Patrick Tucker wrote:
 
[snip]
>... the Dean of American
>Anthropology (Alfred Kroeber) lives on in anthropologists who are unsure of
>how to classify themselves?  Am I a anthropologist? An archaeologist? An
>ethnologist? Historic Archaeologist? Or Prehistoric archaeologist.  What
>difference does it make?  In the days of Kroeber, White, Lowie, Sapir, tec.,
>these people did all fields and simply called themselves anthropologists.
> The concern was for universal laws and truths about human behavior and
>culture, not a specific turf or territory.
 
To echo some of these sentiments without the accusation of territoriality:
I sympathize with the general disgruntledness appearing on this list with
overspecialization in the field today.  I do not wish to reinforce
disciplinary boundaries.  But, just for yucks, let's look at this through
the eyes of one of the best pre-postmodern anthropological theorists,
Frederick Barth.  Barth, writing about ethnicity (although he was really
writing about communities in general) said that communities are communities
basically because they label themselves as such.  There are no common rules
for membership but the ones enabled and/or made consensual by that group -
and what's more  - it is impossible to generalize meaningfully about what
constitutes one collection of subjectivities based on what constitutes
another.  In other words, the label IS VERY IMPORTANT, if not solely
important, in defining the community. The argument before us - are we
anthropologists, historians, historical, prehistoric or just plain
hysterical archaeologists (?), is not simply about labelling.   Or is it?
for  a while, I was begining to think we were going to have a really
interesting discussion of PRACTICE (you know - what people actually do - as
opposed to what they call themselves), but I see that I was wrong.  It IS a
PRACTICAL distinction which I see being made between prehistoric and
historic technique, method and theoretical applicability, not a discursive
one.   Oh well, maybe some other day....
 
best,
Matt
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Matt Tomaso,  marginally human.
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Anthropology.   University of Texas at Austin.
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