"Ophelia Was the Rebel Girl..."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

Have been studying anthropology this semester, and have noticed two overwhelming attitudes in this field, at least as far as our teacher (who shares said attitudes) has chosen to expose to us:

First, dramatic fatphobia--the number of articles we've read in which cultures are praised because the people in them are skinny, or the devastating effects of white influence were summed up with "AND THEN PEOPLE GOT FAT OH NOES" is really squicky to me. Really? Really? Moreover, there is a definite trend of 'and all European societies are evil because they eat processed food and have bad teeth and teh fat'. I will grant that processed food is bad for you, but I think that making a value judgement about a culture based on the food they eat is really ridiculous. I don't think anyone I know is a bad person for eating at McDonald's, even though I think the food from McDonald's is disgusting. The plain fact is you are not what you eat, and the implication that Europeans brought processed food to various tribal peoples and TURNED THEM FAT OHGOD is just. What.

(please note that I'm not endorsing the idea that European culture has deeply influenced tribal culture and caused tribal cultures to change significantly, including in their eating. Again, I just don't think this tone of disdain towards European culture for their food choices is appropriate.)

Second, romanticism of band cultures. Our professor is hardcore in love with band societies, and basically spends ridiculous quantities of time talking about how much better they are than any other society, and some of our readings have definitely enforced this point of view. Once again, cultures are cultures. They have good and bad aspects, but you can't really assign value judgements to them as a whole. They just are.

Plus she (and, again, some of the texts) are just so in love with the idea that tribal peoples are more innocent and natural and attuned to the earth that some days it is like sitting in on an hour of James Cameron's Avatar at goddamn eight in the morning, and I am just not okay with that.

And if I sound touchy about this, it's because yesterday I had to listen to an hour-long lecture about how we all suck because of what we eat. YOU TERRIBLE PEOPLE AND YOUR SATURATED FATS. Goddammit I'll be in my corner with my chickens and my piggies and my screw you.

Anyway, has anyone else experienced this in anthropology? FWIW, there was a large focus on Maori people and how European New Zealanders corrupted them with cavities.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grayswandir_/]

Not to be contradictory, but I doubt what they mean is "eating at McDonald's every day makes you a bad person" but rather "eating at McDonald's every day can cause a ton of medical problems." Like, I definitely don't think my dad was a "terrible person" because he sat around eating mayonnaise-and-peanut-butter sandwiches and putting entire sticks of butter on his food, but I do think he probably wouldn't have needed quintuple bypass surgery if he'd... not done that. I mean, there are genuine health problems related to processed foods, having nothing to do with ethics or aesthetics...

Again, I just don't think this tone of disdain towards European culture for their food choices is appropriate.

I'm with this, though. Especially since, for heaven's sake, European culture generally brought a lot worse things than their food when they "discovered" someplace new. :/

[julietveiled.livejournal.com]

a) I agree with what the commenter just above me said, so thanks to them for saying it better than me.

b) Granted, I've only taken two anthropology classes (linguistics anthro & intro to biological anthro), but in neither of those have I experienced what you talked about... In fact, there was far more emphasis on the other side - much more focus on "don't judge based on your own conventions / don't judge at ALL, really" than anything else. So I'm thinking it may be more your teacher, your particular class, than anything else... and I'm sorry you got stuck with that. :/

[mhari.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Always nice to be triggered by your education. :|

[little-lady-d.livejournal.com]

my african philosophy teacher is from cameroon and told us this story of a time his brother tried to compliment an american friend of his by telling her 'wow, you're fat! and i mean that! from the bottom of my heart, you are so fat.' obviously, that got a bit awkward, but it still struck me as actually very sweet.

so, what i mean is, yeah.

[tiamatschild.livejournal.com]

That's your indvidual professor, and that is a problem. She's doing several different things that ethical anthropologists should not do, including imposing her cultural values on other cultures. (And if it's really 'processed European foods' then she's seriously misrepsenting a complicated subset of cultural imperalism as expressed through food - which is a major, major problem, both historically and contemparily, and "access to processed food makes you fat" is about the most facile summation of it I can think of.)

You might want to write a note to the dean about it, if you feel comfortable doing that. I'd avoid focusing on the band society thing - I don't doubt you that she's doing it, but it can be really hard to cite examples of inappropriate romanticism convincingly, especially since the band structure is attractive, so the creepy might be hard to convey. But the inappropriate moralizing is something that should be readily documentable.

[watchcry.livejournal.com]

How is that

That is not anthropology! That is going to a bookstore, buying an amateur anthropology book,a nd then talking about how their awesome primitive crystals healed your cancer and being primitive is so awesome and did I mention that they're primitive and that's waaaay btter than being civilized, which we are, CIVILIZED WE ARE, but er that's baaaaad.

... Or, rather, what just about everyone else said.