Ember, Anthropology: review and use with Living Anthropologically

Next: Ember Anthropology: Human Evolution and Primatology

Ember, Anthropology

Overview and integrating with Living Anthropologically:
Sections 1.1-1.7 on Human Nature and Race

Buy on Amazon, Ember Anthropology, 13th edition

Ember Anthropology has some of the best references, and in some places comes closest to the perspective of Living Anthropologically. Ember Anthropology also has some of the worst sections, along with some idiosyncracies.

Some of the best sections include a great initial sketch of the history of anthropological theory, but this then becomes a very confusing and dense rendition of contemporary theory (see 1.1 below). Ember Anthropology has some of the best stuff on inequality, stratification, and health effects of racism, but these get dispersed and are not connected (see 1.7 below). Ember Anthropology has some of the most interesting references about multiregionalism and human origins, but also seems to badly misunderstand and distort the multiregional model (see next Ember Anthropology: Human Evolution).

Two annoying idiosyncracies: First, Ember Anthropology uses endnotes, referencing numbers at the very end of the textbook. The endnotes are simply author names and years, so tracking down the source means further page-turning into the bibliography. This may keep the text a bit cleaner, and perhaps introductory courses do not need extensive referencing. However, it seems even at this level it would be nice to make sources and research more accessible. Second, several of the more interesting references are in an on-line resource called MyAnthroLibrary. This is edited by the same authors, but sources are cited as if they appeared in peer-reviewed journals. It is difficult to evaluate the quality of these sources.

1.1 Human Nature and Anthropology

Some correspondence to chapter 1, “ What is Anthropology?” where the authors talk about “the skeptical attitude, in the absence of persuasive evidence, is our best protection against accepting invalid ideas about humans” (p.4), but better correspondence with the first parts of chapter 2, “History of Anthropological Theory.” The transition from “Early Evolutionism” to “‘Race’ Theory” (pp.17-18) is very similar to the analysis in part 1.1 of Living Anthropologically. The later parts of the chapter become too detailed and unhelpful for the introductory level. Discussion of genetics is mostly straightforward and does not try to complicate genetic determinism, although a subsequent section on sociobiology makes interesting points (p.65). Somewhat confusingly, for the idea of “memes” they cite William Durham, Coevolution: Genes, Culture, and Human Diversity, when most people (including Durham), associate the term meme with Richard Dawkins. More than most textbooks, Ember Anthropology discusses how conditions during infancy can lead to lifelong physical changes, although the authors do not directly discuss maternal environment. However, they spend a lot of time talking about how stress in human infants can produce greater adult height, citing a 1968 article by Gunders and Whiting, “Mother-infant separation and physical growth” as well as a follow-up study in the MyAnthroLibrary collection. This seems intriguing but idiosyncratic, and would be difficult to explain in class. They return briefly to the theme of infant and child development on pp.333-4 of the “Culture and the Individual” chapter, but this is not explicitly connected to the earlier references.

1.2 Evolution and natural selection, anthropologically

The account of evolution is straightforward and does not include larger theoretical issues and debates. Like many other textbooks, Ember Anthropology includes a statement about punctuated equilibrium. Ember Anthropology does not discuss more recent evolutionary ideas like niche construction, although the textbook does mention the idea of “dual inheritance,” citing Boyd and Richerson, Culture and the Evolutionary Process.

1.3 Racism and biological anthropology

Ember Anthropology has one of the better discussions of the numbers on inequality in the United States (p.316), and have a good section on racism and inequality (pp.321-323). However, they do not connect the numbers on class inequality with race and racism. (A photo caption on p.321 underestimates the current world population by about 1 billion!)

1.4 Human skulls: Boas head shape studies revalidated

Ember Anthropology states “Boas almost single-handedly brought about the decline of ‘race’ theory in America” (p.20). They also have the best summary of the Boas head-form study in any of the introductory textbooks (p.75). Their discussion of head binding and how cultural practices create physical variation is also quite intriguing (p.70).

1.5 Race revival

Ember Anthropology mentions The Bell Curve early in the textbook (p.19), but rather than portray it as race revival, portrays it as a holdover: “still, ‘race’ theory has not disappeared completely” (p.20). The idea that race theory is disappearing but has yet to go away is not a useful summary of the past few decades. No mention of race revivals like “A Family Tree in Every Gene” (Leroi 2005), genetic ancestry testing, or race-based medicine–see Is Race “Real”?

1.6 “Race Reconciled” re-debunks race

Chapter 5, “Human Variation and Adaptation” is their debunking of traditional race idea. They begin with human variation and adaptation, and then move on to debunking links between race and behavior. Ember Anthropology includes a box on “The Use of Race in Forensic Anthropology” (p.80). However, this box draws on Smay and Armelagos, “Galileo Wept” (2000). According to this box, the reasons forensic anthropologists use race identifications are 1) they believe it; 2) it works in a local area; and 3) they then get consulted again. This box insults forensic anthropologists–it would have been much more helpful to discuss Sauer 1992 or Konigsberg et al. 2009. Ember Anthropology actually does better at describing forensic anthropology methods in a short section on p.486, referencing C. Loring Brace, “Region does not mean ‘race’” (1995). The textbook does not discuss craniometrics.

1.7 Race becomes biology

As noted, Ember Anthropology spends a lot of time at the beginning of their “Human Variation” chapter discussing how biology is shaped by environment and culture. However, they do not reconnect this theme at the end of the chapter, and so never observe how a cultural category of race might become biological. Ember Anthropology does have one of the better deconstructions of associations between race and IQ, beginning with issues of middle-class culture and then talking about socioeconomic differences. Although they do not talk about these factors as possibly becoming biological, they do discuss stereotype embodiment, how “simply reminding ‘blacks’ of the ‘race’ before a test causes them to do worse” (p.83). They here cite Richard Nisbett, “Education Is All in Your Mind” (2009). An annoyance here is how these discussions fill up with quotation marks, as the authors begin putting every instance of black and white and race in quotes. Ember Anthropology returns to the theme on p.322 in a box titled “Unequal in Death: African Americans Compared with European Americans.” It is an unfortunate title, as it makes it seem like it will be a discussion of burial grounds, but it is really about health disparities. Ember Anthropology here addresses how racism becomes manifest as stress and hypertension, citing William Dressler’s 1993 article “Health in the African American Community.” This box is also a rare example of an anthropology textbook actually critiquing an argument Jared Diamond makes in “The saltshaker’s curse” (1991). It is a pity the authors do not connect this box back to the chapter on human variation, or follow up on Dressler’s later work that might have led them to Clarence Gravlee’s “How race becomes biology” (2009).