The basic guidelines for American anthropology were laid
down by Franz Boas and taught to his students and passed down as the American
anthropological culture. These traditions are a powerful force within the
discipline and its organization and create a set of contradictions that have
plagued the profession for three quarters of a century. The conflict can be summarized as in
four words: Heart, Mind and Pocket Book.
Anthropology is founded on two basic principles – its
subject is the human species; and how the species adapts to the physical and cultural
environmental challenges it faces. The question is how do anthropologists apply
these principles in their role as a member of the human species, as a scientific
and humanistic disciple, and as individuals with basic needs and self interests?
That is, where do the anthropologist’s heart, mind, and pocket book interests
lie?
Where is the anthropologist’s heart when it comes to his/her
subjects and to his/her role in developing the discipline? Where is the
anthropologist’s mind when it comes to his/her subjects and to his/her role in
developing the discipline? And, where is the anthropologist’s pocket book when
it comes to his/her subjects and to his/her role in developing the discipline? Three simple questions!
These questions, however, are not so easy to answer without
admitting the basic contradictions that exist in the profession between the
“emic” and “etic” perspective toward the behavior of the practitioners of
anthropology whether they are academicians or social engineers.
The Anthropological Heart
In our “hearts”, I think and my experience suggests, most of
us are philosophical liberal in our view of humankind. It would be hard not to
be when a fundamental axiom of our discipline is based on the “psychic unity of
humanity.” If we begin with the belief that we are all of the same species and
that collectively we share a common biological heritage, then it is not a
difficult step to a second basic axiom, “cultural relativity.”
The axiom of cultural relativity leads us to the conclusion
that human behavior is “cultural behavior,” and arises from a common biological
and mental base in response to diverse environmental challenges. This does not discount minor variations
between individuals or groups. But it does focus our attention on the behavior
as the response to, rather than the motive for, cultural actions. Thus, when it
comes to a “judgment” about the actions of others, we have a built-in bias to
side with “the other”. This is where our hearts are, to suspend our judgment
and seek to understand differences.
The anthropological heart reveals itself in the causes we
advocate for or oppose. It is revealed in the century of debate over
professional ethics and our obligations to our subjects, the use of the data we
collect, and the long running battle with University IRB and government
sponsors over “informed consent,” just to mention a few. It can be summed up as
an ethic that favors a role as the protector and interpreter of “our” people,
i.e. the subjects of our research. For better or worse, it is the origin of our
humanistic impulse.
The Anthropological Mind
In our “minds,” I think and my experience suggests, most of
us try to be objective with our subject and subjects regardless of our practice
as scholars, researchers, or applied practitioners. We try to operate and
conduct ourselves based on another foundational axiom: “the holistic
approach”. To be holistic is to be open
to and look for evidence from any quarter that may contribute to our
understanding of the collective behavior of the individual within the group,
and the group within its environment. The holistic axiom implies that we should
adopt a systemic perspective toward the evidence that we collect and use to
reach our conclusions.
The holistic axiom leads to another basic axiom: Human
behavior is bimodal. That is, all human behavior consists of a balance between
the individual’s emotional and/or physical (emic) response to an event or
context and what we observe to be the group’s interpretation and meaning (etic)
attached to the event or context. This “emic”/”etic”
perspective leads directly to our unique methodological response --
participant/observer.
This methodological bias toward both an experiencing of the
affect of the phenomena we study and the detached observation of its effect on
the subject is most pronounced in the central organizational structure in our
discipline – cultural anthropology. Participant - observation is extended to the
other sub-disciplines of anthropology through the role we give to culture as
the “contextualizing” element in interpreting in recording events and
structuring their context. This is where our professional mind is, understanding
human behavior in context. It is the origin of our scientific impulse, for
better or worse.
A corollary to “emic”/”etic” on an individual level is the “status”/”role”
at supra-organic or societal level. This implies a structural-function approach
to human behavior in a social context where status limits the legitimate range of
individual behavior within the group and the role describes the individual’s
performance in that status as it relates to the group.
As anthropologists, we are first human beings. We live our
lives as individual human beings. Much of our life is oriented around the
practical problems of living, i.e. pocket book issues. While the early founders
of modern anthropology were amateurs, that is, individuals who pursued their anthropological
interests as an avocation, most anthropologists today pursue their
anthropological interests as a vocation. They make their living doing something
called, “anthropology.”
In 1879, John Wesley Powell, in his address as the first
President of the Washington Society of Anthropology and as Director of the
Bureau of American Ethnology, called for a more scientific and professional
approach to anthropological research. When Boas was hired to teach and head a
new department of anthropology, in 1889, at Clark University, he brought with
him an idea of how the professional anthropologist were to make his/her living.
Boas set the standard for dealing with the pocket book issues when he proposed
that the professional anthropologist pursue a tradition of employment in a
research setting associated with a museum or university. Powell’s focus was on
the government as the employer of anthropological researchers; Boas focused on
the private university and museum as the vocational home for the research
anthropologist.
Early on, the objective of a career as a professional
anthropologist has been defined as basic research with an emphasis on
non-literate, small scale socio-cultural systems as the subject of study.
Teaching, lecturing and writing would be part of the job description following
the tradition of other sciences and scholarly careers. While this career model
was supposed to protect the scientist/scholar from outside influence by
providing an environment that is based on the sacred principles of “academic
freedom” and “freedom of scientific inquiry,” it has produced a mind-set filled
with cognitive dissonance that echos through the profession and discipline
today.
Anthropologists, as employees of the academy, government,
non-profit sector, corporation, are staff personnel. They are hired to perform
a specific set of tasks for the organization that has hired them. We are
essentially bureaucrats. Despite were our heart and mind are, we consciously
and unconsciously, are conservative and risk avoidant in the way we build our
careers. In an earlier day, when going into the field to do our field work
leading to our PhD, we might have been seen as risk takers, and even considered
ourselves to be risk takers. But this has always been a risk based on the
belief that some benefactor, sponsor, or employer would be there to pay the
bills.
Foundation and government grants have, as Patterson has
pointed out, had as much influence on the development of anthropology in
general, and in the USA in particular, as the professional development of the
discipline. While today we still rebel against certain claims of control over
anthropological research made by the granting sources, and we protest the use
of anthropologists in such activities as human terrain analysis, basically we
are bureaucrats and happy to collect our paychecks from our employers.
The overproduction of graduates at all levels is critical to
ongoing sustainability of anthropology departments in museums and universities.
But employing these graduates is a real problem facing the profession
organizationally and philosophically. Applied anthropology, defined as the
application of anthropological and other social science principles to the
solution of practical problems faced by human institutions, is the solution to
the employment issue in one sense and a threat to it in another.
Re-branding Anthropology
Re-branding anthropology means identifying anthropology as a
practical discipline, instead of the egghead eccentric hunter of rock and
bones, the comic Indiana Jones, or the overly rationale and emotionally distant
forensic anthropologist. Anthropology,
as a practical discipline, can lead students to become more critical in their thinking
and their approach solving everyday problems. It can help them to adapt these
critical thinking skills to whatever career they chose. To re-brand anthropology
we must recognize the three dimensions in the life of an anthropologist –
heart, mind and pocket book.
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