As you look back over the semester's readings, which ones had the most impact on your thinking?

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Clifford Geertz and My Light Bulb Moment

Lauren Deal

It's hard for me to say for sure if Clifford Geertz deeply impacted my thinking or if he gave me the theoretical framework I needed to ground myself. I have always tended toward the interpretive so when I was first introduced to the concept of thick description in anth 2 but i didn't really understand its utility. I figured, "duh, isn't that just what anthropologist do?" It was not until I made it all the way through Interpretation of Cultures and the Balinese Cockfight that I realized the true power of this seemingly obvious device. The Balinese Cockfight is exquisitely executed, easy to read and illuminating. Through one simple occurance Geertz can show how an entire society relates to one another socially, economically, politically and so forth. What's more, it reads like a novel and you find yourself there with him. The Balinese Cockfight has come to be my model for ethnographic research both in production and presentation. I'd like to add that I don't think that Geertz's theories are incompatible with some type of scientific utility. I agree that Anthropology is not a science like chemistry or physics. We can cannot control the process at any point along the way. However, the forum of scientific discussion comes in repeated analysis from different perspectives based on observation. No two ethnographies will ever be the same because the text is always changing but each can shine its own light on both a culture and culture at large. I truly loved this book.

E H

The readings included a wide variety, and several readings gave me some new thoughts.

Leslie White’s reading was interesting for me because it gave me another perspective. It was interesting how White applied Morgan’s explanation of unilineal evolution to the modern world. It is always easier for me to understand if I apply theory to the culture and period that I know. Now that we are convinced that each culture is independent and do not go through the same stage, it was just hard for me to think of applying unilineal evolution theory to the modern context. Therefore, Leslie’s theory that “increase in energy consumption and technology advancement lead to cultural development” was interesting. It gave me a new perspective of thinking.

Harris and Geertz reading of two diverging perspectives on anthropological work made me rethink of what would be the best way to do anthropological work. Both of them seemed plausible to me and I couldn’t really take side.

Sitting outside in a warm weather and watching people, Durkheim’s Social fact is definitely affecting me to become more aware of what people do. Now I try to analyze if the person’s behavior was taken consciously or unconsciously and what are some reasons that would affect the person.

Foucault was also interesting. I did not really think of society as panopticon and with my knowledge from my political science classes, I’ve been thinking of which country or which organization is more panopticon-like. I think the more democratic the country becomes the country becomes less panopticon–like.

Overall, I think I was impacted more of the ones that gave me different perspectives. I think the reading broadened my view and introduced me to a new way of thinking.

emma roberts

I agree with E that each reading impacted me very differently and I think I took a variety of interesting frameworks from several of them. I had always found it particularly easy to accept cultural materialist frameworks, because I am someone who constantly searches for an explanation. If we are all indeed equal and made from the same things (which, yes, I do believe we are :) ) then I feel that there should indeed be some universal explanation to the structure of communities throughout the world. To me, explaining the aspects of a society through its infrastructure seems the most objective and universally applicable solution.

I was also fond of Leslie White's analysis of energy and utilization of technology, and as I'm studying it now for the test I find it more and more interesting. I see a lot of similarities in White and Harris's frameworks of cultural analysis, especially in how much they were both influenced by Marx.

One thinker I was actually quite moved by this time around was Geertz. He was one of the few anthropologists that I was previously quite familiar with, and it wasn't until we read his work 2 weeks ago that I really found value and understanding. I think the idea of "thick description" is quite valuable to the study of anthropology and as we were saying in our class discussion, it does not necessarily clash with materialism - one of the reasons I think I was always skeptical of it.

Jill Coen

I had arrived at this point—the semester in which I completed my major—without having read (or even heard of!) many of these classic anthropological thinkers. In considering which particular readings have most impacted my thinking--its tough to choose! I'd say that having this survey in general has been invaluable. It has allowed me to put all the puzzle pieces that make up my transcript together, to see how all of the theorists referenced in my classes fit into a timeline. I've learned who influenced who, who was contemporaries with whom, and have been able to draw connections between readings (and my classes and the anthropological fields) in a way I wasn't able to before.

That said, the concepts I really enjoyed were Douglas' taboo, Bourdieu's habitus, Steward's cultural ecology, Harris' cultural materialism, and the frameworks of Foucault and Marx. Douglas and Bourdieu both offered something to the discussion of how culture effects our actions in an immediate and individualized way (people's responses to these entities whether consciously or unconsciously.) Steward, Harris, Marx, and Foucault all offered frameworks with which to conceptualize cultural frameworks and to understand the various materialistic, technological, environmental, and sociological effects acting on the individuals in a culture from a systemic level (a larger sense of the society.)

I also really enjoyed my chosen reading of Malinowski's Sexual Life of Savages. I wouldn't have done it without our assignments 'forcing' us to, for lack of a better word, and I'm glad I did. While all the contemporary theoretical works and ethnographies are all so fascinating and compelling, it was great to have a chance to engage with one of the classic works that got the ball rolling in anthropology.

Lindsey Scott

I think that on some level, or many levels rather, all of these readings have impacted me in some way. As Jill said, I'm about to graduate, and I hadn't read any of the works by most of these anthropologists. And while I have taken a lot away from this class, not only the newly added resources in my anthropologist's tool kit but also a better understanding of anthropology as a whole, I would have to say that the two readings I took the most from were Douglas' Taboo and the Foucault reading on panopticism. It's interesting that it would be these two readings that would stick with me the most because these are two anthropologists, and specific sections of reading, I had previously read. I think that the reason they impacted min such a way is that I had a better understanding of their meanings and exactly what they were striving for the second time I read them. Plus I had all the new information to fall back on and access to better comprehend what was being addressed. I guess you could say that these two readings were seen in a new light this time around because of the impact the other readings have had on me this semester.

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Caitlyn Scherer

Coming into this class, I honestly did not expect to encounter the variety of theories we studied. Why I thought this, I'm not sure, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was refreshing to finally get a good, holistic understanding of the evolution of anthropology, the feuds between different schools of thought, who developed new theories and who followed suit. Personally, I enjoyed Emile Durkheim's idea of collective consciousness, his idea that society guides an individual unconsciously. When I read his work, I could not help but to think of the current postmodern understanding of anthropology, sociology, and the like. Further, the readings on cultural materialism, Marx included, made a lot of sense in my mind. It's refreshing to read works from brilliant scholars that put into words concepts I had in my brain but did not have the capacity to write down myself. I also really liked the book I chose to write the final essay on, Max Gluckman's Custom and Conflict in Africa. An early proponent of conflict theory and ending racism and seemingly meaningless conflict, Gluckman's political activity was relatively unheard of at the time. I would like to think that he would be a significant addition to today's development NGOs, as he would examine cultural phenomena and relay the needs of one group to another. I will miss this class, and hope that what I have learned will open my eyes to future anthropology courses (in grad school...scary!)

Heddy Waters

I am someone who is very interested in social-political power, theory, and movements. Although interested, I never really had the opportunity to utilize and analyze these theories from an anthropological standpoint. Thus, three authors stood out to me in particular: Durkheim, Bourdieu, and Foucault. By covering a variety of authors, I was able to come across ideas and viewpoints within anthropology that I was not aware of before, including the contributions of these three authors and how they relate to my own personal opinions. Now aware, I can read further into them and further allow the evolution of my ideas and train of thoughts. I think, for me, the major contribution was that I became aware of authors that had ideas similar to my own and how they developed. I have a better sense of how my ideas fit into the larger field, not to mention a larger anthropological vocabulary, which both help me define how I think and what my stances are.

***Amber Buck***

Throughout my anthropology "career" at GWU, I have always been able to throw myslef wholly into pieces written on the American urban community. When I took my first anthropology class, I like many people (I think) expected to read ethnographies written mostly on remote communities located in the far reaches of the world. Those ethnographies are great, because for me they take me to places I may never get a chance to visit. Ethnographies particularly on American black/latino urban communities, however, have always interested me because in many ways it is easier for me to relate. The article that spoke the most to me this semester was "From Jibaro to Carck Dealer: Confronting the restructuring of Capitalism in El Barrio" by Philippe Bourgois. In Bourgois' piece on a Nuyorican community living in Spanish Harlem, he looks at the way that capitalism has affected the community. Bourgois brings up a lot of interesting issues that, I a person who has lived in a similar community before, had never addressed. I found myself conflicted by his notion that the clashing of Puerto Rican machismo culture with white workplace ettiquette/culture might be an excuse (not the best excuse but in many ways a valid one) for unemployment and pushing drugs on the streets. However, as I read further I was beginning to become convinced that there are some cultural boundaries that make it difficult in this capitalist driven society for immigrants and some minorities to blend in and get ahead. Because, that is essentially what we as a society are asking people to do. We are asking newcomers to leave their cultural baggage at the curb as they step into the workplace so that they can conform to the American way. Is that entirely fair? Honestly, I do not yet have a concrete answer to that. I really agreed with Bourgois' Marxist infused comment when he states that, "America was built on racial heirarchy and on blame-the-victim justifications for the existence of poverty and class distinctions" (341). This article made me realize that I do hold some Marxist viewpoints. I had never applied them toward anything more concrete or applicable in my own life or community before I read this article. Now, more than ever I see marked divisions within oru capitalist society. Hmmm and that's interesting.

Abigail Parker

Like others have mentioned before I have, I feel that I have gotten something valuable from each of the readings. I’ve come to see the theoretical merit of some anthropologists (Spencer, Tylor, Morgan, to name a few) who have been all but vilified in other classes, and appreciate each individual’s contribution to anthropology. Finally, I have been able to find something I agree with in virtually every reading we have encountered.

That being said, not all theories were created equal. I tend toward the interpretive edge of anthropology, so I thought we were onto something when our class encountered Clifford Geertz and his stack of turtles. However, Rosaldo brought his theory closer to my thinking. I suppose it boils down to Rosaldo’s portrayal of all parties involved in ethnography as human; instead of inhabiting a fictive sterile universe where human behavior can be monitored an respond to stimuli, both the ethnographer and her “subjects” come at the experience of ethnography with individual histories, and we need to acknowledge that this has an effect on the subsequent analysis. Rosaldo demonstrates this, involving stories of his own experience, tying them to his analysis of head-hunting. I found his essay both moving and full of human feelings – something more traditional ethnographies have lacked.

Ultimately, anthropology is a study of humans. The reason I study anthropology is because I’m particularly into patrilineal bands, but because humanity – the expansive, brilliant, chaotic universe of the human experience – is, to acquiesce to the inadequacies of language, interesting. By putting the anthro of anthropology front and center, Rosaldo’s work resonates with me the strongest.

Ojaswi Kafle

Every reading has something to offer to me, the most important contribution from each being how to analyze the world around us. Through out the last year or so, I have found myself becoming deeply interested in the environment and the injustice brought on people based on their racial, gender, and class differences by some different historical events and economic and political systems. For these reasons, the readings that related to the topics mentioned above resonated the most with me. These readings were Leacock’s article on the Origins of Gender Inequality, and Bourgois’s piece on the Restructuring of Capitalism in El Barrio.

Leacock’s article on the origin of gender inequality struck out to me because of her argument that gender inequality does not stem from sex differences, but rather from the movement to a ranking society, and then a capitalist one. Having read Sherry Ortner’s essay “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?” in my high school anthropology class, the view that gender differences rises from the notion that women are like nature, while men are like culture, which is given more value, has always been with me through my anthropological education. Therefore, in term of the origin of gender inequality, I thought that perhaps Ortner’s article, alongside Michelle’s Rosaldo’s argument that women are part of the private sphere, while men are part of the more valued and independent public sphere, could explain a lot. Another reason I relied as much as I did on Rosaldo and Ortner’s ideas was because they dealt more with aspects of culture that I had found interesting, but now I have become more interested in economics and politics. Therefore, although both of these anthropologists’ arguments have been very helpful in exploring gender differences, Leacock’s essay has opened my eyes up because she focuses on economics, interweaved with social structure and history.

Bourgois’s essay on the people of El Barrio also struck out to me for several reasons. Much like Leacock’s essay, this essay focuses on economics and its relationship to social structure and the ever changing history of people. Because of my new found interest in understanding economic systems and thoughts, especially Marxism and other economic philosophies influenced by it, I have found that I have focused on the implication of change in the mode of production and also on class struggle when reading the essay. This focus was different from what I had focused on when I had read this ethnography back in high school. Having read this article for the second time four years later allowed me to know the basics of the ethnography and focus less on the interesting ethnographic data and details. I instead focused on how Bourgois’s writing reflected the constant struggle of a marginalized group of people.

The works of the Leacock and Bourgois had the most impact on my thinking because of their focus on the capitalistic system’s effects on groups of people while using Marxism to explain much of these effects. As I get ready to graduate and am faced with what I want to do with my life, Leacock and Bourgois’s essays help me see that I need to understand much more about the various economic and political systems and thoughts, and their profound influences on social class, inequality, injustices and even the environment. During our last class, we discussed the significance of anthropology. When I first started taking anthropology in high school, and even when I declared it as my major, I adored anthropology because of the chance to learn about ‘exotic’ cultures and how similar and different people are. Although I will always appreciate anthropology for its ability to teach me about the cultures from faraway and how humans are connected or how each culture is so unique, this class, along with my other anthropology classes, has taught me that anthropology is much more than this. In an ever increasingly globalized world, anthropology allows people to understand how the political and economic systems, the beliefs of a group of people, the changes in the past, and everything else these people have been faced with have played an important role in contributing to the way the people are and how they live. More importantly,, anthropology's contribution will hopefully allow cultures to be preserved, for economic, political, and aid systems to respect and reflect the cultural practices, beliefs, and history of people, and for people to move in the direction of less conflict and injustice and much more understanding, respect, equality, and harmony.

Dave Schatz

Having heard the name so many times and never reading a single word of her work, I thought that Mead's writing captured everything about anthropology that I have come to love. It is smart. It is witty. It is logical. Most importantly, it takes a stand. When I read the selection, I was enthralled by the way Mead was able to see the value in the cultures that she studied. From every culture she took a piece of history, a lesson, and acknowledged its validity in her own life, in all of our lives. It is on this validity that we base our major, the fact that we can take in the world and the people in it. I felt the passion of the time of Mead's writing and her motivation. She also brought her own character to her fieldwork, a facet portrayed by the movie we watched, a sign of great rapport. I could imagine that she broke down many barriers with her theories on gender roles, an anti-biological argument. Surely, Mead was influenced by images of the American nuclear family, in which gender roles are so explicitly spelled-out, and where social status is immobile. She recognized the power of the collective culture over its participants. Many would criticize her utopian flavor of interpretation and her subjective accounts, but this flavor is what I find to be the salt of anthropology. You won't find raw numbers in Mead's work or strict, generalizing interpretations that characterized many of the anthropologists that came before her. But, you will find a true yearning for understanding culture in its own context. No matter what you view on the role of anthropology, you must acknowledge Mead's theoretical style, because it is a fundamental part in the goals of the anthropology that we all have chosen as our field of study.

I also enjoyed reading Douglas. I never saw myself accepting any part of a structuralist account, simply because I thought it would devalue cultural diversity. But I was very convinced by Douglas' reasoning. Although it didn't admire cultures explicitly in the same way Mead's writing did, it did use plenty of largely diverse cultures to prove a point. The logic was perfect, and it considered opposing viewpoints to the nth degree. I think the subject of taboo is fascinating, and if you ever have the chance to read Purity, it is a very compelling argument.

Savannah Fetterolf

I found Julian Steward’s work to be incredibly interesting. Perhaps, this is due to the fact that I read two of his works for my Review Article, but I think that the concept of cultural ecology is quite pertinent in light of the modern issue of global warming. Additionally, I also found it incredibly useful to look at the foundations of culture as being material based. Within the concept of cultural ecology, Steward believed that culture was formed in conjunction with the technology used to adapt to ones environment. The reason that I like Steward’s reasoning more than Leslie White’s is because of Steward’s understanding of cultural evolution as multilinear and, therefore, avoided any insinuation of cultural hierarchy.

In addition to Steward, I found that I was aligning myself with Renato Rosaldo. While I think that there must be some sort of delineation between the ethnographer and the subject, I truly feel that the only way to present a coherent image of a culture is by positioning oneself as a subject within it. It is important that ethnography does not become a pure autobiography, but the goal of ethnography should not necessarily be subjectivity, but accuracy and thick description.

Alexandra Gagne

Response

Dave Schatz

I am really glad to see these all-encompassing views of anthropology. If any reading that we read was not important in some way, or didn't have validity in cultural studies, it wouldn't be considered Anthropology. If anyone out there is like me, and I know some of you are, you cannot help but look at the people around you. You have to observe, "every single person I see has a different history, an experience that is completely unique; I want to know more about it." Just pick a person to examine, even for a second, and you will find a million different ways to analyze that one second of examination. That is the value of anthropological theory. That's why everything we read was so different, and that's why everything we read must be taken as just a part of the whole of analyzing the human experience. Many question the usability of anthropology. I can say that I can feel my new knowledge about people (I know, highly subjective) and how to look at them. The cliche saying of "opens up my eyes" is acceptable here. We can do something with this theory, and in fact, we are doing something with it right now whether we like it or not.

Erin Neill

As someone who isn’t majoring in Anthropology and has only taken one other intro level course, the entire semester was an incredibly fascinating opportunity for me to look at anthropological theory as it developed.  Seeing how new and exciting ideas in anthropology were diffused and disputed has been interesting and has encouraged me to attempt to incorporates some of the lessons I’ve learned in my own studies in my major of Art History.  I think that many theories cross the boundary between the two as Art is such a powerful representation of culture and to be understood requires a strong background in the values of its creators.  The readings that we have completed that concern ritualistic practices have by far been my favorite, perhaps because of their value as expressive actions.  Most importantly I have learned that you cannot understand something unless you explore the context in which it occurred or was created. I suppose I already knew this to a certain extent, but I now feel that I understand how fully the concept needs to be applied.  

The readings that struck me the most were the ones that dealt with and demonstrated some of these issues.  I was particularly struck by Evans-Pritchard’s “The Sacrificial Role of Cattle Among the Nuer”.  I suppose this article struck me because it made me realize how the relationship between a man and his livestock can represent more given the cultural construct that Evans-Pritchard explores.  I also realized that expression could go beyond physical manifestations.  I am sure that I knew these ideas and concepts before I read the article, but the E-P article revealed to me the importance of them on a psychological basis as well.

When I began this class I had serious doubts as to whether or not I would be able to keep up and fully grasp the topic. I now realize that if anything, this course has given me valuable tools that I will be able to apply to my area of focus and I realize how entirely relevant anthropology is far beyond its own field.

Response

Shayna H Cass

Without a doubt, the reading that had the most impact on my thinking would have to be the Rosaldo selection. Although I had not read any of Rosaldo’s work before reading the assigned selection, I was aware that he studied head-hunting, and based on that I developed a very negative image of him and his work. As someone who is committed to practicing tolerance and understanding, I’m ashamed to say that I harshly and unjustly judged Rosaldo. The idea of head-hunting absolutely repulsed me, and in my mind, I assumed a person would have to be pretty sick and twisted to want to study such a heinous act. I consider myself to be a very open-minded person, but when it comes to certain things I can be extremely stubborn—this is one of my biggest character flaws. Over the years I have become less and less stubborn and more and more open. Studying anthropology has played a significant role in this process. I admit, I went into the Rosaldo reading with a strong bias, but my thinking was significantly altered in the process. This gives me hope, because for me, anthropology is about promoting tolerance and understanding, and that’s exactly what this reading did for me. I hope that someday my work can do the same thing for others that Rosaldo’s work has done for me.