Interpretivism, Perspectivism, and Feminism: Three Ways of Looking Through a Glass Darkly

During the 1970's Clifford Geertz ushered an era of introspection in anthropology that was unparalleled. Since that time there has been, in cultural anthropology, a distinct desire to understand not only the semantic content of culture of, but to also to appreciate the role of reflexivity in the course of representation. The goal of anthropology became less of an exercise in purporting to have the objective truth or reality of cultural phenomenon. Instead, anthropology became aware of the fact that ethnographic representations of "cultures" were just that--representations. By way of metaphor, "the anthropological lens" became an important term for conveying how anthropology simple provided a particular way of viewing cultural phenomena. By extension it became more obvious that individual anthropologist as well as those who they represented viewed such phenomena through particular, though not mutually exclusive, perspectives. This set of readings aims for provide an introduction to these issues and how they have influenced anthropological thought today.


Interpretivism


Shankman, Paul (1984). The Thick and the Thin: On the Interpretive Theoretical Program of Clifford Geertz. Current Anthropology. 25.3: 261-280.

Martin, Michael (1993). Geertz and the Interpretive Approach in Anthropology. Synthese. 97.3, 269-286.

Keesing, Roger (1987). Anthropology as Interpretive Quest. Current Anthropology. 28.2, 161-176.

Perspectivism


Latour, Bruno (2009, April). Perspectivism: 'Type' or 'bomb'? Anthropology Today. 25.2: 1-2.

Narayan, Kirin (1993). How Native Is a "Native" Anthropologist? American Anthropologist. 95.3: 671-686.

Viverios de Castro, Eduardo (1998). Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 4.3: 469-488.

Feminism


Abu-Lughod, Lila (1992). "Writing Against Culture." In Richard G. Fox, ed. Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present. Sante Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 137-162.

Ortner, Sherry (1997). "Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture." In Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 21-42.

Strathern, Marilyn (1980). "No nature, no culture: the Hagen case." In Carol P. MacCormack & Marilyn Strathern, ed. Nature, culture and gender. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 174-222.

Rosaldo, M.Z. (1980). The Use and Abuse of Anthropology: Reflections on Feminism and Cross-Cultural Understanding. Signs. 5.3: 389-417.

Mascia-Less, Frances, et al. (1989). The Postmodernist Turn in Anthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective. Signs. 15.1, 7-33.

Morris, Rosalind C. (1995). All Make Up: Performance Theory and the New Anthropology of Sex and Gender. Annual Review of Anthropology. 24, 567-592.