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SC2218: Anthropology and the
Human Condition
Lecture 1: “Strangers Abroad”
Origins of the Anthropological Perspective
Eric C. Thompson
Semester 1, 2012/2013
Outline for Lecture 1
• What is ANTHROPOLOGY?
• What is required for the course?
• Why are anthropologists “strangers
abroad”?
• What is the relationship between
anthropology and colonialism?
• Who was Franz Boas? What were his
contributions to Anthropology?
• Anthropology as a Personal Journey…
Anthropology
anthropos = humankind
logia = study of
the study of people
Anthropology and Other Disciplines
People who study their own
society call themselves
Sociologists
People who study other
societies call themselves
Anthropologists
People who study markets
and exchange in their own
society call themselves
Economists
People who study individual
thought and behavior in
their own society call
themselves Psychologists
People who study markets
and exchange in other
societies call themselves
Anthropologists
People who study individual
thought and behavior in
other societies call themselves
Anthropologists
You get the idea . . . The same is true for history, art,
geography, language, genetics, physiology, politics, and
every other aspect of “the human condition.”
Anthropology Past & Present
• The relationship between anthropology and
other “human sciences” is based on a specific
history and intellectual tradition (which we will
discuss in greater detail throughout the course).
• Anthropologist have always studied “their own”
societies, and increasingly do so in the early 21st
century.
• But, the emphasis on studying all aspects of
“other” societies continues to influence the
“anthropological perspective” of the discipline…
Elements of the
“Anthropological Perspective”
• Anthropology has a “holistic” and integrative
perspective . . . Meaning that different aspects of
human experience are seen as interrelated and
non-reducible. You cannot study politics in
isolation from family structures or economics in
isolation from cultural values.
• Anthropologists have a “multi-field” approach –
incorporating cultural and social anthropology,
linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and
physical anthropology (“stones & bones”). (This
course will focus mainly on cultural and social
anthropology).
Elements of the
“Anthropological Perspective”
• Anthropologists have a strong “ethnographic”
tradition, focusing on “thick descriptions” of
societies and cultures. (The book by Richard
Lee, The Dobe Ju/’hoansi is a good example of
ethnography)
• Social and Cultural Anthropologists are
especially interested in the qualitative study of
meaning. What do people think, feel and
believe? Why do they think, feel and believe
those things? How do their thoughts, feelings
and beliefs influence their behavior?
About the Course:
Materials and Methods
• Lectures & Tutorials
• Readings
– Richard B. Lee, The Dobe Ju/’hoansi
– K. Adams & K. Gillogly, Everyday Life in
Southeast Asia
– Additional Readings: IVLE e-reserves
• Films – Available on IVLE (may not be
able to view from home).
• Tutorial and Lecture Exercises
• Course Wiki
Assignments & Evaluation
•
•
•
•
Class Participation – 15%
Wiki Participation – 15%
Ethnographic Review Essay – 20%
Final Exam – 50%
Class Participation
• The following topics will be covered in tutorials:
• Session 1: Origins of Anthropology, Human Diversity,
Concept of Culture (Wk 1-4 Material)
• Session 2: Kinship and Gender (Wk 5-6 Material)
• Session 3: Economics & Exchange (Wk 7-8 Material)
• Session 4: Ethnicity, Nation, Imagined Communities;
Modernity and Change (Wk 9-10 Material)
• Session 5: Anthropology Today (Wk 11-12 Material)
• In addition, we will have participatory exercises during
lectures (dates to be announced).
About the Readings, Films,
Tutorials
• You are responsible for coming
prepared to discuss the topics for
each tutorial.
• We recommend that you:
– Read materials and view films on a
weekly basis.
– Read The Dobe Ju/’hoansi and
Everyday Life in Southeast Asia from
cover-to-cover during the first two weeks
of the course, then refer back to specific
chapters week-to-week.
About the Films
• We will view parts of
all films during class
session.
• All films will be
available on IVLE.
• If you wish to review
the films on IVLE, you
may have to do this
on campus.
Course Wiki
Anthropology and the Human Condition
http://sc2218.wetpaint.com/
• A Wiki is “a collection of web pages
designed to enable anyone who accesses
it to contribute or modify content.”
• Why a Wiki? – Participation, Collaboration,
Learning, Producing, Creating
• Go to the Wiki (“Working with the Wiki”) to
learn more.
Wiki Participation
• You are required to make at least two
substantial contributions to the Wiki during
the term.
• A substantial contribution is a Wiki page of
approximately 500 pages; or the equivalent.
• You may submit a first contribution for
feedback at the mid-term (Sept 20).
• Submit your full contribution by November 1.
Ethnographic Review Essay
• Individual Essay of 2,500 to 3,500 Words.
• Option 1: Focus on a theme, incorporating
Lee’s Dobe Ju’/hoansi and at least 3
chapters from Adams & Gillogly.
• Option 2: A review essay focused on an
ethnographic book (see Book List).
• Details will be discussed in the first tutorial.
Due Dates
•
•
•
•
Sept 20 – First Wiki Submission (Optional)
Oct 4 – Review Essay Outline (Optional)
Nov 1 – Final Wiki Contribution (Mandatory)
Nov 8 – Review Essay (Mandatory)
• Final Exam: Friday, November 30 (Morning)
Questions… (so far)
Where Are We Going?
• Part 1: What is Anthropology?
– Origins of Modern Anthropology
– Race
– Culture
• Part 2: What do Anthropologists Study?
– Kinship, Gender, Economy, Community
• Part 3: Current Debates and Trends
– Modernity and Change
– Poststructuralism and Discourse
– World Anthropologies
YOU ARE
HERE
Origins of Modern Anthropology
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•
•
•
•
Why are anthropologists “Strangers Abroad”?
Early Modern Anthropologists
American Cultural Anthropology
British Social Anthropology
Understanding difference and diversity……
from RACE to CULTURE.
Strangers, Others, & the
Anthropological Perspective
• Ibn Battúta
– Travels in Asia and
Africa, 1325-1354
• Ma Huan
– Survey of the Ocean’s
Shores, 1433
Admiral Zheng He
• Franz Boas
– Expedition to Baffin
Island, 1883-1884
Ibn Battúta’s Route
*Follow the hyperlinks for additional information.
Ibn Battúta
Survey of the Ocean’s Shores
(1433)
• Zheng He’s
voyages, Early
Ming Dynasty
• Ma Huan was
Zheng He’s
chronicler; making
a record of peoples
and places
Early Modern
Anthropologists
Franz Boas
1858-1942
• Franz Boas
– Founder of American Anthropology
– Baffin Island (Inuit/Eskimo);
American Northwest (Kwakiutl)
Bronislaw
Malinowski
1884-1942
• Bronislaw Malinowski
– Trobriand Islands (Pacific)
• E.E. Evans-Pritchard
– Africa; Azande and Nuer (Sudan)
E.E. Evans-Pritchard
1902-1973
Richard B. Lee:
Anthropology in
the mid-20th
century
• PhD UC-Berkeley, 1965: “Subsistence
Ecology of !Kung Bushmen”
• Man the Hunter (1968) – Evolutionary
perspective.
• See Appendix for revised view.
Context of Modern Anthropology
19th – 21st centuries
• European & American Colonialism
• Scientific approaches to studying people,
society and culture.
• Decline of colonialism, national liberation
movements, “native anthropologists”
Why are People Different?
• Geography (“Environmental Determinism”)
– 19th century idea; uncommon now
• Race (“Biological Determinism”)
– 19th century idea; still common
• Culture (“Cultural Relativism”)
– 19th to 20th century idea; popular now
Cultural Evolution
• 19th C. European Idea
• All societies progress
through stages
• Europeans = most
advanced
• Justification of
European Colonial
Rule (The “white
man’s burden”)
Civilization
L.H. Morgan
Upper Barbarism
Middle Barbarism
Lower Barbarism
Upper Savagery
Middle Savagery
Lower Savagery
Lewis Henry Morgan’s
Scheme of Social Evolution
The White Man’s Burden
(Kipling 1899)
Take up the White man’s burden,
Send forth the best ye breed.
Go bind your sons to exile,
To serve your captives’ need.
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild.
Your new caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
• Kipling’s poem echoes
three European ideas
about “natives”:
• “Wild” – Non-human,
animals (e.g. debate over
whether native Americans
had ‘souls’)
• “Half-devil” – Heathens
• “Half-child” – Lower stage
of development
INTERMISSION…
“The Shackles of Tradition”
• Who was Franz Boas? What was his role in
shaping modern anthropology?
• What did Boas think about “Savages”?
• How did the idea of CULTURE influence his
views?
• How does Boas compare with other Strangers
Abroad?
Boas’ Career
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Born in 1856 to Jewish parents in Germany (Westphalia)
PhD in Physics (1881)
Post-graduate work in Geography
1883-4 Baffin Island Research (Inuit/Eskimo)
Founding of Department of Anthropology, Columbia
University (New York) and American Anthropological
Association, c.1896-1902
• 1901 onward – trained dozens of PhD students, who
went on to found anthropology departments elsewhere.
• Department of Anthropology, University of Washington
founded in 1920s by Leslie Spier and Melville Jacobs,
both students of Franz Boas
• 1942 – Collapsed at a faculty dinner and died in the
arms of Claude Levi-Strauss (French Anthropologist)
Boas’ Legacy
How Boas shaped Anthropology:
• Long-term Fieldwork
– Baffin Island, Inuit (“Eskimo”)
– Pacific Northwest, Kwakiutl (with George Hunt)
•
•
•
•
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Professionalization & Institutionalization
Focus on Language and Culture
“Holistic Approach”
Cultural Relativism (History vs. Evolutionary Stages)
Anti-Racist, Humanistic tradition
Culture as Cultivation
“If this trip has…a valuable experience, it
lies in the strengthening of the viewpoint of
the relativity of all cultivation. And that
the evil as well as the value of a person
lies in the cultivation of the heart, which I
find or do not find here just as much as
amongst us.” – Franz Boas 1883-1884
Cultural Relativism, Anti-Racism,
Humanism
• Prior to Boas, the dominant paradigm of
anthropology was unilinear evolution.
Savagery
Barbarism
Civilization
Lewis Henry Morgan
• Boas rejected evolutionary approaches in
favor of cultural relativism.
• Cultures are not “better” or “worse”; more
or less advanced, etc.
• Cultures must be understood on their own
terms, not in relationship to other cultures.
• Cultural Relativism is a value that teaches
respect for others.
• “Each culture has its own theoreticians
whose contributions deserve the same
attention as that which the anthropologist
gives to colleagues.” Claude Levi-Strauss,
Structural Anthropology, 1963 [1958], pg.
282
Anthropology’s Ethical Dilemma:
Cultural & Moral Relativism
• Does “cultural relativism” imply “moral relativism”?
• Are there limits to cultural or moral relativism?
• Is cultural relativism necessary for anthropological
research?
Colonial Anthropology
(mid-19th C. to mid-20th C.)
• American “Cultural” Anthropology
– Focus on Native American cultures
• British “Social” Anthropology
– Focus on Natives of the British Empire
• The “Savage Slot”
• Methodological Alterity
Post-Colonial Anthropology
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American “Area Studies” (Cold War)
Soviet Anthropology (USSR, China, Vietnam)
Japanese Anthropology
Rejection of Anthropology (We are not “Primitive”)
National Anthropologies (e.g. Thailand, Korea)
Methodological Nationalism
“World Anthropologies”
Globalization (e.g. Anthropology of YouTube)
Boas’ Basic Questions for
Anthropology:
“Why are the tribes and the nations of the
world different and how have the present
differences developed?”
Anthropology, 1907
We will be addressing this question over the coming weeks.
Summing Up…
• Anthropologists as “Strangers Abroad”
– Throughout history many people have
explained ‘other people’ to ‘their own people’
– Anthropology is part of this tradition
• Anthropology’s Relationship to Colonialism
– Modern European/American Anthropology
• Anthropology’s Relationship to Anti-Racism
– The struggle to overcome biased and racist
views of “primitive” and other peoples.
Anthropology as a Personal and
Intellectual Journey
• Anthropologists are known for studying “others”
– Anthropology and the “Savage Slot”
• But anthropologists always reflect upon
themselves and their “own” societies.
– The importance of “Reflexivity”
• Questioning categories of self/other? “Going
native”? … Intersubjectivity
About the Lecturer:
Eric C. Thompson is Associate Professor in the Department
of Sociology at the National University of Singapore.
Before joining NUS, he completed a PhD in sociocultural
anthropology at the University of Washington and was a
postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Southeast Asian
Studies, University of California Los Angeles. He teaches
anthropology, gender studies, urban studies and research
methods. His research interests include transnational
networking, urbanism, culture theory, and ASEAN
regionalism. His work has appeared in the journals
American Ethnologist, Urban Studies, Political Geography,
Asian Studies Review, Contemporary Sociology, and
Contemporary Southeast Asian Studies among others. He
is author of Unsettling Absences: Urbanism in Rural
Malaysia (NUS Press, 2007).
About the Lecturer:
Eric C. Thompson
• PhD – Sociocultural
Anthropology, University of
Washington (2000)
• Postdoctoral Fellow –
Southeast Asian Studies,
UCLA (2000-2001)
• Assistant Professor –
Sociology, NUS (2002-2008)
• Associate Professor –
Sociology, NUS (from about a
month ago)
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(1968)
Dave McCurdy
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Jack Weatherford
Macalester College
Roxana Waterson
John Miksic
Sociology
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Vineeta Sinha
Sociology
Pattana Kitiarsa
Southeast Asian Thang Leng Leng
Studies
Japanese Studies
NUS Anthropologists
Tong Chee Kiong
Sociology
Maribeth Erb
Sociology
Eric Thompson
Sociology
Irving Chan Johnson
Southeast Asian
Liz MacLachlan
Goh Beng Lan
Studies
Japanese Studies Southeast Asian Studies
Mokshika Gaur
South Asian Studies
Mika Toyota
Sociology
Anthropology: Your Personal and
Intellectual Journey
• Origins: Where does anthropology come from?
• Anthropological perspectives:
– Why do people do what they do?
– The concept of Culture
• Anthropological approaches to:
– Gender, Sexuality, Kinship
– Exchange, Economics
– Ethnicities, Nations and other Communities
• Anthropology today and tomorrow:
– From culture to discourse?
– Who are the anthropologists of today and tomorrow?
For the Coming Week:
• View: “The Shackles of Tradition” (Boas)
• View: The Journey of Man
• Read: Thompson (2012) Populating Land
and Seas
• Read: Thompson (2012) Review of
Everyday Life in Southeast Asia.
• Start reading: Lee (2012) and Adams and
Gillogly (2011)
And of course…
SELAMAT HARI RAYA!