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- Convenor:
-
David Shankland
(Royal Anthropological Institute)
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- Stream:
- History of Anthropology and Geography
- Sessions:
- Thursday 17 September, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel invites a reconsideration of the idea of 'diffusion' as a theoretical tool within anthropology and geography, looking at these issues from both a present, past and future point of view.
Long Abstract:
The aim of this panel is to reconsider the idea of 'diffusion', both as it has been treated in the past, and today. 'Diffusion' has long been a problematic concept, certainly one largely excluded from the anthropological tool-kit, only to make a partial come-back in our day through the rubric of 'globalisation'. However, clearly ideas and objects do often diffuse across the world. It would seem a pity that the word itself should be excluded from our vocabulary just when, arguably, we have more sophisticated tools than ever before to realise how diffusion comes about in multiple contexts, for example through phylogenetic analysis of language, network theory, contemporary breakthroughs in our understanding of Ancient DNA and prehistorical population movements, or through the novel possibilities of analysis thrown up by large comparative data-sets, such as bibliographic catalogues which list comprehensively the gradual rise and geographical spread of printing. We invite reconsiderations of the way that the disciplinary conflicts of the 1920s led to its occlusion, the subsequent formation of disciplinary boundaries that mitigated against the use of diffusion as an idea, and also contemporary approaches to this question, all with an eye as to the possibilities and implications of welcoming 'diffusion' back into our common endeavour. Papers that argue that its return is unnecessary or too disruptive, are as welcome as those which argue that the time is ripe for its return.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 17 September, 2020, -Paper short abstract:
The study attempts to analyze the phenomena of diffusion in the culture areas that are situated on the boundaries of two states in India.However, it was found that some of the cultural elements in these two areas attained a new form as the result of culture contact due to close proximity.
Paper long abstract:
In the era of technologically advanced world where people are connected with various means of communication, diffusion within the cultures have emerged as a common phenomenon. The easy connectivity among the cultures is leading to emergence of new cultural concepts. However, the cultures in close proximity are getting intermingled at a comparatively faster pace which makes the concept of culture areas an interesting subject of study. The study based on this concept was carried out in two geographical regions i.e. one within Jammu (Lakhanpur region) and other within Punjab (Pathankot region) .In this study attempts were made to analyze the cultural elements of two areas that have been diffused across the geographical boundaries, by conducting in-depth interviews of 200 participants using qualitative method. However, it was found that the diffused elements have also attained a somewhat different form in both the culture areas while the core elements of the tradition or practice remains the same. At the same time diffusion of the cultural elements between these two culture areas have led to a sense of belonging between the individuals of these two cultures which has finally resulted in feeling of solidarity between the people who actually belong to two distinct geographical regions on the physical map of the country. Hence, we can conclude that cultural diffusion as the result of culture contact is one of the cohesive forces that help in nation building process.
Paper short abstract:
In my paper I want to complicate the question of what we consider diffusing. Do moving objects, horses, DNA bring something (meaning, practices, complexes, traits) along? And if not, what do we make of the results of our sophisticated large-scale comparisons?
Paper long abstract:
No doubt, ideas and objects do circulate across the world. However, we should carefully examine the concept of diffusion before retrieving it to our methodological toolkit. Diffusion is not simple an alternative naming for the movement of objects, ideas, data, people and what else, it is an approach and thus a certain perspective upon the world.
Diffusionists were not so much interested in the things as such (horses, potatoes, knifes, boats), they rather understood them as representations indicating the spread of so-called cultural complexes or elements. Several studies have shown that objects are actively appropriated and interpreted on the local level and not simply taken over together with predefined practices and meanings.
For sure, new technologies, tools and programs would allow to trace their movements and to collect and analyse big datasets in a much more sophisticated way than in the 1920s. Digital catalogues facilitate large scale comparisons and would certainly reveal unsuspected connections as well as wrongly assumed relations. But what is diffusing?
In my opinion the crucial question when reconsidering diffusion would be what do we consider diffusing? Do moving objects, horses, DNA bring something (meaning, practices, complexes, traits) along? Or do they come naked? If yes, what do we make of the results of our sophisticated large-scale comparisons?
Paper short abstract:
Simple narratives have always been part and parcel of prehistory, the study of the deep past. The emergence of prehistory in the 19th century was intimately linked with the rise of European nation-states. By the time of the First World War there were already two models for the emergence of ‘civilization’ in Europe: a stadial one, emphasizing universal progress from simple to complex societies, and a spatial one, with cores radiating to peripheries. The latter model appealed to historical particularists, including diffusionists and migrationists.
Paper long abstract:
In this contribution, I want to examine what happened to particularist models of cultural expansion after the Second World War, in the context of the Cold War. While archaeology and anthropology both turned away from historical narratives of chosen people roaming prehistory, for instance so-called ‘Indo-Europeans’ or ‘Aryans’, tales of proto-Nordic indo-European-speaking invaders from the Pontic-Caspian steppes destroying ‘Old Europe’ started to re-emerge in North America, under the influence of Lithuania-born Harvard researcher Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994). Marginalized by archaeologists, Gimbutas’s theories nevertheless found support among the linguists, comparative mythologists and structural anthropologists, including Greimas, Dumézil, and Lévi-Strauss.
Gimbutas’s intellectual trajectory from Hitler-style invasionism to Flower Power in the 1960s is remarkable; she is still widely credited for the discovery of a shift from matrifocal societies in the Neolithic to patriarchal ones in the Bronze Age. Today her theories are coming back to archaeology through genetics and linguistics, which claim to have found the ‘homeland’ of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Through the extraordinary life and work of Marija Gimbutas I hope to show how knowledge of the deep past has proceeded in cycles and perhaps never quite left the realm of mythology.