The Self is a topic that has long been probed with the anthropologist's tool (his mind) and has, rather than developing a defining set of processes and symbolisms, managed to redefine itself as soon as one thinks it defined. And so we chase this elusive, ever checking ourselves in the mirror for a chance to reconnect with ourselves, the human we study most assiduously.
Indeed, through asking questions, anthropologists inherently learn about themselves, if at least the realization is residuary. Observations are made, perceptions are concretized and patterns are noted and through this sempiternal digestion of material comes a self-knowledge that is at once both holistic and reflective, inexorably linked to the experiences from which it sprung forth.
Is knowledge of the Self useful in any other way than the most intimate? To be sure, many anthropologists have used themselves as comparative canvases of meaning on the blank human form, polysemous means to a culturally comparative end. The Self and the Other are both necessary vantages from which to stand when examining cultures. This iconic dilemma betwixt Self and Other, manifest into Us and Them, also stamps out the divide between marginalized and non-marginalized, dangerously close to the territory of the exploitative. Though, in essence, essentializing, such division helps frame other highly amorphic concepts such as difference, identity and judgement. Divisions like these can neither harm nor compromise the pursuit of knowledge. It would be dangerous to say, then, that if true, at perhaps..first light, as long as we recognize ourselves in a cultural proceeding, a resigned recognition of what differs exists, tainting purely reflective Self knowledge with what is so dirty and subversive about identifying difference. I speak of difference not as a segmentor but a mucilage between yes, this "Us" and those "Thems" that at once reflects sameness and allows contemplation of what escapes what confines "sameness" indicates.
I'd like to commence an ongoing series of image comparisons employed to stave off the ennui of Seattle summers when it is too beautiful to stay inside but simply too hot to do anything of substantive engagement. The theme of these images is difference, with an attention to the self-defining practice of defining the Other. To begin, another haunting Antony Gormley installation:
