Disputed Questions: The Debates...Part 3 - Open Anthropology Cooperative2019-11-03T23:45:44Zhttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/forum/topics/disputed-questions-the-1?feed=yes&xn_auth=noThis brings the debate series…tag:openanthcoop.ning.com,2010-08-30:3404290:Comment:734012010-08-30T15:17:11.047ZNeil Turnerhttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/profile/NeilTurner
This brings the debate series to a close. A sincere thanks to all who contributed and participated.<br />
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tchau...
This brings the debate series to a close. A sincere thanks to all who contributed and participated.<br />
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tchau... A superficial answer is "Of c…tag:openanthcoop.ning.com,2010-08-17:3404290:Comment:695522010-08-17T01:52:24.077ZJohn McCreeryhttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/profile/JohnMcCreery
A superficial answer is "Of course." A somewhat deeper answer is to say that we need to consider how multiple identies affect particular lives; but that is only to pose the problem. One critical issue is how to assess the relative salience or importance of the identities in question. One possible measure might be the amounts of time invested in one or the other. Thus, for example, it is often noted that in classically modern societies the workplace and home are separated. For men one typical…
A superficial answer is "Of course." A somewhat deeper answer is to say that we need to consider how multiple identies affect particular lives; but that is only to pose the problem. One critical issue is how to assess the relative salience or importance of the identities in question. One possible measure might be the amounts of time invested in one or the other. Thus, for example, it is often noted that in classically modern societies the workplace and home are separated. For men one typical result has been more time invested in the job than in the family. This finding suggests cross-cultural and historical comparisons. The organization men described by William Foote Whyte (USA, Chicago, 1950s) were typically home by six o'clock in the evening. They had time for dinner with the family, neighborhood baseball games and other community activities. Longer working hours, after work socializing, and longer commutes meant that their Japanese counterparts in the 1970s and 1980s had far less time for family and community. If there was any substance to 1950s/1960s American moral panics about absent fathers, there was far greater reason for concern in Japan a couple of decades later.<br />
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Time invested is not, of course, the only possible measure of importance. A judge, for example, may spend more time sleeping than pronouncing judgments in court. To those affected by the judgments the amount of time the judge sleeps may be of little concern, unless, of course, he was sleeping during relevant testimony. Lots to consider here.<br />
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<cite>Carolina Maria said:</cite><blockquote cite="http://openanthcoop.ning.com/forum/topics/disputed-questions-the-1?page=3&commentId=3404290%3AComment%3A69493&x=1#3404290Comment69493"><div>I am not in debate but when I think about society redefinition or try to adapt the traditional concept to the current times in which globalization (different ethnic backgrounds) and increasing numbers of different "communities" (sub-cultures of a society maybe? common status?) that one can belong.<br/> Our current "society" or "community" definitions, especially as a person's identity or to refer to a nation/town/community in whole, have grown much more complex, especially when one is now part of many different societies/communities in different levels... I would like to hear what you guys have to say about that.</div>
</blockquote> I am not in debate but when I…tag:openanthcoop.ning.com,2010-08-16:3404290:Comment:694932010-08-16T05:59:42.625ZCarolina Mariahttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/profile/CarolinaMaria
I am not in debate but when I think about society redefinition or try to adapt the traditional concept to the current times in which globalization (different ethnic backgrounds) and increasing numbers of different "communities" (sub-cultures of a society maybe? common status?) that one can belong.<br />
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Our current "society" or "community" definitions, especially as a person's identity or to refer to a nation/town/community in whole, have grown much more complex, especially when one is now part of…
I am not in debate but when I think about society redefinition or try to adapt the traditional concept to the current times in which globalization (different ethnic backgrounds) and increasing numbers of different "communities" (sub-cultures of a society maybe? common status?) that one can belong.<br />
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Our current "society" or "community" definitions, especially as a person's identity or to refer to a nation/town/community in whole, have grown much more complex, especially when one is now part of many different societies/communities in different levels... I would like to hear what you guys have to say about that. In trying to catch up with th…tag:openanthcoop.ning.com,2010-08-12:3404290:Comment:692652010-08-12T08:48:08.382ZMAI Saptennohttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/profile/MAISaptenno
In trying to catch up with the course of discussion, I’ve found myself thinking again of the practice-based model in anthropology as discussed among others by Ortner who considers society as not only responding and adapting to the particulars, but is governed by certain social practices within an integral whole. As a consequence of the reinterpretation of cultures, these practices have shown that although some societies are experiencing dramatic changes, leaping from an agricultural-based…
In trying to catch up with the course of discussion, I’ve found myself thinking again of the practice-based model in anthropology as discussed among others by Ortner who considers society as not only responding and adapting to the particulars, but is governed by certain social practices within an integral whole. As a consequence of the reinterpretation of cultures, these practices have shown that although some societies are experiencing dramatic changes, leaping from an agricultural-based society to industrial or information or knowledge society for instance, previous social practices remain relatively unchanged in the course of a heterogeneous global culture.<br />
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I view such argument as one of the logic to argue behind the process by way some societies in the developing countries responding and adapting to information technologies. In dealing with such reinterpretation, practice-based model for instance focuses on power relation, historic turn, and culture found among the works of some anthropologists, sociologists, and philosophers such as Scot, Bourdieu, Giddens, Sahlins, Geertz, and Foucault, with Marx and other marxist’s anthropologists in the backdrop. (I wouldn’t hesitate to place Laclau and Moufee, Zizek, and Deleuze and Guattari to address certain issues around this model). It is through this thread of thinking that I found that ideas of societies developed through their inclinations towards history, power and culture particularly as shown in the debates within Marxist and Weberian anthropology, very valuable to begin thinking of digital divide.<br />
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By looking at the ideas that power relation, historic turn, and culture as the base of change and continuity, following Gramsci who emphasized the process or the becoming and its consequences, I’ve found myself also reflecting on what Tsing termed as frictions within those integral whole or universals as a consequence of the global connection or interconnection. In pursuing mobilization for freedom and justice and empowerment in the face of a global scheme through the dynamic dialogs between culture and power as a result of the heterogeneous and unequal encounters, she regarded frictions in terms of how this duality framed in those universals becomes the challenges for anthropologists to deal with.<br />
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With these ideas in mind, while realizing the many lapses, I’ll say that the idea of society has continued to be in a complex dialog between power, history, and culture or in other context between praxis, utility, and the symbolic to understand how its evolvement around certain configurations has continued to show negotiated and/or articulated implications in terms of how social relations hold structure, change, and continuity. This reflection would probably be my strategy to meet further discussion on the network society. Keith writes,
If I were fram…tag:openanthcoop.ning.com,2010-08-11:3404290:Comment:691072010-08-11T04:07:06.642ZJohn McCreeryhttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/profile/JohnMcCreery
Keith writes,<br />
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<i>If I were framing a question along these lines, it would be: Anthropologists have never been serious about the study of contemporary society and now less than ever, but they ought to be. Discuss. Then someone else could come in with a critique of the idea of society that might lead us to abandon the concept altogether.</i><br />
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An interesting suggestion, but, I suggest, likely to proceed a bit too much along the lines of an old-fashion debate in the history of ideas. I offer once…
Keith writes,<br />
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<i>If I were framing a question along these lines, it would be: Anthropologists have never been serious about the study of contemporary society and now less than ever, but they ought to be. Discuss. Then someone else could come in with a critique of the idea of society that might lead us to abandon the concept altogether.</i><br />
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An interesting suggestion, but, I suggest, likely to proceed a bit too much along the lines of an old-fashion debate in the history of ideas. I offer once again what is, to me, a more promising perspective rooted in what P.W. Bridgman called "<a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/operationalism/" target="_blank">operationalism</a>," which seems to me congenial with both a properly social anthropology and current trends in science-and-technology studies and economic sociology.<br />
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At the heart of this approach is the proposition that instead of endless debates about the academic genealogies and subtle variations of ideas, we focus instead on what people have done with ideas and the social and material conditions in which ideas were deployed. In this spirit, I have already suggested that, operationally speaking, what "society" meant to British social anthropologists in the heyday of structural-functionalism was a set of basic, and typically interrelated, questions about ownership and transmission of property, kinship, marriage and succession to office. Answers to these questions became a framework on which discussion of customs, habits, conventional sentiments, myths and ritual symbols could all be hung. The operating assumption was the presence of a body of jural rules (the unwritten equivalent of law) that applied to those living within the borders of a particular administrative/geographical units.<br />
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The attempt to extend this approach to, for example, defeated Native Americans living on reservations, members of immigrant diasporas, or jet-setting cosmopolitans, like the overseas Chinese "flexible citizens" studied by Aiwah Ong, were bound to run into trouble. Whose laws apply becomes a question of extreme sensitivity. The notion that people's lives are primarily constrained by a local set of jural rules becomes increasingly implausible.<br />
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One observes that the Jewish merchant whose sheep were stolen by the Berber tribesmen whose case illustrates Clifford Geertz's call for "thick description" got his sheep back under the watchful eye of the French Foreign Legion. Instead of a "these were the rules" analysis, more careful attention to the various perspectives of merchant, tribesmen, and colonial military enforcers and how they interacted was called for. As the title of Chinua Achebe's <i>Things fall apart</i> suggests, the old notion of a society as a cohesive unit held together by shared rules had come to seem absurd.<br />
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These are the "facts on the ground" to which we must attend as we reconsider what society might mean in this the 21st century. Looking at how anthropologists now address them may be a more useful exercise than resurrecting the ghosts of social theorists past. On this point, what Keith has written is, to me, spot on. UPDATE: Daniel Lende has an i…tag:openanthcoop.ning.com,2010-08-11:3404290:Comment:691052010-08-11T03:27:29.972ZJohn McCreeryhttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/profile/JohnMcCreery
UPDATE: Daniel Lende has <a href="http://neuroanthropology.net/2010/08/10/death-becomes-us/" target="_blank">an intriguing post at Neuroanthropology</a> on what anthropologists might contribute to the study of premature mortality. Harvard MD/sociologist Nicholas Christakis has recently become newsworthy with the publication of his and James Fowler's <a href="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Connected/Nicholas-A-Christakis/e/9780316036146" target="_blank">Connected: The Surprising Power of Our…</a>
UPDATE: Daniel Lende has <a href="http://neuroanthropology.net/2010/08/10/death-becomes-us/" target="_blank">an intriguing post at Neuroanthropology</a> on what anthropologists might contribute to the study of premature mortality. Harvard MD/sociologist Nicholas Christakis has recently become newsworthy with the publication of his and James Fowler's <a href="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Connected/Nicholas-A-Christakis/e/9780316036146" target="_blank">Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.</a>.<br />
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<cite>John McCreery said:</cite><blockquote cite="http://openanthcoop.ning.com/forum/topics/disputed-questions-the-1?xg_source=activity&id=3404290%3ATopic%3A59858&page=2#3404290Comment63640"><div>It is hard to argue with the proposition that one of the major challenges of anthropology is the redefinition of the concept of society. The redefinition of society in light of forms of social life unfamiliar to the larger audiences to whom the anthropologist hopes to speak has long been part of the discipline's stock in trade. We are, as Mary Douglas once put it, the people who read a sociological proposition, raise our hands and say, "Not in Bongo-Bongo."<br/> <br/>
Keith points, however, to a deeper problem, i.e.,<br/>
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<i>an attempt to make the national model of society universal by finding its principles everywhere, even in so-called primitive societies. These principles included cultural homogeneity, a bounded location and an ahistorical presumption of eternity.</i><br/>
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Few here would disagree that the principles listed here are demonstrably false in a world of multicultural nations, global diasporas, and what at least appears to be accelerating change.<br/>
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The question is, then, what anthropologists have to contribute to a larger conversation about what society is and properly demands of its members. Keith suggests that we need to,<br/>
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<i>renew our engagement with the discipline's 18th and 19th century antecedents, with a humanist philosophical critique aiming at democratic revolution and a world history adequate to our current planetary dilemmas.</i><br/>
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This is certainly one possible approach, but not the only one. I think of the renewed interest in the relationship of human biology to human behavior exemplified by sites like <a rel="nofollow" href="http://neuroanthropology.net/" target="_blank">Neuroanthropology</a> or <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.edge.org/" target="_blank">the current Edge debate "The New Science of Morality."</a> These look forward instead of backward, to current science instead of dusty philosophies. The same might be said of the social network analysis in which I am currently engaged.<br/>
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Philosophy, or science, or both? An what can we, as ethnographers or as scholars with a broader than usual awareness of the range of human possibilities contribute to these enterprises? These, I suggest, are the questions to which this discussion points us.</div>
</blockquote> Neil, you have raised a numbe…tag:openanthcoop.ning.com,2010-08-10:3404290:Comment:667632010-08-10T20:24:34.010ZKeith Harthttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/profile/KeithHart
Neil, you have raised a number of issues that could be debated in quite polarized terms: that society is a western ethnocentric notion, an expression of ruling class ideology or an uninspected concept that anthropologists have taken for granted or that contemporary anthropologists are less sensitive to the issues than their forefathers were and so on. I could dispute all of those assertions and all of them are more precise than the original question.<br />
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Whether ideas that come out of western…
Neil, you have raised a number of issues that could be debated in quite polarized terms: that society is a western ethnocentric notion, an expression of ruling class ideology or an uninspected concept that anthropologists have taken for granted or that contemporary anthropologists are less sensitive to the issues than their forefathers were and so on. I could dispute all of those assertions and all of them are more precise than the original question.<br />
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Whether ideas that come out of western history need to be abandoned or reformulated for use by a more diverse humanity or even constitute a means of continuing domination is a long-running question that has vociferous proponents on both sides.<br />
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I would argue that only some founders of the modern discipline took the idea of society seriously (mainly French and English) and Germans and Americans did not (which accounts for their preference for culture). The Marxist argument launched by Althusser is half a century old and no longer current. It was by-passed by the postmodern turn which has subjected the idea of society to withering critique for thirty years. What is Marilyn Strathern's work about if not the dethroning of society and its twin the individual? And she is not exactly a neglected wallflower.<br />
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So I think that your contribution has sharpened up the issues considerably, but you must be careful of claiming that society is and has been for decades a central part of the unthinking anthropological mainstream. In this respect anthropologists have followed the denigration of society begun by Thatcher and the neoliberals, if they were ever into it in the first place. That's why I circulated the Tony Judt essay about the need to put the social back into democracy. He claims that it has become impossible to develop a coherent analysis of social dimensions of contemporary politics and he's probably right.<br />
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If I were framing a question along these lines, it would be: Anthropologists have never been serious about the study of contemporary society and now less than ever, but they ought to be. Discuss. Then someone else could come in with a critique of the idea of society that might lead us to abandon the concept altogether. NOTE: It has been difficult t…tag:openanthcoop.ning.com,2010-08-10:3404290:Comment:653092010-08-10T17:48:48.992ZNeil Turnerhttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/profile/NeilTurner
NOTE: It has been difficult to find anyone that would propose or oppose the operative question in this particular sequence of the debates. Perhaps, due to the vagueness of the question or the difficulty in opposing a term that has long been embedded within the drapery of Western culture. Nevertheless, we would like to continue our pursuit of this issue hoping to force into the light other relative points that may come out in further discussion. Thanks to all the participants.<br />
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tchau,
NOTE: It has been difficult to find anyone that would propose or oppose the operative question in this particular sequence of the debates. Perhaps, due to the vagueness of the question or the difficulty in opposing a term that has long been embedded within the drapery of Western culture. Nevertheless, we would like to continue our pursuit of this issue hoping to force into the light other relative points that may come out in further discussion. Thanks to all the participants.<br />
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tchau, As a related note, it is my u…tag:openanthcoop.ning.com,2010-08-10:3404290:Comment:653082010-08-10T14:17:05.115ZNeil Turnerhttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/profile/NeilTurner
As a related note, it is my understanding that there is still an ongoing debate in some sociological and anthropological circles as to whether there exist an entity we could call society. Some Marxist theorists, like Louis Althusser, Ernesto Laclau and more recently Slavoj Zizek, have argued that society is nothing more than an effect of the ruling ideology and is not an accurate description that should be used.<br />
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Formerly, the founders of modern sociology Pareto, Durkheim, Weber and Sombart…
As a related note, it is my understanding that there is still an ongoing debate in some sociological and anthropological circles as to whether there exist an entity we could call society. Some Marxist theorists, like Louis Althusser, Ernesto Laclau and more recently Slavoj Zizek, have argued that society is nothing more than an effect of the ruling ideology and is not an accurate description that should be used.<br />
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Formerly, the founders of modern sociology Pareto, Durkheim, Weber and Sombart also stressed difference in their ideas and concepts of society, social and natural, especially in terms of the differences in human actions. Today, on the other hand, we realize that the conditions of the term demand a certainty that defines the diversity of humankind. That is to say, to what extent our modern world with its contemporary difficulties diverges from its description and use.<br />
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Clearly, every postulate in sociology and anthropology contain and use this term as a prerequisite when referring to a particular people, a nation state, or to a broader cultural group. For instance, some social sciences use the term to refer to a group of people that form a semi-closed system; more abstractly as a network of relationships; at other times, as an independent community. And still other scholars believe that society is an abstract term, that is to say, it cannot be seen or touched and therefore does not exist in the same way that people exist. Yet, each seeks to draw contrasts between the other. Should we not as anthropologists examine such terminology and the theory from which it emerges more closely? Did not the founders of anthropological schools of thought examine the course of the discipline that proceeded them only to find something insufficient or lacking before finding it necessary to introduce new perspectives?<br />
Are we being absurdly rational yielding to the use of terminology that no longer functions to accurately describe the multifarious greatness of humankind? It seems to me that one of the directions of anthropology should be to engage the redefinition of our terminology and to engage it from a different perspective in an attempt to make us think much harder about what we are willing to accept and what we are willing to believe.<br />
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tchau... I am not in the debate but yo…tag:openanthcoop.ning.com,2010-08-09:3404290:Comment:652292010-08-09T21:39:06.843ZFernandezhttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/profile/MartaRosellFernandez
I am not in the debate but you have my vote for the simplicity of the definition of the term society.<br />
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<cite>M Izabel said:</cite><blockquote cite="http://openanthcoop.ning.com/forum/topics/disputed-questions-the-1?id=3404290%3ATopic%3A59858&page=2#3404290Comment60764"><div>Society, as a sociocultural term or concept, can be a research framework in itself if defined according to how a culture, a group, a population, or a geography understands and conceptualizes it.<br></br><br></br>There are…</div>
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I am not in the debate but you have my vote for the simplicity of the definition of the term society.<br />
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<cite>M Izabel said:</cite><blockquote cite="http://openanthcoop.ning.com/forum/topics/disputed-questions-the-1?id=3404290%3ATopic%3A59858&page=2#3404290Comment60764"><div>Society, as a sociocultural term or concept, can be a research framework in itself if defined according to how a culture, a group, a population, or a geography understands and conceptualizes it.<br/><br/>There are cultures whose words for society are based on socialization. Some define it according to group membership. Others consider it an imaginary space.<br/><br/>In my culture, our word for it is "lipunan", which is from the root word lipun (group) and the suffix -nan (converge). So, if I have to use how we define society in my fieldwork, I can look at it as a space where a group converges. I can, for instance, make the ocean as my focal point if I am in a fishing village to study a group of fishermen.</div>
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