Discuss what we learn about cultural processes and ethnography (and their relationship to each other) in the following three works:
- First Contact, 2. The Ax Fight, 3. Tajen: Interactive
In your answer, be sure to:
- Define key terms like “culture” and “ethnography” and how they relate to each other
- Organize your answer into at least ~3-5 paragraphs, ideally with your response including a central thesis statement, an introductory and concluding paragraph, and good cohesion across the paragraphs in relation to each other
- Make specific references to these works’ details, such as key scenes, events, actors, quotes, themes, etc., to demonstrate your knowledge of and engagement with these works
- Reference key readings and lectures; you can use a short-hand style like, (Perspectives chapter on language), (Snodgrass lecture week X), (Miner), etc.
Each of these three works deals illuminatingly with the idea of cultural processes and ethnography and their relationship to each other.
In First Contact, the protagonist is a middle-aged man who volunteers to live on a Sulawesi island for 12 months in order to learn more about the planet’s vanishing cultures.
He connects deeply with the people he comes into contact with, leading him to philosophical thoughts about culture and how it’s defined.
In The Ax Fight, two communities come into contact after centuries of isolation from each other due to geography. While the two communities initially view each other with suspicion, they eventually find common ground and become much closer together than they were before contact.
In Tajen: Interactive, a young man is selected to live on an island populated by a matrilineal society. He is critical of their patriarchal social structure and comes into conflict with them.
However, it can be argued that these works of fiction don’t accurately represent indigenous cultures which have been studied for many years by anthropologists. A prime example of this is Kiku as a character in First Contact.
He has dual chiefly and cultural personalities, where he is both a strong man and caring person. However, his personality is not representative of the cultures he visits.
For example he takes his family’s cows to his island neighbours, the Moransos. The moransos eat grass and drink murky water that isn’t fit for drinking.
In contrast, Kiku consumes milk from the cows he leaves behind.
This is why anthropologists say Kiku’s story does not reflect the reality of indigenous cultures. Another problem with these works is that they explore the idea of culture, but do not look at why culture exists in the first place.
In Native American cultures, it is not selfishness or laziness that keeps them from reaching true equality because they are biologically unable to form a society without this inequality.
They can’t even begin to live in a society without violence because people will have to fight over the resources such as food and shelter between each other.
It is because of this that the American Indian Wars happened.
However, it is not entirely their fault.
In fact, a good deal of responsibility lies with European settlers who came to this continent seeking a better life for themselves yet brought with them diseases that helped spread the epidemic of tribal genocide.
Also, there is little research into the development or decline of cultures as they are studied by anthropologists and compared to other groups.
For example, there is no study about the effects of Internet communication and globalization on various tribal cultures.
Of course, if we look at the recent past of Native American cultures, such as the Navajo, things are looking pretty grim despite their efforts to adapt to modern life.
As you can see from these examples, First Contact is a work of fiction and not an accurate representation of indigenous cultures.
However, it is interesting to consider that if Kiku was a real person this book would be very different.
This shows how fiction is created by a myriad of complex ideas and not just what you see on the surface.
In conclusion, each of these three works deals illuminatingly with the idea of cultural processes and ethnography and their relationship to each other.
In First Contact, the protagonist is a middle-aged man who volunteers to live on a Sulawesi island for 12 months in order to learn more about the planet’s vanishing cultures.
He connects deeply with the people he comes into contact with, leading him to philosophical thoughts about culture and how it’s defined.
In The Ax Fight, two communities come into contact after centuries of isolation from each other due to geography.
While the two communities initially view each other with suspicion, they eventually find common ground and become much closer together than they were before contact.
In Tajen: Interactive, a young man is selected to live on an island populated by a matrilineal society. He is critical of their patriarchal social structure and comes into conflict with them.
References
Rowland C. Theakston A. L. Ambridge B. Twomey K. & Lieven E. V. M. (2020). Current perspectives on child language acquisition : how children use their environment to learn. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Retrieved October 8 2022 from https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=2576264.
Borg, S. (2019). Language teacher cognition: Perspectives and debates. Second handbook of English language teaching, 1149-1170.