North American Dialogue Newsletter of the Society for the Anthropology of North America

NORTH AMERICAN DIALOGUE NEWSLETTER OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF NORTH AMERICA Volume 10, No. 1 April 2007 ISSN 1539-2546 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Report on the Field In his “Report from the President” (NAD 2006: The Anthropology of the U.S.: 14), SANA President Jeff Maskovsky notes “…the Cited Not Nearly Enough and Still Earning Respect pioneering scholarship in our field is still not taught or cited as frequently as it should be. By Kate Masley Indeed, it is still possible to read new monographs based on U.S. research that ignore the extensive ethnographic literature on the field. We must not Abstract: This article provides an overview of some allow the weakening of the area studies rubric to significant trends and developments in the anthropology of the U.S. The author, a young North Americanist, erase the deep understanding of the American highlights the ongoing need to acknowledge and cite the scene that has been produced by decades of extensive body of work that seems to get lost with each excellent scholarship.” In this article, I seek to new cohort of anthropologists seeking to do acknowledge that this extensive scholarship exists, ethnography “at home” in the U.S. Tracing the origins and provide an overview of some significant of American anthropology to its “Indianology” roots, the developments and shifts that have taken place author sketches changes that came with World War II within the field. By no means is this review meant and the post-war generation of anthropologists calling to be exhaustive, but is intended to provide an for new, U.S.-based research. The role of black outline of patterns in the growth and development anthropologists in developing an activist anthropology of the anthropology of the U.S. located in the U.S. is often overlooked and underrated. The work of AAA sections such as SANA and ABA have Evolutionist Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) helped provide a corrective to the erasure of pioneering was one of the very first scholars to conduct scholarship based on U.S. research and of the pioneers anthropological research in the United States, and those who followed them. As more anthropologists studying over seventy Native American groups engage in U.S. fieldwork, we must build on the (Bohannan and Glazer 1988). Like Morgan, Boas, scholarship of our anthropological forebears, especially Lowie, and Radin contributed to the anthropology those who may not have received prominence in their of North America with their work on Native own time, but whose works have proven to be visionary. Americans, although theirs was an historical- Key words: U.S. anthropology, North America, urban, particularistic approach, leading to a focus on history of anthropology religion, folklore, mythology, social organization, kinship, ceremonies, and customs. From the 1870s through the 1930s, an enormous number of research studies were conducted among Native American groups such that American anthropology could have been referred to as “Indianology” (Kan 2001). _______________________________________________________________ Masley, continued from page 1 In This Issue The 1915 volume Anthropology in North Articles America, written by Boas and colleagues, illustrates the depth, detail, and scope of anthropological 1 Report on the Field: scholarship of that period. The main focus of The Anthropology of the U.S.: Cited Not Nearly anthropological attention was on Native Americans Enough and Still Earning Respect (Masley) who were perceived and depicted as the “exotic 6 Report from the Field: other” and whose groups were presumed to be “The Other” and “The Enemy”: homogenous. According to Beatrice Medicine, Reflections on Fieldwork in Utah (Brugger) anthropologists were eager to document these “vanishing Americans” before they were no more. 11 Casting Out Demons: She notes that the Boasian emphasis on Plains The Native Anthropologist and Healing in the Indian reservations and Northwest Coast villages Homeland (Ceja-Zamarripa) was to “recapture ‘memory cultures’ that reflected 15 Report from the Editor: the ‘golden days’ of Natives whose aboriginal Fieldwork on the Home Front: culture was denigrated and whose future was seen Danger Zones and Insight at Critical Intersections as oblivion or civilization.” As a result, Medicine (Waterston) notes, “Many felt that American anthropology was built on the backs of Natives” (2001: 4). 18 Of Hats and Switches: Doing Fieldwork “at Home” (Nordquest) Roots of U.S.-Centered Anthropology During the early and mid-twentieth century, Announcements sociologists had a jumpstart on anthropologists by 5 & 10 SANA Spring Conference being the first to consider urban life a significant Book Gallery area of study, and to conduct systematic research 4 Taxes Are a Woman’s Issue among different socio-cultural groups in the U.S., particularly immigrants living in cities. During this 14 Making Democracy Happen period, most American anthropologists were eager to distinguish and separate themselves from sociologists and to preserve the anthropological rite of passage of fieldwork abroad. As a result, North American Dialogue is edited by Alisse Waterston. mainstream anthropological research on cultural Maria D. Vesperi is SANA Publications Chair. Ideas and phenomena in the U.S. was slightly delayed in its submissions for NAD can be addressed to Alisse at development (Beals 1951: 3). The U.S.-centered Department of Anthropology (433T), John Jay College of works of black anthropologists such as Nora Zeale Criminal Justice, 899 10th Ave., NYC 10019; 914/576-1939 or 212/237-8956 [email protected] or Hurston and John Gibbs St. Clair Drake (who were [email protected]. among the handful of black anthropologists from the pre-WW II period), were pioneering on this as North American Dialogue is a membership benefit of the well as other fronts. Society for the Anthropology of North America (SANA). Studies of U.S. cities that came out of the Desktop publishing, production and distribution by University of Chicago had a significant impact on Alisse Waterston. the formation of the anthropology of North America. The Chicago School, led by urban © 2007 American Anthropological Association sociologist Robert E. Park and his colleagues, considered the city a “natural ecological system.” In The City, a classic structural-functionalist work, Park and colleagues argued that economic, ecological, and cultural processes were fundamental to shaping the nature of cities. These 2 studies, rooted in the positivist tradition, focused Arguing that anthropologists have seriously primarily on urban “social problems” manifest by neglected American culture as a topic of study, members of the lower classes, and reinforced an they urged anthropologists to take up the U.S. as a assumed relationship between “social deviance” viable and critical fieldsite. and the lower classes, approaches which were to Anthropological Studies of Poverty have lasting effects on urban social policy as well as research (Waterston 1993). Anthropologist Robert More recent literature reflects on the impact of Redfield, a University of Chicago graduate, was Oscar Lewis on anthropological scholarship of deeply influenced by the Chicago school. Redfield poverty and the cultures of the United States. helped bring the study of cities and urbanism to Goode and Maskovsky (2001) describe Lewis’s anthropology, and he acted as a springboard for work as a catalyst for building the field of poverty anthropological research on urban life and cultures studies. Negative stereotypes, victim-blaming, and in U.S. cities (Press and Smith 1980a). other weaknesses mark Lewis’s notion of the “culture of poverty.” Nevertheless, as Goode and WW II Era: Influences on the Field Maskovsky note, Lewis’s work sparked debate and World War II helped initiate the shift in pushed anthropologists towards a political anthropological research from “isolated tribal economic analysis of poverty. societies” to “agriculturally based communities” During the 1980s, the debate shifted from Oscar and “complex societies.” Edwin Eames and Judith Lewis’s “culture of poverty” (1965) to the Goode explain that “The war…generated a variety “underclass debate,” which was initiated by of anthropological activities which, under other William Julius Wilson’s 1987 publication, The Truly historical circumstances, might not have developed Disadvantaged. As a result, more political- as quickly or in quite the same direction” (1977: 7). economic analyses of poverty emerged, and an Applied anthropology, for example emerged and increasing number of urban ethnographies began became more established during this period. And to surface in the 1980s, such as works by Ladner because it was wartime, many anthropologists (1971) and Stack (1974) as well as Susser’s (1982) were reluctant to travel abroad. According to rich ethnography of a Brooklyn working class Eames and Goode, the sociopolitical climate during neighborhood which situated participants within a World War II had a tremendous influence on the historical, political, and economic framework and formation of urban anthropology and the viewed people living in poverty and in the inner- anthropology of North America. cities as active agents who engage in collective In the decades following the war, two action. Also during the 1980’s, more publishing events illustrate the American anthropologists began investigating immigrant anthropological turn to studying one’s own society groups and enclaves within

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