From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: communities
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 19:04:38 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <717814635snx@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au> gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au writes:
>
>In article <BvCE39.2u8@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com writes:

> >   But my point is that while I can try to draw my own conclusions,
> >   I would prefer to know what the conclusions are of trained anthro-
> >   pologists who have studied many cultures in depth, both European
> >   and non-European.
>
>Longer answer: Your questions make sense to us because they are framed
>within our rules of logic, grammar and syntax, and address issues we
>are concerned about within the framework of our own expectations. It
>is far more complex than that, but I trust you will get my drift.
>
>They do not make any sense at all, for example, to Aboriginal people
>here in Australia. In their own culture such questions do not even
>represent the curiosity of a child; they are simply gobbledegook,

  I don't understand this answer.   Why does it matter whether the 
  aboriginals (not just in Australia, but anywhere) understand or
  appreciate these questions?  I think what matters is whether
  anthropologists studying their culture can frame and maybe even
  answer such questions.   

  It may be the case that after studying many human cultures the 
  field of anthropolgy has begun to notice enough common patterns,
  principles, methods, problems, or whatever to give these things
  names or labels and make them suitable subjects for study.  If 
  not then the whole concept of an "ology" for us "anthro's" is 
  called into question!  But I don't see why there is any need for 
  the subjects of the research to concern themselves with these
  things any more than I need to study linguistics in order to
  speak or write.          

  Or maybe it's entirely possible that framing questions like this
  is beyond the state of the art for anthropology, or that anthopology
  does not quite deserve the moniker "science" just yet.   If this
  is the case then someone should just say so.
                       

>That can be very hard for us clever Westerners to swallow, especially
>after having been accepted as a PhD candidate, when the informant one
>has been referred to as the famous and powerful leader of a substantial
>school of intellectuals, who has held up a $500 million project for
>the past ten years, appears as a unwashed beggar sitting in the dust,
>with an equally unwashed child sitting in his lap demanding all the
>attention.

   I'm really sorry, but I have no idea what this part refers to.


>I do not want to sound elitist, but some people are simply not cut
>out to be anthropologists. The existential stress experienced in
>facing the *other* can be extremely traumatic, and I would not with
>hindsight inflict that on others without counselling them first.
>
>Well, that may be a little away from your original idea, Peter, but
>you are beginning to ask questions about how other people's lives are
>to be probed, and it is appropriate that you be both encouraged and
>cautioned if you wish to do any real justice to your research, and
>make it useful.

  I'm not really asking *how* their lives should be probed -- I'm
  assuming, naively perhaps, that the field of anthropology has
  already worked out some practical methodology.  I'm merely
  asking *whether* a certain topic, i.e., "community" as general
  human phenomenon, has ever been studied, and if so, where I can
  read about it.


---peter