Review: Neuroanthropology or Simple Anthropology? Going Experimental as Method, as Object of Study, and as Research Aesthetic

2/5/2019

by Kaitlyn May

In this article, the authors argue that though neuroanthropology is typically thought of as a new field, in reality it is simply a new way of approaching traditional anthropology. As such, the authors argue that neuroanthropology should not be thought of as separate from traditional anthropology.

Using previous calls for cultural neurophenomenology, “a neural theory of culture and a cultural theory of the brain,” as the backbone of their argument, the authors begin by clearly laying out the importance of understanding human experience and the effect of such experiences on the brain. The authors of this paper argue that because culture is embedded in experience. Furthermore, the interaction of experience, the brain, and culture, cannot be separated, and thus their interaction must be critically examined.

Still, neuroanthropology is challenged by the need to employ traditional neuroscience methods in a naturalistic setting. Traditional neural methods, such as fMRI and EEG, are highly constrained by the lack of mobility of the equipment and of the participant. The cumbersome equipment makes it difficult for these methodologies to be seamlessly blended into a natural environment. This starkly juxtaposes to the aims of anthropology to assimilate into a given environment without changing it in order to achieve an understanding of ‘lived experience’. Thus, the authors argue, the tension between the ideals of method and the realities of research is heightened in neuroanthropology. Still, interaction in between the two fields is critical to the advancement of not just neuroanthropology, but of research as a whole. The authors blame the lack of communication between academic departments as producing the hesitancy to interdisciplinary fields, such as neuroanthropology.

Here, the authors argue for Gallagher’s (2003) notion of front-loading concepts into an experimental design as crucial to facilitating interaction between anthropology and neuroscience. Providing multiple examples of its benefit, the authors suggest that this practice may be necessary to neuroanthropology by providing a framework to an experiment. This may help “personalize” the experimental design so that the value of personal experience is not lost in the quest to obtain scientific data. In other words, the authors argue that front-loading will not let the data be stripped of the unique experiences of the people that it was collected from. The authors conclude by emphasizing the importance of not letting experimental methodologies, like neural imaging, transform subjects into objective data points, and instead let the experiential accounts of these subjects inform the meaning of the data.

The authors end the paper by emphasizing their support of the field of neuroanthropology and arguing for a broader conceptualization of the field. The authors argue that neuroanthropology is not so much a new, hybrid field, but a sequential development of traditional anthropology. Defining neuroanthropology as its own, new field may cause those involved to neglect the knowledge, experience, and teaching that anthropology offers—both practically, in terms of methods, and conceptually, by viewing themselves as unrelated to traditional anthropology. If neuroanthropology strays too far from anthropology, it may be that it develops into a subfield of neuroscience and in doing so loses the emphasis of structuring data by understanding of human experience.

As someone within another interdisciplinary field, Educational Neuroscience, this discussion sounds all too familiar. So often the ideals of neuroscience methodology struggle to match the realities of educational practice. It seems to me that neuroanthropology is experiencing a similar conflict, and I am eager to know your thoughts on it.

The article makes the case for its foundation in traditional anthropology, but do you agree with this, or do you think that the two should be distinct?
What do you think would be lost by framing neuroanthropology as its own field?
What do you think could be gained by framing neuroanthropology as its own field?
How do you envision taking neuroscience methods into “the real world?”

6 Comments

Elisabeth Nations

2/5/2019 11:38:15 am

I agree with Roepstorff and Frith that neuroanthropology should not be considered separately from anthropology, but instead as a subsection of anthropological studies. If one considers neuroanthropology as a discipline in and of itself, it seems to be pretty much the same as neuroscience. I also agree with the authors that the difference lies in how neuroanthropology relies on and relates to human experience, and keeping the field under anthropology maintains that connection to human experience and encourages researchers to turn to anthropological experimentation and observation rather than just the methods of neuroscience. I'm not sure how the neuroscientific methods can be taken into the "real world": I feel I don't have enough experience with those methods to see how they can work with anthropology fieldwork.

Elisabeth Nations

2/26/2019 09:01:55 pm

As someone with more of an interest in the intangible, non-quantifiable aspects of anthropology, I tend to be wary of how lab methods and the actions and equipment required to gather biological data interferes with and affects cultural experiences and data. However, as this class progresses, I grow more interested in the science behind those aspects of culture that I have been studying throughout my college career. For example, reading about different sports like Capoeira and American gymnastics was fascinating just from a cultural standpoint, but my understanding was definitely enriched when supported by the scientific explanation of how equilibrium and body movement differ between these two cultures of physicality. At this point, science has not progressed enough to where we are able to track things like heart rate, blood pressure, and hormones in a way that does not impede the participant, but I definitely admire the creative ways neuroanthropologists work to bring lab research into the field. I do still agree with Roepstorff and Frith that neuroanthropology must not be separated from the broader discipline of anthropology; human experience is essential to the discipline and a neuroanthropologist should be well-versed in traditional anthropological methods so that they are best able to bring in more biological science and research without sacrificing too much of the unique human experience traditional anthropology tries to capture.

Jennifer Fortunato

2/5/2019 02:37:55 pm

I do not agree with Roepstorff and Firth that neuroanthropology should not be its own field. I agree that it is difficult to take current neuroscientific methods out into the field currently, however, technology is rapidly advancing. With this advancing technology, in the future we may be able to take smaller and more portable MRI machines out into the field. Being able to take neuroscience into the field would help integrate the cultural experiences that are fundamentally anthropological in nature. This can integrate neuroscience and anthropology into its own field and help neuroanthropology, as a field, fully develop. In this way it may be too early to consider neuroanthropology its own field with the current limitations but it may be in the future. I think we could gain a lot of new information about how the brain responds to complex social interactions and the structure and function of different brain areas by having neuroanthropology be its own field.

Brian Rivera

2/6/2019 07:53:32 am

I think one issue with embracing the methods of neuroscience is whether they can reveal the same type of information "in the real world". An EEG is a crude measure of some brain activity which works if a lot of external stimuli is limited. Additional interference can come from muscle movement which results as noise on the EEG data. Thus recording EEG while moving would produce noisy data. EEG is one of the most portable neuroimaging methods, the problem becomes if the data is reliable or if we can ask the same the types of questions once we take the methods outside of the lab. The same type of problem can be said of the reverse: how do we make sure that we are not erasing the phenomena we are interested in by controlling the environment. This is just to say, again, that the question of whether we can adopt methods from one field into another comes to how meaningful the result would be. There is much to be gain from adopting the tools of neuroscience but we are still trying to figure out how they work (or if they work for different types of questions).

Jennifer Fortunato

2/26/2019 12:39:08 pm

After our classroom discussion of integrating neuroscience into anthropology, I am still disagreeing with the article that neuroscience and anthropology should be separate fields. We can learn a lot about how the brain responds to complex social interactions and the function of different brain areas by integrating both fields into a new field of neuroanthropology. Learning about the experiment that Dr. DeCaro has performed showed me that it is possible to integrate the two fields. Using both anthropological methods through interviews and neuroscience methods of heart rate can help us learn more about how behavior is occurring physiologically. The classroom discussion furthered by belief that neuroscience and anthropology could be combined into a new field of neuroanthropology.

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3/29/2022 01:35:26 am

i like this article, thanks for sharing