(no subject)
Sometimes anthropology makes me want to bang my head against a wall. It makes me feel so intelligent and so ignorant all at the same time. Some of the things we are studying (mainly in Cultural) are so... misrepresented, I guess would be the word. One of the articles I am reading basically implies that Europe had no contact with Asia until about the 15th century. They're right next to each other! I realize they didn't have the transportation nor communication systems that we have today, but can anyone honestly say that in ancient times people were not in the least bit curious about peoples other than their own? Can anyone actually look at me with a straight face and tell me that prehistoric people and societies were completely static and unchanging? And that's not to mention the archaeological evidence. If Europe and Asia had little to no contact with each other until about the 15th century AD, then how the hell did a piece of chinese silk end up in a Celtic grave in France in about 600 BC? This isn't saying that some Celtic guy went all the way over to China, but it does show that there was interaction, there was movement.
The other brain-damaging issue I'm having at the moment is the switching between Cultural and Ethnohistory. You would think they would coincide, but they seem to be conflicting more often than not. I don't care what Dr. Etheridge says about not binding people, as humans we have to categorize, we have to label, there's really no way that we can't. I'm not saying I don't believe in interconnectedness, I do, read the previous paragraph, but we have to categorize, we have to otherize (in the beginning, at least), else our brains would explode from the immediate onset of an over-expanse of knowledge. If someone is going to take a class on the Navajo, you can, in the class or your own research, discuss the numerous, numerous ways in which the Navajo are connected to the wide world and always have been, but know where to start, you must first categorize them as the Navajo. And, on top of all of this, a fact that I felt was well pointed out in Cultural today, how can you not otherize people when they otherize themselves? How can you deem that there is no such thing as culture, no such things as society or tradition, when people categorize themselves by these things. I'm not saying that things like culture and tradition don't change, because the entire world is in a constant state of change, I'm just saying that they exist.
Now Archaeology? Archaeology I understand; archaeology I get. Dig in the dirt, find cool stuff, track the progression of earlier societies through their material goods, write papers. Fun and, for the most part, simplistic in theory. Thus the reason I am going to be an archaeologist and not a cultural anthropologist. That, and I prefer dead people over living - they don't get angry when I want to mess with their stuff or dig through their trash.
As a side note, I was talking with Yukleyen after class, and apparently most of the people in Cultural have not taken 101. Which might explain why when Yukleyen actually had to point out this morning that languages change because people change, I wanted to smack someone.
Also, I hate Geology. I like rocks, but I hate Geology.
The world is a 4-dimensional jigsaw puzzle and even if I lived forever, I don't think there will ever be enough time to acquire all of the knowledge I would need to put it together by myself.
The other brain-damaging issue I'm having at the moment is the switching between Cultural and Ethnohistory. You would think they would coincide, but they seem to be conflicting more often than not. I don't care what Dr. Etheridge says about not binding people, as humans we have to categorize, we have to label, there's really no way that we can't. I'm not saying I don't believe in interconnectedness, I do, read the previous paragraph, but we have to categorize, we have to otherize (in the beginning, at least), else our brains would explode from the immediate onset of an over-expanse of knowledge. If someone is going to take a class on the Navajo, you can, in the class or your own research, discuss the numerous, numerous ways in which the Navajo are connected to the wide world and always have been, but know where to start, you must first categorize them as the Navajo. And, on top of all of this, a fact that I felt was well pointed out in Cultural today, how can you not otherize people when they otherize themselves? How can you deem that there is no such thing as culture, no such things as society or tradition, when people categorize themselves by these things. I'm not saying that things like culture and tradition don't change, because the entire world is in a constant state of change, I'm just saying that they exist.
Now Archaeology? Archaeology I understand; archaeology I get. Dig in the dirt, find cool stuff, track the progression of earlier societies through their material goods, write papers. Fun and, for the most part, simplistic in theory. Thus the reason I am going to be an archaeologist and not a cultural anthropologist. That, and I prefer dead people over living - they don't get angry when I want to mess with their stuff or dig through their trash.
As a side note, I was talking with Yukleyen after class, and apparently most of the people in Cultural have not taken 101. Which might explain why when Yukleyen actually had to point out this morning that languages change because people change, I wanted to smack someone.
Also, I hate Geology. I like rocks, but I hate Geology.
The world is a 4-dimensional jigsaw puzzle and even if I lived forever, I don't think there will ever be enough time to acquire all of the knowledge I would need to put it together by myself.