anthropology and history
...nguage was good enough for historians, because they only focused on reading books and documents of nation states to construct history. The author explains that fieldwork lets anthropologists establish the “authenticity” of the people that they are studying. This authenticity exists in what anthropologists call the ”ethnographic present” that is a reconstruction of the natives’ past before they were colonized, and which is acquired by anthropologists through long chats with the native people. The author also mentions how historians, especially those who have worked with American Indians, have limited their point of view, because they used books and documents created by white conquerors. Therefore, historians took into consideration many of the white conquerors’ assumptions when they tried to construct history. Brasser remarks that ethnohistorians need to overcome the time gap between the first direct or indirect contact with white conquerors and the formalization of an Indian group. However, ethnohistorians have contributed to historians and anthropologists to make them aware that natives had already gone through change, even before natives came in contact with the first ethnographer on their land. The author gives as an example the history of Fijians. He explains how the Fiji Islands of the Pacific, were the center of a complicated and political war waged by European traders, missionaries, labor recruiters, sailors, planters ,etc. Europeans wanted to gain control over the natives and their island, in order to get its island’s resources, especially to grow sugar and cotton. Therefore, Europeans entered into alliance with local rulers in battles with other Fijians, as a method to gain access and control over the island later on. As a result, it was in 1874 that Fiji became a British colony. It was Sir Arthur Gordon, a British Governor, who believed that Fijians had to be ruled by their own chiefs, who would have to exercise their traditional rights. Therefore, in order for Gordon to decide who owned the land, it was important to first understand the nature of indigenous politics, and the hierarchy system that natives practiced. Hence, the work of anthropologists and historians was needed. His policy was to keep a good amount of land in local hands, which would let Fijians to develop according to their own traditional institutions. As a result, the reconstruction of the Fiji Islands’ social order came about from British officials, missionaries, British and Fijian documents. It led Fijians to learn about their true and ancient traditions, as well as to discover an “origin myth” to explain their history and customs. The author argues that during the mid-twentieth century, anthropologists viewed the reconstructed codified Fijian model as authentic and as a baseline by which social changes could be judged. The author mentions that authenticity for anthropologists and chronology for historians is something” natural.” Anthropologists then test authenticity by studying the natives’ point of view, whereas historians construct history based on the study of real documents. When explaining the Fijian culture, the author argues that what was established in Fiji was a colony sociology, which consists of a model created by the European rulers based on what they thought to be a “traditional native social structure.” Historians have viewed anthropology as a co-discipline since the early twentieth century. Thompson explains that anthropology has started to focus more on finding new problems and seeking old problems in different ways. Anthropology has also emphasized norms and value systems , and as Stone says it has given more importance to the study of change. LeGoff as well as Furet expect that historians and anthropologists will work closer to each other after a two hundred years of complete separation between these two subjects. As the author explains, enthonologists or culture anthropologists focus on repeated events in a society, because these events are closely related to biological and family history, birth, marriage and death. They also pay close attention to the study of the states of mind, magical elements, charisma, which together with the characteristics mentioned above are now of central concern for historians. It is because historians are now concerned with features that are common to immobile or slow moving societies. Historians have also been influenced by anthropologists to look for aspects of the immobile past, such as marginal peasantry, working classes, artists, etc., within the “hot” or rapid changing societies. However some historians doubt that working so close with anthropologists would do any good to history. Thompson suggests that by doing so, research strategies are at risk, and that historians could take some ideas from anthropology, but should not catch all anthropological assumptions. Others also argue that anthropology is more certain in its methods than in its achievements. A question of high concern is if European past could be studied using the methods that anthropologists developed to study non-European societies. Another question that is unclear is whether the European past is similar to the non- European present, which is that same question that comparativists from the nineteenth century had in mind. The author explains that anthropology and history are forms of knowledge, which have contributed to the formation of nation states as well as to the creation of European colonial control systems. He also points out that history or the ability to control the past , and the formed classifications between Europeans and others, are important keys of what is today called “modern history.” The author also remarks that during the last twenty years, historians as well as anthropologists have become more conscious about the definition and practice methods of their subject matter. As a result, the author explains that this new concern had led anthropologists to a deconstruction of their field, and it has also led historians‘ professional practices to undergo a period of reformulation. The author emphasizes that it has been historians, who have adapted better to the deconstruction and reformulation process than anthropologists have. He explains that a reason might be that historians are better able to adjust to new subject matter, methods, and theories without having to change their basic orientations. He also remarks that history may add more fields to its study, without affecting other study fields in the process. Anthropologists, on the other hand, have undergone more serious effects as a result of the reformulation process of their subject matter. He author mentions that anthropologists find themselves with several projects, which at many times appear to be unmanageable to them. They appear to face several questions such as whether a culture is on the ground, made up of codes, texts, or metaphors, polemics between culture and practical reason, political systems, etc. It is a challenge for anthropologists to carefully define all these terms, because they do not want to be considered as utilitarian, idealists, mentalists, etc. Anthropologists face constructions of the past by natives, which compare with the European idea of history do not fit as objective. As a result, some anthropologists expect that history will be able to gain intellectual legitimacy, and to resolve contradictions between event and structure, thought and action. The author also mentions that during the sixteenth to the late twentieth century, history and the idea of a nation has appeared to be a political history of the re-European past. He explained how many texts about India, written in previous ages, were dismissed by Europeans, because they were thought to be artificial or fictitious. The author also emphasizes that an anthropological history has emerged, in order to relate texts and codified oral traditions with stories of events and personages in the past. The author explains that the question of the past has been studied as part of Western ideas and history. He also remarks that in order to understand European definitions of the past, several topics need to be analyzed by anthropologists as well as by historians. The author also explains that history is not only represented by written European history, because landscapes, cities, towns, and public monuments also represent history. For instance, Bourdei suggests that Thai and Berber houses are ...