Sex and the Anthropologist
• Sexuality in the field was treated as a joke,
brushed aside with funny anecdotes about how
to avoid “romantic encounters” or
embarrassment (Ashkenazi and Markowitz
1999: 1).
• …every fieldwork situation will include
numerous circumstances in which sexual
relations between anthropologists and
individuals in the field would be unethical and
exploitative (Kullick 1995: 22).
Sexuality and anthropology:
• Marriage, kinship, exchange, power relations, etc
• Malinowski: “The sexual life of savages” 1929
• Mead: “Coming of Age in Samoa: A
Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for
Western Civilization” 1928, “Sex and
Temperament in Three Primitive Societies’ 1935,
“Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a
Changing World” 1949
anthropology was reluctant to direct
attention to their own sexuality
• Depersonalized objective behavior
• The ethnographer “free” of pre-conceived
notions: empty vessel, “ethnocentric
epoche”
• Self-negation of subjectivity
• Objectivity at all time: asexual
anthropologist
Historical and institutional
contexts:
• USA: emphasis on scientific objectivism
required to record cultures
• UK: functionalist emphasis on ontology as
opposed to epistemology
• Passive anthropologist was required free
from subjective interference and
contamination
This notion that the
ethnographer was a detached
gatherer of facts imposed
constraints on the importance
of personal behaviour and
desires of both the locals and the
anthropologist relations
12.19.17. Got up at 7. Yesterday, under
the mosquito net, dirty thoughts: Mrs..
(H.P); Mrs. C. and even Mrs. W…. I
thought that even if E. R. M. had been
here, this would not have satisfied me.
Dirty thoughts about C. R. The doctrine
of this man that you’re doing a woman a
favour if you deflower her…(1967: 156).
Can ignoring the importance of
sex in field research be
theoretically and
methodologically problematic?
***
• Silence could obstruct the process of
understanding the theoretical,
methodological and personal
consequences of sexual encounters, and
desires, in the field
(Ashkenazi and Markowitz) Sexuality
issues have become important because:
• Research on women, sex roles, gender ideology and
sexuality became important subject matter of anthropology.
• The recognition of the centrality of subjectivity in
understanding cultural meanings including sexual
behaviour.
• By recognising subjectivity we have also recognised the
imbalance of power in personal relationships
It becomes clear that:
• People do not accept the notion that the
anthropologists in the field is mentally and
cultural asexual
• Silencing of sexuality became a reflection
of other types of silencing; shaping people
into a mould
• Illuminates the politics of anthropology
Lack of attention of sexual matters involving
researchers and informants reflects not only
on societal avoidance of public discussion of
issues surrounding sexual relations but also it
reflects on the history of anthropology
Sexual drives have powerful influences
on social behaviour (Winkelman 1999)
• Sexual intimacy: can help you manage
your drives in particular contexts:
• Understand mores about sexual
behaviour
• Problems: loosing objectivity going native
• Escape challenges in the new culture
• Find a safe identity
• Rapid language learning
By considering sexuality we learn that:
• Sexual relationships can play an important role in
helping anthropologist adapt to and learn about
another culture
• With time the priorities of the discipline are
changing
• The main issue in anthropological understandings
is experience: sexuality differ from culture to
culture, from context to context and from person
to person
Why is the discussion of sexuality and
the anthropologists still considered
risky?
• Fear of exposing people to activities still
considered taboo
• Writing on a genre that blurs the boundaries
between ethnography and autobiography invites
criticism of self indulging, navel gazing, and lack
of credibility
• May endanger carefully cultivated relationships
with informants
Discussion questions
• Do sexual matters in field research have an
impact in all types of anthropological
understandings?
• What kind of an impact does sexuality have
in anthropology today?