Anthropology


A Class Act: Anthropology and the Race to Nation Across Ethnic Terrain
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 18: 401-444 (Volume publication date October 1989)
B F Williams
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

It’s quite a different experience to read peer-reviewed anthropology/social science articles than it is to read social science articles produced for or by mass media outlets. I started to read “A Class Act” and I thought articles like these form the basis for falling in love with anthropology. Though all my anthropology professors have seemed well-educated, I also came across anthropologists/social scientists who seemed at best to have been educated at Mass Media U; and that was disheartening. Sometimes it seems like bad social science is winning.

I am excited to finish the current article and comment. With my new schedule it will take me a couple weeks to do so which means it will likely be a couple weeks before I post again. (I’ve had to make some tough decisions about what I can realistically get done over the summer.) Just tonight I learned that the author is a black (African-American) woman. I’ve found a couple interviews of her and will include the links along with comments when I post. Often I look up the author as I start to read an article, but this time I was away from the computer. She speaks in one of the interviews on what attracted her to anthropology and I’m especially interested in reading that.

I do still believe math/physical science culture is a better fit for me. I felt at home during my first semester of math and chemistry (and I made A’s!) , and I feel especially compelled to take more math. I do continue to look for intersections between physics and anthropology…

Yours ever,
S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I’ve decided to start interviews in July. I haven’t set an exact date. I see starting interviews as part of the transition toward a more magazine-styled site as opposed to just a blog. I’m still in the process of determining reasonable goals for the summer given all the things that I would like to do. While I expect a productivity boost over the summer given the improvements to my time management and study skills over the past semester, there are still only so many weeks available. The manner in which this past week seemed to just fly by highlighted the need for a more structured schedule.

I have several unfinished blog posts and I’ve read a few articles that I found interesting, so I may do a mid-week update.

We’ll see,
S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Whatever my experiences with anthropology, good or bad, they have have been very limited. I understand that I need to find ways to engage a wider spectrum as far as the the subject matter of anthropology and anthropologists. I don’t quite feel ready to interview people, but I do want to add something more than reading articles.

I’ve listened to anthropology lectures available online here and there, but I haven’t made a regular effort of it. So, I’m in the process of cobbling together a series of lectures for my weekly dose of anthropology, and I hope to provide short reviews/commentaries on these in the coming weeks. I’ve already found some lectures that I’m excited about, but I didn’t get it together soon enough to start this week.

Until next week,

S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

My mind turned again to anthropology during my chemistry review.  In thinking about the importance of writing out simple formulas again and again, I thought that I should be using diagrams for common concepts in anthropology and that there’s a value in seeing key concepts/theories reduced to simple word groups with connective symbols such as lines, arrows, plus signs and the like.  Back in 2009, Greg Downey over at Neuroanthropology wrote a nice post regarding benefits and concerns when using flowcharts in anthropology.  The post seems a good place to start when I look into this more later.

So it seems that I am taking another week to work on my chemistry review.  It has been quite intensive and at the moment I find myself in that curious place where I could do much better on a test that most consider difficult while fairing much worse on a test that others consider easy.  That is to say that I have been neglectful regarding some of the required rote memorization.  I looked for sample chemistry placement test online since I haven’t been able to find out much information regarding the one that I may be taking.  So far, the results have been encouraging.

Yours truly,

S.

 

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF SYMBOLS
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 27: 329-346 (Volume publication date October 1998)
John E. Robb
The publishers share an abstract here.

My dearest Simone,

In a previous post, I implied that study for a job or as part of a dispassionate continuation of a previous path of study might be wrong reasons to study. At the moment, these are not the main reasons that drive me, but I don’t think that they are wrong reasons.

I had hoped reading this article that I might find a point of view on the archaeology of symbols with which I identified. I did not. I felt an upsurge of some of my general uncomfortableness with anthropology/archaeology. There often seems to be a disingenuous relationship between theory and data; there’s this sense that if a certain theoretical perspective only has round holes, then only round pegs matter and all other shapes of pegs are ignored. The starting/middle point doesn’t seem to be which theory can explain the most data, but rather which theory and data go together to make the tidiest package. Let the cherry picking begin. These issues exists in every discipline, but my impression is that they are a more pernicious problem in anthropology.

Robb presents three approaches to symbols in archaeology. They are symbols as tokens, symbols as girders, and symbols as tesserae. Looking at the first and taking note that the author says it remained unquestioned and unamended for a long time I see an example of my thinking that anthropologists often blur the line between “this is what we can say” and “this is all there is to say.” On symbols as totems, Robb writes, “According to many archaeologists symbols serve primarily as instruments of communication … As one recent discussion puts it, ‘Symbols including icons, rituals, monuments, and written test all convey and transmit information and meaning to their viewers…’ Thus a sumptuous headdress signals a special status, an exotic artifact boasts about long-range connections, a monument represents a capacity to command labor.” I find it easy to believe when Robb writes that “this approach has long since proved its value in archaeology.” I can almost hear the meeting discussing the fact that those who fund research like clear ideologies that render easily quantifiable findings. Though I found this view of symbols shallow and expedient, I don’t necessarily agree whole-heartedly with the reaction from “Marxists and interpretive archaeologists, who argued that symbols do not merely represent and disguise power relations but actually constitute them…”

About symbols as girders, Robb writes, “In contrast to the information transmission view, many archaeologists have explored how symbols constituted and structured the mental and social world of ancient people … humans orient themselves in the world, think and act through learned culturally specific structures that recur wherever they organize themselves and their material productions.” I do find this a better starting point than the former view of symbols as totems. It reads like a more genuine attempt at saying something more real though less tangible. Of course, I’ve always had rationalist leanings. Robb mentions that “without strong Durkheimian assumptions about elementary social structures, Levi-Straussian assumptions about elementary mental structures, or Marxist assumptions about hegemony, identifying cultural structures alone usually does not satisfy social-minded archaeologists.” He goes on to write that many have combined structuralists approaches with other approaches to form a more workable model.

On symbols as tesserae, Rob writes, “Meaning does not reside in artifacts or in people but in the moment of interaction between the two… symbols’ meanings do not exist outside of the moment in which people apprehend them and assemble them into meaningful formations … Because symbols’ meaning is not fixed but contestable, social life involves continual struggle over alternative interpretations of important symbols.” This view seems overly narrow to me in part the way Robb cites in that “all of symbolic life becomes superficial, without historical or psychological roots – a transitory juxtaposition of images on a screen.” Thoughts come to mind of how many advertising strategies rely on the fact that symbols’ meaning do exist outside of the moment in which people apprehend them.

Reading this article I feel that my need to read a book that has a comprehensive overview of anthropological theories and the views of the major players becomes more pressing. Here’s one person’s anthropological timeline that includes links to Wikipedia articles on people who shaped the development of anthropological thought: History of Anthropology Timeline.

Yours truly,
S

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I’ve picked two articles to read before the end of the year along with finishing my review of America Day by Day. I continue to look for ways to integrate my study of anthropology with my study of physics.

The Archaeology of Symbols
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 27: 329-346 (Volume publication date October 1998)
John E. Robb

Functional Theories of Grammar
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 13: 97-117 (Volume publication date October 1984)
J Nichols

Until Monday,
S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I am looking to find more clarity on what I want to do next in anthropology. I could probably continue grazing forever, but that’s a good way to eventually lose interest in an area of study. I haven’t come up with a firm plan. I’m thinking that I will pick three to five areas to study in greater detail. Areas to which I am immediately drawn include symbols in archaeology, linguistics and theory. I don’t think I’m suited to study linguistics, but I will still look a little closer. I know that there are additional review articles on the these topics – I may finish out the year reading in those areas and come up with a new plan for the new year.

I also continue to work on a plan for my physics study website/blog. I am starting to get ideas for some of the short tutorials that I plan to post. I am reading one of the more popular physics textbooks for science majors and I have been taken in by the sense that this book was written for how I learn and how I approach problems and study. I will likely write more on this text on my physics study site. I won’t be able to take a physics class until the fall. I want to take full advantage of the wait time to get a good head start.

I will be taking a math class during the coming spring semester and I’ve started review for that as well. I’m undecided as to whether I will take a chemistry class, so for the moment my chemistry review is on pause.

I’ll do a mid-week update with the articles I plan to read during the rest of the year.

Ever devoted,

S.

Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 14: 77-102 (Volume publication date October 1985)
Carol Kramer
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Reading this article I began to think of how pottery is used, reused and discarded in my household. I’ve used pottery sherds to level surfaces, as incense burners, as components of artwork, as keepsakes from unfortunately broken prized pieces… roughed up kitchen pottery as planters, pencil holders, and paperweights. Kramer gives a tidy discussion of how studying living cultures can provide clues as to how to interpret pottery as found in the archaeological record. Kramer explains that ethnographic accounts of pottery-producing groups may aid archaeologists by providing information about “… learning routines, aspects of division of labor and social organization of production, scalar and spatial aspects of production and/or distribution (e.g. numbers of vessels manufactured, distances to resources and markets, workshop locations, sizes, and layouts), scheduling problems, secondary uses of pottery, potters’ expenditures and income, vessel prices, and the like.”

Kramer recounted a possible psychological profile of a potter … “psychologically and technologically conservative, unwilling to take risks and engage in innovative experiments, with conforming personalities and a low sense of self-esteem.” This isn’t the picture of the artist that I imagine when looking at beautiful pieces of pottery. Of course, when I look at my numerous stacks of hand-painted 1950s California dishware, I tend to romanticize the manner and method by which that was produced, too. I’ve often looked at colorfully planted flowers and vines and wondered about the lives of the (usually) ladies making those brush strokes day-in and day-out. Kramer notes that looking at brush strokes might be key to identifying the work of a particular ceramic artists because the decoration of a piece of pottery might involve the handiwork of many artisans.

Lately I’ve fallen into a pattern of ignoring the colors and strokes on my hand-painted dishware. This is a pattern I would like to break. I want to renew the sense of connection to the women who created the artwork and to the people who owned and used and admired the dishware before it came to me.

Here’s a short bio and list of papers by Carol Kramer. She worked to improve the working lives and academic opportunities for women in anthropology and archaeology.

My warmest regards,

S.

 

The Problem of Informant Accuracy: The Validity of Retrospective Data
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 13: 495-517 (Volume publication date October 1984)
H R Bernard, P Killworth, D Kronenfeld, and L Sailer
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

In thinking more about interviewing people this review jumped out at me. I’d like to interview people who work and study in anthropology, people who work on helping people and the planet. I’d also just like to talk to people about their lives and experiences and thoughts about the world. I know from past experiences observing and talking to people, that their can be tons of descrepancies between what people say and what they mean and how they behave and what they believe. This review confirms this casual observation. What I had hoped for and what seems to be here in this review are resources that could help me phrase and shape and present inquiries such that I’m more likely to get the information that I want, particularly when it comes to interviewing people about their lives generally. The authors here note that “minute rewording or restaging of situations radically affects the way people will respond.” People have a long chain of internal mechanisms shaped by culture and experience and they use to evaluate an interviewers questions and frame their responses such that their answers are a result of a “large number of subconscious decisions,” as noted by the authors here.

Previously I had read a review on anthropology and creationism. At that time I can across a poll with a result that 41% of Southern Americans believed the Bible to be literally true. Anecdotally speaking from my experience growing up in the South, I knew very few people who actually believed the Bible to be literally true, but I knew quite a few who would say that they did when asked. Threaded in the culture is a belief and admonition that when people asked questions such as that one, they were really asking you about your faith, and that it was important to give the most hardlined answers lest scholarly sorts might go back to some place like New York City and somehow report that people down South don’t really believe in God or some such. As a teenager I used to talk to people quite a bit about their religious and spiritual beliefs. I think the fact that I was young and had grown up locally made a huge difference in the openness with which people spoke. In my Bible Belt town, there was just a whole different mindset when it came to talking to outsiders about religious topics … the answers skewed conservative.

With sweetness and warm thoughts,

S.

 

Concepts of Time in Quaternary Prehistory
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 12: 165-192 (Volume publication date October 1983)
Geoff N. Bailey
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Reading this article I was most drawn to wanting to read more on the thinking concerning the relationship between study of the past and the study of present. Bailey writes that “on the one hand is the view that the past should be explained in terms of the present … and made relevant to present-day social concerns. On the other hand is the view that the present should be explained in terms of the past, that the study of the past should be in terms of large-scale historical processes not obviously visible to the individual observer in a contemporary setting, processes which to some extent determine the present situation.” The history professor who most influenced my thinking was partial to the latter view. I feel partial to Bailey’s statement that the two views do not have to be seen as mutually exclusive, but rather they can be seen as based on interrelated concepts of time.

In a most casual search on the subject matter of this article, I quickly came upon at least three other articles I would like to read. They seemed like that would further enhance my understanding of the discussion of time as it relates to archaeology and give additional guidance as to further reading:

Time Perspectivism, Temporal Dynamics, and Battlefield Archaeology: A Case Study from the Santiago Campaign of 1898” by William E. Altizer

Temporal Insanity: Woodland Archaeology and the Construction of Valid Chronologies” by Erin C. Dempsey

Rethinking the great divide: long-term structural history and the temporality of event” by Jan Harding (opens a download window)

So far I’ve only given a cursory glance at them and I partly want to link to them here so that I will remember to go back to them.

Today I’ve been thinking again about how confronting death affects thinking about time.  Do Americans become more deterministic in their thinking about time when confronted with death … do we lean toward a thinking that there are processes at work that explain why a death occurred at a particular time?   A police officer acquaintance and former classmate of mine was shot and killed on the job over the weekend.  In more recent times I had reconnected with him on Facebook and we had chatted a couple times.   Chatting with him was such a special comfort to me in that his style of speaking and use of language brought a welcomed familiarity.  I was reminded that flowery romanticism in everyday conversation was just more commonplace in the Mississippi Delta (and the South in general) than other parts of the U.S.  Upon hearing of his death, I still had browser windows opened for articles he had linked to on Facebook and thoughts of speaking with him again were heavy in my mind.  When someone posted a picture of him on Facebook yesterday, I thought it was to show his recent fitness results.  But today there were messages of condolence from mutual friends.  I still don’t feel comfortable leaving Facebook condolences, but I’ve wondered how Facebook may be influencing the way we grieve and communicate with each other about death.

Many warm thoughts of you,

S.

 

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