Y Anthro? #2: No Substitute for Time

This is the second entry in a series where I offer some reasons why I enjoy anthropology

The year in 1963. You are a white female British anthropologist in Nigeria, among a group known as the Yoruba. You are eager to find out what Yoruba aesthetics are i.e. what are the aesthetic criteria by which the Yoruba decide one mask, statue or sculpture is better than another mask, statue or sculpture.

You are in the workshop of a master sculptor and as he finishes his third mask, you ask him - which of these masks do you prefer. The sculptor shrugs - I like all of them. Some time later, you ask him the question again and the sculptor again shrugs - I just do whatever the customer tells me to do.

What could this response mean? It could mean several things - you could take the sculptor literally and report on this. You could say that the masks and statues for the Yoruba are merely a commercial activity. They themselves are indifferent to it. Or you begin to wonder - does the fact that I am a white person play any part in this exchange? Maybe this is secret or confidential knowledge that the Yoruba don't share with anyone - least of all a foreigner who happens to be British - the same British who colonized them. Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that you are a woman - Yoruba men have notions about what it is appropriate to talk to women about and what it is inappropriate to talk to women about.

Or maybe you start wondering, for the Yoruba, aesthetic criteria do not apply at all when they consider these statues i.e. it has nothing to with how the statues or masks look, feel etc. The Yoruba evaluate their statues and masks using religious criteria and the prestige of a sculptor depends not on how the mask or statue looks but on its efficacy in rituals i.e. was it effective when used in a ritual?

This is the primary advantage anthropologists have over someone who primarily conducts interviews to establish results. The journalist or the psych researcher might conduct interviews with a 100 Yoruba and showing them 2 photos ask each of them which sculpture or statue they prefer. If 80 out of 100 Yoruba answer that they like both, then the psych researcher or the journalist might find it reasonable to conclude that for the Yoruba, aesthetic criteria do not apply in consideration of their "artworks".

Such a conclusion however has every chance of turning out to be total non-sense. Because no matter what you do - how you increase your sample size or how you sharpen your questions or make accommodations for various biases in posing these questions - nothing can replace time. There is no 2 ways or workaround it.

People open up to you, trust you and confide in you and speak openly with you only after you've spent sufficient time with them. The more time you spend with a person or in a community, the more likely it is that you understand this person or this community. Maybe after you spend some time with the Yoruba, they realize - well this white woman might not be so bad after all. She's maybe a bit better than all the other British who came before and then they - including the sculptors - start talking to you and answering your questions. Or maybe you catch a lucky break and one informer tells you some of the aesthetic criteria he or she uses. You find subsequently - armed with some Yoruba aesthetic categories and lingo - that whenever you use these new words you've just learnt people are more willing to talk to you because you aren't a dolt after all. Really, there is no substitute for time spent.

Anthropology is unique among the social sciences in that it mandatorily requires fieldwork. You cannot say anything about anyone without spending some time (minimum of 2-3 years but some anthropologists have had lifelong engagements with some communities spanning even 15-20 years).

From Robert Farris Thompsons "Yoruba art criticism"