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Geertz, Common Sense. Common Sense as a Cultural System. common sense Discuss Zande vs. Evans-Pritchard’s ‘common sense’ (what is the underlying system?). Why is it useful to look at categories that cross cultures (e.g. hermaphroditism)? Give own examples of common sense systems:
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Common Sense as a Cultural System common sense • Discuss Zande vs. Evans-Pritchard’s ‘common sense’ (what is the underlying system?). • Why is it useful to look at categories that cross cultures (e.g. hermaphroditism)? • Give own examples of common sense systems: • that have shifted historically • that demonstrate cultural relativity
Common Sense as a Cultural System common sense • How is common sense knowledge system built? • What are transmission systems for common sense knowledge systems? • Give examples of how common sense can regulate activities of the society (e.g. economic, agricultural, etc.). What are the limitations?
Common Sense as a Cultural System • Geertz seeks to understand “roughcast shapes of colloquial culture vs. worked-up shapes of studied culture” • ‘common sense’ = dimension of culture not usually conceived as forming an ordered realm
Common Sense as a Cultural System • the elementary forms of [religious life among the Australian aborigines, native botanical systems in Africa, spontaneous sense of design on the Northwest Coast, ‘concrete’ science in the Amazon] • traditional occupation of anthropologists to find out about systematized knowledge in different cultures
Common Sense as a Cultural System common sense • immediate deliverance of experience • realm of the given and undeniable, matter-of-fact, self-evident realities • ‘just life’ with ‘world as its authority’ • if it rains it is common sense to step into the house • ‘what everyone with common sense knows’
Common Sense as a Cultural System common sense • not a tightly integrated system but based on conviction by those who have it on its validity • epistemology of common sense is external reality (contrast with: religion -- revelation, science -- method, ideology -- moral passion) • common sense (problem of ‘everyday experience’, how we construe the world we biographically inhabit) • interpretation of experience; constructed; cultural system; what leads to what • system of thought based on pre-suppositions
Common Sense as a Cultural System • common sense / everyday experience • categories organized into systems • transmitted body of knowledge • natural symbols • formalized knowledge: information infrastructures • Why? moral order creates meaning
Jesse Shera, Sociologist of Knowledge? Jesse Hauk Shera (1903-1982) • librarian / scholar / theoretician /philosopher / educator “An early pioneer in the electronic organization of information and library catalog automation, Jesse Hauk Shera was born in Oxford, Ohio, on December 8, 1903, the son of a dairyman. He grew up in Oxford, graduating from McGuffey High School in 1921. While in high school, Shera was a member of the debating team as well as a cheerleader. Initially interested in a career in chemistry, a visual impairment, poor eyesight, prevented him from pursuing this goal. Instead, he remained in Oxford and graduated with honors with an A. B. in English from Miami University in 1925. He continued his educational career at Yale University, graduating in 1927 with a master's degree in English. As employment for English professors was scarce in the pre-depression era, Shera was unable to procure a teaching position and returned to Ohio, where he joined the library staff at Miami University.” (From: http://www2.msstate.edu/~jeg98/JShera.htm)
Social Epistemology / Sociology of Knowledge knowledge = justified true belief (social) epistemology = the limits of knowing / justification of belief + examination of the social dynamics of knowledge claims sociology of knowledge = primary focus is on the social dynamics (including the creation and maintenance of culture, the construction of rules, tacit or otherwise, of action and behavior, and the governance of group belief) that influence human action (Budd, p. 425)
Jesse Shera, Sociologist of Knowledge? • LIS = epistemological discipline (a body of new knowledge about knowledge itself • Engagement with the social processes of knowledge creation, distribution, and use • recorded knowledge = graphic record (Shera) … and beyond
Locating Identity • Explain the ‘places of memory’ concept. Give examples of such 'places' that you are familiar with. How is memory organized around space and time? • Why is memory related to identity of groups? Why is it important for groups to have 'memory' organized a certain way? What are the channels of transmission for group memory (say, in a family, an institution, a nation).
Locating Identity • Give examples of mnemonic devices (landscapes, verse, objects, etc.). Which ones among them could serve as collective markers, and which ones organize personal memories. How do they differ? • Discuss how memory can be individual, collective, and hegemonic.
Locating Identity • Why does the author say that systems of remembering and forgetting are socially constructed. How is 'forgetting' part of the process of remembering?
Locating Identity • What, in your opinion, is the significance of memory research for managing memory institutions (libraries, archives, museums)? What do they have in common as connection to building collective identity? What are the pittfals for these institutions?
