American Anthropology as Foreign Policy

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American Anthropology as Foreign Policy

• John Borneman
• Cornell University

Presented by David Woo English 363-002 Film Dr.
Peter Britos 5 December 2005
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Branchings of Disciplines
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Cultural Studies

• Text-based movement taking politicized culture as
  object of study
• Philology originally focused on cultural studies
• English returning to CS from more traditional
  objects of language and high culture literary
  products.
• Anthropologists focused heavily on CS in past 80
  years

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Anthropology Currently

• Interested in texts, literary criticism, high
  culture literary products but interest not
  oriented toward reincorporation of language and
  high culture literary products
• English and cultural studies programs dominate
  disciplinary high ground right to name, define,
  explain subject in debates and definitions of
  cultural
• The poor anthropologists are miffed assuming
  their line of work holds CS prerogatives
  however, literary and CS territories never
  anthropologys

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Foreign and Domestic Policy

• English engaged in modeling domestic policy
• Anthropology differs by focusing on modeling
  foreign policy
• This dialectic rather simplistic but necessary in
  order to show ideological and political functions
  over time
• Anthropologys role in constituting international
  order continually revised by processes of group
  formation
• Borneman concerned about state of Anthropology
  definition and powers exercised thereof

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Domestic Policy English Literature and Language
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Toby Maguire and father monologue from literature
in Seabiscuit (depression era)
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Development of English Dept

• English depts. developed post US Civil War
• American universities instead taught Greek/Roman
  classics, rhetoric, and oratory instead to teach
  the boys the golden passages in Shakespeare and
  the poets
• Goal of literature studies then to produce
  gentlemen, impart enjoyment of lit and
  pedagogical values of taste
• Literary studies a novel concept

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Canon and Divisions

• Canonical texts model proposed at last quarter of
  19th C
• Focus of canon to democratize and civilize rather
  than socialize the elite class
• Extreme divisions post Civil War
• North v. South
• Industrial laborers v. privileged elites
• New immigrants v. more established Americans
• Employers v. employees
• City v. country

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Class Disputes

• Literatures institutionalization happened during
  ideological arguments and class realignments away
  from public view
• Some argued teaching of English language for
  constructive benefits of overcoming social
  divisions and creating national unity
• Others argued literary education should remain
  an instrument of political education, a means
  of keeping the lower orders in check

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Even feminist texts such as Charlotte Brontes
Jane Eyre are problematized for racist,
imperialist, colonialist, and even anti-feminist
ideology
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Class Disputes

• While postwar reforms promoted democracy,
  humanities education in English depts. remained
  nondemocratic canon used to distinguish elite
  and vulgar
• Canon created and reaffirmed exclusions
• Ex. Black, women, gay
• Even White American authors, such as Emerson
  until 1909
• Fiction and novel

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American English Depts. as Political Fields

• Models for domestic social relations proposed,
  debated, and ultimately institutionalized in
  academy between
• Native and alien
• Rich and poor
• Law and order
• Labor and capital
• Correct speech and slang
• Relevance and irrelevance

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Politics and Education

• Americas rise as world power with large middle
  class in 20th C defined the West by excluding
  non-West
• US higher education mediated between
  corporate/state executives and society
  different from Europe
• Current multiculturalism due to reactions
• Changing American demography
• Collective power and sources of cultural capital
• Stratification patterns

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Repositioning Anthropology to Its History
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Subject of Study

• Anthropology as four fields but this approach
  disputed
• Biology
• Archaeology
• Ethnology
• Linguistics

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Domestic Anthropology

• America/Canadas salvage operation Recovery of
  Indian Culture
• Contributions to discourses of race, poverty,
  cultural integrity, immigration, urbanization,
  organization of labor
• however, these contributions part of a
  supranational discourse often written by
  foreign-born anthropologists and provoked by the
  geographic movements of peoples and world
  economic crises

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In-Group/Out-Group

• Anthropologys work more to map global categories
  of Otherness, rather than map national social
  structure, thus Anthro form of foreign policy
• Foreign v. Native
• Anthropology subfields
• Linguistics language and migration
• Archaeology prehistory or quest for spatial
  origins
• Biological racial difference and origin
• Ethnology/Sociocultural contemporary habits and
  diffusion from originary primitive state

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Americas Foreign

• Indian foreigner constructed in White
  Americas construct of national image, at least
  through 1870
• Through expropriation of native lands and
  liquidation of natives
• Foreign space mapping predates anthropology
• Americas statement as being isolationist/neutral
  (re Thomas Jefferson) internationally, yet
  activist foreign policies (re treatment of
  Indians in isolationist period)

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Political Economy
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Early Indian Treatment

• Indians viewed as sovereign nations under US
  trust relationship but a century of war and
  hostility follows these decrees
• Obviated in civilizing of Indians including
  unethical expropriation of lands
• 1796 mid 19th C

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Mid 19th C

• Europes sovereign territorial states contrasted
  with Indians lack of territorial organization
  caused a US Justice to call Indians a domestic
  dependent nation rather than foreign state in
  1831
• Sovereign in some areas, States wards in others
• Sovereign status contested
• OIA moved from War Department to Dept. of
  Interior in 1849, but still affected by military

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Citizenship

• 1924 all Indians became US citizens
• Before then, Indians married whites, performed
  military service, and fell under treaties to
  obtain citizen status
• Indian identity continued, and with limited
  sovereignty
• Late 19th C saw pacification of Indians, and
  they remained separated, demarcating foreign

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Post WWII

• US becomes global superpower and conducts
  anthropology researching in South Seas and Africa
• Modernization Theory became the US global
  strategy in relations to Third World, including
  Indians
• Identity politics questions who Indians are,
  imposing measurements of blood quantum
• Affected who got the benefits, ex. fishing and
  water rights, land claims, education policy

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Race
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Categorizing

• Proto-race categories employed
• Pilgrim, Teutonic, Aryan, Saxon, American
  Citizen
• Countered Tribe or Indian

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Assimilation

• Assimilation/Acculturation goal of Government
• Resisted by many minority groups dealing with
  identity recovery worldwide
• What to define Indian Otherness as posed
  problem because of challenges to its inherent
  limits, and to the definition of White Self

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Alterity

• Anthropologys object to define Indians
  alterity/Otherness
• Post Civil War America became more aware of
  heterogeneity with inclusion of many
  ethnicity/class/immigrant/ex-slave categories

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Cultural Differences and Political Boundaries
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BIA

• Bureau of Indian Affairs
• Agents studied, controlled, interacted with
  Indians to prevent final extinction due to
  racial inferiority (re Rabbit Proof Fence)

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1887 Dawes Act

• Provision that assumed capitalism/private
  ownership of property, by stripping communal
  practices, would educate, Christianize, and
  civilize Indians

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American Imperial Policies

• Cooperation of Dept. of Interior, State, and Navy
  in Micronesia findings to democratize region and
  peoples

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