Political map of the world

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Political map of the world
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Reading assignment amendment
Boas pp 1-10, 55-69 (not pp. 11-23)
Active reading is a lot of work These articles
are the real thing, not textbooks Processing
academic texts includes your own
inscriptions Tutorials are discussions of
palimpsests
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Unconscious Patterning of Language

• Secondary rationalizations more data, not answers
• Culture in general can be seen as more or less
  conscious (self-aware)
• Language is mostly unconscious, provides more
  data not subject to secondary explanations

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Cultural groups

• This European problem that Wagner discusses
• Imagining others as living in groups analogous to
  our political system of states or pseudo states.
• Groups have names
• Inventory of the empire - polity of diverse
  peoples and cultures
• Anthropology grew out of the need (and simple
  curiosity) to manage these peoples effectively
• Ethnic groups are self-identified

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Map of native languages of North Asia
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N A Languages
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Ethnonyms

• Name learned from Neighbors
• Eskimo, Koryak, Chukchi
• Name translates as person or real person
• Luoravetlan(lorawelat), Nymylan (nymnym)
• Inuit (Canada), Inupiat (Western Alaska, use
  Eskimo in English), Yupik (Bering St., Siberia
  - Eskimos)

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Groups - ways of classification

• Physical type (races)
• Xanthochroic - light complexion
• Melanochroic - dark complexion
• Language
• Culture (habits, religion, traditions)

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Magyars (Hungarians)

• Central European physical type
• Finno-Ugric Language
• Eastern European culture

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European langs
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New Guinea
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Identities
Not necessarily essential or permanent (Wagners
house people and people of the baseLocke,
Rousseau, others - identity is a primary
attribute (This stone is this stone and never
that one)Personal identities used as basic for
symbols of groupsIdentity is very much our,
20th century hang-upNot necessarily important in
other cultures or conceptualized the same way
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Identity is not always a useful cross-cultural
concept
Basic Assumptionsindividual human persons
(contain an essence unchanged through
time)collectivities or groups of human beings
that are imagined as individuated personshuman
persons are imagined to assimilate elements of
collective identities into their unique personal
identities
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Trap of Nationalism

• Nationalism may be good (effective) politics, but
  always bad social science
• Reifies processes into things
• Are there worldviews in which human personhood,
  agency, and collectivity are imagined in terms
  that do not presuppose the oneness, continuity
  and boundedness of our conception of identity?

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Koryak ideas of person

• Persons include humans, animals, mountains,
  rocks, spirits, parts of rivers
• No mind-body dualism
• Human soul has several components
• Breath (wuyevi)
• Soul (uyichit)
• Shade (wuyelwuyel)
• A human being you meet is a complex entity of
  recurrent and unique features

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Koryak collective identities
Greatly influenced by Russian ideas of
groups Conscious delineation of ethnic groups,
subgroups Unconscious patterning (other means of
discussing sociality) provides a more complex
picture of residence, cooperation, kinship and
friendship
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Personal autonomy
Dont confuse with individual independence. All
traditions are invented, so who gets
deconstructed? Cant use nationalist assumptions
to explain nationalist ideologies and
politics Secondary explanations are not analysis,
they are more data
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Pathfinder assignment
Need to start by thinking like an imperial
administrator Dont end up thinking that way
Koryak, Koriak, Korjak, Korak Koriakskii,
Korjakskij
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List of cultures
Africa Latin America North America
Asia Dogon Yanomama Chippewan
Chukchi Nuer Miskitu Aleut
Hmong Maasai Kaypo Lakota Tuvan Bembe
Cuna Navajo Karen Hadza
Zapotec Zuni Ainu Luo
Bororo Hopi Pashto San
Carib Mohawk Balinese Fulani
Inuit Tamil Fulbe Australia
Tlingit Berawan Ndembu Arunta
Ojibwe Uighur Kabyle Dyirbal
Cree Buryat Edo Pintupi
Kwakwaka'wakw Europe
Oceania Saami Maori Basque
Aranda Roma Sepik Traveller Gypsies
Arapesh Tonga
Trobrianders
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Important Links
http//www.abdn.ac.uk/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/lib262/e-res
ources/subjects?3