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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 12