[Xmca-l] Re: Appeal for help

Tue Jul 5 15:01:45 PDT 2016

Here are some initial suggestions:
Amanda Coffey's The Ethnographic Self: Fieldwork and the Representation of
the Self

The other big literature that comes to mind is the literature from the 80's
and 90's that followed Clifford and Marcus' Writing Culture: The Poetics
and Politics of Ethnography.

But I think that that piece (and that movement more generally) tends to fly
a bit too high and misses the important issue that you are pointing to with
regard to the constitution of selves.

And one that I just found is Vincent Crapanzano's 1977 essay On the Writing
of Ethnography. More than the others, I think this speaks to the issues
that you are talking about - the dialectical constitution of self through
fieldwork (although Crapanzano's focus is a bit more on the writing stage
than it is on the fieldwork itself).

I think that your issue is addressed indirectly in Tim Ingold's piece about
ethnography That's Enough about Ethnography. Which is a response to some of
these preoccupations with ethnography. But Ingold addresses your concerns
only indirectly.

So this is all to say that while it may be commonplace in anthropology, I
don't think that anyone has quite done the work of fully articulating the
issue here - and definitely not in terms of a virtue ethical framework. And
so, as far as I can see, what you propose would be a useful contribution
even for anthropology (although I'm guessing that this would not be your
primary audience).

-greg

On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 10:59 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> You are right, Greg: "I think it might be considered too commonplace to
> write about." Maybe I do not need to quote research to make this point?
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://home.mira.net/~andy
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> On 5/07/2016 11:56 PM, Greg Thompson wrote:
>
>> Andy,
>>
>> Appropriating Martins list for cognition, how about:
>>
>> Situated ethics?
>> Distributed ethics?
>> Extended ethics?
>> Ordinary ethics?
>>
>> Speaking of which, Michael Lambek has an edited book out by the name
>> of that last one!
>> Ordinary Ethics: Anthropology, Language, and Action
>> (and here is a link to a review by Michael Lempert that also points to
>> some others who playing around with virtue ethics in various ways:
>> http://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/article/view/hau4.1.029/673)
>>
>> And speaking of this tradition of anthropology of morality folks who
>> have been thinking about virtue ethics, Webb Keane has a nice new book
>> out called Ethical Life: Its Natural and Social Histories:
>> https://www.amazon.com/Ethical-Life-Natural-Social-Histories/dp/0691167737
>>
>> Anthropologists have for a long time been dealing with the general
>> issue that you flag (becoming a different person because of a
>> different context). It is a basic part of doing fieldwork. You go to
>> another culture and do the same thing that you always did but suddenly
>> in this new culture you find that you aren't the same person you were
>> where you came from. Simple enough. The difficulty is finding someone
>> who has written about it! I think it might be considered too
>> commonplace to write about (but if so, I think they are wrong!).
>>
>> Anyway, I'd be interested to hear more about your project.
>>
>> -greg
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Jul 5, 2016, at 3:36 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Well, as is my nature, and given my situation, I am not going to do any
>>> of that kind of *investigation*, Michael; I don't really want to explain my
>>> larger project because that would lead to confusion of all kinds at this
>>> stage. But ... I am just trying to show that the understanding of virtues
>>> is enhanced by taking virtues to be attributes of projects, with
>>> individuals perhaps acquiring and developing such attributes in and through
>>> their participation in, commitment to and place within the project. But it
>>> is not my intention to look at participation in projects as a way of
>>> individuals acquiring virtues. But simply that the virtuous nature of the
>>> project is what is primary, not the prima facie character of the individual
>>> participants. The problems I will face in substantiating this are very
>>> similar to the issues you raised about cognitive development, but I am
>>> confident I can overcome them.
>>>
>>> OK?
>>>
>>> Andy
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Andy Blunden
>>> http://home.mira.net/~andy
>>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>>>
>>>> On 5/07/2016 4:21 PM, Glassman, Michael wrote:
>>>> Andy,
>>>>
>>>> There are two issues here.  Are you exploring the way individual and
>>>> group ethics change based on the current circumstances - separate from
>>>> culturally developed "virtues" or are you exploring the way individual
>>>> adapt to different sets of "virtues"  "morals" whatever when they change
>>>> culture?
>>>>
>>>> Michael
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
>>>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2016 2:15 AM
>>>> To: Nektarios Alexi <NEKTARIOS.ALEXI@cdu.edu.au>; eXtended Mind,
>>>> Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Appeal for help
>>>>
>>>> Perfect Alex! Thank you.
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> Andy Blunden
>>>> http://home.mira.net/~andy
>>>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>>>>
>>>> On 5/07/2016 4:00 PM, Nektarios Alexi wrote:
>>>>> For your request on similar information about changes in a person's
>>>>> character following their emigration to another country?  I have used
>>>>> his theory for my PhD thesis on acculturation effect for help seeking
>>>>> intentions for mental ilness.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1464-0597.1997.tb01087.x/
>>>>> abstract;jsessionid=3F23F698365AD798272D11D57C859C71.f04t02
>>>>>
>>>>> Immigration, Acculturation, and Adaptation - Berry - 2008 ...
>>>>> <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1464-0597.1997.tb01087.x
>>>>> /abstract;jsessionid=3F23F698365AD798272D11D57C859C71.f04t02>
>>>>> onlinelibrary.wiley.com
>>>>> How to Cite. Berry, J. W. (1997), Immigration, Acculturation, and
>>>>> Adaptation. Applied Psychology:An International Review, 46: 5-34. doi:
>>>>> 10.1111/j.1464-0597.1997 ...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>>>> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy Blunden
>>>>> <ablunden@mira.net>
>>>>> *Sent:* Tuesday, 5 July 2016 3:08:22 PM
>>>>> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Appeal for help
>>>>> Comrade and friends, I need some help.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am setting about developing a new approach to virtue ethics. Virtues
>>>>> are everywhere taken to be deep-seated attributes of a person's
>>>>> character; my aim is to make the starting point instead from virtues
>>>>> defined as deep-seated attributes of a project, which you can take to
>>>>> mean "social context" or "system of activity" if you wish. I don't
>>>>> need advice about issues and problems of ethics, but it is in in the
>>>>> nature of virtue ethics that it always has strong implications for
>>>>> psychology as well as social theory, to the extent that I think I can
>>>>> make a great deal of progress by calling on psychological data.
>>>>>
>>>>> Can people point me to research(ers) about how a person's character
>>>>> changes with social context (e.g. home/work), any evidence of the
>>>>> well-known phenomenon in which a person promoted above the ability
>>>>> suffers a moral degeneration; any suitable and reliable data about the
>>>>> differing character (not just preferences or cognition, but virtues)
>>>>> of people from one culture or another? or similar information about
>>>>> changes in a person's character following their emigration to another
>>>>> country?
>>>>>
>>>>> URLs appreciated, or whole books, I don't have access to a university
>>>>> library or JSTOR.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks
>>>>>
>>>>> Andy
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> Andy Blunden
>>>>> http://home.mira.net/~andy <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>>>>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>>>>>
>>>>
>>
>

-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson