The Society for Visual Anthropology hosts an annual film festival showcasing ethnographic work of talented anthropologists and filmmakers. (link below to SVA's website) | I cannot count how many times I have to explain to people that indeed, I am studying at Clarkson to become an anthropologist. A visual anthropologist to be specific, but a liberal arts-y nerd with a camera nonetheless. For those of you who don't know what visual anthropology is, it is basically the employment of media like film, photography, audio, etc. to record, analyze, and synthesize cultural information and visual artifacts in order to produce a well-constructed idea on what makes a culture tick. As stated in the Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, "Although the origins of visual anthropology are to be found historically in positivist assumptions that an objective reality is observable, most contemporary culture theorists emphasize the socially constructed nature of cultural reality and the tentative nature of our understanding of any culture." (find the link to a fuller description included in the encyclopedia below.) |
As of last year, there were more than 20 very intelligent faculty members in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). And out of this conglomerate, two of those were anthropologists. While Dr. Annegret Staiger left for research in Romania funded by her Fulbright scholarship, I was left with no new anthropology classes to take other than one of Dr. Daniel Bradburd's which took place at the same time as another class I needed for my Communications credits. This made me sad because these are two incredibly educated and enlightened academics as well as relatable professors to have as mentors. I was enrolled in an anthropology class at SUNY Potsdam called "The Prehistory of Europe" until I ended up dropping the class due to financial issues. So without anthropology in my curriculum, I was feeling rather glum with the lack of Social Science in my life. But since last year, the HSS department has hired a new anthropologist specializing in medical and environmental anthropology. Dr. Chris Morris sat down and talked with me about his journey from the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU Boulder) to the sub-Saharan culture of South Africa.
Beginning in his undergraduate degree as a German major at CU Boulder, Dr. Morris found a professor in biological anthropology that convinced him to enter into the field of anthropology. He studied abroad for a year in Germany and spent the summer before his senior year preparing for his honors thesis on the outbreak of mad cow disease in Bavaria. After graduating, Dr. Morris spent a couple years working on boats for an expedition travel company before deciding to go to graduate school. He always knew he wanted to be a professor. However, deciding to keep his options open, he chose to apply to a variety of graduate programs with emphases in development, health, and agrarian politics. Dr. Morris ended up entering into CU Boulder's Ph.D. program for anthropology, not sure exactly where it would take him. But he knew he wanted to broaden his scope outside of Europe and that he wanted to study people on the margins of the world economy.
Upon first getting to graduate school, you're expected to introduce yourself to the others in your program and tell them what you want to do. According to Dr. Morris, there were two kinds of students he met. Most students claimed to know exactly what they wanted to study. Then there were those who were less sure where their fieldwork would take them. He was part of the latter group. However, Dr. Morris found that not a single member of his program stuck with his or her initial plans. But through a lot of preliminary research and what he described as "happy accidents", Dr. Morris found a feasible topic that excited him. Not wanting to go back to Europe, he became interested in a specific African medicine and Europe's role in sub-Saharan Africa's pharmaceutical politics..
Beginning in his undergraduate degree as a German major at CU Boulder, Dr. Morris found a professor in biological anthropology that convinced him to enter into the field of anthropology. He studied abroad for a year in Germany and spent the summer before his senior year preparing for his honors thesis on the outbreak of mad cow disease in Bavaria. After graduating, Dr. Morris spent a couple years working on boats for an expedition travel company before deciding to go to graduate school. He always knew he wanted to be a professor. However, deciding to keep his options open, he chose to apply to a variety of graduate programs with emphases in development, health, and agrarian politics. Dr. Morris ended up entering into CU Boulder's Ph.D. program for anthropology, not sure exactly where it would take him. But he knew he wanted to broaden his scope outside of Europe and that he wanted to study people on the margins of the world economy.
Upon first getting to graduate school, you're expected to introduce yourself to the others in your program and tell them what you want to do. According to Dr. Morris, there were two kinds of students he met. Most students claimed to know exactly what they wanted to study. Then there were those who were less sure where their fieldwork would take them. He was part of the latter group. However, Dr. Morris found that not a single member of his program stuck with his or her initial plans. But through a lot of preliminary research and what he described as "happy accidents", Dr. Morris found a feasible topic that excited him. Not wanting to go back to Europe, he became interested in a specific African medicine and Europe's role in sub-Saharan Africa's pharmaceutical politics..
This takes us to the Eastern Cape of South Africa in the former apartheid homeland of the Ciskei. The people of the Ciskei homeland are a Xhosa-speaking group of indigenous farmers who have farmed the land they occupy since the 1850's (more information in the links below). After their citizenship and livelihood were put in jeopardy by the instillation of apartheid racial segregation, their land was also put in question due to its agricultural value. Even after the democratic elections in 1994, South Africa was still ridden with racial and economic inequality.Dr. Morris lived with the residents of this land and learned of their struggle against land restrictions, unequal distribution of wealth, and the commodification of a dominant piece of their culture. | Leaves of the Pelargonium sidoides, the medicinal plant found in the homeland of the Ciskei. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelargonium_sidoides#mediaviewer/File:Pelargonium_sidoides_Leaves_3264px.jpg |
This is a process that we in the anthropology field like to call globalization, or according to Merriam Webster, "the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets." While this is an economic policy endorsed in the Western world as laissez-faire-style capitalism meant to benefit everyone, it isn't always in the best interest of those with little agency, such as the members of the culture that Dr. Morris was studying. We can see that by looking at what has happened to a South African plant called Pelargonium sidoides, or Umcka, which has medicinal qualities useful in products like cold medicine. European companies looking to profit from this natural pharmaceutical began offering incentives to leaders in the Ciskei community in order to take advantage of a cheap labor pool. Dr. Morris's dissertation focused on the commodification of medicine and South African inequalities and how this ultimately affected a small population of disadvantaged farmers. Resource providers and consumers are the very tail end of the chain of production in these medical products. The population that Dr. Morris was studying was at the beginning of the chain and the most disadvantaged in this system.
Having received his Ph.D. in anthropology, Dr. Morris quickly found a position via job advertisements for professors. Clarkson was looking for an anthropologist with a background in medicine and environment; this seemed to be the perfect fit. After a Semester At Sea study abroad this past summer, he and his family moved from Colorado to Potsdam and he became the new Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the department. He is currently teaching two sections of UNIV190, the Clarkson Seminar, and has taken over ANTH201, Introduction to Anthropology. His Clarkson Seminar is focused on rebellions throughout history and literature. There is apparently a steep learning curve to teaching a class like UNIV190. Dr. Morris has learned a lot about his own writing through a class in which he teaches writing writing and critical thinking. Introduction to Anthropology is a class Dr. Morris has taught before. Through a cross-cultural comparison, the class takes basics like race, ethnicity, kinship, sex, and gender and attempts to estrange them. From class and race relations in Brazil to plural marriage in Tibet and third gender categories in Samoa, Dr. Morris uses case studies to challenge students' perceptions about what is "obvious" or "normal" about the social lives of humans While he never previously used so much ethnographic work in the class, Dr. Morris chose ethnographic texts as the main teaching aid because they stick in students' memories. Ethnographies are, for those of you who don't know, "the study and systematic recording of human cultures" (from Mirriam Webster online) and are what I will eventually end up making with my films. Concrete examples, Dr. Morris has found, are easier to remember than abstract explanations of cultural concepts.
In the future, Dr. Morris is looking for his next big research project most likely having to do with health and environment in southern Africa. He hopes to contribute to Clarkson's curriculum with the topics he knows best and to expand our knowledge of land issues in remote regions like the former Ciskei Homeland. Finding a niche at Clarkson won't be too hard on a campus focusing much of its research on health, the environment, current events, and improving overall living standards throughout the world. Paraphrasing Dr. Morris, there's always motivation behind a study in anthropology.
The department here has a unique set-up for a Humanities and Social Sciences department at a university. Clarkson's Department of Humanities and Social Sciences has all of the professors of history, political science, sociology, philosophy, film, literature, and anthropology under one academic roof. These liberal arts-oriented professionals are very well-spoken, well-versed in current and past events, and experts in their field. Dr. Morris fits in well in this department because he has a goal to make the world better through his studies. Rather than contemplating theory all day, our professors are active in the events at Clarkson, in the Potsdam region, and beyond. While I plan to stay behind a camera for most of my career, I will create change in the world. Talking with Dr. Morris, it made me look forward to the happy accidents I will run into in my future career.
Having received his Ph.D. in anthropology, Dr. Morris quickly found a position via job advertisements for professors. Clarkson was looking for an anthropologist with a background in medicine and environment; this seemed to be the perfect fit. After a Semester At Sea study abroad this past summer, he and his family moved from Colorado to Potsdam and he became the new Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the department. He is currently teaching two sections of UNIV190, the Clarkson Seminar, and has taken over ANTH201, Introduction to Anthropology. His Clarkson Seminar is focused on rebellions throughout history and literature. There is apparently a steep learning curve to teaching a class like UNIV190. Dr. Morris has learned a lot about his own writing through a class in which he teaches writing writing and critical thinking. Introduction to Anthropology is a class Dr. Morris has taught before. Through a cross-cultural comparison, the class takes basics like race, ethnicity, kinship, sex, and gender and attempts to estrange them. From class and race relations in Brazil to plural marriage in Tibet and third gender categories in Samoa, Dr. Morris uses case studies to challenge students' perceptions about what is "obvious" or "normal" about the social lives of humans While he never previously used so much ethnographic work in the class, Dr. Morris chose ethnographic texts as the main teaching aid because they stick in students' memories. Ethnographies are, for those of you who don't know, "the study and systematic recording of human cultures" (from Mirriam Webster online) and are what I will eventually end up making with my films. Concrete examples, Dr. Morris has found, are easier to remember than abstract explanations of cultural concepts.
In the future, Dr. Morris is looking for his next big research project most likely having to do with health and environment in southern Africa. He hopes to contribute to Clarkson's curriculum with the topics he knows best and to expand our knowledge of land issues in remote regions like the former Ciskei Homeland. Finding a niche at Clarkson won't be too hard on a campus focusing much of its research on health, the environment, current events, and improving overall living standards throughout the world. Paraphrasing Dr. Morris, there's always motivation behind a study in anthropology.
The department here has a unique set-up for a Humanities and Social Sciences department at a university. Clarkson's Department of Humanities and Social Sciences has all of the professors of history, political science, sociology, philosophy, film, literature, and anthropology under one academic roof. These liberal arts-oriented professionals are very well-spoken, well-versed in current and past events, and experts in their field. Dr. Morris fits in well in this department because he has a goal to make the world better through his studies. Rather than contemplating theory all day, our professors are active in the events at Clarkson, in the Potsdam region, and beyond. While I plan to stay behind a camera for most of my career, I will create change in the world. Talking with Dr. Morris, it made me look forward to the happy accidents I will run into in my future career.
The Social Scientific Method will be updated once a week with posts involving the happenings on campus, in the HSS department, and my experience as a student. Please comment, share, and enjoy for many weeks to come!
A more detailed description of Visual Anthropology:
http://astro.temple.edu/~ruby/ruby/cultanthro.html
Society for Visual Anthropology:
http://societyforvisualanthropology.org/
Information on the Ciskei Homeland:
http://www.sahistory.org.za/places/ciskei
Dr. Morris's article on the Ciskei Homeland:
http://www.customcontested.co.za/land_reform_cpas/
Note that any writing or opinions on this blog do not reflect the views of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences or Clarkson University.
A more detailed description of Visual Anthropology:
http://astro.temple.edu/~ruby/ruby/cultanthro.html
Society for Visual Anthropology:
http://societyforvisualanthropology.org/
Information on the Ciskei Homeland:
http://www.sahistory.org.za/places/ciskei
Dr. Morris's article on the Ciskei Homeland:
http://www.customcontested.co.za/land_reform_cpas/
Note that any writing or opinions on this blog do not reflect the views of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences or Clarkson University.