Today in class, thought we spoke much about Leslie White and
cultural ecology, today in class we did not talk much about the other cultural ecologist
(or Cultural Materialist) Marvin Harris.
In his work, “The Epistemology of Cultural Materialism”, he discusses
the phenomena of anthropologist and the use of emic and etic viewpoints when studying
a culture in depth. First off, this is
somewhat of push for a balanced approach when studying a culture. He attempts to promote a somewhat balanced
view and says that researchers should observe cultures in both the emic and
etic viewpoints. The way he does it,
however, seems to be anything but. He
seems to only promote the Etic viewpoint throughout the entire work. In the beginning of the article he begins by
showing the faults of Linguist Kenneth Pike, who coined the terms emic and etic
that is used today. He goes on to say
that Pike has a sort of “behavioremes” that only seem to only focus on the emic
view point and also not show a lot more about the structure of behavioral stream
etically. He also goes on to provide
examples in his own works in Southern India with the male cow population and
also with some of his informants in Brazil.
The way Harris writes this work clearly shows his preference for the
Etic viewpoint.
He believes that etic viewpoint is an essential part of the
study of a culture is because gives the researcher more information that an
emic view cannot give them. An example
he uses is the usage of the letters p and b.
The distinction of its uses, as well as the rules for using them may not
be so obvious when using the emic approach to studying these two phonemes. It would take an outsider, or and etic
perspective, to show that p and b can be pronounced in different manners and
that switching one letter for another can result in a completely different word
being used. Harris also stresses the
fact that sometimes, even though one strives use the etic viewpoint, may actually
become a hindrance. He uses his example
of trying pry open the minds of the Brazilian children to see why they only
wore one shoe to school and how his etic
viewpoint mislead him to his own false conclusions. This is the only time in the article I felt
he actually maintain this balanced view point of the need to use both the etic
and emic viewpoint. If one uses this
method, and uncovering the innate systems and meaning of the systems can help
uncover its uses and significance in society.
I think I see why you feel that Harris overemphasizes (and perhaps overvalues) the etic point of view. I think what he is really trying to stress is that the emic perspective is not the *only* one of value and that objectivity is of paramount importance in social science, whether one examines emic or etic categories. At the end in particular, he strongly rejects the notion that "the etics of scientific observation" is just like any other emic perspective. This helps to explain (later) why Harris is such an opponent of postmodernism.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Ricardo, Harris fails to maintain a balance between the etic and emic perspectives in his work. However, this might just be an unfortunate result of the article, not necessarily his theory. The point he makes towards the end of the article is a strong one, if we are going to accept a scientific research of cultural material then we have to give weight to the observers etic perspective as authoritative and knowledgable. Although there are definite issues in doing so, the main one being that observers are humans too who carry their own biases in constructing their scientific inquiry, Harris addresses these by presenting the four domains of cultural materialism.
ReplyDeleteFailing to segment and classify data beyond its collection as a mass, creates a problematic dichotomy of credible, “objective” data and biased, invalid information. Knowledge is made up of moving parts, and there is no one, clear answer to a scientific inquiry, so it’s important to try to answer each aspect as thoroughly as possible - gaining the emics and etics of the mental domain as well as the behavioral domain. I think Harris does this more in his example of cross-cultural research than he does with the cows..honestly, cows? When am I ever going to...I digress. I much preferred the example of the mother telling her kid to knock it off. Here he does a much better job presenting potential emic and etic perspectives for both the mental and behavioral actions. Why the mother would repeat herself and what that might mean, why the child ignored his mother..etc. The example was far more relatable and well rounded