Anthropology and Emotion

Abstract

The distinctive contribution anthropologists have made to our knowledge of affective processes is based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork and cross-cultural comparison, allied approaches that offer a different vantage on emotions from those of other disciplines. Typically, ethnographic findings, especially those from non-industrial and non-Western societies, unsettle common understandings of the affective life. But to make sense of such findings, and put them in a proper perspective, it is helpful to have a clear view of what ethnography can and cannot achieve, its methods (old and new), its objectives, and its pretensions to, or disavowals of, science. Aims and methods have changed considerably in recent decades as anthropologists, parallel to new ventures in other disciplines, have taken a fresh look at fieldwork methodology, as well as adopting a more analytical perspective on what emotions are: their constitution, their local conception, and their place within social life. Affective scientists and other writers on emotion have mined world ethnography for examples that illustrate or conflict with prevailing theories of emotion, often citing the exceptions and oddities. However, a concern of this chapter is that the favoured instances rarely reflect the complexity of naturally occurring emotional episodes, whether the focus be on emotion concepts, the cultural shaping of expression, linguistic classification, social function, or emotional meaning. This chapter scans the history of anthropological interest in emotion, and explores the challenges posed by emotions in other cultures: problems of definition, empathy, recognition, and reporting. It outlines weaknesses in traditional ethnographic reporting and identifies remedies in narrative approaches that entail an enhanced realism, a clearer view of what there is.