Chagnon's Anthropology

This paper explores the controversy surrounding the treatment of the Yanomamo tribe of Brazil by antrhopologist, Napoleon Chagnon.

1,710 words () | 4 sources | MLA | 2007 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how Napoleon Chagnon has become the center of a heated debate surrounding his treatment of a tribal group he and a colleague studied for a number of years. The paper reviews four articles exploring the controversy but fails to find persuasive testimony which shows that Chagnon did harm to the Yanomamo tribe of Brazil, or that he and his colleague engaged in unethical behavior. The paper asserts that the unethical behavior of the review board which sought to ostracize Chagnon suggests that political motivations and not a genuine concern for the standing of the anthropological community is really at the heart of the furor.

From the Paper:

"To begin with, Michael D'Antoni writes that Chagnon's work apparently revealed that those men who were the most violent among the Yanomamo people he studied in the 1960s were also the most likely to have many wives and many children - indeed, the most children. Thus, Yanomamo society - again, as determined by Chagnon - was a society characterized by lawlessness and where cruelty prevailed. Unfortunately, Chagnon's depiction of the Yanomamo brought him into conflict with powerful Roman Catholic missionaries and rival academics who felt that Chagnon's portrayal of the most "primitive" people on earth - and his assertion that the violence found in Yanomamo society was somehow characteristic of the true nature of man - were highly misleading. In effect, Chagnon argued - and continues to argue - that it is not modern society which creates war and strife but human nature; moreover, warfare drives the creation of modern societies (D'Antonio 2000:para.2-8)."

Sample of Sources Used:

D'Antonio, Michael. 2000 Napoleon Chagnon's War of Discovery. Los Angeles Times, January 30, 2000. Electronic Document, http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Chagnon_00.html accessed August 4, 2006.
Gregor, Thomas A., and Daniel R. Gross 2004 Guilt by Association: The Culture of Accusation and the American Anthropological Association's Investigation of Darkness in El Dorado. American Anthropologist, 106(4):687-698.
Lizot, Jacques. 1994 On Warfare: An Answer to N.A. Chagnon. American Ethnologist, 21(4):845-862.
Shermer, Michael. 2001 Spin-Doctoring the Yanomamo. Skeptic, 9: 1-4.