Emotion (or Life,the Universe,Everything)

Emotions are fundamental to human life; they define its quality and motivate action. In the past, social scientists who have studied emotions have treated them as biological, cultural or social phenomena. These approaches have tended to fall on either side of the culturally recognised division between nature and culture, and so have failed to recognise that emotions bridge this division, that they are thought of as both biological and cultural, as consisting of both physical feeling and cultural meaning. In this article, an alternative approach is presented in which emotions are treated as ecological mechanisms that operate in the relationship between an individual human being and their environment. In this approach, which draws on models of emotion proposed by William James and Antonio Damasio, emotions connect individual human beings to their surroundings and play an important role in learning. A focus on the individual as the centre of analytical attention—often referred to as ‘methodological individualism’—is a logical consequence of the ecological approach to emotion, which also has significant implications for the relationships between ecological anthropology and other branches of the discipline, and between anthropology and other disciplines. In the face of an ecological understanding of emotion, all relations, including social relations, become ecological and social anthropology melts into and is subsumed by ecological anthropology. At the same time, anthropology tends to lose its distinctiveness from biology, psychology and other disciplines by focusing on a phenomenon that is of common interest to all the human sciences.     

Random Mind: Towards an Appreciation of Openness in Individual,Society and Anthropology

Gregory Bateson laid stress on treating anthropology as a ‘non‐specialist’ subject which would draw upon, and hence illuminate the interdependence of, all the human sciences in its endeavour to tackle what he called the `vast intricacies' of socio‐cultural complexity. What was called for was an ‘abductive’ project which would qualitatively or aesthetically identify certain vital `patterns' which connected different arenas of human experience. By this means, anthropology could hope to disinter specific sociological and psychological laws. In the manner of Bateson, this paper sets out to describe and isolate one such law: the random workings of the individual human mind. These workings are considered abductively across a range of different but related discourses: ethnographic, aesthetic, political and moral. It is argued that to appreciate the randomness of the individual mind is to gain important insight not only into the diversity of human culture and society but also the singularity of human being. An appreciation of human randomness and its ramifications, it is concluded, may serve as the basis not only of explanation but also a sense of moral value and beauty in anthropological analysis.     

Genetic essentialism,mana , and the meaning of DNA

Concerns about the commercialization of genetics have spawned a debate over the symbolic logic and meaning of DNA. The assumption is that different meanings for DNA have social and ethical consequences. Genetic essentialism as an interpretive meaning for DNA is argued to encapsulate values of materialism and autonomy that make it compatible with capital accumulation. Whether or not genetic commerce actually requires genetic essentialism is an empirical question and this study proposes that it is not difficult to find non-essentialist genetics. Two paths of inquiry are adopted. First, the history and origins of the distinction between genotype and phenotype is revisited. This history of gene theory, in particular the effort to purge vitalism, is linked to DNA and the central dogma of molecular biology. Secondly, a rather specialized debate within anthropology about the meaning of mana is introduced. An analysis of definitions for genotype and phenotype reveals a structure commensurate with the metaphysics of mana. Parallels are established between how the meaning of mana has been essentialized and the current efforts to fix the symbolic logic of DNA.     

Parent-offspring conflict and the cultural ecology of breast-feeding

Lactation constitutes a major focus for research in international health because of its dramatic impact on child survival; evolutionary biology has investigated lactation as an important aspect of parenting strategy, with implications for understanding parent-offspring conflict. These perspectives are brought together in an attempt to develop integrated models for an issue of key international health concern: the duration of exclusive breast-feeding and the timing of weaning. This analysis highlights the relevance of evolutionary theory for practical problems in public health, and it suggests the utility of public health outcomes for addressing evolutionary questions. Thomas McDade received his Ph.D. degree in anthropology from Emory University in 1999 and is currently an assistant professor in the anthropology department at Northwestern University. His research interests include biocultural perspectives on issues related to health and human development, with current attention focused on the cultural and evolutionary ecology of human immune function.     

The adaptive nature of culture

Some have argued that the major contribution of anthropology to science is the concept of culture. Until very recently, however, evolutionary anthropologists have largely ignored culture as a topic of study. This is perhaps because of the strange bedfellows they would have to maintain. Historically, anthropologists who claimed the focus of cultural anthropology tended to be anti‐science, anti‐biology, or both. Paradoxically, a segment of current mainstream cultural anthropology has more or less abandoned culture as a topic. It is particularly ironic that in spite of a growing awareness among evolutionary anthropologists that culture is critical for understanding the human condition, the topic of culture has fallen out of favor among many “cultural” anthropologists. ^1,2     

"The City Is My Mother": Narratives of Schizophrenia and Homelessness

Recent narrative analysis in medical anthropology provides keys to both the personal meaning of illness and the historical, cultural, and institutional shaping of that experience. Yet Western psychiatric thinking and practice continue to view schizophrenic discourse as closed to interpretation. Caught in this "closed text," the self would seem obliterated. But using narratives of schizophrenia and homelessness, this essay proposes a different understanding of schizophrenic alterity. The openness of the text-as-experience is re-created collectively, from outside the subject's narration: the subject's "self is construction through the added perspectives of his or her interlocutors in the role of storymakers.     

Origin Myths in Bioethics: Constructing Sources,Motives and Reason in Bioethic(s)

Bioethics, the term now usually standing in for Biomedical Ethics, is a field of medical anthropological engagement. While many anthropologists and other social scientists work with bioethicists and physicians, this paper instead takes Bioethics as a topic of cultural research from the perspective of Cultural Bioethics and Interpretive Medical Anthropology. Application of useful findings of vintage anthropological research in cultural anthropology and the anthropology of religion and an interpretive lens reveal a field without a single origin or unified methodology. The paper suggests the appropriateness of a literal meaning of current conceptual commonality of the term Bioethics: that the term does in fact refer to a plurality of distinct enterprises with distinct origins and, hence, justifications.     

Anthropologists only need apply: challenges of applied anthropology

The application of anthropology is attracting increasing attention, where once it was thought at best a dubious enterprise. The resurgence of applied anthropology reflects the discipline's broad spread, with persons seeking applications in an array of areas. In this article I reflect on some contentious issues that I have encountered in trying to take up the challenge of applying anthropology, notably in the context of 'indigenous knowledge' in development inquiries, issues that demand attention to take this work forwards. A brief historical review suggests that a failure to deal with these arguably hindered previous attempts to establish an applied anthropology. They include definition of the subject we seek to apply, the implications of interdisciplinarity for the social sciences, and the matter of expert status. Other considerations concern giving ethnographic methods an applicable edge, engaging, for example, with the challenging demands of participatory research. I outline five ways to envisage applying anthropology: facilitating others' exploitation of exogenous know-how; using knowledge of local understanding to further development; transferring people's learning and practices cross-culturally; seeking ways to assist market use of knowledge; and finally radical ethno-criticism of development. They all present us with challenges. And signal interesting times for anthropology.     

Being held accountable: why attributing responsibility matters

Debates over reconciliation, atonement, forgiveness, and forgetting involve political and personal elements, with substantial investments and commitments. I contrast two perspectives: one stresses unconditional forgiveness independent of atonement; the other reflects on the importance of moral responsibility for the formation of the person. Being held accountable, for Ricoeur, matters for the development of the self. For Derrida, forgiveness is a defining aspect of being human, becoming debased when seen as a legal form of justice. I use philosophical arguments and ethnographic writings from Papua New Guinea, Cyprus, and the Holocaust to examine reconciliation and irreconciliation as strategies for either reaffirming or reimagining a common world.     

Physical anthropology in the U.S.A.: the malaise and its cure

Physical anthropology in the U.S.A. shows symptoms of a malaise giving cause for concern. It is argued that their origin does not lie in weakness in the subject, which elsewhere is more flourishing, like other life sciences, than it has ever been; nor in a lack of student interest; but in historical inertia. This affects the affiliation of the subject, undergraduate teaching, graduate training, and opportunities for professional practice.     

Anthropologists Working “at Home”: On the Range of Subjects and Forms of Representation in Film,and What Makes These Ethnographic

This discussion explores the meaning of ethnographic film with reference to films made by filmmakers “at home.” It is argued that ethnographicness in film is best conceptualized as a continuum, and that anthropology must embrace transnationalism and the changing nature of “homes” and “abroads” in order to present and represent peoples' voices in an era of increasing globalization. It is argued that the way that ethnographic film evolves, as a cultural product and process itself, should be embraced and celebrated for its ability to recognize universal humanity.     

Anténor Firmin: Haitian Pioneer of Anthropology

Anténor Firmin published De I'Égalité des Races Humaines in 1885 in Paris as a response both to Arthur de Gobineau's racist tome L'lnégalité des Races (1853-55) and to the racialist anthropology of the nineteenth century. This pioneering work of anthropology has been translated for the first time into English by Assclin Charles as The Equality of the Human Races (Firmin [1885]2000). In 662 pages of the original text, Firmin systematically critiqued the anthropometry and craniometry that dominated the anthropology of his day, while he envisioned a broad, synthetic discipline that would follow once this narrow approach to the study of man was abandoned. He challenged virtually every extant racial myth and laid a basis for the understanding of human variation as adaptation to climate and environment. Contrary to the polygenist doctrines of the infertility of interracial matings, Firmin extolled the value of racial mixture, especially in the vigorous New World hybrid populations. He developed a critical view of racial classifications and of race that foreshadowed much later social constructions of race. In the book he also articulated early Pan-Africanist ideas as well as an analytical framework for what would become postcolonial studies.
The Equality of the Human Races is a text that lies historically at the foundations of the birth of the discipline of anthropology, yet it is unknown to the field. It is a pioneering work in critical anthropology that awaits recognition 115 years after it was first published. [Anténor Firmin, history of racism, antiracism, historical texts, Haitian anthropologist, critical anthropology, nineteenth-century pioneer]     

Giving birth to gonolia: "culture" and sexually transmitted disease among the Huli of Papua New Guinea

The "culture concept" has been challenged on a number of fronts, both by medical anthropologists researching AIDS and in the discipline of cultural anthropology more generally. Medical anthropologists have argued against the "etiologization" of culture, and cultural anthropologists have taken issue with the tendency to treat beliefs and practices as static and seamlessly shared. Using the narrative of one Huli woman's shifting explanation of a diagnosis of syphilis, this article argues that, rather than avoid the notion of culture, we should strive for representations that demonstrate how individuals use discourses in expedient, ad hoc, and yet deeply felt ways. This article also argues for the importance of a sociology of knowledge approach to understanding local notions of etiology. The woman's understanding of her situation was strongly influenced by her entry into a new "community" of women who had similarly been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease.     

The Tsimane Health and Life History Project: Integrating anthropology and biomedicine

The Tsimane Health and Life History Project, an integrated bio‐behavioral study of the human life course, is designed to test competing hypotheses of human life‐history evolution. One aim is to understand the bidirectional connections between life history and social behavior in a high‐fertility, kin‐based context lacking amenities of modern urban life (e.g. sanitation, banks, electricity). Another aim is to understand how a high pathogen burden influences health and well‐being during development and adulthood. A third aim addresses how modernization shapes human life histories and sociality. Here we outline the project's goals, history, and main findings since its inception in 2002. We reflect on the implications of current findings and highlight the need for more coordinated ethnographic and biomedical study of contemporary nonindustrial populations to address broad questions that can situate evolutionary anthropology in a key position within the social and life sciences.     

Perspectives and prospects

The study of the nonhuman primates offers great opportunities for the development of an experimental anthropology. Whether one is concerned with variations in sutures, in locomotor patterns or the distribution of genetic polymorphisms, study of the nonhuman primates may offer clues. Whether one is interested in adaptation to desert, to tropic heat, or to cold, the nonhuman primate offers a far greater range of variations than man. For many problems they are the laboratory animals of choice, and their exploitation is necessary if we are ever to have an experimental physical anthropology. Interest in the nonhuman primates brings us into touch with many other sciences, as has been shown at this symposium. But I would particularly stress how it strengthens the relations of the parts of anthropology. The social system, communication, learning, these problems are important to all of anthropology, and the study of evolution, and particularly of our nearest relatives, has much to offer to the understanding of man and his behaviors.     

Abnormal births and other “ill omens”

We summarize the ethnographic literature illustrating that “abnormal birth” circumstances and “ill omens” operate as cues to terminate parental investment. A review of the medical literature provides evidence to support our assertion that ill omens serve as markers of biological conditions that will threaten the survival of infants. Daly and Wilson (1984) tested the prediction that children of demonstrably poor phenotypic quality will be common victims of infanticide. We take this hypothesis one stage further and argue that some children will be poor vehicles for parental investment yet are not of demonstrably poor quality at birth. We conclude that when people dispose of infants due to “superstitious beliefs” they are pursuing an adaptive strategy in eliminating infants who are poor vehicles for parental investment. Catherine Hill lectures in biological anthropology/human sciences at Durham University’s University College, Stockton. She trained in biological anthropology at University College, London. Her current research interests include human and nonhuman primate socioecology and human resource ecology and development issues. Helen Ball lectures in biological anthropology/human sciences at Durham University’s University College, Stockton. She trained in biological anthropology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her current research interests include nonhuman primate behavior and socioecology, reproductive biology, and evolutionary issues.     

Embedding values: how science and society jointly valence a concept—the case of ADHD

Many successful sciences both serve and shape human ends. Conversely, the societies in which these sciences are practiced support the research and provide interpretive context. These mutual influences may result in a positive feedback loop that reinforces constitutive and contextual values, embedding them in scientific concepts: the ADHD concept is a case in point. In an ongoing process, social considerations fuel investigational choices and contexts for evaluating data. Scientific study forwards the feedback loop through the influence of investigative trends, by directly and indirectly embedding values in data interpretation, and by core methodologies that heighten the contrast between ‘ADHD’ and ‘normal’. The resulting scientific conclusions embed value valences in the ADHD concept; social uptake of that valenced concept begins another round of interest in its implications and support of the science. The processes at work in the ADHD case are very general, so we should expect to see similar processes and results in other fields.     

Pyrogeography,historical ecology,and the human dimensions of fire regimes

In our 2011 synthesis (Bowman et al., Journal of Biogeography, 2011, 38 , 2223–2236), we argued for a holistic approach to human issues in fire science that we term ‘pyrogeography’. Coughlan & Petty (Journal of Biogeography, 2013, 40 , 1010–1012) critiqued our paper on the grounds that our ‘pyric phase’ model was built on outdated views of cultural development, claiming we developed it to be the unifying explanatory framework for all human–fire sciences. Rather, they suggest that ‘historical ecology’ could provide such a framework. We used the ‘pyric transition’ for multiple purposes but did not offer it as an exclusive explanatory framework for pyrogeography. Although ‘historical ecology’ is one of many useful approaches to studying human–fire relationships, scholars should also look to political and evolutionary ecology, ecosystems and complexity theories, as well as empirical generalizations to build an interdisciplinary fire science that incorporates human, ecological and biophysical dimensions of fire regimes.     

Evolution and University-level Anthropology Textbooks: The “Missing Link”?

Although studies analyzing the content of evolution curriculum usually focus on courses within the context of a biological sciences department or program, research must also address students and courses outside of the biological sciences. For example, using data solely from biological courses will not fully represent the scope of coverage of evolution in university education, as other fields, like anthropology, also utilize evolutionary principles. We analyzed the content of 31 university-level anthropology textbooks for the following: (1) presence of a definition of evolution in various sections of the textbooks, (2) accuracy and consistency of the definitions provided in the textbook sections, and (3) differences between textbooks for cultural and physical anthropology. Results of this study suggest that anthropology textbooks do not necessarily (1) provide a single definition of evolution or (2) provide an accurate, “baseline” definition of evolution when present. Additionally, substantive differences were observed between definitions provided in different sections within a single textbook, as well as between textbooks written for cultural anthropology and physical anthropology/archaeology courses. Given the inclusion of anthropology courses in general education curriculum at the university-level, we conclude that this situation may further exacerbate the misunderstanding of the basic tenets of evolution that university students have been repeatedly shown to demonstrate. We stress the role of the instructor in choosing textbooks that provide accurate information for students, as well as the responsibility they hold in providing a concise, accurate definition of evolution in social sciences courses.     

Breaking Through Disciplinary Barriers: Human–Wildlife Interactions and Multispecies Ethnography

One of the main challenges when integrating biological and social perspectives in primatology is overcoming interdisciplinary barriers. Unfamiliarity with subject-specific theory and language, distinct disciplinary-bound approaches to research, and academic boundaries aimed at “preserving the integrity” of subject disciplines can hinder developments in interdisciplinary research. With growing interest in how humans and other primates share landscapes, and recognition of the importance of combining biological and social information to do this effectively, the disparate use of terminology is becoming more evident. To tackle this problem, we dissect the meaning of what the biological sciences term studies in “human–wildlife conflict” or more recently “human–wildlife interactions” and compare it to what anthropology terms “multispecies ethnography.” In the biological sciences, human–wildlife interactions are the actions resulting from people and wild animals sharing landscapes and resources, with outcomes ranging from being beneficial or harmful to one or both species. In the social sciences, human–nonhuman relationships have been explored on a philosophical, analytical, and empirical level. Building on previous work, we advocate viewing landscapes through an interdisciplinary “multispecies lens” in which humans are observed as one of multiple organisms that interact with other species to shape and create environments. To illustrate these interconnections we use the case study of coexistence between people of the Nalu ethnic group and Critically Endangered western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) at Cantanhez National Park in Guinea-Bissau, to demonstrate how biological and social research approaches can be complementary and can inform conservation initiatives at the human–primate interface. Finally, we discuss how combining perspectives from ethnoprimatology with those from multispecies ethnography can advance the study of ethnoprimatology to aid productive discourse and enhance future interdisciplinary research.