ANTH 1001 Lecture Notes - Ethnography, Photo Manipulation, Susie Orbach

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTH 1001
• Professor: Bernhard Leistle

Document Summary

Lecture 2: body ritual among the nacirema by horace miner and reversed gaze by. Both texts are examples for the anthropological perspective on the culturally other. Miner"s short essay is an anthropological classic and a staple in anthropology courses, in particular introductions. I suggest that this is because it illustrates something every important about anthropology: its relationship to its own culture and our ability to see this culture as if it was other. In this respect, body ritual among the nacirema is not unlike monty python"s. Because miner describes not the bizarre customs and beliefs of some exotic tribe, but the nacirema who are, when read from right to left, no other than the american(s). There is literally a reversal of the gaze in miner"s essay and all the indigenous terms he uses lose their exoticism when they are read in the other direction: Nacirema becomes american, notgnihsaw (the culture hero) becomes washington, latipso becomes hospital.