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Jack Goody: "The West has never been superior"

Published on September 7, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, books, cosmopolitanism, history, persons and theories, Us and Them

(LINKS UPDATED 8.9.2020)

Are democracy, capitalism, freedom and the concept of romantic love unique inventions of the West? No. In his new book, anthropologist Jack Goody shows that the superiority of the West is largely unreal, even if we look to the recent past.

In “The Theft of History”, Goody criticizes both Western historical writing and his own discipline anthropology, professor Alfredo Ascanio writes in a review at OhMyNews:

For example, it was always believed that democracy was born in Athens and in fact there appeared a particular form of democracy, but democracy existed first in Carthage, even in some cities in the Mediterranean, India, China and other “tribal” societies.

Karl Max and Max Weber were wrong in their thesis about capitalism, because capitalism — despite the industrial revolution — was far more widespread. It was first a product of sowing cotton and the exploitation of silk in India and China.

In another example, Goody explains how Elias and Braudel have overemphasized the European contribution in relation to modernity, when in fact this happened first in India and China. The concept of capitalism is rather a concept of the 19-century, says Goody, which should be used more carefully and has only been used for overvaluation of the differences between Europe and Asia.

And in Asia, the reality was always more advanced than the West in art and science, even in what was considered romantic love. It was not a Western invention but is a universal sentiment that already existed.

>> read the whole review at OhMyNews

In the introduction, Goody explains the title of the book:

The ‘theft of history’ of the title refers to the take-over of history by the west. That is, the past is conceptualized and presented according to what happened on the provincial scale of Europe, often western Europe, and then imposed upon the rest of the world.

The books is inspired by his research in Africa:

After several years’ residence among African ‘tribes’ as well as in a simple kingdom in Ghana, I came to question a number of the claims Europeans make to have ‘invented’ forms of government (such as democracy), forms of kinship (such as the nuclear family), forms of exchange (such as the market), forms of justice, when embryonically at least these were widely present elsewhere.

These claims are embodied in history, both as an academic discipline and in folk discourse. Obviously there have been many great European achievements in recent times, and these have to be accounted for. But they often owed much to other urban cultures such as China.

(…)

The closer I looked at the other facets of the culture of Eurasia, and the more experience I gained of parts of India, China, and Japan, the more I felt that the sociology and history of the great states or ‘civilizations’ of Eurasia needed to be understood as variations one of another.

>> read the whole introduction (Cambridge University Press)

The book has also been reviewed by The Canadian Review of Sociology and Keith Hart.

Amartya Sen: Democracy Isn’t ‘Western’ this text was also debated on Savage Minds

For an Anthropology of Cosmopolitanism

Ethnocentric anthropology and Working towards a global community of anthropologists

Anthropologists condemn the use of terms of “stone age” and “primitive”

(LINKS UPDATED 8.9.2020) Are democracy, capitalism, freedom and the concept of romantic love unique inventions of the West? No. In his new book, anthropologist Jack Goody shows that the superiority of the West is largely unreal, even if…

First reports from Europe’s largest anthropology conference (EASA)

Published on August 30, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, journal articles / papers, University / Academia

Today was the fifth and last day of the 10th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) in Ljubljana, Slovenia. There are no news stories yet, but anthropology students at the University of Ljubljana have already written an impressive number of reports on workshops, plenaries and poster sessions.

The students have done a real great job and I hope they will inspire other conference organizers. There are exciting things being told and discussed at conferences. But until now, these stories have stayed inside a small community of scholars. Things are changing: The Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) has started podcasting from their annual meetings.

EASA has started an ambitious project. Read this:

You have reached the online database of texts on the 10th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). During this event, the site is hourly updated, bringing you fresh reports on the venues (workshops, plenaries and poster sessions) as well as several interviews with the lecturers, EASA officials and other guests. All texts will be published in English language.

The reports and interviews are written by students at the Department for Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. Since human resources are scarce, not all venues are covered and are therefore not reported or commented. We are trying, however, to present as much material as possible by covering as much events as possible.

The reports give a great overview over current anthropological research in Europe.

Tjaša Selič and Goran Karim for example write about Michael Carrithers who is interested in the question: How can so many differences between cultures, groups of people and individuals still inspire participation, cooperation, solidarity? (pdf) Tjaša Zidarič also mentions Panayiota Toulina Demeli who is interested in how being in prison effects the social meaning of motherhood (pdf).

Nikolas Kosmatopoulos seems to have given an interesting paper in the workshop “Imagining and Constructing “Terrorism” and “War on Terror”. “Being an anthropologist in the Middle East feels almost like being a spy”, he said according to Vasja Pavlin:

(I)t is possible to be objective in such an intense field as Lebanon. There is a grey zone between the attackers and the attacked into which an anthropologist enters in order to do his or her research. By entering into this zone one immediately becomes a suspicious person.

An anthropologist has to tell his or her informants some of the intimate stuff about what he or she is doing in order to be accepted by them. The situation forces you to take a position but you cannot please everyone; if you do so you are just like a clown. He concluded that being an anthropologist in the Middle East feels almost like being a spy.

(pdf)

“Crowd crystals and birdwatchers: charismatic leadership in volunteer organisations” was the title of Dan Podjed‘s paper. In her summary, Tina Mučič informs us that the meaning of charisma and charismatic leadership is “a black hole in anthropological research” (pdf).

She also writes that “his presentation was very good and in some parts funny”.

I was surprised over the open and honest comments on the papers and the presentations. Maybe these reports may inspire some anthropologists to rethink their way of giving papers.

Tina Kranjec comments on a presentation by Elke Mader at the workshop Happiness: Anthropological Engagements:

I must say this was a very interesting paper. The author explores how fans experience, express, communicate and circulate happiness in relationship with Shah Rukh Khan. There was a lot of visual material, which was also very representative.

(pdf)

But the workshop On ‘Souvenir’: experiencing diversity, objectifying mutuality was less exciting, she writes:

After visiting two other workshops, I can say that this last one was more oriented on giving as much information as possible and not so much on trying to provoke us and making us participate by commenting and asking questions. Almost all of the lecturers were reading as fast as possible, which made the comprehension of the papers quite difficult.

(pdf)

Tina Mučič has also reviewed several presentations. An anthropologist “was reading her paper very quietly so it was difficult to understand everything”, another one “was speaking and reading very fast, almost too fast to understand the meaning of the paper.”

She liked Gillian Evans‘ presentation best:

This introduction was the most likeable. Dr. Evans was speaking aloud and her tone was resolute. She was trying to explain some terms which we did not understand and was aware that there were not only experts on this topic in the room.

It seems that more and more paper givers have used PowerPoint presentations than for two years ago when I attended the conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth in Keele. Then, most presentations were so boring that I decided to stay at home. According to the students’ reports, the conference in Slovenia must have been very interesting. Their reports are very inspiring. Maybe I should have gone though?

>> overview over all reports

>> conference website

UPDATE (12.9.08) : Guest post: Review of the Moving Anthropology Student Network conference

UPDATE (3.9.08): Martha Jiménez-Rosano has written a few notes about the conference of the Moving Anthropology Student Network (MASN) that took place before the EASA conference (in Slovenia as well) and has uploaded her paper “Projectionists of Reality. When researchers project images of their own boundaries.”

UPDATE 10.11.08) Another EASA-report by Martha Jiménez-Rosano: A feeling about EASA 2008

How To Present A Paper – or Can Anthropologists Talk?

Academic presentations: “The cure is a strong chairman and a system of lights”

Norwegian anthropology conferences are different

Anthropology and the World: What has happened at the EASA conference?

Conference Podcasting: Anthropologists thrilled to have their speeches recorded

This is conference blogging!

AAA Annual Meeting: Are blogs a better news source than corporate media?

First news from the AAA-conference?

Military spies invade anthropology conferences?

“Untouched” Amazone hosted large cities – a model for the future?

Published on August 29, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, ecology nature, journal articles / papers, Latin- and Central America, Native American

The myth of the “untouched” Amazone is popular. But areas that look pristine today have been the home of large urban areas, anthropologist Michael Heckenberger has found out already five years ago.

In a new paper that was published today in Science he writes that these settlements might be a model for the future.

In a press release Heckenberger says:

If we look at your average medieval town or your average Greek polis, most are about the scale of those we find in this part of the Amazon. Only the ones we find are much more complicated in terms of their planning.
(…)
These are not cities, but this is urbanism, built around towns. The findings are important because they contradict long-held stereotypes about early Western versus early New World settlements that rest on the idea that “if you find it in Europe, it’s a city. If you find it somewhere else, it has to be something else.

They have quite remarkable planning and self-organization, more so than many classical examples of what people would call urbanism.

This new knowledge could change how conservationists approach preserving the remains of forest so heavily cleared it is the world’s largest soybean producing area. “This throws a wrench in all the models suggesting we are looking at primordial biodiversity,” Heckenberger says.

This early urban settlement can be a model for future solutions. Heckenberger and his colleagues conclude:

Long ago, Howard proposed a model for lower-density urban development, a “garden city,” designed to promote sustainable urban growth. The model proposed networks of small and well-planned towns, a “green belt” of agricultural and forest land, and a subtle gradient between urban and rural areas.

The pre-Columbian polities of the Upper Xingu developed such a system, uniquely adapted to the forested environments of the southern Amazon. The Upper Xingu is one of the largest contiguous tracts of transitional forest in the southern Amazon [the so-called “arc of deforestation”], our findings emphasize that understanding long-term change in human-natural systems has critical implications for questions of biodiversity, ecological resilience, and sustainability.

Local semi-intensive land use provides “home-grown” strategies of resource management that merit consideration in current models and applications of imported technologies, including restoration of tropical forest areas. This is particularly important in indigenous areas, which constitute over 20% of the Brazilian Amazon and “are currently the most important barrier to deforestation”.

Finally, the recognition of complex social formations, such as those of the Upper Xingu, emphasizes the need to recognize the histories, cultural rights, and concerns of indigenous peoples—the original architects and contemporary stewards of these anthropogenic landscapes—in discussions of Amazonian futures.

>> press release: ‘Pristine’ Amazonian region hosted large, urban civilization, study finds (University of Florida News)

Heckenberger has put online several papers. On the frontpage of his homepage we read “Come visit our site after August 30, 2008 for latest research results”

The Double Standards of the “Uncontacted Tribes” Circus

Anthropologists condemn the use of terms of “stone age” and “primitive”

Dissertation: Survival in the Rainforest

The myth of the "untouched" Amazone is popular. But areas that look pristine today have been the home of large urban areas, anthropologist Michael Heckenberger has found out already five years ago.

In a new paper that was published today…

How to challenge Us-and-Them thinking? Interview with Thomas Hylland Eriksen

Published on August 28, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, globalisation, interdisciplinary, migration, persons and theories, University / Academia, Us and Them

As some of you might know, I work as a journalist at the interdisciplinary research programme Culcom – Cultural Complexity in the New Norway. I’ve just put online the English translation of my interview with Thomas Hylland Eriksen, research director of Culcom.

We talk about how hard it is to challenge conventional academic thinking and to establish a new analytical view of the world.

Thomas Hylland Eriksen says:

– What we are trying to do is shift the analytical gaze in a direction where the nation-state and the ethnic group are not viewed as the most important unit. It is here researchers like Knut Kjeldstadli have been vital in insisting on the significance of class, or Oddbjørn Leirvik, who points out that differences in value-based questions cuts across the majority and minority population.

– In this way, lines of distinction that are somewhat different than those common to immigrant research, in which an us-and-them way-of-thinking is common, get established. And in addition, the transnational perspective leads to a de-centering of the nation-state; it is almost like a small Copernican revolution.

We also talk about open access and dissemination via our website. He says:

– Working in a place where most of what is published is electronically available and can be downloaded as a PDF has been a dream of mine for many years, even in the transnational sense: Then people who are in Switzerland and India can get onto our webpages, download texts and use our research in their own work. There is no reason why this should cost money.

>> read the whole interview with Thomas Hylland Eriksen

There are two more new interviews online about related issues.

Hans Erik Næss criticizes in his thesis the methodologicial nationalism in sociology text books. Sociology does not focus enough on transnational aspects in society. His thesis contains not only suggestions for a better sociology, but also an alternative required reading list.

>> read the whole interview: “In favor of a more transnational sociology”

Gunn Camilla Stang has written one of the first studies on Polish labour migrants in Norway. She says that debates about migration should focus more on the possiblities of learning. In viewing Polish laborers primarily as (cheap) labor, companies miss out in a great deal of knowledge they could have used to improve routines and products.

>> read the whole interview “More than “social dumping””

And Arnfinn Haagensen Midtbøen explains us why Scandinavia should be illuminated as an interesting region in migration research.

>> Interview: Does migration strengthen the nation-state?

We have relaunched our website, and our English pages are “still under construction”

As some of you might know, I work as a journalist at the interdisciplinary research programme Culcom - Cultural Complexity in the New Norway. I've just put online the English translation of my interview with Thomas Hylland Eriksen, research director…

Native American Tribe Allows Gay Marriage

Published on August 22, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, gender, Native American, Northern America

Gay marriage is banned in Oregon and the most states in the U.S. But if you are gay and Native American you are lucky: The Coquille Indian Tribe on the southern Oregon coast recently adopted a law that recognizes same-sex marriage.

The law extends to gay and lesbian partners all tribal benefits of marriage – even if a Coquille marries an Italian or Pakistani, The Oregonian and USA Today report.

According to anthropologist Brian Gilley, The Coquilles are probably the first tribe to legalize same-sex marriage. Gilley is author of the book, “Becoming Two-Spirit: Gay Identity and Social Acceptance in Indian Country”.

The interesting thing is that many Native American tribes historically accepted same-sex relationships. But in the colonial era, Europeans tended to change that.

Native Americans not only accepted lesbian and gay people, they also respected them as prophets, hunters or healers, anthropologist Rae Trewartha writes in The New Internationalist.

English and French-Canadian fur trappers were surprised to find that there were significant numbers of men dressed as women among the Native Indians, Scott Bidstrup writes:

What intrigued them the most, however, was the esteem with which these men were held by their fellow tribesmen. These men were considered to be spiritually gifted, a special gift to the tribe by God, men with a particular insight into spiritual matters.

Native Americans with mixed gender identity are called “Two Spirit” (see also a New York Times story about a Two Spirit gathering)

The new law rises interesting legal questions, anthropologist Brian Gilley explains, Because the Coquilles have federal status, a marriage within the tribe would be federally recognized. But that would violate the Defense of Marriage Act, a law that says the federal government “may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose.”

“The federal government could challenge the Coquille law as a way of testing the limits of tribal independence”, he says.

>> Gay marriage in Oregon? Tribe says yes (The Oregonian, 20.8.08)

>> Native American tribe to allow same-sex marriages (USA Today, 22.8.08)

A subculture of hefty, hirsute gay men is attracting the attention of academics