User:Ryskimustard12/Salvage ethnography

[edit] Salvage ethnography, the ethnographic methods by which anthropologists conducted salvage anthropology, is the recording of the practices, beliefs, and systems of cultures that were thought to be threatened with extinction as a result of increasing modernization, most popularly practiced in the twentieth century. This notion was in part due to the perceived impacts of colonization and modernization on Indigenous communities as well as societies thought to have little contact with "Western" culture. Since the 1960s, anthropologists have used the term as part of a critique of 19th-century ethnography and early modern anthropology.

Origins of the Term [Replacing "Etymology"]

Although coined and utilized with a specific definition around the middle of the twentieth century, there were concepts and approaches that can be related to "salvage," although they were popularized not under that specific title, much earlier. It is helpful to understand where concepts of salvage stemmed from by considering the earlier works that can be considered similar to later developments of salvage. The term "salvage ethnography" specifically is popularly related back to Jacob W. Gruber in the 1960s, within the period of what Michael Asch notes is often referred to as the "reflexive turn."

Collection Methods in Salvage Ethnography [draft]

Due to salvage ethnography being the collection of intangible heritage, with the subsequent goal of creating a "comprehensive" cultural study,

Missionaries and Anthropologists

In an article by John W. Burton and Orsolya Arva Burton, the link between missionaries and anthropologists conducting early forms of fieldwork are considered. The reason this is relevant to the analysis of salvage ethnography is due to the historical position of missionaries living within Indigenous communities in attempts to convert individuals to Christianity. This goes back to a point in the development of anthropology as a discipline where there was s significant focus on kinship systems, and missionaries often aided anthropologists in collecting data on said kinship systems.

A central work where this can be seen is in “’Notes and Queries" from the Royal Anthropological Institute. Although Malinowski is often creditied with the creation of a standardized method of how to conduct fieldwork, the Royal Anthropological Institute in Britain created a system of documenting cultural information, specifically kinship relationships, prior to the 1920s. First published in 1874, the book provided an extensive list of questions to ask informants regarding how they referred to all manner of people in their community. The main purpose of creating a manual-type book was so that a variety of individuals, whether professional anthropologists or amateurs who participated in anthropological practices, could collect data in the field. The reason missionaries are specifically cited here is due to anthropologists and missionaries often working as collaborators due to the work that missionaries were doing in a multitude of Indigenous communities at the time.

Art as Conservation [edit- was "conservation and art"]

A Hupa fisherman. In the early 20th century, Edward Curtis traveled across America capturing photographs of Indigenous peoples.

Artists compounded the work of professional anthropologists during this time period. Photographer Edward S. Curtis (1868–1952) was preceded by painter George Catlin (1796–1872) in attempting to capture indigenous North American traditions that they believed to be disappearing. Both Curtis and Catlin have been accused of taking artistic license by embellishing a scene or making something appear more authentically "Native American". Curtis notes in the introduction to his series on the North American Indian: "The information that is to be gathered ... respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind, must be collected at once or the opportunity will be lost."

Salvage ethnography started to be applied methodically in visual anthropology as ethnographic film since the 1950s by filmmakers such as Jean Rouch in France, Michel Brault and Pierre Perrault in Canada, or António Campos in Portugal (early 1960s), followed by others (1970s).

Some Central Figures [draft]

The following list is by no means exhaustive of all of the figures who were prominent within or who practiced salvage ethnography. The list is meant to provide a brief introduction to some prominent figures and common thoughts around ethnographic work that can be considered salvage.

George Catlin

George Catlin was an American explorer and painter born in 1796 in Pennsylvania. His goal was to travel across the North American continent and capture "...the essence of Indian life and culture." He is best known for what he referred to as his "Indian Gallery" which was his collection of painted works which depicted the lives of the Indigenous individuals whom he came across while travelling. He had made over 500 paintings and sketches. After many years of work, George Catlin published a book titled Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians in 1841.

Franz Boas

A central figure in the discipline of anthropology as a whole, and more specifically in the American school of anthropology, Boas was interested in human culture and ethnography.

Robert Lowie

Robert Lowie was a student under Franz Boas at Columbia University and is most well known for his works on studying Indigenous cultures in North America, specifically the Crow, Blackfoot, and northern Shoshone.

Alfred L. Kroeber

Alfred L. Kroeber was the first student under Franz Boas and was also a proponent of Cultural Relativism. Kroeber was also interested in studying North American Indigenous cultures, specifically those who lived in the western United States and California, and is well-known for the work that he did with his long-term informant who was known as Ishi. Although Ishi was not his actual name, as he refused to share it with outsiders, this is the name by which he is known by. Ishi stated that he was one of the last of the Yahi people who lived in California. In 1911, Kroeber was the director at the University of California Museum of Anthropology, where he proposed Ishi come live at the museum. Ishi agreed and this is where he lived the last 4 and a half years of his life, where he was "on display" for audiences and was publicized as "the last wild Indian of California."

Marius Barbeau

Often considered a founder of anthropological studies in Canada, Marius Barbeau (1883- 1969) was a Canadian ethnologist and folklorist. He focused his studies mainly on the Huron-Wyandot, Tsimshian culture, as well as the "folk" culture of French- Canadians, particularly in the medium of music. The central goal of salvage anthropology of preserving a culture before its perceived extinction is clear when analyzing Barbeau's methods of collecting both material culture as well as oral knowledge and traditions. For instance, the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Québec houses Barbeau's collection of cultural materials which is comprised of 2116 artifacts from a variety of Indigenous and French-Canadian cultures. Around the year 1919, Barbeau began to address his understandings of the limits of ethnological study, particularly of Indigenous cultures. That is, due to the increasing interactions with white-European cultures, Indigenous peoples no longer reflected their "authentic" state and thus could not pass wholly "authentic" information on to the ethnographer.

Ethnography Today [draft]

In anthropological methods of ethnography today, the goal is to move away from, and in fact, reconcile with salvage projects of the past. As is a much more common viewpoint of how ethnography ought to be produced today, key facets of the practice include: "...interests in issues around equity and social justice, community literacies, and investigating writing beyond the academy." One of the main differences of the ethnography conducted today in comparison with earlier forms of ethnography is the thorough employment of standards of care and ethics in the field while working on a project. Although having moved away from older forms of ethnographical research, there are still general ideas that were developed in an earlier school of anthropological thought that are still employed. For example, in a chapter titled "Ethnography" in the book What is Anthropology?, it is mentioned that concepts credited to Malinowski and Geertz are still utilized. For example, as an extension of Clifford Geertz's "thick description" is what he described as "deep hanging out." That is, being around individuals while doing field work and not pertaining to a specific method of data collection, but rather being around people who aren't doing anything, while you (the anthropologist) are merely observing.

See also [edit]

• Ethnographic film
• Salvage anthropology – related to salvage ethnography, but often refers specifically to the collection of cultural artifacts and human remains, rather than the general collection of intangible heritage through written documentation, images, and ethnographic film.
• Visual anthropology – a subfield of social anthropology, of all visual representations such as dance and other kinds of performance, museums and archiving, all visual arts, and the production and reception of mass media.