Humanistic Anthropology Research Articles

Two Row Repair: A trilogy

AbstractThe Two Row Repair trilogy refuses erasure as it tracks a journey of attempted recovery and repair, using the Two Row Wampum (Kaswenta) as inspiration, model, and directive. The Two Row Wampum, a foundational agreement made between Haudenosaunee and Dutch in 1613, extends into the present as a promise between Haudenosaunee and people of European descent to co‐exist in peace, respect, and friendship, and in common stewardship for all orders of life. The author, a tenth‐generation Dutch descendant settler, received first place in the 2023 Society for Humanistic Anthropology's 37th Annual Ethnographic Poetry Competition for Parts II and III of this trilogy.

“Longing and Hope and Sadness and Anger”: Disentangling the Social and the Human

Abstract This article reconstructs the historical context in which “agency” emerged as the key concept of social history, arguing that an unstated concept of the liberal individual was smuggled into historical explanation through a humanist anthropology underlying the social history renaissance. It then asks what would be involved in salvaging social–historical explanation, including its interest in historical possibilities for social solidarity and the political power of ordinary people, while jettisoning this liberal-humanist baggage.

Burning Desires: Zanzibari Women in the Throes of Concubinage and Gunpoint Matrimony

This article examines the two instances of concubinage (suria) during the Omani rule of Zanzibar and the Ndoa Za Karume Forced Marriage Act that followed the revolution in 1964 on the island. Both practices can be seen as laboratories in which the complexities of sex and power were in full display. Throughout, the author draws inspiration from anthropologist Tim Ingold's theory of human correspondence alongside valuable insights from the intersection of black feminist thought and humanistic anthropology to deepen our understanding of both concubinage and forced marriage as forms of sexual bondage occurring within particular political circumstances and historical realities. For indeed, both objectifying practices assumed a variety of meanings in colonial and postrevolutionary Zanzibar. When conjugating suria and ndoa within the complex grammar of race, class, and gender, we also often encounter inconsistencies inherent in fraught human relationships and furthered by the marked fluidities and slippages of both practices and their varying connotative, pragmatic, and ideational significances. Was the Ndoa za Karume an act of retribution against concubinage? Or was it a contribution to a nation-building project in a society adrift? To consider these questions, the article draws on a variety of ethnographic insights gathered in Zanzibar and Oman between 2016 and 2019 and a constellation of texts, including archives, local historiographies, a collection of Swahili statements for and against ndoa possessed by an interlocutor, memoirs, and other field notes gathered in 2020–21. The article explores what was at stake in these two parallel modes of exploiting women's bodies, arguing that they cannot be understood in isolation from their “correspondences” and the emotionality manifested in both gendered social dramas.

Homelanding: Second Prize Winner for Poetry in the Society for Humanistic Anthropology 2022 Writing Awards

Homelanding: Second Prize Winner for Poetry in the Society for Humanistic Anthropology 2022 Writing Awards

TOLERANCE AS THE FOUNDATION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: THE SCIENCE FICTION TRILOGY «THE TREE OF LIFE» BY VLADIMIR KUZMENKO

The present article offers an analysis of the trilogy «The Tree of Life», authored by Ukrainian speculative fiction writer and scientist Vladimir Kuzmenko. The work surpasses the conventional confines of speculative fiction by amalgamating a multifaceted spectrum of artistic and philosophical inquiry, with a critical focus on the human condition. This renders «The Tree of Life» an auspicious subject for scholarly exploration, particularly at the nexus of literary studies, philosophy, and humanistic anthropology. A salient feature of the trilogy's conceptual architecture is the proposition that tolerance serves as the linchpin for the harmonious advancement of human society. The narrative contends that, irrespective of the trajectory human civilisation may adopt, tolerance remains an indispensable element for the attainment of social equilibrium and harmony. This seminal idea not only underpins the moral and ethical fabric of the work but also challenges the reader to re-examine their own ethical mores and prevailing societal norms.

The Landscape of Węgajty Theatre

The alternative culture in Poland formed between the late 1970s and the second half of the 1990s. In this period many artists were moving from cities into the countryside in order to find space for independent and experimental art. Among these new settlers were Erdmute and Wacław Sobaszek, who made their home in a small rural settlement of Węgajty in the 1980s. The Sobaszeks converted an abandoned farm into a stage and soon their undertaking became one of the most prominent alternative theatres in Poland. This article explores intersections of the Sobaszeks's art and rural landscape through the lens of humanistic geography, anthropology and philosophy. The purpose of the article is to reveal a deep attachment of the artists to local, rural space and to examine how it shapes their performances and community building. In the article, the Węgajty Theatre is recognized as ‘landscape theatre’, a term which attempts to emphasize a bond between the theatre and the natural environment.

Creation and anthropology: N.F.S. Grundtvig as humanist and feminist

AbstractThis article focuses on Scandinavian creation theology by way of the anthropology of the Happy Dane, the theologian, author, hymn writer, poet, and pastor Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783–1872). After having given two examples of Grundtvig's and Grundtvigians’ encounter with USA in the past, it is demonstrated how the Lutheran Grundtvig, based on his positive and organic creation theology, fought ideas of creational hierarchies, whether slavery or subjection of women. Grundtvig logically and naturally connected his creation theology to a humanist anthropology of which not the devil but God was Creator and sole subject. As in Galatians 3:28, this encompassed a feminist view as he acknowledged two equal sexes and genders: all humans are equal regardless of color of the skin, sex, or belief and hence should have human rights equally.

Eighteen Postcards and Three Letters

Anthropology and HumanismVolume 46, Issue 1 p. 198-202 Poetry Eighteen Postcards and Three Letters Charlotte E. Christiansen, Corresponding Author cec@cas.au.dk orcid.org/0000-0002-0618-2074 Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University, Moesgård Allé 20, Højbjerg, 8270 DenmarkSearch for more papers by this author Charlotte E. Christiansen, Corresponding Author cec@cas.au.dk orcid.org/0000-0002-0618-2074 Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University, Moesgård Allé 20, Højbjerg, 8270 DenmarkSearch for more papers by this author First published: 23 March 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/anhu.12319Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume46, Issue1Special Section: Society for Humanistic Anthropology 2020 Writing AwardsJune 2021Pages 198-202 RelatedInformation

Garry Trompf and his humanistic anthropology

Garry Trompf and his humanistic anthropology

Political Liberty

Political Liberty is presently under stress for different reasons, two of them are: the erosion of civic culture and the policies chosen to restrict Covid-19. In this article I develop an account of political liberty that is bound to core concepts of humanistic anthropology and metaphysical freedom (I). On this conceptual basis I discuss two actual challenges of political liberty: cancel culture (II) and anti-pandemic state measures (III).

ФИЛОСОФИЯ ФРИДРИХА НИЦШЕ: РЕЦЕПЦИЯ И ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИЯ Н.А. БЕРДЯЕВА

The article deals with the problem of Nikolai Berdyaev’s reception and interpretation of the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. We attempt to reconstruct Berdyaev’s attitude to the creative heritage of the great German philosopher. The phenomenon of Nietzsche was mainly perceived by the Russian philosophy of the early 20th century in a religious context. For Berdyaev himself, the personality of Nietzsche became one of the starting points for comprehending the existential dialectic of human destiny in the world historical process. In Nietzsche’s works, Berdyaev was first of all captivated by the eschatological theme the philosopher addressed, his striving for the end and the limit. Berdyaev called Nietzsche the greatest phenomenon of modern history, dialectically completing the humanistic anthropology of the West. The Russian philosopher viewed Nietzsche as the forerunner of a new religious anthropology, a religious prophet of the West, making a return to the old European humanism no longer possible. Berdyaev was convinced of the need to overcome and internalize the spiritual experience of Nietzsche. The latter opens up the prospect of transition to a new anthropological era, in which human existence must be justified by creativity. Berdyaev viewed creativity as a new religious revelation of Christianity, not manifested in patristic tradition and historical Christianity. In creative acts, man overcomes objectification as a fallen state of the world. The article examines the key ideas of Nietzsche’s philosophy through the prism of religious existentialism and personalism of Berdyaev. Berdyaev’s attitude to Nietzsche was ambivalent: on the one hand, he highly appreciated how radically the German philosopher formulated the problem of a person’s creativity; on the other hand, he viewed the anti-Christian concept of the superman, leading to human godhood, as absolutely unacceptable for Russian religious philosophy and Christianity. Berdyaev assessed the new revelation of Nietzsche about the superman and the will to power as false and demonic, radically contradicting the foundations of Christian anthropology about man and the religious ethics of creativity.

О ЛИЧНОСТЯХ И ЭЛЕМЕНТАЛАХ: ПОЗДНЕСОВЕТСКАЯ СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ФИЛОСОФИЯ ОТ МАРКСИСТСКОГО ГУМАНИЗМА К ИДЕЕ HOMO SOVIETICUS

The article considers the ideas of personality, humanity, and society in the works of four prominent Russian philosophers and sociologists: G. Batishchev (1932–1990), A. Zinovyev (1922–2006), Yu. Levada (1930–2006), and M. Mamardashvili (1930–1990). The main argument of the article is that the social philosophy of these thinkers evolved along similar lines, which the author describes as an evolution from Marxist humanism to the idea of the society of “Homo Sovieticus”. Comparing the notions of personhood and society expressed in the works of these thinkers, the author traces the shift in their conceptualization. Its starting point was a vision of a harmonious relations between the interests of the person and (Soviet) society. The endpoint was quite the opposite — the idea of their incompatibility. In the late period of their work, the philosophers developed a highly pessimistic view of social life in general. They saw it as a suffocating “communality”, while the people that inhabited it were perceived as semi-illusionary macabre creatures who lived by “natural” social laws. They viewed “civilization” as an antidote to “natural” sociality. At the same time, they developed survival strategies for presumed highly-spiritual “persons” in this harsh environment. The author argues that this intellectual trajectory might be a result of the institutional marginalization and ideological critique aimed at these philosophers. The article also analyses the discussion about the subject matter of philosophy in the late 1960s to early 1970s. It demonstrates that the discussion resulted in an unsuccessful attempt at realizing the development of Marxist humanist anthropology in the USSR. The article is based on fresh archival material which also includes an analysis of the criticism expressed against G. Batishchev and Yu. Levada for their “ideologically incorrect” understanding of the notion of the “person”.

Human Rights and International Criminal Justice – Towards an Ascending Peace

The article offers a new look at law in general and human rights in particular in the light of modern challenges (migration crisis, international terrorism, environmental catastrophe, technological innovation). This view, without fixing the future and advocating for a world state, directs global governance towards the “ascending peace”. At the same time, the new paradigm of the “criminal law of hostility” is seen as truly threatening the security of the planet, as it marks the denial of universalism of values and a return to a sovereign state, and also contrasts the confidential humanistic anthropology of the International Criminal Court with the warlike anthropology of fear societies. In turn, international justice in its war against inhumanity is opposed to the world war of states against terrorism. In contrast, it is proved that the purpose of world justice is not only to restore peace in war-ravaged countries, but also to establish peace for the world society, which believes in its common destiny. The project of the ascending peace was conceived by the author as “a carrier of dynamics, which, without fixing the future, shows how to move forward in the flows of conflicting winds in order to try to humanize a globalized world”. The conditions for such humanization are: recognition of interdependence, adherence to general transformative principles and the introduction of joint planetary responsibility.

Society for Humanistic Anthropology 2018 Writing Awards Poetry First Prize (tie)

Society for Humanistic Anthropology 2018 Writing Awards Poetry First Prize (tie)

Poetics in the Ethnographic

ARTIST’S BIO: Nomi Stone is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University. She has recently published articles in Cultural Anthropology and American Ethnologist, and her poetry appears in The New Republic, The Best American Poetry, POETRY Magazine, American Poetry Review, Tin House, and widely elsewhere. Nomi Stone has won a Pushcart Prize and was a Fulbright scholar in creative writing in Tunisia. She has recently served as a judge for the Society of Humanistic Anthropology’s Ethnographic Poetry Competition. Her first poetry collection, entitled Stranger’s Notebook (TriQuarterly Books), was published in 2008, and her forthcoming collection, Kill Class, will be published in 2019 by Tupelo Press.

2016 Society for Humanistic Anthropology Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Third Prize How Grades Had Been Gotten for Penguins and Money

SUMMARYThis is a story about penguins and passing grades, about the practices and ethics of informal exchange in 1980s Leningrad and 2010s St. Petersburg, and about things' incommensurability spurring stories. It is, specifically, about one dead penguin: a bird that was killed, found, bought, gifted, found, stolen, and gifted again. [Gifting, storytelling, planned economy, post‐Socialism, materiality]

The Society for Humanistic Anthropology in Minneapolis

Anthropology NewsVolume 57, Issue 9 p. e171-e172 September Online Content The Society for Humanistic Anthropology in Minneapolis Kristen Ghodsee, Kristen GhodseeSearch for more papers by this author Kristen Ghodsee, Kristen GhodseeSearch for more papers by this author First published: 02 May 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/AN.168AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume57, Issue9September 2016Pages e171-e172 RelatedInformation

“Never Wholly Respectable:” Divination, Death, and Humanism in Contemporary Anthropology

SummaryIn 1993, Bruce Grindal wrote that “Humanistic anthropology must never become wholly respectable.” Implying that humanism is anthropology's important gadfly or jester, designed to “challenge and occasionally outrage the priestly purveyors” of science, his influence perpetuates the continued salience and current engagement of interpretative and humanistic anthropology. In this article, I compare Grindal's work with Sisala notions of death in northern Ghana with my own work among Yorùbá peoples in Bénin, West Africa. Exploring anthropology's reflective turn, I use our combined ethnography to explore the ways in which humanistic approaches to anthropology are well positioned to engage with those subtle, complex, and sometimes “messy” layers of meaning that almost define the “human experience.” Struggling with similar themes, in 1983, Grindal wrote, in his prescient style, that he had with “intuitive certainty … witnessed the raising of the dead.” He described the experience as a “real” occurrence that “wounded and sickened” his “soul.” Here, I argue that this reaction is precisely the goal of humanistic anthropology. To be effective, humanistic anthropology, like life itself, while potentially uplifting and unifying, must also be painful and sickening. It is in this way that humanism facilitates an understanding—a type of divinatory “knowing—among disparate people who live in worlds that are at once vastly different and startlingly similar.

The Anthropologist, the Jester, and the Poet: An Oral History Interview with Bruce Grindal about the Society for Humanistic Anthropology

SummaryBruce Grindal played an instrumental role in the Society for Humanistic Anthropology (SHA), which he helped found in 1974 at an American Anthropological Association meeting in Mexico City. He became the editor of The Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly (AHQ) in 1976, a journal that eschewed traditional ethnographic writing, and celebrated and encouraged storytelling in anthropology. Poems, narratives, fictions, and short essays that were rejected as “not anthropology” by other journals found a home in AHQ. In this oral history interview, Bruce recalls the history of the SHA and the challenges it faced in its early days in gaining acceptance by other anthropologists. In his attempts to legitimize humanistic anthropology, he challenged the materialist and postmodernist anthropological paradigms of the time through a series of scathing articles that publicly challenged what he regarded as the “overly analyzed digested mystification” of reality. This oral history interview covers the periods from 1976 to 2005 at the 30th anniversary of the founding of the SHA and touches upon philosophical musings and highlights from Bruce Grindal's career.

Of Orphans and Anthropologists: A Personal Reflection on Forming “Family” and Research Relationships in the Field

SummaryIn this paper, I explore the anthropologist, in my case a single, white North American “girl,” often referred to as niña in Spanish, as an imagined orphan in the indigenous community of Lumbisí, Ecuador. Lumbiseños' understanding of being “alone” propelled a long process of incorporation that slowly developed my social connections to the community through friendships, alternative fictive kin constructions, and reciprocity. This reflective piece draws on the work of Bruce Grindal, whose profound influence on humanistic anthropology shaped my approach to ethnographic research. His vision of an anthropology based on real human connections, the long‐term responsibility of research, self‐reflection, a critical eye, and the effective communication of human experiences we share with everyone, not just academics, inspired several generations of scholars, who carry on this tradition in his name. Using three vignettes experienced in crucial phases of this ongoing collaborative research, I attempt to illuminate the process of relationship building, the conflicts experienced, and the resolution we obtained in the spirit of Grindal's (2011) final publication, “Confrontation, Understanding, and Friendship in a Redneck Culture.”