What type of Anthropologist am I? A short history of the discipline

This article is an exploration of the major shift within the discipline of the socials sciences. By looking at post-modern critiques that occurred during the 1950’s and 60’s in Britain and the United States, I discuss the change in approach to the study of human life from one that was deterministic and positivist, to one that is symbolic and interpretive.

My aim in this is to provide a timeline in which I can position myself.

When people think of famous scholars within the social sciences, they often think of Durkheim, or Radcliffe-Brown.

David Émile Durkheim (Born April 15, 1858 – Died November 15, 1917) was a French sociologist, social psychologist and philosopher. He is commonly noted as the father of sociology.

Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown (born January 17, 1881 – Died October 24, 1955) was an English social anthropologist who developed the theory of Structural Functionalism.

These two scholars were interested in establishing sociology as a legitimate science. They championed an approach known as functionalism as they wanted the discipline to be accepted amongst the other natural sciences, the cornerstone of which is measured by a quantitative methodological approach.

Branches of the natural sciences include Physics, Biology, Geography, etc. These rely on a quantitative approach to collecting and interpreting data/evidence.

Structuralism/Positivism/Functionalism/Determinism/Absolute Truths

The structuralist position originally set forth by Auguste Comte, promoted the view that that there is valid knowledge (truth) through scientific (quantitative) means.

A preference for “functionalist” explanations dominated the social sciences from the turn of the twentieth century through to the 1950s, which is to say that anthropologists and sociologists worked on trying to state the purpose of social life. This begs the question whether everything has to have a purpose…

So in other words the existence of something was explained, only if it fulfilled a function. The only strong alternative to that kind of analysis is an historical explanation, accounting for the existence of a social fact by stating how it came to be.

The trouble with this is that when studying complex systems such as people and their social groups, it is hard to pinpoint or understand their true utility or purposes, if there is even exist such a thing.

Society is unlike the natural world in the fact that the things within a society are constructed by its participants, and things within society are constantly changing. The positivist assumes that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. But these are two different realms.

Once more to clarify, Functionalism is an ideology within the social sciences that all aspects of a society—institutions, roles, norms, etc.—serve a purpose and that all are indispensable for the long-term survival of the society. This lends us to seek an more humanistic approach. One that takes into account peoples bias and subjectivities.

Franz Boas and his theory of “Cultural Relativism”

A criticism of the functionalist approach at the time was the German-American anthropologist, Franz Uri Boas (Born July 9, 1858 – Died December 21, 1942). He is known today a pioneer of modern anthropology and who has been described as the “Father of American Anthropology”.

Boas introduced the ideology of cultural relativism which holds the view that “human cultures” cannot be objectively ranked as higher or lower, or better or more correct, but that all humans see the world through the lens of their own culture, and judge it according to their own culturally acquired norms.

For Boas the object of anthropology was to understand the way in which culture conditioned people to understand and interact with the world in different ways, and to do this it was necessary to gain an understanding of the language and cultural practices of the people studied.

Cultural relativism today is more of a doctrine, or position, than it is a method within the social sciences. However as a consequence people have misinterpreted cultural relativism to mean that all cultures are both separate and equal, and that all value systems, however different, are equally valid. Thus, people came to use the phrase “cultural relativism” erroneously to signify “moral relativism.”

People generally understand moral relativism to mean that there are no absolute or universal moral standards and this not what cultural relativism is for the social sciences.

Anthropology and Sociology in the 20th Century

Sir Edward Evan “E. E.” Evans-Pritchard (Born September 21, 1902 – Died September 11, 1973) was an English anthropologist who was instrumental in the development of social anthropology in the 20th Century. He was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford from 1946 to 1970.

His contribution to the field was that he emphasized the need for the inclusion of history in the study of social anthropology. In opposition to Radcliffe-Brown, Evans-Pritchard rejected the idea of social anthropology as a science and viewed it, rather, as a comparative history. And although he began as a functionalist, Evans-Pritchard later shifted toward a more humanistic approach.

Max Gluckman (Born January 26, 1911 – Died April 13, 1975) was a South African and British social anthropologist.
At Oxford, Gluckman’s work was supervised by R.R. Marett, but his biggest influences were Radcliffe-Brown and Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard.

Gluckman was a political activist, openly and forcefully anti-colonial. He engaged directly with social conflicts and cultural contradictions of colonialism, racism, urbanisation and labour migration. Gluckman combined the British school of structural-functionalism with a Marxist focus on inequality and oppression, creating a critique of colonialism from within structuralism.
The death of the Structuralist/Functionalist/Positivist Approach.

By the 1970’s functionalism was declining, but its contributions continue to influence the social sciences today. Functional analysis gave value to social institutions by considering them not as mere custom (as proposed by American ethnologists), but as active and integrated parts of a social system.

Functional theory has also however been criticized for its disregard of the historical process and for its presupposition that societies are in a state of equilibrium. What this means is that they have disregarded the fact that societies evolve and change.

Logical problems of functional explanations also have been pointed out, namely that they are teleological and tautological. It has been argued that the presence of an institution cannot precede the institution’s existence. Otherwise, such a teleological argument would suggest that the institution’s development anticipated its function. This criticism can be countered by recognizing an evolutionary or a historical process at work. Yet this deterministic approach is also easily criticised.

Functional analysis has also been criticised for being circular: needs are postulated on the basis of existing institutions which are, in turn, used to explain their existence. This criticism can be countered by establishing a set of universal requisite needs, or functional prerequisites. It has been argued that to account for phenomena by showing what social needs they satisfy does not explain how it originated or why it is what it is.

Anti-positivism/Post-modernism

At the turn of the 20th century the first wave of German sociologists, including Max Weber and Georg Simmel, rejected the functionalist/positivist approach to studying society, and began to introduce the anti-positivist tradition in sociology (which is the status quo today).

Later in his career (1969), German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg, Nobel laureate for the creation of quantum mechanics, distanced himself from positivism by saying:

The positivists have a simple solution: the world must be divided into that which we can say clearly and the rest, which we had better pass over in silence. But can anyone conceive of a more pointless philosophy, seeing that what we can say clearly amounts to next to nothing? If we omitted all that is unclear we would probably be left with completely uninteresting and trivial tautologies.

Positivism in the social sciences is usually characterized by quantitative approaches and the proposition of quasi-absolute laws. A significant exception to this trend is represented by cultural anthropology, which tends naturally toward qualitative approaches.
At the turn of the 20th century, the first wave of German sociologists formally introduced methodological antipositivism, proposing that research should concentrate on human cultural norms, values, symbols, and social processes viewed from a subjective perspective.

Criticisms

Historically, positivism has been criticized for its reductionism, i.e. for contending that all “processes are reducible to physiological, physical or chemical events.

Max Horkheimer criticised the classic formulation of positivism. He claimed that it falsely represented human social action arguing that positivism systematically failed to appreciate the extent to which the so-called social facts it yielded did not exist out there, in the objective world, but were themselves a product of socially and historically mediated human consciousness.

Positivism ignored the role of the observer in the constitution of social reality and thereby failed to consider the historical and social conditions affecting the representation of social ideas.

Another criticism of this approach was that the representation of social reality produced by positivism on reflection can be seen to be artificially constructed, and in some cases, helping to support the status quo rather than challenging it.

Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology

Symbolic anthropology studies the way people understand their surroundings, as well as the actions and utterances of the other members of their society. These interpretations form a shared cultural system of meaning–i.e., understandings shared, to varying degrees, among members of the same society.

Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology is the study of symbols (the means humans employ to communicate and express meaning) in their social and cultural context, which was brought about in the 1960s and progressed through the 1970s. These symbols are generally publicly shared and recognized by many and could be words, customs, or rituals. Symbolic Anthropologists describe and interpret symbolic meaning in emic terms, meaning that they interpret the symbols in the context of the culture that they are studying.

A symbolic anthropologist believes that culture can be found in the public performance of symbolic systems and that there is generally a response to these symbols.

Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology states that symbols are learned and shared. This means that most symbols can be recognized by the people in that culture and often by people in other cultures. It also states that symbols are vehicles of culture, meaning they hold cultural meaning and significance. Symbols also transmit meaning and communicate ways that people should view the world and feel about the world.

Clifford Geertz (Born 1926 – Died 2006) a key figure of the Interpretive Anthropology movement, was considered to be the world’s most influential anthropologist of the second half of the 21stcentury. Geertz argues in his book Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology that:

“Culture is not a model inside people’s heads but rather is embodied in public symbols and actions”

Geertz focuses on the meaning of the symbols: Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take cultures to be those webs, the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning.

Accomplishments of Symbolic/Interpretive Anthropology

The major accomplishment of symbolic anthropology has been to turn anthropology towards issues of culture and interpretation rather than the development of grand theories.

Geertz’s main contribution to anthropological knowledge, however, was in changing the ways in which anthropologists viewed culture, shifting the concern from the operations of culture to the way in which symbols act as vehicles of culture.
Another contribution was the emphasis on studying culture from the perspective the actors within that culture. This emic perspective means that one must view individuals as attempting to interpret situations in order to act.

Conclusion: My Position

In regards to my own position I feel that I am situated within the field the symbolic and interpretive anthropologists with the likes of Gluckman, Turner, Douglas and Geertz. My PhD titled “Re-invention of the Self: Locating Gender and Identity in Hip Hop culture” is a study which takes into account the historical, socio-political aspects of the field. It doesn’t hide my own subjectivities and bias/position coming into the research. It doesn’t also seek to look for big theories to answer my problems. Instead it seeks to interpret and understand the evidence which I intend to gain from the participants hip hop culture. It is my belief that it is through an investigation of symbols we gain understandings about the world in which we seek to comprehend.

Why you can’t win an argument

When we discuss emotionally-charged topics such as climate change, religion, politics or gay marriage, we can often find ourselves in heated arguments in which no amount of reason or evidence could possibly persuade us to change our minds. Yet we feel as though ours views on these topics are reasonable -that we have formed our opinions logically because humans beings (as far as we know) are rational creatures.

But are we?

People have made careers out of saying that logical reasoning is what we as human beings do best, that it’s what sets us apart from other animals.

Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, argues that human reasoning is in fact relatively poor especially when it comes to issues we care about. He suggests that people are fundamentally intuitive, not rational and if you want to persuade others when discussing such issues, you have to appeal to their sentiments.

When people have a worldview, when they have things worked out, and somebody says something that seems to upset it they don’t say,

“Oh isn’t that interesting, Let me think about that..” They say “NO WAY, and let me think about why that’s wrong! AND YES HERE’S WHY IT’S WRONG!”

We find reasons/evidence for our beliefs, and we find those reasons compelling precisely because they confirm our own ideologies and not because they are based on some form of evidence. It seems to work the opposite of the way that it should work. It’s very similar to believing that an argument is valid because we believe that the conclusion is true. This is true in politics, it is true in religion, and it is true in many other domains where we think that we have reasons. But in fact, first we have the belief, and then we accept the reasons which validate it.

What we’re really, really bad at saying is,

“Okay, what’s all the evidence? Let me size it all up and see which way it points.”

We’re terrible at that. What we’re really good at saying is,

“Here’s the hypothesis I want to believe, let me now see if I can find evidence, and if I can’t find any evidence, alright, I’ll give it up. But wouldn’t you know it, I’m pretty much always able to find some evidence to support it.”

This phenomenon is known as Confirmation Bias. Confirmation bias is the tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypothesis.

When people are asked a political question such as, “What party are you in favour of?” We are usually quite capable of producing rationalisations about the reasons that justify our political beliefs. But, it’s fairly clear that the reasons we produce are not the causes of our political beliefs.

I suggest that it is more likely we have certain political beliefs because we belong to a particular group and people within this group hold those same beliefs. In Australia for example, there is a high correlation between beliefs about gay marriage and beliefs about climate change. Now it’s very unlikely that this would arise from a rational process of producing reasons: it arises from the nature of groups which hold these sets of beliefs.

Thinking is hard and it’s slow. Therefore people are reluctant to critically evaluate evidence in which they are presented with, some more than others. For instance when we hear the problem, ‘2 + 2’ the number 4 quickly comes to mind. However when we hear another problem, say ‘17 x 24’, really nothing comes immediately to mind – you are generally aware that this is a multiplication problem.

What’s happening here is that for the ‘2+2 problem’ we don’t have think very hard to work it out. The answer lies in the intuitive, automatic area of our brains and these types of answers come to us quickly. However, to answer the second problem requires time and energy to work it out. Automatic thinking is efficient and for the most part quite successful for the everyday problems we face. To devote energy and evaluate every piece of evidence requires lots of time and energy, and it’s perhaps why confirmation bias, selective thinking, and intuition are exercised more often than not.

If we did think hard, exploring every problem in detail, we would be surprised at how much our ideologies shape the way in which we view and understand the world.

What is Anthropology & Why does it matter?

Everyone lives within a society, that is they live in families, they live in towns, they live in nations. Anthropology is the scientific study of the human species, both past and present. It’s often described as the science of people, the study of cultures, or the one I prefer, a conversation about what it is to be human.

Anthropologists try to answer the question, What is it to be human? This is problematic as the answer to that question is infinite and ever changing as we live in an ever changing world.
There are no answers that exist out there for us to discover, like a gem of knowledge for us to dig up from the natural earth in which we live. As our lives change so do the answers, and to find a truth about the world in which we live, would only be a truth in that particular context at that particular time.

The ways in which research is conducted in anthropology is by doing qualitative research, which tends to engage in a much more dialectic process between the questions asked and data observed. Qualitative researchers are acutely aware of how their own preconceptions and presence may affect a situation that they are studying. This attention I think can lead to better research that helps clarify our position and bias.
There are many people who find this type of research hard to swallow. They want answers that can be measured, that are quantifiable. They don’t like how qualitative research is interpretive and reflexive. But, when dealing with complex topics you are left with complex answers.

Anthropology takes time. We don’t reduce things to easy answers. You can’t give easy answers to complex issues. Many people like to generalise and I understand why, because it’s easier to generalise about the ethnicity of a group of people, or the gender of someone than to think and try to understand the complexity, and multitude of human life. Complex issues such as gender, ethnicity, sexuality, politics, religion, class, economics, etc, these are tough and complex issues to make sense of, yet simplified generalisations about such topics are almost always wrong.

H.L. Mencken said, “For every complex question, there is a simple answer– and it’s wrong.”

Both the Natural Sciences (Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy) and the Social Sciences (Anthropology, Economics, Law, Linguistics, Education, Politics, Psychology) are in the same kind of enterprise. That is they are trying to give us a picture of how things are in some domain of the universe. The difference is that the social scientists are concerned with the things we make ourselves, we create societies, but of course we didn’t create the solar system. Anthropologists are looking at our own work, our own artifacts.

Many people think that anthropology is the study of so called “primitive societies” (I hate the term primitive) but in fact anthropology is the study of all people, even ourselves and our own society. I am currently working on a Honours thesis exploring our contemporary understandings of dance, community and liminal experiences at international breakdancing competitions. I am also a participant of the dance and so being aware of both my position as a researcher and as a breakdancer is important for producing honest social research in today’s contemporary understanding of anthropology and sociology. The field is constantly changing and has always changed, just as we do.

The value of anthropology is that it can give us a grasp of the world as it is, at this moment. Or rather as it was a little while ago. When people learn that there are various other ways in which people live their lives, respect for those people and their ways of living comes naturally.

References

We’re live! Social Science Bites Podcasts

Why do qualitative research?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_science

http://www.bu.edu/anthrop/undergraduate/why-major-in-anthropology/

Reflecting on my Honours thesis thus far – April 2013

I haven’t been posting much lately as most of my attention has been directed at the writing of my Honours thesis which is to be a 15,000 word dissertation due in October 2013.

My thesis began as an exploration of how people become included or excluded within a sub-culture. However over the last 6 weeks I have found this issue to be multi-faceted and complex. My exploration has led me to looking into Rites of Passage in relation to the global breakdancing community, and look at how acceptance into the culture is made and renewed at organised competitions and events. Using Arnold van Gennep’s framework of ‘Rite de passage, and Victor Turners work on ‘Liminality’ I plan to explore how participants of the dance become included into the culture by attending these events and use my own experience, plus the experience of others to understand their struggle to constantly prove themselves. I feel we have to do this so that we don’t risk becoming excluded from the dance culture.

Its understood these days that we view ‘space’ as something which we not only physically inhabit but something which we construct and invest meaning into. Spaces can even be conceptualised as liminal space, meaning a place of transition for peoples going through a rites of passage. (Phil Hubbard 2010). The word ‘liminal’ comes from the Latin word limens which literally means ‘threshold’ (Jon 2013). My plan is to discuss the significance of journey and liminality for the participants of breakdancing competitions. I contend that traveling to these events is socially constructed by the dancers of the culture both as a rites of passage and a pilgrimage.

The problems I’ve encountered and issues involved in developing my thesis seem now to be overwhelming…

During a meeting with my supervisor’s, they advised me to read Victor Turner’s paper on ‘Social Drama’s and Stories about them’ (1980). I found this to be a helpful text, in his introduction he writes about how ‘we can’t escape our ideologies’. In other words the general theories and views you take into the field leads you to select certain data and makes you blind to other perhaps more important data. This made me think about how I might position myself in my own research. Is my intention to observe the dance from a bird’s eye view? I am a participant in the culture and not just a fly on the wall. Can I even play the role of a participant observer? Can anyone? Don’t we all look at everything in the world through a lens which consists of our ideologies, beliefs, dogmas, etc and these are things we cannot shed as they are within us. Miller in his article ‘The little black dress’ (Miller 2004) positioned himself in his research as a detective looking at all the perspectives from an outsiders viewpoint, though in his introduction he wrote that he is deeply passionate about the topic and issues involved. Is it possible to be a detective and look at all the evidence from an outsiders perspective and still retain strongly held views?

How does one position themselves as a detective and try judge all the evidence clearly when you are involved emotionally in the subject matter? Can we as researchers be both Insiders and Outsiders to our topics???

Going back to my topic, if I had to distill breakdancing into one word which I felt best describes/encompasses it, the word would be: Struggle. Here is diagram I made to help me understand this term within the context of the dance.

A significant issue we keep coming back to in class is how we are always writing to an audience! How we choose to position ourselves affects the way our audience make sense of our research, and how well they take on board our arguments. What does it mean to positions ourselves in our work? What are the implications social scientists find themselves in with all the different modes of positioning and are they all well received? Should there be an effort to please all types of readers? And, Is this even possible? Every text can have different interpretations depending on the reader, therefore what lessons can we learn from others peoples work in relation to structure, narratives and the way they use evidence?

So now to keep on writing, finding gaps in my work, and make sure to ground myself in the evidence. Cheers for reading my reflection.

2012 in review

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 3,900 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 7 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Breakdancing: The commodification and globalisation of an underground subculture

Key Words: Habitus, Identity, Globalisation, Social Class

A popular phrase uttered in hip hop culture today is ‘Keeping it real’. What is expressed in this phrase is the opinion that one should have an understanding of the cultural history of hip hop, and to preserve the culture in its original historical context (Burns 2012). Through the commercialisation and globalisation of the popular street dance known as breakdancing, people from all over the world with a variety of social and economic backgrounds have now become a part of the global breakdance community. How has this impacted and changed the identity of the culture? Breakdancing, known as either ‘bboying’ or ‘bgirling’ started in the projects (government paid housing) of New York City around the early 1970’s and was practiced by predominately lower-class Latino and African-American kids on the streets (History of Breakdancing 2002). Back then the dance was taught and performed locally in poor neighbourhoods (such as Brooklyn or the Bronx) and due to its inaccessibility many people were not readily accepted into the scene. Since then, there has been a commodification of bboy culture which has destroyed the underground scene that existed in the ghettos back in the 1970’s. It is not uncommon these days for breakdancing events to be organized by big corporations who see the dance as a way to brand themselves and use bboying to promote their products and services. Consequently the local communities who created the dance have lost their power as the sole educators and owners of the culture. To develop its sociological argument this paper adopts an important concept developed in 1977 by Pierre Bourdieu, the renowned French sociologist. His concept of habitus, the process of engaging in a cultural practice and its influence on oneself and one’s identity is a useful tool for understanding how the breakdancing community communicates in today’s global culture in contrast to how it was communicated in the past (Angel Lin 2011).  This communication now predominately takes place on the internet and is a constant negotiation of conflicting ideas which can be distilled to the underlying argument; what should be considered, and what should not be considered breakdancing? When identities shift, the participants involved who do not agree with the change rebel. This issue of changing identities within the breakdance community was discussed in detail over a forty-five minute interview with Brendan Burns, a breakdancer from the United Kingdom who now lives in Australia(Burns 2012). We both contributed to the discussion during the interview, and it must be noted that this research also includes my own thoughts, experiences and beliefs as an active participant in the dance. The interview became a conversation fixated on the phrase ‘keeping it real’ and what this means to the breaking community. The interview aimed to investigate how the participants of this global community makes sense of the phrase, and what impacts it might have on their identity. This paper uses qualitative research to explore how the breakdancing culture has changed since its origins in the 1970’s and  investigates one dancer’s negotiation of his identity within this context.

Breakdancing cannot be discussed without some understanding of its historical and social context. Today’s breakdancing culture reflects its origins as a part of the African-American and Latino communities, who lived in the lower socio-economic areas of New York City in the 1970’s. These families lived in government subsidised housing known as the projects and the dance itself emerged within these communities in the context of ‘block parties’. These parties were called block parties because they were held on street corners and in local parks. People from all over the neighbourhood would gather to play music, dance, and sing (rap) together (Schloss 2009, p 413). These days breakdancing exists primarily in organized events and formal contests known as ‘breakdancing battles’, and these battles often take place in large dance arenas on a stage. Brendan has been dancing for almost fifteen years and currently resides in Perth, Australia although he started out learning the dance back in the late 1990’s in Belfast. Brendan makes the point that when he started breakdancing back in Belfast there were no competitions or battles to attend. Those kinds of events were only happening in the big cities of the UK he said, typically in London and Edinburgh but not where he lived in Belfast. During the late 1990’s there were not enough breakdancers in Belfast to organize a proper event, so instead they organized a breakdancing ‘jam’.

Brendan: Jams are a place where people can come to dance and practice, and just mingle with the rest of the dancers in the community. There is no pressure to perform to anyone or for anything; we all come to vibe together because we love the music, that’s all.

(Burns 2012)

Breakdancers often speak about the music as the heart of the culture. During the block parties, it was about a spontaneous response of your body to the musical breaks, it wasn’t about what move you did but how you did it. One bboy from this era commented on this by saying, “for any real b-boy, you will feel it in your body, and it’ll just make you dance, even when you don’t feel like dancing.” (Barco 1984) If there is any foundation to the dance then this spontaneous reaction to the music is said to be it. However this is a contested issue amongst the community today because there is little documentation of the culture’s history and it has always been a perpetual challenge to bboying and hip hop scholarship. The culture’s history seems not to have been recorded, instead the history has been passed down through each new generation of breakdancers. Joseph Schloss , author of Bboys and Bgirls in New York (2009) spent five years with the breakdance community and recounted hearing multiple versions of the culture’s history. Historical accounts are often subject to change and become lost when they are passed down verbally over a long period of time. Many of the historical narratives Schloss listened to contradicted themselves, yet he accepted them all recognizing that each claim was a form of power that the participants used to narrate their own vision of the cultures history (Miyakawa 2009). After the 1970’s the culture became globalized and the pioneers lost their role as the sole educators and owners of bboy culture. The localised and informal nature of the small jams such as those experienced by Brendan in Belfast have led to contested historical accounts of the origins of the dance and of what it means to be a breakdancer. Bboys today have to negotiate their identity in light of these issues.

A fact which is not historically contested, was that the breakdance culture was predominantly practiced by lower class, ethnic minorities and that these kids created it as a way to earn respect in society (Richards 2010). Often people who struggle in low socio-economic communities find it difficult to earn respect in main-stream society because of their lower class habitus (Bourgois 2003).  Habitus refers to the language skills, personality, attitudes, dispositions, orientations and schemes of perceptions that one picks up as a child from their upbringing (Angel Lin 2011). Bourdieu made it known that children who are born into wealthy upper-class families typically have high cultural capital. This means they are more likely to have a better chance of success in mainstream society (Bourdieu 1977) . People belonging to lower classes who find it hard to succeed in mainstream society can earn respect in sub-cultures where they are more readily accepted because their habitus enables them to succeed in those sub-cultures (Blunden 2004). This theory was popularized by Philippe Bourgois’ (2003) in his ethnographic study of social marginalization in inner-city America. He wrote about people who came from a life filled with crime and observed that when they tried to reform themselves by starting legal businesses, they would most often fail because they didn’t have an adequate habitus (social skills) to succeed in mainstream society (Bourgois 2003). It was observed that once their legal businesses failed they would turn to illegal businesses such as selling drugs or stealing so that they could earn both money and respect.

“A big public misperception exists about individual agency. People think that street people choose a life of using drugs. The reality is that if anyone was born on that block in East Harlem in the ‘80s, they would most likely be doing or selling crack and they would most likely be in prison right now. You’ve got to be realistic about how the larger structural forces in risk environments affect people. A person in such a situation can strive to be different, but it’s hard to overcome the context.”

(Friederich 2009)

The acquired habitus and cultural capital which breakdancers from the 1970’s and 80’s embody shaped the identity of the culture. The dance can be described as rough, raw, aggressive, masculine, improvisational as well as difficult. During the rise of breakdancing’s popularity, the famous American dancer Gene Kelly said, “I love breakdancing. The great thing about it is its improvisation. It sprang up, literally, from the ground.” (Barco 1984) In the past people acquired the habitus of breakdance culture through their local community where they grew up. Nowadays because the dance may be viewed on television and the internet, people from all over the world can now ‘learn’ the habitus from the comfort of their own home. Brendan was one of these kids whose first experience of breakdancing was when he saw the Rock Steady Crew from New York perform the dance on television during the late 1990’s. He was immediately impressed with the confidence and style these kids possessed. He recorded everything he could about the dance. When Brendan began dancing he observed the dancers on TV in music video clips and ended up mimicking what they were doing, copying their movements and gestures as best he could (Burns 2012). How then did this media exposure during the 1980’s and 90’s change the identity of the breakdance culture that was originally performed by lower class minorities trying to earn respect in mainstream society?

Over the last thirty years the breakdancing culture has become globally commercialised and commodified. Subsequently, the ways in which new dancers are introduced to this culture through these newer forms of media, is drastically different to those originally taught in the past. The dance has spread to many developed countries around the world and has now become a commodity. The media, allocated as the source of inspiration for the new emerging breakdancers around the world, have been accused of misrepresenting the true nature of the culture. “Bboy… that’s what it is, that’s why when the public changed it to ‘break-dancing’ they were just giving a professional name to it, but bboy was the original name for it and whoever wants to keep it real would keep calling it bboy.” (Israel 2002)  The conflict between what the dance was back in the 1970’s to what it has become is a struggle for breakdancers new and old. These drastic changes within the culture have led to many disagreements over a unified global identity. How can we understand the effects of the increasing use of new media, specifically the Internet, on the traditions of breakdancing since its origins in the 1970’s? It must be acknowledged that the twenty-first century can hardly be described without a reference to the internet (Ann Colley 2007). Our world today revolves around this technology and our society has changed because of it. In the past learning any dance has typically been one that rests on a purely oral and demonstrative tradition of teaching. This process has been successful because both the parties (teacher and student) would occupy the same physical space and go through the physical activity together. It would have been uncommon to attend a dance class where the teacher was not physically present, as teachers would often demonstrate the movements to his or her students (Kong 2010). Alternatively, there are people who now use the internet to learn almost anything they want online as it’s cheaper, faster and more easily accessible (Brabazon 2002). Since the introduction of the internet the once localized breakdance scene has now evolved into a virtual online community, where participants from all over the world can log in and learn the dance online. They can take part in online discussions, view tutorials and events, and even post their thoughts and opinions on the dance. This ease of accessibility into the culture has resulted in a new generation of breakdancers who come from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds with the majority being either middle or upper-middle class (Kong 2010). Brendan recounts that if breakdancing was not on television, him and many other dancers around the world would never have been involved in the culture. In his experience, if the dance had not become commercialised and spread to other countries via music videos clips and films, then no one apart from the kids in New York would have participated in the culture, and it might be accurate to say that the dance might not have lived past the 1980’s (Burns 2012). The music videos and films that featured breakdancers were able to popularize the art form like never before. They took a small snapshot of the block parties with all its excitement and passion, and exposed it to the world. Kids like Brendan in Belfast saw this art form and started imitating it (Monteyne 2009). The dancers involved in the scene today are quite different to the ones who started doing it back in New York, and they do not share the same habitus. This has created a segregation within the dance. Those who do not want to accept this new generation of breakdancers into the community and those who want to celebrate it. The traditional breakdancers feel threatened because they don’t understand the identity of the new generation of breakdancer. These people have not come from the same cultural and economic environments and the new breakdancers are being viewed as outsiders to the culture (Knox 2010). What the older generation perceive a bboy or bgirl to be does not co-exist with the new identity of the bboys around the world (Schloss 2009). The view that breakdancing is practiced by kids and minorities from lower class areas of society riddled with unemployment, gang related violence and drug problems is no longer an accurate portrayal of today’s breakdance culture since as many of the breakdancers today come from a various socio-economic backgrounds and have learnt the dance not on the rough streets of New York, but on the internet in the comfort of their homes. Breakdancers from a variety of backgrounds today struggle with the disparity between their experience of the dance and the experiences of traditional breakdancers from lower socio-economic backgrounds from New York in the 1970s.

While many breakdancers struggle to ‘keep it real’, this term which reminds those inside the hip-hop culture to be true to their roots, Brendan has found a way to make sense of this conflict. He is able to make a living teaching and performing his craft, as well understanding the history and staying true to its roots. Business orientated breakdancers like Brendan have been pressured to take on roles that are easily understood by mainstream society (Blanchard 1999). For example the archetype of the ‘pimp’, the ‘gangster’, and the ‘playa’ are commonly associated with breakdancing and hip hop culture. However Brendan does not conform to these stereotypes to get work, instead he constructs his own notion of what it is to be a breakdancer (Burns 2012). The conflict over the individual identity versus the collective is the same within the context of hip hop music. According to African-American musician Michael Franti, “In order to be real, we don’t all have to be the same. Through the commercialization of today’s music, there is a lot of pressure for young black men to conform to very specific roles.” (Blanchard 1999) The pressure to conform to these roles to get paid work is an ongoing conflict within the breakdance community. Many breakdancers in Australia and the United Kingdom often wear American brand name clothes and put on an American accent whilst talking to other dancers, noted Brendan (Burns 2012). They are in fact mimicking the habitus of the original breakdancers in an effort to ‘keep it real’ but what they fail to realise is that today the vast majority can be involved in breakdancing because of its online accessibility. This is particularly true for those who are from wealthy backgrounds given that breakdancing today can be costly. Expenses include attending classes, buying nice clothes, paying for flights so that one can enter competitions, and also paying for studio hire because that is where most dancers now train (Kong 2010).  Many of these things are a part of the life of a contemporary breakdancer, says Brendan, and this trend has further developed since the globalisation of hip hop. Upper middle‐class white youths who breakdance are also interested in practising African-American vernacular English for an authentic bboy style (Dominello 2008). Cutler (2007) investigates a white Anglo-Saxon American teenager in New York who practiced the linguistic features of African-American vernacular English. The participant of the case study showed that he was practicing to speak as though he was African-American from the age of 13, and that this was the time when he started identifying with hip hop culture. Cutler argues that the adoption of African-American speech is an attempt by young middle class white kids to take part in the complex prestige of African-American youth culture (Cutler 2007). Brendan does not try to change his voice, his clothes, or his personality. He is happy to be an Irish man who is a breakdancer, and by recognising this fact and staying true to his own roots, this is his idea of ‘keeping it real’.

Traditionally, learning how to breakdance was only possible if one joined a community where people who practiced the art form and wanted to pass the knowledge down were present. The dance was not taught in studios but performed by kids from the projects. Not anyone would be readily accepted into this subculture because of the nature of its participants, rather inclusion was a right for those who wished to learn. Today all that has changed, the dance has become globalized and people have now got access to the internet: a vast resource into the world of breakdancing at their fingertips. As a consequence, the previously important aspect of going through the ritual of acceptance into this closely knit hip hop culture has been lost. Some view this quick and easy way of becoming a breakdancer as a disadvantage, because without the necessary process of learning the ‘habitus’, the types of people dancing today would not have been accepted by the kids who originally started it. We live now in a different world compared to the one that existed thirty years ago. It is one which has been shaped by technology, mass information and communication, and where those who have excess money, resources and free time are the ones who are more likely to become involved in trendy sub-cultures such as breakdancing. It is the people who have the luxury of time and money to finance this hobby and who now take an active part in it, that have changed the collective identity of the culture. Today’s breaking scene has drifted far from its 1970’s roots as a way-of-life in a tight-knit community (Kong 2010). Brendan Burns came from a low socio-economic background in Belfast and began breakdancing in the late 1990’s. He was attracted to the dances high energetic movements and freedom of expression, but he also saw it as a means to show off and gain respect amongst his peers. He began by trying to mimic the attitudes and movements of the New York street dancers by watching them on television and then online, however through this process he has developed a different, more contemporary approach to the dance (Burns 2012). He has negotiated a new identity for himself as a modern breakdancer. Brendan’s story illustrates how a participant of this global breakdancing community can begin to make sense of their collective identities as part of a new and evolving sub-culture.

References

Angel Lin, Evelyn Man. 2011. Doing-Hip-Hop in the Transformation of Youth Identities:

Social Class, Habitus, and Cultural Capital. http://hub.hku.hk/bitstream/10722/146531/2/Content.pdf.

Ann Colley, John Maltby. 2007. “Impact of the Internet on Our Lives: Male and Female Personal Perspectives.” Computers in Human Behavior 24 (5): 2005-2013.

Barco, Mandalit del. 1984. Hip Hop Hooray: Breaking into the Big Time. http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/breakdancing/article.html.

Blanchard, Becky. 1999. The Social Significance of Rap & Hip-Hop Culture.

Blunden, Andy. 2004. Bourdieu on Status, Class and Culture. http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/bourdieu-review.htm.

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bourgois, Philippe. 2003. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. USA: Cambridge University Press.

Brabazon, Tara. 2002. Digital Hemlock: Internet Education and the Poisoning of Teaching. New South Wales: UNSW Press.

Burns, Brendan. 2012.  Personal Interview.   6/9/2012.

Cutler, Cecelia. 2007. “Hip-Hop Language in Sociolinguistics and Beyond.” Language and Linguistics Compass 1: 1-20.

Dominello, Zachariah. 2008. A Study of Identity in Australian Hip Hop. http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/72905/Issue1-zachariah-dominelli-identity-construction-and-australian-hip-hop.pdf.

Friederich, Julia. 2009. In Search of Respect: An Interview with Philippe Bourgois. http://anthropologyworks.com/index.php/2010/11/24/in-search-of-respect-an-interview-with-philippe-bourgois/.

History of Breakdancing 2002. http://www.globaldarkness.com/articles/history%20of%20breaking.htm.

Israel. 2002.  The Freshest Kids.   USA: QD3 Entertainment.

Knox, Joseph M. 2010. “Breakdance Corrupted B-Side Story: Resurrecting Authentic Bboying through Live Music.” Masters, Fine Arts, University of California, USA.

Kong, Dehui. 2010. “Internet Killed the B-Boy Star: A Study of B-Boying through the Lens of Contemporary Media.” Undergraduate Thesis, Columbia University. http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:129983.

Miyakawa, Felicia M. 2009. “Foundation: B-Boys, B-Girls, and Hip-Hop Culture in New York by Joseph G. Schloss Review By: Felicia M. Miyakawa.” American Music 27 (4): 515-517.

Monteyne, Kimberley. 2009. Hip Hop on Film: Performance Culture, Urban Space, and Genre Transformation in the 1980s. New York: New York University.

Richards, Rebekah. 2010. In Search of Respect – East Harlem Culture. Bourgois’ Analysis of Inequality in the Crack Economy Subculture, http://suite101.com/article/in-search-of-respect—east-harlem-culture-a195892.

Schloss, Joseph G. 2009. Foundation: B-Boys, B-Girls and Hip-Hop Culture in New York. New York: Oxford University Press.

Future of bboying scene | The Notorious IBE 2012 SPECIAL INTERVIEW by KoreanRoc- Review by Lucas Marie

If you haven’t seen it take a look and listen. It is a series of interviews about the future of the bboy/bgirl (hip hop) culture taken at the 2012 IBE (International Breakdance Event) in Heerlen, The Netherlands. All the participants interviewed are recognized as very influential and respected dancers/pioneers in the scene.

There are a whole range of views from Focus (Finland) saying that we should stay true to the roots, maintain original hip hop culture, that people are drifting and losing the soul of the culture through commercialization. To Ronnie(USA) who wants to see big international events like R16 to become globally recognized. He suggests that the commercialization of the culture is good as long as the right people are running it. However, is this possible? At the moment big corporations like Red Bull are the ones running the big events. How can we as bboys sponsor and run big events ourselves? Through government support maybe?  Mason Rose suggested that bboys should be making their own companies, and running the show again instead of other organizations running things. I agree with this but perhaps this is a little idealistic? Storm’s(Germany) view is that breakdancing should be recognized as not just a New York or American sub culture. But as a worldwide global culture. He strives to create this goal through his influence and power in the scene and I feel there is a lot of resistance from the community on this issue because it means that we are stepping away from our roots. Storm also recognizes the similarities bboying has to other modern and contemporary dances. ‘That we are going through the same processes which they went through’ he states. He also wants bboying to be internationally recognized as an art-form.

I designed a poster the other day and it was on pretty much what Crazy legs was saying at the end of the video. How we are now apart of a global breakdancing community, that we are not gangstas living in the Bronx anymore. That the identity of bboying has changed. We are in fact a whole range of peoples with various socio-economic backgrounds, and this has changed (for better or worse) the collective identity of the dance.

The video is very informative and inspirational so thanks to KOREANROC for producing it.

The reality of being a new-gen bboy/bgirl and my thoughts on the future

Today’s generation of bboys and bgirls are quite different than they were 30 years ago. They come from a variety of different social, cultural and economic backgrounds and this has influenced the way they approach the dance. There are some people who really appreciate the new generation of bboys today, however it seems that they is also culture of negativity when it comes to educating the new-gens on what it means to be a bboy. Many dancers in the scene talk about the 80’s and 90’s as the golden age of bboying. It’s as though the people who didn’t experience that generation are somehow less appreciated as a dancer, just because they weren’t there to experience it first hand. We should accept that the majority of bboys do not live in the United States anymore, even though that is the birthplace of the dance. Many of us do not live in New York City,  and we did not grow up in the same socioeconomic climate as the first original bboys and bgirls did, and if we accept that we are part of this global culture we should be honest about our own individuality and not pretend that we are something that we are not. I’ve always thought that this is one of the best aspects of being a bboy, that new dancers from a range of diverse backgrounds can make their own mark on the dance. This is a difference which I think should be celebrated more as it shows how multicultural our dance is.

I started in 1999, I grew up watching Out for Fame 2000, UK Champs 1997, and Bboy Summit 1999 (all the ingredients to be a elitist, new gen hater) but honestly, I think bboying today is more original, more funky, and we have a better understanding of the foundation of this dance. More so than we ever have before. Perhaps it’s because of the vast amount of knowledge spread via the internet (yes I said it, the evil Internet helped bboying), or perhaps its because there are now many pioneers and teachers traveling and teaching workshops all over the world, spreading that much needed knowledge and history. It may just be that the longer the dance exists and the language develops, our understanding of the dance grows.

Over time bboying gains more respect and credibility within the public sphere, and therefore we the dancers also grow stronger as a global community. The bboying scene is now a worldwide culture, and there are so many dancers from nearly every country in the world. Throughout our history there have been many discussions on the culture of bboying, for instance. Who owns what move? What is our identity as a bboy/bgirl? Is bboying an art-form or a sport?

By discussing these important issues about our culture we can develop a coherent global identity which hopefully we can one day all be proud of. We can also change the perceptions which we don’t like, and that have been created in the media without the consent of the bboying community. This can then be understood by new dancers who want to get involved in the scene.

The issues which I think need to be discussed further and looked at more critically are: our views of imitation (biting); competitions and how they should be judged; and what should be considered the foundations of this dance. Back in the 80’s and 90’s there wasn’t much thought about these issues. Back then it seems to me that dancers hardly ever danced on beat, there was not as much knowledge being spread as there was no internet and most of the big events were either in the US or in small parts of Europe. It was also a time where many gymnasts and other styles of dance would engage in the battles. Perhaps because the foundation of the dance was not as regulated as it is today. I remember watching battles where every crew had a popper and there was usually a section of the battle where they would dance and the music would change for this section. At events today people get upset when bboys start doing too much gymnastics, locking, popping, house, rockin and capoeira. With a strict foundation comes a strict dance, and we either have to accept this or change our ideas about what the fundamentals of the dance are today.

I’ve come to understand that many dancers see bboying as an art-form, and as art is very subjective perhaps we shouldn’t come to an strict answer about foundation or judging. This is one of the reasons I feel that Dyzee’s “Our System” Judging system is being negatively received by many of the bboys. Because having an objective judging system will never please everyone and ultimately I think it will divide the dancers into the ones who support the system, and others who reject it.

I think that if there is anyone to blame about the generation of dancers today, it’s the generation of dancers who came before us. The ones who started during the 80’s and 90’s should be made responsible for the future of the culture as they are the only ones who can preserve what knowledge they feel is important. Complaining about the scene today is not helpful or productive, I feel as though positivity not negativity should be our mindset moving forward in this dance.

Prezi presentation of the legendary Pina Bausch (27 July 1940 – 30 June 2009)

Pina Bausch has a formidable international reputation as one of modern dance’s greatest innovators. Her shows combine dance and theatre which consist of a range of different movements, sounds and elaborate stage sets. Pina’s approach to the theatre was innovate and influential. Her performances did not emphasise on  telling a coherent narrative, as Bausch thought that it was not as important as communicating specific situations and feelings with the audience. However I don’t think her shows failed to fulfil the audience aesthetically, either with her ingenious choreography or with the visual spectacle presented on stage. Judith Cruickshank said this about Bauschs shows:

 

“You might be annoyed, upset or even distressed by a work by Bausch; it’s unlikely that you would be bored.”

 

Click play to view the Prezi Presentation.

Bibliography

Baker, Jasmine. 2009. Remembering PINA BAUSCH. http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/print.php?id=9904.

Bausch, Pina. 1978. Cafe Muller (v2)

Boccadoro, Patricia. 2007. All About Pina Bausch.

Cruickshank, Judith. 2009. Pina Bausch: Dancer and choreographer whose seminal work gave an unsettling view of the human condition. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/pina-bausch-dancer-and-choreographer-whose-seminal-work-gave-an-unsettling-view-of-the-human-condition-1729387.html.

Fogo, Masurca. 1998. Pina Bausch & the Tanztheater Wuppertal http://www.verinhaottoni.com/diary/cultural/dance/018.html.

Servos, Norbert. 2009. Pina Bausch: Talking about people through dance. http://www.pinabausch.de/en/pina_bausch/index.php?text=lang.

Tashiro, Mimi. 1999. Café Müller. http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/bausch/cafe_m.html.

Wenders, Wim. 2011. Pina (2011) – Official Trailer [HD]

Christopher Hitchens (April 1949 – December 2011)

Christopher Hitchens was probably one of the most influential writers in my life. I first heard of him while looking for debates on religion back in 2007. It was a YouTube video where he debated Chris Hedges on the existence of God, and it was like no other God debate I saw before. His writings changed the way I thought about many things (not just Atheism) and I want to talk about some of his work which I thought to be the most inspiring for me personally. Sadly he recently died from Esophageal cancer on the 15th of December 2011. He was a notable author, journalist, and probably one of the greatest polemicists of our time.

Here is a short clip from a Intelligence Squared debate where Hitch’s rant has been called his best ever on the subject of the Catholic Church

Christopher Hitchens has a lot of quote-worthy material, here are a few of my personal favorites:

What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof ― The Portable Atheist

Is it too modern to notice that there is nothing [in the ten commandments] about the protection of children from cruelty, nothing about rape, nothing about slavery, and nothing about genocide? Or is it too exactingly “in context” to notice that some of these very offenses are about to be positively recommended? ― God Is Not Great

Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way ― Hitch-22

The four most over-rated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics ― The New Yorker, 2006

Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you ― Hitch-22

My favourite line from that last quote would have to be “Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity“.

There are many occasions where people ask me why I care so much about animal cruelty, moral ethics, atheism, or other social issues. Most people’s response is to say..

“Meh”, “Who cares”, “Whats the harm”, “Why does all this stuff matter”.

Hitchens said it!! Because I don’t want to be a spectator to massive stupidity and not say anything about it.

Sam Harris on Hitchens.

Hitch lived an extraordinarily large life. (Read his memoir, Hitch-22, and marvel.) It was too short, to be sure—and one can only imagine what another two decades might have brought out of him—but Hitch produced more fine work, read more books, met more interesting people, and won more arguments than most of us could in several centuries.

A.C Grayling on Hitchens.

His cause was liberty: liberty of thought, liberty from the forms of oppression that preachers, demagogues, and tyrants try to exercise over human lives; liberty too from falsehood and ignorance and from all kinds of self-serving failures of integrity and intellectual honesty.

Stephen Fry on Hitchens.

He fought for causes all his life, he stood up against bullies, he outraged those who assumed he was a natural ally, he poured OUT his energies in a thousand ways but always, always with wit, with panache, with a sumptuously exquisite use of language, with a deep understanding that the connection between style and substance is absolute. A true thing badly expressed becomes a lie. As a writer and speaker, his awesome command of English is a part of his greatness, it explains how he came to be something that Britain, or indeed America, can rarely boast of, and usually have little but contempt for—a public intellectual.

He was a great writer, a great orator, and he’ll be greatly missed.

Recommended Readings

A.C. Grayling on Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens Is Hailed by Stephen Fry as a Man of Style and Wit

Sam Harris – Hitch