[URBANTH-L]Necessary Abstractions

Tue May 3 22:57:49 EDT 2005

> I must disagree that postmodernist analysis is dangerous to 
> anthropology or lacking in fact basis. Neglecting to understand power 
> in all its forms is precisely what can enable the disenfranchisement 
> of vast numbers of people. That power is a good and a bad is the 
> nature of power and the nature of those who wield it in manifold ways 
> (as effective action, as suppression, as dominance, as the ability to 
> get things done, as current neocon)...not the danger of Postmodernist 
> analysis. Using postmodernism along with other forms of analysis, I 
> believe, rounds out the practical toolkit of anthropological 
> practioners whether applied or theoretical. This form of analysis is 
> exquisitely effective in searching the crevices where power lodges. 
> This is why I talked in an earlier submission about how the term 
> political correctness has become a very effective method of dismissing 
> weak peoples efforts at being included and empowered.
>
> I direct attention to Boas's example of racism that was "fact" based, 
> when he showed pictures of twin girls who were greatly different in 
> size...the one raised in the Islands (somebody help me out here) and 
> the other raised in the US. He pointed to differences in nutrition as 
> the reason for difference in size (sounds like this could be applied 
> anthropology to me). His fact based example was evidence disputing 
> early 20th century race theory that was based on "facts", for example, 
> smaller brain size of women meant they were dumber. (Given that the 
> President of Harvard has just reiterated a similar notion, maybe we 
> should drag out the Boas example again.) I chaired a conference in 
> Shanghai in 1992 (just as the market economy was making huge changes) 
> in which anthropologists and sociologists from the Shanghai Academy of 
> Social Sciences (only the very best are inducted into the academy) put 
> forward as fact that women were biologically suited to be secretaries 
> and clerks and work in light industry, because they had tiny fingers 
> and small brains and patient natures. The language they used was fact 
> that has supported the mass layoff of hundreds of thousands of women 
> from high level jobs.
>
> The language of postmodernism is very difficult and can be simplified 
> to grasp it more easily, BUT the effectiveness of Postmodernist 
> analysis is wonderful in opening the workings of power. And isn't 
> redressing and understanding power and how it keeps people OUT one of 
> the main points of applied anthropology?
>
>
>
> dfeldman at brockport.edu wrote:
>
>>Hi Matthew and URBANTH listserv readers,
>>
>>Regarding your critique of applied anthropology as being fact-based, and your praise of postmodernism as engaging in intellectual discourse:  I would argue that theory, abstractions, and metaphors without facts (an excellent definition of postmodernism) is a rather useless exercise, only interesting other postmodernists in and out of anthropology.  Applied anthropology, on the other hand, both uses facts to develop theory, and uses theory to unify facts.  The anti-science bias of postmodernism is so unfocused that it could support both New Age religious philosophy, as well as the right-wing NeoCon ideology of the Bush Administration (which doesn't rely on evidence-based reality either).  And that's why postmodernism in anthropology is not just frivolous;  it is downright dangerous.
>>
>>Doug
>>
>>Douglas A. Feldman, Ph.D.
>>Professor 
>>Department of Anthropology
>>SUNY Brockport
>>350 New Campus Drive
>>Brockport, NY 14420 USA
>>585-395-5709
>>dfeldman at brockport.edu
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: M Wolf-Meyer <wolf0358 at umn.edu>
>>Date: Saturday, April 30, 2005 5:50 pm
>>Subject: [URBANTH-L]Necessary Abstractions
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Urban Anthropologists:
>>>
>>>I, for one, think it utterly necessary that anthropologists think 
>>>more 
>>>theoretically about what they attempt to capture ethnographically, 
>>>hence the 
>>>need for more abstractions, not fewer.
>>>
>>>My impression is that in the past 30 years anthropology has become 
>>>increasingly insular (in part due to the discipline's own self-
>>>critique), 
>>>and there is nothing more "navel-gazing" in my mind than producing 
>>>library 
>>>dissertations and books that no one will read (especially scholars 
>>>outside 
>>>of anthropology).  And I think that very pragmatic, non-
>>>theoretical, 
>>>"applied" anthropology is more prone to this critique than 
>>>anything remotely 
>>>"postmodern."  "Applied" anthropology often smacks of anti-
>>>intellectualism, 
>>>engaging in the production of "facts" rather than engagements, and 
>>>only 
>>>helping to produce in applied anthropologists feelings of 
>>>intellectual 
>>>alienation (both from the people they attempt to help and from the 
>>>discipline).  Compare the average contents in Cultural 
>>>Anthropology to the 
>>>average contents of Medical Anthropology Quarterly (a very 
>>>pragmatic 
>>>journal): The latter suffers from material that engages in no 
>>>debates, and 
>>>comforts itself through a myopic empiricism that assumes the lone 
>>>anthropologist publishing in a scholarly journal can make a 
>>>difference in 
>>>the world.  The former, however, even when authors are focused 
>>>geographically or topically, at least attempt to engage in the 
>>>sort of 
>>>abstractions that allow a conversation to occur (within the 
>>>discipine and 
>>>interdisciplinarily).
>>>
>>>If anthropologists want to make a difference in the world, the 
>>>first thing 
>>>they need to do is enter into debates with the people they attempt 
>>>to 
>>>understand and effect.  Facts rarely produce engagements; 
>>>abstractions, 
>>>metaphors and theories often do.
>>>
>>>Best wishes,
>>>
>>>Matthew Wolf-Meyer
>>>Department of Anthropology
>>>University of Minnesota 
>>>
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>URBANTH-L mailing list
>>>URBANTH-L at lists.ysu.edu
>>>http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>URBANTH-L mailing list
>>URBANTH-L at lists.ysu.edu
>>http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l
>>
>>    
>>
>


dfeldman at brockport.edu wrote:

>Hi Matthew and URBANTH listserv readers,
>
>Regarding your critique of applied anthropology as being fact-based, and your praise of postmodernism as engaging in intellectual discourse:  I would argue that theory, abstractions, and metaphors without facts (an excellent definition of postmodernism) is a rather useless exercise, only interesting other postmodernists in and out of anthropology.  Applied anthropology, on the other hand, both uses facts to develop theory, and uses theory to unify facts.  The anti-science bias of postmodernism is so unfocused that it could support both New Age religious philosophy, as well as the right-wing NeoCon ideology of the Bush Administration (which doesn't rely on evidence-based reality either).  And that's why postmodernism in anthropology is not just frivolous;  it is downright dangerous.
>
>Doug
>
>Douglas A. Feldman, Ph.D.
>Professor 
>Department of Anthropology
>SUNY Brockport
>350 New Campus Drive
>Brockport, NY 14420 USA
>585-395-5709
>dfeldman at brockport.edu
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: M Wolf-Meyer <wolf0358 at umn.edu>
>Date: Saturday, April 30, 2005 5:50 pm
>Subject: [URBANTH-L]Necessary Abstractions
>
>  
>
>>Urban Anthropologists:
>>
>>I, for one, think it utterly necessary that anthropologists think 
>>more 
>>theoretically about what they attempt to capture ethnographically, 
>>hence the 
>>need for more abstractions, not fewer.
>>
>>My impression is that in the past 30 years anthropology has become 
>>increasingly insular (in part due to the discipline's own self-
>>critique), 
>>and there is nothing more "navel-gazing" in my mind than producing 
>>library 
>>dissertations and books that no one will read (especially scholars 
>>outside 
>>of anthropology).  And I think that very pragmatic, non-
>>theoretical, 
>>"applied" anthropology is more prone to this critique than 
>>anything remotely 
>>"postmodern."  "Applied" anthropology often smacks of anti-
>>intellectualism, 
>>engaging in the production of "facts" rather than engagements, and 
>>only 
>>helping to produce in applied anthropologists feelings of 
>>intellectual 
>>alienation (both from the people they attempt to help and from the 
>>discipline).  Compare the average contents in Cultural 
>>Anthropology to the 
>>average contents of Medical Anthropology Quarterly (a very 
>>pragmatic 
>>journal): The latter suffers from material that engages in no 
>>debates, and 
>>comforts itself through a myopic empiricism that assumes the lone 
>>anthropologist publishing in a scholarly journal can make a 
>>difference in 
>>the world.  The former, however, even when authors are focused 
>>geographically or topically, at least attempt to engage in the 
>>sort of 
>>abstractions that allow a conversation to occur (within the 
>>discipine and 
>>interdisciplinarily).
>>
>>If anthropologists want to make a difference in the world, the 
>>first thing 
>>they need to do is enter into debates with the people they attempt 
>>to 
>>understand and effect.  Facts rarely produce engagements; 
>>abstractions, 
>>metaphors and theories often do.
>>
>>Best wishes,
>>
>>Matthew Wolf-Meyer
>>Department of Anthropology
>>University of Minnesota 
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>URBANTH-L mailing list
>>URBANTH-L at lists.ysu.edu
>>http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l
>>
>>    
>>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>URBANTH-L mailing list
>URBANTH-L at lists.ysu.edu
>http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/urbanth-l
>
>  
>