The Holistic Study of Humanity - Essay Example

Anthropology is the holistic study of humanity, it is divided in four subfields; Cultural anthropology, Physical anthropology, Linguistic Anthropology and Archaeology. Cultural anthropologist reading of diversity in cultures; body structure, size, shape, clothing, speech, religion and customs is called ethnography (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1998). Evans (2004, p.4) explains that Ethnology is not merely a description of history as it also answers that how and why when events happened. It deals with the systematic recording of human culture in a descriptive manner with comparative attributes of cultures and behaviors (i.e.) similarities and differences (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1998). Thick description: Towards an interpretive theory of culture, is one of the most influential social sciences pieces of writing from three decades. The book edited by Stephen and Mark (2006, p.218) states that Parson believes the social system to be the pattern of roles and statuses that structure society and ideas and symbols form culture. According to William (2005, p.31) Culture is learned and composed of abstract ideas, perception and values which is reflected in people’ behavior. On the other hand Geertz (1973, p.9) believes that the culture constitute human life as a whole, it is not just a mechanism for social system to produce and increase social integration. Franz (1990, p.129) argues that Culture is responsible for partly determining and interpreting cognition in human. Culture is composed of many sub cultures, values and customs. ‘Cognition is dependent on existence of objective, external symbolic models of reality in way no ape’s does: that is, it depends upon culture’ (Geertz, 1973, p.47). Burrell and Morgan (1979) and Niehaves (2004) all believe, (cited in Joerg, Bjoern & Karsten, 2005, p.2)”Epistemological framework is about the nature of human understanding and cognition. Epistemology can be understood as the science of analyzing the way human being grasp knowledge about what is (perceived to be) existing.” Ethnographic description about an action is interpretive as society takes it. It involves careful reading and fixing of such a discourse. “Doing ethnography is like trying to read (in the sense of ‘Construct the reading of’) a manuscript­­-foreign, faded, full of ellipses, incoherencies, suspicious emendations, and tendentious commentaries, but written not in conventionalized graphs of sound but in transient examples of shaped behavior” (Henrietta & Todd 2006, p.238). Culture is like a property of specific people as they give it meaning and system of meaning produce and nurture a culture. It points towards our less knowledge and familiarity about a specific foreign culture as we don’t understand the signs and symbols in that (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1998). Furthermore, Michael and Harvey (1988, p.7) argue that every element of meaning and every component for interpretations is locally occasioned, and everything is triggered into relevance on the spot. Human behavior should be treated as symbolic actions. We should better take it this way as cultural approach as subjective or objective, modern or traditional is difficult to take, considering their supposed social differences in meanings. Text, signs and symbols drive towards better interpretation of meaning (Philip & Philip, 2001, p.130).Ethnographer reads their strangely knotted symbols and irregular signs in order to grasp the meaning behind. He interprets what is that specific behavior, how it developed and what it’ll be like in future. Geertz (1973, p.5) argues that, ‘Culture is an integrative and integrating system of meaning, or at higher word rates, a semiotic system’. Doing ethnography is an exercise in what philosopher Gillbert Ryle calls (cited in Geertz p.5) “Thick Description.” Max Weber (cited in Geertz p.5) states the man as animal who is suspended in his self made webs of significance so, Geertz takes culture to be the webs; analyzing it is more of interpretive nature which is in search for meaning not a science of experiment. Greetz (1973, p.5) concludes, ‘It is explication I am after, ‘constructing social expressions on their surface enigmatical, but this is pronouncement, a doctrine in a clause, demands itself some explication.’ Clyde Kluckhohn (cited in Henruetta & Todd, 2006, p.236) gives the possible meanings of culture in “The Mirror of Man” as, it is a total way of life; the way people live, feel, think and tend to believe, an abstraction of behavior, a storehouse of pooled learning, it is what individuals get from their groups as legacy; perception of how they actually behave as it’s a precipitate of history, a learned behavior, response to the problems happening repeatedly and mechanism for normative behavior regulation and last but not the least, it is also a set of techniques for external environment and men adjustment (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1998). According to Geertz (1971, p.10), ethnography is “thick description” by definition. He explained it by using example of winking action; it is examined that we have go to beyond the apparent meaning in order to differentiate winking from twitch, mimicker or rehearsal. To understand the real meaning, we need to develop the social understanding of winking as gesture not as action. Winker’s state of mind, his/her audience and their construction of meaning about the winking action is also considered. A rapid contraction of eyelids is a thing which everyone can see; it is the observational or phenomenal part. Geertz (1971, p.6) interprets the action which depends on a few factor, considering wink as a special and precise form of communication; wink is deliberate not accidental, it has a special receiver, it conveys a particular message, communication is focused and particular and it is understood according to pre-established social code; Contracting your eyelids on purpose when there exist a public code in which so doing counts as a conspiratorial signal is winking. In this example winking action is “Thin description” and “Thick description” is the meaning and symbolic understanding of the winking action for society and people. It is to state the complications involved in understanding the action; it can be connotation, parody, appropriation or miscommunication as well. Thick description is not just data collection but deeper in its meaning and understanding(Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1998). Errors are made in making theory because of imperfect perceptions of the theoretical concepts by data series (Raoul & Ronald, 1970, p.79). Culture is a context not a power to which the behaviors, events and institutions of social life can be attributed. It is a system of interpretable and understandable signs and symbols. In ethnography culture of people is read considering the vast and varying meaning by recognizing their normalness without reducing their particularity. Following the idea of Thick description in which we recognize the difference between twitch and wink and other complications involved. But what if contraction of eyelids is presented as something else than interpretation. In case we start explicating than there will be nowhere to stop. There is example of another person who just observes the winking action and start copying without any intention; just for laugh. In this case intended meaning of wink is failed and what if he observed the twitching person not the winking one, another case can be if the winker is pretending to hide his winks in twitches. Besides the rehearsal case discussed there is another possibility that if a group of people is twitching, winking or parodying in front of lot of people in a play which is called “what’s in a wink?”. Rehearsal, parody, winks and twitch was not meant for the audience on a large scale like in this action. Culture is not a self-contained reality; one should be aware of defining a specific tribe and applying formal models to it.Cognitivist fallacy (like behaviorist and idealist fallacies) is considering it a mental phenomenon that can be analyzed by logic is destructive as well. Thick and Thin description should not be mixed together and first preference should be given to the interpretations of a community member itself (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1998). The problems between definitions of culture that emphasize patterns of behavior or those which emphasize frame of mind are missing the point, in Geertz (1973) view. Important thing is not to consider the action itself but to ask what their imports are; what they are the elements and impacts. Geertz’s principals of defining culture differ from Goodenough and ethnoscience viewpoints. According to Ward Goodenough (cited in Geertz p.11), ‘Culture is located in minds and hearts of men.’ In ethnoscience (Sherry, 1973, p.11) it is believed that culture is composed of psychological structures by means of which individuals or groups of individuals guide their behavior. Interpretation of meaning is not a personal matter or the product of activity in your own brain. It is rather a phenomenon of being a participant in the public network of the things that holds a meaning(Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1998). We can imagine a personal computer is no more like a paperweight if there is no internet connection, disk drive, mouse and keyboard. Something can be done with it but its disconnection from the shared things like software and data made it so. Winking or twitching difference is not due to ignorance but it is how the cognition works. It is assumed that working is just the same but is the lack of familiarity which prevents us from understanding the signs within which the actions are done. Geertz (1973,quoted in Richard, Anne & Richard 1996,p.135) work gave a new meaning and interpretation to culture as its point of departure, calling for “Thick descriptions” of rituals, events and particular events, he suggested anthropological writings to be the interpretations of interpretations. ‘People are as fascinated by anthropology as anthropologists are fascinated by people’ (Robin, 1991, p.9). Ethnographic interpretations tell readings not each and everything as it can’t tell everything a native really thinks besides being a part of the community for some time. Cultural theory is not its own master; it is not as predictive as it is most of the time anticipated. It gives life to culture in interpretive ways and tells something about almost everything about that particular culture. It reveals the conceptual phenomenon which informs us about the action discourse of particular subject under consideration. It also used to construct the analysis system of what belongs to them is completely different from other determinants of behavior. ‘Culture is public because meaning is, you can’t wink (or burlesque one) without knowing what counts as winking or how, physically, to contract your eyelids’ (Henrietta & Todd, 2006, p.10).Ethnographic interpretations demand a specific vocabulary in which the sign or symbolic action has to tell about itself which is the role of culture in human society. References 1. Clifford, 1973, ‘Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture’ The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected essays of Clifford Geertz, Basic Books, London. 2. Evans, P 2004, Social Anthropology, Routledge, N.Y. 3. Franz, M 1990, Evolutionary Epistemology and Its Implications for Human kind, SUNY, N.Y. 4. Henrietta, L & Todd, S (eds) 2006, Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology, Blackwell, UK. 5. Joerg, B, Bjoern, N & Karsten, K 2005, ‘A Framework for Epistemological Perspectives on Simulation’ Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation,vol.8no.4,p.4. 6. Justine, W (ed.) 2002, Makers of Modern Culture, Routledge, NY. London. 7. John, S 1998, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader by John Storey, University of Georgia press. 8. Michael, M & Harvey’s 1988, Talking Culture: Ethnography and Conversation, University of Pennsylvania press. 9. Michael, T, Richard, E & Aaron, W 1991, ‘Cultural Theory’, The American Journal of Sociology, Vol.96, No.6, pp. 1571-1573. 10. Philip, S & Philip, D 2001, Cultural Theory: An Introduction, Blackwell, UK. 11. Richard, J, Anne, C & Richard, A 1996, Ethnography and Human Development: Context and Meaning in Social Inquiry, University of Chicago, Oakland. 12. Raoul, N, Ronald, C 1970,A Handbook of Method in Cultural Anthropology, Natural History press. 13. Robin, F 1991, Encounter with Anthropology,2nd edn, Transaction, U.S.A. 14. Sherry, B. (1973) On Key Symbols. American Anthropologist, New Series[Internet],Oct,75(5),No. 5,pp. 1338-1346.Available from:[Accessed 3 August 2008 ]. 15. Stephen, P & Mark, W (eds) 2006, Philosophy of Anthropology and Sociology: A Volume in the Handbook of the Philosophy of Science Series, Elsevier, N.H. 16. William, A 2005, Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge, 11th edn, Thomson Wadswworth, U.K. 17. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. 1998. Destination culture : tourism, museums, and heritage. University of California Press. Read More