ANTB19H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Nuclear Family, Adolescent Sexuality, Franz Boas
Document Summary
What is meant by the myth of objectivity : objectivity means to be unbiased, a neutral observer. As a researcher, you don"t have an impact on the reality that you"re observing. You can set aside your preconceived ideas and have an access to some sort of truth. The lenses of how you see the world can be set aside in research: anthropology imagined itself during malinowski"s time to be an objective science, objectivity is a myth. It"s a critique of early anthropology: malinowski"s diary showed that he had feelings and thoughts about the people amongst who he works. Yet, he imagined his ethnography as an objective text. If objectivity is no longer the goal of ethnographic research and representation, what is: the anthropologist begins to say: i can never fully get rid of these lenses through which i see the world.
