further proof that I should have gone for a different degree...

[rivendellrose]

The American Anthropological Association (the leading organization in anthropology in the US) has amended their mission statement to distance themselves from the practice of anthropology as science.

Well, that ought to be the last nail in the coffin of whether anthropology or sociology will win out as the study of human culture that will persist and continue to be worthy of consideration.

I've long had a feeling that there's a problem going on in anthropology, namely that while our little academic sibling sociology delves into broader, deeper, and more interesting subjects in the study of human society and takes advantage of all sorts of fascinating new blood from the fields of psychology, genetics, economics, statistics and science, anthropology... stares blindly around and sticks its collective head in the sand.

Now, to be fair, I kind of liked that I didn't have to do as much statistics in anthro as I did in soc, and I also liked that we tended in anthro to read more historical ethnography than, say, statistical studies from ten years ago. That was all part of why I majored in anthro instead of soc. So I have not exactly been part of the solution in this issue. But in the process of reading recent ethnography (for instance, Sudhir Venkatesh's Gang Leader for a Day which, despite issues mainly stemming from the fact that I found it difficult to believe any intelligent gradudate student could be so fantastically naive as the author apparently was during his research, was a very fun and interesting non-academic book), I've noticed that all the good, new books that are actually getting attention... are filed under sociology, while the anthropology section of any bookstore I walk into consists almost entirely of Ruth Benedict, Margaret Meade, Thor Heyerdahl, and other books written pre-1980.

In short: If my field of academic study implodes, do I get a refund (or a re-do!) on my diploma? If I do, I think I'd like to study psychology this time. They're not ashamed of having science involved in their studies, and from the lectures I've been to they're a whole hell of a lot less in love with post-modern theory.

At least my English degree will never have this particular problem...

Comments

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Indulge me: what precisely is the difference between anthropology and sociology?

I feel it important to always remind people, when the conversation turns to academics, that I have two degrees in movies.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Indulge me: what precisely is the difference between anthropology and sociology?

....Yeah, that's kind of the problem. :P I've actually never heard a definition of the difference that satisfies me (although maybe somebody else has?). Technically, I think anthropology (the study of humanity) is supposed to be an umbrella term under which fall physical anthropology (the study of human bodies and remains of humans and their ancestors), archaeology (the study of human artifacts from the past), linguistics, and so on. Sociology (the study of human society) ought to be under that umbrella... but it's increasingly not. In practice, sociology has more in common with economics, clinical psychology, and the field of studies surrounding social work than it does with, say, tribal societies in the Amazon, so you could say that anthropology either has come or is quickly coming to be the study of historical or prehistorical cultures... which is the stuff that most interests me about the field, and the reason I left soc behind (well, that and that math is a bit of a struggle for me - I can handle statistical theory with no problems, but the actual equations tend to catch me up when they get complicated).

My 2 cents from studying both a bit. Not sure if there's a technical definition somewhere or not - most of what I've seen leads me to believe that both fields very carefully ignore that the other one exists. :P

How did you manage two degrees in the same thing? Different schools, or did they have a BA and an BS as separate tracks? (Psychology at my university had that - technically until this year you could have gotten both a BA and a BS in Psych, if you were very careful about the classes you took!)

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay. That is kind of what confused me - it seemed to me that sociology would be a field of study within anthropology, so I was sort of befuzzled there.

I have a BA in film production and an MFA in screenwriting. So they are different degrees, yes, but ultimately where other people read books and thought thinky-things and were serious, I was watching movies. (I worked hard! I really did! But I always loved that sitting down and watching, like, BSG was kinda like studying.)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, totally. Don't worry, you're not the only one feeling confused, by a long shot...

I worked hard! I really did!

Bah, I totally understand that. I had a bunch of science-major friends who took my anthropology and English and history studies as "you're doing the easy stuff." And it was kind of like "well, yeah, but I'm also doing the stuff I'm really good at, and, by the way, it gets a hell of a lot harder after those piddly little 100-level classes you guys took to fulfill requirements!"

Looking back, I do wish I'd stretched myself and taken more hard sciences, because I really do love science... but that's that old 20/20 hindsight talking, of course.

[velvet-midnight.livejournal.com]

The way I see it, being an anthro major who's currently taking only one soc class, is that anthro studies what the societies are made of while soc studies the effect the society has on the individual/smaller group.

But, again, I'm mostly done with only one Soc class and I'm a cultural anthro major. So. :D

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I didn't have a whole lot more exposure to soc than you did, to be honest.

But I'm curious - your definition seems like it could work, but I'm still not sure how we would draw lines. What would you give as examples of the two? It seems like ethnography would fall on the sociology side of your definition, and maybe the study of particular facets of the culture (religion, child-rearing, etc) would fall in the other? But it's awfully hard to look at those aspects without looking at how they affect the people within the culture.

[velvet-midnight.livejournal.com]

From what I've read--I haven't taken the Classics of Ethnography class yet--ethnography is the detailing of what happens day-to-day, what people do, how people act. Right? That is a detailing of the culture, and yes, the individual effects are part of that with social status and what that entails, but it's not focused on that. From what I've seen of my soc class, we've focused a lot on political aspects and "special groups," a la women, the "poor," farmers. We didn't spend a lot of time on the whole thing, just pieces and parts.

I do agree that they're very closely tied and, much as I railed about it at the beginning of the semester, it's good to see it both ways. My soc class has been all about the political and economic connections, which I'm not sure is indicative of sociology as a whole.