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The Context of Critical Analysis
b Summary and argument
Let us look now at another essay topic, taking this process of analysis and criticism one step further. A first-year class in Anthropology was set the task of writing an essay of 1500 words on the following topic: Describe the potlatch and discuss the more recent views of its functions.
Once again the students were provided with an initial reading list of 6-7 books and papers and told they could trace further Materials for themselves.
The first part of the task – ‘ Describe the potlatch....' – proved relatively straightforward, a matter of recorded fact. (A potlatch, they soon learnt, was a gift-giving ceremony common amongst the India tribes of the north-west coast of North America .) The second part – ‘…. discuss the more recent views of its functions' – proved much more difficult.
There were some initial matters of definition to be tackled: what time span is implied by ‘more recent'? (50 years? 100? Since the Second World War? Since some decisive moment in the history of Anthropology? Since a particular document was published about this ceremony?) This question could only be answered, the students rightly decided, by asking the lecturer what his intention was. Another matter of definition concerned the word ‘functions'.
What is meant by the ‘function' of a ceremony? This question could only be answered by reference to the way in which anthropologists use the word, which might be quite different from the way in which it is used in other disciplines, for example in Biology or Psychology.
The students' next task was to go to the readings to discover what views anthropologists had about the functions of the potlatch. (The fact that the plural ‘views' is used in the topic suggests immediately That there is more than one possible interpretation.)
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