A Companion to Psychological Anthropology
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A Companion to Psychological Anthropology Blackwell Companions to Anthropology The Blackwell Companions to Anthropology offer a series of comprehensive syntheses of the traditional subdisciplines, primary subjects, and geographic areas of inquiry for the field. Taken together, the series represents both a contemporary survey of anthro- pology and a cutting edge guide to the emerging research and intellectual trends in the field as a whole. 1 A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology edited by Alessandro Duranti 2 A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics edited by David Nugent and Joan Vincent 3 A Companion to the Anthropology of American Indians edited by Thomas Biolsi 4 A Companion to Psychological Anthropology edited by Conerly Casey and Robert B. Edgerton 5 A Companion to the Anthropology of Japan edited by Jennifer Robertson Forthcoming A Companion to Latin American Anthropology edited by Deborah Poole A Companion to Psychological Anthropology Modernity and Psychocultural Change Edited by Conerly Casey and Robert B. Edgerton © 2005, 2007 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd blackwell publishing 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Conerly Casey and Robert B. Edgerton to be identified as the Authors of the Editorial Material in this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. First published 2005 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd First published in paperback 2007 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1 2007 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A companion to psychological anthropology: modernity and psychocultural change / edited by Conerly Casey and Robert B. Edgerton. p. cm. — (Blackwell companions to anthropology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-631-22597-3 (hardback: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4041-6255-5 (paperback: alk. paper) 1. Ethnopsychology. I. Casey, Conerly Carole, 1961– II. Edgerton, Robert B., 1931– III. Series. GN502.C64 2005 155.8′2—dc22 2004012927 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. Set in 10/12pt Galliard by Graphicraft Ltd, Hong Kong Printed and bound in ?????? by ?????? The publisher’s policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices. Furthermore, the publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used have met acceptable environmental accreditation standards. For further information on Blackwell Publishing, visit our website: www.blackwellpublishing.com For Andrew Contents Synopsis of Contents x Notes on Contributors xvii Acknowledgments xxv Introduction 1 Part I Sensing, Feeling, and Knowing 15 1 Time and Consciousness 17 Kevin Birth 2 An Anthropology of Emotion 30 Charles Lindholm 3 “Effort After Meaning” in Everyday Life 48 Linda C. Garro 4 Culture and Learning 72 Patricia M. Greenfield 5 Dreaming in a Global World 90 Douglas Hollan 6 Memory and Modernity 103 Jennifer Cole Part II Language and Communication 121 7 Narrative Transformations 123 James M. Wilce, Jr. viii CONTENTS 8 Practical Logic and Autism 140 Elinor Ochs and Olga Solomon 9 Disability: Global Languages and Local Lives 168 Susan Reynolds Whyte Part III Ambivalence, Alienation, and Belonging 183 10 Identity 185 Daniel T. Linger 11 Self and Other in an “Amodern” World 201 A. David Napier 12 Immigrant Identities and Emotion 225 Katherine Pratt Ewing 13 Emotive Institutions 241 Geoffrey M. White 14 Urban Fear of Crime and Violence in Gated Communities 255 Setha M. Low 15 Race: Local Biology and Culture in Mind 274 Atwood D. Gaines 16 Unbound Subjectivities and New Biomedical Technologies 298 Margaret Lock 17 Globalization, Childhood, and Psychological Anthropology 315 Thomas S. Weisner and Edward D. Lowe 18 Drugs and Modernization 337 Michael Winkelman and Keith Bletzer 19 Ritual Practice and Its Discontents 358 Don Seeman 20 Spirit Possession 374 Erika Bourguignon 21 Witchcraft and Sorcery 389 René Devisch Part IV Aggression, Dominance, and Violence 417 22 Genocide and Modernity 419 Alexander Laban Hinton 23 Corporate Violence 436 Howard F. Stein 24 Political Violence 453 Christopher J. Colvin CONTENTS ix 25 The Politics of Remorse 469 Nancy Scheper-Hughes Afterword 495 Catherine Lutz Index 499 Synopsis of Contents Part I Sensing, Feeling, and Knowing 1 Time and Consciousness Kevin Birth This chapter explores the cultural ideas of time and the experience of time in the context of globalization. Time is a cultural creation, but one that encompasses embodied experiences of circadian cycles as well as learned and shared ideas about power and social relationships. In addition, concepts of time are cognitive tools for orienting and coordinating people and relationships. Since concepts of time link a diversity of physical and social experiences, cultures do not manifest single concepts of time, but instead cultural ideas of time are directly related to power, coopera- tion, and conflict. One source of conflict explored in this chapter is the time-space compression associated with globalization. Not only does this create conflicts and contradictions between local and global relationships, but it also creates embodied, culturally elaborated tensions between biological rhythms and the global social rela- tionships that modern technology makes possible. 2 An Anthropology of Emotion Charles Lindholm This chapter outlines the historical background and theoretical premises of the study of emotion in the social sciences. Evidence is presented to demonstrate that univer- sal motivating emotions exist, although these are largely shaped by the constraints of culture, history, and structure. Repression of fundamental emotions leads to their expression in disguised forms. Future studies of emotion ought to be comparative, and focus on the manner in which destructive collective emotions can be curbed or displaced. SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS xi 3 “Effort After Meaning” in Everyday Life Linda C. Garro A process oriented perspective of cognition need not limit the cultural contribution to content, or the process merely to biochemical cognitive processes. Rather, it can highlight cultural–historical and social processes as well as the range of artifacts and culturally available resources for “effort after meaning” while advancing an under- standing of variation and change in cultural settings. The constructive and situated nature of knowing is explored through the distributed nature of cognition, trans- formative learning processes, schemas, and narrative as a mode of thinking. 4 Culture and Learning Patricia M. Greenfield Over the last forty years, concepts of culture and learning have moved from strict and separate operational definitions to integrations of these concepts as they are used within the fields of psychological anthropology and developmental psychology. Culture and learning have become cultural learning, and cultural learning is fast becoming part and parcel of developmental psychology. At the same time, the domain of culture and learning is no longer contextualized in separate and timeless cultures; the perspective is now historical, evolutionary, and global. 5 Dreaming in a Global World Douglas Hollan In this chapter it is argued that the study of dreams is one of the ways we can examine the degree to which “global” processes, however defined, gain cognitive, emotional, and motivational saliency for a person. Because dreams exist at the interface of self and social experience, they can illuminate how and in what ways aspects of self, desire, and fantasy become intertwined with the experience of body, world, and people. They can give us a sense of how the self projects itself into the world, but also a sense of how “the world,” no matter how large or small, affects the development and organization of self. 6 Memory and Modernity Jennifer Cole This chapter reviews the relationship of memory to modernity, arguing that the experience of modernity has both increased scholarly and popular interest in memory and shaped the study of memory in problematic ways by separating the analysis of individual memory from that of social memory. Arguing for the importance of view- ing memory as a key site at which to examine the complex interplay of individual and social experience, the chapter reviews social psychological and anthropological approaches to memory and constructs a history of different regimes of memory in the West. It then proposes an alternative genealogy from which to recuperate a view of memory that takes account of the dual social and individual nature of memory, tracing out the relevance of the work of Halbwachs, Bartlett, Vygotsky, and Voloshinov to such an approach. The final section of the chapter explores some xii SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS concrete instantiations of the proposed approach through a review of specific work on discourse and ritual as they relate to memory. Part II Language and Communication 7 Narrative Transformations James M. Wilce, Jr. Narrative is changing globally. Stories, genres, and languages themselves shift. The relevance of such change to psychological anthropology