Neuroanthropology

1. Neuroanthropology Paul H. Mason PhD Candidate Macquarie University

2. EMBODIED BRAIN SOCIETY CULTURE brain- brain interactions brain- culture interactions experience ENVIRONMENT music dance language history brain- environment interactions culture-environment interactions REALITY time time

3. neuroanthropology neuroanthropology • ‘Neuroanthropology of Tourette’s Syndrome’, Oliver Sacks awarded Guggenheim Fellowship (1989) • Neuroanthropology aims to study both how culture shapes neurological processes and how neurological substrates may produce distinctive cultural behaviours (Couser 2001)

4. neurology and anthropology neurology and anthropology Paul Broca 19th century anthropologist and neuroscientist (Monod-Broca 2005) • Jean Pierre Changeux, L’homme Neuronal (1983)

5. neuroanthropology neuroanthropology • “One of the most fundamental intellectual contributions of cultural anthropology is the illumination of the role of cultural patterning in human cognition.”(Paredes and Hepburn 1976) • “The investigation of the cultural determinants of the ways in which our brains are developed historically and put to use” (Ten Houten et al. 1976:506) • “The study of the relationship between the brain and sociocultural behaviour.” (Laughlin, McManus, and d’Aquili 1979)

6. neuroanthropology neuroanthropology • A field of enquiry at the intersection of science and culture, neuroanthropology is “The study of the cultural basis of mind and the biological basis of cultures.” (Mason 2005) “Just as anthropological … research has promoted our understanding of the variety of ways people process and interpret information from the external world, so researchers in neuroscience have been doing much to introduce us to the variety of forms of mental processing that have evolved on this earth.” (Duffy 2001:64)