Anthropology: the humanistic science Are you as interested as I am in knowing

how, when, and where human life arose, what the first human societies and languages were like, why cultures have evolved along diverse but often remarkably convergent pathways, why distinctions of rank came into being, and how small bands and villages gave way to chiefdoms and chiefdoms to mighty states and empires?

--Marvin Harris, Our Kind

The four fields of anthropology Anthropology is the science of

humanity – all of humanity, in all its complexity.

There are four field of anthropology: Cultural Anthropology Archeology Linguistic Anthropology Biological Anthropology

Cultural anthropology Cultural anthropologists study the

variation in thought and behavior among people of contemporary societies.

Archeology Archeologists also study the variation in

human thought and behavior, but focus on past societies.

Archeology, however, adds more than the dimension of time to the study of human cultural variation. It adds an enormous number of societies to the database of experiments that humans have conducted in social living.

Archeology Classical archeologists focus on the

reconstruction of ancient literate civilizations. They get their training in departments of classics. The majority of archeologists in the U.S., however – those who study ancient preliterate civilizations – get their training in departments of anthropology.

Linguistic anthropology Linguistic anthropologists study

the variation in human languages, the roots of human languages, and the role of language in shaping human thought and behavior.

Biological anthropology Biological – or physical –

anthropologists are biologists who study humans as organisms.

Biological anthropologists show us how the capacity for culture itself has evolved and how that capacity, in turn, has influenced our biological evolution.

Applied anthropology Applied anthropology is the

application of anthropological knowledge to the solution of human problems.

Many anthropologists work in applications – that is, trying to solve human problems.

Applied anthropology Delivering better health care,

producing better crops, teaching literacy more effectively – these and other development programs across the world are enhanced by anthropological knowledge of local cultural patterns.

Applied anthropology All four fields of anthropology have a

basic-science and an applied-science dimension.

Forensics anthropology is applied biological anthropology.

CRM, or cultural resource management, is applied archeology.

Bilingual education makes use of applied linguistic anthropology.

Medical anthropology Medical anthropology, for example,

is based on both cultural and biological anthropology.

Studies of health systems and studies of the cultural correlates of disease.

Some anthropological questions I Biological anthropology:

What is the relation between modern apes and humans? Who are the oldest humans and where did they develop?

What happened to the Neanderthals? Are we still evolving? What accounts for the different color

of people’s skin around the world? Are gendered behaviors genetic?

Some anthropological questions II Archeology:

When were plants and animals domesticated?

When did the earliest states arise, and how did complex societies evolve at all?

When did the first people come to America? Why did complex states develop so much

later in the Americas, in Europe, and in Africa than in China or the Middle East?

Some anthropological questions III Linguistics:

Are all human languages of equal complexity? Are some languages harder to learn than others?

How did language originate? Are all the languages of the world related to

one another? Why is it so hard to speak a foreign

language without an accent? Does language shape thought or vice versa?

Some anthropological questions IV Cultural and biocultural anthropology:

Is violence and war inevitable in human society?

Why do people have different cultures? Why is there economic and social

inequality? Is it part of being human? What accounts for differences in IQ scores

around the world? Are there innate behavioral and cognitive

differences in men and women?

Why anthropology? Partly, to satisfy our curiosity about

the range of variation in human thought and behavior. This is a motivating force in all sciences.

Partly to shake the foundations of ethno-centrism and to create a respect for cultural diversity.

And partly to help ameliorate human problems.

Methods There are three levels of method:

epistemology, strategy, and technique. At the epistemological level, there are two fundamentally different approaches in the social sciences.

One approach is rooted in the scientific, or positivist tradition; the other is rooted in the interpretive, or humanistic tradition. (K10:19)

More about these traditions later.

Humanism and science The methods of humanistically oriented

anthropology are the same as those used in all the humanities, particularly those used in the comparative study of literature and in history. (K10:19)

The methods of scientifically oriented anthropology are the same as those used in comparative sociology and psychology. (K10:20-23)

Strategic methods vs. technique In the social and behavioral sciences, the

scientific tradition in cultural anthropology has, in the past, represented the larger tradition of natural science.

Psychology has, in the past, represented the larger tradition of experimental science.

Sociologists have combined these two traditions in survey research. (K10:327)

In other words, the strategic methods have been historically associated with particular social and behavioral sciences experiments with psychology questionnaire surveys with sociology participant observation with

anthropologyEach strategic method comprises many techniques.

Methodological convergence in the social sciences Today, the dominant tradition in cultural

anthropology is interpretivism – the search for meaning rather than the search for cause (K10:330).

And, the social and behavioral sciences are becoming less identified by their methods of data collection and analysis and more by the theoretical and practical problems they address. 

Participant observation Most people are familiar with the method

of questionnaire surveys and with the method of experiments, including the idea of controls and placebos.

Most people are not familiar with participant observation, but this method has become part of the general social science toolkit in the last 30 years. (K10:324-326)

Participant observation Participant observation involves

immersion in another culture, including the learning of another culture's language. (K10:324-326)

Participant observation Participant observation is the

strategic method that makes possible the collection of data: about things that people would

ordinarily not talk about; about behavior that people can’t

intellectualize and talk about at all. How far apart do we stand when we talk

to one another? What’s the average?

Qualitative and quantitative data Participant observation ethnography is

often called a qualitative method, but actually, all sciences use qualitative and quantitative methods – in different amounts, of course.

Long before the physics of avian flight were understood, ornithologists watched and took notes about how birds learned to fly.

Anthropology’s strategic method

But for almost all cultural anthropologists – those who advocate the humanistic or interpretivist approach and those who favor the scientific or positivistic approach alike – participant observation is the strategic method for collecting data.

The qual-quant question The first cut in the social sciences,

then, is not qualitative or quantitative.

The first cut is: can a question be answered with the scientific method?

Many questions can not be answered with the scientific method.

Key concepts in method and theory

Emic vs. etic data: Patterned cognition vs. observable reality. (K10:329)

Individual vs. aggregate phenomena – the science in social science is a focus on aggregate phenomena.

In contrast, the focus in the humanities is on more on understanding the individual.

Culture I All of anthropology is tied together by

the concept of culture – the mechanism by which modern humans adapt to their changing physical and social environment. (K10:ch13)

Culture comprises: the ideas for patterned behavior; patterned behavior; and the products of patterned behavior.

Culture II Culture is (K10:345-356)

Learned; psychic unity of humankind Shared; enculturation by groups and

subgroups Integrated; parts change together –

eventually Particular, general and universal Mediated symbolically; language and

artifacts

Culture III Norms and variations within limits

We see this in all aspects of everyday life.

Ideal vs. real culture We see this everywhere, too.

Culture is always changing.

Three paradigms Sociobiologists look for evolutionary,

biologically rooted explanations for human behavior.

Idealists emphasize the internal emotional and/or cognitive states of human beings in the search for the causes and consequences of variations in human behavior.

Materialists emphasize external conditions – infrastructure and structure

Ethnography If culture is the mechanism of

human adaptation, we can see a culture as a set of adaptations.

Ethnography is the study of a culture. (K10:10-25; 324-326)

Ethnology But cultures differ occur across

space and across time. A theory of culture must account

for these differences in patterned ideas, behavior, and artifacts across space and time.

Ethnology is the comparative study of cultures. (K10:10-25; 324)

Cultural materialism I support the cultural materialist

paradigm as a way to find explanations for differences.

The cultural materialist paradigm was developed by Marvin Harris (1927–2001).

The emphasis is on aggregates and long-term outcomes.

It is not a replacement for under-standing the unique in people or in societies.

The key concepts: infrastructure, structure, superstructure

Infrastructure Infrastructure is the interface

between nature and culture – where nature includes the physical environment and the technology for production, as well as the biological and psychological constraints on reproduction. Including the mode of reproduction is

one key difference between Marx’s and Harris’ materialist paradigm.

Harris’ challenge “The etic behavioral modes of

production and reproduction probabilistically determine the etic behavioral domestic and political economy, which in turn probabilistically determine the behavioral and mental emic superstructures.” (Harris 1979:55-56. Cultural Materialism. The

Struggle for a Science of Culture)

Structure and superstructure The structure of society includes its

the economic and political components.

The superstructure of a society is the ideology – the internal states of values, beliefs, and attitudes.

The superstructure is what provides humans with meaning, including disappointment and satisfaction.

Primacy of the infrastructure The cultural materialist paradigm is based

on the principle of infrastructural primacy. This principle only works in aggregates

and over a longer periods of time. At any moment, the three components of

society may be in flux. In fact, the infrastructure may change as

a consequence of human intervention.

Some generalizations: States only arise after agriculture. Monotheism is found only in state-

level societies. Ideas about sexuality, family size,

and age of marriage follow changes in structure and may be facilitated by changes in the infrastructure.

Idealism I Ideas can take a long time to catch

up to changes in material conditions.

And so, despite the many examples of infrastructural determinism, this principle does not account for all changes in structure and culture.

Idealism II The idealist paradigm focuses on

psychological, mental, and on the symbolism inherent in cultural behavior.

By contrast, materialism focuses on behavior as the expression of values and assumes that technoenvironmental forces shape both behavior and ideas.

Explaining We should, then, look first to the

infrastructure when we try to explain broad changes in a society because that is where the explanation is most likely to come from.

And understanding And we should look to the

superstructure (idealism) when we want to understand the meaning of behavior and symbols to people in a society, because that is where the explanation is most likely to come from.

The biological substrate Culture often trumps biology, so it is

important to look for nonbiological alternatives in explaining human behavior.

We should, however, look to evolutionary forces (sociobiology) when we try to explain the long-term evolution of reproductive behavior, on a global scale.

Paradigms and theories Sociobiology, idealism and cultural

materialism are paradigms, not theories. They are principles for finding theory – for

finding explanations of specific cases, of things that beg to be explained. Example: The small, important probability of

step-children being injured or killed. There are sociobiological, idealist, and

materialist explanations for this phenomenon.

Sociobiological explanation The sociobiological explanation for

the battering of nonbiological children is appealing for aggregate, evolutionary phenomena—the big, big picture. A sociobiological explanation

addresses the question: What is the reproductive advantage of this behavior occurring at all?

The SB explanation Maximize inclusive fitness:

The reaction would be strongest for step-parents who support other biological children.

These frustrations will cause some people to become violent, but not others.

But why some? The behavior is not inevitable

A sociobiological explanation can’t explain why only some step-parents hurt their children.

At this level of analysis, we need a processual explanation.

Cultural materialist explanation

Some step-parents who bring resources to a second marriage become frustrated by the possibility of having their wealth diluted by their new spouse’s children.

Penn Handwerker’s study In Barbados step-parents were no

more likely to treat children violently than were biological parents.

But with the presence of a stepfather, women were more likely to batter their daughters less likely to batter their sons.

These women saw their daughters as potential competitors for resources available from their partner. They saw sons as potential sources of

physical protection and income.

Women who had their own sources of income protected their children from violence.

In these families, sons also developed affectionate relationships with their biological father.

Conclusion: Men battered powerless women and the

children of powerless women, and powerless women battered their own children.

Is there a sociobiological imperative for powerful spouses to batter powerless ones?

Or is this stimulated by material conditions, like poverty? Apply Occam’s razor

Idealism In different cultures, the rare event

of child battering is sometime more likely to be at the hands of the mother, sometimes at the hands of the father.

These are cultural differences. They may be accounted for structural

differences, but the content of culture is important to our understanding these phenomena.

Another example: Women everywhere in the world

tend to have nurturing roles. There are biological, cultural, and

materialist explanations for this fact. These competing paradigms are

complementary – depending on the level of analysis and the time frame.

Nomothetic and idiographic theory

In 1977, the New Delhi police reported 311 deaths by kitchen fires of women, mostly young brides who were killed because their families had not delivered a promised dowry to the groom’s family.

By 2001 … By 1987, the government of India

reported 1912 such “dowry deaths” of young women.

By 1994 the number was 5199—over 14 per day.

By 2001, it was over 7000

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/3071963.stm

Daniel Gross’s theory of hypergamy

Theorized that the Indian kitchen fires were a consequence of female hypergamy and dowry. Families try to marry off their

daughter to someone of greater means by offering higher dowry.

This created a bidding war, as families of wealthier sons demand more and more for the privilege of marrying those sons.

Families of daughters go into debt to accumulate the dowries.

When they can’t pay off the debt, some families of grooms murder the brides in faked kitchen accidents, where kerosene stoves purportedly blow up. The problem intensifies with the advance

of industrialization

Paredes’ study of the Poarch Creek Band

When he began his research in 1971, the Indians were a remnant of an earlier group. They had lost the use of the Creek

language They were not recognized by the U.S.

government as a tribe They had little contact with other

Indians for decades.

Poarch Creek identity How did the Poarch Creek maintain

their identity? There was a cultural revitalization

movement since the 1940s, led by key people.

The value of unique cases This is a single case, and the

explanation is unique. But with other cases, we see the

commonalities of people who make a difference in the maintenance of ethnic identity.

Gross’s idiographic theory Gross’s explanation for the kitchen fires in

India rings true but it doesn’t explain why other societies that have escalating dowry don’t have kitchen fires.

Nor does it tell us why dowry persists in India despite its being outlawed since 1961, or why dowry—which occurs in just 7.5% of the world’s societies—exists in the first place.

Gross’s theory is idiographic.

Paredes’ idiographic theory Paredes’s theory doesn’t explain:

Why other Native American groups managed to maintain their identity or why some groups did not manage it.

Why other ethnic groups maintain or fail to maintain their identity in the United States.

Why ethnicity persists at all in the face of pressure from states on ethnic groups to assimilate.

Paredes’ theory is idiographic.

Nomothetic theories

Nomothetic theories address questions like: “So, what does account for the

existence of dowry?”

Boserup’s theory of dowry

Dowry should occur in societies where women’s role in subsistence production is low. She was right, but many societies

where women’s productive effort is low do not have dowry.

Steven Gaulin and James Boster add to it

Dowry exists in stratified societies that have monogamous or polyandrous marriage.

They tested this on a sample of 186 societies, the Standard Cross Cultural Sample (SCCS).

The SCCS, HRAF, and comparative research

The Human Relations Area Files at Yale University: a million pages of ethnography.

Using cultures as units of analysis.

The Gaulin-Boster theory misclassifies fewer societies than Boserup’s, but still makes mistakes: 77% of dowry societies are, in fact,

stratified and have monogamous marriage, but

63% of monogamous, stratified societies do not have dowry.

Harris adds more… Harris suggested that Esther

Boserup’s model should work in societies where women’s value in production and reproduction is low.

In those cases, we expect dowry as a compensation to the groom’s family for taking on the liability of taking the bride into their family.

Kenneth Adams tests this … In societies with plow agriculture and

high-quality agricultural land, women’s labor is of low value. If those societies also have high population

density, then women’s reproductive role should be of low value.

In societies with both these characteristics, patrilocal residence would make accepting a bride a real liability and would lead to demand for compensation—hence, dowry.

Nomothetic theory grows Adams’ theory makes 25% fewer

errors than the Gaulin-Boster theory does in predicting which societies in the SCCS have dowry.

This is how nomothetic theory grows.

Schlegel and Barry Alice Schlegel and Herbert Barry

predicted that women will be more respected in societies where they contribute a lot to subsistence than in societies where their contribution is low.

(Schlegel, A., & Barry, H., III. (1986). The cultural consequences of female contribution to subsistence. American Anthropologist, 88, 142–150)

To operationalize: In societies where women contribute a

lot to subsistence, women: will be able to space their pregnancies; will subjected to rape less often; will have greater sexual freedom will be worth more in bride wealth will have greater choice in selection of a

spouse. All of their hypotheses supported by the

SCCS.

John Whiting: post-partum taboo and protein availability

Comparative studies use a statistical approach.

Whiting’s data are in a contingency table.

Available protein and duration of post-partum sex taboo

Protein availability

Duration of post-partum taboo

  Short term(0-1 year)

Long term(>1 year)

 Total

High 47 15 62

Medium 38 25 63

Low 20 27 47

Total 105 67 172

p-values for contingency tables

The p-value for Whiting’s table is <.01.

Accounting for falsifying cases: carrying infants in a high-protein

society recently adopting grain agriculture in

a low-protein society – culture lag measurement error

Theories and probabilities Why do societies that have low

protein availability tend to have a longer post-partum sex taboo?

Recurring relationships and theories: facts vs. explanations.