Sidney Mintz
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Sidney Wilfred Mintz (November 16, 1922 – December 27, 2015) was an American
anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
best known for his studies of the
Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
,
creolization Creolization is the process through which creole languages and cultures emerge. Creolization was first used by linguists to explain how contact languages become creole languages, but now scholars in other social sciences use the term to describe ne ...
, and the anthropology of food. Mintz received his PhD at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in 1951 and conducted his primary fieldwork among sugar-cane workers in Puerto Rico. Later expanding his ethnographic research to Haiti and Jamaica, he produced historical and ethnographic studies of slavery and global capitalism, cultural hybridity, Caribbean peasants, and the political economy of food commodities. He taught for two decades at
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
before helping to found the Anthropology Department at
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
, where he remained for the duration of his career. Mintz's history of sugar, ''
Sweetness and Power Sweetness is a basic taste most commonly perceived when eating foods rich in sugars. Sweet tastes are generally regarded as pleasurable. In addition to sugars like sucrose, many other chemical compounds are sweet, including aldehydes, keton ...
'', is considered one of the most influential publications in
cultural anthropology Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portma ...
and
food studies Food studies is the critical examination of food and its contexts within science, art, history, society, and other fields. It is distinctive from other food-related areas of study such as nutrition, agriculture, gastronomy, and culinary arts in that ...
.


Early life and education

Mintz was born in
Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...
,
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, to Fanny and Soloman Mintz. His father was a New York tradesman, and his mother was a garment-trade organizer for the
Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines genera ...
. Mintz studied at
Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...
, earning his B.A in psychology in 1943. After enlisting in the
US Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical ri ...
for the remainder of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, he enrolled in the doctoral program in anthropology at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
and completed a dissertation on sugar-cane plantation workers in
Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico Santa Isabel () is a Santa Isabel barrio-pueblo, town and Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality of Puerto Rico located in the southern coast of the island, south of Coamo, Puerto Rico, Coamo; east of Juana Díaz, Puerto Rico, Juana Díaz; a ...
under the supervision of
Julian Steward Julian Haynes Steward (January 31, 1902 – February 6, 1972) was an American anthropologist known best for his role in developing "the concept and method" of cultural ecology, as well as a scientific theory of culture change. Early life and edu ...
and
Ruth Benedict Ruth Fulton Benedict (June 5, 1887 – September 17, 1948) was an American anthropologist and folklorist. She was born in New York City, attended Vassar College, and graduated in 1909. After studying anthropology at the New School of Social Re ...
. While at Columbia, Mintz was one of a group of students who developed around Steward and Benedict known as the Mundial Upheaval Society. Many prominent anthropologists such as
Marvin Harris Marvin Harris (August 18, 1927 – October 25, 2001) was an American anthropologist. He was born in Brooklyn, New York City. A prolific writer, he was highly influential in the development of cultural materialism and environmental determinism. ...
,
Eric Wolf Eric Robert Wolf (February 1, 1923 – March 6, 1999) was an anthropologist, best known for his studies of peasants, Latin America, and his advocacy of Marxist perspectives within anthropology. Early life Life in Vienna Wolf was born in Vi ...
,
Morton Fried Morton Herbert Fried (March 21, 1923 in Bronx, New York – December 18, 1986 in Leonia, New Jersey),Stanley Diamond Stanley Diamond (January 4, 1922 in New York City, NY – March 31, 1991 in New York City, NY) was an American poet and anthropologist. As a young man, he identified as a poet, and his disdain for the fascism of the 1930s greatly influenced ...
, Robert Manners, and Robert F. Murphy were among this group.


Career

Mintz had a long academic career at
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
(1951–74) before helping to found the Anthropology Department at
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
. He has been a visiting lecturer at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
, the
École Pratique des Hautes Études École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...
and the
Collège de France The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment (''grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris ne ...
(
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
) and elsewhere. His work has been the subject of several studies., in addition to his reflections on his own ideas and fieldwork. He was honored by the establishment of the annual Sidney W. Mintz Lecture in 1992. Mintz was a member of the
American Ethnological Society The American Ethnological Society (AES) is the oldest professional anthropological association in the United States. History of the American Ethnological Society Albert Gallatin and John Russell Bartlett founded the American Ethnological Societ ...
and was President of that body from 1968 to 1969, a fellow of the
American Anthropological Association The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...
and the
Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...
. Mintz taught as a lecturer at City College (now
City College of the City University of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, City ...
), New York City, in 1950, at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, New York City, in 1951, and at
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
,
New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...
,
Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
between 1951 and 1974. At Yale, Mintz started as an instructor, but was Professor of Anthropology from 1963 to 1974. He also served as Professor of Anthropology at
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
,
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
,
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
since 1974. Mintz was also a Visiting Professor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
in the 1964-65 academic year, a Directeur d'Etudes at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
in 1970-1971. He was a Lewis Henry Morgan Lecturer at the
University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...
in 1972, a Visiting Professor at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
in 1975-1976, a Christian Gauss Lecturer, 1978-1979, Guggenheim Fellow in 1957, a
Social Science Research Council The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is a US-based, independent, international nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research in the social sciences and related disciplines. Established in Manhattan in 1923, it today maintains a he ...
faculty research fellow, 1958-59. He was awarded a master's degree from Yale University in 1963, a
Fulbright The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
senior research award in 1966-67 and in 1970-71, a William Clyde DeVane Medal from Yale University in 1972 and was a
National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
fellow, 1978-79. He died on December 26, 2015, at the age of 93, following severe head
trauma Trauma most often refers to: * Major trauma, in physical medicine, severe physical injury caused by an external source * Psychological trauma, a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a severely distressing event *Traumatic i ...
resulting from a fall.


Additional work and awards

Mintz has served as a consultant to various institutions including the Overseas Development Program, he has conducted field work in several countries, and he has been recognized with many awards including: Social Science Research Council Faculty Research Fellow, 1958–59; M.A., Yale University, 1963; Ford Foundation, 1957-62, and United States-Puerto Rico Commission on the Status of Puerto Rico, 1964–65; directeur d'etudes, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris), 1970-71. He received the Franz Boas Award at the 2012 American Anthropological Association.


Training and influences

In his training Mintz was particularly influenced by Steward,
Ruth Benedict Ruth Fulton Benedict (June 5, 1887 – September 17, 1948) was an American anthropologist and folklorist. She was born in New York City, attended Vassar College, and graduated in 1909. After studying anthropology at the New School of Social Re ...
(Mintz 1981a), and
Alexander Lesser Alexander Lesser (1902–1982) was an American anthropologist. Working in the Boasian tradition of American Cultural Anthropology, he adopted critical stances of several ideas of his fellow Boasians, and became known as an original and critical th ...
, and by his classmate and co-author,
Eric Wolf Eric Robert Wolf (February 1, 1923 – March 6, 1999) was an anthropologist, best known for his studies of peasants, Latin America, and his advocacy of Marxist perspectives within anthropology. Early life Life in Vienna Wolf was born in Vi ...
(1923-1999). Combining a
Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
and
historical materialist Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
approach with U.S.
cultural anthropology Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portma ...
, Mintz’s focus has been those large processes, starting in the fifteenth century, that marked the advent of capitalism and European expansion in the Caribbean, and the myriad institutional and political forms which buttressed that growth, on the one hand; and on the other, the local cultural responses to such processes. His ethnography centered on how these responses are manifested in the lives of Caribbean people. For Mintz, history did not erode differences to create homogeneity among regions, even while a
capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
world-system A world-system is a socioeconomic system, under systems theory, that encompasses part or all of the globe, detailing the aggregate structural result of the sum of the interactions between polities. World-systems are usually larger than single s ...
was emerging. Larger forces were always confronted by local responses that affected the cultural outcomes. Considering this relationship Mintz wrote: This orientation found varied expressions in Mintz’s works, from his life history of “Taso” (Anastacio Zayas Alvarado), a Puerto Rican sugar worker, to debating whether the Caribbean slave could be considered a
proletarian The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philoso ...
. He reasoned that, because slavery in the Caribbean was implicated in capitalism, slavery there was unlike
Old World The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by the ...
slavery; but also that because slave status meant
unfree labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
, Caribbean slavery was not a fully capitalistic labor-form for the extraction of
surplus value In Marxian economics, surplus value is the difference between the amount raised through a sale of a product and the amount it cost to the owner of that product to manufacture it: i.e. the amount raised through sale of the product minus the cost ...
. There were other contradictions: Caribbean slaves were legally defined as property, but often owned property; though slaves produced wealth for their owners, they also reproduced their labor through “proto-peasant”
agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
and market activities, reducing long-term supply costs for the owners. The slave was a capital good, hence not commoditized labor; but some skilled slaves hired out to others produced income for their masters and could keep a share for themselves. In his book ''Caribbean Transformations'' and elsewhere, Mintz claimed that modernity originated in the Caribbean—Europe’s first
factories A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...
were embodied in a plantation complex devoted to the cultivation of
sugar cane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks t ...
and a few other agricultural commodities. The advent of this system certainly had profound effects on Caribbean “plantation society” (Mintz 1959a), but the commercialization of sugar’s products had lasting effects in
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
as well, from providing the wherewithal for the industrial revolution to transforming whole foodways and creating a revolution in European tastes and consumer behavior. Mintz repeatedly insisted on the Caribbean region’s particularities to contest pop notions of “globalization” and “diaspora,” that would make of the region a mere metaphor without acknowledging its historical distinctiveness.


Research


Caribbean anthropology

Mintz carried out his first
fieldwork Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct fie ...
in the Caribbean in 1948 as part of
Julian Steward Julian Haynes Steward (January 31, 1902 – February 6, 1972) was an American anthropologist known best for his role in developing "the concept and method" of cultural ecology, as well as a scientific theory of culture change. Early life and edu ...
’s application of anthropological methods to the study of a complex society. This fieldwork was eventually published as ''The People of Puerto Rico'' ? Since then, Mintz has authored several books and nearly 300 scientific articles on varied themes, including
slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
,
labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
, Caribbean
peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...
ries, and the anthropology of food in the context of globalizing capitalism. In a field where insularity is common, and anthropologists usually chose one language area and one colonial power for study, Mintz has done fieldwork in three different Caribbean societies:
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
(1948-1949, 1953, 1956),
Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
(1952, 1954), and
Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
(1958-1959, 1961), as well as later working in
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
(1966-1967) and
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
(1996, 1999). Mintz has always taken a historical approach and used historical materials in studying Caribbean cultures.


Peasantry

One of Mintz’s main contributions to Caribbean anthropology has been his analysis of the origins and establishment of the peasantry. Mintz argued that Caribbean peasantries emerged alongside of and after
industrialization Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
, probably like nowhere else in the world. Defining these as “reconstituted” because they began as something other than peasants, Mintz offered a tentative group typology. Such groups varied from the “squatters” who settled on the land in the early days after the Columbian conquest, through the “early yeomen,” European indentured plantation workers who finished the terms of their contracts; to the “proto-peasantry,” honing farming and marketing skills while still enslaved; and the “runaway peasantries” or maroons, who formed communities outside colonial authority, based on subsistence farming in mountainous or interior forest regions. For Mintz, these adaptations were a “mode of response” to the plantation system and a “mode of resistance” to superior power. Acknowledging the difficulties in defining “peasantry,” Mintz pointed to the Caribbean experience, stressing internal peasant diversity in any given Caribbean society, as well as their relationships to landless wage-earning agricultural workers or “rural proletarians,” and how the experience of any individual might span or combine these categories. Mintz was also interested in gender relations and the domestic economy, and especially in women’s roles in marketing.


Sociocultural analysis

Anxious to illustrate complexity and diversity within the Caribbean, as well as the commonalities bridging cultural, linguistic, and political frontiers, Mintz argued in ''The Caribbean as a Socio-Cultural Area'' that Mintz took a
dialectic Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...
al approach that highlighted contradictory forces. Thuss, Caribbean slaves were individualized through the process of slavery and the relationship with modernity, “but not dehumanized by it.” Once free, they exhibited “quite sophisticated ideas of collective activity or cooperative unity. The push in
Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...
to purchase plantations collectively; the use of cooperative work groups for house building, harvesting, and planting; the growth of credit institutions; and the links between kinship and coordinated work all suggest the powerful individualism that slavery helped to create did not wholly obviate group activity.”


Slavery

Mintz has compared slavery and forced labor across islands, time and colonial structures, as in
Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
and Puerto Rico (Mintz 1959b); and addressed the question of differing colonial systems engendering differing degrees of cruelty,
exploitation Exploitation may refer to: *Exploitation of natural resources *Exploitation of labour ** Forced labour *Exploitation colonialism *Slavery ** Sexual slavery and other forms *Oppression *Psychological manipulation In arts and entertainment *Exploi ...
, and
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
. The view of some historians and political leaders in the Caribbean and
Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
was that the
Iberia The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...
n colonies, with their tradition of
Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and sense of aesthetics, meant a more humane slavery; while north European colonies, with their individualizing
Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
religions, found it easier to exploit the slaves and to draw hard and fast social categories. But Mintz argued that the treatment of slaves had to do instead with the integration of the colony into the world economic system, the degree of control of the metropolis over the colony, and the intensity of exploitation of labor and land.' In collaboration with anthropologist Richard Price, Mintz considered the question of
creolization Creolization is the process through which creole languages and cultures emerge. Creolization was first used by linguists to explain how contact languages become creole languages, but now scholars in other social sciences use the term to describe ne ...
(a sort of blending of multiple cultural traditions to create a new one) in
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
culture in the book ''The Birth of African-American Culture: An Anthropological Approach'' (Mintz and Price 1992, first published in 1976 and first delivered as a conference paper in 1973). There, the authors qualify anthropologist
Melville J. Herskovits Melville Jean Herskovits (September 10, 1895 – February 25, 1963) was an American anthropologist who helped to first establish African and African Diaspora studies in American academia. He is known for exploring the cultural continuity from Afr ...
's view that Afro-American culture was mainly African cultural survivals. But they also oppose those who claimed African culture was stripped from the slaves through enslavement, such that nothing "African" remains in Afro-American cultures today. Combining Herskovits's cultural anthropological approach and the structuralism of anthropologist
Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthro ...
, Mintz and Price argued that Afro-Americana is characterized by deep-level "grammatical principles" of various African cultures, and that these principles extend to motor behaviors, kinship practices, gender relations, and religious cosmologies. This has been an influential model in the ongoing anthropology of the African diaspora.


Recent work

More recent work by Mintz has focused on the history and meaning of food (e.g., Mintz 1985b, 1996a; Mintz and Du Bois 2002), including ongoing work on the consumption of soy foods.


References

;General * Baca, George. 2016 "Sidney W. Mintz: from the Mundial Upheaval Society to a dialectical anthropology," Dialectical Anthropology, 40: 1-11. * Brandel, Andrew and Sidney W. Mintz. 2013. "Preface: Levi-Strauss and the True Sciences." Special Issue of "Hau: A Journal of Ethnographic Theory" 3(1). * Duncan, Ronald J., ed. 1978 "Antropología Social en Puerto Rico/Social Anthropology in Puerto Rico." Special Section of ''Revista/Review Interamericana'' 8(1). * Ghani, Ashraf, 1998 "Routes to the Caribbean: An Interview with Sidney W. Mintz". ''Plantation Society in the Americas'' 5(1):103-134. * Lauria-Perriceli, Antonio, 1989 ''A Study in Historical and Critical Anthropology: The Making of The People of Puerto Rico''. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, New School for Social Research. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1959a "The Plantation as a Socio-Cultural Type". In ''Plantation Systems of the New World''. Vera Rubin, ed. Pp. 42–53. Washington, DC: Pan-American Union. * Mintz, Sydney W. 1959b "Labor and Sugar in Puerto Rico and in Jamaica, 1800-1850". In ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'' 1(3): 273-281. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1960 ''Worker in the Cane: A Puerto Rican Life History''. New Haven: Yale University Press. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1966 "The Caribbean as a Socio-Cultural Area". In ''Cahiers d’Histoire Mondiale'' 9: 912-937. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1971 "Men, Women and Trade". In ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'' 13(3): 247-269. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1973 "A Note on the Definition of Peasantries". In ''Journal of Peasant Studies'' 1(1): 91-106. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1974a ''Caribbean Transformations''. Chicago: Aldine. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1974b "The Rural Proletariat and the Problem of Rural Proletarian Consciousness". In ''Journal of Peasant Studies'' 1(3): 291-325. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1977 "The So-Called World-System: Local Initiative and Local Response". In ''Dialectical Anthropology'' 2(2):253-270. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1978 "Was the Plantation Slave a Proletarian?" In ''Review'' 2(1):81-98. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1981a "Ruth Benedict". In ''Totems and Teachers: Perspectives on the History of Anthropology''. Sydel Silverman, ed. Pp. 141–168. New York: Columbia University Press. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1981b "Economic Role and Cultural Tradition". In ''The Black Woman Cross-Culturally''. Filomina Chioma Steady, ed. Pp. 513–534. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman. * Mintz, Sidney W. ed., 1985a ''History, Evolution, and the Concept of Culture: Selected Papers by Alexander Lesser''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * * Mintz, Sidney W. 1985c "From Plantations to Peasantries in the Caribbean". In ''Caribbean Contours''. Sidney W. Mintz and Sally Price, eds. Pp. 127–153. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1989 "The Sensation of Moving While Standing Still". In ''American Ethnologist'' 17(4):786-796. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1992 "Panglosses and Pollyannas; or Whose Reality Are We Talking About?" In ''The Meaning of Freedom: Economics, Politics, and Culture after Slavery''. Frank McGlynn and
Seymour Drescher Seymour Drescher (born 1934) is an American historian and a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, known for his studies on Alexis de Tocqueville and slavery and his published work ''Econocide''. Career Seymour Drescher has been publishin ...
, eds. Pp. 245–256. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1996a ''Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the Past''. Boston: Beacon Press. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1996b "Enduring Substances, Trying Theories: The Caribbean Region as OikoumenL". In ''Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute'' (N.S.) 2(2):289-311. * Mintz, Sidney W. 1998 "The Localization of Anthropological Practice: From Area Studies to Transnationalism". In ''Critique of Anthropology'' 18(2):117-133. * Mintz, Sidney W. 2002 "People of Puerto Rico Half a Century Later: One Author’s Recollections". In ''Journal of Latin American Anthropology'' 6(2):74-83. * Mintz, Sidney W. and Christine M. Du Bois, 2002, "The Anthropology of Food and Eating". In ''Annual Review of Anthropology'' 31: 99-119. * Mintz, Sidney W. and Chee Beng Tan 2001 "Bean-Curd Consumption in Hong Kong". ''Ethnology'' 40(2): 113-128. * Mintz, Sidney W. and Richard Price 1992 ''The Birth of African-American Culture: An Anthropological Approach''. Boston: Beacon Press. * Scott, David 2004 "Modernity that Predated the Modern: Sidney Mintz’s Caribbean". In ''History Workshop Journal'' 58:191-210. * Steward, Julian H. Steward, Robert A. Manners, Eric R. Wolf, Elena Padilla Seda, Sidney W. Mintz, and Raymond L. Scheele 1956 ''The People of Puerto Rico: A Study in Social Anthropology''. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. * Yelvington, Kevin A. 1996 "Caribbean". In ''Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology''. Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer, eds. Pp. 86–90. London: Routledge. * Yelvington, Kevin A. 2001 "The Anthropology of Afro-Latin America and the Caribbean: Diasporic Dimensions". Annual Review of Anthropology 30: 227-260. ;Specific


External links


sidneymintz.net - Official website


* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120621004011/http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/anthropology/media/ Film of Sidney Mintz speaking on 'creolization' at LACNET, University of St Andrews
Sidney Mintz in conversation with Sonia Ryang 7th April 2007 (film)


{{DEFAULTSORT:Mintz, Sidney 1922 births 2015 deaths American anthropologists Latin Americanists Columbia University alumni Johns Hopkins University faculty The New School alumni People from Dover, New Jersey Brooklyn College alumni Columbia University faculty Yale University alumni Yale University faculty Historians of slavery Jewish anthropologists United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II