Park, Introducing Anthropology: Use with Living Anthropologically

Next: Park Introducing Anthropology on Human Evolution and Primatology

Park, Introducing Anthropology

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

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I want to like Michael Alan Park’s Introducing Anthropology. It is short, especially for a comprehensive 4-field textbook, although it has become more expensive for what it offers. It does not divide anthropology by sub-field, but integrates the approaches by topic. Park has a pleasant conversational style, reserving references for the end of each chapter. Park is a biological anthropologist, a nice change from most other textbooks. I have used it in my classes and find many of the phrasings memorable.

However, I cannot recommend using Park with Living Anthropologically. Park’s perspective seems to take biology as a basis for behavior. He considers it “obvious, and uncontroversial, that the behavior of non-culture-bearing species is programmed in their genes in a complex series of stimulus-response reactions” (2011:366). For some primates and humans, Park allows culture to modify genetic programming. In contrast, Living Anthropologically challenges this approach, and is a counterpoint to Park.

Park seems oddly not updated or detailed in the areas which should be his strengths: human evolution, race, primatology, forensic anthropology. The fifth edition has hardly changed: the chapters, stories, pictures, and phrasings are all very familiar from when I taught the second edition. In some ways I liked the second edition better: it included a subheading on “descent with modification,” a phrasing that unfortunately disappears in the fifth edition, replaced by “evolution.” The second edition had a chapter title called “Anatomy: The Bipedal Primate” which in the fifth edition becomes “Evolution: The Large-Brained Primate.” Both of these changes seem like steps in the wrong direction.

There are some updates in the references, but it does not seem Park has used these references to update his thinking or presentation. One of the new features is supposed to be a “new section on the history of scientific race studies,” but it does little to confront the contemporary race revival (see below). There was really no reason to come out with a 2011 edition, as the material is the same and the updates could be gleaned from glancing at peer-reviewed journals.

1.1 Human Nature and Anthropology

Takes a “biocultural perspective as our organizing principle” (p.19), but does not always spell out what that means. Many anthropologists will find the biological emphasis too limiting, as at times Park portrays culture as an adaptation on top of biology. Saves a fuller discussion for pp.366-369, with idea that both cultural determinisms and biological determinisms are untenable, but seems to make an overly strong case for a biological underpinning to human behavior. No discussion of maternal environment or infant development as a biocultural process, despite including a small new section on child care and Hrdy’s alloparenting (p.167).

1.2 Evolution and natural selection, anthropologically

Good explanation of why evolution is not automatically increasing complexity (p.54). No mention of niche construction or newer ideas in evolutionary theory. Park portrays organisms adapting to a specific environment, while noting the environment is always changing and that extinction is the norm, not the exception (pp.57-58). As mentioned above, Park now uses “evolution” instead of “descent with modification” (Darwin’s original term).

1.3 Racism and biological anthropology

Almost no discussion of economic-political inequalities in the U.S. Almost no discussion of inequality in the entire textbook, except a small section on social stratification (p.255).

1.4 Human skulls: Boas head shape studies revalidated

Boas efforts to fight racial classification mentioned p.204. No reference to immigrant skull studies or craniometrics.

1.5 Race revival

Park refers to Sarich and Miele Race: The Reality of Human Differences (2004) but rather than see it as part of a race revival, dismisses it as “old folk taxonomies sometimes die hard” (p.205). Mentions The Bell Curve, but really only takes on Jensen’s 1969 article. 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”? (I find this somewhat curious because I had an e-mail conversation with Park about the Leroi article).

1.6 “Race Reconciled” re-debunks race

Chapter 8 on “Human Variation” is the official de-bunking of the race idea. Park talks mostly about skin color as a cline (pp.194-195) and then how blood types are also clinal by frequency distribution (pp.196-197). Discusses genetic data using Lewontin’s Human Diversity (1982), and talks about how genetic diversity in the rest of the world is a subset of variation within sub-Saharan Africa (pp.200-201). Does not discuss craniometrics or forensic anthropology.

1.7 Race becomes biology

After debunking race, Park considers it a folk taxonomy, and emphasizes how “folk taxonomies are powerful things” (p.204). However, then veers back into a class he took with Carleton Coon and defines racism as making “prejudgments” (p.205). Then, strangely, switches to Tasmanians and Jared Diamond’s axis of diffusion (pp.207-209). Never discusses structural racism. Addresses issues of “race and intelligence” with reference to Jensen and The Bell Curve (pp.209-212). However, discusses cultural and socio-economic factors without mentioning the idea of stereotype embodiment or potential biocultural explanations.

Next: Park Introducing Anthropology on Human Evolution and Primatology