Concept of reflective anthropology

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Reflexive anthropology denotes a theoretical and methodological concept used in anthropology , ethnology, and sociology . Over time, the meaning of this concept has changed significantly. Initially, it was used to describe a research approach that reflexively included the researcher's own premises or the subjectivity of the researcher. Since the 1990s, reflexive anthropology has also been an approach that contingently defines the circle of social actors .

This article or section needs to be revised. Details should be given on the talk page. Please help to improve it , and then remove this flag.

Emergence

Reflective anthropology in the first sense is a concept that can be found in the beginnings of anthropological research, for example in Malinovski. In this sense, Bob Scholte (died 1987) from the New School of Social Research developed thoughts on a reflective anthropology as early as 1970 at the VII World Congress of Sociology in Varna (Bulgaria) .

This understanding was taken up by the sociologist Gesa Lindemann and further developed following Helmuth Plessner's “Theory of eccentric positionality” (1975).

Reflexive Anthropology in Sociology

Based on Plessner, the sociologist Lindemann differentiates between positive anthropology and reflective anthropology. Positive anthropology means that people are characterized by a special body-environment relationship. Accordingly, the behavior / actions of people are not determined by instinctive guidelines. Their relationship to the environment is not determined by nature; rather, people determine their relationship to the environment through artificial social forms. In this sense, the assumptions of very different theoretical approaches converge. American pragmatism ( Mead 1913, 1934) asks, for example, how the social order and norms (Mead speaks here of the generalized other) are formed on which bodily selves orient themselves in their actions. Similarly, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu investigates how the habitus of people is shaped in society. However, it is always assumed that only people can be social actors.

Reflexive Anthropology and the Contingency of the Limits of the Social

This is where the further development proposed by Lindemann (Lindemann 2009, 2014, 2019) begins. She regards it as an open question whether only people are considered social actors or whether other beings can also be considered as social actors. Following this line of argument, societies must be examined to determine how they themselves limit the circle of possible actors. Anthropological research provides a lot of evidence for the artificiality of the “boundaries of the social world” (Descola 2011; Luckmann 1980, with further references).

In Lindemann's sense, reflexivity does not only mean that the premises of the research or the subjectivity of the researcher are included reflexively. Rather, reflexive anthropology means that it is a modern prejudice that only humans can be social persons. This modern prejudice is distanced with the concept of reflexive anthropology. In this sense, Lindemann analyzes the individual human being in terms of freedom and dignity as a modern institution. That is, it must be considered a characteristic of modern society that only living people can be considered social persons, but that at the same time all living people should be considered social persons (Lindemann 2018).

literature

  • Gesa Lindemann: Double contingency and reflexive anthropology. In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie Vol. 28 (1999), Issue 3, June, pp. 165-181, ISSN  0340-1804
  • Gesa Lindemann: Thinking the social from its limits. Weilerswist: Velbrück (2009)
  • Gesa Lindemann: world access. Weilerswist: Velbrück (2014)
  • Gesa Lindemann: Criticism necessary to structure. Modern society theory. Volume 1.Wilerswist: Velbrück (2018)
  • Philippe Descola: Beyond nature and culture. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. (2011)
  • Thomas Luckmann: Beyond the limits of the social world. in: Lifeworld and Society . Paderborn, Munich, Vienna, Zurich: Schöningh.S. 56-92 (1980)
  • George H. Mead: The social identity, in: Collected essays Vol. I: 241-249, Frankfurt / M .: Suhrkamp (1913/1987)
  • George H. Mead: Mind, Self, and Society , Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press. (1934/1967)
  • Helmuth Plessner: The levels of the organic and the human . Berlin: de Gruyter. (1975)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lorraine Nencel, Peter Pels: Critique and Reflexivity in Anthropology: A Report On the Bob Scholte Memorial Conference, Held in Amsterdam, December 1988. Critique of Anthropology. First Published December 1, 1989. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X8900900306
  2. ↑ Wolf Lepenies: Sociological Anthropology. Materials. Munich: Hanser 1974, page 49
  3. ↑ Bourdieu, P .: Social sense. Critique of Theoretical Reason . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-518-57828-6 .
  4. ↑ Bourdieu, P. & L. Wacquant: Reflexive Anthropology . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1992.