A Meta- Archive: An honor role for anthropology

I have been ask “What approaches seem most promising for capturing our anthropological legacy ?  Aren't the many new special communities in the AAA a step in that direction?

I can see the particular value of a” closer-knit sphere” of like minded individuals might offer an opportunity for individuals to promote themselves within the group. But I feel this is short term thinking and only encourages further fragmentation in what is supposed to be the science of man. I am arguing for a meta-archive that aggregates the individual memories of a colleague and points to the sources that might reveal something significant about the individual’s career and/or validation it.

My focus is the establishment of a biographical, or obituary, site for the older generation to share the memories of their careers in anthropology and how they got there. But more than that, a place where others can also share their memories of the individual, and how they were influenced by or may have influenced the subject. This site would be used to comment on one’s personal thoughts about how one’s mentors, students, and personal experience have affected them and their careers. These  memories would not necessarily be part of a “official” record of the subject, rather provide context for the subject's life.

Such a Meta-Archive is where future generations could look for historical insight into a particular anthropologist’s development and his/her perspective. Studied collectively, these insights become the auto-ethnography of our discipline.

I am not calling for a central physical archive per se, instead I would like to see a centralized data base where one could go and begin their research into the life and contributions of individual anthropologists. It would be a database irrespective of the individual’s institutional affiliations or career orientation. It would incorporate the advantages of the internet and search engines. Such a database exists, albeit rather primitive. This is the Wikipedia List of Anthropologists.

One of the principle problems we face as a discipline is authenticity. Presently there is no authority nor requirement that determines who is and who is not an anthropologist. There are many who hold the degree but don’t identify with the profession. And there are many who identify with the profession but have little or no affiliation with any of the formal anthropological institutions. 

To use myself as an example, I have played in both roles at different times in my life. I hold the formal degrees in anthropology, BA, MA, and PhD. I have done research and taught at the University and cross-culturally. But much of that research has been proprietary as opposed to academic. Most of  of the academic teaching has been in business program as temporary or adjunct.  Yet, I feel that I am and have been applying the anthropological perspective throughout my adult life.

The reason I originally raised the question about archives was because I wondered what the profession was doing to preserve its member’s history. Since much of my professional life has been ‘applied anthropology” I wonder if there is any interest in that material. And in a selfish sense, I wondered, “should I plan on “archiving” my own professional and personal “anthropological” material, or just arrange to dispose of it.” I have material that I would like to share about the anthropologists, professors and colleagues, who have an influenced on my career. So often we rarely hear from such people -- in part because there are so few opportunities to share it.

At my age this has becomes a real concern. As a result, I found myself searching the internet for an answer. Scott Spicer’s posting and then finding the Spicer Archive at the U of Arizona led me to think about the question, specially in terms of “legacy”.

Searching through Wikipedia, I began thinking about a new way of creating an archive. This is a meta-archive. The meta-archive is a self-correcting catalog of individual biographies that identify where and who one might look for, or to the location of the physical evidence and the witnesses to a specific individual’s anthropological career. I am testing this out today by restructuring Edward Spicer’s page on Wikipedia.

We are at a stage where the internet (electronic) archives are being created, maintained, and lost daily. No single physical archive can be expected to define a profession’s legacy. But a Meta-archive can be assembled that will capture the range of experience that is our legacy. The internet is such a Meta-archive. Wikipedia is one such site, universally available in over 100 languages and open to both instant updating,  critical evaluation and editing. Most of all, it is a starting place for deeper and more detailed research. What is lacking is a standard format that acts as a guide, and the individual participation of students, colleagues, and other contributing their experiences in building the the individual legacy sites.

Edward H. Spicer --Thoughts on the Legacy

Edward H. Spicer (Ned) was invited to participate in a symposium, organized by Thomas Weaver of the University of Arizona, entitled  "Anthropology in the 1990's: Conditions, Needs, and Prospects." The symposium was held in conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science meetings in San Francisco in the winter of 1974. The subheading of the symposium was, "Suppose They Began the Twenty-First Century and Forgot to Invite Anthropology!!!"

Ned presented his paper entitled, "Anthropology in the society of the 1990s", on February 28, 1974.

Twenty years later, in 1994, the paper was republished in Human Organization with a forward by his widow, Rosamond Spicer, under the title, "Reassessing Edward Spicer's Views on Anthropology in the Society of the 1990s: How and Why This Paper by Edward H. Spicer Was Written" (Spicer, Rosamond 1994 Human Organization, Vol. 53. No. 4, pp. 388 - 395). From her forward, we can gain an insight into Ned's thinking and approach to the future.

Rosamond observed that

"In preparing this paper on the future of cultural anthropology, Ned apparently gave it a great deal of thought. As was his habit, he wrote down voluminous notes and lists of ideas. He also made a number of starts, each different from the last.”

“At one point he wrote, 'I react strongly against nineteenth century economic-determinism, that technology and physical environmental conditions are the essential factors to consider in forecasting. I rather look to the future in terms of the adaptation of social structures and cultural orientations to one another in the context of the influence of firm cultural products. I shall therefore take off from consideration of the probable alternative trends which we may expect in the form and functions of societal structures and cultural value orientations.' "

“Such a point of view was always the basis of his thinking and writing." (p. 388)

In describing Ned, Rosamond says,

"His interests, reading, and studies ranged through drama, literature, economics, city planning, philosophy, history, poetry, the environment, and all the fields of anthropology. All of this vast array of information and understanding he brought to bear in some way or another on any project he undertook, on any subject on which he wrote.”

“Perhaps one of his outstanding characteristics was his ability to synthesize, as was so evident in his Cycles of Conquest. I have long thought that the practice of that art of synthesis was connected with another, the appreciation and writing of poetry. I mention all these aspects of Ned because they seem to be contained in the following paper." (p.388).

It was his global interests and ability to synthesize vast amounts of material that I remember from my first graduate classes with Ned.  I was drawn to his Community Development Seminar where  he challenged us to look at the problem at hand from multiple points of view. He asked us, “What are the “felt needs” of the various parties in this change situation?” 

He encouraged us to seek a synthesis of these views as a way toward understanding the issues and their complexities. As community developers, he taught us that our job was to help the parties to synthesize their shared interests. Our job was to facilitate, not impose, problem resolution.

Ned was a humanist who understood and taught the connection between a people’s past, present and how these shaped their future. In his paper on the February day in 1974, he outlined 5 trends in the social and cultural environment that he felt would shape the next 20 years for anthropology.

The five trends that Ned chose to characterize the society he envisioned for the 1990s were the following:

(1) increasing intercommunication among the peoples of the world;

(2) increasing occupational specialization with accompanying organic differentiation within societies;

(3) increasing failure of technological solutions for the resolution of human problems in acceptable ways;

(4) increasing assertion and self-expression of ethnic groups within nation-states; and

(5) increasing reaction against centralization in political and administrative structures.

He stated "In general, continuation of these trends will, I believe, result in a society more heterogeneous than it was in the 19th or any previous century, more aware of its heterogeneity, with stronger than ever tendencies to compartmentalization, with increased awareness of and interest in non-technological and non-economic factors affecting human life, and with a growing tendency to view the nation-state in a wholly new light, especially with reference to its ethnic components and its political and administrative units." (p. 389)

This raises the bigger question -- what is a legacy?

In Edward Spicer's case, it was a combination of students trained with his unique perspective of anthropology as both a science in the pursuit of knowledge about the human condition and a body of knowledge about that condition that could and should be used to bring about a better world.

Second is his body of work, the depth of which has just been scratched. That body of work is to be found first in Spicer's bibliography starting on p.342 and ending on p.350 of James Officer's Memoir of Edward E. Spicer published in the National Academy of Sciences  Biographical Memoirs V.68 (1995). The second is his papers located in the Edward H. and Rosamond B. Spicer Archive at the Arizona State Museum Library. It is from these resources that the legacy resides to be picked up and carried forward by all who hold these values.

Now nearly 40 years later, it might be worth considering just how prescient Ned’s predictions were for the 1990s and for the 21st Century. Was he right?  Partially right? Or, Did he miss the mark?

What are your thoughts? 

Originally published in the SfAA website  Barry R. Bainton on December 23, 2011 at 9:15pm