Customer Reviews

Inuit Morality Play: The Emotional Education of a Three-Year-Old

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Jean Briggs' doctoral dissertation, _Never In Anger_ (1970), became one of the great classics of psychological anthropology, both for its incredible wealth of data on how individuals are drawn into cultural patterns (even in such apparently "biological" or "private" matters as emotions), and also for the impressive fieldwork itself (Briggs spent nearly two years in small tents or igloos, where in winter she had to warm up the interior sufficiently for the ink in her typewriter to unfreeze, with an unruly and undisciplined three-year-old). The first book has been cited as charter for an entire generation of researchers in the cross-cultural study of emotions. Unfortunately, this book was not worth the 27-year wait since its predecessor. It contains valuable information, as well as the condensed reflections of Briggs' career on the cultural patterning of emotions, but the style is somewhat repetitive, and the book should probably should have remained as the articles from which it was expanded.

Briggs does make a number of arguments about enculturation/socialization which seem accurate. Interactions are redundant (in that the same message will be given in multiple contexts on multiple occasions), overdetermined (in that many different messages or motives within them will push towards the same socialization outcome), polysemous (in that there are multiple, and sometimes quite complicated or conflicting messages within each drama), that adults and children are not both seeing all the levels (in fact, Briggs argues that this is one point of much of the interactions with children -- to get them to see the adult messages as well), and that in terms of symbolic associations to possible culturally relevant meanings, the system is fairly open. Finally, as she repeats again and again, each individual will obviously experience a different series of enculturating interactions. Different members of a culture will end up with similar, but not identical, profiles.

There is much here to suggest further studies, and specialists in this area would do well at least to browse through the analyses of childhood dramas. However, the book is frustrating. Briggs remains eclectic in her theoretical standpoint, which is puzzling from someone who has spent three decades examining these issues (a less charitable reader might say that she refuses to develop a systematic theory). The chapters are meant to build, but to a large degree they merely repeat each other with minor variations in theme. There is relatively little ethnographic context, and readers wanting to know more about the Inuit would be better advised to read _Never in Anger_. All in all, a somewhat disappointing book from an otherwise great ethnographer.

I actually met and spent some time with one of the elders that this book is about. We tend to over analyze cultures and look at them through a certain "gaze", possibly an anthropological one. However, when we do this we overlook the brilliance in some of the aspects in cultures and specifically books, we must read against the grain. If you've never spent any time in the north or with Inuit people, it is easy to misundertsand a lot of things. It's easy for a person to write a review strictly on the book and decide from one certain perspective that it doesn't meet their needs. I think this book is great and it must be noted that some understanding of Inuit culture might help you in looking at things in a slightly different context.

I just received my book in great condition and also, the book arrived way before I though it would which is awesome.