Ian Hodder - Huxley Memorial Lecture.

A couple of little things before I crack on with this post, firstly thank you very much to John for his post about Claude Levi-Strauss, he was a truly great anthropologist. Secondly I want to apologise for my absence from the site over the past couple of weeks, I have had computer troubles and have been offline for some horrible amount of time.

Right then, last Monday I was at the Huxley Memorial Lecture at the British Museum, which this year was given by Ian Hodder. Yes I know an archaeologist but a lot of his work crosses over with social anthropology and he is a very influential writer. I've heard Hodder lecture before at the EASA conference last Easter and he was a really interesting speaker so I was looking forwards to this. The lecture was entitled 'Human-Thing Entanglement: Towards an Integrated Perspective'.

The lecture was in 3 main parts:
1. Humans depend on Things.
2. Things depend on Things.
3. Things depend on Humans.

1. Humans depend on things. Hodder began here by clarifying that things was a term to encompass everything - any object natural or man-made, any sound or even another person. He also recognised the strength that this idea has gained in recent years and in fact many people now agree that human thought could not have evolved without us having something to think about. He then went on to discuss his experience of this at Catalhoyuk where clay was the most important thing; everything was made of clay from the largest house to the smallest utensil, people lived in a world of clay. Archaeologists have even found clay dust lining the insides of peoples' lungs. Without clay, the people of Catalhoyuk could not have lived as they did - they depended on it.

2. Things depend on things. In this case things meant on man-made or man-changed objects (I think it is a bit of a cop out though to be changing your definitions half way through an argument). Still, this idea was originally set out by M. B. Schiffer in what he termed 'Behavioural Chains'. They state that the life of an object is as follows: Procurement -- Manufacture -- Use -- Maintenance -- Repair -- Discarding. Along this chain things interact with other things so that objects can progress. For example, fire depends on may other things to exist, such as tools and wood etc. At Catalhoyuk, clay was dependant on other things for extraction, transportation, molding and firing.

3. Things depend on humans. Hodder argued that it is often thought that things are static and only the meanings we give to them change over time, however, this is not true. People are constantly altering things either to repair them or to convert them for another use. The walls of the houses at Catalhoyuk were constantly being repaired and done up (largely because if they weren't they would have fallen down). So if in this case the thing (walls) depended on people to keep them up.

Hodder then moved on to discuss the actual entanglement between humans and things, this mostly just repeated everything he had already said but with more emphasis on the complete entanglement and behavioural chains. Over time, through chains of entanglement and interaction, he argued, people and things become completely co-dependant. For example; domesticated wheat is completely dependant on humans for growth and reproduction or it would revert back to being wild and people are also completely dependant on it for food. Our dependence on wheat for food has trapped us in to certain patterns of care and behaviour. Our sense of sweetness (taste) is another trapped behaviour set within a global triangle of history, trade and production. A blind man and his stick are dependant on each other, the man cannot see without the stick and the stick would cease to exist without the blind man to use it.

Basically humans and things are all completely dependant on each other for existence, we could not live without things and things would not exist without us to create them.

Claude Levi-Strauss

I was saddened yesterday to learn of the death of one of my favourite 20^th century anthropologists Claude Levi-Strauss. He was the creator of the theory of structuralism and is considered one of the 'fathers of modern anthropology'. He was the first significant anthropologist to focus on the human mind in relation to society, as opposed to the structural-functionalists who studied lineage and kinship groups. It is a complex theory and here I will attempt to make sense of it and highlight some of the criticisms levelled against it.

Levi-Strauss was a French anthropologist who during the 1930's lived in Sao Paolo, Brazil, where he conducted fieldwork on the Mato Grosso region. This was to form the basis for the work that ultimately made his name: Tristes Tropiques.

He returned to France in 1939 to fight in WWII, but when in 1940 France surrendered, he left for America after being dismissed from his teaching post by the Vichy regime (Levi-Strauss' parents were of Jewish origin - thus making him 'undesirable').

In America Levi-Strauss met the famous anthropologist Franz Boas who had a great influence on his continuing work.

Levi-Strauss' structuralism was different to his functionalist predecessors; he was not concerned with the function of social structure, but with the logic of it. The structures he analysed were those of the human mind - implicit, unconscious, but always social. The way Levi-Strauss saw social structure was in terms of human thought generating it, by creating a system of thoughts, rules and laws, determined by which member of a particular society was organising it - the "ideal" structures of society.

It is important to remember with Levi-Strauss' work that the human mind with which he theorises is not the individual human mind, i.e. universal psychological mechanisms, but instead universal structural principles; the principles human beings use to think about social life. Levi-Strauss argued that there are basic structural principles or rules that are universal and apply to all cultures, but what each structure consists of varies from culture to culture.

The most important social rule according to Levi-Strauss was the incest taboo. With this, an aversion to incest, there was the emergence of culture. This is a classic binary opposition of nature : culture. However, Levi-Strauss went against the simpler reason for avoiding incest - that it is biologically healthier - and theorised a more social-based reason: people avoided incest so as to move outside their family groups and quite simply make friends, or alliances - marital alliances. For Levi-Strauss the incest taboo is not a negative rule of marriage avoidance, but instead a positive rule of marriage prescription. The taboo forces people to marry outsiders - thus establishing contact networks and thus social groups.

This theory brings me onto Levi-Strauss' work on marriage itself. He considers this in terms of complex and elementary societies. A complex society is one where marriage choices are independent of kinship concerns, such as in the West. An elementary society is one where there are clear marital exchanges and reciprocal marriage rules. His 'marital exchanges' can be either restricted or generalised. Restricted will involve one group of sisters exchanging sisters with another group, whereas generalised will involve three or more groups of people exchanging wives.

Levi-Strauss also looked at mythology - he approaches it as a kind of language in itself. Myth, he argued, can reveal structural principles of the human mind, which take the form of different scenarios and images. It is a way for people to explain their origins, and thus a way to, according to Levi-Strauss, explain their society. From this Levi-Strauss deduces that people are subjected to an unconscious desire to impose order on their world (hence making mythological stories) - people cannot resist the desire to classify. There is an inherent demand in human society for classification and order. He explains this fully in his famous work La Pensee Sauvage.


There are many criticisms levelled at Levi-Strauss' work - I will provide a brief summary:

1) Universalism - why does it have to be the same structural principles for everywhere and everyone?

2) His ethnography (from Brazil) is poor, lacking depth and true understanding, particularly of the languages of the studied tribes.

3) His model for human society is perhaps too artificial, especially in its inclusions of binary oppositions.

4) His analysis of myth is not realistic. He does not explain it terms of what people actually think but instead in terms of mental hypotheses.

5) Women appear as voiceless pieces of exchange in his theories on marriage and kinship. This could explain why his theory lost popularity in the late 20th century as the rise of feminism, and particularly feminist anthropology, would have generated backlash to his theories.


Despite these flaws, some of which you may agree with and some you may not, there are positive aspects to Levi-Strauss' work. He attempted, albeit perhaps unsuccessfully, to create a model to explain culture - we must acknowledge the difficulty of what he was trying to do. Secondly he did well to demolish the erroneous preconception of automatic Western logic and the illogical nature of the "exotic Other" (supposed ‘primitive’ societies. For him all people are experimenting with the world in the same way (remember that his universal principles govern everyone).

Levi-Strauss can be credited with the creation of a new theory and thus a new way of viewing anthropology. His work has generated much appreciation as well as criticism – one cannot deny that he has succeeded in provoking debate. Having lived to almost 101 years old he has seen the changing face of anthropology throughout the 20^th century, and his work was an integral part of that change.

Claude Levi-Strauss: 1908-2009

Authenticity in Material Culture

I have just come out of a guest lecture given by Nelson Graburn of Berkeley University. He is well known for his ethnographic research with the Inuit in Northern Canada, particularly concerned with their art. The lecture today was entitled "Anthropological Experiments in Authenticity: Inuit Ethnoaesthetics and audience evaluations" and looked at how one can know the authenticity of art and what factors should decide it.

The problem of authenticity when looking in particular at Inuit art is that the sculptures they create were originally designed for sale to westerners and white Canadians. The Inuit were encouraged and directed as to what to create by Jim Houston, himself an artist, who told them to make their art bigger and shinier as this would be more appealing. Clearly this art cannot be authentic, it reflects only what the Inuit sculptors think will sell better, not their own traditions or artistic ideas.

However, this was over 50 years ago. The art that is created today, whilst stemming from Houston's original ideas has taken on a new symbolic meaning. Making such sculptures links people to their past, the depictions are often of traditional Inuit figures or hunting. These can be shown to children to teach them about their heritage. In this way the art is authentic, even if it is not completely traditional it reflects the Inuit as they are now, whilst still linking them to their past. If they were to try and recreate past arts or sculptures then surely this would be fake.

I also want to draw your attention to an article by Les Field, entitled "Four kinds of authenticity?
Regarding Nicaraguan pottery in Scandinavian museums, 2006–08," which was published in the most recent edition of American Ethnologist. For Field, there are 4 types of authenticity

1. Ethnographic Authenticity - that the object fits a particular cultural group's identity.
2. Authentic Original High Art - looking at the individual maker and their reputation.
3. Engineered Authenticity - where the individual maker is invisible but the product is designed by a team who set strict parameters.
4. Brand-Name Authenticity - similar to '3' but the name of the design team is most important.
   

I think that Field has come up with an interesting way of separating out the different ways that people look for authenticity, after all it depends on the object or one's use for it as to what determines authenticity.

However, for me the real interest in this debate is not whether objects/art is authentic or not but that this clearly demonstrates who fluid culture is. When people want to buy Inuit art they want something that reflects the traditional way of life, never mind whether people still live like that any more. So in creating this the art takes on a new role, not as a symbol of Inuit life but as something that links the past, the present and the future. For me that is where the real interest lies.

If you want to find more then I would recommend:

Anything by Nelson Graburn.

Field, L. (2009) Four kinds of authenticity? Regarding Nicaraguan pottery in Scandinavian museums, 2006–08. American Ethnologist, 36: 507 - 520.

The Future of Anthropology

I am now coming to the end of my undergraduate degree and even though I have a general idea about going on to postgraduate study it is still terrifying to have to consider everything that I have learnt and how I can apply this in the real world and what options there are in anthropology.

The latest issue of Social Anthropology begins with an assessment by Don Brenneis, a past president of the American Anthropological Association of the future of Anthropology within academia. Ok so I know this doesn't sound like the most interesting article ever written but for students of the modern discipline it is pretty damn important.

Rather a lot of the article concentrates on criticisms of the current academic scene, such as the way peer reviewing works, funding problems or the 'centralisation, standardisation and transformation' of universities. These are all very real issues for anyone wanting to stay within education past an undergraduate level, made all the more acute by the current economic climate and the relatively tiny size of anthropology departments. Overall the article is quite negative, although Brenneis does conclude that anthropology has a lot to offer institutions.

I personally feel rather more optimistic than that (perhaps because I have never worked within a university). I know that universities and other institutions don't quite have the freedoms and supplies of money that they used to but times have changed and they probably never will again, so there is not much we can do about it. The issues that Brenneis raises are real, but again they are by and large the best solutions we have for very complex problems, such as peer reviewing.

There is another, slightly different article, written by Spencer, Jepson and Mills, published by the ASA, which looks at what happens to anthropology PhD students when they leave academia. This report is much more positive and concludes that the majority of students make very successful applicants in the real world and that only a few stay within universities. Judging by the tone of Brenneis' article, I would say that they made a very wise choice.

So, I want to know what you guys think.

• Is there anyone planning a career in academia?
• Have you encountered any of the issues Brenneis discusses or do you think they are exaggerated?
• Do you think post-graduate study is worth it in anthropology?

I would also recommend both the articles I have discussed here:
Where do all the Anthropologists go? Research training and ‘Careers’ in Social Anthropology, by Jonathan Spencer, Anne Jepson, David Mills
www.theasa.org/news/careers_research.doc

Anthropology in and of the academy: globalization, assessment and our field’s future, by Don Brenneis.
Social Anthropology, 17: 261 - 275.

The RAI Film Festival 2009

So we are back after the summer break and kicking off with some visual anthropology.

In July the 11th Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival was held in Leeds and the Student Anthropologist was, of course there to bring you news and reviews of the latest ethnographic films.



Rhythms of Wulu Village, Wang Chung-Hsiung: 2003

This was the only film in which we were introduced to the main themes by one of the festival organisers before it began. They were identified as

1. The life of the people - seasonality, poverty (leading to alcoholism, crime etc), peripheral.

2. Identity - inportance of the local dialect, links to the community and past.

3. Globalisation - particularly relating to their music and the presence of David Darling.



The film focuses on the music of the Bunan People (the traditional occupants of Wulu village). It follows the children as they learn traditional folk songs at school and as the chorus enter and progress through competitions to the National Championships. The second part of the film looks at the presence of American cellist and composer David Darling in the Village.

Reborn in Westphalia – A really wonderful film by a German film student, looking at the cultural and spatial conflict around the largest Hindu temple in Germany.
The themes are beautifully shown and the film itself is very well edited. One of my favourite things about it was the really likeable people, in particular the ‘priest?’ himself.
I actually watched this film with the competition judges, they also loved it and in fact their only criticism was that perhaps it suffered from being too well made and so didn’t feel like a student film. I’m not sure what they were talking about there to be honest!

The Meaning of Life – Quite a change from the previous two films, this one was a professional creation and this showed in the style of the film – the picture and sound quality were much more like TV. The film looked at a prison in ? which teaches inmates a traditional Native way of life and includes them in the community rather than locking them up. It was pretty sympathetic to the inmates and raised interesting questions about at what point we should forgive the crimes and concentrate on rehabilitation instead.
Unfortunately I had to leave before the end of the film to catch the last train home. But it was very very good.

The Shaman, His Nephew and The Captain – Another really enjoyable film. This was an intimate portrayal of family life in a community struggling to adapt to the modern world whist retaining its own culture and traditions. The level of intimacy was achieved by giving the cameras to the local people themselves, although at the end of the film someone raised a question about when intimacy becomes voyeurism (I didn’t agree with this though).
Through allowing people to film themselves the film successfully showed the conflict between the generations about modernisation, in particular about the use of western medicines. This centred around Issad (one of the main characters’) need for an operation on his testicles, which no joke were the size of watermelons!
I loved the way this film showed the complexities of modernisation and what it really meant to these people – technologically, politically and materially. I also loved all the people in it. Just lovely, really.

Salah, An African Toubab – Just in case you were worried that I liked all the films, I didn’t. Ok this ine got across its message, basically that if you work in a new culture you lose a part of your old one (Toubab means white man and refers to a tourist guide called Salah). But it was, well a bit boring. I didn’t really care about the people in it and I didn’t think that compared to the other films I had seen it really said very much. Another point of annoyance was that it had been filmed over only 3 weeks, with no real contact between Salah and the film maker before that. So I did have to wonder just how well she could have expected to know the situation or the people.

Holy Hustler – I wasn’t massively keen on this one, just because I wasn’t completely sure what was going on the whole time. But it redeemed itself by having a really interesting topic. The film looked the rise of and African Church, which claims to be able to heal people etc for money, hence the title. I’m not sure what the themes were, but it was an interesting watch nonetheless.

Making Rain – All I wrote down in my notes for this one was ‘fine but didn’t really care, meh’. Thinking back on it now I can’t really remember anything about it except that it looked at an African tribe trying to make it rain. Sorry but unremarkable.

Mayomi – This was sold as being a moving portrait of a young woman rebuilding her life after the tsunami and it was very moving actually, even to me with my heart of ice... It was very sweet and very enjoyable as well as having some really sad moments. The best thing about the film was how well it brought out the characters of the people in it, as an audience we were drawn to Mayomi and hated her brother. It was also surprisingly complex.

Our Family – I really didn’t like this film. The style felt so pretentious and faked compared to the natural qualities of all the others. For some reason the makers had edited in one of the women reciting modern poetry about her situation (I should point out that the family in this case refers to a group of transsexuals in India). The film sort of reminded me of the ones that are made for schools, which definitely didn’t endear me to it. I actually walked out before the end I was enjoying it so little, which I think is a shame now because I’m pretty sure the judges would have torn it to shreds...

Being Dalit – Dalit is the lowest caste system and its members are still often avoided by the rest of society. This film looks at a Dalit theatre group and how it is trying to work to change attitudes in its local area. I thought that this was really enjoyable and it had some poignant moments in it as well, much more so than any of the other films I saw.

Bury the Hatchet – focussing on the Indian Mardi Gras in New Orleans and how the local community are trying to rebuild it and pass it on to the next generation after the hurricane in 2005. This was my absolute favourite film of the festival, partly because the costumes in the parades are simply stunning. However it was also very well made, in depth and interesting. Filmed over a number of years both before and after the hurricane, the audience really get to know the people. My only criticisms were that it was perhaps a little long and we don’t get to hear any women’s voices. But still a fantastic film, if I were to recommend any, it would be this one!

Indigeneity and Indigenous Knowledge

Todays post continues from the Mark Dowie article in The Guardian, which I mentionned on monday. The latest issue (June 2009) of Current Anthropology also carries an article examining indigenity. Although the two articles do not look at precisely the same thing, I thought nonetheless that it would be interesting to compare the articles; one popular and one academic. Given the current crisis in our discipline and the drop in publishing and popularisation of anthropology, this could prove an illuminating insight in to how anthropology could popularise itself.

The Guardian article looks at the roles played by the different sides (indigenous people and conservationists / scientists) and then goes on to describe the attitudes of each party. This simplifies the complex background behind the various motives and actions and makes it easy for anyone to understand. The Current Anthropology article on the other hand begins with a complex analysis of the term indigenous, difficult for anyone to get their head round - I certainly didn't find it easy. Even in a more popular journal, there are the same problems. In an article from Anthropology Today, 2002, Indiginous Rights and the Collective Conscious, the opening paragraph looks at comparative world philosophies. The articles continue in similar veins, the Current Anthropology article just gets more and more complex, really not an easy read. Whereas the Guardian article looks at examples of clashes between conservationsits and indigenous people and even ventures to offer some solutions, the CA just looks at theoretical issues.

Is it any wonder people don't choose anthropology for a bit of light reading. I know that no one wants to see the discipline dumbed down just to make it a bit more popular, but I honestly don't see why popularity and integrity have to be mutually exclusive. Physicists, Chemists and even Evolutionary Anthropologists all manage to publish popular works and don't lose face. Maybe anthropologists are just stubborn and dont want to simplify their work for public consumption.

Looking at the Guardian article, we need to learn that its ok to simplify anthropology, it is so hard to read otherwise. That article is an excellent example of popular anthropology and I would urge anthropologists or ethnographers to try it!

Check out the articles at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/03/yosemite-conservation-indigenous-people

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/597667

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118915984/PDFSTART

Picking up this week with...

With the majority of blogs only posting Monday - Friday, I thought I would start this week by looking at how the Internet closed up last week.

There was a definite focus on applied anthropology and politics. Blogs are looking at issues ranging from business to indigenous knowledge, below are just a few of the highlights:

On June 3rd there was an article in The Guardian by Mark Dowie looking at clashes between indigenous and global environmental knowledge in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/03/yosemite-conservation-indigenous-people). Really interesting and easy to read, definitely recommended!

This blog sits at the intersection... ended the week with a post about problems in the air industry (an interesting time for it given the Air France crash last week). Though I'm not quite sure where the anthropology was in this post, it is still interesting to see an anthropologist looking at a purely economic issue.

The latest AnthroGoggles post breaks down the roles of individuals in online protests, specifically looking at Amazonfail. The post sits well in contemporary anthropological theory, very deconstructive and all that... Have a look at www.anthrogoggles.com

In Open Anthropology, Maximillian Forte has been looking at the changes in funding for Canadian Universities. Not a particularly interesting topic I know, but the conclusions he draws are fascinating. He looks at the impact that these changes have had, in particular that focus has moved from a search for truth, beauty etc to a search for profit.. Very relevant for all of us who are experiencing these changes for ourselves!

I hope you find these few examples good as indicative of the trends to come this week in anthropology. They are mirrored in the journals as well and their importance should not be underestimated..