Brown, Perspectives Intro To Cultural Anthropology 2nd

PERSPECTIVES: AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
SECOND EDITION
Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, Laura Tubelle de González
2020 American Anthropological Association

2300 Clarendon Blvd, Suite 1301
Arlington, VA 22201
ISBN Print: 978-1-931303-67-5

ISBN Digital: 978-1-931303-66-8
http://perspectives.americananthro.org/
This book is a project of the Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges (SACC)
http://sacc.americananthro.org/ and our parent organization, the American Anthropological Association
(AAA). Please refer to the website for a complete table of contents and more information about the
book.
Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, 2nd Edition by Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, Laura
Tubelle de González is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License,
except where otherwise noted.
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CONTENTS
Preface xi
WHY THIS BOOK? xi
ABOUT THE SOCIETY FOR ANTHROPOLOGY IN COMMUNITY COLLEGES xii
WHY OPEN ACCESS? xiii
THE COVER DESIGN xiii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xiii
I. Part 1
1. Introduction to Anthropology 3
WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY? 5
WHAT IS CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY? 5
WHAT IS CULTURE? 6
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL THINKING 7
THE (OTHER) SUBFIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY 10
ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES 14
WHY IS ANTHROPOLOGY IMPORTANT? 17
GLOSSARY 25
ABOUT THE AUTHORS 26
BIBLIOGRAPHY 27
2. The Culture Concept 29
THOUGHTS ON CULTURE OVER A CUP OF COFFEE 29
STORIES AS A REFLECTION ON CULTURE 30
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEORIES OF CULTURE 35
BACK IN THE COFFEE SHOP 40
GLOSSARY 41
BIBLIOGRAPHY 43
3. Doing Fieldwork: Methods in Cultural Anthropology 45
FINDING THE FIELD 45
TRADITIONAL ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACHES 49
ETHNOGRAPHY TODAY 54
ETHNOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES AND PERSPECTIVES 56
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 63
WRITING ETHNOGRAPHY 65
GLOSSARY 67
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 68
BIBLIOGRAPHY 68
4. Language 70
THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN LANGUAGE TO HUMAN CULTURE 70
THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF LANGUAGE 71
HUMAN LANGUAGE COMPARED WITH THE COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS OF OTHER SPECIES 75
UNIVERSALS OF LANGUAGE 76
DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS: STRUCTURES OF LANGUAGE 76
LANGUAGE VARIATION: SOCIOLINGUISTICS 78
LANGUAGE IN ITS SOCIAL SETTINGS: LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY 83
LANGUAGE CHANGE: HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS 87
GLOBALIZATION AND LANGUAGE 88
GLOSSARY 92
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 94
5. Subsistence 96
STUDYING SUBSISTENCE SYSTEMS 97
MODES OF SUBSISTENCE 98
THE GLOBAL AGRICULTURE SYSTEM 112
CONCLUSION 114
GLOSSARY 114
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 115
BIBLIOGRAPHY 115
6. Economics 119
MODES OF PRODUCTION 120
MODES OF EXCHANGE 127
CONSUMPTION AND GLOBAL CAPITALISM 135
POLITICAL ECONOMY: UNDERSTANDING INEQUALITY 139
CONCLUSION 141
GLOSSARY 142
BIBLIOGRAPHY 143
7. Political Anthropology: A Cross-Cultural Comparison 148
BASIC CONCEPTS IN POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 148
LEVELS OF SOCIO-CULTURAL INTEGRATION 150
EGALITARIAN SOCIETIES 150
BAND-LEVEL POLITICAL ORGANIZATION 151
TRIBAL POLITICAL ORGANIZATION 152
RANKED SOCIETIES AND CHIEFDOMS 161
STRATIFIED SOCIETIES 166
STATE LEVEL OF POLITICAL ORGANIZATION 168
CONCLUSION 173
BIBLIOGRAPHY 176
8. Family and Marriage 182
RIGHTS, RESPONSIBILITIES, STATUSES, AND ROLES IN FAMILIES 183
KINSHIP AND DESCENT 183
KINSHIP TERMS 188
MARRIAGE AND FAMILY 190
FAMILIES AND CULTURE CHANGE 199
GLOSSARY 200
9. Race and Ethnicity 204
“DUDE, WHAT ARE YOU?!” 205
IS ANTHROPOLOGY THE “SCIENCE OF RACE?” 207
RACE IN THREE NATIONS: THE UNITED STATES, BRAZIL, AND JAPAN 215
ETHNICITY AND ETHNIC GROUPS 220
A MELTING POT OR A SALAD BOWL? 222
ANTHROPOLOGY MEETS POPULAR CULTURE: SPORTS, RACE/ETHNICITY AND DIVERSITY 223
CONCLUSION 226
GLOSSARY 226
BIBLIOGRAPHY 228
10. Gender and Sexuality 231
INTRODUCTION: SEX AND GENDER ACCORDING TO ANTHROPOLOGISTS 231
FOUNDATIONS OF THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF GENDER 233
CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO STUDYING SEXUALITY AND GENDER 262
CONCLUSION 271
GLOSSARY 272
11. Religion 286
DEFINING RELIGION 288
THEORIES OF RELIGION 289
ELEMENTS OF RELIGION 291
CONCLUSION 300
GLOSSARY 300
12. Globalization 304
OVERVIEW AND EARLY GLOBALIZATION 305
THE ACCELERATION OF GLOBALIZATION 306
SELECTIVE IMPORTATION AND ADAPTATION 308
GLOBALIZATION IN EVERYDAY LIFE 311
GLOBALIZATION AND NEOLIBERALISM 316
RESPONSES TO GLOBALIZATION 319
IMPLICATIONS FOR ANTHROPOLOGY 322
CONCLUSION 326
GLOSSARY 327
II. Part 2
13. The History of Anthropological Ideas 335
CENTRAL CONCEPTS 336
THE FALL OF COLONIALISM AND THE RISE OF NEWLY INDEPENDENT STATES 340
SPECIALIZATION – A WIDE RANGE 342
CONCLUSION 350
GLOSSARY 350
BIBLIOGRAPHY 351
14. Culture and Sustainability: Environmental Anthropology in the Anthropocene 357
LIVING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE 357
CULTURAL ECOLOGY 361
ETHNOECOLOGY 364
POLITICAL ECOLOGY 368
ADDITIONAL APPROACHES TO ENVIRONMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY 373
APPLYING ANTHROPOLOGY IN CONSERVATION 375
CONCLUSION 377
GLOSSARY 378
BIBLIOGRAPHY 379
15. Performance 382
OVERVIEW 383
EVERYDAY PERFORMANCE 386
CONSTITUTING SOCIAL REALITY 391
BOUNDED PERFORMANCES 394
CONCLUSION 401
GLOSSARY 402
16. Media Anthropology: Meaning, Embodiment, Infrastructure, and Activism 407
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MEDIA ANTHROPOLOGY 408
MEANINGFUL MEDIA 409
WHAT MAKES MEDIA POSSIBLE? 412
PARTICIPATORY MEDIA AND MEDIA ACTIVISM IN ANTHROPOLOGY 415
CONCLUSION 419
GLOSSARY 421
BIBLIOGRAPHY 421
17. Health and Medicine 425
ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE BIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE 426
ETHNOMEDICINE 428
MENTAL HEALTH 433
THE EXPERIENCE OF ILLNESS IN PLACE 434
BIOMEDICAL TECHNOLOGIES 437
CONCLUSION 439
GLOSSARY 440
18. Seeing Like an Anthropologist: Anthropology in Practice 444
ANTHROPOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT 445
“HARMFUL TRADITIONAL PRACTICES” 446
WE NEVER ASKED ABOUT IT BEFORE 448
SEEING LIKE AN ANTHROPOLOGIST 449
I WILL NOT EAT IT UNTIL I DIE 449
AN ISOLATED CASE? 451
REFLECTIONS 452
GLOSSARY 453
BIBLIOGRAPHY 453
19. Public Anthropology 456
INTRODUCTION 456
TWO PUZZLES 458
DEFINING PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY 463
PUTTING PRESENT CONCERNS IN PERSPECTIVE 464
PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY’S RELATION TO APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY 466
THE UPS AND DOWNS OF PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT 467
TAKING STOCK OF WHERE WE ARE AND WHERE WE ARE HEADING 468
A FRAMEWORK FOR RESHAPING THE DISCIPLINE 469
FACILITATING SOCIAL CHANGE 476
CONCLUDING QUESTIONS 480
CENTER FOR A PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY PROJECT: HOW THE BLOOD CAME BACK TO THE 480
YANOMAMI
BIBLIOGRAPHY 484
Image Credits 489

PREFACE
Welcome to Perspectives and Open Access Anthropology!
We are delighted to bring to you this novel textbook, a collection of chapters on the essential topics in
cultural anthropology. Different from other introductory textbooks, this book is an edited volume with
each chapter written by a different author. Each author has written from their experiences working as
an anthropologist and that personal touch makes for an accessible introduction to cultural anthropol-
ogy.
Our approach to cultural anthropology is holistic. We see the interconnectedness of cultural practices
and, in all of the chapters, we emphasize the comparison of cultures and the ways of life of different
peoples. We start with Laura Nader’s observation that cultural differences need not be seen as a prob-
lem. In our complicated world of increasing migration, nationalism, and climate challenges, cultural
diversity might actually be the source of conflict resolution and new approaches to ensuring a health-
ier world. Indeed, as Katie Nelson reminds us, anthropology exposes the familiarity in the ideas and
practices of others that seem bizarre. Robert Borofsky advocates for anthropology’s ability to empower
people and facilitate good. Borofsky calls on anthropologists to engage with a wider public to bring
our incredible stories and important insights to helping resolve the most critical issues we face in the
world today. This book brings Nader, Nelson, Borofsky, and many others together to demonstrate that
our anthropological understandings can help all of us to improve the lives of people the world over. We
need you, as students, to see the possibilities. As instructors, we want to help you easily share anthro-
pological knowledge and understanding. We want all readers to be inspired by the intensely personal
writings of the anthropologists who contribute to this volume.
WHY THIS BOOK?
For students, we promise readable and interesting writing on topics that will be covered in your first
year anthropology course. The chapters contain links to support your use and enjoyment of the book.
They are designed to help learn the material. Use this book, even if it is not your course text, and then
ask your instructor tough questions! Use social media to ask us questions or to send us comments—the
details are below.
For instructors, we invite you to build your own book, the perfect book for your course. The available
chapters mirror the lecture topics in many first-year courses. The chapters form a whole and they
can also stand-alone. Choose the ones you need, assigning some of these chapters and not others. We
know that there is some overlap in the chapters. This is a consequence of multiple authors writing
about topics which, obviously and necessarily, do not exist without reference to other topics in cul-
tural anthropology. This overlap is teachable because it reinforces the holistic approach used by cultural
anthropologists to understand the people with whom we work.
In addition to the chapters, the Perspectives website (http://perspectives.americananthro.org/) pro-
vides teaching resources, including a collection of video lectures as well as reflections on the impor-
tance of anthropology from well-known members of our discipline. The interviews explain how these
xi
xii PERSPECTIVES: AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
scholars became anthropologists and what they see as the importance and relevance of anthropology
today. We hope you will use this textbook with your students, either as a stand-alone text or in conjunc-
tion with other textual and digital materials.
Changes in the Second Edition
The core content of the book remains the same in the second edition, but we have made some enhance-
ments in response to feedback from instructors and students.
• New Introductory Chapter

A new introduction, written by Katie Nelson and Lara Braff, places cultural anthropology in a
four-fields context and offers students information about the variety of careers and perspec-
tives in the discipline of anthropology.
• Enhanced E-Book Experience and Pagination
The book has been reformatted so that the online and electronic versions are easier to read
and navigate. The second edition has consistent page numbering in the electronic and print
versions.
• Chapter Order
Because the second edition of the book has grown to 19 chapters, the book has been divided
into two parts. Chapters in the first section cover the fundamental topics found in most intro-
ductory cultural anthropology courses. The Development of Anthropological Ideas, written by
Laura Nader, leads the second section, which focuses on in-depth discussion of some of the
specialized topics typically covered in cultural anthropology courses. Since the chapters may
be read in any combination or order, instructors have a wide range of specialized topics from
which to choose to enhance their course.
A Note About The Print Version

A print version of the book is available for purchase through Amazon. The price reflects the cost of the
printing itself, which is consistent with the book’s Creative Commons non-commercial licensing. All
the content in the print version is available free of charge in electronic format from the Perspectives web-
site.
ABOUT THE SOCIETY FOR ANTHROPOLOGY IN COMMUNITY COLLEGES
This book is produced by the Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges (SACC). SACCers, as
we call ourselves, are teaching anthropologists who work in community colleges and universities across
North America. We teach first year students—like you—many of whom have never taken an anthro-
pology course. We believe strongly in the importance of learning about cultural diversity and we assert
that the ideas and skills of anthropologists can inform work in any career. SACC has been building this
book since 2012. We have assembled a terrific writing team of authors who teach in colleges and senior
anthropologists who share our commitment to creating an open and accessible textbook. SACC tweets
@SACC_L and is on Facebook. We encourage you to tweet at us or post on our Facebook page when
you are using this book. SACC is an official section of the American Anthropological Association.
xiii
WHY OPEN ACCESS?
This book was motivated by SACC’s long-standing interest in supporting a diversity of anthropology
students, including first generation college learners and students with lower incomes. Frequently, these
are the students we teach. Further, SACCers have an interest in progressive social values and believe
in the power of education in anthropology to improve the living conditions and situations of people
abroad and at home. We want these messages to find their ways to as many people as possible, even if
students aren’t formally enrolled in an anthropology course.
This book is published under a creative commons license (CC-BY-NC) which grants permission to
instructors to copy, distribute, or remix the chapters to suit your educational needs as long as you credit
the original author and the original source of the material. The contents of this book may not be used
for commercial purposes, meaning it cannot be sold in any form.
THE COVER DESIGN
We put considerable thought into the cover of Perspectives. We wanted a cover that provokes discus-
sion without stereotyping. We chose a design that prompts reflection and classroom engagement, while
remaining friendly and inviting. We invite instructors to use the cover as a teaching tool. Consider dis-
cussing that the cover is a story that may be told in many ways. Consider the possibilities of this scene:
Who are these people? Where are they in this snapshot and where are they off to? What did they have
for breakfast and who will they meet in the course of their day? Similarly, examine this cover along with
other recent and past covers of a range of Cultural Anthropology textbooks. What are the messages
being sent by the different types of images that represent Cultural Anthropology?
We aren’t sure the cover is quite perfect yet, so please teach its strengths and its limitations for under-
standing what anthropology is—and then let us know what you decide in your class.
Please be in touch with us via social media or email if you have suggestions or questions. If you would
like to be involved with this project by writing a chapter or creating ancillary materials, please contact
us. The dynamic nature of an open access book means that there is always room to add new chapters or
other materials.
Thank you for adopting Perspectives.
Nina Brown, Community College of Baltimore County

Thomas McIlwraith, University of Guelph
Laura Tubelle de González, San Diego Miramar College
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book would not have been possible without the generous contributions of many people. We
would like to thank the Executive Board of the Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges for
their support of this project starting in 2012 as well as SACC members who contributed their time and
xiv PERSPECTIVES: AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
expertise. Jeanne Thompson (Cypress College), and Philip L. Stein (Pierce College) served on the edi-
torial committee and played a central role in shaping the book from the beginning. We also appreciate
the assistance of Janine Chiappa McKenna, Director of Publishing for the American Anthropological
Association, who helped us develop this book as an open access publishing project. We would like to
express our gratitude to Robert Borofsky (Hawaii Pacific University and Center for a Public Anthropol-
ogy), who championed this project from its earliest stages and elevated our efforts through his outreach
to authors and willingness to share resources. His commitment to a public anthropology that seeks to
address the central issues of our time while engaging broad audiences was a central inspiration for our
work. In addition, we thank the following people for their expertise.
Peer Reviewers
Jessica Amato, Napa Valley College
Anthony Balzano, Sussex County Community College
Beverly Bennett, Wilbur Wright College, City Colleges of Chicago
Lin Bentley Keeling, El Paso Community College
Ronald Castanzo, University of Baltimore
Chuck Ellenbaum, College of DuPage
Carol Hayman, Austin Community College
Jeffrey Hoelle, University of California, Santa Barbara
Danielle James, Community College of Baltimore County
Angela Jenks, University of California, Irvine
Diane Levine, Pierce College
Brandon Lundy, Kennesaw State University
Bob Muckle, Capilano University
Carol Mukhopadhyay, San Jose State University
Karen Muir, Columbus State Community College
Philip Naftaly, State University of New York, Adirondack
Christian Palmer, Windward Community College, University of Hawaii
Anastasia Panagakos, Cosumnes River College
Philip Stein, Pierce College
Tim Sullivan, Richland College
Jeanne Thompson, Cypress College
Andrew Walsh, University of Western Ontario
Book Design and Production

Stacy Dreyer, Natalie Karst, and Janet Keller, copyeditors
Stuart Williams, cover design
Grapevine Publishing Services, page design and typesetting
PART 1
1
1
INTRODUCTION TO
ANTHROPOLOGY
Katie Nelson, Inver Hills Community College

[email protected]
http://kanelson.com/
Lara Braff, Grossmont College

[email protected]
3
4 PERSPECTIVES: AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Learning Objectives
• Identify the four subfields of anthropology and describe the kinds of research projects associated with each subfield.
• Define culture and the six characteristics of culture.
• Describe how anthropology developed from early explorations of the world through the professionalization of the discipline in the
19th century.
• Discuss ethnocentrism and the role it played in early attempts to understand other cultures.
• Explain how the perspectives of holism, cultural relativism, comparison, and fieldwork, as well as both scientific and humanistic
tendencies make anthropology a unique discipline.
• Evaluate the ways in which anthropology can be used to address current social, political, and economic issues.
The first time I (Katie Nelson) heard the word anthropology, I was seventeen years old and sitting at
the kitchen table in my home in rural Minnesota. My mother was stirring a pot of chili on the stove.
My dog was barking (again) at the squirrels outside. Her low bawl filtered through the screen door left
open on the porch. It was the summer before I was to start college and I had a Macalester College course
catalog spread out in front of me as I set about carefully selecting the courses that would make up my
fall class schedule. When I applied to college, I had indicated in my application that I was interested in
studying creative writing, poetry specifically. But I also had a passion for languages and people: observ-
ing people, interacting with people and understanding people, especially those who were culturally dif-
ferent from myself. I noticed a course in the catalog entitled “Cultural Anthropology.” I did not know
exactly what I would learn, but the course description appealed to me and I signed up for it. Several
weeks later, I knew what my major would be– anthropology!
Like Katie, I (Lara Braff) started college with a curiosity about people but no clear major. In my
second year, without knowing what anthropology was, I enrolled in an anthropology course called
“Controlling Processes.” Throughout the semester, the professor encouraged us to question how social
institutions (like the government, schools, etc.) affect the ways we think and act. This inquiry resonated
with my upbringing: my mother, who had immigrated to the United States in her twenties, often ques-
tioned U.S. customs that were unfamiliar to her. At times, this was profoundly disappointing to me as a
child. For example, she could not understand the joyous potential of filling up on candy at Halloween, a
holiday not celebrated in her country. Yet, her outsider perspective inspired in me a healthy skepticism
about things that others take to be “normal.” As I took more anthropology courses, I became intrigued
by diverse notions of normality found around the world.
If you are reading this textbook for your first anthropology course, you are likely wondering, much
like we did, what anthropology is all about. Perhaps the course description appealed to you in some way,
but you had a hard time articulating what exactly drove you to enroll. With this book, you are in the
right place!
5
WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
Derived from Greek, the word anthropos means “human” and “logy” refers to the “study of.” Quite lit-
erally, anthropology is the study of humanity. It is the study of everything and anything that makes us
human.1 From cultures, to languages, to material remains and human evolution, anthropologists exam-
ine every dimension of humanity by asking compelling questions like: How did we come to be human
and who are our ancestors? Why do people look and act so differently throughout the world? What
do we all have in common? How have we changed culturally and biologically over time? What factors
influence diverse human beliefs and behaviors throughout the world?
You may notice that these questions are very broad. Indeed, anthropology is an expansive field of
study. It is comprised of four subfields that in the United States include cultural anthropology, archaeol-
ogy, biological (or physical) anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. Together, the subfields provide
a multi-faceted picture of the human condition. Applied anthropology is another area of specialization
within or between the anthropological subfields. It aims to solve specific practical problems in collab-
oration with governmental, non-profit, and community organizations as well as businesses and corpo-
rations.
It is important to note that in other parts of the world, anthropology is structured differently. For
instance, in the United Kingdom and many European countries, the subfield of cultural anthropology
is referred to as social (or socio-cultural) anthropology. Archaeology, biological anthropology, and lin-
guistic anthropology are frequently considered to be part of different disciplines. In some countries, like
Mexico, anthropology tends to focus on the cultural and indigenous heritage of groups within the coun-
try rather than on comparative research. In Canada, some university anthropology departments mirror
the British social anthropology model by combining sociology and anthropology. As noted above, in
the United States and most commonly in Canada, anthropology is organized as a four-field discipline.
You will read more about the development of this four-field approach in the Doing Fieldwork chapter
(chapter three).
WHAT IS CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY?
The focus of this textbook is cultural anthropology, the largest of the subfields in the United States
as measured by the number of people who graduate with PhDs each year.2 Cultural anthropologists
study the similarities and differences among living societies and cultural groups. Through immersive
fieldwork, living and working with the people one is studying, cultural anthropologists suspend their
own sense of what is “normal” in order to understand other people’s perspectives. Beyond describing
another way of life, anthropologists ask broader questions about humankind: Are human emotions uni-
versal or culturally specific? Does globalization make us all the same, or do people maintain cultural
differences? For cultural anthropologists, no aspect of human life is outside their purview. They study
art, religion, healing, natural disasters, and even pet cemeteries. While many anthropologists are at first
intrigued by human diversity, they come to realize that people around the world share much in com-
mon.
Cultural anthropologists often study social groups that differ from their own, based on the view that
fresh insights are generated by an outsider trying to understand the insider point of view. For example,
beginning in the 1960s Jean Briggs (1929-2016) immersed herself in the life of Inuit people in the cen-
tral Canadian arctic territory of Nunavut. She arrived knowing only a few words of their language, but
ready to brave sub-zero temperatures to learn about this remote, rarely studied group of people. In her
most famous book, Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family (1970), she argued that anger and strong
negative emotions are not expressed among families that live together in small iglus amid harsh envi-
ronmental conditions for much of the year. In contrast to scholars who see anger as an innate emotion,
Briggs’ research shows that all human emotions develop through culturally specific child-rearing prac-
tices that foster some emotions and not others.
While cultural anthropologists traditionally conduct fieldwork in faraway places, they are increas-
ingly turning their gaze inward to observe their own societies or subgroups within them. For instance,
in the 1980s, American anthropologist Philippe Bourgois sought to understand why pockets of extreme
poverty persist amid the wealth and overall high quality of life in the United States. To answer this
question, he lived with Puerto Rican crack dealers in East Harlem, New York. He contextualized their
experiences both historically in terms of their Puerto Rican roots and migration to the U.S. and in
the present as they experienced social marginalization and institutional racism. Rather than blame the
crack dealers for their poor choices or blame our society for perpetuating inequality, he argued that
both individual choices and social structures can trap people in the overlapping worlds of drugs and
poverty (Bourgois 2003). For more about Bourgois, please see the interview with him in the learning
resources, Anthropology in Our Moment in History.
WHAT IS CULTURE?
Cultural anthropologists study all aspects of culture, but what exactly is “culture”? When we (the
authors) first ask students in our introductory cultural anthropology courses what culture means to
them, our students typically say that culture is food, clothing, religion, language, traditions, art, music,
and so forth. Indeed, culture includes many of these observable characteristics, but culture is also some-
thing deeper. Culture is a powerful defining characteristic of human groups that shapes our percep-
tions, behaviors, and relationships.
One reason that culture is difficult to define is that it encompasses all the intangible qualities that
make people who they are. Culture is the “air we breathe:” it sustains and comprises us, yet we largely
take it for granted. We are not always consciously aware of our own culture.
Furthermore, cultural anthropologists themselves do not always agree on what culture is. In defining
culture, some anthropologists emphasize material life and objects (e.g. tools, clothing, and technologies);
others emphasize culture as a system of intangible beliefs; and still others focus on practices or customs
of daily life. We propose a broad definition of culture.3
Culture is a set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned and shared. Together, they form an all-encompassing, integrated whole that
binds people together and shapes their worldview and lifeways.
To say that a group of people shares a culture does not mean all individuals think or act in identical
ways. One’s beliefs and practices can vary within a culture depending on age, gender, social status, and
other characteristics. Yet, members of a culture share many things in common. While we are not born
with a particular culture, we are born with the capacity to learn any culture. Through the process of
enculturation, we learn to become members of our group both directly, through instruction from our
parents and peers, and indirectly by observing and imitating those around us.
7
Culture constantly changes in response to both internal and external factors. Some parts of culture
change more quickly than others. For instance, in dominant American culture, technology changes
rapidly while deep seated values such as individualism, freedom, and self-determination change very
little over time. Yet, inevitably, when one part of culture changes, so do other parts. This is because
nearly all parts of a culture are integrated and interrelated. As powerful as culture is, humans are not
necessarily bound by culture; they have the capacity to conform to it or not and even transform it.
In the definition above, belief refers not just to what we “believe” to be right or wrong, true or false.
Belief also refers to all the mental aspects of culture including values, norms, philosophies, worldview,
knowledge, and so forth. Practices refers to behaviors and actions that may be motivated by belief or
performed without reflection as part of everyday routines.
Much like art and language, culture is also symbolic. A symbol is something that stands for something
else, often without a natural connection. Individuals create, interpret, and share the meanings of sym-
bols within their group or the larger society. For example, in U.S. society everyone recognizes a red
octagonal sign as signifying “stop.” In other cases, groups within American society interpret the same
symbol in different ways. Take the Confederate flag: Some people see it as a symbol of pride in a south-
ern heritage. Many others see it as a symbol of the long legacy of slavery, segregation, and racial oppres-
sion. Thus, displaying the Confederate flag could have positive or, more often, negative connotations.
Cultural symbols powerfully convey either shared or conflicting meanings across space and time.
This definition of culture – shared, learned beliefs, practices, and symbols – allows us to understand
that people everywhere are thinkers and actors shaped by their social contexts. As we will see through-
out this book, these contexts are incredibly diverse, comprising the human cultural diversity that drew
many of us to become anthropologists in the first place.
While culture is central to making us human, we are still biological beings with natural needs and
urges that we share with other animals: hunger, thirst, sex, elimination, etc. Human culture uniquely
channels these urges in particular ways and cultural practices can then impact our biology, growth, and
development. Humans are one of the most dynamic species on Earth. Our ability to change both cul-
turally and biologically has enabled us to persist for millions of years and to thrive in diverse environ-
ments.
Characteristics of Culture
Culture is a set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned and shared. Together, they form an all-encompassing, integrated whole
that binds groups of people together and shapes their worldview and lifeways. Additionally:
1. Humans are born with the capacity to learn the culture of any social group. We learn culture both directly and indirectly.
2. Culture changes in response to both internal and external factors.
3. Humans are not bound by culture; they have the capacity to conform to it or not, and sometimes change it.
4. Culture is symbolic; individuals create and share the meanings of symbols within their group or society.
5. The degree to which humans rely on culture distinguishes us from other animals and shaped our evolution.
6. Human culture and biology are interrelated: Our biology, growth, and development are impacted by culture.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL THINKING

Imagine you are living several thousand years ago. Maybe you are a wife and mother of three chil-
dren. Maybe you are a young man eager to start your own family. Maybe you are a prominent religious
leader, or maybe you are a respected healer. Your family has, for as long as people can remember, lived
the way you do. You learned to act, eat, hunt, talk, pray, and live the way you do from your parents, your
extended family, and your small community. Suddenly, you encounter a new group of people who have
a different way of living, speak strangely, and eat in an unusual manner. They have a different way of
addressing the supernatural and caring for their sick. What do you make of these differences? These are
the questions that have faced people for tens of thousands of years as human groups have moved around
and settled in different parts of the world.
One of the first examples of someone who attempted to system-
atically study and document cultural differences is Zhang Qian
(164 BC – 113 BC). Born in the second century BCE in Hanzhong,
China, Zhang was a military officer who was assigned by Emperor
Wu of Han to travel through Central Asia, going as far as what is
today Uzbekistan. He spent more than twenty-five years traveling
and recording his observations of the peoples and cultures of Cen-
tral Asia (Wood 2004). The Emperor used this information to
establish new relationships and cultural connections with China’s
neighbors to the West. Zhang discovered many of the trade routes
used in the Silk Road and introduced several new cultural ideas,
including Buddhism, into Chinese culture.
Another early traveler of note was Abu Abdullah Muhammad
Ibn Battuta, known most widely as Ibn Battuta, (1304-1369). Ibn
Battuta was an Amazigh (Berber) Moroccan Muslim scholar. Dur-
ing the fourteenth century, he traveled for a period of nearly thirty
years, covering almost the whole of the Islamic world, including
Figure 1: Statue of Zhang Qian in Chenggu, China.
parts of Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, India, and China. Upon his Zhang Qian is still celebrated today in China as an
important diplomat and pioneer of the silk road. Image
return to the Kingdom of Morocco, he documented the customs courtesy of Judy Wells and Debi Lander
and traditions of the people he encountered in a book called Tuhfat
al-anzar fi gharaaib al-amsar wa ajaaib al-asfar (A Gift to those who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the
Marvels of Traveling), a book commonly known as Al Rihla, which means “travels” in Arabic (Mackin-
tosh-Smith 2003: ix). This book became part of a genre of Arabic literature that included descriptions
of the people and places visited along with commentary about the cultures encountered. Some scholars
consider Al Rihla to be among the first examples of early pre-anthropological writing.4
9
Later, from the 1400s through the1700s, during the so-called “Age of
Discovery,” Europeans began to explore the world, and then colonize it.
Europeans exploited natural resources and human labor in other parts of
the world, exerting social and political control over the people they
encountered. New trade routes along with the slave trade fueled a growing
European empire while forever disrupting previously independent cul-
tures in the Old World. European ethnocentrism—the belief that one’s
own culture is better than others—was used to justify the subjugation of
non-European societies on the alleged basis that these groups were socially
Figure 2. An illustration of Abu Abdullah and even biologically inferior. Indeed, the emerging anthropological prac-
Muhammad Ibn Battuta in Egypt from
Jules Verne’s book “Découverte de la tices of this time were ethnocentric and often supported colonial projects.
terre” (Discovery of the Earth).
As European empires expanded, new ways of understanding the world
and its people arose. Beginning in the eighteenth century in Europe, the
Age of the Enlightenment was a social and philosophical movement that privileged science, rationality,
and experience, while critiquing religious authority. This crucial period of intellectual development
planted the seeds for many academic disciplines, including anthropology. It gave ordinary people the
capacity to learn the “truth” through observation and experience: anyone could ask questions and use
rational thought to discover things about the natural and social world.
For example, geologist Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875) observed layers of
rock and argued that the earth’s surface must have changed gradually over
long periods of time. He disputed the Young Earth theory, which was pop-
ular at the time and used Biblical information to date the earth as only
6,000 years old, Charles Darwin (1809-1882), a naturalist and biologist,
observed similarities between fossils and living specimens, leading him to
argue that all life is descended from a common ancestor. Philosopher John
Locke (1632-1704) contemplated the origins of society itself, proposing
that people historically had lived in relative isolation until they agreed to
form a society in which the government would protect their personal prop- Figure 3: Charles Darwin in 1854, five
years before he published The Origin of
erty. Species.
These radical ideas about the earth, evolution, and society influenced
early social scientists into the nineteenth century. Philosopher and anthropologist Herbert Spencer
(1820-1903), inspired by scientific principles, used biological evolution as a model to understand social
evolution. Just as biological life evolved from simple to complex multicellular organisms, he postulated
that societies “evolve” to become larger and more complex. Anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan
(1818-1881) argued that all societies “progress” through the same stages of development: sav-
agery—barbarism—civilization. Societies were classified into these stages based on their family struc-
ture, technologies, and methods for acquiring food. So-called “savage” societies, ones that used stone
tools and foraged for food, were said to be stalled in their social, mental, and even moral development.
Ethnocentric ideas like Morgan’s were challenged by anthropologists in the early twentieth century
in both Europe and the United States. During World War I, Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), a Polish
anthropologist, became stranded on the Trobriand Islands located north of Australia and Papua New
Guinea. While there, he started to develop participant-observation fieldwork: the method of immer-
sive, long-term research that cultural anthropologists use today. By living with and observing the Tro-
briand Islanders, he realized that their culture was not “savage,” but was well-suited to fulfill the needs
of the people. He developed a theory to explain human cultural diversity: each culture functions to sat-
isfy the specific biological and psychological needs of its people. While this theory has been critiqued as
biological reductionism, it was an early attempt to view other cultures in more open-minded ways.
Around the same time in the United States, Franz Boas (1858-1942),
widely regarded as the founder of American anthropology, developed cul-
tural relativism, the view that while cultures differ, they are not better or
worse than one another. In his critique of ethnocentric views, Boas insisted
that physical and behavioral differences among racial and ethnic groups in
the United States were shaped by environmental and social conditions, not
biology. In fact, he argued that culture and biology are distinct realms of
experience: human behaviors are socially learned, contextual, and flexible,
not innate. Further, Boas worked to transform anthropology into a profes-
Figure 4: Franz Boas, circa 1915. sional and empirical academic discipline that integrated the four subdisci-
plines of cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and
biological anthropology.
THE (OTHER) SUBFIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Figure 5: Anthropology and Its Subfields. Image by Katie Nelson.
Biological Anthropology
Biological anthropology is the study of human origins, evolution, and variation. Some biological
anthropologists focus on our closest living relatives, monkeys and apes. They examine the biological
and behavioral similarities and differences between nonhuman primates and human primates (us!). For
example, Jane Goodall has devoted her life to studying wild chimpanzees (Goodall 1996). When she
began her research in Tanzania in the 1960s, Goodall challenged widely held assumptions about the
inherent differences between humans and apes. At the time, it was assumed that monkeys and apes
lacked the social and emotional traits that made human beings such exceptional creatures. However,
Goodall discovered that, like humans, chimpanzees also make tools, socialize their young, have intense
11
emotional lives, and form strong maternal-infant bonds. Her work highlights the value of field-based
research in natural settings that can help us understand the complex lives of nonhuman primates.
Other biological anthropologists focus on
extinct human species, asking questions like: What
did our ancestors look like? What did they eat?
When did they start to speak? How did they adapt
to new environments? In 2013, a team of women
scientists excavated a trove of fossilized bones in
the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star Cave sys-
tem in South Africa. The bones turned out to
belong to a previously unknown hominin species
that was later named Homo naledi. With over 1,550
specimens from at least fifteen individuals, the site
is the largest collection of a single hominin species
found in Africa (Berger, 2015). Researchers are still
Figure 6: Chimpanzees are the nonhuman primate that are most closely related to
working to determine how the bones were left in humans. We shared a common ancestor with Chimpanzees around 8 million
years ago.
the deep, hard to access cave and whether or not
they were deliberately placed there. They also want
to know what Homo naledi ate, if this species made and used tools, and how they are related to other
Homo species. Biological anthropologists who study ancient human relatives are called paleoanthro-
pologists. The field of paleoanthropology changes rapidly as fossil discoveries and refined dating tech-
niques offer new clues into our past.
Other biological anthropologists focus on
humans in the present including their genetic and
phenotypic (observable) variation. For instance,
Nina Jablonski has conducted research on human
skin tone, asking why dark skin pigmentation is
prevalent in places, like Central Africa, where
there is high ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sun-
light, while light skin pigmentation is prevalent in
places, like Nordic countries, where there is low
UV radiation. She explains this pattern in terms of
the interplay between skin pigmentation, UV radi-
ation, folic acid, and vitamin D. In brief, too much
UV radiation can break down folic acid, which is
Figure 7: Human skin color ranges from dark brown to light pink.
essential to DNA and cell production. Dark skin
helps block UV, thereby protecting the body’s folic
acid reserves in high-UV contexts. Light skin evolved as humans migrated out of Africa to low-UV con-
texts, where dark skin would block too much UV radiation, compromising the body’s ability to absorb
vitamin D from the sun. Vitamin D is essential to calcium absorption and a healthy skeleton. Jablonski’s
research shows that the spectrum of skin pigmentation we see today evolved to balance UV exposure
with the body’s need for vitamin D and folic acid ( Jablonski 2012).
Archaeology
Archaeologists focus on the material past: the tools, food, pottery, art, shelters, seeds, and other
objects left behind by people. Prehistoric archaeologists recover and analyze these materials to recon-
struct the lifeways of past societies that lacked writing. They ask specific questions like: How did people
in a particular area live? What did they eat? Why did their societies to change over time? They also ask
general questions about humankind: When and why did humans first develop agriculture? How did
cities first develop? How did prehistoric people interact with their neighbors?
The method that archaeologists use to answer
their questions is excavation—the careful digging
and removing of dirt and stones to uncover mater-
ial remains while recording their context. Archae-
ological research spans millions of years from
human origins to the present. For example, British
archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon (1906-1978), was
one of few female archaeologists in the 1940s. She
famously studied the city structures and cemeter-
ies of Jericho, an ancient city dating back to the
Early Bronze Age (3,200 years before the present)
located in what is today the West Bank. Based on
her findings, she argued that Jericho is the oldest
Figure 8: Archaeologists, including Kathleen Kenyon, have helped unearth the
city in the world and has been continuously occu- foundations of ancient dwellings at Jericho.
pied by different groups for over 10,000 years
(Kenyon 1979).
Historical archaeologists study recent societies using material remains to complement the written
record. The Garbage Project, which began in the 1970s, is an example of a historic archaeological pro-
ject based in Tucson, Arizona. It involves excavating a contemporary landfill as if it were a conventional
archaeology site. Archaeologists have found discrepancies between what people say they throw out and
what is actually in their trash. In fact, many landfills hold large amounts of paper products and con-
struction debris (Rathje and Murphy 1992). This finding has practical implications for creating envi-
ronmentally sustainable waste disposal practices.
In 1991, while working on an office building in New York City, construction workers came across
human skeletons buried just 30 feet below the city streets. Archaeologists were called in to investigate.
Upon further excavation, they discovered a six-acre burial ground, containing 15,000 skeletons of free
and enslaved Africans who helped build the city during the colonial era. The “African Burial Ground,”
which dates dating from 1630 to 1795, contains a trove of information about how free and enslaved
Africans lived and died. The site is now a national monument where people can learn about the history
of slavery in the U.S.5
Linguistic Anthropology
Language is a defining trait of human beings. While other animals have communication systems, only
humans have complex, symbolic languages—over 6,000 of them! Human language makes it possible to
teach and learn, to plan and think abstractly, to coordinate our efforts, and even to contemplate our
own demise. Linguistic anthropologists ask questions like: How did language first emerge? How has it
evolved and diversified over time? How has language helped us succeed as a species? How can language
convey one’s social identity? How does language influence our views of the world? If you speak two or
13
more languages, you may have experienced how language affects you. For example, in English, we say:
“I love you.” But Spanish speakers use different terms—te amo, te adoro, te quiero, and so on—to convey
different kinds of love: romantic love, platonic love, maternal love, etc. The Spanish language arguably
expresses more nuanced views of love than the English language.
One intriguing line of linguistic anthropological research
focuses on the relationship between language, thought, and
culture. It may seem intuitive that our thoughts come first;
after all, we like to say: “Think before you speak.” However,
according to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (also known as
linguistic relativity), the language you speak allows you to
think about some things and not others. When Benjamin
Whorf (1897-1941) studied the Hopi language, he found not
just word-level differences, but grammatical differences
between Hopi and English. He wrote that Hopi has no gram-
matical tenses to convey the passage of time. Rather, the
Figure 9: From the moment they are born, children learn through
Hopi language indicates whether or not something has language and nonverbal forms of communication.
“manifested.” Whorf argued that English grammatical tenses
(past, present, future) inspire a linear sense of time, while Hopi language, with its lack of tenses, inspires
a cyclical experience of time (Whorf 1956). Some critics, like German-American linguist Ekkehart Mal-
otki, refute Whorf’s theory, arguing that Hopi do have linguistic terms for time and that a linear sense
of time is natural and perhaps universal. At the same time, Malotki recognized that English and Hopi
tenses differ, albeit in ways less pronounced than Whorf proposed (Malotki 1983).
Other linguistic anthropologists track the emergence and diversification of languages, while others
focus on language use in today’s social contexts. Still others explore how language is crucial to social-
ization: children learn their culture and social identity through language and nonverbal forms of com-
munication (Ochs and Schieffelin 2012).
Applied Anthropology
Sometimes considered a fifth subdiscipline, applied anthropology involves the application of anthro-
pological theories, methods, and findings to solve practical problems. Applied anthropologists are
employed outside of academic settings, in both the public and private sectors, including business or
consulting firms, advertising companies, city government, law enforcement, the medical field, non-
governmental organizations, and even the military.
Applied anthropologists span the subfields. An applied archaeologist might work in cultural resource
management to assess a potentially significant archaeological site unearthed during a construction pro-
ject. An applied cultural anthropologist could work at a technology company that seeks to understand
the human-technology interface in order to design better tools.
Medical anthropology is an example of both an applied and theoretical area of study that draws on
all four subdisciplines to understand the interrelationship of health, illness, and culture. Rather than
assume that disease resides only within the individual body, medical anthropologists explore the envi-
ronmental, social, and cultural conditions that impact the experience of illness. For example, in some
cultures, people believe illness is caused by an imbalance within the community. Therefore, a commu-
nal response, such as a healing ceremony, is necessary to restore both the health of the person and the
group. This approach differs from the one used in mainstream U.S. healthcare, whereby people go to a
doctor to find the biological cause of an illness and then take medicine to restore the individual body.
Trained as both a physician and medical anthro-
pologist, Paul Farmer demonstrates the applied
potential of anthropology. During his college years
in North Carolina, Farmer’s interest in the Haitian
migrants working on nearby farms inspired him to
visit Haiti. There, he was struck by the poor living
conditions and lack of health care facilities. Later,
as a physician, he would return to Haiti to treat
individuals suffering from diseases like tuberculo-
sis and cholera that were rarely seen in the United
States. As an anthropologist, he would contextual-
ize the experiences of his Haitian patients in rela-
tion to the historical, social, and political forces
that impact Haiti, the poorest country in the West-
Figure 10: Paul Farmer in Haiti. ern Hemisphere (Farmer 2006). Today, he not only
writes academic books about human suffering, he
also takes action. Through the work of Partners in Health, a nonprofit organization that he co-founded,
he has helped open health clinics in many resource-poor countries and trained local staff to administer
care. In this way, he applies his medical and anthropological training to improve people’s lives.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
Anthropologists across the subfields use unique perspectives to conduct their research. These per-
spectives make anthropology distinct from related disciplines — like history, sociology, and psychology
— that ask similar questions about the past, societies, and human nature. The key anthropological per-
spectives are holism, relativism, comparison, and fieldwork. There are also both scientific and human-
istic tendencies within the discipline that, at times, conflict with one another.
Holism
15
Anthropologists are interested in the whole of humanity, in

how various aspects of life interact. One cannot fully appreci-
ate what it means to be human by studying a single aspect of
our complex histories, languages, bodies, or societies. By using
a holistic approach, anthropologists ask how different aspects
of human life influence one another. For example, a cultural
anthropologist studying the meaning of marriage in a small
village in India might consider local gender norms, existing
family networks, laws regarding marriage, religious rules, and
economic factors. A biological anthropologist studying mon-
keys in South America might consider the species’ physical
adaptations, foraging patterns, ecological conditions, and
interactions with humans in order to answer questions about
their social behaviors. By understanding how nonhuman pri-
mates behave, we discover more about ourselves (after all,
humans are primates)! By using a holistic approach, anthropol- Figure 11: By using a holistic approach, anthropologists learn
how different aspects of humanity interact with and influence
ogists reveal the complexity of biological, social, or cultural one another. Image by Mary Nelson.
phenomena.
Anthropology itself is a holistic discipline, comprised in the United States (and in some other nations)
of four major subfields: cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and
archaeology. While anthropologists often specialize in one subfield, their specific research contribute
to a broader understanding of the human condition, which is made up of culture, language, biological
and social adaptations, as well as human origins and evolution.
Cultural Relativism (versus Ethnocentrism)
The guiding philosophy of modern anthropology is cultural relativism—the idea that we should seek
to understand another person’s beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of their culture rather than
our own. Anthropologists do not judge other cultures based on their values nor do they view other ways
of doing things as inferior. Instead, anthropologists seek to understand people’s beliefs within the sys-
tem they have for explaining things.
The opposite of cultural relativism is ethnocentrism, the tendency to view one’s own culture as the
most important and correct and as a measuring stick by which to evaluate all other cultures that are
largely seen as inferior and morally suspect. As it turns out, many people are ethnocentric to some
degree; ethnocentrism is a common human experience. Why do we respond the way we do? Why do
we behave the way we do? Why do we believe what we believe? Most people find these kinds of ques-
tions difficult to answer. Often the answer is simply “because that is how it is done.” People typically
believe that their ways of thinking and acting are “normal”; but, at a more extreme level, some believe
their ways are better than others.
Ethnocentrism is not a useful perspective in contexts in which people from different cultural back-
grounds come into close contact with one another, as is the case in many cities and communities
throughout the world. People increasingly find that they must adopt culturally relativistic perspectives
in governing communities and as a guide for their interactions with members of the community. For
anthropologists, cultural relativism is especially important. We must set aside our innate ethnocentric
views in order to allow cultural relativism to guide our inquiries and interactions such that we can learn
from others.
Comparison
Anthropologists of all the subfields use comparison to learn what humans have in common, how
we differ, and how we change. Anthropologists ask questions like: How do chimpanzees differ from
humans? How do different languages adapt to new technologies? How do countries respond differently
to immigration? In cultural anthropology, we compare ideas, morals, practices, and systems within or
between cultures. We might compare the roles of men and women in different societies, or contrast
how different religious groups conflict within a given society. Like other disciplines that use compar-
ative approaches, such as sociology or psychology, anthropologists make comparisons between peo-
ple in a given society. Unlike these other disciplines, anthropologists also compare across societies,
and betweeen humans and other primates. In essence, anthropological comparisons span societies, cul-
tures, time, place, and species. It is through comparison that we learn more about the range of possible
responses to varying contexts and problems.
Fieldwork
Anthropologists conduct their research in the field with the species, civilization, or groups of people
they are studying. In cultural anthropology, our fieldwork is referred to as ethnography, which is both
the process and result of cultural anthropological research. The Greek term “ethno” refers to people,
and “graphy” refers to writing. The ethnographic process involves the research method of participant-
observation fieldwork: you participate in people’s lives, while observing them and taking field notes
that, along with interviews and surveys, constitute the research data. This research is inductive: based
on day-to-day observations, the anthropologist asks increasingly specific questions about the group or
about the human condition more broadly. Oftentimes, informants actively participate in the research
process, helping the anthropologist ask better questions and understand different perspectives.
The word ethnography also refers to the end
result of our fieldwork. Cultural anthropologists
do not write “novels,” rather they write ethno-
graphies, descriptive accounts of culture that
weave detailed observations with theory. After
all, anthropologists are social scientists. While
we study a particular culture to learn more about
it and to answer specific research questions, we
are also exploring fundamental questions about
human society, behavior, or experiences.
In the course of conducting fieldwork with
human subjects, anthropologists invariably
Figure 12: Author Katie Nelson conducting ethnographic fieldwork among
encounter ethical dilemmas: Who might be undocumented Mexican immigrant college students. Photo by Luke Berhow.
harmed by conducting or publishing this
research? What are the costs and benefits of identifying individuals involved in this study? How should
one resolve competing interests of the funding agency and the community? To address these questions,
17
anthropologists are obligated to follow a professional code of ethics that guide us through ethical con-
siderations in our research.6
Scientific vs Humanistic Approaches
As you may have noticed from the above discussion of the anthropological sub-disciplines, anthro-
pologists are not unified in what they study or how they conduct research. Some sub-disciplines, like
biological anthropology and archaeology, use a deductive, scientific approach. Through hypothesis
testing, they collect and analyze material data (e.g. bones, tools, seeds, etc.) to answer questions about
human origins and evolution. Other subdisciplines, like cultural anthropology and linguistic anthropol-
ogy, use humanistic and/or inductive approaches to their collection and analysis of nonmaterial data,
like observations of everyday life or language in use.
At times, tension has arisen between the scientific subfields and the humanistic ones. For example,
in 2010 some cultural anthropologists critiqued the American Anthropological Association’s mission
statement, which stated that the discipline’s goal was “to advance anthropology as the science that stud-
ies humankind in all its aspects.”7 These scholars wanted to replace the word “science” with “public
understanding.” They argued that some anthropologists do not use the scientific method of inquiry;
instead, they rely more on narratives and interpretations of meaning. After much debate, the word “sci-
ence” remains in the mission statement and, throughout the United States, anthropology is predomi-
nantly categorized as a social science.
WHY IS ANTHROPOLOGY IMPORTANT?
As we hope you have learned thus far, anthropology is an exciting and multifaceted field of study.
Because of its breadth, students who study anthropology go on to work in a wide variety of careers in
medicine, museums, field archaeology, historical preservation, education, international business, doc-
umentary filmmaking, management, foreign service, law, and many more. Beyond preparing students
for a particular career, anthropology helps people develop essential skills that are transferable to many
career choices and life paths. Studying anthropology fosters broad knowledge of other cultures, skills in
observation and analysis, critical thinking, clear communication, and applied problem-solving. Anthro-
pology encourages us to extend our perspectives beyond familiar social contexts to view things from
the perspectives of others. As one former cultural anthropology student observed, “I believe an anthro-
pology course has one basic goal: to eliminate ethnocentrism. A lot of issues we have today (racism,
xenophobia, etc.) stem from the toxic idea that people are ‘other’ We must put that idea aside and learn
to value different cultures.”8 This anthropological perspective is an essential skill for nearly any career
in today’s globalized world.
Some students decide to major in anthropology and even pursue advanced academic degrees in order
to become professional anthropologists. We asked three cultural anthropologists – Anthony Kwame
Harrison, Bob Myers, and Lynn Kwiatkowski – to describe what drew them to the discipline and to
explain how they use anthropological perspectives in their varied research projects. From the study of
race in the United States, to health experiences on the island of Dominica, to hunger and gender vio-
lence in the Philippines, these anthropologists all demonstrate the endless potential of the discipline.
Anthony Kwame Harrison, PhD

Cultural Anthropologist, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
I like to tell a story about how, on the last day of my first

year at the University of Massachusetts, while sitting alone
in my dorm room waiting to be picked up, I decided to fig-
ure out what my major would be. So, I opened the course
catalogue—back then it was a physical book—and started
going through it alphabetically.
On days when I am feeling particularly playful, I say that
after getting through the A’s, I knew Anthropology was for
me. In truth, I also considered Zoology. I was initially
drawn to anthropology because of its traditional focus on
exoticness and difference. I was born in Ghana, West
Africa, where my American father had spent several years
working with local artisans at the National Cultural Centre
in Kumasi. My family moved to the United States when I
was still a baby; and I had witnessed my Asante mother
struggle with adapting to certain aspects of life in America.
Studying anthropology, then, gave me a reason to learn
Figure 13: Anthony Kwame Harrison, PhD. Photo by Jim Stroup.
more about the unusual artwork that filled my childhood
home and to connect with a faraway side of my family that
I hardly knew anything about.
Looking through that course catalogue, I didn’t really know what anthropology was but resolved to
test-the-waters by taking several classes the following year. As I flourished in these courses—two intro-
ductory level classes on cultural anthropology and archeology, a class called “Culture through Film,” and
another on “Egalitarian Societies”—I envisioned a possible future as an anthropologist working in rural
West Africa on topics like symbolic art and folklore. I never imagined I would earn a Ph.D. researching
the mostly middle-class, largely multi-racial, independent hip-hop scene in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Through my anthropological training, I have made a career exploring how race influences our per-
ceptions of popular music. I have written several pieces on racial identity and hip hop—most notably
my 2009 book, Hip Hop Underground: The Integrity and Ethics of Racial Identification. I have also explored
how race impacts people’s senses of belonging in various social spaces—for instance, African American
participation in downhill skiing or the experiences of underrepresented students at historically white
colleges and universities. In all these efforts, my attention is primarily on understanding the complex-
ities, nuances, and significance of race. I use these other topics—music, recreation, and higher educa-
tion—as avenues through which to explore race’s multiple meanings and unequal consequences.
19
Figure 14: Harrison performing as a participant-observing member of the Forest Fires Collective (the hip hop group he
founded during his fieldwork). Photo courtesy of Kwame Harrison.
Where a fascination with the exotic initially brought me to anthropology, it is the discipline’s ability
to shed light on what many of us see as normal, common, and taken-for-granted that has kept me with
it through three degrees (bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D.) and a fifteen-year career as a college profes-
sor. I am currently the Gloria D. Smith Professor of Africana Studies at Virginia Tech—a school that,
oddly enough, does not have an anthropology program. Being an anthropologist at a major university
that doesn’t have an anthropology program, I believe, gives me a unique perspective on the discipline’s
key virtues.
One of the most important things that anthropology does is create a basis for questioning taken-for-
granted notions of progress. Does the Gillette Fusion Five Razor, with its five blades, really offer a bet-
ter shave than the four-bladed Schick Quattro? I cannot say for sure, but as I’ve witnessed the move
from twin-blade razors, to Mach 3s, to today (there is even a company offering “the world’s first and
only” razor with “seven precision aligned blades)” there appears to be a presumption that more, in this
case, razor-blades is better. I’ll admit that the razor-blade example is somewhat crude. Expanding out
to the latest model automobile or smartphone, people seem to have a seldom questioned belief in the
notion that newer technologies ultimately improve our lives. Anthropology places such ideas within
the broader context of human lifeways, or what anthropologists call culture. What are the most crucial
elements of human biological and social existence? What additional developments have brought com-
munities the greatest levels of collective satisfaction, effective organization, and sustainability?
Anthropology has taught me to view the con-

temporary American lifestyle that I grew up think-
ing was normal through the wider frame of
humanity’s long history. How does our perspec-
tive change upon learning that for the vast major-
ity of human history—some say as much as ninety-
nine percent of it—people lived a foraging lifestyle
(commonly referred to as “hunting and gather-
ing”)? Although I am not calling for a mass return
to foraging, when we consider the significant
worldwide issues that humans face today—such
things as global warming, the threat of nuclear war,
accelerating ethnic conflicts, and a world popula-
Figure 15: Harrison at work hosting an underground hip hop radio show. Photo by
Craig E. Arthur. tion that has grown from one billion to nearly
eight billion over the past two hundred years—we
are left with difficult questions about whether 10,000 years of agriculture and a couple hundred years
of industrialization have been in humanity’s best long-term interests. All of this is to say that anthro-
pology offers one of the most biting critiques of modernity, which challenges us to slow down and think
about whether the new technologies we are constantly being presented with make sense. Similarly, the
anthropological concept of ethnocentrism is incredibly useful when paired with different examples of
how people define family, recognize leadership, decide what is and is not edible, and the like. To offer
just one example, many of my students are surprised to learn that among my (matrilineal) family in
Ghana, I have a distinctly different relationship with cousins who are children of my mother’s brother
as compared with cousins who are children of her sister.
Using my own anthropological biography as an illustration, I want to stress that the discipline does
not showcase diverse human lifeways to further exoticize those who live differently from us. In con-
trast, anthropology showcases cultural variation to illustrate the possibilities and potential for human
life, and to demonstrate that the way of doing things we know best is neither normal nor necessarily
right. It is just one way among a multitude of others. “Everybody does it but we all do it different”; this
is culture.
Bob Myers, PhD, M.P.H.

Cultural Anthropologist, Alfred University
21
My undergraduate experience significantly

shaped my attitudes about education in general
and anthropology in particular. At Davidson Col-
lege in North Carolina I completed a German
major, minored in Biology and took many courses
in English Literature. I also spent one year study-
ing abroad at Philipps Universität in Marburg,
Germany, and saved some “me time” for hitchhik-
ing and traveling around Europe. This led me to
pursue graduate work in anthropology despite the
fact that I had taken only one anthropology course
in college. While in graduate school at the Univer- Figure 16: Bob Myers at a statue honoring the first residents of Resolute, a small
sity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I became fas- 200-person community in Canada. Resolute is the second northernmost
permanent community in Canada, located in the Territory of Nunavut, far above
cinated with Caribbean history and migration and the Arctic Circle. Photo courtesy of Bob Myers.
spent almost two years doing doctoral fieldwork
and research on the island of Dominica. After finishing my PhD, I had a one-year post-doc in biostatis-
tics in Chapel Hill before I took my first job at Davidson College where I taught for several years.9
Observations of an impoverished health system in Dominica and family health experiences with
dysentery during fieldwork led me toward medical anthropology and public health and so I completed
a M.P.H. degree at the Harvard School of Public Health before receiving a Fulbright Fellowship to go to
Benin University in southern Nigeria. There, a coup and other circumstances turned my one-year fel-
lowship into a two-year experience/adventure. I probably learned more anthropology in Nigeria than
in all of graduate school, including examples of the power of a traditional kingdom and the ways large
families enable members to manage in distressing economic conditions. Then I went back to the U.S.
and taught for two years at Long Island University before moving to rural Alfred University in western
New York, where I now work. Alfred is a diverse university with a world class engineering program, a
nationally ranked BFA/MFA program, small business, school psychology, and liberal arts and sciences
programs, and no anthropology other than what I’ve been teaching for 32 years. To offset the absence of
other anthropologists, colleagues in religious studies and I created a major called Comparative Cultures
and later, with colleagues in modern languages, environmental studies, and political science, a Global
Studies major, a perfect multi-disciplinary setting for anthropology.
Anthropology is the broadest, most fundamental of academic subjects and should be at the core of a
modern undergraduate education. I’m convinced that an anthropology major is not necessary for our
discipline to play a significant role in students’ understanding of the messy, amazingly diverse, inter-
connected world after graduation. An anthropological perspective is.
To me, an anthropological perspective combines a comparative (cross-cultural), holistic view with a
sense of history and social structure, and asks functional questions like what effect does that have? How
does that work? How is this connected to that? An anthropological perspective also draws from many
other disciplines to examine patterns, and, of course, requires one to engage with people by talking to
them (something that’s become harder than ever for many students). All this contributes to the theme
I stress that everything is culturally constructed. Everything! I tell students during the first week of
classes that one of my goals is to convince them that much of what they’ve learned about many familiar
topics (race, sex and gender, kinship, marriage, languages, religion, evolution, social media, and glob-
alization) is biased, or incomplete. Using an anthropological perspective, there’s no issue which cannot
be better understood. Every Friday I encourage my students to “Have an anthropological weekend” and
ask them on Monday to describe how this happened. Students’ examples range from describing con-
versations with international students, exploring the cultural and economic history of tea and coffee, to
seeing an evangelical church service in a new light. This encourages students to appreciate that anthro-
pology happens all around them and isn’t something that can only be studied in a faraway society.
Another goal I have in my teaching is to illustrate that an anthropological view is useful for better
coping with the world around us especially in our multi-culture, multi-racial society where ethnic
diversity and immigration are politically charged and change is happening at a pace never before expe-
rienced. I stress themes of storytelling and interpretation throughout the semester. To this end, in my
introductory cultural anthropology course, we view and critically discuss at length several famous films
(Nanook of the North, parts of A Kalahari Family, The Nuer, and sometimes Ishi, the Last Yahi, among oth-
ers), but also Michael Wesch’s Anthropological Introduction to YouTube. One of the most effective writing
exercises I give students allows them to examine an essential part of their lives, their cell phones. The
assignment “Tell me the story of your relationship with your cell phone” has resulted in some of the best
papers I have ever received. Students have described how their personal relationships evolved as their
phone types changed; how social media connections reduced isolation by enabling them to find like-
minded friends; one described a journey exploring gender, another how the new technology expanded
his artistic creativity. I use Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook in different ways including Daniel Miller’s
Why We Post studies to show that anthropology isn’t just about the past or the exotic. To illustrate how
thoroughly we are globalized, my students do an exercise called “The Global Closet” in which they go
through everything in (or near) their closet, reading tags to see where the item was made. Most are sur-
prised at the far-flung origins of what they wear. Yes, anthropology helps to see the familiar in a new
light.
I oftentimes use non-anthropologists’ work in my classes to anchor our discipline in liberal educa-
tion. At the beginning of each course we read environmental historian William Cronon’s “‘Only Con-
nect’…The Goals of a Liberal Education” (he has a great discussable list—be able to talk to anyone, read
widely, think critically, problem solve—at the end) because anthropology is about breadth and making
connections (with others, and seeing patterns). We listen to and discuss the late writer David Foster
Wallace’s “This is Water” commencement address emphasizing empathy and awareness because anthro-
pology fosters these qualities as well. Lots of what we do in class stays with students beyond graduation.
For all of these reasons, studying anthropology is the most broadly useful of undergraduate disciplines.
Lynn Kwiatkowsk
Cultural Anthropologist, Colorado State University
Living in societies throughout the world, and conducting research with people in diverse cultures,
were dreams that began to emerge for me when I was an undergraduate student studying anthropology
at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in the early 1980s. After graduating from college, I served
as a Peace Corps volunteer where I worked in primary health care in an upland community in Ifugao
Province of the Philippines. Following my Peace Corps experience, I entered graduate school in the
Anthropology Department at the University of California, Berkeley and became a cultural anthropolo-
gist in the mid-1990s, specializing in medical anthropology.
23
Figure 17: Lynn Kwiatkowski (second from left) Celebrating Tết, the Lunar New
Year, with a family in their home village in rural, northern Vietnam. Photo courtesy
of Lynn Kwiatkowski.
While I was a graduate student, I returned to the community in which I lived in Ifugao Province to
conduct research for my dissertation which focused on malnutrition, particularly among women and
children. I studied ways that hunger experienced by Ifugao people is influenced by gender, ethnic, and
class inequality, global and local health and development programs, religious proselytization, political
violence, and the state. I lived in Ifugao for almost four years. I resided in a wooden hut with a thatched
roof in a small village for much of my stay there, as well as another more modern home, made of gal-
vanized iron. I also periodically lived with a family in the center of a mountain town. I participated
in the rich daily lives of farmers, woodcarvers, hospital personnel, government employees, shopkeep-
ers, students, and other groups of people. I conducted interviews and surveys and also shared daily and
ritual experiences with people to learn about inadequate access to nutritious food, and social struc-
tural sources of this kind of health problem. Participant observation research allows anthropologists to
obtain a special kind of knowledge that is rarely acquired through other, more limited research meth-
ods. This type of research takes a great amount of time and effort but produces a uniquely deep and
contextual type of knowledge. I published an ethnography about my research in Ifugao, titled Struggling
with Development: The Politics of Hunger and Gender in the Philippines.
Influenced by my study of gender power relations surrounding hunger and malnutrition in the
Philippines, and also by the political violence I witnessed by the Philippine government and the Com-
munist New People’s Army, I took up a new research project that focuses on gender violence. I am
exploring the impacts of this violence on the health and well-being of women and the intersecting
global and local sociocultural forces that give meaning to and perpetuate gender violence in Vietnam.
To address these issues, I am researching the abuse of women by their husbands, and in some cases
their in-laws as well, in northern Vietnam. I also explore the ways in which abused women, and other
Vietnamese professionals and government workers, contest this gender violence in Vietnamese com-
munities. In Vietnam, I have had the opportunity to live with a family in a commune in Hanoi, and in
nearby provinces. I learned about the deep pain and suffering experienced by abused women, as well as
the numerous ways many of these women and their fellow community members have worked to put an
end to the violence. Marital sexual violence is an important but understudied form of domestic violence
in societies throughout the world, including in Vietnam.
In recent decades, anthropologists have been

reflecting on the significance and relevance of
anthropological research. This has included
anthropologists who are working in each of
anthropology’s four subfields. Some anthropolo-
gists have called for greater efforts to share our
anthropological findings with the public in order
to try to solve significant historical, social, biologi-
cal, and environmental problems. Examples of
these problems include the impacts of climate
change on the health and welfare of diverse peo-
ples throughout the globe; and social structural
Figure 18: Family members gathered at their home in Ifugao Province, the
reasons for nutritional problems, as well as cul- Philippines. Photo courtesy of Lynn Kwiatkowski.
tural meanings people give to them, such as under-
nutrition, and illnesses related to increasing weights of people in societies globally. I hope my research
on wife abuse will contribute to the emergence of a deeper understanding of the social and cultural
sources of gender violence in order to end this violence, and greater awareness of its scope and its neg-
ative effects on women.
Through their research, anthropologists contribute unique and important forms of knowledge and
information to diverse groups, including local communities, nations, and global social movements, such
as feminist, racial, indigenous, environmental, LGBTQ, and other social movements. Cultural anthro-
pologists’ research is unique because it often involves analysis of the intersection of global social, polit-
ical and economic forces and the everyday experiences of members of a cultural group. The fieldwork
and participant observation research methods provide cultural anthropologists the opportunity to live
with a group of people for several months or years. They learn about the complexities of people’s lives
intimately, including their social relationships, their bodily and emotional experiences, and the pow-
erful institutional forces influencing their lives. Applying the results of our ethnographic research and
making our research accessible to our students and the public can make the research of anthropologists
useful toward alleviating the problems people face in our society, and in countries globally.
The particular way that cultural anthropologists do their research is important to our results.
Through my research experiences I have participated in the rich daily lives of farmers, woodcarvers,
hospital personnel, government employees, shopkeepers, students, and other groups of people. I con-
ducted interviews and surveys and also shared daily and ritual experiences with people to learn about
inadequate access to nutritious food, and social structural sources of this kind of health problem. Par-
ticipant observation research allows anthropologists to obtain a special kind of knowledge that is rarely
acquired through other, more limited research methods. This type of research takes a great amount of
time and effort, but produces a uniquely deep and contextual type of knowledge. Ethnographic research
can help us to understand the extent of a global problem such as gender violence, the everyday expe-
riences of those facing abuse, and the struggles and accomplishments of people actively working to
improve their societies.
Discussion Questions
25
1. This chapter emphasizes how broad the discipline of anthropology is and how many different kinds of research questions anthropolo-
gists in the four subdisciplines pursue. What do you think are the strengths or unique opportunities of being such a broad discipline?
What are some challenges or difficulties that could develop in a discipline that studies so many different things?
2. Cultural anthropologists focus on the way beliefs, practices, and symbols bind groups of people together and shape their worldview and
lifeways. Thinking about your own culture, what is an example of a belief, practice, or symbol that would be interesting to study anthro-
pologically? What do you think could be learned by studying the example you have selected?
3. Discuss the definition of culture proposed in this chapter. How is it similar or different from other ideas about culture that you have
encountered in other classes or in everyday life?
4. In this chapter, Anthony Kwame Harrison, Bob Myers, and Lynn Kwiatkowski describe how they first became interested in anthropology
and how they have used their training in anthropology to conduct research in different parts of the world. Which of the research projects
they described seemed the most interesting to you? How do you think the participant-observation fieldwork they described leads to infor-
mation that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to learn?
GLOSSARY
Cultural relativism: the idea that we should seek to understand another person’s beliefs and behaviors
from the perspective of their own culture and not our own.
Deductive: reasoning from the general to the specific; the inverse of inductive reasoning. Deductive
research is more common in the natural sciences than in anthropology. In a deductive approach, the
researcher creates a hypothesis and then designs a study to prove or disprove the hypothesis. The results
of deductive research can be generalizable to other settings.
Enculturation: the process of learning the characteristics and expectations of a culture or group.
Ethnocentrism: the tendency to view one’s own culture as most important and correct and as the stick
by which to measure all other cultures.
Ethnography: the in-depth study of the everyday practices and lives of a people.
Hominin: Humans (Homo sapiens) and their close relatives and immediate ancestors.
Inductive: a type of reasoning that uses specific information to draw general conclusions. In an induc-
tive approach, the researcher seeks to collect evidence without trying to definitively prove or disprove
a hypothesis. The researcher usually first spends time in the field to become familiar with the people
before identifying a hypothesis or research question. Inductive research usually is not generalizable to
other settings.
Paleoanthropologist: biological anthropologists who study ancient human relatives.
Participant-observation: a type of observation in which the anthropologist observes while participat-
ing in the same activities in which her informants are engaged.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Katie Nelson is an instructor of anthropology at Inver Hills Community Col-

lege. Her research focuses on migration, identity, belonging, and citizenship(s) in human history and
in the contemporary United States, Mexico, and Morocco. She received her B.A. in anthropology and
Latin American studies from Macalester College, her M.A. in anthropology from the University of Cal-
ifornia, Santa Barbara, an M.A. in education and instructional technology from the University of Saint
Thomas, and her Ph.D. from CIESAS Occidente (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en
Antropología Social –Center for Research and Higher Education in Social Anthropology), based in
Guadalajara, Mexico.
Katie views teaching and learning as central to her practice as an anthropologist and as mutually rein-
forcing elements of her professional life. She is the former chair of the Teaching Anthropology Interest
Group (2016–2018) of the General Anthropology Division of the American Anthropological Associa-
tion and currently serves as the online content editor for the Teaching and Learning Anthropology Journal.
She has contributed to several open access textbook projects, both as an author and an editor, and views
the affordability of quality learning materials as an important piece of the equity and inclusion puzzle
in higher education.10
Lara Braff is an instructor of anthropology at Grossmont College, where she

teaches cultural and biological anthropology courses. She received her B.A. in anthropology and Span-
ish from the University of California at Berkeley and both her M.A. and Ph.D. in comparative human
development from the University of Chicago, where she specialized in cultural and medical anthropol-
ogy. Her research has focused on social identities and disparities in the context of reproduction and
medicine in both Mexico and the U.S.
Lara’s concern about the social inequality has guided her research projects, teaching practices, and
involvement in open access projects like this textbook. In an effort to make college more accessible to
all students, she serves as co-coordinator of Grossmont College’s Open Educational Resources (OER)
and Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) initiatives.
27
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berger, Lee R., Hawks, John, de Ruiter, Darryl J., Churchill, Steven E., Schmid, Peter, Delezene, Lucas
K., Kivell, Tracy L., Garvin, Heather M., and Scott A. Williams. 2015. “Homo naledi, A New Species of
the Genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa.” eLife 4:e09560. doi: 10.7554/eLife.09560.
Bourgois, Philippe. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003.
Briggs, Jean. Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family. Cambridge: President and Fellows of Harvard
College, 1970.
Farmer, Paul. AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2006.
Goodall, Jane. My Life with the Chimpanzees. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, 1996.
Harrison, Anthony Kwame. Hip Hop Underground: The Integrity and Ethics of Racial Identification. Philadel-
phia: Temple University Press, 2009.
Jablonski, Nina. Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color. Berkeley: University of Cal-
ifornia Press, 2012.
Kenyon, Kathleen. Excavations at Jericho – Volume II Tombs Excavated in 1955-8, London: British School
of Archaeology, 1965.
Kwiatkowski, Lynn. Struggling with Development: The Politics of Hunger and Gender in the Philippines. Boul-
der: Westview Press, 1998.
Malotki, Ekkehart. Hopi Time: A Linguistic Analysis of the Temporal Concepts in the Hopi Language. Trends
in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs. 20. New York: Mouton Publishers, 1983.
Mackintosh-Smith, Tim, ed. The Travels of Ibn Battutah. London: Picador, 2003.
Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi B. Schieffelin. 2012. “The Theory of Language Socialization.” In The Handbook
of Language Socialization edited by Alessandro Duranti, Elinor Ochs, and Bambi Schieffelin, 1–21.
Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
Rathje, William and Cullen Murphy. Rubbish: The Archaeology of Garbage. New York: HarperCollins Pub-
lishers, 1992.
Whorf, Benjamin Lee. Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Edited by
J.B. Carroll. Cambridge: M.I.T Press, 1956.
Wood, Frances. The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2004.
Notes
1. Some of this chapter is adapted from the introduction to Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropol-
ogy: www.explorations.americananthro.org
2. See: https://www.americananthro.org/LearnAndTeach/ResourceDetail.aspx?ItemNumber=1499).
3. See chapter two, The Culture Concept, for a history of the culture concept in anthropology.
4. Lahcen Mourad (Arabic scholar) in discussion with Katie Nelson, December, 2018.
5. https://www.nps.gov/afbg/index.htm
6. See the American Anthropological Association’s Code of Ethics: http://ethics.americananthro.org/category/
statement/
7. See: American Anthropological Association Statement of Purpose: https://www.americananthro.org/Con-
nectWithAAA/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=1650
8. This quote is taken from a survey of students in an Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course at the Com-
munity College of Baltimore County, 2018.
9. The statue I'm standing next to in the photograph remembers the awful story of the Inuit High Arctic Reloca-
tions in the early 1950s, a textbook case of the ways Canada has abused Native peoples. Inuit from Inukjuak
(formerly Port Harrison) in northern Quebec and Pond Inlet on Baffin Island were forced to move to Resolute
and Grise Fiord in the High-Arctic territory that is now called Nunavut. The government’s promises of good
conditions were deceptive and the Inuit struggled with a lack of shelter and food resources. Following the even-
tual public hearings in 1996, the Inuit were awarded a Can$10 million settlement. For more information see
Melanie McGrath's The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival in the High Arctic. New York: Knopf, 2007.
10. See: http://perspectives.americananthro.org/ and https://textbooks.opensuny.org/global-perspectives-on-gen-
der/
2
THE CULTURE CONCEPT
Priscilla Medeiros, Women’s College Hospital

[email protected]
Emily Cowall, McMaster University

[email protected]
Learning Objectives
• Compare and contrast the ideas of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.
• Describe the role that early anthropologists Sir James Frazer and Sir E. B. Tylor played in defining the concept of culture in anthropology.
• Identify the differences between armchair anthropology and participant-observer fieldwork and explain how Bronislaw Malinowski con-
tributed to the development of anthropological fieldwork techniques.
• Identify the contributions Franz Boas and his students made to the development of new theories about culture.
• Assess some of the ethical issues that can arise from anthropological research.
THOUGHTS ON CULTURE OVER A CUP OF COFFEE
Do you think culture can be studied in a coffee shop? Have you ever gone to a coffee shop, sat down
with a book or laptop, and listened to conversations around you? If you just answered yes, in a way, you
were acting as an anthropologist. Anthropologists like to become a part of their surroundings, observ-
ing and participating with people doing day-to-day things. As two anthropologists writing a chapter
about the culture concept, we wanted to know what other people thought about culture. What better
place to meet than at our community coffee shop?
29
Our small coffee shop was filled with the aroma of coffee beans, and the voices of people competed
with the sound of the coffee grinder. At the counter a chalkboard listed the daily specials of sandwiches
and desserts. (Coffee shops have their own language, with vocabulary such as macchiato and latte. It can
feel like entering a foreign culture.) We found a quiet corner that would allow us to observe other people
(and hopefully identify a few to engage with) without disturbing them too much with our conversation.
We understand the way that anthropologists think about culture, but we were also wondering what the
people sitting around us might have to say. Would having a definition of culture really mean something
to the average coffee-shop patron? Is a definition important? Do people care? We were very lucky that
morning because sitting next to us was a man working on his laptop, a service dog lying at his feet.
Meeting Bob at the Coffee Shop
Having an animal in a food-service business is not usually allowed, but in our community people can
have their service dogs with them. This young golden retriever wore a harness that displayed a sign stat-
ing the owner was diabetic. This dog was very friendly; in fact, she wanted to be touched and would not
leave us alone, wagging her tail and pushing her nose against our hands. This is very unusual because
many service dogs, like seeing eye dogs, are not to be touched. Her owner, Bob, let us know that his dog
must be friendly and not afraid to approach people: if Bob needs help in an emergency, such as a dia-
betic coma, the dog must go to someone else for help.
We enjoyed meeting Bob and his dog, and we asked if he would like to answer our question: what is
culture? Bob was happy to share his thoughts and ideas.
Bob feels that language is very important to cultural identity. He believes that if one loses language,
one also loses important information about wildlife, indigenous plants, and ways of being. As a member
of a First Nations tribe, Bob believes that words have deep cultural meaning. Most importantly, he views
English as the language of commerce. Bob is concerned with the influence of Western consumerism
and how it changes cultural identity.
Bob is not an anthropologist. He was just a person willing to share his ideas. Without knowing it,
though, Bob had described some of the elements of anthropology. He had focused on the importance
of language and the loss of tradition when it is no longer spoken, and he had recognized that language
is a part of cultural identity. He was worried about globalization and consumerism changing cultural
values.
With Bob’s opinions in mind, we started thinking about how we, two cultural anthropologists, would
answer the same question about culture. Our training shapes our understandings of the question, yet
we know there is more to culture concepts than a simple definition. Why is asking the culture concept
question important to anthropologists? Does it matter? Is culture something that we can understand
without studying it formally?
In this chapter, we will illustrate how anthropology developed the culture concept. Our journey will
include the importance of storytelling and the way that anthropology became a social science. Along the
way, we will learn about some important scholars and be introduced to anthropology in North Amer-
ica. Let’s begin with our discussion of storytelling by taking a look at Gulliver’s Travels.
STORIES AS A REFLECTION ON CULTURE

31
Stories are told in every culture and often teach a moral lesson to young children. Fables are similar,
but often set an example for people to live by or describe what to do when in a dangerous situation.
They can also be a part of traditions, help to preserve ways of life, or explain mysteries. Storytelling
takes many different forms such as tall tales and folktales. These are for entertainment or to discuss
problems encountered in life. Both are also a form of cultural preservation, a way to communicate
morals or values to the next generation. Stories can also be a form of social control over certain activi-
ties or customs that are not allowed in a society.
A fable becomes a tradition by being retold and accepted by others in the community. Different cul-
tures have very similar stories sharing common themes. One of the most common themes is the battle
between good and evil. Another is the story of the quest. The quest often takes the character to distant
lands, filled with real-life situations, opportunities, hardships, and heartaches. In both of these types of
stories, the reader is introduced to the anthropological concept known as the Other. What exactly is the
Other? The Other is a term that has been used to describe people whose customs, beliefs, or behaviors
are “different” from one’s own.
Travel writer Lemuel Gulliver is captured and tied down by the Lilliputians.
Can a story explain the concept of the Other? Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is about four different
voyages that Gulliver undertakes. His first adventure is the most well-known; in the story, Lemuel
Gulliver is a surgeon who plans a sea voyage when his business fails. During a storm at sea, he is
shipwrecked, and he awakens to find himself bound and secured by a group of captors—the Lil-
liputians—who are six inches tall. Gulliver, having what Europeans consider a normal body height, sud-
denly becomes a giant. During this adventure, Gulliver is seen as an outsider, a stranger with different
features and language. Gulliver becomes the Other.
What lessons about culture can we learn from Gulliver’s Travels? Swift’s story offers lessons about
cultural differences, conflicts occurring in human society, and the balance of power. It also provides
an important example of the Other. The Other is a matter of perspective in this story: Gulliver thinks
the Lilliputians are strange and unusual. To Gulliver, the Lilliputians are the Other, but the Lilliputians
equally see Gulliver as the Other—he is their captive and is a rare species of man because of his size.
The themes in Gulliver’s Travels describe different cultures and aspects of storytelling. The story uses
language, customary behaviors, and the conflict between different groups to explore ideas of the exotic
and strange. The story is framed as an adventure, but is really about how similar cultures can be. In the
end, Gulliver becomes a member of another cultural group, learning new norms, attitudes, and behav-
iors. At the same time, he wants to colonize them, a reflection of his former cultural self.
Stories are an important part of culture, and when used to pass on traditions or cultural values, they
can connect people to the past. Stories are also a way to validate religious, social, political, and economic
practices from one generation to another. Stories are important because they are used in some societies
to apply social pressure, to keep people in line, and are part of shaping the way that people think and
behave.
Anthropologists as Storytellers
People throughout recorded history have relied on storytelling as a way to share cultural details.
When early anthropologists studied people from other civilizations, they relied on the written accounts
and opinions of others; they presented facts and developed their “stories,” about other cultures based
solely on information gathered by others. These scholars did not have any direct contact with the people
they were studying. This approach has come to be known as armchair anthropology. Simply put, if a
culture is viewed from a distance (as from an armchair), the anthropologist tends to measure that cul-
ture from his or her own vantage point and to draw comparisons that place the anthropologist’s culture
as superior to the one being studied. This point of view is also called ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is
an attitude based on the idea that one’s own group or culture is better than any other.
Early anthropological studies often presented a biased ethnocentric interpretation of the human
condition. For example, ideas about racial superiority emerged as a result of studying the cultures
that were encountered during the colonial era. During the colonial era from the sixteenth century to
the mid–twentieth century, European countries (Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Dutch Republic,
Spain, Portugal) asserted control over land (Asia, Africa, the Americas) and people. European ideas of
wrong and right were used as a measuring stick to judge the way that people in different cultures lived.
These other cultures were considered primitive, which was an ethnocentric term for people who were
non-European. It is also a negative term suggesting that indigenous cultures had a lack of technological
advancement. Colonizers thought that they were superior to the Other in every way.
33
Armchair anthropologists were unlikely to be aware of

their ethnocentric ideas because they did not visit the cul-
tures they studied. Scottish social anthropologist Sir James
Frazer is well-known for his 1890 work The Golden Bough: A
Study of Comparative Religions. Its title was later changed to A
Study in Magic and Religion, and it was one of the first books
to describe and record magical and religious beliefs of dif-
ferent culture groups around the world. Yet, this book was
not the outcome of extensive study in the field. Instead,
Frazer relied on the accounts of others who had traveled,
such as scholars, missionaries, and government officials, to
formulate his study.
Another example of anthropological writing without the
use of fieldwork is Sir E. B. Tylor’s 1871 work Primitive Cul-
ture. Tylor, who went on to become the first professor of
anthropology at Oxford University in 1896, was an impor-
tant influence in the development of sociocultural anthro-
Sir James Frazer is among the founders of modern anthropology.
pology as a separate discipline. Tylor defined culture as “that
complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law,
morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”1 His
definition of culture is still used frequently today and remains the foundation to the culture concept in
anthropology.
Drawing of a Mother and Child in Malaysia From Anthropology: An

Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization, E.B. Tylor, 1904
Tylor’s definition of culture was influenced by the popular theories and philosophies of his time,
including the work of Charles Darwin. Darwin formulated the theory of evolution by natural selection
in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species. Scholars of the time period, including Tylor, believed that cul-
tures were subject to evolution just like plants and animals and thought that cultures developed over
time from simple to complex. Many nineteenth century anthropologists believed that cultures evolved
through distinct stages. They labeled these stages with terms such as savagery, barbarism, and civi-
lization.2 These theories of cultural evolutionism would later be successfully refuted, but conflicting
views about cultural evolutionism in the nineteenth century highlight an ongoing nature versus nurture
debate about whether biology shapes behavior more than culture.
Both Frazer and Tylor contributed important and foundational studies even though they never went
into the field to gather their information. Armchair anthropologists were important in the development
of anthropology as a discipline in the late nineteenth century because although these early scholars
were not directly experiencing the cultures they were studying, their work did ask important ques-
tions—questions that could ultimately only be answered by going into the field.
Anthropologists as Cultural Participants
The armchair approach as a way to study culture changed when scholars such as Bronislaw Mali-
nowski, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, Franz Boas, and Margaret Mead took to the field and studied by being
participants and observers. As they did, fieldwork became the most important tool anthropologists used
to understand the “complex whole” of culture.
Bronislaw Malinowski, a Polish anthropologist, was greatly influenced by the work of Frazer. How-
ever, unlike the armchair anthropology approach Frazer used in writing The Golden Bough, Malinowski
used more innovative ethnographic techniques, and his fieldwork took him off the veranda to study
different cultures. The off the veranda approach is different from armchair anthropology because it
includes active participant-observation: traveling to a location, living among people, and observing
their day-to-day lives.
Bronislaw Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands, 1915–1918
What happened when Malinowski came off the veranda? The Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922)
was considered the first modern ethnography and redefined the approach to fieldwork. This book is
35
part of Malinowski’s trilogy on the Trobriand Islanders. Malinowski lived with them and observed life
in their villages. By living among the islanders, Malinowski was able to learn about their social life, food
and shelter, sexual behaviors, community economics, patterns of kinship, and family.3
Malinowski went “native” to some extent during his fieldwork with the Trobriand Islanders. Going
native means to become fully integrated into a cultural group: taking leadership positions and assuming
key roles in society; entering into a marriage or spousal contract; exploring sexuality or fully participat-
ing in rituals. When an anthropologist goes native, the anthropologist is personally involved with locals.
In The Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Malinowski suggested that other anthropologists should “grasp
the native’s point of view, his relations to life, to realize his vision of his world.”4 However, as we will see
later in this chapter, Malinowski’s practice of going native presented problems from an ethical point of
view. Participant-observation is a method to gather ethnographic data, but going native places both the
anthropologist and the culture group at risk by blurring the lines on both sides of the relationship.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEORIES OF CULTURE
Anthropology in Europe
The discipline of cultural anthropology developed somewhat differently in Europe and North Amer-
ica, in particular in the United States, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with each
region contributing new dimensions to the concept of culture. Many European anthropologists were
particularly interested in questions about how societies were structured and how they remained stable
over time. This highlighted emerging recognition that culture and society are not the same. Culture had
been defined by Tylor as knowledge, beliefs, and customs, but a society is more than just shared ideas
or habits. In every society, people are linked to one another through social institutions such as families,
political organizations, and businesses. Anthropologists across Europe often focused their research on
understanding the form and function of these social institutions.
European anthropologists developed theories of functionalism to explain how social institutions
contribute to the organization of society and the maintenance of social order. Bronislaw Malinowski
believed that cultural traditions were developed as a response to specific human needs such as food,
comfort, safety, knowledge, reproduction, and economic livelihood. One function of educational insti-
tutions like schools, for instance, is to provide knowledge that prepares people to obtain jobs and make
contributions to society. Although he preferred the term structural-functionalism, the British anthro-
pologist A.R. Radcliffe-Brown was also interested in the way that social structures functioned to main-
tain social stability in a society over time.5 He suggested that in many societies it was the family that
served as the most important social structure because family relationships determined much about an
individual’s social, political, and economic relationships and these patterns were repeated from one
generation to the next. In a family unit in which the father is the breadwinner and the mother stays
home to raise the children, the social and economic roles of both the husband and the wife will be
largely defined by their specific responsibilities within the family. If their children grow up to follow
the same arrangement, these social roles will be continued in the next generation.
In the twentieth century, functionalist approaches also became popular in North American anthro-
pology, but eventually fell out of favor. One of the biggest critiques of functionalism is that it views
cultures as stable and orderly and ignores or cannot explain social change. Functionalism also struggles
to explain why a society develops one particular kind of social institution instead of another. Func-
tionalist perspectives did contribute to the development of more sophisticated concepts of culture by
establishing the importance of social institutions in holding societies together. While defining the divi-
sion between what is cultural and what is social continues to be complex, functionalist theory helped
to develop the concept of culture by demonstrating that culture is not just set of ideas or beliefs, but
consists of specific practices and social institutions that give structure to daily life and allow human
communities to function.
Anthropology in the United States
During the development of anthropology in North America (Canada, United States, and Mexico), the
significant contribution made by the American School of Anthropology in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries was the concept of cultural relativism, which is the idea that cultures cannot be objectively
understood since all humans see the world through the lens of their own culture. Cultural relativism is
different than ethnocentrism because it emphasizes understanding culture from an insider’s view. The
focus on culture, along with the idea of cultural relativism, distinguished cultural anthropology in the
United States from social anthropology in Europe.
The participant-observation method of fieldwork was a revolutionary change to the practice of
anthropology, but at the same time it presented problems that needed to be overcome. The challenge
was to move away from ethnocentrism, race stereotypes, and colonial attitudes, and to move forward
by encouraging anthropologists to maintain high ethical standards and open minds.
Franz Boas, an American anthropologist, is acknowledged
for redirecting American anthropologists away from cul-
tural evolutionism and toward cultural relativism. Boas first
studied physical science at the University of Kiel in Ger-
many. Because he was a trained scientist, he was familiar
with using empirical methods as a way to study a subject.
Empirical methods are based on evidence that can be tested
using observation and experiment.
In 1883, Franz Boas went on a geographical expedition to
Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. The Central Eskimo
(1888) details his time spent on Baffin Island studying the
culture and language of the central Eskimo (Inuit) people. He
studied every aspect of their culture such as tools, clothing,
and shelters. This study was Boas’ first major contribution to
the American school of anthropology and convinced him
that cultures could only be understood through extensive
field research. As he observed on Baffin Island, cultural ideas
Franz Boas, One of the Founders of American Anthropology,
1915 and practices are shaped through interactions with the nat-
ural environment. The cultural traditions of the Inuit were
suited for the environment in which they lived. This work led him to promote cultural relativism: the
principle that a culture must be understood on its own terms rather than compared to an outsider’s
standard. This was an important turning point in correcting the challenge of ethnocentrism in ethno-
graphic fieldwork.6
Boas is often considered the originator of American anthropology because he trained the first gener-
37
ation of American anthropologists including Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and Alfred Kroeber. Using
a commitment to cultural relativism as a starting point, these students continued to refine the concept
of culture. Ruth Benedict, one of Boas’ first female students, used cultural relativism as a starting point
for investigating the cultures of the American northwest and southwest. Her best-selling book Patterns
of Culture (1934) emphasized that culture gives people coherent patterns for thinking and behaving. She
argued that culture affects individuals psychologically, shaping individual personality traits and leading
the members of a culture to exhibit similar traits such as tendency toward aggression, or calmness.
Benedict was a professor at Columbia University and in turn greatly influenced her student Margaret
Mead, who went on to become one of the most well-known female American cultural anthropologists.
Mead was a pioneer in conducting ethnographic research at a time when the discipline was predomi-
nately male. Her 1925 research on adolescent girls on the island of Ta‘ū in the Samoan Islands, published
as Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), revealed that teenagers in Samoa did not experience the same stress
and emotional difficulties as those in the United States. The book was an important contribution to
the nature versus nurture debate, providing an argument that learned cultural roles were more impor-
tant than biology. The book also reinforced the idea that individual emotions and personality traits are
products of culture.
Alfred Louis Kroeber, another student of Boas, also shared
the commitment to field research and cultural relativism,
but Kroeber was particularly interested in how cultures
change over time and influence one another. Through pub-
lications like The Nature of Culture (1952), Kroeber examined
the historical processes that led cultures to emerge as dis-
tinct configurations as well as the way cultures could
become more similar through the spread or diffusion of cul-
tural traits. Kroeber was also interested in language and the
role it plays in transmitting culture. He devoted much of his
career to studying Native American languages in an attempt
to document these languages before they disappeared.
Anthropologists in the United States have used cultural
relativism to add depth to the concept of culture in several
ways. Tylor had defined culture as including knowledge,
belief, art, law, morals, custom, capabilities and habits. Boas
and his students added to this definition by emphasizing the
Ruth Benedict, 1936
importance of enculturation, the process of learning cul-
ture, in the lives of individuals. Benedict, Mead, and others
established that through enculturation culture shapes individual identity, self-awareness, and emotions
in fundamental ways. They also emphasized the need for holism, approaches to research that consid-
ered the entire context of a society including its history.
Kroeber and others also established the importance of language as an element of culture and doc-
umented the ways in which language was used to communicate complex ideas. By the late twentieth
century, new approaches to symbolic anthropology put language at the center of analysis. Later on,
Clifford Geertz, the founding member of postmodernist anthropology, noted in his book The Interpre-
tation of Cultures (1973) that culture should not be seen as something that was “locked inside people’s
heads.” Instead, culture was publically communicated through speech and other behaviors. Culture, he
concluded, is “an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inher-
ited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and
develop their knowledge about and their attitudes toward life.”7 This definition, which continues to be
influential today, reflects the influence of many earlier efforts to refine the concept of culture in Amer-
ican anthropology.
Ethical Issues in Truth Telling
As anthropologists developed more sophisticated concepts of culture, they also gained a greater
understanding of the ethical challenges associated with anthropological research. Because participant-
observation fieldwork brings anthropologists into close relationships with the people they study, many
complicated issues can arise. Cultural relativism is a perspective that encourages anthropologists to
show respect to members of other cultures, but it was not until after World War II that the profession
of anthropology recognized a need to develop formal standards of professional conduct.
The Nuremberg trials, which began in 1945 in Nuremberg, Germany and were conducted under
the direction of the France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, prosecuted
members of the Nazi regime for war crimes. In addition to military and political figures, physicians
and scientists were also prosecuted for unethical human experimentation and mass murder. The trials
demonstrated that physicians and other scientists could be dangerous if they used their skills for abu-
sive or exploitative goals. The Nuremberg Code that emerged from the trials is considered a land-
mark document in medical and research ethics. It established principles for the ethical treatment of the
human subjects involved in any medical or scientific research.
Many universities adopted principles from the Nuremberg Code to write ethical guidelines for the
treatment of human subjects. Anthropologists and students who work in universities where these
guidelines exist are obliged to follow these rules. The American Anthropological Association (AAA),
along with many anthropology organizations in other countries, developed codes of ethics describing
specific expectations for anthropologists engaged in research in a variety of settings. The principles in
the AAA code of ethics include: do no harm; be open and honest regarding your work; obtain informed
consent and necessary permissions; ensure the vulnerable populations in every study are protected
from competing ethical obligations; make your results accessible; protect and preserve your records;
and maintain respectful and ethical professional relationships. These principles sound simple, but can
be complicated in practice.
Bronislaw Malinowski
The career of Bronislaw Malinowski provides an example of how investigations of culture can lead
anthropologists into difficult ethical areas. As discussed above, Malinowski is widely regarded as a lead-
ing figure in the history of anthropology. He initiated the practice of participant-observation fieldwork
and published several highly regarded books including The Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Following his
death, the private diary he kept while conducting fieldwork was discovered and published as A Diary in
the Strictest Sense of the Term (1967). The diary described Malinowski’s feelings of loneliness and isola-
tion, but also included a great deal of information about his sexual fantasies as well his some insensitive
and contemptuous opinions about the Trobriand Islanders. The diary provided valuable insight into the
mind of an important ethnographer, but also raised questions about the extent to which his personal
feelings, including bias and racism, were reflected in his official conclusions.
Most anthropologists keep diaries or daily notes as a means of keeping track of the research project,
39
but these records are almost never made public. Because Malinowski’s diary was published after his
death, he could not explain why he wrote what he did, or assess the extent to which he was able to sepa-
rate the personal from the professional. Which of these books best reflects the truth about Malinowski’s
interaction with the Trobriand Islanders? This rare insight into the private life of a field researcher
demonstrates that even when anthropologists are acting within the boundaries of professional ethics,
they still struggle to set aside their own ethnocentric attitudes and prejudices.
Napoleon Chagnon
A more serious and complicated incident concerned research conducted among the Yanomami, an
indigenous group living in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and Venezuela. Starting in the 1960s,
the anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon and James Neel, a geneticist, carried out research among the
Yanomami. Neel was interested in studying the effects of radiation released by nuclear explosions
on people living in remote areas. Chagnon was investigating theories about the role of violence in
Yanomami society. In 2000, an American journalist, Patrick Tierney, published a book about Chagnon
and Neel’s research: Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon. The book
contained numerous stunning allegations, including a claim that the pair had deliberately infected the
Yanomami with measles, starting an epidemic that killed thousands of people. The book also claimed
that Neel had conducted medical experiments without the consent of the Yanomami and that Chagnon
had deliberately created conflicts between Yanomami groups so he could study the resulting violence.
These allegations were brought to the attention
of the American Anthropological Association, and
a number of inquiries were eventually conducted.
James Neel was deceased, but Napoleon Chagnon
steadfastly denied the allegations. In 2002, the
AAA issued their report; Chagnon was judged to
have misrepresented the violent nature of
Yanomami culture in ways that caused them harm
and to have failed to obtain proper consent for his
research. However, Chagnon continued to reject
these conclusions and complained that the process
used to evaluate the evidence was unfair. In 2005,
the AAA rescinded its own conclusion, citing prob-
lems with the investigation process. The results of
several years of inquiry into the situation satisfied
few people. Chagnon was not definitively pro- Yanomami Woman and Child, 1997
nounced guilty, nor was he exonerated. Years later,
debate over this episode continues.8 The controversy demonstrates the extent to which truth can be
elusive in anthropological inquiry. Although anthropologists should not be storytellers in the sense that
they deliberately create fictions, differences in perspective and theoretical orientation create unavoid-
able differences in the way anthropologists interpret the same situation. Anthropologists must try to
use their toolkit of theory and methods to ensure that the stories they tell are truthful and represent the
voice of the people being studied using an ethical approach.
BACK IN THE COFFEE SHOP
This chapter has looked at some historic turning points in the way anthropologists have defined cul-
ture. There is not one true, absolute definition of culture. Anthropologists respect traditions such as
language; the development of self, especially from infancy to adulthood; kinship; and the structure of
the social unit, or the strata of a person within their class structure; marriage, families, and rites of pas-
sage; systems of belief; and ritual. However, anthropologists also look at change and the impact it has
on those traditions.
With globalization moving at a dramatic pace, and change unfolding daily, how will emerging trends
redefine the culture concept? For example, social media and the Internet connect the world and have
created new languages, relationships, and an online culture without borders. This leads to the ques-
tion: is digital, or cyber anthropology the future? Is the study of online cultures, which are encountered
largely through reading text, considered armchair or off the veranda research? Is the cyber world a real
or virtual culture? In some ways, addressing online cultures takes anthropology back to its roots as
anthropologists can explore new worlds without leaving home. At the same time, cyberspaces and new
technologies allow people to see, hear, and communicate with others around the world in real time.
Back in the coffee shop, where we spent time with Bob, we discovered that he hoped to keep familiar
aspects of his own culture, traditions such as language, social structure, and unique expressions of val-
ues, alive. The question, what is culture, caused us to reflect on our own understandings of the cultural
self and the cultural Other, and on the importance of self and cultural awareness.
Emily
My cultural self has evolved from the first customary traditions of my childhood, yet my life with the
Inuit caused me to consider that I have similar values and community traits as my friends in the North.
My childhood was focused on caring, acceptance, and working together to achieve the necessities of
life. Life on the land with the Inuit was no different, and throughout the years, I have seen how much
we are the same, just living in different locations and circumstances. My anthropological training has
enriched my life experiences by teaching me to enjoy the world and its peoples. I have also experienced
being the cultural Other when working in the field, and this has always reminded me that the cultural self
and the cultural Other will always be in conflict with each other on both sides of the experience.
Priscilla
Living with different indigenous tribes in Kenya gave me a chance to learn how communities main-
tain their traditional culture and ways of living. I come from a Portuguese- Canadian family that has
kept strong ties to the culture and religion of our ancestors. Portuguese people believe storytelling is a
way to keep one’s traditions, cultural identity, indigenous knowledge, and language alive. When I lived
in Nairobi Province, Kenya, I discovered that people there had the same point of view. I found it odd
that people still define their identities by their cultural history. What I have learned by conducting cul-
tural fieldwork is that the meanings of culture not only vary from one group to another, but that all
human societies define themselves through culture.
Our Final Reflection

Bob took us on a journey to understand what is at the heart of the culture concept. Clearly, the culture
41
concept does not follow a straight line. Scholars, storytellers, and the people one meets in everyday life
have something to say about the components of culture. The story that emerges from different voices
brings insight into what it is to be human. Defining the culture concept is like putting together a puzzle
with many pieces. The puzzle of culture concepts is almost complete, but it is not finished…yet.
1. How did the armchair anthropology and the off the veranda approaches differ as methods to study culture? What can be learned
about a culture by experiencing it in person that cannot be learned from reading about it?
2. Why is the concept of culture difficult to define? What do you think are the most important elements of culture?
3. Why is it difficult to separate the “social” from the “cultural”? Do you think this is an important distinction?
4. In the twenty-first century, people have much greater contact with members of other cultures than they did in the past. Which
topics or concerns should be priorities for future studies of culture?
GLOSSARY
Armchair anthropology: an early and discredited method of anthropological research that did not
involve direct contact with the people studied.
Cultural determinism: the idea that behavioral differences are a result of cultural, not racial or genetic
causes.
Cultural evolutionism: a discredited theory popular in nineteenth century anthropology suggesting

that societies evolved through stages from simple to advanced.
Culture: a set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned and shared. Together, they form an all-
encompassing, integrated whole that binds people together and shapes their worldview and lifeways.
Enculturation: the process of learning the characteristics and expectations of a culture or group.
Functionalism: an approach to anthropology developed in British anthropology that emphasized the

way that parts of a society work together to support the functioning of the whole.
Going native: becoming fully integrated into a cultural group through acts such as taking a leadership
position, assuming key roles in society, entering into marriage, or other behaviors that incorporate an
anthropologist into the society he or she is studying.
Holism: taking a broad view of the historical, environmental, and cultural foundations of behavior.
Kinship: blood ties, common ancestry, and social relationships that form families within human
groups.
Participant observation: a type of observation in which the anthropologist observes while participat-
Structural-Functionalism: an approach to anthropology that focuses on the ways in which the cus-
toms or social institutions in a culture contribute to the organization of society and the maintenance of
social order.
The Other: is a term that has been used to describe people whose customs, beliefs, or behaviors are “dif-
ferent” from one’s own
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr. Priscilla Medeiros is a medical anthropologist and Postdoctoral Fellow in

the Women’s College Research Institute at Women’s College Hospital, Canada. She recently defended
her thesis in January 2019 at McMaster University, Ontario. Her primary research interests center on
the anthropology of health. This involves studying the biocultural dimensions of medicine, with a par-
ticular emphasis on the history and development of public health measures in developed countries,
sickness and inequalities, and gender relationships. Priscilla began her community-based work in pre-
vention, care, and support of people living with HIV seven years ago in Nairobi County, Kenya, as part
of her master’s degree at the University of New Brunswick. Her current postdoctoral work focuses on
geospatial analysis of data from the Canadian HIV Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health Study
(CHIWOS) and expansion to the Atlantic Provinces, and is funded by the CIHR Canadian HIV Trials
Network. When she is not working in the field or teaching in the classroom, Priscilla is traveling to
exotic destinations to learn to prepare local cuisine, speak foreign languages, and explore the wonders
of the world. In fact, she is the real-life Indiana Jane of anthropology when it comes to adventures in the
field and has many great stories to share.
Dr. Emily Cowall is a cultural anthropologist and instructor in the department of

43
Anthropology at McMaster University, Canada; Medical Historian; and former regulated health prac-
titioner in Ontario. Her primary academic research interests are focused on the cultural ethno-history
of the Canadian Arctic. Emily moved to the Eastern Arctic in the 1980s, where she became integrated
into community life. Returning for community-based research projects from 2003-2011, her previous
community relationships enabled the completion of a landmark study examining the human geography
and cultural impact of tuberculosis from 1930-1972. From 2008-2015, her work in cultural resource
management took her to the Canadian High Arctic archipelago to create a museum dedicated to the
Defense Research Science Era at Parks Canada, Quttinirpaaq National Park on Ellesmere Island. When
she is not jumping into Twin Otter aircraft for remote field camps, she is exploring cultural aspects of
environmental health and religious pilgrimage throughout Mexico.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Benedict, Ruth. Patterns of Culture. Boston: Houghton and Mifflin Company, 1934.
Boas, Franz. Race, Language, and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940.
Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1859.
Kroeber, Alfred. The Nature of Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge and Sons, 1922.
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization.
New York: William Morrow and Company, 1928.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. London: Benjamin Motte, 1726.
Tylor, Edward B. Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Lan-
guage, Art, and Customs. London: Cambridge University Press. 1871.
Notes
1. Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art,
and Customs (London: Cambridge University Press, 1871), preface.
2. Lewis Henry Morgan was one anthropologist who proposed an evolutionary framework based on these terms in
his book Ancient Society (New York: Henry Holt, 1877).
3. The film Bronislaw Malinowski: Off the Veranda, (Films Media Group, 1986) further describes Malinowski’s
research practices.
4. Bronislaw Malinowski. Argonauts of the Western Pacific (London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1922), 290.
5. For more on this topic see Adam Kuper, Anthropology and Anthropologists: The Modern British School (New York:
Routledge, 1983) and Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, Structure and Function in Primitive Society (London: Cohen and
West, 1952).
6. Boas’ attitudes about cultural relativism were influenced by his experiences in the Canadian Arctic as he strug-
gled to survive in a natural environment foreign to his own prior experience. His private diary and letters record
the evolution of his thinking about what it means to be “civilized.” In a letter to his fiancé, he wrote: “I often ask
myself what advantages our 'good society' possesses over that of the 'savages' and find, the more I see of their
customs, that we have no right to look down upon them ... We have no right to blame them for their forms and
superstitions which may seem ridiculous to us. We ‘highly educated people’ are much worse, relatively speaking.”
The entire letter can be read in George Stocking, ed. Observers Observed: Essays on Ethnographic Fieldwork (Madi-
son, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), 33.
7. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Culture (New York: Basic Books, Geertz 1973), 89.
8. For more information about the controversy, see Thomas Gregor and Daniel Gross, “Guilt by Association: The
Culture of Accusation and the American Anthropological Associations Investigation of Darkness in El Dorado.”
American Anthropologist 106 no. 4 (2004):687-698 and Robert Borofsky, Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and
What We Can Learn From It (Berkley: University California Press, 2005). Napoleon Chagnon has written his
rebuttal in Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes—The Yanomamo and the Anthropologists (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 2013).
3
DOING FIELDWORK:
METHODS IN CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
Katie Nelson, Inver Hills Community College

[email protected]
http://kanelson.com/
Learning Objectives
• Discuss what is unique about ethnographic fieldwork and how it emerged as a key strategy in anthropology.
• Explain how traditional approaches to ethnographic fieldwork contrast with contemporary approaches.
• Identify some of the contemporary ethnographic fieldwork techniques and perspectives.
• Discuss some of the ethical considerations in doing anthropological fieldwork.
• Summarize how anthropologists transform their fieldwork data into a story that communicates meaning.
FINDING THE FIELD
45
My first experience with fieldwork as a student anthropolo-

gist took place in a small indigenous community in northeast-
ern Brazil studying the Jenipapo-Kanindé of Lagoa Encantada
(Enchanted Lake). I had planned to conduct an independent
research project on land tenure among members of the indige-
nous tribe and had gotten permission to spend several months
with the community. My Brazilian host family arranged for a
relative to drive me to the rural community on the back of his
motorcycle. After several hours navigating a series of bumpy
roads in blazing equatorial heat, I was relieved to arrive at the
edge of the reservation. He cut the motor and I removed my
heavy backpack from my tired, sweaty back. Upon hearing us
arrive, first children and then adults slowly and shyly began to
approach us. I greeted the curious onlookers and briefly
explained who I was. As a group of children ran to fetch the
cacique (the chief/political leader), I began to explain my
research agenda to several of the men who had gathered. I men-
tioned that I was interested in learning about how the tribe Children Playing Outside a Home on the Jenipapo-Kanindé
negotiated land use rights without any private land ownership. Reservation, 2001
After hearing me use the colloquial term “índio” (Indian), a man

who turned out to be the cacique’s cousin came forward and said to me, “Well, your work is going to be
difficult because there are no Indians here; we are only Brazilians.” Then, abruptly, another man angrily
replied to him, stating firmly that, in fact, they were Indians because the community was on an Indian
reservation and the Brazilian government had recognized them as an indigenous tribe. A few women
then entered the rapid-fire discussion. I took a step back, surprised by the intensity of my first interac-
tion in the community. The debate subsided once the cacique arrived, but it left a strong impression in
my mind. Eventually, I discarded my original research plan to focus instead on this disagreement within
the community about who they were and were not. In anthropology, this type of conflict in beliefs is
known as contested identity.
I soon learned that many among the Jeni-
papo-Kanindé did not embrace the Indian
identity label. The tribe members were all
monolingual Portuguese-speakers who long
ago had lost their original language and many
of their traditions. Beginning in the 1980s, sev-
eral local researchers had conducted studies in
the community and had concluded that the
community had indigenous origins. Those
researchers lobbied on the community’s behalf
for official state and federal status as an indige-
nous reservation, and in 1997 the Funai (Fun-
Author Katie Nelson (center) with her Brazilian Host Family, 2001 dação Nacional do Índio or National Foundation
for the Indian) visited the community and
agreed to officially demarcate the land as an indigenous reservation.
47
More than 20 years later, the community is still waiting for that
demarcation. Some in the community embraced indigenous status
because it came with a number of benefits. The state (Ceará), using par-
tial funding from Funai, built a new road to improve access to the com-
munity. The government also constructed an elementary school and a
common well and installed new electric lines. Despite those gains, some
members of the community did not embrace indigenous status because
being considered Indian had a pejorative connotation in Brazil. Many
felt that the label stigmatized them by associating them with a poor and
marginalized class of Brazilians. Others resisted the label because of
long-standing family and inter-personal conflicts in the community.
Fieldwork is the most important method by which cultural anthro-
pologists gather data to answer their research questions. While inter-
acting on a daily basis with a group of people, cultural anthropologists
document their observations and perceptions and adjust the focus of
A young Jenipapo-Kanindé boy shows off his
their research as needed. They typically spend a few months to a few grass skirt prior to a community dance, 2001.
years living among the people they are studying.
The “field” can be anywhere the people are—a village in highland Papua New Guinea or a super-
market in downtown Minneapolis. Just as marine biologists spend time in the ocean to learn about
the behavior of marine animals and geologists travel to a mountain range to observe rock formations,
anthropologists go to places where people are.
Doing Anthropology
In this short film, Stefan Helmreich, Erica James, and Heather Paxson, three members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Anthropology
Department, talk about their current work and the process of doing fieldwork.
Making the Strange Familiar and the Familiar Strange
The cultural anthropologist’s goal during fieldwork is to describe a group of people to others in a way
that makes strange or unusual features of the culture seem familiar and familiar traits seem extraor-
dinary. The point is to help people think in new ways about aspects of their own culture by compar-
ing them with other cultures. The research anthropologist Margaret Mead describes in her monograph
Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) is a famous example of this. In 1925, Mead went to American Samoa,
where she conducted ethnographic research on adolescent girls and their experiences with sexuality
and growing up. Mead’s mentor, anthropologist Franz Boas, was a strong proponent of cultural deter-
minism, the idea that one’s cultural upbringing and social environment, rather than one’s biology, pri-
marily determine behavior. Boas encouraged Mead to travel to Samoa to study adolescent behavior
there and to compare their culture and behavior with that of adolescents in the United States to lend
support to his hypothesis. In the foreword of Coming of Age in Samoa, Boas described what he saw as
the key insight of her research: “The results of her painstaking investigation confirm the suspicion long
held by anthropologists that much of what we ascribe to human nature is no more than a reaction to
the restraints put upon us by our civilization.”1
Mead studied 25 young women in three villages in Samoa and found that the stress, anxiety, and tur-
moil of American adolescence were not found among Samoan youth. Rather, young women in Samoa
experienced a smooth transition to adulthood with relatively little stress or difficulty. She documented
instances of socially accepted sexual experimentation, lack of sexual jealousy and rape, and a general
sense of casualness that marked Samoan adolescence. Coming of Age in Samoa quickly became popular,
launching Mead’s career as one of the most well-known anthropologists in the United States and per-
haps the world. The book encouraged American readers to reconsider their own cultural assumptions
about what adolescence in the United States should be like, particularly in terms of the sexual repres-
sion and turmoil that seemed to characterize the teenage experience in mid-twentieth century America.
Through her analysis of the differences between Samoan and American society, Mead also persuasively
called for changes in education and parenting for U.S. children and adolescents.
Another classic example of a style of anthropological writing that attempted to make the familiar
strange and encouraged readers to consider their own cultures in a different way is Horace Miner’s Body
Ritual among the Nacirema (1956). The essay described oral hygiene practices of the Nacirema (“Amer-
ican” spelled backward) in a way that, to cultural insiders, sounded extreme, exaggerated, and out of
context. He presented the Nacirema as if they were a little-known cultural group with strange, exotic
practices. Miner wrote the essay during an era in which anthropologists were just beginning to expand
their focus beyond small-scale traditional societies far from home to large-scale post-industrial soci-
eties such as the United States. He wrote the essay primarily as a satire of how anthropologists often
wrote about “the Other” in ways that made other cultures seem exotic and glossed over features that
the Other had in common with the anthropologist’s culture. The essay also challenged U.S. readers in
general and anthropologists in particular to think differently about their own cultures and re-examine
their cultural assumptions about what is “normal.”
Emic and Etic Perspectives
When anthropologists conduct fieldwork, they gather data. An important tool for gathering anthro-
pological data is ethnography—the in-depth study of everyday practices and lives of a people. Ethnog-
raphy produces a detailed description of the studied group at a particular time and location, also known
as a “thick description,” a term coined by anthropologist Clifford Geertz in his 1973 book The Inter-
pretation of Cultures to describe this type of research and writing. A thick description explains not only
the behavior or cultural event in question but also the context in which it occurs and anthropological
interpretations of it. Such descriptions help readers better understand the internal logic of why people
in a culture behave as they do and why the behaviors are meaningful to them. This is important because
understanding the attitudes, perspectives, and motivations of cultural insiders is at the heart of anthro-
pology.
Ethnographers gather data from many different sources. One source is the anthropologist’s own
observations and thoughts. Ethnographers keep field notebooks that document their ideas and reflec-
tions as well as what they do and observe when participating in activities with the people they are study-
ing, a research technique known as participant observation. Other sources of data include informal
conversations and more-formal interviews that are recorded and transcribed. They also collect docu-
ments such as letters, photographs, artifacts, public records, books, and reports.
Different types of data produce different kinds of ethnographic descriptions, which also vary in
terms of perspective—from the perspective of the studied culture (emic) or from the perspective of the
observer (etic). Emic perspectives refer to descriptions of behaviors and beliefs in terms that are mean-
ingful to people who belong to a specific culture, e.g., how people perceive and categorize their cul-
ture and experiences, why people believe they do what they do, how they imagine and explain things.
To uncover emic perspectives, ethnographers talk to people, observe what they do, and participate in
49
their daily activities with them. Emic perspectives are essential for anthropologists’ efforts to obtain a
detailed understanding of a culture and to avoid interpreting others through their own cultural beliefs.
Etic perspectives refer to explanations for behavior by an outside observer in ways that are meaning-
ful to the observer. For an anthropologist, etic descriptions typically arise from conversations between
the ethnographer and the anthropological community. These explanations tend to be based in science
and are informed by historical, political, and economic studies and other types of research. The etic
approach acknowledges that members of a culture are unlikely to view the things they do as notewor-
thy or unusual. They cannot easily stand back and view their own behavior objectively or from another
perspective. For example, you may have never thought twice about the way you brush your teeth and
the practice of going to the dentist or how you experienced your teenage years. For you, these parts
of your culture are so normal and “natural” you probably would never consider questioning them. An
emic lens gives us an alternative perspective that is essential when constructing a comprehensive view
of a people.
Most often, ethnographers include both emic and etic perspectives in their research and writing.
They first uncover a studied people’s understanding of what they do and why and then develop addi-
tional explanations for the behavior based on anthropological theory and analysis. Both perspectives
are important, and it can be challenging to move back and forth between the two. Nevertheless, that is
exactly what good ethnographers must do.
TRADITIONAL ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACHES
Early Armchair Anthropology
Before ethnography was a fully developed research method, anthropologists in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries used techniques that were much less reliable to gather data about people
throughout the world. From the comfort of their homes and library armchairs, early scholars collected
others’ travel accounts and used them to come to conclusions about far-flung cultures and peoples. The
reports typically came from missionaries, colonists, adventurers, and business travelers and were often
incomplete, inaccurate, and/or misleading, exaggerated or omitted important information, and roman-
ticized the culture.
Early scholars such as Wilhelm Schmidt and Sir E. B. Tylor sifted through artifacts and stories
brought back by travelers or missionaries and selected the ones that best fit their frequently pre-con-
ceived ideas about the peoples involved. By relying on this flawed data, they often drew inaccurate or
even racist conclusions. They had no way of knowing how accurate the information was and no way to
understand the full context in which it was gathered.
The work of Sir James Frazer (1854–1941) provides a good example of the problems associated
with such anthropological endeavors. Frazer was a Scottish social anthropologist who was interested
in myths and religions around the world. He read historical documents and religious texts found in
libraries and book collections. He also sent questionnaires to missionaries and colonists in various
parts of the world asking them about the people with whom they were in contact. He then used the
information to draw sweeping conclusions about human belief systems. In his most famous book, The
Golden Bough, he described similarities and differences in magical and religious practices around the
world and concluded that human beliefs progressed through three stages: from primitive magic to reli-
gion and from religion to science. This theory implied that some people were less evolved and more
primitive than others. Of course, contemporary anthropologists do not view any people as less evolved
than another. Instead, anthropologists today seek to uncover the historical, political, and cultural rea-
sons behind peoples’ behaviors rather than assuming that one culture or society is more advanced than
another.
The main problem with Frazer’s conclusion can be traced back to the fact that he did not do any
research himself and none of the information he relied on was collected by an anthropologist. He never
spent time with the people he was researching. He never observed the religious ceremonies he wrote
about and certainly never participated in them. Had he done so, he might have been able to appreciate
that all human groups at the time (and now) were equally pragmatic, thoughtful, intelligent, logical, and
“evolved.” He might also have appreciated the fact that how and why the information is gathered affects
the quality of the information. For instance, if a colonial administrator offered to pay people for their
stories, some of the storytellers might have exaggerated or even made up stories for financial gain. If
a Christian missionary asked recently converted parishioners to describe their religious practices, they
likely would have omitted non-Christian practices and beliefs to avoid disapproval and maintain their
positions in the church. A male traveler who attempted to document rite-of-passage traditions in a cul-
ture that prohibited men from asking such questions of women would generate data that could erro-
neously suggest that women did not participate in such activities. All of these examples illustrate the
pitfalls of armchair anthropology.
Off the Veranda
Fortunately, the reign of armchair anthropology was brief. Around the turn of the twentieth century,
anthropologists trained in the natural sciences began to reimagine what a science of humanity should
look like and how social scientists ought to go about studying cultural groups. Some of those anthro-
pologists insisted that one should at least spend significant time actually observing and talking to the
people studied. Early ethnographers such as Franz Boas and Alfred Cort Haddon typically traveled to
the remote locations where the people in question lived and spent a few weeks to a few months there.
They sought out a local Western host who was familiar with the people and the area (such as a colo-
nial official, missionary, or businessman) and found accommodations through them. Although they did
at times venture into the community without a guide, they generally did not spend significant time
with the local people. Thus, their observations were primarily conducted from the relative comfort and
safety of a porch—from their verandas.
Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski’s (1884–1942) pioneering method of participant obser-
vation fundamentally changed the relationship between ethnographers and the people under study. In
1914, he traveled to the Trobriand Islands and ended up spending nearly four years conducting field-
work among the people there. In the process, he developed a rigorous set of detailed ethnographic tech-
niques he viewed as best-suited to gathering accurate and comprehensive ethnographic data. One of the
hallmarks of his method was that it required the researcher to get off the veranda to interact with and
even live among the natives. In a well-known book about his research, Argonauts of the Western Pacific
(1922), Malinowski described his research techniques and the role they played in his analysis of the Kula
ceremony, an exchange of coral armbands and trinkets among members of the social elite. He concluded
that the ceremonies were at the center of Trobriand life and represented the culmination of an elabo-
rate multi-year venture called the Kula Ring that involved dangerous expeditions and careful planning.
Ultimately, the key to his discovering the importance of the ceremony was that he not only observed
the Kula Ring but also participated in it. This technique of participant observation is central to anthro-
51
pological research today. Malinowski did more than just observe people from afar; he actively inter-
acted with them and participated in their daily activities. And unlike early anthropologists who worked
through translators, Malinowski learned the native language, which allowed him to immerse himself in
the culture. He carefully documented all of his observations and thoughts. Malinowski’s techniques are
now central components of ethnographic fieldwork.
Salvage Ethnography
Despite Malinowski’s tremendous contribu-
tions to ethnography and anthropology gener-
ally, he was nevertheless a man of his time. A
common view in the first half of the twentieth
century was that many “primitive” cultures
were quickly disappearing and features of
those cultures needed to be preserved (sal-
vaged) before they were lost. Anthropologists
such as Malinowski, Franz Boas, and many of
their students sought to document, photo-
graph, and otherwise preserve cultural tradi-
tions in “dying” cultures in groups such as Bronislaw Malinowski (center) with Trobriand Islanders circa 1918
Native Americans and other traditional soci-

eties experiencing rapid change due to modernization, dislocation, and contact with outside groups.
They also collected cultural artifacts, removing property from the communities and placing it in muse-
ums and private collections.
Others who were not formally trained in the sciences or in anthropology also participated in salvage
activities. For instance, in his “documentary” film Nanook of the North (1922), Robery Flaherty filmed the
life of an Inuit man named Nanook and his family in the Canadian Arctic. In an effort to preserve on
film what many believed was a traditional way of life soon to be lost, Flaherty took considerable artistic
license to represent the culture as he imagined it was in the past, including staging certain scenes and
asking the Inuit men to use spears instead of rifles to make the film seem more “authentic.”
Photographers and artists have likewise attempted to capture and preserve traditional indigenous life
in paintings and photographs. Renowned painter George Catlin (1796–1872), for example, is known to
have embellished scenes or painted them in ways that glossed over the difficult reality that native people
in the nineteenth century were actively persecuted by the government, displaced from their lands, and
forced into unsustainable lifestyles that led to starvation and warfare. Photographer Edward S. Cur-
tis (1868–1952) has been criticized for reinforcing romanticized images of “authentic” native scenes.
In particular, he is accused of having perpetuated the problematic idea of the noble savage and, in the
process, distracted attention from the serious social, political, and economic problems faced by native
people.2
Today, anthropologists recognize that human cultures constantly change as people respond to social,
political, economic, and other external and internal influences—that there is no moment when a culture
is more authentic or more primitive. They acknowledge that culture is fluid and cannot be treated as
isolated in time and space. Just as we should not portray people as primitive vestiges of an earlier stage
of human development, we also should not romanticize a culture or idealize another’s suffering as more
authentic or natural.
Holism
In the throes of salvage ethnography, anthropologists in the first half of the twentieth century actively
documented anything and everything they could about the cultures they viewed as endangered. They
collected artifacts, excavated ancient sites, wrote dictionaries of non-literate languages, and docu-
mented cultural traditions, stories, and beliefs. In the United States, those efforts developed into what
is known today as the four-field approach or simply as general anthropology. This approach integrates
multiple scientific and humanistic perspectives into a single comprehensive discipline composed of cul-
tural, archaeological, biological/physical, and linguistic anthropology.
A hallmark of the four-field approach is its holistic perspective: anthropologists are interested in
studying everything that makes us human. Thus, they use multiple approaches to understanding
humans throughout time and throughout the world. They also acknowledge that to understand people
fully one cannot look solely at biology, culture, history, or language; rather, all of those things must be
considered. The interrelationships between the four subfields of anthropology are important for many
anthropologists today.
Linguistic anthropologists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf, for instance, examined interrelation-
ships between culture, language, and cognition. They argued that the language one speaks plays a criti-
cal role in determining how one thinks, particularly in terms of understanding time, space, and matter.
They proposed that people who speak different languages view the world differently as a result. In a
well-known example, Whorf contrasted the Hopi and English languages. Because verbs in Hopi con-
tained no future or past tenses, Whorf argued that Hopi-speakers understand time in a fundamentally
different way than English-speakers. An observation by an English-speaker would focus on the differ-
ence in time while an observation by a Hopi-speaker would focus on validity.3
53
A chart from a 1940 publication by Whorf illustrates differences between a “temporal” language (English) and a
“timeless” language (Hopi).
In another example, Peter Gordon spent many years living among the Pirahã tribe of Brazil learning
their language and culture. He noted that the Pirahã have only three words for numbers: one, two, and
many. He also observed that they found it difficult to remember quantities and numbers beyond three
even after learning the Portuguese words for such numbers.4
Pirahã Numerical Terms

In this short film, linguist Daniel Everett illustrates Pirahã numerical terms.
Although some scholars have criticized Whorf and Gordon’s conclusions as overly deterministic,
their work certainly illustrates the presence of a relationship between language and thought and
between cultural and biological influences. Words may not force people to think a particular way, but
they can influence our thought processes and how we view the world around us. The holistic perspec-
tive of anthropology helps us to appreciate that our culture, language, and physical and cognitive capac-
ities for language are interrelated in complex ways.
ETHNOGRAPHY TODAY
Anthropology’s Distinctive Research Strategy
Ethnography is cultural anthropology’s distinctive research strategy. It was originally developed by

anthropologists to study small-scale, relatively isolated cultural groups. Typically, those groups had rel-
atively simple economies and technologies and limited access to larger, more technologically advanced
societies. Early ethnographers sought to understand the entirety of a particular culture. They spent
months to years living in the community, and in that time, they documented in great detail every
dimension of people’s lives, including their language, subsistence strategies, political systems, formation
of families and marriages, and religious beliefs. This was important because it helped researchers appre-
ciate the interconnectedness of all dimensions of social life. The key to the success of this ethnographic
approach was not only to spend considerable time observing people in their home settings engaged in
day-to-day activities but also to participate in those activities. Participation informed an emic perspec-
tive of the culture, something that had been missing in earlier social science research.
Because of how useful the ethnographic research strategy is in developing an emic perspective, it has
been adopted by many other disciplines including sociology, education, psychology, and political sci-
ence. Education researchers, for example, use ethnography to study children in classrooms to identify
their learning strategies and how they understand and make sense of learning experiences. Sociologists
use ethnography to study emerging social movements and how participants in such movements stay
motivated and connected despite their sometimes-conflicting goals.
New Sites for Ethnographic Fieldwork
Like the cultures and peoples studied, anthropology and ethnography are evolving. Field sites for
ethnographic research are no longer exclusively located in far-flung, isolated, non-industrialized soci-
eties. Increasingly, anthropologists are conducting ethnographic research in complex, technologically
advanced societies such as the United States and in urban environments elsewhere in the world. For
instance, my doctoral research took place in the United States. I studied identity formation among
undocumented Mexican immigrant college students in Minnesota. Because some of my informants
were living in Mexico when my fieldwork ended, I also traveled to Veracruz, Mexico, and spent
time conducting research there. Often, anthropologists who study migration, diasporas, and people in
motion must conduct research in multiple locations. This is known as multi-sited ethnography.
Anthropologists use ethnography to study people wherever they are and however they interact with
others. Think of the many ways you ordinarily interact with your friends, family, professors, and boss.
Is it all face-to-face communication or do you sometimes use text messages to chat with your friends?
Do you also sometimes email your professor to ask for clarification on an assignment and then call your
boss to discuss your schedule? Do you share funny videos with others on Facebook and then later make
a Skype video call to a relative? These new technological “sites” of human interaction are fascinating to
many ethnographers and have expanded the definition of fieldwork.
Problem-Oriented Research
55
In the early years, ethnographers were interested in exploring the entirety of a culture. Taking an
inductive approach, they generally were not concerned about arriving with a relatively narrow prede-
fined research topic. Instead, the goal was to explore the people, their culture, and their homelands and
what had previously been written about them. The focus of the study was allowed to emerge gradually
during their time in the field. Often, this approach to ethnography resulted in rather general ethno-
graphic descriptions.
Today, anthropologists are increasingly taking a more deductive approach to ethnographic research.
Rather than arriving at the field site with only general ideas about the goals of the study, they tend to
select a particular problem before arriving and then let that problem guide their research. In my case, I
was interested in how undocumented Mexican immigrant youth in Minnesota formed a sense of iden-
tity while living in a society that used a variety of dehumanizing labels such as illegal and alien to refer
to them. That was my research “problem,” and it oriented and guided my study from beginning to end. I
did not document every dimension of my informants’ lives; instead, I focused on the things most closely
related to my research problem.
Quantitative Methods
Increasingly, cultural anthropologists are using quantitative research methods to complement qual-
itative approaches. Qualitative research in anthropology aims to comprehensively describe human
behavior and the contexts in which it occurs while quantitative research seeks patterns in numerical
data that can explain aspects of human behavior. Quantitative patterns can be gleaned from statistical
analyses, maps, charts, graphs, and textual descriptions. Surveys are a common quantitative technique
that usually involves closed-ended questions in which respondents select their responses from a list of
pre-defined choices such as their degree of agreement or disagreement, multiple-choice answers, and
rankings of items. While surveys usually lack the sort of contextual detail associated with qualitative
research, they tend to be relatively easy to code numerically and, as a result, can be easier to analyze
than qualitative data. Surveys are also useful for gathering specific data points within a large popula-
tion, something that is challenging to do with many qualitative techniques.
Anthropological nutritional analysis is an area of research that commonly relies on collecting quan-
titative data. Nutritional anthropologists explore how factors such as culture, the environment, and
economic and political systems interplay to impact human health and nutrition. They may count the
calories people consume and expend, document patterns of food consumption, measure body weight
and body mass, and test for the presence of parasite infections or nutritional deficiencies. In her ethnog-
raphy Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa (1993), Katherine Dettwyler described how she
conducted nutritional research in Mali, which involved weighing, measuring, and testing her research
subjects to collect a variety of quantitative data to help her understand the causes and consequences of
child malnutrition.
Mixed Methods
In recent years, anthropologists have begun to combine ethnography with other types of research
methods. These mixed-method approaches integrate qualitative and quantitative evidence to provide a
more comprehensive analysis. For instance, anthropologists can combine ethnographic data with ques-
tionnaires, statistical data, and a media analysis. Anthropologist Leo Chavez used mixed methods to
conduct the research for his book The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation
(2008). He started with a problem: how has citizenship been discussed as an identity marker in the
mainstream media in the United States, especially among those labeled as Latinos. He then looked for a
variety of types of data and relied on ethnographic case studies and on quantitative data from surveys
and questionnaires. Chavez also analyzed a series of visual images from photographs, magazine covers,
and cartoons that depicted Latinos to explore how they are represented in the American mainstream.
Mixed methods can be particularly useful when conducting problem-oriented research on complex,
technologically advanced societies such as the United States. Detailed statistical and quantitative data
are often available for those types of societies. Additionally, the general population is usually literate
and somewhat comfortable with the idea of filling out a questionnaire.
ETHNOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES AND PERSPECTIVES
Cultural Relativism and Ethnocentrism
The guiding philosophy of modern anthropology is cultural relativism—the idea that we should
seek to understand another person’s beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of their culture rather
than our own. Anthropologists do not judge other cultures based on their values nor view other cultural
ways of doing things as inferior. Instead, anthropologists seek to understand people’s beliefs within the
system they have for explaining things.
Cultural relativism is an important methodological consideration when conducting research. In the
field, anthropologists must temporarily suspend their own value, moral, and esthetic judgments and
seek to understand and respect the values, morals, and esthetics of the other culture on their terms. This
can be a challenging task, particularly when a culture is significantly different from the one in which
they were raised.
During my first field experience in Brazil, I learned firsthand how challenging cultural relativism
could be. Preferences for physical proximity and comfort talking about one’s body are among the first
differences likely to be noticed by U.S. visitors to Brazil. Compared to Americans, Brazilians generally
are much more comfortable standing close, touching, holding hands, and even smelling one another and
often discuss each other’s bodies. Children and adults commonly refer to each other using playful nick-
names that refer to their body size, body shape, or skin color. Neighbors and even strangers frequently
stopped me on the street to comment on the color of my skin (It concerned some as being overly pale or
pink—Was I ill? Was I sunburned?), the texture of my hair (How did I get it so smooth? Did I straighten
my hair?), and my body size and shape (“You have a nice bust, but if you lost a little weight around the
middle you would be even more attractive!”).
During my first few months in Brazil, I had to remind myself constantly that these comments were
not rude, disrespectful, or inappropriate as I would have perceived them to be in the United States. On
the contrary, it was one of the ways that people showed affection toward me. From a culturally rela-
tivistic perspective, the comments demonstrated that they cared about me, were concerned with my
well-being, and wanted me to be part of the community. Had I not taken a culturally relativistic view at
the outset and instead judged the actions based on my cultural perspective, I would have been contin-
ually frustrated and likely would have confused and offended people in the community. And offending
your informants and the rest of the community certainly is not conducive to completing high-qual-
57
ity ethnography! Had I not fully understood the importance of body contact and physical proximity in
communication in Brazil, I would have missed an important component of the culture.
Another perspective that has been rejected by anthropologists is ethnocentrism—the tendency to
view one’s own culture as most important and correct and as a stick by which to measure all other cul-
tures. People who are ethnocentric view their own cultures as central and normal and reject all other
cultures as inferior and morally suspect. As it turns out, many people and cultures are ethnocentric to
some degree; ethnocentrism is a common human experience. Why do we respond the way we do? Why
do we behave the way we do? Why do we believe what we believe? Most people find these kinds of ques-
tions difficult to answer. Often the answer is simply “because that is how it is done.” They believe what
they believe because that is what one normally believes and doing things any other way seems wrong.
Ethnocentrism is not a useful perspective in contexts in which people from different cultural back-
grounds come into close contact with one another, as is the case in many cities and communities
throughout the world. People increasingly find that they must adopt culturally relativistic perspectives
in governing communities and as a guide for their interactions with members of the community. For
anthropologists in the field, cultural relativism is especially important. We must set aside our innate
ethnocentrisms and let cultural relativism guide our inquiries and interactions with others so that our
observations are not biased. Cultural relativism is at the core of the discipline of anthropology.
Objectivity and Activist Anthropology
Despite the importance of cultural relativism, it is not always possible and at times is inappropriate
to maintain complete objectivity in the field. Researchers may encounter cultural practices that are an
affront to strongly held moral values or that violate the human rights of a segment of a population. In
other cases, they may be conducting research in part to advocate for a particular issue or for the rights
of a marginalized group.
Take, for example, the practice of female genital cutting (FGC), also known as female genital muti-
lation (FGM), a practice that is common in various regions of the world, especially in parts of Africa
and the Middle East. Such practices involving modification of female genitals for non-medical and cul-
tural reasons range from clitoridectomy (partial or full removal of the clitoris) to infibulation, which
involves removal of the clitoris and the inner and outer labia and suturing to narrow the vaginal open-
ing, leaving only a small hole for the passage of urine and menstrual fluid Anthropologists working in
regions where such practices are common often understandably have a strong negative opinion, view-
ing the practice as unnecessary medically and posing a risk of serious infection, infertility, and com-
plications from childbirth. They may also be opposed to it because they feel that it violates the right of
women to experience sexual pleasure, something they likely view as a fundamental human right. Should
the anthropologist intervene to prevent girls and women from being subjected to this practice?
Anthropologist Janice Boddy studied FGC/FGM in rural northern Sudan and sought to explain it
from a culturally relativistic perspective. She found that the practice persists, in part, because it is
believed to preserve a woman’s chastity and curb her sexual desire, making her less likely to have affairs
once she is married. Boddy’s research showed how the practice makes sense in the context of a culture
in which a woman’s sexual conduct is a symbol of her family’s honor, which is important culturally.5
Boddy’s relativistic explanation helps make the practice comprehensible and allows cultural outsiders
to understand how it is internally culturally coherent. But the question remains. Once anthropologists
understand why people practice FGC/FGM, should they accept it? Because they uncover the cultural
meaning of a practice, must they maintain a neutral stance or should they fight a practice viewed as an
injustice? How does an anthropologist know what is right?
Unfortunately, answers to these questions are rarely simple, and anthropologists as a group do
not always agree on an appropriate professional stance and responsibility. Nevertheless, examining
practices such as FGC/FGM can help us understand the debate over objectivity versus “activism”
in anthropology more clearly. Some anthropologists feel that striving for objectivity in ethnography
is paramount. That even if objectivity cannot be completely achieved, anthropologists’ ethnography
should be free from as much subjective opinion as possible. Others take the opposite stance and produce
anthropological research and writing as a means of fighting for equality and justice for disempowered
or voiceless groups. The debate over how much (if any) activism is acceptable is ongoing. What is clear
is that anthropologists are continuing to grapple with the contentious relationship between objectivity
and activism in ethnographic research.
Science and Humanism
Anthropologists have described their field as the most humanistic of the sciences and the most sci-
entific of the humanities. Early anthropologists fought to legitimize anthropology as a robust scien-
tific field of study. To do so, they borrowed methods and techniques from the physical sciences and
applied them to anthropological inquiry. Indeed, anthropology today is categorized as a social science in
most academic institutions in the United States alongside sociology, psychology, economics, and politi-
cal science. However, in recent decades, many cultural anthropologists have distanced themselves from
science-oriented research and embraced more-humanistic approaches, including symbolic and inter-
pretive perspectives. Interpretive anthropology treats culture as a body of “texts” rather than attempting
to test a hypothesis based on deductive or inductive reasoning. The texts present a particular picture
from a particular subjective point of view. Interpretive anthropologists believe that it is not necessary
(or even possible) to objectively interrogate a text. Rather, they study the texts to untangle the various
webs of meaning embedded in them. Consequently, interpretive anthropologists include the context
of their interpretations, their own perspectives and, importantly, how the research participants view
themselves and the meanings they attribute to their lives.
Anthropologists are unlikely to conclude that a single approach is best. Instead, anthropologists can
apply any and all of the approaches that best suit their particular problem. Anthropology is unique
among academic disciplines for the diversity of approaches used to conduct research and for the broad
range of orientations that fall under its umbrella.
Science in Anthropology
For a discussion of science in anthropology, see the following article published by the American Anthropological Association: AAA Responds to Pub-
lic Controversy Over Science in Anthropology.
Observation and Participant Observation
Of the various techniques and tools used to conduct ethnographic research, observation in general
and participant observation in particular are among the most important. Ethnographers are trained to
pay attention to everything happening around them when in the field—from routine daily activities
59
such as cooking dinner to major events such as an annual religious celebration. They observe how peo-
ple interact with each other, how the environment affects people, and how people affect the environ-
ment. It is essential for anthropologists to rigorously document their observations, usually by writing
field notes and recording their feelings and perceptions in a personal journal or diary.
As previously mentioned, participant observation involves ethnographers observing while they par-
ticipate in activities with their informants. This technique is important because it allows the researcher
to better understand why people do what they do from an emic perspective. Malinowski noted that par-
ticipant observation is an important tool by which “to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to
life, to realize his vision of his world.”6
To conduct participant observation, ethnographers must live with or spend considerable time with
their informants to establish a strong rapport with them. Rapport is a sense of trust and a comfortable
working relationship in which the informant and the ethnographer are at ease with each other and
agreeable to working together.
Participant observation was an important part of my own research. In 2003, I spent six months
living in two Mayan villages in highland Chiapas, Mexico. I was conducting ethnographic research on
behalf of the Science Museum of Minnesota to document changes in huipil textile designs. Huipiles (pro-
nounced “we-peel-ayes”) are a type of hand-woven blouse that Mayan women in the region weave and
wear, and every town has its own style and designs. At a large city market, one can easily identify the
town each weaver is from by the colors and designs of her huipiles. For hundreds of years, huipil designs
changed very little. Then, starting around 1960, the designs and colors of huipiles in some of the towns
began to change rapidly. I was interested in learning why some towns’ designs were changing more
rapidly than other towns’ were and in collecting examples of huipiles to supplement the museum’s exist-
ing collection.
I spent time in two towns, Zinacantán and San Andrés Larráinzar. Zinacantán was located near the
main city, San Cristóbal de las Casas. It received many tourists each year and had regularly established
bus and van routes that locals used to travel to San Cristóbal to buy food and other goods. Some of the
men in the town had worked in the United States and returned with money to build or improve their
family homes and businesses. Other families were supported by remittances from relatives working in
the United States or in other parts of Mexico. San Andrés, on the other hand, was relatively isolated
and much further from San Cristóbal. Most families there relied on subsistence farming or intermittent
agricultural labor and had limited access to tourism or to outside communities. San Andrés was also the
site of a major indigenous revolt in the mid-1990s that resulted in greater autonomy, recognition, and
rights for indigenous groups throughout Mexico. Politically and socially, it was a progressive commu-
nity in many ways but remained conservative in others.
I first asked people in Zinacantán why their huipil designs, motifs, and colors seemed to change
almost every year. Many women said that they did not know. Others stated that weaving was easy and
could be boring so they liked to make changes to keep the huipiles interesting and to keep weaving from
getting dull. When I asked people in San Andrés what they thought about what the women in Zinacan-
tán had said, the San Andrés women replied that “Yes, perhaps they do get bored easily. But we in San
Andrés are superior weavers and we don’t need to change our designs.” Neither response seemed like
the full story behind the difference.
Though I spent hundreds of hours observing women preparing to weave, weaving, and selling their
textiles to tourists, I did not truly understand what the women were telling me until I tried weaving
myself. When I watched them, the process seemed so easy and simple. They attached strings of thread
vertically to two ends of the back-strap looms. When weaving, they increased and decreased the ten-
sion on the vertical threads by leaning backward and forward with the back strap and teased individual
threads horizontally through the vertical threads to create the desired pattern. After each thread was
placed, they pushed it down with great force using a smooth, flat wooden trowel. They did the entire
process with great ease and fluidity. When I only watched and did not participate, I could believe the
Zinacantán women when they told me weaving was easy.
When I began to weave, it took me several days simply to learn how to sit correctly with a back-
strap loom and achieve the appropriate tension. I failed repeatedly at setting up the loom with vertically
strung threads and never got close to being able to create a design. Thus, I learned through participant
observation that weaving is an exceptionally difficult task. Even expert weavers who had decades of
experience sometimes made mistakes as half-finished weavings and rejected textiles littered many
homes. Although the women appeared to be able to multi-task while weaving (stoking the fire, calling
after small children, cooking food), weaving still required a great deal of concentration to do well.
Through participant observation, I was able to recognize that other factors likely drove the changes
in their textiles. I ultimately concluded that the rate of change in huipil design in Zinacantán was likely
related to the pace of cultural change broadly in the community resulting from interactions between its
residents and tourists and relatively frequent travel to a more-urban environment. Participant observa-
tion was an important tool in my research and is central to most ethnographic studies today.
Conversations and Interviews
Another primary technique for gathering ethnographic data is simply talking with people—from
casual, unstructured conversations about ordinary topics to formal scheduled interviews about a par-
ticular topic. An important element for successful conversations and interviews is establishing rapport
with informants. Sometimes, engaging in conversation is part of establishing that rapport. Ethnog-
raphers frequently use multiple forms of conversation and interviewing for a single research project
based on their particular needs. They sometimes record the conversations and interviews with an audio
recording device but more often they simply engage in the conversation and then later write down
everything they recall about it. Conversations and interviews are an essential part of most ethnographic
research designs because spoken communication is central to humans’ experiences.
Gathering Life Histories
Collecting a personal narrative of someone’s life is a valuable ethnographic technique and is often
combined with other techniques. Life histories provide the context in which culture is experienced
and created by individuals and describe how individuals have reacted, responded, and contributed to
changes that occurred during their lives. They also help anthropologists be more aware of what makes
life meaningful to an individual and to focus on the particulars of individual lives, on the tenor of their
experiences and the patterns that are important to them. Researchers often include life histories in their
ethnographic texts as a way of intimately connecting the reader to the lives of the informants.
The Genealogical Method
The genealogical (kinship) method has a long tradition in ethnography. Developed in the early years
of anthropological research to document the family systems of tribal groups, it is still used today to
61
discover connections of kinship, descent, marriage, and the overall social system. Because kinship and
genealogy are so important in many nonindustrial societies, the technique is used to collect data on
important relationships that form the foundation of the society and to trace social relationships more
broadly in communities.
When used by anthropologists, the genealogical method involves using symbols and diagrams to doc-
ument relationships. Circles represent women and girls, triangles represent men and boys, and squares
represent ambiguous or unknown gender. Equal signs between individuals represent their union or
marriage and vertical lines descending from a union represent parent-child relationships. The death of
an individual and the termination of a marriage are denoted by diagonal lines drawn across the shapes
and equal signs. Kinship charts are diagramed from the perspective of one person who is called the Ego,
and all of the relationships in the chart are based on how the others are related to the Ego. Individuals
in a chart are sometimes identified by numbers or names, and an accompanying list provides more-
detailed information.
Anthropological Kinship Chart Created by one of Katie Nelson’s Cultural Anthropology Students
Key Informants
Within any culture or subculture, there are always particular individuals who are more knowledge-
able about the culture than others and who may have more-detailed or privileged knowledge. Anthro-
pologists conducting ethnographic research in the field often seek out such cultural specialists to gain
a greater understanding of certain issues and to answer questions they otherwise could not answer.
When an anthropologist establishes a rapport with these individuals and begins to rely more on them
for information than on others, the cultural specialists are referred to as key informants or key cultural
consultants.
Key informants can be exceptional assets in the field, allowing the ethnographer to uncover the
meanings of behaviors and practices the researcher cannot otherwise understand. Key informants can
also help researchers by directly observing others and reporting those observations to the researchers,
especially in situations in which the researcher is not allowed to be present or when the researcher’s
presence could alter the participants’ behavior. In addition, ethnographers can check information they
obtained from other informants, contextualize it, and review it for accuracy. Having a key informant in
the field is like having a research ally. The relationship can grow and become enormously fruitful.
A famous example of the central role that key informants can play in an ethnographer’s research is a
man named Doc in William Foote Whyte’s Street Corner Society (1943). In the late 1930s, Whyte studied
social relations between street gangs and “corner boys” in a Boston urban slum inhabited by first- and
second-generation Italian immigrants. A social worker introduced Whyte to Doc and the two hit it off.
Doc proved instrumental to the success of Whyte’s research. He introduced Whyte to his family and
social group and vouched for him in the tight-knit community, providing access that Whyte could not
have gained otherwise.
Field Notes
Field notes are indispensable when conducting ethnographic research. Although making such notes
is time-consuming, they form the primary record of one’s observations. Generally speaking, ethnogra-
phers write two kinds of notes: field notes and personal reflections. Field notes are detailed descriptions
of everything the ethnographer observes and experiences. They include specific details about what hap-
pened at the field site, the ethnographer’s sensory impressions, and specific words and phrases used by
the people observed. They also frequently include the content of conversations the ethnographer had
and things the ethnographer overheard others say. Ethnographers also sometimes include their per-
sonal reflections on the experience of writing field notes. Often, brief notes are jotted down in a note-
book while the anthropologist is observing and participating in activities. Later, they expand on those
quick notes to make more formal field notes, which may be organized and typed into a report. It is com-
mon for ethnographers to spend several hours a day writing and organizing field notes.
Ethnographers often also keep a personal journal or diary that may include information about their
emotions and personal experiences while conducting research. These personal reflections can be as
important as the field notes. Ethnography is not an objective science. Everything researchers do and
experience in the field is filtered through their personal life experiences. Two ethnographers may expe-
rience a situation in the field in different ways and understand the experience differently. For this rea-
son, it is important for researchers to be aware of their reactions to situations and be mindful of how
their life experiences affect their perceptions. In fact, this sort of reflexive insight can turn out to be a
useful data source and analytical tool that improves the researcher’s understanding.
The work of anthropologist Renato Rosaldo provides a useful example of how anthropologists can
use their emotional responses to fieldwork situations to advance their research. In 1981, Rosaldo and
his wife, Michelle, were conducting research among the Ilongots of Northern Luzon in the Philippines.
Rosaldo was studying men in the community who engaged in emotional rampages in which they vio-
lently murdered others by cutting off their heads. Although the practice had been banned by the time
Rosaldo arrived, a longing to continue headhunting remained in the cultural psyche of the community.
Whenever Rosaldo asked a man why he engaged in headhunting, the answer was that rage and grief
caused him to kill others. At the beginning of his fieldwork, Rosaldo felt that the response was overly
simplistic and assumed that there had to be more to it than that. He was frustrated because he could not
uncover a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. Then, on October 11, 1981, Rosaldo’s wife was
walking along a ravine when she tripped, lost her footing, and fell 65 feet to her death, leaving Rosaldo
a grieving single father. In his essay “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage,” Rosaldo later wrote that it was
63
his own struggle with rage as he grieved for his wife that helped him truly grasp what the Ilongot men
meant when they described their grief and rage.
Only a week before completing the initial draft of an earlier version of this introduction, I rediscov-
ered my journal entry, written some six weeks after Michelle’s death, in which I made a vow to myself
about how I would return to writing anthropology, if I ever did so, by writing Grief and a Headhunter’s
Rage . . . My journal went on to reflect more broadly on death, rage, and headhunting by speaking of
my wish for the Ilongot solution; they are much more in touch with reality than Christians. So, I need
a place to carry my anger – and can we say a solution of the imagination is better than theirs? And can
we condemn them when we napalm villages? Is our rationale so much sounder than theirs? All this was
written in despair and rage.7
Only through the very personal and emotionally devastating experience of losing his wife was Ros-
aldo able to understand the emic perspective of the headhunters. The result was an influential and
insightful ethnographic account.
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Ethical Guidelines
From the earliest days of anthropology as a discipline, concern about the ethical treatment of people
who take part in studies has been an important consideration. Ethical matters are central to any
research project and anthropologists take their ethical responsibilities particularly seriously. As dis-
cussed throughout this chapter, anthropologists are oriented toward developing empathy for their
informants and understanding their cultures and experiences from an emic perspective. Many also have
a sense of personal responsibility for the well-being of the local people with whom they work in the
field.
The American Anthropological Association has developed a Code of Ethics that all anthropologists
should follow in their work. Among the many ethical responsibilities outlined in the code, doing no
harm, obtaining informed consent, maintaining subjects’ anonymity, and making the results of the
research accessible are especially important responsibilities.
Do No Harm
First and foremost, anthropologists must ensure that their involvement with a community does not
harm or embarrass their informants. Researchers must carefully consider any potential harm associ-
ated with the research, including legal, emotional, political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions,
and take steps to insulate their informants from such harm. Since it is not always possible to anticipate
every potential repercussion at the outset, anthropologists also must continually monitor their work to
ensure that their research design and methods minimize any risk.
Regrettably, the proscription to do no harm is a deceptively complex requirement. Despite their
best efforts, anthropologists have run into ethical problems in the field. Work by Napoleon Chagnon
among an isolated indigenous tribe of the Amazon, the Yonomami, is a well-known example of ethical
problems in anthropological research. In his groundbreaking ethnography Yanomamö: The Fierce People
(1968), Chagnon portrayed the Yanomami as an intensely violent and antagonistic people. The ethnog-
raphy was well received initially. However, not long after its publication, controversy erupted. Anthro-
pologists and other scholars have accused Chagnon of encouraging the violence he documented, staging
fights and scenes for documentary films and fabricating data.
Today, Do No Harm is a central ethical value in anthropology. However, it can be difficult to predict
every challenge one may encounter in the field or after the work is published. Anthropologists must
continually reevaluate their research and writing to ensure that it does not harm the informants or their
communities. Before fieldwork begins, researchers from universities, colleges, and institutions usually
must submit their research agendas to an institutional review board (IRB). IRBs review research plans
to ensure that the proposed studies will not harm human subjects. In many cases, the IRB is aware of the
unique challenges and promise of anthropological research and can guide the researcher in eliminating
or mitigating potential ethical problems.
Obtain Informed Consent
In addition to taking care to do no harm, anthropologists must obtain informed consent from all
of their informants before conducting any research. Informed consent is the informant’s agreement to
take part in the study. Originally developed in the context of medical and psychological research, this
ethical guideline is also relevant to anthropology. Informants must be aware of who the anthropologist
is and the research topic, who is financially and otherwise supporting the research, how the research
will be used, and who will have access to it. Finally, their participation must be optional and not coerced.
They should be able to stop participating at any time and be aware of and comfortable with any risks
associated with their participation.
In medical and psychological research settings in the United States, researchers typically obtain
informed consent by asking prospective participants to sign a document that outlines the research and
the risks involved in their participation, acknowledging that they agree to take part. In some anthropo-
logical contexts, however, this type of informed consent may not be appropriate. People may not trust
the state, bureaucratic processes, or authority, for example. Asking them to sign a formal legal-looking
document may intimidate them. Likewise, informed consent cannot be obtained with a signed docu-
ment if many in the community cannot read. The anthropologist must determine the most appropriate
way to obtain informed consent in the context of the particular research setting.
Maintain Anonymity and Privacy
Another important ethical consideration for anthropologists in the field is ensuring the anonymity
and privacy of informants who need such protection. When I did research among undocumented Mex-
ican immigrant college students, I recognized that my informants’ legal status put them at considerable
risk. I took care to use pseudonyms for all of the informants, even when writing field notes. In my writ-
ing, I changed the names of the informants’ relatives, friends, schools, and work places to protect them
from being identified. Maintaining privacy and anonymity is an important way for anthropologists to
ensure that their involvement does no harm.
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Make Results Accessible
Finally, anthropologists must always make their final research results accessible to their informants
and to other researchers. For informants, a written report in the researcher’s native language may not be
the best way to convey the results. Reports can be translated or the results can be converted into a more
accessible format. Examples of creative ways in which anthropologists have made their results available
include establishing accessible databases for their research data, contributing to existing databases, pro-
ducing films that portray the results, and developing texts or recommendations that provide tangible
assistance to the informants’ communities. Though it is not always easy to make research results acces-
sible in culturally appropriate ways, it is essential that others have the opportunity to review and benefit
from the research, especially those who participated in its creation.
WRITING ETHNOGRAPHY
Analysis and Interpretation of Research Findings
Once all or most of the fieldwork is complete, ethnographers analyze their data and research findings
before beginning to write. There are many techniques for data analysis from which to choose based on
the strategy and goals of the research. Regardless of the particular technique, data analysis involves a
systematic interpretation of what the researcher thinks the data mean. The ethnographer reviews all of
the data collected, synthesizes findings from the review, and integrates those findings with prior studies
on the topic. Once the analysis is complete, the ethnographer is ready to write an account of the field-
work.
Ethnographic Authority
In recent years, anthropologists have expressed concern about how ethnographies should be written
in terms of ethnographic authority: how ethnographers present themselves and their informants in text.
In a nonfiction text, the author is a mediator between readers and the topic and the text is written to
help readers understand an unfamiliar topic. In an ethnography, the topic is people, and people natu-
rally vary in terms of their thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and perspectives. That is, they have individual
voices. In the past, anthropologists commonly wrote ethnographic accounts as if they possessed the
ultimate most complete scientific knowledge on the topic. Subsequently, anthropologists began to chal-
lenge that writing style, particularly when it did not include the voices of their informants in the text
and analysis. Some of this criticism originated with feminist anthropologists who noted that women’s
experiences and perspectives frequently were omitted and misrepresented in this style of writing. Oth-
ers believed that this style of writing reinforced existing global power dynamics and privileges afforded
to Western anthropologists’ voices as most important.
Polyvocality
In response to criticisms about ethnographic authority, anthropologists have begun to include

polyvocality. A polyvocal text is one in which more than one person’s voice is presented, and its use can
range from ensuring that informants’ perspectives are presented in the text while still writing in the
researcher’s voice to including informants’ actual words rather than paraphrasing them and co-author-
ing the ethnography with an informant. A good example of polyvocality is anthropologist Ruth Behar’s
book Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza’s Story (1993). Behar’s book documents the life
story of a Mexican street peddler, Esperanza Hernández, and their unique friendship. Large sections of
the book are in Esperanza’s own words and discuss issues that are important to her. Behar also includes
pieces of her own life story and an anthropological analysis of Esperanza’s story.
By using polyvocality, researchers can avoid writing from the perspective of the ultimate ethno-
graphic authority. A polyvocal style also allows readers to be more involved in the text since they have
the opportunity to form their own opinions about the ethnographic data and perhaps even critique
the author’s analysis. It also encourages anthropologists to be more transparent when presenting their
methods and data.
Reflexivity
Reflexivity is another relatively new approach to ethnographic research and writing. Beginning in
the 1960s, social science researchers began to think more carefully about the effects of their life experi-
ences, status, and roles on their research and analyses. They began to insert themselves into their texts,
including information about their personal experiences, thoughts, and life stories and to analyze in the
accounts how those characteristics affected their research and analysis.
Adoption of reflexivity is perhaps the most significant change in how ethnography is researched and
written in the past 50 years. It calls on anthropologists to acknowledge that they are part of the world
they study and thus can never truly be objective. Reflexivity has also contributed to anthropologists’
appreciation of the unequal power dynamics of research and the effects those dynamics can have on
the results. Reflexivity reminds the ethnographer that there are multiple ways to interpret any given
cultural scenario. By acknowledging how their backgrounds affect their interpretations, anthropolo-
gists can begin to remove themselves from the throne of ethnographic authority and allow other, less-
empowered voices to be heard.
1. What is unique about ethnographic fieldwork and how did it emerge as a key strategy in anthropology?
2. How do traditional approaches to ethnographic fieldwork contrast with contemporary approaches?
3. What are some of the contemporary ethnographic fieldwork techniques and perspectives and why are they important to anthro-
pology?
4. What are some of the ethical considerations in doing anthropological fieldwork and why are they important?
5. How do anthropologists transform their fieldwork data into a story that communicates meaning? How are reflexivity and polyvo-
cality changing the way anthropologists communicate their work?
67
GLOSSARY
Contested identity: a dispute within a group about the collective identity or identities of the group.
Culture: a set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned and shared. Together, they form an all-
encompassing, integrated whole that binds people together and shapes their worldview and lifeways.
Deductive: reasoning from the general to the specific; the inverse of inductive reasoning. Deductive
research is more common in the natural sciences than in anthropology. In a deductive approach, the
researcher creates a hypothesis and then designs a study to prove or disprove the hypothesis. The results
of deductive research can be generalizable to other settings.
Diaspora: the scattering of a group of people who have left their original homeland and now live in
various locations. Examples of people living in the diaspora are Salvadorian immigrants in the United
States and Europe, Somalian refugees in various countries, and Jewish people living around the world.
Emic: a description of the studied culture from the perspective of a member of the culture or insider.
Ethnography: the in-depth study of the everyday practices and lives of a people.
Etic: a description of the studied culture from the perspective of an observer or outsider.
Indigenous: people who have continually lived in a particular location for a long period of time (prior
to the arrival of others) or who have historical ties to a location and who are culturally distinct from the
dominant population surrounding them. Other terms used to refer to indigenous people are aboriginal,
native, original, first nation, and first people. Some examples of indigenous people are Native Ameri-
cans of North America, Australian Aborigines, and the Berber (or Amazigh) of North Africa.
Inductive: a type of reasoning that uses specific information to draw general conclusions. In an induc-
tive approach, the researcher seeks to collect evidence without trying to definitively prove or disprove
a hypothesis. The researcher usually first spends time in the field to become familiar with the people
before identifying a hypothesis or research question. Inductive research usually is not generalizable to
other settings.
Key Informants: individuals who are more knowledgeable about their culture than others and who are
particularly helpful to the anthropologist.
Kinship: blood ties, common ancestry, and social relationships that form families within human
groups.
Land tenure: how property rights to land are allocated within societies, including how permissions are
granted to access, use, control, and transfer land.
Noble savage: an inaccurate way of portraying indigenous groups or minority cultures as innocent,
childlike, or uncorrupted by the negative characteristics of “civilization.”
Qualitative: anthropological research designed to gain an in-depth, contextualized understanding of
human behavior.
Quantitative: anthropological research that uses statistical, mathematical, and/or numerical data to
study human behavior.
Remittances: money that migrants laboring outside of the region or country send back to their home-
towns and families. In Mexico, remittances make up a substantial share of the total income of some
towns’ populations.
Thick description: a term coined by anthropologist Clifford Geertz in his 1973 book The Interpretation
of Cultures to describe a detailed description of the studied group that not only explains the behavior or
cultural event in question but also the context in which it occurs and anthropological interpretations of
it.
Undocumented: the preferred term for immigrants who live in a country without formal authorization
from the state. Undocumented refers to the fact that these people lack the official documents that would
legally permit them to reside in the country. Other terms such as illegal immigrant and illegal alien are
often used to refer to this population. Anthropologists consider those terms to be discriminatory and
dehumanizing. The word undocumented acknowledges the human dignity and cultural and political
ties immigrants have developed in their country of residence despite their inability to establish formal
residence permissions.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Katie Nelson is an instructor of anthropology at Inver Hills Community Col-

lege. Her research focuses on migration, identity, belonging, and citizenship(s) in human history and in
the contemporary United States, Mexico, and Morocco.
She received her B.A. in anthropology and Latin American studies from Macalester College, her M.A. in
anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, an M.A. in education and instructional
technology from the University of Saint Thomas, and her Ph.D. from CIESAS Occidente (Centro de
Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social –Center for Research and Higher Educa-
tion in Social Anthropology), based in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Katie views teaching and learning as central to her practice as an anthropologist and as mutually rein-
forcing elements of her professional life. She is the former chair of the Teaching Anthropology Interest
Group (2016–2018) of the General Anthropology Division of the American Anthropological Associa-
tion and currently serves as the online content editor for the Teaching and Learning Anthropology Journal.
She has contributed to several open access textbook projects, both as an author and an editor, and views
the affordability of quality learning materials as an important piece of the equity and inclusion puzzle
in higher education.See: http://perspectives.americananthro.org/ and https://textbooks.opensuny.org/
global-perspectives-on-gender/[/footn
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Behar, Ruth. Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza’s Story. Boston, MA: Beacon Press,
1993.
Boddy, Janice. Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2007.
Chagnon, Napoleon. Yanomamö: The Fierce People. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968.
69
Chavez, Leo. The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens and the Nation. Stanford: Stanford Uni-
versity Press, 2008.
Dettwyler, Katherine A. Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press,
2014
Frazer, James. The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion. London: Macmillian Press, 1894.
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books, 1973.
Gordon, Peter. “Numerical Cognition without Words: Evidence from Amazonia.” Science 306 no. 5695
(2004): 496–499.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in
the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. London: Kegan Paul 1922.
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization.
New York: William Morrow and Company, 1928.
Miner, Horace. “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.” American Anthropologist 58 no. 3 (1956): 503-507.
Nelson, Katherine. 2015. Between Citizenship and Alienage: Flexible Identity Among Informally Authorized
Mexican College Students in Minnesota, USA. PhD diss., CIESAS Occidente (Centro de Investigaciones
y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social – Institute for Research and Higher Education in Social
Anthropology).
Rosaldo, Renato. “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage” in Violence in War and Peace, edited by Nancy Scheper-
Hughes and Philippe I. Bourgois, 150-156. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. Saints, Scholars, Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland. Los Angeles, CA:
University of California Press, 1979.
Whorf, Benjamin Lee. “Science and Linguistics.” MIT Technology Review: 42 (1940): 229–248.
Whyte, William Foote. Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1993[1943].
Notes
1. Franz Boas, “Foreward,” in Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead (New York: William Morrow, 1928).
2. Examples of Curtis’ photography can be found in Edward Curtis, The North American Indian: The Photographic
Images (New York: Aperture, 2005).
3. Benjamin Lee Whorf, “Science and Linguistics,” MIT Technology Review 42 (1940): 229–248.
4. Peter Gordon, “Numerical Cognition Without Words: Evidence from Amazonia,” Science 306 no. 5695 (2004):
496-499.
5. Janice Bodd, Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press,
2007).
6. Bronislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archi-
pelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea (London: Kegan Paul, 1922), 25.
7. Renato Rosaldo, “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage,” in Violence in War and Peace, ed. Nancy Scheper-Hughes and
Philippe I. Bourgois (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 171.
4
LANGUAGE
Linda Light, California State University, Long Beach

[email protected]
Learning Objectives
• Explain the relationship between human language and culture.
• Identify the universal features of human languages and the design features that make them unique.
• Describe the structures of language: phonemes, morphemes, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
• Assess the relationship between language variations and ethnic or cultural identity.
• Explain how language is affected by social class, ethnicity, gender and other aspects of identity.
• Evaluate the reasons why languages change and efforts that can be made to preserve endangered languages.
THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN LANGUAGE TO HUMAN CULTURE
Students in my cultural anthropology classes are required to memorize a six-point thumbnail defi-
nition of culture, which includes all of the features most anthropologists agree are key to its essence.
Then, I refer back to the definition as we arrive at each relevant unit in the course. Here it is—with the
key features in bold type.
Culture is:
70
71
1. An integrated system of mental elements (beliefs, values, worldview, attitudes, norms), the behaviors motivated by those mental ele-
ments, and the material items created by those behaviors;
2. A system shared by the members of the society;
3. 100 percent learned, not innate;
4. Based on symbolic systems, the most important of which is language;
5. Humankind’s most important adaptive mechanism, and
6. Dynamic, constantly changing.
This definition serves to underscore the crucial importance of language to all human cultures. In fact,
human language can be considered a culture’s most important feature since complex human culture
could not exist without language and language could not exist without culture. They are inseparable
because language encodes culture and provides the means through which culture is shared and passed
from one generation to the next. Humans think in language and do all cultural activities using lan-
guage. It surrounds our every waking and sleeping moments, although we do not usually think about
its importance. For that matter, humans do not think about their immersion in culture either, much
as fish, if they were endowed with intelligence, would not think much about the water that surrounds
them. Without language and culture, humans would be just another great ape. Anthropologists must
have skills in linguistics so they can learn the languages and cultures of the people they study.
All human languages are symbolic systems that make use of symbols to convey meaning. A symbol is
anything that serves to refer to something else, but has a meaning that cannot be guessed because there
is no obvious connection between the symbol and its referent. This feature of human language is called
arbitrariness. For example, many cultures assign meanings to certain colors, but the meaning for a par-
ticular color may be completely different from one culture to another. Western cultures like the United
States use the color black to represent death, but in China it is the color white that symbolizes death.
White in the United States symbolizes purity and is used for brides’ dresses, but no Chinese woman
would ever wear white to her wedding. Instead, she usually wears red, the color of good luck. Words in
languages are symbolic in the same way. The word key in English is pronounced exactly the same as the
word qui in French, meaning “who,” and ki in Japanese, meaning “tree.” One must learn the language in
order to know what any word means.
THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF LANGUAGE
The human anatomy that allowed the development of language emerged six to seven million years
ago when the first human ancestors became bipedal—habitually walking on two feet. Most other mam-
mals are quadrupedal—they move about on four feet. This evolutionary development freed up the fore-
limbs of human ancestors for other activities, such as carrying items and doing more and more complex
things with their hands. It also started a chain of anatomical adaptations. One adaptation was a change
in the way the skull was placed on the spine. The skull of quadrupedal animals is attached to the spine
at the back of the skull because the head is thrust forward. With the new upright bipedal position of
pre-humans, the attachment to the spine moved toward the center of the base of the skull. This skeletal
change in turn brought about changes in the shape and position of the mouth and throat anatomy.
Humans have all the same organs in the mouth and
throat that the other great apes have, but the larynx, or
voice box (you may know it as the Adam’s apple), is in a
lower position in the throat in humans. This creates a
longer pharynx, or throat cavity, which functions as a
resonating and amplifying chamber for the speech
sounds emitted by the larynx. The rounding of the
shape of the tongue and palate, or the roof of the
mouth, enables humans to make a greater variety of
sounds than any great ape is capable of making (see Fig-
ure 1).
Speech is produced by exhaling air from the lungs,
which passes through the larynx. The voice is created
by the vibration of the vocal folds in the larynx when
they are pulled tightly together, leaving a narrow slit
for the air to pass through under pressure. The nar-
rower the slit, the higher the pitch of the sound pro-
Figure 1. Human Articulatory Anatomy duced. The sound waves in the exhaled air pass through
the pharynx then out through the mouth and/or the
nose. The different positions and movements of the articulators—the tongue, the lips, the jaw—produce
the different speech sounds.
Along with the changes in mouth and throat anatomy that made speech possible came a gradual
enlargement and compartmentalization of the brain of human ancestors over millions of years. The
modern human brain is among the largest, in proportion to body size, of all animals. This development
was crucial to language ability because a tremendous amount of brain power is required to process,
store, produce, and comprehend the complex system of any human language and its associated culture.
In addition, two areas in the left brain are specifically dedicated to the processing of language; no other
species has them. They are Broca’s area in the left frontal lobe near the temple, and Wernicke’s area, in
the temporal lobe just behind the left ear.
Language Acquisition in Childhood
Linguist Noam Chomsky proposed that all languages share the properties of what he called Univer-
sal Grammar (UG), a basic template for all human languages, which he believed was embedded in our
genes, hard-wiring the brains of all human children to acquire language. Although the theory of UG is
somewhat controversial, it is a fact that all normally developing human infants have an innate ability to
acquire the language or languages used around them. Without any formal instruction, children easily
acquire the sounds, words, grammatical rules, and appropriate social functions of the language(s) that
surround them. They master the basics by about age three or four. This also applies to children, both
deaf and hearing, who are exposed to signed language.
If a child is not surrounded by people who are using a language, that child will gradually lose the abil-
ity to acquire language naturally without effort. If this deprivation continues until puberty, the child
will no longer be biologically capable of attaining native fluency in any language, although they might
73
be able to achieve a limited competency. This phenomenon has been called the Critical Age Range
Hypothesis. A number of abused children who were isolated from language input until they were past
puberty provide stark evidence to support this hypothesis. The classic case of “Genie” is an example of
this evidence.1
Found at the age of almost 14, Genie had been confined for all of her life to her room and, since the
age of two, had been tied to a potty chair during the day and to a crib at night with almost no verbal
interaction and only minimal attention to her physical needs. After her rescue, a linguist worked with
her intensively for about five years in an attempt to help her learn to talk, but she never achieved lan-
guage competence beyond that of a two-year old child. The hypothesis also applies to the acquisition of
a second language. A person who starts the study of another language after puberty will have to exert a
great deal of effort and will rarely achieve native fluency, especially in pronunciation. There is plenty of
evidence for this in the U.S. educational system. You might very well have had this same experience. It
makes you wonder why our schools rarely offer foreign language classes before the junior high school
level.
The Gesture Call System and Non-Verbal Human Communication
All animals communicate and many animals make meaningful sounds. Others use visual signs, such
as facial expressions, color changes, body postures and movements, light (fireflies), or electricity (some
eels). Many use the sense of smell and the sense of touch. Most animals use a combination of two or
more of these systems in their communication, but their systems are closed systems in that they cannot
create new meanings or messages. Human communication is an open system that can easily create new
meanings and messages. Most animal communication systems are basically innate; they do not have to
learn them, but some species’ systems entail a certain amount of learning. For example, songbirds have
the innate ability to produce the typical songs of their species, but most of them must be taught how to
do it by older birds.
Great apes and other primates have rela-
tively complex systems of communication that
use varying combinations of sound, body lan-
guage, scent, facial expression, and touch.
Their systems have therefore been referred to
as a gesture-call system. Humans share a num-
ber of forms of this gesture-call, or non-verbal
system with the great apes. Spoken language
undoubtedly evolved embedded within it. All
human cultures have not only verbal languages,
Figure 2. Chimpanzees and other great apes use gesture-call communication systems.
but also non-verbal systems that are consistent
with their verbal languages and cultures and
vary from one culture to another. We will discuss the three most important human non-verbal commu-
nication systems.
Kinesics
Kinesics is the term used to designate all forms of human body language, including gestures, body
position and movement, facial expressions, and eye contact. Although all humans can potentially per-
form these in the same way, different cultures may have different rules about how to use them. For
example, eye contact for Americans is highly valued as a way to show we are paying attention and as a
means of showing respect. But for the Japanese, eye contact is usually inappropriate, especially between
two people of different social statuses. The lower status person must look down and avoid eye contact
to show respect for the higher status person.
Facial expressions can convey a host of messages, usually related to the person’s attitude or emotional
state. Hand gestures may convey unconscious messages, or constitute deliberate messages that can
replace or emphasize verbal ones.
Proxemics
Proxemics is the study of the social use of space, specifically the distance an individual tries to main-
tain around himself in interactions with others. The size of the “space bubble” depends on a number
of social factors, including the relationship between the two people, their relative status, their gender
and age, their current attitude toward each other, and above all their culture. In some cultures, such as
in Brazil, people typically interact in a relatively close physical space, usually along with a lot of touch-
ing. Other cultures, like the Japanese, prefer to maintain a greater distance with a minimum amount of
touching or none at all. If one person stands too far away from the other according to cultural stan-
dards, it might convey the message of emotional distance. If a person invades the culturally recognized
space bubble of another, it could mean a threat. Or, it might show a desire for a closer relationship. It all
depends on who is involved.
Paralanguage
Paralanguage refers to those characteristics of speech beyond the actual words spoken. These include
the features that are inherent to all speech: pitch, loudness, and tempo or duration of the sounds. Vary-
ing pitch can convey any number of messages: a question, sarcasm, defiance, surprise, confidence or
lack of it, impatience, and many other often subtle connotations. An utterance that is shouted at close
range usually conveys an emotional element, such as anger or urgency. A word or syllable that is held for
an undue amount of time can intensify the impact of that word. For example, compare “It’s beautiful”
versus It’s beauuuuu-tiful!” Often the latter type of expression is further emphasized by extra loudness
of the syllable, and perhaps higher pitch; all can serve to make a part of the utterance more important.
Other paralinguistic features that often accompany speech might be a chuckle, a sigh or sob, deliberate
throat clearing, and many other non-verbal sounds like “hm,” “oh,” “ah,” and “um.”
Most non-verbal behaviors are unconsciously performed and not noticed unless someone violates
the cultural standards for them. In fact, a deliberate violation itself can convey meaning. Other non-
verbal behaviors are done consciously like the U.S. gestures that indicate approval, such as thumbs up,
or making a circle with your thumb and forefinger—“OK.” Other examples are waving at someone or
putting a forefinger to your lips to quiet another person. Many of these deliberate gestures have dif-
ferent meanings (or no meaning at all) in other cultures. For example, the gestures of approval in U.S.
culture mentioned above may be obscene or negative gestures in another culture.
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Try this
this: As an experiment in the power of non-verbal communication, try violating one of the cultural rules for proxemics or eye contact with a
person you know. Choosing your “guinea pigs” carefully (they might get mad at you!), try standing or sitting a little closer or farther away from them
than you usually would for a period of time, until they notice (and they will notice). Or, you could choose to give them a bit too much eye contact, or
too little, while you are conversing with them. Note how they react to your behavior and how long it takes them to notice.
HUMAN LANGUAGE COMPARED WITH THE COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS OF OTHER

SPECIES
Human language is qualitatively and quantitatively different from the communication systems of all
other species of animals. Linguists have long tried to create a working definition that distinguishes it
from non-human communication systems. Linguist Charles Hockett’s solution was to create a hierar-
chical list of what he called design features, or descriptive characteristics, of the communication sys-
tems of all species, including that of humans.2 Those features of human language not shared with any
other species illustrate exactly how it differs from all other species.
Hockett’s Design Features

The communication systems of all species share the following features:
1. A mode of communication by which messages are transmitted through a system of signs, using one or more sensory systems to transmit
and interpret, such as vocal-auditory, visual, tactile, or kinesic;
2. Semanticity
Semanticity: the signs carry meaning for the users, and
3. Pragmatic function
function: all signs serve a useful purpose in the life of the users, from survival functions to influencing others’ behavior.
Some communication systems (including humans) also exhibit the following features:
4. Interchangeability: the ability of individuals within a species to both send and receive messages. One species that lacks this feature is the
honeybee. Only a female “worker bee” can perform the dance that conveys to her hive-mates the location of a newly discovered food source.
Another example is the mockingbird whose songs are performed only by the males to attract a mate and mark his territory.
5. Cultural transmission
transmission: the need for some aspects of the system to be learned through interaction with others, rather than being 100 per-
cent innate or genetically programmed. The mockingbird learns its songs from other birds, or even from other sounds in its environment that
appeal to it.
6. Arbitrariness
Arbitrariness: the form of a sign is not inherently or logically related to its meaning; signs are symbols. It could be said that the movements
in the honeybees’ dance are arbitrary since anyone who is not a honeybee could not interpret their meaning.
Only true human language also has the following characteristics:
7. Discreteness
Discreteness: every human language is made up of a small number of meaningless discrete sounds. That is, the sounds can be isolated
from each other, for purposes of study by linguists, or to be represented in a writing system.
8. Duality of patterning (two levels of combination): at the first level of patterning, these meaningless discrete sounds, called phonemes
phonemes, are
combined to form words and parts of words that carry meaning, or morphemes
morphemes. In the second level of patterning, morphemes are recombined to
form an infinite possible number of longer messages such as phrases and sentences according to a set of rules called syntax syntax. It is this level of
combination that is entirely lacking in the communication abilities of all other animals and makes human language an open system while all
other animal systems are closed.
9. Displacement
Displacement: the ability to communicate about things that are outside of the here and now made possible by the features of discreteness
and duality of patterning. While other species are limited to communicating about their immediate time and place, we can talk about any time in
the future or past, about any place in the universe, or even fictional places.
10. Productivity/creativity
Productivity/creativity: the ability to produce and understand messages that have never been expressed before or to express new ideas.
People do not speak according to prepared scripts, as if they were in a movie or a play; they create their utterances spontaneously, according to
the rules of their language. It also makes possible the creation of new words and even the ability to lie.
A number of great apes, including gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans, have been taught
human sign languages with all of the human design features. In each case, the apes have been able to
communicate as humans do to an extent, but their linguistic abilities are reduced by the limited cogni-
tive abilities that accompany their smaller brains.
UNIVERSALS OF LANGUAGE
Languages we do not speak or understand may sound like meaningless babble to us, but all the human
languages that have ever been studied by linguists are amazingly similar. They all share a number of
characteristics, which linguists call language universals. These language universals can be considered
properties of the Universal Grammar that Chomsky proposed. Here is a list of some of the major ones.
1. All human cultures have a human language and use it to communicate.
2. All human languages change over time, a reflection of the fact that all cultures are also con-
stantly changing.
3. All languages are systematic, rule driven, and equally complex overall, and equally capable of
expressing any idea that the speaker wishes to convey. There are no primitive languages.
4. All languages are symbolic systems.
5. All languages have a basic word order of elements, like subject, verb, and object, with varia-
tions.
6. All languages have similar basic grammatical categories such as nouns and verbs.
7. Every spoken language is made up of discrete sounds that can be categorized as vowels or
consonants.
8. The underlying structure of all languages is characterized by the feature duality of pattern-
ing, which permits any speaker to utter any message they need or wish to convey, and any
speaker of the same language to understand the message.
DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS: STRUCTURES OF LANGUAGE
The study of the structures of language is called descriptive linguistics. Descriptive linguists discover
and describe the phonemes of a language, research called phonology. They study the lexicon (the
vocabulary) of a language and how the morphemes are used to create new words, or morphology. They
analyze the rules by which speakers create phrases and sentences, or the study of syntax. And they look
at how these features all combine to convey meaning in certain social contexts, fields of study called
semantics and pragmatics.
The Sounds of Language: Phonemes
A phoneme is defined as the minimal unit of sound that can make a difference in meaning if substi-
tuted for another sound in a word that is otherwise identical. The phoneme itself does not carry mean-
77
ing. For example, in English if the sound we associate with the letter “p” is substituted for the sound of
the letter “b” in the word bit, the word’s meaning is changed because now it is pit, a different word with
an entirely different meaning. The human articulatory anatomy is capable of producing many hundreds
of sounds, but no language has more than about 100 phonemes. English has about 36 or 37 phonemes,
including about eleven vowels, depending on dialect. Hawaiian has only five vowels and about eight
consonants. No two languages have the same exact set of phonemes.
Linguists use a written system called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to represent the
sounds of a language. Unlike the letters of our alphabet that spell English words, each IPA symbol always
represents only one sound no matter the language. For example, the letter “a” in English can represent
the different vowel sounds in such words as cat, make, papa, law, etc., but the IPA symbol /a/ always and
only represents the vowel sound of papa or pop.
The Units That Carry Meaning: Morphemes
A morpheme is a minimal unit of meaning in a language; a morpheme cannot be broken down into
any smaller units that still relate to the original meaning. It may be a word that can stand alone, called
an unbound morpheme (dog, happy, go, educate). Or it could be any part of a word that carries mean-
ing that cannot stand alone but must be attached to another morpheme, bound morphemes. They may
be placed at the beginning of the root word, such as un– (“not,” as in unhappy), or re– (“again,” as in
rearrange). Or, they may follow the root, as in -ly (makes an adjective into an adverb: quickly from quick),
-s (for plural, possessive, or a verb ending) in English. Some languages, like Chinese, have very few if
any bound morphemes. Others, like Swahili have so many that nouns and verbs cannot stand alone as
separate words; they must have one or more other bound morphemes attached to them.
The Structure of Phrases and Sentences: Syntax
Rules of syntax tell the speaker how to put morphemes together grammatically and meaningfully.
There are two main types of syntactic rules: rules that govern word order, and rules that direct the use
of certain morphemes that perform a grammatical function. For example, the order of words in the
English sentence “The cat chased the dog” cannot be changed around or its meaning would change:
“The dog chased the cat” (something entirely different) or “Dog cat the chased the” (something mean-
ingless). English relies on word order much more than many other languages do because it has so few
morphemes that can do the same type of work.
For example, in our sentence above, the phrase “the cat” must go first in the sentence, because that is
how English indicates the subject of the sentence, the one that does the action of the verb. The phrase
“the dog” must go after the verb, indicating that it is the dog that received the action of the verb, or is its
object. Other syntactic rules tell us that we must put “the” before its noun, and “–ed” at the end of the
verb to indicate past tense. In Russian, the same sentence has fewer restrictions on word order because
it has bound morphemes that are attached to the nouns to indicate which one is the subject and which
is the object of the verb. So the sentence koshka [chased] sobaku, which means “the cat chased the dog,”
has the same meaning no matter how we order the words, because the –a on the end of koshka means
the cat is the subject, and the –u on the end of sobaku means the dog is the object. If we switched the
endings and said koshku [chased] sobaka, now it means the dog did the chasing, even though we haven’t
changed the order of the words. Notice, too, that Russian does not have a word for “the.”
Conveying Meaning in Language: Semantics and Pragmatics
The whole purpose of language is to communicate meaning about the world around us so the study
of meaning is of great interest to linguists and anthropologists alike. The field of semantics focuses on
the study of the meanings of words and other morphemes as well as how the meanings of phrases and
sentences derive from them. Recently linguists have been enjoying examining the multitude of mean-
ings and uses of the word “like” among American youth, made famous through the film Valley Girl in
1983. Although it started as a feature of California English, it has spread all across the country, and even
to many young second-language speakers of English. It’s, like, totally awesome dude!
The study of pragmatics looks at the social and cultural aspects of meaning and how the context of
an interaction affects it. One aspect of pragmatics is the speech act. Any time we speak we are perform-
ing an act, but what we are actually trying to accomplish with that utterance may not be interpretable
through the dictionary meanings of the words themselves. For example, if you are at the dinner table
and say, “Can you pass the salt?” you are probably not asking if the other person is capable of giving you
the salt. Often the more polite an utterance, the less direct it will be syntactically. For example, rather
than using the imperative syntactic form and saying “Give me a cup of coffee,” it is considered more
polite to use the question form and say “Would you please give me a cup of coffee?”
LANGUAGE VARIATION: SOCIOLINGUISTICS
Languages Versus Dialects
The number of languages spoken around the world is somewhat difficult to pin down, but we usually
see a figure between 6,000 and 7,000. Why are they so hard to count? The term language is commonly
used to refer to the idealized “standard” of a variety of speech with a name, such as English, Turkish,
Swedish, Swahili, or Urdu. One language is usually considered to be incomprehensible to speakers of
another one. The word dialect is often applied to a subordinate variety of a language and the common
assumption is that we can understand someone who speaks another dialect of our own language.
These terms are not really very useful to describe actual language variation. For example, many of the
hundreds of “dialects” spoken in China are very different from each other and are not mutually com-
prehensible to speakers of other Chinese “dialects.” The Chinese government promotes the idea that all
of them are simply variants of the “Chinese language” because it helps to promote national solidarity
and loyalty among Chinese people to their country and reduce regional factionalism. In contrast, the
languages of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway are considered separate languages, but actually if a Swede,
a Dane, and a Norwegian were to have a conversation together, each could use their own language and
understand most of what the others say. Does this make them dialects or languages? The Serbian and
Croatian languages are considered by their speakers to be separate languages due to distinct political
and religious cultural identities. They even employ different writing systems to emphasize difference,
but they are essentially the same and easily understandable to each other.
So in the words of linguist John McWhorter, actually “dialects is all there is.”3 What he means by
this is that a continuum of language variation is geographically distributed across populations in much
the same way that human physical variation is, with the degree of difference between any two vari-
eties increasing across increasing distances. This is the case even across national boundaries. Catalan,
79
the language of northeastern Spain, is closer to the languages of southern France, Provençal and Occi-
tan than any one is to its associated national language, Spanish or French. One language variety blends
with the next geographically like the colors of the rainbow. However, the historical influence of colo-
nizing states has affected that natural distribution. Thus, there is no natural “language” with variations
called “dialects.” Usually one variety of a language is considered the “standard,” but this choice is based
on the social and political prestige of the group that speaks that variety; it has no inherent superiority
over the other variants called its “dialects.” The way people speak is an indicator of who they are, where
they come from, and what social groups they identify with, as well as what particular situation they find
themselves in, and what they want to accomplish with a specific interaction.
How Does Language Variation Develop?
Why do people from different regions in the United States speak so differently? Why do they speak
differently from the people of England? A number of factors have influenced the development of Eng-
lish dialects, and they are typical causes of dialect variation in other languages as well.
Settlement patterns: The first English settlers to North America brought their own dialects with
them. Settlers from different parts of the British Isles spoke different dialects (they still do), and they
tended to cluster together in their new homeland. The present-day dialects typical of people in various
areas of the United States, such as New England, Virginia, New Jersey, and Delaware, still reflect these
original settlement sites, although they certainly have changed from their original forms.
Migration routes: After they first settled in the United States, some people migrated further west,
establishing dialect boundaries as they traveled and settled in new places.
Geographical factors: Rivers, mountains, lakes and islands affected migration routes and settlement
locations, as well as the relative isolation of the settlements. People in the Appalachian mountains and
on certain islands off the Atlantic coast were relatively isolated from other speakers for many years and
still speak dialects that sound very archaic compared with the mainstream.
Language contact: Interactions with other language groups, such as Native Americans, French, Span-
ish, Germans, and African-Americans, along paths of migration and settlement resulted in mutual bor-
rowing of vocabulary, pronunciation, and some syntax.
Have you ever heard of “Spanglish”? It is a form of Spanish spoken near the borders of the United
States that is characterized by a number of words adopted from English and incorporated into the
phonological, morphological and syntactic systems of Spanish. For example, the Spanish sentence Voy
a estationar mi camioneta, or “I’m going to park my truck” becomes in Spanglish Voy a parquear mi troca.
Many other languages have such English-flavored versions, including Franglais and Chinglish. Some
countries, especially France, actively try to prevent the incursion of other languages (especially English)
into their language, but the effort is always futile. People will use whatever words serve their purposes,
even when the “language police” disapprove. Some Franglais words that have invaded in spite of the
authorities protestations include the recently acquired binge-drinking, beach, e-book, and drop-out, while
older ones include le weekend and stop.
Region and occupation: Rural farming people may continue to use archaic expressions compared
with urban people, who have much more contact with contemporary life styles and diverse speech com-
munities.
Social class: Social status differences cut across all regional variations of English. These differences
reflect the education and income level of speakers.
Group reference: Other categories of group identity, including ethnicity, national origin of ances-
tors, age, and gender can be symbolized by the way we speak, indicating in-group versus out-group
identity. We talk like other members of our groups, however we define that group, as a means of main-
taining social solidarity with other group members. This can include occupational or interest-group
jargon, such as medical or computer terms, or surfer talk, as well as pronunciation and syntactic vari-
ations. Failure to make linguistic accommodation to those we are speaking to may be interpreted as a
kind of symbolic group rejection even if that dialect might be relatively stigmatized as a marker of a
disrespected minority group. Most people are able to use more than one style of speech, also called reg-
ister, so that they can adjust depending on who they are interacting with: their family and friends, their
boss, a teacher, or other members of the community.
Linguistic processes: New developments that promote the simplification of pronunciation or syn-
tactic changes to clarify meaning can also contribute to language change.
These factors do not work in isolation. Any language variation is the result of a number of social,
historical, and linguistic factors that might affect individual performances collectively and therefore
dialect change in a particular speech community is a process that is continual.
Try This
This: Which of these terms do you use, pop versus soda versus coke? Pail versus bucket? Do you say “vayse” or “vahze” for the vessel you put
flowers in? Where are you from? Can you find out where each term or pronunciation is typically used? Can you find other regional differences like
these?
What Is a “Standard” Variety of a Language?
The standard of any language is simply one of many variants that has been given special prestige in
the community because it is spoken by the people who have the greatest amount of prestige, power, and
(usually) wealth. In the case of English its development has been in part the result of the invention of the
printing press in the sixteenth-century and the subsequent increase in printed versions of the language.
This then stimulated more than a hundred years of deliberate efforts by grammarians to standardize
spelling and grammatical rules. Their decisions invariably favored the dialect spoken by the aristoc-
racy. Some of their other decisions were rather arbitrarily determined by standards more appropriate
to Latin, or even mathematics. For example, as it is in many other languages, it was typical among the
common people of the time (and it still is among the present-day working classes and in casual speech),
to use multiple negative particles in a sentence, like “I don’t have no money.” Those eighteenth-century
grammarians said we must use either don’t or no, but not both, that is, “I don’t have any money” or “I
have no money.” They based this on a mathematical rule that says that two negatives make a positive.
(When multiplying two signed negative numbers, such as -5 times -2, the result is 10.) These gram-
marians claimed that if we used the double negative, we would really be saying the positive, or “I have
money.” Obviously, anyone who utters that double-negative sentence is not trying to say that they have
money, but the rule still applies for standard English to this day.
Non-standard varieties of English, also known as vernaculars, are usually distinguished from the
standard by their inclusion of such stigmatized forms as multiple negatives, the use of the verb form
ain’t (which was originally the normal contraction of am not, as in “I ain’t,” comparable to “you aren’t,”
or “she isn’t”); pronunciation of words like this and that as dis and dat; pronunciation of final “–ing” as
“–in;” and any other feature that grammarians have decreed as “improper” English.
The standard of any language is a rather artificial, idealized form of language, the language of educa-
tion. One must learn its rules in school because it is not anyone’s true first language. Everyone speaks a
dialect, although some dialects are closer to the standard than others. Those that are regarded with the
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least prestige and respect in society are associated with the groups of people who have the least amount
of social prestige. People with the highest levels of education have greater access to the standard, but
even they usually revert to their first dialect as the appropriate register in the context of an informal
situation with friends and family. In other words, no language variety is inherently better or worse than
any other one. It is due to social attitudes that people label some varieties as “better” or “proper,” and
others as “incorrect” or “bad.” Recall Language Universal 3: “All languages are systematic, rule driven,
and equally complex overall, and equally capable of expressing any idea that the speaker wishes to con-
vey.”
In 1972 sociolinguist William Labov did an interesting study in which he looked at the pronunciation
of the sound /r/ in the speech of New Yorkers in two different department stores. Many people from
that area drop the /r/ sound in words like fourth and floor (fawth, floah), but this pronunciation is pri-
marily associated with lower social classes and is not a feature of the approved standard for English,
even in New York City. In two different contexts, an upscale store and a discount store, Labov asked
customers what floor a certain item could be found on, already knowing it was the fourth floor. He then
asked them to repeat their answer, as though he hadn’t heard it correctly. He compared the first with
the second answers by the same person, and he compared the answers in the expensive store versus
the cheaper store. He found 1) that the responders in the two stores differed overall in their pronun-
ciation of this sound, and 2) that the same person may differ between situations of less and more self-
consciousness (first versus second answer). That is, people in the upscale store tended to pronounce the
/r/, and responders in both stores tended to produce the standard pronunciation more in their second
answers in an effort to sound “higher class.” These results showed that the pronunciation or deletion of
/r/ in New York correlates with both social status and context.4
There is nothing inherently better or worse in either pronunciation; it depends entirely on the social
norms of the community. The same /r/ deletion that is stigmatized in New York City is the prestigious,
standard form in England, used by the upper class and announcers for the BBC. The pronunciation of
the /r/ sound in England is stigmatized because it is used by lower-status people in some industrial
cities.
It is important to note that almost everyone has access to a number of different language variations
and registers. They know that one variety is appropriate to use with some people in some situations,
and others should be used with other people or in other situations. The use of several language varieties
in a particular interaction is known as code-switching.
Try This
This: To understand the importance of using the appropriate register in a given context, the next time you are with a close friend or family
member try using the register, or style of speech, that you might use with your professor or a respected member of the clergy. What is your friend’s
reaction? I do not recommend trying the reverse experiment, using a casual vernacular register with such a respected person (unless they are also a
close friend). Why not?
Linguistic Relativity: The Whorf Hypothesis
In the 1920s, Benjamin Whorf was a graduate student studying with linguist Edward Sapir at Yale
University in New Haven, Connecticut. Sapir, considered the father of American linguistic anthropol-
ogy, was responsible for documenting and recording the languages and cultures of many Native Ameri-
can tribes, which were disappearing at an alarming rate. This was due primarily to the deliberate efforts
of the United States government to force Native Americans to assimilate into the Euro-American cul-
ture. Sapir and his predecessors were well aware of the close relationship between culture and language
because each culture is reflected in and influences its language. Anthropologists need to learn the lan-
guage of the culture they are studying in order to understand the world view of its speakers. Whorf
believed that the reverse is also true, that a language affects culture as well, by actually influencing how
its speakers think. His hypothesis proposes that the words and the structures of a language influence
how its speakers think about the world, how they behave, and ultimately the culture itself. (See our def-
inition of culture above.) Simply stated, Whorf believed that human beings see the world the way they
do because the specific languages they speak influence them to do so. He developed this idea through
both his work with Sapir and his work as a chemical engineer for the Hartford Insurance Company
investigating the causes of fires.
One of his cases while working for the insurance company was a fire at a business where there were a
number of gasoline drums. Those that contained gasoline were surrounded by signs warning employees
to be cautious around them and to avoid smoking near them. The workers were always careful around
those drums. On the other hand, empty gasoline drums were stored in another area, but employees
were more careless there. Someone tossed a cigarette or lighted match into one of the “empty” drums,
it went up in flames, and started a fire that burned the business to the ground. Whorf theorized that the
meaning of the word empty implied to the worker that “nothing” was there to be cautious about so the
worker behaved accordingly. Unfortunately, an “empty” gasoline drum may still contain fumes, which
are more flammable than the liquid itself.
Whorf’s studies at Yale involved working with Native American languages, including Hopi. The Hopi
language is quite different from English, in many ways. For example, let’s look at how the Hopi lan-
guage deals with time. Western languages (and cultures) view time as a flowing river in which we are
being carried continuously away from a past, through the present, and into a future. Our verb systems
reflect that concept with specific tenses for past, present, and future. We think of this concept of time
as universal, that all humans see it the same way. A Hopi speaker has very different ideas and the struc-
ture of their language both reflects and shapes the way they think about time. The Hopi language has
no present, past, or future tense. Instead, it divides the world into what Whorf called the manifested
and unmanifest domains. The manifested domain deals with the physical universe, including the pre-
sent, the immediate past and future; the verb system uses the same basic structure for all of them. The
unmanifest domain involves the remote past and the future, as well as the world of desires, thought, and
life forces. The set of verb forms dealing with this domain are consistent for all of these areas, and are
different from the manifested ones. Also, there are no words for hours, minutes, or days of the week.
Native Hopi speakers often had great difficulty adapting to life in the English speaking world when
it came to being “on time” for work or other events. It is simply not how they had been conditioned
to behave with respect to time in their Hopi world, which followed the phases of the moon and the
movements of the sun. In a book about the Abenaki who lived in Vermont in the mid-1800s, Trudy Ann
Parker described their concept of time, which very much resembled that of the Hopi and many of the
other Native American tribes. “They called one full day a sleep, and a year was called a winter. Each
month was referred to as a moon and always began with a new moon. An Indian day wasn’t divided
into minutes or hours. It had four time periods—sunrise, noon, sunset, and midnight. Each season was
determined by the budding or leafing of plants, the spawning of fish or the rutting time for animals.
Most Indians thought the white race had been running around like scared rabbits ever since the inven-
tion of the clock.”5
The lexicon, or vocabulary, of a language is an inventory of the items a culture talks about and has
categorized in order to make sense of the world and deal with it effectively. For example, modern life is
dictated for many by the need to travel by some kind of vehicle—cars, trucks, SUVs, trains, buses, etc.
83
We therefore have thousands of words to talk about them, including types of vehicles, models, brands,
or parts.
The most important aspects of each culture are similarly reflected in the lexicon of its language.
Among the societies living in the islands of Oceania in the Pacific, fish have great economic and cultural
importance. This is reflected in the rich vocabulary that describes all aspects of the fish and the environ-
ments that islanders depend on for survival. For example, in Palau there are about 1,000 fish species and
Palauan fishermen knew, long before biologists existed, details about the anatomy, behavior, growth
patterns and habitat of most of them—in many cases far more than modern biologists know even today.
Much of fish behavior is related to the tides and the phases of the moon. Throughout Oceania, the
names given to certain days of the lunar months reflect the likelihood of successful fishing. For example,
in the Caroline Islands, the name for the night before the new moon is otolol, which means “to swarm.”
The name indicates that the best fishing days cluster around the new moon. In Hawaiì and Tahiti two
sets of days have names containing the particle òle or òre; one occurs in the first quarter of the moon
and the other in the third quarter. The same name is given to the prevailing wind during those phases.
The words mean “nothing,” because those days were considered bad for fishing as well as planting.
Parts of Whorf’s hypothesis, known as linguistic relativity, were controversial from the beginning,
and still are among some linguists. Yet Whorf’s ideas now form the basis for an entire sub-field of cul-
tural anthropology: cognitive or psychological anthropology. A number of studies have been done that
support Whorf’s ideas. Linguist George Lakoff’s work looks at the pervasive existence of metaphors
in everyday speech that can be said to predispose a speaker’s world view and attitudes on a variety of
human experiences.6
A metaphor is an expression in which one kind of thing is understood and experienced in terms of
another entirely unrelated thing; the metaphors in a language can reveal aspects of the culture of its
speakers. Take, for example, the concept of an argument. In logic and philosophy, an argument is a
discussion involving differing points of view, or a debate. But the conceptual metaphor in American
culture can be stated as ARGUMENT IS WAR. This metaphor is reflected in many expressions of the
everyday language of American speakers: I won the argument. He shot down every point I made. They
attacked every argument we made. Your point is right on target. I had a fight with my boyfriend last
night. In other words, we use words appropriate for discussing war when we talk about arguments,
which are certainly not real war. But we actually think of arguments as a verbal battle that often involve
anger, and even violence, which then structures how we argue.
To illustrate that this concept of argument is not universal, Lakoff suggests imagining a culture where
an argument is not something to be won or lost, with no strategies for attacking or defending, but rather
as a dance where the dancers’ goal is to perform in an artful, pleasing way. No anger or violence would
occur or even be relevant to speakers of this language, because the metaphor for that culture would be
ARGUMENT IS DANCE.
LANGUAGE IN ITS SOCIAL SETTINGS: LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY
The way we speak can be seen as a marker of who we are and with whom we identify. We talk like
the other people around us, where we live, our social class, our region of the country, our ethnicity, and
even our gender. These categories are not homogeneous. All New Yorkers do not talk exactly the same;
all women do not speak according to stereotypes: all African-Americans do not speak an African-Amer-
ican dialect. No one speaks the same way in all situations and contexts, but there are some consistencies
in speaking styles that are associated with many of these categories.
Social Class
As discussed above, people can indicate social class by the way they speak. The closer to the standard
version their dialect is, the more they are seen as a member of a higher social class because the dialect
reflects a higher level of education. In American culture, social class is defined primarily by income and
net worth, and it is difficult (but not impossible) to acquire wealth without a high level of education.
However, the speech of people in the higher social classes also varies with the region of the country
where they live, because there is no single standard of American English, especially with respect to pro-
nunciation. An educated Texan will sound different from an educated Bostonian, but they will use the
standard version of English from their own region. The lower the social class of a community, the more
their language variety will differ from both the standard and from the vernaculars of other regions.
Ethnicity
An ethnicity, or ethnic group, is a group of people who identify with each other based on some combi-
nation of shared cultural heritage, ancestry, history, country of origin, language, or dialect.In the United
States such groups are frequently referred to as “races,” but there is no such thing as biological race, and
this misconception has historically led to racism and discrimination. Because of the social implications
and biological inaccuracy of the term “race,” it is often more accurate and appropriate to use the terms
ethnicity or ethnic group. A language variety is often associated with an ethnic group when its mem-
bers use language as a marker of solidarity. They may also use it to distinguish themselves from a larger,
sometimes oppressive, language group when they are a minority population.
A familiar example of an oppressed ethnic group with a distinctive dialect is African-Americans. They
have a unique history among minorities in the United States, with their centuries-long experience as
captive slaves and subsequent decades under Jim Crow laws. (These laws restricted their rights after
their emancipation from slavery.) With the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 and other laws, African-
Americans gained legal rights to access public places and housing, but it is not possible to eliminate
racism and discrimination only by passing laws; both still exist among the white majority. It is no longer
“politically correct” to openly express racism, but it is much less frowned upon to express negative atti-
tudes about African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). Typically, it is not the language itself that
these attitudes are targeting; it is the people who speak it.
As with any language variety, AAVE is a complex, rule-driven, grammatically consistent language
variety, a dialect of American English with a distinctive history. A widely accepted hypothesis of the
origins of AAVE is as follows. When Africans were captured and brought to the Americas, they brought
their own languages with them. But some of them already spoke a version of English called a pidgin.
A pidgin is a language that springs up out of a situation in which people who do not share a language
must spend extended amounts of time together, usually in a working environment. Pidgins are the only
exception to the Language Universal number 3 (all languages are systematic, rule driven, and equally
complex overall, and equally capable of expressing any idea that the speaker wishes to convey).
There are no primitive languages, but a pidgin is a simplified language form, cobbled together based
mainly on one core language, in this case English, using a small number of phonemes, simplified syn-
85
tactic rules, and a minimal lexicon of words borrowed from the other languages involved. A pidgin has
no native speakers; it is used primarily in the environment in which it was created. An English-based
pidgin was used as a common language in many areas of West Africa by traders interacting with people
of numerous language groups up and down the major rivers. Some of the captive Africans could speak
this pidgin, and it spread among them after the slaves arrived in North America and were exposed daily
to English speakers. Eventually, the use of the pidgin expanded to the point that it developed into the
original forms of what has been called a Black English plantation creole. A creole is a language that
develops from a pidgin when it becomes so widely used that children acquire it as one of their first lan-
guages. In this situation it becomes a more fully complex language consistent with Universal number 3.
All African-Americans do not speak AAVE, and people other than African-Americans also speak it.
Anyone who grows up in an area where their friends speak it may be a speaker of AAVE like the rap-
per Eminem, a white man who grew up in an African-American neighborhood in Detroit. Present-day
AAVE is not homogeneous; there are many regional and class variations. Most variations have several
features in common, for instance, two phonological features: the dropped /r/ typical of some New York
dialects, and the pronunciation of the “th” sound of words like this and that as a /d/ sound, dis and dat.
Most of the features of AAVE are also present in many other English dialects, but those dialects are not
as severely stigmatized as AAVE is. It is interesting, but not surprising, that AAVE and southern dialects
of white English share many features. During the centuries of slavery in the south, African-American
slaves outnumbered whites on most plantations. Which group do you think had the most influence on
the other group’s speech? The African-American community itself is divided about the acceptability
of AAVE. It is probably because of the historical oppression of African-Americans as a group that the
dialect has survived to this day, in resistance to the majority white society’s disapproval.
Language and Gender
In any culture that has differences in gender role expectations—and all cultures do—there are differ-
ences in how people talk based on their sex and gender identity. These differences have nothing to do
with biology. Children are taught from birth how to behave appropriately as a male or a female in their
culture, and different cultures have different standards of behavior. It must be noted that not all men
and women in a society meet these standards, but when they do not they may pay a social price. Some
societies are fairly tolerant of violations of their standards of gendered behavior, but others are less so.
In the United States, men are generally expected to speak in a low, rather monotone pitch; it is seen as
masculine. If they do not sound sufficiently masculine, American men are likely to be negatively labeled
as effeminate. Women, on the other hand, are freer to use their entire pitch range, which they often do
when expressing emotion, especially excitement. When a woman is a television news announcer, she
will modulate the pitch of her voice to a sound more typical of a man in order to be perceived as more
credible. Women tend to use minimal responses in a conversation more than men. These are the vocal
indications that one is listening to a speaker, such as m-hm, yeah, I see, wow, and so forth. They tend to
face their conversation partners more and use more eye contact than men. This is one reason women
often complain that men do not listen to them.
Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., has done
research for many years on language and gender. Her basic finding is that in conversation women tend
to use styles that are relatively cooperative, to emphasize an equal relationship, while men seem to talk
in a more competitive way in order to establish their positions in a hierarchy. She emphasizes that both
men and women may be cooperative and competitive in different ways.7
Other societies have very different standards for gendered speech styles. In Madagascar, men use a
very flowery style of talk, using proverbs, metaphors and riddles to indirectly make a point and to avoid
direct confrontation. The women on the other hand speak bluntly and say directly what is on their
minds. Both admire men’s speech and think of women’s speech as inferior. When a man wants to con-
vey a negative message to someone, he will ask his wife to do it for him. In addition, women control the
marketplaces where tourists bargain for prices because it is impossible to bargain with a man who will
not speak directly. It is for this reason that Malagasy women are relatively independent economically.
In Japan, women were traditionally expected to be subservient to men and speak using a “feminine”
style, appropriate for their position as wife and mother, but the Japanese culture has been changing in
recent decades so more and more women are joining the work force and achieving positions of relative
power. Such women must find ways of speaking to maintain their feminine identities and at the same
time express their authority in interactions with men, a challenging balancing act. Women in the United
States do as well, to a certain extent. Even Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of England, took speech
therapy lessons to “feminize” her language use while maintaining an expression of authority.
The Deaf Culture and Signed Languages
Deaf people constitute a linguistic minority in many societies worldwide based on their common
experience of life. This often results in their identification with a local Deaf culture. Such a culture may
include shared beliefs, attitudes, values, norms, and values, like any other culture, and it is invariably
marked by communication through the use of a sign language. It is not enough to be physically deaf
(spelled with a lower case “d”) to belong to a Deaf culture (written with a capital “D”). In fact, one does
not even need to be deaf. Identification with a Deaf culture is a personal choice. It can include fam-
ily members of deaf people or anyone else who associates with deaf people, as long as the community
accepts them. Especially important, members of Deaf culture are expected to be competent communi-
cators in the sign language of the culture. In fact, there have been profoundly deaf people who were not
accepted into the local Deaf community because they could not sign. In some deaf schools, at least in
the United States, the practice has been to teach deaf children how to lip read and speak orally, and to
prevent them from using a signed system. They were expected to blend in with the hearing community
as much as possible. This is called the oralist approach to education, but it is considered by members
of the Deaf community to be a threat to the existence of their culture. For the same reason, the devel-
opment of cochlear implants, which can restore hearing for some deaf children, has been controversial
in U.S. Deaf communities. The members often have a positive attitude toward their deafness and do not
consider it to be a disability. To them, regaining hearing represents disloyalty to the group and a desire
to leave it.
According to the World Federation of the Deaf, there are over 200 distinct sign languages in the
world, which are not mutually comprehensible. They are all considered by linguists to be true lan-
guages, consistent with linguistic definitions of all human languages. They differ only in the fact that
they are based on a gestural-visual rather than a vocal-auditory sensory mode. Each is a true language
with basic units comparable to phonemes but composed of hand positions, shapes, and movements, plus
some facial expressions. Each has its own unique set of morphemes and grammatical rules. American
Sign Language (ASL), too, is a true language separate from English; it is not English on the hands. Like
all other signed languages, it is possible to sign with a word-for-word translation from English, using
finger spelling for some words, which is helpful in teaching the deaf to read, but they prefer their own
language, ASL, for ordinary interactions. Of course, Deaf culture identity intersects with other kinds of
87
cultural identity, like nationality, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexual orientation, so each Deaf culture is
not only small but very diverse.
LANGUAGE CHANGE: HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
Recall the language universal stating that all languages change over time. In fact, it is not possible to
keep them from doing so. How and why does this happen? The study of how languages change is known
as historical linguistics. The processes, both historical and linguistic, that cause language change can
affect all of its systems: phonological, morphological, lexical, syntactic, and semantic.
Historical linguists have placed most of the languages of the world into taxonomies, groups of
languages classified together based on words that have the same or similar meanings. Language tax-
onomies create something like a family tree of languages. For example, words in the Romance family
of languages, called sister languages, show great similarities to each other because they have all derived
from the same “mother” language, Latin (the language of Rome). In turn, Latin is considered a “sister”
language to Sanskrit (once spoken in India and now the mother language of many of India’s modern
languages, and still the language of the Hindu religion) and classical Greek. Their “mother” language is
called “Indo-European,” which is also the mother (or grandmother!) language of almost all the rest of
European languages.
Let’s briefly examine the history of the English language as an example of these processes of change.
England was originally populated by Celtic peoples, the ancestors of today’s Irish, Scots, and Welsh. The
Romans invaded the islands in the first-century AD, bringing their Latin language with them. This was
the edge of their empire; their presence there was not as strong as it was on the European mainland.
When the Roman Empire was defeated in about 500 AD by Germanic speaking tribes from northern
Europe (the “barbarians”), a number of those related Germanic languages came to be spoken in vari-
ous parts of what would become England. These included the languages of the Angles and the Saxons,
whose names form the origin of the term Anglo-Saxon and of the name of England itself—Angle-land.
At this point, the languages spoken in England included those Germanic languages, which gradually
merged as various dialects of English, with a small influence from the Celtic languages, some Latin from
the Romans, and a large influence from Viking invaders. This form of English, generally referred to as
Old English, lasted for about 500 years. In 1066 AD, England was invaded by William the Conqueror
from Normandy, France. New French rulers brought the French language. French is a Latin-based lan-
guage, and it is by far the greatest source of the Latin-based words in English today; almost 10,000
French words were adopted into the English of the time period. This was the beginning of Middle Eng-
lish, which lasted another 500 years or so.
The change to Modern English had two main causes. One was the invention of the printing press in
the fifteenth-century, which resulted in a deliberate effort to standardize the various dialects of Eng-
lish, mostly in favor of the dialect spoken by the elite. The other source of change, during the fifteenth
and sixteenth-centuries, was a major shift in the pronunciation of many of the vowels. Middle English
words like hus and ut came to be pronounced house and out. Many other vowel sounds also changed in
a similar manner.
None of the early forms of English are easily recognizable as English to modern speakers. Here is an
example of the first two lines of the Lord’s Prayer in Old English, from 995 AD, before the Norman
Invasion:
Fæder ūre, ðū ðē eart on heofonum,

Sī ðīn nama gehālgod.
Here are the same two lines in Middle English, English spoken from 1066 AD until about 1500 AD.
These are taken from the Wycliffe Bible in 1389 AD:
Our fadir that art in heuenes,

halwid be thi name. 8
The following late Middle English/early Modern English version from the 1526 AD Tyndale Bible,
shows some of the results of grammarians’ efforts to standardize spelling and vocabulary for wider dis-
tribution of the printed word due to the invention of the printing press:
O oure father which arte in heven,

halowed be thy name.
And finally, this example is from the King James Version of the Bible, 1611 AD, in the early Modern
English language of Shakespeare. It is almost the same archaic form that modern Christians use.
Our father which art in heauen,

hallowed be thy name.
Over the centuries since the beginning of Modern English, it has been further affected by exposure to
other languages and dialects worldwide. This exposure brought about new words and changed mean-
ings of old words. More changes to the sound systems resulted from phonological processes that may
or may not be attributable to the influence of other languages. Many other changes, especially in recent
decades, have been brought about by cultural and technological changes that require new vocabulary to
deal with them.
Try This
This: Just think of all the words we use today that have either changed their primary meanings, or are completely new: mouse and mouse pad,
google, app, computer (which used to be a person who computes!), texting, cool, cell, gay. How many more can you think of?
GLOBALIZATION AND LANGUAGE
Globalization is the spread of people, their cultures and languages, products, money, ideas, and infor-
mation around the world. Globalization is nothing new; it has been happening throughout the exis-
tence of humans, but for the last 500 years it has been increasing in its scope and pace, primarily due
to improvements in transportation and communication. Beginning in the fifteenth-century, English
explorers started spreading their language to colonies in all parts of the world. English is now one of
the three or four most widely spoken languages. It has official status in at least 60 countries, and it is
widely spoken in many others. Other colonizers also spread their languages, especially Spanish, French,
Portuguese, Arabic, and Russian. Like English, each has its regional variants. One effect of colonization
has often been the suppression of local languages in favor of the language of the more powerful colo-
nizers.
In the past half century, globalization has been dominated by the spread of North American popular
89
culture and language to other countries. Today it is difficult to find a country that does not have Amer-
ican music, movies and television programs, or Coca Cola and McDonald’s, or many other artifacts of
life in the United States, and the English terms that go with them.
In addition, people are moving from rural areas to cities in their own countries, or they are migrating
to other countries in unprecedented numbers. Many have moved because they are refugees fleeing vio-
lence, or they found it increasingly difficult to survive economically in their own countries. This mass
movement of people has led to the on-going extinction of large numbers of the world’s languages as
people abandon their home regions and language in order to assimilate into their new homes.
Language Shift, Language Maintenance, and Language Death
Of the approximately 6,000 languages still surviving today, about half the world’s more than seven
billion people speak only ten. These include Mandarin Chinese, two languages from India, Spanish,
English, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, and German. Many of the rest of the world’s languages
are spoken by a few thousand people, or even just a few hundred, and most of them are threatened with
extinction, called language death. It has been predicted that by the end of this century up to 90 percent
of the languages spoken today will be gone. The rapid disappearance of so many languages is of great
concern to linguists and anthropologists alike. When a language is lost, its associated culture and unique
set of knowledge and worldview are lost with it forever. Remember Whorf’s hypothesis. An interesting
website shows short videos of the last speakers of several endangered languages, including one speak-
ing an African “click language.”
Some minority languages are not threatened with extinction, even those that are spoken by a rela-
tively small number of people. Others, spoken by many thousands, may be doomed. What determines
which survive and which do not? Smaller languages that are associated with a specific country are likely
to survive. Others that are spoken across many national boundaries are also less threatened, such as
Quechua, an indigenous language spoken throughout much of South America, including Colombia,
Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina. The great majority of the world’s languages are spoken by
people with minority status in their countries. After all, there are only about 193 countries in the world,
and over 6,000 languages are spoken in them. You can do the math.
The survival of the language of a given speech community is ultimately based on the accumulation
of individual decisions by its speakers to continue using it or to abandon it. The abandonment of a
language in favor of a new one is called language shift. These decisions are usually influenced by the
society’s prevailing attitudes. In the case of a minority speech community that is surrounded by a more
powerful majority, an individual might keep or abandon the native language depending on a complex
array of factors. The most important factors will be the attitudes of the minority people toward them-
selves and their language, and the attitude of the majority toward the minority.
Language represents a marker of identity, an emblem of group membership and solidarity, but that
marker may have a downside as well. If the majority look down on the minority as inferior in some
way and discriminates against them, some members of the minority group may internalize that attitude
and try to blend in with the majority by adopting the majority’s culture and language. Others might
more highly value their identity as a member of that stigmatized group, in spite of the discrimination by
the majority, and continue to speak their language as a symbol of resistance against the more powerful
group. One language that is a minority language when spoken in the United States and that shows no
sign of dying out either there or in the world at large, is Spanish. It is the primary language in many
countries and in the United States it is by far the largest minority language.
A former student of mine, James Kim (pic-

tured in Figure 3 as a child with his brother),
illustrates some of the common dilemmas a
child of immigrants might go through as he
loses his first language. Although he was born
in California, he spoke only Korean for the first
six years of his life. Then he went to school,
where he was the only Korean child in his class.
He quickly learned English, the language of
instruction and the language of his classmates.
Under peer pressure, he began refusing to
Figure 3. James Kim with his brother.
speak Korean, even to his parents, who spoke
little English. His parents tried to encourage
him to keep his Korean language and culture by
sending him to Korean school on Saturdays, but soon he refused to attend. As a college student, James
began to regret the loss of the language of his parents, not to mention his relationship with them. He
tried to take a college class in Korean, but it was too difficult and time consuming. After consulting with
me, he created a six-minute radio piece, called “First Language Attrition: Why My Parents and I Don’t
Speak the Same Language,” while he was an intern at a National Public Radio station. He interviewed
his parents in the piece and was embarrassed to realize he needed an interpreter.9 Since that time, he
has started taking Korean lessons again, and he took his first trip to Korea with his family during the
summer of 2014. He was very excited about the prospect of reconnecting with his culture, with his first
language, and especially with his parents.
The Korean language as a whole is in no danger of extinction, but many Korean speaking communi-
ties of immigrants in the United States, like other minority language groups in many countries, are hav-
ing difficulty maintaining their language and culture. Those who are the most successful live in large,
geographically coherent neighborhoods; they maintain closer ties to their homeland by frequent visits,
telephone, and email contact with relatives. There may also be a steady stream of new immigrants from
the home country. This is the case with most Spanish speaking communities in the United States, but it
is less so with the Korean community.10
Another example of an oppressed minority group that has struggled with language and culture loss
is Native Americans. Many were completely wiped out by the European colonizers, some by deliber-
ate genocide but the great majority (up to 90 percent) by the diseases that the white explorers brought
with them, against which the Native Americans had no immunity. In the twentieth-century, the Amer-
ican government stopped trying to kill Native Americans but instead tried to assimilate them into the
white majority culture. It did this in part by forcing Native American children to go to boarding schools
where they were required to cut their hair, practice Christianity, and speak only English. When they
were allowed to go back home years later, they had lost their languages and their culture, but had not
become culturally “white” either. The status of Native Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth-cen-
turies as a scorned minority prompted many to hide their ethnic identities even from their own chil-
dren. In this way, the many hundreds of original Native American languages in the United States have
dwindled to less than 140 spoken today, according to UNESCO. More than half of those could disap-
pear in the next few years, since many are spoken by only a handful of older members of their tribes.
However, a number of Native American tribes have recently been making efforts to revive their lan-
guages and cultures, with the help of linguists and often by using texts and old recordings made by early
linguists like Edward Sapir.
91
Revitalization of Indigenous Languages
A fascinating example of a tribal language revitalization program is that of the Wampanoag tribe in
Massachusetts. The Wampanoag were the Native Americans who met the Puritans when they landed at
Plymouth Rock, helped them survive the first winter, and who were with them at the first Thanksgiv-
ing. The contemporary descendants of that historic tribe still live in Massachusetts, but bringing back
their language was not something Wampanoag people had ever thought possible because no one had
spoken it for more than a century.
A young Wampanoag woman named Jessie
Little Doe Baird (pictured in Figure 4 with her
daughter Mae) was inspired by a series of
dreams in which her ancestors spoke to her in
their language, which she of course did not
understand. She eventually earned a master’s
degree in Algonquian linguistics at Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology in Boston and
launched a project to bring her language back
from the dead. This process was made possible
by the existence of a large collection of docu-
ments, including copies of the King James
Figure 4. Jessie Little Doe Baird with daughter Mae. Photo courtesy of Cultural Survival Bible, written phonetically in Wampanoag dur-
and Make Peace Productions
ing the seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries.
She also worked with speakers of languages
related to the Algonquian family to help in the reconstruction of the language. The community has
established a school to teach the language to the children and promote its use among the entire com-
munity. Her daughter Mae is among the first new native speakers of Wampanoag.11
How Is the Digital Age Changing Communication?
The invention of the printing press in the fifteenth-century was just the beginning of technological
transformations that made the spread of information in European languages and ideas possible across
time and space using the printed word. Recent advances in travel and digital technology are rapidly
transforming communication; now we can be in contact with almost anyone, anywhere, in seconds.
However, it could be said that the new age of instantaneous access to everything and everyone is actu-
ally continuing a social divide that started with the printing press.
In the fifteenth-century, few people could read and write, so only the tiny educated minority were
in a position to benefit from printing. Today, only those who have computers and the skills to use
them, the educated and relatively wealthy, have access to this brave new world of communication. Some
schools have adopted computers and tablets for their students, but these schools are more often found
in wealthier neighborhoods. Thus, technology is continuing to contribute to the growing gap between
the economic haves and the have-nots.
There is also a digital generation gap between the young, who have grown up with computers, and the
older generations, who have had to learn to use computers as adults. These two generations have been
referred to as digital natives and digital immigrants.12 The difference between the two groups can be
compared to that of children versus adults learning a new language; learning is accomplished much
more easily by the young.
Computers, and especially social media, have made it possible for millions of people to connect with
each other for purposes of political activism, including “Occupy Wall Street” in the United States and
the “Arab Spring” in the Middle East. Some anthropologists have introduced computers and cell phones
to the people they studied in remote areas, and in this way they were able to stay in contact after finish-
ing their ethnographic work. Those people, in turn, were now able to have greater access to the outside
world.
Facebook and Twitter are becoming key elements in the survival of a number of endangered indige-
nous languages. Facebook is now available in over 70 languages, and Twitter in about 40 languages. For
example, a website has been created that seeks to preserve Anishinaabemowin, an endangered Native
American language from Michigan. The language has 8,000-10,000 speakers, but most of the native
speakers are over 70 years old, which means the language is threatened with extinction. Modern social
media are an ideal medium to help encourage young people to communicate in their language to keep
it alive.13 Clearly, language and communication through modern technology are in the forefront of a
rapidly changing world, for better or for worse. It’s anybody’s guess what will happen next.
• How do you think modern communication technologies like cell phones and computers are changing how people communicate?
Is the change positive or negative?
• How is language related to social and economic inequality? Do you think that attitudes about language varieties have affected
you and/or your family?
• How has the use of specific terms in the news helped to shape public opinion? For example, what are the different implications of
the terms terrorist versus freedom fighter? Downsizing versus firing staff at a company? Euphemistic terms used in reference to war
include friendly fire, pacification, collateral damage? Can you think of other examples?
• Think about the different styles you use when speaking to your siblings and parents, your friends, your significant other, your professors,
your grandparents. What are some of the specific differences among these styles? What do these differences indicate about the power
relationships between you and others?
GLOSSARY
Arbitrariness: the relationship between a symbol and its referent (meaning), in which there is no obvi-
ous connection between them.
Bound morpheme: a unit of meaning that cannot stand alone; it must be attached to another mor-
pheme.
Closed system: a form of communication that cannot create new meanings or messages; it can only
convey pre-programmed (innate) messages.
Code-switching: using two or more language varieties in a particular interaction.
Creole: a language that develops from a pidgin when the pidgin becomes so widely used that children
acquire it as one of their first languages. Creoles are more fully complex than creoles.
Critical age range hypothesis: research suggesting that a child will gradually lose the ability to acquire
language naturally and without effort if he or she is not exposed to other people speaking a language
until past the age of puberty. This applies to the acquisition of a second language as well.
93
Cultural transmission: the need for some aspects of the system to be learned; a feature of some species’
communication systems.
Design features: descriptive characteristics of the communication systems of all species, including that
of humans, proposed by linguist Charles Hockett to serve as a definition of human language.
Dialect: a variety of speech. The term is often applied to a subordinate variety of a language. Speakers
of two dialects of the same language do not necessarily always understand each other.
Discreteness: a feature of human speech that they can be isolated from others.
Displacement: the ability to communicate about things that are outside of the here and now.
Duality of patterning: at the first level of patterning, meaningless discrete sounds of speech are com-
bined to form words and parts of words that carry meaning. In the second level of patterning, those
units of meaning are recombined to form an infinite possible number of longer messages such as
phrases and sentences.
Gesture-call system: a system of non-verbal communication using varying combinations of sound,
body language, scent, facial expression, and touch, typical of great apes and other primates, as well as
humans.
Historical linguistics: the study of how languages change.
Interchangeability: the ability of all individuals of the species to both send and receive messages; a fea-
ture of some species’ communication systems.
Kinesics: the study of all forms of human body language.
Language: an idealized form of speech, usually referred to as the standard variety.
Language death: the total extinction of a language.
Language shift: when a community stops using their old language and adopts a new one.
Language universals: characteristics shared by all linguists.
Larynx: the voice box, containing the vocal bands that produce the voice.
Lexicon: the vocabulary of a language.
Linguistic relativity: the idea that the structures and words of a language influence how its speakers
think, how they behave, and ultimately the culture itself (also known as the Whorf Hypothesis).
Middle English: the form of the English language spoken from 1066 AD until about 1500 AD.
Minimal response: the vocal indications that one is listening to a speaker.
Modern English: the form of the English language spoken from about 1500 AD to the present.
Morphemes: the basic meaningful units in a language.
Morphology: the study of the morphemes of language.
Old English: English language from its beginnings to about 1066 AD.
Open system: a form of communication that can create an infinite number of new messages; a feature
of human language only.
Oralist approach: an approach to the education of deaf children that emphasizes lip reading and speak-
ing orally while discouraging use of signed language.
Palate: the roof of the mouth.
Paralanguage: those characteristics of speech beyond the actual words spoken, such as pitch, loudness,
tempo.
Pharynx: the throat cavity, located above the larynx.
Phonemes: the basic meaningless sounds of a language.
Phonology: the study of the sounds of language.
Pidgin: a simplified language that springs up out of a situation in which people who do not share a lan-
guage must spend extended amounts of time together.
Pragmatic function: the useful purpose of a communication. Usefulness is a feature of all species’ com-
munication systems.
Pragmatics: how social context contributes to meaning in an interaction.
Productivity/creativity: the ability to produce and understand messages that have never been
expressed before.
Proxemics: the study of the social use of space, including the amount of space an individual tries to
maintain around himself in his interactions with others.
Register: a style of speech that varies depending on who is speaking to whom and in what context.
Semanticity: the meaning of signs in a communication system; a feature of all species’ communication
systems.
Semantics: how meaning is conveyed at the word and phrase level.
Speech act: the intention or goal of an utterance; the intention may be different from the dictionary
definitions of the words involved.
Standard: the variant of any language that has been given special prestige in the community.
Symbol: anything that serves to refer to something else.
Syntax: the rules by which a language combines morphemes into larger units.
Taxonomies: a system of classification.
Universal grammar (UG): a theory developed by linguist Noam Chomsky suggesting that a basic tem-
plate for all human languages is embedded in our genes.
Unbound morpheme: a morpheme that can stand alone as a separate word.
Vernaculars: non-standard varieties of a language, which are usually distinguished from the standard
by their inclusion of stigmatized forms.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Linda Light has been a lecturer in linguistic and cultural anthropology at California
State University Long Beach since 1995. During much of that period she also taught as adjunct profes-
sor at Cypress College, Santa Ana College, Rancho Santiago College, and Golden West College, all in
Orange County, California. She was a consultant to Coastline Community College District in the pro-
duction of thirty-five educational videos that were used in three series, including the cultural anthro-
pology series Our Diverse World. Her main areas of interest have been indigenous language loss and
maintenance, language and gender, and first language attrition in the children of immigrants.
Notes
1. You can find a documentary film about Genie via Google or YouTube under the title Genie, Secret of the Wild
Child, a NOVA production.
2. Adapted here from Nick Cipollone, Steven Keiser, and Shravan Vasishth, Language Files (Columbus: Ohio State
University Press 1998), 20-23.
3. John McWhorter, The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language (New York: Times Books, Henry Holt, 2001),
53.
4. William Labov, The Social Stratification of English in New York City (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
95
1964).
5. Trudy Ann Parker, Aunt Sarah, Woman of the Dawnland (Lancaster, NH, Dawnland Publications 1994), 56.
6. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press,
1980), 4-5.
7. For more information see Deborah Tannen, Gender and Discourse (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1996).
Or, Deborah Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (New York: Harper Collins,
2010).
8. From Wikipedia: History of the Lord’s Prayer in English.
9. You can hear the 6-minute piece at http://www.scpr.org/programs/offramp/2012/04/05/25912/first-language-
attrition-why-my-parents-and-i-dont/
10. From François Grosjean, Life with Two Languages: An Introduction to Bilingualism (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1982), chapter two.
11. Filmmaker Anne Makepeace created a documentary of the story, called We Still Live Here: Âs Nutayuneân, which
PBS broadcast in 2010. You can watch the clips from the video online.
12. Terms first coined by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Native
(New York, Basic Books, 2008).
13. Lydia Emmanouilidou, For Rare Languages, Social Media Provide New Hope. http://www.npr.org/sections/all-
techconsidered/2014/07/26/333732206/for-rare-languages-social-media-provide-new-hope
5
SUBSISTENCE
Isaac Shearn, Community College of Baltimore County

[email protected]
http://ccbcmd.academia.edu/IsaacShearn
Learning Objectives
• Identify the four modes of subsistence and describe the major activities associated with obtaining food in each system.
• Explain the difference between wild and domesticated resources and how plants and animals are domesticated.
• Explain the relationship between the subsistence system used in a society and the amount of private property or wealth differ-
ences that develop.
• Assess the ways in which subsistence systems are linked to expectations about gender roles.
• Categorize the social and economic characteristics associated with agriculture and describe the benefits and drawbacks of the
agricultural subsistence system.
• Analyze the ways in which the global agricultural system separates producers from consumers and contributes to wealth differ-
ences.
• Appraise the ways in which human intervention in the environment has made it difficult to separate the “natural” from the human-
influenced environment.
Think about the last meal you ate. Where did the ingredients come from? If it was a cheeseburger,
where did the cow live and die? Now think about all the food you consume in a normal week. Can you
identify the geographic origin of all the ingredients? In other words, how much do you know about the
trip your food took to arrive at your plate? How much you know about where your food comes from
would tell an anthropologist something about the subsistence system used in your community. A sub-
sistence system is the set of practices used by members of a society to acquire food. If you are like me
96
97
and you cannot say much about where your food comes from, then you are part of an agricultural soci-
ety that separates food production from consumption, a recent development in the history of humans.
People who come from non-agricultural societies have a more direct connection to their food and are
likely to know where 100 percent of their food comes from.
Finding food each day is a necessity for every person no matter where that person lives, but food is
not just a matter of basic survival. Humans assign symbolic meaning to food, observing cultural norms
about what is considered “good” to eat and applying taboos against the consumption of other foods.
Catholics may avoid meat during Lent, for instance, while Jewish and Islamic communities forbid the
consumption of certain foods such as pork. In addition to these attitudes and preferences, every society
has preferred methods for preparing food and for consuming it with others. The cultural norms and
attitudes surrounding food and eating are known as foodways. By studying both the subsistence system
used by a society to acquire food and the foodway associated with consuming it, anthropologists gain
insight into the most important daily tasks in every society.
STUDYING SUBSISTENCE SYSTEMS
Since the need to eat is one of the few true human universals, anthropologists have studied subsis-
tence systems from a variety of perspectives. One way to think about the importance of food for human
populations is to consider the number of calories an individual must obtain every day in order to sur-
vive. Anthropologists use the term carrying capacity to quantify the number of calories that can be
extracted from a particular unit of land to support a human population. In his 1798 publication An Essay
on the Principle of Population, Thomas Malthus argued, “the power of population is indefinitely greater
than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.”1 He suggested that human populations
grow at an exponential rate, meaning the population climbs at a rate that is constantly increasing. How-
ever, the availability of resources in the environment increases at only an arithmetic rate, which means
that left unchecked human populations would soon outstrip the environment’s ability to provide sus-
tenance. Malthus famously argued that war, famine, and disease were “good” or at least “functional” in
the sense that they kept populations from growing too large.
While Malthus presented a grim view of
humanity’s future, research suggests that the
rate of human population growth, currently
about one percent per year, is actually slowing.
It is also not necessarily true that population
growth has an entirely negative impact on
human communities. The Danish economist
Ester Boserup, for example, argued that human
history reveals a connection between popula-
tion growth and cultural innovation, particu-
Figure 1: Carrying Capacity: The area in the orange box, which is not under cultivation, larly innovation in farming techniques.
might provide enough resources for a family of four to survive for a year. An equivalent
area, marked by the blue box, could provide enough resources for a significantly larger
Because necessity is the mother of invention,
population under intensive agricultural cultivation. she reasoned, the pressure of having more
mouths to feed could be the dynamic that dri-
ves societies to develop new solutions. 2
Modern anthropological studies of subsistence systems draw on insights and perspectives from sev-
eral different fields, including biology, chemistry, and ecology, as well as a range of ethnographic
techniques. This interdisciplinary perspective allows for cross-cultural comparison of human diets. In
several decades of anthropological research on subsistence systems, anthropologists have observed that
the quest for food affects almost every aspect of daily life. For instance, every person plays a role in soci-
ety as a producer, distributor, or consumer of food. In the journey of a fish from the sea to the plate, for
instance, we can see that in some societies, the same person can fill more than one of those roles, while
in other societies there is more specialization. In a small fishing village, the same person might catch the
fish, distribute some extra to friends and family, and then consume the bounty that same day. In a city,
the consumer of the fish at a fancy restaurant is not the same person who caught the fish. In fact, that
person almost certainly has no knowledge who caught, cleaned, distributed, and prepared the fish he or
she is consuming. The web of social connections that we can trace through subsistence provide a very
particular kind of anthropological insight into how societies function at their most basic level.
Figure 2: These images show how fish are harvested in two different subsistence systems. Consider the amount of investment and labor that went into
the development of technologies that make mass fish farming, or aquaculture, possible compared to fishing with simple nets.
MODES OF SUBSISTENCE
Like all human systems, a society’s subsistence system is intricately linked to other aspects of culture
such as kinship, politics, and religion. Although we can study these systems in isolation, it is important
to remember that in the real world all aspects of culture overlap in complex ways. Consider harvest rit-
uals, for example, which are religious ceremonies focused on improving the food supply. These rituals
are shaped by religious beliefs as well as the demands and challenges of obtaining food. Likewise, sub-
sistence systems are the economic base of every society. Working to put food on the table is the essential
task of every family or household, and this work is the basis of a domestic economy that interacts with
the modes of production and modes of exchange described in the Economics chapter.
When anthropologists first began to examine subsistence systems, they started like all scientists do,
with classification. Early on, anthropologists saw the benefit of grouping similar societies into types, or
categories, based on the range of practices they used in the quest for food. These groupings allowed for
comparisons between cultures. At a basic level, societies can be divided into those that have an imme-
diate return system for finding food and those that use a delayed return system. The residents of a
small fishing village who eat the fish they catch each day have an immediate return on their labor. Farm-
99
ers who must wait several months between the time they plant seeds and the time they harvest have a
delayed return system.
Beyond this basic division, anthropologists recognize four general types of food system known as
modes of subsistence. The four modes of subsistence are foraging, pastoralism, horticulture, and agri-
culture. Each mode is defined by the tasks involved in obtaining food as well as the way members of
the society are organized socially to accomplish these tasks. Because each mode of subsistence is tai-
lored to particular ecological conditions, we can think of each culture’s subsistence system as an adapta-
tion, or a set of survival strategies uniquely developed to suit a particular environment. Because culture
shapes the way we view and interact with the environment, different societies can adapt to similar
environments in different ways. Foraging, sometimes known as hunting and gathering, describes soci-
eties that rely primarily on “wild” plant and animal food resources. Pastoralism is a subsistence sys-
tem in which people raise herds of domesticated livestock. Horticulture is the small-scale cultivation of
crops intended primarily for subsistence. Agriculture, the subsistence system used in the United States,
involves the cultivation of domesticated plants and animals using technologies that allow for intensive
use of the land. Can all societies be categorized neatly into one of these modes? No. In fact, almost every
society combines one or more of these strategies into their subsistence practices. For example, in the
United States there are individuals who participate in all of these subsistence modes, including foraging.
When anthropologists analyze a subsistence system, they look for the dominant mode of subsistence,
or the most typical way that members of a society procure food. So, while some people in the United
States grow their own food or hunt wild animals, the dominant mode of subsistence is agriculture, and
people obtain food primarily by purchasing it.
Foraging
“Why should we plant, when there are so many mongongos in the world?”
-/Xashe, !Kung forager3
Foraging is a mode of subsistence defined by its reliance on wild plant and animal food resources
already available in the environment rather than on domesticated species that have been altered by
human intervention. Foragers use a remarkable variety of practices to procure meals. Hunting for ani-
mal protein is central to the foraging lifestyle and foragers capture and consume a wide variety of ani-
mals, from squirrels caught with a bow and arrow or blow dart to buffalo once killed by the dozens in
communal hunts. Fishing for marine resources forms the basis for acquiring protein in many foraging
communities and includes a range of practices from exploiting coastal shellfish and crab, to harvesting
offshore resources such as deep sea fish and marine mammals such as whales and seals. Augmenting
the protein from hunting or fishing, gathered wild plant resources, such as fruits, nuts, roots, tubers,
and berries typically provide a large percentage of the calories that go into any meal. Gathering requires
expert knowledge of where plant resource can be found, when they will be best to harvest, and how to
prepare them for consumption. Foraging is the only immediate return subsistence system.
Foraging societies tend to have what is called a broad spectrum diet: a diet based on a wide range
of resources. Many of the foods regularly eaten by foragers, such as insects and worms, would not nec-
essarily be considered edible by many people in the United States. For example, many people do not
know that earthworms are a good source of iron and high-quality protein, roughly equivalent to eggs,
but that is exactly what anthropologists learned by studying the diet of foraging societies in Venezuela.4
Foragers are scientists of their own ecosystems, having acquired extensive knowledge of the natural
world through experience that allows them to exploit many kinds of food resources. The Aché, a forag-
ing group living in the subtropical rainforest in Paraguay, eat 33 different kinds of mammals, more than
15 species of fish, the adult forms of 5 insects, 10 types of larvae, and at least 14 kinds of honey. This is
in addition to finding and collecting 40 species of plants.5 The !Kung foragers, who live in the Kalahari
Desert in southern Africa, treasure the mongongo nut, which is tasty, high in protein, and abundant for
most of the year, but they also hunt giraffes, six species of antelope, and many kinds of smaller game
like porcupine.6
In general, foraging societies are small, with low population densities of less than 5 people per square
mile. Large families and communities are not necessarily desirable since more mouths to feed can
equate to increased pressure to find food. Another factor that contributes to a lower population den-
sity is the fact that it is more difficult for the young and the elderly to participate in food procurement.
Children only gradually acquire the skills necessary to successfully find food and generally do not make
significant contributions to the group until their teenage years. Likewise, elders who can no longer pro-
duce enough food themselves expect to be cared for by others.7
One important hallmark of foraging societies is their egalitarian social structure. Stark differences in
wealth, which characterize many societies, are rare in foraging communities. One reason for this is that
foragers have a different perspective on private property. Foraging societies tend to move their camps
frequently to exploit various resources, so holding on to a lot of personal possessions or “wealth” is
impractical. Foragers also place a high cultural value on generosity. Sharing of food and other resources
is a social norm and a measure of a person’s goodness. Those who resist sharing what they have with
others will be ridiculed, or could even become social outcasts.8 Over the long term, daily habits of giv-
ing and receiving reinforce social equality. This practice is also an important survival strategy that helps
groups get through times of food scarcity.
Though foragers have high levels of social equality, not everyone is treated exactly the same. Gender
inequality exists in many communities and develops from the fact that work among foragers is often
divided along gender lines. Some jobs, such as hunting large animals, belong to men whose success in
hunting gives them high levels of respect and prestige. While women do hunt in many communities
and often contribute the majority of the group’s food through gathering, their work tends not to be as
socially prestigious.9 Likewise, elders in foraging communities tend to command respect and enjoy a
higher social status, particularly if they have skills in healing or ritual activities.
Rule-Breaking Foragers
Nomadic lifestyles are the norm for most foragers, but there have been some societies that have bro-
ken this rule and developed large-scale sedentary societies. This was possible in areas with abundant
natural resources, most often fish. Historically, fishing formed the foundation of large-scale foraging
societies in Peru, the Pacific Northwest (the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw), and Florida (the Calusa). These societies
all developed advanced fishing technologies that provided enough food surplus that some people could
stop participating in food procurement activities.
The Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw of the Pacific Northwest provide an excellent example. In that region, the
salmon that spawn in the rivers are so abundant that they could support sedentary populations of a size
that would normally be associated with intensive agriculture. Because there was a surplus of food, some
members of society were able to pursue other full-time occupations or specializations such as working
as artisans or even becoming “chiefs.” This led to wealth differences and social inequality that would
not normally be found in a foraging community. Conscious of the corrosive effect of wealth and sta-
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tus differences on their community, the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw developed a tradition of potlatch, a kind of
“extreme gift-giving” to neutralize some of these tensions.
Assessing the Foraging Lifestyle
In 1651, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes became one of the first scholars to comment on
foragers, describing their lifestyle as “nasty, brutish, and short.” We now realize that his viewpoint was
colored by ethnocentrism and, more specifically, Eurocentrism. Hobbes, as well as many scholars that
came after him, viewed Western societies as the pinnacle of social evolution and viewed less technolog-
ically advanced societies as deficient, antiquated, or primitive, a perspective that persisted well into the
twentieth century.
In the 1960s, the anthropological perspective on foragers changed when Marshall Sahlins suggested
that these communities were “the original affluent society.” He argued that foragers had an idyllic life,
in which only a small percentage of the day was spent “working,” or acquiring resources, and most of
the day was spent in leisure and socializing, leading to stronger community and family bonds:
Hunter-gatherers consume less energy per capita per year than any other group of human beings. Yet
when you come to examine it the original affluent society was none other than the hunter’s—in which
all the people’s material wants were easily satisfied. To accept that hunters are affluent is therefore to
recognize that the present human condition of man slaving to bridge the gap between his unlimited
wants and his insufficient means is a tragedy of modern times.10
Today anthropologists recognize that foraging, far from being primitive, is one of the most effective
and dynamic subsistence systems humans have ever developed, yet Sahlins’ conception of the original
affluent society is overly romantic. Foraging is a challenging lifestyle; some groups spend up to 70 hours
per week collecting food. The amount of leisure time and relative comfort of the foraging lifestyle vary
significantly based on differences in the availability of food and environmental conditions.11
Contemporary studies of foraging also recognize that foragers have rarely lived in isolation.
Throughout the world, foragers have lived near farming populations for hundreds or even thousands
of years. Conflicts and competition for resources with non-foraging societies have characterized the
foraging experience and foragers, with their relatively small population size and limited technology,
have often been on the losing end of these confrontations. Government policies containing foragers to
small “reservation” areas or forcing them to settle in towns have had catastrophic effects on foragers, as
has the destruction through agricultural and industrial development of the ecosystems on which many
groups once depended. A sad worldwide pattern of exploitation and marginalization is the reason that
many foragers today live in dwindling communities in marginal ecological zones.12
The Built Environment and Domesticated Landscapes
None of us live in a natural environment. Current research on the causes of global climate change
have demonstrated that humans are having a profound effect on the Earth and its ecosystems, but
it would be a mistake to conclude that human effects on the environment are a recent development.
Humans have been making environmental alterations for a long time and we have been engaged in a
process of domesticating the planet for several thousand years. For this reason, no part of the planet can
really be considered 100 percent “natural.” When anthropologists study subsistence, they gain a win-
dow into the ways in which cultures have co-evolved with their environments, a field of study known as
historical ecology. Analysis of the ways in which cultures and the environment are mutually intercon-
nected, demonstrates that there is no way to separate the “natural” world from the human-influenced
world, or what anthropologists refer to as the built environment.
This can be seen by considering the historical ecology of the Nukak, a group of foragers who live
in the Amazon rainforest near the headwaters of the Rio Negro along the southern border between
Colombia and Venezuela and whose subsistence demonstrates the blurry line between foraging and
agriculture and “natural” and “domesticated.” The Nukak are a small linguistic and ethnic group who
are part of the larger culture known as Makú. The Nukak were the last among the Makú to be contacted
by the outside world and perhaps owing to this fact, they practice the most “traditional” way of life. The
Nukak were not known to the public at large until 1988, when a group of 41 individuals came in con-
tact with a school in the rural town of Calamar, in southeastern Colombia.
The Nukak are a highly mobile group of foragers who make an average of between 70 and 80 residen-
tial moves a year. The frequency of their moves changes seasonally: infrequent short-distance moves
in the wet season, and more frequent long-distance moves occurring in the dry season. Anthropologist
Gustavo Politis, who spent years living with the Nukak, observed that the Nukak will never occupy the
same camp twice, even if they are moving to an area where an old camp is still in good shape. When
they establish a camp, they remove all the light brush and some of the medium-sized trees, leaving a few
medium-sized trees and all the large trees intact.
Due to the selective nature of the forest clearing, a habitat, which can most readily be described as
a “wild orchard,” is produced. This wild orchard offers nearly perfect conditions for the germination
and growth of seeds because the large trees provide enough shade to prevent the invasion of vines and
shrubs. As the Nukak use the camp and consume fruit they have gathered, they discard the uneaten por-
tions, including the seeds. Significantly, the kinds of fruit the Nukak tend to eat in their camps are the
ones that have hard outer seed cases. Once discarded in a Nukak campsite, these seeds have a higher
chance of germinating and growing in the abandoned camp than they do in other parts of the rainforest.
The result is that Nukak territory is peppered with wild orchards that have high concentrations of edi-
ble plants, and the forest reflects a pattern of human intervention long after the Nukak have departed.13
The Nukak are an important case study in the Amazon for a number of reasons. They are a testament
to the ability of small foraging groups to domesticate landscapes in active ways that greatly increase the
productivity of the environment. They do this even though they are not “farmers” and will not always
utilize the resources they help create. In addition, the Nukak demonstrate that no place in the Amazon
can be considered pristine if a group such as the Nukak have ever lived there. The same can be said for
the rest of the planet.
The Domestication of the Dog and Cooperative Hunting

Although the transition from foraging to agriculture is often described as the Agricultural Revolution, archaeological evidence suggests this
change took a long time. The earliest species humans chose to domesticate were often not staple crops such as wheat, corn, rice, or cows, but
utilitarian species. For instance, bottle gourds were domesticated for use as water containers before the invention of pottery. Dogs were domes-
ticated as early as 15,000 years ago in eastern Asia from their wild ancestor the wolf. Although it is unlikely that dogs were an important source
of food, they did play a role in subsistence by aiding humans who relied on hunting the Ice Age megafauna such as wooly mammoths. Dogs
played such a critical role in hunting that some archaeologists believe they may have contributed to the eventual extinction of the woolly mam-
14
moths. Dogs were also valued for their role as watchdogs capable of protecting the community from predators and invaders.
103
Figure 3: The woolly mammoth was hunted to extinction in North America at the end of the last ice age. It is likely that dogs played a critical role in hunting these
and other large game animals.
Pastoralism
“To us, a co-wife is something very good, because there is much work to do. When it rains … the village gets mucky.
And it’s you who clears it out. It’s you who … looks after the cows. You do the milking … and your husband may
have very many cows. That’s a lot of work… So Maasai aren’t jealous because of all this work.”
– Maiyani, Maasai woman 15
Pastoralism is a subsistence system that relies on herds of domesticated livestock. Over half of the
world’s pastoralists reside in Africa, but there are also large pastoralist populations in Central Asia,
Tibet, and arctic Scandinavia and Siberia. The need to supply grazing fields and water for the livestock
requires moving several times a year. For that reason, this subsistence system is sometimes referred to
as nomadic pastoralism. In Africa, for instance, a nomadic lifestyle is an adaptation to the frequent peri-
ods of drought that characterize the region and put stress on the grazing pastures. Pastoralists may also
follow a nomadic lifestyle for other reasons such as avoiding competition and conflict with neighbors
or avoiding government restrictions.
Pastoralists can raise a range of different animals, although most often they raise herd animals such
as cows, goats, sheep, and pigs. In some parts of South America, alpaca and llama have been domesti-
cated for centuries to act as beasts of burden, much like camels, horses, and donkeys are used in Asia
and Africa. Pastoralists who raise alpacas, donkeys, or camels, animals not typically considered food,
demonstrate an important point about the pastoralist subsistence system. The goal of many pastoral-
ists is not to produce animals to slaughter for meat, but instead to use other resources such as milk,
which can be transformed into butter, yogurt, and cheese, or products like fur or wool, which can be
sold. Even animal dung is useful as an alternate source of fuel and can be used as an architectural prod-
uct to seal the roofs of houses. In some pastoral societies, milk and milk products comprise between 60
and 65 percent of the total caloric intake. However, very few, if any, pastoralist groups survive by eating
only animal products. Trade with neighboring farming communities helps pastoralists obtain a more
balanced diet and gives them access to grain and other items they do not produce on their own.
Figure 4: A Typical Maasai Herd: Although women do most of the work of tending the herd, only men are allowed to own cattle
A community of animal herders has different labor requirements compared to a foraging community.
Caring for large numbers of animals and processing their products requires a tremendous amount of
work, chores that are nonexistent in foraging societies. For pastoralists, daily chores related to caring
for livestock translate into a social world structured as much around the lives of animals as around the
lives of people.
The Maasai, a society of east African pastoralists whose livelihood depends on cows, have been stud-
ied extensively by anthropologists. Among the Maasai, domestic life is focused almost entirely around
tasks and challenges associated with managing the cattle herds. Like many pastoralist communities, the
Maasai measure wealth and social status according to the number of animals a person owns. However,
raising cattle requires so much work that no one has the ability to do these jobs entirely on his or her
own. For the Maasai, the solution is to work together in family units organized around polygynous
marriages. A household with multiple wives and large numbers of children will have more labor power
available for raising animals.
Pastoralism and Gender Dynamics
The example of the Maasai demonstrates the extent to which a subsistence system can structure
gender roles and the division of labor between the sexes. In Maasai society, women do almost all of
the work with the cows, from milking several times each day to clearing the muck the cows produce.
Despite doing much of the daily work with cattle, Maasai women are not permitted to own cattle.
Instead, the cattle belong to the men, and women are given only “milking rights” that allow them to use
the products of the female animals and to assign these animals to their sons. Men make all decisions
105
about slaughtering, selling, and raising the cattle. Lack of cattle ownership means that women do not
have the same opportunities as men to build wealth or gain social status and the woman’s role in Maasai
society is subordinate to man’s. This same pattern is repeated in many pastoralist societies, with women
valued primarily for the daily labor they can provide and for their role as mothers.
While women lack the political and economic power enjoyed by Maasai men, they do exercise some
forms of power within their own households and among other women. They support each other in the
daily hard work of managing both cattle and domestic responsibilities, for instance sharing in childcare,
a practice based on the belief that “men care about cattle while women care about children.”16 Because
most marriages are arranged by elders, it is common for women to engage in love affairs with other
men, but women keep each other’s secrets; telling anyone about another woman’s adultery would be
considered an absolute betrayal of solidarity. Women who resist their husband’s authority by having
love affairs are also resisting larger claims of male authority and ownership over them.17
Pastoralism and Private Property
As discussed previously, foragers tend to have little private property. Obtaining food from the natural
environment and living a highly mobile lifestyle does not provide the right conditions for hoarding
wealth, while the strong value on sharing present in foraging communities also limits wealth differ-
ences. Pastoralists, in contrast, have a great deal of personal property: most of it in the form of animals,
a kind of “money on legs,” but also in the form of household objects and personal items like clothing or
jewelry that pastoralists can keep more easily than foragers because they do not move as frequently.
Ownership of the grazing land, water supply, and other resources required for livestock is a trickier
matter. Generally, these natural resources are treated as communal property shared by everyone in
the society. Pastoralists may range over hundreds of miles throughout the year, so it would be highly
impractical to “own” any particular plot of land or to try fencing it to exclude outsiders as is commonly
done by agriculturalists. Sharing resources can lead to conflict, however, both within pastoralist soci-
eties and between pastoralists and their neighbors. In an influential essay, Tragedy of the Commons (1968),
Garrett Hardin pointed out that people tend not to respect resources they do not own. For instance,
pastoralists who have a personal interest in raising as many cattle of their own as possible may not be
particularly motivated to preserve grass or water resources in the long term. Do pastoralists destroy
the environments in which they live? Evidence from anthropological studies of pastoralist communi-
ties suggests that pastoralists do have rules that regulate use of land and other resources and that these
restrictions are effective in conserving environmental resources.
The Maasai, for instance, have a complex land-management system that involves rotating pastures
seasonally and geographically to preserve both grass and water. Research conducted in Kenya and Tan-
zania suggests that these grazing practices improve the health and biodiversity of the ecosystem because
grazing cattle cut down the tall grasses and make habitats for warthogs, Thomson’s gazelle, and other
species. In addition, the large swaths of community land managed by the Maasai stabilize and support
the vast Serengeti ecosystem. Ecologists estimate that if this land were privately owned and its usage
restricted, the population of wildebeest would be reduced by one-third. Since thousands of tourists visit
the Serengeti each year to view wildlife, particularly the migration of the wildebeest, which is the largest
mammal migration in the world, the Maasai’s communal land management is worth an estimated $83.5
million to the tourist economies of Kenya and Tanzania.18
Despite the sophistication of their land and animal management techniques, pastoralists today face
many pressures. The growth of the tourism industry in many countries has led to increased demand for
private land ownership to support safari centers, wild game parks, and ecolodges. The steady growth
of human populations and intensive agriculture has also led to the widespread encroachment of cities
and farms into traditional pastoralist territories. Persistent drought, famine, and even civil war threaten
some pastoralist groups, particularly in central Africa. Meanwhile, pastoralists continue to experience
tense relationships with their agricultural neighbors as both groups compete for resources, disputes
that are intensifying as global warming leads to more intense heat and drought in many world regions.
Horticulture
“Yams are persons with ears. If we charm they hear.”
– Alo, Trobriand Island farmer19
Have you ever grown a garden in your backyard? How much time did you put into your garden?
How much of your diet did the garden yield? People whose gardens supply the majority of their food
are known as horticulturalists. Horticulture differs in three ways from other kinds of farming. First,
horticulturalists move their farm fields periodically to use locations with the best growing conditions.
For this reason, horticulture is sometimes known as shifting cultivation. Second, horticultural societies
use limited mechanical technologies to farm, relying on physical labor from people and animals, like
oxen that may be used to pull a plow, instead of mechanical farm equipment. Finally, horticulture dif-
fers from other kinds of farming in its scale and purpose. Most farmers in the United States sell their
crops as a source of income, but in horticultural societies crops are consumed by those who grow them
or are shared with others in the community rather than sold for profit.
Horticultural societies are common around the world; this subsistence system feeds hundreds of
thousands of people, primarily in tropical areas of south and central America, Southeast Asia, and Ocea-
nia. A vast array of horticultural crops may be grown by horticulturalists, and farmers use their spe-
cialized knowledge to select crops that have high yield compared to the amount of labor that must be
invested to grow them. A good example is manioc, also known as cassava. Manioc can grow in a variety
of tropical environments and has the distinct advantage of being able to remain in the ground for long
periods without rotting. Compared to corn or wheat, which must be harvested within a particular win-
dow of time to avoid spoiling, manioc is flexible and easier to grow as well as to store or distribute to
others. Bananas, plantains, rice, and yams are additional examples of popular horticultural crops. One
thing all these plants have in common, though, is that they lack protein and other important nutrients.
Horticultural societies must supplement their diets by raising animals such as pigs and chickens or by
hunting and fishing.
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Growing crops in the same location for several seasons

leads to depletion of the nutrients in the soil as well as a
concentration of insects and other pests and plant diseases.
In agricultural systems like the one used in the United
States, these problems are addressed through the use of fer-
tilizers, pesticides, irrigation, and other technologies that
can increase crop yields even in bad conditions. Horticul-
turalists respond to these problems by moving their farm
fields to new locations. Often this means clearing a section
of the forest to make room for a new garden, a task many
horticulturalists accomplish by cutting down trees and set-
ting controlled fires to burn away the undergrowth. This
approach, sometimes referred to as “slash-and-burn,”
sounds destructive and has often been criticized, but the
ecological impact is complex. Once abandoned, farm fields
immediately begin to return to a forested state; over time,
the quality of the soil is renewed. Farmers often return after
several years to reuse a former field, and this recycling of
farmland reduces the amount of forest that is disturbed.
Figure 5: Bean plants grow up the stalk of a corn plant, while
While they may relocate their farm fields with regularity,
squash vines grow along the ground between corn stalks, horticulturalists tend not to move their residences, so they
inhibiting weed growth, an innovative technique developed by
indigenous farmers in the Americas thousands of years ago. rotate through gardens located within walking distance of
their homes.
Horticulturalists practice multi-cropping, growing a variety of different plants in gardens that are
biodiverse. Growing several different crops reduces the risk of relying on one kind of food and allows
for intercropping, mixing plants in ways that are advantageous. A well-known and ingenious example
of intercropping is the practice of growing beans, corns, and squash together. Native American farm-
ers in the pre-colonial period knew that together these plants, sometimes called “the three sisters,” were
healthier than they were if grown separately. Rather than completely clearing farmland, horticultural-
ists often maintain some trees and even weeds around the garden as a habitat for predators that prey on
garden pests. These practices, in addition to skillful rotation of the farmland itself, make horticultural
gardens particularly resilient.
Food as Politics
Because daily life for horticulturalists revolves around care for crops, plants are not simply regarded
as food but also become the basis for social relationships. In the Trobriand Islands, which are located
in the Solomon Sea north of Papua New Guinea, yams are the staple crop. Just as a Maasai pastoralist
gains respect by raising a large herd of animals, Trobriand Island farmers earn their reputations by hav-
ing large numbers of yams. However, this is not as easy as it might seem. In Trobriand Island society
every man maintains a yam garden, but he is not permitted to keep his entire crop. Women “own” the
yams and men must share what they grow with their daughters, their sisters, and even with their wives’
family members. Other yams must be given to the chief or saved to exchange on special occasions such
as weddings, funerals, or festivals. With so many obligations, it is not surprising that the average man
would have trouble building an impressive yam pile on his own. Fortunately, just as men have obliga-
tions to others, so too can they expect gifts from their sisters’ husbands and their friends in the commu-
nity.
A large pile of yams, displayed proudly in a man’s specially constructed yam house, is an indication
of how well he is respected by his family and friends. Maintaining these positive relationships requires
constant work, and men must reciprocate gifts of yams received from others or risk losing those rela-
tionships. Men who are stingy or mean spirited will not receive many yams, and their lack of social
approval will be obvious to everyone who glances at their empty yam houses. The chief has the largest
yam house of all, but also the most obligations. To maintain the goodwill of the people, he is expected
to sponsor feasts with his yam wealth and to support members of the community who may need yams
throughout the year.
So central are yams to Trobriand Island life that yams have traditionally been regarded not as mere
plants, but as living beings with minds of their own. Farmers talk to their yams, using a special tone
and soft voice so as not to alarm the vegetables. Men who have been initiated into the secret practices
of yam magic use incantations or magical charms to affect the growth of the plants, or alternatively to
discourage the growth of a rival’s crop. Yams are believed to have the ability to wander away from their
fields at night unless magic is used to keep them in place. These practices show the close social and spir-
itual association between farmers and their crops.
Civilizing Beans
Beans are often associated with gastrointestinal problems, namely flatulence. It turns out that this is related to the history of the domestica-
tion of the bean. Beans, along with maize and squash, were one of the most important crops domesticated by Native Americans in the New
World. The benefits of eating beans are best understood when viewed in relation to maize cultivation. From a purely nutritional point of view,
beans are a good source of protein while corn is not. Corn is also deficient in the essential amino acids lysine and tryptophan. Eating maize and
beans together provides more protein for hardworking farmers. In addition, maize and beans have a mutually beneficial relationship in the gar-
den. Thanks to a symbiotic relationship with a bacteria known as Rhizobium, beans and almost all legumes fix usable nitrogen in the soil,
increasing fertility for other plants grown nearby. When intercropped, maize benefits from this nitrogen fixing, and beans benefit from being
able to attach their vines to the strong stalks of the maize. Squash, which grows large leaves that spread widely across the ground, are also
beneficial to intercrop with maize and beans because the leaves reduce pest and weed invasion by providing ground cover.
Despite being nutritious and useful in the garden, beans were domesticated relatively late. In Mexico, there is evidence of bean domestication
20
around 1000 BC, a thousand years later than the domestication of corn. This is probably because of the gastrointestinal problems that come
with eating beans. The flatulence is the result of certain chemicals found in the wild beans that were ancestral to today’s domesticated species.
The lack of digestibility surely made beans an unappetizing food in early human communities. However, soaking beans before cooking them
and then boiling them over direct heat for several hours reduces these chemicals and makes beans much easier to stomach. The ability to boil
water was the key to bringing beans to the table.
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Figure 6: A Culinary Shoe Pot from Oaxaca, Mexico. Courtesy of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture,
Catalog Number 2009-117/536
Archaeological studies in Central America have revealed that the invention of a particular type of pottery known as the “culinary shoe pot”
may have been the technological breakthrough needed to boil beans. The pots are used by placing the “foot” of the pot in the coals of a fire so
heat can be transmitted through the vessel for long periods of time. Pots of this design have been found in the archaeological record through-
out Central America in sites dating to the same period as the beginning of bean domestication and pots of similar design continue to be used
throughout that region today. This example demonstrates the extent to which the expansion of the human diet has been linked to innovations in
other areas of culture.
Clay Cooking Pots in the Republic of Suriname. Courtesy of Karina Noriega. All rights reserved
Agriculture
“The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastro-
phe from which we have never recovered.”
– Jared Diamond 21
Agriculture is defined as the cultivation of domesticated plants and animals using technologies such
as irrigation, draft animals, mechanization, and inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides that allow for
intensive and continuous use of land resources. About 10,000 years ago, human societies entered a
period of rapid innovation in subsistence technologies that paved the way for the emergence of agri-
culture. The transition from foraging to farming has been described as the Neolithic Revolution.
Neolithic means “new stone age,” a name referring to the very different looking stone tools produced
during this time period. The Neolithic was characterized by an explosion of new technologies, not all
of them made from stone, which were geared toward agricultural tasks, rather than hunting or pro-
cessing gathered plant foods. These new tools included scythes for harvesting plants, and adzes or hoes
for tilling the soil. These technological developments began to dramatically improve yields and allow
human communities to support larger and larger numbers of people on food produced in less space.
It is important to remember that the invention of agriculture was not necessarily an advance in effi-
ciency, because more work had to go in to producing more food. Instead, it was an intensification of hor-
ticultural strategies. As a subsistence system, agriculture is quite different from other ways of making a
living, and the invention of agriculture had far-ranging effects on the development of human commu-
nities. In analyzing agriculture and its impacts, anthropologists focus on four important characteristics
shared by agricultural communities.
The first characteristic of agriculture is reliance on a few staple crops, foods that form the backbone
of the subsistence system. An example of a staple crop would be rice in China, or potatoes in Ireland. In
agricultural societies, farmers generally grow a surplus of these staple crops, more than they need for
their own tables, which are then sold for profit. The reliance on a single plant species, or mono-crop-
ping, can lead to decreased dietary diversity and carries the risk of malnutrition compared to a more
diverse diet. Other risks include crop failure associated with bad weather conditions or blight, leading
to famine and malnutrition, conditions that are common in agricultural communities.
A second hallmark of agriculture is the link between intensive farming and a rapid increase in human
population density. The archaeological record shows that human communities grew quickly around
the time agriculture was developing, but this raises an interesting question. Did the availability of more
food lead to increases in human population? Or, did pressure to provide for a growing population
spur humans to develop better farming techniques? This question has been debated for many years.
Ester Boserup, who studied the emergence of agriculture, concluded that growth in human populations
preceded the development of agriculture, forcing communities to develop innovations in technology.
However, the improved productive capabilities of agriculture came at a cost. People were able to pro-
duce more food with agriculture, but only by working harder and investing more in the maintenance
of the land. The life of a farmer involved more daily hours of work compared to the lifestyle of a for-
ager, so agricultural communities had an incentive to have larger families so that children could help
with farm labor. However, the presence of more children also meant more mouths to feed, increasing
the pressure to further expand agricultural production. In this way, agriculture and population growth
became a cycle.
A third characteristic of agriculture is the development of a division of labor, a system in which indi-
viduals in a society begin to specialize in certain roles or tasks. Building houses, for instance, becomes
111
a full-time job separate from farming. The division of labor was possible because higher yields from
agriculture meant that the quest for food no longer required everyone’s participation. This feature
of agriculture is what has allowed nonagricultural occupations such as scientists, religious specialists,
politicians, lawyers, and academics to emerge and flourish.
The emergence of specialized occupations and an agricultural system geared toward producing sur-
plus rather than subsistence changed the economics of human communities. The final characteristic
of agriculture is its tendency to create wealth differences. For anthropologists, agriculture is a critical
factor explaining the origins of social class and wealth inequality. The more complex an economic sys-
tem becomes, the more opportunities individuals or factions within the society have to manipulate the
economy for their own benefit. Who do you suppose provided the bulk of the labor power needed in
early agricultural communities? Elites found ways to pass this burden to others. Agricultural societies
were among the first to utilize enslaved and indentured labor.
Although the development of agriculture is generally regarded as a significant technological achieve-
ment that made our contemporary way of life possible, agriculture can also be viewed as a more omi-
nous development that forced us to invest more time and labor in our food supply while yielding a
lower quality of life.22 Agriculture created conditions that led to the expansion of social inequality, vio-
lent conflict between communities, and environmental degradation. For these reasons, some scientists
like Jared Diamond have argued that the invention of agriculture was humanity’s worst mistake.
The Origins of Agriculture
Some of the most contested and exciting questions in anthropology center on the origins of agriculture. How did humans come to adopt an
agricultural way of life? What came first, permanent settlements or agriculture? Did agriculture develop first in places with rich natural
resources, or in places where making a living from the land was more difficult? Why did agriculture arise nearly simultaneously in so many world
regions? These questions are primarily investigated by archaeologists, anthropologists who study cultures of the past by recovering the mater-
ial remains of their settlements. Archaeological evidence suggests that the transition to agriculture occurred over a long period of time, across
many generations.
Lewis Binford, an archaeologist who studied the origins of agriculture, observed that humans were living in permanent settlements before the
end of the last ice age 10,000–12,000 years ago. He believed that as human populations grew, some communities were forced into marginal
natural environments where it was difficult to get food from foraging, pastoralism, or horticulture. He argued that the pressure of living in these
23
“tension zones” led to agricultural innovation. Although inventing agriculture might seem like a challenge for humanity, the cultural anthropol-
ogist Leslie White pointed out that by this time in human history all communities had substantial practical knowledge of the natural world and
the plant and animal species they depended on for survival. “The cultivation of plants required no new facts or knowledge. Agriculture was sim-
24
ply a new kind of relationship between man—or more properly, woman—and plants.” By moving plants into new environments and controlling
their growth, people were able to ensure a better food supply.
This may explain why domestication arose, but why did it take so long for humans to develop agriculture? Why did many societies all over the
world develop agriculture nearly simultaneously? One possible answer is found in the climate change that followed the end of the last ice age.
Warming temperatures and shifting environmental zones led to the extinction of the megafauna human hunters had been relying upon such as
musk ox, woolly mammoth and woolly rhinoceros, and giant deer. Many animals once preyed on these species, such as the cave lion and spot-
ted hyena, but humans may have adapted culturally by reorienting their diets toward domesticated plant and animal species.
There are some other interesting theories about how and why agriculture developed. Brian Hayden, an archaeologist specializing in political
ecology, the use of resources to achieve political goals, has suggested that agriculture arose as some members of society began to accumulate
resources in order to sponsor feasts and give gifts designed to influence others. This “feasting theory” suggests that agriculture was not a
25
response to the necessities of survival, but part of a quest for power among some members of society. This model is intriguing because it
explains why some of the earliest domesticates such as chili peppers and avocados are not staple foods and are not even particularly nutritious.
In fact, many of the earliest plants cultivated were not intended to produce food for meals, but rather to produce ingredients for alcoholic bever-
ages.
For example, the wild ancestor of corn, a plant called teosinte, has an edible “ear” so small that it would have cost more calories to chew than
the nutrition it provided. This led some archaeologists to theorize that it was in fact the sweetness in the stalk of the plant that farmers wanted
to utilize to ferment a corn-based alcoholic beverage still consumed in many parts of Central America called chicha. It might have been that only
after years of cultivating the crop for its stalk that farmers found uses for the ear, which later was selectively bred to grow to the sizes we are
familiar with today.
Figure 8: Domestication involves the manipulation of plant and animal species to promote characteristics that are useful to the gardeners, such as the size. The evolution of the modern
corn from the ancestral teosinte followed selective breeding practices of farmers in the Americas.
THE GLOBAL AGRICULTURE SYSTEM

“We can indeed eliminate the scourge of hunger in our lifetime. We must be the Zero Hunger generation.”
– José Graziano da Silva, Director General of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United
Nations 26
Despite agriculture’s tremendous productivity, food shortages, malnutrition, and famines are com-
mon around the world. How can this be? Many people assume that the world’s agricultural systems are
not capable of producing enough food for everyone, but this is incorrect. Evidence from agricultural
research demonstrates that there is enough worldwide agricultural capacity to feed everyone on the
planet.27 The problem is that this capacity is unevenly distributed. Some countries produce much more
food than they need, and others much less. In addition, distribution systems are inefficient and much
food is lost to waste or spoilage. It is also true that in an agricultural economy food costs money, and
worldwide many people who are starving or undernourished lack food because they cannot pay for it,
not because food itself is unavailable.
Let’s return for a moment to the concept of meals and where our food actually comes from. Walking
down the aisles of our local grocery store, we are surrounded by products that come from far away:
apples from Chile, coffee from Guatemala, beans from India. This is evidence that our economy is orga-
nized around what anthropologists refer to as a world system, a complex web through which goods
113
circulate around the globe. In the world system, complex chains of distribution separate the producers
of goods from the consumers. Agricultural products travel long distances from their points of origin to
reach consumers in the grocery store, passing through many hands along the way. The series of steps a
food like apples or coffee takes from the field to the store is known as a commodity chain.
Figure 9: Links in the Commodity Chain for Coffee: As the coffee changes hands from the growers, to
the exporters, to the importers, and then to the retail distributors, the value of the coffee increases.
Consider the differences in wage between these workers.
The commodity chain for agricultural products begins in the farms where plant and animal foods are
produced. Farmers generally do not sell their produce directly to consumers, but instead sell to large
food processors that refine the food into a more usable form. Coffee beans, for instance, must be roasted
before they can be sold. Following processing, food moves to wholesalers who will package it for sale
to retail establishments like grocery stores. As foods move through the commodity chain, they become
more valuable. Coffee beans harvested fresh from the field are worth $1.40 per pound to the farmer, but
sell for $10–$20 at Starbucks.28
The fact that food is more valuable at the end of the commodity chain than at the beginning has sev-
eral consequences for human communities. The most obvious of these is the reality that farming is not a
particularly lucrative occupation, particularly for small-scale farmers in developing countries. Though
their labor makes profit for others, these farmers see the lowest financial returns. Another effect of
global commodity chains is that food moves very far from its point of origin. For wealthy people, this
means having access to a variety of foods in the grocery store, including things like strawberries or
mangos in the middle of winter, but in order to serve markets in wealthy countries, food is diverted
away from the locales where it is grown. When quinoa, a high-protein grain grown in Bolivia, became
popular with health enthusiasts in wealthy countries, the price of this food more than tripled. Local
populations began to export their quinoa crop rather than eating it, replacing this nutritious traditional
food with white bread and Coca-Cola, which were much cheaper, but contributed to increased rates
of obesity and diabetes.29 The global travels of the food supply have also affected social relations that
were once strengthened by participation in food growing and sharing. Distance and competition have
replaced these communal experiences. Many people yearn for more connection with their food, a sen-
timent that fuels things like “foodie culture,” farm-to-table restaurants, and farmer’s markets.
CONCLUSION
This chapter began with a consideration of meals, but revealed that each individual meal is part of a
diet generated through a particular subsistence system. Many of our daily experiences, including our
attitudes, skills, and relationships with others, are influenced by our subsistence system. Knowing that
the Earth has been transformed for thousands of years by human subsistence activities, we must also
consider the ways in which our future will be shaped by the present. Are we managing our resources in
a sustainable way? How will we continue to feed growing populations in the future? Think about it next
time you sit down to eat a meal.
1. A hallmark of agriculture is the separation of food production from food consumption; many people know almost nothing about
where their food has come from. How does this lack of knowledge affect the food choices people make? How useful are efforts to
change food labels to notify shoppers about the use of farming techniques such as genetic modification or organic growing for con-
sumers? What other steps could be taken to make people more knowledgeable about the journey that food takes from farm to
table?
2. The global commodity chains that bring food from many countries to grocery stores in the United States give wealthy consumers
a great variety of food choices, but the farmers at the beginning of the commodity chain earn very little money. What kinds of solu-
tions might help reduce the concentration of wealth at the end of the commodity chain?
3. Mono-cropping is a feature of industrial food production and has the benefit of producing staple foods like wheat and corn in vast
quantities, but mono-cropping makes our diet less diverse. Are the effects of agricultural mono-cropping reflected in your own
everyday diet? How many different plant foods do you eat on a regular basis? How difficult would it be for you to obtain a more
diverse diet by shopping in the same places you shop now?
GLOSSARY
Agriculture: the cultivation of domesticated plants and animals using technologies that allow for inten-
sive use of the land.
Broad spectrum diet: a diet based on a wide range of food resources.
Built environment: spaces that are human-made, including cultivated land as well as buildings.
Carrying capacity: a measurement of the number of calories that can be extracted from a particular
unit of land in order to support a human population.
Commodity chain: the series of steps a food takes from location where it is produced to the store where
it is sold to consumers.
Delayed return system: techniques for obtaining food that require an investment of work over a period
of time before the food becomes available for consumption. Farming is a delayed return system due
to the passage of time between planting and harvest. The opposite is an immediate return system in
which the food acquired can be immediately consumed. Foraging is an immediate return system.
115
Domestic economy: the work associated with obtaining food for a family or household.
Foodways: the cultural norms and attitudes surrounding food and eating.
Foraging: a subsistence system that relies on wild plant and animal food resources. This system is some-
times called “hunting and gathering.”
Historical ecology: the study of how human cultures have developed over time as a result of interac-
tions with the environment.
Horticulture: a subsistence system based on the small-scale cultivation of crops intended primarily for
the direct consumption of the household or immediate community.
Modes of subsistence: the techniques used by the members of a society to obtain food. Anthropologists
classify subsistence into four broad categories: foraging, pastoralism, horticulture, and agriculture.
Mono-cropping: the reliance on a single plant species as a food source. Mono-cropping leads to
decreased dietary diversity and carries the risk of malnutrition compared to a more diverse diet.
Neolithic Revolution: a period of rapid innovation in subsistence technologies that began 10,000 years
ago and led to the emergence of agriculture. Neolithic means “new stone age,” a name referring to the
stone tools produced during this time period.
Pastoralism: a subsistence system in which people raise herds of domesticated livestock.
Staple crops: foods that form the backbone of the subsistence system by providing the majority of the
calories a society consumes.
Subsistence system: the set of skills, practices, and technologies used by members of a society to
acquire and distribute food.
World system: a complex economic system through which goods circulate around the globe. The world
system for food is characterized by a separation of the producers of goods from the consumers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Isaac Shearn earned his PhD in 2014 at the University of Florida and is an
adjunct professor at the Community College of Baltimore County. His work focuses on the archaeology
and ethnohistory of the Caribbean and South America, with a focus on public archaeology, developing
inclusive and participatory methods. His ongoing research in Dominica allows him to pursue his second
major passion in life besides archaeology: music. He has played drums for a Dominican reggae band
since 2010.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Binford, Lewis. “Post-Pleistocene adaptations.” In New Perspectives in Archeology, edited by Sally Binford
and Lewis Binford, 313-41. New York: Aldine, 1968.
Boserup, Ester. The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change Under Population
Pressure. Rutgers, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2005.
Diamond, Jared. “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race,” Discover, May 1987, http://dis-
covermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race
Fiedel, Stuart J. “Man’s Best Friend — Mammoth’s Worst Enemy? A Speculative Essay on the Role of
Dogs in Paleoindian Colonization and Megafaunal Extinction.” World Archaeology 37 (2005): 11-25.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The State of Food Insecurity in the World. Rome:
The United Nations, 2015.
______. “World Hunger Falls to Under 800 Million, Eradication Possible.” World Food Program, May
27, 2015, https://www.wfp.org/news/news-release/world-hunger-falls-under-800-million-eradica-
tion-next-goal-0
Fortune, R. F. Sorcerers of Dobu: The Social Anthropology of the Dobu Islanders of the Western Pacific. London:
G. Routledge and Sons, 1963 [1932].
Hardin, Garrett. “Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162 no. 3859 (1968): 1243-1248.
Hawkes, Kristen and James F. O’Connell. “Affluent Hunters? Some Comments in Light of the Alyawara
Case.” American Anthropologist 83(1981): 622-626.
Hawkes, Kristen, Kim Hill and James F. O’Connell. “Why Hunters Gather: Optimal Foraging and the
Aché of Eastern Paraguay.” American Ethnologist 9 (1982):379-398.
Hayden, Brian. “The Proof is in the Pudding: Feasting and the Origins of Domestication.” Current
Anthropology 50 (2009):597–601, 708–9.
Lee, Richard B. The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
______. “What Hunters Do for a Living, or, How to Make Out on Scarce Resources.” In Man the Hunter,
edited by Richard Lee and Irven DeVore. Chicago: Aldine, 1968.
Lee, Richard B. and Irven DeVore, editors. Man the Hunter. New York: Aldine, 1968.
Llewellyn-Davies, Melissa. “Two Contexts of Solidarity.” In Women United, Women Divided: Comparative
Studies of Ten Contemporary Cultures, edited by Patricia Caplan and Janet M. Bujra. Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press 1979.
Malthus, Thomas. An Essay on the Principle of Population. London: J. Johnson, 1798.
Nelson, Fred. “Natural Conservationists? Evaluating the Impact of Pastoralist Land Use Practices on
Tanzania’s Wildlife Economy.” Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice 2012.
Paoletti, Maurizio G., E. Buscardo, D.J. Vanderjagt, A. Pastuszyn, L. Pizzoferrato, Y.S. Huang, L.T.
Chuang, M. Millon, H. Cerda, F. Torres, and R.H. Glew. “Nutrient Content of Earthworms Consumed
by Ye’Kuana Amerindians of the Alto Orinoco of Venezuela.” Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological
Sciences 270 (2003): 249-257.
Politis, Gustavo. Nukak: Ethnoarchaeology of an Amazonian People. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press,
2007.
Rosenberg, Harriet G. “Complaint Discourse, Aging, and Caregiving Among the !Kung San of
Botswana.” In The Cultural Context of Aging, edited by Jay Sokolovsky, 19-41. New York: Bergin and
Garvey, 1990.
Sahlins, Marshall. “The Original Affluent Society.” In Stone Age Economics, edited by Marshall Sahlins,
1-39. London: Tavistock, 1972.
Wallace, Melanie and Sanford Low. Maasai Women, Film, Produced by Michael Ambrosino. Watertown:
CT: Documentary Educational Resources, 1980.
White, Leslie. The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome. New York:
McGraw Hill, 1959.
117
Notes
1. Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (London: J. Johnson, 1798), 4.

2. Ester Boserup, The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change Under Population Pressure
(Rutgers, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2005).
3. Richard B. Lee, “What Hunters Do for a Living, or, How to Make Out on Scarce Resources,” in Man the Hunter,
ed. Richard Lee and Irven DeVore (Chicago: Aldine, 1968), 33.
4. Maurizio G.Paoletti, E. Buscardo, DJ Vanderjagt, A Pastuszyn, L Pizzoferrato, YS Huang, et al., “Nutrient Con-
tent of Earthworms Consumed by Ye’Kuana Amerindians of the Alto Orinoco of Venezuela,” Proceedings of the
Royal Society: Biological Sciences 270 (2003): 249-257.
5. Kristen Hawkes, Kim Hill and James F. O'Connell, “Why Hunters Gather: Optimal Foraging and the Aché of
Eastern Paraguay,” American Ethnologist 9 (1982):379-398.
6. Richard Lee, The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1979).
7. For more information about intergenerational dynamics among foragers see Kathryn Keith “Childhood Learn-
ing and the Distribution of Knowledge in Foraging Societies,” Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological
Association 15 (2005): 27-40 and Harriet G. Rosenberg, “Complaint Discourse, Aging, and Caregiving among the
!Kung San of Botswana,” in The Cultural Context of Aging, ed. Jay Sokolovsky (New York: Bergin and Garvey,
1990)19-41. The quotation is from Rosenberg page 29.
8. For a discussion of generosity and sharing in foraging communities see Lorna Marshall, “Sharing, Talking, and
Giving: Relief of Social Tensions among ǃKung Bushmen,” Africa: Journal of the International African Insti-
tute31(1961):231-249 and Lester Hiatt, “Traditional Attitudes to Land Resources,” in Aboriginal Sites, Rites and
Resource Development, ed. R. M. Berndt (Perth: University of Western Australia Press. 1982) 13-26.
9. Richard B. Lee and Irven DeVore, eds. Man the Hunter (New York: Aldine, 1968).
10. Marshall Sahlins, “The Original Affluent Society,” in Stone Age Economics, ed. Marshall Sahlins (London: Tavis-
tock, 1972) 1-39.
11. Kristen Hawkes and James F. O'Connell, “Affluent Hunters? Some Comments in Light of the Alyawara Case,”
American Anthropologist 83(1981): 622-626.
12. See for example Robert J. Gordon, The Bushman Myth: The Making of a Namibian Underclass (Boulder, CO: West-
view Press, 2000).
13. Gustavo Politis, Nukak: Ethnoarchaeology of an Amazonian People (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2007).
14. Stuart J. Fiedel, “Man's Best Friend -- Mammoth's Worst Enemy? A Speculative Essay on the Role of Dogs in
Paleoindian Colonization and Megafaunal Extinction,” World Archaeology 37 (2005): 11-25.
15. Melanie Wallace and Sanford Low, Maasai Women, Film, Produced by Michael Ambrosino (1980, Watertown:
CT: Documentary Educational Resources).
16. Melissa Llewellyn-Davies, “Two Contexts of Solidarity," in Women United, Women Divided: Comparative Studies of
Ten Contemporary Cultures, ed. Patricia Caplan and Janet M. Bujra (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press
1979), 208.
17. Ibid., 234.
18. Fred Nelson, “Natural Conservationists? Evaluating the Impact of Pastoralist Land Use Practices on Tanzania's
Wildlife Economy,” Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice 2012.
19. R. F. Fortune, Sorcerers of Dobu: The Social Anthropology of the Dobu Islanders of the Western Pacific (London: G.
Routledge and Sons, 1963 [1932]),107-109.
20. For more information about the archaeological evidence for the timing of bean domestication, see Michael
Blake, John E. Clark, Barbara Voorhies, George Michaels, Michael W. Love, Mary E. Pye, Arthur A. Demarest,
and Barbara Arroyo, “Radiocarbon Chronology for the Late Archaic and Formative Periods on the Pacific Coast
of Southeastern Mesoamerica,” Ancient Mesoamerica 6 (1995):161–183. Another useful source is Lawrence
Kaplan and Thomas F. Lynch, “Phaseolus (Fabaceae) in Archaeology: AMS Radiocarbon Dates and their Signifi-
cance for Pre-Columbian Agriculture,” Economic Botany 53 no. 3(1999): 261-272. There is also interesting lin-
guistic evidence that the word for bean entered the Mayan language around 3400 BC. For more information, see
Cecil H Brown, “Prehistoric Chronology of the Common Bean in the New World: The Linguistic Evidence.”
American Anthropologist 108 no.3 (2006): 507-516

21. Jared Diamond, “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race,” Discover, May 1987, http://discover-
magazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race
22. See for example Marshall Sahlins’ argument in Stone Age Economics (Chicago: Aldine Atherton, 1972).
23. Lewis Binford, “Post-Pleistocene Adaptations,” in New Perspectives in Archeology, ed. Sally and Lewis Binford,
313-41 (New York: Aldine, 1968).
24. Leslie White, The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome (New York: McGraw Hill,
1959), 284.
25. Brian Hayden, “The Proof is in the Pudding: Feasting and the Origins of Domestication,” Current Anthropology 50
(2009):597–601, 708–9.
26. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “World Hunger Falls to Under 800 Million, Eradica-
tion Possible,” May 27, 2015, accessed May 10, 2015, https://www.wfp.org/news/news-release/world-hunger-
falls-under-800-million-eradication-next-goal-0
27. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The State of Food Insecurity in the World (Rome: FAO,
2015)
28. Information about the current prices paid to coffee farmers is available from the International Coffee Organiza-
tion: http://www.ico.org/coffee_prices.asp
29. This phenomenon has been observed in many countries. For an ethnographic analysis of the health effects of the
decline of traditional foods in Guatemala, see Emily Yates-Doerr, The Weight of Obesity: Hunger and Global Health
in Postwar Guatemala (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015).
6
ECONOMICS
Sarah Lyon, University of Kentucky

[email protected]
http://anthropology.as.uky.edu/users/smlyon3
Learning Objectives
• Define economic anthropology and identify ways in which economic anthropology differs from the field of Economics
• Describe the characteristics of the three modes of production: domestic production, tributary production, and capitalist produc-
tion.
• Compare reciprocity, redistribution, and market modes of exchange.
• Assess the significance of general purpose money for economic exchange.
• Evaluate the ways in which commodities become personally and socially meaningful.
• Use a political economy perspective to assess examples of global economic inequality and structural violence.
One of the hallmarks of the human species is our flexibility: culture enables humans to thrive in
extreme artic and desert environments, to make our homes in cities and rural settings alike. Yet amidst
this great diversity there are also universals. For example, all humans, like all organisms, must eat. We all
must make our living in the world, whether we do so through foraging, farming, or factory work. At its
heart, economic anthropology is a study of livelihoods: how humans work to obtain the material neces-
sities such as food, clothing, and shelter that sustain our lives. Across time and space, different societies
have organized their economic lives in radically different ways. Economic anthropologists explore this
diversity, focusing on how people produce, exchange, and consume material objects and the role that
immaterial things such as labor, services, and knowledge play in our efforts to secure our livelihood.1
As humans, we all have the same basic needs, but understanding how and why we meet those needs—in
often shared but sometimes unique ways—is what shapes the field of economic anthropology.
119
Economic anthropology is always in dialogue (whether implicitly or explicitly) with the dis-
cipline of economics.2 However, there are several important differences between the two disciplines.
Perhaps most importantly, economic anthropology encompasses the production, exchange, consump-
tion, meaning, and uses of both material objects and immaterial services, whereas contemporary eco-
nomics focuses primarily on market exchanges. In addition, economic anthropologists dispute the idea
that all individual thoughts, choices, and behaviors can be understood through a narrow lens of ratio-
nal, self-interested decision-making. When asking why people choose to buy a new shirt rather than
shoes, anthropologists, and increasingly economists, look beyond the motives of Homo economicus to
determine how social, cultural, political, and institutional forces shape humans’ everyday decisions.3
As a discipline, economics studies the decisions made by people and businesses and how these deci-
sions interact in the marketplace. Economists’ models generally rest on several assumptions: that people
know what they want, that their economic choices express these wants, and that their wants are defined
by their culture. Economics is a normative theory because it specifies how people should act if they want
to make efficient economic decisions. In contrast, anthropology is a largely descriptive social science;
we analyze what people actually do and why they do it. Economic anthropologists do not necessarily
assume that people know what they want (or why they want it) or that they are free to act on their own
individual desires.
Rather than simply focusing on market exchanges and individual decision-making, anthropologists
consider three distinct phases of economic activity: production, exchange, and consumption. Produc-
tion involves transforming nature and raw materials into the material goods that are useful and/or
necessary for humans. Exchange involves how these goods are distributed among people. Finally, con-
sumption refers to how we use these material goods: for example, by eating food or constructing homes
out of bricks. This chapter explores each of these dimensions of economic life in detail, concluding with
an overview of how anthropologists understand and challenge the economic inequalities that structure
everyday life in the twenty-first century.
MODES OF PRODUCTION
A key concept in anthropological studies of economic life is the mode of production, or the social
relations through which human labor is used to transform energy from nature using tools, skills, orga-
nization, and knowledge. This concept originated with anthropologist Eric Wolf, who was strongly
influenced by the social theorist Karl Marx. Marx argued that human consciousness is not determined
by our cosmologies or beliefs but instead by our most basic human activity: work. Wolf identified
three distinct modes of production in human history: domestic (kin-ordered), tributary, and capitalist.4
Domestic or kin-ordered production organizes work on the basis of family relations and does not nec-
essarily involve formal social domination, or the control of and power over other people. However,
power and authority may be exerted on specific groups based on age and gender. In the tributary mode
of production, the primary producer pays tribute in the form of material goods or labor to another indi-
vidual or group of individuals who controls production through political, religious, or military force.
The third mode, capitalism, is the one most familiar to us. The capitalist mode of production has three
central features: (1) private property is owned by members of the capitalist class; (2) workers sell their
labor power to the capitalists in order to survive; and (3) surpluses of wealth are produced, and these
surpluses are either kept as profit or reinvested in production in order to generate further surplus. As
121
we will see in the next section, Modes of Exchange, capitalism also links markets to trade and money in
very unique ways. First, though, we will take a closer look at each of the three modes of production
Domestic Production
The domestic, or kin-ordered, mode of production characterizes the lives of foragers and small-
scale subsistence farmers with social structures that are more egalitarian than those characterizing the
other modes of production (though these structures are still shaped by age- and gender-based forms
of inequality). In the domestic mode of production, labor is organized on the basis of kinship relations
(which is why this form of production is also known as kin-ordered). In southern Mexico and parts of
Central America, many indigenous people primarily make their living through small-scale subsistence
maize farming. Subsistence farmers produce food for their family’s own consumption (rather than to
sell). In this family production system, the men generally clear the fields and the whole family works
together to plant the seeds. Until the plants sprout, the children spend their days in the fields protect-
ing the newly planted crops. The men then weed the crops and harvest the corn cobs, and, finally, the
women work to dry the corn and remove the kernels from the cobs for storage. Over the course of the
year mothers and daughters typically grind the corn by hand using a metate, or grinding stone (or, if
they are lucky, they might have access to a mechanical grinder). Ultimately, the corn is used to make the
daily tortillas the family consumes at each meal. This example demonstrates how the domestic mode of
production organizes labor and daily activities within families according to age and gender.
Figure 1: Woman Grinding Corn with a Metate
Foraging societies are also characterized by (1) the collective ownership of the primary means of
production, (2) lower rates of social domination, and (3) sharing. For example, the Dobe Ju/’hoansi
(also known as the !Kung), a society of approximately 45,000 people living in the Kalahari Desert of
Botswana and Namibia, typically live in small groups consisting of siblings of both sexes, their spouses,
and children. They all live in a single camp and move together for part of the year. Typically women
collect plant foods and men hunt for meat. These resources are pooled within family groups and dis-
tributed within wider kin networks when necessary. However, women will also kill animals when the
opportunity presents itself, and men spend time collecting plant foods, even when hunting.
As discussed in the Marriage and Family chapter, kinship relations are determined by culture, not
biology. Interestingly, in addition to genealogical kinship, the Dobe Ju/’hoansi recognize kinship rela-
tions on the basis of gender-linked names; there are relatively few names, and in this society the pos-
session of common names trumps genealogical ties. This means that an individual would call anyone
with his father’s name “father.” The Dobe Ju/’hoansi have a third kinship system that is based on the
principle that an older person determines the kinship terms that will be used in relation with another
individual (so, for example, an elderly woman may refer to a young male as her nephew or grandson,
thus creating a kin relationship). The effect of these three simultaneous kinship systems is that virtually
everyone is kin in Ju/’hoansi society—those who are biologically related and those who are not. This
successfully expands the range of individuals with whom products of labor, such as meat from a kill,
must be shared.5 These beliefs and the behaviors they inspire reinforce key elements of the domestic
mode of production: collective ownership, low levels of social domination, and sharing.
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Tributary Production
The tributary mode of production is found in social systems divided into classes of rulers and sub-
jects. Subjects, typically farmers and/or herders, produce for themselves and their families, but they also
give a proportion of their goods or labor to their rulers as tribute. The tributary mode of production
characterizes a variety of precapitalist, state-level societies found in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Amer-
icas. These societies share several common features: (1) the dominant units of production are commu-
nities organized around kinship relations; (2) the state’s society depends on the local communities, and
the tribute collected is used by the ruling class rather than exchanged or reinvested; (3) relationships
between producers and rulers are often conflictual; and (4) production is controlled politically rather
than through the direct control of the means of production. Some historic tributary systems, such as
those found in feudal Europe and medieval Japan, were loosely organized, whereas others, such as the
pre-contact Inca Empire and imperial China, were tightly managed.
In the Chinese imperial system, rulers not only demanded tribute in the form of material goods
but also organized large-scale production and state-organized projects such as irrigation, roads, and
flood control. In addition to accumulating agricultural surpluses, imperial officials also controlled
large industrial and commercial enterprises, acquiring necessary products, such as salt, porcelain, or
bricks, through nonmarket mechanisms. The rulers of most tributary systems were determined through
descent and/or military and political service. However, the 1,000-year imperial Chinese system (CE
960–1911) was unique in that new members were accepted based on their performance in examina-
tions that any male could take, even males of low status.6 Despite this exception, the Chinese imperial
system exhibits many hallmarks of the tributary mode of production, including the political control of
production and the collection of tribute to support state projects and the ruling classes.
Capitalist Production
The capitalist mode of production is the most recent. While many of us may find it difficult to con-
ceive of an alternative to capitalism, it has in fact only existed for a mere fraction of human history,
first originating with the North American and western European industrial revolution during the sev-
enteenth and eighteenth centuries. Capitalism is distinguished from the other two modes of production
as an economic system based on private property owned by a capitalist class. In the domestic and tribu-
tary modes of production, workers typically own their means of production (for example, the land they
farm). However, in the capitalist mode of production, workers typically do not own the factories they
work in or the businesses they work for, and so they sell their labor power to other people, the capi-
talists, in order to survive. By keeping wages low, capitalists are able to sell the products of the work-
ers’ labor for more than it costs to produce the products. This enables capitalists, or those who own
the means of production, to generate a surplus that is either kept as profit or reinvested in production
with the goal of generating additional surplus. Therefore, an important distinguishing feature of the
capitalist mode of production is that workers are separated from the means of production (for example,
from the factories they work in or the businesses they work for), whereas in the domestic and tribu-
tary modes workers are not separated from the means of production (they own their own land or they
have free access to hunting and foraging grounds). In the domestic and tributary modes of production,
workers also retain control over the goods they produce (or a portion of them), and they control their
own labor, deciding when and when not to work.7 However, this is not true within capitalism. A fac-
tory worker does not own the widget that she helps build in a factory, and she cannot decide when she
would like to show up at work each day.
Economic anthropologists stress that people and communities are differentially integrated into the
capitalist mode of production. For example, some subsistence farmers may also produce a small crop
of agricultural commodities in order to earn cash income to pay for necessities, such as machetes or
farm tools, that they cannot make themselves. Many of us have had “informal” jobs tending a neighbor’s
children or mowing someone’s lawn. Informal work such as this, where one does not work on a full-
time, contracted basis, is especially important in developing countries around the world where informal
employment comprises one-half to three-quarters of nonagricultural employment.8
Even in our own capitalist society, many of us regularly produce and exchange goods and services
outside of the so-called formal marketplace: baking zucchini bread for a cousin who shares her veg-
etable garden’s produce, for example, or buying fair-trade chocolate from a cooperative grocery store.
We might spend Sundays volunteering in a church’s nursery, or perhaps moonlighting as a server for
a friend’s catering business, working “under the table” for cash. Each of these examples highlights how
even in advanced capitalist societies, we engage in diverse economic practices every day. If, as some sug-
gest, economic anthropology is at its heart a search for alternatives to capitalism, it is useful to explore
the many diverse economies that are thriving alongside capitalist modes of production and exchange.9
Fair-Trade Coffee Farmers: 21st Century Peasants
Small-scale, semi-subsistence farmers make up the largest single group of people on the planet today.
Once known as peasants, these people pose an interesting conundrum to economic anthropologists
because they live their lives both inside and outside of global capitalism and state societies. These farm-
ers primarily use their own labor to grow the food their families eat. They might also produce some
type of commodity for sale. For example, many of the indigenous corn farmers in southern Mexico and
Central America discussed earlier also produce small amounts of coffee that they sell in order to earn
money to buy school supplies for their children, building supplies for their homes, clothing, and other
things that they cannot produce themselves.
There are between 20 and 25 million small farmers growing coffee in more than 50 countries around
the world. A portion of these small coffee farmers are organized into cooperatives in order to col-
lectively sell their coffee as fair-trade certified. Fair trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue,
transparency, and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. According to Fairtrade Inter-
national, fair trade supports farmers and workers to combat poverty and strengthen their livelihoods
by establishing a minimum price for as many fair-trade products as possible; providing, on top of stable
prices, a fair-trade premium; improving the terms of trade for farmers by providing access to informa-
tion, clear contracts with pre-payments, access to markets and financing; and promoting better living
wages and working conditions.10 In order to certify their coffee, small farmers must belong to democ-
ratically run producers’ associations in which participation is open to all eligible growers, regardless of
ethnicity, gender, religion, or political affiliation.
To better understand how indigenous farmers practice kin-organized subsistence maize production
while simultaneously producing an agricultural commodity for global markets, I conducted long-term
research in a highland Guatemala community.11 In 1977 a small number of Tz’utujil Maya coffee farm-
ers formed a cooperative, La Voz Que Clama en el Desierto (A Voice Crying Out in the Wilderness), with
the goal of securing higher prices for their agricultural products and escaping the severe poverty they
125
struggled against on a daily basis. Since the early 1990s the group has produced high-quality organic
and fair-trade certified coffee for the U.S. market.
The farmers work tirelessly to ensure that their families have sufficient corn to eat and that their cof-
fee meets the cooperative’s high standards of quality. The members of La Voz refer to their coffee trees
as their “children” who they have lovingly tended for decades. High-quality, organic coffee production
is time consuming and arduous—it requires almost daily attention. During the coffee harvest between
December and March, wives, husbands, and children work together to pick the coffee cherries by hand
as they ripen and carry them to the wet mill each afternoon.
Figure 2: Sorting Coffee Beans
While these farmers are producing a product for the global market, it is not strictly a capitalist mode
of production. They own their own land and they sell the fruits of their labor for guaranteed prices.
They also work cooperatively with one another, pooling and exchanging their labor, in order to guar-
antee the smooth functioning of their organization. This cooperation, while essential, is hard work.
Because the fair-trade system does not rely on anonymous market exchanges, members of La Voz must
also dedicate time to nurturing their relationships with the coffee importers, roasters, advocates, and
consumers who support all their hard work through promotion and purchases. This means attending
receptions when buyers visit, dressing up in traditional clothing to pick coffee on film for marketing
materials, and putting up with questions from nosy anthropologists.
Because the coffee farmers also produce much of the food their families consume, they enjoy a great
deal of flexibility. In times of hardship, they can redirect their labor to other activities by intensify-
ing corn production, migrating in search of wage labor, or planting other crops. Their ultimate goal
is to maintain the family’s economic autonomy, which is rooted in ownership of the means of pro-
duction—in this case, their land. A close examination of these farmers’ lives reveals that they are not
relics of a precapitalist system. Instead, their economic activity is uniquely adapted to the contemporary
global economy in order to ensure their long-term survival.
Salaula in Zambia: The Informal Economy
The informal economy includes a diverse range of activities that are unregulated (and untaxed) by
the state: rickshaw pullers in Calcutta, street vendors in Mexico City, and scrap-metal recyclers in Lex-
ington, Kentucky, are all considered informal workers. Informal economies include people who are
informally self-employed and those working informally for other people’s enterprises. In some parts of
the world the informal economy is a significant source of income and revenue. In Sub-Saharan Africa,
for example, the informal economy generates nearly 40 percent as much revenue as that included in
the “official” gross domestic product.12 Consequently, the informal economy is of great interest to
economic anthropologists. However, the term “informal economy” is critiqued by some scholars since
often what we refer to as informal economies are actually quite formal and organized, even though this
organization is not regulated by the state and may be based on an internal logic that makes the most
sense to those who participate in the exchanges.
Karen Hansen provides an in-depth look at the lives of vendors in the salaula, the secondhand cloth-
ing markets in Zambia in southern Africa.13 Salaula, a term that literally means “to rummage through
a pile,” is an unusual industry that begins in many of our own homes. In today’s era of fast fashion in
which Americans buy more than 20 billion garments each year (that’s 68 garments per person!), many of
us regularly bag up our gently used, unfashionable clothing and drop it off at a nearby Goodwill shop.14
Only about half of these donated clothes actually end up in charity thrift stores. The rest are sold to
one of the nearly 300 firms that specialize in the global clothing recycling business. The textile recy-
cling firms sort the clothing by grades; the higher-quality items are sent to Central America, and the
lowest grades go to African and Asian countries. In Sub-Saharan Africa an estimated 50 percent of pur-
chased clothing consists of these secondhand imports, referred to by some consumers as “dead man’s
clothes” because of the belief that they come from the deceased.15 In Zambia the secondhand clothes
are imported in bulk by 40 wholesale firms that, in turn, sell the clothes to salaula traders. The traders
sell the clothes out of their homes and in large public markets.
Typically the people working as salaula traders have either never had formal-sector jobs or have lost
their jobs in the public or private sector. Often they start selling in order to accumulate money for
other activities or as a sideline business. Hansen found that there were slightly more female sellers and
that women were more likely to be single heads of households. Successful salaula trading requires busi-
ness acumen and practical skills. Flourishing traders cultivate their consumer knowledge, develop sales
strategies, and experiment with display and pricing. While salaula trading has relatively low barriers to
entry (one simply has to purchase a bale of clothing from a wholesale importer in order to get started),
in this informal market scale is important: salaula moves best when traders have a lot of it on offer.
Traders also have to understand the local cultural politics in order to successfully earn a living in this
sector. For example, salaula is different from used clothing from people someone knows. In fact, sec-
ondhand clothing with folds and wrinkles from the bale is often the most desirable because it is easily
identifiable as “genuine” salaula.16
127
The global salaula commodity chain presents

an interesting example of how material goods
can flow in and out of capitalist modes of pro-
duction and exchange. For example, I might
buy a dress that was produced in a factory to
give (not sell!) to my young niece. After wear-
ing the dress for several months, Maddie will
probably outgrow it, and her Mom will drop it
off at the nearby Goodwill shop. There is a 50
percent chance that the dress will be sold by the
charity to a clothing recycler who will export it
to Zambia or a nearby country. From there the
dress will end up in a bale of clothing that is
Figure 3: Roadside Salaula Trader, Zambia purchased by a salaula trader in Lusaka. At this
point the dress enters the informal economy as
the salaula markets are unregulated and untaxed. A consumer might buy the dress and realize that it
does not quite fit her own daughter. She might then take it to her neighbor, who works informally as a
tailor, for alternations. Rather than paying her neighbor for the work on the dress, the consumer might
instead arrange to reciprocate at a later date by cleaning the tailor’s home. This single item of clothing
that has traveled the globe and moved in and out of formal and informal markets highlights how diverse
our economic lives really are, a theme that we will return to at the end of this chapter.
MODES OF EXCHANGE
There are three distinct ways to integrate economic and social relations and distribute material
goods. Contemporary economics only studies the first, market exchange. Most economic models are
unable to explain the second two, reciprocity and redistribution, because they have different underlying
logics. Economic anthropology, on the other hand, provides rich and nuanced perspective into how
diverse modes of exchange shape, and are shaped by, everyday life across space and time. Anthropol-
ogists understand market exchange to be a form of trade that today most commonly involves general
purpose money, bargaining, and supply and demand price mechanisms. In contrast, reciprocity involves
the exchange of goods and services and is rooted in a mutual sense of obligation and identity. Anthro-
pologists have identified three distinct types of reciprocity, which we will explore shortly: generalized,
balanced, and negative.17 Finally, redistribution occurs when an authority of some type (a temple priest,
a chief, or even an institution such as the Internal Revenue Service) collects economic contributions
from all community members and then redistributes these back in the form of goods and services.
Redistribution requires centralized social organization, even if at a small scale (for example, within the
foraging societies discussed above). As we will see, various modes of exchange can and do coexist, even
within capitalism.
Reciprocity
While early economic anthropology often seemed focused on detailed investigations of seemingly
exotic economic practices, anthropologists such as Bronislaw Malinowski and Marcel Mauss used
ethnographic research and findings to critique Western, capitalist economic systems. Today, many fol-
low in this tradition and some would agree with Keith Hart’s statement that economic anthropology “at
its best has always been a search for an alternative to capitalism.”18 Mauss, a French anthropologist, was
one of the first scholars to provide an in-depth exploration of reciprocity and the role that gifts play in
cultural systems around the world.19 Mauss asked why humans feel obliged to reciprocate when they
receive a gift. His answer was that giving and reciprocating gifts, whether these are material objects or
our time, creates links between the people involved.20
Over the past century, anthropologists have devoted considerable attention to the topic of reciproc-
ity. It is an attractive one because of the seemingly moral nature of gifts: many of us hope that humans
are not solely self-interested, antisocial economic actors. Gifts are about social relations, not just about
the gifts themselves; as we will see, giving a gift that contains a bit of oneself builds a social relationship
with the person who receives it.21 Studying reciprocity gives anthropologists unique insights into the
moral economy, or the processes through which customs, cultural values, beliefs, and social coercion
influence our economic behavior. The economy can be understood as a symbolic reflection of the cul-
tural order and the sense of right and wrong that people adhere to within that cultural order.22 This
means that economic behavior is a unique cultural practice, one that varies across time and space.
Generalized Reciprocity
Consider a young child. Friends and family members probably purchase numerous gifts for the child,
small and large. People give freely of their time: changing diapers, cooking meals, driving the child to
soccer practice, and tucking the child in at night. These myriad gifts of toys and time are not written
down; we do not keep a running tally of everything we give our children. However, as children grow
older they begin to reciprocate these gifts: mowing an elderly grandmother’s yard, cooking dinner for
a parent who has to work late, or buying an expensive gift for an older sibling. When we gift without
reckoning the exact value of the gift or expecting a specific thing in return we are practicing general-
ized reciprocity. This form of reciprocity occurs within the closest social relationships where exchange
happens so frequently that monitoring the value of each item or service given and received would be
impossible, and to do so would lead to tension and quite possibly the eventual dissolution of the rela-
tionship.
However, generalized reciprocity is not necessarily limited to households. In my own suburban Ken-
tucky neighborhood we engage in many forms of generalized reciprocity. For example, we regularly
cook and deliver meals for our neighbors who have a new baby, a sick parent, or recently deceased rel-
ative. Similarly, at Halloween we give out handfuls of candy (sometimes spending $50 or more in the
process). I do not keep a close tally of which kid received which candy bar, nor do my young daugh-
ters pay close attention to which houses gave more or less desirable candy this year. In other cultures,
generalized reciprocity is the norm rather than the exception. Recall the Dobe Ju/’hoansi foragers who
live in the Kalahari Desert: they have a flexible and overlapping kinship system which ensures that the
products of their hunting and gathering are shared widely across the entire community. This general-
ized reciprocity reinforces the solidarity of the group; however, it also means that Dobe Ju/’hoansi have
very few individual possessions and generosity is a prized personality trait.
Balanced Reciprocity
129
Unlike generalized reciprocity, balanced reciprocity is more of a direct exchange in which some-
thing is traded or given with the expectation that something of equal value will be returned within a
specific time period. This form of reciprocity involves three distinct stages: the gift must be given, it has
to be received, and a reciprocal gift has to be returned. A key aspect of balanced reciprocity is that with-
out reciprocation within an appropriate time frame, the exchange system will falter and the social rela-
tionship might end. Balanced reciprocity generally occurs at a social level more distant than the family,
but it usually occurs among people who know each other. In other words, complete strangers would be
unlikely to engage in balanced reciprocity because they would not be able to trust the person to recip-
rocate within an acceptable period of time.
The Kula ring system of exchange found in the
Trobriand Islands in the South Pacific is one exam-
ple of balanced reciprocity. A Kula ring involves
the ceremonial exchange of shell and bead neck-
laces (soulava) for shell arm bands (mwali) between
trading partners living on different islands. The
arm bands and necklaces constantly circulate and
only have symbolic value, meaning they bring the
temporary owner honor and prestige but cannot
be bought or sold for money. Malinowski was the
first anthropologist to study the Kula ring, and he
found that although participants did not profit
materially from the exchange, it served several
Figure 4: Mwali from the Kula Exchange
important functions in Trobriand society.23
Because participants formed relationships with
trading participants on other islands, the Kula ring helped solidify alliances among tribes, and overseas
partners became allies in a land of danger and insecurity. Along with arm bands and necklaces, Kula
participants were also engaging in more mundane forms of trade, bartering from one island to another.
Additionally, songs, customs, and cultural influences also traveled along the Kula route. Finally,
although ownership of the arm bands and necklaces was always temporary (for eventually participants
are expected to gift the items to other partners in the ring), Kula participants took great pride and plea-
sure in the items they received. The Kula ring exhibits all the hallmarks of balanced reciprocity: neck-
laces are traded for armbands with the expectation that objects of equal value will be returned within a
specific time period.
The Work of Reciprocity at Christmas
How many of us give and receive gifts during the holiday season? Christmas is undeniably a religious
celebration, yet while nine in ten Americans say they celebrate Christmas, about half view it to be more
of a secular holiday. Perhaps this is why eight in ten non-Christians in the United States now celebrate
Christmas.24 How and why has this one date in the liturgical calendar come to be so central to U.S. cul-
ture and what does gift giving have to do with it? In 1865, Christmas was declared a national holiday;
just 25 years later, Ladies’ Home Journal was already complaining that the holiday had become overly
commercialized.25 A recent survey of U.S. citizens found that we continue to be frustrated with the
commercialization of the season: one-third say they dislike the materialism of the holidays, one-fifth
are unhappy with the expenses of the season, and one in ten dislikes holiday shopping in crowded malls
and stores.26
When asked what they like most about the holiday season, 70 percent of U.S. residents say spending
time with family and friends. This raises the question of how and why reciprocal gift giving has become
so central to the social relationships we hope to nurture at Christmas. The anthropologist James Car-
rier argues that the affectionate giving at the heart of modern Christmas is in fact a celebration of per-
sonal social relations. 27 Among our family members and closest friends this gift giving is generalized
and more about the expression of sentiment. When we exchange gifts with those outside this small cir-
cle it tends to be more balanced, and we expect some form of equivalent reciprocation. If I spend $50 on
a lavish gift for a friend, my feelings will undoubtedly be hurt when she reciprocates with a $5 gift card
to Starbucks.
Christmas shopping is arduous–we probably all know someone who heads to the stores at midnight
on Black Friday to get a jumpstart on their consumption. Throughout the month of December we com-
plain about how crowded the stores are and how tired we are of wrapping presents. Let’s face it: Christ-
mas is a lot of work! Recall how the reciprocity of the Kula ring served many functions in addition to
the simple exchange of symbolic arm bands and shell necklaces. Similarly, Christmas gift giving is about
more than exchanging commodities. In order to cement our social relationships we buy and wrap gifts
(even figuratively by placing a giant red bow on oversize items like a new bicycle) in order to symbol-
ically transform the impersonal commodities that populate our everyday lives into meaningful gifts.
The ritual of shopping, wrapping, giving, and receiving proves to us that we can create a sphere of love
and intimacy alongside the world of anonymous, monetary exchange. The ritualistic exchange of gifts
is accompanied by other traditions, such as the circulation of holiday cards that have no economic or
practical value, but instead are used to reinforce social relationships. When we view Christmas through
a moral economy lens, we come to understand how our economic behavior is shaped by our historical
customs, cultural values, beliefs, and even our need to maintain appearances. Christmas is hard work,
but with any luck we will reap the rewards of strong relational bonds.28
Negative Reciprocity
Unlike balanced and generalized reciprocity, negative reciprocity is an attempt to get something for
nothing. It is the most impersonal of the three forms of reciprocity and it commonly exists among peo-
ple who do not know each other well because close relationships are incompatible with attempts to take
advantage of other people. Gambling is a good example of negative reciprocity, and some would argue
that market exchange, in which one participant aims to buy low while the other aims to sell high, can
also be a form of negative reciprocity.
The emails always begin with a friendly salutation: “Dear Beloved Friend, I know this message will
come to you as surprised but permit me of my desire to go into business relationship with you.” The
introduction is often followed by a long involved story of deaths and unexpected inheritances: “I am
Miss Naomi Surugaba, a daughter to late Al-badari Surugaba of Libya whom was murdered during the
recent civil war in Libya in March 2011….my late Father came to Cotonou Benin republic with USD
4,200,000.00 (US$4.2M) which he deposited in a Bank here…for safe keeping. I am here seeking for an
avenue to transfer the fund to you….Please I will offer you 20% of the total sum for your assistance…..”29
The emails are crafted to invoke a sense of balanced reciprocity: the authors tell us how trustworthy
and esteemed we are and offer to give us a percentage of the money in exchange for our assistance.
However, most savvy recipients immediately recognize that these scams are in fact a form of negative
131
reciprocity since they know they will never actually receive the promised money and, in fact, will prob-
ably lose money if they give their bank account information to their correspondent.
The anthropologist Daniel Smith studied the motives and practices of Nigerian email scammers who
are responsible for approximately one-fifth of these types of emails that flood Western inboxes.30 He
found that 419 scams, as they are known in Nigeria (after the section of the criminal code outlawing
fraud), emerged in the largest African state (Nigeria has more than 130 million residents, nearly 70 per-
cent of whom live below the poverty line) in the late 1990s when there were few legitimate economic
opportunities for the large number of educated young people who had the English skills and techno-
logical expertise necessary for successful scams. Smith spoke with some of the Nigerians sending these
emails and found that they dreamed of a big payoff someday. They reportedly felt bad for people who
were duped, but said that if Americans were greedy enough to fall for it they got what they deserved.
The typical email correspondence always emphasizes the urgency, confidentiality, and reciprocity of
the proposed arrangement. Smith argues that the 419 scams mimic long-standing cultural practices
around kinship and patronage relations. While clearly 419 scammers are practicing negative reciprocity
by trying to get something for nothing (unfortunately we will never receive the 20 percent of the $4.2
million that Miss Naomi Surugaba promised us), many in the United States continue to be lured in by
the veneer of balanced reciprocity. The FBI receives an estimated 4,000 complaints about advance fee
scams each year, and annual victim losses total over $55 million.31
Redistribution
Redistribution is the accumulation of goods or labor by a particular person or institution for the
purpose of dispersal at a later date. Redistribution is found in all societies. For example, within house-
holds we pool our labor and resources, yet we rarely distribute these outside of our family. For redis-
tribution to become a central economic process, a society must have a centralized political apparatus to
coordinate and enforce the practice.
Redistribution can occur alongside other forms of exchange. For example, in the United States every-
one who works in the formal sector pays federal taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. During the 2015
fiscal year the IRS collected $3.3 trillion in federal revenue. It processed 243 million returns, and 119
million of these resulted in a tax refund. In total, $403.3 billion tax dollars were redistributed by this
central political apparatus.32 Even if I did not receive a cash refund from the IRS, I still benefited from
the redistribution in the form of federal services and infrastructure.
Sometimes economic practices that appear to be merely reciprocal gift exchanges are revealed to be
forms of redistribution after closer inspection. The potlatch system of the Native American groups liv-
ing in the United States and Canadian northwestern coastal area was long understood as an example
of functional gift giving. Traditionally, two groups of clans would perform highly ritualized exchanges
of food, blankets, and ritual objects. The system produced status and prestige among participants: by
giving away more goods than another person, a chief could build his reputation and gain new respect
within the community. After contact with settlers, the excessive gift giving during potlatches escalated
to the point that early anthropologists described it as a “war of property.”33
Later anthropological studies of the potlatch revealed that rather than wasting, burning, or giving
away their property to display their wealth, the groups were actually giving away goods that other
groups could use and then waiting for a later potlatch when they would receive things not available in
their own region. This was important because the availability of food hunted, fished, and foraged by
native communities could be highly variable. The anthropologist Stuart Piddocke found that the pot-
latch primarily served a livelihood function by ensuring the redistribution of goods between groups
with surpluses and those with deficits.34
Markets
The third way that societies distribute goods and services is through market exchange. Markets are
social institutions with prices or exchange equivalencies. Markets do not necessarily have to be local-
ized in a geographic place (e.g., a marketplace), but they cannot exist without institutions to govern the
exchanges. Market and reciprocal exchange appear to share similar features: one person gives some-
thing and the other receives something. A key distinction between the two is that market exchanges
are regulated by supply and demand mechanisms. The forces of supply and demand can create risk for
people living in societies that largely distribute goods through market exchange. If we lose our jobs, we
may not be able to buy food for our families. In contrast, if a member of a Dobe Ju/’hoansi community
is hurt and unable to gather foods today, she will continue to eat as a result of generalized reciprocal
exchanges.
Market exchanges are based on transactions, or changes in the status of a good or service between
people, such as a sale. While market exchange is generally less personal than reciprocal exchange, per-
sonalized transactions between people who have a relationship that endures beyond a single exchange
do exist. Atomized transactions are impersonal ones between people who have no relationship with
each other beyond the short term of the exchange. These are generally short-run, closed-ended transac-
tions with few implications for the future. In contrast, personalized transactions occur between people
who have a relationship that endures past the exchange and might include both social and economic ele-
ments. The transactors are embedded in networks of social relations and might even have knowledge of
the other’s personality, family, or personal circumstances that helps them trust that the exchange will be
satisfactory. Economic exchanges within families, for example when a child begins to work for a family
business, are extreme examples of personalized market exchange.
To better understand the differences between transactions between relative strangers and those that
are more personalized, consider the different options one has for a haircut: a person can stop by a chain
salon such as Great Clips and leave twenty minutes later after spending $15 to have his hair trimmed
by someone he has never met before, or he can develop an ongoing relationship with a hair stylist or
barber he regularly visits. These appointments may last an hour or even longer, and he and his stylist
probably chat about each other’s lives, the weather, or politics. At Christmas he may even bring a small
gift or give an extra tip. He trusts his stylist to cut his hair the way he likes it because of their long his-
tory of personalized transactions.
Maine Lobster Markets
To better understand the nature of market transactions, anthropologist James Acheson studied the
economic lives of Maine fishermen and lobster dealers.35 The lobster market is highly sensitive to sup-
ply and demand: catch volumes and prices change radically over the course of the year. For example,
during the winter months, lobster catches are typically low because the animals are inactive and fisher-
men are reluctant to go out into the cold and stormy seas for small catches. Beginning in April, lobsters
become more active and, as the water warms, they migrate toward shore and catch volumes increase. In
May prices fall dramatically; supply is high but there are relatively few tourists and demand is low. In
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June and July catch volume decreases again when lobsters molt and are difficult to catch, but demand
increases due to the large influx of tourists, which, in turn, leads to higher prices. In the fall, after the
tourists have left, catch volume increases again as a new class of recently molted lobsters become avail-
able to the fishermen. In other words, catch and price are inversely related: when the catch is lowest,
the price is highest, and when the catch is highest, the price is lowest.
The fishermen generally sell their lobsters to wholesalers and have very little idea where the lobsters
go, how many hands they pass through on their way to the consumer, how prices are set, or why they
vary over the course of the year. In other words, from the fisherman’s point of view the process is
shrouded in fog, mystery, and rumor. Acheson found that in order to manage the inherent risk posed by
this variable market, fishermen form long-term, personalized economic relationships with particular
dealers. The dealers’ goal is to ensure a large, steady supply of lobsters for as low a price as possible. In
order to do so, they make contracts with fishermen to always buy all of the lobster they have to sell no
matter how glutted the market might be. In exchange, the fishermen agree to sell their catches for the
going rate and forfeit the right to bargain over price. The dealers provide added incentives to the fisher-
men: for example, they will allow fishermen to use their dock at no cost and supply them with gasoline,
diesel fuel, paint, buoys, and gloves at cost or with only a small markup. They also often provide inter-
est-free loans to their fishermen for boats, equipment, and traps. In sum, the Maine fishermen and the
dealers have, over time, developed highly personalized exchange relations in order to manage the risky
lobster market. While these market exchanges last over many seasons and rely on a certain degree of
trust, neither the fishermen nor the dealers would characterize the relationship as reciprocal—they are
buying and selling lobster, not exchanging gifts.
Money
While general purpose money is not a prerequisite for market exchanges, most commercial transac-
tions today do involve the exchange of money. In our own society, and in most parts of the world, gen-
eral purpose money can be exchanged for all manner of goods and services. General purpose money
serves as a medium of exchange, a tool for storing wealth, and as a way to assign interchangeable val-
ues. It reflects our ideas about the generalized interchangeability of all things—it makes products and
services from all over the world commensurable in terms of a single metric. In so doing, it increases
opportunities for unequal exchange.36 As we will see, different societies have attempted to challenge
this notion of interchangeability and the inequalities it can foster in different ways.
Tiv Spheres of Exchange
Prior to colonialism, the Tiv people in Nigeria had an economic system governed by a moral hier-
archy of values that challenged the idea that all objects can be made commensurable through general
purpose money. The anthropologists Paul and Laura Bohannan developed the theory of spheres of
exchange after recognizing that the Tiv had three distinct economic arenas and that each arena had its
own form of money.37 The subsistence sphere included locally produced foods (yams, grains, and veg-
etables), chickens, goats, and household utensils. The second sphere encompassed slaves, cattle, white
cloth, and metal bars. Finally, the third, most prestigious sphere was limited to marriageable females.
Excluded completely from the Tiv spheres of exchange were labor (because it was always reciprocally
exchanged) and land (which was not owned per se, but rather communally held within families).
The Tiv were able to convert their wealth upwards through the spheres of exchange. For example, a
Tiv man could trade a portion of his yam harvest for slaves that, in turn, could be given as bridewealth
for a marriageable female. However, it was considered immoral to convert wealth downwards: no hon-
orable man would exchange slaves or brass rods for food.38 The Bohannans found that this moral
economy quickly collapsed when it was incorporated into the contemporary realm of general purpose
money. When items in any of the three spheres could be exchanged for general purpose money, the Tiv
could no longer maintain separate categories of exchangeable items. The Bohannans concluded that the
moral meanings of money—in other words, how exchange is culturally conceived—can have very sig-
nificant material implications for people’s everyday lives.39
Local Currency Systems: Ithaca HOURS
While we may take our general purpose currency for granted, as the Tiv example demonstrates,
money is profoundly symbolic and political. Money is not only the measure of value but also the pur-
pose of much of our activity, and money shapes economic relations by creating inequalities and oblit-
erating qualitative differences.40 In other words, I might pay a babysitter $50 to watch my children for
the evening, and I might spend $50 on a new sweater the next day. While these two expenses are com-
mensurable through general purpose money, qualitatively they are in fact radically different in terms of
the sentiment I attach to each (and I would not ever try to pay my babysitter in sweaters).
Some communities explicitly acknowledge the political and symbolic components of money and
develop complementary currency systems with the goal of maximizing transactions in a geographically
bounded area, such as within a single city. The goal is to encourage people to connect more directly with
each other than they might do when shopping in corporate stores using general purpose money.41 For
example, the city of Ithaca, New York, promotes its local economy and community self-reliance through
the use of Ithaca HOURS.42 More than 900 participants accept Ithaca HOURS for goods and services,
and some local employers and employees even pay or receive partial wages in the complementary cur-
rency. The currency has been in circulation since 1991, and the system was incorporated as a nonprofit
organization in 1998. Today it is administered by a board of elected volunteers. Ithaca HOURS circulate
in denominations of two, one, one-half, one-fourth, one-eighth, and one-tenth HOURS ($20, $10, $5,
$2.50, $1.25, and $1, respectively). The HOURS are put into circulation through “disbursements” given
to registered organization members, through small interest-free loans to local businesses, and through
grants to community organizations. The name “HOURS” evokes the principle of labor exchange and
the idea that a unit of time is equal for everyone.43
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Figure 5: An Ithaca Hour Note
The anthropologist Faidra Papavasiliou studied the impact of the Ithaca HOURS currency system.
She found that while the complementary currency does not necessarily create full economic equality, it
does create deeper connections among community members and local businesses, helping to demystify
and personalize exchange (much as we saw with the lobstermen and dealers).44 The Ithaca HOURS sys-
tem also offers important networking opportunities for locally owned businesses and, because it pro-
vides zero interest business loans, it serves as a form of security against economic crisis.45 Finally, the
Ithaca HOURS complementary currency system encourages community members to shop at locally
owned businesses. As we will see in the next section, where we choose to shop and what we choose to
buy forms a large part of our lives and cultural identity. The HOURS system demonstrates a relatively
successful approach to challenging the inequalities fostered by general purpose money.
CONSUMPTION AND GLOBAL CAPITALISM
Consumption refers to the process of buying, eating, or using a resource, food, commodity, or ser-
vice. Anthropologists understand consumption more specifically as the forms of behavior that connect
our economic activity with the cultural symbols that give our lives meaning.46 People’s consumption
patterns are a large part of their lives, and economic anthropologists explore why, how, and when peo-
ple consume what they do. The answers to these questions lie in people’s ideologies and identities as
members of a social group; each culture is different and each consumes in its own way. Consumption
is always social even when it addresses physical needs. For example, all humans need to eat, but people
around the world have radically different ideas of what foods and flavors are most desirable and appro-
priate.
We use our material possessions to meet our needs (for example, we wear clothing to protect us
from the environment), regulate our social lives, and affirm the rightful order of things.47 Anthropol-
ogists understand that the commodities we buy are not just good for eating or shelter, they are good
for thinking: in acquiring and possessing particular goods, people make visible and stable the categories
of culture.48 For example, consumption helps us establish and defend differences among people and
occasions: I might wear a specific t-shirt and cap to a baseball game with friends in order to distinguish
myself as a fan of a particular team. In the process, I make myself easily identifiable within the larger fan
community. However, I probably would not wear this same outfit to a job interview because it would
be inappropriate for the occasion.
Economic anthropologists are also interested in why objects become status symbols and how these
come to be experienced as an aspect of the self.49 Objects have a “social life” during which they may pass
through various statuses: a silver cake server begins its life as a commodity for sale in a store. 50 How-
ever, imagine that someone’s great-grandmother used that server to cut the cake at her wedding, and it
became a cherished family heirloom passed down from one generation to the next. Unfortunately, the
server ended up in the hands of a cousin who did not feel a sentimental attachment to this object. She
sold it to a gold and silver broker for currency and it was transformed into an anonymous commodity.
That broker in turn sold it to a dealer who melted it down, turning the once cherished cake server back
into a raw material.
Transforming Barbie Dolls
We have already learned about the hard work that Americans devote to converting impersonal com-
modities into sentimental gifts at Christmastime with the goal of nourishing their closest social bonds.
Consumers in capitalist systems continuously attempt to reshape the meaning of the commodities that
businesses brand, package, and market to us.51 The anthropologist Elizabeth Chin conducted ethno-
graphic research among young African American children in a poor neighborhood of New Haven, Con-
necticut, exploring the intersection of consumption, inequality, and cultural identity.
Chin specifically looked at “ethnically correct” Barbie dolls, arguing that while they may represent
some progress in comparison to the past when only white Barbies were sold, they also reinforce out-
dated understandings of biological race and ethnicity. Rather than dismantling race and class bound-
aries, the “ethnic” dolls create segregated toy shelves that in fact mirror the segregation that young black
children experience in their schools and neighborhoods.
The young black girls that Chin researched were unable to afford these $20 brand-name dolls and
typically played with less expensive, generic Barbie dolls that were white.52 The girls used their imagi-
nations and worked to transform their dolls by giving them hairstyles like their own, braiding and curl-
ing the dolls’ long straight hair in order to integrate the dolls into their own worlds.53 A quick perusal
of the Internet reveals numerous tutorials and blogs devoted to black Barbie hairstyling, demonstrating
that the young New Haven girls are not the only ones working to transform these store-bought com-
modities in socially meaningful ways.54
Consumption in the Developing World
Consumption provides us with a window into globalization, which we will learn more about in
the Globalization chapter. Over the past several decades, as global capitalism expanded its reach into
developing countries around the world, many people fretted that the growing influx of Western prod-
ucts would lead to cultural homogeneity and even cultural imperialism. Some argued that with every
McDonald’s constructed, the values and beliefs of the West were being imposed on non-Western
societies. However, anthropologists have systematically challenged this thesis by providing a more
sophisticated understanding of local cultural contexts. They demonstrate that people do not become
Westernized simply by buying Western commodities, any more than I become somehow more Japanese
after eating at my favorite neighborhood hibachi restaurant. In fact, anthropological research shows
137
that Western commodities can sometimes lead to a resurgence of local identities and an affirmation of
local processes over global patterns.
The Children Cry for Bread
The anthropologist Mary Wesimantel researched how families adapt to changing economic circum-
stances, including the introduction of Western products into their indigenous community of Zum-
bagua, Ecuador. Once subsistence barley farmers, men from Zumbagua began to migrate to cities in
search of work while the women stayed home to care for the children and continue to farm barley
for home consumption. The men periodically returned home, bringing cash earnings and urban luxu-
ries such as bread. The children associated this bread with modernity and city life, and they preferred
to eat it rather than the traditional staple food of toasted ground barley, grown and cooked by their
mothers. The children “cried” for the bread their fathers brought home. Yet, their mothers resisted their
pleas and continued to feed them grains from their own fields because barley consumption was consid-
ered a core component of indigenous identity.55 This example illustrates the complex negotiations that
emerge within families and communities when they are increasingly integrated into a global economy
and exposed to Western goods.
Consumption, Status, and Recognition among the Elite in China
In other parts of the world, the consumption of Western goods can be used to cement social and eco-
nomic status within local networks. John Osburg studied the “new elite” in China, the class of entre-
preneurs who have successfully navigated the recent transitions in the Chinese economy since the early
1990s when private businesses and foreign investment began to steadily expand their reach in this com-
munist country.56 Osburg found that the new elite do not constitute a coherent class defined by income
level or occupation. Instead, they occupy an unstable and contested category and consequently rely on
the consumption of Western-style goods and services in order to stabilize their identities.
Osburg argues that the whole point of elite consumption in Chengdu, China, is to make one’s eco-
nomic, social, and cultural capital as transparent and legible as possible to the widest audience in order
to let everyone know one is wealthy and well connected. Consequently, the Chengdu elite favor easily
recognizable and pricey brand names. However, consumption is not simply an arena of status display.
Instead, Osburg shows how it is a form of social practice through which relationships with other elites
are forged: the shared consumption of conventional luxury objects like liquor and tobacco solidifies
relationships among the privileged.57
Commodities and Global Capitalism
In his 1967 speech “A Christmas Sermon on Peace,” the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded
us that all life is interrelated:
We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. . . Did
you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most
of the world? You get up in the morning and reach over for the sponge, and that’s handed to you by a
Pacific Islander. You reach for a bar of soap, given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you
go into the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning, and that’s poured into your cup by a South
American. . . And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half
the world.58
King’s words are even truer today than they were in the late 1960s. Due to the intensification of global
capitalism, the vast majority of the commodities we buy and the food we consume come to us from dis-
tant places; while such global supply chains are not new, they have become increasingly dense in an age
of container shipping and overnight air deliveries.
Recall that a commodity is any good that is produced for sale or exchange for other goods. However,
commodities are more than just a means to acquire general purpose money. They also embody social
relations of production, the identities of businesses, and particular geographic locales. Many economic
anthropologists today study global flows through the lens of a concrete substance that makes a circuit
through various locales, exploring the social lives of agrifood commodities such as mutton, coffee, sushi,
and sugar.59 In following these commodities along their supply chains, anthropologists highlight not
only relations of production but also the power of ideas, images, and noneconomic actors. These studies
of specific commodities are a powerful method to show how capitalism has grown, spread, and pene-
trated agrarian societies around the world.60
Darjeeling Tea
The anthropologist Sarah Besky researched Darjeeling tea production in India to better understand
how consumer desires are mapped onto distant locations.61 In India, tea plantation owners are attempt-
ing to reinvent their product for 21st century markets through the use of fair-trade certification
(discussed earlier in this chapter) and Geographical Indication Status (GI). GI is an international prop-
erty-rights system, regulated by the World Trade Organization, that legally protects the rights of people
in certain places to produce certain commodities. For example, bourbon must come from Kentucky,
Mezcal can only be produced in certain parts of Mexico, and sparkling wine can only be called cham-
pagne if it originated in France. Similarly, in order to legally be sold as “Darjeeling tea,” the tea leaves
must come from the Darjeeling district of the Indian state of West Bengal.
Figure 6: Tea Workers in Darjeeling, India
Besky explores how the meaning of Darjeeling tea is created through three interrelated processes: (1)
extensive marketing campaigns aimed at educating consumers about the unique Darjeeling taste, (2) the
139
application of international law to define the geographic borders within which Darjeeling tea can be
produced, and (3) the introduction of tea plantation-based tourism. What the Darjeeling label hides is
the fact that tea plantations are highly unequal systems with economic relationships that date back to
the colonial era: workers depend upon plantation owners not just for money but also for food, medical
care, schools, and housing. Even when we pay more for Darjeeling tea, the premium price is not always
returned to the workers in the form of higher wages. Besky’s research shows how capitalism and market
exchange shapes the daily lives of people around the world. The final section of this chapter explores the
ways in which economic anthropologists understand and question structural inequalities in the world
today.
POLITICAL ECONOMY: UNDERSTANDING INEQUALITY
Humans are fundamentally social, and our culture is always shared and patterned: we live our lives in
groups. However, not all groups serve the needs of their members, and some people have more power
than others, meaning they can make the weak consent through threats and coercion. Within all societies
there are classes of people defined by the kinds of property they own and/or the kinds of work they
engage in.62 Beginning in the 1960s, an increasing number of anthropologists began to study the world
around them through the lens of political economy. This approach recognizes that the economy is cen-
tral to everyday life but contextualizes economic relations within state structures, political processes,
social structures, and cultural values.63 Some political economic anthropologists focus on how societies
and markets have historically evolved while others ask how individuals deal with the forces that oppress
them, focusing on historical legacies of social domination and marginalization. 64
Karl Marx famously wrote, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they
do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and
transmitted from the past.”65 In other words, while humans are inherently creative, our possibilities are
limited by the structural realities of our everyday lives.
Consider a typical college student. Is this student happy with the courses her department or college
is offering? Are there courses that she needs to graduate that are not being offered yet? She is free to
choose among the listed courses, but she cannot choose which courses are available. This depends on
factors beyond her control as a student: who is available to teach which topics or what the administra-
tion has decided is important enough to offer. So, her agency and ability to choose is highly constrained
by the structures in place. In the same way, political economies constrain people’s choices and define
the terms by which we must live. Importantly, it is not simply structures that determine our choices and
actions; these are also shaped by our community.
Just as our college student may come to think of the requirements she has to fulfill for her degree as
just the way it is (even if she does not want to take that theory course!), people come to think of their
available choices in everyday life as simply the natural order of things. However, the degree of agency
one has depends on the amount of power one has and the degree to which one understands the struc-
tural dimensions of one’s life. This focus on power and structural relations parallels an anthropological
understanding of culture as a holistic system: economic relations never exist by themselves, apart from
social and political institutions.
Structural Violence and the Politics of Aid in Haiti

Anthropologists interested in understanding economic inequalities often research forms of structural

violence present in the communities where they work.66 Structural violence is a form of violence in
which a social structure or institution harms people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs.
In other words, how political and economic forces structure risk for various forms of suffering within a
population. Structural violence can include things like infectious disease, hunger, and violence (torture,
rape, crime, etc.).
In the United States we tend to focus on individuals and personal experiences. A popular narrative
holds that if you work hard enough you can “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” in this country of
immigrants and economic opportunity. The converse of this ideology is victim blaming: the logic is that
if people are poor it is their own fault.67 However, studying structural violence helps us understand that
for some people there simply is no getting ahead and all one can hope for is survival.
The conditions of everyday life in Haiti, which only worsened after the 2010 earthquake, are a good
example of how structural violence limits individual opportunities. Haiti is the most unequal country
in Latin America and the Caribbean: the richest 20 percent of its population holds more than 64 per-
cent of its total wealth, while the poorest 20 percent hold barely one percent. The starkest contrast is
between the urban and rural areas: almost 70 percent of Haiti’s rural households are chronically poor
(vs. 20 percent in cities), meaning they survive on less than $2 a day and lack access to basic goods and
services.68 Haiti suffers from widespread unemployment and underemployment, and more than two-
thirds of people in the labor force do not have formal jobs. The population is not well educated, and
more than 40 percent of the population over the age of 15 is illiterate.69 According to the World Food
Programme, more than 100,000 Haitian children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition
and one in three children is stunted (or irreversibly short for their age). Only 50 percent of households
have access to safe water, and only 25 percent have adequate sanitation.70
On January 12, 2010, a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck this highly unequal and impov-
erished nation, killing more than 160,000 people and displacing close to 1.5 million more. Because the
earthquake’s epicenter was near the capital city, the National Palace and the majority of Haiti’s govern-
mental offices were almost completely destroyed. The government lost an estimated 17 percent of its
workforce. Other vital infrastructure, such as hospitals, communication systems, and roads, was also
damaged, making it harder to respond to immediate needs after the quake.71
The world responded with one of its most generous outpourings of aid in recent history. By March
1, 2010, half of all U.S. citizens had donated a combined total of $1 billion for the relief effort (world-
wide $2.2 billion was raised), and on March 31, 2010 international agencies pledged $5.3 billion over
the next 18 months.72 The anthropologist Mark Schuller studied the aftermath of the earthquake and
the politics of humanitarianism in Haiti. He found that little of this aid ever reached Haiti’s most vul-
nerable people, the 1.5 million people living in the IDP (internally displaced persons) camps. Less than
one percent of the aid actually was given to the Haitian government. The largest single recipient was the
U.S. military (33 percent), and the majority of the aid was dispersed to foreign-run non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) working in Haiti.
Because so little of this aid reached the people on the ground who needed it most, seven months fol-
lowing the disaster 40 percent of the IDP camps did not have access to water, and 30 percent did not
have toilets of any kind. Only ten percent of families in the camps had a tent and the rest slept under
tarps or bedsheets. Only 20 percent of the camps had education, health care, or mental health facilities
on-site.73 Schuller argues that this failure constitutes a violation of the Haitian IDP’s human rights, and
it is linked to a long history of exploitative relations between Haiti and the rest of the world.
Haiti is the second oldest republic in the Western Hemisphere (after the United States), having
declared its independence from France in 1804. Years later, in order to earn diplomatic recognition
141
from the French government, Haiti agreed to pay financial reparations to the powerful nation from
1825 to 1947. In order to do so, Haiti was forced to take out large loans from U.S. and European banks
at high interest rates. During the twentieth century, the country suffered at the hands of brutal dicta-
torships, and its foreign debts continued to increase. Schuller argues that the world system continually
applied pressure to Haiti, draining its resources and forcing it into the debt bondage that kept it from
developing. In the process, this system contributed to the very surplus that allowed powerful Western
nations to develop.74
When the earthquake struck, Haiti’s economy already revolved around international aid and foreign
remittances sent by migrants (which represented approximately 25 percent of the gross domestic prod-
uct).75 Haiti had become a republic of NGOs that attract the nation’s most educated, talented workers
(because they can pay significantly higher wages than the national government, for example). Schuller
argues that the NGOs constitute a form of “trickle-down imperialism” as they reproduce the world sys-
tem.76 The relief money funneled through these organizations ended up supporting a new elite class
rather than the impoverished multitudes that so desperately need the assistance.
CONCLUSION
Anthropologists have identified forms of structural inequality in countless places around the world.
As we will learn in the Public Anthropology chapter, anthropology can be a powerful tool for addressing
the pressing social issues of our times. When anthropological research is presented in an accessible and
easily understood form, it can effectively encourage meaningful public conversations about questions
such as how to best disperse relief aid after natural disasters.
One of economic anthropology’s most important lessons is that multiple forms of economic produc-
tion and exchange structure our daily lives and social relationships. As we have seen throughout this
chapter, people simultaneously participate in both market and reciprocal exchanges on a regular basis.
For example, I may buy lunch for a friend today with the idea that she will return the favor next week
when she cooks me supper. Building on this anthropological idea of economic diversity, some scholars
argue that in order to address the economic inequalities surrounding us we should collectively work to
construct a community economy, or a space for economic decision-making that recognizes and nego-
tiates our interdependence with other humans, other species, and our environment. J. K. Gibson-Gra-
ham, Jenny Cameron, and Stephen Healy argue that in the process of recognizing and negotiating this
interdependence, we become a community.77
At the heart of the community economies framework is an understanding of economic diversity that
parallels anthropological perspectives. The economic iceberg is a visual that nicely illustrates this diver-
sity.78 Above the waterline are economic activities that are visible in mainstream economic accounts,
things like formal wage labor and shopping for groceries in a supermarket. Below the waterline we
find the wide range of people, places, and activities that contribute to our well-being. This conceptual
tool helps us to explore interrelationships that cannot be captured through mechanical market feedback
loops.79
The most prevalent form of labor around the world is the unpaid work that is conducted within the
household, the family, and the neighborhood or wider community. When we include these activities in
our understanding of the diverse economy, we also reposition many people who may see themselves
(or are labeled by others) as unemployed or economically inactive subjects.80 When we highlight these
different kinds of labor and forms of compensation we expand the scope of economic identities that fall
outside the narrow range valued by market production and exchange (employer, employee, or entre-
preneur).81 Recognizing our mutual connections and the surplus possibilities in our own community is
an important first step toward building an alternative economy, one that privileges community spheres
rather than market spheres and supports equality over inequality. This also resonates with one of eco-
nomic anthropology’s central goals: searching for alternatives to the exploitative capitalist relations that
structure the daily lives of so many people around the world today. 82
1. Why are the economic activities of people like the fair trade coffee farmers described in this chapter challenging to characterize?
What benefits do the coffee farmers hope to achieve by participating in a fair trade cooperative? Why would participating in the
global economy actually make these farming families more independent?
2. This chapter includes several examples of the ways in which economic production, consumption, and exchange link our lives to
those of people in other parts of the world. Thinking about your own daily economic activities, how is your lifestyle dependent on
people in other places? In what ways might your consumption choices be connected to global economic inequality?
3. General purpose money is used for most transactions in our society. How is the act of purchasing an object with money different
from trading or gift-giving in terms of the social and personal connections involved? Would an alternative like the Ithaca HOURS
system be beneficial to your community?
4. The Barbie doll is a product that represents rigid cultural ideas about race, but Elizabeth Chin discovered in her research that girls
who play with these dolls transform the dolls’ appearance and racial identity. What are some other examples of products that people
purchase and modify as a form of personal expression or social commentary?
GLOSSARY
Balanced reciprocity: the exchange of something with the expectation that something of equal value
will be returned within a specific time period.
Consumption: the process of buying, eating, or using a resource, food, commodity, or service.
Generalized reciprocity: giving without expecting a specific thing in return.
General purpose money: a medium of exchange that can be used in all economic transactions.
Homo economicus: a term used to describe a person who would make rational decisions in ways pre-
dicted by economic theories.
Means of production: the resources used to produce goods in a society such as land for farming or
factories.
Mode of production: the social relations through which human labor is used to transform energy from
nature using tools, skills, organization, and knowledge.
Negative reciprocity: an attempt to get something for nothing; exchange in which both parties try to
take advantage of the other.
Political economy: an approach in anthropology that investigates the historical evolution of economic
relationships as well as the contemporary political processes and social structures that contribute to
differences in income and wealth.
Redistribution: the accumulation of goods or labor by a particular person or institution for the pur-
pose of dispersal at a later date.
Structural violence: a form of violence in which a social structure or institution harms people by pre-
143
venting them from meeting their basic needs.

Subsistence farmers: people who raise plants and animals for their own consumption, but not for sale
to others.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Lyon is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of

Kentucky. Her work is situated at the juncture of development studies, economic anthropology and
food studies. She is particularly interested in how alternative food networks such as fair trade work to
create and sustain diverse economies in the United States and Latin America.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Bohannan, Paul and Laura Bohannan. Tiv Economy. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968.
Carrier, James. Gifts and Commodities: Exchange and Western Capitalism Since 1700. New York: Routledge,
1995.
Chin, Elizabeth. Purchasing Power: Black Kids and American Consumer Culture. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 2001.
Gibson-Graham, J. K., Jenny Cameron, and Stephen Healy. Take Back the Economy: An Ethical Guide for
Transforming Our Communities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
Hansen, Karen. Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing and Zambia. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2000.
Hart, Keith. “Money in Twentieth Century Anthropology.” In A Handbook of Economic Anthropology,
edited by James Carrier. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2012.
King, Martin Luther Jr. “A Christmas Sermon on Peace, December 24, 1967,” http://thekingcenter.org/
archive/document/christmas-sermon.
Lyon, Sarah. Coffee and Community: Maya Farmers and Fair Trade Markets. Boulder: University Press of
Colorado, 2011.
Marx, Karl. “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon.” In The Marx-Engels Reader, edited by Robert
C. Tucker. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978[1852].
Mauss, Marcel. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. London: Routledge,
1990[1925].
Osburg, John. Anxious Wealth: Money and Morality Among China’s New Rich. Stanford, CA: Stanford Uni-
Papavasiliou, Faidra. “Fair Money, Fair Trade: Tracing Alternative Consumption in a Local Currency
Economy.” In Fair Trade and Social Justice: Global Ethnographies, edited by Sarah Lyon and Mark
Moberg. New York: New York University Press, 2010.
Piddocke, Stuart. “The Potlatch System of the Southern Kwakiutl: A New Perspective,” Southwestern
Journal of Anthropology 21 (1965).
Schuller, Mark. “Haiti’s Disaster after the Disaster: the IDP Camps and Cholera,” Journal of Humanitarian
Assistance, December 10, 2013. https://sites.tufts.edu/jha/archives/869
______. Killing with Kindness: Haiti, International Aid, and NGOs. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Press, 2012.
Smith, Daniel. A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.
Wesimantel, Mary. Food, Gender, and Poverty in the Ecuadorian Andes. Philadelphia: University of Penn-
sylvania Press, 1988.
Wolf, Eric. Europe and the People without History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
Notes
1. James Carrier, “Introduction,” in A Handbook of Economic Anthropology, ed. James Carrier (Northampton, MA:
Edward Elgar, 2012), 4.
2. Richard Wilk and Lisa Cliggett, Economies and Cultures: Foundations of Economic Anthropology (Boulder, CO: West-
view Press, 2007), 37.
3. Carol Tarvis,“How Homo Economicus Went Extinct,” Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/
articles/how-homo-economicus-went-extinct-1431721255
4. Eric Wolf, Europe and the People without History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).
5. Richard Lee, The Dobe Ju/'hoansi (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2013). See also, Thomas Patterson, “Dis-
tribution and Redistribution,” in A Handbook of Economic Anthropology, ed. James Carrier (Northampton, MA:
Edward Elgar, 2012).
6. Hill Gates, China's Motor: A Thousand Years of Petty Capitalism (New York: Cornell University Press, 1996).
7. Thomas Patterson, “Distribution and Redistribution,” in A Handbook of Economic Anthropology, ed. James Carrier
(Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2012), 204.
8. Martha Alter Chen, “The Informal Economy in Comparative Perspective,” in A Handbook of Economic Anthropol-
ogy, ed. James Carrier (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2012), 493.
9. Keith Hart, “Money in Twentieth Century Anthropology,” in A Handbook of Economic Anthropology, ed. James Car-
rier (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2012).
10. See www.fairtrade.net for more information.
11. Sarah Lyon, Coffee and Community: Maya Farmers and Fair Trade Markets (Boulder: University Press of Colorado,
2011).
12. Friedrich Schneider, Andreas Buehn, and Claudio E. Montenegro, “Shadow Economies from All Over the
World: New Estimates for 162 Countries from 1999 to 2007,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 5356,
July 2010. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/3928/WPS5356.pdf?sequence=1.
13. Karen Hansen, Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing and Zambia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2000).
14. Elizabeth Cline, Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion (New York: Portfolio, 2013).
15. Robyn Curnow and Teo Kermeliotis, “Is Your Old T-Shirt Hurting African Economies?” CNN, April 12, 2013,
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/12/business/second-hand-clothes-africa/.
145
16. Karen Hansen, Salaula.

17. Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics (Chicago: Aldine, 1972).
18. Keith Hart, “Money in Twentieth Century Anthropology,” 179.
19. Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies (London: Routledge, 1990[1925]).
20. Richard Wilk and Lisa Cliggett, Economies and Cultures: Foundations of Economic Anthropology, 158.
21. Ibid.,162.
22. Ibid.,120.
23. Bronislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific (New York: Dutton, 1961[1922]).
24. Pew Research Center, “Celebrating Christmas and the Holidays Then and Now,” December 18, 2013.
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/12/18/celebrating-christmas-and-the-holidays-then-and-now/.
25. James Carrier, Gifts and Commodities: Exchange and Western Capitalism since 1700 (New York: Routledge, 1995),
189
26. Pew Research Center, “Celebrating Christmas and the Holidays Then and Now.”
27. James Carrier, Gifts and Commodities.
28. Ibid., 178.
29. Erika Eichelberger, “What I Learned Hanging out with Nigerian Email Scammers,” Mother Jones, March 20, 2014.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/03/what-i-learned-from-nigerian-scammers.
30. Daniel Smith, A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria (Princeton, NJ: Prince-
ton University Press, 2007).
31. Erika Eichelberger, “What I Learned Hanging out with Nigerian Email Scammers.”
32. Internal Revenue Service, 2015 Data Book (Washington D.C. Internal Revenue Service, 2016).
33. Richard Wilk and Lisa Cliggett, Economies and Cultures,156.
34. Stuart Piddocke, “The Potlatch System of the Southern Kwakiutl: A New Perspective,” Southwestern Journal of
Anthropology 21 (1965).
35. James Acheson, The Lobster Gangs of Maine (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 1988).
36. Alf Hornborg, “Learning from the Tiv: Why a Sustainable Economy Would Have to Be ‘Multicentric,’” Culture
and Agriculture 29 (2007): 64.
37. Paul Bohannan and Laura Bohannan, Tiv Economy (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968).
38. Paul Bohannan, “Some Principles of Exchange and Investment among the Tiv,” American Anthropologist 57 (1955):
65.
39. Ibid., 64.
40. Faidra Papavasiliou, “Fair Money, Fair Trade: Tracing Alternative Consumption in a Local Currency Economy,”
in Fair Trade and Social Justice: Global Ethnographies, ed. Sarah Lyon and Mark Moberg (New York: New York
University Press, 2010).
41. J. K. Gibson-Graham, Jenny Cameron, and Stephen Healy, Take Back the Economy: An Ethical Guide for Transform-
ing Our Communities (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013).
42. For more information, see http://ithacahours.info/
43. Faidra Papavasiliou, “Fair Money, Fair Trade: Tracing Alternative Consumption in a Local Currency Economy.”
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid., 216.
46. Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, “Consumption: From Cultural Theory to the Ethnography of Capitalism,” in Hand-
book of Sociocultural Anthropology, ed. James Carrier and Deborah Gewertz (New York: Berg Publishers, 2013),
319.
47. Ibid.
48. Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood, A World of Goods: Toward an Anthropology of Consumption (New York: Basic
Books, 1979).
49. Colloredo-Mansfeld, “Consumption: From Cultural Theory to the Ethnography of Capitalism.”
50. Arjun Appadurai, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1986).
51. Colloredo-Mansfeld, “Consumption: From Cultural Theory to the Ethnography of Capitalism,” 329.
52. See for instance, http://www.target.com/p/barbie-endless-curls-african-american-barbie-doll/-/A-15203859
53. Elizabeth Chin, Purchasing Power: Black Kids and American Consumer Culture (Minneapolis: University of Min-
nesota Press, 2001).
54. For example, https://playbarbies.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/custom-rotini-or-halo-hair/
55. Mary Wesimantel, Food, Gender, and Poverty in the Ecuadorian Andes (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1988).
56. John Osburg, Anxious Wealth: Money and Morality among China's New Rich (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2013).
57. Ibid., 121.
58. Martin Luther King, Jr., A Christmas Sermon on Peace, December 24, 1967, http://thekingcenter.org/archive/doc-
ument/christmas-sermon.
59. Some examples of this literature include Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Errington, Cheap Meat: Flap Food
Nations in the Pacific Islands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010); Sarah Lyon, Coffee and Community:
Maya Farmers and Fair Trade Markets (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2011); Theodore Bestor, Tsukiji: The
Fish Market at the Center of the World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004) and Sidney Mintz, Sweetness
and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York: Penguin, 1985).
60. Colloredo-Mansfeld, “Consumption: From Cultural Theory to the Ethnography of Capitalism,” 326.
61. Sarah Besky, The Darjeeling Distinction: Labor and Justice on Fair-Trade Tea Plantations in India (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2014).
62. Wilk and Cliggett, Economies and Cultures: Foundations of Economic Anthropology, 84, 95.
63. Josiah Heyman, “Political Economy,” in Handbook of Sociocultural Anthropology, ed. James Carrier and Deborah
Gewertz (New York: Berg Publishers, 2013), 89.
64. The historical evolution of societies and markets is explored by Eric Wolf in Europe and the People without History
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). The legacies of social domination and marginalization are dis-
cussed by Philippe Bourgois in In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1995).
65. Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, in The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd Edition, ed. Robert C.
Tucker (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978[1852]).
66. Johan Galtung, “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research,” Journal of Peace Research 6 no. 3(1969): 167–191.
67. See Max Weber’s work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism available at http://xroads.vir-
ginia.edu/~HYPER/WEBER/cover.html
68. “Living Conditions in Haiti’s Capital Improve, but Rural Communities Remain Very Poor,” World Bank, July 11,
2014. http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/07/11/while-living-conditions-in-port-au-prince-
are-improving-haiti-countryside-remains-very-poor.
69. “CIA Factbook: Haiti,” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ha.html.
70. “Ten Facts about Hunger in Haiti,” https://www.wfp.org/stories/10-facts-about-hunger-haiti.
71. Mark Schuller, “Haiti’s Disaster after the Disaster: the IDP Camps and Cholera,” Journal of Humanitarian Assis-
tance, December 10, 2013. https://sites.tufts.edu/jha/archives/869
72. Ibid.
73. Ibid.
74. Mark Schuller, Killing with Kindness: Haiti, International Aid, and NGOs (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Press, 2012).
75. Terry Buss, Haiti in the Balance: Why Foreign Aid has Failed and What We Can Do about It (Washington D.C.: The
Brookings Institute, 2008).
76. Mark Schuller, Killing with Kindness.
77. J. K. Gibson-Graham, Jenny Cameron, and Stephen Healy, Take Back the Economy: An Ethical Guide for Transform-
ing Our Communities (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), xix.
78. Byrne, Ken, “Iceberg Image,” http://www.communityeconomies.org/Home/Key-Ideas.
147
79. Gibson-Graham, Cameron, and Healy, Take Back the Economy, 11.
80. J. K. Gibson-Graham, A Postcapitalist Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 62–63.
81. Ibid., 65.
82. Keith Hart, “Money in Twentieth Century Anthropology.”
7
POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY:
A CROSS-CULTURAL
COMPARISON
Paul McDowell, Santa Barbara City College

[email protected]
Learning Objectives
• Identify the four levels of socio-cultural integration (band, tribe, chiefdom, and state) and describe their characteristics.
• Compare systems of leadership in egalitarian and non-egalitarian societies.
• Describe systems used in tribes and chiefdoms to achieve social integration and encourage connections between people.
• Assess the benefits and problems associated with state-level political organizations.
• Evaluate the extent to which the Islamic State meets the formal criteria for a state-level political organization.
All cultures have one element in common: they somehow exercise social control over their own mem-
bers. Even small foraging societies such as the Ju/’hoansi or !Kung, the Inuit (or “Eskimo”) of the Arctic
north, and aboriginal Australians experience disputes that must be contained if inter-personal conflicts
are to be reduced or eliminated. As societies become more complex, means of control increase accord-
ingly. The study of these means of control are the subject of political anthropology.
BASIC CONCEPTS IN POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
148
149
Like the “invisible hand” of the market to which Adam Smith refers in analyzing the workings of cap-
italism, two forces govern the workings of politics: power—the ability to induce behavior of others in
specified ways by means of coercion or use or threat of physical force—and authority—the ability to
induce behavior of others by persuasion.1 Extreme examples of the exercise of power are the gulags
(prison camps) in Stalinist Russia, the death camps in Nazi-ruled Germany and Eastern Europe, and
so-called Supermax prisons such as Pelican Bay in California and the prison for “enemy combatants” in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by the United States. In all of these settings, prisoners comply or are punished
or executed. At the other extreme are most forager societies, which typically exercise authority more
often than power. Groups in those societies comply with the wishes of their most persuasive members.
In actuality, power and authority are points on a continuum and both are present in every society to
some degree. Even Hitler, who exercised absolute power in many ways, had to hold the Nuremberg ral-
lies to generate popular support for his regime and persuade the German population that his leadership
was the way to national salvation. In the Soviet Union, leaders had a great deal of coercive and physical
power but still felt the need to hold parades and mass rallies on May Day every year to persuade peo-
ple to remain attached to their vision of a communal society. At the other end of the political spectrum,
societies that tend to use persuasion through authority also have some forms of coercive power. Among
the Inuit, for example, individuals who flagrantly violated group norms could be punished, including by
homicide.2
A related concept in both politics and law is legitimacy: the perception that an individual has a valid
right to leadership. Legitimacy is particularly applicable to complex societies that require centralized
decision-making. Historically, the right to rule has been based on various principles. In agricultural
states such as ancient Mesopotamia, the Aztec, and the Inca, justification for the rule of particular indi-
viduals was based on hereditary succession and typically granted to the eldest son of the ruler. Even
this principle could be uncertain at times, as was the case when the Inca emperor Atahualpa had just
defeated his rival and brother Huascar when the Spaniards arrived in Peru in 1533.3
In many cases, supernatural beliefs were invoked to establish legitimacy and justify rule by an elite.
Incan emperors derived their right to rule from the Sun God and Aztec rulers from Huitzilopochtli
(Hummingbird-to-the-Left). European monarchs invoked a divine right to rule that was reinforced by
the Church of England in Britain and by the Roman Catholic Church in other countries prior to the
Reformation. In India, the dominance of the Brahmin elite over the other castes is justified by karma,
cumulative forces created by good and evil deeds in past lives. Secular equivalents also serve to justify
rule by elites; examples include the promise of a worker’s paradise in the former Soviet Union and racial
purity of Aryans in Nazi Germany. In the United States and other democratic forms of government,
legitimacy rests on the consent of the governed in periodic elections (though in the United States, the
incoming president is sworn in using a Christian Bible despite alleged separation of church and state).
In some societies, dominance by an individual or group is viewed as unacceptable. Christopher
Boehm (1999) developed the concept of reverse dominance to describe societies in which people
rejected attempts by any individual to exercise power.4 They achieved this aim using ridicule, criticism,
disobedience, and strong disapproval and could banish extreme offenders. Richard Lee encountered
this phenomenon when he presented the !Kung with whom he had worked over the preceding year with
a fattened ox.5 Rather than praising or thanking him, his hosts ridiculed the beast as scrawny, ill fed,
and probably sick. This behavior is consistent with reverse dominance.
Even in societies that emphasize equality between people, decisions still have to be made. Sometimes
particularly persuasive figures such as headmen make them, but persuasive figures who lack formal
power are not free to make decisions without coming to a consensus with their fellows. To reach such
consensus, there must be general agreement. Essentially, then, even if in a backhanded way, legitimacy
characterizes societies that lack institutionalized leadership.
Another set of concepts refers to the reinforcements or consequences for compliance with the direc-
tive and laws of a society. Positive reinforcements are the rewards for compliance; examples include
medals, financial incentives, and other forms of public recognition. Negative reinforcements punish
noncompliance through fines, imprisonment, and death sentences. These reinforcements can be identi-
fied in every human society, even among foragers or others who have no written system of law. Reverse
dominance is one form of negative reinforcement.
LEVELS OF SOCIO-CULTURAL INTEGRATION
If cultures of various sizes and configurations are to be compared, there must be some common basis
for defining political organization. In many small communities, the family functions as a political unit.
As Julian Steward wrote about the Shoshone, a Native American group in the Nevada basin, “all fea-
tures of the relatively simple culture were integrated and functioned on a family level. The family was
the reproductive, economic, educational, political, and religious unit.”6 In larger more complex soci-
eties, however, the functions of the family are taken over by larger social institutions. The resources of
the economy, for example, are managed by authority figures outside the family who demand taxes or
other tribute. The educational function of the family may be taken over by schools constituted under
the authority of a government, and the authority structure in the family is likely to be subsumed under
the greater power of the state. Therefore, anthropologists need methods for assessing political orga-
nizations that can be applied to many different kinds of communities. This concept is called levels of
socio-cultural integration.
Elman Service (1975) developed an influential scheme for categorizing the political character of soci-
eties that recognized four levels of socio-cultural integration: band, tribe, chiefdom, and state.7 A band
is the smallest unit of political organization, consisting of only a few families and no formal leadership
positions. Tribes have larger populations but are organized around family ties and have fluid or shifting
systems of temporary leadership. Chiefdoms are large political units in which the chief, who usually is
determined by heredity, holds a formal position of power. States are the most complex form of political
organization and are characterized by a central government that has a monopoly over legitimate uses
of physical force, a sizeable bureaucracy, a system of formal laws, and a standing military force.
Each type of political integration can be further categorized as egalitarian, ranked, or stratified.
Band societies and tribal societies generally are considered egalitarian—there is no great difference in
status or power between individuals and there are as many valued status positions in the societies as
there are persons able to fill them. Chiefdoms are ranked societies; there are substantial differences in
the wealth and social status of individuals based on how closely related they are to the chief. In ranked
societies, there are a limited number of positions of power or status, and only a few can occupy them.
State societies are stratified. There are large differences in the wealth, status, and power of individuals
based on unequal access to resources and positions of power. Socio-economic classes, for instance, are
forms of stratification in many state societies.8
EGALITARIAN SOCIETIES
151
We humans are not equal in all things. The status of women is low relative to the status of men in
many, if not most, societies as we will see. There is also the matter of age. In some societies, the aged
enjoy greater prestige than the young; in others, the aged are subjected to discrimination in employ-
ment and other areas. Even in Japan, which has traditionally been known for its respect for elders, the
prestige of the aged is in decline. And we vary in terms of our abilities. Some are more eloquent or
skilled technically than others; some are expert craft persons while others are not; some excel at con-
ceptual thought, whereas for the rest of us, there is always the For Dummies book series to manage our
computers, software, and other parts of our daily lives such as wine and sex.
In a complex society, it may seem that social classes—differences in wealth and status—are, like death
and taxes, inevitable: that one is born into wealth, poverty, or somewhere in between and has no say in
the matter, at least at the start of life, and that social class is an involuntary position in society. However,
is social class universal? As they say, let’s look at the record, in this case ethnographies. We find that
among foragers, there is no advantage to hoarding food; in most climates, it will rot before one’s eyes.
Nor is there much personal property, and leadership, where it exists, is informal. In forager societies,
the basic ingredients for social class do not exist. Foragers such as the !Kung, Inuit, and aboriginal Aus-
tralians, are egalitarian societies in which there are few differences between members in wealth, status,
and power. Highly skilled and less skilled hunters do not belong to different strata in the way that the
captains of industry do from you and me. The less skilled hunters in egalitarian societies receive a share
of the meat and have the right to be heard on important decisions. Egalitarian societies also lack a gov-
ernment or centralized leadership. Their leaders, known as headmen or big men, emerge by consensus
of the group. Foraging societies are always egalitarian, but so are many societies that practice horticul-
ture or pastoralism. In terms of political organization, egalitarian societies can be either bands or tribes.
BAND-LEVEL POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
Societies organized as a band typically comprise foragers who rely on hunting and gathering and are
therefore nomadic, are few in number (rarely exceeding 100 persons), and form small groups consisting
of a few families and a shifting population. Bands lack formal leadership. Richard Lee went so far as to
say that the Dobe! Kung had no leaders. To quote one of his informants, “Of course we have headmen.
Each one of us is headman over himself.”9At most, a band’s leader is primus inter pares or “first among
equals” assuming anyone is first at all. Modesty is a valued trait; arrogance and competitiveness are not
acceptable in societies characterized by reverse dominance. What leadership there is in band societies
tends to be transient and subject to shifting circumstances. For example, among the Paiute in North
America, “rabbit bosses” coordinated rabbit drives during the hunting season but played no leadership
role otherwise. Some “leaders” are excellent mediators who are called on when individuals are involved
in disputes while others are perceived as skilled shamans or future-seers who are consulted periodi-
cally. There are no formal offices or rules of succession.10
Bands were probably the first political unit to come into existence outside the family itself. There
is some debate in anthropology about how the earliest bands were organized. Elman Service argued
that patrilocal bands organized around groups of related men served as the prototype, reasoning that
groups centered on male family relationships made sense because male cooperation was essential to
hunting.11 M. Kay Martin and Barbara Voorhies pointed out in rebuttal that gathering vegetable foods,
which typically was viewed as women’s work, actually contributed a greater number of calories in most
cultures and thus that matrilocal bands organized around groups of related women would be closer
to the norm.12 Indeed, in societies in which hunting is the primary source of food, such as the Inuit,
women tend to be subordinate to men while men and women tend to have roughly equal status in soci-
eties that mainly gather plants for food.
Law in Band Societies
Within bands of people, disputes are typically resolved informally. There are no formal mediators or
any organizational equivalent of a court of law. A good mediator may emerge—or may not. In some
cultures, duels are employed. Among the Inuit, for example, disputants engage in a duel using songs in
which, drum in hand, they chant insults at each other before an audience. The audience selects the bet-
ter chanter and thereby the winner in the dispute.13 The Mbuti of the African Congo use ridicule; even
children berate adults for laziness, quarreling, or selfishness. If ridicule fails, the Mbuti elders evaluate
the dispute carefully, determine the cause, and, in extreme cases, walk to the center of the camp and
criticize the individuals by name, using humor to soften their criticism—the group, after all, must get
along.14
Warfare in Band Societies
Nevertheless, conflict does sometimes break out into war between bands and, sometimes, within
them. Such warfare is usually sporadic and short-lived since bands do not have formal leadership struc-
tures or enough warriors to sustain conflict for long. Most of the conflict arises from interpersonal
arguments. Among the Tiwi of Australia, for example, failure of one band to reciprocate another band’s
wife-giving with one of its own female relative led to abduction of women by the aggrieved band, pre-
cipitating a “war” that involved some spear-throwing (many did not shoot straight and even some of
the onlookers were wounded) but mostly violent talk and verbal abuse.15 For the Dobe !Kung, Lee
found 22 cases of homicide by males and other periodic episodes of violence, mostly in disputes over
women—not quite the gentle souls Elizabeth Marshall Thomas depicted in her Harmless People (1959).16
TRIBAL POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
Whereas bands involve small populations without structure, tribal societies involve at least two well-
defined groups linked together in some way and range in population from about 100 to as many as
5,000 people. Though their social institutions can be fairly complex, there are no centralized political
structures or offices in the strict sense of those terms. There may be headmen, but there are no rules
of succession and sons do not necessarily succeed their fathers as is the case with chiefdoms. Tribal
leadership roles are open to anyone—in practice, usually men, especially elder men who acquire leader-
ship positions because of their personal abilities and qualities. Leaders in tribes do not have a means of
coercing others or formal powers associated with their positions. Instead, they must persuade others to
take actions they feel are needed. A Yanomami headsman, for instance, said that he would never issue
an order unless he knew it would be obeyed. The headman Kaobawä exercised influence by example
and by making suggestions and warning of consequences of taking or not taking an action.17
Like bands, tribes are egalitarian societies. Some individuals in a tribe do sometimes accumulate per-
153
sonal property but not to the extent that other tribe members are deprived. And every (almost always
male) person has the opportunity to become a headman or leader and, like bands, one’s leadership posi-
tion can be situational. One man may be a good mediator, another an exemplary warrior, and a third
capable of leading a hunt or finding a more ideal area for cultivation or grazing herds. An example illus-
trating this kind of leadership is the big man of New Guinea; the term is derived from the languages
of New Guinean tribes (literally meaning “man of influence”). The big man is one who has acquired
followers by doing favors they cannot possibly repay, such as settling their debts or providing bride-
wealth. He might also acquire as many wives as possible to create alliances with his wives’ families. His
wives could work to care for as many pigs as possible, for example, and in due course, he could spon-
sor a pig feast that would serve to put more tribe members in his debt and shame his rivals. It is worth
noting that the followers, incapable of repaying the Big Man’s gifts, stand metaphorically as beggars to
him.18
Still, a big man does not have the power of a monarch. His role is not hereditary. His son must demon-
strate his worth and acquire his own following—he must become a big man in his own right. Further-
more, there usually are other big men in the village who are his potential rivals. Another man who
proves himself capable of acquiring a following can displace the existing big man. The big man also has
no power to coerce—no army or police force. He cannot prevent a follower from joining another big
man, nor can he force the follower to pay any debt owed. There is no New Guinean equivalent of a
U.S. marshal. Therefore, he can have his way only by diplomacy and persuasion—which do not always
work.19
Tribal Systems of Social Integration
Tribal societies have much larger populations than bands and thus must have mechanisms for cre-
ating and maintaining connections between tribe members. The family ties that unite members of a
band are not sufficient to maintain solidarity and cohesion in the larger population of a tribe. Some of
the systems that knit tribes together are based on family (kin) relationships, including various kinds of
marriage and family lineage systems, but there are also ways to foster tribal solidarity outside of family
arrangements through systems that unite members of a tribe by age or gender.
Integration through Age Grades and Age Sets
Tribes use various systems to encourage solidarity or feelings of connectedness between people who
are not related by family ties. These systems, sometimes known as sodalities, unite people across fam-
ily groups. In one sense, all societies are divided into age categories. In the U.S. educational system, for
instance, children are matched to grades in school according to their age—six-year-olds in first grade
and thirteen-year-olds in eighth grade. Other cultures, however, have established complex age-based
social structures. Many pastoralists in East Africa, for example, have age grades and age sets. Age sets
are named categories to which men of a certain age are assigned at birth. Age grades are groups of men
who are close to one another in age and share similar duties or responsibilities. All men cycle through
each age grade over the course of their lifetimes. As the age sets advance, the men assume the duties
associated with each age grade.
An example of this kind of tribal society is the Tiriki of Kenya. From birth to about fifteen years of
age, boys become members of one of seven named age sets. When the last boy is recruited, that age
set closes and a new one opens. For example, young and adult males who belonged to the “Juma” age
set in 1939 became warriors by 1954. The “Mayima” were already warriors in 1939 and became elder
warriors during that period. In precolonial times, men of the warrior age grade defended the herds of
the Tiriki and conducted raids on other tribes while the elder warriors acquired cattle and houses and
took on wives. There were recurring reports of husbands who were much older than their wives, who
had married early in life, often as young as fifteen or sixteen. As solid citizens of the Tiriki, the elder
warriors also handled decision-making functions of the tribe as a whole; their legislation affected the
entire village while also representing their own kin groups. The other age sets also moved up through
age grades in the fifteen-year period. The elder warriors in 1939, “Nyonje,” became the judicial elders by
1954. Their function was to resolve disputes that arose between individuals, families, and kin groups,
of which some elders were a part. The “Jiminigayi,” judicial elders in 1939, became ritual elders in 1954,
handling supernatural functions that involved the entire Tiriki community. During this period, the
open age set was “Kabalach.” Its prior members had all grown old or died by 1939 and new boys joined it
between 1939 and 1954. Thus, the Tiriki age sets moved in continuous 105-year cycles. This age grade
and age set system encourages bonds between men of similar ages. Their loyalty to their families is tem-
pered by their responsibilities to their fellows of the same age.20
Figure 1: Grades and age sets among the Tiriki. Reprinted with permission of Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.
Integration through Bachelor Associations and Men’s Houses
Among most, if not all, tribes of New Guinea, the existence of men’s houses serves to cut across
family lineage groups in a village. Perhaps the most fastidious case of male association in New Guinea
is the bachelor association of the Mae-Enga, who live in the northern highlands. In their culture, a boy
becomes conscious of the distance between males and females before he leaves home at age five to live
in the men’s house. Women are regarded as potentially unclean, and strict codes that minimize male-
female relations are enforced. Sanggai festivals reinforce this division. During the festival, every youth
of age 15 or 16 goes into seclusion in the forest and observes additional restrictions, such as avoiding
pigs (which are cared for by women) and avoiding gazing at the ground lest he see female footprints or
pig feces.21 One can see, therefore, that every boy commits his loyalty to the men’s house early in life
even though he remains a member of his birth family. Men’s houses are the center of male activities.
There, they draw up strategies for warfare, conduct ritual activities involving magic and honoring of
ancestral spirits, and plan and rehearse periodic pig feasts.
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Integration through Gifts and Feasting
Exchanges and the informal obligations associated with them are primary devices by which bands
and tribes maintain a degree of order and forestall armed conflict, which was viewed as the “state of
nature” for tribal societies by Locke and Hobbes, in the absence of exercises of force by police or an
army. Marcel Mauss, nephew and student of eminent French sociologist Emile Durkheim, attempted
in 1925 to explain gift giving and its attendant obligations cross-culturally in his book, The Gift: Forms
and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. He started with the assumption that two groups have an
imperative to establish a relationship of some kind. There are three options when they meet for the first
time. They could pass each other by and never see each other again. They may resort to arms with an
uncertain outcome. One could wipe the other out or, more likely, win at great cost of men and property
or fight to a draw. The third option is to “come to terms” with each other by establishing a more or less
permanent relationship.22 Exchanging gifts is one way for groups to establish this relationship.
These gift exchanges are quite different from Western ideas about gifts. In societies that lack a central
government, formal law enforcement powers, and collection agents, the gift exchanges are obligatory
and have the force of law in the absence of law. Mauss referred to them as “total prestations.” Though no
Dun and Bradstreet agents would come to collect, the potential for conflict that could break out at any
time reinforced the obligations.23 According to Mauss, the first obligation is to give; it must be met if a
group is to extend social ties to others. The second obligation is to receive; refusal of a gift constitutes
rejection of the offer of friendship as well. Conflicts can arise from the perceived insult of a rejected
offer. The third obligation is to repay. One who fails to make a gift in return will be seen as in debt—in
essence, a beggar. Mauss offered several ethnographic cases that illustrated these obligations. Every gift
conferred power to the giver, expressed by the Polynesian terms mana (an intangible supernatural force)
and hau (among the Maori, the “spirit of the gift,” which must be returned to its owner).24 Marriage and
its associated obligations also can be viewed as a form of gift-giving as one family “gives” a bride or
groom to the other.
Basics of Marriage, Family, and Kinship
Understanding social solidarity in tribal societies requires knowledge of family structures, which are also known as kinship systems. The
romantic view of marriage in today’s mass media is largely a product of Hollywood movies and romance novels from mass-market publishers
such as Harlequin. In most cultures around the world, marriage is largely a device that links two families together; this is why arranged marriage
is so common from a cross-cultural perspective. And, as Voltaire admonished, if we are to discuss anything, we need to define our terms.
Marriage is defined in numerous ways, usually (but not always) involving a tie between a woman and a man. Same-sex marriage is also com-
mon in many cultures. Nuclear families consist of parents and their children. Extended families consist of three generations or more of relatives
connected by marriage and descent.
In the diagrams below, triangles represent males and circles represent females. Vertical lines represent a generational link connecting, say, a
man with his father. Horizontal lines above two figures are sibling links
links; thus, a triangle connected to a circle represents a brother and sister.
Equal signs connect husbands and wives. Sometimes a diagram may render use of an equal sign unrealistic; in those cases, a horizontal line
drawn below the two figures shows a marriage link.
Most rules of descent generally fall into one of two categories. Bilateral descent (commonly used in the United States) recognizes both the
mother’s and the father’s “sides” of the family while unilineal descent recognizes only one sex-based “side” of the family. Unilineal descent can
be patrilineal
patrilineal, recognizing only relatives through a line of male ancestors, or matrilineal
matrilineal, recognizing only relatives through a line of female
ancestors.
Groups made up of two or more extended families can be connected as larger groups linked by kinship ties. A lineage consists of individuals
who can trace or demonstrate their descent through a line of males or females to the founding ancestor.
For further discussion of this topic, consult the Family and Marriage chapter.
Integration through Marriage
Most tribal societies’ political organizations involve marriage, which is a logical vehicle for creating
alliances between groups. One of the most well-documented types of marriage alliance is bilateral
cross-cousin marriage in which a man marries his cross-cousin—one he is related to through two
links, his father’s sister and his mother’s brother. These marriages have been documented among the
Yanomami, an indigenous group living in Venezuela and Brazil. Yanomami villages are typically pop-
ulated by two or more extended family groups also known as lineages. Disputes and disagreements
are bound to occur, and these tensions can potentially escalate to open conflict or even physical vio-
lence. Bilateral cross-cousin marriage provides a means of linking lineage groups together over time
through the exchange of brides. Because cross-cousin marriage links people together by both marriage
and blood ties (kinship), these unions can reduce tension between the groups or at least provide an
incentive for members of rival lineages to work together.
To get a more detailed picture of how marriages integrate family groups, consider the following fam-
ily diagrams. In these diagrams, triangles represent males and circles represent females. Vertical lines
represent a generational link connecting, say, a man to his father. Horizontal lines above two figures are
sibling links; thus, a triangle connected to a circle by a horizontal line represents a brother and sister.
Equal signs connect husbands and wives. In some diagrams in which use of an equal sign is not realistic,
a horizontal line drawn below the two figures shows their marriage link.
Figure 2: Bilateral cross-cousin marriage. Reprinted with permission of Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.
157
Figure 2 depicts the alliance created by the bilateral cross-cousin marriage system. In this figure,
uppercase letters represent males and lowercase letters represent females, Thus, X refers to all of the
males of Lineage X and Y refers to all of the males of Lineage Y; likewise, x refers to all of the females of
Lineage X and y refers to all of the females of Lineage Y.
Consider the third generation in the diagram. X3 has married y3 (the horizontal line below the fig-
ures), creating an affinal link. Trace the relationship between X3 and y3 through their matrilateral
links—the links between a mother and her brother. You can see from the diagram that X3’s mother is
x2 and her brother is Y2 and his daughter is y3. Therefore, y3 is X3’s mother’s brother’s daughter.
Now trace the patrilateral links of this couple—the links between a father and his sister. X3’s father is
X2 and X2’s sister is x2, who married Y2, which makes her daughter y3—his father’s sister’s daughter.
Work your way through the description and diagram until you are comfortable understanding the con-
nections.
Now do the same thing with Y3 by tracing his matrilateral ties with his wife x3. His mother is x2 and
her brother is X2, which makes his mother’s brother’s daughter x3. On the patrilateral, his father is Y2,
and Y2’s sister is y2, who is married to X2 Therefore, their daughter is x3.
This example represents the ideal bilateral cross-cousin marriage: a man marries a woman who
is both his mother’s brother’s daughter and his father’s sister’s daughter. The man’s matrilateral cross-
cousin and patrilateral cross-cousin are the same woman! Thus, the two lineages have discharged their
obligations to one another in the same generation. Lineage X provides a daughter to lineage Y and lin-
eage Y reciprocates with a daughter. Each of the lineages therefore retains its potential to reproduce in
the next generation. The obligation incurred by lineage Y from taking lineage X’s daughter in marriage
has been repaid by giving a daughter in marriage to lineage X.
This type of marriage is what Robin Fox, following Claude Levi-Strauss, called restricted
exchange.25 Notice that only two extended families can engage in this exchange. Society remains rela-
tively simple because it can expand only by splitting off. And, as we will see later, when daughter villages
split off, the two lineages move together.
Not all marriages can conform to this type of exchange. Often, the patrilateral cross-cousin is not the
same person; there may be two or more persons. Furthermore, in some situations, a man can marry
either a matrilateral or a patrilateral cross-cousin but not both. The example of the ideal type of cross-
cousin marriage is used to demonstrate the logical outcome of such unions.
Integration Through a Segmentary Lineage
Another type of kin-based integrative mechanism is a segmentary lineage. As previously noted, a lin-
eage is a group of people who can trace or demonstrate their descent from a founding ancestor through
a line of males or a line of females. A segmentary lineage is a hierarchy of lineages that contains both
close and relatively distant family members. At the base are several minimal lineages whose members
trace their descent from their founder back two or three generations. At the top is the founder of all
of the lineages, and two or more maximal lineages can derive from the founder’s lineage. Between the
maximal and the minimal lineages are several intermediate lineages. For purposes of simplicity, we will
discuss only the maximal and minimal lineages.
One characteristic of segmentary lineages is complementary opposition. To illustrate, consider the
chart in Figure 3, which presents two maximal lineages, A and B, each having two minimal lineages: A1
and A2 for A and B1 and B2 for B.
Figure 3: Segmentary lineage model. Note connection of each lineage, regardless of relative size, to its territory. Reprinted with permission of Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.
Suppose A1 starts a feud with A2 over cattle theft. Since A1 and A2 are of the same maximal lineage,
their feud is likely to be contained within that lineage, and B1 and B2 are likely to ignore the conflict
since it is no concern of theirs. Now suppose A2 attacks B1 for cattle theft. In that case, A1 might unite
with A2 to feud with B1, who B2 join in to defend. Thus, the feud would involve everyone in maximal
lineage A against everyone in maximal lineage B. Finally, consider an attack by an outside tribe against
A1. In response, both maximal lineages might rise up and defend A1.
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The classic examples of segmentary lineages were described by E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1940) in his
discussion of the Nuer, pastoralists who lived in southern Sudan.26 Paul Bohannan (1989) also
described this system among the Tiv, who were West African pastoralists, and Robert Murphy and
Leonard Kasdan (1959) analyzed the importance of these lineages among the Bedouin of the Middle
East.27 Segmentary lineages often develop in environments in which a tribal society is surrounded by
several other tribal societies. Hostility between the tribes induces their members to retain ties with their
kin and to mobilize them when external conflicts arise. An example of this is ties maintained between
the Nuer and the Dinka. Once a conflict is over, segmentary lineages typically dissolve into their con-
stituent units. Another attribute of segmentary lineages is local genealogical segmentation, meaning
close lineages dwell near each other, providing a physical reminder of their genealogy.28 A Bedouin
proverb summarizes the philosophy behind segmentary lineages:
I against my brother
I and my brother against my cousin
I, my brother, and my cousin against the world
Segmentary lineages regulate both warfare and inheritance and property rights. As noted by Sahlins
(1961) in studies of the Nuer, tribes in which such lineages occur typically have relatively large popula-
tions of close to 100,000 persons.29
Law in Tribal Societies
Tribal societies generally lack systems of codified law whereby damages, crimes, remedies, and pun-
ishments are specified. Only state-level political systems can determine, usually by writing formal laws,
which behaviors are permissible and which are not (discussed later in this chapter). In tribes, there are
no systems of law enforcement whereby an agency such as the police, the sheriff, or an army can enforce
laws enacted by an appropriate authority. And, as already noted, headman and big men cannot force
their will on others.
In tribal societies, as in all societies, conflicts arise between individuals. Sometimes the issues are
equivalent to crimes—taking of property or commitment of violence—that are not considered legiti-
mate in a given society. Other issues are civil disagreements—questions of ownership, damage to prop-
erty, an accidental death. In tribal societies, the aim is not so much to determine guilt or innocence or
to assign criminal or civil responsibility as it is to resolve conflict, which can be accomplished in vari-
ous ways. The parties might choose to avoid each other. Bands, tribes, and kin groups often move away
from each other geographically, which is much easier for them to do than for people living in complex
societies.
One issue in tribal societies, as in all societies, is guilt or innocence. When no one witnesses an offense
or an account is deemed unreliable, tribal societies sometimes rely on the supernatural. Oaths, for
example, involve calling on a deity to bear witness to the truth of what one says; the oath given in court
is a holdover from this practice. An ordeal is used to determine guilt or innocence by submitting the
accused to dangerous, painful, or risky tests believed to be controlled by supernatural forces. The poi-
son oracle used by the Azande of the Sudan and the Congo is an ordeal based on their belief that most
misfortunes are induced by witchcraft (in this case, witchcraft refers to ill feeling of one person toward
another). A chicken is force fed a strychnine concoction known as benge just as the name of the suspect
is called out. If the chicken dies, the suspect is deemed guilty and is punished or goes through reconcil-
iation.30
A more commonly exercised option is to find ways to resolve the dispute. In small groups, an unre-
solved question can quickly escalate to violence and disrupt the group. The first step is often negotia-
tion; the parties attempt to resolve the conflict by direct discussion in hope of arriving at an agreement.
Offenders sometimes make a ritual apology, particularly if they are sensitive to community opinion. In
Fiji, for example, offenders make ceremonial apologies called i soro, one of the meanings of which is “I
surrender.” An intermediary speaks, offers a token gift to the offended party, and asks for forgiveness,
and the request is rarely rejected.31
When negotiation or a ritual apology fails, often the next step is to recruit a third party to mediate
a settlement as there is no official who has the power to enforce a settlement. A classic example in the
anthropological literature is the Leopard Skin Chief among the Nuer, who is identified by a leopard
skin wrap around his shoulders. He is not a chief but is a mediator. The position is hereditary, has reli-
gious overtones, and is responsible for the social well-being of the tribal segment. He typically is called
on for serious matters such as murder. The culprit immediately goes to the residence of the Leopard
Skin Chief, who cuts the culprit’s arm until blood flows. If the culprit fears vengeance by the dead man’s
family, he remains at the residence, which is considered a sanctuary, and the Leopard Skin Chief then
acts as a go-between for the families of the perpetrator and the dead man.
The Leopard Skin Chief cannot force the parties to settle and cannot enforce any settlement they
reach. The source of his influence is the desire for the parties to avoid a feud that could escalate into an
ever-widening conflict involving kin descended from different ancestors. He urges the aggrieved fam-
ily to accept compensation, usually in the form of cattle. When such an agreement is reached, the chief
collects the 40 to 50 head of cattle and takes them to the dead man’s home, where he performs various
sacrifices of cleansing and atonement.32
This discussion demonstrates the preference most tribal societies have for mediation given the poten-
tially serious consequences of a long-term feud. Even in societies organized as states, mediation is often
preferred. In the agrarian town of Talea, Mexico, for example, even serious crimes are mediated in the
interest of preserving a degree of local harmony. The national authorities often tolerate local settle-
ments if they maintain the peace.33
Warfare in Tribal Societies
What happens if mediation fails and the Leopard Skin Chief cannot convince the aggrieved clan to
accept cattle in place of their loved one? War. In tribal societies, wars vary in cause, intensity, and dura-
tion, but they tend to be less deadly than those run by states because of tribes’ relatively small popula-
tions and limited technologies.
Tribes engage in warfare more often than bands, both internally and externally. Among pastoralists,
both successful and attempted thefts of cattle frequently spark conflict. Among pre-state societies, pas-
toralists have a reputation for being the most prone to warfare. However, horticulturalists also engage
in warfare, as the film Dead Birds, which describes warfare among the highland Dani of west New
Guinea (Irian Jaya), attests. Among anthropologists, there is a “protein debate” regarding causes of war-
fare. Marvin Harris in a 1974 study of the Yanomami claimed that warfare arose there because of a
protein deficiency associated with a scarcity of game, and Kenneth Good supported that thesis in find-
ing that the game a Yanomami villager brought in barely supported the village.34 He could not link this
variable to warfare, however. In rebuttal, Napoleon Chagnon linked warfare among the Yanomami with
161
abduction of women rather than disagreements over hunting territory, and findings from other cul-
tures have tended to agree with Chagnon’s theory.35
Tribal wars vary in duration. Raids are short-term uses of physical force that are organized and
planned to achieve a limited objective such as acquisition of cattle (pastoralists) or other forms of wealth
and, often, abduction of women, usually from neighboring communities.36 Feuds are longer in dura-
tion and represent a state of recurring hostilities between families, lineages, or other kin groups. In a
feud, the responsibility to avenge rests with the entire group, and the murder of any kin member is con-
sidered appropriate because the kin group as a whole is considered responsible for the transgression.
Among the Dani, for example, vengeance is an obligation; spirits are said to dog the victim’s clan until
its members murder someone from the perpetrator’s clan.37
RANKED SOCIETIES AND CHIEFDOMS
Unlike egalitarian societies, ranked societies (sometimes called “rank societies”) involve greater dif-
ferentiation between individuals and the kin groups to which they belong. These differences can be,
and often are, inherited, but there are no significant restrictions in these societies on access to basic
resources. All individuals can meet their basic needs. The most important differences between people
of different ranks are based on sumptuary rules—norms that permit persons of higher rank to enjoy
greater social status by wearing distinctive clothing, jewelry, and/or decorations denied those of lower
rank. Every family group or lineage in the community is ranked in a hierarchy of prestige and power.
Furthermore, within families, siblings are ranked by birth order and villages can also be ranked.
The concept of a ranked society leads us directly to the characteristics of chiefdoms. Unlike the posi-
tion of headman in a band, the position of chief is an office—a permanent political status that demands
a successor when the current chief dies. There are, therefore, two concepts of chief: the man (women
rarely, if ever, occupy these posts) and the office. Thus the expression “The king is dead, long live the
king.” With the New Guinean big man, there is no formal succession. Other big men will be recognized
and eventually take the place of one who dies, but there is no rule stipulating that his eldest son or any
son must succeed him. For chiefs, there must be a successor and there are rules of succession.
Political chiefdoms usually are accompanied by an economic exchange system known as redistribu-
tion in which goods and services flow from the population at large to the central authority represented
by the chief. It then becomes the task of the chief to return the flow of goods in another form. The chap-
ter on economics provides additional information about redistribution economies.
These political and economic principles are exemplified by the potlatch custom of the Kwak-
waka’wakw and other indigenous groups who lived in chiefdom societies along the northwest coast of
North America from the extreme northwest tip of California through the coasts of Oregon, Washing-
ton, British Columbia, and southern Alaska. Potlatch ceremonies observed major events such as births,
deaths, marriages of important persons, and installment of a new chief. Families prepared for the event
by collecting food and other valuables such as fish, berries, blankets, animal skins, carved boxes, and
copper. At the potlatch, several ceremonies were held, dances were performed by their “owners,” and
speeches delivered. The new chief was watched very carefully. Members of the society noted the elo-
quence of his speech, the grace of his presence, and any mistakes he made, however egregious or trivial.
Next came the distribution of gifts, and again the chief was observed. Was he generous with his gifts?
Was the value of his gifts appropriate to the rank of the recipient or did he give valuable presents to
individuals of relatively low rank? Did his wealth allow him to offer valuable objects?
The next phase of the potlatch was critical to the chief’s validation of his position. Visitor after visitor
would arise and give long speeches evaluating the worthiness of this successor to the chieftainship of
his father. If his performance had so far met their expectations, if his gifts were appropriate, the guests’
speeches praised him accordingly. They were less than adulatory if the chief had not performed to their
expectations and they deemed the formal eligibility of the successor insufficient. He had to perform. If
he did, then the guests’ praise not only legitimized the new chief in his role, but also it ensured some
measure of peace between villages. Thus, in addition to being a festive event, the potlatch determined
the successor’s legitimacy and served as a form of diplomacy between groups.38
Much has been made among anthropologists of rivalry potlatches in which competitive gifts were
given by rival pretenders to the chieftainship. Philip Drucker argued that competitive potlatches were
a product of sudden demographic changes among the indigenous groups on the northwest coast.39
When smallpox and other diseases decimated hundreds, many potential successors to the chieftainship
died, leading to situations in which several potential successors might be eligible for the chieftainship.
Thus, competition in potlatch ceremonies became extreme with blankets or copper repaid with ever-
larger piles and competitors who destroyed their own valuables to demonstrate their wealth. The events
became so raucous that the Canadian government outlawed the displays in the early part of the twen-
tieth century.40 Prior to that time, it had been sufficient for a successor who was chosen beforehand to
present appropriate gifts.41
Kin-Based Integrative Mechanisms: Conical Clans
With the centralization of society, kinship is most likely to continue playing a role, albeit a new one.
Among Northwest Coast Indians, for example, the ranking model has every lineage ranked, one above
the other, siblings ranked in order of birth, and even villages in a ranking scale. Drucker points out that
the further north one goes, the more rigid the ranking scheme is. The most northerly of these coastal
peoples trace their descent matrilineally; indeed, the Haida consist of four clans. Those further south
tend to be patrilineal, and some show characteristics of an ambilineal descent group. It is still unclear,
for example, whether the Kwakiutl numaym are patrilineal clans or ambilineal descent groups.
163
Figure 4: Conical clan design of a chiefdom. Scheme is based on relative siblings age and patrilineal descent. Eldest sons appear to the left. Reprinted with permission of
Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.
In the accompanying diagram (Figure 4), assuming patrilineal descent, the eldest male within a given
lineage becomes the chief of his district , that is, Chief a in the area of Local Lineage A, which is the older
intermediate lineage (Intermediate Lineage I) relative to the founding clan ancestor. Chief b is the oldest
male in Local Lineage B, which, in turn, is the oldest intermediate lineage (again Intermediate Lineage
I) relative to the founding clan ancestor. Chief c is the oldest male of local Lineage C descended from
the second oldest intermediate lineage ( Intermediate Lineage II) relative to the founding clan ancestor,
and Chief d is the oldest male of Local Lineage D, descended from the second oldest intermediate Lin-
eage (Intermediate Lineage II) relative to the founding clan ancestor.
Nor does this end the process. Chief a, as head of Local Lineage A, also heads the district of Interme-
diate Lineage I while Chief c heads Local Lineage C in the district of Intermediate lineage II. Finally,
the entire chiefdom is headed by the eldest male (Chief a) of the entire district governed by the descen-
dants of the clan ancestor.
Integration through Marriage
Because chiefdoms cannot enforce their power by controlling resources or by having a monopoly on
the use of force, they rely on integrative mechanisms that cut across kinship groups. As with tribal soci-
eties, marriage provides chiefdoms with a framework for encouraging social cohesion. However, since
chiefdoms have more-elaborate status hierarchies than tribes, marriages tend to reinforce ranks.
A particular kind of marriage known as matrilateral cross-cousin demonstrates this effect and is
illustrated by the diagram in Figure 4. The figure shows three patrilineages (family lineage groups
based on descent from a common male ancestor) that are labeled A, B, and C. Consider the marriage
between man B2 and woman a2. As you can see, they are linked by B1 (ego’s father) and his sister (a2),
who is married to A1 and bears daughter a2. If you look at other partners, you will notice that all of the
women move to the right: a2 and B2’s daughter, b3, will marry C3 and bear a daughter, c4.
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Figure 5: Matrilateral cross-cousin marriage. Reprinted with permission of Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.
Viewed from the top of a flow diagram, the three lineages marry in a circle and at least three lineages
are needed for this arrangement to work. The Purum of India, for example, practiced matrilateral cross-
cousin marriage among seven lineages. Notice that lineage B cannot return the gift of A’s daughter with
one of its own. If A2 married b2, he would be marrying his patrilateral cross-cousin who is linked to
him through A1, his sister a1, and her daughter b2. Therefore, b2 must marry C2 and lineage B can
never repay lineage A for the loss of their daughters—trace their links to find out why. Since lineage B
cannot meet the third of Mauss’ obligations. B is a beggar relative to A. And lineage C is a beggar relative
to lineage B. Paradoxically, lineage A (which gives its daughters to B) owes lineage C because it obtains
its brides from lineage C. In this system, there appears to be an equality of inequality.
The patrilineal cross-cousin marriage system also operates in a complex society in highland Burma
known as the Kachin. In that system, the wife-giving lineage is known as mayu and the wife-receiving
lineage as dama to the lineage that gave it a wife. Thus, in addition to other mechanisms of dominance,
higher-ranked lineages maintain their superiority by giving daughters to lower-ranked lineages and
reinforce the relations between social classes through the mayu-dama relationship.42
The Kachin are not alone in using interclass marriage to reinforce dominance. The Natchez peoples,
a matrilineal society of the Mississippi region of North America, were divided into four classes: Great
Sun chiefs, noble lineages, honored lineages, and inferior “stinkards” (commoners). Unlike the Kachin,
however, their marriage system was a way to upward mobility. The child of a woman who married a
man of lower status assumed his/her mother’s status. Thus, if a Great Sun woman married a stinkard
(commoner), the child would become a Great Sun. If a stinkard man were to marry a Great Sun woman,
the child would be the same rank as the mother. The same relationship obtained between women of
noble lineage and honored lineage and men of lower status. Only two stinkard partners would maintain
that stratum, which was continuously replenished with people in warfare.43
Other societies maintained status in different ways. Brother-sister marriages, for example, were com-
mon in the royal lineages of the Inca, the Ancient Egyptians, and the Hawaiians, which sought to keep
their lineages “pure.” Another, more-common type was patrilateral parallel-cousin marriage in which
men married their fathers’ brothers’ daughters. This marriage system, which operated among many
Middle Eastern nomadic societies, including the Rwala Bedouin chiefdoms, consolidated their herds,
an important consideration for lineages wishing to maintain their wealth.44
Integration through Secret Societies
Poro and sande secret societies for men and women, respectively, are found in the Mande-speaking
peoples of West Africa, particularly in Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast, and Guinea. The societies
are illegal under Guinea’s national laws. Elsewhere, they are legal and membership is universally
mandatory under local laws. They function in both political and religious sectors of society. So how can
such societies be secret if all men and women must join? According to Beryl Bellman, who is a member
of a poro association, the standard among the Kpelle of Liberia is an ability to keep secrets. Members of
the community are entrusted with the political and religious responsibilities associated with the society
only after they learn to keep secrets.45 There are two political structures in poros and sandes: the “sec-
ular” and the “sacred.” The secular structure consists of the town chief, neighborhood and kin group
headmen, and elders. The sacred structure (the zo) is composed of a hierarchy of “priests” of the poro and
the sande in the neighborhood, and among the Kpelle the poro and sande zo take turns dealing with in-
town fighting, rapes, homicides, incest, and land disputes. They, like leopard skin chiefs, play an impor-
tant role in mediation. The zo of both the poro and sande are held in great respect and even feared. Some
authors have suggested that sacred structure strengthens the secular political authority because chiefs
and landowners occupy the most powerful positions in the zo.46 Consequently, these chiefdoms seem
to have developed formative elements of a stratified society and a state, as we see in the next section.
STRATIFIED SOCIETIES
Opposite from egalitarian societies in the spectrum of social classes is the stratified society, which is
167
defined as one in which elites who are a numerical minority control the strategic resources that sustain
life. Strategic resources include water for states that depend on irrigation agriculture, land in agricul-
tural societies, and oil in industrial societies. Capital and products and resources used for further pro-
duction are modes of production that rely on oil and other fossil fuels such as natural gas in industrial
societies. (Current political movements call for the substitution of solar and wind power for fossil fuels.)
Operationally, stratification is, as the term implies, a social structure that involves two or more
largely mutually exclusive populations. An extreme example is the caste system of traditional Indian
society, which draws its legitimacy from Hinduism. In caste systems, membership is determined by
birth and remains fixed for life, and social mobility—moving from one social class to another—is not an
option. Nor can persons of different castes marry; that is, they are endogamous. Although efforts have
been made to abolish castes since India achieved independence in 1947, they still predominate in rural
areas.
India’s caste system consists of four varna, pure castes, and one collectively known as Dalit and some-
times as Harijan—in English, “untouchables,” reflecting the notion that for any varna caste member to
touch or even see a Dalit pollutes them. The topmost varna caste is the Brahmin or priestly caste. It is
composed of priests, governmental officials and bureaucrats at all levels, and other professionals. The
next highest is the Kshatriya, the warrior caste, which includes soldiers and other military personnel and
the police and their equivalents. Next are the Vaishyas, who are craftsmen and merchants, followed by
the Sudras (pronounced “shudra”), who are peasants and menial workers. Metaphorically, they represent
the parts of Manu, who is said to have given rise to the human race through dismemberment. The head
corresponds to Brahmin, the arms to Kshatriya, the thighs to Vaishya, and the feet to the Sudra.
There are also a variety of subcastes in India. The most important are the hundreds, if not thousands,
of occupational subcastes known as jatis. Wheelwrights, ironworkers, landed peasants, landless farm-
workers, tailors of various types, and barbers all belong to different jatis. Like the broader castes, jatis are
endogamous and one is born into them. They form the basis of the jajmani relationship, which involves
the provider of a particular service, the jajman, and the recipient of the service, the kamin. Training is
involved in these occupations but one cannot change vocations. Furthermore, the relationship between
the jajman and the kamin is determined by previous generations. If I were to provide you, my kamin,
with haircutting services, it would be because my father cut your father’s hair. In other words, you
would be stuck with me regardless of how poor a barber I might be. This system represents another
example of an economy as an instituted process, an economy embedded in society.47
Similar restrictions apply to those excluded from the varna castes, the “untouchables” or Dalit. Under
the worst restrictions, Dalits were thought to pollute other castes. If the shadow of a Dalit fell on a Brah-
min, the Brahmin immediately went home to bathe. Thus, at various times and locations, the untouch-
ables were also unseeable, able to come out only at night.48 Dalits were born into jobs considered
polluting to other castes, particularly work involving dead animals, such as butchering (Hinduism dis-
courages consumption of meat so the clients were Muslims, Christians, and believers of other religions),
skinning, tanning, and shoemaking with leather. Contact between an upper caste person and a person
of any lower caste, even if “pure,” was also considered polluting and was strictly forbidden.
The theological basis of caste relations is karma—the belief that one’s caste in this life is the cumula-
tive product of one’s acts in past lives, which extends to all beings, from minerals to animals to gods.
Therefore, though soul class mobility is nonexistent during a lifetime, it is possible between lifetimes.
Brahmins justified their station by claiming that they must have done good in their past lives. However,
there are indications that the untouchable Dalits and other lower castes are not convinced of their legit-
imation.49
Although India’s system is the most extreme, it not the only caste system. In Japan, a caste known
as Burakumin is similar in status to Dalits. Though they are no different in physical appearance from
other Japanese people, the Burakumin people have been forced to live in ghettos for centuries. They
descend from people who worked in the leather tanning industry, a low-status occupation, and still
work in leather industries such as shoemaking. Marriage between Burakumin and other Japanese people
is restricted, and their children are excluded from public schools.50
Some degree of social mobility characterizes all societies, but even so-called open-class societies are
not as mobile as one might think. In the United States, for example, actual movement up the social latter
is rare despite Horatio Alger and rags-to-riches myths. Stories of individuals “making it” through hard
work ignore the majority of individuals whose hard work does not pay off or who actually experience
downward mobility. Indeed, the Occupy Movement, which began in 2011, recognizes a dichotomy in
American society of the 1 percent (millionaires and billionaires) versus the 99 percent (everyone else),
and self-styled socialist Bernie Sanders made this the catch phrase of his campaign for the Democratic
Party’s presidential nomination. In India (a closed-class society), on the other hand, there are exceptions
to the caste system. In Rajasthan, for example, those who own or control most of the land are not of the
warrior caste as one might expect; they are of the lowest caste and their tenants and laborers are Brah-
mins.51
STATE LEVEL OF POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
The state is the most formal of the four levels of political organization under study here. In states,
political power is centralized in a government that exercises a monopoly over the legitimate use of
force.52 It is important to understand that the exercise of force constitutes a last resort; one hallmark of
a weak state is frequent use of physical force to maintain order. States develop in societies with large,
often ethnically diverse populations—hundreds of thousands or more—and are characterized by com-
plex economies that can be driven by command or by the market, social stratification, and an intensive
agricultural or industrial base.
Several characteristics accompany a monopoly over use of legitimate force in a state. First, like tribes
and chiefdoms, states occupy a more or less clearly defined territory or land defined by boundaries that
separate it from other political entities that may or not be states (exceptions are associated with the
Islamic State and are addressed later). Ancient Egypt was a state bounded on the west by desert and pos-
sibly forager or tribal nomadic peoples. Mesopotamia was a series of city-states competing for territory
with other city-states.
Heads of state can be individuals designated as kings, emperors, or monarchs under other names or
can be democratically elected, in fact or in name—military dictators, for example, are often called pres-
idents. Usually, states establish some board or group of councilors (e.g., the cabinet in the United States
and the politburo in the former Soviet Union.) Often, such councils are supplemented with one or two
legislative assemblies. The Roman Empire had a senate (which originated as a body of councilors) and
as many as four assemblies that combined patrician (elite) and plebian (general population) influences.
Today, nearly all of the world’s countries have some sort of an assembly, but many rubber-stamp the
executive’s decisions (or play an obstructionist role, as in the U.S. Congress during the Obama adminis-
tration).
States also have an administrative bureaucracy that handles public functions provided for by execu-
tive orders and/or legislation. Formally, the administrative offices are typically arranged in a hierarchy
and the top offices delegate specific functions to lower ones. Similar hierarchies are established for the
169
personnel in a branch. In general, agricultural societies tend to rely on inter-personal relations in the
administrative structure while industrial states rely on rational hierarchical structures.53
An additional state power is taxation—a system of redistribution in which all citizens are required
to participate. This power is exercised in various ways. Examples include the mitá or labor tax of the
Inca, the tributary systems of Mesopotamia, and monetary taxes familiar to us today and to numerous
subjects throughout the history of the state. Control over others’ resources is an influential mechanism
undergirding the power of the state.
A less tangible but no less powerful characteristic of states is their ideologies, which are designed to
reinforce the right of powerholders to rule. Ideologies can manifest in philosophical forms, such as the
divine right of kings in pre-industrial Europe, karma and the caste system in India, consent of the gov-
erned in the United States, and the metaphorical family in Imperial China. More often, ideologies are
less indirect and less perceptible as propaganda. We might watch the Super Bowl or follow the latest
antics of the Kardashians, oblivious to the notion that both are diversions from the reality of power in
this society. Young Americans, for example, may be drawn to military service to fight in Iraq by patri-
otic ideologies just as their parents or grandparents were drawn to service during the Vietnam War. In a
multitude of ways across many cultures, Plato’s parable of the shadows in the cave—that watchers mis-
perceive shadows as reality—has served to reinforce political ideologies.
Finally, there is delegation of the state’s coercive power. The state’s need to use coercive power
betrays an important weakness—subjects and citizens often refuse to recognize the powerholders’ right
to rule. Even when the legitimacy of power is not questioned, the use and/or threat of force serves to
maintain the state, and that function is delegated to agencies such as the police to maintain internal
order and to the military to defend the state against real and perceived enemies and, in many cases, to
expand the state’s territory. Current examples include a lack of accountability for the killing of black
men and women by police officers; the killing of Michael Brown by Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Mis-
souri, is a defining example.
State and Nation
Though state and nation are often used interchangeably, they are not the same thing. A state is a
coercive political institution; a nation is an ethnic population. There currently are about 200 states in
the world, and many of them did not exist before World War II. Meanwhile, there are around 5,000
nations identified by their language, territorial base, history, and political organization.54 Few states are
conterminous with a nation (a nation that wholly comprises the state). Even in Japan, where millions of
the country’s people are of a single ethnicity, there is a significant indigenous minority known as the
Ainu who at one time were a distinct biological population as well as an ethnic group. Only recently has
Japanese society opened its doors to immigrants, mostly from Korea and Taiwan. The vast majority of
states in the world, including the United States, are multi-national.
Some ethnicities/nations have no state of their own. The Kurds, who reside in adjacent areas of
Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, are one such nation. In the colonial era, the Mande-speaking peoples
ranged across at least four West African countries, and borders between the countries were drawn with-
out respect to the tribal identities of the people living there. Diasporas, the scattering of a people of one
ethnicity across the globe, are another classic example. The diaspora of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews is
well-known. Many others, such as the Chinese, have more recently been forced to flee their homelands.
The current ongoing mass migration of Syrians induced by formation of the Islamic State and the war
in Syria is but the most recent example.
Formation of States
How do states form? One precondition is the presence of a stratified society in which an elite minor-
ity controls life-sustaining strategic resources. Another is increased agricultural productivity that pro-
vides support for a larger population. Neither, however, is a sufficient cause for development of a state.
A group of people who are dissatisfied with conditions in their home region has a motive to move else-
where—unless there is nowhere else to go and they are circumscribed. Circumscription can arise when
a region is hemmed in by a geographic feature such as mountain ranges or desert and when migrants
would have to change their subsistence strategies, perhaps having to move from agriculture back to for-
aging, herding, or horticulture or to adapt to an urban industrialized environment. The Inca Empire
did not colonize on a massive scale beyond northern Chile to the south or into the Amazon because
indigenous people there could simply pick up and move elsewhere. Still, the majority of the Inca popu-
lation did not have that option. Circumscription also results when a desirable adjacent region is taken
by other states or chiefdoms.55
Who, then, were the original subjects of these states? One short answer is peasants, a term derived
from the French paysan, which means “countryman.” Peasantry entered the anthropological literature
relatively late. In his 800-page tome Anthropology published in 1948, Alfred L. Kroeber defined peas-
antry in less than a sentence: “part societies with part cultures.”56 Robert Redfield defined peasantry as
a “little tradition” set against a “great tradition” of national state society.57 Louis Fallers argued in 1961
against calling African cultivators “peasants” because they had not lived in the context of a state-based
civilization long enough.58
Thus, peasants had been defined in reference to some larger society, usually an empire, a state, or
a civilization. In light of this, Wolf sought to place the definition of peasant on a structural footing.59
Using a funding metaphor, he compared peasants with what he called “primitive cultivators.” Both
primitive cultivators and peasants have to provide for a “caloric fund” by growing food and, by exten-
sion, provide for clothing, shelter, and all other necessities of life. Second, both must provide for a
“replacement fund”—not only reserving seeds for next year’s crop but also repairing their houses,
replacing broken pots, and rebuilding fences. And both primitive cultivators and peasants must provide
a “ceremonial fund” for rites of passage and fiestas. They differ in that peasants live in states and prim-
itive cultivators do not. The state exercises domain over peasants’ resources, requiring peasants to pro-
vide a “fund of rent.” That fund appears in many guises, including tribute in kind, monetary taxes, and
forced labor to an empire or lord. In Wolf’s conception, primitive cultivators are free of these obliga-
tions to the state.60
Subjects of states are not necessarily landed; there is a long history of landless populations. Slavery
has long coexisted with the state, and forced labor without compensation goes back to chiefdoms such
as Kwakwaka’wakw. Long before Portuguese, Spanish, and English seafarers began trading slaves from
the west coast of Africa, Arab groups enslaved people from Africa and Europe.61
For peasants, proletarianization— loss of land—has been a continuous process. One example is
landed gentry in eighteenth century England who found that sheepherding was more profitable than
tribute from peasants and removed the peasants from the land.62 A similar process occurred when
Guatemala’s liberal president privatized the land of Mayan peasants that, until 1877, had been held
communally.63
171
Law and Order in States
At the level of the state, the law becomes an increasingly formal process. Procedures are more and
more regularly defined, and categories of breaches in civil and criminal law emerge, together with
remedies for those breaches. Early agricultural states formalized legal rules and punishments through
codes, formal courts, police forces, and legal specialists such as lawyers and judges. Mediation could still
be practiced, but it often was supplanted by adjudication in which a judge’s decision was binding on all
parties. Decisions could be appealed to a higher authority, but any final decision must be accepted by all
concerned.
The first known system of codified law was enacted under the warrior king Hammurabi in Babylon
(present day Iraq). This law was based on standardized procedures for dealing with civil and criminal
offenses, and subsequent decisions were based on precedents (previous decisions). Crimes became
offenses not only against other parties but also against the state. Other states developed similar codes
of law, including China, Southeast Asia, and state-level Aztec and Inca societies. Two interpretations,
which are not necessarily mutually exclusive, have arisen about the political function of codified sys-
tems of law. Fried (1978) argued, based on his analysis of the Hammurabi codes, that such laws
reinforced a system of inequality by protecting the rights of an elite class and keeping peasants subor-
dinates.64 This is consistent with the theory of a stratified society as already defined. Another inter-
pretation is that maintenance of social and political order is crucial for agricultural states since any
disruption in the state would lead to neglect of agricultural production that would be deleterious to all
members of the state regardless of their social status. Civil laws ensure, at least in theory, that all disput-
ing parties receive a hearing—so long as high legal expenses and bureaucratic logjams do not cancel out
the process. Criminal laws, again in theory, ensure the protection of all citizens from offenses ranging
from theft to homicide.
Inevitably, laws fail to achieve their aims. The United States, for example, has one of the highest
crime rates in the industrial world despite having an extensive criminal legal system. The number of
homicides in New York City in 1990 exceeded the number of deaths from colon and breast cancer
and all accidents combined.65 Although the rate of violent crime in the United States declined during
the mid-1990s, it occurred thanks more to the construction of more prisons per capita (in California)
than of schools. Nationwide, there currently are more than one million prisoners in state and federal
correctional institutions, one of the highest national rates in the industrial world.66 Since the 1990s,
little has changed in terms of imprisonment in the United States. Funds continue to go to prisons
rather than schools, affecting the education of minority communities and expanding “slave labor” in
prisons, according to Michelle Alexander who, in 2012, called the current system the school-to-prison
pipeline.67
Warfare in States
Warfare occurs in all human societies but at no other level of political organization is it as widespread
as in states. Indeed, warfare was integral to the formation of the agricultural state. As governing elites
accumulated more resources, warfare became a major means of increasing their surpluses.68 And as the
wealth of states became a target of nomadic pastoralists, the primary motivation for warfare shifted
from control of resources to control of neighboring populations.69
A further shift came with the advent of industrial society when industrial technologies driven by fos-
sil fuels allowed states to invade distant countries. A primary motivation for these wars was to establish
economic and political hegemony over foreign populations. World War I, World War II, and lesser wars
of the past century have driven various countries to develop ever more sophisticated and deadly tech-
nologies, including wireless communication devices for remote warfare, tanks, stealth aircraft, nuclear
weapons, and unmanned aircraft called drones, which have been used in conflicts in the Middle East
and Afghanistan. Competition among nations has led to the emergence of the United States as the most
militarily powerful nation in the world.
The expansion of warfare by societies organized as states has not come without cost. Every nation-
state has involved civilians in its military adventures, and almost everyone has been involved in those
wars in some way—if not as militarily, then as member of the civilian workforce in military industries.
World War II created an unprecedented armament industry in the United States, Britain, Germany, and
Japan, among others, and the aerospace industry underwent expansion in the so-called Cold War that
followed. Today, one can scarcely overlook the role of the process of globalization to explain how the
United States, for now an empire, has influenced the peoples of other countries in the world.
Stability and Duration of States
It should be noted that states have a clear tendency toward instability despite trappings designed to
induce awe in the wider population. Few states have lasted a thousand years. The American state is more
than 240 years old but increases in extreme wealth and poverty, escalating budget and trade deficits, a
war initiated under false pretenses, escalating social problems, and a highly controversial presidential
election suggest growing instability. Jared Diamond’s book Collapse (2004) compared the decline and fall
of Easter Island, Chaco Canyon, and the Maya with contemporary societies such as the United States,
and he found that overtaxing the environment caused the collapse of those three societies.70 Chalmers
Johnson (2004) similarly argued that a state of perpetual war, loss of democratic institutions, systematic
deception by the state, and financial overextension contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire and
will likely contribute to the demise of the United States “with the speed of FedEx.”71
Why states decline is not difficult to fathom. Extreme disparities in wealth, use of force to keep popu-
lations in line, the stripping of people’s resources (such as the enclosures in England that removed peas-
ants from their land), and the harshness of many laws all should create a general animosity toward the
elite in a state.
Yet, until recently (following the election of Donald Trump), no one in the United States was taking to
the streets calling for the president to resign or decrying the government as illegitimate. In something
of a paradox, widespread animosity does not necessarily lead to dissolution of a state or to an overthrow
of the elite. Thomas Frank addressed this issue in What’s the Matter with Kansas? (2004). Despite the fact
that jobs have been shipped abroad, that once-vibrant cities like Wichita are virtual ghost towns, and
that both congress and the state legislature have voted against social programs time and again, Kansans
continued to vote the Republicans whose policies are responsible for these conditions into office.
Nor is this confined to Kansas or the United States. That slaves tolerated slavery for hundreds of years
(despite periodic revolts such as the one under Nat Turner in 1831), that workers tolerated extreme
conditions in factories and mines long before unionization, that there was no peasant revolt strong
enough to reverse the enclosures in England—all demand an explanation. Frank discusses reinforcing
variables, such as propaganda by televangelists and Rush Limbaugh but offers little explanation beside
them.72 However, recent works have provided new explanations. Days before Donald Trump won the
presidential election on November 8, 2016, sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild released a book that
173
partially explains how Trump appealed to the most marginalized populations of the United States, res-
idents around Lake Charles in southwestern Louisiana. In the book, Strangers in Their Own Land (2016),
Hochschild contends that the predominantly white residents there saw the federal government provid-
ing preferential treatment for blacks, women, and other marginalized populations under affirmative
action programs while putting white working-class individuals further back in line for governmental
assistance. The people Hochschild interviewed were fully aware that a corporate petroleum company
had polluted Lake Charles and hired nonlocal technicians and Filipino workers to staff local positions,
but they nonetheless expressed their intent to vote for a billionaire for president based on his promise to
bring outsourced jobs back to “America” and to make the country “great again.” Other books, including
Thomas Frank’s Listen Liberal (2016), Nancy Isenberg’s White Trash (2016), and Matt Wray’s Not Quite
White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness (2006), address the decline of the United States’ politi-
cal power domestically and worldwide. These books all link Trump’s successful election to marginaliza-
tion of lower-class whites and raise questions about how dissatisfaction with the state finds expression
in political processes.
Stratification and the State: Recent Developments
States elsewhere and the stratified societies that sustain them have undergone significant changes
and, in some instances, dramatic transformations in recent years. Consider ISIS, formed in reaction to
the ill-advised U.S. intervention in Iraq in 2003, which is discussed in greater detail in the case study
available from the Perspectives website. Other states have failed; Somalia has all but dissolved and is
beset by piracy, Yemen is highly unstable due in part to the Saudi invasion, and Syria has been deci-
mated by conflict between the Bashar Assad government and a variety of rebel groups from moderate
reform movements to extremist jihadi groups, al-Nusra and ISIS. Despite Myanmar’s (formerly Burma)
partial transition from a militarized government to an elective one, the Muslim minority there, known
as Rohingya, has been subjected to discrimination and many have been forced to flee to neighboring
Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Bangladesh has been unable to enforce safety regulations to foreign investors
as witnessed by the collapse of a clothing factory in 2013 that took the lives of more than 1,100 workers.
CONCLUSION
Citing both state and stateless societies, this chapter has examined levels of socio-cultural integration,
types of social class (from none to stratified), and mechanisms of social control exercised in various
forms of political organization from foragers to large, fully developed states. The chapter offers expla-
nations for these patterns, and additional theories are provided by the works in the bibliography. Still,
there are many more questions than answers. Why does socio-economic inequality arise in the first
place? How do states reinforce (or generate) inequality? Societies that have not developed a state have
lasted far longer—about 100,000 to 150,000 years longer—than societies that became states. Will states
persist despite the demonstrable disadvantages they present for the majority of their citizens?
A Chinese curse wishes that you may “live in interesting times.”

These are interesting times indeed.
1. In large communities, it can be difficult for people to feel a sense of connection or loyalty to people outside their immediate fami-
lies. Choose one of the social-integration techniques used in tribes and chiefdoms and explain why it can successfully encourage
solidarity between people. Can you identify similar systems for encouraging social integration in your own community?
2. Although state societies are efficient in organizing people and resources, they also are associated with many disadvantages, such
as extreme disparities in wealth, use of force to keep people in line, and harsh laws. Given these difficulties, why do you think the
state has survived? Do you think human populations can develop alternative political organizations in the future?
3. Why is it important to understand whether ISIS is or is not likely to become a state?
GLOSSARY
Affinal: family relationships created through marriage.
Age grades: groups of men who are close to one another in age and share similar duties or responsibil-
ities.
Age sets: named categories to which men of a certain age are assigned at birth.
Band: the smallest unit of political organization, consisting of only a few families and no formal leader-
ship positions.
Big man: a form of temporary or situational leadership; influence results from acquiring followers.
Bilateral cross-cousin marriage: a man marries a woman who is both his mother’s brother’s daughter
and his father’s sister’s daughter.
Bilateral descent: kinship (family) systems that recognize both the mother’s and the father’s “sides” of
the family.
Caste system: the division of society into hierarchical levels; one’s position is determined by birth and
remains fixed for life.
Chiefdom: large political units in which the chief, who usually is determined by heredity, holds a formal
position of power.
Circumscription: the enclosure of an area by a geographic feature such as mountain ranges or desert
or by the boundaries of a state.
Codified law: formal legal systems in which damages, crimes, remedies, and punishments are specified.
Egalitarian: societies in which there is no great difference in status or power between individuals and
there are as many valued status positions in the societies as there are persons able to fill them.
Feuds: disputes of long duration characterized by a state of recurring hostilities between families, lin-
eages, or other kin groups.
Ideologies: ideas designed to reinforce the right of powerholders to rule.
Legitimacy: the perception that an individual has a valid right to leadership.
Lineage: individuals who can trace or demonstrate their descent through a line of males or females back
to a founding ancestor.
Matrilateral cross-cousin marriage: a man marries a woman who is his mother’s brother’s daughter.
Matrilineal: kinship (family) systems that recognize only relatives through a line of female ancestors.
Nation: an ethnic population.
Negative reinforcements: punishments for noncompliance through fines, imprisonment, and death
sentences.
Oaths: the practice of calling on a deity to bear witness to the truth of what one says.
175
Ordeal: a test used to determine guilt or innocence by submitting the accused to dangerous, painful, or
risky tests believed to be controlled by supernatural forces.
Patrilineal: kinship (family) systems that recognize only relatives through a line of male ancestors.
Peasants: residents of a state who earn a living through farming.
Poro and sande: secret societies for men and women, respectively, found in the Mande-speaking peo-
ples of West Africa, particularly in Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast, and Guinea.
Positive reinforcements: rewards for compliance; examples include medals, financial incentives, and
other forms of public recognition.
Proletarianization: a process through which farmers are removed from the land and forced to take
wage labor employment.
Raids: short-term uses of physical force organized and planned to achieve a limited objective.
Ranked: societies in which there are substantial differences in the wealth and social status of individu-
als; there are a limited number of positions of power or status, and only a few can occupy them.
Restricted exchange: a marriage system in which only two extended families can engage in this
exchange.
Reverse dominance: societies in which people reject attempts by any individual to exercise power.
Segmentary lineage: a hierarchy of lineages that contains both close and relatively distant family mem-
bers.
Social classes: the division of society into groups based on wealth and status.
Sodality: a system used to encourage solidarity or feelings of connectedness between people who are
not related by family ties.
State: the most complex form of political organization characterized by a central government that has
a monopoly over legitimate uses of physical force, a sizeable bureaucracy, a system of formal laws, and
a standing military force.
Stratified: societies in which there are large differences in the wealth, status, and power of individuals
based on unequal access to resources and positions of power.
Sumptuary rules: norms that permit persons of higher rank to enjoy greater social status by wearing
distinctive clothing, jewelry, and/or decorations denied those of lower rank.
Tribe: political units organized around family ties that have fluid or shifting systems of temporary lead-
ership.
Unilineal descent: kinship (family) systems that recognize only one sex-based “side” of the family.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paul McDowell (Ph.D. University of British Columbia, 1974) examined the

transition of the civil-religious hierarchy in a factory and peasant community in Guatemala to a secular
town government and church organization called Accion Catolica. He is the author of Cultural Anthro-
pology: A Concise Introduction and Cultures Around the World: An Ethnographic Reader; he has also read sev-
eral papers on the political globalization of Guatemala.
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Notes
1. Morton Fried, The Evolution of Political Society: An Essay in Political Anthropology (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967).
179
2. E. Adamson Hoebel, The Law of Primitive Man (New York: Atheneum, 1968 [1954]). For a critique of Hoebel see
John Steckley, White Lies about the Inuit (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007).
3. Elman Service, Origins of the State and Civilization: The Process of Cultural Evolution (New York: W.W. Norton,
1975).
4. Christopher Boehm. Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
5. Richard Lee, The Dobe Ju/’hoansi (New York: Thomson, 2003).
6. Julian Steward, The Theory of Culture Change: The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution (Urbana: University of Illi-
nois Press, 1955), 54.
7. Elman Service, Origins of the State and Civilization.
8. Morton Fried, The Evolution of Political Society.
9. Richard Lee, The Dobe Ju/’hoansi, 109–111.
10. Julian Steward, The Theory of Culture Change.
11. Elman Service, Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective (New York: Random House, 1962).
12. M. Kay Martin and Barbara Voorhies, Female of the Species (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975).
13. E. Adamson Hoebel, The Law of Primitive Man, 168.
14. See Colin Turnbull, The Forest People: A Study of the Pygmies of the Congo (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963)
and Colin Turnbull, The Mbuti Pygmies: Change and Adaptation (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983).
15. C.W. Merton Hart, Arnold R. Pilling, and Jane Goodale. The Tiwi of North Australia (New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston, 1988).
16. Richard Lee, The Dobe Ju/’hoansi, 112–118.
17. Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1997), 133–137.
18. Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies (London: Routledge, 2001 [1925]).
19. Douglas Oliver, A Solomon Island Society: Kinship and Leadership among the Siuai of Bougainville (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1955). For an account of Ongka, the big man in a Kawelka village, see Andrew Strath-
ern and Pamela J. Stewart, Collaborations and Conflict: A Leader through Time (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1999).
20. Walter Sangree, “The Bantu Tiriki of Western Kenya,” in Peoples of Africa, James Gibbs, ed. (New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1965), 71. The reader will notice the discrepancies between Sangree’s description of age
grades and sets—15 year for each, totaling a cycle of 105 years—and his chart from which the one shown here is
extrapolated to 1994. First, the age grade “small boys,” is 10 years, not 15. Second, the age grade “ritual elders” is
20 years, not 15. Why this discrepancy exists, Sangree does not answer. This discrepancy demonstrates the ques-
tions raised when ideal types do not match all the ethnographic information. For example, if the Jiminigayi
ranged 15 years in 1939, why did they suddenly expand to a range of 20 years in 1954? By the same token, why
did the Sawe age set cover 10 years in 1939 and expand to 15 years in 1954? It is discrepancies such as this that
raise questions and drive further research
21. Mervyn Meggitt, Blood Is Their Argument: Warfare among the Mae-Enga (Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield, 1977) 202–224.
22. Marcel Mauss, The Gift.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Claude Levi-Strauss’ concept is further described in Robin Fox, Kinship and Marriage (Harmondsworth, UK: Pen-
guin, 1967), 182–187.
26. Evans-Pritchard, Edward E. The Nuer. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1940.
27. Paul Bohannan, Justice and Judgment among the Tiv. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1989. And Murphy,
Robert F, and Leonard Kasdan. “The Structure of Parallel Cousin Marriage.” American Anthropologist 61 no. 1
(1959.):17–29.
28. Marshall Sahlins, “The Segmentary Lineage: An Organization of Predatory Expansion.” American Anthropologist
63 (1961):322–343.
29. Ibid.
30. E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1976).
31. Klaus-Friedrich Koch et al., “Ritual Reconciliation and the Obviation of Grievances: A Comparative Study in the
Ethnography of Law.” Ethnology 16 (1977):269–270.
32. E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1940), 291.
33. Laura Nader, Harmony Ideology: Justice and Control in a Zapotec Mountain Village. (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1991).
34. Marvin Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches. New York: Vintage, 1974. Good, Kenneth. Into The Heart: One Man’s
Pursuit of Love and Knowledge among the Yanomami. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1997.
35. Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamo, 91–97.
36. Douglas White, “Rethinking Polygyny, Co-wives, Codes, and Cultural Systems,” Current Anthropology 29 no. 4
(1988): 529–533.
37. Karl Heider, The Dugum Dani: A Papuan Culture in the Highlands of West New Guinea (Chicago: Aldine, 1970).
38. Philip Drucker, Indians of the Northwest Coast (New York: Natural History Press, 1955).
39. Ibid.
40. For more information about the reasons for the potlatch ban, see Douglas Cole and Ira Chaiken, An Iron Hand
upon the People: The Law against the Potlatch on the Northwest Coast (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990).
The website of the U’Mista Cultural Society in Alert Bay, British Columbia, Canada offers more information
about potlatch traditions and the impact of the ban: www.umista.ca.
41. Philip Drucker, Indians of the Northwest Coast.
42. Edmund Leach, cited in Robin Fox, Kinship and Marriage, 215–216.
43. Raymond Scupin, Cultural Anthropology: A Global Perspective (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2012).
44. The information comes from William Lancaster, The Rwala Bedouin Today (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press,
1997) and Elman Service, Profiles of Ethnology (New York: Harper Collins, 1978).
45. Beryl Bellman, The Language of Secrecy: Symbols and Metaphors in Poro Ritual (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Uni-
versity Press, 1984).
46. Kenneth Little, “The Political Function of the Poro, Part 1.” Africa 35 (1965):349–365. See also Caroline Bledsoe,
Women and Marriage in Kpelle Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980).
47. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (New York: Beacon Press, 1944).
48. Bruce Long, “Reincarnation,” Encyclopedia of Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1987) and William Maloney,
“Dharma,” Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 4 (New York: Macmillan, 1987).
49. Ravindra Khare, The Untouchable as Himself: Identity and Pragmatism among the Lucknow Chamars (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1984).
50. Harumi Befu, Japan: An Anthropological Introduction (San Francisco: Chandler, 1971).
51. William Haviland, Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge.
52. Morton Fried, The Evolution of Political Society: An Essay in Political Anthropology (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967)
and Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York: Free Press, 1997 [1947]).
53. For instance, Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization.
54. J.W. Clay, “What’s a Nation?” in Talking about People, William Haviland and R.J. Gordon, eds. (Mountain View,
CA: Mayfield), 1996.
55. Robert Carneiro, “A Theory of the Origin of the State.” Science 169 no. 3947 (1970): 733–738 and Robert
Carneiro, “Chiefdom: Precursor to the State,” in The Transition to Statehood in the New World, Grant Jones and
Robert Kautz, eds. 37–75. New York: Cambridge University Press.
56. Alfred L. Kroeber, Anthropology (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1948), 284.
57. Robert Redfield, The Little Community and Peasant Society and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1989).
58. Louis Fallers, “Are African Cultivators to Be Called Peasants?” Current Anthropology 2 no. 2 (1961): 108–110.
59. Eric Wolf, Peasants. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966.
60. Ibid.
61. Leften S. Stavrianos, Global Rift (New York: Quill, 1974).
62. Michael Perelman, The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumu-
181
lation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), 38–59.

63. For more information about land privatization, see Paul V. McDowell, “Political and Religious Change in a
Guatemalan Factory Community.” Ph.D. Diss., University of British Columbia, 1974 and Paul V. McDowell,
“The Decline of the Civil-Religious Hierarchy: The Case of Cantel.” NorthSouth: Canadian Journal of Latin Ameri-
can Studies 35 no. 10 (1980):17–35.
64. Morton Fried “The State, the Chicken, and the Egg or What Came First?” In Origins of the State, edited by Ronald
Cohen and Elman Service. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1978.
65. Sam Roberts, “Fighting the Tide of Bloodshed on Streets Resembling a War Zone.” New York Times, November
15, 1993: B12.
66. Fox Butterfield, “Study Finds Disparity of Justice for Blacks.” New York Times, Feb. 13, 1996 8A.
67. Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness. New York: The New Press,
2010.
68. V. Gordon Childe, “The Urban Revolution.” Town Planning Review 21 (1950): 3–17.
69. Keith Otterbein “The Anthropology of War,” in Handbook of Social and Cultural Anthropology, John Huntington,
ed. (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1974) and The Evolution of War: A Cross-cultural Study (New Haven, CT: Human
Relation Area Files, 1989).
70. Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York: Viking, 2004).
71. Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empires: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (New York: Metropolitan
Books, 2005), 285.
72. Thomas Frank, What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (New York: Metropoli-
tan Books, 2004).
8
FAMILY AND MARRIAGE
Mary Kay Gilliland, Central Arizona College

[email protected]
Learning Objectives
• Describe the variety of human families cross-culturally with examples.
• Discuss variation in parental rights and responsibilities.
• Distinguish between matrilineal, patrilineal, and bilateral kinship systems.
• Identify the differences between kinship establish by blood and kinship established by marriage
• Evaluate the differences between dowry and bridewealth as well as between different types of post-marital residence.
• Recognize patterns of family and marriage and explain why these patterns represent rational decisions within the cultural con-
texts.
Family and marriage may at first seem to be familiar topics. Families exist in all societies and they are
part of what makes us human. However, societies around the world demonstrate tremendous variation
in cultural understandings of family and marriage. Ideas about how people are related to each other,
what kind of marriage would be ideal, when people should have children, who should care for children,
and many other family related matters differ cross-culturally. While the function of families is to ful-
fill basic human needs such as providing for children, defining parental roles, regulating sexuality, and
passing property and knowledge between generations, there are many variations or patterns of family
life that can meet these needs. This chapter introduces some of the more common patterns of family
life found around the world. It is important to remember that within any cultural framework variation
does occur. Some variations on the standard pattern fall within what would be culturally considered
182
183
the “range of acceptable alternatives.” Other family forms are not entirely accepted, but would still be
recognized by most members of the community as reasonable.
RIGHTS, RESPONSIBILITIES, STATUSES, AND ROLES IN FAMILIES
Some of the earliest research in cultural anthropology explored differences in ideas about family.
Lewis Henry Morgan, a lawyer who also conducted early anthropological studies of Native American
cultures, documented the words used to describe family members in the Iroquois language.1 In the book
Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871), he explained that words used to describe
family members, such as “mother” or “cousin,” were important because they indicated the rights and
responsibilities associated with particular family members both within households and the larger com-
munity. This can be seen in the labels we have for family members—titles like father or aunt—that
describe how a person fits into a family as well as the obligations he or she has to others.
The concepts of status and role are useful for thinking about the behaviors that are expected of indi-
viduals who occupy various positions in the family. The terms were first used by anthropologist Ralph
Linton and they have since been widely incorporated into social science terminology.2 For anthropol-
ogists, a status is any culturally-designated position a person occupies in a particular setting. Within
the setting of a family, many statuses can exist such as “father,” “mother,” “maternal grandparent,” and
“younger brother.” Of course, cultures may define the statuses involved in a family differently. Role is
the set of behaviors expected of an individual who occupies a particular status. A person who has the
status of “mother,” for instance, would generally have the role of caring for her children.
Roles, like statuses, are cultural ideals or expectations and there will be variation in how individuals
meet these expectations. Statuses and roles also change within cultures over time. In the not-so-distant
past in the United States, the roles associated with the status of “mother” in a typical Euro-American
middle-income family included caring for children and keeping a house; they probably did not include
working for wages outside the home. It was rare for fathers to engage in regular, day-to-day housekeep-
ing or childcare roles, though they sometimes “helped out,” to use the jargon of the time. Today, it is
much more common for a father to be an equal partner in caring for children or a house or to some-
times take a primary role in child and house care as a “stay at home father” or as a “single father.” The
concepts of status and role help us think about cultural ideals and what the majority within a cultural
group tends to do. They also help us describe and document culture change. With respect to family and
marriage, these concepts help us compare family systems across cultures.
KINSHIP AND DESCENT
Kinship is the word used to describe culturally recognized ties between members of a family. Kinship
includes the terms, or social statuses, used to define family members and the roles or expected behaviors
family associated with these statuses. Kinship encompasses relationships formed through blood con-
nections (consanguineal), such as those created between parents and children, as well as relationships
created through marriage ties (affinal), such as in-laws (see Figure 1). Kinship can also include “chosen
kin,” who have no formal blood or marriage ties, but consider themselves to be family. Adoptive par-
ents, for instance, are culturally recognized as parents to the children they raise even though they are
not related by blood.
Figure 1: These young Maasai women from Western Tanzania are affinal kin, who share responsibilities for
childcare. Maasai men often have multiple wives who share domestic responsibilities. Photo used with
permission of Laura Tubelle de González.
While there is quite a bit of variation in families cross-culturally, it is also true that many families can
be categorized into broad types based on what anthropologists call a kinship system. The kinship sys-
tem refers to the pattern of culturally recognized relationships between family members. Some cultures
create kinship through only a single parental line or “side” of the family. For instance, families in many
parts of the world are defined by patrilineal descent: the paternal line of the family, or fathers and their
children. In other societies, matrilineal descent defines membership in the kinship group through the
maternal line of relationships between mothers and their children. Both kinds of kinship are consid-
ered unilineal because they involve descent through only one line or side of the family. It is impor-
tant to keep in mind that systems of descent define culturally recognized “kin,” but these rules do not
restrict relationships or emotional bonds between people. Mothers in patrilineal societies have close
and loving relationships with their children even though they are not members of the same patrilin-
eage.3 In the United States, for instance, last names traditionally follow a pattern of patrilineal descent:
children receive last names from their fathers. This does not mean that the bonds between mothers and
children are reduced. Bilateral descent is another way of creating kinship. Bilateral descent means that
families are defined by descent from both the father and the mother’s sides of the family. In bilateral
descent, which is common in the United States, children recognize both their mother’s and father’s fam-
ily members as relatives.
As we will see below, the descent groups that are created by these kinship systems provide members
with a sense of identity and social support. Kinship groups may also control economic resources and
dictate decisions about where people can live, who they can marry, and what happens to their property
after death. Anthropologists use kinship diagrams to help visualize descent groups and kinship. Figure
2 is a simple example of a kinship diagram. This diagram has been designed to help you see the differ-
ence between the kinship groups created by a bilateral descent system and a unilineal system.
185
Figure 2: This kinship chart illustrates bilateral descent.
Kinship diagrams use a specific person, who by convention is called Ego, as a starting point. The peo-
ple shown on the chart are Ego’s relatives. In Figure 2, Ego is in the middle of the bottom row. Most
kinship diagrams use a triangle to represent males and a circle to represent females. Conventionally,
an “equals sign” placed between two individuals indicates a marriage. A single line, or a hyphen, can be
used to indicate a recognized union without marriage such as a couple living together or engaged and
living together, sometimes with children.
Children are linked to their parents by a vertical line that extends down from the equals sign. A sibling
group is represented by a horizontal line that encompasses the group. Usually children are represented
from left to right–oldest to youngest. Other conventions for these charts include darkening the symbol
or drawing a diagonal line through the symbol to indicate that a person is deceased. A diagonal line may
be drawn through the equals sign if a marriage has ended.
Figure 2 shows a diagram of three generations of a typical bilateral (two sides) kinship group, focused
on parents and children, with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and grandchildren. Note that every-
one in the diagram is related to everyone else in the diagram, even though they may not interact on a
regular basis. The group could potentially be very large, and everyone related through blood, marriage,
or adoption is included.
The next two kinship diagram show how the descent group changes in unilineal kinship systems like
a patrilineal system (father’s line) or a matrilineal system (mother’s line). The roles of the family mem-
bers in relationship to one another are also likely to be different because descent is based on lineage:
descent from a common ancestor. In a patrilineal system, children are always members of their father’s
lineage group (Figure 3). In a matrilineal system, children are always members of their mother’s lineage
group (Figure 4). In both cases, individuals remain a part of their birth lineage throughout their lives,
even after marriage. Typically, people must marry someone outside their own lineage. In figures 3 and
4, the shaded symbols represent people who are in the same lineage. The unshaded symbols represent
people who have married into the lineage.
In general, bilateral kinship is more focused on individuals rather than a single lineage of ancestors
as seen in unlineal descent. Each person in a bilateral system has a slightly different group of relatives.
For example, my brother’s relatives through marriage (his in-laws) are included in his kinship group,
but are not included in mine. His wife’s siblings and children are also included in his group, but not in
mine. If we were in a patrilineal or matrilineal system, my brother and I would largely share the same
group of relatives.
Figure 3: This kinship chart shows a patrilineal household with Ego in father’s lineage.
Matrilineages and patrilineages are not just mirror images of each other. They create groups that
behave somewhat differently. Contrary to some popular ideas, matrilineages are not matriarchal. The
terms “matriarchy” and “patriarchy” refer to the power structure in a society. In a patriarchal society,
men have more authority and the ability to make more decisions than do women. A father may have
the right to make certain decisions for his wife or wives, and for his children, or any other dependents.
In matrilineal societies, men usually still have greater power, but women may be subject more to the
power of their brothers or uncles (relatives through their mother’s side of the family) rather than their
fathers.
Among the matrilineal Hopi, for example, a mothers’ brother is more likely to be a figure of authority
than a father. The mother’s brothers have important roles in the lives of their sisters’ children. These
roles include ceremonial obligations and the responsibility to teach the skills that are associated with
men and men’s activities. Men are the keepers of important ritual knowledge so while women are
respected, men are still likely to hold more authority.
187
Figure 4: This kinship chart shows a matrilineal household with Ego in mother’s lineage.
The Nayar of southern India offer an interesting example of gender roles in a matrilineal society. In
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, men and women did not live together after marriage because
the husbands, who were not part of the matrilineage, were not considered relatives. Women lived for
their entire lives in extended family homes with their mothers and siblings. The male siblings in the
household had the social role of father and were important father figures in the lives of their sisters’
children. The biological fathers of the children had only a limited role in their lives. Instead, these men
were busy raising their own sisters’ children. Despite the matrilineal focus of the household, Nayar
communities were not matriarchies. The position of power in the household was held by an elder male,
often the oldest male sibling.
The consequences of this kind of system are intriguing. Men did not have strong ties to their bio-
logical offspring. Marriages were fluid and men and women could have more than one spouse, but
the children always remained with their mothers. 4 Cross-culturally it does seem to be the case that in
matrilineal societies women tend to have more freedom to make decisions about to sex and marriage.
Children are members of their mother’s kinship group, whether the mother is married or not, so there
is often less concern about the social legitimacy of children or fatherhood.
Some anthropologists have suggested that marriages are less stable in matrilineal societies than in
patrilineal ones, but this varies as well. Among the matrilineal Iroquois, for example, women owned the
longhouses. Men moved into their wives’ family houses at marriage. If a woman wanted to divorce her
husband, she could simply put his belongings outside. In that society, however, men and women also
spent significant time apart. Men were hunters and warriors, often away from the home. Women were
the farmers and tended to the home. This, as much as matrilineality, could have contributed to less for-
mality or disapproval of divorce. There was no concern about the division of property. The longhouse
belonged to the mother’s family, and children belonged to their mother’s clan. Men would always have
a home with their sisters and mother, in their own matrilineal longhouse.5
Kinship charts can be useful when doing field research and particularly helpful when documenting
changes in families over time. In my own field research, it was easy to document changes that occurred
in a relatively short time, likely linked to urbanization, such as changes in family size, in prevalence of
divorce, and in increased numbers of unmarried adults. These patterns had emerged in the surveys and
interviews I conducted, but they jumped off the pages when I reviewed the kinship charts. Creating
kinship charts was a very helpful technique in my field research. I also used them as small gifts for the
people who helped with my research and they were very much appreciated.
KINSHIP TERMS
Another way to compare ideas about family across cultures is to categorize them based on kinship
terminology: the terms used in a language to describe relatives. George Murdock was one of the first
anthropologists to undertake this kind of comparison and he suggested that the kinship systems of the
world could be placed in six categories based on the kinds of words a society used to describe relatives.6
In some kinship systems, brothers, sisters, and all first cousins call each other brother and sister. In such
a system, not only one’s biological father, but all one’s father’s brothers would be called “father,” and all
of one’s mother’s sisters, along with one’s biological mother, would be called “mother.” Murdock and
subsequent anthropologists refer to this as the Hawaiian system because it was found historically in
Hawaii. In Hawaiian kinship terminology there are a smaller number of kinship terms and they tend
to reflect generation and gender while merging nuclear families into a larger grouping. In other words,
you, your brothers and sisters, and cousins would all be called “child” by your parents and your aunts
and uncles.
Other systems are more complicated with different terms for father’s elder brother, younger brother,
grandparents on either side and so on. Each pattern was named for a cultural group in which this pat-
tern was found. The system that most Americans follow is referred to as the Eskimo system, a name
that comes from the old way of referring to the Inuit, an indigenous people of the Arctic (Figure 1).
Placing cultures into categories based on kinship terminology is no longer a primary focus of anthro-
pological studies of kinship. Differences in kinship terminology do provide insight into differences in
the way people think about families and the roles people play within them.
Sometimes the differences in categorizing relatives and in terminology reflect patrilineal and matri-
lineal systems of descent. For example, in a patrilineal system, your father’s brothers are members of
your lineage or clan; your mother’s brothers do not belong to the same lineage or clan and may or may
not be counted as relatives. If they are counted, they likely are called something different from what you
would call your father’s brother. Similar differences would be present in a matrilineal society.
An Example from Croatia
In many U.S. families, any brother of your mother or father is called “uncle.” In other kinship systems,
however, some uncles and aunts count as members of the family and others do not. In Croatia, which
was historically a patrilineal society, all uncles are recognized by their nephews and nieces regardless
of whether they are brothers of the mother or the father. But, the uncle is called by a specific name
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that depends on which side of the family he is on; different roles are associated with different types of
uncles.
A child born into a traditional Croatian family will call his aunts and uncles stric and strina if they are
his father’s brothers and their wives. He will call his mother’s brothers and their wives ujak and ujna.
The words tetka or tetak can be used to refer to anyone who is a sister of either of his parents or a hus-
band of any of his parents’ sisters. The third category, tetka or tetak, has no reference to “side” of the
family; all are either tetka or tetak.
These terms are not simply words. They reflect ideas about belonging and include expectations of
behavior. Because of the patrilineage, individuals are more likely to live with their father’s extended
family and more likely to inherit from their father’s family, but mothers and children are very close.
Fathers are perceived as authority figures and are owed deference and respect. A father’s brother is also
an authority figure. Mothers, however, are supposed to be nurturing and a mother’s brother is regarded
as having a mother-like role. This is someone who spoils his sister’s children in ways he may not spoil
his own. A young person may turn to a maternal uncle, or mother’s brother in a difficult situation and
expects that a maternal uncle will help him and maintain confidentiality. These concepts are so much
a part of the culture that one may refer to a more distant relative or an adult friend as a “mother’s
brother” if that person plays this kind of nurturing role in one’s life. These terms harken back to an ear-
lier agricultural society in which a typical family, household, and economic unit was a joint patrilineal
and extended family. Children saw their maternal uncles less frequently, usually only on special occa-
sions. Because brothers are also supposed to be very fond of sisters and protective of them, those addi-
tional associations are attached to the roles of maternal uncles. Both father’s sisters and mother’s sisters
move to their own husbands’ houses at marriage and are seen even less often. This probably reflects the
more generic, blended term for aunts and uncles in both these categories.7
Similar differences are found in Croatian names for other relatives. Side of the family is important,
at least for close relatives. Married couples have different names for in-laws if the in-law is a husband’s
parent or a wife’s parent. Becoming the mother of a married son is higher in social status than becoming
the mother of a married daughter. A man’s mother gains authority over a new daughter-in-law, who
usually leaves her own family to live with her husband’s family and work side by side with her mother-
in-law in a house.
An Example from China
In traditional Chinese society, families distinguished terminologically between mother’s side and
father’s side with different names for grandparents as well as aunts, uncles, and in-laws. Siblings used
terms that distinguished between siblings by gender, as we do in English with “brother” and “sister,” but
also had terms to distinguish between older and younger siblings. Intriguingly, however, the Chinese
word for “he/she/it” is a single term, ta with no reference to gender or age. The traditional Chinese
family was an extended patrilineal family, with women moving into the husband’s family household. In
most regions, typically brothers stayed together in adulthood. Children grew up knowing their fathers’
families, but not their mothers’ families. Some Chinese families still live this way, but urbanization and
changes in housing and economic livelihood have made large extended families increasingly less prac-
tical.
A Navajo Example
In Navajo (or Diné) society, children are “born for” their father’s families but “born to” their mother’s
families, the clan to which they belong primarily. The term clan refers to a group of people who have
a general notion of common descent that is not attached to a specific ancestor. Some clans trace their
common ancestry to a common mythological ancestor. Because clan membership is so important to
identity and to social expectations in Navajo culture, when people meet they exchange clan informa-
tion first to find out how they stand in relationship to each other. People are expected to marry outside
the clans of their mothers or fathers. Individuals have responsibilities to both sides of the family, but
especially to the matrilineal clan. Clans are so large that people may not know clan every individual
member, and may not even live in the same vicinity as all clan members, but rights and obligations to
any clan members remain strong in people’s thinking and in practical behavior. I recently had the expe-
rience at the community college where I work in Central Arizona of hearing a young Navajo woman
introduce herself in a public setting. She began her address in Navajo, and then translated. Her intro-
duction included reference to her clan memberships, and she concluded by saying that these clan ties
are part of what makes her a Navajo woman.
An Example from the United States
In many cases, cultures assign “ownership” of a child, or responsibilities for that child anyway, to
some person or group other than the mother. In the United States, if one were to question people about
who is in their families, they would probably start by naming both their parents, though increasingly
single parent families are the norm. Typically, however, children consider themselves equally related
to a mother and a father even if one or both are absent from their life. This makes sense because most
American families organize themselves according to the principles of bilateral descent, as discussed
above, and do not show a preference for one side of their family or the other. So, on further inquiry,
we might discover that there are siblings (distinguished with different words by gender, but not birth
order), and grandparents on either side of the family who count as family or extended family. Aunts,
uncles, and cousins, along with in-laws, round out the typical list of U.S. family members. It is not
uncommon for individuals to know more about one side of the family than the other, but given the
nature of bilateral descent the idea that people on each side of the family are equally “related” is gen-
erally accepted. The notion of bilateral descent is built into legal understandings of family rights and
responsibilities in the United States. In a divorce in most states, for example, parents are likely to share
time somewhat equally with a minor child and to have joint decision-making and financial responsi-
bility for that child’s needs as part of a parental agreement, unless one parent is unable or unwilling to
participate as an equal.
MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
In a basic biological sense, women give birth and the minimal family unit in most, though not all soci-
eties, is mother and child. Cultures elaborate that basic relationship and build on it to create units that
are culturally considered central to social life. Families grow through the birth or adoption of children
and through new adult relationships often recognized as marriage. In our own society, it is only cultur-
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ally acceptable to be married to one spouse at a time though we may practice what is sometimes called
serial monogamy, or, marriage to a succession of spouses one after the other. This is reinforced by reli-
gious systems, and more importantly in U.S. society, by law. Plural marriages are not allowed; they are
illegal although they do exist because they are encouraged under some religions or ideologies. In the
United States, couples are legally allowed to divorce and remarry, but not all religions cultural groups
support this practice.
When anthropologists talk of family structures, we distinguish among several standard family types
any of which can be the typical or preferred family unit in a culture. First is the nuclear family: parents
who are in a culturally-recognized relationship, such as marriage, along with their minor or dependent
children. This family type is also known as a conjugal family. A non-conjugal nuclear family might
be a single parent with dependent children, because of the death of one spouse or divorce or because a
marriage never occurred. Next is the extended family: a family of at least three-generations sharing a
household. A stem family is a version of an extended family that includes an older couple and one of
their adult children with a spouse (or spouses) and children. In situations where one child in a family is
designated to inherit, it is more likely that only the inheriting child will remain with the parents when
he or she becomes an adult and marries. While this is often an oldest male, it is sometimes a different
child. In Burma or Myanmar for example, the youngest daughter was considered the ideal caretaker of
elderly parents, and was generally designated to inherit.8 The other children will “marry out” or find
other means to support themselves.
A joint family is a very large extended family that includes multiple generations. Adult children of
one gender, often the males, remain in the household with their spouses and children and they have
collective rights to family property. Unmarried adult children of both genders may also remain in the
family group. For example, a household could include a set of grandparents, all of their adult sons with
their wives and children, and unmarried adult daughters. A joint family in rare cases could have dozens
of people, such as the traditional zadruga of Croatia, discussed in greater detail below.
Polygamous families are based on plural marriages in which there are multiple wives or, in rarer
cases, multiple husbands. These families may live in nuclear or extended family households and they
may or may not be close to each other spatially (see discussion of households below). The terms step
family or blended family are used to describe families that develop when adults who have been wid-
owed or divorced marry again and bring children from previous partnerships together. These families
are common in many countries with high divorce rates. A wonderful fictional example was The Brady
Bunch of 1970s television.
Who Can You Marry?
Cultural expectations define appropriate potential marriage partners. Cultural rules emphasizing
the need to marry within a cultural group are known as endogamy. People are sometimes expected
to marry within religious communities, to marry someone who is ethnically or racially similar or
who comes from a similar economic or educational background. These are endogamous marriages:
marriages within a group. Cultural expectations for marriage outside a particular group are called
exogamy. Many cultures require that individuals marry only outside their own kinship groups, for
instance. In the United States laws prevent marriage between close relatives such as first cousins. There
was a time in the not so distant past, however, when it was culturally preferred for Europeans, and
Euro-Americans to marry first cousins. Royalty and aristocrats were known to betroth their children
to relatives, often cousins. Charles Darwin, who was British, married his first cousin Emma. This was
often done to keep property and wealth in the family.
In some societies, however, a cousin might be a preferred marriage partner. In some Middle Eastern
societies, patrilateral cousin marriage – marrying a male or female cousin on your father’s side – is
preferred. Some cultures prohibit marriage with a cousin who is in your lineage but, prefer that you
marry a cousin who is not in your lineage. For example, if you live in a society that traces kinship patri-
lineally, cousins from your father’s brothers or sisters would be forbidden as marriage partners, but
cousins from your mother’s brothers or sisters might be considered excellent marriage partners.
Arranged marriages were typical in many cultures around the world in the past including in the
United States. Marriages are arranged by families for many reasons: because the families have some-
thing in common, for financial reasons, to match people with others from the “correct” social, economic
or religious group, and for many other reasons. In India today, some people practice a kind of modified
arranged marriage practice that allows the potential spouses to meet and spend time together before
agreeing to a match. The meeting may take place through a mutual friend, a family member, community
matchmaker, or even a Marriage Meet even in which members of the same community (caste) are
invited to gather (see Figure 5). Although arranged marriages still exist in urban cities such as Mumbai,
love matches are increasingly common. In general, as long as the social requirements are met, love
matches may be accepted by the families involved.
Figure 5: This advertisement for “Marriage Meet” in Mumbai, India welcomes “boys” and “girls”
from the community to participate in a Marriage Meet, in which young people can mingle with
and get to know potential spouses in a fun atmosphere. Photo used with permission of Laura
Tubelle de González.
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Polygamy refers to any marriage in which there are multiple partners. There are two kinds of
polygamy: polygyny and polyandry. Polygyny refers to marriages in which there is one husband and
multiple wives. In some societies that practice polygyny, the preference is for sororal polygyny, or the
marriage of one man to several sisters. In such cases, it is sometimes believed that sisters will get along
better as co-wives. Polyandry describes marriages with one wife and multiple husbands. As with polyg-
yny, fraternal polyandry is common and involves the marriage of a woman to a group of brothers.
In some cultures, if a man’s wife dies, especially if he has no children, or has young children, it is
thought to be best for him to marry one of his deceased wife’s sisters. A sister, it is believed, is a rea-
sonable substitution for the lost wife and likely a more loving mother to any children left behind. This
practice might also prevent the need to return property exchanged at marriage, such as dowry (pay-
ments made to the groom’s family before marriage), or bridewealth (payments made to the bride’s fam-
ily before marriage). The practice of a man marrying the sister of his deceased wife is called sororate
marriage. In the case of a husband’s death, some societies prefer that a woman marry one of her hus-
band’s brothers, and in some cases this might be preferred even if he already has a wife. This practice is
called levirate marriage. This latter practice is described in the Old Testament.9
Family Size
Cultural rules generally define not only who makes up a family but also how many people should
be in it. In some cultures, larger families are considered ideal. In others, smaller families are preferred.
These ideas are often linked to both practical and ideological considerations. Practical considerations
might include the availability of housing, work patterns, childcare, the economic contribution children
make to a family, or the cost of raising children. Ideological considerations include religious values
related to families. In the 1990s, I carried out field research in Croatia, investigating ideas about fami-
lies. An overwhelming majority of the people I interviewed believed that the ideal family would include
three children. Most of these families commented that in their own living memories people preferred as
many children as possible so that there would be assistance for farm work. When I was there, however,
large families were no longer regarded as practical. Within the same general region, families in urban
settings overwhelmingly said that one child was ideal. A shortage of housing was the single most impor-
tant factor for limiting family size to one child in cities. In both the rural and urban settings in Croatia,
most people were Roman Catholic and may have been ideologically predisposed to larger families, but
practical considerations were more important to both groups when it came to matters of family size.
During the same period in the 1990s, it was common for families in the United States to say that the
ideal family included two children and preferably one of each gender (anecdotal). This of course varies
based on factors which include, but are not limited to the ethnicity and religion of the family. In another
example, the People’s Republic of China, where I lived and worked, had an official one-child policy.10 A
family that included only one child was not a widespread cultural ideal. Most families wished for more
children, but had to settle for less.
Families, Households and Domestic Groups
A family can be defined as the smallest group of individuals who see themselves as connected to one
another. They are usually part of larger kinship groups, but with whom they may not interact on a daily
basis. Families tend to reside together and share economic opportunities and other rights and responsi-
bilities. Family rights and responsibilities are a significant part of understanding families and how they
work. In the United States, for example, minor children have a right to be supported materially by their
parents or other legal guardians. Parents have a responsibility to support and nurture their children.
Spouses have a right to mutual support from each other and property acquired during a marriage is
considered “common property” in many U.S. states unless specified otherwise by a pre-nuptial agree-
ment. Some family responsibilities are cultural and not legal. Many such responsibilities are reinforced
by religious or other ideological notions.
Family members who reside together are called households. A household may include larger kinship
groups who think of themselves as separate but related families. Households may also include non-fam-
ily or kin members, or could even consist exclusively of non-related people who think of themselves as
family. Many studies of families cross-culturally have focused on household groups because it is house-
holds that are the location for many of the day-to-day activities of a society. Households are important
social units in any community
Sometimes families or households are spread across several residential units but think of themselves
as a single group for many purposes. In Croatia, because of urban housing constraints, some extended
family households operate across one or more residential spaces. An older couple and their married
children might live in apartments near each other and cooperate on childcare and cooking as a single
household unit. Domestic group is another term that can be used to describe a household. Domestic
groups can describe any group of people who reside together and share activities pertaining to domestic
life including but not limited to childcare, elder care, cooking and economic support, even if they might
not describe themselves as “family.”
Households may include nuclear families, extended families, joint extended families, or even com-
binations of families that share a residence and other property as well as rights and responsibilities.
In certain regions of Croatia large agricultural households were incredibly numerous. I carried out
research in a region known as Slavonia, which from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries
was was near the border of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. Families in portions of this
region were referred to as zadruzi (plural) or a zadruga (singular). They sometimes numbered up to 100
members, all related through blood and marriage. But these households were much more than a nuclear
or even a joint extended family. They were more like small towns with specialists within the household
group who did things such as shoe horses or sew. These very large households supported a military cul-
ture where men between sixteen and sixty years old had to be ready for military service.11 A Croatian
anthropologist in the 1800s reported that one family was so large that an elderly woman died and this
was not noticed for three days! The local government in this case forced the family to divide, separating
their property and residing in smaller numbers.12
Creating Families: Patterns of Marriage
As described above, families can be created in many different ways. A marriage is a cultural, social,
and legal process that brings two or more individuals together to create a new family unit. Most
cultures have ideas about how marriages should be arranged ( whether by families or by the individuals
involved), at what age this should occur, what the married partners should have in common (including
economic status, religion, ethnicity and so on), and what cultural, religious and legal processes make a
marriage valid. In the United States, strong cultural norms suggest that individuals should marry for
love and not for other reasons. It is not unusual, however, for communities to teach children to follow
certain group norms in choosing a marriage partner. Some religious communities, for example, will
195
not recognize marriages contracted across religious lines. Some families strongly prefer that their chil-
dren marry individuals with similar economic, cultural, or ethnic backgrounds. Because families tend
to socialize with other families similar to themselves, young people are more likely to meet others sim-
ilar to themselves.
Marriage Exchanges: Dowry and Bridewealth
In many societies, marriages are affirmed with an exchange of property. This is usually the case in
places where families have a hand in arranging a marriage. A property exchange recognizes the chal-
lenges faced by a family that loses a member and by a family that takes on a new member. These prac-
tices also reflect different notions about the value of the new family member.
Dowry payments are known from U.S. and Western European history. A dowry is a gift given by a
bride’s family to either the bride or to the groom’s family at the time of the marriage. In societies that
practice dowry, families often spend many years accumulating the gift. In some villages in the former
Yugoslavia, the dowry was meant to provide for a woman if she became a widow. The dowry was her
share of her family’s property and reflected the tradition that land was usually inherited by a woman’s
brothers. The dowry might include coins, often woven together in a kind of apron and worn on her
wedding day. This form of dowry also represented a statement of wealth, prestige or high status for
both families; her family’s ability to give this kind of wealth, and the prestige of the family who was
acquiring a desirable new bride. Her dowry also could include linens and other useful items to be used
during her years as a wife. In more recent times, dowries have become extravagant, including things
like refrigerators, cars, and houses.
A dowry can also represent the higher status of the groom’s family and its ability to demand a pay-
ment for taking on the economic responsibility of a young wife. This was of thinking about dowry is
more typical of societies in which women are less valued than men. A good dowry enables a woman’s
family to marry into a better family. In parts of India, a dowry could sometimes be so large that it would
be paid in installments. Bride burnings, killing a bride, could happen if her family did not continue to
make the agreed upon payments (though there may be other reasons for this awful crime in individual
cases). This of course is illegal, but does sometimes occur.13
Historically, dowry was most common in agricultural societies. Land was the most valuable commod-
ity and usually land stayed in the hands of men. Women who did not marry were sometimes seen as
a burden on their own families because they were not perceived as making an economic contribution
and they represented another mouth to feed. A dowry was important for a woman to take with her into
a marriage because the groom’s family had the upper economic hand. It helped ease the tension of her
arrival in the household, especially if the dowry was substantial.
Bridewealth, by contrast, often represents a higher value placed on women and their ability to work
and produce children. Bridewealth is an exchange of valuables given from a man’s family to the family of
his new wife. Bridewealth is common in pastoralist societies in which people make their living by rais-
ing domesticated animals. The Masaai are example of one such group. A cattle-herding culture located
in Kenya and Tanzania, the Maasai pay bridewealth based on the desirability of the woman. Culturally
defined attributes such as her age, beauty, virginity, and her ability to work contribute to a woman’s
value. The economic value placed on women does not mean that women in such societies necessarily
have much freedom, but it does sometimes give them some leverage in their new domestic situations.
In rare cases, there might be simultaneous exchanges of dowry and bridewealth. In such cases, often the
bridewealth gift was more of a token than a substantial economic contribution.
Post-Marital Residence
Every culture has ideas about where a newly married couple should live. In the United States and
in Western Europe, it is usually expected that a new couple create a new domestic unit or household.
Ideally they should live together in a place separate from either of their families of orientation: the
families in which they were raised. They are expected to create a new family of procreation: a new
household for raising children. The goal of most couples is to eventually live separately from their orig-
inal families so that they can focus on their new relationship and be independent. This kind of residence
after marriage is called neolocal residence (new location). Increasingly, many couples establish a resi-
dence together before marriage or may skip the formal marriage altogether.
Another common pattern around the world is patrilocal residence (father’s location). This means
that a couple generally resides with the husband’s father’s family after marriage. This is a multi-genera-
tional practice. The new husband’s own mother likely moved into the household when she married his
father. Patrilocal residence is common around the world. It creates larger households that can be use-
ful in farming economies. Today, with increasing urbanization and with the very different kinds of jobs
associated with industrial capitalism, patrilocal residence has become less common.
A less common pattern worldwide is matrilocal residence. In matrilocal residence societies, men
leave their matrilineal families at marriage and move in with their wives’ mothers’ families. Quite a few
Native American groups practiced matrilocal residence, including the Hopi and the Navajo (or Diné) in
the Southwest, and the Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois) tribes in the Great Lakes region. A very interest-
ing residence pattern found within matrilineal societies is avunculocal residence (uncle’s location). It
means that a couple will live with the wife’s mother’s brother. In matrilineal societies, in which impor-
tant property, knowledge, or social position are linked with men, the preference is to keep wealth within
the matrilineal household. Property and other cultural items are passed not from biological fathers to
sons, but from maternal uncles to nephews. In doing so, property is kept within the matriline (see Fig-
ure 3).
An excellent example of avunculocal residence is found in the Trobriand Islands in Papua New
Guinea. In families where there was position of authority or significant wealth it was common for a
young man to go live with or near his mother’s brother at the time of his marriage. Trobriand Islanders
passed important magical knowledge and political positions through the mother’s lineage. The son of a
chief would not become a chief. Instead, the chief’s maternal nephew would inherit the position. Tro-
briand kinship and family life is rich and complicated. Anthropologist Annette Weiner describes men
and women as carrying out complementary roles and both men and women are valued culturally. This
is not a matriarchy, nor is it a true patriarchy.
The avunculocal arrangement is so important that a man or woman without a cross-gender sibling
will adopt one. A woman must have a brother to plant yam gardens for her husband when she marries.
A man must have a sister to participate in exchanges of women’s wealth on his behalf to enhance his
position, and also to ensure that his soul is eventually reborn, after death, into the matrilineage. Family
life and the passing of knowledge was changing rapidly in the Trobriand Islands at the end of Weiner’s
work; more people were converting to Christianity, and while belief in magic was not yet disappear-
ing, Christians could not inherit their uncles’ magic. This is an example of a culture in transition. At the
same time, however, Trobriand Islanders valued their traditions, culture, and language, and were loathe
to lose them altogether.14
Patrilocal residence is usually associated with patrilineal descent. Property, knowledge, and posi-
tions are inherited through the father’s family or the husband’s father’s family. In the case of patrilocal
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residence, it was sometimes difficult for a woman to return to her original family if her marriage ended
due to death or divorce. The latter was often considered socially shaming and in patrilineal societies
women were often blamed for ending the marriage regardless of the actual circumstances. Matrilo-
cal residence is usually associated with matrilineal descent. Property, knowledge, and positions are
inherited through the mother’s family, or the wife’s mother’s family. Matrilineal and matrilocal societies
tended to be less concerned with divorce. Men always had a home with their mothers, aunts, and sisters
and might even come and go during a marriage, carrying out responsibilities to their maternal relatives
and staying with them from time to time. Explaining the differences between patrilocal and matrilocal
residences risks stereotyping. That said, it is likely that those cultures in which women marry “out” are
less likely to value women while those in which men leave their families at marriage are more inclusive
of women. This may have something to do with economics and ideologies, but must be examined in
each cultural context.
Bilocal residence (two locations) or ambilocal residence (either location) represent two additional
and related residential patterns. They are essentially the same and mean that a couple may live with or
near either the husband’s or wife’s family after marriage. A striking example comes from the island of
Dobu, a place that is not far from the Trobriand Islands in Papua New Guinea. In Dobu society, which
was traditionally matrilineal and practiced village exogamy, a married couple would alternate years liv-
ing in the husband’s village and in the wife’s village.15 In cases of bilocal or ambilocal residence while a
couple has the choice to live with either the husband’s or wife’s family, a choice is made based on which
location is best able to accommodate new members or which location needs the additional labor that
comes from new members. Once the choice of residence is made, the married couple usually remains
in one place.
Inheritance
The inheritance of family property is often a part of cultural values and roles for families. In 1991,
when Croatia was on the verge of war, I remember a woman speaking about her house going to her
eldest son. Her young daughter was sitting with us at the time, and said to her mother in surprise,
“Mama, why not me?” Her mother stroked her head and smiled at her, but was firm when she said
“Because you are female.” It is typical worldwide, particularly in agricultural societies, for men to inherit
family property. The best-known pattern is inheritance by the oldest male. Joint inheritance by broth-
ers, with the oldest brother nominally in charge of the family, is also fairly wide-spread in joint and
extended families. As mentioned above, however, other patterns are found, including property that
passes from maternal uncle to maternal nephew in the Trobriand Islands, and inheritance of the fam-
ily house and corresponding responsibility to care for the older generation by the youngest daughter
in Burmese families. This is a further reminder that family organization and expectations are linked to
economic systems and to the resources available to the family. Pattern of family life and marriage do
not exist apart from the physical and economic environment, and other cultural practices.
Same-Sex Marriage
In the United States, Canada as well as other countries, two individuals of the same sex may be legally
married, but in these countries as well as other places, same-sex couples have been creating house-
holds and families for centuries, long before legal recognition. Same-sex marriages are documented, for
instance, in the history of Native American groups from the Great Plains. On the Plains, men who pre-
ferred to dress and take on the roles of women were allowed to marry other men. It was assumed that
if one partner gathered plant food and prepared food, the other partner should have a complementary
role like hunting. Androgynous individuals, males who preferred female roles or dress, and females who
took on male roles, were not condemned but regarded as “two-spirits,” a label that had positive conno-
tations.
Two-spirits were considered embody a third gender combining elements of both male and female.
The key to the two-spirit gender identity was behavior: what individuals did in their communities.16 If
a person who was born with a male biological sex felt his identity and chosen lifestyle best matched the
social role recognized as female, he could move into a third gender two-spirit category. Today, Native
American groups set their own laws regarding same-sex marriage. Many recognize two-spirit individ-
uals, and accept marriage of a two-spirit person to a person of the same biological sex. Although some
nations still do not permit same-sex marriage between tribal members, one of the largest tribal nations,
the Cherokee legalized same-sex marriages in 2016.
Adoption
Adoption is another way that people form family ties. In the United States, usually it is infants or
minor children who are adopted by a non-parental family member like a grandparent, an aunt or uncle,
or an older sibling, or by a non-family member. This is usually done when a biological parent is unable
or unwilling to raise a child. The decision to give up a child through adoption is a complicated one, and
one that parents do not make easily.
In other societies, adoption is viewed differently. In some Pacific Island societies, children who are
adopted are considered fortunate because they have two sets of parents; children are not given for adop-
tion because a parent is unwilling or unable to care for them, but rather to honor the adoptive parents.
Martha Ward described a young woman in Pohnpei, Micronesia, who had a child for her grandmother,
to keep her company in her older years. In another case she described a child who went to dinner at a
relative’s house and stayed for a number of years in a kind of adoptive situation. In such cases, children
retain relationships with biological and adoptive family members, and may even move fluidly between
them.17
One of the more unusual forms of adoption is adopted-daughter marriage, or sim pua marriage.
It is found in Taiwan and described by anthropologist Margery Wolf. Wolf worked in Taiwan in the
mid-1900s. At that time, Taiwanese families strongly preferred sons over daughters. Sons stayed with
their families in adulthood, produced the next generation, cared for parents in old age, and carried on
the tradition of ancestor veneration so that one would not become a “wandering ghost” after death.
Daughters were regarded as expensive. People believed that they raised daughters for someone else.
Dowries and weddings for grown daughters were expensive. Families worried that they would not be
able to find suitable husbands for their grown daughters, who would remain a burden on their natal
families in their later years, not producers of children or contributors in any other way.18
As a result a custom developed of giving up daughters to other families as future daughters-in-law.
Mothers would give up their own daughters as infants, only to take in very quickly an adopted daugh-
ter from someone else. Sometimes the future wife was adopted before the family had a son. It was said
that an adopted daughter/daughter-in-law would “lead in a son.” Adopted daughters were reportedly
not treated well. They had to do housework, help with childcare, and were not given any privileges such
as education. They were often older than their eventual husbands, and had a lower status in the family
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than their adoptive brothers. There were reports of an adopted daughter being treated badly by adopted
siblings, and then being expected to later marry one of them. Wolf reports a very low birth rate among
couples who were raised as siblings. Pressure to engage in these kinds of adoptions usually came from
a mother-in-law, or the husband’s mother, or a grandmother of the infant girl who had decision-mak-
ing power in the family because she was the mother of an adult son. Grandmothers saw this kind of
arrangement as advantageous to the family, according to Wolf, because birth mothers were more likely
to be unhappy about losing a baby daughter, and because caring for another child brought in a future
daughter-in-law.19
FAMILIES AND CULTURE CHANGE
Families are adaptive groups that help address common societal concerns related to child-rearing,
sexual relationships between adults, and gender roles within the household. While there are norms and
ideals, expectations and understandings regarding families in all cultures, there are also always situ-
ations that represent variations on that norm. Sometimes these are areas where we begin to see cul-
ture change. In the United States in the 1960s, young people began to live together openly outside of
marriage as couples. Those relationships were often socially disapproved, but today it is much more
socially acceptable and common for people to live together prior to marriage or even instead of mar-
riage. Often the couple will also have children before they decide to marry. An ideological variation that
began nearly sixty years ago has led to a widespread culture change in attitudes toward marriage.
In the Croatian Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1980s, shortly after the death of long-time leader Josip
Broz “Tito,” it was still expected that a young couple would live with a husband’s family at marriage.
At that time, I was engaged in fieldwork that focused on social change. The socialist government had
implemented legislation and social programs to support women moving out of traditional roles, becom-
ing educated and productive members of the workforce, and participating in the professional class.
There was state-funded daycare and liberal legislation regarding birth control and abortion among
other efforts to improve or change the traditional roles of women.
In reality, however, marriage and parenthood were still highly valued. Couples often married at a
young age and women tended to still be responsible for all housework. Women themselves valued keep-
ing a clean house, cooking homemade food from scratch without using prepared foods, and caring for
their families. Most young wives and mothers lived with their husbands’ families. Traditionally, moth-
ers of sons gained power and respect in the family from their married son and daughter-in-law. In the
past this relationship was sometimes described as a difficult one, with a daughter-in-law having little
say in family and household life. Some of that seemed to persist in the 1980s. Women living with moth-
ers-in-law did not have a great deal of freedom of choice and had to prove themselves at home, leaving
less time to think about progressing in education or work.20
In an urban environment, however, housing was in short supply. If a family had two sons and one was
already married and still living with his natal family, the second son might live with the wife’s family at
marriage if that family had the space. In these situations, which were not considered ideal but still were
in the range of acceptable alternatives, young married women found themselves living with their own
mothers rather than a mother-in-law. A mother tended to make life easier for her own daughter rather
than insisting that she do quite so much household work. Mothers and daughters were more often easy
partners in a household. The mother-in-law of a young man tended not to make his life difficult, but
rather to regard him fondly. Women who lived with their own families after marriage were more likely
to be able to continue their education, take promotions at work, make more of the opportunities that
were provided under socialism.
In Croatia, government engineered policies alone did not produce changes in family patterns or gen-
der roles. It was a variety of factors, including economic pressures and housing shortages, which com-
bined to create an environment in which families changed. It became increasingly common for couples
to live with the wife’s family and eventually to live on their own. Today in Croatia, women have a great
deal of freedom of choice, are likely to live alone with their husbands or, like in the United States,
Canada, and European countries, to live with a partner outside of marriage. Change occurs in family
life when social and cultural conditions also change.
CONCLUSION
The institutions of the family and marriage are found in all societies and are part of cultural under-
standings of the way the world should work. In all cultures there are variations that are acceptable as
well as situations in which people cannot quite meet the ideal. How people construct families varies
greatly from one society to another, but there are patterns across cultures that are linked to economics,
religion, and other cultural and environmental factors. The study of families and marriage is an impor-
tant part of anthropology because family and household groups play a central role in defining relation-
ships between people and making society function. While there is nothing in biology that dictates that
a family group be organized in a particular way, our cultural expectations leads to ideas about families
that seem “natural” to us. As cultures change over time, ideas about family also adapt to new circum-
stances.
1. Why is it important for anthropologists to understand the kinship, descent, and family relationships that exist in the cultures they
study? In what ways can family relationships structure the lives of individuals?
2. Status and role define the position of people within the family as well as the behaviors they are expected to perform. What are
some of the statuses and roles found in families in your community? How have these changed over time?
3. In this chapter, Gilliland describes several different patterns of family organization including nuclear families, extended families,
and joint families. While small nuclear families are common in the United States, larger families are common in many other soci-
eties. What do you think are some of the practical effects of both small and large families on everyday life?
GLOSSARY
Avunculocal: married individuals live with or near an uncle.
Bilateral descent: descent is recognized through both the father and the mother’s sides of the family.
Bridewealth: payments made to the bride’s family by the groom’s family before marriage.
Clan: a group of people who have a general notion of common descent that is not attached to a specific
biological ancestor.
Descent groups: relationships that provide members with a sense of identity and social support based
on ties of shared ancestry.
Domestic group: a term that can be used to describe a group of people who live together even if mem-
bers do not consider themselves to be family.
201
Dowry: payments made to the groom’s family by the bride’s family before marriage.
Endogamy: a term describing expectations that individuals must marry within a particular group.
Exogamy: a term describing expectations that individuals must marry outside a particular group.
Extended family: a family of at least three-generations sharing a household.
Family: the smallest group of individuals who see themselves as connected to one another.
Family of orientation: the family in which an individual is raised.
Family of procreation: a new household formed for the purpose of conceiving and raising children.
Household: family members who reside together.
Joint family: a very large extended family that includes multiple generations.
Kinship: term used to describe culturally recognized ties between members of a family, the social sta-
tuses used to define family members, and the expected behaviors associated with these statuses.
Kinship diagrams: charts used by anthropologists to visually represent relationships between members
of a kinship group.
Kinship system: the pattern of culturally recognized relationships between family members.
Kinship terminology: the terms used in a language to describe relatives.
Levirate: the practice of a woman marrying one of her deceased husband’s brothers.
Lineage: term used to describe any form of descent from a common ancestor.
Matriarchal: a society in which women have authority to make decisions.
Matrilineal descent: a kinship group created through the maternal line (mothers and their children).
Matrilocal residence: married individuals live with or near the wife’s mother’s family.
Neolocal residence: newly married individuals establish a household separate from other family mem-
bers.
Nuclear family: a parent or parents who are in a culturally-recognized relationship, such as marriage,
along with minor or dependent children.
Patrilateral cousin marriage: the practice of marrying a male or female cousin on the father’s side of
the family.
Patrilineal descent: a kinship group created through the paternal line (fathers and their children).
Patrilocal residence: married individuals live with or near the husband’s father’s family.
Polygamous: families based on plural marriages in which there are multiple wives or, in rarer cases,
multiple husbands.
Polyandry: marriages with one wife and multiple husbands.
Polygyny: marriages in which there is one husband and multiple wives.
Role: the set of behaviors expected of an individual who occupies a particular status.
Serial monogamy: marriage to a succession of spouses one after the other.
Sororate marriage: the practice of a man marrying the sister of his deceased wife.
Status: any culturally-designated position a person occupies in a particular setting.
Stem family: a version of an extended family that includes an older couple and one of their adult chil-
dren with a spouse (or spouses) and children.
Unilineal: descent is recognized through only one line or side of the family.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary K. Gilliland, Ph.D. (also published as Mary K. Gilliland Olsen) earned a

B.A. from Bryn Mawr College, with Honors in Anthropology; and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in anthro-
pology from the University of California, San Diego. Her primary research took place in the former
Yugoslavia (1982-4, 1990-1), Croatia (1993, 1995, 1996-7) and with displaced Bosnians, Croats and
Serbs in the United States (2001-3). In Croatia, Mary Kay was affiliated with the Filozofski Fakultet in
Zagreb, the Ethnographic Museum in Slavonski Brod (Croatia/Yugoslavia), and with the Institute for
Anthropological Research (Zagreb, Croatia both pre- and post-independence). Continuing affiliation
as member of Editorial Board for the Collegium Antropologicum: The Journal of the Institute for Anthropo-
logical Research, and named a Lifetime Member of the Croatian Anthropological Society. Mary Kay has
also collaborated in projects in Asia, including People’s Republic of China (primarily Xinjiang, West-
ern China), Mongolia and Vietnam. Her areas of research interest and publication include culture and
social change, gender and ethnic identity, family, marriage and intergenerational relationships. Primar-
ily a “teaching anthropologist,” Mary Kay was full-time faculty and Department Chair at Pima Commu-
nity College in Tucson, Arizona from 1989-2006. She maintains an ongoing relationship as Associate
Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona. She has taught at San Diego Mesa Col-
lege, University of California, San Diego and the University of Zagreb. Since 2006 she has held a vari-
ety of administrative positions including Academic Dean, Vice President of Instruction and is currently
Vice President of Academic Affairs at Central Arizona College.
Notes
1. Lewis Henry Morgan, Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution, 1871).
2. Ralph Linton, The Study of Man (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company,1936).
3. In a patrilineal society, children are members of their father’s patrilineage. A mother belongs to her own father’s
patrilineage, while the children belong to their father’s patrilinage.
4. Kathleen Gough, “Variation in Matrilineal Systems,” in D. Schneider and K. Gough, eds., Matrilineal Kinship, Part
2 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961). See also Kathleen Gough, The Traditional Kinship System of
the Nayars of Malabar (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954).
5. See for example Merlin Myers, Households and Families of the Longhouse Iroquois at Six Nations Reserve (Lincoln,
NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2006).
6. George P. Murdock, Social Structure (New York: MacMillan, 1949).
7. Vera St. Ehrlich, Family in Transition: A Study of 300 Yugoslav Villages. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1966. See also Gilliland, M. 1986. The Maintenance of Family Values in a Yugoslav Town. Ann Arbor, Michigan:
UMI International.
8. Melford Spiro, Kinship and Marriage in Burma: A Cultural and Psychodynamic Analysis (Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1977).
203
9. Laura Tubelle de González, “Modern Arranged Marriage in Mumbai” Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes 19
(2015). http://sacc-dev.americananthro.org/wp-content/uploads/TASN-191-192-spring-fall-20131.pdf.
10. The one-child policy was introduced in 1979. It was phased out beginning in 2015 and was replaced by a two-
child policy.
11. see Vera St. Ehrlich, Family in Transition: A Study of 300 Yugoslav Villages. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1966.
12. Luka Lukic, Varos: Zbornik za narodi zivot i obicaje muznih slavena. Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjet-
nosti. Zagreb. god. 24, str. 32.238, 1919.
13. There are many news reports about this practice. See for instance Subodh Varnal, “Dowry Death: One Bride
Burnt Every Hour,” The Times of India, January 27, 2012 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Dowry-
death-One-bride-burnt-every-hour/articleshow/11644691.cms
14. Annette B. Weiner, The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1988).
15. Reo Fortune, Sorcerers of Dobu (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., 1932).
16. See for instance Will Roscoe, Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America (New York: Pal-
grave Macmillan, 1998).
17. Martha Ward, Nest in the Wind: Adventures in Anthropology on a Tropical Island (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press,
2005).
18. Margery Wolf, Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972).
19. Ibid.
20. Olsen, M. K. G., “Authority and Conflict in Slavonian Households: The Effects of Social Environment on Intra-
Household Processes” in The Household Economy: Reconsidering the Domestic Mode of Production, Richard
Wilk, ed., 149-170 (Colorado: Westview Press, 1989).
9
RACE AND ETHNICITY
Justin D. García, Millersville University of Pennsylvania

[email protected]
https://www.millersville.edu/socanth/faculty/garcia-dr.-justin.php
Learning Objectives
• Define the term reification and explain how the concept of race has been reified throughout history.
• Explain why a biological basis for human race categories does not exist.
• Discuss what anthropologists mean when they say that race is a socially constructed concept and explain how race has been
socially constructed in the United States and Brazil.
• Identify what is meant by racial formation, hypodescent, and the one-drop rule.
• Describe how ethnicity is different from race, how ethnic groups are different from racial groups, and what is meant by symbolic
ethnicity.
• Summarize the history of immigration to the United States, explaining how different waves of immigrant groups have been per-
ceived as racially different and have shifted popular understandings of “race.”
• Analyze ways in which the racial and ethnic compositions of professional sports have shifted over time and how those shifts
resulted from changing social and cultural circumstances that drew new groups into sports.
Suppose someone asked you the following open-ended questions: How would you define the word
race as it applies to groups of human beings? How many human races are there and what are they? For
each of the races you identify, what are the important or key criteria that distinguish each group (what
characteristics or features are unique to each group that differentiate it from the others)? Discussions
about race and racism are often highly emotional and encompass a wide range of emotions, including
204
205
discomfort, fear, defensiveness, anger, and insecurity—why is this such an emotional topic in society
and why do you think it is so difficult for individuals to discuss race dispassionately?
How would you respond to these questions? I pose these thought-provoking questions to students
enrolled in my Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course just before we begin the unit on race and
ethnicity in a worksheet and ask them to answer each question fully to the best of their ability with-
out doing any outside research. At the next class, I assign the students to small groups of five to eight
depending on the size of the class and give them a few minutes to share their responses to the questions
with one another. We then collectively discuss their responses as a class. Their responses are often very
interesting and quite revealing and generate memorable classroom dialogues.
“DUDE, WHAT ARE YOU?!”
Ordinarily, students select a college major or minor by carefully considering their personal interests,
particular subjects that pique their curiosity, and fields they feel would be a good basis for future pro-
fessional careers. Technically, my decision to major in anthropology and later earn a master’s degree
and doctorate in anthropology was mine alone, but I tell my friends and students, only partly as a joke,
that my choice of major was made for me to some degree by people I encountered as a child, teenager,
and young adult. Since middle school, I had noticed that many people—complete strangers, classmates,
coworkers, and friends—seemed to find my physical appearance confusing or abnormal, often leading
them to ask me questions like “What are you?” and “What’s your race?” Others simply assumed my her-
itage as if it was self-evident and easily defined and then interacted with me according to their conclu-
sions.
These subjective determinations varied

wildly from person to person and from situa-
tion to situation. I distinctly recall, for example,
an incident in a souvenir shop at the beach in
Ocean City, Maryland, shortly after I gradu-
ated from high school. A middle-aged mer-
chant attempted to persuade me to purchase a
T-shirt that boldly declared “100% Italian . . .
and Proud of It!” with bubbled letters that
spelled “Italian” shaded green, white, and red.
Despite my repeated efforts to convince the
merchant that I was not of Italian ethnic her-
itage, he refused to believe me. On another
occasion during my mid-twenties while I was
studying for my doctoral degree at Temple
University, I was walking down Diamond
Street in North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
passing through a predominantly African
American neighborhood. As I passed a group of
six male teenagers socializing on the steps of a
row house, one of them shouted “Hey, honky!
What are you doing in this neighborhood?”
Somewhat startled at being labeled a “honky,”
(something I had never been called before), I
looked at the group and erupted in laughter,
which produced looks of surprise and disbelief
Figure 1: The Common Threads mural at Broad and Spring Garden Streets in
Philadelphia, PA highlights the cultural diversity of the city.
in return. As I proceeded to walk a few more
blocks and reached the predominantly Puerto
Rican neighborhood of Lower Kensington, three young women flirtatiously addressed me as papí (an
affectionate Spanish slang term for man). My transformation from “honky” to “papí” in a span of ten
minutes spoke volumes about my life history and social experiences—and sparked my interest in cul-
tural and physical anthropology.
Throughout my life, my physical appearance has provided me with countless unique and memorable
experiences that have emphasized the significance of race and ethnicity as socially constructed con-
cepts in America and other societies. My fascination with this subject is therefore both personal and
professional; a lifetime of questions and assumptions from others regarding my racial and ethnic back-
ground have cultivated my interest in these topics. I noticed that my perceived race or ethnicity, much
like beauty, rested in the eye of the beholder as individuals in different regions of the country (and
outside of the United States) often perceived me as having different specific heritages. For example,
as a teenager living in York County, Pennsylvania, senior citizens and middle-aged individuals usually
assumed I was “white”, while younger residents often saw me as “Puerto Rican” or generically “His-
panic” or “Latino.” When I lived in Philadelphia, locals mostly assumed I was “Italian American,” but
many Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and Dominicans, in the City of Brotherly Love often took me for either
“Puerto Rican” or “Cuban.”
My experiences in the southwest were a different matter altogether. During my time in Texas, New
Mexico, and Colorado, local residents—regardless of their respective heritages—commonly assumed I
207
was of Mexican descent. At times, local Mexican Americans addressed me as carnal (pronounced CAR-
nowl), a term often used to imply a strong sense of community among Mexican American men that is
somewhat akin to frequent use of the label “brother” among African American men. On more occasions
than I can count, people assumed that I spoke Spanish. Once, in Los Angeles, someone from the Span-
ish-language television network Univisión attempted to interview me about my thoughts on an immi-
gration bill pending in the California legislature. My West Coast friends and professional colleagues
were surprised to hear that I was usually assumed to be Puerto Rican, Italian, or simply “white” on the
East Coast, and one of my closest friends from graduate school—a Mexican American woman from
northern California—once memorably stated that she would not “even assume” that I was “half white.”
I have a rather ambiguous physical appearance—a shaved head, brown eyes, and a black mustache
and goatee. Depending on who one asks, I have either a “pasty white” or “somewhat olive” complexion,
and my last name is often the single biggest factor that leads people on the East Coast to conclude
that I am Puerto Rican. My experiences are examples of what sociologists Michael Omi and Howard
Winant (1986) referred to as “racial commonsense”—a deeply entrenched social belief that another per-
son’s racial or ethnic background is obvious and easily determined from brief glances and can be used
to predict a person’s culture, behavior, and personality. Reality, of course, is far more complex. One’s
racial or ethnic background cannot necessarily be accurately determined based on physical appearance
alone, and an individual’s “race” does not necessarily determine his or her “culture,” which in turn does
not determine “personality.” Yet, these perceptions remain.
IS ANTHROPOLOGY THE “SCIENCE OF RACE?”
Anthropology was sometimes referred to as the “science of race” during the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries when physical anthropologists sought a biological basis for categorizing humans into
racial types.1 Since World War II, important research by anthropologists has revealed that racial cate-
gories are socially and culturally defined concepts and that racial labels and their definitions vary widely
around the world. In other words, different countries have different racial categories, and different
ways of classifying their citizens into these categories.2 At the same time, significant genetic studies
conducted by physical anthropologists since the 1970s have revealed that biologically distinct human
races do not exist. Certainly, humans vary in terms of physical and genetic characteristics such as skin
color, hair texture, and eye shape, but those variations cannot be used as criteria to biologically classify
racial groups with scientific accuracy. Let us turn our attention to understanding why humans cannot
be scientifically divided into biologically distinct races.
Race: A Discredited Concept in Human Biology
At some point in your life, you have probably been asked to identify your race on a college form,
job application, government or military form, or some other official document. And most likely, you
were required to select from a list of choices rather than given the ability to respond freely. The fre-
quency with which we are exposed to four or five common racial labels—“white,” “black,” “Caucasian,”
and “Asian,” for example—tends to promote the illusion that racial categories are natural, objective, and
evident divisions. After all, if Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z, and Jackie Chan stood side by side, those com-
mon racial labels might seem to make sense. What could be more objective, more conclusive, than this
evidence before our very eyes? By this point, you might be thinking that anthropologists have gone
completely insane in denying biological human races!
Physical anthropologists have identified several important concepts regarding the true nature of
humans’ physical, genetic, and biological variation that have discredited race as a biological concept.
Many of the issues presented in this section are discussed in further detail in Race: Are We So Different,
a website created by the American Anthropological Association. The American Anthropological Asso-
ciation (AAA) launched the website to educate the public about the true nature of human biological and
cultural variation and challenge common misperceptions about race. This is an important endeavor
because race is a complicated, often emotionally charged topic, leading many people to rely on their
personal opinions and hearsay when drawing conclusions about people who are different from them.
The website is highly interactive, featuring multimedia illustrations and online quizzes designed to
increase visitors’ knowledge of human variation. I encourage you to explore the website as you will
likely find answers to several of the questions you may still be asking after reading this chapter.3
Before explaining why distinct biological races do not exist among humans, I must point out that one
of the biggest reasons so many people continue to believe in the existence of biological human races
is that the idea has been intensively reified in literature, the media, and culture for more than three
hundred years. Reification refers to the process in which an inaccurate concept or idea is so heavily
promoted and circulated among people that it begins to take on a life of its own. Over centuries, the
notion of biological human races became ingrained—unquestioned, accepted, and regarded as a con-
crete “truth.” Studies of human physical and cultural variation from a scientific and anthropological
perspective have allowed us to move beyond reified thinking and toward an improved understanding
of the true complexity of human diversity.
The reification of race has a long history. Especially during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
philosophers and scholars attempted to identify various human races. They perceived “races” as specific
divisions of humans who shared certain physical and biological features that distinguished them from
other groups of humans. This historic notion of race may seem clear-cut and innocent enough, but it
quickly led to problems as social theorists attempted to classify people by race. One of the most basic
difficulties was the actual number of human races: how many were there, who were they, and what
grounds distinguished them? Despite more than three centuries of such effort, no clear-cut scientific
consensus was established for a precise number of human races.
209
One of the earliest and most influential attempts at producing a racial

classification system came from Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus,
who argued in Systema Naturae (1735) for the existence of four human
races: Americanus (Native American / American Indian), Europaeus
(European), Asiaticus (East Asian), and Africanus (African). These cate-
gories correspond with common racial labels used in the United States
for census and demographic purposes today. However, in 1795, German
physician and anthropologist Johann Blumenbach suggested that there
were five races, which he labeled as Caucasian (white), Mongolian (yellow
or East Asian), Ethiopian (black or African), American (red or American
Indian), Malayan (brown or Pacific Islander). Importantly, Blumenbach
listed the races in this exact order, which he believed reflected their nat-
ural historical descent from the “primeval” Caucasian original to
“extreme varieties.”4 Although he was a committed abolitionist, Blu-
menbach nevertheless felt that his “Caucasian” race (named after the
Caucasus Mountains of Central Asia, where he believed humans had
originated) represented the original variety of humankind from which
Figure 2: In Systema Naturae, Carolus
the other races had degenerated. Linnaeus attempted to create a taxonomy for
all living things, including people.
By the early twentieth century, many social philosophers and scholars
had accepted the idea of three human races: the so-called Caucasoid,
Negroid, and Mongoloid groups that corresponded with regions of Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and East
Asia, respectively. However, the three-race theory faced serious criticism given that numerous peoples
from several geographic regions were omitted from the classification, including Australian Aborigines,
Asian Indians, American Indians, and inhabitants of the South Pacific Islands. Those groups could not
be easily pigeonholed into racial categories regardless of how loosely the categories were defined. Aus-
tralian Aborigines, for example, often have dark complexions (a trait they appeared to share with
Africans) but reddish or blondish hair (a trait shared with northern Europeans). Likewise, many Indians
living on the Asian subcontinent have complexions that are as dark or darker than those of many
Africans and African Americans. Because of these seeming contradictions, some academics began to
argue in favor of larger numbers of human races—five, nine, twenty, sixty, and more.5
During the 1920s and 1930s, some scholars asserted that Europeans were comprised of more than
one “white” or “Caucasian” race: Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean (named for the geographic regions
of Europe from which they descended). These European races, they alleged, exhibited obvious physical
traits that distinguished them from one another and thus served as racial boundaries. For example,
“Nordics” were said to consist of peoples of Northern Europe—Scandinavia, the British Isles, and
Northern Germany— while “Alpines” came from the Alps Mountains of Central Europe and included
French, Swiss, Northern Italians, and Southern Germans. People from southern Europe—including
Portuguese, Spanish, Southern Italians, Sicilians, Greeks, and Albanians—comprised the “Mediter-
ranean” race. Most Americans today would find this racial classification system bizarre, but its propo-
nents argued for it on the basis that one would observe striking physical differences between a Swede
or Norwegian and a Sicilian. Similar efforts were made to “carve up” the populations of Africa and Asia
into geographically local, specific races.6
The fundamental point here is that any effort to classify human populations into racial categories
is inherently arbitrary and subjective rather than scientific and objective. These racial classification
schemes simply reflected their proponents’ desires to “slice the pie” of human physical variation accord-
ing to the particular trait(s) they preferred to establish as the major, defining criteria of their classi-
fication system. Two major types of “race classifiers” have emerged over the past 300 years: lumpers
and splitters. Lumpers have classified races by large geographic tracts (often continents) and produced
a small number of broad, general racial categories, as reflected in Linnaeus’s original classification
scheme and later three-race theories. Splitters have subdivided continent-wide racial categories into
specific, more localized regional races and attempted to devise more “precise” racial labels for these spe-
cific groups, such as the three European races described earlier. Consequently, splitters have tried to
identify many more human races than lumpers.
Racial labels, whether from a lumper or a splitter model, clearly attempt to identify and describe some-
thing. So why do these racial labels not accurately describe human physical and biological variation? To
understand why, we must keep in mind that racial labels are distinct, discrete categories while human
physical and biological variations (such as skin color, hair color and texture, eye color, height, nose
shape, and distribution of blood types) are continuous rather than discrete.
Physical anthropologists use the term cline
to refer to differences in the traits that occur in
populations across a geographical area. In a
cline, a trait may be more common in one geo-
graphical area than another, but the variation is
gradual and continuous with no sharp breaks.
A prominent example of clinal variation among
humans is skin color. Think of it this way: Do
all “white” persons who you know actually
share the same skin complexion? Likewise, do
Figure 3: The global distribution of Type O blood reflects a clinal pattern. all “black” persons who you know share an
identical skin complexion? The answer, obvi-
ously, is no, since human skin color does not occur in just 3, 5, or even 50 shades. The reality is that
human skin color, as a continuous trait, exists as a spectrum from very light to very dark with every
possible hue, shade, and tone in between.
Imagine two people—one from Sweden and one from Nigeria—standing side by side. If we looked
only at those two individuals and ignored people who inhabit the regions between Sweden and Nigeria,
it would be easy to reach the faulty conclusion that they represented two distinct human racial groups,
one light (“white”) and one dark (“black”). 7 However, if we walked from Nigeria to Sweden, we would
gain a fuller understanding of human skin color because we would see that skin color generally became
gradually lighter the further north we traveled from the equator. At no point during this imaginary walk
would we reach a point at which the people abruptly changed skin color. As physical anthropologists
such as John Relethford (2004) and C. Loring Brace (2005) have noted, the average range of skin color
gradually changes over geographic space. North Africans are generally lighter-skinned than Central
Africans, and southern Europeans are generally lighter-skinned than North Africans. In turn, north-
ern Italians are generally lighter-skinned than Sicilians, and the Irish, Danes, and Swedes are generally
lighter-skinned than northern Italians and Hungarians. Thus, human skin color cannot be used as a
definitive marker of racial boundaries.
There are a few notable exceptions to this general rule of lighter-complexioned people inhabiting
northern latitudes. The Chukchi of Eastern Siberia and Inuits of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland have
darker skin than other Eurasian people living at similar latitudes, such as Scandinavians. Physical
anthropologists have explained this exception in terms of the distinct dietary customs of indigenous
Arctic groups, which have traditionally been based on certain native meats and fish that are rich in Vit-
amin D (polar bears, whales, seals, and trout).
211
What does Vitamin D have to do with skin color? The answer is intriguing! Dark skin blocks most
of the sun’s dangerous ultraviolet rays, which is advantageous in tropical environments where sunlight
is most intense. Exposure to high levels of ultraviolet radiation can damage skin cells, causing cancer,
and also destroy the body’s supply of folate, a nutrient essential for reproduction. Folate deficiency in
women can cause severe birth defects in their babies. Melanin, the pigment produced in skin cells, acts
as a natural sunblock, protecting skin cells from damage, and preventing the breakdown of folate. How-
ever, exposure to sunlight has an important positive health effect: stimulating the production of vita-
min D. Vitamin D is essential for the health of bones and the immune system. In areas where ultraviolet
radiation is strong, there is no problem producing enough Vitamin D, even as darker skin filters ultra-
violet radiation.8
In environments where the sun’s rays are much less intense, a different problem occurs: not enough
sunlight penetrates the skin to enable the production of Vitamin D. Over the course of human evo-
lution, natural selection favored the evolution of lighter skin as humans migrated and settled farther
from the equator to ensure that weaker rays of sunlight could adequately penetrate our skin. The diet of
indigenous populations of the Arctic region provided sufficient amounts of Vitamin D to ensure their
health. This reduced the selective pressure toward the evolution of lighter skin among the Inuit and
the Chukchi. Physical anthropologist Nina Jablonski (2012) has also noted that natural selection could
have favored darker skin in Arctic regions because high levels of ultraviolet radiation from the sun are
reflected from snow and ice during the summer months.
Still, many people in the United States remain convinced that biologically distinct human races exist
and are easy to identify, declaring that they can walk down any street in the United States and easily
determine who is “white” and who is “black.” The United States was populated historically by immi-
grants from a small number of world regions who did not reflect the full spectrum of human physical
variation. The earliest settlers in the North American colonies overwhelmingly came from North-
ern Europe (particularly, Britain, France, Germany, and Ireland), regions where skin colors tend to be
among the lightest in the world. Slaves brought to the United States during the colonial period came
largely from the western coast of Central Africa, a region where skin color tends to be among the dark-
est in the world. Consequently, when we look at today’s descendants of these groups, we are not looking
at accurate, proportional representations of the total range of human skin color; instead, we are looking,
in effect, at opposite ends of a spectrum, where striking differences are inevitable. More recent waves of
immigrants who have come to the United States from other world regions have brought a wider range
of skin colors, shaping a continuum of skin color that defies classification into a few simple categories.
Physical anthropologists have also found that there are no specific genetic traits that are exclusive to
a “racial” group. For the concept of human races to have biological significance, an analysis of multiple
genetic traits would have to consistently produce the same racial classifications. In other words, a racial
classification scheme for skin color would also have to reflect classifications by blood type, hair texture,
eye shape, lactose intolerance, and other traits often mistakenly assumed to be “racial” characteristics.
An analysis based on any one of those characteristics individually would produce a unique set of racial
categories because variations in human physical and genetic are nonconcordant. Each trait is inherited
independently, not “bundled together” with other traits and inherited as a package. There is no correla-
tion between skin color and other characteristics such as blood type and lactose intolerance.
A prominent example of nonconcordance is sickle-cell anemia, which people often mistakenly think
of as a disease that only affects Africans, African Americans, and “black” persons. In fact, the sickle-cell
allele (the version of the gene that causes sickle-cell anemia when a person inherits two copies) is rela-
tively common among people whose ancestors are from regions where a certain strain of malaria, plas-
modium falciparum, is prevalent, namely Central and Western Africa and parts of Mediterranean Europe,
the Arabian peninsula, and India. The sickle-cell trait thus is not exclusively African or “black.” The
erroneous perceptions are relatedly primarily to the fact that the ancestors of U.S. African Americans
came predominantly from Western Africa, where the sickle-cell gene is prevalent, and are therefore
more recognizable than populations of other ancestries and regions where the sickle-cell gene is com-
mon, such as southern Europe and Arabia.9
Another trait commonly mistaken as defining race is the epicanthic eye fold typically associated with
people of East Asian ancestry. The epicanthic eye fold at the outer corner of the eyelid produces the eye
shape that people in the United States typically associate with people from China and Japan, but is also
common in people from Central Asia, parts of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, some American Indian
groups, and the Khoi San of southern Africa.
In college, I took a course titled “Nutrition”

because I thought it would be an easy way to
boost my grade point average. The professor of
the class, an authoritarian man in his late 60s or
early 70s, routinely declared that “Asians can’t
drink milk!” When this assertion was chal-
lenged by various students, including a woman
who claimed that her best friend was Korean
and drank milk and ate ice cream all the time,
the professor only became more strident, dou-
bling down on his dairy diatribe and defiantly
vowing that he would not “ignore the facts” for
“purposes of political correctness.” However, it
Figure 4: The ability to digest the lactose found in dairy products is more common in
some populations than others. is scientific accuracy, not political correctness,
we should be concerned about, and lactose tol-
erance is a complex topic. Lactose is a sugar that is naturally present in milk and dairy products, and an
enzyme, lactase, breaks it down into two simpler sugars that can be digested by the body. Ordinarily,
humans (and other mammals) stop producing lactase after infancy, and approximately 75 percent of
humans are thus lactose intolerant and cannot naturally digest milk. Lactose intolerance is a natural,
normal condition. However, some people continue to produce lactase into adulthood and can naturally
digest milk and dairy products. This lactose persistence developed through natural selection, primarily
among people in regions that had long histories of dairy farming (including the Middle East, Northern
Europe, Eastern Europe, East Africa, and Northern India). In other areas and for some groups of people,
dairy products were introduced relatively recently (such as East Asia, Southern Europe, and Western
and Southern Africa and among Australian Aborigines and American Indians) and lactose persistence
has not developed yet.10
The idea of biological human races emphasizes differences, both real and perceived, between groups
and ignores or overlooks differences within groups. The biological differences between “whites” and
“blacks” and between “blacks” and “Asians” are assumed to be greater than the biological differences
among “whites” and among “blacks.” The opposite is actually true; the overwhelming majority of genetic
diversity in humans (88–92 percent) is found within people who live on the same continent.11 Also,
keep in mind that human beings are one of the most genetically similar of all species. There is nearly six
times more genetic variation among white-tailed deer in the southern United States than in all humans!
Consider our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. Chimpanzees’ natural habitat is confined to central
Africa and parts of western Africa, yet four genetically distinct groups occupy those regions and they
213
are far more genetically distinct than humans who live on different continents. That humans exhibit
such a low level of genetic variation compared to other species reflects the fact that we are a relatively
recent species; modern humans (Homo sapiens) first appeared in East Africa just under 200,000 years
ago.12
Physical anthropologists today analyze human biological variation by examining specific genetic
traits to understand how those traits originated and evolved over time and why some genetic traits
are more common in certain populations. Since much of our biological diversity occurs mostly within
(rather than between) continental regions once believed to be the homelands of distinct races, the con-
cept of race is meaningless in any study of human biology. Franz Boas, considered the father of modern
U.S. anthropology, was the first prominent anthropologist to challenge racial thinking directly during
the early twentieth century. A professor of anthropology at Columbia University in New York City and
a Jewish immigrant from Germany, Boas established anthropology in the United States as a four-field
academic discipline consisting of archaeology, physical/biological anthropology, cultural anthropology,
and linguistics. His approach challenged conventional thinking at the time that humans could be sepa-
rated into biological races endowed with unique intellectual, moral, and physical abilities.
In one of his most famous studies, Boas challenged craniometrics, in which the size and shape of
skulls of various groups were measured as a way of assigning relative intelligence and moral behav-
ior. Boas noted that the size and shape of the skull were not fixed characteristics within groups and
were instead influenced by the environment. Children born in the United States to parents of vari-
ous immigrant groups, for example, had slightly different average skull shapes than children born and
raised in the homelands of those immigrant groups. The differences reflected relative access to nutri-
tion and other socio-economic dimensions. In his famous 1909 essay “Race Problems in America,” Boas
challenged the commonly held idea that immigrants to the United States from Italy, Poland, Russia,
Greece, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and other southern and eastern European nations were a threat
to America’s “racial purity.” He pointed out that the British, Germans, and Scandinavians (popularly
believed at the time to be the “true white” heritages that gave the United States its superior qualities)
were not themselves “racially pure.” Instead, many different tribal and cultural groups had intermixed
over the centuries. [13] In fact, Boas asserted, the notion of “racial purity” was utter nonsense. As pre-
sent-day anthropologist Jonathan Marks (1994) noted, “You may group humans into a small number of
races if you want to, but you are denied biology as a support for it.”13
Race as a Social Concept
Just because the idea of distinct biological human races is not a valid scientific concept does not mean,
and should not be interpreted as implying, that “there is no such thing as race” or that “race isn’t real.”
Race is indeed real but it is a concept based on arbitrary social and cultural definitions rather than biol-
ogy or science. Thus, racial categories such as “white” and “black” are as real as categories of “American”
and “African.” Many things in the world are real but are not biological. So, while race does not reflect
biological characteristics, it reflects socially constructed concepts defined subjectively by societies to
reflect notions of division that are perceived to be significant. Some sociologists and anthropologists
now use the term social races instead, seeking to emphasize their cultural and arbitrary roots.
Race is most accurately thought of as a socio-historical concept. Michael Omi and Howard Winant
noted that “Racial categories and the meaning of race are given concrete expression by the specific
social relations and historical context in which they are embedded.”14 In other words, racial labels ulti-
mately reflect a society’s social attitudes and cultural beliefs regarding notions of group differences. And
since racial categories are culturally defined, they can vary from one society to another as well as change
over time within a society. Omi and Winant referred to this as racial formation—“the process by which
social, economic, and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories.”15
The process of racial formation is vividly illustrated by the idea of “whiteness” in the United States.
Over the course of U.S. history, the concept of “whiteness” expanded to include various immigrant
groups that once were targets of racist beliefs and discrimination. In the mid 1800s, for example, Irish
Catholic immigrants faced intense hostility from America’s Anglo-Protestant mainstream society, and
anti-Irish politicians and journalists depicted the Irish as racially different and inferior. Newspaper
cartoons frequently portrayed Irish Catholics in apelike fashion: overweight, knuckle dragging, and
brutish. In the early twentieth century, Italian and Jewish immigrants were typically perceived as
racially distinct from America’s Anglo-Protestant “white” majority as well. They were said to belong
to the inferior “Mediterranean” and “Jewish” races. Today, Irish, Italian, and Jewish Americans are fully
considered “white,” and many people find it hard to believe that they once were perceived otherwise.
Racial categories as an aspect of culture are typically learned, internalized, and accepted without ques-
tion or critical thought in a process not so different from children learning their native language as they
grow up.
A primary contributor to expansion of the definition of “whiteness” in the United States was the rise
of many members of those immigrant groups in social status after World War II.16 Hundreds of subur-
ban housing developments were constructed on the edge of the nation’s major cities during the 1940s
and 1950s to accommodate returning soldiers, the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944 offered a
series of benefits for military veterans, including free college education or technical training and cost-
of-living stipends funded by the federal government for veterans pursuing higher education. In addi-
tion, veterans could obtain guaranteed low-interest loans for homes and for starting their own farms or
businesses. The act was in effect from 1944 through 1956 and was theoretically available to all military
veterans who served at least four months in uniform and were honorably discharged, but the legisla-
tion did not contain anti-discrimination provisions and most African American veterans were denied
benefits because private banks refused to provide the loans and restrictive language by homeowners’
associations prohibited sales of homes to nonwhites. The male children and grandchildren of European
immigrant groups benefited tremendously from the act. They were able to obtain college educations,
formerly available only to the affluent, at no cost, leading to professional white-collar careers, and to
purchase low-cost suburban homes that increased substantially in value over time. The act has been
credited, more than anything else, with creating the modern middle class of U.S. society and transform-
ing the majority of “white” Americans from renters into homeowners.17 As the children of Irish, Jewish,
Italian, Greek, Anglo-Saxon, and Eastern European parents grew up together in the suburbs, formed
friendships, and dated and married one another, the old social boundaries that defined “whiteness” were
redefined.18
Race is a socially constructed concept but it is not a trivial matter. On the contrary, one’s race often
has a dramatic impact on everyday life. In the United States, for example, people often use race—their
personal understanding of race—to predict “who” a person is and “what” a person is like in terms of
personality, behavior, and other qualities. Because of this tendency to characterize others and make
assumptions about them, people can be uncomfortable or defensive when they mistake someone’s back-
ground or cannot easily determine “what” someone is, as revealed in statements such as “You don’t look
black!” or “You talk like a white person. Such statements reveal fixed notions about “blackness” and
“whiteness” and what members of each race will be like, reflecting their socially constructed and seem-
ingly “common sense” understanding of the world.
Since the 1990s, scholars and anti-racism activists have discussed “white privilege” as a basic feature
215
of race as a lived experience in the United States. Peggy McIntosh coined the term in a famous 1988
essay, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” in which she identified more than two
dozen accumulated unearned benefits and advantages associated with being a “white” person in the
United States. The benefits ranged from relatively minor things, such as knowing that “flesh color”
Band-Aids would match her skin, to major determinants of life experiences and opportunities, such as
being assured that she would never be asked to speak on behalf of her entire race, being able to curse and
get angry in public without others assuming she was acting that way because of her race, and not having
to teach her children that police officers and the general public would view them as suspicious or crim-
inal because of their race. In 2015, MTV aired a documentary on white privilege, simply titled White
People, to raise awareness of this issue among Millennials. In the documentary, young “white” Ameri-
cans from various geographic, social, and class backgrounds discussed their experiences with race.
White privilege has gained significant attention and is an important tool for understanding how race
is often connected to everyday experiences and opportunities, but we must remember that no group
is homogenous or monolithic. “White” persons receive varying degrees of privilege and social advan-
tage, and other important characteristics, such as social class, gender, sexual orientation, and (dis)ability,
shape individuals’ overall lives and how they experience society. John Hartigan, an urban anthropol-
ogist, has written extensively about these characteristics. His Racial Situations: Class Predicaments of
Whiteness in Detroit (1999) discusses the lives of “white” residents in three neighborhoods in Detroit,
Michigan, that vary significantly socio-economically—one impoverished, one working class, and one
upper middle class. Hartigan reveals that social class has played a major role in shaping strikingly dif-
ferent identities among these “white” residents and how, accordingly, social relations between “whites”
and “blacks” in the neighborhoods vary from camaraderie and companionship to conflict.
RACE IN THREE NATIONS: THE UNITED STATES, BRAZIL, AND JAPAN
To better understand how race is constructed around the world, consider how the United States,
Brazil, and Japan define racial categories. In the United States, race has traditionally been rigidly con-
structed, and Americans have long perceived racial categories as discrete and mutually exclusive: a per-
son who had one “black” parent and one “white” parent was seen simply as “black.” The institution of
slavery played a major role in defining how the United States has classified people by race through
the one-drop rule, which required that any trace of known or recorded non-European ( “non-white”)
ancestry was used to automatically exclude a person from being classified as “white.” Someone with one
“black” grandparent and three “white” grandparents or one “black” great-grandparent and seven “white”
great-grandparents was classified under the one-drop rule simply as “black.” The original purpose of the
one-drop rule was to ensure that children born from sexual unions (some consensual but many forced)
between slave-owner fathers and enslaved women would be born into slave status.19
Consider President Barack Obama. Obama is of biracial heritage; his mother was “white” of Euro-
American descent and his father was a “black” man from Kenya. The media often refer to Obama simply
as “black” or “African American,” such as when he is referred to as the nation’s “first black President,”
and never refer to him as “white.”20 Whiteness in the United States has long been understood and legally
defined as implying “racial purity” despite the biological absurdity of the notion, and to be considered
“white,” one could have no known ancestors of black, American Indian, Asian, or other “non-white”
backgrounds. Cultural anthropologists also refer to the one-drop rule as hypodescent, a term coined by
anthropologist Marvin Harris in the 1960s to refer to a socially constructed racial classification system
in which a person of mixed racial heritage is automatically categorized as a member of the less (or least)
privileged group.21
Another example is birth certificates issued by U.S. hospitals, which, until relatively recently, used
a precise formula to determine the appropriate racial classification for a newborn. If one parent was
“white” and the other was “non-white,” the child was classified as the race of the “non-white” parent; if
neither parent was “white,” the child was classified as the race of the father.
Not until very recently have the United States government, the media, and pop culture begun to
officially acknowledge and embrace biracial and multiracial individuals. The 2000 census was the first
to allow respondents to identify as more than one race. Currently, a grassroots movement that is
expanding across the United States, led by organizations such as Project RACE (Reclassify All Children
Equally) and Swirl, seeks to raise public awareness of biracial and multiracial people who sometimes
still experience social prejudice for being of mixed race and/or resentment from peers who disapprove
of their decision to identify with all of their backgrounds instead of just one. Prominent biracial and
multiracial celebrities such as Tiger Woods, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Beyoncé Knowles, Bruno Mars,
and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and the election of Barack Obama have also prompted people in the
United States to reconsider the problematic nature of rigid, discrete racial categories.
In 1977, the U.S. government established five official racial categories under Office of Management
and Budget (OMB) Directive 15 that provided a basis for recordkeeping and compiling of statistical
information to facilitate collection of demographic information by the Census Bureau and to ensure
compliance with federal civil rights legislation and work-place anti-discrimination policies. Those cat-
egories and their definitions, which are still used today, are (a) “White: a person having origins in any
of the original peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East;” (b) “Black or African American: a
person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa;” (c) “American Indian or Alaskan Native:
a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central
America), and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment;” (d) “Asian: a person having
origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent;” and
(e) “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: a person having origins in any of the original peoples of
Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or the Pacific Islands.” In addition, OMB Directive 15 established Hispanic or
Latino as a separate ethnic (not racial) category; on official documents, individuals are asked to identify
their racial background and whether they are of Hispanic/Latino ethnic heritage. The official defini-
tion of Hispanic or Latino is “a person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American, or
other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.”
OMB Directive 15’s terminology and definitions have generated considerable criticism and contro-
versy. The complex fundamental question is whether such categories are practical and actually reflect
how individuals choose to self-identify. Terms such as “non-Hispanic white” and “Black Hispanic,” both
a result of the directive, are baffling to many people in the United States who perceive Hispanics/Lati-
nos as a separate group from whites and blacks. Others oppose any governmental attempt to classify
people by race, on both liberal and conservative political grounds. In 1997, the American Anthropolog-
ical Association unsuccessfully advocated for a cessation of federal efforts to coercively classify Amer-
icans by race, arguing instead that individuals should be given the opportunity to identify their ethnic
and/or national heritages (such as their country or countries of ancestry).
Brazil’s concept of race is much more fluid, flexible, and multifaceted. The differences between Brazil
and the United States are particularly striking because the countries have similar histories. Both nations
were born of European colonialism in the New World, established major plantation economies that
relied on large numbers of African slaves, and subsequently experienced large waves of immigration
from around the world (particularly Europe) following the abolition of slavery. Despite those similar-
217
ities, significant contrasts in how race is perceived in these two societies persist, which is sometimes
summarized in the expression “The United States has a color line, while Brazil has a color contin-
uum.”22 In Brazil, races are typically viewed as points on a continuum in which one gradually blends
into another; “white” and “black” are opposite ends of a continuum that incorporates many intermedi-
ate color-based racial labels that have no equivalent in the United States.
The Brazilian term for these categories, which correspond to the concept of race in the United States,
is tipos, which directly translates into Portuguese as “types.”23 Rather than describing what is believed
to be a person’s biological or genetic ancestry, tipos describe slight but noticeable differences in physical
appearance. Examples include loura, a person with a very fair complexion, straight blonde hair, and blue
or green eyes; sarará, a light-complexioned person with tightly curled blondish or reddish hair, blue or
green eyes, a wide nose, and thick lips; and cabo verde, an individual with dark skin, brown eyes, straight
black hair, a narrow nose, and thin lips. Sociologists and anthropologists have identified more than 125
tipos in Brazil, and small villages of only 500 people may feature 40 or more depending on how residents
describe one another. Some of the labels vary from region to region, reflecting local cultural differences.
Since Brazilians perceive race based on phenotypes or outward physical appearance rather than as an
extension of geographically based biological and genetic descent, individual members of a family can be
seen as different tipos. This may seem bewildering to those who think of race as a fixed identity inherited
from one’s parents even though it is generally acknowledged that family members often have different
physical features, such as sisters who have strikingly different eye colors, hair colors, and/or complex-
ions. In Brazil, those differences are frequently viewed as significant enough to assign different tipos.
Cultural anthropologist Conrad Phillip Kottak, who conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil, noted
that something as minor as a suntan or sunburn could lead to a person temporarily being described as
a different tipo until the effects of the tanning or burning wore off.24
Another major difference in the construction of race in the United States and Brazil is the more fluid
and flexible nature of race in Brazil, which is reflected in a popular Brazilian saying: “Money whitens.”
As darker-complexioned individuals increase their social class status (by, for example, graduating from
college and obtaining high-salaried, professional positions), they generally come to be seen as a some-
what lighter tipo and light-complexioned individuals who become poorer may be viewed as a slightly
darker tipo. In the United States, social class has no bearing on one’s racial designation; a non-white
person who achieves upward social mobility and accrues greater education and wealth may be seen by
some as more “socially desirable” because of social class but does not change racial classification.
Brazil’s Institute of Geography and Statistics established five official racial categories in 1940 to facil-
itate collection of demographic information that are still in use today: branco (white), prêto (black), pardo
(brown), amarelo (yellow), and indígena (indigenous). These racial categories are similar to the ones
established in the United States under OMB Directive 15 and to Linnaeus’ proposed taxonomy in the
18th century. Pardo is unique to Brazil and denotes a person of both branco and prêto heritage. Many
Brazilians object to these government categories and prefer tipos.
The more fluid construction of race in Brazil is accompanied by generally less hostile, more benign
social interactions between people of different colors and complexions, which has contributed to Brazil
being seen as a “racial paradise” and a “racial democracy” rainbow nation free of the harsh prejudices
and societal discrimination that has characterized other multiracial nations such as the United States
and South Africa.25 The “racial democracy” image has long been embraced by the government and elites
in Brazil as a way to provide the country with a distinct identity in the international community. How-
ever, scholars in Brazil and the United States have questioned the extent to which racial equality exists
in Brazil despite the appearance of interracial congeniality on the surface. Many light-complexioned
Brazilians reject the idea that racial discrimination and inequalities persist and regard such claims as
divisive while Afro-Brazilians have drawn attention to these inequalities in recent years.
Though Afro-Brazilians comprise approxi-

mately half of the country’s population, they have
historically accounted for less than 2 percent of all
university students, and severe economic dispari-
ties between tipos remain prominent in Brazil to
this day.26 The majority of the country’s Afro-
Brazilians lives in the less-affluent northern
region, site of the original sugar cane plantations
while the majority of Brazilians of European
descent live in the industrial and considerably
wealthier southern region.27 The favelas (slums)
Figure 5: A scene from the Black Women’s March against Racism and Violence in
located on the edge of major cities such as Rio de
Brasilia, Brazil, 2015. Janeiro and São Paolo, which often lack electricity
or running water, are inhabited largely by Afro-
Brazilians, who are half as likely to have a working toilet in their homes as the overall Brazilian popula-
tion.
There are significant economic differences between Brazilians according to their official racial des-
ignation. According to government statistics, prêtos have higher unemployment and poverty rates than
other groups in Brazil and brancos earn 57 percent more than prêtos for the same occupation. Further-
more, the vast majority of Brazilians in leadership positions in politics, the military, the media, and edu-
cation are branco or pardo. Inter-racial marriage occurs more frequently in Brazil than in the United
States, but most of the marriages are between prêtos and pardos and not between brancos and either prêtos
or pardos. Another significant area of concern centers on brutality and mistreatment of darker-com-
plexioned Brazilians. As a result, some scholars of race and racism describe Brazil as a prominent exam-
ple of a pigmentocracy: a society characterized by a strong correlation between a person’s skin color
and their social class.
Afro-Brazilian activism has grown substantially since the 1980s, inspired in part by the successes
of the Civil Rights movement in the United States and by actions taken by the Brazilian government
since the early 2000s. One of the Brazilian government’s strategies has been to implement U.S.-style
affirmative action policies in education and employment to increase the number of Afro-Brazilians in
the nation’s professional ranks and decrease the degree of economic disparity. Those efforts sparked
an intense backlash among lighter-complexioned Brazilians and created a complex social and political
dilemma: who, exactly, should be considered “dark/black enough” for inclusion in affirmative action,
who makes that decision, and on what grounds will the decision be based? Many Brazilian families
include relatives whose complexions are quite different and the country has clear racial categories only
in terms of its demographic statistics. Nevertheless, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president from
2003 through 2011, made promotion of greater racial equality a prominent objective of his administra-
tion. In addition to supporting affirmative action policies, Lula appointed four Afro-Brazilians to his
cabinet, appointed the first Afro-Brazilian justice to the nation’s supreme court, and established a gov-
ernment office for promotion of racial equality. These recent developments have led many in Brazil and
elsewhere to reconsider the accuracy of Brazil’s designation as a racial democracy, which has been as a
central component of its national identity for decades.
Scholars mostly agree that race relations are more relaxed and genteel in Brazil than in the United
219
States. They tend to disagree about why that is the case. Some have suggested that the differences in
racial constructions stem from important colonial-era distinctions that set the tone for years to come. A
common expression describing the situation is: “the United States had two British parents while Brazil
had a Portuguese father and an African mother.” British settlers who colonized North America thor-
oughly subjugated their slaves, intermarriage was rare, and African cultural influences on mainstream
U.S. society were marginalized compared to British cultural traditions and customs. In Brazil, on the
other hand, sexual and marital unions between the Portuguese settlers, who were overwhelmingly male,
and female Africans were common, creating individuals who exhibit a wide range of physical appear-
ances. Sexual unions certainly occurred in the United States between male European slave masters and
female African slaves, but the one-drop rule ensured that any children born of such unions would be
classified as “black” and as slaves. In Brazil in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the gov-
ernment and the Roman Catholic Church strongly encouraged European descended men to marry the
African and indigenous women they impregnated in order to “whiten” the nation.28 The United States
government did not advocate for interracial families and most states had anti-miscegenation laws. The
United States also implemented an official, government-sanctioned system of Jim Crow racial segre-
gation laws in that had no equivalent in Brazil.
Japan represents an example of a third way of
constructing race that is not associated with West-
ern society or African slavery. Japanese society is
more diverse than many people realize; the num-
ber of Korean, Chinese, Indian, and Brazilian
immigrants began to increase in the 1980s, and the
number of children who had one Japanese and one
non-Japanese parent has increased substantially
since the 1950s, driven in part by children
fathered by American military men stationed in
Japan. Yet, one segment of Japan’s population
known as the burakumin (formerly called the eta,
a word meaning “pure filth”) vividly illustrates the
arbitrary nature of racial categories. Though phys-
ically and genetically indistinguishable from other
Japanese people, the burakumin are a socially stig-
matized and outcast group. They are descendants
of people who worked dirty, low-prestige jobs that
involved handling dead and slaughtered animals
during the feudal era of Japan in the 1600s, 1700s,
and 1800s. In feudal times, they were forced to live
in communities separated from the rest of society,
had to wear a patch of leather on their clothing to
Figure 6: Jiichirō Matsumoto, a leader of the Buraku Liberation League. symbolize their burakumin status, and were not
permitted to marry non-burakumins.29
Japan no longer legally prohibits marriage between burakumin and non-burakumin (today, approx-
imately 75 percent of burakumins are married to non-burakumins), but prejudices and discrimination
persist, particularly among older generations, and the marriages remain socially stigmatized. Employ-
ment for the burakumin remains concentrated in low-paying occupations involving physical labor
despite the relative affluence and advanced education in Japanese society overall. Burakumin earn only
about 60 percent of the national average household income.30 Stereotypes of the burakumin as unin-
telligent, lazy, and violent still exist, but burakumin men account for a significant portion of Japan’s
professional athletes in popular sports such as baseball and sumo wrestling, an interesting pattern that
reflects events in the United States, where racially stigmatized groups have long found relatively abun-
dant opportunities for upward mobility in professional sports.
ETHNICITY AND ETHNIC GROUPS
The terms race and ethnicity are similar and there is a degree of overlap between them. The average
person frequently uses the terms “race” and “ethnicity” interchangeably as synonyms and anthropolo-
gists also recognize that race and ethnicity are overlapping concepts. Both race and ethnic identity draw
on an identification with others based on common ancestry and shared cultural traits.31 As discussed
earlier, a race is a social construction that defines groups of humans based on arbitrary physical and/or
biological traits that are believed to distinguish them from other humans. An ethnic group, on the other
hand, claims a distinct identity based on cultural characteristics and a shared ancestry that are believed
to give its members a unique sense of peoplehood or heritage.
The cultural characteristics used to define ethnic groups vary; they include specific languages spoken,
religions practiced, and distinct patterns of dress, diet, customs, holidays, and other markers of distinc-
tion. In some societies, ethnic groups are geographically concentrated in particular regions, as with the
Kurds in Turkey and Iraq and the Basques in northern Spain.
Ethnicity refers to the degree to which a person identifies with and feels an attachment to a particular
ethnic group. As a component of a person’s identity, ethnicity is a fluid, complex phenomenon that is
highly variable. Many individuals view their ethnicity as an important element of their personal and
social identity. Numerous psychological, social, and familial factors play a role in ethnicity, and ethnic
identity is most accurately understood as a range or continuum populated by people at every point.
One’s sense of ethnicity can also fluctuate across time. Children of Korean immigrants living in an over-
whelmingly white town, for example, may choose to self-identify simply as “American” during their
middle school and high school years to fit in with their classmates and then choose to self-identify
as “Korean,” “Korean American,” or “Asian American” in college or later in life as their social settings
change or from a desire to connect more strongly with their family history and heritage. Do you con-
sider your ethnicity an important part of your identity? Why do you feel the way you do?
In the United States, ethnic identity can sometimes be primarily or purely symbolic in nature. Soci-
ologists and anthropologists use the term symbolic ethnicity to describe limited or occasional displays
of ethnic pride and identity that are primarily expressive—for public display—rather than instrumental as
a major component of their daily social lives. Symbolic ethnicity is pervasive in U.S. society; consider
customs such as “Kiss Me, I’m Irish!” buttons and bumper stickers, Puerto Rican flag necklaces, decals of
the Virgin of Guadalupe, replicas of the Aztec stone calendar, and tattoos of Celtic crosses or of the map
of Italy in green, white, and red stripes. When I was a teenager in the early to mid-1990s, medallions
shaped like the African continent became popular among young African Americans after the release of
Spike Lee’s film Malcolm X in 1992 and in response to clothing worn by socially conscious rappers and
rap groups of the era, such as Public Enemy. During that same time, I surprised workers in a pizzeria
in suburban Philadelphia when I asked them, in Spanish, what part of Mexico they came from. They
wanted to know how I knew they were Mexican as they said they usually were presumed to be Italian
221
or Puerto Rican. I replied, “The Virgin of Guadalupe gave it away!” while pointing to the miniature fig-
urine of the iconic national symbol of Mexico on the counter near the register.
In the United States, ethnic identity can some-
times be largely symbolic particularly for descen-
dants of the various European immigrant groups
who settled in the United States during the nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries. Regardless of
whether their grandparents and great-grandpar-
ents migrated from Italy, Ireland, Germany,
Poland, Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
Greece, Scandinavia, or elsewhere, these third and
fourth generation Americans likely do not speak
their ancestors’ languages and have lost most or all
of the cultural customs and traditions their ances-
tors brought to the United States. A few traditions,
Figure 7: Many people in the United States cherish their ethnic identities and
such as favorite family recipes or distinct customs cultural traditions. This Hindu altar is from a home in San Diego, California.
associated with the celebration of a holiday, that
originated in their homelands may be retained by family members across generations, reinforcing a
sense of ethnic heritage and identity today. More recent immigrants are likely to retain more of the lan-
guage and cultural traditions of their countries of origin. Non-European immigrants groups from Asia,
Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean also experience significant linguistic and cul-
tural losses over generations, but may also continue to self-identify with their ethnic backgrounds if
they do not feel fully incorporated into U.S, society because they “stick out” physically from Euro-
American society and experience prejudice and discrimination. Psychological, sociological, and anthro-
pological studies have indicated that retaining a strong sense of ethnic pride and identification is
common among ethnic minorities in the United States and other nations as a means of coping with and
overcoming societal bigotry.
While there have been periods of inter-ethnic tension between various European immigrant and eth-
nic groups in the United States, such as English-German and Irish-Italian conflicts, the descendants
of these groups today have been assimilated, to a very large degree, into the general racial category of
“white.”
Ethnic groups and ethnicity, like race, are socially constructed identities created at particular
moments in history under particular social conditions. The earliest views of ethnicity assumed that
people had innate, unchanging ethnic identities and loyalties. In actuality, ethnic identities shift and
are recreated over time and across societies. Anthropologists call this process ethnogenesis—gradual
emergence of a new, distinct ethnic identity in response to changing social circumstances. For example,
people whose ancestors came from what we know as Ireland may identify themselves as Irish Ameri-
cans and generations of their ancestors as Irish, but at one time, people living in that part of the world
identified themselves as Celtic.
In the United States, ethnogenesis has led to a number of new ethnic identities, including African
American, Native American, American Indian, and Italian American. Slaves brought to America in the
colonial period came primarily from Central and Western Africa and represented dozens of ethnic her-
itages, including Yoruba, Igbo, Akan, and Chamba, that had unique languages, religions, and cultures
that were quickly lost because slaves were not permitted to speak their own languages or practice their
customs and religions. Over time, a new unified identity emerged among their descendants. But that
identity continues to evolve, as reflected by the transitions in the label used to identify it: from “colored”
(early 1900s) to “Negro” (1930s–1960s) to “Black” (late 1960s to the present) and “African American”
(1980s to the present).
A MELTING POT OR A SALAD BOWL?
There is tremendous ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity throughout the United States, largely
resulting from a long history and ongoing identification as a “nation of immigrants” that attracted mil-
lions of newcomers from every continent. Still, elected officials and residents ardently disagree about
how the United States should approach this diversity and incorporate immigrant, ethnic, and cultural
minority groups into the larger framework of American society. The fundamental question is whether
cultural minority groups should be encouraged to forego their ethnic and cultural identities and accul-
turate to the values, traditions, and customs of mainstream culture or should be allowed and encour-
aged to retain key elements of their identities and heritages. This is a highly emotional question. Matters
of cultural identity are often deeply personal and associated with strongly held beliefs about the defin-
ing features of their countries’ national identities. Over the past 400 years, three distinct social philoso-
phies have developed from efforts to promote national unity and tranquility in societies that have
experienced large-scale immigration: assimilation, multiculturalism, and amalgamation.
Assimilation encourages and may even demand that members of ethnic and immigrant minority
groups abandon their native customs, traditions, languages, and identities as quickly as possible and
adopt those of mainstream society—“When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Advocates of assimilation
generally view a strong sense of national unity based on a shared linguistic and cultural heritage as the
best way to promote a strong national identity and avoid ethnic conflict. They point, for example, to
ethnic warfare and genocide in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s and to recent inde-
pendence movements by French Canadians in Quebec and in Scotland as evidence of negative conse-
quences of groups retaining a strong sense of loyalty and identification with their ethnic or linguistic
communities. The “English as the Official Language” movement in the United States is another exam-
ple. People are concerned that U.S. unity is weakened by immigrants who do not learn to speak English.
In recent years, the U.S. Census Bureau has identified more than 300 languages spoken in the United
States. In 2010, more than 60 million people representing 21 percent of the total U.S. population spoke
a language other than English at home and 38 million of those people spoke Spanish.
Multiculturalism takes a different view of assimilation, arguing that ethnic and cultural diversity
is a positive quality that enriches a society and encouraging respect for cultural differences. The basic
belief behind multiculturalism is that group differences, in and of themselves, do not spark tension, and
society should promote tolerance for differences rather than urging members of immigrant, ethnic, and
cultural minority groups to shed their customs and identities. Vivid examples of multiculturalism can
be seen in major cities across the United States, such as New York, where ethnic neighborhoods such
as Chinatown and Little Italy border one another, and Los Angeles, which features many diverse neigh-
borhoods, including Little Tokyo, Koreatown, Filipinotown, Little Armenia, and Little Ethiopia. The
ultimate objective of multiculturalism is to promote peaceful coexistence while allowing each ethnic
community to preserve its unique heritage and identity. Multiculturalism is the official governmental
policy of Canada; it was codified in 1988 under the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, which declares that
“multiculturalism reflects the cultural and racial diversity of Canadian society and acknowledges the
freedom of all members of Canadian society to preserve, enhance, and share their cultural heritage.”32
Amalgamation promotes hybridization of diverse cultural groups in a multiethnic society. Members
223
of distinct ethnic and cultural groups freely intermingle, interact, and live among one another with cul-
tural exchanges and, ultimately, inter-ethnic dating and intermarriage occurring as the social and cul-
tural barriers between groups fade over time. Amalgamation is similar to assimilation in that a strong,
unified national culture is viewed as the desired end result but differs because it represents a more thor-
ough “melting pot” that blends the various groups in a society (the dominant/mainstream group and
minority groups) into a new hybridized cultural identity rather than expecting minority groups to con-
form to the majority’s standards.
Debate is ongoing among sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and political pundits regarding the
relative merits of each approach and which, if any, most accurately describes the United States. It is a
complex and often contentious question because people may confuse their personal ideologies (what
they think the United States should strive for) with social reality (what actually occurs). Furthermore,
the United States is a large, complex country geographically that is comprised of large urban centers
with millions of residents, moderately populated areas characterized by small towns, and mostly rural
communities with only several hundred or a few thousand inhabitants. The nature of social and cultural
life varies significantly with the setting in which it occurs.
ANTHROPOLOGY MEETS POPULAR CULTURE: SPORTS, RACE/ETHNICITY AND

DIVERSITY
Throughout this chapter, I have stated that the concept of race is a socially constructed idea and
explained why biologically distinct human races do not exist. Still, many in the United States cling to
a belief in the existence of biological racial groups (regardless of their racial and ethnic backgrounds).
Historically, the nature of popular sports in the United States has been offered as “proof” of biological
differences between races in terms of natural athletic skills and abilities. In this regard, the world of
sports has served as an important social institution in which notions of biological racial differences
become reified—mistakenly assumed as objective, real, and factual. Specifically, many Americans have
noted the large numbers of African Americans in Olympic sprinting, the National Football League
(NFL), and the National Basketball Association (NBA) and interpreted their disproportionate number
as perceived “evidence” or “proof” that “blacks” have unique genes, muscles, bone structures, and/or
other biological qualities that make them superior athletes relative to people from other racial back-
grounds—that they are “naturally gifted” runners and jumpers and thus predominate in sports.
This topic sparked intense media attention in 2012 during the lead-up to that year’s Olympics in Lon-
don. Michael Johnson, a retired African American track star who won gold medals at the 1992, 1996,
and 2000 Summer Olympic Games, declared that “black” Americans and West Indians (of Jamaican,
Trinidadian, Barbadian, and other Caribbean descent) dominated international sprinting competitions
because they possessed a “superior athletic gene” that resulted from slavery: “All my life, I believed I
became an athlete through my own determination, but it’s impossible to think that being descended
from slaves hasn’t left an imprint through the generations . . . slavery has benefited descendants like me.
I believe there is a superior athletic gene in us.”33 Others have previously expressed similar ideas, such as
writer John Entine, who suggested in his book, Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re
Afraid to Talk About It (2000), that the brutal nature of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and harsh conditions
of slavery in the Americas produced slaves who could move faster and who had stronger, more durable
bodies than the general population and that those supposedly hardier bodies persisted in today’s African
Americans and Afro-Caribbeans, giving them important athletic advantages over others. In a similar
vein, former CBS sportscaster Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder claimed, on the eve of Super Bowl XXII in
1988, that African Americans comprised the majority of NFL players because they were “bred that way”
during slavery as a form of selective breeding between bigger and stronger slaves much like had been
done with racehorses. Snyder was fired from CBS shortly after amid a tidal wave of controversy and
furor. Racial stereotypes regarding perceptions of innate differences in athletic ability were a major
theme in the 1992 comedy film White Men Can’t Jump, which starred Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrel-
son as an inter-racial pair of basketball street hustlers.
Despite such beliefs, even among people who otherwise do not harbor racist sentiments, the notion
of innate “black” athletic supremacy is obviously misguided, fallacious, and self-contradictory when we
examine the demographic composition of the full range of sports in the United States rather than focus-
ing solely on a few extremely popular sports that pay high salaries and have long served as inspira-
tion for upward mobility and fame in a society in which educational and employment opportunities for
lower-income and impoverished minority groups (often concentrated in inner-city communities) have
rarely been equivalent to those of middle-class and affluent “whites” living in small towns and subur-
ban communities. Take the myth that “blacks” have an innately superior jumping ability. The idea that
“white men can’t jump” stems from the relatively small number of white American players in the NBA
and has been reified by the fact that only one “white” player (Brent Barry of the Los Angeles Clippers in
1996) has ever won the NBA’s annual slam-dunk contest. However, the stereotype would be completely
inverted if we look at the demographic composition and results of high jump competitions. The high
jump is arguably a better gauge of leaping ability than a slam-dunk contest since it requires raising the
entire body over a horizontal bar and prohibits extension of the arms overhead, thus diminishing any
potential advantage from height. For decades, both the men’s and the women’s international high jump
competitions have been dominated by white athletes from the United States and Europe. Yet no one
attributes their success to “white racial genes.” American society does not have a generational history of
viewing people who are socially identified as “white” in terms of body type and physical prowess as it
does with African Americans.
The same dynamic is at play if we compare basketball with volleyball. Both sports require similar sets
of skills, namely, jumping, speed, agility, endurance, and outstanding hand-eye coordination. Neverthe-
less, beach volleyball has tended to be dominated by “white” athletes from the United States, Canada,
Australia, and Europe while indoor volleyball is more “racially balanced” (if we assume that biological
human races actually exist) since the powerhouse indoor volleyball nations are the United States, China,
Japan, Brazil, Cuba, and Russia.
Thus, a variety of factors, including cultural affinities and preferences, social access and opportuni-
ties, existence of a societal infrastructure that supports youth participation and development in par-
ticular sports, and the degree of prestige assigned to various sports by nations, cultures, and ethnic
communities, all play significant roles in influencing the concentration of social and/or ethnic groups
in particular sports. It is not a matter of individual or group skills or talents; important socio-economic
dimensions shape who participates in a sport and who excels. Think about a sport in which you have
participated or have followed closely. What social dynamics do you associate with that sport in terms of
the gender, race/ethnicity, and social class of the athletes who predominate in it?
For additional insight into the important role that social dynamics play in shaping the racial/ethnic,
social class, and cultural dimensions of athletes, let us briefly consider three sports: basketball, boxing,
and football. While basketball is a national sport played throughout the United States, it also has long
been associated with urban/inner-city environments, and many professional American basketball play-
ers have come from working class and lower-income backgrounds. This trend dates to the 1930s, when
Jewish players and teams dominated professional basketball in the United States. That dominance was
225
commonly explained by the media in terms of the alleged “scheming,” “flashiness,” and “artful dodging”
nature of the “Jewish culture.” In other words, Jews were believed to have a fundamental talent for hoops
that explained their over-representation in the sport. In reality, most Jewish immigrants in the early
twentieth century lived in working class, urban neighborhoods such as New York City, Philadelphia,
and Chicago where basketball was a popular sport in the local social fabric of working-class communi-
ties.34
By 1992, approximately 90 percent of NBA players were African American, and the league’s demo-
graphics once again fueled rumors that a racial/ethnic group was “naturally gifted” in basketball. How-
ever, within ten short years, foreign-born players largely from Eastern European nations such as
Lithuania, Germany, Poland, Latvia, Serbia, Croatia, Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey accounted for nearly
20 percent of the starting line-ups of NBA teams. The first player selected in the 2002 NBA draft was
seven-foot six-inch center Yao Ming, a native of Shanghai, China, and by the early 2000s, the United
States had lost some of its traditional dominance of international basketball as several nations began to
catch up because of the tremendous globalization of basketball’s popularity.
Like basketball, boxing has been an urban sport popular among working-class ethnic groups. During
the early twentieth century, both amateur and professional boxing in the United States were dominated
by European immigrant groups, particularly the Irish, Italians, and Jewish Americans. As with basket-
ball, which inspired the “hoop dreams” of inner-city youths to escape poverty by reaching the pro-
fessional ranks, boxing provided sons of lower-income European immigrants with dreams of upward
mobility, fame, and fortune. In fact, it was one of the few American sports that thrived during the Great
Depression, attracting a wave of impoverished young people who saw pugilism as a ticket to financial
security. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, intra-European ethnic rivalries (Irish vs.
Italian, Italian vs. Jewish) were common in U.S. boxing; fighters were seen as quasi-ambassadors of their
respective neighborhoods and ethnic communities.
The demographic composition of boxers began to change in the latter half of the twentieth century
when formerly stigmatized and racialized Eastern European immigrant groups began to be perceived
simply as “white” and mainstream. They attained middle-class status and relocated to the newly estab-
lished suburbs, and boxing underwent a profound racial and ethnic transition. New urban minority
groups—African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Mexican Americans who moved into inner-city neigh-
borhoods vacated by Europeans began to dominate boxing.
Finally, consider football, which has surpassed baseball as the most popular spectator sport in the
United States and is popular with all social classes, races/ethnicities, and regions. Collegiate and pro-
fessional football rosters are also undergoing a demographic change; a growing number of current
National College Athletic Association and NFL players were born outside the mainland United States.
Since the 1980s, many athletes from American Samoa, a U.S. territory in the South Pacific, have joined
U.S. football teams. A boy in American Samoa is an astounding 56 times more likely to make the NFL
than a boy born and raised on the U.S. mainland!35 American Samoa’s rapid transformation into a grid-
iron powerhouse is the result of several inter-related factors that dramatically increased the appeal of
the sport across the tiny island, including the cultural influence of American missionaries who intro-
duced football. Expanding migration of Samoans to Hawaii and California in recent decades has also
fostered their interest in football, which has trickled back to the South Pacific, and the NFL is working
to expand the popularity of football in American Samoa.36 Similarly, Major League Baseball has been
promoting baseball in the Dominican Republic, Korea, and Japan in recent years.
CONCLUSION
Issues of race, racism, and ethnic relations remain among the most contentious social and political
topics in the United States and throughout the world. Anthropology offers valuable information to the
public regarding these issues, as anthropological knowledge encourages individuals to “think outside
the box” about race and ethnicity. This “thinking outside the box” includes understanding that racial
and ethnic categories are socially constructed rather than natural, biological divisions of humankind
and realizing that the current racial and ethnic categories that exist in the United States today do not
necessarily reflect categories used in other countries. Physical anthropologists, who study human evo-
lution, epidemiology, and genetics, are uniquely qualified to explain why distinct biological human
races do not exist. Nevertheless, race and ethnicity – as social constructs – continue to be used as cri-
teria for prejudice, discrimination, exclusion, and stereotypes well into the twenty-first century. Cul-
tural anthropologists play a crucial role in informing the public how the concept of race originated, how
racial categories have shifted over time, how race and ethnicity are constructed differently within var-
ious nations across the world, and how the current racial and ethnic categories utilized in the United
States were arbitrarily labeled and defined by the federal government under OMB Directive 15 in 1977.
Understanding the complex nature of clines and continuous biological human variation, along with an
awareness of the distinct ways in which race and ethnicity have been constructed in different nations,
enables us to recognize racial and ethnic labels not as self-evident biological divisions of humans, but
instead as socially created categories that vary cross-culturally.
1. García describes the reasons that race is considered a “discredited concept in human biology.” Despite this scientific fact, most
people continue to believe that race is “real.” Why do you think race has continued to be an important social reality even after it has
been discredited scientifically?
2. The process of racial formation is different in every society. In the United States, the “one-drop rule” and hypodescent have his-
torically affected the way people with multiracial backgrounds have been racialized. How have ideas about multiracial identity been
changing in the past few decades? As the number of people who identify as “multiracial” increases, do you think there will be
changes in the way we think about other racial categories?
3. Members of some ethnic groups are able to practice symbolic ethnicity, limited or occasional displays of ethnic pride and iden-
tity. Why can ethnicity be displayed in an optional way while race cannot?
4. There is no scientific evidence supporting the idea that racial or ethnic background provides a biological advantage in sports.
Instead, a variety of social dynamics, including cultural affinities and preferences as well as access and opportunities influence who
will become involved in particular sports. Think about a sport in which you have participated or have followed closely. What social
dynamics do you think are most responsible for affecting the racial, ethnic, gender, or social class composition of the athletes who
participate?
GLOSSARY
Acculturation: loss of a minority group’s cultural distinctiveness in relation to the dominant culture.
Amalgamation: interactions between members of distinct ethnic and cultural groups that reduce bar-
riers between the groups over time.
227
Assimilation: pressure placed on minority groups to adopt the customs and traditions of the dominant
culture.
Cline: differences in the traits that occur in populations across a geographical area. In a cline, a trait
may be more common in one geographical area than another, but the variation is gradual and continu-
ous, with no sharp breaks.
Ethnic group: people in a society who claim a distinct identity for themselves based on shared cultural
characteristics and ancestry.
Ethnicity: the degree to which a person identifies with and feels an attachment to a particular ethnic
group.
Ethnogenesis: gradual emergence of new ethnicities in response to changing social circumstances.
Hypodescent: a racial classification system that assigns a person with mixed racial heritage to the racial
category that is considered least privileged.
Jim Crow: a term used to describe laws passed by state and local governments in the United States dur-
ing the early twentieth century to enforce racial segregation of public and private places.
Multiculturalism: maintenance of multiple cultural traditions in a single society.
Nonconcordant: genetic traits that are inherited independently rather than as a package.
One-drop rule: the practice of excluding a person with any non-white ancestry from the white racial
category.
Pigmentocracy: a society characterized by strong correlation between a person’s skin color and his or
her social class.
Race: an attempt to categorize humans based on observed physical differences.
Racial formation: the process of defining and redefining racial categories in a society.
Reified: the process by which an inaccurate concept or idea is accepted as “truth.”
Socially constructed: a concept developed by society that is maintained over time through social inter-
actions that make the idea seem “real.”
Symbolic ethnicity: limited or occasional displays of ethnic pride and identity that are primarily for
public display.
Taxonomy: a system of classification.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I am an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Millersville University of

Pennsylvania, a public state-owned university located approximately 70 miles west of Philadelphia.
I earned my Ph.D. in Anthropology from Temple University in 2011, with a specific focus in urban
anthropology. I currently live in Chester County, Pennsylvania in suburban Philadelphia. My research
interests include U.S. immigration, social constructs of race and ethnicity, urban social/cultural life,
U.S. popular culture, human evolution/the hominid lineage, and anthropological theory. Aside from
anthropology, my hobbies include lifting weights, watching sports (particularly boxing, football, and
basketball) and movies, traveling, and playing video games (the Grand Theft Auto series is my personal
favorite).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Boas, Franz. “Race Problems in America.” Science 29 no. 752 (1909): 839–849.
Brace, C. Loring. ‘Race’ is a Four-Letter Word: The Genesis of the Concept. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2005.
Entine, John. Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It. New York:
Public Affairs Publishing, 2000.
Hartigan, John. Racial Situations: Class Predicaments of Whiteness in Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni-
Jablonski, Nina. Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 2012.
Marks, Jonathan. “Black, White, Other.” Natural History December, 1994: 32–35.
McIntosh, Peggy. “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Corre-
spondences through Work in Women’s Studies.” Working Paper 189. Wellesley, MA: Wellesley Col-
lege Center for Research on Women, 1988.
Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States. New York: Routledge,
2014[1986].
Relethford, John H. Reflections Of Our Past: How Human History Is Revealed In Our Genes. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 2004.
Notes
1. For more information about efforts to establish a “scientific” basis for race in the 18th and 19th centuries, see
the “History” section of the Race: Are We So Different website: http://www.understandingrace.org. Stephen Jay
Gould’s book, The Mismeasure of Man (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), has a detailed discussion of the “scien-
tific” methods used by Morton and others.
2. More information about the social construction of racial categories in the United States can be found in Audrey
Smedley, Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2007) and Nell
Irvin Painter, The History of White People (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010).
3. More discussion of the material in this section can be found in Carol Mukhopadhyay, Rosemary Henze, and
Yolanda Moses, How Real Is Race? A Sourcebook on Race, Culture, and Biology (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
2013). Chapters 5 and 6 discuss the cultural construction of racial categories as a form of classification. The
Race: Are We So Different website and its companion resources for teachers and researchers also explore the ideas
described here.
4. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, On the Natural Varieties of Mankind: De Generis Humani Varietate Nativa (New
York: Bergman Publishers, 1775).
5. For details about how these categories were established, see Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man.
6. For a discussion of the efforts to subdivide racial groups in the nineteenth century and its connection to eugen-
ics, see Carol Mukhopadhyay, Rosemary Henze, and Yolanda Moses, How Real Is Race? A Sourcebook on Race, Cul-
ture, and Biology.
7. For more information about the genetic variation between human groups that puts this example in context see
Sheldon Krimsky and Kathleen Sloan, Race and the Genetic Revolution: Science, Myth, and Culture (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2011), 174-180.
8. Carol Mukhopadhyay et. al How Real Is Race? A Sourcebook on Race, Culture, and Biology, 43-48.
229
9. Ibid., 50-52.
10. Ibid., 50-51.
11. Ibid., 62.
12. Alan R. Templeton, “Human Races: A Genetic and Evolutionary Perspective” American Anthropologist 100 no. 3
(1998): 632-650.
13. Jonathan Marks, “Black, White, Other,” 35.
14. Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 64.
15. Ibid., 61
16. For more information about the social construction of whiteness in U.S. History see Nell Irvin Painter, The His-
tory of White People; Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York: Routledge, 1995). For more informa-
tion about the economic aspects of the construction of whiteness both before and after World War II, see David
Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (Chicago, IL: Haymarket,
2007) and George Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998).
17. For a detailed discussion of this process see Douglas S. Massey and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid: Segrega-
tion and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993) and Ira Katznelson, When
Affirmative Action was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth Century America (New York: W.W.
Norton and Company, 2005).
18. For more information on these historical developments and their social ramifications, see Karen Brodkin, How
Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press,
1998) or David Roediger, Working Toward Whiteness: How America’s Immigrants Became White—The Strange Journey
From Ellis Island to the Suburbs (New York: Basic Books, 2005).
19. While the one-drop rule was intended to protect the institution of slavery, a more nuanced view of racial iden-
tity has existed throughout U.S. History. For a history of the racial categories used historically in the United
States census, including several mixed-race categories, see the Pew Research Center’s “What Census Calls Us:
Historical Timeline.” http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/interactives/multiracial-timeline/
20. It is important to note that President Obama has also stated that he self-identifies as black. See for instance, Sam
Roberts and Peter Baker. 2010. “Asked to Declare His Race, Obama Checks ‘Black.’” The New York Times, April 2.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/us/politics/03census.html
21. This concept is discussed in more detail in chapter 9 of Carol Mukhopadhyay et. al How Real Is Race: A Sourebook
on Race, Culture, and Biology.
22. Edward Telles originated this expression in his book Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in
Brazil (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).
23. More information about the Brazilian concepts of race described in this section is available in Jefferson M. Fish,
“Mixed Blood: An Analytical Method of Classifying Race.” Psychology Today, November 1, 1995.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199511/mixed-blood
24. Conrad Kottak, Anthropology: Appreciating Cultural Diversity (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013).
25. See for instance the PBS documentary Brazil: A Racial Paradise, written and presented by Henry Louis Gates, Jr..
For a detailed critique of the idea of Brazil as a “racial democracy,” see Michael Hanchard (ed), Racial Politics in
Contemporary Brazil (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999).
26. Robert J. Cottrol, The Long Lingering Shadow: Slavery, Race, and Law in the American Hemisphere (Athens, GA: Uni-
versity of Georgia Press, 2013), 246.
27. Ibid., 145
28. For more information about Brazil’s official policy toward mixed-race children during this era see Thomas E.
Skidmore, Black Into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1992).
29. For a detailed discussion of stratification without race, see chapter 8 of Carol Mukhopadyay et. al How Real is
Race? A Sourcebook on Race, Culture, and Biology.
30. For more information about the status of Burakumin in Japan see Emily A. Su-lan Reber, “Buraku Mondai in
Japan: Historical and Modern Perspectives and Directions for the Future.” Harvard Human Rights Journal 12
(1999): 298
31. The distinction between race and ethnicity is a complex and controversial one within anthropology. Some
anthropologists combine these concepts in acknowledgement of the overlap between them. See for instance
Karen Brodkin. How Jews Became White and What This Says About Race in America.
32. Canadian Multicultural Act, 1985. http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-18.7/FullText.html
33. Rene Lynch, “Michael Johnson Says Slave Descendants Make Better Athletes” Los Angeles Times, July 5, 2012.
34. The 2010 documentary The First Basket by David Vyorst describes the experiences of Jewish basketball players in
the mid-twentieth century U.S.
35. Scott Pelley, America Samoa: Football Island. CBS News, September 17, 2010 http://www.cbsnews.com/news/
american-samoa-football-island-17-09-2010/
36. Ibid.
10
GENDER AND SEXUALITY
Carol C. Mukhopadhyay, San Jose State University

[email protected]
http://www.sjsu.edu/people/carol.mukhopadhyay
Tami Blumenfield, Yunnan University

[email protected]
with Susan Harper, Texas Woman’s University, [email protected], and Abby Gondek,
[email protected]
Learning Objectives
• Identify ways in which culture shapes sex/gender and sexuality.
• Describe ways in which gender and sexuality organize and structure the societies in which we live.
• Assess the range of possible ways of constructing gender and sexuality by sharing examples from different cultures, including
small-scale societies.
• Analyze how anthropology as a discipline is affected by gender ideology and gender norms.
• Evaluate cultural “origin” stories that are not supported by anthropological data.
INTRODUCTION: SEX AND GENDER ACCORDING TO ANTHROPOLOGISTS
Anthropologists1 are fond of pointing out that much of what we take for granted as “natural” in our
lives is actually cultural—it is not grounded in the natural world or in biology but invented by humans.2
231
Because culture is invented, it takes different forms in different places and changes over time in those
places. Living in the twenty-first century, we have witnessed how rapidly and dramatically culture can
change, from ways of communicating to the emergence of same-sex marriage. Similarly, many of us live
in culturally diverse settings and experience how varied human cultural inventions can be.
We readily accept that clothing, language, and music are cultural—invented, created, and alter-
able—but often find it difficult to accept that gender and sexuality are not natural but deeply embedded
in and shaped by culture. We struggle with the idea that the division of humans into two and only two
categories, “male” and “female,” is not universal, that “male” and “female” are cultural concepts that take
different forms and have different meanings cross-culturally. Similarly, human sexuality, rather than
being simply natural is one of the most culturally significant, shaped, regulated, and symbolic of all
human capacities. The concept of humans as either “heterosexual” or “homosexual” is a culturally and
historically specific invention that is increasingly being challenged in the United States and elsewhere.
Part of the problem is that gender has a biological component, unlike other types of cultural inven-
tions such as a sewing machine, cell phone, or poem. We do have bodies and there are some male-
female differences, including in reproductive capacities and roles, albeit far fewer than we have been
taught. Similarly, sexuality, sexual desires and responses, are partially rooted in human natural capaci-
ties. However, in many ways, sexuality and gender are like food. We have a biologically rooted need to
eat to survive and we have the capacity to enjoy eating. What constitutes “food,” what is “delicious” or
“repulsive,” the contexts and meanings that surround food and human eating—those are cultural. Many
potentially edible items are not “food” (rats, bumblebees, and cats in the United States, for example), and
the concept of “food” itself is embedded in elaborate conventions about eating: how, when, with whom,
where, “utensils,” for what purposes? A “romantic dinner” at a “gourmet restaurant” is a complex cul-
tural invention.
In short, gender and sexuality, like eating, have biological components. But cultures, over time, have
erected complex and elaborate edifices around them, creating systems of meaning that often barely
resemble what is natural and innate. We experience gender and sexuality largely through the prism of
the culture or cultures to which we have been exposed and in which we have been raised.
In this chapter, we are asking you to reflect deeply on the ways in which what we have been taught to
think of as natural, that is, our sex, gender, and our sexuality, is, in fact, deeply embedded in and shaped
by our culture. We challenge you to explore exactly which, if any, aspects of our gender and our sexual-
ity are totally natural.
One powerful aspect of culture, and a reason cultural norms feel so natural, is that we learn culture
the way we learn our native language: without formal instruction, in social contexts, picking it up from
others around us, without thinking. Soon, it becomes deeply embedded in our brains. We no longer
think consciously about what the sounds we hear when someone says “hello” mean unless we do not
speak English. Nor is it difficult to “tell the time” on a “clock” even though “time” and “clocks” are com-
plex cultural inventions.
The same principles apply to gender and sexuality. We learn very early (by at least age three) about
the categories of gender in our culture—that individuals are either “male” or “female” and that elaborate
beliefs, behaviors, and meanings are associated with each gender. We can think of this complex set of
ideas as a gender ideology or a cultural model of gender. All societies have gender ideologies, just
as they have belief systems about other significant areas of life, such as health and disease, the natural
world, and social relationships, including family. For an activity related to this section, see Activity 1 in
the Teaching Resources of the Perspectives website.
233
FOUNDATIONS OF THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF GENDER
Gender Ideologies, Biology, and Culture
Gender vs. Sex
Words can reveal cultural beliefs. A good example is the term “sex.” In the past, sex referred both to
sexuality and to someone’s biologic sex: male or female. Today, although sex still refers to sexuality,
“gender” now means the categories male, female, or increasingly, other gender possibilities. Why has
this occurred?
The change in terminology reflects profound alterations in gender ideology in the United States (and
elsewhere). In the past, influenced by Judeo-Christian religion and nineteenth and twentieth century
scientific beliefs, biology (and reproductive capacity) was literally considered to be destiny. Males and
females, at least “normal” males and females, were thought to be born with different intellectual, physi-
cal, and moral capacities, preferences, tastes, personalities, and predispositions for violence and suffer-
ing.3
Ironically, many cultures, including European Christianity in the Middle Ages, viewed women as
having a strong, often “insatiable” sexual “drive” and capacity. But by the nineteenth century, women
and their sexuality were largely defined in reproductive terms, as in their capacity to “carry a man’s
child.” Even late-twentieth-century human sexuality texts often referred only to “reproductive systems,”
to genitals as “reproductive” organs, and excluded the “clitoris” and other female organs of sexual plea-
sure that had no reproductive function. For women, the primary, if not sole, legitimate purpose of sex-
uality was reproduction.4
Nineteenth and mid-twentieth century European and U.S. gender ideologies linked sexuality and
gender in other ways.5 Sexual preference—the sex to whom one was attracted—was “naturally” hetero-
sexual, at least among “normal” humans, and “normal,” according to mid-twentieth century Freudian-
influenced psychology, was defined largely by whether one adhered to conventional gender roles for
males and females. So, appropriately, “masculine” men were “naturally” attracted to “feminine” women
and vice versa. Homosexuality, too, was depicted not just as a sexual preference but as gender-inappro-
priate role behavior, down to gestures and color of clothing.6 This is apparent in old stereotypes of gay
men as “effeminate” (acting like a female, wearing “female” fabrics such as silk or colors such as pink,
and participating in “feminine” professions like ballet) and of lesbian women as “butch” (cropped hair,
riding motorcycles, wearing leather—prototypical masculinity). Once again, separate phenomena—sex-
ual preference and gender role performance—were conflated because of beliefs that rooted both in biol-
ogy. “Abnormality” in one sphere (sexual preference) was linked to “abnormality” in the other sphere
(gendered capacities and preferences).
In short, the gender and sexual ideologies were based on biological determinism. According to this
theory, males and females were supposedly born fundamentally different reproductively and in other
major capacities and preferences and were “naturally” (biologically) sexually attracted to each other,
although women’s sexual “drive” was not very well developed relative to men’s and was reproductively
oriented.
Rejecting Biological Determinism
Decades of research on gender and sexuality, including by feminist anthropologists, has challenged
these old theories, particularly biological determinism. We now understand that cultures, not nature,
create the gender ideologies that go along with being born male or female and the ideologies vary
widely, cross-culturally. What is considered “man’s work” in some societies, such as carrying heavy
loads, or farming, can be “woman’s work” in others. What is “masculine” and “feminine” varies: pink
and blue, for example, are culturally invented gender-color linkages, and skirts and “make-up” can be
worn by men, indeed by “warriors.” Hindu deities, male and female, are highly decorated and difficult
to distinguish, at least by conventional masculinist U.S. stereotypes (see examples and Figures 1 and 2).
Figure 1: Hindu deities: Vishnu and his many “avatars” or forms

(all male).
Figure 2. Hindu Deities: Vishnu and Goddess Shiva plus avatars.
Women can be thought of as stronger (“tougher,” more “rational”) than men. Phyllis Kaberry, an
anthropologist who studied the Nsaw of Cameroon in the 1940s, said males in that culture argued that
land preparation for the rizga crop was “a woman’s job, which is too strenuous for the men” and that
“women could carry heavy loads because they had stronger foreheads.”7 Among the Aka who live in
the present-day Central African Republic, fathers have close, intimate, relationships with infants, play
major roles in all aspects of infant-care, and can sometimes produce breast milk.8 As for sexual desires,
235
research on the human sexual response by William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson established
that men and women have equal biological capacities for sexual pleasure and orgasm and that, because
males generally ejaculate simultaneously with orgasm, it is easier for women than men to have multiple
orgasms.9
Gender: A Cultural Invention and a Social Role
One’s biologic sex is a different phenomenon than one’s gender, which is socially and historically
constructed.10 Gender is a set of culturally invented expectations and therefore constitutes a role one
assumes, learns, and performs, more or less consciously. It is an “identity” one can in theory choose, at
least in some societies, although there is tremendous pressure, as in the United States, to conform to the
gender role and identity linked to your biologic sex.
This is a profound transformation in how we think about both gender and sexuality. The reality of
human biology is that males and females are shockingly similar.11 There is arguably more variability
within than between each gender, especially taking into account the enormous variability in human phys-
ical traits among human populations globally.12 Notice, for example, the variability in height in the two
photos of U.S. college students shown in Figures 3 and 4. Which gender is “taller”? Much of what has
been defined as “biological” is actually cultural, so the possibilities for transformation and change are
nearly endless! That can be liberating, especially when we are young and want to create identities that
fit our particular configuration of abilities and preferences. It can also be upsetting to people who have
deeply internalized and who want to maintain the old gender ideology.
Figure 3: Gender variability: students in a Human Sexuality Class at San Jose State University with Dr. Carol Mukhopadhyay, 2010.
Figure 4: Gender variability: students in Kalamazoo at Michigan State University, with Dr. Carol Mukhopadhyay, 2010.
The Gender Binary and Beyond

We anthropologists, as noted earlier, love to shake up notions of what is “natural” and “normal.” One
common assumption is that all cultures divide human beings into two and only two genders, a binary
or dualistic model of gender. However, in some cultures gender is more fluid and flexible, allowing
individuals born as one biologic sex to assume another gender or creating more than two genders from
which individuals can select. Examples of non-binary cultures come from pre-contact Native Amer-
ica. Anthropologists such as Ruth Benedict long ago identified a fairly widespread phenomenon of
“two-spirit” people, individuals who do not comfortably conform to the gender roles and gender ideol-
ogy normally associated with their biologic sex. Among Zuni people of New Mexico, beginning in the
pre-contact era which was a relatively gender-egalitarian horticultural society for example, individuals
could choose an alternative role of “not-men” or “not-women.” A two-spirited Zuni man would do the
work and wear clothing normally associated with females, having shown a preference for female-iden-
tified activities and symbols at an early age. In some, but not all cases, they would eventually marry a
man. Early European ethnocentric reports often described it as a form of homosexuality. Anthropol-
ogists suggested more-complex motivations, including dreams of selection by spirits, individual psy-
chologies, biological characteristics, and negative aspects of male roles (e.g., warfare). Most significantly,
these alternative gender roles are acceptable, publicly recognized, and sometimes venerated.13
Less is known about additional gender roles available to biological women, although stories of
“manly hearted women” suggest a parallel among some Native American groups. For example, a Kute-
nai woman known to have lived in 1811 was originally married to a French-Canadian man but then
returned to the Kutenai and assumed a male gender role, changing her name to Kauxuma nupika (Gone-
to-the-Spirits), becoming a spiritual prophet, and eventually marrying a woman.14
A well-known example of a non-binary gender system is found among the Hijra in India. Often called
a third gender, these individuals are usually biologically male but adopt female clothing, gestures, and
names; eschew sexual desire and sexual activity; and go through religious rituals that give them certain
divine powers, including blessing or cursing couples’ fertility and performing at weddings and births.
Hijra may undergo voluntary surgical removal of genitals through a “nirvan” or rebirth operation. Some
hijra are males born with ambiguous external genitals, such as a particularly small penis or testicles that
did not fully descend.15
Research has shown that individuals with ambiguous genitals, sometimes called “intersex,” are sur-
prisingly common. Martha Ward and Monica Edelstein estimate that such intersex individuals consti-
237
tute five percent of human births.16 So what are cultures to do when faced with an infant or child who
cannot easily be “sexed?” Some cultures, including the United States, used to force children into one of
the two binary categories, even if it required surgery or hormone therapy. But in other places, such as
India and among the Isthmus Zapotec in southern Oaxaca, Mexico, they have instead created a third
gender category that has an institutional identity and role to perform in society.17
These cross-cultural examples demonstrate that the traditional rigid binary gender model in the
United States is neither universal nor necessary. While all cultures recognize at least two biological
sexes, usually based on genitals visible at birth, and have created at least two gender roles, many cultures
go beyond the binary model, offering a third or fourth gender category. Other cultures allow individ-
uals to adopt, without sanctions, a gender role that is not congruent with their biological sex. In short,
biology need not be destiny when it comes to gender roles, as we are increasingly discovering in the
United States.
Variability Among Binary Cultures
Even societies with a binary gender system exhibit enormous variability in the meanings and prac-
tices associated with being male or female. Sometimes male-female distinctions pervade virtually all
aspects of life, structuring space, work, social life, communication, body decoration, and expressive
forms such as music. For instance, both genders may farm, but may have separate fields for “male” and
“female” crops and gender-specific crop rituals. Or, the village public space may be spatially segregated
with a “men’s house” (a special dwelling only for men, like a “men’s club”) and a “women’s house.” In
some societies, such as the Sambia of New Guinea, even when married couples occupy the same house,
the space within the house is divided into male and female areas.18
Women and men can also have gender-specific religious rituals and deities and use gender-identified
tools. There are cases of “male” and “female” foods, rains, and even “languages” (including words, verb
forms, pronouns, inflections, and writing systems; one example is the Nu Shu writing system used by
some women in parts of China in the twentieth century).19Gender ideologies can emphasize differences
in character, capacities, and morality, sometimes portraying males and females as “opposites” on a con-
tinuum.
In societies that are highly segregated by gender, gender relationships sometimes are seen as hostile
or oppositional with one of the genders (usually female) viewed as potentially threatening. Female bod-
ily fluids, such as menstrual blood and vaginal secretions, can be dangerous, damaging to men, “impure,”
and “polluting,” especially in ritual contexts. In other cases, however, menstrual blood is associated with
positive power. A girl’s first menstruation may be celebrated publicly with elaborate community rituals,
as among the Bemba in southern Africa, and subsequent monthly flows bring special privileges.20 Men
in some small-scale societies go through ritualized nose-bleeding, sometimes called “male menstrua-
tion,” though the meanings are quite complex.21
Gender Relations: Separate and Unequal
Of course, gender-differentiation is not unique to small-scale societies like the Sambia. Virtually all
major world religions have traditionally segregated males and females spatially and “marked” them in
other ways. Look at eighteenth- and nineteenth- century churches, which had gender-specific seating;
at contemporary Saudi Arabia, Iranian, and conservative Malaysian mosques; and at Orthodox Jewish
temples today in Israel and the United States.
Ambivalence and even fear of female sexuality, or negative associations with female bodily fluids,
such as menstrual blood, are widespread in the world’s major religions. Orthodox Jewish women are
not supposed to sleep in the same bed as their husbands when menstruating. In Kypseli, Greece, peo-
ple believe that menstruating women can cause wine to go bad.22 In some Catholic Portuguese villages,
menstruating women are restricted from preparing fresh pork sausages and from being in the room
where the sausages are made as their presence is believed to cause the pork to spoil. Contact with these
women also supposedly wilts plants and causes inexplicable movements of objects.23 Orthodox forms
of Hinduism prohibit menstruating women from activities such as cooking and attending temple.
These traditions are being challenged. A 2016 British Broadcasting Company (BBC) television pro-
gram, for example, described “Happy to Bleed,” a movement in India to change negative attitudes about
menstruation and eliminate the ban on menstruating-age women entering the famous Sabriamala Tem-
ple in Kerala.24
Emergence of Public (Male) vs. Domestic (Female) Spheres
In large stratified and centralized societies—that is, the powerful empires (so-called “civilizations”)
that have dominated much of the world for the past several thousand years—a “public” vs. “private”
or “domestic” distinction appears. The public, extra-family sphere of life is a relatively recent devel-
opment in human history even though most of us have grown up in or around cities and towns with
their obvious public spaces, physical manifestations of the political, economic, and other extra-family
institutions that characterize large-scale societies. In such settings, it is easy to identify the domestic or
private spaces families occupy, but a similar public-domestic distinction exists in villages. The public
sphere is associated with, and often dominated by, males. The domestic sphere, in contrast, is primar-
ily associated with women—though it, too, can be divided into male and female spheres. In India, for
example, where households frequently consist of multi-generational groups of male siblings and their
families, there often are “lounging” spaces where men congregate, smoke pipes, chat, and meet visitors.
Women’s spaces typically focus around the kitchen or cooking hearth (if outside) or at other sites of
women’s activities.25 In some cases, an inner court is the women’s area while the outer porch and roads
that connect the houses are male spaces. In some Middle Eastern villages, women create over-the-roof
paths for visiting each other without going “outside” into male spaces.26
The gender division between public and private/domestic, however, is as symbolic as it is spatial,
often emphasizing a gender ideology of social separation between males and females (except young
children), social regulation of sexuality and marriage, and male rights and control over females (wives,
daughters, sisters, and mothers). It manifests as separate spaces in mosques, sex-segregated schools, and
separate “ladies compartments” on trains, as in India (Figure 5).
239
Of course, it is impossible to separate the

genders completely. Rural women pass
through the more-public spaces of a village to
fetch water and firewood and to work in agri-
cultural fields. Women shop in public markets,
though that can be a “man’s job.” As girls more
often attend school, as in India, they take pub-
lic transportation and thus travel through pub-
lic “male” spaces even if they travel to all-girl
schools (Figure 6). At college, they can be
immersed in and even live on campuses where
men predominate, especially if they are study-
ing engineering, computer science, or other
technical subjects (Figure 7). This can severely
Figure 5: A women only train car in India. Photograph by Ajay Tallam, 2007.
limit Indian girls’ educational and occupational
choices, particularly for girls who come from
relatively conservative families or regions.27
One way in which women navigate “male” spaces is by adopting routes, behavior (avoiding eye con-
tact), and/or clothing that create separation.28 The term “purdah,” the separation or segregation of
women from men, literally means “veiling,” although other devices can be used. In nineteenth century
Jaipur, Rajasthan, royal Rajput women inhabited the inner courtyard spaces of the palace. But an elab-
orate false building front, the hawa mahal, allowed them to view the comings and goings on the street
without being exposed to the public male gaze.
As demand for educating girls has grown in traditionally sexually segregated societies, all-girl schools
have been constructed (see Figure 6), paralleling processes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century in the United States. At the university level, however, prestigious schools that offer high-
demand subjects such as engineering often have historically been all-male, excluding women as Harvard
once did.29 In other cases, there are no female faculty members teaching traditionally male subjects
like engineering at all-women colleges. In Saudi Arabia, women’s universities have taught courses using
closed-circuit television to avoid violating norms of sexual segregation, particularly for young, unmar-
ried women.30 In countries such as India, gynecologists and obstetricians have been predominantly
female, in part because families object to male doctors examining and treating women. Thus, in places
that do not have female physicians, women’s health can suffer.
Figure 6: All-girls school in Bangalore, India. Photograph by Carol Mukhopadhyay, 1989.
Figure 7: Management studies graduate students at CUSAT-Cochin University of Science and

Technology, Kerala, India. Photograph by Carol Mukhopadhyay, 1989.
Sanctions, Sexuality, Honor, and Shame
Penalties for deviating from the rules of social separation vary across and within cultures. In small
communities, neighbors and extended family kin can simply report inappropriate behavior, especially
between unmarried young adults, to other family members. More severe and sometimes violent
responses by family members can occur, especially if the family’s “honor” is involved—that is, if the
young adults, especially girls, engage in activities that would “shame” or dishonor the family. Honor
and shame are complex concepts that are often linked to sexuality, especially female sexuality, and to
behavior by family members that involves or hints at sexual impropriety. The Turkish film Mustang,
nominated for the 2016 best foreign film Academy Award, offers a good illustration of how concepts of
sexualized honor and shame operate.
We hear in the news of “honor killings” carried out by conservative Muslims in countries such as
241
Pakistan and powerfully portrayed in documentaries such as A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness
(2015).31 But it is not just Islam. Some orthodox sectors of major religions, including Christianity,
Judaism, and Hinduism, may hold similar views about “honor” and “shame” and impose sometimes vio-
lent sanctions against those who violate sexuality-related codes. The brutal 2012 gang rape-murder of
a young woman on a bus in Delhi, though perpetrated by strangers, was rationalized by the men who
committed the crime (and their defense attorney) as a legitimate response to the woman’s “shameful”
behavior—traveling on a bus at night with a male friend, implying sexual impropriety.32
Social separation, sex-segregated schools, and penalties for inappropriate sexual behavior have also
existed in the United States and Europe, especially among upper-strata women for whom female
“purity” was traditionally emphasized. Chastity belts in Europe, whether or not actually used, symbol-
ized the idea that a woman’s sexuality belonged solely to her husband, thus precluding her from engag-
ing not only in premarital and extra-marital sex but also in masturbation (Figure 8).33 In Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, set in mid-sixteenth century Massachusetts, Hester was forced to wear a
scarlet A on her dress and to stand on a public scaffold for three hours a day, a relatively nonviolent but
powerful form of shaming and punishment. Stoning women to death for sexually inappropriate behav-
ior, especially adultery, and other violent sanctions may have occurred in some European Christian and
Jewish communities.
Rape, so frequent in warfare past and present, also can bring shame to
the victim and her family, particularly in sexually conservative societies.
During the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence against Pakistan, East
Bengali women who were raped by soldiers were ostracized by their fami-
lies because of the “shame” their rape had brought. During the partition of
India into India and Pakistan in 1947, some Sikh families reportedly forced
daughters to jump into wells to drown rather than risk being raped by
strangers.34
Alternative Models of Gender: Complementary and Fluid Figure 8: A sketch of a chastity belt, c.
1405.
Not all binary cultures are gender-segregated; nor does gender hostility
necessarily accompany gender separation. Nor are all binary cultures deeply concerned with, some
might say obsessed with, regulating female sexuality and marriage. Premarital and extra-marital sex can
even be common and acceptable, as among the !Kung San and Trobriand Islanders.35 And men are not
always clearly ranked over women as they typically are in stratified large-scale centralized societies
with “patriarchal” systems. Instead, the two genders can be seen as complementary, equally valued and
both recognized as necessary to society. Different need not mean unequal. The Lahu of southwest China
and Thailand exemplify a complementary gender system in which men and women have distinct
expected roles but a male-female pair is necessary to accomplish most daily tasks (Figure 9). A male-
female pair historically took responsibility for local leadership. Male-female dyads completed daily
household tasks in tandem and worked together in the fields. The title of anthropologist Shanshan Du’s
book, Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs (1999), encapsulates how complementary gender roles defined Lahu
society. A single chopstick is not very useful; neither is a single person, man or woman, in a dual-
focused society.36
Figure 9: Lahu farmers in Chiangmai, Thailand.
Like the Lahu, the nearby Na believe men and women both play crucial roles in a family and house-
hold. Women are associated with birth and life while men take on tasks such as butchering animals and
preparing for funerals (Figures 10 and 11). Every Na house has two large pillars in the central hearth
room, one representing male identity and one representing female identity. Both are crucial, and the
house might well topple symbolically without both pillars. As sociologist Zhou Huashan explained in
his 2002 book about the Na, this is a society that “values women without diminishing men.”37
Figure 10: A Na woman, Sigih Lamu, weeds rice seedlings outside her family’s home in southwest China’s Yunnan
Province. Photograph by Tami Blumenfield, 2002.
243
Figure 11: Na men carry a wooden structure to be used at a funeral. Photograph by Tami Blumenfield, 2002.
Anthropologists have also encountered relatively androgynous gender-binary cultures. In these cul-
tures, some gender differentiation exists but “gender bending” and role-crossing are frequent, accepted,
and reflect circumstances and individual capacities and preferences. Examples are the !Kung San men-
tioned earlier, Native American Washoe in the United States, and some segments of European soci-
eties in countries such as Sweden and Finland and, increasingly, in the United States.38 Contemporary
twenty-first century gender ideologies tend to emphasize commonality, not difference: shared human
traits, flexibility, fluidity, and individual expression.
Even cultures with fairly well-defined gender roles do not necessarily view them as fixed, biologically
rooted, permanent, “essentialist,” or “naturalized” as occurred in the traditional gender ideology in the
United States.39 Gender may not even be an “identity” in a psychological sense but, rather, a social role
one assumes in a particular social context just as one moves between being a student, a daughter, an
employee, a wife or husband, president of the bicycle club, and a musician.
Cultures also change over time through internal and external forces such as trade, conquest, colo-
nialism, globalization, immigration, mass media, and, especially, films. Within every culture, there
is tremendous diversity in class, ethnicity, religion, region, education level, and generation, as well
as diversity related to more-individual family circumstances, predilections, and experiences. Gender
expectations also vary with one’s age and stage in life as well as one’s social role, even within the family
(e.g., “wife” vs. “sister” vs. “mother” vs. “mother-in-law” and “father” vs. “son” vs. “brother” vs “father-
in-law”). Finally, people can appear to conform to cultural norms but find ways of working around or
ignoring them.
Even in highly male-dominated, sexually segregated societies, women find ways to pursue their own
goals, to be actors, and to push the boundaries of the gender system. Among Egyptian Awlad ‘Ali
Bedouin families, for example, women rarely socialized outside their home compounds or with unre-
lated men. But within their spheres, they freely interacted with other women, could influence their
husbands, and wrote and sang poetic couplets as expressive outlets.40 In some of the poorest and least-
developed areas of central India, where patrilocal extended-family male-controlled households reign,
activist Sampat Pal has organized local rural women to combat violence based on dishonor and gen-
der.41 Her so-called “Gulabi Gang,” the subject of two films, illustrates both the possibilities of resis-
tance and the difficulties of changing a deeply embedded system based on gender, caste, and class
system (Figure 12).42 For a related activity, see Activity 2: Understanding Gender from a Martian Per-
spective.
Figure 12: Gulabi Gang in India.
Unraveling Our Gender Myths: Primate Roots, “Man the Hunter,” and Other “Origin Stories” of Gender and
Male Dominance
Even unencumbered by pregnancy or infants, a female hunter would be less fleet, generally less strong,
possibly more prone to changes in emotional tonus as a consequence of the estrus cycle, and less able to
adapt to changes in temperature than males.43
—U.S. anthropologist, 1969
Women don’t ride motorcycles because they can’t; they can’t because they are not strong enough to put
their legs down to stop it.44
—Five-year-old boy, Los Angeles, 1980
Men hunted because women were not allowed to come out of their houses and roam about in
forests.45
—Pre-college student in India, 1990
All cultures have “creation” stories. Many have elaborate gender-related creation stories that describe
the origins of males and females, their gender-specific traits, their relationships and sexual proclivities,
and, sometimes, how one gender came to “dominate” the other. Our culture is no different. The Judeo-
Christian Bible, like the Koran and other religious texts, addresses origins and gender (think of Adam
and Eve), and traditional folk tales, songs, dances, and epic stories, such as the Ramayana in Hinduism
and Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, treat similar themes.
Science, too, has sought to understand gender differences. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, a number of scientists, immersed in Darwinian theories, began to explore the evolutionary
245
roots of what they assumed to be universal: male dominance. Of course, scientists, like the rest of
us, view the world partially through their own cultural lenses and through a gendered version. Prior
to the 1970s, women and gender relations were largely invisible in the research literature and most
researchers were male so it is not surprising that 1960s theories reflected prevailing male-oriented folk
beliefs about gender.46
The Hunting Way of Life “Molds Man” (and Woman)
The most popular and persistent theories argued that male dominance is universal, rooted in species-
wide gendered biological traits that we acquired, first as part of our primate heritage, and further devel-
oped as we evolved from apes into humans. Emergence of “the hunting way of life” plays a major role in
this story. Crucial
components include: a diet consisting primarily of meat, obtained
through planned, cooperative hunts, by all-male groups, that lasted several
days and covered a wide territory. Such hunts would require persistence,
skill, and physical stamina; tool kits to kill, butcher, transport, preserve,
and share the meat; and a social organization consisting of a stable home
base and a monogamous nuclear family. Several biological changes were
attributed to adopting this way of life: a larger and more complex brain,
human language, an upright posture (and humans’ unique foot and stride),
loss of body hair, a long period of infant dependency, and the absence of
Figure 13: Female baboon in estrus. “estrus” (ovulation-related female sexual arousal) (Figure 13), which made
females sexually “receptive” throughout the monthly cycle. Other human
characteristics purportedly made sex more enjoyable: frontal sex and fleshier breasts, buttocks, and
genitals, especially the human penis. Making sex “sexier,” some speculated, cemented the pair-bond,
helping to keep the man “around” and the family unit stable.47
Hunting was also linked to a “world view” in which the flight of animals
from humans seemed natural and (male) aggression became normal, fre-
quent, easy to learn, rewarded, and enjoyable. War, some have suggested,
might psychologically be simply a form of hunting and pleasurable for male
participants.48 The Hunting Way of Life, in short, “molded man,” giving our
species its distinctive characteristics. And as a result, we contemporary
humans cannot erase the effects of our hunting past even though we live in
cities, stalk nothing but a parking place, and can omit meat from our diets.
The biology, psychology, and customs that separate us from the apes—all Figure 14: Baboon pair in tree:
male-female voluntary relations.
these we owe to the hunters of time past. And, although the record is
incomplete and speculation looms larger than fact, for those who would
understand the origin and nature of human behavior there is no choice but to try to understand “Man
the Hunter.”
—Washburn and Lancaster (1974)49
Gender roles and male dominance were supposed to be part of our evolutionary heritage. Males
evolved to be food-providers—stronger, more aggressive, more effective leaders with cooperative and
bonding capacities, planning skills, and technological inventiveness (tool-making). In this creation
story, females never acquired those capacities because they were burdened by their reproductive
roles—pregnancy, giving birth, lactation, and child care—and thus became dependent on males for
food and protection. The gender gap widened over time. As males initiated, explored, invented, women
stayed at home, nurtured, immersed themselves in domestic life. The result: men are active, women are
passive; men are leaders, women are followers; men are dominant, women are subordinate.
Many of us have heard pieces of this Hunting Way of Life story. Some of the men Mukhopadhyay
interviewed in Los Angeles in the late 1970s invoked “our hunting past” to explain why they—and men
generally—operated barbeques rather than their wives. Women’s qualifications to be president were
questioned on biological grounds such as “stamina” and “toughness.” Her women informants, all hos-
pital nurses, doubted their navigational abilities, courage, and strength despite working in intensive
care and regularly lifting heavy male patients. Mukhopadhyay encountered serious scholars who cited
women’s menstrual cycle and “emotional instability” during ovulation to explain why women “can’t”
hunt.
Similar stories are invoked today for everything from some men’s love of hunting to why men domi-
nate “technical” fields, accumulate tools, have extra-marital affairs or commit the vast majority of homi-
cides. Strength and toughness remain defining characteristics of masculinity in the United States, and
these themes often permeate national political debates.50 One element in the complex debate over gun
control is the male-masculine strength-through-guns and man-the-hunter association, and it is still dif-
ficult for some males in the United States to feel comfortable with their soft, nurturant, emotional, and
artistic sides.51
What is most striking about man-the-hunter scenarios is how closely they resemble 1950s U.S. mod-
els of family and gender, which were rooted in the late nineteenth century “cult of domesticity” and
“true womanhood.” Father is “head” of the family and the final authority, whether in household deci-
sions or in disciplining children. As “provider,” Father goes “outside” into the cold, cruel world, hunting
for work. Mother, as “chief mom,” remains “inside” at the home base, creating a domestic refuge against
the “survival of the fittest” “jungle.” American anthropologists seemed to have subconsciously projected
their own folk models onto our early human ancestors.
Altering this supposedly “fundamental” gender system, according to widely read authors in the 1970s,
would go against our basic “human nature.” This belief was applied to the political arena, then a virtually
all-male domain, especially at state and national levels. The following quote from 1971 is particularly
relevant and worthy of critical evaluation since, for the first time, a major U.S. political party selected a
woman as its 2016 presidential candidate (See Text Box 3, Gender and the Presidential Election).
To make women equal participants in the political process, we will have to change the very process
itself, which means changing a pattern bred into our behavior over the millennia.
—Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox52
Replacing Stories with Reality
Decades of research, much of it by a new generation of women scholars, have altered our view of
the hunting way of life in our evolutionary past.53 For example, the old stereotype of primates as living
in male-centered, male-dominated groups does not accurately describe our closest primate relatives,
gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos. The stereotypes came from 1960s research on savannah, ground-
dwelling baboons that suggested they were organized socially by a stable male-dominance hierarchy,
the “core” of the group, that was established through force, regulated sexual access to females, and pro-
vided internal and external defense of the “troop” in a supposedly hostile savannah environment.54
Females lacked hierarchies or coalitions, were passive, and were part of dominant male “harems.”
247
Critics first argued that baboons, as monkeys rather than apes, were too
far removed from humans evolutionarily to tell us much about early
human social organization. Then, further research on baboons living in
other environments by primatologists such as Thelma Rowell discovered
that those baboons were neither male-focused nor male-dominated.
Instead, the stable group core was matrifocal—a mother and her offspring
constituted the central and enduring ties. Nor did males control female
sexuality. Quite the contrary in fact. Females mated freely and frequently,
choosing males of all ages, sometimes establishing special relationships—
Figure 15: Rhesus monkeys at the “friends with favors.” Dominance, while infrequent, was not based simply
Periyar Reserve in Kerala, India.
on size or strength; it was learned, situational, and often stress-induced.
And like other primates, both male and female baboons used sophisticated
strategies, dubbed “primate politics,” to predict and manipulate the intricate social networks in which
they lived.55
Rowell also restudied the savannah baboons.
Even they did not fit the baboon “stereotype.” She
found that their groups were loosely structured
with no specialized stable male-leadership coali-
tions and were sociable, matrifocal, and infant-
centered much like the Rhesus monkeys pictured
below (see Figure 15). Females actively initiated
sexual encounters with a variety of male partners.
When attacked by predators or frightened by some
other major threat, males, rather than “defending
the troop,” typically would flee, running away first
and leaving the females carrying infants to follow
behind (Figures 16).56 Figure 16: Baboon group with infants being carried by male.
Man the Hunter, the Meat-Eater?
The second, more important challenge was to key assumptions about the hunting way of life. Archae-
ological and paleontological fossil evidence and ethnographic data from contemporary foragers
revealed that hunting and meat it provided were not the primary subsistence mode. Instead, gathered
foods such as plants, nuts, fruits, roots and small fish found in rivers and ponds constituted the bulk of
such diets and provided the most stable food source in all but a few settings (northerly climates, herd
migration routes, and specific geographical and historical settings). When meat was important, it was
more often “scavenged” or “caught” than hunted.
A major symposium on human evolution concluded that “opportunistic” “scavenging” was probably
the best description of early human hunting activities. Often, tools found in pre-modern human sites
such as caves would have been more appropriate for “smashing” scavenged bones than hunting live ani-
mals.57 Hunting, when carried out, generally did not involve large-scale, all-male, cooperative expe-
ditions involving extensive planning and lengthy expeditions over a wide territorial range. Instead, as
among the Hadza of Tanzania, hunting was likely typically conducted by a single male, or perhaps two
males, for a couple of hours, often without success. When hunting collectively, as occurs among the
Mbuti in the Central African rainforest, groups of families likely participated with women and men dri-
ving animals into nets. Among the Agta of the Philippines, women rather than men hunt collectively
using dogs to herd animals to a place where they can be killed.58 And !Kung San men, despite what was
shown in the 1957 ethnographic film The Hunters, do not normally hunt giraffe; they usually pursue
small animals such as hares, rats, and gophers.
Discrediting the Hunting Hypothesis
Once the “hunting-meat” hypothesis was discredited, other parts of the theory began to unravel,
especially the link between male dominance and female economic dependency. We now know that for
most of human history—99 percent of it prior to the invention of agriculture some 10,000 or so years
ago—women have “worked,” often providing the stable sources of food for their family. Richard Lee,
Marjorie Shostak, and others have detailed, with caloric counts and time-work estimates, the signifi-
cance of women’s gathering contributions even in societies such as the !Kung San, in which hunting
occurs regularly.59 In foraging societies that rely primarily on fish, women also play a major role, “col-
lecting” fish from rivers, lakes, and ponds. The exceptions are atypical environments such as the Arctic.
Of course, “meat-getting” is a narrow definition
of “food getting” or “subsistence” work. Many food
processing activities are time-consuming. Collect-
ing water and firewood is crucial, heavy work and
is often done by women (Figure 17). Making and
maintaining clothing, housing, and tools also
occupy a significant amount of time. Early
humans, both male and female, invented an array
of items for carrying things (babies, wood, water),
dug tubers, processed nuts, and cooked food. The
invention of string some 24,000 years ago, a dis-
covery so essential that it produced what some
have called the “String Revolution,” is attributed to
women.60 There is the “work of kinship,” of “heal-
Figure 17: Collecting firewood in Bansankusu, Democratic Republic of Congo. ing,” of “ritual,” of “teaching” the next generation,
and emotional “work. All are part of the work of
living and of the “invisible” work that women do.
Nor is it just hunting that requires intelligence, planning, cooperation, and detailed knowledge. For-
agers have lived in a wide variety of environments across the globe, some more challenging than others
(such as Alaska). In all of these groups, both males and females have needed and have developed inten-
sive detailed knowledge of local flora and fauna and strategies for using those resources. Human social
interactions also require sophisticated mental and communication skills, both verbal and nonverbal. In
short, humans’ complex brains and other modern traits developed as an adaptation to complex social
life, a lengthy period of child-dependency and child-rearing that required cooperative nurturing, and
many different kinds of “work” that even the simplest human societies performed.
Refuting Pregnancy and Motherhood as Debilitating
Finally, cross-cultural data refutes another central man-the-hunter stereotype: the “burden” of preg-
nancy and child care. Women’s reproductive roles do not generally prevent them from food-getting,
including hunting; among the Agta, women hunt when pregnant. Foraging societies accommodate the
work-reproduction “conflict” by spacing out their pregnancies using indigenous methods of “family
249
planning” such as prolonged breast feeding, long post-pregnancy periods of sexual inactivity, and native
herbs and medicinal plants. Child care, even for infants, is rarely solely the responsibility of the birth
mother. Instead, multiple caretakers are the norm: spouses, children, other relatives, and neighbors.61
Reciprocity is the key to human social life and to survival in small-scale societies, and reciprocal child
care is but one example of such reciprocity. Children and infants accompany their mothers (or fathers)
on gathering trips, as among the !Kung San, and on Aka collective net-hunting expeditions. Agta women
carry nursing infants with them when gathering-hunting, leaving older children at home in the care of
spouses or other relatives.62
In pre-industrial horticultural and agricultural societies, having children and “working” are not
incompatible—quite the opposite! Anthropologists long ago identified “female farming systems,” espe-
cially in parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, in which farming is predominantly a woman’s job and men
“help out” as needed.63
In most agricultural societies, women who do not come from high-status or wealthy families perform
a significant amount of agricultural labor, though it often goes unrecognized in the dominant gender
ideology. Wet-rice agriculture, common in south and southeast Asia, is labor-intensive, particularly
weeding and transplanting rice seedlings, which are often done by women (Figure 10). Harvesting
rice, wheat, and other grains also entails essential input by women. Yet the Indian Census traditionally
records only male family members as “farmers.” In the United States, women’s work on family-owned
farms is often invisible.64
Women may accommodate their reproductive and child-rearing roles by engaging in work that is
more compatible with child care, such as cooking, and in activities that occur closer to home and are
interruptible and perhaps less dangerous, though cooking fires, stoves, and implements such as knives
certainly can cause harm!65 More often, women adjust their food-getting “work” in response to the
demands of pregnancy, breast-feeding, and other child care activities. They gather or process nuts while
their children are napping; they take their children with them to the fields to weed or harvest and, in
more recent times, to urban construction sites in places such as India, where women often do the heav-
iest (and lowest-paid) work.
In the United States, despite a long-standing cultural model of the stay-at-home mom, some mothers
have always worked outside the home, mainly out of economic necessity. This shifting group includes
single-divorced-widowed mothers and married African-Americans (pre- and post-slavery), immi-
grants, and Euro-American women with limited financial resources. But workplace policies (except
during World War II) have historically made it harder rather than easier for women (and men) to
carry out family responsibilities, including requiring married women and pregnant women to quit their
jobs.66 Circumstances have not improved much. While pregnant women in the United States are no
longer automatically dismissed from their jobs—at least not legally—the United States lags far behind
most European countries in providing affordable child care and paid parental leave.
Family and Marriage: A Cultural Construct and a Social Invention

Unraveling the theory of the hunting-way-of-life scenario, especially female dependence on males,
undermines the “naturalness” of the nuclear family with its male-provider-protector and female-
domestic-child-care division of labor. More than one hundred years of cross-cultural research has
revealed the varied forms humans have invented for “partnering”—living in households, raising chil-
dren, establishing long-term relationships, transmitting valuables to offspring, and other social behav-
iors associated with “family.” Once again, the universality and evolutionary origins of the U.S. form of
the human family is more fiction than fact, a projection of our cultural model of family and gender roles
onto the past and onto the entire human species.
Family: Biology and Culture
What is natural about the family? Like gender and sexuality, there is a biological component. There is
a biological mother and a biological father, although the mother plays a significantly larger and longer
role from the time of conception through the end of infant’s dependence. In the past, conception usu-
ally required sexual intercourse, but that is no longer the case thanks to sperm banks, which have made
the embodied male potentially obsolete, biologically speaking. There is also a biological relationship
between parents and offspring—again, more obvious in the case of the mother since the baby devel-
ops in and emerges from her body. Nevertheless, DNA and genes are real and influence the traits and
potentialities of the next generation.
Beyond those biological “realities,” culture and society seem to take over, building on—or ignor-
ing—biology. We all know there are biological fathers who may be unaware of or not concerned about
their biological offspring and not involved in their care and biological mothers who, after giving birth,
give up their children through adoption or to other family members. In recent decades, technology has
allowed women to act as “surrogate mothers,” using their bodies as carriers for implanted fertilized eggs
of couples who wish to have a child. On the other hand, we all probably know of excellent parents who
are not the children’s biological mothers and fathers, and “legal” parenthood through adoption can have
more-profound parenting consequences for children than biological parenthood.
When we think of good (or bad) parents, or of someone as a really “good mother,” as an “excellent
father,” as two “wonderful mothers,” we are not talking biology. We usually are thinking of a set of cul-
tural and behavioral expectations, and being an adoptive rather than a biological parent isn’t really the
issue. Clearly, then, parenthood, mother-father relationships, and other kinship relationships (with sib-
lings, grandparents, and uncles-aunts) are not simply rooted in biology but are also social roles, legal
relationships, meanings and expectations constructed by human cultures in specific social and histori-
cal contexts. This is not to deny the importance of kinship; it is fundamental, especially in small-scale
pre-industrial societies. But kinship is as much about culture as it is about biology. Biology, in a sense,
is only the beginning—and may not be necessary.
Marriage also is not “natural.” It is a cultural invention that involves various meanings and functions
in different cultural contexts. We all know that it is not necessary to be married to have sex or to have
children. Indeed, in the United States, a growing number of women who give birth are not married,
and the percent of unmarried women giving birth is higher in many northwestern European countries
such as Sweden.67 Cross-culturally, marriage seems to be primarily about societal regulation of rela-
tionships—a social contract between two individuals and, often, their families, that specifies rights and
obligations of married individuals and of the offspring that married women produce. Some anthropol-
ogists have argued that marriage IS primarily about children and “descent”—who will “own” children.68
To whom will they belong? With what rights, obligations, social statuses, access to resources, group
identities, and all the other assets—and liabilities—that exist within a society? Children have historically
been essential for family survival—for literal reproduction and for social reproduction.
Think, for a moment, about our taken-for-granted assumptions about to whom children belong.69
Clearly, children emerge from a woman’s body and, indeed, after approximately nine months, it is her
body that has nurtured and “grown” this child. But who “owns” that child legally—to whom it “belongs”
and the beliefs associated with how it was conceived and about who played a role in its conception—is
not a biological given. Not in human societies. One fascinating puzzle in human evolution is how
251
females lost control over their sexuality and their offspring! Why do so many, though not all, cultural
theories of procreation consider women’s role as minor, if not irrelevant—not as the “seed,” for exam-
ple, but merely as a “carrier” of the male seed she will eventually “deliver” to its “owner”? Thus, hav-
ing a child biologically is not equivalent to social “ownership.” Marriage, cross-culturally, deals with
social ownership of offspring. What conditions must be met? What exchanges must occur, particularly
between families or kinship groups, for that offspring to be theirs, his, hers—for it to be a legitimate
“heir”?
Marriage is, then, a “contract,” usually between families, even if unwritten. Throughout most of
human history, kinship groups and, later, religious institutions have regulated marriage. Most major
religions today have formal laws and marriage “contracts,” even in societies with “civil” marriage codes.
In some countries, like India, there is a separate marriage code for each major religion in addition to a
secular, civil marriage code. Who children “belong to” is rarely solely about biology, and when biology is
involved, it is biology shaped by society and culture. The notion of an “illegitimate” child in the United
States has not been about biology but about “legitimacy,” that is, whether the child was the result of a
legally recognized relationship that entitled offspring to certain rights, including inheritance.
From this perspective, what we think of as a “normal” or “natural” family in the United States is actu-
ally a culturally and historically specific, legally codified set of relationships between two individuals
and, to some extent, their families. Cross-culturally, the U.S. (and “traditional” British-Euro-American)
nuclear family is quite unusual and atypical. Married couples in the United States “ideally” establish a
separate household, a nuclear-family-based household, rather than living with one spouse’s parents and
forming a larger multi-generational household, often referred to as an “extended” family, which is the
most common form of family structure. In addition, U.S. marriages are monogamous—legally, one may
have only one husband or wife at a time. But a majority of societies that have been studied by anthropol-
ogists have allowed polygamy (multiple spouses). Polygyny (one husband, multiple wives) is most com-
mon but polyandry (one wife, multiple husbands) also occurs; occasionally marriages involve multiple
husbands and multiple wives. Separate spouses, particularly wives, often have their own dwelling space,
commonly shared with their children, but usually live in one compound, with their husbands’ parents
and his relatives. Across cultures, then, most households tend to be versions of extended-family-based
groups.
These two contrasts alone lead to families in the United States that are smaller and focused more on
the husband-wife (or spousal) and parent-child relationships; other relatives are more distant, literally
and often conceptually. They are also more “independent”—or, some would say, more dependent on
a smaller set of relationships to fulfill family responsibilities for work, child care, finances, emotional
companionship, and even sexual obligations. Other things being equal, the death or loss of a spouse in
a “traditional” U.S. family has a bigger impact than such a loss in an extended family household (see
Text Box 1). On the other hand, nuclear families own and control their incomes and other assets, unlike
many extended families in which those are jointly held. This ownership and control of resources can
give couples and wives in nuclear families greater freedom.
There are other cross-cultural variations in family, marriage and kinship: in expectations for spouses
and children, exchanges between families, inheritance rules, marriage rituals, ideal ages and character-
istics of spouses, conditions for dissolving a marriage and remarriage after a spouse’s death, attitudes
about premarital, extra-marital, and marital sexuality, and so forth. How “descent” is calculated is a
social-cultural process that carves out a smaller “group” of “kin” from all of the potential relatives in
which individuals have rights (e.g., to property, assistance, political representation) and obligations (eco-
nomic, social). Often there are explicit norms about who one should and should not marry, including
which relatives. Marriage between people we call “cousins” is common cross-culturally. These varia-
tions in the definition of marriage and family reflect what human cultures do with the biological “facts
of life,” creating many different kinds of marriage, family, and kinship systems.
Another major contrast between the U.S. and many other cultures is that our husband-wife rela-
tionship is based on free choice and “romantic love.” Marriages are arranged by the couple and reflect
their desires rather than the desires of larger societal groups. Of course, even in the United States, that
has never been entirely the case. Informal prohibitions, often imposed by families, have shaped (and
continue to shape) individual choices, such as marrying outside one’s religion, racial/ethnic group, and
socio-economic class or within one’s gender. Some religions explicitly forbid marrying someone from
another religion. But U.S. formal government prohibitions have also existed, such as laws against inter-
racial marriage, which were only declared unconstitutional in 1967 (Loving v. Virginia).
These so-called anti-miscegenation laws, directed mainly at European-American and African-Amer-
icans, were designed to preserve the race-based system of social stratification in the United States.70
They did not affect both genders equally but reflected the intersection of gender with class and racial
inequality. During slavery, most inter-racial sexual activity was initiated by Euro-American males. It
was not uncommon for male slave owners to have illicit, often forced sexual relations with female
slaves. The laws were created so that children of slave women inherited their mother’s racial and slave
status, thereby also adding to the slave property of the “father.”
Euro-American women’s relationships with African-American men, though far less frequent and
usually voluntary, posed special problems. Offspring would inherit the mother’s “free” status and
increase the free African-American population or possibly end up “passing” as “White.” Social and legal
weapons were used to prevent such relationships. Euro-American women, especially poorer women,
who were involved sexually with African-American men were stereotyped as prostitutes, sexually
depraved, and outcasts. Laws were passed that fined them for such behavior or required them to work
as indentured servants for the child’s father’s slave owner; other laws prohibited cohabitation between
a “White” and someone of African descent.
Post-slavery anti-miscegenation laws tried to preserve the “color line” biologically by outlawing mat-
ing and to maintain the legal “purity” and status of Euro-American lineages by outlawing inter-racial
marriage. In reality, of course, inter-racial mating continued, but inter-racial offspring did not have the
rights of “legitimate” children. By the 1920s, some states, like Virginia, had outlawed “Whites” from
marrying anyone who had a “single drop” of African blood. By 1924, 38 states had outlawed Black-
White marriages, and as late as the 1950s, inter-racial marriage bans existed in almost half of the states
and had been extended to Native Americans, Mexicans, “East Indians,” Malays, and other groups desig-
nated “not White.”71
Overall, stratified inegalitarian societies tend to have the strictest controls over marriage. Such con-
trol is especially common when some groups are considered inherently superior to others, be it racially,
castes, or “royal” blood. Patriarchal societies closely regulate and restrict premarital sexual contacts of
women, especially higher-status women. One function of marriage in these societies is to reproduce the
existing social structure, partially by insuring that marriages and any offspring resulting from them will
maintain and potentially increase the social standing of the families involved. Elite, dominant groups
have the most to lose in terms of status and wealth, including inheritances. “Royalty” in Britain, for
example, traditionally are not supposed to marry “commoners” so as to ensure that the royal “blood,”
titles, and other privileges remain in the “royal” family.
Cross-culturally, even in small-scale societies that are relatively egalitarian such as the San and the
Trobriand Islanders studied by Annette Weiner, marriage is rarely a purely individual choice left to the
wishes—and whims of, or “electricity” between—the two spouses.72 This is not to say that spouses never
have input or prior contact; they may know each other and even have grown up together. In most soci-
253
eties, however, a marriage usually has profound social consequences and is far too important to be “sim-
ply” an individual choice. Since marriages affect families and kin economically, socially, and politically,
family members (especially elders) play a major role in arranging marriages along lines consistent with
their own goals and using their own criteria. Families sometimes arrange their children’s marriages
when the children are quite young. In Nuosu communities of southwest China, some families held for-
mal engagement ceremonies for babies to, ideally, cement a good cross-cousin partnership, though no
marital relationship would occur until much later.73 There also can be conventional categories of rela-
tives who are supposed to marry each other so young girls might know that their future husbands will
be particular cousins, and the girls might play or interact with them at family functions as children.74
This does not mean that romantic love is purely a recent or U.S. and European phenomenon. Roman-
tic love is widespread even in cultures that have strong views on arranging marriages. Traditional cul-
tures in India, both Hindu and Muslim, are filled with “love stories” expressed in songs, paintings, and
famous temple sculptures. One of the most beautiful buildings in the world, the Taj Mahal, is a monu-
ment to Shah Jahan’s love for his wife. Where young girls’ marriages are arranged, often to older men
(as among the Maasai), we know that those girls, once married, sometimes take “lovers” about whom
they sing “love songs” and with whom they engage in sexual relations.75 Truly, romantic love, sex, and
marriage can exist independently.
Nevertheless, cross-culturally and historically, marriages based on free choice and romantic love are
relatively unusual and recent. Clearly, young people all over the world are attracted to the idea, which
is “romanticized” in Bollywood films, popular music, poetry, and other forms of contemporary popu-
lar culture. No wonder so many families—and conservative social and religious groups—are concerned,
if not terrified, of losing control over young people’s mating and marriage behavior (see, for example,
the excellent PBS documentary The World before Her).76 A social revolution is truly underway and we
haven’t even gotten to same-sex sex and same-sex marriage.
Text Box 1: What Can We Learn from the Na? Shattering Ideas about Family and Relationships
By Tami Blumenfield
We have certain expectations about the trajectories of relationships and family life in the United States—young people meet, fall in love, pur-
chase a diamond, and then marry. To some extent, this specific view of family is changing as same-sex relationships and no-longer-new repro-
ductive technologies expand our views of what family can and cannot be. Still, quite often, we think about family in a rigid, heteronormative
context, assuming that everyone wants the same thing.What if we think about family in an entirely different way? In fact, many people already
do. In 2014, 10 percent of American adults lived in cohabitating relationships. Meanwhile, 51 percent were married in state-endorsed relation-
77
ships, and that percentage has been dropping fast. Those numbers may sound familiar as part of politicians’ “focus on the family,” decrying
the number of children born to unmarried parents and bemoaning the weakening of an institution they hold dear (even though their colleagues
are frequently exposed in the news for sexual indiscretions).It is true that adults with limited resources face challenges raising children when
they have limited access to affordable, high-quality child care. They struggle when living wage jobs migrate to other countries or other states
where workers earn less. In an economic system that encourages concentration of resources in a tiny fraction of the population, it is no wonder
that they struggle. But is the institution of marriage really to blame? The number of cohabitating unmarried individuals is high in many parts of
Europe as well, but with better support structures in place, parents fare much better. They enjoy parental leave policies that mandate their jobs
be held for them upon return from leave. They also benefit from strong educational systems and state-subsidized child care, and their children
enjoy better outcomes than ours.Critics see the “focus on the family” by U.S. politicians as a convenient political trick that turns attention away
from crucial policy issues and refocuses it on the plight of the institution of marriage and the fate of the nation’s children. Few people can easily
dismiss these concerns, even if they do not reflect their own lived realities. And besides, the family model trumpeted by politicians as lost is but
one form of family that is not universal even in the United States, much less among all human groups, as sociologist Stephanie Coontz convinc-
ingly argued in books including The Way We Never Were (1992) and The Way We Really Are (1997).
In fact, the “focus on family” ignores the diverse ways peoples on this continent have organized their relationships. For Hopi, a Native Ameri-
can group living in what is today the southwestern United States, for example, it is their mother’s kin rather than their husbands’ from whom
they draw support. The Navajo, Kiowa, and Iroquois Native American cultures all organize their family units and arrange their relationships dif-
ferently.Na people living in the foothills of the Himalayas have many ways to structure family relationships. One relationship structure looks like
what we might expect in a place where people make their living from the land and raise livestock to sustain themselves. Young adults marry,
and brides sometimes moves into the husband’s childhood home and live with his parents. They have children, who live with them, and they
work together. A second Na family structure looks much less familiar: young adults live in large, extended family households with several gener-
ations and form romantic relationships with someone from another household. When they are ready, the young man seeks permission to spend
the night in the young woman’s room. If both parties desire, their relationship can evolve into a long-term one, but they do not marry and do not
live together in the same household. When a child is conceived, or before if the couple chooses, their relationship moves from a secretive one to
one about which others know. Even so, the young man rarely spends daylight hours with his partner. Instead, he returns to his own family’s
home to help with farming and other work there. The state is not involved in their relationship, and their money is not pooled either, though pre-
sents change hands. If either partner becomes disenchanted with the other, the relationship need not persist. Their children remain in the
mother’s home, nurtured by adults who love them deeply—not just by their mothers but also by their grandmothers, maternal aunts, maternal
uncles, and often older cousins as well. They enjoy everyday life with an extended family (Figure 18). The third Na family structure mixes the
preceding two systems. Someone joins a larger household as a spouse. Perhaps the family lacked enough women or men to manage the house-
hold and farming tasks adequately or the couple faced pressure from the government to marry.
Figure 18: Na grandmother with her maternal grandchildren. They live in the same household, along with the grandmother’s adult sons
and her daughter, the children’s mother. Photograph by Tami Blumenfield, 2002.
As an anthropologist who has done fieldwork in Na communities since 2001, I can attest to the loving and nurturing families their system
encourages. It protects adults as well as children. Women who are suffering in a relationship can end it with limited consequences for their chil-
dren, who do not need to relocate to a new house and adjust to a new lifestyle. Lawyers need not get involved, as they often must in divorce
cases elsewhere in the world. A man who cannot afford to build a new house for his family—a significant pressure for people in many areas of
China that prevents young men from marrying or delays their marriages—can still enjoy a relationship or can choose, instead, to devote himself
to his role as an uncle. Women and men who do not feel the urge to pursue romantic lives are protected in this system as well; they can con-
tribute to their natal families without having to worry that no one will look out for them as they age.
Like any system composed of real people, Na systems are not perfect, and neither are the people who represent them. In the last few
decades, people have flocked to Lugu Lake hoping to catch a glimpse of this unusual society, and many tourists and tour guides have mistak-
enly taken Na flexibility in relationships as signifying a land of casual sex with no recognition of paternity. These are highly problematic
assumptions that offend my Na acquaintances deeply. Na people have fathers and know who they are, and they often enjoy close relationships
despite living apart. In fact, fathers are deeply involved in children’s lives and often participate in everyday child-rearing activities. Of course, as
in other parts of the world, some fathers participate more than others. Fathers and their birth families also take responsibility for contributing to
school expenses and make other financial contributions as circumstances permit. Clearly, this is not a community in which men do not fulfill
255
responsibilities as fathers. It is one in which the responsibilities and how they are fulfilled varies markedly from those of fathers living in other
places and cultures.
Though problems exist in Na communities and their relationship patterns are already changing and transforming them, it is encouraging that
so many people can live satisfied lives in this flexible system. The Na shatter our expectations about how families and relationships should be
78
organized. They also inspire us to ask whether we can, and should, adapt part of their ethos into our own society.
For more information, see the TEDx FurmanU presentation by Tami Blumenfiel
Male Dominance: Universal and Biologically Rooted?

Unraveling the myth of the hunting way of life and women’s dependence on male hunting under-
mined the logic behind the argument for biologically rooted male dominance. Still, for feminist schol-
ars, the question of male dominance remained important. Was it universal, “natural,” inevitable, and
unalterable? Were some societies gender-egalitarian? Was gender inequality a cultural phenomenon, a
product of culturally and historically specific conditions?
Research in the 1970s and 1980s addressed these questions.79 Some argued that “sexual asymmetry”
was universal and resulted from complex cultural processes related to women’s reproductive roles.80
Others presented evidence of gender equality in small-scale societies (such as the !Kung San and Native
American Iroquois) but argued that it had disappeared with the rise of private property and “the state.”81
Still others focused on evaluating the “status of women” using multiple “variables” or identifying “key
determinants” (e.g., economic, political, ecological, social, and cultural) of women’s status.”82 By the late
1980s, scholars realized how difficult it was to define, much less measure, male dominance across cul-
tures and even the “status of women” in one culture.
Think of our own society or the area in which you live. How would you go about assessing the “status
of women” to determine whether it is male-dominated? What would you examine? What information
would you gather and from whom? What difficulties might you encounter when making a judgment?
Might men and women have different views? Then imagine trying to compare the status of women
in your region to the status of women in, let’s say, the Philippines, Japan, or China or in a kin-based,
small society like that of the Minangkabau living in Indonesia and the !Kung San in Botswana. Next,
how might Martians, upon arriving in your city, decide whether you live in a “male dominated” cul-
ture? What would they notice? What would they have difficulty deciphering? This experiment gives you
an idea of what anthropologists confronted—except they were trying to include all societies that ever
existed. Many were accessible only through archaeological and paleontological evidence or through
historical records, often made by travelers, sailors, or missionaries. Surviving small-scale cultures were
surrounded by more-powerful societies that often imposed their cultures and gender ideologies on
those under their control.
For example, the !Kung San of Southern Africa when studied by anthropologists, had already been
pushed by European colonial rulers into marginal areas. Most were living on “reserves” similar to
Indian reservations in the United States. Others lived in market towns and were sometimes involved
in the tourist industry and in films such as the ethnographically flawed and ethnocentric film The Gods
Must Be Crazy (1980). !Kung San women at the time were learning European Christian ideas about sex-
uality, clothing, and covering their breasts, and children were attending missionary-established schools,
which taught the church’s and European views of gender and spousal roles along with the Bible, Jesus,
and the Virgin Mary. During the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the South African mili-
tary tried to recruit San to fight against the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), taunt-
ing reluctant !Kung San men by calling them “chicken” and assuming, erroneously, that the !Kung San
shared their “tough guys / tough guise” version of masculinity.83
Given the complexity of evaluating “universal male dominance,” scholars abandoned the search for
simple “global” answers, for key “determinants” of women’s status that would apply to all societies. A
1988 Annual Review of Anthropology article by Mukhopadhyay and Higgins concluded that “One of the
profound realizations of the past ten years is that the original questions, still unanswerable, may be both
naive and inappropriate.”84 Among other things, the concept of “status” contains at least five separate,
potentially independent components: economics, power/authority, prestige, autonomy, and gender
ideologies/beliefs. One’s life-cycle stage, kinship role, class, and other socio-economic and social-iden-
tity variables affect one’s gender status. Thus, even within a single culture, women’s lives are not uni-
form.85
New Directions in the Anthropology of Gender
More-recent research has been focused on improving the ethnographic and archaeological record
and re-examining old material. Some have turned from cause-effect relations to better understanding
how gender systems work and focusing on a single culture or cultural region. Others have explored
a single topic, such as menstrual blood and cultural concepts of masculinity and infertility across cul-
tures.86
Many American anthropologists “returned home,” looking with fresh eyes at the diversity of women’s
lives in their own society: working-class women, immigrant women, women of various ethnic and
racial groups, and women in different geographic regions and occupations.87 Some ethnographers, for
example, immersed themselves in the abortion debates, conducting fieldwork to understand the per-
spective and logic behind pro-choice and anti-choice activists in North Dakota. Others headed to col-
lege campuses, studying the “culture of romance” or fraternity gang rape.88 Peggy Sanday’s work on
sexual coercion, including her cross-cultural study of rape-prone societies, was followed by other stud-
ies of power-coercion-gender relationships, such as using new reproductive technologies for selecting
the sex of children.89
Many previously unexplored areas such as the discourse around reproduction, representations of
women in medical professions, images in popular culture, and international development policies
(which had virtually ignored gender) came under critical scrutiny.90 Others worked on identifying com-
plex local factors and processes that produce particular configurations of gender and gender relations,
such as the patrifocal (male-focused) cultural model of family in many parts of India.91 Sexuality stud-
ies expanded, challenging existing binary paradigms, making visible the lives of lesbian mothers and
other traditionally marginalized sexualities and identities.92
The past virtual invisibility of women in archaeology disappeared as a host of new studies was pub-
lished, often by feminist anthropologists, including a pioneering volume by Joan Gero and Margaret
Conkey, Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory. That book gave rise to a multi-volume series
specifically on gender and archaeology edited by Sarah Nelson. Everything from divisions of labor to
power relations to sexuality could be scrutinized in the archaeological record.93
Some anthropologists argued that there are recurring patterns despite the complexity and variability
of human gender systems. One is the impact of women’s economic contributions on their power, pres-
tige, and autonomy.94 Women’s work, alone, does not necessarily give them control or ownership of
what they produce. It is not always valued and does not necessarily lead to political power. Women in
many cultures engage in agricultural labor, but the fields are often owned and controlled by their hus-
bands’ families or by a landlord, as in many parts of India and Iran.95 The women have little authority,
257
prestige, or autonomy.96 Many foraging and some horticultural societies, on the other hand, recognize
women’s economic and reproductive contributions, and that recognition may reflect relative equality
in other spheres as well, including sexuality. Gender relations seem more egalitarian, overall, in small-
scale societies such as the San, Trobrianders, and Na, in part because they are kinship-based, often with
relatively few valuable resources that can be accumulated; those that exist are communally owned, usu-
ally by kinship groups in which both women and men have rights.
Another factor in gender equality is the social environment. Positive social relations—an absence of
constant hostility or warfare with neighbors—seems to be correlated with relatively egalitarian gender
relations. In contrast, militarized societies—whether small-scale horticultural groups like the Sambia
who perceive their neighbors as potential enemies or large-scale stratified societies with formal mili-
tary organizations and vast empires—seem to benefit men more than women overall.97 Warrior soci-
eties culturally value men’s roles, and warfare gives men access to economic and political resources.
As to old stereotypes about why men are warriors, there may be another explanation. From a repro-
ductive standpoint, men are far more expendable than women, especially women of reproductive age.98
While this theme has not yet been taken up by many anthropologists, male roles in warfare could be
more about expendability than supposed greater male strength, aggressiveness, or courage. One can ask
why it has taken so long for women in the United States to be allowed to fly combat missions? Certainly
it is not about women not being strong enough to carry the plane.99
Patriarchy . . . But What about Matriarchy?

The rise of stratified agriculture-intensive centralized “states” has tended to produce transformations
in gender relations and gender ideologies that some have called patriarchy, a male-dominated political
and authority structure and an ideology that privileges males over females overall and in every strata of
society. Gender intersects with class and, often, with religion, caste, and ethnicity. So, while there could
be powerful queens, males took precedence over females within royal families, and while upper-class
Brahmin women in India could have male servants, they had far fewer formal assets, power, and rights
than their brothers and husbands. Also, as noted earlier, families strictly controlled their movements,
interactions with males, “social reputations,” and marriages. Similarly, while twentieth-century British
colonial women in British-controlled India had power over some Indian men, they still could not vote,
hold high political office, control their own fertility or sexuality, or exercise other rights available to
their male counterparts.100 Of course, poor lower-class lower-caste Indian women were (and still are)
the most vulnerable and mistreated in India, more so overall than their brothers, husbands, fathers, or
sons.
On the other hand, we have yet to find any “matriarchies,” that is, female-dominated societies in
which the extent and range of women’s power, authority, status, and privilege parallels men’s in patriar-
chal societies. In the twentieth century, some anthropologists at first confused “matriarchy” with matri-
lineal. In matrilineal societies, descent or membership in a kinship group is transmitted from mothers
to their children (male and female) and then, through daughters, to their children, and so forth (as in
many Na families). Matrilineal societies create woman-centered kinship groups in which having daugh-
ters is often more important to “continuing the line” than having sons, and living arrangements after
marriage often center around related women in a matrilocal extended family household (See Text Box
1, What Can We Learn from the Na?). Female sexuality may become less regulated since it is the mother
who carries the “seed” of the lineage. In this sense, it is the reverse of the kinds of patrilineal, patrilocal,
patrifocal male-oriented kinship groups and households one finds in many patriarchal societies. Peggy
Sanday suggested, on these and other grounds, that the Minangkabau, a major ethnic group in Indone-
sia, is a matriarchy.101
Ethnographic data have shown that males, especially as members of matrilineages, can be powerful
in matrilineal societies. Warfare, as previously mentioned, along with political and social stratification
can alter gender dynamics. The Nayar (in Kerala, India), the Minangkabau, and the Na are matrilineal
societies embedded in, or influenced by, dominant cultures and patriarchal religions such as Islam and
Hinduism. The society of the Na in China is also matrifocal in some ways. Thus, the larger context,
including contemporary global processes, can undermine women’s power and status.102 At the same
time, though, many societies are clearly matrifocal, are relatively female-centered, and do not have the
kinds of gender ideologies and systems found in most patriarchal societies.103 Text Boxes 1 and 2 pro-
vide examples of such systems.
Text Box 2: Does Black Matriarchy Exist in Brazil? Histories of Slavery and African Cultural Survivals in Afro-Brazilian Religion
By Abby Gondek
Candomblé is an Afro-Brazilian spirit possession religion in which Yoruba (West African) deities called orixás are honored at religious sites
called terreiros where the Candomblé priestesses (mães do santo) and their “daughters” ( filhas do santo) live. One of the central “hubs” of Can-
domblé worship in Brazil is the northeastern state of Bahia, where Afro-Brazilians make up more than 80 percent of the population in the capital
city, Salvador. Brazil’s geography is perceived through the lenses of race and class since Bahia, a majority Afro-Brazilian state, is viewed as
104
underdeveloped, backward, and poor relative to the whiter and wealthier Southern region. In the 1930s, a
Jewish female anthropologist Ruth Landes provided a different perspective about Bahia, one that emphasized black women’s communal
power. During the time in which Landes conducted her research, the Brazilian police persecuted Candomblé communities for “harboring com-
105
munists.” The Brazilian government was linked with Nazism, torture, rape, and racism, and Afro-Brazilians resisted this oppression. Also dur-
ing this period, debate began among social scientists about whether Candomblé was a matriarchal religion in which women were the primary
spiritual leaders. The debate was rooted in the question of where “black matriarchy” came from. Was it a result of the history of slavery or was it
an African “cultural survival”? The debate was simultaneously about the power and importance of Afro-Brazilian women in spiritual and cultural
life.
On one side of the debate was E. Franklin Frazier, an African-American sociologist trained at University of Chicago, who maintained that Can-
domblé and the lack of legal marriage gave women their important position in Bahia. He believed that black women had been matriarchal
authorities since the slavery period and described them as defiant and self-reliant. On the other side of the debate was Jewish anthropologist
Melville Herskovits, who was trained by German immigrant Franz Boas at Columbia University. Herskovits believed that black women’s eco-
106
nomic roles demonstrated African cultural survivals, but downplayed the priestesses’ importance in Candomblé. Herskovits portrayed patri-
archy rather than matriarchy as the central organizing principle in Bahia. He argued that African cultural survivals in Brazil came from the
patrilineal practices of Dahomey and Yoruba in West Africa and portrayed Bahian communities as male-centered with wives and “concubines”
catering to men and battling each other for male attention.
Ruth Landes and her work triggered the debate about “black matriarchy” in Bahia. Landes had studied with anthropologists Franz Boas and
Ruth Benedict at Columbia University. She began her studies of Candomblé in 1938 in Salvador, Bahia, working with her research partner, guide,
107
and significant other, Edison Carneiro, a scholar of Afro-Brazilian studies and journalist, resulting in publication in 1947 of The City of Women.
Landes contended that Afro-Brazilian women were the powerful matriarchal leaders of terreiros de Candomblé. She called them matriarchal
108
because she argued that their leadership was “made up almost exclusively of women and, in any case controlled by women.” Landes claimed
that the women provided spiritual advice and sexual relationships in exchange for financial support from male patrons of the terreiros. She also
explained that newer caboclo houses (in which indigenous spirits were worshipped in addition to Yoruba spirits) had less-stringent guidelines
and allowed men to become priests and dance for the gods, actions considered taboo in the Yoruba tradition. Landes elaborated that these men
were primarily “passive” homosexuals. She looked down on this “modern” development, which she viewed as detracting from the supposedly
109
“pure” woman-centered Yoruba (West African) practices. Even Landes’ (controversial) argument about homosexuality was part of her claim
about matriarchy; she contended that the homosexual men who became pais do santo (“fathers of the saint,” or Candomblé priests) had previ-
ously been “outcasts”—prostitutes and vagrants who were hounded by the police. By becoming like the “mothers” and acting as women, they
could gain status and respect. Landes was strongly influenced by both Edison Carneiro’s opinion and the convictions of Martiniano Eliseu do
Bonfim (a revered babalaô or “father of the secrets”) and the women priestesses of the traditional houses (Gantois, Casa Branca, and Ilê Axé Opô
Afonjá) with whom she spent the majority of her time.
Thus, her writings likely represent the views of her primary informants, making her work unique; at that time, anthropologists (ethnocentri-
259
cally) considered themselves more knowledgeable about the cultures they studied than the people in those cultures.Landes incorporated ideas
from the pre-Brazil research of E. Franklin Frazier and Melville Herskovits to contend that the existence of the matriarchy in Bahia rested on
women’s economic positions, sexuality, and capacities, which were influenced by (1) white slave owners’ preference for black women as heads
of families and the inculcation of leadership traits in black women and not black men and (2) the history of women’s roles as property owners,
110
market sellers, priestesses, and warriors in West Africa. Landes’ findings continue to be critiqued in contemporary academic contexts
because some scholars disagree with her matriarchy thesis and her views about homosexual pais and filhos do santo. J. Lorand Matory, director
of African and African-American research at Duke University, has taken one of the strongest positions against Landes, arguing that she altered
the evidence to argue for the existence of the “cult matriarchate.” Matory believes that her division between “new” and “traditional” houses is a
false one and that men traditionally were the leaders in Candomblé. In fact, Matory contends that, at the time of Landes’ research, more men
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than women were acting as priests. In contrast, Cheryl Sterling sees Landes’ The City of Women as “still relevant today as the first feminist
account of Candomblé” and maintains that Candomblé is a space in which Afro-Brazilian women are the “supreme authority” and that the ter-
reiro is an enclave of “female power.” The Brazilian state stereotypes black women as socially pathological with “unstable” family structures,
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making them “sub-citizens,” but Sterling argues that Candomblé is a space in which female blackness prevails.
Has Civilization “Advanced” Women’s Position?
Ironically, some nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers and social scientists, such as Herbert
Spencer, have argued that women’s positions “advanced” with civilization, especially under European
influence, at least relative to so-called “primitive” societies. The picture is complicated, but the opposite
may actually be true. Most anthropological studies have suggested that “civilization,” “colonialism,”
“development,” and “globalization” have been mixed blessings for women.113 Their traditional work-
loads tend to increase while they are simultaneously excluded from new opportunities in agricultural
cash crops, trading, and technology. Sometimes they lose traditional rights (e.g., to property) within
extended family kinship groups or experience increased pressure from men to be the upholders of cul-
tural traditions, whether in clothing or marriage practices. On the other hand, new political, economic,
and educational opportunities can open up for women, allowing them not only to contribute to their
families but to delay marriage, pursue alternatives to marriage, and, if they marry, to have a more pow-
erful voice in their marriages.114
Deeply embedded cultural-origin stories are extremely powerful, difficult to unravel, and can persist
despite contradictory evidence, in part because of their familiarity. They resemble what people have
seen and experienced throughout their lifetimes, even in the twenty-first century, despite all the
changes. Yet, nineteenth and twentieth century cultural models are also continuously reinforced and
reproduced in every generation through powerful devices: children’s stories; rituals like Valentine’s
Day; fashion, advertisements, music, video games, and popular culture generally; and in financial, polit-
ical, legal, and military institutions and leaders. But profound transformations can produce a “backlash,”
as in U.S. movements to restore “traditional” family forms, “traditional” male and female roles, sexual
abstinence-virginity, and the “sanctity” of heterosexual marriage.115 Some would argue that backlash
elements were at work in the 2016 Presidential and Congressional elections (see Text Box 3).
Cultural origin stories also persist because they are legitimizing ideologies—complex belief systems
often developed by those in power to rationalize, explain, and perpetuate systems of inequality. The
hunting-way-of-life theory of human evolution, for example, both naturalizes and essentializes male
dominance and other gender-related traits and provides an origin story and a legitimizing ideology for
the “traditional” U.S. nuclear family as “fundamental to human social organization and life.” It also can
be used to justify “spousal rape” and domestic violence, treating both as private family matters and, in
the past, as male “rights.” Not surprisingly, elements of the traditional nuclear family model appear in
the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage, especially in the dissenting views.
And cultural models of gender and family played a role in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. For a
related activity, see Activity 3 below.
Text Box 3: Gender and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

By Carol C. Mukhopadhyay
The 2016 presidential election was gender precedent-setting in ways that will take decades to analyze (see for example Gail Collins). For the
first time, a major U.S. political party chose a woman as its presidential candidate. And while Hillary Rodham Clinton did not win the electoral
college, she won the popular vote, the first woman to do so, and by nearly three million votes. As a cultural anthropologist who has long studied
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women and politics, I offer a few preliminary observations on the role of gender in the 2016 presidential election.
Women on the Political Leadership Stage
From a positive perspective, for the first time, two women (Republican Carly Fiorina and Democrat Hillary Clinton) participated in televised
presidential primary debates and one went on to the “finals.” Millions of people, including children, saw articulate, accomplished, powerful
women competing with men to be “Commander-in-Chief.” During the 2016 Democratic National Convention, the country watched a major politi-
cal party and key male leaders celebrate the life and professional and leadership-relevant achievements of a woman, its presidential nominee.
The role-modeling impacts are enormous—and, one hopes, long-lasting.
The Gendered White House Family
The 2016 presidential campaign challenged, at least momentarily, the traditional, taken-for-granted, gendered institution of the White House
first “family.” What if the president’s spouse were male? This would wreck havoc with the conventional “first lady” role! Traditionally, the spouse,
even if highly educated, becomes the “help mate” and “listener,” handles “domestic affairs,” organizes and attends important social occasions,
and works on gender-appropriate projects such as children’s health. Hillary Clinton was roundly criticized, as first lady, for venturing beyond the
“domestic sphere” and pursuing health care reform in Bill Clinton’s administration even though she had indisputably relevant professional
expertise. Michelle Obama, with her Harvard law degree and prior career as a lawyer, became best known as “First Mom” and a “fashion-setter”
whose clothing was discussed and emulated. While she was a very positive role model, especially for African-Americans, and developed major
initiatives to combat childhood obesity and promote fresh food, she did not challenge gender conventions. How many girls remember her profes-
sional credentials and achievements?
Had Hillary Clinton won, the need to confront gendered elements of the conventional White House family would have come to the forefront as
the “first gentleman” role gradually evolved. Certainly, no one would have expected Bill Clinton to choose china patterns, redecorate the living
quarters, or become a “fashion trend-setter.”
Consensual Sexual Interactions: Which Century Are We In?
The 2016 presidential campaign stimulated discussion of other often-ignored gender-related topics. Despite some progress, sexual harass-
ment and sexual assault, including rape, remain widespread in the workplace and on college campuses (cf. Stanford case, The Hunting Ground).
Yet there has been enormous pressure on women—and institutions—to remain silent.
In October 2016, after a video was released of Donald Trump bragging about his ability to sexually grope women he did not know, the presi-
dential candidate said it was only “locker room talk”…not anything he had ever done. Hearing these denials, several women, some well-known,
came forth with convincing claims that Trump had groped them or in other ways engaged in inappropriate, non-consensual sexual behavior.
Trump responded by denying the charges, insulting the accusers, and threatening lawsuits against the claimants and news media organizations
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that published the reports. For many women, the video aroused memories of their own recurring experiences with sexual harassment and
assault. After the video was released, Kelly Oxford started a tidal wave of women unburdening long-kept secrets with her tweet: “Women: tweet
me your first assaults.” Others went on record denouncing Trumps’ talk and behavior, and the hashtag #NotOkay surged on Twitter.
In a normal U.S. presidential election, the video and repeated accusations of sexual assault would have forced the candidate to withdraw (as
happened with Gary Hart in a previous election). Instead, accusers experienced a backlash not only from Trump but from some media organiza-
tions and Trump supporters, illustrating why women are reluctant to come forth or press sexual charges, especially against powerful men (see
the 1991 Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas case). These voters’ reactions and the continued willingness of so many others to vote for the candidate
suggest that “locker room banter” and unwanted sexual advances are still considered normal and acceptable among significant segments of our
population. After all, “boys will be boys,” at least in the old (false) baboon stereotype of male behavior! Clearly, we need more public conversa-
tions about what constitutes appropriate and consensual sexually related behavior.
Sexism: Alive and Well
The 2016 presidential campaign revealed that sexism is alive and well, though not always recognized, explicit, or acknowledged even when
obvious (see article by Lynn Sherr). The media, both before and after the election, generally underplayed the impact of sexism despite research
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showing that sexist attitudes, not political party, were more likely to predict voters preference for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.
The campaign also reflected a persistent double standard. Despite widespread agreement that Hillary Clinton was highly qualified to be presi-
dent, her judgment, competence, “stamina,” and even her proven accomplishments were subjected to scrutiny and criticism not normally
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applied to similarly experienced male candidates. Additional gender-specific criteria were imposed: “likeability,” “smiling enough,” “warmth,” and
appearance. She did not “look” “presidential”—an image of leadership that evoked the stereotype baboon model! But being six feet tall with
large biceps and acting “tough” and “aggressive” probably would have disqualified her, as a woman, from the start! Other traits that are accept-
able in men—ambitious, goal-focused, strategic, “wanting” the presidency—were treated as liabilities in Clinton, part of a “power-hungry” cri-
tique, as though women are not legitimately supposed to pursue or hold power.
Patriarchal Stereotypes of Women
Hillary Clinton’s candidacy seems to have activated long-standing patriarchal stereotypes and images of women. One is the “good vs. bad”
woman opposition. The “good” woman is chaste, obedient, nurturing, self-sacrificing, gentle—the Virgin Mary/Mother figure. The “bad” woman is
greedy, selfish, independent, aggressive, and often, sexually active—importantly, she lies, deceives, is totally untrustworthy. Bad (“nasty”)
women in myths and reality must be punished for their transgressions; they are dangerous to men and threaten the social order.
As a researcher and someone who had many conversations with voters during this election, I was shocked by the intensity and level of ani-
mosity directed at Hillary Clinton. It was palpable, and it went far beyond a normal critique of a normal candidate. At Republican rallies, mass
shouts of “lock her up” and T-shirts and bumper stickers bearing slogans like “Trump that Bitch” (and worse) bore a frightening resemblance to
violence-inciting hate-speech historically directed at African-Americans and at Jews, gays, and socialists in Nazi Germany, as well as to hate-
filled speech that fueled Medieval European witch-burnings in which thousands (if not millions), mainly women, were burned at the stake [“burn
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the witch”]. Clinton was indeed challenging “traditional” gender roles in U.S. politics, the workplace, and at home. Patriarchy was being
120
threatened, and many, though not all, voters found that profoundly disturbing even though they did not necessarily recognize it or admit it.
Beyond that, there is a long tradition of blaming women for personal and societal disasters—for convincing Adam to eat the forbidden fruit,
for the breakup of joint family households in places like India. Women often become the repository for people’s frustrations when things “go
wrong” (Remember the spoiled sausage in Portuguese culture discussed earlier in this chapter?). Women—like minorities, immigrants, and “evil
empires”—are culturally familiar, available targets to which one can legitimately assign blame, frustration, and even rage, as we saw in the 2016
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election.
Hillary Clinton as a Symbol of Change
Ironically, Hillary Clinton was depicted and criticized during the campaign as a symbol of the “establishment” while her key opponents stood
for “change.” I think it is just the opposite. Hillary Clinton and her campaign and coalition symbolized (and embraced) the major transforma-
tions—indeed, upheavals—that have occurred in the United States since the 1960s. It is not just feminism and a new definition of masculinity
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that rejects the old baboon male-dominance tough-guy model, although that is one change. While economic anxiety and “white nationalism”
both played roles, the election was also about an “America” that is changing demographically, socially, religiously, sexually, linguistically, tech-
nologically, and ideologically—changing what constitutes “truth” and reality. For many in rural areas, outside forces—especially the government,
run by liberal, urban elites—are seen as trying to control one’s way of life with gun control, environmental regulations, ending coal mining, ban-
ning school (Christian) prayer, requiring schools to teach evolution and comprehensive sex education (vs. abstinence only). Hillary Clinton, her
coalition, and her alignment with the Obama White House, not just with its policies but with an African-American “first family,” symbolized the
intersection of all these social, demographic, and cultural transformations. She truly represented “change.”
Ironically, Clinton’s opponents, even in the Democratic Party, were more “establishment” candidates culturally, demographically, and in their
gender relationships. Bernie Sanders attracted an enormous, enthusiastic following and came close to winning the Democratic presidential pri-
mary. Yet his rhetoric and policy proposals, while unusual in twenty-first century mainstream politics, resembled the economic inequality, anti-
Wall Street, “it’s only about economics” focus of early twentieth century democratic socialists such as Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas and of
progressive Henry Wallace. And, not surprisingly, Sanders appealed largely to Euro-American demographic groups rather than to the broader
spectrum of twenty-first century voters.
In short, the election and the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton symbolized more than half a century of enormous change—and a choice
between continuing that change or selecting a candidate who symbolized what was traditional, familiar, and, to many, more comfortable.
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Whether the transformations of the past fifty years will be reversed remains to be seen.
Discussion
From a global perspective, the United States lags behind many countries in women’s political leadership and representation. For national leg-
islative bodies, U.S. women constitute only 19 percent of Congress, below the world average of 23 percent, below the average in the Americas,
28 percent, and far below Nordic countries, 41 percent. The U.S. ranks 104th of 193 countries in the world (see http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/clas-
sif.htm). When it comes to political leadership, over 65 nations have elected at least one woman as their head of state, including countries with
predominantly Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and/or Buddhist populations. (see https://www.theglobalist.com/women-on-top-of-the-politi-
cal-world/.) Yet the U.S. still has never elected a woman President (or even Vice-President). Are you surprised by these data or by some of the
countries that rank higher than the United States? Why? What do you think are some of the reasons the US lags behind so many other coun-
tries?
Additional Resources and Links
Center for American Women and Politics
Presidential Gender Watch

Institute for Women’s Policy Research
Pew Research Institute (U.S. and international data)
United Nations, UN Women
CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO STUDYING SEXUALITY AND

GENDER
Contemporary anthropology now recognizes the crucial role played by gender in human society.
Anthropologists in the post-2000 era have focused on exploring fluidity within and beyond sexuality,
incorporating a gendered lens in all anthropological research, and applying feminist science frame-
works, discourse-narrative analyses, political theory, critical studies of race, and queer theory to better
understand and theorize gendered dynamics and power. Pleasure, desire, trauma, mobility, boundaries,
reproduction, violence, coercion, bio-politics, globalization, neoliberal “development” policies and dis-
courses, immigration, and other areas of anthropological inquiry have also informed gender and sexu-
ality studies. We next discuss some of those trends.124
Heteronormativity and Sexuality in the United States

In the long history of human sexual relationships, we see that most involve people from different
biological sexes, but some societies recognize and even celebrate partnerships between members of the
same biological sex.125 In some places, religious institutions formalize unions while in others unions
are recognized only once they result in a pregnancy or live birth. Thus, what many people in the United
States consider “normal,” such as the partnership of one man and one woman in a sexually exclusive
relationship legitimized by the state and federal government and often sanctioned by a religious institu-
tion, is actually heteronormative. Heteronormativity is a term coined by French philosopher Michel
Foucault to refer to the often-unnoticed system of rights and privileges that accompany normative
sexual choices and family formation. For example, a “biologically female” woman attracted to a “bio-
logically male” man who pursued that attraction and formed a relationship with that man would be fol-
lowing a heteronormative pattern in the United States. If she married him, she would be continuing to
follow societal expectations related to gender and sexuality and would be agreeing to state involvement
in her love life as she formalizes her relationship.
Despite pervasive messages reinforcing heteronormative social relations, people find other ways to
satisfy their sexual desires and organize their families. Many people continue to choose partners from
the so-called “opposite” sex, a phrase that reflects the old U.S. bipolar view of males and females as being
at opposite ends of a range of characteristics (strong-weak, active-passive, hard-soft, outside-inside,
Mars-Venus).126 Others select partners from the same biological sex. Increasingly, people are choosing
partners who attract them—perhaps female, perhaps male, and perhaps someone with ambiguous phys-
ical sexual characteristics.
Labels have changed rapidly in the United States during the twenty-first century as a wider range of
sexual orientations has been openly acknowledged, accompanied by a shift in our binary view of sexu-
ality. Rather than thinking of individuals as either heterosexual OR homosexual, scholars and activists
now recognize a spectrum of sexual orientations. Given the U.S. focus on identity, it is not surprising
that a range of new personhood categories, such as bisexual, queer, questioning, lesbian, and gay have
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emerged to reflect a more-fluid, shifting, expansive, and ambiguous conception of sexuality and sexual
identity.
Transgender, meanwhile, is a category for people who identify as a different gender than the one
that was assigned to them at birth. This may entail a social transition or a physical one, using a number
of methods. Anthropologist David Valentine explored how the concept of “transgender” became estab-
lished in the United States and found that many people who were identified by others as transgender
did not embrace the label themselves. This label, too, has undergone a profound shift in usage, and the
high-profile transition by Caitlyn Jenner in the mid-2010s has further shifted how people think about
those who identify as transgender.127
By 2011, an estimated 8.7 million people in the United States identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/
or transgender.128 These communities represent a vibrant, growing, and increasingly politically and
economically powerful segment of the population. While people who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual,
and transgender—or any of a number of other sexual and gender minorities—have existed through-
out the United States’ history, it is only since the Stonewall uprisings of 1969 that the modern LGBT
movement has been a key force in U.S. society.129 Some activists, community members, and scholars
argue that LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender) is a better choice of labels than GLBT
since it puts lesbian identity in the foreground—a key issue because the term “gay” is often used as an
umbrella term and can erase recognition of individuals who are not gay males. Recently, the acronym
has been expanded to include LGBTQ (queer or questioning), LGBTQQ (both queer and questioning),
LGBTQIA (queer/questioning, intersex, and/or asexual), and LGBTQAIA (adding allies as well).
Like the U.S. population overall, the LGBTQ community is extremely diverse. Some African-Amer-
icans prefer the term “same-gender loving” because the other terms are seen as developed by and for
“white people.” Emphasizing the importance and power of words, Jafari Sinclaire Allen explains that
“same-gender loving” was “coined by the black queer activist Cleo Manago [around 1995] to mark a dis-
tinction between ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ culture and identification, and black men and women who have sex
with members of the same sex.”130 While scholars continue to use gay, lesbian, and queer and the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control uses MSM (men who have sex with men), “same-gender loving” resonates
in some urban communities.
Not everyone who might fit one of the LGBTQQIA designations consciously identifies with a group
defined by sexual orientation. Some people highlight their other identities, as Minnesotans, for exam-
ple, or their ethnicity, religion, profession, or hobby—whatever they consider central and important in
their lives. Some scholars argue that heteronormativity allows people who self-identify as heterosex-
ual the luxury of not being defined by their sexual orientation. They suggest that those who identify
with the sex and gender they were assigned at birth be referred to as cisgender.131 Only when labels
are universal rather than used only for non-normative groups, they argue, will people become aware of
discrimination based on differences in sexual preference.
Though people are urging adoption of sexual identity labels, not everyone is embracing the move to
self-identify in a specific category. Thus, a man who is attracted to both men and women might self-
identify as bisexual and join activist communities while another might prefer not to be incorporated
into any sexual-preference-based politics. Some people prefer to eliminate acronyms altogether, instead
embracing terms such as genderfluid and genderqueer that recognize a spectrum instead of a static iden-
tity. This freedom to self-identify or avoid categories altogether is important. Most of all, these shifts
and debates demonstrate that, like the terms themselves, LGBTQ communities in the United States are
diverse and dynamic with often-changing priorities and makeup.
Changing Attitudes toward LGBTQ People in the United States
In the last two decades, attitudes toward LGBTQ—particularly lesbian, gay and bisexual—people
have changed dramatically. The most sweeping change is the extension of marriage rights to lesbian,
gay, and bisexual people. The first state to extend marriage rights was Massachusetts in 2003. By 2014,
more than half of U.S. Americans said they believed same-sex couples should have the right to marry,
and on June 26, 2015, in Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. supreme court declared that same-sex couples
had the legal right to marry.132 Few civil rights movements have seen such progress in such a short
period of time. While many factors have influenced the shift in attitudes, sociologists and anthropol-
ogists have identified increased awareness of and exposure to LGBTQ people through the media and
personal interactions as playing key roles.133
Legalization of same-sex marriage also helped normalize same-sex parenting. Sarah, whose three
young children—including a set of twins—are mothered by Sarah and her partner, was active in cam-
paigns for marriage equality in Minnesota and ecstatic when the campaign succeeded in 2013 (see Text
Box 4).
However, legalization of same-sex marriage has not been welcomed everywhere in the United States.
Anthropologist Jessica Johnson’s ethnographic work profiling a Seattle-based megachurch from 2006
through 2008 initially explored their efforts to oppose same-sex marriage. Later, she shifted her focus to
the rhetoric of gender, masculinity, and cisgender sexuality used by the church and its pastor.134 Offi-
cial church communications dismissed homosexuality as aberrant and mobilized members to advocate
against same-sex marriage. The church’s efforts were not successful.
Interestingly, activists and gender studies scholars express concern over incorporating marriage—a
heteronormative institution some consider oppressive—into queer spaces not previously governed by
state authority. These concerns may be overshadowed by a desire for normative lives and legal protec-
tions, but as sociologist Tamara Metz and others have argued, legally intertwining passion, romance,
sexual intimacy, and economic rights and responsibilities is not necessarily a move in the right direc-
tion.135 As Miriam Smith has written, “We must move beyond thinking of same-sex marriage and rela-
tionship recognition as struggles that pit allegedly normalized or assimilated same-sex couples against
queer politics and sensibilities and, rather, recognize the increasingly complex gender politics of same-
sex marriage and relationship recognition, a politics that implicates groups beyond the LGBT commu-
nity.”136
While U.S. culture on the whole has become more supportive and accepting of LGBTQ people, they
still face challenges. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not federally protected statuses. Thus,
in 32 states (as of 2016), employers can legally refuse to hire and can fire someone simply for being
LGBTQ.137 Even in states where queer people have legal protection, transgender and other gender-
diverse people do not. LGBTQ people can be legally denied housing and other important resources het-
erosexual people take for granted. LGBTQ youth made up 40 percent of homeless young people in the
United States in 2012 and are often thrust into homelessness by family rejection.138 Transgender peo-
ple are the most vulnerable and experience high levels of violence, including homicide. See Activity 4:
Bathroom Transgression.
Text Box 4: Moving Toward Marriage Equality in Minnesota: Sarah’s Letter

In 2013, the Minnesota state legislature voted on whether to approve same-sex marriage. Before the vote, a woman named Sarah made the
difficult decision to advocate publicly for the bill’s approval. In the process, she wrote the following letter.
Dear Minnesota Senator,
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This is an open letter to you in support of the marriage equality bill. I may not be your constituent, and you may already know how you are
planning to vote, but I ask you to read this letter with an open mind and heart nonetheless.
I want same-sex marriage for the same reasons as many others. My partner Abby and I met in the first days of 2004 and have created a lov-
ing home together with our three kids and two cats. We had a commitment ceremony in 2007 in Minneapolis and were legally married in Van-
couver during our “honeymoon.” We want our marriage to be recognized because our kids deserve to have married parents, and because we
constantly face increased stress as a result of having our relationship not recognized. But that’s not why I’m writing. I’m writing because there is
one conversation I have over and over again with my son that puts a pit in my stomach each time, and I’m ready for that pit to go away.
Abby and I both wear wedding bands. We designed them prior to our ceremony and spent more time on that decision than we did on the flow-
ers, dresses, and music combined. Our son is now three and a half and, like other kids his age, he asks about everything. All the time. When I get
him dressed, change his diaper (please let him be potty-trained soon), or wipe his nose, he sees my ring. And he always asks:
“Mama, what’s that ring on your finger?”
“It’s my wedding band.”
“Why you wear a wedding band?”
“Because when Ima and I got married, we picked out wedding bands and now we wear them every day. It shows that we love each other.”
“I want wear wedding band.”
“Someday when you’re all grown up, you’ll fall in love and get married. And you’ll get to wear a wedding band, too.”
“I’ll grow up and get married? And then I get a wedding band?”
“Yep.”
“Okay.”
And then he goes about his day. This conversation may seem silly and harmless to you, but read it again. Look at how many times the issue
of marriage comes up. We call it a wedding band, but every time we say that, we know it’s not completely true because we were not legally wed
in Minnesota. When I tell my son about our marriage or our wedding, I know I’m hiding a secret from him, but am I really supposed to explain
that it was a “commitment ceremony” and we are “committed, but not “married”? He’s too young to be saddled with the pain that comes from
being left out. He looks at our pictures and sees that his parents made a commitment to each other because of love. He doesn’t understand his
grandfather’s speech recognizing how bittersweet the day was because the state we call home refused to bless our union as it blesses the
unions of our friends. And he doesn’t understand that, when I tell him he will grow up and get married, his marriage will (most likely) be part of a
tradition from which his parents are excluded.
I am grateful that he is blissfully unaware right now. Imagine having the conversation with your children. Imagine the pain you would feel if
innocent conversations with your child reminded you constantly that your love is not valued by your community. Don’t get me wrong; our friends
and family treated our ceremony as they would a legal wedding. We had a phenomenal time with good food, music, laughter, and joy. If our cere-
mony in Minneapolis had been enough, though, we wouldn’t have bothered to get legally married in Vancouver. There is something so powerful
and intangible about walking into a government office and walking out with a marriage license. We are grateful we had the opportunity there,
and simply wish our state would recognize our commitment as the marriage that it is.
Take a look at the picture of my family. It’s outdated, primarily because we can’t get our kids to sit still long enough for a photo. I’m on the
right, Abby on the left. Our son is now 3.5 and our girls (twins) are almost 2. We can appreciate that this is a difficult vote for many of you and
we would be honored if you think of our family and the impact this vote will have on us. We know many people outside of the Twin Cities never
have a chance to meet families like ours. Tell them about us, if it helps. We are happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you for
reading.
Sincerely,
Sarah
Minneapolis, Minnesota
April 2013
Note: Minnesota legalized same-sex marriage in 2013.
Figure 19: Sarah’s family photo.
Sexuality Outside the United States

Same-sex sexual and romantic relationships probably exist in every society, but concepts like “gay,”
“lesbian,” and “bisexual” are cultural products that, in many ways, reflect a culturally specific gender
ideology and a set of beliefs about how sexual preferences develop. In many cultures (such as the
Sambia discussed above), same-sex sex is a behavior, not an identity. Some individuals in India identify
as practicing “female-female sexuality” or “male-male sexuality.” The film Fire by Mira Nair aroused
tremendous controversy in India partly because it depicted a same-sex relationship between two mar-
ried women somewhat graphically and because it suggested alternatives available to women stuck in
unhappy and abusive patriarchal marriages.139 Whether one is “homosexual” or “heterosexual” may not
be linked simply to engaging in same-sex sexual behavior. Instead, as among some Brazilian males, your
status in the sexual relationship, literally and symbolically, depends on (or determines!) whether you are
the inserter or the penetrated.140 Which would you expect involves higher status?
Even anthropologists who are sensitive to cross-cultural variations in the terms and understandings
that accompany same-sex sexual and romantic relationships can still unconsciously project their own
meanings onto other cultures. Evelyn Blackwood, an American, described how surprised she was to
realize that her Sumatran lover, who called herself a “Tombois,” had a different conception of what con-
stituted a “lesbian” identity and lesbian relationship than she did.141 We must be careful not to assume
that other cultures share LGBTQ identities as they are understood in the United States and many Euro-
pean countries.
Furthermore, each country has its own approach to sexuality and marriage, and reproduction often
plays a central role. In Israel, an embrace of pro-natalist policies for Jewish Israelis has meant that
expensive reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization are provided to women at no cost or
are heavily subsidized. An Israeli gay activist described how surprised queer activists from other coun-
tries were when they found that nearly all Israeli female same-sex couples were raising children. (This
embrace of same-sex parenting did not extend to male couples, for whom the state did not provide
assisted reproductive support.) The pro-natalist policies can be traced in part to Israel’s emergence as
a state: founded in the aftermath of persecution and systematic genocide of Jewish residents of Europe
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from 1937 through 1945, Israel initially promoted policies that encouraged births at least in part as
resistance to Nazi attempts to destroy the Jewish people. The contexts may be less dramatic elsewhere,
but local and national histories often inform policies and practices.
In Thailand, Ara Wilson has explored how biological women embrace identities as toms and dees.
Although these terms seem to be derived from English-language concepts (dees is etymologically related
to “ladies”), suggesting international influences, the ubiquity and acceptance of toms and dees in Thailand
does diverge from patterns in the United States.142
In China (as elsewhere), the experiences of those involved in male-male sexuality and those involved
in female-female sexuality can differ. In her book Shanghai Lalas: Female Tongzhi Communities and Politics
in Urban China, Lucetta Yip Lo Kam discusses how lesbians in China note their lack of public social
spaces compared with gay men.143 Even the words lala and tongzhi index different categories from the
English terms: lala encompasses lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people while tongzhi is a gloss term
that usually refers to gay men but has been expanded in the last two decades to other uses. (Tongzhi is a
cooptation of the Chinese-language socialist-era term for comrade.)
Language makes a difference in how individuals and communities articulate their identities. Anthro-
pologists such as Kam have commented on how sharing their own backgrounds with those with whom
they work can be instrumental in gaining trust and building rapport. Her identity as a Chinese-speaking
queer anthropologist and activist from Hong Kong helped women in Shanghai feel comfortable speak-
ing with her and willing to include her in their networks.144
From these examples, we see that approaches to sexuality in different parts of the world are evolving,
just as gender norms in the United States are undergoing tremendous shifts. Anthropologists often
cross boundaries to research these changes, and their contributions will continue to shape understand-
ings of the broad range of approaches to sexuality.
Anthropology of the Body

Another important topic for anthropologists interested in gender and sexuality is the anthropology
of the body, sometimes referred to as embodied anthropology. Viewing the human body as an analytic
category offers exciting new theoretical possibilities.145 Topics that have attracted particular attention
include popular and scientific representations of the body; (dis)ability; the anthropology of obesity; the
politics of reproduction; coercion; complex issues associated with genital modifications such as female
circumcision; and the relationship between bodies and borders.146 Who can cross which lines physi-
cally (think about national borders), emotionally, psychologically, and socially? Embodied anthropology
foregrounds these questions.
Anthropologists increasingly write about their own experiences using an auto-ethnographic mode.
For example, Pamela Runestad examined how her time as a patient in a Japanese maternity ward influ-
enced her understanding of the importance of carefully crafted meals and nutrition for HIV/AIDS
patients.147 In subsequent research on HIV/AIDS in Japan, she probed more deeply into how patients’
nourishment inside and outside clinical settings affected their perceptions of health.
Anthropology of the body overlaps with work on gender and sexuality, including the discourse sur-
rounding women’s bodies and reproductive functions. Emily Martin’s pioneering book, The Woman in
the Body, critically examined lay women and medical descriptions of menstruation, child-bearing, and
menopause in the United States. She identified a scientific ideology of reproduction that is infused with
traditional U.S. binary gender stereotypes similar to those in man-the-hunter origin stories. In her clas-
sic essay about what she calls a “scientific fairy tale,” Martin describes how U.S. biology texts repre-
sented the egg and sperm as romantic partners whose actions are described with passive or active verbs
according to gendered assumptions.148
I realized that the picture of egg and sperm drawn in popular as well as scientific accounts of repro-
ductive biology relies on stereotypes central to our cultural definitions of male and female. The stereo-
types imply not only that female biological processes are less worthy than their male counterparts but
also that women are less worthy than men. Part of my goal in writing this article is to shine a bright
light on the gender stereotypes hidden within the scientific language of biology.149
Subsequent work has challenged the “sperm penetrates egg” model of fertilization, noting that it is
medically inaccurate and reinforces male-active-dominant, female-passive (penetrated) gender models.
In reality, the egg and sperm fuse, but the egg activates the sperm by releasing molecules that are crucial
for it to find and adhere to the egg.150 Old videos like The Miracle of Life offer, in their narration and
background music, striking examples of the cultural ideology of reproduction in the United States that
Martin and others have described.151
In another classic essay, Corinne Hayden explored interactions between biology, family, and gender
among lesbian couples. Even though both members of the lesbian couples she studied did not necessar-
ily contribute biologically to their offspring, the women and their families found ways to embrace these
biological differences and develop a new formulation of family that involved biological connection but
was not limited to it.152
Some research analyzes the body, especially the female body, as a site of coercion and expression of
power relations by individuals (e.g., partner rape and domestic violence), but state-sanctioned collective
acts also occur, such as using women as “sex slaves” (Japan’s so-called “Comfort Women” during World
War II) and using civilian rape as a form of psychological warfare. Anthropologists document other
ways in which states exert power over bodies—through family planning policies (China’s planned birth
policy), legislation that bans (or permits) artificial forms of contraception and abortion, and govern-
ment programs to promote fertility, including subsidized infertility treatments.153 For example, Turk-
ish anthropologists have described how state policies in Turkey have appropriated, for state purposes,
sexual issues of concern to Turkish families, such as assisted reproduction for disabled war veterans and
treatment of vaginismus, a condition that prevents women from engaging in sexual intercourse. Power
relationships are also associated with new reproductive technologies. For example, the availability of
amniocentesis often contributes to shifts in the ratio of male and female babies born. Unequal power
relations are also in play between surrogate mothers (often poor women) and wealthier surrogate fam-
ilies desiring children.154
Women in Anthropology
As seen earlier in this chapter, female anthropologists have always played a key role in anthropology.
In sex-segregated societies, they have had unique access to women’s worlds. Recently, they have ana-
lyzed how gender might affect styles of authorship and authority in ethnographies. Social characteris-
tics, including gender, race, class, sexuality, and religion, also influence how an anthropologist engages
in fieldwork and how she and her colleagues relate to one another.155 Sometimes the identity of an
anthropologist creates new opportunities for deeper understanding and connection, but at other times
one’s personal identity can create professional challenges.
Fieldwork
Women face particular challenges when conducting fieldwork regardless of the culture but particu-
larly in sex-segregated and patriarchal societies. Sometimes women are perceived as more vulnerable
269
than men to sexual harassment, and their romantic choices in fieldwork situations are subject to greater
scrutiny than choices made by men in similar situations.156 Women may be more likely to juggle family
responsibilities and professional projects and bring children with them for fieldwork. At first glance,
this practice may raise eyebrows because of the risks it brings to accompanying children and because of
potential negative impacts on the anthropologist’s planned work, but many female anthropologists have
found fieldwork undertaken with their families to be a transformative experience both professionally
and personally. Whereas appearing as a decontextualized single fieldworker can arouse suspicion, arriv-
ing at a field site with the recognizable identities of parent, daughter, or spouse can help people concep-
tualize the anthropologist as someone with a role beyond camera-toting interviewer and observer. At
the same time, arriving as a multi-person group also complicates what Jocelyn Linnekin called “impres-
sion management.” One’s child is often less aware of delicate matters and less sensitive in communicat-
ing preferences to hosts, causing potentially embarrassing situations but also creating levity that might
otherwise be slow to develop. Fieldwork as a family unit also allows for a different rhythm to the elusive
work-life balance; many families have reported cherishing time spent together during fieldwork since
they rarely had so much time together in their activity-filled home settings.157
More anthropologists now conduct fieldwork in their home communities. Some wish to explore the-
oretical and empirical questions best examined in local field sites. Others are reluctant or unable to
relocate their families or partners temporarily. Conducting fieldwork close to home can also be a less
expensive option than going abroad! But the boundaries of field and home can become quite porous.
In their writings, women anthropologists reveal how the realms of public and private and political and
personal are connected in the field/home. Innovative, activist, and self-reflective studies address inter-
sections that other scholars treat separately.158
Academic Anthropology in the United States
Though the representation of women in U.S. academic anthropology is now proportional to their
numbers in the Ph.D. pool, discrepancies remain between male and female anthropology professors
in rank and publication rates. A 2008 report on the status of women in anthropology, for example,
found evidence of continuity of the “old boys’ network”—the tendency for men in positions of power
to develop relationships with other men, which creates pooled resources, positive performance eval-
uations, and promotions for those men but not for women. Furthermore, since women in the United
States are usually socialized to avoid making demands, they often accept lower salary offers than could
have been negotiated, which can have significant long-term financial consequences.159
Women are also over-represented among non-tenure-track anthropology faculty members who are
often paid relatively small per-course stipends and whose teaching leaves little time for research and
publishing. Some married women prioritize their partners’ careers, limiting their own geographic flex-
ibility and job (and fieldwork) opportunities. Left with few academic job options in a given area, they
may leave academia altogether.160
On a positive note, women have an increasingly prominent place in the highest ranks of anthropol-
ogy, including as president of the American Anthropological Association. Nonetheless, systemic gender
inequality continues to affect the careers of female anthropologists. Given what we know about gender
systems, we should not be surprised.
Masculinity Studies
Students in gender studies and anthropology courses on gender are often surprised to find that they
will be learning about men as well as women. Early women’s studies initially employed what has been
called an “add women and stir” approach, which led to examinations of gender as a social construct and
of women’s issues in contemporary society. In the 1990s, women’s studies expanded to become gender
studies, incorporating the study of other genders, sexuality, and issues of gender and social justice.161
Gender was recognized as being fundamentally relational: femaleness is linked to maleness, femininity
to masculinity. One outgrowth of that work is the field of “masculinity studies.”162
Masculinity studies goes beyond men and their roles to explore the relational aspects of gender. One
focus is the enculturation processes through which boys learn about and learn to perform “manhood.”
Many U.S. studies (and several excellent videos, such as Tough Guise by Jackson Katz), have examined
the role of popular culture in teaching boys our culture’s key concepts of masculinity, such as being
“tough” and “strong,” and shown how this “tough guise” stance affects men’s relationships with women,
with other men, and with societal institutions, reinforcing a culture of violent masculinity. Sociologist
Michael Kimmel has further suggested that boys are taught that they live in a “perilous world” he terms
“Guyland.”163
Anthropologists began exploring concepts of masculinity cross-culturally as early as the 1970s,
resulting in several key publications in 1981, including Herdt’s first book on the Sambia of New Guinea
and Ortner and Whitehead’s volume, Sexual Meanings. In 1990, Gilmore analyzed cross-cultural ethno-
graphic data in his Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts in Masculinity.164 Other work followed,
including a provocative video on the Sambia, Guardians of the Flutes. But the growth of studies of men
and masculinity in the United States also stimulated new research approaches, such as “performative”
aspects of masculinity and how gender functions in wealthier, post-industrial societies and communi-
ties with access to new technologies and mass media.165
Anthropologists sometimes turn to unconventional information sources as they explore gendered
culture, including popular television commercials. Interestingly, the 2015 Super Bowl commercials
produced for the Always feminine product brand also focused on gender themes in its #Likeagirl cam-
paign, which probed the damaging connotations of the phrases “throw like a girl” and “run like a girl”
by first asking boys and girls to act out running and throwing, and then asking them to act out a girl
running and throwing. A companion clip further explored the negative impacts of anti-girl messages,
provoking dialogue among Super Bowl viewers and in social media spaces (though, ironically, that dia-
logue was intended to promote consumption of feminine products). As the clips remind us, while boys
and men play major roles in perceptions related to gender, so do the women who raise them, often rein-
forcing gendered expectations for play and aspiration. Of course, women, like men, are enculturated
into their culture’s gender ideology.166 Both girls and boys—and adults—are profoundly influenced by
popular culture.
Though scholars from many disciplines publish important work on masculinity, anthropologists,
with their cross-cultural research and perspectives, have significantly deepened and enriched inter-
disciplinary understandings. Anthropologists have made strong contributions not only by providing
nuanced portrayals (of, for example, men in prison, heroin users, migrant laborers, college students, and
athletes in the United States) but also through offering vivid accounts of expectations of men in other
societies, including the relationship between those expectations and warfare. This can include differ-
ences in expectations based on a person’s age, other role-based variations, and transformation of tradi-
tional roles as a result of globalization.167
Not all societies expect men to be “tough guys/guise,” and those that do go about it in different ways
and result in different impacts on men and women.168 For example, in Sichuan Province in China,
young Nuosu men must prove their maturity through risky behavior such as theft. In recent years, theft
has been supplanted for many by heroin use, particularly as young men have left their home commu-
nities for urban areas (where they are often feared by city residents and attract suspicion).169 Mean-
271
while, in the Middle East, technologies such as assisted reproduction are challenging and reshaping
ideas about masculinity among some Arab men, particularly men who acknowledge and struggle with
infertility. There and elsewhere, conceptions of fatherhood are considered crucial components of mas-
culinity. In Japan, for example, a man who has not fathered a child is not considered to be fully adult.170
Elsewhere, as we saw in the first part of this chapter, men are expected to be gentle nurturers of young
children and to behave in ways that do not fit typical U.S. stereotypes. In Na communities, men dote
on babies and small children, often rushing to pick them up when they enter a room. In South Korea,
men in wildly popular singing groups wear eyeliner and elaborate clothing that would be unusual for
U.S. groups, and throughout China and India, as in many other parts of the world, heterosexual men
walk down the street holding hands or arm-in-arm without causing raised eyebrows. Physical con-
tact between men, especially in sex-segregated societies, is probably far more common than contact
between men and women! Touch is a human form of intimacy that need not have sexual implications.
So if male-male relations are the most intimate in a society, physical expressions of those relations are
“normal” overall unless there is a cultural fear of male physical intimacy. There is much more nuance in
actual behavior than initial appearances lead people to believe.
Anthropologists are also applying approaches taken in American studies to other cultures. They are
engaging in more-intimate discussions of males’ self-perceptions, dilemmas, and challenges and have
not hesitated to intercede, carefully, in the communities in which they work. Visual anthropologist Har-
jant Gill, conducting research in the Punjab region of India, began asking men about pressures they
faced and found that the conversations prompted unexpected reflection. Gill titled his film Mardis-
tan (Macholand) and shepherded the film through television broadcasts and smaller-scale viewings to
encourage wide discussion in India of the issues he explored.171 For a related activity, see Activity 5:
Analyzing Gendered Stereotypes and Masculinity in Music Videos.
CONCLUSION
In 1968, a cigarette company in the United States decided to target women as tobacco consumers
and used a clever marketing campaign to entice them to take up smoking. “You’ve come a long way,
baby!” billboards proclaimed. Women, according to the carefully constructed rhetoric, had moved away
from their historic oppressed status and could—and should—now enjoy the full complement of twen-
tieth-century consumer pleasures. Like men, they deserved to enjoy themselves and relax with a ciga-
rette. The campaigns were extremely successful; within several years, smoking rates among women had
increased dramatically. But had women really come a long way? We now know that tobacco (includ-
ing in vaporized form) is a highly addictive substance and that its use is correlated with a host of seri-
ous health conditions. In responding to the marketing rhetoric, women moved into a new sphere of
bodily pleasure and possibly enjoyed increased independence, but they did so at a huge cost to their
health. They also succumbed to a long-term financial relationship with tobacco companies who relied
on addicting individuals in order to profit. Knowing about the structures at work behind the scenes and
the risks they took, few people today would agree that women’s embrace of tobacco represented a huge
step forward.
Perhaps saying “You’ve come a long way, baby!” with the cynical interpretation with which we read
it today can serve as an analogy for our contemporary explorations of gender and culture. Certainly,
many women in the United States today enjoy heightened freedoms. We can travel to previously forbid-
den spaces, study disciplines long considered the domain of men, shape our families to meet our own
needs, work in whatever field we choose, and, we believe, live according to our own wishes. But we
would be naive to ignore how gender continues to shape, constrain, and inform our lives. The research
and methods of anthropology can help us become more aware of the ongoing consequences of our gen-
dered heritage and the ways in which we are all complicit in maintaining gender ideologies that limit
and restrict people’s possibilities.
By committing to speak out against subtle, gender-based discrimination and to support those strug-
gling along difficult paths, today’s anthropologists can emulate pioneers such as Franz Boas and Mar-
garet Mead, who sought to fuse research and action. May we all be kinder to those who differ from
the norm, whatever that norm may be. Only then will we all—women, men and those who identify
with neither category—have truly come a long way. (But we will leave the infantilizing “baby” to those
tobacco companies!)
1. What is “natural” about how you experience gender and human sexuality? What aspects are at least partially shaped by culture?
How do other cultures’ beliefs and practices regarding gender and sexuality differ from those commonly found in the United States?
Are there any parallels? Does it depend on which U.S. community we are talking about? What about your own beliefs and practices?
2. Reflect on the various ways you have “learned” about gender and sexuality throughout your life. Which influences do you think
had the biggest impact?
3. How important is your gender to how you think about yourself, to your “identity” or self-definition, to your everyday life? Reflect
on what it would be like to be a different gender.
4. How important is your “sexuality” and “sexual orientation” to how you think about yourself, to your identity or self-definition?
Reflect on what it would be like if you altered your sexual identity or practices.
5. In what ways have your school settings been shaped by and around gender norms?
6. How are anthropologists influenced by gender norms? How has this affected the discipline of anthropology?
GLOSSARY
Androgyny: cultural definitions of gender that recognize some gender differentiation, but also accept
“gender bending” and role-crossing according to individual capacities and preferences.
Binary model of gender: cultural definitions of gender that include only two identities–male and
female.
Biologic sex: refers to male and female identity based on internal and external sex organs and chromo-
somes. While male and female are the most common biologic sexes, a percentage of the human popula-
tion is intersex with ambiguous or mixed biological sex characteristics.
Biological determinism: a theory that biological differences between males and females leads to fun-
damentally different capacities, preferences, and gendered behaviors. This scientifically unsupported
view suggests that gender roles are rooted in biology, not culture.
Cisgender: a term used to describe those who identify with the sex and gender they were assigned at
birth
Dyads: two people in a socially approved pairing. One example is a married couple.
Gender: the set of culturally and historically invented beliefs and expectations about gender that one
learns and performs. Gender is an “identity” one can choose in some societies, but there is pressure in
all societies to conform to expected gender roles and identities.
Gender ideology: a complex set of beliefs about gender and gendered capacities, propensities, prefer-
273
ences, identities and socially expected behaviors and interactions that apply to males, females, and other
gender categories. Gender ideology can differ among cultures and is acquired through enculturation.
Also known as a cultural model of gender.
Heteronormativity: a term coined by French philosopher Michel Foucault to refer to the often-unno-
ticed system of rights and privileges that accompany normative sexual choices and family formation.
Legitimizing ideologies: a set of complex belief systems, often developed by those in power, to ratio-
nalize, explain, and perpetuate systems of inequality.
Matrifocal: groups of related females (e.g. mother-her sisters-their offspring) form the core of the fam-
ily and constitute the family’s most central and enduring social and emotional ties.
Matrilineal: societies where descent or kinship group membership is transmitted through women,
from mothers to their children (male and female), and then through daughters, to their children, and so
forth.
Matrilocal: a woman-centered kinship group where living arrangements after marriage often center
around households containing related women.
Patriarchy: describes a society with a male-dominated political and authority structure and an ideology
that privileges males over females in domestic and public spheres.
Patrifocal: groups of related males (e.g. a father-his brothers) and their male offspring form the core of
the family and constitute the family’s most central and enduring social and emotional ties.
Patrilineal: societies where descent or kinship group membership is transmitted through men, from
men to their children (male and female), and then through sons, to their children, and so forth.
Patrilocal: a male-centered kinship group where living arrangements after marriage often center
around households containing related men.
Third gender: a gender identity that exists in non-binary gender systems offering one or more gender
roles separate from male or female.
Transgender: a category for people who or people who identify as a different gender than the one that
was assigned to them at birth. This may entail a social transition or a physical one, using a number of
methods.
Learning Activities and Additional Resources

There is a set of learning activities designed to complement the material in this chapter available
in the Teaching Resources section of the Perspectives website. You can also find a guide to additional
resources for exploring the issues raised in this chapter.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr. Mukhopadhyay specializes in gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, and cul-

ture-cognition, with research in the USA and India on gendered families, politics, and science-engi-
neering. In graduate school she co-created one of the earliest gender-culture courses. She has developed
numerous gender classes and taught, for 20 years, a popular anthropology and gender-oriented, multi-
section Human Sexuality course. Gender-related publications include: Cognitive Anthropology Through
a Gendered Lens (2011). How Exportable are Western Theories of Gendered Science? (2009), A Feminist Cog-
nitive Anthropology: The Case of Women and Mathematics (2004), Women, Education and Family Structure in
India (1994, with S. Seymour). She co-authored an early Annual Review of Anthropology article on gender
(1988) and is in the Association for Feminist Anthropology. In other work, she served as a Key Advisor
for the AAA RACE project; co-authored How Real is Race: A Sourcebook on Race, Culture and Biology, (2nd
Edition, 2014) and promotes active learning approaches to teaching about culture (cf.2007).
Tami Blumenfield is a faculty member in the School of Ethnology and Soci-

ology at Yunnan University and was a 2016 Fulbright Scholar affiliated with Yunnan University.
Since 2001, she has been engaged in a long-term ethnographic fieldwork project in northwest Yunnan
Province, studying changes in education, social life, and ecology in Na communities. Blumenfield is the
co-editor of Cultural Heritage Politics in China, with Helaine Silverman (2013), and of Doing Fieldwork in
China…With Kids! with Candice Cornet (2016). Blumenfield also produced Some Na Ceremonies, a Berke-
ley Media film by Onci Archei and Ruheng Duoji. Blumenfield holds a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropol-
ogy from the University of Washington.
275
Susan Harper, Ph.D., is an educator, activist, and advocate in Dallas, Texas.

She holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Southern Methodist University and a Graduate Cer-
tificate in Women’s Studies from Texas Woman’s University. Her ethnographic research focuses on
New Religious Movements, primarily NeoPaganism, in the American South; the intersection of gender,
sexuality, and religious identity; and ses, sexuality, and sex education. Her work has been published in
the Journal of Bisexuality. Susan is passionate about a variety of social justice causes, including domestic
and intimate partner violence prevention and recovery, sexual assault prevention and recovery, LGBTQ
equality and inclusion, and educational justice. She has given presentations on LGBTQ equality and
inclusion to a variety of audiences, including the North Texas Society of Human Resource Managers,
The Turning Point Rape Crisis Center, and various religious organizations. She teaches courses in
anthropology, sociology, and Women’s and Gender Studies at various universities and colleges in the
DFW area. She also serves as Graduate Reader/Editor for Texas Woman’s University. She is currently
working on an autoethnography about burlesque and visual anthropology project exploring the use of
Pinterest by practitioners of NeoPaganism.
Abby Gondek is a PhD candidate in Global and Socio-cultural Studies

(majoring in Anthropology/Sociology) at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. She
defended her dissertation proposal in April 2016. Her project, “Jewish Women’s Transracial, Trans-
disciplinary and Transnational Social Science Networks, 1920-1970” uses social network analysis
and grounded theory methodology to understand the relationships between the anti-racist and pro-
political/economic justice stance taken by Jewish female social scientists and their Jewish gendered-
racialized subjectivities. Further information about her work is available from
http://transform-art-gender.webs.com and http://abbygondek.blogspot.com.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the many people who supported this writing project. We especially appreci-
ate the editorial guidance of Nina Brown and the constructive feedback from two anonymous review-
ers. We are grateful to our students as well, particularly those in Blumenfield’s Gender in East Asia at
Furman University who read a draft version of this chapter in 2016 and shared feedback that helped us
improve the chapter, and to Mukhopadhyay’s students at California State University Chico and at San
Jose State University. We also thank the many individuals who shared their lives with us and with other
anthropologists, enabling us to understand and appreciate the breadth, depth, and richness of human
cultural diversity. Finally, Carol Mukhopadhyay extends her thanks to Nina Brown and Tami Blumen-
field, and to Susan Seymour, on many levels, for help on the 2016 Gender and the Presidential Election
text box.
Notes
1. The Introduction and much of the material in the Foundations segment draws upon and synthesizes
Mukhopadhyay’s decades of research, writing, and teaching courses on culture, gender, and human sexuality.
Some of it has been published. Other material comes from lecture notes. See http://www.sjsu.edu/people/
carol.mukhopadhyay.
2. We use quotation marks here and elsewhere in the chapter to alert readers to a culturally specific, culturally
invented concept in the United States. We need to approach U.S. cultural inventions the same way we would a
concept we encountered in a foreign, so-called “exotic” culture.
3. See Carolyn B. Brettell and Carolyn F. Sargent, Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective (New York: Routledge, 2005).
Also, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Myths of Gender. Biological Theories About Women and Men (New York: Basic Books,
1991). For some web-based examples of these nineteenth century views, see article at http://www.bl.uk/roman-
tics-and-victorians/articles/gender-roles-in-the-19th-century. For a list of descriptive terms, see
http://www2.ivcc.edu/gen2002/Women_in_the_Nineteenth_Century.htm.
4. For an example of a textbook, see Herant A. Katchadurian, Fundamentals of Human Sexuality (Fort Worth, TX:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1989). See also Linda Stone, Kinship and Gender: An Introduction (Boulder, CO: West-
view Press, 2013).
5. Material in the following paragraphs comes from Mukhopadhyay, unpublished Human Sexuality lecture notes.
6. Herant A. Katchadurian, Fundamentals of Human Sexuality, 365.
7. Phyllis Kaberry, Women of the Grassfields. A Study of the Economic Position of Women in Bamenda, British Cameroons
(Colonial Research publication 14. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.1952) The image comes from the
cover of her book, which is also available online: http://www.era.anthropology.ac.uk/Kaberry/Kaberry_text/.
8. See Barry S. Hewlett, Intimate Fathers: The Nature and Context of Aka Pygmy Paternal Infant Care (Ann Arbor: Uni-
versity of Michigan Press, 1991); and personal communication with Mukhopadhyay.
9. W.H. Masters and V.E. Johnson, Human Sexual Response (New York: Bantam Books, 1966).
10. Some feminist scholars have also questioned the “naturalness” of the biological categories male and female. See
for example, Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1999
[1990]).
11. For genital similarities, see Janet S. Hyde and John D. DeLamater, Understanding Human Sexuality (McGraw Hill,
2014), 94-101. For more parallels, see Mukhopadhyay's online Human Sexuality course materials, at
www.sjsu.edu/people/carol.mukhopadhyay.
12. For some idea of the enormous variability in human physical characteristics, see Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 in C.
Mukhopadhyay, R. Henze, and Y. Moses, How Real is Race: Race, Culture and Biology (Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield, 2014).
13. Information about alternative gender roles in pre-contact Native American communities can be found in
Martha Ward and Monica Edelstein, A World Full of Women (Boston: Pearson, 2013). Also, see the 2011 PBS Inde-
pendent Lens film Two Spirits for an account of the role of two-spirit ideology in Navajo communities, including
the story of a Navajo teenager who was the victim of a hate crime because of his two-spirit identity.
14. Martha Ward and Monica Edelstein, A World Full of Women.
15. Serena Nanda, Neither Man nor Woman: the Hijras of India (Boston, MA: Cengage, 1999); Serena Nanda, Gender
Diversity: Cross-cultural Variations (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland 2000); and Gayatri Reddy and Serena Nanda,
“Hijras: An “Alternative” Sex/Gender in India,” in Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, ed. C. Brettell and C. Sar-
gent, 278–285 (Upper Saddle River New Jersey: Pearson, 2005).
16. Janet S. Hyde and John D. DeLamater, Understanding Human Sexuality, 99; Martha Ward and Monica Edelstein, A
277
World Full of Women.

17. Beverly Chinas, personal communication with Mukhopadhyay. See also her writings on Isthmus Zapotec
women such as: Beverly Chinas, The Isthmus Zapotecs: A Matrifocal Culture of Mexico (New York: Harcourt Brace
College Publishers 1997). For a film on this culture, see Maureen Gosling and Ellen Osborne, Blossoms of Fire,
Film (San Francisco: Film Arts Foundation, 2001).
18. Gilbert Herdt, The Sambia (New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 2006). For an excellent film see Gilbert Herdt,
Guardians of the Flutes (London UK: BBC, 1994).
19. More information about the Nu shu writing system can be found in the film by Yue-Qing Yang, Nu Shu: A Hid-
den Language of Women in China (New York: Women Make Movies, 1999).
20. Ernestine Friedl, Women and Men: An Anthropologist's View (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975). See
Audrey Richards, Chisungu: A Girl’s Initiation Ceremony among the Bemba of Zambia (London: Faber, 1956) and A.
Richards, Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia, An Economic Study of the Bemba Tribe (London: Oxford,
1939).
21. See for example, Ian Hogbin, The Island of Menstruating Men: Religion in Wogeo, New Guinea (Scranton, PA: Chan-
dler Publishing Company, 1970).
22. Susannah M Hoffman, Richard A Cowan and Paul Aratow, Kypseli: Men and Women Apart A Divided Reality
(Berkeley CA: Berkeley Media, 1976).
23. Denise Lawrence, Menstrual Politics: Women and Pigs in Rural Portugal, in Blood Magic: The Anthropology of
Menstruation, ed. Thomas Buckley and Alma Gottlieb, 117-136 (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1988.),
122-123.
24. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03k6k0h. Some women are posing with photos of menstrual pads and
hashtags #happytobleed: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/indian-women-launch-happy-to-
bleed-campaign-to-protest-against-sexist-religious-rule-a6748396.html.
25. See the film by Michael Camerini and Rina Gill, Dadi’s Family (Watertown, MA: DER, 1981).
26. Cynthia Nelson, “Public and Private Politics: Women in the Middle Eastern World” American Ethnologist 1 no. 3
(1974): 551-56.
27. Carol C. Mukhopadhyay, “Family Structure and Indian Women's Participation in Science and Engineering,” in
Women, Education and Family Structure in India, ed. Carol C. Mukhopadhyay and Susan Seymour, 103-133 (Boul-
der: Westview Press, 1994).
28. Elizabeth Fernea, Guests of the Sheik.an Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (New York: Anchor Books, 1965).
29. Susan Seymour, Cora Du Bois: Anthropologist, Diplomat, Agent (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2015).
30. Carol C. Mukhopadhyay, “Women in Science: Is the Glass Ceiling Disappearing?” Proceedings of conference
organized by the National Institute of Science and Technology Development Studies, the Department of Science
and Technology, Government of India; Indian Council of Social Science Research; and the Indo-U.S. Science
and Technology Forum. March 8–10, 2004. New Delhi, India.
31. See for instance, http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/a-powerful-documentary-about-pakistans-
honor-killings and http://www.latimes.com/world/afghanistan-pakistan/la-fg-pakistan-
oscar-20160229-story.html.
32. For more details, see the film by Leslee Udwin, India’s Daughter (Firenze, Italy: Berta Film). The Wikipedia article
about the film notes the reluctance of the Indian government to air the film in India, https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/India’s_Daughter.
33. For a critique of the “myth” of the medieval chastity belt, see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/chastity-
belts-the-odd-truth-about-locking-up-womens-genitalia.
34. See for example, the film by Sabiha Sumar, Silent Waters (Mumbai, India: Shringar Film). While this is not a doc-
umentary, the film reflects the tumultuous history of the partition into two countries.
35. For the !Kung San, see Marjorie Shostak, Nisa: Life and Words of a Kung Woman (New York: Vintage, 1983). For
Trobrianders, see Annette B. Weiner, The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea (New York: Holt Rinehart and Win-
ston, 1987).
36. Shanshan Du, Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs: Gender Unity and Gender Equality Among the Lahu of Southwest China
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).
37. Zhou Huashan, Zhong nu bu qingnan de muxi mosuo: Wufu de guodu? [Matrilineal Mosuo, Valuing Women without
Devaluing Men: A Society without Fathers or Husbands?] (Beijing: Guangming Ribao Chubanshe, 2009 [2001]).
38. Ernestine Friedl, Women and Men: An Anthropologist’s View (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975).
39. Carol C. Mukhopadhyay, “Sati or Shakti: Women, Culture and Politics in India,” in Perspectives on Power: Women
in Asia, Africa and Latin America, ed. Jean O'Barr, 11-26 (Durham: Center for International Studies, Duke Univer-
sity 1982).
40. Lila Abu-Lughod, Writing Women’s Worlds: Bedouin Stories (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).
41. Mukhopadhyay and Seymour use the term “patrifocal” to describe households that consist of related males, usu-
ally brothers, and their sons, and the spouses and children of those males. See C. Mukhopadhyay and S. Sey-
mour, “Introduction” in Women, Family, and Education in India (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994).
42. For powerful documentaries see, the film by Nishta Jain, Gulabi Gang (Stavanger, Norway: Kudos Family Distri-
bution, 2012); and the film by Kim Longinotto, Pink Saris (New York: Women Make Movies, 2011).
43. Lionel Tiger, Men in Groups (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2005[1969]), 45 .
44. Carol C. Mukhopadhyay, The Sexual Division of Labor in the Family, PhD Dissertation, University of California,
Riverside, 1980, 192.
45. Carol C. Mukhopadhyay, fieldnotes, India; and Mukhopadhyay, The Cultural Context of Gendered Science: The Case
of India, 2001, www.sjsu.edu/people/carol.mukhopadhyay/papers.
46. For example, the major symposium on Man the Hunter sponsored by Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropo-
logical Research included only four women among more than sixty listed participants. See Richard B. Lee and
Irven DeVore, Man the Hunter (Chicago: Aldine Atherton, 1972[1968]), xiv–xvi.
47. Mukhopadhyay, Lecture Notes, Human Sexuality, Gender and Culture.
48. S.Washburn and C.S. Lancaster, “The Evolution of Hunting.” in Man the Hunter, 299.
49. Ibid., 303.
50. Jackson Katz, Tough Guise 2: Violence, Manhood and American Culture (Northampton, MA: Media Education Foun-
dation, 2013).
51. Abigail Disney and Kathleen Hughes, The Armor of Light (New York: Fork Films, 2015).
52. Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox, The Imperial Animal (New York: Transaction Publishers, 1997 [1971]), 101.
53. Some useful reviews include the following: Linda M. Fedigan, “The Changing Role of Women in Models of
Human Evolution” Annual Review of Anthropology 16 (1986): 25–66; Linda Fedigan, Primate Paradigms: Sex Roles
and Social Bonds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Pamela L. Geller and Miranda K. Stockett. Feminist
Anthropology: Past, Present, and Future (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2006); Joan M. Gero and
Margaret W. Conkey, Engendering Archeology: Women and Prehistory (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1991);
Shirley Strum and Linda Fedigan Primate Encounters: Models of Science, Gender and Society. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2000); Meredith F. Small, What’s Love Got to Do with It? The Evolution of Human Mating (New York:
Doubleday, 1995); Nancy Makepeace Tanner, On Becoming Human (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1981). For a readable short article, see Meredith Small, “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” Discover Magazine, June
1991, 46–51.
54. Irven DeVore, ed. Primate Behavior (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965).
55. Ibid. Also, for primate politics in particular, see Sarah B. Hrdy, The Woman That Never Evolved (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1999 [1981]). See also Hrdy’s website http://www.citrona.com/hrdy.html.
56. Thelma Rowell. Social Behaviour of Monkeys (New York: Penguin Books, 1972). For an excellent online article on
Rowell’s work with additional references, read Vinciane Despret, “Culture and Gender Do Not Dissolve into
How Scientists ‘Read’ Nature: Thelma Rowell’s Heterodoxy.” In Rebels of Life. Iconoclastic Biologists in the Twentieth
Century, edited by O. Hartman and M. Friedrich (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 340–355.
http://www.vincianedespret.be/2010/04/culture-and-gender-do-not-dissolve-into-how-scientists-read-
nature-thelma-rowells-heterodoxy/.
57. See Richard B. Lee and Irven DeVore, eds. Man the Hunter (Chicago: Aldine Atherton, 1972[1968]).
58. See Estioko-Griffin, Agnes A. Daughters of the Forest. Natural History 95(5):36-43 (May 1986).
59. Richard B. Lee, The !Kung San. Men, Women and Work in a Foraging Society (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1979).
60. Martha Ward and Monica Edelstein, A World Full of Women, 26.
61. Susan Seymour, “Multiple Caretaking of Infants and Young Children: An Area in Critical Need of a Feminist
Psychological Anthropology,” Ethos 32 no. (2004): 538-556.
279
62. Serena Nanda and Richard L. Warms, Cultural Anthropology (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2006), 274.
63. Ester Boserup, Women’s Role in Economic Development (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1970); Barbara D. Miller,
Cultural Anthropology (Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2012).
64. Mauma Downie and Christina Gladwin, Florida Farm Wives: They Help the Family Farm Survive (Gainesville: Food
and Resource Economics Department, University of Florida, 1981).
65. Judith K. Brown, “A Note on the Division of Labor by Sex,” American Anthropologist 72 (1970):1073-78.
66. See www.momsrising.org for some contemporary examples of the challenges and obstacles workplaces pose for
working mothers, as well as efforts to advocate for improved accommodation of parenting and working.
67. Conrad Kottak, Cultural Anthropology. Appreciating Cultural Diversity (New York: McGraw Hill, 2013).
68. See C. Mukhopadhyay, Human Sexuality Lecture notes, for the following analysis, available from
http://www.sjsu.edu/people/carol.mukhopadhyay/courses/AnthBioHS140/. See also Mukhopadhyay, Part II,
“Culture Creates Race,” especially chapter 7 and 9, in Carol Mukhopahdyay, R. Henze and Y. Moses How Real is
Race? A Sourcebook on Race, Culture and Biology (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).
69. Ibid.
70. This and subsequent material comes from C. Mukhopadhyay, Part 2, especially chapter 9, and p. 182-185, in
Carol Mukhopahdyay, R. Henze and Y. Moses. How Real is Race? A Sourcebook on Race, Culture and Biology, 2nd edi-
tion (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).
71. Carol C. Mukhopadhyay, Yolanda Moses and Rosemary Henze, How Real is Race?, Chapter 9.
72. Annette B. Weiner, The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea (New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1987).
73. Lu Hui, “Preferential Bilateral-Cross-Cousin Marriage among the Nuosu in Liangshan,” in Perspectives on the Yi
of Southwest China, Stevan Harrell, ed. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001).
74. Elizabeth Fernea, Guests of the Sheik.
75. See the film Maasai Women, 1980.
76. An excellent documentary on two alternative paths some women take in contemporary India: the Miss India
path and the fundamentalist Hindu path. Filmed in India, The World Before Her, http://www.pbs.org/pov/world-
beforeher/.
77. See https://contemporaryfamilies.org/the-way-we-still-never-were-brief-report/ and https://www.pri.org/sto-
ries/2014-09-14/singles-now-outnumber-married-people-america-and-thats-good-thing for background and
links to detailed information.
78. Material in this text box was adapted from “What Can We Learn from the Na? Shattering Ideas about Family
and Relationships,” a TEDx FurmanU presentation by Tami Blumenfield. See also Tami Blumenfield, “Chinese
Tour Groups in Europe, Chinese Tour Groups in Yunnan: Narrating a Nation in the World” The China Beat June
2, 2011. http://www.thechinabeat.org/?p=3494; Siobhan M. Mattison, Brooke Scelza, and Tami Blumenfield,
“Paternal Investment and the Positive Effects of Fathers among the Matrilineal Mosuo (Na) of Southwest
China” American Anthropologist 116 no. 3 (2014): 591–610; Tami Blumenfield, “Resilience in Mountainous South-
west China: Adopting a Socio-Ecological Approach to Community Change,” in Worlds in the Making: Interethnic-
ity and the Processes of Generating Meaning in Southwestern China, Cahiers d’Extrême Asie 23 (2014).
79. See reviews in Naomi Quinn, “Anthropological Studies of Women’s Status,” Annual Review of Anthropology 6
(1977): 181-225; Carol Mukhopadhyay and Patricia Higgins, “Anthropological Studies of the Status of Women
Revisited: l977-l987” Annual Review of Anthropology 17 (1988):461-95.
80. Michelle Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, ed. Woman, Culture and Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1974).
81. Rayna Rapp Reiter, ed. Toward an Anthropology of Women (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975); Karen Sacks,
Sisters and Wives. The Past and Future of Sexual Equality (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1979).
82. Peggy Sanday, Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
83. For an alternative ethnographic, research based video see N!ai: The Story of a !Kung Woman. 1980 .
84. Carol Mukhopadhyay and Patricia Higgins, “Anthropological Studies of the Status of Women Revisited:
l977-l987,” Annual Review of Anthropology 17 (1988), 462.
85. Ibid.
86. See for example, Evelyn Blackwood. Webs of Power. Women, Kin, and Community in a Sumatran Village (Lanham,
MD: Rowman and Littlefield. 2000); Marcia Inhorn, Infertility and Patriarchy: The Cultural Politics of Gender and
Family Life in Egypt (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996); Thomas Buckley and Alma Gottlieb,
ed. Blood Magic. The Anthropology of Menstruation. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); Marcia
Inhorn, and Frank Van Balen, eds. Infertility around the Globe: New Thinking on Childlessness, Gender and Reproduc-
tive Technologies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).
87. Johnnetta Cole, ed. All American Women: Lines That Divide, Ties That Bind (New York:Free Press, 1986).Louise
Lamphere, Helena Ragone and Patricia Zavella, eds. Situated Lives: Gender and Culture in Everyday Life. (New
York: Routledge, 1997).
88. See for example, Faye Ginsburg. Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1989); Dorothy Holland and Margaret Eisenhart. Educated in Romance. (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago, 1990); Peggy Sanday, Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus. (New York:
New York University Press, 2007).
89. Peggy Sanday, “The Socio-cultural Context of Rape: A Cross-cultural Study” Journal of Social Issues 37 no. 5
(1981): 5-27. See also Conrad Kottak, Cultural Anthropology. Appreciating Cultural Diversity (New York: McGraw
Hill, 2013); Veena Das, Violence, Gender and Subjectivity, Annual Reviews of Anthropology 37 (2008):283-299;
Tulsi Patel, ed. Sex-Selective Abortion in India. Gender, Society and New Reproductive Technologies (New Delhi, India:
Sage Publications, 2007).
90. Eleanor Leacock and Helen I. Safa, eds., Women's Work: Development and the Division of Labor by Gender (South
Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey, 1986); Nandini Gunewardena and Ann Kingsolver, eds. The Gender of Globaliza-
tion: Women Navigating Cultural and Economic Marginalities (Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press,
2008); Kay B.Warren and Susan C. Bourque, “Women, Technology, and Development Ideologies. Frameworks
and Findings,” in Sandra Morgen, ed. Critical Reviews for Research and Teaching (Washington, DC: American
Anthropological Association Publication, 1989), 382-410.
91. Carol C. Mukhopadhyay and Susan Seymour, ed. Women, Education and Family Structure in India (Boulder: West-
view Press, 1994).
92. Ellen Lewin, Lesbian Mothers: Accounts of Gender in American Culture (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 1993).
93. See Joan Gero and Margaret Conkey, ed. Engendering Archeology. Women and Prehistory (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1991); Sarah M. Nelson, Worlds of Gender. The Archeology of Women's Lives Around the Globe. (Lanham,
MD: Altamira, 2007). See also earlier volumes. Rosemary A. Joyce, Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives: Sex, Gender and
Archeology (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2008); Barbara Voss, “Sexuality Studies in Archeology,” Annual
Review of Anthropology 37 (2008): 317-336.
94. The following analysis was developed by Mukhopadhyay in scholarly papers and in lecture notes.
95. Mary E. Hegland, Days of Revolution: Political Unrest in an Iranian Village (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
2015).
96. This analysis was developed by Mukhopadhyay in scholarly papers and in lecture notes. An example of this pat-
tern from Iran is Mary E. Hegland, Days of Revolution.
97. Conrad Kottak, Cultural Anthropology. Appreciating Cultural Diversity.15th ed. (McGraw Hill, 2013).
98. E. Friedl, Women and Men: An Anthropologist’s View; C. Mukhopadhyay and Patricia Higgins, “Anthropological
Studies of the Status of Women Revisited: 1977–1987.” Annual Review of Anthropology 17 (1988): 461–495.
99. One 1970s male pilot, when asked about why there were no women pilots, said, without thinking, “Because
women aren’t strong enough to fly the plane!” He then realized what he’d said and laughed. From Mukhopad-
hyay, field notes, 1980.
100. Ann Stoler, “Making Empire Respectable. The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in Twentieth-century Colo-
nial Cultures,” in Situated Lives. Gender and Culture in Everyday Life, ed. Louise Lamphere, H. Ragone, and P.
Zavella, 373–399 (New York: Routledge, 1997).
101. Peggy Sanday, Women at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2002).
102. Mukhopadhyay, lecture notes, Gender and Culture.
103. See for instance Annette B. Weiner, The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea; Martha Ward and Monica Edelstein, A
World Full of Women; Carolyn B. Brettell and Carolyn F. Sargent, eds. Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective.
104. Kirsten Marie Ernst,“Rios, Pontes E Overdrives:” Northeastern Regionalism in a Globalized Brazil (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 2007); John Collins, “‘BUT WHAT IF I SHOULD NEED TO DEFECATE IN YOUR
NEIGHBORHOOD, MADAME?’: Empire, Redemption, and the ‘Tradition of the Oppressed’ in a Brazilian
World Heritage Site,” Cultural Anthropology 23 no. 2 (2012): 279–328; Jan Rocha, “Analysis: Brazil’s ‘Racial
281
Democracy’” BBC News, April 19, 2000; Allan Charles Dawson, “Food and Spirits: Religion, Gender, and Identity
in the ‘African’ Cuisine of Northeast Brazil,” African and Black Diaspora 5 (2012): 243–263; Alan P Marcus, “Sex,
Color and Geography: Racialized Relations in Brazil and Its Predicaments” Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 103(5): 1282–1299.
105. Ruth Landes, The City of Women (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1947), 2, 6–13, 61–64, 92, 106.
106. E. Franklin Frazier, “The Negro Family in Bahia, Brazil” American Sociological Review 7 no. 4 (1942): 476–477; E.
Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1939), 125. For the
opposing view, see Mark Alan Healey, “‘The Sweet Matriarchy of Bahia’: Ruth Landes’ Ethnography of Race and
Gender.” Disposition: The Cultural Practice of Latinamericanism II 23 no. 50 (1998): 101.
107. See Melville J. Herskovits, “The Negro in Bahia, Brazil: A Problem in Method” American Sociological Review 8 no.
4 (1943): 395–396; Edison Carneiro, “Letters from Edison Carneiro to Ruth Landes: Dating from September 28,
1938 to March 14, 1946” (Washington, DC: Box 2 Ruth Landes Papers, National Anthropological Archives,
Smithsonian Institution, 1938); Ruth Landes, The City of Women (New York: MacMillan Company, 1947).
108. Ruth Landes, “Fetish Worship in Brazil” The Journal of American Folklore 53 no. 210(1940): 261.
109. Ruth Landes, The City of Women (New York: MacMillan Company, 1947), 31–32, 37.
110. Ruth Landes, “Negro Slavery and Female Status” African Affairs 52 no. 206 (1953): 55. Also, Ruth Landes, “A Cult
Matriarchate and Male Homosexuality” The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 35 no. 3 (1940): 386–387,
393–394; Ruth Landes, “Negro Slavery and Female Status,” African Affairs 52 no. 206 (1953): 55–57.
111. J. Lorand Matory, “Gendered Agendas: The Secrets Scholars Keep about Yorùbá‐Atlantic Religion,” Gender &
History 15 no. 3 (2003): 413.
112. Cheryl Sterling, “Women-Space, Power, and the Sacred in Afro-Brazilian Culture,” The Global South 4 no. 1
(2010): 71–93.
113. Nandini Gunewardena and Ann Kingsolver, The Gender of Globalization: Women Navigating Cultural and Economic
Marginalities (Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press, 2008).
114. Women’s political power, when exerted, may go unnoticed by the global media. For an example, see the docu-
mentary Pray the Devil to Hell on women’s role in forcing Liberian President Charles Taylor from office and lead-
ing to the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as President. For an excellent documentary on some of the alternative
paths contemporary women in India are taking, see The World before Her. For more on changes in women’s edu-
cation in India, see Carol C. Mukhopadhyay. 2001. “The Cultural Context of Gendered Science: The Case of
India.” Available at http://www.sjsu.edu/people/carol.mukhopadhyay/papers/
115. See the excellent film The Purity Myth: The Virginity Movement’s War Against Women. Available through Media
Education Foundation.
116. Carol C. Mukhopadhyay. 1982. “Sati or Shakti: Women, Culture and Politics in India.” In Perspectives on Power:
Women in Asia, Africa and Latin America, edited by Jean O’Barr, 11–26. Durham, NC: Center for International
Studies, Duke University; Carol C. Mukhopadhyay. 2008. “Sati or Shakti: An Update in Light of Contemporary
U.S. Presidential Politics.” Paper presented at Gender and Politics from a Feminist Anthropological Perspective.
November 2008, San Francisco. On the 2016 Election, see: Carol Mukhopadhyay.. “Gender and Trump,” Social
Justice blog, January 19, 2017, http://www.socialjusticejournal.org/gender-and-trump/.
117. For more information on the initial Trump video, see http://time.com/4523755/donald-trump-leaked-tape-
impact. For coverage of the women accusing Trump and his response, see http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/14/
politics/trump-women-accusers/index.html. For coverage of Trumps’ response to the allegations, see
http://time.com/4531872/donald-trump-sexual-assault-accusers-attack.
118. Carly Wayne, Nicholas Valentino and Marzia Oceno. 2016. “How Sexism Drives Support for Donald Trump.”
Washington Post, October 23. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/10/23/how-sex-
ism-drives-support-for-donald-trump. Also see Libby Nelson. 2016. “Hostility toward Women Is One of the
Strongest Predictors of Trump Support.” Vox. November 1. http://www.vox.com/2016/11/1/13480416/trump-
supporters-sexism. For an article that also covers research by psychologists, see Emily Crockett. 2016. “Why
Misogyny Won.” Vox. November 15. http://www.vox.com/identities/2016/11/15/13571478/trump-president-
sexual-assault-sexism-misogyny-won.
119. For examples of anti-Clinton rhetoric, see article and associated video at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
entry/deplorable-anti-clinton-merch-at-trump-rallies_us_572836e1e4b016f378936c22. Figures for numbers of
witches killed range from thousands to millions, with most suggesting at least 60,000–80,000 and probably far
more. Regardless, it is estimated that 75–80 percent were women. See for example Douglas Linder. 2005. “A
Brief History of Witchcraft Persecutions before Salem” http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/
witchhistory.html and http://womenshistory.about.com/od/witcheseurope/a/Witch-Hunts-In-Europe-Time-

line.htm.
120. Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll suggested one reason polls were wrong is that female Trump voters hid their
actual voting preferences from pollsters. DiCamillo is quoted in Debra J. Saunders. 2016. “How Herd Mentality
Blinded Pollsters to Trump Potential.” San Francisco Chronicle. November 13, E3.
121. For a critique of those who “blame” Euro-American (“white”) women for Hillary Clinton’s defeat, see the article
by Kelly Dittmar. 2016. “No, Women Didn’t Abandon Clinton, Nor Did She Fail to Win Their Support.” Ms.
Magazine. November 14. http://msmagazine.com/blog/2016/11/14/women-didnt-abandon-clinton/.
122. See Women in the World. 2016. “Donald Trump’s Victory Threatens to Upend Progressive Notions of Masculin-
ity.” November 20. http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2016/11/20/donald-trumps-victory-threat-
ens-to-upend-progressive-notions-of-masculinity/.
123. For a powerful video reaction and interpretation of this election, see https://vimeo.com/191751334.
124. There is a huge body of research on these (and other) topics that we simply have not been able to cover in one
chapter of a book. We hope the material and references we have provided will give readers a starting point for
further investigation!
125. Many gender studies scholars have moved away from labeling people “biologically female” or “biologically male,”
shifting instead to terms like “assigned female at birth” and “assigned male at birth.” Terms that foreground
assignment help recognize the fluidity of gender identity and the existence of intersex people who do not fit
neatly into those categories.
126. Carol C. Mukhopadhyay, “A Feminist Cognitive Anthropology: The Case of Women and Mathematics” Ethos 32
no. 4 (2004): 458-492.
127. David Valentine, Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2007). See also Jessi Hempel, “My Brother’s Pregnancy and the Making of a New American Family” TIME Sep-
tember 2016. http://time.com/4475634/trans-man-pregnancy-evan./
128. Gary G. Gates, “How Many People are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender?” University of California, Los
Angeles: Williams Institute, 2011. http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/census-lgbt-demographics-
studies/how-many-people-are-lesbian-gay-bisexual-and-transgender./
129. David Carter, Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked a Gay Revolution (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010); Eric Marcus, Making
Gay History: The Half-Century Fight for Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights (New York: Harper Collins, 2002).
130. Jafari Sinclaire Allen, “‘In the Life’ In Diaspora: Autonomy / Desire / Community,” in Routledge Handbook of Sexu-
ality, Health and Rights, ed. Peter Aggleton and Richard Parker (New York: Routledge, 2010), 459.
131. Kristen Schilt and Laurel Westbrook, “Doing Gender, Doing Heteronormativity: ‘Gender Normals,’ Transgender
People, and the Social Maintenance of Heterosexuality” Gender and Society 23 no. 4 (2009): 440–464.
132. Justin McCarthy, “Same-Sex Marriage Support Reaches New High at 55%.” Gallup. http://www.gallup.com/
poll/169640/sex-marriage-support-reaches-new-high.aspx.
133. Ellen Lewin and William Leap, Out in Theory: The Emergence of Lesbian and Gay Anthropology (Urbana: University
of Illinois Press, 2002); William Leap and Ellen Lewin, Out in the Field: Reflections of Lesbian and Gay Anthropolo-
gist (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996).
134. Jessica Johnson, “The Citizen-Soldier: Masculinity, War, and Sacrifice at an Emerging Church in Seattle, Wash-
ington.” Political and Legal Anthropology Review 33 no. 2 (2010): 326–351.
135. Tamara Metz, Untying the Knot: Marriage, the State, and the Case for Their Divorce (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2010).
136. Miriam Smith, “Gender Politics and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate in the United States,” Social Politics 17 no. 1
(2010): 1-28. Quote is on p.1
137. Luke Malone, “Here Are The 32 States Where You Can Be Fired For Being LGBT,” Vocativ.com, February 12,
2015. http://www.vocativ.com/culture/lgbt/lgbt-rights-kansas/.
138. The Williams Institute. 2012. “America’s Shame: 40% of Homeless Youth are LGBT Kids.” San Diego Gay and
Lesbian News, 13 July. http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/americas-shame-40-of-homeless-youth-are-
lgbt-kids/.
139. Fire, film by Mira Nair. 1996. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2yW8BtM8sw.
140. Don Kulick, “The Gender of Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes” American Anthropologist 99 no. 3 (1997):
574–585.
283
141. Evelyn Blackwood, “Tombois in West Sumatra: Constructing Masculinity and Erotic Desire,” in Feminist Anthro-
pology: A Reader, ed. Ellen Lewin, 411–434 (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006).
142. Ara Wilson, The Intimate Economies of Bangkok: Tomboys, Tycoons, and Avon Ladies in the Global City (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 2004).
143. Lucetta Yip Lo Kam, Shanghai Lalas: Female Tongzhi Communities and Politics in Urban China. Hong Kong: Hong
Kong University Press, 2012).
144. Ibid.
145. Frances E. Mascia-Lees, ed., A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment (Malden, MA: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2011).
146. Don Kulick and Jens Rydström, Loneliness and Its Opposite: Sex, Disability, and the Ethics of Engagement (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 2015); Susan Greenhalgh, Fat-Talk Nation: The Human Costs of America’s War on Fat
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015); Ellen Gruenbaum, The Female Circumcision Controversy: An
Anthropological Perspective (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001); Seth M. Holmes, Fresh Fruit,
Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013); Eithne
Luibhéid, Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002).
147. Pamela Runestad, “The Medical Anthropologist as the Patient: Developing Research Questions on Hospital Food
in Japan through Auto-Ethnography,”ASIANetwork Exchange 23 no. 1 (2016):66-82.
148. Emily Martin, The Woman in the Body (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987); Emily Martin, “The Egg and the
Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles” Signs 16 no. 3
(1991): 485-501.
149. Emily Martin, “The Egg and the Sperm,” 485.
150. David H. Freedman, “The Aggressive Egg,” Discover, June, 1992, 61–65.
151. The Miracle of Life, 1983. There was a sequel in 2001: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/life-greatest-mira-
cle.html.
152. Corinne P. Hayden, “Gender, Genetics and Generation: Reformulating Biology in Lesbian Kinship,” Cultural
Anthropology 10 no. 1 (1995): 41–63.
153. For some of the positive results for women, see Vanessa Fong, “China's One-Child Policy and the Empowerment
of Urban Daughters,” American Anthropologist 104 no. 4 (2002): 1098-1109.
154. The examples from Turkey come from: “The Biopolitics of the Family in Turkey: neoconservatism, sexuality and
reproduction.” Session at 2015 American Anthropological Association meetings, Denver; and from a paper given
by Sen Gupta in session 4-0615, “Development, Gender, and the neoliberal Social Imaginary,” at the 2015 Amer-
ican Anthropological Association meetings, Denver. There is a huge body of research on these topics (and oth-
ers) that we simply could not cover in one chapter. We hope the references we have provided will give readers a
starting point for further investigation!
155. Ruth Behar, “Introduction: Out of Exile,” in Women Writing Culture, ed. Ruth Behar and Deborah Gordon (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1995); Peggy Golde, Women in the Field: Anthropological Experiences (Chicago,
IL: Aldine Publishing Company, 1970); Nancy J. Parezo, Hidden Scholars: Women Anthropologists and the Native
American Southwest (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), 5–9.
156. Helen Brannagh, “Sex ‘Suggested’ and Power Play: Notes on Harassment in the Field,” in China: New Faces of
Ethnography, ed. Bettina Gransow, Pal Nyiri, and Shiaw-Chian Fong (Piscataway, NJ: Verlag, 2005); Fran
Markowitz and Michael Ashkenaziand, Sex, Sexuality, and the Anthropologist (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1999).
157. See Candice Cornet and Tami Blumenfield, “Anthropological Fieldwork and Families in China and Beyond,” in
Doing Fieldwork in China…with Kids! The Dynamics of Accompanied Fieldwork in the People’s Republic, ed. Candice
Cornet and Tami Blumenfield (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2006); Tami Blumenfield, “Blurred Boundaries of
Learning and Ethnography in an Era of Constant Connectedness: Lessons from Fieldwork with Children in
Southwest China,” ibid, 69–85. Additional perspectives from a father-son duo and a mother-daughter pair in the
same volume are those by Eriberto P. Lozada Jr. and E. Patrick Lozada III, “Opening the Door (开门): Doing
Fieldwork with Children in Rural China,” and by Jeanne L. Shea, “Clean Your Plate and Don’t Be Polite: An
American Mother’s Education in Early Childhood Parenting and Family Life in Shanghai, China.” For another
discussion of how children influence perceptions of a fieldworking parent, see Jocelyn Linnekin, “Family and
Other Uncontrollables: Impression Management in Accompanied Fieldwork,” in Fieldwork and Families: Con-
structing New Models for Ethnographic Research, ed. Juliana Flinn, Leslie Marshall, and Jocelyn Armstrong (Hon-
olulu: Hawaii University Press, 1998), 71–83.

158. Lynn Bolles, “Telling the Story Straight: Black Feminist Intellectual Thought in Anthropology” Transforming
Anthropology: Journal of the Association of Black Anthropologists 21 no. 1 (2013): 63–64.
159. See Christina Wasson et al., We’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe: Academic Climate Report of the Committee on the Status
of Women in Anthropology, 2008, 5, 8. Available from https://web.csulb.edu/~lemaster/Publications
(PDFs)/2008-coswa-academic-climate-report.pdf and Elizabeth Rudd, E. Morrison, J. Picciano, and Maresi
Nerad, “Social Science PhDs—Five Years Out: Anthropology Report. CIRGE Report 2008-01,”
2008. http://www.education.uw.edu/cirge/social-science-phds-five-years-out-anthropology-report-2/.
160. Ibid.
161. See Agatha M. Beins and Judith L. Kennedy, Women’s Studies for the Future: Foundations, Interrogations, Politics
(Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005); Florence Howe and Mari Jo Buhl, The Politics of Women’s Studies:
Testimony from the 30 Founding Mothers (New York: The Feminist Press, 2000); Marilyn J. Boxer and Caroline
Stimpson, When Women Ask the Questions: Creating Women’s Studies in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity Press, 2001); Susan Shaw and Janet Lee, Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions (New York: McGraw Hill, 2014).
162. Rachel Adams and Michael Savan, The Masculinity Studies Reader (New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002); Judith Kea-
gan Gardiner, Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002); Matthew C.
Gutmann, “Trafficking in Men: The Anthropology of Masculinity,” Annual Review of Anthropology 26 no. 1 (2007):
385–409. There were a number of earlier explorations of masculinity, several focused on African-American
males. See for example Michelle Wallace, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (New York: Warner Books,
1980).
163. See especially numerous films available through Media Education Foundation and Women Make Movies. See
also Susan Bordo, The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private (New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux,
1999); Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2014). Also, Jackson Katz’ film
Tough Guise 2: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity (2013) and the website www.jacksonkatz.com/ have
other books, articles, and workshops on gender violence prevention. See also Michael Kimmel, Guyland: The Per-
ilous World Where Boys Become Men (New York: Harper Perennial, 2009).
164. Thomas Grego, Mehinaku: The Drama of Daily Life in a Brazilian Indian Village (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1977). See also Paula Brown and Georgeda Buchbinder, Man and Woman in the New Guinea Highlands
(Washington DC: American Anthropological Association, 1976); Gilbert Herdt, Guardians of the Flutes (film);
Stanley Brandeis, Metaphors of Masculinity: Sex and Status in Andalusian Folklore (Philadelphia: University of Penn-
sylvania Press, 1980); Sherry B. Ortner and Harriet Whitehead, Sexual Meanings (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1981); David Gilmore, Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (New Haven: Yale
165. See article by Matthew C. Guttman, “Trafficking in Men: The Anthropology of Masculinity,” Annual Review of
Anthropology 26 (2007): 385–409.
166. See several excellent videos through Media Education Foundation including Dreamworlds 3, Killing Us Softly 4,
The Purity Myth as well as those addressing masculinity such as Tough Guise 2, Joystick Warriors, and Hip Hop:
Beyond Beats and Rhymes.
167. Philippe Bourgois and Jeffrey Schonberg, Righteous Dopefiend (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009);
Seth M. Holmes, Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 2013); Mary H. Moran, “Warriors or Soldiers? Masculinity and Ritual Transvestism in the Liberian
Civil War,” in Situated Lives, ed. Louise Lamphere, Helena Ragone, and Patricia Zavella, 440–450. New York:
Routledge, 1997); Kimberly Theidon, “Reconstructing Masculinities: The Disarmament, Demobilization, and
Reintegration of Former Combatants in Colombia,” in The Gender, Culture, and Power Reader, ed. Dorothy Hodg-
son, 420–429 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); Casey High, “Warriors, Hunters, and Bruce Lee: Gen-
dered Agency and the Transformation of Amazonian Masculinity” American Ethnologist 37 no. 4 (2010): 753–770.
168. James W. Messerschmidt, Masculinities in the Making: From the Local to the Global (Lanham, MD: Rowman Little-
field, 2015).
169. Liu Shao-hua, Passage to Manhood: Youth, Masculinity, and Migration in Southwest China (Stanford, CA: Stanford
170. See Marcia C. Inhorn, The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East (Prince-
ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012); Marcia C. Inhorn, Wendy Chavkin, and Jose-Alberto Navarro, Glob-
alized Fatherhood. New York: Berghahn. For discussion of Japan, see Mark J. McLelland. 2005. “Salarymen Doing
Queer: Gay Men and the Heterosexual Public Sphere in Japan,” in Genders, Transgenders and Sexualities in Japan,
285
edited by M. J. McLelland and R. Dasgupta, 96–110 (New York: Routledge, 2014).

171. Dipanita Nath, “Mardistan: Four Men Talk about Masculinity in Harjant Gill’s Film,” The Indian Express, August
25, 2014. http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/be-a-super-man./ The film is available online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSrGuXTEHsk.
11
RELIGION
Sashur Henninger-Rener, Pasadena City College

[email protected]
Learning Objectives
• Define religion and explain its significance in human cultures.
• Summarize theories developed by anthropologists to explain the importance of supernatural beliefs in human communities.
• Identify the four elements of religion (cosmology, belief in the supernatural, rules of behavior, and rituals) and explain how each
element contributes to religious practices.
• Define rites of passage, rites of intensification, and rites of revitalization and explain the purpose of each type of ritual.
Humans have always wondered about the meaning of the life, the nature of the universe, and the
forces that shape our lives. While it is impossible to know for sure how the people who lived thousands
of years ago answered these kinds of questions, there are some clues. Fifty thousand years ago, human
communities buried the dead with stone tools, shells, animal bones, and other objects, a practice that
suggests they were preparing the deceased for an afterlife, or a world beyond this one. Thirty thousand
years ago, artists entered the Chauvet cave in France and painted dramatic scenes of animals on the
cave walls along with abstract symbols that suggest the images were part of a supernatural belief system,
possibly one focused on ensuring safety or success in hunting (Figure 1).1 A few thousand years later,
collections of small clay sculptures, known as Venus figurines, began appearing across Eurasia. They
seem to express ideas about fertility or motherhood and may have been viewed as magical (Figure 2).2
286
287
Figure 1: An image from the Chauvet cave painted about 32,000 years ago. The paintings may have been part
of religious ceremonies intended to ensure success in hunting. and 25,000 BC and may have been associated
with spiritual beliefs about motherhood or fertility.
Figure 2: The Venus of Willendorf figurine

was made between 28,000 and 25,000 BC
and may have been associated with
spiritual beliefs about motherhood or
fertility.
DEFINING RELIGION
Because ideas about the supernatural are part of every human culture, understanding these beliefs is
important to anthropologists. However, studying supernatural beliefs is challenging for several reasons.
The first difficulty arises from the challenge of defining the topic itself. The word “religion,” which is
commonly used in the United States to refer to participation in a distinct form of faith such as Chris-
tianity, Islam, or Judaism, is not a universally recognized idea. Many cultures have no word for “reli-
gion” at all and many societies do not make a clear distinction between beliefs or practices that are
“religious,” or “spiritual” and other habits that are an ordinary part of daily life. For instance, leaving an
incense offering in a household shrine dedicated to the spirits of the ancestors may be viewed as a sim-
ple part of the daily routine rather than a “religious” practice. There are societies that believe in super-
natural beings, but do not call them “gods.” Some societies do not see a distinction between the natural
and the supernatural observing, instead, that the spirits share the same physical world as humans. Con-
cepts like “heaven,” “hell,” or even “prayer” do not exist in many societies. The divide between “religion”
and related ideas like “spirituality” or even “magic” is also murky in some cultural contexts.
To study supernatural beliefs, anthropologists must cultivate a perspective of cultural relativism and
strive to understand beliefs from an emic or insider’s perspective. Imposing the definitions or assump-
tions from one culture on another is likely to lead to misunderstandings. One example of this problem
can be found in the early anthropological research of Sir James Frazer who attempted to compose the
first comprehensive study of the world’s major magical and religious belief systems. Frazer was part
of early generation of anthropologists whose work was based on reading and questionnaires mailed to
missionaries and colonial officials rather than travel and participant-observation. As a result, he had
only minimal information about the beliefs he wrote about and he was quick to apply his own opin-
ions. In The Golden Bough (1890) he dismissed many of the spiritual beliefs he documented: “I look upon
[them] not merely as false but as preposterous and absurd.”3 His contemporary, Sir E.B. Tylor, was less
dismissive of unfamiliar belief systems, but he defined religion minimally and, for some, in overly nar-
row terms as “the belief in supernatural beings.” This definition excludes much of what people around
the world actually believe.4 As researchers gained more information about other cultures, their ideas
about religion became more complex. The sociologist Emile Durkheim recognized that religion was not
simply a belief in “supernatural beings,” but a set of practices and social institutions that brought mem-
bers of a community together. Religion, he said, was “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to
sacred things, that is to say, things set aside and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one
single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.”5
Durkheim’s analysis of religion emphasized the significance of spiritual beliefs for relationships
between people. Subsequent anthropological research in communities around the world has confirmed
that rituals associated with beliefs in the supernatural play a significant role in structuring community
life, providing rules or guidelines for behavior, and bonding members of a community to one another.
Interestingly, religious “beings,” such as gods or spirits, also demonstrate social qualities. Most of the
time, these beings are imagined in familiar terms as entities with personalities, desires, and “agency,” an
ability to make decisions and take action. Supernatural beings, in other words, are not so different from
people.6 In keeping with this idea, religion can be defined as “the means by which human society and
culture is extended to include the nonhuman.”7 This definition is deliberately broad and can be used to
encompass many different kinds of belief systems.
Many religions involve ideas or rituals that could be described as “magical” and the relationship
between religion and magic is complex. In his book A General Theory of Magic (1902), Marcel Mauss sug-
gested that religion and magic were two opposite poles on a spectrum of spiritual beliefs. Magic was at
289
one end of the spectrum; it was private, secret, and individual. Religion was at the opposite end of the
spectrum; it was public and oriented toward bringing the community together.8 Although Mauss’ for-
mulation presented religion and magic as part of the same general way of thinking, many contemporary
anthropologists are convinced that making a distinction between religion and magic is artificial and
usually not particularly useful. With this caution in mind, magic can be defined as practices intended
to bring supernatural forces under one’s personal control. Sorcerers are individuals who seek to use
magic for their own purposes. It is important to remember that both magic and sorcery are labels that
have historically been used by outsiders, including anthropologists, to describe spiritual beliefs with
which they are unfamiliar. Words from the local language are almost always preferable for representing
how people think about themselves.
THEORIES OF RELIGION
Sir James Frazer’s effort to interpret religious mythology was the first of many attempts to under-
stand the reasons why cultures develop various kinds of spiritual beliefs. In the early twentieth century,
many anthropologists applied a functional approach to this problem by focusing on the ways religion
addressed human needs. Bronislaw Malinowski (1931), who conducted research in the Trobriand
Islands located near Papua New Guinea, believed that religious beliefs met psychological needs. He
observed that religion “is not born out of speculation or reflection, still less out of illusion or apprehen-
sion, but rather, out of the real tragedies of human life, out of the conflict between human plans and
realities.”9
At the time of Malinowski’s research, the Trobriand Islanders participated in an event called the kula
ring, a tradition that required men to build canoes and sail on long and dangerous journeys between
neighboring islands to exchange ritual items. Malinowski noticed that before these dangerous trips
several complex rituals had to be performed, but ordinary sailing for fishing trips required no special
preparations. What was the difference? Malinowski concluded that the longer trips were not only more
dangerous, but also provoked more anxiety because the men felt they had less control over what might
happen. On long voyages, there were many things that could go wrong, few of which could be planned
for or avoided. He argued that religious rituals provided a way to reduce or control anxiety when antic-
ipating these conditions.10 The use of rituals to reduce anxiety has been documented in many other
settings. George Gmelch (1971) documented forms of “baseball magic” among professional athletes.
Baseball players, for instance, have rituals related to how they eat, dress, and even drive to the ballpark,
rituals they believe contribute to good luck.11
As a functionalist, Malinowski believed that religion provided shared values and behavioral norms
that created solidarity between people. The sociologist Emile Durkheim also believed that religion
played an important role in building connections between people by creating shared definitions of the
sacred and profane. Sacred objects or ideas are set apart from the ordinary and treated with great
respect or care while profane objects or ideas are ordinary and can be treated with disregard or con-
tempt. Sacred things could include a God or gods, a natural phenomenon, an animal or many other
things. Religion, Durkheim concluded, was “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred
things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices that unite, into one single
moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.”12 Once a person or a thing was des-
ignated as sacred, Durkheim believed that celebrating it through ritual was a powerful way to unite
communities around shared values.13 In addition, celebrating the sacred can create an intense emo-
tional experience Durkheim referred to as collective effervescence, a passion or energy that arises
when groups of people share the same thoughts and emotions. The experience of collective efferves-
cence magnifies the emotional impact of an event and can create a sense of awe or wonder.14
Following Durkheim, many anthropologists, including Dame Mary Douglas, have found it useful to
explore the ways in which definitions of sacred and profane structure religious beliefs. In her book
Purity and Danger (1966), Douglas analyzed the way in which cultural ideas about things that were
“dirty” or “impure” influenced religious beliefs. The kosher dietary rules observed by Jews were one
prominent example of the application of this kind of thinking.15
The philosopher and historian Karl Marx famously called religion “the opium of the people.”16 He
viewed religion as an ideology, a way of thinking that attempts to justify inequalities in power and sta-
tus. In his view, religion created an illusion of happiness that helped people cope with the economic
difficulties of life under capitalism. As an institution, Marx believed that the Christian church helped to
legitimize and support the political and economic inequality of the working class by encouraging ordi-
nary people to orient themselves toward the afterlife, where they could expect to receive comfort and
happiness. He argued that the obedience and conformity advocated by religious leaders as a means of
reaching heaven also persuaded people not to fight for better economic or social conditions in their cur-
rent lives. Numerous examples of the use of religion to legitimize or justify power differences have been
documented cross-culturally including the existence of divine rulers, who were believed to be empow-
ered by the Gods themselves, in ancient Egyptian and Incan societies. A glimpse of the legitimizing role
of religion is also seen in the U.S. practice of having elected officials take an oath of office using the
Bible or another holy book.
The psychologist Sigmund Freud believed that religion is the institution that prevents us from acting
upon our deepest and most awful desires. One of his most famous examples is the Oedipal complex,
the story of Oedipus who (unknowingly) had a sexual relationship with his mother and, once he discov-
ered this, ripped out his own eyes in a violent and gory death. One possible interpretation of this story
is that there is an unconscious sexual desire among males for their mothers and among females their
fathers. These desires can never be acknowledged, let alone acted on, because of the damage they would
cause to society.17 In one of his most well-known works, Totem and Taboo, Freud proposes that religious
beliefs provide rules or restrictions that keep the worst anti-social instincts, like the Oedipal complex,
suppressed. He developed the idea of “totemic religions,” belief systems based on the worship of a par-
ticular animal or object, and suggested that the purpose of these religions was to regulate interactions
with socially significant and potentially disruptive objects and relationships.18
One interesting interpretation of religious beliefs that builds on the work of Durkheim, Marx, and
Freud is Marvin Harris’ analysis of the Hindu prohibition against killing cows. In Hinduism, the cow
is honored and treated with respect because of its fertility, gentle nature, and association with some
Hindu deities. In his book Cow, Pigs, Wars, and Witches (1974), Harris suggested that these religious ideas
about the cow were actually based in an economic reality. In India, cows are more valuable alive as a
source of milk or for doing work in the fields than they are dead as meat. For this reason, he argued,
cows were defined as sacred and set apart from other kinds of animals that could be killed and eaten.
The subsequent development of religious explanations for cows’ specialness reinforced and legitimated
the special treatment.19
A symbolic approach to the study of religion developed in the mid-twentieth century and presented
new ways of analyzing supernatural beliefs. Clifford Geertz, one of the anthropologists responsible for
creating the symbolic approach, defined religion as “a system of symbols which acts to establish pow-
erful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations…. by formulating conceptions of a general
order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and
motivations seem uniquely realistic.”20 Geertz suggested that religious practices were a way to enact or
291
make visible important cultural ideas. The symbols used in any religion, such as a cross or even a cow,
can be interpreted or “read” by anthropologists to discern important cultural values. At the same time,
religious symbols reinforce values or aspirations in members of the religious community. The Christ-
ian cross, which is associated with both death and resurrection, demonstrates ideas about sacrifice and
putting the needs of others in the community first. The cross also symbolizes deeper ideas about the
nature of life itself: that suffering can have positive outcomes and that there is something beyond the
current reality.
A symbolic approach to religion treats religious beliefs as a kind of “text” or “performance” that can
be interpreted by outsiders. Like the other theories described in this section, symbolic approaches pre-
sent some risk of misinterpretation. Religious beliefs involve complex combinations of personal and
social values as well as embodied or visceral feelings that cannot always be appreciated or even recog-
nized by outsiders. The persistently large gap between emic (insider) and etic (outsider) explanations for
religious beliefs and practices makes the study of religion one of the most challenging topics in cultural
anthropology.
ELEMENTS OF RELIGION
Despite the wide variety of supernatural beliefs found in cultures around the world, most belief sys-
tems do share some common elements. The first of these characteristic is cosmology, an explanation
for the origin or history of the world. Religious cosmologies provide “big picture” explanations for how
human life was created and provide a perspective on the forces or powers at work in the world. A sec-
ond characteristic of religion is a belief in the supernatural, a realm beyond direct human experience.
This belief could include a God or gods, but this is not a requirement. Quite a few religious beliefs,
as discussed below, involve more abstract ideas about supernatural forces. Most religions also share a
third characteristic: rules governing behavior. These rules define proper conduct for individuals and
for society as a whole and are oriented toward bringing individual actions into harmony with spiritual
beliefs. A fourth element is ritual, practices or ceremonies that serve a religious purpose and are usu-
ally supervised by religious specialists. Rituals may be oriented toward the supernatural, such as rituals
designed to please the gods, but at the same time they address the needs of individuals or the commu-
nity as a whole. Funeral rituals, for instance, may be designed to ensure the passage of a deceased person
to the afterlife, but also simultaneously provide emotional comfort to those who are grieving and pro-
vide an outlet for the community to express care and support.
Religious Cosmologies
Religious cosmologies are ways of explaining the origin of the universe and the principles or “order”
that governs reality. In its simplest form, a cosmology can be an origin story, an explanation for the his-
tory, present state, and possible futures of the world and the origins of the people, spirits, divinities, and
forces that populate it. The ancient Greeks had an origin story that began with an act of creation from
Chaos, the first thing to exist. The deities Erebus, representing darkness, and Nyx, representing night,
were born from Chaos. Nyx gave birth to Aether (light) and Hemera (day). Hemera and Nyx took turns
exiting the underworld, creating the phenomenon of day and night. Aether and Hemera next created
Gaia (Earth), the mother of all life, who gave birth to the sky, the mountains, the sea, and eventually to a
pantheon of gods. One of these gods, Prometheus, shaped humans out of mud and gave them the gift of
fire. This origin story reflects many significant cultural ideas. One of these is the depiction of a world
organized into a hierarchy with gods at the top and humans obligated to honor them.
Traditional Navajo origin stories provide a different view of the organization of the universe. These
stories suggested that the world is a set of fourteen stacked “plates” or “platters.” Creation began at
the lowest levels and gradually spread to the top. The lower levels contained animals like insects as
well as animal-people and bird-people who lived in their own fully-formed worlds with distinct cul-
tures and societies. At the top level, First Man and First Woman eventually emerged and began making
preparations for other humans, creating a sweat lodge, hoghan (traditional house), and preparing sacred
medicine bundles. During a special ceremony, the first human men and women were formed and they
created those who followed.21 Like the Greek origin story, the Navajo cosmology explains human iden-
tity and emphasizes the debt humans owe to their supernatural ancestors.
The first two chapters of the Biblical Book of Genesis, which is the foundation for both Judaism and
Christianity, describe the creation of the world and all living creatures. The exact words vary in dif-
ferent translations, but describe a God responsible for creating the world and everything in it: “In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The six-day process began with the division of light
from darkness, land from water, and heaven from earth. On the fifth day, “God created the great sea
monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and
every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.”22 On the sixth day, “God created man in
His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”23 This cosmol-
ogy differs from the others in describing an act of creation by a single deity, God, but shares with the
Greek and Navajo versions a description of creation that emphasizes the relationship between people
and their creator.
Reading these cosmologies also raises the question of how they should be interpreted. Are these
origin stories regarded as literal truth in the cultures in which they originated? Or, are the stories
metaphorical and symbolic? There is no simple answer to this question. Within any culture, individuals
may disagree about the nature of their own religious traditions. Christians, for instance, differ in the
extent to which they view the contents of the Bible as fact. Cultural relativism requires that anthropol-
ogists avoid making judgments about whether any cultural idea, including religious beliefs, is “correct”
or “true.” Instead, a more useful approach is to try to understand the multiple ways people interpret or
make sense of their religious beliefs. In addition it is important to consider the function a religious cos-
mology has in the wider society. As Bronislaw Malinowski observed, a myth or origin story is not an
“idle tale, but a hard-worked active force.”24
Belief in the Supernatural

Another characteristic shared by most religions is a concept of the supernatural, spirits, divinities, or
forces not governed by natural laws. The supernatural can take many forms. Some supernatural entities
are anthropomorphic, having human characteristics. Other supernatural forces are more generalized,
seen in phenomena like the power of the wind. The amount of involvement that supernatural forces or
entities have in the lives of humans varies cross-culturally.
Abstract Forces
Many cultures are organized around belief in an impersonal supernatural force, a type of religion
known as animatism. The idea of mana is one example. The word itself comes from Oceania and may
originally have meant “powerful wind,” “lightning” or “storm.” Today, it still refers to power, but in a
more general sense. Aram Oroi, a pastor from the Solomon Islands, has compared mana to turning on
293
a flashlight: “You sense something powerful but unseen, and then—click—its power is made manifest in
the world.”25 Traditionally, the ability to accumulate mana in certain locations, or in one’s own body,
was to become potent or successful.26 Certain locations such as mountains or ancient sites (marae) have
particularly strong mana. Likewise, individual behaviors, including sexual or violent acts, were tradi-
tionally viewed as ways to accumulate mana for oneself.
Interestingly, the idea of mana has spread far beyond its original cultural context. In 1993, Richard
Garfield incorporated the idea in the card game Magic: The Gathering. Players of the game, which
has sold millions of copies since its introduction, use mana as a source of power to battle wizards and
magical creatures. Mana is also a source of power in the immensely popular computer game World of
Warcraft.27 These examples do show cultural appropriation, the act of copying an idea from another
culture and in the process distorting its meaning. However, they also demonstrate how compelling
animist ideas about abstract supernatural power are across cultures. Another well-known example of
animatism in popular culture is “the Force” depicted in the George Lucas Star Wars films. The Force
is depicted as flowing through everything and is used by Luke Skywalker as a source of potency and
insight when he destroys the Death Star.
Spirits
Figure 3: A spirit house in Thailand. The houses provide shelter for local spirits
that could trouble humans if they become displeased.
The line between the natural and the supernatural can be blurry. Many people believe that humans
have a supernatural or spiritual element that coexists within their natural bodies. In Christianity, this
element is called the soul. In Hinduism, it is the atman.28 The Tausūg, a group who live in the Philip-
pines, believe that the soul has four parts: a transcendent soul that stays in the spiritual realm even when
a person is alive; a life-soul that is attached to the body, but can move through dreams; the breath, which
is always attached to the body, and the spirit-soul, which is like a person’s shadow.29
Many people believe that the spirit survives after an individual dies, sometimes remaining on Earth
and sometimes departing for a supernatural realm. Spirits, or “ghosts,” who remain on Earth may con-
tinue to play an active role in the lives of their families and communities. Some will be well-intentioned
and others will be malevolent. Almost universally, spirits of the deceased are assumed to be needy and
to make demands on the living. For this reason, many cultures have traditions for the veneration of
the dead, rituals intended to honor the deceased, or to win their favor or cooperation. When treated
properly, ancestor spirits can be messengers to gods, and can act on behalf of the living after receiving
prayers or requests. If they are displeased, ancestor spirits can become aggravated and wreak havoc on
the living through illness and suffering. To avoid these problems, offerings in the form of favorite foods,
drinks, and gifts are made to appease the spirits. In China, as well as in many other countries, filial
piety requires that the living continue to care for the ancestors. 30 In Madagascar, where bad luck and
misfortune can be attributed to spirits of the dead who believe they have been neglected, a body may be
repeatedly exhumed and shown respect by cleaning the bones.31
If humans contain a supernatural spirit, essence, or soul, it is logical to think that non-human entities
may have their own sparks of the divine. Religions based on the idea that plants, animals, inanimate
objects, and even natural phenomena like weather have a spiritual or supernatural element are called
animism. The first anthropological description of animism came from Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, who
believed it was the earliest type of religious practice to develop in human societies. 32 Tylor suggested
that ordinary parts of the human experience, such as dreaming, formed the basis for spiritual beliefs.
When people dream, they may perceive that they have traveled to another place, or may be able to com-
municate with deceased members of their families. This sense of altered consciousness gives rise to
ideas that the world is more than it seems. Tylor suggested that these experiences, combined with a
pressing need to answer questions about the meaning of life, were the basis for all religious systems.33
He also assumed that animist religions evolved into what he viewed as more sophisticated religious sys-
tems involving a God or gods.
Figure 4: The first torii at the entrance to Nikkō Tōshō-gū, Tochigi Prefecture,
Japan.
Today, Tylor’s views about the evolution of religion are considered misguided. No belief system is
inherently more sophisticated than another. Several animist religions exist today and have millions of
adherents. One of the most well-known is Shintoism, the traditional religion of Japan. Shintoism rec-
ognizes spirits known as kami that exist in plants, animals, rocks, places and sometimes people. Certain
295
locations have particularly strong connections to the kami, including mountains, forests, waterfalls, and
shrines. Shinto shrines in Japan are marked by torii gates that mark the separation between ordinary
reality and sacred space (Figure 4).
Gods
The most powerful non-human spirits are gods, though in practice there is no universal definition of
a “god” that would be recognized by all people. In general, gods are extremely powerful and not part of
nature—not human, or animal. Despite their unnaturalness, many gods have personalities or qualities
that are recognizable and relatable to humans. They are often anthropomorphic, imagined in human
form, or zoomorphic, imagined in animal form. In some religions, gods interact directly with humans
while in others they are more remote.
Anthropologists categorize belief systems organized around a God or gods using the terms monothe-
ism and polytheism. Monotheistic religions recognize a single supreme God. The largest monotheistic
religions in the world today are Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Together these religions have more
than 3.8 billion adherents worldwide.34 Polytheistic religions include several gods. Hinduism, one of
the world’s largest polytheistic religions with more than 1 billion practitioners, has a pantheon of deities
each with different capabilities and concerns.35
Rules of Behavior
Religious beliefs are an important element of social control because these beliefs help to define
acceptable behaviors as well as punishments, including supernatural consequences, for misbehavior.
One well-known example are the ideas expressed in the Ten Commandments, which are incorporated
in the teachings of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism and prohibit behaviors such as theft, murder, adul-
tery, dishonesty, and jealousy while also emphasizing the need for honor and respect between people.
Behavior that violates the commandments brings both social disapproval from other members of the
religious community and potential punishment from God.
Buddhism, the world’s fourth largest religion, demonstrates the strong connection between spiritual
beliefs and rules for everyday behavior. Buddhists follow the teachings of Buddha, who was an ordinary
human who achieved wisdom through study and discipline. There is no God or gods in some forms of
Buddhism. Instead, individuals who practice Buddhism use techniques like meditation to achieve the
insight necessary to lead a meaningful life and ultimately, after many lifetimes, to achieve the goal of
nirvana, release from suffering.
Although Buddhism defies easy categorization into any anthropological category, there is an element
of animatism represented by karma, a moral force in the universe. Individual actions have effects on
one’s karma. Kindness toward others, for instance, yields positive karma while acts that are disapproved
in Buddhist teachings, such as killing an animal, create negative karma. The amount of positive karma a
person builds-up in a lifetime is important because it will determine how the individual will be reborn.
Reincarnation, the idea that a living being can begin another life in a new body after death, is a fea-
ture of several religions. In Buddhism, the form of a human’s reincarnation depends on the quality of
the karma developed during life. Rebirth in a human form is considered good fortune because humans
have the ability to control their own thoughts and behaviors. They can follow the Noble Eightfold Path,
rules based on the teachings of Buddha that emphasize the need for discipline, restraint, humility, and
kindness in every aspect of life. 36
Rituals and Religious Practitioners

The most easily observed elements of any religious belief system are rituals. Victor Turner (1972)
defined ritual as “a stereotyped sequence of activities … performed in a sequestered place, and designed
to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors’ goals and interests.”37 Rituals have a
concrete purpose or goal, such as a wedding ritual that results in a religiously sanctioned union between
people, but rituals are also symbolic. The objects and activities involved in rituals “stand in for” or mean
more than what they actually are. In a wedding ceremony in the United States, the white color of the
wedding dress is a traditional symbol of purity.
A large amount of anthropological research has focused on identifying and interpreting religious rit-
uals in a wide variety of communities. Although the details of these practices differ in various cultural
settings, it is possible to categorize them into types based on their goals. One type of ritual is a rite of
passage, a ceremony designed to transition individuals between life stages.38 A second type of ritual is
a rite of intensification, actions designed to bring a community together, often following a period of
crisis.39 Revitalization rituals, which also often follow periods of crisis in a community, are ambitious
attempts to resolve serious problems, such as war, famine, or poverty through a spiritual or supernat-
ural intervention.40
Rites of Passage
In his original description of rites of passage, Arnold Van Gennep (1909) noted that these rituals were
carried out in three distinct stages: separation, liminality, and incorporation. During the first stage,
individuals are removed from their current social identity and begin preparations to enter the next
stage of life. The liminal period that follows is a time in which individuals often undergo tests, trials, or
activities designed to prepare them for their new social roles. In the final stage of incorporation, indi-
viduals return to the community with a new socially recognized status. 41
Rites of passage that transition children into a new status as adults are common around the world. In
Xhosa communities in South Africa, teenage boys were traditionally transitioned to manhood using a
series of acts that moved them through each of the three ritual stages. In the separation stage, the boys
leave their homes and are circumcised; they cannot express distress or signs of pain during the proce-
dure. Following the circumcision, they live in isolation while their wounds heal, a liminal phase during
which they do not talk to anyone other than boys who are also undergoing the rite of passage. This
stressful time helps to build bonds between the boys that will follow them through their lives as adult
men. Before their journey home, the isolated living quarters are burned to the ground, symbolizing the
loss of childhood. When the participants return to their community, the incorporation phase, they are
recognized as men and allowed to learn the secret stories of the community.42
Rites of Intensification
297
Figure 5: Land Diving on Pentecost Island, Vanuatu.
Rites of intensification are also extremely common in communities worldwide. These rituals are used
to bind members of the community together, to create a sense of communitas or unity that encourages
people to see themselves as members of community. One particularly dramatic example of this ritual
is the Nagol land diving ceremony held each spring on the island of Pentecost in Vanuatu in the South
Pacific. Like many rituals, land diving has several goals. One of these is to help ensure a good harvest by
impressing the spirits with a dramatic display of bravery. To accomplish this, men from the community
construct wooden towers sixty to eighty feet high, tie ropes made from tree vines around their ankles,
and jump head-first toward the ground (Figure 5). Preparations for the land diving involve almost every
member of the community. Men spend a month or more working together to build the tower and col-
lect the vines. The women of the community prepare special costumes and dances for the occasion and
everyone takes care of land divers who may be injured during the dive. Both the preparations for the
land diving and the festivities that follow are a powerful rite of intensification. Interestingly, the ritual
is simultaneously a rite of passage; boys can be recognized as men by jumping from high portions of the
tower witnessed by elders of the community.43
Rites of Revitalization
All rites of revitalization originate in difficult or even catastrophic circumstances. One notable exam-
ple is a ritual that developed on the island of Tanna in the South Pacific. During World War II, many
islands in the South Pacific were used by the U.S. military as temporary bases. Tanna was one of these
locations and this formerly isolated community experienced an extremely rapid transformation as the
U.S. military introduced modern conveniences such as electricity and automobiles. In an attempt to
make sense of these developments, the island’s residents developed a variety of theories about the rea-
son for these changes. One possible explanation was that the foreign materials had been given to the
islanders by a powerful deity or ancestral spirit, an entity who eventually acquired the name John Frum.
The name may be based on a common name the islanders would have encountered while the military
base was in operation: “John from America.”
When the war ended and the U.S. military departed, the residents of Tanna experienced a kind of
trauma as the material goods they had enjoyed disappeared and the John Frum ritual began. Each year
on February fifteenth, many of the island’s residents construct copies of U.S. airplanes, runways, or tow-
ers and march in military formation with replicas of military rifles and American blue jeans. The rit-
ual is intended to attract John Frum, and the material wealth he controls, back to the island. Although
the ritual has not yet had its intended transformative effect, the participants continue the ritual. When
asked to explain his continued faith, one village elder explained: “You Christians have been waiting
2,000 years for Jesus to return to Earth, and you haven’t given up hope.”44 This John Frum custom is
sometimes called a cargo cult, a term used to describe rituals that seek to attract material prosperity.
Although the John Frum ritual is focused on commodities, or “cargo,” the term cargo cult is generally
not preferred by anthropologists because it oversimplifies the complex motivations involved in the rit-
ual. The word “cult” also has connotations with fringe or dangerous beliefs and this association also
distorts understanding of the practice.
Religious Practitioners
Since rituals can be extremely complicated and the outcome is of vital importance to the community,
specialist practitioners are often charged with responsibility for supervising the details. In many set-
tings, religious specialists have a high social status and are treated with great respect. Some may become
relatively wealthy by charging for their services while others may be impoverished, sometimes deliber-
ately as a rejection of the material world. There is no universal terminology for religious practitioners,
but there are three important categories: priests, prophets, and shamans.
Priests, who may be of any gender, are full-time religious practitioners. The position of priest
emerges only in societies with substantial occupational specialization. Priests are the intermediaries
between God (or the gods) and humans. Religious traditions vary in terms of the qualifications required
for individuals entering the priesthood. In Christian traditions, it is common for priests to complete
a program of formal higher education. Hindu priests, known as pujari, must learn the sacred language
Sanskrit and spend many years becoming proficient in Hindu ceremonies. They must also follow strict
lifestyle restrictions such as a vegetarian diet. Traditionally, only men from the Brahmin caste were eli-
gible to become pujari, but this is changing. Today, people from other castes, as well as women, are
joining the priesthood. One notable feature of societies that utilize full-time spiritual practitioners is a
separation between ordinary believers and the God or gods. As intermediaries, priests have substantial
authority to set the rules associated with worship practice and to control access to religious rites.45
The term shaman has been used for hundreds of years to refer to a part time religious practitioner.
Shamans carry out religious rituals when needed, but also participate in the normal work of the com-
munity. A shaman’s religious practice depends on an ability to engage in direct communication with the
spirits, gods, or supernatural realm. An important quality of a shaman is the ability to transcend normal
reality in order to communicate with and perhaps even manipulate supernatural forces in an alternate
world. This ability can be inherited or learned.46 Transcending from the ordinary to the spiritual realm
gives shamans the ability to do many things such as locate lost people or animals or heal the sick by
identifying the spiritual cause of illness.
Among the Chukchi, who live in northern Russia, the role of the shaman is thought to be a special
calling, one that may be especially appropriate for people whose personality traits seem abnormal in
the context of the community. Young people who suffer from nervousness, anxiety, or moodiness, for
example may feel a call to take up shamanistic practice.47 There has been some research suggesting that
shamanism may be a culturally accepted way to deal with conditions like schizophrenia.48 If true, this
might be because achieving an altered state of consciousness is essential for shamanic work. Entering an
altered state, which can be achieved through dreams, hallucinogenic drugs, rhythmic music, exhaustion
through dance, or other means, makes it possible for shamans to directly engage with the supernatural
realm.
299
Shamans of the upper Amazon in South America have been using ayahuasca, a drink made from plants
that have hallucinogenic effects, for centuries. The effects of ayahuasca start with the nervous system:
One under the control of the narcotic sees unroll before him quite a spectacle: most lovely landscapes,
monstrous animals, vipers which approach and wind down his body or are entwined like rolls of thick
cable, at a few centimeters distance; as well, one sees who are true friends and those who betray him or
who have done him ill; he observes the cause of the illness which he sustains, at the same time being pre-
sented with the most advantageous remedy; he takes part in fantastic hunts; the things which he most
dearly loves or abhors acquire in these moments extraordinary vividness and color, and the scenes in
which his life normally develop adopt the most beautiful and emotional expression.49
Among the Shipibo people of Peru, ayahuasca is thought to be the substance that allows the soul of
a shaman to leave his body in order to retrieve a soul that has been lost or stolen. In many cultures,
soul loss is the predominant explanation for illness. The Shipibo believe that the soul is a separate entity
from the body, one that is capable of leaving and returning at will. Shamans can also steal souls. The
community shaman, under the influence of ayahuasca, is able to find and retrieve a soul, perhaps even
killing the enemy as revenge.50
Anthropologist Scott Hutson (2000) has described similarities between the altered state of conscious-
ness achieved by shamans and the mental states induced during a rave, a large dance party characterized
by loud music with repetitive patterns. In a rave, bright lights, exhausting dance, and sometimes the
use of hallucinogenic drugs, induce similar psychological effects to shamanic trancing. Hutson argues
that through the rave individuals are able to enter altered states of consciousness characterized by a
“self-forgetfulness” and an ability to transcend the ordinary self. The DJ at these events is often called a
“techno-shaman,” an interesting allusion to the guiding role traditional shamans play in their cultures.51
A prophet is a person who claims to have direct communication with the supernatural realm and who
can communicate divine messages to others. Many religious communities originated with prophecies,
including Islam which is based on teachings revealed to the prophet Muhammad by God. In Christian-
ity and Judaism, Moses is an example of a prophet who received direct revelations from God. Another
example of a historically significant prophet is Joseph Smith who founded the Church of Latter Day
Saints, after receiving a prophecy from an angel named Moroni who guided him to the location of a
buried set of golden plates. The information from the golden plates became the basis for the Book of
Mormon.
The major distinction between a priest and the prophet is the source of their authority. A priest gets
his or her authority from the scripture and occupational position in a formally organized religious insti-
tution. A prophet derives authority from his or her direct connection to the divine and ability to con-
vince others of his or her legitimacy through charisma. The kind of insight and guidance prophets offer
can be extremely compelling, particularly in times of social upheaval or suffering.
One prophet who had enormous influence was David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidians, a
schism of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The Branch Davidians were millenarians, people who
believe that major transformations of the world are imminent. David Koresh was extremely charis-
matic; he was handsome and an eloquent speaker. He offered refuge and solace to people in need and in
the process he preached about the coming of an apocalypse, which he believed would be caused by the
intrusion of the United States government on the Branch Davidian’s lifestyle. Koresh was so influential
that when the United States government did eventually try to enter the Branch Davidian compound in
Waco, Texas in 1993 to search for illegal weapons, members of the group resisted and exchanged gunfire
with federal agents. Eventually, under circumstances that are still disputed, a fire erupted in the com-
pound and eighty-six people, including Koresh, were killed.52 Ultimately, the U.S. government helped
to fulfill the apocalyptic vision of the group and David Koresh became a martyr. The Branch Davidians
evolved into a new group, “Branch, Lord our Righteousness,” and today many await Koresh’s return.53
CONCLUSION
Religion is of central importance to the lives of people in the majority of the world’s cultures; more
than eight-in-ten people worldwide identify with a religious group.54 However, it is also true that the
number of people who say that they have no religious affiliation is growing. There are now about
as many people in the world who consider themselves religiously “unaffiliated” as there are Roman
Catholics.55 This is an important reminder that religions, like culture itself, are highly dynamic and
subject to constant changes in interpretation and allegiance. Anthropology offers a unique perspective
for the study of religious beliefs, the way people think about the supernatural, and how the values and
behaviors these beliefs inspire contribute to the lives of individuals and communities. No single set of
theories or vocabulary can completely capture the richness of the religious diversity that exists in the
world today, but cultural anthropology provides a toolkit for understanding the emotional, social, and
spiritual contributions that religion makes to the human experience.
1. This chapter describes theories about religion developed by Durkheim, Marx, and Freud. What are the strengths and weaknesses
of each theory? Which theory would be the most useful if you were attempting to learn about the religious beliefs of another cul-
ture?
2. Rites of passage and rites of intensification are an important part of many religious traditions, but these same rituals also exist in
secular (non-religious) contexts. What are some examples of these rituals in your own community? What role do these rituals play in
bringing people together?
3. Durkheim argued that a distinction between the sacred and the profane was a key characteristic of religion. Thinking about your
own culture, what are some examples of ideas or objects that are considered “sacred”? What are the rules concerning how these
objects or ideas should be treated? What are the penalties for people who do not follow these rules?
GLOSSARY
Animatism: a religious system organized around a belief in an impersonal supernatural force.
Animism: a religious system organized around a belief that plants, animals, inanimate objects, or nat-
ural phenomena have a spiritual or supernatural element.
Anthropomorphic: an object or being that has human characteristics.
Cargo cult: a term sometimes used to describe rituals that seek to attract material prosperity. The term
is generally not preferred by anthropologists.
Collective effervescence: the passion or energy that arises when groups of people share the same
thoughts and emotions.
Cosmology: an explanation for the origin or history of the world.
Cultural appropriation: the act of copying an idea from another culture and in the process distorting
its meaning.
Filial piety: a tradition requiring that the young provide care for the elderly and in some cases ancestral
spirits.
301
Magic: practices intended to bring supernatural forces under one’s personal control.
Millenarians: people who believe that major transformations of the world are imminent.
Monotheistic: religious systems that recognize a single supreme God.
Polytheistic: religious systems that recognize several gods.
Priests: full-time religious practitioners.
Profane: objects or ideas are ordinary and can be treated with disregard or contempt.
Prophet: a person who claims to have direct communication with the supernatural realm and who can
communicate divine messages to others.
Reincarnation: the idea that a living being can begin another life in a new body after death.
Religion: the extension of human society and culture to include the supernatural.
Revitalization rituals: attempts to resolve serious problems, such as war, famine or poverty through a
spiritual or supernatural intervention.
Rite of intensification: actions designed to bring a community together, often following a period of
crisis.
Rite of passage: a ceremony designed to transition individuals between life stages.
Sacred: objects or ideas are set apart from the ordinary and treated with great respect or care.
Shaman: a part time religious practitioner who carries out religious rituals when needed, but also par-
ticipates in the normal work of the community.
Sorcerer: an individual who seeks to use magic for his or her own purposes.
Supernatural: describes entities or forces not governed by natural laws.
Zoomorphic: an object or being that has animal characteristics.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sashur Henninger-Rener is an anthropologist with research in the fields of comparative religion and
psychological anthropology. She received a Master of Arts from Columbia University in the City of
New York in Anthropology and has since been researching and teaching. Currently, Sashur is an
instructor at Pasadena City College teaching Cultural and Biological Anthropology. In her free time,
Sashur enjoys traveling the world, visiting archaeological and cultural sites along the way. She and her
husband are actively involved in animal rescuing, hoping to eventually found their own animal rescue
for animals that are waiting to find homes.
Notes
1. See Jean Clottes, Cave Art (London: Phaidon, 2010)

2. O. Soffer, J. M. Adovasio, and D. C. Hyland “The ‘Venus’ Figurines: Textiles, Basketry, Gender, and Status in the
Upper Paleolithic” Current Anthropology 41 n. 4 (2000):511-537.
3. James Frazer, The Golden Bough (New York: Macmillan and Company, 1958[1890]),vii.
4. Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (London: John Murray, 1871).
5. Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, tr. Joseph R. Swain (London: George Allen and Unwin,
1965[1915]), 62.
6. Jack David Eller, Introducing Anthropology of Religion (New York: Routledge, 2007), 9.
7. Ibid.
8. Marcel Mauss, A General Theory of Magic (London, Routledge, 1972[1902]), 24.
9. Bronislaw Malinowski, Culture (New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1931).
10. Bronislaw Malinowski, “Rational Mastery by Man of his Surroundings,” in Magic, Science, & Religion (New York:
McGraw Hill, 1955).
11. George Gmelch, “Baseball Magic” Transaction 8(1971): 39-41.
12. Emile Durkheim, Elementary Forms of Religious Life (New York: The Free Press, 1912).
13. Ibid.
14. Kenneth D. Allan, Explorations in Classic Sociological Theory: Seeing the Social World, (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine
Forge Press, 2005).
15. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (London: Routledge, 1966).
16. Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970[1844]).
17. Charles Rycroft, A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (London: Puffin Press, 1995).
18. Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1950).
19. Marvin Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture (New York: Random House, 1974).
20. Clifford Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System,” in The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, ed. Clifford
Geertz, 87-125 (London: Fontana Press, 1993), 90-91.
21. Sam D. Gill, Sacred Words: A Study of Navajo Religion and Prayer (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 1981), 52.
22. Gen. 1:21 NASB
23. Gen. 1:27 NASB
24. Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays (Westport, CT Greenwood Press, 1984[1926]),
199
25. The quote comes from Aram Oroi, “Press the button, mama!:”Mana and Christianity on Makira in the Solomon
Islands” (paper presented at the Australia and New Zealand Association of Theological Schools Conference held
in Auckland, June/July 2013). His work is cited in Alex Golub, “The History of Mana: How an Austronesian
Concept Became a Video Game Mechanic” The Appendix 2 no. 2 (2014) http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/4/
the-history-of-mana-how-an-austronesian-concept-became-a-video-game-mechanic
26. Roger M. Keesing, “Rethinking ‘Mana’” Journal of Anthropological Research 40 no. 1 (1984):137-156.
27. Alex Golub, “The History of Mana.”
28. Jack David Eller, Introducing Anthropology of Religion.
29. Thomas M. Kiefer, The Tausūg: Violence and Law in a Philippine Moslem Society (New York: Holt Rinehart, 1972).
30. Charles Ikels, Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2004.)
31. “Madagascar’s Dance with the Dead,” BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_corre-
spondent/7562898.stm.
32. Edward B. Tylor, Primitive Culture.
33. Edward B. Tylor, “The Limits of Savage Religion” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21(1892): 283–301.
34. Pew Research Center, “The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050,” April 2,
2015 http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
35. The characterization of Hinduism as polytheistic is contested. The deities in Hinduism can be viewed as a mani-
festation of Brahman, the most significant supernatural force.
36. Andrew Skilton, A Concise History of Buddhism (New York: Barnes and Noble Publishing, 2000).
37. Victor Turner, “Symbols in African Ritual” Science 179 (1972): 1100-05.
38. Arnold Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (Hove, UK: Psychology Press, 1960).
39. Eliot Dismore Chapple and Carleton Stevens Coon, Principles of Anthropology (New York: Henry Holt and Com-
pany, 1953).
40. Anthony F.C. Wallace, “Revitalization Movements” American Anthropologist 58 (1956): 264-281.
41. Victor W. Turner, “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage,” The Proceedings of the New
American Ethnological Society, 1964.
42. Casey Golomski, “Rites of Passage: 1900’s to Present: Africa,” in Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, &
Africa: An Encyclopedia (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2012).
303
43. For more information see Marc Tabani, “The Carnival of Custom: Land Dives, Millenarian Parades and Other
Spectacular Ritualizations in Vanuatu” Oceania 80 no. 3 (2010): 309–329.
44. Paul Raffaele, “In John They Trust,” Smithsonian Magazine, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/in-
john-they-trust-109294882/?no-ist=&page=1.
45. Victor W. Turner, “Religious Specialists,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 13(1972): 437-444.
46. Piers Vitebsky, “Shamanism,” Indigenous Religions: A Companion, ed. Graham Harvey(New York: Bloomsbury Aca-
demic, 2000).
47. Waldemar G. Bogoras, The Chukchi of Northeastern Asia American Anthropologist 3 no. 1(1901):80-108.
48. Rick Strassman, DMT: The Spirit Molecule (South Paris, ME: Park Street Press, 2000).
49. Avencio Villarejo, Asi es la selva (Lima, Peru: Centro de Estudios Teologicos de la Amazonia, 1988).
50. Robert L. Carneiro, “The Amahuaca and the Spirit World” Ethnology 3(1964): 6-11.
51. Scott R. Hutson, “The Rave: Spiritual Healing in Modern Western Subcultures,” Anthropological Quarterly
73(2000): 35-49.
52. Kenneth G.C. Newport, The Branch Davidians of Waco: The History and Beliefs of an Apocalyptic Movement (London:
Oxford University Press, 2006).
53. John Burnett, “Two Decades Later: Some Branch Davidians Still Believe,” National Public Radio
http://www.npr.org/2013/04/20/178063471/two-decades-later-some-branch-davidians-still-believe.
54. Pew Research Center, “The Global Religious Landscape,” December 18, 2012. http://www.pewforum.org/2012/
12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/
55. Ibid.
12
GLOBALIZATION
Lauren Miller Griffith, Texas Tech University

[email protected]
https://www.depts.ttu.edu/sasw/People/Griffith.php
Jonathan S. Marion, University of Arkansas

[email protected]
https://fulbright.uark.edu/departments/anthropology/directory/profile.php?uId=marion
Learning Objectives
• Define globalization and the 5 “scapes” that can be used to characterize global flows or exchanges.
• Explain the relationship between globalization and the creation of new “glocal” lifestyles and forms of consumption.
• Describe some of the ways people use agency to respond to globalization including syncretism and participation in alternative
markets.
• Assess the relationship between globalization, neoliberalism, and neocolonialism.
• Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the intensification of globalization.
• Discuss the implications of globalization for anthropology.
It is Tuesday on campus as you enter the dining hall. The day’s hot lunch entrées include Caribbean
jerk pork with mango salsa and a side of collard greens. The next station is offering made-to-order
Asian stir-fry. At the sandwich counter, tuna salad, an all-American classic, is being served in a pita.
Now, are these dishes authentic? That, of course, depends on how you define authenticity.1 A similar
question was asked at Oberlin College in December 2015 when a group of students claimed that adapt-
304
305
ing foreign cuisines constituted a form of social injustice.2 Their claim, which raised a great deal of con-
troversy, was that the cafeteria’s appropriation and poor execution of ethnic dishes was disrespectful
to the cultures from which those recipes were taken. Many people dismissed the students’ concerns as
either an overreaction or as an attempt to rephrase a perennial complaint (bad cafeteria food) in a polit-
ically loaded language of social justice likely to garner a response from the administration. Regardless of
what one thinks about this case, it is revealing of how college campuses—as well as the larger societies
in which they are situated—have changed over time. The fact that dishes like sushi and banh mi sand-
wiches are even available in an Ohio college cafeteria suggests that globalization has intensified. The
fact that the students would be reflexive enough to question the ethical implications of appropriating
foreign cuisine suggests that we are truly in a new era. But what, in fact, is globalization?
OVERVIEW AND EARLY GLOBALIZATION
Globalization is a word commonly used in public discourse, but it is often loosely defined in today’s
society (much like the word “culture” itself). First appearing in the English language in the 1940s, the
term “globalization” is now commonplace and is used to discuss the circulation of goods, the fast and
furious exchange of ideas, and the movement of people.3 Despite its common use, it seems that the
many people using the term are often not defining it in the same way. Some treat globalization as sim-
ply an economic issue while others focus more on the social and political aspects. What is clear, how-
ever, is that globalization has influenced many different facets of contemporary social life. This actually
makes globalization an ideal topic of study for anthropologists, who pride themselves on taking a holis-
tic approach to culture (see the Development of Anthropological Ideas chapter). For our purposes, we
adopt political scientist Manfred Steger’s definition of globalization: “the intensification of worldwide
social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events
occurring many miles away and vice versa.”4
It is challenging to determine precisely when globalization began. Although some people discuss
globalization as if it was an entirely new process without historical antecedents, in truth its precursors
have been going on for a very long time. In this chapter, we argue that the distinguishing feature of
globalization in the contemporary era is the speed, rather than the scope, of global interactions. Early
modern technological innovations hastened globalization.5 For instance, the invention of the wheel cre-
ated a need for permanent roads that would facilitate transport of animal drawn carts. These wheeled
vehicles increased people’s mobility, which in turn facilitated the sharing of both goods and ideas. Even
before the invention of the wheel, the creation of written communication systems allowed ideas to be
shared between people in distant locations.
Certainly extensive empires have existed at various times throughout human history, including Chi-
nese dynasties (the Han dynasty, 206 BCE-220 CE, for instance, reached the same size the Roman
Empire achieved much later); the Ottoman Empire, and the Roman Empire. Most recently in world
history, European colonial expansion into Africa, Asia and the Americas marked another landmark of
globalization. As discussed in the Development of Anthropological Ideas chapter, colonialism refers to
the political, social, economic, and cultural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power
for an extended period of time. Technically, colonialism can be practiced by any group that is pow-
erful enough to subdue other groups—and this certainly would be an accurate term for Ottoman and
Roman imperial expansion—but as a term, colonialism is typically associated with the actions of Euro-
pean countries starting in the 1500s and lasting through the 1900s. During this period, European colo-
nial powers divvied up “unclaimed” land with little regard for ethnic groups who already lived in those
places, their political structures, belief systems, or lifeways. By 1914, European nations ruled more than
85 percent of the world, and it is not by accident that the image of the world most often seen on con-
ventional maps continues to be very Eurocentric in its orientation (see map).
Colonialism in the Americas was the result of European conquest of newly “discovered” territories
during the Age of Exploration. Columbus was likely not the first explorer to reach the Americas, but
his “discovery” intensified Europeans’ desires to colonize this “new” territory. European leaders began
expanding their spheres of influence in Europe before turning their attention to lands further afield; the
successes they had in colonizing nearby lands, amplified by a growing demand for trade items found in
“the Orient,” fueled their enthusiasm for exploration outside the region. The Catholic Church also sup-
ported this economically motivated mission, as it coincided with a weakening of their religious-strong-
hold in places like England, Germany, and France.
One of the most devastating features of the colonial period was the forced labor of both indigenous
Americans and Africans who were enslaved and shipped off as chattel. Between 1525 and 1866, 12.5
million slaves were sent to the New World from Africa. Treated as chattel, only 10.7 million Africans
survived until arriving in the Americas. The U.S. imported approximately 450,000 of these slaves. It is
not by coincidence that the ethically irredeemable shipment of slaves to the Americas corresponded to
massive shipments of goods to Europe and down the west coast of Africa. As far as the total scope of
international flows, however, European colonialism pales in comparison to the scope of globalization
that has transpired since the 1990s.
Contemporary globalization, at least in terms of economics, is perhaps best pinpointed as coinciding
with the conclusion of World War II and the Bretton Woods Conference.6 The agreements made at the
Bretton Woods Conference led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as the
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which later became the World Bank (WB). It
also laid the groundwork for the World Trade Organization (WTO). Taken together, these three orga-
nizations have had a tremendous role in accelerating globalization and in shaping the lives of people in
the developing world. The very idea of governing bodies like the United Nations, or regulatory institu-
tions like the IMF and WB, that exist outside the confines of a specific nation-state—now widely refer-
enced as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)—contributes to undermining local sovereignty.7
Although local, regional, and national identities and affiliations retain salience in the global era, their
importance has shifted relative to the growing sense many people have of being citizens of the world.
THE ACCELERATION OF GLOBALIZATION
The 5 “Scapes” of Globalization
As we have already established, globalization refers to the increasing pace and scope of intercon-
nections crisscrossing the globe. Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai has discussed this in terms of five
specific “scapes” or flows: ethnoscapes, technoscapes, ideoscapes, financescapes, and mediascapes.
Thinking of globalization in terms of the people, things, and ideas that flow across national boundaries
is a productive framework for understanding the shifting social landscapes in which contemporary
people are often embedded in their daily lives. Questions about where people migrate, their reasons for
migration, the pace at which they travel, the ways their lives change as a result of their travels, and how
their original communities change can all be addressed within this framework. Questions about goods
307
and ideas that travel without the accompaniment of human agents can also be answered using Appadu-
rai’s notion of scapes.
Ethnoscape refers to the flow of people across boundaries. While people such as labor migrants or
refugees (see case study below) travel out of necessity or in search of better opportunities for them-
selves and their families, leisure travelers are also part of this scape. The World Tourism Organization, a
specialized branch of the United Nations, argues that tourism is one of the fastest growing commercial
sectors and that approximately one in eleven jobs is related to tourism in some way.8 Tourism typically
puts people from developed parts of the world in contact with people in the developing world, which
creates both opportunities and challenges for all involved. While there is the potential for tourists to be
positively affected by their experiences with “the Other” while travelling, the tourism industry has also
received its share of criticisms. Individuals from wealthier countries like the U.S., even if they are not
wealthy themselves by the standards of the United States, are able to indulge in luxuries while travel-
ing abroad in poorer nations like those found in the Caribbean. There is a fine line between a) tourists
expecting service while on vacation and b) tourists treating local people like servants. This latter scenario
exemplifies the unequal power relationships that develop in these kinds of situations, and such power
relationships concern responsible social scientists.9
Technoscape refers to flows of technology. Apple’s iPhone is just one example of how the movement
of technologies across boundaries can radically affect day-to-day life for people all along the commodity
chain. Sales records are surpassed with each release of a new iPhone, with lines of customers spilling out
of Apple stores and snaking around the block. Demand for this new product drives a fast and furious
pace of production. Workers who are struggling to keep up with demand are subjected to labor condi-
tions most iPhone users would find abhorrent; some even commit suicide as a result. The revenue asso-
ciated with the production and export of technological goods is drastically altering the international
distribution of wealth. As the pace of technological innovation increases, so does the flow of technology.
This is not, of course, an entirely new phenomenon; earlier technologies have also drastically and irrev-
ocably changed the human experience. For example, the large-scale production and distribution of the
printing press throughout Europe (and beyond) dramatically changed the ways in which people thought
of themselves—as members not only of local communities, but of national communities as well.10
Ideoscape refers to the flow of ideas. This can be small-scale, such as an individual posting her or
his personal views on Facebook for public consumption, or it can be larger and more systematic. Mis-
sionaries provide a key example. Christian missionaries to the Amazon region made it their explicit
goal to spread their religious doctrines. As the experiences of missionary-turned-anthropologist Daniel
Everett show, however, local people do not necessarily interpret the ideas they are brought in the way
missionaries expect.11 In addition to the fact that all people have agency to accept, reject, or adapt the
ideologies that are introduced to or imposed on them (see syncretism below). The structure of the lan-
guage spoken by the Pirahã makes it difficult to provide direct translations of the gospel.12
Financescape refers to the flow of money across political borders. Like the other flows discussed by
Appadurai, this phenomenon has been occurring for centuries. The Spanish, for example, conscripted
indigenous laborers to mine the silver veins of the Potosí mines of Bolivia. The vast riches extracted
from this region were used to pay Spain’s debts in northern Europe. The pace of the global transfer of
money has only accelerated and today transactions in the New York Stock Exchange, the Nikkei index,
and other such finance hubs have nearly immediate effects on economies around the world.
Mediascape refers to the flow of media across borders. In earlier historic periods, it could take weeks
or even months for entertainment and education content to travel from one location to another. From
the telegraph to the telephone, and now the Internet (and myriad other digital communication tech-
nologies), media are far more easily and rapidly shared regardless of geographic borders. For example,
Brazilian telenovelas may provide entertainment on long-distance African bus trips, Bollywood films
are shown in Canadian cinemas, and people from around the world regularly watch mega-events such
as the World Cup and the Olympics from wherever they may live.
While the five scapes defined by Appadurai provide useful tools for thinking about these various
forms of circulation, disentangling them in this way can also be misleading. Ultimately, the phenomena
studied by most anthropologists will involve more than one of these scapes. Take clothing for instance.
Kelsey Timmerman, an author whose undergraduate concentration was in anthropology, was inspired
to find out more about the lives of the people who made his clothing.13 In a single day, he found, the
average American might be wearing clothes made in Honduras, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and China.
Something as seemingly simple as a T-shirt can actually involve all five of Appadurai’s scapes. The
transnational corporations responsible for the production of these shirts themselves are part of capi-
talism, an idea which has become part of the international ideoscape. The financescape is altered by a
company in the U.S. contracting a production facility in another country where labor costs are cheaper.
The equipment needed to create these T-shirts is purchased and delivered to the production facility,
thus altering the technoscape. The ethnoscape is affected by individuals migrating from their homes in
rural villages to city centers, often disrupting traditional residence patterns in the process. Finally, the
mediascape is involved in the marketing of these T-shirts.
SELECTIVE IMPORTATION AND ADAPTATION
Glocalization
Globalization most certainly changes the landscape of contemporary social life (see our discussion of
Appadurai above). Yet it would be a mistake to think of globalization as a state that emerges without
human agency. In most cases, people make decisions regarding whether or not they want to adopt a
new product or idea that has been made available to them via globalization. They also have the ability to
determine the ways in which that product or idea will be used, including many far different from what
was originally intended. A cast-off Boy Scout uniform, for example, may be adopted by a Maasai village
leader as a symbol of his authority when dealing with Tanzanian government officials.14
First emerging in the late 1980s, the term glocalization refers to the adaptation of global ideas into
locally palatable forms.15 In some instances, this may be done as a profit-generating scheme by transna-
tional corporations. For example, McDonald’s offers vastly different menu items in different coun-
tries. While a Big Mac may be the American favorite, when in India you might try a McAloo Tikki (a
breadcrumb-coated potato and pea patty), in Hong Kong mixed veggies and egg mini twisty pasta in a
chicken broth for breakfast, in Thailand corn pies or pineapple pies, or a Steak Mince ‘N’ Cheese pie in
New Zealand. In other cases, people rather than corporations find innovative ways to adopt and adapt
foreign ideas. The Zapotec of Oaxaca, Mexico, for example, have found a way to adapt globally avail-
able consumer goods to fit their longstanding cultural traditions. Traditionally, when a member of the
community dies, that individual’s relatives have an obligation to ease his or her passing to the after-
life. One part of this obligation is making an extraordinary number of tamales for the mourners who
come to pay their respects at the home altar that has been erected for the deceased. These tamales are
intended to be taken home and were once shared in traditional earthen containers. Rather than dis-
rupting this tradition, the introduction of modern consumer goods like Tupperware has made the old
tradition of sharing food easier.16 In this case, Zapotec culture is not threatened by the introduction of
309
foreign goods and ideas because the community incorporates new things into their pre-existing prac-
tices without completely trading old ideas for new ones. Practices like these provide evidence that fears
about globalization leading to nothing but cultural homogenization may be exaggerations. Yet, other
communities refuse these products precisely because they equate modernization and globalization with
culture loss. For example, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Dr. Rigoberta Menchu recounts how adamantly
the Maya elders where she was raised warned the youth away from consuming Coca-Cola or even using
modern corn mills rather than the traditional mano and metate.17
Case Study: Both Global and Local –Salsa Dancing Around the World
While there are a variety of texts regarding the histories of salsa music and dancing, as it exists today the salsa scene is inseparable from the
18
five flows of globalization described above. Take for instance the vast number of salsa “congresses” and festivals held worldwide throughout
the year. People from near and far travel to these events as dance students, social participants, performers, and instructors (the ethnoscape).
Travel to and from these events, often internationally, depends on modern transportation (the technoscape). What is being taught, shared, and
communicated at these events is, primarily ideas about different dancing style and techniques (the ideoscape). In addition to the costs of gas/
parking/airfare or the like, registration, hotel rooms, lessons, DJs/bands, and other services are all available because they are being paid for (the
financescape). Finally, these events could not exist as they do today without online advertising (see Figure 1 for an example), workshop and per-
formance schedules, and event registration, let alone video-clips of the featured teachers and performers (the mediascape). Indeed, the very fact
that dancers can come from disparate locations and all successfully dance with each other—even in the absence of a common spoken lan-
19
guage—testifies to the globalization involved in such dance forms today.
Figure 1: Advertisement for the New Zealand Salsa Congress,

2012.
The widely shared patterning of movement to music in this dance genre does not, however, negate the very real differences between local
iterations. Featured in the very title of ethnomusicologist Sydney Hutchinson’s recent edited volume, Salsa World: A Global Dance in Local Con-
texts, real differences between local contexts, practices, and meanings are shown in chapters dedicated to the salsa scenes in New York, New
Jersey, Los Angeles, rural America, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia (Cali), Dominican Republic (Santo Domingo), France, Spain (Barcelona), and
20
Japan. Learning to dance at family gatherings is different from learning in a studio. Learning to dance to music that plays in every building on
the street is different from learning in a setting with entirely different local instruments. Learning to dance is different when everyone comes
from the same general socioeconomic and ethnic background compared to learning in extremely heterogeneous urban settings. This set of
21
comparisons could continue for quite some time. The point is that even global forms take on local shapes.
Lifestyle, Taste, and Conspicuous Consumption
While some aspects of globalization are best studied at the societal level, others are best examined
at smaller scales such as the trends visible within specific socio-economic strata or even at the level of
individual decision-making. The concept of “lifestyle” refers to the creative, reflexive, and sometimes
even ironic ways in which individuals perform various social identities (see the Performance chapter
in this volume). Sociologist David Chaney describes lifestyles as “characteristic modes of social engage-
ment, or narratives of identity, in which the actions concerned can embed the metaphors at hand.”22
The lifestyles we live and portray, then, can be seen as reflexive projects (see the Fieldwork chapter for
more information about reflexivity) in the sense that they display both to ourselves and to our audi-
ences who we think we are, who we want to be, and who we want to be seen to be.
Chaney argues that people only feel the need to differentiate themselves when confronted with an
array of available styles of living.23 Societies organized via organic solidarity (versus mechanical) are
predicated on different goods, skills, and tasks. Within this framework, the rise of a consumerist econ-
omy enables individuals to exhibit their identities through the purchase and conspicuous use of various
goods.24 Globalization has increased the variety of goods available for individuals to purchase—as well
as people’s awareness of these products—thus expanding the range of identities that can be performed
through their consumption habits (see the Gender and Sexuality chapter for more on performance of
identity). In some situations, identity is an individual project, with conspicuous consumption used to
display one’s sense of self. For example, a student who feels alienated by the conservative, “preppy,” stu-
dents at her East Coast school can cultivate an alternative identity by growing dreadlocks, wearing Bob
Marley T-shirts, and practicing djembe drumming, all of which are associated with the African diaspora
outside the United States.
Critics have argued that a consequence of globalization is the homogenization of culture. Along
similar lines, some have worried that the rapid expansion of the leisure market would decrease the
diversity of cultural products (e.g. books, movies) consumed by the populace. The disappearance of
small-scale shops and restaurants has certainly been an outcome of the rise of global conglomerates, but
the homogenization of culture is not a foregone conclusion.25 Globalization enables individuals in far-
flung corners of the world to encounter new ideas, commodities, belief systems, and voluntary groups
to which they might choose to belong. At times these are at the expense of existing options, but it is
also important to acknowledge that people make choices and can select the options or opportunities
that most resonate with them. The concept of lifestyle thus highlights the degree of decision-making
available to individual actors who can pick and choose from global commodities, ideas, and activities.
At the same time as individual choices are involved, the decisions made and the assemblages selected
are far from random. Participating in a lifestyle implies knowledge about consumption; knowing how
to distinguish between goods is a form of symbolic capital that further enhances the standing of the
individual.26
How much free will, freedom of choice, or autonomy an individual actually has is an age-old question
far beyond the scope of this chapter, but in many cases a person’s consumption patterns are actually
311
a reflection of the social class in which she or he was raised—even when an individual thinks he or
she is selectively adopting elements from global flows that fit with his or her unique identity. In other
words, an individual’s “taste” is actually an outgrowth of his or her habitus, the embodied disposi-
tions that arise from one’s enculturation in a specific social setting.27 Habitus results in a feeling of ease
within specific settings. For example, children who have been raised in upper-class homes are able to
more seamlessly integrate into elite boarding schools than classmates on scholarships who might find
norms of dining, dress, and overall comportment to be unfamiliar.28 Habitus, the generative grammar
for social action, generates tastes and, by extension, lifestyles.29
Recall the vignette that opened this chapter. The fact that the students of this prestigious liberal
arts college are in the position to critique the ethical implications of specific recipes suggests that
their life experiences are far different from the roughly one in seven households (totaling 17.5 million
households) in the United States with low or very low food security.30 Inevitably then, what people
choose to consume from global offerings—and the discourses they generate around those consumption
choices—are often indicative of their social status. Once a commodity becomes part of these global
flows, it is theoretically available to all people regardless of where they live. In actual practice, however,
there are additional gatekeeping devices that ensure continued differentiation between social classes.
Price will prevent many people from enjoying globally traded goods. While a Coca-Cola may seem
commonplace to the average college student in the U.S., it is considered a luxury good in other parts of
the world. Likewise, although Kobe steaks (which come from the Japanese wagyu cattle) are available in
the U.S., it is a relatively small subgroup of Americans who would be able and willing to spend hundreds
of dollars for a serving of meat. Having the knowledge necessary to discern between different goods
and then utilize them according to socially prescribed norms is another mark of distinction between
social classes, as anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu’s work on taste made clear.31
GLOBALIZATION IN EVERYDAY LIFE
Although some within the discipline argue that anthropologists should report objectively on the cul-
tures and social phenomena they study, given the structure of the discourse surrounding globalization,
it is increasingly difficult to avoid being pigeonholed as “pro” or “anti” globalization. In truth though,
globalization has had both positive and negative impacts.
Advantages of the Intensification of Globalization
As optimists, we will start with the “glass-half-full” interpretation of globalization. Political Scientist
Manfred Steger has argued that “humane forms of globalization” have the potential to help us deal with
some of the most pressing issues of our time, like rectifying the staggering inequalities between rich and
poor or promoting conservation.32 The mediascape has made people in the Global North increasingly
aware of the social injustices happening in other parts of the world. In his book on the global garment
industry, Kelsey Timmerman highlights the efforts undertaken by activists in the U.S., ranging from
public demonstrations decrying the fur industry to boycotts of products produced in socially unsus-
tainable ways.33 While many of these efforts fall short of their intended outcome—and typically over-
look the complexities of labor situations in the Global South where families often rely upon the labor
of their children to make ends meet—such examples nonetheless underscore the connections people in
one location now feel with others (who they will likely never meet) through the commodity chains that
link them.
Globalization has also facilitated the rise of solidarity movements that would not have been likely in
an earlier era. To take a recent example, within hours of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, individuals
from different nations and walks of life had changed their Facebook profile pictures to include the
image of the French flag. This movement was criticized because of its Eurocentrism; the victims of a
bombing in Beirut just the day before received far less international support than did the French vic-
tims. Shortcomings aside, it still stands as a testament to how quickly solidarity movements can gain
momentum thanks to technological innovations like social media.
Micro-loan programs and crowd-source fundraising are yet more ways in which individuals from
disparate circumstances are becoming linked in the global era. Kiva, for example, is a microfinance
organization that enables anyone with an Internet connection to make a small ($25) donation to an
individual or cooperative in various parts of the developing world. The projects for which individuals/
groups are seeking funding are described on the Kiva website and donors choose one or more specific
projects to support. The recipient must then repay the loan to Kiva with interest.
Crowd-source fundraising follows a similar principle, though without the requirement that money
be paid back to the donors. One small-scale example involves funds gathered in this way for a faculty
led applied visual research class in Dangriga, Belize in 2014. By generating a small pool of additional
funding, 100 percent of the students’ project fees could be dedicated to producing materials for local
community partners (compared to other groups, who used some of these fees for student lunches or
other items). As a result, the team was able to over-deliver on what had been promised to the commu-
nity. The Sabal Cassava Farm (Belize’s sole commercial cassava farm) had requested a new road sign as
well as full-color marketing flyers. The Austin Rodriguez Drum Shop—a cultural resource center, and
producer of traditional Garifuna drums—had wanted help updating their educational poster (see Figure
2a and 2b). For both groups the team was able to a) provide digital frames with all the research images
(so that the local community partners had something “in hand” and could use as they wanted; b) use
higher grade production materials, and c) start work on large-format, coffee-table style documents to
be provided to each family and also copies to be donated to the local Gulisi Garifuna Museum.
313
Figure 2a: Original educational “poster” composed of photos, many water-damaged, attached to cardboard with layers of clear tape. Photograph by Jonathan S.
Marion. All rights reserved.
Figure 2b: Updated 3’x4′ poster, documenting the entire drum-making process, with matte lamination to protect from water damage. Photograph by Jonathan S.
Marion. All rights reserved.
Advances in transportation technologies, combined with an increased awareness of humanitarian

crises abroad (an awareness that is largely facilitated by advances in communication technologies) also
create new ethnoscapes. Programs like the Peace Corps have a relatively long history of sending West-
erners into foreign nations to assist with humanitarian efforts on a regular basis. Other volunteers are
mobilized in times of crisis. Medical professionals may volunteer their services during a disease epi-
demic, flocking to the regions others are trying to flee. Engineers may volunteer their time to help
rebuild cities in the wake of natural disasters. And even lay people without a specialized skill set may
lend their energy to helping others in the aftermath of a disaster, or by collecting and/or donating goods
to be used in various relief efforts. In 2010, a devastating, 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, affect-
ing an estimated three million people. Thanks to widespread coverage of the crisis, the international
response was immediate and intense with more than twenty countries contributing resources and per-
sonnel to assist in the recovery efforts. Clearly, then, there are also benefits facilitated by globalization.
Disadvantages of the Intensification of Globalization
In the previous section, we concluded by noting how the intensification of globalization can bring
benefits to people in times of crisis. Yet it bears remembering and reiterating that sometimes such crises
are themselves brought about by globalization. The decimation of indigenous tribes in the Americas,
315
who had little to no resistance to the diseases carried by European explorers and settlers, is but one
early example of this. Such changes to the world’s ethnoscapes may also be accompanied by changes
to local health. As epidemic after epidemic wreaked havoc on the indigenous peoples of the Americas,
death rates in some tribes reached as high as 95 percent. Addressing a current instance, the research
program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) coordinated by the University of
Copenhagen in Denmark, has called attention to the role of human-caused climate change in creating
the current Syrian refugee crisis (see case study by Laurie King below).34
Similarly, a current example of how globalization can spell disaster from a public health standpoint
would be the concern in 2014 about infected airplane passengers bringing the Ebola virus from Africa
to the U.S. In March 2014, the country of Guinea experienced an outbreak of the Ebola virus. From
there, it spread into many countries in the western part of Africa. Medical professionals from the U.S.
traveled to West Africa to assist with patient care. In October 2014, the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that a man who traveled from Liberia to the U.S. while asymptomatic
became ill several days after reaching the U.S. and eventually succumbed to the disease. Several health
workers in the U.S. also became ill with the virus, but were successfully treated. In response to this out-
break, the CDC increased screening efforts at the major ports of entry to the U.S.35 However, these pre-
cautions did not quell the fears of many Americans who heatedly debated the possibility of instituting
travel bans to and from countries with confirmed cases of Ebola.
The debates about travel bans to and from West Africa were a reminder of the xenophobic attitudes
held by many Americans even in this age of globalization. There are many reasons for this. Racial prej-
udice is still very much a reality in today’s world (see the Race and Ethnicity chapter) as is prejudice
against other religions, non-normative gender identity, the differently abled, and others. In some ways,
these fears have been heightened by globalization rather than diminished. Especially after the global
recession of 2008, some nation-states have become fearful for their economic security and have found
it easy to use marginalized populations as scapegoats. While advances in communication technology
have enabled social justice focused solidarity movements (as discussed above), unfortunately the same
media have been used as a platform for hate-mongering by others. Social media enables those who had
previously only been schoolyard bullies to broadcast their taunts further than ever before. Terrorists
post videos of unspeakable violence online and individuals whose hateful attitudes might have been
curbed through the informal sanctions of gossip and marginalization in a smaller-scale society can now
find communities of like-minded bigots in online chat rooms. By foregrounding the importance of the
hypothetical “average” person, populist politics has engaged in scapegoating of minority ethnic and reli-
gious groups. This has been most apparent in the successful campaigns for the British Brexit vote on
June 23, 2016 and the election of Donald Trump as President in the United States.
A portmanteau of “British” and “exit,” Brexit refers to the vote to leave the European Union. (Head-
quartered in Brussels, Belgium, the European Union is an economic and political union of 28 nation-
states founded on November 1, 1993 in Maastricht, Netherlands.) Both this and the election of Donald
Trump as the 45th president of the U.S. represent backlash against some of the inequities generated
by globalization. At the world scale, the Global North continues to extract wealth from the Global
South. More tellingly though is the widening wealth-gap even in “rich” countries. Without sufficient
social protection, capitalism—a system wherein profit motivates political and economic decision mak-
ing—has led to a situation in which the world’s eight richest men (note the gendering) now control as
much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of the entire world’s population. In other words, eight men now
have just as much money as 3.75 billion people combined and no nation in the world has a larger wealth-
gap (the difference between those with the most and the least in a society) than the United States. So,
while globalization has facilitated advantages for some, more and more people are being left behind.
Social scientists often use the term “re-entrenchment” to describe efforts people make to reassert their
traditional values and ways of life. While this impulse is understandable, many of these people are sus-
ceptible to the rhetoric of scapegoating: being told some other group is at fault for the problems they
are facing. This is the double-edged sword of globalization. Additionally, in some cases globalization
is forced on already marginal populations in peripheral nations through institutions like the IMF and
World Bank. In these instances, globalization facilitates and amplifies the reach and impact of neolib-
eralism, a multi-faceted political and economic philosophy that emphasizes privatization and unregu-
lated markets (see below).
GLOBALIZATION AND NEOLIBERALISM
Latin America provides a good example of how the shift from colonialism to neoliberalism has been
disseminated through and exacerbated by globalization. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the
Latin American colonies’ independence from Spain and Portugal was secure, but the relations of power
that prevailed during the colonial period had largely been replicated with local elites controlling the
means of production. During this period, citizens individually and collectively endeavored to establish
a new national identity. Despite nominal commitments to democracy throughout the region, patron/
client relationships functioned as the primary political mechanism. Internal divisions ran deep in many
Latin American countries, with the supporters (or clients) of rival elites periodically drawn into violent
contests for rule on behalf of their patrons. In the last decade of the 1800s and the first decade of the
1900s, people in Latin America began to question the right of the elites to rule, as well as the hidden
costs of modernization. Peasant uprisings, like the one that took place at Canudus in Brazil in 1896,
were evidence of the shifting political framework. People also saw the imperialistic tendencies of the
U.S. as a negative force of modernization which they hoped to avoid. Together, this led to a situation in
which people in Latin America sought a national identity that resonated with their sense of self.
During this same period there was a slight but significant change in the economic structure of the
region. The economy was still based on exports of agriculture and natural resources like minerals, and
the profits remained in the hands of the elite. What was new, however, was the introduction and modest
growth of manufacturing in the cities, which created new job opportunities. Economic diversification
led to a more complex class structure and an emerging middle class. Unfortunately, this period of rela-
tive prosperity and stability soon ended. Because of the plentiful natural resources and the captive labor
source “available” for exploitation in Latin America, wealthy landowners were able to undersell their
European competitors on agricultural products and provide “exotic” minerals. The privileged position
of Latin American landowner compared to European farmers led to widespread poverty among farmers
in Europe, which led to out-migration and political instability in Europe. As locally born Latin Ameri-
can peasants migrated from the countryside to the cities and the cities filled with European immigrants,
the landowning elite began to lose control, or at least the kind of power they used to hold over the farm-
ers who worked their land and had no other work options.
While city living provided certain opportunities, it also introduced new challenges. In the city, for
instance, people rarely had access to land for subsistence agriculture. This made them far more vulnera-
ble to economic fluctuations, and the vulnerability of city living necessitated the adoption of new politi-
cal philosophies. Urban poverty and desperation created a climate in which many people found socialist
philosophies appealing, starting as early as the 1920s in some places like Brazil. Initially, union leaders
and European immigrants who spread socialist ideas among the urban poor were punished by the state
317
and often deported. Eventually such repressive tactics proved insufficient to curtail the swelling dis-
ruptions caused by strikes and related actions by the unions. Faced with a new political reality, the elite
co-opted the public rhetoric of the urban masses. Realizing the need to cast themselves as allies to the
urban workforce, the elites ushered in a period of modest reform with more protection for workers.
During this period, and as an extension of their work-related activism, the middle class also clamored
for expansions of the social services provided by the state. Pressure from the middle class for more
social services for citizens unfortunately played into growing xenophobia (fear of foreigners) resulting
from the immigration of so many foreigners and faulty ideas about racial superiority communicated
through a growing discourse of nationalism. In some places, the elites aligned with the middle classes if
they saw it as politically advantageous. In other places, however, elites resisted incorporating the mid-
dle classes into the ruling structure and the elites’ power ultimately was wrested away though military
coups. While emerging leaders from the middle class continued relying on the export economic model,
they directed a greater percentage of the profits back into social programs. Only after the stock market
crash of the 1930s—and the resulting global recession—did those in power start to question the export
model.
In the early part of the 1900s, Latin American countries largely supported free trade because they
believed they had a competitive advantage. They believed that by producing the products their country/
region was best suited to produce they would prosper on the world market. However, changing world
circumstances meant that Latin American countries soon lost their advantage; average family size in
industrialized countries began to decrease, lowering demand for Latin American commodities. When
other countries with similar climates and topography began to grow the same crops, a global oversup-
ply of agricultural products led to lower prices and worsened the decline of Latin America’s financial
status in the world market.
This economic downturn was amplified by the loss of British hegemony after World War II. Before
the war, Great Britain and Latin America had enjoyed a stable exchange relationship with Latin America
sending agricultural goods to Great Britain and the British sending manufactured goods to Latin Amer-
ica. As the U.S. rose in global power, Americans looked to Latin America as a new market for U.S. man-
ufactured goods. In contrast to Great Britain though, the U.S. did not need to import Latin American
agricultural goods because the U.S. produced enough of its own, production that was further protected
by high import tariffs. Even if a consumer wanted to buy Latin American commodities, the commodi-
ties would be more expensive than domestic ones—even if actual costs were lower. Overall, Latin
America sold its agricultural goods to Europe, including Great Britain, but Latin American exporters
had to accept lower prices than ever before.
The United States’ economic strategy toward Latin America was different than Great Britain’s had
been. For those commodities that could not be produced in the U.S., like bananas, U.S. companies went
to Latin America so they could directly control the means of production. Although these commodi-
ties were grown and/or produced in Latin America, the profits were taken by foreign companies rather
than local ones. This same process also happened with mining interests like tin and copper; U.S. com-
panies purchased the mines in order to extract as much profit as possible. American companies were in
a position to exploit the natural resources of these countries because the U.S. had the financial capital
local communities lacked and the technological expertise needed to sustain these industries. This pat-
tern curtailed the rate of economic growth throughout Latin America as well as in other regions where
similar patterns developed.
The late 1920s through the 1950s saw many Latin American countries turning to nationalism—often
through force—as both a cultural movement and an economic strategy. The middle classes were in
a favor of curtailing the export economy that had been preferred by the elites, but did not have the
political clout to win elections. Indeed, their agenda was regularly blocked by the elites who used their
influence (i.e. with their clients) to press their interests, especially in the rural areas. With time, how-
ever, middle class men increasingly came to occupy military officer positions and used their newfound
authority to put nationalist leaders in the presidencies. Nationalists argued that an over-dependence on
agriculture had led to Latin America’s vulnerable position in the international economy and called for
a build-up of industry. They hoped to start producing the goods that they had been importing from the
U.S. and Europe. Their goal: industrial self-sufficiency.
The state was instrumental in this economic reorganization, both helping people buy local goods and
discouraging them from buying foreign goods. Doing this was far from as easy as it may sound. The
state imposed high duties on goods destined for the export market in order to entice producers to sell
their goods at home. At the same time, the state imposed high tariffs on the imports they wanted to
replace with local products. With time (and struggle) these measures had their intended effects, mak-
ing the locally produced goods comparatively more affordable—and therefore appealing—to local con-
sumers.
As already noted, developing factories required capital and technological expertise from abroad,
which in turn made the goods produced much more expensive. To help people afford such expensive
goods, the state printed more money, generating massive inflation. (In some places this inflation would
eventually reach 2,000 percent!) The combination of chronic inflation with high foreign debt emerged
as an enduring problem in Latin America and other parts of the Global South. Countries crippled by
high inflation and debt have turned to international institutions like the IMF and WB for relief and
while the intentions may be good, borrowing money from these global institutions always comes with
strings attached. When a country accepts a loan from the IMF or the WB, for instance, they must agree
to a number of conditions such as privatizing state enterprises (see the case study on Bolivia’s water cri-
sis, below) and cutting spending on social services like healthcare and education. Borrowing countries
are also required to adopt a number of policies intended to encourage free trade, such as the reduction
or elimination of tariffs on imported goods and subsidies for domestically produced goods. Policies are
put into place to encourage foreign investment. Transnational corporations have now reached the point
that many of them rival nations in terms of revenue. In fact, as of 2009, “forty-four of the world’s hun-
dred largest economies are corporations.”36 It is an understatement to note that the policies forced on
countries by lenders are often disruptive—if not entirely destructive—of locally preferred lifeways and
preferences. Although the IMF and WB measures are intended to spark economic growth, the populace
often winds up suffering in the wake of these changes. Colonialism has given way to a neocolonialism
in which economic force achieves what used to require military force with transnational corporations
benefiting from the exploitation of poorer nations.
Case Study: Privatization and Bolivia’s Water Crisis
In 2000, Bolivians in the city of Cochabamba took to the streets to protest the exploitative practices of a transnational company that had won
37
the right to provide water services in the city. Anti-globalization activists celebrated this victory of mostly poor mestizo and indigenous peo-
ple over capitalist giants, but the situation on the ground today is more complicated.
Water is one of the most essential elements on this planet. So how is it that a foreign company was given the right to determine who would
have access to Bolivian water supplies and what the water would cost? The answer serves to highlight the fact that many former colonies like
Bolivia have existed in a perpetual state of subordination to global superpowers. When Bolivia was a colony, Spain claimed the silver and other
precious commodities that could be extracted from Bolivia’s landscape, but after Bolivia became independent structural adjustment policies
mandated by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank paved the way for foreign companies to plunder the country’s natural resources.
319
In other words, colonial style relationships have been replicated in a global system that forces impoverished countries to sell resources to sat-
38
isfy creditors; “resource extraction is facilitated by debt relations.”
Like many countries in the Global South, Bolivia is deep in debt. A failed program of social reforms, coupled with government corruption, was
worsened by a severe drought affecting Bolivian agriculture. In order to pay its debts in the 1980s, Bolivia agreed to structural adjustments
mandated by the conditions of the country’s World Bank and International Monetary Fund loans. One of the mandates of these loans was priva-
tization of state-run enterprises like the water system. Proponents of privatizing such resources argue that the efficiency associated with for-
profit businesses will also serve to conserve precious natural resources. Some have gone so far as to suggest that increases in water prices
would help customers better grasp the preciousness of water and thereby encourage conservation. Of course, if customers conserve water too
much the company managing water delivery will fail to make a profit, thus initiating a dangerous cycle. When companies anticipate that they
will not see a return on their investment in infrastructure, they simply refuse to extend services to certain areas of the community.
What made the privatization of water in Bolivia so disastrous for the people of urban areas like Cochabamba was the rapid population growth
they experienced starting in the latter half of the twentieth century (growth that continues in the present). Population pressures layered on top
of the scarcity of water in the Bolivian natural environment makes access to potable water a perennial concern. Migration to urban areas was
hastened by many different factors including land reform, privatization of mines and resultant layoffs, and severe droughts. This influx of
migrants put pressure on urban infrastructure. To make matters worse, climate change led to a decline in the amount of surface water available.
39
In 2015, Lake Poopó, the second largest lake in Bolivia, went dry and researchers are doubtful it will ever fully recover (see Figure 3).
Figure 3: A fishing boat is stranded on the shrinking Lake Poopó, 2006.
In Cochabamba, organizing began in late 1999. Community members formed an organization called Coordinator for the Defense of Water and
for Life, which was run using a direct form of democracy wherein everyone had an equal voice. This was empowering for peasants who were
accustomed to being silenced and ignored in a centuries-old social hierarchy. This organization, in contrast, coordinated actions that cut across
ethnic and class lines. As the situation came to a head, activists blockaded the roads in and out of the city and riot police were brought in from
the capital. After several days of confrontations between the people and the military, local activists ousted the transnational company and
reclaimed their water source.
Despite local’s reclaiming control, however, they still lacked the infrastructure needed to effectively deliver what was once again “their”
water. This forced them to look to international donors for assistance, which could recreate the very situation against which they so recently
fought. Access to increasingly scarce water supplies is a growing problem. For example, plans to seize surface water from lakes creates con-
flicts with rural peasants who depend on these water sources for agricultural purposes. Unfortunately, such problems have emerged in many
other places as well (such as throughout Africa and the Middle East), and are increasing in prevalence and severity amidst ongoing climate
change. The question of whether or not water is a human right remains one that is heatedly debated by activists, CEOs, and others. (See a dis-
cussion of the position taken by Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck, who argues for the privatization of water, a position clearly at odds with the
position taken by the United Nations General Assembly which, in 2010, recognized water and sanitation as human rights.)
RESPONSES TO GLOBALIZATION
Cultures are dynamic and respond to changes in both the social and physical environments in which
they are embedded. While culture provides a template for action, people are also active agents who
respond to challenges and opportunities in a variety of ways, some of which may be quite creative and
novel. As such, it would be inaccurate to only see globalization as an impersonal force dictating the lives
of people in their various localities. Rather, people regularly use a variety of strategies in responding to
global forces. While a comprehensive catalog of these strategies is beyond the scope of this chapter, here
we outline two key responses.
Syncretism
Syncretism refers to the combination of different beliefs—even those that are seemingly contradic-
tory—into a new, harmonious whole. Though syncretism arises for a variety of reasons, in many cases
it is as a response to globalization. In this section, we use the example of Candomblé as a way of demon-
strating that syncretism is a form of agency used by people living under oppression.
Most often, anthropologists discuss syncretism within the context of religion. Anthropologists define
religion as the cultural knowledge of the spiritual realm that humans use to cope with the ultimate
problems of human existence (see the Religion chapter). Candomblé is an Afro-Brazilian spirit-posses-
sion religion, in which initiates serve as conduits between the human and supernatural realm. It is also
an excellent example of a syncretic religion. The many gods in Candomblé, known as orixás, are per-
sonified: they all have personalities; experience the full range of human emotions like love, hatred, jeal-
ousy, and anger; and have individual histories that are known to practitioners. Each orixá is associated
with a particular color, and practitioners of the religion often wear bead necklaces that correspond to
the specific deity with whom they feel a connection (see Figure 4). Unlike Christianity (a monotheis-
tic religion), Candomblé does not stress the duality of good and evil (or heaven and hell). Although on
the surface these two religious traditions may seem very different, in actual practice, many adherents of
Candomblé also identify as Christians, specifically Catholics. So how can this be?
Much like the orixás, Catholic saints are per-
sonified and have unique roles within the
Catholic tradition. This feature of Catholi-
cism—more so than any other major Christian
denomination—facilitated a fairly seamless
overlay with orixá worship. For example,
Iemanja, the orixá who rules over the seas and
is associated with fertility, is syncretized with
Our Lady of Conception. Ogum, whose domain
is war and whose ritual implements are the
sword and shield, is syncretized with Saint
Anthony.
Figure 4: Candomblé practitioners, Embu das Artes, Brazil, 2012. Just to be clear, syncretism is in no way
unique to Brazil or the African Diaspora; it fre-
quently occurs when one group is confronted with and influenced by another (and typically one with
more power). The reason syncretism is particularly common within Latin American religious systems
is due to 1) the tenacity with which African slaves clung to their traditional beliefs; 2) the fervor of the
Spanish and Portuguese belief that slaves should receive instruction in Catholicism, and 3) the realities
of colonial life in which religious instruction for slaves was haphazard at best. This created the perfect
climate within which African slaves could hide their traditional religious practices in plain sight.
Syncretism serves as a response to globalization insofar as it mediates overlapping frameworks. It
would be unnecessary if people lived in a world where boundaries were clearly defined with no ideo-
321
logical exchanges taking place across those boundaries (if such a world ever existed). Since that is far
from the lived reality for most people though, syncretism often serves as what James C. Scott catego-
rizes as a “weapon of the weak” – a concept referring to the ways in which marginalized peoples can
resist without directly challenging their oppressors (which could incite retaliation).40 Examples might
include mocking the elite behind their backs, subtle subversion, sabotage, or participation in alterna-
tive economies that bypass the elite. In the classroom, it can be rolling one’s eyes behind the professor’s
back, or thinking that you are “getting away with something” when texting in class. So too in the case of
Candomblé. Syncretism allowed the slaves and their descendants, who continue the tradition today, to
create a façade of compliance with mandated worship within the Catholic tradition, while still contin-
uing to pay homage to their own beliefs—and thus perpetuate their own ethnic identity—behind closed
doors.
Participation in Alternative Markets

As discussed earlier, structural adjustments mandated by international bodies like the IMF and WB
have left farmers in developing nations particularly vulnerable to the whims of global markets. Within
this framework, “fair trade” has emerged as a way for socially-conscious consumers to support small
farmers and artisans who have been affected by these policies. To be certified as fair trade, vendors must
agree to a “fair” price, which will be adjusted upwards if the world market price rises above the fair trade
threshold. If the world market price drops, fair trade farmers still make a decent living, which allows
them to continue farming rather than abandon their fields for wage labor. While admirable in its intent,
and unassailably beneficial to many, anthropological research reminds us that every situation is com-
plex and that there is never a “one size fits all” perfect solution.
As you read about in the Fieldwork chapter, and have seen demonstrated throughout this text,
anthropologists focus on the lived experience of people closest to the phenomenon they are studying.
In the case of fair trade, then, anthropologists focus primarily on the farmers or artisans (although an
anthropologist could also study the consumers or people who import fair trade goods or facilitate their
sale). Looked at from farmers’ perspectives, setting and maintaining fair wages for commodities like
coffee or bananas ensures that farmers will not abandon farming when the world market prices drop.
On the plus side, this helps ensure at least some stability for producers and consumers alike. One of the
key features of fair trade is the social premium generated by fair trade contracts: the commitment that a
certain percentage of the profit goes back into beneficial community projects such as education, infra-
structure development, and healthcare. But, in order for this to be successful, it is the local community
and not an outside entity (however well intentioned) that must get to decide how these premiums are
used.
Although fair trade is very appealing, it bears remembering that not everyone benefits from fair trade
in the same way. Individuals in leadership positions within fair trade cooperatives tend to have stronger
relationships with the vendors than do average members, leading them to have more positive associa-
tions with the whole business of fair trade.41 Similarly, people with more cultural and social capital will
have more access to the benefits of fair trade. A cacao farmer with whom Lauren works in Belize, for
example, pointed out that farmers with less education will always be taken advantage of by predatory
traders, which is why they need the assistance of a well-structured growers’ association when entering
the free trade market. Also of concern is that in some communities fair trade disrupts traditional roles
and relationships. For example in a Maya village in Guatemala, traditional gender roles were compro-
mised, with men becoming even more dominant because their commodity (coffee) had a fair trade mar-
ket whereas the women’s main commodity (weaving) did not.42
In addition to the challenge of finding a market for one’s goods, there are additional barriers to
becoming involved in fair trade. For example, it used to be that farmers could sell relatively low quality
coffee to fair trade organizations interested in social justice. Now, however, fair trade coffee must be
of exceptional quality to compete with specialty coffees.43 In and of itself this is not a bad thing, but
remember that some of the elite coffee producers of today were once the low quality producers of old.
In other words, the first generation of fair trade coffee farmers benefited from the many ways in which
fair trade companies invested in their farms, their processing equipment, and their education in a way
that newer participants cannot replicate. Indeed, once these initial farmers achieved a high quality cof-
fee bean, there was less incentive for fair trade vendors to invest in new farms. Now that the bar has
been set so high, it is much more difficult for new farmers to break into the fair trade market because
they lack the equipment, experience, knowledge, and networks of farmers who have more longstanding
relationships with fair trade companies.
Also worth noting are the many situations in which global standards conflict with local norms of
decision making. To be labeled as fair trade within the European Union banana market, for example,
bananas must be of an exceptionally high quality. Banana farms must conform to a number of other
guidelines such as avoiding pesticides and creating a buffer zone between the banana trees and water
sources. While this all may make sense in theory, it can be problematic in practice, such as in parts of the
Caribbean where land is customarily passed from one generation to the next without being subdivide
into individual parcels. In these cases, decisions about land use have to be made collectively. If some
of the landowners want to farm according to fair trade guidelines but other individuals refuse to meet
these globally mandated standards, the whole family is blocked from entering the fair trade market.44
IMPLICATIONS FOR ANTHROPOLOGY
As has been argued throughout this text, culture is dynamic. So too is anthropology as the field of
study dedicated to culture. Although many students of anthropology (let alone the public at large) may
have romantic visions of the lone ethnographer immersing her or himself in the rich community life
of a rural village in a remote land, this is not the reality for most anthropologists today. An increasing
number of anthropologists find themselves working in applied settings (see the Seeing Like an Anthro-
pologist chapter), but even many of the more strictly identified “academic” anthropologists—those
employed at colleges and universities—have begun working in settings that might well be familiar to the
average person. Now that anthropologists understand the importance of global flows of money, people,
and ideas the importance of doing research everywhere that these issues play out—at home (wherever
that may be) as much as abroad—is clear.
Urban Anthropology
Globalization has become a powerful buzzword in contemporary society and it would be difficult
to find anyone who has not been affected by it in at least some small way. The widespread influence
of globalization on daily life around the world—whether directly (such as through multinational busi-
nesses) or indirectly (such as via climate change)—raises a number of questions that anthropologists
have begun to ask. For example, an anthropologist might investigate the effects of global policies on
people in different regions of the world. Why is it that the monetary policies of the International Mon-
etary Fund and World Bank typically result in rich countries getting richer and the poor countries get-
323
ting poorer? In her book Beautiful Flowers of the Maquiladora (1997), for example, Norma Iglesias Prieto
gives an up-close portrait of the lives of Mexican women working in factories in the infamous border
zone of Tijuana.45 Although the working conditions in these factories are dangerous and the women are
subjected to invasive scrutiny by male supervisors, many of the women profiled in the book nonethe-
less appreciate the little luxuries afforded by their work. Others value the opportunity to support their
household or gain a small degree of financial independence from the male figures in their life. Unable
to offer any artificially flat answer concerning whether globalization has been “good” or “bad” for such
individuals, anthropologists focus on the lived experience of the people most affected by these global
forces. What is it like to live in such environments? How has it changed over time? What have been the
costs and benefits?
Especially amidst the overlapping flows of people and ideas, questions concerning mobility, transna-
tionalism, and identity have all become increasingly important to the field of anthropology. Although
some exceptions exist (see quinoa case study below), the general trend is for globalization to result in
urbanization. With neoliberalism comes the loss of state-funded programs and jobs, the unsustainabil-
ity of small farms, and the need for economic alternatives that are most commonly found in urban
areas. While anthropologists have long studied cities and urban life, the concentration of populations
in urban centers has added increasing importance to anthropologies of the city/metropolis in recent
years.46 Indeed, the term urban anthropology came into use to describe experiences of living in cities
and the relationships of city life to broader social, political, and economic contexts including issues of
globalization, poverty, and neoliberalism.47 The heightened focus on the city in global context has also
heightened awareness of and attention to issues of transnationalism: the understanding that people’s
lives may be lived and/or significantly influenced by events that cross the geopolitical borders of nation
states.48
Case Study: Global Demand for Quinoa
49
When a group of people is afforded little status in a society, their food is often likewise denigrated. Until recently, this held true for quinoa
50
in Bolivian society, which was associated with indigenous peasants. Mirroring “first world” patterns from the U.S. and Europe, city dwellers
preferred foods like pasta and wheat-based products. Conspicuous consumption of these products provided them with an opportunity to show-
case their “sophisticated” choices and tastes. Not surprisingly, there was little local demand for quinoa in Bolivian markets. Further undercut-
ting the appeal of producing quinoa, the Bolivian government’s adoption of neoliberal policies eliminated the meager financial protections
available to peasant farmers. If that was not bad enough, a significant drought in the early 1980s spelled disaster for many small farmers in the
southern Altiplano region of Bolivia. As a result of these overlapping and amplifying obstacles, many people moved to 1) cities, like La Paz; 2)
nearby countries, like Chile, and even 3) to Europe.
The situation faced by Bolivian peasants is not unique. More than half of the world’s people currently live in cities. This is the result of wide-
spread urbanization that began at the end of World War II and stretched into the 1990s. As a result, many peasants lost access to their tradi-
tional modes of subsistence. Although migration to the city can provide benefits like access to education, infrastructure, and wage-labor, it can
also result in a loss of identity and many peasants who migrate into cities are forced to subsist on the margins in substandard conditions, espe-
cially as they most often arrive without the social and cultural capital necessary to succeed in this new environment.
Fortuitously for indigenous Bolivians, the structural adjustments adopted by their government coincided with foreigners’ growing interest in
organic and health foods. Although it is often assumed that rural peasants only produce food for their own subsistence and for very local mar-
kets, this is not always the case. In some situations, peasants may bypass local markets entirely and export their commodities to places where
they have more cultural capital, and hence financial value (see discussion of taste above). In the 1970s, the introduction of tractors to the
region enabled farmers to cultivate quinoa in the lowlands in addition to the hillside terraces they had previously favored. In the 1980s, coopera-
tive groups of farmers were able to find buyers in the Global North who were willing to import quinoa. These cooperatives researched the best
ways to expand production and invested in machines to make the process more efficient. Now, quinoa is such a valuable commodity that many
of those individuals who had previously abandoned the region are now returning to the Altiplano. Yet this is not a simple success story, espe-
cially because there are serious issues associated with the re-peasantization of the Bolivian countryside and with the fact that a healthy local
crop has been removed from many people’s regular diets since it can be sold to the Global North.
Another serious issue raised by the reverse migration from the cities back to the Altiplano concerns environmental sustainability. It is easier
to grow large quantities of quinoa in the flat lowlands than it is on the steep hillsides, but the lowland soil is much less conducive to its growth.
The use of machinery has helped a great deal, but has also led to a decline in the use of llamas, which have a symbiotic relationship with quinoa.
Farmers must now invest in fertilizer rather than using manure provided by their own animals. The global quinoa boom also raises questions
about identity and communal decision-making. Conflict has arisen between families that stayed in the region and those that are returning from
51
the cities. Pedro, a farmer who stayed in the region, says of the others “those people have returned – but as strangers.” The two groups often
clash in terms of what it means to respect the land and how money from this new cash crop should be used.
So has the international demand for quinoa been a good thing for rural Bolivian peasants? In some ways yes, but in other ways no.; on the
whole, it may be too soon to know for sure.
Figure 5: Figure 5: Aymara couple Alicia and Julio harvest wheat on their land above Lake Titicaca in
Southern Peru. Other subsistence crops they raised included quinoa, barley, and potatoes, but the
global market pressures such subsistence farmers to grow more quinoa as a “cash” crop to capitalize
on the world demand. Juli, Peru, 2005. Photo by Jerome W. Crowder. All rights reserved.
Changes in How—and “Where”—We Conduct Research
Globalization has changed not only what anthropologists research, but also how they approach those
topics. Foregrounding the links between global processes and local settings, multi-sited ethnography
examines specific topics and issues across different geographic field sites.52 Multi-sited ethnography
may be conducted when the subject of one’s study involve and/or impact multiple locations and can
be best understood by accounting for those multiple geographic contexts. For example, in her study of
yoga, Positioning Yoga: Balancing Acts Across Cultures, Sarah Strauss (2005) found that her study would be
incomplete if she focused only on Indians studying yoga. To understand this transnational phenome-
non, she recognized the importance of also focusing on non-Indian practitioners of yoga who had gone
to study yoga in its homeland.53 Work such as that of Swedish anthropologist Ulf Hannerz, who studies
news media correspondents, highlights the ways that people can be on the move, creating a commu-
nity of study that is both multi-sited and multilocal.54 Further work has expanded on these models,
highlighting various translocal fieldsites: “locations” that cannot be geographically defined. Such models
include calls for an activity-based anthropology (where it is the activity itself that is the “site” of the cul-
ture and/or the basis of the community)55 and digital anthropology (where the field site exists online).56
Globalization in Application: The Syrian Situation Today (courtesy of Laurie King)

325
Syria today presents us with an apocalyptic landscape: major cities such as Homs have been reduced to rubble and anyone remaining there
is starving. Since 2011, over 250,000 civilians have been killed by barrel bombs, shelling, internecine terrorist attacks, drone strikes, the use of
chemical weapons, and Russian aerial assaults. Well-armed and well-funded Islamist militias control large swathes of the country and have, for
all intents and purposes, erased the border between Syria and Iraq, thereby undoing the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement that established the new
nation-states of the modern Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
The so-called Islamic State (IS/Daèsh) has destroyed world heritage sites such as Palmyra (Tadmur), ethnically cleansed non-Muslim towns,
enslaved women, and flooded the global media with horrific images of beheadings, immolations, and mass executions. Aleppo, a city of stun-
ning architectural beauty with a rich multi-cultural heritage, is now damaged beyond repair and largely uninhabitable as the result of fighting
between IS, Syrian regime forces, and a diverse but largely Islamist Syrian opposition.
Farming in the Syrian countryside has come to a virtual halt. Since 2003, Syrian agriculture had been suffering from a prolonged drought,
57
pushing many rural families into urban centers such as Damascus and Aleppo. In 2015, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (the “Doomsday Seed
58
Vault”) in Norway was accessed for the first time to obtain seeds needed for crops to feed the Syrian population. Meanwhile, as any glance at
the evening news demonstrates, millions of refugees continue to flow out of the country, mostly through the Syrian-Turkish border, before mak-
ing dangerous trips in unsafe boats to Greece, hoping to get their families to Europe and away from the hell-scape that their country has
become.
Five years ago, no scholar of Syrian society and politics could have predicted the dire conditions Syria now faces. Given the Assad regime’s
iron grip on all aspects of Syrian society since 1970, the dramatic transformations of the last five years were inconceivable at the beginning of
2011. The scapes and flows of globalization enumerated by Appadurai were largely absent from Syria over the last 40 years. The hardline
Baathist regime of Hafez al-Assad, who came to power in 1970 through a bloodless coup, was profoundly insular and not open to the world –
whether regionally or internationally – in the realms of finance and commerce. Never a major petroleum power, and not blessed with vast tracts
of fertile land for farming, Syria’s economy centered largely on industry and commerce.
Up until the mid-1980s, Syria had a highly centralized economy that eschewed private ownership of industry or services. With the end of the
Cold War (during which Syria had been a client state of the USSR), and the ensuing dramatic shifts in regional power dynamics – most notably
the 1991 Iraq war, which saw the rout of Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait and the diminution of the Iraqi Baathist regime’s power—Syria
emerged as a key regional player capable of leveraging concessions from other Arab states as well as the West. In exchange for joining the US-
led coalition against Iraq, the United States and the international community raised no objections to Syria asserting direct and indirect control
over its neighbor (and former mandatory province) Lebanon, where a series of interconnected civil, regional, and global wars had raged for fif-
teen years.
Syrian political and military control effectively put the Lebanese wars into a deep freeze between 1992 and 2005. While freedom of speech in
Lebanon declined significantly under Syria’s tutelage, an unregulated market economy flourished, centering on the massive post-war recon-
struction boom. The Syrian economic elite—largely co-terminous with the regime—benefited significantly from business deals in Lebanon, while
thousands of Syrian workers flooded into Lebanon to do construction work on the new city center and infrastructural repairs. The influx of
money from Lebanon strengthened and entrenched the patron-client ties between the Syrian regime (whose members were also relatives by
blood or marriage) and a growing class of wealthy businessmen, who owed their wealth to the regime. As Bassam Haddad notes, the insularity
of and corruption within the regime and big business blurred the line between private and public domains, while sharpening class divisions
59
within Syria. Any attempts to foster political reform, economic transparency, and international commerce were viewed suspiciously by Syria’s
political, commercial, and military/intelligence elite.
In June 2000, Hafez Al-Assad died. His son Bashar, an ophthalmologist who had lived in London for many years, succeeded him. Local and
international observers wondered if the new, foreign-educated young president would launch an era of economic reform and political decentral-
ization. Bashar seemed keen to bring Syria into the Internet era, and his first years in power witnessed relatively free discussion of the need for
economic and political reforms, heralded by the closing of the infamous Mezzeh prison, where many political prisoners had been tortured and
killed. But power remained in the hands of the few in the upper reaches of the Baath party, some of whom did not know whether or not to trust
Bashar, who lacked the steely reserve and unquestioned authority of his father.
Although Syria lacked the sort of material and financial capital enjoyed by its neighbors, such as the oil-rich Gulf states, it enjoyed the bene-
fits of symbolic capital as the sole, front-line Arab nationalist state opposing Israel and resisting any normalization of ties with the Jewish state
in the post-Cold war era, even as the Palestinian Liberation organization and Jordan joined Egypt in establishing peace treaties with Israel. In
the hope that Syria would come into the fold, the United States did not make harsh demands on Syria for internal reforms or regional economic
integration.
In February 2005, in the wake of growing Lebanese dissatisfaction with Syria’s control of the country, Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri and over
a dozen of his colleagues were killed in a massive suicide bomb while traveling in a motorcade through downtown Beirut. (To this day, no one
knows decisively who was behind the car bomb, though many suspect Syrian involvement.) Massive, largely peaceful, demonstrations erupted
in Beirut immediately, and within a matter of weeks, Syria was forced to end its occupation of Lebanon and retreat.
While Syria had not experienced a significant flow of people and wealth in and out of its borders for years, media and technology flows were
growing in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The flow of ideas and images from Tunisia and Egypt in the wake of the Arab Spring
uprisings of 2010-11 heralded Syria’s first sustained experience with the dynamics of globalization, described in this text by political scientist
Manfred Steger as: “the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped
60
by events occurring many miles away, and vice versa.”
In February 2011, the regime lifted the ban on Facebook and You Tube following unprecedented street protests on January 26, the day after
the Egyptian protests began. (Before this, Syrians contravened the ban through proxy servers.) Soon, Facebook groups were organizing and
even calling for a “Day of Rage” and encouraging people to come out to the streets to protest against the regime. Nothing came of this, though.
61
Despite garnering thousands of “likes,” no one seemed to be following the directives of the new Facebook pages.
The Internet’s impact in the Arab world has built upon the phenomenon of satellite television, particularly that of Al-Jazeera, which opened up
new spaces of discourse and debate about political and human rights issues in the Arab world, thereby undermining the legitimacy and validity
of state-owned news programs and the power structures underpinning them. While Al Jazeera instilled a powerful reformist spirit, blogs were
particularly crucial in advancing and fortifying Arab activism efforts.
Before blogs, there were chat rooms, listservs, and email communication, all of which enhanced and expanded a cyber world of public dis-
course in some Arab states, but not in Syria. Some Egyptian bloggers called the Internet and social media “our lungs. If they cut them off, we
will suffocate.” As a result of Internet communications technology (ICT), social isolation in the Arab world began to give way to the formation of
communities of conversation and debate, which ultimately evolved into social movements that took to the streets and made history in the real
world. Our “networked society,” to use Manuel Castell’s phrase, connects us horizontally and allows us not only to communicate, but to self-
62
communicate and self-create. We not only consume the news, we now evaluate, filter, and respond to the news. We not only read headlines,
our networked actions and reactions to breaking news can ripple out across countries and continents and make headlines.
While Western media paid considerable attention to Egypt’s uprising, the Syrian uprisings were not as well covered. Perhaps this is because
Egypt is part of the West’s cultural imaginary. (Hollywood movies such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and popular culture depictions of pyramids,
pharaohs, and the Valley of the Kings are all evidence of this.) Syria, a tightly controlled authoritarian state, had not been a destination for West-
ern tourists, scholars, film producers, or even journalists for decades, so its street protests and popular struggles did not loom large in Western
media coverage. While every major American news agency covered the uprising in Tahrir Square in Cairo in real time, news of protests and civil
society activism in Syria did not always reach the rest of the world.
It seems that the Syrian regime underestimated its ability to channel or harness public opinion by lifting the ban on social media. Vigils,
protests, and marches, all initially peaceful, began to appear on Syria’s streets, drawing larger and larger crowds. The response of the regime,
unaccustomed to public political expression, was quick and brutally repressive. Rather than scaring people into silence, the regime now con-
fronted an armed opposition. Within just one year, social media protests had become street protests, which became street battles between pro-
and anti-regime forces. Globalization, as experienced in Syria, has revealed the limits of an authoritarian regime’s ability to control and con-
strain social action in the age of social media.
Syria is now experiencing flows of people across borders. Syrians are escaping to Turkey, Europe, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq by the millions,
creating the world’s worst refugee crisis. Meanwhile, drawn to the message of the Islamic State (IS), young men and women from across the
Middle East and as far afield as Europe and North America are traveling to the IS controlled territories of eastern Syria and Western Iraq to join
in a “global jihad.”
As the high-quality and gory video productions of IS demonstrate, technological and media resources, skills, and knowledge are flowing in
and out of Syria’s borders. Financial flows in oil wealth are now in the hands of IS, and food resources are flowing into the country when possi-
ble from international non-governmental organizations such as Mercy Corps. Syria is an example of the disadvantages of globalization, as well
as an illustration of how quickly one country’s crises can become global crises.
CONCLUSION
The term “globalization” is not simply a verbal shortcut for talking about contact, transmission, and
transportation on the global scale. This chapter has shown that contact has existed across disparate
locations throughout much of human history. As it is used and understood today, however, globaliza-
tion is about much more than the total scope of contact; it references the speed and scale of such con-
tact. Understood in this way, globalization is a modern phenomenon; it is not just how many places are
connected, but in how many ways and with what frequency.
Where people once had to rely on horses or sail-driven ships to bring them to new locations, mass
transportation (especially air travel) makes such commutes a part of many people’s daily lives, and
someone who had never seen a TV one week might end up visiting Jakarta, Cairo, or Toronto the next.
News, which might have raced ahead via carrier pigeons can now be transmitted in a virtual instant,
and information once confined to physical libraries can now be accessed on the smart phones carried by
327
peoples around the world. Neither “good” nor “bad,” globalization is a fact of life today. Whether a busi-
ness woman flies between international hubs on a weekly basis or a man tends his garden on a remote
plateau, both of their lives may be equally influenced by how a specific crop is received on the world
market. Providing both opportunities and constraints, globalization now serves as the background—if
not the stage—for how life gets lived, on the ground, by us all.
1. In his research, Kelsey Timmerman discovered that the average American is wearing clothes made in many different countries.
This demonstrates how everyday items can involve all five of Arjun Appadurai’s scapes. Choose another product that is part of your
everyday life. How many scapes can you connect it to?
2. Globalization makes new forms of consumption possible, but the effects of globalization on an individual’s lifestyle vary based on
many factors including socioeconomic status. In what ways is globalization experienced differently by people from wealthy coun-
tries compared to people in developing countries? How are producers of commodities like clothing or food affected differently by
globalization than consumers?
3. In Latin America, globalization and neoliberalism have led to the development of policies, such as the privatization of the water
supply, that reduce local control over important resources. In what ways is globalization a “double-edged” sword that brings both
benefits and problems to developing countries?
4. Globalization presents the possibility of engaging in activity-based anthropology, where it is the activity itself that is the ‘“site”’
studied, or digital anthropology, where the field site exists online. What kinds of activities or digital environments do you think
would be interesting to study using this approach?
GLOSSARY
Commodity chain: the series of steps a food takes from location where it is produced to the store where
it is sold to consumers.
Ethnoscape: the flow of people across boundaries.
Financescape: the flow of money across political borders.
Global North: refers to the wealthier countries of the world. The definition includes countries that are
sometimes called “First World” or “Highly Developed Economies.”
Global South: refers to the poorest countries of the world. The definition includes countries that are
sometimes called “Third World” or “Least Developed Economies.”
Glocalization: the adaptation of global ideas into locally palatable forms.
Habitus: the dispositions, attitudes, or preferences that are the learned basis for personal “taste” and
lifestyles.
Ideoscape: the global flow of ideas.
Mediascape: the flow of media across borders.
Neoliberalism: the ideology of free-market capitalism emphasizing privatization and unregulated mar-
kets.
Syncretism: the combination of different beliefs, even those that are seemingly contradictory, into a
new, harmonious whole.
Technoscape: the global flows of technology.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr. Lauren Miller Griffith is an assistant professor of anthropology at Texas

Tech University. Her research agenda focuses on the intersections of performance, tourism, and educa-
tion in Brazil, Belize, and the USA. Specifically, she focuses on the Afro-Brazilian martial art capoeira
and how non-Brazilian practitioners use travel to Brazil, the art’s homeland, to increase their legitimacy
within this genre. Dr. Griffith’s current interests include the links between tourism, cultural heritage,
and sustainability in Belize. She is particularly interested in how indigenous communities decide
whether or not to participate in the growing tourism industry and the long-term effects of these deci-
sions.
Dr. Jonathan S. Marion is an associate professor in the Department of

Anthropology and a member of the Gender Studies Steering Committee at the University of Arkansas,
and the author of Ballroom: Culture and Costume in Competitive Dance (2008), Visual Research: A Concise
Introduction to Thinking Visually (2013, with Jerome Crowder), and Ballroom Dance and Glamour (2014).
Currently the President of the Society for Humanistic Anthropology, and a Past-president of the Society
of Visual Anthropology, Dr. Marion’s ongoing research explores the interrelationships between per-
formance, embodiment, gender, and identity, as well as issues of visual research ethics, theory, and
methodology.
Notes
1. See Charles Lindholm, Culture and Authenticity (New York: Wiley, 2007).
2. Robby Soave, “Oberlin College Students: Cafeteria Food is Racist,” The Daily Beast, December 20, 2015
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/20/oberlin-students-cafeteria-food-is-racist.html
3. Manfred Steger, Globalization: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
4. Steger, Globalization, 13.
5. Steger, Globalization.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
329
8. United Nations World Tourism Organization, “Why Tourism,” http://www2.unwto.org/content/why-tourism

9. To be fair, responsible policy makers and businesses, local communities, and travelers themselves may also be
concerned with these issues.
10. See Benedict R. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London:
Verso, 1983).
11. Daniel L. Everett, Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle (New York: Vintage
Books, 2009).
12. Daniel L. Everett, “What Does Pirahã Grammar Have to Teach Us About Human Language and the Mind?” Wiley
Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 3 no. 6 (2012): 555-63.
13. Kelsey Timmerman, Where Am I Wearing? (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012).
14. Robin Schmidt and Morten Vest, Maasai on the Move, Film, directed by Robin Schmidt and Morten Vest (2010,
Danish Broadcasting Corporation).
15. See Chanchal Kumar Sharma, “Emerging Dimensions of Decentralisation Debate in the Age of Globalisa-
tion” Indian Journal of Federal Studies 19 no. 1 (2009): 47–65.
16. Anya Peterson Royce, Becoming an Ancestor: The Isthmus Zapotec Way of Death (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 2011).
17. Rigoberta. I Menchu, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, trans. Ann Wright (London: Verso, 1984).
18. See, for instance, Peter Wade, Music, Race and Nation: Musica Tropical in Colombia (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2000). Or, Lise Waxer, The City of Musical Memory: Salsa, Record Grooves, and Popular Culture in Cali, Colum-
bia (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002).
19. For more on traveling to train at such congresses and festivals—whether salsa, or any other embodied prac-
tice—see Griffith and Marion, Apprenticeship Pilgrimage: Developing Expertise through Travel and Training (Lexing-
ton: forthcoming).
20. Sydney Hutchinson, Salsa World: A Global Dance in Local Contexts (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013).
21. Also see Lise Waxer, Situating Salsa: Global Markets and Local Meanings in Latin Popular Culture (New York: Rout-
ledge, 2002).
22. David Chaney, Lifestyles (London: Routledge, 1996), 92.
23. Chaney, Lifestyles.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid., 24.
26. Ibid., 57.
27. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press, 1984).
28. Shamus Rahman Khan, Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
29. Chaney, Lifestyles, 60.
30. Economic Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, “Food Security Status of U.S. Households
in 2014” http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-
graphics.aspx
31. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction.
32. Manfred Steger, Globalization, xiii.
33. Kelsey Timmerman, Where Am I Wearing?.
34. Bruce Campbell and Lisa Goddard, “Climate Change, Food Security and the Refugee Crisis: Connecting the
Dots to Avoid Future Tragedy.” https://ccafs.cgiar.org/blog/climate-change-food-security-and-refugee-crisis-
connecting-dots-avoid-future-tragedy#.Vt1JXJMrLu4
35. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “2014 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa.” http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/
ebola/outbreaks/2014-west-africa/index.html.
36. Steger, Globalization, 54.
37. This case study is based on the work of Nicole Fabricant and Kathryn Hicks, “Bolivia's Next Water War: Histori-
cizing the Struggles over Access to Water Resources in the Twenty-First Century” Radical History Review 116
(2013): 130-45.
38. Ibid., 131.
39. Thomson Reuters, “Lake Poopo, Bolivia's 2nd-Largest Lake, Dries Up” December 18, 2015, http://www.cbc.ca/
news/technology/lake-poopo-bolivia-dries-up-1.3371359.
40. James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1985).
41. Sarah Lyon and and Mark Moberg, eds. Fair Trade and Social Justice (New York: New York University Press,
2010).
42. Sarah Lyon, “A Market of Our Own: Women's Livelihoods and Fair Trade Markets,” in Fair Trade and Social Jus-
tice, ed. Sarah Lyon and Mark Moberg (New York: New York University Press, 2010).
43. Julia Smith, “Fair Trade and the Specialty Coffee Market: Growing Alliances, Shifting Rivalries,” in Fair Trade and
Social Justice.
44. Mark Moberg, “A New World? Neoliberalism and Fair Trade Farming in the Eastern Caribbean,” in Fair Trade
and Social Justice.
45. Norma Iglesias Prieto, Beautiful Flowers of the Maquiladora: Life Histories of Women Workers in Tijuana, trans.
Michael Stone and Gabrielle Winkler (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985).
46. See, especially, Setha M. Low, “The Anthropology of Cities: Imagining and Theorizing the City” Annual Review of
Anthropology 25 (1996):383-409 and Ulf Hannerz, Exploring the City: Inquiries toward an Urban Anthropology (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1980).
47. For the Oxford Bibliography of “Urban Anthropology,” see http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/docu-
ment/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0026.xml. For a brief online overview, please see
http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/URBAN.htm (prepared by Layla Al-Zubaidi).
48. See Andrew Irving, “Cities: An Anthropological Perspective” Anthropology Matters 6 no. 1 (2004):1-4.
http://www.anthropologymatters.com/index.php/anth_matters/article/viewFile/105/207
49. This case study is based on the work of Tanya M. Kerssen, “Food Sovereignty and the Quinoa Boom: Challenges
to Sustainable Re-Peasantisation in the Southern Altiplano of Bolivia” Third World Quarterly 36, no. 3 (2015):
489-507.
50. See Richard Wilk, “‘Real Belizean Food’: Building Local Identity in the Transnational Caribbean” American
Anthropologist 101 no. 2 (1999): 244-55.
51. Quoted in Tanya M. Kerssen, “Food Sovereignty and the Quinoa Boom.”
52. George E. Marcus, “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography.” Annual
Review of Anthropology, 24 (1995): 95-117. http://www.dourish.com/classes/readings/Marcus-MultiSitedE-
thnography-ARA.pdf. For a more recent perspective, see M.A. Falzon, Multi-Sited Ethnography: Theory, Praxis and
Locality in Contemporary Research (Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2012).
53. Sarah Strauss, Positioning Yoga: Balancing Acts across Cultures (Oxford, UK: Berg, 2005).
54. Ulf Hannerz, “Being there… and there… and there! Reflections on Multi-Site Ethnography” Ethnography 4 no. 2
(2003): 201-216.
55. Jonathan S. Marion, “Beyond Ballroom: Activity as Performance, Embodiment, and Identity” Human Mosaic 36
no. 2 (2006): 7-16, 2006. Also see Jonathan S. Marion, Ballroom: Culture and Costume in Competitive Dance
(Oxford, UK: Berg Publishing, 2008) and Jonathan S. Marion, “Circulation as Destination: Considerations from
the Translocal Culture of Competitive Ballroom Dance” Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement
17 no. (2012).
56. See Tom Boellstorff, Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human (Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 2009). For more on theory and method see Tom Boellstorff, Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce, and T. L.
Taylor, Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method (Princeton University Press, 2012); Heather A.
Horst and Daniel Miller, eds. Digital Anthropology (London, UK: Bloomsbury, 2012); and Sarah Pink, Heather
Horst, John Postill, Larissa Hjorth, Tania Lewis, and Jo Tacchi, Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practice. (Thou-
sand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2015).
57. Bassam Haddad, “The Syrian Regime’s Business Backbone,” Middle East Report, 262 no. 42 (2012).
http://www.merip.org/mer/mer262/syrian-regimes-business-backbone
58. Alister Doyle, “Syrian War Spurs First Withdrawal from Doomsday Arctic Seed Vault” Reuters September 21,
331
2015. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-seeds-idUSKCN0RL1KA20150921 The report states:

“Grethe Evjen, an expert at the Norwegian Agriculture Ministry, said the seeds had been requested by the Inter-
national Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA). ICARDA moved its headquarters to Beirut
from Aleppo in 2012 because of the war. ‘ICARDA wants almost 130 boxes out of 325 it had deposited in the
vault.’”
59. Haddad, “The Syrian Regime’s Business Backbone.”
60. Manfred Steger, Globalization: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
61. Joshka Wessels, “Syria Lifts Ban on Facebook and Youtube, Reflections on the ‘Egypt Effect’ in Syria” Sapiens
Productions February 11, 2011, https://sapiensproductions.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/syria-lifts-ban-on-
facebook-and-youtube-reflections-on-the-“egypt-effect”-in-syria-by-joshka-wessels/
62. Manuel Castells, “Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society” International Journal of
Communications 1 (2007): 238-266.
PART 2
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13
THE HISTORY OF
ANTHROPOLOGICAL IDEAS
Laura Nader, The University of California, Berkeley
Learning Objectives
• Identify the central concepts of cultural anthropology and describe how each of these concepts contributed to the development
of the discipline.
• Describe the role anthropologists play in examining cultural assumptions and explain how the anthropological perspective differs
from both ethnocentrism and American exceptionalism.
• Explain the relationship between early anthropology and colonialism and assess the ways in which the demise of colonialism
changed the practice of anthropology.
• Evaluate the topical or thematic specializations that exist within contemporary anthropology as examples of the range of ques-
tions and concerns anthropologists address.
Anthropology is the study of humankind, otherwise known as Homo sapiens, the wise primate. It is
about our history, our prehistory before written records, our biology, our language, our distribution of
peoples all over the planet, and the cultural and social aspects of our existence. The methods we use on
this journey are varied and eclectic—an unusual discipline. What is perhaps unique about anthropol-
ogy is its global quality, its comparative potential, and its integrative possibilities, which result from its
examination of histories, biologies, languages, and socio-cultural variations. As a discipline, it is unusual
because it is both soft and hard, including science as well as the humanities, between nature and culture,
the past and the present, searching for new ways to understand the human condition. We are an acad-
emic discipline with porous boundaries that has refused to specialize and as a result can claim to have
335
made enormous contributions to understanding what it means to be human. Anthropology is a young

discipline, in only its fourth generation, one of the first of the new sciences along with ecology.
In the nineteenth century, archaeology challenged short chronologies of biblical origin with longer
time depth, while biological and cultural anthropology questioned stereotyped thinking about race and
ethnicity. Socio-cultural anthropology moved from armchair theorizing to first-hand fieldwork and,
with the concept of cultural relativism, challenged predominant theories of the day, including scientific
theories. We know that science is created by humans so it is bound to have human limitations, human
error, human ignorance. Such realizations made us think about how knowledge is created and chal-
lenge the idea that western ways of thinking are the only source of truth. Early climate predictions were
available in Peru before the arrival of European colonizers.
CENTRAL CONCEPTS
Culture
A central concept in our discipline is the idea of culture, a concept that changed how we explain
human differences. Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917) was an English Quaker who, because of reli-
gious prejudice, could not enroll in any English universities and so went to work in his father’s business.
However, in his mid-twenties he became ill, and his doctor recommended rest and travel. Tylor traveled
first to Cuba and then to Mexico for six months. While the idea of culture was not new, Tylor used
the concept to make sense of what he learned from his travels. In his 1871 book, Primitive Culture, he
defined the idea: “Culture or civilization, taken in its ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which
includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by
man as a member of society.”1 We are all human, something that Columbus was not so sure about in
1492 when he first encountered the Caribs or, more generally, the Amerindians. Before Tylor, differ-
ences were explained as due to climate differences or even as God’s choice, wrong-headed ideas about
difference. Tylor’s cross-cultural approach opened new vistas in nineteenth-century anthropology.
In North America, Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881), a lawyer who had grown up amid the Iroquois,
wrote League of the Iroquois in 1851. He noticed that their terms for kinfolk were not classified in the
same way as English terms. Terminology for cousins was different depending on whether the mater-
nal or fraternal line was credited. As a lawyer for the New York Central Railroad, he had noticed other
differences among speakers of other languages as well. Morgan began to collect kinship terminologies
from all over the world, and in 1871 he published his master work, Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity,
which would influence French anthropologist Claude Lévi -Strauss.
New questions arose. Could terminology be a key to understanding the social organization of small
societies? The Iroquois were matrilineal; membership in a clan was determined by female links only,
and one’s father and his sisters and brothers belonged to a different clan. Without going into further
detail, it should be clear that the invention of the concept of culture paved the way for explaining dif-
ferences among peoples. Culture differentiates peoples, but in the process, we need to remember we
are all members of the same species. We might identify others according to their color, but all peoples
everywhere share the need to survive disease. Every society has primary groups, such as families, whose
primary function is to have and raise children.
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Holism
Another important founding father of American anthropology was German-born Franz Boas
(1858–1942), a scholar originally trained in physics. He turned to anthropology after a year-long expe-
dition to Baffin Island, land of the Inuit in the Canadian Arctic. He began to study their language. He
came to the United States, where he is recognized as the father of cultural anthropology. More than
anyone, Boas framed the discipline around the concept of holism: taking a broad view of the histori-
cal and cultural foundations of behavior rather than attributing differences to biology dismantling the
concept of race. Although he stressed cultural differences, he explained such differences in terms of the
historical development of each culture. In his book Race, Language, and Culture (1940), he stressed the
idea that there is no necessary correlation between race, language, and culture, that one’s physical appear-
ance does not determine one’s culture or ability to learn any language.
Boas is also noted for his development of the concepts of cultural relativism and cultural determin-
ism—that all behavioral differences among peoples result from cultural, not racial or genetic causes. It
was Boas who grounded the discipline in four fields and founded the American Anthropological Asso-
ciation. The four fields—archeological, cultural, linguistic, and physical anthropology—defined most
departments in the United States until more recently when four became five with medical anthropol-
ogy. Throughout the development of anthropology in the United States, there was a fear of fragmenta-
tion for holistic thinkers. As Boas noted in 1905, “there are indications of [anthropology] breaking up.
The biologic, linguistic, and ethnologic-archeological methods are so distinct.”2 It must be noted that
Boas trained many women anthropologists such as Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, knowing that
diversifying fieldworkers by including people of all genders was important to successful fieldwork.
Plasticity
Talking about biologically superior and inferior races was common to colonialists who carried the
notion of the “white man’s burden,” in which it was their mission to civilize the savages or, among some
groups, to classify groups according to their perceived slots, as for example, the idea that some “races”
were thought to be biologically intended to be solely servants! The scientific study of race has often
floundered in confusion and misunderstanding over the past 200 years even though anthropologists
have repeatedly stressed the observation that people can be equally endowed without being alike. In
spite of our efforts, race bigots are alive and well. It is apparently comforting to believe that “we” are the
best, a belief that is not restricted to Euro-Americans. After all, Navajo means people and many groups
think they are superior to others. Thus, Boas’ assessment was that all healthy individuals of the Homo
sapiens species had the capacity to learn any language or culture, that plasticity is part of our species.
In the contemporary world, difference is treated as if it were a problem. Why? Some say the move-
ment of cheap labor, debates over racism and tolerance in the midst of refugee crises, the power of the
Islamic “scarf.” In other words, to colonialist language in modern garb, state management of diversity
and far-right politics, institutionalized racism, and the primacy of difference, especially in the context
of Europe and the United States. In early 2001, a volume by historian Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn was pub-
lished. Race Experts, Etiquette, Sensitivity Training, and New Age Therapy Hijacked the Civil Rights Revolution
examined the racial-problem industry and racial-solution industry that have flourished and have had
difficulty acknowledging that any differences between people may be superficial compared with what
they have in common. The concept of race also avoid discussion of class and inequality associated with
poverty. Such social- engineering is deeply interested in difference as a problem. The pursuit of homo-
geneity by state structures is something that has been observed all over Europe and the western worlds,
especially at the contemporary moment when refugees are pouring into western countries from North
Africa and the Middle East.
Participant Observation
With European colonization of peoples around the globe, more anthropological research around the
planet began to happen. Better data collection came to be referred to as participant observation mean-
ing that the ethnographers participated in the daily lives of the people they studied, learned their lan-
guages, and became immersed in the ordinary workings of others’ societies. A Polish anthropologist,
Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942), is often credited with setting the standard for ethnography with
wide-angled vision. Malinowski had studied in London, and during World War I, he found himself in
the Trobriand Islands, then a British dependency. Although he was a Pole, he was allowed to remain
in the Trobriands. He had to learn the language—had to because the local people were his only com-
panions. He moved among native people, speaking to them in their language. He studied their gar-
dens, magic, science, law—all with the tools of participant observing. Malinowski wrote a number of
ethnographies based on his work there: Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) on trade and the economy
involving multiple sites, The Sexual Life of the Savages (1929) about kinship and sexuality, Coral Gardens
and their Magic (1935) on gardens and farming, and Crime and Custom in a Savage Society (1926) dealt with
problems of law and social order. Malinowski set a very high standard for participatory ethnographic
fieldwork that stands to this day, a standard in which ethnography was theory, not mere description.
The ethnography itself, as well as its explanatory uses, is a theoretical endeavor, a combination of loose
and strict thinking.3
The invention of new technologies facilitates new frontiers of ethnography. In linguistic anthropol-
ogy, the appearance of the cassette tape recorder and “shotgun” microphones in the early 1970s, of video
cameras in the early 1980s, and of the internet and other electronic inventions in the past 25 years has
allowed people to seek connections hitherto unnoticed. Similarly, geographic information systems, so
important to archeologists and ecological anthropologists, are also used to locate the people we study.
In the process, fieldworkers have lost the possibility of immersion in other cultures with little contact
from home sites. Technological innovations connect us all, for better or for worse.
Area Studies and Beyond
By the mid-twentieth century, the major concepts were in place for the discipline—culture, comparison,
and ethnography as participation fieldwork. The organizing concept is area studies. Anthropology
departments commonly organize their curriculums around area studies courses taught about Africa, the
Middle East, East Asia, China, Latin America, Europe, and so forth. Students learn about the geography
and history and delve into specific topics such as religion, kinship, minorities, and language—subjects
that equip them for a general understanding of a particular geographic area. Area specialties are useful
for gaining funding, job searching, and hires especially in large departments.
In more recent times, critical research has investigated the origins of area studies in museums and in
association with the military. It was American imperialist, Alfred Thayer Mahan, who first called the
area between Europe and India the Middle East. Area studies are useful, but they can cause intellectual
339
blindness that limits the anthropological analysis and imagination. At times, those who go beyond the
boundaries of a region have been censored, raising the question: Can we be both area scholars and com-
parativists searching for similarities and differences between cultures, or even diffusionists who study
the spread of cultural ideas from one area to another. The study of the colonized and not the coloniz-
ers still haunts our work. In 1989, Sir Edmund Leach had to reiterate that social systems are open, not
bounded. We live in a globalized world, and, as Sidney Mintz reminded us in his 1996 distinguished
lecture to the American Anthropological Association, we have been globalized for a very long time.4
The subject matter of anthropological research was expanding from isolated locales to the urban
ethnography of cities such as S. F. Nadel’s ethnography of urban Nigeria in A Black Byzantium (1942)
and Cora Du Bois’ investigation of the link between culture and personality and Euro-American colo-
nialism in The People of Alor (1944). In 1949, Clyde Kluckhohn published Mirror for Man – The Relation
of Anthropology to Modern Life. It was time to use the study of others to examine their own cultures and
to test assumptions that might be ethnocentric. Margaret Mead had already published Coming of Age in
Samoa (1928) in which she examined the adolescence problem as originating in culture, not as a physical
and inevitable result of hormones as commonly thought in the United States at the time. Thus, through
the comparative method we may learn that while human populations face some common problems,
such as growing up, each addresses those problems in different ways. Mead’s findings were considered
controversial by some; thus, it is not surprising that some years later John and Beatrice Whiting carried
out a controlled comparison of Six Cultures: Studies of Child Rearing (1963) one of which was in New
England.
Gradually, anthropology was no longer the study of “savages” or “primitives;” it became the study of
all human cultures. As Ruth Benedict pointed out in her bestselling Patterns of Culture (1934), people of
different cultures interpret life differently. Her observation implied that one cannot judge one culture
as superior to another. Both Boas and Malinowski elaborated on cultural relativism. Boas in particular
pushed hard against the common tendency to judge others by one’s own culture rather than by the basic
assumptions of the culture being studied. He was fighting the phenomenon called ethnocentrism, see-
ing the world through one’s own glasses. Ethnocentrism allowed people to see or categorize others as
somehow less than or inferior, as “primitive” and in need of aid or development.5
Examining Cultural Assumptions
The fight against ethnocentrism—what in the United States today is sometimes called exceptionalism
(we are always better)—is what motivates anthropologists to examine assumptions commonly used by
Americans for example, or even embedded in the work of anthropologists themselves. Indeed, as field-
workers, anthropologists must understand themselves, understand the eyes doing the recording of oth-
ers. Does an anthropologist’s gender influence what he or she “sees”? Does an aversion to conflict affect
the record, the choice of research interests? Do the bilingual or bicultural characteristics of anthropol-
ogists increase sensitivity in the field? The ethnographies that we produce are, in the final analysis, the
theory of what we do and why, and what the people we study do and why: a Mirror for Man.
A frequently cited example of analyzing the underlying premises is E. E. Evans-Pritchard
(1902–1973), a British anthropologist who published Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande
(1937), a work of ethnography as theory. His study of the Azande of the southern Sudan was meant to
indicate why and how Azande beliefs in magic and witchcraft made perfect sense according to Azande
premises (and to many peoples everywhere who wanted to understand human ills such as disease and
death). He avoided ethnocentric notions like “they are ignorant primitives.” His point was that their
beliefs made sense given their premises, and that they were as logical as any other people. The main rea-
son the Azande work is so much cited is that the main discovery is that we are all caught in our premises,
our unchallenged assumptions. This idea applies to any thought including western science, as for exam-
ple, the “nuclear religion”—the belief that President Eisenhower’s atoms for peace made up for drop-
ping nuclear bombs on Japan during World War II, in spite of scientists’ inability to deal with nuclear
waste and other associated problems. In Evans-Pritchard’s case, he was writing not merely about the
Azande or, later, about the Nuer herdsmen; he was also writing about how a particular ethnography is
theoretically comparative, raising issues about our ingrained premises.
By mid-century, ethnographies had begun to include power as with The Political Systems of Highland
Burma by Sir Edmund Leach (1954). Although there was general agreement in anthropology, scholars
in academia were hesitant to deal with the phenomenon of power in anything but abstract terms. Also
around the same time, Gregory Bateson’s Naven was reissued (1958) and ethnographers began to under-
stand the many different lenses useful for interpreting the lives and rituals of people under study. By the
1960s, the unease in American academia began to be affected by the Civil Rights Movement, the war in
Vietnam, the American Indian Movement, and sexual and gender liberations.
Dell Hymes edited a book (1972) called Reinventing Anthropology which called anthropologists to a
revised or reinvented anthropology, one that took into consideration race, newly independent states,
and what might be called the vertical slice. Laura Nader wrote “Up the Anthropologist: Perspectives
Gained from Studying Up,” a thought piece about the need to study up, down, and sideways as a way
to liberate anthropologists from narrow concerns and exclusions. For example, she argued for study-
ing the colonizers as well as the colonized, for understanding poverty and ghettos in connection with
bank’s redlining practices, which were essentially illegal, for understanding the enormous role corpo-
rations play in raising our children through the foods they prepare or the technologies required of chil-
dren as part of their normal schooling. Today, some anthropologists study up while others study up,
down, and sideways simultaneously.6
Moving into the twenty-first century, anthropologists had major intellectual interests in political
economy, gender, representation, the Cold War, the Native American Grave Protection and Repatria-
tion Act (NAGPRA), the anthropology of science, colonialism, tourism and more. The story of how the
study of humankind advanced over a century does not move in steady progression. Science is prickly
and contentious, and anthropology, more than most disciplines, is not only contentious but also self-
reflexive. Indeed, the self-critical tradition has helped us adapt to the incoherent conditions of acceler-
ated history and the new technologies that have come with it. So one might conclude that what changed
least was what scholars in 1929 called “the anthropological attitude,” which values both detachment and
involvement as a mode of rethinking assumptions, while the changed relationship between those who
study and those being studied forced anthropologists to reconsider the conditions under which their
knowledge had been acquired. In addition, anthropology has increasingly become a worldwide disci-
pline.
THE FALL OF COLONIALISM AND THE RISE OF NEWLY INDEPENDENT STATES
About 500 years ago, the first major colonization movements by western Europeans were a result
of Portugal, Spain, and England looking for new resources. Colonies were implanted in Africa, Asia,
and the New World. A second major colonial movement arose after the Industrial Revolution, moti-
vated in part by a search for cheap labor and resources. By the end of the nineteenth century, Britain,
341
France, Belgium, and Germany had divided up Africa, and Britain, France, and the United States were
acquiring territories in the Pacific. Especially in Britain and France, ethnographic research was encour-
aged as a function of colonialism. Thus, well into the 1950s, anthropologists were employed by colonial
offices. The demise of colonialism and emergence of new independent states gave rise to issues such as
plundering of resources, and the new nations produced their own ethnographers whose approaches to
anthropology were different from the approaches used by the Euro-American colonial powers. Anthro-
pologists from Mexico, Brazil, and the Indian subcontinent primarily studied their own people. Only
the travelers from these former colonial countries thought about the colonialists as their “other.” In part,
these post-colonial anthropologists set about correcting previously set anthropological agendas. More
or less quiet debates are now occurring as to what a “global anthropology” should entail.
Colleagues outside of the Anglo-American world have criticized our biases and ethnocentrisms.
Their polite admonishments underscored the need for self-awareness and the calibration of the instru-
ment—in this instance, the anthropologist. Anthropologists in France, the Middle East, India, Pakistan,
and elsewhere are pointing to Anglo-Americans’ difficulty in coming to terms with power. The French
fieldwork tradition sees research as inherently fraught with power relations. Our foreign colleagues are
raising questions about scientific validity. The small social groups that classical anthropologists exam-
ined as stable or static units are now recognized as part of larger worlds that reconstitute them and are
reconstituted in turn: The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and trade deals such as the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and trade deals with Europe and the Asian-Pacific.
Akbar Ahmed, an anthropologist from Pakistan who trained in Britain, indicates what new dimen-
sions can be gleaned by non-Anglo-American anthropologists in The Thistle and the Drone: How Ameri-
can’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Islam (2013). Ahmed’s work, the third in a trilogy, combines
ethnographic analysis with history and comparison and uses his wide-ranging experience, which
includes work as a Pakistani government agent and later as ambassador to Waziristan. Ahmed is also a
poet, a playwright, a film producer, and an inexhaustible public speaker. He is presently the Ibn Khal-
dun chair for Islamic Studies at the American University of Washington, D.C. He is what some call a
public anthropologist—someone whose work is accessible to anthropologists as well as to the public in
general.
In his book, Ahmed includes the tribal peoples, the state, the American empire, and technology to
understand the problems that began with European colonization and continued through the post-colo-
nial period of nation-building, when the periphery became attached or connected to a state that gave
them few rights. Ahmed’s book reflects a paradigm shift in the twenty-first century—contemporary
analyses of states and empires as well as the tribes, which were the traditional subject for ethnography.
Thus, he includes not only the tribes, but also Osama bin Laden, the president of Pakistan, the pres-
ident of the American empire, and the agonies of the anthropologist who discovers the horrors and
hurts. Ahmed is a humanist anthropologist arguing for mutual respect and co-existence. Perhaps he
can be thought of as an Islamic anthropologist in contrast to a Christian or Jewish anthropologist: he
is objective and subjective and includes “us” and “them.” The book discusses 40 examples of peripheral
Islamic groups and their relations with state authorities to illustrate the relationship between center
and periphery from Waziristan to Yemen Somalia and across North Africa to Indonesia and the Philip-
pines. Ahmed concludes that drone strikes and cruel invasions by the central government will not work
towards peace and mutual respect given that brutal revenge attacks from the periphery will continue in
reaction to state and empire aggressions. Experts on terrorism ignore both culture and historical con-
text. When anthropologists have dealt with the periphery, we have too often supported state assimila-
tion, maneuvered the creation of reservations, and sometimes closed our eyes to mass killings.
The new dimensions mentioned above must not detract from the solid contributions of anthropolo-
gists of the British functionalist schools to our understanding of political and social processes in Africa,
New Guinea, Burma, and elsewhere. In Africa, they were the first to address problems of order in soci-
eties of tens of thousands of people with no government, no police, and no constabulary—places where
social control was achieved by means of social relationships. The concept of cross-linkage was used to
understand African modes of maintaining peace through feuding, another piece of the picture of order
in stateless societies that might be useful to the United Nations. The British focus was more on the con-
cept of social organization than culture, on the colonized rather than the colonizers.
SPECIALIZATION – A WIDE RANGE
In the mid-twentieth century, Norwegian anthropologist Fredrik Barth (1928–2016) challenged the
British school’s work on Africa and their position that social systems transcended individual actors. On
the contrary, Barth argued that political systems were generated by individual actors seeking to max-
imize their positions. In his ethnography on the Swat Pathans in northern Pakistan, Barth (1959) was
moving away from the functionalist equilibrium analysis toward examinations of processes of change.
Others followed suit in their arguments. According to Talal Asad, the notion that individuals strate-
gize to maximize power is a distortion of history. In Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter (1973), Asad
notes that Barth’s conclusions were accelerated by British colonial practices in India and the northern
frontier. Asad’s critique made a critical point: the political system must be seen as part of a wider sys-
tem that is based on a historical perspective that also includes class as an important variable but does
not nullify individual choices. Control is both political and economic. The conversations about Barth’s
work were to continue later in the work of Pakistani anthropologist Akbar Ahmed. Anthropology can
now be said to be a cosmopolitan dialogue.
As the number of anthropologists expanded so did the number of specialties, especially in large
departments. Indeed the small departments are most likely to teach anthropology from a generalist
point of view. While kinship and religion were the major specialties more than half a century ago, we
now find professors specialized in fields like tourism, political economics, law, gender, folklore, as well
as areas such as the Middle East, for example, or southern Africa, or Mexico (previously meso-Amer-
ica), and so forth. In addition, there are many kinds of anthropology, such as applied and practicing.
These specializations are found in dedicated journals for cognitive anthropology, law and politics, and
musicology while general reports may be found in the British journal Anthropology Today or in Anthro-
pology News in the United States, and in journals such as American Anthropologist or JRAI, the journal of
the Royal Anthropological Institute. The following examples give some insight into the general range
of questions being addressed.
Political Economy
A political economy approach contextualizes the world as an open system, as process not stasis. To
understand how power works in the world today requires comparison, paying attention to the intersec-
tion of power and culture. One example of this approach is found in the work of Ashraf Ghani, whose
research focused on the history of power, particularly in Afghanistan, and who later became president
of Afghanistan.7 To understand how power works requires attention to disintegration as well as inte-
gration, on a local and global levels, which are then compared in terms of process, not essentialized
societies. Work in this area has brought radical changes to traditional ethnography. An economic sys-
343
tem such as corporate capitalism is treated as a type of economy that may change in particular context,
such as contemporary China, in direct contrast to world system theorists who track the distribution of
a system across the globe. There are many kinds of capitalism—penny capitalism, regional capitalism,
and corporate capitalism. In Worked Over: The Corporate Sabotage of an American Community, for exam-
ple, Dimitra Doukas (2003) covered dramatic changes in northern New York mill towns in the Mohawk
River Valley with the move from regional to corporate or global capitalism. She documented the impact
of hit-and-run corporate capitalism on the American workers on whose back American industry was
built. Over 100 years, these vibrant industrial centers had become impoverished deindustrialized com-
munities. Earlier still, Anthony F. C. Wallace, in his underappreciated book Rockdale (1978) wrote the
story of Rockdale: “An account of the coming of the machines, the making of a new way of life in the
mill hamlets, the triumph of evangelical capitalists over socialists and infidels, and the transformation
of the workers into Christian soldiers in a cotton-manufacturing district in Pennsylvania in the years
before and during the Civil War.”
Power and Politics
Continuing examination of power centered on control as the dynamic of power. Laura Nader’s early
study, “Controlling Processes” (1997), focused on means of exercising power, a catalyst for analyzing
the role of free will in power relations in American society. Examples were taken from the alterna-
tive dispute-resolution movement in U.S. law, which diminished the civil justice system in the United
States and then went global, the standardization of definitions of beauty, which has spread globally, or
the content of museum exhibits, or examining how marketing firms influence teenagers’ perceptions of
parental authority. The study of controlling processes enabled readers to understand control as indirect
means to power and to recognize the fragility of both culture and its human carriers. In Buddha is Hid-
ing – Refugees, Citizenship, The New America, Aihwa Ong (2003) followed the everyday lives of Cambo-
dian refugees in California as they dealt with American values that contradicted Cambodian values in a
story of Cambodian Americans experiencing American citizenship, a bottom up study about the impact
of U.S. medical, social welfare, judicial, religious, and economic institutions of citizen making. This
ethnography is about Cambodian Americans and about the types of controls operating across American
institutions seeking to mold a certain type of citizen and the book is a tour-de-force examination of the
reconfiguring of citizenship in a world of wars and movements.
World events are critical to academic pursuits, and anthropology had successes in World War II
because of previous anthropological work in areas that became war zones. The Cold War following
World War II also wrought critical changes. The number of anthropologists expanded, as did funding,
and access to military technology revolutionized our methodologies in all fields, although differently.
For sociocultural anthropologists, the Cold War raised issues of race, war, genocide, counterinsurgency,
and natural resources. We realized that anthropology was not an autonomous pursuit; instead, all of
academia was embedded in politics. Anthropologists such as Hugh Gusterson (1996) and Joseph Masco
(2006) began to write about nuclear laboratory cultures.8
During a decade in which nuclear and alternative energy systems have played critical roles in world
events, a wide-angled anthropology was a requirement. Anthropology has integrated holism, apprecia-
tion of history and the depth of time, and the consequences arising from how language frames thought.
The discourse of energy specialists, for example, was rooted in models of growth that assumed an
unlimited supply of natural resources and undervalued ecosystems. The idea that energy experts might
be part of the problem was novel, as was the idea that energy problems have human dimensions, a theme
explored in works such as The Energy Reader (Nader 2010), Cultures of Energy: Power, Practices, and Tech-
nologies (Strauss, Rupp and Love 2013), and “Energopolitics and the Anthropology of Energy” (Boyer
2011). All of us were influenced by campus struggles in the 1960 and 1970s over militarism, multi-
national capitalism, scientific racism, and the politics of gender. But a larger question remains: What
makes people human?
Subdividing and Specializing
Expanded funding in the four basic fields and in medical anthropology led to specializations and top-
ical expertise. In sociocultural anthropology, these include specializations in the law, politics, the econ-
omy, religion, ecology, medical issues, art, and education. Anthropologist Eric Wolf (1923–1999) was
critical of the tendency to specialize: “We subdivide and subdivide and call it anthropology.”9 The his-
tory of anthropology now goes far beyond disciplinary boundaries to include the impact of national
policies, militarism, and priorities in funding. Credit goes to David Price, who singlehandedly exam-
ined the history of anthropology in its widest context in his book Anthropological Intelligence: The Deploy-
ment and Neglect of American Anthropology in the Second World War (2008). After all, our nationalities are
reflected in the work we do. However, as anthropologists specialized, the concept of culture spread
beyond the discipline to sociology, psychology, business schools, law schools, and beyond. Culture as a
concept was loose on the streets! We now have cultural sociology, cultural psychology, cultural geog-
raphy, cultural law. Changes in the field, which included fascination with French philosophers such as
Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida and French anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu, stimulated vigorous
critiques. Others used the changes to enrich ethnography. People built on June Nash’s ethnography of
a Bolivian tin mine, We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us (1979), which followed industrial mining that
came with Spanish conquest, still causing internal problems today since controls continue to operate
on Bolivia from beyond its borders. Some call this global development theory.
Because of all of this intellectual ferment, we now realize that anthropology has much to say about
our own lives. Our ethnographies are written about the Shanghai stock market and the invention of
derivatives on Wall Street.10 Examinations of law and finance have moved from the earlier intersections
of anthropology and law primarily associated with resolution of disputes in small locales to connecting
legal knowledge (that is, state-level knowledge) to global financial markets and their legal and regula-
tory practices in which traders deal with probabilities and legal fictions.11 Also in the vein of banking
is the interest in Islamic banking. Though Islam forbids collecting interest, Islamic financial concerns
operate in some 70 countries and have assets in the range of $200 billion.12 Studies of the alternative
currencies of Islamic banks are part and parcel of law, economics, and finance and the anthropologist’s
subject goes beyond the tribe, village, state, and even geographic region. The anthropology of policy
worlds is an emerging field that covers the politics of financialization, the rise of audit cultures and
their impacts on culture and society, and the spread of diseases such as cholera epidemics.13 In Global
Assemblages, Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems (2005), Aihwa Ong and Stephen
Collier integrate issues that are globalizing, including concern with ethics. Anthropologists are asking,
for example, why some informants waste time with anthropologists and what exactly the collaborative
engagement of anthropologists and subjects is in terms of ethics.
New concerns with dichotomies of nature and culture led to studies of mythologies of menopause
in Japan and North America and the pharmaceutical business. Can menopause really be a disease if it
happens to all women? Similar questions are asked of aging in India.14 The examination of energy use
in culture and society is rapidly expanding along with studies of emerging industrial businesses that
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use bio-power for commercial and regulatory purposes.15 Thus, anthropologists like Nancy Scheper-
Hughes and Loïc Wacquant, are are studying the buying, selling, and theft of human body parts, the
significance of the concept of “brain dead,” and who owns the body in books like Commodifying Bodies
(2002). Building on ethics and human rights issues are decades of research by Nancy Scheper-Hughes.
In Death without Weeping (1992), she addressed violence in everyday life and how violence and even
death become normal and routine. She has made her work public by sharing with journalists wherever
possible, testifying in court regarding crimes against humanity, and working hand in hand with Israeli
colleagues. The work is multi-sited, sometimes conducting research undercover while examining crim-
inal networks and transplant tourism. Though power need not be the central theme for all anthropol-
ogy, it is critical for understanding central dogmas.
Audiences for Anthropology
Our audiences are unpredictable. Anthropologists who speak to a public wider than members of the
discipline often have a greater immediate impact outside the discipline than in it. When I began writ-
ing and speaking about coercive harmony, interest among anthropologists was slow to develop (for
reasons I examine elsewhere) while those who had felt the sting of being coercively harmonized—our
public—quickly recognized its power in the workplace with quality circles, with “facilitators” in envi-
ronmental movements at loggerheads with Clinton-style negotiation, and on Native American reser-
vations when dealing with negotiations over nuclear waste. Grade schools regularly taught harmony
ideology dispute-resolution and in global arenas lawyers were up against new international negotiators
selling psychology rather than the rule of law.16 And in the 2016 presidential election, the Republican
candidate used language that would be considered uncivil under the harmony model but received posi-
tive responses from voters.
If we remain ignorant of debates outside of academia, we will increasingly find ourselves talking
mainly to each other, trapped in a diminished space and working in cramped quarters.17 It took an
anthropologist, David Graeber, to notice that debt was on the mind of many, especially economically
insecure Americans and the young who were in heavy debt for their costs in higher education.18 Grae-
ber’s book Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011) was an instant bestseller worldwide. Debt is a problem that
affects all societies that employ money. His analysis helps us understand the present economic situation
by means of a long-term perspective. In similar critical efforts, Graeber has moved to other issues on
people’s minds. In 2001, he published Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value (2001) and more recently
he explored political ideologies and exotic practices by self-destructive tribes in The Utopia of Rules: On
Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy (2015). Though Graeber is thought of as a special-
ist in studies of the Occupy Wall Street movement, his initial fieldwork was conducted in Madagascar.
Some of the most distinguished anthropologists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were
effective spokespeople for the demarcation of science from other forms of knowledge such as magic
and religion. As represented by Boas and Malinowski, who were trained in physics and mathematics,
anthropological work in the late twentieth century work was grounded in the ethnographic study of
the practice of science, which did not always privilege western science. Modern scientists are cross-
ing paths with indigenous peoples; biologists are side by side with indigenous peoples whose ecological
knowledge they covet. Rapid globalization makes considerations of intermingling of knowledge sys-
tems inevitable. There is power in juxtaposing how traditional knowledge is produced in very differ-
ent cultures, such as comparing our own culture with that of the Inuit or with peoples of the Amazon.
We study not only Amazonians’ indigenous plants and Pacific marine biology (and their appropriation
of that knowledge) but physics and biotechnology laboratories and immunologists as well. Malinowski
wrote about magic, science, and religion among the Trobrianders; we (following Leach’s advice) exam-
ine magic, science, and religion in national laboratories.
Science
Emerging ethnographies of science are having as powerful an effect on contemporary anthropology

as earlier studies of political economy and colonialism. Comparison of American high-energy physicists
with Japanese high-energy physicists or Japanese and American primatologists show that science is not
free of culture but, rather, is full of it.19 Meanwhile, anthropologists working in African agriculture have
noted the devastating effects of a cultural preference for universal explanations that override ecologi-
cal particularism and site-specific knowledge.20 It sounds counterintuitive, but “based on measures of
energy expended per calorie of food produced, industrial agriculture is the most inefficient form of food
production in the history and prehistory of humankind.”21 The principles of a physical model may not
be true at all times or in all places since, even in Europe, there are many scientific traditions. When west-
ern approaches and technologies are transferred elsewhere, there can be downsides. In Naked Science –
Anthropological Inquiry into Boundaries, Power, and Knowledge (1996), Laura Nader discusses the power of
western science over other sciences around the world, revealing a cultural framework for understand-
ing “what science is really like.” Ethno-science and techno-science are examined comparatively rather
than hierarchically.
Even the science of race has changed dramatically in the past 50 years. During the post-Civil Rights
movement, many scholars and scientists thought of race as nothing more than a social construction. By
the twenty-first century, race as a social, legal, and medical category had been explored as a result of the
Human Genome Project. Degrees of variation came to be debated. One example is Ian Whitmarsh and
David Jones’What’s the Use of Race – Modern Governance and the Biology of Difference (2010), which exam-
ines the uses of race in the courtroom, law enforcement, and scientific views in attempts to address
human diversity in relation to inequities in health and disease without using race as a basis for discrimi-
nation. Matters of race are not settled yet. Forensics, ancestry, testing, and medicine are hopefully inno-
vating pathways to better medical treatments and health outcomes—and simultaneously advancing our
conversations about “race” as a useful category.
Anthropological contributions to science debates can be critical in relocating and rethinking the
future of western science traditions for variations exist there as well. The issues relate to the function
of western science, its cultural ascendancy, its ethnocentricity, and its universality as they pertain to
the charting of more-productive science paradigms.22 As previously mentioned, anthropologists work-
ing in African agriculture have observed the devastating effects of a scientific preference for univer-
sal explanations that override ecological particularisms and site-specific subsistence knowledge. The
assumption that western science functions autonomously is contradicted by findings in archaeology
and ethnology, such as the observation that science does not develop independent of the influence
of non-scientists. Is the anthropology of science a scientific effort or a humanistic one? Does it mat-
ter since “humanistic” and “scientific” are adjectives of convenience that are not mutually exclusive?
The notion that people in a particular political context could consciously construct a cultural tradi-
tion should be important to the structurally minded, along with conscious linguistic code-switching for
those interested in the consequences of differences in school settings.
347
Violence and War
The search for explanations for violence—especially the kind of intercommunal violence seen in
places like Rwanda, Northern Ireland, Israel, Sri Lanka, and the former Yugoslavia and now seen
throughout the Islamic world in the Middle East—involves the understanding of a holistic ethnography.
Does it relate to competition for scarce resources, such as oil in the 2003 U.S. war on Iraq, or to disloca-
tion of colonial legacies as seen in Waziristan in northern Pakistan? How do such forces translate into
violence? Some scholars have invoked identity politics as a prerequisite to intercommunal violence, the
implication being that it depends on identity formation that contrasts with another group. An alter-
native approach might be to examine the role of the international arms industry and of regimes that
encourage hostilities. What kept Iraq together under Saddam Hussein? In a word, nationalism. When
Saddam Hussein was at war with Iran, all Iraqi citizens—Shia, Sunni, Kurdish, and Christian fought
together as one Iraqi people. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, American forces used the old colo-
nial technique of divide and conquer by pitting Shia against Sunni. A decade later, we have seen the rise
of an Islamic Caliphate (ISIS) waging war on Iraq and Syria. Gillian Tett refers to the peril of expertise
as The Silo Effect (2015)—an inability to “connect the dots” as one consequence of the 2003 American
invasion of Iraq.
Certainly, no agreement has been reached among anthropologists on issues of violence and aggres-
sion, especially between those who stress biological origins of aggressive behavior and those who note
that humans are not uniformly aggressive and warlike. Human populations can be peaceful or almost
continuously engaged in aggressive encounters. The violence between East and West Germany, for
example, is explained not by old antagonisms but by new phenomena—the ideologies associated with
the Cold War and the Soviet Union. A nation can change from warlike to peaceful in a remarkably short
period. Consider Sweden, which, particularly under Gustavus Adolphus, was the scourge of Europe but
now has been largely peaceful for many decades. France under Napoleon was the most feared country
in Europe, but a century later, the aggressive position had shifted to Germany. On the other hand, how-
ever, humans can also learn to be aggressive, as the record of feuds, raids, tortures, and wars amply tes-
tifies. There is no empirical evidence that individuals in warlike nations are genetically more aggressive
than individuals in peaceful nations, and the complex institutions of war, which depend on uniquely
human organizations, cannot be understood in terms of individual aggression (although conflicts in
animal societies can be so understood). Only human animals make war, and only human animals kill
themselves.
The current violence in the Middle East cannot be explained without implicating states and history.
Afghanistan was invaded first by the British Empire, then by the Soviets, and by the Americans in 2001.
All three stated that they wanted to bring development to the Afghans, a better life. What followed
instead was violence continuing to this day in the case of American invasion. Thousands have died and
sectarian violence has erupted. The word jihad is commonly used in reference to the Islamic state and
is sometimes translated as holy war. Perhaps all of the contemporary wars in the Middle East from
Afghanistan to Somalia are holy wars—Islamic, Christian, and Jewish—all monotheistic religions ema-
nating from the Middle East. What we may be experiencing in the early twenty-first century are reli-
gious wars posing as secular for Christians and Jews and as jihad holy wars for Muslims.
It behooves anthropologists to unveil the contemporary scene that has been appropriated by politi-
cians and pundits because the consequences of failing to do so are so great in terms of mass killings
and destruction. For some Arabs, Israel is a western beachhead in the Middle East; for some Israelis, it
is a return and compensation for the Nazi killings of Jews in World War II. In 2001, President George
W. Bush referred to a “crusade” against terrorism. Terrorism is a general word, not specific, but used in
carrying out American drone strikes in Waziristan, Somalia, Yemen, and Palestinian Gaza. Explanations
such as resource wars have been generally avoided, except in joking that if Iraq grew broccoli instead
of having oil we would not have invaded. As comparatists, anthropologists are well-equipped to con-
tribute to the public’s understanding of these issues by connecting the dots.23
Law
In the 1960s, anthropological research on law and anthropology involved ethnographies of particular
peoples such as the Barotse, Tiv, and Arusha in Africa, the Cheyenne in the United States, the Trobrian-
ders in Melanesia, and the Ifugao in the Philippines. The first generation of scholars—Bronislaw Mali-
nowski, Max Gluckman, Paul Bohannan, Philip Gulliver, Karl Llewellyn, and E. Adamson Hoebel—had
a local world view. They examined the functions of law, its presence or absence, processes of negotia-
tion, mediation, adjudication, or retaliation. The generation that followed wanted to increase the num-
ber of quality ethnographies and local ethnographies such as those on the Zapotec of Oaxaca, Mexico,
or the Zinacantan of Chiapas, Mexico, and new locales from Africa to New Guinea and Hawaii.24 Vari-
ation was examined within these places but, when teaching anthropology of law in the early years, the
central core was ethnography in place.25
However, as peoples who had been colonized by European powers gained independence, the number
of new states worldwide increased rapidly, and those states were incorporating the local people into
state law. Attention turned to globalization, the diffusion of legal ideologies such as the rule of law to
new states and law and modernization. Research and teaching changed and by the latter part of the
twentieth century and particularly after the end of the Cold War, students were eager to learn about the
new states, legal imperialism, military law, and legal rights. The war on terror was also on their minds
after the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in terms of due process, fairness, and imposition of for-
eign laws. Thus, teaching law and anthropology in 2016 bore little resemblance to such teachings in the
1960s although documentary films such as Little Injustices (1981) and Losing Knowledge (2012), give stu-
dents a sense of how much has changed with the loss of local sovereignty. Assigned readings have also
changed. One of the favorites is Leach’s Custom, Law, and Terrorist Violence ((1977).
One anthropologist who has tried to analyze the fantasy sources of terror wars is Joseba Zulaika, a
Basque anthropologist, author of many books on terrorism. His most recent is Terrorism – the Self-Ful-
filling Prophecy (2009). Well into his argument about counter-terrorism producing terrorism, Zulaika
refers to a medieval component of U.S. policy. He invokes the fear of witches prevalent historically
in Europe to understand current counter-terrorism behavior and a premodern type of thinking that
denies contrary evidence and sees all as either black or white, as good or evil. Zulaika refers to Evans-
Pritchard’s Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande (1937) to help us understand the belief in the
mystical power of some individuals to harm others. Finally, he notes that what was normal and unques-
tionable in medieval Europe gave way to skepticism.
Wherever anthropologists have studied witchcraft and witch-hunting, fear is present—fear of sick-
ness fear of violence.26 In contemporary Africa, according to Elizabeth Colson, witchcraft accusations
have increased along with apparently unexplainable HIV deaths.27 Questions of “Why me? Why us?”
must be answered. In explaining the fear of “terrorism” in the United States, some have argued that con-
necting those dots may be a new challenge for anthropologists working in the West. Witch-hunting in
more-complex settings require broader contexts than that of pre-literate societies in which witchcraft
349
may be taken for granted. In complex societies such as the United States, beliefs based on irrational or
illogical thinking are not accepted as part of being modern, or so it is said.
Urban Anthropology
The interest in violence and war might be connected to the growing interest in urban spaces. The
proportion of the world’s population living in urban areas has been increasing over the past 200 years,
starting, some would say, with the Industrial Revolution. In 1800, only about 3 percent of all humans
lived in cities. By 1900, 13 percent lived in urban areas. A mere 80 years later, the proportion had risen
to 40 percent, and today it stands at more than 50 percent. The percentages of urban dwellers are high-
est in highly developed societies. One source suggests that in 1900 the world had only 16 cities with
more than a million inhabitants, while by 2015, the number had grown to over 300 such cities and still
increasing. New cities are being built as in Brasília.28 Thus, it is not surprising that there has been com-
parable growth in urban anthropology. A stunning find in urban archaeology is that of Cahokia, a city
of 83 hectares at the convergence of the Missouri, Mississippi, and Illinois rivers, a city once occupied
by some 20,000 people, larger in the eleventh and twelfth centuries than London and Paris.29
Urban anthropology has both theoretical and applied dimensions and the topics range from immigra-
tion, poverty, class, ethnicity, drugs, and urban violence and investigates societies in Canada, the United
States, Africa, Brazil and other locales. The work is comparative as well as deeply ethnographic and doc-
uments the bringing of rural customs to cities and urban traits to rural areas. For instance, Erik Harms’
Saigon’s Edge – On the Margins of Ho Chi Min City (2011) shows how people live in zones of urban-rural
divides in the wasteland of urban industrial expansion, between worlds and transformations linked
to global markets. Los Angeles has the largest Samoan immigrant population anywhere outside of the
Pacific region. Different customs influence questions of law, such as individuals who commit crimes
when In Search of Respect, the title of an ethnography of crack dealers in Harlem, New York, by Philippe
Bourgois (1995). Gangs and gang violence make headlines and inspire applied anthropologists, as do
new interests in drug and sex trafficking and widespread stress caused by debt and inequalities.
Health and Medicine
As the reader can see, all behaviors, institutions, and ideas related to human populations are of inter-
est. For example, all societies construct beliefs about the causes of illnesses and systems for preserving
health. The sub-specialty of medical anthropology includes anthropologists from all sub fields. In many
areas of the world colonialism, warfare, diseases, and changes in diet contribute to health problems.
Hunter-gatherer societies have been relatively isolated from other groups and have not suffer from the
epidemics of infectious diseases that have affected agrarian and urban societies, especially in this age
of widespread travel. The spread of malaria, for example, has been linked to population growth and
changes associated with food production. Obesity and diabetes have spread with economic develop-
ment and globalization, and diseases such as HIV infections appear more in Africa than in other parts
of the world.30 Cultural factors enter as HIV spreads more often among men who are circumcised than
those who are not. Then there are emotional diseases such as susto, an illness caused by anxiety or fright,
or widespread stress caused by debt and inequalities. Underlying explanations of human behavior are
based on unstated assumptions.
CONCLUSION
What is anthropology? The question can be answered in many ways depending on the particular
anthropologist-author. A linguistic anthropologist might start with a reference to Boas’ student,
Edward Sapir, whose work on Language (1921) is as good today as it was when he wrote it. Sapir’s work
spanned the subjects of Amerindian languages and their connections and distributions as they pertain
to anthropology, the interdisciplinary nature of the study of language from earliest times to the con-
temporary use of speech. Language and culture studies encompass both technical aspects of language
and socio-linguistics—the study of language in context.31 The founding of the Summer Institute of Lin-
guistics in the 1930s also played an important role in educating anthropologists of all stripes in the
techniques of linguistic study whether we were specialists or not. Such broad education would include
folklorists for whom language is key. Forever forward-thinking, Alan Dundes demonstrated the impor-
tant but disputed point that folklore is not necessarily transmitted and expressed orally, particularly
folklore of the electronic age.32
For all of anthropologists’ divergences and disagreements, we share the “anthropological attitude,”
which values both detachment and involvement as modes of rethinking existing assumptions. Such
shared values have not changed much since the nineteenth century, nor have the social prejudices that
anthropologists have challenged: ethnocentrism, racism, sexism, and inadequate measures of human
worth. What has changed is the world around us, a world that affects who we are, what we study, and
what consequences result, forcing us to question why we take the stands we do. Factors external to the
profession that have been a critical part of doing anthropology in the United States are still with us
and merit remembering. Anthropology, more than any other discipline, has the capacity to generate the
kind of introspection that can influence the future role of human beings on earth—to impart the lessons
of history, the experience of Homo sapiens on the planet.
1. Laura Nader explains that examining cultural assumptions is the main motivation for anthropologists. Why is this kind of exami-
nation important? What does she mean when she says that anthropologists should study “up, down, and sideways”?
2. This chapter describes several specializations, or areas of expertise, that have developed in anthropology, including investiga-
tions of both science and law. In what ways can science and law be analyzed as products of culture?
3. In the conclusion, Laura Nader writes that anthropology “values both detachment and engagement.” Why is this particularly chal-
lenging in a profession that relies on participant observation research?
GLOSSARY
Area studies: a way of organizing research and academic programs around world regions such as
Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, China, Latin America, and Europe.
Coercive harmony: an approach to dispute resolution that emphasizes compromise and consensus
rather than confrontation and results in the marginalization of dissent (harmony ideology) and the
repression of demands for justice.
351
Cultural determinism: the idea that behavioral differences are a result of cultural, not racial or genetic
causes.
Functionalist: an approach developed in British anthropology that emphasized the ways that the parts
of a society work together to support the functioning of the whole.
Holism: taking a broad view of the historical, environmental, and cultural foundations of behavior.
Plasticity: refers to the human capacity to learn any language or culture.
World Systems Theory: an approach to social science and history that involves examination of the
development and functioning of the world economic system.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laura Nader is a Professor of sociocultural anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Nader’s current work focuses on how central dogmas are made and how they work in law, energy sci-
ence, and anthropology. She has published several books on conflict resolution and the law including
Harmony Ideology: Justice and Control in a Mountain Zapotec Village (1990) and The Life of the Law: Anthro-
pological Projects (2002). She has also conducted research in the anthropology of science, with a particu-
lar focus on energy. Her books Naked Science: Anthropological Inquiry into Boundaries, Power, and Knowledge
(1996) and The Energy Reader (2010) are two examples of her work on these topics. She has also pro-
duced ethnographic films, including the 2012 film Losing Knowledge: 50 Years of Change, which explores
the ways in which indigenous knowledge is vanishing. Dr. Nader is a member of the American Acad-
emy of Arts and Sciences and has received numerous awards and honors including the CoGEA Award
from the American Anthropological Association and the Harry J. Kalven, Jr. award from the Law and
Society Association.
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Warde, Ibrahim. Islamic Banking in the Global Economy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000.
Whitehead, Neil and Sverker Finnstrom, eds. Virtual War and Magical Death: Technologies and Imaginaries
for Terror and Killing. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013.
Whiting, Beatrice B. and John W.M. Whiting. Six Cultures: Studied of Child Rearing. New York: Wiley,
1963.
Whitmarsh, Ian and David Jones, eds. What’s the Use of Race? Modern Governance and the Biology of Differ-
ence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010.
355
Wolf, Eric R. “They Divide and Subdivide, and Call It Anthropology,” The New York Times, November
30, 1980, E9.
Zulaika, Joseba. Terrorism: The Self-fulfilling Prophecy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Notes
1. Edward Burnett Tylor, Primitive Culture (London: John Murray, 1871).

2. Franz Boas, “The History of Anthropology,” in Congress of Arts and Science, Universal Exposition St. Louis, Vol. 5
(New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1905), 451.
3. Laura Nader, Culture and Dignity (New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 51.
4. Sidney Mintz, “‘Sows’ Ears and Silver Linings:’ The 1996 AAA Distinguished Lecture,” Current Anthropology 41
(2): 169-89.
5. Antonio De Lauri, The Politics of Humanitarianism: Power, Ideology and Aid (London: Tauris, 2015).
6. See for example Rachel Stryker and Roberto Gonzales, Up, Down and Sideways: Anthropologists Trace the Pathways
of Power (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014).
7. See for example Ashraf Ghani, “Writing a History of Power: An Examination of Eric R. Wolf’s Anthropological
Quest” in Articulating Hidden Histories: Exploring the Influence of Eric R. Wolf, ed. Jane Schneider and Rayna Rapp
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
8. See for example Hugh Gusterson, Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1996) and Joseph Masco, The Nuclear Borderlands: The Manhattan Project in Post-
Cold War New Mexico (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2006).
9. Eric R. Wolf, “They Divide and Subdivide, and Call It Anthropology,” The New York Times, November 30, 1980,
E9.
10. See for example Ellen Hertz, The Trading Crowd: An Ethnography of the Shanghai Stock Market (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1998) and Gillian Tett, Fool’s Gold: The Inside Story of J.P. Morgan and How Wall Street
Greed Corrupted Its Bold Dream and Created a Financial Catastrophe (New York: Free Press, 2010).
11. Annelise Riles, Collateral Knowledge: Legal Reasoning in the Global Financial Markets (Chicago: Chicago University
Press, 2011).
12. See for example Bill Maurer, Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative Currencies, Lateral Reason (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 2005) and Ibrahim Warde, Islamic Banking in the Global Economy. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 2000).
13. Charles Brigg and Clara Mantini-Briggs. Stories in the Time of Cholera: Racial Profiling during a Medical Nightmare
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003) and Chris Shore and Susan Wright, eds., Anthropology of Policy:
Critical Perspectives on Governance and Power (New York: Routledge, 1997).
14. Margaret Lock, Encounters with Aging: Mythologies of Menopause in Japan and North America (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1993) and Lawrence Cohen, No Aging in India: Alzheimer’s, the Bad Family, and Other Modern
Things (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
15. Laura Nader, The Energy Reader (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, 2010).
16. The examples here come from several publications by Laura Nader. See Laura Nader, “The ADR Explosion: The
Implications of Rhetoric in Legal Reform,” in Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice (Ontario: University of Wind-
sor, 1989), 269-291; Harmony Ideology: Justice and Control in a Zapotec Mountain Village (Stanford: Stanford Uni-
versity Press, 1990); “Civilization and Its Negotiators” in Understanding Disputes: The Politics of Law, ed. Pat
Kaplan (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1995); “Controlling Processes: Tracing the Dynamic Components of Power
and Knowledge” Current Anthropology 38 (1997): 711-737. For further discussion of Native American negotia-
tions with the government over nuclear waste, see Jay Ou, “Native Americans and the Monitored Retrievable
Storage Plan for Nuclear Wastes: Hate Capitalism, Negotiation, and Controlling Processes,” in Essays on Control-
ling Processes, ed. Laura Nader. (Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers, No. 80, 1996).
17. Marc Auge, A Sense for the Other: The Timeliness and Relevance of Anthropology, A. Jacob, trans. (Stanford: Stanford
18. Linda Coco, “Mortgaging Human Potential: Student Indebtedness and the Practices of the Neoliberal State,”
Southwestern Law Review, 42 (3) 2013.

19. The two examples cited here are Sharon Traweek, Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physicists
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988) and Pamela Asquith, “Japanese Science and Western Hege-
monies: Primatology and the Limits Set to Questions,” in Naked Science: Anthropological Inquiry into Boundaries,
Power and Knowledge, ed. Laura Nader (New York: Routledge, 1996).
20. Paul Richards, Indigenous Agricultural Revolution: Ecology and Food Crops in West Africa (London: Westview Press,
1985).
21. Kendall Thu and E. Paul Durrenberger, eds. Pigs, Profits, and Rural Communities (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1998), 2.
22. Stanley Tambiah, Magic, Science, Religion and the Scope of Rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990).
23. Laura Nader, What the Rest Think of the West: Since 600 A.D. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015).
24. Discussion of Oaxaca, Mexico is found in Laura Nader, Harmony Ideology: Justice and Control in a Zapotec Moun-
tain Village (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990). The Chiapas, Mexico example is from Jane F. Collier,
Courtship and Marriage in Zinacantan, Chiapas, Mexico (New Orleans: Middle American Research Institute, 1968).
Analysis of these dynamics in Hawaii is found in Sally Merry, Colonizing Hawaii’: The Cultural Power of Law
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).
25. Laura Nader, The Life of the Law: Anthropological Projects (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).
26. Neil Whitehead and Sverker Finnstrom, eds. Virtual War and Magical Death: Technologies and Imaginaries for Terror
and Killing (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013).
27. See for example Elizabeth Colson, “The Social History of an Epidemic: HIV/AIDS in Gwembe Valley, Zambia,”
in Morality, Hope and Grief: Anthropologies of AIDS in Africa, ed. Hansjorg Dilger and Ute Luig, 127-147 (New
York: Bergahn Books, 2010). Additional perspectives on Colson’s work can be found in Elizabeth Colson,
“Anthropology and a Lifetime of Observation,” an oral history conducted in 2000-2001 by Suzanne Reiss.
Regional Oral History Office (The Bancroft Library: University of California, Berkeley, 2002).
28. James Holston, The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia (Chicago: Chicago University Press,
1989).
29. For more information about Cahokia, see Alice Kehoe, The Land of Prehistory: A Critical History of American Arche-
ology (New York: Routledge, 1998) and Timothy R. Pauketat, Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Missis-
sippi (New York: Viking-Penguin, 2009).
30. Paul Farmer, Aids and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).
31. See for example Dell Hymes, ed., Reinventing Anthropology.
32. See for example Alan Dundes, The Study of Folklore (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1965) and International Folk-
loristics: Classical Contributions by the Founders of Folklore (Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999).
14
CULTURE AND
SUSTAINABILITY:
ENVIRONMENTAL
ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE
ANTHROPOCENE
Christian T. Palmer, Windward Community College

[email protected]
Learning Objectives
• Identify the methods and theories anthropologists use to examine human interactions with the environment.
• Define political ecology and explain its relationship to anthropology.
• Describe the Anthropocene and discuss how anthropology contributes to understanding the human role in environmental
destruction.
• Explain how anthropology contributes to public discussions and the creation of public policy with lawmakers, activists, corpora-
tions, and others regarding major environmental challenges.
LIVING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE
357
We live on a planet where the climate—winds, precipitation, weather, temperatures—is being mod-
ified by the collective impact of the human species. I arrived at anthropology through an interest in
understanding human impacts on the environment. I began by studying ethnobotany as an undergrad-
uate and received a master’s degree in environmental science. As I researched human-environmental
dynamics, I realized that scientists had largely identified what needed to be done to address many of
the world’s pressing environmental problems, but few of the recommended changes had been adopted,
thwarted by political, cultural, and economic forces. Anthropologists’ approach is holistic; they seek to
simultaneously understand all of the interactions of political, cultural, and economic factors to fully
explore the complexity of human-environmental interactions. Thus, I felt that anthropology provided
a good place to start to understand and begin to address some of the most important questions facing
our species. For example, how can we provide for basic human needs while not sacrificing the welfare
of other species? Why do many people say that they care about protecting the environment but then
do nothing about it? What political, economic, and cultural factors are prohibiting world leaders from
agreeing on solutions to global environmental challenges? To answer such questions, we must under-
stand how humans think and act as groups, our socially and culturally mediated ways of interacting
with each other, other species, and the world around us.
Arriving at Environmental Anthropology
In many ways, anthropology as a discipline is only now starting to address these questions. In Decem-
ber 2014, Bruno Latour, a French anthropologist, spoke to a standing-room-only audience at the
American Anthropological Association annual meeting in Washington, D.C., to discuss the relationship
between the Anthropocene and anthropology.1 Anthropocene is a term used to describe the period (or
epoch) in geological time in which the effects of human activities have altered the fundamental geo-
chemical cycles of the earth as a result of converting forests into fields and pastures and burning oil, gas,
and coal on a large scale. Because human activities have changed the earth’s atmosphere, anthropolo-
gists can make important contributions to studies of geology, chemistry, and meteorology by consid-
ering the effects of humans and their cultural systems. As Latour noted, the discipline of anthropology
is uniquely qualified to provide insight into key components of current environmental crises by deter-
mining the reasons behind choices various groups of humans make, bridging the social and natural sci-
ences, and studying contradictions between cultural universals (traits all humans have in common) and
particularities (interesting cultural differences).
This chapter summarizes how anthropologists have contributed to analysis and resolution of envi-
ronmental concerns. I begin with a brief overview of anthropological analysis of human interactions
with the environment and then explore how anthropological perspectives toward human-environmen-
tal interactions have changed over time. I end the chapter with a call to action—an invitation for stu-
dents to use lessons they have learned from anthropology to challenge the kinds of thinking that have
produced current environmental crises and see where those anthropological approaches take them.
Environmental anthropology is an exciting subfield that will grow in importance as questions of envi-
ronmental sustainability become increasingly central to scientific and popular conversations about the
future of our species and the planet.
Humans and the Environment

359
If we think about anthropology from the classic four-field approach, which includes both physical
anthropology and archaeology, many of the questions with which those disciplines have historically
wrestled were related to our species’ long-term relationship with the environment. Around two million
years ago, climate changes decreased the amount of forest and expanded grasslands in Africa, which
led to the early Hominin radiation (the geographic expansion of multiple Hominin species). It also led
hominin species to walk upright, which freed their hands to make and use tools. Subsequent climate
changes, particularly expansions and contractions of glaciers associated with ice ages, also contributed
to Homo sapiens expanding to new parts of the globe.
Fast-forwarding to the beginning of human agriculture roughly 10,000 years ago, we can see how
the global expansion of Homo sapiens and their first permanent settlements and urban centers led to
the development of agriculture, a profound new way of interacting with the environment. The ability
of early humans to shape the landscape, first by simply encouraging wild plants to grow and later by
planting and irrigating crops and domesticating plants and animals, set humans on the path toward our
current problematic relationship with the planet. Archaeologists’ questions about human diets, tools,
and architecture inevitably explore how ancient civilizations interacted with their environments. For
example, archaeologists examine the relative frequency of different kinds of pollen and tree rings over
thousands of years to understand how landscapes changed over time through both human and natural
processes.
Many archaeologists credit increased productivity that came with agriculture as the foundation of
civilization, allowing humans to live in larger settlements, specialize in craft production, and develop
social hierarchies and eventually math, writing, and science. From this perspective, the seeds of social
complexity were contained within the first grains domesticated in the hills surrounding the Fertile
Crescent. Others have questioned the idea that the effects of agriculture were purely beneficial. For
example, Marshall Sahlins called foraging (hunter-gatherer) societies “the original affluent societies”
and noted that hunter-gatherers had more leisure time, healthier diets, more time to socialize, and
greater social equality than agricultural or even industrial societies.2 He also noted that they were afflu-
ent not because they had everything, but because they could easily meet their basic needs of food,
shelter, and sociality. Others have looked at the advances in science, medicine, and communication
technology and disagreed with Sahlins, arguing that we are better off with the developments brought
by agriculture. Sahlins’ critique of agriculture (and subsequently of civilization) should not be seen as
a suggestion to deindustrialize; rather, it is a challenge to assumptions that Western civilization and
its technological developments necessarily represent improvements for human societies. Perhaps the
strongest argument against capitalism and industrialization is the real possibility of environmental col-
lapse that those systems have brought.
Sahlins’ analysis calls into question the idea that humans as a species are necessarily progressing
through history and encourages us to think about how “necessities” are culturally constructed. Do we
really need cars or cell phones to be happy? How about books and vaccines? Because many of our inno-
vations in technology, agriculture, and transportation have come at the expense of the natural systems
that support us, we need to think about human “progress” in relationship to its impact on the envi-
ronment. The impacts of climate change from our dependence on fossil fuel, toxic byproducts from
expanding chemical industries, and pollution of land, soil, and water from industrialized agriculture are
a significant challenge to a vision of human history in which we expect things to get better and better.
Archaeological evidence of collapses of earlier societies—Harappan cities in the Indus River Valley,
the Mayans in Central America, and the Rapa Nui of Easter Island, for example—provides a sobering
warning as many pre-historic cultures’ practices were, at some level, environmentally unsustainable,
leading to deforestation, soil salinization, or erosion.
Figure 1: The ball courts at Copan show the complexity and development of early
Mayan society. Research suggests that deforestation was one of the causes of
the collapse of the city-state.
For example, archaeologists have explored the collapse of a number of Mayan cities from an envi-
ronmental perspective.3 After examining samples of pollen from nearby lakebeds, they determined the
relative abundance of various ecosystems, such as cornfields and pine forests, over time. They found
that deforestation in the uplands associated with an expanding population around the Mayan city of
Copan was one of the factors that led to the city’s decline. Land was cleared to increase agricultural
production and to harvest wood for the construction of houses, fueling cooking fires, and producing
lime, which was used to make plaster for large-scale construction projects. The study suggests that pre-
historic groups’ lack of adequate environmental management systems could have affected their ability
to maintain their complex urban societies—a warning for society today.
Another fascinating story of the complex relationships between culture, plants, and the economy
relates to development of sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean. Anthropologist Sidney Mintz doc-
umented how our sweet tooth led to development of the slave trade, industrialization, capitalism, and
colonization in the Americas.4 He examined how sugar went from being a luxury good associated with
the upper class as a spice and medicine to a regular staple for factory workers. The increased con-
sumption of sugar associated with industrialization provided financial incentives for continuing slav-
ery and colonization projects in the Americas. Mintz’s work is not usually described as environmental
anthropology, but his careful documentation of the relationship between people and sugar cane clearly
demonstrates the importance of certain species of plants in shaping human history.
The question of how humans interact with their environment through hunting and gathering, agri-
culture, and deforestation is central to understanding how human groups meet their basic needs and
continue to survive and develop. By examining these past and present cultural configurations critically
and carefully, anthropology provides a valuable perspective from which to understand such environ-
mental questions.
Sustainability and Public Anthropology
Environmental anthropology provides an opportunity for anthropologists to engage in larger public

361
debates. The American Anthropological Association, for example, recently issued a Statement on
Humanity and Climate Change meant to “to recognize anthropological contributions to global climate
change-related issues, articulate new research directions, and provide the American Anthropological
Association with actions and recommendations to support and promote anthropological investigation
of these issues including the development of course curricula and application of anthropological theory
and methods to the issues.”5 Such statements emphasize the importance of anthropological contribu-
tions to current scientific and political debates.
Anthropologists have become involved in environmental causes around the world. In Brazil, for
example, they have worked with indigenous groups to maintain land claims, prevent deforestation, and
organize against construction of large hydropower projects that threaten the river ecosystems.6 Others
have challenged development of parks throughout the world as a major conservation strategy for bio-
diversity and explored the impacts of those parks on local communities.7 Studies of these diverse topics
benefit from incorporation of an ethnographic perspective that emphasizes the importance of identity
politics, connection to place, and cultural beliefs for understanding how groups of people interact with
their environment. This work also reminds us that environmentalism and conservation are grounded
in sets of beliefs, assumptions, and world views developed in Western Europe and North America and
must be translated as environmentalists work in other cultures.
Environmental anthropology naturally lends itself to use of anthropological perspectives to inform
and engage in public policy decisions, land-use management, and advocacy for indigenous communi-
ties, urban minorities, and other groups that are often under-represented in places of power and in tra-
ditional environmental movements. In that sense, environmental anthropology is a way to inform and
connect with a variety of other disciplines that address similar questions of sustainability. Regardless
of whether you decide to study anthropology, understanding the value of anthropological insights for
environmental questions will allow you to better appreciate and understand the complexity of envi-
ronmental questions in modern society and potential solutions. The next section examines the diverse
ways that anthropologists have historically looked at the human-environmental dynamic, highlighting
some of the key theories, methods, and approaches and how they have developed over time.
CULTURAL ECOLOGY
Early Cultural Ecologists
One of the earliest anthropologists to think systematically about the environment was Leslie White.
His work built on earlier anthropological concepts of cultural evolution—the idea that cultures, like
organisms, evolve over time and progress from simple to more complex. White described how cultures
evolved through their ability to use energy as they domesticated plants and animals, captured the energy
stored in fossil fuels, and developed nuclear power.8 From this perspective, “human cultural evolution
was best understood as a process of increasing control over the natural environment” through tech-
nological progress.9 White’s conclusions are at odds with Franz Boas’ historical particularism, which
rejected theories based on evolution that labeled cultures as more advanced or less advanced than oth-
ers and instead looked at each society as a unique entity that had developed based on its particular his-
tory. Like earlier anthropologists, White viewed anthropology as a natural science in which one could
generate scientific laws to understand cultural differences. His model is useful, however, when explor-
ing the nature of change as our society increasingly harnessed new sources of energy to meet our wants
and needs. He was writing at a time when the U.S. economy was booming and our technological future
seemed promising, before the environmental movement raised awareness about harm caused by those
technologies.
How the Future Looked 50 Years Ago
This National Public Radio Planet Money episode captures the enthusiasm for technological progress at the 1964 World’s Fair, when little
was known about the environmental damage such technologies would cause. How did people see the future in 1964? How is their idea of the
future different ours today?
Anthropologist Julian Steward first used the term cultural ecology to describe how cultures use and
understand their environments. His fieldwork among the Shoshone emphasized the complex ways they
had adapted to the dry terrain of the Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain
ranges. He described how a hunting and gathering subsistence economy that relied on pine nuts, grass
seeds, berries, deer, elk, sheep, antelope, and rabbits shaped Shoshone culture. Their detailed knowledge
of various microclimates and seasonal variations in resource availability structured their migration pat-
terns, social interactions, and cultural belief systems.10 Rather than looking for single evolutionary tra-
jectories for cultures as White had done, Steward looked for multiple evolutionary pathways that led to
different outcomes and stressed the variety of ways in which cultures could adapt to ecological condi-
tions.
Both White and Steward were influenced by materialism, a Marxist concept that emphasized the
ways in which human social and cultural practices were influenced by basic subsistence (economic)
needs. Both were trained as scientists, which shaped how they looked at cultural variation. Steward was
also influenced by processual archaeology, a scientific approach developed in the 1960s that focused
primarily on relationships between past societies and the ecological systems they inhabited. The shift
in anthropology represented by White and Steward’s work led to increased use of scientific methods
when analyzing and interpreting data. In subsequent decades, movements in both anthropology and
archaeology criticized those scientific perspectives, challenging their objectivity, a process I examine in
greater detail later in this chapter.
Pigs and Protein
Subsequent anthropologists built on the work of White and Steward, looking for ecological expla-
nations for cultural beliefs and practices. They also drew on newly developed computer science to
think about dynamic feedback systems in which cultural and ecological systems self-regulate to pro-
mote social stability—homeostasis. Some fascinating examples of this work include Roy Rappaport’s
work in Papua New Guinea and Marvin Harris’ work in India.
363
Marvin Harris examined Hindu religious beliefs about sacred

cattle from functional and materialist perspectives. Among Hin-
dus in India, eating beef is forbidden and cows are seen as sacred
animals associated with certain deities. From the perspective of a
Western beef-loving country, such beliefs may seem irrational.
Why would anyone not want to eat a juicy steak or hamburger?
Rejecting earlier academics who regarded the Hindu practice as
illogical, Harris argued that the practice makes perfect sense
within the Hindu ecological and economic system. He argued that
cows were sacred not because of cultural beliefs; instead, the cul-
tural beliefs existed because of the economic and ecological
importance of cows in India. Thus, Hindu restrictions regarding
cows were an “adaptive” response to the local ecological system
rather than the result of Hindu theology.11 Harris explored the
importance of cattle for milk production, dung for fuel and fertil-
izer, labor for plowing, and provision of meat and hides to the
lowest caste, untouchables, who were able to slaughter and eat
Figure 2: Honoring the cow, is a part of Hindu religious
tradition. cows and tan their hides because they were already seen as ritu-
ally impure.
Roy Rappaport examined subsistence practices of the Tsembaga in Highland New Guinea, a group
that planted taro, yams, sweet potatoes, and sugar cane and raised pigs. Rappaport used scientific terms
and concepts such as caloric intake, carrying capacity, and mutualism to explain methods used by the
Tsembaga to manage their resources. A population of pigs below a certain threshold provided a num-
ber of benefits, such as keeping villages clean by eating refuse and eating weeds in established gardens
that had relatively large fruit trees that would not be damaged by the pigs. Once the population reached
the threshold, the pigs ate more than weeds and garbage and began to create problems in gardens. In
response, the people used periodic ritual feasts to trim the population back, returning the ecological sys-
tem to equilibrium. Rappaport, like Harris, used ecological concepts to understand the Tsembaga sub-
sistence practices, thus downplaying the role of cultural beliefs and emphasizing ecological constraints.
These early cultural ecologists viewed cultures as trying to reach and maintain social and ecological
equilibrium. This idea aligned with ecological thinking at the time that emphasized the balance of
nature and the importance of the various components of an ecosystem in maintaining that balance.
However, environments and cultures were rapidly changing as colonization, globalization, and indus-
trialization spread throughout the world. In many of those early cases, anthropologists had ignored the
larger processes.
As ecologists began to develop more-complex models of how ecosystems change through long-term
dynamic processes of succession and disturbances (such as storms, droughts, and El Nino events),
anthropological approaches to the environment also changed. The next sections examine those shifts in
anthropology as environmental movements developed in response to increasing degradation of natural
environments.
Early anthropologists were notable for their attempts to understand how different groups of people
interacted with their environments over time. Their work paved the way for future environmental
anthropologists even though they generally were not directly concerned with environmental problems
associated with modernity, such as pollution, tropical deforestation, species extinctions, erosion, and
global warming. As people around the world became more familiar with such issues, environmental
anthropologists took note and began to analyze those problems and accompanying conservation move-
ments, especially in the developing world, which was still the primary focus of most anthropological
research.
ETHNOECOLOGY
Slash-and-Burn versus Swidden Cultivation
Traditionally, anthropologists studied small communities in remote locations rather than urban soci-
eties. While much of that work examined rituals, political organizations, and kinship structures, some
anthropologists focused on ethnoecology: use and knowledge of plants, animals, and ecosystems by
traditional societies. Because those societies depended heavily on the natural world for food, medicine,
and building materials, such knowledge was often essential to their survival.
As anthropologists, Harris and Rappaport worked to make the strange familiar by taking seemingly
bizarre practices such as ritual slaughtering of pigs and sacredness of cows in India and explaining the
practices within the context of the people’s culture and environment. This work explains not only how
and why people do what they do, but also the advantages of their systems in the environments in which
they live. An indigenous practice long demonized by the media, environmental activists, and scientists
is slash-and-burn agriculture in which small-scale farmers, mostly in tropical developing countries, cut
down a forest, let the wood dry for a few weeks, and then burn it, clearing the land for cultivation. Ini-
tially, the farmers plant mostly perennial crops such as rice, beans, corn, taro, and manioc. Later, they
gradually introduce tree crops, and the plot is left to regrow trees while they open new fields for crops.
Every year, as the soil’s fertility declines and insects become a problem in the original plot, new land
is cleared to replace it. Environmentalists and developers have decried slash-and-burn cultivation as
a major cause of deforestation, and governments in many tropical countries have prohibited farmers
from cutting and burning forests.
Anthropologists have challenged these
depictions and have documented that slash-
and-burn cultivators possess detailed knowl-
edge of their environment; their agricultural
processes are sustainable indefinitely under the
right conditions.12 When there is a low popu-
lation density and an adequate supply of land,
slash-and-burn cultivation is a highly sustain-
able type of elongated crop rotation in which
annuals are planted for a few years, followed
first by tree crops and then by forest, rebuild-
ing soil nutrients and mimicking natural
processes of forest disturbance in which tree
falls and storms periodically open up small
Figure 3: Beans and bananas planted in a swidden field in Acre, Brazil. Note the fallen
and burnt logs and the proximity of the forest. Photo by Christian Palmer. patches of the forest. They used the term swid-
den cultivation instead of slash and burn to
challenge the idea of the practice as inherently destructive. The surrounding forest allows the fields to
quickly revert to forest thanks to seeds planted in the cleared area as birds roost in the trees and defe-
cate into the clearing and as small rodents carry and bury the seeds. Furthermore, by mimicking natural
365
processes, the small patches can enhance biodiversity by creating a greater variety of microclimates in
a given area of forest.
The system breaks down when cleared forests are not allowed to regrow and instead are replaced
with industrial agriculture, cattle raising, or logging operations that transform the open fields into
pasture or permanent agricultural plots.13 The system can also break down when small-holders are
forced to become more sedentary because the amount of land they control is reduced by arrival of new
migrants or government land seizures. In that case, local farmers must replant areas more frequently
and soil fertility declines. A desire to plant cash crops for external markets can also exacerbate these
changes because food is no longer grown solely for local consumption and more land is put into agri-
culture. Anthropologists’ studies uncovered the sustainability of these traditional practices, which were
destructive only when outside forces pressured local farmers to modify their traditional farming sys-
tems.
Plants, People, and Culture
One branch of ethnoecology is ethnobotany, which studies traditional uses of plants for food, con-
struction, dyes, crafts, and medicine. Scientists have estimated that 60 percent of all of the current med-
icinal drugs in use worldwide were originally derived from plant materials (many are now chemically
manufactured). For example, aspirin came from the bark of willow trees and an important muscle relax-
ant used in open-heart surgery was developed from curare, the poison used on arrows and darts by
indigenous groups throughout Central and South America. In light of such discoveries, ethnobotanists
traveled to remote corners of the world to document the knowledge of shamans, healers, and traditional
medical experts. They have also looked at psychoactive plants and their uses across cultures.
What The People of the Amazon Know That You Don’t

This TED talk by ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin describes some important cases of knowledge of medicinal plants learned from indigenous peo-
ple in the Amazon.
Ethnobotanical work is interdisciplinary, and while some ethnobotanists are anthropologists, many
are botanists or come from other disciplines. Anthropologists who study ethnobotany must have a
working knowledge of scientific methods for collecting plant specimens and of botanical classification
systems and basic ecology. Similarly, archaeologists and paleobotanists study prehistoric people’s rela-
tionships and use of plants, especially in terms of domestication of plants and animals.
The Kayapó project is a famous ethnobotanical study organized by Darrell Posey and a group of
twenty natural and social scientists who examined how the Kayapó people of Brazil understood, man-
aged, and interacted with the various ecosystems they encountered as the region was transformed from
a dry savanna-like Cerrado to Amazonian rainforest.14 By documenting Kayapó names for different
ecosystems and methods they used to drop seeds and care for certain plants to expand islands of forest
in the savanna, the project illustrated the complex ways in which indigenous groups shape the environ-
ments in which they live by documenting how the Kayapó cared for, managed, and enhanced forests to
make them more productive.
Posey was also an activist who contributed to drafting of the Declaration of Belem, which called
for governments and corporations to respect and justly compensate the intellectual property rights of
indigenous groups, especially regarding medicinal plants. He accompanied Kayapó leaders to Wash-
ington, D.C., to protest construction of a large dam using funds from the World Bank. Pressure from
numerous international groups led to a halt in the dam’s construction (plans for the dam have recently
been resurrected). Posey’s identification of the Kayapó as guardians of the rainforest provided a power-
ful symbol that resonated with Western ideas of indigeneity and the moral high ground of environmen-
tal conservation.
In recent years, some anthropologists have questioned whether the idea of indigenous people having
an innate positive connection to the environment—what some call the myth of the ecologically noble
savage—is accurate.
The Myth of the Ecologically Noble Savage
The image of the noble savage developed many centuries ago in Western culture. From the beginning
of European exploration and colonialism, Europeans described the “natives” they encountered primar-
ily in negative terms, associating them with sexual promiscuity, indolence, cannibalism, and violence.
The depictions changed as Romantic artists and writers rejected modernity and industrialization and
called for people to return to an idealized, simpler past. That reactionary movement also celebrated
indigenous societies as simple people living in an Eden-like state of innocence. French painter Paul
Gauguin’s works depicting scenes from his travels to the South Pacific are typical of this approach in
their celebration of the colorful, easygoing, and natural existence of the natives. The continuing influ-
ence of these stories is evident in Disney’s portrayal of Pocahontas and James Cameron’s 2009 film
Avatar in which the primitive Na`vi are closely connected to and defenders of an exotic and vibrant nat-
ural world. Cameron’s depiction, which includes a sympathetic anthropologist, criticizes Western capi-
talism as willing to destroy nature for profit.
Disney’s Pocahontas: Colors of the Wind Song

Disney’s Pocahontas presents many of the stereotypes of the ecologically noble savage. What are these stereotypes? Where else do we see
these kinds of depictions?
Despite its positive portrayals of indigenous groups, the idea of the ecologically noble savage tends to
treat indigenous peoples as an imagined “other” constructed as the opposite of Western culture rather
than endeavoring to understand the world views and complexities of indigenous cultures. Similarly, a
naive interpretation of indigenous environmentalism may merely project an imaginary Western ideal
onto another culture rather than make a legitimate observation about that culture on its own terms.
The Kayapó in the Amazon and another group known as the Penan, who live in the Indonesian rain-
forest, were both confronted in the past by plans to open logging roads in their traditional territories
and build dams that would flood vast amounts of their land. These indigenous communities organized,
sometimes with the aid of anthropologists who had connections to media and environmental organi-
zations, to protest the forest. The combination of two causes—rainforest conservation and indigenous
rights—was powerful, successfully grabbing media attention and raising money for conservation. Their
success led to later instances of indigenous groups joining efforts to halt large-scale development pro-
jects. These movements were especially powerful symbolically because they articulated the longstand-
367
ing Western idea of the environmentally noble savage as well as growing environmental concerns in
Europe and North America.15
Some anthropologists have noted that these alliances were often fragile and rested on an imagined
ideal of indigenous groups that was not always accurate. The Western media, they argue, imagined
indigenous groups as ecologically noble savages, and the danger in that perspective is that the indige-
nous communities would be particularly vulnerable if they lost that symbolic purity and the power that
came with it. The image of ecologically noble savages could break down if they were seen as promoting
any kind of non-environmental practices or became too involved in messy national politics. Further-
more, indigenous groups’ alliances with international activists tended to cast doubt on their patriotism
and weaken their position in their own countries. Though these indigenous groups achieved visibility
and some important victories, they remained vulnerable to negative press and needed to carefully man-
age their images.
It is important to note that depictions such as the ecologically noble savage rely on an overly sim-
plistic portrayal of the indigenous “other.” For example, some indigenous groups have been portrayed
as inherently environmentalist even when they hunt animals that Western environmentalists want to
preserve. Often, the more important questions for indigenous groups revolve around land rights and
political sovereignty. Environmental concerns are associated with those issues rather than existing sep-
arately. The ramifications of these differences are explained in the next section, which discusses the
people-versus-parks debate.
Land Claims and Mapping
One way that anthropologists have successfully used traditional ecological knowledge to advance
indigenous rights is through advocacy on behalf of indigenous groups seeking to establish legal owner-
ship or control over their traditional lands. This was first done in Alaska and Canada in the 1960s and
1970s. Indigenous groups wanted to map their seasonal movements for hunting, gathering, and other
subsistence practices. The maps would demonstrate that they used the land in question and that it was
important for their continued physical and cultural survival.
Since then, communities throughout the developing world have adopted similar strategies with the
help of geographers and anthropologists to demarcate their lands. Often, lands used by indigenous
groups are seen as empty because their population densities are quite low, and developers imagine the
land as unused and open for taking. The production of maps by indigenous communities challenges
those notions by inscribing the landscape with their names, relationships, and the human histories that
mark their claim to the land. The maps become important symbols and tools for organizing local resis-
tance against large development projects.
The non-governmental organization (NGO) Native Lands, for example, assisted in mapping the
Mosquitia region of Honduras. Although the area, which consisted of 20,000 square kilometers,
included 170 communities, most government maps showed it as practically empty. Earlier, in a back-
room deal, the entire area had been granted as a logging concession to Stone Container Corporation,
a Chicago-based company that made cardboard boxes and paper bags.16 When Native Lands became
involved in the early 1990s, mapping was used to bring the diverse communities in the region together
to communicate their presence and advocate for an end to the logging concession. The power of maps
to communicate the presence of indigenous people on the land is critical, especially when the indige-
nous groups lack legal ownership.
POLITICAL ECOLOGY
Questioning Science
In the 1960s, theoretical movements in the social sciences and humanities began to challenge the pre-
sumed benefits of modernity and science. These movements were led in part by feminist and post-colo-
nial theorists who saw science as part of a patriarchal system that was complicit in the subjugation of
women and colonized people throughout the world. In environmental sciences, this move to question
the objectivity of science can be seen in political ecology, a diverse field that includes many anthro-
pologists along with geographers, political scientists, sociologists, and other social scientists. Political
ecology’s primary message is the importance of examining environmental questions that seem, at first
glance, to be strictly scientific (i.e., apolitical). Questions of cause and effect, for instance, are comprised
of political and economic agendas that can be masked by a seemingly neutral language of scientific
objectivity. By focusing our attention on the power dynamic in political dimensions of conservation,
principally in the developing world, political ecologists illustrate why conservation efforts so often fail
to achieve the desired goals.
In an early an influential study of political ecology, Piers Blaikie and others argued that soil erosion
was not caused by many of the factors blamed by state governments, including overpopulation, bad
farming practices, and environmental stresses. Instead, they found that state policies such as taxes
forced farmers into capitalist economic systems that encouraged unsustainable farming practices.17
From this perspective, soil erosion, which seemed to be primarily a local problem, was actually con-
nected to national politics and needed to be addressed in that larger context. Once attention had been
drawn to the relationship between state policies and soil erosion, the solution to the problem could no
longer come from simply teaching small-scale farmers better soil conservation techniques. It required
eliminating government practices and economic conditions that provided an incentive to use unsus-
tainable farming practices.
Political ecology often focuses on the impacts of governments and corporations in establishing polit-
ical and economic systems that constrain local behavior and challenges standard narratives regarding
environmental destruction and conservation. Learning about political ecology can be difficult for envi-
ronmentally minded people because it requires them to rethink many of their own positions and the
science that supports them.
Revisionist Environmental History
Some of my favorite work in political ecology challenges the causes and effects of tropical defor-
estation. James Fairhead and Melissa Leach, for example, looked at tropical deforestation in the West
African country of Guinea. 18 The state’s forestry department and later conservation organizations
described the savanna as containing only small fragments of a once extensive tropical forest. Adminis-
trators, foresters, and botanists had created forest policies based on the idea that this degradation was
caused by local villagers as they cleared and burned forests to create fields for agriculture. Through
careful study of historical archives, oral histories, and historical aerial photographs, Fairhead and Leach
challenged these narratives. Instead, they argued that the remaining fragments of forest had been
planted by local villagers who had gradually planted useful species around their villages, improving the
369
soil for planting and generating other positive ecological changes. Rather than being the cause of the
deforestation in areas that was previously forest, the villagers were creating the forest in an area that
had previously been savanna through generations of hard work, turning the colonial narrative on its
head.
Another fascinating tale comes from William Balee’s work in the Amazon. Balee was a friend of Dar-
rell Posey, and their work together got Balee thinking about the extent to which the Amazon rain-
forest is a product of human productive activities and not entirely natural processes. Balee disagreed
with earlier anthropologists who had described how primitive groups were forced to adapt to the con-
straints imposed by fragile tropical ecosystems, such as declining soil fertility, a lack of plants and ani-
mals that provided protein, and other limiting factors that constrained their behavior. Balee examined
a wide variety of ecosystems in the Amazon that seemed to have been created or significantly mod-
ified by human activity, including the forest islands of the Kayapó discussed by Posey, babassu palm
forests, bamboo forests, Brazil nut forests near Maraba, and liana forests. His conservative estimated
was that at least 12 percent of the Amazon, the largest rainforest on the planet, was a product of indige-
nous intervention. This conclusion challenged two major assumptions made about the rainforest and
the people who lived there. First is the notion that indigenous groups were forced to adapt to the harsh
environment of the rainforest. Instead, Balee found that they were resource managers who had devel-
oped ecosystems to better provide for their needs. Second is the notion that the Amazon was primeval,
untouched, and pristine.19 If we extend this analysis to other regions and ecosystems, it challenges the
entire notion of “untouched nature.” If the wildest, least populated, and largest rainforest in the world is
already highly anthropogenic, or shaped by humans, what can we say about supposed ideas of wilder-
ness in other places?
Environmental historian William Cronon tackled this question directly in his essay, “The Trouble
with Wilderness, or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.”20 Cronon argued that, by celebrating a nature
supposedly untouched by human hands, we tend to forget about preserving the nature with which we
come in contact every day. If we focus exclusively on a concept of wilderness, which excludes humans
and human activities by definition, we may ignore ways to help humans better interact with nature,
leading to conservation policies that try to create parks without anyone inside of them and do not fully
consider agricultural and urban areas. It means that one must leave civilization behind to be in contact
with nature. Cronon ended his essay with a plea:
If wildness can stop being (just) out there and start being (also) in here, if it can start being as humane
as it is natural, then perhaps we can get on with the unending task of struggling to live rightly in the
world, not just in the garden, not just in the wilderness, but in the home that encompasses them both.21
Cronon’s call to action is for humans to consider themselves fully part of nature and to look for ways
to behave responsibly in that relationship. In a way, his message is similar to Bruno Latour’s about the
Anthropocene. By recognizing that nature does not exist outside of human activities, we must come
to terms with the impacts of our lifestyles on the environment. Some may believe that this cheapens
nature, making it less sacred and significant, but understanding the diverse ways in which humans have
affected the environment should make us better able to appreciate and evaluate our interactions with it.
Instead of seeing nature as outside of human activities, we need to consider how our food production,
transportation, and habitation systems affect the environment.
People Versus Parks
Generally, when we think of nature, we tend to think of national parks and other kinds of protected
areas set aside for conservation under various categories. In the United States, these include national
and state parks, forests, wilderness areas, recreation areas, and wildlife conservation areas. In most
cases, people are allowed to visit these areas for recreational or scientific purposes but cannot live
directly in them, and regulations control the kinds of activities allowed. Protected areas developed from
the Western vision of nature that separates it from culture and assumes that one must exclude humans
to conserve nature. This model of setting aside protected areas has been exported to the rest of the
world and persists as the most common strategy for numerous environmental goals, including pro-
tection of watersheds, endangered plants and animals, and providing space for people to interact with
nature.
The most common example of a protected area is a
national park. In the United States, national parks are so
popular that they have been called “America’s Best Idea.”
While I am an enthusiastic fan of national parks, I also recog-
nize problems associated with the concept. We often forget,
for example, that the “natural” state of such parks is mostly a
recent phenomenon. Many Native American groups were
systematically removed from parks (and rarely compensated)
to make the parks “natural,” and some parks, such as Mt.
Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Devil’s
Tower in Wyoming, are directly on top of sacred sites for
Native Americans. In other areas of the world, especially in
developing countries, most protected areas are occupied by
groups of people who have lived there for decades or cen-
turies and have legitimate claims to the land. Some may not
be aware that their land is being transformed into a park and,
once informed, are shocked by all of the new regulations they
Figure 4: Yosemite Valley, one of the first national parks in the
United States, established a precedent of setting aside natural are expected to obey. In worst-case scenarios, they are
areas for their scenic beauty, recreation, and conservation.
Photo by Christian Palmer. evicted without compensation, becoming environmental
refugees. From the perspective of such groups, the govern-
ment seems to value elephants, tigers, or scenic vistas more than the people living on the land.
The conflicts that have developed between local communities in and around protected areas and state
conservation officials and international conservation NGOs that advocate for the parks is referred to
as the “people-versus-parks debate.”22 Communities, rather than seeing parks as preserving a public
good that benefits everyone, view creation of a park as an effort by government officials to extend their
power to remote rural areas. And those negative views can thwart conservation efforts when locals
resent preferential treatment of animals and choose to poach or simply ignore the new regulations.
Conservation groups have begun to recognize that they must support economic development of local
communities to get them on board with conservation efforts. When local residents benefit from jobs as
park guards, tour guides, and research assistants, they recognize the positive economic benefits of con-
servation and support the initiatives. This approach aims to combine conservation and development,
bringing together typically different objectives. Initially, this approach was a response to development
policies associated with building infrastructure such as roads and dams that had huge environmental
impacts and created negative press for the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Develop-
ment (USAID), and other institutions that funded the projects. Now, most conservation projects incor-
porate development objectives, and the environmental impacts of development projects usually must
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be assessed. In addition, the failure of many of these projects has inspired governments and NGOs to
include local communities in planning and operating conservation and development schemes.
Conservation and Sustainable Development
Since the early 1990s, environmental conservation organizations such as the Nature Conservancy
and Conservation International and development organizations such as the World Bank and USAID
have been working to bring conservation and development together. The structures and success of
these approaches vary widely. Some aim to help local communities develop industries that depended on
rainforests in nondestructive ways, such as non-timber forest products like rattan, rubber, medicines,
and fruit. By assisting local communities in developing and marketing such products, the programs
have provided them with economic alternatives that encourage people to preserve rainforests instead
of chopping them down, a form of sustainable development.
The conservation and development project with which I am most familiar is related to extractive
reserves in the Brazilian Amazon. I spent a summer doing research for my master’s thesis on extractive
reserves established by Brazilian rubber tappers in Acre, which is in the northwestern corner of the
Brazilian Amazon. These rubber tappers live in the rainforest and tap natural rubber by scraping a long
thin cut into the bark of the tree and returning later in the day to collect the sap that had dripped into
a small container hung on the tree. Rubber trees do not grow together; they are spread out through-
out the forest, requiring rubber tappers to walk several trails each day. Many also collect and sell Brazil
nuts, which fall from ancient trees that live for centuries. Brazil nuts cannot be commercially grown so
they must be collected from rainforests. Both of these economic activities require a healthy, mature for-
est. And although rubber can be produced synthetically, natural rubber is stronger, longer lasting, more
flexible, and more resistant to heat than synthetic alternatives, making it ideal for use in medical and
aeronautic industries where high-quality material is essential.
As cattle ranching expanded in the Amazon, rubber tappers were being evicted because they did not
have formal title to the land on which they lived and worked. Led by local activist Chico Mendes, the
rubber tappers organized and petitioned the government for the right to remain on the land. Mendes
was eventually assassinated by owners of some of the cattle ranches who were unhappy about his
activism, but ultimately, the movement was successful. Environmentalists who were worried about
Amazonian deforestation joined forces with the rubber tappers, who were worried about their liveli-
hoods, and together they created extractive reserves—protected areas owned by the federal government
but managed by local communities of rubber tappers who could stay on the land indefinitely as long as
they followed the environmental regulations they established. The model was successful and has since
been expanded to include millions of hectares throughout the Amazon.
As with many conservation and development projects, the economic benefits of the extractive
reserves were slow to accrue. When rubber prices fell in response to international commodity markets,
many families stopped tapping rubber and focused on subsistence agriculture. In fact, some turned to
cattle ranching, mimicking on a smaller scale many of the destructive processes they had originally
protested. Because the regulations were poorly enforced, a number of families gradually turned old
swidden fields into pastures instead of letting the fields revert to rainforest.
Despite these challenges, development of the land was significantly reduced relative to the original
plan of allowing owners of large tracts to move in and convert large areas to pasture and soy plantations.
Likewise, the rubber tappers, though still poor, had access to greater resources than they would if they
have been evicted and forced to move to urban slums. Extractive reserves succeeded because they were
implemented across vast areas of the Brazilian Amazon and provided rights to thousands of small-hold-
ers.
Significant challenges remain for organizations working to improve the standard of living of rubber
tappers in Brazil and conserve biodiversity, and this case study illustrates many of the problems asso-
ciated with conservation and development models. Often, the economic gains are limited and require
compromises in terms of conservation benefits. Usually, neither local communities nor environmen-
talists are completely happy with the models and their results but also agree that compromise is better
than the rampant destruction averted by a reserve. Research on political ecology from such case studies
forces us to recognize that the debates are not solely about environmental ethics; they also involve con-
trol over valuable resources such as land, timber, and oil. Political ecology invites us to think about the
local political and cultural processes that shape the outcomes of conservation projects and determine
who benefits from such projects.
First World Political Ecology
A significant challenge for political ecologists is that most of the research so far has been done in the
developing world; relatively few studies have been conducted in the United States and Europe. Some
newer studies are aiming to showcase what political ecology might look like when applied to similar
questions in the developed world. One such study came from the Sierra Nevada foothills in California.
There, a participatory conservation project was being developed that would have included local con-
servation organizations, government offices, and other groups. Their goal was to create an environ-
mental management plan for the region that would limit development and urban growth. They tried to
bring together a variety of environmental and pro-development groups to dialogue but were met with
an intense political backlash. Pro-development forces, rather than participating, mobilized politically
to remove supporters of the plan from county government seats and derail the process. In first world
countries, local groups can mobilize significant political and economic resources to influence the fate
of a project. This is an unlikely scenario in the developing world where conservation organizations are
generally more powerful than local communities.23
Clashes between environmentalists, who are often exurban migrants who moved from urban to
rural areas for outdoor activities and scenic nature, and longtime residents who are involved in extrac-
tive industries such as mining, ranching, and agriculture are common in the western United States. In
many cases, communities are bitterly divided over the importance of nearby public lands and the role
of the federal government in managing those lands. In developing countries, political ecologists as a
group tend to side with local communities and against government intervention. In the United States,
left-leaning and environmental sympathies can push them to side with government intervention at the
expense of local communities. Some political ecologists have noted this contradiction and called for
local movements and their pushes against extension of states power to be taken more seriously, includ-
ing in the United States.24
Another fascinating political ecology associated with the first world is a study by Paul Robbins and
Julie Sharp that looked at the American lawn, noting that 23 percent of urban land in the United States
is dedicated to lawns and that urban areas are growing at a rate of 675,000 hectares a year.25 In addition,
the vast majority of those lawns are sprayed with fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. Because these
chemicals wash into waterways, lawns have an enormous collective environmental impact. Robbins
and Sharp analyzed advertisements for lawn care products and interviewed and surveyed households
across the country, leading to some startling discoveries. One of the strongest indicators of intensive
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and toxic lawn care was not a lack of knowledge about the environmental impacts of the products, but
how well they knew the names of their neighbors. They describe the moral economy of a turf grass
commons in which maintaining a healthy lawn signified important values of being connected to the
community, your family, and nature. The aesthetics and family values associated with lawns outweighed
concerns about environmental impacts, suggesting that water conservation activists must understand
and address underlying cultural ideas about lawns in the United States.
Where’s the Ecology?
Political ecologists Andrew Vayda and Bradley Walters have noted that the field of political ecology
seems to be increasingly political, overemphasizing how different groups use environmental issues to
gain control over land and resources and ignoring important ecological considerations.26 They argue
that political ecologists need to take the limits, constraints, and challenges associated with natural sys-
tems more seriously and research those systems in addition to local cultural and political systems. In
a study of the destruction of mangrove forests in the Philippines, they examined both the role of local
communities in the destruction and management of mangrove ecosystems and the natural limits that
impede replanting in the area. The next section presents examples of anthropologists who thought
creatively about how to integrate theories from the natural sciences back into anthropology while
simultaneously questioning whether science provides unbiased objective results. This requires a careful
balancing act but is necessary to generate an approach that respects the contributions of scientific and
anthropological knowledge.
ADDITIONAL APPROACHES TO ENVIRONMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Eco-Justice: Race, Gender, and Environmental Destruction
Many environmental justice advocates are anthropologists and political ecologists. They examine
environmental questions from the perspective of social equality, identifying impacts and risks associ-
ated with environmental damage that have disproportionately affected socially marginalized groups.
For example, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu the trash incinerator and landfill are on the west side
of the island where many native Hawaiians and other low-income groups live.27 Locating landfills,
incinerators, chemical plants, industrial factories, nuclear waste storage, and other environmentally
hazardous facilities near communities of color, Native American reservations, and relatively poor com-
munities is not accidental. A lack of economic and political power prevents residents of such communi-
ties from influencing the large industries and government agencies that determine where such facilities
are placed.
The same process is at work when environmentally toxic jobs and waste storage facilities are out-
sourced. For example, many computers and other electronic appliances that contain toxic components
made from heavy metals are shipped to West Africa for disassembly and recycling.28 This arrangement
makes economic sense for consumers in relatively rich countries in North America and Europe, but the
workers in Africa are out of sight and out of mind, often working without proper protection from the
toxic metals or even training on their dangers. And as global supply chains have expanded, consumers
in the United States rarely know where the clothes, electronics, and toys they purchase are made, the
impacts of that production, or what happens to them after they dispose of them. By looking at these
long complex commodity or supply chains, which cover products from their cradle to grave, social sci-
entists interested in eco-justice can create awareness of these issues.
Anthropologists also work to connect ecocide (environmental destruction) with ethnocide (cultural
destruction). In many indigenous communities worldwide, cultural activities and beliefs are connected
to specific landscapes and ecologies. Consequently, as a logging or mining company moves in, it
destroys both the environment and culture. Eco-justice studies call attention to these connections and
seek to protect both culture and the environment and the relationship between them. Barbara Rose
Johnston’s work with Marshallese Islanders in Micronesia documented the impact of U.S. atomic bomb
testing on the atolls and supported their claims for compensation from the United States for damage by
carefully documenting the relationship between their culture and the contaminated landscapes ruined
by nuclear testing.29
Anthropologists are often involved in these kinds of research projects because they are on the ground
in remote locations around the world and share a disciplinary interest in raising awareness of cultural
differences and inequality. They are also trained to examine categories of race, class, nationality, and
other social factors that differentiate groups of people and are the basis for unequal treatment. While
valuing cultural diversity, anthropologists also argue for a holistic perspective that universally values
human life regardless of such differences.
Science and Technology Studies
The study of science and technology is a diverse field that uses social science methods to analyze the
culture of science in industrialized and modern societies. Like political ecology and ethnoecology, sci-
ence and technology studies question the objectivity of modern science to some extent and view science
as a product of specific cultural understandings. These studies often look to the history of a science to
understand its development in a specific cultural, political, and economic context.
An early developer of the discipline is Bruno Latour, who introduced the idea of the Anthropocene
discussed at the beginning of this chapter. Latour’s earlier work included a study, Laboratory Life: The
Social Construction of Scientific Facts (1979), written with Steve Woolgar, that used the ethnographic tech-
nique of participant observation in a laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences to deter-
mine how scientific knowledge is produced and challenged dominant narratives about the scientific
method.30 Other studies have examined concepts of race and indigeneity in the Human Genome Pro-
ject and how remote sensing technologies shape how anthropologists interact with ecosystems in the
Guatemalan rainforest.31 As science and technology become increasingly important parts of our lived
experiences and our understanding of the environment around us, anthropologists naturally analyze
those connections.
Many anthropologists who study science and technology endeavor to make sure they do not throw
the baby out with the bath water. They do not deny the important contributions of science and the sci-
entific method. However, they also pay attention to the limitations and biases inherent in those meth-
ods.
Multispecies Ethnographies
Multispecies ethnographies challenge the centrality of humans in the world. Most of the stories we
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tell about ourselves and our place in the world and especially stories told by anthropologists revolve
around Homo sapiens. Increasingly, though, some anthropologists have begun to think about how other
species make decisions and exercise a degree of agency that can influence history. For example, Donna
Haraway writes about dogs and how the relationship between dogs and humans has evolved over time.
She criticizes people who anthropomorphize dogs and challenges her readers to understand dogs on
their own terms.32
We can also think about the role of bacteria in human evolution and cultural development and
remind ourselves that diseases, parasites, and symbiotic gut bacteria that allow us to eat certain kinds of
foods have been very influential in shaping human history and cultural development over time. Other
works have, for example, re-examined plant and animal domestication from non-human perspectives
and explored how forests “think.”33 By carefully considering other species and ecological processes, we
decenter our increasingly human-centered focus. Much of the work on multispecies ethnography has
been done by feminist anthropologists who have already been at work for decades on similarly decen-
tering male-focused histories of our species.
APPLYING ANTHROPOLOGY IN CONSERVATION
Reforestation
Anthropological analyses of the environment may seem overly theoretical and abstract, far removed
from actual practices and the work of learning to live with and within our environment. Anthropolo-
gists may be seen as hidden in ivory towers of academia, disconnected from real world issues and prob-
lems. However, applied and activist anthropology offer avenues for anthropologists to tackle problems
on the ground and make a direct difference. Applied anthropologists often work with conservation and
development organizations to implement projects that depend on an accurate understanding of local
cultures and practices to succeed.
Anthropologist Gerald Murray’s doctoral dissertation examined land tenure among small-holders in
Haiti. After finishing his dissertation work, Murray delivered a presentation to USAID on a Haitian
reforestation project. He joked that if they gave him “a jeep and carte blanche access to a $50,000
checking account” he could prove his “anthropological assertions about peasant economic behavior and
produce more trees on the ground than their multi-million-dollar Ministry of Agriculture charade.”34
USAID program officers accepted his challenge, inviting him to head a $4 million project to reforest
Haiti. Using his understanding of Haitian small-holders, he drastically changed the USAID’s approach.
Instead of trying to convince small-holders that trees were valuable for their environmental services, he
emphasized fast-growing species that could be sold for firewood, charcoal, and lumber. By giving the
trees to the small-holders and allowing them to harvest and sell them whenever they wanted, he moti-
vated them to plant and care for the seedlings like any other valuable cash crop. In prior projects, tree-
cutting was prohibited and the trees belonged to the government. Consequently, no one took care of the
trees and they were eventually destroyed by livestock or neglect and rarely reached maturity. Treating
the trees as a cash crop motivated farmers to plant trees on their own land, thus meeting USAID’s goals
of stabilizing the soil and reducing illegal tree cutting (since farmers had access to stands of their own)
and providing a direct economic benefit from selling wood. The project was a stunning success—20
million trees were planted in the first four years. By understanding local farmers’ perspectives, Murray
was able to work with Haitian small-holders instead of seeing them as an impediment to reforestation
efforts.
A number of anthropologists are working with conservation and development organizations to assist
them in understanding local cultures and implementing conservation and develop projects. This work
is often done in teams in which anthropologists join with foresters, conservation biologists, agrono-
mists, and others to implement projects. Because they often speak the local language, understand the
peoples’ perspectives, and are interested in close, on-the-ground observations, anthropologists make
valuable contributions in support of conservation and economic development.
Climate Change
In 2014, the American Anthropological Association’s Global Climate Change Task Force submitted
a report on climate change that summarized anthropology’s engagement with the issue. Currently, cli-
mate change is perhaps the single most important environmental issue worldwide, and our responses
to it will shape the future of our species on the planet. The report identified the human causes and con-
tributions to climate change and emphasized that climate change is already having an impact as ris-
ing sea levels are forcing residents of places such as Kiribati to flee their island homes and melting ice
shelves threaten the subsistence practices and the lifestyle of Inuit groups in Alaska. These examples
illustrate how the impacts of climate change will disproportionately affect groups who have contributed
the least to the accumulation of greenhouses gases, highlighting the social inequality of impacts of cli-
mate change around the world.
The report analyzed drivers of climate change, focusing on consumption, land use, energy, and pop-
ulation growth. An anthropological analysis of consumption reminds us that the categories of “neces-
sities” and “luxuries” are cultural constructs. For example, Western societies now accept cell phones as
necessities despite the fact that humans survived perfectly well for thousands of years without them.
As the global middle class expands and places new demands on ecosystems, a cultural understanding of
social classes and related consumption practices will be increasingly important to analyses the causes of
climate change and potential solutions.
The report also criticized much of the language of climate change and its focus on concepts of adap-
tation, vulnerability, and resilience that elided the differential impacts of climate change on different
groups of people. The task force noted that proposed global solutions focused on top-down manage-
ment strategies that did not take existing social issues of “poverty, marginalization, lack of education
and information, and loss of control over resources” that structure vulnerability of different popu-
lations to the impacts of a warming planet into account. 35 The report also illustrates the power of
language to shape certain debates and potential solutions to problems, an important piece of anthropo-
logical analysis.
At the end of the report, the task force recommended actions anthropologists could take to contribute
to efforts to address global climate change, including reducing the carbon footprint of anthropological
meetings, working with interdisciplinary research teams to continue research, and maintaining a
research agenda that stresses the importance of anthropological contributions to discussions of climate
change. Perhaps most interesting is their conclusion that many of the most innovative and creative
approaches to addressing and mitigating the effects of climate change were occurring at local and
regional levels, recognizing communities’ innovative efforts to bypass national and international grid-
lock and develop approaches that reflect local realities and address local problems. The anthropological
377
focus on local communities is a welcome change of perspective when, by definition, the scale of global
climate change seems to preclude local involvement and solutions.
Anthropologists at Work in Conservation Organizations
Anthropologists work for international conservation organizations like Conservation International,

The Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund and with government agencies like the National
Park Service, the Peace Corps, and USAID. They also work for smaller conservation organizations,
urban planning initiatives, environmental education groups, environmental activist networks, and
other initiatives aimed at reducing our negative impact on the planet.
Cultural Resources Management
Management of cultural resources is a growing field of anthropology that catalogs and preserves
archaeological sites and historic places threatened by development, bringing together various principles
developed in anthropology over the years. First, it recognizes the need to preserve both “natural”
ecosystems and ecosystems shaped by past human activities. By connecting natural and human diver-
sity, anthropologists recognize humans’ interdependence with the environment over time. Second, cul-
tural resource managers recognize the need for continuing involvement of indigenous communities
with archaeological sites and seek their input to inform management plans and practices. As cultural
resource management has become standard operating procedure, archaeologists have begun to meet
with members of the local community and others who have a stake in their research. These interactions
improve archaeological research and create the kind of cross-cultural bridges that strengthen the dis-
cipline. Finally, destruction of historical places and archaeological sites is a form of environmental
destruction that, like climate change and species extinctions, requires us to critically examine the cul-
tural values underlying that destruction.
CONCLUSION
The discipline of anthropology provides a unique perspective on human-environmental interactions

and thus generates valuable insights into the social, political, and cultural complexity of modern envi-
ronmental problems. Anthropologists are hard at work with governments, conservation organizations,
and community groups to understand and solve complex environmental problems. I hope this discus-
sion has challenged you to think about the environment and conservation in a new way, allowing you
to help reframe these debates and develop innovative solutions to the complex problems that confront
us.
1. In what ways have anthropologists examined human interactions with the environment over time?
2. What is the myth of the ecologically noble savage? What are some recent examples of this myth? What is the impact of this idea
on indigenous people?
3. How has research in political ecology challenged traditional conservation efforts? What are some of the problems with promoting
parks or ecological reserves as solutions to environmental problems?
4. What is the Anthropocene? How has research in anthropology contributed to an improved understanding of how humans interact
with the “natural” world?
5. What insights from anthropology do you think would be most useful to the public, environmental activists, and government offi-
cials when considering policies related to current environmental challenges?
GLOSSARY
Anthropocene: a term proposed to describe the current moment (or epoch) in geological time in which
the effects of human activities have altered the fundamental geochemical cycles of the earth. There is
some disagreement about when the Anthropocene period began—most likely, it began with industrial-
ization.
Anthropogenic: environments and pollutants produced by human activities.
Cultural ecology: a subfield of cultural anthropology that explores the relationship between human
cultural beliefs and practice and the ecosystems in which those beliefs and practices occur.
Cultural evolutionism: a theory popular in nineteenth and early twentieth century anthropology sug-
gesting that societies evolved through stages from simple to advanced. This theory was later shown to
be incorrect.
Ecocide: destruction of an environment, especially when done intentionally by humans.
Eco-justice: a movement to recognize and remedy the adverse relationship between social inequality
and the harms and risks that come from environmental destruction and pollutants.
Ethnocide: destruction of a culture, often intentionally, through destruction of or removal from their
territory, forced assimilation, or acculturation.
Ethnoecology: the relationships between cultural beliefs and practices and the local environment.
Components include ethnobiology, ethnobotany, and ethnozoology.
Extractive reserves: community-managed protected areas designed to allow for sustainable extraction
of certain natural resources (such as fish, rubber, Brazil nuts, and rattan) while maintaining key ecosys-
tems in place.
Exurban: migration of generally affluent people from urban areas to rural areas for the amenities of
nature, recreation, and scenic beauty associated with rural areas.
Historical particularism: the theory that every culture develops in a unique way due to its history,
including the interaction of people with the natural environment.
Homeostasis: the movement of a particular system (a human body, an ecosystem) towards equilibrium.
In ecology this is associated with the idea that ecosystems should remain at a climax ecosystem associ-
ated with an area.
Hominin: Humans (Homo sapiens) and their close relatives and immediate ancestors.
Materialism: a Marxist theory emphasizing the ways in which human social and cultural practices are
influenced by basic subsistence (economic) needs.
Multispecies ethnographies: an ethnographic approach in which anthropologists include non-human
species as active participants in a society or culture and study their influence and actions.
379
Political ecology: an interdisciplinary field of research that emphasizes the political and economic
dimensions of environmental concerns.
Processual archaeology: a shift in archaeological studies toward scientific methods, testing of hypothe-
ses, quantitative analysis, and theory-driven approaches and away from an earlier emphasis on typolo-
gies and descriptive analysis.
Protected areas: lands set aside for conservation of the environment for their scenic beauty, biodiver-
sity, recreational value, and other reasons.
Succession: changes in types of species in an area over time. For example, it would describe the differ-
ent ecosystems that gradually replace one other after a forest fire.
Sustainable development: development that can meet present needs without damaging the environ-
ment or limiting the potential for future generations.
Swidden: an agricultural practice, also called shifting cultivation and slash-and-burn, in which fields
are cleared, burned, and planted for several seasons before being returned to fallow for an extended
period.
Wilderness: a natural area that is untouched or unchanged by human activities and often seen as a cul-
tural construct of the American West.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I grew up hiking and surfing in Hawaii and became interested in the environ-
ment and conservation. I studied Biology and International Cultural Studies at Brigham Young Univer-
sity-Hawaii as an undergraduate, including research on how traditional Hawaiian healers adapted to
introduced plant species and diseases. My master’s degree is in Environmental Science from the Yale
School of Forestry and Environmental Studies where I researched extractive reserves in the Brazilian
Amazon. My Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz focused on
tourism, urban development, and conservation in a small fishing town in Northeastern Brazil that was
transitioning to a tourist economy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Balee, William. Cultural Forests of the Amazon: A Historical Ecology of People and Their Landscapes.
Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2013.
Cronon, William. “The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.” Environmental
History (1996): 7–28.
Fiske, Shirley J., Susan A. Crate, Carole L. Crumley, Kathleen Galvin, Heather Lazrus, George Luber,
Lisa Lucero, Anthony Oliver-Smith, Ben Orlove, Sarah Strauss, and Richard R. Wilk. “Changing the
Atmosphere: Anthropology and Climate Change.” Final Report for the AAA Global Climate Change Task
Force. Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association, 2014.
Murray, Gerald F. “The Domestication of Wood in Haiti: A Case Study in Applied Evolution.” Anthropo-
logical Praxis (1987): 218.
Sahlins, Marshall. “The Original Affluent Society.” In The Politics of Egalitarianism: Theory and Practice,
edited by Jacqueline Solway, 79-98. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006.
White, Leslie. “Energy and the Evolution of Culture.” In Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History,
edited by R. Jon McGee and Richard L. Warms. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company,
2000.
Notes
1. Bruno Latour, “Anthropology at the Time of the Anthropocene: A Personal View of What Is to be Studied,”
(paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., Decem-
ber 2014) http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/139-AAA-Washington.pdf
2. Marshall Sahlins, “The Original Affluent Society,” in The Politics of Egalitarianism: Theory and Practice, ed. Jacque-
line Solway (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 79-98.
3. Elliot M. Abrams and David J. Rue, “The Cause and Consequences of Deforestation among the Prehistoric
Maya,” Human Ecology 16 no. 4 (1988): 377–395.
4. Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York: Viking and Penguin, 1985).
5. S.J. Fiske, S.A. Crate, C.L. Crumley, K. Galvin, H. Lazrus, G. Luber, L. Lucero, A. Oliver-Smith, B. Orlove, S.
Strauss, and R. Wilk, “Changing the Atmosphere: Anthropology and Climate Change,” Final Report for the AAA
Global Climate Change Task Force (Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association, 2014).
6. Simone Athayde, “Introduction: Indigenous People, Dams, and Resistance,” Tipiti: Journal of the Society for Anthro-
pology of Lowland South America 12 no. 2 (2014): 80–92.
7. Paige West, James Igoe, and Dan Brockington, “Parks and People: The Social Impact of Protected Areas,” Annual
Review of Anthropology 35 (2006): 251–277.
8. Maria Panakhyo and Stacy McGrath, “Ecological Anthropology,” in Anthropological Theories: A Guide Pre-
pared by Students for Students (University of Alabama), http://anthropology.ua.edu/cultures/cultures.php?cul-
ture=Ecological Anthropology
9. Leslie White, “Energy and the Evolution of Culture,” in Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History. eds. R. Jon
McGee and Richard L. Warms (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2000), 249.
10. Julian Steward, “The Patrilineal Band,” in Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History, eds. R. Jon McGee and
Richard L. Warms (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2000), 228–242.
11. Marvin Harris, “The Cultural Ecology of Indian’s Sacred Cattle,” in Anthropological Theory: An Introductory His-
tory, eds. R. Jon McGee and Richard L. Warms (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2000), 287.
12. Harold Conklin, Hanunoo Agriculture. A Report on an Integral System of Shifting Cultivation in the Philippines (New
York, United Nations, 1957).
13. Richard Reed, “Forest Development and the Indian Way,” in Conformity and Conflict: Reading in Cultural Anthro-
pology, eds. James Spradley and David McCurdy, 105-115 (New York: Pearson, 2011).
14. Darrell A. Posey, Kayapó Ethnoecology and Culture (New York: Routledge, 2003).
15. Beth A. Conklin and Laura R. Graham, “The Shifting Middle Ground: Amazonian Indians and Eco‐Politics,”
American Anthropologist 97 no. 4 (1995): 695–710.
16. Mac Chapin, “Indigenous Land Use Mapping in Central America,” Yale Forestry and Environmental Science Bulletin
98 (1995): 195–209.
17. Piers Blaikie, The Political Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries (London: Longman, 1985).
18. Melissa Leach and James Fairhead, “Fashioned Forest Pasts, Occluded Histories? International Environmental
Analysis in West African Locales,” Development and Change 31 no. 1 (2000): 35–59.
381
19. For more on this research see William Balee, Cultural Forests of the Amazon: A Historical Ecology of People and Their
Landscapes (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2013).
20. William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” Environmental History
(1996): 7–28.
21. Ibid., 28.
22. Paige West, James Igoe, and Dan Brockington, “Parks and People: The Social Impact of Protected Areas,” Annual
Review of Anthropology 35 (2006): 251–277.
23. Peter A. Walker and Patrick T. Hurley, “Collaboration Derailed: The Politics of ‘Community-Based’ Resource
Management in Nevada County,” Society and Natural Resources 17 no. 8 (2004): 735–751.
24. Peter A Walker, “Reconsidering ‘Regional’ Political Ecologies: Toward a Political Ecology of the Rural American
West,” Progress in Human Geography 27 no. 1 (2003): 7–24.
25. Paul Robbins and Julie T. Sharp, “Producing and Consuming Chemicals: The Moral Economy of the American
Lawn,” Economic Geography 79 no. 4 (2003): 425–451.
26. Andrew P. Vayda and Bradely B. Walters, “Against Political Ecology,” Human Ecology 27 no. 1 (1999): 167–179.
27. Rachel Harvey and Annette Koh, “Landfill in Paradise: Politics of Waste Management and Environmental Justice
in Hawaii,” Anthropology News 53 no. 8 (2012):1-16.
28. Richard Grant and Martin Oteng-Ababio, “Mapping the Invisible and Real ‘African’ Economy: Urban E-waste
Circuitry,” Urban Geography 33 (1): 1–21.
29. Barbara Rose Johnston, “An Anthropological Ecology? Struggles to Secure Environmental Quality and Social
Justice,” Kroeber Anthropological Society 101 no. 1 (2013): 3–21.
30. Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts (Princeton University Press,
2013).
31. See for instance Jenny Reardon, “The Human Genome Diversity Project: A Case Study in Coproduction,” Social
Studies of Science 31 no. 3 (2001): 357–388 and Micha Rahder, “But Is It a Basin? Science, Controversy, and Con-
spiracy in the Fight for Mirador, Guatemala,” Science as Culture (2015): 1–26.
32. Donna Haraway, The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness (New York: Paradigm,
2003).
33. See for instance, Eben, Kirksey, ed. The Multispecies Salon (Duke University Press, 2014) and Eduardo Kohn, How
Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human (Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 2013).
34. Gerald F. Murray, “The Domestication of Wood in Haiti: A Case Study in Applied Evolution,” Anthropological
Praxis (1987): 218.
35. S.J. Fiske, et al. “Changing the Atmosphere,” 6.
15
PERFORMANCE
Lauren Miller Griffith, Texas Tech University

[email protected]
https://www.depts.ttu.edu/sasw/People/Griffith.php
Jonathan S. Marion, University of Arkansas

[email protected]
https://fulbright.uark.edu/departments/anthropology/directory/profile.php?uId=marion
Learning Objectives
• Identify cultural performances and performances of culture in various settings.

• Explain the various reasons that anthropologists study performance.
• Describe the role of performance in both reflecting and contributing to social change.
• Define “presentation of self.”
• Articulate the relationship between performance and cultural constructions of gender.
• Analyze social conflicts using a theatrical lens.
• Differentiate between descriptive and performative utterances.
• Evaluate the outcomes of performance, especially as they relate to hegemonic discourses.
• Recall framing devices that are used to mark the boundaries of performance.
• Define intertextuality.
It’s finally here – after weeks of waiting, your favorite band is playing in concert tonight! Driving in, parking,
passing by all the vendors, and getting to your seats is all a swirl of sights, sounds, smells, and textures. Your views
is temporarily blocked and then opens up again amidst the jostling bodies all around, you smell the cologne of
someone nearby, and smoke on someone else, all as you yell over the opening band’s tunes to steer your friends to
382
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the correct seats. You’d set two of your friends up on a blind date for this concert, Jayden and Dakota, and from
their grooming to their outfits to their flirtations banter both seem invested. The concert lives up to all your expec-
tations! However, based on all the little cues—from leaning in towards each other to sideways glances—it looks like
it was an even better night for Jayden and Dakota.
As you have learned in earlier chapters, what counts as a “concert” or a “date” (and the appropriate
behavior for each) is part of the learned and shared system of ideas and behaviors that comprise culture.
Just as in the concert described above, there are clear cultural performances—sporting events, shows,
rituals, dances, speeches, and the like. At the same time, social life and interactions are also replete with
culturally coded and performed nuances, such as the lingering eye contact of a successful first date. In
other words, there are both cultural performances (such as concerts) and performances of culture (such
as dating). This chapter looks at both, exploring the different ways culture is performed, and to what
effects.
OVERVIEW
Performances can be many things at once. They can be artful, reflexive, and consequential while being
both traditional and emergent.1 As a result, each performance is unique because of its specific circum-
stances, including its historical, social, economic, political, and personal contexts. Performers’ physical
and emotional states will influence his or her performance, as will the conditions in which the perfor-
mance takes place, and the audience to whom the performance is delivered. At the same time, however,
every performance is part of a larger tradition, and the creator, performer(s), and audience all inter-
act with a given piece as part of that larger body of tradition. Performance is consequential because
its effects last much longer than the period between the rising and falling of a curtain. The reflexive
properties of performance “enable participants to understand, criticize, and even change the worlds in
which they live.”2 In other words, performances are much more than just self-referential. That is, they
are always both informed by and about something.
Despite the importance of performance in our social worlds, it was only in the mid-20th century that
anthropologists embraced performance as a topic worth studying in its own right. The visual arts were
given serious attention by anthropologists at an earlier date than was performance, in large part because
of Western cultural biases towards the visual and because these tangible artifacts lent themselves to
categorization and identification of cultural areas. In the 1950s, Milton Singer introduced the idea of
cultural performances (discussed in the following section). Singer noted that his cultural consultants
often took him to see cultural performances whenever they wanted to explain a particular aspect of
Hinduism, which was the subject of his research.3 Being able to check his own hypotheses about the cul-
ture against these formal presentations, Singer determined that “these performances could be regarded
as the most concrete observable units of Indian culture,”4 concluding that one could understand the
cultural value system of Hinduism by abstracting from repeated observations of these performances. In
other words, (1) cultural performances are an ideal unit of study because they reference and encapsu-
late a great deal of information about the culture that gave rise to them, and (2) such cultural messages
become more accessible with multiple samples of these performances, i.e. as the researcher can com-
pare and contrast the specifics between repeated performances of the same “performance.”
Singer’s observation that analyzing performance could be a useful method for understanding broader
cultural values was revolutionary at the time. Today, however, anthropologists are just as likely to
study performance for its own sake, exploring how performances become endowed with meaning
and social significance or how cultural knowledge get stored inside performers’ bodies.5 The field’s
increased openness to treating performance as a worthy area of inquiry reflects a shift within the field of
anthropology from focusing on structures of society, which were presumed to be static, to the ongoing
processes within society that sometimes maintain the status quo and at other times result in change.6
And while this is not the ‘norm’ for most anthropologists, some scholars who focus on performance
in their research also stage performances for audiences in their own societies as a way of both sharing
things that may not translate well to words and calling audiences to act on behalf of the people whose
experiences they are representing.7
Cultural performance vs. Performing culture
Within the anthropology of performance, two concepts often get conflated: performing culture and
cultural performance. Though they sound similar, the difference is significant. Richard Schechner, a
performance studies scholar whose work frequently overlaps with anthropology, has provided a useful
distinction between these terms. He differentiates between analyzing something that is a performance
versus analyzing something as a performance.8 A cultural performance is a performance whereas per-
forming culture refers to the ways in which our everyday words and actions are reflections of our own
enculturation and can therefore be studied as performances, whether we consciously think of them in
that way or not. An example of a cultural performance would be the concert mentioned at the start of
this chapter, or Mexico’s famed ballet folklorico. In essence, an authoritative version of ‘the culture’ is
codified and presented to an audience who is largely expected to accept this interpretation. Of all the
performance types discussed in this chapter, cultural performances are typically the most recognizable
within a community. Their importance is highlighted by taking place at specific times and in specific
places, with a clear beginning and end, and with the performers themselves expected to demonstrate a
particular degree of excellence.9
385
Figure 1: Performance of ballet folklorico in Casa de la Cultura, Puebla, Mexico, 2013.
Cultural performances certainly include those things many of us in the West often think of as per-
formances (e.g. concerts, plays, dances); however, it also includes things like prayer and ritual that we
often classify as being part of religious practice. That some cultures, such as our own, make such a
distinction fits with a tendency to see some practices as spurious and others as genuine, which is one
of the reasons that anthropologists have only recently begun to seriously study the performing arts.
Singer found that each cultural performance “had a definitely limited time span, or at least a beginning
and an end, an organized program of activity, a set of performers, an audience, and a place and occa-
sion of performance”10 —which is equally the case with religious and secular events. Cultural perfor-
mances can be useful in preserving the heritage of a group, but in some cases it can also have the same
effect as an anthropologist writing in the “ethnographic present,” i.e. it provides an artificially frozen (in
time) representation of culture. For example, along the Costa Chica of Mexico, artesa music and the
accompanying dance that is performed atop an overturned trough retains a strong association with the
region’s African-descended population.11 The instruments and rhythms used in this music index the
African, indigenous and European cultures that gave rise to these blended communities and are thus
representative of a rich and emergent tradition. However, in recent years the artesa has largely ceased
to be performed at weddings, as was traditional, and performers are now paid to represent their culture
in artificial settings like documentaries and cultural fairs. In any case, cultural performances are both
informed by the norms of one’s community and signal one’s membership in those communities.
Performing culture, on the other hand, refers to the lived traditions that are always emergent as each
new performance of cultural norms—whether popular sayings, stylish dressing, dining out, etc.—takes
shape in the space between tradition and individuality.12 If the concert noted above is a cultural perfor-
mance, the dating behaviors of Jayden and Dakota exemplify the performance of culture. Thus, while
no two dating scenarios are identical, within any given social group there are culturally informed codes
for appropriate comportment and conduct. And dating is only one such example. The tension between
hegemony and agency means that at the same time as you can decide how you want to dress on any
given day, you always do so relative to your own social situation: you dress differently at work, at home,
at the beach, going out to a concert, going on a date, and at school. It is such everyday performances that
we look at next.
EVERYDAY PERFORMANCE
Although when we think of the word “performance” we often think of special events like the concert
described at the outset of this chapter, performance is a part of our everyday lives whether we consider
ourselves to be “performers” or not. When Jayden and Dakota took extra care in their grooming, they
were demonstrating, or performing, their interest in pursuing a romantic relationship. On the surface,
these performances may seem inconsequential. A failed performance might result in an unfulfilling
evening, but there will be few long-lasting consequences. However, when we look at the patterns of
these everyday performances, we can learn a great deal about a culture and how members of a particu-
lar group are expected to behave and present themselves to others. Indeed, the entire subfield of visual
anthropology is largely predicated on the notion that ‘‘culture can be seen and enacted through visible
symbols embedded in behavior, gestures, body movements, and space use.’’13
Presentation of Self
In any given society, there is a specific range of behavior that “is neither too expressive nor too inex-
pressive” to be considered to be normal.14 Everything else is considered putting on an act. Often we
describe people who fall outside of this range as ‘fake.’ Even within that ‘normal’ range, however, people
are constantly engaged in the task of impression management. Within college classrooms, for instance,
research has been done on how quickly students form opinions of their professors. When research
subjects viewed just two seconds of a professor’s teaching, they made the same conclusions about the
professor’s effectiveness as did students who had taken an entire semester-length course with that indi-
vidual.15 Everything from the professor’s appearance to tone of voice, word choice, and even posture
conveys a certain sense of who he or she is. As members of our society, we become adept at not only
making judgments about who people are based on these cues, but we also become skilled at manipulat-
ing others’ opinions of us.
Sociologist Erving Goffman coined the phrase presentation of self to refer to the ways in which peo-
ple manage the impressions of others.16 The reasons for adopting a particular presentation of self are
varied. A couple that aspires to be upwardly mobile may subsist on ramen noodles in the privacy of
their apartment, but spend conspicuous amounts of money on fine food and wine in the company of
those that they want to impress. Alternatively, a political candidate from a very wealthy family might
don work clothes and affect a working class accent in order to appeal to voters from this demographic,
or make a political appearance at a “working class” bar or pub rather than a country club.
It is important to realize, however, that in many cases people are not being intentionally deceptive
when they adopt a role. Just because you may act differently at home, at school, and at work does not
mean you are “faking” any one of these. Rather, you act differently based on different social and cultural
contexts. This is a normal part of social life and one person plays many roles during the course of his or
her life. Goffman thus notes that at some times this impression management is intentional, and at other
times it is a subconscious feat we pick up as part of our enculturation.
387
Explicitly using theatrical language to discuss this kind of social act, Goffman distinguishes between
front and back spaces. Front spaces are carefully constructed arenas designed to control the audience’s
perception of the actors, while back spaces are private zones wherein actors can do away with pretense.
The front includes the setting, the physical makeup of the stage including furniture, décor, and other
props,17 all figuratively—if not literally—setting the stage for social activity. For example, although both
are designed to seat tens or even hundreds of people and sometimes serve them wine, a restaurant is
typically distinguishable from a church in how the seating is arranged, the kind of music that is played,
and in the artwork adorning the walls. In this sense, performances of self tend to be spatially grounded.
A waiter performs his role when he steps into the restaurant, but can step out of that role when leaving
at the end of his shift.
Another important component of these performances is the personal front, the aspects of one’s cos-
tume that are part of, or worn in close association with, the actor’s body.18 Clothing, physical char-
acteristics, comportment and facial expressions all contribute to one’s personal front. Some of these
traits, like an individual’s height, are unlikely to change from one performance to the next. Others, like
a priest’s collar, a doctor’s white lab coat, a ballroom dancer’s dress, or a waiter’s convivial smile, can be
changed at will. Changes in the personal front affect the audience’s interpretation and understanding of
what role an individual is playing, often connected to their belief in the “actor’s” sincerity.
Congruence between the setting and personal front helps the audience (whether one person, thou-
sands, or even more) quickly—and often accurately—understand the role being played by the actors in
front of them. Yet actors’ performance must still live up to these expectations. Indeed, it is the mis-
match between expectation and execution that typically marks one as unsuccessful. The college profes-
sor described above may be a leading expert in her field, for instance, with encyclopedic knowledge of
the course topic, but if she stutters, speaks too softly, or struggles to quickly answer students’ questions,
they may erroneously misjudge her expertise. Judging her performance of expertise a failure, her actual
competence may be overlooked. In some roles, the work being done is largely invisible to the audi-
ence. These individuals must take special care to dramatize the work being done. Imagine, for example,
a security guard at a concert like the one Jayden and Dakota are attending. If everything goes accord-
ing to plan, the security guard will not have to break up any fights or physically remove anyone from
the concert. If a fight were to break out, a smaller individual, male or female, who is trained in martial
arts might be better suited to diffusing the situation, but security personnel are often large men with an
imposing presence because this better matches public expectations. Most of the security guard’s evening
will pass uneventfully and he could just as easily keep an eye on things while sitting still, but he often
will still stand with his arms folded sternly across his chest, or he may walk purposefully around the
perimeter of the area he is monitoring to make his presence known, and is likely to make a big show of
craning for a better view of certain areas even if they are not hard to see. These overt performances of
security guard’s competence are not absolutely necessary for him to do his job, but through their visi-
bility discourage concert attendees from misbehaving.
It is not only the audience who may have doubts about the actor’s ability to convincingly perform a
role. Social actors differ in the degree to which they themselves believe in the part they are playing.19
Some, those that Goffman calls “sincere” performers, believe in the role that they are playing. Some
begin as sincere performers, but eventually become cynical. Religious personnel sometimes fall into this
category; they lose some degree of sincerity as the secrets behind the religious ceremonies are demysti-
fied.20 Others begin as cynical performers and grow into their roles, eventually becoming sincere. This
is often the case with someone new to a profession. In the beginning, he or she may feel like a fraud
and worry about being discovered, but over time the individual’s confidence grows until the role feels
natural.
Case Study: Curated Personas Online
You are not having a good day. You slept through your alarm, so you skipped your morning yoga class…which happens more often than not.
You didn’t have time to shower, so you sprayed some dry shampoo into your hair, threw on the pants you wore yesterday, and made it to class
with about a minute to spare. The professor spent most of the class going over last week’s exam, and while you haven’t yet checked your grade
online, you can already tell that you did not do well. After class, you go to the food court for lunch and take out your phone, scrolling through
social media just to pass the time. Sydney posted a pic of herself trying on the new bikini she bought for her upcoming Spring Break trip with
the hashtags: #fitnessmotivation #gottalose #countdown. “As if Sydney had any weight to lose. I bet she never skips yoga,” you think to your-
self. Then you see a picture of your best friend Mac holding an acceptance letter to a prestigious medical school with the caption: “Now I can
relax and just get B’s all semester.” You’re happy for Mac, of course, but at the same time a little jealous. You have no idea what you’re going to
do after graduation, and you have to work your tail off to get B’s. During all of this, you seem to have forgotten that while your history test did
not go well, you’re doing extremely well in German and your most recent painting was accepted for a juried exhibition. Psychologists use the
term social comparison theory to explain the ways in which we compare ourselves to those within our social spheres in order to evaluate our
own accomplishments and standing. This doesn’t have to be a negative thing. Self-evaluation can provide us with insights into what we really
excel at. Your friend may be a science-whiz who will skate through medical school whereas you have more facility in languages and the arts.
21
Excessive comparison, however, can have an effect on an individual’s self-esteem.
Thanks to the rise of social media, we receive a steady stream of our friends’ and family members’ accomplishments. Not only do we get
these constant updates, but what people choose to present on social media is highly curated. People tend to post pictures that conform to their
idealized sense of self: well-behaved and neatly dressed children suggest that someone is a good parent, glamorous vacation photos suggest
that the poster is successful and cosmopolitan, and a smiling post-run photo points to good physical health and self-care. In reality, children are
messy and often misbehave, that vacation may be the result of scrupulous economizing in other aspects of life, and that run probably included
some painful, unsmiling miles. But our social media presences are perfect examples of Goffman’s presentation of self. It is a show put on for
others as well as for ourselves, a story we tell about who we would like to be.
Performance of Gender
As you may recall from the Gender and Sexuality chapter, gender is defined by our culture rather than
by our biology. Gender theorist Judith Butler’s term “gender performativity” was coined to reference
how it is only through individual performances of gender identity that “gender,” as a social construct, is
created. Butler’s key point (first used in 1990 and expanded on in 1993) is that it is only through ongo-
ing, stylized repetition that any act comes to be seen as gendered.22 In other words, while we all make
specific choices at any given time—such as how Jayden and Dakota decide to dress for their date—it is
as people do things in patterned ways over time that certain versions get typified as “male” or “female.”
Phrases such as “act like a man” or “throw like a girl” provide good examples: it is through similarity to
how “men” or “girls” are seen to typically act/perform, that a particular behavior gets culturally coded
as a gendered representation. Certainly specific individuals may be seen to do things in a particularly
(or perhaps stereotypically) masculine or feminine way: how do you know how “men” or “women” are
supposed to behave? More accurately, what makes one way of sitting, or standing, or talking a “femi-
nine” one and another “masculine”? The answer is that what counts as masculine or feminine may differ
between sociocultural milieus, but in every case, how people do things constitutes gender in everyday
life.
In many ways, this notion—that gender is created and replicated through patterned behav-
ior—expands on Mauss’s classic formulation that, far from simply natural, techniques of the body are
also culturally learned and performed.23 Although walking or even swimming may seem to be a ‘nat-
ural’ movement of the body, various cultures do these things differently and one must learn to walk
or swim according to the norms of her or his culture. Gender is similarly learned. For instance, if you
389
showed up to the first day of class and all of the guys with facial hair were wearing sundresses, you
would probably notice. Why? Because, as Butler pointed out, it is through patterned activity that gen-
der gets constructed and a bearded man in a sundress deviates from the expected pattern of male attire.
While this may be a particularly obvious example, the mechanism is the same—for everything from how
you walk and talk, to your taste in clothing, to your hobbies. In Western contexts, for instance, athletic
prowess is typically coded as masculine. But as Young24 suggests, it is impossible to throw like a girl
without learning what this entails. The phrase is not meant, for instance, to refer to the skills of pitcher
Mo’ne Davis who, at 13-years old, became the first Little League player to ever appear on the national
cover of Sports Illustrated magazine in August 2014 .25 Young’s point, by extension, is twofold: (1) that
“girls” only throw differently from “boys” insofar as they are taught to throw differently; and (2) that
what counts as throwing “like” a girl or a boy is itself a learned evaluation. Taken a step further, several
scholars have looked at the performance of gender in a variety of sports settings, including women’s
bodybuilding,26 figure skating,27 and competitive ballroom.28 In each case, some aspect of femininity
gets over-performed—such as through blatant makeup and costuming—to compensate for the overt
physicality at odds with stereotypical views of more passive femininity.29
As anthropologist Margaret Mead30 first publicized over 80 years ago, what counts as culturally
appropriate conduct for men and women can be very different across cultural settings. More broadly,
Serena Nanda31 has provided an updated survey of cross cultural gender diversity. Two issues are par-
ticularly important here: (1) that the Western gender binary is far from universal (or accurate); and (2)
that behaviors are always performed within—and hence contingent upon—specific contexts. For exam-
ple, Nanda’s work in India32 shows the possibility of performing a third gender. Similarly, in contrast
to Western models which cast sexual orientation as fixed (e.g. heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, etc.),
Herdt’s work among the Sambia in Papua New Guinea33 provides a counter-example wherein personal
sexuality varies for boys and men by life stage. Perhaps the most compelling case for the performance of
gender concerns the Brazilian Travesti, transgender male prostitutes who, despite female names, dress,
language, and even bodies—achieved through silicone injections and female hormones—identify them-
selves as men.34 As these cases help demonstrate sexuality is different from gender but, like gender,
sexual orientation and sexuality are also performed in both daily life and at moments of heightened
saliency such as pride parades and similar events.
Case Study: Small Town Beauty Pageants
“Oh to be the Milan Melon Queen, the Reynoldsburg Tomato Queen, or even the Circleville Pumpkin Queen, these are the dreams that childhood is
made of!”
Beauty pageants provide communities with the opportunity to articulate the norms of appropriate femininity both for themselves and for
spectators alike. Pageant contestants are judged on their ability to perform specific markers of conventional femininity. In local pageants asso-
ciated with community festivals (i.e. an end in and of themselves as winners do not progress on to larger regional and national competitions),
35
contestants are expected to “perform…a local or small town version” of this ideal according to performance studies scholar Heather Williams.
36
In these settings, success is predicated on demonstrating one’s poise and confidence as a representative of the community. This is different
from those competing in regional, state, and national competitions like Miss America, who often spend years being groomed for competition and
developing a stage presence meant to transcend small town ideals of femininity. A striking difference between the national pageants and many
local ones is the presence of a swimsuit competition in the former. While this could be because local organizers are reticent to objectify the
young women of their own community or because of small town conservatism, anthropologist Robert Lavenda points out that the town is not
37
necessarily seeking to crown the most beautiful contestant, but the one who will best represent the community and their values. Judges eval-
uate contestants not on their physical attractiveness per se, but on how well their “presentation of self” aligns with the community’s views of
38
who they are.
In his research, Lavenda found several commonalities shared by the contestants. Though the competitions are generally open to young
women ranging in age from 17-21, the majority had just finished high school, making them all part of the same cohort leaving childhood and
entering adulthood. All had been extremely active in extracurricular activities and all were going on to pursue post-secondary education. Fur-
thermore, because they needed sponsors in order to compete, the local business community had vetted all in some way. Whereas contestants
at the national level have private coaches and have trained independently for their competitions, contestants in local pageants often work
together for weeks if not months before the festival, learning how to dress, walk on stage, and do their hair and makeup. The result is a homoge-
nized presentation of self that fits with community expectations, wherein the ideal contestant should “represent a golden mean of accomplish-
39
ment that appears accessible to all respectable girls of her class in her town and other similar small towns.” When a winner is chosen who
does not represent these qualities, or whose behavior goes against the prevailing values of the community, the audience often becomes upset,
40
sometimes alleging corruption in the judging. While the competition is ostensibly about the contestants and their ability to perform a certain
ideal of femininity, it is also a demonstration of “the ability of small towns to produce young women who are bright, attractive, ambitious and
41
belong – or expect to belong – to a particular social category.” At least for the period of the competition, any unsuccessful performances of
42
the feminine ideal are pushed out of sight and out of mind. This, the community tries to show, is what our women are like.
Social Drama as Performance
Whereas Goffman used a theatrical metaphor to analyze how individuals change their presentation
of self based on their scenic backdrop—front stage versus backstage—anthropologist Victor Turner was
more interested in the cast of characters and how their actions, especially during times of conflict, mir-
rored the rise and fall of action in a play.43 As already noted, everyday life is comprised of performances,
yet some moments stand out as are more dramatic or theatrical than others. When a specific social
interaction goes sufficiently awry, tensions arise and the social actors involved may find it necessary to
make sure others understand precisely where the expected social roles have been breached. Such situa-
tions are what Turner called “metatheatre,” and are most clearly seen in and described as social dramas:
“units of aharmonic or disharmonic social process, arising in conflict situations.”44
A social drama consists of four distinct phases: breach, crisis, redress or remedial procedures, and
finally either reintegration or recognition and legitimation of an irreparable schism.45 A breach occurs
when an individual or subgroup within a society breaks a norm or rule that is sufficiently important
to the maintenance of social relations. Following the breach, other members of the community may get
drawn into the conflict as people begin to take sides. This is the crisis phase of the social drama. Often-
times such crises reignite tensions that have been lying dormant within the society. The redressive or
remedial procedures used during the next phase of the social drama can take a number of forms. It is
a reflexive period in which the community takes stock of who they are, their communal values, and
how they arrived at this conflict. The various procedures used during this phase may be private, such as
sage advice being handed down from elders to the parties most centrally involved in the conflict. Other
procedures may be very public, such as protests in the town square, formal speech making, or public
trials. The Salem Witch Trials would be one example of a public means of redress. This phase might also
include payment of reparations or some form of sacrifice. The fourth phase can take one of two forms. If
the redressive actions were successful, the community will be reintegrated and move beyond the schism
(at least until another breach occurs). If the redressive actions were not successful, the community will
fracture along the lines identified during the crisis phase. In smaller societies characterized by a high
degree of mobility, this may take the form of individuals physically moving away from one another. In
other groups, other barriers to interaction will be erected. Social dramas are important events within
communities and may eventually become the source material for other kinds of performances such as
narrative re-tellings or commemorative songs, plays, etc., all of which serve to further legitimize the
outcome of the social drama.46
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Case Study: Establishing a New Capoeira Group
Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art that combines music, dance, and acrobatics with improvisational sparring. The tradition bearers of
capoeira kept it alive despite persecution from both the colonial Portuguese government and the Brazilian government until the mid-1930s.
Even after this date it was largely associated with marginalized segments of the population. However, in the 1970s, several Brazilian capoeiris-
tas began demonstrating and teaching their art abroad. This sparked international interest in capoeira and the demand for teachers in nations
like the U.S. continues through the present. In many cases, these teachers are apprentices to more established mestres (masters) in Brazil and
maintain ongoing relationships with them. While these teachers may continue to operate satellite groups under the primary mestre’s direction
for years, sometimes tensions can erupt between the mestre in Brazil and the teachers abroad. This is precisely what happened with a group
referred to here as Grupo Cultural Brasileiro (GCP). The mestre of GCP authorized one of his top students to begin teaching capoeira classes in a
Midwestern U.S. state. Eventually, demand for classes grew to the point that this teacher could operate classes in two towns within this state
and two of his own students were given the opportunity to run classes in new locations. All of these satellite groups were affiliated with the
GCP, wearing shirts with the GCP logo, and the mestre periodically visited the U.S. to give classes to the American students. Unbeknownst to
most members of the group, their teacher and the mestre had begun having a falling out after one of these visits. The mestre asked his student
for a small sum of money (approximately $2,000) to do some repairs on the primary training facility in Brazil. The teacher agreed that this was a
worthwhile expenditure, but insisted that they needed to discuss this with the U.S.-based board of directors before he could send the funds.
Feeling that his own authority was being slighted, the mestre demanded that certain personnel who he viewed as obstacles be removed from the
board. When the teacher in the U.S. explained that this was not possible according to the group’s bylaws, the mestre demanded that the group
stop wearing his group’s logo. According to Turner’s model, this would be considered the breach. In the next several weeks, an emergency
board meeting was called to determine the proper course of action. The mestre called his student’s protégés who were already teaching on their
own, essentially asking them to take sides. The members of the group were made aware of this crisis at one of their weekly classes when they
were told to turn their t-shirts inside out so that the old logo would not show. From that point on, they were not permitted to wear any of their
old t-shirts. Although mediation was considered and both the mestre and his student spent considerable time talking about the situation with
various members of the community, remediation was unsuccessful and resulted in a schism. The Midwestern students convened with their
teacher, discussed their group’s values, and decided upon a new name and symbols that would represent their group in the capoeira community
at large. Now nearly ten years later, the two groups continue to operate independently.
CONSTITUTING SOCIAL REALITY
In many cases performances produce social realities. Imagine, for example, a political protest song
that moves people to action, resulting in the overthrow of a government regime. Similarly, performance
can provide people with a template for action. Whether realistic or not, for instance, people may model
their own relationships after those they observe on television, and some famous quotations from films
get absorbed into everyday use and language. Yet there are some performances that stand out as more
likely to shape social reality than others.
Performativity
While many performances can be accomplished without words—mime and dance being but two obvi-
ous examples—language is often more than just an important part of day-to-day interactions, but gets
used instrumentally (that is, to accomplish a specific task) in its own right. While many utterances are
merely descriptive (e.g. “that was a great concert!”), others are actually actions that bring about an out-
come just by virtue of being spoken. As a way of distinguishing between such utterances that actually
do something from those that merely describe, linguist J.L. Austin coined the term performativity. For
example, compare the following two sentences:
“We hereby bequeath our vast fortune to our darling daughter.”

“The girl inherited money from her parents when they died.”
The first sentence is a performative because it causes something to happen. It transfers money
between persons. The second sentence is merely descriptive. It shares information, which may or may
not be factual, about an event that occurred independently.
The person making a performative utterance must be genuine in her intentions to carry it out and
have it ratified by her interlocutors (i.e. the co-participants in the speech event in question). A mother
might say to her son, “I promise we will get ice cream after the dentist appointment.” Making such a
promise is a performative utterance because it creates a social contract, but her son may or may not
believe her depending on prior experience. Likewise, if one were to make a bet, the other party involved
must acquiesce to the terms. If a man says to his friend, “I bet you $10 that Jones will win the election,”
the bet is only ‘on’ if his friend agrees. If he declines to take the bet or just stays silent, the friend cannot
collect on the $10 when Jones does in fact win the election.
Another common performative utterance occurs at wedding ceremonies. Consider the following
proclamation:
“Now that you have pledged your mutual vows, I, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the state, declare
you to be wed, according to the ordinance of the law.”
Although wedding ceremonies are typically multifaceted, often including a procession of the individ-
uals to be wed, the lifting of the veil, etc., this proclamation is a culminating moment in which the two
individuals are legally joined in matrimony. Without these words being spoken, the ceremony would, in
fact, be incomplete.
Aside from the performative declaration included in the officiant’s words, there is another important
element. The officiant references the authority that he or she has been granted by the state to make
this declaration. Without this authority, the marriage would not have taken place. A group of children
playing could stage a wedding and say the exact same words as the officiant, but one child’s utterance
would not result in his or her playmates becoming married. In Austin’s terminology, this would be an
“unhappy utterance”47: it is a failed performance because the parties involved did not have sufficient
authority to bring the action into reality. To provide a parallel example, a lawyer declaring a defendant
guilty is only an opinion whereas the same decree by a judge or jury (in the correct setting) is what actu-
ally “makes” a person guilty under the law. Similarly, a police officer’s statement “you are under arrest”
makes this so. Ignoring the officer is a crime in itself (evading arrest), whereas the same statement made
by a friend carries no social significance. The ability of an utterance to shape society is thus dependent
on the words said, the context in which they are said, and the legitimacy and authority of the speaker to
speak those words. While performative utterances occur in many situations, they are particularly com-
mon in ritual.
Ritual as Performance
A Cuban woman is experiencing disharmony in her home. Her husband has become abusive, she
struggles to put food on the table, and one of her children has left home and begun living on the streets.
To find a solution for her problems, she consults with a priest of the syncretic religion Santería. In the
consultation room is an alter with candles, statues of the gods and goddesses, and bowls filled with food
offerings. The priest is dressed in white, as is customary, and wears several beaded necklaces that cor-
respond to the deities with whom he is most closely associated. To use Goffman’s phrasing, both the
393
setting and personal front are in congruence, assuring the woman that this consultation is genuine. To
perform the divination, the priest tosses cowry shells on the table and asks the woman a series of ques-
tions based on what the shells reveal. He listens to her answers, throws the shells again, and fine-tunes
his questions until he is able to focus on the crux of her distress. The flow of their dialog is similar
to that seen in Western-style psychological counseling, but the ritual specialist performs his expertise
through the use of religious paraphernalia.
The Religion chapter of this text introduced the concept of rituals and explained several of their func-
tions—from rites of passage to rites of intensification. The goal of this section is not to repeat this con-
tent, but rather both (1) to call attention to ritual as an area of interest to anthropologists who deal
with performance, and (2) to highlight how a focus on performance can be a useful lens for viewing
and understanding both secular and religious rituals. Whether a concert, play, opera, or religious event,
rituals are often public displays of a culture’s values and expectations. Typically part of the redressive
phase of a social drama (such as legal sentencing), rituals can also exist apart from this (such as a holiday
celebration). Many times, they happen in religious contexts (see the chapter on Religion), but may occur
in other circumstances as well, like a graduation ceremony. The key here is that rituals are inherently
performative—that is, merely talking about or watching a video recording of one doesn’t do anything,
whereas participating in a ritual makes and marks a social change. Whether stoic or extravagant, effi-
cacy rather than entertainment is the chief concern of ritual, and it is in being performed that they give
shape to their social surround.
Case Study: Performing Ethnography
Although ethnographies are written to engage their readers in the lived experience of a particular group, such engagements are often limited.
The reader cannot actually feel what it is like to live in a Ndembu village or smell the herbs being prepared for an Afro-Brazilian Candomblé cere-
mony. Victor and Edith Turner created a teaching method called “performing ethnography” as a way to help their students gain a deeper, kines-
48
thetic understanding of what it is like to participate in the ritual life of another culture. In this methodology, students prepare for a ritual by
reading relevant ethnographies and often meeting with anthropologists who have done work in the group whose ritual is being performed. As
students prepare their roles, they are forced to seek out additional information on the culture that helps them understand how to behave appro-
priately. Beyond providing a reason to seek out pertinent information, this process also helps students think more critically about the presenta-
tion of information in ethnographies; especially as any gaps in the author’s descriptions become apparent. Modeling an experiment after the
Turners’ example, Lauren had students in one of her classes perform an American, Christian wedding ceremony. Obviously, no single ceremony
can be representative of all weddings within this tradition, but participants walked away from the activity claiming that it gave them a better
sense of what it is like to participate in a ritual such as this and how the various roles articulate to move the couple from one social status to
49
another. As the Turners point out, this requires that the ritual, a very serious event, be conducted within what they call a “play frame.” Even
though the woman who played the role of the minister in Lauren’s classroom had actually been ordained, this play frame negated the action that
would otherwise have been brought about by her performative utterances (see above). The Turners have also used this method to have students
better understand rituals from other cultures, like a coming of age ceremony from the Ndembu of Africa. It is questionable whether or not any-
one without first-hand experience can truly understand what it is like to be an initiate in such an important ritual, and is highly doubtful that all
members of that society experience the ritual in the same way. Yet having students reflect on their feelings as they enacted these rituals pro-
vided the Turners with new hypotheses for explaining how and why these rituals function to bridge childhood and adulthood, hypotheses that
50
could then be tested through further fieldwork.
Political Performance
Performance has serious consequences for social reality. Performance often gets used to reinforce
the status quo. For example, during World War II, children in the Hitler Youth organization were
encouraged to sing songs related to Germany’s supremacy and Hitler’s vision for an Aryan nation.
Requiring children to give voice to this ideology brought them inline with the goals of those in power.
Indeed, many civil rituals are part of such hegemonic discourses, wherein the very parameters of social
thought and action are unquestioningly (and usually invisibly) dictated by those in authority. Singing
the national anthem before sporting events provides yet another example.
On the flipside, performance can also be used to resist the status quo. This kind of performance can
be as small as the rolling of eyes behind a professor’s back or as grand as outright political uprisings. In
1968, U.S. Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos wore black armbands and black socks and raised
their clenched fists into the air while standing on the podium in Mexico City. They were protesting
the continued marginalization of people of color within the U.S. and used their platform as world-class
athletes to call attention to their message. In more recent times, several athletes have engaged in similar
performances. Colin Kaepernick’s choice to kneel during the national anthem before National Football
League games outraged many fans and political leaders, but sent a powerful message regarding ongoing
racial inequalities. His performance has been replicated by professional, collegiate, and high school ath-
letes across the U.S.51
BOUNDED PERFORMANCES
Although we are all performing a particular role, or roles, at any given time, there are moments
of heightened reflexivity that are more particularly recognizable in our vernacular as being ‘perfor-
mance.’ These performances, like a play or a concert, are special because they are marked off from
everyday activities. They are bounded and analyzable. They are also ephemeral and even when fixed on
film or through movement notation (such as Labanotation script, a system for recording dance move-
ments), the interaction and feedback between a particular audience and performer(s) only happens “in
the moment” once. Such performances—because they are known and understood to be bounded–often
serve as moments of heightened consciousness. Jayden and Dakota, introduced at the start of this chap-
ter, pay a lot of attention to their first date precisely because they know that it is the only first date
they will ever (be able to) have with each other. Given such frames of heightened awareness, performers
essentially hold a mirror up to society and force audiences to come to terms with themselves as they
are, as they once were, or as they could become.
Training/Rehearsal
Even ritual specialists, who seem to give flawless performances whenever they are moved to do
so—whether by the divine, the moment, the stars, or else what—spend years mastering their craft.
Unfortunately, performance scholars have largely focused on final performances at the expense of due
attention to performers’ preparations. Performance studies pioneer and scholar Richard Schechner, in
particular, has advocated for a more holistic study of performance production, which includes studying
the training, workshops, rehearsals, warm-ups, performance, cool-down, and aftermath involved in the
performance process.52 It should be noted, however, that not all cultures have the same steps in pro-
ducing a performance so typical of Western milieus.53
395
One of the primary purposes of rehearsal or

training is to instill in the performer an
embodied understanding of the art’s form or
technique. Adherence to such forms gives per-
formances their versatility and longevity.54
Technique thus serves as a conservative force
within a performance genre, as each generation
of performers learns to replicate the postures
and movements of their predecessors.55 Yet
this is not to suggest that performance tradi-
tions are unchanging. Indeed, as individuals
master the form and are seen as legitimate tra-
dition bearers, they are given more and more
latitude to play with the form and introduce
innovations of their own—innovations which,
Figure 2: Actor donning mask at a Noh workshop in Copenhagen, Denmark, 2010.
in turn, may or may not be reproduced in the
future by their own protégés.
Some training requires an entire lifetime. In the Japanese performance tradition of Noh, for example,
training traditionally begins when an actor is around five years old.56 Because such actors have learned
all of the necessary roles, there is little need for a cast to rehearse a drama in its entirety prior to per-
forming it. This kind of training is also seen in classical Indian dance and other forms in which adher-
ence to tradition is the norm. Other forms of performance, in which audiences expect a continually
changing repertoire of pieces, require more rehearsal prior to the performance. The amount of train-
ing a performer undergoes may be similar to that seen in Noh (ballet dancers, for example, undergo
extensive training for a relatively short career), but the novelty of each performance piece also requires
intensive study of the new choreography prior to opening night.
Whereas performers are held accountable for actual perfor-
mances that happen in front of an audience, rehearsals do not
count in the same way.57 Rather, rehearsals typically allow for an
element of playfulness absent from performances.58 It is in this
light that Schechner likens rehearsals to the rites of separation that
occur in rituals.59 In his view, rehearsals are removed in space and
time from the rest of society, enabling performers to acquire the
requisite skills and knowledge they need to create a transforma-
tive, liminal, experience for themselves and the audience when the
performance happens ‘for real.’ The spaces in which training and
rehearsals take place are also thus important. Writing of the ballet
studio, performance studies scholar Judith Hamera writes, “as
surely as ballets are made in these spaces, the spaces themselves are
remade in the process, becoming, perhaps through the repetition
of this epitome of classical technique, a kind of Eden both inside
and outside of everyday space and time.”60 This construction can
be a concrete process: the floors are scuffed by the dancers’ feet and
Figure 3: Ballet dancers warming up before Prix de
Lausanne, 2010. the barres bowed by the weight of novices learning to plié. At the
same time, however, this can be a more metaphorical transforma-
tion. The sacrifices of time and energy made by the dancers sanctify the space. Even if the rehearsal
space is merely a parking lot, an empty field, or someone’s living room, the actions and intentions of
those within the space give it meaning.
Framing Performance
Imagine sitting down with a group of young children. Their attention is focused on their teacher, who
sits at the front of the room. There are many clues that story time is about to take place – the children
have moved from their desks to the floor and they’ve been told to sit quietly with their hands in their
laps – but the unequivocal sign is when the teacher says, “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…”
This is a familiar formula to most people who have grown up in American culture. It lets the audience
know that a fairy tale is about to begin and it also indicates that the speaker is assuming responsibil-
ity for a suitable performance of the tale. With such a simple phrase, the participants in this interaction
have been cast in specific roles with clearly defined responsibilities. How will the story end? Most of
us already know. The protagonist(s) will live “happily ever after.” This too is a formulaic phrase, in this
case one that signals the conclusion of the performance. These are what Richard Bauman calls framing
devices, cues that “signify that the ensuing text is a bounded unit which may be objectified.”61
Such frames are metacommunicative in the sense that they offer layered information about how the
ensuing message is to be interpreted. Something that is metacommunicative communicates about com-
munication. All of the following can be considered framing devices: special codes, figurative language,
parallelism, special paralinguistic features, special formulae, appeal to tradition, and even disclaimer
of performance.62 Special codes are associated specifically with a particular type of performance. For
example, today the terms “thee” and “thou” are rarely heard outside of the reading of religious texts or
fantasy genre fiction. Hearing these terms signals to the listener that they are encountering religious
speech or another old text, such as a Shakespearian play. Figurative language refers to illustrative words
and phrases like similes and metaphors that convey a great deal of meaning in just a few words. For
example, to call someone “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” alludes to a predator masked as prey, and no one
familiar with the idiom would actually imagine this as a reference to a four-legged predator wearing a
wool costume. Parallelism is the repetition of sounds, words, or phrases, which can be used as a mem-
ory device or build momentum. President Obama’s repetition of “yes we can” in his campaign speeches
is a good example of this. Special paralinguistic features include the special ways in which words can be
delivered, such as an auctioneer’s signature speed of delivery. Special formulae are stock phrases that
give the audience information about the beginning or ending of a performance, such as the phrase “once
upon a time.” Appeals to tradition, like saying “this is how my dad always tells the story,” not only frame
a performance, but also puts it into an intertextual (see below for more on intertextuality) relationship
with past performances. Finally, disclaimer of performance—denying that one has the competence to
perform—actually calls attention to the fact that a performance is about to occur or has just occurred.
All of these, whether used alone or in combination, give the audience the authority to judge the per-
former and serve to make the performance distinguishable from the flow of events that both precede
and follow it.
Meaning Making
Typically, there are three primary interests involved in constructing the meanings of bounded perfor-
mance events: the author, the artist(s), and the audience, all of whom may or may not be the same people
397
in different settings and situations, and for whom those meanings may or may not be quite different.
Anthropologists use the term polysemy (derived from the Greek words for “many” and for “sign”) to
describe such settings, situations, or symbols wherein a single form can convey many meanings. This
is certainly the case for performance events, whereby the same form can be used in a variety of ways
depending upon the creators’ and/or performers’ intentions and the audiences’ framework for receiv-
ing and interpreting the piece.63 Should the artists intentionally subvert the author’s intentions, the
audience might interpret the performance as ironic rather than sincere. Similarly, should an audience
fail to understand the author’s intention, the message will likely fall flat, or at least be received quite dif-
ferently then intended by either author or performer.
Both the author of a performance and the artists who turn the author’s vision into a reality often hold
an ambiguous position within society. While they may be admired for their skill, they may also be feared
for their ability to transform social realities and disrupt the status quo.64 In some cases, the author and
artist is the same individual. An individual performing a monologue that she herself wrote would be
an example. It is also possible to have a group of artists that collectively author a work, as is the case
with the performance group Pilobolus.65 In other situations, the author creates the work of art and it is
performed by one or more artists. A ballet that is created by a single choreographer but performed by a
troupe of dancers would be an example of this scenario. The dancers’ roles in this situation is to faith-
fully carry out the vision of the choreographer, though this may or may not happen. It is also possible
for artists to carry out a performance with only a vague sense of who the author is, such as is the case
when individuals recite folktales or proverbs that have been handed down across generations.
Audiences are groups of individuals who cooperate with the performer by temporarily suspending
the normal communication rules of turn taking,66 who have collectively gathered for a specific purpose.
Since each person comes into the situation with their own background and experiences, however, this
means that “the audience” does not receive any performance uniformly. Similarly, as part of the con-
text for any given performance, the audience helps to construct the meaning of that performance. Part
of this construction involves the audience’s evaluations based on the formal features of the genre, and
against which the audience holds performers responsible for demonstrating competence within that
particular genre.67 To give a quick example, different evaluative criteria are employed to assess the act-
ing involved in a drama versus a comedy. In in-person settings, artists are often influenced by the audi-
ences for whom they are performing. A politician, for example, might phrase her key points differently
for different audiences or choose different jokes that will resonate with the demographic at hand,68
hoping that her performance will be judged in a positive light. Or, even if not pre-planned, a comedian
may need to adjust her set depending on the audience at a given show.
Linked to the issue of audience, then, is also that of setting. Experiencing a performance of Romeo and
Juliet outdoors under a tent is very different from experiencing the same play in a historic theatre like
The Globe Theatre in London (a reproduction of the Elizabethan era theatre where many of William
Shakespeare’s plays were staged). So too, seeing the three-act opera Verdi’s Rigoletto in the very coli-
seum in Verona, Italy where it was first performed cannot be anything but a different experience from
seeing the same opera staged at a local theatre. More than simply context, the setting is also important
in terms of access. Performances taking place in public areas, like parks or downtown squares, will be
more accessible, while attendance at performances in theatres and opera halls will be limited to those
with the time and money to spend on such luxuries. Similarly, and as discussed previously, the visual
cues within a performance space are often important in signaling whether or not a performance is actu-
ally occurring. Should you see a couple arguing loudly in the park, wildly gesticulating and drawing
bystanders into their conflict, it is possible that you have stumbled onto an avant-garde theatre com-
pany production but the lack of framing (a stage, curtains, audience seats, etc.) adds to the ambiguity of
the scenario. Perhaps it is genuinely (and only) a couple having a falling out?
Clearly then there are many possible outcomes of a performance. While sometimes performances are
staged simply for entertainment value—in and of itself an important component of human life—often-
times there are additional motivations behind the creation and performance of these pieces. For exam-
ple, performance can be used to assert the distinctiveness of a particular ethnic group. In other cases,
performance can be used to argue for the racial harmony of the nation-state (however far short this dec-
laration may fall from reality). Carla Guerron-Montero describes how this works in Panama,69 which
gained its independence from Colombia in 1903. The U.S. assisted with the Panamanian separatist
movement and shortly thereafter helped complete the construction of the Panama Canal. In order to
distinguish itself from both nearby Colombia and the U.S., middle-class intellectuals in Panama have
consistently looked to Spain as the legitimate source of their identity. In these elites’ romanticized view,
the ideal Panamanian is a rural, Hispanic (Spanish and indigenous) peasant. The peasant form of dress,
the pollera, and music, the tipica, are used to symbolize a unified national identity, one that prides itself
on being a racial democracy. Along these lines, and as performed through numerous everyday enact-
ments, Panamanian national discourse holds that mestizo (mixed) identity is normative and they con-
trast themselves with other Latin American countries that have racial inequalities. Still, because lived
life is always more complex the any single narrative, Afro-Panamanians still contend with and suffer
from discrimination.70
Case Study: Theatre and Public Health Education
The approach known as Theatre of the Oppressed was chiefly promoted by Augusto Boal, who was in turn influenced by Paulo Freire’s work
on liberator education among oppressed peasants in Brazil. Boal used this term to refer to performances that engaged the audience in such a
way that they would be transformed and moved to transform the oppressive conditions of their societies. Though originally conceived of in
terms of political action, the Theatre of the Oppressed has found many applications within public education. For example, performance studies
71
scholar Dwight Conquergood spent time working in Thailand at the Ban Vinai refugee camp to help develop a health education program. He
started a performance company among the Hmong refugees that used traditional forms like proverbs, storytelling and folksong to produce skits
about health problems in the camp. Conquergood was wary of merely coopting local performance traditions and using them to force Western
72
ways of thinking on the refugees. This would establish a hierarchical model of education that implies knowledge can be simply transferred
from one who knows to one who receives. Rather, he wanted to engage the refugees in a dialog about how they could collectively improve the
health conditions of the camp. Early on in his work with the refugees, the village was threatened by a potential rabies outbreak. When instructed
to bring their dogs to vaccination sites around the camp, the refugees failed to comply, not understanding the urgency of the situation or how
the vaccines would help. Conquergood’s group of actors worked together to create a parade, dressing up as animals that held important places
in the Hmong belief system and playing music to catch the villagers’ attention. When people came out to see the parade, the chicken, an animal
known for its divinatory powers, shared information about rabies and the importance of vaccinating dogs. Not only was the vaccine program
then successful, it also provided an opportunity for the villagers to give the actors constructive criticism about their performance. These cri-
tiques increased the cultural relevance of future performances and made the villagers more invested in the activities of the theater troupe, fur-
ther increasing their likelihood of success.
Recontextualized Performances
Performances can and do happen in new and changing contexts, outside their original social cir-
cumstances. In line with Geertz’s understanding of cultures as “texts,” the term intertextuality is often
used to describe the network of connections between original versions and cases extracted from their
social context and reinserted elsewhere. The conventional relationship between text and performance
399
is that “the text is the permanent artifact, hand-written or printed, while the performances is the
unique, never-to-be-repeated realization or concretization of the text.”73 A “text,” as discussed within
the anthropology of performance, can therefore be symbolic work that is interpretable by a community
including but not limited to literature, speech, painting, music and film. It is the source material. The
relationship between text and performance is mediated by many factors including previous experiences
with the text, the learning of the lines, rehearsals, directorial license and other contextual factors.
Folklorist and anthropologist Richard Bauman asks what storytellers accomplish by “explicitly link-
ing” their tales to prior iterations of the source material.74 In short, doing so situates each performance
in a web of relationships with previous performances. This, in turn, may add to the performer’s credi-
bility, demonstrating that he or she is connected in some way to these other performers or at least that
the performer is knowledgeable of other, past performances. For example, a man singing a lullaby to his
child might preface his song by explaining that this is a song his father sang to him, and that his father’s
father sang before him. Doing this not only places the man singing in a genealogical relationship with
past performers, it also places the audience, the child, into that genealogy as well.
Alternatively, explicitly linking a current performance with a prior one might invert what we think
we know about the past performance, as is seen with parodies.75 In such cases, the term “intertextual
gap” can be used to refer to how significantly one departs from a faithful replication of the original
source.76 A direct quotation of another’s words, such as a town crier relaying a king’s decree, would
have a very narrow intertextual gap. A parody that references an original source in order to mock it,
such as the 2014 film A Million Ways to Die in the West or the 1974 film Blazing Saddles that both poke fun
at ‘Westerns,’ would have a large intertextual gap. Source material that is taken from one genre and used
in another, such as a popular proverb being turned into a song lyric, would also have a large intertextual
gap. Deliberate manipulation of these gaps, or the recontextualization of source material, changes their
role, significance, and impact in a performance.
Case study: Intertextuality and the Coloquio
77
The coloquio studied by Bauman and Ritch is a nativity play performed in Mexico, which dates back to the 16th Century. Although often
associated with the Christmas season, Bauman and Ritch report witnessing these performances at the culmination of important community
events in other seasons as well. These plays are long, often lasting from twelve to fourteen hours, and involve a significant number of commu-
nity members who volunteer their time to act, direct, and produce the spectacle. In preparation, after parts are assigned, the actors set them-
selves to the task of learning their lines. The words are already familiar to the actors, as they have attended such plays since childhood, and
actors often model their own delivery upon that which they have witnessed in the past. There are six or seven rehearsals leading up to the for-
mal public performance. Each rehearsal is a full run-through, with no opportunity to stop and rework a scene that is poorly done. There is, how-
ever, a prompter reading from the script who will help the actors with their lines if necessary, thereby assuring a very narrow intertextual gap.
When relying on the prompter’s cues, the actors echo back these words, reinforcing a narrow intertextual gap. Yet there is one character that
offers an exception. In the written version of the script, the Hermit is a very pious character. In the performance, however, the Hermit is a comic
figure. The Hermit rarely knows his lines and thus relies on the prompter’s cues, but instead of echoing them back faithfully, he intentionally
substitutes words for comic effect. He alone among the performers is allowed to significantly depart from the script, creating a large intertex-
tual gap that introduces humor into the performed version where it was absent in the written one—and in a way that would be impossible to sus-
tain across multiple enactments of the play if ever “frozen” in a script. A joke, after all, can only be funny so many times before it becomes
boring.
Performance Communities
Cultural performances are both informed by the norms of one’s community of practice and signal
one’s membership in those communities.78 The study of performance is not limited to what happens on
the stage or within the limits of what Bauman calls frames; rather, studying performance can enable us
to see the studio, dojo, etc. as a space in which identity is formed through both accommodating to and
resisting dominant discourses even as they are inscribed on the body.79 In large, industrialized soci-
eties, people often elect to become part of smaller communities of practice around which they build
their identities. Each community of practice has its own “folk geography,” to borrow the phrase per-
formance scholar Judith Hamera80 uses to describe the shared knowledge of where to shop for dance
related paraphernalia or which medical practitioners in town best understand the dancers’ body. But
these folk geographies are more all-encompassing than this. They are global geographies that include
the historical markers redolent with meaning for a particular community, the locations of key teachers,
and everything else that a practitioner needs to know to navigate the community.
Sociologist Howard Becker’s81 exploration of “art worlds” is similar, highlighting how the obvious
activity—whether painting or playing a musical instrument—is contingent upon and contextualized by
a larger community who provided the materials, training, venues, and audience for all such art prac-
tices (this concept has been extended by Wulff to the “ballet world,”82 and by Marion to the “ballroom
world”83 and “salsa world.”84 More than just suggesting that performances happen within communi-
ties, the point is that communities emerge and grow around specific performance practices. Indeed,
for something to become its own style—for it to become a genre rather than simply individual varia-
tion—other people have to become involved.
Brazilian zouk, as a dance form, coalesced in Brazil around 30 years ago, making its way to Europe 20
years ago, and North America 10 years ago. Now, there are numerous events (including festivals, con-
gresses, marathons, and retreats) around the world, involving a variety of shared practices, headliners,
DJs, and participants. Whether painting, music, dance, or theater, new styles emerge only when and if
variations find an appreciative audience, and then get copied or modified by others. Over time, how-
ever, and as styles grow in popularity and are shared more broadly, both broader and deeper cultural
elaborations may ensue—such as the broadly shared activity of salsa dancing as both worldwide phe-
nomena and local practice.85
Performance in the Age of Globalization
Globalization refers to a condition in which communications and interactions with people in vastly
different geographical locations has been sped up and increased by virtue of ever-faster and more ubiq-
uitous communication and transportation technologies. Globalization is not a new phenomenon, but
has been greatly intensified within the past several decades, creating linkages between producers and
consumers, artists and audiences, which were not possible in the past. As this chapter has pointed out,
performance is a multifaceted phenomenon that touches all aspects of social life, but is particularly rel-
evant to the global mediascape as articulated by anthropologist Arjun Appadurai,86 which he defines
as the flow of media across national borders. Examples of the global mediascape include American
teenagers watching Bollywood films that were produced in India, a Brazilian telenovela (soap opera)
being shown in Mozambique, or a Prague newspaper that is sent to family members living and working
in Saudi Arabia. Globalization also helps explain why some performance genres which were once very
local traditions, like tango (originally from Argentina) or samba (originally from Brazil), are now inter-
nationally recognized, practiced, and celebrated.
In modern globalized society, many performance genres have become unmoored from their cultural
origins. It is one thing to consume these performances as spectators, but it is another to become a par-
401
ticipant in these performance communities, leading to issues and questions of authenticity and appro-
priation. For example, is it acceptable for a middle-class white American woman to perform an art like
capoeira (see case study above) that was traditionally associated with poor Afro-Brazilian males? Many
individuals within the community do see this as acceptable, and embrace anyone who is willing to dedi-
cate themselves to the art. Others, however, are more reluctant to adopt this inclusive philosophy. Indi-
viduals in this camp may argue that Afro-Brazilians endured years of suffering in service of preserving
their art and therefore deserve to remain in control of its future. Similar debates surround other per-
formance genres with strong connections to ethnicity, such as jazz, blues, hip-hop, or rap.
International interest in local performance forms also gives right to questions of intellectual property.
For example, the Mbuti people of the central African forests believe that song is the appropriate
medium for communicating with the forest and alerting it to their needs.87 Song is also pleasurable for
the Mbuti and is associated with social harmony.88 In short, song, especially the hindewhu or ‘hoot-like’
sound that is made with an indigenous musical instrument, has an important role in the worldview of
this and related groups. Recently, however, this music has been transported out of the forest and into
the mainstream, and anthropologist and ethnomusicologist Steven Feld has traced the use of this sound
to one of Madonna’s songs, Sanctuary, and to Herbie Hancock’s song Watermelon Man.89 Hancock had
apparently developed his song after hearing the hindewhu on an ethnomusicology recording that was
released in 1966. When then asked about the appropriateness of using this signature sound out of con-
text and without permission, Hancock said, “this is a brothers kind of thing,” implying that their shared
African ancestry made it okay for him to co-opt Mbuti musical heritage.90 The central issue here is not
whether or not Hancock’s particular claim to shared heritage justifies his use of the hindewhu—although
that is a valid question in and of itself—but, rather, the main issue is one of what rights, if any, people
have over the use, reproduction, and alteration of their own cultural performances. With world beat
music remaining popular, and many indigenous people becoming savvier in protecting their cultural
and intellectual rights, such issues will only continue to become more pressing.
Finally, globalization has also given rise to new performance types. For example, there are now
numerous and regular performances specifically staged for media consumption and distribution, such
as politicians and celebrities staged photo opportunities. Similarly, there are now performances that do
not exist outside of their mediated states—or, looked at from the other side, performances that only
exist as mediated ones—such as online-only campaigns, protests, and movements. Even if different
from previous cultural configurations, a focus on performance facilitates understanding such emerging
forms and practices. All of culture is always changing, albeit not all at the same rates or in the same ways,
and performance is no exception. Amidst the ongoing expansion of modern technologies, then, the sig-
nificance of performance in globalized contexts is central to anthropology’s ultimate commitment to
holistic understanding. Indeed, even as one technology or format becomes commonplace, new options
arise as people make, post, and share videos, construct profiles and albums, and build social networks
across a plethora of online and mobile applications. As sites of personal presentation and social action,
these are all now sites of both cultural performances and performances of culture.
CONCLUSION
The band takes a final bow and exits the stage. The lights come up and people begin streaming out of the audi-
torium. One performance has ended, but a multitude of others continue. The security guard continues to strut
importantly, ensuring that everyone behave themselves. A woman smiles demurely as a man makes a show of
opening the car door for her. And Jayden promises to call Dakota sometime next week.
This chapter has highlighted the many different kinds of performances that interest anthropologists.
Linked to anthropology’s holistic approach, there are connections to topics from many earlier chapters
including ritual (Religion) and gender (Gender and Sexuality). As you have seen here, however, explicit
attention to various performance-based frameworks helps unpack much of the learned and shared pat-
terns of idea and behavior that constitute human experience and living. We started the chapter noting
that performance can be many things all at once, and that is indeed both how and why it matters so
much to cultural experience. As you have read, cultural performances are those events that most read-
ily fit with Western ideas of performance: they are clearly defined moments of heightened salience for
some feature of a culture’s values or social structure. These performances call attention to issues that
might otherwise go unnoticed by audience members, often inspiring reflection or instigating action.
Cultural performances can also be used to preserve aspects of a culture or facilitate cultural revital-
ization. Performing culture, on the other hand, refers to the many diverse ways in which individuals
both reflect and create cultural norms through their daily activities, interactions, and behaviors. Culture
does not, and indeed cannot, exist simply as an abstract concept. Rather, it refers to the actual patterned
flows—that is the ongoing performances—of real people’s lived lives.
Anthropologists who study performance are thus interested in many of the same topics as other
anthropologists: gender, religion, ritual, social norms, conflict, and the like. Performance, however, pro-
vides an alternative perspective for exploring and understanding these issues. Rather than studying
ritual from a structural-functional perspective, for example, focusing on performance allows anthro-
pologists to better identify and understand dramaturgical structure and how communities use perfor-
mance to accomplish the work of a ritual. In short, anthropologists of performance are interested in the
product of social life, but also, and just importantly, its many processes.
(P.S. Good luck Jayden and Dakota!)
1. What is the difference between studying something that is performance and studying something as a performance? Why is this
distinction important?
2. What is the role of performance in reflecting social order and values on the one hand and challenging these and leading to social
change on the other? Provide examples of each.
3. Explain the relationship between performance and cultural constructions of gender.
4. How are descriptive and performative utterances different from each other, and what role to each play in verbal performance?
5. What roles do performances play in everyday life, especially as these relate to hegemonic discourses?
GLOSSARY
Agency: An individual’s ability to make independent choices and act upon his/her will.
403
Community of practice: A group of people who engaged in a shared activity or vocation, such as dance
or medicine.
Cultural Performance: A performance such as a concert or a play.
Discourse: Widely circulated knowledge within a community.
Hegemonic discourses: Situations in which thoughts and actions are dictated by those in authority.
Hegemony: Power so pervasive that it is rarely acknowledged or even recognized, yet informs everyday
actions.
Performativity: Words or actions that cause something to happen.
Performing culture: Everyday words and actions that reflect cultural ideas and can be studied by
anthropologists as a means of understanding a culture.
Personal front: Aspects of one’s clothing, physical characteristics, comportment, and facial expressions
that communicate an impression to others.
Polysemy: Settings, situations, and symbols that convey multiple meanings.
Presentation of self: The management of the impressions others have of us.
Reflexivity: Awareness of how one’s own position and perspective impact what is observed and how it
is evaluated.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr. Lauren Miller Griffith is an assistant professor of anthropology at Texas

Tech University. Her research agenda focuses on the intersections of performance, tourism, and educa-
tion in Brazil, Belize, and the USA. Specifically, she focuses on the Afro-Brazilian martial art capoeira
and how non-Brazilian practitioners use travel to Brazil, the art’s homeland, to increase their legitimacy
within this genre. Dr. Griffith’s current interests include the links between tourism, cultural heritage,
and sustainability in Belize. She is particularly interested in how indigenous communities decide
whether or not to participate in the growing tourism industry and the long-term effects of these deci-
sions.
Dr. Jonathan S. Marion is an associate professor in the Department of

Anthropology and a member of the Gender Studies Steering Committee at the University of Arkansas,
and the author of Ballroom: Culture and Costume in Competitive Dance (2008), Visual Research: A Concise
Introduction to Thinking Visually (2013, with Jerome Crowder), and Ballroom Dance and Glamour (2014).
Currently the President of the Society for Humanistic Anthropology, and a Past-president of the Society
of Visual Anthropology, Dr. Marion’s ongoing research explores the interrelationships between per-
formance, embodiment, gender, and identity, as well as issues of visual research ethics, theory, and
methodologies.
Notes
1. Richard Bauman and Pamela Ritch, "Informing Performance: Producing the Coloquio in Tierra Blanca," Oral tra-
dition 9:2 (1994): 255.
2. David M. Guss, The Festive State: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism as Cultural Performance. (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2000), 9.
3. Milton Singer, "The Great Tradition in a Metropolitan Center: Madras," Journal of American Folklore (1958):
347-88.
4. Singer, “Great Tradition,” 351.
5. See Anya Peterson Royce, Anthropology of the Performing Arts: Artistry, Virtuosity, and Interpretation in Cross-Cul-
tural Perspective. (Walnut Creek, Altamira Press, 2004).
6. Victor Turner, The Anthropology of Performance. (New York, Paj Publications, 1987).
7. Dwight Conquergood, Cultural Struggles: Performance, Ethnography, Praxis. (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan
Press, 2013).
8. Richard Schechner, Between Theater and Anthropology. (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).
9. Richard Bauman, Verbal Art as Performance. (Long Grove, Waveland Press, 1984).
10. Turner, Anthropology of Performance, 23.
11. Laura A. Lewis, Chocolate and Corn Flour: History, Race and Place in the Making of "Black" Mexico. (Durham, Duke
12. See the Public Anthropology chapter regarding the related issues of hegemony and agency.
13. Jay Ruby. 2000. Picturing Culture: Explorations of Film and Anthropology. (Chicago, University of Chicago Press,
200): 240.
14. Elizabeth Burns, Theatricality: A Study of Convention in the Theatre and in Social Life. (London, Longman, 1972), 12.
15. Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. (New York, Little Brown & Company, 2005),
13.
16. Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. (New York, Anchor Books, 1959).
17. Goffman, Presentation of Self.
18. Goffman, Presentation of Self, 24.
21. Rebecca Webber, “The Comparison Trap,” Psychology Today (2017): https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/arti-
cles/201711/the-comparison-trap
22. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. (New York, Routledge, 1990); Judith Butler,
Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex". (New York, Routledge, 1993).
23. Marcel Mauss, "Techniques of the Body." Economy and Society 2:1 (1973): 70-89.
24. Iris Marion Young, "Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment Motility and
Spatiality." Human Studies 3:2 (1980): 137-56.
25. Sports Illustrated August 25 (2014): Cover.
26. Anne Bolin, "Muscularity and Femininity: Women Bodybuilder and Women's Bodies in Culturo-Historical Con-
text," in Fitness as Cultural Phenomenon, ed. Karina A.E. Volkwein. (New York, Waxmann Münster, 1998).
405
27. Abigail M. Feder-Kane, "A Radiant Smile from the Lovely Lady," in Reading Sport: Critical Essays on Power and Pre-
sentation, ed. Susan Birell and Mary G. McDonald. (Boston, Northeastern University Press, 2000).
28. Jonathan S. Marion, Ballroom: Culture and Costume in Competitive Dance (Oxford, Berg, 2008) and Ballroom Dance
and Glamour (London, Bloomsbury, 2014).
29. E.g. Lisa Disch and Mary Jo Kane, "When a Looker Is Really a Bitch: Lisa Olson, Sport, and the Heterosexual
Matrix," in Reading Sport: Critical Essays on Power and Presentation, ed. Susan Birell and Mary G. McDonald.
(Boston, Northeastern University Press, 2000).
30. Margaret Mead, Sex and Temperament: In Three Primitive Societies. (New York, Perennial, 1935/2001).
31. Serena Nanda, Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variation. 2nd ed. (Long Grove, Waveland, 2014).
32. Serena Nanda, Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India. (Cengage, 1998).
33. Gilbert Herdt, The Sambia: Ritual, Sexuality, and Change in Papua New Guinea. (Cengage, 2005).
34. Don Kulik, Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes. (Chicago, University of
Chicago Press, 1998).
35. Heather A. Williams, "Miss Homegrown: The Performance of Food, Festival, and Femininity in Local Queen
Pageants." (PhD diss., Bowling Green State University, 2009), 3.
36. Williams, “Miss Homegrown.”
37. Robert H. Lavenda, "Minnesota Queen Pageants: Play, Fun, and Dead Seriousness in a Festive Mode." Journal of
American Folklore (1988): 168-75.
38. Lavenda, “Queen Pageants,” 169.
40. Lavenda, “Queen Pageants.”
42. Lavenda, “Queen Pageants.”
43. Turner, Anthropology of Performance.
44. Turner, Anthropology of Performance, 74.
47. John Langshaw Austin, How to Do Things with Words. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1975).
48. Victor Turner and Edie Turner, "Performing Ethnography," in The Anthropology of Performance, ed. Victor Turner
(New York, PAJ Publications, 1987): 139-55.
49. Turner and Turner, “Performing Ethnography,” 142.
50. Turner and Turner, “Performing Ethnography.”
51. Nancy Spencer, Matt Adamson, Sasha Allgayer, Yvette Castaneda, Matt Haugen, Ryan King-white, Yannick
Kluch, Robert E. Rinehard, and Theresa Walton-fisette., “Teach-ins as Performance Ethnography: Athletes’
Social Activism in North American Sport,” International Review of Qualitative Research 9:4 (2016): 489-514.
52. Schechner, Between Theatre and Anthropology.
53. Bauman and Ritch, “Informing Performance.”
54. Royce, Performing Arts.
55. Royce, Performing Arts, 44.
60. Judith Hamera, "Performance, Performativity, and Cultural Poiesis in Practices of Everyday Life," in The Sage
Handbook of Performance Studies, eds. D. Soyini Madison and Judith Hamera, (Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications,
Inc., 2006):50-1.
61. Bauman, Others’ Words, 4.
62. Bauman, Verbal Art

63. See Guss, Festive State.
64. Bauman, Verbal Art.
65. Royce, Performing Arts. For more on Pilobolus, see their website at http://www.pilobolus.com.
66. Karin Barber, "Preliminary Notes on Audiences in Africa," Africa 67:3 (1997): 347-62.
67. Bauman and Ritch, “Informing Performance;” Bauman, Others’ Words; Royce, Performing Arts.
68. Alessandro Duranti, "The Voice of the Audience in Contemporary American Political Discourse," Georgetown
university round table on languages and linguistics (2003): 114-34.
69. Carla María Guerrón-Montero, "Can't Beat Me Own Drum in Me Own Native Land: Calypso Music and
Tourism in the Panamanian Atlantic Coast," Anthropological Quarterly 79:4 (2006): 633-63.
70. Guerrón-Montero, "Can't Beat Me Own Drum.”
71. Dwight Conquergood, "Health Theatre in a Hmong Refugee Camp: Performance, Communication, and Culture,"
TDR 32:3 (1988): 174-208.
72. Conquergood, “Health Theatre.”
73. Karin Barber, "Text and Performance in Africa," Oral tradition 20:2 (2005): 324.
75. Bauman, Others’ Words.
78. Bryant Keith Alexander, "Performing Culture and Cultural Performances in Japan: A Critical (Auto)Ethno-
graphic Travelogue," Theatre Annual 55 (2002): 3.
79. Judith Hamera, “Dancing Communities: Performance, Difference and Connection in the Global City,” in Studies
in International Performance, ed. Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton (Houndmills, Palgrave MacMillan, 2011).
80. Hamera, “Dancing Communities,” 12.
81. Howard S. Becker, Art Worlds. (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984).
82. Helena Wulff, Ballet across Borders: Career and Culture in the World of Dancers. (New York, Berg, 1998).
83. Marion, Ballroom (2008).
84. Jonathan S. Marion, "Contextualizing Content and Conduct in the LA and West Coast Salsa Scenes," in Salsa
World: A Global Dance in Local Contexts, ed. Sydney Hutchinson (Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 2013).
85. Sydney Hutchinson, ed., Salsa World: A Global Dance in Local Contexts. (Philadelphia, Temple University Press,
2013).
86. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota
Press, 1996).
87. Steven Feld, "Pygmy Pop: A Genealogy of Schizophonic Mimesis." Yearbook for Traditional Music (1996): 1-35.
88. Feld, "Pygmy Pop.”
89. Feld, "Pygmy Pop.”
90. Hancock quoted in Feld, "Pygmy Pop”: 5.
16
MEDIA ANTHROPOLOGY:
MEANING, EMBODIMENT,
INFRASTRUCTURE, AND
ACTIVISM
Bryce Peake, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

[email protected]
Learning Objectives
• Describe the history of media anthropology including initial resistance to media as a topic of anthropological study.
• Identify the major categories of media that are studied by anthropologists.
• Explain how anthropologists explore the meaning of media and media experiences including the ways meaning can be shared or
contested by individuals and communities.
• Evaluate innovative approaches to media anthropology including autoethnography, photo voice, participatory photography, and
fabrication.
• Assess the importance of mechanical and cultural infrastructure for the exchange of ideas.
Media is a word that can be used to describe a set of technologies that connect multiple people at one
time to shared content. Media anthropologists study mass communication (broadcast radio and tele-
vision) and digital media (Internet, streaming, and mobile telephony) with a particular interest in the
ways in which media are designed or adapted for use by specific communities or cultural groups. Many
407
research projects focus on media practices, the habits or behaviors of the people who produce media,
the audiences who interact with media, and everyone in between.
Many classic anthropological concepts are incorporated in studies of media. For example, in her
ethnography of Egyptian television soap operas, Dramas of Nationhood (2004), Lila Abu-Lughod sought
to understand how watching these programs contributed to a shared sense of Egyptian cultural identity.
In her ethnography, Romance on the Global Stage (2003), Nicole Constable examined how the Internet
was transforming ideas about marriage and love by contributing to new kinds of “mail-order bride”
economies in which men in the United States could communicate with women thousands of miles
away. Utilizing classic ideas about ritual and community life pioneered by Margaret Mead and Bro-
nislaw Malinowski, Tom Boellstorff’s book Coming of Age in Second Life (2015) explored the ways that
people were building realistic communities using virtual reality software like Second Life. Anthropo-
logical concepts of ritual, magic, taboo, and organic solidarity can be used effectively to examine the
role that media plays in the lives of individuals and communities. Like other specializations in anthro-
pology, studies of media are also organized around a commitment to long-term ethnographic fieldwork
and cultural relativism.
This chapter introduces some of the theories, insights, and methodologies of media anthropology. At
the heart of media anthropology is the assertion that media practices are not universal. Whether we
are discussing how television is viewed, how public relations coordinators negotiate corporate hierar-
chies, how Facebook statuses are created and circulated, or how cellular towers are built, the local cul-
tural context plays an important role.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MEDIA ANTHROPOLOGY
Media anthropology has a surprisingly long history. In 1950, Hortense Powdermaker completed the
first ethnographic and social scientific study of Hollywood studios. Her book, Hollywood: The Dream
Factory, preceded by approximately a decade the formation of the academic field of media studies and
the theories of mass culture that are popular today. Powdermaker, a student of Franz Boas, was at the
forefront of mass communication studies.
Powdermaker’s groundbreaking study of media was immediately disavowed by others in the social
sciences who believed that media was a topic unworthy of study. “Hollywood as ‘Dream Factory’ Just
Nightmare to Femme Anthropologist,” a book review in Variety read.1 A review of the book in the Amer-
ican Sociological Review dismissively stated: “The notion, for some time suspect, that previous investiga-
tion of a primitive tribe uniquely qualifies a person to study a sophisticated society… is now revealed
to be absurd. The anthropological method here [in sophisticated society] consists of little more than a
series of inane analogies.”2 And so, with the continuation of time, anthropology left the study of mass
media to scholars in sociology, political science, and psychology.
409
Mass media became a central part of life after

World War I and influenced even those cultures
that outsiders considered isolated or “primitive.”
Anthropologists of that era developed two differ-
ent excuses for avoiding the study of media. The
first was the need to distinguish cultural anthro-
pology from journalism. As Elizabeth Bird (2009)
wrote, ethnographers were often dismissed as
overqualified journalists. Anthropologists who
wanted to be seen as scientists (as sociologists
often were) wanted to distance themselves as much
Figure 1: Anthropologists have only recently begun ethnographically studying
as possible from mass media, a subject regarded as
journalists. Here, a Latina journalist working for a conservative, Catholic news unserious. Cultural anthropologists also suspected
outlet interviews a Donald Trump impersonator at a pro-Trump Rally. How,
anthropologists might ask, do transnational identities and religion impact that elitist book and journal editors might dismiss
perceptions of American politics? Photo by Bryce Peake.
poor ethnographic work as “mere journalism”
undeserving of “serious” scholarly consideration.
Second, through the 1980s, the discipline of cultural anthropology wanted to distinguish itself from the
rising fields of American and British cultural studies, disciplines that had a central interest in interpret-
ing media as “texts” that could reveal cultural values. The cultural studies approach was generally not
based on holistic ethnography, which cultural anthropologists continued to see as the defining feature
of their profession.3
Today, media is a much more mainstream object of analysis in American cultural anthropology and
media research also offers a significant career path for many young anthropologists. The company
ReD, for example, hires anthropologists as consultants to help telecommunication and media compa-
nies innovate new technologies. These anthropologists use social theory and ethnographic methods
to help create media technologies for the future. Similarly, major technology companies like Intel and
Microsoft employ a number of anthropologists in their artificial intelligence, social media, networked
systems, and “Internet of Things” labs. These anthropologists combine corporate work with research,
publishing some of the most cutting edge research in the fields of anthropology and technology in dis-
ciplines like Human Centered Computing. These professionals draw on debates in media anthropology
to inform new developments in media technologies, communication and advertising strategies, and cul-
turally-specific programming.
MEANINGFUL MEDIA
What do media anthropologists do to better understand media practices? Media anthropologists typ-
ically organize their studies of media in two ways. First, they choose a category or type of media:
mobile telephones, radio, television, Internet, or others. The choice of media to be studied varies widely
between anthropologists. Some media anthropologists work on a topic that crosses multiple technolo-
gies (such as radio, which is both broadcast via airwaves and streamed via the internet). Others con-
cern themselves with a particular technology like mobile phones (which play music, allow for phone
calls, and support gaming communities) and explore how that single technology contributes to different
types of media practices. Some media anthropologists even study the people who study media (such as
a study of people who work as advertising researchers, or studies of media scientists in different coun-
tries).
Second, media anthropologists locate their ethno-
graphic studies within a particular community. The way
media anthropologists define “community” varies.
Some may choose to study a “virtual” community like
Tom Boellstorff did in his study of the virtual reality
platform Second Life. Others may choose to study how
a geographical community, such as a town or a region,
uses, adapts, or transforms under the influence of a cer-
tain kind of media or technology. This is the approach
taken by Lila Abu-Lughod and Nicole Constable in the
examples mentioned above. Media anthropologists may
also study the ways that mass communication and digi-
tal media connect diasporic communities, cultural com-
munities dispersed from their original homelands.
Many media anthropology projects have focused on
questions of meaning. Meaning refers to the ideas or
values that accompany the exchange of information.
Figure 2: Media anthropologists frequently study the connection between
Historically, some media scientists assumed that the politics and representation. Here, a Brexit information booth sponsored
by the Gibraltarian government provides an Instagram frame to pose
meaning of information was unaffected by its transfer with. An anthropologist might ask: why do people think Instagram, and
between communities or by the medium of its transfer. photos, are a medium for political participation? Photo by Bryce Peake.
In other words, they believed that information would be

interpreted the same way regardless of how it was communicated, or who was receiving it. Anthropol-
ogists have demonstrated that the reality is much more complex. In her book Dramas of Nationhood, Lila
Abu-Lughod asked questions about how nationally televised Egyptian soap operas were interpreted by
those who watched them. Her research revealed several important insights. First, what soap opera
directors and writers intended for a television show to mean was not necessarily what communities of
watchers interpreted the show to mean. Simply put, producers cannot wholly control meaning or the
value(s) that will be identified by a group of watchers. Second, different media give different messages
or meanings. If the same message is broadcast on radio and television, the histories and cultural associ-
ations of these two technologies affects the meaning of the message being conveyed. Televised soap
operas were interpreted quite differently, for instance, than the spoken poetry Abu-Lughod had studied
in her previous research in Egypt. Third, Abu-Lughod demonstrated that there is no universal way of
consuming media; media consumption is bound to culture. How Egyptian women participate in lis-
tening to or watching soap operas together, the practices of who sits where, of what can or cannot be
eaten during a show, or of when a show might be aired, is all bound to the norms and values of the
community. These three assertions about meaning are broadly applicable to all cultures and have set the
agenda for most academic and professional research in media anthropology.
Unlike other academic fields that study media and meaning, media anthropologists focus on how
producers and audiences share or contest different types of meaning. Ethnographies by media
anthropologists typically focus on the ways producers of media assume, or seek to stimulate, a particu-
lar set of feelings in audiences, and how audiences can give feedback to media producers. In his ethnog-
raphy of advertising agencies in Sri Lanka, for example, Steven Kemper (2001) observed that “when
they are able, advertising agencies hire local staff” because they can “think like,” and thus sell to, local
audiences.4 In the process, local advertising staff become the audiences they imagine others to be and
411
their work helps to define a new class of consumers who purchase globalized media products. Media
production and consumption are interconnected, one creating the conditions for the other.
Many media anthropology projects have focused on mass communication, the process of sending a
message to many people in a way that allows the sender complete control over the content of a mes-
sage—although, as described above, not control over the meaning. This is the definition of mass com-
munication: one-to-many communication that privileges the sender and/or owner of the technology
that transmits the media. Such a description is not without its challenges. As Francisco Osorio (2005)
argues, talking drums like those used in New Guinea not only fit the definition of mass communi-
cation—a message sent from one to many that privileges the sender—the talking drums example also
reveals the ways in which there is an implicit prioritization of electricity in media anthropology, an
assumption that mass communication involves electrical technology. This is ethnocentric given the
uneven distribution of electrical infrastructure. Dominic Boyer, an anthropologist who has written
ethnographies about both energy infrastructures like electricity and German journalists writing inter-
national news, proposed that we move from media anthropology to an “anthropology of mediation.”5
Rather than use a universal definition of what counts as media to the anthropologist, Boyer’s term
anthropology of mediation focuses on the way images, speech, people, and things become socially sig-
nificant or meaningful as they are communicated. The focus is shifted away from the technology itself, a
controversial approach that some have criticized for transforming media anthropology into an “anthro-
pology of everything.”
As a result of this proposal for an anthropology
of mediation, some anthropologists have started to
study the physical human senses that make mean-
ingful interactions with media possible. As Charles
Hirschkind (2006) argues for example, the power
of a cassette tape sermon in Egypt in “lies not sim-
ply in its capacity to disseminate ideas or instill
religious ideologies but in its effect on the human
sensorium… the soundscape produced through the
circulation of this medium animates and sustains a
substrate of sensory knowledges and embodied
aptitudes.”6 Hirschkind is suggesting that the feel-
ing that Muslim listeners experience while listen-
Figure 3: Media anthropologists frequently ask how transnational media create a
ing to the sermons—rather than the precise sense of community and change the ways people engage with their
meaning or value of the information— is more sig- environments. At this Indian restaurant on the Mediterranean island of Gozo,
restaurant owners have removed a street sign and mounted a TV in its place in
nificant for understanding the appeal of these order to show Italy playing in a European Union Football Association Cup Match.
A family sits and eats. As Mario, the man on the end, explained “It was the only
tapes. This is an example of research that focuses seat to watch the match left in the entire [village]… I would be the only person on
on mediation rather than simply assessing the the island that didn’t [watch it] if I wasn’t here.” Photo by Bryce Peake.
meaning of the information transferred.

Sensory approaches to mediation present some methodological dilemmas. When media anthropolo-
gists study meaning ethnographically they can ask audiences what a particular example of media means
or what a person finds meaningful about it. Anthropologists studying the sensory dimensions of media-
tion do not have direct access to how audiences feel media. We can ask how audiences feel, but describ-
ing a feeling involves translating physical sensation into language, a difficult process. To get around this
problem, ethnographers of mediation have used innovative approaches to participant-observation that
include techniques from psychoanalysis,7 depth interviews that closely analyze how audiences create
meaning rather than what meaning is,8 and autoethnographic approaches in which the anthropologist
explores his or her own personal experiences. These research techniques are used to reduce the gap
between what people experience and what they can describe.9
Debates about the significance of media, mediation, meaning and the senses have occurred primarily
in the context of studies of mass communication because mass communication technologies like broad-
cast radio, television, and cinema are the most globally available. While people in Europe and the United
States might speak of the death of older “legacy” media like radio and VHS tapes, these mediums play
crucial roles in the lives of peoples in other places. Lynn Stephen (2012), for example, describes how the
takeover of a local radio station by a group of women protesters was crucial to their efforts to orga-
nize around human rights issues in Oaxaca, Mexico.10 Brian Larkin (2008) has discussed the economic
importance of pirated VHS tapes of recent films in Nigeria, a country in which gross domestic product
cannot be easily calculated due to the size of various shadow economies.
While mass communication is a form of one-to-many communication typically broadcast on widely
available channels, digital media is a much more personalized many-to-many communication that
involves the use of digital signals. In her ethnography of LGBT youth in rural America, Mary Gray
(2009) argued that the Internet’s more closely controlled access points allowed queer youth to carve
out online spaces for their emerging identities. The importance of these online spaces for developing
personal identity also meant that it was difficult to distinguish between “online” and “offline” personas.
Gray took a meaning-focused approach to understand the ways in which rural LGBT youth create iden-
tities and feelings of belongingness in concealed online worlds. Jeffrey Juris (2008) has argued that the
Internet interactions allowed anti-corporate, anti-globalization activists in Spain, Indonesia, and the
United States to feel the threat represented by the Group of Eight summit (a meeting of eight of the
largest world economies). These feelings generated a sense of solidarity that was not reducible to lan-
guage. Both these projects demonstrate the relationship between meaning and feeling that is a part of
mass communication.
If digital media has opened up a space for us to think critically about the transformation of mass
media and people’s relationships with it, so too has digital media opened up new career paths for
anthropologists. Increasingly, media anthropologists are taking key positions in technology, advertis-
ing, public relations, and broadcasting industries. Dawn Nafus, an ethnographer who works and con-
ducts research in open-source software communities, has led multiple user experience research projects
at Intel Labs. Her time is divided between writing academic publications on the anthropology of emerg-
ing technologies and doing user testing for Intel’s latest innovations in computing and wearable tech-
nology.11
WHAT MAKES MEDIA POSSIBLE?

413
Since the 1990s, anthropologists have success-

fully studied a range of mass communication and
digital media, but it is only recently that anthropol-
ogists have started studying the technologies that
make these forms of connection possible. Broadly
speaking, infrastructures are the material techno-
logical networks that allow for the exchange of
goods, ideas, waste, people, power and finance
over space. When used to refer to media, infra-
structure includes the pipes, concrete, wires, peo-
ple, values, electricity, software protocols and
Figure 4: In Madrid, cables for internet, telephony, and television run alongside the
other technologies that allow for the movement of
train tracks. Historically, train routes have been principle to media infrastructure. information. Brian Larkin (2008), a media anthro-
How, media anthropologists ask, does media infrastructure change our
understanding and relationship to travel? Photo by Bryce Peake. pologist working in Nigeria, noted that the geo-
graphical location of cinemas in the city of Kano
was based on the colonial requirement that there be a 440 yard buffer zone between white and black
populations. This requirement controlled the ways that electrical grids and transportation routes were
developed. In this way, various entangled infrastructures are implicated in the forms of taboo, desire,
and fantasy shared by members of a society in locations like the movie theater. Similarly, in his ethnog-
raphy of Brazil’s first telecommunication engineers, Gerald Lombardi (1999) describes how engineers
“spoke in reverent tones about the selfless dedication of … fellow workers as they fought… to keep
Brazil at the forefront of telephonic progress.”12 “Telephonic progress” via infrastructure was an ideal
of the Brazilian state and its workers because it was considered “modern” and made Brazil competitive
in the eyes of global spectators. It was not phones that made Brazilian engineers feel or describe them-
selves as modern, but the capacity for making telephony possible.
There are two types of media infrastructure: mechanical infrastructure and cultural infrastructure.
Mechanical Infrastructure includes the apparatuses that bring networks of technology into existence.
Cultural Infrastructure refers to the values and beliefs of communities, states, and/or societies that
make the imagining of a particular type of network possible. In the foreword to an ethnography on
India and the rise of historical archives, Nicholas Dirks (2002) captures the sense of a cultural infra-
structure perfectly when he describes how archives function, that is how the archive does ideological
work, in producing and preserving ideas about Indian nationalism. It was the belief in nationalism that
made the colonial archive possible as a container of various media—letters and notes, newspapers and
telegraphs believed to define the Indian state.
Complicating the study of mechanical infrastructure is

the fact that this infrastructure consists of the same tech-
nology it uses to run. Information systems, for instance are
both made of and run by computers. Typically, an infra-
structure is different from a technology. A road is the
infrastructure for a car; a pipe is the infrastructure for oil.
As Graham and Marvin (2001) argue about the computer,
computing is made possible by the electricity that powers
the computer, the system of telematics that allow comput-
ers to transmit and receive information, and software pro-
tocols that delimit a computer’s uses. The electricity, the
telematics, and the software protocols all rely on comput-
ing. What may distinguish the twenty-first century is its
reliance on computing as the infrastructure of everything,
from oil production to data storage, electricity manage-
ment to the production of concrete.
For media anthropologists, the ways in which media and
communication infrastructure organize everyday life are
significant. Mechanical infrastructure affects not only the
engineers and bureaucrats who execute and plan projects,
but also the millions of people who rely on information
exchanged through the infrastructure, drive vehicles
through the infrastructure, and whose property rights are
often usurped by the construction of infrastructure. At the
same time, cultural infrastructure is also important. As Figure 5: Media anthropologists frequently use unique methods to
better understand how technology users make sense of their use
Christian Sandvig (2012) describes in his ethnography of habits. Here, anthropologists with Intel Labs use a pile and sort
building indigenous Internet infrastructure on the Santa approach, asking the user to write down meaningful types of data on
sticky notes they will then organize. Photo by Bryce Peake.
Ysabel Native American Reservation, anthropological
studies of media and communication infrastructure must
weave together considerations of both kinds of infrastructure in order to understand how these infra-
structures are transformed by cultural values, technological standards, legal regulations, and scientific
and engineering techniques. Some anthropologists work professionally designing media technologies
or consulting with engineers, bureaucrats, and communities on the construction of media infrastruc-
tures. Cathy Baldwin, for example, is an anthropologist at the World Resources Institute Urban Devel-
opment and Mobility Project. She is known for her research on civil engineering and community
participation. Working with communities to maximize various forms of access, Baldwin’s career is
based on the belief that physical and natural environments should strengthen a community’s capacity
to stay resilient when afflicted by human-created and natural disasters—particularly climate change.
Practicing Anthropologist: Cathy Baldwin

Cathy Baldwin is an interdisciplinary anthropologist, writer, musician, and consultant who has done anthropological research on city and urban infra-
structure, environment, and health.
How did you bring your anthropological training into consultancy work?
My objective was always to be an applied researcher working in policy or think tanks, but I didn’t think about how until I graduated. During my
415
doctoral fieldwork, I gave regular feedback to a government minister (Member of Parliament in my fieldwork town) who was working on a pro-
gram to promote an inclusive British identity. After graduating I did some applied research and a book chapter for a think tank at Oslo University
on how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) used information and computing technologies (ICTs) to empower poor communities in develop-
ing countries.
What types of collaborators does an anthropologist studying infrastructure encounter?
When doing impact assessments in the infrastructure sector, you work with distressed community members worried about uncertain change,
so it’s crucial to have a sympathetic, diplomatic manner in order to talk effectively with them. You also need to be able to find ways of commu-
nicating social issues to engineers. This can be challenging as it is often unfamiliar territory and beyond their concerns. The most effective
solution is to be able to present community concern as it might apply to them and their family members. For instance, “How would your mum
feel if….” The policy world is full of people who like findings summarized in short bullet points in non-anthropological language. By the time you
are ready with your material to do so, any theory used to underpin an argument that leads to a practical, implementable recommendation has
been amalgamated into a point expressed in everyday language. It is still possible to use anthropological ideas at this stage, but they have to be
grounded in practical action.
If you could choose one substantial contribution anthropologists can make to both the development and study of city infrastructure, what
would it be?
Social anthropologists are well equipped to foresee, understand, and analyze how dynamic social change processes springing from the physi-
cal, biophysical or industrial landscape affect communities, and to study how people engage with technologies. These are important skills that
can guide the design of projects or structures, and inform strategies adopted to manage the good and bad effects. While I see my colleagues
mapping economic, environmental, or physical changes and processes, I can insert the social aspect.
What advice do you have for current anthropology students interested in working on infrastructure, and perhaps media and communications
infrastructure, in the future?
Diversify your skill set as much as possible beyond just ethnographic methods as they are just one small option outside academia. Intern at
the World Bank in one of its urban programs, or a large engineering consultancy, or an urban development think tank or policy organization.
Media and communications infrastructure is a totally separate topic, but there are some urban firms that look at telecommunications infrastruc-
ture as well as standard city systems.
ICT4D, or information and communications technologies for development, is an interesting branch of international development where there
are studies and NGOs working on practical projects with communities and anthropological input is valued. Also some of the ICT or technology
companies such as Microsoft and Intel employ anthropologists to do consumer studies of how people use media and technologies. Genevieve
Bell is the most famous employee of Intel, as their in-house corporate anthropologist.
With all infrastructure topics, anthropologists inevitably analyze how people interact with their structures, use infrastructure, what its social
and cultural effects are, what values and assumptions inform its design etc. You need to be good at thinking in practical terms about the social
and community consequences of hard structures. Understanding dynamic social change processes is also an asset, and how much change is
caused by structural as opposed to subjective factors.
I would say that working as an anthropologist outside academia can be very lonely unless you are in a consulting firm that has a special
focus on ethnographic methods. At both the civil engineering firm and think tank, I was the only one with my skillset and missed having others
to learn directly from. That said, I have enjoyed becoming friendly with economists, civil and environmental engineers, environmental scientists,
public health specialists and others. The field attracts nice people with the practical skills to implement things, which I prefer to academic
anthropology.
Interview by Bryce Peake
PARTICIPATORY MEDIA AND MEDIA ACTIVISM IN ANTHROPOLOGY

The resurgence of media anthropology in the

1980s and 1990s was heralded by experiments,
research, and debates in visual anthropology
and ethnographic film surrounding indige-
nous media, media produced by and for
indigenous communities often outside of the
mainstream commercial market. Portable
recording technologies, televisual production,
and copy-making technologies made it possi-
ble for local communities to use media for cul-
tural expression. People like Eric Michaels
(1987), Faye Ginsburg (1991), and Terry Turner
(Crocker 1991) used new technologies to help
indigenous communities produce media about
Figure 6: Maltese film makers make a short film celebrating the history of their village.
their local cultures, and the various environ- Where indigenous media projects were initially crucial to introducing new technologies
to cultural communities, today many communities have robust media infrastructure and
mental, legislative, social, and cultural threats channels. Media anthropologists frequently ask how these outlets influence and are
they faced. In the Kayapo Video Project, influenced by global media industries. Photo by Bryce Peake.
anthropologist Terence Turner understood his

role as empowering local Kayapo leaders, who then compiled a comprehensive video archive of Kayapo
culture, including ceremonies, oral history, ecological knowledge, and mythology, recounted by older
members of the community whose knowledge would disappear with their death. As Turner wrote, “in
addition to the uses of video self-documentation for education and as a repository of cultural knowl-
edge against losses from death and acculturation, many Kayapo see video as a means of reaching out to
non-Kayapo, presenting their culture and way of life in a form that others can understand, respect, and
support. They see this as an essential part of their struggle to sustain and defend their society and envi-
ronment.”13
For anthropologists, projects like the Kayapo video sparked a debate: do Western inventions like the
movie camera endanger or replace indigenous forms of storytelling, or do they empower new forms of
cultural creativity and experimentation? How, anthropologists on one side of the debate argued, could
technologies used to create the Disney film Fantasia, the American television show Dallas, and other
Western televisual and cinematic stories possibly create the complex narrative forms traditionally used
for storytelling in other cultures? On the other side of the debate, media anthropologists asked why one
would assume that these technologies could not be used in new ways?
417
Faye Ginsburg is more identified with this

debate than any other media anthropologist. Gins-
burg described her position in the 1990s: “I am
concerned less with the usual focus on the formal
qualities of film as text and more with the cultural
mediations that occur through film and video
works.”14 For Ginsburg, indigenous media consti-
tutes a means for “reproducing and transforming
cultural identity among people who have experi-
enced massive political, geographic, and economic
disruption,” and her work among Australian abo-
riginal and indigenous media-makers and docu-
mentary collaborators is focused on exactly those
Figure 7: A student in the Off the Beaten Track fieldschool videotapes her edits of
an audio ethnography she made with café workers at a local Gozitan cafe. Photo goals.15 Ginsburg works with her research subjects
by Bryce Peake. on media projects, using media-making as a form
of fieldwork. The result is an ethnography of the
process of media creation and collaboration. Rather than asking how indigenous peoples interpret rep-
resentations, Ginsburg’s work examines how indigenous media producers create representations of
their and other cultures. Her fieldwork addresses the debate about the limits of Western media tech-
nologies, while also pushing video-based media in new directions. Both Ginsburg and Turner’s work
can be seen as an argument against anthropologists who suggest that the use of new technologies to
capture indigenous stories or concerns constitutes a form of imperialism. These anthropologists,
Turner suggested, hold an outdated and static perception of indigenous groups. Rather than assuming
that maintaining traditional modes of communication or storytelling is the only way to safeguard cul-
tural traditions, he suggested that new media technologies can aid indigenous activists in transmitting
cultural beliefs into the future.
In addition to documenting traditional cultural beliefs, media technologies can be absorbed into com-
munities in ways that strengthen them. Zeinabu Davis’ videowork on Yoruba trance rituals, for exam-
ple, demonstrates the way in which the meaning of media is not set by the technologies used to create
it. For the Yoruba ritual actors who were the subjects of the film, and who watched the film follow-
ing its production, portable video technologies increased the ache (Yoruba for “power of realization”) of
both trance states and Yoruba communities. According to Yoruba spiritual ideas, images have a pres-
ence and can bringing things closer together. The actors believed the video would help grow and sustain
the Yoruba community by bringing viewers closer to the spiritual dimensions of the ritual. Meaning, in
other words, was not the only source of meaningfulness for Davis and her Yoruba partners.
Practicing Anthropologist: Kyle Jones

Kyle Jones is an anthropologist who completed his fieldwork with hip-hop artists in Peru and now works in human-centered design. Below, Kyle
talks about applied anthropology and experimental methods.
Your ethnographic fieldwork on hip hop in Peru was supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropology, with some funds dedicated
to the applied dimensions of your project. What is applied anthropology, and how did it figure into your project?
To me, applied anthropology is about taking the next step in the research process to translate what you’ve learned into other domains of
practice, often toward some kind of solution to a problem someone faces. The Wenner-Gren Foundation’s Osmundsen Initiative urges anthropol-
ogists to think about the broader social concerns and contributions of their research projects. For my project, I had learned that one of the most
important activities for the young people I was working with was putting on various kinds of events, such as concerts or workshops. Despite
their obvious passion for hip-hop and motivation to produce events, a lack of funds (among other factors) nearly always proved a significant
barrier to their efforts. So what I did was try to support those efforts by facilitating the production of events among each of the three groups I
was researching. Led by these different groups in different cities, these events took many different forms, from a series of relatively small con-
certs, workshops, and competitions spread out over two weeks to large all-day festivals in city plazas. Methodologically, these events dove-
tailed with the other collaborative and participant-driven methods I was using, and also led to new opportunities for exploring my research
topics.
In your ethnographic work, you use some very different methods: photovoice and participatory photography. What are these, and how do you
relate them to applied anthropology?
Photovoice is a method used across scholarly, policy, and many other types of research that puts cameras into people’s hands so they can
make their own representations of their lives and the activities related to your research questions. I similarly engaged in collaborative media
production, which included such things as helping to film video clips, playing and recording music, taking promotional photos, promoting and
producing events, and designing and circulating imagery. In these things, I played a supporting role, using what resources I had to facilitate the
projects of the groups I was researching. These methods are participatory in the sense that they encourage collaborators to get involved in the
research process and help bring questions about power in research interactions to the fore. From an epistemological standpoint, these methods
might be better termed participant-driven because of how they enable individuals to actively shape the direction of the research through the
conscious creation of media (i.e. the research data itself). These methods were also particularly useful in doing research across locales because
they can be done remotely via the internet; I could keep up conversations and data creation-collection even when I wasn’t in the same city as
my interlocutors, including when I was back home in the U.S.
While I did not view them as applied at first because of how they developed in the context of my graduate training, I now see them as a valu-
able part of my applied/practicing toolkit. Using the media that my collaborators themselves created is a powerful way to tell a story no matter
the context of the work. They also entail that element of pushing your work into new domains of practice and problem-solving, while also
prompting you to think reflexively. These kinds of methods help in recognizing the power and privileges that you bring as a researcher, but then
also entail thinking through how you can translate the resources those things confer (expertise, time, technology, social connections, etc.) to
support the efforts of your interlocutors on their own terms.
Interview by Bryce Peake
Research on indigenous media has primarily focused on cultural information and entertainment, but
anthropologists have also explored the capacity of indigenous media to contribute to the production
of localized science. The Nura Gili Indigenous Programs Unit at the University of New South Wales,
for example, has designed software that allows indigenous and Aboriginal communities in Australia to
share culture knowledge about astronomy.16 For many of these groups, astronomic knowledge includes
using the sun, moon, and stars for predictive purposes in navigation, time-keeping, seasonal calendars,
and food practices. The stars in particular inform sacred law, customs and social structure, such as
totem and kinship status and marriage. This knowledge was traditionally passed down through artistic
and poetic practices that have since disappeared from some communities. The researchers in the Nura
Gili Indigenous Programs Unit are harnessing the power of Microsoft’s WorldWide telescope and Rich
Interactive Narrative technology to help new generations “reclaim” forms of indigenous knowledge
production from archival records and contemporary astronomical data in collaboration with commu-
nity elders. For these scholars, the project is not simply one of “giving back” to the community; rather,
they recognize that indigenous astronomical traditions are underpinned by a philosophy of knowledge
that enables a different understanding of how humans relate to the natural world. This knowledge can
produce new forms of intercultural understandings about climate and environmental change.
For many of these participatory media projects, the stakes are highly politicized. For those anthro-
pologists working in Australia, Africa, and South America, legacies of colonial violence are still
omnipresent. How can anthropologists use their research to not only understand culture, but to also
mitigate some of the violent residue of inequality that came from colonialism? This is a key question
that undergirds much of this participatory media research. Along with research that addresses that
419
question comes a host of ethical considerations: how should media recordings be stored, who should
control the intellectual property developed through media technologies, and who defines the project
and how it will be developed. These may seem as though they are only practical questions, but for
many media anthropologists engaged in participatory methods they are also research questions. They
are also questions about power and fairness. By posing and answering these questions in their projects,
media anthropologists doing participatory media methods have contributed to the development of new
approaches to ethnography.
Digital media poses several additional ethical issues particularly in terms of protecting the anonymity
of research subjects. In her work on the hackers and trolls turned political collective Anonymous,
Gabriella Coleman (2014) wrote about the fact that much of her research depended on the anonymity
of the hackers with whom she worked. How, she asked, should an anthropologist balance the hacker
collective’s need for anonymity while still confirming the validity or real identities of research subjects.
In the process of researching groups like Anonymous, how should anthropologists try to balance the
positive impact of the privacy activism this group engages in with the misogynist, anti-political antics
of some members of the group? In other words, what does it mean for a researcher to “call out”
Anonymous on its shortcomings while still protecting the true identities of its members? Similarly, in
her ethnography of online dating in Australia, Susan Frohlick found herself needing to “dis-identify”
daters who had written particularly offensive or poorly constructed dating profiles. So poorly built, or
“uniquely horrible,” were these profiles that to describe them as her interviewees did would violate the
authors’ right to anonymity.17 Frohlick argued that exploring themes of masculinity and dating were
more important to the research than personally identifying individuals with bad dating profiles.
Ethnographers working with digital and social media in particular, have devised multiple strategies
for anonymizing participatory media subjects. Annette Markham (2012), for example, has developed
the strategy of fabrication. Writing ethnographic work about child sexuality and queer bloggers,
Markham urges ethnographers to take the essence of what is being said by people, to combine or
rearrange it, and fabricate an ethnographic account that demonstrates the points most relevant for the
research. Doing so, she argues, is not new; it is common practice to use direct quotes from research sub-
jects in ethnography even though the quote may be off by a few words because it was heard while spin-
ning pots or cooking or participating in some other activity. Such a practice poses many other ethical
questions, and it is this ethical conundrum that Markham says is most important for thinking through
methodological and ethical issues in media anthropology.18 While this fabrication approach is by no
means perfect, and is open to criticism, it demonstrates the necessity of ethical considerations when
conducting methodological experimentation in media anthropology.
CONCLUSION
Media anthropologists are concerned with many of the clas-

sic subjects of cultural anthropology: kinship, religion, mythol-
ogy, identity, and the transmission of cultural meaning. How,
for instance, does media allow people create and maintain kin-
ship ties across large geographical distances? How are religious
beliefs transformed as they are communicated through plat-
forms like television and the Internet? How does media con-
tribute to the development of a sense of self or group identities?
On the Mediterranean island of Gozo, for example, cellular
phones have allowed distant relatives in North America to
remain part of the community by participating in the yearly
celebrations of village saints. Local Catholic priests in Greece
have been forced to consider the spiritual force of religious
icons as they are transformed from a statue honored in-person
during religious ceremonies into mediated images people see
from afar.19 If the Virgin Mary appears to be weeping in a
video, but the statue shows no effect, does it count as a miracle?
Figure 8: A Gozitan man shoots video and photos inside his
village church to send to his parents who now live in Rather than answer this question, media anthropologists are
Toronto. Media anthropologists are increasingly interested in
how the mediation of spirituality is requiring new forms of interested in why people are concerned with it in the first
theological thinking in religious communities. Photo by Bryce place.
Peake.
While class anthropological subjects remain important,
media anthropologists are also engaging with new problems
and debates while interacting with other academic disciplines such as Media and Communication Stud-
ies, Digital Sociology, and New Media Art. For instance, media anthropologists question the assump-
tion that there is a universal media psychology that predicts the ways that people will interpret media.
They have pointed out that the impact social media has on individuals is a function of culture, not just
political economic conditions.20 Media anthropologists have even engaged with questions about how
basic human ideas about beauty or the passage of time translate into mediums like film and radio.21
While grappling with a range of old and new themes, one thing continues to separate media anthro-
pologists from other media scholars: a commitment to long-term, participant-observation based field-
work. Media anthropologists push the boundaries of what counts as ethnographic research and
academic writing, but they continue to rely on deep relationships with people and holistic consideration
of the full range of media practices found around the world.
1. What is the difference between interpreting and producing media? How have anthropologists studied these processes differently?
2. How do anthropologists study media consumption, media production, and infrastructure? What different types of approaches did
the anthropologists in this chapter use? What sets media anthropologists apart from other types of media scholars?
3. Where do media anthropologists work? What types of topics do they focus on?
421
GLOSSARY
Cultural infrastructure: The values and beliefs of communities, states, and/or societies that make the
imagining of a particular type of network possible.
Fabrication: A technique for reporting on research data that involves mixing information provided by
various people into a narrative account that demonstrates the point of focus for researchers.
Indigenous media: Media produced by and for indigenous communities often outside of the commer-
cial mainstream.
Mass communication: One-to-many communication that privileges the sender and/or owner of the
technology that transmits the media.
Media: A word that used to describe a set of technologies that connect multiple people at one time to
shared content.
Media practices: The habits or behaviors of the people who produce media, the audiences who interact
with media, and everyone in between.
Mechanical infrastructure: The apparatuses that bring networks of technology into existence.
Photovoice: A research method that puts cameras into people’s hands so they can make their own rep-
resentations of their lives and the activities.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bryce Peake is an assistant professor of Media & Communication Studies

and an affiliate faculty member in Gender Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore
County. His current research focuses on masculinity, media, and science in the post-World War II
British Mediterranean spaces of Gibraltar and Gozo. He has also published multimodal projects on race
in the United States, and been recognized by the American Anthropological Association for his ethno-
graphic photography. Bryce currently runs the Anthropology, Mediated workshop on the island of Gozo,
a 15 day ethnographic media fieldschool for undergraduates. Prior to arriving at UMBC, Bryce was a
Julie & Rocky Dixon Fellow in Graduate Innovation, and worked with anthropologists at Intel Labs to
develop a data-tracking application for users living with Tinnitus.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abu-Lughod, Lila. Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Europe. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2004).
Auslander, Mark. “Objects of Kinship.” Transition 122 (2017): 206–216.
Bird, Elizabeth, ed. The Anthropology of News and Journalism: Global Perspectives (Bloomington: Indiana
Boellstorff, Tom. Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015).
Coleman, Gabriella. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous. (New York: Verso,
2014).
Constable, Nicole. Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and “Mail Order” Marriages.
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).
Crocker, William H. “Review of The Kayapo; The Kayapo: Out of the Forest.” American Anthropologist 93
no. 2 (1991): 514–516.
Dirks, Nicholas. “Annals of the Archive: Ethnographic Notes on the Sources of History.” In From the
Margins: Historical Anthropology and Its Futures. Edited by Brian Keith Axel, 47–65. (Durham: Duke
Frohlick, Susan. “Fluid Exchanges: The Negotiation of Intimacy between Tourist Women and Local
Men in a Transnational Town in Caribbean Costa Rica.” City & Society 19 no. 1(2007): 139–168.
_____ “I’m More Sexy Here: Erotic Subjectivities of Female Tourists in the Sexual Paradise of the Costa
Rican Caribbean.” In Gendered Mobilities. Edited by Tanu Priya Uteng and Tim Cresswell, 199–223.
(New York: Ashgate, 2008).
Gershon, Ilana. The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012).
Ginsburg, Faye. “Indigenous Media: Faustian Contract or Global Village?” Cultural Anthropology 6 no. 1
(1991): 92–112.
Graham, Steve, and Simon Marvin. Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobili-
ties and the Urban Condition. (New York: Routledge, 2001).
Gray, Mary L. Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America. (New York: New
York University Press, 2009).
Hirschkind, Charles. The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics. (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2006).
Juris, Jeffrey S. “Performing Politics Image, Embodiment, and Affective Solidarity during Anti-Corpo-
rate Globalization Protests.” Ethnography 9 no. 1(2008): 61–97.
Kemper, Steven. Buying and Believing: Sri Lankan Advertising and Consumers in a Transnational World.
(Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2001).
Larkin, Brian. Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria. Duke University Press
Books, 2008).
Lombardi, Gerald S. Computer Networks, Social Networks and the Future of Brazil. (New York University,
Graduate School of Arts and Science, 1999).
Markham, Annette. “Fabrication as Ethical Practice.” Information, Communication & Society 15 no. 3
(2012): 334–353.
Michaels, E. For a Cultural Future: Francis Jupurrurla Makes TV at Yuendumu. (Australia: Art and Culture
Monographs, 1987).
Osorio, Francisco. “Proposal for Anthropology of Mass Media.” In Media Anthropology. Edited by Eric
Rothenbuhler and Mihai Coman, 36–45. (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2005.
Peake, Bryce. “Gozo, Mediated.” Forthcoming in OmerTaa: A Journal of Applied Anthropology (2018):
670–675.
Pidduck, Julianne. “Queer Kinship and Ambivalence: Video Autoethnographies by Jean Carlomusto and
Richard Fung.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 15 no. 3 (2009): 441–468.
Powdermaker, Hortense. Hollywood: The Dream Factory. (London: Secker and Warburg, 1950).
423
Sandvig, Christian. “Connection at Ewiiaapaayp Mountain: Indigenous Internet Infrastructure.” In Race

after the Internet. Edited by Lisa Nakamura, 168–200. (New York: Routledge, 2012).
Stephen, Lynn. “Community and Indigenous Radio in Oaxaca: Testimony and Participatory Democ-
racy.” In Radio Fields: Anthropology and Wireless Sound in the 21st Century. Edited by Lucas Bessire (New
York: NYU Press, 2012).
Turner, Terence. The Kayapo Video Project: A Progress Report. Unpublished Manuscript, 1990.
Wyatt, Geoffrey. “Dreamtime Astronomy: Development of a New Indigenous Program at Sydney
Observatory.” Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 17 no. 2 (2014): 195–204.
Notes
1. The Variety headline is cited in Robert Bierstedt, “A Review of Hollywood-The Dream Factory: An Anthropolo-
gist Looks at the Movie-Makers,” American Sociological Review 17 (1951): 124-125.
2. Ibid.
3. Jon Mitchell, Ambivalent Europeans: Ritual, Memory and the Public Sphere in Malta (New York: Routledge, 2001), 5.
4. Steven Kemper, Buying and Believing: Sri Lankan Advertising and Consumers in a Transnational World (Chicago: Uni-
versity Of Chicago Press, 2001), 27.
5. Dominic Boyer, “From Media Anthropology to the Anthropology of Mediation,” in the SAGE Handbook of Social
Anthropology, ed. Jon Mitchell et al., 411–422 (London: Sage, 2012).
6. Charles Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2009), 2.
7. Iain Edgar, A Guide to Imagework: Imagination-Based Research Methods (London: Routledge, 2004).
8. Charles Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics.
9. Julianne Pidduck, “Queer Kinship and Ambivalence: Video Autoethnographies by Jean Carlomusto and Richard
Fung,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 15 no. 3 (2009): 441–468.
10. Lynn Stephen, “Community and Indigenous Radio in Oaxaca: Testimony and Participatory Democracy,” in Radio
Fields: Anthropology and Wireless Sound in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Lucas Bessire (New York: New York Uni-
11. See Dawn Nafus, “Patches Don”t Have Gender:’ What Is Not Open in Open Source Software,” New Media & Soci-
ety 14 no. 4 (2012): 669–683; and Dawn Nafus and Jamie Sherman, “Big Data, Big Questions| This One Does Not
Go Up To 11: The Quantified Self Movement as an Alternative Big Data Practice,” International Journal of Com-
munication 8(2014): 11.
12. Gerald S. Lombardi, Computer Networks, Social Networks and the Future of Brazil. PhD dissertation, New York Uni-
versity, 1999), 21.
13. Terence Turner, The Kayapo Video Project: A Progress Report. Unpublished Manuscript (Turner 1990), 1.
14. Faye Ginsburg, “Indigenous Media: Faustian Contract or Global Village?” Cultural Anthropology 6(1): 94.
15. Ibid.
16. Geoffrey Wyatt, “Dreamtime Astronomy: Development of a New Indigenous Program at Sydney Observatory,”
Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 17 no. 2 (2014): 195–204.
17. See Susan Frohlick, “Fluid Exchanges: The Negotiation of Intimacy between Tourist Women and Local Men in a
Transnational Town in Caribbean Costa Rica.” City & Society 19 no. 1(2007): 139–168 and Susan Frohlick “I’m
More Sexy Here: Erotic Subjectivities of Female Toursits in the Sexual Paradise of the Costa Rican Caribbean,”
in Gendered Mobilities, ed. Tanu Priya Uteng and Tim Cresswell, 199–223 (New York: Ashgate, 2008).
18. Annette Markham, “Fabrication as Ethical Practice,” Information, Communication & Society 15 no. 3 (2012):
334–353.
19. See the forthcoming 2018 article by Bryce Peake, “Gozo, Mediated” Omertaa: A Journal of Applied Anthropology:
670–675.
20. Ilana Gershon, The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012).
21. Mark Auslander, “Objects of Kinship,” Transition 122 (2017): 206–216.
17
HEALTH AND MEDICINE
Sashur Henninger-Rener, Pasadena City College

[email protected]
Learning Objectives
• Define the biocultural perspective and provide examples of how interactions between biology and culture have affected human
biology.
• Identify four ethno-etiologies (personalistic, naturalistic, emotionalistic, and biomedical) and describe how each differs in explain-
ing the root cause of illness.
• Explain the significance of faith in healing.
• Examine the relationship between mental health and cultural factors, including stigma, that affect the way people with mental
health conditions are perceived.
• Discuss examples of culture-bound syndromes.
• Evaluate the positive and negative effects of biomedical technologies.
What does it mean to be “healthy”? It may seem odd to ask the question, but health is not a universal
concept and each culture values different aspects of well-being. At the most basic level, health may be
perceived as surviving each day with enough food and water, while other definitions of health may
be based on being free of diseases or emotional troubles. Complicating things further is the fact that
that each culture has a different causal explanation for disease. For instance, in ancient Greece health
was considered to be the product of unbalanced humors or bodily fluids. The four humors included
black bile, phlegm, yellow bile, and blood. The ancient Greeks believed that interactions among these
humors explained differences not only in health, but in age, gender, and general disposition. Various
425
things could influence the balance of the humors in a person’s body including substances believed to be
present in the air, changes in diet, or even temperature and weather. An imbalance in the humors was
believed to cause diseases, mood problems, and mental illness.1
The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes that the health of individuals and communities is
affected by many factors: “where we live, the state of our environment, genetics, our income and edu-
cation level, and our relationships with friends and family.” 2 Research conducted by the WHO suggests
that these characteristics play a more significant role in affecting our health than any others, includ-
ing having access to health care. For this reason, anthropologists who are interested in issues related to
health and illness must use a broad holistic perspective that considers the influence of both biology and
culture. Medical anthropology, a distinct sub-specialty within the discipline of anthropology, investi-
gates human health and health care systems in comparative perspective, considering a wide range of
bio-cultural dynamics that affect the well-being of human populations. Medical anthropologists study
the perceived causes of illness as well as the techniques and treatments developed in a society to address
health concerns. Using cultural relativism and a comparative approach, medical anthropologists seek to
understand how ideas about health, illness, and the body are products of particular social and cultural
contexts.
ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE BIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

Evolutionary biology is a field of study that investigates the ways that natural processes have shaped
the development of life on Earth, producing measurable changes in populations over time. Humans,
Homo sapiens, are a special case in the discussion of evolution. We are a relatively young species that
has been on Earth for only about 195,000 years.3 Although this may sound like a long time, com-
pared with other animals, humans are newcomers and we have been subject to processes of natural
selection and adaptation for less time than many other living things. In that short time period, human
lifestyles have changed dramatically. The first humans evolved in Africa and had a foraging lifestyle,
living in small, kin-based groups. Today, millions of people live in crowded, fast-paced, and technolog-
ically advanced agricultural societies. In evolutionary terms, this change has happened rapidly. The fact
that these rapid changes were even possible reveals that human lifestyles are biocultural, products of
interactions between biology and culture. This has many implications for understanding human health.
The theory of natural selection suggests that in any species there are certain physical or behavioral
traits that are adaptive and increase the capacity of individuals to survive and reproduce. These adap-
tive traits will be passed on through generations. Many human traits contributed to the survival of
early human communities. A capacity for efficient walking and running, for instance, was important to
human survival for thousands of years. However, as cultural change led to new lifestyles, some human
characteristics became maladaptive.
One example is the obesity epidemic that has emerged all over the world. According to the Center for
Disease Control and Prevention, more than one-third of the population of the United States is obese.4
Obesity is considered to be a “disease of civilization,” meaning that it did not exist in early human popu-
lations. Taking a biocultural evolutionary approach to human health, we can ask what traits character-
istic of early human foraging populations might have encouraged an accumulation of fat in the human
body. The answer comes from the evidence of food shortages among foraging populations. In fact, 47
percent of societies that forage experience food shortages at least once per year. Another 24 percent
experience a shortage at least every two years.5 When taking this into account, the ability to retain body
fat would have been advantageous for humans in the past. Women with more body fat could give birth
to healthy babies and breastfeed them, even in periods of food scarcity. It is also possible that women
427
and men would have viewed body fat as a sign of health and access to resources, choosing sexual part-
ners based on this characteristic. If so, powerful biological and cultural forces would have contributed
to genetic traits that led to efficient metabolism and higher body fat.
With the development of agriculture, calories became more easily available while many people in the
population became more sedentary. Traits that were once adaptive became maladaptive. The develop-
ment of cultural preferences for foods high in fat and sugar, such as the “standard American diet” (SAD)
is directly associated with obesity. These cultural changes have had a negative impact on health in many
places. In Polynesia, for instance, obesity rates were around 15 percent in traditional farming commu-
nities, but climbed to over 35 percent as people moved to cities.6 This is an example of the biocultural
nature of many human health challenges.
Another example of this biocultural dynamic is sickle cell anemia, an inherited disease that can be
fatal. A person who inherits the sickle cell gene from both parents will have red blood cells with an usual
sickle (crescent) shape. These cells cannot carry oxygen as efficiently as normal red blood cells and they
are also more likely to form painful and dangerous blood clots. Ordinarily, genetic conditions that make
it more difficult for individuals to survive or have children, will become less common in populations
over time due to the effects of natural selection. From an evolutionary perspective, one might ask why
a deadly genetic condition has remained so common in human populations.
The cultural context is important for answering this question. The sickle cell gene is found most often
in human populations in Africa and Southeast Asia where malaria is widespread. Malaria is a mosquito-
borne illness that can be deadly to humans. People who have inherited one copy of the sickle cell anemia
trait (instead of the two copies that cause sickle cell disease) have resistance to malaria. This is a sig-
nificant adaptive trait in parts of the world where malaria is widespread. There is some evidence that
malaria became a significant threat to human health only after the invention of agriculture. The defor-
ested areas and collections of standing water that characterize agricultural communities also attract
the mosquitos that carry disease. 7 In this case, we can see biocultural dynamics in action. Because
resistance to malaria is an adaptive trait, the sickle cell gene remained common in populations where
malaria is present. In parts of West and Central Africa, up to 25 percent of the population has the sickle
cell gene. While sickle cell anemia is still a deadly disease, those who inherit a single copy of the gene
have some protection from malaria, itself a deadly threat in many places. This example illustrates the
biocultural interaction between genes, pathogens, and culture.
Infectious diseases generally do not have an adaptive function for humans like the examples above,
but many infectious diseases are influenced by human cultural systems. Because early human commu-
nities consisted of small groups with a foraging lifestyle, viruses and bacteria transmitted from per-
son to person were unlikely to result in large-scale epidemics. Healthy individuals from neighboring
groups could simply avoid coming into contact with anyone who was suffering from illness and out-
breaks would be naturally contained.8
The rapid increase in the size of human communities following the invention of agriculture changed
this pattern. Agriculture can support more people per unit of land and, at the same time, agriculturalists
need to live in permanent urban settlements in order to care for their crops. In a cyclical way, agri-
culture provides more food while also requiring that people have sizeable families to do the necessary
farm work. Over the course of several thousand years, agricultural communities became increasingly
densely populated. This had many implications for local ecology: problems disposing of waste and diffi-
culty accessing clean water. A prime example of the health effects of the transition to urban settlements
is cholera, a water-borne illness that spreads through water that has been polluted with human feces.
Cholera, which was first detected in urban populations in India, has killed tens of thousands of people
throughout history and continues to threaten populations today, particularly in developing countries,
where access to clean water is limited, and in places that have experienced natural disasters.9
From an adaptive perspective, human beings die from infectious diseases because they do not have
immunity to them. Immunity can be built up over time for some diseases, but unfortunately only after
the illness or death of many members of a population.10 When a new infectious disease reaches a pop-
ulation, it can wreak havoc on many people. Historically, several new infectious diseases are known to
have been introduced to human populations through contact with livestock. Tuberculosis and smallpox
were linked to cattle and influenza to chickens. When humans domesticated animal species, and began
to live in close proximity to them, new routes for the transmission of zoonotic disease, illnesses that can
be passed between humans and animals, were established.11 Living in cities accelerates the spread of
infectious diseases and the scale of outbreaks, but may also contribute to the natural selection of genetic
traits that confer resistance to disease. This biocultural evolutionary process has been documented in
urban populations where there are genes providing some resistance to leprosy and tuberculosis.12
ETHNOMEDICINE
Ethnomedicine is the comparative study of cultural

ideas about wellness, illness, and healing. For the major-
ity of our existence, human beings have depended on
the resources of the natural environment and on health
and healing techniques closely associated with spiritual
beliefs. Many such practices, including some herbal
remedies and techniques like acupuncture, have been
studied scientifically and found to be effective.13 Others
have not necessarily been proven medically effective by
external scientific evidence, but continue to be
embraced by communities that perceive them to be use-
ful. When considering cultural ideas about health, an
important place to start is with ethno-etiology: cultural
explanations about the underlying causes of health
problems.
In the United States the dominant approach to think-
ing about health is biomedical. Illnesses are thought to
Figure 1: Traditional Tibetan Medicine Poster.
be the result of specific, identifiable agents. This can
include pathogens (viruses or bacteria), malfunction of
the body’s biochemical processes (conditions such as cancer), or physiological disorders (such as organ
failure). In biomedicine as it is practiced in the United States (Western biomedicine), health is defined
as the absence of disease or dysfunction, a perspective that notably excludes consideration of social or
spiritual well-being. In non-Western contexts biomedical explanations are often viewed as unsatisfac-
tory. In his analysis of ideas about health and illness in non-Western cultures, George Foster (1976)
concluded that these ideas could be categorizes into two main types of ethno-etiology: personalistic and
naturalistic.14
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Ethno-Etiologies: Personalistic and Naturalistic

Personalistic ethno-etiologies view disease as the result of the “active, purposeful intervention of
an agent, who may be human (a witch or sorcerer), nonhuman (a ghost, an ancestor, an evil spirit), or
supernatural (a deity or other very powerful being).”15 Illness in this kind of ethno-etiology is viewed
as the result of aggression or punishment directed purposefully toward an individual; there is no acci-
dent or random chance involved. Practitioners who are consulted to provide treatment are interested
in discovering who is responsible for the illness—a ghost, an ancestor? No one is particularly interested
in discovering how the medical condition arose in terms of the anatomy or biology involved. This is
because treating the illness will require neutralizing or satisfying a person, or a supernatural entity, and
correctly identifying the being who is the root cause of the problem is essential for achieving a cure.
The Heiban Nuba people of southern Sudan provide an interesting example of a personalistic etiol-
ogy. As described by, S.F. Nadel in the 1940s, the members of this society had a strong belief that illness
and other misfortune was the result of witchcraft.
A certain magic, mysteriously appearing in individuals, causes the death or illness of anyone who eats
their grain or spills their beer. Even spectacular success, wealth too quickly won, is suspect; for it is the
work of a spirit-double, who steals grain or livestock for his human twin. This universe full of malig-
nant forces is reflected in a bewildering array of rituals, fixed and occasional, which mark almost every
activity of tribal life.16
Because sickness is thought to be caused by spiritual attacks from others in the community, people
who become sick seek supernatural solutions. The person consulted is often a shaman, a person who
specializes in contacting the world of the spirits.
In Heiban Nuba culture, as well as in other societies where shamans exist, the shaman is believed
to be capable of entering a trance-like state in order to cross between the ordinary and supernatural
realms. While in this state, the shaman can identify the individual responsible for causing the illness and
sometimes the spirits can be convinced to cure the disease itself. Shamans are common all around the
world and despite the proverbial saying that “prostitution is the oldest profession,” shamanism proba-
bly is! Shamans are religious and medical practitioners who play important social roles in their com-
munities as healers with a transcendent ability to navigate the spirit world for answers. In addition, the
often have a comprehensive knowledge of the local ecology and how to use plants medicinally. They
can address illnesses using both natural and supernatural tools.
In naturalistic ethno-etiologies, diseases are thought to be the result of natural forces such as “cold,
heat, winds, dampness, and above all, by an upset in the balance of the basic body elements.”17 The
ancient Greek idea that health results from a balance between the four humors is an example of a nat-
uralistic explanation. The concept of the yin and yang, which represent opposite but complementary
energies, is a similar idea from traditional Chinese medicine. Achieving balance or harmony between
these two forces is viewed as essential to physical and emotional health. Unlike personalistic expla-
nations, practitioners who treat illness in societies with naturalistic ethno-etiologies are interested in
understanding how the medical condition arose so that they can choose therapeutic remedies viewed
as most appropriate.
Emotional difficulties can be viewed as the cause of illness in a naturalistic ethno-etiology (an emo-
tionalistic explanation). One example of a medical problem associated with emotion is susto, an illness
recognized by the Mixe, an indigenous group who live in Oaxaca, Mexico, as well as others through-
out central America. The symptoms of susto include difficulty sleeping, lack of energy, loss of appetite
and sometimes nausea/vomiting and fever. The condition is believed to be a result of a “fright” or shock
and, in some cases at least, it is believed to begin with a shock so strong that it disengages the soul from
the body.18 The condition is usually treated with herbal remedies and barrida (sweeping) ceremonies
designed to repair the harm caused by the shock itself.19 Although physicians operating within a bio-
medical ethno-etiology have suggested that susto is a psychiatric illness that in other cultural contexts
could be labeled anxiety or depression, in fact susto is does not fit easily into any one Western biomed-
ical category. Those suffering from susto see their condition as a malady that is emotional, spiritual, and
physical.20
In practice, people assess medical problems using a variety of explanations and in any given society
personalistic, naturalistic, or even biomedical explanations may all apply in different situations. It is
also important to keep in mind that the line between a medical concern and other kinds of life chal-
lenges can be blurry. An illness may be viewed as just one more instance of general misfortune such as
crop failure or disappointment in love. Among the Azande in Central Africa, witchcraft is thought to
be responsible for almost all misfortune, including illness. E.E. Evans-Pritchard, an anthropologist who
studied the Azande of north-central Africa in the 1930s, famously described this logic be describing a
situation in which a granary, a building used to store grain collapsed.
In Zandeland sometimes an old granary collapses. There is nothing remarkable in this. Every Zande
knows that termites eat the supports in course of time and that even the hardest woods decay after years
of service. Now a granary is the summerhouse of a Zande homestead and people sit beneath it in the
heat of the day and chat or play the African hole-game or work at some craft. Consequently it may hap-
pen that there are people sitting beneath the granary when it collapses and they are injured…Now why
should these particular people have been sitting under this particular granary at the particular moment
when it collapsed? That it should collapse is easily intelligible, but why should it have collapsed at the
particular moment when these particular people were sitting beneath it…The Zande knows that the
supports were undermined by termites and that people were sitting beneath the granary in order to
escape the heat of the sun. But he knows besides why these two events occurred at a precisely similar
moment in time and space. It was due to the action of witchcraft. If there had been no witchcraft peo-
ple would have been sitting under the granary and it would not have fallen on them, or it would have
collapsed but the people would not have been sheltering under it at the time. Witchcraft explains the
coincidence of these two happenings.21
According to this logic, an illness of the body is ultimately caused by the same force as the collapse
of the granary: witchcraft. In this case, an appropriate treatment may not even be focused on the body
itself. Ideas about health are often inseparable from religious beliefs and general cultural assumptions
about misfortune.22
Is Western Biomedicine An Ethno-Etiology?

The biomedical approach to health strikes many people, particularly residents of the United States,
as the best or at least the most “fact based” approach to medicine. This is largely because Western bio-
medicine is based on the application of insights from science, particularly biology and chemistry, to the
diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions. The effectiveness of biomedical treatments is assessed
through rigorous testing using the scientific method and indeed Western biomedicine has produced
successful treatments for many dangerous and complex conditions: everything from antibiotics and
cures for cancer to organ transplantation.
However, it is important to remember that the biomedical approach is itself embedded in a distinct
cultural tradition, just like other ethno-etiologies. Biomedicine, and the scientific disciplines on which
it is based, are products of Western history. The earliest Greek physicians Hippocrates (c. 406-370 BC)
and Galen (c. 129-c. 200 AD) shaped the development of the biomedical perspective by providing early
431
insights into anatomy, physiology, and the relationship between environment and health. From its ori-
gins in ancient Greece and Rome, the knowledge base that matured into contemporary Western bio-
medicine developed as part of the Scientific Revolution in Europe, slowly maturing into the medical
profession recognized today. While the scientific method used in Western biomedicine represents a dis-
tinct and powerful “way of knowing” compared to other etiologies, the methods, procedures, and forms
of reasoning used in biomedicine are products of Western culture. 23
In matters of health, as in other aspects of life, ethnocentrism
predisposes people to believe that their own culture’s traditions
are the most effective. People from non-Western cultures do not
necessarily agree that Western biomedicine is superior to their
own ethno-etiologies. Western culture does not even have a
monopoly on the concept of “science.” Other cultures recognize
their own forms of science separate from the Western tradition
and these sciences have histories dating back hundreds or even
thousands of years. One example is Traditional Chinese Medi-
cine (TCM), a set of practices developed over more than 2,500
years to address physical complaints holistically through
acupuncture, exercise, and herbal remedies. The tenets of Tradi-
tional Chinese Medicine are not based on science as it is defined
in Western culture, but millions of people, including a growing
number of people in the United States and Europe, regard TCM
as credible and effective.
Ultimately, all ethno-etiologies are rooted in shared cultural
Figure 2: The Taiyang bladder meridian, one of several
perceptions about the way the world works. Western biomedi- meridians recognized in Traditional Chinese medicine.
From Shou Hua’s Jushikei Hakki, 1716, Tokyo
cine practitioners would correctly observe that the strength of
Western biomedicine is derived from use of a scientific method
that emphasizes objectively observable facts. However, this this would not be particularly persuasive to
someone whose culture uses a different ethno-etiology or whose understanding of the world derives
from a different tradition of “science.” From a comparative perspective, Western biomedicine may be
viewed as one ethno-etiology in a world of many alternatives.
Techniques for Healing

Western biomedicine tends to conceive of the human body as a kind of biological machine. When
parts of the machine are damaged, defective, or out of balance, chemical or surgical interventions are
the preferred therapeutic responses. Biomedical practitioners, who can be identified by their white
coats and stethoscopes, are trained to detect observable or quantifiable symptoms of disease, often
through the use of advanced imaging technologies or tests of bodily fluids like blood and urine. Prob-
lems detected through these means will be addressed. Other factors known to contribute to wellness,
such as the patient’s social relationships or emotional state of mind, are considered less relevant for both
diagnosis and treatment. Other forms of healing, which derive from non-biomedical ethno-etiologies,
reverse this formulation, giving priority to the social and spiritual.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the body is thought to be governed by the same forces that animate
the universe itself. One of these is chi (qi), a vital life force that flows through the body and energizes the
body and its organs. Disruptions in the flow or balance of chi can lead to a lack of internal harmony and
ultimately to health problems so TCM practitioners use treatments designed to unblock or redirect chi,
including acupuncture, dietary changes, and herbal remedies. This is an example of humoral healing,
an approach to healing that seeks to treat medical ailments by achieving a balance between the forces
or elements of the body.
Communal healing, a second category of medical treatment, directs the combined efforts of the
community toward treating illness. In this approach, medical care is a collaboration between multiple
people. Among the !Kung (Ju/’hoansi) of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa, energy known as num
can be channeled by members of the community during a healing ritual and directed toward individu-
als suffering from illness. Richard Katz, Megan Bisele, and Verna St. Davis (1982) described an example
of this kind of ceremony:
The central event in this tradition is the all-night healing dance. Four times a month on the average,
night signals the start of a healing dance. The women sit around the fire, singing and rhythmically clap-
ping. The men, sometimes joined by the women, dance around the singers. As the dance intensifies,
num, or spiritual energy, is activated by the healers, both men and women, but mostly among the danc-
ing men. As num is activated in them, they begin to kia, or experience an enhancement of their con-
sciousness. While experiencing kia, they heal all those at the dance.24
While communal healing techniques often involve harnessing supernatural forces such as the num, it
is also true that these rituals help strengthen social bonds between people. Having a strong social and
emotional support system is an important element of health in all human cultures.
Faith and the Placebo Effect

Humoral and communal approaches to healing, which from a scientific perspective would seem to
have little potential to address the root causes of an illness, present an important question for medical
anthropologists. What role does faith play in healing? Sir William Osler, a Canadian physician who
was one of the founders of Johns Hopkins Hospital, believed that much of a physician’s healing ability
derived from his or her ability to inspire patients with a faith that they could be cured.25 Osler wrote:
Faith in the Gods or in the Saints cures one, faith in little pills another, suggestion a third, faith in
a plain common doctor a fourth…If a poor lass, paralyzed apparently, helpless, bed-ridden for years,
comes to me having worn out in mind, body, and estate a devoted family; if she in a few weeks or less by
faith in me, and faith alone, takes up her bed and walks, the Saints of old could not have done more.26
In fact, there is a considerable amount of research suggesting that there is a placebo effect involved
in many different kinds of healing treatments. A placebo effect is a response to treatment that occurs
because the person receiving the treatment believes it will work, not because the treatment itself is effec-
tive.
In Western biomedicine, the placebo effect has been observed in situations in which a patient believes
that he or she is receiving a certain drug treatment, but is actually receiving an inactive substance such
as water or sugar. 27 Research suggests that the body often responds physiologically to placebos in the
same way it would if the drug was real.28 The simple act of writing a prescription can contribute to
the successful recovery of individuals because patients trust that they are on a path that will lead to
wellness.29 If we consider the role of the placebo effect in the examples above, we should consider the
possibility that humoral and communal healing are perceived to “work” because the people who receive
these remedies have faith in them.
An interesting example of the complexity of the mind-body connection is found in studies of inter-
cessory prayer: prayers made to request healing for another person. In one well-known study,
researchers separated patients who had recently undergone heart surgery into two groups, one con-
taining people who know they would be receiving prayers for their recovery and another group who
433
would receive prayers without being aware of it. Those patients who knew they were receiving prayers
actually had more complications and health problems in the month following surgery.30 This reflects
an interesting relationship between faith and healing. Why did the patients who knew that others were
praying for them experience more complications? Perhaps it was because the knowledge that their doc-
tors had asked others to pray for them made patients more stressed, perceiving that their health was at
greater risk.
However, it can also be a lack of faith that drives
people to look for alternative treatments. In the
United States, alternative treatments, some of
which are drawn from humoral or communal heal-
ing traditions, have become more popular among
patients who believe that Western biomedicine is
failing them. Cancer research facilities have begun
to suggest acupuncture as a treatment for the
intense nausea and fatigue caused by chemother-
apy and scientific studies suggest that acupuncture
can be effective in relieving these symptoms.31
Marijuana, a drug that has a long recorded history
of medical use starting in ancient China, Egypt,
and India, has steadily gained acceptance in the Figure 3: A botánica store selling herbal folk medicines.
United States as a treatment for a variety of ail-
ments ranging from anxiety to Parkinson’s dis-
ease.32 As growing numbers of people place their faith in these and other remedies, it is important to
recognize that many alternative forms of healing or medicine lack scientific evidence for their efficacy.
The results derived from these practices may owe as much to faith as medicine.
MENTAL HEALTH
Unlike other kinds of illnesses, which present relatively consistent symptoms and clear biological evi-
dence, mental health disorders are experienced and treated differently cross-culturally. While the disci-
pline of psychiatry within Western biomedicine applies a disease-framework to explain mental illness,
there is a consensus in medical anthropology that mental health conditions are much more complicated
than the biological illness model suggests. These illnesses are not simply biological or chemical disor-
ders, but complex responses to the environment, including the web of social and cultural relationships
to which individuals are connected.
Medical anthropologists do not believe there are universal categories of mental illness.33 Instead,
individuals may express psychological distress through a variety of physical and emotional symptoms.
Arthur Kleinman, a medical anthropologist, has argued that every culture frames mental health con-
cerns differently. The pattern of symptoms associated with mental health conditions vary greatly
between cultures. In China, Kleinman discovered that patients suffering from depression did not
describe feelings of sadness, but instead complained of boredom, discomfort, feelings of inner pressure,
and symptoms of pain, dizziness, and fatigue.34
Mental health is closely connected with social and cultural expectations and mental illnesses can arise
as a result of pressures and challenges individuals face in particular settings. Rates of depression are
higher for refugees, immigrants, and others who have experienced dislocation and loss. A sense of pow-
erlessness also seems to play a role in triggering anxiety and depression, a phenomenon that has been
documented in groups ranging from stay-at-home mothers in England to Native Americans affected by
poverty and social marginalization.35
Schizophrenia, a condition with genetic as well as environmental components, provides another
interesting example of cross-cultural variation. Unlike anxiety or depression, there is some consistency
in the symptom patterns associated with this condition cross culturally: hallucinations, delusions, and
social withdrawal. What differs, however, is the way these symptoms are viewed by the community.
In his research in Indonesia, Robert Lemelson discovered that symptoms of schizophrenia are often
viewed by Indonesian communities as examples of communication with the spirit world, spirit posses-
sion, or the effects of traumatic memories.36 Documenting the lives of some of these individuals in a
film series, he noted that they remained integrated into their communities and had significant respon-
sibilities as members of their families and neighborhoods. People with schizophrenia were not, as often
happens in the United States, confined to institutions and many were living with their condition with-
out any biomedical treatments.
In its multi-decade study of schizophrenia in 19 countries, the World Health Organization concluded
that societies that were more culturally accepting of symptoms associated with schizophrenia inte-
grated people suffering from the condition into community life more completely. In these cultures, the
illness was less severe and people with schizophrenia had a higher quality of life.37 This finding has been
controversial, but suggests that stigma and the resulting social isolation that characterize responses to
mental illness in countries like the United States affect the subjective experience of the illness as well as
its outcomes.38
THE EXPERIENCE OF ILLNESS IN PLACE
Social Construction of Illness

As the above examples demonstrate, cultural attitudes affect how medical conditions will be per-
ceived and how individuals with health problems will be regarded by the wider community. There is
a difference, for instance, between a disease, which is a medical condition that can be objectively iden-
tified, and an illness, which is the subjective or personal experience of feeling unwell. Illnesses may be
caused by disease, but the experience of being sick encompasses more than just the symptoms caused by
the disease itself. Illnesses are, at least in part, social constructions: experiences that are given meaning
by the relationships between the person who is sick and others.
The course of an illness can worsen for instance, if the dominant society views the sickness as a
moral failing. Obesity is an excellent example of the social construction of illness. The condition itself
is a result of culturally induced habits and attitudes toward food, but despite this strong cultural com-
ponent, many people regard obesity as a preventable circumstance, blaming individuals for becoming
overweight. This attitude has a long cultural history. Consider for instance the religious connotations
within Christianity of “gluttony” as a sin.39 Such socially constructed stigma influences the subjective
experience of the illness. Obese women have reported avoiding visits to physicians for fear of judgment
and as a result may not receive treatments necessary to help their condition.40 Peter Attia, a surgeon
and medical researcher who delivered a TED Talk on this subject, related the story of an obese woman
who had to have her foot amputated, a common result of complications from obesity and diabetes. Even
though he was a physician, he judged the woman to be lazy. “If you had just tried even a little bit,” he had
thought to himself before surgery.
Subsequently, new research revealed that insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes, often develops as
a result of the excess sugars used in many kinds of processed foods consumed commonly in the United
435
States. As Attia observes, high rates of obesity in the United States are a reflection of the types of foods
Americans have learned to consume as part of their cultural environment.41 In addition, the fact that
foods that are high in sugars and fats are inexpensive and abundant, while healthier foods are expensive
and unavailable in some communities, highlights the economic and social inequalities that contribute
to the disease.
The HIV/AIDS virus provides another example
of the way that the subjective experience of an ill-
ness can be influenced by social attitudes. Research
in many countries has shown that people, includ-
ing healthcare workers, make distinctions between
patients who are “innocent” victims of AIDS and
those who are viewed as “guilty.” People who con-
tracted HIV through sex or intravenous drug use
are seen as guilty. The same judgment applies to
Figure 4: AIDS prevention art, Mozambique. The text reads “think of the
people who contracted HIV through same-sex consequences, change behavior, prevent HIV/AIDS.”
relationships in places where societal disapproval
of same-sex relationships exists. People who con-
tracted HIV from blood transfusions, or as babies, are viewed as innocent. The “guilty” HIV patients
often find it more difficult to access medical care and are treated with disrespect or indifference in
medical settings compared with superior treatment provided to those regarded as “innocent.” In the
wider community, “guilty” patients suffer from social marginalization and exclusion while “innocent”
patients receive greater social acceptance and practical assistance in responding to their needs for sup-
port and care.42
The stigma that applies to “guilty” patients also ignores the socioeconomic context in which HIV/
AIDS spreads. For instance, in Indonesia, poor women can make considerably more money as sex
workers than in many other jobs: $10 an hour as a sex worker compared to 20 cents an hour in a fac-
tory.43 Sex work may be the only form of employment available in a patriarchal society. In a similar
way, poverty and a lack of other choices contribute to a decision to engage in sex work in other soci-
eties, including in sub-Saharan Africa where rates of HIV infection are among the highest in the world.
Poverty itself is one of the greatest “risk factors” for HIV infection.44 The clear relationship between
poverty, gender, and HIV infection has been the topic of a great deal of research in medical anthro-
pology. One example is Paul Farmer’s classic book, AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of
Blame (1992), which was one of the earliest books to critically evaluate the connection between poverty,
racism, stigma, and neglect that allowed HIV to infect and kill thousands of Haitians. Projects like this
are critical to developing holistic views of the entire cultural, economic, and political context that affects
the spread of the virus and attempts to treat the disease. Partners in Health, the non-profit medical
organization Paul Farmer helped to found, continues to pursue innovative strategies to prevent and
treat diseases like AIDS, strategies that recognize that poverty and social marginalization provide the
environment in which the virus flourishes.
Culture-Bound Syndromes
A culture-bound syndrome is an illness recognized only within a specific culture. These conditions,
which combine emotional or psychological with physical symptoms, are not the result of a disease or
any identifiable physiological dysfunction. Instead, culture-bound syndromes are somatic, meaning
they are physical manifestations of emotional pain. The existence of these conditions demonstrates the
profound influence of culture and society on the experience of illness.
Anorexia
Anorexia is considered a culture bound syndrome because of its strong association with cultures that
place a high value on thinness as a measure of health and beauty. When we consider concepts of beauty
from cultures all over the world, a common view of beauty is one of someone with additional fat. This
may be because having additional fat in a place where food is expensive means that one is likely of a
higher status. In societies like the United States where food is abundant, it is much more difficult to
become thin than it is to become heavy. Although anorexia is a complex condition, medical anthropol-
ogists and physicians have observed that it is much more common in Western cultural contexts among
people with high socioeconomic status.45 Anorexia, as a form of self-deprivation, has deep roots in
Western culture and for centuries practices of self-denial have been associated with Christian religious
traditions. In a contemporary context, anorexia may address a similar, but secular desire to assert self-
control, particularly among teenagers.46
During her research in Fiji, Anne Becker (2004) noted that young women who were exposed to adver-
tisements and television programs from Western cultures (like the United States and Australia) became
self-conscious about their bodies and began to alter their eating habits to emulate the thin ideal they saw
on television. Anorexia, which had been unknown in Fiji, became an increasingly common problem.47
The same pattern has been observed in other societies undergoing “Westernization” through exposure
to foreign media and economic changes associated with globalization.48
Swallowing Frogs in Brazil
In Brazil, there are several examples of culture-bound syndromes that affect children as well as adults.
Women are particularly susceptible to these conditions, which are connected to emotional distress. In
parts of Brazil where poverty, unemployment, and poor physical health are common, there are cultural
norms that discourage the expression of strong emotions such as anger, grief, or jealousy. Of course,
people continue to experience these emotions, but cannot express them openly. Men and women deal
with this problem in different ways. Men may choose to drink alcohol heavily, or even to express their
anger physically by lashing out at others, including their wives. These are not socially acceptable behav-
iors for women who instead remark that they must suppress their feelings, an act they describe as hav-
ing to “swallow frogs” (engolir sapos).49
Nervos (nerves) is a culture-bound syndrome characterized by symptoms such as headaches, trem-
bling, dizziness, fatigue, stomach pain, tingling of the extremities and even partial paralysis. It is viewed
as a result of emotional overload: a state of constant vulnerability to shock. Unexplained wounds on the
body may be diagnosed as a different kind of illness known as “blood-boiling bruises.” Since emotion
is culturally defined as a kind of energy that flows throughout the body, many believe that too much
emotion can overwhelm the body, “boiling over” and producing symptoms. A person can become so
angry, for instance, that his or her blood spills out from under the skin, creating bruises, or so angry
that the blood rises up to create severe headaches, nausea, and dizziness. A third form of culture-bound
illness, known as peito aberto (open chest) is believed to be occur when a person, most often a woman,
is carrying too much emotional weight or suffering. In this situation, the heart expands until the chest
becomes spiritually “open.” A chest that is “open” is dangerous because rage and anger from other peo-
ple can enter and make a person sick.50
437
In stressful settings like the communities in impoverished areas of northeastern Brazil, it is common
for people to be afflicted with culture-bound illnesses throughout their lives. Individuals can suffer
from one condition, or a combination of several. Sufferers may consult rezadeiras/rezadores, Catholic
faith healers who will treat the condition with prayer, herbal remedies, or healing rituals. Because these
practitioners do not distinguish between illnesses of the body and mind, they treat the symptoms holis-
tically as evidence of personal turmoil. This approach to addressing these illnesses is consistent with
cultural views that it is the suppression of emotion itself that has caused the physical problems.
BIOMEDICAL TECHNOLOGIES
In the history of human health, technology is an essential topic. Medical technologies have transformed
human life. They have increased life expectancy rates, lowered child mortality rates, and are used to
intervene in and often cure thousands of diseases. Of course, these accomplishments come with many
cultural consequences. Successful efforts to intervene in the body biologically also have implications for
cultural values and the social organization of communities, as demonstrated by the examples below.
Antibiotics and Immunizations
Infectious diseases caused by viruses and bacteria have taken an enormous toll on human populations
for thousands of years. During recurring epidemics, tens of thousands of people have died from out-
breaks of diseases like measles, the flu, or bubonic plague. The Black Death, a pandemic outbreak of
plague that spread across Europe and Eurasia from 1346-1353 AD, killed as many as 200 million people,
as much as a third of the European population. Penicillin, discovered in 1928 and mass produced for the
first time in the early 1940s, was a turning point in the human fight against bacterial infections. Called a
“wonder drug” by Time magazine, Penicillin became available at a time when bacterial infections were
frequently fatal; the drug was glorified as a cure-all.51 An important factor to consider about the intro-
duction of antibiotics is the change to an understanding of illness that was increasingly scientific and
technical. Before science could provide cures, personalistic and naturalistic ethno-etiologies identified
various root causes for sickness, but the invention of antibiotics contributed to a strengthening of the
Western biomedical paradigm as well as a new era of profitability for the pharmaceutical industry.
The effects of antibiotics have not been completely positive in all parts of the world. Along with other
technological advances in areas such as sanitation and access to clean water, antibiotics contributed
to an epidemiological transition characterized by a sharp drop in mortality rates, particularly among
children. In many countries, the immediate effect was an increase in the human population as well as a
shift in the kinds of diseases that were most prevalent. In wealthy countries, for instance, chronic con-
ditions like heart disease or cancer have replaced bacterial infections as leading causes of death and the
average lifespan has lengthened. In developing countries, the outcome has been mixed. Millions of lives
have been saved by the availability of antibiotics, but high poverty and lack of access to regular medical
care mean that many children who now survive the immediate dangers of infection during infancy suc-
cumb later in childhood to malnutrition, dehydration, or other ailments.52
Figure 5: Women and children waiting to enter a medical clinic in Somalia. The clinic is open 2 days each week and treats 400-500
people each day.
Another difficulty is the fact that many kinds of infections have become untreatable as a result of bac-
terial resistance. Medical anthropologists are concerned with the increase in rates of infectious diseases
like tuberculosis and malaria that cannot be treated with many existing antibiotics. According to the
World Health Organization, there are nearly 500,000 cases of drug resistant tuberculosis each year.53
New research is now focused on drug resistance, as well as the social and cultural components of this
resistance such as the relationship between poverty and the spread of resistant strains of bacteria.
Immunizations that can provide immunity against viral diseases have also transformed human health.
The eradication of the smallpox virus in 1977 following a concerted global effort to vaccinate a large
percentage of the world’s population is one example of the success of this biotechnology. Before the
development of the vaccine, the virus was killing 1-2 million people each year.54 Today, vaccines exist
for many of the world’s most dangerous viral diseases, but providing access to vaccines remains a
challenge. The polio virus has been eliminated from most of the world following several decades of
near universal vaccination, but the disease has made a comeback in a handful of countries, including
Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan, where weak governments, inadequate healthcare systems, or war
have made vaccinating children impossible. This example highlights the global inequalities that still
exist in access to basic medical care.
Because viruses have the ability to mutate and to jump between animals and people, human popula-
tions around the world also face the constant threat of new viral diseases. Influenza has been respon-
sible for millions of deaths. In 1918, a pandemic of the H1N1 flu infected 500 million people, killing
nearly 5 percent of the human population.55 Not all influenza strains are that deadly, but it remains
a dangerous illness and one that vaccines can only partially address.56 Each year, the strains of the
influenza virus placed in the annual “flu shot” are based on predictions about the strains that will be
most common. Because the virus mutates frequently and is influenced by interactions between human
and animal populations, there is always uncertainty about future forms of the virus.57
439
Reproductive Technologies
Today, the idea of “contraception” is linked to the technology of hormone-based birth control. “The
pill” as we now know it, was not available in the United States until 1960, but attempts to both prevent
or bring about pregnancy through technology date back to the earliest human communities. Techniques
used to control the birthrate are an important subject for medical anthropologists because they have
significant cultural implications.
Many cultures use natural forms of birth control practices to influence the spacing of births. Among
the !Kung, for instance, babies are breastfed for many months or even years, which hormonally suppress
fertility and decrease the number of pregnancies a woman can have in her lifetime. In Enga, New
Guinea, men and women do not live with one another following a birth, another practice that increases
the time between pregnancies.58 In contrast, cultures where there are social or religious reasons for
avoiding birth control, including natural birth spacing methods, have higher birth rates. In the United
States, the Comstock Act passed in 1873 banned contraception and even the distribution of information
about contraception.
Although the Comstock Act is a thing of the past, efforts in the United States to limit access to birth
control and related medical services like abortion are ongoing. Many medical anthropologists study the
ways in which access to reproductive technologies is affected by cultural values. Laury Oaks (2003) has
investigated the way in which activists on both sides of the abortion debate attempt to culturally define
the idea of “risk” as it relates to women’s health. She notes that in the 1990s anti-abortion activists in the
United States circulated misleading medical material suggesting that abortion increases rates of breast
cancer. Although this claim was medically false, it was persuasive to many people and contributed to
doubts about whether abortion posed a health risk to women, a concern that strengthened efforts to
limit access to the procedure.59
Other forms of reproductive technology have emerged from the desire to increase fertility. The world
of “assisted reproduction,” which includes technologies such as in vitro fertilization and surrogate preg-
nancy, has been the subject of many anthropological investigations. Marcia Inhorn, a medical anthro-
pologist, has written several books about the growing popularity of in vitro fertilization in the Middle
East. Her book, The New Arab Man (2012), explores the way in which infertility disrupts traditional
notions of Arab masculinity that are based on fatherhood and she explores the ways that couples nav-
igate conflicting cultural messages about the importance of parenthood and religious disapproval of
assisted fertility.60
CONCLUSION
As the global population becomes larger, it is increasingly challenging to address the health needs of
the world’s population. Today, 1 in 8 people in the world do not have access to adequate nutrition, the
most basic element of good health.61 More than half the human population lives in an urban environ-
ment where infectious diseases can spread rapidly, sparking pandemics. Many of these cities include
dense concentrations of poverty and healthcare systems that are not adequate to meet demand. 62
Globalization, a process that connects cultures through trade, tourism, and migration, contributes to
the spread of pathogens that negatively affect human health and exacerbates political and economic
inequalities that make the provision of healthcare more difficult.
Human health is complex and these are daunting challenges, but medical anthropologists have a
unique perspective to contribute to finding solutions. Medical anthropology offers a holistic perspec-
tive on human evolutionary and biocultural adaptations as well as insights into the relationship between
health and culture. As anthropologists study the ways people think about health and illness and the
socioeconomic and cultural dynamics that affect the provision of health services, there is a potential to
develop new methods for improving the health and quality of life for people all over the world.
1. This chapter describes several examples of diseases that result from interactions between biology and culture such as obesity.
Why is it important to consider cultural factors that contribute to illness rather than placing blame on individuals? What are some
other examples of illnesses that have cultural as well as biological causes?
2. Many cultures have ethno-etiologies that provide explanations for illness that are not based in science. From a biomedical per-
spective, the non-scientific medical treatments provided in these cultures have a low likelihood of success. Despite this, people tend
to believe that the treatments are working. Why do you think people tend to be satisfied with the effectiveness of the treatments
they receive?
3. How does poverty influence the health of populations around the world? Do you see this in your own community? Who should be
responsible for addressing health care needs in impoverished communities?
GLOSSARY
Adaptive: Traits that increase the capacity of individuals to survive and reproduce.
Biocultural evolution: Describes the interactions between biology and culture that have influenced
human evolution.
Biomedical: An approach to medicine that is based on the application of insights from science, partic-
ularly biology and chemistry.
Communal healing: An approach to healing that directs the combined efforts of the community
toward treating illness.
Culture-bound syndrome: An illness recognized only within a specific culture.
Emotionalistic explanation: Suggests that illnesses are caused by strong emotions such as fright, anger,
or grief; this is an example of a naturalistic ethno-etiology.
Epidemiological transition: The sharp drop in mortality rates, particularly among children, that
occurs in a society as a result of improved sanitation and access to healthcare.
Ethno-etiology: Cultural explanations about the underlying causes of health problems.
Ethnomedicine: The comparative study of cultural ideas about wellness, illness, and healing.
Humoral healing: An approach to healing that seeks to treat medical ailments by achieving a balance
between the forces, or elements, of the body.
Maladaptive: Traits that decrease the capacity of individuals to survive and reproduce.
Medical anthropology: A distinct sub-specialty within the discipline of anthropology that investigates
human health and health care systems in comparative perspective.
Naturalistic ethno-etiology: Views disease as the result of natural forces such as cold, heat, winds, or
an upset in the balance of the basic body elements.
Personalistic ethno-etiology: Views disease as the result of the actions of human or supernatural
beings.
Placebo effect: A response to treatment that occurs because the person receiving the treatment believes
it will work, not because the treatment itself is effective.
441
Shaman: A person who specializes in contacting the world of the spirits.

Somatic: Symptoms that are physical manifestations of emotional pain.
Zoonotic: Diseases that have origins in animals and are transmitted to humans.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sashur Henninger-Rener is an anthropologist with research in the fields of comparative religion and
psychological anthropology. She received a Master of Arts from Columbia University in the City of
New York in Anthropology and has since been researching and teaching. Currently, Sashur is an
instructor at Pasadena City College, teaching Cultural and Biological Anthropology. In her free time,
Sashur enjoys traveling the world, visiting archaeological and cultural sites along the way. She and her
husband are actively involved in animal rescuing, hoping to eventually found their own animal rescue
for animals that are waiting to find homes.
Notes
1. Jermone Gilbert, Humors, Hormones, and Neurosecretions (New York: State University of New York Press, 1962).
2. World Health Organization, “Health Impact Assessment,” http://www.who.int/hia/evidence/doh/en/.
3. Sally McBrearty and Allison Brooks, “The Revolution That Wasn't: A New Interpretation of the Origin of Mod-
ern Humans,” Journal of Human Evolution 39 (1999), 453-563.
4. U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, “Adult Obesity Facts,” http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/
adult.html.
5. Marjorie G. Whiting, A Cross Cultural Nutrition Survey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard School of Public Health, 1968).
6. Ian A.M. Prior, “The Price of Civilization,” Nutrition Today 6 no. 4 (1971): 2-11.
7. Steven Connor, “Deadly malaria may have risen with the spread of agriculture,” National Geographic,
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/06/0625_wiresmalaria.html.
8. Jared Diamond, “The Arrow of Disease,” Discover Magazine, October 1992. http://discovermagazine.com/1992/
oct/thearrowofdiseas137.
9. World Health Organization, “Cholera,” http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs107/en/.
10. George J. Armelagos and John R. Dewey, “Evolutionary Response to Human Infectious Disease,” BioScience,
25(1970): 271-275.
11. William McNeill, Plagues and People (New York: Doubleday, 1976).
12. Ian Barnes, Anna Duda, Oliver Pybus, Mark G. Thomas. Ancient Urbanisation Predicts Genetic Resistance To
Tuberculosis,” Evolution 65 no. 3 (2011): 842-848.
13. George T. Lewith, Acupuncture: Its Place in Western Medical Science (United Kingdom: Merlin Press, 1998).
14. George M. Foster, “Disease Etiologies in Non-Western Medical Systems,”American Anthropologist 78 no 4 (1976):
773-782.
15. Ibid., 775
16. S.F. Nadel, The Nuba: An Anthropological Study of the Hill Tribes in Kordofan (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1947), 173.
17. Foster, “Disease Etiologies in Non-Western Medical Systems,” 775.
18. A.J. Rubel, “The Epidemiology of a Folk Illness: Susto in Hispanic America,” Ethnology3 (1964): 268-283.
19. Robert T. Trotter II, “Susto: The Context of Community Morbidity Patterns,” Ethnology 21 no. 3 (1982): 215-226.
20. Frank J. Lipp, “The Study of Disease in Relation to Culture: The Susto Complexe Among the Mixe of Oaxaco,”
Dialectical Anthropology 12 no. 4 (1987): 435-442.
21. E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937), 70.
22. Leonard B. Glick, “Medicine as an Ethnographic Category: The Gimi of the New Guinea Highlands,” Ethnology 6
(1967): 31-56.
23. Elliott Mishler, “Viewpoint: Critical Perspectives on the Biomedical Model,” inE. Mishler, L.A. Rhodes, S.
Hauser, R. Liem, S. Osherson, and N. Waxler, eds.Social Contexts of Health, Illness, and Patient Care (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press).
24. Richard Katz, Megan Biesele, and Verna St. Davis, Healing Makes Our Hearts Happy: Spirituality and Cultural
Transformation among the Kalahari Ju/ ’hoansi (Rochester VS, Inner Traditions, 1982), 34.
25. Michael Bliss, William Osler: A Life in Medicine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 276.
26. William Osler, “The Faith That Heals,” British Medical Journal 1 (1910): 1470-1472.
27. Cara Feinberg, “The Placebo Phenomenon,” Harvard Magazine http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/01/the-
placebo-phenomenon.
28. Ted J. Kaptchuk, and Franklin G. Miller, “Placebo Effects in Medicine,” New England Journal of Medicine 373
(2015):8-9.
29. Robert Bud, “Antibiotics: From Germophobia to the Carefree Life and Back Again,” in Medicating Modern Amer-
ica: Prescription Drugs in History, ed. Andrea Tone and Elizabeth Siegel Watkins (New York: New York University
Press, 2007).
30. H. Benson, J.A. Dusek, J.B. Sherwood, P. Lam, C.F. Bethea, and W. Carpenter, “Study of the Therapeutic Effects
of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in Cardiac Bypass Patients: A Multicenter Randomized Trial of Uncertainty and
Certainty of Receiving Intercessory Prayer,” American Heart Journal 151 (2006):934–942.
31. National Cancer Institute, “Acupuncture,” http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/acupuncture/health-
professional/page5.
32. Mira Taow, “The Religious and Medicinal Uses of Cannabis in China, India, and Tibet,” Journal of Psychoactive
Drugs 13(1981): 23-24.
33. Marsella, A. and White, G., eds. Cultural Conceptions of Mental Health and Therapy (Dordrecht, Netherlands: D.
Reidel, 1982).
34. Dominic T.S. Lee, Joan Kleinman, and Arthur Kleinman, “Rethinking Depression: An Ethnographic Study of the
Experiences of Depression Among Chinese,” Harvard Review of Psychiatry 15 no 1 (2007):1-8.
35. Arthur Kleinman, Rethinking Psychiatry: From Cultural Category to Personal Experience (New York: The Free Press,
1988).
36. Robert Lemelson and L.K. Suryani, “Cultural Formulation of Psychiatric Diagnoses: The Spirits, Penyakit Ngeb
and the Social Suppression of Memory: A Complex Clinical Case from Bali,” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 30
no. 3 (2006): 389-413.
37. For more information about these studies, see J. Leff et al., “The International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia:
Five-Year Follow-Up Findings,” Psychological Medicine 22 (1992):131–45; A. Jablensky et al., “Schizophrenia:
Manifestations, Incidence and Course in Different Cultures: A World Health Organization Ten-Country Study,”
Psychological Medicine Monograph Supplement 20(1992); N. Sartorius et al., “Early Manifestations and First-Con-
tact Incidence of Schizophrenia in Different Cultures,” Psychological Medicine 16 (1986):909–28.
38. Bernice A. Pescosolido, Jack K. Martin, Sigrun Olafsdottir, J. Scott Long, Karen Kafadar, and Tait R. Medina,
“The Theory of Industrial Society and Cultural Schemata: Does the ‘Cultural Myth of Stigma’ Underlie the
WHO Schizophrenia Paradox?,” American Journal of Sociology 121 no. 3 (2015): 783-825.
39. Collean Barry, Victoria Bresscall, Kelly D. Brownell, and Mark Schlesinger, “Obesity Metaphors: How Beliefs
about Obesity Affect Support for Public Policy,” The Milbank Quarterly 87 (2009): 7–47.
40. Peter Conrad and Kristen K. Barker, “The Social Construction of Illness: Key Insights and Policy Implications,”
Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 51(2010): s57-s79.
41. Peter Attia, “Is the Obesity Crisis Hiding a Bigger Problem?,” TEDMED Talks April 2013 Retrieved from
https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_attia_what_if_we_re_wrong_about_diabetes.
42. Anish P. Mahajan, Jennifer N. Sayles, Vishal A. Patel, Robert H. Remien, Daniel Ortiz, Greg Szekeres, and
Thomas J. Coates, “Stigma in the HIV/AIDS Epidemic: A review of the Literature and Recommendations for the
Way Forward,” AIDS 22 supp. 2 (2008): S67-S79.
43. Elizabeth Pisani, “Sex, Drugs, & HIV: Let’s Get Rational,” TED Talks February 2010. http://www.ted.com/talks/
elizabeth_pisani_sex_drugs_and_hiv_let_s_get_rational_1#t-1011824.
443
44. United Nations, “Poverty and AIDS: What’s Really Driving the Epidemic?” http://www.unfpa.org/conversa-
tions/facts.html.
45. Maria Makino, Koji Tsuboi, and Lorraine Dennerstein, “Prevalence of Eating Disorders: A Comparison of West-
ern and Non-Western Countries,” Medscape General Medicine 6 no. 3 (2004):49.
46. Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Fasting girls: The Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a Modern Disease (Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press, 1988).
47. Anne E. Becker, “Television, Disordered Eating, and Young Women in Fiji: Negotiating Body Image and Identity
during Rapid Social Change” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 28 no. 4 (2004):533-559.
48. Sing Lee, “Reconsidering the Status of Anorexia Nervosa as a Western Culture-Bound Syndrome,” Social Science
& Medicine 42 no. 1 (1996): 21–34.
49. L.A. Rebhun, “Swallowing Frogs: Anger and Illness in Northeast Brazil,” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 8 no.
4 (1994):360-382.
50. Ibid., 369-371
51. Robert Bud, “Antibiotics: From Germophobia to the Carefree Life and Back Again.”
52. Nancy Scheper Hughes, Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1989).
53. World Health Organization, “Antimicrobial Resistance,” http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs194/en/.
54. David Koplow, Smallpox: The Fight to Eradicate a Global Scourge (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2003).
55. Jeffery K. Taubenberger, David Baltimore, Peter C. Doherty, Howard Markel, David M. Morens, Robert G.
Webster, and Ian A. Wilson, “Reconstruction of the 1918 Influenza Virus: Unexpected Rewards from the Past,”
mBio 3 no. 5 (2012).
56. Jeffrey Taubenberger and David Morens, “1918 influenza: The Mother of All Pandemics,” Emerging Infectious Dis-
eases, 12 (2006).
57. Suzanne Clancy, “Genetics of the Influenza Virus,” Nature Education, 1(2008): 83.
58. For more about these and other examples, see Carol P. MacCormack, Ethnography of Fertility and Birth (New
York: Academic Press, 1982).
59. Laury Oaks, “The Social Politics of Health Risk Warning: Competing Claims about the Link between Abortion
and Breast Cancer,” in Risk, Culture, and Health Inequality: Shifting Perceptions of Danger and Blame, eds. Bar-
bara Herr Harthorn and Laury Oaks (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003).
60. Marcia C. Inhorn, The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012).
61. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “The Multiple Dimensions of Food Security,”
http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3458e/i3458e.pdf.
62. World Health Organization, “Urbanization and Health,” Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 88(2010):
241-320.
18
SEEING LIKE AN
ANTHROPOLOGIST:
ANTHROPOLOGY IN
PRACTICE
Logan Cochrane, Banting Fellow, Carleton University

[email protected]
http://www.logancochrane.com
Learning Objectives
• Identify ways in which “seeing like an anthropologist” differs from the approach to local cultures used by international develop-
ment agencies.
• Explain why “harmful traditional practices” are prioritized for change by development agencies and describe how negative atti-
tudes toward these practices can be examples of “bad for them, okay for us.”
• Assess the reasons why anthropological perspectives and techniques tend to have a limited impact on the design or goals of
international development projects.
What does it mean to see and hear what others do not see and hear and how can that unique infor-
mation be practically applied? The lack of a simple answer is fitting to anthropology because the work
of anthropologists often demonstrates that simplistic explanations are, at best, only part of the complex
stories of human culture. In this chapter, I provide examples of how the ability to see and hear is applied
in practice and how these skills add value in a sociocultural anthropology setting associated with inter-
national development. In particular, I shed light on the potential challenges of practicing anthropol-
444
445
ogy within non-governmental organizations. Given the ethic of confidentiality in anthropology, I omit
details about the country, organization, and ethnic group as much as possible, which allows me to focus
on the processes involved.
Although an education in anthropology stresses the importance of confidentiality and the potentially
dire consequences of drawing attention to individuals and communities, it probably does not truly sink
in until you conduct your first fieldwork and “subjects” turn into human beings with names, families,
and feelings. One of the greatest ethical challenges anthropologists face in writing about individuals
and communities is the additional attention drawn to them when the intention of the anthropologist
is to highlight a concern that extends beyond specific individuals and communities and can thus have
negative consequences. Take, for example, an assessment I conducted of a national safety net program
that took place in a limited number of communities.1 If the individuals and communities participating
had been explicitly identified or could be identified, they may have experienced negative political con-
sequences such as a loss of government-provided social services or their jobs. Instead, the anonymity
of the individuals and communities was protected, and the concerns and challenges were identified
in a way that protected those who graciously and generously contributed their time and ideas to the
research process. Complete anonymity is not always desirable, needed, or possible but is always an
important consideration for anthropologists.
Throughout the last ten years, I have worked for non-governmental organizations—about five years
in Eastern Africa and shorter periods in Asia and the Middle East—as a volunteer, employee, and con-
sultant with community-based groups and national and international organizations. In this chapter, I
explore one of those experiences to convey a sense of what “seeing like an anthropologist” means by
analyzing an effort to eliminate food taboos by a nongovernmental international development organi-
zation. This chapter was inspired by the work of political scientist and anthropologist James C. Scott,
particularly his Seeing Like a State (1998). I shift the focus inward onto anthropology as a practice and a
way of seeing.2
ANTHROPOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT
Sociocultural anthropology is best understood by its primary approach to data collection: participant
observation. This key component of ethnographic research involves long-term engagement, living with
and learning from a cultural community different from one’s own. In listening, learning about, and see-
ing the world from the perspectives of others, anthropologists draw on the idea of cultural relativism.
This is in contrast to ethnocentrism, the belief that one’s own culture, cultural values, and societal orga-
nization are true, right, and proper and that others’ are erroneous to some degree. Cultural relativism
posits that cultural practices and ideas must be understood within their contexts.
In the past, some anthropologists participated in the “development” activities of colonial govern-
ments, and individual anthropologists and the discipline as a whole were rightly criticized for their
roles in the injustices that resulted. While working in Afghanistan in 2013, I encountered anthropolo-
gists who were engaged in activities in the name of “development” that could be defined as neo-colo-
nial in that they supported militaries by analyzing cultural communities with the goal of finding ways
to weaken them and foster unequal and unfair relationships (cultural imperialism). Anthropological
engagement is not always benevolent or neutral. As a result, anthropologists are encouraged to engage
in self-reflection—to examine their roles, engagements, practices, and objectives critically, known as
reflexivity.
Varying degrees of criticism of the nature, objectives, and embedded assumptions of international
development continue. Some have called on international development practitioners to significantly
reform their activities to make them more effective, while others have expressed more radical criti-
cisms, including the view that provision of aid causes greater impoverishment and should end.3 It is
essential when deconstructing development, as a concept and an activity, to ask why, when, how, and
for whom the development is intended and who it excludes. It also requires identifying the power
dynamics and motivations involved. Anthropological tools and ways of seeing are important means by
which to answer these questions.4
“HARMFUL TRADITIONAL PRACTICES”
My interaction with the project discussed in this chapter was limited in duration and I had specific
tasks related to program evaluation and impact assessment. I interacted with management staff based
in the international head office as well as the national head office, who provided me with background
information about the region and clarified expectations before visiting the project area. The project
itself was not primarily geared toward ending “harmful traditional practices,” but included a component
related to addressing gender inequality and practices that negatively impact women. Reflecting back on
those discussions, it appears that staff and donors who were located furthest from the area of the pro-
ject had the greatest interest in these “harmful traditional practices.” Based on their emphasis, it is clear
that foreign and exotic practices had an appeal that basic and shared needs did not. For example, those
who were more distanced from the people the project sought to support were particularly interested in
“female genital mutilation,” exchange marriages, and seemingly irrational and bizarre food taboos.
On the other hand, within almost every community in the project area, both men and women were
primarily concerned about the lack of clean drinking water and healthcare options. Unfortunately,
these concerns attracted little attention from outsiders.5 In fact, many governmental agencies funding
international development have explicitly restricted their funding such that water infrastructure is not
an allowable project expense, including the governmental donor for the project in which I was involved.
The reason for this is rarely explicitly stated, however informal discussions with development agency
personnel cite high costs and sustainability as concerns. Abu-Lughod’s (2013) research on western per-
ceptions of Muslim women, and broadly on conceptualizing “others” and their needs, provides insight
into how prioritization of needs often takes place based upon assumptions, not reality.
“Harmful traditional practices” are an odd collection of practices that range from tattooing and
scarification to exchange marriages, forced marriages and marriages wherein a woman who is widowed
becomes the wife of her deceased husband’s brother. “Harmful traditional practices” also include acts
typically considered criminal activity throughout much of the world, such as abduction and unlaw-
ful confinement. A national committee in Ethiopia, for example, listed 162 “harmful traditional prac-
tices.”6 While many of these practices are illegal and generally agreed to be abuses of human rights, some
have parallel practices that are legal in the countries in which international organizations are based,
such as tattooing and scarification. Numerous examples of “bad for them, okay for us” could be made.
Each practice, its context, laws, and discourse requires contextualization beyond the scope of this chap-
ter. However, useful examples of deconstructions of one frequently discussed practice, female genital
mutilation, have been made by Russell-Robinson (1997), James (1998), Obermeyer (1999), Ahmadu and
Shweder (2009) and Londono (2009).
The project staff identified a number of “harmful traditional practices” they believed ought to be
447
stopped, however, I will only explore one of them: a collection of food taboos that were believed to neg-
atively affect the nutrition of women. In particular, there was a focus on one specific food taboo: the
restriction of women from eating eggs, which was the only food taboo mentioned in every report pro-
vided by the organization.
I learned from the project proposal that there were “cultural taboos” forbidding women from eating
eggs and milk.7 To address this, the project would improve their access and provide training on the
nutritional value of these products. An initial assessment report stated that this taboo was not only
about prohibiting the consumption of eggs, but also poultry. However, it later became clear that the
restriction was only on eating eggs and meat from a specific breed of chicken that was raised in a
woman’s own home or in the home of her in-laws. The organization advocated that this practice
was negatively affecting women and infants because sources of already limited nutrition were being
restricted, particularly an important source of vitamin A, which is a common micronutrient deficiency
amongst the population. While eggs were a primary focus, other internal organizational reports pro-
vided different information: women and children also did not eat goat meat, animals that had been
hunted, or any dairy products.
The consumption of these products was believed to cause illness and bring about the death of an in-
law, hence the prohibition. Several years into the project it was reported that a significant change in
child nutrition had occurred and the report suggested that training and education programs discourag-
ing food taboos were the reason for this shift. A detailed gender report, conducted halfway through the
project, suggested that women and girls were still not generally allowed to eat chicken meat and eggs,
but provided some case studies of positive change. This particular report pointed to the mother-in-law
as the person who instituted the prohibition of chicken meat and eggs, while most reports simply said
the prohibition was “cultural” amongst this ethnic group or due to community misconceptions. After
five years of work, the project continued to actively engage in activities aiming at addressing the “mis-
conceptions” and “traditional practices” of not eating eggs or drinking milk.
One report, finalized a few years into the project, mentioned significant resistance to project activ-
ities encouraging the consumption of eggs and chicken meat. The “harmful traditional practice” was
described as a “serious taboo,” and a “deeply rooted belief.” This report referenced another organization
that was working to “prove the taboo is wrong” and had fostered remarkable change. Meeting with
management staff in the national head office, I heard the same general story: there are cultural taboos
forbidding women and girls from eating some foods, and specifically eggs. Staff permanently based in
the project area repeated this information.
However, throughout the years of the project very little was understood about this particular practice.
The food taboo was identified and a few potential, sometimes conflicting, reasons were given. No one
appeared to have taken the time to understand why these food taboos existed. When I later explored this
question, a staff member who had lived and worked within the region for almost two decades remarked,
“I have not had a chance to know about this.” This is one of the challenges anthropologists face in work-
ing within non-governmental organizations: often the difficulties communities face are assumed to be a
result of ignorance and the “solution” is presented as a straightforward, often technical, activity such as
education. I believe the lack of understanding of these practices was not due to insurmountable barri-
ers, but a lack of inquiry into the “why,” “how,” “when,” and other questions that make cultural practices
understandable. The ability to ask these kinds of questions, I argue, is a skill built into the anthropologi-
cal way of seeing. For those familiar with “schemes to improve the human condition,” as Scott put it, the
lack of interest in asking questions would not be surprising. Organizations tend to identify a problem,
propose a solution, and plan evidence-based activities to achieve an objective. For many in the interna-
tional development sector, finding out why these taboos exist is not particularly important. Rather they
believe it is most important to stop those practices deemed (by them) to be harmful.
WE NEVER ASKED ABOUT IT BEFORE
The historian Eugen Weber wrote that “when one looks for different things, one sees different things.8
He was referring to seeing within a text; I believe the same applies to other kinds of observation.
Anthropologists fundamentally view the world through a unique lens, and their ability to see what
others do not is fostered through anthropological methodologies, approaches, and ideas. The physical
reality is the same; the lens is different. Likewise, professionals in non-governmental organiza-
tions—management staff, economists, medical professionals, and development experts—bring their
particular training, their lenses, to the problems, often focusing on different kinds of information they
respectively view as important. In other words, our individual perspectives alter what we see.
The ethical challenge for anthropologists working in international development is that often the
donors, organizations and projects operate without detailed sociocultural information. As a result,
many anthropologists end up advocating for significant shifts in how the sector operates. For example,
in designing a project, the proposed activities are often outlined before the baseline assessments of com-
munity needs are conducted. When the project is approved, and budget is set, it is difficult to completely
adjust the focus and plan based on new knowledge of community needs. Anthropologists working on
these projects often find themselves in the challenging space of advocating for new approaches, such
as funding structures based on needs, rather than donor priorities, and flexibility in programming as
opposed to carrying out the set activities that are outlined in program plans.
In the case of the food taboos identified within this development project, diverse ways of seeing were
evident in the reports, in which medical perspectives focused on the impacts of the nutritional con-
tent of the foods, gender specialists were most concerned with the abuse of women’s rights, planners
identified how behavior changes could occur and be integrated into the project using evidence-based
measures, and economists paid attention to the potential income women could generate by producing
poultry and selling eggs. Despite the passing of years and even the identification of some strong resis-
tance by people in the communities, the food taboos were consistently presented as cultural issues or
misconceptions that best practices and evidence-based behavior-change approaches could eliminate.
The plan was to “raise awareness,” hold “community-based dialogues,” “facilitate exchange visits” with
communities in which such taboos were not practiced, and provide nutritional education. On paper, the
plan sounded good. The diverse activities would reinforce the message of behavior change with each
offering unique insight and thus having a compounding effect in achieving the desired objective. The
activities had previously been shown to be successful in a range of settings. For the project staff, all
required information appeared to have been gathered.
My work began with spending time with the people in their communities and asking them about
the food taboos—what they actually were and why they existed—and the community members pro-
vided detailed and insightful information. When I talked to the field staff about it, they reported that
they had never asked the people in the communities those questions. That might sound like a case of
neglect, but I view it is the logical outcome of one way of seeing. When a problematic practice has been
identified and the organization has experience with activities that have changed such behavior, why do
the details matter? From that perspective, the tedious task of collecting such data would waste valuable
resources, time, and effort. It is important, at this juncture, to shed some light on the systemic nature
449
of seeing from technical perspectives of this sort, which are common in the organizational cultures of
international development programs and their staff members. It is not limited to international develop-
ment workers—national and local organizations often present the same narratives about “bad” cultural
taboos that can be eliminated by providing education about nutrition and empowering women.
SEEING LIKE AN ANTHROPOLOGIST
When I started my work in the program, I had no previous experience with the ethnic group that
practiced the food taboos and had never been in the region. I was sent to visit a number of commu-
nities as part of an assessment unrelated to food taboos and to conduct gender-separated focus group
discussions and individual interviews. In the first community I visited, the adult men made no mention
of food taboos but the women did, and their reports were at odds with the project reports. They said
that the restrictions applied only to adult married women and were, as one of the official reports had
noted, limited to a specific local breed of chicken raised in specific households. I made note of the com-
ments and went on with my tasks. In the second community, I interviewed religious leaders from two
Christian sects who also mentioned the food taboos, describing them as examples of common practices
of witchcraft. In the third and fourth communities, I had lengthy discussions exploring the context that
no one had asked about until then: What in fact were the food taboos? Why did the taboos exist? What
reinforced them as an ongoing practice? How did people view the practices and what were the conse-
quences of not following them? The staff members who had been working with the communities were
amazed at the valuable information gathered by simply asking the questions.
Community members made a number of important clarifications, some of which aligned with what
was presented in reports and some did not. The details of these taboos were not uniform in all commu-
nities, however they shared some trends. For example, once a woman married a number of restrictions
began, which included the prohibition of eating eggs and chicken meat, although only those that were
produced from local breeds of chicken and only those raised within her household or the household of
her in-laws. The restrictions did not apply to children or unmarried girls, nor did they apply to other
breeds of chickens. Additionally, women could eat eggs and chicken meat as long as it was from differ-
ent source, such as eggs from a neighbor’s chicken. In some communities, this also applied to the meat
of hunted animals and milk. Women who did consume the prohibited products were believed to suffer
from illnesses, such as swelling and itching, or even to cause the death of one of their in-laws. One pro-
ject activity instructed women to bring the eggs they were forbidden to eat to the project staff, who then
cooked the eggs and told the women to eat. The response of some women was outright refusal, some
ate and then induced vomiting, while others followed the instructions and ate without strong objection.
Reactions such as these suggested that there was more to the prohibition than a simple misconception.
I WILL NOT EAT IT UNTIL I DIE
Elders in the communities explained that food taboos were one of a series of interconnected restric-
tions on behaviors, some identified by the project as harmful but not connected to the food taboos. In
addition to food taboos, the restrictions included limitations on what women can touch and places they
could enter while menstruating, a prohibition against a wife eating from the first harvest of the season
until after her husband does, and rules preventing a wife from drinking from a newly prepared batch of
alcoholic drink until after her husband does. Project workers had identified many of these practices, but
understood them to be isolated from each other as separate traditions. The elders’ view of the practices
as linked suggested that they needed to be understood as manifestations of something larger.
I found that the communities’ narratives differed but the information and specific rules were consis-
tent. The food taboos were, in fact, a small part of a detailed belief system that influenced many com-
ponents of everyday life. There had been, perhaps two generations ago, a respected leader from their
ethnic group who had supernatural traits. His name was Gumzanjela, and he guided the community and
held a role akin to religious leadership. Although Gumzanjela had passed on, he continued to be present
in the community. His presence, described as his spirit, influenced what happened, could bring about
illness, and could be called on when seeking cures. Some believed that Gumzanjela was a person; others
believed that he had always been a supernatural being. Regardless, belief in Gumzanjela was a serious
matter; people believed in him, believed his regulations were true, and had witnessed repercussions of
failing to follow them. Gumzanjela had established the food taboos and restrictions for women. One
of the many stories told about him was that his first child was born holding a leaf of a specific plant
that was thereafter used as a cure for spiritual illnesses. Treatment of illness was a common theme in
recollections of Gumzanjela and was a primary reason people continued to seek his help. Disobeying
Gumzanjela was said to result in curses, sometimes on the one who violated a rule and other times on a
relative such as the in-laws cited in the food taboos. The curses ranged from relatively minor ailments
such as severe itching or swelling to the death of an in-law.
In addition to prohibiting a number of behaviors for women, Gumzanjela had imparted specific
directions for people to follow, often built on his teachings, that were delivered via spiritual mediums in
the community who communicated with Gumzanjela. For example, Gumzanjela had prescribed a cure
that involved cutting off the claw of a chicken and placing it in the belly button of the person needing
treatment. The claw was left there for one week, and the person could not bathe during that time. At
the end of the week, the claw was removed and the person bathed. Only the person being treated could
eat the chicken from which the cutting was taken.
In each community, there were well-known practitioner spirit-mediums, both male and female, to
whom people go to connect with Gumzanjela. They sought various forms of support or requested that
curses be placed on someone. The seeker could be given specific instructions to do certain things or to
refrain from doing certain things. Payments and sacrifices were sometimes required, and occasionally
Gumzanjela called for lengthy spiritual events during the night in which rites were performed and/or
sacrifices were made.
One of the project reports had referred to the food taboos as being deeply rooted and, in context, it is
easy to understand why that was the case. The specific food taboos were components of a much larger
belief system; they were integral activities required by the communities’ religious traditions and thus
taken very seriously. They were, as one member of the community noted, part of the “law of Gumzan-
jela.”
A brief analogy demonstrates the gravity of this point. Imagine that the people in the project com-
munities were followers of Judaism or Islam, religions that prohibit consumption of a number of foods,
including pork.9 An international development organization and its external staff members might iden-
tify a protein deficiency that could be resolved by people consuming pork and view the taboo against
it as a harmful traditional practice that should be eliminated through education about its nutritional
value. Additionally, disadvantaged members of society could be encouraged to raise and sell pigs to gen-
erate income. Because Islam and Judaism are major recognized religions with millions of followers, it
might seem absurd to try to convince them to eat pork based on nutritional and economic grounds.
But the law of Gumzanjela is also a belief system and is as important to the communities in the pro-
451
ject as Islam and Judaism are to their followers. The project had failed to recognize that the food taboos
were part of a comprehensive belief system and that the organization had made demands that directly
confronted culturally important beliefs and values. As a result, the project activities were viewed as an
affront to their religious traditions and to the righteous, respected man from whom the laws had come
and his living spirit.
I asked a group of men if a person could continue to believe in Gumzanjela and not practice the food
taboo regarding chicken and eggs. No, they said, it was not possible. They added forcefully, “I believe in
Gumzanjela. I have seen the effects; no cure works except from Gumzanjela.” They explained that there
“is no cure from the medical professionals; only Gumzanjela can cure these illnesses.” Women thor-
oughly embraced these beliefs as well. Several years into the project, for example, a woman stated that
she would “not eat it [the eggs] until I die.” Her response reflected the strength of her personal beliefs
despite the project’s efforts. The majority of the community members interviewed agreed that belief in
Gumzanjela was correct and that they must follow the system set out. Gumzanjela was present in their
lives and in their homes and affected their lives daily. They experienced it and knew it to be true.
Some members of the community had “left Gumzanjela” and practiced a different faith, either Chris-
tianity or Islam. A primary reason for their leaving Gumzanjela and abandoning the food taboos, they
explained, was the theology of their new faith. The women ate eggs, disregarded the menstruation rules,
and sought medical help from local clinics rather than cures from practitioners. Abandoning the taboos
required abandoning the greater belief system, a religious conversion either to a new theology or to a
rejection of faith (at least theoretically; I did not encounter any community members who rejected faith
altogether).
AN ISOLATED CASE?
Is this particular project unique or is the narrow vision of practitioners common in international
development? Another project in which I was involved was run by an agricultural organization that
was promoting changes in planting methodologies aimed at increasing yields. The farmers recognized
that the new planting method increased yields but did not adopt it. A primary reason for that failure
was a different way of thinking about what is important in an agricultural livelihood—the organization
was promoting short-term gains and the farmers were prioritizing long-term sustainability of the soil.
Another international organization and its donors were confident that child malnutrition in a region
was the product of lack of knowledge about the nutritional value of consuming a diversity of foods to
reduce micronutrient deficiencies, and they developed a series of educational projects to address the
problem. But after spending time with members of the community, they realized that a lack of diversity
in their diets was due largely to having few options, primarily because of poverty, and that the malnu-
trition was associated with seasonal food shortages and could not be alleviated through education. The
activities of these projects appeared beneficial, but did not address the actual problems; instead, they
were designed based on assumptions about both the problems and the solutions and failed to value con-
textualized, ethnographic information.
Technical approaches too often exclude the socio-political context in which they are applied and,
consequently, entirely miss the politicized nature of the project and its activities. A vocational training
effort I worked with in the Middle East, for example, failed, not because the need for education was
misunderstood, but because the socio-political context in which it took place was neglected; the poor
quality of existing educational systems was not addressed because improving the quality of the educa-
tion provided was not an objective. Similarly, in the evaluation of the social safety net mentioned at the
outset, the political nature of the implementation of the project was not adequately recognized by the
international funding agencies.10 Thus, the experience explored in this chapter is not uncommon, and it
is clear that the anthropological way of seeing allows broader issues to come into view—cultural, social,
and political—which can then be incorporated into the project goals and activities. These are areas that
relatively technical approaches and evaluations tend to miss.
REFLECTIONS
What, then, do socio-cultural anthropologists do? There is no single answer to this question. There
are, however, skills that anthropologists acquire that unveil unique ways of seeing and listening that can
be applied to many different settings. Some anthropologists use these skills to facilitate the creation of
policies that are more inclusive and multicultural, some engage with poorly understood subcultures,
and others enhance the effectiveness of marketing of consumer goods. This chapter illustrates how I
used the anthropological way of seeing to contextualize development actions, actors, and the people for
whom the “development” was being done and explores the ethical challenges faced by anthropologists
when working in the international development sector and within non-governmental organizations.
In general, I have found that many people working in international development organizations have
not yet recognized the value of asking people why they do what they do. From the anthropologist’s
point of view, understanding why a practice occurs is not merely an act of inquiry; it is also a means
of demonstrating respect for people and their knowledge and taking time to listen, learn, and see. The
typical approach of development practitioners implicitly and explicitly conveys a lack of respect for the
culture, values, and ideas of the people the projects seek to support.
The respect inherent to the anthropologist’s view is based on cultural relativity, which guides the
inquiry process. Judgment is withheld to understand the relative context of the practices in question.
Far too frequently staff of development organizations judge based on their assumptions and do not see
value in investigating further. That limited vision is a barrier to their success. It is essential, in seeing
like an anthropologist, to be willing to understand other people’s perspectives and respect their ideas.
As an anthropologist, I am not required to believe in Gumzanjela. However, my training and education
prepare me to understand and to begin to see the world from a perspective founded in that belief. My
ability and willingness to see reality from perspectives other than my own are essential skills—the abil-
ity to see what some people do not see and hear what some people do not hear. Anthropology can con-
nect the activities of international development efforts to cultural values so they work together instead
of against each other. The identification of the comprehensive belief system in which the food taboos
were embedded, for example, opened up new avenues for practical, culturally respectful solutions to the
problem of poor nutrition for women and children.
The story of the development organization’s efforts is purposely left unfinished. Did the community
resist? Did the organization change its activities? Was a different learning and inquiry-based culture
supported within the organization? Did belief in Gumzanjela continue? Did the organization succeed
in changing specific behaviors? How did the community navigate the external pressure? Did individuals
mostly succumb to the project’s advocacy or did they find ways to deflect, redirect, and mislead the
external advocates? As I hope this chapter has conveyed, people’s responses to efforts to change them
are complex. Anthropologists play an important role by extending an organization’s vision so that its
453
programs and activities can better align with the realities of the people for whom they are designed and
implemented.
1. The international development professionals described in this chapter were determined to eliminate the food taboos associated
with the “law of Gumzanjela,” but Cochrane points out that these rules were part of a larger belief system. Are there situations in
which it is acceptable to try to alter a group’s cultural values in order to promote changes in health, nutrition, or women’s rights? Or,
do you think it is inappropriate for outsiders to demand change? Do you think it is possible to achieve goals, such as improved nutri-
tion, without pressuring groups to change their values and beliefs?
2. Cochrane provides several examples of situations in which anthropological perspectives and methods led to the discovery of
important information about local communities that development professionals did not have. However, the lack of knowledge about
local cultures that characterizes many development projects is not caused simply by a lack of anthropological expertise. What other
factors mentioned in this chapter contribute to a mismatch between the needs of local people and the goals of international devel-
opment projects?
GLOSSARY
Cultural imperialism: Attempts to impose unequal and unfair relationships between members of dif-
ferent societies.
Food taboos: Cultural rules against the preparation and/or consumption of certain foods.
Harmful traditional practices: Behaviors that are viewed as ordinary and acceptable by members of a
local community, but appear to be destructive or even criminal to outsiders.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Logan Cochrane is a Banting Fellow at Carleton University (Global and Inter-

national Studies) and Adjunct Professor at Hawassa University (Institute for Policy and Development
Research). For the last twelve years he has worked overseas, including in Afghanistan, Benin, Burundi,
the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda. Logan has worked as a consultant
with clients that have included Management Sciences for Health, Save the Children, The Liaison Office,
UNICEF and UNAIDS.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abu-Lughod, Lila. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
Ahmadu, Fuambai. S. and Shweder, Richard. A. “Disputing the Myth of the Sexual Dysfunction of Cir-
cumcised Women.” Anthropology Today 25 no. 6 (2009):14-17.
Robert Chambers. Provocations for Development. Warwickshire, UK: Practical Action Publishing, 2012.
Cochrane, L. and Tamiru, Y. “Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program: Power, Politics and Practice.”
Journal of International Development. 28 no. 5 (2016):649-665.
Escobar, Arturo. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, NJ:
Farmer, Paul. Infections and Inequalities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
Green, Duncan. From Poverty to Power. Oxford, UK: Oxfam, 2012.
Illich, Ivan. “Development as Planned Poverty.” In The Post-Development Reader, edited by M. Rahnama
and V. Bawtree, 94-102. London: Zed Books, 1997.
James, Stanlie. M. “Shades of Othering: Reflections on Female Circumcision/Genital Mutilation.” Signs.
23 no. 4 (1998):1031-1048.
Lock, Margaret. “Afterward: Seeing Like an Anthropologist.” In Troubling Natural Categories, edited by
N. Adelson, L. Butt and K. Kielmann, 209-222. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013.
McGovern, Mike. “Popular Development Economics – An Anthropologist Among the Mandarins.” Per-
spective on Politics 9 no. 2 (2011):345-355.
Moyo, Dambisa. Dead Aid. Why Aid is Not Working and How There is Another Way for Africa. New York:
Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2009.
NCTPE [National Committee on Traditional Practices of Ethiopia]. Old Beyond Imaging Ethiopia –
Harmful Traditional Practices. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: National Committee on Traditional Practices of
Ethiopia, 2003.
Obermeyer, Carla. M. “Female Genital Surgeries: The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable.”
Medical Anthropology Quarterly 13 (1999):79-106.
Russell-Robinson, Joyce. “African Female Circumcision and the Missionary Mentality.” A Journal of
Opinion 25 (1997):54-57.
Scott, James. C. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.
Sulkin, Carlos. D. Londono. “Anthropology, Liberalism and Female Genital Cutting.” Anthropology Today
25 no. 6 (2009):17-19.
Weber, Eugen. Peasants into Frenchman: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914. Stanford: Stanford
Notes
1. See Logan Cochrane and Y. Tamiru, “Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program: Power, Politics and Practice,”
Journal of International Development 28 no. 5 (2016):649-665.
2. I cannot claim to be the first to write about “seeing like an anthropologist;” others have done so, including Lock
(2013), though with slightly different objectives.
3. Those who have called on international development practitioners to reform their activities include Robert
Chambers (2012), Paul Farmer (2001), and Duncan Green (2012). A more radical critique suggesting that the
provision of aid causes greater impoverishment can be found in Arturo Escobar (1994) and Ivan Illich (1997).
Dambisa Moyo (2009) has called for an end to international development projects.
4. Those interested in an anthropological perspective of the views of other development actors can read McGov-
ern’s (2011) article on the works of Collier.
5. I use the term outsiders to refer to those external to the communities, either as non-members or as those not liv-
ing within or near that particular location, and am not referring only to international staff.
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6. NCTPE, National Committee on Traditional Practices of Ethiopia, 2003

7. The project proposal and reports mentioned in this chapter are internal organizational reports not available to
the public. The purpose of the reports is to inform programming, which differs from academic research articles
that are made available to the public (although not always open access). While these practices appear quite differ-
ent, there are some similarities: organizations publish publicly available reports on their work based on the
totality of the data collected, but these reports do not include all of the information that they have. Similarly, not
all data collected by academic researchers is made available to the public nor is it all published, rather a selection
of that data is published in academic article and books.
8. Eugen Weber, 1976, Peasants into Frenchman: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914. Stanford University
Press: Stanford University Press, x.
9. Leviticus 11:7–8: “And the pig, because it parts the hoof and is cloven-footed but does not chew the cud, is
unclean for you. You shall not eat any of their flesh and you shall not touch their carcasses; they are unclean for
you.” Quran 2:173: “He [God] has only forbidden to you dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine and that which
has been dedicated to other than God.”
10. Cochrane and Tamiru, “Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program.”
19
PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY
Robert Borofsky, Hawaii Pacific University, Center for a Public Anthropology

[email protected]
http://www.publicanthropology.org/
As an example of public anthropology (following the model of the Kahn Academy), Dr. Borofsky has
created short 10-15 minute videos on key topics in anthropology for introductory students. All 28
videos are available from the Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology website.
Learning Objectives
• Explain how the structure of academic careers, topical specialization, and writing styles contribute to difficulty with communicat-
ing findings from academic anthropology to a wider public.
• Identify examples of anthropological research that has contributed to the public good.
• Define public anthropology and distinguish it from academic anthropology and applied anthropology.
• Assess the factors that contribute to a desire for public engagement in anthropology as well as the obstacles to this engagement.
• Evaluate the ways in which accountability, transparency, collaboration, and the goal of benefitting others could contribute to
reframing anthropology.
• Discuss actions that can be taken by anthropologists to facilitate social change.
INTRODUCTION
Was Julie Andrews right when (in the Sound of Music) she sang, “Let’s start at the very beginning,
a very good place to start?” Should authors follow her advice in writing textbook chapters by, at the
456
457
beginning, explaining the organization of the chapter so readers will know what to expect and be able
to follow the chapter’s themes clearly? I cannot sing Do Re Me half as well as Julie Andrews. But I will
try to follow her suggestion.
This chapter begins with an outline of its organization—which topics follow others plus a little
“secret.” After this introduction, the chapter turns to (a) two puzzles stemming from anthropology’s
interactions with the broader public. It next (b) discusses how we might best define public anthropology
given that different people interpret it in different ways, especially in respect to the field’s ambiguous
overlapping with applied anthropology. Building on these points, the chapter then turns to (c) public
anthropology’s four main strategies for enhancing the discipline’s credibility with the broader public.
The chapter concludes with (d) a section on facilitating change—guides for those who want to help
transform people’s lives for the better. Even without Julie Andrews singing, I trust this sounds inter-
esting. The chapter asks important questions and offers thoughtful answers that, I hope, will draw
you into reflecting on the challenges public anthropology faces as well as how it seeks to encourage
anthropology to better serve the common good.
Before beginning, however, I should share a secret. You will see throughout this chapter—as in
most anthropological articles and books—a host of references in numbered footnotes. You might ask
why anthropologists are intent on citing colleagues extensively, especially when it is off-putting to stu-
dents and the broader public. Seeing all the references with only a limited sense of who is being referred
to and what they mean can be intimidating. Anthropologists use these references to show colleagues
that they “know what they are talking about.” It demonstrates that they are familiar with key literature
relating to a topic. The citations also serve another purpose. They reinforce the discipline. The more
anthropologists cite each other, the more they convey that anthropology is an important discipline
with important things to say—just look at all the people and articles being cited. But intriguingly, many
anthropologists only discuss the references in passing—usually for a sentence or two—just enough to
show they are familiar with them.
As a result, these citations should be taken with a grain of salt. They involve anthropologists con-
veying, to each other, their intellectual mettle, their academic competence. Skip over them if they do
not seem interesting. Do not let them intimidate you. Why do I use them? Simply stated, I am writing
not only for you—a student reading this text—but also for colleagues who may review this chapter as
well. They may be interested in exploring further some of the provocative things I say so I need to let
them see my sources.
Why do I bold certain passages? I do this for three reasons.
1. It highlights key points in each section so the chapter is easier for you to read. Either before or
after a bolded passage, there is additional material that amplifies the bolded text. This allows
you to separate the key points from additional material that discusses and/or explains the cen-
tral points being made.
2. If you are in a rush, you can skim the chapter’s main themes by focusing on the bolded pas-
sages. You will get the main ideas but not the details and explanations that clarify the bolded
points.
3. You can use the bolded passages to review the chapter once you have read it. Go back through
the bolded points and see if you remember the chapter’s key themes. If you come across a
point about which you are unclear, simply read the neighboring text to clarify what the bolded
passage is about.
TWO PUZZLES
Turning to the chapter’s key themes, let’s start by exploring two puzzles. The first puzzle: By
the time you reach this chapter, I hope you see how exciting anthropology can be. It deals with all
sorts of intriguing questions about the human condition—how humans and their societies have evolved
through time, what life is like in unfamiliar places, what human differences suggest about our com-
monalities, and how understanding them may facilitate better human relations. And yet, most of
the widely read, popular books that deal with anthropological issues—books that win prominent
prizes and are bestsellers—tend to be written by non-anthropologists. Why is that?
The second puzzle: Anthropologists have done much good in the world—not only helping to enrich
human understanding of our past and present but also facilitating concrete changes that improve peo-
ple’s lives. Yet anthropology’s positive efforts have not often been highlighted in the world’s news-
papers or other media outlets. Again, why?
Starting with the first puzzle, why non-anthropologists tend to write the bestselling anthropo-
logically oriented books, let me offer three examples. Reading this textbook, you can see that books
on the evolution of human societies, including how the West (meaning Western Europe, Canada, and
the United States) became more developed than the “Rest” (i.e., non-Western societies), are standard
anthropological fare. Many anthropologists have written about these topics. But only one book has
become wildly popular: Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997).
The book won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, was the subject of a well-received
PBS National Geographic special, and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for almost four
years. Diamond studied anthropology as an undergraduate but obtained a doctoral degree in physiol-
ogy. Starting out as a professor of physiology at University of California, Los Angeles, he is now a pro-
fessor of geography.
Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity (2012) is
an insightful ethnography of life in an Indian slum. It provides a vivid sense of how people, despite over-
whelming difficulties, not only are able to survive but at times are filled with hope for a better life. In
the tradition of the best ethnographies, the book allows readers to understand and appreciate how the
main characters navigate their lives through conditions that might surprise, and perhaps shock, some.
Behind the Beautiful Forevers won the 2012 National Book Award for nonfiction and the Los Angeles Times
Book Award and has been a New York Times bestseller. While Boo spent a number of years studying the
people of Annawadi (a Mumbai slum near the airport), she is not an anthropologist. She is an investiga-
tive journalist, formerly of the Washington Post and now a writer for the New Yorker.
Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (1997) is a detailed, extended case study
in medical anthropology that documents the miscommunications that developed between a Laotian
refugee Hmong family and the medical staff of a Merced, California, hospital treating the family’s
epileptic daughter, Lia. It offers a nuanced, sensitive ethnographic account of the problems well-inten-
tioned people face when they talk past one another. As the New Yorker observed, “Fadiman describes
with extraordinary skill the colliding worlds of Western medicine and Hmong culture.”1 The book has
received numerous honors, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction
and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest, and almost one million copies have been
sold. (Sales of most anthropology books are around 2,000 copies). Fadiman refers to anthropologists
459
but is not one herself. When she wrote the book, she was a journalist and editor. She is now a writer in
residence at Yale University.
There is no doubt that anthropologists would like to be read and recognized by audiences beyond the
discipline. Such an accomplishment means more than just selling lots of books; it means having a public
impact that stretches beyond the university.
Some anthropologists have been popular authors, most prominently, perhaps, Margaret Mead. Her
1928 book, Coming of Age in Samoa, which compared sexual experiences of Samoan girls with those of
American girls, sold hundreds of thousands of copies. But such anthropologists are relatively rare today.
Clifford Geertz won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism in 1988 and Robert Levy was
a finalist for the National Book Award in 1974, but neither book sold particularly well beyond acade-
mia. Recently, another anthropologist, David Kertzer, won the Pulitzer Prize. But his book, The Pope and
Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe, is, as its subtitle suggests, focused
on details of European history, a topic outside the anthropological mainstream.
My point is this: Few anthropologists writing on anthropological themes today are widely read
beyond the discipline. The anthropology-oriented books that are best sellers and win prominent
awards tend to be written by non-anthropologists, and when an anthropologist writes an award-
winning book, it tends to be on a less-anthropological subject.
What gives? Clearly, anthropologists have the skill and interest to write for the broader public. I sug-
gest, in part, that it is a matter of priorities. Many anthropologists would enjoy a large, public audi-
ence (A survey in the Chronicle Review in 2016 indicated that 83 percent of the Chronicle subscribers
sampled believed that academics should do more to shape public debate.)2 For most junior professors,
however, an even higher priority is promotion and tenure. To achieve these, they must demonstrate to
their faculty review committee that they can produce serious, professional work. A key marker, if not
the key marker, of significant professional work is the degree to which academic colleagues cite one’s
publications in their publications. It is often referred to as an author’s intellectual impact.
While there are other standards for assessing promotion and tenure, committees tend to fall
back on cited publications in assessing a faculty member’s achievements because clear metrics
exist for the degree to which colleagues cite one’s work. All committee members have to do is log
on to Google Scholar, for example, and type the individual’s name in quotes. (It also helps to include
the author’s discipline since Google Scholar does not differentiate between two scholars with the same
name.) Until recently, there were no metrics for assessing an author’s citations in the public press.
Almost by default, then, anthropologists seeking promotion needed to demonstrate their competence
through academic citation-oriented metrics.
There is also the matter of maintaining appearances. Promotion committees often encourage
anthropologists to conform to certain professional standards. Mary Douglas, a famous British anthro-
pologist, in a book entitled Purity and Danger (1966) emphasized social structures (including anthropol-
ogy departments) “are armed with articulate, conscious powers to protect the system; the inarticulate,
unstructured areas . . . provoke others to demand that ambiguity be reduced.”3 For some, seeking
to speak to nonacademic audiences challenges academic practice. It creates ambiguity regarding who
anthropologists should be writing for and to what end. Anthropologists usually need to be of high status
to challenge academic practice in this manner safely. (Note that Margaret Mead, who was world famous,
never held a senior academic position at a prominent university though, intriguingly, many universities
asked her to speak at them.)
Moreover, anthropologists tend to focus on fairly specialized topics. In 1980, Eric Wolf wrote a
famous editorial in the New York Times, stating “they divide and subdivide, and call it anthropology.”4
He was objecting to anthropology’s tendency to turn from broad, holistic analyses to more limited, spe-
cialized ones. As part of their academic training, anthropologists usually learn to focus on narrow, spe-
cialized subjects. It enhances their status because, with a narrow niched subject, faculty members can
be familiar with most of the associated professional literature. That is more difficult with a broad topic.
While the books by Diamond, Boo, and Fadiman all deal with specialized topics, their authors are mas-
ters at showing how their topics fit into broader concerns that interest a range of readers. Many anthro-
pologists, unfortunately, are not experienced in writing in this manner.
I face this issue as editor of the California Series in Public Anthropology. The series encourages
scholars in a number of disciplines to write about major social concerns in ways that help the broader
public understand and address them. Two presidents (Mikhail Gorbachev and Bill Clinton) and three
Nobel laureates (Amartya Sen, Jody Williams, and Mikhail Gorbachev) have contributed to the series as
authors of books or forwards. Given its prestige, many anthropologists are eager to write for the series,
but it is often a struggle for them to write for broad audiences in exciting ways. Given their desire for
promotion and tenure, it is often a bridge too far.
There is another often-unstated reason that I describe later in this chapter but want to briefly touch
on here. It relates to cultural hegemony, a term associated with the Italian Antonio Gramsci. We
might define cultural hegemony as the means by which a dominant group or perspective orders various
beliefs, explanations, values, and worldviews so that they seem to be not only the norm—the expected
way to behave—but also justify the status quo as natural and beneficial, thereby leaving the dominant
group in control. One might describe it as a means of dominating without having to apply overt
power or violence.
We can see this in the New York Times’ review of Robert and Sarah LeVine’s Do Parents Matter?
The book’s theme—that American parents should be less tense in raising their children—should attract
a relatively broad range of readers, which presumably is why it was reviewed in the New York Times Book
Review (2016).5 The problem is that the LeVines were not able to step outside of an academic writing
style to show the relevance of their ideas to a broad audience. Let me quote from part of the review:
Firm takeaways . . . are rare, though, peppered inside a dizzying survey of firsthand experiences and
other studies: on toilet training, eating patterns, tantrums . . . It’s not that any one culture has it figured
out, but that practices “vary much too widely across cultures for us to accept uncritically the supposition
that the mental health of American children is being put at risk by ‘insensitive’ infant care.’
. . . The LeVines have deep understandings of cultural contexts, allowing them to offer how-to-style
pieces of advice: Co-sleeping makes life easier for parents and does not inhibit child development; a
“skin-to-skin style of infant care” can foster more compliant children. But a combination of endlessly
complicated cultural contexts and the limits of in-field research make these conclusions less than useful
for Western readers. Toilet training is easier when conducted outdoors or on dirt floors. Compliance is
more achievable when the child is put to work at age 6.
Most frustrating of all: “We don’t have all the evidence needed to settle the question of whether the
parental practices described in this book inflict harm on adult mental health.” Someone should do that
research and write a book about it. I would read it.
The LeVines are senior anthropologists who need not worry about tenure/promotion review com-
mittees. Their book addresses a significant topic. While attempting to write for a wider audience. They
were not able to move outside the academic styles of presentation with which they were familiar and
comfortable. Instead, they remained within the cultural hegemonic framings of anthropology and the
academy.
461
The same pattern can be seen in the rise of internet sites associated with anthropology. In princi-
ple, the changing media landscape should widen readers’ interests, presenting them with a rich wealth
of information. But more frequently than not, readers focus on websites that fit their existing interests
and often remain within their own intellectual “bubbles.” One sees this with anthropological efforts to
reach a broader public with websites such as Sapiens and Anthro{dendum}, which seek to make anthro-
pological insights available to a wide audience. But the way they frame the issues, choose topics to cover,
and present the information limit their readership.
In brief, despite a desire to reach wider audiences, we see the difficulty even senior anthropologists
have in escaping the hegemonic frameworks of their discipline and academia. They are uneasy operat-
ing too far outside their comfort zones, too far outside the frameworks they have grown accustomed to
as scholars.
Let’s turn to the second puzzle—why anthropologists tend not to be more recognized for helping
others and nourishing the common good. Again, we will consider three examples. The first concerns
individuals faced with arbitrary bureaucratic demands. In 1978, six elderly Native American women
from the Bannock and Shoshoni tribes in Idaho were accused by a local social services agency of fraud
and required to pay $2,000 each in restitution. The fraud accusation was based on the belief that these
women had misled the U.S. government about their incomes and, hence, their eligibility for Supplemen-
tary Security Income support. Anthropologist Barbara Joans acted as an expert witness for the women
in court. She emphasized that the women had an imperfect grasp of English and, as a result, a lim-
ited understanding of government regulations. Joans “concluded that the social services personnel and
the Indian women were operating at different levels of English and cultural understanding . . . [conse-
quently] the women would not have been able to comprehend what was expected of them.”6 The judge
agreed with Joans’ conclusion and decided that, henceforth, “social services personnel would have to use
an interpreter when they went to the reservation to explain programs and their requirements.”7 The
women did not lose their government benefits.
The second example involves a study of a government program—the Experimental Technology
Incentive Program (ETIP) set up by the U.S. Department of Commerce8 that sought to stimulate inno-
vation among American companies. Gerald Britain, an anthropologist, spent more than two years
observing the program and provided an in-depth evaluation of its effectiveness. Britain suggested that,
despite its good intentions, the program was caught in a structural bind. Companies had little incen-
tive to follow through on the program’s suggestions and had their own priorities. Moreover, the pro-
gram had a high rate of staff turnover, which meant that its projects were often erratically supervised.
What ultimately proved the program’s undoing was its inability to spend all of the funds allocated to it.
Its surplus of roughly $2 million brought the program to the notice of prominent administrators, and,
after a brief investigation, the Commerce Department terminated the program. Through his fieldwork,
Britain was able to explain why a government program might fail despite its value and good intentions.
The third example concerns the Vicos Project, which is often praised within the discipline as an
important effort by anthropologists to assist with third world development. In 1952, guided by Alan
Holmberg, Cornell University leased “Vicos,” a Peruvian highland hacienda (farm) with roughly 1,800
Quechua-speaking residents, to conduct agricultural experiments. “Between 1952 and 1957 Holmberg,
with colleagues and students, initiated a set of social, economic, and agrarian changes . . . By the end of a
second lease in 1962, sufficient political pressure had been brought to bear . . . to force the sale of Vicos
to its people.”9 Despite this positive result, some have challenged the project’s overall success. According
to Paul Doughty, who participated in the project and revisited Vicos years later, “In the decades since
the end of the project [officially in 1966], the community experienced numerous successes as well as
failures as an independent community. Its attempts to diversify the economic base were often thwarted
[by others] and the farming enterprise was affected by plant diseases [and] bad market prices . . . For
several years from 1974–80, self-serving government manipulations left the people in the community
confused, corrupted their leadership, and eroded their confidence.”10 Still, Doughty concluded that the
Vicosinos had “altered their society from one of denigrated serfdom and subordination to become an
autonomous community of Quechua highlanders fending for themselves on a par with others in Peru’s
complex and uncertain milieu.”11
Many other examples like these demonstrate anthropology’s ability to empower people and facilitate
good, but they often go unnoticed by the broader public. Why? Let me suggest four reasons. You are
welcome to add others.
First is the complexity of change. Consider the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. It led to two major laws
that have helped transform American society: the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act
of 1965. They were a long time coming—a century, in fact, after passage of the Thirteenth Amendment
in 1865 (formally ending slavery). It is difficult to pinpoint one event that led to their passage. Part of
the impetus for the Voting Rights Act stemmed from the violence faced by black marchers, including
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Selma. Without the organizing of Dr. King and the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC), the actions of the National Association for the Advancement of Col-
ored People (NAACP) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the rise of tele-
vision that allowed millions to witness the violence of Selma, the political skills of President Lyndon
Johnson, and a coalition of liberal Democratic and Republican legislators, the bills would never have
passed. With so many involved, it is hard to specify one event or person that was the tipping point that
led to their passage.
Anthropologists played a role in the Civil Rights Movement. Before World War II, Franz Boas and
Margaret Mead emphasized that changing social environments could lead to significant behavioral
changes. In 1939, Hortense Powdermaker wrote an insightful ethnography of black life in Mississippi
that dealt with economic and political barriers that limited black success. Even though Boas, Mead, and
Powdermaker helped develop the intellectual framework for the 1964 and 1965 laws, they are rarely
mentioned in relation to the Civil Rights Movement because they were not directly involved in the
events that led to the bills’ passage.
A second factor was noted by Shirley Fiske, who described anthropologists as frequently working
from the bottom up. Anthropologists are not highlighted as key change agents because they do their
work away from the political spotlight, slowly chipping away at the problem. Regarding anthropologi-
cal work on climate change, Fiske writes:
Anthropologists have been involved at every step, from the formation of interagency committees in the
1990s, to membership on the National Academy of Sciences studies, to contemporary efforts to insert
the social and power dimensions into concepts like “vulnerability assessment” that are building blocks
of the National Climate Assessments required by statute. It is not just one person, but the continuing
insertion of the “bottom up” approach.12
Anthropologists often provide important data regarding what happens “on the ground,” but those
who actually make changes usually get the credit. In terms of the 1964 and 1965 laws, the spotlight was
focused on the major political figures involved—Martin Luther King and President Lyndon Johnson.
A third factor relates to anthropologists working in “third world” settings studying the less powerful
on the margins of Western society. President Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, was an anthropologist
who conducted valuable fieldwork in Indonesia, but to the broader public, the main value of her work
was that she took her son along with her, broadening his international perspective. Helping six elderly
463
Bannock and Shoshoni women is valuable. The Vicosinos who gained control over their land appreci-
ated Cornell’s efforts. But such efforts usually do not draw much attention outside of anthropology.
Fourth, given the everyday onrush of information, references to anthropologists in the news media
rapidly fade from the spotlight. Ann Kingsolver, an anthropologist at University of Kentucky, was cited
in an Economist article on Appalachia in 2015, but the Economist provided its readers with many other
articles on the United States as well. With a host of new articles the following week, she became just
one voice among many for the month.13
For this situation to change, anthropologists need to demonstrate the good they do on an ongoing
basis. Presently, the benefits they bring appear to be episodic—a bit here, a bit there. For the public to
take greater notice, the discipline as a whole rather than a few individuals must consistently demon-
strate how anthropology nourishes the common good. Sadly, it does not do that yet.
I hope that the preceding discussion has helped to unravel the two noted puzzles—why the most pop-
ular anthropological works today tend to be written by non-anthropologists and why anthropological
efforts to do good are often less recognized by the broader public than they might be. Many anthro-
pologists wish to be publicly recognized outside the discipline, but both overt and covert frameworks
reinforce the status quo. Facilitating change will involve refocusing the discipline away from the spe-
cialized interests and academic priorities that dominate it now and toward work that directly benefits
society more broadly, that serves the common good.
I make this point about structural constraints and hegemonic frameworks before defining public
anthropology for an important reason. While anthropologists are often eager to push their ideas and
deeds out to the broader public, they tend to pass over the need to address the subtle but significant
covert obstacles they face.
In the next section, you will see how different anthropologists perceive public anthropology and how
concern for public engagement has varied over time. I leave the tricky part—how anthropologists might
overcome the structural constraints limiting public engagement—until later.
DEFINING PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY
Let me offer a brief definition of public anthropology: Public anthropology focuses on the interface
between anthropology as an academic discipline and the broader public that supports and, ideally, finds
much value in it. This works as a definition you can recite to others. It emphasizes the role the public
plays in supporting anthropology as well as that anthropology is not an academic island unto itself. Still,
it does not address certain subtleties.
Public anthropology has gone from a term I created in the 1990s as a name for the California Series I
edit to a term that now has more than 100,000 links in Google Search. I coined the term because it rep-
resented a goal of the series: addressing public problems in public ways. Public, in this sense, contrasted
with academic styles of presentation. As phrased in the front matter of early books in the series, “the
California Series in Public Anthropology emphasizes the anthropologist’s role as an engaged intellec-
tual. It continues anthropology’s commitment to being an ethnographic witness, to describing in human
terms how life is lived beyond the borders of many readers’ experiences. But it also adds a commitment
through ethnography to reframing the terms of public debate—transforming received, accepted under-
standings of social issues with new insights, new framings.”14
Public anthropology has taken on added significance since the series began. It has become an insti-
tutionalized part of the discipline. There is an Institute of Public Anthropology at California State Uni-
versity Fresno, a public anthropology lecture series at University of Waterloo, a public anthropology
post-doctoral fellowship at the Field Museum, a master’s program in public anthropology at American
University, a faculty focus in public anthropology at Tufts University, a public anthropology review
section and a public anthropology editor at American Anthropologist, a master’s degree in public issue
anthropology at University of Guelph, a doctoral program in antropología de orientación publica at
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain, and a public anthropology category for posts at Savage
Minds. Courses dealing with public anthropology are taught at a number of North American schools.
Different groups use the term in somewhat different ways. In the master’s program in public anthro-
pology at American University, for example, students “explore the workings of culture, power, and his-
tory in everyday life and acquire skills in critical inquiry, problem solving, and public communication.”
A Tufts University web page states that “Public anthropology includes both civic engagement and pub-
lic scholarship . . . in which we address audiences beyond academia. It is a publicly engaged anthropol-
ogy at the intersection of theory and practice, of intellectual and ethical concerns, of the global and the
local.” The Public Issue Anthropology program at University of Guelph explores “the interface between
anthropological knowledge and issues crucial to governance, public discourse, livelihoods, [and] civil
society.” The American Anthropologist’s review section highlights “anthropology of general interest to a
wide audience” (an earlier version of the section’s purpose suggested its articles were aimed at nonaca-
demic audiences).
In recent decades, other terms have arisen that cover some of the same intellectual territory. Let me
offer a sampling. Thomas Hylland Erikson stated that “Engaging Anthropology takes an unflinching look
at why the discipline has not gained the popularity and respect it deserves.”15 Kay Warren wrote, in
an article entitled “Perils and Promises of Engaged Anthropology,” that engagement involves “investi-
gations that consider such issues as social justice . . . [and] globalization’s impacts.”16 Practicing anthro-
pology works “to understand and help people around the world.” It adds, “we also turn up in places
you might not expect to find us, including the fields of agriculture, computer science, law enforcement
forensics, and more.”17Activist anthropology, according to the University of Texas Anthropology Depart-
ment, is “predicated on the idea that we need not choose between first rate scholarship on the one hand
and carefully considered political engagement on the other.” Charles Hale stated that there need not
be a “contradiction between active political commitment to resolving a problem and rigorous scholarly
research on that problem.”18
Despite the florescence of terms, public anthropology remains the preferred one. If we use a Google
search as a rough standard, public anthropology (as previously noted) generates more than 100,000
links. There are roughly 38,000 for practicing anthropology, 10,000 for engaging anthropology, and
4,000 for activist anthropology. Why have these other terms not replaced public anthropology? I am
not sure. But I suspect it derives from the fact that the other terms are not as institutionalized, not as
embedded in the discipline’s social structures as public anthropology. They are not associated with pro-
grams, lecture series, and book series as public anthropology is.
PUTTING PRESENT CONCERNS IN PERSPECTIVE
It is important to place public anthropology’s current popularity in historical perspective. Readers

should note that anthropology has not always been as isolated from the general public as it seems today.
James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa, and Ruth Benedict’s Patterns
of Culture engaged a wide range of readers outside the academy in stimulating and important ways dur-
465
ing the first half of the twentieth century. In the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s, anthropologists often
played prominent roles in public arenas. In May 1936, for example, Franz Boas appeared on the cover
of Time Magazine, which referred to Boas’ The Mind of Primitive Man as the “Magna Carta of self-respect”
for non-Western peoples. Margaret Mead was a cultural icon. During the 1950s, she was the most
widely known and respected anthropologist in the world. Upon her death in 1978, tributes came not
only from the president of the United States but from the secretary-general of the United Nations. In
1979, she was posthumously awarded the United States’ highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal
of Freedom.
Why did anthropology become less publicly engaged? Basically, an academic trend that had been
building since the early 1900s came to dominate the discipline. By the late 1960s, anthropology had very
much embraced the academy (or university), and the academy had very much embraced anthropology.
The founders of anthropology in the mid to late 1800s resided outside universities, either as private
scholars (e.g., Henry Lewis Morgan) or as government employees (e.g., James Mooney and John Wesley
Powell). But with the rise of universities as centers of learning in the late 1800s—for anthropology, it
started with Franz Boas becoming a professor of anthropology in 1899 at Columbia University—more
and more anthropologists became associated with academic settings.
What is striking about anthropology’s early years is how few anthropologists there were. The Ameri-
can Anthropological Association had 306 members in 1910 and 666 in 1930. “Some elders of our tribe,”
George Stocking noted, “can recall an age when most anthropologists knew each other personally, and
[conferences] could be held . . . in one meeting hall of modest size.”19 This meant that anthropologists
who wrote books had to write for wider audiences if they wanted anyone to publish them. The anthro-
pology market was too small to attract major publishers. Here is how Raymond Firth phrased it regard-
ing his ethnography of Tikopia, a Polynesian island in the South Pacific:
In writing We, The Tikopia . . . I had to cater for a nonspecialist readership . . . in the mid-thirties [1930s],
the name Tikopia would be completely meaningless to the outside world . . . I believe then as now that .
. . anthropology by its very nature ought to have a wider appeal than its tiny specialist market indicated.
I had been supported in this view by the enthusiastic response to my public lectures and broadcasting
talks to schools. So I tried to broaden the interest of the material—opening of the book “reads like a
novel” as a friend remarked—without sacrificing the scientific rigor of its exposition.”20
A key turning point in this process was the expansion of student enrollments at American universities
in the 1960s associated with the post-World-War-II baby boom. This led to expansion in the number of
anthropology departments and, consequently, in student anthropology majors. This meant teachers no
longer had to write primarily for public audiences if they wanted to be published. They could write their
books solely for students taking anthropology courses. This trend continues today with further expan-
sion of the discipline. The American Anthropological Association now has more than 10,000 members,
and academically oriented publishers find it profitable to focus solely on classroom sales for anthropol-
ogy books.
Especially striking, relative to Firth’s work in the 1930s, is how anthropologists frame their
work today. Current works often have a “turned inward” quality. Seeking a broader public is less of
a priority. As Andrew Abbott noted, “Since professionals draw their self-esteem more from their own
world than from the public’s [today] . . . The front-line service [i.e., engagement with the public] that
is both their fundamental task and their basis for legitimacy becomes the province of low-status col-
leagues and para-professionals.”21 One sees this in the tendency for large introductory classes to be
taught by lower-status adjuncts, for example. High-status full professors tend to teach small advanced
courses in their specialties.
Drawing on Mary Douglas once more, we might frame the effort to keep the broader public at
bay—while accepting its funding—in terms of purity and pollution. Moving beyond the academic pale
makes faculty impure—it “pollutes” them (Margaret Mead’s failure to gain a prominent university posi-
tion is a prime example). The pure remain comfortably ensconced within anthropology departments
producing work that few read outside the discipline.
PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY’S RELATION TO APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY
A question commonly raised about public anthropology is how it differs from applied anthropology.
In answering, let me start with a personal anecdote. After I coined the term public anthropology, I was
under pressure to demarcate how it differed from applied anthropology, which surprised me. I won-
dered why various academics felt a need to make a clear delineation between ambiguously defined fields
as if they could differentiate between them as one does with cars (e.g., Fords versus Hondas) or base-
ball teams (e.g. the Boston Red Sox versus the New York Yankees). I understand the desire for clarity
but personally feel uneasy making precise delineations between the fields. What follows is a suggestive
sense of how they differ—no more.
Perhaps the best way to differentiate public and applied anthropology is by understanding the dif-
ferent contexts in which they developed. Applied anthropology has its roots in late nineteenth century
American and British colonialism. The focus was on understanding how various indigenous groups
lived in order to govern them more effectively. E.E. Evans-Pritchard’s famous studies of the Nuer, for
example, were financed by the British government of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to understand why the
Nuer were opposing colonial rule. The American Bureau of Ethnology had a similar aim. It sponsored
precedent-setting studies by Cushing, Dorsey, Stevenson, and Mooney to understand the dynamics of
certain North American Indian tribes and how they were changing under American domination.
In 1941, a group of anthropologists formally established the Society for Applied Anthropology “to
promote the investigation of the principles of human behavior and the application of these principles to
contemporary issues and problems.” The society’s opening statement in its journal noted that “Applied
Anthropology is designed not only for scientists, but even more for those concerned with putting plans
into operation, administrators, psychiatrists, social workers, and all those who as part of their respon-
sibility have to take action on problems of human relations.” Today, the society’s website repeats the
first sentence (“to promote the investigation of”) and then continues: “The society is unique among pro-
fessional associations in membership and purpose, representing the interests of professionals in a wide
range of settings—academia, business, law, health and medicine, government, etc. The unifying factor
is a commitment to making an impact on the quality of life in the world.” In a recent review of the field,
Trotter, Schensul, and Kostick wrote that applied anthropology tended to have a pragmatic, practical
orientation motivated by two concerns: “One is to produce research that has straightforward findings
that can be used for direct interventions or implications that can lead to recommendations for policy
change . . . The other is to test and improve anthropological theory through devising experiments in
sociocultural interventions or policy changes.”22
Public anthropology grew out of a different context. I coined the term to give an upbeat, positive
name to the California book series I was developing in the late 1990s. Why did I not employ applied
anthropology in the series title? Partly because it was already widely used. I wanted something new,
467
something different, that could catch people’s attention. Another reason was that applied anthropology
no longer had the same innovative “buzz” that it had in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. It had become part
of the established order.
The tension between applied and public anthropology became clear when, soon after publishing an
article on public anthropology in Anthropology News, an applied anthropologist, Merrill Singer, wrote
an article entitled “Why I Am Not a Public Anthropologist” (2000). He offered a two-fold critique of
public anthropology: (1) it ignored work applied anthropologists had done to date in this field and (2)
it could lead to a two-tier system in which public anthropologists became the high-status theoreticians
while applied anthropologists became lower-status grunts in charge of addressing concrete, practical
problems.23 If the author had read what I had written prior to publishing his piece, he would have seen
that I did not mean to disparage applied anthropology. Why, I wondered, was there not room for both
of us—whatever we called ourselves? Certainly there were many people and many problems needing
urgent attention. It puzzled me that some academics wanted to argue over definitions and status given
all the problems of the world.
THE UPS AND DOWNS OF PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
Rather than being drawn into what Sigmund Freud called “the narcissism of small differences”
(related groups arguing over small differences to differentiate their identities), I prefer to step back and
look at a bigger picture. Since at least the founding of the Bureau of Ethnology in 1879 under John
Wesley Powell, American anthropologists have sought to address the problems of various groups
of people. Prominent in those early years was the work of James Mooney, who described the ghost
dance, a religion sweeping Indian tribes of the American West in 1889 and 1890 in response to Amer-
ican domination. He also provided vivid details about a cavalry massacre of more than 200 Sioux at
Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890. The commitment to social engagement continued into the
twentieth century even as anthropology became institutionalized as an academic field within uni-
versities. Franz Boas was very much an activist. He opposed racist theories popular in the United States
and Europe during the 1930s. Anthropologists, moreover, were actively involved in the Allied war effort
during World War II. The well regarded anthropologist Cora DuBois served with the Office of Strategic
Services, for example. She was awarded the Army’s Exceptional Civilian Award as well as the Order of
the Crown by Thailand.
Margaret Mead noted that anthropologists coming out of the war years realized “their skills could
be applied fruitfully to problems affecting modern societies and the deliberations of national govern-
ments and nation states.”24 One of the highlights of this post-World-War-II period was the Coordinated
Investigation of Micronesian Anthropology (CIMA), which represented “the largest research effort in
the history of American anthropology” and involved roughly 10 percent of the American anthropologi-
cal profession conducting fieldwork for the U.S. Navy in Micronesia (which the Navy had a mandate to
administer).25 In the 1960s, anthropologists such as Marvin Harris and Marshall Sahlins played promi-
nent roles in establishing the first “teach-ins”—activist public discussions held at universities—oppos-
ing the Vietnam War. They wrote prominent pieces in widely read publications such as The Nation and
Dissent.
In the late 1980s, public engagement was once again popular in the discipline. In 1972, 88 percent of
new PhDs were employed in academic settings and just 12 percent were employed in nonacademic set-
tings. But in 1988, 54 percent were employed in nonacademic settings.26 This change in the job market
both symbolized and encouraged increased engagement with those outside the discipline.
And yet, each time these efforts languished. The efforts of Boas, Harris, and Sahlins are still remem-
bered, but their efforts are not that frequently emulated today. The CIMA Navy project is a distant
memory, known mostly through a book that documented it. In 1997, 71 percent of new Ph.D.s were
hired for academically related positions and 29 percent for nonacademic positions.27
TAKING STOCK OF WHERE WE ARE AND WHERE WE ARE HEADING
Let me highlight three summarizing points relating to the preceding sections. First, despite the insti-
tutionalized structures and hegemonic frameworks limiting public outreach (noted in the opening sec-
tion), public engagement seems to repeatedly return to excite the discipline. Why? Victor Turner’s
concept of anti-structure suggests an answer. Turner highlights “two alternative ‘models’ for human
relations. One involves society as a structured, differentiated, and often hierarchical system of politico-
legal-economic positions.”28 The other, termed anti-structure, opposes society’s formal structures,
emphasizing instead alternative, less conforming orientations. He writes that “there would seem to
be—if one can use such a controversial term—a human ‘need’ to participate in both modalities.”29 Public
engagement is not precisely the same as Turner’s anti-structure. Still, it emphasizes a different form of
accountability from standard academic practice. It reaches out to others beyond the discipline. It sup-
ports a different style of prose. It focuses on actively addressing the world’s problems.
Since they are ensconced in departmental structures, one might suggest many anthropologists peri-
odically long for greater social engagement and public recognition. They tire of the narrow, inward-
looking academic structures that pervade the discipline. They reach out, seeking to engage the public
on its own terms, not theirs. But their efforts usually do not last—they lack structural support that
would allow them to be more than momentary bursts of enthusiasm. In this context, anthropologists’
attempts are temporary transformations, momentary defiances, of the established order. With time,
anthropologists mostly return to the professional grind centered on academic standards of accountabil-
ity and pursuing their separate interests in their separate ways.
Second, applied anthropology has an ambiguous relationship with mainstream academic anthropol-
ogy. On the one hand, applied anthropologists might feel proud that they have resisted the academic
structures of the discipline—perhaps better than any other group in the discipline’s history. They now
have their own formal society (Society for Applied Anthropology), annual meetings, and their own jour-
nal (Human Organization), and applied anthropology is seen as a major disciplinary subfield (along with
cultural anthropology, archaeology, biological anthropology, and linguistics).
On the other hand, applied anthropology has succeeded by adopting certain academic structures.
Despite determined effort to engage outside the academy, a sizable number of applied anthropologists
hold university positions. There are at least two reasons for this. First, to become a certified applied
anthropologist, one needs a graduate degree. The field can only intellectually reproduce if a sizable
number of applied anthropologists remain at universities to train new generations of applied anthro-
pologists. Second, given that applied anthropology is now very much a part of the discipline, anthro-
pology departments are a prime source of paid positions so many of the applied anthropologists who
attend the society’s annual meeting and publish in its journal are academics. They give the meeting and
journal an academic feel while, at the same time, espousing to be different from mainstream anthropol-
ogy.
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Third, if public anthropology is not to befall the fate of such trends, it must reflect on how it can
reframe certain academic structures. Might I suggest this brings us back to Julie Andrews? If we want
public anthropology to make a difference in people’s lives, we need to start at the beginning—with the
underlying structures of the discipline that repeatedly limit public engagement. To effectively address
public problems, we need to address them on the public’s terms, not our own. That means not simply
listing a set of academic studies that others should attend to and follow—as one might offer to acad-
emics. It means rethinking what anthropology does and how it does it. It is within this context that
readers can perceive public anthropology’s revolutionary intent. Public anthropology seeks to revise
key academic structures. It seeks to transform the structures that prevent anthropology from becoming
more interdisciplinary, more publicly engaged, more focused on helping others.
Cultural hegemony, you will recall, is a term associated with Antonio Gramsci, a prominent Italian
communist. (He spent more than ten years in prison because of his opposition to Mussolini and fas-
cism.) In relation to anthropology, cultural hegemony refers to the themes previously discussed—the
focus on publishing academically oriented books that enhance one’s professional career and the reward
system that makes deviance from academic standards dangerous for those who wish to be promoted.
The term refers not only to helping maintain the status quo but to making it seem as if the status quo
is a reasonable, appropriate way to behave. My point is this: If we want to change the discipline and
the broader academic structures that support it, we must perceive the hegemonic constraints that limit
social engagement in the discipline.
The question is how to facilitate such change. The following section offers suggestive strategies. With
the first two strategies, the hope is that anthropology can become a more credible discipline in the pub-
lic’s eyes by improving its accountability standards and providing greater transparency regarding how
certain results are achieved. The third strategy is based on the idea that anthropology works best when
it involves collaboration with others. Anthropologists need to work with other groups, other organi-
zations, to facilitate significant change. Anthropologists need the power and resources those organi-
zations provide. Addressing the larger society’s concerns regarding accountability and transparency
offers a means by which to reach out to others—since many beyond academia are interested in facilitat-
ing precisely those changes within the academy.
The fourth strategy suggests anthropology can further its credibility by focusing on helping others
instead of mainly striving not to harm them—the discipline’s current ethic. Anthropologists’ efforts to
help others have, as previously noted, been well-intended but episodic. They have occurred irregularly
rather than representing a broad disciplinary effort. Anthropologists should strive, as best they can, to
help the people who help them in their research.
Let me share another secret with you. These strategies may be a bit too bold for some anthropologists
who, ensconced in traditional academic ways, have grown comfortable with the status quo. They might
long for greater public recognition but are not necessarily be eager to change. If you are interested in
exploring anthropology beyond the introductory level, these strategies offer a way for you to partici-
pate in changing the discipline for the better and, through that change, the broader world as well.
A FRAMEWORK FOR RESHAPING THE DISCIPLINE
This section sets out in detail the four strategies for reframing the discipline. A later section invites
you to grapple with ways to facilitate social change.
(1) Accountability—Moving beyond judging faculty members by the number of academic papers they
publish to judging them by whether what they have written helps others rather than just their careers.
Anthropologists tend to assess the intellectual quality of their colleagues by the published works they
produce. According to Deborah Rhode’s In Pursuit of Knowledge: Scholars, Status, and Academic Culture,
“Because academic reputation and rewards are increasingly dependent on publication, faculty have
incentives to churn out tomes that will advance their careers regardless of whether they will also
advance knowledge.”30 She notes a report by the Carnegie Foundation that more than a third of faculty
members surveyed believed that their published works were mostly assessed in terms of quantity rather
than quality (at schools with doctoral programs, more than 50 percent of the faculty members held that
view).31
Instead of focusing on quantitative calculations of accountability, such as publishing a certain number
of articles per year (or books every few years), I suggest that accountability would be better assessed in
more pragmatic terms: How socially significant is the problem being addressed? To what degree does
the author successfully address it? What impact does the author’s published work about this problem
have outside the academy?
The vast majority of funding for anthropological research comes from nonacademic agencies and
foundations. A key criterion for funding is that the research must be valuable for a relatively broad pub-
lic rather than only a few individuals. The National Science Foundation (NSF), for example, requires
that all proposals and final reports specify the “broader impacts” of the research, which NSF defines as
encompassing “the potential to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific, desired,
societal outcomes” and written “insofar as possible, [to] be understandable to a scientifically . . . literate
lay reader.”32 The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
affirms that “realizing the full potential of our Nation’s investment in health research requires that sci-
ence inform both practice and policy . . . we can stimulate relevant and usable research that is informed
by the needs of end users whether they are healthy individuals, patients, practitioners, community lead-
ers, or policymakers.”33 Paralleling these perspectives, the United Kingdom’s Research Councils UK
(RCUK) stresses a commitment to “supporting and rewarding researchers to engage with the public.”34
Despite affirmation of these standards by funders, many anthropologists still opt for academic stan-
dards that focus on the number of academic colleagues who cite their work. They also focus on who
obtains research funding. British anthropologist Adam Kuper has suggested that “The [grant] review
process rewards people who can write good proposals even if they failed to deliver on earlier grants.
Few foundations evaluate the research they fund . . . The best credential for a fellowship is a previ-
ous fellowship. And landing a grant usually wins you more kudos than getting out the results of your
research.”35 In other words, the path to success often lies in claiming to advance knowledge rather than
in demonstrating that you have.
The primary value of focusing on outcomes is that outcomes can be assessed fairly directly. Do
the results effectively address the problem? Do they contribute to building coherent, cumulative
knowledge that can be used beyond the discipline to address real problems? Do they improve other
people’s lives?
Take Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo’s Poor Economics as an example. The authors systematically
identified approaches that work best for particular problems. For example, they compared programs
for preventing malaria and asked which program had a better chance of being used in a group of vil-
lages—malaria nets given away free to villagers or malaria nets that villagers had to partly pay for and
hence had an incentive to use properly? Rather than assuming the answer, they compared randomized
groups in several locales using various levels of financial support provided for acquiring the nets. Based
on that information, they were able to draw conclusions regarding the best way to distribute the nets
in a range of locales to fight malaria effectively. They found that (a) all of the villagers accepted free
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nets but, as the price went up, fewer did, and (b) there was no difference in use of the nets based on
whether the villagers paid for them.36 Apparently, people valued the nets regardless of how they got
them—because they helped fight malaria.
The Nobel-winning author Robert Solow described Poor Economics as follows: “Abhijit Banerjee and
Esther Duflo are allergic to grand generalizations about the secret of economic development. Instead
they appeal to many local observations and experiments to explore how poor people in poor countries
actually cope with their poverty.”37 This represents anthropology at its best. By comparing the effec-
tiveness of different approaches, anthropologists can develop a comprehensive understanding of how
to address a problem in a particular context.
When advocating for this sense of accountability, it is important not to get caught up in academic
rhetoric concerning objectivity. As the social sciences moved into universities in the late 1800s,
objectivity in the social sciences took on a different meaning. It came to refer to avoiding politically
charged topics that might upset the political and financial elites who often helped fund and direct uni-
versities. Mary Furner, in Advocacy and Objectivity: A Crisis in the Professionalization of American Social Sci-
ence, 1865–1905, described how professionalization changed what it meant to study a social issue.
The professionalization process altered the mission of social science [within universities]. Only rarely
[as the twentieth century proceeded] did professional social scientists do what no one else was better
qualified to do [and what they had done decades earlier]: bring expert skill and knowledge to bear on
cosmic questions pertaining to the society as a whole. Instead, studies and findings tended to be inter-
nal, recommendations hedged with qualifiers, analyses couched in jargon that was unintelligible to the
average citizen. . . . The academic professionals, having retreated to the security of technical exper-
tise, left to journalists and politicians the original mission—the comprehensive assessment of industrial
society—that had fostered the professionalization of social sciences.38
Objectivity does not lie in avoiding certain politically charged topics. The issue is not whether an
individual has an “agenda”—one could suggest that everyone has biases of one sort or another. Being a
“disinterested professional” does not mean being uninterested in the world outside one’s laboratory. It
means putting the larger society’s interests ahead of one’s own personal interests or the interests of
those for whom one works. Objectivity derives from open, public analyses of divergent accounts.
We know an account is more objective—more credible, more scientific—after various individu-
als, whatever their personal biases, independently confirm the claims made. The opposition is not
between objectivity and advocacy; it is between claiming objectivity and substantiating it. Anthro-
pologists who claim to act in a disinterested manner with no hint of social advocacy are not necessarily
being objective. Objectivity comes from others confirming one’s data. If the data cannot be confirmed,
it is critical to understand how and why this limits the claims one can make.
(2) Transparency—Moving beyond highlighting conclusions that attract attention to allowing others
to understand how these conclusions were reached. Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals,
reported in 2014 that perhaps $200,000,000,000 (that is, 200 billion dollars), which constitutes about
85 percent of all global research spending, is likely wasted on poorly designed and poorly reported
research studies. Since this is a rather shocking figure, let me offer the actual words from The Lancet.
Macleod et al. report:
Global biomedical and public health research involves billions of dollars and millions of people . . .
Although this vast enterprise has led to substantial health improvements, many more gains are possible
if the waste and inefficiency in the ways that biomedical research is chosen, designed, done, analysed,
regulated, managed, disseminated, and reported can be addressed. In 2009, Chalmers and Glasziou . .
. estimated that the cumulative effect was that about 85 percent of research investment—equating to
$200 billion of the investment in 2010—is wasted.39
In a related article, Glasziou stated that “research publication can both communicate and miscom-
municate. Unless research is adequately reported, the time and resources invested in the conduct of
research is[sic] wasted . . . Adequate reports of research should clearly describe which questions were
addressed and why, what was done, what was shown, and what the findings mean. However, substantial
failures occur in each of these elements.” 40 Related to this point, the Economist reported that “half of
clinical trials do not have their results published . . . Proportionally, the worst culprits are government
and academia.”41
In an article entitled “Many Psychology Findings Not as Strong as Claimed,” in the New York Times,
Benedict Carey reported:
The past several years have been bruising ones for the credibility of the social sciences. A star social
psychologist was caught fabricating data, leading to more than 50 retracted papers. A top journal pub-
lished a study supporting the existence of ESP that was widely criticized. The journal Science [one of
the world’s leading journals] pulled a political science paper on the effect of gay canvassers on voters’
behavior because of concerns about faked data. Now, a painstaking years long effort to reproduce 100
studies published in three leading psychology journals has found that more than half of the findings did
not hold up when retested.42
These studies make clear there is a real need for transparency in research so others can properly
review, assess, and, if possible, confirm important studies. Two hundred billion dollars is a lot of money
to spend on questionable research.
Let me offer two examples of the importance of increased transparency in anthropology. First,
there is heated debate over whether the Yanomami (living in the Amazon region between Brazil and
Venezuela) were once particularly violent and, in frequent wars, killed numerous opponents. Because
some have viewed the Yanomami as exemplifying tendencies of “early man,” an incorrect assumption
in my view, the issue has drawn worldwide attention regarding just how violent “early man” was. The
issue also carried serious political implications for the Yanomami. If they were indeed as violent as some
had portrayed them, the Brazilian government felt they should be broken up into several small reserves
rather than be permitted a large single reserve that would help prevent gold miners from entering the
Yanomami’s territory. (After considerable debate, a large single reserve was established in 1992.)
Though much has been written on the topic, reliable data are needed to assess the Yanomami’s level
of violence accurately. All we have are ambiguous anecdotal assessments and suggestive statistics that
might or might not be valid. The argument revolves around data reported by Chagnon in a famous
article in Science (1988).43 But these data have not been made public making it impossible to confirm
them. Chagnon indicates he has “never published data that would enable someone to determine who
specifically was a ‘killer,’ his name, his village, his age, how many wives he had, and how many offspring.
In short, the data needed to make the criticism that Fry makes [questioning the validity of Chagnon’s
statistics] cannot be gleaned from my published data.”44 If Chagnon will not release his data so others
can confirm them, readers might wonder if new research might be conducted. The problem is that the
Yanomami have since been pacified. Readers might think, therefore, that anthropologists would just
drop the debate, admitting it is unresolvable until Chagnon makes his data public. But that has not
happened. Anthropologists continue to get into heated arguments over the topic. Just ask one of your
teachers who specializes in lowland South America about this and see how she or he responds.
The second example is Herrnstein and Murray’s widely discussed book, The Bell Curve (1994), which
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suggested that differences in intelligence among “races” (as they defined them) performed differently on
certain IQ tests. From this debatable proposition, the authors implied that whites appeared to be more
successful economically than blacks because whites were more intelligent.
Needless to say, the book caused a stir in the press. Early reviews, drawing on the statistical analyses
the authors provided, were generally positive. Nicholas Lemann noted a key reason for the positive
reviews: “The ordinary routine of neutral reviewers having a month or two to go over the book with
care did not occur . . . The [initial] debate . . . was conducted in the mass media by people with no inde-
pendent ability to assess the book.” Early reviewers had to base their reviews on the statistics provided
by Herrnstein and Murray, “It was not until late 1995 that the most damaging criticism of The Bell Curve
began to appear, . . . The Bell Curve, it turns out, is full of mistakes ranging from sloppy reasoning to
mis-citations of sources to outright mathematical errors.” 45
In other words, without the ability to carefully analyze the data supporting an author’s conclusions,
allowing others to confirm the author’s assertions, the social and medical sciences cannot produce cred-
ible results on which the public may rely. Without transparency, it is mostly people offering suggestive
but unproven uncertain possibilities.
Are you puzzled by why the Center for a Public Anthropology is not the Center for Public Anthropol-
ogy? Do you know what the phrase “a public” refers to? It emphasizes making anthropology’s dynamics
more public, embedding the focus on transparency in the name of the center.
(3) Collaborating with others—Moving beyond working alone to working with others to facili-
tate significant change. Working on their own, anthropologists rarely have the power to bring signif-
icant social change. To be effective, they usually need the energy, resources, and momentum generated
by larger organizations that have the ability to mobilize people and persist in a project through time.
Stated succinctly: Public anthropology works best when it collaborates with others.
Before providing examples of anthropological collaboration, let me discuss three points to place both
the strategy and the examples in context. First, the key to getting readers to take note of what one writes
often lies less in what is disclosed than in to whom the information is disclosed. Anthropologists should
target their information to those most interested in it while being sure to present it in a form that
these interested parties can readily use. The value of targeted transparency—providing institutions with
truthful public information they need to discredit the claims of competitors—is that there is a ready
group of individuals committed to publicizing it. When reporting on where foreign aid does (and does
not) work, for example, anthropologists could focus on reporting the information to organizations that
compete financially with ones that wastefully spend aid grants.
Second, targeted transparency makes clear why anthropologists need to reach beyond policymakers
to other constituencies in presenting their information. Providing information solely to policymakers
(who then use it at their discretion) can be a dangerous tango. To have credibility—to really speak truth
to power—cultural anthropologists cannot be pawns of the powerful. With their academic appoint-
ments and tenured positions, anthropologists can be respected, independent critics. Yes, anthropolo-
gists should collaborate—both formally and informally—with a range of social and political institutions.
But anthropologists need to retain a certain independence so their information and insights are not
buried by those seeking to maintain the status quo. Simply reporting information back to those who
fund one’s research or pay one’s salary means important information is unlikely to ever become public.
Anthropologists need to reach out to others who will use their information and build on it to facilitate
change.
Third, if you accept my point regarding cultural hegemony—the structural and cultural constraints
that limit the discipline’s public engagement— then collaborating with those outside the discipline
offers a way to overcome such constraints. Since many outside the academy are concerned about higher
education’s limited accountability and transparency, collaborating with outside groups offers a means
by which to address these problems.
My first example of anthropological collaboration is Partners in Health (PIH), a nonprofit organiza-
tion that builds medical support programs on communities’ existing structures and uses community
personnel as staff. Two of the medical doctors who founded the organization, Paul Farmer and Jim Yong
Kim, both have PhDs in anthropology. According to its website, PIH’s mission is to “provide a preferen-
tial option for the poor in health care. By establishing long-term relationships with sister organizations
based in settings of poverty, Partners In Health strives to achieve two overarching goals: to bring the
benefits of modern medical science to those most in need of them and to serve as an antidote to despair.”
Collaboration is central to PIH’s organization, as the Catalogue of Philanthropy notes:
Health programs should involve community members at all levels of assessment, design, implementa-
tion, and evaluation. Community health workers may be family members, friends, or even patients who
provide health education, refer people who are ill to a clinic, or deliver medicines and social support
to patients in their homes. Community health workers do not supplant the work of doctors or nurses;
rather, they are a vital interface between the clinic and the community . . . PIH doesn’t tell the commu-
nities we serve what they need—they tell us.46
PIH perceives community health workers as critical partners in a patient’s care:
For nearly three decades, PIH has hired and trained community health workers to help patients faced
with . . . challenges receive care. Our 12,000 community health workers around the world visit patients
at home, assess their health, and link them with clinics and hospitals.
In Haiti, where PIH’s community health worker program originated, they are called accompagnateurs to
emphasize the importance of accompanying people in their journey through sickness and back to
health.
Living in the communities where they work, community health workers are trusted and welcomed
into patients’ homes to provide high-quality services for a wide range of health problems. A patient
beginning treatment for tuberculosis, for example, is paired with a health worker who visits every day
to supervise treatment and ensure the patient takes medications regularly and correctly. For people liv-
ing with HIV or other chronic diseases, this support enables them to live longer and healthier lives.47
In brief, PIH emphasizes community collaboration in extending its effectiveness as a health care
provider. The accompagnateurs are key partners in treating patients.
Another example of working with others is the Center for a Public Anthropology’s collaboration
with Altmetric.com on the Metrics Project. Working together, we provide metrics on anthropological
articles and books highlighted in the world’s major news outlets, thereby broadening the metrics
used to assess a faculty member’s intellectual work. By offering clear metrics of public engagement
to both deans and department chairs, we hope to support anthropologists becoming more publicly
engaged—thereby addressing the first puzzle noted at the beginning of the chapter.
It would be impossible for the Center to gather the data needed for the Metrics Project, which are
collected using digital object identifiers (DOIs) of articles and books to search for references in media
around the world. Altmetric is proficient in gathering these data in the social sciences; the center is not.
But Altmetric tends to work with librarians, the Center with social science chairs and deans. With the
Metrics Project, the Center broadens the reach of Altmetric’s work.
A third example is the Center’s work with members of the U.S. Congress. Until recently, relatively
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few researchers—approximately 11 percent—complied with the NSF requirement to submit project

outcome reports following completion of their research to report the benefits of their work. Working
with student volunteers, the Center brought this problem to the attention of members of Congress, who
in turn raised the issue with NSF. Over a four-month period, completion of the benefit reports rose to
roughly 80 percent. Obviously, the Center could not facilitate greater completion of the project out-
come reports on its own. Congress was not aware of the problem until the Center and students brought
it to light. Working together, the Center and congressional members were able to raise the percentage
of NSF project outcome reports substantially.
(4) Benefiting others—Moving beyond “doing no harm” to demonstrating how anthropology
actually benefits others. Presently, the American Anthropological Association’s code of ethics (2012)
focuses on “doing no harm.” What happens, however, when—as occurs at many fieldwork sites—the
people the anthropologist is studying are suffering from a range of maladies? Do anthropologists leave
the people be because they are not the source of the maladies or do they try to help the people who are
helping them with their research?
The agencies that fund anthropological research are entitled to ask whether it is enough for anthro-
pologists receiving grants to “repay” the funding agency and, more generally, the larger society by
affirming that they did no harm to anyone in spending the thousands of dollars given them. Or
should the funding agency expect a more positive response—that the anthropologists actually sought to
address a problem that would benefit a group of people in some helpful way?
Contrary to popular belief, the Hippocratic Oath that medical students affirm on becoming doc-
tors does not primarily focus on “do no harm.” The original phrasing of the oath in Epidemics, I,II
states that, “As to disease make a habit of two things—help, or at least, to do no harm.” The phrase “first,
do no harm” likely derives from Thomas Inman, a nineteenth century house surgeon. Why anthropol-
ogists should focus on “do no harm” in their code of ethics—rather than on helping others—is an inter-
esting question.
Anthropology’s “do no harm” standard is both out of date and somewhat self-serving. It is drawn
from a period in the late 1800s and early 1900s when anthropologists sought to differentiate themselves
from missionaries and colonial administrators who sought to reshape indigenous societies. Anthropol-
ogists did not try to remake these societies; they consciously tried to avoid changing them. But this con-
text no longer holds. The “do no harm” ethic is now self-serving in that it allows anthropologists to skirt
certain moral dilemmas and obligations. When you ask people for help – such as in your research – you
are usually expected to return the favor in some form at some time. That reciprocity is a key principle
of social relations (articulated in an anthropological classic, The Gift, by Marcel Mauss in 1925.
Returning for a moment to the Yanomami, there have been questions over the years about whether
the unconfirmed reports of their violence harmed the Yanomami. Focusing on this question has allowed
anthropologists to side-step a critical concern: What tangible benefits have come to the Yanomami for
helping a host of anthropologists in their research over several decades? Chagnon made well over a mil-
lion dollars from his various books and movies. Other anthropologists have not made as much, but their
publications have allowed them to gain promotions and salary increases that put their standard of liv-
ing well above the average American’s. Mostly they supplied the Yanomami with minor goods and guns.
Only a few individuals, such as Bruce Albert, sought to address the critical health problems decimating
the Yanomami highlighted in Kopenawa and Albert’s The Falling Sky (2013).
Rather than focusing on not harming others, which can be interpreted in various ways by people
with different agendas, anthropologists might focus on helping the people who help them in tan-
gible ways, which would certainly enhance indigenous groups’ perceptions of anthropologists. It
would also enhance public perceptions of anthropological endeavors—presenting them not as self-
serving exercises in career building but as mutually beneficial efforts in understanding and help-
ing others.
FACILITATING SOCIAL CHANGE
The preceding strategies are aimed at improving how the public perceives anthropology—especially
in terms of anthropology’s credibility and value. In this section, we turn to specific ways anthropol-
ogists could facilitate change. The standard model for anthropologists is to be hired by companies or
government agencies interested in helping others—in the role of consultants, cultural intermediaries, or
researchers. The suggestions presented here are somewhat different. They offer alternative approaches
that anthropologists might pursue. They are meant to offer additional possibilities.
(1) If you accept my point regarding how cultural hegemonic structures shape resistance to change,
then collaborating with others beyond the academy is critical. What is needed are the staying power and
resources that large organizations provide. Given concerns in the broader society about accountability
and transparency in higher education, anthropologists have a means for reaching out to various pubic
groups. The value of targeted transparency—providing key institutions with truthful public informa-
tion needed to discredit the claims of competitors—is that there are groups ready to publicizing the
information anthropologists provide. We see this particularly in the next two strategies—conceptualiz-
ing important issues and exposés.
(2) Conceptualizing important issues: At its core, anthropology embodies comparison. By comparing
one group to another, anthropology allows people to step outside their parochial perspectives. It pro-
vides frameworks that voters, politicians, officials, and activists can use to conceptualize a problem and
take effective action to address it. Here is an example.
Based on comparative work in Pakistan and Norway, Norwegian anthropologist Fredrik Barth wrote
that “Contrary to what is still a widely shared view, I [have] argued that ethnic groups are not groups
formed on the basis of shared culture, but rather the formation of groups on the basis of differences of
culture . . . The contrast between ‘us’ and ‘others’ is what is embedded in the organization of ethnicity.”48
He asserted that there are few clear, distinct cultural boundaries. Rather, a range of continuous varia-
tion exists across a geographic area. Oppositions make cultural distinctions come alive. Barth suggests
that behind many cultural conflicts—such as the bitter tensions between Arabs and Christians, Ukraini-
ans and Russians, Sunni and Shiite Arabs—are “ethnic entrepreneurs.”
The conflicts we see today are the work mainly of middle echelon politicians who use the politics of
cultural difference to further their ambitions for leadership. This is tempting to them because in ethnic
identities they see a potential constituency, so to speak, waiting for them, and all they need to find is the
key to set the process in motion. Leaders seek these constituencies and mobilize them by making select,
contrastive cultural differences more salient, and . . . by linking them to grievances and injustices . . .
They engage in confrontational politics.49
To reduce ethnic conflict, Barth suggests bringing how these political entrepreneurs work into the
open. Rather than letting these entrepreneurs emphasize group differences, we should focus on people’s
common ground.
We need to reduce the saliency of . . . particular differences, and draw [people’s] attention to all the
other crisscrossing differences and the joint interests they have. We want to create arenas, specifically
477
for negotiations, where one can work from common interests and move outward . . . You don’t start
with opposed constituencies and try to bring them together. You start with the common ground. You
ask what the shared interests between the parties are. Then you negotiate to expand that common
ground.50
In a sense, this is what Boas did in his work on race—and is why Time magazine recognized him.
Anthropologists can conceptualize new ways to solve serious public problems. Through their clarity,
documentation, and power, they can draw politicians, key decision-makers, and the larger public to
give them serious consideration. It involves the power of ideas to reframe and clarify problems so as
to facilitate effective action. But to do so, anthropologists must collaborate with others and target their
insights to those who are most willing to use them effectively. They cannot simply speak out, expecting
others to listen, as occurs in their classes. Anthropologists need to identify the individuals and organi-
zations that can take advantage of their innovative framings and strive to insure that those individuals
and organizations make use of them.
Could you apply Barth’s insight to help reduce racial and social tensions at your university? If so,
how? If not, why not?
(3) Exposés—Effectively speaking truth to power. There is an excitement in challenging authority,
especially when you can expose illegal or inappropriate activity. There is less excitement in what fre-
quently follows. You are often ignored. Not every exposé makes headlines. Moreover, those that do are
often forgotten in the onslaught of later news. In announcing an exposé, the question is how you can
get others to recognize it and take action to address it. Let’s explore two case studies.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, an anthropologist at UC Berkeley, used her ethnographic skills to facilitate
the trial of the first person ever convicted of organ trafficking. The following report appeared in
Bloomberg Business.
A New York man admitted to brokering black-market sales of human kidneys to three Americans,
becoming the first person convicted in the U.S. of organ trafficking. Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, 60, pleaded
guilty today to three counts of organ trafficking and one count of conspiracy in federal court in Tren-
ton, New Jersey. He said three ailing people in New Jersey paid him a total of $410,000 to arrange the
sale of kidneys from healthy donors and an undercover FBI agent paid him $10,000. A 1984 U.S. law
bans the sale of human organs.51
Interestingly, most of the news reports did not mention the role Scheper-Hughes played. However,
Wikipedia in its description of “Operation Bid Rig,” the New Jersey political corruption scandal based
on an FBI “sting operation,” noted that “anthropologist and organ trade expert Nancy Scheper-Hughes
claimed that she had informed the FBI that Rosenbaum was ‘a major figure’ in international organ
smuggling.”52 Quoting Scheper-Hughes:
I went to the media, to CBS, to 60 Minutes, and then to 48 Hours, which did send an investigative
reporter, Avi Cohan, to meet me in Israel where we spoke to patients who had had ‘undercover’ trans-
plants at hospitals in NYC, Philadelphia, the Bay Area, and Los Angeles. CBS decided not to do the
exposé. I was stumped. No one wanted to accuse surgeons, or prevent a suffering patient from getting a
transplant, even with an illegally procured kidney from a displaced person from abroad.53
Thus, it took several more years for the New Jersey FBI office to arrest Rosenbaum in 2009 as part of
a much larger organized crime sting. Because Rosenbaum was involved in another case that was more
important from the FBI’s perspective, the agents finally followed up on Scheper-Hughes’ information.
A second exposé continues to make world news—Edward Snowden leaking classified government
documents about the activities of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Wikipedia summarizes the
case:
On May 20, 2013, Snowden flew to Hong Kong after leaving his job at an NSA facility in Hawaii and in
early June he revealed thousands of classified NSA documents to journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura
Poitras, and Ewen MacAskill. Snowden came to international attention after stories based on the mate-
rial appeared in The Guardian and the Washington Post. Further disclosures were made by other newspa-
pers, including Der Spiegel and theNew York Times.
It was revealed that the NSA was harvesting millions of email and instant messaging contact lists,
searching email content, tracking and mapping the location of cell phones, and undermining attempts
at encryption via Bullrun and that the agency was using cookies to “piggyback” on the same tools used
by internet advertisers “to pinpoint targets for government hacking and to bolster surveillance. The
NSA was shown to be “secretly” tapping into Yahoo and Google data centers to collect information
from “hundreds of millions” of account holders worldwide by tapping undersea cables using the MUS-
CULAR surveillance program.54
It might seem obvious that Snowden’s whistleblowing would garner wide public attention since it
involved explosive documentation on the degree to which the NSA was collecting information most
people thought was private. What is less known is that the Washington Post published related infor-
mation in articles by Dana Priest and William Arkin before Snowden’s disclosures. They reported:
Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intel-
ligence apparatus to collect information about Americans using the FBI, local police, state homeland
security offices, and military criminal investigators. The system, by far the largest and most technologi-
cally sophisticated in the nation’s history, collects, stores, and analyzes information about thousands of
U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing.55
The disclosure, entitled “Monitoring America,” was turned into a PBS Frontline report, “Top Secret
America.” The Department of Homeland Security, the authors note:
provides local agencies a daily flow of information bulletins. These reports are meant to inform agen-
cies about possible terror threats. But some officials say they deliver a never-ending stream of informa-
tion that is vague, alarmist, and often useless. “It’s like a garage in your house you keep throwing junk
into until you can’t park your car in it,” says Michael Downing, deputy chief of counterterrorism and
special operations for the Los Angeles Police Department.56
The disclosures by Snowden and Priest/Arkin differ in emphasis. Priest/Arkin focused solely on data
collected in the United States while Snowden focused on a global surveillance program. Snowden’s dis-
closures violated national security laws; Priest and Arkin did not, though presumably they made a num-
ber of NSA officials uncomfortable. They were suggesting that a vast amount of secret information
was being collected that was mostly useless. It might be suggested that Snowden was simply expanding
their analysis. The results of these exposés are interesting. Edward Snowden is forced to live in Moscow
479
since, if he returns to the United States, he will be tried and likely imprisoned. Dana Priest holds the
Knight Chair in Public Affairs Journalism at the University of Maryland.
Why the dramatic difference in these two exposés? One key reason is that Priest and Arkin are
journalists who played by the accepted rules and did not violate any laws. The agencies involved knew
what they were going to announce and apparently did not strenuously object. After a big splash, their
report was mostly forgotten. Hence, there was no need for the NSA to react. But as soon as Snowden
made his disclosures, he not only attracted worldwide attention but created a number of interna-
tional incidents with U.S. allies such as Germany, which accused the United States of violating its
citizens’ privacy. Leaking secret information as well as the conflicts created with American allies
made Snowden an international outlaw forced to live beyond the reach of the U.S. judicial system.
Because he did not play by the accepted rules, he garnered more attention and had a much greater
impact than Priest and Arkin.
If you were to speak out as a public anthropologist—speak truth to power—what type of exposé
would you try to make? How would you go about doing it? What do you think the personal cost, if
any, might be?
(4) Writing narratives with impact. When discussing the first puzzle in the chapter’s section,
I emphasized that non-anthropologists tend to write the most popular anthropology-oriented books. It
is not that anthropologists cannot write for broader audiences. Rather, they operate within academic
contexts that discourage such writing. That said, some anthropologists, focusing on books used in
course adoptions, do rather well financially. Chagnon’s introductory ethnography on the Yanomami,
for example, has run through five editions and sold well over a million copies. Part of what makes the
book successful is that teachers can use a set of vivid ethnographic videos that make the book’s descrip-
tions come alive.
Chagnon also depicts his interactions with the Yanomami in a lively manner, portraying himself as
an Indian Jones type figure. To my knowledge, no other anthropologist has ever discussed how partic-
ular members of the tribe being studied purposely sought to kill them (with a gun in Chagnon’s case).
Such incidents might have happened to other anthropologists, but they have never bragged about them
as Chagnon has done. Anthropologists generally take pride in displaying tolerance toward people who
are different from themselves, showing respect for those with whom they live and work while conduct-
ing their research. Chagnon moved in the opposite direction, giving a dramatic, and at times pejorative,
flair to his depictions of the Yanomami.
Yet many undergraduates enjoy Chagnon’s book. It brings out their prejudices —emphasizing Ama-
zonian Indians as exotic “savages.” This was not necessarily Chagnon’s intent. He wanted to stress that
the Yanomami were just as barbaric as Americans—no more, no less. But that is not what students tend
to take away from his book. They take away their superiority to the Yanomami. What does one do with
a popular ethnography such as Chagnon’s? While it offers a detailed description of an Amazonian
group, it also goes against an anthropological tenet of describing people studied in fairly favorable
terms. What would you do?
Most anthropologists resist the notion that they produce works of fiction. They do not compose their
ethnographies out of thin air—as many suspect Carlos Castaneda did in The Teachings of Don Juan. Most
anthropological ethnographies sell around 2,000 copies—a pittance compared to the millions of books
Castaneda has sold. It is not always clear where facts leave off and fiction begins in some colleagues’
accounts. Anthropologists claim they are objective; they claim they present accurate accounts. But few
visit the field sites of other anthropologists to test this assumption. It makes for better relations with
colleagues if they do not.
You have read many books. Some have excited you; others have not. If you were to write a
popular anthropology book that involved a sense of professional scholarship, what topic would
you select if you wanted to sell a hundred thousand copies (and gain 10 percent of the selling
price)? How would you write to capture students’ attention without moving too far into fiction or
demeaning those with whom you worked?
Let us review what I have discussed and see whether you recall key ideas made in each section. We
started this chapter with (a) two puzzles stemming from anthropology’s interactions with the broader
public. I then turned to (b) describing public anthropology especially varying perceptions of it and its
relation to applied anthropology. Next, I discussed (c) four of the field’s central strategies for transform-
ing anthropology in order to enhance its credibility with the larger public. Finally, I explored (d) sug-
gested ways to facilitate change. In this chapter, I have sought to help you not only understand the
problems public anthropology addresses but also consider effective ways for anthropologists to reach
out to the public. Did you get these points or did you keel over with boredom? Did some of the points
seem relevant to you?
CONCLUDING QUESTIONS
First, in an earlier section, I highlighted the Center for a Public Anthropology’s work with Altmetric.
Please look over the website and explore the data it presents. Do you think it will prove effective in
broadening the standards for promotion by highlighting faculty publications in the world’s media?
If so, why? If not, why not?
Second, below is an account of how introductory students like yourself, working with the Center for
a Public Anthropology in coordination with key Brazilian groups facilitated the return of blood samples
taken from the Yanomami in the late 1960s. What strategies highlighted in this chapter do you think
proved effective in this effort? I counted four. How many do you find in this account? How would
you draw media outlets to this story so it will reach the broader public?
As an example of public anthropology (following the model of the Kahn Academy), Dr. Borofsky has created short 10-15 minute videos on key top-
ics in anthropology for introductory students. All 28 videos are available from the Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology website.
CENTER FOR A PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY PROJECT: HOW THE BLOOD CAME BACK TO
THE YANOMAMI
More information about this project along with the full set of references can be found on the Center for
Public Anthropology website. Students and instructors are welcome to participate in the Community
Action Project.
481
STAGE ONE: The issue seemed fairly straight-

forward – before it became a question of legal lia-
bility. Initially, one’s perspective on returning the
blood to the Yanomami came down to where you
stood on a continuum between advocating for sci-
ence and advocating for indigenous rights. At stake
were blood samples collected from the Yanomami
during the late 1960s by an American research
team that included James Neel, a geneticist, and
Napoleon Chagnon, an anthropolo-
gist. [S1-a] Unbeknownst to the Yanomami, the
blood samples were subsequently stored at a num-
ber of American institutions, most prominently Figure 1: Yanomami Portrait by Claudia Andujar . All rights reserved.
Pennsylvania State University. The Yanomami
only discovered this fact following the publication of Patrick Tierney’s Darkness in El Dorado (2000).
Tierney wrote the Yanomami blood samples were stored “in an old refrigerator at Penn State Univer-
sity.” [S1-b]
For the Yanomami, this was deeply upsetting. Some Yanomami felt they should be compensated bet-
ter than they had been since the samples were helping researchers’ in their careers. But many more felt
it was a religious sacrilege to retain, rather than return, the samples so they could be properly disposed
of in accord with Yanomami tradition. [S1-c]
The Yanomami had been promised that their blood samples would be used to learn more about
the diseases ravaging them. [S1-d] (They were collected, it should be noted, in the midst of a measles
epidemic.) Unfortunately, this did not occur. A few researchers used the samples for their personal
research. But judging from the publications produced over the more than forty years the samples were
stored at various institutions, they were not widely studied, nor were they ever used in a way that
directly benefitted the Yanomami. Hence, what appeared to be a conflict between science and indige-
nous rights was, for the first few years at least, mostly a conflict between those who wanted to save
the samples for some vague, future use (such as the Human Genome Project) and the Yanomami who
wanted the blood returned for religious reasons.
But the frame of reference changed significantly when, to help resolve the dispute, lawyers became
involved. The focus then turned to a question of legal liability and the fear of being sued.
STAGE TWO: Davi Kopenawa, a prominent

Yanomami leader in Brazil, first learned about his
relatives’ blood samples being stored in the United
States from Bruce Albert during a conversation
about Tierney’s book. The Pro Yanomami Com-
mission (CCPY), working with Kopenawa, brought
the matter to the federal attorneys of the MPF
(Federal Public Ministry) residing in Roraima (the
state where most Yanomami lived in Brazil) as well
as in Brasila, Brazil’s capitol. In 2002, Deputy
Figure 2: Davi Kopenawa. Photo by Claudia Andujar. All rights reserved.
Attorney Ela Wiecko Volkmer de Castilho corre-
sponded with Dr. Kenneth Weiss, who was storing
Pennsylvania State University’s sam-
ples. [S2-a] Subsequently, Albert wrote Weiss, including a note from Kopenawa. [S2-b] Paralleling this
correspondence, key Yanomami wrote letters to the Indian Resource Center in Washington
D.C. [S2-c] Little resulted from this correspondence. In 2005, Deputy Attorney of Brazil Mauricio
Frabretti, wrote to Weiss [S2-d] as well as Dean Susan Welsh of Penn State [S2-e] and Binghamton Uni-
versity’s Vice President for Research, Dr. Gerald Sonnenfeld. [S2-d] Once more, little happened. Welch’s
response emphasized the considerable problems preventing Penn State from returning the blood. [S2-e]
STAGE THREE: Penn State’s response turned more positive in 2006, following the involvement of
the Center for a Public Anthropology working in collaboration with students from across North Amer-
ica. Emails from these students to Weiss had little effect.[S3-a] But a formal letter to Pennsylvania State
University’s President, Dr. Graham Spanier, from the Center combined with student letters supported
by scores of other students [S3-b] had a positive impact. One need only contrast Provost Dr. Rodney
Erickson’s reply to these letters [S3-c] with Welch’s reply to Fabretti to see the difference.
At roughly this same time, Dr. Joseph Fraumeni,
a director within the National Cancer Institute
(NCI), in correspondence with Deputy Attorney
Fabretti, indicated that the Institute was “willing to
return the [blood] specimens to Yanomami repre-
sentatives.” [S3-d] Knowing this, Provost Erickson
suggested that Pennsylvania State University’s
transfer of the blood “could ideally take place at the
same time and under the same circumstances” as
the NCI’s. [S3-c]
But what seemed reasonable at first, became
problematic. While Dr. Fraumenini’s assistant, Dr.
Karen Pitt, made a significant effort to facilitate the
Figure 3: Photo by Victor Englebert. All rights reserved.
return of the samples, others – at NCI, at Pennsyl-
vania State University, and in Brazil – obstructed
the process, at times spreading false rumors.
STAGE FOUR: It remained unclear for several years who or what was delaying the return of the
blood samples. American lawyers insisted on a formal legal agreement waiving all liability and war-
ranties on their part related to the blood. The Brazilians, puzzled by this insistence and not sure what
they were consenting to, hesitated to sign such an agreement. The Deputy Attorney of Brazil, Mr. Anto-
nio Morimoto, suggested that the blood samples simply be turned over to the Brazilian Embassy in
Washington, D.C. [S4-a] But Pennsylvania State University and the National Cancer Institute refused.
The fact that the blood samples were going to be ritually disposed of soon after being returned to the
Yanomami, [Globo video S5-c3] and this was part of the final agreement [S5-b1a 2.4] was irrelevant to
the NCI’s lawyer. She insisted an agreement waiving liability be signed before the samples could be
returned. The final transfer agreement held NCI “harmless with respect to any action arising from the
use of Samples prior . . . to [the] transfer.” [S5-b1a, 2.3]
483
For several years, there was a standoff. On one

side, Pennsylvania State University and NCI
insisted they wanted to return the blood and, on
the other, the Brazilian government insisted it
wanted the blood returned. But they could never
agree on how it would be done.
Given this situation, those wanting the blood
returned had only one option – to pressure the
parties involved to come to some agreement. In the
United States, the Center for a Public Anthropol-
ogy repeatedly contacted key figures involved,
assisted Deputy Attorney Morimoto [S4-b] (as well
as Bruce Albert) in their efforts when possible, and
sought to attract media atten-
tion. [S4-c1, S4-c2,S4-c3, S4-c4, S4-c5, S4-c6, S4-c7, S4-c8, S4-c9] On the Brazilian side, returning the
blood samples became a priority for the Hutukara Yanomami Association (HAY), a Yanomami NGO
(non-governmental organization) created in 2004 with CCPY assistance, and partner organizations,
especially the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), which absorbed CCPY in 2007. Davi Kopenawa, HAY’s
president, played a key role in keeping the issue alive, encouraging articles in Brazilian, French, and
British media. [S4-c1, S4-c2, S4-c3, S4-c4, S4-c5, S4-c6, S4-c7, S4-c8, S4-c9]
STAGE FIVE: Ultimately, the Brazilian pressure was key. Through multiple meetings with the Fed-
eral Public Ministry’s (MPF’s) attorneys, ISA learned, quoting ISA’s skilled lawyer, Ana Paula Caldeira
Souto Maior: that “new Brazilian government agencies were brought to the case due to the require-
ments made by the contacted American institutions . . . [relating to] a Biological Material Transfer
Agreement. Besides the Foreign Ministry, ANVISA [Brazil’s FDA equivalent], and the AGU [the Attor-
ney General of Brazil] were also involved [because of American concerns over] . . . the safety conditions
and the final destination of the samples.” Finally, “MPF was able to solve the bureaucratic obstacles on
the Brazilian side and, through clarifying conversations with the American Institutions, felt able to sign
the Agreement for the return the samples insisted upon by the Americans.”
In April 2015, Pennsylvania State University
returned their blood samples: 2693 vials. These
samples included those that had been stored at
Binghamton University. In September 2015, the
National Cancer Institute returned their samples:
474 vials. Readers can peruse, if they wish, the for-
mal transfer agree-
ments. [S5-a, S5-b1, S5-b1a, S5-b2]
The transfer of the samples back to the
Yanomami was highlighted in the Brazilian
media [S5-c1, S5-c2, S5-c3, S5-c4, S5-c5, S5-c6, S5-c7], Brazilian government
reports [S5-d1, S5-d2, S5-d3] and British media. [S5-e]
It should be noted that none of the rumored dangers emphasized by the transfer’s opponents – which
made the transfers into such a complicated legal matter – ever came to pass, either in terms of spreading
disease or the Yanomami suing the American institutions. Instead, the return of the blood samples was
a deeply moving moment for many Yanomami. One can listen to Davi Kopenawa’s comments regarding
the return of the samples in a video. [S5-c4]
The return of the blood samples also represents an important moment for American anthropology.
Countering various criticisms lodged against the discipline in print [S5-f] and in film [S5-g], the return
of the blood constitutes a clear case of American anthropologists helping the Yanomami – on
Yanomami terms, not on their own. It portrays American anthropology in a much more positive light
vis-à-vis the Yanomami than has been the case in recent years.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Borofsky is Professor of Anthropology at Hawaii Pacific University.

A distinguished scholar, he has authored or edited six books as well as published articles in the disci-
pline’s leading journals. Dr. Borofsky is editor of the Public Anthropology Book Series published by
University of California Press, Director of the Center for a Public Anthropology, and webmaster of the
http://www.publicanthropology.org and http://www.publicanthropology.net websites. Selected publi-
cations include: Making History (1987), Assessing Cultural Anthropology (1994), Remembrance of Pacific Pasts
(2000), and The Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn From It (2005).
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Notes
1. Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997), front mat-
ter.
2. Chronicle of Higher Education, “Academics Should Do More to Shape Public Debate,” The Chronicle Review,
November 11, 2016, B9.
3. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Pollution and Taboo (New York: Routledge, 1966), 123.
4. Eric Wolf, “They Divide and Subdivide, and Call It Anthropology,” The New York Times, November 30, 1980, E9.
5. Dan Salzstein, “Chill Out, Mom and Dad,” The New York Times, September 4, 2016, BR23.
6. Alexander Erwin, Applied Anthropology: Tools and Perspectives for Contemporary Practice (New York: Pearson, 2005),
149.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., 102–104.
9. Tom Greaves, Ralph Bolton, and Florencia Zapata, Vicos and Beyond: A Half Century of Applying Anthropology in
Peru (Lanham MD: AltaMira Press, 2010), viii.
10. Paul L. Doughty, “Ending Serfdom in Peru: The Struggle for Land and Freedom in Vicos,” in Contemporary Cul-
tures and Societies of Latin America, ed. Dwight B. Heath (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 2002), 238.
11. Ibid., 239.
12. Shirley J. Fiske, “Global Climate Change from the Bottom Up,” in Applying Anthropology in the Global Village, ed.
Christina Wasson, Mary Odell Butler, and Jacqueline Copeland-Carson (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press,
2012), 162.
13. “The Fifty Years War: What Has Changed Since the Federal Government Went to War in the Hollows,” The Econ-
omist, May 21, 2015.
14. Margaret Lock, Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death (Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 2001), front matter.
15. Thomas Hylland Erikson, Engaging Anthropology: The Case of a Public Presence (New York: Berg, 2006), back cover.
16. Kay B. Warren, “Perils and Promises of Engaged Anthropology: Historical Transitions and Ethnographic Dilem-
mas,” in Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy, and Activism, ed. Victoria Sanford and Asale Angel-Agani (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006), 213.
17. National Association for the Practice of Anthropology, “The Practice of Anthropology.” http://practicinganthro-
pology.org/practicing-anthro/
18. Charles R. Hale, “What is Activist Research?” Social Science Research Council, 2, no. 1–2 (2001):13–15.
www.utexas.edu/cola/anthropology/_files/PDF/Hale.pdf.
19. George W. Stocking, “Ideas and Institutions in American Anthropology: Thoughts toward a History of the Inter-
war Years,” in Selected Papers from the American Anthropologist, 1921–1945, ed. George W. Stocking (Washington,
DC: American Anthropological Association, 1976), 1.
20. Raymond Firth, “An Appraisal of Modern Social Anthropology,” Annual Review of Anthropology 4 (1975):4.
21. Andrew Abbott, The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor (Chicago: University of Chicago
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Press, 1988), 119.

22. Robert Trotter, Jean Schensul, and Kristin Kostick., “Theories and Methods in Applied Anthropology,” in Hand-
book of Methods in Cultural Anthropology, ed. H. Russell Bernard and Clarence Gravlee (New York: Rowman & Lit-
tlefield, 2015), 661.
23. Merrill Singer, “Why I Am Not a Public Anthropologist,” Anthropology News 41 no. 6 (2000):6–7.
24. Margaret Mead, “Changing Styles of Anthropological Work,” Annual Review of Anthropology 2 (1973):1–2.
25. Robert C. Kiste and Mac Marshall, American Anthropology in Micronesia: An Assessment (Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 1999), front book flap.
26. David Givens, Patsy Evans, and Timothy Jablonski, American Anthropological Association Survey of Anthropology
PhDs, http://www.americananthro.org/LearnAndTeach/ResourceDetail.aspx?ItemNumber=1499
27. Ibid.
28. Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 96.
29. Ibid., 203.
30. Deborah L. Rhode, In Pursuit of Knowledge: Scholars, Status, and Academic Culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford Univer-
sity Press, 2006), 11.
31. Ibid., 46.
32. National Science Foundation, Grant Proposal Guide: Chapter III—NSF Proposal Processing and Review. A. Review
Criteria. www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf042/3.htm.
33. National Institutes of Health, Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences, https://obssr.od.nih.gov/pdf/
OBSSR_Prospectus.pdf.
34. Research Councils United Kingdom, “Embedding Public Engagement in Research,” www.rcuk.ac.uk/pe/embed-
ding.
35. Adam Kuper, “Anthropology,” Times Literary Supplement, March 30, 2009, 23.
36. Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty (New
York: Public Affairs, 2011) 49–50, 57–58.
37. Ibid., back cover.
38. Mary Furner, Advocacy and Objectivity: A Crisis in the Professionalization of American Social Science, 1865–1905 (Lex-
ington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1975), 324.
39. M. R. Macleod, Susan Michie, Ian Roberts, Ulrich Dirnagl, Iain Chalmers, John P. A. Ioannidis, Rustam Al-Shahi
Salman, An-Wen Chan, and Paul Glasziou, “Biomedical Research: Increasing Value, Reducing Waste.” Lancet 383
no. 9912 (2014):101.
40. Paul Glasziou, “Reducing Waste from Incomplete or Unusable Reports of Biomedical Research.” Lancet 383 no.
9913 (2014):267.
41. “Tested and Found Wanting,” The Economist, November 5, 2016.
42. Benedict Carey, “Many Psychology Findings Not as Strong as Claimed, Study Says,” New York Times, August 27,
2015.
43. Napoleon A. Chagnon, “Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population” Science 239 no. 4843
(1988): 985-992.
44. Marta Miklikowska and Douglas Fry, “Natural Born Nonkillers: A Critique of the Killers-Have-More-Kids
Idea.” In Nonkilling Psychology, edited by Daniel Christie and Joan Evan Pim (Honolulu: Center for Global
Nonkilling, 2012), 61.
45. Nicholas Lemann, “The Bell Curve Flattened,” Slate, January 18, http://www.slate.com/articles/briefing/arti-
cles/1997/01/the_bell_curve_flattened.html.
46. Catalogue for Philanthropy, “Partners in Health: A Non Profit Corporation,” http://www.philanthropydirec-
tory.org/charity/partners-health-nonprofit-corporation
47. The Partners in Health approach and mission are described in http://www.pih.org/pages/our-mission;
http://www.pih.org/pages/our-principles; and http://www.pih.org/priority-programs/community-health-
workers.
48. Fredrick Barth, “Ethnicity and the Concept of Culture.” Program on Nonviolent Sanctions and Cultural Survival
Seminar Synopses Paper presented to the Conference “Rethinking Culture,” Harvard University, 1995, 1.
49. Ibid., 7.
50. Ibid., 8.
51. “Kidney Broker Pleads Guilty in First U.S. Organ Trafficking Prosecution, Bloomberg Business, October 27, 2011,
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-10-27/kidney-broker-pleads-guilty-in-first-u-s-organ-traf-
ficking-prosecution.
52. “Operation Bid Rig,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bid_Rig.
53. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, “The Rosenbaum Kidney Trafficking Gang,” Counterpunch, November 30, 2011,
www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/30/the-rosenbaum-kidney-trafficking-gang.
54. “Edward Snowden,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden.
55. Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, “Monitoring America.” Washington Post, December 19, 2010, http://pro-
jects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/monitoring-america.
56. Ibid.
IMAGE CREDITS
Many of the images used in this book appear with permission of the copyright holder. None of the fig-
ures in this book should be assumed to be in the public domain or creative commons licensed unless
otherwise noted in the original image information.
Introduction to Anthropology
Figure 1: Reproduced with permission from http://goodgirlsinthebadlands.blogspot.com/2018/09/
the-silk-road-festival-honoring-zhang.html. All rights reserved.
Figure 2: Public domain image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hand-
made_oil_painting_reproduction_of_Ibn_Battuta_in_Egypt,_a_painting_by_Hip-
polyte_Leon_Benett..jpg
Figure 3: Public domain image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Darwin.jpg
Figure 4: Public domain image from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/
FranzBoas.jpg
Figure 5: Image reproduced with permission of Katie Nelson. All rights reserved.
Figure 6: Public domain image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chimpanzees.jpg
Figure 7: Public domain image from https://pxhere.com/en/photo/939262
Figure 8: Public domain image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jerycho8.jpg
Figure 9: Image by Torbein Rønning https://www.flickr.com/photos/torbein/49278674/
Figure 10: Public domain image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PEF-with-mom-
and-baby—Quy-Ton-12-2003_1-1-310.jpg
Figure 11: Illustration by Mary Nelson. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.
Figure 12: Image by Luke Berhow. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.
Figure 13: Image by Jim Stroup. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.
Figure 14: Image by Kwame Harrison. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.
Figure 15: Image by Craig E. Arthur. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.
Figure 16: Image by Bob Myers. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.
Figure 17: Image by Lynn Kwiatkowski. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.
Figure 18: Image by Lynn Kwiatkowski. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.
Figure 19: Image courtesy of Katie Nelson. All rights reserved.
Figure 20: Image courtesy of Lara Braff. All rights reserved.
The Culture Concept
Figure 1: Public domain image from Gulliver’s Travels in Lilliput and Brobdingnag by John Lang. Lon-
don: T.C. and E.C. Jack, 1908.
Figure 2: Public domain image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JamesGeorge-

Frazer.jpg
489
490
Figure 3: Public domain image from Anthropology: An Introduction to the Study of Man and Civ-
ilization by E.B. Tylor 1904. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anthropology;_an_introduc-
tion_to_the_study_of_man_and_civilization_(1896)_(14760690736).jpg
Figure 4: Public domain image from London School of Economics Library Collections.
Figure 5: Photograph of Franz Boas is from the public domain collection of the Canadian Museum of
Civilization, Negative 79-796.
Figure 6: Photograph of Ruth Benedict is public domain from the Library of Congress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Benedict#/media/File:Ruth_Benedict.jpg
Figure 7: Image of Yanomami mother and child by Cmacauley https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

File:Yanomami_Woman_%26_Child.jpg
Figure 8: Photo courtesy of Emily Cowall.
Figure 9: Photo courtesy of Priscilla Medeiros.
Doing Fieldwork: Methods in Cultural Anthropology
Figure 1: Photo by Katie Nelson, 2001.
Figure 4: Image of Bronislaw Malinowski is public domain from the London School of Economics
Library Collections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronis%C5%82aw_Malinowski#/media/
File:Wmalinowski_trobriand_isles_1918.jpg
Figure 5: Image reproduced from Benjamin Lee Whorf, “Science and Linguistics.” MIT Technology
Review: 42 (1940).
Figure 6: Chart courtesy of Katie Nelson.
Figure 7: Photograph courtesy of Katie Nelson.
Language
Figure 1: Illustration by MegSmith from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tract.gif
Figure 2: Chimpanzee photo from The Green Parent, https://www.flickr.com/photos/thegreenparent/

6943988092/in/photolist-bzBKJC-zDUYsp-7SB2Ti-a1dNpR-o9XYFt-
QHJxws-5V3K9S-6GGsaB-24BHdf-8PxP51-4bTFt1-g8HhXg-bVPhdX-g8HHEV-djgDGX-
g9Fokm-3oyJyK-djgDNk-6aYFFn-7MEHY8-dbzPCy-g8GRG8-4wg2PA-7UHWGR-g8HSif-bymeE7-
g8HGUA-g9G1iF-3oDcjJ-ppg5zK-g8Jjm6-g8HneV-9fb4op-7MEHYk-7UMhkQ-g8GKPh-L478z-
cV3zFW-g8GU42-5oXTdK-4wF5Nb-g8HoqU-poYJLp-g8Hfyu-ppg5Fr-g8H6Gw-nxDiWa-4TzY8N-
q3C5FL-nQ4JKS
Figure 3: Photograph courtesy of James Kim.

491
Figure 4: Photograph from Cultural Survival and Make Peace Productions
Figure 5: Photograph courtesy of Linda Light.
Subsistence
Figure 1: The carrying capacity image collage contains work by Andreas Lederer.
https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsadand Dennis Jarvis https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Agriculture_in_Vietnam_with_farmers.jpg
Figure 2: Includes public domain image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fish-

ing_Katcha_Valai.JPG and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fish_Farm_Site.jpg
Figure 3: Woolly mammoth figure contains images from https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsad by

Andreas Lederer and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Woolly_mammoth.jpg by By Flying
Puffin.
Figure 4: Maasai herd by ILRI/Lieve Lynen from https://www.flickr.com/photos/ilri/12170593993/

in/photostream
Figure 5: Bean plant image by Perry Quan from https://www.flickr.com/photos/pquan/6066910690
Figure 6: A culinary shoe pot from Oaxaca, Mexico. Courtesy of the Burke Museum of Natural History
and Culture, Catalog Number 2009-117/536. All rights reserved.
Figure 7: Clay Cooking Pots in the Republic of Suriname. Courtesy of Karina Noriega. All rights
reserved.
Figure 8: Illustration by Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation, https://www.nsf.gov/

news/news_images.jsp?cntn_id=104207
Figure 9: Commodity chain figure includes images from Adam C. Baker https://commons.wikime-
dia.org/wiki/File:ElSalvadorfairtradecoffee.jpg and Brian Johnson and Dane Kantner
https://www.flickr.com/photos/danebrian/7798861630 and M.O. Stevens https://commons.wikime-
dia.org/wiki/File:Coffee_beans_at_Longbottom_-Hillsboro,_Oregon.JPG and Hao Xing
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:Employees_work_inside_the_Star-
bucks_at_the_Taj_Mahal_Palace_hotel_in_south_Mumbai,_India.jpg
Figure 10: Photo courtesy of Isaac Shearn
Economics
Figure 1: Image by Thelmadatter https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MasaMetate.JPG
Figure 2: Sorting coffee beans image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cof-

fee_beans_being_sorted_and_pulped.jpg by http://flickr.com/photos/rohsstreetcafe/380885309
Figure 3: Image is public domain from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chipata_-_road-

side_clothes_vendors.JPG
Figure 4: Image from Bronislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific (Routledge & Kegan
492
Paul, 1978[1922]), plate xvi. From https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mali-

nowski_mwali_plate_xvi.png
Figure 5: From the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion
Figure 6: Tea workers image by Shankar S.
Figure 7: Image courtesy of Sarah Lyon
Political Anthropology: A Cross-Cultural Comparison
Figure 1: Age grades and age set, based on Sengree in Peoples of Africa is reproduced with permission
of Kendall Hunt Publishing Company from Cultural Anthropology: A Concise Introduction by Paul
McDowell.
Figure 2: Bilateral Cross-Cousin Marriage from Yanomamo is reproduced with permission of Kendall
Hunt Publishing Company from Cultural Anthropology: A Concise Introduction by Paul McDowell.
Figure 3: Segmentary: Lineage Model is reproduced with permission of Kendall Hunt Publishing Com-
pany from Cultural Anthropology: A Concise Introduction by Paul McDowell.
Figure 4: Conical Clan Design of Chiefdom is reproduced with permission of Kendall Hunt Publishing
Company from Cultural Anthropology: A Concise Introduction by Paul McDowell.
Figure 5: Matrilateral Cross-Cousin Marriage is reproduced from is reproduced with permission

of Kendall Hunt Publishing Company from Cultural Anthropology: A Concise Introduction by Paul
McDowell.
Figure 6: Image courtesy of Paul McDowell.
Family and Marriage
Figure 1: Courtesy of Laura Tubelle de González.
Figure 2: Courtesy of Thomas McIlwraith.
Figure 5: Courtesy of Laura Tubelle de González.
Figure 6: Courtesy of Mary Kay Gilliland.
Race and Ethnicity
Figure 1: Photo by Mike Graham https://www.flickr.com/photos/mike626/10980456
Figure 2: Illustration from Systema Naturae, Carolus Linnaeus, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

File:Systema_Naturae_Plate_IV.jpg
493
Figure 3: Image is from Anthro Palomar https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

File:Map_of_blood_group_o.gif
Figure 4: Image from NMI Portal https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Worldwide_preva-

lence_of_lactose_intolerance_in_recent_populations.jpg
Figure 5: Image from UN Women
Figure 6: Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiichir%C5%8D_Matsumoto#/media/

File:Jiichiro_Matsumoto.JPG
Figure 7: Image courtesy of Laura Gonzalez.
Figure 8: Image courtesy of Justin Garcia.
Gender and Sexuality
Figure 1: Image from Sharma Pictures Publication, 174, Princess Street, Bombay-2, India.
Figure 2: Image from Sharma Pictures Publication, 174, Princess Street, Bombay-2. India.
Figure 3: Image courtesy of Carol Mukhopadhyay, 2010.
Figure 4: Image courtesy of Carol Mukhopadhyay, 2010.
Figure 5: Photograph by Ajay Tallam, 2007. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

File:Men_not_allowed.jpg.
Figure 6: Photograph by Carol Mukhopadhyay, 1989.
Figure 8: Image is from ca. 1405 manuscript “Bellifortis,” by Kyeser von Eichstadt https://com-
mons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chastity_belt_Bellifortis.jpg
Figure 9: Photograph by Takeaway, 2005. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

File:Amphoe_omkoi_lahu_people.jpg.
Figure 10: Photograph by Tami Blumenfield, 2002.
Figure 12: Photograph by lecercle, 2009.
Figure 13: Photograph by Carol Mukhopadhyay, Tanzania, 2010.

494
Figure 17: Photograph by Francis Hannaway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Basankusu_collect-

ing_firewood_by_Francis_Hannaway.jpg.
Figure 19: Reproduced with permission.
Figure 20: Image courtesy of Carol Mukhopadhyay.
Figure 21: Image courtesy of Tami Blumenfield.
Figure 22: Image courtesy of Susan Harper.
Figure 23: Image courtesy of Abby Gondek.
Religion
Figure 1: Image by Matthias Kabel https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Venus_von_Willen-

dorf_01.png MatthiasKabel
Figure 2: Photograph by HTO https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paintings_from_the_Chau-

vet_cave_(museum_replica).jpg
Figure 3: Public domain image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taksin_Memor-

ial_Spirit_House.jpg
Figure 4: Public domain image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

File:Nikko_Toshogu_Outer_Torii_M3032.jpg
Figure 5: Photograph by Christopher Hogue Thompson https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

File:Pentecost_Land_Diving.JPG
Globalization
Figure 1: Image from David and Paulina https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidandpaulina/
Figure 2: Photographs by Jonathan S. Marion. All rights reserved.
Figure 3: Photograph by Lovisa Selander https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fish-

ing_boat_Lake_Poopo.jpg
Figure 4: Photograph by André Mellagi https://www.flickr.com/photos/mellagi/
Figure 5: Photograph by Jerome W. Crowder. All rights reserved.
Figure 6: Photograph courtesy of Lauren Miller Griffith.
Figure 7: Photography courtesy of Jonathan S. Marion.
Culture and Sustainability: Environmental Anthropology in the Anthropocene

495
Figure 1: Photo by Adalberto H. Vega from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

File:Cop%C3%A1n_Ballcourt.jpg
Figure 2: Photo by Himalayan Academy Publications, Kapaa, Kauai, Hawaii. https://commons.wikime-

dia.org/wiki/File:CowHA.jpg
Figure 3: Image by Christian Palmer.
Performance
Figure 1: Photograph by Mariana Rodriguez Guttierrez https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

File:Ballet_Folkl%C3%B3rico_en_la_Casa_de_la_Cultura.JPG
Figure 2: Photograph by George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gcmcphotos/with/31874211260/
Figure 3: Photograph from https://pixabay.com/en/man-sitting-back-skateboard-steps-1030859/
Figure 4a: Photograph by Jonathan S. Marion. All rights reserved.
Figure 4b: Photograph by Jonathan S. Marion. All rights reserved.
Figure 5a: Photograph from https://pixabay.com/p-873830/
Figure 5b: Photograph by National Cancer Institute. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Doc-

tor_consults_with_patient_(4).jpg
Figure 5c: Photograph by Jonathan S. Marion. All rights reserved.
Figure 6: Photograph by Insho Impressions https://www.flickr.com/photos/insho/
Figure 7: Photograph by Fanny. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

File:Exerises_at_the_barre,_Prix_de_Lausanne_2010-2.jpg
Figure 8: Image by Zhu https://www.flickr.com/photos/xiaozhuli/5326211113/
Figure 9: Photograph by Derek Gleeson https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dublin_Philhar-

monic_Orchestra_performing_Tchaikovsky’s_Symphony_No_4_in_Charlotte,_North_Carolina.jpg
Figure 10: Photograph courtesy of Lauren Miller Griffith.
Figure 11: Photograph courtesy of Jonathan S. Marion.
Media Anthropology: Meaning, Embodiment, Infrastructure, and Activism

496
Figure 1: Photography Bryce Peake. Licensed CC BY-SA.
Health and Medicine
Figure 1: Photograph by Mlogic https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Tibetan_Medi-

cine_Poster.jpg
Figure 2: Public domain image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hua_t08.jpg
Figure 3: Photograph by Sgerbic https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Botan-

ica_store_close_up.JPG
Figure 4: Photograph by Ton Rulkens https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AIDS_aware-

ness_in_Machaze_district_(4513750269).jpg
Figure 5: Photograph by African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) https://www.flickr.com/pho-

tos/au_unistphotostream/with/10418757505/
Seeing Like an Anthropologist
Figure 1: Image courtesy of Logan Cochrane
Public Anthropology
Figure 1: All rights reserved. Claudia Andujar 1 (black and white)
Figure 2: Davi Kopenawa. All rights reserved. Claudia Andujar
Figure 3: All rights reserved. Victor Englebert
Figure 6: Image by Robert Borofsky

497
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PERSPECTIVES: AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL

Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, Laura Tubelle de González

2020 American Anthropological Association

ISBN Print: 978-1-931303-67-5

Under the following terms:

Image Credits 489

WHY THIS BOOK?

Changes in the Second Edition

• New Introductory Chapter

A Note About The Print Version

ABOUT THE SOCIETY FOR ANTHROPOLOGY IN COMMUNITY COLLEGES

WHY OPEN ACCESS?

THE COVER DESIGN

Thank you for adopting Perspectives.

Nina Brown, Community College of Baltimore County

Book Design and Production

Katie Nelson, Inver Hills Community College

Lara Braff, Grossmont College

• Define culture and the six characteristics of culture.

WHAT IS CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY?

2. Culture changes in response to both internal and external factors.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL THINKING

THE (OTHER) SUBFIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Figure 5: Anthropology and Its Subfields. Image by Katie Nelson.

Anthropologists are interested in the whole of humanity, in

Cultural Relativism (versus Ethnocentrism)

Scientific vs Humanistic Approaches

WHY IS ANTHROPOLOGY IMPORTANT?

Anthony Kwame Harrison, PhD

I like to tell a story about how, on the last day of my first

Anthropology has taught me to view the con-

Bob Myers, PhD, M.P.H.

My undergraduate experience significantly

In recent decades, anthropologists have been

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Katie Nelson is an instructor of anthropology at Inver Hills Community Col-

Lara Braff is an instructor of anthropology at Grossmont College, where she

Priscilla Medeiros, Women’s College Hospital

Emily Cowall, McMaster University

• Compare and contrast the ideas of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.

THOUGHTS ON CULTURE OVER A CUP OF COFFEE

Meeting Bob at the Coffee Shop

STORIES AS A REFLECTION ON CULTURE

Armchair anthropologists were unlikely to be aware of

Drawing of a Mother and Child in Malaysia From Anthropology: An

Anthropologists as Cultural Participants

Bronislaw Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands, 1915–1918

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEORIES OF CULTURE

Anthropology in the United States

Ethical Issues in Truth Telling

BACK IN THE COFFEE SHOP

Our Final Reflection

Cultural evolutionism: a discredited theory popular in nineteenth century anthropology suggesting

Functionalism: an approach to anthropology developed in British anthropology that emphasized the

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dr. Priscilla Medeiros is a medical anthropologist and Postdoctoral Fellow in

Dr. Emily Cowall is a cultural anthropologist and instructor in the department of

Katie Nelson, Inver Hills Community College

FINDING THE FIELD