Cultural Anthropology 3
History and theory of anthropology
Workgroup W1
Introduction Course
- Focus with reading on the arguments, methods, ways used to build up an argument, etc.
Introduction lecture
Theory - explains things, way of explaining
Hegel’s view of the dialectic: ideas generate new ideas
- For Hegel, this was how thought progresses
● Thesis - statement of belief
● Antithesis - argument for a statement
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● Synthesis - ideas to solve problems between thesis and antithesis.
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Paradigm | Moberg, p. 17
A set of beliefs within a field that establishes standards of scientific investigations. Three ways:
● Defines the problems considered relevant for research
● Sets forth a tentative explanation of those problems
● Establishes rules and standards for scientific procedure.
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Shortly, it determines at any time within a field what are relevant data, what is considered an acceptable
method of investigation, and how observations are interpreted.
Changing paradigms - the Kuhn cycle
Normal science → Model drift → Model crisis → Model revolution → paradigm change →
Pre-science + Normal science.
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Lecture 1 - Anthropology’s Predecessors or Defining ‘The West’ and ‘the Rest’ | Anthropology’s
Prehistory
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Anthropology’s ‘’prehistory’’ in attempts to understand cultural differences.
The rise of anthropology is inextricably linked to nationalism, ‘’national character,’’ and race.
Anthropology is a discipline that emerges in something that we call ‘’the West’’ and cannot easily be
separated from its self-definition, since for so long it defined its task as studying ‘’the Other.’’
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Branches of anthropology
1. Linguistic anthropology
2. Social / cultural anthropology
3. Physical / biological anthropology
4. Archaeological anthropology
Ancient Greeks created terms for people who didn’t know/understand Greek as ‘Barbarus / Barbarians’.
They Believed that these people were primitive.
The fantasy of the Monopod
- Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79), in his Natural History, reports
- Monopods supposedly existed in India.
,Ibn Khaldun | 1332-1406
Adopted Aristotelian argument that humans are inherently social. Humans differ from animals because
they need tools and weapons to survive. Tools and weapons depend on reason, accumulated
knowledge, and cooperation among humans. Attributed differences among groups not to birth but to
geographical and material circumstances. For instance, Bedouin are mobile and so do not have many
possessions but have a strong sense of social solidarity (asabiyyah). In agricultural societies, there is
specialization and division of labor and not such a strong sense of solidarity
● First real social scientist
● Iets met Al-Ándalus (koninkrijk van Spanje en Portugal)
Four main phases of European Expansion
1. 15th - 16th centuries = Exploration and ‘discovery’
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2. 15th - 17th centuries = Early contact, conquest, settlement, and colonization
3. 16th - 18th centuries = Permanent European settlement and emergence of global capitalism
4. 19th century - WW1 = European scramble for colonies
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The rise of the Ottomans
Istanbul fell to the Ottomans in 1453. This had two consequences:
1. The Ottomans controlled the Silk Road (silk and spice trade routes)
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2. (West-)Europe became the center of Christianity >> Rome instead of Istanbul
Encountering difference
Encounters with new sorts of people led to their subjugation, as well as the need for their
categorization. Initially, Thomas Aquinas and Catholic theology viewed Native people as imperfect
humans and, therefore, natural slaves (in Aristotelian sense) to Europeans. Spanish theologian
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Bartolome de Las Casas (1474-1566) redefined natural slaves as natural children, allowing
benevolence to ‘save’ them and make them civilized Christians.
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Encountering with the Taino
When Columbus arrived, there were around 1.5 million Arawak-speaking Taino people living in Haiti. All
European observers said that they were remarkably hospitable and believed in sharing. Europeans
took them as slaves back to Europe and forced them to work in gold mines in Haiti. The destruction of
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the Taino
➢ In 1495, there were about 250.000 Taino left in Haiti
➢ By 1497, half of those were dead
➢ By 1515, there were about 50.000 left and in 1550 there were about 500 left
➢ A report from 1650 shows that there were no Taino people left at all.
➢ Some Caribbean scholars today that a small number of Taino survived by intermarrying with
other groups
Other responses
Spanish theologian Bartolome de Las Cas redefined natural slaves as natural children, allowing
benevolence to ‘save’ them and make them civilized Christians. ‘They are by nature the most humble,
patient, and peaceable, holding no grudges, free form embroilments, neither excitable nor quarrelsome.
, These people are the most devoid of rancors, hatreds, or desire for vengeance of any people in the
world.’
● Problem for theology → ‘If these people are human, why did the Bible not write about them?’
In the period of de Las Casas, people believed that people from America were habitants from the lost
continent of Atlantis.
The 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 (the Rest), very different in their histories, exologies, patterns of
development, and cultures from the European model. The difference of these other societies and
cultures from the West was the standard against which the West’s achievement was measured. It is
within the context of these relationships that the idea of ‘the West’ took on shape and meaning’.
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Noble Savage
The noble savage paradigm was especially significant. Many of the peoples encountered by European
explorers were described as being in a ‘state of nature’. Positively, this was described as;
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- earthly paradise
- simple, innocent life
- lack of developed social organization and civil society
- frank and open sexuality; nakedness, beauty of the women
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Ignoble Savage
Negatively, this same simplicity and closeness to nature was seen as inhuman, too close to animals.
- Cannibalism was a common theme
- The lack of governments and states was seen to be a lack of society and uncivilized
Enter the Enlightenment
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Gradual scientization of all realms of knowledge. Belief in the progress of knowledge. Key to knowledge
seemed to lie in bringing nature under the human gaze.
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● Associated with reason
Scientific method
During the European ‘Dark Ages’, Arab philosophers and scientists began to develop mathematics,
physics, and chemistry. The European development of the scientific method also relied on
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experimentation and inductive reasoning but was centrally concerned with what could be seen. Began
to be associated with secularism.
● Secularism or more like questioning religion → scientification of knowledge began to question
everything → science is born in the West (rational), anyone who isn’t or doesn’t, thus is not
rational.
Francis Bacon
Leading figure in the development of the scientific method. Said that it mustn't “go for nothing that by
the distant voyages and travels which have become frequent in our times many times in nature have
been laid open and discovered which may let in new light upon philosophy”
