Marvin Harris shaped and promoted
the anthropological theory of cultural materialism by his writings and his
critiques of scientific anthropology. In
his essay “The Epistemology of Cultural Materialism” (1979) he calls to
question ethnographic research and how anthropologists reach their final
consensus and understanding of the culture they studied. Harris centers on the main issue at hand and
that is the people researchers study and inquire are both subject and objects. This calls to question whose point of view
has the most authority – the emic or the etic?
Harris divided anthropological research into four epistemological perspectives: emic mental, etic mental, emic behavioral, and etic behavioral. Harris states that the scientific
views possible are the emic and etic for objective understanding of the mental
and behavioral. Though Harris stresses
that the etic mental and emic behavioral are the most problematic of
views. This is because it is most
difficult to fully understand the psychological reasons behind why a person, or
culture, has their set of beliefs, norms, actions, etc. But as Harris states, “to deny the validity
of etic descriptions is in effect to deny the possibility of a social science
capable of explaining sociocultural similarities and differences” (1979). Harris seems to believe that an
anthropologist will never be able to achieve full emic perspective of the
behavioral and mental. He alludes that
is a concept is real and meaningful to a particular culture then it remains as
an emic concept in respect to that culture.
I agree with Harris in that I think
it would be extremely difficult to be an ethnographer and be positive that I am
transcribing and properly analyzing my subjects’ thoughts and actions. There is a gap between what a subject says
and then what the ethnographer publishes and Harris is attempting to limit this
gap as much as possible. He is advising
fellow anthropologists on how to conduct the most honest and comprehensive
research to avoid creating assumptions produced from the etic mental. I think Harris is really on to something when
he says that some things will never be fully understood by the etic. As much as anthropologists work to familiarize
the strange, a person is has their own perspective that seems to interfere with
fully integrating another culture’s emic.
ReplyDeleteAs my summer research project approaches, I have spent a lot of time contemplating my methodologies for my time in Nepal. I won't be writing a full ethnography, but my interviews and other methods will still be working towards that same goal of gaining insight into the emic perspective. I find it reassuring that Harris so staunchly defends the etic perspective, since the etic/mental will be a primary component of my research. However, I get frustrated at the fact that he says we can’t fully know the emic/mental, even though I know he is right. I just want to know everything that my subjects are thinking so that I can be assured that I am interpreting my data correctly!
Because I only have a small amount of Nepali right now, I've also been considering the implications of translation on access to the emic perspective and what Harris would say about working across languages. My documentation of my interview questions went through the process of approval, but these technical documents are then getting translated into Nepali. Then, because many of my interviewees are illiterate, the interviewer will have to read the question aloud. Two layers of translation confound the meaning of the question. I think Harris would note that because languages don’t have word to word translations, meaning would be lost between Nepali and English that might skew my already imperfect understanding of the emic. I am excited to develop my etic viewpoint, but I wish that Harris had made recommendations of how to improve accessibility to the emic outlook.
Thanks to Elizabeth and Anna Grace for taking on a challenging theorist! I think you may be giving Harris too much credit, though, for having a Whorfian sensitivity that he does not really have. You are both more troubled (rightly so, I think) by the limits of our ability to grasp the emic than is Harris; Harris is just fine with his understanding of scientific objectivity!
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