This past week in ANT4320, also called Human Evolution, we were assigned as a class to read three articles. The first one was by Athreya and Ackermann in 2018 called Colonialism Narratives Human Origins Asia Africa. This article focused on the type of theories regarding the human origins (like the out-of-Africa model), but while reading this article one major point stuck out to me. We cannot and will not get the "true origin" model without the incorporation of non-whites (this includes Africans, Asians, Whites, and any other "race" that exists). This reminds me of a topic discussed in one of my classes last semester called Cultural Anthropology. In this class during our ethnographer discussions, we discussed that an anthropologist must get the native's point of view along with his own point of view in order to "correctly" interpret a culture. How is this not the same when it comes to trying to find the human origin?
The second article, It Is Unethical To Teach Evolution Without Confronting Racism and Sexism by Dunsworth, and the third article, Black Feminist Theory in Prehistory written by Sterling in 2015, focuses on what I personally believe is such an important topic in anthropology. Race, Gender, Sexism, and Diversity. These words mentioned above have such a powerful connotation and it seems like this is more of a problem today than it used to be. As an anthropology major, we are taught the race is socially constructed, but I used to always have questions regarding this topic. Why is race so important? What even is race? If it is socially constructed, why do many governmental and scientists use race terms? Come to find out, as human beings we need to be labeled and separated, and when something or someone is different from one individual they tends to be viewed as "weird". Take, for example, human zoos, in the past, the odd ones out would be put on display for amusement. What kind of society does that? This still happens today to those who do not necessarily "fit in", but like my mother has always told me, "it is better to stand out than fit in"! There is so much to say regarding these three articles, especially when discussing the last two but forsakes time I leave that for another discussion.
While discussing this topic I would also like to mention two more articles that were sent to me. These were not required to read, but they did enlighten me on something that I would like to share within this post. The article titled This Philosopher is Challenging All of Evolutionary Psychology by Mandelbaum is talking about an interview done with Subrena Smith who is defending, so to say, her article. While reading this some points in which she mentions stood out to me. Smith states that "Evolutionary Psychologists though is that, we have hard-wired cognitive structures operating in contemporary human beings that is the same as they did for our ancestors on the savannas.." to clarify, she is saying that Evolutionary Psychologist are suggesting that the cognitive structure of our brain are the same now in modern times as they were with our ancestors. This includes the way we select mates, care for our young, and avoid predation. My problem with this standpoint in evolutionary psychology is that, how are we even modern if our cognitive abilities have not progressed from our ancestors? This is just something that I am having a hard time wrapping my head around especially since there are many variations from one individual to another and these variations itself start in the brain. "Our brains are dynamic, our behaviors are dynamic we're imaginative, we generate novel behaviors in contexts that never exhibited themselves," this quote comes from the article itself and it is the best quote to exemplify what I am trying to say.
The last article in which I would like to discuss focuses on colonialism in archaeology. It is titled Archaeology is Changing, Slowly. But It's Still Too Tied Up in Colonial Practices and it is written by Humphreys, Bam-Hutchison, and Ackermann. This article, in my opinion, ties up a lot of these articles perfectly in saying that, "it's crucial for archaeologists to listen deeply and respectfully to indigenous people locally based at sites." This is an important ethical practice to avoid the colonialism that can become present. Colonialism was such a big problem is archaeology within the 19th and 20th Centuries and now in the 21st Century, we are trying to avoid this unethical practice and incorporate natives into archaeological practices.
Nice post here, Logan. I like how you read the one on evo psych (i had originally had that set for the first day of class but then didn't want to assign too much). Evo psych is very interesting but also highly controversial. And it often gets mixed with race science. So it is impt to call that out.
ReplyDeleteand this is a great question you raise: " If it is socially constructed, why do many governmental and scientists use race terms? " I think the answer would be that social constructs, while not based on biology, are still very real and have real effects. So one thing anthros have been working on is how to best teach about race to make it clear that race is an outgrowth of racism and can have biological influences. substandard housing and racist lending practices have lead to higher hypertension in minoritized populations. I am glad you brought up how it would be wrong to have a story of human origins that without the incorporation of non-whites. It is impt to remember that since sometimes the models we use miss that important fact
It is interesting to think about human zoos and how our behaviors had to have shown in pre-humans. Most human behaviors can be found in animals somewhere, which is why when confronted with the question "what /really/ makes us human", it is hard to answer it.
ReplyDeleteHumans do seem to be the only species to house other animals for their entertainment and enjoyment; one of my professor's Dr. Rick Elmore in the philosophy department always said something about this in his Animal Ethics course. What if squirrels housed different types of insects in tiny squirrel zoos?