Culture and Identity: The History, Theory, and Practice of Psychological Anthropology, Revised and Updated Edition.

Charles Lindholm. Oxford: Oneworld Publications. 2007. xxxii+446 pp.

Reviewed in conjunction with the publication of Ethos 36.1 by: Jill White, Assistant Professor of Human Development and Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay

By continuously connecting the historical roots of the discipline to its relevance in American daily life today, Lindholm’s Culture and Identity keeps psychological anthropology engaging for students. The material is made further relevant by the book’s fundamental theme, that of the discipline’s pursuit of the nature of personal identity. Unlike most textbooks, this one adopts a personal voice and clearly reflects the perspectives of its author, which keeps it from striking the common student complaint of being dry and neutered. Overall this is a remarkable, coherent, and enjoyable book.

The text is ambitious; after an introductory chapter problematizing identities and selves, presenting anthropology, psychology and their interpenetration, then laying out his own theoretical perspective, Lindholm (in Part 2) takes the reader through a history of Western conceptions of the self, beginning with St. Augustine and ending with Freud. In Part 3, The Anthropology of Personal Being, Lindholm details the history of anthropological approaches to understanding the self. He begins with Rivers’ tests of perception, moves through the foundation of the culture and personality school, the Freudian and neo-Freudian schools, the Whitings, Mead, Hallowell and Goffman, and in “Creativity and Alterity” discusses Turner, Obeysekere and Crapanzano, interpretivists such as Geertz and Taussig, as well as embodiment a lá Csordas.

In Part 4, Problems and Solutions, Lindholm presents “Dialectics of Self and Other,” then a chapter on thinking with discussion of cognitive anthropology and the influence of computers on theories of consciousness and cultural models. Subsequent chapters address emotion and “Outsiders and Charismatics,” wherein Lindholm discusses marginalized and stigmatized individuals, including most of his discussion of mental and emotional illness. In the concluding Part 5, Applications, Lindholm brings all of the lessons from the previous sections to bear on two questions: what is romantic love in America? And what is American culture? These are excellent demonstrations of the utility and relevance of the theory and practice of psychological anthropology, even to non-majors.

The book ranges over tremendous ground, yet each chapter is full of insightful and entertaining nuggets of information. More impressively, the whole text hangs together; despite its breadth, and despite its minutiae, students should not get lost. Compared to textbooks in general, this one is far more readable. Considering only psychological anthropology introductions, this one does a better job of placing the field in its historical context. Students reading this will see that psychological anthropology is rooted in a particular intellectual tradition, and our way of thinking about our own selves grows out of those same roots. Charles Lindholm also does a good job of demonstrating how psychology and anthropology relate to one another – not just in the introduction but throughout the text.

However, as with any text that attempts so large a project, there will be places in which every reader feels their own areas of expertise were slighted or ignored. While arguing over whether credit for the concept of the self should be given to Augustine, Aristotle, or a Hebraic or Zoroastrian thinker might be called quibbling, there are places where Lindholm may legitimately be called to account for his choices in presentation.

Lindholm uses the terms “premodern,” and “primitive” to refer to non-Western peoples. After so much discussion about why these terms are unacceptable to the people to whom they are applied, the use of these labels is indefensible. Sometimes Lindholm refers to data that are quite dated as if they were current. For example, in his discussion of schizophrenia, he refers to the Singer and Opler (1956) and Opler (1959) studies in this way, “Irish Americans tend to be preoccupied with guilt and sexuality in their delusions and to display considerable disorganized thinking; at the same time, they generally are discreet about revealing their symptoms and maintain a respectable front. Italian Americans are more hypochondriacal and fixed in their delusional systems; they are also much more rebellious toward authority and more flagrant in their behaviors than the Irish-American group” (p.304). There is no mention whatsoever that the data or their interpretation might be different today.

One also gets the impression in his discussion of certain theorists, such as Marx, Foucault, Gramsci, and Geertz, that Lindholm either doesn’t fully understand them, or doesn’t approve of them, because he gives them such short shrift. In the case of Marx, that becomes problematic because it makes Lindholm’s explanation of Kardiner’s attempt to synthesize Freud and Marx harder to follow than it needed to be. In the case of later theorists, one possible interpretation is that Lindholm based his judgment on only the works cited in the bibliography, rather than on the theorists’ whole body of work, which might explain the oddly truncated view he provides of Csordas, for example.

Finally, there is virtually no mention of the sister disciplines of human development and the anthropology of childhood and adolescence. As a professor of human development I am no doubt more sensitive to this omission than others would be, but I think it is important for all of us. Lindholm talks about how the early attempts to apply psychoanalysis in anthropology were referred to as diaperology, and he details the Whiting’s contribution as well as Robert LeVine. But there is no mention of Super and Harkness – an excellent example of psychology and anthropology working together to explore the impact of culture on human development, and very little other current research. In fact, at the end of chapter six, in which these issues are discussed, Lindholm leaves the reader with the feeling that all of those theories were dead ends; no student would guess by themselves that there are whole departments built around the pursuit of those questions!

As a teacher, I find these weaknesses to be strengths in the classroom. Instructor perception of gaps provide lecture material, and the perspectives one does not agree with can lead to vibrant discussions. This is a challenging and worthwhile text and will provide students with a thorough, meaningful and grounded introduction to our discipline. It will certainly be required reading in my courses.

REFERENCES CITED

Opler, Morris

1959   Cultural Differences in Mental Disorders. In Culture and Mental

          Health. M. Opler, ed. New York: Macmillan.

Singer, Jerome, and Morris Opler

1956   Contrasting Patterns of Fantasy and Motility in Irish and Italian

          Schizophrenics. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology

          53(1):42-47.