Napoleon Chagnon
Encyclopedia
Napoleon A. Chagnon is an American
anthropologist and retired professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara
. He was born in Port Austin
, Michigan
. Chagnon had earlier taught at the Pennsylvania State University
.
, and to the study of warfare. The Yanomamo are a society of indigenous
tribal Amazonians that live in the border area between Venezuela
and Brazil
.
Working primarily in the headwaters of the upper Siapa and upper Mavaca Rivers, Chagnon conducted fieldwork among these people from the mid-1960s until the latter half of 1990s. Because the Yanomamö people could not pronounce his last name, they nicknamed him "Shaki", the closest pronunciation they could approximate, which also seemed appropriate because Chagnon was constantly asking questions, and "Shaki" means "pesky bee". A major focus of his research was the collection of genealogies of the residents of the villages that he visited, and from these he would analyze patterns of relatedness, marriage patterns, cooperation, and settlement pattern histories. Applying this genealogical approach as a basis for investigation, he is one of the early pioneers of the fields of sociobiology
and human behavioral ecology
.
Chagnon is well known for his ethnography
, Yanomamö: The Fierce People (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968) which was published in more than five editions and is commonly used as a text in university level introductory anthropology classes, making it the all-time bestselling anthropological text. Chagnon was also a pioneer in the field of visual anthropology
. He collaborated with ethnographic filmmaker Tim Asch
and produced a series of more than twenty ethnographic films documenting Yanomamö life. His life's work has made him both a celebrated figure and a lightning rod for controversy and criticism.
Chagnon studied under Leslie White
at the University of Michigan.
accused Chagnon and his colleague James Neel, among other things, of exacerbating a measles
epidemic among the Yanomamö people. Groups of historians, epidemiologists, anthropologists, and filmmakers who had direct knowledge of the events investigated Tierney's claims. These groups ultimately rejected the worst allegations concerning the measles epidemic. In its report, which was later rescinded, a task force of the American Anthropological Association
(AAA) was critical of certain aspects of Chagnon's work, such as his portrayal of the Yanomamö and his relationships with Venezuelan government officials.
The American Anthropological Association convened the task force in February 2001 to investigate some of the allegations made in Tierney's book. Their report, which was issued by the AAA in May 2002, held that Chagnon had both represented the Yanomamo in harmful ways and failed in some instances to obtain proper consent from both the government and the groups he studied. However, the Task Force stated that there was no support to the claim that Chagnon and Neel began a measles epidemic. In June 2005, however, the AAA voted over two-to-one to rescind the acceptance of the 2002 report, noting that "Although the Executive Board’s action will not, in all likelihood, end debate on ethical standards for anthropologists, it does seek to repair damage done to the integrity of the discipline in the El Dorado case."
Most of the allegations made in Darkness in El Dorado were publicly refuted by the Provost's office of the University of Michigan
in November 2000. For example, the interviews upon which the book was based all came from members of the Salesian Society (an official society of the Roman Catholic Church) which Chagnon had criticized, and thus angered, in his book.
Tierney has since claimed that, "Experts I spoke to then had very different opinions than the ones they are expressing now."
Brazilian director José Padilha
revisits the Darkness in El Dorado controversy in his documentary Secrets of the Tribe
. The film, screened at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival
was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize. It provides testimonials from all the key players and will surely lead to renewed debate.
In the television documentary film The Trap, Chagnon walks off-camera in disgust during an interview after having been asked if his presence in the village could have affected his study.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
anthropologist and retired professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
. He was born in Port Austin
Port Austin, Michigan
Port Austin is a village in Huron County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 737 at the 2000 census. The village is within Port Austin Township.-Geography:...
, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
. Chagnon had earlier taught at the Pennsylvania State University
Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...
.
Career
Chagnon is best known for his long-term ethnographic field work among the Yanomamö, his contributions to evolutionary theory in cultural anthropologyCultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Anthropologists use a variety of methods, including participant observation,...
, and to the study of warfare. The Yanomamo are a society of indigenous
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
tribal Amazonians that live in the border area between Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
.
Working primarily in the headwaters of the upper Siapa and upper Mavaca Rivers, Chagnon conducted fieldwork among these people from the mid-1960s until the latter half of 1990s. Because the Yanomamö people could not pronounce his last name, they nicknamed him "Shaki", the closest pronunciation they could approximate, which also seemed appropriate because Chagnon was constantly asking questions, and "Shaki" means "pesky bee". A major focus of his research was the collection of genealogies of the residents of the villages that he visited, and from these he would analyze patterns of relatedness, marriage patterns, cooperation, and settlement pattern histories. Applying this genealogical approach as a basis for investigation, he is one of the early pioneers of the fields of sociobiology
Sociobiology
Sociobiology is a field of scientific study which is based on the assumption that social behavior has resulted from evolution and attempts to explain and examine social behavior within that context. Often considered a branch of biology and sociology, it also draws from ethology, anthropology,...
and human behavioral ecology
Human behavioral ecology
Human behavioral ecology or human evolutionary ecology applies the principles of evolutionary theory and optimization to the study of human behavioral and cultural diversity. HBE examines the adaptive design of traits, behaviors, and life histories of humans in an ecological context...
.
Chagnon is well known for his ethnography
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
, Yanomamö: The Fierce People (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968) which was published in more than five editions and is commonly used as a text in university level introductory anthropology classes, making it the all-time bestselling anthropological text. Chagnon was also a pioneer in the field of visual anthropology
Visual anthropology
Visual anthropology is a subfield of cultural anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media...
. He collaborated with ethnographic filmmaker Tim Asch
Tim Asch
Timothy Asch , was a noted anthropologist, photographer, and ethnographic filmmaker. Along with John Marshall and Robert Gardner, Asch played an important role in the development of visual anthropology...
and produced a series of more than twenty ethnographic films documenting Yanomamö life. His life's work has made him both a celebrated figure and a lightning rod for controversy and criticism.
Chagnon studied under Leslie White
Leslie White
Leslie Alvin White was an American anthropologist known for his advocacy of theories of cultural evolution, sociocultural evolution, and especially neoevolutionism, and for his role in creating the department of anthropology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor...
at the University of Michigan.
Darkness in El Dorado
In 2000, journalist Patrick Tierney in his book Darkness in El DoradoDarkness in El Dorado
Darkness in El Dorado is a book written by investigative journalist Patrick Tierney in 2000 that accuses geneticist James Neel and anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon of exacerbating a measles epidemic among the Yanomamo people and conducting human research without regard for their subjects' wellbeing...
accused Chagnon and his colleague James Neel, among other things, of exacerbating a measles
Measles
Measles, also known as rubeola or morbilli, is an infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus, specifically a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus. Morbilliviruses, like other paramyxoviruses, are enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses...
epidemic among the Yanomamö people. Groups of historians, epidemiologists, anthropologists, and filmmakers who had direct knowledge of the events investigated Tierney's claims. These groups ultimately rejected the worst allegations concerning the measles epidemic. In its report, which was later rescinded, a task force of the American Anthropological Association
American Anthropological Association
The American Anthropological Association is a professional organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 11,000 members, the Arlington, Virginia based association includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, biological anthropologists, linguistic...
(AAA) was critical of certain aspects of Chagnon's work, such as his portrayal of the Yanomamö and his relationships with Venezuelan government officials.
The American Anthropological Association convened the task force in February 2001 to investigate some of the allegations made in Tierney's book. Their report, which was issued by the AAA in May 2002, held that Chagnon had both represented the Yanomamo in harmful ways and failed in some instances to obtain proper consent from both the government and the groups he studied. However, the Task Force stated that there was no support to the claim that Chagnon and Neel began a measles epidemic. In June 2005, however, the AAA voted over two-to-one to rescind the acceptance of the 2002 report, noting that "Although the Executive Board’s action will not, in all likelihood, end debate on ethical standards for anthropologists, it does seek to repair damage done to the integrity of the discipline in the El Dorado case."
Most of the allegations made in Darkness in El Dorado were publicly refuted by the Provost's office of the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
in November 2000. For example, the interviews upon which the book was based all came from members of the Salesian Society (an official society of the Roman Catholic Church) which Chagnon had criticized, and thus angered, in his book.
Tierney has since claimed that, "Experts I spoke to then had very different opinions than the ones they are expressing now."
Brazilian director José Padilha
José Padilha
José Padilha is an award-winning Brazilian film director and producer.Padilha emerged onto the Brazilian movie scene with his first feature film Bus 174. In 2007, Padilha directed The Elite Squad , his first fictional film. The film was a commercial and critical success, seen by more than 11...
revisits the Darkness in El Dorado controversy in his documentary Secrets of the Tribe
Secrets of the Tribe
Secrets of the Tribe is a film by director José Padilha premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim. This documentary explores the allegations, first brought to light in the book Darkness in El Dorado, that anthropologists studying the Yanomami Indians in the 1960s and 70s...
. The film, screened at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize. It provides testimonials from all the key players and will surely lead to renewed debate.
Researcher contamination in Yanomamö findings
Chagnon wrote that the Yanomamö were "innately violent" and engaged in "chronic warfare". Other anthropologists argued that the Yanomamö became violent after Chagnon arrived to conduct his research and offered machetes, axes and shotguns to selected groups to elicit their cooperation.In the television documentary film The Trap, Chagnon walks off-camera in disgust during an interview after having been asked if his presence in the village could have affected his study.
Books
- Yanomamö: The Fierce People, 1968.
- Studying the Yanomamö, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974.
- Yanomamo - The Last Days Of Eden, 1992.
- Adaptation and Human Behavior: An Anthropological Perspective (with Lee Cronk and William Irons), 2002.
Filmography
- The Yanomamo Series, in collaboration with Tim Asch, includes 22 separate films on the Yanomamo culture, such as:
- The Ax FightThe Ax FightThe Ax Fight is an ethnographic film by anthropologist and filmmaker Tim Asch, his wife Patsy Asch, and anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon about a conflict in a Yanomami village called Mishimishimabowei-teri, in southern Venezuela...
(1975) - Children's Magical Death (1974)
- Magical DeathMagical DeathMagical Death is a documentary film by anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon and ethnographic filmmaker Tim Asch that explores the role of the shaman within the Yanomamo culture, as well as the close relationship shamanism shares with politics within their society.The filmmakers allegedly disputed over...
(1988) - A Man Called Bee: A Study of the Yanomamo (1974)
- Yanomamo Of the Orinoco (1987)
- The Ax Fight
- Yanomamo Filmography list, University of California, Santa Barbara
See also
- Visual anthropologyVisual anthropologyVisual anthropology is a subfield of cultural anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media...
- The Trap (television documentary series); Chagnon features in The Trap, a BBC documentary.
External links
- Official faculty website at UCSB
- Silva, Stacey. "Meeting The Fierce People", Daily Nexus, 20 January 1988.
- D'Antonio, Michael. "Napoleon Chagnon's War of Discovery", LA Times Magazine, 30 January 2000.
- Grossman, Andrew. "Napoleon Chagnon's Waterloo", The Dartmouth Review, 30 October 2000.
- Wallace, Scott. "Napoleon in Exile", National Geographic Adventure Magazine, April 2002.