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ERIC Number: EJ834107
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Mar
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0161-7761
EISSN: N/A
The Elephant in the Living Room that No One Wants to Talk about: Why U.S. Anthropologists Are Unable to Acknowledge the End of Culture
Tanaka, Greg
Anthropology & Education Quarterly, v40 n1 p82-95 Mar 2009
Findings from a four-year action research project at a highly diverse, West Coast U.S. university reveal that a large percentage of white students cannot trace their identities to a particular nation in Europe and are, as a result, unable to name the shared meanings of a particular ethnic culture. Each time Latino, Asian American, and African American classmates describe their families' ethnic histories, it is the European American student who feels dissociated. Extracted from a polyphonic novelistic ethnography, this essay focuses on an exchange among three students at a town hall meeting and explores the ramifications for social cohesion when members of "the dominant group" appear to be experiencing declining subjectivity. This reflection also raises two larger disciplinary questions: (1) How can 10,000 U.S. anthropologists continue to deploy the concept of culture at field sites outside the United States when so many in their own population cannot claim an ethnic culture of their own? and (2) Given the recent turn in events in the U.S. political scene, shouldn't anthropologists now begin developing new constructs for social analysis after race and culture?
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United States
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A