Anthropology

I never see Anthropology being discussed here.
What do you guys think of Structuralism?

>What do you guys think of Structuralism?
It has some interesting ideas, some of which do have support (like the binary opposition thing), but is ultimately outdated, partially because of how simplistic and reductionist it can be.

There's a reason almost any anthropological theory class will present it as a theory of the past; pretty much no anthropologists, even ones that consider themselves structuralists, follow it exactly and without addition/modification.

When you are a technologically superior civilization that investigates savages, it seems obvious that the savage society is extremely repetitive. The Internet has surely killed structuralism.

This.

Not this.

>I never see Anthropology being discussed here.
Funny, I was intending on reading more anthropology, preferably the textbook kind since goodreads only recommend the classics. Was thinking of making a thread about it but thought Reddit would be better suited.

Actually found some interesting stuff such as cognitive anthropology just by searching across /r/anthropology.

Am looking for some environmental related (I am formally studying ecology) and biological related anthropology. So if there happens to be any anons who can recommend me preferably books, but also papers, that would be great.

Stuff about resilience theory might be worth looking into if that's your interest. Questioning Collapse by McAnany and Yoffee is a decent introduction to it. It's an edited volume that's basically a resilience theory response to Jared Diamond; to refute his arguments they describe resilience pretty accessibly. If you like it, you could easily start reading other things by the same authors, or whatever they cite.

I discuss anthropological material all of the time here, but my interests are mainly centered around human migration and genetic diversity. unfortunately that means most of what I get to do here is correct people who believe in things like multi-regional hypothesis or other racially fueled nonsense.

Anything post-Boas is marxist gobbledygook

>but my interests are mainly centered around human migration and genetic diversity.
Interesting.
What do you know about South Americans? I've read 1491 and came across something else, a study, and both said either Australian or Polynesians colonized South America too.
But now I am unsure about the truth of this.

I also came across a study that we may have mixed with a third - I think - homonid.
Thanks a lot!

>and both said either Australian or Polynesians
I mean one of them said Australian the other said Polynesians.
>third - I think - homonid.
I am unsure if it was the third, not unsure about it being a homonid lol, you have neanderthals and denisovians.

>Brown bear and white bear - different species.
>Brown man and white man - same species.
wtf? Shouts about Hitler are only approval of stupid theory about one source of humanity.

>Questioning Collapse
It does have bad reviews however. I added it onto my reading list anyway.

Currently reading "The secret of our success" a popular scientific book which contains anthropology. Interesting so far, and it argues that environment and genetics play a role but it is accumulating knowledge (know-how especially) and social connectiveness making this possible that drives human's success.

Joseph Henrich states that neanderthals probably were smarter but lacked the cognitive toolkits to aquire the level of cummulative know-how humans acquired, and thus lost the battle.

This. They've become lazier and lazier.

Did it start with him or after him? His students?

if we come from monkeys how come there are still monkeys?

My undergrad degree is in anthropology. I mainly focused on archaeology, though, with a smidge of comparative linguistics, so although I'd love to recommend decent books & papers on physical/biological anthro, I'm really somebody who should be READING more books on them, not RECOMMENDING books.

In general, though, I'd love to see arch/anthro discussed more on here. Seems like every time it's brought up it's just fucking Jared Diamond again.

>In general, though, I'd love to see arch/anthro discussed more on here. Seems like every time it's brought up it's just fucking Jared Diamond again.
Me too.
>I'm really somebody who should be READING more books on them, not RECOMMENDING books.
I could give you some of what I've shelved as anthropology on my goodreads profile? It contains mostly recent popular scientific books, a few classics and a few textbooks.

I am personally, besides the environmental and biological stuff, also looking at mythology and symbology. And not so much types of myths and symbols but more:
1) How they are used
2) Cognitive/psychological reasons behind them
3) How they spread and are shaped

Tried anthropology in Australia, just seems a Marxist echochamber.

Not exactly a fan of something which was advertised to me as "being dedicated to disproving the works of 19th century white men" and emphasizing that as the key to it.

>Tried anthropology in Australia, just seems a Marxist echochamber.
Wouldn't be suprised by that. It is a shame that the social sciences are plagued by this kind kind of cultural bias.
Hence I am personally looking at books with some foundation in biology and evolution.

Not to say that evolutionary biology, think evolutionary psychology, has no problems. Indeed they seem to be stuck with kin selection, sometimes overplay nature, and don't work with gradients of human nature.

If you can get your hands on it "The secret of our success" was really interesting. It is anthropology mixed with genetics, biology and so forth. It doesn't downplay innate nature, but talks more of firmware vs hardware.

The human brain and a few other organs are for example plastic i.e. changeble. Two books I read used the same example:
Cab drivers have a different brain as normal people and this cannot be explained by genetics alone. By practice the brain changes to better suit the task, but there is still some genetic component.

Some people can practice all they will but because they do not have the right genes they will be stuck where someone with the better genes would surpas them.

>firmware vs hardware.
instead of hardware I mean. With firmware being changable but within limits.

Jared in general is sort of an embarrassment to how blatantly biased anthropology can get as a field. It's pretty obvious that he mixes in his work with feminist ideologies and talking about how evil the white man was. It's kinda sad.

Not really. There are a ton of different active influences and theoretical outlook in anthropology, and Marxism is only one of them (and it was only really popular in the 1950s and 60s). If you're limiting yourself to Boas and before, you basically cut yourself off from any actual anthropology. Before Boas, anthropology was basically /pol/, and Boas himself didn't really do what we think of anthropology. He was an important figure, but did almost nothing to explain cultures and give any kind of meaningful analysis to his work; it was just description. Boas was definitely revolutionary for his time, and did a lot of useful things, but there's a reason people kept going after him.

>Jared in general is sort of an embarrassment to how blatantly biased anthropology can get as a field.
I would disagree with that on the simple basis that he's not an anthropologist. He has training in a couple different fields, but anthropology is not one of them, and it shows. If you read any of this stuff with a working knowledge of anthropology as a field (actual knowledge, not just pop bullshit like Jared Diamond), it's obvious he's a person writing about things way outside his depth.

A great example is how he frames his "anthropological" works like he's talking about new ideas, when he was actually just presented a much lazier version of theory that was popular among anthropologists in the 1950s and doesn't seem aware of it.