Is there an upsurge in pop culture representations of both anthropologists and anthropological topics taking place right now? A little ‘buzz’ around our discipline? Is anthropology hot–or not? Exhibit A: The Nanny Diaries. Scarlett Johansson plays a recent anthropology graduate who dreams of becoming an anthropologist (imagine!). Exhibit B: National Geographic’s Taboo, a program that promises to help us “understand seemingly shocking practices from around the world.” Exhibit C: “Meet the Natives,” a three-part documentary airing on British TV, about a group of Vanuatu men brought to the UK as “reverse anthropologists.” There is a lot to say individually about these different representations of anthropological themes in pop culture, and examples can be multiplied — I’m hoping SM’s enormous readership will provide further examples in comments. I think these ‘texts’ mostly play on the conceit of reflexive defamiliarization or ironic self-otherization. The putative “we” of the audience is invited to see itself as odd, as exotic, even as savage. This is perhaps merely a mainstreaming of a possibility inherent in the structure of anthropological knowledge, which has always promised to expose one’s own cultural conceits as arbitrary constructions. Yet, I suspect that many of these programs and pop culture texts thereby allow certain damaging stereotypes about other cultures to circulate by putting them in ironic quotation marks. I’m curious what people think about this stuff. Is there something a little different about newer iterations of pop culture “primitives” vis-a-vis older ones (e.g., the figure of the primitive in 20th century art)? What do you guys think? For discussion, Exhibit D: “Fierce People,” a new film:
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I’ve been just scanning the site for the past few months as I have been incredibly busy with work and finishing my thesis, but the post today really caught my attention. From the other side of the pond this is not a new debate (no doubt it is not really over there either), but over the last 2-3 years Anthropology Today (produced by the Royal Anthropological Institute) has variously covered the emergence of ‘popularized anthropology’. For example, Kate Fox’s ‘Watching the English’, was an enormously successful book which gave an insight into the peculiarities of English behaviour, but the debate among the anthropologists as to whether or not this was ‘real’ anthropology seemed to detract from the true value of the book. Similarly, there was extensive slating of Bruce Parry’s TV series ‘Tribe’, even from those who had not seen it! I have to say that I heard later that several anthropologists had been approached to help in the production of the series and had refused the offer. I also know that following the series, the RAI had approached the producers to ask that some of the film evidence, which was invaluable, could be included in their archive.
It seems that we all have an opinion on what is important to promote in anthropology and what it not. However, and I think that this is an important point, many anthropologists that I know seem reluctant to engage with the media or with the idea of ‘popular anthropology’. It is almost as though it makes the discipline dirty. Maybe the question should be why do we feel the need to distinguish ourselves from this form of communicating with the general public? This, in my opinion, undoubtedly, alienates our discipline in the eyes of the wider audience.
I is my opinion that popular anthropology has just as much importance in the study of other cultures as any other anthropological research. Just as we would study the oral and written histories of another culture to learn more about them, it is equally important to take an outsider’s perspective on current media to understand where our own culture presently resides. Don’t media representations merely reflect what is present in our culture today? And influence that culture respectively?
More importantly, how can an anthropologist argue that they study human cultures if they only study those cultures that they are not a normal part of? American, British, French, and many other Western cultures have their own variations on the “Western culture” we so often treat as one enveloping framework, that are equally worthy of study and debate. Popular anthropology has the distinct disadvantage of overlapping many other disciplines such as Economics, Sociology, and Psychology, leaving it subordinate in nature to the better accepted human sciences. At the same time however, combining an anthropological perspective with information gathered from a variety of these other disciplines will only support any research in popular culture that is done. It also holds the appeal of the masses, offering a challenging point of view on our own culture, which essentially will lead to a greater interest in anthropology as a whole.
I apologize for my wordiness, but I feel very strongly that popular anthropology is a keystone in developing a better understanding of the world.
The Fierce People video clip is worth watching, if you haven’t already. I wonder if anyone knows of anthropologists being involved it its making?
There’s so much buried in this clip that it’s hard to know where to begin: the anthropologist doing fieldwork among the painted natives (and the son getting covered with body paint in what looks like a sexual initiation); the first world white anthropologist living with the natives, vs. the middle-class son being sent to live with the society rich; the image of the kinship “tree,” fieldnotes, and fieldwork; the adolescent anthropologist “going native” with a tribe that he’ll never truly be part of…
Though it strikes me as anthropology-as-context for a pubescent coming-of-age story. Is this old wine in new skins?
I think I’ll rent it when it comes out.