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John Hale Department
of Anthropology Ball
State University Literary Style as an Effective Tool in AnthropologyEducation since the enlightenment has increasingly eclipsed the
humanities, resulting in a population more technologically oriented.
The value of an education that includes the humanities, and in
particular anthropology, is that it teaches imagination and empathy; two tools
necessary for an enriching life. In order for anthropology to play a larger role in education,
however, it must appeal to a wider audience.
Anthropologists should avoid dry academic style writing, and instead
use a narrative style to engage their readers, thereby drawing them into the
story of other cultures. Through
narrative style, anthropologists can present a less biased representation of a
culture, avoiding their conscious and unconscious interpretations and letting
the reader draw his own conclusions. The
quality of the piece should be based on the effectiveness of the author in
guiding the reader through representative scenes and interactions within a
cultural setting in order to present the reader with a true understanding of
the culture. This is not to
suggest that anthropology should abandon all scientific methodologies.
The self-correcting nature of science is particularly important, and it
is the responsibility of the anthropological community to ensure that quality
is maintained through the peer edit process. The Humanities in Education Since the enlightenment of the late eighteenth century, science and logical thinking have increasingly eclipsed the humanities. Classical education, with its emphasis on literature, philosophy, and other eclectic pursuits, was seen as the privilege of the rich, and declined with the rise of the working class. Education has turned to more practical matters, focusing on science, mathematics, and chemistry, at the expense of literature, the arts, and the humanities. Today, the trend continues as the job market turns more and more towards highly specialized, technical trades that require higher education just to qualify for an entry-level position. Increasingly people holding technical degrees are finding jobs faster and easier than people with liberal art degrees. But what is the consequence of ignoring the elements of a classical education? What do we risk when we do not teach anthropology? What value does anthropology and other liberal arts subjects add to an education? Simply, imagination and empathy. It does not take much imagination to seize on a piece of technology and exploit it; all it requires is some specialized training. Someone long ago realized that it was cost effective to enslave people who could not stand up to more modern weapons, and it did not take much imagination to realize that a great deal of profit could be made on their labor. Someone long ago also discovered that it was easier to make paper out of wood than more expensive and labor intensive materials such as hemp or papyrus. It did not take much imagination to exploit that and to decimate rain forests to support the paper industry. It requires almost the opposite of empathy to perform these same acts. Certainly there was no empathy in the slave traders for the people they enslaved. There is no empathy for the people the loggers in South America displace as they slash acres of forest to make toilet paper. There is no empathy in the companies that employ children in vast numbers to supply the West with the material goods of a throwaway society. All it requires is enough education to efficiently exploit the circumstances to be profitable. It does take imagination, however, to envision the people of the world and their habitat as an inter-related whole that does not operate independently. It does take imagination to think ahead and contemplate the far-reaching effects of what we do on a day to day basis. Racial intolerance, genocide, war, and a host of other problems all demonstrate an inability to empathize, to imagine another’s deepest responses, and to consider the real consequences of actions on another. The purpose of a diverse education is to expand the mind, and anthropology pervades every aspect of every interaction between human beings. Anthropology has the capacity to enlarge an individual’s sense of the possibilities of life. Through exposure to alternate lifeways, people become more aware of their place in the universe. By relating their experience with the experience of people vastly different from themselves, people gain a useful perspective on their own contributions to the world. Conversely, they also begin to see how their actions affect others, and vice versa. In the grand scheme, we need anthropology to get along. Scholars, recognizing the importance of a well-rounded education, have continually fought for the maintenance of high school and college programs with equal time spent on a diversity of subjects. It is through a thorough understanding of humanity that all other disciplines have purpose, a reason for existence. What is the point of developing new energy sources if they do not ultimately benefit humanity? In what has been labeled as the post-modern world the trend towards a holistic approach has become more and more popular. Each discipline has begun to see its place in the complex matrix of human society. But because anthropology is the study of humankind and touches on virtually every aspect of human existence, no other discipline has the capacity to integrate the many facets of education into a gestalt as well as anthropology. Additionally, whereas the other disciplines are just now beginning to understand the value of a holistic approach, anthropology has always had, or at least tried to maintain, that perspective. A breakthrough in medicine affects more then the patient it cures. Like ripples on a pond, there is a diminishing cascade moving out from the center and affecting the society as a whole. Anthropology helps people to understand this effect by giving them the capacity to imagine the extensive web of life. The relevance of anthropology is that it expands your understanding of the world and the people within it, allowing you to better negotiate your place in it. It gives you a perspective that is not confined to what you have directly experienced, and allows you to see a larger picture. But why then, does anthropology exist as a fringe discipline? Because of the inability of past anthropologists to recognize that the true value of anthropology is not to quantify human existence, but it is to celebrate the diversity and communicate that enthusiasm to a wider audience. The way to communicate this enthusiasm is not through dry academic papers that drone on and on about some obscure ritual or practice. It is through the development of the imagination, the understanding achieved through empathy, and the perspective gained through application of both that turns knowledge into wisdom. Ultimately, it is the goal of anthropology to develop wisdom in its audience. Therefore, the way to communicate is to draw the audience into and to make them care about the subject. The Use of
Narrative Style in Anthropological Writing While anthropology may unite all disciplines, there is a common aspect of all cultures, as well: stories. Humans have been telling stories since the dawn of language. The origins of writing are invariably mentioned in conjunction with the first known story ever recorded The Epic of Gilgamesh. Since the late 4th century BCE, people have recorded their stories. And the Epic of Gilgamesh is probably more widely known now that it was in its own time! It is through the use of the story that anthropologists, and in particular ethnologists, can expose their audience to the cultures of the world. By bringing ethnography closer to contemporary literature in style, they can accurately portray a culture in that culture’s own terms. Good stories
naturally engage the audience, drawing them into the tale.
Very good stories create what the poet Percy Shelley called the “moral
imagination,” which he describes as a capacity to occupy another mind and feel
the emotional pulse of another heart. What
Shelley is referring to is the development of empathy by the audience for the
subject of the story. Through the
use of narrative prose, anthropology, too, can captivate its audience and
cultivate a deeper form of imagination, by evoking that feeling of empathy in
its audience. The Diary
of Anne Frank was a chilling portrayal of what it was to be Jewish in
Nazi-occupied Amsterdam during World War II.
The value of contemporary literature is its exploration of the human
experience, and though we may know the figures of the millions of lives taken
during the holocaust, through Anne’s account we feel
what it was about. Like
contemporary literature, it is the goal of anthropology to make the audience feel what it is to be a member of the society being described.
As Bronsilaw Malinowski stated, Though it may be given to us for a moment to enter into the soul of a savage and through his eyes to look at the outer world and feel ourselves what it must feel to him to be himself — yet our final goal is to enrich and deepen our own world’s vision, to understand our own nature and to make it finer, intellectually and artistically (1984:518).
Using a more literary style, such as the style used by Karen McCarthy
Brown in her experimental ethnography Mama
Lola, ethnographers do not only discuss human issues, but they can make the
issues come alive for the audience. By
describing the lives of the Haitian ancestors of her Haitian-born informant in a
narrative prose, Brown involves the
reader. The reader comes to
understand what life in poverty-stricken Haiti was like, and how that shaped the
personality, attitudes, and beliefs of the focus of the ethnography, Alourdes.
It is the function of anthropology to
evoke this feeling of empathy in order to stimulate the imagination of the
reader, and enlarge the reader’s sense about the many possible ways to live. Narrative
Writing and Scientific Goals
While in its goals ethnography shares a great deal with the field of
literature, anthropological narrative has two important differences from
contemporary literature. First,
anthropological literature has scientific goals, and necessarily draws on the
field of science for methods and procedures.
The most salient aspect of scientific endeavor has always been its
self-correcting nature. Scientific
claims are constantly challenged, and the methods employed for scientific
inquiry are constantly scrutinized and modified as new information makes them
obsolete. Such is the case for anthropological methods as well.
It is extraordinarily important that the literature produced be closely
reviewed and critiqued by others in the field to ensure adherence to the tenets
of ethics and morality. Like any
form of writing, either scientific or not, good and bad writing will be
produced. In some cases it is
merely an inability on the part of the author to write well, while in other
cases the author may simply present erroneous or skewed information.
In both cases it is the responsibility of professional anthropologists to
review current literature and, in effect, police the field for poorly presented
material. It is therefore important
that such issues as feminism are brought to the forefront and scrutinized, as
has been done by Henrietta Moore in her book Feminism
and Anthropology.
The second major difference between anthropological literature and
contemporary literature is the accurate representation of its subject.
In contemporary literature, the author has free reign to develop his
characters as he sees fit. The
characters may not accurately represent a particular culture, and it may not be
the purpose of the author for them to. The
people and the culture described in an ethnography, however, must be represented
in such a way as to accurately portray their world view as clearly as possible.
In most ethnographies, the dominant voice is that of the ethnographer,
who describes the social interaction of the subject society as a narrator
describes the action in a movie. But
at the same time, the ethnographer makes interpretive statements explaining the
significance of the event or the interaction, thereby imposing his own beliefs
onto the behavior that he witnessed. The
reader then interprets the ethnographer’s interpretation, not the behavior
itself. The beauty of a narrative
style is that the interaction is presented as it occurred, without interpretive
analysis. The reader is left to
draw his own conclusions. Since it is obviously impossible to present the
society in its entirety in the space of a book, it will depend on the skill of
the ethnographer to guide the reader through representative interactions that
give a holistic and complete view of the society. Conclusion In
contemporary literature, Charles Dickens presents an in-depth study of Victorian
society in Great Expectations. Pip,
the son of a rural blacksmith, with the help of an anonymous benefactor, moves
into the urban society of London. As
an outsider to the society of Victorian London, we can empathize with the
bewildering flood of culture that Pip experiences. Brown uses the same skill in Mama
Lola, as she describes the lives of Alourdes’s ancestors in Haiti.
Through both narratives, we can come to a more complete understanding as
we empathize with the characters than we could through simple description of the
society. Through such experience we
move past mere understanding to wisdom. Our
weltanschauung, or comprehensive philosophy on life, becomes more complete.
Anthropology shares its struggle to define itself in an increasingly technologically oriented world with other disciplines in the arts and humanities. It is ironic that while in our country the value of education is more clearly understood today than it has ever been, we have increasingly moved away from the most vital aspect of that education: how to better yourself and thereby humanity as a whole. Instead our society continues to be more rather than less fragmented, less rather than more personal. This is a direct result of the positivist movement since the Age of Enlightenment. It is also ironic that the concept of the sublime, also a product of the Age of Enlightenment, did not survive as well. Yet as the writer William Carlos Williams put it, “It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” As anthropologists it is our responsibility to put the humanity back into our discipline. We can do this by using a narrative style to accurately portray other cultures and to communicate the beauty and wonder of the rich diversity we encounter. Only by engaging the audience and piquing their interest can we ever hope to help them make the leap from knowledgeable to wise. References
Cited Brown,
Karen McCarthy Dickens,
Charles Frank,
Anne Malinowski,
Bronislaw. Moore,
Henrietta |
