Bohannan P. Social Anthropology. New York: Holt, Rinehart And

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Bohannan P. Social Anthropology. New York: Holt, Rinehart And This Week’s Citation CiassIc®________CC/NUMBER 7 Bohannan P. Social anthropolog [ New York: Holt, Rinehart anc~’Winston,1963. 421 p. (Northwestern University, Evanston. ILl I This textbook of anthropology starts .with What with a lectureship at Oxford and 3 the social dimension and covers the cultural years in Africa, it was 10 years before I got dimension of societies, focusing primarily back to the US. For the first time, I was in a on family and kinship, government, and eco- context in which I had to see how it all hung nomics. [The Social Sciences Citation !ndexa together. The challenge was obvious. (SSCIa) indicates that this book has been During three years at Princeton, I wrote cited in over 110 publications since 1966.] out two lectures a week (before the days of the computer—or even the Xerox machine). Obviously I didn’t read them as I lectured, but my English habits said that one wrote p out one’s lectures to be used as a first draft. By the time I got to Northwestern Univer- sity and its Africa program, I had a wad of Paul Bohannan lecture materials. I had not set outto writea Office of the Dean textbook — I had set out to get my head Division of Social Sciences straight (which may be the best advice one and Communication could give anyone who sets out to write a University of Southern California textbook). But I needed a textbook. So for Los Angeles, CA 900894012 some three years, my students helped me get those lectures into readable shape. I never did a subsequent edition of this book. My excuse was—and is—that I was too busy January 14, 1986. with work I enjoyed to stop and make a ca- reer out of a textbook. Parts of the book are badly dated today. The material on color words came before Just before and just after World War II, I the ,major work on that topic and is simply got a thorough grounding in American1 an- wrong, the material on culture and personal- thropology2 from Emil Haury, Edward ity is old-fashioned, and the section called Spicer, and the rest of the department at “The Other Side of the Frontier” did not the University of Arizona. I knew what a cul- have the advantages of what we today know ture pattern is (an early anthropological about economic development. Other parts term for “model”). I knew the distribution of of it were never much good (especially chap- the digging stick in South America, and I ters 18 and 19, on religion, a topic that bores knew how far the lower left incisor of the fe- me). male chimpanzee rises above the gum. But parts of it I still stick by. The material Then, in 1947, I went to England for 3gradu- on kinship, family, household, divorce, con- ate work with4 E.E. Evans-Pritchard and tract, inequality, and institutions needs up- Meyer Fortes. British anthropology, in dating, but no great change, in my view. those days, was the finest in the world. The If I were to write a book of this sort today, British had discovered two important points: it would be about social process, not just (1) that French sociology spoke directly to about structure and culture as this book is. their endeavor and (2) that when a field The time dimension is, I am convinced, the worker learns a language, he must learn to anthropological frontier. I am only just be- speak it, not just to take some texts or to ginning to return to old ideas of culture 5pat- check an interpreter. tern. Process models are the next phase. 1. Hauy E W. Mogollon culture in the Foreszdale Valley. east-central Arizona. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 1985. 454 P. 2; Spinet E ft. The Yaquis: a cultural history. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1980. 393 p. 3. Foetea M & Evans-Pritchard E E, eds. Africanpolitical systems. p London: Osford University Press for the International African Institute. 1948. 302 p. 4. Fortes M. The dynamics of clanship among the Tallensi: being the first part of an analysis of the social structure of the Trans-Volta tribe. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute. 1945. 270 p. 5. Boh.anan P. Some models forplanning the future. J. Soc. Rio!. Struct. 7:37-59. 1984. 16 $&BS ©1986 by ISI® CURRENT CONTENTS®.
Recommended publications
  • Entender El Contexto En El Que Surgió La Escuela Norteamericana De Antropología Como Una Reacción Crítica Al Evolucionismo Del Siglo XIX
    PROGRAMA DE ESTUDIOS UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA METROPOLITANA UNIDAD DIVISIÓN 1/3 IZTAPALAPA CIENCIAS SOCIALES Y HUMANIDADES NOMBRE DEL PLAN LICENCIATURA EN ANTROPOLOGÍA SOCIAL CLAVE UNIDAD DE ENSEÑANZA-APRENDIZAJE CREDITOS 222443 PARTICULARISMO Y EVOLUCIÓN CULTURAL 8 H. TEOR. TIPO 4 OBLIGATORIA SERIACIÓN H. PRAC. TRIMESTRE 0 II OBJETIVO (S) Que al final del curso el alumno o la alumna sea capaz de: Entender el contexto en el que surgió la escuela norteamericana de antropología como una reacción crítica al evolucionismo del siglo XIX. Conocer las propuestas teóricas y metodológicas que singularizan la perspectiva de Boas, y su escuela de pensamiento. Conocer derivaciones posteriores tales como la escuela de cultura y personalidad, así como sus alcances y limitaciones. Manejar la polémica, la reacción, y las nuevas perspectivas de la ecología cultural y el neo- evolucionismo. Analizar textos científicos e identificar sus tesis y preguntas centrales, su estrategia de argumentación y el manejo de fuentes por parte de los autores, así mismo, que sean capaces de manejar las habilidades básicas de expresión oral y escrita del español al exponer en el aula los resultados de sus indagaciones. CONTENIDO SINTÉTICO 1) La crítica de Boas a los usos y abusos del método comparativo y los determinismos raciales, geográficos y económicos de la escuela evolucionista como intentos de explicar la cultura. 2) La propuesta de Boas: enfatizar la singularidad histórica de cada cultura. 3) La consolidación de la escuela norteamericana. 4) La escuela cultura y personalidad. 5) Reintroducción del tema de la evolución a la escuela norteamericana. 6) La ecología cultural y una ciencia de la cultura.
    [Show full text]
  • Autobiography, Intimacy and Ethnography
    28 Autobiography, Intimacy and Ethnography DEBORAH REED-DANAHA Y Ethnographers have long displayed themselves and Lavie ct aI., 1993). A more general trend toward others as individuals through photol:,rraphs, bio­ 'retlexivity' in ethnographic writing (Cole, 1992), graphy, life history and autobiography. While dis­ influenced by both postmodemism and feminism, closure of intimate details of the lives of those also informs the increasing emphasis on self­ typically under the ethnographic gaze (the infor­ disclosure and self-display. Anthropologists and mants) has long been an acceptable and expected sociologists are becoming more explicit in their aspect of ethnographic research and writing, self­ exploration of the links between their own auto­ disclosure among ethnographers themselves has biographies and their ethnographic practices (Ellis been less acceptable and much less common. As and Bochner, 1996; Okely and Callaway, 1992). At Ruth Behar (1996: 26) has written, 'In anthro­ the same time, the 'natives' are increasingly telling pology, which historically exists to "give voice" to their own stories and have become ethnographers of others, there is no greater taboo than self-revelation'. their own cultures (Jones, 1970; Ohnuki-Tierney, Writing about the private lives of both ethno­ 1984). Researchers as well as their informants! graphcrs and their infornlants has been subject to collaborators have become aware of the politics of debates about the humanistic versus scientific valid­ representation and ofthe power relations inherent in ity of a focus on individuals. In recent decades, ethnographic accounts (Archetti, 1994; Behar and three prominent genres of writing have influenced Gordon, 1995; Cliftord, 1983; Fox, 1991; Harrison, thinking about the relationship between ethno­ 1997; Hymes, 1974; Marcus and Fischer, 19X6; graphy and the self of both the ethnographer and the Moore, 1994; Okely and Callaway, 1992; Strathern, 'native' informant: 1987).
    [Show full text]
  • Ishi and Anthropological Indifference in the Last of His Tribe
    International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 3 No. 11; June 2013 "I Heard Your Singing": Ishi and Anthropological Indifference in the Last of His Tribe Jay Hansford C. Vest, Ph.D. Enrolled member Monacan Indian Nation Direct descendent Opechanchanough (Pamunkey) Honorary Pikuni (Blackfeet) in Ceremonial Adoption (June 1989) Professor of American Indian Studies University of North Carolina at Pembroke One University Drive (P. O. Box 1510) Pembroke, NC 28372-1510 USA. The moving and poignant story of Ishi, the last Yahi Indian, has manifested itself in the film drama The Last of His Tribe (HBO Pictures/Sundance Institute, 1992). Given the long history of Hollywood's misrepresentation of Native Americans, I propose to examine this cinematic drama attending historical, ideological and cultural axioms acknowledged in the film and concomitant literature. Particular attention is given to dramatic allegorical themes manifesting historical racism, Western societal conquest, and most profoundly anthropological indifference, as well as, the historical accuracy and the ideological differences of worldview -- Western vis-à-vis Yahi -- manifest in the film. In the study of worldviews and concomitant values, there has long existed a lurking "we" - "they" proposition of otherness. Ever since the days of Plato and his Western intellectual predecessors, there has been an attempt to locate and explicate wisdom in the ethnocentric ideological notion of the "civilized" vis-à-vis the "savage." Consequently, Plato's thoughts are accorded the standing of philosophy -- the love of wisdom -- while Black Elk's words are the musings of the "primitive" and consigned to anthropology -- the science of man. Philosophy is, thusly, seen as an endeavor of "civilized" Western man whom in his "science of man" or anthropological investigation may record the "ethnometaphysics" of "primitive" or "developing" cultures.
    [Show full text]
  • Information to Users
    Edward P. Dozier: A history of Native- American discourse in anthropology. Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Norcini, Marilyn Jane. Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 07/10/2021 19:56:29 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/187248 INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript ,has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete mannscript and there are mjssjng pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note wiD indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and contim1jng from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy.
    [Show full text]
  • Markets in Africa Edited by Paul Bohannan and George Dalton
    442 The Developing Economies reader very unsatisfied when he finds that in spite of this the author does not mention this aspect of economic relations with foreign countries. Again, in connection with the policy of "self-reliance" which is emphasized as being one of the principal causes of the present economic expansion, must it not be impossible to give a sufficient explanation of the matter without making an analysis of economic relations with foreign countries in the period up to 1957 ? Thirdly, the reader is left with doubts, in that the description of the various economic institutions does not appear to give overall coverage. This is so in the case of the descriptions of the taxation system and financial institutions. We would like an account of these matters which would be a little more persuasive and concrete. If these matters cannot all be dealt with in a book which is only an outline account designed as an introduction to the subject, references to the relevant literature should be provided in order to facilitate research. Lastly, we hope that a properly synthesized analytic and descriptive accouut of the period since 1958, a new rich in chauge, will be uuder� taken by the Chinese students of the subject at the earliest opportunity. As need hardly be said this uew period, although beset with natural disasters and other economic difficulties, is a most interesting period in the course of which, on the other hand, a new line of socialist construction peculiar to China and extremely original has been produced and put into effect, leaving in its train a large number of problems which still remain to be solved.
    [Show full text]
  • Melville Herskovits
    NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES M E L V I L L E J E A N H ERSKOVITS 1895—1963 A Biographical Memoir by J O S E P H C . G REENB ERG Any opinions expressed in this memoir are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences. Biographical Memoir COPYRIGHT 1971 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES WASHINGTON D.C. MELVILLE JEAN HERSKOVITS September 10,1895-February 26,1963 BY JOSEPH H. GREENBERG ELVILLE j. HERSKOVITS was, at the time of his death, the M acknowledged dean of African studies in the United States as well as a major figure in the world of anthropology. His achievements were impressive, whether measured in terms of field work, scholarly publications, organizational activities, or the training of students. His outstanding personal character- istics were a well-nigh boundless energy and enthusiasm for every aspect of his multifarious activities and a wide range of scientific and humanistic interests. His wife, Frances, a profes- sional anthropologist in her own right, was his lifelong collab- orator and co-worker whose contributions are not to be meas- ured solely from the list of works which she co-authored with him. Melville Jean Herskovits was born in Bellefontaine, Ohio, on September 10, 1895; he lived there until the age of ten. He subsequently lived in El Paso, Texas, and Erie, Pennsylvania, where he graduated from Erie High School in 1912. In 1915 he entered the University of Cincinnati and the Hebrew Union College, the latter for theological studies.
    [Show full text]
  • The Development of Anthropological Ideas
    PERSPECTIVES: AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY SECOND EDITION Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, Laura Tubelle de González 2020 American Anthropological Association 2300 Clarendon Blvd, Suite 1301 Arlington, VA 22201 ISBN Print: 978-1-931303-67-5 ISBN Digital: 978-1-931303-66-8 http://perspectives.americananthro.org/ This book is a project of the Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges (SACC) http://sacc.americananthro.org/ and our parent organization, the American Anthropological Association (AAA). Please refer to the website for a complete table of contents and more information about the book. Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology by Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, Laura Tubelle de González is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. Under this CC BY-NC 4.0 copyright license you are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material Under the following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. 1313 THE HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL IDEAS Laura Nader, The University of California, Berkeley Learning Objectives • Identify the central concepts of cultural anthropology and describe how each of these concepts contributed to the development of the discipline. • Describe the role anthropologists play in examining cultural assumptions and explain how the anthropological perspective differs from both ethnocentrism and American exceptionalism.
    [Show full text]
  • Legal Anthropology Comes Home: a Brief History of the Ethnographic Study of Law John M
    University of North Carolina School of Law Masthead Logo Carolina Law Scholarship Repository Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 1993 Legal Anthropology Comes Home: A Brief History of the Ethnographic Study of Law John M. Conley University of North Carolina School of Law, [email protected] William M. O'Barr Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/faculty_publications Part of the Law Commons Publication: Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LEGAL ANTHROPOLOGY COMES HOME: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF LAW John M. Conley* William M. O'Barr** I. INTRODUCTION Anthropology is a relative newcomer to the ranks of the social sci- ences. It began to emerge as an autonomous field in the second half of the nineteenth century when a diverse array of scholars and speculators converged around such issues as the defining characteristics of humanity and the nature and origins of human society. In the topics they chose to pursue, the way they framed their questions, and the strategies they used to find answers, these nascent anthropologists were strongly influenced by the disciplines from which they had come. An early and significant example of this interdisciplinary influence is the famous Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Straits of 1898.1 The expedition was organized by Alfred Cort Haddon, a zool- ogy professor who had a brief and unsuccessful career in his father's printing business.2 Its purpose was to comprehensively survey the physi- cal characteristics, language, culture, and thought patterns of the in- habitants of the straits separating New Guinea and Australia.
    [Show full text]
  • Intellectual Roots of Key Anthropologists
    SELECTIONS FROM ASSESSING CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Robert Borofsky, editor (1994) New York: McGraw-Hill FREDRIK BARTH is currently Research Fellow under the Norwegian Ministry of Culture and Professor of Anthropology at Emory University. He has previously taught at the universities of Oslo and Bergen, and as a visitor at various American departments of anthropology. He has carried out research in a number of areas, starting in the Middle East with a focus on tribal politics and ecology. His best known works from this period are: Political Leadership among Swat Pathans (1959), Nomads of South Persia (1961), Models of Social Organization (1964), and the edited work Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (1969). Later, he has also done fieldwork in New Guinea and Southeast Asia, and among his publications are Ritual and Knowledge among the Baktaman of New Guinea (1975) and Cosmologies in the Making (1987). A monograph entitled Balinese Worlds will appear in 1993. "After a wartime childhood in Norway, I started at the University of Chicago with an interest in paleontology and human evolution. But the active and rich teaching program of Fred Eggan, Sol Tax, Robert Redfield and others broadened my intellectual horizon and led, after an interlude on a dig in Iraq with Bob Braidwood, to my choice of social anthropology as the focus of my work. My foundations derived indirectly from Radcliffe-Brown, who had taught my teachers during the 1930s. "Like many of my Chicago cohort, I went on to further studies in England. I chose the L.S.E. Autobiographies: 2 and developed a life-long association with Raymond Firth and, even more importantly, with Edmund Leach, whom I later followed to Cambridge for my Ph.D.
    [Show full text]
  • Laura Nader: a Life of Teaching, Investigation, Scholarship and Scope
    Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California LAURA NADER Laura Nader: A Life of Teaching, Investigation, Scholarship and Scope Interviews conducted by Lisa Rubens and Samuel Redman in 2013 Copyright © 2014 by The Regents of the University of California Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ********************************* All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Laura Nader dated August 28, 2013. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley.
    [Show full text]
  • Economic Anthropology and Studies on Indigenous (“Tribal”/ “Adivasis” Ethnic) Communities (Draft Only)
    Economic Anthropology and Studies on Indigenous (“Tribal”/ “Adivasis” Ethnic) Communities (Draft only) Unit-1 Introduction: Economic Anthropology, (old and new) terms, concepts and definitions – Native (Indigenous/Tribal/Adivasis/Ethnic) communities use of pejorative terminologies of these groups – Relationship between Economics and Anthropology, Principles of an Economic Anthropology, Reservations Policies Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Areas The Golden Age of Economic Anthropology (1950-1970) The rise of modern economics and anthropology (1870-1940) Characteristics of Tribal Economies – Primitive Tribal Groups - Common Properties resources - The Formalist – Substantivist Debate, and after the Debate – Disembedded Economy Vs Embedded Economy - Gift Economy - Moral Economy – Self sufficient Economics, Reciprocity, Redistribution and Exchange, Trade etc., Economies - Subsistence Economics – Market Economics – Pre-modern Economics Ethnic Communities Tribe Occupational Structures and cultural diversities (multicultural ;salad bowl’, cultural mosaic, rise of ethnic groups, language and cultures that co-exist within society) – Customary Law & Change - primitive characteristics of economy to Modern Economy/ Human Economy: from the food gathering (Ancient World) to food producing to the Age of Cyber Economy - Barter Economy to Digital Economy – Caste and Class differences among Indian groups - The rise of modern Economy and Anthropology Economics and Cultures and Resources: Economies and the problems of human nature – (the self interested model vs. the moral modern and non-modern economies). Ethnic cleansing (sometimes used as genocide) – forced deportation, to get people to move. - as a crime under international law - as a military, political, economic tactic Unit-II: Pre-capitalist economics, market economies local national international markets: role of middle persons, external forces, and financial institutions, Indebtedness. Communitarianism – family, community, morality under different economic systems.
    [Show full text]
  • The Polanyi School of Anthropology on Money: an Economist’S View
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Munich Personal RePEc Archive MPRA Munich Personal RePEc Archive The Polanyi School of Anthropology on Money: An Economist's View Jacques Melitz Tulane University 1970 Online at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/84893/ MPRA Paper No. 84893, posted 7 April 2018 19:21 UTC The Polanyi School of Anthropology on Money: An Economist's View Jacques Melitzi Tulane University American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 72, No. 5 (Oct., 1970), pp. 1020-1040 Summary: This paper questions the popular anthropological assumption that all purpose money rules in the West today. Contrary to the followers of Karl Polanyi in anthropology, modern as well as primitive money is special purpose money. It is argued further that serious difficulties and confusions arise from indiscriminate use of the term money to refer both to (1) media of exchange and means of payment and (2) units of account. Lastly, the scholarship and perspicacity of the Polanyist verdicts about economists' views in the area of money is disputed One source of ambiguity in the literature is the quest for a single, all-purpose definition of money that would include our own kind (and presumably Soviet money), as well as the welter of types in use in primitive and peasant economies differing widely in organization [Dalton 1965:280]. I think it misleading to suggest, as Jevons does [1875], that the attempt to define a class-name necessarily implies a neglect of the specific differences of the things contained in the class.
    [Show full text]