Napoleon Chagnon
Napoleon Chagnon | |
---|---|
Born | Napoleon Alphonseau Chagnon 27 August 1938[1] Port Austin, Michigan, U.S. |
Died | 21 September 2019 Traverse City, Michigan, U.S. | (aged 81)
Alma mater | University of Michigan (B.A., M.A., PhD) |
Known for | Reproductive theory of violence, ethnography of Yanomamö |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | |
Thesis | Yanomamö Warfare, Social Organization and Marriage Alliances (1966) |
Doctoral advisor | Leslie White |
Napoleon Alphonseau Chagnon (27 August 1938 – 21 September 2019) was an American
Admirers described him as a pioneer of scientific anthropology. Chagnon was called the "most controversial anthropologist" in the United States in a
Early life and education
Chagnon was born in
Career
Chagnon was best known for his long-term ethnographic
Chagnon's methods of analysis are widely seen as having been influenced by sociobiology.[3][8] As Chagnon described it, Yanomamö society produced fierceness, because that behavior furthered male reproductive success. The genealogies showed that men who killed had more wives and children than men who did not kill.[3] At the level of the villages, the war-like populations expanded at the expense of their neighbors. Chagnon's positing of a link between reproductive success and violence cast doubt on the sociocultural perspective that cultures are constructed from human experience. An enduring controversy over Chagnon's work has been described as a microcosm of the conflict between biological and sociocultural anthropology.[3][9][10]
Chagnon's ethnography, Yanomamö: The Fierce People, was published in 1968 and ran to several editions, selling nearly a million copies,.[3] It is commonly used as a text in university-level introductory anthropology classes, making it one of the bestselling anthropological texts of all time.[11][12][13] Chagnon was also a pioneer in the field of visual anthropology. He collaborated with ethnographic filmmaker Tim Asch and produced a series of more than twenty ethnographic films documenting Yanomamö life. The ethnographic film The Ax Fight, showing a fight among two Yanomami groups and analyzing it as it relates to kinship networks, is considered a classic in ethnographic film making.[14]
In 2012 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.[2] Marshall Sahlins, who was a major critic of Chagnon, resigned from the academy, citing Chagnon's induction as one of the reasons he quit.[15]
On 21 September 2019, Chagnon died at the age of 81.[16][17]
Controversies
Darkness in El Dorado
In 2000, Patrick Tierney, in his book Darkness in El Dorado, accused Chagnon and his colleague James V. Neel of unethical behavior, such as, among other things, manipulating data, and of exacerbating a measles epidemic among the Yanomamö people.[18][19]
Most of the allegations made in Darkness in El Dorado were publicly rejected by the Provost's office of the University of Michigan in November 2000.[20] For example, the interviews upon which the book was based all came from members of the Salesians of Don Bosco, a congregation of the Catholic Church, which Chagnon had criticized and angered.[12]
The American Anthropological Association convened a task force in February 2001 to investigate some of the allegations made in Tierney's book. Their report, which was issued by the AAA in May 2002, held that Chagnon had both represented the Yanomamö in harmful ways and failed in some instances to obtain proper consent from both the government and the groups he studied. However, the Task Force stated that there was no support to the claim that Chagnon and Neel began a measles epidemic.[19] In June 2005, however, the AAA voted over two-to-one to rescind the acceptance of the 2002 report.[21]
Alice Dreger, an historian of medicine and science, concluded after a year's research that Tierney's claims were false and the American Anthropological Association was complicit and irresponsible in helping spread these falsehoods and not protecting "scholars from baseless and sensationalistic charges".[22]
The controversy is covered in the 2005 book Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn from It by anthropologist Robert Borofsky.[23]
Anthropological critiques of his work
Chagnon's work with the Yanomamö was widely criticized by other anthropologists.[3][24][25] Anthropologists critiqued both aspects of his research methods as well as the theoretical approach, and the interpretations and conclusions he drew from his data. Most controversial was his claim that Yanomamö society is particularly violent, and his claim that this feature of their culture is grounded in biological differences that are the result of natural selection.[3]
The anthropologist Brian Ferguson argued that Yanomamö culture is not particularly violent, and that the violence that does exist is largely a result of socio-political reconfigurations of their society under the influence of colonization.[26][27] Bruce Albert rejected the statistical basis for his claims that more violent Yanomamö men have more children.[28][29] Others questioned the ethics inherent in painting an ethnic group as violent savages, pointing out that Chagnon's depiction of the Yanomamö as such breaks with anthropology's traditional ethics of trying to describe foreign societies sympathetically, and argued that his depictions resulted in increased hostility and racism against the Yanomamö by settlers and colonists in the area.[30][31][3] Emily Eakin countered that Albert "cannot demonstrate a direct connection between Chagnon's writings and the government's Indian policy" and that the idea that scientists should suppress unflattering information about their subjects is troubling and supports the idea that nonviolence is a prerequisite for protecting the Yanomamö.[3]
The anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, one of Chagnon's graduate teachers,[32] criticized Chagnon's methods, pointing out that Chagnon acknowledged engaging in behavior that was disagreeable to his informants by not participating in food-sharing obligations.[15][25] Sahlins claimed that Chagnon's trade of steel weaponry for blood samples and genealogical information amounted to "participant-instigation" which encouraged economic competition and violence.[25] Lastly, Sahlins argued that Chagnon's publications, which contend that violent Yanomamö men are conferred with reproductive advantages, made false assumptions in designating killers and omit other variables that explain reproductive success.[25] In 2013, Sahlins resigned from the National Academy of Sciences, in part in protest of Chagnon's election to the body.[15][33][34] Other researchers of the Yanomamö such as Brian Ferguson argued that Chagnon himself contributed to escalating violence among the Yanomamö by offering machetes, axes, and shotguns to selected groups to elicit their cooperation.[26][27][24][35][23][3] Chagnon said that it was instead local Salesian priests who were supplying guns to the Yanomamö, who then used them to kill each other.[3]
In his autobiography, Chagnon stated that most criticisms of his work were based on a postmodern and antiscientific ideology that arose within anthropology, in which careful study of isolated tribes was replaced in many cases by explicit political advocacy that denied less pleasant aspects of the Yanomamö culture, such as warfare, domestic violence, and infanticide. Chagnon stated that much of his work has undermined the idea of the 'Noble savage' – a romanticized stereotype of indigenous people living in synchrony with nature and uncorrupted by modern civilization.[36] Chagnon also stated that his beliefs about sociobiology and kin selection were misinterpreted and misunderstood, similarly because of a rejection of scientific and biological explanations for culture within anthropology.[36]
As a result of the controversy and the alleged unethical practices with the Yanomami,[37] Chagnon was officially barred from studying the Yanomami and from reentering their country in Venezuela.[38][39]
Written works
Books
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1968), Yanomamö: The Fierce People.
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1974), Studying the Yanomamö, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1992), Yanomamo – The Last Days of Eden.
- Chagnon, Napoleon A.; Cronk, Lee; Irons, William (2002), Adaptation and Human Behavior: An Anthropological Perspective.
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (2013). Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes – The Yanomamö and the Anthropologists. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0684855110.
Book chapters
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1986), "Yanomamö social organization and aggression", in Fried, M. (ed.), War; the Anthropology of Armed Conflict and Aggression, New York: Garden City
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1995), "Chronic Problems in Understanding Tribal Violence and Warfare", in Willey & Chichester (ed.), Genetics of Criminal and Antisocial Behavior, Ciba Foundation Symposium
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1972), "Tribal social organization and genetic microdifferentiation", in Harrison, A.; Boyce, A (eds.), Structure of human populations, Oxford
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1973), "Daily life among the Yanomamo", in Romney, A. K.; Devore, P. L. (eds.), You and others, Cambridge
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1973), "Yanomamo social organization and warfare", in Fried, M. (ed.), Explorations in Anthropology, New York: Crowell
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1973), "The culture-ecology of shifting (pioneering) cultivation among the Yanomamo Indians", in Gross, D. R. (ed.), International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, New York: Garden City
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1977), "Yanomamo – the fierce people", in Gould, R. (ed.), Man's many ways, New York: Harper & Row
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1977), "Yanomamo warfare", in Coppenhaver, D. (ed.), Anthropology full circle, New York: Prager
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1979), "Is Reproductive Success Equal in Egalitarian Societies?", in Chagnon, N.; Irons, W. (eds.), Evolutionary Biology and Human Social Behavior, North Scituate: Duxbury
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1979), "Mate Competition, Favoring Close kin, and Village Fissioning Among the Yanomamö Indians", in Chagnon, N.; Irons, W. (eds.), Evolutionary biology and human social behavior, North Scituate: Duxbury
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1982), "Anthropology and the Nature of Things", in Wiegele, T. (ed.), Biology and the Social Sciences, Boulder: Westview
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1982), "Sociodemographic Attributes of Nepotism in Tribal Populations: Man the Rule-Breaker", in KSCS Group (ed.), Current problems in sociobiology, New York: Cambridge University Press
- Chagnon, Napoleon A.; Ayers, M.; Neel, J. V.; Weitkamp, L.; Gershowitz, H. (1975), "The influence of cultural factors on the demography and pattern of gene flow from the Makiritare to the Yanomama indians", in Hulse, F. S. (ed.), Man and nature: studies in the evolution of the human species, New York: Random House
- Chagnon, Napoleon A.; Bugos, P. E. (1979), "Kin selection and conflict: an analysis of a Yanomamö ax fight", in Chagnon, Napoleon A.; Irons, W. (eds.), Evolutionary biology and human social behavior, North Scituate: Duxbury Press
- Chagnon, Napoleon A.; Flinn, M. V.; Melancon, T. F. (1979), "Sex-ratio variation among the Yanomamö Indians", in Chagnon, Napoleon; Irons, W. (eds.), Evolutionary Biology and Human Social Behavior, North Scituate: Duxbury Press
Journal articles
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1967a), "Yanomamo – the fierce people", Natural History, vol. LXXVII, pp. 22–31
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1967b), "Yanomamö Social Organization and Warfare", Natural History, vol. LXXVI, pp. 44–48
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1968a), "The Culture-Ecology of Shifting (Pioneering) Cultivation Among The Yanomamö Indians", International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, vol. 3, pp. 249–255
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1968b), "The feast", Natural History, vol. LXXVII, pp. 34–41
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1970), "Ecological and Adaptive Aspects of California Shell Money", Annual Report of the UCLA Archaeological Survey, vol. 12, pp. 1–25
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1973), "The culture-ecology of shifting (pioneering) cultivation among the Yanomamo Indians", in Gross, D. R. (ed.), International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, New York: Garden City
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1975), "Genealogy, Solidarity and Relatedness: Limits to Local Group Size and Patterns of Fissioning in an Expanding Population", Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, vol. 19, pp. 95–110
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1976), "Yanomamo, the true people", National Geographic Magazine, vol. 150, pp. 210–223
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1980), "Highland New Guinea models in the South American lowlands", Working Papers on South American Indians, vol. 2, pp. 111–130
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1981), "Doing fieldwork among the Yanomamo", Contemporary Anthropology, pp. 11–24
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1988), "Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population", Science, vol. 239, no. 4843, pp. 985–992, S2CID 14297757
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1989), "Yanomamö survival", Science, vol. 244, no. 4900, p. 11, PMID 17818827
- Chagnon, Napoleon A. (1990), "On Yanomamö violence: reply to Albert", Current Anthropology, vol. 31, pp. 49–53, S2CID 144894980
- Chagnon, Napoleon A.; Ayres, M.; Neel, J. V.; Weitkamp, L.; Gershowitz, H. (1970), "The influence of cultural factors on the demography and pattern of gene flow from the Makiritare to the Yanomama indians" (PDF), American Journal of Physical Anthropology, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 339–349, PMID 5419372
- Chagnon, Napoleon A.; Hames, R. B. (1979), "Protein Deficiency and Tribal Warfare in Amazonia: New Data", Science, vol. 203, no. 4383, pp. 910–913, PMID 570302
- Chagnon, Napoleon A.; Le Quesne, P.; Cook, J. M. (1971), "Yanomamö Hallucinogens: Anthropological, Botanical, and Chemical Findings", Current Anthropology, vol. 12, pp. 72–74, S2CID 144661874
- Chagnon, Napoleon A.; Margolies, L.; Gasparini, G.; Hames, R. B. (1982–83), "Parentesco, demografia, patrones de inversion de los padres y el uso social del espacio arquitectonico entre los Shamatari-Yanomamo del TF Amazonas: informe preliminar", Boletin Indigenista Venezolano (in Spanish), vol. 21, VZ, pp. 171–225
Film
Chagnon worked with ethnographic filmmaker Tim Asch to produce at least forty films on Yanomamo culture,[40] including The Feast (1969), Magical Death (1973) and The Ax Fight (1975). These films, especially The Ax Fight, are widely used in anthropological and visual culture curriculum and are considered to be among the most important ethnographic films ever produced.[41]
See also
- Visual anthropology
- The Trap (television documentary series); Chagnon features in The Trap, a BBC documentary.
References
Notes
- ^ Shavit 1992, p. 61.
- ^ a b "Napoleon Chagnon". Retrieved 27 January 2014.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Eakin 2013.
- ^ a b c Gabrielsen 2014.
- ^ McGee & Warms 2007, p. 247.
- ^ Chagnon 1966.
- ^ Silva 1988.
- ^ Gabrielson 2014.
- ^ Chagnon, Napoleon (19 August 2014). "Napoleon Chagnon: Blood is Their Argument". Edge (Interview). Interviewed by Steven Pinker; Richard Wrangham; Daniel C. Dennett; David Haig. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ Laden, Greg (2 May 2013). "Are Anthropologists a Dangerous Tribe?". Slate. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ King, Barbara J. (28 February 2013). "The Napoleon Chagnon Wars Flare Up Again in Anthropology : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR". NPR. Retrieved 1 June 2016.
- ^ a b D'Antonio 2000.
- ^ "The Fierce Anthropologist | The New Yorker". The New Yorker. 2 October 2000. Retrieved 1 June 2016.
- ^ Chagnon & Bugos 1979.
- ^ a b c Sahlins 2013.
- ^ Horgan, John (27 September 2019). "My Regrets about Controversial Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon (RIP)." Scientific American. Retrieved 11 July 2020.
- ^ "Chagnon Funeral Home | Onaway, MI". m.chagnonfh.com. Retrieved 28 September 2019.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Wilson, James (1 December 2000). "THE SAVAGE STATE". The Ecologist. 30 (9): 50.
- ^ a b "El Dorado Task Force Papers" (PDF). American Anthropological Association. 18 May 2002. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 February 2015. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
- ^ "Statement from University of Michigan Provost Nancy Cantor on the book "Darkness in El Dorado"". Archived from the original on 18 April 2009. Retrieved 28 January 2008.
- ^ "AAA Rescinds Acceptance of the El Dorado Report". Archived from the original on 4 July 2015.
- ^ Dreger 2011.
- ^ a b Borofsky, R. (2005). Yanomami: The fierce controversy and what we can learn from it (Vol. 12). Univ of California Press.
- ^ a b Povinelli 2013.
- ^ a b c d Sahlins 2000.
- ^ a b Ferguson 1995.
- ^ a b Ferguson 2001.
- ^ Albert 1989.
- ^ Albert 1990.
- ^ Ramos, A. R. (1987). Reflecting on the Yanomami: Ethnographic Images and the Pursuit of the Exotic. Cultural Anthropology, 2(3), 284-304.
- ^ Nugent, S. (2003). The yanomami. The Ethics of Anthropology: Debates and Dilemmas, 77.
- ^ Chagnon 2013, p. 338.
- ^ Golden, Serena (25 February 2013). "A Protest Resignation". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 20 February 2015.
- ^ Wade, Nicholas (25 February 2013). "Discord Over Scholar's Tribal Research". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ Lizot, J., & Dart, S. (1994). On warfare: an answer to NA Chagnon. American Ethnologist, 21(4), 845-862.
- ^ a b Chagnon 2013.
- S2CID 145417693. Archived from the original(PDF) on 29 May 2019. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
- ^ Tierney, Patrick (1 October 2000). "The Fierce Anthropologist". The New Yorker. Advance Publications. Archived from the original on 20 April 2019. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
- ISBN 978-0520244047. Archived(PDF) from the original on 12 March 2016. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
- ^ Saxon, Wolfgang (11 October 1994). "Timothy Asch, 62, Professor Who Filmed Remote Societies". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
- ^ Lewis 2004.
Bibliography
- Albert, Bruce (1989). "Yanomami "Violence": Inclusive Fitness or Ethnographer's Representation?". Current Anthropology. 30 (5): 637–640. S2CID 54187233.
- Albert, Bruce (1990). "On Yanomami warfare: rejoinder". Current Anthropology. 31 (5): 558–563. S2CID 143900820.
- Chagnon, Napoleon (1966). Yanomamö Warfare, Social Organization and Marriage Alliances (PhD). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. OCLC 12160324.
- D'Antonio, Michael (30 January 2000). "Napoleon Chagnon's War of Discovery". LA Times Magazine. UCLA. Archived from the original on 8 February 2002. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
- Dreger, Alice (2011). "Darkness's Descent on the American Anthropological Association". Human Nature. 22 (3): 225–246. PMID 21966181.
- Eakin, Emily (13 February 2013). "How Napoleon Chagnon Became Our Most Controversial Anthropologist". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 9 March 2014. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
- Ferguson, R. Brian (1995). Yanomami Warfare. Santa Fe, NM: SAR. ISBN 978-0933452381.
- Ferguson, R. B. (2001). "Materialist, cultural and biological theories on why Yanomami make war". Anthropological Theory. 1 (1): 99–116. S2CID 14061870.
- Gabrielsen, Paul (2014). "Profile of Napoleon A. Chagnon". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 111 (47): 16636–16638. PMID 25349397.
- Lewis, E. D. (2004). "Introduction: Timothy Asch in America and Australia". Timothy Asch and Ethnographic Film. Routledge. ISBN 978-1134336883.
- McGee, R. Jon; Warms, Richard L. (2007). Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0073405223.
- Povinelli, Elizabeth (15 February 2013). "Tribal Warfare: 'Noble Savages' by Napoleon A. Chagnon" (Bookreview). The New York Times. Archived from the original on 4 March 2013.
- Sahlins, Marshall (10 December 2000). "Jungle Fever". The Washington Post. p. X01. Archived from the original on 28 February 2013. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
- .
- Shavit, David (1992). The United States in Latin America: A Historical Dictionary. Greenwood. ISBN 978-0313275951.
- Silva, Stacey (20 January 1988). "Meeting The Fierce People" (PDF). The Daily Nexus. Archived (PDF) from the original on 31 October 2013. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
External links
Quotations related to Napoleon Chagnon at Wikiquote
- Edge.org, 6 June 2013.
- Grossman, Andrew. "Napoleon Chagnon's Waterloo", The Dartmouth Review, 30 October 2000.
- National Geographic Adventure Magazine, April 2002.
- Napoleon Chagnon at IMDb