Contemporary Problems in the Anthropology of AfricaSpring, 2010

ANTH 1616: African Intersections

Difference: Myths & Realities

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66pTPWg_wUw

Happy Africa

Sad Africa

Africa as a construct

Africa as an imaginary

Africa as a real place, with real people

What is Africa?

Basic Facts

More than 1,000 languages

53 Sovereign Countries

More than 50% of population under 25 years

of age

Major exports: diamonds, coltan, bauxite, petroleum,

gold, timber, uranium

Africa as a source of inspiratino for global

culture, music, dance, and religion

Damned Lies and Statistics

Official and Unofficial Languages

Overwhelming mortality rates

Urbanization

Gender Inequity

Global Ghettoization

Massive Corruption

Violence

HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases

Africa’s Charted Borders before World War 1

Isolation and Extraction

Culture & DifferenceEarly American Anthropology: Franz BoasI often ask myself what advantages our 'good

society possesses over that of the 'savages' and find, the more I see of their customs, that we have no right to look down upon them. . . We have no right to blame them for their forms and superstitions which may seem ridiculous to us. We 'highly educated people' are much worse, relatively speaking. . . Franz Boas to Marie Krackowizer, December 23, 1883. Franz Boas’ Baffin Island Letter-Diary, 1883-1884, edited by Herbert Cole (1983:33).

“Anthropology” – F. Boas

We do not discuss the anatomical, physiological, and mental characteristics of man considered as an individual; but we are interested in the diversity of these traits in groups of men found in different geographical areas and in different social classes. It is our task to inquire into the causes that have brought about the observed differentiation, and to investigate the sequence of events that have led to the establishment of the multifarious forms of human life. In other words, we are interested in the anatomical and mental characteristics of men living under the same biological, geographical, and social environment, and as determined by their past.

E.E. Evans-Pritchard Among the Zande

Culture and Difference 2Symbolic Anthropology: Search for universal cultural processes – i.e. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger

What culture does with “ambiguity” or difference:

• Relabel it something familiar• Physically control it• Avoid it• Call it dangerous • Turn it into a symbol for ritual

transformation

How much is anthropology in Africa an effort to manage, relabel, control, avoid, or transform Difference?

Culture and Difference 3The Chicago School: Clifford Geertz

Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun…”

“I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of a law, but an interpretive one in search of meaning.”

Cultural Relativism

It’s all good, we’re just different!

I’m ok, you’re ok, we’re all ok!

I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darnit, people like me… And you, too!

Post-Colonial CritiquesEdward Said"Neither imperialism nor colonialism is a simple act of accumulation and acquisition… Out of imperialism, notions about culture were classified, reinforced, criticised or rejected.” Culture and Imperialism

Engaged Anthropology• Boasian Activism• Cultural Relativism• Indigenous Rights• Human Rights• “Giving Back”