Crossing at y/our own peril: Biocultural boundary crossing in anthropology
Biocultural approaches in anthropology originated from a desire to dissolve the nature/culture divide that is entrenched in the discipline. Whereas biocultural approaches were born under the umbrella of medical anthropology, by the late 1990s, biology‐centered approaches to bioculturalism had been m...
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| Published in: | American anthropologist Vol. 124; no. 3; pp. 479 - 489 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Oxford
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
01-09-2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Biocultural approaches in anthropology originated from a desire to dissolve the nature/culture divide that is entrenched in the discipline. Whereas biocultural approaches were born under the umbrella of medical anthropology, by the late 1990s, biology‐centered approaches to bioculturalism had been mostly taken up by human biologists in biological anthropology. It was at this point that biology‐inclined approaches began to gel into an informal interdiscipline, biocultural anthropology. Much like any other discipline, biocultural anthropology developed research and professional norms with erected boundaries around acceptable work and workers. We draw from scholarly work in interdisciplinary studies to explore those norms and boundaries from the perspective of our collaborative, multimethod, and interdisciplinary project that combines “biology” and “culture” in unconventional ways. We provide examples of the obstacles, barriers, and risks we experienced and the costs exacted on the research project and the researchers due to the nature of our boundary crossings. By exploring biocultural anthropology from the edges of acceptability, we expose the unacknowledged boundary work in contemporary biocultural anthropology, and by extension, in its parent discipline, anthropology.
Resumen
Los enfoques bioculturales en antropología se originaron con la intención de superar la división naturaleza/cultura que está arraigada en la disciplina. Mientras que estos enfoques nacieron bajo el paraguas de la antropología médica a fines de la década de 1990, los enfoques bioculturales centrados en la biología habían sido adoptados principalmente por biólogos dedicados a la antropología biológica. Fue en este punto que las miradas inclinadas hacia la biología fueron confluyendo en una interdisciplina informal, la antropología biocultural. Como cualquier otra disciplina, la antropología biocultural desarrolló sus propias normas de investigación y quehacer profesional, con límites establecidos en torno a los trabajos y trabajadores admisibles. Partimos de antecedentes académicos en estudios interdisciplinarios para explorar esas normas y límites desde la perspectiva de nuestro proyecto colaborativo, multimétodo e interdisciplinario que combina “biología” y “cultura” de formas no convencionales. Proporcionamos ejemplos de los obstáculos, las barreras, los riesgos y los costos que experimentaron las investigadoras y el equipo de investigación a causa cruzar dichos límites. Al explorar la antropología biocultural desde los márgenes de lo que se considera aceptable, exponemos un trabajo de frontera poco reconocido en la antropología biocultural contemporánea y, por extensión, en su disciplina madre, la antropología. [biocultural, bioculturalismo, interdisciplinaridad, biosocialidad, trabajo de frontera] |
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| ISSN: | 0002-7294 1548-1433 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/aman.13729 |