The next morning we were delighted to be woken early by shafts of razor sharp sunlight piercing the paper-thin bedroom curtains and blazing radiantly into the room.  I really don’t object to being woken like this.

We had another full day planned but for some the pace was beginning to tell.  Mark had decided in advance to skip the morning session to recover from his late night out and May choose to stay in the city for some solo retail therapy.  This was absence through choice; Nick on the other hand had planned to be there but he had rejected my sensible advice and had given himself a monster hangover and was quite unable to leave his hotel room because of his ferocious headache and constant vomiting. 

With depleted numbers our first destination was Ethografiskais Brivdabas Muzejs, the Latvian Ethnic Open Air Museum located in a forest next to Lake Jugla just to the east of the city.  We arrived and were introduced to our guide who was an elderly lady dressed in traditional costume who accompanied us into the museum and provided us with a continuous and informative narrative. We strolled leisurely in the sunshine amongst the trees where there are about one hundred and twenty wooden buildings that have been dismantled and then rebuilt here as examples of the heritage of Latvia. 

There are five regions to Latvia (Latgale, Zemgale, Kurzeme, the Liv land and Selija) and each had its own traditions and buildings styles, examples of which are all represented here. There were houses, farm buildings, windmills, barns, and churches and over the last fifty years or so genuine structures have been discovered all across Latvia and removed to Brivdabas for display.  Some of these buildings are as much as two hundred years old and were still in use until about fifty years ago before being taken apart and moved to this Museum.  We liked the guide’s story about the wedding tradition of the bride knitting a pair of highly coloured gloves as a gift for all the guests and in case we didn’t believe her she opened a chest full of them to show us just to prove it.  If I had to knit a chest full of gloves that would certainly keep the guest list numbers down.

At the end of the tour we looked for somewhere to eat and found a likely looking place amongst the pine trees with a delicious aroma of cooking food.  We went in to order but were told that this was being prepared for tomorrow, that didn’t seem to make a lot of sense and I wondered why, if that was the case, they hadn’t prepared some yesterday for today but concluded that it wasn’t worth asking the question; they had some drinks but seemed equally reluctant to sell those as well so we wandered back to the entrance and found an alternative little restaurant serving a limited choice of traditional Latvian food.  Mickey and David had black peas and bacon; there were an awful lot of black peas and not a lot of bacon and they both confessed later that it was not terribly appetising.

Now everyone should have known what to do next because we all had our personal itineraries but sadly they didn’t seem to help a great deal when we arrived back in Riga at the appointed pick-up point.  We quickly found Mark who boarded the bus but we failed to locate May and the driver was anxious about being parked illegally.  I don’t know what the penalty was but he was very nervous about it.   May appeared but disappeared into McDonalds so Alona went in after her and May came out of a different door.  Between us we managed to turn this into a key-stone cops routine as I went to McDonalds to find Alona and she came out of the other door and vanished down the street, as I couldn’t find her I went back to the bus to be told she was heading away from us which required a hundred metre sprint to advise her that we had finally assembled everyone and to bring her back.  There was still no sign of Nick and he wasn’t answering his mobile phone so we assumed that he was still recovering and we left without him. 

Lend Me Your Ear

The letters of famous persons generally disappoint. Letters, unless specifically written for the public, are personal in essence. It is one human being in contact with another, sharing things that, often, only the two can fully understand. The letters of great persons are no different. At best, they provide a glimpse into secrets, a chance to hear the unguarded thoughts of public figures. There is the potential excitement of revelation. Occasionally, our desires are satisfied and then some. We come across, for instance, James Joyce writing his wife Nora: “Some night when we are somewhere in the dark and talking dirty and you feel your shite ready to fall put your arms round my neck in shame and shit it down softly.”

In such moments of intimacy, dirty or less so, the aura of fame is stripped away and the person becomes human again. That is also what makes letters boring. Money problems and petty disagreements are the bread and butter of your common letter. A letter makes the world small again, shows a person enmeshed in the day-to-day affairs that everyone understands. Thus, by way of their potentially shocking intimacy or through their potentially overwhelming banality, letters tend to lack the specific elements that are to be found in the actual work of a great artist. Letters, inevitably, are the flotsam and jetsam through which the scholars pick. They contain little meat for you and me.

But this is not always the case. Thanks to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the letters of Van Gogh can now be perused in total. There is an exhibit running through January 2010 but, more important for those not able to make the trip, a complete online edition of the letters available at vangoghletters.org. The website is simply amazing. The letters themselves are interesting enough on the personal level.

(…)

Having collectively spent many, many seriously joyful hours on many, many days looking, seeing, and learning at The Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC we’re happy to see that Judith H. Dobrzynski has written an short, practical review of the Museum’s newly redesigned website.  Entitled “The Whitney Debuts Its Latest Acquisition: A New Website”, Dobrzynski’s article appears in her ArtsJournal blog “Real Clear Arts” and is well worth the quick read.  Then, of course, you must go to the new Whitney site and read about the sunrise/sunset project, and all the other fascinating goings on (including online access to the permanent collection!).

nothingisinvisible@live.fr

Friday, November 27, 2009 | Daily Podcast Episode 1327

ABOVE: 47th annual Circle of Lights Holiday Show, 6-8 pm, Monument Circle.

• Circle of Lights Holiday Show on Monument Circle
• Indiana Pacers Basketball at Conseco Fieldhouse
• Celebration Crossing at the Indiana State Museum
• Jolly Days Winter Wonderland at the Children’s Museum
• Metamora Christmas Walk in Franklin County
• Festival of Trees at Lanthier Winery in Madison
• Stewart’s Indiana Flea Market at the State Fairgrounds
• Class A and 2A HS Football Games at Lucas Oil Stadium
• A Christmas Carol at the Indiana Repertory Theatre
• Jazz on the Avenue with Gregg Bacon at Walker Theatre

Free publicity for your upcoming events! Submit an event.

Ocean city is the great view attraction of costal place. And this is situated at the Maryland of United State that the most visited place. And it is recognized for its best attractive places in city. Skyscraper building, amusement parks, beachfront, restaurants and large convention centre that the cause of its attractions.

The ocean city that the water recreations and other activities like swimming, fishing, kayaking and many of interesting acts are takes place. For lodging there are many of cheap hotels in ocean city near to amusement places and beach front. And vacations like with that feature are the matchless.

The Boardwalk which is the most popular place in the city and there the 10 mile long beach. People like to spend most of the time at beach site and make recreations with fishing, biking, sun bathing and many more.

In boardwalk there are other attractive places like Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum, Trimper’s Rides, Glen Riddle Golf Club and many more. Night the city looks so charming and clubs that for entertaining to everyone. For stay the cheap hotels at near to attractions and Restaurants with sea foods and with delicious taste. The truly is to make vacations with great entertainment.

New Orleans the most entertaining city and make new attractions for visitors. This is new heaven for visitors to get the full entertainment of vacations and other modern facilities that they want in their dream vacations. This city is in United State of Louisiana. The metropolitan city contains the every kind of amenities and other modern attractions are there.

The city that also contain the good lodging amenities are and many of recreations and cheap hotels, inns with best facilities. There are many of places were for visiting and near to that other attractions and adventure places are there. Some of the places that occupy the biggest attractions in city were Historic architecture, Museums and Aquarium, Audubon Zoo, New Orleans Museum of Art and St. Louis Cathedral.

The city was such like more recreational and entertaining. The night attractions of the city such so beautiful and make so attractions and youthful. Restaurants were providing the every kind of food facilities and more delicious taste.  The vacations at the city such a great fun and more entertaining, cheap hotels in new orleans and adventurous activities are there. The ten days that was so adventurous and more entertaining.

“Essentials” lists abound, especially online; the shoes a man “must own,” books he “must read,” places he “simply must visit.” Most of the enumerated essentials are anything but. Some change daily.

Still, some things are much closer to mandatory than others. For instance, always vote your conscience and inform your choice; don’t be swayed by irate volume. Exercise. Also, cultivate a preference for the tasteful and refined over the loud and garish. Appreciate family, friends, and food. Read good books.

Be polite. Ask other people about themselves, and listen to their answers.  

A step further from necessary, but still likely good ideas: watch The Godfather. Go to museums. Develop at least a passing knowledge of the mechanics of guns. Spend time outdoors.

And if there’s still time: know the difference between a sport coat and a blazer. Pick up squash. Reconsider how often wearing socks is really necessary. Wear clothes that fit. Don’t wear square-toed shoes; you’re not a ninja. Don’t wear athletic shoes with pants, and invest in some good stationary.   

Though not essential, some of these things are close, and all are worthwhile.

Virginia Beach Good Outdoor Activity With More Adventure City

Virginia Beach is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, the Chesapeake Bay and North Carolina, and provides miles of beachfront for activities in the Virginia sun. Fishing, golfing, whale watching, dolphin watching, historic landmarks, and exciting attractions and popular events are part of the beach experience. Virginia Beach is very good travel city in the state of Virginia which is the most popular destination, nightlife, sightseeing, restaurant, cheap hotels and one of the most attraction cities for tourists which are beach, the state parks and Back Bay national wildlife refuge beckon, hiking, kayaking, and biking adventures. To get all the adventure in this city there are many cheap hotels in virginia beach. This city is a good travel city and there also fantastic tourist attraction points include:-

• Cape Henry Lighthouse
• Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center
• Mount Trashmore
• The Old Coast Guard Station
• Atlantic Wildfowl Heritage Museum
• State Parks and National Wildlife Refuge
• Virginia Beach Farmers Market
• Golfing, Surfing, Kayaking and Canoeing
• Running, Fishing, Dolphin and Whale Watching

This month, following a multi-million dollar renovation project, El Museo Del Barrio opened El Café a 120-seat Latin style eatery. Great Performances (El Café’s exclusive caterer) features many different Pan-Latin dishes including burritos, empanadas, and Glazed Skirt Steak Sofrito to name a few. The space is open for private events of varying length. For additional event planning and rental information please click here.

I’ve been brushing up on a few museum and zoo reviews for posting and it occurs to me that often my biggest complaint with an exhibition is a lack of good signs. I’m not talking here about absolute basics (“This is a Brachiosaurus” – though even some places seem to eschew this minimalist approach) but pretty much anything more detailed than that – be it the age and geographical origin of the organism or a complete display about the phylogeny of the clade and it’s more interesting anatomical features.

A great many places of supposed public interest and education seem to rather lack that second aspect because of a lack of signs. Sure it’s educational to stand in front of a hall of bones or a paddock full of antelope, but signs add so much more. It is, let’s face it, uneconomical to have people standing around answering questions and interfering with people’s days (and indeed these can be intrusive and annoying) and a good sign can communicate lots of information without being dull or taking up a lot of space.

The obvious point to make might be that not many people *want* to read the signs, but this is misleading. I can’t imagine anyone buys a newspaper and reads it cover to cover – some people want the sport, some the stock indexes, other the comments, or the lifestyle section and so on. Everyone will likely get something different from the paper in differing combinations and amounts. If you don’t *want* to read a sign, then fine, don’t. But even if it’s a minority, I’m sure that lots of people *do* want to learn more about what they are looking at.

At the very least it’s almost criminal in a zoo or museum not to tell you the name of the species you are looking at. The one thing you hear more than anything else in these places is a kid asking a parent “What’s that?” and without a sign to hand often there’s no obvious answer forthcoming (or a wrong one – I one, honestly and truly, saw someone call a giraffe a ‘zebra’ once). Kids who get their questions answered are going to learn something and might keep up that interest / trait to ask questions. Those that don’t, will not. Even if they don’t take much in at the time, the name will likely be remembered and can be looked up later. And this hardly takes into account adults – plenty of people do read signs and want to learn more and that’s tricky without the information being provided.

There are of course some truly great signs out there, original, inventive, informative and exciting (like this dinosaur tree I have been meaning to show off – a complete dinosaur phylogeny with little models to represent the various clades). But signs need not be huge or dramatic or expensive to be informative. Something simple to say the same of a species, which family or higher group it belongs to, how big it got, when and where it lived and what it ate need not take up more than 6 inches of wall or display space and actually tells you quite a bit.

I really think there is almost no excuse for this kind of sign not appearing next to pretty much every single display – it’s simple and informative and unambiguous and is hardly likely to go out of date (unlike say the average sign of dinosaur behaviour, or the names of all the meerkats in the enclosure) making it cheap and easy to install. These should be used in conjunction with bigger displays and signs with greater depth, but something small and unobtrusive that will both no-one while informing many, and is quick to scan and digest should surely be essential for just about anywhere that wants to inform its audience.

Share this Post

Starting in 1570 the Spanish church used torture to punish different heretics here in Lima. And a startling high percentage of the people they tortured turned out to be Jews.  That info changed my attitude while photographing these pathetic recreations.  It was  yet another reminder of the tough times jews have had in the last 4000 years.  Didn’t expect to find that here in South America. Luckily, the amount of people who were victims of this psychopathic religious behavior only numbered in the thousands.  The museum is in the original churches torture and courts building which later became the Peruvian congress building.   The tiles pictured are original and date back to the 1700’s.  The skull and cross-bones is 300 year old graffiti that comes from the wall of a cell in the basement.

What do u know! A form of WaterBoarding, the torture technique the Bush administration used during their “War on Terror”.   Did our religious zealots learn it from these religious zealots?

300 year old tile work in the courtyard of the church’s torture building.  Startling the idea that they could mix so easily the crafts of human cruelty and art so seamlessly.

The skulls image below is from the catacombs of the Monastery of San Francisco.  70,000 people where buried there.

Some amazing tile work from the church.

There are two words I don’t like…”no foto” (“no photo” always appears under them). I have never seen them so much in my until I began to enter churches in Italy (and Museums). Many places in the US the signs say “no flash”, which I completely understand (I don’t like the flash anyway). The flash has the ability to hurt the thing one is looking at because it is already in a fragile condition and if many people took pictures with flashes, there would be an impact. However I do not understand the increased amount of “no foto” signs in churches in Italy. These churches are absolutely stunning with their unique and old architecture style. And I want to document this. I’m an art history major, so I will use these pictures I take to insert into pictures and look at over and over to analyze them, yet how can I do that when I can’t even take a photo.

So I’ve stopped paying attention to the signs…when the place is crowded. In a crowded place you can often sneak a few photographs, they might not be good, but at least there is something to remember it by. However the Italian guards notice when you take a picture (even in some of the crowded spaces) and they either say loudly “no foto” or, in the case of the Sistine Chapel, they make you delete the picture. (I understand the inability to take pictures of the Sistine Chapel, because the people who have paid for the expensive restoration hold photography rights over the ceiling.) Yet really some of the other places…I do not understand the need for the sign. So I guess I will just have to keep sneaking pictures with my little point and shoot until you take the signs down.

(Sorry there are no pictures to go along with this post…but that’s kind of the point.)

Forthcoming research from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council will highlight the abundance of volunteers working within local museums and galleries.

Given the increasing interest in the role of volunteering can play in keeping people ‘job ready’ during the recession, this finding may well attract interest from beyond the heritage sector.

Along with a detailed look at the profile of the workforce, Fast Forward 2008 will provide an update on a range of variables, including levels of visiting and average service standards (disability access, audience development, and so on) within West Midlands museums.

The 2008 publication will include an Excel workbook containing the raw data behind the findings. This move will no doubt be welcomed by researchers keen to understand trends in more detail.

Indeed, the publication of the complete dataset is something English Heritage has also trialled in their latest Heritage Counts publication, which has several accompanying datasets.

The move towards making cultural data available in this way is likely to make data more useful to more people. With a consistent evidence base, for example, local cultural providers may choose to refer to data in their business planning and monitoring activity.

Fast Forward 2008 is due to be published in January 2010 and will be available to download from the MLA website, where you’ll also find past Fast Forward publications (2002-2006).

For more information about the role of culture and volunteering in the region’s post-recession recovery, see the recent briefing from the West Midlands Cultural Observatory (Nov 2009) (pdf, 140kb).

Photo by houghtonabout

According to the first ever Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) Place Survey results, the proportion of West Midlands residents satisfied with theatres and concert halls is the most variable indicator across the region, ranging from 76% in Malvern Hills to a low of 18% in North Warwickshire.

However, overall satisfaction with theatres and concert halls in the region (45%) exceeded the national average (43%).

In addition, compared to all other regions, West Midlands residents were the least satisfied with local sport and leisure facilities.

These two results, which carry implications for some of the region’s local cultural service providers, were highlighted as headline findings by colleagues at the West Midlands Regional Observatory as part of their detailed Place Survey 2008 analysis.

While overall satisfaction with theatres, concert halls, museums and galleries in the West Midlands exceeded the national average, satisfaction with parks and open spaces, sport and leisure facilities and libraries was below average:

View this chart on SlideShare

Related links

Regional results of the Place Survey 2008:

• Interactive map: results by West Midlands local authorities (Flash)
• Comparison of West Midlands with other English regions (PDF, 1.52mb)
• Place Survey 2008 dataset by English region and West Midlands local authorities (XLS, 51kb)

Capital of Italy, Rome is one of most visited tourist destination and has lot of exciting and beautiful attractions and tourist spots to offer. Established by twins Remus and Romulus, the city of Rome is famous for its rich architecture and ancient monuments making it an ideal holiday destination for all.

Following are some of the most favorite tourist spots not to be missed when holidaying in Rome:

Castel Sant’ Angelo (Hadrian’s Mausoleum)

Initially tomb of Hadrain emperor, this place was also famous as the defense area of the city at early times. This historic tourist spot often finds a lot of visitors every year trying to catch the glimpse of its rich architecture.

Via Appia and the Aurelian Wall

This amazing wall was built in third century with the objective of supporting Rome’s defense system. Tourists from across the world, when holidaying in Rome, make sure that they visit this marvelous structure. If you are some one who loves capturing stunning architectural structures in your cameras, then visiting this wall is a good idea.

Theater of Marcellus

This gorgeous ancient structure was originally built by Julius Caesar and later was completed by Augustus. With remarkable history to it, this huge ancient structure has a capacity of over 20,000 people and is 120 meters in diameter.

Vatican Museums

Vatican museums boost some of the best antiquities of imperial roman, Egyptian and western civilization. The grouping of these value rich museums also possesses artifacts and sculptures dating back to first century BC. The museums are located in Vatican City, which is the world’s smallest sovereign state and a base for Catholic Church and is popular as land of pope. Holiday in Rome is incomplete without a visit to Vatican and its beautiful attractions.

Capitoline Museums

These museums of 17th century boost a stunning and gorgeous collection of archeological findings and artifacts. The museums also have the famous Constantine sculpture to its amazing collection and art.

Palatine hill

A walk from Roman forum starting from Via dei Fori Imperiali takes you to the incredible Palatine Hill. Built somewhere in first century, this hill has excellent and breathtaking views to offer as well as an outstanding sight of the city. One can always look and cherish the Alban hills and Circus Maximus. The hill is an amazing tourist spot for all those holidaying in Rome.

Best time to visit of holiday in Rome

Best time for a holidaying in Rome is in the months from March to May or rather the spring season. The summers and winters of Rome can be little uncomfortable for enjoying those amazing places in the city.

The intellectual heritage of European expansion that we inherit as anthropologists – certainly not without modification and criticism – is again the subject in this series. If Immanuel Wallerstein explained which agendas became dominant with the institutionalization of the social sciences, with some notes on why they became dominant, Pierre Bourdieu provides some explanation as to how they became dominant.

What Science?

One of the recurring features of some comments, on this and other blogs, surrounding anthropologists’ criticisms of the Human Terrain System, has been that we critics are not being “scientific” and “objective,” but rather “ideological” and “biased.” As I have held throughout, the dichotomy is an extremely crude and simplistic one. Now we will see how we can take that further: the dichotomy itself is pure artifice, the by product of low grade propaganda that has been popularly consumed in North America, based on views of science that very few even in the natural sciences would any longer dare to defend. The idea that anthropology should be “scientific” and “objective” is also derivative of the Eurocentric foundations of anthropology, as was discussed in previous posts in this series.

The Domination of “Scientific Reason”

As with the opening quote on the “cultural imperialism” of universalism in the last post, Pierre Bourdieu had a similar line of argument on the topic of scientific reason, reminding us that “reason, which thinks itself free from history, also has a history” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 4). Stating matters more loosely, one can think of Bourdieu as placing scientific production within the context of academic politics:

“Even in the ‘pure’ universe where the ‘purest’ science is produced and reproduced, that science is in some respects a social field like all others–with its relations of force, its powers, its struggles and profits, its generic mechanisms such as those that regulate the selection of newcomers or the competition between the various producers.” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 5)

Scientific production is neither disconnected from the wider society in which it occurs, but it is also not totally reflective of it either. What Bourdieu draws attention to is the quest for authority in science, which is like a game, with established rules, and with competition. What he rightly dispels is the simplistic, popular notion that the science we know, and its products, are there simply because scientific production is true, objective, correct, and proven, without competition from rivals.

The capital of social authority that is influential in science, is capital “which rests upon delegation from an institution, most often the educational system” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 7). Scientific success can, with time, be converted into social success, in heightening the profile of the university for example, or a unit within it. With more success, and the enhanced profile of the institution, it can happen that an institution acquires status as a leader, as a “prestigious institution,” so that in the future that fact will play a role in judgments of the merits of the science that institution produces – and of course, that does not mean that what is actually produced is entirely and solely deemed important on the basis of abstract scientific principles alone. What Bourdieu calls “strictly scientific authority” (derived from peer reviewers attesting to the legitimacy of solutions to problems that are also held to be legitimate) can also be converted into social authority, and that can impact on the science that is actually produced:

“Strictly scientific authority tends to convert itself, over time, into a social authority capable of opposing the assertion of a new scientific authority. Further, social authority within the scientific field tends to become legitimized by presenting itself as pure technical reason, and also the recognized signs of statutory authority modify the social perception of strictly technical ability.” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 7)

Part of the reason for this is the fact that membership within the scientific community is predicated on learning, and becoming familiar with, the way knowledge is orchestrated, so that certain problems are defined as true, and others as false, some knowledge is authentically scientific, and other knowledge is fake science, that some methods are legitimate and others are not (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 8). Bourdieu speaks here of a very fundamental form of censorship that plays out in the minds of both orthodox and heterodox adversaries in a scientific game, where both agree to certain rules and schemes, having learned them, internalized them, and now utilize them with little conscious thought (1991, p. 9).

Going further, Bourdieu argues that every “scientific choice” — whether it is a choice of research area, a choice of methods, a choice of where to publish, or when to publish (or whether to quickly publish partially verified results) – is a choice that cannot be understood apart from the relationship between the dispositions acquired by a researcher as a member of a scientific community, and that researcher’s position within the scientific field (Bourdieu, 1991, pp. 9-10). Attention is then drawn to how dominance is achieved in a field, how choices are restricted, and how scientific actors are unevenly endowed with resources accumulated from the past. In addition, Bourdieu argues, the science that is done, and how it is conceived, is itself a product of power:

“Stated more concretely, they [scientific actors] try to impose the definition of science that best conforms to their specific interest, that is, the one best suited to preserving or increasing their specific capital.” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 13)

Applied Knowledge: Playing the Game of Power

There is a demand for the “applied techniques of rule or instruments of legitimation” so that the requirements for the social reproduction of the powerful can be better assured (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 19). In facing the powerful that rule society, scientists can take different routes, and what happens here is by no means “purely scientific” – one finds it just as easily in the fields of literary and artistic production.

One route is for scientists to restrict their production to what some now call pure or “basic research,” one that does not cater to any outside market, one that markets only to itself. Another is for scientists to offer their services to the dominant powers. A third route allows scientists to avoid confrontation with their competitors by instead addressing themselves to a broader public of nonprofessionals. From that link with the public, they can derive a form of symbolic power which they can then attempt to bring back into play in the realm of scientific debate itself (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 19). As Bourdieu concludes:

“Claims to scientific validity can no doubt hide claims to symbolic domination, and scientific debates can no doubt conceal, underneath the confrontation between statements and reality, the struggle for power of those who put them forward.” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 20)

The History of Scientific Reason in Anthropology: The Myth of Primitive Society

The victory of science in the rise of early anthropology was manifested in the “comparative point of view,” a view that, “rests on a recognition that there are physical and cultural differences among human populations which must be taken into account in any attempt to generalize about mankind” (Rowe, 1974, p. 61). Generalizing about humanity meant that humanity first had to be ordered and categorized, in order for there to be a science of humanity. As Rowe explained, “it is anthropology’s recognition of the scientific importance of such differences which chiefly distinguishes it from other disciplines concerned with man and human behavior” (Rowe, 1974, p. 61). It was a science primarily rooted in European expansion, the voyages of discovery, and Renaissance archaeology, a science that demanded perspectival distance in order for difference to be perceived and then “explained” (Rowe, 1974, p. 76).

Demonstrating some of Bourdieu’s propostions above, Adam Kuper (2005) provides us with a short  history of scientific reason in anthropology, noting its contending fields of origin, with the early anthropology of the mid-1800s emerging from law, philosophy, and (speculative) history. As an emergent discipline, anthropology made use of Darwinian evolutionism as capital, even if the appropriation was often superficial. Anthropology’s ancient ape was the idea of a universal, primitive other, the bedrock of all human existence. It is a myth, a “scientifically” validated myth, validated by men who took bits and pieces of the theory of evolution – meaning that the myth has been held by scientific anthropological and social authority as a legitimate answer to what were deemed legitimate questions (within the framework of evolutionism). The problem here is that Kuper appears to rely on the idea that there is a pure science somewhere from which one can criticize those “myths” that are in fact held to be scientific by its upholders. This is not really then about science versus myth, but emergent science versus subsequent science, or, following Bourdieu, between orthodox science and heterodox science.

To begin with, Kuper takes special aim at a construct of cultural evolutionism, whose influence has been pervasive throughout anthropology and multiple forms and theories, that being “primitive society”:

“The whole conception is fundamentally unsound. There is not even a sensible way in which one can specify what a ‘primitive society’ is. The term implies some historical point of reference. It presumably defines a different type of society ancestral to more advanced forms, on the analogy of an evolutionary history of natural species. However, human societies cannot be traced back to a single point of origin. Nor is there any way of reconstituting prehistoric social forms, classifying them, and aligning them in a time series. There are no fossils of social organization.” (Kuper, 2005, p. 5)

Kuper emphasizes that “the history of the theory of primitive society is the history of an illusion. It is our phlogiston, our aether” (Kuper, 2005, p. 10). And why is it that “anthropologists have busied themselves for over a hundred years with the manipulation of a myth” (Kuper, 2005, p. 10)? First, Kuper explains that,

“A common way of accounting for the persistence of a myth is to suppose that it has political functions. Certainly the idea of primitive society could and did feed a variety of ideological positions. Among its most celebrated protagonists were Engels, Freud, Durkheim and  Kropotkin, men with very different political programmes.” (Kuper, 2005, p. 10)

Secondly, important political events in the colonial world also impacted on anthropologists’ need to devise certain politically suitable scientific explanations:

“British and American commentators on primitive society were also reacting to a variety of political events. The Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica, and the Civil War in the United States revived earlier debates on slavery. Arguments about slavery in turn raised the great question whether human beings all had a common origin, or whether the races were separate species, with different ancestors. These issues divided Victorian anthropologists, and they formed two warring associations, the Ethnological Society of London and the Anthropological Society of London. The development of the Indian Empire and the colonisation of Africa raised further fundamental questions, about the nature of government, and of civilisation itself, which were heatedly debated in anthropological circles. In Germany, speculations about national culture and the Volksgeist fed the common belief that societies were based either on blood or on soil, but these romantic ideas were contested by liberal anthropologists in Berlin. In short, while the idea of primitive society was relevant to a number of great political issues, it was not necessarily associated with any one political position.” (Kuper, 2005, pp. 10-11)

On the Anthropological Society of London: Science and Race

Applying elements that we can see in Bourdieu’s approach, with the discussion of the history of the Anthropological Society of London, we can discern the creation of scientific authority, and the importance of social authority, in the invention of anthropology as a science. In 1863, the Anthropological Society of London was formed and “joined the ranks of England’s scientific institutions” (Rainger, 1978, p. 51). As Rainger tells us, that society was founded “with the object of promoting the study of Anthropology in a strictly scientific manner” (1978, p. 51). Unlike its predecessor, the Ethnological Society of London which Rainger claims avoided discussion of religious and political issues, “the Anthropological Society consciously mixed science and politics” (Rainger, 1978, p. 51). In particular, the Anthropological Society’s apparent fixation with race, and its justification of racist policies through racist theories, reflected the influence of the founder and president, Dr. James Hunt. (While Rainger says the ESL avoided politics, the fact remains that it was itself an offshoot of a political organization, the Aborigines Protection Society – see here for more details.)

[You can download a public domain volume of the Journal of the Anthropological Society of London published in 1869, or view it online. There is an excellent comprehensive collection of publications of the Anthropological Society of London that have been digitized by Google, and are all free to download from this page, consisting of The Anthropological Review, The Popular Magazine of Anthropology, and Memoirs Read Before the Anthropological Society of London.]

Hunt’s “personal scientific and institutional ideals” marked the influence he had on the development of the Anthropological Society of London (Rainger, 1978, p. 53), reminding us of Bourdieu’s observation that the struggle for power is imbricated with claims to scientific validity. He imposed his particular scientific definition of anthropology to suit his specific interests, using scientific authority to bolster his social authority. His work in relation to the wider society seems to blend two of Bourdieu’s approaches to applying anthropology, one by providing the supporting rationale for campaigns of conquest, and the other by trying to speak to a broader public in attracting interest to his Society, in its own campaign for primacy. In its explicit “scientific” racism, the ASL was the British counterpart of the American School of Ethnology, a society for which Hunt had obvious respect.

Let us keep in mind that the ASL was not a marginal, fringe organization in the founding of what later become institutional anthropology. Edward Burnett Tylor, who became the first Professor of Anthropology at Oxford, was a foreign secretary for the Anthropological Society of London. (Online, see his Primitive Culture and Anthropology: An Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization.) Moreover, the ASL and ESL were later fused in what became the Royal Anthropological Institute that we know today, now a professional body for institutional anthropologists, for the most part.

In defining anthropology, Hunt declared that it is,

“the science of the whole nature of Man. With such a meaning it will include nearly the whole circle of sciences. Biology, anatomy, chemistry, natural philosophy, and physiology must all furnish the anthropologist with materials from which he may make his deductions. While Ethnology treats of the history or science of nations or races, we have to deal with the origin and development of humanity. So while Ethnography traces the position and arts of the different races of Man, it is our business to investigate the laws regulating the distribution of mankind.” (Hunt, 1863, p. 2)

With an eye on supplying “practical benefits,” Hunt even proposed an early version of military anthropology:

“How many thousands of our soldiers’ lives would be saved annually if we studied temperament in the selection of men suitable for hot and those for cold climates?” (Hunt, 1863, p. 3)

The luster of science, at the very start of anthropology’s climb toward professional status, and its initial dependence on the good will of the public to achieve its climb, is evident in Hunt’s remarks:

“Let us, then, show that we too can be earnest in our study, as well as the geologists or the astronomers. But let it be known we are as yet only groping in the dark, and know not yet what to study, or hardly what facts we want to get, to found our science. We have not only to found a science of Anthropology, but we have to do what we can to form some anthropologists….We have faith in the thinking public, and know that we shall be supported as long as we keep faith with them.” (Hunt, 1863, p. 19)

What the ASL also achieved, that was enduring in anthropology beyond the life of this particular society, was to imprint the discipline with a belief that indigenous peoples were destined to extinction, either in biological or cultural terms – and now that their expected disappearance is a grand failure, some of us elaborate theories to explain why they should not even be called indigenous (see for example, Kuper, 2003). One small sample of what the ASL published in the extinctionist vein can be found in T. Bendyshe, “On the Extinction of Races,” Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, 1864 (pp. xcix-cxiii). “The higher races are destined to displace the lower,” said a Professor Waitz, quoted by Bendyshe,

“This extinction of the lower races is predestined by nature, and it would thus appear that we must not merely acknowledge the right of the white American to destroy the red man, but perhaps praise him that he has constituted himself the instrument of Providence in carrying out and promoting this law of destruction. The pious manslayer thus enjoys the consolation that he acts according to the laws of nature, which govern the rise and extinction of races.” (quoted in Bendyshe, 1864, p. c)

Museumizing the World: The Luster of Science, the Quest for Capital, and Service to the State

Anthropology as the pre-professional, public practice of a budding science, would succeed in legitimizing itself in part by imposing order on chaos. “Rare, abnormal, bizarre” freaks and curiosities collected by travelers would be stabilized in an ordered scheme of understanding. This is better explained by Jenkins (1994, pp. 242-243):

“In contrast to these fragmentary collections, emerging natural history museums in the late nineteenth century functioned to sort the world systematically into drawers, glass-fronted cases, bottles, and filing cabinets. This represented a shift from delighting in the world’s strange offerings and the appeal of subjective involvement to an attempt to master and control the world’s diversity through new forms of conceptualization….Based on scientific notions of classification, spurred by the Darwinian reorganization of evolutionary theory, and increasingly connected to universities and government surveys, natural history museums abandoned many of the aesthetic and mystical criteria that had previously determined the arrangement of objects. Instead, these museums began to emphasize the summary relationships among objects, the sense that this or that specimen metonymically suggested a larger and coherent whole, and the idea that a general understanding of the world could be inferred adequately by a collection of things removed from their context of origin.”

Some museums mounted public displays, presumably for public education, but also for profit, and either deliberately or indirectly provided a testing ground for an emerging anthropology, as a “proof of concept” program one might say. In Wondrous Difference, a superb book on world’s fairs, ethnographic spectacles, and the rise of visual ethnography, Alison Griffiths details the negotiations that took place between anthropology, popular culture, and commerce in attempting to strike the right balance between education, spectacle, and profit (2002, p. 47). Franz Boas himself, the “founding father” of institutional anthropology in the U.S., was also involved in putting natives on display at the Chicago World’s Fair, the Columbian Exposition, in 1892-1893, his first fieldwork conducted under the auspices of a museum. In the sense of Bourdieu’s three routes to power for scientists, early anthropology was “applied” to begin with, by catering to a broad public as it then began to claim scientific status in search of a permanent home:

“If world’s fairs served to launch the public face of anthropology to a vast popular audience, they also evoked anthropology’s uncomfortable doppel­ganger, popularized exhibits such as ‘Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show’ and other for-profit spectacles that, to the untrained eye, may have looked no different from the officially sanctioned displays of native peoples.” (Griffiths, 2002, p. 47)

Other prominent anthropologists were tied to world’s fairs, such as Harvard’s

“Peabody Museum anthropologist Frederick Ward Putnam…designated director of Department M (which included anthropology) at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and his job involved overseeing exhibits housed in the Anthropology Building (including mannequin life groups, photographs, material artifacts, and anthropometric equipment) as well as the ethnological exhibits and concessions found on the Midway Plaisance.” (Griffiths, 2002, p. 49)

One observer went as far as asserting in 1902 that “World’s fairs are necessary to the proper study of mankind” (Griffiths, 2002, p. 49). To some degree, anthropologists acted as entrepreneurs, seeking the attention of those who would fund them, and provide them with a stable home in a university.

The rhetoric of anthropology was first employed for commercial advantage, while making the public more familiar with the emerging field of anthropology (Griffiths, 2002, p. 48). “Some mid-nineteenth-century museums, such as P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York City, were run solely for profit,” Jenkins (1994, p. 243) tells us, “catering to a popular taste for the exotic and curious.” Indeed, P. T. Barnum, the founder of the circus company, put on shows such as the “Congress of Nations” and the “Ethnological Congress” (Griffiths, 2002, p. 55). The early American museums of natural history and ethnology “sought to collect, order, and display objects of the world….part of a general trend to objectify and, hence, dominate on a grand scale the world and its inhabitants” (Jenkins, 1994, p. 243). What Jenkins also notes is that the “search for profit and knowledge…found a similar institutional form” (Jenkins, 1994, p. 243). “Sanctioned by science but designed by commerce,” as Griffiths puts it (2002, p. 61), ethnography was a hybrid at the intersection of “scientific research” and popular amusement, producing a spectacle that reinforced white supremacist ideals.

One could develop a genealogy of early institutional forms of anthropology. This would connect early freak shows in London and Paris, to subsequent world’s fairs and commercial ethnographic exhibitions, to museums, and then only lastly, actual departments of anthropology. Likewise, one may find family resemblance in a variety of spectacles:

“Comparable places of spectacle such as zoos, botanical gardens, circuses, temporary or permanent exhibitions staged by missionary societies and museums of natural history, all exhibited other races – other species — and testified to the imperialism of 19^th-century nation-states.” (Corbey, 1993, p. 338)

Thus a number of studies link social Darwinism with imperialism, nationalism, commerce and science, through the nexus of categorization and display. Jenkins’ approach to this subject links colonialism and classification, science and display, in a discussion of American anthropological practices that developed in the late 19^th century. What I took to be his most poignant, summarizing statement from his survey was this:

“At stake in the physical arrangement of objects was the relationship between knowledge and power, between an interpretation of the world and the means to justify that interpretation. By offering visible evidence–a ‘theater of proof’–of the natural progress from savagery to barbarism to civilization, for example, museums and expositions linked science with the concerns of American imperialism. In this way, ethnological displays validated the utopian projections of many late-nineteenth-century elites–those who, in concert with federal funding, supported by government surveys, and backed by the prestige of science, produced an interpretation of social reality dependent upon theories of racial development, national progress, and, in some instances, the ultimate disappearance of native peoples.” (Jenkins, 1994, p. 257; emphasis added)

One question we need to ask ourselves is to what extent we have really shed the history of collecting, organizing, and displaying others, both for profit and to buttress our theories of the world. Not even the argument that we no longer put on commercial spectacles in public is a safe one, to the extent that we sell anthropology through our own specialized retail outlets: universities. For others, the way to exhibit ethnography to the paying public is via the ever more popular medium of ethnographic film. (And there is no moral superiority here: I write this as someone who is as much a player as anyone else.)

References:

Bendyshe, T. 1864. “On the Extinction of Races.” Journal of the Anthropological Society of London: xcix-cxiii.

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. “The Peculiar History of Scientific Reason.” Sociological Forum 6 (1): 3-26.

Corbey, Raymond. 1993. “Ethnographic Showcases, 1870-1930.” Cultural Anthropology, 8 (3): 338-369.

Griffiths, Alison. 2002. Wondrous Difference: Cinema, Anthropology, and Turn-of-the-Century Visual Culture. New York : Columbia University Press. (Ch. 2, “Science and Spectacle: Visualizing the Other at the World’s Fair,” pp. 46-85.)

Hunt, James. 1863. “Introductory Address on the Study of Anthropology.” The Anthropological Review, 1 (1) May: 1-20.

Jenkins, David. 1994. “Object Lessons and Ethnographic Displays: Museum Exhibitions and the Making of American Anthropology.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 36 (2): 242-270.

Kuper, Adam. 2003. “The Return of the Native”. Current Anthropology, 44 (3): 389-402.

Kuper, Adam. 2005. The Reinvention of Primitive Society: Transformations of a Myth. 2^nd ed. New York: Routledge. (Ch. 1, “The Myth of Primitive Society,” 3-19)

Rainger, Ronald. 1978. “Race, Politics, and Science: The Anthropological Society of London in the 1860s.” Victorian Studies, 22 (1): 51-70.

Rowe, John Howland. 1974. “The Renaissance Foundations of Anthropology.” In Regna Darnell, ed., Readings in the History of Anthropology, pp. 61-77. New York: Harper & Row.