Copyright American Anthropological
Association Jun 2002
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[Headnote]
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ABSTRACT American anthropologists have repeatedly
addressed questions about the nature of anthropology as a science and the
relationship of anthropology to society. Complex interactions between
anthropology and political events in American life have challenged
definitions of science, including anthropologists as citizens, scientists,
and professionals and the roles they appropriately play. A series of
exchanges and events between the 1930s and 1970 are examined in order to shed
light on some of the recurrent dilemmas of definition and practice in
anthropology as anthropologists have grappled with them in different times
and in relation to different contexts. [Keywords: U.S. anthropology, U.S.
history, science]
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We
sometimes reduce the past to a linear sequence, slotting people into it one
after the other. That is to be oblivious to how the past was for those who
lived it, to what to them seemed open and possible.
-Dell
Hymes 1999:viii
WHEN THE
AMERICAN Anthropological Association (AAA) undertook a "study of the
anthropological profession" nearly a half century ago, among the questions
it sought to address was the nature of "the relationship of anthropology
to science and society" (AAA 1953:2). It is no surprise that the final
report focuses mainly on the practical aspects of work in government, museum,
and university settings, the linked and somewhat lopsided triad of employers at
the time. Since the inception of anthropology as a discipline in the United
States, American anthropologists have sought to define their work and practice
as relevant to an inevitably shifting societal context, even as they often
sought to argue that science exists as a sphere of practice separate from the
vagaries of the public realm. In so doing they have engaged recurrent dilemmas
of anthropological practice framed as questions including, What is the nature
of anthropology as a science? How are pure and applied science defined and
practiced? What is the relationship between person and professional, citizen
and scientist?
Below I
review a series of selected public exchanges and events from the 1930s through
1970 in which American anthropologists and the AAA grappled with disciplinary
identity and the boundaries of professional practice in interaction with events
in the public realm.1 The effort is to illuminate some of the struggles of the
past and their ongoing relevance for U.S. anthropological practice and the AAA
as its institutional face in the present.
COMPLEX
ASSOCIATIONS
Applied
Pressure
At the
Annual Meeting in 1945, the AAA membership voted to have incoming president
Ralph Linton appoint a Committee on Reorganization to "ascertain the views
of the professional membership of the AAA, of allied societies, and of local
groups, concerning the proposals for reorganization of the AAA" (AAA
1946:346).2 The committee sought "to devise an organization that can act
for the entire profession and at the same time counteract the separatist trends
in anthropology as a science" (AAA 1946:346). The phrase "separatist
trends" referred particularly (although not exclusively) to a move by a
group of younger anthropologists (referred to here as the "second
generation"), many of them trained by "Boasians,"3 who had an
"outlook ... very different from that of their seniors" (Goldschmidt
1984:155). Trained closer to World War II than World War I, these
anthropologists (Julian Steward, Ralph Linton, Homer Barnett, George Peter
Murdock, and Alexander Spoehr, among others) often had their professional start
working for the government in New Deal programs in the 1930s and thus had their
early work experience in applied rather than academic settings, where
opportunities had grown scarce. They sought, as Boas had nearly half a century
earlier, to form a scientific and professional organization (see Stocking
1960). But while the vocabulary was the same, the definitions had changed. Many
members of the second-generation cohort had an epistemologically more rigid
(positivist) view of science and an experientially different view of what
constitutes professional anthropology.4 The proposed reorganization was in some
respects the culmination of a series of encounters between the two groups
created in part by economic change and political events including the Great Depression
and World War II.
Generations
Relative to Each Other
In 1940,
there had been a move primarily by second-generation anthropologists to shift
the AAA to what they termed a professional as well as a scientific association.
Led by Julian Steward, they sought the creation of a section for applied
anthropology in the AAA. But the association, primarily run by Boasians working
in academia (see Stocking 1980), rejected the new section, which led to the
creation of a separate Society for Applied Anthropology in 1941, with Steward
at the helm. By the end of World War 11 a new cohort of anthropologists that
now crossed generational lines had worked for the government at home or abroad
during the war. Anxious to support anthropological work postwar, some of them,
including Boasians (most notably Margaret Mead), joined members of the Society
for Applied Anthropology in plans to set up a new, stronger organization to be
called the American Association of Professional Anthropologists (AAPA) in 1945.
With the power and primacy of the AAA distinctly threatened, its president,
Ralph Linton, named Steward as chair of a Committee on Reorganization in a move
to keep the "separatist trends" at bay. As a result the AAPA was
"shelved," and the AAA reorganized in ways that shifted the balance
of power within the association and included a different and newly influential
perspective on the nature of anthropology as a science and profession along
with it.
Relative
Power
Among the
Committee on Reorganization recommendations approved at the Annual Meeting of
the AAA in 1946 was one for a new constitution that for the first time formally
included applied anthropology as one of anthropology's subdisciplines (AAA
1947a:358), along with physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, and
ethnology, which had been formally recognized since the organization's
inception. An Executive Board elected by fellows was introduced to take over
some of the tasks of the presidency,5 as well as to take action on behalf of
the association as a whole (the latter in response to complaints from younger
members that association action and reaction were unwieldy and slow). These
changes redistributed power especially when coupled with the expansion of
membership in the late 1940s (i.e., in 1946 there were 338 AAA fellows, and in
1949 there were 570, an increase of more than two-thirds in three years). While
the teaching force in the older, larger, better known programs was still
dominated by Boasians, the second generation laid claim to new practical and
intellectual power through new avenues for AAA positions and new definitions of
the "professional" allied to their view of science, which in turn
opened the door wider for applied work. That is, scientific knowledge assumed
as objective and value free was further understood to produce fact and truth
and, thus, once established was appropriately applied in any setting. This was
the new (although not exclusive) face of the association, as witnessed, for
example, by the decision to have Ruth Benedict serve only half a term as
president. (In that context, Benedict's presidential address,
"Anthropology and the Humanities" [1947], asserting the place of, for
example, literary theory in anthropological analysis, is a message at multiple
levels.) The second half of the term was served by Clyde Kluckhohn.6 In his
first address to the membership Kluckhohn refers to ongoing measures to
"facilitate the reintegration of the sub-sciences of anthropology"
(1947:379), thus marking the beginning of the reorganized and reoriented AAA.
The clash between views of science and boundaries of practice was now
"resolved," but it had been in the making for more than a decade.
PREVIOUS
APPLICATIONS AND ANIMOSITIES
Although
applied work had been part of the early history of the discipline (see, e.g.,
Kelly 1984; Reining 1960), efforts to introduce it as an institutionalized
subdiscipline in the United States had been unsuccessful in part because of the
"pure" science views held by Boas and his students prior to World War
II. The expansion of applied anthropology in the 1930s and its new position in
the 1940s even before U.S. entry into the war were significantly linked to the
U.S. economic depression, as new academic jobs disappeared and government jobs
in New Deal programs became available for neophyte anthropologists (Frantz
1969). These programs often sent anthropologists to work among Native American
groups that had been previously studied by Boas's students, but the purposes of
the two groups of anthropologists were very different. Whereas Boas's students
had focused on the history of these groups in an effort to "salvage"
knowledge about them, these younger anthropologists were hired to help revive a
lost way of life for the peoples among whom they worked.
In 1935,
Julian Steward had been hired as a consultant to the Bureau of Indian
Ethnology, while H. Scudder Mekeel was chosen from a flood of applicants as the
first full-time anthropologist in the Applied Anthropology Unit in the Indian
Office of the Department of Interior.7 Many of these applicants were doctoral
students who could do their fieldwork while they worked as
"collaborators" (rather an unhappy phrasing in 2002 but noted as
evidence of changed perspectives) for $1.00 per year, plus expenses. The job of
collaborators was to make their research available to Mekeel as head of the
program intended to restore indigenous culture (Kelly 1984).
Boasians
were often skeptical of the kind of work undertaken in these government
projects, as well as the view of science that informed it. In a letter often
later cited as part of the literature critical of applied anthropology and one
that, according to Kelly (1984:129), represents the sentiments of many
anthropologists at the time, Herskovits (a Boasian) argues in Science
(1934:215-222) that applied anthropologists working for government
administrators ran the risk of losing anthropology's claim to scientific
impartiality. From this standpoint, "scientific impartiality" is a
form of neutrality about the use of findings. Anthropologists were to
accumulate scientific findings and "apply" them to knowledge but not
to policies or programs. If anthropological findings (claimed as scientific)
were going to be applied, anthropologists as scientists were not among those
who should do so because it compromised their objectivity and raised questions
about their neutrality. Elsewhere, Herskovits also argues that universities
should train administrators, not anthropologists, for government work while
"anthropologists should limit themselves to making known the testimony of
the expert on the facts" or risk being "propagandists"
(1946:268).
By
contrast, the stated aim of New Deal programs was to assist administrators in
returning economic and social control to Indians in ways consistent with their
indigenous organization. Anthropologists employed in these programs (i.e.,
Steward and Mekeel) understood applied work as consistent with recognized
scientific practice in which findings were understood as objective and,
therefore, correct and appropriately used for practical ends. Both Boasian and
secondgeneration views assumed objectivity in the context of research and practice,
but their assumptions about its terms were different. Scientific findings were
assumed to be objective (value free), but whereas Boasians questioned the use
of anthropological findings for any purpose but the accumulation of knowledge,
the second generation questioned the adequacy of Boasian science. The problem
as set out by second-generation anthropologists working for the Applied
Anthropology Unit was that the Boasian agenda, including focus and methods, had
produced inadequate knowledge in part because the science was inadequate.
Steward and Mekeel argued that the Boasian focus on history had resulted in a
lack of information about the present acculturated state of indigenous American
populations and thus could not be applied as part of government program goals.
According to Kelly (1984:129), Mekeel and Steward said as much in a letter to
the editor of American Anthropologist (AA) written in response to Herskovits's
comment in Science. But the editor of AA, Leslie Spier (trained by Boas and AAA
president in 1943), responded by return post rather than publication,
suggesting that their comments be sent to "journals of sociology,
political sciences, or the like" because "I have never been convinced
that so-called applications have any contribution to make to anthropological
science" (Kelly 1984:129). While Boasians criticized the use of research
results as unscientific because such activity violated standards of scientific
objectivity, Steward and Mekeel claimed that objectivity was not the problem.
The problem was that the scientific project of the Boasians was inadequate in
both range and findings. But although Steward and Mekeel had inadequate power
to push their view and transform it into power in the association in the 1930s,
political events of the 1940s rendered a different result.
Expansive
Applications
During
World War II many American anthropologists, regardless of generation, training,
and disciplinary perspective, worked for the government. After the war there
were diverse and numerous opportunities to work all over the world in research
and applied positions that were often hard to keep separate (see the discussion
of Embree below). Programs in Latin America, Pakistan, India, Southeast Asia,
Micronesia, and Indochina, among others, were funded and staffed through
cooperative efforts involving the U.S. government, museums, universities, and a
variety of groups and agencies, including the National Research Council, the
American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, and
the new (in 1947) National Science Foundation, all of which now had
representatives from the AAA in their organizations and on their committees.
The flood of applicants in the 1930s became in the 1940s and into the 1950s a
flood of applied positions, for which anthropologists were seen to be
"ideally suited." Anthropologists thus found themselves in
unprecedented demand for government jobs such as "cultural attaches,"
aides to administrators, and "trainers" for personnel in both the
military (Department of the Navy) and the diplomatic corps (Foreign Service).
Government employment of various types became widespread among anthropologists
as consultant work could often be carried out while the anthropologists were
simultaneously employed by universities or museums. But these new experiences
and opportunities contributed to the ways in which views of anthropology as a
science were confounded and confused, as evidenced in activities of the
association. Episodes engaged in by the AAA and its membership reveal the ways
in which anthropologists defining themselves as scientists struggled with the
terms of their discipline within the context of social change and political
pressures.
THE AAA
STATEMENT ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Only when
a statement of the right of men to live in terms of their own traditions is
incorporated into the proposed Declaration, then, can the next step of defining
the rights and duties of human groups as regards each other be set upon the
firm foundation of the present-day scientific knowledge of Man.
-AAA
1947b:543
At the end
of World War II, the Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations asked the
AAA to submit a statement to assist in the preparation of its Declaration on
the Rights of Man. The "Statement on Human Rights" (AAA 1947b), the
first draft of which was written by Herskovits, issued through the Executive
Board, asserts that the findings of science would provide the foundation for a
universally applicable statement. The problem was that there were no such
findings. Instead, cultural relativism was used to ground assertions such as:
"Respect for differences between cultures is validated by the scientific
fact that no technique of qualitatively evaluating cultures has been
discovered" (AAA 1947: 542). Even anthropologists who supported the
statement balked at this basis for its claims. As Hoebel wrote in a letter to
the editor of AA: "Indeed in his plea for absolute tolerance based upon
cultural relativism, Professor Herskovits is in the paradoxical position of
asking us not to tolerate cultural norms of intolerance. We must be intolerant
to intolerance. So could not, not tolerate Nazism. Does Herskovits really
believe that anthropology points to absolute cultural relativism? I think
not" (Hoebel 1947:474).
A series
of responses to the statement were subsequently published as "Brief
Communications" in AA. Steward, again representing the argument for a more
positivist scientific practice, claimed that the AAA statement was
inappropriate: In the absence of objective scientific evidence that human
rights exist, "as a scientific organization, the Association has no
business dealing with the rights of man" (Steward 1948: 352). Steward
agreed that anthropologists working with the U.S. government during World War
II had been part of a just cause, but that did not mean that "we had a
scientific justification for doing so" (1948:352, emphasis added).
The
perspective was shared by Homer Barnett, who argues that anthropologists as
scientists were "badly confused" and could not be expected to be
taken seriously as scientists "as long as we cannot ourselves divorce our
opinions from our facts" (Barnett 1948:353). In times when the AAA and
anthropologists acted on the basis of political and value judgments, as they
had in World War II, it should be admitted, Barnett writes, "tacitly or
explicitly that we have an axe to grind and dispense with the camouflage"
(1948:353). But there were other views of science in which these judgments
could not so easily be separated from practice. As argued by John Bennett, for
example, a view of science that argues that it could escape the dilemmas of the
world by withdrawing from them was doomed to fail because it was "too
rigid and too logistic" (Bennett 1949:331).
In sum,
the activities of anthropologists during the war provided few answers and
little guidance in peacetime as questions about the nature and boundaries of
the discipline and profession, quiescent during the war, re-arose in a changed
context. Science, ethnocentrism, the uses of cultural relativity, and the role
of anthropologists as scientists cut across and into venues of practice. At
home, a "Statement on Human Rights" was eventually forwarded to the
United Nations, but its problematic underpinnings went unresolved both in its
content and in conflicting views of science represented in and by the
association. And anthropologists working abroad were struggling as well. There,
too, they were often "badly confused."
THE EMBREE
EXCHANGE
All social
research worthy of the name raises the question of who will use the results,
and for what purposes. This is an old question among physical and biological
scientists and it will not down.
-Douglas
E. Haring 1951:136
Anthropologist
John Embree, active in the Society for Applied Anthropology and the
reorganization of the AAA, worked in government projects before, during, and
after World War II. Questions he raised about his own work and that of other
anthropologists represent a view of the complex issues and dilemmas of practice
in play at the end of the war, as anthropologists worked in quasi-research and
applied positions abroad in record numbers.
Employed
in a variety of positions, including "cultural attache" or
"cultural relations officer" in (what was then) French Indochina and
Siam,8 Embree argues it as "logical that a social anthropologist should be
chosen for such a post ... since the job is one of establishing relations of a
harmonious nature between two cultures" (1949:155). But the second--
generation view of science as articulated by Embree means that such work was
not without its ethical difficulties, that is, intervention was acceptable only
when adequate scientific evidence existed, including the criterion of
objectivity in context. For example, Embree argues that while the cultural
officer was likely to see the job simply as a means by which knowledge about
the United States was diffused for the good of both nations, it "will
favor American national interests as interpreted by the current government in
Washington" (1949:156). But the problem was not viewed as insurmountable
from this point of view, especially if the anthropologist as a scientist
avoided valuing one position over another, whether articulated at home or
abroad.9 That is, from Embree's standpoint the difficulty was not inherent in
interactions abroad (as claimed in some later debates among anthropologists)
but, rather, a byproduct of political views at home. But this relatively
uncomplicated view of positioned objectivity was hard to maintain in the
immediate aftermath of World War II and the activities of the United States and
American anthropologists abroad.
Anthropologists
at Sea
In 1947
there was an announcement of "Big News" for anthropologists-a
large-scale program in Micronesia (AAA 1947c: 16).10 Embree, one of four
scientists chosen to do preliminary studies for the project the previous year,
had been enthusiastic about its opportunities. But in 1950, when he was sent to
observe the program as it had developed in Micronesia and Japan, Embree's
enthusiasm was replaced by concern that anthropologists working in government
programs in these countries cooperated too readily with military interests. He
questioned his previously held view that anthropological objectivity mitigates
against political bias and charged that, in Japan and Micronesia,
anthropologists had abandoned cultural relativity and other "truisms"
that "no anthropologist would have seriously questioned" prior to
World War II (1950:430).
In a view
consistent with that articulated by Steward in reaction to the "Statement
on Human Rights" but argued on the grounds of the citizen rather than the
scientist, Embree claims that the war "caused many social scientists not
only to lose their objectivity in regard to the cultures of enemy nations, it
revived in them serious acceptance of the white man's burden" (1950:431).
The problem was twofold. First, anthropologists had been making judgments on
the basis of inadequate research (cf. criticisms during the New Deal as well as
the "Statement on Human Rights") about groups that had been enemies
of the United States during the war (e.g., in national character studies).
Second, they had decided that American culture was superior and, therefore,
appropriately imposed on others by the U.S. Naval administration in residence
there on the grounds that it was in the best interests of the Micronesians:
"The whole philosophy presents a striking parallel to that of French and
British colonialists who have devoted their lives unselfishly to administration
of the affairs of their little brown brothers" (Embree 1950:432).11 Embree
specifically cites remarks by Murdock, who while working in Micronesia had
written a letter to Science in 1948 stating that Palauans were civilized
because they were, like Americans, "progressive," as evidence that
some anthropologists had forgotten the precepts of cultural relativity.12 In
Embree's view anthropologists had become ethnocentric and the trend in
"applied anthropology" (his quotation marks) was one that now
"assumed that American western culture is self-evidently the best there
is, and that it is therefore the duty of anthropologists to aid the United
States government in maintaining it at home and spreading it abroad"
(1950:431). Agreeing, Jules Henry argues that studies by anthropologists and
psychiatrists had been "primarily studies of the enemy" (Henry
1951:134). Although it had been "comforting" during and immediately
after the war to be able to say that enemies "were subject to 'mass
megalomania' . . . or 'just neurotic' " Henry argues that "one
cannot, in all seriousness, teach such things to one's students"
(1951:135).
A response
to Embree from the head of the Civil Administration Unit on a Micronesian
island, John L. Fischer (1951:133-134), presents a view about anthropology and
anthropologists from an administrator's position and argues that "American
administrators, most Americans, and a few anthropologists" valued progress
and the American way of life, which, with small changes, was to be the goal of
administration (cf. Herskovits in the 1930s regarding the separation of the
work of administrators and anthropologists). Fischer's view is thus that in
general anthropologists did not "value progress" or promote the
superiority of an "American way of life," and, in practical terms, he
argues, an anthropologist who "devoted his major effort to opposing this
general goal would ... accomplish very little except the eventual termination
of his employment" (1951:133). Fischer states that in his own experience
anthropologists generally sought to represent the viewpoint of the
"administered" to the administrator (1951:134). In a twist on
cultural relativity as generally used by anthropologists, Fischer argues that
because the anthropologists in Micronesia worked with people of two cultures
(the administrator's and the one under the administrator's control), one must
be careful about passing judgments on either group (although the positioning of
anthropologists as objective mediators here is cloudy given Fischer's
not-so-implicit view that American culture was "objectively" best).
Douglas
Haring, one of the few anthropologists who had studied in Japan before the war
and had been at a meeting in New York (with Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict,
Gregory Bateson, Geoffrey Gorer, and others doing "studies of culture at a
distance"), was criticized by Embree for the use of
"pathological" or "at best adolescent" language to describe
Japanese culture. Haring took personal and professional exception to Embree's
observations. He dismissed rather than denied the charge that anthropologists at
the meeting had "lost our objectivity" by asserting that it was
appropriate to do so: "We were at war, and more was at stake than an
academic interest in anthropological theory" (Haring 1951:136; cf.
Steward's and Barnett's comments above). For Haring, the more important issue
was the question of pure and applied research, especially as it was relevant to
the ethics of scientists who put their findings at the disposal "of
administrators or of warriors." The issue, he argues, was not whether anthropology
should be applied or whether anthropologists were citizens or scientists but,
rather, who was to apply anthropology's findings where and on behalf of whom.
To the question, "Should an anthropologist use his knowledge to avert
probable extinction or enslavement of a people whom he has studied?"
Haring answers with an "unequivocal yes" even when "such
attempts to save a people from destruction may imply abandonment of an
indigenous culture.... If this is ethnocentrism, I am willing to accept the
onus" (1951:137).
But was
the profession? Implicit and unresolved in this exchange were dilemmas of the
entangled role of citizens and scientists. The acceptance of ethnocentrism in
aid of the survival of indigenous peoples (if not their cultures) was in theory
and practice consistent with the view set out by Murdock in his positive
valuing of the "progressive" (more like Americans) Palauans but
inconsistent with the claims of positivist science. That is, the perspective
represented by Haring and Murdock was (unwittingly?) rooted in conceptions of
culture, whereas those of Steward, Barnett, and Embree were rooted in a
conception of science that in other arenas Haring and Murdock held as well (see
also the discussion of Murdock on the Vietnam Resolution below). In the latter
view, the standards and ends of science, not nations, were to be reclaimed as
the underpinning of anthropological practice in the postwar context. But there
were clearly disagreements in views over the boundaries and terms of practice.
At base,
Haring, Murdock, and others did not disagree with the "charges"
raised by Embree and Henry. They simply dismissed them as irrelevant relative
to context. The complicated project of anthropology entailed questions about
what was to be applied-anthropological approaches (i.e., cultural relativity,
"objectivity") or anthropology's findings (variably defined)-to whom,
by whom, where, and when. Was "disseminating knowledge" always
political? To what extent? Could science (variously defined) render it
objective? Was application as intervention ethical? When was it more ethical
than nonintervention? And at the end of World War II uncertain and conflicting
boundaries of scientist and citizen pressed on abroad were again under siege at
home in a domestic context fueled by political events and fears of the
"red menace."
COLD WAR
COMFORT: THE AAA AND THE RICHARD G.
MORGAN
CASE
Be It
resolved: The American Anthropological Association goes on record as favoring
an investigation by the Executive Board in cases where the civil rights,
academic freedom and professional status of anthropologists as such have been
invaded, and take action where it is apparent that injustice has resulted that
affects their rights as citizen and scientist.
-AAA
1949:370
In June
1948, the AAA Executive Board reported in a front-page article in the Bulletin
that "immediate action" had been taken with regard to "the
proposed dismissal of Mr. Richard Morgan, Curator of Archaeology at the Ohio
State Museum and a Fellow of the Association." As reported in the AAA
Annual Report (1949:346-347), Morgan had requested help regarding his dismissal
by the museum's Board of Trustees. In April, the Executive Board acting for the
AAA wrote a letter to the museum trustees in support of Morgan as a qualified
and competent professional-a letter subsequently cited as a factor in the
museum's decision to allow Morgan to continue work pending further
investigation. A Special Committee was appointed (Chair Fay-Cooper Cole, James
B. Griffin, and John W. Bennett) and charged with further investigation of the
case.
The
following September, "the Morgan dismissal and the powers of the Executive
Board" were again front-page news in the association. A letter from Homer
Barnett (AAA 1948b:51-52, quoted at length in the AAA Bulletin) argues that the
Executive Board had overstepped its authority in the Morgan case. This
precipitated the newly detailed coverage of a case now understood as
significant beyond its own boundaries (AAA 1948b:51-52).13 Barnett's primary
concern was that it had become clear following receipt of a "circular
letter" to AAA fellows from Morgan (a letter circulated among the group by
forwarding it) that his dismissal had been over "personal liberties"
rather than "professional abilities." Thus, "irrespective of the
merits of the Morgan case," Barnett (AAA 1948:52) argues, the Executive
Board had acted inappropriately because the AAA, as a self-proclaimed
scientific and professional organization, had no grounds on which to defend
him.
There were
two concerns. First, in defending the personal interests of a member, the
Executive Board had acted beyond its purview. The rights being defended were
those of the citizen not the scientist. Second, when the AAA was reorganized,
concerns had been voiced that the Executive Board might become a power base for
a small group of members. Barnett, along with other active supporters of the
reorganization representing the second generation, had worked to "reassure
[others] that we did not intend to set up a power group with arbitrary controls
over the field of anthropology" (AAA 1948c:52). He charged that the
Executive Board action stepped over one line by reacting to personal
circumstances outside the association and simultaneously trod on a line inside as
well.
As
announced in the Bulletin (AAA 1948c:51), the Executive Board now found itself
in "substantial agreement" with the point of view presented by
Barnett. Following its review of relevant materials, the board announced that
the Morgan firing was a "civil matter" and outside the "strictly
professional interests of the Association." The public position was that
the board members were not empowered by the terms of the AAA Constitution to
take any action in such cases, particularly insofar as it committed the
membership to a position without the opportunity to "express its
collective wishes." Their report concludes, "It should be clearly
stated that the American Anthropological Association is a scientific society
devoted to the interests of anthropology and concerned with the professional
standards ... of its members. It is not in any way a political organization and
as an association it advocates no political program. Its members are joined
together because of their professional interests" (1948c:52). But it was
easier to define and control these boundaries in principle than in practice.
The Case
Is Unresolved
Months
after the Executive Board issued its statement "closing" the Morgan
affair as a "civil" matter, President of the AAA Harry Shapiro reopened
it in his Annual Meeting address "because [of] ... new pressures and ...
cognate [cases]" (AAA 1949:347). Two resolutions related to the Morgan
case were passed, although Morgan was not named in either one. The first stated
the AAA's support of Executive Board activity in cases in which violations of
civil as well as professional rights were in question. The second set up a
Committee on Scientific Freedom (Chair George Peter Murdock, Edward G. Burrows,
and A. Irving Hallowell) to come up with recommendations for an appropriate
response by the AAA Council (then composed of fellows of the association). As
included in the its report published in AA, the Council unanimously resolved
"that the Executive Board continue to regard the situation of Mr. Richard
G. Morgan as an order of business under the resolution concerning professional
freedom passed on December 28, 1948" (1950a:136). The Recommendations of
the Committee on Scientific Freedom passed without dissent and began: "The
Association supports the principle of freedom of opinion and speech for
professional anthropologists, not only as scientists, but as citizens, to the
full extent that these civil liberties are guaranteed by law" (AAA
1950a:152). The remaining six points set out steps to be taken by the association
in examination of charges and support of fellows, including "initiating
remedial measures to the extent warranted by its financial resources,"
along with steps members should take when seeking assistance.
The
Executive Board's "official statement" censuring the administration
of the Ohio State Museum and its Historical Society was published in AA (AAA
1950b) and sent to relevant bodies for "correction as to facts" and
to the American Civil Liberties Union (which had eventually undertaken Morgan's
representation and praised the AAA for its actions). Thus, the association, a
self-proclaimed scientific and professional organization, engaged itself in
civic activity on the part of one of its members as a citizen. Further, it
pledged to do so for others in similar circumstances, with professional,
scientific, and economic support.
Cognate
Cases
One of the
"cognate cases" Shapiro had alluded to in his address to the AAA
membership involved Morris Swadesh, an untenured associate professor of
sociology and anthropology at the City College of New York (CCNY). Swadesh had
sought the AAA's intervention following CCNY's failure to offer an expected
renewal for the following year. Following its investigation the Executive Board
reported that although there had been "no violation of civil rights,"
a letter had been sent to the New York Board of Higher Education and CCNY
administrators stating concerns that their practices "may not be in
accordance with the best practice in institutions of high academic standing"
(AAA 1950a:136-137).14 Although this was of no practical benefit to Swadesh,
defending anthropologists on the basis of their civil rights was a far cry from
the stated intentions of the AAA as a professional organization, even as
announced two years earlier when the Morgan case was brought to its attention.
By 1950 (the year the Morgan case was "resolved") the various
problems of anthropologists as professionals were inseparable from the
struggles of American citizens during the McCarthy era, whether directly
accused (Morgan) or more silently dismissed (Swadesh).
Within the
year, the Board of Regents at the University of California placed this issue in
stark relief when it required a loyalty oath from faculty members at the
university and subsequently fired tenured professors who refused to comply.
Members of the AAA meeting on the Berkeley campus when the decision to require
the loyalty oath was made struggled with how to proceed. As reported in the AA
(1951:434), members present debated moving to another location but voted to
remain on campus in support of those, including a large minority on the Board
of Regents, who had spoken out against the oath. The report specifically and
repeatedly notes that the oath had been required by a "bare majority"
of regents. A unanimous resolution that condemned loyalty oaths for scientists
and for citizens was passed stating that such oaths were "in violation of
the rights of academic freedom and tenure," "contrary to the American
democratic tradition," and "inimical to the interests of American
society" (AA 1951:431-432). In the 1950s anthropologists did not redefine
"citizen-scientist" boundaries in reference to science, they
redefined the role of the association in relation to them as relevant in the broader
U.S. political realm. But in the following decade the role and right of the
association in relation to anthropologists as citizens and scientists again
rose to the fore and were redefined, this time explicitly accompanied by
debate, argument, and redefinition of the terms of science.
DEMOCRACY
IN AMERICA: THE VIETNAM RESOLUTION
Decrying
the use of methods of warfare employed in Vietnam and calling for an end to the
war there, the AAA 1966 "Anti-Warfare Resolution" (a.k.a. the
"Vietnam Resolution") reads in part: "We condemn the use of
napalm, chemical defoliants, harmful gases, bombing, the torture and killing of
prisoners and the intentional or deliberate policies of genocide.... These
methods of warfare deeply offend human nature. We ask that all governments put an
end to their use at once and proceed as rapidly as possible to a peaceful
settlement of the war in Vietnam" (AAA 1967:462). From the moment of its
introduction from the floor at the 1966 AAA Annual Meeting the resolution
created a furor. Attempts to disallow, appeal, and amend it went on for over
five hours, at the end of which time the resolution passed by a scant margin of
ten votes. Passed in the name of the association over the strenuous objections
of nearly as many members as had voted for it, it represented a stark contrast
to the vast majority of AAA resolutions that had passed unanimously. A public
debate conducted through letters to the editor of Anthropology Newsletter (AN)
ensued long after the resolution's passage, revealing different assumptions
about the nature of science and its relationship to the public realm. Differing
versions of the terms of science were not unfamiliar, but newly emphasized in
this context were the possibility of an appropriately value-engaged science and
a particular focus on the role of anthropologists at home, where they were
citizens, and abroad, where they were not. Thus, many opponents of the
Anti-Warfare Resolution (including past presidents of the AAA Murdock, Spoehr,
and Gillin) argued that its passage reflected a "confusion of roles of
anthropologists and citizens" (Murdock et al. 1967:7). From this
standpoint science was held as "value free"-anthropologists as
scientists were understood as objective and neutral whatever their views and
activities as citizens. Those in support dismissed the view that anthropology
(or any social science) was, or ever could be, apolitical, arguing that
anthropology as a science is inevitably, and appropriately, value engaged. The
role of anthropologist simultaneously and inevitably incorporates that of both
citizen and scientist.
Many of
the anthropologists who opposed the resolution were from the "second
generation" and had had professional and personal experience significantly
shaped by the Great Depression, events in World War II, and McCarthyism. Even
as many of them had acceded to World War II, it was seen as a time in which
standards of objectivity and neutrality were necessarily, but only temporarily,
set aside. Having ascended to senior positions, often well known both as scholars
and as participants in the AAA, their view in the 1960s was that "the AAA
is a professional association, not a political pressure group. We have separate
roles as citizens and anthropologists" (Naroll 1967:2). Murdock,
castigated by Embree for his involvement in Micronesia on behalf of the U.S.
government, now argued anthropology as "a strictly empirical
science," claiming that "the question of what offends human nature is
a metaphysical one" (Murdock et al. 1967:7). Anthropologists were citizens
and scientists, but within the AAA only the latter mattered. (It is important
to note, however, that the public argument among anthropologists on this issue
was not about the war per se. Anthropologists who participated in the debate at
the Annual Meeting and in the pages of AN were united in their opposition to
the Vietnam War.)
As in the
"Embree exchange," cultural relativism as the basis for the claimed
objectivity of the anthropologist was extended to include the anthropologist's
neutrality. But in this debate as opposed to the earlier one, cultural
relativity, its meaning and place, was explicitly invoked in arguments about
the resolution and the role anthropologists should play (see Trencher 2000).
Some opponents argued that the resolution was "grossly ethnocentric"
(Clark 1967:11; Rogers 1967:10) because the claim that there were unacceptable
methods of warfare is a claim rooted in culture not science. From this point of
view, no matter how much in sympathy the anthropologist as a citizen might be, in
the absence of scientific evidence that one form of weaponry is worse than
another, the resolution was inappropriate (cf. the "Disarmament
Resolution" of 1961). Arthur Niehoff advocated this view in a way that
produced the most heated and sustained comment of the controversy. Niehoff
explicitly argues cultural relativism as the basis for objectivity and
neutrality: "I am no happier about Vietnam and American involvement than
any other anthropologist and I suppose most Americans, but I object to, e.g.
'methods of warfare that deeply offend human nature' on the basis of cultural
relativism. As professional `culture-free selves' anthropologists cannot
condemn the practices listed in the Resolution, although we might do so as
individuals" (1967:11).
The
assumption that "professional culture-free selves" exist apart from
anthropologists as citizens met strong objections. Supporters of the resolution
argued that science and scientists are never neutral but always appropriately
value engaged, in this case with traditional (but unspecified) American values.
The weapons and strategies of the Vietnam War were seen as "clearly in
defiance of values traditionally held and honored by United States
Americans" (Barclay 1967:12) and at odds with U.S. "standards and
ideals" (Dunn 1970:21).15 Ralph Beals, primary author of "Background
Information on Problems of Anthropological Research and Ethics," prepared
for AAA fellows at the request of the Executive Board, argues: "To remain
silent was to deny the value of science in the solution of human problems"
(1967:14).16 The view that scientists should not speak out on public issues was
excoriated as "reminiscent of 1930s `good German scientists' who had hoped
to keep their professions distinct from social and political events"
(Binford 1967:4). Niehoff's use of cultural relativism was characterized as
"crude" as proponents of the resolution argued that the proper
relationship between the roles of "scholars and citizens" is a
realization of the dangers or claims of "supposedly" value-free
science (Binford 1967:4). As David Aberle has put it: "The question is not
whether anthropology should be made political, the question is what kind of
political position it should adopt" (1967: 11).
But
related to this was a second dilemma. On what basis was it acceptable to
represent all members of the AAA as having adopted a particular political
position on the basis of a vote by, in some cases, a scant majority of those
present at a particular meeting? In some cases, those in attendance when
resolutions were passed were opposed not just to taking a position but to the
particular position taken, but their voices were silenced by the majority vote.
L. Cabot Briggs argues that dissenters should be granted fully equal publicity
for their viewpoint "as is done by the Supreme Court of the United
States" (1967:16); meanwhile, supporters argued that "the right of
the majority to commit the whole membership behind any opinion approved by the
majority of one vote is a phony issue. The fact that a certain position has
been adopted or certain person elected by voters of my district or my country,
does not obligate me to support that position" (Dunn 1970:21). But whether
or not they supported the position was secondary to the fact that it looked as
if they did. Thus, for example, one member of the AAA, Alice Brues, argues:
The AAA
should get out of the resolution passing business. The Association is an
academic association and not a political one, and its proper function is to
promote exchange of opinion between its members and not to present dogma to the
world in general with all the phony unanimity that is inherent in a resolution.
I am protesting a system of operating which can put the authority of a whole
membership behind any resolution . . . that might be approved by a majority of
only one vote. It is a stale trick that cannot be justified by pious motives.
[1970:2]
The public
debate, then, was essentially over (1) the legitimacy of passing resolutions
that were relevant to the public realm but grounded in civic concerns rather
than scientific findings, compounded by (2) the appearance that all members
shared the view (because the resolution was passed in the name of the entire
association not just a bare majority of those actually present for the vote).
And for those whose association with a "slim majority" included the
"bare majority" of the University of California Board of Regents a
decade earlier the difference was perhaps construed not as "slim" but
as substantial. The issues remained muddled, but what was clear was that by the
end of the 1960s many of the anthropologists who had argued against science as
value engaged and against the politicization of the AAA through the passage of
resolutions (among other activities) were determined not to find themselves in
the minority.
PRESIDENTIAL
PROSPECTS
Since the
very recent injection of Gerald Berreman into the race by Fellows' nomination
during the summer, I have come to a definite decision on whom to support for
the following reasons: ... No matter what their views may actually be, all
three of the original nominees will almost certainly be regarded as
representing the Establishment. On the other hand, Berreman who is younger and
who was not nominated in the usual manner, will about equally certainly attract
the overwhelming bulk of the anti-establishmentarians, the radicals and the
like.
-Robert
Ehrich 1970:6
In 1970,
there were four candidates running for presidentelect of the AAA. Three of the
nominees, Albert C. Spaulding, James N. Spuhler, and Anthony F. C. Wallace,
consistent with usual practice, had been named by the Nominations Committee,
forwarded to the Executive Board, and announced to the membership. However,
when the brief (professional) biographies and platforms of each candidate were
published in AN the following September (AAA 1970:1, 8-9),17 a fourth
candidate, Gerald Berreman, had been added. Berreman was the first candidate in
association history to be nominated in accordance with by-law provisions that
allowed the nomination of a candidate by five fellows of the association. Not
only was the process of Berreman's nomination unique, but at the age of 40 he
was also the youngest nominee for president-elect in the history of the
association. From the outset, Berreman's nomination represented a move,
primarily by a "younger generation" of AAA members (i.e.,
anthropologists who been granted Ph.D.s in the 1950s), to gain equality (and
power) within the association, using extant rules.
In
preceding elections criteria consistent with the avowed purpose of the AAA as a
scientific and professional organization (e.g., professional work and
institutional affiliation) were key in the nomination and election of officers
of the association. (This is not to suggest that there were no personal or
political grounds that also played a role.) But the election in 1970 reflected
the social and political turmoil of the late 1960s and was conducted in a
changing and volatile context inside and outside of the association. Views and
assessments of events outside the association merged with internal ones and
pressed on professional definitions and boundaries. Civil grief and unrest over
the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, as well
as protests against the Vietnam War and on behalf of diverse populations at
home and abroad, informed the U.S. experience and inflamed relationships and
rhetoric in the broad experience of the American public. All of this permeated
the scientific and professional walls of the association. Added to and linked
with these were issues in the AAA relevant to size and diversity,18 as well as
shifting conceptions of what constitutes scientific and professional practice.
Once again, underlying conceptions about science, particularly as related to
the purpose of the association and its appropriate activities, were raised for
argument and examination. Candidates' platforms, published in AN for the first
time, revealed some of the disparate assumptions about the nature of science
and anthropology as a science that had been part of highly charged arguments
within the association over the last half of the 1960s.
Political
Science
Spaulding's
platform, consistent with a series of statements issued by the AAA since its
inception, identified the association as a professional organization with no
part to play in public affairs. In his statement Spaulding asserts that
"the Association is plainly in a situation requiring a resolution of
conflicts of opinion on its nature and activities. I do not believe that it can
retain its usefulness in any but a clearly defined professional role, and I
believe it is the duty of the officers to preserve this professional
character" (AAA 1970:8). Spaulding's definition of professional relies on
definitions of science in which work is to be value free, ergo objective, ergo
neutral-a clear separation between citizens and scientists.
Berreman's
platform statement clearly opposes Spaulding's, not as a specific response but
as a general representation of a very different view of science, which in turn
redefines the profession and the work of the association:
Our
profession, hence our Association, is beset with potentially divisive problems
of ethics and responsibilities in a world increasingly suspicious of
anthropology, and especially American anthropology, and where we ourselves have
come to recognize the impossibility of value freedom and political neutrality
in our work....
In
attending to these changes we must be cognizant of and responsive to all of our
constituencies, including those whose voices have been heretofore relatively
little heard: ethnic minorities, women, students and those outside of the major
institutions. [AAA 1970:1, 8]
Berreman's
platform embodied a view of science that assumes that objectivity is neither
possible nor necessary as part of scientific practice. As a scientific
organization the AAA had a responsibility not simply to the interests of
science per se but to others, including members of the association, based on
interests and memberships arising from personal attributes, including age,
race, ethnicity, gender preference, and the like. From this standpoint the
concerns of the association were held as inextricable from the concerns of both
the society and individuals.
The
viewpoints held by Spaulding and Berreman oppose each other in fundamental
respects but begin with the same premise differently defined. That is, both
standpoints assume that anthropologists have a scientific, professional role,
but the terms of science are differently comprehended. The view as articulated
by Spaulding is that science is "value free" and, thus, the role of
citizen is separate from the role of scientist (see the discussion of Embree
and Fischer above). The perspective shared by Berreman is that science is
"value engaged." The roles of citizens and scientists are inseparable
(cf. Bennett's comment quoted above).
Although
the terms of science are different, both of these views hold that the AAA has
responsibilities as a scientific organization. A third view set out by
candidate Anthony F. C. Wallace argues a neutral position phrased as a
"wait and see" attitude as most appropriate. Wallace writes, "It
is hard to spell out a platform so far in advance of possible service. Any
officer of the Association has a dual obligation; to protect and advance the
interests of the discipline as a whole, and to facilitate the diverse
contributions of its individual members to science and society. Specific issues
have to be met in the light of both principles" (AAA 1970:9). Wallace's
position essentially treats perspectives represented by Berreman and
Spaulding
equally, despite the clear division between them. Spaulding's view left no
professional space for activity as citizens. Berreman's view left no room for
inactivity because neutrality itself was seen as a position that makes a
difference. Wallace's "nonposition" did not view inaction as
neutrality and left the door open to AAA action as political activism depending
on circumstances as variously defined and understood.
Majority
Rules
Correspondence
in AN concerning the election further refined the split within the association
as anthropologists argued over definitions of professional, as relevant to
science, which in turn influenced their choice of candidate. Hallinan, on
behalf of the group that had nominated Berreman,19 endorses him as "the
candidate who will address critical issues raised by recent events concerning
the anthropologist's freedom and responsibility vis-a-vis his science, his
colleagues, his students, those among whom he works and those under whose
sponsorship he works.... On these grounds and on the traditional ones of
scholarly contributions as well Berreman merits election" (Hallinan
1970:22). This statement merges categories of citizen and scientist and refers
to the traditional role of the association as a scholarly one in which choices
of officers were predicated on scholarly record.
Robert
Ehrich, an active member of the association for more than two decades as a
member of the Executive Board and various committees, as well as founder and
editor of the "Teaching Anthropology" column in the AAA newsletter
(in which anthropologists have often provided a personal view of their
professional responsibility as teachers of the discipline), wrote to support
Spaulding's candidacy and reject Berreman's. Describing himself as an "antediluvian
dinosaur with pro-Establishment leanings and with the political realities in
mind," Ehrich objected to Berreman's candidacy and to his views as
"anti-establishment," that is, those that assumed a role for the AAA
that is inconsistent with that of a scientific organization in which science is
understood in a more traditional way.
Part of
the definition of what constitutes legitimate science and professional practice
included neutrality and objectivity and was thus dependent on context. That is,
action or inaction played out in a context of application (at home/ abroad) and
a context of research (where and how findings were made). An echo of the
difference between Boasian and mainstream views both in 1930 and after World
War II, this distinction had often been submerged as a factor in explicit
discussions that critiqued or defined the role of the scientist. The
"choosing up of sides" recommended by opponents of AAA activity in
the political realm was set in further relief when Spaulding and Spuhler announced
in AN that they had withdrawn from the race, explicitly citing Berreman's
candidacy as part of their decision: "Because of the serious issues
confronting the Association and the introduction of a new nominee for
President-elect, we withdraw our candidacies for Presidentelect in favor of
Anthony F. C. Wallace" (AAA 1970b:1). Qualified on the basis of his
professional biography and publicly uncommitted to any of the positions being
argued, Wallace won by a two to one margin.
Writing of
these events a decade later, Berreman tied the war in Vietnam, activities of
the association and members of the association during that war, and his own
involvement (specifically on the Committee on Ethics of the AAA) to the outcome
of the election, stating that his "nomination was made by some of those
members most opposed to the involvement of anthropologists in research and
consultation useful to prosecution of that war, and it reflected their approval
of the critical position taken by the Committee on Ethics of the Association of
which the author was an outspoken member" (1980:142).20 The Anti-Warfare
Resolution and the election of 1970 represented the AAA's version of struggles
engaged in by the American public regarding the issues of the day. When was it
appropriate to intervene in the lives of other people in other places? When was
it inappropriate to do so? What constitutes interference? In the association,
did conceptions of science as "value free" or "value
engaged" constitute grounds for more or less intervention and where? In
the association, the press of public activity on professional definition and
relevant activity was clear, but resolutions did not make for resolution of the
entangled dilemmas they raised.
SEEKING
ENLIGHTENMENT
I do not
apologize for raising questions rather than providing answers--I don't have the
answers--but I take comfort in John Stuart Mill's assurance that "the next
thing to having a question solved is to have it well raised."
-Gerald
Berreman 1972:85
Despite
differences in time and circumstance, the position of anthropologists as
articulated through the AAA in the 1930s through 1970, in formal and informal
venues (the AAA Constitution, by-laws, resolutions, letters to the editor), was
that anthropology is a science. What varied was what that meant in terms of
research, methods, practice, professional responsibilities, and ultimately
ethics. In the interaction of anthropologists and anthropology with the social
and political world, the goals, methods, uses, and practice of science all came
under fire. "Pure" science was abandoned in the 1940s by many of the
same anthropologists for whom it had been an aim in the 1930s. In the 1940s,
anthropologists produced national character studies that engendered questions
about the relationship between research and responsibility as linked to the
range and nature of application and administration. What were the terms of
science in the face of variant and fluid comprehensions of scientists and
citizens? How similar and how different were the applications of national
character studies by military and political personnel and the applications by
anthropologists as administrators during the New Deal of the 1930s or
anthropologists working with administrators and the Department of the Navy in
the 1940s? What were the boundaries of practice in the dichotomous venues of
the discipline (at home and abroad) and in the logical (in theory) and porous
(in practice) dichotomies between citizen and scientist? And, as always, both
questions and responses were complicated by the shadings of social, political,
and economic intersections and interactions.
Declarations
about the nature of anthropology and the American Anthropological Association
as a scientific and professional organization did not make either the discipline
or the organization immune from reorganization and reconception. Assumed and
accepted doctrines of anthropological practice, including and especially
cultural relativity, were replaced, reconceived, and reapplied in work abroad
and in arguments at home. Cultural relativity claimed as a route to objectivity
provided tautological statements in one generation and the grounds for
scientists to act as citizens in the next. Recommendations about
"scientific freedom" became a vote for citizen freedoms in the Morgan
affair and for traditional American freedoms in objections to the loyalty oath.
Anthropologist John Embree chastised his colleagues for complicity with
administrators, while administrator John Fischer argued that "most"
anthropologists represented the interests of the "administered."
Embree's view was that applying anthropology is appropriate, but in order to do
so in professional terms anthropologists have to act as scientists not as
citizens. In conflating or confounding these roles they became ethnocentric and
thus violated the rights of those among whom they worked in the field
"away." And the turmoil and arguments of the 1960s made the 1950s
look like a time of quiet rather than one of silence.
What
remained beneath the level of argument over definitions of science as value
free or value engaged during the debate over the "Vietnam Resolution"
in the 1960s were the underlying values themselves. Arguments about the
possibility of value-free and value-engaged science made these "categories"
of practice explicit but left them empty. Still submerged in the disagreements
over the relationship of citizen and scientist were characteristically American
ideas about values such as equality and freedom, equally held but
differentially applied. What these anthropologists disagreed over was not
whether valued rights-that is, equality-or valued doctrines-that is, cultural
relativity-are useful or appropriate; both agreed that they were. The question
was how and where did they apply. Embree raised the possibility that
objectivity provides the firmest grounds for application without ethnocentrism.
Berreman's candidacy raised the possibility that citizen and scientist are
inseparable, part of a seamless web of engagement in the world at large.
The
foregoing might lead to the conclusion that, as Barnett put it in aftermath of
World War II, anthropologists are "badly confused." Fifty years later
the question of the "relationship of anthropology to science and
society" is just as pressing and just as unanswerable both in theory and
in practice. Epistemological arguments have been added to those surrounding
societal events, making the possibility of discussion over variant responses
more, rather than less, difficult. It has often been easier for those in
succeeding generations to essentialize the definitions and views of earlier
ones in order to more comfortably assert their own. Examination of events and
the activities of anthropologists and the AAA reveals an ongoing struggle in
salient, sometimes self-serving, and sometimes valiant ways to make sense of
themselves, their discipline, and their profession in relation to societal
contexts and the dilemmas they present. Perhaps, as Geertz suggests, the result
has been that "what gets better is the precision with which we vex each
other" (1973:29). But there is also the possibility that (cf. Berreman
1972) rather than apologizing for failing to solve dilemmas posed as questions,
anthropologists have, along the line, also raised better questions.
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[Footnote]
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Acknowledgments. I am grateful to colleagues John Stone
and Linda Seligmann for their careful reading and helpful comments and to an
anonymous reviewer who rendered the same. Thanks also go to Joe Scimecca,
Kevin Avruch, and Thomas Rhys Williams for sharing their insights and
experiences in some of these time frames.
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1. I focus here on the public discussion in the AAA as
available in the newsletter of the association and in American
Anthropologist. I emphasize public. Nader's (1998) discussion of the "phantom
factor" in anthropology as the press of events during the Cold War is an
essential reminder that many elements of context are not part of the public
record but are always relevant and significant. In several instances below I
include brief references to such factors, but the focus is on the discussion
available at present that was made public and publicly available to the AAA
membership through their own publications at the time. Among works that
include detailed and salient material not made public and often not
understood at the time are Nader 1998, Price 2000, Schriffren 1998, Diamond
1992, Klausner and Lidz 1986, and Orlans 1973.
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2. Committee members were Chair Julian Steward, Elliott D.
Chapple, A. Irving Hallowell, Fred Johnson, George Peter Murdock, W. D.
Strong, C. F. Voegelin, Sherwood Washburn, and Leslie White. Of these,
Hallowell (in 1949), Murdock (in 1955), Washburn (in 1962), and White (in
1964) became presidents of the AAA.
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3. I use the term Boasians following Darnell to refer to
former students of Boas whose "differences took place within a context
of shared professional training, personal loyalties within a long-term social
network and overall commitment to Boas's version of anthropology.... Viewed
from the inside, they were remarkably different; viewed form the outside they
were perceived to present a united front" (Darnell 1998:xv).
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4. In common with other social scientists of the time,
many "second-generation" anthropologists held a more positivist
view of science. Although this was never a sole paradigm in anthropology
(see, e.g., Valentine and Darnell 2000), it was a dominant one in much of the
1950s and early 1960s and included "emulating, modifying and
adapting" techniques that had been successful in the natural sciences
(Bernstein 1979:xv). In 1959, Herskovits (a Boasian) characterized this
version of science as "scientism," a term widely used in the late
1960s by the next generation of anthropologists but generally borrowed from
philosophical sources not anthropological ones.
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5. There were three criteria that could be used to qualify
as a fellow: (1) significant published contributions in anthropology, (2) an
A.B. or M.A. degree in anthropology or a Ph.D. in an allied field and active
engagement in anthropology, or (3) a Ph.D. in anthropology. Woodbury (1996)
notes that these criteria are the same as those that had been set out for the
American Association of Professional Anthropologists.
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[Footnote]
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6. For information on Kluckhohn and his activities working
for the government during and after World War II, see, for example, Nader
1998 and Diamond 1992.
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7. Kelly (1984:128) gives the number as 99 applicants in a
threemonth period. Among the applicants were many who later became well known
for their academic work and whose names run through the committees and
offices of the AAA, including many who served as president of the
association: Ralph Linton (president in 1946), A. I. Hallowell (in 1949), Ruth
Bunzel, Ralph Beals, Gordon Magregor, Fred Eggan (in 1953), John Gillin (in
1966), Morris Opler, Cora DuBois (in 1969), Charles Voegelin, Walter Dyk,
Mischa Titiev, Burleigh Gardner, Clyde Kluckhohn (in 1947), Eliot Chapple,
Sol Tax (in 1959), Conrad Arensberg, William Fenton, Solon Kimball, David
Mandelbaum, and Leo Srole.
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8. Embree (1949:156) describes the job of a "cultural
officer" as disseminating information through record libraries; exchange
of materials with local universities and setting up student exchange programs
were seen as a significant part of the effort.
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9. Embree's view is salient to the extent that
ethnocentrism can be understood as valuing one position over another or a
position predicated on variant values. From this position, cultural
relativity "neutralizes" values that generate different viewpoints
or viewpoints that are otherwise differentially valued. This is not
inconsistent with Boas's use of cultural relativism to overcome
ethnocentricity. See, for example, Kardiner and Preble 1962.
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10. Forty-four anthropologists from 22 different
institutions were being funded by the Office of Naval Research and the Viking
Fund as participating institutions. The institutions involved included a
"who's who" of American universities and anthropological museums:
the University of California, the Chicago Natural History Museum, the
University of Chicago, Clark University, Columbia University, the University
of Connecticut, the Harvard Peabody Museum, the University of Hawaii, the
University of Michigan, the Milwaukee Public Museum, Northwestern, the
University of Oregon, the University of Pennsylvania, the Southern California
Archaeological Survey, the University of Chicago Field Museum, Illinois State
Museum, the University of Toronto, and Ohio State (AAA 1947c:16).
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[Footnote]
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11. At that time the United States was not identified as a
colonialist nation; thus, Embree differentiated his work from that of
representatives of Great Britain and France, which had been involved in
colonizing other nations. He described (then) Siam as "an independent
country ... more or less friendly to the United States" and Saigon, then
part of French Indochina, as "occupied by a colonial nation." In
what can be appreciated as a somewhat ironic viewpoint given the arguments
and distillation of the present and a history that had not yet occurred,
Embree notes: "As a representative of a non-colonial democracy, the
cultural officer is, by his very existence, a subversive influence"
(1949:157). Understood in that context the American anthropologist subverted
the colonizer rather than colonized and, thus, was impeded by, in this
instance, French government officials.
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12. Adams criticized Murdock's definition of ethnocentrism
as he defines it in his book Social Structure (Murdock 1949:83-84). According
to Adams, Murdock describes ethnocentrism as "the tendency to exalt the
in-group and to depreciate other groups," which he then attributes to
the fact that people living in groups, constrained by the group, have
"aggressive tendencies" that must be "drained off" (Adams
1951:598-600).
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13. For example, correspondence concerning the Morgan case
held at the National Anthropological Archives refers to the Mundt-Nixon bill
(requiring members of the Communist Party in the United States to register
with the U.S. government) and the "Hollywood Ten," a reference to
members of the entertainment industry brought before the House Un-American
Affairs Committee.
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14. It is likely that Swadesh was dismissed after being
identified as a "communist sympathizer" during the McCarthy era.
Diamond (1992:129-132) reports that when linguist Roman Jakobson was
questioned by the FBI, he was asked about those he had recommended for
teaching positions, including (as described by the FBI) "the member of
the Communist Party [anthropologist Morris] Swadesh."
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[Footnote]
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15. Nowhere in this discussion are the "values,"
"standards," or "ideals" specified. This is taken as
evidence that they were culturally informed and, thus, taken for granted.
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16. The Beals report was prepared as part of a reaction to
events related to the activities of American anthropologists in
counterinsurgency programs in Chile funded by the U.S. government, in what
became known as the Camelot Affair (see Horowitz 1967).
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17. Spuhler did not submit a platform, stating elsewhere
that as he had been president of the AAA already, it was unnecessary for him
to do so.
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18. The size and diversity of the membership were growing
apace given that there had been another reorganization, in part as the result
of the student activism that accompanied the social upheaval of the late
1960s. Membership rules were changed, and a student membership and
publication were added.
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19. Other anthropologists signing the letter in support of
Berreman include Eric Wolf, Joseph Jorgenson, David Schneider, Kathleen Gough
Aberle, Jack Potter, and Stephen Polgar. The first four were members of the
Ethics Committee, of which Berreman himself was an active member. Berreman
along with these anthropologists had been called on to monitor questions of
professional conduct in the field and at home.
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20. Berreman has also noted that one of the candidates who
withdrew from the race later informed him that he had done so at the urgent
request of the president of the association, George Foster, in order to
"pit the strongest candidate against Berreman and avoid the possibility
that the 'responsible' vote would be split three ways leaving the anti-war
'radical' vote as the electing plurality" (1980:143).
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[Reference]
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1947c Big News. News Bulletin 1(2):16.
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1948a Association Officers Take Action: The Richard G.
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1948b Resolution on Professional Freedom. American
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1948c The Morgan Dismissal and the Powers of the Executive
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Diamond, Sigmund
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Dunn, Stephen P.
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Ehrich, Robert
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1949 Some Problems of an American Cultural Officer in
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1950 A Note on Ethnocentrism in Anthropology. American
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Fischer, John L.
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1969 The Association: An Overview of Its Problems, Crises,
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1952 1934 Applied Anthropology and the American
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[Author Affiliation]
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SUSAN R. TRENCHER
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[Author Affiliation]
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SUSAN R. TRENCHER Department of Sociology and Anthropol
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ogy, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030
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