TOPIC 3: B.

BRIAN MORRIS
ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF In the contention of Morris (1994) “the self is not an entity but a process
LEARNING OUTCOMES: that orchestrates an individual’s personal experience as a result of which
he or she becomes self-aware and self-reflective about her or his place
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:
 Explain the role of culture in the concept of self in the surrounding world. The concept of self may accordingly be
 Assess the similarities and differences among anthropological concepts defined as an individual’s mental representation of her or his own person,
 Expound the different anthropological views about self by Erikson, as a self-representation, while the concept of other refers to the mental
Mauss, Morris, Geertz, Festinger, and Ewing representation of other persons. Indeed, the most crucial form of
interaction and exchange takes place between the self and her or his
cultural environment as mediated in social practices” (Meijl, 2008 p. 176).
TEACHING-LEARNING ACTIVITY (LESSON PROPER):
In a postmodern perspective, the self is no longer considered as the
Anthropology is not just the study of how man and society evolved but source of all reflection, but it is reduced to a mere function of social practice.
profoundly interested in explaining and understanding the holistic aspects of The self is never unified, but increasingly disunited, while it is never singular but
man’s experiences that makes man human. According to Meijl (2008) the always constituted in manifold manners in different domains of society (Hall,
interest of early anthropology in a person is centered on the concept of 1996). Hence, the self is currently understood as pluralist, fragmented,
personality and culture emerging from Freud and Sullivan’s psychoanalysis. emergent, dialogical, relational, inconsistent and culturally determined
Personality and culture are co-influenced, i.e. personality was considered to be (Murray, 1993).
resulting from the internalization of culture, whereas culture was regarded as
the projection of personality. C. CLIFFORD GEERTZ
Eventually, the work of Erikson in the ‘50s on ego identity replaced the He defined the western concept of the self as a bounced, unique, more
notion of personality and became a key term in anthropology. Identity referred or less integrated motivational and cognitive universe, dynamic center of
to a well-adjusted personality that emerges from the same, or identical, awareness, emotion, judgment, and action organized into a distinctive whole
identification of self by self and other (Erikson, 1950 as mentioned by Meijl, 2008). and set contrastively both against other such wholes and against its social and
Hence, the concept identity connotes sameness and stability which ran across natural background (Meijl, 2008). This means that the western conception of
many disciplines like sociology, psychology, Philosophy and anthropology in its self is one that is autonomous, unitary and stable as compared to non-western
earlier stage. thought that we are more collectivist in form.

A. MARCEL MAUSS
“Marcel Mauss (1938) used the concept of self (moi) but prefer the
concept of person (personne). Implicitly he focused on the notion of
person as a cultural category while he seemed to reserve the conception
of self for the psychological dimension of personhood” (Meijl, 2008 p. 176).
The concept of person is basically a cultural conception of a specific
community while the concept of self was understood as a self-conscious
agent that was constituted socially and psychologically.
 D. LEON FESTINGER REFERENCES:
The cognitive dissonance theory by Leon Festinger (1957) hypothesized Psychology Department. (2019). Understanding the self. Unpublished.
that any person experiences the existence of dissonance between
cognitive elements as uncomfortable and therefore everyone will Taag, G. C., Cuyan, A. S., Awingan, W. A., Balinggan, G. T., Carrera, W.
always try to reduce a discrepancy between conflicting cognitions and D., & Perez, E. N. Understanding the self. Revised edition.
attempt to achieve consonance, consistency and coherence. This Meycauayan City: IPM Publishing, c2019.
theory contends that people attempt to preserve a consistent and
stable sense of self.

Cognitive anthropologists refer to cognitive schemata and cultural

E. KATHERING EWING
Katherine Ewing’s (1990) paper ‘The Illusion of Wholeness’ tried to show
how individual selves throughout the world continuously reconstitute
themselves into new selves in response to internal and external stimuli.
The self is generally not aware of these shifts in self representation, which
do not therefore thwart individual experiences of wholeness and
continuity. The shifting selves can only be observed by others, who are
generally also unable to identify an overarching, cohesive self. In Ewing’s
perspective this implies that the experience of personal continuity and
wholeness by self is illusory.