{"id":2118,"date":"2010-12-10T12:04:55","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T19:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2118"},"modified":"2010-12-10T14:19:59","modified_gmt":"2010-12-10T21:19:59","slug":"is-anthropology-a-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2118","title":{"rendered":"Is Anthropology a Science?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Politicized anthropologists gain ground against archaeologists and physical anthropologists after their chief American professional organization rewrites its mission statement.<\/a><\/p>\n

The decision has reopened a long-simmering tension between researchers in science-based anthropological disciplines \u2014 including archaeologists, physical anthropologists and some cultural anthropologists \u2014 and members of the profession who study race, ethnicity and gender and see themselves as advocates for native peoples or human rights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to the AAA’s new long-range plan, anthropology is about “public understanding,” not “science.”<\/p>\n

Some public understanding occurs no matter what, but the dispute seems to favor those who want anthropology to favor their political agendas.\u00a0 These are the same postmodern folks who argue that anthropology always <\/em>served a political agenda, so perhaps they are simply being more up-front about it.<\/p>\n

Until now, the association\u2019s long-range plan was \u201cto advance anthropology as the science that studies humankind in all its aspects.\u201d The executive board revised this last month to say, \u201cThe purposes of the association shall be to advance public understanding of humankind in all its aspects.\u201d This is followed by a list of anthropological subdisciplines that includes political research.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anthropology is easily politicized because it deals with social structures, kinship, war, death and burial\u2014everything to do with identity at various levels. And yes, anthropologists have often served larger, powerful interests. Think of Ruth Benedict researching The Chrysanthemum and the Sword<\/em>, studying Japanese culture to benefit the American occupation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But I still think that there is a place for “science” and objectivity as ideals, even while keeping one’s eyes open (“reflexivity”).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Politicized anthropologists gain ground against archaeologists and physical anthropologists after their chief American professional organization rewrites its mission statement. The decision has reopened a long-simmering tension between researchers in science-based anthropological disciplines \u2014 including archaeologists, physical anthropologists and some cultural anthropologists \u2014 and members of the profession who study race, ethnicity and gender and see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,4],"class_list":["post-2118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeology","tag-scholarship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-ya","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6922,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6922","url_meta":{"origin":2118,"position":0},"title":"The Anthropologist and the Ancestors","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to Sabina Magliocco, I read this interesting piece about a Dutch anthropologist experiencing an ancestor ritual, one involving both the ancestors of the people in New Guinea whom he is visiting and his own. And even though science failed to explain everything, the way I viewed the world was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"anthropology\"","block_context":{"text":"anthropology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=anthropology"},"img":{"alt_text":"otto","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/otto.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1229,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1229","url_meta":{"origin":2118,"position":1},"title":"Greenwood’s Anthropological Study of Magic","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"British anthropologist Susan Greenwood is interviewed at Pagans for Archaeology about her new book, The Anthropology of Magic.In this new book I have taken that argument further and related it to a classical anthropological debate on mystical mentality; and I have also explored the nature of reality in relation to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"anthropology\"","block_context":{"text":"anthropology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=anthropology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1845206711","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6116,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6116","url_meta":{"origin":2118,"position":2},"title":"How to Dress for an Academic Conference","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This combined annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature starts this evening. As I lay in my Baltimore hotel bed this morning, thinking about what to wear for the day, my mind kept going back to an essay read yesterday, \"Conference Chic, or,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":398,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=398","url_meta":{"origin":2118,"position":3},"title":"Felicitas Goodman","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 1, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Word comes of the passing of Felicitas Goodman on 31 March. She was in her early nineties.Born to ethnic German parents in Hungary, she attended the University of Heidelburg. She came to the United States after World War II and worked as a scientific translator before entering graduate school as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"New Mexico\"","block_context":{"text":"New Mexico","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=new-mexico"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":837,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=837","url_meta":{"origin":2118,"position":4},"title":"The most controversial anthropologist","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"One episode of a BBC series called Tales from the Jungle on famous anthropologists examines the \"shamanthropologist\" Carlos Castaneda (d. 1998), appropriately described as the most controversial anthropologist ever.For those of us who can't watch the Beeb, it is available in segments from YouTube.There are also episodes on Bronislaw Malinowski\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"anthropology\"","block_context":{"text":"anthropology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=anthropology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12750,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12750","url_meta":{"origin":2118,"position":5},"title":"The Making of an Ethnobotanist in a 1960s University Scene","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 23, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the books on my ethnobotany shelves is Witchcraft Medicine:Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants, a colloboration between Wolf Dieter Storl, Claudia M\u00fcller-Ebeling, and Christian R\u00e4tsch, all three anthropologists and ethnobotanists. M\u00fcller-Ebeling and R\u00e4tsch are married and live in Hamburg, but Storl was born in Germany in 1942\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/storl.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2118"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2120,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118\/revisions\/2120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}