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Waring Lecture features Dr. Tim Ingold
February 26, 2004
CARROLLTON,
GA - Cultural anthropologist Dr. Tim Ingold will deliver the Spring 2004
Waring Distinguished Lecture in Anthropology, “Culture on the Ground:
The World Perceived Through the Feet,” at the University of West Georgia on Friday, March 12.
In his discussion of the sociality of walking, Ingold will examine the perception of the feet as “mere mechanics” and the hands as “rational instruments” by focusing on the significance of feet in the perception of environment, the history of technology, landscape formation and human anatomical evolution. He has presented an earlier version of this talk at Oxford University.
In his work, Ingold argues against the existence of a fixed human nature defined in the genes and contends that human capacities considered to be innate are actually learned in the course of a person’s development. He says that walking is one example of a skill believed to be genetic that can be explained as a process of human development influenced by environment and uses that activity as a springboard for discussing his view of the relationship between human nature and culture.
“. . . human beings are not born walking, nor do they all walk in the same way,” he explains in his paper “Culture and Human Nature: An Obituary Notice.” “There is, as Marcel Mauss observed in his famous essay of 1938 on Techniques of the Body, no natural way of walking. In Japan, at least traditionally, it was conventional to walk ‘from the knees,’ in what looks to us like a rather shuffling gait, but one that actually makes very good sense when your footwear is sandals, and when you have to walk on very steep terrain. . . .
“To the European, however, this looks most ungainly,” he continues. “We are taught from an early age of the virtues of upright posture, and baby walkers are used to get your child standing up at as an early age as possible. We are taught to walk from the hips, and not from the knees, while keeping the legs as straight as possible. And our carrying devices, from rucksacks to suitcases, are designed with this posture in mind.”
Ingold will deliver the Waring Lecture at 7 p.m. in the Kathy Cashen Recital Hall in the Humanities Building. A public reception will follow in the Pafford Building, Room 304. The Waring Distinguished Lecture Series is hosted by the UWG Department of Anthropology and supported by the Antonio J. Waring Jr. Endowment in Anthropology.
Ingold will also present a lecture titled “Against Human Nature” at 9 a.m. in the Technology-enhanced Learning Center, Room 1-301. There is no admission charge for either lecture.
Currently
serving as chair of social anthropology at the University of Aberdeen
in Scotland, Ingold has had a distinguished career in social anthropology.
His field research among the northern circumpolar peoples in Finland,
most notably the Skolt Saami reindeer herders (Lapps), has led to theoretical
advancements in interpreting ecological adaptation and the relationship
between subsistence and social organization.
Focusing particularly on the interface of human-animal relations, Ingold has furthered the understanding of cultural perceptions of environment through such works as The Appropriation of Nature (1986) and his newest book, The Perception of the Environment (2000), as well as numerous articles in major academic journals. Ingold argues that environment is not a fixed resource, but an imaginative field from which people construct a sense of livelihood and identity. By providing possibilities, he says, environment operates as an active resource rather than an inert substance.
In addition to his contributions to ecological theory, Ingold also has published widely in anthropological theory. His major work, Evolution and Social Life (1986), is a cornerstone in the re-examination of neo-Darwinian evolution and the various ways it has been used — and abused-- — over the past century.
Ingold earned his doctorate at Cambridge University and has previously served as professor and chair of the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a member of the British Academy, the Royal Anthropological Institute and the American Anthropological Association.
The Waring Distinguished Lecture Series is supported by the Antonio J. Waring Jr. Endowment in Anthropology, which was established in memory of Dr. Antonio J. Waring Jr. (1915-1964) by his widow Henrietta Waring. A pioneer of anthropology in Georgia, Antonio Waring was responsible for defining the prehistoric cultural chronology of the state’s coastal region, and he directed and participated in several major archaeological excavations in the southeastern United States.
For more information, contact the Department of Anthropology at 770-836-6455.
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