Theories & Methods of Anthropology

1. Theories & Methods of Anthropology

2. Part One: Building the Discipline

3. Evolutionism AIM: Why did evolutionism fade away?

4. Evolutionism • Dominate intellectual perspective in the middle of the 19th century. • Evolutionism eventually overtaken by historical particularism and structural functionalism. • Evolutionism, historical particularism, and structural functionalism were most significant theoretical orientations for almost 100 years.

5. Evolutionism – Early Controversies • Do all human beings have a common origin (monogenesis) or different origins and developments (polygenesis)? • Much of this theory contained racial predjudice

6. Basic Features of Evolutionism • Ethnocentric • Tended to evaluate cultures of the world in terms of model of Victorian England • Underlying assumption that evolutionism culminated in England and Europe • Armchair Speculation • Early anthropologists did not do fieldwork • Relied on data supplied by untrained amateurs • Focus was the comparative method, with the assumption that societies could be arranged into a taxonomy

7. Basic Features of Evolutionism • Assumption all cultures had gone through same stages of evolution, in the same order • Inevitable Progress • Emphasis on progress, order, rationality

8. Key Figures in Evolutionism

9. Edward B. Tylor (1832-1917) • Born into a wealthy family in London, England • Never conducted in-depth, original fieldwork • 1871 – Primitive Culture • Focus on religion • Defined religion as a belief in spiritual beings • Argued culture evolved from the simple to the complex • Three Stages • Savagery • Barbarism • Civilization • Tylor stressed the rationale basis of culture • Social institutions are driven by reasons, and customs

10. Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) • Born in the United States • Ethnographic studies focused on Native Americans • 1877 – Ancient Society • Like Tylor, argued society evolved over three stages • Savagery • Lower • Middle • Upper • Barbarism • Lower • Middle • Upper • Civilization • Shift from lower to higher stage was introduction of a significant technological innovation

11. Morgan also associated with distinction between classifactory and descriptive kinship terminology • Classifactory System – same terms that apply for relatives such as husband and wife may be applied to a wider range of kin • Descriptive Terminology – terms such as father or daughter designate a specific and narrow range of individuals characterized by biological or marital relations.

12. For Tylor and Morgan, the transition from lower to higher stage meant progress, not only technological sophistication but also in morality. • Racist perspective • Terminological Adjustments • Savages  Hunters & Gathers • Barbarians  Horticulturalists • Civilized People  citizens of modern, stratified states

13. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) • Born in England • Two Stages of Evolution • Militaristic (central authority) • Industrial (individual freedom) • At an advanced stage of evolution, the parts of society (individuals) dominate the whole (the state) rather then the reverse • Believed society evolved from simple to the complex • Some of Spencer’s ideas paved the way Darwin • “Survival of the fittest” coined by Spencer • Believed humans subject to same natural laws as non-humans • Eventually society would progress to perfection

14. Evaluation • Evolutionism placed emphasis on survival of the fittest and with the assumed superiority of the European • Provided support for colonialism & imperialism

15. Historical Particularism AIM: Why did historical particularism fade away?

16. Diffusionism • Historical particularism was main argument in America against evolutionism • Main aspect was diffusionism • Diffusionism – an aspect of culture, such as discover of the wheel, religious belief, or marital practices tend to spread from one culture to another, eventually becoming integrated into all of the cultures in a given geographical area • No longer need for each culture to evolve through specific stages in a specific order

17. Three schools of Diffusionism • KulturkreiseSchool • Explain the development of culture through migration and diffusion • British Diffusionism • Implausable claim that Egypt was source of virtually all cultural traits and innovations, which then diffused to rest of the planet • Short-lived • Historical Particularism

18. Basic Features of Historical Particularism • Focus on one culture (or cultural area) and that the history of that culture be reconstructed • Diffusion • Any particular culture was partly composed of elements diffused from other cultures • Culture is a loosely organized entity, rather then a tightly fused system • Culture is to some extent unique • Focus on emic analysis • Social life is guided by habit and tradition • Relativism • Since each culture is to some degree unique, unacceptable to pass judgment on beliefs and actions found in other cultures • Cautious generalizations • Emphasis on original fieldwork • Inductive procedure

19. Key Figures in Historical Particularism

20. Franz Boas (1858-1942) • Born and educated in Germany • Focus on importance of culture • Concentrate research efforts on Native people of the west coast of British Columbia • Descriptive accounts of potlatch among Kwakiutl (1897) • Rigorous fieldwork standards • Collect native texts, vernacular accounts of aspects of culture • Inductivist • Only after masses of solid data had been collected could stabs at explanation and generalization be made • Impact on American anthropology • Taught at Columbia from 1896 – 1937 • Trained and influenced a lot of anthropologists

21. Ruth Benedict (1887-1948) • Trained by Boas • 1934 – Patterns of Culture • Leading figure in culture and personality school • Believed each culture promoted a distinct personality type, and that there was a high degree of consistency between cultural type and patterns of emotion • Modal Personalities • A statistically most prominent personality which left room for other types • Eventually view emerged that each culture had several modal personalities

22. Margaret Mead (1901-1978) • Student of both Boas and Benedict • Selected Samoa to demonstrate overwhelming importance of culture • 1928 – Coming of Age in Samoa • 1930 – Growing Up in New Guinea • 1935 – Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies • Focused on gender studies in her later years

23. Evaluation • Boas’s emphasis on: • Subjectivity (personal interpretation) • Insistence on collection of original texts (emic) • Distrust in grand theoretical schemes • Promotion of relativism

24. Structural Functionalism AIM: How did structural functionalism become the dominant anthropological theory?

25. Structural Functionalism • Initial reaction in British anthropology against evolutionism took form of diffusionsim • From late 1800s until 1950s/60s, structural functionalism was leading theory in British anthropology

26. Basic Features of Structural Functionalism • Organic Analogy • Society is like a biological organism, with structures and functions • Natural science orientation • Empirical, orderly, patterned • Narrow conceptual territory • Investigations should be restricted to social structure (society) • Rarely paid much attention to art, language, ideology, the individual, technology, or environmental factors • Existing structures and institutions in any particular society contained indispensable functions without which the society would fall apart, and these structures and functions or their equivalents were found in all healthy societies

27. Basic Features of Structural Functionalism • Significance of kinship system and the family • Equilibrium • Society was not only thought to be highly patterned, but also in a state of equilibrium and would re-equilibrate when disruptions occurred • Society exhibited long-term stability • Anti-historical • Did not encourage a historical perspective • Fieldwork Orientation • Devoted to first-hand, participant observational research

28. Key Figures in Structural functionalism

29. A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955) • Born in England • Disciple of Durkheim • Powerful theoretician • Promoted three stages of scientific investigation • Observation (collecting data) • Taxonomy (classifying the data) • Generalizations (theoretical excursions) • Believed cross-cultural comparisons and generalizations were essential to anthropology • Natural science model of society was unable to cope with complexities of social life

30. Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) • Born in Poland, but taught in London • Father of Modern Fieldwork • Long-term participant observation in a small community • Research among Trobrianders • Remained among them for four years, setting standard for future fieldwork • Kula Ring

31. The Kula Ring • Necklaces were exchanged clockwise from one Trobriand island to another • Armshells were exchanged counter-clockwise • Exchange was ceremonial (neither item had any intrinsic value) • Exchanges increased level of interaction and decreased the degree of hostility among the people of various islands • Made bartering for valuable resources possible with others • Could not barter with groups you exchanged necklaces or armbands with • Contributed to social solidarity and prevented squabbles over who got the best deal

32. Malinowski vs. Radcliffe-Brown • Malinowski placed emphasis more on function than structure • Focused more on what institutions actually contributed to a society • Radcliffe-Brown gave priority to social structure • Malinowski argued that the function of institutions was to satisfy biological needs. Radcliffe-Brown saw their function as fulfilling the mechanical needs of society • Malinowski stressed the importance of gathering native texts, or accounts of beliefs and behaviors in native’s own words • Malinowski & Radcliffe-Brown held many of the same views as well

33. Evaluation • Structural functionalism provided anthropology with a coherent and tidy framework • At its most basic level, procedure only required ethnographers to identify patterns of action and belief, and specify their functions. • Downplayed conflict and almost ignored social change • Structural functionalism suited to maintaining colonial empires once they had been established

34. CONCLUSIONS • Through the first phase of anthropology, there was a general commitment to establishing a scientific study of culture or society

35. Methods AIM: What methods did anthropologists use through the first phase of theories?

36. Methods • Methods courses were almost unheard of until the 1960s / 70s • Very little attention paid to ethics • 1874 – Notes and Queries • Published by British Association for Advancement of Science in era before anthropologists began to collect their own data • Provided a guide to amateurs, highlighting themes and categories they should focus their inquiries on

37. The Fieldwork Situation • In the late 1800s, there was a division of labor between the professional anthropologist and amateur fieldworker • Anthropologist remained in comfort of the library and museum • Amateurs travelled to remote parts of the world collecting materials • By early 20th century, anthropologists themselves began to do fieldwork • At first the emphasis was on fieldwork rather then participation • When 1913 edition of Notes and Queries was published there was an argument for intensive participant observation studies, to be carried out by a sole researcher in a small population over a period of at least a year

38. Basic Techniques and Related Elements - Fieldwork • Participant observation • Reliance on informants • The interview (usually unstructured) • Genealogies & life histories • Collecting census material • Long period of fieldwork • Learning indigenous language • Emphasis on actor’s point of view (emic) • Emphasis on informal rather than formal structure • Back rather then front stage • Emphasis on validity rather than reliability • Validity implies ‘truth’ • Reliability just means that repeat studies will produce same results • Limit on size of population • Comparative method as alternative to controlled lab experiment • Inductive research design • Reaching conclusion based on observation: generalizing to produce a universal claim or principle from observed instances • Search for virgin territory • Exaggeration of the degree of cultural uniqueness • The more exotic, the better • One’s research site should be as remote and isolated as possible so no other anthropologist will ever check up on one’s ethnographic findings • Fieldwork personality • Flexible and perceptive, sense of humor • Strong constitution, good listener • Sustained disbelief • Doubt about what people said, about their explanations for beliefs and behavior…anthropologists had to get to the truth

39. Part Two: Patching the Foundation AIM: How did future theories help to fill in some of the holes of earlier anthropological theories?

40. Cultural ecology AIM: How did future theories help to fill in some of the holes of earlier anthropological theories?

41. Historical particularism in America and structural functionalism in Britain proved to be the leading theoretical approaches, dominating the discipline up to World War II • By 1950s & 1960s anthropological landscape had changed • Cultural ecology • Conflict Theory • Social Action Theory (…) • Each orientation, in different ways, attempted to keep the dream of a scientific study of society alive by patching the cracks that had begun to weaken historical particularism and structural functionalism

42. Cultural Ecology (and Neo-Evolutionism) • Julian Steward developed theoretical orientation about influence of the environment on culture • Eventually grafted into a revitalized version of evolutionism

43. Basic Features of Cultural Evolutionism • Culture is shaped by environmental conditions • Techno-economic factors combine with environment to influence social organization and ideology • Human population continuously adapt to techno-economic-environmental conditions • Culture also shapes techno-economic-environmental factors • Emphasis on etic rather then emic data • Meaning is a product of social structure • Culture is purposeful and functional • De-emphasis on the individual • Social structure, social groups, ecological and technological factors explain culture • Emphasis on etic data • Capable of producing causal explanations and laws • Evolutionary context • Ecological and technological factors driving force in human interaction, also fundamental to historical development of society

44. Key Figures in Cultural Ecology

45. Julian Steward (1902-1972) • Influenced by Boas • 1955 – Theory of Culture Change • Ecology defined as adaption of culture to environmental and technological factors • Less developed the level of technology in a society, greater the influence of the environment • Hunting-and-Gathering societies at whim of environment • Social organization and population dictated by environment • No economic surplus to permit stratification • As level of technology in a society improves, there is greater control over environment, increased economic surplus and population density, and a shift from egalitarianism to class stratification • In highly advanced societies, environment ceases to be a controlling force • Cultural ecology loses influence when environment does not matter • Today, environmental factors such as pollution, deforestation, global warming are making people think twice about environment ceasing to be a controlling factor

46. Not only did environmental conditions shape culture, but each culture was composed of thoroughly practical and useful adaptions to its environment • If a foreign culture consisting of agriculturalists and possessing different social organization was plopped into ecological zone occupied by hunters-gathers, the alien culture (agriculturalists) would have to adapt their social organization and values to survive • Steward divided culture into core and periphery • Core consisted of enduring and causal features of culture • Core includes social organization, politics, religion • Cannot escape impact of techno-economic factors • Periphery consists of fortuitous or accidental features • Includes artistic patterns, fads, quirks • Largely independent of techno-environmental base

47. Steward and Evolutionism • Emphasis on critical role of environment in evolutionary scheme • Rejected notion of unilinear development • Particular cultures diverge significantly from one another and do not pass through unilineal stages • Cultures have evolved along several different lines, at different rates • Multi-linear evolutionism • Rejected old assumption that evolution equals progress • Neo-evolutionists Unilinear vs. Multi-linear

48. Leslie White (1900 -1975) • American anthropologist • Emphasized etic rather then emic • Saw culture as a highly integrated entity rather then a loose bundle of traits • Assigned contributing priority to techno-economic factors, while dismissing individual and personality as irrelevant to anthropology • Culture is utilitarian • Culture composed of four sectors: • Technology • Social Structure • Ideological • Attitudinal • White believes the symbol has replaced the gene in importance as an explanatory tool • We live today in a symbolic universe, guided more by culture than heredity • Distinction between signs & symbols • Meaning of signs is inherent in things; meaning of symbols in things is arbitrary • Culture advances according to increase in amount of energy per capita per year • E x T = C (E represents energy, T represents efficiency of tools, C represents culture) • Amount of energy varies across cultures • Simplest societies rely completely on human energy

49. Marvin Harris (1927-2001) • Essentially an armchair anthropologist instead of a fieldworker • Cultural Materialism • Focuses on and assigns causal priority to the material conditions of life, such as food and shelter • Before there can be music and poetry, people must eat and be protected from the elements • Human activity organized to satisfy the material conditions of life is affected and limited by our biological make-up, the level of technology, and the nature of the environment, which in turn generate ideological and social organization responses. • Harris downplayed importance of emic data. • People’s consciousness, perspectives, interpretations, ideas, attitudes, and emotions never explain their reactions.

50. India’s Sacred Cow • The refusal of Indians to eat their cattle has often been interpreted as a perfect example of just how irrational cultural practices can be • According to Hindu doctrine of ahimsa, Indians should worship their cattle rather then eat them, even if they are starving. • Spiritual obsession obligates material welfare