当前位置: X-MOL 学术Current Anthropology › 论文详情
Our official English website, www.x-mol.net, welcomes your feedback! (Note: you will need to create a separate account there.)
Reimagining Experimental Ethnography
Current Anthropology ( IF 2.1 ) Pub Date : 2020-02-02 , DOI: 10.1086/707047
Hilary Morgan V. Leathem

a theory to have magical powers and make you the sovereign of Britain. In chapter 2, “Learning to Love Lousy Data,” the central concern is linking arguments. The section on science and humanities—written in a question-and-answer style—tells the reader that “archaeologists will likely be called upon to make both scientific and humanistic arguments” (57). Coming to the topic for the first time this might seem obvious, but as anyone who remembers the Theory Wars knows, this reasonable middle-ground position is hard-won territory. The next three chapters move from general to specific philosophical issues that arise when archaeologists try to construct research designs. Chapter 3, “Dichotomy/Monotony,” is a reflection on where we place causality and introduces some useful dichotomies, somewhat in spite of itself. Chapter 4, “Things in Space and Time,” puts archaeology in its rightful place as the center of materiality and briefly reviews the use of space and place in landscape archaeology and evolution. There are references to appropriate sections at the end listing “Further Reading,” but students may still need help following the intellectual signposts here because of the purposeful avoidance of jargon. Chapter 5, “Oversimplifying Society,” is an essay on the inherent difficulties of accepting that humanity is complex and irreducible, and it then going ahead and simplifying it anyway. The advice on the application of models and big data is good, especially given that the author has no great love of either, and stands as an example of why we need the humanities side of archaeology to help keep the scientific side honest, and vice versa. The penultimate chapter is called “Archaeologies of the Screwed-Over” (chap. 6), and as one would guess, it is about the developments in archaeology that have evolved to counterbalance white male privilege. It is good and the book would be incomplete without dealing with class, gender, race, and indigeneity. While my background is considerably more working class than that of the author, I, like him, am as white as they come, and I decided that using this review to outlinemy thoughts on this chapter would be like a Wonder Bread and mayonnaise sandwich eating itself. Nobody wants to see that. The larger and more important point is that it will be useful to teach with. What drove Fogelin to write this book is a frustration with “theoretical torpidity” (233) that is explored in the final chapter (“Errata,” chap. 7). In it, he points out the signs of decline and stagnation that are all around us. American Antiquity, for example, once a hotbed of debate, has declined into being “a second-tier regional journal for North America” (234). This is not a call for a return to the pointless theoretical posturing of the Theory Wars. In fact, Fogelin frames the current disinclination for upsetting the status quo as a natural by-product of the processual-plus call for No More Theory Wars. The price of peace has been to grow more and more boring with every passing year. His solution to the dry spell in genuine debate—and part of the reason he is giving away for free a high-quality book that could have easily found a home at an academic press—is to use his position as gatekeeper to open the gates wider. Fogelin, like me, is a member of Generation X. A lucky few of us defied long odds, got academic jobs, and now have tenure. I want to put extra heavy emphasis on the word “luck” because only a complete sociopath would look at the heap of talented, hardworking people crushed by the academic job market and think that they survived because of their superhuman intellect. I would argue our current torpidity is, at least in part, because of the voices lost to those circumstances. The job market has not improved, but the forest is not going to grow back on its own. We need to encourage a new generation to think, debate, and write about theory, and that is just what this book does. If you do use this text for a course, it is free, but the author asks that you and your students download it directly from Academia.edu at https://arizona.academia.edu/LarsFogelin. It will help him collect the data necessary to make the case that self-published books like this are a viable alternative to the standard academic publishing model.

中文翻译:

重新构想实验民族志

一种拥有神奇力量并使您成为英国君主的理论。在第 2 章“学会喜欢糟糕的数据”中,中心问题是关联参数。关于科学和人文科学的部分——以问答的方式写成——告诉读者“考古学家可能会被要求同时提出科学和人文主义的论点”(57)。第一次谈到这个话题似乎很明显,但任何记得理论战争的人都知道,这个合理的中间立场是来之不易的领域。接下来的三章从考古学家试图构建研究设计时出现的一般哲学问题转向具体的哲学问题。第 3 章,“二分法/单调性”,反思了我们将因果关系置于何处,并介绍了一些有用的二分法,尽管它本身有点。第四章“空间和时间中的事物,”将考古学置于其应有的位置作为物质性的中心,并简要回顾了空间和地方在景观考古学和演变中的使用。在最后列出了“进一步阅读”的适当部分的参考,但由于有意避免行话,学生可能仍然需要帮助来遵循此处的智力路标。第 5 章“过度简化社会”是一篇关于接受人类是复杂和不可简化的这一固有困难的文章,然后它继续前进并无论如何都将其简化。关于模型和大数据应用的建议很好,特别是考虑到作者对两者都没有太大的热爱,并举例说明了为什么我们需要考古学的人文方面来帮助保持科学方面的诚实,反之亦然. 倒数第二章被称为“被搞砸的考古学”(第 6 章),正如人们猜测的那样,它是关于考古学的发展,这些发展已经演变为抵消了白人男性的特权。这很好,如果不涉及阶级、性别、种族和土著,这本书将是不完整的。虽然我的背景比作者的背景更工人阶级,但我和他一样,和他们一样白,我决定用这篇评论来概述我对本章的想法就像一个神奇面包和蛋黄酱三明治吃自己. 没有人愿意看到这一点。更大和更重要的一点是,教它会很有用。促使 Fogelin 写这本书的原因是对最后一章(“勘误表”,第 7 章)中探讨的“理论迟钝”(233)感到沮丧。在里面,他指出了我们周围的衰退和停滞迹象。例如,美国古代曾经是争论的温床,现在已经沦为“北美地区的二流期刊”(234)。这并不是呼吁回到理论战争的毫无意义的理论姿态。事实上,Fogelin 将当前不愿打破现状的倾向描述为“不再进行理论战争”的过程加号召的自然副产品。和平的代价是每一年都变得越来越无聊。他解决真正辩论中的枯燥期——也是他免费赠送一本很容易在学术出版社找到家的高质量书籍的部分原因——是利用他作为守门人的地位打开大门. Fogelin 和我一样,是 X 世代的成员。我们中的少数幸运儿克服了困难,找到了学术工作,现在有了终身职位。我想特别强调“运气”这个词,因为只有完全反社会的人才会看到一群才华横溢、勤奋的人被学术就业市场压垮,并认为他们之所以能幸存下来,是因为他们拥有超人的智慧。我认为我们目前的迟钝至少部分是因为在这些情况下失去了声音。就业市场没有改善,但森林不会自行恢复。我们需要鼓励新一代思考、辩论和撰写理论,而这正是本书所做的。如果您确实在课程中使用此文本,则它是免费的,但作者要求您和您的学生直接从 Academia.edu 下载,网址为 https://arizona.academia.edu/LarsFogelin。
更新日期:2020-02-02
down
wechat
bug