lecture

what is anthropology?

making the strange familiar and the familiar strange
avoiding ethnocentrism:
- suspending our own judgements and assumptions in order to understand
adopting a stance of openness towards other ways of life
questioning our own assumptions
to pursue a form of knowledge that is dialogic
research as a transformative endeavour

description of places n landscapes as background information
- the settings and the surroundings
1990s: a move in anthropology has been to discuss space and place as a distinct focus
has involved different aims:
- the meaning of place and the spatial dimensions of living
- understanding how we are embedded in our environments

what is to build a home?
- “we do not dwell because we have built, but we build and have built because we dwell, that is because we are dwellers…To build is in itself already to dwell…Only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we build” (Heidegger 1971:148, 146, 160…)
humans build and animals build
- why should the products of human building activity be any different, in principle, from the constructions of other animals?
human creation entails a project
- self-conscious authorship of design
- building as part of the ways we dwell in the world

space: emptiness, extension, expanse, distance between objects, a void
place: a particular position, a location with meaning
- for some, it is the process through which culture, meaning and identities transform a neutral “space” into a meaningful “place”

the idea of space is a fiction - there are not empty spaces as such
“the experience of place is no secondary grid overland on the presumed primacy of space…”
we experience the world by inhabiting, knowing and perceiving meaningful places
our spatial awareness comes from our experience of place
place as the concrete experience of being somewhere
we experience place through our presence and senses
there is no ‘nowhere’

Place and the Self
by inhabiting places, we build ourselves
“places possess a marked capacity for triggering acts of self-reflection, inspiring thought about who one presently is, or memories of who one used to be, or musings on who one might become” (1996:55)
in reflecting on places, people also reflect on their own identities and selfhood
eg: Western Apache, east-central Arizona
- the value of wisdom » being able to avoid harm by detecting threatening circumstances when none are apparent
- wisdom can be learnt “by acquiring relevant bodies of knowledge and applying them critically to the workings of one’s mind” (1996:73)
- learning place names and stories about what happened there

senses of place do not make sense in the present condition of supermodernity
airports, malls, motorways, hotels, metros
we experience places by passing through them
we experience them without knowing them
if a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place” (1995:77)
the space of non place creates neither singular identity nor relations; only solitude, and similitude

not knowing a place or how to be in a place is not necessarily a meaningless experience
assumptions n stereotypes can shape experiences of place
…sense of place is not possessed by everyone in similar manner or like configuration, and that pervasive fact is part of what makes it interesting (Basso 1996:84)

being out of place is a particular experience of place
being Jewish or coloured, being a woman, being young or old, rich or poor, may assume significance in one context but not another (Bender 2002:107)

place is political
social inequalities shape experiences of places (access, “being out of place” and how to be in a place)
for any sense of place, the pivotal question is not where it comes from, or even how it gets formed, but what, so to speak, it is made with (Basso 1996:84)