READ:
1.2 Holism
As your textbook argues, holism can be defined as a way of thinking about and explaining the human condition that takes into account the ways in which mind and body, person and society, humans and their environment interpenetrate and define one another (see Schultz, et al., 2018: 4). To explain holism, your textbook contrasts it to two other approaches to explaining human nature: idealism and materialism.
Western philosophy and thought has long taken what we might call a “dualistic” approach to the question of what humans are. From the Greek philosopher Plato on, Westerners have frequently assumed that there is a strict division between mind and matter, soul and body.
This idea that mind and body are split has often led to a deterministic form of idealism. Some philosophers have concluded that what makes humans really human are our minds. You can see reflections of this way of thinking in arguments that what distinguishes humans from animals, for instance, is our ability to reason.
Conversely, other theorists have sometimes taken what is known as a materialist approach to explaining the human condition. Materialism holds the reverse from idealism. Where a deterministic form of idealism maintains that what constitutes the essence of humans are our minds, those who adopt a materialist perspective instead emphasize the role played by the activities of our physical bodies in the material world in shaping what it means to be human. Materialists might therefore emphasize factors ranging from environmental conditions to relations involved in labour and production. This approach may also sometimes take a deterministic form, ignoring the role played by ideas, beliefs, and values in shaping human life.
Different schools of anthropology and of cultural anthropology have sometimes taken more idealistic or more materialistic approaches to the study of humans and human behaviour. On the whole, however, anthropology as a discipline has been profoundly shaped by a holistic approach. Holism can be seen at work in anthropology in a couple of ways. First, in North America the commitment to holism is at the root of the four fields approach of the discipline, the fact that anthropology as a discipline can involve studies that range from a biological emphasis in the analysis of human behaviour to studies that focus on the religious or artistic practice. The grouping of such a wide variety of studies of humans within one discipline reflects a historical commitment to explaining humans by taking into account the influence and interactions of biology, history, language, and culture or learned human behavior and beliefs.
Second, holism can also be understood as a commitment to contextualization. That is, cultural anthropologists are generally committed to looking at particular behaviours and beliefs within their broader social context. Where scholars working in other disciplines may sometimes focus on literature, the arts, or politics as separate and separable fields of study, cultural anthropologists are often interested in examining how these different areas of social life are shaped by and influence one another. From the perspective of holism, then, anthropologists might be interested in how the type of environment in which a particular group of humans lives affects the strategies they use to meet their basic needs for clothing, shelter, and food.
1.3 The Limits of Holism
In recent years, however, anthropologists have noted limits to holism. Most anthropologists share a commitment to rich contextualization. But in practice different research questions call for different emphases. Not all anthropological studies bring together all four of the subfields or pay equal attention to questions of biology, history, language, and culture. A commitment to contextualization also begs the question of which context or contexts must be considered in order to best understand a given practice or phenomenon. As discussed in Unit 2, some schools of anthropological thought, including for instance structural functionalism, have tended to view different cultures as self-contained wholes. Anthropologists working in these traditions thus tended to believe that it was possible to fully account for a given practice or belief by examining factors at play within a single society. Anthropologists today, by contrast, challenge this view. They argue that we must also pay attention to global flows if we are to understand local practices. As noted in the example just discussed, for instance, to understand the behaviours and practices of Mongolian herders Dr. Thrift paid attention not only to traditional beliefs and customs but also to how these interrelate with neighbouring societies, global capitalism, and international NGOs.
1.4 Canada and Colonialism:
The Fur Trade, Residential Schools, and Neo-Colonialism
Paying attention to global historical processes key to colonization, such as the fur trade, can also shed new light on the history and the present of Canada. As Wolf (1982:158) notes, just as the practice of slavery existed prior to colonization but was radically transformed by it, the fur trade too has antecedents in the pre-colonial era. Colonization, however, involved the massive expansive of the fur trade as well as its profits, which were often made at the expense of the economies and health of indigenous populations in the Americas.
As noted within the textbook, First Nations peoples were often forced to change their food strategies after colonization depleted the resources on which they had previously relied. From 1880 to 1920, for instance, the Anishinaabe (Ojibway) of Northern Ontario were forced to turn to fishing and trapping after their normal food source, the caribou, were depleted. In some cases, resource depletion led to severe health consequences. Disease spread from the invading Europeans also devastated First Nations groups, leading to significant transformations in their social organization. As noted in the textbook, 18% of the adult population of the Norway House Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba died in the span of six weeks during the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918-1919 (Schultz et al., 2018:54).
The residential school system established in the first half of the nineteenth century further contributed to the genocide of First Nations peoples in Canada. As your textbook observes, those involved in the establishment of the residential school system frequently justified it as a means of improving the lives of indigenous peoples. They argued that indigenous children would be better able to succeed if they were assimilated into dominant White Canadian society. In actual fact, children at residential schools were forcibly cut off from their family members and cultures of origin and often subjected to sexual and physical abuse. Students were discouraged from speaking their first language or practicing their traditions and severely punished if caught. They were cut off from their families from whom they were separated for at least ten months out of the year. Letters that children wrote to their families back home were frequently written in English, which their parents and other relations were not always able to read, and brothers and sisters at the same school were often separated since activities were divided by gender. As your textbook observes, many believe that the intention behind the residential school system can best be explained in terms of cultural genocide, that is, as an effort to ensure the spiritual, mental, economic, and social eradication of First Nations peoples (Schultz et al., 2018:57).
The persistence of the residential school system well into the late twentieth century potently reveals how the effects of colonization are still with us today. In Canada as well as in the United States and Australia, the consequences of colonial rule still impact once-subjugated Indigenous peoples, a fact that is clearly revealed by the required documentary for this unit, Marquise Lepage’s Martha of the North (2009). As your textbook observes, colonization also led to the poverty and underdevelopment of many formerly colonized territories in Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. These relations of inequality are captured by the term neo-colonialism, which refers to “the persistence of profound social and economic entanglements linking former colonial territories to their former colonial rulers despite political sovereignty” (Schultz et al., 2018: 59).
watch “MARTHA OF THE NORTH” link: https://paraterlincord.monster/movies/play/2308825-martha-of-the-north-2009?mid=17&sid=aq9tsn6iisfc9lcvcrrke05t7e&sec=345c13a4cc22d336bc987eaba6f531cd94bada38&t=1675104461
To consolidate your understanding of the effects of colonial and neo-colonial policies on First Nations and Inuit peoples in Canada, watch the required documentary, Marquise Lepage’s Martha of the North (2009), which describes the forced relocations of several Inuit families from Inukjuak, Northern Québec, to Grise Fiord, Ellesmere Island, and Resolute Bay, Cornwallis Island, in 1953. After watching the documentary, write a short essay answering the following questions. Note that to answer these questions and succeed on this assignment, you are strongly advised to watch the documentary more than once and take notes as you watch it.
TOPIC:
In your own words and drawing on the unit notes, explain the concept of holism and its limits. Next, explain how the concept of holism would help account for the effects of the relocations of the Inuit from Northern Québec to the High Arctic. Drawing on the unit notes’ comments about the limits of holism, discuss what aspects of the Inuits’ experience holism might not account for.
To answer this first question, you will need to explain the following dimensions of the forced relocations. How were the relocations of Inuit families justified by the Canadian government? What do Inuit activists argue were the real reasons for the relocations? How did the policies of the Canadian government as well as the change in environment brought on by the relocations affect the physical and psychological health, social relations, and economic or subsistence practices of Inuit families? How did these various factors interrelate with and affect one another? Make sure to relate your answers to these questions to the concept of holism and its limits.
INSTRUCTIONS:
Your papers should take an essay form.
Arguments from the unit notes should be either paraphrased or cited using American Psychological Association (APA) citation and format style. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introduction.html.
Provide a reference for the documentary in your reference page as follows:
Lepage, Marquise. 2009. Martha of the North. Montreal, Canada: National Film Board of Canada.
Your paper should be 2-3 pages long, double-spaced, with 1-inch margins, using a 12-point font.
Make sure to include your full name and student number in the title of your document and in the document itself.
