Anthropology and Science

A recent Inside Higher Ed article, “Anthropology Without Science”, discusses the American Anthropological Associations recent changes to its’ “vision” (not definition for some reason) of Anthropology. I tried work a definition or two of anthropology into Chapter 2, and where I thought I’d really messed it up, it turns out others are having just as tough a time,

“More fundamentally, the dispute has brought to light how little common ground is shared by anthropologists who span a wide array of sub-specialties, said Elizabeth Cashdan, chair of anthropology at the University of Utah. For example, some anthropologists might mine the language and analytical tools favored by such humanities as literary criticism, while others may be more likely to deploy statistical methodology as befits social science. Still others might rely on the biological metrics, hard data and scientific method used by natural scientists. “This is reflective of tensions in the whole discipline,” said Cashdan, a bio-cultural anthropologist who described herself as “very dismayed” by recent developments.

Hugh Gusterson leaves a great rebuttal, pointing out that the new definition does not dismiss science and that the entire debate has been blown out of proportion,

“… The old wording said “The purposes of the Association shall be to advance anthropology as the science that studies humankind in all its aspects, through archeological, biological, ethnological, and linguistic research; and to further the professional interests of American anthropologists; including the dissemination of anthropological knowledge and its use to solve human problems.” The new wording says, “The purposes of the Association shall be to advance public understanding of humankind in all its aspects. This includes, but is not limited to, archaeological, biological, social, cultural, economic, political, historical, medical, visual, and linguistic anthropological research.” The document goes on to make numerous references to “anthropological knowledge, expertise, and interpretation.” Fair-minded people will recognize this as a modest change and will see that science is still there in the mission statement (after all, what are biology and archeology if not sciences?) even if the wording has been slightly changed. You would think from some of the hysterical statements here that the AAA had issued a statement condemning science. ”

The new emphasis on “public understanding” is interesting given the critiques I’ve read arguing that anthropology needs to engage itself in public debates, and that the “science” of anthropology has played a role in limiting its’ ability to engage itself beyond a select, expert, audience (who happen to depend on its’ success for their livelihood).

In other news, the thesis has moved to Google Docs, (wooops, apologies to readers, here I mean, MY thesis draft), and it is open to edits and comments from anyone online. Printed draft by Monday? It is going to end!! incredible really.

See also,
“The Joy of Pseudoscience”
http://nodivide.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/the-joy-of-pseudo-science/

A changing anthropology? Some notes and quotes.

Helping to define the “anthropology” and “change” parts of the thesis question, “how is the internet fueling change in anthropology?”:

“The intellectual history of the nineteenth century is marked above all by this disciplinarization and professionalization of knowledge, that is to say, by the creation of permanent institutional structures designed both to produce new knowledge and to reproduce the producers of knowledge. The creation of multiple disciplines was premised on the belief that systematic research required skilled concentration on the multiple separate arenas of reality, which was partitioned rationally into distinct groupings of knowledge. Such a rational division promised to be effective, that is, intellectually productive.”

(Wallerstein et al. 1996:6)

This much isn’t new: Being a student of anthropology has always been a pain in the !@# .

“In the course of the nineteenth century, the various disciplines spread out like a fan, covering a range of epistemological positions. At one end lay, first, mathematics (a nonempirical activity) and next to it the experimental natural sciences (themselves in a sort of descending order of determinism – physics, chermistry, biology). at the other end lay the humanities (or arts and letters), starting with philosophy (the pendant of mathematics, as a nonempirical activity) and next to it the study of formal artistic practices (literatures, painting and sculpture, musicology), often coming close in their practice to being history, a history of the arts. And in between the humanities and the natural sciences, thus defined, lay the study of social realities, with history (idiographic) closer to, often part of, faculties of arts and letters, and “social science” (nomothetic) closer to the natural sciences. Amidst an ever-hardening separation of knowledge into two different spheres, each with a  different epistemological emphasis, the students of social realities found themselves caught in the middle, and deeply divided on these epistemological issues. (p9)”

Challenging collaboration:

“The creation of multiple disciplines of social science was part of the general nineteenth-century attempt to secure and advance “objective” knowledge about “reality” on the basis of empirical findings (as opposed to “speculation”). The intent was to “learn” the truth, not invent or intuit it. The process of institutionalization of this kind of knowledge activity was not at all simple or straightforward. For one thing, it was not at first clear whether this activity was to be a singular one or should rather be divided into the several disciplines, as later occured. Nor was it at the outset clear what was the best route to such knowledge, that is, what kind of epistemology would be most fruitful or even legitimate. Least of all was it clear whether the social sciences could in some sense be thought to constitute a “third culture” that was “between science and literature,” in the later forumation of Wolf Lepenies. In fact, none of these questions has ever been definitively resolved. All we can do is to note the actual decisions that were made, or the majority positions that tended to prevail.”

(Wallerstein et al. 1996:14)

Working through a maze of disagreement = being an anthro student, online or off.

On a changing publishing environment where visibility and accessibility are not tied to prestige:

“The first thing to note is where this institutionalization took place. There were five main locales for social science activity during the nineteenth century: Great Britain, France, the Germanies, the Italies, and the United States. Most of the scholars most of the universities (of course, not all) were located in these five places. The universities in other countries lacked the numerical weight or international prestige of those in these five. To this day, most of the nineteenth-century works that we still read were written in one of these five locales.”

(Wallerstein et al. 1996:14

Interesting then, to look at Max’s post about the distribution of Open Access Journals listed on the Directory of Open Access Journals. He writes:

Either way, open access publishing in anthropology is primarily not a North American phenomenon, and in the case of Anthropology listings that exclude Ethnology, it is primarily not a North American/European phenomenon. Indeed, the very Directory of Open Access Journals itself is not a North American innovation, but rather a Scandinavian one, and the host for it is Lund University Libraries. The innovations in the distribution, dissemination, and circulation of anthropology are coming in large part from the so-called periphery and semi-periphery of the world system, and outside of the disciplinary centre of gravity in terms of the accumulated mass of anthropologists and anthropology programs in the U.S. and western Europe. One can only speculate about what that will mean should the predominant mode of anthropological publishing in North America (commercial print, by subscription) collapse under the weight of its own contradictions and unsustainability. Suddenly the centre of anthropological publishing would shift to currently non-hegemonic entities.

Tie this with a recent study which showed that Humanities and Social Science journals did not pay much attention to where authors came from and that most of authors came from a particular geographic region (U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia) reveal one of anthropology’s “walls” so to speak. The adoption of Open Access by academics helps to deterritorialize research accessibility. Language boundaries remain.

It is also interesting to examine how a students blog can dominate certain key words on search engines, when anthropologists write so much about those words in academic journals. Does academic research need to be accessible online? If it isn’t, what takes its place?

knowledge mobilization

Last month I had the pleasure of attending a talk by David Yetman, discussing a program developed at Memorial University that works to “mobilize knowledge” between the university and outside interests. The program acts as a liaison of sorts, between interested community members and interested researchers. It’s an open door for communities to invite researchers to participate in questions relevant to them.

The program is interdisciplinary and completely voluntary. Yetman admitted that collaboration between faculty members and administration is a tricky thing, and that for this reason the program members actively sought out responsive members in the faculty, and worked with them, rather than trying to change the minds of those uninterested in collaborative research projects.

The project staff, “knowledge mobilization officers” work as a kind of knowledge broker – in many ways facilitating the business side of research, helping find funding, but also facilitate ways to disseminate research in ways appropriate to the project (perhaps pointing to the need for multiple styles of research publication, in that the standard journal publication may not be what is needed).

They have also been developing a search engine/database for research projects community members are interested in. The database provides researchers and community members a way to connect. The database would allow researchers to look for relevant research questions, and link them to members of the community that would help with it. He mentioned the need for “finding audiences” for academic research, and that “80% of what we do is building relationships”.

Pushing the business angle did cause my anthropological ears to ring a little.  The “benefit to society” thing has been done to death in my readings for this project, and while increased collaboration was argued to benefit society, Yetman also said that knowledge mobilization officers “do not pass judgment on the type of project”, but that an ethics guideline was in the works.

I asked if knowledge mobilization officers, being interested in “finding audiences”, advocated Open Access publication of research – and I was disappointed to learn the program had not yet explored Open Access Publishing (and even though the program is small, and just starting, I still choke swallowing this one…). I promised myself I’d check back with them down the road to see if information on Open Access Publishing couldn’t be provided by the knowledge mobilization officers as standard practice.   [just editing this, and again, how do you talk about mobilizing knowledge, and ignore Open Access? uggh!]  [thinking more on it, I think Yetman comes from a medical research background, and I have no idea how well received open access publishing is in that area]

Looking at the relationship between academia and surrounding communities, and having this opportunity to see it more generally through multiple disciplines, I appreciate ethnography more. Not so much the value of ethnography as a “scientific method”, but the lessons one can learn looking at anthropology’s often brutal relationship with people/communities/states [things that make you go "hmm..."]. I asked Yetman how disputes would be settled between researchers and community members inviting research – what happens when the research doesn’t go as planned? Yetman admitted this was a challenge, but he felt that the knowledge mobilization officer, while not responsible for such a situation, would still be able to lend a hand. He said in no way would the knowledge mobilization officer, nor the community member inviting the research, have any control over the research output.

I also asked about Minerva style funding, and how interests could be balanced out – if at all. He said that many researchers would be interested in military funding, and admitted that large-scale funding could be an issue if it were let to dominate research agendas. Here exists the problem of promoting collaboration without judging “good or bad”. Ie: in the article linked at the bottom of this post, it discusses knowledge mobilization as coming from technology transfer, which involves patents, and making profit. So maybe this program will end up promoting the “closed” side of the intellectual property debate.)

Even if it ignores ethical issues, steps around research responsibility, and hasn’t yet figured out how important open access publishing is, it does do one thing that I like – it opens a door for people to approach the university with their questions and concerns.

While a liaison can help on the community side, I still think anthropologists have the right idea building collaboration into the research methods, and to facilitating the collaboration themselves. Ie: do we need a special database to find relevant research questions, when we have the internet, or live in a local community? Are these issues not constantly being discussed in the news,  on blogs, and on youtube? Yes, at least with online ethnography. A knowledge mobilization office could help researchers get their feet into the community however, and help local organizations advertise their issues and interests.

I would have kept the questions pouring, but few others were participating so I shut up and talked to him when the talk finished. I explained my interest in “sharing knowledge” and Open Access, and when I told him I was in the anthropology program he told me he always got a great response from anthropologists, who he said expressed more interested in community collaboration. During the talk he also mentioned how the program was new, but tried to incorporate what it could from participatory research methods that have been developing in anthropology and other disciplines. [he mentioned proactive and reactive strategies, community workshops hosted in different areas in the region]

One audience member inquired about measuring and quantifying the success of such collaborations – Yetman replied that was a challenge, but that qualitative assessments seemed to work pretty well.

Here is an article discussing some of the projects successes and strategies:

“Putting Knowledge Into Practice”

http://www.universityaffairs.ca/putting-knowledge-into-practice.aspx

[on the first round writing this, I used the word "interested" about 20 times. ]

open anthropology cooperative

I’m a bit late (ignoring this blog to write a thesis of course), but if you haven’t heard yet, anthropologists have come together to form the “open anthropology cooperative”. The project has received a lot of enthusiastic support, and couldn’t have started off better! I’m looking forward to taking part, especially once I kick this flu… (did you hear its bloody 10 degrees in June? If only global warming was given a more descriptive name – like “montreal ice age, here we come”.

Sign up and participate at openanthcoop.ning.com.

new ethnography podcast

I’m excited to see Enkerli’s latest project, which he was “pondering” only a few weeks back, has already materialized. Check out the latest anthropology-related podcast, focusing on ethnography. Also take note of Enkerli’s new blog, “Informal Ethnographer”, and twitter accounts, which were created to develop and clarify professional and personal roles.

He writes:

“Here it is! The first episode of Rapport: The Informal Ethnographer Podcast.

As I was editing it, I noticed a number of flaws. For instance, there are several things I mispronounced there are some things I might have wanted to take out of it. But I maintain my RERO principle and I’m posting it as-is.

As this is the “enhanced podcast” version, with chapter markers, you can skip around as you please, between different sections. I should post MP3 files for the different sections but the official release will always be with the enhanced podcast.”

I’m heading home now to grab some headphones…

Kimberly Christen – Access and Accountability

(by way of Max’s twitter feed)

If you haven’t already, check out Kimberly Christen’s recent article “Access and Accountability: The Ecology Of Information Sharing in the Digital Age“, published in Anthropology Now.  Then check out the website referred to in the article.

The essay addresses the importance of respecting different norms for sharing information. She introduces the idea of creating knowledge sharing protocols that respect existing “ethical systems”.  Her work is one of the best examples I’ve found that considers anthropological sensitivities in relation to open access:

“As users maneuver through the site they can access information about specific places, their cultural significance and history. But within each area a random sampling of content is tagged with protocols that disturb their viewing. As a visitor begins to get acquainted with a place, a video clip may stop halfway through because the material is restricted by gender, or audio of a song may fade in and out because elements are restricted to only those who have been ritually initiated, or a photo may be only half visible because someone in the photo has died.

In every case, users must grapple with their own biases about information freedom and knowledge sharing online. After each restriction pops up with a short textual explanation, an animation plays describing the Warumungu protocols for that specific type of content. The site is designed to frustrate Internet users who function out of an “information wants to be free” paradigm—that is, those who expect that clicking on something or searching for information should necessarily result in unrestricted access to the materials they find. Our goal was to use the medium itself as a means of reflecting on the limits of the Internet to value other knowledge systems, and at the same time challenge people to take seriously different types of information distribution and production systems.”

(Christen 2009)

Another professor of mine shared similar concerns about open access sharing in an interview I held with him. I don’t have permission to post the discussion here, but he mentioned how he had done fieldwork among a group that considered certain kinds of information should be shared during certain seasons. For this reason he was unable to publish certain stories he had collected, as it would be disrespectful to the groups desire to share the information at certain times.

Big thanks to Kimberly Christen for a great article, and for stressing the valuable contributions anthropology can bring to the open access debate.

Related:

“Two Sides to Sharing Knowledge”

http://nodivide.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/sharing-knowledge-open-source-and-open-access/

Journalists, bloggers, and some anthropology

Over at Neuroanthropology Greg discusses a recent blog post at Nature, which brings up the challenges newspapers and journalists face in a recession. It argues that in tough times science reporting is one of the first cuts.  Now if you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know I don’t exactly consider myself a scientist, more a researcher. But in discussions like this, ‘science reporting’ probably reflects all research reporting. Greg comments on the reduction of professional science journalists:

“Increasingly amateurish science reporting will no doubt provide more howlers for us at Neuroanthropology.net, but it can’t be good for the public’s ability to really understand the crucial discoveries and challenges of the day. So much of the research that’s important right now increases the complexity of our understanding of the world that I’m afraid budgetary constraints will provide yet another force pushing for reductionary explanations in the public eye.

Fortunately, the upsurge in online commentary provides some counterbalance to the growing simplicity of science reporting, but the size of our public is so small that’s it’s discouraging at times. Initiatives like the Public Library of Science and open online access to so many academic journals make the science more available, but we still need a vigorous and expert public science journalism to sort through this research.”

I’m developing an outline, and load of notes, for the chapter I am writing about the Human Terrain System and how the blogsphere was an important place for discussion/argument (hmm… if I’ll give in to the ‘scientist’ label doing cultural anthropology, perhaps it is time I start using the word blogosphere too?). It ties in to a discussion to the ways cultural anthropologists are represented in different media – particularly the blogsphere, but also traditional mass media. I appreciate Greg’s comment that “our public is so small that it’s discouraging at times”, and this touches on the idea of amplification in the blogsphere.

As a small community, it is easier for our voices to be heard. Peter Suber discusses “the OA advantage” whereby those who publish OA become much more visible then those who don’t, simply because not enough people publish OA. To be one in a thousand means papers get read and cited that much more. I wonder how the anthropology blogsphere would change with a drastic increase in bloggers? I am optimistic they are coming, especially given the number of students I meet at Concordia who have started blogging their academic work, and given the rapid rise in the number of bloggers generally.

But back to journalists, I would suppose cultural anthropology has always had a tough time getting press. Will research blogging help popularize cultural anthropology? Can blogging research work as a way to stimulate anthropology outside the academy?

And in other news -

why so quiet recently? thesis writing is fun.

Ethnography, the internet, and an apprentice anthropologist. Draft.

In his book “Body and Soul”, Loic Wacquant discusses the way he approached his research on boxing and the ‘universe’ around it:

“The other virtue of an approach based on participant observation (which in this case, is better characterized as an “observant participation”) in a run-of-the-mill gym is that the materials thus produced do not suffer from the “ecological fallacy” that affects most available studies and accounts of the Manly art. Thus none of the statements reported here were expressly solicited, and the behaviors described are those of the boxer in his “natural habitat”, not the dramatized and highly codified (re)presentation that he likes to give of himself in public, and that journalistic reports and novels retranslate and magnify according to their specific canons.” (Wacquant 2004:6)

Part of ‘being there’ is to engage people in a more natural setting. More natural than say, sitting directly in front of a microphone. The day to day interactions can ‘correct’ or balance out representations based on ‘solicited questions’. Boxers, he argues, play up to stereotypes when interviewed (surveys won’t cut it, he is pushing ethnography to sociologists). His engaged long term participation allowed him another position – that of the apprentice. As an apprentice, there is less emphasis on general ‘otherness’ which avoids numerous issues of representation. He is a boxer, not an academic studying boxing from ‘afar’. Also a key point is that people can be represented, and can represent themselves, differently in the context of public media.

Applying these ideas to this research project – and to other ethnographic studies done online, we can ask, “is the blogsphere both public and natural?” A well disciplined ethnographer might argue that it is impossible to observe online interactions in person, without invading their homes and watching them type. Who are they? How old? What gender? Without knowing these things the interactions will lack necessary context. Following Wacquant’s argument that people represent themselves differently in public media, we can also ask what ways people represent themselves differently online. [link to studies on identity formation online]

This ties in to my chapter on “new ways of speaking”, and on knowing ones audience. I found I represented myself quite strangely on an academic list serv. Writing to hundreds of Ph.D’s somehow motivated me to write very differently, with more attitude, than I might normally. The language I used, call it pretentious, changed and to date I can barely re-read it.

Similarly, when I first started the blog, I would allow myself to comment on other peoples blogs more freely. The comment’s I would leave would be immediate gut reactions to posts. Sometimes I’d just be trying to make a joke, some stupid one-liner. And guess what, later on it stayed there as a stupid joke. It would have been fine in passing, but dumb jokes stick around forever in the blogsphere.

On many of the academic listservs I participate on, emotional outbursts frequently occur. I was relieved to see other people embarrassing themselves as much as I had, and eventually I got used to it, realizing we are all human beings who spazz out, act irrational, miss our morning coffee etc. Being able to send messages instantly means  that those spazzy emotional outbursts are bound to get archived. So be it.  Does this change the way I present myself? Absolutely. Can I avoid future embarrassment online? I doubt it. It’s a different place, but it’s still real life. I have no doubt that after going through such experiences, that online actions are every bit as real and embodied as offline ones.

Going back to Wacquant’s introduction, he discusses the first chapters goals:

“A reflection on an experience of apprenticeship in progress, this first part of the book pursues a triple objective. The first is to contribute precise and detailed ethnographic data, produced by means of direct observation and intensive participation, on a social universe that is all the more unknown for being the object of widely disseminated representations.”

I am an apprentice anthropologist, a student-researcher if you will, engaging myself online. Cultural anthropology is widely mis recognized, misinterpreted, and basically misunderstood outside the discipline. Anthropology bloggers are a new public face of anthropology, (as are the Human Terrain military anthropologists). That cultural anthropology is not well understood reflects a poor relationship between mass media and anthropologists. Perhaps anthropologists were irrelevant and uninteresting, or perhaps they were ignored because they were saying something unpopular. Thankfully Anthropology bloggers are playing a role in re-representing anthropology in the mass media, as the chapter, “Human Terrain System meet the Blogsphere” will detail.

The blogsphere is so widely disseminated, that it too can ‘mis-represent’. The blogsphere is filled with unedited drafts, drunken rants, emotional outbursts, passionate engagement, and yes bias. Already I am guilty of misrepresentation to some extent. When I blogged Johannes Fabian’s conference at Concordia, who would have guessed I would dominate Google’s index for a period of at least three weeks. As one discussion among many its contribution would be great, but as the only discussion available it can cause trouble. In other words, you need to be tapping into a crowd.

[link to online community and personal networks -> "tapping into wisdom of the crowds", and filtering information].

[moving all these undeveloped crap posts to Diigo if it works out]

References:

Wacquant, Loic. 2006. Body & Soul.  Oxford University Press.

What is anthropology? A Carnival of Answers.

Looking purely at this blog would be a terrible way to understand the question “what is anthropology?”. I will shed light on the question, usually by making it extremely complicated. A better way to learn about anthropology would be to read the “Four Stone Hearth” posts that circulate along blogs. It is a collaboration between anthropology bloggers of all kinds – scientists, activists, archaeologists, linguists, etc. If you want to see what interdisciplinary can do for you, this is a great way to learn.

Check out the 58th edition of Four Stone Hearth at Moneduloides.

It’s very cool to see what the biology side of anthropology is up to, and Modeduloides’ about page hooks cultural anthropologists brilliantly:

“Corvus moneduloides, or the New Caledonian Crow, is endemic to New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands of Melanesia. This particular species of Corvid is the only non-primate organism believed to pass on the knowledge of tool manufacture and manipulation from one generation to the next. It is argued that this could be considered “culture,” but this crow knows better than to argue culture with anthropologists.”

Not only that, but the author is a poet,  (and on open access, i love it!)

The joy of pseudo-science

[I should edit this and really distinguish cultural anthropology from "anthropology", but instead I won't since it reflects the confusion in my mind well.]

Call me a sucker, but I’ve always been one to jump into the “is anthropology a science?” debate. For most of my undergrad degree, being that I was in an arts program, I never assumed it was science. I met all sorts of activists talking about saving the world. But then came a challenging professor, who was adamant that it was a science. I took offense, and wondered “if this is science, can we call what used to be science something else? Because using the term for two very different things doesn’t make sense to me.” But that is exactly what was happening. I realized that anthropologists who consider it a science do not use the word science in the same way. They do not agree to definitions of science produced in the hard sciences, and instead redefine understand the word differently.

Next thing you know people are arguing about whether or not something is a science, when science itself is undefined! Does it matter if a study is scientific? What does that mean?

Here is a fantastic example of how such debates begin. The video is from Richard Feynman who wrote some great books, such as “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out” which I enjoyed a lot. He is also a freakin genius who worked on various nuclear devices, inspired thousands of students, writes incredibly well etc… Did I mention nobel prize winner? I could go on, but I prefer to criticize.

So what exactly is he saying? Not a lot. He argues “he knows that it means to know something”, and that “he doesn’t know the world very well”. So on one side, we can get better at *knowing* something, but how can we also “know about the world”?  Through pseudo-science and opinion? Yup.  (and throw in a heavy dose of everything non-academic.)

Or better yet, let’s stop thinking and just have smoke some orange juice!

[so how do we define 'social science'?]  -> and yet if we say it isn’t a science, what does that mean?

who cares about universal laws? -> being ‘pseudo-scientific’ isn’t a problem, + he’s completely right that anthropology borrowed heavily from the natural sciences, possibly out of necessity to get funding and respect. There are also debates in the blogsphere about how peer review, and even the journal format are borrowed and possibly maladapted to anthropology.

[is "scientific" language taken more seriously? ]

[what about linguistics? So many kinds of social science!] -> just because I’m not pushing science doesn’t mean others aren’t.

[here it comes ---->  anthropologist...

... as scientist
... as researcher
... as activist
... as artist
... as journalist
... as author                                            ]