response to " indigenous peoples, changing social political landscapes .."

In response to the note made by Neel and Salzano that "there is no indian group completely untouched by the discovery of america and subsequent contact, direct or indirect, with the western world" , i believe this could be discussed from another point of view . Yes , these societies one way or another had been exposed to some kind of wester influence , but does this really affect societies that live in primitive cultures and in isolated places in the amazon ?. One could argue that people evolve in accordance to the environment they are exposed to. Western influences would be useless to societies that deal with hunting and survival against amazonian nature. Isolated societies are valuable and 100% useful to human biological development research , which makes this variable irrelevant.

3/9 response

Although Boas and the others named in "How Anthropologists Fabricate Cultures" probably meant well when they decided to try and preserve native artwork in the way that they did, most of us can probably agree that it went a little wrong. I'm sure they didn't realize how much they would end up effecting the very things they wanted to save - but there is no doubt that they did. The idea seems quite an obvious one; by highlighting certain aspects of a culture and picking and choosing what parts of it to display, one can manipulate what is understood by others as important. I never realized, though, the full extent of how this affects the place the displayed objects are from. That Native Americans are now using Boas book as a base for their art, and basing what's good or not from his descriptions, is kind of disturbing. It can't be denied that it's affected their art, anyway. I also found the discussion of primitive vs fine art interesting - what actually makes something fine art? And why shouldn't the Northwest Coaster's art be considered fine as much as any other cultures?

Response for 3/9

The question of if anthropologists help to fabricate the culture they study interested me even before I read the texts by Michael Ames. I wondered, especially after going to the AMNH and seeing the culture halls, if by choosing certain items and displaying them in a particular manner if anthropologists and museum curators were able to promote a certain view of a culture. This issue is explored in Ames’s chapter titled “How Anthropologists Help to Fabricate the Cultures They Study.” In the case of Northwest Coast Indian art anthologists such as Franz Boas helped to promote this particular art form and because of this the art began to become popular and was assimilated more into mainstream society and became an acceptable form of art. Museums, art galleries, and curators began arranging exhibitions and providing commissions for native artists in order for them to create more work. This promotion has created a demand for Northwest Coast Indian art and is the reason for its proliferation in recent years. Therefore anthropologists helped to manufacture the objects they study. Their research and curatorial activities directly contributed to the development of the things they were studying. This is just one example of how anthropologist are able to fabricate the cultures they study, but I feel as though this can be the case for many other forms of anthropology.

Response to "entangled objects"

While going through Thomas reading, a question about ethics and morality came into my mind. Over the time we have changed, shaped and arrange our concept of ethics and morality based on our style of living, priorities and concerns. This is manifested on cooks voyage and the methods used in his expeditions to collect things. “The type of practical project which the voyages represented was not an interventionist one in any immediate sense; although various goods and supplies were demanded, there was no attempt to reshape local social relations, no attempt to draw on organized labor in any significant or extended manner. What was demanded of indigenous populations was thus limited, and a combination of ethical precepts and practical constrains largely precluded exploratory ships from forcing unwilling people to work or surrender goods”. Inevitably for me there is a doubt to believe this was as black and white as they describe it to be. I question the mindset that these explorers came in with into these cultures; did they respect their space and customs? Did they take the time and dedication to intervene into their society?. After a long journey I doubt they would go back without something they consider valuable and essential for their investigation. Morality and ethics at the time for these kinds of expeditions weren’t as strict and hardly judge on. There was no evidence but the word of mouth of these explorers about what was being done and how it was being done.

Our talk last week about what it means to be an animal or human permeated through the Objects of Ethnography reading in the way that museums and anthropologists alike have to decide what becomes an object for observation when it is removed from its real environment. And when a human or non-human becomes an ethnographic subject placed in a museum, it’s hard for me to see it as the things itself due to its distance from any natural environment (I don’t know if this makes sense). For instance, humans are no longer humans when place in a diorama; they become an object. Plus, when a subject, especially a human is place on display in an institution, that person and their people become objects on display not only within but outside the institution itself. Once something is removed as something new for observation, it stays an other. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett also discusses the mentality that the museum creates (the museum effect): besides the fact that objects in the museum stay object outside, the museum acts as a “model for experiencing life outside its walls,” meaning that the idea of separation is distilled into everyday life. So the reason these objects stay objects is because the people viewing them keep them as a spectacle

Posting 3/1

I really appreciated tonight's readings because I think they dealt with the social versus the theoretical aspects of anthropology and ethnography. I've had a long standing battle with trying to reconcile the two, but I rarely feel like I have the authority to claim one or the other. Like Amber often reiterates it's easy to accuse all meaning as being socially constructed, thus making the anthropologists job obsolete. However in the Gimblett piece she helps distinguish this idea that objects are "...by virtue of the manner in which they have been detached for disciplines make their objects and in the process make themselves." (387) My interpretation of this quote is that by categorizing an artifact you are not necessarily giving meaning to the object but you are placing a meaning to it within a context to yourself. I think this is a major principal in the social sciences that's forgotten by public interpretation. Gimblett claims that this process of forgetting by the public is due partly by the "spectacle of the installation" (390). She goes on to explain that this spectacle represents objects as art rather then cultural objects. This is followed with a history of how museums began labeling objects, and the innate responsibility and power this gives to the museum. I really loved the part where she discusses how the public trusts information. She explains that the time and evidence collected by the ethnographer is kind of like collateral for public value.

The most vital part of this piece though was the part about actor vs animal. I found this really interesting because I had read about this idea of acting and culture before in other anthropology classes in context with cultural memory. If I can remember correctly Maurice Halbwach’s has a theory on types of memory: personal, cognitive, and habit . Specifically habit, is linked to ideas of performance and ritual. What separates the idea of performance from individualistic memory, is that performance is not a reflection of something, but rather a direct composition of it. In essence the performance of the living is a direct three-dimensional manifestation of that particular memory. I guess where I'm going with this is that the museum is trying to navigate a cultural memory with in a historical context. However, in some ways this is contradictory because the cultural memory must exceed the bounds of historical ideology.

So this post is totally convoluted and thick with strange analysis, but this reading really got my brain going in like 20 different directions.

Entangled Objects 3/2

Once you get past the initial academic dryness of the Thomas piece he actually recorded an interesting quote that I think is up for debate, AM Focart was disgruntle about the use of native Fijians asking questions about the dynamic of the island landholding system, he said, "When will govts. realize that a native is not the best authority on native customs?" When I read that an immediate red flag went up. I thought to myself who is this pompous European man to come to a foreign territory and insult the native people about their position in ethnographic power? Is his point of reference not a bit skewed? How is a recent immigrant the best authority about anything besides his homeland? This is a certain degree of bias with every human being because we all have different memories and traditions that shape our perception of the world around us and the people outside our comfort zone. This difference does not exclude one group from becoming aware and culturally acute of another, nor does it mean that the native group can't teach any newcomers about themselves. But, I feel very strongly that the native group are the best experts on themselves. Can one really understand and devour a non-native tradition and become an expert unless they've immersed themselves in that tradition. Unless you are an honest to God, true blue Fijian or have tried to respectfully put yourself in the shoes of a Fijian I doubt your authority on the peoples of Fiji. The natives are the ultimate authority of native customs, they invented it, didn't they? Are you going to tell a chef how his utensils work? In his own kitchen no less. Immersion and cultural prowess isn't mocking the native society or "trying to be down," when it's painfully obvious you come from a different walk of life. Immersion is acknowledging the difference but not letting it impede on your quest to become an expert. Immersion is putting yourself in another person's shoes without simultaneously keeping a ten foot pole between your culture and their's. And that is Hocart's problem, probably without knowing it, his undercover racial remark is both offensive and takes off points for the earnest white man who is trying to become an authority on native custom.

--Jewel Brooks