Lecture 1 : 10-2 : Introduction, Anthropology’s Prehistory
Practical things
- MyUU rooster is leidend
- March 31 not a lecture but a round table (discussion)
- The debate readings are optional and are only meant to help the people doing the
debate (for the debate, read them and think about them, do not just reproduce them)
Class aims
-
PART I : What is this course all about?
Why history?
- Hegel : Ideas generate new ideas
- History through concepts
- Every idea is embedded with ideas from the past
- Defamiliarize concepts we use from day to day
- We use them without even thinking about them
- That’s why we go back and look at their origins
What are paradigms
- Thomas Kuhn: A paradigm is a set of dominant
beliefs within a field that establishes standards
of scientific investigation (...) a paradigm
determines at any one time within a field what
are relevant data, what is considered an
acceptable method of investigation, and how
observations are interpreted (Moberg, p. 17).
SUMMING UP PART I
- Anthropology needs theory just as much as
description.
- Theories always develop out of other theories.
- For that reason, it’s important to study the theories of the past in order to understand
our ideas in the present.
PART II : Anthropology’s Predecessors
(or, Defining “The West” and “The Rest”)
History of how difference is perceived in an anthropological way (us vs others)
- Ancient Greek → ‘Others’ as barbarians
- Herodotus’ (around 500 BC) early ‘ethnography’ recording local traditions
- Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) → Fantasy-rich description of ‘others’
- Khaldun (1332-1406) : “Khaldun’s work may be the first ethnographic description of a
culture that attempts to explain why members of that culture act in the way they do
without invoking the idea of innate behavior. His explanations focus on environmental
features and how they shape each culture’s way of making a living” (Moberg, p. 60).
,Four main phases of european expansion
15-16th centuries : exploration and ‘discovery’
15-17th centuries : early contact, conquest, settlement and colonization
16-18th centuries : permanent european settlement and emergence of global capitalism
19th centuries-WWI : European scramble for colonies
The Rise of the Ottomans
- Istanbul fell to the Ottomans in 1453
- This had two consequences
1. Cut of silk and spice trade routes (Europeans had to look for other routes).
2. ?
Encountering Difference
- Columbus → Encounters with new sorts of peoples led to their subjugation
(onderwerping) as well as the need for their categorization.
- Categorization : Imperfect humans (to validitate taking them as slaves)
- Bartolome de Las Casas → Redefined natural slaves as natural children, allowing
benevolence to ‘save’ them and make htem civilized Christians (missionary view)
Emergence of ‘The West’
- The so-called uniqueness of the West was, in part, produced by Europe's contact
and self-comparison with other, non-Western, societies (...) It is within the context of
these relationships that the idea of "the West" took on shape and meaning (Hall,
p.58).
- The Noble savage paradigm:
- Earthly paradise, simple innocent life, lack of developed social organization
and civil society, frank and open sexuality
- The ignoble savage paradigm:
- Cannibalism, too close to animals, simplicity, uncivilized, lack of society
Enter the enlightenment
- Gradual scientization of all realms of knowledge
- Belief in the progress of knowledge
- Key to knowledge seems to lie in bringing nature under the human gaze.
- Emergence of the scientific method
- Experiments and inductive reasoning
- Emergence of secularism
- separation of science from religious institutions
- the principle of separation of the state from religious institutions
- choosing reason (and questioning) above tradition
Division: Reason / Science / Modernity / ‘The West’ VS Tradition / Religion / ‘The Rest’
Early social theory and the ‘state of nature’
- Common themes:
- Nature VS Culture (reason)
, - Savages are more degenerate than civilized humans, whose reason is more
perfect
- Thomas Hobbes: saw the ‘state of nature’ as a war of ‘all against all’ in which
life is ‘nasty, brutish and short’
Monogenism: All races descend from Adam and Eve (vs Polygenism)
- This meant that all races had common ancestors
- Saw ‘savages’ as human (could be linked to Las Casas’ missionarian view)
Polygenism: Races have separate origins (vs Monogenism)
- Contradicts the Bible
- Became prominent in 19th century, when European colonization was spreading
- Proposed absolute difference between Westerners and others
Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)
- Wanted to classify nature according to the ‘Great Chain of Being’
- Polygenisist → Four human races: Americanus, Europeanus, Asiaticus, Afer
(Africans)
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840)
- Believed there were five races
- Monogenisist → He though each race came from the caucasian race
Romantic response
- Common themes
- Nature and Culture
- Noble savage represents humans in the Garden of Eden
- Civilization corrupts
- For Rousseau indigenous peoples contained the innate goodness of people who had
not been spoiled by civilization
Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803)
- People developed differently because of where they lived in the world (climate etc.)
- The idea of ‘national culture’ or ‘national character’
SUMMING UP PART II
- The European encounter with difference produced a ‘West’ and a ‘Rest’
- The difference of the Rest had to be explained
- Also had to be reconciled with the Bible
- The fact that europeans conquered foreign lands gave them perception of being
more advanced
- Narratives of progress fused with the Great Chain of Being, as well as with emerging
sciences, including social theory.
Practical things
- MyUU rooster is leidend
- March 31 not a lecture but a round table (discussion)
- The debate readings are optional and are only meant to help the people doing the
debate (for the debate, read them and think about them, do not just reproduce them)
Class aims
-
PART I : What is this course all about?
Why history?
- Hegel : Ideas generate new ideas
- History through concepts
- Every idea is embedded with ideas from the past
- Defamiliarize concepts we use from day to day
- We use them without even thinking about them
- That’s why we go back and look at their origins
What are paradigms
- Thomas Kuhn: A paradigm is a set of dominant
beliefs within a field that establishes standards
of scientific investigation (...) a paradigm
determines at any one time within a field what
are relevant data, what is considered an
acceptable method of investigation, and how
observations are interpreted (Moberg, p. 17).
SUMMING UP PART I
- Anthropology needs theory just as much as
description.
- Theories always develop out of other theories.
- For that reason, it’s important to study the theories of the past in order to understand
our ideas in the present.
PART II : Anthropology’s Predecessors
(or, Defining “The West” and “The Rest”)
History of how difference is perceived in an anthropological way (us vs others)
- Ancient Greek → ‘Others’ as barbarians
- Herodotus’ (around 500 BC) early ‘ethnography’ recording local traditions
- Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) → Fantasy-rich description of ‘others’
- Khaldun (1332-1406) : “Khaldun’s work may be the first ethnographic description of a
culture that attempts to explain why members of that culture act in the way they do
without invoking the idea of innate behavior. His explanations focus on environmental
features and how they shape each culture’s way of making a living” (Moberg, p. 60).
,Four main phases of european expansion
15-16th centuries : exploration and ‘discovery’
15-17th centuries : early contact, conquest, settlement and colonization
16-18th centuries : permanent european settlement and emergence of global capitalism
19th centuries-WWI : European scramble for colonies
The Rise of the Ottomans
- Istanbul fell to the Ottomans in 1453
- This had two consequences
1. Cut of silk and spice trade routes (Europeans had to look for other routes).
2. ?
Encountering Difference
- Columbus → Encounters with new sorts of peoples led to their subjugation
(onderwerping) as well as the need for their categorization.
- Categorization : Imperfect humans (to validitate taking them as slaves)
- Bartolome de Las Casas → Redefined natural slaves as natural children, allowing
benevolence to ‘save’ them and make htem civilized Christians (missionary view)
Emergence of ‘The West’
- The so-called uniqueness of the West was, in part, produced by Europe's contact
and self-comparison with other, non-Western, societies (...) It is within the context of
these relationships that the idea of "the West" took on shape and meaning (Hall,
p.58).
- The Noble savage paradigm:
- Earthly paradise, simple innocent life, lack of developed social organization
and civil society, frank and open sexuality
- The ignoble savage paradigm:
- Cannibalism, too close to animals, simplicity, uncivilized, lack of society
Enter the enlightenment
- Gradual scientization of all realms of knowledge
- Belief in the progress of knowledge
- Key to knowledge seems to lie in bringing nature under the human gaze.
- Emergence of the scientific method
- Experiments and inductive reasoning
- Emergence of secularism
- separation of science from religious institutions
- the principle of separation of the state from religious institutions
- choosing reason (and questioning) above tradition
Division: Reason / Science / Modernity / ‘The West’ VS Tradition / Religion / ‘The Rest’
Early social theory and the ‘state of nature’
- Common themes:
- Nature VS Culture (reason)
, - Savages are more degenerate than civilized humans, whose reason is more
perfect
- Thomas Hobbes: saw the ‘state of nature’ as a war of ‘all against all’ in which
life is ‘nasty, brutish and short’
Monogenism: All races descend from Adam and Eve (vs Polygenism)
- This meant that all races had common ancestors
- Saw ‘savages’ as human (could be linked to Las Casas’ missionarian view)
Polygenism: Races have separate origins (vs Monogenism)
- Contradicts the Bible
- Became prominent in 19th century, when European colonization was spreading
- Proposed absolute difference between Westerners and others
Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)
- Wanted to classify nature according to the ‘Great Chain of Being’
- Polygenisist → Four human races: Americanus, Europeanus, Asiaticus, Afer
(Africans)
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840)
- Believed there were five races
- Monogenisist → He though each race came from the caucasian race
Romantic response
- Common themes
- Nature and Culture
- Noble savage represents humans in the Garden of Eden
- Civilization corrupts
- For Rousseau indigenous peoples contained the innate goodness of people who had
not been spoiled by civilization
Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803)
- People developed differently because of where they lived in the world (climate etc.)
- The idea of ‘national culture’ or ‘national character’
SUMMING UP PART II
- The European encounter with difference produced a ‘West’ and a ‘Rest’
- The difference of the Rest had to be explained
- Also had to be reconciled with the Bible
- The fact that europeans conquered foreign lands gave them perception of being
more advanced
- Narratives of progress fused with the Great Chain of Being, as well as with emerging
sciences, including social theory.
