Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: D. Long who wrote (40463)	8/28/2002 10:53:39 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Might be a slippery concept in Sociology, John, but it isn't a slippery concept in Anthropology. In general, that's true. I know a bit here (and may be dangerous because of that ;-)). My dept was a joint soc and anthro dept. Cultural anthropology, for instance, is still an identifiable subfield. However, reading a bit, including dissertations of candidates for positions in our department as well as the work of members of the department under review for this or that, it looks to me as if "culture" has become a contested word. Definitely no consensus; definitely difficult even to pin down enough to say there are sides. I saw four trends. (1) The use of the term as a placeholder on the way to other generalizations. Somewhat irresponsible but understandable. (2) Dropping to lower level generalizations as in talking about the culture of specific small groups (work groups, etc.) in which it was possible to check the evidence of talk and action enough to make responsible generalizations. (3) The language of power begins to be used in sentences with culture, particularly in feminist anthropology and in economic anthropology. One group uses a language set to justify abuse of another group. (4) And, finally, post colonialism has made much greater inroads, for obvious reasons, in anthropology than in sociology. So there was the language of the culture of the natives against whatever. But it's a shifting terrain right now. Culture is not a settled term in the social sciences.