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Stephanie Alonzo
Dr. Murdock & Andrus
English Comp 1001 (017)
30 October 2012
Bibliographic Essay: Anthropological Study
Over the last few decades, anthropology has engaged in a self-critical practice,
working toward a postcolonial standpoint on science and epistemological stand of partial
and situated knowledge (Pinxten, 2006; Pinxten & note, 2005). According to the article
written by Goedele A. M. De Clerck, anthropological and sociological studies have
introduced a new shift. There is the idea that the study into the deaf has an excellent
example, with supporting research, in a global context that is needed to deal with cultural
and linguistic diversity, in human beings and academia. In his scholarly article, he
examples that the deaf scholar’s have shown great concern about hypothesis and research
methods that do not take into account the unique and diverse cultural and social life of
members of the deaf community (435). Set aside the political view, there is a lack of
research that is provided for the young deaf people and there is an evolution into the deaf
community that has been taken for granted.
To look toward a broader point of view on anthropological and epistemological
study, Clerck uses Pinxten as an example to argue that both researches involve a doublebias situation. Although, both the researcher and the research subjects are biased, they are
both different. “Since the quality of the empirical data is crucial in anthropology, the
quality of the interaction that researchers participate in is decisive for theory
development,” states Pinxten. Today, the interaction between people with diverse
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backgrounds has increased greatly over the years. Anthropological research has revealed
a slow and gradual transformation and hybridization of cultures (437).
In the review article, “Diabetes And Stress: An Anthropological Review For
Study Of Modernizing Populations In The US-Mexico Border Region,” you can develop
a solid understand about diabetes and the studies behind it. Just like the high chance of
being born deaf or later in life losing the ability to hear, you face the chance of
developing diabetes. There are many anthropologists who are concerned with the high
numbers of people with diabetes among Indigenous people worldwide. “Diabetes is a
complex multi-factorial disorder, with genetic and environmental determinants.
Anthropologists have often tended to favor one or the other side, biomedical or
cultural, as the predominant explanation (Ely, J., T. Zavaskis, and S., L. Wilson, 2).”
According to the article, medical anthropologists are more concerned with the persons
live experience that is faced with diabetes. They are afraid of the way the body may
handle the illness and reflects sociocultural power relationships. On the other hand,
biological anthropologists often favor unidentified genetics that may seem suspicious.
With the study of anthropology one can learn a lot about protecting information
technologies and human diseases. Since the human body, past and present, is related to
the science of humanities are also associated in this idea, one can determine different
diseases by studying the human body. Although when we look at the word “virus” it
quickly makes you think of related disease. However, your body can change in many
different ways and these so called diseases can actually play an important role in your
body. This study can help determine the importance of such disease or viruses. Viewing
anthropology in a medical point can change the way you see certain ideas.
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A great example is the cranium that was discovered on the side of a river in
Canada. The head was unknown for several years. Since it was undiscovered who the
head belonged to or how it got to the location, it was placed in a museum to allow
scientist to do research. The research would help find out information on the cranium and
hopefully will be able to identify where and when it was put on the side of the river (Tim
Batchelder).
Anthropological analysis played a very important role in helping identify the
cranium. With visual inspection of the cranium, scientist quickly found important clues
that helped detect the cranium. Anthropological analysis was a very important factor in
this investigation. It help figure out if the cranium belonged to a child that was recently
missing at the time. Although scientist how little information things such as dental
information, skeletal ossification, and head circumference helped lead to the age-at-death.
During the feminist movement of the 1960s the influence on female
anthropologists has been outstanding in this country. According to the article
“Anthropological Studies on Women’s Status” the review is to catalog the various
explanations, which have been proposed to account for, observed similarities and
differences women’s status from society to society. The review also attempts to evaluate
the logic of different hypotheses and any common themes that are associated with them.
“Writers surveying the existing ethnographic evidence thus tend to bring to
notice, and accentuate, instances of exceptionally low (and much rarer instances of
exceptionally high) female status,” states Naomi Quinn (Tim Batchelder 182). This
review suggests that it is more accurate and also more helpful to future research that
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could be happening; the idea to treat women’s status as a composite of many different
variables, often causally independent one from another.
Anthropologists generalizing from other’s ethnographic accounts may supply
ideas to another level of male bias. Writers have pointed out that the penetration of
Western colonialism, and with it Western practices and attitudes regarding women, have
so widely influenced women’s role in aboriginal societies as a depress women’s status
almost everywhere in the world (Tim Batchelder 184).
The idea of a headache has been taught since we were old enough to know what a
headache was. It simply was a pain in our head that either pulsed or just gave us
discomfort. However, this study has been studied in anthropological vision from a
neurological point of view. With the increasing number of patients who face headaches
the idea of studying this was a great idea to specialist in this context. They are many ways
that people deal with a headache depending on there culture. The healing idea of a native
may be different from people today in America. “The ethnobotanical knowledge and the
different treatments performed by several isolated American native cultures were also
studied,” states Francisco Javier Carod-Artal and Carolina Vasquez-Cabrera in the article,
An Anthropological Study About Headache and Migraine in Native Cultures From
Central and South America.
After studying three different tribes from Central and South America they were
able to gather enough information to make an excellent study on the case. Having
collected enough information, they were able to figure out the complex system of
religious rituals of healing a headache or migraine. This cross-cultural study is part of an
anthropological fieldwork during many years of work. Headache is translated into
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different languages as simply being in pain or hurt for a long period of time (Carod-Artal,
Francisco Javier, and Carolina Vazquez-Cabrera 836). In the different cultures they help
there people differently.
One may boil leaves of a shrub in order to relieve the migraine. Simply placing
the plant on the forehead can help with the pain. There are many different rituals that the
different people use to help with this study. Learning and studying what each mean was a
key factor in this study. It was also very important to understand why each culture
believed in what some way may see as ludicrous, rituals. It has been shown that in most
native cultures, most illnesses are to be treated with plants because of their beliefs in what
they provide.
On the other hand religion can be compared. The different cultures discussed
beliefs changed over time because of what science has taught us. We found out that today
in the United States, many people do not believe in using leafs and plants like the natives
because we have a better understand of science. We have developed different ways to get
over a headache or to cure anything that may be wrong with or bodies. After reading
more into religion, however, to get the religious point of view I find that the
anthropological study can be all over the place. Instead of approaching the traditional
idea in this study, they have a different way of studying religion. When studying different
ways priest believe in things verses rabbis, you can see there is a complete different idea
on belief based on cultural identity and group coherence.
When using different vocabulary to the different religions things may seem quit
strange; but the manuscript seems to have been translated from the Hebrew without
knowledge of the correct terminology (Gunter Stemberger 90). I feel like these beliefs are
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completely different but at the same time can connect together because they are different
ideas that have developed from anthropological beliefs. Despite what we are studying
everything comes back to religion belief and personal belief. Both seem to be close to
each other and model one another.
On the other hand, after reviewing the scholarly article, “Thinking and Doing
Otherwise: Anthropological Theory in Exhibitionary Practice,” you can find the
difference in an actual university study verses a museum about the study of anthropology.
Back to this idea of translation, in this scholarly paper written by Mary Bouquet from the
University of Utrech, she explains the anthropological theory in the general sense of
translation. There are two types of people involved: museum people and academic
people.
Each has their own idea on what the outcome of the study should be like based off
what they have seen and studied in the past. No matter what belief comes down to what
you want to think. Like all of the other topics that have been covered it is clear to see that
each tie together in one-way or another. According to this article, there are different ideas
in thinking and doing based off of two different groups of people. First we have the
museum people who picture things from the passed that stay in an area that is preserved
and studied from. However, there are also the academic people who prefer to study ideas
out of textbooks or essays to understand what something means.
“Museum people can be vitriolic about recent academic interest in museums, and
about what seems to them the naivety bordering on ignorance with which the
theoreticians pronounce on their new-found territory,” states Mary Bouquet (218). She
continues to say, “some academics still appear to regard museums with a disdain
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comparable to philosophers of science and historians of idea, who prefer to avoid the
laboratory- ‘that repugnant kitchen in which concepts are smothered in trivia’ (Latour
1993:21).”
In order to tie all of the main ideas of the different articles together, I found a very
helpful article that brings all the concepts together. Written by Peter van der Veer,
“Religion, Secularism, and the Nation” talks about the anthropological vision of each
three topics. According to the article, Indian anthropology is a surprised in the 1970s and
1980s. There are very little contact with Indian anthropologists and have been hardly
influenced by them. When working on the countryside, there was not a very high value
among the young scholars. Over the many years, things have gotten worse. The article
states, “In general one may argue that the overall situation in Indian universities has
deteriorated and that the social sciences, except for perhaps Economics, have taken a
severe beating by university micro-politics and also by nationalist macro-politics (380).”
These. If one may wish to look farther into the study of religion of the India religion, one
may have to address the relation with religious studies. Diana Eck published Parry’s book
on Banaras after a religious studies monograph authored. “Despite the heavy reliance on
textual traditions, however, religious studies have provided important interpretations of
living Hinduism, especially concerning the theology and folklore around major Sanskritic
gods, like Shiva, Hanuman, Rama, and Krishna” (282).
In conclusion, after researching this topic I have found that there are many
different fields of the anthropological study. Rather you are looking mainly at the
religious aspect or the scientific point of view. You can determine there are different
views after reviewing threw the many sources.
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Work Cited
Batchelder, Tim. “Anthropology And Information Immunity.” Townsend Letter For
Doctor & Patients (250) (2004): 148- 151. Alt. HealthWatch. Web. 2 Oct. 2012
Bouquet, Mary. “Thinking And Doing Otherwise: Anthropological Theory In
Exhibitionary Practice.” Ethnos: Journal Of Anthropology 65.2 (2000): 217-236.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.
Carod-Artal, Francisco Javier, and Carolina Vazquez-Cabrera. “An Anthropological
Study About Headache And Migraine In Native Cultures From Central And South
America.” Headache: The Journal Of Head & Face Pain 47.6 (2007): 834-841.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.
De Clerck, Goedele A. M. “Deaf Epistemologies As A Critique And Alternative To The
Practice Of Science: An Anthropological Perspective.” American Annals Of The
Deaf’154.5 (2010): 435-446. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 1 Nov.
2012.
Ely, J., T. Zavaskis, and S., L. Wilson. “Diabetes And Stress: An Anthropological
Review For Study of Modernizing Populations In The US-Mexico Border
Region.” Rural & Remote Health 11.3 (2011): 1-17. CINAHL Plus with Full Text.
Web. 1 Nov. 2012.
Gearing, Frederick O., and B. Allan Tindall. “Anthropological Studies Of The
Educational Process.” Annual Review Of Anthropology 2.(1973): 95-105.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Nov. 2012
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Quinn, Naomi. “Anthropological Studies Of Women’s Status.” Annual Review Of
Anthropology 6 (1997): 181-225. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Nov. 2012
Stemberger, Gunter. “A Roadmap To The Heavens: An Anthropological Study Of
Hegemony Among Priests, Sages, And Laymen.” Journal For The Study Of
Judaism: In The Persian Hellenistic & Roman Period 42.1 (2011): 89-90.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.
Van der Veer, Peter. “Religion, Secularism, And The Nation.” India Review 7.4 (2008):
378-396. Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.