Anthropological Perspectives

Many academic disciplines are concerned in one way or another with our species. For example, biology focuses on the genetic, anatomical, and physiological aspects of organisms. Psychology is concerned primarily with cognitive, mental, and emotional issues, while economics examines the production, distribution, and management of material resources. And various disciplines in the humanities look into the historic, artistic, and philosophic achievements of human cultures. But anthropology is distinct because of its focus on the interconnections and interdependence of all aspects of the human experience in all places and times—both biological and cultural, past and present. It is this holistic perspective that best equips anthropologists to broadly address that elusive phenomenon we call human nature.

Anthropologists welcome the contributions of researchers from other disciplines and in return offer the benefit of their own findings. Anthropologists do not expect, for example, to know as much about the structure of the human eye as anatomists or as much about the perception of color as psychologists. As synthesizers, however, anthropologists are prepared to understand how these bodies of knowledge relate to color-naming practices in different human societies. Because they look for the broad basis of human ideas and practices without limiting themselves to any single social or biological aspect, anthropologists can acquire an especially expansive and inclusive overview of the complex biological and cultural organism that is the human being.

The holistic perspective also helps anthropologists stay keenly aware of ways that their own cultural ideas and values may impact their research. As the old saying goes, people often see what they believe, rather than what appears before their eyes. By maintaining a critical awareness of their own assumptions about human nature—checking and rechecking the ways their beliefs and actions might be shaping their research—anthropologists strive to gain objective knowledge about people. With this in mind, anthropologists aim to avoid the pitfalls of ethnocentrism, a belief that the ways of one’s own culture are the only proper ones. Thus anthropologists have contributed uniquely to our understanding of diversity in human thought, biology, and behavior, as well as to our understanding of the many shared characteristics of humans.

To some, an inclusive, holistic perspective that emphasizes the inherent diversity within and among human cultures can be mistaken as shorthand for uniform liberal politics among anthropologists. This is not the case. Individual anthropologists are quite varied in their personal, political, and religious beliefs. At the same time, they apply a rigorous methodology for researching cultural practices from the perspective of the culture being studied—a methodology that requires them to check for the influences of their own biases. This is as true for an anthropologist analyzing the culture of the global banking industry as it is for one investigating trance dancing among contemporary hunter-gatherers. We might say that anthropology is a discipline concerned with unbiased evaluation of diverse human systems, including one’s own. At times this requires challenging the status quo that is maintained and defended by the power elites of the system under study. This is true regardless of whether anthropologists focus on aspects of their own culture or on distant and different cultures.

Holistic perspective A fundamental principle of anthropology: that the various parts of human culture and biology must be viewed in the broadest possible context in order to understand their interconnections and interdependence. ethnocentrism The belief that the ways of one’s own culture are the only proper ones.

Although infants in the United States typically sleep apart from their parents, cross-cultural research shows that co-sleeping, of mother and baby in particular, is the rule. Without the breathing cues provided by someone sleeping nearby, an infant is more susceptible to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), a phenomenon in which a 4- to 6-month-old baby stops breathing and dies while asleep. The highest rates of SIDS are found among infants in the United States. The photo on the right shows a Nenet family sleeping together in their chum (reindeer-skin tent). Nenet people are arctic reindeer pastoralists living in Siberia.

While other social sciences have concentrated predominantly on contemporary peoples living in North American and European (Western) societies, historically anthropologists have focused primarily on nonWestern peoples and cultures. Anthropologists work with the understanding that to fully access the complexities of human ideas, behavior, and biology, all humans, wherever and whenever, must be studied. Anthropologists work with a time depth that extends back millions of years to our pre-human ancestors. A cross-cultural, comparative, and long-term evolutionary perspective distinguishes anthropology from other social sciences. This all-encompassing approach also guards against culture-bound theories of human behavior: that is, theories based on assumptions about the world and reality that come from the researcher’s own particular culture.

As a case in point, consider the fact that infants in the United States typically sleep apart from their parents. To people accustomed to multi-bedroom houses, cribs, and car seats, this may seem normal, but cross-cultural research shows that co-sleeping, of mother and baby in particular, is the norm. Further, the practice of sleeping apart favored in the United States dates back only about 200 years.

Recent studies have shown that separation of mother and infant has important biological and cultural consequences. For one thing, it increases the length of the infant’s crying

Culture-bound Looking at the world and reality based on the assumptions and values of one’s own culture.

Bouts. Some mothers incorrectly interpret the crying as indicating that the babies are receiving insufficient breast milk and consequently switch to feeding them bottled formula, proven to be less healthy. In extreme cases, a baby’s cries may provoke physical abuse. But the benefits of co-sleeping go beyond significant reductions in crying: Infants who are breastfed receive more stimulation important for brain development, and they are apparently less susceptible to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS or “crib death”). There are benefits to the mother as well: Frequent nursing prevents early ovulation after childbirth, it promotes loss of weight gained during pregnancy, and nursing mothers get at least as much sleep as mothers who sleep apart from their infants.1

Why do so many mothers continue to sleep separately from their infants? In the United States the cultural values of independence and consumerism come into play. To begin building individual identities, babies are provided with rooms (or at least space) of their own. This room also provides parents with a place for the toys, furniture, and other paraphernalia associated with “good” and “caring” childrearing in the United States.

Anthropology’s historical emphasis on studying traditional, non-Western peoples has often led to findings that run 1 counter to generally accepted opinions derived from Western studies. Thus anthropologists were the first to demonstrate

That the world does not divide into the pious and the superstitious; that there are sculptures in jungles and paintings in deserts; that political order is possible without centralized power and principled justice without codified rules; that the norms of reason were not fixed in Greece, the evolution of morality not consummated in England. . . .

We have, with no little success, sought to keep the world off balance; pulling out rugs, upsetting tea tables, setting off firecrackers. It has been the office of others to reassure; ours to unsettle.2

Although the findings of anthropologists have often challenged the conclusions of sociologists, psychologists, and economists, anthropology is absolutely indispensable to them, as it is the only consistent check against culture-bound assertions. In a sense, anthropology is to these disciplines what the laboratory is to physics and chemistry: an essential testing ground for their theories.