa. Washington: Smithsonian IP. (Chapters by Guenther, Kent, and Marlowe) (Short loan) • Robins S., 2003. Whose modernity? Indigenous modernities and land claims after Apartheid. In: Development and Change, 34(2), pp.265-­‐285 • Solway J., 2009. Human Rights and NGO ‘Wrongs’: Conflict diamonds, culture wars and the ‘Bushmen’ question. In: Africa, 79(3), pp.321-­‐346 • Sylvain R., 2002. “‘Land, Water and Truth’: San Identity and Global Indigenism”, American Anthropologist 104(4):1074-­‐1085 • Sylvain R., 2005. Disorderly development: Globalization and the idea of "culture" in the Kalahari. In: American Ethnologist, 32(3), pp.354-­‐370. • Sylvain, R., 2001. Bushman, Boers and Basskap: Patriarchy and Paternalism on Afrikaner Farms in the Omaheke Region, Namibia”. In: Journal of Sothern African Studies, 27:4, pp. 717-­‐737. Available through library website. • Sylvain, R., 2006. Drinking, Fighting, and Healing: San struggles for survival and solidarity in the Omaheke Region, Namibia. In: Senri Ethnological Studies, 70, pp. 131-­‐150. Available online through google scholar. • Widlok, T. & Tadese. W.G. (eds.), 2005. Property and Equality Volume II: Encapsulation, Commercialisation, Discrimination. New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books. (Chapter by Guenther) (Short loan) LECTURE 5: THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD OF THE ‘PYGMIES’ In this lecture, we will return to the ‘Pygmies’ and look at the ways in which Forest Peoples have responded to external forces. •
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Agamben G., 1988. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Biesbrouk, K. et al (eds.), 1999. Central African Hunter-­‐Gatherers in a Multidisciplinary Perspective. Challenging Elusiveness, Universiteit Leiden: CNWS. (Chapters by Waehle, Frankland, and Köhler) (Short loan) Bonhomme, J. et al, 2012. “Blurring the Lines: Ritual and Relationships between Babongo Pygmies and their neighbours (Gabon). In: Anthropos, 107, pp. 387-­‐406. Grinker, R.R., 1994. Houses in the rainforest. Ethnicity and inequality among farmers and foragers in Central Africa. Berkeley & Los Angeles University of California Press. Hewlett B.S. (ed) 2014. Hunter-­‐Gatherers of the Congo Basin: Cultures, Histories and Biology of African Pygmies. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. (Chapters by Lewis and Rupp). Kent, S. (ed.), 2002. Ethnicity, Hunter-­‐Gatherers and the ‘Other’: Association or Assimilation in Africa. Washington: Smithsonian IP. (Chapter by Lewis & Köhler) (Short loan) Knight J., 2003. Relocated to the roadside: preliminary observations on the Forest Peoples of Gabon. In: African Study Monographs, 28, 81-­‐121. Lewis J., 2008. Ekila: blood, bodies, and egalitarian societies. In: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 14, pp.397-­‐315. 9
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Lewis, J., 2009. “As well as words: Congo Pygmy Hunting, mimicry, and play”. In: Botha, R. & Knight, C. (eds.), The Cradle of Language. Available online. Lewis, J., 2012. “Technological Leap-­‐Frogging in the Congo Basin, Pygmies and Global Positioning systems in Central Africa. What has happened and where is it going?” In: African Study Monographs. Supplementary Issue 43, pp. 15-­‐44. Available online. Oishi, T., 2012. “Cash crop cultivation and interethnic relations of the Baka hunter-­‐gatherers in Southeastern Cameroon”. ?” In: African Study Monographs. Supplementary Issue 43, pp. 115-­‐136. Available online. Pottier J., 2007. Rights violations, rumour, and rhetoric; making sense of cannibalism in Mambassa, Ituri (Democratic Republic of Congo). In: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 13, pp.825-­‐843. Turnbull, C.M., 1983. The Mbuti Pygmies: Change and Adaptation. New York, Holt Reinhart, and Wilson. (Short loan) Widlok, T. & Tadese. W.G. (eds.), 2005. Property and Equality Volume II: Encapsulation, Commercialisation, Discrimination. New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books. (Chapters by Lewis, Kenrick, and Köhler) (Short loan) LECTURE 6: THE BASUA OF WESTERN UGANDA In this lecture, I will discuss my long-­‐standing relationship with the Basua ‘Pygmies’ of Western Uganda from my early experiences as a tourist to my most recent research trips. This will not be an academic lecture. Instead it will cover areas normally excluded from the ethnographic genre. ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM -­‐ BAKA: A CRY FROM THE RAINFOREST (2012 DIR. PHIL AGLAND) Returning to the same Baka village that featured in his BAFTA winning documentary from 1987, filmmaker Phil Agland learns how the passage of time has changed the informants from his first film. He finds a family caught helplessly between the world of the forest and the outside world that rejects them. Agland shows them his old film. Watching themselves for the first time on film, seeing how their parents used to live, prompts laughter, amazement and a profound sense of loss. Ultimately, this event inspires the Baka to journey deep into the forest to rediscover the old life of their fathers. 10
SECTION 3 THE SYMBOLIC ORDERING OF SOCIAL LIFE WEEKS 4 & 5 Professor Roy Dilley, rmd@st-­‐andrews.ac.uk Room 21, United College WEEK 4: SEEING THE WORLD IN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE Human beings in all cultures order their social worlds by classifying things on the basis of some perceived similarity and difference. A shared quality or feature among things is often used to constitute a class, which is contrasted with other classes of different things. We thus attempt to bring order to the world around us. These systems of classes help us in the way we operate in the world, talk about the world, and pass on knowledge to others about the world. What is striking to the anthropologist, as well as to the casual traveller to other cultures, is that the way humans classify the world around them differs from one place to the next. When confronted by different ways of ordering the world, and acting upon it, we can often experience unease and confusion, sometimes even repugnance and disgust. For example, what people in other cultures eat is often an area that excites such responses, and their habits are compared to the types of things we eat and think of as ‘proper food’. Anthropologists have examined various systems of such ‘cultural classification’, and have tried to make sense of why these differences arise and what their social consequences are. Indeed, these local features of difference and similarity are often related within the same society to a whole range of seemingly unconnected cultural conceptions and ways of thinking about and acting upon the world. We will examine in the course of these lectures anthropological approaches to ways of dividing up or classifying the world in a variety of different cultural settings around the globe. Introduction •
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J. Hendry. An Introduction to Social Anthropology: Other People’s Worlds. Macmillan 1999. Chps 1 and 2. R. Keesing and A. Strathern, Cultural Anthropology (3rd edition). Harcourt Brace, 1998. R. Ellen & D. Reason (eds), Classifications in their Social Context. Academic Press 1979. Topic 1. Food Taboos, Pollution and Prohibition •
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M. Douglas. Purity and Danger. Routledge [1966] 1996. Chp 3. Abridged version printed in W. Lessa & E. Vogt (eds), Reader in Comparative Religion (1979), pp. 149-­‐52. M. Douglas. ‘Land Animals, Pure and Impure’ in M. Lambek (ed.) A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion (2002), pp.194-­‐209. M. Douglas. ‘Animals in Lele Religious Thought’, Africa, 27 (1957), 46-­‐58. E. Leach, ‘Animal Categories and Verbal Abuse’, reprinted in W. Lessa & E. Vogt (eds), Reader in Comparative Religion (1979), pp. 153-­‐66. 11
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J. Okely. The Traveller-­‐Gypsies. Cambridge 1983. Chp 6. S. Tambiah. ‘Animals are Good to Think and Good to Prohibit’, Ethnology, 8 (1969) 424-­‐59. Reprinted in in M. Douglas (ed.) Rules and Meanings. Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp.127-­‐66 WEEK 5: THE CONCEPTS OF TIME, SPACE AND COLOUR A range of what we often like to think of as 'taken-­‐for-­‐granted' or ‘natural’ concepts are the foci of investigation in this series of lectures. We will examine how time, space and colour are viewed in different cultural settings across the world, and will see how social anthropologists have come to explain similarities and differences in cross-­‐cultural perspective. We will ask questions about how representations of time, space and colour vary or not from one culture to another. Are these concepts universal to all cultures, or are they wholly relative to each society in which they are found? How do people in different cultures understand time, space and colour in terms that are meaningful to them? What are the social and cultural consequences of such ways of understanding? In the process of this examination, we will confront our own as well as other people’s views on this set of selected topics. General Reading: •
W. James, 2003. The Ceremonial Animal. A New Portrait of Anthropology. Oxford: OUP. (Especially chp. 3, ‘Species, Space, and Time’) Topic 2: Colour Are conceptions of colour categories fundamentally different across different languages and therefore across different cultures, or are there universal constants that make for basic cross-­‐linguistic and cross-­‐
cultural similarities in colour terminology? •
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Berlin B. and P. Kay Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution, (1969) Berkeley: University of California Press. Conklin, H. 'Hanunóo Color Categories', in D. Hymes (ed.) Language in Culture and Society, (1964), pp.189-­‐92. Harper & Row. Conklin, H. 'Color Categorization: Review of Berlin and Kay, 1969', American Anthropologist, (1973), Vol. 75, pp. 931-­‐42. Conklin, H. ‘Color Categories’, Journal of Anthropological Research, (1986) 42 (3), pp.441-­‐46. Hendry, J. An Introduction to Social Anthropology (1999), esp. pp. 23-­‐28. London: Macmillan. Levinson, S. ‘Yeli Ndaye and the Theory of Basic Color Terms’, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, (2001) 10 (1), pp.3-­‐55. Newcomer, P. and J. Faris. ‘Basic Color Terms (A Review)’, International Journal of American Linguistics (1971) 37 (4), pp.270-­‐275. Saunders, B. ‘Revisiting Basic Color Terms’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, (2000) 6 (1), pp.81-­‐99. Turner, V. ‘Colour Classification in Ndembu Ritual’, in M. Banton (ed.) Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion (1966), pp. 47-­‐84; also published as Chp. 3 of Turner’s The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 12
Topic 3: Time •
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Adam, B. “Perceptions of time.” Chp. 18 of T. Ingold (ed), Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology (1994). London: Routledge. Bourdieu, P. Algeria 1960 (1979) esp. pp. 8 -­‐ 29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Evans-­‐Pritchard, E. The Nuer (1940), first half of chp. 3. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Reprinted as 'The Nuer: Time and Space' in R. Grinker and C. Steiner (1997), Perspectives on Africa, pp.24-­‐37. Oxford: Blackwell. Geertz, C. “Person, time, and conduct in Bali.” Chp. 14 of his The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), especially pp. 391-­‐398. New York: Basic Books. Gell, A. The Anthropology of Time (1992). Oxford: Berg. James, W. & D. Mills, (eds). 2005. The Qualities of Time: Anthropological Approaches. Oxford: Berg. (Especially the ‘Introduction’.) Leach, E. “Two essays concerning the symbolic representation of time.” In E. Leach, Rethinking Anthropology (1961). Reprinted in W. Lessa and E. Vogt, Reader in Comparative Religion (1979), pp. 220-­‐229. Nanni, G. The Colonisation of Time: Ritual, Routine and Resistance in the British Empire (2013). Manchester University Press. Van Gennep, A. L. The Rites of Passage. RKP 1977 [1908]. Topic 4: Space •
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Bourdieu, P. “The Kabyle house.” Appendix of his The Logic of Practice (1990), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ; or pp. 133 -­‐ 153 in his Algeria 1960, as above. Also reprinted as 'The Berber House or the World Reversed', in M. Douglas (ed.) Implicit Meanings (1975), London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Evans-­‐Pritchard, E. The Nuer (1940), second half of chp. 3. As above. Holy, L. ‘Symbolic and non-­‐symbolic aspects of Berti space’, in Man 1983 (18): 269-­‐288. Littlejohn, J. ‘Temne Space’, in Anthropological Quarterly (1963), pp. 1-­‐17. Littlejohn, J.‘The Temne House’, in J. Middleton (ed), Myth and Cosmos. Texas U. P. 1976. Beattie, J.‘Aspects of Nyoro Symbolism’ Africa, 38 (1968), 413-­‐42. ‘Right, Left and the Banyaro’, Africa, 46 (1976), 217-­‐35. Needham, R (ed.) Right and Left: Essays on Dual Symbolic Classification. Chicago U.P. 1978 (Introduction and Needham’s chapter on Nyoro symbolic classification). 13
SECTION 4 ORALITY AND LITERACY WEEKS 6 & 7 Dr Sabine Hyland sph@st-­‐andrews.ac.uk 2nd Floor, 71 North Street This section of SA1002 addresses issues of orality and literacy in cross-­‐cultural perspective. How do language and writing shape our view of the world? In the first week we will examine nature of oral traditions and the plight of language loss, reflecting on the implications of the loss of linguistic diversity in our world today. During the second week, we analyze alternative literacies, focusing on glyphs as well as on non-­‐phonetic forms of graphic communication such as wampum, pictographs and knotted cords. The section will end with a consideration of how writing systems develop and/or die out, whether through apocalyptic religious movements or through the use of social media, which some commentators have claimed will lead to the "end of writing" as we know it. LECTURE 1 -­‐ LANGUAGE DEATH: We are living through period of unprecedented language loss around the world; every two weeks, an elder dies who carries to his or her grave the last syllables of an ancient tongue. What are the forces behind the loss of language diversity? Why does the loss of linguistic diversity matter? What efforts have anthropologists undertaken to address this issue? •
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Wade Davis, “The Wonder of the Ethnosphere” In: Wade Davis, Light at the Edge of the World: A Journey Through the Realm of Vanishing Cultures. (Douglas &McIntyre, 2007), pp. 1-­‐14. K. David Harrison, “A World of Many (Fewer) Voices” In: K. David Harrison, When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World’s Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge. (Oxford U. Press, 2007), pp. 2-­‐21. Elizabeth Kolbert, “Letter from Alaska: Last Words, A Language Dies” The New Yorker (6 June 2005), pp. 46-­‐59. Michael E. Krauss, "A History of Eyak Language Documentation and Study", Arctic Anthropology, 43 (2), pp. 172-­‐218, 2006. Juniper Glass, "Tales of the Ethnosphere", Utne Reader, March/April, 2004. LECTURE -­‐ 2 THE NATURE OF ORAL TRADITIONS: What is the nature of oral traditions? Are “oral” cultures qualitatively different from “written” cultures? How do anthropologists record and interpret oral literature? This lecture will explore these issues, focusing on the diverse oral traditions of the Iroquois nations. • Johannes Fabian, “Keep Listening” In: Jonathan Boyarin, ed., The Ethnography of Reading (U of California Press, 1992). 14
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Jack Goody, “The Construction of a Ritual Text: The Shift from Oral to Written Chronicle” In: The Power of the Written Tradition (Smithsonian Institute Press, 2000). John Halverson, "Goody and the Implosion of the Literacy Thesis", Man, New Series, 27(2), pp. 301-­‐317, 1992. Dennis Tedlock, “Introduction” In: The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation (U of Pennsylvania Press, 1983). Elisabeth Tooker and William C. Sturtevant, Native North American Spirituality of the Eastern Woodlands: Sacred Myths, Dreams, Visions, Speeches, Healing Formulas, Rituals and Ceremonials (Paulist Press, 1979). Robert W. Venables, "The Clearing and the Woods: The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Landscape -­‐-­‐ Gendered and Balanced" In: Archaeology and Presevation of Gendered Landscapes, Springer, 2010, chapter 2. LECTURE 3 -­‐ ETHNOPOETICS: Ethnopoetics is a decentered poetics, “an attempt to hear and read the poetries of distant others, outside the Western tradition as we now know it” (Dennis Tedlock). Taking the artistic accomplishments of other cultures seriously challenges and broadens our own understanding of aesthetics. This lecture will review ethnopoetic theory and examine how it applies to one of the world’s greatest poetic traditions, the Mayan Popol Vuh. •
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Dell Hymes, Now I Know Only So Far: Essays in Ethnopoetics (U of Nebraska Press, 2003), chapter 2. Dennis Tedlock, Review of Now I Know Only so Far: Essays in Ethnopoetics by Dell Hymes, American Anthropologist, 108(1), pp. 246-­‐247, 2006. Anthony K. Webster, "'So it's got three meanings dil dil': Seductive ideophony and the sounds of Navajo", forthcoming Canadian Journal of Linguistics (is on academia.edu) Popol Vuh: Sacred Book of the Quiché Maya People. Translation and Commentary by Allen J. Christenson, 2007. http://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/PopolVuh.pdf FILM: ISHI, THE LAST YAHI Ishi, the Last Yahi is a dramatic documentary film about Ishi, who came to be known as the "last wild Indian in North America." His sudden appearance in 1911 stunned Americans. His people were considered extinct, destroyed in bloody massacres during the 1860s and 70s. This film chronicles Ishi’s life as the last member of his society and the last speaker of his language, focusing on the efforts of anthropologists to preserve as much of his language and oral traditions as possible. LECTURE 4 -­‐ ALTERNATIVE LITERACIES: The development of writing is often described as an evolutionary arc that concludes with phonetic script as the only “true” writing. This view marginalizes many indigenous writing systems and distorts our understanding of graphic communication. In this presentation, I will explore the nature of alternative literacies such as pictographs, wampum and knotted cords. • Frank Salomon and Sabine Hyland, “Introduction” In: Graphic Pluralism: Native American Inscription and the Colonial Situation, Special Volume Ethnohistory (Vol. 57, Number 1, Winter 2010), pp. 1-­‐9. 15
Heidi Bohaker, “Reading Anishinaabe Identities: Meaning and Metaphor in Nindoodem Pictographs” In: Graphic Pluralism: Native American Inscription and the Colonial Situation, Special Volume Ethnohistory (Vol. 57, Number 1, Winter 2010), pp. 11-­‐33. • Elizabeth Hill Boone, “Presidential Lecture: Discourse and Authority in Histories Painted, Knotted and Threaded”, Ethnohistory (vol. 59, no. 2, Spring 2012), pp. 211-­‐237. • Marshall Joseph Becker, "A Wampum Belt Chronology: Origins to Modern Times", Northeast Anthropology, 63, pp. 49-­‐70, 2001. • Christina Burke, "Collecting Lakota Histories: Winter Count Pictographs and Texts in the National Anthropological Archives", American Indian Art 26 (1), pp. 82-­‐103, 2000. • Gary Urton, "From Knots to Narratives: Reconstructing the Art of Historical Record Keeping in the Andes from Spanish Transcriptions of Inka Khipus", Ethnohistory, 45 (3), pp. 409-­‐438, 1998. LECTURE 5 -­‐ MAYAN HIEROGLYPHICS: •
The last thirty years have witnessed the near total decipherment of the Classic Mayan hieroglyphic writing system. How did this occur? How does the decipherment of Mayan hieroglyphics challenge our views about what writing is? Stephen D. Houston, “Literacy Among the Pre-­‐Columbian Maya: A Comparative Perspective” In: Elizabeth Hill Boone and Walter D. Mignolo (eds), Writing Without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes (Duke U. Press, 1994). • Michael D. Coe, Breaking the Maya Code (Thames and Hudson, 2012) (optional). • David Freidel and Linda Schele, A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya. (William Morrow, 1992) (optional). • David Roberts, "Secrets of the Maya: Deciphering Tikal", Smithsonian Magazine, July 2005. LECTURE 6 -­‐ THE END OF WRITING: How do scripts and other forms of writing fall out of use? What processes are involved in the disappearance of writing systems? Will texting and other online media lead to the end of writing as we know it? • John Monaghan, “Revelatory Scripts, ‘the Unlettered Genius’, and the Appearance and Disappearance of Writing” In: John Baines, John Benet and Stephen D. Houston (eds.), The Disappearance of Writing Systems: Perspectives on Literacy and Communication (London, Equinox Press, 2008). • Naomi Baron, Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World (Oxford U Press, 2008). • E. Gabriella Coleman, "Ethnographic Approaches to Digital Media", Annual Review of Anthropology, 39, pp. 487-­‐505, 2010. • Severin Fowles, "Writing Collapse", In: Social Theory in Archaeology and Ancient History, ed. by Geoff Emberling, pp. 205-­‐230, 2015. • Feray J. Baskin, "Turkish Women in Alsace: Language and Shift in Negotiating Identity", In: Conference Proceedings, Gender and the 'Law'", ed by Sibel Safi and Eda Aycan Aras, London Centre for Social Studies, 2014, pp. 2-­‐10. LECTURE 7 -­‐ FIELDWORK LECTURE: IN SEARCH OF THE LOST KHIPUS: •
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For my final lecture I will talk briefly about my fieldwork in the Andes tracking down a legendary text that may provide clues to the decipherment of the Inkas’ ancient writing system. The presentation will include showing a half hour National Geographic documentary about my research. 2-­‐WEEK EASTER VACATION 14/3/2016 TO 28/3/2016 17
SECTION 5 OIL AND ECONOMIC LIFE WEEKS 8 & 9 Dr Mette High, mmh20@st-­‐andrews.ac.uk Room 58, United College This section of the course offers an introduction to economic anthropology, which we will approach through some of the urgent and controversial issues related to oil. We will look at the importance of oil in life styles, imaginations and aspirations, valuations and conflicts. Topics such as climate change, oil dependence, petrodollars, energy markets, alternative lifestyle experiments, and technological advances will be brought into dialogue with classical anthropological concepts. The aim of the section is to encourage students to reflect on the relationship between cross-­‐cultural variations and shared human predicaments as people go about their economic lives. LECTURE 1 – WHAT IS ECONOMIC ANTHROPOLOGY? At its most basic, economics can be seen as the study of the relationship between people and objects as occurring through production, circulation, and consumption. Most of the theories which comprise the modern field of economics were developed to describe Western capitalist systems. Earlier this century, anthropologists began to use their cross-­‐cultural studies to question economic assumptions about human behaviour. In this lecture we will look at Malinowski’s foundational study of the Kula gift exchange among the Trobrianders to consider how economic anthropology is different from economics. What is ‘the economy’? How have anthropologists analysed economic life in non-­‐capitalist settings? And how can we understand the relationship between culture and economics? Required readings: • Kuper, Adam. 2014. “Malinowski” In Anthropology and Anthropologists: The Modern British School, pp. 1-­‐34. • Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1922. Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Esp. Ch. 3. Pp. 82-­‐104 [essential extracts also available in Edward E. LeClair and Harold K. Schneider. 1968. Economic Anthropology, pp. 17-­‐40] Supplementary readings: • Dalton, George. 1965. “Primitive Money”. American Anthropologist vol. 67, issue 1, pp. 44-­‐65. • Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1920. “Kula: The Circulating Exchange of Valuables in the Archipelagoes of Eastern New Guinea”. Man, vol. 51, pp. 97-­‐105. • Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1921. “The Primitive Economics of the Trobriand Islanders”. The Economic Journal, vol. 31, issue 121, pp. 1-­‐16. • Nash, Manning. 1966. “Ch. 1: The Meaning and Scope of Economic Anthropology”. In Primitive and peasant economic systems. • Young, Michael. 1979. The Ethnography of Malinowski: The Trobriand Islands 1915-­‐18. 18
LECTURE 2 – CONSUMPTION OF OIL AND THE AMERICAN DREAM Since oil was first struck in 1859, it has enabled and defined our economic, social, and political landscape across the world. In its transformation of how we go about our daily lives, oil has become the single most consumed commodity and our consumption continues to rise. However, the idea that the mass consumption of oil was foundational to a particular way of life did not emerge ‘naturally’. Anthropologists have shown how in the US during the Great Depression this particular understanding was produced out of a wider set of struggles and crises related to capitalism. In this lecture we will look at what anthropological theories of consumption can tell us about how objects become such uniquely desirable commodities. What is the relationship between oil and culture? What is so particular, spectacular or mythic about oil? And in what ways has it become fundamental in shaping our collective imaginaries of the world? Required readings: • Huber, Matthew T. 2013. “Refuelling Capitalism: Depression, Oil, and the Making of ‘The American Way of Life’”. In Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom, and the Forces of Capital. Pp. 27-­‐60. • Miller, Daniel. 2005. “Consumption Studies as the Transformation of Anthropology”. In D. Miller (ed.) Acknowledging Consumption. Pp. 263-­‐292. Supplementary readings: • Appadurai, Arjun. 1988. “Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value”. In A. Appadurai (ed.) The Social Life of Things: Commodities in a Cultural Perspective. Pp. 3-­‐63. • Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. • Douglas, Mary. 2002. The World of Goods: Towards an anthropology of consumption. • LeMenager, Stephanie. 2014. “The Aesthetics of Petroleum”. In Living Oil: Petroleum Culture in the American Century. Pp. 66-­‐101. • Obama, Barack. 2007. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on reclaiming the American dream. • Film: THE END OF SUBURBIA: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream (2004, 78 min).endofsuburbia.com. The Electric Wallpaper Co. LECTURE 3 – PRODUCTION OF PETRODOLLARS AND COMMODITY FETISHISM The production of oil gives rise to enormous wealth. In some countries, such as Venezuela and Norway, oil production is closely tied to national social welfare agendas, whilst in others it is an overtly messy and conflict-­‐endorsing venture. The staggering influx of oil monies often readily captures people’s imagination and gives rise to intense associations of petrodollars with freedom and opportunity, if not domination and doom. For many, it becomes a ‘fantastic form’ that seems capable of generating certain outcomes in and of itself, as if the petrodollar had a life of its own independently of the process of production. For anthropologists, this kind of commodity fetishism provides a vantage point from which we can see not only how petrodollars and other monies contribute to social integration and disintegration, but also how economic life is intertwined with cosmological understandings. What is the value of money? How is it determined? And why does it seem so urgent in economies that are premised on natural resource extraction? Required readings: • Watts, Michael. 2004. “Oil as Money: The devil’s excrement and the spectacle of black gold”. In T.J. Barnes et al (eds.) Reading Economic Geography. Pp. 205-­‐219. 19
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Taussig, Michael. 1977. “The Genesis of Capitalism amongst a South American Peasantry: Devil's labor and the baptism of money”. Comparative Studies in Society and History vol. 19, issue 2, pp. 130-­‐155. Supplementary readings: • Coronil, Fernando. 1997. The Magical State: Nature, money, and modernity in Venezuela. • High, Mette. 2013. “Polluted Money, Polluted Wealth: Emerging Regimes of Value in the Mongolian Gold Rush”. American Ethnologist, vol. 40, issue 4, pp. 676-­‐688. • Marx, Karl. 1990. “Ch. 1. Sec. 4: The Fetishism of the Commodity and its Secret”. In Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1. Pp. 163-­‐177. • Simmel, Georg. 2004 [1900]. The Philosophy of Money. • Spyer, Patricia. 1998. Border Fetishisms: Material objects in unstable spaces. FILM – A CRUDE AWAKENING: THE OIL CRASH 2006. Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack. Artificial Eye production. 82 mins We wrap up the first week of this section with a film that ties together many of the ideas we have encountered this week and signals some of the topics we will discuss next week. This documentary explores the implications of cheap oil running out – implications for our economies, ways of life, and various kinds of valuations. From the distributors’ description: “A shocking wake-­‐up call that is set to do for energy what Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ did for the environment, ‘A Crude Awakening’ is an urgent warning that the age of abundant oil is over. Featuring testimonies from the world’s top experts, this startling documentary reaches an ominous yet logical conclusion – the Earth’s oil supplies are peaking, threatening our ill-­‐
prepared, fossil-­‐fuel addicted civilization with a crisis of global proportions. Highlighting the critical need for sustainable alternative energy sources, Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack’s startling documentary is an intelligent and utterly compelling call to action”. LECTURE 4 – CREATING MARKETS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIALITY Financial markets might appear abstract and immaterial, so all-­‐encompassing yet distant. Indeed, the notion of ‘market failure’ would suggest that markets have a logic and dynamism of their own. Anthropologists have shown how this distanced view of economic processes that deny entanglements in socio-­‐political relations can be highly appealing to oil company executives as a way of abdicating responsibility in the location of oil extraction. There can be issues such as environmental disasters, deep poverty, and despotic rulers. But is this separation and abstraction ever possible? How are markets made? And what is the relationship between the material and immaterial in such creations? Required readings: • Appel, Hannah C. 2012. “Walls and White Elephants: Oil extraction, responsibility, and infrastructural violence in Equatorial Guinea”. Ethnography vol. 13, issue 4, pp. 439-­‐465. • Zaloom, Caitlin. 2006. “Trading on Numbers." In M.S. Fisher and G. Downey (eds.) Frontiers of Capital: Ethnographic Reflections on the New Economy. Pp. 58-­‐85. Supplementary readings: 20
Abolafia, Mitchel Y. 1998. “Markets as Cultures: An ethnographic approach”. The Sociological Review vol. 46, S1, pp. 69-­‐85. • Dilley, Roy. 1992. Contesting Markets: Analyses of ideology, discourse and practice. • Garcia-­‐Parpet, Marie-­‐France. 2007. “The Social Construction of a Perfect Market: The Strawberry Auction at Fontaines-­‐en-­‐Sologne”. In D. MacKenzie, F. Muniesa and L. Siu (eds.) Do Economists Make Markets?: On the performativity of economics. Pp. 20-­‐53. • MacKenzie, Donald. 2008. Material Markets: How economic agents are constructed. • Zaloom, Caitlin. 2006. Out of the Pits: Traders and technology from Chicago to London. LECTURE 5 – GLOBAL CAPITALISMS AND AMBITIONS Whether it is a Wall Street investment bank or a transnational oil company, the desire to ‘be global’ is central to many business expansion strategies today. Apart from highlighting a view of the world as accessible, marketable and profitable, these global proclamations can also become actual goals with precarious outcomes for the employer and the employees. Alongside the desire for corporate responsiveness and efficiency, the ambition of having a ‘global presence’ also entails greater demands and responsibilities, be it submitting to national laws, observing basic human rights principles, or engaging in voluntary corporate social responsibility activities. By directly engaging with globality as a specific cultural formation, anthropologists demonstrate its particular meanings so that global projects cannot simply be taken as a dominant norm or at face value. What is the relationship between capitalism and corporate ambitions on a global scale? Who creates ‘the global’? And for whom? •
Required readings: • Ferguson, James. 2005. “Seeing Like an Oil Company: Space, security, and global capital in neoliberal Africa”. American anthropologist vol. 107, issue 3, pp. 377-­‐382. • Ho, Karen. 2005. “Situating Global Capitalisms: A view from Wall Street investment banks”. Cultural Anthropology vol. 20, issue 1, pp. 68-­‐96. Supplementary readings: • Appel, Hannah. 2012. “Offshore Work: Oil, modularity, and the how of capitalism in Equatorial Guinea." American Ethnologist vol. 39, issue 4, pp. 692-­‐709. • Gupta, Akhil, and James Ferguson. 1992. “Beyond ‘Culture’: Space, identity, and the politics of difference”. Cultural anthropology vol. 7, issue 1, pp. 6-­‐23. • Mitchell, Timothy. 2011. Carbon Democracy: Political power in the age of oil. • Miyazaki, Hirokazu. 2013. Arbitraging Japan: Dreams of capitalism at the end of finance. • Watts, Michael J. 2005. “Righteous Oil? Human rights, the oil complex, and corporate social responsibility”. Annual Review of Environment and Resources vol. 30, pp. 373-­‐407. LECTURE 6 – CLIMATE CHANGE AND ALTERNATIVE ENERGY FUTURES Climate change has become one of the most pressing issues of our time. Increased air and ocean temperatures, altered precipitation and storm patterns, and rising sea levels are affecting the world with profound social, political, and economic consequences. New forms of knowledge are being produced and new forms of action are being sought. However, despite the proclaimed and perhaps desired novelty, these radical departures are historically, culturally and socially constituted, whether it is REDD policies in Mexico or renewable energy development in Orkney. How do people understand and deal with future uncertainty? To what extent are alternatives possible? And how can we bring them about? 21
Required readings: • Matthews, Andrew S. 2015. “Imagining Forest Futures and Climate Change: The Mexican State as Insurance Broker and Storyteller”. In J. Barnes and M.R. Dove (eds.) Climate Cultures: Anthropological Perspectives on Climate Change. Pp. 199-­‐220. • Watts, Laura. N.D. “Orkney Standard Time: Guide to the Energy Future Time Zone” Supplementary readings: • Kohn, Eduardo. 2014. “Toward an ethical practice in the Anthropocene”. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory vol. 4, issue 1, pp. 459-­‐464. • Latour, Bruno. 2014. “Anthropology at the time of the Anthropocene—A personal view of what is to be studied”. Distinguished lecture delivered at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Washington. • Lipset, David. 2014. “Place in the Anthropocene: A mangrove lagoon in Papua New Guinea in the time of rising sea-­‐levels”. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory vol. 4, issue 3, pp. 215-­‐243. • Stern, Nicholas. 2006. Stern Review: The economics of climate change. • Tsing, Anna L. 2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. LECTURE 7 – ENERGY ETHICS In this final lecture I will talk about my own research, which started with gold miners in Mongolia, via monks in Buddhist monasteries, to oil executives and rig workers in the US oil fields. I will reflect on what anthropological attention to economic life has brought to my understanding of the human predicament and our discipline more generally. Required readings: • High, Mette. 2013. “Cosmologies of Freedom and Buddhist Self-­‐Transformation in the Mongolian Gold Rush”. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute vol. 19, issue 4, pp. 753-­‐770.
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SECTION 6 CHILD-­‐FOCUSED ANTHROPOLOGY WEEKS 10 & 11 Professor Christina Toren, ct51@st-­‐andrews.ac.uk 1st Floor, 71 North Street Early anthropologists such as Malinowksi, Firth, Sapir and others recommended that children be routinely included in anthropological studies, but even today this is not commonplace. Why is this so? And why should children as informants be important to anthropologists? This series of lectures shows how important child-­‐focused anthropology is to the comparative study of what it is to be human. LECTURE ONE: THE CHILD IN ANTHROPOLOGY A fundamental issue in anthropology is how we conceive of what it is to be human. This lecture focuses on what the study of children can bring to our understanding of this issue. •
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Enfield, N.J. and Stephen C. Levinson. 2006. Eds. Roots of Human Sociality. Culture, Cognition and Interaction. Berg. Introduction. Goldin-­‐Meadow, Susan. 2006. ‘Meeting other minds through gesture: how children use their hands to reinvent language and distribute cognition.’ In N.J. Enfield and Stephen C. Levinson, eds. Roots of Human Sociality. Culture, Cognition and Interaction. Berg. Ingold, Tim. 2007. ‘The social child’. In Alan Fogel, Barbara King and Stuart Shanker, Eds. Human Development in the Twenty-­‐First Century. A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Life Sciences, Cambridge University Press. Toren, Christina. 2007. ‘An anthropology of human development: what difference does it make?’ In Alan Fogel, Barbara King and Stuart Shanker, Eds. Human Development in the Twenty-­‐First Century. A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Life Sciences, Cambridge University Press. LECTURE TWO: CHILDREN AS SUBJECTS AND OBJECTS How do children figure in ethnography? This lectures discusses the dominant approaches to the study of children in anthropology. • Briggs, Jean. 1979. Aspects of Inuit Value Socialization, Ottowa: National Museum of Man, Mercury Series. • Gottlieb, Alma. 2005. Babies' Baths, Babies' Remembrances: A Beng Theory of Development, History and Memor. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 75, No. 1 (2005), pp. 105-­‐118. 23
Hendrick, Harry. 1990. ‘Constructions and reconstructions of British childhood: an interpretive survey, 1800 to the present’ in A.James & A.Prout (eds) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood, London, New York, The Falmer Press. • Kessen, W. 1983. ‘The child and other cultural inventions’ in F.S. Kessel & A.W. Siegel (eds) The Child and Other Cultural Inventions, Praeger Publishers. • Lancy, David F. 2008. The Anthropology of Childhood Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings, Cambridge University Press. • Montgomery, Heather. 2008. An Introduction to Childhood: Anthropological Perspectives on Children's Lives, Wiley-­‐Blackwell. • Toren, Christina. 2004.Do Babies Have Culture? Review of The Afterlife Is Where We Come from: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa by Alma Gottlieb in Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 77, No. 1 (Winter, 2004), pp. 167-­‐179 LECTURE THREE: GENDER AND PERSONHOOD Why is it necessary that the ethnographer pay particular attention to arriving at a social analysis of gender and personhood? This lecture looks at how the ethnographers have approached this issue in respect of children. •
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Howell, Signe. 1988. ‘From child to human: Chewong concepts of self’, in J.Jahoda & I.M. Lewis (eds), Acquiring Culture, London, Croom Helm. James, Allison with Chris Jenks and Alan Prout. 1998. Theorizing Childhood, Polity Press. See Chapters 8 and 10. Kusserow, Adrie. 2004. American Individualisms: Child Rearing and Social Class in Three Neighborhoods. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Ochs, Elinor and Bambi B. Schieffelin,. 1984. ‘Language acquisition and socialization: three developmental stories and their implications’ in R.A.Shweder & R.A. LeVine (eds) Culture Theory. Essays on mind, self and emotion, Cambridge University Press. Prout, Alan and Allison James. 1990. ‘A new paradigm for the sociology of childhood? Provenance, prmise and problems’ in A.James & A.Prout (eds) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood, London, New York, The Falmer Press. Schieffelin, Bambi B. 1986. ‘Teasing and shaming in Kaluli children’s interactions’ in Bambi B. Schieffelin & Elinor Ochs (eds.) Language Socialization Across Cultures, Cambridge University Press. Toren, Christina. 2011. The stuff of imagination: what we can learn from Fijian children’s ideas about their lives as adults. Social Analysis Volume 55, Issue 1, 23–47. FILM: ROOM 11 HOTEL ETHIOPIA This film aims to capture a sense of the life of children living on the street in Ethiopia by witnessing the interaction between two children in Gondar and the Japanese film-­‐maker, Itsushi Kawase. Although it is about the children's life on the streets, the entire film was shot in the film-­‐maker's room in the Ethiopia Hotel. This limited space allows the film to focus on communication between two children and filmmaker and to reveal some of the ideas that enable them to endure and survive on the streets. This film is more a sensitive testimony than a scientific documentary. Through its hybrid approach, the filmmaker aims to explore new trends in the visual anthropology touching upon intimacy and subjectivity. 24
LECTURE FOUR: THE CHILD IN KINSHIP This lecture takes a child-­‐focused perspective on the study of kinship and why it remains central to comparative analysis in anthropology. •
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Gow, Peter. 1989. ‘The perverse child: desire in a native Amazonian subsistence economy’, Man, (N.S.) 24, 299-­‐314. Gow, Peter. 2000. ‘Helpless. The Affective Preconditions of Piro Social Life’, in Joanna Overing and Alan Passes (eds) The Anthropology of Love and Hate: the Aesthetics of Conviviality in Native Amazonia, London, Routledge. Toren, Christina. 1999. ‘Compassion for one another: constituting kinship as intentionality in Fiji’, 1996 Malinowski Lecture, the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, (N.S.) 5, 265-­‐280 September. Toren, Christina.2007. ‘Sunday Lunch in Fiji: Continuity and Transformation in Ideas of the Household.’ American Anthropologist Vol. 109, No. 2 pp 285-­‐295. Viegas, Susana de Matos. 2003. “Eating with Your Favourite Mother: Time and Sociality in a South Amerindian Community (South of Bahia/Brazil).” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 9, no. 1: 21–37. LECTURE FIVE: THE CHILD IN RITUAL Ritual is another key domain of anthropological investigation. This lectures shows why the analysis of ritual demands a child-­‐focused perspective on how ritual informs people’s lives. Fortes, Meyer. 1970. ‘Social and psychological aspects of education in Taleland’ in Time and Social Structure and other essays, London: Athlone. • Goldman, L.R. 1998. Child’s Play. Myth, Mimesis and Make-­‐Believe, Oxford, Berg. • Gottlieb, Alma. 2004. The Afterlife is Where We Come From. The culture of infancy in west Africa.: Chicago University Press. • Herdt, Gilbert. 1990. ‘Sambia nosebleeding rites and male proximity to women’ in J Stigler et al (eds) Cultural Psychology: Essays on comparative human development, Cambridge: CUP. • Telban, Borut. 1998. Dancing Through Time: A Sepik Cosmology, Oxford, Clarendon Press.. • Telban, Borut. 1998. ‘Body, being and identity in Ambonwari, Papua New Guinea.’ In Verena Keck (ed) Common Worlds and Single Lives: Constituting knowledge in Pacific societies, London, Berg, pp55-­‐70. • Toren, Christina. 2006. ‘The Effectiveness of Ritual.’ In The Anthropology of Christianity. Fenella Cannell, ed. Pp. 185–210. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. LECTURE SIX: LEARNING AND EDUCATION An implicit theory of learning informs all theoretical perspectives on what it is to be human. This lecture shows why it is so important to arrive at an ethnographic understanding of learning processes. •
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Evans, Gillian. 2006. Educational Failure and Working Class White Children in Britain, Palgrave Macmillan. Kulick, Don. 1992. Language Shift and Cultural Reproduction: Socialization, self, and syncretism in a Papua New Guinean village, Cambridge: C.U.P. 25
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Lave, Jean and Etienne Wenger. 1991. Situated Learning, Cambridge University Press. Nabobo-­‐Baba, Unaisi. 2006. Knowing and Learning. An Indigenous Fijian Approach. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific. Toren, Christina. 2009. ‘Intersubjectivity as epistemology’ in What is Happening to Epistemology? A special issue edited by Christina Toren and João de Pina-­‐Cabral. Social Analysis. Volume 53, Issue2. Toren, Christina. 2012. Learning as a microhistorical process. In Peter Jarvis, ed. The Learning Handbook. Routledge. LECTURE SEVEN: FIELDWORK WITH CHILDREN 26
TUTORIALS TUTORIAL 1 (WEEK 2) The aim of this tutorial is to think about ways in which foraging identities are constructed and the impact this has on the people designated as ‘forest people’. Do the assumptions of anthropologists’ and other ‘experts’ reflect the actual lived experiences of so-­‐called hunter-­‐gatherers? •
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Frankland, S., 1999. Turnbull’s Syndrome: Romantic fascination in the rainforest. In: Biesbrouk, K. et al (eds.), Central African Hunter-­‐Gatherers in a Multidisciplinary Perspective: Challenging Elusiveness. Universiteit Leiden: CNWS. (Short loan) Poyer, L. & Kelly, R.L., 2000. Mystification of the Mikea: Constructions of Foraging Identity in Southwest Madagascar. In: Journal of Anthropological Research, 56(2), pp. 163-­‐185. (Available online) TUTORIAL 2 (WEEK 3) How do assumptions about what it is to be a ‘Pygmy’ by external agencies continue to impact upon the life of the Baka? How do they respond? What are the assumptions? Who holds them? And how do these perceptions influnce Baka development? •
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Hewlett B.S 2000. Central African Government’s and International NGO’s Perceptions of Baka Pygmy Development. In: Schweitzer P.P. et al (eds.), 2000. Hunters and Gatherers in the Modern World. NY & Oxford: Berghahn Books. (Short loan) Köhler A. 2005. Of Apes and Men: Baka and Bantu Attitudes to Wildlife and the making of Eco-­‐
Goodies and Baddies. In: Conservation and Society, 3(2), pp.407-­‐435. Available online through library website. TUTORIAL 3 (WEEK 4) Discussion of symbolist approaches to food taboos. To what extent can food taboos be interpreted as evidence of a symbolic capacity in humans for social and cosmological ordering? •
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M. Douglas, Purity and Danger, chp. 3 J. Okely, Traveller Gypsies, chap. 6 See also, R. Keesing and A. Strathern, Cultural Anthropology (3rd edition), pp.104-­‐125 for a critique of cultural materialist explanation of food taboos, and pp.312-­‐316 for a commentary on Douglas’s work. 27
TUTORIAL 4 (WEEK 5) Discussion of various representations of time, or how time is given shape, in relation to differing sets of social activities. • Leach, E. “Two essays concerning the symbolic representation of time.” In E. Leach, Rethinking Anthropology (1961). Reprinted in W. Lessa and E. Vogt, Reader in Comparative Religion (1979), pp. 220-­‐229.* • Bourdieu, P. Algeria 1960 (1979) esp. pp. 8 -­‐ 29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.* TUTORIAL 5 (WEEK 6) What is Benjamin Whorf’s hypothesis about language (the Sapir Whorf Hypothesis)? What is Noam Chomsky’s theory of Universal Grammar? How does Daniel Everett’s analysis of the Piraha language challenge Chomsky’s view of language? If Everett is correct, what are the implications of the loss of linguistic diversity around the globe for our understanding of human diversity? •
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Whorf, B. “The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language” In: J. B. Carroll (ed.) Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (Cambridge, MIT Press: 1956), pp. 139 – 159 Colapinto. J. “The Interpreter: Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language?” The New Yorker, April 16, 2007.
TUTORIAL 6 (WEEK 7) What is “writing”? Is it necessarily phonetic? How does Boone define writing? What is her typology of writing throughout indigenous America? What does Adams mean by the “Inka paradox”? How do Inka khipus fit into our understanding of Amerindian communication systems? If we consider only phonetic graphic systems to be “writing”, are we distorting the nature of Amerindian graphic communication? Why does Boone believe that historians and anthropologists must consult histories that “are painted, knotted, and threaded”? • Boone, E. H. “The Cultural Category of Scripts, Signs, and Pictographies” In: Their Way of Writing: Scripts, Signs, and Pictographies in Pre-­‐Columbian America. Edited by Elizabeth Hill Boone and Gary Urton (Washington DC, Dumbarton Oaks, 2011), pp. 379-­‐390. • Adams, M. “Questioning the Inca Paradox: Did the civilization behind Machu Picchu really fail to develop a written language?” Slate, July 12, 2012. • Sangeeta L. "Reforming Relativists: Debates over Literacy and Difference", Cultural Critique, Winter, 183-­‐208, 1994. • Frank S. "How an Andean 'Writing Without Words' Works", Current Anthropology, 42(1), pp. 1-­‐27, 2001 28
TUTORIAL 7 (WEEK 8) In this tutorial we will take the discussion further by considering the issue of hydraulic fracturing, which is a technology that enables the extraction of oil and natural gas from previously inaccessible deposits. Of particular interest for this tutorial is the ability to drill horizontally for more than a mile underneath the ground. This means that above ground there might be agricultural fields (as in the article below), National Parks (as in the UK) or even schools and airports (as in Texas). To what extent do you feel that this ‘mixing’ of industrial and other environments is problematic? If it is ‘matter out of place’, what underpins your discomfort? And if it is just necessary extraction, what underpins your ease? Required readings: • De Rijke, K. 2013. “The Agri-­‐Gas Fields of Australia: Black soil, food, and unconventional gas”. Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment vol. 35, issue 1, pp. 41-­‐53. • Douglas, M. 2003. “Secular Defilement”. In Purity and Danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. Pp. 36-­‐50. (in particular pp. 45-­‐50) Supplementary reading: • BBC News: “Fracking under National Parks Backed by MPs”. 16 December 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-­‐politics-­‐35107203 TUTORIAL 8 (WEEK 9) For this final tutorial we will be exploring alternative lifestyles of low carbon living and the kinds of assumptions that undergird these experiments. One of the experiments is the One Tonne Life project based in Sweden where a family tried to live a comfortable life using only one tonne of carbon per person per year. The project aimed to give a family an equivalent quality of life that the average Swedish family now has, only with much lower emissions. The other experiment is the 100 Days Without Oil carried out by a 25 year-­‐old woman in the US. Her goal was to understand the extent of oil dependence in American society today and use that understanding to identify the many systems that will have to be modified in a world without cheap oil. To what extent do these experiments transcend local histories and cultural practices? Do people cross-­‐culturally face the same predicament when there is no longer an abundance of cheap oil? And how do you think people’s economic lives will look in the future? Required readings: • http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-­‐product-­‐design/low-­‐carbon-­‐living-­‐experiment-­‐ends-­‐did-­‐
the-­‐lindell-­‐family-­‐achieve-­‐a-­‐one-­‐tonne-­‐life-­‐video.html?campaign=daily_nl • http://www.100dayswithoutoil.blogspot.co.uk/ Supplementary readings: • Pickerill, Jenny. 2016. Eco-­‐Homes: People, Places and Politics. 29
TUTORIAL 9 (WEEK 10) Why does it make analytical sense to include children in anthropological studies of social processes? What are the arguments against ‘the anthropology of childhood’? • Robertson, A.F. 1996. The development of meaning: Ontogeny and culture. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Dec96, Vol. 2 Issue 4, p591. 20p • Toren, C. 2009. ‘Intersubjectivity as epistemology’ in What is Happening to Epistemology? A special issue edited by Christina Toren and João de Pina-­‐Cabral. Social Analysis. Volume 53, Issue2. TUTORIAL 10 (WEEK 11) In the absence of field data from children, anthropologists cannot fully understand what adults are doing and saying. •
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Telban, B. 1998. ‘Body, being and identity in Ambonwari, Papua New Guinea.’ In Verena Keck (ed) Common Worlds and Single Lives: Constituting knowledge in Pacific societies, London, Berg, pp55-­‐
70. Toren, C. 2006. The effectiveness of ritual. In F.Cannell (ed.) The Anthropology of Christianity, Duke University Press. Pp185-­‐210. 2006 30
ESSAYS
Students must write two assessed essays of 2000 words for the module. The first essay question must be chosen from the list below under Essay 1. The second essay question must be chosen from the list below under Essay 2. ESSAY 1 DUE BY 23.59 ON 11TH MARCH 2016 1. Discuss the ways in which Euro-­‐American representations of ‘Pygmies’ have created the myth of the ‘Forest People’. • Ballard, C. 2006. Strange alliance: Pygmies in the colonial imaginary. In: World Archaeology, 38(1), pp. 133-­‐151, • Feld, S. 1996. Pygmy POP. A Genealogy of Schizophonic Mimesis. In: Yearbook for Traditional Music, 28, pp. 1-­‐35 • Frankland, S. 2009. The Bulimic Consumption of Pygmies: Regurgitating an Image of Otherness. In: Robinison, M. & Picard, D. (eds), The Framed World: Tourism, Tourists and Photography, pp. 95-­‐116. London: Ashgate. • Frankland, S. 2001. Pygmic Tours. In: African Study Monographs, 26, pp. 237-­‐ 256. • Kidd, C. 2009. Inventing the “Pygmy”: Representing the “Other”, Presenting the “Self”. In: History and Anthropology, 20(4), pp. 395-­‐418. • Lysloff, R.T.A. 1997. Mozart in Mirrorshades: Ethnomusicology, Technology, and the Politics of Representation. In: Ethnomusicology, 41(2), pp. 206-­‐219. 2. In what ways have discrimination and social exclusion determined the lived conditions of the Twa ‘Pygmies’? • Adamczyk, C. 2011. ‘Today, I am no Mutwa anymore’: facets of national unity discourse in present-­‐day Rwanda. In: Social Anthropology, 19(2), pp. 175–188. • Beswick, D. 2011. Democracy, identity and the politics of exclusion in post-­‐genocide Rwanda: the case of the Batwa. In: Democratization, 18(2), pp. 490-­‐511. • Jackson, D. 2003. Twa Women, Twa Rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. London: Minority Rights Group International. • Lewis, J. 2000. The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes region. London: Minority Rights Group International. • Taylor, C.C. 2011. Molders of Mud: Ethnogenesis and Rwanda's Twa. In: Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, 76(2), pp. 183-­‐208. 31
• Taylor, C.C. 2004. Dual systems in Rwanda: Have they ever really existed? In: Anthropological Theory, 4(3), pp. 353–371 3. Examine, using ethnographic examples, the different shapes given to, or multiple representations of, time in relation to differing sets of social activities, and/or with respect to people’s destabilised experience through the onset of illness in specific cultural settings. • Adam, B. 1994. 'Perceptions of time', in T. Ingold (ed), Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology. London: Routledge.* • Dilley, R. 2005. 'Time-­‐Shapes and Cultural Agency Among West African Craft Specialists', in James & Mills (eds) see below. • Gell, A. 1992. The Anthropology of Time. Oxford: Berg.* • Irving, A. 2005. 'Persons In and Out of Time Life Made Strange: On the Re-­‐Inhabitation of Bodies and Landscapes, in James & Mills (eds) see below. • James, W. & D. Mills, (eds). 2005. The Qualities of Time: Anthropological Approaches. Oxford: Berg (especially the ‘Introduction’), chaps 13 and 18.* • Bourdieu, P. 1979. Algeria 1960, esp. pp. 8 -­‐ 29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.* 4. How do written and spoken forms of magical words differ from forms of ordinary language? Describe the ways in which social anthropologists have accounted for this difference. • Dilley, R. 2004. Islamic and Caste Knowledge Practices, Chapter 7, ‘The Power of the Word’. Edinburgh University Press. • El-­‐Tom, A. 1985. 'Drinking the Koran: The Meaning of Koranic Verses in Berti Erasure', in J. D. Y. Peel and C. C. Stewart (eds), 'Popular Islam' South of the Sahara, Special Edition of Africa, 1985, vol. 55, No. 4., pp. 414-­‐31; • Goody, J. (ed.) 1968. 'Introduction' (pp. 1-­‐27) and 'Restricted Literacy in Northern Ghana' (pp. 199-­‐264), in Literacy in Traditional Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. • Lévi-­‐Strauss, C. 1976 [1955]. Tristes Tropiques [esp. chap 28, 'A Writing Lesson', pp. 385-­‐99]. Harmondsworth: Penguin. • Malinowski, B. 1935. Coral Gardens and their Magic: A Study of the Methods of Tiling the Soil and of Agricultural Rites in the Trobriand Islands. 2 Vols. London: George Allen and Unwin.* • Tambiah, S. 1969. 'The Magical Power of Words', Man, 1969, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 175-­‐208. • Tambiah, S. 1990. Magic, Science, Religion and the Scope of Rationality. Cambridge University Press. ____________________________
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ESSAY 2 DUE BY 23.59 ON 22ND APRIL 2016 5. "People who speak radically different languages perceive and think about the world quite differently". Discuss. • Whorf, B. “The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language” In: J. B. Carroll (ed.) Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (Cambridge, MIT Press: 1956), pp. 139 – 159 • Colapinto. J. “The Interpreter: Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language?” The New Yorker, April 16, 2007. • Wade Davis, “The Wonder of the Ethnosphere” In: Wade Davis, Light at the Edge of the World: A Journey Through the Realm of Vanishing Cultures. (Douglas &McIntyre, 2007), pp. 1-­‐
14. • K. David Harrison, “A World of Many (Fewer) Voices” In: K. David Harrison, When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World’s Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge. (Oxford U. Press, 2007), pp. 2-­‐21. • Elizabeth Kolbert, “Letter from Alaska: Last Words, A Language Dies” The New Yorker (6 June 2005), pp. 46-­‐59. • Michael E. Krauss, "A History of Eyak Language Documentation and Study", Arctic Anthropology, 43 (2), pp. 172-­‐218, 2006. 6. How do Amerindian forms of graphic communication challenge traditional notions of writing? Support your answer with examples" from at least two different Amerindian cultures. • Adams, M. “Questioning the Inca Paradox: Did the civilization behind Machu Picchu really fail to develop a written language?” Slate, July 12, 2012. • Frank Salomon and Sabine Hyland, “Introduction” In: Graphic Pluralism: Native American Inscription and the Colonial Situation, Special Volume Ethnohistory (Vol. 57, Number 1, Winter 2010), pp. 1-­‐9. • Heidi Bohaker, “Reading Anishinaabe Identities: Meaning and Metaphor in Nindoodem Pictographs” In: Graphic Pluralism: Native American Inscription and the Colonial Situation, Special Volume Ethnohistory (Vol. 57, Number 1, Winter 2010), pp. 11-­‐33. • Elizabeth Hill Boone, “Presidential Lecture: Discourse and Authority in Histories Painted, Knotted and Threaded”, Ethnohistory (vol. 59, no. 2, Spring 2012), pp. 211-­‐237. • Marshall Joseph Becker, "A Wampum Belt Chronology: Origins to Modern Times", Northeast Anthropology, 63, pp. 49-­‐70, 2001. • Christina Burke, "Collecting Lakota Histories: Winter Count Pictographs and Texts in the National Anthropological Archives", American Indian Art 26 (1), pp. 82-­‐103, 2000. • Gary Urton, "From Knots to Narratives: Reconstructing the Art of Historical Record Keeping in the Andes from Spanish Transcriptions of Inka Khipus", Ethnohistory, 45 (3), pp. 409-­‐438, 1998. 33
• Stephen D. Houston, “Literacy Among the Pre-­‐Columbian Maya: A Comparative Perspective” In: Elizabeth Hill Boone and Walter D. Mignolo (eds), Writing Without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes (Duke U. Press, 1994). 7. Why was the Kula Ring such an important ethnographic example for economic anthropology? Supplementary readings in addition to the readings assigned for lecture 1: • Landa, J. T. 1983. “The Enigma of the Kula Ring: Gift-­‐exchanges and primitive law and order”. International Review of Law and Economics, vol. 3, issue 2, pp. 137-­‐160. • Leach, J. W. and Edmund Leach. 1983. The Kula: new perspectives on Massim exchange. • Mauss, M. 1954. The Gift: Forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies. • Uberoi, JP Singh. 1962. Politics of the Kula Ring: An analysis of the findings of Bronislaw Malinowski. • Weiner, A. B. 1976. Women of Value, Men of Renown: New perspectives in Trobriand exchange. 8. According to Dilley (1992), markets are cultural constructs. Discuss with reference to TWO ethnographic examples. Supplementary readings in addition to the assigned readings for lecture 4: • Applbaum, K. 2009. “Getting to Yes: Corporate power and the creation of a psychopharmaceutical blockbuster”. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry vol. 33, issue 2, pp. 185-­‐215. • Foster, R. J. 2008. “Commodities, Brands, Love and Kula: Comparative notes on value creation in honor of Nancy Munn”. Anthropological Theory vol. 8, issue 1, pp. 9-­‐25. • Le Clair, E. E. and H. K. Schneider (eds) 1968. Economic Anthropology: Readings in theory and analysis. • Mazzarella, W.. 2003. “‘Very Bombay’: Contending with the global in an Indian advertising agency”. Cultural Anthropology vol. 18, issue 1, pp. 33-­‐71. • Schneider, H. K. 1974. Economic Man: The anthropology of economics. • Watson, J. L. (ed.) 2006. Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia. The reading appropriate for each essay is apparent under the lecture topics listed, but you should not necessarily confine yourself to these; it is advisable to read across topics to demonstrate in your essay a good understanding of child-­‐focused anthropology. 9. How might the ethnographic analysis of ritual be illuminated by the study of children? • Enfield, N.J. and Stephen C. Levinson. 2006. Eds. Roots of Human Sociality. Culture, Cognition and Interaction. Berg. Introduction. • Goldman, L.R. 1998. Child’s Play. Myth, Mimesis and Make-­‐Believe, Oxford, Berg. 34
• Gottlieb, Alma. 2004. The Afterlife is Where We Come From. The culture of infancy in west Africa.: Chicago University Press. • Ingold, T. 2007. ‘The social child’. In Alan Fogel, Barbara King and Stuart Shanker, Eds. Human Development in the Twenty-­‐First Century. A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Life Sciences, Cambridge University Press. • Toren, C. 2006. ‘The Effectiveness of Ritual.’ In The Anthropology of Christianity. Fenella Cannell, ed. Pp. 185–210. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. • Toren, C. 2007. ‘An anthropology of human development: what difference does it make?’ In Alan Fogel, Barbara King and Stuart Shanker, Eds. Human Development in the Twenty-­‐First Century. A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Life Sciences, Cambridge University Press. 10. What do you understand by the terms ‘socialisation’ and ‘enculturation’. What problems do these ideas pose for an ethnographic analysis of how children learn? • Briggs, J. 1979. Aspects of Inuit Value Socialization, Ottowa: National Museum of Man, Mercury Series. • Evans, G. 2006. Educational Failure and Working Class White Children in Britain, Palgrave Macmillan. • Goldin-­‐Meadow, S. 2006. ‘Meeting other minds through gesture: how children use their hands to reinvent language and distribute cognition.’ In N.J. Enfield and Stephen C. Levinson, eds. Roots of Human Sociality. Culture, Cognition and Interaction. Berg. • Lave, J and E Wenger. 1991. Situated Learning, Cambridge University Press. • Nabobo-­‐Baba, U. 2006. Knowing and Learning. An Indigenous Fijian Approach. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific. • Toren, C. 2012. Learning as a microhistorical process. In Peter Jarvis, ed. The Learning Handbook. Routledge. ___________________________
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HINTS ON WRITING ESSAYS AND EXAM ANSWERS Please note the following key points: Essays should be typed and submitted via MMS (https://www.st-­‐andrews.ac.uk/mms/) Essays should be properly referenced, especially direct quotations from books and articles, and a bibliography should be attached. The bibliography should only contain items that have been specifically referred to in the text. We strongly recommend that you follow the system explained in the last section of this handbook. Consult your lecturer/tutor/supervisor if in doubt. ESSAY WRITING 1. Writing an essay or report is an exercise in the handling of ideas. It is not the mere transcription of long and irrelevant passages from textbooks. To gain a pass mark, an essay or report must show evidence of hard thinking (ideally, original thinking) on the student's part. 2. When a lecturer sets you an essay or report he or she is explicitly or implicitly asking you a question. Above all else your aim should be to discern what that question is and to answer it. You should give it a cursory answer in the first paragraph (introduction), thus sketching your plan of attack. Then in the body of the essay or report you should give it a detailed answer, disposing in turn of all the points that it has raised. And at the end (conclusion) you should give it another answer, i.e. a summary of your detailed answer. Note If the question has more than one part you should dedicate equal attention to each one. 3. An essay or report must be based on a sound knowledge of the subject it deals with. This means that you must read. If you are tempted to answer any question off the top of your head, or entirely from your own personal experience or general knowledge, you are asking for trouble. 4. Make brief notes as you read, and record the page references. Don't waste time by copying out long quotations. Go for the ideas and arrange these on paper. Some people find that arranging ideas in diagrams and tables makes them easier to remember and use than verbal passages. You will find it easier to do this if you keep certain questions in mind: What is the author driving at? What is the argument? Does it apply only to a particular society, or are generalised propositions being made? How well do the examples used fit the argument? Where are the weaknesses? Also think about the wider implications of an argument. Copy the actual words only if they say something much more aptly than you could say yourself. It is a good plan to write notes on the content of your reading in blue and your own comments on them in red. There is another aspect of your reading which should go hand in hand with the assessment of any one item: you should compare what you have read in different books and articles. Test what one author proposed against evidence from other societies: what do the different approaches lend to one another? In this way you should begin to see the value (and the problems) of comparison and learn that writers disagree and write contradictory things, and that all printed matter is not indisputable just because it lies between hard covers. Note that as well as showing evidence of reading of set texts, good answers link the essay topic back to material given in lectures or tutorials. You can also gain marks by including additional reading, providing it is clear from your essay that you have actually read it! 36
5. Don't then sit down and write the essay or report. Plan it first. Give it a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Much of the information you will have collected will have to be rejected because it isn't relevant. Don't be tempted to include anything that hasn't a direct bearing on the problem expressed in the title of the essay or report. Note that in the introductory paragraph it is a good idea to make it absolutely clear to the reader exactly what you understand by certain crucial concepts you will be discussing in the essay -­‐these concepts will probably be those which appear in the essay title. Define these concepts if you think there may be any ambiguity about them. Note also that when you give examples to illustrate a point be careful not to lose track of the argument. Examples are intended to illustrate a general (usually more abstract) point; they are not a substitute for making this point. 6. When you finally start on the essay or report, please remember these points: (a) Leave wide margins and a space at the end for comments. Any work that is illegible, obviously too long or too short, or lacking margins and a space at the end will be returned for re-­‐writing. Essays should be typed, preferably on one side of the paper and double-­‐spaced. (b) Append a bibliography giving details of the material you have read and cited in the essay. Arrange it alphabetically by author and by dates of publication. Look at the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute as an example of the style of presenting a bibliography. N.B. In the body of the essay or report, whenever you have occasion to support a statement by reference to a book or article, give in brackets the name of the author and date. To acknowledge a quotation or a particular observation, the exact page number should be added. For example, 'Shortly after the publication of The Andaman Islanders, Radcliffe-­‐Brown drew attention to the importance of the mother's brother (Radcliffe-­‐
Brown 1924). What kindled his interest in the South African material was the pseudo-­‐historical interpretation of Henri Junod (Radcliffe-­‐Brown 1952: 15) ...........' If you are not sure how to do this, look in the journal Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute or some monograph in the library to get an idea of how this is done. Alternatively, footnote your references. Note that if you simply copy a writer's words into your essay without acknowledgement you will lose marks, and could even receive a zero mark. 7. Footnotes should be placed either at the foot of each page, or all together at the end. If on each page, they should be numbered consecutively from the beginning of each chapter, e.g. 1-­‐22. If placed all together at the end, they should be numbered consecutively throughout the whole research project, e.g. 1-­‐103, in which case do not start renumbering for each chapter. 8. Footnote references in the text should be clearly designated by means of superior figures, placed after punctuation, e.g. ................the exhibition. 10 9. Underlining (or italics) should include titles of books and periodical publications, and technical terms or phrases not in the language of the essay, (e.g. urigubu, gimwali). 10. Italicize: ibid., idem., op.cit., loc.cit., and passim. 11. Single inverted commas should be placed at the beginning and end of quotations, with double inverted commas for quotes-­‐within-­‐quotes. 12. If quotations are longer than six typed lines they should be indented, in which case inverted commas are not needed. 13. PLEASE TRY TO AVOID GENDER-­‐SPECIFIC LANGUAGE. Don't write he/him when you could be referring to a woman! You can avoid this problem by using plurals (they/them). 37
Referencing: Correct referencing is a critical aspect of all essays. It is the primary skill that you are expected to learn and it also guards you against the dangers of plagiarism. Make sure that when you are reading texts that you note down accurately the source of information by recording the name of the author, the book title, page number and so forth. This will enable you to reference correctly when it comes to writing your essay. Adequate referencing requires you to indicate in the appropriate places in body of your essay the source of any information you may use. Such references vary in kind, but a general guide to the correct format would be: A general reference: … as Turnbull’s (1983) work demonstrates … … the romanticisation of Pygmies has been commonplace in anthropology (e.g. Turnbull 1983) … Note: In this example, the author is referring to Turnbull’s work in a general way. If the author was referring to specific ideas or details made by Turnbull, then the page number needs to be specified. A paraphrase: … Turnbull describes how the Ituri Forest had remained relatively untouched by colonialism (Turnbull 198 3: 24) … Note: This is more specific than a general reference as it refers to a particular point or passage by an author. It is your summary of a point made by someone else (in this case Turnbull). When paraphrasing, you must always include the page number in your reference. A quotation: … under these circumstances, “the Mbuti could always escape to the forest” (Turnbull 1983: 85). Note: All quotes from anyone else’s work must be acknowledged and be placed within speech marks. The page number or numbers must be referenced. If you need to alter any of the words within the quote to clarify your meaning, the words changed or added should be placed in square brackets [thus] to indicate that they are not those of the original author. Bibliography: All tests referenced within the body of your essay must be included within the bibliography. Entries in the bibliography should be organised in alphabetical order and should contain full publication details. Consult an anthropological journal, such as the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI), to see how the correct format should appear. This is available both electronically and in hard copy. The standard format of bibliographic referencing is as follows: Book: Turnbull, C.M. 1983. The Mbuti Pygmies: Change and Adaptation. New York, Holt Reinhart and Wilson. Edited Collection: Leacock, E. & R. Lee (eds) 1982. Politics and History in Band Societies. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. Chapter in edited collection: Woodburn. J.C. (1980). Hunters and gatherers today and reconstruction of the past. In Soviet and western anthropology (ed.) E. Gellner. London: Duckworth. Journal article: Ballard, C. 2006. Strange alliance: Pygmies in the colonial imaginary. World Archaeology,38, 1, 133 151. Web pages: It is unadvisable to use web sites unless directed to them by a lecturer. There is a great deal of rubbish on the Internet. However, if you do, it is important that you provide full details of the web-­‐page address as well as the date on which the page was accessed. 38
Miller, J.J. 2000, Accessed 22/09/2006. The Fierce People: The wages of anthropological incorrectness. Article available electronically at: http://www.nationalreview.com/20nov00/miller112000.shtml. If you are not sure how to do this, look in the journal JRAI or some monograph in the library to get an idea of how this is done. Alternatively, footnote your references. Note that if you simply copy a writer's words into your essay without acknowledgement you run the risk of plagiarism and will lose marks, and may even receive a zero mark. 8. Please also note the following: (a) Spellings, grammar, writing style. Failure to attend to these creates a poor impression. Note, especially: society, argument, bureaucracy. (b) Foreign words: Underline (or italicize) these, unless they have passed into regular English. (c) PLEASE TRY TO AVOID GENDER-­‐SPECIFIC LANGUAGE. Don't write he/him when you could be referring to a woman! You can avoid this problem by using plurals (they/them). ____________________________
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