ANTHROP 1AB3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Philippe Bourgois, Linguistic Anthropology, Ancient Dna
15 Oct 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
What is Anthropology? - Lecture #1
➔Anthropology: The study of humankind across time and space.
➔Anthropos: Humankind
➔Logia: study of
➔The systematic (certain methods + principles for analyzing different societies that we
use) of humankind in all times and places
➔Interested in past and present societies.
➔Studying different cultural ideas and backgrounds that differ from Canada.
➢
Crack Dealers in East Harlem, NYC
➢Cultural Anthropologist Philippe Bourgois
➢Study inner city gangs
➢Why study them? -- To understand how poverty and racism shape their choice to sell
crack and join gangs
➢Lived with puerto rican drug dealers -- witnessed how they live, domestic violence, etc
➢Observed that it was a very marginalized group
➢Observed systemic racism
➢These men weren't able to get minimum wage jobs therefore no viable or legal
employment for these people. This lead to them becoming crack dealers
➢
Extracting Ancient DNA
➢Hendrik Poinar (McMaster Anthropology) -- ancient DNA; disease in the past; evolution
of disease; sequencing genome black death
➢Conducts research as biological anthropologist
➢Looks at the black death that spread throughout europe between 1345 and 1353.
➢
Margaret lock - Organ Transplants
➢Wrote “Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and Reinvention of Death
➢Went out and interviewed people living in japan and north america
➢Have 2 diff ideas: in North America it is very common, believe when we die the body is
no longer with us. The sense of you as a person resides in the brain; in Japan
transplants are rare and looked down upon due to religion. In this religion they believe
death is impure and that the body is polluted and corrupted, therefore it is not
appropriate to transplant parts of a dead body to someone else. For many in japan the
sense of personhood or self is located throughout the body and not just in the brain.
Japan didn’t make organ transplantation officially legal until 1999.
➢Social Sciences:
➢Anthropology, Geography, Sociology, Psychology - all study people. So what makes
Anthropology unique or different from these disciplines?
1. Methods - Long term fieldwork ( a year or more) - excavation (archeologists and physical
anthropologists) or living/interaction with people for a year or more (cultural or linguistic
Document Summary
Anthropology: the study of humankind across time and space. The systematic (certain methods + principles for analyzing different societies that we use) of humankind in all times and places. Studying different cultural ideas and backgrounds that differ from canada. - to understand how poverty and racism shape their choice to sell crack and join gangs. Lived with puerto rican drug dealers -- witnessed how they live, domestic violence, etc. Observed that it was a very marginalized group. These men weren"t able to get minimum wage jobs therefore no viable or legal employment for these people. Hendrik poinar (mcmaster anthropology) -- ancient dna; disease in the past; evolution of disease; sequencing genome black death. Looks at the black death that spread throughout europe between 1345 and 1353. Wrote twice dead: organ transplants and reinvention of death. Went out and interviewed people living in japan and north america.
