Sections 1-11 Summary

To start with this summary, I want to ask some questions. You should by this stage be able to answer the following questions. If you need some prompts or clues check the overview of sections 1-12 below.

1. How is the anthropological way of looking at the problem of body and mind different to other ways? We take actual examples from cultures around the world whereas philosophers tend invent scenarios. We avoid ethnocentrism (everyone else is wrong) and apply methodological relativism (not judging other cultures by our own standards) ; relfexivity ( view your own as an outsider) , emic vs etic, holism (you won't understand a cultural practice or belief if you look at it only in isolation), comparison (basically, by using theories and concepts you implicitly compare cultures).
2. Which culture/s do we primarily associate with the idea that a person is an individual? Western modern period 1500-; especially after the Enlightenment and Descartes) What are some of the problems with this idea of individual persons? The idea of the individual is that an isolated, atomistic person can achieve everything by themselves. The problem is that people are actually constituted in their relationships to others; the idea "individual" was not something a single person came up with, but it was 'created' by a culture.
3. Which philosopher do we associate with the idea that a person is a mind? Descartes. What are some of the problems philosophical / anthropological with this idea of personhood? Interactionism and culturally specific. How among Aboriginal Australians, might a person simultaneously be a rock, tree, river, and a human? Aboriginal Australian hold an animistic view, what Stanner called oneness, the Dreaming (tjukurpa). What are the current legal implications of this? 'Human'  rights for land, sea, plants etc. Legal recognition of personhood. In Australia state-based heritage laws and Native Title and other laws come into play.
4. How, among the Ojibwe, might a bear be your grandfather? Different idea of personhood, which is not limited to humans. Non-human persons animals, rivers, etc. What are the current legal implications of this?As above; Legal recognition of personhood for what were previously (by Western 'settlers') thought of as inanimate things. In a way you are animating the country.
5. How might the bodies of identical twins raised in different cultures be different? Separate at birth, the way they eat, move, dress, walk, sleep etc would be different. Bodies actually change. The skeleton and muscles are physically different, but more importantly cultural muscle-memory (embodiment 1.0) is different. How could it be that they experience the world differently? If Merleau-Ponty is right that we are a body. Then our experience is determined by being that body. Anthropologists come along and say, but these bodies are culturally produced. So our experience is through cultural produced bodies and is culturally specific. An old Chinese woman with bound feet has a sense of superior morals, modesty and class; yet would struggle getting up the ramp at Coles Supermarket. So there are capabilities and limitations.  Subtly we all have 'bound feet'--capabilities and limitations as a result of our culturally produced bodies. How does being raised as an Indian woman in migration shape her body and lived experience? Daughters of Indian migrants wear Saris and generally be extra-Indian. But conform to a stereotype of ultra-ultra-Indian-ness that not even Indians in contemporary India recognise as Indian. Parents go back to India and complain that no-one is Indian enough anymore. The daughters bear this burden; they have to mediate between modernity and 'traditional' India.
6. Why would a Brazilian martial arts' practitioner (Capoierista) hear a musical accompaniment to her/his martial differently to me?
7. We all know that some rich people have very low social 'status'? In a cultures which value economic wealth, how could this be possible?
8. How, according to Foucault, has the modern subject been formed?
9. How is it possible to be dead and alive at the same time in different cultures? How might a King have two bodies (Kantorowicz) / lives (Agamben)? How are certain bodies created as killable?
10. How might a person in Sulawesi belong to a 3rd, 4th, or 5th gender?
11. How might you be born with a vagina, two x chromosome, grow breasts but still possibly be a male? 
12. How does the anthropological way of looking illuminate and obscure issues of body and mind? 

Overview of Sections 1-12

The first seven sections were devoted to the applications and limitations of the theories of Descartes, Merleau-Ponty and Bourdieu in anthropology.

• Section 1: studying body and mind using the ‘anthropological approach’. 
• Section 2: the individual as a culturally specific idea, not a universal fact (using Stanner's "Dreaming")
• Section 3: Cartesian Dualism as a culturally specific idea, not a universal fact.
• Section 4: Hallowell on Ojibwe ontology. A North American ‘Indian’ group's ideas of non-human persons. 
• Section 5: Merleau-Ponty on embodiment. Anthropologists use the idea of embodiment understanding it as a form of cultural ‘muscle memory’. It is argued that many of our most natural or automatic ways of moving are meaningful and reflect our cultural background. This is demonstrate
• Section 6. Anthropologists' ideas of 'lived experience'. By considering the way Capoeira practitioners hear music, we examine the argument that cultural ‘muscle memory’ is necessary to be able to perceive the world by considering the way Capoeira practitioners hear music.
• Section 7.  Bourdieu’s idea of “habitus”. Habitus is a concept currently situated in Bourdieu’s Field Theory.  We consider in Week 7 how embodiment and habitus in the field of ballet, can be lost with aging and injury.
• Sections 10 & 11 . Anthropologists encounter different ideas of sex, gender and sexuality. Notions of the anal penetration of male ‘bitches’ in Brazil and the notions of genitalia and rape in Borneo contrast stereotypical notions of body and mind.

Major concepts

DUALISM: The first theme is the problems with Western dualism in understanding other cultures. We have an idea of mind and matter; Cartesian Dualism (basis modern, rational outlook—scientific). Apple falls from a tree, not because God willed it, or a ghost touched, or the apple has a soul. Rather because laws of nature / universe operate on unthinking matter (Australian Sceptics; New Agers; mind and matter either fail to escape Cartesian Dualism). Not for the Ojibwa, Arunte. Other-than-human-person includes rocks and bears and streams. Would not be completely precise to say “in their beliefs matter can be infused with soul”.  Relying on notions of mind and matter. Ontology = “what there is in the world”
EMBODIMENT: The second theme was embodiment. This is the idea that culture becomes muscle-memory. Culture becomes embodied. But it’s not just how you move, sit, lie. That affects how you perceive the world.
HABITUS: The third theme was habitus. This is like embodiment. But it focuses on segments within a society. Each society has fields. Within those fields different kinds of capital are valued. And certain bodily habits/movements etc. become engrained. This explains why a surfer moves, talks etc differently to a visual artist. Rather than subculture it is also used in relation to class. Upper class manners etc. are valued. Habitus can be considered as embodiment but it is applied specifically to ideas of social division—a hipster has different tastes, ways of talking, dressing and moving when compared to a farmer.
GOVERNMENTALITY: The fourth theme is governmentality. Discipline of the soul these days; timetable; order. So people discipline themselves and subject themselves to their own surveillance. All these programs designed to make you live longer and better; i.e. ‘let things follow their natural course’ (we all should live to a ripe old age; work; have children; go on a holiday). These days that is ‘achieved’ through neoliberal policies (1980s Thatcher, Reagan, Keating). Social welfare states (1960s dole etc.). Trace in English speaking world back to the 1830 legislation in England; and further…. Schools; nutrition, vaccination, welfare etc. etc. have improved our condition come with governmentality but at the same time we  control and surveil ourselves. New kind of mind and body; you and I share this. We have a governmentality; we are the perfect subjects for these policies/programs. (Finally, Foucault conceded that these policies were good thing, writing that the question was not whether we should have governmentality but rather what kind of governmentality to what end). There is resistance;
ONTOLOGY

What's missing

So far there is not enough space to cover social reproduction. Otherwise known as socialisation or enculturation, this is the way in which values are passed on from one generation to the next. Often, as we will see, this passing on of values involves acting on bodies; cutting and scarring them, teaching posture etc.. This can be done in both everyday and ritual contexts. In rites-of-passage are rituals which transform status. Bodies play a crucial role in rites-of-passage. We could look at how indigenous societies in Western Australia and Papua New Guinea transform young boys into men through these rituals.