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mel_spiro [2020/03/17 21:30] – created Ryan Schram (admin)mel_spiro [2022/07/19 17:46] (current) – [References] Ryan Schram (admin)
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 > [T]he dual operation of making the familiar strange, and the strange familiar, has been employed by anthropologists not only as a pedagogical device, but also as a scientific method. In the first place, because it makes cross-cultural comparison and classification possible, that dual operation has been used as an indispensible first step in the attempt to discover social and cultural generalizations... (Spiro 1990, 49) > [T]he dual operation of making the familiar strange, and the strange familiar, has been employed by anthropologists not only as a pedagogical device, but also as a scientific method. In the first place, because it makes cross-cultural comparison and classification possible, that dual operation has been used as an indispensible first step in the attempt to discover social and cultural generalizations... (Spiro 1990, 49)
  
-To produce the knowledge of people's lives that would allow us to generalize about the human condition, one must avoid the risk of seeing a particular people's way of life from an ethnocentric point of view and also avoid the risk of adopting their own perspective on themselves. Instead, Spiro says we must move to a third position outside both, and describe what we see "third set of concepts --- that is, anthropological concepts" (ibid). This is what we would call an etic analysis of fieldwork observations. Spiro emphasizes that etic analysis is both objective yet retains the principle of cultural relativism. He says, +To produce the knowledge of people's lives that would allow us to generalize about the human condition, one must avoid the risk of seeing a particular people's way of life from an ethnocentric point of view and also avoid the risk of adopting their own perspective on themselves. Instead, Spiro says we must move to a third position outside both, and describe what we see with a "third set of concepts --- that is, anthropological concepts" (ibid). This is what we would call an [[emic and etic|etic analysis]] of fieldwork observations. Spiro emphasizes that etic analysis is both objective yet retains the principle of cultural relativism. He says, 
  
 > The operation of making the familiar strange and the strange familiar has been employed as a method of not only for cross-cultural generalizations, but also for single-culture explanations. For it compels the anthropologist to include in his explanatory net a variety of variables which, because that culture - depending on whether the anthropologist is a native or a foriegner - is either too familiar or too strange, would otherwise remain opaque to his perceptions. > The operation of making the familiar strange and the strange familiar has been employed as a method of not only for cross-cultural generalizations, but also for single-culture explanations. For it compels the anthropologist to include in his explanatory net a variety of variables which, because that culture - depending on whether the anthropologist is a native or a foriegner - is either too familiar or too strange, would otherwise remain opaque to his perceptions.
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 +<WRAP box similar>~~SIMILAR~~</WRAP>
  
mel_spiro.1584505829.txt.gz · Last modified: 2020/03/17 21:30 by Ryan Schram (admin)