Lecture 1: Travesti Introduction + Chapter 1
Lecture 1: Travesti Introduction + Chapter 1 Outline of Today’s Lecture: - The concept of cultural relativism - Anthropological methods - The craft of ethnography o Specifically about what he did to get the data that he presents us with - Thick description and the concept of culture o How they present the data (the cultural data)
Cultural Relativism Franz Boas on Cultural Relativism - Much of his data came from Canada - “On Alternating Sounds” (Boas; 1889) o This was the initial attempt to discover cultural relativism and how you would practice it o He was listening to Inuit language and transcribing it o He said there was this inconsistency on how the Inuit people pronounced their words - Boaz argued that basically what was seen here was a good example of observers bias o Brinton was trying to squeeze a lot of the different sounds the Inuit people had into the English language o What this idea of inconsistency reveals that linguists go into a new territory and transcribes and evaluates language based on English or German alphabets o Instead you have to look at different sound systems that cannot transcribed with the English alphabet o Argued again and again that linguists kept interrupting sounds in terms of their own alphabet, which was entirely unscientific and in fact was observers bias - Elements of a culture are meaningful in that culture’s terms, even if they may be meaningless (or take on a radically different meaning) in another cultures o A phoneme in the Inuit language can neither be the “o” sound or “u” sound - What are the implications of cultural relativism? - The example of “on alternating sounds shows” that they are scientific, political, moral o Moral because this is not an exercising combination o Certain types of evaluations like HIV positive, and criminal have political consequences
Anthropological Methods -
What are the materials that Don Kulick gathered? What did he pay attention to? What are his objects of analysis? o He looks at material objects found in their homes o Looks at specific areas where they live o How they are forced to move, in times when they are safe or when they are not safe o How they interact with each other – relations (how they interact with each other, with the police, with their boyfriends, with him)
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Participant observation is important to have formal conversations, but more a lot of time listening people talk to each other (their issues) o He even does a linguistic analysis of how the media reports the violence of a travesti o When a travesty is killed – the media doesn’t really report a agent (not part of the headlines) o But when a travesty is the agent, then the media ensures that it is included in their headlines What Did Kulick do to get to this data? Methods o “… Not sad delusions of confused individuals, but practices that are eminently reasonable (or at least comprehensible) in the context in which travesty grow up and live their lives” How is the information about human behavior rendered in socio-cultural anthropology? o How is this data presented? Thick Description Eertc talked about the thick description He made the distinction between wink and a blink o Wink has intention, and a blink doesn’t o Blink is a biological thing that we have to do whereas wink has a meaning o The meaning of the wink, you often have to utilize the methods o It is cultural because we All of us know the rules of who and who not to wink at In order to thickly describe what a wink is, there are rules and regulations are going to need to be described appropriately Culture as a set of meaningful practices embedded within social relations o Of course they are hierarchical where men can wink at women more than women can wink at men
Gender Ideologies and Practices - Sex is a biological categorization based primarily on reproductive potential - Gender I the cultural elaboration of biological sex - The travesty are human beings that have penises and don’t deny they are men, but do everything to turn themselves into a female o Although they do not think of themselves as females - What we see is the cultural elaboration of what it means to be a man or a women Gender Ideologies - An Ideology is a share set of perceptions and feelings people have for explaining, interpreting, justifying, and judging the world – including the people inhabiting it o Ideologies often justify (and reproduce) inequalities - A Gender Ideology consists of the shared, tacit set of perceptions and feelings people have for explaining, interpreting, justifying, and judging the people in relation finish this section from the lecture Why would Kulick mention that his homosexuality allowed him better access to the Traveti? He was, as he states, in effect, “one of the girls” (KULICK 15) - Perhaps maybe that he is gay, he knows the feelings of discrimination - By him being homosexual, he was not a love interest *key - Travesty refers to themselves as homosexual, but Kulick is not an interesting partner for them
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These are homosexual men who want men, who want women Kulick was not competition for the Travesti people, he was in fact someone who provided protection
What does this tell us about Travesti gender ideologies? - This is a unique group of people in Brazil - Has a gender ideology that is really distinct and apart from what we know - Kulcik argues that it is not about inversion, he is pointing us towards the culture of ideologies where ideologies of gender are fixed of what a man and what a women is - His argument is that they are clarifying and crystalizing the distinction between men and women - On page 9, travesty are concentration of identities of what it means to be male and female o They perfect the man and the women o Travesti are heightening the normality of the man and women, which is why they transform their body into a female body type because they love men, but men want a women o They want the heighten the ideal relationship between man and a women If Travesti are so unique, why study them and tell us something about larger Questions - They crystal a basic point of our identity o We have to work to achieve femininity and masculinity Performality - We perform the way it means to be a woman or a man - Travesti have an important lesson to tell us: o Gender, ideologies, Brazil - Gender is a kind of performance (some are over the top, some are more settle) Can you think of ways through which you or someone you know performs their gender?
Cultural Relativism Franz Boas on Cultural Relativism - Much of his data came from Canada - “On Alternating Sounds” (Boas; 1889) o This was the initial attempt to discover cultural relativism and how you would practice it o He was listening to Inuit language and transcribing it o He said there was this inconsistency on how the Inuit people pronounced their words - Boaz argued that basically what was seen here was a good example of observers bias o Brinton was trying to squeeze a lot of the different sounds the Inuit people had into the English language o What this idea of inconsistency reveals that linguists go into a new territory and transcribes and evaluates language based on English or German alphabets o Instead you have to look at different sound systems that cannot transcribed with the English alphabet o Argued again and again that linguists kept interrupting sounds in terms of their own alphabet, which was entirely unscientific and in fact was observers bias - Elements of a culture are meaningful in that culture’s terms, even if they may be meaningless (or take on a radically different meaning) in another cultures o A phoneme in the Inuit language can neither be the “o” sound or “u” sound - What are the implications of cultural relativism? - The example of “on alternating sounds shows” that they are scientific, political, moral o Moral because this is not an exercising combination o Certain types of evaluations like HIV positive, and criminal have political consequences
Anthropological Methods -
What are the materials that Don Kulick gathered? What did he pay attention to? What are his objects of analysis? o He looks at material objects found in their homes o Looks at specific areas where they live o How they are forced to move, in times when they are safe or when they are not safe o How they interact with each other – relations (how they interact with each other, with the police, with their boyfriends, with him)
o
-
-
-
-
Participant observation is important to have formal conversations, but more a lot of time listening people talk to each other (their issues) o He even does a linguistic analysis of how the media reports the violence of a travesti o When a travesty is killed – the media doesn’t really report a agent (not part of the headlines) o But when a travesty is the agent, then the media ensures that it is included in their headlines What Did Kulick do to get to this data? Methods o “… Not sad delusions of confused individuals, but practices that are eminently reasonable (or at least comprehensible) in the context in which travesty grow up and live their lives” How is the information about human behavior rendered in socio-cultural anthropology? o How is this data presented? Thick Description Eertc talked about the thick description He made the distinction between wink and a blink o Wink has intention, and a blink doesn’t o Blink is a biological thing that we have to do whereas wink has a meaning o The meaning of the wink, you often have to utilize the methods o It is cultural because we All of us know the rules of who and who not to wink at In order to thickly describe what a wink is, there are rules and regulations are going to need to be described appropriately Culture as a set of meaningful practices embedded within social relations o Of course they are hierarchical where men can wink at women more than women can wink at men
Gender Ideologies and Practices - Sex is a biological categorization based primarily on reproductive potential - Gender I the cultural elaboration of biological sex - The travesty are human beings that have penises and don’t deny they are men, but do everything to turn themselves into a female o Although they do not think of themselves as females - What we see is the cultural elaboration of what it means to be a man or a women Gender Ideologies - An Ideology is a share set of perceptions and feelings people have for explaining, interpreting, justifying, and judging the world – including the people inhabiting it o Ideologies often justify (and reproduce) inequalities - A Gender Ideology consists of the shared, tacit set of perceptions and feelings people have for explaining, interpreting, justifying, and judging the people in relation finish this section from the lecture Why would Kulick mention that his homosexuality allowed him better access to the Traveti? He was, as he states, in effect, “one of the girls” (KULICK 15) - Perhaps maybe that he is gay, he knows the feelings of discrimination - By him being homosexual, he was not a love interest *key - Travesty refers to themselves as homosexual, but Kulick is not an interesting partner for them
-
These are homosexual men who want men, who want women Kulick was not competition for the Travesti people, he was in fact someone who provided protection
What does this tell us about Travesti gender ideologies? - This is a unique group of people in Brazil - Has a gender ideology that is really distinct and apart from what we know - Kulcik argues that it is not about inversion, he is pointing us towards the culture of ideologies where ideologies of gender are fixed of what a man and what a women is - His argument is that they are clarifying and crystalizing the distinction between men and women - On page 9, travesty are concentration of identities of what it means to be male and female o They perfect the man and the women o Travesti are heightening the normality of the man and women, which is why they transform their body into a female body type because they love men, but men want a women o They want the heighten the ideal relationship between man and a women If Travesti are so unique, why study them and tell us something about larger Questions - They crystal a basic point of our identity o We have to work to achieve femininity and masculinity Performality - We perform the way it means to be a woman or a man - Travesti have an important lesson to tell us: o Gender, ideologies, Brazil - Gender is a kind of performance (some are over the top, some are more settle) Can you think of ways through which you or someone you know performs their gender?
