The Encultured Brain: An Introduction to Neuroanthropology

449 Pages·2012·3.34 MB·English

by  Daniel H. Lende, Greg Downey (eds.)

The Encultured Brain

The Encultured Brain
An Introduction to Neuroanthropology
edited by Daniel H. Lende and Greg Downey
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2 012 M assachusetts Institute of Technology

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The encultured brain : an introduction to neuroanthropology / edited by Daniel H.
Lende and Greg Downey.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-01778-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Neuroanthropology. 2. Anthropology. 3. Neurosciences. 4. Health — Social aspects.
5. Mental health— Social aspects. 6. Medicine— Humor. I. Lende, Daniel H., 1969–
II. Downey, Greg.
QP360.6.E53 2012
612.8 — dc23
2011052298

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents

Acknowledgments vii
I On the Encultured Brain 1
1 The Encultured Brain: Development, Case Studies, and Methods 3
Daniel H. Lende and Greg Downey
2 Neuroanthropology and the Encultured Brain 23
Greg Downey and Daniel H. Lende
3 Primate Social Cognition, Human Evolution, and Niche Construction:
A Core Context for Neuroanthropology 67
Katherine C. MacKinnon and Agustí n Fuentes
4 Evolution and the Brain 103
Greg Downey and Daniel H. Lende
II Case Studies on Human Capacities, Skills, and Variation 139
5 Memory and Medicine 141
M. Cameron Hay
6 Balancing between Cultures: Equilibrium in Capoeira 169
Greg Downey
7 From Habits of Doing to Habits of Feeling: Skill Acquisition in
Taijutsu Practice 195
Katja Pettinen
8 Holistic Humor: Coping with Breast Cancer 213
Kathryn Bouskill
9 Embodiment and Male Vitality in Subsistence Societies 237
Benjamin Campbell
vi Contents
III Case Studies on Human Problems, Pathologies, and Variation 261
10 War and Dislocation: A Neuroanthropological Model of Trauma
among American Veterans with Combat PTSD 263
Erin P. Finley
11 Autism as a Case for Neuroanthropology: Delineating the Role of
Theory of Mind in Religious Development 291
Rachel S. Brezis
12 Collective Excitement and Lapse in Agency: Fostering an Appetite
for Cigarettes 315
Peter G. Stromberg
13 Addiction and Neuroanthropology 339
Daniel H. Lende
14 Cultural Consonance, Consciousness, and Depression: Genetic
Moderating Effects on the Psychological Mediators of Culture 363
William W. Dressler, Mauro C. Balieiro, and José Ernesto dos Santos
IV Conclusion 389
15 The Encultured Brain—Toward the Future 391
Daniel H. Lende and Greg Downey

Contributors 421

Index 423
Acknowledgments
Most academic books form the tip of an intellectual iceberg. So much
of the exchange, discussion, and debate that produces what we see on
the page is hidden, a vast collaboration below the surface. This volume
in particular owes a great many debts to those who have helped this
new field take shape. Here is just a glimpse of their hidden contributions.
The ideas, words, and research represented in these pages emerged in
part through a series of panels and conferences, including the American
Anthropological Association annual meeting, the Society for Applied
Anthropology annual meeting, the Critical Neurosciences workshop held
in Montreal, and our stand-alone conference on “ The Encultured Brain”
in 2009. Along the way, we ’ ve amassed more intellectual debt than we
can discharge.
We especially thank the Society for Psychological Anthropology (SPA)
and Robert Lemelson for their support. The SPA made the original Ameri-
can Anthropological Association an invited session, and The Encultured
Brain conference was supported by the Lemelson/Society for Psychological
Anthropology Conference Fund, made possible by a generous donation
from The Robert Lemelson Foundation. Many of the chapters in this
volume took on their original form for this conference. Thanks to the
leadership of people like Rob, Doug Hollan, and Ashley Maynard, this
project moved along faster than many collected volumes often do.
The Encultured Brain conference was also supported by the Institute for
Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, the Office of Research, the Kellogg Institute
for International Studies, and the College of Arts and Letters at Notre
Dame, and the Department of Anthropology at Macquarie University. For
additional help on conference-related organizing, we also thank Marina
Navia, Harriet Baldwin, Marie Blakey, and Chantelle Snyder. Jeff Granger
of Granger Designs came through with a striking graphic design for the
conference.
viii Acknowledgments
Both the editors and the contributors to this volume benefited exten-
sively from the formal discussants and other colleagues who have partici-
pated in these various forums: Susan Blum, Ryan Brown, Joan Chiao, Lance
Gravlee, Patricia Greenfield, Eric Lindland, Hal Odden, Naomi Quinn, Karl
Rosengren, Robert Sapolsky, Rebecca Seligman, Claudia Strauss, Christina
Toren, and Harvey Whitehouse.
Other people we must thank for their intellectual contributions and
inspiration include Paul Mason, Juan Dom í nguez Duque, Carol Worth-
man, John Sutton, Vaughan Bell, Eugene Raikhel, Suparna Choudhury,
Leslie Heywood, Laurence Kirmayer, Connie Cummings, Shinobu Kita-
yama, Brandon Kohrt, Jason DeCaro, Dan Hruschka, Jim Rilling, Thom
McDade, Chris Kuzawa, Josh Reno, Nancy Campbell, Trevor Marchand,
Tim Ingold, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Tanya Luhrman, Peter Taylor, Robert
Turner, David Howes, Jim McKenna, Sue Sheridan, Agust í n Fuentes, Chris
Lynn, Jeff Snodgrass, John Hawks, David Dobbs, Jonah Lehrer, Mark Chan-
gizi, Seamus Decker, Mike Jindra, Darcia Narvaez, and Nicholas Malone, as
well as the reviewers recruited by MIT Press.
Over the course of our relationship with MIT Press, we have been un-
failingly impressed by their support of this volume, in particular Philip
Laug hlin and Katherine Almeida. We have been amazed by the speed,
professionalism, and decisiveness of the Press at every level.
Finally, the Neuroanthropology weblog has formed part of the intel-
lectual work, interdisciplinary outreach, and community building behind
The Encultured Brain. We thank Jovan Maud for the initial inspiration,
Vaughan Bell for crucial early encouragement, and Brian Mossop for great
support as we made the transition from being an independent blog to
forming part of PLoS Blogs. We want to express our gratitude to the Public
Library of Science staff and our great colleagues at PLoS blogs. We also owe
a great debt to the many colleagues and students who created guest posts
for the Neuroanthropology blog, and assistants who helped behind the
scenes, in particular Casey Dolezal and Naheed Ahmed. We are very grate-
ful to all the people who linked to our posts; you are too many to name!
The rolling cloud of online discussion also includes too many names to
mention, but some individuals are such repeat offenders that we have to
single them out: Ryan Anderson, Jason Antrosio, Kate Clancy, Patrick
Clarkin, Krystal D ’ Costa, Martijn de Koning, Max Forte, Kerim Friedman,
Alex Golub, Dirk Hanson, Jason Baird Jackson, Lorenz Khazaleh, Barbara
King, “ Neurocritic, ” Julienne Rutherford, Mike Smith, and Ed Yong. Finally,
thank you to the audience out there, from those who visited only once to
Acknowledgments ix
our most regular visitors. You are the ones who helped make neuroanthro-
pology what it is today.
Greg also wishes to recognize his colleagues at Macquarie University
and in Australia, an outpost of neuroanthropological thought: not just
John, Paul, and Juan, but also Monica Dalidowicz, John Evans, Kellie Wil-
liamson, Paul Keil, Roxi Tamba, Mark Wiggins, Victoria Burbank, Katie
Gleason, and Alan Rumsey. Greg benefits for a very supportive and collegial
department, especially under the capable guidance of Chris Houston:
thanks to all our fellow anthropologists at Macquarie for your curiosity,
camaraderie, and overall good spirits. We could not ask for a better place
to work and think.
Daniel wants to thank a group of diverse colleagues who have provided
support and sustenance at various stops along the interdisciplinary way:
David Himmelgreen, Brent Weisman, Heide Casta ñ eda, Ian Kuijt, Meredith
Chesson, Vinay Kamat, Donna Murdock, Lara Deeb, Sarah Willen, John
Wood, Bobby Paul, Claire Sterk, Irv DeVore, Jean-Paul Roussaux, and Neal
Smith.
Daniel also thanks his wife Marina for her unfailing support and all her
love over these many years. Greg is lucky that his wife Tonia puts up with
his intellectual obsessions and helps to inspire his creativity.
Everyone who writes and edits know that they are strangely solitary
activities that demand so much of everyone else around you. Thanks to
everyone who has pitched in along the way.