David Kronenfeld Summary of email correspondance prior to the mailing list Folks, What follows is a compendium of the messages I have received relative to the possible formation of a new (cultural ?) anthropology group. The discussion concerns, inter alia, whether to focus broadly on science as a general focal interest or more narrowly on distributed cognition and formal methods a more specific focus. I have listed comments, but not votes and simply mechanical stuff. David Kronenfeld From Sue Weller I am not in favor in an alternative meeting [DK: re sessions turned down by AAA New Orleans]. I suggest that we really put an effort into forming a society of our own. It is still worthwhile to take advantage of the larger tent offered by the AAA, services etc, not to mention identity of people who are now displaced by this trend. - s weller From Carmella Moore Dear all, In the course of our email discussion about the rejection of our session and various other scientific sessions at the upcoming AAA meeting, the suggestion of forming a new group has come up at least three times from various people. It is a logical suggestion but one with some pragmatic difficulties. We have tried at least two previous times (in the early 1990's, and then again in 1995) to form a new group, and both attempts fizzled for various reasons, at least one of which was within group quibbling. Nevertheless, we probably shouldn't give-up. The umbrella of the AAA may be a reasonable short term response, but for myself, I don't see it as a long term solution. I won't detail the reasons here but that is my opinion. I wish we would think bigger and more along the lines of what the Society for Psychological Science did (i.e., a real break away group from the APA), but it would require even more work, probably including finding a donor to finance the project (which is not as untenable as you might think at first). But to give the AAA possibility a fair chance, I've attached the AAA rules for the formation of new groups as a word perfect document. New groups are of two kinds, sections and interest groups. If you prefer, go to the AAA website directly. The address is http://www.aaanet.org/sctigs.htm . Go to the bottom of that page and then click on either "Policies and Procedures for Creating a New Section," or "Protocol . . .Interest Groups." This does not require that you log in. Under their rules, I can envision scenarios where we might very well be rejected as a new group, but I'll try not to feel so cynical. Best, Carmella From David Kronenfeld Hi ! Mostly I am listening and thinking (most recently to the recent communications from Doug, Carmella, and Sue). But I do think the idea of a new group is good, and I am not persuaded that attaching it--at least for now--to the AAA serves any useful purpose. I too am willing to help in any way I can--and I think there will turn out to be a substantial southern California group. I have been talking with Dwight and Kris, and gather that they have some interesting and attractive thoughts that they will be offering on some aspects of how this new group might work--but I'll leave that explication to them. After they share their thoughts then we ought to begin to work out stuff like what it is that the group is actually about, what kind of corporate or collective existence it will have, and so forth. At some point soon we ought to begin developing a list of people who are interested now, and want to be included--and involved in the shaping. Also, perhaps, another list of people whom we should contact and invite to join--but have not been part of the current discussions. Cheers, David From Vic de Munck for what it's worth, i agree with Sue and think that putting our energies into forming a society under the AAA's big tent is the way to go: the society of cognitive anthropology-- or more inclusively--society of empirical anthro, or some such. victor From Doug White A name is important but needs also to be inclusive: society of social and cognitive anthropology? Doug White http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/ From Dwight Read Carmella, Thanks for reminding us about Interest Groups. This may provide the appropriate umbrella within the AAA to give us identity as group until such time as it becomes clear whether or not a new organization or a section within the AAA is desirable and viable. For those of you who have not read the AAA bylaws on section and interest groups, briefly here is what I read from the AAA info on Interest Groups. An Interest Group is a group of 25 or more persons who have an a well-defined focus that gives the group its identity. An Interest Group has a lifetime of 3 years after which its status needs to be reassessed and possibly renewed for another 3 years. The AAA will provide (contingent on availability of space) a room for the group to meet during the AAA meetings to conduct whatever business or special activity it may have (I gather this could be something like a 1 hour meeting in which the members discussed research they have been doing and their future plans). The Interest Group can propose a volunteered session which, if accepted, will be identified in the Program as a submission from the Interest Group. If the Interest Group has 100+ members for 3 years, then it may sponsor one session at the AAA meetings. The Interest Group, once approved, may have one article in the AN announcing its formation, and occasional announcements in the Cooperation Column. The Interest Group may have columns in 2 newslet The only down side appears to be that the Interest Group cannot have any publications in its name. I mention this because we had a session this past Spring on mathematical modeling in anthropology at the Cybernetics and Systems 2002 Meeting in Vienna and the group of us that were there or were scheduled to be there (Kris Lehman, Murray Leaf, Mike Fischer, Sander van der Leeuw, Paul Jorion, Doug White, Paul Ballonoff, David Kronenfeld, Irina Ezhkova, Dwight Read) discussed the need for to identify ourselves (those interested in theory construction and modeling in anthropology aimed at fundamental and central questions and issues in anthropology) as a group and to at least to have an informal organization. In addition, we already have a refereed electronic journal (MACT -- Mathematical Anthropology and Culture Theory, located at http://www.sbbay.com) that can served as the official publication of this group. Further, we have ties through Mike Fischer with CSAC (Centre for Social Anthropology and Comput The problem is putting these two pieces together. If we can do that, we have all of the substance of a Society without the problem of having organizational machinery and budgetary costs that we inevitably must deal with if it is an official organization. This does not preclude our moving in that direction; rather, it gives us a way to start out with the most important benefits of a society (identification, forum for publication, already well-established website for dissemination of information, etc.) without incurring initial organizational costs. If we thrive and it becomes clear that we are filling more than the need for a group of like-minded researchers to have some kind of identity, then we can go in the direction of a formal organization; if not, then we still have an umbrella organization gives us some kind of identity. Conceivably we could have a name for an international group (since we do not want to limit ourselves to US anthropologists), and have a subsidiary group that is an Interest Group in the AAA. MACT would be the publication of the former and would have no formal ties to the latter. Whether that would fly with the AAA would be something we would need to explore. Dwight From Bob Schrauf Thanks for catching us up, Carmella. I'm interested in such a group as well--either as some sort of subsection of AAA or as an independent group. The comparison with the situation of the APA and APS is apt. I belong to both. In fact, there are many psychologists who belong to both, and both have their merits, but the clinical orientation of the former and research orientation of the latter are undeniable. If you're not part of the history of the split, you tend to use either organization for its relative strengths. I presume that in the long run, that's what would happen in anthropology. My interests run in cognitive (both behavioral and neuropsychological) directions, and I'd like to see a forum in anthropology where such conversations could take place. And I'm willing to pitch in to help making something like this happen. Bob Schrauf From Nick Gessler How about a group called, for example, Distributed Cultural Cognition? It would seem to embrace psychology and cognitive science. It would seem to address both individual and group studies. It would seem to include both cognition situated in heads and artifacts. It is not too far away from distributed computation... (Please remind me of the difference between "social" and "cultural," since to my mind they both include virtually every human activity...) Nick From Gene Hammel Dwight, Sue, Carmella, and others: Thanks for all the information. I will be as supportive of your efforts as I can, having been distressed for many years by the directions of AAA (and the field), and other goings-on in the never-never land of Tedlockia. Much of the discussion has been about whether to form a group within AAA or go it alone. I think that may not be the only organizational problem. The major impetus here seems to come from cognitive anthropology. There are other scientific interests in under the anthropological umbrella. If you do not include people with those interests (or relegate them to the periphery), you will lose support. If you do include them centrally, you may lose focus. Interest Groups work best when they are focussed on a substantive field (like cognitive anthropology); it is hard to imagine a society or group that is focused on "science" (even though that is what the problem is about). Could such a group or society actually hang together, with human ecologists, linguists, social historians (like me over the last 20 years), and cognitive anthropologists having mutually intelligible conversations? I would hope it could, and that is the kind of solution I would like to see. Gene From Kris Lehman Dwight, I think your idea here is best! There ought to be no difficuoty putting the two pices together, making the Interest Group a sort of affiliate or associate of the MACT group.I arranged something of the sort years ago in the Association for Asian Studies (as between the legally independent Burma Studies Foundation, a mere affiliate of the AAS), and the Burma Studies GROUP, a consituent Country Group of AAS. It has worked there for close on to 20 years now. As for a name, it seems to me that naming it as being focused on the narrow iussue of Distributed Cognition, as Nick Gessler suggests, is a bad idea, for many of us go to other matters as well within thie proposed Interest Group. Rather, how about The Group for Formal(Mathematical?) and Cognitive Anthropology? It sounds a reasonable title, is not too damned long,and is descriptively accurate (and subsumes distributed cognition obviously). Can you redistribute this to the whole list? Cheers, Kris From Murray Leaf Dear Nick: Funny you should suggest this. The term "cognition" has been niggling around in my head for about the last three days as what is probably behind the problem with AAA this year, as contrasted with the no problem last years. My sense was that it opens the door to turf wars on turf we don't care about at all, while not quite staking out what really want to hold. My understanding of "cognition" is "bringing into consciousness." Hence its focus is on an individual psychological process. This is not what I think we really care about. I think what we are interested in first of all is the shapes of ideas, and then secondly the way they shape the processes in which they are used --whether "conscious" or not, or regardless of the degree or status in consciousness. So it is distributed "thought" more than distributed "cognition" recognizing that "thought" can be done at all sorts of levels, while cognition, strictly speaking, can only be done consciously. My own way of describing to myself what I am interested in has always been the social basis of thought or the social organization of thought. I like the idea of "distributed" however. But "distributed thought" sounds mushy. Cultural ideation? Social ideation? I also think I/we are dealing with the problem of describing naturally occuring social/cultural information systems. Also the conceptual bases of behavior. Also the empirical description of the forms of culture. It might make an entertaining panel or discussion to sit down and analyse what various possible phrases mean to us. Murray From Mike Burton At 09:03 PM 8/17/2002 -0700, Mike Burton wrote: I have been following these discussions with interest. I have thought for some time that we should have an interest group within the AAA on mathematical and statistical approaches within anthropology. That seems to be the common interest among the people whose names are on the above mailing list. There are a lot more people out there who are interested in quantitative approaches. I think we would stand a chance of enrolling 100 people. The potential members work on a variety of subject matters - including cognition, human biology, human ecology, demography, experimental economics, and archaeology, to name a few. I think the AAA should have a group that focuses specifically on formal methods, and I would happily join such a group. I would rather not have the group focus just on one of the subject matters that are of interest to quantitative people. Mike Burton From David Kronenfeld Mike, Welcome to the discussion ! I'm hoping we can evolve something that has wide support among those in anthropology interested in one or another aspect of science. "Something" seems to involve a focus, a name that sends out the right message about the focus, a form, and vehicles for group expression. I hope interested people will offer some some response to Dwight's suggestions re MACT. I'm open to doing whatever seems to be the collective will--and open to being convinced--but I'm not convinced that the AAA is the best place to begin. That is, my sense is that it would be nice to have something that's working--before approaching the AAA. Then the kinds of scenarios that Dwight and Bob Schrauf have offered seem reasonable. (My wife, incidentally, has seen a comparable parallel (vs. included) group become very successful in English (vis a vis the MLA).) These discussions seem very useful for giving each of us a sense of what a variety of others are thinking about and interested in. In this context I hope others will join in. David From Michael Fischer Dear all, I generally agree with the tact/conception that Gene proposed. Cognitive anthropology happens to be the driver on this occasion. If we were focussed on my department, the driver would be Environmental Anthropology and Ethnobiology. MACT developed because of interests in mathematical approaches to understanding culture. It is really not even a 'scientific' bent that is the critical factor. I work a lot in the humanities as well as the sciences. Make no mistake, what our colleagues on the programme committee are interested in does not correspond to the general thrust of the humanities, from who we can learn a lot from with respect to standards of data collection and documentation, if not much with respect to theory. So while Dwight's suggestion of an interest group is almost certainly something we want to do, an interest group is not really what we want, which is in the end is probably a non-hegimonic AAA, an association that represents an embodiment of people contributing to a general common goal, rather than doing the same thing. Coming up with a descriptive name is tough, because the bottom line really is that in the end the thread that holds everyone together is that we want to engage in an anthropology that is wide-reaching, general and at least potentially cumulative. In short we want a label that can include anyone (e.g. exclude no one), but which is not General Anthropology group or some such. It might be as simple as calling it the Group for Anthropological Research Methods, or perhaps Group for Anthropological Theory, Method and Analysis, or some such, which can serve as a home for anyone interested in designing research, doing research, analyzing the results and identifying and accounting for general connexions. The group might have initial foci on cognitive anthropology and formal/mathematical description and analysis, but could evolve where ever it needed to. Having an orientation towards method, we can begin to produce the 'middleware' necessary for these ideas to propagate. Michael From Doug White--re the above Either of these two (my pref for the latter) or similar broad foci for the group, but with the idea many have proposed that there are different emphases or subfoci as the group evolves, once formed, are excellent ideas. Doug White From Jeff Johnson Hello All, I've been monitoring this discussion for some time. I've just finished three weeks of teaching at the NSF Sunmmer Institute for Research Design in Cultural Anthropology where Russ Bernard, Sue Weller, Steve Borgatti, Naomi Quinn, Holly Matthews, Gery Ryan and me had discussions about the issues addressed over the last couple of weeks (including problems in the field of anthropology, new names for a group, and organizational issues). I'm particularly concerned since I encouraged former participants of the summer institute to submit a proposal for a panel at the AAA meetings. Tim Benner (SMU and a student of Vickie Lockwood), a student from the 1996 summer institute, submitted a proposal for a panel to the student association entitled "Results from the NSF Summer Institute for Research Design in Cultural Anthropology". The panel included presentations from several former summer institute students with me as a discussant and the proposal and paper abstracts were quite good. The panel was rejected. This in combination with the rejection of the cognitive session and the placement of the Harris memorial session on Wed. afternoon seems to me to be more than a mere smoking gun and points to a clear pan-generational bias against science in anthropology. That being said, we certainly need to do something about it. I agree with the discussion here that a new group needs to be formed. We tried this in the late 80's early 90's and failed. This happened for a lot of reasons but I do remember vividly the discussion of just what the new group should be called as well as how it should be folded into the AAA structure. My experience of attempting to find names that are acceptable to a diverse group of empirical types is being reflected in the current discussion of just what to call such a new group. Having had the additional experience of trying to find a name for what came to be called the "Journal of Quantitative Anthropology" which at first had been proposed to be the "Journal of Anthropological Science", I am quite sensitive to the importance of a name. In the end reviewers of the journal prospectus could not agree on just what science was, and although the reviewers didn't like the term quantitative, they at least agreed on what it was. For a new group of this type to be successful, we need a name that will embrace all empirical researchers in anthropology. For this to happen I think we need to include not only cognitive types, but those empirically minded people in economic anthropology, ecological anthropology, medical anthropology, demography, environmental anthropology, etc. The more recent recommendations concerning a combination of theory and method in the groups name is probably the way to go. We don't want to limit ourselves to any one substantive area or to just simply methods. By linking theory with method we can include a whole range of potential members (including mathematical modelers) and, yet, insulate the group from invasion by those in the field who reject systematic methods. Remember what happened to the Cultural Anthropology group. I would go for a name something like the group on 'Anthropological Theory and Method'. I know Russ is on the road right now and will probably have something to say when he gets access to a computer. Best, Jeff Johnson From Bob Moore Dear Comrades, If we go along with Jeff Johnson's idea that "we need to include not only cognitive types, but those empirically minded people in economic anthropology, ecological anthropology, medical anthropology, demography, environmental anthropology, etc.," which might be the only way to get the numbers we need, then the label we want is perhaps something like "Society for Empirical Anthropology." Bob Moore From Michael Fischer Hi, re: suggestion for "Society for Empirical Anthropology." I think it is best to avoid philosophical language, especially philosophical language that indicates limited or absent theory, as 'empirical' does. Most humanities subjects are highly empirical, to a fanatical extent. But they are typically atheoretical, at least from a conscious perspective. Philosophically, what sets a 'science' apart from an 'empirical' or 'positivist' perspective is a focus on the questions 'why?' and 'how?'based on sound evidence. These perspectives avoid these questions on principle (in philosophical inquiry). I think keeping the name simple and inclusive, but including references to methods and perhaps analysis is not inflammatory, very general, but distinctive enough to do what we want. It promises empiricism as a part of the process, without focusing on it and making it the main goal. The even more general Anthropological Research and Theory might do, and has a nice acronym. Include society at the beginning, and we have a nice pun. In the UK there are perhaps a dozen socio-cultural anthropologists (out of 300 or so academic anthropologists) who would be associated with something with 'science' in the title. Perhaps two thirds (or even more) would be comfortable with a more general label. Although the US proportion might be a bit smaller (we are more resistant to Francophone inflections due to acquired resistance) remember in the Tedlock wars, the vote was about 60/40. If this 40% is anything like indicative (dangerous assumption), that's a lot of folks who have their head in their hands about now, if not because their sessions were cancelled because of their perception of where anthropology is (and isn't) going. Michael From Doug White When the emerging consensus for an inclusive society and the rather severe problems of the AAA (which stopped being a true professional association over 30 years ago) and the fact that there are many many people in anthropology generation who are looking for home in a larger professional association why not go for broke with an Association for the Anthropological Sciences that is by election by vote of the founding and subsequently elected members? The Cognitive Science Society (http://www.cognitivesciencesociety.org/) has been quite successful with this sort of professional organization for many years. The new AAS could have its own journals, on-line journals such as MACT, if there were journals that wanted to affiliate, but even without journals at the start, there would be a critical mass to populated meetings, we would meet people of scientific bent from our subdisciplines, the meetings would be manageable, and the AAA could go its own merry way to oblivion. I don't think there should be any need to question what the Anthropological Sciences the term is in the plural and the members themselves would worry about that in terms of admissions, nominations, sponsorships, admissions committees or whatever (I would suggest the CSS as the model boilerplate). We would need only a rough consensus to proceed in order to proceed, not all the details pinned down until the concrete planning were to begin. Personally, I havent been able to stomach the AAA for the past 15+ years, and there are many such as me who might prefer not to subordinate the effort to the AAA, which despite its presumed advantages, is usually the kiss of death. Doug White From Jeff Johnson Hello All- I have to agree with Michael on the use of empirical in the name of the group. As with the term science, it has even more of a potential to send us into a philosophical quagmire. I would actually prefer the term science, but, as I wrote earlier, my memories of trying to get this approved (i.e., using science in the group name and the journal's name) in a diverse group left a bad taste in my mouth. I still bear the scars. Whatever name we come up with I think it important to be aware of some of the more long term issues. We need to be concerned about the long term viability of any group that is formed. Of course this relates to the recruitment and retention of members, particularly of the young people who have to carry the torch long after many of us are gone. A large number of the vanguards of scientific anthropology have retired and are no longer training students. Worse yet, even some of their students are close to retirement or are not directly involved in the training of Ph.D. students in anthropology (e.g., they are in medical schools, business schools, consulting, or non-Ph.D. granting departments). By my calculations, we have lost between 3-4 generations (figuring that a student finishes within 6-8 years) of graduate students to the postmodern movement in anthropology. Based on experiences as a member of the NSF review panel for dissertation proposals (3 years) and as a Co-Director of the Summer Institute (7 y I don't want to sound like some doomsday fanatic, but being concerned for issues of inclusiveness (I also forgot to mention applied anthropology and practitioners in my earlier email) and sustained recruitment means that we have a higher probability of actually making a real difference. I look forward to further discussion. Jeff Johnson From David Kronenfeld Hi ! Amen to Jeff ! Especially re "long term issues". I, myself, personally, like "empirical"--even more than "scientific"--because of its inclusion of empirical work in the humanities--and I don't see it as unduly philosophic (it's broader than "Empiricism" !). But I am aware that both terms--perhaps like all other such terms--come in popular discourse with unwanted baggage. Thus I see one purpose of our present discussion as being to sort out the public baggage of various possible names from the more private associations they have for one another of us. We want the term that will best attract the kind of people we want and share academic values with--and that will neither mislead (either sympathizers or others) nor needlessly provoke. The preceding does imply that we do need also to sort out what kind of scholars we want--aka what we as a group are, finally, on about. My own view, for what it's worth, is that we do want people who are genuinely interested in understanding the world and for whom action and applications depend on the quality and accuracy of that understanding. This means, to my mind, something that is "empirical" in the simple sense of "giving nature a chance to say 'no !" (as Martin Orans has sometimes put it), and that is "scientific" by adding to (within) that simple empiricism attempts at generalization--which gets us into the roles of theory and of formalization and mathematics. Different kinds of theory are to my mind welcome, as are different kinds of approaches to formalization. A division of labor where different folks work on different kinds of things--like, some on ways of getting better data, some on better formalizations of theory, some on better ways of carrying out comparative studies, some on getting What Jeff says about the demography of anthropology is really important. It is something that I have been ranting about (though without the kinds of data he has) for some time. Spreading the word and bringing in young scholars--especially ones who have not been exposed to this kind of approach in their home institutions seems a terribly important goal. So, let me suggest that as many people as possible add their feelings about names--not just by nominating a name but also by giving some indication what names they discuss (whether pro or con) seem (to them) to convey to the wider profession. Let me also suggest that people include (within the context of what seems to be an emerging agreement about the need for inclusiveness) some characterization or discussion of what they see as the defining features of, and the mission of, the group and of the shared understandings that would inform that definition and mission. David From Devon Brewer I'm glad these discussions are taking place. I agree that it would be important not to focus simply on methods, or cognitive anthropology, or some other topic (even though I identify with these areas). Jeff and others have argued persuasively for a group focused on science. However, if there isn't a critical mass of people who can tolerate the "science" label, much less identify themselves as scientists, I don't see that the group really has a feature that distinguishes itself from the AAA. By dodging the science identity to increase inclusiveness, we'd end up with a watered-down version of the group we really want. I believe we need a simple call to arms that will unify the new group, and science seems to be that underlying issue (as others have noted in this discussion). Science was the call to arms for the APA-APS split; in fact, the flagship APS journal is called "Psychological Science". It could be that there just isn't a critical mass of social/cultural anthropologists who are scientists, in which case the vision for a new group may be un group. Devon Brewer From Norbert Ross I agree that there should be science in the title, as this is the real issue we have with the AAA it's not about cognition etc. It is about a general approach. Still, I thinkwe should e ding this under the AAA heading (it sometimes sounds as if this would not be the best choice). Still, for two reasons I belief so. (1) Being present in the AAA (newsletter, meetings etc. helps getting students envolved, who might learn that even if their own departments don't care there are still people out there that do care about method and the scientific part of anthrop. (2) I think there are not only interested students out there but also faculty, who just never spoke up, but still agree. If we formulate a clear statement that is not only based on formal modelling of processes, but actually might include the good ethnographers outhere, who might do local history etc., then we might have a good chance of becoming a much stronger group. From my own experience, there are may ethnographers out there (even older) who c Finally one more cent before I stop. Once we refine our ideas we might want to get Stuart Plattner involved in the discussions and planning of such a group, after all we might be the people that works closest with NSF and I know he would like such a group. Norbert Norbert added When I said even older ethnographers, I meant to refer to straightforward ethnographers of the (good) old schools, who might not have a big interest in formal mathematical models, but still have strong feelings about our fiueld as a scientific endeavor. So, I apologize if someone misread my message, or rather if I miswrote the message, mea culpa. nr From Nick Gessler On SCIENCE I would emphatically like to second the idea that "Anthropological Sciences" be the principle part of our group's title. Everyone, even those we oppose ourselves to in anthropology have their methods and theories, though we may not agree with them that they deserve these descriptors. "Science" is the issue: the desire to build increasingly reliable representations of the peoples and cultures we study. And while there are many ways of doing science, and both old and new sciences, I think we all agree that although there are many ways of looking at the world, some are simply better than others. That quest for "objectivity," despite cognitive and cultural limitations, is what we are about... I would suggest that we need only one more word for our group's title, and the search for some "kool" acronym might be appropriate: The ASSOCIATION FOR ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCIENCES is not bad, "AAS" being only one "A" away from the "AAAS," which is not a bad association to elicit. I don't think that those who find our work "uninteresting" would even care to claim that they are doing science, so why not confront the issue head on? I am reminded of Stanford's two departments of Anthropology, the newest one being the Department of Anthropological Sciences. I am sure we can attract a lot of sympathetic members... On THOUGHT and COGNITION I found it interesting that in response to my suggestion of "Distributed Cultural Cognition," Murray objected that he felt "cognition" referred to only conscious thought while "thinking" might be a more inclusive, though less appealing term. In my experience with the literature of many writing social simulations, "cognition" is used to identify any information handling process (including emotions) taking place inside heads. I have a hard time convincing even my honors students that "thinking" can be anything but discourse (internal or external) in natural language. I was also thinking of Hutchin's COGNITION IN THE WILD. "Distributed Cultural Algorithms" also has an appeal to me, since both "cognition" and "algorithms" invoke more formal methods than "thought" in dealing with the individual in the context of a social and physical environment. However, I realize that these may not encompass the interests of all of us. If we want to attract the larger issues, I would say the term SCIENCE is essential. Cheers, Nick -------------------------------------------------------------------- From Doug White Its monday Morning in Europe (still a bit early back home) but it sounds like it might be time for a straw vote -- if we have a rough consensus we could get off the ground and get organized. If there is a second for this motion, I would propose a vote on the following three items: 1. Form a group with the title Association for Anthropological Sciences 2. Affiliate the AAS with the AAA 3. Elect our erstwhile leaders, Murray and Dwight, to head the effort and set up an organizing committee 4. If there is agreement on a vote, its contents, seconded, and called, to make it easy on all our emails by having the vote sent to Mike Burton, who could do the count and report. Then let the discussion continue of course, but towards an agreed upon goal. We may be in reach of having that goal. Doug White I second Doug's motion. Bob Moore and then have Murray decide when to call the question that has the advantage of leaving discussion open, getting the pulse of the group, and hopefully getting somewhere concrete Doug White Looks good to me, but I would enlarge that initial organizing group a bit beyond Dwight and Murray to include folks from a couple of other constituencies. Maybe Jeff Johnson, Carmella Moore, and ... ? David Kronenfeld I agree with David, I think their should be two people (Dwight and Murray) who head the whole thing (if they are willing) but a larger committee that (A) helps organizing the whole issue and guarantees that the whole Association is also seen as a wider effort, e.g. including several universities. The latter also guarantees a better spread of information beyond the members of this group. Norbert Ross I just got onto email to see Doug's suggestion that I count votes. I can't do that because of personal circumstances. Hopefully somebody else will be able to do it. Mike ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Murray Leaf I too like "sciences", plural, and AAS is fine. For the reasons stated. We are not trying to form a group, we have one. What we mainly want is an honest identification so others who are like minded can find us. The gauntlet has already been thrown. Seems to me we should pick it up. Science is the focus of interest, and while we may disagree over what it is (although in fact I think this disagreement is minimal and resolvable, because we are almost entirely committed to approaching it empirically rather than dogmatically) I think we all agree that this disagreement is what we should be discussing, and this is what sets us off from what appears to be the dominant fashion in the association--or at least these meetings. On cognition and thought: happy to hear Nick's alternative take. I probably read too much philosophy. (Which leads me be unable to suppress the observation, vis a vis Michael, that positivism is NOT empiricism. Positivision was very literally a species of philosophical dogmatism, and absolutely anti-empirical from the outset. Positivist ideas of science were not based on what science actually was but were a program for changing it into a totalized ideology. Those who imported it into anthropology--R-B and E-P, the Harvard Social Relations bunch, Kroeber and Lowie, GP Murdoch, and then their students--may have believed otherwise but that did not make it otherwise. They just did not know enough philosophy to know how really dumb it was (and is). An historical reflection: Science evolves by splits After a while one part simply fades away and the other goes on. We should start in the AAA. Either we will grow and split off, stay and they will fade, or they will stay and we will fade. It is too soon to say, but for my own part I will bet that sooner or later the way to future will be found through understanding the world around us rathat congratulating ourselves for not doing so. Murray From Stu Plattner I share your disgust with the current scholarly climate in our discipline and will support whatever you (we) decide to do in any way possible. My personal opinion is that we should work within the AAA, as a self-conscious group, to further the interests we think are important. The real problem lies in the academic departments and I'm constantly searching for ideas on how to spend the government's money to advance science in these situations. The Scholars award for methodological training for cultural anthropologists; the Ethnographic research training awards; the Research experience for graduates supplements; and of course the long history of summer institutes, are all new funding opportunities meant to encourage and stimulate scientific work. Are there any new grant opportunities that could be created to improve the situation? Stuart Plattner From Norbert Ross Stuart, one way to support might be to sponsor / partially sponsor one or a series of meetings among sholars interested in enhancing science in anthropology. The new Association might be a good platform to start. These meetings could be arranged around different toical issues, but all with the basic goal of enhancing science. These kind of things provide visibility and hence attract people to our endeavor. This is especially important for getting the infomation out to students! Again, as you said all this should be from within the AAA. After all I think (from my limited experience) that there is a slight back-movement visible were researchers are a little more interested in empirical methods again. Norbert From Kris Lehman I strongly support Doug White's latest suggestion. I for one vote a resounding yes to his proposal and points, the name of the Group included.I likewise am persuaded by Michael Fischer's arguments against pointless and unfortunate philosophical posturing, e.g., in a Group name. Kris Lehman From Gene Hammel I agree with the recent postings. An "Association for Anthropological Sciences" has some advantages as a title: 1 By not being an Association for Scientific Anthropology it avoids the obvious inference about unscientific anthropology. It thus doesn't necessarily pick a fight. 2 By using the plural, it offers a bigger umbrella. 3 By using "science" it nevertheless defines a fundamental issue. But what bothers me about the "science" label is an issue that has been raised by others. The critical distinction is not always or simply between science and humanism but between scholarship and the lack of it. For example, some of the anthropology that is really muckracking journalism involves quite good scholarship. It just isn't science. I have no particular beef with intellectual efforts that are not science, if they are scholarly. But I cannot imagine how to form a society that would focus on scholarship vs. junk. I just feel somewhat uncomfortable about excluding all those hard working, tough minded traditional humanists. I would like to show intellectual solidarity with them, but I cannot imagine how to do it. Gene From Murray Leaf Dear Gene and all: The "humanistic" curriculum of the renaissance was a set of topics clearly recognized as pagan in origin, and the salient opposition that people mobilized around was not between science and humanism but between human and divine. In that sense, humanism included initially law and legal philosophy, medicine and biology, philosophy itself when approached without the idea that it had to be made to justify Christian theology and Church Authority, mathematics, geography and history. I don't know where the science VERSUS humanism opposition comes from, but I think we would be perfectly within our rights to treat it as a non-issue. Someone providing a clean empirical description of the way Trobrian infixive stems develop meanings based on social metaphors in would (and does) certainly fit in. Someone chattering on about culture as a text that can only mean something different to everyone who looks at it is in the wrong room. Murray Leaf From Doug White Gene has a good concern there. With membership by election (which I assume would be a decision somewhat further down the road after we know if people favor forming a group), the beauty of elected or nominated or sponsored (however you choose) is that once there is a solid core of working scientists, you can add others whose quality of scholarship is high. Doug White From Giovanni Bennardi Hello all, Has anybody heard about an answer from AAA? Aren't they supposed to have received the letter by now? I have been following the discussion very closely and it seems to me that people are rushing into a response to AAA without having heard from them yet. That said, I am in favor of the new association and I also favor it to be under the umbrella of AAA (I don't see how our would-be and very likely small association could ever make the current AAA fade away as somebody suggested). I also recognize that there are a lot of different positions within the discussants and these go from a few "kill/dump them" to a lot of "let's see what we can do that is constructive." I favor the second position because I have never seen any good come out of name-calling and door-slamming. Regarding the name, the last one proposed "Association for Anthropological Sciences," seem to be a little too general, it really sound like one that would go against AAA. Maybe it is a little too early to do that. Anthropology is by definition a Social Science, right? Instead, I would prefer an interest group who would focus on Cognition (not a philosophical one, but a computational one in line with cognitive science) and obviously on the other work discussed in the last two year AAA mee What happened to the other proposal I liked of presenting the panel to another conference? That could allow us to meet again and beside exchanging results of our research have a meeting in which business could be dealt about this new interest group/association. Of course, information and proposals of all sort about this process can be collected before the meeting. Giovanni From David Kronenfeld Giovanni, So far no response yet from AAA to our letter. It does seem worthwhile waiting to hear from them (or to definitively NOT hear from them) before locking in any plan of action. I do think--as several have suggested, I think--that it is a good idea to keep this as an informal discussion and news group (independent of the AAA, but not opposed to it) regardless with what happens within the AAA. If the AAA seems really unfriendly about our concerns and if no AAA Section or Interest Group emerges, then I would be strongly informal of setting up an alternative formal group--based on the informal group. Meanwhile, as Dwight somewhere noted, MACT (electronic journal) exists as a potential focus for the informal group; since AAA rules preclude Interest Groups from having journals, this alone is a good reason for keeping the informal group. The informal group would need some sort of structure--but such could be much simpler and looser than would be required for any formal organization. Perhaps just some sort of broad-based steering committee with a lead coordinator and maybe a secretary. Meanwhile I have been regarding these discussions as an exchange of thoughts, concerns, ideas, potential plans, and so forth--so that, when the time to move does come, we do have some fairly clear idea of what the range of views are and of what the collective will is (if there be such a collective will). On the question of other venues, several people were exploring possibilities. I have not yet heard how any of those explorations have come out. I think in part people have been distracted by the larger organizational discussion, and have put that one aside. But I hope those exploring will report and that we can come back to that idea--because I think it a potentially useful one. David From Norbert Ross Bennardo, Like you, I don't think there is a rush. Still right now there might be a good opportunity to get things started. As previouslysaid by me and others cognition is too small an umbrella (people would ask why we are not part of the Psych Anthro group, which I guess moist of us are probably. norbert From Daniel Gross Thanks for putting me in the loop. I don't think a decision needs to be made right away about whether to affiliate with AAA or not. That is contingent on various factors. Some groups have begun outside the AAA and then moved within it; others, like the Society for Economic Anthropology, never joined although they considered it. Why not simply use the next AAA Annual Meeting as a venue but look for a separate gathering site for an organizational meeting and see how people feel? In order of priority, I think the main issues are: What do we need a new association for? What kinds of activities would the group carry out? (meetings, newsletter, listserve, publications, website, etc.) What would its short, medium and long-range goals be? Who would be attacted to such a group and what would they expect from it? Is there enough interest to get something started or does more grassroots work need to be done? How to finance it? What to call it? For now we could just call it "Jackie" Affiliation with AAA? Daniel R. Gross From Norbert Ross Gene and Doug, I don't think we should be exclusive at all. As Gene I don't have a problem with hard working scholars who do good work, which I might or might not enjoy. However, many people think so about anthropology of religion or economic anthropology (two sections) and they simply do not participate therein. As for the selected group, I feel we do not shut the association for volunteers, even if some of us might think they do not make the cut. I think serious effort and interest (and paying a fee for being informed about what is going on) is enough. They might learn from the others and after all the line is hard to draw. best Norbert From Kris Lehman Dear all and/or whoever, I think the straw vote now is not premature, but can serve merely to indicate where we can start from in New Orleans, where we do have to meet. As to the scope of our interests and the matter of the name, I have some thoughts, but no explicit 'proposals'. It seems to me that to WIDE a scope (as seems to be part of one of the messages yesterday - was it by Norbert Ross?) is not a good idea, for in that case we would seem, understandably in some sense, to be trying to co-opt the whole field of cultrual-social anthropology, to be, as it were, in competition with the other groups in the AAA, and indeed to exist solely for the purpose of promoting our view of the whole profession, so to say. This is a bad idea and involves us to much in the politicking in the association and the profession at large. What we want to do instead, as I envision it (but I claim no comprehensive 'vision' of anthropology, God forfend! ), is to claim a proper place, even a major place for ourselves IN the profession and the AAA having regard for work on cultural and social systems (I agree that the two are so inextricably interrelated that we need to mention both) that i (a) Cognition, including prominenty but in no way especially anthropology's contributions having reference to distributedness) and the interconnections between mind and behaviour in the sense of cognitive theory specifically (this sets us apart from 'psychological anthropoloy' with which, none the less, our shared persceptives must remain live) and (b) Modelling and experiment (yes method[ology?] in the empirical-experimental sense!) and theory construction employing prominently mathematical/computational machinery! This from my specific perspective is indeed absolutely central if we are to be a distinct and coherent grouping. In particular it seems to me that what distinguishes what we want to do has everything to do with the way we see the relations between theory and method! We are not old style positivists in the sense of imagining that data/information processing will grind out the 'right' theory; that is I think a good condensation of yesterday's messages concerning the separation of 'science' and positivist ideas OF science). We are 'empirical' in the sense that we do two things, more or less: we construct formal objects as theories so that we can try to know what REALLY follows from what assumptions (this is our central means of explicit and 'precise' argumentation!) and we are sufficiently formal and in THIS sense 'rigorous' to require our formal constructions to be interpretable as making empirical claims that forces one back to looking further at factual details other approaches (however empirical they claim to be, usually nonsensically) have commonly failed to even notice or relate to one another. This, after all, is what 'prediction' really is all about in scence as agains science's positivist image. This is precisely what lets us subject 'theories' to serious and detailed and massive factual and experimental testing and forces revision systematically. In plain English, we do not simply asert 'therefore ...' in constructing 'theories'; we demand formal-cum-factual demonstration (proof even, if you wish). And for us, Well, the upshot of the foregoing screed seems to me to be that we ought perhaps to call ourselves something (a Group, Society, whatever!) to do with the two foci of cognitive-theoretical views of culture, society and human thought-cum-behaviour and formal method and theory. Well then, what sort of a title might this lead to? I have no pet title to put forward, but maybe (if I were doing the work or organising, which I am patently not doing) something like 'The Society for Formal-Cognitive Anthropology' (possibly replacing 'formal' with 'mathematical', although for many social scientists and anthropologists 'mathematics' means nothing but statistical methods, which takes one back to the positivist view of science as data processing; letting formal/mathematical subsumne but not be ONLY computation, because some of us use simulation methods and some don't, or do less generally). One final remark. As more than one of you said in recent messages, none of us can, given our subject matter ever dismiss 'humanistic' ideas and methods as well (wasn't this mainly David Kronenfeld's point?). We can't afford to and, indeed, we dare not pretend (in the positivist image?) that can abandon various insights of the kind, wherever they arise or come from, that we can use in our hypothesis construction and even in making substantve sense of our formal apparatus, making assumptions and so on. Hell! physicists don't feel embarrasd to do it, so why need we? When our formal systems fail us we have nothing to cal up ior appeal to but our humanistic intuitions and our knowedge of what other kinds of anthropologists have in fact done, often brilliantly and insightfully. But invarably it is our task to try and relate all this latter TO our formal argumentation and method as nearly and systematically as we can. I fear I have nothing more to contribute at this jcture. I rest my case (pro tempore, of course!). Sincerely, F. K. (Kris) Lehman (U Chit Hlaing) From Rob MacLaury Dear Group: I feel like Rip van Winkle, having been in Europe since the 9th. I have just read your some 40 e-mail messages. The idea of an association for our interests within the AAA is excellent. Yes, AAS is a bit general. Cognitive Science has traditionally included anthropology in its hexigon. Could our name reciprocate? . . . Association for Cognitive Science in Anthropology Association for Anthropological Cognitive Science . . . ? Here we use "Science," but oppose it to no one. And we rejuvinate our defunct affinity with a vast multidisciplinary undertaking in Social Science -- all it stands for: the possibility of studying regularies across cultures without ignoring local specifics. Aren't most of us focused on Cognition in some form or another? That name denotes this common thread. And the name allows us to expand on what Cognitive Science includes. Since we are (still) part of its hexigon, part of its definition can and should come from us. I see opportunitiy in such a name. Best, Rob From Sue Weller i really hope that we can get over the name issues. what is most important here, is that we find some common ground, and join together. the group charter can list all the groups, themes, etc that are part of membership. Add Sue Weller i think this may be premature. i suggest a gathering at themeetings in NO and then make CLEAR propositions for group voting. From David Kronenfeld The problem is that lots of relevant people may not make it to New Orleans--particularly because of the AAA's program actions. That seems a good reason to have this discussion via email. As to which actions are timely and which premature, that seems to be part of what we are trying to work out in these interchanges. I've indicated my own sense of this in an earlier email; I now am curious about what others think. Cheers, David From Peter Peregrine Dear Colleagues, I have been reading these ongoing discussions with interest, and find myself in general agreement with Doug. As the only archaeologists on the e-mail list (as far as I know), I would like to offer a couple of comments. First, the AAA has been losing archaeologists for years, in large part because of the trouble we have had in getting support for sessions at the national meetings. Not only have there been too few sessions, many have been scheduled in wholly unsuitable rooms where people have to pack in, stand in the hallway, or be turned away because of lack of space (I made the mistake of going to the bathroom during a session in which I was a presenter and couldn't get back into the room when I returned!), and, in recent years, a spate of archaeology sessions scheduled against one another. The meetings are clearly a problem. Second, the whole Tedlock business turned many archaeologists away from the AAA, and with good reason. The journal had little to offer, and the association as a whole seemed to Intolerance is what we are talking about here--not science or theory, but acceptance of divergent perspectives, of alternate ways of knowing and interpreting the world. I find much of interest and insight in "humanistic" anthropology (for lack of a better name), but my experience has been that "humanistic" anthropologists find my work not only uninteresting but invalid, even dangerous or hurtful to other peoples. One can't work with people holding such intolerant attitudes, but, and this is the key point, neither can anthropology survive if such limited perspectives gain control. That is why the Archaeology Division has been fighting to turn the tide of intolerance, and why I would argue that we must do the same. Forming a new section might be one way, as long as we do not do so to escape the fight for control of anthropology's future. I suggest that working systematically within the AAA, forming a voting block, getting people we want elected to the board (which is what the Archaeology Division has d --Peter Peregrine From Stu Plattner I think Peter Peregrine has said what needs to be done: "I suggest that working systematically within the AAA, forming a voting block, getting people we want elected to the board (which is what the Archaeology Division has done--take a look at the board's make-up today, and at the president-elect), supporting people to take on the task of being program chair or committee members, are vital activities that we could do from behind the scenes and without spending our efforts on forming a new section." Will someone volunteer to administer a listserve to help accomplish this goal? Stuart Plattner ------------------------------------------------------- From David Kronenfeld Folks, The list of people to whom emails on the possible Association of Anthropological Sciences have been going has begun to get a little variable and messy--with the growth in length and the different individual additions, and with most of us just hitting "return to all". To help get a handle on the list, I have put together a list of all who have been on the list for recent messages, which I am listing below. I will try to keep a master list. I am sending this message to everyone on that list. If you want your name taken OFF the list, let me know ! If something is wrong with how your or your email is listed, let me know. If you have someone who should be added, let me know. If you have some other suggestion re the list, let me know. I have begun accumulating, separately, the list of those who want a new association (with the AAS name)--along the lines that Doug White suggested. If you want to be on that list, let me know, and I will add you. Otherwise, if you have suggestions or comments or general questions, address them to the list. David "Baer, Robbie" , Giovanni Bennardo , "Bernard, Russ" , "Theodor Bestor (E-mail)" "Benjamin Blount (E-mail)" , "Brewer, Devon" , "Burton, Michael" , "Roy D'Andrade (E-mail)" , Woodrow Denham , Victor de Munck , "Dressler, Wm (Bill)" , "E. Paul Durrenberger" , "James Eder (E-mail)" , "Ember, Melvin" , Jean Ensminger , Michael Fischer , Nick Gessler , "Ricardo Godoy (E-mail)" , "Dan Gross (E-mail)" , "David Guillet (E-mail)" , "Hammel, Gene" , "Kristen Hawkes (E-mail)" , Brian Hazlehurst , "Allen Johnson (E-mail)" , "Johnson, Jeff" , "David B. Kronenfeld" , "J. Steve Lansing (E-mail)" , MJLeaf , "F.K.Lehman (F.K.L.Chit Hlaing)" , Robert MacLaury "Bonnie McCay (E-mail)" , "Carmella C. MOORE" , "Robert L. Moore" , "Emilio Moran (E-mail)" , Robert Munroe "Pachter, Lee" , Peter Peregrine, "Stu Plattner" , Dwight Read , "A. Kimball Romney" , "Norbert O. Ross" , "Rusch, Craig" , "Robert W. Shrauf" , Stephen Siemens , "Eric A. Smith (E-mail)" , "Alex Stepick (E-mail)" , "Brad Stoner (E-mail)" , "Weller, Susan C." , Doug White , "Rich Wilk (E-mail)" , "Bruce Winterhalder (E-mail)" ,