Writing yesterday's post about how people are gloriously bonkers got me thinking more about what sort of anthropologist I am (and want to be).

Those of you who regularly read this blog (and I adore all three of you) have probably worked out that I'm not exactly a science boffin.  I simply don't conceive of people (and human phenomena) as being ordered, measurable, or even predictable. 

And yet, what does this actually mean for me when I browse the buffet of approaches to the study of people?

I'm a historical anthropologist.  I believe that history is a pretty obvious territory for the study of people.  I'm an anthropologist of Britain.  I believe that Britain is a pretty obvious territory for the study of people. 

But what else am I?  When I study history, and when I study Britain, what are the ideas that I use, the stances I take? 

The truth is, I'm still working it out. 

Back in the days of graduate classes I relished theory and delighted in finding new ideas to shoehorn into relating to not-particularly-relevant things.  If I'd ended up a mediocre Melanesianist I probably wouldn't have departed very much from that great game. 

Nowadays I've not got Benjamin or Althusser or Durkheim or Lacan or even Saint Foucault under my pillow, guiding my thoughts.  Nowadays I am more excited by what Will (on a different post) called "a willingness to spin stories".  Stories like those in Extraordinary Anthropology (which I'll be talking about more in an upcoming post) are valuable not because they advance great big hulking theories, but because they show life in all its messiness and magic. 

So what sort of anthropologist am I?  Well, maybe there is something in James Clifford's recent description of 'the greater humanities'. (And if you're an academic sort who hasn't read that yet, go away and do it now.)  Interpretive.  Realist.  Historical.  Ethico-political.  Yeah, I can see myself fitting in there, not always perfectly, but comfortably.  

I was quite taken with Mil's conclusion that modern Britain is wacky. 

Of course, I thought, that's why I'm studying it! 

But where Mil laments Britain's wackiness - the politicking, the internal colonialism - I'm interested in celebrating quite a different wacky Britain. 

In my years as a young player in the study of people, the only solid conclusion I've ever reached is that people are bonkers.

And when I say people, I mean us.  Me.  You.  Bonkers, the glorious lot of us. 

There've been efforts afoot since the Enlightenment to bring people into regimental, predictable line.  What a load of tosh.  I mean, we've been chucking it for hundreds of thousands of years and we still can't work out what to do with our own rubbish; and let's not even start on sexuality.  We're rubbish recruits for any paradise of rationality. 

To some (and probably to some of those still suffering twisted knickers over the AAA's updated statement of purpose) this is A Bad Thing.  They measure and theorise and come up with all manner of grand plans. 

Well, it keeps them off the streets.

It's the innate bonkersness (a technical term; use it in your essays, students) of people that keeps me, as an anthropologist, captured and delighted.  It's what makes me celebrate our diversity, be fascinated by our cultural richness, and want to discover more about us and what we get up to. 

So keep on with your wacky selves, Britain. 

There's been a bit of an anthropological kerfuffle over the American Anthropological Assocation's (AAA) decision to remove a (rather retro) reference to science from it's 'Statement of Purpose'. 

I'm not an AAA member, and it's highly unlikely I ever will be, so I get to look on with bemusement. 

Over at Labour uncut, Kevin Meagher last week had a bash at drawing an analogy between the Lib Dems and the C of E.  Nah.  The Lib Dems are more likely the Methodists of politics. 

But I like this analogy lark, and I reckon anthropology is all a bit Anglican. 

Anthropology, in it's broadest sense, studies people.  About three seconds thought is all it should take to appreciate the nebulousness of this.  Study people?  Which?  Where?  How?  Doing what? 

So anthropology is a big disparate group of scholars affiliated to various universities, professional associations, interest groups and committees all united, however vaguely, by a shared interest in studying people.  (That, and wearing sturdy, comfortable footwear.) 

And like the regular throes of the similarly disparate Anglican Communion over scriptural interpretation, there are regular anthropological throes over how to interpret the idea of studying people. 

Structuralism!  Functionalism!  Structural-functionalism!  Clifford Geertz!  Writing Culture!  "We're not a science!"  "Yes we are!"  Sahlins vs Obeyesekere!  Spats in journals!  Spats in conferences!  Spats in tearooms! 

In anthropology, as in Anglicanism, things can descend to a bicker-a-thon pretty quickly.  Sometimes a good round of combat can help us understand more about who we are and what we want to do.  Other times it can be over something that's just daft as a brush. 

There can be splits, like that between the RAI and the ASA, and there are plenty of interest groups promoting everything from the anthropology of Britain to advocating for gay and lesbian anthropologists. 

Because of how all this to-ing and fro-ing looks to the casual observer, there are periodically fingers pointed by media pundits and sociologists.  Such rumours of demise and announcements of crisis are, in both cases, greatly exaggerated. 

And anyway, the science hardliners could always set up an Ordinariate.