Local vs. Global: An Epic Battle

Ethnoaesthetics defines the anthropology of art. It essentially refers to the study of beauty through the eyes of a particular culture. It demands a cultural context. In turn ethnoaesthetic analysis demands (the anthropologist's two favorite words) cultural relativism. It demands that we understand something about a people before we can understand their art. This is certainly true of the Australian tribe in Waiting for Harry as well as for Mexican artist Jose Posada. If I didn't understand the funerary ritual being performed in Waiting for Harry or the political and social turmoil during the time of Posada, the art would carry little to no meaning. Looking at Posada's work within its context, it is easy to understand.

This piece is titled Happy Street Sweepers. The skeletons make perfect sense once we find out that this representation of death-- the calavera-- coincides with the Day of the Dead celebrations. Images such as this are a common way to celebrate the lives of ancestors, to celebrate tradition and the past. Posada's work frequently portrays common people doing everyday work, as he might have seen on the streets of Mexico in the early 1900s. His art "critiqued injustices of the time," such as the poverty we see in this picture. This is an example of ethnoaesthetic analysis: a sense of aesthetics through the eyes of a culture.

It seems to me that it is fairly obvious to see the strengths of ethnoaesthetics, but its weaknesses have only become apparent in the modern age of hybridization and globalization. Traditionally, anthropologists studied small scale societies on a local scale, but very rarely anymore do events take place on such a small and isolated scale. Ethnoaesthetics doesn't take into account the extent to which cultures today are hybridized, that is, mixed together. Even indigenous art has radically been altered in many cases by tourism or relocation. Tomas Ybarra-Frausto explains that hybridization, the ability to adapt to the modern world, is what saved many indigenous cultures from extinction. Yet now we are threatened by the idea of a global hybrid mono-culture where ethnoaesthetics don't really exist. Artist Amalia Mesa-Bains addresses the question of how to celebrate (and on an even more basic note, maintain) a cultural aesthetic while still appealing to/surviving in a global community. In other words, what is the role of ethnoaesthetics in the modern world? Her answer is that you will find "the same elements in all groups." We absolutely must celebrate diversity to avoid a "monolithic sense of culture and community" and yet there is the possibility of connection among groups, of establishing a common ground, of ethnoaesthetic appreciation. While globalism is the reality, underneath it all, there is still the seed of local tradition and it must be cultivated.