An Interesting Article for all
An Interesting Article for all you IB folks forced to take Anthropology: Macho Anthropology.
Here are some highlights: Investigative journalist Patrick Tierney has written a book coming out soon titled Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon. In it, Tierney reveals some not-so-pleasant findings about anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, who studied the Yanomamo people of South America.
Chagnon became very well-recognized throughout anthropological circles for his books and films on the Yanomamo which revealed a society where violent competitions occurred between the men in order to reproduce with the most women. “The Yanomami soon became the best-known tribal people in the world, and the main thing people knew about them was that they were extraordinarily violent.”
The Tierney book reveals that Chagnon may not have been completely truthful in his representation of the Yanomamo people, often staging events or editing dull scenes from films: “But Chagnon didn’t just edit out peacefulness from his exciting documentaries on the Yanomami. Many incidents and set pieces were actively staged, including Chagnon’s own dramatic entrance into a native village.” “Filming also exacerbated tribal tensions, altered the wealth structure of the society and, perhaps most important of all, introduced disease.” In addition, “Chagnon would reward them [the Yanomamo] with intensely desirable steel machetes and cooking pots for displays of violent behavior and fierce posturing.”
Tierney “charges that Chagnon’s own presence disrupted traditional cultural values, trade patterns and political balances of power, so that far more violence followed in his wake than was present before he arrived.”
As a result of Chagnon’s misrepresentation of these people has led to violence against them. “Over the years the Yanomami reputation for savagery, which Chagnon had elevated and celebrated, has clearly and directly encouraged violence against them — including a horrific massacre by a gang of Brazilian gold miners in July 1993 — as well as unjust treatment at the hands of their governments, which have made direct use of Chagnon’s research as justification for isolating and partitioning Yanomami homelands. “
This article is very interesting and I recommend checking it out. It discusses what this book will mean for Chagnon’s future studies (if he is doing any more, he is getting up there in years) and how anthropology’s governing board will punish him for any crimes that he may have convicted. The article also talks about Margaret Mead’s studies and how she injected cultural bias into them.
Kind of makes you wonder just what they were having us study back there in school, doesn’t it? I was under the (perhaps misguided) impression that these anthropologists were performing their studies with the utmost care and concern for not disrupting the culture that they were there to observe. I guess I was wrong.
