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I got this one quite
wrong. I remember picking it up in Griffin Books in Penarth as it was
another example of excellent design – small, compact, blue and with a
rewardingly tactile cover – and because it offered an opportunity to learn how
to Think Like An Anthropologist. Of course, it doesn’t really. In that, I was a
little disappointed.
In fact, once opened, it
provides a neat if Eurocentric primer of some of the conceptual pillars in the study
of Anthropology, citing key thinkers in the field and not sticking too closely
to the usual chronological development of a ‘science’ which is only now just over
150 years old. He talks about the relative perceptions of culture, values,
value (discreet ideas), and some emotive issues such as blood and civilization,
the latter used so often in a pejorative sense by dog-whistle politicians and policy-makers.
It was a quick and informative read, covering a lot of ground and making lots
of really interesting clarifications about the discipline and what exactly a
white, European or North American anthropologist actually does.
But it didn’t teach me to
think like one.
I’m not one to go browsing
the self-help shelves of my local bookshop. I’m not into someone else telling
me how I’m feeling and what to do about it or suggesting the manifestation of
positive outcomes by adopting a positive mindset. But my interest was piqued
when I considered that I, too, could think like a disinterested observer of
culture (if that is even a correct description of an anthropologist), and
exercise my scientific mind.
Shows I should pay a
little more attention, n’est pas?
Still, my own disappointed
expectations aside it’s a worthy little book and just the thing with which to
start a good argument.
(Paid link)
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