For me I would say itâs similar to the criticisms you would make of âthe individualâ as a unit of analysis - there are many methodological problems with how you try to draw a boundary around what constitutes a culture (or an individual). It allows one to formulate phrases like âCanadian cultureâ or âqueer cultureâ as if such a thing coherently exists. And I use âmethodologicalâ here specifically to mean a set of assumptions that allow you to determine what your unit of analysis is, what the âthingâ is that you will study. What assumptions underly the conclusion that âcultureâ (much like the individual) is an object that can be studied?
This comes from an idea of culture-as-object, as something distinct from other object-ified social phenomena and can be bounded by the borders of âculture.â I think it was Aime Cesaire who called ethnography a âwhite methodâ, for example - the presumptions underlying ethnography as a method comes from the perspective of a scientist who is external to âthe cultureâ under study, who comes in from outside to document, observe, and even âparticipateâ in a given âcultureâ before going back to the academy and reporting on âthe culture of Papua New Guineaâ or etc. The analogy of the individual is similarly fraught when we think about how western psychology often talks about things like addiction, mental illness, the very concept of a âpersonality disorderâ and so on, as these things that affect and originate from âindividualsâ. The âindividual,â like âculture,â is a thing you can map causal claims onto - some individuals are disordered, some cultures are backwards, because they are âobjectsâ with âpropertiesâ that can be described, much like you would describe the colour and texture of a basketball.
this is obviously not unique to anthropology - Dorothy Smith, a feminist sociologist, talks about this in The Everyday World As Problematic in the context of women being âan object of studyâ in sociology, a configuration that presumes an external masculine Sociologist who is inherently ignorant of women. Men are subjects (capable of reason and writing, capable of study), women are objects (inert phenomena to be studied, which is how we get claims like âwomen are irrationalâ). Applying this back to a colonial context, anthropologyâs origins as a data-gathering tool for colonial powers (Said talks a bit about this in Orientalism iirc) positions âculturesâ as objects that exist to be studied by white, Anglo, western subjects. Iâm not that familiar with anthropologyâs role within shaping colonial policies, so idk much about that side of it, although I do know in Canada that there have been recent pushes for indigenous policies of data sovereignty, where indigenous nations, if engaged as research subjects by universities, are given powers to restrict, control, or withhold data/results/research access from researchers if they donât like the way the research is being conducted or written about (I think the book Decolonising Methodologies by Linda T Smith discusses this, although itâs been a while since I read anything from it).
this doesnât mean that âcultureâ is never a relevant or useful concept (much like âthe individualâ can be useful/helpful/relevant), but that itâs a concept that emerged for the purposes of articulating a given set of colonial interests and powers (when talking about anthropologyâs use of âcultureâ anyway - idk what other histories the concept has outside of that). And this specific post was spurred by hearing an anthro grad student talk about âthe homogeneity of Quebecois culture,â a phrase that may sound innocuous but is one that is currently being deployed for extremely Islamophobic purposes in Quebec (eg their ban on âreligious symbolsâ being worn in certain professions, a ban that primarily target muslims, under the guise of maintaining a âsecularâ, homogenous Francophone âcultureâ)
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