Anthropology to me……..

One of my prime reasons to apply to a graduate studies program was to bridge the gap between policy and practice. I worked towards universalizing education for marginalized children for many years in India. I hope that after my Ph.D. in Economics and Education, I will be able to compliment my past experience and will be in a position to critically analyze and evaluate basic literary issues in India. Therefore, coming from a background, where literary needs to be taken up in a campaign mode and where the Millennium Development Goals for 2015 almost seem a never attainable dream; I hope to use my education towards the literacy mission. With these overloading thoughts intertwined with my masters in Economics, Anthropology made me confused at the beginning, wonder a bit during the middle and enlightened me in a particular way by the end. The following is a story, of my journey as a novice anthropologist.

Me: Anthropology to me, are stories about people from different cultures. But then, [scratching my head], do I have time for stories knowing that even going to a school is a privilege of the few? Why should I be interested in Sierra Leone and its native people when I have my own problems to solve?

Wise Me: Anthropology taught me the “insider” and “outsider” approach of looking at a particular context. Anthropologist’s during their field work try to get the insider’s perspective, but since they are themselves an outsider, they perceive things differently. Similarly, an anthropological writing may be about an unknown country, but it may still talk about educational issues similar to India. This gives us a chance to look at the same issue in a completely different perspective. Here, Boas’s notion of “cultural relativism” becomes important, as we cannot make generalized conclusions without taking into account the cultural differences (Levinson 2000, p16).

Wise Me: The stories about people with different cultural backgrounds give a much deeper meaning to policies and practices in a particular cultural set up. Schwab points out that the children of an Australian Aboriginal community “failed” in school because the schools were culturally different from their society and they felt powerless in the unfamiliar education system (Schwab 2001, p249). Also, education was not seen as an investment since the aboriginal community does not stay in one place permanently. Therefore, they demanded elements of their culture to make their schools more relevant. In other words “Cultural Maintenance” would make their schools benefit the students. This gives an insightful “story” to what can be applied in the Indian context also.

Me: My goal has been to put children in school, so that they can read and write and be successful in life. Did Anthropology help me to define my goal?

Wise Me: Anthropology helped me to dissect and analyze my stated goal. Do children need to be in school to be educated? What is education and what is its purpose? Does education mean reading and writing a particular set of things the teacher wants the children to write? Fuller says that “throughout the world, schools have come to form part of our common sense, the normal way of “growing up modern (Levinson 2000, p5). The world culture theorist prioritized the learning from schools more than any other form of learning. Bourdieu’s “social reproduction theory”, suggests that schools propagate elements of the dominant culture. Therefore, if you are a part of the “dominant cultural habitus”, you have more probability to “succeed” in schools(Bourdieu 1970). If parents belong to the dominant class, it becomes easier for them to maneuver the system for the benefit of the children. Lareau talks about activation of this cultural capital when parents try to get the most out of the school to benefit their children(Lareau, 1999). She gives the example of Mrs. Marshall who “intervened“ in her daughter Stacey’s education at school and helped her to get into the “gifted-and-talented program”. One the other hand, Mrs. Mason’s argument that the school showed “patterns of racial injustice” was not taken in a positive light by the school, as she was a “black” parent who did not voice her opinion in a socially acceptable manner.

Wise Me: Anthropology brought to light my unquestioned assumptions about schooling. It taught me that what goes on inside the school may be more detrimental to the children than staying out. Therefore, it is important to recognize the “hidden curriculum” of the school and be critical about it.

Me: Why do I need to study ethnicity? Is it going to be related to my work with the non- government sector in India? Is ethnicity related to policy making and implementation?

Wise Me: Anthropology studies how group identities are formed. Malkki presents a narrative on identity formation of refugees in Tanzania (Malkki, 1996). She says that social imagination triggered by voiceless photographs of refugees played a crucial role in their identity formation. The way the refugees think of themselves is in conflict with the camp organizers and international organizations. And that group identities are constructed by historical and political experiences of the groups. On similar lines, Fordham, describes the story of “”high school black girls” who had to struggle against their negative societal image to develop a “meaningful and empowering” image (Fordham, 2000). Therefore, group affinity and common behavior aid in identity formation, also shown by Bateson in a dialogue with his daughter that discusses the characteristics of Frenchmen (Bateson, 2000). Here the Frenchmen are taken as an ethnic group and their behavioral patterns are generalized to being French.

Wise Me: Policy decisions based on “labeling theories” that form group identities may lead to disastrous outcomes. For example, like minded ethnic groups tend to stay together, therefore an education policy like school desegregation led to many families dislocating and children moving to new unfamiliar environments.

Me: Do anthropologists focus more on stories or more on theories? How micro can an ethnography get? Why do we need an historical background for anthropological studies?

Wise Me: The writing style of Anthropologists is very detailed. The detailed description helps the reader to add the cultural context to the writing. Ethnographies present interviews or dialogues as a ways of communicating to the reader. In this context the reader is given a free hand to interpret the dialogues. To place the ethnographies in a certain context, historical and comparative narratives are added as background knowledge. This gives more cultural relevance to the micro oriented ethnographic work.

In the end, though all approaches to ethnographical work are not methodologically convincing to me, but it was a good exercise to get an exposure to such writing. For example, I have apprehensions to the policy level usability of research written in a poetic form. Or adding too much verbosity to the text may defeat the activist purpose of ethnography itself. This is more so when the audience range from being a school administrator, to a senator and the purpose of their read may be different. I also do not like the idea of the interpretation of dialogues to be left to the reader because this may add more subjectivity to the research. The use of culture in ethnographic writing seems to be omnipresent and thus drawing policy conclusions from the entire picture becomes next to impossible. But I acknowledge the fact that anthropology gave me new insights and meanings to common terminologies that had only mainstream cultural meanings before.


References


Bateson, G. (2000). Why do Frenchmen? Schooling the Symbolic Animal: Social and Cultural Dimensions of Education. B. Levinson. et. al. Boston, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.: 62-65.
Bourdieu (1970). Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction. Knowledge, Education and Cultural Change. B. Richards: 56-69.
Fordham, S. (2000). "Those Loud Black Girls": (Black) Women, Silence, and Gender "Passing" in the Academy. Schooling the Symbolic Animal: Social and Cultural Dimensions of Education. B. Levinson. et. al. Boston, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.
Lareau, A., Horvat, E, M. (1999). "Moments of Social Inclusion and Exclusion Race, Class and Cultural Capital in Family-School Relationships." Sociology of Education 72(1): 37-53.
Levinson, B. (2000). The Symbolic Animal: Foundations of Education in Cultural Transmission and Acquisition. Schooling the Symbolic Animal: Social and Cultural Dimensions of Education. B. Levinson. et. al. Boston, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.: 15-23.
Levinson, B. (2000). Wither the Symbolic Animal? Society, Culture, and Education at the Millennium. Schooling the Symbolic Animal: Social and Cultural Dimensions of Education. B. Levinson. Boston, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc: 1-9.
Malkki, L. (1996). "Speechless Emissaries: Refugees, Humanitarianism, and Dehistoricization." Cultural Anthropology 11(3): 377-404.
Schwab, R. G. (2001). "That School Gotta Recognize Our Policy!": The Appropriation of Educational Policy in an Australian Aboriginal Community. Policy as Practice. Levinson, B., Sutton, M: 243-263.