Honoring Human Differences on World Anthropology Day
Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange: a tribute to anthropology, human differences, and creating built environments to accommodate those differences.
Today is World Anthropology Day, a day set aside to celebrate anthropology as a discipline and communicate its wonders and contributions to the general public. At it's core, anthropology is the study of humanity - what it means to be human - covering aspects, in the past and present (and sometimes projecting into the future), of our behavior, biology, and the functioning of human societies. It looks at our origins, as well as how we interact with other humans, other species, and our physical environments.
It tries to understand what we do, why we do it, and how that varies across different groups. Anthropology is also a comparative exercise at it's heart. That should strike a cord with engineers, architects, and modelers striving to establish baselines to compare building performance against. Within many university departments, anthropology is subdivided into the following four subfields: Cultural Anthropology, Archaeology, Physical (or Biological) Anthropology, and Linguistic Anthropology.
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) has a page devoted to resources for communicating the joys and benefits of anthropology to the general public (and to students who might be considering it as a major). The European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) has a page devoted to resources for European Anthropology Days as well. And last year the AAA set up a Spotify playlist for World Anthropology Day. Take a listen for an audio tour of various cultural tastes in music and a few musical tributes to anthropology itself. For some real global exposure to music, though, check out the Radio Garden app. And share your favorite source of cross-cultural music exposure in the comments.
I probably have two favorite quotes or phrases tied to anthropology. The origins of the first aren't known for sure (to my knowledge), but over time it's become a sort of short hand for certain insights anthropology provides: Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange. Many people probably have a picture in their mind's eye of an anthropologist (from the western industrialized world) in an exotic, non-western local, engaging with people whose day-to-day and cultural practices are vastly different from those of the anthropologist. They seem strange. But because much of what anthropology does is compare one culture to another, the anthropologist is able to study and describe those practices in a manner that helps relate them to others from his/her/their own cultural background. The anthropologist is making the strange familiar.
But anthropologists don't just study other cultural groups. They often study their own (or sometimes a mix of cultural groups), in the very societies that they're from, that they live and work within. It's primarily what I do as well as other anthropologists who work in the AEC Industry (though we do sometimes get to work in countries and cultures not our own). In this case, a large portion of our work is focused on understanding the underlying contextual reasons why people in our own cultures are behaving the way they are.
However, most of us take these behaviors, actions, decision-making, etc., for granted because that's just the way it is. It's what we learned in our communities, from our friends and families growing up, from the media, and in school, university, or on the job. It's the cultural waters we all swim within, though the makeup is typically dominated by the majority culture. However, we don't usually think about the underlying why of it all. Anthropologists do, and their explanations may seem odd because we've never had to deeply think about the why. Anthropologists are making the familiar strange.
This is related to the distinction between emic versus etic perspectives in anthropology, and I think Jitske Kramer, in her chapter in Why The World Needs Anthropologists, does a good job explaining this distinction. The former (emic) is the insider's perspective, how an insider from a cultural group experiences and views the world. The latter (etic) is the outsider's perspective, how an observer interprets a specific reality or experience of the insider. The outsider could be anyone making some kind of observation (and often judgement) about another cultural group (or occupant group). In the case of an anthropologist, while they can never fully understand the emic perspective, they have tools and theoretical frameworks to help them systematically analyze and describe the emic perspective.
How cool is all of that? There's so much about the design, operation, and evaluation of our built environments we could improve by doing a better job of making the strange familiar, the familiar strange, and accounting for the various relevant emic perspectives. There's so much to be curious about. Such as:
Navigating Power Differentials: An elementary school teacher baking cookies for maintenance staff to help ensure any building issue in her classroom she submits rises to the top of the queue. In an environment of perceived scarcity (limited number of maintenance staff with limited time), exacerbated by building problems never addressed post occupancy, teachers with limited power and control over their situation find whatever social means of exercising power they can to meet their needs.
Cultural Differences Among Office Employees: In an office deploying a free address pilot, cultural differences associated with the use of contract employees primarily from a non-western country increased the likelihood for violating policies and norms (many of which were taken for granted by those from the U.S.), resulting in various conflicts. Many of these individuals have norms that differ with regards to personal space, privacy, territoriality, food and food odor preferences, and peer pressure. This contributed to misunderstandings and conflicts between the contract employees and permanent employees around the free address pilot protocols and best practices (also exacerbated by inadequate ventilation levels on some floors).
Use of All-Gendered Restrooms in a High School: Even when some form of all-gendered restroom is available, many transgender and gender-nonconforming students will "hold it" to avoid using the restroom in a high school, even in districts that are generally supportive of LGBTQ+ students. When separate male / female facilities are provided along with all-gendered restrooms (often a separate single toilet that teachers and staff will also use), students who aren't comfortable using the male / female restrooms often feel exposed, or pointed out, when using the separate designated all-gender restrooms. And beyond the mental health implications, holding it has negative health and learning impacts.
A lot of my job involves being curious about the socio, the technic, and how they interact, as well as withholding judgement as the underlying whys are assessed to help find the best path forward. That really is a cool job to have. And yes, it's corny, but Ted Lasso's iconic line about being a little more curious and a little less judgmental (likely misattributed to Walt Whitman) is a simple description of understanding the emic as best one can while making the strange familiar and the familiar strange.
Here are a few references if you're interested in dipping your toe into the intersection of anthropology and the AEC Industry:
The second of my favorite quotes is one attributed to anthropologist Ruth Benedict - The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences. The spectrum of diversity that is the human condition, now and in the past, is vast and oh-so fascinating. Think of the plethora of cultural traditions that have existed over the course of human history; heck, just the variation in cultural traditions that exist today. The fact that neither biological sex nor gender exist as a binary. The differences that occur across generations. It's been said that variety is the spice of life. It's certainly the fuel for evolution. And embracing variation can facilitate innovation and creativity as well as foster growth. Part of my job as an anthropologist is to help ensure the built environment can accommodate those differences.
But these differences, as wondrous as they might be, can also be used to generate fear and various forms of othering. Majorities, wealthy elites, and others with power will often target minorities and those perceived as different in some manner in a bid to maintain their own power (or increase it). This is going on right now in the U.S., as the Trump administration and some states, as part of an effort to coalesce power in a more authoritarian manner, to promote certain narrow white supremacist and white Christian nationalist world views, target DEI initiatives and the organizations and individuals implementing them. Because DEI initiatives challenge those world views as well as authoritarian power.
The transgender community in particular has been targeted as part of these efforts. It makes sense. They're a pretty small percentage of our population, which makes them more vulnerable to attack, small in numbers to resist on their own, and less likely enough in the majority will step up to resist and defend them. Their collective power is comparatively small. They are an easier group to disenfranchise, force into hiding, and essentially erase, signaling the oppressors' strength in the process while instilling fear in other groups.
In my own state of Kansas, the Republican controlled legislature (they have a supermajority) has been busy with several anti-transgender bills. One particularly egregious bill banning gender affirming care for minors not only passed, but after the governor vetoed it, the legislature recently overrode her veto (2/18). They did this despite vast amounts of opponent testimony from transgender youth, parents, teachers, and health care providers. As an anthropologist, parent, and private citizen, I tried to make the strange familiar and share the emic perspective of transgender youth and their families with Republican legislators through my submitted testimony. I reached out multiple times. One was willing to engage and I corresponded with him all the way up to, and right after, the vote on the veto override.
But I failed to convince him that the world needed to be safe for human differences. Or, more accurately, I failed to convince him that he needed to be brave enough to stand up for human differences. As with the Trump administration, the Kansas legislature's GOP leadership is tyrannical in its actions, and a vulnerable group of kids is an easy target to help demonstrate their strength and further consolidate power. According to the legislator, there was some fairly intense threatening of him and other GOP legislators to toe the line. All but one GOP legislator succumbed.
After several years of fighting and winning against these bills in Kansas, this coalition of the transgender community, their families and allies, public school educators, health care provides, and others finally came up short. Our various efforts couldn't keep our state safe for human differences this time. And more bills are coming this session. I know what these continued actions are going to do to our ability to create inclusive environments for everyone. It's sobering, and it's been a somber, reflective few days. I know others in our state and across the nation are feeling this as well. I know other anthropologists are feeling this. We're supposed to be making the world safe for human differences.
Another scene from Ted Lasso's been on my mind as well the last few days. Some call it the Be a Goldfish scene. For me it's the Be Sad Together scene.
The Trump administration, their allies, Republican politicians in many states, they want us to feel isolated. They want us to feel as if there's too much to respond to. They want us to be alone in our sadness, to give up.
But we're not alone. We don't have to be sad alone. We can be sad together.
There are a lot of anthropologists in the U.S. and the world. And there are a lot of people who agree that we should be making the world safe for human differences. More than not. At least that's what I believe. So, on this World Day of Anthropology, let's be sad now. Let's be sad together. But I'll diverge from the scene here - we shouldn't forget in my opinion. Forgetting is partly how we got here in the first place. So instead of being a gosh-darned goldfish, let's learn from our experiences and fight together to make the world, and our built environments, safe for human differences.
Onward. Forward.