Download The Breakdown of Holism: And the Curious Fate of Food Studies in

January 2006 • Anthropology News
IN FOCUS
Anthropology for the Next Generation
R BROOKE THOMAS
U MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST
W
ith regard to the
merits of a fourfield orientation, I
can think of few
long term advantages of separating
biological anthropology from the
rest of anthropology. Our strength
as a discipline seems to lie in the
multiple
perspectives we can
bring to a problem. While the
subdisciplines,
especially biological and sociocultural, are
presently epistemologically
distant
from
R Brooke Thomas one
another,
this is not likely to continue in the
future as the next generation recreates itself to engage new and relevant issues of the day. There are
simply too many critical problems
facing society and the environment that demand the integration
of biology and culture, science and
the humanities. A frontier we have
hardly explored is how these sometimes competing orientations can
better complement one another,
and how biology and culture are so
thoroughly intertwined, sometimes synergistically and sometimes in contradiction. If our discipline can’t contribute to this indispensable perspective, then where is
it going to come from?
Some would say that four-field
American anthropology was a historical accident. Nevertheless, the formation of the AAA, the creation of
subdisciplinary organizations and
their respective journals, and the separation from sociology into our own
discipline has been hard fought by
generations of committed anthropologists who believed in the value
of this grandiose perspective. Today,
with the prospects of splitting—and
its probable irreversibility—what is to
become of this endeavor? Will teaching and research occur in separate
C O M M E N TA RY
buildings, will reading and publication be more oriented to specialty
journals, and will a new generation
of graduate students be trained within subdisciplinary boundaries and
hence be less able, less interested, in
negotiating anthropological border
crossings? At what point will they no
longer be considered anthropologists
by themselves or those hiring them?
Necessary Border-Crossings
In my opinion, border-crossings
within the discipline, between disciplines and beyond the academy
will become essential if we are to
engage in research on relevant
future problems. And this will be
facilitated by control of a broad theoretical base coupled with an array
of methodological expertise. In a
chapter of Alan Goodman and Tom
Leatherman’s 1998 book Building a
New Biocultural Synthesis, I and
Gavin Smith, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Toronto
See Next Generation on page 11
Can Biological
The Breakdown
and Cultural
of Holism
the Curious Fate of
Anthropology Coexist? And
Food Studies in
FRAN MASCIA-LEES
RUTGERS U
W
e’ve been asking
questions about the
coexistence of biological and cultural
anthropology for a very long time
now. The stark reality is that little has
changed in terms of our intellectual
cross-subdisciplinary
engagements over the
years,
despite
pleas and plans
to the contrary.
And, I would suggest, little will
change in the future if we do not
move radically beFran Mascia-Lees yond old arguments, resentments and even our ways of envisioning common ground.
Discussions about coexistence
have centered on the question of
whether biological and cultural
anthropology can coexist. I, however, want to focus on whether they
should coexist, which demands that
we address this question: what
compelling intellectual connections do we share? If there are genuinely and undeniably strong reasons for biological and cultural
anthropology to remain part of a
single discipline, we should expect
to find abundant evidence for that
in the questions we as scholars ask,
the approaches we take, the arguments we make, the papers we give,
the articles we write and the intellectual company we keep. It will
probably come as no surprise that
from my vantage point as editor-inchief of the American Anthropologist,
such evidence is wanting.
Lacking Evidence for
Coexistence
Other than Current Anthropology,
the American Anthropologist is really
the only US journal centrally committed, as the charter says, to
“advancing anthropology as a discipline that studies humankind in all
its aspects.” And in my role as editor of AA, I am certainly dedicated
to the association’s commitment to
See Coexistence on page 13
Anthropology
ANDREA WILEY
JAMES MADISON U
T
he proposed separation
of biological anthropology from Harvard’s anthropology
program
drives yet another stake through the
heart of anthropological holism.
Those of us who
adopt a biocultural perspective
find ourselves
clinging to an
increasingly
slender branch.
It is a sad irony
that scholars trying to maintain
anthropology’s
Andrea Wiley
promise of holism find themselves marginalized in our fractious
discipline, a fate well-known to
those of us who study food.
The group of anthropologists
studying food, or identifying themselves as nutritional anthropologists, has been a very small group,
despite the recent florescence of
food studies across other academic
disciplines. Within the AAA, the
Society for the Anthropology of
Food and Nutrition (SAFN) has persisted as a small yet vibrant group,
and has always been welcoming to
those who adopt biocultural perspectives. This is not to say that
everyone within the group shares
these perspectives; members have
diverse interests and theoretical
positions. But the group remains
remarkably cohesive and harmonious and is in some ways a model
for the kind of holistic analyses that
American anthropology has held
out as an ideal.
Food as Biocultural
Of course it is difficult to imagine a
topic more intrinsically biocultural
than food. As for the bio part of that
term, food’s effects on the body are
among the most obvious, from the
short-term satiety following a meal
to the chronic effects of deprivation
or excess. The significance of diet in
the evolution of the biology of
Homo sapiens is apparent in everything from the size of our (giant)
See Holism Breakdown on page 12
9
Anthropology News • January 2006
Holism Breakdown
Continued from page 9
brain to the size of our (tiny) cecum.
Furthermore, different dietary evolutionary histories among populations within Homo sapiens have led
to genetic variation, as in the welldocumented population variation
in lactase persistence.
At the same time, food is never
only physiological in its significance; it is a powerful “natural symbol.” It is amenable to myriad forms
of cultural analyses ranging from
Levi-Strauss’s French structuralism
to Sidney Mintz’s political economy.
It is impossible to miss the ways that
food is embedded in all aspects of
culture. Daily life revolves around
food—foraging for it, growing it,
working for cash that can be traded
for it, preparing it or eating it. It is a
material of exchange between individuals or countries, a symbol of
political or economic debt or credit,
a motivation for war, a means for
unification with the divine, the
manifestation of kinship obligations, and the list keeps going.
At its roots, food is intensely material, and this has resulted in a particularly strong alliance between cultural anthropologists of a more materialist bent, as Mintz’s and Marvin
Harris’s copious work on food illustrates, and biological anthropologists
focused on the relationship between
diet and human biology. But is food’s
materiality no longer interesting or
IN FOCUS
compelling as a place to start a synthesis across a wide swath of anthropological work? The material and the
symbolic have become increasingly
particularized, polarized and ultimately profoundly disconnected in
anthropology. It sometimes seems
that the small number of anthropologists interested in food remains the
last holdout for the promise of integration.
The Promise and Holes
of Holism
While departmental splitting has
usually been based on theoretical
rather than topical distinctions,
own, but rather has more often
been used in the service of understanding some other aspect of culture or human biology. Since it
never developed an autonomous
identity within anthropology, food
never became a key topic that
served to link scholars from the
subdisciplines. Similarly, there was
never a clear articulation of the
“whole” to serve as the rallying cry
for the discipline.
In any event, those looking to see
at least a glimmer of the promise of
holism might look to food studies,
where nutritionists, historians, literary scholars, chefs, farmers, geogra-
little power to prevent the divergence of anthropologists.
Ultimately the most important
issue that emerges in the aftermath
of departmental splitting is that of
where to send students still interested in the ideals of anthropological
holism. Do we tell them that it’s a
fruitless enterprise? How can that
possibly be? In my view anthropology’s greatest strength has been its
ability to see the big picture as well
as the smallest, seemingly insignificant details. In the domain of food,
the anthropological lens—with its
unique ability to zoom out to see
food at the macrolevel of global
Ultimately the most important issue that emerges in the
aftermath of departmental splitting is that of where to send
students still interested in the ideals of anthropological holism.
one has to wonder why holism and
food studies have met such a similar fate in contemporary anthropology. Is food just too multifaceted
to act as a unifying schema? In this
regard, food is symbolic of anthropology itself—that is, its commitment (pretensions?) to understanding the “whole” of what it means to
be human is just too difficult to
manage. Especially in the context
of increasingly specialized theory
and method, it becomes ever more
difficult to “do it all” or even a
quarter, and do it well. At the same
time, food has never been a central
concern of anthropology on its
phers, economists, ecologists and
anthropologists from the four subdisciplines enthusiastically embrace
food as their unifying passion. But,
as the Harvard example indicates,
food may not be a strong enough
bond to hold anthropologists together. The department houses several cultural anthropologists, biological anthropologists and archaeologists with research agendas involving some aspect of food or diet.
How and why are these scholars
divided by a common interest?
While food may have the power to
bring scholars from different disciplines together, it appears to have
political economy and evolutionary
history and zoom in to see food at
the microlevel of the adaptive value
of local food processing, ritual uses
of specific preparations, or causes
and consequences of nutrient deficiencies—has never been more
valuable. It is a sad day indeed when
we can no longer offer this perspective to our students, regardless of
the topic they wish to study. A■N
Andrea Wiley is professor of anthropology at James Madison University. As a biocultural anthropologist whose research is
on food (specifically milk), she is committed to the ideal of anthropological holism.
AAA Minority Dissertation Fellowship Program 2006
The American Anthropological Association invites minority doctoral
candidates in anthropology to apply for a
full-year dissertation writing fellowship of $10,000.
The AAA Minority Dissertation Fellowship is intended to encourage
members of ethnic minorities to complete doctoral degrees in anthropology. Dissertation topics in all areas of the discipline are welcome.
Application Materials and complete instructions are available from the AAA
homepage at: www.aaanet.org.
Please Note: Incomplete applications will not be considered.
African American, Alaskan Native, American Indian or Native American,
Asian American, Latino/a, Chicano/a, and Pacific Islander doctoral students who have been admitted to degree candidacy are urged to apply.
For more information contact Kathleen Terry-Sharp, Director of Academic
Relations, [email protected].
Completed application packages should be sent to:
American Anthropological Association
Minority Dissertation Fellowship Program
2200 Wilson Blvd, Suite 600; Arlington, VA 22201-3357
Applications MUST be received by February 15, 2006
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