Ologies

More or less by chance, I have been taking a look at a couple of books by one Tim Ingold, sometime professor of anthropology at the University of Aberdeen.

At the end of reference 2, he makes something – which I do not yet understand – of the difference between anthropology and ethnography. I got lost in a small herd of ologies, snapped above – a figure for which plenty of other related ologies do not make the cut, for example biology and palaeontology.

Three of them, I managed to cut out: ethology because that is about animals rather than humans, archaeology because it deals with people who are no longer with us and sociology because that is largely about people living in the towns and cities of today, rather than, for example, the tribes which occupied north America before we Europeans got there.

But I am having more trouble with the other three, in the middle of the figure above. All I could think of was that ethnography was the sort of thing that Museums of Mankind went in for, with their exotic (but dusty) exhibits from exotic, far-flung places, a lot of them gathered up by colonial civil servants in their spare time.

Larousse being to hand, I tried that first, but it seemed to make little difference between anthropology and ethnology, other than the former getting 9cm to the latter’s 1cm – with the 9cm including a lot of sub-disciplines.

Littré gives a centimetre to both, but no differentiation that I could see.

In desperation, I turn to Gemini, who adds something, in particular a distinction between ethnography and ethnology, for which he offers various sources, which I have not checked. He also drags up the topics of granite tors and Shan haws again.

Back with reference 2, there is a hint that it might be all be to do with the etic/emic distinction which, luckily, Wikipedia knows all about and for which see reference 4. Roughly, the former tries to see things from the inside, while the latter is content to look on from the outside. But which is which?

Another hint that it might be all to do with the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. For which see reference 5.

Hopefully this is more than some arcane, hair-splitting debate with which academics are all to apt to use to liven up tea-time in their senior common rooms. But it is not yet clear whether I shall have the patience to get to the bottom of it.

Ditto the rather grubby looking tale which I came across in the FT this morning at reference 6. From where I associate now to reading in the TLS this afternoon that it is about time that our rulers, wannabee and otherwise, came clean about how if we stop immigration, we will have to pay a lot more for our care – or go without. But more about that another time.

PS: I also learn of what to me is a more interesting debate. Is putting societies together a bit like building a house with Lego: there are only so many ways in which you can put the bricks together to make a house that works? From where I associate to the firmer ground that there are only a finite number of groups with any particular, finite number of members.

References

Reference 1: Lines: A Brief History – Ingold, T – 2007. 

Reference 2: Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description – Ingold, T – 2011.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Ingold. A PhD among the Sami of northern Finland.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emic_and_etic. 

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy). 

Reference 6: London landlord begins evictions ahead of new renters’ rights law: Asif Aziz’s Criterion Capital owns several apartment blocks in capital as well as Trocadero centre in Piccadilly – Josh Gabert-Doyon, Financial Times – 2026.