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mel_spiro [2020/03/17 22:51] – [Melford E. Spiro and the strange and the familiar in ethnography] 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|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.1584510695.txt.gz · Last modified: 2020/03/17 22:51 by Ryan Schram (admin)