An Introduction to Social Anthropology:
Humanity as a Social Organism
(Comparative Cultures)
Officially: NEIS: 7797
사회구조연구 | [Research of Social Structures]
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One People, One Planet?
Towards a common Values-System:
A valid Hope, or invitation to Tyranny, ultimately?
http://www.reocities.com/minjokhan/8thIvyIV/FinalTerm1.html
http://www.mrtom.com/quotes/huxley_essay.htm
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Students prepare topics for discussion,
Teacher moderates and responds to questions or raises new questions.
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Main Topics — Covered In Common:
* Social Anthropology: The “Discipline”
— Its Objectives and Applications
— Movers and Shakers
— Schools, Cannons, Orthodoxies, Mavericks
— Past, Present, and Future
— Pros and Cons
— Disequilibrium/Homeostasis
— Prevention and Cure — Ideal(s)
— Social Anthropology in the News, Today
http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/Biographies.htm
http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/Disc_subdisc.htm
“Venus of Cappadocia” – By © noborders
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Panel One / Spring 2012
Inheriting Keen Insight — by Lee Seung-Hyeong Illuminate Justice — by Ko Seong-Jun Eastern Success — by Lee Dong-Hoon Attain to the Highest, Original Value — by Shin Won-Shik Red Ruby, Shine on Bright as the Morning Sun — by Joo Han-Nah A Deep and Beautiful Asian Gem — by Seo Ye-Jin Shine On, Bring Bright Light Where There’s Darkness — by Lee So-Yoon Enlightened One of the Summer Sky — by Kim Ho-June Taking the Southern Way North — by Cho Nam-Do .Course Objective:
Examine the potential of Social Anthropology as a valuable, viable, (if not always lucrative) field of study when pursued as an Independent Major or coupled with another subject in a Double Major.
Main Text — Covered in Common:
A Compendium of Online Sites and Articles,
(yet to be compiled) introducing themes and topics in the field of Social Anthropology. Evolving even now!
http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/socialanthropology/
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Supplemental Texts — One Required* Elective:
Book of the Hopi — Frank Waters
Things Fall Apart — Chenua Achebe
Heart of Darkness — Joseph Conrad
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee — Dee Brown
The Teachings of Don Juan — Carlos Castaneda
HIND SWARAJ OR INDIAN HOME RULE — Mohandas Gandhi
Brave New World — Aldous Huxley
The Autobiography of Malcolm X — As told by Alex Haley
Radical Evolution — Joel Garreau
* or student’s own alternative, pending consultation and approval
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* The “Discipline”
— Its Objectives and Applications
Social anthropology (see Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education 2007)
3.5 Social and cultural anthropology covers virtually every aspect of human social activity, from kinship, material culture or cognition to economics, politics and religion. The distinction between social and cultural anthropology indicates a historic divergence between the genealogies of (British) social anthropology and (North American) cultural anthropology. Social anthropology was principally concerned with the study of society, the functioning of social groups, and social organisation. Cultural anthropology constituted (along with archaeology, linguistics, and physical anthropology) one of the ‘four fields’, and was concerned with cultural forms and with systems of meaning. This divergence was greatest in the mid-twentieth century, since when the interests and concerns of both British and American anthropology have tended to merge. The boundaries between social and cultural anthropology are accordingly neither specific nor distinct, and within United Kingdom (UK) higher education they are usually subsumed
under the single heading of ‘social anthropology’…. More
3.10 Many anthropologists engage in applied and policy aspects of the subject and advise government and non-government organisations, health, social welfare and development agencies, the media and legal professions.
3.11 Relative to the size of the discipline, anthropology had a disproportionate influence on many social, economic and political policies for much of the twentieth century, and can be expected to do so in the twenty-first century.
3.12 Social anthropology explores the role of meanings, ambiguities and contradictions of social life, patterns of sociality, violence and conflict, and the underlying logics of social behaviour. Anthropologists are particularly skilled in the interpretation of narrative, ritual and symbolic behaviour not merely as ‘text,’ but with communication examined in relation to action, practice, and the historical context in which it is embedded. Anthropologists address the diversity of positions and perspectives to be found within any social group.
3.13 The subject has both ethical and reflexive dimensions. It has developed an awareness of the sense in which scholars create their objects of study and the ways in which anthropologists themselves may contribute to processes of change in the societies they study.
3.14 Social anthropology is distinguished from subjects such as economics or political science by its holistic range and the attention it gives to the diversity of culture and society across the world, and the capacity this gives the discipline to re-examine Euro-American assumptions. It is differentiated from sociology both in its main methods (based on long-term participant observation and linguistic competence); its commitment to the relevance and illumination provided by microstudies; and its extension beyond strictly social phenomena to culture, art, individuality, and cognition’…. More
http://www.qaa.ac.uk/Publications/InformationAndGuidance/Documents/Anthropology07.pdf
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— Movers and Shakers
* In the early 11th century, Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī (973-1048), wrote detailed comparative studies on the anthropology of religions and cultures across the Middle East, Mediterranean and the Indian subcontinent.[2] He discussed the peoples, customs, and religions of the Indian subcontinent (wikipedia). More on the Al-Biruni’s influence on The Anthropology of Religion.
* In the United States there was Lewis Henry Morgan and Franz BoasBoas, while in the UK, there was Edward Burnett Tylor and James George Frazer. In France, two major contributors were Marcel Mauss and Claude Lévi-Strauss. A few of Boas’ students include anthropologists Ruth Benedict, Alfred L. Kroeber, Margaret Mead, Jules Henry, and Ashley Montagu.
* Evans-Pritchard, Meyer Fortes , Bronisław Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown
* Arjun Appadurai, James Clifford, George Marcus, Sidney Mintz, Michael Taussig and Eric Wolf
* Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Philippe Bourgois ,
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Franz Boas — The Shackles of Tradition Carlos Castaneda — Tales From The Jungle Malinowski — Every custom/function, ritual/need.
— Schools, Cannons, Orthodoxies, Mavericks
Who’s Who and the Major Theoretical Schools :
Evolutionism, Diffusionism, Structuralism, functionalism, Alliance, The Leiden School, Neo-Structuralism…
Ethnicity and Race, Conflict theory and Critical theory
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— Past, Present, and Future
On Race (Wikipedia) The European concept of “race”, along with many of the ideas now associated with the term, arose at the time of the scientific revolution, which introduced and privileged the study of natural kinds, and the age of European imperialism and colonization which established political relations between Europeans and peoples with distinct cultural and political traditions.[24][27] As Europeans encountered people from different parts of the world, they speculated about the physical, social, and cultural differences among various human groups.
Colonialism, Slavery, and the Construction of Race — Yale University
Then Ethics and Anthropology of Post-humanism — Beyond biological substrate (silicon based bodies…)
Transhumanist [to Post-humanist] Values — by Nick Bostrom
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— Pros and Cons: Some Way Forward?
Constructive engagement; destructive influence
Globalization; Civil Rights/Human Rights; Structural Violence, Exploitation, Beyond?
Life Passages: Marriage/Family; Birth/Death; coming of age; Senility; Absolutes?
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— Disequilibrium/Homeostasis
Tagmemics; Conflict Resolution; ethnocentrism; multiculturalism;
Stability, Security, and Civil liberties; Progress of Science/Morality
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— Prevention and Cure — Ideal(s)
Participant Observation; Intervention; Assumptions/Qualifications
Chauvinism; relativism; objective/subjective; projection; ethics/morality; local/universal; interaction, integration, assimilation?
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— Social Anthropology in the News, Today
Current Case Studies; Call for papers; Hot spots; East/West; Middle East Change/Stability; Media Studies
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Mauritania — by Bled Runner
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Together with the Weekly topic covered in common (mentioned above)… Each student should choose one of the following supplemental topics to prepare an individual or group presentation…
These supplemental topics will be inserted week by week into the schedule with the topics covered in common:
Supplemental Topics — One Required Elective:
Choose one focus from the following options of various sub-fields and Case Studies:
* Diversity, Idenity, and Unity (Locally/Globally)
— Indigeous Peoples and Rights
— Nation-statism and Modernity
— Freedom, Peace, and Happiness? (Soma?)
http://www.culturalsurvival.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny
* Ethics, Propriety, Morality, Eternity
— Individual Purpose and Whole Purpose
— Marriage, Patriarchy, Matriarchy, lineage
— Birth, Rites of Passage, Maturity, Death
— Norms, Taboos, Fetishes/Idols, Ritual, Transcendence
— Progressing Social Constructs and Configurations
Family, Tribe, Society, Nation,
Race/Creed/Language, Beyond ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postdevelopment_theory
* Constructs of Justice and “Rule of Law”
— Private and Public Realms
— Isolationism vs Intervention
— Uri Nara (Our Contry) to Uri Segye (Our World)?
— Globalization and Assimilation
— Colonialism, Neo-colonialism, Imperialism
— Eugenics, Racism, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing
— “Truth” and “Reconciliaiton”
— Emerging International Institutions
http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/Disc_subdisc.htm
* Economics:
— Rural/Urban Continuum
—– Gandhi/BRIC
— Production/Consumption and Modernity
— Environmental Sustainability
— The Anthro of Millennium Development Goals
—– http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduate/taught/modules/module.html?code=SOAN60111
* Forming Concensus: Whither “Humanity”
— Media Studies / Trends / Locus of control
— Tradition, Innovation, and Subversion
— Bio-ethics / Post-Humanism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postdevelopment_theory
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Johnson
http://homeostaticism.wordpress.com/social-anthropology/
HIND SWARAJ OR INDIAN HOME RULE — by Mohandas Gandhi
http://www.mkgandhi.org/swarajya/coverpage.htm
All Men Are Brothers, by Mohandas Gandhi
— http://www.amazon.com/All-Men-Are-Brothers-Autobiographical/dp/0826417396/
Book of the Hopi – by Frank Waters
— http://www.amazon.com/Book-Hopi-Frank-Waters/dp/0140045279/
Secret History of the Mongols: The Origin of Chinghis Kahn – by Paul Kahn
— http://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-Mongols-Origin-Chingis/dp/0887272991/
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Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
http://www.reocities.com/minjokhan/8thIvyIV/FinalTerm1.html
Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999 (African Studies) – Wayne Madsen
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0773480021/qid=1027762761/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/102-3720448-9878546
Biowarfare in South Africa?
http://muhammadfarms.com/Biowarfare-S.Africa%20I.htm
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Systemic Failure and Cause for Hope — A Perspective from Africa on
Human Rights and Genetic Engineering
Dr. Solomon R. Benatar –http://climatization.wordpress.com/systemic-failure-and-cause-for-hope/
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Pause to Reconsider Values of Self-Government (YouTube) Ft. Ron Paul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH1FaLdABFM&feature=fvwrel
http://www.san.beck.org/EC21-Socrates.html#29 .
… Plato is very careful about what music and poetry are to be learned, and judges are set up to decide. The unjust life is more dishonorable and unpleasant than a just one. The Athenian reviews Persian history to show the failure of Cyrus and Darius to educate their sons, resulting in an autocratic government with little freedom for the people, but the extremes of democratic freedom have also been failures. Thus they recommend a blend of autocracy and liberty.
God, not a human, is more truly the measure of all things. The virtuous, who are more like God, ought to rule. After God one ought to honor one’s own soul. To honor anything like the beauty of the body or wealth above the soul is a mistake. People need to respect not only friends but aliens as well, because they have a greater need for divine and human pity. Truth and justice should be the highest values, and violent attachment to self is a constant problem. One who wishes to be great must not care for oneself and one’s own belongings more than for justice. Moderation, wisdom, courage, and health are to be valued over folly, cowardice, profligacy, and disease… Continue with Beck
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Reading #9 — Debt (1st 5000 yrs) @ Field Notes & Foot Notes — by Bree Blakeman . Kony 2012 @ Answer a Simple Question — on Cho Nam-Do’s blog Flipside of Kony: “Blood Harvest” — by Chris Floyd.
Def Jam, Rick Ross, and Hip Hop: What Message and Why? — by Ray Bullock…
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In the Beginning was al-Biruni?
Abū al-Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī (born 5 September 973 in Kath, Khwarezm, died 13 December 1048 in Ghazni, Afghanistan–140 Kilometers SW of Kabul). Today Khwarezm belongs partly to Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Afghanistan,
The Pros
1) Al-Biruni is widely respected as the father of Indology, and the first anthropologists. In his Kitab fi Tahqiq ma l’il-Hind (Researches on India), he not only recorded the political history of India and military history of India but also covered India’s cultural, scientific, social and religious history in detail. He was also the first to study the anthropology of India, engaging in extensive participant observation with various Indian groups, learning their languages and studying their primary texts, and presenting his findings with objectivity and neutrality using cross- and inter-cultural comparisons.
http://indictales.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/abu-rayhan-al-biruni-founder-of-indology/
2) Important contributions to geodesy and geography were also made by al-Biruni. He introduced techniques to measure the earth and distances on it using triangulation. He found the radius of the earth to be 6339.6 km, a value not obtained in the West until the 16th century
3) The India is a massive work covering many different aspects of the country. Al-Biruni describes the religion and philosophy of India, its caste system and marriage customs. He then studies the Indian systems of writing and numbers before going on to examine the geography of the country. The book also examines Indian astronomy, astrology and the calendar.
Al-Biruni studied Indian literature in the original, translating several Sanskrit texts into Arabic. He also wrote several treatises devoted to certain aspects of Indian astronomy and mathematics which were of particular interest to him. Al-Biruni was amazingly well read, having knowledge of Sanskrit literature on topics such as astrology, astronomy, chronology, geography, grammar, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, religion, and weights and measures.
http://tajikam.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=94&Itemid=43
The Cons
Subject to Military conquest, but this patronage allowed him to go into India… though he was mostly interested in Physics and Mathematics, the scientific method. When older, he was more free to travel. He was not primarily an Anthropologist.
Legacy:
The Disequilibrium and path forward : He was a devout Muslim. But objective in his treatment of other religions, seeking the good and the true in all, critical of idolotry and ignorance in his own religion. Promoted “participant observation” and reliance on primary texts and comparative religion, philosophy. Advanced the scientific method, objectivity.
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Ruth Benedict
(born Ruth Fulton, June 5, 1887 – September 17, 1948) wikipedia — Ruth Benedict was an American anthropologist, cultural relativist, and folklorist.She was born in New York City, and attended Vassar College, graduating in 1909. She entered graduate studies at Columbia University in 1919, studying under Franz Boas, receiving her PhD and joining the faculty in 1923. Margaret Mead, with whom she may have shared a romantic relationship,[1] and Marvin Oplerwere among her students and colleagues.Franz Boas, her teacher and mentor, has been called the father of American anthropology and his teachings and point of view are clearly evident in Benedict’s work. Boas is author of many classic works including Race, Language, and Culture—perhaps the most potent anti-racist text to emerge from the academic world in his time. In it Boas attempts to prove that race, language, and culture are independent. Ruth Benedict was affected by the passionate egalitarianism of Boas, her mentor, and continued it in her research and writing.
School: Culture and Personality school
Configurationalist approach : This approach describes a culture as a personality; that is, interpretation of experiences, guided by symbolic structure, creates personality which is “copied” into the larger culture. Leading figures include Edward Sapir, Ruth Benedict, A. Irving Hallowell, and Margaret Mead. Psychological anthropology is an interdisciplinary subfield of anthropology that studies the interaction of cultural and mental processes. The subfield tends to focus on ways in which humans’ development and enculturation within a particular cultural group—with its own history, language, practices, and conceptual categories—shape processes of human cognition, emotion, perception, motivation, and mental health. It also examines how the understanding of cognition, emotion, motivation, and similar psychological processes inform or constrain our models of cultural and social processes. Each school within psychological anthropology has its own approach.[1][2].
Chronology
Studied under Franz Boaz, at Columbia, Anti-racism, questioned norms * She wrote Patterns of Culture (1934) : Herein, she described in detail the contrasts between rituals, beliefs, personal preferences amongst people of diverse cultures to show how each culture had a “personality” that was encouraged in each individual.* She wrote The Chrysanthemum and the Sword — Benedict is known not only for her earlier Patterns of Culture but also for her later book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, the study of the society and culture of Japan that she published in 1946, incorporating results of her war-time research.
This book is an instance of Anthropology at a Distance. Study of a culture through its literature, through newspaper clippings, through films and recordings, etc., was necessary when anthropologists aided the United States and its allies in World War II. Unable to visit Nazi Germany or Japan under Hirohito, anthropologists made use of the cultural materials to produce studies at a distance. They were attempting to understand the cultural patterns that might be driving their aggression, and hoped to find possible weaknesses, or means of persuasion that had been missed.
Pros:
Cultural RelativismCons
Cultural Relativism .Legacy
Students: Margaret Meade (?) . .. … .. .
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