ANTHROPOLOGY
Inhoudsopgave
Class 1: Introduction................................................................................................................................................................ 3
Why anthropology? What is anthropology?....................................................................................................................................3
The anthropological perspective.......................................................................................................................................................3
The study of culture – holism, context, relationality........................................................................................................................5
Culture...............................................................................................................................................................................................6
Relativism......................................................................................................................................................................................7
samenvatting chatgpt:......................................................................................................................................................................7
Class 2: What is ethnography? the method and the product..................................................................................................... 9
Between observation and participation.....................................................................................................................................11
Emic and Etic...............................................................................................................................................................................11
Some advantages of ethnography..................................................................................................................................................12
What are the limits of ethnography as a method?........................................................................................................................12
Anthropology as a field science (Gupta &Ferguson, 1997)........................................................................................................13
Ethnography as a product...............................................................................................................................................................14
Samenvatting chatgpt.....................................................................................................................................................................15
Class 3: Digital anthropology.................................................................................................................................................. 17
What is digital anthropology?........................................................................................................................................................17
What does anthropolgy add to the study of digital technologies and digital cultures?................................................................18
How does digital anthropology resonate with larger anthropological issues?..............................................................................19
Class 4: doing digital ethnography.......................................................................................................................................... 20
Ethnography in digital worlds.........................................................................................................................................................21
Ethical issues in digital ethnography..............................................................................................................................................22
Class 5: The science of ethnography II.................................................................................................................................... 23
What is scientific for you?...............................................................................................................................................................23
Causality- a very long and complex debate….................................................................................................................................26
Knowledge about what (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow, 2013).......................................................................................................27
class 6: visual antropology..................................................................................................................................................... 29
Class 7: Visual anthropology in practice: doing research with images......................................................................................33
Visual anthropology in practice: doing research with images........................................................................................................34
Image analysis approach:...............................................................................................................................................................37
1
,Class 8: autoethnography, memory studies and colonial family photography.........................................................................38
Memories of Congo – Thesis...........................................................................................................................................................40
class 9: Law & anthropology: a dead-end relationship............................................................................................................ 41
Law and its others...........................................................................................................................................................................42
Relationships between law & anthropology: comaroff, merry, peletz...........................................................................................42
Case study: Flanders and New York City courtwatch.....................................................................................................................44
Class 10: Researching migrant smuggling through ethnography.............................................................................................. 45
One case of incommunicability between policy and research: smuggling.....................................................................................45
Public and institutional discourse...................................................................................................................................................45
Libya: a vicious circle.......................................................................................................................................................................47
Summing up....................................................................................................................................................................................48
Consequences of anti smuggling policies.......................................................................................................................................48
class 11: Digital methods and digital dating: a toolbox for anthropology from a case- study of queer men dating online.........50
Digital media as archives................................................................................................................................................................50
Exam...............................................................................................................................................................................................51
2
,CLASS 1: INTRODUCTION
WHY ANTHROPOLOGY? WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
ANTHROPOLOGY antropos logos
aims to study and describe in the broadest possible sense what it means to be human
the scientific study of human beings as social organisms interacting with each other in their environment comparative study –
the world as its object – culture at the centre - about knowing the present
ETHNOGRAPHY studies human behaviour in the natural settings in which people live – immersion, mind and body
“to grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world" B. Malinowski, “Argonauts of the
Western Pacific”
SOCIOLOGY
focuses on society, human social behaviour, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated
with everyday life West VS Non-West ...uncomfortable past...
Anthropology (antropos (=human (geen ander woord voor gebruiken)) logos (= study))
(= try to understand human life, what happens between human being -> humans as social creatures that interact with each
other and their environment) (technologies made people interact in another way) (study due to following people in their
everyday life instead of asking questions)
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SPECTACLE
Kong: a metaphor that fit racist stereotypes bolstered by the emergence of scientific racism
Fatimah Rony : the native people's "savagery" is associated with their dark skin
1930s perceptions of obscure locations and peoples Distance in time and space
Monstrosity and diversity
ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE COLONIAL PROJECT
“Anthropology is a child of Western imperialism” Kathleen Gough (1968:12).
“Everything will be done to wipe out their traditions, to substitute our language for theirs and to destroy their culture without
giving them ours.” J. P. Sartre
“Colonialism is “a systematized negation of the other” Franz Fanon
WHAT TO DO WITH ANTHROPOLOGY? AND THE ANTHROPOLOGISTS?
In a world of divisions we must work for union We must defend humanity, defend life. We as part of the world
Anthropology (and ethnography) only science that ask from you to immerse yourself in the world...
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Holistic (social, religious, economic, political, linguistic, etc.), field based, comparative and evolutionary (implicitly)
Cultural anthropologists specialize in specific domains of human cultural activity. Some study the ways people organize
themselves to carry out collective tasks, whether economic, political, or spiritual
3
, Rooted in fieldwork (ethnography), studying human behaviour in the natural settings in which people live – immersion, mind
and body...interlocutors/informants/respondents who become “friends”; we become “other”.
Participant observation: “to grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world" B. Malinowski,
“Argonauts of the Western Pacific”
Ethnography: a methodological approach and a corpus (my ethnography)
Branches: Biological, linguistic, archaeology in the US
Applied anthropology, development, action anthropology, public anthropology
Etnography : (have to go to study to the natural setting in which people live, you become part of the world that you study)
(you must see the world from the perspective of the people you study)
King kong (dubbele link: kingkong is een studieobject in de antropologie maar ook de mensen die het maken zijn antropologen)
(JUNGLE BOOK, Jospeh Conrad: over het geweld in Congo, Tintin,…) (starten vanuit kolonisme, altijd maar zeker bij antropologie)
IS ANTHROPOLOGY A SCIENCE?
“Anthropology is the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities. ” Alfred L.Kroeber (1876-1960)
Anthropology does not pursue objective knowledge, no idea of universal truth; no positivism. Modernism: Modern Western
science is not a universal path to objective truth, notions of truth are
themselves a culture-bound enterprise connected to a specific definition of progress.
Postmodernism: questions the universalizing tendencies of modernism including modernist understandings of science – no
metanarratives
Fieldwork had to become a reflexive endeavour; anthropologists carefully scrutinize both their own contribution to fieldwork
Culture relativism (see in a bit)
The age of empires: science, technology, commerce. (wanneer antropologie ontstond als wetenschap ging samen met de
uitvinding van de fotografie, het bouwen van treinen,… het moment waarop kolonisatie op zijn hoogtepunt stond. Er waren toen
mogelijkheden om te reizen, communiceren,…) (de kennis van culturele veschillen)
CULTURE NOT RACE
Anthropologists use culture in response to race. “Scholars and physicians usually assigned people to various racial categories on
the basis of skin color, hair texture, or other visible physical traits.” p.16
Scientific racism, the idea that race is a biological concept and that human behavior is best understood through the typology of
biological characteristics.
Race justified domination - “Culture” an answer to that Franz Boas (1858-1942) opposed scientific racism
Cultural relativism: cultures cannot be objectively ranked as higher or lower, or better or more correct, all humans see the world
through the lens of their own culture, and judge it according to their own culturally acquired norms
Differences in human behavior are not primarily determined by innate biological dispositions but are largely the result of
cultural differences acquired through social learning - we learn by using symbols
“Compared even to our nearest primate relatives, we human beings seem to be born remarkably free of specific "survival
instincts,"' or biological programming that would secure food, shelter, and mates for us automatically. Instead, as Malinowski
suggested, every human group apparently can invent (and modify) its own particular sets of learned cultural traditions in order
to solve those problems.” p. 20
4
Inhoudsopgave
Class 1: Introduction................................................................................................................................................................ 3
Why anthropology? What is anthropology?....................................................................................................................................3
The anthropological perspective.......................................................................................................................................................3
The study of culture – holism, context, relationality........................................................................................................................5
Culture...............................................................................................................................................................................................6
Relativism......................................................................................................................................................................................7
samenvatting chatgpt:......................................................................................................................................................................7
Class 2: What is ethnography? the method and the product..................................................................................................... 9
Between observation and participation.....................................................................................................................................11
Emic and Etic...............................................................................................................................................................................11
Some advantages of ethnography..................................................................................................................................................12
What are the limits of ethnography as a method?........................................................................................................................12
Anthropology as a field science (Gupta &Ferguson, 1997)........................................................................................................13
Ethnography as a product...............................................................................................................................................................14
Samenvatting chatgpt.....................................................................................................................................................................15
Class 3: Digital anthropology.................................................................................................................................................. 17
What is digital anthropology?........................................................................................................................................................17
What does anthropolgy add to the study of digital technologies and digital cultures?................................................................18
How does digital anthropology resonate with larger anthropological issues?..............................................................................19
Class 4: doing digital ethnography.......................................................................................................................................... 20
Ethnography in digital worlds.........................................................................................................................................................21
Ethical issues in digital ethnography..............................................................................................................................................22
Class 5: The science of ethnography II.................................................................................................................................... 23
What is scientific for you?...............................................................................................................................................................23
Causality- a very long and complex debate….................................................................................................................................26
Knowledge about what (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow, 2013).......................................................................................................27
class 6: visual antropology..................................................................................................................................................... 29
Class 7: Visual anthropology in practice: doing research with images......................................................................................33
Visual anthropology in practice: doing research with images........................................................................................................34
Image analysis approach:...............................................................................................................................................................37
1
,Class 8: autoethnography, memory studies and colonial family photography.........................................................................38
Memories of Congo – Thesis...........................................................................................................................................................40
class 9: Law & anthropology: a dead-end relationship............................................................................................................ 41
Law and its others...........................................................................................................................................................................42
Relationships between law & anthropology: comaroff, merry, peletz...........................................................................................42
Case study: Flanders and New York City courtwatch.....................................................................................................................44
Class 10: Researching migrant smuggling through ethnography.............................................................................................. 45
One case of incommunicability between policy and research: smuggling.....................................................................................45
Public and institutional discourse...................................................................................................................................................45
Libya: a vicious circle.......................................................................................................................................................................47
Summing up....................................................................................................................................................................................48
Consequences of anti smuggling policies.......................................................................................................................................48
class 11: Digital methods and digital dating: a toolbox for anthropology from a case- study of queer men dating online.........50
Digital media as archives................................................................................................................................................................50
Exam...............................................................................................................................................................................................51
2
,CLASS 1: INTRODUCTION
WHY ANTHROPOLOGY? WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
ANTHROPOLOGY antropos logos
aims to study and describe in the broadest possible sense what it means to be human
the scientific study of human beings as social organisms interacting with each other in their environment comparative study –
the world as its object – culture at the centre - about knowing the present
ETHNOGRAPHY studies human behaviour in the natural settings in which people live – immersion, mind and body
“to grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world" B. Malinowski, “Argonauts of the
Western Pacific”
SOCIOLOGY
focuses on society, human social behaviour, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated
with everyday life West VS Non-West ...uncomfortable past...
Anthropology (antropos (=human (geen ander woord voor gebruiken)) logos (= study))
(= try to understand human life, what happens between human being -> humans as social creatures that interact with each
other and their environment) (technologies made people interact in another way) (study due to following people in their
everyday life instead of asking questions)
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SPECTACLE
Kong: a metaphor that fit racist stereotypes bolstered by the emergence of scientific racism
Fatimah Rony : the native people's "savagery" is associated with their dark skin
1930s perceptions of obscure locations and peoples Distance in time and space
Monstrosity and diversity
ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE COLONIAL PROJECT
“Anthropology is a child of Western imperialism” Kathleen Gough (1968:12).
“Everything will be done to wipe out their traditions, to substitute our language for theirs and to destroy their culture without
giving them ours.” J. P. Sartre
“Colonialism is “a systematized negation of the other” Franz Fanon
WHAT TO DO WITH ANTHROPOLOGY? AND THE ANTHROPOLOGISTS?
In a world of divisions we must work for union We must defend humanity, defend life. We as part of the world
Anthropology (and ethnography) only science that ask from you to immerse yourself in the world...
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Holistic (social, religious, economic, political, linguistic, etc.), field based, comparative and evolutionary (implicitly)
Cultural anthropologists specialize in specific domains of human cultural activity. Some study the ways people organize
themselves to carry out collective tasks, whether economic, political, or spiritual
3
, Rooted in fieldwork (ethnography), studying human behaviour in the natural settings in which people live – immersion, mind
and body...interlocutors/informants/respondents who become “friends”; we become “other”.
Participant observation: “to grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world" B. Malinowski,
“Argonauts of the Western Pacific”
Ethnography: a methodological approach and a corpus (my ethnography)
Branches: Biological, linguistic, archaeology in the US
Applied anthropology, development, action anthropology, public anthropology
Etnography : (have to go to study to the natural setting in which people live, you become part of the world that you study)
(you must see the world from the perspective of the people you study)
King kong (dubbele link: kingkong is een studieobject in de antropologie maar ook de mensen die het maken zijn antropologen)
(JUNGLE BOOK, Jospeh Conrad: over het geweld in Congo, Tintin,…) (starten vanuit kolonisme, altijd maar zeker bij antropologie)
IS ANTHROPOLOGY A SCIENCE?
“Anthropology is the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities. ” Alfred L.Kroeber (1876-1960)
Anthropology does not pursue objective knowledge, no idea of universal truth; no positivism. Modernism: Modern Western
science is not a universal path to objective truth, notions of truth are
themselves a culture-bound enterprise connected to a specific definition of progress.
Postmodernism: questions the universalizing tendencies of modernism including modernist understandings of science – no
metanarratives
Fieldwork had to become a reflexive endeavour; anthropologists carefully scrutinize both their own contribution to fieldwork
Culture relativism (see in a bit)
The age of empires: science, technology, commerce. (wanneer antropologie ontstond als wetenschap ging samen met de
uitvinding van de fotografie, het bouwen van treinen,… het moment waarop kolonisatie op zijn hoogtepunt stond. Er waren toen
mogelijkheden om te reizen, communiceren,…) (de kennis van culturele veschillen)
CULTURE NOT RACE
Anthropologists use culture in response to race. “Scholars and physicians usually assigned people to various racial categories on
the basis of skin color, hair texture, or other visible physical traits.” p.16
Scientific racism, the idea that race is a biological concept and that human behavior is best understood through the typology of
biological characteristics.
Race justified domination - “Culture” an answer to that Franz Boas (1858-1942) opposed scientific racism
Cultural relativism: cultures cannot be objectively ranked as higher or lower, or better or more correct, all humans see the world
through the lens of their own culture, and judge it according to their own culturally acquired norms
Differences in human behavior are not primarily determined by innate biological dispositions but are largely the result of
cultural differences acquired through social learning - we learn by using symbols
“Compared even to our nearest primate relatives, we human beings seem to be born remarkably free of specific "survival
instincts,"' or biological programming that would secure food, shelter, and mates for us automatically. Instead, as Malinowski
suggested, every human group apparently can invent (and modify) its own particular sets of learned cultural traditions in order
to solve those problems.” p. 20
4
