~ a group blog on a variety of topics related to anthropology, sociology, and ordinary people ~
Mark Dawson’s April 2012 post “Why I Chose not to Get a PhD” post has been one of the more popular postings at Ethnography.com. There is also a good comment stream at the end of the post with a number of “attaboys,” and “that’ll tell’em Mark!” Such posts seem to appeal to the existential angst that afflicts anthropology in a world of budget cuts.
The most recent comments to the post are by Bill who has worked for the National Park Service and US Forest Service. …
Another new country, and region of the world. This time it is the country of Antigua, in the Caribbean where I am on vacation for 10 days. Going new places assaults the senses, as you the old categories brought from elsewhere prove inadequate to frame what you hear and see. That is why it is often interesting and important to write down thoughts when you first arrive, before the comfort of automaticity sits in, and even though, by definition, things are still “impressionistic.” …
– Thomas Carlyle, genetic Historian
Raymond Williams begins his introduction to Keywords by telling of his return to Cambridge following the end of World War II. He recounts meeting a friend he had known through various radical groups in the 1930’s. As they discussed their efforts to establish some continuity between the Cambridge they had known before the war and the Cambridge they were entering after the war, both Williams and his friend realized that much of the language they had had relied upon had shifted, and this shift had rendered much of their pre-war intellectual life unfamiliar.…
I’m pretty happy about my post about Max Weber, and Luigi Cavalli-Sforza. Getting geneticists to at least acknowledge the existence of the patron saint of Sociology is big thing!
From an academic standpoint, Weber is one of my favorite topics, even though no one else seems to agree with me. I’ve been writing about the Old Dead German for years, usually to piss and moan about people from UC Berkeley. …
James Mullooly invented the word Scrogg, meaning something along the line of “anthropologist who catch geneticists playing fast and loose with the data.” In my experience, Scrogging is fairly easy to do on open-source turf of the Biological Sciences journals where there are often places for comments. These comments are typically reviewed by editors, and while not strictly “peer-reviewed,” would in my mind contribute to the academic record of aspiring academics. …
Ok, below is a complicate and attenuated definition of ethnicity by the classical sociologist Max Weber. Variations of this definition are found in many anthropology and sociological textbooks, though he is by far not the only source of wisdom. But be aware that as with most classical literature, it is often difficult to read. But for the purposes of this discussion with Population geneticists, I want to highlight Weber’s emphasis in beliefs about heredity and blood relationships in determining endogamy and exogamy. …
The reason I post about cultural anthropology now and then isn’t that I want to argue or discuss with cultural anthropologists. Rather, I want to aid in spreading the message the discipline should be extirpated from the academy, just as Creationists have been extirpated from biology – Razib Khan
There is a long history of work claiming the mantle of science, which seeks to push forward essentialist theories of racial disposition and intelligence.…
It has been a lively week on this blog. “DAD” and Razib Khan have challenged our (Michael Scroggins and myself) basic competency to discuss genetics and race/intelligence/etc. We have responded with similar incredulity to their ability to critique anthropology.
In other words, we in the social sciences think they are naïve, and they think we are dunderheads.
This overall does not seem to be a very productive set of assumptions to go forward with; Razib and DAD actually appear to be relatively well-read people, though clearly we do not read the same things. …
Ok, I think I will jump into Michael’s stream. I have a problem with the reductionism of geneticists, evolutionary psychologists, socio-biology, etc., too. And I’m also annoyed when such types go beyond their data, and start making generalizations that would be better addressed with the nuanced data ethnographer-types generate. Notably such data often cannot be “seen” from the spread sheets and certainly not from the bench of a genetics lab. I have written the editors of PLoS Biology (2005) and BMC Genetics (2013) respectively about such problems with respect to the Mla Bri of Thailand, a group which a long-time colleague and friend knows well. …
In the Star Trek episode “Space Seed”, Khan was a genetically engineered human who, in the wake of the eugenic wars, was exiled to a distant planet. This Khan is a sensitive observer of the human condition, who at one point, asks Kirk if he has ever read Milton. Kirk, in turn, laments, “Yes, I understand.” Khan, of course, was a sensitive and wise commentator on the perils and potential of genetics.…
Like clockwork (or a comet, perhaps), the noisiest problem in anthropology makes its return every few years. And this year we are blessed with the two noisiest comets in anthropology returning together. Both Diamond and Chagnon have new books and, more importantly, new book campaigns with money for appearances and exposure to media outlets. Even better, they both have stone axes to grind.
The worst slur slung by both Chagnon and Diamond is that cultural anthropology is an unrepentantly anti-scientific activity that has intentionally turned away from the dominate paradigm in the biological and behavioral sciences in favor of navel gazing.…
Anthropology is going through yet another bout of self-flagellation as Marshall Sahlins, Napoleon Chagnon, and others refight battles going back to the 1970s, gleefully aided and abetted by the New York Times.
This follows quickly on the heels of an attempt to kick Jared Diamond off of the anthropological island he never was on, and stretching back another, oh perhaps 3 or 4 weeks, savage minds.org took a run at banishing James Scott for his book about the highlands of Southeast Asia.…