Mike Steska

Anthro 8010

Week 12

11/6/12

Background to Postmodernism & Postmodernism

When Postmodern thought was applied to anthropology the traditional views of culture and reality were brought into question leading to a more critical analysis of how ethnography is conducted and written. Bourdieus excerpt taken from The logic of Practice was written in a style opposite of parsimonious. He laboriously writes about his notion of habitus, assigning many attributes to what it is and is not. Ultimately he conveys that habitus is something that resides in all of us, is characteristically exercised on an unconscious level, and leads to the commonality of understanding for peoples of the same class due to a similarity of outcomes regarding their collective experiences. Although I found Bourdieus argument to be extremely tedious, I admire how he incorporated ideas from a wide variety of disciplines to support his points including philosophy, economics, politics, sociology, anthropology, etc. Upon studying the subsequent readings, I question to what degree are Bourdieus concept of habitus and Rosaldos notion of position the same? Further, can the notion of habitus be found within the writings of Rosaldo, Abu-Lughod, and Hanson? Rosaldo wrote that cultural depth does is not always produced from cultural elaboration and that depth should be separated from presence or absence of elaboration. One could certainly criticize Bourdieus writing on this basis; however I believed the content of his writing both strong in depth and theory. On the other hand, I would apply Rosoldos statement to the essay written by Foucault. The Incitement to Discourse, although setting forth interesting possibilities as to how western powers control of sexual dialogue gave rise to capitalism and class division, Foucault offered minimal supporting evidence needed to make his argument convincing. Resaldos presents a powerful argument by using the notions of position and force to attain a deep understanding of the culture observed and to provide less biased ethnography. Both Abu-Lughod and Rosoldo intimately relate their own personal experiences to show the reader what they have observed in an attempt to be unbiased, yet still shed light on the culture they are participating in. Does the Postmodern perspective and ethnography raise questions that can ultimately lead to a greater understanding of humanity compared to the generalizations resulting from more traditional or mechanical ethnography? Lastly, I believed Hansons essay to provide the best example of postmodern anthropological theory. His clearly explains his position on how cultural inventions shape a more solid approach to understanding cultural reality.