First Blog Post: Cultural Descriptions Part A + B
1. The words I have chosen "exotic" "clan" "opulence" " charm-box" "Nacirema"
For my second word I picked "been expressed with respect to clan organization by Murdock" I used the word clan as normally we would call such things as a community or a civilization, if there was only a certain number of them the word clan would be one of the most reasonable factors to the miners.
"The opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number of such ritual centers it possesses." I am using the word opulence, the sentence followed how many items were inside of the ritual centers. I highlighted this because for the minors this could be just another factor in their civilization the same that they would say to us if they were to point out our Christian Buddhist Catholic or Muslim temples and highlight the same.
"We can only assume that the idea in retaining all the old magical materials is that their presence in the charm-box" I picked the word charm box as a related to the old magical materials within their possession. This is another factor we can take on if we were studying civilization in different terms and different methods at which they would handle very important things, even involving religion like we do.
" The Nacirema have an almost pathological horror of and fascination with the mouth, the condition of which is believed to have a supernatural influence on all social relationships" Nacirema is a term for the different moving factors in someone’s behavior and the society of the United States of America. You can identify the United States and its aspects of culture. We can look to use this word in order to compare to the minors and what they do in regard to their civilization and have both of them mirrored at the same time to see any overlaps.
PART B
1. I ultimately did not pick the correct words, but I will try my best to answer the question and to identify more closely next time what the assignment is asking for. I picked the words that I did to accurately describe the behavior in the question whether it was exotic in regard to explaining how people behave in certain situations. As an American would end up not quite understanding certain things as they would be an outsider when looking at them and their life. I focused on the word clan as depending on their geological location there may only be a small group running the local community instead of me being as an American living within a suburban civilization with hundreds of thousands of people surrounded around me. I referred to the word opulence in regard to the ritual centers any civilization would most likely have a dependence on God similar to what we do, it is what helps people transition into death. I then brought up a charm box they talked about it being used for old magical materials once again going hand-in-hand in regard to the ritual centers and for the final word Nacirema this is mentioned within the influence on social relationships similar to what we have here in the west.
2.After reviewing everything that I had written down I do unfortunately think that there is a lot of bias within my writing in regard to making assumptions on their religious activities and how they work together as a clan or a civilization, ultimately, I believe I should be careful when making jumps in assumptions when comparing, I would need further pieces of data in order to elaborate on the correct conclusion.
Part A Review:
ReplyDeleteI am only scoring this part of the assignment for completion. I will post another comment on Friday after you submit Part B with feedback.
Five descriptive words recorded. (20/20)
Note that at most of the words you have chosen here is not an *adjectives*, i.e., descriptive words. The words "exotic" is an adjective, but the rest are names of things. This will be difficult to work with in Part B. Don't change it... just be aware of this issue.
Part B Review:
ReplyDelete1. " I ultimately did not pick the correct words."
Not sure if there are "correct" words but there are those that are more accurate and less biased than others.
As I noted, most of the words you chose are actually nouns and not *adjectives*. Naming things tends to avoid bias. Bias and judgment tends to sneak in when you describe.
For example, "clan" and "charm-box" are things. They just are. There is no bias in pointing out their existence. "Nacerima" is actually the name given to the culture Miner is describing. It looks like you figured out ahead of time what the 'secret" was to the Nacerima based upon your explanation in Part A, but the Nacerima ARE Americans. It doesn't represent some aspect of American culture. It IS the group of people who practice this culture. Choosing the name of the people and their culture isn't describing. It's naming them.
2. "After reviewing everything that I had written down I do unfortunately think that there is a lot of bias within my writing in regard to making assumptions on their religious activities"
The two descriptors that you chose ("opulence" and "exotic") actually don't refer to religion at all, though they can be used to describe religious activities and practices. I do see where you connect the word "opulence" to religious practices in your discussion in Part A. The bias is there, but did it arise from you or were you led to this bias from Miner's description of these practices? Miner intentionally wrote this article to be biased so that we could understand what it was like to have an outsider describe our practices with only observational knowledge.
3. "Clan" is a name of a type of organization. "Village" or "tribe" doesn't make it any more or less biased. It's just a name.
Now if you had used the term "clan-like" you would have been using an adjective. You would have needed to explain what you meant by the term. In anthropology, "clan" has a specific meaning: "An extended unilineal kin-group, often consisting of several lineages, whose members claim common descent from a remote ancestor, usually legendary or mythological." (From the glossary in your textbook, pg 394.) As an anthropologist, Miner was likely using the recognized definition of this term.
What about "exotic" or "opulence"? "Exotic" definitely carries a bias indicating "outside the norm" qualities. Do you have alternatives for them?
4. I agree that it would be ideal to be "bias free" but is that possible for anthropologists? We are only human after all and subject to errors and mistakes. Perhaps the best we can do is to be aware of our own biases to guard against them?
"we should lead the example to be as respectful to them as possible to not create any prejudice or stereotypes on them."
I agree that anthropologists need to recognize this responsibility. Our profession has not always done so, in part because early anthropologists failed to recognize their own bias.
There is an important question in the fourth prompt missing here, the question about whether description is sufficient or perhaps anthropologists would do better to understand and explain cultures, the 'hows' and the 'whys' offer a deeper, more complex, less superficial picture of a culture? What do you think?
Hello David, I found your post very interesting even though you had mentioned you didn't pick the right words you still made your posting work. I also agree with what you said in part b for your fourth response, we shouldn't be judging other cultures and totally be biased free when learning or describing them. and I also agree with people living other life styles how they should.
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