is cefepime a cephalosporin

Cefepime is a Cephalosporin with activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative aerobic bacteria. In common with other β-lactam agents, cefepime exerts its antibacterial effects by binding to penicillin-binding proteins.

Cefepime

Drugs March 1994, Volume 47, Issue 3 , pp 471–505 | Cite as Cefepime A Review of its Antibacterial Activity, Pharmacokinetic Properties and Therapeutic Use Authors Authors and affiliations Lee B. Barradell Harriet M. Bryson Lee B. Barradell1Harriet M. Bryson11. Adis International Limited Mairangi Bay, Auckland 10 New Zealand Drug Evaluation First Online: 31 October 201260Downloads82Citations Abstract Synopsis Cefepime is a ‘fourth’ generation Cephalosporin that has a broader spectrum of antibacterial activity than the third generation Cephalosporins and is more active in vitro against Gram-positive aerobic bacteria. The fact that cefepime is stable to hydrolysis by many of the common plasmid and chromosomally-mediated β-lactamases, and that it is a poor inducer of type I β-lactamases, indicates that cefepime may be useful for treatment of infections resistant to earlier Cephalosporins. In comparative trials, cefepime 1 to 2g, usually administered intravenously twice daily, was as effective as ceftazidime 1 to 2g, usually administered 3 times daily, for treatment ofbacteraemia and infections of the lower respiratory tract, urinary tract, pelvis and skin and skin structures. Furthermore, cefepime was as effective as ceftazidime and piperacillin or mezlocillin in combination with gentamicin when administered as empirical treatment for fever in patients with neutropenia. A limited number of trials have found cefepime to be as effective as cefotaxime for the treatment of gynaecological and lower respiratory tract infections. Similarly, cefepime 2g twice daily intravenously (alone or in combination with metronidazole) was as effective as gentamicin in combination with mezlocillin or Clindamycin, respectively, for the treatment of intra-abdominal infection. Cefepime has a linear pharmacokinetic profile, an elimination half-life of approximately 2 hours and is primarily excreted by renal mechanisms as unchanged drug. Cefepime has a tolerability profile similar to that of other parenteral Cephalosporins; adverse events are primarily gastrointestinal in nature. A total of 1.4 and 2.9% of patients receiving cefepime ≤2 g/day and =2 g/day, respectively, required treatment withdrawal as a result of any adverse event. Thus, cefepime has the advantage of an improved spectrum of antibacterial activity, and is less susceptible to hydrolysis by some β-lactamases, compared with third generation Cephalosporins. Despite these advantages, cefepime has not been found to be more effective than ceftazidime and cefotaxime in clinical trials, although most trials selected patients with organisms sensitive in vitro to both comparator agents. Further trials, particularly in areas of widespread bacterial resistance, are required to confirm the positioning of cefepime for treatment of serious infection, and in particular to further explore whether its potential advantages result in clinical benefits. Antibacterial Activity

Cefepime has greater inhibitory activity than ceftazidime against Streptococcus pneumoniae and most other streptococcal species, and against staphylococcal species. Although cefepime is active against methicillin-sensitive strains, it is not active against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or S. epidermidis. Cefepime demonstrates useful inhibitory activity against all common pathogens from the family Enterobacteriaceae, including those that commonly produce chromosomally-mediated β-lactamases. Cefepime also has excellent inhibitory activity against Haemophilus influenzae, regardless of the α-lactamase-producing ability of the organism. In common with most other Cephalosporins, cefepime has limited inhibitory activity against non-fermentative bacteria, although the majority of tested isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were susceptible or moderately susceptible to cefepime, Cefepime has minimal inhibitory activity against enterococci, Bacteroides fragilis and Clostridium difficile. Type I β-lactamases have a low affinity for cefepime, and therefore cefepime retains its inhibitory activity against de-repressed bacteria. In addition, cefepime is not susceptible to hydrolysis by plasmid-mediated β-lactamases expressed by Gram-negative bacteria, particularly Enterobacter species. Furthermore, unlike imipenem and some second generation Cephalosporins, cefepime is a poor inducer of type I β-lactamases. Experimental models of infection have generally found cefepime to have activity superior to that of ceftazidime and cefotaxime against most clinically important Gram-positive and Gram-negative organisms. However, against infections caused by P. aeruginosa, cefepime had activity similar to that of ceftazidime. Pharmacokinetic Properties In healthy volunteers, cefepime reaches maximum serum concentrations (C max) of approximately 57.5 mg/L after administration of a 2g dose by intramuscular injection. The same dose of cefepime administered intravenously over a period of 30 minutes achieves higher serum concentrations than intramuscular administration, with C max values ranging from 126 to 193 mg/L. The drug has linear pharmacokinetics and an elimination half-life (t 1/2β) of approximately 2 hours. Plasma protein binding is low, and the drug distributes widely into body tissues and fluids. Cefepime is primarily excreted by renal mechanisms as unchanged drug. The t 1/2 β of cefepime increases and clearance decreases progressively as renal function declines, necessitating dosage reduction in patients with renal impairment. Haemodialysis and haemofiltration remove cefepime from the systemic circulation with a t 1/2 β approximating that observed in individuals with normal renal function. Cefepime is removed to a lesser extent by continuous peritoneal dialysis. Differences observed in the pharmacokinetic profile of cefepime in patients with lower respiratory tract infections, sepsis, or cystic fibrosis were not sufficient enough to require modified dosage recommendations for these patients. Therapeutic Efficacy Although the results of few comparative trials have been published to date, cefepime, administered intravenously or intramuscularly, has demonstrated efficacy in the treatment of bacteraemia, upper and lower respiratory tract infections, urinary tract infections, skin, skin structure and bone infections and gynaecological infections. Trials have been undertaken in US, European and Japanese patients. The majority of comparative trials have compared the efficacy of cefepime with that of a third generation Cephalosporin ceftazidime. In most trials, equigravimetric doses were given; however, generally cefepime was administered intravenously twice daily and ceftazidime was administered intravenously 3 times daily. As treatment for nosocomial and community-acquired lower respiratory tract infections, cefepime is as effective as ceftazidime; both clinical (62 to 90% vs 64 to 94%) and bacteriological (69 to 97 vs 63 to 100%) efficacy rates were comparable in all studies. Although S. aureus and P. aeruginosa persisted most frequently, the numbers of pathogens were insufficient to differentiate between the comparator agents. Similarly, the efficacy of cefepime and ceftazidime could not be differentiated on the basis of recurrence of infection, which was rare. Cefepime also has efficacy comparable to that of ceftazidime in the treatment of bacteraemia, urinary tract infection and skin and skin structure infection. For example, clinical cure rates in patients with complicated urinary tract infection were 72 to 89% for patients receiving cefepime and 60 to 88% for ceftazidime-treated patients. Cefepime 2g twice daily has been compared with cefotaxime 2g three times daily in patients with nosocomial lower respiratory tract infections and in patients with gynaecological infection. In these trials, the clinical and microbiological efficacy of cefepime and cefotaxime were comparable. Similarly, as treatment of intra-abdominal infection, the clinical efficacy of intravenous cefepime 2g twice daily (alone or in combination with metronidazole) was similar to that of a standard dosage of gentamicin in combination with either mezlocillin 3 to 4g every 4 to 6 hours or Clindamycin 0.9g every 8 hours, respectively. Importantly, cefepime 2g three times daily was as effective as ceftazidime 2g three times daily, or a standard dosage regimen of piperacillin or mezlocillin in combination with gentamicin, as empirical treatment for fever in patients with neutropenia. Tolerability Cefepime has been well tolerated by adults in clinical trials conducted worldwide. Tolerability data pooled from clinical trials undertaken in North America and Europe indicate that cefepime has a tolerability profile similar to that of ceftazidime. The incidence of treatment withdrawal appeared to be dosage-related; therapy was discontinued because of an adverse event in 1.4% of patients receiving cefepime ≤2 g/day and in 2.9% of patients receiving cefepime =2 g/day. A total of 20.3% of patients receiving cefepime in comparative trials experienced an adverse event, an incidence comparable to that observed in patients receiving ceftazidime. Gastrointestinal symptoms, including nausea (1.8%), diarrhoea (1.7%), vomiting (1.5%) and constipation (1.2%), and headache (3.2%) and rash (1.8%) were the most commonly occurring adverse events experienced by cefepime-treated patients. Clinically relevant laboratory abnormalities were observed infrequently. Abnormal liver function tests were reported in ≤2.4% of patients receiving cefepime. A positive Coombs’ test was the most commonly occurring laboratory abnormality, but the clinical significance of this is unclear as no episodes of haemolysis were reported. Intravenous and intramuscular administration of cefepime appeared to be well tolerated locally. Dosage and Administration Cefepime is generally administered by short intravenous infusion, but may also be administered by intramuscular injection. The most common dosage of cefepime in clinical trials was 2 or 4g daily administered in 2 divided doses; however, daily dosages as low as 1g and as high as 6g have been administered to adult patients. The daily dosage of cefepime should be modified in patients with renal impairment. Depending on the severity of infection, the dosage and/or frequency of administration should be reduced in patients with Creatinine clearance (CL CR) values below 1.8 L/h (30 ml/min). For patients with a CL CR of between 0.66 and 1.8 L/h (11 and 30 ml/min) a dose of 1g once or twice daily or 0.5g twice daily is recommended, while 0.25 to 1g daily is recommended for patients with a CL CR of <0.6 L/h (10 ml/min). Patients undergoing haemodialysis or haemofiltration should be given a supplementary dose of cefepime 0.25g following every dialysis period. Patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis should receive cefepime 0.25 to 1g every 48 hours to maintain therapeutic cefepime concentrations. Insufficient data are available to make any recommendations concerning the optimal dosage of cefepime in children; however, cefepime 50 mg/kg every 8 hours (to a maximum dose of 2g) has been administered to children with cystic fibrosis. Keywords Cystic Fibrosis Cephalosporin Cefotaxime Ceftazidime Lower Respiratory Tract Infection These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves. Various sections of the manuscript reviewed by: R. B. Ellis-Pegler, Infectious Disease Unit, Auckland Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand; F. Fraschini, Dipartimento di Farmacologia, Chemioterapia E Tossicologia Medica, Milano, Italy; G. Gialdroni Grassi, Facolta di Medicina e Chirurgia, Università di Privia, Milano, Italy; A. M. Hoepelman, Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Clinical Immunology and Infectious Diseases, University Hospital Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands; J. E. Hoppe, University Children’s Hospital, Tübingen, Germany; J. Kumazawa, Department of Urology, Faculty of Medicine, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan; D. R Levine, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Detroit Receiving Hospital and University Health Center, Detroit, Michigan, USA; M. P. Okamoto, Clinical Research Division, Kaiser Permanente, Southern California Region, Downey, California, USA; A. Saito, The First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan; C. C. Sanders, Department of Medical Microbiology, Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, Nebraska, USA. This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access Cite article How to cite?. RISPapers Reference Manager Ref Works Zotero. ENWEnd Note. BIBBib Te XJab Ref Mendeley Preview Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF. References Copyright information


what is philosophical anthropology

"The Philosophy of Anthropology The Philosophy of Anthropology refers to the central philosophical perspectives which underpin, or have underpinned, the dominant schools in anthropological thinking. It is distinct from Philosophical Anthropology which attempts to define and understand what it means to be human.

The Philosophy of Anthropology

This article provides an overview of the most salient anthropological schools, the philosophies which underpin them and the philosophical debates surrounding these schools within anthropology. It specifically operates within these limits because the broader discussions surrounding the Philosophy of Science and the Philosophy of Social Science have been dealt with at length elsewhere in this encyclopedia. Moreover, the specific philosophical perspectives have also been discussed in great depth in other contributions, so they will be elucidated to the extent that this is useful to comprehending their relationship with anthropology. In examining the Philosophy of Anthropology, it is necessary to draw some, even if cautious borders, between anthropology and other disciplines. Accordingly, in drawing upon anthropological discussions, we will define, as anthropologists, scholars who identify as such and who publish in anthropological journals and the like. In addition, early anthropologists will be selected by virtue of their interest in peasant culture and non-Western, non-capitalist and stateless forms of human organization. The article specifically aims to summarize the philosophies underpinning anthropology, focusing on the way in which anthropology has drawn upon them. The philosophies themselves have been dealt with in depth elsewhere in this encyclopedia. It has been suggested by philosophers of social science that anthropology tends to reflect, at any one time, the dominant intellectual philosophy because, unlike in the physical sciences, it is influenced by qualitative methods and so can more easily become influenced by ideology (for example Kuznar 1997 or Andreski 1974). This article begins by examining what is commonly termed ‘physical anthropology.’ This is the science-oriented form of anthropology which came to prominence in the nineteenth century. As part of this section, the article also examines early positivist social anthropology, the historical relationship between anthropology and eugenics, and the philosophy underpinning this. The next section examines naturalistic anthropology. ‘Naturalism,’ in this usage, is drawn from the biological ‘naturalists’ who collected specimens in nature and described them in depth, in contrast to ‘experimentalists.’ Anthropological ‘naturalists’ thus conduct fieldwork with groups of people rather than engage in more experimental methods. The naturalism section looks at the philosophy underpinning the development of ethnography-focused anthropology, including cultural determinism, cultural relativism, fieldwork ethics and the many criticisms which this kind of anthropology has provoked. Differences in its development in Western and Eastern Europe also are analyzed. As part of this, the article discusses the most influential schools within naturalistic anthropology and their philosophical foundations. The article then examines Post-Modern or ‘Contemporary’ anthropology. This school grew out of the ‘Crisis of Representation’ in anthropology beginning in the 1970s. The article looks at how the Post-Modern critique has been applied to anthropology, and it examines the philosophical assumptions behind developments such as auto-ethnography. Finally, it examines the view that there is a growing philosophical split within the discipline. Table of Contents Positivist Anthropology Physical Anthropology Race and Eugenics in Nineteenth Century Anthropology Early Evolutionary Social Anthropology Naturalist Anthropology The Eastern European School The Ethnographic School Ethics and Participant Observation Fieldwork Anthropology since World War ICultural Determinism and Cultural Relativism Functionalism and Structuralism Post-Modern or Contemporary Anthropology Philosophical Dividing Lines Contemporary Evolutionary Anthropology Anthropology: A Philosophical Split? References and Further Reading1. Positivist Anthropologya. Physical Anthropology Anthropology itself began to develop as a separate discipline in the mid-nineteenth century, as Charles Darwin’s (1809-1882) Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection (Darwin 1859) became widely accepted among scientists. Early anthropologists attempted to apply evolutionary theory within the human species, focusing on physical differences between different human sub-species or racial groups (see Eriksen 2001) and the perceived intellectual differences that followed. The philosophical assumptions of these anthropologists were, to a great extent, the same assumptions which have been argued to underpin science itself. This is the positivism, rooted in Empiricism, which argued that knowledge could only be reached through the empirical method and statements were meaningful only if they could be empirically justified, though it should be noted that Darwin should not necessarily be termed a positivist. Science needed to be solely empirical, systematic and exploratory, logical, theoretical (and thus focused on answering questions). It needed to attempt to make predictions which are open to testing and falsification and it needed to be epistemologically optimistic (assuming that the world can be understood). Equally, positivism argues that truth-statements are value-neutral, something disputed by the postmodern school. Philosophers of Science, such as Karl Popper (1902-1994) (for example Popper 1963), have also stressed that science must be self-critical, prepared to abandon long-held models as new information arises, and thus characterized by falsification rather than verification though this point was also earlier suggested by Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) (for example Spencer 1873). Nevertheless, the philosophy of early physical anthropologists included a belief in empiricism, the fundamentals of logic and epistemological optimism. This philosophy has been criticized by anthropologists such as Risjord (2007) who has argued that it is not self-aware – because values, he claims, are always involved in science – and non-neutral scholarship can be useful in science because it forces scientists to better contemplate their ideas.b. Race and Eugenics in Nineteenth Century Anthropology During the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, anthropologists began to systematically examine the issue of racial differences, something which became even more researched after the acceptance of evolutionary theory (see Darwin 1871). That said, it should be noted that Darwin himself did not specifically advocate eugenics or theories of progress. However, even prior to Darwin’s presentation of evolution (Darwin 1859), scholars were already attempting to understand 'races' and the evolution of societies from ‘primitive’ to complex (for example Tylor 1865). Early anthropologists such as Englishman John Beddoe (1826-1911) (Boddoe 1862) or Frenchman Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882) (Gobineau 1915) developed and systematized racial taxonomies which divided, for example, between ‘black,’ ‘yellow’ and ‘white.’ For these anthropologists, societies were reflections of their racial inheritance; a viewpoint termed biological determinism. The concept of ‘race’ has been criticized, within anthropology, variously, as being simplistic and as not being a predictive (and thus not a scientific) category (for example Montagu 1945) and there was already some criticism of the scope of its predictive validity in the mid-nineteenth century (for example Pike 1869). The concept has also been criticized on ethical grounds, because racial analysis is seen to promote racial violence and discrimination and uphold a certain hierarchy, and some have suggested its rejection because of its connotations with such regimes as National Socialism or Apartheid, meaning that it is not a neutral category (for example Wilson 2002, 229). Those anthropologists who continue to employ the category have argued that ‘race’ is predictive in terms of life history, only involves the same inherent problems as any cautiously essentialist taxonomy and that moral arguments are irrelevant to the scientific usefulness of a category of apprehension (for example Pearson 1991) but, to a great extent, current anthropologists reject racial categorization. The American Anthropological Association’s (1998) ‘Statement on Race’ began by asserting that: ‘""Race"" thus evolved as a worldview, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior. Racial beliefs constitute myths about the diversity in the human species and about the abilities and behavior of people homogenized into ""racial"" categories.’ In addition, a 1985 survey by the American Anthropological Association found that only a third of cultural anthropologists (but 59 percent of physical anthropologists) regarded ‘race’ as a meaningful category (Lynn 2006, 15). Accordingly, there is general agreement amongst anthropologists that the idea, promoted by anthropologists such as Beddoe, that there is a racial hierarchy, with the white race as superior to others, involves importing the old ‘Great Chain of Being’ (see Lovejoy 1936) into scientific analysis and should be rejected as unscientific, as should ‘race’ itself. In terms of philosophy, some aspects of nineteenth century racial anthropology might be seen to reflect the theories of progress that developed in the nineteenth century, such as those of G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) (see below). In addition, though we will argue that Herderian nationalism is more influential in Eastern Europe, we should not regard it as having no influence at all in British anthropology. Native peasant culture, the staple of the Eastern European, Romantic nationalism-influenced school (as we will see), was studied in nineteenth century Britain, especially in Scotland and Wales, though it was specifically classified as ‘folklore’ and as outside anthropology (see Rogan 2012). However, as we will discuss, the influence is stronger in Eastern Europe. The interest in race in anthropology developed alongside a broader interest in heredity and eugenics. Influenced by positivism, scholars such as Herbert Spencer (1873) applied evolutionary theory as a means of understanding differences between different societies. Spencer was also seemingly influenced, on some level, by theories of progress of the kind advocated by Hegel and even found in Christian theology. For him, evolution logically led to eugenics. Spencer argued that evolution involved a progression through stages of ever increasing complexity – from lower forms to higher forms - to an end-point at which humanity was highly advanced and was in a state of equilibrium with nature. For this perfected humanity to be reached, humans needed to engage in self-improvement through selective breeding. American anthropologist Madison Grant (1865-1937) (Grant 1916), for example, reflected a significant anthropological view in 1916 when he argued that humans, and therefore human societies, were essentially reflections of their biological inheritance and that environmental differences had almost no impact on societal differences. Grant, as with other influential anthropologists of the time, advocated a program of eugenics in order to improve the human stock. According to this program, efforts would be made to encourage breeding among the supposedly superior races and social classes and to discourage it amongst the inferior races and classes (see also Galton 1909). This form of anthropology has been criticized for having a motivation other than the pursuit of truth, which has been argued to be the only appropriate motivation for any scientist. It has also been criticized for basing its arguments on disputed system of categories – race – and for uncritically holding certain assumptions about what is good for humanity (for example Kuznar 1997, 101-109). It should be emphasized that though eugenics was widely accepted among anthropologists in the nineteenth century, there were also those who criticized it and its assumptions (for example Boas 1907. See Stocking 1991 for a detailed discussion). Proponents have countered that a scientist’s motivations are irrelevant as long as his or her research is scientific, that race should not be a controversial category from a philosophical perspective and that it is for the good of science itself that the more scientifically-minded are encouraged to breed (for example Cattell 1972). As noted, some scholars stress the utility of ideologically-based scholarship. A further criticism of eugenics is that it fails to recognize the supposed inherent worth of all individual humans (for example Pichot 2009). Advocates of eugenics, such as Grant (1916), dismiss this as a ‘sentimental’ dogma which fails to accept that humans are animals, as acceptance of evolutionary theory, it is argued, obliges people to accept, and which would lead to the decline of civilization and science itself. We will note possible problems with this perspective in our discussion of ethics. Also, it might be useful to mention that the form of anthropology that is sympathetic to eugenics is today centered around an academic journal called The Mankind Quarterly, which critics regard as ‘racist’ (for example Tucker 2002, 2) and even academically biased (for example Ehrenfels 1962). Although ostensibly an anthropology journal, it also publishes psychological research. A prominent example of such an anthropologist is Roger Pearson (b. 1927), the journal’s current editor. But such a perspective is highly marginal in current anthropology.c. Early Evolutionary Social Anthropology Also from the middle of the nineteenth century, there developed a school in Western European and North American anthropology which focused less on race and eugenics and more on answering questions relating to human institutions, and how they evolved, such as ‘How did religion develop?’ or ‘How did marriage develop?’ This school was known as ‘cultural evolutionism.’ Members of this school, such as Sir James Frazer (1854-1941) (Frazer 1922), were influenced by the positivist view that science was the best model for answering questions about social life. They also shared with other evolutionists an acceptance of a modal human nature which reflected evolution to a specific environment. However, some, such as E. B. Tylor (1832-1917) (Tylor 1871), argued that human nature was the same everywhere, moving away from the focus on human intellectual differences according to race. The early evolutionists believed that as surviving ‘primitive’ social organizations, within European Empires for example, were examples of the ‘primitive Man,’ the nature of humanity, and the origins of its institutions, could be best understood through analysis of these various social groups and their relationship with more ‘civilized’ societies (see Gellner 1995, Ch. 2). As with the biological naturalists, scholars such as Frazer and Tylor collected specimens on these groups – in the form of missionary descriptions of ‘tribal life’ or descriptions of 'tribal life' by Westernized tribal members – and compared them to accounts of more advanced cultures in order to answer discrete questions. Using this method of accruing sources, now termed ‘armchair anthropology’ by its critics, the early evolutionists attempted to answered discrete questions about the origins and evolution of societal institutions. As early sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) (Durkheim 1965) summarized it, such scholars aimed to discover ‘social facts.’ For example, Frazer concluded, based on sources, that societies evolved from being dominated by a belief in Magic, to a belief in Spirits and then a belief in gods and ultimately one God. For Tylor, religion began with ‘animism’ and evolved into more complex forms but tribal animism was the essence of religion and it had developed in order to aid human survival. This school of anthropology has been criticized because of its perceived inclination towards reductionism (such as defining ‘religion’ purely as ‘survival’), its speculative nature and its failure to appreciate the problems inherent in relying on sources, such as ‘gate keepers’ who will present their group in the light in which they want it to be seen. Defenders have countered that without attempting to understand the evolution of societies, social anthropology has no scientific aim and can turn into a political project or simply description of perceived oddities (for example Hallpike 1986, 13). Moreover, the kind of stage theories advocated by Tylor have been criticized for conflating evolution with historicist theories of progress, by arguing that societies always pass through certain phases of belief and the Western civilization is the pinnacle of development, a belief known as unilinealism. This latter point has been criticized as ethnocentric (for example Eriksen 2001) and reflects some of the thinking of Herbert Spencer, who was influential in early British anthropology.2. Naturalist Anthropologya. The Eastern European School Whereas Western European and North American anthropology were oriented towards studying the peoples within the Empires run by the Western powers and was influenced by Darwinian science, Eastern European anthropology developed among nascent Eastern European nations. This form of anthropology was strongly influenced by Herderian nationalism and ultimately by Hegelian political philosophy and the Romantic Movement of eighteenth century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Eastern European anthropologists believed, following the Romantic Movement, that industrial or bourgeois society was corrupt and sterile. The truly noble life was found in the simplicity and naturalness of communities close to nature. The most natural form of community was a nation of people, bonded together by shared history, blood and customs, and the most authentic form of such a nation’s lifestyle was to be found amongst its peasants. Accordingly, Eastern European anthropology elevated peasant life as the most natural form of life, a form of life that should, on some level, be strived towards in developing the new ‘nation’ (see Gellner 1995). Eastern European anthropologists, many of them motivated by Romantic nationalism, focused on studying their own nations’ peasant culture and folklore in order to preserve it and because the nation was regarded as unique and studying its most authentic manifestation was therefore seen as a good in itself. As such, Eastern European anthropologists engaged in fieldwork amongst the peasants, observing and documenting their lives. There is a degree to which the kind of anthropology – or ‘ethnology’ – remains more popular in Eastern than in Western Europe (see, for example, Ciubrinskas 2007 or Sarkany ND) at the time of writing. Siikala (2006) observes that Finnish anthropology is now moving towards the Western model of fieldwork abroad but as recently as the 1970s was still predominantly the study of folklore and peasant culture. Baranski (2009) notes that in Poland, Polish anthropologists who wish to study international topics still tend to go to the international centers while those who remain in Poland tend to focus on Polish folk culture, though the situation is slowly changing. Lithuanian anthropologist Vytis Ciubrinkas (2007) notes that throughout Eastern Europe, there is very little separate ‘anthropology,’ with the focus being ‘national ethnology’ and ‘folklore studies,’ almost always published in the vernacular. But, again, he observes that the kind of anthropology popular in Western Europe is making inroads into Eastern Europe. In Russia, national ethnology and peasant culture also tends to be predominant (for example Baiburin 2005). Indeed, even beyond Eastern Europe, it was noted in the year 2000 that ‘the emphasis of Indian social anthropologists remains largely on Indian tribes and peasants. But the irony is that barring the detailed tribal monographs prepared by the British colonial officers and others (. . .) before Independence, we do not have any recent good ethnographies of a comparable type’ (Srivastava 2000). By contrast, Japanese social anthropology has traditionally been in the Western model, studying cultures more ‘primitive’ than its own (such as Chinese communities), at least in the nineteenth century. Only later did it start to focus more on Japanese folk culture and it is now moving back towards a Western model (see Sedgwick 2006, 67). The Eastern school has been criticized for uncritically placing a set of dogmas – specifically nationalism – above the pursuit of truth, accepting a form of historicism with regard to the unfolding of the nation’s history and drawing a sharp, essentialist line around the nationalist period of history (for example Popper 1957). Its anthropological method has been criticized because, it is suggested, Eastern European anthropologists suffer from home blindness. By virtue of having been raised in the culture which they are studying, they cannot see it objectively and penetrate to its ontological presuppositions (for example Kapferer 2001).b. The Ethnographic School The Ethnographic school, which has since come to characterize social and cultural anthropology, was developed by Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) (for example Malinowski 1922). Originally trained in Poland, Malinowski’s anthropological philosophy brought together key aspects of the Eastern and Western schools. He argued that, as with the Western European school, anthropologists should study foreign societies. This avoided home blindness and allowed them to better perceive these societies objectively. However, as with the Eastern European School, he argued that anthropologists should observe these societies in person, something termed ‘participant observation’ or ‘ethnography.’ This method, he argued, solved many of the problems inherent in armchair anthropology. It is this method which anthropologists generally summarize as ‘naturalism’ in contrast to the ‘positivism,’ usually followed alongside a quantitative method, of evolutionary anthropologists. Naturalist anthropologists argue that their method is ‘scientific’ in the sense that it is based on empirical observation but they argue that some kinds of information cannot be obtained in laboratory conditions or through questionnaires, both of which lend themselves to quantitative, strictly scientific analysis. Human culturally-influenced actions differ from the subjects of physical science because they involve meaning within a system and meaning can only be discerned after long-term immersion in the culture in question. Naturalists therefore argue that a useful way to find out information about and understand a people – such as a tribe – is to live with them, observe their lives, gain their trust and eventually live, and even think, as they do. This latter aim, specifically highlighted by Malinowski, has been termed the empathetic perspective and is considered, by many naturalist anthropologists, to be a crucial sign of research that is anthropological. In addition to these ideas, the naturalist perspective draws upon aspects of the Romantic Movement in that it stresses, and elevates, the importance of ‘gaining empathy’ and respecting the group it is studying, some naturalists argue that there are ‘ways of knowing’ other than science (for example Rees 2010) and that respect for the group can be more important than gaining new knowledge. They also argue that human societies are so complex that they cannot simply be reduced to biological explanations. In many ways, the successor to Malinowski as the most influential cultural anthropologist was the American Clifford Geertz (1926-2006). Where Malinowski emphasized ‘participant observation’ – and thus, to a greater degree, an outsider perspective – it was Geertz who argued that the successful anthropologist reaches a point where he sees things from the perspective of the native. The anthropologist should bring alive the native point of view, which Roth (1989) notes ‘privileges’ the native, thus challenging a hierarchical relationship between the observed and the observer. He thus strongly rejected a distinction which Malinowski is merely critical of: the distinction between a ‘primitive’ and ‘civilized’ culture. In many respects, this distinction was also criticised by the Structuralists – whose central figure, Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009), was an earlier generation than Geertz – as they argued that all human minds involved similar binary structures (see below). However, there was a degree to which both Malinowski and Geertz did not divorce ‘culture’ from ‘biology.’ Malinowski (1922) argued that anthropological interpretations should ultimately be reducible to human instincts while Geertz (1973, 46-48) argued that culture can be reduced to biology and that culture also influences biology, though he felt that the main aim of the ethnographer was to interpret. Accordingly, it is not for the anthropologist to comment on the culture in terms of its success or the validity of its beliefs. The anthropologist’s purpose is merely to record and interpret. The majority of those who practice this form of anthropology are interpretivists. They argue that the aim of anthropology is to understand the norms, values, symbols and processes of a society and, in particular, their ‘meaning’ – how they fit together. This lends itself to the more subjective methods of participant observation. Applying a positivist methodology to studying social groups is regarded as dangerous because scientific understanding is argued to lead to better controlling the world and, in this case, controlling people. Interpretivist anthropology has been criticized, variously, as being indebted to imperialism (see below) and as too subjective and unscientific, because, unless there is a common set of analytical standards (such as an acceptance of the scientific method, at least to some extent), there is no reason to accept one subjective interpretation over another. This criticism has, in particular, been leveled against naturalists who accept cultural relativism (see below). Also, many naturalist anthropologists emphasize the separateness of ‘culture’ from ‘biology,’ arguing that culture cannot simply be traced back to biology but rather is, to a great extent, independent of it; a separate category. For example, Risjord (2000) argues that anthropology ‘will never reach the social reality at which it aims’ precisely because ‘culture’ cannot simply be reduced to a series of scientific explanations. But it has been argued that if the findings of naturalist anthropology are not ultimately consilient with science then they are not useful to people outside of naturalist anthropology and that naturalist anthropology draws too stark a line between apes and humans when it claims that human societies are too complex to be reduced to biology or that culture is not closely reflective of biology (Wilson 1998, Ch. 1). In this regard, Bidney (1953, 65) argues that, ‘Theories of culture must explain the origins of culture and its intrinsic relations to the psychobiological nature of man’ as to fail to do so simply leaves the origin of culture as a ‘mystery or an accident of time.’c. Ethics and Participant Observation Fieldwork From the 1970s, the various leading anthropological associations began to develop codes of ethics. This was, at least in part, inspired by the perceived collaboration of anthropologists with the US-led counterinsurgency groups in South American states. For example, in the 1960s, Project Camelot commissioned anthropologists to look into the causes of insurgency and revolution in South American States, with a view to confronting these perceived problems. It was also inspired by the way that increasing numbers of anthropologists were employed outside of universities, in the private sector (see Sluka 2007). The leading anthropological bodies – such as the Royal Anthropological Institute – hold to a system of research ethics which anthropologists, conducting fieldwork, are expected, though not obliged, to adhere to. For example, the most recent American Anthropological Association Code of Ethics (1998) emphasizes that certain ethical obligations can supersede the goal of seeking new knowledge. Anthropologists, for example, may not publish research which may harm the ‘safety,’ ‘privacy’ or ‘dignity’ of those whom they study, they must explain their fieldwork to their subjects and emphasise that attempts at anonymity may sometimes fail, they should find ways of reciprocating to those whom they study and they should preserve opportunities for future fieldworkers. Though the American Anthropological Association does not make their philosophy explicit, much of the philosophy appears to be underpinned by the golden rule. One should treat others as one would wish to be treated oneself. In this regard, one would not wish to be exploited, misled or have ones safety or privacy comprised. For some scientists, the problem with such a philosophy is that, from their perspective, humans should be an objective object of study like any other. The assertion that the ‘dignity’ of the individual should be preserved may be seen to reflect a humanist belief in the inherent worth of each human being. Humanism has been accused of being sentimental and of failing to appreciate the substantial differences between human beings intellectually, with some anthropologists even questioning the usefulness of the broad category ‘human’ (for example Grant 1916). It has also been accused of failing to appreciate that, from a scientific perspective, humans are a highly evolved form of ape and scholars who study them should attempt to think, as Wilson (1975, 575) argues, as if they are alien zoologists. Equally, it has been asked why primary ethical responsibility should be to those studied. Why should it not be to the public or the funding body? (see Sluka 2007) In this regard, it might be suggested that the code reflects the lauding of members of (often non-Western) cultures which might ultimately be traced back to the Romantic Movement. Their rights are more important than those of the funders, the public or of other anthropologists. Equally, the code has been criticized in terms of power dynamics, with critics arguing that the anthropologist is usually in a dominant position over those being studied which renders questionable the whole idea of ‘informed consent’ (Bourgois 2007). Indeed, it has been argued that the most recent American Anthropological Association Code of Ethics (1998) is a movement to the right, in political terms, because it accepts, explicitly, that responsibility should also be to the public and to funding bodies and is less censorious than previous codes with regard to covert research (Pels 1999). This seems to be a movement towards a situation where a commitment to the group being studied is less important than the pursuit of truth, though the commitment to the subject of study is still clear. Likewise, the most recent set of ethical guidelines from the Association of Anthropologists of the UK and the Commonwealth implicitly accepts that there is a difference of opinion among anthropologists regarding whom they are obliged to. It asserts, ‘Most anthropologists would maintain that their paramount obligation is to their research participants . . .’ This document specifically warrants against giving subjects ‘self-knowledge which they did not seek or want.’ This may be seen to reflect a belief in a form of cultural relativism. Permitting people to preserve their way of thinking is more important than their knowing what a scientist would regard as the truth. Their way of thinking – a part of their culture - should be respected, because it is theirs, even if it is inaccurate. This could conceivably prevent anthropologists from publishing dissections of particular cultures if they might be read by members of that culture (see Dutton 2009, Ch. 2). Thus, philosophically, the debate in fieldwork ethics ranges from a form of consequentialism to, in the form of humanism, a deontological form of ethics. However, it should be emphasized that the standard fieldwork ethics noted are very widely accepted amongst anthropologists, particularly with regard to informed consent. Thus, the idea of experimenting on unwilling or unknowing humans is strongly rejected, which might be interpreted to imply some belief in human separateness.3. Anthropology since World War Ia. Cultural Determinism and Cultural Relativism As already discussed, Western European anthropology, around the time of World War I, was influenced by eugenics and biological determinism. But as early as the 1880s, this was beginning to be questioned by German-American anthropologist Franz Boas (1858-1942) (for example Boas 1907), based at Columbia University in New York. He was critical of biological determinism and argued for the importance of environmental influence on individual personality and thus modal national personality in a way of thinking called ‘historical particularism.’Boas emphasized the importance of environment and history in shaping different cultures, arguing that all humans were biologically relatively similar and rejecting distinctions of ‘primitive’ and civilized.’ Boas also presented critiques of the work of early evolutionists, such as Tylor, demonstrating that not all societies passed through the phases he suggested or did not do so in the order he suggested. Boas used these findings to stress the importance of understanding societies individually in terms of their history and culture (for example Freeman 1983). Boas sent his student Margaret Mead (1901-1978) to American Samoa to study the people there with the aim of proving that they were a ‘negative instance’ in terms of violence and teenage angst. If this could be proven, it would undermine biological determinism and demonstrate that people were in fact culturally determined and that biology had very little influence on personality, something argued by John Locke (1632-1704) and his concept of the tabula rasa. This would in turn mean that Western people’s supposed teenage angst could be changed through changing the culture. After six months in American Samoa, Mead returned to the USA and published, in 1928, her influential book Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization (Mead 1928). It portrayed Samoa as a society of sexual liberty in which there were none of the problems associated with puberty that were associated with Western civilization. Accordingly, Mead argued that she had found a negative instance and that humans were overwhelming culturally determined. At around the same time Ruth Benedict (1887-1948), also a student of Boas’s, published her research in which she argued that individuals simply reflected the ‘culture’ in which they were raised (Benedict 1934). The cultural determinism advocated by Boas, Benedict and especially Mead became very popular and developed into school which has been termed ‘Multiculturalism’ (Gottfried 2004). This school can be compared to Romantic nationalism in the sense that it regards all cultures as unique developments which should be preserved and thus advocates a form of ‘cultural relativism’ in which cultures cannot be judged by the standards of other cultures and can only be comprehended in their own terms. However, it should be noted that ‘cultural relativism’ is sometimes used to refer to the way in which the parts of a whole form a kind of separate organism, though this is usually referred to as ‘Functionalism.' In addition, Harris (see Headland, Pike, and Harris 1990) distinguishes between ‘emic’ (insider) and ‘etic’ (outsider) understanding of a social group, arguing that both perspectives seem to make sense from the different viewpoints. This might also be understood as cultural relativism and perhaps raises the question of whether the two worlds can so easily be separated. Cultural relativism also argues, as with Romantic Nationalism, that so-called developed cultures can learn a great deal from that which they might regard as ‘primitive’ cultures. Moreover, humans are regarded as, in essence, products of culture and as extremely similar in terms of biology. Cultural Relativism led to so-called ‘cultural anthropologists’ focusing on the symbols within a culture rather than comparing the different structures and functions of different social groups, as occurred in ‘social anthropology’ (see below). As comparison was frowned upon, as each culture was regarded as unique, anthropology in the tradition of Mead tended to focus on descriptions of a group’s way of life. Thick description is a trait of ethnography more broadly but it is especially salient amongst anthropologists who believe that cultures can only be understood in their own terms. Such a philosophy has been criticized for turning anthropology into little more than academic-sounding travel writing because it renders it highly personal and lacking in comparative analysis (see Sandall 2001, Ch. 1). Cultural relativism has also been criticized as philosophically impractical and, ultimately, epistemologically pessimistic (Scruton 2000), because it means that nothing can be compared to anything else or even assessed through the medium of a foreign language’s categories. In implicitly defending cultural relativism, anthropologists have cautioned against assuming that some cultures are more ‘rational’ than others. Hollis (1967), for example, argues that anthropology demonstrates that superficially irrational actions may become ‘rational’ once the ethnographer understands the ‘culture.’ Risjord (2000) makes a similar point. This implies that the cultures are separate worlds, ‘rational’ in themselves. Others have suggested that entering the field assuming that the Western, ‘rational’ way of thinking is correct can lead to biased fieldwork interpretation (for example Rees 2010). Critics have argued that certain forms of behaviour can be regarded as undesirable in all cultures, yet are only prevalent in some. It has also been argued that Multiculturalism is a form of Neo-Marxism on the grounds that it assumes imperialism and Western civilization to be inherently problematic but also because it lauds the materially unsuccessful. Whereas Marxism extols the values and lifestyle of the worker, and critiques that of the wealthy, Multiculturalism promotes “materially unsuccessful” cultures and critiques more materially successful, Western cultures (for example Ellis 2004 or Gottfried 2004). Cultural determinism has been criticized both from within and from outside anthropology. From within anthropology, New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman (1916-2001), having been heavily influenced by Margaret Mead, conducted his own fieldwork in Samoa around twenty years after she did and then in subsequent fieldwork visits. As he stayed there far longer than Mead, Freeman was accepted to a greater extent and given an honorary chiefly title. This allowed him considerable access to Samoan life. Eventually, in 1983 (after Mead’s death) he published his refutation: Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth (Freeman 1983). In it, he argued that Mead was completely mistaken. Samoa was sexually puritanical, violent and teenagers experienced just as much angst as they did everywhere else. In addition, he highlighted serious faults with her fieldwork: her sample was very small, she chose to live at the American naval base rather than with a Samoan family, she did not speak Samoan well, she focused mainly on teenage girls and Freeman even tracked one down who, as an elderly lady, admitted she and her friends had deliberately lied to Mead about their sex lives for their own amusement (Freeman 1999). It should be emphasized that Freeman’s critique of Mead related to her failure to conduct participant observation fieldwork properly (in line with Malinowski’s recommendations). In that Freeman rejects distinctions of primitive and advanced, and stresses the importance of culture in understanding human differences, it is also in the tradition of Boas. However, it should be noted that Freeman’s (1983) critique of Mead has also been criticized as being unnecessarily cutting, prosecuting a case against Mead to the point of bias against her and ignoring points which Mead got right (Schankman 2009, 17). There remains an ongoing debate about the extent to which culture reflects biology or is on a biological leash. However, a growing body of research in genetics is indicating that human personality is heavily influenced by genetic factors (for example Alarcon, Foulks, and Vakkur 1998 or Wilson 1998), though some research also indicates that environment, especially while a fetus, can alter the expression of genes (see Nettle 2007). This has become part of the critique of cultural determinism from evolutionary anthropologists.b. Functionalism and Structuralism Between the 1930s and 1970s, various forms of functionalism were influential in British social anthropology. These schools accepted, to varying degrees, the cultural determinist belief that ‘culture’ was a separate sphere from biology and operated according to its own rules but they also argued that social institutions could be compared in order to better discern the rules of such institutions. They attempted to discern and describe how cultures operated and how the different parts of a culture functioned within the whole. Perceiving societies as organisms has been traced back to Herbert Spencer. Indeed, there is a degree to which Durkheim (1965) attempted to understand, for example, the function of religion in society. But functionalism seemingly reflected aspects of positivism: the search for, in this case, social facts (cross-culturally true), based on empirical evidence. E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973) was a leading British functionalist from the 1930s onwards. Rejecting grand theories of religion, he argued that a tribe’s religion could only make sense in terms of function within society and therefore a detailed understanding of the tribe’s history and context was necessary. British functionalism, in this respect, was influenced by the linguistic theories of Swiss thinker Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), who suggested that signs only made sense within a system of signs. He also engaged in lengthy fieldwork. This school developed into ‘structural functionalism.’ A. R. Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955) is often argued to be a structural functionalist, though he denied this. Radcliffe-Brown rejected Malinowski’s functionalism – which argued that social practices were grounded in human instincts. Instead, he was influenced by the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). Radcliffe-Brown claimed that the units of anthropology were processes of human life and interaction. They are in constant flux and so anthropology must explain social stability. He argued that practices, in order to survive, must adapt to other practices, something called ‘co-adaptation’ (Radcliffe-Brown 1957). It might be argued that this leads us asking where any of the practices came from in the first place. However, a leading member of the structural functionalist school was Scottish anthropologist Victor Turner (1920-1983). Structural functionalists attempted to understand society as a structure with inter-related parts. In attempting to understand Rites of Passage, Turner argued that everyday structured society could be contrasted with the Rite of Passage (Turner 1969). This was a liminal (transitional) phase which involved communitas (a relative breakdown of structure). Another prominent anthropologist in this field was Mary Douglas (1921-2007). She examined the contrast between the ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ in terms of categories of ‘purity’ and ‘impurity’ (Douglas 1966). She also suggested a model – the Grid/Group Model – through which the structures of different cultures could be categorized (Douglas 1970). Philosophically, this school accepted many of the assumptions of naturalism but it held to aspects of positivism in that it aimed to answer discrete questions, using the ethnographic method. It has been criticized, as we will see below, by postmodern anthropologists and also for its failure to attempt consilience with science. Turner, Douglas and other anthropologists in this school, followed Malinowski by using categories drawn from the study of 'tribal' cultures – such as Rites of Passage, Shaman and Totem – to better comprehend advanced societies such as that of Britain. For example, Turner was highly influential in pursuing the Anthropology of Religion in which he used tribal categories as a means of comprehending aspects of the Catholic Church, such as modern-day pilgrimage (Turner and Turner 1978). This research also involved using the participant observation method. Critics, such as Romanian anthropologist Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) (for example Eliade 2004), have insisted that categories such as ‘shaman’ only make sense within their specific cultural context. Other critics have argued that such scholarship attempts to reduce all societies to the level of the local community despite there being many important differences and fails to take into account considerable differences in societal complexity (for example Sandall 2001, Ch. 1). Nevertheless, there is a growing movement within anthropology towards examining various aspects of human life through the so-called tribal prism and, more broadly, through the cultural one. Mary Douglas, for example, has looked at business life anthropologically while others have focused on politics, medicine or education. This has been termed ‘traditional empiricism’ by critics in contemporary anthropology (for example Davies 2010). In France, in particular, the most prominent school, during this period, was known as Structuralism. Unlike British Functionalism, structuralism was influenced by Hegelian idealism. Most associated with Claude Levi-Strauss, structuralism argued that all cultures follow the Hegelian dialectic. The human mind has a universal structure and a kind of a priori category system of opposites, a point which Hollis argues can be used as a starting point for any comparative cultural analysis. Cultures can be broken up into components – such as ‘Mythology’ or ‘Ritual’ – which evolve according to the dialectical process, leading to cultural differences. As such, the deep structures, or grammar, of each culture can be traced back to a shared starting point (and in a sense, the shared human mind) just as one can with a language. But each culture has a grammar and this allows them to be compared and permits insights to be made about them (see, for example, Levi-Strauss 1978). It might be suggested that the same criticisms that have been leveled against the Hegelian dialectic might be leveled against structuralism, such as it being based around a dogma. It has also been argued that category systems vary considerably between cultures (see Diamond 1974). Even supporters of Levi-Strauss have conceded that his works are opaque and verbose (for example Leach 1974).c. Post-Modern or Contemporary Anthropology The ‘postmodern’ thinking of scholars such as Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and Michel Foucault (1926-1984) began to become influential in anthropology in the 1970s and have been termed anthropology’s ‘Crisis of Representation.’ During this crisis, which many anthropologists regard as ongoing, every aspect of ‘traditional empirical anthropology’ came to be questioned. Hymes (1974) criticized anthropologists for imposing ‘Western categories’ – such as Western measurement – on those they study, arguing that this is a form of domination and was immoral, insisting that truth statements were always subjective and carried cultural values. Talal Asad (1971) criticized field-work based anthropology for ultimately being indebted to colonialism and suggested that anthropology has essentially been a project to enforce colonialism. Geertzian anthropology was criticized because it involved representing a culture, something which inherently involved imposing Western categories upon it through producing texts. Marcus argued that anthropology was ultimately composed of ‘texts’ – ethnographies – which can be deconstructed to reveal power dynamics, normally the dominant-culture anthropologist making sense of the oppressed object of study through means of his or her subjective cultural categories and presenting it to his or her culture (for example Marcus and Cushman 1982). By extension, as all texts – including scientific texts – could be deconstructed, they argued, that they can make no objective assertions. Roth (1989) specifically criticizes seeing anthropology as ‘texts’ arguing that it does not undermine the empirical validity of the observations involved or help to find the power structures. Various anthropologists, such as Roy Wagner (b. 1938) (Wagner 1981), argued that anthropologists were simply products of Western culture and they could only ever hope to understand another culture through their own. There was no objective truth beyond culture, simply different cultures with some, scientific ones, happening to be dominant for various historical reasons. Thus, this school strongly advocated cultural relativism. Critics have countered that, after Malinowski, anthropologists, with their participant observation breaking down the color bar, were in fact an irritation to colonial authorities (for example Kuper 1973) and have criticized cultural relativism, as discussed. This situation led to what has been called the ‘reflexive turn’ in cultural anthropology. As Western anthropologists were products of their culture, just as those whom they studied were, and as the anthropologist was himself fallible, there developed an increasing movement towards ‘auto-ethnography’ in which the anthropologist analyzed their own emotions and feelings towards their fieldwork. The essential argument for anthropologists engaging in detailed analysis of their own emotions, sometimes known as the reflexive turn, is anthropologist Charlotte Davies’ (1999, 6) argument that the ‘purpose of research is to mediate between different constructions of reality, and doing research means increasing understanding of these varying constructs, among which is included the anthropologist’s own constructions’ (see Curran 2010, 109). But implicit in Davies’ argument is that there is no such thing as objective reality and objective truth; there are simply different constructions of reality, as Wagner (1981) also argues. It has also been argued that autoethnography is ‘emancipatory’ because it turns anthropology into a dialogue rather than a traditional hierarchical analysis (Heaton-Shreshta 2010, 49). Auto-ethnography has been criticized as self-indulgent and based on problematic assumptions such as cultural relativism and the belief that morality is the most important dimension to scholarship (for example Gellner 1992). In addition, the same criticisms that have been leveled against postmodernism more broadly have been leveled against postmodern anthropology, including criticism of a sometimes verbose and emotive style and the belief that it is epistemologically pessimistic and therefore leads to a Void (for example Scruton 2000). However, cautious defenders insist on the importance of being at least ‘psychologically aware’ (for example Emmett 1976) before conducting fieldwork, a point also argued by Popper (1963) with regard to conducting any scientific research. And Berger (2010) argues that auto-ethnography can be useful to the extent that it elucidates how a ‘social fact’ was uncovered by the anthropologist. One of the significant results of the ‘Crisis of Representation’ has been a cooling towards the concept of ‘culture’ (and indeed ‘culture shock’) which was previously central to ‘cultural anthropology’ (see Oberg 1960 or Dutton 2012). ‘Culture’ has been criticized as old-fashioned, boring, problematic because it possesses a history (Rees 2010), associated with racism because it has come to replace ‘race’ in far right politics (Wilson 2002, 229), problematic because it imposes (imperialistically) a Western category on other cultures, vague and difficult to perfectly define (Rees 2010), helping to maintain a hierarchy of cultures (Abu Lughod 1991) and increasingly questioned by globalization and the breakdown of discrete cultures (for example Eriksen 2002 or Rees 2010). Defenders of culture have countered that many of these criticisms can be leveled against any category of apprehension and that the term is not synonymous with ‘nation’ so can be employed even if nations become less relevant (for example Fox and King 2002). Equally, ‘culture shock,’ formerly used to describe a rite of passage amongst anthropologists engaging in fieldwork, has been criticized because of its association with culture and also as old-fashioned (Crapanzano 2010). In addition, a number of further movements have been provoked by the postmodern movement in anthropology. One of these is ‘Sensory Ethnography’ (for example Pink 2009). It has been argued that traditionally anthropology privileges the Western emphasis on sight and the word and that ethnographies, in order to avoid this kind of cultural imposition, need to look at other senses such as smell, taste and touch. Another movement, specifically in the Anthropology of Religion, has argued that anthropologists should not go into the field as agnostics but should accept the possibility that the religious perspective of the group which they are studying may actually be correct and even work on the assumption that it is and engage in analysis accordingly (a point discussed in Engelke 2002). During the same period, schools within anthropology developed based around a number of other fashionable philosophical ideologies. Feminist anthropology, like postmodern anthropology, began to come to prominence in the early 1970s. Philosophers such as Sandra Harding (1991) argued that anthropology had been dominated by men and this had led to anthropological interpretations being androcentric and a failure to appreciate the importance of women in social organizations. It has also led to androcentric metaphors in anthropological writing and focusing on research questions that mainly concern men. Strathern (1988) uses what she calls a Marxist-Feminist approach. She employs the categories of Melanesia in order to understand Melanesian gender relations to produce an ‘endogenous’ analysis of the situation. In doing so, she argues that actions in Melanesia are gender-neutral and the asymmetry between males and females is ‘action-specific.’ Thus, Melanesian women are not in any permanent state of social inferiority to men. In other words, if there is a sexual hierarchy it is de facto rather than de jure. Critics have countered that prominent feminist interpretations have simply turned out to be empirically inaccurate. For example, feminist anthropologists, such as Weiner (1992) as well as philosopher Susan Dahlberg (1981), argued that foraging societies prized females and were peaceful and sexually egalitarian. It has been countered that this is a projection of feminist ideals which does not match with the facts (Kuznar 1997, Ch. 3). It has been argued that it does not follow that just because anthropology is male-dominated it is thus biased (Kuznar 1997, Ch. 3). However, feminist anthropologist Alison Wylie (see Risjord 1997) has argued that ‘politically motivated critiques’ including feminist ones, can improve science. Feminist critique, she argues, demonstrates the influence of ‘androcentric values’ on theory which forces scientists to hone their theories. Another school, composed of some anthropologists from less developed countries or their descendants, have proffered a similar critique, shifting the feminist view that anthropology is androcentric by arguing that it is Euro-centric. It has been argued that anthropology is dominated by Europeans, and specifically Western Europeans and those of Western European descent, and therefore reflects European thinking and bias. For example, anthropologists from developing countries, such as Greenlandic Karla Jessen-Williamson, have argued that anthropology would benefit from the more holistic, intuitive thinking of non-Western cultures and that this should be integrated into anthropology (for example Jessen-Williamson 2006). American anthropologist Lee Baker (1991) describes himself as ‘Afro-Centric’ and argues that anthropology must be critiqued due to being based on a ‘Western’ and ‘positivistic’ tradition which is thus biased in favour of Europe. Afrocentric anthropology aims to shift this to an African (or African American) perspective. He argues that metaphors in anthropology, for example, are Euro-centric and justify the suppression of Africans. Thus, Afrocentric anthropologists wish to construct an ‘epistemology’ the foundations of which are African. The criticisms leveled against cultural relativism have been leveled with regard to such perspectives (see Levin 2005).4. Philosophical Dividing Linesa. Contemporary Evolutionary Anthropology The positivist, empirical philosophy already discussed broadly underpins current evolutionary anthropology and there is an extent to which it, therefore, crosses over with biology. This is inline with the Consilience model, advocated by Harvard biologist Edward Wilson (b. 1929) (Wilson 1998), who has argued that the social sciences must attempt to be scientific, in order to share in the success of science, and, therefore, must be reducible to the science which underpins them. Contemporary evolutionary anthropologists, therefore, follow the scientific method, and often a quantitative methodology, to answer discrete questions and attempt to orient anthropological research within biology and the latest discoveries in this field. Also some scholars, such as Derek Freeman (1983), have defended a more qualitative methodology but, nevertheless, argued that their findings need to be ultimately underpinned by scientific research. For example, anthropologist Pascal Boyer (2001) has attempted to understand the origins of ‘religion’ by drawing upon the latest research in genetics and in particular research into the functioning of the human mind. He has examined this alongside evidence from participant observation in an attempt to ‘explain’ religion. This subsection of evolutionary anthropology has been termed ‘Neuro-anthropology’ and attempts to better understand ‘culture’ through the latest discoveries in brain science. There are many other schools which apply different aspects of evolutionary theory – such as behavioral ecology, evolutionary genetics, paleontology and evolutionary psychology – to understanding cultural differences and different aspects of culture or subsections of culture such as ‘religion.’ Some scholars, such as Richard Dawkins (b. 1941) (Dawkins 1976), have attempted to render the study of culture more systematic by introducing the concept of cultural units – memes – and attempting to chart how and why certain memes are more successful than others, in light of research into the nature of the human brain. Critics, in naturalist anthropology, have suggested that evolutionary anthropologists are insufficiently critical and go into the field thinking they already know the answers (for example Davies 2010). They have also argued that evolutionary anthropologists fail to appreciate that there are ways of knowing other than science. Some critics have also argued that evolutionary anthropology, with its acceptance of personality differences based on genetics, may lead to the maintenance of class and race hierarchies and to racism and discrimination (see Segerstråle 2000).b. Anthropology: A Philosophical Split? It has been argued both by scholars and journalists that anthropology, more so than other social scientific disciplines, is rent by a fundamental philosophical divide, though some anthropologists have disputed this and suggested that qualitative research can help to answer scientific research questions as long as naturalistic anthropologists accept the significance of biology. The divide is trenchantly summarized by Lawson and Mc Cauley (1993) who divide between ‘interpretivists’ and ‘scientists,’ or, as noted above, ‘positivists’ and ‘naturalists.’ For the scientists, the views of the ‘cultural anthropologists’ (as they call themselves) are too speculative, especially because pure ethnographic research is subjective, and are meaningless where they cannot be reduced to science. For the interpretivists, the ‘evolutionary anthropologists’ are too ‘reductionistic’ and ‘mechanistic,’ they do not appreciate the benefits of subjective approach (such as garnering information that could not otherwise be garnered), and they ignore questions of ‘meaning,’ as they suffer from ‘physics envy.’Some anthropologists, such as Risjord (2000, 8), have criticized this divide arguing that two perspectives can be united and that only through ‘explanatory coherence’ (combining objective analysis of a group with the face-value beliefs of the group members) can a fully coherent explanation be reached. Otherwise, anthropology will ‘never reach the social reality at which it aims.’ But this seems to raise the question of what it means to ‘reach the social reality.’In terms of physical action, the split has already been happening, as discussed in Segal and Yanagisako (2005, Ch. 1). They note that some American anthropological departments demand that their lecturers are committed to holist ‘four field anthropology’ (archaeology, cultural, biological and linguistic) precisely because of this ongoing split and in particular the divergence between biological and cultural anthropology. They observe that already by the end of the 1980s most biological anthropologists had left the American Anthropological Association. Though they argue that ‘holism’ was less necessary in Europe – because of the way that US anthropology, in focusing on Native Americans, ‘bundled’ the four - Fearn (2008) notes that there is a growing divide in British anthropology departments as well along the same dividing lines of positivism and naturalism. Evolutionary anthropologists and, in particular, postmodern anthropologists do seem to follow philosophies with essentially different presuppositions. In November 2010, this divide became particularly contentious when the American Anthropological Association voted to remove the word ‘science’ from its Mission Statement (Berrett 2010).5. References and Further Reading Abu-Lughod, Lila. 1991. “Writing Against Culture.” In Richard Fox (ed. ), Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present (pp. 466-479). Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. Alarcon, Renato, Foulks, Edward and Vakkur, Mark. 1998. Personality Disorders and Culture: Clinical and Conceptual Interactions. New York: John Wiley and Sons. American Anthropological Association. 1998. “American Anthropological Association Statement on “Race.”” 17 May. Andreski, Stanislav. 1974. Social Sciences as Sorcery. London: Penguin. Asad, Talal. 1971. “Introduction.” In Talal Asad (ed. ), Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press. Baiburin, Albert. 2005. “The Current State of Ethnography and Anthropology in Russia.” For Anthropology and Culture 2, 448-489. Baker, Lee. 1991. “Afro-Centric Racism.” University of Pennsylvania: African Studies Center. Barenski, Janusz. 2008. “The New Polish Anthropology.” Studio Ethnologica Croatica 20, 211-222. Beddoe, John. 1862. The Races of Britain: A Contribution to the Anthropology of Western Europe. London. Benedict, Ruth. 1934. Patterns of Culture. New York: Mifflin. Berger, Peter. 2010. “Assessing the Relevance and Effects of “Key Emotional Episodes” for the Fieldwork Process.” In Dimitrina Spencer and James Davies (eds. ), Anthropological Fieldwork: A Relational Process (pp. 119-143). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press. Berrett, Daniel. 2010. “Anthropology Without Science.” Inside Higher Ed, 30 November. Bidney, David. 1953. Theoretical Anthropology. New York: Columbia University Press. Boas, Franz. 1907. The Mind of Primitive Man. New York: Mac Millan. Bourgois, Philippe. 2007. “Confronting the Ethics of Ethnography: Lessons from Fieldwork in Central America.” In Antonius Robben and Jeffrey Slukka (eds. ), Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader (pp. 288-297). Oxford: Blackwell. Boyer, Pascal. 2001. Religion Explained: The Human Instincts That Fashion Gods, Spirits and Ancestors. London: William Heinnemann. Cattell, Raymond. 1972. Beyondism: A New Morality from Science. New York: Pergamon. Ciubrinskas, Vytis. 2007. “Interview: “Anthropology is Badly Needed in Eastern Europe.”” Antropologi.info. Curran, John. 2010. “Emotional Interaction and the Acting Ethnographer: An Ethical Dilemma?” In Dimitrina Spencer and James Davies (eds. ), Anthropological Fieldwork: A Relational Process (pp. 100-118). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press. Crapanzano, Vincent. 2010. ““At the Heart of the Discipline”: Critical Reflections on Fieldwork.” In James Davies and Dimitrina Spencer (eds. ), Emotions in the Field: The Psychology and Anthropology of Fieldwork Experience (pp. 55-78). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Dahlberg, Frances. 1981. “Introduction.” In Frances Dahlberg (ed. ), Woman the Gatherer (pp. 1-33). New Haven: Yale University Press. Darwin, Charles. 1871. The Descent of Man. London: John Murray. Darwin, Charles. 1859. The Origin of Species. London: John Murray. Davies, James. 2010. “Conclusion: Subjectivity in the Field: A History of Neglect.” In Dimitrina Spencer and James Davies (eds. ), Anthropological Fieldwork: A Relational Process (pp. 229-243). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Davies, Charlotte. 1999. Reflexive Ethnography: A Guide to Researching Selves and Others. London: Routledge. Dawkins, Richard. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Diamond, Stanley. 1974. In Search of the Primitive. New Brunswick: Transaction Books. Douglas, Mary. 1970. Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. London: Routledge. Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge. Durkheim, Emile. 1995. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: Free Press. Dutton, Edward. 2012. Culture Shock and Multiculturalism. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Ehrenfels, Umar Rolf, Madan, Triloki Nath, and Comas, Juan. 1962. “Mankind Quarterly Under Heavy Criticism: 3 Comments on Editorial Practices.” Current Anthropology 3, 154-158. Eliade, Mircea. 2004. Shamanism: Archaic Technique of Ecstasy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ellis, Frank. 2004. Political Correctness and the Theoretical Struggle: From Lenin and Mao to Marcus and Foucault. Auckland: Maxim Institute. Emmet, Dorothy. 1976. “Motivation in Sociology and Social Anthropology.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 6, 85-104. Engelke, Matthew. 2002. “The Problem of Belief: Evans-Pritchard and Victor Turner on the Inner Life.” Anthropology Today 18, 3-8. Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 2003. “Introduction.” In Thomas Hylland Eriksen (ed. ), Globalisation: Studies in Anthropology (pp. 1-17). London: Pluto Press. Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 2001. A History of Anthropology. London: Pluto Press. Fearn, Hannah. 2008. “The Great Divide.” Times Higher Education, 28 November. Fox, Richard, and King, Barbara. 2002. “Introduction: Beyond Culture Worry.” In Richard Fox and Barbara King (eds. ), Anthropology Beyond Culture (pp. 1-19). Oxford: Berg. Frazer, James. 1922. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. London: Mac Millan. Freeman, Derek. 1999. The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research. London: Basic Books. Freeman, Derek. 1983. Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Galton, Francis. 1909. Essays in Eugenics. London: Eugenics Education Society. Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Geertz, Clifford. 1999. “From the Native’s Point of View’: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding.” In Russell T. Mc Cutcheon (ed. ), The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader (pp. 50-63). New York: Cassell. Gellner, Ernest. 1995. Anthropology and Politics: Revolutions in the Sacred Grove. Oxford: Blackwell. Gellner, Ernest. 1992. Post-Modernism, Reason and Religion. London: Routledge. Gobineau, Arthur de. 1915. The Inequality of Races. New York: G. P. Putnam and Sons. Gorton, William. 2010. “The Philosophy of Social Science.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/soc-sci/Gottfried, Paul. 2004. Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Towards a Secular Theocracy. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Grant, Madison. 1916. The Passing of the Great Race: Or the Racial Basis of European History. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Hallpike, Christopher Robert. 1986. The Principles of Social Evolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Harding, Sandra. 1991. Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women’s Lives. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Headland, Thomas, Pike, Kenneth, and Harris, Marvin. 1990. Emics and Etics: The Insider/ Outsider Debate. New York: Sage Publications. Heaton-Shreshta, Celayne. 2010. “Emotional Apprenticeships: Reflections on the Role of Academic Practice in the Construction of “the Field.”” In Dimitrina Spencer and James Davies (eds. ), Anthropological Fieldwork: A Relational Process (pp. 48-74). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Hollis, Martin. 1967. “The Limits of Irrationality.” European Journal of Sociology 8, 265-271. Hymes, Dell. 1974. “The Use of Anthropology: Critical, Political, Personal.” In Dell Hymes (ed. ), Reinventing Anthropology (pp. 3-82). New York: Vintage Books. Jessen Williamson, Karla. 2006. Inuit Post-Colonial Gender Relations in Greenland. Aberdeen University: Ph D Thesis. Kapferer, Bruce. 2001. “Star Wars: About Anthropology, Culture and Globalization.” Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 26, 2-29. Kuper, Adam. 1973. Anthropologists and Anthropology: The British School 1922-1972. New York: Pica Press. Kuznar, Lawrence. 1997. Reclaiming a Scientific Anthropology. Walnut Creek: Alta Mira Press. Lawson, Thomas, and Mc Cauley, Robert. 1993. Rethinking Religion: Connecting Cognition and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leach, Edmund. 1974. Claude Levi-Strauss. New York: Viking Press. Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1978. Myth and Meaning. London: Routledge. Levin, Michael. 2005. Why Race Matters. Oakton: New Century Foundation. Lovejoy, Arthur. 1936. The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lynn, Richard. 2006. Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis. Augusta: Washington Summit Publishers. Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1922. Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge. Marcus, George, and Cushman, Dick. 1974. “Ethnographies as Texts.” Annual Review of Anthropology 11, 25-69. Mead, Margaret. 1928. Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization. London: Penguin. Montagu, Ashley. 1945. Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race. New York: Columbia University Press. Nettle, Daniel. 2007. Personality: What Makes Us the Way We Are. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oberg, Kalervo. 1960. “Culture Shock: Adjustment to New Cultural Environments.” Practical Anthropology 7, 177-182. Pearson, Roger. 1991. Race, Intelligence and Bias in Academe. Washington DC: Scott-Townsend Publishers. Pels, Peter. 1999. “Professions of Duplexity: A Prehistory of Ethical Codes.” Current Anthropology 40, 101-136. Pichot, Andre. 2009. The Pure Society: From Darwin to Hitler. London: Verso. Pike, Luke. 1869. “On the Alleged Influence of Race Upon Religion.” Journal of the Anthropological Society of London 7, CXXXV-CLIII. Pink, Sarah. 2009. Doing Sensory Ethnography. London: Sage Publications. Popper, Karl. 1963. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. London: Routledge. Popper, Karl. 1957. The Poverty of Historicism. London: Routledge. Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred Reginald. 1957. A Natural Science of Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rees, Tobias. 2010. “On the Challenge – and the Beauty – of (Contemporary) Anthropological Inquiry: A Response to Edward Dutton.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16, 895-900. Risjord, Mark. 2007. “Scientific Change as Political Action: Franz Boas and the Anthropology of Race.” Philosophy of Social Science 37, 24-45. Risjord, Mark. 2000. Woodcutters and Witchcraft: Rationality and the Interpretation of Change in the Social Sciences. New York: University of New York Press. Rogan, Bjarn. 2012. “The Institutionalization of Folklore.” In Regina Bendix and Galit Hasam-Rokem (eds. ), A Companion to Folklore (pp. 598-630). Oxford: Blackwell. Roth, Paul. 1989. “Anthropology Without Tears.” Current Anthropology 30, 555-569. Sandall, Roger. 2001. The Culture Cult: On Designer Tribalism and Other Essays. Oxford: Westview Press. Sarkany, Mihaly. ND. “Cultural and Social Anthropology in Central and Eastern Europe.” Liebnitz Institute for the Social Sciences. Shankman, Paul. 2009. The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Scruton, Roger. 2000. Modern Culture. London: Continuum. Sedgwick, Mitchell. 2006. “The Discipline of Context: On Ethnography Amongst the Japanese.” In Joy Hendry and Heung Wah Wong (eds. ), Dismantling the East-West Dichotomy: Essays in Honour of Jan van Bremen (pp. 64-68). New York: Routledge. Segal, Daniel, and Yanagisako, Sylvia. 2005. “Introduction.” In Daniel Segal and Sylvia Yanagisako (eds. ), Unwrapping the Sacred Bundle: Reflections on the Disciplining of Anthropology (pp. 1-23). Durham: Duke University Press. Segerstråle, Ullica. 2000. Defenders of the Truth: The Sociobiology Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Siikala, Jukka. 2006. “The Ethnography of Finland.” Annual Review of Anthropology 35, 153-170. Sluka, Jeffrey. 2007. “Fieldwork Ethics: Introduction.” In Antonius Robben and Jeffrey Slukka (eds. ), Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader (pp. 271-276). Oxford: Blackwell. Spencer, Herbert. 1873. The Study of Sociology. New York: D. Appleton and Co. Srivastava, Vinay Kumar. 2000. “Teaching Anthropology.” Seminar 495. Strathern, Marylin. 1988. The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia. Berkley: University of California Press. Stocking, George. 1991. Victorian Anthropology. New York: Free Press. Tucker, William. 2002. The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wycliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund. Illinois: University of Illinois Press. Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. New York: Aldine Publishers. Turner, Victor, and Turner, Edith. 1978. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press. Tylor, Edward Burnett. 1871. Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Religion, Art and Custom. London: John Murray. Tylor, Edward Burnett. 1865. Researchers into the Early History of Mankind. London: John Murray. Wagner, Roy. 1981. The Invention of Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Weiner, Annette. 1992. Inalienable Possession. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Wilson, Edward Osborne. 1998. Consilience: Towards the Unity of Knowledge. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Wilson, Edward Osborne. 1975. Sociobiology: A New Synthesis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wilson, Richard. 2002. “The Politics of Culture in Post-apartheid South Africa.” In Richard Fox and Barbara King (eds. ), Anthropology Beyond Culture (pp. 209-234). Oxford: Berg. Author Information Edward Dutton Email: ecdutton@hotmail.com University of Oulu Finland "


how much weight do you gain during menopause

Most women will gain about 10 to 15 pounds during their menopausal years. Most of this menopause weight gain will come on gradually (about a pound a year) during perimenopause. Women who have experienced early menopause or surgical menopause may experience more rapid and extreme weight gain.

Menopause and Weight Gain

"Home › Menopause › Symptoms of Menopause › Weight Gain Menopause and Weight Gain Going through menopause? Have you been noticing a few extra pounds around your belly lately? Well, you will be happy to know that you are definitely not alone. One of the foremost menopause symptoms seems to be weight gain and a change in the overall shape of your body. Though you may not be so happy about this, it is important to keep in mind that this weight gain is normal and to be expected. About 90% of menopausal women gain some weight between the ages of 35 and 55. But you may not necessarily have to blame yourself for this newly acquired weight - research now shows that weight gain during menopause is caused by shifts in your hormones, not greedy eating. Changing Shape If you are going through menopause, then you have probably already started to notice a change in your body shape.

You will start to notice that the weight isn't distributing itself as it used to. Learn How To Prevent Menopause Weight Gain During menopause, you will begin to put weight on around your abdomen, instead of around your hips, thighs, and rear. People commonly refer to this as an ""apple"" shape, because the stomach area becomes rounder. You may miss your old ""pear"" shape that you had during your childbearing years, but it will be harder and harder to redistribute your weight evenly around your body. It's Not Your Fault!Many women are quite shocked and frustrated when they begin to notice those extra pounds graciously provided by menopause. You may be eating and exercising exactly the same as you always were but still can't seem to maintain your weight. As you enter the early stages of menopause, maintaining weight becomes more and more difficult, and losing weight becomes almost impossible. This is because of the fluctuation in your hormones. How to avoid menopausal weight gain Your browser does not currently recognize any of the video formats available. Click here to visit our frequently asked questions about HTML5 video.0:00 / 5:13Your body's hormones have a direct impact on your appetite, metabolism, and fat storage. This is why it is so difficult to control your weight during menopause ' no matter what you do, fluctuating estrogen, testosterone, and androgen levels will fight you all the way. Hormones Involved in Weight Maintenance Estrogen: Estrogen is the female sex hormone that is responsible for causing monthly ovulation. During female menopause, your estrogen levels decline rapidly, causing your body to stop ovulating. However, estrogen also seems to play a big role in menopausal weight gain. As your ovaries produce less estrogen, your body looks for other places to get needed estrogen from. Fat cells in your body can produce estrogen, so your body works harder to convert calories into fat to increase estrogen levels. Unfortunately for you, fat cells don't burn calories the way muscle cells do, which causes you to pack on the unwanted pounds. Progesterone: During menopause, progesterone levels will also decrease. Like estrogen, lower levels of this hormone can be responsible for many of the symptoms of menopause and that includes weight gain, or at least the appearance of it. Water retention and menopause often go hand in hand since water weight and bloating are caused by decreased progesterone levels. Though this doesn't actually result in weight gain, your clothes will probably feel a bit tighter and you may feel a bit heavier. Water retention and bloating usually disappear within a few months. Androgen: This hormone is responsible for sending your new weight directly to your middle section. In fact, weight gain during menopausal years is often known as ""middle age spread"" because of the rapid growth of the mid-section. Often, one of the first signs of menopause is an increase of androgen in your body, which causes you to gain weight around your abdominals instead of around your lower half. Testosterone: Testosterone helps your body to create lean muscle mass out of the calories that you take in. Muscle cells burn more calories than fat cells do, increasing your metabolism. In natural menopause, levels of testosterone drop resulting in the loss of this muscle. Unfortunately, this means a lower metabolism. The lower your metabolism is, the slower your body burns calories. Other Factors Involved in Weight Gain During Menopause Insulin Resistance: Insulin resistance can occur during your menopausal years. This is when your body mistakenly turns every calorie you take in into fat. Most women follow a low-fat, high carbohydrate diet. After time, processed and refined foods may make your body resistant to insulin produced in the blood stream. This is often a cause of weight gain after the age of 40. Stress: Stress is also a contributing factor in weight gain in menopause. Stress hormones can prevent weight loss as they signal to your body to go into a storage mode. This is referred to as the ""famine effect"" - your body, thinking it won't get food again for a long time, stores every calorie it takes in causing weight gain. Treatment It may be difficult, but it is important to learn to accept weight gain and menopause as something natural and even good. A little extra weight can help to lesson other symptoms associated with menopause, like anxiety and hot flashes. During menopause, weight gain is regulated by your body, and helps prepare you against osteoporosis and other illnesses. Instead of hating your new body, try to be more accepting of yourself. Focus on being healthy and active, not trying to fit into your old clothes. Here are a few tips to help you out on the way: Eat a balanced diet. Avoid refined sugars and indulge in fruits and vegetables. Avoid crash diets. Starvation will only cause your metabolism to slow down, causing you to gain more weight later on. Don't lose large amounts of weight. Being very thin can lead to an increased chance of developing osteoporosis. Limit your intake of caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. These can exacerbate water retention. Remain active. Do aerobics to increase your metabolism and burn fat. Do weight bearing activities such as walking and cycling to increase muscle mass and ward off osteoporosis. Some women do put on excessive weight during menopause. This could be a sign that something is wrong with your hormone levels, blood sugars, or eating habits. Get checked out by your doctor if your weight gain is out of control. Excessive fat stored around the abdomen can lead to an increased risk for heart disease and high blood pressure. Learn more about what you can do to keep your body healthy during the menopause years by checking out our sections dedicated to healthy diet and weight loss and exercise. Also find out more about vitamins and nutrients so that you can ensure that you are getting all your body needs for a healthy next phase in life. "