There has been an overarching theme surrounding the events in my life and my thoughts lately. The place that I am in my life, the way that I feel about my future and where I am going (or not going), it's all changing. More than ever I realize now how little time i have left in college, which has really become a safe haven for me, a place to hide from the inevitable realities that are the "American dream."
In a few days I'll be leaving the country for a month and when I get back I will only have a semester of college left. One more semester before I'm standing haven-less in the real world dealing with everything that college helped me evade. And what do I have to arm me against any wayward attacks, a degree in Anthropology. Oh Lord. There are so many things that I have no idea about. Being involved in a serious relationship doesn't make it any easier. Not only do I have to grapple with the realites to come but I have to also consider how they will affect the future of another person as well. Who moves? Who leads? Who follows?
In this case it looks like it will be me who'll be doing the following. Danny is about to finish school and receive his degree in recording engineering. Even after only a few short trips he has people asking for him by name in Nashville. They want to write with him, play with him, and some even hire him. Since I'll be going to massage school and be working as a massage therapist after college until I can go on to get my masters it only makes sense that I go with him to Nashville.
And so the little red-headed hippie from California will come to be in the country capital of the nation. I've never liked country music, you might even say despised it. However, after self-inflicted daily 20 minute doses of country music videos I'm starting to love it. It's simple, peaceful, and is kind of like being a kid again when everything was happy and simple. Careful kids, this is what happens when you attend a Reba McEntire concert :)
So things are going to be rough. I need a new job, a better paying one. I need a lot of things and it's all up to me whether I get them or not. Once I get back from Australia it's down to business. I can definitely feel that things are about to change and I'm ready. It'll be hard but it'll be worth it. The best part is that I have someone to go through it with, someone to help me see the light at the end of the tunnel, someone to celebrate with.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
My Anthropological Theory Paper
The fact that I wrote this makes me feel really smart. . . . . .Sorry I know it's boring but I wanted to post is somewhere
Passing from the structural aspect to the functional aspect, we note that while all parts of the society have like natures and activities there is hardly any mutual dependence, and the aggregate scarcely forms a vital whole. As its parts assume different functions they become dependent on one another, so that injury to one hurts others; until in highly evolved societies, general perturbation is caused by derangement of any portion.
~Herbert Spencer
Introduction
The following paper is an analysis of pre-travel and post-travel surveys of thirty-six students from Elon University traveling to either Brazil or Guatemala for their study abroad experience. The purpose of the survey was to compare the learning goals and objectives of study abroad courses with and without service. Despite this difference between the groups all students received the exact same survey. The questions given in the survey measured each students sense of global citizenship, the question content focused on how knowledgeable the students were about the third world country they were about to visit and how they felt about what should be done for the needs of the communities.
These surveys were conducted in order to assess learning outcomes of study abroad programs depending on whether or not the program placed emphasis on service learning. While the Guatemala trip was a service-learning course, service was not a focus for the Brazil course. The trips focused on different goals but the surveys distributed to the students were composed of the exact same five questions which were as follows: 1) What are the needs of communities in the developing world? 2) What prevents countries in the developing world from overcoming the economic, political, and social problems they face? 3) What are people and communities in the developing world doing to overcome their problems? 4) How can people from developed countries help communities in developing countries overcome their problems? and 5) Why should people in developed nations be concerned with the problems faced by people in developing nations? (Esposito et al. 2006)
In this paper, various anthropological theories will be applied to both the methods and answer content of the surveys in order to identify the two theories whose influence is most prominent in the study. I feel that the cultural ecology and postmodernism theories will prove the most relevant during the application of the various theories. However, I will also be examining the features of evolutionism, structural functionalism, historical particularism, and feminism and discussing the most relevant features in the ways that they relate to the content and methods of the data collected from the surveys. Cultural ecology is relevant because it examines the ways that the environment and culture influence each other. Postmodernism applies because the type of research approach glorified by the theory is typified in the methods of data collection, analysis, and presentation.
Cultural Ecology or Neo-Evolutionism
Cultural Ecology, or neo-evolutionism, has its focus on the ways that the environment influences culture and is essentially a revitalized version of evolutionism. Cultural ecology looks at the relationship of any given society and the environment that it exists within. Spencer states this perfectly, “While the society as a whole has the character of its sustaining system determined by the general character of its environment, organic and inorganic, the respective parts of this system differentiate in adaptation to the circumstances of the localities; and, after primary industries have been thus localized and specialized, secondary industries dependent on them arise in conformity with the same principle.” (Erickson and Murphy 2006, 54)
The main train of thought within cultural ecology is that the natural environment is more influential in smaller and less technologically advanced societies than those societies that are well-developed and globalized. This is because as societies advance, various technological tools allow that society to manipulate and control nature.
For example, while in a smaller and less technologically advanced society a year in which crop pests were numerous would result in a low crop yield. This is not true for more developed societies in which pesticides are available to control that environmental factor. In his paper titled Energy and Tools, Leslie White examines the relationship between the way that the tools used by humans harness energy, and depending on the efficiency of the energy harvested the population can more towards greater technological advances. This is best said by White in the paper, “All living beings- on our planet at least- are dependent on energy derived from the sun. . . All animals live directly or indirectly upon solar energy stored up by plants. . . .living organisms are expressions and results of a movement toward higher concentrations of energy and greater organization of matter.” (Erickson and Murphy 2006) Though this quote tends to lean more towards the idea of a unilinear scheme found in evolutionism, the idea that nature and culture are related through technology is present.
The cultural ecology theory is also concerned with the ways that human populations continuously adapt to the changing techno-economic-environmental conditions. Theorists believe that culture is the means by which populations adapt, but the opposite is also thought to be true, that techno-economic-environmental factors shape culture. One example is that in Native American communities’ living in the mid-west, rain was scarce because of this a rain dance became part of their tradition not only as a practice but as a belief. For this reason, within cultural ecology, culture is considered practical and useful.
There is also a focus on etic data within the theory. This we can see in the surveys that we are analyzing here because they are concerned with the ways that the students view the places that they are visiting and not the way that the foreign culture views its own society. This is true because we know that the surveys are meant to study the global citizenship of the students and how they view the countries that they are visiting both before and after their trip. Also, the researchers examining the surveys of the students place a focus on obtaining a general feel for the students understanding, rather than looking at the responses of each individual student. The idea of the de-emphasis of the individual goes along with the idea of etic analysis and can be seen in the questions that are asked on the surveys such as, “ What are the needs of communities in the developing world?” and “What are people and communities in the developing world doing to overcome their problems?.” In looking at the data received from the surveys it is obvious that the data is very scientific and empirical due to the fact that the focus is on collecting etic data. This nomothetic approach is a basic feature of the cultural ecology theory.
Evolutionism
Though evolution is not a theory that is very well applied to this data set, I feel that it is worth considering since it is the theory from which cultural ecology was derived. Evolutionism deals with the idea that, “man is descended from less highly organized form.” (Erickson and Murphy 2006, 56) Within evolution unilinear progression, inevitable progress, and ethnocentrism are features that did not carry over to the cultural ecology theory. While the ideas of cultural ecology have proved very relevant to the data set, this is not true of evolutionism though some applications do exist. Evolutionists were not involved in the field first hand as many anthropologists of later theories and schools of thought. Instead, a type of analysis coined “armchair speculation” was prevalent among these early anthropologists. The conclusions drawn using this method were very ethnocentric and tended to base their assumptions on the idea of the unilinear progression found in evolutionism. I do feel that evolutionism is applicable to this data analysis because the student’s answers to their pre-test surveys are undoubtedly subject to some degree of armchair speculation. Due to this, it is also possible that the views that the students held about the countries that they would be visiting were ethnocentric and based largely on what they had heard, not what they had experienced since they were yet to visit their respective countries.
This can be seen in an examination of the individual responses to the pre and post travel surveys. We will look at the responses to the question, “What are the needs of the communities in the developing world?” If we examine this first question asked of the students traveling to Guatemala we can see that while the pre-travel responses were usually one word long and did not demonstrate an understanding of the area, the post-travel responses were more detailed and showed a better understanding of the situation in Guatemala. For example, many of the pre-travel surveys fell along the lines of “food”, “education”, and “clean drinking water.” In the post-travel surveys the responses were a little more in depth and it was obvious that the students had become aware of the absence of the government in several imperative areas such as housing, education, and health care. In examining the post-travel responses I found that they more specifically stated “better governmental systems” and “concerned government” while the others alluded to needed help from the government in more indirect ways such as “democracy” and “education.” This is a good demonstration of the ways the armchair speculation, or uninformed speculation, can lead to incorrect assumptions and attitudes about a country or culture. Instead, through visiting a culture and becoming immersed within it, a more complete understanding can be obtained through observations and interactions with the people. This is idea that is very important within the theory of postmodernism.
When considering features of evolutionism, I do not think that the idea of the unilinear scheme can be applied to this data set or the notion of inevitable progress. Rather the answers and questions present in the survey transcripts are more focused on globalization, the countries as a whole, and the relationship of other countries to them. This applies to the idea of a multi-linear scheme that would later be developed as a part of cultural ecology. This idea takes into account the effect that environment, culture, and technology have on the development of a culture, and the ways that the three affect each other within the development of a society. A unilinear progression, or the idea that all people develop culture in the same way, is not a view that is widely accepted among anthropologists today, which is direct result of data collected throughout fieldwork which provided a more holistic understanding of many of the world’s diverse societies.
Structural Functionalism
Structural functionalism is one of the schools of thought that criticized evolutionism and helped it to move towards cultural ecology. As a result of this influence I think that there are some similarities between the cultural ecology and structural functionalism that would be beneficial to this analysis. It is important to point out that the influence of structural functionalism, among other theories, to help in shaping cultural ecology can be easily seen by comparing the features of the different theories. For one thing the idea of the organic analogy, or the idea of all the parts of society working together, can be seen in cultural ecology with the idea that nature and culture are constantly working back and forth to maintain a balance. A different way of considering this is by looking at the model that Spencer gave of a society as an organism and the ways it can be used to think of the relationship between nature and culture within cultural ecology. Spencer even alluded to the idea of the relationship between societies and anything else within his article The Organic Analogy Reconsidered. In the article Spencer says, “Between a society and anything else, the only conceivable resemblance must be one due to parallelism of principle in the arrangement of components.”(Erickson and Murphy 2006, 51) Here he is alluding to the balance that a society must maintain in order to thrive or even survive. This idea is further explored in cultural ecology when the relationship between nature and culture is examined and found to be one that has a delicate balance.
The natural science orientation is also applicable as it deals with the idea of nomothetic inquiry that we see as a feature of cultural ecology. Structural functionalists also focused on keeping a narrow conceptual territory they chose a subsystem, such as family, and examined only that subsystem in order to obtain a more thorough understanding. If we consider the presence of subsystems within a society, we can conclude that they are part of the environment that the people of any given society exist within. If this is true we must also assume that these subsystems are then a factor when considering environmental determinism in cultural ecology. This is also something that we see in postmodernism with the idea of deconstruction when interpreting data.
In structural functionalism too we see that fieldwork orientation is something that is considered important. Again we are reminded of the dangers of practice such as “armchair speculation” that existed within the earlier theories. Structural functionalists greatly valued the opportunity to conduct first-hand work in the field as a participant observer. Postmodernists also place a large emphasis on the importance of first-hand experience with the people being studied, so that an authentic representation of the culture will be more likely to be produced in the literature.
Postmodernism
Postmodernism consists of two major interrelated arguments, one is epistemological and the other is ideological, and both are subjective. This theory is prominent in many disciplines such as philosophy, geography, and architecture. One of postmodernism’s main features is a challenge to anthropological authority. Postmodernists feel that it is presumptuous for anthropologists to assume that they should be the ones to collect, analyze, and interpret data gained from people living in cultures different than their own. Postmodernists deny that their status as scientists gives them privilege to represent other cultures in their studies and writings. Postmodernists felt so strongly that they were not to be taken as having authority in the claims that they put forth that they even claimed their texts, produced from research should be taken as fictional. James Clifford states in the article Partial Truths, “Ethnographic writings can properly be called fictions in the sense of “something made or fashioned”. . . .” (Erickson and Murphy 2006, 425)
Instead, it is felt that ethnography is polyvocal, or consists of many different voices including the anthropologist, informants, and research subjects. However, postmodernists feel that the voices of the research subjects are informants are often smothered by the voice of the anthropologist within the ethnography. Rather postmodernist feel that fieldwork is an important aspect because it is a truer representation of the interactions of the ethnographer and the “natives.” In other words, by immersing themselves within the field the researchers come to a better understanding of the culture that they are studying. By living, breathing, and sleeping within a culture what is important in that culture becomes important to the researcher. It is important to postmodernists that they assume a very humble role within their ethnography and allow room for the voices of the research subjects to shine through.
Due to the fact that postmodernists place great emphasis on the way that they present their data in writing to portray the views and voices of their research subjects, their texts are ethnographies written as a type of literary text. They claim that these texts are fictional due to the fact that they are fabricated by the anthropologist. This is a good example of the critical view that postmodernists take towards much of anthropology including their own works. Within ethnographies of postmodernists there is often a lot of emphasis placed on interpretation and meaning of symbols, signs, and language. Postmodernists use a hermeneutics approach in which they seek to understand how people with in the culture that they are studying view their own text and culture. Postmodernists also use the approach of deconstruction to break culture down into individual components in order to better examine them from an ideological perspective.
Due to the fact that postmodernists feel that they are not mandated to represent societies through their research, there is also a tendency within the theory to pull away from grand theories and generalizations. The idea of positivism is shunned due to the fact that it does not consider the fact that culture is constantly changing and is extremely complex. In general, postmodernists emphasize unique peoples and enjoy examining the “other.” This emphasis on the unique fosters the idea of relativism that was initially found in the ideas of historical particularism. This is the idea that aspects of culture must be examined through their cultural context and that this is the only way that we can achieve a true understanding of aspects of the culture. Relativism is especially interesting when applied in postmodernism and the aspect of globalization, due to the fact that postmodernists tend to focus on the individual and the specific within a society.
When we consider the ways that the postmodernist theory it is important to consider the fact that the students of the study abroad classes took on a more postmodernist view of their respective countries after visiting them. By living in the country and culture of Brazil or Guatemala for a month they were more aware of the needs of the people through their experiences. However, it is also very important to note that though each class of students traveled to the same country their post-travel survey responses still had great variation. This ties in the idea of partial truths, or the idea that no one view is the complete truth. Despite the fact that the groups of students traveled to the same country and participated in the same activities with the same learning goals, they still interpreted the needs of the community differently.
This difference in responses is most likely due to the presence of multiple voices of the “natives” of each respective country that can be seen in the student’s responses after they have spent time in the field. While these responses look past specific differences to focus on somewhat broader ideologies this is not to say that they can be generalized.
Historical Particularism
Historical particularism is another important theory to consider when examining and analyzing this data set. This is true because historical particularism and postmodernism and similar in many ways that are applicable and relevant to the surveys studied here. Historical particularism examines the idea of diffusionism much as postmodernism examines the role of globalization in considering culture and the way that it is affected by the cultural context that it exists within. Historical particularists were also very critical of evolutionists as postmodernists are of anthropological theory in general. Within historical particularism there is also the idea that what knowledge anthropologists have or speculate is limited in its truth and that it is important to apply only cautious generalization due to the fact that cultures are unique. The two theories also place an emphasis on emic analysis and the idea of relativism. Fieldwork is a feature of historical particularism that can be seen as relevant to this data analysis. One of the reasons that the surveys conducted with the students was to examine the learning goals and objectives of study abroad courses with and with out service learning. I feel that it could be argued that service learning causes the student to see things from an insider’s, or emic, perspective much like fieldwork does for anthropologists. Again this is mirrored in the theory of postmodernism with the idea of partial truths.
Feminism
While the emphasis of feminist theory has been on gender roles and the oppression of women in societies throughout the world, a broader consideration of the theory is marginalized peoples. Feminist theorists have focused not only on liberating women, but on aiding oppressed and marginalized people throughout the globe in getting their voices heard. The development of feminism paralleled with changes in the empirical world concerning women.
Feminism possesses a definite epistemology and focuses on dissipating the separation of the researcher and the researched. It is felt that research should be a collaborative effect that includes the subjects as an interactive part. A strong emphasis is also placed on the exchange of dialogue. A great example of feminist research is Margaret Mead’s work conducted in Samoa. In conducting her research Mead became one of the Samoan girls. She lived with them and participated in their daily activities. Through this interaction they came to see her as no different them, and were quick to become friends with her and share personal information. Mead talks about the importance of this type of immersion for understanding the culture, “And just as it was necessary to understand the physical environment, this routine of life which was so different from ours, so her social environment in its attitudes towards children, towards sex, towards personality, presented as strong a contrast to the social environment of an American girl.” (Erickson and Murphy 2006, 127)
These ideas and values of immersion within a culture, dialogue exchange, and close relationship of the researcher and subject are all also features of postmodernism. Within the data analyzed from the surveys feminist theory can be seen in several faucets. For one the purpose of the service class to Guatemala is designed with the intent to help a marginalized community in Guatemala. Through having the students spend time with these marginalized people it made them more aware of the ways that help is needed within the community. The students were also hearing the voices of the people of the country that they were visiting. Though the class that traveled to Brazil was not focused on service learning, the responses of their pre and post travel surveys changed. Despite the fact that service learning was not a goal they were still aware of the voices of the Brazilians. The fact that the class that traveled to Guatemala was a service-learning class is also something that speaks of feminist theory. Feminist theory is largely concerned with service within a community of marginalized people. The theory of feminism applies to the data in a number of ways but not when considering the oppression of women. This is a main feature of feminist theory but is not something that is seen in the data from the collected surveys. However, overall feminist theory lends itself well to application with the surveys considered here.
Conclusion
After considering the above theories it is my belief that cultural ecology and postmodernism are most applicable in analyzing this data set. The theories of evolutionism, structural functionalism, historical particularism, and feminism were also examined and were found to be relevant in some aspects. While cultural ecology and the postmodernist theory are the most applicable, it is also important to recognize the great amount of overlap between all of the theories examined in this paper. Influence across theories can easily be seen in the similarities of basic features.
In this application of theory it is interesting to see the ways that the influence that exists within theories applies on different ways to the analysis of data. Through the influence and critique between theories new ideas are formed which inspire new schools of thought.
Passing from the structural aspect to the functional aspect, we note that while all parts of the society have like natures and activities there is hardly any mutual dependence, and the aggregate scarcely forms a vital whole. As its parts assume different functions they become dependent on one another, so that injury to one hurts others; until in highly evolved societies, general perturbation is caused by derangement of any portion.
~Herbert Spencer
Introduction
The following paper is an analysis of pre-travel and post-travel surveys of thirty-six students from Elon University traveling to either Brazil or Guatemala for their study abroad experience. The purpose of the survey was to compare the learning goals and objectives of study abroad courses with and without service. Despite this difference between the groups all students received the exact same survey. The questions given in the survey measured each students sense of global citizenship, the question content focused on how knowledgeable the students were about the third world country they were about to visit and how they felt about what should be done for the needs of the communities.
These surveys were conducted in order to assess learning outcomes of study abroad programs depending on whether or not the program placed emphasis on service learning. While the Guatemala trip was a service-learning course, service was not a focus for the Brazil course. The trips focused on different goals but the surveys distributed to the students were composed of the exact same five questions which were as follows: 1) What are the needs of communities in the developing world? 2) What prevents countries in the developing world from overcoming the economic, political, and social problems they face? 3) What are people and communities in the developing world doing to overcome their problems? 4) How can people from developed countries help communities in developing countries overcome their problems? and 5) Why should people in developed nations be concerned with the problems faced by people in developing nations? (Esposito et al. 2006)
In this paper, various anthropological theories will be applied to both the methods and answer content of the surveys in order to identify the two theories whose influence is most prominent in the study. I feel that the cultural ecology and postmodernism theories will prove the most relevant during the application of the various theories. However, I will also be examining the features of evolutionism, structural functionalism, historical particularism, and feminism and discussing the most relevant features in the ways that they relate to the content and methods of the data collected from the surveys. Cultural ecology is relevant because it examines the ways that the environment and culture influence each other. Postmodernism applies because the type of research approach glorified by the theory is typified in the methods of data collection, analysis, and presentation.
Cultural Ecology or Neo-Evolutionism
Cultural Ecology, or neo-evolutionism, has its focus on the ways that the environment influences culture and is essentially a revitalized version of evolutionism. Cultural ecology looks at the relationship of any given society and the environment that it exists within. Spencer states this perfectly, “While the society as a whole has the character of its sustaining system determined by the general character of its environment, organic and inorganic, the respective parts of this system differentiate in adaptation to the circumstances of the localities; and, after primary industries have been thus localized and specialized, secondary industries dependent on them arise in conformity with the same principle.” (Erickson and Murphy 2006, 54)
The main train of thought within cultural ecology is that the natural environment is more influential in smaller and less technologically advanced societies than those societies that are well-developed and globalized. This is because as societies advance, various technological tools allow that society to manipulate and control nature.
For example, while in a smaller and less technologically advanced society a year in which crop pests were numerous would result in a low crop yield. This is not true for more developed societies in which pesticides are available to control that environmental factor. In his paper titled Energy and Tools, Leslie White examines the relationship between the way that the tools used by humans harness energy, and depending on the efficiency of the energy harvested the population can more towards greater technological advances. This is best said by White in the paper, “All living beings- on our planet at least- are dependent on energy derived from the sun. . . All animals live directly or indirectly upon solar energy stored up by plants. . . .living organisms are expressions and results of a movement toward higher concentrations of energy and greater organization of matter.” (Erickson and Murphy 2006) Though this quote tends to lean more towards the idea of a unilinear scheme found in evolutionism, the idea that nature and culture are related through technology is present.
The cultural ecology theory is also concerned with the ways that human populations continuously adapt to the changing techno-economic-environmental conditions. Theorists believe that culture is the means by which populations adapt, but the opposite is also thought to be true, that techno-economic-environmental factors shape culture. One example is that in Native American communities’ living in the mid-west, rain was scarce because of this a rain dance became part of their tradition not only as a practice but as a belief. For this reason, within cultural ecology, culture is considered practical and useful.
There is also a focus on etic data within the theory. This we can see in the surveys that we are analyzing here because they are concerned with the ways that the students view the places that they are visiting and not the way that the foreign culture views its own society. This is true because we know that the surveys are meant to study the global citizenship of the students and how they view the countries that they are visiting both before and after their trip. Also, the researchers examining the surveys of the students place a focus on obtaining a general feel for the students understanding, rather than looking at the responses of each individual student. The idea of the de-emphasis of the individual goes along with the idea of etic analysis and can be seen in the questions that are asked on the surveys such as, “ What are the needs of communities in the developing world?” and “What are people and communities in the developing world doing to overcome their problems?.” In looking at the data received from the surveys it is obvious that the data is very scientific and empirical due to the fact that the focus is on collecting etic data. This nomothetic approach is a basic feature of the cultural ecology theory.
Evolutionism
Though evolution is not a theory that is very well applied to this data set, I feel that it is worth considering since it is the theory from which cultural ecology was derived. Evolutionism deals with the idea that, “man is descended from less highly organized form.” (Erickson and Murphy 2006, 56) Within evolution unilinear progression, inevitable progress, and ethnocentrism are features that did not carry over to the cultural ecology theory. While the ideas of cultural ecology have proved very relevant to the data set, this is not true of evolutionism though some applications do exist. Evolutionists were not involved in the field first hand as many anthropologists of later theories and schools of thought. Instead, a type of analysis coined “armchair speculation” was prevalent among these early anthropologists. The conclusions drawn using this method were very ethnocentric and tended to base their assumptions on the idea of the unilinear progression found in evolutionism. I do feel that evolutionism is applicable to this data analysis because the student’s answers to their pre-test surveys are undoubtedly subject to some degree of armchair speculation. Due to this, it is also possible that the views that the students held about the countries that they would be visiting were ethnocentric and based largely on what they had heard, not what they had experienced since they were yet to visit their respective countries.
This can be seen in an examination of the individual responses to the pre and post travel surveys. We will look at the responses to the question, “What are the needs of the communities in the developing world?” If we examine this first question asked of the students traveling to Guatemala we can see that while the pre-travel responses were usually one word long and did not demonstrate an understanding of the area, the post-travel responses were more detailed and showed a better understanding of the situation in Guatemala. For example, many of the pre-travel surveys fell along the lines of “food”, “education”, and “clean drinking water.” In the post-travel surveys the responses were a little more in depth and it was obvious that the students had become aware of the absence of the government in several imperative areas such as housing, education, and health care. In examining the post-travel responses I found that they more specifically stated “better governmental systems” and “concerned government” while the others alluded to needed help from the government in more indirect ways such as “democracy” and “education.” This is a good demonstration of the ways the armchair speculation, or uninformed speculation, can lead to incorrect assumptions and attitudes about a country or culture. Instead, through visiting a culture and becoming immersed within it, a more complete understanding can be obtained through observations and interactions with the people. This is idea that is very important within the theory of postmodernism.
When considering features of evolutionism, I do not think that the idea of the unilinear scheme can be applied to this data set or the notion of inevitable progress. Rather the answers and questions present in the survey transcripts are more focused on globalization, the countries as a whole, and the relationship of other countries to them. This applies to the idea of a multi-linear scheme that would later be developed as a part of cultural ecology. This idea takes into account the effect that environment, culture, and technology have on the development of a culture, and the ways that the three affect each other within the development of a society. A unilinear progression, or the idea that all people develop culture in the same way, is not a view that is widely accepted among anthropologists today, which is direct result of data collected throughout fieldwork which provided a more holistic understanding of many of the world’s diverse societies.
Structural Functionalism
Structural functionalism is one of the schools of thought that criticized evolutionism and helped it to move towards cultural ecology. As a result of this influence I think that there are some similarities between the cultural ecology and structural functionalism that would be beneficial to this analysis. It is important to point out that the influence of structural functionalism, among other theories, to help in shaping cultural ecology can be easily seen by comparing the features of the different theories. For one thing the idea of the organic analogy, or the idea of all the parts of society working together, can be seen in cultural ecology with the idea that nature and culture are constantly working back and forth to maintain a balance. A different way of considering this is by looking at the model that Spencer gave of a society as an organism and the ways it can be used to think of the relationship between nature and culture within cultural ecology. Spencer even alluded to the idea of the relationship between societies and anything else within his article The Organic Analogy Reconsidered. In the article Spencer says, “Between a society and anything else, the only conceivable resemblance must be one due to parallelism of principle in the arrangement of components.”(Erickson and Murphy 2006, 51) Here he is alluding to the balance that a society must maintain in order to thrive or even survive. This idea is further explored in cultural ecology when the relationship between nature and culture is examined and found to be one that has a delicate balance.
The natural science orientation is also applicable as it deals with the idea of nomothetic inquiry that we see as a feature of cultural ecology. Structural functionalists also focused on keeping a narrow conceptual territory they chose a subsystem, such as family, and examined only that subsystem in order to obtain a more thorough understanding. If we consider the presence of subsystems within a society, we can conclude that they are part of the environment that the people of any given society exist within. If this is true we must also assume that these subsystems are then a factor when considering environmental determinism in cultural ecology. This is also something that we see in postmodernism with the idea of deconstruction when interpreting data.
In structural functionalism too we see that fieldwork orientation is something that is considered important. Again we are reminded of the dangers of practice such as “armchair speculation” that existed within the earlier theories. Structural functionalists greatly valued the opportunity to conduct first-hand work in the field as a participant observer. Postmodernists also place a large emphasis on the importance of first-hand experience with the people being studied, so that an authentic representation of the culture will be more likely to be produced in the literature.
Postmodernism
Postmodernism consists of two major interrelated arguments, one is epistemological and the other is ideological, and both are subjective. This theory is prominent in many disciplines such as philosophy, geography, and architecture. One of postmodernism’s main features is a challenge to anthropological authority. Postmodernists feel that it is presumptuous for anthropologists to assume that they should be the ones to collect, analyze, and interpret data gained from people living in cultures different than their own. Postmodernists deny that their status as scientists gives them privilege to represent other cultures in their studies and writings. Postmodernists felt so strongly that they were not to be taken as having authority in the claims that they put forth that they even claimed their texts, produced from research should be taken as fictional. James Clifford states in the article Partial Truths, “Ethnographic writings can properly be called fictions in the sense of “something made or fashioned”. . . .” (Erickson and Murphy 2006, 425)
Instead, it is felt that ethnography is polyvocal, or consists of many different voices including the anthropologist, informants, and research subjects. However, postmodernists feel that the voices of the research subjects are informants are often smothered by the voice of the anthropologist within the ethnography. Rather postmodernist feel that fieldwork is an important aspect because it is a truer representation of the interactions of the ethnographer and the “natives.” In other words, by immersing themselves within the field the researchers come to a better understanding of the culture that they are studying. By living, breathing, and sleeping within a culture what is important in that culture becomes important to the researcher. It is important to postmodernists that they assume a very humble role within their ethnography and allow room for the voices of the research subjects to shine through.
Due to the fact that postmodernists place great emphasis on the way that they present their data in writing to portray the views and voices of their research subjects, their texts are ethnographies written as a type of literary text. They claim that these texts are fictional due to the fact that they are fabricated by the anthropologist. This is a good example of the critical view that postmodernists take towards much of anthropology including their own works. Within ethnographies of postmodernists there is often a lot of emphasis placed on interpretation and meaning of symbols, signs, and language. Postmodernists use a hermeneutics approach in which they seek to understand how people with in the culture that they are studying view their own text and culture. Postmodernists also use the approach of deconstruction to break culture down into individual components in order to better examine them from an ideological perspective.
Due to the fact that postmodernists feel that they are not mandated to represent societies through their research, there is also a tendency within the theory to pull away from grand theories and generalizations. The idea of positivism is shunned due to the fact that it does not consider the fact that culture is constantly changing and is extremely complex. In general, postmodernists emphasize unique peoples and enjoy examining the “other.” This emphasis on the unique fosters the idea of relativism that was initially found in the ideas of historical particularism. This is the idea that aspects of culture must be examined through their cultural context and that this is the only way that we can achieve a true understanding of aspects of the culture. Relativism is especially interesting when applied in postmodernism and the aspect of globalization, due to the fact that postmodernists tend to focus on the individual and the specific within a society.
When we consider the ways that the postmodernist theory it is important to consider the fact that the students of the study abroad classes took on a more postmodernist view of their respective countries after visiting them. By living in the country and culture of Brazil or Guatemala for a month they were more aware of the needs of the people through their experiences. However, it is also very important to note that though each class of students traveled to the same country their post-travel survey responses still had great variation. This ties in the idea of partial truths, or the idea that no one view is the complete truth. Despite the fact that the groups of students traveled to the same country and participated in the same activities with the same learning goals, they still interpreted the needs of the community differently.
This difference in responses is most likely due to the presence of multiple voices of the “natives” of each respective country that can be seen in the student’s responses after they have spent time in the field. While these responses look past specific differences to focus on somewhat broader ideologies this is not to say that they can be generalized.
Historical Particularism
Historical particularism is another important theory to consider when examining and analyzing this data set. This is true because historical particularism and postmodernism and similar in many ways that are applicable and relevant to the surveys studied here. Historical particularism examines the idea of diffusionism much as postmodernism examines the role of globalization in considering culture and the way that it is affected by the cultural context that it exists within. Historical particularists were also very critical of evolutionists as postmodernists are of anthropological theory in general. Within historical particularism there is also the idea that what knowledge anthropologists have or speculate is limited in its truth and that it is important to apply only cautious generalization due to the fact that cultures are unique. The two theories also place an emphasis on emic analysis and the idea of relativism. Fieldwork is a feature of historical particularism that can be seen as relevant to this data analysis. One of the reasons that the surveys conducted with the students was to examine the learning goals and objectives of study abroad courses with and with out service learning. I feel that it could be argued that service learning causes the student to see things from an insider’s, or emic, perspective much like fieldwork does for anthropologists. Again this is mirrored in the theory of postmodernism with the idea of partial truths.
Feminism
While the emphasis of feminist theory has been on gender roles and the oppression of women in societies throughout the world, a broader consideration of the theory is marginalized peoples. Feminist theorists have focused not only on liberating women, but on aiding oppressed and marginalized people throughout the globe in getting their voices heard. The development of feminism paralleled with changes in the empirical world concerning women.
Feminism possesses a definite epistemology and focuses on dissipating the separation of the researcher and the researched. It is felt that research should be a collaborative effect that includes the subjects as an interactive part. A strong emphasis is also placed on the exchange of dialogue. A great example of feminist research is Margaret Mead’s work conducted in Samoa. In conducting her research Mead became one of the Samoan girls. She lived with them and participated in their daily activities. Through this interaction they came to see her as no different them, and were quick to become friends with her and share personal information. Mead talks about the importance of this type of immersion for understanding the culture, “And just as it was necessary to understand the physical environment, this routine of life which was so different from ours, so her social environment in its attitudes towards children, towards sex, towards personality, presented as strong a contrast to the social environment of an American girl.” (Erickson and Murphy 2006, 127)
These ideas and values of immersion within a culture, dialogue exchange, and close relationship of the researcher and subject are all also features of postmodernism. Within the data analyzed from the surveys feminist theory can be seen in several faucets. For one the purpose of the service class to Guatemala is designed with the intent to help a marginalized community in Guatemala. Through having the students spend time with these marginalized people it made them more aware of the ways that help is needed within the community. The students were also hearing the voices of the people of the country that they were visiting. Though the class that traveled to Brazil was not focused on service learning, the responses of their pre and post travel surveys changed. Despite the fact that service learning was not a goal they were still aware of the voices of the Brazilians. The fact that the class that traveled to Guatemala was a service-learning class is also something that speaks of feminist theory. Feminist theory is largely concerned with service within a community of marginalized people. The theory of feminism applies to the data in a number of ways but not when considering the oppression of women. This is a main feature of feminist theory but is not something that is seen in the data from the collected surveys. However, overall feminist theory lends itself well to application with the surveys considered here.
Conclusion
After considering the above theories it is my belief that cultural ecology and postmodernism are most applicable in analyzing this data set. The theories of evolutionism, structural functionalism, historical particularism, and feminism were also examined and were found to be relevant in some aspects. While cultural ecology and the postmodernist theory are the most applicable, it is also important to recognize the great amount of overlap between all of the theories examined in this paper. Influence across theories can easily be seen in the similarities of basic features.
In this application of theory it is interesting to see the ways that the influence that exists within theories applies on different ways to the analysis of data. Through the influence and critique between theories new ideas are formed which inspire new schools of thought.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Things to do. . . .
Here are all the things that I have to accomplish within the next couple of days:
Field Notes (at least 1500 words)
Read 30 pages on postmodernism
Human Sexuality Research Paper (7-10 pages)
Research Proposal (includes Literature Review)
Read 30 pages on Critical Interpretivism (I don't know either)
Quiz in Human Sexuality and read Debate Articles
Give a presentation on the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis in Linguitics
Write a 16-18 page paper on Anthropological Theory as applied to a data set I don't give a crap about.
Read 4 more chapters in my Australia text book and type up notes for 12
Write a 5 page paper on the film Rabbit Proof Fence
and that's not even everything. . . .
I guess I'll give up sleep.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)