Preface

I went into this expecting it to be dense and academic, but I was pleasantly surprised at the conversational tone of the preface. The essays in this collection were collected from the International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Quebec in 1983. A couple of the essays in the volume are by the editor and a man with the same last name - I’m assuming a spouse or relation. It lends a kind of cozy feeling to know that the editor has that much interest in the topic!

Standout quote: “Bromley made the cogent point that, indeed, all nations are developing, and, by extension, to label one part of the world developed and the other underdeveloped is a denial of history.” (ix)

Essay 1: Marxist Perspectives on the Terms of the Anthropological Discourse Concerning “Third World” Countries

By Keith E. Baird

The point of this essay seems to be a critique of the power imbalance between “western” and “non-western” anthropology down to the origins and commonly used terms in the field.

He calls out anthropology as the study by Western Europeans of peoples over whom they established total dominance.

I liked the quote: “For ‘Third World’ peoples the reclamation of territory is only one aspect of national liberation. An important aim yet to be achieved is complete intellectual emancipation from their former overlords and full recognition of their rightful status as equals in the family of humanity.” (2)

He mentions the military dominance of the West being a factor in their ability to dominate the rest of the world.

I thought it was interesting that he took a paragraph to explain what he means in the essay by “a marxist perspective”. It’s really rad to have the term defined before he leans on it. I can transcribe the paragraph if there’s interest! :)

A bitter sweet part of this essay is that it’s written in 1983, and says a lot of complimentary stuff about Soviet Ethnography and how the Soviet Union is the “quintessential Marxist society”.

A quote I liked: “Significantly absent from Marxist anthropological concern is the preoccupation with physical characteristics of ethnic communities which is still a feature of Western ethnographic discourse.”

He talks about the inaccuracy of using physical descriptors for ethnicity to avoid biological determinism, because no racially un-mixed peoples exist, and because there are no clear-cut anthropological boundaries between contiguous ethnoses. I think it’s really neat to see that examined, because physical characteristics seem to be a huge staple in Western ethnic descriptions.

He includes this definition: “an ethic community proper…may be defined as an historically formed aggregate of people who share relatively stable specific features of culture (including language) and psychology, an awareness of their unity and their difference from other groups and an ethnonym which they give themselves” (6)

It’s really rad to see the western obsession with race disposed of so handily.

He concludes with saying that perceptions of and interactions with a culture do not occur in a vacuum, and that anthropologists should move away from terms that demean “third world peoples”.

He adds a quote at the end that ends with “Marx belongs to us all.”

I think this was a neat read, surprisingly absent of any academic stuffiness I was expecting. Def not an essential read, but it brought up things that I thought were interesting! :)