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Our obsession with the notion of the primitive society

Published on June 24, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Andaman & Nicobar societies, anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, indigenous people / minorities, persons and theories, Us and Them

Quite regularily, newspapers report about so called “primitive peoples”. The newest example is the Reuters-story “Hunter-gatherers face extinction on Andaman island” where we read “how primitive tribesmen came out of the jungle armed with bows, arrows and spears, raided a village in the Middle Andaman island and looted tools, food, clothes, cash and jewellery” and the reporter asks if this is an “indication that the Jarawa hunter-gatherers remain untamed primitives — or a cry for help from man’s earliest ancestors, their forests and their lifestyle, their existence under threat as never before?”.

I’ve always wondered why Westerners are so obsessed with this notion of the primitive, with the notion of linear evolution where the so-called so called enlightened West reigns on the top. From an anthropological point of view one could explain this phenomenon like this: These so-called primitives are used by the West in order to construct a positive image of itself – the “primitives” play the same role as the so-called “Orient” – as shown by Edward Said in his classic “Orientalism”.

Or as Adam Kuper wrote in his book The Invention of Primitive Society: “Primitive society was the mirror image of modern society – or rather, primitive society as they imagined it inverted the characteristics of modern society as they saw it.”

This also applies to anthropologists as we know. Kuper writes:

“The anthropologists took this primitive society as their special subject, but in practice primitive society proved to be their own society (as they understood it) seen in a distorting mirror. For them modern society was defined above all by the territorial state, the monogamous family and private property. Primitive society therefor must have been nomadic, promiscuos and communist. (…) Primitive man was illogical and given to magic.”

UPDATE: See also Evamaria’s ramblings: As an anthropologist, Cameron Diaz’ travel show on MTV is pretty offensive to my sensibilities. ‘The life of the Massai has remained the same for the last 600 years.’ Ugh, that kind of remark makes my skin crawl! >> continue

Quite regularily, newspapers report about so called "primitive peoples". The newest example is the Reuters-story "Hunter-gatherers face extinction on Andaman island" where we read "how primitive tribesmen came out of the jungle armed with bows, arrows and spears, raided a…

Radio interview on African Village/ “Germans&Japanese less sensitive about race”

Published on June 20, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Europe, Us and Them

The African Village at the zoo in Augsburg, Germany is still debated in the international media.

“An African culture festival creates a storm in Germany. Critics say it’s like shows in colonial times that degraded Africans. The flap has sparked a broader discussion about racism in Germany, and what it’s like to be both dark-skinned and a native German”, the National Public Radio (NPR) summarizes the debate around the african village in the zoo in Augsburg. >> listen to the radio report by NPR

On L’express and several other news sites comment the African Village like this: “Germans and Japanese are less sensitive about race in general and about Africa in particular than, say, people in France or the United States, where a significant minority of the population is of African descent >> continue

The African Village at the zoo in Augsburg, Germany is still debated in the international media.

"An African culture festival creates a storm in Germany. Critics say it's like shows in colonial times that degraded Africans. The flap has sparked a…

New book reviews: English identity, Value Pluralism in Indonesia, Culture Rights

Published on June 12, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, books, culture traditions, gender, religion cosmology, Us and Them

American Ethnologist and The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology are some of the best places to stay informed about new anthropology books. A few days ago they published their newest reviews, among others:

The Making of English National Identity. By Krishan Kumar.
Krishan Kumar’s The Making of English National Identity (2003) is exactly the kind of scholarly work promised, but seldom delivered, by the most vocal proponents of interdisciplinary research. >> continue

A Place on the Corner. By Elijah Anderson
This work utilizes an ethnographic framework to examine the social order of African-American men on the South Side of Chicago in the early 1970s. In particular, Anderson studies the men who hang out at Jelly’s, a liquor store/bar. In examining these men, he finds that there is a lot more going on beneath the surface than the average person would expect. >> continue

Islam, Law and Equality in Indonesia: An Anthropology of Public Reasoning. By John R. Bowen.
Islam, Law, and Equality in Indonesia is a definitive study of lived “value-pluralism” in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. Bowen shows anthropologists and others how legal anthropology in Muslim context may be rendered as an anthropology of “normative pluralism” >> continue

Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives. By Jane K. Cowan, Marie-Bénédicte Dembour and Richard A. Wilson (eds).
So often collections of essays are just that: agglomerations of papers loosely focused around a theme. Here, however, the theme is important (and unrecognized) enough that its elaboration gives rise to a wealth of examples, all of which build on a central dilemma: that the concept of “unity in diversity” is only unproblematic when difference is similar—when “culture” does not violate “universal rights,” when the discourse on universal rights does not challenge existing cultural practices. >> continue

Not by Bread Alone: Social Support in the New Russia. By Melissa L. Caldwell.
Melissa L. Caldwell’s study of the Christian Church of Moscow (CCM) soup kitchen may seem an odd ethnographic choice, but the author cogently illustrates the ambiguous and sometimes paradoxical world of poverty and social support in Moscow in the late 1990s. Caldwell suggests that a transnational community emerges from the economic marginalization brought on by the transition to capitalism. >> continue

The Marketing Era: From Professional Practice to Global Provisioning. Kalman Applbaum
This book is about marketing and self-representation of marketers. Kalman Applbaum can lay claim to being an insider in two academic professions—anthropology and marketing. The intellectual and practical benefits of this dualism become immediately apparent to the reader as the argument unfolds. >> continue

The Making of English National Identity. By…

Introduction to Indigenous Peoples and How can blogging help my research?

Published on June 10, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, internet, websites

Savage Minds has recently pointed to the blog by the Anthropology librarian Cynthia Tysick, University at Buffalo, New York. She seems to be surfing alot and lists a lot of useful links. Some of her recent entries are Introduction to Indigenous Peoples and How can blogging help my research?

BBC: Row over German zoo’s Africa show

Published on June 10, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Europe, Us and Them

BBC

German anti-racism campaigners have condemned plans to stage an African cultural festival in a zoo. Responding to the criticism, Augsburg Zoo Director Barbara Jantschke said she does not see anything wrong with staging the event in a zoo, where many cultural exhibitions are held. Mrs Jantschke also argued that the zoo was the ideal place to convey the necessary “exotic atmosphere” for the festival.

It is an attitude which campaigners like Ms Noah So want to change. “There is an urge in Germany to see those who are not white as part of something exotic or romanticised.” This treatment insinuates that non-whites are not really part of German society, she says. >> continue

Read also German magazine DER SPIEGEL: German Zoo Scandal: ‘African Village’ Accused of Putting Humans on Display

MORE INFORMATION AND LINKS:
African village in the Zoo: Protest against racist exhibition

BBC