Kambiz has a post over at Anthropology.net, On Human Genetic Variation and Human Identity, where he riffs on the discussion that Martin & I just had about the intersection of genes and culture. More broadly it is a rumination upon the methods and paradigms which might be brought to bear on the study of humanity, broadly interpreted. In the comments I have also had some harsh things to say about cultural anthropology. In short: I think most cultural anthropology is crap. But I should put it in context and be clear about my sentiment: I prefer fiction to literary criticism. In other words, pure reporting of facts on particular societies is interesting to me, and I’m a pretty avid reader of ethnographic works. That being said, when scholars move from reportage to interpretation they use Theories which often tell us more about the state of American (or European) academe than they do about alien societies. I am aware that some people enjoy literary criticism, so I’m sure there are those who dig the stylings of assorted Theorists, but I’m interesting in learning stuff about the world, not the most current fad in academics. Of course there are cultural anthropologists whose work I find of use. Dan Sperber & others in the Naturalistic Paradigm actually seem to be trying to say something sensible and communicate more than their own narcissistic location in the world as white-upper-middle-class-heteronormative-class-privileged academics. Of course, Dan Sperber has implied that only around four anthropologists exist within this school; I notice that Joe Henrich, one of the young scholars who takes this tack is now in a psychology department.
Comments are closed.