From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Women's Studies and Research "Focus"
Distribution: world
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 07:43:50 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Oct12.011157.7629@midway.uchicago.edu> coonstot@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

 >   Which is precisely why I placed new and old in quotation marks--
 > "old" is a vague reference to methodologies that are being challenged
 > today.

Challenged by whom? Please be specific and support your argument with
facts.

 >   No where have I implied there to be a conspiracy.  As a new student
 > of the field of anthroplogy, however, there exists rough demarcation
 > between "old" and "new" anthropology which is primarily revealed by
 > a critical study of methodologies.

If you are merely saying that new students are asking critical questions
about anthropological method, of course they do in each new batch
every year, without constituting a "new" anthropology. Students are
expected and encouraged to be critical of methodology. Of course they
are!

If you are suggesting on the other hand that students represent a "new"
anthropology while you see established professionals as representing
an "old" anthropology, I doubt very much that your career will get
anywhere at all.

 >   It is only an arrogance if you believe "anthropology" to be
 > a field without definition.

The field of Anthropology is defined by the societies and cultures
being studied!

 >                               As for thesis and evidence, I
 > don't find it my place to post this, even though technically
 > the burden of proof lies on me, because I was simply trying
 > to give a rough sketch of Anthropology as I see it today.  I
 > will save the thesis for other purposes.

Go on, give us a hint! Or doesn't the University of Chicago Divinity
School expect that you present a thesis to your peers for their
comment and assistance before proceeding with it?

 >   The purpose was, as I have already stated, to provide what
 > I see to be the focci of these fields.  I am not, at this time,
 > interested in formulating a thesis but rather attempting to provide
 > a general demarcation which I do not believe is artificial.  Earlier

Whatever it is you want to attempt, you must support your argument for
doing so with evidence.

 > Either we say that these fields can not be demarcated, or we attempt
 > to come to some general understanding of their contents--to this
 > latter end I have posted some thoughts, that is all.

If these fields do exist as you describe, their demarcations can only
be defined by the data *a posteriori*, and that is what you must
subsequently report.

 > If you only knew how much I already have to read....

Yes, we all know how much you have to read . . .

 > Funny, I have several articles that already disagree on culture.
 > Please, however, define the word--I would be more than happy to
 > hear your opinion.

Of course there is disagreement; that is the nature of our discourse!
Culture is not a *thing* but a *process*, as is the historical process
of argumentation which sustains this discipline. Please do go back to
your first year textbooks and consider therein the nature of specific
disagreements on culture, on who argues what in response to who else's
arguments. Thereby you may be enlightened and edified on the matter,
and hopefully you will become that much more critical of what you
read, see and hear as you go about your work.

If you want my own view it is that culture is as a *fugue*, a community
of contrapuntal voices together forming a particular discursive domain
whose influence on human thought can be mapped explicitly and with
great accuracy. If anyone wants to disagree with me, argue away!

Gil

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
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