Robert L Welsch, Kirk M Endicott

Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Anthropology

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Taking Sides volumes present current controversial issues in a debate-style format designed to stimulate student interest and develop critical thinking skills. Each issue is thoughtfully framed with Learning Outcomes, an Issue Summary, an Introduction, and an Exploring the Issue section featuring Critical Thinking and Reflection, Is There Common Ground?, and Additional Resources. Taking Sides readers also offer a Topic Guide and an annotated listing of Internet References for further consideration of the issues. An online Instructor's Resource Guide with testing material is available for each volume. Using Taking Sides in the Classroom is also an excellent instructor resource. Visit www.mhhe.com/takingsides for more details.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Dushkin Publishing
• 5th edition
• Seitenzahl: 480
• Erscheinungstermin: 26. März 2012
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 231mm x 150mm x 25mm
• Gewicht: 499g
• ISBN-13: 9780078050343
• ISBN-10: 0078050340
• Artikelnr.: 34156430

Inhaltsangabe

Unit: Biological Anthropology
Is Race a Useful Concept for Anthropologists?
YES: George W. Gill, from "Does Race Exist? A Proponent's Perspective,"
NOVA Online, 2000
NO: C. Loring Brace, from "Does Race Exist? An Antagonist's Perspective,"
NOVA Online, 2000
Biological and forensic anthropologist George Gill argues that the concept
of race is useful because races-conceived of populations originating in
particular regions-can be distinguished by combinations of external and
skeletal features. The concept of race is especially useful for the
forensic task of identifying human skeletons. The notion of race also
provides a vocabulary for discussing human biological variation and racism
that can be understood by students. Biological anthropologist C. Loring
Brace argues that distinct races cannot be defined because human physical
features vary gradually (in clines) and independently from region to
region, without sharp discontinuities between physical types. He says races
exists in people's perceptions but not in biological reality. In his view
the peculiar historical pattern in which Native Americans, Africans brought
to the United States as slaves, and European immigrants largely from
northern Europe artificially makes it seem that these three groups form
distinct races.
Are Humans Inherently Violent?
YES: Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson, from Demonic Males: Apes and the
Origins of Human Violence, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,
1996
NO: Robert W. Sussman, from "Exploring Our Basic Human Nature: Are Humans
Inherently Violent?" Anthro Notes, 1997
Biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham and science writer Dale Peterson
maintain that male humans and chimpanzees, our closest nonhuman relatives,
have an innate tendency to be aggressive and to defend their territory by
violence. They state that sexual selection, a type of natural selection,
has fostered an instinct for male aggression because males who are good
fighters mate more frequently and sire more offspring than weaker and less
aggressive ones. Biological anthropologist Robert W. Sussman rejects the
theory that human aggression is an inherited propensity, arguing instead
that violence is a product of culture and upbringing. He also rejects the
contention that male chimpanzees routinely commit violent acts against
other male chimps. Sussman regards the notion that human males are
inherently violent as a Western cultural tradition, not a scientifically
demonstrated fact.
Are Female Primates Selected to Be Monogamous?
YES: David M. Buss, from The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human
Mating, Basic Books, 1994
NO: Carol Tavris, from The Mismeasure of Women, Simon and Schuster, 1992
Evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss draws on evolutionary theory to
argue that humans like other primates have been shaped by evolution. For
him, one key aspect of our evolutionary past is that male and female humans
have evolved to have different evolutionary desires. Men desire multiple
sexual partners, whereas females seek protection, security, and proven
fertility in their mates. In this view, females favor monogamy and a stable
relationship with the father of their children because such stability
increases the likelihood of male investment in their children. Social
psychologist Carol Tavris challenges the claims of sociobiologists and
evolutionary psychologists that evolution has programmed women to seek
monogamy. Suggesting that primate females have been selected for
promiscuity, she argues that having multiple partners provides benefits for
human females just as it might for males. The best evolutionary strategy
for females is to get pregnant as quickly as possible, and having multiple
partners is the quickest way to achieve this goal.
Unit: Archaeology
Did Humans Migrate to the New World from Europe in Early Prehistoric Times?
YES: Bruce Bradley and Dennis Stanford, from "The North Atlantic Ice-Edge
Corridor: A Possible Palaeolithic Route to the New World," World
Archaeology, 2004
NO: Lawrence Guy Straus, from "Solutrean Settlement of North America? A
Review of Reality," American Antiquity, 2000
Archaeologists Bruce Bradley and Dennis Stanford maintain that there is no
evidence that the ancestors of the Clovis big-game hunting people of North
America originated in Siberia and migrated down an ice-free corridor from
Alaska. They argue that Clovis stone tool technology probably developed
among the Solutreans of Europe, and that these Solutrean hunters traveled
across the North Atlantic ice sheet to North America, where they became the
ancestors of the Clovis people. Archaeologist Lawrence Guy Straus counters
that the Solutrean culture of Europe ended at least 5000 years before the
Clovis culture appeared in the New World. He contends that the North
Atlantic Ocean would have been an insurmountable barrier to human travel
during the last glacial maximum. He argues that the similarities between
the Clovis and Solutrean tool technologies are limited and coincidental.
Did Climate Change Rather Than Overhunting Cause the Extinction of Mammoths
and Other Megafauna in North America?
YES: Donald K. Grayson and David J. Meltzer, from "A Requiem for North
American Overkill," Journal of Archaeological Science, 2003
NO: Stuart Fiedel and Gary Haynes, from "A Premature Burial: Comments on
Grayson and Meltzer's 'Requiem for Overkill'," Journal of Archaeological
Science, 2004
Archaeologists Donald Grayson and David Meltzer argue that the evidence for
human predation as the cause of the Pleistocene megafauna's extinction is
circumstantial. They contend that this explanation is based on four
premises that find little archaeological evidence to support them. Since
there is limited evidence to support the overkill hypothesis, they suggest
that climate change is a more likely explanation for these extinctions in
North America as they seem to have been in Europe. Archaeologists Stuart
Fiedel and Gary Haynes are strong supporters of the overkill hypothesis
that argues that humans overhunted large mammals to extinction in North
America. They contend that Grayson and Meltzer have misinterpreted older
archaeological evidence and largely ignore more recent data. They maintain
that there is little evidence for climate change as the cause of the
extinctions, which happened within a relatively short period of about 400
years. They feel the empirical evidence supports the "overkill hypothesis."
Can Archaeologists Determine the Cultural Background of the Earliest
Americans from the Ancient Skeleton Known as Kennewick Man?
YES: James C. Chatters, from "The Recovery and First Analysis of an Early
Holocene Human Skeleton from Kennewick, Washington," American Antiquity,
2000
NO: Michelle D. Hamilton, from "Colonizing America: Paleoamericans in the
New World," in Heather Burke, Claire Smith, Dorothy Lippert, Joe Watkins,
and Larry Zimmerman, eds., Kennewick Man: Perspectives on the Ancient One,
Left Coast Press, 2008
In 1997, biological anthropologist and archaeologist James Chatters set off
a firestorm when he described one of the earliest skeletons found in North
America as "Caucasoid-like," based on a very preliminary analysis of what
has come to be known as Kennewick Man. Here, he provides a more thorough
analysis and a much more cautious analysis of this same skeleton, finding
that these remains are not similar to any modern Native American skeletons.
He concludes that the 8000+ year old Kennewick skeleton, together with
several other early skeletons, indicates that settlement of North America
was not by a single Asian population, but a much more complex pattern of
in-migration from multiple populations than most archaeologists and
biological anthropologists have assumed. Forensic anthropologist Michelle
Hamilton challenges Chatters's original description of the Kennewick skull
as "Caucasoid." She argues that Chatters and others have subsequently
backed away from this description in favor of a new model they have called
the "Paleoamerican Paradigm." She contends that this new paradigm implies
that the ancestors of modern Native Americans are not the first human
settlers on the continent, much as in Chatters's original assessment. After
considering the analysis of the Kennewick skull and Native American
reactions to the entire controversy, she concludes that the strident
approach by Chatters and his colleagues has increased tensions between
archaeologists and Indians like no other event in the past 20 years.
Was There a Goddess Cult in Prehistoric Europe?
YES: Marija Gimbutas, from "Old Europe in the Fifth Millennium B.C.," in
Edgar C. Polomé, ed., The Indo-Europeans in the Fourth and Third Millennia
, Karoma Publishers, 1982
NO: Lynn Meskell, from "Goddesses, Gimbutas, and 'New Age' Archaeology,"
Antiquity, 1995
Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas argues that the civilization of pre-Bronze
Age "Old Europe" was matriarchal-ruled by women-and that the religion
centered on the worship of a single great Goddess. Furthermore, this
civilization was destroyed by patriarchal Kurgan pastoralists (the
Indo-Europeans), who migrated into southeastern Europe from the Eurasian
steppes in the fifth to third millennia B.C. Archaeologist Lynn Meskell
considers the belief in a supreme Goddess and a matriarchal society in
prehistoric Europe to be an unw arranted projection of some women's utopian
longings onto the past. She regards Gimbutas's interpretation of the
archaeological evidence as biased and speculative.
Unit: Linguistic Anthropology
Can Apes Learn Language?
YES: E. S. Savage-Rumbaugh, from "Language Training of Apes," in Steve
Jones, Robert Martin, and David Pilbeam, eds., The Cambridge Encyclopedia
of Human Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1999
NO: Joel Wallman, from Aping Language, Cambridge University Press, 1992
Psychologist and primate specialist E. S. Savage-Rumbaugh argues that,
since the 1960s, there have been attempts to teach chimpanzees and other
apes symbol systems similar to human language. These studies have shown
that although apes are not capable of learning human language, they
demonstrate a genuine ability to create new symbolic patterns that are
similar to very rudimentary symbolic activity. Linguist Joel Wallman
counters that attempts to teach chimps and other apes sign language or
other symbolic systems have demonstrated that apes are very intelligent
animals. But up to now these attempts have not shown that apes have any
innate capacity for language.
Does Language Shape How We Think?
YES: John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson, from "Introduction:
Linguistic Relativity Re-Examined," and "Introduction to Part 1," in John
J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson, eds., Rethinking Linguistic Relativity
, Cambridge University Press, 1996
NO: Steven Pinker, from "Mentalese," in The Language Instinct: How the Mind
Creates Language, 2000
Sociolinguists John Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson contend that recent
studies of language and culture suggest that language structures human
thought in a variety of ways that most linguists and anthropologists had
not believed possible. They argue that culture through language affects the
ways that we think and the ways that we experience the world. Cognitive
neuropsychologist Steven Pinker draws on recent studies in cognitive
science and neuropsychology to suggest that Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf
were wrong when they suggested that the structure of any particular
language had any effect on the ways human beings thought about the world in
which they lived. He argues that previous studies have examined language
but have said little, if anything, about thought.
Is Black American English a Separate Language from Standard American
English, with Its Own Distinctive Grammar and Vocabulary?
YES: Ernie Smith, from "What Is Black English? What Is Ebonics?" in Theresa
Perry and Lisa Delpit, eds., The Real Ebonics Debate: Power, Language, and
the Education of African-American Children, Beacon Press, 1998
NO: John H. McWhorter, from "Wasting Energy on an Illusion," The Black
Scholar, 2001
Linguist Ernie Smith argues that the speech of many African Americans is a
separate language from English because its grammar is derived from the
Niger-Congo languages of Africa. Although most of the vocabulary is
borrowed from English, the pronunciations and sentence structures are
changed to conform to Niger-Congo forms. Therefore, he says, schools should
treat Ebonics-speaking students like other non-English-speaking minority
students. Linguist John McWhorter counters that Black English is just one
of many English dialects spoken in America that are mutually intelligible.
He argues that the peculiar features of Black English are derived from the
dialects of early settlers from Britain, not from African language. Because
African American children are already familiar with Standard English, he
concludes, they do not need special language training.
Unit: Cultural Anthropology
Should Cultural Anthropology Stop Trying to Model Itself as a Science?
YES: Clifford Geertz, from "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive
Theory of Culture," in The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays,
1973
NO: Robert L. Carneiro, from "Godzilla Meets New Age Anthropology: Facing
the Postmodernist Challenge to a Science of Culture," EUROPÉA, 1995
Cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz views anthropology as a science of
interpretation, and he argues that anthropology should never model itself
on the natural sciences. He believes that anthropology's goal should be to
generate deeper interpretations of cultural phenomena, using what he calls
"thick description," rather than attempting to prove or disprove scientific
laws. Cultural anthropologist Robert Carneiro argues that anthropology has
always been and should continue to be a science that attempts to explain
sociocultural phenomena in terms of causes and effects rather than merely
interpret them. He criticizes Geertz's cultural interpretations as
arbitrary and immune to disconfirmation.
Was Margaret Mead's Fieldwork on Samoan Adolescents Fundamentally Flawed?
YES: Derek Freeman, from Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking
of an Anthropological Myth, Harvard University Press, 1983
NO: Lowell D. Holmes and Ellen Rhoads Holmes, from "Samoan Character and
the Academic World," in Samoan Village: Then and Now, 2nd ed., Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1992
Social anthropologist Derek Freeman argues that Margaret Mead was wrong
when she stated that Samoan adolescents had sexual freedom. He contends
that Mead went to Samoa to prove anthropologist Franz Boas's cultural
determinist agenda and states that Mead was so eager to believe in Samoan
sexual freedom that she was consistently the victim of a hoax perpetrated
by Samoan girls and young women who enjoyed tricking her. He contends that
nearly all of her conclusions are spurious because of biases she brought
with her and should be abandoned. Cultural anthropologists Lowell Holmes
and Ellen Holmes contend that Margaret Mead had a very solid understanding
of Samoan culture in general. During a restudy of Mead's research, they
came to many of the same conclusions that Mead had reached about Samoan
sexuality and adolescent experiences. They accept that Mead's description
of Samoan culture exaggerates the amount of sexual freedom and the degree
to which adolescence in Samoa is carefree but these differences, they
argue, can be explained in terms of changes in Samoan culture since 1925
and in terms of Mead's relatively unsophisticated research methods compared
with field methods used today.
Do Men Dominate Women in All Societies?
YES: Steven Goldberg, from "Is Patriarchy Inevitable?" National Review,
1996)
NO: Kirk M. Endicott and Karen L. Endicott, from "Understanding Batek
Egalitarianism," in The Headman Was a Woman: The Gender Egalitarian Batek
of Malaysia, Waveland Press, 2008
Sociologist Steven Goldberg contends that in all societies' men occupy most
high positions in hierarchical organizations and most high-status roles,
and they also tend to dominate women in interpersonal relations. He states
that this is because men's hormones cause them to compete more strongly
than women for status and dominance. Cultural anthropologists Kirk and
Karen Endicott argue that the Batek people of Peninsular Malaysia form a
gender egalitarian society in the sense that neither men nor women as
groups control the other sex, and neither sex is accorded greater value by
society as a whole. Both men and women are free to participate in any
activities, and both have equal rights in the family and camp group.
Does the Distinction Between the Natural and the Supernatural Exist in All
Cultures?
YES: Roger Ivar Lohmann, from "The Supernatural Is Everywhere: Defining
Qualities of Religion in Melanesia and Beyond," Anthropological Forum, 2003
NO: Frederick P. Lampe, from "Creating a Second-Storey Woman: Introduced
Delineation Between Natural and Supernatural in Melanesia,"
Anthropological Forum, 2003
Cultural anthropologist Roger Ivar Lohmann argues that a supernaturalistic
worldview or cosmology is at the heart of virtually all religions. For him,
the supernatural is a concept that exists everywhere, although it is
expressed differently in each society. For him, supernaturalism attributes
volition to things that do not have it. He argues that the supernatural is
also a part of Western people's daily experience in much the same way that
it is the experience of the Papua New Guineas with whom he worked. Lutheran
pastor and anthropological researcher Frederick (Fritz) P. Lampe argues
that "supernatural" is a problematic and inappropriate term like the term
"primitive." If we accept the term "supernatural," it is all too easy to
become ethnocentric and assume that anything supernatural is unreal and
therefore false. He considers a case at the University of Technology in
Papua New Guinea to show how use of the term "supernatural" allows us to
miss out on how Papua New Guineans actually understand the world in
logical, rational, and naturalistic terms that Westerners would generally
see as illogical, irrational, and super naturalistic.
Is Conflict Between Different Ethnic Groups Inevitable?
YES: Sudhir Kakar, from "Some Unconscious Aspects of Ethnic Violence in
India," in Veena Das, ed., Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots, and
Survivors in South Asia, Oxford University Press, 1990
NO: Anthony Oberschall, from "The Manipulation of Ethnicity: From Ethnic
Cooperation to Violence and War in Yugoslavia," Ethnic and R acial Studies
, 2000
Indian social researcher Sudhir Kakar analyzes the origins of ethnic
conflict from a psychological perspective to argue that ethnic differences
are deeply held distinctions that from time to time will inevitably erupt
as ethnic conflicts. Ethnic anxiety arises from preconscious fears about
cultural differences. In his view, no amount of education or politically
correct behavior will eradicate these fears and anxieties about people of
differing ethnic backgrounds. American sociologist Anthony Oberschall
considers the ethnic conflicts that have recently emerged in Bosnia to
conclude that primordial ethnic attachments are insufficient to explain the
sudden emergence of violence among Bosnian ethnic groups. He adopts a
complex explanation for this violence, identifying circumstances in which
fears and anxieties were manipulated by politicians for self-serving ends.
It was only in the context of these manipulations that ethnic violence
could have erupted.
Do Native Peoples Today Invent Their Traditions?
YES: Roger M. Keesing, from "Creating the Past: Custom and Identity in the
Contemporary Pacific," The Contemporary Pacific, 1989
NO: Haunani-Kay Trask, from "Natives and Anthropologists: The Colonial
Struggle," The Contemporary Pacific, 1991
Cultural anthropologist Roger M. Keesing argues that what native peoples in
the Pacific now accept as "traditional culture" is largely an invented and
idealized vision of their past. He contends that such fictional images
emerge because native peoples are largely unfamiliar with what life was
really like in pre-Western times and because such imagery distinguishes
native communities from dominant Western culture. Hawaiian activist and
scholar Haunani-Kay Trask asserts that Keesing's critique is fundamentally
flawed because he only uses Western documents. She contends that native
peoples have oral traditions, genealogies, and other historical sources
that are not reflected in Western historical documents. Anthropologists
like Keesing, she maintains, are trying to hold onto their privileged
position as experts in the face of growing numbers of educated native
scholars.
Unit: Ethics in Anthropology
Should the Remains of Prehistoric Native Americans Be Reburied Rather Than
Studied?
YES: James Riding, from "Repatriation: A Pawnee's Perspective," American
Indian Quarterly, 1996
NO: Clement W. Meighan, from "Some Scholars' Views on Reburial," American
Antiquity, 1992
Assistant professor of justice studies and member of the Pawnee tribe James
Riding In argues that holding Native American skeletons in museums and
other repositories represents a sacrilege against Native American dead.
Non-Native Americans would not allow their cemeteries to be dug up and
their ancestors bones to be housed in museums. Thus, all Indian remains
should be reburied. Professor of anthropology and archaeologist Clement W.
Meighan believes that archaeologists have a moral and professional
obligation to the archaeological data with which they work. Such field data
are not just about Native Americans and their history but about the
heritage of all humans. He concludes that such data are held in the public
good and must be protected from destruction.
Did Napoleon Chagnon's Research Methods Harm the Yanomami Indians of
Venezuela?
YES: Terence Turner, from The Yanomami and the Ethics of Anthropological
Practice, Cornell University Latin American Studies Program, 2001
NO: Edward H. Hagen, Michael E. Price, and John Tooby, from Preliminary
Report, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa
Barbara, 2001
Anthropologist Terence Turner contends that journalist Patrick Tierney's
book Darkness in El Dorado accurately depicts how anthropologist Napoleon
Chagnon's research among the Yanomami Indians caused conflict between
groups and how Chagnon's portrayal of the Yanomami as extremely violent
aided gold miners trying to take over Yanomami land. Anthropologists Edward
Hagen, Michael Price, and John Tooby counter that Tierney systematically
distorts Chagnon's views on Yanomami violence and exaggerates the amount of
disruption caused by Chagnon's activities compared to those of such others
as missionaries and gold miners.