Postmodern theory Brian Duignan writes on the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' that Postmodern philosophy is a philosophical movement that arose in the second half of the 20th century as a critical response to assumptions allegedly present in modernist philosophical i ...

(PM) in

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

originated in the 1960s, along with the literary

postmodern movement Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

in general. Anthropologists working in this vein of inquiry seek to dissect, interpret and write cultural critiques. One issue discussed by PM anthropologists is about subjectivity; because

ethnographies Ethnography (from Greek language, Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view ...

are influenced by the disposition of the author, should their opinions be considered scientific?

Clifford Geertz Clifford James Geertz (; August 23, 1926 – October 30, 2006) was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology and who was considered "for three decades. ...

, considered a founding member of postmodernist anthropology, advocates that, “anthropological writings are themselves interpretations, and second and third ones to boot” In the 21st century, some anthropologists use a form of standpoint theory; a person's perspective in writing and cultural interpretation of others is guided by their own background and experiences. Other major tenets of postmodernist anthropology are: * an emphasis on including the opinions and perspectives of the people being studied, *

cultural relativism Cultural relativism is the idea that a person's beliefs and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture. Proponents of cultural relativism also tend to argue that the norms and values of one culture should not be evaluated ...

as a method of inquiry * skepticism towards the claims of science to producing objective and universally valid knowledge * the rejection of grand, universal schemes or theories which explain other cultures (Barrett 1996). A critique to anthropologists has been to question whether anthropologists may speak/write on behalf of cultural others, a point made by James Clifford in his book ''Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography'' (1986). Margery Wolf states that, “it would be as great a loss to have first-world anthropologists confine their research to the first world as it is (currently) to have third-world anthropologists confine theirs to the third world”.Wolf, M. (1992). A Thrice Told Tale:

Feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

, Postmodernism & Ethnographic Responsibility. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (pp. 1-14) In the 21st century, the question has been resolved by pointing out that all cultural descriptions are of cultural others. All ethnographic writing is done by a person from one standpoint writing about others living in a different standpoint. Thus, the notion of anthropologists as 'culture brokers' (see Richard Kurin) has been adopted to explain why anthropologists from any given country write about cultural others.

References

{{reflist Postmodernism Anthropology