Observations on Ethnographers, Part 1

• Etic Perspective: Miner analyzes Nacirema culture from an outsider's viewpoint.

• Focus on Hygiene: Rituals related to bathing, shaving, and health.

• Critique of American Culture: Seen as self-obsessed and materialistic.

• Pitfalls of Etic-Only Analysis: Lacks understanding of cultural value.

• Holistic Approach: Combining emic and etic perspectives for better understanding.

In 1956 Anthropologist Horace Miner of the University of Michigan published a journal article titled “Body Ritual among the Nacirema”.  The Nacirema are a North American peoples, and their culture according to Miner “is characterized by a highly developed market economy” (Miner 1956:503).  Analyzing only the ritual aspects of the spirituality of the Nacirema, Miner’s article focuses on several rituals in which this society partook and analyzes them from the view of an outsider, a position known as an etic perspective.  While Miner apparently interacted with the Nacirema, he did not analyze these rituals from the viewpoint of the individual members of the culture, an approach otherwise referred to as emic.  As a result of his external observations, Miner concluded that the Nacirema were “a magic-ridden people” and had trouble understanding how they had been able to survive considering the rituals he observed must have constituted a significant self-imposed burden (Minder 1956:507).  However, on closer examination there was and is a practical dimension to these rituals.

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Miner describes the Nacirema as focused on economic pursuits, and then as a people devoted to using their economic resources primarily on “the appearance and health (of the body) . . .which loom as a dominant concern in the ethos of the people” (Miner 1956:503).  The Nacirema have homes with shrines designed to facilitate the rituals of bathing, shaving, and defecating.  Each shrine has a “magic box” or medicine cabinet filled with “magical packets” and a “font” or sink below it (Miner 1956:504).  “Holy mouth-men”, “Listeners”, and “vestal maidens” at the “lati pso” or hospital provide dental cleaning services, mental-health counseling, and medical care in specialized rituals where a “diviner” analyzes their excrement to gauge their health (Miner 1956:504-505).  Other rituals that Miner observed included “ceremonial feasts” for weight-loss and/or weight-gain, and breast augmentation in a society he saw as obsessed with “hypermammary development” (Miner 1956:506).  It doesn’t take long to realize that Miner is posing as an outsider, and observing specific rituals related to personal hygiene and health/well-being in American culture.

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In fact, Miner’s description of American society from an etic perspective as self-obsessed and enraptured by material wealth is prescient today.  American culture is dominated by an oligarchy, and people are endlessly fascinated with glamor and fame.  As an example, in Miner’s description of the “lati pso” he observes that individuals are required to pay large sums of money for access to the health and wellbeing services provided therein (Miner 1956:505).  In fact, even with universal health care in America today, great wealth allows some individuals to obtain very high cost life-saving services (Bloomberg 2012:3).

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In this exercise of evaluating emic versus etic perspectives of cultures, Miner’s article enunciates the pitfalls of observing cultures from a singular point of view.  By analyzing American culture through such a myopic, etic-only lens that is then further limited in scope by describing the Nacirema personal hygiene and health/well-being “rituals” only, it is easy to understand how the actual value of activities in a culture may appear overly burdensome to a person that hasn’t interacted and learned from individuals inside the culture.

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Simplified, the etic/emic question is about what is regarded as meaningful by either the observer or the observed, according to anthropologist James Lett (Lett 1990).  Considering this simplified definition, it is clear that a combination of these perspectives can provide the most context and substance when considering the cultures of peoples.  Consider Illustration A.  In this illustration we can see that Lett thinks observers can make both a substantive face-value analysis (emic) and an objective cause-and-effect analysis (etic) that are more holistic when taken together, helping to suss out finer points of the politics and history of a culture (Lett 1990).